Tonya J. Long: 0:07

Welcome home, friends. I'm Tonya Long, and this is RESET, where purpose meets possibility. Each week, we share conversations with thought leaders, innovators and the dreamers and doers who are reshaping the future of work, technology, longevity and purpose. Whether you're navigating AI's impact, reimagining your career or searching for deeper meaning, you're in the right place. So settle in, open your mind and let's explore what happens when purpose meets possibility. Hello everyone, and welcome to Reset, where purpose meets possibility. What happens when an actor decides to rewrite his own script?

Tonya J. Long: 1:00

On today's episode of RESET, we dive deep with Matt Drago, who has masterfully navigated multiple life transitions from rural Virginia to New York City to the big city of LA, from theater to film, from full-time actor to successful dual career professional. Matt's story isn't just about changing locations or careers. It's about reinventing himself, while he stayed very authentic and true to his core values. His journey from community theater to leading roles in independent films, while building a thriving real estate career and playing a little golf along the way, offers valuable insights for anybody who faces life's transitions. So, whether you're considering a career pivot or seeking to blend multiple professional paths, like so many of us are today, I think Matt's experience provides a roadmap for successfully navigating personal transformation. So join Matt and me for today's conversation on RESET, where purpose meets possibility. So, Matt, I'm so excited about having you with us today. I talk with a lot of tech people and I'm thrilled to have a bonafide celebrity actor. You just released I think it's your first major film with Somewhere in Montana, true.

Matt Drago: 2:34

Very true, and thank you so much for that incredible introduction, Tonya. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today. This is going to be a great one. Yeah, somewhere in Montana. Yeah, just released in theaters, I play the lead role opposite Graham McTavish, the co-lead in the film, and it's a beautiful story. I can't wait to share it with you guys.

Tonya J. Long: 2:55

I can't wait to see it Now. I don't want to embarrass you, but I hear a little bit in your voice because I'm familiar with your profile now. But you, like me, grew up in the South, so I'm projecting into you. You grew up in Virginia. I grew up in Tennessee. A lot of the people who know me know that I grew up in the South, you grew up in the South. You've had a lot of resets from rural Virginia to New York City, to LA theater to film. Tell us about what's going on with your current priorities and projects.

Matt Drago: 3:32

Yeah, right now it's utilizing those resets which you need in life right. Coming from humble beginnings in Virginia and growing up in the theater and really just loving to tell stories and understanding the impact that they can have on people was just something that was an instant attraction for me in my life and I just couldn't get enough of it. Honestly and there wasn't a lot of film and TV in Virginia that was something that I just was in the local theaters all the time. Dinner theater was one thing that really resonated with me. It was my first paid gig but again, I think it really taught me that there was going to be a lot of work that goes into your dream and you're on stage and then you're off stage clearing plates or refilling drinks. And there was just a moment in my life that always resonated with me, which was after I played Little Patrick in Mame. One night there was this woman that came up to me. She must have been in her 70s and she literally said Thank you, Matt. This show and your performance really showed me that I really need to make an effort to be closer to my son and it was just. Yeah, it was that. And even at 14 or 15 years old, I was like, oh, wow, there's real power in this and what we do as storytellers and actors.

Matt Drago: 4:54

Again, that was the next phase of my life. The first big reset you could say is what was going up to New York City and really just being around my people. Actors' Equity is the Broadway union for your listeners and it's a really wonderful union in that it's set up to allow actors to audition really anytime they want in the Actors Equity building in Midtown and I just found myself there all the time, going to shows, all the time with my student ID and really just taking in all of it. I was very fortunate. I'm a grandma's boy and I got to move back to New York City with my grandma and she was my roommate to come home every night and to feel like I was in a safe place and just really be able to focus, because this was something that I never have given myself a plan B, and that was just incredible. And I found acting teachers in and out of college. I studied with Kevin Connell at Mary Mount Manhattan College, got my acting degree there.

Tonya J. Long: 6:02

Terry.

Matt Drago: 6:02

Schreiber, studied privately there and just really took in all of the city, and I actually met a girl in a little 12-person acting class in New York City, only to find out that we grew up three blocks away from each other in a small. Virginia town. Yeah, so Laura and I literally are her mom's house and my dad's house are three blocks away from each other. My dad actually says a good long drive off the tee you could hit.

Matt Drago: 6:35

You can hit her house from my house because his house is on the hill, so like that's always the way that my dad says it and since he spoke of my golf skills, I wanted to throw it on there. But but yeah, it was just an instant connection because, again, we were paired together in a breakup scene. But we met in this little acting class and she came over to my apartment to rehearse. I noticed that she had a 5-4 area code. So I was like where are you from in Virginia? I'm from Virginia, I have a 5-4 area code and you were practically neighbors like practically neighbors.

