Entertainment

Amanda Goodman is a filmmaker, actress, and sex educator with over a decade of credits to her name in the industry with her work being seen on MTV, Comedy Central, Victoria’s Secret, and American Express. She has also filmed and produced horror films as well. She is also the founder of Tee Bitch International which is a design brand and TBI is also created by ThreeWay Product as well as founded by her and Seth Panman. Seth Panman is a producer and actor with his most recent film produced being Night Sweats which also starred John Wesley Shipp. Night Sweats made it’s New York Premiere last month and he has more projects coming in 2020. These two are a team and I recently got the chance to speak with the both of them in this exclusive interview!

Tell me about your upcoming show Threeway.

Seth: “The show is built around the product line. So we’ve reverse engineer the products to be into the marketplace before the show. And currently we have our wellness line and also a clothing and apparel line that is in the marketplace and three others to be delivered in by 2020. The show’s is awesome. It’s no were you know, obviously in development with it. And, it is definitely a underdog story. Classic New York underdog story.”

Amanda: “It’s been incredible to kind of take these characters and bring them to life in a way that they’re just stories basically in one that haven’t really been told before, which is the world of, you know, sex education and what that is. I mean, there was the recent show Sex Education on Netflix, which I love.I loved it so much because, a lot of the stuff that I teach and I believe in it, I also have that like 80s John Hughes kind of feel to it was so real and raw. I feel like besides that show, nobody’s really talking about sex ed in that way. And so obviously, this is sex education in an adult way and a very different kind of element like, you know, high school teacher. But she’s teaching concepts and she invents sex toys. And so it’s a nice kind of. It’s an interesting, weird little story that hasn’t been told. And then for his character and his world, kind of in the world of Wall Street, lending is also a side of Wall Street that really hasn’t been told. You know, we’ve seen Wall Street and the Wolf of Wall Street. You’ve seen like the lives of like brokers. But this is a totally different story. And then how their characters intertwine and how that storyline kind of goes away and they realize how much they have in common while they’re also involved in this. I can’t. Again, we can’t say too much, but something happens in the pilot to them that is insane. 

Seth: “I would say kind of on the tip of Wall Street that it’s really about the people in power and kind of how they’re pushing down or belittling. They belittle and push on him and kind of how they don’t expect anything to happen or they feel like they’re above it.They’re superheroes in the sense that they’re using their mind. And it’s not a physical strength. It’s a mental strength. But they’re up against people that clean or self-proclaimed or are, you know, by society’s standards, very powerful and very in positions of authority. And they take down those pillars in very interesting ways, you know. So I think that’s kind of the common thread throughout the stories that what you think is going on, you know, what you think or expect of Wall Street or expect of sex education or expect of New York City is not what’s going to happen.”

Do you feel that many studios are afraid to explore the theme of sex? If they are, why do you believe so?

Amanda: “Well, I think the interesting thing is I think its American film and TV that’s so scared. I mean, one of the biggest things that come out of the box office in recent years, as far as a franchise goes, it’s 50 Shades of Gray and there’s barely any sex in it, or they touch on something and then they go in a different direction. And it’s because American media is so afraid of being Criticized for what they like or exploring their bodies or, you know, it’s just it’s a stigma. It’s an absolute stigma. They’re just being freer with that, including content. I mean, you go to Europe and you look at some of the commercials that are on just regular TV. You know, any kid can watch it. And whenever I’m there, I’m like, “oh, I love this commercial. I wish I directed it.” And so, in America, I think it’s like when shows like that come on like Sex and City or Sex Education. And Netflix has changed that because now it’s a streaming service. People are afraid to just embrace their beast within them and it’s really all that it is. And it’s like, no, you can’t be like that. But I just feel like people need to just embrace what they are and not in a bad way. For example, last summer I was in Europe and I spent a couple weeks there and I felt very free with my body because there and you’re looked at by strangers and the body scene as beautiful. I didn’t wear a bra for pretty much my entire time there because iit was summer and it was hot. And I felt so comfortable in my body. I was not looked at in any sort of like inappropriate way. It was just like, “great, good for you. You’re enjoying your body”. And then it came back to New York and I wore the same outfit and I was being stared at and judged by men and women because I wasn’t wearing a bra. And I felt very uncomfortable. And I think that’s part of it. I think people are just not comfortable. Not just in themselves, but also of other people, you know, because at the end of the day, we’re all animals. It does not mean you have sex on the street. I think with content, it’s the same thing. People are afraid to just show stuff that’s just to portray nowhere in a way that is natural and real. You know, my character (Bailey) is not trying to save the world.She’s just she sees things in a different way. And she just wants to share that in a way that is just unique to her.”

Seth: There’s liabilities with sex. And I think even at one point when we were discussing product lines and what products we wanted to get involved with as far as the show and what was reverse engineered, we had brushed upon sex toys and we shied away from it. Just because there are these stigmas out there.And it just alienates other people or other companies from getting involvedI think obviously there’s a whole Subculture or sub issue about how the body is perceived or how people have freedom of sexual exploration.”

Amanda: “With a lot of these shows even on network television, it also portrays that idea of what beauty is and what perfection is or what you need to have. I mean, even on Sex in the City, it was groundbreaking at the time. And I like the show. I’m not saying anything against the show, But one thing about that show is that it also portrayed this idea that you had to value your life by being in a relationship or, this idea of them with marriage and the boyfriends and all that. And then they got together with their girlfriends to talk shit about them and about their sex lives. So I’m not necessarily as Samantha per say, but I think in Samantha’s way, Samantha was a boss. And yet sexually, she just took control and she said, “I don’t give a shit what you believe.” Whereas the rest of them, they had their good or bad days with guys. But again, it was that idea of I don’t believe it was like women supporting each other necessarily all the time. I think it was women against each other.I know for my character, one thing that she struggles with in the show when she kind of goes into this sex education world is feeling like she’s judged and feeling because she’s different than other women. And she believes in what she believes and how she feels about sex and her path and the things that she’s good at and the tech stuff. It‘s that kind of feeling and then relating that to Seth’s character, it’s the same thing. You also think differently. You see the world differently. And you’re made to feel like you’re nothing by these men. You know, it’s the same kind of thing.”

