Brian Palermo Transcript
Hello, and welcome to Ask a Scientist, the podcast for kids and adults to ask scientists questions about anything they want to know. There are so many scientists out there doing a lot of cool scientific research. In the news, we always hear about scientists and their new ideas and where those ideas are going to take us in the future. But just who are these scientists? In this podcast, we will learn a little more about who they are and what inspires them as scientists.
I’m your host, Victoria. Every other week, I’ll sit down with a different scientist and ask them questions written by you, the listeners, and by students from classrooms throughout the country.
Victoria:
Hello listeners. Welcome back to the next episode of Ask a Scientist. Our guest this week
is Brian Palermo. He is an actor, comedian, and science communicator. He’s been in many well-known TV shows and movies, including The Social Network, Friends, and our listeners probably know him from an episode of Henry Danger in which he played a bad guy named Mr. Nice Guy. I met Brian when he was leading a science communication class in which he taught us, a group of scientists, all about improvisation or improv to help us improve our communication skills. And that science communication is what we will be talking about today.
Brian, thank you so much for joining me.
Brian Palermo:
You are so welcome, Victoria, and thanks for inviting me. I can’t wait to talk to you about this stuff.
Victoria:
Yay. We are, we, I am very excited to talk to you. I’m sure the listeners are too.
And all of these questions were submitted by the listeners through emails and on social media.
But before we get to the questions, is there anything else about you and your work that you’d like to add?
Brian Palermo:
Not necessarily that I want to add, but just for the sake of novelty or kind of, you know, flushing in the story a little bit more. So I’ve been in Hollywood for 30 plus years, I came out to be an entertainment industry, like I didn’t come out to be an actor. I was too realistic, so I didn’t think I would work enough or at all. But I worked at The Wheel of Fortune, the game show for seven years. I was in TV production on that side of the world. And I loved it. I wrote cartoons for Warner Brothers for two years, and I love that. And then I did a lot of freelance stuff for Disney and Universal and Sony and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and eventually started just making a living as an actor. So I did that for 20 years. And then about 10 years ago, got into more of the side hustle of teaching communications training in the world of scientists, which is where I met you. And I surprisingly, surprise myself when I realized I love this, I love working with science friends. I thought it was just gonna be like a weird side hustle. But as much as it is a weird side hustle, I love it. And it’s now kind of my primary side hustle.
Victoria:
That’s awesome.
Brian Palermo:
Yeah.
Victoria:
(What is science communication? And why is it important?)
All right. Let’s see here. We can start with the questions. This is a great one to start off with, from Ciara. What is science communication? And why is it important?
Brian Palermo:
Ciara? That’s such an excellent question. in science communication, first, I’d make the distinction that communication techniques can be universal and broad and not specifically to science, right? So learning how to speak with other people, learning how to express yourself clearly, learning how to listen to others so that you are connected with them, all that could be communication techniques for any subject matter.
But the science communicators do have a bit more of a challenge in my mind, in so much as you’re very often communicating complex or complicated information, or just sometimes the content you’re communicating is may not be that complicated, but it’s to an audience that is not trained as you are. So it’s hard to make it accessible to them. So the science specific aspect of communication stems off of that, no pun intended. So that’s where it comes from.
And then another thing that’s, I’m generalizing, and I’m always very, very, very fast to disclaim that when I talk to scientists, but generally people in the sciences trend towards being a little less expressive and that definitely dovetails into how well you are understood. So whether you are smart or capable doesn’t really come into it. If your audience doesn’t get what you’re trying to communicate, it doesn’t serve you or them.
So the idea of science communication has a couple of its own specific challenges. And I love to work with scientists and technologists to try to smooth that out.
Victoria:
(What are the things that make for good science communication?)
Awesome.
And this is a, I think a great follow-up to that from Lucy. What are the things that make for good science communication?
Brian Palermo:
Oh, Lucy, Lucy asked this question, ah Lucy. She stalks me all over the internet with every podcast. I’m a guest on Lucy. Hi. Nice to meet you again. I have no idea who Lucy is, but I appreciate that you gave me that question.
All right. So what is this? What makes for a good science communication? I think it comes down right to clarity of your communication. And there’s a billion variables that go around with that.
So one thing is focusing on the audience you’re speaking with. Because you’ll be communicating to a lot of different stakeholders, a lot of different audiences. If you’re just speaking to other scientists that share your discipline and share a lot of your same experiences, you don’t have to put a lot of extra effort into your communications techniques. They’ll understand your jargon. They’ll understand all the acronyms you’re going to drop, they’ll infer why it’s important that cocolithophores are in seven degrees of colder water than they were last year. They’ll know all that. But as soon as you start talking to somebody outside of your discipline, who’s outside of your experience, then you need to bring in some of these other communications techniques to help yourself be more clear with them, with your different audiences.
So what makes for good science communication? I would say focusing on the audience that’s in front of you, that’s number one. And number two is try to put your data into a narrative structure, into a story form. So you’ve probably heard that a lot. There’s a lot, a lot of training out there and just a lot of talk about story. You know, what’s the narrative of this, what’s the story of that, how do you get your story across. And all that is wonderful to talk about, but there’s, like everything, there’s, there’s an analysis to that. You can break it down and say, okay, what template can we use to put my data into some kind of narrative form? And the reason we do that is to make it more accessible for your audience. Your audience is used to stories. That’s how we’ve been learning as a species since before there were, you know official languages and stuff. I picture a bunch of Cro-Magnon and Australopithecus kind of laying around and making charades kind of that’s how they’re communicating. Right? So communicating with each other is not only the story narrative, but it’s also expressing yourself. So that’s what I find to be a really good elements of effective science communication, is narrative structuring and expressing yourself as a human, as opposed to an occupation, which is that of a scientist or technologist.
Victoria:
(How/why does improv help scientists be better communicators?)
Awesome. And speaking of that expression, this is another great follow-up from Jane. How or why does improv help scientists be better communicators?
Brian Palermo:
Oh there’s a lot of elements to it. Jane, thank you for asking. I have no idea if Jane and Lucy are going to listen to the question. But, if you do, and if you don’t thank you anyway. How does it help scientists become better communicators?
I think, my big push and Victoria you’ve experienced this because we had class together. My big push is to help scientists focus on the humans that they’re speaking with, as opposed to just the information that they’re speaking about. So that’s where improv comes in to help scientists better communicators. When you’re improvising and doing all the exercises that we do to learn these techniques, the content that you come up with, the information, is all fictional and it’s all made up, and it’s because of that it’s all disposable. You don’t have to put a lot of energy into getting the evidence right. If you’re making up a story about a butterfly that lives through a hurricane and opens up a frozen yogurt stand, you know that the content is completely disposable, but the mechanics are important.
So the mechanics would be listening to understand your partner, making eye contact with them, using your whole body to communicate what you’re trying to communicate. So not just using your words, and worse, not just looking over your own shoulder at your own slide deck at the graphs and the data and the evidence. All that stuff are important, but if you’re communicating as a scientist, or as a human, you got to put that energy into connecting with your audience. Hopefully you’ve done all your work, you’ve done all your studies, you’re confident with your data and your information and your content. So when you’re actually communicating, you can take a little bit of the energy out of getting the content right, cause you’ve already done all the research to get it to a point where you’re willing to share it. Now, put that extra 10% of energy into connecting with your audience.
