Tyler Fredrickson follows where the spirit leads him. After years as a film and TV executive and working alongside actress Joey King, he decided it was time to branch out. “I stepped out to a place I had never really thought about tackling before: to become a writer and move away from the development side of things; from working on other people’s projects to being full-time on my own creatively. To be honest, it was something I never quite fully embraced before, that I was one of “those.” I had a presumptuous feeling toward writers, and maybe it was because of my own fear. I saw writers as people who came to LA with a dream and ended up sitting alone in Starbucks for twelve hours a day, hanging out in quirky writing circles, never quite getting a grasp of the art form, and then leaving LA. But I deeply admire them now. And even though I’ve moved out of the executive space, I believe I can eventually step back into the network I’ve built over the last 15 years to elevate my own projects in a way I wouldn’t have thought of trying before.”
Tyler thrives in the reality of telling a compelling tale. He’s juggling everything from feature films to a children’s book. “At the heart of all of is story. I think that’s why I feel confident to call myself a writer now, even though I don’t have credits to my filmography. I’m pretty new to it as a 44-year-old creator, but I love still working alongside writers, helping mold and shape their vision as a development exec. I don’t think those days are quite over yet either.”
A grueling stint on Survivor showed him his true capabilities. “It’s a pretty incredible gift to switch that on to endure and persevere in the real world. I know that I’ve already survived days and weeks filled with that sort of fear before, the uncertainty, the hunger. Is there ever going to be relief at the end of this? So what does that look like in my career? In relationships? What does that look like for my hopes and dreams? Are they ever going to come? Having spent a month on that show, I am able to push myself and be more resilient now than I ever imagined. Survivor rewired me. It really is that powerful of an experience… for me at least.”
Ultimately, though, faith is his guiding light. “I surrender every day in prayer. I’m like, ‘God, I give you this day. May your thoughts be my thoughts. May your paths be my path. I don’t really know where to go, who to meet, what to say, what to do. Will you pour down creativity in my writing? Will you help me be more kind and more generous to everyone I interact with? How do I serve people in my day-to-day community? How do I pray and uplift and really encourage those I interact with?’”
He has found satisfaction in relinquishing control. “When I moved down to USC for graduate school, I was very, ‘I’m going to take over this town.’ It was very Tyler-centric, very Tyler-driven. One of the beautiful things about walking through faith is you learn to surrender and to trust God, and you understand He has a plan that’s far beyond your own plan for your life. He knows the number of hairs on my head. The Bible says that HIs thoughts are not my thoughts, His ways are not my ways. They are far beyond. When I grab the steering wheel away from God and drive my own car, I take things off-road and become destructive, selfish, and ego and greed-motivated. It’s the nature of humanity, it’s in us all. And I no longer want to be that way because I’ve devastated things in the past. There’s still a lot of potential for me in this industry, I just don’t know what it looks like yet. I’ve given the wheel back over to Him and He’s going to dictate my path going forward. My role is to just lean into my gifting as a creative and then allow Him to smooth everything else out.”
Spirituality offers Tyler an eternal torch. “I do believe – more than ever – I’m going to shepherd my own work forward. It just won’t be in my timing, in my own Tyler-ness, in steering and bulldozing over whoever I can. I’ve surrendered my hopes and dreams with the belief that God is going to elevate me in His timing. I don’t know if there’s a succinct way to summarize it, but I do believe that my time in Hollywood is just getting started.”
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Tyler Fredrickson Walks in the Certainty of Faith. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Tyler Fredrickson.