Seth: “Yeah, well, I mean, it could be, men or women. I think that’s what we’re kind of highlighting here, is that, typically in the work setting or, boss-employee relationship, there’s always that view of ‘oh, it’s a man is a boss or a woman as a boss’. But we’re trying to show that it’s both sides that are equally bad. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a man or a woman. They’re equally bad in their own right. You know, it’s not this isn’t a sex sexism thing. This is a person and power that everybody sucks.”

Did the both of you write the Threeway as well, or did you have a team of writers?

Amanda: “We wrote everything from the start to the finish!”

Seth: ”We have an interesting kind of think tank situation, but it’s a lot of bouncing ideas off each other. And a lot of the creation of the show comes from real life experience. So, experience that I’ve been through, but also, what Amanda has been through in her line of work. We’ve really kind of stayed true to that. So that’s very I think in a lot of the projects we do like we try to stay true to real life in some sense. And this is, I would say probably 60-40 in terms of what’s real and what is fabricated.”

Amanda: “Ourstorylines are pretty much ripped from things that have happened to us, even if it’s not chronological with our journeys on Wall Street and in sex education, we’re still pulling from other things and just putting it into that specific storyline. And then, you bring in fiction here and there. But I like to say that I like the idea to keep the audience guessing where it’s like, ‘OK. Did they do that? No, they couldn’t have done that in real life. Maybe they did that. No, I’m not sure. And we’ll never say what’s real, what’s not’.”

What is your favorite episode that the both of you have written and produced?

Amanda: “There’s an episode with a translator for when my character is going through her training. There’s a translator who is basically translating sex techniques and things like that and she wasn’t expecting to be there when that happened. And there is a lot of interesting things that go on in that episode. That is my favorite episode, but the pilot is special to me!”

Seth: “I’m biased towards the pilot. And I think that there’s a lot of deeper meaning as far as why these characters do what they do as far as their relationships with people. It’s in one perspective, it’s going to seem totally outlandish and crazy. And then in the other perspective, you’re like, ‘wow, I really understand why these people are doing what they’re doing’ or ‘I can really relate to that.’ And it’s definitely geared towards the everyday person to relate. It’s a very relatable show. And that’s kind of what we were going for is it doesn’t matter whether you live in New York City or not. Anywhere you live, you can relate to these characters and why they’re doing what they’re doing.”

What was the casting process like?

Amanda: “Fun fact, both of our parents is also in the show and I directed his mom, and he directed my dad. He’s an he’s a natural, which is nice. And that’s why when we have guest stars and costars, we work with people who really aren’t actors, you know. I mean, we have actors, but we also like people who are just real and genuine and who have something inside them. Like my dad, my dad’s not an actor, but at the same time, he’s like the best actor in my eyes and I think it’s relating to that childlike nature that we all had when we were kids where you’d be with other kids and you want to just use your imagination and play. That’s really what it is. But so many actors, especially aspiring actresses in New York City here and in L.A., they had caught up with the idea of celebrity or wanting to get famous or wanting to be a model or Instagram and all that stuff. So it’s nice when you have people who are just not of that world, don’t want that world, but can just show up and have fun. Like my dad’s like that and his mom is like that. And so many other people that we’ve kind of brought into our circle are like that. I sometimes would do seminars and workshops for actors and the one thing I always say is tell me what was the first thing you did today. You have to be a real person. Usually, their background they take from something real so they’re able to bring that into it. The idea of not really using traditional actors, we don’t care about headshots. Don’t care about resumes. We don’t care about where you went to school or if you never went to any school. And if you were just raised on a farm. And if your best friend was the pig named Wilbur. We care about the individuals before we can shoot for scenes.”

What was a normal day like for you Seth before you decided to take on this career?

Seth: “Well, I used to strip!This was years ago. I lived in Colorado and I was dating a girl who was a stripper. When she became a stripper, I was 21 or whatever and I was so upset by it. I was going through that phase or I want to break up with her and I want to be done with this so bad. But then I said, you know what? I should try it. I was snowboarding a lot of the time, so I was in the best shape of my life. So I was definitely comfortable with my body. The irony of the whole situation is that I had a lot of snowboarding accidents leading up to this, but I had what I call it ‘the cherry on the cake.’ I fell off a 100-foot cliff during a photo shoot and I got very, very hurt. But after that, I went back to the strip club about six months later and I was deformed because I had 90 stitches in my back because my pelvis was broken. But I’d healed before I went back. But I went back in there and nobody would even talk to me because I had you know, I look like Frankenstein just on my back. 

If you had to describe the emotional aspect of Threeway, what would you say?

Amanda: “I think what’s missing is this idea of human connection. So I think our show definitely kind of harkens to or is like a callback to shows or films like The Goonies and Stand By Me and it was about human connection. It’s about a journey and it’s about a friendship. It’s about understanding other human beings and not living in this world that’s full of money and status and what can you buy me, what can you give me, You know, how do I look to others instead? It’s just what is a connection? What is a real human genuine connection? That is taking down CEOs one at a time on the show, not taking our CEOs to kill them though.”

You can follow both Amanda Goodman and Seth Panman on Instagram via @amandabgoody and @streetmeatshow

Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @julianexcalibur for more content. Contact me at julian@alternativemindz.com