Music Credits: "Tirandote Flores II” composed and performed by NEA Jazz Master Eddie Palmieri, from the album La Perfecta II. "On the King's Highway", composed and performed by NEA National Heritage Fellow Andy Statman from the album, Old Brooklyn. Jo Reed: Here's  the scene:  A game show modeled after the $20,000 pyramid. The contestants are a mother and daughter.  The first clue is "Summertime". Go! "Lemonade, Ice cream, sleep away camp..." "Things I told you to avoid, things that make you fat." "Picnics, uh barbecues" "Fattening events, places where they have too much food." "No! Beaches, swimming pools, Coney Island." "Places where I told you never to wear a bathing suit, places where you eat too much." "What? Pass!" Music Up Jo Reed: That's Gina Rodriguez as Alexis and Priscilla Lopez as her mother in the opening scene of the recent film Sleeping with the Fishes. it was written produced and directed by Nicole Gomez Fisher and this is Art Works, the weekly podcast produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. I'm Josephine Reed. You may have seen Nicole Gomez Fisher, the actress, on 24 or Empire or Franky and Johnny Are Married....or maybe you've seen her stand-up comedy when she was one of the original members of The Hot Tamales, Live! or in her own one-woman show called Mixed. Or maybe you've heard the buzz about her indie film, Sleeping with the Fishes. It was an official entry in the Brooklyn Film Festival and Nicole took home the award for best new director. Sleeping with the Fishes tells a familiar story with heart, humor, and flair. Here's the short version. Alexis is in LA, across the country from her Puerto Rican/Jewish family.  Her husband has died in a way that made clear he had been cheating on her. She's left with a mountain of debt while her party-planning business goes belly up.  Her odd jobs to make ends meet are very odd indeed...the most benign requiring her to dress as a meatball hero to attract business to a sandwich joint. The death of a distant aunt propels Alexis back to the family's Brooklyn home where her sister Kayla, played by Ana Ortiz, tries to help her pick up the pieces while their formidable mother is determined to set Alexis straight and put her on a diet.  P.S. Steven Strait plays Alexis's charming Brooklyn love interest. As I said, it's a familiar story-- but solid acting and light-hearted and smart dialogue moves it out of cliché territory. Sleeping with the Fishes is Nicole Gomez Fisher's first film and she produced it on a shoestring budget. When I spoke with her recently, I asked Nicole for the story behind the story of Sleeping with the Fishes. Nicole Gomez Fisher: Well, the story itself stems from my family and my life as being raised as a Puerto Rican Jew and my mother having converted from Catholicism. And it paved a pathway for myself and my sister that was very confusing and complicated and left us in a position where we never quite felt comfortable within ourselves, amongst other people, whether they be the Latin portion of my family or the Jewish portion. When I wrote this I had come to point in my acting and stand up career where I just didn’t have that desire to be in front of the camera anymore. And so this was my first attempt at writing a screenplay and they say, “Write what you know.” So <laughs> I wrote about my family and I thought the dynamic between the interfaith and the mixed race and all that would make for just an interesting new point of view, a new voice. And it wasn’t that I wanted to gear the story towards, oh, the matriarch Latina mother. I didn’t want this to be a stereotype of anything. It simply was what I knew my life to be. And so he story is about a thirty-something young lady who’s just coming to terms with the fact that she’s miserable and really needs to sort of re-group and figure out how to get through the dark side and see the light without admitting to her family that everything around her, everything she’s built up, has completely hit rock bottom. And going home for an aunt’s funeral was a catalyst that I wrote in just to get her to Brooklyn, because she was living in Los Angeles with her husband, now-deceased, and it was-- for me, it was so much about telling a story that I think a lot of us go through: where you hit a certain age and you see everything else and everyone else sort of living the life they want and yet the main character that Gina played was living the life that everybody else wanted her to live and was living through the expectations of others. And so that’s the premise of the story and, of course, finding yourself when you think that everything is sort of just done and not knowing where to pick up the pieces. Jo Reed: We heard an excerpt of the opening game show scene at the top of the show. Tell us<laughs> what you were aiming for. Nicole Gomez Fisher: <laughs> The opening scene was a combination of my fascination with game shows <laughs> and bringing in to light the mother and daughter dynamic right out of the gate. And I think the way it’s set up, it’s not only humorous, but it really sets up the audience within the first three minutes to know exactly who these two women are, how they relate, or actually don’t relate or communicate with each other. It was something that I had been told by other writers and other producers should have been placed elsewhere in the script, but I just really went with my gut. And I thought it was a good way to open, especially when I was shopping the script around, because you want to grab the reader’s attention right away. And I thought it was unique way to grab the attention. And it certainly got the pages turning, which is very helpful. And it so nails down the dynamic, you know. And it’s so true to life, in general with anybody.  