Crip Trip hosts Daniel Ennett & Frederick Kroetsch catch up with actor, comedian, filmmaker, and producer Steve Way – a true multi-hyphenate. Steve's work spans from Hulu's "Ramy" to producing films like "Good Bad Things." They discuss art and advocacy, Steve's career, his current projects, and the significance of telling disabled stories that are grounded in reality.
Crip Trip hosts Daniel Ennett & Frederick Kroetsch catch up with actor, comedian, filmmaker, and producer Steve Way – a true multi-hyphenate. Steve's work spans from Hulu's "Ramy" to producing films like "Good Bad Things." They discuss art and advocacy, Steve's career, his current projects, and the significance of telling disabled stories that are grounded in reality.
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Guest Bio - Steve Way (New York)
Steve is a 32 year old substitute teacher by day and stand up comedian by night. He was born with Muscular Dystrophy and is an advocate for disability awareness. Steve performs stand up in the NJ/NY area, motivational speeches around the country, and is the co-creator and star of the web series Uplifting Dystrophy. He can be seen in the Hulu show Ramy.
Steve has been performing stand up for over 8 years with his first set at the Comedy Charity Explosion in his hometown of Rutherford, NJ. He has performed at the 2011 Bamboozle music festival and was the co-host of The Lockdown, a monthly stand up show at the People's Improv Theatre in New York City.
Follow Steve Way online:
Hold on and 3, 2, 1.
It's Danny and Fred Trip podcast.
This podcast contains strong language
and adult themes that may not be suitable for all audiences.
Danny and I are in Edmonton chatting over Zoom
with Steve Way, who is based in New Jersey.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, boys
and girls, they/thems welcome to the Crip Trip podcast.
We're joined here today
with the wonderful magnanimous, Steve Way,
production mastermind,
disability advocate,
prolific actor,
And a great comedian
And a great comedian, man of many titles.
Multi-hyphenate.
Thank you so much for joining us here today,
Howdy. Howdy. How are you?
Not too bad. How are you doing?
Yeah, we're a little concerned,
you know, for our planet.
Yeah, It's November 1st.
I'm in northern New Jersey
and it's 75 degrees right now. That's not normal.
Yeah. So we went through all of last winter
and we didn't get snowfall in Edmonton, Alberta, which is,
you know, very snow city until January, which was, you know,
a a bit of a wake up call.
So, speaking of the,
the date I've been enjoying your get out
and vote videos you've been posting, I think
that this is like the most important message
right now. (laughs) Good job. I've been watching 'em.
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, man, it's, you know,
the simplest thing that you could do as, as a,
as a citizen, I would never tell anyone who to vote
for, you know?
'cause I, I always want people
to vote with their own interests.
Right. And I don't know what your best interests are,
but you know, that's how you have a voice.
Right. And at the same time,
I always hate it when, when people complain
about politics and government, but they never vote.
Yeah. And I done it, you know,
sometimes it feels like what your vote doesn't
matter matter, but it's us.
Yeah. That why you change the policies
that affect your day-to-day life. So.
Well, and that's kind of why we wanted to talk
to you today to kind of talk about, you know, the,
the bridging the gap between, you know, art and advocacy
and kind of how they are.
So sometimes like mutually constitute of,
I don't know about you,
but me personally, I'm always trying to
elucidate stories from my community that like,
will help people find like the political willpower
and wherewithal to, to try and
Yeah. Affect change.
Yeah.
I, there are a lot of layers to that, right.
To create fundamental change.
You know, first you have to, I guess, decide whether
you have that in you.
Yeah. Not everyone can travel.
Yeah.
Not everyone has
the confidence to
speak or speak in front of like, you know,
a group of elected officials.
And then you have to decide whether you can invest
literally years of time.
You know, I've been public speaking
since I was nine years old.
I'm almost 34, so I've doing this a while. Right.
But I know what I'm doing. I'm confident I'm good at it.
Earlier this year, I helped
get a bill passed,
in my state of New Jersey
that gave more protections
to 50,000 domestic workers.
Yeah. So the people that take care of you and I
Yeah.
That took over three years. Right.
And for United States government, that's fast.
Yeah. Fast.
Yeah. And that's something I was hoping
to elucidate on Crip Trip was the timescale that a lot
of like activism actually runs on. Right.
It's not, you know, some people come into activism
with like a, a savior complex.
Right. And then they get burnt out on a topic
and then they don't have the,
the wherewithal to like continue through.