Matt Drago: 7:08

And she said Front Royal, have you heard of it? And I looked at her in that moment again we're on 79th and Broadway at my grandma's apartment. And I looked at her and I said I'm from Front Royal.

Matt Drago: 7:19

And she said no, you're not and I'm like no, seriously like my dad's, the karate guy across from the main streets of the month. I know this person. I know this person. I know this person. She's like oh. And I was like, what about your family? What do they do? And her family owns the apple house, which is like a small little country store off the interstate that only somebody in that area would know, and I kid you not, on 79th and Broadway. I literally looked at my dresser and I pointed and I said look at those three things. I had three things from the Apple house with the price tag still on them on my dresser. And so we were paired together in a breakup scene from Say Anything, the John Cusack movie, and that I didn't skip a beat. I literally knew in that moment. I looked right at her and I said we've already gotten a breakup out of the way. Are you ready to go out on a date? And so that's how we started dating in.

Tonya J. Long: 8:08

New York.

Matt Drago: 8:08

City, and that's what moved us to our next reset, which was coming out to LA now.

Tonya J. Long: 8:15

And that was 10 years ago, right? Yeah, amazing, amazing. We'll get back to Laura, but you mentioned your grandmother and when I read some of the articles in your personal bio website and I read about you doing something with your grandmother and it reminded me of one of my stories, because I'm a little older than you, but when I was young, the movie, the Broadway musical, cats was a very huge thing. "Cats was very big on Broadway. When I was a little girl and I played the piano, I had nine years of piano lessons and I would bang that thing out on the piano and all the little neighborhood girls would wail it. And if you remember Opryryland, me and a couple of my friends from my little school, we played and sang that at Opryland at the 4-H state competition and uh, we got pretty good at "Memory,"

Tonya J. Long: 9:16

the anthem ballad from the "Cats musical. But my important memory from memory, using "memory, when I was in grad school at UT- Chattanooga, it had gone off- Broadway and my parents lived about two and a half hours away from Chattanooga and it came through Chattanooga and I had them come down to see it and they had never seen a broadway musical and I got the best seats I could on the third row but it turned out that the orchestra took up actually the fourth row so the orchestra was actually the first three rows. So I took my parents to see Cats", front row center in Chattanooga to see the musical cats and see in Chattanooga to see the musical "Cats and seeing my I get choked up because they're both gone and seeing my mama and daddy see a Broadway musical that as a little kid I had felted that out, that was our little thing. And to see them experience that something so grand and they grew up very humble and to give them, that was one of my transitions into adulthood, to know that I could give back to them. And we continued then into my adulthood giving experiences to them because I had a different adult life than they had. I went into more of a city life and I got to do amazing things with them while they were here.

Tonya J. Long: 10:57

But your story about your grandmother and the musical Cats reminded me of really my first big event with my parents as an adult I was still in grad school but treating them to that experience of something that they probably never would have invested to do on their own and that's what art can bring to people to expand their world. So art expanded your world. I see that as part of your origin story Was your granny taking you to see cats? Tell us about that.

Matt Drago: 11:30

That was beautiful and I can understand why we have such a connection already, Tonya, because it's very similar to my story. It was at the Winter Garden Theater and me when I was four years old and there were actually seats that were on the stage in the Winter Garden, and she splurged and she took me and it was just me and Grandma Matilda and she's not with me anymore either, but I keep her really close. We find ways to honor the ones we love right.

Matt Drago: 12:02

In our lives here and I think of her all the time because of this origin story that I had of her bringing me to this show, and what was so unique about that show for me was that, being on the stage I felt like I was part of their world and I do remember the Winter Garden.

Matt Drago: 12:23

The cats would come up to you, they'd interact with you and at one point because I was a little kid and I felt like I had the acting bug inside me already I was interacting back with them. At one point one of them came up and growled at me and I growled back and then the cat just got spooked and ran away. And then another time later on in the show, like one of them came up and tied my shoelaces together. So like they were, like I just really was just fully lost and immersed in that show and, more importantly, with somebody that I love, that I was connecting with at the same time, who then I ended up again moving back home to be with in these really pivotal years of my life. So that was definitely a full circle moment for me. But it all stemmed to that night as a four-year-old on the Winter Garden stage with Grandma watching "Cats.

Tonya J. Long: 13:24

It set your course, from what I can see, 100%. You left New York and went back home to Virginia.

Matt Drago: 13:33

Mm-hmm.

Tonya J. Long: 13:34

With sights set on what would become your, what would be your dream? That you would then return to New York, live with her until you met Laura and then pursue that acting bug. You would do community theater in Virginia and then pursue that on much bigger stages in New York. So she really set you on the course for the path that would become who you are 100%. What was that like for you for that experience? How many people realize at four what their life's path is going to be?

