Speaker 1: So I'm gonna take a page out of the book
Speaker 1: of one mister writers drawn, which means it is a
Speaker 1: page having, of course, to do with words.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: Great.
Speaker 4: Oh he's so excited. I've never I can feel writer's
Speaker 4: energy through this. Look he's he's looks forward, he's restructuring
Speaker 4: himself in his seat. He looks like he looks like
Speaker 4: when I look like when I'm about ready to eat
Speaker 4: a donut.
Speaker 1: You do a little donut little donut shake, like you're
Speaker 1: coming down off of meth. Okay, so we all know antonyms,
Speaker 1: and we know synonyms, but you know contray Oh no, okay.
Speaker 1: So a contronym are words that have opposite or nearly
Speaker 1: opposite meanings depending on context.
Speaker 4: Oh okay.
Speaker 1: So, for instance, here's a list of some of them.
Speaker 1: Like cleave can mean split apart or cling together tightly.
Speaker 5: Right, you cleave to something or you cleave something. Oh yeah,
Speaker 5: that's so.
Speaker 1: These are contronyms, which is, the word itself can literally
Speaker 1: mean the opposite of itself.
Speaker 3: Depending on how it's used.
Speaker 5: And this is some of these also arrive over time.
Speaker 5: Arise over time because like nonplus now means the opposite
Speaker 5: of what it was originally intended to mean right and
Speaker 5: like yeah because of the misusage, so people just say, yeah,
Speaker 5: give me some more.
Speaker 3: So here's something.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 6: Sanction can mean to allow or to penalize, Yeah, right
Speaker 6: right yeah.
Speaker 1: Dust to add particles or to take it or to remove,
Speaker 1: the weather can wear away or endure. Yeah, resign, to quit,
Speaker 1: or to commit to.
Speaker 4: Wow, I've resigned. I'sgsigned to.
Speaker 5: This is my life. Yeah, that's so good.
Speaker 1: My fast can be moving quickly or firmly secured right
Speaker 1: right fast. Oversight is a careless error or supervision.
Speaker 5: Yes, these are so fun.
Speaker 6: Screen this is the last one I have.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, screen is to show like a film or too obscure.
Speaker 5: Wow, that's so cool.
Speaker 6: Antonym synonym, contronyms.
Speaker 5: And he asked me the other day, He's like, what's
Speaker 5: I thought? He asked me what's a synonym for cemon cinnamon?
Speaker 5: And I was like, spice.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I was trying to think, you like, not synamon synonym.
Speaker 5: So he was saying, what's the and I was like, Jesus,
Speaker 5: now my brain just melts it, dude, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Like I said, alternate, you know, I was trying to
Speaker 5: come up with synonyms for synonym. But then I was like,
Speaker 5: I thought he was just being clever about the.
Speaker 2: Simon what it would be a synonym for synonym. I
Speaker 2: couldn't imagine that. That is so funny, Tim. I saw
Speaker 2: that and I was like, oh, writer, we have to
Speaker 2: have a I was going to love this. What a
Speaker 2: word that literally means?
Speaker 1: I mean, the idea of the English language that flammable
Speaker 1: and inflammable mean the same thing.
Speaker 6: Is insane to me. How does anyone learn our language?
Speaker 6: I know, absurd when you.
Speaker 1: Think of English, it's absurd to think of one little
Speaker 1: thing and it actually means you're gonna die.
Speaker 4: Wait what Adler just recently was like reading something and
Speaker 4: he goes, hey, why is too spelled wrong? And I
Speaker 4: said what do you mean? And he said it says
Speaker 4: t oo And I was like, oh, that is two
Speaker 4: as in also and he goes, oh, so that other
Speaker 4: two is just t o And I was like, well,
Speaker 4: unless you're talking about the.
Speaker 6: Number two, Like.
Speaker 4: Oh god, I'm like, I'm sorry, you're really learning to
Speaker 4: read and we're picking some of the hardest ones.
Speaker 5: Sorry, that's just crazy.
Speaker 6: It is, it really is.
Speaker 1: I mean, all these little changes can it's yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 4: We Welcome to Pod Meets World. I'm Daniel Fischel, I'm Righter.
Speaker 3: Strong, and I'm Will Fordell.
Speaker 1: What a lot of.
Speaker 4: People don't know about the podcast is that very early
Speaker 4: in the process we made a pact with each other
Speaker 4: that while recording, we would never censor ourselves in the moment,
Speaker 4: knowing that we would deal with whatever we wanted to
Speaker 4: cut in the edit. That way, we wouldn't find ourselves
Speaker 4: holding back or fearful of where a comment could take us.
Speaker 4: We would just let the process guide each episode, and hilariously,
Speaker 4: in the end, minus some totally insane tangents, we mostly
Speaker 4: find ourselves keeping everything in. And that's because since day
Speaker 4: one we've tried our hardest to let honesty lead the
Speaker 4: way we'd lean into the good and the bad that
Speaker 4: came with what is hands down the strangest job a
Speaker 4: kid could have, and that's why we appreciate this week's
Speaker 4: guest and his recent journey to inform and destigmatize the
Speaker 4: real journey of an actor. At just seven years old,
Speaker 4: he made his Hollywood debut as an original Paul Ryan
Speaker 4: on the legendary soap opera As the World Turns, a
Speaker 4: role played by a total of nine actors over thirty years,
Speaker 4: but his first big break was in the nineteen eighty
Speaker 4: three Stephen King horror movie Kujoe, when he played Tad,
Speaker 4: the young son who convinces his family to adopt the
Speaker 4: once friendly and easygoing Saint Bernard, who becomes rabid when
Speaker 4: bit by a cave bat. But we all know him
Speaker 4: best as Jonathan Bauer on the Emmy and Golden Globe
Speaker 4: winning sitcom Who's the Boss, alongside Tony Danza, Alissa Milano,
Speaker 4: and Judith Light who played his mother for eight seasons,
Speaker 4: one hundred and ninety six episodes, and endless years of syndication.
Speaker 4: Yet no matter how iconic a show is or how
Speaker 4: recognizable a cast becomes, once the spotlight dims, not everything
Speaker 4: is promised to fall into place. The calls slowed down,
Speaker 4: and he'd try to focus on stage acting, a trade
Speaker 4: he learned at Stanford when he took time off in
Speaker 4: the nineties to focus on his education. But when the
Speaker 4: on screen worked completely dried up, he'd pivot to jobs
Speaker 4: like tupperware sales rep, restaurant manager, or vet technician to
Speaker 4: pay the bills. But in twenty twenty two, the itch
Speaker 4: came back and he'd return to Hollywood to start over
Speaker 4: in the industry he excelled in as a child, and
Speaker 4: after courageously conquering the demons he accumulated during the struggle,
Speaker 4: he finds himself back in the hustle now as an
Speaker 4: adult and exhibiting the same type of honesty we hope
Speaker 4: to bring to podmeats World every week, whether it's posting
Speaker 4: pictures of himself as an Amazon Flex driver or sharing
Speaker 4: the quote unquote residuals that come from a year old
Speaker 4: TV show, He's been open and vulnerable for all to see.