And that’s what improv does. It really takes the focus off the content in those moments, so you can get the experience of just practicing the mechanics. And a lot of that sounds easy, it’s really hard to do, because also in the real world, when you’re talking to someone that you may be self-conscious, you may be self-aware, you may not have any kind of comfort level with deviating off of your data and information at all, because you want to make sure you get everything precisely correct which is very important. But the more energy you put into that precision of information, the less, I suggest you’re going to have energy for connecting with this human in front of you. And that’s how your message is going to land with them better. So improv helps scientists because it gives them a higher percentage chance of actually communicating their information to their audiences.
Victoria:
Awesome. That makes so much sense. And yes, definitely thinking in terms of that has for sure helped me. You know, before I took your class, it was always what am I going to say, what’s my content, and now.
Brian Palermo:
Oh, you’re horrible, Victoria. I mean before you took my class. It was like talking to a rock and a plant that bred together. It’s like, what is she saying, this woman I mean. No, of course not. I didn’t meet you before the class, but, and I cut you off for a bad joke. What were you saying?
Victoria:
But now I’m just especially like doing the podcast. and when I talk to people, I’m really thinking about, you know, how I’m communicating and using my whole body. This is a podcast, the listeners can’t see, but I’m gesturing right now.
Brian Palermo:
But you know, I can see you because we’re on the camera together, but your audience can even hear that kind of energy in your voice. So they don’t know, they can’t see you gesturing, but as you change your voice a little bit, or the closer or farther away you get from the mic, there’s, you know, microscopic differences in that. And the audience picks up on these little variations and I think it reads more authentic, which serves you, it makes you more of a real person discussing a real thing.
Because it’s very easy to drop into the practice mode of speech, where it’s like, okay, I’m going to, I’ve got to give this presentation, I’m going to practice the hell out of this presentation. And I’m just go over and over and over again. And you can get all your data correct in that way, but it takes out all the humanity, and now you sound like some robot, which disconnects you. And again, if you’re not not talking to another scientist of your discipline, this works against you because they’re not going to connect with you as much. You’re less relatable if you sound robotic or, and the harsher side of that is sometimes scientists get a very unfair judgment from their audience stats. You seem arrogant or smug or something, and then people don’t want to connect with you because nobody likes arrogance among people. You know? So all that works against.
If you can communicate with your body, with your gestures, with, you know, even the way I’m stumbling for this. The variation in my voice, in my searching for words, that seems real, in this case it is real, and I think that authenticity helps you connect with your audience better. And again, that serves your message better. That’s what it’s all about.
Victoria:
(What skills does improv teach you?)
All right. I think this next question is a great follow-up to this conversation. And we’ve kind of touched on this already, but Brendan wants to know what skills does improv teach you.
Brian Palermo:
Hi, Brendan. It teaches you a lot of skills and I will give a broad sort of answer before I get more specific to the science world. Right.
So, improv, it comes from theater techniques, and of course, theater has been around for millennia probably more than 4,000 years. I’m not a theater guy. I don’t have a theater degree either. I’m not a scientist and don’t have a science degree, nor am I a theater guy with a theater degree. I do have a communications degree, however. But theater has been around for millennia. And the only reason that’s important is because people have worked on it for literally thousands of years. How do I best communicate with a whole audience of strangers? You do so by using emotion, you do so by scripting higher stakes information, you know, information, that’s got a narrative structure, I mean, clearly a story structure goes into a play or some kind of theater. So improv skills, as I share them with my science pals, do come from theater. Now, why is that important? Because it helps you express yourself as a human being. And then the content you’re expressing has got a much better chance of landing.
So what skills specifically does improv teach? First and foremost, I always just kind of phrase it under the umbrella of connecting with your audience. That means reading their emotional expression. So this ups your emotional intelligence. If you’re focusing on your audience, as opposed to just your data, information, content, whatever, then you can see if your audience is confused, if they’re bored, if they’re still engaged. And all these reactions from your audience, all this feedback is a clue for you to then either go further into what you’re doing, or make a course correction. If they are confused, clarify something or ask if you can clarify. If they look bored, change your tactics, do not just stick with your rehearsed piece of information because you’ve already lost them. They’re bored now, if you don’t change, they’re going to be more bored. They’re going to comatose you know. If they are engaged, keep doing what you’re doing. You know, so all this immediate feedback, this comes with the improv skill of focusing on the other person. So in improv, you do exercises with partners. So you focus on your partner, and you get feedback from the audience in either silence or in laughter or an applause, or just, you know, body movement, whatever, you’re getting feedback here.
So the first skill that I think is so important for scientists to learn from improv is to focus again on stuff other than just your data. Science generally, again I’m generalizing, scientists and technologists are so focused on the precision of their information, which is important, I’ll never say that’s not important, it’s the most important thing when you’re investigating your science. But when you’re communicating your science, you need to think about the other people involved, not just the data that you’re trying to say in front of them. So connecting with others, that’s number one skill and problem.
Part of that is listening to understand others. So again, when we got our information, we’ve practiced it, we just want to get our information out about whatever the estuary problem is, or there’s an hypoxic zone or there’s coral bleaching, or there’s ocean acidification, or, and you’re really keyed in on all your stuff, but if you’re not listening to understand who your partner is, or what they’re saying, you’re not gonna be able to connect with what they care about. And then you’re not gonna be able to adjust your info to give it to them in a way that they will care about it. And if they don’t care, that all of your content is moot, you know. So, listening to understand is another skill that comes from it.
I would say the ability to be agile and flexible in your communications meaning if you’re trying to talk about your subject matter and somebody asks you a question that’s more specific, it goes a little bit off of your script, you’ve got to be able to go with them, address that question and then come back to you. So you’ve got this ability to be agile. Because in improv, there is no script. So there is no one way that you’ve got to stick to it. You’ve got to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, and just kind of go where the conversation goes. All of this is in service of you being a normal human being who’s having a conversation and not in robotic wrote, spit out information mode, you know, which disconnects people.
All of those skills come from improv. The idea of creativity, generating creativity is another one. That’s a little bit more specific in the science world. Cause you’re not always searching for creativity, but sometimes it’s a very helpful skill when you’re designing your experiment questions, when you’re designing your hypothesis and your theories, I don’t know if that’s the right use of that, but when designing your hypothesis, you’ve got to be creative about how you look at the world, how you look at your subject matter, what you are observing so that you can then take out all your information and report what you, actually you gotta be creative about your expectations, what you’re expecting to see, and then put it in conjunction with what you observe, your expectations versus observation. So the creativity of thinking around existing problems in a different way, that can help from improv as well.
It’s all this stuff plus the clarity of interpersonal communication. When you’re working with colleagues, when you’re working on a new team, when you’re studying, when you’re trying to get your degrees, when you’re working with public, politicians, all the different stakeholders that you have to work with, you get to work with when you’re a scientist, they each need kind of their own, a specific form of communication. You know, you gotta be sensitive to who you’re speaking with, who your audience is, that goes to this ancient sort of phrase, know your audience, know who you’re speaking to. So all that comes out of improv training. You’ll get a piece of all that kind of stuff.
