Filmmaking

This Is One Writing Lesson I Learned 20 Years Too Late – Tom O’Brien [FULL INTERVIEW]

Filmcourage

Published

October 31, 2025

[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]

Film Courage: Tom, your dad is an actor?

Writer/Director/Co-Founder of Scene Study LA, Tom O’Brien: He is.

Film Courage: I understand he warned you in a sense to stay away from the [entertainment] business, that it would be a terrible life? Did you listen?

Tom: Apparently not, I didn’t listen. But yeah, he basically said You never have to encourage people to be in this business because if they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it.

He told me all about the pitfalls. I saw them growing up with him but I also kind of grew up in theaters and sleeping in the backs of theaters during rehearsals.

I think it all got in through osmosis. I ended up coming to it late after college. I was on the athletic path and played hockey in college, so I was kind of going down that road. I ended up quitting the hockey team my senior year in college.

I did a play and the rest is history, just kind of went from there, moved to New York after college and started in the theater.

Film Courage: With your dad, you saw some struggle? Are there any struggles you’re comfortable telling us about?

Tom: I mean it’s always a struggle. He was always sort of a working actor but it was always difficult. I saw that firsthand.

Finances are always hard and moving around…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).

About:

Tom O’Brien is a Los Angeles based writer/director. He teaches acting and writing at Scenestudyla.com. Tom’s first feature film, Fairhaven, Starred Chris Messina and Sarah Paulson and was a critics pick in the New York Times.

Tom’s second feature, Manhattan Romance, starring Katherine Waterston and Gaby Hoffmann was distributed by Netflix worldwide. Tom’s online series, OM City, that he created with his wife, Jessie Barr, was a New York Times Critic’s TV Pick.