You’ve seen him at countless horror conventions, sitting politely next to your favorite star. You’ve wondered who he is, why he’s there, what he does. He’s the man beside the celebrities. He’s the man that keeps them smiling. He’s Derek Maki, owner of Coolwaters Productions.

After seeing Derek again and again at conventions myself, curiosity got the best of me and I had to know just what Derek did, how he and his company fit into the horror convention circuit, and how he managed to be seen with some of the coolest horror celebrities around.

It turns out Derek is a very busy guy with about a zillion projects on his docket at any given time. Fortunately for us, he gave us a tremendous amount of time for a terrific interview and told us at Chateau GRRR all the details behind Coolwaters Productions.

Derek, will you tell us what Coolwaters Productions is?

Coolwaters Productions is a management and representation company for celebrities. I currently represent over 70 celebrities and manage their convention appearances for them.

Of your current 70 celebrity clients, you have many of them that have either made horror movies at some point in their career or are still making them.

We do now, absolutely. There’s TEXThttp://www.coolwatersprods.com/id7.html Warwick Davis, of course, who did The Leprechaun films, Margo Kidder who did Amityville Horror and Black Christmas, and was in the new Halloween – the Rob Zombie Halloween II film. We’ve got Ian White who was in the The Predator films they’re sort of crossover films kind of. We’ve got Ashley Palmer, who was in Paranormal Activity. We’ve got Camden Toy who was part of the Buffy and Angel series.

We have clients who’ve been in horror films and enjoyed the experience and love going to horror conventions themselves. Tom Woodruff has come with me to a couple of horror conventions and he really likes it. For the longest time, he was really just known as the Alien guy. But then the horror people started finding him and started really paying attention to him for Pumpkinhead, his first film that was made so long ago. He gets so flattered. When people come up to him with a Pumpkinhead thing, it’s so flattering to him.

So, yeah, we’ve got some horror people and we’re looking at getting some more on our roster. I get the horror world is very important.

From where does the name Coolwaters Productions come?

The original Coolwaters Productions was actually the name of my production company in college. We all had to set up our own company using our fellow students, and we each had to be part of their company.

So for my college company, Coolwaters Productions, I was the director/producer, and my fellow students were my cameramen or my editors or whatever. For my fellow students’ companies, I ended up being either the cameraman or whatever. So originally, that’s all that Coolwaters Productions was; it was just my college production company.

What type of education does an aspiring actor receive?

I went to college for broadcasting and telecommunications. I went to college for that because when I was growing up I always wanted to be a successful actor. That was how I started by dreaming, I guess I should say. I used to read a lot about actors in Hollywood and – or I’d watch some behind-the-scenes footage, and sometimes I’d see actors who have a lot of attitude and they seemed ungrateful for the people that they were dealing with or working with on set. I never wanted to be one of those actors who had an ego because the cameraman was trying to make me look good. So I think I figured if I go to school and learn what it’s like to work behind the camera, then I would appreciate more as an actor what goes into making projects.

And then in college I had to shoot a couple of television shows that went on local television. The thesis for everybody in the class was to do a feature-length film or a minimum of a one-hour documentary because that’s what makes you a filmmaker. So I made a feature-length film and it went to some film festivals. Unfortunately, it didn’t win anything, but it was a step in the right direction. So that’s why I did the degree in broadcasting and telecommunications. Then I moved to Hollywood to jump into it.

Has your schooling come into play in your current profession as a representative?

You know what? Not really. It has to a degree, but what’s really funny is that every actor in Hollywood – well, 98% of all actors in Hollywood who are struggling, start off having some crappy job here in Hollywood. Most of them are waiters. Everybody always says, “Oh, every actor was a waiter,” and it sounds very cliché, but it’s true. I’m here in Hollywood and I go out to dinner with friends. When a waiter or a waitress comes over to the table and they’re friendly, we talk with them and ask, “Hey, what do you want to do when you get out of here?” And most of them say, “Oh, I’m an actor. I’m just doing this on the side.

One type of job that people don’t realize that actors have out here that’s still in the service industry is bartending. They actually make way more money as bartenders because if you’re a good bartender, your tips are much better than they would be as a waiter as or a waitress. When I came to Hollywood, I had no waiter experience. And so that old adage, “Well, if you don’t have experience, we can’t give you a job.” “But if you don’t give me a job, I can’t earn the experience,” really hit hard because all the other young actors that had come to Hollywood knew they’d be waiting, so they all had waiting experience back in their little hometowns.

What experience did you have coming from your hometown?

My experience was working retail, so I got a job at a retail store. The downfall with that is waiters and waitresses all cover for each other. If they have to “call in sick” – and I say that in quotes because that’s code for “they got an audition” – they can always call in another waiter or waitress to cover for them.

Unfortunately, in retail you don’t have that. So if you have an audition, you either have to just tell your boss, “I’m going,” and then take the chance that they’re going to fire you if you do it too often, or you just start missing auditions. So I did that for a few years, and I really regret it. I think that’s my one regret in life is that I turned down a lot of auditions when I worked retail, and I can’t go back now and fix it. It bothers me because some of those roles I think I could have gotten then.

Are you no longer missing auditions then?

Along the way, things were presented to me that offered me a different type of job to survive. And that job ended up turning into what is now Coolwaters Productions. Since I basically work for myself, I have the freedom to do auditions and other things if I need to, but then on the flip side, it’s still very dangerous because I don’t have anybody giving me a paycheck every week.

Are there additional benefits to owning your own company representing celebrities?

Part of the reason I decided to move forward with Coolwaters Productions was because it’s in the entertainment industry, and I’m always mingling with people. Whether it’s clients or if clients invite me to parties, I’m meeting people, and they all know that I want to be a successful actor.