Victoria:
(What’s an example of an improv technique you teach scientists?)
Awesome. That’s so fantastic.
And speaking of improv training, Amanda wants to know what’s an example of an improv technique you teach scientists.
Brian Palermo:
Yes. Ah, good. Yes, Amanda. Okay. well we teach them a bunch. You know, again, you’ve gone through the class Victoria, so, you know, I cover a lot of stuff, but one or two the main things I wanted to point out is, again, this idea of listening to your partner. Why is that important? Because scientific thinkers are just rational thinkers, logical thinkers, linear thinkers, people kind of process rationally. They’re very focused on the information on the data, on the evidence. And they tend, again on generalized, a trend to stay in your own heads and just clarify the data and the information. And if you’re speaking to someone, they may bring something up and you are just going to process it in a way of how can I tie my data back to that input, whatever it is, as opposed to listening to your partner and see, okay, they just brought up something about global warming, and that tells me that they’re concerned about X, Y, and Z. And how can I engage them with my research, which has one or two elements of global warming, but it’s really not that. Well, certainly these one or two elements are the thing you want to address first, because that’s clearly what your audience is interested in by dent of them saying something about global warming and this example, right? So you focus on what they’re interested in so that they stay connected with you and they’ll take in your information better.
So the idea of listening to others, that’s one big example of improv techniques that I teach scientists.
Another one, and just as important is holistic presentation. That’s a little bit fancy way of just saying how you present yourself with your body language, your eye contact, your facial expressions, your gestures, all of that expresses emotion which connects with audiences, and your vocal quality. There’s a word called paralanguage, and it basically mean, I just learned it last month, so if I didn’t teach you in the class, that’s why. Paralanguage refers to everything around the actual dialogue that you speak. So, your volume, your intonation, your inflection, the pitch of your voice. And while I don’t really train scientists on how to do any of that, I do try to bring attention to it. Because you have some energy in your voice, and the energy you have in your delivery. That’s either going to engage people, bore them. And when we’re focused on our information, it’s easy to lose energy in the delivery of that information. And people will tune out, they’ll disconnect.
So a couple examples I say, active listening, and expressing yourself intentionally. You remember my big peacock metaphor, I kept talking about, you know. A peacock in the wild, to scare away a predator or attract a mate or both or whatever it’s doing, the male peacock fans its tail. So it’s huge and it’s seen, and the male peacock does that specifically, intentionally instinctually, it’s primal, whatever, but it is communicating with intent. That is a big message I try to share with my science pals. Because often people think, well, I’m talking about my subject, so clearly I’m communicating. No, the talking is just your first step. The the rest of these techniques have to be employed as well for you to be more effective about it.
Victoria:
I think about that peacock metaphor a lot.
Brian Palermo:
Good. That’s my new business logo, is the peacock. And I use that. Okay. I should say something else Victoria. So, I teach a lot in the science enterprise and it cross the science world. It’s kind of become my favorite, but I also teach in the corporate sphere and I still teach comedic improv. So the comedy improv, where I started, where I learned all this stuff, I used the peacock metaphor across all those different spheres, because it’s the idea of, you’ve got to put a little extra energy and intentionally into expressing yourself, so that whoever’s out there can read your intentions better. You know, and the more obvious you are, the more intentional you are, the easier it is for your audience to read, which means it’s easier for your information to be understood. And this is all about, I’ll keep saying, think about your audience, think about your audience, but it’s all in service of both your audience and yourself. If you want to be a more effective communicator, you need to use these tools.
Victoria:
(Can you give some examples of scientists you have worked with that may be well known by the public?)
Yes.
All right. you touched on this a little bit just then, but Chris wants to know, can you give some examples of scientists you have worked with that may be well known by the public?
Brian Palermo:
Oh, that is such a Chris question. Chris, oh, God bless you. I’m so glad he brought this up. It could be a girl. I don’t know. All right.
So, yes and no. I thought about this one and there’s nobody that the public will know well that I have worked specifically with, but I’ve worked with a lot of teams at JPL, which is Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it’s here above Los Angeles. And I’ve been working with them for about three years and I’ll do maybe four workshops a year or something. So I’m not full-time over there, but I’ve worked with a lot of different teams, and I have worked with some of the engineers, the propulsion engineers, and aeronautical engineers, and different, you know, spacey people that have worked on the teams that have landed the rovers. So the Perseverance rover just landed a couple of months ago. And the little helicopter guy took off just this morning, I think was the first successful flight, or yesterday. Yeah. And how amazing is that? So I have worked with some of those engineers that’s, you know, so you may not know them, but you probably know that project.
Now, a very well-known scientist that I have met, but I did not train was Stephen Hawking, who I met through a comedy connection. He actually came to see a show at the Groundlings. Did I not tell you this in the class, based on your face of shock and your mouth dropping open, like what? I could see you the audience can’t, but based on just your visuals, I could tell that you were pleasantly surprised or whatever. Yeah. Hawking came to a live show at the Groundlings, which is my theater, not my, I’m a member of that theater here in Hollywood, which is being sketch and comedy improv. That’s the same theater that we have alumni such as Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig ,Will Ferrell Taran Killam ,Mikey day, blah, blah, blah. A bunch of people.
So Hawking had done this industrial short film with another actress friend of mine who was the moderator and the hostess, and his team, Stephen Hawking’s people, had asked my friend Lena, you know, what’s fun to do in LA. And she wrote him back an email with like 10 different things, really nerdy and highbrow, and intellectual, and it was all museums and all kinds of fun stuff like that. And sort of as a throwaway, she said, or have you been, if you in a really light silly mood, there’s this comedy thing. Well, he and his wife and whoever was on the scene chose to come to the Groundlings. So they came to the show. He saw my show, I got to meet him after the show in the lobby with Lena cause Lena was there, and through his assistant and his computer screen communicator, he said that I was great, Victoria. So I got, you know, the second smartest man in the history of our species said that I was great.
So that’s all my two stories.
Victoria:
That’s incredible! Oh my gosh.
Brian Palermo:
Isn’t that cool! That’s such cool. And that’s a weird termination of my entertainment world and my science world kind of mixing together. But this was before I was even doing any of the science communication steps. So Stephen Hawking was just a well-known scientist, you know, world famous scientists that I knew of even not being in the science world. And so that’s one of my favorite stories of like celebrity meetings was him. Even though I’ve met a lot of other accurate celebrity people that others would probably care more about. I care more about Hawking.
Victoria:
Yeah, that’s incredible. Oh my gosh. I probably would have like falling over, passed out. I don’t know.
Brian Palermo:
And in that show, I had a piece where it was structured improv. That means I interact with the audience on a piece that I know, it’s like 75% structured and 25% improv. But, one of the things that as I’m interacting with the audience, I ask a couple of questions and people will answer, you know, shout back answers. That’s purposeful. But because he was doing the voice recorder through his computer screen, his answers are always a good seven seconds later. So I would ask a question, somebody would answer, I would start to do my bit, and then his answer would come through on the screen. So he was interacting with me in the show. And it’s so awesome. And it’s very clearly Stephen Hawking because it’s a beat behind everybody else and he had to read it and it was so cool. It was one of my favorite experiences in my whole life.