Speaker 4: And so this week we are happy to welcome to
Speaker 4: podmeats World a brother in honesty, Danny Pintaro. Huh Hello,
Speaker 4: We Hey, Danny, Danny, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: I don't think any of us have met before, but
Speaker 4: it's still so strange to feel like we have because
Speaker 4: we all have this very, you know, rare commonality of
Speaker 4: shared history of child actorhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I think part of it is that we're a little
Speaker 7: bit off in terms of the timeline, and I had
Speaker 7: already pretty much sort of left the business quote unquote
Speaker 7: by the time y'all were working. So that's probably the
Speaker 7: biggest reason that we haven't connected for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you weren't always in Hollywood as a kid. You
Speaker 4: were born in New Jersey and your parents had jobs
Speaker 4: far from the business. Yes, do you remember their reaction
Speaker 4: when you started showing an interest in acting.
Speaker 7: Well, it's actually the opposite. I didn't show an interest
Speaker 7: in acting. The story is officially that my mom was
Speaker 7: a hairdresser. She worked in New Jersey. We're about an
Speaker 7: hour outside of Manhattan. And it's just you all know
Speaker 7: the feeling like if you live in the valley here
Speaker 7: in LA and you have a cute kid, everybody says, oh,
Speaker 7: you've got to get him into the business, right. So
Speaker 7: she had some pictures of me on her mirror and
Speaker 7: everybody was like, he's so cute, He's so cute. So finally,
Speaker 7: to shut them up, she sent one Polari picture to
Speaker 7: a talent agency in New York and they called her
Speaker 7: three days later with a modeling job for me. Wow,
Speaker 7: and and and and I mean literally it never stopped.
Speaker 7: I literally everything I auditioned for. I got every every commercial,
Speaker 7: every modeling job. I was on a soap opera starting
Speaker 7: at the age of two. I did that for four years.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm sorry the picture the polaroid that she said,
Speaker 1: how old were you in the polaroid?
Speaker 7: I was too. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so crazy.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it definitely wasn't something I was like, Mom, let's
Speaker 7: do this. It was oh, crap, we have to do this.
Speaker 7: And it was always very She was always really good
Speaker 7: about saying, look, if you don't feel like doing it,
Speaker 7: if you don't want to do this anymore, it's totally fine.
Speaker 7: And I was always game because you know, I was
Speaker 7: really young, which man, I got lots of toys and
Speaker 7: presents and food whenever I did a good job or
Speaker 7: had a good audition. The attention that you're getting as
Speaker 7: a child, especially that young. But honestly, for me, the
Speaker 7: thing I always say is it really feels like the
Speaker 7: universe was at play. There's there's It's one thing to
Speaker 7: be a cute kid to do some commercials. It's another
Speaker 7: thing to be a three, four, five six year old
Speaker 7: doing a soap opera.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: He played Paul Ryan, right, originally Paul Stenback.
Speaker 7: I was Paul stend Back and then at some point
Speaker 7: he became Paul Ryan. Okay, but yeah, so like you
Speaker 7: can't teach a three year old how to there's this
Speaker 7: one scene that I remember, it was a uh we
Speaker 7: were locked in the closet of my mother's house. Barbara
Speaker 7: Barbara Ryan was her character, Colleen Zank the actress is amazing,
Speaker 7: and they set the set on fire, like set it
Speaker 7: on fire. I mean how they did it, I still
Speaker 7: don't know, but I was so fascinated. Anyway, She and
Speaker 7: I go screaming and crying through the living room that
Speaker 7: is on fire, you know, and I was like, cool,
Speaker 7: are we gonna do it again? You know, how do
Speaker 7: you teach You can't teach a four year old to
Speaker 7: be capable of having that sort of insight, right, So
Speaker 7: especially with Kujo, Like I mean, people, everyone thinks that
Speaker 7: I am permanently scarred for life with dogs.
Speaker 4: Right, and that movie was pretty scaring.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, yeah, so much.
Speaker 7: Man. It still lives up to this day, which is
Speaker 7: the thing I really love about it. But you know,
Speaker 7: everyone thinks I'm scarred, and I think it's a it's
Speaker 7: a testament to my ability or my performs that they
Speaker 7: think that I'm scarred for life because it's just so real.
Speaker 7: And even on set every day every take, D Wallace
Speaker 7: would say, you know, this isn't real we're okay. Are
Speaker 7: you okay? Do you need anything? And I swear to
Speaker 7: you my answer would always be I'm good. Are they
Speaker 7: moving the camera?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 7: What are we doing next? At the age of six, like,
Speaker 7: how do you There's more going on to it, right,
Speaker 7: I just I don't know how to explain it.
Speaker 4: Do you have memories from being on the as the
Speaker 4: world turns set? Or do you even like, I mean,
Speaker 4: when do you have your first what's your first memories?
Speaker 6: Ask the same question.
Speaker 7: It's so hard to I mean a lot of my
Speaker 7: memories are pictures from the time right because we create
Speaker 7: those in post right.
Speaker 5: Column.
Speaker 7: The memories that I have that are really strong are
Speaker 7: the fire like things that just really stand out for Kujo.
Speaker 7: The one of the few things I remember is they
Speaker 7: cut the the pinto in half so they could get
Speaker 7: the camera into the engine area with the thing, So
Speaker 7: I just have this vivid image of this like car
Speaker 7: that's cut up and the one scene there's a scene
Speaker 7: where the camera spins around in the ceiling of the
Speaker 7: car and I remember that. But it's mostly visuals of
Speaker 7: like see the scenic stuff. I I guess a fascination
Speaker 7: for the sets, but yeah, memory is hard. Right. I
Speaker 7: think we all have memory things, yes, actors, especially the younger.
Speaker 7: The younger you started, the worse your current memory issues are.
Speaker 5: Like what you focus on like as a kid is
Speaker 5: so different, because, like you were saying, the craft service
Speaker 5: was such a big deal to me.
Speaker 6: Like my mom never let me have sugary stuff.
Speaker 5: So when you got to a craft service and its
Speaker 5: red vines, I was like, they just leave these out
Speaker 5: for we don't pay for this, And it was like, yet,
Speaker 5: that's that's the least important part of a set when
Speaker 5: you're a kid, And it's like it's so funny because
Speaker 5: you know, I'm an eleven year old now, and like
Speaker 5: he cares about food wherever we go, like that's what
Speaker 5: they remember. It's like, oh, we got ice cream.