Jo Reed: And her mother is certainly a loving woman, but very critical. And I think the way Priscilla Lopez plays that character was so interesting because she could've come across as mean, but you never thought that she was. Nicole Gomez Fisher: Right. I’m glad you actually brought that up, because you know, when you’re writing something so close to home it’s very hard as a writer to censor yourself. ‘Cause you want to be able to tell the story you want to tell, but I also didn’t want to hurt my family. So when Priscilla and I sat down-- because Priscilla struggled for a little bit, too, because she was like, “But this is so mean. This is so cruel.” And I said, “But you have to understand, from my point of view, it wasn’t.” To my mother, my real mother, anything she’s ever done has always come from a place of love, but you love the way you’ve been loved. And so with Priscilla I said to her, “Don’t think of it as cruel. Don’t read into the actual words and just know that whatever comes out of your mouth come from a place of love. I mean at the end of the day I was very, very conscious of the mother not coming across as this stereotypical Latina mother. I didn’t want this. So I think Priscilla definitely nailed it on the head and really understood that you give what you know to give. I mean, it sounds like such a cliché, but I remember John Leguizamo once said in one of one of his one-man shows that his father always said to him, you know, “I’ve always loved you the way I know how to love and it may not have been the way you wanted, but this is what I know love to be.” And it’s the same thing with the mother character. Jo Reed: Now how did your family respond to it? I mean, it’s  not strictly autobiographical-- Nicole Gomez Fisher: No. Jo Reed: --but it is loosely based on your family. How did they weigh in? Nicole Gomez Fisher: My father was not worried at all because he knew I was gonna paint a nice light on him. <laughs> ‘Cause we have a very, very close dynamic. We’re incredibly close as far not just father-daughter, but friends. And so I think he just wanted to be as encouraging as possible and said, “You know, don’t think about us. Just don’t think about us. You go ahead and write what you want to write.” And my mom actually said the same thing until she saw the first stage reading. <laughs> And after that first stage reading, she was a little taken aback to say the least, ‘cause I don’t think she knew anything about what the story was gonna be like or that it was gonna be focused on a mother-daughter relationship. And it wasn’t until the response and the feedback and the Q and A was so positive that I think my mom said, “Okay, you know what? As long as long as there’s some sort of understanding or cushion within the script that people will be able to universally understand and relate, then I’m fine with it.” So it was very touch and go, to be honest, because same thing with my sister. None of this was intended to hurt feelings or to cross any barriers with my family. It was really just, again, a way for me to find my voice. But it was difficult during the writing phase because I would hold back on certain lines that I really knew would hit home because I was very concerned about doing anything that would shed a negative light on my entire family, but mostly my mother. But now that we’re where we are now with the film, she couldn’t be more proud. And I think she understands that this was just a way for me to express my voice and to get certain things off my chest. Saved a lot of money in therapy, that’s for sure. Jo Reed: <laughs> I bet that’s true. Didn’t you film the entire film in Brooklyn? Nicole Gomez Fisher: Yes, we shot nineteen days all together, nine of which were out of my parents’ house in Park Slope and then a couple days out of my own house in Bay Ridge. Jo Reed: Wow. Nineteen days. That seems like a really short amount of time. Nicole Gomez Fisher: It’s fast and furious, but when you have limited funds, you have to work with what you have and I have to give so much credit to my crew, ‘cause my crew was just so on top of their game and, you know, the cast, of course, was amazing, to boot. But having a crew that you can rely on really helps things move smoothly and, you know, avoiding going into overtime and all that other stuff. But, yeah, nineteen days was fast and furious. Jo Reed: I'm really curious, your resources were limited. So if we take something like the actors, for example-- Jo Reed: --how did you go about finding the actors? And I’m assuming you couldn’t really audition them together, so you really had to roll the dice that there would be chemistry. Nicole Gomez Fisher: Yeah. <laughs> I know. You know, it’s really funny because this was one of those things that when we decided to go into production and I started raising the money for the film everything just happened so quickly. And it just so happened that prior to doing this, I was an actress myself and a stand-up comedian and one of my side jobs was working in a casting office just to help, paper loads and run the camera for auditions. So I reached out to the gentleman, Sig