‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ director Emma Tammi talks about horror innovation
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Welcome to Most Innovative Companies. I'm your host, Yasmin Gagne, joined by my producer, Josh Christensen. Josh, what are you most afraid of? What is the thing that scares you? Wire fraud. I don't know. I would say, no, I would say the thing that most scares me that I have like the most bad dreams about of like a real thing is like the kind of like being underwater stuff. Really? Like, yeah. Yeah.

what is that called? There's like a certain name for that fear. Like the perfect storm movie. Have you ever seen that? Like that's terrifying to me being like lost at sea in stormy weather with the potential of like drowning. What are you afraid? What's your biggest fear?

So I would categorize there's like two different kinds of fear. There's fear that you actually might encounter and then there's fear that's like likely not going to. That's true. I'm never going to put myself in a situation where I'm going to be deep out at sea. Royal Caribbean's never getting my money. So I would say like if I see a cockroach, the way that I can't move, like it just, I like freeze. I like lose the ability to speak kind of thing. Like they just really get to me and I've had a lot of encounters with them in New York. Yeah. This may not be the place for you to

No, it's my everyday battle. My cross to bear, I guess. What's your irrational fear? The thing that you'll never encounter. My irrational fear is being buried alive. And I have literally said to people, so this is my husband. He was like, what are you talking about? I was like, literally, I could be so dead. Like my brain could be spilling out and you will put just a little alarm in my coffin. Yeah.

Just to make sure. Or walkie-talkie, yeah. That's a terrifying thought. I think it's very, are you claustrophobic or like in general? I'm a little claustrophobic. Yeah, I am too. Like that's just like that sort of confining thing. Yeah. Oh, thinking about it right now just gives me the heebie-jeebies. I know. And that's what fears are and what we're going to be talking about today, but with more puppetry.

Before we go on, are there any housekeeping updates? No big housekeeping updates. Just to remember to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast if you haven't already. Follow us on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. Later on today's episode, I'll be talking with Roya Chariot about her new cookbook, Mama and Me, and how she balanced having a big full-time job with pursuing a big lifelong passion project.

But first, it's Halloween season, and what better to celebrate than to chat with someone who's actually been steeped in this world? I'd like to welcome producer and director Emma Tommy to the show. Her latest movie, Five Nights at Freddy's, is coming out on Friday. Emma, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. And this is coming out on Halloween week. Your movie is out on Friday. So we're excited to have you on right when it's all happening. How are you feeling? I'm excited.

I'm so excited. I love Halloween week, but also, yeah, as you mentioned, Five Nights at Freddy's is coming out on October 27th. So it's an extra exciting one this year for sure. But I'm nervous too. It's a big reveal for a story in a film that a large fan base has been waiting for for quite some time. So I'm really, really hoping that they love it. How do you read your reviews or do you even read them? You know, I do.

I do read for reviews most of the time. I don't know, like hiding under a blanket pretty much hold up literally. And this is the scariest part of the movie process is the reviews. Exactly. A friend of mine who wrote a book that was actually well-reviewed has a trick where she was like, if I read a bad Amazon review of my book, I go and look at what else they've reviewed and it'll be like a spoon. Yeah. You know what I mean? Oh my gosh. That's amazing.

You know, here's the thing. I think that reviews are interesting. I read them for other films and plays and whatnot. But as a filmmaker, I don't think I'm alone here. You are often your own biggest critic. So the voice inside your head is even worse than what the critics say.

are saying, but it's always nice when things land with them too, or they frame it in a certain way or glean an insight that you don't expect many people to pick up on or whatever it is. So it can be interesting, but you definitely got to like put on your thick skin for those moments as well, as much as possible. And it's hard with a creative work not to take something personally. You know what I mean? Like it's hard to be like, they're criticizing my work, not me, if that makes sense.

Well, it is so personal, right? It's true. The thing that you've just poured your life into and your heart, soul, blood, and tears for sometimes years, it becomes very personal. Yeah. We do get some reviews for this podcast sometimes. They're not nearly on the scale of a movie review or what you're doing, Emma, but we did have one. What did it say, Yaz? It called us self-assured cool people.

Yeah, that was real. In the Apple podcast review. Mostly they've been positive on Apple podcast, but that was our negative review. Tell me about how you ended up directing Five Nights at Freddy's.

