Psychology Meets Showbiz with Albert Bramante

Merry:

This is the EWN Podcast Network.

Cathy:

Welcome to late boomers, our podcast guide to creating your third act with style, power, and impact. Hi. I'm Cathy Worthington.

Merry:

And I'm Merry Elkins. Join us as we bring you conversations with entrepreneurs, entertainers, and people with vision who are making a difference in the world.

Cathy:

Everyone has a story, and we'll take you along for the ride on each interview, recounting the journey our guests have taken to get where they are, inspiring you to create your own path to success. Let's get started. Hi. I'm Kathy Worthington. Welcome to the late boomers podcast.

Cathy:

Today, our special guest is New York veteran talent agent and casting director Albert Ramante. He is also the author of Rise Above the Script, Confronting Self Doubt and Mastering Self Sabotage for Performing Artists.

Merry:

And I'm Mary Elkins. Albert defies the conventional image we may have of a talent agent. He's also a doctor of psychology and hypnotherapist who works to empower performers to overcome psychological barriers and achieve success. Welcome, Albert, or shall I say welcome, doctor.

Albert Bramante:

Yeah. Well, first want to thank you both for having me on the show. I'm really happy to be here. And I was really looking forward all week to having this conversation with you both.

Merry:

Good, We it's

Cathy:

are too, thank you. Gave you the idea to fuse your work a talent agent and psychologist and tell us how your background led you to this unique career choice?

Albert Bramante:

Yeah. Well, I never really intended to be a talent agent. That was not even in the entertainment industry at all. So was since high school, I really was intent on becoming a clinical psychologist. That was my life path.

Albert Bramante:

But I was also into the creative arts. I was involved in a drama club in high school, and then my undergrad career, I took some acting and theater classes as electives. And I really enjoyed the process. So I then decided to, as I was going through my master's degree, I happened to land an unlikely internship with one of the New York staple talk shows at the time, so working mainly with outreach and crisis counseling and aftercare. And that was at the Sally Jesse Raphael show.

Cathy:

Oh. Uh-huh. Remember her? Sure.

Albert Bramante:

Yeah. I remember yeah. I really remember her.

Cathy:

It was The a red glasses. Right?

Merry:

Red glasses.

Albert Bramante:

Red hair. Yeah. She it was a a a learning experience. I'll say that. An eye opening experience.

Albert Bramante:

But that kinda gave me my first exposure into the entertainment industry. What did you think? We can have a whole show on that. Was was amazing at the same time to watch, but also very disturbing at the same time. Like, I I have to that experience, I vowed to never wanna work in talk shows ever

Merry:

again. Oh. Oh.

Albert Bramante:

But it was also now that we're back into it, it was kind of the norm, the way it works. And I think for me being I was only 24 at the time, so I was like naive and thinking that, oh, these I was really care about the guests.

Merry:

Yeah.

Albert Bramante:

Not so much. And pretty much what I what really kind of, I guess, solidified things was like Sally was reading from the teleprompter and handed me a piece of like telling feeding on what to say, what questions to ask, what comments to make. So everything was scripted, which a lot of people who don't wouldn't know that if they don't work in there. It seems like she's just off the cuff. But everything was scripted.

Albert Bramante:

And a lot of the guests were surprised at that because they were trying to talk to Sally when the cameras weren't rolling and she wasn't really having it. So what I think the biggest wake up call for eye opening thing we made was a concept of the persona and the real person can be completely different things. The persona that you see versus Sally as the real person were a little bit different.

Cathy:

Like a split personality too.

Albert Bramante:

Yes. Which is most of how the business works. And so fast forward, after the internship was over, I kept in contact with the person that was the aftercare specialist at the time. And right around the nineeleven happened, she's like, I need some help with starting an organization called Operation Healing America in New York, to work with rescue workers, to work with doing some crisis intervention work. And we're gonna work with some actors, you know, helping some actors do some outreach because she was the FPS wrestler, but she was also an actress too.

Albert Bramante:

A screen act, you know, it's

Cathy:

it's

Albert Bramante:

like after her. So I started being friends with other actors and realized I love I like this. And so I did a little bit of spin to myself as an actor. And it wasn't for me, but I liked being around actors. I liked being around creative people.

