You don’t just meet Filipe DeAndrade. You hear stories first. He’s one of those guys people rave about with wide-eyes. “Oh, you haven’t seen Filipe? He’s a live wire. He’s a character. He’s a mad man.” Then, as if summoned by hyperbole, a small, mustachioed Brazilian wearing a lip ring appears.
At least that’s how it went for me, at the Sun Valley Film Festival — judging the 2017 Nat Geo Wild to Inspire contest. DeAndrade won the award and the trip to Africa that goes with it in 2015, and was in Sun Valley to show footage from his new series, Untamed with Filipe DeAndrade. The show airs on Nat Geo Wild’s Youtube and Facebook platforms, showcasing a mix of animal encounters and DeAndrade’s on-camera riffing.
When you hear a dude hyped by so many people, it’s tempting to hold a grudge. “I’m a live wire too!” you think. Then you shake hands with DeAndrade and it all melts away. He’s affable as all hell, brimming with charisma, and — perhaps most importantly — seems deftly able to handle the spotlight once it shines on him. To spend any amount of time with the guy is to recognize a hungry, creative, talented artist who’s making the very most of his big break.
It helps that the show is good. So good that it’s easy to wonder if the 30-year-old is America’s answer to Steve Irwin.
“For the first time in my life, I’m doing what I’m meant to do,” DeAndrade told me in Sun Valley. “It’s.. you know… I think the biggest secret in life is when you find what you love to do and you would do it for free.”
We sat down to talk about his show and the joy of living big dreams.
In 2012 you were a college kid. Then you made a video to enter the NatGeo Wild to Inspire contest. Now, in 2017, you’re a television host. Pretty crazy run…
It’s funny you put it that way because there was, there was a lot of foreplay before going to bed with NatGeo Wild, a lot that happened between 2012 and 2015, when I won Wild to Inspire. I really didn’t have a life plan, so I just decided to go live in the woods for six months and figure it out. So, I hiked the Appalachian trail under the alias “Dick Flap.” I don’t know if you want to include that, but everybody gets a trail name on the AT. And mine happened to be Dick Flap because I got caught peeing out of my tent. You know, which we’ve all done…
Naturally.
I just got caught and it stuck. So, yeah, I hiked the Appalachian trail, that took me six months and then worked at a production company in New York for almost two years. Doing a lot of incredible stuff, a lot of fun stuff, sports, entertainment, style. But, you know, not quite in line with what I thought my purpose was on the planet. So, that’s when I decided to submit to Wild to Inspire and answer the universe’s phone call and happened to be the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.
It was really the first time I’d ever kind of put my life story out on anything. But, I remember going back and forth with what kind of wild life story I wanted to tell, and how I wanted to tell it and, you know, after toying with the idea of like twenty different possibilities, I just decided that the best story I could tell was the one I know best and that’s my life story at that point. I wanted to inject how nature and wildlife and being out there and taking chances changed my life, and make that more of the story.
I kind of feel like a con artist in a way, because I’m like, “Really, this is … they chose this mustache over the rest?”
So you win the contest, you go out Africa and they liked your work obviously from Africa and then you pitched a series?
I mean, the trip alone was like the most delicious slice of life pie I’ve ever sunk my teeth into. It was Africa, NatGeo Wild — perfect combination. And they had this trip planned out for me and it was going to be about five weeks, so I told them to buy me a one way ticket and I’ll figure it out on my own. Ended up stretching it to four months and I got to go to five different countries. I spent time in Ethiopia, Botswana, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa. And, got to meet a bunch of different biologists, film a bunch of different animals, and put together this short film called, “Girls Can Be Scientists.”
Then I came home and I remember stepping off the stage in 2016, at the Sun Valley Film Festival, and Chris was like, “Man, thank you for everything, like you really you know did a lot with this opportunity and I just wanted to tell you how grateful we are for how hard you worked.” And I was like, “Oh, thanks a lot man, appreciate it. I want a TV show.”
It was just brass balls, I don’t know where I got the …the, you know, the plums to ask him for this. But I just … it felt right so I told him right then and there I want a show and he’s like, “All right, let’s have you up to D.C. and we’ll talk about it.”
Your show, Untamed with Filipe DeAndrade has you living in a van, right?
It was a dream, man. I mean, we didn’t pitch a show, we pitched a lifestyle that we wanted to live. With the show being the vehicle that would drive that opportunity. They had me, McKenzie, and Brian — who were my two best friends and colleagues who I met at the University of Florida — up to D.C.. The three of us had agreed pretty quickly that we would be living out of the van, traveling the country and documenting wildlife.
