It's crazy. Even doing that one episode of 'Catfish,' I get people recognizing me for it who didn't even know my music.
On 'Catfish,' I'm a co-host and onscreen cameraman, maybe the second onscreen cameraman after Wes Bentley's turn in 'American Beauty,' which is funny and ironic. But before that, I'd been doing a lot of creative nonfiction.
Most people who recognize me don't even know my name. They just yell out ''Catfish!'' or 'Where's Nev?' or sometimes just 'Nev!'
Those elements that make 'Catfish' so interesting to watch, elements of deception and mystery, make any movie or any piece of content exciting to watch. It makes characters complex and interesting.
For basically three years, I was doing 'Catfish' and 'We Are Your Friends' at the same time - it was like straddling two very long-term creative marriages. And when you're in a long-term creative commitment, you tend to daydream and fantasize about smaller creative flings that you want to have.
It's funny - until 'Catfish,' none of my films were angled at young people except for the fact that they were angled at me and my contemporaries. And that's who I'm constantly making things for. I'm not imagining a younger audience I'm trying to impart wisdom to; I don't want to seem pretentious enough to think I can impart wisdom.
'Catfish' is a great project that we have a blast doing, and it's really fun and at the zeitgeist in the world - certainly in the U.S., hopefully in the U.K. and I imagine the rest of the world. Being at the centre of this discussion and this subject has been really incredible as both a filmmaker and someone who likes to participate in pop culture.
The traveling that 'Catfish' affords us and the cross-section of America that we see on a constant basis, I would have never gotten that living in the bubble that is Los Angeles or going home to visit my parents in the bubble that is New York.
If you want proof that 'Catfish' was real, just put me in an audition room and watch me fall apart. I can't pretend. I'm really bad at it. That's partly what makes me good at hosting a reality show.
Contrary to slanderous Eastern opinion, much of Iowa is not flat, but rolling hills country with a lot of timber, a handsome and imaginative landscape, crowded with constant small changes of scene and full of little creeks winding with pools where shiners, crappies and catfish hover.