Matt Drago: 14:22

I don't know, I can't speak to that, but I can speak to where I just really felt like it was part of the makeup of who I came into this planet as I just really did. I didn't need a lot of toys growing up. I really just needed my own thoughts and my own imagination and I would create little things in my head. So I really do. I feel like I was wired to be a storyteller and it wasn't until I saw the platform of it and the world of it and, most importantly, the people within it that just aligned with me and in my love of storytelling and impactful stories and then learning again just the reality that it really does resonate with people when you can tell a great story.

Matt Drago: 15:14

I think all of these things were in alignment for me to keep walking down the path and seeing where it would go, but it definitely was a no-brainer when I had the opportunity to go to New York City and move back home and be with my grandma.

Matt Drago: 15:32

That for me was just the ultimate gift and I think it really worked out at the right time. My aunt had moved out at the time, so grandma was going to be all alone and so it was just like one of those things where she wanted me there and I wanted to be there and it was just. Those years in my life are something that I will forever cherish and I think about all the time because they were so special and I think I even knew that in the moment how rare and special it was to get to be around your grandma and have her be really taking care of you and protecting you, because I was stretching my wings and trying to figure out where my path would take me and to have somebody that was a strong New Yorker, that had been a New Yorker her whole entire life, was somebody that really was my guiding light in the process, was my guiding light in the process.

Tonya J. Long: 16:32

I had framed it in my mind that you left your comfort zone of Virginia to move to the Big Apple, but really you moved from the yeah you're saying no. Anybody who's listening to this and not seeing it on video? Matt's shaking his head. No, because he moved from one comfort zone to another in a way, you got off easy. Everybody else jumps out of the nest and into terror. How am I gonna get the laundry done?

Matt Drago: 17:01

and instead you jumped into the comfort of grandma to ease in yeah, the grandma's home was really a home and that's the way I always looked at it. I didn't look at it like an apartment in a really nice building on the upper west side. I actually got into real estate because I wanted to protect my grandma, because she was a rent control tenant and I really wanted to learn the rules to protect her from some landlords that were mistreating her, and so that was something that I got into the Corcoran group and got on one of the biggest teams there. And then Halstead Properties with my neighbor, ana Khan, who's killing it in real estate and just a really wonderful person, and so I aligned with real estate for a little bit. And again, I think that I realized pretty early on that the work ethic was going to have to be there, that the dream is never enough.

Matt Drago: 18:01

To achieve what you want in life you have to be willing to work at it. And, frankly, there are a lot of people that don't understand even now how much work it is to balance two careers and go back and forth. There are a lot of people that think, well, you, but you love acting. And I was like, yeah, I love it and it's work too. Don't think that it's not work just because because I love it. Do you love real estate? No, I don't love real estate, I just do it for the money. Ok, do you have anything that you love? Yeah, imagine that. That's is something that was told to me. I forget by who, but I think it's a really great line that I've always kept close to me.

Matt Drago: 18:55

There are two different types of people in the world. There are the people that seek contentment which isn't a bad thing, by the way and there are the people that are obsessed with the dream and I know which one I am. I always did and I always had that burning inside of me. And I know which one I am. I always did and I always had that burning inside of me, and I do.

Matt Drago: 19:11

I get jealous of people sometimes that just seek contentment and seek a paycheck and seek building a family and making sure that there's nothing wrong with that. But for me, I can't explain it to people sometimes that I would rather leave 100 good stories behind than have $100 million, and I really do mean that, like to my core. That currency means more to me, like being in a movie, like Somewhere in Montana, that the weight of that, the paycheck, is an afterthought for me, because the story is so big and it's so impactful, especially with the times that we're in right now, and it's like when I think about the fact that, yeah, I'm a dreamer, I'm a proud dreamer. But one thing that gets lost in the mix sometimes is that dreamers are fighters. Don't sleep on dreamers. Like we'll fight for our dreams and, yeah, I've always been obsessed with a dream, but proudly.

Tonya J. Long: 20:14

But you I'm going to, I'm going to rein you back just a little because I know some dreamers. My oh God help me. But my God son's a dreamer and he's a dreamer kid he's, he's just out of college and he's a dreamer. Whoality of where you're headed. I feel certain you've got a few pivots left in you, a few resets, because you're very purposeful and this world is headed, I think personally, for a bunch of resets and how we get things done to serve mankind. And you'll be in your path, working too, just like you protected and defended your granny when there were issues to be solved because her security was at stake.

Tonya J. Long: 21:22

I think you will find you will see ways to support and protect the people that you love. You're calling it Southern wisdom how you were raised, your values. They drive you. You're not just dreamy out there floating. You are a dreamer who sees a better road ahead for other people and you're driven to make that better.