Speaker 7: I was so precocious that I loved King crab legs
Speaker 7: and escargo.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I.
Speaker 7: Don't get me. Sorry what I meant though, on the
Speaker 7: memory thing, I'm actually curious to see if any of
Speaker 7: you have this. I have this theory, this working theory.
Speaker 7: My current long term memory is horrible, and I've always
Speaker 7: felt that because I was so young when my brain
Speaker 7: was developing and I was focused on short term memory.
Speaker 7: Things like memorizing lines. I'm wondering if my actual sort
Speaker 7: of long term memory area of the brain is a
Speaker 7: little underdeveloped, because my husband will tell you I cannot
Speaker 7: remember last week to save my life, maybe through Alzheimer's.
Speaker 7: But I don't know. Do y'all feel that that's like
Speaker 7: a possibility.
Speaker 5: I mean, I do feel like it's a muscle, like
Speaker 5: memory is a muscle that you work. And I just
Speaker 5: know that, like memorizing, because I've been acting for years
Speaker 5: and when I try and memorize now, it's difficult, whereas
Speaker 5: when we're on boy Me's World, not a problem. No,
Speaker 5: And I feel like it's something that when you start
Speaker 5: doing it, because my wife is still acting and she'll
Speaker 5: go through like a year of not working, but then
Speaker 5: she'll be working, be hard, and then the next time
Speaker 5: it's easy again.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like you just have to work on it.
Speaker 5: So I don't know. Yeah, I definitely think it's a
Speaker 5: but I don't know if I notice a difference between
Speaker 5: long term and short term. It's just whether I'm working
Speaker 5: on either one or not.
Speaker 7: Well, you're lucky. I yeah, maybe it's just genetics.
Speaker 4: I don't have great long term memory either, But have
Speaker 4: you tried anything like keeping a journal and then and
Speaker 4: then going back and reading things and then seeing if
Speaker 4: you can actually like, yes, I do remember that conversation
Speaker 4: I had.
Speaker 7: Wouldn't that be nice if I could actually keep myself
Speaker 7: in check to actually do that every day? Saying that
Speaker 7: for years and I still haven't done it. So I'm screwed.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I'm gonna I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: forgetting to write in your memory journal, that's probably not
Speaker 1: the best comment.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, let's start there. I can't even remember
Speaker 7: to do that.
Speaker 6: But no, it's true. I mean we did. We did
Speaker 6: a live show in New York.
Speaker 1: Then Rider and I had to do just a small
Speaker 1: scene together and it was what ten lines each maybe
Speaker 1: something like that, and we had to go.
Speaker 6: Over it like twenty five times. Where's back in the day?
Speaker 5: You and I would literally do it once and the
Speaker 5: rest of the week.
Speaker 1: Yes, I read it with my wife, I ran it
Speaker 1: with Rider. I ran it was just like, let's I
Speaker 1: need to need I had to work at it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so funny. Okay, So your dad he worked
Speaker 4: on a lumber yard, right, yeah, okay, so he worked
Speaker 4: in a lumber store and your mom was a hairdresser who,
Speaker 4: on a lark decides to send your picture in And
Speaker 4: you now are consistently booking jobs. You've already now been
Speaker 4: on a bunch of commercials, modeling jobs, You've done a
Speaker 4: for years, You've done a soap opera, You've done a
Speaker 4: massive movie like Kujoe. Are your parents freaking out? How
Speaker 4: do they just all of a sudden now is there
Speaker 4: full time job on set with you? How are they
Speaker 4: responding to this sort of immediate career you have.
Speaker 7: So the thing about it is that the money wasn't
Speaker 7: particularly great until that point. It was useful and it
Speaker 7: was important, but Dad still worked, so it was mom
Speaker 7: who was taking me to New York every day or
Speaker 7: whenever I needed to go. And at that point Kujo
Speaker 7: was a big deal, But it's more of a hindsight
Speaker 7: big deal than it was then. They weren't actually sure
Speaker 7: how successful it would be, horror the whole thing. It
Speaker 7: just didn't feel like we had a blockbuster on our hands. Yeah,
Speaker 7: So I don't think they came out of the movie thinking, Wow,
Speaker 7: this is going to be it. We're done, We're set.
Speaker 7: So it wasn't until the pilot for Who's the boss.
Speaker 7: That felt real and that felt important. And then there
Speaker 7: was this waiting period back in New Jersey, waiting to
Speaker 7: see if the pilot got picked up. And when it did,
Speaker 7: my mom and I flew out to California. We stayed
Speaker 7: at those apartments.
Speaker 6: Near the Woods the ok.
Speaker 5: We all lived there.
Speaker 7: Everybody's lived at the Oak Woods. And then Dad quit
Speaker 7: his job, packed up the house, sold the house, moved
Speaker 7: the house, moved everything. So he he came a few
Speaker 7: months later. Yeah, because it was.
Speaker 1: I have to ask just Kujo wise. Did you did
Speaker 1: you meet Stephen King No.
Speaker 7: I spoke to him on the phone. Apparently I don't
Speaker 7: remember the call, but he was kind of a mess
Speaker 7: at the time, if you know. According to his sort
Speaker 7: of life history and his writing, he was.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he says he doesn't remember writing Kujo. Really, he's
Speaker 5: a pretty good novel. I have no recollection.
Speaker 4: That's hilarious. Do you remember your audition for Who's the Boss?
Speaker 7: I don't, specifically, but the story has been told to
Speaker 7: me and it is ingrained in my brain and will
Speaker 7: never leave my brain because it's a great story and
Speaker 7: I've told her a thousand times. But I don't actually
Speaker 7: remember the audition. I think that's the actor thing in me.
Speaker 7: I think one of the reasons I don't have a
Speaker 7: lot of great memories on said is because I'm inside
Speaker 7: the character, and you know, you wake up ten minutes
Speaker 7: later and you did a whole scene and you're like,
Speaker 7: I don't remember any of that. So I think that's
Speaker 7: part of the reason. But the story is so funny
Speaker 7: and it is literally why I got the job. So
Speaker 7: I was six and couldn't read right, I'm six, So
Speaker 7: my mom would read the scripts to me and she
Speaker 7: would have me memorize the line before mine, so I
Speaker 7: knew when I went to speak and then my line.
Speaker 7: Of course, and Tony Danza Judith Light had been there
Speaker 7: all day auditioning kids for the show, and they were
Speaker 7: paraphrasing by that point in the day. So we start
Speaker 7: the scene and I literally stop and I go, I'm sorry,
Speaker 7: can you please say the lines as written in the
Speaker 7: script because that's how I memorized them?
Speaker 4: Oh my, And.
Speaker 7: They were like, that's him, that's it. Literally, we're done.