Albert Bramante:

That's what gave me energy. I really wasn't feeling comfortable with other academia types. It was too stuffy for me in that type of environment. So I didn't But I identified more with actors. So I did some soul searching when I realized acting is not for me.

Albert Bramante:

So I came into one of my support actors, why don't I first be an advocate, and then I decided, why don't I represent actors? And so 02/2004, I started my first company. And while at that time, I also made a promise to my family that I was going get a PhD. And so I decided I might as well go back to school. I'm already halfway there.

Albert Bramante:

I already had my Masters, so I then went for started my PhD program. Now what got me to blend the two together was as I was starting my talent business and started working with actors, one pattern that kept coming up was these actors were self sabotaging.

Merry:

That was my next question to you, because talking about self sabotaging their own careers. So is that what led you to connect self sabotage with the challenges that are faced by performing artists?

Albert Bramante:

Yeah. I mean, because I one thing that I was noticing and I kept banging my head against the wall foreverly was the fact that these actors were telling me how much they wanted to work and how much they wanted to to audition. Yet, every time I'd get some appointments, they were not they come up with excuses. I come up with reasons why they can't do it or that you would sometimes just decide not to show up at all. Wow.

Albert Bramante:

Oh, brother.

Cathy:

I could be a bigger up That's the biggest nightmare for an agent. You know, I've been I've

Merry:

been an actor a long time. Yeah.

Albert Bramante:

And what I couldn't figure out, like, there's so many actors that would be killing for this appointment that you got. Mhmm. And you're not treating it well. So but yet these were the same actors that were complaining to me before I went to work. There was no no audition.

Albert Bramante:

So I'm like, well, I'm getting you then, and you're not. So and this is a problem, and I've got this in one book with several. So when I was in the midst of my PhD program, we had to come up with a dissertation topic, because the dissertation is like a monumental thesis, which is that, you know, this is a capstone to get into a PhD. So the advice that we received was to pick a real problem that you faced. And what's up with these damn actors was kind of what going in my mind.

Merry:

Yeah. I was going to ask, why do you think that is? What causes that?

Albert Bramante:

So and when I mentioned it to my advisor, like, this is a great topic because there's not a lot written in the literature about creative people and actors. So great. So that was so my dissertation was on self defeating behavior in performing artists. Oh. How

Cathy:

many words do you write in a piece like that?

Albert Bramante:

Yeah. Yeah. It was the size of a book. Would say between thirty five and forty thousand.

Merry:

Wow. Wow. I hope Yeah.

Albert Bramante:

This was unlike any paper I've written. This was at least 200 pages. Mhmm. It it was a one thing that, like, I'm really glad, you know, Azuras get to be achieved, but I'm never doing that again. I'm done.

Albert Bramante:

I did it once. Because there's some people that are like, oh, I got have two or three PhDs. I'm like, no. One is enough.

Merry:

It's a marathon.

Albert Bramante:

It is a marathon. It's a process. So that was so myself my project my theme was self speaking behavior and performing artists. Several years later, as I received my PhD, like, you know, I might as well turn this into a book. I a lot.

Cathy:

What's one piece of advice you would give to an actor who feels overwhelmed by self doubt and is considering leaving the performing arts?

Albert Bramante:

Well, I would say to reconnect, the the first thing I would ask them is like, did you become an actor?

Cathy:

Mhmm.

Albert Bramante:

And really start talking about the feeling that come with that. So using a little bit of a body work, you know, where is it in your body? How does it feel? Mhmm. You know, what what made you really wanna become an actor?

Merry:

What kind of what kind of answers did you get?

Albert Bramante:

I wanna perform. I wanna tell stories. I like helping other people. I wanna inspire others. Okay, great.

Albert Bramante:

So let's go to that. And the one thing that there's a lot of things that you can do, like mental hacks and things with, you know, working and improving your mindset because mindset is extremely important. The one thing you you know, going back to the marathon, this is a marathon. This is not a quick fix. This is not gonna be an overnight.

Albert Bramante:

You know, the overnight success stories are they can happen, but they're very rare. Very, very rare. And a lot of times, what they don't tell you is overnight success stories, that they were working for ten or fifteen years behind the scenes as an actor. Oh, yeah. Right.

Albert Bramante:

Just happened to be at that moment that they just became a household name from nowhere. But they were working maybe fifteen, twenty years prior to them getting major stardom.