So it’s that other adage in Hollywood that’s actually more true than anybody realizes, “It’s all who you know.” And I’m hoping that one day me knowing all of these people will come back.

Do you feel your college degree was helpful in your current profession?

At the end of the day, no, because I’m not actually doing what I went to college for as my profession. Now on the flip side, my degree did help me a little because I have made a couple of independent films since being on my own. One of those independent films, called Instant Dads, did go on to win several awards, including Best Picture at some film festivals.

Here’s the downfall, but I didn’t realize it until we had actually shot Instant Dads. People kept saying to me, “Derek, you went to school to learn the basics. You learned how to light and you learned how to pick up good sound. But going to school for anything doesn’t actually give you the experience you need to make it artistic or interesting. You can’t teach somebody to act. You can’t teach somebody to direct.”

The people who are successful being actors and directors are the ones who just have it in them. They place the camera and tell the actors what to do and then they’re moving forward. It’s the creativity and the imagination. You can’t teach somebody to be creative! It has to be in you. So, again, a long answer to your question, did I need my degree, I’m glad I have my degree. It taught me the technical aspect of the business, but it certainly didn’t teach me the creative part of it and the creative part of it is what you really need to know.

What was your first big celebrity meeting?

I was a huge Star Wars fan years ago. I used to go to conventions and meet the actors to get their signed 8x10s. The retail store was at Universal Studios, which is a very high-profile area to have a store, so actors and actresses were always coming in. One day I had this older woman come in dressed in a chauffer’s outfit. She was a limo driver. And I’m like, “Okay. Well, that’s fascinating.”

She comes up to me and says, “Excuse me. I would like to get some type of toy from the movie Star Wars for a character called Greedo. Do you know who that is?”

Of course, I’m thinking to myself, “Wow, this lady has no clue.” So I tell her, “Well, of course, I know who Greedo is. We actually have three different types.”

At the time, whatever toy companies were making Star Wars toys had three different sizes. There were 12-inch dolls, the normal action figure from the action figure line, and these plastic things that were like non-movable statutes.

She got all excited and she’s like, “Wow! I can’t believe it. You have more than one thing for me to choose from? Wow! Okay. I’ll have two of these and three of these.”

So I’m picking up all the things for her and bringing them to the register, and I start ringing her up. I’m not thinking anything of it in any way, shape, or form. She looks at me and asks, “Are you not curious, young man, as to why this old woman is in your toy store buying Greedo action figures?”

I was thinking she was a grandmother buying them for her grandkids. We had people like that all the time coming in. I just looked at her and said, “No, not really. We have many people come in to buy things like this as gifts.”

“Well, I want to tell you something,” she says. “I played this character in the movie.”

And time stopped. My jaw dropped and I stood there in complete silence absolutely star struck. I was just shocked because growing up I read every Star Wars Magazine that there was. In one there was this behind-the-scenes photo of Greedo in full customer standing with director George Lucas, but at the very bottom of the picture if you looked at it carefully, the character was wearing white high-heel pumps.

So every Star Wars fan who had ever seen this picture knew that the character was played, or at least some portion of the character was played, by a woman. It was never credited that way in the film though, and no one ever knew anything about it. I remember getting on the Internet back then with people asking, “Who is this lady?” So here I am in my retail store and she’s standing in front of me, or at least that’s what this woman’s telling me.

She told me about her experiences on the set and I told her about the conventions where people would love to get her autograph. She was really surprised and wound up giving me her name and number so we could talk more about it.

A couple of weeks went by and our store was going to have a signing with Billy Dee Williams. I told the manager of the store at the time that this woman had come in and said that she was Greedo. I suggested, “Since Mr. Williams is coming in, we should ask her to come in and sit with him and have the both of them sign.” My manager was a little skeptical, but he let me try it. I called Maria up – her name was Maria De Aragon, by the way – I called Maria up and told her the situation. Originally she didn’t want to do it. She said, “I don’t want to sit with Billy Dee Williams and sign autographs. No one’s going to care about me.” But I assured her she’d have a line a mile long and so she came out. She and Billy each signed somewhere between 300 to 500 autographs in an hour until the event was over.

Way to be able to spot a hit!

Well get this! About two days after this autograph event with Billy Dee and Maria, I get this phone call at work. It’s this fellow who tells me he works for a company called Icons Authentic Replicas. He asks me if I know of them. Well, of course, I know of them. We sold their product in our store. Icons Authentic Replicas used to make the prop replicas for Star Wars; the original ones, not what master replicas did a few years back.

He goes on to say that he saw that we had Billy Dee Williams and Maria de Aragon at our store for a signing and asks for their contact info. “First of all,” I tell him, “I don’t know who you are sir, so no, I’m not going to give you contact info. Not only that, but why do you need it? You guys are a prop replica thing.” He tells me that they have a division of the company called Men behind the Masks,” where these Star Wars actors go out to conventions and meet people.

Then it hits me... this is the company that I was seeing with the actors when I went to conventions! All the pieces suddenly start falling into place. So I seized the moment and told the guy, “I’m not going to give you their contact info, but maybe I’ll work with you and set you up with these guys.”

Weeks went by. I got tons of phone calls from this guy. He kept coming to the store. Finally on our last phone conversation, he says, “I can’t believe this. You’re a stupid assistant manager at a retail store. I’m asking you for actors’ phone numbers that I could probably get if I just called their agents, and I’m sick of going back and forth with you. What do I need to do? Offer you a job in the company to get you to bring these people to us?” And I said, “As a matter of fact, yes. That sounds great.”