Matt Drago: 21:53

Yeah, it has to be intentional. Yeah, it has to be intentional and you have to find ways to reset and I think that there are definitely times in everybody's life where you feel like you're in the sweet spot and I feel like I am right now. I feel like I'm really like enjoying it and I'm humble. I love what I do, I'm grateful for it and I'm grateful for the journey, because the journey is the destination. Right, you only get one of these and I think I'm definitely in the place where I'm really grateful for just the experiences. But yeah, there's obviously a lot of intention behind it as well.

Tonya J. Long: 22:37

From the outside in, and I'm sure it hasn't been easy, right, you just spoke about it is not easy. People say, oh, you're an actor and that must be fun. It's fun and I love it, but it ain't easy. It is work. So, as you look at being intentional and being purposeful, the things that you have done have all led you to move forward and to accomplish more. New York City is the hub of acting in a lot of ways and you were very intentional, I'm sure, about your transition from a more theater oriented town to LA, which is a very different kind of acting and craft. What led you to make that bold move for you and you with someone else? Because I think, as we mentioned earlier, you met your wife in New York and then you guys moved across the world and into entirely different environments, from New York creativity to LA creativity. What did you see in LA that was calling you to do more and different.

Matt Drago: 23:53

It's really the path of finding Terry Schreiber's studio and asking a couple acting actors that I respected at the time that were my friends where they were studying.

Tonya J. Long: 24:07

For those of us not in the business, tell us what that means.

Matt Drago: 24:11

Terry Schreiber. What do you mean?

Tonya J. Long: 24:13

Terry Schreiber, yeah.

Matt Drago: 24:15

What's that? Yeah, he's got a studio in Chelsea and he's got a lot of great acting teachers that train in that studio. He's brought in all different elements of a lot of different really masters of craft and in different capacities of of how to teach the craft of acting. And the one thing that I really love about terry is he's just a nurturer of actors, like he really loves actors. He's one of those people that loves it out of you, and those are the types of acting teachers that I have always aligned with the people that really make you feel safe and make you feel cared for. That way you can explore the depths of your artistic soul, as it were. And so I had heard some really great things about him. I had put myself on a wait list to be in his class. I think a year went by. I finally got the call. I jumped at it.

Matt Drago: 25:11

I studied with him for about two years while I was in college because, again, I couldn't get enough of it and I realized pretty early on it was like so much of acting is your self-process, and I found different styles, but mostly because of Terry, because he had studied all the styles and whether it be Stanislavski or the Meisner technique. I had done kabuki training, which is like a Japanese body work, where you find the character in your own body and so you take all of those different practices but then you find your own practice within them, taking little elements of what makes you click, and so I love that about him is that he gave everything so freely to you and then let you choose your own adventure within that, within your own self-practice. And because of the fact that I had asked an actor friend, a couple actor friends, about Terry and I had aligned myself with his studio. That's where I met Laura and then we started a relationship there and then from there I was auditioning like crazy. I was up for quite a few Broadway shows and just coming up short Again, the business side of it can weigh on you sometimes and it's tough to be.

Matt Drago: 26:30

I always say this close runner-up. That's harder, honestly, than being what is it? Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have the joke where they said oh, yeah, I got, yeah, thanks, do you know? Whatever it is like. That's easier in a way, because maybe you just weren't right for the project, but you go on to the next one when I was getting really close but not quite, quite getting there.

Matt Drago: 26:52

It weighed on me and I think one day it was just a day in class, and afterwards Terry grabbed me and he said, hey, do you have a little bit of time? And he took me into his office and the conversation probably half an hour changed my life. And that was at the point where just a lover of actors, but really a lover of me, and wanting my success which is just what chokes me up just thinking about it Like just how many actors he's nurtured, even if they do fly the nest right, even if they aren't in his class and he said in his studio, knowing that I would be leaving his class, maybe you should really consider Los Angeles. Like maybe you should go to LA, you really do have a lot of technique that I think could work for the film and TV medium and go out there for pilot season and see and again, this is somebody that's telling me this, knowing that I'm leaving his class if.

Matt Drago: 27:54

I like it and I go. But what a human being to do that. What a special person. Yeah, I really do. I consider him a grandfather to me because of that. And then no real no surprise that I met my future wife there too. I actually proposed to her there too, Tonya.

Tonya J. Long: 28:15

I love that I didn't.

Matt Drago: 28:17

Yeah, I went back to New York City and I had a friend, an actor friend, open up the studio that we met in and it was acting for TV and film and I had them turn the camera on, and so it was, I got the whole.

Matt Drago: 28:33

Thing on tape and, yeah, it was just. It was the day after Christmas, we were there visiting family and and it made sense. So it's like you went back to it's. It's intentional. I think I've always had intentions and, yes, I'm a dreamer and yes, of course, you hope that things work out, but you have to have intent behind them and you have to keep having intent in many different capacities to see which path is the one that's meant to be. And I just remember those two specifically being Laura and Terry, being the fact that I'd asked around for an acting teacher, basically changing the whole course of my life and that's why I'm in LA and and that's why I'm in this film, and that's why I'm talking to you right here, right now.