Cathy:

So yeah, especially the ones that make it in their early 20s. They've already been childhood actors on set their whole lives. Yeah, know on

Albert Bramante:

sets and or or they don't. You know, some actors like Morgan Freeman really didn't hit it big until he Right. His right way in the last quarter of life, you know, the last third of his life. Yeah. You know, in the fifties and sixties, you know, that so and sometimes it happens with a lot of actors that they don't it takes a long time.

Albert Bramante:

And some of the actors, especially because I I work I have from kids to all the way mature up until the eighties. I have actors in my roster that in the eighties. What I've seen a lot, especially with some of the more senior actors, is a lot of times I take breaks. So like, they may have been acting in their twenties and or their thirties, and then they had a family, had children, and then took maybe fifteen to eighteen year break to raise their kids. And now the kids are grown or in high school or even in college, Oh, let me go back Let me go back and pursue my dreams.

Albert Bramante:

So the one thing that's important is just to really the mindset that this is gonna take a long time. And what I feel is lacking in a lot of these drama schools is that awareness and teaching that, especially young kids, that it's a marathon. It's going to take a while. You're not gonna just be graduating, moving to New York or LA with sorry eyes and thinking, okay. I'm gonna be on Broadway or I'm gonna be leaving a TV series.

Albert Bramante:

It's not it may no. For sometimes, it might happen for the unicorn at one and a couple million chances or that may happen. But most of the time, 9.9% of the time, it's gonna take a few years minimum before you can see any little traction. So I think that should be really being being taught, reinforced in the beginning of the studies rather than because I see a lot of these young 21, 22 year olds, you know, hitting the ground mark and moving to New York, moving to LA with bright eyes. Yeah.

Albert Bramante:

And it's great. Yeah. But it's not gonna work that way. You have to work hard, and it's a profession that built on relationships, and and you have and it's longevity. So that's the one thing I would really reinforce that this is this is a longevity.

Albert Bramante:

This is not a sprint. This is not gonna be a quick thing. What I would also do is kinda reframing. So using auto hypnosis, weight gain hypnosis is to reframe something. So one of the things I hear a lot from, especially people that either want to be actors or just thinking about actors, they'll say to me, I really want to be an actor, but I don't want all the rejection.

Albert Bramante:

And I think that word is a misnomer because when you're you know, it's not rejection, number one. Rejection would be personal. It's not personal. It's a business.

Cathy:

Mhmm. You're just

Albert Bramante:

not gonna be right for that role.

Cathy:

Yeah.

Albert Bramante:

There's hundreds of actors sometimes auditioning for the same role. Only one of them can get it. Right. And only 30% of it is your performance. So you can give a really great audition, but you may not be the producer or writer or director's vision of that character.

Albert Bramante:

Yeah. But what you can control is to give that 40% in your favor by doing, you know, a fantastic job.

Merry:

Yeah. But you know what else I I heard is that there's a lot of people who were actors, and they became like producers, directors, heads of studios, whatever. I mean, there's so many areas to pursue for actors. But I'd like to ask you a question about your book, Rise Above the Script. I know you've told us a little bit about it, but talk about what the happy file is and

Albert Bramante:

Yeah. Yeah. And

Merry:

what it what you use it for to boost self esteem and motivation. What is it?

Albert Bramante:

So well, it's it's really the whole purpose of it is to remain connected to why you're doing this. So it's an actual sort of like a another name for a gratitude journal in a sense. Oh. So you keep a journal, and every day you document things that you're grateful for. Not only that, but you take as an actor, you know, like I said, the book was written in this context for actors.

Albert Bramante:

So let's say you you give have, a great performance on an audition, you get a good feedback from the casting director, you get good feedback in an acting class, you follow acting student, you know, colleagues in the class or the acting teacher. You document that. You get a callback, which is like a second audition. You know, you get invited back to audition again from your first audition. That's a win, a callback.

Albert Bramante:

Mhmm. So you document that. Even if you're putting in what we call the mix on hold, which means it's a great thing. It may not lead to a booking. A hold may not lead to a booking or the setting of you're in the mix.

Albert Bramante:

It may not lead to a booking, but it's still a great thing. You already made a huge step forward. That goes should go in your happy file. Mhmm. Know, if you're doing a theater performance and you get the review, or it only gets someone who can left it to you and says, you know, your work inspired me.