Not long after, I went in for an interview and he gave me the job. My title was Vice President of Celebrity Liaisons or something. My job was to bring Maria and Billy to the Men Behind the Masks tour, which I did. The company had also represented people like Warwick Davis, Jeremy Bulloch, Peter Mayhew. We had a year and a half with Icons Authentic Replicas before the company went bankrupt. When that happened, I was out of a job. I actually went back to work at the retail store that I had quit for this one.

We still had a couple of conventions set up for Billy and Maria. In our year and a half working together, Billy Dee Williams had gotten to know me really well. One day, he called me at home and he said, “Derek, you’ve got me set up on this convention. What do I do?”

I’m thinking, “I have a multi-millionaire Hollywood icon calling me at home asking what he should do.” I felt lucky that I just got my old job back. My rent was three months behind.

But I asked him what I could do for him. He suggested that I just come with him to the convention and we call it a day. I got permission from the store to take the weekend off and went with him to the con.

About a month later, I get another phone call from Billy Dee Williams, and he tells me his agent got an offer for a convention but didn’t know what to do with it. He asked me to help him. And I’m like, “Okay.” That was the start of Coolwaters Productions right there because Billy’s agents didn’t know what to do with convention offers. I had done it for a year and a half and figured I’d just do it as a lark. Why not be friends with Billy Dee Williams, right? Why not have him on my side since I want to be an actor? That was how I started my company.

Within a few months of doing that convention with Billy, I started helping Maria and Warwick with conventions as well. Basically I had three clients the minute my company started: Billy Dee Williams, Warwick Davis, and Maria de Aragon.

I was still doing the retail job at the same time as doing conventions. I was getting every other weekend off. The retail job hated it. When you work retail, you work weekends. But because I was an assistant manager and I was a really kick-ass worker, they were willing to negotiate time-off so I could do what I needed to do.

I did that for six years before it finally got on my nerves. I just couldn’t do it anymore. My company had grown in that six years. I want to say I had 30 clients. They were all actors who had known Billy or Maria or Warwick on the set, and they had referred them all to me, saying, “Oh, Derek will help you.” I left the store and Coolwaters was 100% my own company.

At the time I left the store, I spoke with my mom, Anise Maki. If you know me, you most likely know her. She is the Vice President of Coolwaters Productions. My mom is an accountant by trade. She said, “You need to have a legal company. You need to make it legitimate. You need to pay taxes. You need to have a license to operate.”

So we created Coolwaters Productions, LLC using the name from my college days. We currently have three licenses in the state of California. One is a public relations license, the other is a management license, and we also have a resale license. We have 70 clients who we’ve taken all around the world. We’ve had clients come and go, but we have a few clients who’ve been with us from the beginning, like Billy Dee Williams. He’s still one of our clients and a dear friend of mine because he stood behind me.

All along the way, I never forgot the acting dream. During the company’s existence, that’s when Instant Dads was made. I’ve done a couple of commercials. I did a music video. I never lost sight of the acting thing. It just kind of got side tracked for the moment. But Coolwaters Productions has been a good side track because I have a lot of connections now and I have a lot of people who are willing to help me should I ever come to them and ask. And that’s where we stand today.

What year was it when you just had your three clients and left your retail job?

That was probably 2001. That was when Icons went bankrupt.

You mentioned that some of your clients have their own agents, but the agents just don’t know what they’re doing in the world of conventions. How do multiple agents work?

This is how I try to explain it to new clients who come onboard. In this industry and in Hollywood, the bigger actor you are, the more people you have working for you. Agents specifically field acting jobs. That is what they do. Managers manage your overall career. Publicists publicize the current job you’re doing at the moment. My company is kind of like a fourth tier. It works specifically for the celebrity, specifically with appearances, autograph deals, speaking engagements.

Even the publicist or the manager or the agent do not have enough knowledge to get the best deal possible. The convention world is a whole world unto itself. Some of the people in this world are evil. Some of them are manipulative. They steal. They lie. And on the flip side, there are the promoters who are the most trustworthy, honest people who you would work with again and again and again and again. You get to know the ins and outs of all these people.

Agents aren’t much fun to work with?

The downfall with agents is – and I even have this problem as an actor myself – agents don’t listen. Agents think they have all of the power. They have all the knowledge. If someone calls an agent and says, “We want your client to be part of our show, our event, or convention,” an agent will simply say “No problem. Here’s what we want.” There’re no negotiations involved. The agent just says, “I want this, this, this, and this. Yes or no?” leaving the promoter to try to negotiate. But an agent will simply not negotiate. Their stance is “This is the deal. If you don’t want it, the actor’s not coming.”

What Coolwaters has done is we’ve educated our clients that we don’t do that. We don’t answer on their behalf. We get the best deal possible. The easiest way that I explain it to an actor is this, “Agents are used to getting you $10,000 or more to do a television appearance. They’re used to getting you $100,000 or more to make a film appearance. There is no promoter on the planet who is going to pay you $100,000 to sit at a table and sign autographs. But if I could get you $5,000, would you take it or would you throw it away?”

Most actors would rather have the reasonable amount over nothing?

Yes, most actors say, “I’ll take the $5,000! But what do I have to do for it?” I’ll explain what they have to do, and it’s the actor who makes the decision to go to a convention or not. It’s not me, not their publicist, not their manager, and certainly not their agent.

It’s been an uphill battle to educate the agents and actors. Some agents get it. My company actually works directly with a couple of agents with some of the clients that we have because they just want to be involved in it so they know they’re protecting their client. That’s fine. We have no problem with that. But they also have to realize they have to trust us to get the best deal possible.