Yeah, I am. Coming out of college, I was really interested in documentary films. That was my main focus. And even during college, I got involved with a project that was based in South Africa and ended up doing a lot of work internationally in the documentary space in my 20s, which was amazing because, you know, documentaries are often small crews, really, really lean budgets. You get to do a little bit of everything. In my case, I was like producing and editing, but then I'd like

pick up a camera because we needed a camera. You know, it was just, there was a little bit of an opportunity to do, put on all the hats. And also the biggest thing for me was like getting to see the world and interact with just a multitude of interesting people's stories. And I mean, you know, from a journalist background, that's incredibly rich. So that was super exciting. And then my folks are actors and I grew up around the theater business.

community and that was really a fabric of my being. And I think at the end of the day, even though it was the thing I was shying away from in my twenties, like, I don't want to work with actors. Like actors are like my family and it's, you know, crazy family and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And then went out and did documentary work only to come back and be like, I want to work with

actors more than anything in the world. So full circle, I started doing some narrative projects. And my first feature was called The Wind. It was a supernatural horror thriller, psychological thriller, and kind of checked this horror box, unbeknownst to me, because I was really convinced we were making a Western.

Which we were, but the horror of it all was like this thing that unfolded for me personally, just like being in the genre space as a filmmaker was really quite a cool discovery and I fell in love with it. And here we are, Five Nights at Freddy's a million years later.

I remember when, you know, on the panel with Jason, he described the fact that he'd been trying to make this movie for years and had tried to pair the creator of Five Nights at Freddy's with different writers and directors. And finally you came along and it made sense. And I'm curious, I guess how you, were you excited about the project, how you first heard of it, and then what that relationship was like? Yeah, I mean, I was really excited about it as soon as Jason mentioned it for the first time. I started playing the game and I started thinking

to peer behind the curtain that is Five Nights at Freddy's and thought it was such a rich world visually, but also just so out there in terms of the story and lore that I was just really like drawn to it on a level that was unexpected. Like, again, kind of another discovery where like this horror film was brought to my attention, but then disbanded.

digging deeper, it was this big genre blend that I was so excited to dive into. I mean, we used animatronic puppets built by the Jim Henson Company. We were referencing like Steven Spielberg, Child Wonderment. You know, there were all these other things in addition to the horror elements that I thought were so dynamic and honestly, like very nostalgic and

And really exciting to bring to the big screen. So, you know, as you say, I was one of a long list and it ended up clicking with me and Scott and the

the partnership moving forward and doing a rewrite of the script with Seth Kadebek. And it was exciting that we got our shot and that it ended up working out. How much did you take into account feedback from fans? Because video game fans are notoriously invested in projects, shall we say. Especially for this franchise. I mean, this is a cult following for this game.

Absolutely. This is their project. We are lucky to be at the table, but we are living in their world because that is successful.

such an expansive world. I don't think I could have made this movie and had enough focus to do what we needed to do if I had gotten too distracted by all that. And what was amazing is that we were working with Scott Cawthon, who's the creator of the game and also a producer and co-writer of the movie. He was like our ultimate filter. I think not only of what elements in the lore definitely needed to be included, but

But also, he knows the audience. He knows the fan base so, so well that he was really able to be the ultimate barometer for if something would resonate with them or if it wouldn't land. So I leaned on him and kind of put blinders on.

to the internet to a degree just so we could, you know, do what we needed to do, which was massive and always in a shorter amount of time than you hope to do it. You know, you referenced Steven Spielberg working with puppets, but I can't imagine there's that many people who understand how to direct animatronic puppets.

You know what I mean? Like, it seems like a whole process that not that many people work with. What was it like to work with Jim Henson's studio? It was incredible. I mean, I did not know how to work with animatronic puppets before this project. They look so cool. They look so cool. Thank you. And creepy. I agree. For what it's worth, very creepy. Yeah. Awesome.

And not a lot of movies would guy and this is obviously like a distinctly Blumhouse thing of like not doing the CGI being practical effects. It really feels like true to Blumhouse true to the horror genre and just kind of just really cool to have animatronic puppets. It's just really cool. It's incredible. We you know, I think when we partnered with Jim Henson's company, I was like, okay, yeah, this is on a whole other level. You

You know what I mean? It just felt like we were bringing an element to the project that was gonna, I hate the word elevate, especially in the horror space because it's so overused. But I mean, really like just like bring it to a whole other signature level. And that's because everything that Jim Henson's Creature Shop makes is so signature and so unforgettable. But

they were doing something new as well. Like we were working off of the original designs that Scott had shared with us from the first game and the task of bringing those into life practically and like keeping them authentic and authentic

accurate for the fan base, but also figuring out all these elements that had never been brought to life before, like the textures and, you know, the exact color palettes and all of that, you know, it wasn't an automatic translation. Like we needed to do a lot of trial and error and figuring it out, let alone like moving them and the mechanics of actually making these very large animatronic puppets come to life.

And we had many different versions of them, like based on what puppeteering techniques we wanted to utilize and what kind of movement we wanted to achieve and, you know, whatever scene we were doing. And it was like this massive big group effort to figure out how to not only construct them and the design and build phase was a huge undertaking, but then all the rehearsal periods to actually get them up and running. That sounds like so much work. Yeah.