De Miguel, who was one of my casting directors, and said, you know, “I wrote this script and I’m just gonna take a leap of faith and if you think it’s something that’s worth putting some money up front, let me know. And if you’re willing to cast it, please let me know.” And we had to be realistic based on our numbers as to who we could really reach out to. And, like you said, it was difficult, because a lot of them were offers only, meaning they didn’t come in to audition. So you were really, really just going on faith alone. My first and one person that I was absolutely adamant about having was Priscilla Lopez. I followed her career all through Broadway and I’ve just admired her so much and everything about her just really resonated as the mother character to me. So she was the first one to read. After she read, she took the offer and that actually opened up doors. Ana Ortiz from “Ugly Betty” and “Devious Maids” and said, “Not only did I love your script, but I’ve been dying to work with Priscilla.” So that was a definite shoe-in for me there. Gina had just come out of Sundance in 2012 doing “Filly Brown” and she got so much notoriety for it and was, like, the next “It Girl” and we took a meeting. And same thing with Steven Strait: We took meetings and I never saw anyone of those four audition, with the exception of the father, Tibor Feldman. And it was risky, you know. We did a bunch of rehearsals. With Gina and Steven, in particular, we actually did no rehearsals, they both, especially Gina, was very, very steadfast on not seeing him or even meeting him or talking to him until the first time they’re supposed to see each other. So when that moment happens and she gets out of the cab and she sees Steven, I mean, at least from my point of view it's pretty magical, ‘cause there’s this real instant sort of soft connection and, yes, during the breaks and during cuts and during changes of set-ups and so forth everybody sort of got to know each other right then and there-- and thank god! But, you know, the chemistry was just instantaneous across the board. Jo Reed: Do you think that your own background as an actor had an impact on you as a director? Nicole Gomez Fisher: Yes. I have to say that having the experience of being on sets myself and having worked in television and film as an actor I knew what worked for me and I actually really appreciated directors that were almost coddling to a point and, at the same time, trustworthy, like they understood that trusting your actors was very important and to not overly micromanage every step. And as long as they were in frame, you were good. But that was probably the most fun part for me, was actually working one-on-one with the actors. It was my first time directing and I just took all the knowledge and skills that I had taken from, you know, my own personal experience. And also, having written the script, I was very clear on what I wanted from them. And so just sitting down and talking things through and letting them understand the psyche of each character individually was probably the best part of the whole journey. Jo Reed: Here's a scene from the film. It's dinner time in the Fish household. Kayla has just informed her sister Alexis that she has accepted a job for her as a party planner. Jo Reed: Did they perhaps come to a character with something you didn’t see there or saw differently, but then you came around and said, “Oh, yeah, that really adds something. That gives it another dimension." Nicole Gomez Fisher: Yeah, as a matter of fact, Gina did that a lot, as did Ana. I kept telling them, “Play. Just play.” You know, this is not a story about World War II, it’s just-- <laughs> just have fun with what you feel instinctively you can bring to this character. And don’t over think anything. I want you guys to improvise. I want you to feel free to stay within character.” And Gina came up with some really brilliant moments that I never would have expected nor did I guess sort of plan out in my shot list. Gina brought so much vulnerability, which was not what I expected initially, not from her, but from the character. And so I thought that was really refreshing. And Ana just brought lots of fun, lots of fun and humor. Jo Reed: When did you start acting? How old were you? Nicole Gomez Fisher: Oh, good lord. <laughs> I started acting in 1996 and I-- it was a whim. I had-- oh, god, I’m so gonna age myself right now. I was a media buyer for a company and it was just mind numbing for me and I couldn’t do it anymore. And so I studied as much as I could and got myself out there and connected with the right people and I did that for a while and then I moved out to L.A. in 2001 and I was out there for about four years and I had some luck. But it was difficult because a lot of it, again, was so based on your weight and your look. And I already had enough, as you can tell from the film, issues with that and so it was affecting me gravely and that was my reasoning for coming back to New York and thank god I did, because I met my husband the day I landed. <laughs> In a bar. Jo Reed: Talk about fate. <laughs> Nicole Gomez Fisher: Yeah. <laughs> Jo Reed: Now, did you move from acting to stand-up comedy or you were just doing both right from the beginning? Nicole Gomez Fisher: No, I started as a actress. Jo Reed: Yeah, that’s what I thought. And what made you move to stand-up comedy? Nicole Gomez Fisher: Truthfully, it was three-fold. One, I