Tonya J. Long: 29:20

So, yeah, it all makes sense sometimes a ago I would have just thought actor New York, actor, la. But spending a little time thinking about you before this conversation, I was like no actor Broadway actor I'll call it commercial just for my simplicity. It's a whole different form of acting, a whole different business model, a whole different perspective in how to build a work portfolio and different communities. I'm really big in community here in the Bay Area and the communities I traverse, in helping people and in creating the work that I do, and so same for you. And I think that the reset of that of reestablishing yourself with this, with the same skills but an entirely different go-to-market model for the product that is Matt Drago, had to be an incredible lift, very exciting but a tremendous amount of work. So were there unexpected lessons that you learned in making that switch?

Matt Drago: 30:39

For sure, but I think you give yourself over to those, because I do. We're talking about you surrender to it because, again, if Terry had told me what he told me in that really awesome conversation that I had with him, but I didn't have Laura in my life, who I coincidentally literally met the next door down Maybe I wouldn't have packed a car and driven across the country, because I don't know if I would have done it by myself, but to have someone that was a partner in crime like to just be like, let's just give it a shot.

Matt Drago: 31:18

She had a friend that she had done a film with from NYU that had a grandfather that was willing to rent a room out. He liked to have people over Again, leaving grandma was. It was the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life. I saved up all this money I think I gave her a third of it just to make sure that she was okay and it felt really wrong at the time but it also felt right and I was struggling because New York for me felt it was taking too much for me and that, like I had, I needed to figure out what else there was and I didn't know if that was LA.

Matt Drago: 32:03

Personally. We went to LA, we packed the car, we did a little kumbaya trip. We drove across the country, we stopped at like the Grand Canyon and the Red Rocks and Sedona and we did a lot of meditating and praying and thoughtful, just kind of reflection on what this was going to be. And I remember getting to LA and it was early January and it was 85 degrees and that didn't hurt because we had left 10 degree weather in New York City.

Tonya J. Long: 32:39

Yes, yeah.

Matt Drago: 32:40

But I had moved. We moved back in, at least for a few months, with a grandfather figure. We moved back in at least for a few months with a grandfather figure, right, and just a sweet Jewish man, cy, who just really took us in, basically didn't have us pay rent I think we're paying 500 bucks a month so it was like like he was just doing it to be nice sort of thing and he'd make us matzo ball soup and just have these wonderful conversations. He originally was from New York, he was from Brooklyn, so it gave me another opportunity to almost have a grandparent on the West Coast too. And again, those little things just sometimes align when you have intention, when you are maybe in my case, in need of a reset Because New York was burying me.

Matt Drago: 33:27

It felt like it was burying me young. I was not like a party animal, but I was working bar shifts and they were grueling and taxing and emotionally I just felt up it ends with is it going to happen for me or do I? Am I happy it just it started to feel like I needed to see the other side. I needed to explore something different and then make that comparison. But I gotta be honest, when we three months later, signed a lease like that was not easy, like it was not easy and I missed my grandma a lot and I still miss her to this day and I think about the years that I could have spent with her and there's a little bit of guilt. But sometimes when you have a reset in your life, don't just be foolish to think that it won't be painful, because sometimes resets are painful.

Tonya J. Long: 34:24

Great advice yeah.

Matt Drago: 34:25

Yeah, I mean this was a very painful reset and it was the biggest one of my life, but it shaped everything that has transpired past this. I own a home now in LA, I have a beautiful wife, I've got a dog, we have a production company and if I hadn't made that, know, made that painful choice, then I wouldn't be here with you. We're sitting here right now. What am I looking at?

Tonya J. Long: 34:54

Is it backwards?

Matt Drago: 34:56

It's blurry.

Tonya J. Long: 34:57

I when I left my parents behind in Tennessee, which I never thought I would do. I was cycling at the time and this is a little bicycle and it says Go where life takes you.

Tonya J. Long: 35:14

And this was their signal to me that it was okay that I should spread my wings. I was 42 when I left Tennessee. I thought I was there forever. I had a great, bold, wonderful life, a great big house. Tennessee, that was it. That was home, of course, but I didn't know what could be home, right, and go where life takes you and I have branded that on my Airstream, has that tattooed on the inside of my Airstream. But go where life takes you, and I think that's what your granny would tell you is go where life takes you.

Tonya J. Long: 35:53

They want us to be successful. They want us to experience the full life that we are supposed to have Beyond. We are supposed to carry on beyond what they could and then create that for others. So yeah, so you know it is hard to leave them behind, but we're carrying on that legacy you have to and you have to at some points in your life get on that bike right.