Speaker 4: Oh that is so cute.
Speaker 7: The showup coaches, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, you're like, sorry, we're not gonna be able to
Speaker 4: continue this.
Speaker 7: Until professionals can profession I literally did another interview recently
Speaker 7: and they showed me a clip of the first day
Speaker 7: of filming. We did interviews for Entertainment tonight on the
Speaker 7: first day and I six year old was literally sitting
Speaker 7: there like this and I'm like, yeah, you know, this
Speaker 7: is not hard. We're good. I mean, I was like
Speaker 7: the old man energy of just being like, yeah, I'm good,
Speaker 7: We're gonna have a great time, but this isn't hard.
Speaker 7: Like I just.
Speaker 1: When Tony Danza gets bit by a rabid bat, we'll talk, okay.
Speaker 4: The god the show may have been built around Tony Danza,
Speaker 4: but the show was really about a family ensemble. What
Speaker 4: was the dynamic of the cast Like it was awesome and.
Speaker 7: I know you all know what that feels like, right,
Speaker 7: I mean, it transcends the page for sure. And I
Speaker 7: think Tony had this really specific idea that one of
Speaker 7: the ways to keep the show being successful was to
Speaker 7: bring the audience in every time we did a live taping.
Speaker 7: And I mean he was literally standing in front of
Speaker 7: the audience talking to them while people were changing, while
Speaker 7: stuff was moving around. He kept them engaged. He was
Speaker 7: telling stories, he was doing jokes, he was tap dancing,
Speaker 7: went to our little tap dance thing, and that transcended
Speaker 7: into our performances because we also understood that the more
Speaker 7: we loved each other and had we're having fun, the
Speaker 7: more the audience would love the moment. And it just
Speaker 7: felt like it was this circle of like energy moving around,
Speaker 7: and I mean every moment of it was just magical.
Speaker 7: There's there's and then you know, so it transcends. You've
Speaker 7: got Tony and Judith loving when I bring in report cards,
Speaker 7: and you've got Alyssa and I fighting like brother and sister,
Speaker 7: which amazing. But it is a relationship that will always
Speaker 7: be there. I mean, you guys know that. It's like
Speaker 7: I don't speak to them for a hot minute and
Speaker 7: then I see them again and it's we pick up
Speaker 7: right where we left off. Yeah. But it's so funny
Speaker 7: to me because people truly truly expect that we are
Speaker 7: chatting like on a regular.
Speaker 4: Basis, Yes, all the time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you got to start a podcast and then you
Speaker 5: will be no, no, not you and I no, I know,
Speaker 5: but that's how we stated, that's what and then we
Speaker 5: started this and now we talk all the time.
Speaker 7: Isn't that fascinating?
Speaker 2: Though?
Speaker 7: The idea that these people are absolutely convinced that I
Speaker 7: spoke to Judith yesterday about a day. Yeah, right, totally,
Speaker 7: because that's how deeply we brought them into this sort
Speaker 7: of like image that we created. It wasn't fake, but
Speaker 7: it is definitely we were working together in the long run, right.
Speaker 7: Sometimes I'll say to people, do you still talk to
Speaker 7: people you worked with forty years ago?
Speaker 8: And they'll be like, oh, yeah, having started at such
Speaker 8: an early age, I'm so interested because we kind of
Speaker 8: all started around the same age, like the ten eleven
Speaker 8: year old kind of area.
Speaker 1: But having started so young, did you ever go through
Speaker 1: a normal schooling process or were you.
Speaker 3: Always kind of schooled on sets?
Speaker 7: Yeah? No, I think my future depended on it at
Speaker 7: that point. You know, the child the downfall of the
Speaker 7: child actor celebrity was hardcore at the time. Like, my
Speaker 7: parents were very aware that that was a thing, and
Speaker 7: I will be forever grateful to them for making sure
Speaker 7: that this was a thing. And also I'm also grateful
Speaker 7: because I had this sense to be aware enough of
Speaker 7: the idea that I wanted to be something else. In
Speaker 7: the long run. I was happy doing what I was doing,
Speaker 7: but I was very convinced I was supposed to be
Speaker 7: something else. So I think those two things combined. When
Speaker 7: I started seventh grade, which was like year four, I
Speaker 7: think of Who's the Boss parents went to the show
Speaker 7: and they said, look, either you let him actually go
Speaker 7: to school or he's not coming back.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 7: I had never heard of it being I still haven't
Speaker 7: heard of it being done. So what I did was
Speaker 7: I went to school in Van Ey's Montclair. Do I
Speaker 7: have any of you remember Montclair Private School in Van Eys.
Speaker 7: I went there eight am to fifth period and then
Speaker 7: I would drive over the hill to set. Every day.
Speaker 7: They would just skip my stuff till I got there
Speaker 7: and we would do the run throughs. At the end
Speaker 7: of the day that I would go home and I
Speaker 7: would do my homework. I had a four point zero GPA.
Speaker 7: I was in all AP classes and so that's the
Speaker 7: big stories. Like the day the show ended, I just
Speaker 7: went to school for the rest of the day. Nothing changed. Wow,
Speaker 7: that's man really like life saver. I'm sure it doesn't
Speaker 7: mean I didn't have a downfall, it was just a
Speaker 7: lot later.
Speaker 4: When did you know Who's the Boss was a hit?
Speaker 7: They knew pretty quickly. I think everybody could feel it
Speaker 7: because there was a lot of energy behind it, from
Speaker 7: the network and from the studio and all of that,
Speaker 7: so it felt really clear as soon as it got
Speaker 7: picked up. I think the energy was I mean, it
Speaker 7: was obvious. You had these amazing tony Judith light, Catherine
Speaker 7: Hellman leading.
Speaker 4: That's who I want to know about Mona. What was
Speaker 4: it like working with Catherine Hellman?
Speaker 7: We will all tell you that she was the boss
Speaker 7: for sure. Oh yeah, say that. And she I mean
Speaker 7: she was consummate professional. She had six dashuns that were
Speaker 7: always on set.
Speaker 6: Just fantastic.
Speaker 7: She just her energy was always really grounded. She's not
Speaker 7: that funny in person. She's funny and so friendly and
Speaker 7: so nice, but she's not like full Mona off the camera, right,
Speaker 7: she's much more grounded and much more sort of like
Speaker 7: life and connect and make sure you're doing okay kind
Speaker 7: of vibes, which is all Judith as well. I mean
Speaker 7: Judith off camera is is so funny on camera, but
Speaker 7: off camera she's much Have you met Judith, I have not.
Speaker 7: Her energy is very when she speaks to you, you
Speaker 7: can just feel the feel the sort of like I
Speaker 7: need to learn this about you, I need to make
Speaker 7: sure you're okay. She's always been like that. Oh empathic, empathic, Yes,
Speaker 7: very empathic.