But so fun. So, so fun. What are you actually scared of? I'm curious what Halloween movies are actually terrifying to you. Oh, man. You know, I scare pretty easily when watching other people's movies. Yeah.

So I would say like, God, there's so many. I mean, I even think about like the original, like back in the day, Disney cartoon of Sleepy Hollow and like hearing those little like clompety clompety clonk of like the horse hooves over the bridge and like that.

That still gets to me just even thinking back to it. I mean, all of the Halloween movies, both the original and the remakes, those are super fun to put on during Halloween. I know Jason mentioned that when we were all together on that panel. It's such a good time of year just to be inspired to put on a scary movie every night, which I love. I was just...

popped on Netflix last night and saw that they've got like all Jordan Peele's movies featured this month and so I'm excited to start doing a rewatch I've been rewatching all the screams at Josh's question I do that every single year I rewatch speaking of which one of your main characters Matthew Lillard in this as Stu Mocker in the original scream honestly one of the best horror villain performances that I've ever seen he's such a good actor absolutely

he's kind of, I love Matthew Lillard. I am the number one Matthew Lillard, uh, Stan. Oh man. I wish he was here with us right now. I know he would love to be the, the strikes are holding all our actors, uh, back. You had to do interviews because of the strikes. Oh yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm so sick of my own voice and I'm sure everyone else is too, but yeah, I'm, I'm out here. But,

But it's so fun to talk about them. I do love being out here talking about the film, which I'm so excited about and proud of. But mostly talking about the cast and the animatronics and Jim Henson's work. But Matthew Lillard and Josh Hutcherson and Elizabeth Lael and Mary Stewart Masterson. A great new up-and-comer, Piper Rubio, our 10-year-old Abby.

You know, it's just a phenomenal cast, and they're all so passionate about this project. So I wish at some point they'll be able to get out there, but not quite yet. You know, your movie is rated PG-13, which is, I think plenty of scary movies can have lower ratings, but it feels like a challenge to me, right? How did you work to make it scary but also kind of age-appropriate? Yeah, I think, you know, we were just trying to make sure that the gore was...

not tipping into a place that was gonna hit an R rating. And we were just very specific in terms of like initial discussions with the MPA about what would trigger that rating. So I think the overall answer to your question though, Yaz, is like leaning into the creepy aspects that then lead to the jump scares

or sometimes the more violent elements and not showing them graphically. But the challenge there is still making it feel very scary and still making it feel visceral so that you're satisfied and you don't feel like the camera is just like made a sharp left every time something happens. You know, that feels always like a, you know, not satisfying thing as an audience. So I think we really tried to find creative ways to show graphic elements, but, you know, in a PG-13 friendly way.

You were on the panel, which we featured on the podcast as well with Jason Blum. And I'm curious, what's it like to work with Blumhouse? Do they give you full creative control? Like, what does the process look like?

They really do. I mean, of course they give incredible feedback as well. By incredible, do you mean a lot of feedback? That's how I would describe my editor. No, I mean good feedback. And it's always with the caveat of like, if this lands with you as the filmmaker, and that's really so much freedom in the end. And certainly with this one, I think having the partnership of Blumhouse with FNAF is like...

a marriage made in heaven, if you will, like just the godfather of horror films right now, taking on this huge franchise is like, is a real power combo. But I think Blumhouse really smartly also realized like,

FNAF is not like anything we've ever done. Case in point, working with the animatronic puppet, Jim Henson. I mean, you know, I shouldn't say that because Megan has an animatronic element as well, of course. But, you know, the whole Jim Henson thing was new to them completely. And...

I think they were like, we're going to let this be its unique thing. And again, really like looking to Scott and myself to help bring that to life. But knowing that it was a little out of the box for them too. It's its own brand as well as now being under the umbrella of the Blumhouse brand.

How do you feel about FNAF being released on streaming platforms rather than having a theatrical release? Did that affect maybe the way you made the movie or, you know, just like, do you think people consume it differently? You know, we made this movie for the big screen. So we really had the theatrical release in mind. And every visual choice I made was with that ultimate intention of how people would watch this.

So I really hope as many people as possible get out to the theaters and watch it together because it's like, I think, a very different experience. Yeah, it's like a horror movie experience. Yeah, watching this movie communally. And in addition to that always being such a strong thing for horror films, because of the fan base on this one, it's like...

a whole other component too of watching it communally, I think, because whether you know the game or not, there will be people in the audience who do and there's just a different energy they're going to bring to the theater. And it is so special. I've only gotten like a glimpse of it and I can't wait to just like sit in the back of a bunch of theaters this weekend and watch people watch the movie. But like,

It's like nothing I've ever seen. And it's such an insanely positive energy and excitement that is really contagious. Like I am super excited for people to see it with the fans. As far as the streaming goes, like we had this opportunity to come out Halloween weekend, which is like the best time for a horror movie to come out. If we did the streaming partnership, so that felt like a huge opportunity. And I'm so excited that we had that.