That was our pitch, because it didn’t feel like work. It just felt like us living out our passions. And oddly enough, it ended up being the exact same thing that they pitched to us. We went in there with a concept of Untamed and they slid a one pager across the table, Jeff Daniels slid a one pager across the table and was like, “So we got this idea, tell us what you think.”
I was like, “Are you kidding me, this is the exact thing we’re pitching to you guys!” We were basically reading each others minds and we pitched each other the exact same thing and once that happened, it was just you know… everybody was in the metaphorical spooning position and it was easy after that.
So now you’re in this van. So tell me about Florence.
So, her full name is Florence the Manbulance and it’s an ambulance that Brian and I bought back in 2015 and converted into a camper. It’s a 2006 Dodge Sprinter, so it’s mechanically, I mean, it’s a stallion. Once you get over the fact that people kicked the can inside that thing because — let’s be honest — people definitely died inside there… But that’s all right because right now I’m living inside of it. And it’s the best way to see America, man.
What are some highlights from what you’ve seen as you’ve crossed the country?
Oh, man, I mean, the biodiversity that exists in this continent is on fire. There are things you don’t see anywhere else in the world. Like, the dolphins swim feeding in South Carolina, happens every single day. That doesn’t happen everyday anywhere else in the world. Super unique behaviors, you know, and some of these animals and behaviors are endemic to the area, and I like to think that the people are endemic as well.
You know, like you roll up in Louisiana where … you know, what am I trying to say?
Hospitality?
Hospitality! I almost said hostility. Hospitality is like through the roof. Like, every single plate that you order, you order with a side of type two diabetes, everything comes with butter, even the tooth paste. And the people are the nicest people you’ll ever meet in your life in Louisiana. In South Carolina, same way. You know, the southern hospitality is still very much alive and everybody wants to take you in as soon as they find out what you’re doing and help you out in some way.
Van life is incredible, because once people realize that, you know, you’re not out to kill somebody… then they’re super receptive of what you’re doing and want to have you in.
So you’ve experienced quite a bit of hospitality and you’re experiencing the animal world out in the raw. Was there one highlight from the trip animal wise that really stood out? One anecdote?
Brian and McKenzie are always making fun of me because every single new shoot, I’m like, “This is the greatest wild life experience I’ve ever had in my life!” And I say that at every single location. But if I had to narrow it down, man … oh, man…
Sea turtles was definitely exciting because when those things came out of the ground after, you know, spending six all nighters trying to make it happen, I just … I lost my mind. I mean, it was euphoric, it was orgasmic, and it was anything that you want to think of in terms of like experiencing for just 30 seconds, you know, after six all nighters, baby sea turtle hatchlings coming up out of the ground and making their way into the ocean.
And that’s something people rarely understand that you can do in the United States, right? I feel like that’s so often associated with Costa Rica.
Yeah. And 90% of logger head sea turtles hatch on the east coast of America. So the same, stretch of beach where people are vacationing, spring breaking, have time shares, you know, turtles are hatching. It’s literally right, you know, on their time share property and they’re probably not aware of it. But, yeah, it’s a huge phenomenon, it’s something incredible to witness. And, also makes you realize how fragile these ecosystems are because, like I said, 90% of them hatching over there, you know, it’s the east coast of Florida. Like, Florida has a population of 20 million people, so how many wild spaces are really left for these turtles to hatch?
And then there was the mountain lions in New Mexico. Mountain lions are the widest spread mammals in the northern hemisphere other than people, but they’re so incredibly well camouflaged and mysterious that to get a sighting, you’d be lucky to have one in a lifetime. And the fact that we got to have footage of a female making a kill and providing for her two 14-month old cubs was …yeah, that … that was … incredible.
Any other advice to other travelers or adventurers or people who hear that a 30-year-old has his own television show and start to die of jealousy?
In terms of traveling, go to places that look, sound, and smell different. Because there’s always … when you travel, it always, the place that you go to always ends up affecting you more than you can affect that place. The more diversity you can invite into your life, I think the better you are at dealing with relationships with understanding where other people are coming from. And, the better prepared you are to answer the call of what the world needs, and the world needs, you know, to be made smaller right now. Not just through social media, but through personal interactions.
Getting the hell out there is, I think, the best thing that a young person can do at this point.