Victoria:
That is incredible.
Brian Palermo:
It’s weird. I love it.
Victoria:
(What group of scientists is/was your favorite to work with?)
Wow.
Yeah. All right. Let’s see here. A follow up question to that from Lily. What group of scientists is or was your favorite to work with?
Brian Palermo:
So glad Lily wrote this and she, you know, she’s a great musician. Lily plays a tambourine and a mean, mean ukulele And she’s got a three-person folk trio with the Sierra and Brandon, I don’t know.
Hi Lily, my favorites. Here’s a cheesy answer, but it’s very true. The favorite scientists for me to work with are the ones that are in front of me at any given moment. So right now, it’s your Victoria. But as I talk about, whoever I’m currently working with, they’re my favorite, because that’s who I’m focus on the most.
To speak more generally, I love working with marine biologists because that’s just my geekdom. I’m not a scientist, I think we said it, but I’m not even a citizen scientist. I’m just a science fan. I’m a science nerd. And my specific flavor of that is marine critters. So, I love, I’m a scuba diver, so I’ve been down quite a bit in my career, and I love the oceans, I love the, especially that teal Caribbean water or Mediterranean water, that’s like my happy place. So anything to do with marine bios who spends so much of their lives in the field and have a lot of experiences in those environments. They’re very often my favorite people to talk to because I just loved their subject matter. I just loved their environment.
But any anybody that I’m working with, one of the reasons why I like scientists so much is because generally you have a strong curiosity factor. That’s what often brings you to sciences. You want to know why, you want to know why does this thing do this thing? Why does this animal shed its skin? Why does this star you know, only gets seen twice a year? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The curiosity is a thing that I value so much in other humans and myself, in any human. And then the scientists have the career and the training to back up their curiosity with experiences.
So my buddy Randy Olson who got me into this whole world, he used to be a Marine biologist long before I met him. But he tells these stories about scuba diving in the Antarctic and the leopard seals showed up and, you know, they had to get out of the water and all, you know, he lived under water for six days and something in the Key West you know, was only, it was only like 30 feet down, but still, you stayed underwater for six days. You know, weird experiences like that are fascinating to me. And I always want to know, tell me all that, tell me all that stuff.
So I do trend towards my marine bios and my fisheries people, but really, it’s whoever I’m speaking to at that moment, the current scientist in front of me is usually my favorite scientist.
Victoria:
I’m your favorite!
Brian Palermo:
You’re my favorite, Victoria! Clearly!
Victoria:
(Do you find that once scientists learn improv skills that it changes the way they talk to each other and not just the way they communicate with non-scientists?)
This next question is from Joe. Do you find that once scientists learn improv skills that it changes the way they talk to each other and not just the way they communicate with non-scientists?
Brian Palermo:
Yet another good question. And Joe is fine. Joe does a lot of cosplay. So he’ll go to the comic book conventions and Joe does a mean Thor. And occasionally if you catch him on the right weekend, he’ll do She-Hulk, which he’s incredible prosthetics. Joe. I have no idea who you are.
But scientists, now here’s an interesting one. I’m going to have to answer it in the negative on this, to be honest and authentic with you.
So scientists. I don’t. From what little I follow up I’ve had with scientists that after, very often, I’ll come in and do a workshop for a day or a half a day, and then I don’t get to see those people again. So I’m going off on my JPL pals, who I do have multiple contracts with over the years. And when they, when scientists speak with each other, I haven’t found them changing too much of their communications techniques. Well kind of, again, it’s this sort of inner circle outer circle thing.
If you’re speaking to other scientists, they’re kind of on board with your jargon and your acronyms and they’ll imply, or rather they’ll infer the importance of the thing you’re saying. So they don’t have to use a lot of these extra techniques. That I would consider the inner circle.
The outer circle is anybody outside of that. And it may just be another interdisciplinary science. I mean, if you’re, you know, the propulsion engineer and you’re speaking to a geologist, I mean, that could very easily be two completely different worlds, very much so. But the fact that you both share the science, it gives you something in common. So it’s usually a pretty good communication fluidity between scientists in general.
Though, at NPS, long before you Victoria, national park service, one of the very first jobs I ever did was for a group in, I think Fort Collins, Colorado. Yes. It was for colleges, Kurt Fristrup’s group. And, he told us he, us being myself and Randy Olson, who I’m gonna talk about later, who got me into this world, that his team did bring up the yes and thing that I taught them for years after that. And that’s just amongst his own team. So somebody would bring up a yes and moments. Let’s really try to use the yes and thing, and work together and collaborate better. So I guess that did stick with them. And that was one specific improv skill that might’ve changed a bit of how scientists talk to each other.
The yes and thing, which I didn’t even bring up as yet. I assume there’s gonna be some other point for me to bring it up, but I’ll tag it right now. Yes and is the most important, fundamental guideline of improvisation, and it applies to you agreeing with your partner, no matter what they say, and then contributing to this conversation by ending it. So, yes, I agree, and I’ll contribute something. Now in the world of fiction, you can always do that. You can use that as a program. Yes and. No matter what you say. If you say that we are a couple of circus performers on a volcano, I’m going to say, yep, and I’m juggling fish catch one, you know? Yes and. in a really good the cash listeners, Victoria, just mimed catching a fish. Yeah. Excellent. I’m so proud of you. So.
But in the real world, it’s not a program. You cannot literally say yes and to everything that people bring up. 99% of the time, you have to say no, you know. So you can’t use it as an algorithm. This yes and template. But you can use it as a mindset. The idea of, I want this to be a win-win conversation. I want to listen to you. The only way I can understand what you are trying to get at is for me to listen, to understand, what active techniques listening to you. And if I have the yes mindset of, okay, I want to talk about the hypoxic zone of the Mississippi river delta, you want to talk about this estuary in Maryland. How can we put those together? Well, they both deal with invasive species. They both deal with a hypoxic or whatever. And try to connect yourself to your partner because that will allow for better communication, and hopefully both of you get your information out, you know.
But, other than certain little bits like that, I don’t know that it’s changing how scientists speak to each other. I think it is a bit more targeted towards speaking to that outer circle, non-scientists.
Victoria:
I would say that I don’t think I necessarily changed the way that I, when I am the one speaking to other scientists, but I definitely am more aware of my listening, after taking your class and that I really try and listen and not just think of what I’m going to contribute next.
Brian Palermo:
Good. Because that’s such a, it’s a universal human instinct, I think. We filter everything that through our filter first, you know, so, and no matter what comes up is how does it affect me first, then I’ll deal with everybody else if I even get that far. So very often we connect to our own references and our own brain. And once that connection is made, then maybe I’ll listen to you. You know? So very often people are not good listeners. And it’s a very big distinction between hearing someone, you know, just the, you know, your auditory nerves and sensors or working or whatever, versus listening to them actively to understand, because many of us just smile and nod and kind of wait for you to shut up so I can say my thing, and that’s normal, and that’s fine if you’re at a cocktail party. But it’s surely not going to help you get funding. It’s not going to help you with different stakeholders. It’s not going to help you to get that job or get invited onto the investigation team that you want to be on. You know. These are important skills that you’ve got to practice in order to have a positive differentiator for yourself versus other people.
