I first came in contact with the juggernaut that is Shannon DeVido in her hilarious portrayal of Andrea Mumford on Difficult People. Another recurring role on the Netflix series Insatiable followed, and now the actor/singer/comedian gets to combine it all in the smile-inducing new movie musical Best Summer Ever. On this episode, she talks about the passionate, super-positive, love-filled environment that fueled that ambitious production and the ways she adjusted to a starring role after years of guest spots. She gives us a peek at what it’s like to navigate the acting world as a disabled person, and why the […]

Julian Kostov is a multilingual Bulgarian actor, producer, and advocate for slavic representation. He plays Fedyor on the new hit Netflix fantasy series Shadow and Bone. On this episode, he takes us from his depressed student years, when it was folly to even dream of working as an actor, through the difficult period of the growth of his craft, recovering from big auditions, strengthened by personal breakthroughs that fuel the work, all the way through the harnessing of his ability to bring his unique spin to wonderful roles and help others with the founding of his company JupiterLights Media, which […]

Clancy Brown is a living legend of actor’s actors. With nearly 300 credits, from Highlander and The Shawshank Redemption to SpongeBob SquarePants and Promising Young Woman, he’s morphed and adapted in this business and made it work for him. On this episode, I ask him how his approach to preparation has changed over the years. He talks about the importance of knowing the narrative purpose of your character, why “faster, funnier, louder” are directorial notes that work for him, and how he looked at auditioning as exercising his Spencer-Tracy-don’t-bump-into-the-furniture muscles. You can tell he had fun playing Montgomery Dark, a […]

In this epic episode, we really get to know the talented actor Danny Deferrari, who plays Max in Emma Seligman’s brilliant and hilarious new film Shiva Baby, and I’m eternally grateful for it. He talks about appreciating the “emotional language” that Seligman speaks and the heavy life situation that was weighing on him during that movie. He takes us through his early training as an actor, his formative and important seasons at the Williamstown Theater Festival, and the trials and tribulations that brought him to his “Holy Trinity of Artistic Safety.” I break down how a small performance of his […]

Billy Magnussen is a Tony nominated actor who you know from Game Night, Into The Woods, Ingrid Goes West and Maniac. On this episode, he talks about the foundational benefits of his early stint on a soap opera, the importance of showing up for your career, his fondness for Cristin Milioti, his co-star on the wonderful new HBO Max series Made for Love (with stories of pestering her mercilessly when they both performed on Broadway in theaters next door to each other), and he makes an impassioned plea for the celebration of NEW works in the theater. Plus much more! […]

Lily Rabe is probably best know for inhabiting a half-dozen characters over many seasons on Ryan Murphy’s hugely popular American Horror Story series, and recently her supporting performance in The Undoing had a lot of people talking, but in New York City, she’s theater royalty. I pinpoint my first encounter with her greatness. It was as Portia in The Merchant of Venice for Shakespeare in the Park. The court scene. She details the lengths director Daniel Sullivan went to avoid rehearsing that scene, and the miraculous occurrence when they finally did. She talks about being an “over-packer” when it comes […]

Westworld star Leonardo Nam didn’t know that I saw him perform a scene in an acting class in New York City way back when. An inventiveness and creativity were on display there that I still see in his work. In this hour, he tells an amazing story of literally coming to a crossroad in his young life, and how he boldly chose what felt right, and turned toward the pursuit of acting. He talks about the importance of finding the “play” in every role, why the costuming days are his favorite in pre-production, and how meditation helps get him “back […]

You’re about to hear the name Julia Sarah Stone quite a bit. The young Canadian acting phenom is turning Hollywood heads with a focused talent and poise well beyond her years. Her latest movie, the unique sci-fi thriller Come True, which has been wowing audiences at festivals, is opening Friday March 12th from IFC Midnight. In this episode, she talks about the “playable” characteristic that helped her performance in that film, the traps actors easily fall into when they lay in the emotion while losing sight of basic aspects such as motivation, and why she always wants to be a […]

Since playing Lau in The Dark Knight, Chin Han has been on a Hollywood run, acting in blockbuster action movies like Ghost in a Shell, Skyscraper, and Captain American: Winter Soldier, as well as work on a less grand scale for Steven Soderbergh, Gus Van Sant, and the celebrated Netflix series Marco Polo. Now he stars in the eagerly anticipated new Mortal Kombat movie as the shape-shifting villain Shang Tsung. I asked him how he dealt with the history, fan passion and anticipation for the character in his preparation and how it affected him during production. He talks about his […]

She’s probably best known for her Emmy-Nominated performance as FBI secretary Martha Hanson on FX’s critically acclaimed series The Americans, and now Alison Wright has breathed life into another complex character in yet another hit series—Ruth Wardle on TNT’s Snowpiercer. In this hour, she gives us a peek under the hood of her craft and we get closer to understanding how she’s able to bring such naturalism and depth to all her performances. She talks about her early fascination with “The Method” that led her to the Lee Strasberg Institute, her “thought-linked” approach to the text which she developed over […]