But I hope for the fans who might want to watch this multiple times that that streaming platform will be a cool vehicle for them to do that. But I do hope that as many people as possible can get out to the theaters because I think it's going to be a good time. There's nothing better than sitting in a theater when a really good jump scare lands and the whole audience jumps. It's such a good experience. I think like last time I saw like a,

Oh my God, with the pandemic, I haven't seen horror movies in theaters that often except for... I think one of the last ones I saw was the first It. Well, I saw the second It, but that wasn't quite as strong as the first It. And there's a really great jump scare in that and a full theater...

jumping as the cloud jumps out at you. It's just such a great experience. It's amazing. So before we move on to keeping tabs, I got to ask you for some horror recommendations for our listeners this weekend. We're all going to watch Five Nights at Freddy's. What else should we watch? I actually haven't seen this movie yet, but I've really been wanting to watch No One Will Save You, which is on Hulu right now. And I've been hearing amazing things. So that's top of my list, I think, for this week.

I, uh, I've really enjoyed the fall. Adding that to my queue. I've really enjoyed the fall of the house of Usher on Netflix. Yes. I just watched the first episode. Yeah. Great. The biggest Mike Flanagan fan. Me too. Oh yeah. He came to visit our set actually in new Orleans when we were shooting five nights at Freddy's, his son is a huge fan and, um, it was such an honor to have them come visit the set.

I follow him on Instagram and he seems so nice. And I'm always like, you make the creepiest. So creative. But basically watching any of his shows right now or movies is like primo week to do that. We're going to take a quick break followed by my interview with Glossier's head of social impact and partnerships and cookbook author, Roya Sharia. Oh,

To start off, congratulations. I have your book with me. How was making the soup? Did you make soup? I did. I would say it was semi-successful, not because the recipe was bad, but because I tried to like take a shortcut when it came to cooking the lentils. And I'm like not even a good cook. It's not like I know what I'm doing and I took a shortcut. I was like, we can do this. Like...

So that's definitely on me. It is not on your recipe. But the reason I wanted to talk to you, Roya, is A, I want to hear about the process of making the cookbook. But B, I want to hear about the process of making the cookbook while having a big job, like a day job.

Probably a lot of our listeners, certainly, you know, everyone in journalism feels like they have a book in them, but you actually did it. I'd love to hear, well, actually, tell us what you do at Glossier. Thanks for having me on. I am the Director of Social Impact and Communications at Glossier, and I've been working there for about the past five years now. And as you said, it is a big job. I feel like I manage a lot of different things. And at a larger company, this would probably be three people's job. So,

It's a busy job. It's an intense job. I love it. And I was crazy enough to think that I could write a book on the side and somehow managed to finesse it. How long had you been thinking about making a cookbook? 20 years, probably. 20 years. So since I was basically in middle school or, you know, since I was about 10 years old, I wanted to write a book and then cookbook probably teenage years. So let's say half my life, 15 years spent pining over this idea and

And then five years in earnest, starting to write down recipes, taking voice notes of my mom or videos of her cooking. And then over the past three years, working on a book proposal, getting the book deal and actually bringing it to life.

far were you into the process of sort of research and information gathering when you were like, you know what, I think I have to tell the people I work with? I am such a, I don't know what the word is. It's not a nervous Nelly or maybe a goody two shoes. I think I'm someone who wears their emotions pretty on their sleeve and I'm pretty open with what I care about. And so in every job interview I've had, I somehow bring up my parents and my love of Beyonce. Like those are the two things people generally know about me from the get go.

The way I got my job is another separate wild story. How did you get your job? Tell us. All right. One morning I was working at Chobani, the yogurt company, and I was working with the founder and CEO of the brand on his philanthropic work around the refugee crisis. And one morning I was putting on glossy cloud paints

thinking, looking at the packaging, thinking I'd love to work there. And I took a look at the jobs page. There was nothing for me. I was looking at either communications or social impact, social responsibility. There was nothing for me. Put that dream aside, got on the subway, got to work.

Few hours later, I pop out of Chobani's offices on Lafayette Street in Soho, and Emily Weiss, the founder and CEO of Glossier, is standing right there. And I tell myself, I have to go talk to her. I walk up to Emily and I say, Hi, Emily, I'm a huge fan of the brand. And I tell her I'm wearing boy bra, I'm wearing cloud paint, I'm wearing haloscope, but I'm also a really conscious consumer. And I'm curious, what are you doing to give back as a brand?