Victoria:
Definitely.
Brian Palermo:
Good listening, good listening, Victoria.
Victoria:
(Do you find that in working with scientists developing improv skills that it enhances their ability to brainstorm new scientific ideas?)
Thank you.
And this is another question to follow up from that. Another question from Joe. Do you find that in working with scientists developing improv skills that it enhances their ability to brainstorm new ideas?
Brian Palermo:
Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And Joe, and so besides being a cosplayer, Joe is also an excellent baker. Have him do some sourdough bread for you.
Yeah, the improv skill, this is another thing, that speaks to the difference between focusing on information and focusing on each other. This is kind of a stepping off of focusing on information into focusing on your own theory and allowing yourself to yes and yourself. So you’re kind of theorizing, and you could do this in a group with other sizes, we can do it solo, but the idea of allowing yourself to think more creatively, more outside but is such an old cliche, but it’s very true. You know, you think outside the box, outside of the parameters of what you know.
Because I imagine, you know, we all look at a rock, that’s got certain, Was it striations, is that the right word, you know, in a different region, and you think, okay, well that was in a certain level of shale or that was a certain altitude in the mountains and it came up through the plate tectonics of a million years ago, it used to be at a ocean, whatever. You’ve got ideas for what you’re looking at. And often those ideas constrain you, and you think, okay, well, this rock striations must be because of all this other signs and others have done before me, we’re standing on the shoulders of all these people. And you might not think maybe that rock has a striation because of field trip went by and a kindergartener drew on it with a card crayon, you know. Or that’s a ridiculous glib example, but maybe you don’t think of what are the other possibilities, what are the other theories of the striation of that rock. Maybe it’s the molecules are breaking, maybe climate change and global warming has something to do with that, maybe there were microscopic critters that got in between the blah blah blah.
You know, so this idea of theorizing, you know, your own hypothesis, I do find that improv helps with the creativity of that.
So if you’re looking for, what’s one of the great mysteries of science, Victoria? Do we know why gravity works yet? What’s a big mystery?
Victoria:
Ooh, I don’t, physicists probably know gravity.
Brian Palermo:
But physicists, you know man, the physicists they’re lame, bro. Just create, I love my physicist.
So say there’s a huge science question and you know, why is this on hot? I don’t know. Because it’s a nuclear thermos inside and scientists know that already. But if you’re looking at a novel question or a novel subject, something that you do not know the answer for it and you can’t just Google searching answer for it. You’ve got to theorize what could have caused that to happen. The theorizing part is creative because you got to think of what could it possibly have been.
And another glib example is if you look at, you know, why do birds fly? The process of science is negating falsifying all this stuff that’s not true. And then what you got left. If you can verify it, then that’s science. That’s a very short version of science. But as I, as an actor understands it. But the idea of, you know, why do birds fly? Well, because their magic. No, that’s clearly not true. Well, because God likes birds. Well, whether God exists or not, I don’t know. But you know, clearly that’s not enough to be a fact. So you’ve got to think of all these hypotheses, why do birds fly? Because you know, their bones are hollow and the breeze just lifts them. Well, that’s not quite true, but the bones are hollow. That’s something.
So by yes and-ing your own theories, you can probably get to more specific theories that then are testable. So my thought is teaching, you know, new scientists or early career scientists, students even, to think outside that box, to allow yourself to yes and yourself for even the most ridiculous theories, because then you get them out of your head, you throw them away, and you’re onto the next thing. As opposed to getting hung up on one version of what could this be? What makes birds flies? Is it the chemical makeup of their feathers? It’s gotta be the chemical makeup, and you spend your whole life worrying about the chemical makeup of their feathers, when really it’s propulsion because they’re able to flap their wings as fast enough or whatever.
So. You know, this idea of theorizing, I think is where scientists can use the creativity of improvising.
One real-world example, but not from science, it’s from designers in the clothing industry. So I’ve, again, I work in corporate sphere whenever I can. And I did a workshop weekend for a bunch of clothing designers. And one workshop was specifically their shoe design team. And, you know, they design, that’s all fashion. So I am completely ignorant with that. I’m all utilitarian. Shoes protect my feet, and that’s about it, and they have different colors and they have different styles, that’s all I know. Well, to someone who is a shoe designer, of course, that’s their world. They know everything. And they were doing a little project, not little project, they were doing a project that year for, you know, new design. And they had come up on a, sort of a brick wall where everybody was just repeating stuff that had existed before. So I led them through an exercise of just go to the most ridiculous extremes ever with your shoe design. And then see if that sparks anything, Use your creativity and see if it’s smart. So we had them design like a snow shoe that was a high heel, a high heel snow shoe. And it had a mule strap in it. It was a really strappy leather boots, snow show high heel. I don’t even know what the heck it was, but I made them play this game. And based on that, here, nobody was saying no to the idea of the ridiculous stuff. They were able to get to some new ideas. And I think it landed on, well, what if we add a strap to this particular boot or whatever? So of course, you know, they could have thought of that on their own, but when you’re used to looking at facts and saying no to everything, that’s not a fact. Sometimes it makes it really hard for you to get into your creative mind and generate new theories or just generate, you know, new possibilities or thinking of it from another direction. Right.
So yes, there is I think some great use for improv as far as creativity goes when applying it to theorizing.
Victoria:
That’s awesome.
Brian Palermo:
Yeah And who doesn’t want a high heel snowshoe with a strappy slouchy boot on it, you know.
Victoria:
I know. We’re supposed to get snow tonight. I could go out and snowshoe in the park.
Brian Palermo:
Exactly. It’d be so fashion. It’d be so fashion forward, Victoria, you’d be the only one in the planet that has it.
Victoria:
(Do you work with students/schools at all?)
All right. Let’s see. This next question is another question from Ciara. Do you work with students or schools at all?
Brian Palermo:
Yes and. Yes and occasionally I should say. So Ciara, she is a hell of an athlete by the way, I don’t know if you guys know that about her, but she rose the 40 in 0.6 seconds. She’s amazing.
I have worked with a lot of colleges. I have worked with a lot of postdocs. I have worked with a lot of even undergrads at college level. I’ve not worked with a lot of high school students, but I have done some over the years.
This January, I think a February pass, I worked with AAAS, which is what is the advanced American association for the advancement of sciences, I think? AAAS has a big science group. It’s probably the biggest in America at least. And they produce a science magazine. They’re the publisher in science. So AAAS has a, their annual meeting, they probably have multiple meetings, but their annual meeting, they have a weekend with the junior sciences. So it’s kind of a junior AAAS or something. And these are sort of the best of the best high school scientists from all 50 states. And you get, you know, the top two or three kids from each state. And, I did a workshop with those kids, and that was not one specific school, but at least they were high school students. So that speaks a little bit to Sierra’s question about the students. I think she may be referring to that young.