Albert Bramante:

That should go in your happy file. So now when you start to have those moments of self doubt, pull out the happy file. Oh, I love that.

Merry:

I like that plan. I like that plan.

Cathy:

Having done all this myself, I really relate to what you're saying because I've been an actor, like, since I was a teenager. So I mean, I know all of that. Yeah. And all of what goes into it, and you you really speak the truth.

Albert Bramante:

Mhmm. Thank you. And and that's it just keeps you connected to your why. In a sense, don't lose focus on that. So that's definitely something that I would say is is important to do.

Albert Bramante:

And I also like to turn around and tell and use a statement that I've heard, and I can't take harder for this, but I've heard a quote that really inspires me, and I think it works well for actors. There's no such thing as rejection. It's just a gentle reminder that your services are not needed today.

Merry:

Today. Mhmm. That's operating word.

Cathy:

The

Albert Bramante:

keyword is today, and also it makes it less personal. Because right now your acting services are not needed for this character or character's job. Okay? So that next. Next.

Albert Bramante:

And if you keep that mentality into it and one thing I also do when working with hypnosis is there's a process called that's really important. It's activating your imagination. Your imagination is very powerful. It's a very powerful.

Cathy:

Do you work with him? No. Hypnosis on with your clients very often

Albert Bramante:

and indirectly like I I really don't call it. Most of the time a lot of a lot of people get nervous when they do the word hypnosis.

Merry:

Yeah. Mhmm.

Albert Bramante:

Which it does get a bad book. You know, there is that negative reputation associated with that. Like, you're gonna make people act weird and mind control them, which is totally not what it is. It's completely opposite of that. But one thing to do is to activate your imagination.

Albert Bramante:

So one thing I will say is like, okay, recall a time where something was very powerful for you. You know, what was it where you really achieved something great? Okay, what did that feel like? And then their eyes, ears, or laugh, they would say, It feels great. Where do you feel in your body?

Albert Bramante:

Okay. And most of them chest, stomach, or different areas. Okay. Now imagine yourself giving that audition, and bring those feelings back from that previous experience. And just keep doing that over and over again.

Albert Bramante:

Keep visualizing that and imagining, just giving this really dynamic audition. Lines are going flawlessly, You're taking direction well. Because the one thing about the beamer brain and human mind, it does not know the difference between imagination and reality. Yeah.

Cathy:

Well, you Talk to us a little bit about the fear of failure. You discussed that in your book. How can always, or for that matter, anyone reframe their view of failure and think of it as a stepping stone rather than a setback?

Albert Bramante:

Well, there's no such thing as failure, only feedback. That's one of the truth I kinda

Cathy:

say. So

Albert Bramante:

even if you make a mistake, that's part of being the human experience. We're gonna make mistakes. Every one of us makes mistakes constantly. But if we use those as feedback and learning experiences, they get us closer to success than they do to failure. So the important thing is to look at failure as feedback, as important feedback and important learning experiences to how you can grow and become better the next time.

Albert Bramante:

And that's one way to look at that. Because especially, no one wants to fail. But if you look at it like, okay, I'm learning about work in progress.

Merry:

I think we're always a work in progress no matter how

Albert Bramante:

old we are. No matter how old we are. Exactly.

Merry:

Yeah. So how does looking at and understanding the personality traits of famous people, of celebrities, and people who are known as fine actors, how did the traits, the personality traits that they have help artists who are trying to get work or even who work a little bit in their professional and personal lives?

Albert Bramante:

Well, there's a couple of my book, I mentioned a model called the big five. There's a five factor model, which is universal traits of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism. So openness to be

Cathy:

What was the last one? I couldn't understand the last one.

Albert Bramante:

Neuroticism. To be a neuroticism. Oh. Yeah. That's that word.

Albert Bramante:

Okay. Open openness is important because obviously to be creative, you have to be open minded. Yeah. And you have to be open to to to new ideas and open to trying out new things. So that's that's I mean, that's the heart of creativity is doing things differently.

Albert Bramante:

So you have to be open minded. One thing that I noticed, in my doctoral research, a lot of actors lack the conscientiousness and discipline focus. That's extremely important. Discipline, focus, being conscientious, hardworking. So you wanna be hardworking, you wanna be disciplined enough.