And she raised her eyebrows at me and she said, honestly, we're not doing much. And I really wish we were doing more. And something came over me in that moment. And I said, if you want to do more, you should hire me. She raised her eyebrows again. She asked me a bunch of questions on the street. And I asked for a selfie at the end of our conversation thinking, you know, if nothing else, I'll remember the moment that I had the guts to ask this woman for a job and pitch myself.

And she gave me her email. That day, I sent Emily a note with five ideas for what the company should do, saying I'd be honored to contribute in some way. Thank you for taking time out in our selfie. And I thought, you know, best case scenario, maybe she's going to ask for my feedback on something. She'll share an idea. And that's that.

I don't hear from her for a few days. I'm calling my mom, my aunties. I'm like, put out the good vibes, put out the evil eyes, give me all the good juju and energy to manifest something. And a week later, Emily gets back to me saying, I'm so sorry for the delay. Please meet me and my chief of staff next week.

week. And I think, oh my God, I guess this is a job interview. I show up to that interview with a five slide presentation printed out in Glossier font branded in a pink pouch in a Glossier shopping bag. I arrived to the offices and the receptionist thinks I'm a fangirl who's just happy to find the office. And I'm like, no, I actually have a meeting with the CEO.

And I sit down with Emily and her chief of staff at that time, and I have the most intense job interview of my life. She's immediately going through the deck, asking me a million questions. And the five slides are, this is who I am. This is why this work is important. This is why now is the right moment to invest in it. Here's the business case for CSR and impact. Here are the stats that show why it breeds customer loyalty, team loyalty, etc.,

And then this is how we'll do it and make it reflect your company's five values. She reads through that deck, asks me so many questions. And that interview leads to a few more interviews, leads to the creation of a job for me. Fast forward five years, I'm still here. And I have an awesome portfolio of work that I can say I've worked with others in building from scratch and building from the ground up. So that is the detour of how I got my job. And when you were in that interview with your slides, were you just like, also, look, I really want to write a cookbook.

Well, here's the first slide that was about me. It was like raised in the DC area, currently is reading a book a week by authors of color. I probably had a bullet that was like, you know, dream project would be a cookbook with their mom. Like I'm so upfront about it. Yeah, yeah.

People always knew I was passionate about it. I started a TikTok account in 2020 of my mom's cooking. That was a catalyst for me to take this book project more seriously. The fact that I actually did have an audience and people were enthused and interested and excited about this food gave me the courage and confidence I needed to pursue it really seriously.

So tell me about setting up this TikTok. Were you like, I want to grow this into a real thing? Were you like, this is like a small experiment? Were you just at home because of the pandemic? I had gone home for Iranian New Year, which typically falls mid-March. Yeah, Nowruz. You know the vibes. I know. I'm born on Nowruz, so it's always like a thing. March 20th or 21st? 20th.

I'm just going to say that. You are all good things. Everything you achieve will happen. I'm going to give you that blessing. That is a great day to be born. And that is also the day the world kind of ended in 2020. I know. I had COVID. What did you do for that birthday? I had lost my sense of taste and smell. So we just like ate beans. Yeah.

indoors. Honestly, absolutely terrible birthday. But you'd gone home for no ruse. And then I guess you just stayed, right? Exactly. I had no idea that going home one weekend would turn into about two months there. And I started the TikTok because I was watching my mom cook dinner. And in the end of the evenings, she'd always fit our leftovers in the perfect size Tupperware container. And it just... That's like a classic brown parent move.

Exactly. And I was like, how does she do this mental calculus and how does she nail it every time? So I started taking videos and it was a joke. I had no followers. I didn't tell anybody I was doing this. I would like sometimes upload like a friends only video of me doing Doja Cat say something down. I was...

Just trying to find time to entertain myself and then also trying to preserve this special time with my parents that I knew I was never going to get back. And I wanted to remember it. Were you like strategically using hashtags or glomming onto trends or not even? Nothing was strategic. And then by the seventh or tenth video, which was the videos were not great initially. They're still up.

By one of those videos where she's putting chicken stew, a very basic chicken stew that I love and is in the cookbook, that one started growing and growing. And it was like, oh, wow, I have 10,000 views. Oh, my gosh, I have a million views. And now I have hundreds of followers, hundreds jumps to thousands, jumps to 10,000. And within about a month's time, it became about 5%.

Yeah.

So you were saying during that time, the following that you gained on TikTok basically gave you the confidence to be like, I think this could be a real thing. What was your next step after that? The next step after that was let me start an Instagram. And the name Momon and Me came to me in a dream probably seven years ago. And I knew that was the name of the book. And so I got that handle on Instagram and started with mood boarding content. So things just inspirational images, books.

Curating the vibe. And then I started posting the food on there. And then slowly but surely that audience started growing and we're now, I think, 123,000 strong. And that recent growth was all the past like several months. It really skyrocketed from about three to four thousand people to over 100,000.