Otherwise, I do anyway when people approach me, I’m very happy to work with students, happy to work with anybody. Anybody’s interested in this stuff. I love to love to share this stuff. And I think it’s very helpful. The earlier, the better. I was teaching a group undergrad econ student I’ve mentioned to you off air Victoria, at University of Nebraska go Big Red. And one of the young women, I’ll say one of the girls, but she was probably 20, one of the young women at the end of the workshop. So this is great. why didn’t they teach us this in kindergarten? I said, lady, I’m not in charge of you, I, you know, I agree. I think she kinda had a tone, like it was my fault that no one taught her younger. It’s like, I can’t take responsibility for it. But yeah, I think it should be taught as young as possible because you can learn a lot.
And this is not about specifically science communication or even communication. It’s about human skills, people skills, soft skills, how to read others, how to best connect to others, how to best serve your own communication, you know, with other human beings. And all this stuff is super important.
So I have worked with a good handful of younger students over the years, but I don’t have anything regular in that vein.
Victoria:
(Have you tried approaching universities to develop a syllabus and teach a communication class specifically geared to science students?)
That makes sense. And then this is a good follow-up to that from Ben. Have you tried approaching universities to develop a syllabus and teach a communication class specifically geared towards science students?
Brian Palermo:
Yeah, that is such an excellent suggestion, Ben. I wish, I want you to help me do that right now. You put me in contact with the tzar or the king or the goddess of all college communications stuff. And I will create a syllabus for you right now.
No, it’s a really good suggestion. The idea of specific. Have I tried approaching universities? I have not. So this gets now a little more into my background. I’ve been a working actor for 20 plus years, and again, the science comm stuff has been a delightful side hustle for me. I really am passionately in love with my science communication stuff, but it is a side hustle. So I’m just getting to the point where I’m putting my energies into this as my main job. So kind of leaving the entertainment industry and going into more of the facilitation training industry. And this might be something I want to follow up on. And if I do, I want to give credit to Ben and I’m going to give him 5% for the rest of my life, because this is a great idea.
So having worked at, I do teach at USC. I have taught at UCLA, I have taught Loyola Marymount. This is all here in Los Angeles area. But that’s again when people approach me. So when I’m asked to do stuff, I run right down and do it. But I’ve never approached universities and said, let me develop this thing for you and your science students. And part of that is just my own ignorance and my lack of experience. I not coming from the academic world. I wouldn’t know what to do. Who do you call you? You call it the fairy of administrations and science syllabis. I have no idea what to do with that. So, Ben, if you can help me with that, I’ll give you a cut.
Victoria:
That’s awesome.
All right. And now we’re gonna switch gears a little bit, and there’s a series of questions all about you and your background.
Brian Palermo:
Oh boy. Everybody loves talking about themselves. So this is. Yeah. Let’s talk about me.
Victoria:
(How did you get into teaching science communication?)
This first question in that group comes from Gabrielle. How did you get into teaching science communication?
Brian Palermo:
Thank you, Gabrielle. The mentor or partner, or now friend who got me into this world is a guy named Dr. Randy Olson. Randy was a marine biologist and he was a tenured professor. And he left that to go to USC to study film at the what’s considered the ripe old age of 35. So, you know, he’d already done this whole, the whole academic science world. And then he left that. He became a filmmaker, but part of his film studies at USC, they were encouraged or required to go see a lot of live theater around town. So he wound up at the Groundlings, again, which is my improv theater that’s my home theater. I performed and directed and taught there at the Groundlings for over 25 years. So anyway, Randy saw a bunch of shows. He met a few Groundlings. He was using people in shorts that he was making. Some are just straight up kind of funny things. Some were science communication themes short films. And eventually hired me on some weird industrial film and what that is, think of like a training film or something. It was like an office training thing. But that’s when I really got to know him and got to talk to him.
Oh, and what I said before, a marine biologist. So, that came up. And my geek radar went up. It’s like, what really? What’s that about? And he had studied jellies, jellies and sponges, I think. And he was born in Australia and he was living in like this really cool bay, just going underwater for six hours a day and studying the sponges and the jellies. And that was fascinating to me. I’d never, you know. So I got to know Randy a little bit as a friend and he used to come see the grounding shows and he’d see me often improvising.
And one day he suggested that I create a small workshop for science communicators to help them with their presentation skills. So there’s a little bit more specific back then. And I said, yes. And, what does that mean? How do I do that? I have no idea what you’re talking. So he just told me to design it, you know, I would say it was a two hour workshop, Victoria, I don’t even remember what it was, but this was here in Santa Monica area. So it was a lot of his Marine biologist buddies. So the people from Heal the Bay and Surfrider Foundation and 5 Gyres, and a veteran Monterey Bay Aquarium, I worked with them. So there’s a lot of marine bio people. And I was really unsure of what I was doing, if it would be valuable and helpful. But by the end of that workshop, everybody was so enthusiastically positive in their feedback. I thought, okay, there might there’s definitely something valuable here. And even though it’s not about comedy, there was a lot of laughter as a by-product, you know, of the work. And so people enjoyed themselves and learn some of these techniques. And I just loved it and I thought, oh my God, this is, I want to do this.
So since then, this was a, maybe 11 years ago. I’ve been building up this side of the business of working with science communicators, and that’s how it started through Randy.
Victoria:
Awesome. That’s so cool.
Brian Palermo:
Yeah.
Victoria:
(Did you like science in school? Which class was your favorite? Which did you like the least/hated?)
All right. And then this next question is from Chris. Did you like science in school? Which class was your favorite? And which did you like the least or hate?
Brian Palermo:
Typical Chris always about, you know, what’d you like the most, would you like, it’s a good opener, Chris. We’re going to go deeper next time we talk.
I did like science at school. I, as I keep saying, I’m a big, just a science fan. I didn’t go very deep in my studies of it. So after high school, I may have one or two kind of one on one classes in college, but I love science at that level in school.
My favorite class in the sciences was probably the biology classes. Cause I like the creatures a bit more than the chemistries and the physics, and that part of that might be my very superficial if not, you know, just flat out weak understanding of the subjects at that time. But I understood biology cause I’m an animal and we’re studying other animals. I’m a living thing and we’re studying other living things. So I really, I really dug that. The biology is my favorite.
And the least, I wouldn’t say I hated it, but I was probably least interested in my maths. And for whatever dumb placement, I got to take or had to take advanced math and calculus and pre-calc and all these things that were, you know, on the AP track that I didn’t really opt into. I just tested into them and, you know, next thing I knew I was taking a lot of math classes and I was always the second to last guy in the class. Out of 32 students, I was always number 31, only because number 32 was the guy that was much, much smarter than me, but he was bored and he used to always just blow off class. And, you know, I look at him and be sticking a paper clip on an eraser and then sticking that into an outlet of the wall, just to blow it out. So this is that guy. So this guy was clearly smarter than me, but he didn’t try. So I was always better than him in the rain. So math, the problem was I was not curious enough to do the work well enough to, to really get into the, certainly not the mastery, but just even understanding the interest of it and the entry govern and how fascinating it is. As an adult, I’ve come to realize, oh my God, math just opens your brain to so much stuff. And it’s so amazing in its own self. And you don’t even start with fractals, man, cause I’ll give you what, this is one simple pattern and it repeats it repeats, you know. So I have a better appreciation of math now, but I was too incurious if that’s a word to really enjoy it back then. So I’d have to say my math is my least favorite.