Matt Drago: 36:22

And there's going to be times where you fall off that bike and you're going to get scrapes and bruises along the way. But sometimes you just know a deeper sense that the reset is there and that it's needed. And I really did feel at that point in my life that it was necessary. I had somebody I really cared about that I thought I was going to be living the rest of my life with, and so even at that point I just knew that it was in the cards to explore and to get on the bike. And they do say it.

Matt Drago: 36:59

Sometimes when you're a kid you don't really understand it. But home is where the heart is and sometimes I think maybe the wiser. Our grandparents, people that have shaped us, can hopefully understand that because they give us the grace to understand that. They understand that you know it is our life and there are going to be painful decisions, you know, along the way. But if we're willing to get on the bike, hopefully it'll take us to a good place as long as our intentions are pure and we can attract the right people into the adventure that we're all in right.

Matt Drago: 37:38

In this crazy thing called life.

Tonya J. Long: 37:41

Your granny raised you well, she raised you to work hard too. I'm going to make a segue off all this family emotion because I have choked up twice now, and that's not normal for me.

Matt Drago: 37:50

I knew we would get there. I knew we would.

Tonya J. Long: 37:52

The older I get, though, the more easily it comes. But you are a hard worker. You play hard and you work hard, and I think that you are seeing the results of that. But we mentioned in the intro that you are a dual career. You love your acting career. I think your soul calls you to act has since you were four years old, Messing around Spooking those cats on the stage. But you are also a highly successful real estate professional. What triggered your swap over into real estate? I'm not particularly interested in the real estate, just doing anything else other than your passion. Right, it's what what caused you to work so hard.

Matt Drago: 38:43

It wasn't something that I thought of instantly, but I think it was something that I felt was a necessity at certain points in my life to not feel like I was going to be a quote unquote actor. Right, I was going to have a career that I felt would be sustainable and that I wouldn't go into auditions and feel desperate, and so I found ways to essentially give myself that, I think real estate was something that fell into my lap because of people that I met, that I knew did it and I started that track in New York City and then, past New York City, I refound it because, again, when I moved across the country with my wife, I did not have a job.

Matt Drago: 39:38

Neither of us did, and I say this with a badge of courage. I was the top task rabbit in LA. I was like cleaning people's houses, I was like doing their gardening, I was organizing their closet, I was painting their bookshelves. I took whatever job that I could in order to keep the dream going, and even to this point it was that. And then it was bartending right, because I grew up in restaurants. And then I just felt if I can do something that's a little bit more flexible like real estate.

Matt Drago: 40:15

hopefully I can get a couple deals going. And then I joined the biggest team in Los Angeles and I'm still there right now and it just helps me create a little bit more life balance and work balance within my passion as an actor.

Tonya J. Long: 40:32

Yeah, I. The word that comes to mind for me is context switching, because realist cause acting is so creative. And then real estate allows you a lot of flexibility, but you still are. You're searching for someone else. You are, and people can be very inflexible in what they want right.

Tonya J. Long: 40:55

So what you're doing between your two career roles is applying very different skill sets. So you're context switching. When you're thinking about the two different things that you do, how do you balance between your creative passions and then the I'll call it discipline required to focus totally on other people's wants and desires when you're meeting their home search needs? How do you manage the context switch's?

Matt Drago: 41:26

not easy.

Tonya J. Long: 41:27

No, it's not.

Matt Drago: 41:29

I think I've adopted it into my process as an actor is like my process overall as an actor and what that means being able to be creative but being able to also be emotionally available to my buyers, because I mostly work with first-time home buyers. They are the most emotionally taxing and emotionally rewarding clients, and I do say that rewarding too Fighting to get them their keys on closing day is rewarding. So I do. I think I've always had this ability and I think about it all the way back to my days doing dinner theater, where I just take those wins and I carry them close to my heart and and I think that's what fuels me to keep the balance going. But it's tough. I think being on a team for me is the only way and I think it gives me the balance to be able to feel supported. But if I book a gig, then I can have people back me up so that I can continue to find that balance and keep fueling the passion and the dream.

Tonya J. Long: 42:50

So I think that you're pretty remarkable. You talk about things like they're a little random, but I don't think that they're random at all. I think that you, I think you connect to so many people that are on your path to making connections that further where you're headed.

Matt Drago: 43:13

Yeah, I think that's a really good point too. I think I have always been in search for the path. It really goes back to moving from New York City, the hardest thing that I've ever done, but I looked at signs that were happening in my life and how those signs were guiding me towards something. So I think when we think of resets, I think a lot of times we have to be open to resets and I think we have to find ways to just understand that they are part of this journey that we're all on in life. Like there's no human being that's never had a reset in their life. There's. That it's impossible and some more than others, sure, but you're always going to have a reset, right, even getting a dog, having a kid, moving they're all resets in your life.