The Instagram also helped. Talking to people, talking to the followers and saying, I want these recipes. And I was like, do you actually want these recipes? Should I read this book I'm dreaming of? So I was starting those two social media pages and keeping them up. And then I took a cookbook

proposal writing class on Zoom with Julia Tertian, famous cookbook author. Oh yeah, she's a big deal. How did you find the class? She still does them Zoom classes and it's everything from how to roast the chicken to this one about a cookbook proposal. And I thought, you know what? This seems worthwhile. Let me put down some money and do it.

And I sat in that class. I took copious notes. I said, this is my idea. This is the name of the book. I was speaking it into existence. And that class gave me the blueprint to how to write a cookbook proposal. And she literally gives you one of her successful cookbook proposals to work out of.

I had that and just a few weeks prior also happened to get my mom a photo shoot for her birthday. That's cool. Yeah, you know, she's a star in the kitchen. And I also thought I need to capture this and immortalize it. But then also I'll be able to use these in the book proposal. And so I had these really gorgeous professional images that felt like they were in a cookbook in my book proposal.

So from that class, it took me about three months to write the proposal and then submit it the end of 2021. Tell me about dividing your time between your full-time job and taking the class, writing the proposal. How did you manage that? It's something I continue to struggle with. And I'd say I'm not the best at dividing my time, but it's using my nights and weekends for that passion project. And

And being a little ruthless sometimes of I'm not going to socialize this month because I've got to work on this book proposal or I'm not going to participate in XYZ. Like I'm just not going to be the most social person. And that's the trade-off I make. I end up giving a lot to my job because I love my job and I care about it. It's such a heartwarming and heart-fulfilling job that I end up giving a lot to it too. So not the best at dividing my time. It's just...

sometimes not sleeping and sometimes working seven days a week. I feel like that's a limiting factor for most people when they want to pursue their passion projects. And I am sad to hear that you don't have a hack to solve it. Yeah, I'm not like, it's actually really easy. It's something called work-life balance. I'm like, I know it sounds like I don't have a life.

Did you ever have a moment once your proposal was accepted when you had to talk to the powers that be in Glossier? Was there ever any concern from them? Did you ever think about changing your schedule or what were those conversations like? Writing the book was one thing, but then photographing and shooting a cookbook is a whole nother process. And how I ended up scheduling that was I took every Friday in July 22 off and

And every Friday and Saturday became shoot days. And so we had a one day weekend and that was Sunday. And every day for eight days, we shot 10 recipes a day, which meant cooking all throughout the week, sometimes to prep. Some things needed to be cooked on the spot because let's say an omelet is not going to look good if it was made on Tuesday and it's shot on Friday, but

plating, styling, arranging, thinking about how to change the backdrop and plates for every single photo so nothing feels redundant or repetitive. And

And I'm a small creator. This is my first cookbook. There was no prop stylist. There was no food stylist. It was myself, my mom, and a photographer, Farah, who is amazing. It was a lot of work. Using my PTO was my hack to doing it while not completely losing a weekend or just at least giving myself one day to rest.

Yeah. You obviously had to pay for a class. It costs money to get these shoots done. Tell me about how this process looked financially for you. Like how much did you have to outlay before you had a book deal? And then what did the book deal cover for you? It's interesting because there's the financial costs in terms of dollars, and then there's the labor costs in terms of your time and energy. And I think about all of the time I've spent figuring out how to edit TikToks and post them

finding time to be consistent about posting them. And I'd say if I didn't have a full-time job, I think I'd be a lot further along because creators who post once a day or twice a day see exponential growth. When on a good week, I'm posting once a week. So there are some sacrifices and some losses I accrue, but I also, I need an income. I need a livelihood and I love my job. So those are the trade-offs.

I had already put out money for the class, which wasn't horribly expensive. I want to say it was like $250 for a three-hour class and all these resources. Not bad at all. The photo shoot was a cost I accrued all of the time spending making content and then all of the time writing the proposal.

Yeah. Interesting thing about cookbooks is the author is responsible in covering photography.

So you pay for that cost, but then they also give you a book advance and that is meant to cover a good portion of those costs. So at least for photography that was paid for, but thinking of buying all of the groceries and everything. Yeah.