Some of our clients 100% exclusive with us and have instructed their agents, “If you get an offer for a personal appearance, you are not to touch it. You are to forward it to Coolwaters Productions and they will handle it.”

The reverse is true too. If we get an acting offer for a client, we are not allowed to negotiate the deal because that’s not what we do. We forward it to the actor’s agent because that’s what they do. If we can get into a happy symbiotic relationship where everybody works for the benefit of the client, the client is the star.

The client is who the people want. They are the face. They are the ones that the fans go to. We all make money as long as we make them look good, and that’s what Coolwaters does. We try to give the promoters the best deals possible, but at the same time, we make sure our clients are protected and getting what they deserve.

All the clients I’ve seen you with look absolutely happy and thrilled to be everywhere I’ve seen them.

Well, thank you. And I think without tooting my own horn, I’ve worked very hard and our clients are very happy with our representation.

Have you had clients that you didn’t care to represent?

We’ve actually had clients who have left because we’ve asked them to leave, and then we’ve had others who have left on their own as well.

As of today though, I don’t have any client on my roster that I don’t enjoy working for. We really love our clients. We truly enjoy being with them and working for them. If we didn’t, I’d politely tell them, “You know what? This just isn’t working. We need to move on.” Because why do something that you’re not enjoying? Why go through life miserable for a dollar? It’s not worth it.

Here, here. What’s been a learning experience for you in the world of conventioneering?

Unfortunately, I’ve had a bad rep on the convention circuit because of my own ego. Fans may say negative things about me, but what fans don’t understand is that it’s all for the protection of my clients. Sometimes I might have come off looking like a jerk, but at the end of the day, my client was being protected.

And over the 12 years that I’ve been doing this, I’ve learned how to be a little bit more tactful and not be as abrupt or rude.

You’ve added several new clients in 2010 already I’ve noticed!

We have. Yes, we added Mark Ryan who is the voice of Bumble Bee and Jet Fire in The Transformers movies. We added Marie Olsen, who’s in the new Percy Jackson movie. We got Julian Glover who was in The Empire Strikes Back in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

We’re currently in negotiations with a couple of other actors that we’re going to be announcing hopefully this month. We just signed a deal with one celebrity last night, but I can’t tell you who it is because we need to make the official announcement on our site first. There’s one other person we’ve been courting that we’re trying to solidify.

Are you open to representing more people?

Coolwaters is always up for new people trying their best to help. The size of the celebrity doesn’t matter. We’re willing to take a smaller client or a bigger client. It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, we’re all struggling.

The smaller actors struggle. Being a smaller actor myself, I know I struggled like hell. So if somebody would give me the courtesy of helping me out along the way in some form, then I’d never forget that when I get bigger. You always want to award the people who helped you along the way when you make it. So I come from a very strong belief of you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.

We do have some guidelines that we follow. There are certain people that we will or will not take. But a company’s got to grow. We can’t survive on three clients alone. You’ve always got to have more.

Hollywood is notorious for lacking scruples. Do morals come into play in your industry?

Honesty counts for a lot. You can’t lie. When I made my movie Instant Dads, I kept every promise that I made to every actor who was in my film. I would never go back on them and try to change the deals that we had arranged. I even put some of it in writing.

When dealing with clients, if I ever felt as though someone was being dishonest with me or went back on something that they promised, I would just politely tell them I no longer cared to work with them. Life’s way too short for that.

As you’ve been representing clients over the years, whether it be for conventions or just bringing on new clients, are there busier times throughout the year? Have you noticed trends?

Oh, absolutely. In Hollywood on the acting side of things, nothing happens in November and December. In the convention world, it’s very similar. November, December, January, and February are all basically dead. Our busiest times for conventions are the summer months. I’m looking ahead to what we have scheduled this year and April, May, and June are packed. September and October are absolutely packed too because of the horror conventions. There are actually shows in October that are competing with each other over the same clients, but one show has already booked the client so the other show couldn’t get them.

Very tight competition. Do you think that competition like that is good for the convention industry?

I find it very odd that a couple of promoters don’t try to change the dates of their shows. You can go online and see an entire schedule for a year of every convention that’s happening. There are Web sites that list just about every convention available. I think that some of these promoters should search the Web and look for an open week because they really end up shooting themselves in the foot when they compete with each other. I feel especially bad for the smaller mom and pop shows because those are really just fans who have raised $25k somehow to throw an event and they end up losing it all because the event doesn’t make any money.

That’s rough.

Not an easy world to be in. I get what promoters go through and what they have to do. I’m very empathetic towards what promoters have to do in order to make it. Part of my job then is to make sure that the clients I’m offering them are the correct clients for their shows. When you pitch a client to a promoter, it’s not easy. I have to sell them on why they should bring these people in. I’ve got to prove to them they’re going to draw an extra 20, 30, to 100 people through the door just because they’ve got my clients in the room. And it’s very hard to do that.

During a busy week, say coming up this summer, what will a typical week look like for you?

Usually in the summertime for me, I won’t do much acting. The first couple of years that I had Coolwaters Productions, I would go out on auditions, win the role, and then they would say, “Okay. We need you for these three weekends.” Invariably, two of those three weekends I would have to be at a convention with a client. So I would have to turn the role down. Now I kind of regret that. It’s part of the reason why I now have employees who will work for me. Certain clients will only do conventions with me though. They won’t work with an employee. So I have to kind of balance all that too. Usually in the summer, I’m home two or three days a week. The rest of the time I’m on the road with a client.

You mentioned traveling with your clients. I’ve seen you many times manning a table right there next to your clients. Is that normal?

