Five days a week, Jordy Altman is running around at a mile a minute.
Altman, a social media producer for CBS’s “The Talk” and 2008 University graduate, has worked for the multi-time Emmy nominated show since September 2016. “The Talk” is a CBS live daytime show that features five hosts who discuss, “current events, pop culture, contemporary issues, family, celebrity and the trending topics of the day,” according to their website.
This past year the show was nominated for eight Daytime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Daytime Talk Show. Altman went to the Emmys on April 30, where the ladies of “The Talk,” Julie Chen, Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, Aisha Tyler and Sheryl Underwood were presented with the Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Hosts award. Altman was there with the rest of the producers.
Altman jokes that his favorite part of being on the show is the compliments he gets on his mustache from actors that he has respected his whole life. But, jokes aside, he still enjoys the social media aspect.
“It’s really interesting because I’m working in a new evolution of media where it’s a conversation between fans and a celebrity, and there is an immediacy to that,” Altman said. “I’m happy to bridge that gap.”
As social media producer, Altman spends his mornings in pre-production meetings to go over morning headlines and trending stories for the show that day.
Altman then gets on social media and uses the hashtag that he coined, “#EverybodyTalks,” to get followers involved in the conversation for the upcoming show.
He said during the live show, a crawl — a text bar used in TV — runs across the bottom of the screen with responses from people following along with the show.
During the live show, Altman is also capturing what’s happening backstage with the guests.
When the day’s show eventually comes to an end, Altman’s job doesn’t. He said the producers go over highlights from the show and decide which clips they can pull from the show to push on social media.
“I do everything a producer does on any other show, but instead of walking around with a giant camera, I’m doing it all on my camera phone,” Altman said.
Altman said he landed the job on “The Talk” after being a social media producer for CBS Radio and Variety magazine.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Altman said. “I grew up fascinated with performing on stage, so to be able to work on a live show is a rush and a great feeling.”
Altman said he has been interested in acting since he was young, and once he got to high school, he hired a commercial agent.
Atlman said he did commercials through high school and college. He starred in several commercials, including one for McDonald’s, and was a part of Hallmark’s Red Campaign all four years of college.
After graduating from the University of Kansas with a degree in Theatre and Creative Writing in 2008, Altman moved to Los Angeles in 2009.
Once there, Altman said he continued to audition for commercials and started booking immediately. Altman said he has been in several commercials, including ones for Arbella Insurance, Malibu Rum, Gillette and Amazon.
Altman said after getting into commercials, he got a manager who was able to start booking him for theatrical auditions.
Altman has eight television credits including roles in “My Crazy Ex,” “Betrayed” and “Six Degrees of Everything.”
Altman said some advice he would share with people who are trying to make it in the acting business is that everyone is trying to do the same thing, so you should treat everyone with the same respect you would treat your grandmother.
“I know that if you are at the bottom of the totem pole people feel like they can take advantage of you or treat you badly,” Altman said. “Unfortunately, that kind of attitude permeates throughout the industry, and I don’t think that’s a healthy environment.”
As for the future, Altman said he would like to continue acting and producing, and producing his own content.
“I love working in daytime, and I would love to produce a daily show and maybe some late night content,” he said. “As long as I continue to do that, I’ll be happy.”
The Emmy-nominated producer is currently producing two web series, “Pillow Talk” and “The Adventures of Regular Guy Tim.”
This article originally appeared in the University Daily Kansan and is reprinted with permission.
