Meet BIG NEM | Filmmaker, Comedian, Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with BIG NEM and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi BIG NEM, how do you think about risk?
Well being 6’9″ and coming from a sports family, I started out as a basketball player. The odds of making it in basketball are one in millions and I happily took that risk. I assessed my assets being that tall, worked on my game, noticed I was good and kept getting better until I was the best ranked player in Canada for my grade. The risk assessment was still low but good. Unfortunately my career ended fairly early in my 20s because of injuries.

I immediately transferred that work ethic to the entertainment industry, also another “one in a million” line of work. I always knew I was a better entertainer than I was a basketball player, and I was a good player. I also knew that I had great talent as a writer, comedian, director and artist and those skillsets kept growing because I had blind belief in myself. It took a lot longer than I expected to break through but 8 years of grinding later I am an award-winning filmmaker and content creator with over 48 million views online. And this is just the beginning!

Taking risks is necessary to grow, its always important to make assessments. Usually the best way to go is once you figure out what you love doing, something that you’re really good at, how you can make a profit off of it, and how it can help or service others. Once you figure out (or at least start figuring out) the intersection of those aspects (IKIGAI), you need to go all in on yourself.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
After my basketball career abruptly ended, my hoop dreams died with it. Immediately instead of sulking I knew I’d shift gears to entertainment. I had finished the top film school in Canada at Toronto Metropolitan University for screenwriting and directing, along with Second City School of Comedy. At that point I was a nightclub bouncer and a wacky 6’9″ comedian.

I started a film project “My Friend Tommy” about my college friend who at the time was a real-life 35 year old virgin named Tommy. Tommy was a strange but loveable guy at school that everyone loved, a chubby, older Korean-Canadian guy. He was always asking me for “help with the ladies” and was constantly lying about his age. He got into that program to become a comedic sports journalist. He was socially awkward yet extroverted which was a rare combination and which made everything he said a natural comedic punchline. I offered to help him with the ladies and do a comedic documentary about him going to Spring Break to lose his virginity. I later found out that he was not only a 35 year old virgin, but he still had a curfew with his Christian Korean parents, had never cooked, cleaned, kissed a girl, been on a date, and wasn’t even allowed his own bank account! The film started developing and it turned out becoming something much deeper than sexuality but more about self-discovery and living the teens, 20s, and 30s he had never experienced before.

At that time as a student, I had no idea that making this film would take me an additional 8 years! The funding and networking took the longest, I grinded as a bouncer for years building my network and had to put the project on hold many times. During those 1-2 year chunks I would have it on pause I started building my absurd comedy brand where I would develop sketches and later satirical music videos. My biggest influences were Jim Carrey (fun fact: I learned English watching him in Ace Ventura 400 times), Seth Rogen, Tom Green and Key and Peele. Being a musical person the satirical songs ended up spurring a career in hip hop where I began finding my own sound. It started out more goofy, but after being pushed by my friends in the industry to focus on actually making good music because I had an ear for it, I ended up doing just that and garnered a total of 48 million views online by just 2019 alone.

As of the pandemic my final funding came in to finish my first feature film “My Friend Tommy” about my virgin friend and the film is finally set to be distributed in summer 2023. It is already winning award, which I’m super proud of!

This year I am focused more on growing my socials and personal brand but you can say I’ve had a crazy road thus far! I’ve learned that blind faith in oneself is key, along with persistence, patience and a way of staying grounded is the best way to succeed.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting Toronto and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
First of all if its in Toronto then it would have to be summer time! (That cold up here is no joke)! I’d make sure we’d workout or play pickup ball (start the day off right)! Plenty of awesome (although overpriced) gyms in Toronto.
I would take them for some dope food, there are plenty downtown in Kensington Market and Queen St W or for good Carribean food I’d take them to little Jamaica on Eglinton W (Randy’s Patties) or on the Jane strip. For Balkan food we could go to Fancy Kafana, Royal Meats or Bonimi.

I’d take them on a few walking tours. Queen St W is the alternative (yet now mainstream) district and a lot of downtown sightseeing during the day. The bars on Queen St W are good as well. Then we’d drop down to King St. W which is the Entertainment District with all the best clubs and bougie bars. That’s where everyone goes out dressed to the nines, and I since I know almost every doorman in the city we should be good to go wherever we please with no issues.
Kensington Market is also an experience as it is the wild, alternative (formerly hipster) community that is one of the most authentic communities in the city. It’s small, but very dense, and there is always something to do there from morning till dawn the next day.

Last but not least, we would have to go to Cabana Poolbar, a day-time summer club dubbed “the place more Miami than Miami”, it’s probably the most fun spot during summer time. I would definitely take my guests there to party during the day, then if there is energy, dinner and more drinks at a nice bar, then some wild mansion party at a friend’s place (I’m on my way but I’m not there yet! haha).

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My shoutout is to my family. We escaped the Yugoslav wars in the 90s and moved to Canada, with my parents being forced to leave their former professional lives behind. Seeing my mom work hard to make a better life for my sister and me, instilled a very strong work ethic in me first as a basketball player and later as an entertainer to be the best at what I do and creative a good life for myself. My father taught me to use logic, question everything and process information from an intellectual and creative lens, and I also got my goofy sense of humour from him. My sister taught me due diligence and that there’s always a way to troubleshoot a problem.

My personal spiritual awakening also aided in the sense that I was put here to help others in a major way, whether that is making people laugh, dance or sharing the little wisdom that I’ve encountered in my life.

Some major books that I attribute my character to are the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill, and The One Thing by Gary Keller.

Instagram: www.instagram.com/bignem

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxDwHKL4QWIyPVtA7SxRRJA

Image Credits
Nora Stankovic, Jakob Burkhardt, Nick Telesca, Stan Petrov