Speaker 5: That's where Yeah, a lot of actors are right, they
Speaker 5: have that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, I also think there's something when you, especially for
Speaker 1: child actors, having that kind of grounding force in the set.
Speaker 3: We had that with William Daniels.
Speaker 1: So having that kind of old school actor that has
Speaker 1: been there, seen it done it is a consummate professional
Speaker 1: I swear that helps the next generation of actors coming
Speaker 1: up when you just have that kind of force on
Speaker 1: the set with you every day. Yeah, it really made
Speaker 1: a difference. I thank god for the fact that Bill
Speaker 1: was there for us every day, just even though he
Speaker 1: was the same way. He wasn't particularly funny, there was
Speaker 1: times he could be grumpy, but there was just that
Speaker 1: gravitas of professionalism.
Speaker 3: And you know, this is this is.
Speaker 1: A job, and it can be fun and it can
Speaker 1: be enjoyable, but it's still you're at work and you've
Speaker 1: got to balance your work life and your home life.
Speaker 1: And again, I think all that comes from having that
Speaker 1: person who's been there, done that, and so yeah, I
Speaker 1: can I can see having that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes such a difference.
Speaker 7: As we've seen, there are a lot of stories of
Speaker 7: that not being a situation.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 7: I think it changed at some point, honestly, Like, I
Speaker 7: would never have imagined that any of the shows from
Speaker 7: my period of time, like not People being the way
Speaker 7: that they were with the Disney Kids, that that would
Speaker 7: be not that would not go over well on an
Speaker 7: eighties sitcom set, right, That's just not not happening. So
Speaker 7: I don't know where it changed or how it changed.
Speaker 7: I don't know if it's because it was a whole
Speaker 7: entity in itself, the Nickelodeon bubble, the Disney bubble, there's
Speaker 7: a whole other set of expectations. But yeah, like it's
Speaker 7: always surprising to me to hear it because you would
Speaker 7: never you would never have seen that on on Growing
Speaker 7: Pains or you know, any of those shows.
Speaker 4: Yeah, having another teen on set who was also facing
Speaker 4: mass stardom could be really helpful. What was your relationship
Speaker 4: with Alyssa Milano?
Speaker 7: Like, so for most of the show, I was so
Speaker 7: busy focused on school, and like I would show up
Speaker 7: to set, I'd be there for literally like two hours
Speaker 7: and do my thing and then go home. We were
Speaker 7: we loved each other. It was a beautiful relationship, but
Speaker 7: we weren't like hanging out or calling each other. She
Speaker 7: was hanging out with the boys that she was you
Speaker 7: know that she was into or she was definitely doing
Speaker 7: some of the going out to events in Hollywood and
Speaker 7: being sort of seen. She you know, she was very
Speaker 7: popular at the time. Right, So this little kid who
Speaker 7: doesn't really who just wants to do his homework is
Speaker 7: like not on her radar, right, Yes, but it was
Speaker 7: never more than that. Now now we're closer than we
Speaker 7: had ever been on the show, which is so wonderful
Speaker 7: to me. And she is a really, really terrific woman
Speaker 7: and all of the things that she strives to be
Speaker 7: and strives to achieve for other people. It is just
Speaker 7: blows my mind how. I don't know how she gets
Speaker 7: up every day and just keeps so focused on achieving
Speaker 7: these goals up in the world. You know, if I
Speaker 7: could just be a little bit more like her, I'd
Speaker 7: be happy.
Speaker 4: You have been very open about your struggles with sobriety
Speaker 4: and drugs. Do you think early stardom is a gateway
Speaker 4: drug to drugs?
Speaker 7: Is a gateway to drugs? I see where you're going. Yeah,
Speaker 7: it depends on how you look at it. I think,
Speaker 7: like with anyone in the world, when there's strife, and
Speaker 7: when there's identity problems, and when there is the inability
Speaker 7: to know who you are as a human and your
Speaker 7: stock or your lost, I think that's more the gateway
Speaker 7: than the child celebrity. I think the child celebrity is
Speaker 7: the reason you're lost or can't find your way. But
Speaker 7: I wouldn't say and it didn't happen to every It
Speaker 7: doesn't happen to everyone. Right, You've got plenty of examples
Speaker 7: of actors who just were Okay, my version is backwards
Speaker 7: in a weird way. Like I look at my life
Speaker 7: as sort of three chapters, and the first chapter was
Speaker 7: all the way to the age of thirty five. So
Speaker 7: thirty five was when I finally had this sort of
Speaker 7: like breakdown because it took me that long to get
Speaker 7: past these identity issues. Even though I was one hundred
Speaker 7: percent convinced that I wanted to be something else, which
Speaker 7: was a veterinarian, I kept doing this thing, Like when
Speaker 7: I got into Stanford, I literally my acceptance letter just
Speaker 7: or my what do you call that? The letter you send?
Speaker 4: Incation letter?
Speaker 7: It was all about being a veterinarian. So I went
Speaker 7: there to be a veterinarian. I could not pass the
Speaker 7: math and science to save my life and was devastated.
Speaker 7: So what do I do? I come back to LA
Speaker 7: to try to be an actor. I literally left Stanford
Speaker 7: to go back to LA. Spend about six weeks going
Speaker 7: what the hell are you thinking? Go back to Stanford.
Speaker 7: It's fucking Stanford? Like yeah, And then I moved to
Speaker 7: New York to try to be a theater director. That
Speaker 7: didn't go well. So what do I do? I go
Speaker 7: back to being an actor theater acting of course, right,
Speaker 7: and then I get into some problems with drug in
Speaker 7: New York that was just at the wrong time, like
Speaker 7: at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and I
Speaker 7: let it get out of a hand because I was
Speaker 7: having identity issues. Yeah, finally I had to leave New York.
Speaker 7: I go back to LA to be an actor. Right.
Speaker 7: So we're going through that time period and the universe
Speaker 7: is absolutely telling me it is the wrong move. Just
Speaker 7: story after story of stuff, like I'm mentioned on Will
Speaker 7: and Grace. We call them and say, hey, bring him on.
Speaker 7: They're like no, We're like you you mentioned him five
Speaker 7: times in the episode. And do you know how many
Speaker 7: celebrities want to be on this show?
Speaker 6: Well, how many of them, do you member you talking about?
Speaker 7: But it's a much longer story and it's not even
Speaker 7: worth going through. But stuff like that was happening, and
Speaker 7: I was like, Okay, I'm done, no more acting, I'm done.
Speaker 7: I'm going to be a casting director. So I just
Speaker 7: moved into another area of the business, and I work
Speaker 7: as a casting director. Then I move into a talent agent,
Speaker 7: and by then I'm thirty five, and I feel like
Speaker 7: all of the stuff that's just brimming and sort of
Speaker 7: sitting there, and while I love it, I'm also making
Speaker 7: other people's careers successful right as a talent agent's assistant,
Speaker 7: which was so hard I think on my brain in
Speaker 7: the long run that I finally snapped and I attempted
Speaker 7: to take my life and I was two weeks in
Speaker 7: the psych ward and that was the moment. That was
Speaker 7: the first moment when I felt truly like I could
Speaker 7: step away and and just start over. But it took
Speaker 7: that to get.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 7: Then ten years of zero business, like nothing to do
Speaker 7: with the entertainment business at all, my husband started working
Speaker 7: as a restaurant manager. I managed the largest pfchains in
Speaker 7: the country for two vicious and then finally I come
Speaker 7: back to vet tech. So I start working at a
Speaker 7: shelter in Austin, and then I moved into their veteran
Speaker 7: a clinic, and then I moved to a private clinic,
Speaker 7: and life was amazing. I discovered who I was. I
Speaker 7: was happily married, we were making money, we felt really solid.
Speaker 7: And then I saw Wilson Cruz and Anthony Rapp kiss
Speaker 7: on screen as a married couple in Star Trek Discovery,
Speaker 7: and something happened. I said, Oh, wait, hold on, I
Speaker 7: need to do that. That needs to happen for me.
Speaker 7: I need to see what that feels like. I need
Speaker 7: to find just the idea that finally there were these
Speaker 7: opportunities for someone like me was just so compelling. So
Speaker 7: I'm back to being an actor again. But this time
Speaker 7: it's not because everything else fell apart. It's actually because
Speaker 7: everything came together. I am who I meant to be.
Speaker 7: I know who I am, and now I want to
Speaker 7: see what it looks like now as an adult and
Speaker 7: as someone who understands who they are.
Speaker 4: Wow, thanks for sharing that story with us.
Speaker 7: It's hard. It's hard to break it up. I mean,
Speaker 7: it's a it's a path that can only be explained
Speaker 7: by telling the story.
Speaker 4: You know that you mentioned that your you think of
Speaker 4: your life as three chapters. That first chapter goes to
Speaker 4: thirty five and then what how do you how do
Speaker 4: you separate chapter two and three and how many I
Speaker 4: hope there's a hundred chapters to go.
Speaker 7: So, yeah, chapter two is the ten years out.
Speaker 4: Okay, the ten years out of it, and then I'm that.
Speaker 7: Chapter three when I come back to being an actor,
Speaker 7: which was four years ago now, and there's not much
Speaker 7: of the story yet. You all know the business. I
Speaker 7: come back to the business.
Speaker 5: At the worst.
Speaker 7: I come back right before the strikes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, going it's like going back to I'm a vet again,
Speaker 1: but now there's no animals left in the world. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Literally, it's horrifying. Yeah, it's not getting better. I mean, no, no,
Speaker 7: where we're at with the situation. And I've been trying
Speaker 7: to explain with this Amazon Flex stuff, I've been trying
Speaker 7: to explain to their general public just how bad it
Speaker 7: is because they just don't understand. And it's it's been
Speaker 7: eye opening to a lot of people to realize how
Speaker 7: awful things are. The pilot season story is the easiest
Speaker 7: way to explain it to them. You know, y'all remember
Speaker 7: pilot season when it was an actual thing, right.
Speaker 4: Yes, there were where you could go, well, at least
Speaker 4: at least there's pilot season coming up from pilot season.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, people would like fly in from all of
Speaker 7: the country, sleep on someone's couch just to be able
Speaker 7: to go on auditions for pilot season. There were what
Speaker 7: it's sixty eighty of them in the three month span.
Speaker 7: We had eight this year, and two of them got
Speaker 7: picked up.
Speaker 3: It's miserable. It's just awful, miserably.
Speaker 6: It's everybody.
Speaker 3: It's well.
Speaker 1: It's also because everybody can just point their camera at
Speaker 1: themselves on their phone and an influencer or.
Speaker 3: Do whatever they have to do.
Speaker 1: So the idea of these massive companies now saying we're
Speaker 1: going to put hundreds of millions of dollars into stuff
Speaker 1: that people are doing on YouTube for free, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: why would we do that?
Speaker 3: So yeah, in such a stake of books right now,
Speaker 3: it really And.
Speaker 7: The other thing I try to explain too, is that,
Speaker 7: as you say that, all of the studios are basically
Speaker 7: owned by a corporation. So instead of the studio being
Speaker 7: able to say, oh man, we got to make this thing,
Speaker 7: it's going to be amazing. They have to say, hey, corporation,
Speaker 7: what do you think about us making stockholders?
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 7: Then the corporation says, well, what's the risk assessment on it?
Speaker 7: And then it gets it gets canned, you know, because
Speaker 7: it's not going to be it's not going to make
Speaker 7: the money. And or the other thing that I feel
Speaker 7: like is happening. Maybe tell me if you feel like
Speaker 7: this is true, is that those corporations know that if
Speaker 7: they have celebrity names in the first eight roles on
Speaker 7: the call sheet, they're going to make money or it's
Speaker 7: going to be more successful rather than take a chance
Speaker 7: on someone who is in a celebrity name. So I
Speaker 7: feel like we're getting farther and farther down on the list.
Speaker 6: It's even worse.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, because when we we we talk about this all
Speaker 1: the time, there was there was a real delineation between
Speaker 1: the type of actor you were in the seventies, eighties,
Speaker 1: and nineties, you were a television.
Speaker 3: Actor or you were a movie star.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now because films are dead, all the people
Speaker 1: that were movie stars are now coming onto television and
Speaker 1: all the people that are television stars are being pushed out.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that sees it. He's like, what's going on?
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that's who.
Speaker 7: And here's the thing. They're all out of work, so
Speaker 7: they're gonna say yes. Of course they're gonna say yes.
Speaker 4: Clooney doesn't espress so.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 7: For me, those are not as crazy. I just saw
Speaker 7: I won't say Dame's I just saw an episode of something.
Speaker 7: A fairly famous actor came on and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 7: they're gonna have a great guest star three lines. Yeah,
Speaker 7: and then they left and I went, wait a second,
Speaker 7: hold on a minute, like, is this where we're at?
Speaker 7: Is that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 7: So the the person who would normally have played that role,
Speaker 7: the like co star level actor, guest star level actor,
Speaker 7: new upcoming person who they would have taken a risk
Speaker 7: on for those three lines, is now being played by
Speaker 7: someone who's been a serious television show.
Speaker 4: Arrived on the set and they said, you have thirty minutes.
Speaker 4: You got thirty minutes, and then you got to get
Speaker 4: them out of here.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, got it.
Speaker 6: It's so true.