Yep. Some clients will go to conventions on their own; we just book it for them and negotiate the deal. But every client’s different. I’ve got enough bigger clients who require an assistant to go with them so it’s either me or an employee. These aren’t full-time employees though, so it’s all based on what their availability is. Once we’re there, we usually don’t leave their side, especially with certain ones. And as I said, certain clients will only go with me. If I don’t go, they’ll just turn the show down. Obviously, I need to pay my mortgage, so if I have to go, I have to go.

What plans do you have Coolwaters in the future?

The hope is, as the company gets a little bit bigger, I’m supposed to become a client of my own company. I should be able to tear off a little bit and focus more on the acting as the company grows. That’s the plan that my mom and I have. We are going to really make Coolwaters as huge as we can and then I’ll be able to step away. My mom’s been more involved with the clients a little bit more every year, but this year especially, she’s going to be filling in for me at more conventions than normal. This is possible because we’ve got certain things in place, enough so that I have time to pitch a film to Lion’s Gate recently, and plan this new live Web show that’s coming out that I’m co-hosting.

So I’ve got other responsibilities now that are happening where I am going to have to send other people like mom or my other employees out more often simply because my true heart is acting and directing. I’m building Coolwaters as big as possible. It can definitely get bigger, but it’s as big as it needs to be now for me to be tearing off a little bit more. The economy certainly isn’t helping the situation, but you do what you can.

Can you talk about your Lion’s Gate pitch you mentioned? What’s that like?

I’m actually not allowed to say too much about the Lion's Gate pitch only because it is exactly what it is, it was a pitch. This is what I said during an interview in Mexico and I just leave it to interpretation. I don’t want to jinx it, but I also want to get the word out there. I learned this actually from Warwick Davis. Warwick says, “If you put things out there in the universe and people starting hearing and thinking it’s a good idea then they go, ‘Yeah. Maybe we should do that.’” So there is an established film series that Lion's Gate owns that one of my clients was the star of, and over the past two years, that client and I have spoken about doing not a remake and not a sequel, but doing a reboot to the project.

A “re-imagining”, as they call it these days?

Yeah. And that client likes the ideas that I came up with. He said that he would stand behind the project and would help get me the interview at Lion's Gate, and that’s what he did. I had a full-blown pitch at Lion's Gate and I am currently waiting for Lion's Gate to either, one) say there’s no way in hell it’s ever going to happen, two) 100% green-light the project, which would just make my day, or, three) say, “We like the idea. Let’s play with it some more before we green-light it so that we can see if we actually want to move forward with it.”

Those are the three options that I’m waiting for. I probably will know this fairly soon. The pitch was right before Thanksgiving and the studio was very clear with me that they’re not going to make any decisions around the holidays. And then, obviously, Hollywood is really just getting back into the swing now that it’s February.

Have you followed-up since the pitch meeting?

I do keep in contact with Lion's Gate and they just keep telling me to hold tight, which isn’t a no, but it’s also not a yes. So I really don’t know how it’s going to go. I’ll be very disappointed if I don’t get a green light, but I’m not going to be devastated; I get how it works. It just means you move on. I was very privileged to be one of the few people in Hollywood who’s a nobody who actually got a pitch with a major studio. There are people who I know who would give their left leg and arm to do what I did.

I know what my client did for me to get me into Lion's Gate, and I would never jeopardize my relationship with him because of it. I would never insult him or Lion's Gate or give a bad light. One of the warnings that I was given when I went in for the pitch was, “You better make me look good, because if it comes back on me –” and I’m like, “No. Trust me. That will never happen. I will never put you in a bad light.”

Again, it goes back to how we started this interview and a huge reason I agreed to take this leap into Coolwaters: because it is all who you know. I would not be in this position without knowing these amazing people, and I understand that and I am thankful for it and I never brag about it.

I know that I’m blessed to have this opportunity. Whether the opportunity moves forward or not, I went a lot further than a lot of other struggling people in Hollywood do. Even though it was a favor, it was set-up for me, it was all “who you know”, at the end of the day you still need to remember I have been in Hollywood since 1997, and I have been struggling the whole time.

It’s not like it was handed to me the day I got off the plane. I’ve been here since ’97 and it’s only 2010 now. So it took me that long to get to this point. So I am struggling. I am fighting. So that’s about as much as I can say for the Lion's Gate thing.

Can you tell us about your experience with the pitch itself?

The pitch itself was amazing!

Is it in a room with a bunch of intimidating studio execs like we all imagine?

Before I went in for the pitch, I contacted a few people who have been in the industry for decades and asked for some pointers on pitching, the ins and outs and dos and don’ts of a pitch meeting. There were certain things they were telling me like, “Don’t do this. Don’t do that.” So I really prepared for my pitch. I had a full written script already. We actually had storyboard done for it. I had an entire presentation worked out.

I went to Lion's Gate and I was sitting in their lobby. They had this massive 60-inch flat screen TV playing trailers of all the movies that they’ve done and that they have coming out in the next couple a months. I’m sitting there watching these trailers thinking, “Oh, my God. I’m pitching at Lion’s Gate.”

When the studio started, they were a small film company. They were making crappy horror films that nobody cared about. Now they’re an Academy Award Winning studio that has grown incredibly. I’m sitting there panicking knowing I’m about to pitch something to this company. There are people running in and out of the doors and all this activity.

So there I am sitting in the lobby with my little folder and I’m freaking out. Finally, the assistant to the person who I was meeting came out and asked, “Are you Derek?” I told them I was and they said, “Follow me,” and they brought me into this empty conference room and I sat down. The assistant said, “We’ll be with you,” and she left to get the Producer, who I was supposed to talk to. Eventually, I’m sitting in front of one of the heads of acquisitions for Lion's Gate and a few other folks.