Victoria:
Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like also the way that math is typically presented in high schools is, you’re not presented with the applicable and interesting and the, you know, intriguing side of math.
Brian Palermo:
Yeah, that’s an excellent analysis observation guess. I don’t know what Victoria, but yeah, I think, yeah, my math teachers and my math experience might not have been the most engaging. You know. I’m not gonna denigrate my teachers because I was definitely a disinterested student. So it’s not the teacher’s fault. It’s my fault. I was not interested. But it never really caught me. And that’s probably why it landed a little.
And also back when I was in school, taking it, this was like, I’m 107, you guys. So I took math in the 19th century in a one room schoolhouse. That doesn’t quite connect. Next question please.
Victoria:
(How did you get into acting and comedy?)
And the next question from Amanda. How did you get into acting and comedy?
Brian Palermo:
Almost accidentally, Amanda. I always had an interest in trying to perform or something, but I was petrified of it. I was so afraid of it.
I went in freshman year in high school. I went to an audition for our school’s presentation of like My Fair Lady or something like that. And I was specifically targeting one role that had two lines in the entire three-hour play, there was two lines. And I thought, okay, this is a realistic way for me to start, and I won’t get it. And if I don’t get it, at least I’ll have tried. That’ll be my first step. And, you know, Sunday, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, dream, dream, dream, fantasy, fantasy fantasy. I went to the audition. I stuck around for two hours waiting my turn. My turn finally came up and I was too afraid to do it. So the director said, well, Brian, you’re up, come on up. And I said, ah, I’m good, no. And I was too afraid.
So cut to couple of years later, that was freshman high school, in college, I took an acting class as an elective. So again, I got a communications degree, but I took it my first acting class as an elective just for giggles. And I loved it. I thought it was so fun. It was a different mindset. It was just looser. It was all the emotion of the humanities and the stuff I did not have to know math. I did not have to really apply that part of my brain. So it just seemed lighter and more playful and more fun for me.
So, that’s when I got into acting. We call it sophomore year of college. I auditioned for plays and I started getting into the plays there in college. I went to University of New Orleans. So at UNO, I did a bunch of plays for the last three years that I was there. And I started doing improv with a group out of Tulane. So Tulane, a different college in the city. I just met some people, they had an audition and I played with them for one summer and we were doing what I would call bar prov in the French quarter. So bar prov, you can probably guess is improv shows in a bar and your audience is pretty obnoxious. You know, can we say people are drunk on this podcast and can I mention that? So people are, maybe not be their most sophisticated itself. So if you can live through a summer of bar prov in the French quarter, man, you can handle anything. Stephen Hawking? No problem. You know, propulsion engineers? In my back pocket. You go do bar prov in and French quarter for a summer. So that’s how I got into kind of theater stuff.
And then when I moved out to Los Angeles, as I said earlier, if Victoria doesn’t cut it out, I didn’t come out here to be an actor, I just wanted to be out here, but I did keep pursuing my improv stuff. So I was with three different theater groups. I was taking classes. I was performing shows. I think I eventually I got my 10,000 hours because I was doing so much. It was my only hobby. That’s how I met my friends. That’s how I met my support system out here. That was the fun that I had. So everything was improv. And through that, I got into the Groundlings. Once I got into the Groundlings, I got an agent and then I started getting professional auditions and I booked my first professional job. And then you know, cut to 25 years later, here we are.
Victoria:
Awesome!
Brian Palermo:
Roundabout way.
Victoria:
Yeah. and speaking of your career, this is a good follow-up to that from Lilly.
Brian Palermo:
Yes.
Victoria:
(What has been your favorite thing you worked on during your career so far?)
What has been your favorite thing you worked on during your career so far?
Brian Palermo:
Probably it was working with Lily, because she, you may not know, she’s an expert puppeteer, as she’s got ended drunk. Don’t get her started on marionettes. She makes a big distinction about marionettes.
But Lily, thank you. Favorite thing to work on. Okay. So I thought about this one. It’s similar to my favorite scientist to work with, it’s the current one, it’s whatever the project is I’m working on right now. Because it’s so visceral and it’s vibrant. Cause it’s present. It’s now, you know. All the anxiety that I have, that’s good anxiety, the excitement that’s good. And the anxiety that comes with, you know, wanting to do a good job and wanting to do it right, and wanting to work with new people, and having to work with new people. So the anxiety is always there in good and bad ways. You have to learn to manage your anxiety, which I do a pretty good job of now that I’m so old. But, the current acting jobs is always one of my favorites.
As far as a more satisfying answer for you, the favorite thing that I worked on was this movie called My Life in Ruins. And it was a very small movie. It wasn’t very successful. Nia Vardalos was the star of that. And you may or may not know it. You have to look her up. She was in a movie called My Big Fat Greek Wedding way back when that was what she was most famous for. But My Life in Ruins was another movie that she did, Nia was the star of, and I was one of the ensemble cast, and we got to shoot in Spain and Greece for two months. So that was my favorite experience as an actor, was shooting in Europe for two months and seeing all these new places and, you know, getting paid for it and hanging out with all these fun people. And I met, you know, Harland Williams and Rachel Dratch, and Richard Dreyfuss for any of the parents who are listening out there. And, you know, a lot of other fun, great actors. And I just had the, that was my favorite sort of project that I ever worked on. Because it was also a big one, so I had a little bit bigger payday on that. I got to feel like a big shot for a couple of weeks, you know, all that stuff was great. And it was a comedy, so I got to do what I liked. The director was a fan of improv. So they let me do more of it. Cause that’s the thing. You may like improv, but if it doesn’t serve the project, the director is not going to let you do it. It’s just a waste of time, you know, and time is money, you know. So you may love doing frog dissection, but if it doesn’t serve the chemistry experiment, you’re not going to do a lot of frog dissection. So you do what serves the project. So I got to do improv, which both served them and myself. So all that put together was just a blast. And that was probably my favorite project to work on.
And I honestly, every single one I’m on, I love it. I did a couple of days on Henry Danger, you mentioned in the intro. That’s a Nickelodeon show. It’s really fun and ridiculous and big and over the top. Loved it. Loved every second of it. You know, anything, anytime I’m acting on a set and that’s my favorite because I love all of it all.
Victoria:
(Who has been your favorite person or people to work with?)
That’s awesome.
And the good follow-up to that, you kind of mentioned this, the people that you work with. Lucy wants to know who has been your favorite person or people to work with.
Brian Palermo:
Well, Lucy’s asking that question because a very loaded answer: Lucy is my favorite person I’ve ever worked with. I mean, she’s amazing. You guys are artists. She’s an amazing artist. No, I kind of say, like I said before, that the people that I’m working with currently.
And if you, you know, if you really twist my arm, I would say probably my marine science friends, because I learned so much from them and that’s just kind of something I have a stronger interest in already. So I would lean towards them. But not just marine, any of the freshwater stuff too. I work for this a group called ASLO, which is Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. Limnology is freshwater. So I don’t know if marine implies fresh versus salt or versus vice but anything to do with my water sciences, I love all that stuff. So. But that again, it’s just kind of, that’s the subject matter I am more drawn to.