Speaker 1: No, it's one of those things where it is the
Speaker 1: day of the journeyman actor, where you could make a
Speaker 1: very good living and raise a family on the I'm
Speaker 1: going to do this guest star and that guest star.
Speaker 1: We have a three episode arc on this I'm doing that.
Speaker 1: It's just not a thing anymore, absolutely not a thing anymore. Now.
Speaker 7: It's really scary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know all of us look at social media
Speaker 4: now and the twenty four to seven constant need to
Speaker 4: be a brand and for kid stars, we are all
Speaker 4: so thankful we didn't have that. But you did face
Speaker 4: something horrific in the media. A tabloid outed you when
Speaker 4: you were at Stanford.
Speaker 6: Oh obviously that story. I didn't know this story. Oh
Speaker 6: my god.
Speaker 7: Yeah, welcome to my life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean obviously, and thankfully this is something that
Speaker 4: happens significantly less now.
Speaker 7: But if it were to happen now, all hell would
Speaker 7: break loose, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, as it should be. How were you able to
Speaker 4: deal with that?
Speaker 7: It was not easy. So you have to remember this
Speaker 7: is a time when nineteen ninety seven, when it was
Speaker 7: kind of a thing for the Inquirer to help people.
Speaker 7: That's literally one of the lifels.
Speaker 5: It happened to chat Allen too.
Speaker 7: Ye, same idea, exactly right around the same time. So
Speaker 7: right around the same time. Yeah, and yeah, I just
Speaker 7: got a call out of the blue one day. Hey,
Speaker 7: we're gonna we're going to talk about this whether you
Speaker 7: like it or not. Do you want us to give
Speaker 7: us an Oh my god. I was like in the
Speaker 7: middle of finals, and I was absolutely petrified. You know,
Speaker 7: I wasn't focused on being an actor, but I hadn't
Speaker 7: ruled it out. So I was absolutely sure my career
Speaker 7: was over obviously at that point, I mean, there was
Speaker 7: no other version of the scenario. So I called Judith
Speaker 7: because she's been an advocate for our community for I
Speaker 7: mean since long before me. Her long term managers are
Speaker 7: a married queer couple, and so I saw them on
Speaker 7: set every day and I had really good sort of
Speaker 7: images of what it meant to be queer. But I
Speaker 7: called her and I said, Judith, what do I do?
Speaker 7: And she said, very calmly, just look, they can't misquote you.
Speaker 7: So if you give them really solid answers and just
Speaker 7: be truthful and honest, they can't misquote you. And so
Speaker 7: I just went into it knowing that, and believe it
Speaker 7: or not, the actual Inquirer story, if you were to
Speaker 7: read it, it's actually pretty heartfelt, which was shocking to me.
Speaker 7: It happened, and it was awful, and it was awful
Speaker 7: that it happened, but it could have been worse in
Speaker 7: the sense that the article could have been just you know,
Speaker 7: dragging me through the coals had I not participated. So
Speaker 7: I'm eternally grateful to her for telling me to say
Speaker 7: yes to the interview.
Speaker 6: Wow, did you ever? I mean a stupid question, can you, like,
Speaker 6: did you consider suing? Can you sue for stuff like that?
Speaker 1: Or?
Speaker 7: I think nowadays that would be something that's more likely
Speaker 7: to go through, But back then that it just everybody
Speaker 7: knew that was something they could get away with. Remember
Speaker 7: it's a different time. People did not. We don't think
Speaker 7: the same way as we get in, which is so
Speaker 7: great and I'm so grateful for that.
Speaker 5: Well, even even even like what you were saying about
Speaker 5: your your career being over, I think that there was
Speaker 5: a reality that, uh, you could only play gay roles,
Speaker 5: if you know, and that those were one in a million,
Speaker 5: you know, if you a million if so, if you
Speaker 5: wanted to be an actor, a leading man, you had
Speaker 5: to be straight. I mean that was because so many
Speaker 5: people were closeted by necessity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, studios used to marry them off. Studio used to
Speaker 1: marry gay men off. To wim Well, that you're you're
Speaker 1: married now.
Speaker 7: Well, look, I don't have any examples of it, but
Speaker 7: I don't know if you used to is Yeah, are
Speaker 7: you sure that that doesn't apply? Yeah, there are some
Speaker 7: people who I'm you know, I mean, you know, I
Speaker 7: don't know. Maybe we're all wrong, but we've got these
Speaker 7: versions in our head.
Speaker 4: Why do you think there is such a stigma associated
Speaker 4: with TV and movie stars eventually transitioning into the traditional workforce.
Speaker 4: Why do people think of it as being anything other
Speaker 4: than just a normal career where, you know, not making
Speaker 4: enough money doing this one, so I've got to do
Speaker 4: something else. Why do you think that exists?
Speaker 6: I don't.
Speaker 7: Look, it's happened to me so many times now in
Speaker 7: different ways. I just think that because I don't think
Speaker 7: y'all know this. But in like, like near the end
Speaker 7: of the show, I wanted a summer job just for fun,
Speaker 7: so I worked at the Gap and they somebody brought
Speaker 7: in a hidden camera and took pictures of me folding
Speaker 7: clothes and said he's already lost all his money. The
Speaker 7: downfall of Danny Binton, series regular on Who's the Boss
Speaker 7: and he's working at the Gap? You know, I mean,
Speaker 7: I don't know I don't know what it is. I
Speaker 7: think it's the idea that regular people quote unquote love
Speaker 7: to see the sort of because so for a long
Speaker 7: time it was they love to see the downfall. There
Speaker 7: is something about that. Just humans love to see other
Speaker 7: people being miserable. I mean, I don't know, and especially
Speaker 7: someone that they have placed on such a pedestal to
Speaker 7: see that person come down a bunch of levels. Nowadays,
Speaker 7: it seems like what happens is the people don't like that.
Speaker 7: So Jeffrey Owens, they did some pictures of him at
Speaker 7: Trader Joe's from the from the Cosby Show. They set
Speaker 7: the story up to be look at what happened. But
Speaker 7: the response and the comments and the response to him
Speaker 7: was don't even think. How dare you?
Speaker 6: So that is like he's.
Speaker 7: On the well, yeah, he just an amazing guest star
Speaker 7: on the pit. Yeah, I think back next season for sure,
Speaker 7: because his friend is. Anyway, so that moment that we've
Speaker 7: come at that far as humans is is really the
Speaker 7: only way we stop doing terrible crap like that, right,
Speaker 7: all this humans. So when I posted the picture for flex,
Speaker 7: I really didn't. It did not cross my mind because
Speaker 7: everybody knows that I'm working and all the people follow me.
Speaker 7: I'm live at least three times a week. They all knew,
Speaker 7: so I posted it being like, Hey, I'm at work,
Speaker 7: I'll be back live later today.