Matt Drago: 44:12

There are so many different resets, but I think that the thing that you can do is you can uniquely be open to them, and if you're open to them, then you're not forcing them, you're looking for them. So that was actually actually really you're so intuitive. Is that like when I got into I should say back into real estate, in, in, in in LA? It was that thing of serving at a couple restaurants and I was in a fine dining steak restaurant and at one point I started to serve a lot of people that had done local real estate in the area and I remember one night I served a bottle of the Screaming Eagle, and the Screaming Eagle is a $5,000 bottle of wine. It's got a QR code on it.

Tonya J. Long: 45:00

That's why I don't know what it is.

Matt Drago: 45:03

I got to try it and I got to be honest, the best one I've ever had.

Tonya J. Long: 45:06

OK nice.

Matt Drago: 45:07

I think the guy wanted to buy it just to show off. I don't think he even knew it was like that good, he was like no offense, but he was a Bay Area guy coming down to LA. That was like impressing a lot of his tech friends yeah.

Matt Drago: 45:20

And I got that from him right away and soft sold it. I was like we have a wonderful blend. If you're looking for something balanced, we've got the opus one. We've got something a little bit more fruit forward. If you're looking for something like, the scarecrow is a very popular brand blend. But I also wanted to let you know, sir, that if you're interested, we do have one bottle left of the screaming eagle and I don't.

Tonya J. Long: 45:44

He took advantage of that parcel.

Matt Drago: 45:49

He left a great tip. So I definitely think he had the money to afford it and, honestly, when he got to showcase that he bought the Screaming Eagle, we made a big presentation of it. I think he sealed the deal and probably made a lot more money by buying that bottle because of how great it made him look. So I think it worked out.

Matt Drago: 46:11

I remember there was a table that was watching me and it was one of the bigger producers up here in this area that I live in Valencia, and he noticed that cell and that night I talked to him and he said listen, son he called me son because he's an older guy and he was like listen, son, if you're selling $5,000 bottles of wine, you need to be selling million dollar homes.

Matt Drago: 46:37

You know what I mean. And so it re-peaked my interest and I said I did do real estate in New York City and I got into it to help out my grandma and I told him my story and and it just piqued my interest of you know what, maybe I should do real estate again in California. But again, that's like being open to the reset. It goes back to that thing. It's if I hadn't been open to that moment and had that conversation with him. See, I'm always and I think it's like the artistic mentality. I think there's so many things from an artistic mentality that everybody can adopt, whether they consider themselves artists or not, because we're in constant states of reflection.

Matt Drago: 47:22

We're in constant states of reinvention and we're in constant states of resetting when we need to, and I think the only way to do that is to really be just open to the reset. And so, yeah, that was really intuitive. I wanted to put a pin in that one because it was so eloquently put. Is that sometimes just being open to the reset when you feel like it's coming, and sometimes you just know, sometimes that something like I felt to my core and it broke my heart, believe it like that, like New York had run its course for me yeah and it was painful, but it seems like very similar to your Tennessee, your time in Tennessee that you just knew and you didn't know how you knew, but you were going to be open to whatever felt like it was the next step in your journey.

Tonya J. Long: 48:18

To the point that I'm sure it's. We feel bad for those around us who hold on, whether it's relationships that they really shouldn't be in anymore. For me, for my age bracket, it's people who just won't let their kids go. When their kids grow up and you're, they're just like, and I'm like listening. It's time he's an adult, let him go on. But people hold on to things well past. When those things have served their purpose, they really have. Celebrate the purpose it served, that what it did in your life, and then look forward with celebration to what's coming. And change is hard. Change is hard. That's why we're here. That's why this show exists to help people look forward to change is hard. Change is hard. That's why we're here. That's why this show exists to help people look forward to change is good and these resets are for us.

Tonya J. Long: 49:11

They're not something to be feared. They're something to be looked forward to.

Matt Drago: 49:17

And they're something to take pride in because they are painful pride in because they are painful. And so I think that if you know that a reset will be, like you said, hard, painful, the unknown I think there's like that challenge in it where, yeah, it might be necessary, but it might be like rewarding. And what is it if you don't explore that? What does that look like too? So I just feel like we have intuition that we don't give ourselves credit for sometimes, and you just have to be open to or in alignment with your intuition. I think things can open up for you in ways that you don't even think that they will. Like, I didn't think that after I got out of that meeting with Terry Schreiber, that I would be moving across the country with my girlfriend at the time now my wife. I didn't think that.

Tonya J. Long: 50:16

I just thought at that moment, like I'm going to probably go out for pilot season for two or three weeks and I'm gonna hate it and I'm gonna move right back to my grandma, I'm just gonna test it, I'm just gonna test the waters, right, if I don't get a job, then I'll know I'm not meant to be in LA. That and some people would have even taken that conversation with Terry as Terry's telling me. I'm not cut out for acting no, he loved me through it.