We talked about him being multi-hyphenate,
actor, comedian, like Steve, do you think you could
just give us a bit of a background on like where you are
in your career and how you got there?
Yeah. I owe it all to my disability.
Growing up. Growing up, I always used comedy
as like a coping mechanism,
you know, to deal with that.
And my friends and my family were always in on it.
So it was never really awkward or weird.
And when I got to high school, the high school
that I went to has a TV studio
in the basement, so we always had access
to cameras and editing, all of it.
And that's when my best,
my best friend and I, Ramy Youssef,
became very close.
And we worked together a lot.
And when we started high school in 2005,
that's when YouTube started.
So bridges hit everything together
and the older we got, the better we got, you know,
we've been doing this since we 14 years old,
almost 20 years.
So very, very privileged.
We went to have had that access,
but we we're also that good.
Yeah. With anyone on camera,
it doesn't mean that just shoot something good with it.
Exactly. So when we graduated,
when we got into stand up,
he encouraged me to do it.
I did that for a couple years.
Ramy got his show, he wrote me a part,
started acting.
So now I am, I'm prepping
for my hour stand-up special
producing two movies. Yep.
You know, just wrapping up.
'Good Bad Things'.
Loved it, by the way.
Fantastic movie. Thank you, thank you.
We are looking for a home for it.
So it's been a solid year of
festivals with theatrical run
with virtual release.
And now trying to get it on a streamer.
This is the first time I'm publicly saying this.
So you're getting the exclusive here.
(Danny laughs)
I just signed on to produce another movie.
Congratulations.
and it's a documentary
about disabled people in the Holocaust,
which I think is something
that is very, very relevant today.
You know, we always say never again. Right.
But what people don't know is that the T4 program,
which was designed for disabled people
was the testament for all us.
Yeah.
I'm really hoping that people,
you know, can see.
Yeah. It was obviously this just despicable
event of human history will also understand,
you know, just how, again its disabled people
that were the test subjects
and then afterwards were forgotten about.
Yeah. It's, And,
Because it's a microcosm for society.
Yeah. And you know, right now in Canada we're dealing
with programs like medical assistance and dying
or MAID, that, you know, I think it's,
it's, it's quite frequently that, you know, we you,
you have a marginalized demographic of some description
where they test some heinous thing.
Right. And then it ends up affecting society in a larger
way down the line. Right. So this project you're
talking about is called 'Disposable Humanity', right?
Yeah. And yeah, bringing attention to, you know,
things like how, how people treat, you know,
their most vulnerable will echo into
how they treat mainstream society.
And that is one of the, you know,
starkest examples that I can think of.
You know, this, this T4 trial program, you know,
preempting even the Holocaust.
But, you know, it makes you think about where we're headed
as a society today with things like, you know,
medical assistance and dying
and you know, how that will eventually broaden
its scope and it's,
it's been happening in Canada right now. Right.
It's, it's not right that it's easier to get a doctor
to kill you than to get some medicine to cure you.
Ththis is shouldn't be that way.
Or, or basic, you know,
like home care. Yeah.
It's, it's harder for me to get a few extra hours
of home care than it is for me to kill myself. You know,
It's like a 10 year battle that'll be well
documented, I think, thankfully.
Yeah.
I got a question about,
since you're producing so many films, Steve,
and you've been involved in TV shows
and all this stuff, what are your thoughts on
traditional disabled archetypes
and, you know, should we be avoiding those?
What are what are your thoughts on that?
(indistinct)
And the power of storytelling,
I have a a real honest story to tell,
And obviously I think it's important to help those who are
marginalized or underrepresented
to have their stories told too.
Right. Because as a writer
and an actor and comedian, right.
I just tell my own story
and that's something I love doing.
Oh. I'm sharing my story to show people that while
I look different and I need help with a lot of stuff,
my life isn't that much different from everyone else's.
Right. But at the same time, as a producer,
I wanna help other people tell their stories.
Right. So I can use my platform
to give other people a platform.
No, I think it's important to understand that,
you know, we all
have one story, so
it's important to remember, we don't wanna go off others,
other people's stories.
Right. We don't wanna take that away from people.
We don't wanna take it by their agency.
We have that freedom, but at the same time, it's not easy.
Right. Because you all know this, like,
this industry kinda sucks for anyone.
For anyone.
Well, yeah. And I, I was, I was gonna ask like, is there,
you know, certain types of stories that you notice
that like broadcasters want more
or certain narratives that like cross your desk
and you're like, ah, this, this isn't doing it for me.