Albert Bramante:

So that means keeping a planner, being focused in a sense, and having a good work ethic. Because that's the biggest predictor of success in any industry, the big consensus. You also have to be agreeable to some level because that's being coachable, being trainable, being open to taking direction, being open to be critiqued. Because as an actor, you're gonna be sometimes given redirections a lot or even critiqued and say, you know, this you may have to do it this way or do this performance in this way. And I think in order to be successful, you have to be open to changing that and not get offended when someone offers you a critique.

Albert Bramante:

Because I've noticed that too sometimes, you know, when working with actors, you tell them this is an adjustment, they get really offended because I thought they worked hard. They're like, I don't understand, this is the way I do things. No. You have to be willing to be adaptable and coachable.

Cathy:

Yeah, flexibility.

Albert Bramante:

Right? And then their ostacity, a bit of extraversion too. Now that doesn't mean you have to be the life of the party, but a lot of actors that I know are indifferent by nature. So yeah, I think it's important to network. You know, possible.

Albert Bramante:

So there has to be a little bit of extroversion there. Then the last trait is neuroticism, and that refers to how easily phased you are. Do you get anxiety very easily? Do you get flustered easily? So what we can do to work with that is we want to increase conscientiousness, but lower the temperature on neuroticism.

Merry:

Because

Albert Bramante:

that's a recipe for self sabotaging. That kept coming up in my doctoral research over and over again. High in neuroticism alone conscientiousness.

Merry:

Interesting. Yeah.

Cathy:

Well, how do you differentiate between toxic high self esteem and healthy self esteem? And why is that important?

Albert Bramante:

Well, healthy self esteem is humility, but still thinking highly of yourself and still being humble. Like, you don't think you're better than anybody else and that you but you still celebrate your wins, and you still look at yourself as deserving Yeah. And worth it. But you don't it's not like I'm better than you or, you know, you look at people in a condescending way. So toxic high self esteem is often related to low self esteem because some people will will, like, walk around with a grandiosity.

Albert Bramante:

Like, I'm from Juilliard for instance, I'm better than everybody else in here. Now the reason why it's called fragile, it's also the fragile stuff is seen because the moment you offer something very critical, they get offended fast. How dare you say this about me? Don't you know I'm trained and I'm the best? And then what winds up happening is that's a form of self sabotage.

Albert Bramante:

Because they no one's gonna wanna work with somebody like that and they're not coachable. So like sometimes I would meet especially with some of some of the actors, mature actors, who else, you know, ask them, so where are you trending at? And they'll tell me, I don't need training. And I'm like Okay. I don't need to be working with you.

Albert Bramante:

You

Cathy:

know, you like should never stop training.

Albert Bramante:

You should never stop training and never No. I'm always learning. And I think that's the mentality too of being humble. Yeah. You always should be learning.

Albert Bramante:

And this is any profession, whether you're an actor, whether you're a writer, a teacher, or a corporate, you said, I would be learning.

Cathy:

Yeah, I was at a party with some people, and the lawyer there was a woman, and she said, oh, in order to be a lawyer, you have to be a student. You always are a student. And of course, that goes through for everything. Right?

Merry:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Albert Bramante:

And and I tell people, like, I have a terminal degree, a PhD, but I'm just starting my learning process, not ending. Know, maybe in a formal sense that I may not be in class again, but I'm still learning daily, and that's the important thing. And that's a big difference because usually people that have that inflated self or grandiosity feel like they don't need to learn. They know everything. Well And usually

Merry:

Yeah. Would you I know that your book introduces techniques for raising self esteem. For those that you haven't mentioned in our conversation, can you give us some more thoughts about that? And also, can you give us a few success stories of people who came in to your orb, shall I say, and you worked with them and they they became success stories. Well,

Albert Bramante:

the one of the big there's two things that I've said that I can really recommend to raise self esteem. One is to hang out or associate yourself with positive people only. So the the the company that you keep is extremely important. So if you're around negative toxic people, you're gonna get sucked into it And and and it'll revolve on. So that's important.

Albert Bramante:

What and also doing things that are outside your comfort zone a little bit. You know, doing things that will make you a little uncomfortable. That's a really good way to to raise yourself steam. And and then one other thing I'll mention, I know it's a two, but the third one would be do some volunteer charitable work.