That's expensive. It was expensive. I just had to keep telling myself, this is an investment in my future. This will be worth it. This will pay off. And to your earlier question of powers that be and asking them, they knew I was working on it. And I told them, look, I'm going to, I'm asking to take Fridays off to work on the cookbook. And everyone was incredibly supportive. And they were like, yeah, do it. This is your passion project. This is your life. I'm proud of you for doing it. And sometimes there's an element of

asking for what you want rather than being weird and shady about something. I never wanted to be like, oh, like you see me working my job and then you see me posting a TikTok that has like 35 million views. You're like, is she doing this on work time? Like you should just know that this is my side project. I'm mostly spending my nights and weekends on it. And I'm just grateful for any and all the support you're giving me. And even now I'm out of office this week. It's got like a book emoji and I'm like, I'm launching my first

book and I link out to the book and I say, I'm so grateful to Glossier for supporting me in this endeavor, which I know is not the case in every job, every industry. But I feel like being upfront about your passions from the get go and not having that come as a surprise to your colleagues is also a way of building trust and credibility. And I think it's worked out for me. The other thing

with having sort of a day job is you obviously have promotions or people giving you feedback or encouraging you. And it seems like with a side project, it's very solitary a lot of the time. Tell me about what it was like for you to sort of deal with all that mentally. It's definitely a challenge. I think that with a job, as you said, there are ways of getting rewarded all the time. You have a manager who's cheering you on and praising you. Ideally, you have a supportive boss, which I'm so grateful to have at Glossier.

who's cheering you on, who's supporting you, who's rewarding you, giving you promotions, et cetera. You do the assignment and you get thanked for it or something comes out of it. I can write this cookbook and work on this side hustle all I want, but there's no one encouraging me along. I mean, thankfully I have a publisher who's like, where's the manuscript? And that's accountability. But even then it's like, it's a business transaction. I am giving you my IP to bound and sell in a book.

How do you stay motivated when there's no carrot or the carrot is so different than all of the carrots you've been used to in school and in university and in work and life? And I think that's sometimes the hard thing with finding that balance or being able to manage both is sometimes

Not letting that really clear motivation you get from your job, not letting the lack of that, not let you pursue that dream and that side hustle and that project, which has definitely got me down. No one's given me anything for writing this cookbook per se, but I know I need to do it because it is my passion project.

And thankfully, I have a publisher and a book deal. So I am getting a little something. I am getting something. It's out tomorrow. Like you will hopefully get rewarded in like, you know, sales. But it's like that reward is such a long game when you're spending about two years working on it, shooting it, writing it. And it's like, you know, we'll see the light of day or when will this see the light of day? So that delayed gratification can get in the way and make it a little bit hard. But you can't let that knock your hustle from going on.

When you were writing this book proposal and selling yourself, say like, I've never published a book before. I'm not a known cookbook author. How did you get past that and sell yourself? Well, to the listeners out there, I'll tell you something. I struggle with this all the time. And I struggle with this even now with my book coming out the day after we record this podcast.

I'm like, no one's going to show up to the launch. No one is going to buy this book. That's not true. It's not true. But I think those fears don't necessarily go away. Even with my social following, the way the TikTok algorithm works, everything is a crapshoot. I'm posting and I'm like, either a million people will see this in two seconds or two of my friends will see this and engage with it. So no, that feeling doesn't go away, which is either heartening or scary. But also something Julia said, Julie Tershen said in that cookbook class was,

people are always worried, is my idea original or should I do it or should I not? And yet if someone's making a song, nobody says there are too many songs in the world. There's no place for your song. And so she said, think of your cookbook as your song and everybody has a song to sing and your song is worth hearing. And I go back to that quote all the time. And I'm like, this is my song. This is what I'm here to sing. And this is what I'm here to create. And yes, there may be cookbooks like it, or yes, there may be cookbooks that are very different.

but no one's light makes mine any dimmer and vice versa. A win for me is a win for my community and is a win for people who want to cook this kind of food. So just remember that there's so many songs to be sung and to be heard and so many books to write. And that encourages me and makes me want to keep going.

Something that I think a lot of people who don't know writers or haven't written don't fully understand is like, there's an idea that once you publish a book, you can absolutely give up your day job. And I know from working at a magazine that is definitely not true. I have plenty of colleagues who publish books. Yeah. Tell me about that. Your book is coming out. Are you actually making significant money from this? What does that look like?

I love this question because I think about a relative, which I think you'll understand, brown families, brown uncles, who's like, how much money do you think you're going to make off this? And I'm like, I'm not doing this for money. Yeah, 100%. I would be in investment banking if money was my objective in life. I would definitely not be a writer, which is an unfortunate state of affairs. And we should all be compensated more and should be able to pursue this as a livelihood and not just a side hustle. So right now it is not

like a, it's not a financial anything for me. My job is my means of income and my means of supporting my life. I think that may change at some point, but I don't think this book is going to change that. I also think with the nature of royalties, I get a tiny piece of the pie and cookbooks are quite expensive to produce. My publisher is printing these massive, glossy, you have the book in your hands. It's heavy.