Yeah. They, they want stories
that aren't realistic.
They want the stories that will make the audience feel good.
You know, when they come home from a day at work where
they may have exploited, overworked and underpaid,
and then they just scroll on their phone about how
terrible the world is and how they can't afford anything.
Right. So it's either you watch
'Love is Blind'
and I'm trying I to give you
17 reasons why I love that show.
Or you need to watch a narrative show
to watch someone I like you or I
with the happy ending.
That's not our lives,
that's not anyone's life, right.
But we're the vessel, the reel, the prop
who end up feeding that happy ending to the audience.
And that's how you kind of get into those, you know,
inspo-porn tropes is,
you know, they do want that happy ending,
but it is so divorced from reality, which is something,
you know, I'm very interested in doing creatively.
Sorry, say that one more time.
I want a happy ending too, in more ways than one.
(Danny laughing) But, you know, again,
is that real life?
No. And why is that? Yeah.
Because society, government
and capitalism, makes it that way.
Well, and and it's,
it's interesting you bring this up, right?
Like the eight hour workday, how,
how little resources people have at the end of the day
to like, come home and watch something. Super.
Oh, I can I challenge you on that.
Yeah. Yeah. I know a lot of people
work a lot more than eight hours a day.
I work a lot more than five days a week.
You know, I feel like that that's standard
is not standard anymore.
That's true. And I feel like you are.
I'm freelance. I get it. You know, like the Yeah.
We, we had a lot of days on Crip Trip, you know,
run into like the 18 hour mark.
Right. And we're all, we're all burnt out. Right.
And like, like you say, it's,
it's just getting worse and worse.
The, the more work we expect from people.
Of course. I mean, I feel that like our work,
we were very privileged to be doing it.
Oh, absolutely. And it was, mostly fun work, really.
But you know, this, this, this concept of how
do people affect change when they're so burnt out?
Right. And, and how do you get them to sit
with very difficult content?
Right. So this is, this is one thing, you know, we, we,
we debated a lot when we were making Crip Trip.
was how do we make the audience actually engage
with my circumstances without their eyes glazing over
and them getting jaded instantly.
Right. So how do you use entertainment, right.
As a mechanism to then, you know, give them the medicine
that is, you know, these are the circumstances we have to
live with. Entertainment's a powerful force
if used properly.
I think it can create great change.
It's just that it's usually used sort of improperly.
Creating these false scenarios
and false expectations and false stories.
But entertainment's great.
But entertainment doesn't mean it, it has to be happy.
Yeah. You know, I like to see struggle
Of course. But,
at the end of the day, I, I believe
that philosophically the,
the average person wants two things.
They want to relate and they wanna feel something.
Yeah. Right.
It's my, I believe the, the, the,
the metric of a very good show
is characters.
Yeah.
If you list,
like the best shows ever made.
They all have strong, well-defined,
relatable characters.
Right. It doesn't have to have relatable story.
Look at 'Breaking Bad'. Yeah.
Right. I don't think
that many people can relate
to cooking meth.
Right. But you can relate to
well I have to do what's best for our family.
Yeah. I wanted to provide for our family.
And mixing chemicals in the back of an RV.
[Fred] We know all about that.
(Danny laughs)
Yeah. You did that. Yeah.
We can relate to that.
Yeah. But,
that's what I love so much about the show.
Ramish. Ramy basically gave me,
full control over my character.
You know, he would show me a script
and say, just rewrite this, how you would say it,
do this, how you would, you know,
and the specificity of that, I think is what makes
that show so powerful.
And yeah. It is still relatable at the end of the day.
Right. Like, and deeply funny. Very, very funny.
And, and makes you, it makes you feel a lot.
That's what I think one, one
of the really noticeable things about the show was just the
amount of feelings the show gave me from so many scenarios.
And yeah. It was 'cause the characters are dynamic.
Yeah. Thank you. I mean, you know, I have
to give it my top three.
They were shows of all time, 'Twin Peaks',
Succession, and the Sopranos,
and they all have strong characters.
Yeah.
There's no one dimensional people.
Right. Right. But that's, that's real life.
Right?
I thought the correct answer was 'The Wire'.
Isn't it always 'The Wire'?
I will always fight against that. Oh!
I'd like to fight against that.
Listen, when I said my favorite,
I just mean my personal favorite,
but I, I personally believe
and I will die on this hill.
That Succession
is the greatest written show
of all time.