really wanted to test myself and challenge myself and see if I could really do it. Two, it came from a place of just feeling like I had a voice and I could talk about what I wanted to talk about. Because a lot of times, more than not, when you’re scripted you are really censored and can’t say what you want. And it was such a freedom to be able to get up and when people started laughing at my stuff I was like, “Wow I guess I could do this.” <laughs> And the third one was exposure. I really wanted people to see me for me and not just a casting breakdown, because I never really fit the bill no matter how ethnic or un-ethnic I was supposed to be, whatever that means. But I was never quite visually what they wanted. And so, to me, if they saw me on stage and they thought I was funny and likeable and personable that maybe they would see past just my looks and my weight or whatever. And so it was really a medium that I used for exposure to get into the right doors and it certainly did help and it worked and it really became something I absolutely loved doing. But I hit a certain point where I was travelling and I was on the road and it kind of gets a little lonely and you start questioning where you are in life. And <laughs>, again, going back to the story of “Sleeping with the Fishes”, it was just that journey. It was all part of that journey. Jo Reed: You know, it strikes me as a very brave thing to be a stand-up comic. You’re up there. You’re alone of the stage, people laugh or they don’t. The feedback is instantaneous. Nicole Gomez Fisher: <laughs> I’ve always been one of those people that I love to just jump in blind. It’s not that I’m not cautious of certain things, but I really enjoy entertaining people. I really enjoy getting on stage and making people laugh. But there are times-- I mean, I’m not gonna say I think almost every stand-up comic, even the most seasoned ones, there’s always that bit of nervousness. You don’t know. Every audience is so different and you have to sort of gear your material sometimes towards your location, what state you’re playing in. Is this an older crowd? Younger crowd? I mean, it’s really a good tool when you’re trying to just sort of gauge material in general. So it kind of helps you figure out your demographic. But, yeah, it’s a scary, scary thing to do. But when you do get the laughs, you don’t ever want to get off the stage. It’s really, like, some euphoric kind of excitement and high that you get just from being in the front of hundreds of people and making them laugh and knowing that whatever edge they had that day may you’ve sort of relieved a little bit of that tension. And it’s nerve-wracking across the board. I mean, this whole process has been nerve-wracking, but I really embraced stand-up comedy for a long time and I just kind of got to a point where I was starting to feel like I needed new material. I started to feel like I was questioning who I was and what I wanted to really talk about. And so I wanted to break away. And when I wanted to break away, I never had the intentions of breaking away completely. I just wanted to come back to New York and find my roots, so to say, and sort of re-group-- Jo Reed: And when did you start writing for television? Nicole Gomez Fisher: Television was the medium I wanted initially. I love half-hour comedy. So I wrote two original sitcoms. One is called, “This Is My Life” and the other is called “Hotel 112”. And they’re being shopped around right now. One big company, in particular, is really interested in “Hotel 112” and I would love it if it all works out and we get to develop it together. So I started doing that as soon as I finished my very final, final draft of “Sleeping with the Fishes” because I needed to just move onto another project or else I was gonna spend forever just in the re-write phase. Jo Reed: Well, I’m really curious how writing for stand-up differs from writing for TV and how both of those differ from writing for narrative film. Obviously, they’re all storytelling, but they’re all very, very different mediums. Nicole Gomez Fisher: Oh, incredibly different. All three styles are different based on structure. So stand-up is very much the set-up punch joke. You know, you’re expecting that. But in the sitcom world, it’s very much the same. I mean, you need that storyline as a set-up versus a one-liner. And then, of course, you need that joke and you need at least anywhere from like three to five per page, which is a lot harder than stand-up where you can sort of ride the wave of laughter and almost improvise your way into another joke. Sitcom is very much based on acts and keeping the structure and the humor together. Plot, storyline, just like a screenplay, but again doing something that’s thirty-five pages versus a hundred and twenty-five pages is substantially different. So you have to draw out the story and make sure that there’s a real fine through-line, especially when it comes to screenplay. Stand-up comedy, you would just find a topic and then you would just-- I would, particularly, write the topic down and just start brainstorming. Every stand-up’s different. Everybody’s completely different, but the medium is still the same as far as you want it to all feel like it just flows-- like this fluidity between your actual story and the jokes. Jo Reed: Did you always want to direct or was that something that you felt like you were the best person to bring that vision