That sounds pretty intimidating indeed!

Here’s the cool part. They were so nice to me. I think a large part of it was our connection, the person who got me into the room. They asked me a little bit about how I knew this person and how long I’ve known them and then they commented on a jacket that I was wearing. It was this really cool sports coat that I love. They liked the design of it and I thanked them. It was much more chit-chatty and friendly than I expected. As we were sitting there, I said, “I’m just going to tell you guys something. I’m going to be myself in this meeting. You guys are buying my idea, but you’re also buying me. If you’re not buying me, then why am I here?”

They kind of smiled at me and asked me what I meant. I explained to them that I was told that when you come into a studio to pitch that you have to dress a certain way, you have to act a certain way, you have to be professional. But at the same time, I explained that I had to be me. Their reply was, “Well, that’s what we want. So of course, be you.”

I didn’t know if that meant that the pitch had started, but I just jumped right into it and I gave each of them a folder that I had prepared. As I was handing them out, I told them that I had talked to a lot of people and was told not to show any artwork because the studio would have their own creative team to handle it with their own interpretation, but that I had gone ahead and had poster artwork created to show how dedicated I was to the project. I asked them to flip to the first page, and they were blown away by the artwork.

I was also told not to have a full script written for the pitch, instead using the pitch to ask for money to finish the script. Instead, I told them that I had a script that was done, but that wasn’t perfect. If they gave us money, it would be used to perfect the script. I wasn’t supposed to tell them that, but I did anyway.

We went on and talked about a certain scene from the script. I was acting the scene out and was getting all excited and animated. And then I gave them a set of completed storyboard panels for this scene which I was also told not to do since I wasn’t supposed to have a finalized script. I explained to them that this particular scene that I was acting out really helped sell the characters the way I envisioned them, and so I hired a college student who wants to be a storyboard artist to complete them. I laid out all the storyboards for them and they were again blown away.

How long did you expect your pitch meeting to last at this point?

I was told going in, “Your pitch meeting should last anywhere between five and ten minutes, but expect to be out of there in seven minutes.” This is what everyone told me how long a pitch meeting lasts.

So my five to ten minute meeting turned in to a forty minute meeting! At the end of the meeting, they shook my hand. They asked if it was okay if they could keep the folders. “Of course,” I said, “that’s why I created them. They were for you to keep.” They thanked me and said, “Just so that you know, in our opinion, everything that you did was right and whoever told you not to do these certain things was wrong. And that being yourself really helped this meeting.”

I left that meeting with the biggest smile on my face. Whether the project gets green-lit or not, I had such a feeling of success and accomplishment that I could have died right there and been happy. I was just so nervous going in, but when I left, I had no nerves left. They made me feel completely at home. Whether they green-light the project or not, they liked me and they seemed to like the idea. So next time if I’m lucky enough to get another pitch meeting, I’m going to go in and be myself again. I’m going to sell the project and myself, not just wear a shirt and a tie and go in and treat it like a friggin’ business meeting. How do you earn the respect of the studio if you’re just a suit?

One of my heroes now is director Guillermo Del Toro. That man, if you’ve ever met him, is always himself. When you meet him, he’s Guillermo. There’s no show about him. He’s not following any set Hollywood rules or laws. He’s just Guillermo; he does what he likes and he’s just been lucky that the people who saw his visions knew they were amazing and profitable.

I’m sure there are other directors in Hollywood who are like that as well. That’s probably why they’re successful. The ones who don’t make it, in my opinion, are the ones that become too regimented and too nervous about what the suits are going to say. Hollywood wasn’t created on suits. Hollywood was created because people got together and said, “Let’s make a moving picture! Let’s have some fun here!” Unfortunately in Hollywood, the fun part seems to get lost. That’s very sad since filmmaking is supposed to be fun. I get you’re supposed to make your money back at the same time, but it’s supposed to be fun.

Fill us in on the new Coolwaters Live that you’ve planned and will be airing soon.

Like I said, you’ve got to keep moving. You’ve got to come up with new things. I can’t wait for Lion's Gate forever, so while we’re waiting, I’ve been toying with this idea for Coolwaters Live. I’ve probably been thinking on it for about a year, I just never had the guts to move forward with it. When I went home for Christmas this year, a friend of mine asked me if I ever listened to these podcasts on some of these Web sites. He’s a huge Star Wars fan, so he was telling me about a Star Wars podcast he listens to where they talk about the new toys that are coming out and about scenes and such. The show goes for about an hour or two. It’s just two or three guys talking in their basement or whatever.

And he sort of challenges me with, “Well, why don’t you do something like that? You’re really animated.” I told him I didn’t really have anything to talk about. What would I talk about for so long? But in the back of my head, I’m thinking that for the past year, I’d been toying with the idea of doing a documentary series with some of my clients going on the road at conventions. When I really started thinking on it, I realized I could take my concept and put it into a podcast format and just do a weekly live show where my clients could be the celebrity guests. And then we’ve got a built-in advertising mechanism which is the conventions, because everybody at the conventions is certainly going to want to tune in to listen to the people they just met to get an autograph from.

I sent out an e-mail to the clients I knew would definitely be on board. They wrote back right away and said, “Derek, whatever you want, we will do it for you.” So this is one of those favors that I cashed in.

Once I got a few positive responses back, I then sent a company letter out to the entire roster of our clientele saying, “This is what we’re doing. We already have some people on board. If you would like to participate, you can.” The response has been very positive. I have a lot of clients who have gotten right back to us who have said, “Yes, we’re on board. Tell us where and when and we’ll do it.”