It's good. It's, I still need to finish it.
It's really good. It's great. I still need to finish it.
I'm preparing for a rewatch.
The first round, it happened so fast.
I'm doing it now.
You're doing it? Doing it now.
I'm planning to start next week,
It holds up.
It holds up.
But, but that is like,
and then take other shows like Seinfeld
or It's Always Sunny Philadelphia. Right.
It's like there's two shows and Succession.
They're all bad people. We're not supposed to root for them.
Yeah. Like with 'The Sopranos' too.
Yeah.
Right?
We're not supposed to root for them,
But still, somehow you find New Jersey mobsters
relatable. You know, it's like,
Oh. I mean, really that's,
I mean, you are a New Jersey mobster.
They literally filmed
'The Sopranos' all around where I grew up.
But again, as such,
we feel, right?
We feel the anger,
we feel the the violence,
the, the vengeance.
Right. And we wanna be that.
We wanna be Tony Soprano.
Right. We wanna be Kendall Roy,
we want the money, we want the power.
At the same time, we, we wanna be Kramer,
you know, we wanna be like Dennis or Mac with Charlie
because they're just, degenerates.
Yep.
Right.
They don't care about life.
They don't care about anyone but themselves.
And that's the escape.
Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, Charlie has a heart of gold.
Come on, kitten mittens
The, it's you.
Yeah. You watch these, these people, you know,
who are just like wrought.
Id especially in 'Always Sunny', you know,
where I can relate to that.
I I can definitely relate to that. Right.
It's, it's the impulse we try to control
and it's like, what if you didn't?
Right. But to bring this all back,
what Ramy taught me,
that the purpose of the show is
that it's okay to be vulnerable.
Yeah. It's okay to be honest.
It's okay to be raw
and it's okay to make something,
to make people uncomfortable.
Yeah. Because that's how they feel.
Was there a standout moment in doing Ramy
where you're like,
I'm articI'm articulating something deeply personal here.
Or I'm showing something about the disabled community
that is, you know,
I think disabled people will find relatable.
Was was there a standout moment during
that show where you're like,
this one's for the cripples.
Spoiler alert?
Yeah. The episode Ramy jerks me off and,
and I want to tell you the very
story of how that came to be.
So before every season when Ramy's in the writer's room,
He will call me up and put me on speakerphone
and asked me a very uncomfortable question.
Yep.
Right. So see the one come on speaker phone in a room
full of writers.
Steve,
did you ever hang out with a girl who was underage?
And I'm like, well, I'm not answering that.
In season two, Steve,
do you jerk off?
And I'm like, oh no.
And he says,
because your hands don't work right?
It's like, yeah, it's been a while.
And he says, totally, totally.
Seriously, have you ever thought
about asking me to do it for you?
And I was like, you know, man, I,
there probably was a time
when I was so desperate.
I said, you know what, Ramy would do it.
And he said, and he said, great,
we're gonna do that in the show.
But I love it because when that aired,
we got so many messages, messages from people
in the disabled community.
Yeah. Like thanking me for showing that
That's amazing.
You, like, You,
You made me comfortable
to finally talk about the struggle.
And it's like, that's changed
to bring it all back from the beginning.
Yeah. That's Conversation. That's fundamental change.
Yeah. I love that anecdote so much. That's my favorite
anecdote I've ever heard in my life, man. Wow.
And, and you know, it's, it's bringing light
to those stories where, you know, you had,
you had an interesting process even bringing it to fruition.
Right. Like a random phone call where it's, it's,
it's tabled and then you do something genuinely cool
and vulnerable with it.
And then that makes it relatable for more people.
I, I had a bit of a selfish question.
We, we'd been chatting before the podcast
and you know, in, in Crip Trip I'm sort
of the able-bodied friend, right?
And yet in reality, I'm,
somewhat disI have disabilities, right, on paper.
I do. [Danny] And in real life.
I have lots of medical issues in real life, you know,
and I feel very,
I don't feel comfortable using the word disability
or disabled with myself because, you know, yeah.
I've got exhaustion and all these things,
but then I go to a rock climbing gym
and it just feels like
that's the ultimate able-bodied expression yet I, I am,
you know, and what, do you have any advice on how
to think about that?
And like, I just, it's, it's kind of new
and I don't know how to use the words to describe it.
Yeah. But I first wanted to say that I,
I appreciate you saying that
because it's a very vulnerable thing to talk about.
Yeah. And so truly, I, I admire you
for being open about that.