Victoria:
(What is it like to be on a TV show and in a movie?)
That’s cool.
All right. And we’re getting down to the home stretch here. Just two more questions. Brendan wants to know what is it like to be on a TV show and in a movie,
Brian Palermo:
Super fun. Brandon, give up all your academic dreams and tell your parents you’re moving out to Hollywood right now. And you’re still. No. To be on a TV show and movie is a lot of fun. That’s my first answer. And that’s very genuine.
And it is also a job, you’ve got to produce at a professional level. Right. And what I mean by produce is you’ve got to bring all of your acting skills. If you’re in a comedic role, you’ve got to find a way to make their script lines funny for the audience. You got to do the technical stuff, like just hitting your mark on the floor so that you’re in the lighting that the lighting crew of 20 men and women have set up for you to be lit properly on your face so that it looks good with the rest of the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You’ve got to, you know, speak at a level that is clearly heard technically over all the other noise of the set. You got to know how to work with the microphones. You got to work with other actors, eye contact and all the professional level stuff. Then show up on time and do a good job. You know, it’s not just the fun of what you see as the finished product. You know that the finished product had to take multiple days if not months to get there. I mean, think about an MCU movie. They got to shoot and edit that and add special effects for two years to get one of those things together. And then compare that with a TikTok video where you could just literally shoot yourself for eight seconds on your phone.
So there’s a vast, vast spectrum of different types of jobs, but TV shows and movies, there’s so much fun for me. And again, that’s what I like to do. And there’s pressure, you know, if you flub a line, which I do, you do, everybody does, it’s a natural thing. They don’t expect you to be perfect. But if you flub a line several times in a row, you’re going to start getting the state guy from the director and the producer and the ADE is associate director, all the people, because you’re the one now that it’s extending this day of work for everybody. And there’s a hundred people on that crew. So the responsibilities of being a professional actor at that level brings a lot of demand. But you know, like anything, you get better at it, you get used to it, you improve your skillset, and once you get a certain comfort level with the professional demands, then it’s all just fun, fun, fun. And you’re not, I’m not ever getting paid for the acting I’m just getting paid for being there, for driving in the traffic to get there. The acting is just a bonus.
Victoria:
Awesome.
And this is our final question from Jane.
Brian Palermo:
Oh, thank God. What is it, Jane?
Victoria:
If you could tell it, Nope. Speaking of flubbing lines.
Brian Palermo:
Here you go. See, that makes you normal. It makes you human. I mean, everybody relates to you now.
Victoria:
Yeah. Usually I cut out when I mess up the questions, but I’ll keep that one.
Brian Palermo:
Yeah, leave it in there. We want to show everybody that you’re human.
Victoria:
(If you could only tell scientists one thing to help them communicate, what would it be?)
Yeah.
All right. Jane says, if you could only tell scientists one thing to help them communicate, what would it be?
Brian Palermo:
Focus on who you’re talking with more than what you’re talking about. That’s the thing. Okay. So focus on the person you’re trying to communicate to or with, as opposed to just the content you’re talking about. And this goes back to everything we touched on in the interview is scientists, technologists, you know, people who are sort of information focused, they’re often laser-focused on their information, they can be a little myopic about, I’m just thinking about the data. That’s all that matters is the content, all that matters is the evidence-based material that I’m going to share here. And if you get hung up in that information being the only thing that matters to you, then you’re not gonna have any ability to connect with the human being in front of you. And there’s a billion, billion variables in communication. There’s infinite variables and communication. And your content is important, of course, of course, of course, of course.
When you’re investigating your information, then put all of your brain power, all of your body power, put every, every urge of energy or whatever, however metric you measure human energy, put every calorie of your burning into investigating your science and focus on the information.
But, when you start communicating that information, put your energy on the person you’re communicating with, and make sure you read their face: Are they with you? Are they engaged? Are they bored? Are they angry? Whatever. If they are, change your tactic so that your information can land because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how amazing your information is if no one hears and understands it, then it’s not going anywhere. Your information is useless. It’s moot. That’s a bit harsh, but it’s. I hope you take my point. It’s the information is only as good as how effectively it can be communicated to others.
If the Wright brothers, you know, invented man powered flight, but never told anybody about it. It would be a very different world. I’m sure someone else would have invented it eventually, but just think of it as a very simplistic example, if the Wright brothers created man powered flight, but they never told anyone or they couldn’t communicate it effectively, then we’d still be walking everywhere. You know, that’s horrible, but you get it.
So focus on who you’re speaking with more than what you’re speaking about. That’s what I would say.
Victoria:
That is a great takeaway for this podcast interview.
But I was kind of joking. There is one more question.
Brian Palermo:
Oh, you liar. If Victoria, you guys, if you don’t know her, she is known as a fiber. What is your next question?
Victoria:
Do you have any questions of your own for the listeners?
Brian Palermo:
Yeah, I do. I would love to know the demographics, like how old are your listeners? Are they high school people? Are they college people? Whatever. And, how focused are they on their scientific interests? Like, do you already know that you want to be a geologist? You already know that you want to be a hydrologist? Or are you just vaguely interested in science because it’s cool and curious, but you may never actually follow up on a scientific career. I would love to know kind of all the listeners feelings on that, you know. Are you driven to listen to this podcast because you’re already in the mindset of I’m going to be a scientist, so I’ve got to get into Yale, so I’ve got to get this kind of GPA, so I’ve got to have these kinds of extracurriculars on my resume, and one of them will be listening to all these science podcasts and learning bits and pieces from all these guests. I’d love to know how they express their interest in science. I mean, the people that gave you questions clearly are interested because they took the time to do it. But how much further do they go? Are they already doing their own observations? Are they doing their own exercises? Or is it just you’re a fan of Bill Nye, which is great too. I’m a fan of Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and whatever, you know. Is it just sort of a superficial another subject of interest of yours? Or are you already passionate about, you want to know what happens at the quantum level? You know, you want to know it, blah, blah, blah. I would love to know everybody’s, what they’re passionate about.
Victoria:
Awesome. Do you have a professional social media that they can get in touch with you?
Brian Palermo:
Yeah, just by my own name on facebook. I’m old again, dude, 1890s. So Facebook, you can find me just by my name, Brian Palermo. On Twitter, I’m also verified as Brian Palermo. Oh, it was just funny. So I’m verified as my own name on Twitter because I did a show, a TV show on Fox like 10 years ago, and they had to verify us so that we could tweet about the show. And this is the very, very beginning. And I didn’t know what verification, I didn’t know that there was a big deal or not. They just said, here’s your thing. And I thought everybody got their own name because that’s what Twitter is. You just put your own name is like, Nope, everybody’s name is already taken already. So, but the show was called Riot. And at the time it was the fastest canceled show in the history of the Fox network. So that’s another one of my big credits. And I like to share all the pros and cons of being a professional actor. I was so happy to get that job. And it was just a huge failure in that moment. But that’s part of being real and honest. It’s not you, if you’re just sharing all the shiny parts of your life, then you’re kinda, you know, denying part of the whole of you. And you learn so much from the failures as well as from the successes. But anyway, so on Twitter, I’m also my name.
Victoria:
Awesome. Thank you so much.
Ask a Scientist 