Justin Connor: The Lungs Hold Grief and Why Workaholism Is Both Saving Grace and Achilles Heel for Filmmakers

The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Srinivas Rao

Society & Culture

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Justin Connor, filmmaker and musician behind The Golden Age, shares how his saxophonist father and jazz-loving parents never encouraged music yet inadvertently programmed workaholism into his DNA—a double-edged sword that became both his greatest asset for wearing multiple hats on independent films and his potential downfall requiring hard drive reformatting of his life. Connor reveals how cigarette addiction reflected grief stored in the lungs, how psychedelics and ayahuasca offered exploration without true addiction, and why workaholism proved more dangerous than any substance by fueling perfectionism, obsessive careerism, and control. Drawing from his upbringing witnessing family dynamics, he explains how directing became about trusting himself as an adult after childhood wounds, why he interned for Eric Holder before a double feature of Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction redirected him to Hollywood, and how creating The Golden Age with superhuman strength felt like lancing a boil that needed purging—a film he could never remake even with 10 million dollars.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	As you probably notice, this month, we're bringing you our Life of Purpose series and revisiting
0:04.6	some of our most transformative episodes. Tune in to explore expert insights and practical
0:09.4	strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve
0:14.4	personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get
0:18.5	recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free Life of Purpose ebook.
0:24.7	What you have to do is go to UnmistakableCreative.com slash LifePurpose. Again, that's UnmistakableCreative.com slash life purpose.
0:36.6	I'm Sreeny Rao, and this is the Unmistakable Creative Podcast, where you get a window into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds who started movements, built thriving businesses, written bestselling books, and created insanely interesting art.
0:50.0	For more, check out our 500 episode archive at UnmistakableCreative.com.
0:58.4	Doing creative work can be kind of lonely, and that's why we built the Unmistakable
1:02.8	listener tribe. The tribe is a community for professionals to connect and support each other.
1:06.9	Everything is designed to help you grow your business and share what's working and what isn't.
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1:14.1	You'll get access to feedback, live conversations with guests, and so much more.
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1:23.4	Hopefully, I'll see you there.
1:24.5	Visit unmistakablecreative.com slash tribe to join. Again, that's unmistakablecreative.com slash tribe to join.
1:27.8	Again, that's unmistakablecreative.com slash tribe.
1:34.2	Justin, welcome to the unmistakable creative.
1:35.9	Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.
1:37.5	Thanks for having me, Shannie.
1:39.1	Yeah, it is my pleasure.
1:40.5	So I found out about your story because you wrote in about your film, The Golden Age. And I think that the thing that really struck me was that you wrote about this idea of this obsession that we have as a culture with fame, which I thought this is kind of a no-brainer to me because it's so important because I think that often we've, you know, prioritized, you know, fame over mastery and craft. But before we get into all of that,
	...

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