It's heavy. So for now, it's a side hustle. I would love and I want and I hope that writing eventually becomes a full-time thing for me, whether it is food writing, whether it is young adults, which is a genre I want to explore, like short stories and essays. I have so many more songs to sing and so many more books to write, but it is a little jarring and a

fearful thing for me that I could want to do all of these things, but these things could maybe never be a source of a real livelihood for me. Well, I appreciate you keeping it real. Remind us again, title of your book, when it comes out, where we can buy it. Title of my book is Momin and Me, Recipes from Our Iranian American Family. You can buy it where all major books are sold and minor books

too, I guess. Indie bookstores, big bookstores, you got it. It comes out in the US and Canada tomorrow, October 24th. And it comes out in the UK and Europe, November 24th or 23rd. So it will be a global release. It's a global release. That's a big deal. It is a big deal. And I'm really excited. And I think that the Iranian community and the diaspora community more broadly has been really supportive of this work. So I'm just grateful that people everywhere get to read it and

see it and cook from it. But yeah, that's my book and that's my side hustle. Well, thank you so much for taking the time out of your book tour schedule and out of your fake job and your real job. They're all legitimate jobs. I just happen to have too many of them. Yeah, but this was great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yes. I'm so grateful for you having me on.

Okay, we're back with Emma Tommy and it's time to wrap up the show with Keeping Tabs. This is where one of us shares a story, trend, or company we are following right now. And Emma, since you're our guest, what are you keeping tabs on? Well, I got to stay on brand for FNAF for a second. But one of our designers at the Jim Henson's Creature Shop, Robert Bennett,

sent me a while ago a link to this guy on Instagram. His handle is EndertrapCo. And he's been making these Lego stop motion animation recreations of all of our trailers. Oh, that's so cool. I don't know how he also like...

It's amazing, you guys. The craftsmanship and the speed at which he does this is also insane because I feel like these videos come out 24 hours after we dropped our trailers. But he's incredible. And on that same tip on Instagram, I had also been...

recently obsessed with this woman, Alia, A-L-E-I-A. But she creates these little miniature sets and puts snails in them and creates these little videos and pictures that are works of art. And I guess what I'm getting at with both of these things is amazing craftsmanship that's being displayed on Instagram right now is kind of my obsession. In these two cases, they also happen to be miniature, which is...

Another obsession I have. Who doesn't love miniatures? This is so cool. This is the little... It's incredible. And they did this in like a day after you released the trailer? It came out so quickly, yeah. That's absurd. I mean this in the nicest possible way. Like so much respect, so cool. Who has that time? Can you imagine dropping everything to make that thing? I know. The attention to detail is so incredible. Oh my God.

Josh, what are you keeping tabs on? So switching gears away from horror to call back to one of our favorite interviews from earlier in the series with Jens Greed. Skims officially launched their menswear line today with a really cool campaign with some...

like huge name professional athletes, like headlined by soccer international star Neymar. And then they have Nick Bosa from the NFL and Shea Gilgis Alexander from the NBA. Neymar was the only one I knew there, but they all look great in underwear. There you go. They all look great in underwear. That's very true. This company is just really killing it. Like we've talked about, Skims is becoming now synonymous with shapewear the way Spanx used to be.

Yeah, it's like saying Kleenex for tissue. Yeah, it's incredible. And I'm probably going to buy some of their products. I was just going to say, what's the first thing that's in your cart? And we're going to have you model for our Fast Company Instagram feed. We will not be doing that. I love a tank. The tanks look really comfortable. Who doesn't love a tank? Yes, what's your keeping tabs?

Oh my God, what am I keeping tabs on? I'm literally going through my tabs right now to try and figure this out. But I think I'll stick with this, which is New York Magazine's latest issue. And I say this not because I've written for New York before, but just because I love it. Outlines like a new list of under the radar, most powerful New Yorkers. So it's the most powerful New Yorkers you've never heard of. Oh, I was skimming through this. They found like the guy who gives pickleball permissions in parks to like build new courts and

You know, they found the person who actually does real work in the Eric Adams administration. You know, they found like the two people who go to every comedy show and figure out who gets comedy specials on different networks.

So it's just like, it's such great reporting. I think something that we miss as our industry is contracting is a real shoe leather reporting, like calling up people and saying like, who's the person making these decisions? Who's the person behind this? And this is such a great example of what you can get when you put in the work. Check out the latest issue. That's awesome. Emma, thank you so much for coming on the show. And remind us, Five Nights at Friday comes out when and where can we see it?

Five Nights at Friday's comes out this Friday, October 27th. And you can see it at theaters everywhere.

check out your local listings and we should be there. Do you have a favorite theater in Manhattan? I really like the theater in Brooklyn Nighthawk Cinemas. That's one of my favorites in New York. I just bought tickets for my parents to go to the AMC at Lincoln Square because that's the closest to them. So that's a good one too. Shout out to Upper West Side. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you guys. This was awesome. Thank you.

Our show is produced by Avery Miles and Blake Odom, mix and sound design by Nicholas Torres, and our executive producer is Josh Christensen. Remember again to subscribe, rate, and review, and we'll see you next week.