that you had to the screen? Nicole Gomez Fisher: Interestingly enough, I did not want to direct. I was so caught up in the financing of the film that I was so overwhelmed by just that, that the thought of actually putting myself on as director was daunting and scary. But when we looked over our budget it was clear we <laughs> weren’t gonna find anybody ‘cause we didn’t have the money to pay someone. So my casting director sat me down and said, “Listen, this is your story. Why would you want anybody else to direct this? You are the person. This is your story, it’s your writing. Even if it wasn’t based on loosely on your family, it’s still your words, your vision. Take advantage ‘cause once you get to the studio level you’ll have no say.” <laughs> So I thought about it and I kept thinking, “How can I raised money to hire somebody?” ‘cause I was just really scared. And then I thought, “You know what? Just,” again, “go in blind. Jump in. See what happens.” You know? I mean, you never want to put yourself in without any sort of guidance because you’re dealing with other people’s finances and money, but at the same time I am so glad I did, because it was exactly what I think-- when I say this I think this is gonna sound-- not that I was meant to be the director of this project, but it was, like I said earlier, one of my most favorite parts of the whole process was trusting in myself and having these amazing actors. Some Tony winners, Tony nominees, and TV people. And they trusted in me. They trusted in me, they listened to me, they allowed me to guide them, and so I am so happy that I did not try to raise the money to fit in a different director and I’m really glad that I went forward. ‘Cause now for myself and my future I want to be packaged as a writer, director and producer. I don’t want to just be the writer. I want to have, hopefully, a little bit more control, if possible. Jo Reed: You premiered “Sleeping with the Fishes” at the Brooklyn Film Festival where you won your firs award for Best New Director, but it wasn't your last. Nicole Gomez Fisher: Correct. I also just recently, this past August, won Best Director at the Imagine Awards out in Los Angeles, which is an awards ceremony that’s geared towards Latinos and showing their work out to the general public and it was started by Helen Hernandez and Normal Lear and I took home Best Director, which was very exciting. Jo Reed: Tell me that whole experience about premiering a film at the Brooklyn Film Festival. Nicole Gomez Fisher: The Brooklyn Film Festival was everything I wanted it to be. You know, Brooklyn’s my hometown and that’s where I wanted it to be. And it felt so right to be there and the actual festival directors were just warm and welcoming and excited for me as well as for my team and, you know this was the first time we had actually shown it to a general audience. Of course, being from Brooklyn, half the audience was made up friends and family. But just to have that as your first real exposure and to have that kind of support was really special. Jo Reed: Well the film premiered last year. How are different audiences responding to it? Nicole Gomez Fisher: You know, it’s interesting. We toured for a year. I say “toured”; we did the festival circuit for a year, the first one being the Brooklyn Film Festival. The follow-up to that was the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and here we had just come from this forum that was very comfortable and warm and family-oriented and, you know, safe. And then all of a sudden here I was in San Fran and we’re looking at this line of five hundred people that, in my mind, initially, was not the demographic I thought would really enjoy the film. It was a much older group. And I have to tell you that it was probably one of the best responses we had, because, I think, just the age alone-- people just understood. They’d been there. They could relate to it. And from there-- I mean, we were at the Maine Jewish Film Festival. We were at the St. Louis International, which has nothing to do with Jewish or Latino, and the response there was great. We’ve been around the whole gamut. And we are picked up by HBO. So we’re doing pretty well getting it out there to have this much exposure at this point has-- it’s just been overwhelming. Even though we've been chosen for Latino film festivals as well as Jewish film festivals, I would hope that people walk away from this just seeing the story. I'm just hoping that people can see beyond the split between the race and religion and really appreciate the story itself. Jo Reed: And, yes, and I can’t wait to see what’s coming next. Nicole Gomez Fisher: Yeah, I’m really-- I’m hopeful. I’m not even cautiously optimistic anymore. I’m just optimistic. Jo Reed: Thank you, ‘cause I know you’re busy. So thank you so much-- Nicole Gomez Fisher: Thank you, Josephine. Jo Reed: --for giving your time and schlepping into the studio. Nicole Gomez Fisher: Oh, schlep, no schlep-- I was around the corner. <laughter> Jo Reed: That was Nicole Gomez Fisher. She's the writer, producer and director of the indie film, Sleeping with the Fishes.  You've been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts.  To find out how art works in communities across the country, keep checking the Art Works blog, or follow us @NEAARTS on Twitter. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I'm Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening.