The NeuThrone Creator Spotlight Series celebrates the bold voices of the “New Guard”—a generation of visionaries redefining creativity in a world increasingly dominated by big technology companies and cultural conformity.
These are creators who have thrown out the old playbooks for success.
In this latest episode, NeuThrone spotlights K.C. Wolf. K.C. is an actor, a filmmaker, and a social media creator. But he’s also an entrepreneur who’s determined to break into Hollywood, even if that means literally breaking in. In our conversation below, we delve into his admiration for musical iconoclasts like Anthony Kiedis and early Johnny Depp, his deep dive into embodying the character of Eminem, and the question of whether the archetype of the rock ‘n’ roll rebel can still exist in today’s screen-dominated era.
His fearless streak shows up on the big screen and the vertical confines of social media, but his message is clear: he’s not waiting around for anyone.
NeuThrone: We connected on a couple of levels when we first met. We’re both from blue-collar towns, blue-collar families. It’s a classic story, right? A kid moves to a big city with a big plan, but no one understands why. The first thing that happens in the big city is that their plan doesn’t work. They fall on their asses. This is your story too? Can you tell us about growing up in Baltimore and coming out here?
K.C.: Yeah, my dad was a cop, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. I moved to Florida in between Baltimore and LA, but I was in a pretty dark space in Baltimore at the end of it. I was so “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Like, I am not living my life’s purpose. And it’s affecting everything. My attitude, my sleep.
You’re driving to the Nestle factory to go put on a freezer suit and forklift ice cream. Literally ice cream. You’re in a sub-zero freezer, where you breathe through your mask and your eyelashes accumulate ice. You’re inside a warehouse, you have no idea what time it is.
For the people I grew up with, there are only a couple of lanes. It’s like: real estate agent, cop, nurse, banker, or go work for your dad’s company.
NeuThrone: So when you first said hey, I’m going to move to LA to become an actor, did you frame that as a practical decision? Was it “I need to get out of here and this is my ticket?” Or was it more “I’ve discovered acting?”
K.C.: There was a practical side, yeah. People saw a bright side to it. They felt that if this would get me excited, doing things I excel at, they saw it as a positive. But I overthought the initial move. Do you think how this is ever going to work? And then you do that for a couple of years, you put it off, you get another girlfriend, and you think, maybe I’ll go back to school and get an accounting degree.
But there’s not enough there. Not enough concerts or enough whiskey and vodka to hide forever.
But there were some strange looks. People would say, “you’ve talked about it when you were like eight shots deep at the bar, but I didn’t know you were serious”, but once you set your sails, people say oh this is a good thing, maybe this can work.
NeuThrone: But the inspiration for you, was it a love of acting? Was it a love of filmmaking? Was it a love of just kind of like doing something creative, like entrepreneurial creative work?
K.C.: It started as acting. I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for a couple of actors. Guys like Johnny Depp. Guys like Tom Cruise, where it’s like, you feel like he wants to be there more than anybody. That’s a quality that I have when I lock in on something.
Johnny Depp was a musician, and Nick Cage got him into acting. Nick Cage made some connections for him, and then he starred in Friday the 13th, and then he popped off in a couple of commercials.
Anthony Kiedis is another one. That whole group ran together, and I always loved that, like Joaquin Phoenix and River Phoenix and Johnny Depp, it didn’t seem like it was about fame, they’d rather go low profile and party with girls and play music.
Growing up in the nineties, I always thought they were cool. It wasn’t about the money. You’ve got the commercial kids – they’re like the preppy kids in school – but I always felt kind of punk rock. Which is why I’m frustrated with the industry now because it’s like, where’s the fucking punk rock?
NeuThrone: So where is that underground punk ethos? Who is living that rock & roll bad-boy life in 2025? Are there up-and-comers doing that now that we’ll eventually look back on and idolize? Or are people just sitting at home listening to meditation podcasts and scrolling on Instagram?
K.C.: Unfortunately, I think it’s only living on the internet in a fantasy land. And look, I know people, we can go to a rave tonight. We can do it on a Tuesday afternoon if you want. But everything has become this algorithm-feeding nonsense. The game has become more about visibility than it has crafted. And that, to me, is really sad because Hollywood used to be about the craft.
NeuThrone: Twenty to thirty years ago, there were stories like Robert Rodriguez storming Sundance or Adriana Lima being discovered in a shopping mall. Are those stories possible today? Or are all stories in 2025 some version of the Paul brothers come up?
K.C.: I’m not going to act like I know the answers to where the industry is going, but what I did call for quite some time is the fall of Hollywood. It’s been knocking on their door.
It’s an old dead system. If the system wasn’t dead, the studios would be packed with film production, but they’re not. They’re doing two movies a year. Barbie and Oppenheimer. They’re cooked, you know, nobody cares. There are movies out with giant stars like Austin Butler and Timothee Chalamet, and they’re losing 100’s of millions of dollars.
These studio bosses, CEOs, and network executives are not the bosses anymore. It’s like, “Here’s your coat card. It’s time for you to leave.”
I don’t think that you’re going to get kids to want to go to the theater anymore. I’m even seeing kids get totally off their phones because they’re so shot out. There’s a lot of kids looking for experiences. Kids who are trying to be real boys, and being like, you know, fuck this shit, fuck the system, fuck this school.
NeuThrone: So, this system that’s in place now, in many ways, it is centered around attention and how much attention you can command, right? The doors to the studios and talent agencies are locked, but now we have social media consuming everyone’s attention, so attention is king. So you devised a way to flip the script on this idea of being locked out and play it to your advantage. Can you tell us about this thing you orchestrated?
K.C.: Once you realize you can break out of the system, you can unplug yourself from this matrix,and everything changes.
There was an opportunity out for the role of Han Solo, it was a Donald Glover production, and I wanted the role. But I knew I was locked out of the system. The agency system is designed to say “No”, to keep you out. So I figured I could either wait in this huge line, email in my audition tape, then just sit around and wait.
Or I could just hand deliver my audition tape. Like, I’ll make a whole movie of me playing the role of Han Solo, and then I’ll literally sneak into William Morris. These places are like heavily guarded fortresses. But I’ll dress up as a Fed Ex delivery guy, I’ll walk right up to the security desk and be like, I’m here to see these people. And I filmed the whole thing.
Well, actually, my camera cut out the first time, so I had to sneak in a second time. I found the names of all the important people involved. I hand-made each of them a package with Imperial Credits, Han Solo’s lucky dice, and a QR code to my Han Solo film. And get this: Every single one of them watched it.
NeuThrone: It’s a genius way of getting attention. If you’re auditioning for a heist movie, you could just film yourself reading the lines. Or, you could commit a heist in public, as Han Solo is an outlaw. And what you did is you said, “if you want to see some outlaw stuff, just watch this video.”
K.C.: Right. Han Solo is in handcuffs in the video, and maybe I’d end up in handcuffs too. But who cares?
I’ll break into the Death Star (William Morris Endeavor), I’ll just go do it. I’m not a Jedi, I’m just some guy. I don’t have any special powers.
And I took that film of me auditioning for Han Solo and me sneaking into WME and I cut it into a documentary and I got into the San Antonio Film Festival with it. And when I got into the festival, it was like “Thank you WME for locking me out.” Now I have this film that’s commanding all the attention.
NeuThrone: And this is a formula you’ve repeated?
K.C.: That’s right. I heard they were remaking 8 Mile with Eminem, so I did the same thing. I studied the character, wrote the script, and I shot the film. I put it in the right people’s hands (50 Cent and Paul Rosenberg). And big things came out of it.
I ended up meeting my now mentor Damizza – shout out to Damizza, Lil Bams, and Skippy – and I’m producing new stuff with these guys now.
There’s an old Kanye West line where he’s like, “I made Jesus Walks, I’m never going to hell.” My version of that is more like, “I met Damizza Young, and I’m never going to fail.” Damizza called me on the phone after seeing my film work on Instagram and said to me, “You got what they’re looking for, that’s why I’m on the phone with you right now. So if you have any reservations about that, you need to extinguish those fires.”
So that’s my camp. These guys are scrappy, and maybe they say the unpopular thing and do the unpopular thing. They’re based in Santa Barbara, but they’re not really from this town. They operate differently, you know what I mean?
I’ve become good friends with them. I have great respect for those guys and everything they do. So shout out to them for sure.
NeuThrone: So this is the rock and roll story that’s missing today, no? The outsider, the rebel, is giving the middle finger to the system and just doing something outside the system and forcing them to pay attention. And you’re developing another one of these projects around Anthony Kiedis. Can you tell us about that?
K.C.: So there’s a project being run by Guy Oseary and Brian Grazer. Those two guys have had their hands in some of the most culture-shifting ideas ever. Brian Grazer was a part of 8 Mile, which, obviously, I have ties to and great respect for. There’s this big biopic thing going on in Hollywood from Elvis, which I auditioned for, to Elton John.
As I study the Chili Peppers and, you know, Johnny Depp and the Viper Room and like all these guys, Joaquin and River Phoenix, there’s this dark story that they’ve got. But it’s also, at the same time, based on a real love for finding yourself and how that’s not always pretty, and that’s kind of my story, you know? There’s a lot of darkness in it, there’s a lot of trying to find yourself and the fear that drives you. It’s almost like this speedball of emotion that you get from it.
And so when I heard that they were doing it, I was like, dude, I would do anything to be a part of that. Like, his teeth are chipped, I would have them saw my teeth down, you know. Like, go ahead and fucking do it, like, I will kill this role given the opportunity. So I don’t care if they have somebody or if they don’t have somebody. I’m throwing my name in the hat.
NeuThrone: It’s almost like you’re reinventing the audition tape in the age of social media. It’s not a cooler audition tape. It’s not a better-edited audition tape. It’s not a vertically filmed audition tape. It’s the display of watching me command a bunch of attention, doing the thing that this person or this character did. You made the Death Star literal. You’re saying that talent agencies are this dying breed of emperors. And they have this fortress, but I’m just gonna walk straight through the front door.
K.C.: That’s right. When Christian Bale was working on American Psycho, apparently, there was a point where they tried to cut him out of the project. And Christian Bale was like, that’s not gonna happen, I’m just gonna keep living it, you know? He just kept living as if he was gonna be Patrick Bateman. At some point, the filmmakers realized what they needed was someone who was dedicated, and that dedication would be crucial to making the project the classic it is today.
NeuThrone: So if these studios can’t male hits, if they’re not in control, who is in control? Who are the bosses now? You can make a strong argument that Ari Emanuel has a lot of power. Ari Emanuel, the individual, can greenlight anything. This is going to happen, this is not going to happen, etc. But you’re saying, like, is the system that’s bigger than him losing its vote?
K.C.: Ari Emanuel has the UFC and WWE. That’s working.
NeuThrone: Take Ari Emmanuel out of the question. Let’s say one of these old guard power brokers comes to your door and says, “I want to wave my magic wand, the stuff you’re working on is a go, nothing but green lights in Hollywood for you.” Then we fast forward 12 months. What is that? What is the thing that you want to produce?
K.C.: Yeah, well, first off, it would be zero compromise on my end. It’s gotta be what I say, and you’re not getting any revisions. This is all through me because that’s what we’re missing in Hollywood.
That’s why people still go see Paul Thomas Anderson movies. There’s a reason why people still show up to the theater for that, because it’s HIS specific point of view, right? You know, you want to see the thing that they are making, to see their vision. We don’t want to see this chopped and edited version that’s been through so many executive hands that everyone just wants their credit on the film so they can get on the next one.
I’ve got like a six-pack of things I’m looking to do. It’s all coming together.
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