Once I had some clients onboard, I got my little team together. I’ve worked with Derek Bowman on several projects. He’s basically my official editor for my films and I told him about the idea. He thought it sounded worthwhile and was in. I talked to Sheila Myjo, the employee who’s been with me the longest, about it. She’s a struggling actress here in Hollywood as well. The minute I asked her if she wanted to be a co-host on this show with me, she came back with an, “Absolutely. I want to be on camera!” It wasn’t just the fact that I was offering them some type of job; they actually liked the idea of doing these live interviews.

Will these interviews be similar to what people would experience at a convention?

Part of what makes our show different is that I want to model it after the Ellen Show or the George Lopez Show where I don’t want it to just be the same standard questions that clients get asked at conventions. That’s why conventions are there so you can go and you can ask those standard questions. “Was it hot in the suit? What was it like to work with this person?”

We’ll have some of those questions during our interviews, but we want to show the fans a very different side of the actor. We want to ask more personal questions, delve into more of what their personalities are, what their beliefs are, what their goals and dreams are, what their other passions are besides acting. We want to make it a very intriguing and interesting type of an interview, but still very fun at the same time. There will be games and contests and questions with the fans live on the air.

And you’ll be the other host of the show? How do you describe your “on-the-air” personality?

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen me when I’m “on”, but if I’m performing, I’m very energetic. I like being the center of attention. I have no qualms about admitting it. I do. I like it. And I’m a little nutsy sometimes. Sheila, my cohost, is a perfect Abbot to my Costello. She can be a very good straight person. Our minds are very much alike so I think we complement each other very well. It’ll be very fun and funny. We’ll do a couple of serious interviews of course. I do have a couple of clients who may not like the nuttier aspect of it, so there will be times where we might have to tone it down a little bit.

Do you have a first guest lined up?

If I can just boast about him a bit, Doug Jones is our first guest. He’s already confirmed. Doug is absolutely fun and wonderful. When I asked him about the show, he said, “Derek, whatever you want to do, I’m going with it.” He knows what I’m like, so he already kind of knows what to expect. But he gets what we’re trying to do with the show.

What are your goals with the new show?

We want to make something that’s going to be fascinating for the fans to watch, that’s going to be different enough for us to get noticed. And you know what? I dream big! I want to be one of these Internet shows who gets seen by some Producer in Hollywood who goes, “Why are these people doing it on the Internet for fee when if we hired them or bought the idea from them, we would pay them to do it on national TV.”

You’ve got to dream big. Now is that ever going to happen? Who the hell knows? We might do this for six months and find out it’s a complete flop and shut the show own. We might to it for three years live on the Internet and never go anywhere with it. We might get noticed by a Producer. Who knows? The point is I needed Coolwaters to be doing something new. I needed something else for my acting career. I’ve got friends in the industry who want to do things. And I’ve got clients in the industry who are willing to support it. So why are we just sitting around doing nothing when we could be doing this?

When can people tune in to catch the show?

Wednesday, March 3, baby! 7:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. That’s LA time. We’re going to have our first show. It’s going to be live around the world. You’re going to be able to log onto a live site that will be posted on Coolwaters main site soon. Viewers will be able to chat with us live online while we’re doing the show. We’re going to have our computer open so we can chat live through American Online, that little AIM thing. And then we’re also going to accept phone calls during the live broadcast at the company phone number. So viewers can ask the actors questions live on the air. What’s more, we’re going to be giving away prizes to the people who are tuning in!

Wow! That’s a ton to offer PLUS prizes!

You know what? I’m not an idiot. The reason we’re giving away prizes is because we need an audience. And the only way to get an audience is to pay them or give them something for tuning in. So we’re going to have some prizes that are given away. It’ll be signed merchandise from the celebrity who’s on that week.

For example, Doug’s going to be on first, so that show, we’ll probably give away some signed 8x10s, maybe a signed action figure. I don’t know exactly yet, but there will be different games that can be played throughout show.

How long will the show run each episode?

It’s a one-hour format. It’s going to include movie reviews for movies that our clients are in, whether they’re going to be on TV or in the theaters or reruns on TV or just coming out on DVD.

That’s a healthy amount of time. What are you filling it with?

We’ve got the classic interview of course. We’re going to try and focus on the Coolwaters clientele for now and then in the future as we get bigger, we’ll expand. We’re going to do reviews on some toys that might be related to our clients or their movies. We’ve got the games too. And then we’re also going to do some pre-recorded stuff at conventions. Like we’re going to pick a couple of big conventions this year where our clients will be appearing. We’ll do special recorded little skits or games at the conventions that will be played during the live broadcast on Wednesday.

So basically what that is, is it’s a way to get some exclusive footage into the show every week so that people can see what a convention’s like if they’ve never been to one. And if they have been to one, it’ll show what Coolwaters does to make the experience special and different so that the next time Coolwaters is at a convention with a client, they’ll come looking for us. They’ll want to be part of our world, our event, our moment in time. We’ve got some great ideas and I think it’ll be fun.

The show sounds really exciting! We can’t wait to catch it here at Chateau GRRR. You’ve done a bit of acting yourself in horror-related media, haven’t you?

In fact, I have. I did a music video for Black Label Society that was directed by Rob Zombie. I’m the lead zombie in the piece. You can actually see me in some type of bizarre creature makeup.

I also had a small bit-role in Leprechaun 6. I wish that the role was a bit bigger and hadn’t been cut down, but that’s the way it goes.

