Episode 8: Clay Hassler

It’s so fun when you get to interview friends, and I’m thankful to call Clay Hassler a friend. I’ve known Clay and his family for pretty much my entire life, and they’re some of the most talented people I’ve ever met, and Clay is certainly no exception.

Clay and his wife, Tif, are filmmakers who live in East Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville, TN, and they also lead a creative collective and film content studio in New York City called Wet Paint. Clay is the son of a photographer and has been around the creative arts his entire life. He’s been making films since high school, but that was just the start of what has become an award-winning career so far for him.

Clay was named a “Director To Watch” by Way Too Indie following the release of his debut feature film, HOMELESS. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film was “incisive and sensitive… astounding.” He’s now in the process of writing a new feature film called CA$HVILLE, which we talked about in the podcast.

Perhaps most importantly, though, is Clay and Tif are now parents to a beautiful baby boy named Harry, who you’ll hear from a couple times in this episode. It was so fun to catch up with Clay and chat about his film career and how his faith has guided him in his work and now in fatherhood. This was also a great conversation about creative process and discipline, and how he and his wife (who is his co-producer) manager their work together while being new parents.

Clay’s also got some great food and drink recommendations for Nashville if you’re ever in town and we talked about some New Year’s goals.

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