Matt Drago: 50:42

He actually told me the opposite. He was like I believe in you, like he really did. He believed in me, he, but he saw that I was like not, I was starting to not believe in myself and he didn't want that for me because he loved me and I love him you were so fortunate to be around a mentor that saw your potential, that potential and that could share with you what your future could be right.

Tonya J. Long: 51:10

Because a lot of us are around good mentors. But it's a step above. When a mentor can forecast for you, can share with you what it could be. So you were very lucky.

Matt Drago: 51:23

I'm very lucky and I do think that I have always been that type of person where, like, I really seek mentors, like I really do, like I love mentors, I love um. You know. I think being an actor is a great example of that. I love the relationship between the director and the actor. It's such an intimate relationship. Like you really are, you're exploring how you can achieve this together, no different than growing up on the dojo deck with my dad, right the sensei student, right the teacher student, whatever it is, whatever it is. It's adopting that principle that there are people in your life that you need. It's like life is a team sport, and so you find people that can align with you, and then you have to separate yourself from people that don't align with you, which can also be a reset that we know of in our life and so you have to find ways to always be mentored, always.

Tonya J. Long: 52:26

I want to bring you back for another episode because we were running out of time, but I can think of a whole set of conversations around the acting profession and what you bring to because you just played a part. Where you are, it seems to me. I haven't seen the movie yet, but from the trailers that I've watched, you are a young director trying, in a very difficult set of circumstances, to make a difficult situation work in the field, with an obstinate ranch farmer who isn't happy to have you there, and I can imagine all these things coming into play with you, as in your character as a director who's trying to make an impossible situation work. And I'm sure that your own intuition helped guide you in your acting in that particular role, because you had to bring a lot of soul I'll use that word, a lot of soul into how you treated Gavin in his role. As I recall he's a widow and that's part of the storyline.

Matt Drago: 53:39

Oh, Graham, yeah.

Tonya J. Long: 53:41

Graham. I said Gavin, sorry Graham, oh Graham, yeah, Graham, I said Gavin, sorry Graham, he's hurt in multiple ways and taking it out on what's happening with his family farm that he they effectively need the money and have this film team coming in to use their land to film and then and you're a young punk of a director because you're a city boy coming into his farmland, but I'm sure that a lot of who you are came into play, not the city boy punk type, but now you, how you treated graham I'm.

Matt Drago: 54:22

I'm just sure that I'm sure that comes into play with a lot of your acting with, especially with elders um, and, and people see this film different ways, but it is a talk piece, it's a, it's a, it's a bringing together piece, and I think that what Brandon Smith, who is the writer and director of Somewhere in Montana, did so eloquently is he made uniquely both of the lead characters, protagonists and antagonists of their own stories, and isn't that so true of life? Is that, in actuality, I'm not a punk. In actuality, he's not a punk. A punk in actuality, he's not a punk. In actuality, we are both. We are both two uniquely different people that are put in an impossible situation that we need to work our way out of.

Matt Drago: 55:13

When I built the character of fabian, I wanted to make sure that he, john alexander, was an alpha, because these are two alpha men, they both have legacies, and this story dives deep into what that means, like my legacy, as Fabian's film is leaving a couple good stories behind, right, as you can see, typecasting in many ways, right. And then Graham, his legacy is his ranch and being in Montana and understanding what I call these beautiful, simple legacies of having these ranches that surpass the test of time. They're extraordinary, and so what we need to do as a society is we need to honor each other's legacies, because when we start to honor each other's legacies, what do we do? We start to respect people, and what is respect? It's the highest form of love that you can give to another person, and that, in my mind, is a story that me, as Matt, has always wanted to tell, since I was a little kid, playing in Virginia.

Tonya J. Long: 56:23

I'm going to end right there because there is no other question I can ask. That would end better than the message of you telling the story of love for your entire life, and you will continue to. So, Matt Drago, keep telling your stories in between rounds of golf and selling beautiful homes, so people can create their own stories of love. Stop crying. I'm not crying, you're not crying you. Nobody else does this to me. Is this what actors do?

Matt Drago: 56:59

Yeah, we're emotional creatures. But, Tonya, thank you so much. This has been an incredible conversation. I knew it would be and just really grateful that now you are part of my journey as well. So thank you for having me on your show today. It means a lot.

Tonya J. Long: 57:16

I look forward to our next conversation, thank you 100% Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day Everyone. This has been Reset. Where purpose meets possibility. Good day. Thanks for joining us on RESET. Remember, transformation is a journey, not a destination. So until next time, keep exploring what's possible. I'm Tonya Long and this is home. This is RESET.