Tyler Mane & Renae Geerlings | From "X-Men" to "Mane AF" | Answer Your Wake-Up Calls

Tyler Mane, Sabretooth in "X-Men" and Michael Myers in "Halloween," and Renae Geerlings join us on Story & Craft to talk about "Mane AF." Tyler spent over a decade as a professional wrestler, training with the Hart family in Calgary and wrestling all over the world, before a stunt casting call meant for someone else turned into the role of Sabretooth and a full pivot into acting — a path that later led to playing Michael Myers in the "Halloween" reboot. Renae came up on the other side of the business, landing a temp job answering phones for a comics company in Los Angeles and working her way up to a ten-year run as an editor. Eventually the two combined those worlds under their own production banner, building out the graphic novel "The Last Spartan" together, a project Tyler had actually been carrying around for fifteen years before Renae came on to help shape it. The conversation turns candid when they get into the year they've just had. In March, Tyler's brother died suddenly of a heart attack. Weeks later, Tyler found a lump during a workout and was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma — male breast cancer. Not long after that, Renae's father died in a car accident. Tyler talks openly about finishing chemo, heading into radiation, and a second scare from a blood clot along the way, and he's direct about why he's chosen to talk about all of it publicly: he wants other men to get checked rather than dismiss what they're feeling, the way he almost did. That's also the thinking behind "Mane AF," the podcast they just launched about midlife, marriage, and — as Tyler puts it — the mayhem he brings to it. Along the way, we get into how two people who are both used to being in charge divide the creative work in one house, why Renae calls herself the steering wheel and brakes to Tyler's engine, and the usual mix of rescue dogs, comfort food, and childhood celebrity crushes that round out the hour. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS 00:00 | Tyler Mane and Renae Geerlings join Story & Craft 00:03:37 | Renae compares keeping up with Tyler to being a water skier who lost her skis five miles back 00:07:03 | Tyler lays out the year in one breath: his brother's sudden death, his own cancer diagnosis, and Renae's father's fatal accident 00:14:01 | Tyler was one of the last people to wrestle Andre the Giant, months before Andre passed away 00:15:04 | The stunt casting call that was meant for someone else, and how it became Tyler's ticket to the role of Sabretooth 00:25:53 | Renae's rule for not being interrupted while she works, and the loophole Tyler found almost immediately 00:31:00 | The chest lump Tyler almost brushed off, and the conversation that changed his mind 00:35:58 | What Tyler's tumor oncotype score meant for his treatment, and losing (then slowly regrowing) his beard 00:47:39 | Tyler's core advice for other men, shaped by not knowing his own brother was struggling 00:48:47 | The Seven Questions #TylerMane #RenaeGeerlings #ManeAF #XMen #Halloween #TheLastSpartan #StoryAndCraft STAY IN THE KNOW • Website: https://www.storyandcraftpod.com FOLLOW THE SHOW • Instagram:   / storyandcraftpod   • Facebook:   / storyandcraftpod   CONNECT WITH MARC • Instagram:   / airpreston   • Facebook:   / marcpreston   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com (https://pcm.adswizz.com) for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.