You know, and I, and I hope that you to take a step back
and, you know, appreciate yourself for that.
It, I have never been comfortable talking about any
of my health issues ever.
I always want to be a paragon of fitness.
And now there's just so many things of piled up.
I'm like, and now that we're doing things like Crip Trip,
it's like, it's time to just be honest.
You know? It's time. Yeah.
Because it is taxing, right? It, it's taxing.
You have new capacities that you have to deal
With.
We're we're filming a show where you're seeing me at
capacity and you're seeing my limitations
and now it's gonna be nationally broadcast.
So it's like what I'm, what?
I have nothing to gain by hiding, you know,
from my disabilities.
It's just, I don't know how to talk about them
because I feel, I feel ingenuine about it. You know?
Well, first of all, it's not about
or a loss, right.
Identity. It's your story. That's your identity.
It's who you are. You know, for someone like me,
I don't have a choice, right?
So I have to lean into it.
It's who I made myself, who I am. Right.
This is my job, it's my career.
I just, I didn't launch a production
company, right.
To help tell disabled stories,
to elevate disabled creators and performers.
Because that's my mission.
That's the mission I took on because of my own experiences.
Now, when you, when you say that, like,
you feel almost hypocritical,
disability does not exist in a vacuum
it exists on a spectrum, right,
disability is all over the place.
I cannot be myself. I can't walk.
Right. But I'm a movie producer.
I've got an award-winning movie.
I'm a an award-winning movie producer. Right. Who else?
Like me is doing that, right?
Yeah. So would you argue that
movie producing is exclusive to your non-disabled people?
I mean, something like rock climbing
I see people with
limb difference all the time.
Yeah.
I, Fred, I'm sorry, you're not special.
You gotta get that outta your head.
No, no. I, I mean, I feel weird
'cause Danny comes to the rock climbing gym with me a lot,
and it's like, I wish
We could I sit there and watch him fall
and I'm like, man, I, I would've thought I saw some,
you know, functional improvement by now.
But like, he's still just falling on his ass constantly.
And I'm like, okay, you know,
at least I get coffee out of it. Really? That's,
Yeah, as you you should.
But again, it's like Fred, I, I'm sure
that Danny can do things and you can't
Oh, for Sure. Yeah. You
You know?
Like, think.
Well, you know, even that's getting more
challenging over the years.
But yeah, it's, it's about like,
you know, staying in your lane.
It's, it's when you fulcrum your disability
to talk over other disabled people who have like a more
inline experience, right?
Like, I, I deal a lot
with chronically ill communities, right?
But my chronic illness is pretty stable. Right?
Like, I'm not needing to do a lot of stuff like manage it.
So like I have some of that experience,
but I don't have all of it in the same way that a lot
of chronically ill people aren't, you know,
functionally segregated out of buildings.
Right. So the real problems to me with,
you know, people weaponizing their own identification
as disabled comes when they're
using it to talk over other people.
Right. So making sure that we're just keeping
those avenues open.
But I kind of wanna wrap things up here.
Yeah. And I, I just wanted to point out that like, I think
that that's what you're saying is probably the next big
conversation as we're seeing Renaissance in the,
in the disabled space.
I think the next conversation now is that, is
that nuanced conversation.
I think it's gonna be coming soon.
Yeah. And it's making sure that we're not losing things
to like lateral ableism along the way and, and,
and all the rest of it.
But yeah. So I guess I'll just close out
with this last question, Steve.
What are some improvements you'd like to see in, you know,
film or comedy in writers' rooms
or broadcast pitch meetings
to fundamentally change the industry?
What would, what, what's a easy fix
that would make things more accessible do you think?
Just give us the opportunity
just give us a chance to prove ourselves.
Because we will.
Yeah. Right.
We are good enough. We're better. I think,
but a lot of times we're not even allowed in the room.
Yeah. We're not given a seat at the table
and that's not fair.
Yeah. At all. We know a lot of us have earned it.
We more than a lot of other people, but,
but most people don't look like you and I.
Yeah.
So it's hard to get past that.
But just one day at a time.
It takes a long time. But
We get, we get one wheel in the door
and then we keep the door open. Right, Steve?
Have to start somewhere.
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much
for joining us here today.
I, I miss hanging out with you, man. We gotta do some
projects right away so we can all work together again.
Oh, we have to. We have to. We're working on it.
Absolutely. Okay.
Thank you so much. Byeeeeee.
Byeeeeee. Byeeeeee.
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