Merry:

Oh, well, yeah.

Albert Bramante:

So that'll really rate when you help other people. Now success stories, I can tell you both even from an educator as well as a sort of a talent agent side. So I was working for a while, was kind of like guest instructor for an acting school in New York. And I teach the mindset in the business of acting. I'm not an acting teacher.

Albert Bramante:

There's plenty of great teachers that can do that. So there was this one student who actually became a client of mine, who had a very successful, still has a very successful corporate career. She was a buyer at a major company, and she was kind of highly in the ranks. When she was not performing, she had a gravitas value that was very powerful and grounded. When she started acting, it was very weak and very like a submissive tone.

Albert Bramante:

And for for nine or ten years, she just couldn't book. And I kinda suspected that it was that. So with her acting, know, I kinda worked on getting her to use the gravitas that she already had, and just transform into the roles that she was playing. And once she did that, it was like a a a light bulb went off, and she booked she started booking. So one of the things I can say to anybody who's who's active listening is definitely treat the script and the words and honor them and definitely spread to the word, but always make the work your own.

Albert Bramante:

Bring your own experiences into that character. Yeah. Because that's what's gonna make it unique and memorable rather than thinking what this what you should do.

Merry:

Yeah. Mhmm.

Albert Bramante:

How would you act in that? So getting her into her own power in a sense.

Merry:

Yeah. That's great. Everybody has a voice. Yeah. Albert,

Cathy:

what would you like our audience to have as a takeaway today?

Albert Bramante:

Just that you're powerful beyond belief, and just my whole thing is that you deserve to be here. You know, you deserve to have a seat at the table and take action. Don't have to do this because there's a lot of people will say, well, someday I'm gonna do this, but someday I'm gonna do that. And someday is not a day on the calendar. So

Merry:

You're right. Someday not. And don't wait for people to take action for you.

Albert Bramante:

Yeah. Exactly. Do it yourself and don't you know, this is why I think putting things on a calendar is important than doing a to do list. Sounds good. When you put stuff on the calendar, you take action.

Albert Bramante:

It it's real.

Merry:

Yeah. Right? Yeah. Writing it down. Yeah.

Merry:

I just I just have a I'm curious about one thing. How difficult is it to get a talent agent in New York?

Albert Bramante:

It depends on what type you are. It also depends upon your experience level. It can be challenging for certain people, you know, now unless they're a unique type. And I think younger mean, the reality of it, I'm just gonna be completely honest, the younger you are, it's a little easier. Initially, unless you have a specific brand and type already.

Albert Bramante:

But there's also a lot of stuff that I can tell you that you don't really need an agent now. You can still do a lot of work on your own as an actor even if you don't have representation at the moment. So there's it's much more accessible than it was years ago.

Cathy:

Yeah. Because people make their own TikTok shows and all that

Albert Bramante:

stuff. Exactly. And so collaborate with other actors too. That's the main thing too.

Merry:

Yeah. That's great. Thank you. Well, I'm going to say thank you, Doctor. Bramante.

Merry:

Our guest today on Late Boomers has been Doctor. Albert Bramante. You can purchase his book on Amazon, and you can connect with him via his website, albertbramante.com. And I'll spell that, a l b e r t, and then bramante.com.

Cathy:

And thank you for listening to our Late Boomers Podcast and subscribing to our Late Boomers Podcast channel on YouTube. Listen in next week when you'll meet another exciting guest, the multitalented singer songwriter and actress, Jan Daly. You can listen to Late Boomers on any podcast platform, and we do appreciate you so much. Just please follow us on Instagram IAMKathyWorthington and IAMMaryAlkinson LateBoomers. And thanks again to Doctor.

Cathy:

Albert Bramante.

Albert Bramante:

Thank you.

Cathy:

Thank you for joining us on Late Boomers, the podcast that is your guide to creating a third act with style, power, and impact. Please visit our website and get in touch with us at late boomers dot biz. If you would like to listen to or download other episodes of late boomers, go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.

Merry:

This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and most other major podcast sites. We hope you make use of the wisdom you've gained here and that you enjoy a successful third act with your own style, power, and impact.

Psychology Meets Showbiz with Albert Bramante
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