I remember being on the set with Warwick and taking a picture with him while he was in his leprechaun makeup. We went back to his trailer to have lunch. This is just after seeing him do a scene where he’s talking with his evil voice and he’s being really friggin’ deranged. We’re having lunch in his trailer. When I’m not looking at him and he’s just talking to me, it’s just Warwick talking to me. But then all of a sudden, when I look over at him, he’s this ugly creature and I’m like, “Warwick, is that you?” It was surreal.

I was also in a movie called Creature Story where I actually got to play the creature, the monster, which was awesome

I’m a huge horror fan myself. I have a huge horror DVD collection.

What are some of your favorites from the genre?

One of my all-time favorite films is The Exorcist. I love The Descent. I think that is one of the best independent friggin’ horror movies ever made ever. I like Dog Soldiers, the werewolf movie. Incredible! I’m a huge fan of Freddie Krueger too. I can’t wait to see what they’ve done with the remake. I hope it’s a reboot and not a remake.

I also noticed that one of your projects is a horror-related comic book.

Yes! It’s called “I, of the Wolf”. I co-wrote it with Neil Kaplan, a client of mine. The story is a re-envisioning of the wolfman tale. Neil came to me with it a few years ago and told me the story. Originally, he asked me to help him write it, but I had so many other projects going on, I just couldn’t imagine the time.

He approached me a couple months later asking me again. When pitched me the idea, I knew I had to be a part of it. It was Coolwaters Productions that actually helped produce the comic book.

Is the comic book available now?

Issue 1 is out on convention circuits right now. It’s an ashcan issue where it’s trying to get all the readers hooked on the story. We give a lot of copies away for free as promotionals. The book isn’t complete; the last couple pages are actually in black and white because we didn’t finish with the color. It’s about the artwork and the story though and those are the things that get people really hooked on it.

We get e-mails all the time asking when Issue 2 is coming out. The idea was that it was never supposed to be separate issues. It was supposed to be just one graphic novel. The comic book issue that we have out at conventions was, as I said, an ashcan. It was a way to get people excited to read the complete graphic novel.

When can folks expect the full graphic novel?

Sadly, part of the team that we hired to draw and color the series moved on to different things. So right now we’re at a standstill. Neil finished the story and knows how he wants to move forward with marrying the art and story. We just need somebody to take our script and finish drawing it out. We’re looking for a couple new team members. Hopefully this year we’ll the right people to put the final graphic novel together.

Our little skull timer is ticking down the last few minutes of time we have. Can you leave us with what you love about horror fans and conventions?

Well, I’ll tell you this. I can brag about horror fans. I’ve been doing the conventions circuit for 12 years, and there are several different genres of shows, but the two biggest on our planet are sci-fi conventions and horror conventions. And I love the horror conventions.

In the sci-fi world, the conventions are much more geeky. They take their genre very seriously. You can’t make fun of Star Wars. You can’t make fun of Star Trek. They’re very dedicated to those properties. I get it; don’t make fun in any way. I get why they’re dedicated to them. I love them too. They’re very important.

The flip side that I see with horror conventions, which is why I like going to horror conventions more, is that people at horror convention seem to be much more open to having fun. Let me explain what I mean.

Definitely. We’re intrigued!

The big difference between sci-fi parties and horror parties is the horror people know how to freaking party. And I’m a partier! I like to really let loose and have a blast. The horror people love to drink. They love to harass people – in a nice way. It’s a fun harassment. They like to have fun. They like to just be daring. The sci-fi people are just a little bit more refined, and that’s perfectly okay. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just if I was given the choice, “Derek, do you want to go to the party for MonsterMania, or do you want to go to the party for Wizard World?” I would always pick MonsterMania.

And again, I have to stress, it’s not that I don’t like the Wizard World party, and it’s not that I don’t like the fans that are there. It’s that my personal inner-personality, the way that I am, I just find that I am more fitted with the fans at horror conventions when it comes to having things in common with them.

Was that something you expected to find at the horror conventions when you started going?

No, I didn’t expect that. The first horror convention I did, I was actually afraid because most of my clients at the time were science-fiction based. And I had been to too many science-fiction parties and knew what to expect. Horror fans though, they dress a little bit more daring. They look a little bit different. A human being’s first reaction to anybody is to judge a book by its cover. Sci-fi fans dress up in their favorite character outfits, but horror fans don’t dress up in their favorite horror character outfits. They dress up in their own outfits. They spike their hair. They paint their nails. They wear chains. But it’s their personality. So when you look at them and say, “Oh, my God. I’m going to go party with these people?” I tried it and from that first event, it was like, “You guys just kick ass.”

Now when we go to horror conventions, my first question to the promoter when the plane lands and we get to the hotel is, “Who’s throwing the party, what nights, and what room?” I want to know. I think that compliments your horror people a lot. I’m really sincere in what I’m saying. I’m not just saying it because you’re a horror-related site. I actually believe it.

Well, thank you! We love our horror freaks. Any other thoughts you would like to add before we have to say goodbye?

I would like to say, when it comes to the convention world, thanks for all the support that fans out there have shown Coolwaters. On a personal level, to the people who have actually seen my own personal creative works, whether it was my film or the comic book, who have come to me and wished me good luck with my career, I thank them for their support as well. You have to start somewhere, and everyone needs a fan-base to make it.

I’ve become very humble over the years and it’s because I’ve learned from these fantastic people. I would say to anyone that’s reading this interview, thanks for the support! We all start somewhere. And if there’s anyone out there who’s reaching after their dreams, what I always tell people is just don’t give up.

Wonderful advice, Derek. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. We wish you much luck on the Coolwaters Live show and look forward to catching it! Best of luck to you on the Lion’s Gate pitch as well!