Former Disney star reflects on early start in Hollywood and future career goals

Senior film production major Augie Isaac sat down with The Panther to discuss his multiple creative endeavors in front of the camera and behind as well as his blossoming passion for music. Photo courtesy of Augie Isaac

As a young kid from Topanga Canyon, it didn’t take long for Augie Isaac to catch the acting bug. Following his first performance in a first grade play where he played a goat in one scene and Spider-Man in another, his roles would soon increase in both quantity and quality along with his confidence. 

With dreams of being a famous actor and landing on Disney Channel, Isaac was told to slow his roll by his parents — a producer and a screenwriter who knew the time consuming nature of the industry. But the senior film production major told The Panther he knew — even at the age of 10 — that sometimes the only way to get results is by taking matters into your own hands.

“I was just so adamant about (acting) that I started signing myself up on all these casting sites,” Isaac said. “My parents started to get calls from these random casting directors and they were like, ‘What are you doing?’ Then they said, ‘Okay, we'll make a deal. If you do real acting classes for a couple years, we'll take you to some auditions.’”

The three had themselves a deal.

After over 100 auditions, 100 drives back and forth from Los Angeles in rush hour traffic and 100 rejections, Isaac began to land roles in movies and television. However, he didn’t just limit himself to acting. Over the next decade of his life, Isaac would discover a penchant for life behind the camera, a knack for social media and a passion for creating music. 

Isaac landed his first professional role in the film “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone,” where he is credited as “Young Boy.” Although the lights and cameras were alluring, his father was more starstruck than him due to the star-studded cast. 

“I had one line in a scene, but that one scene was with Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Olivia Wilde and Alan Arkin,” Isaac said. “What are the odds? Not only am I in a movie, I have one line and it happens to be in a scene with all of these people. I could have landed in a scene with literally zero people, but it was with all of them. I remember my dad was freaking out way more than I was because he realized the levity of the situation.”

Soon after, Isaac would fulfill his Disney Channel dreams and land his biggest recurring role as “Gus” in the show “Mighty Med.” During the show’s three-year stretch, Isaac was home-schooled due to working full-time. 

“I had to grow up very fast because I was interacting with a bunch of 30 to 40-year-olds a majority of the day and they were talking to me as if I was a peer because we were co-workers,” Isaac said. “It's a very odd dynamic, but I feel like I learned a lot about talking to other humans.”

Although Isaac still has a recurring role as Matthew Schernecke on the show “The Goldbergs,” he’s pivoted to writing and directing at Chapman. With experience juggling five different YouTube accounts, ranging from sketches to tech reviews, he was ready to pursue this passion when he realized that “industry social life sucks.”

“Just to separate the industry from your social life … it feels so nice,” Isaac said. “Plus, with college, I completely underestimated how much I would learn about life and myself, and I'm so grateful for that. I just wanted to leave where I was, start a whole different little life and see what happens there and I feel like I got very lucky with Chapman and the whole sphere here.”

Now in his senior year, Isaac is in pre-production on his thesis titled “The Art of Baking.” Pulling inspiration from Wes Anderson and various Pixar shorts, the silent film follows a perfectionistic baker who is struggling to launch his business. When a woman who is his polar opposite gets a job at the bakery, the two fall in love, teaching and learning from one another as the narrator describes a baking tutorial which mirrors the arc of the character’s relationship.  

“We've gotten a lot of really talented people on the crew who I have really respected over the past couple of years,” Isaac said. “I'm very excited. It's so out of my element and I'm terrified. There's so much more work to be done but I think that's a really exciting prospect.”

Senior creative production major Sayler Walls has been friends with Isaac since they first started at Chapman, but “The Art of Baking” will be their first collaboration together. She was enticed to join the project because of the creative framing with the narration, the flow of the script and the opportunity to work with Isaac.

“I’m excited to see (Isaac) command the set and work with the actors. … Just to see it all come together and have a beautiful finished project,” Walls said. 

On top of all his preexisting creative endeavors, Isaac picked up music during the pandemic. He’s been a vocalist all his life, but after teaching himself the ukulele and music editing software, he began releasing music on all streaming platforms. He released his first album “Cocoon” on June 17, which contains eight songs. 

“Once I moved back to Orange for my sophomore year, I had so much downtime,” Isaac said. “I had my keyboard, my computer and my setup, and I just got so deeply lost in producing music. Every day, still, I'll make something, and it's such an exciting output. The music that I've made is by far the thing I'm proudest of, which is wild because it's the thing I started the most recent.”

Isaac’s indie pop music has garnered over 18,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. His songs “Time Bomb” and “Peachy Keen” have hit 476,485 and 152,179 plays, respectively.

As a jack of all trades with a semester and a half left of college, Isaac said he is keeping his options open for the future. If he chooses to pursue a career behind the camera, he hopes to be a showrunner in television. If he remains in front of the camera, he’d love to land a role on a comedy show. If music proves to be the best option, he’s open to that too. 

“I'd love to go on a tour of some sort, even just opening for someone else,” Isaac said. “I just think it would be really cool to watch people react to my music like that.”

You can follow Isaac on his Instagram and TikTok pages. Fundraising for his thesis “The Art of Baking” is available at IndieGogo.com.