Speaker 4: Kind of so to our dear listeners who don't know,
Speaker 4: you drive for Amazon Flex where you get to be
Speaker 4: flexible with your hours and pick and choose when you
Speaker 4: are working at Amazon and when you are focusing on
Speaker 4: your acting career.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so it's one of the five different gig jobs
Speaker 7: that I'm doing right now. More gig actors. Acting is
Speaker 7: the gig. It's one of the six acting. It's one
Speaker 7: of the six gigs. But yeah, I came across this
Speaker 7: when I was living in Austin. The idea for people
Speaker 7: who don't understand. So like, let's say an Amazon driver
Speaker 7: calls out for the day. What they do is they
Speaker 7: take the stuff in his truck, they split it up
Speaker 7: into like five portions, and then people can pick up
Speaker 7: the shift to deliver that section or what mostly it
Speaker 7: is now is same day delivery or next day delivery
Speaker 7: with an Amazon Prime. So most of my shifts are
Speaker 7: people who ordered last night and want it by today.
Speaker 7: So that's kind of how it works. So You just
Speaker 7: fill up your car with packages, you take pictures of them,
Speaker 7: you leave them on the doorstep, and you're done. And
Speaker 7: the money is surprisingly good. When my husband and I
Speaker 7: do it together a three hour shift, we could do
Speaker 7: it in two hours and the whole shift was eighty
Speaker 7: to one hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: Not bad at all.
Speaker 7: So yeah, So that came out. But as soon as
Speaker 7: the first hit of the press for it came out,
Speaker 7: I stopped and I said, Okay, how do we do
Speaker 7: this differently? You know? And I went into it thinking,
Speaker 7: we have to do what we have to do to survive.
Speaker 7: We have got to keep moving as humans. And I
Speaker 7: know you can all relate to what that looks like.
Speaker 7: We're all doing it. I am not different from you
Speaker 7: in that sense. We've never been to differ from you
Speaker 7: in that sense. I don't make money from residuals, you know.
Speaker 7: So they're answering all the questions that immediately came up
Speaker 7: in the comments in sort of the first statement I
Speaker 7: made in the first interview I did, and it kind
Speaker 7: of just all the flat just disappeared because people had
Speaker 7: the answers and they felt informed and they felt like
Speaker 7: they they understood where we are all as act or
Speaker 7: we'll all act as actors right now.
Speaker 1: You know, well, I mean most people in any form
Speaker 1: of creative field. If you're an artist in any way,
Speaker 1: you're a musician, you need to do something else. There's
Speaker 1: the very, very select group of people that are making
Speaker 1: a good living in the artistic field. You do what
Speaker 1: you have to do. And then you couple that with
Speaker 1: the fact that as human beings, you want purpose. You
Speaker 1: want to wake up in the morning with something to do.
Speaker 1: And most people are raised with or you hope are
Speaker 1: raised with a decent work ethic, and it's like, I
Speaker 1: want to get up and be productive today.
Speaker 6: I want to do something.
Speaker 1: Larry Bird famously, even at his height, when he lived
Speaker 1: in Boston playing everybody, fans would go out and watch
Speaker 1: him every week mow his own lawn and they were like,
Speaker 1: Harry Bran, He's like, because I grew up on a
Speaker 1: farm and I'm mowing my lawn, That's what I'm doing.
Speaker 6: And to other people, they're like, that's the craziest thing.
Speaker 3: So it's like, oh my god, you have a job.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I'm an actor, which is I might have
Speaker 1: a great year and then a five years, and so
Speaker 1: I want to have something else to do.
Speaker 5: There's always been a fantasy, like a mystique about acts.
Speaker 7: Definitely. Yeah.
Speaker 5: And they project onto on two actors. We all do,
Speaker 5: I think, you know, to so we project like they
Speaker 5: must live a fantastic life in a big house and
Speaker 5: have people waiting on them. It's like this, It's like
Speaker 5: a version of the American dream, right, Like we projected
Speaker 5: onto actors, like if you're on a TV show, if
Speaker 5: you're in a movie, you've made it and it's done.
Speaker 5: And it's just not the truth at all, And it's
Speaker 5: only gotten worse, only gotten worse.
Speaker 7: The general public understand what a non famous actor is
Speaker 7: doing gigs, restaurant work, they understand that, yeah, but then
Speaker 7: when you try to apply it to any of us,
Speaker 7: they don't understand it. It's so fascinating.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's yeah.
Speaker 7: But one of the big things to talk about with
Speaker 7: it all was is the residuals. And I've seen so
Speaker 7: many things since I've talked about it a few weeks ago,
Speaker 7: I've seen so much about it, and I think they're
Speaker 7: finally starting to understand what it means and what residuals
Speaker 7: actually mean and what they don't Yeah, yeah, yeah, when
Speaker 7: you open.
Speaker 3: A little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's so many times and Sue will
Speaker 1: be like, this is absurd where the stamp on the
Speaker 1: front costs more than the check inside.
Speaker 7: And it is already a time. That's happened to me
Speaker 7: so many time.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy where it's like they literally sent
Speaker 1: a fifty five cent stamp or whatever to send me
Speaker 1: a twelve cent check, Like, what the hell is happening,
Speaker 1: It's crazy.
Speaker 4: Well, we are big fans of a side hustle here,
Speaker 4: so I want to know about the resonant actor and
Speaker 4: your booknook business.
Speaker 7: All right, so this is you know, one of five.
Speaker 7: So I've got Amazon and then I'm an acting coach.
Speaker 7: So that developed because I teach act I've been teaching
Speaker 7: acting for the last almost ten years in Austin. I
Speaker 7: was teaching eight classes at this conservatory. I'm currently teaching
Speaker 7: for the entire summer at Young Actors Theater Camp. It's
Speaker 7: this amazing place in Santa Cruz for young actors. And
Speaker 7: one of the reasons they're so successful is they get huge,
Speaker 7: huge name Broadway stars to come in and do master
Speaker 7: classes for the kids. It's just discounding. I mean, the
Speaker 7: level of talent that comes, but I run their acting track,
Speaker 7: So I write the showcase, I coordinate all the monologues
Speaker 7: and scenes. I teach seven different classes in a day.
Speaker 7: It's so many, and so out of that, I've decided
Speaker 7: to sort of also create a little bit of a
Speaker 7: coaching business and hopefully that'll turn into something where I
Speaker 7: can just sort of I have a unique sort of
Speaker 7: take on it, and that's the resonant actor vibe of it.
Speaker 7: Like the idea that we're all resonating energy right as humans,
Speaker 7: and when you're playing a character, you have to resonate
Speaker 7: their energy, not yours, And so how do you figure
Speaker 7: that out by creating an inner monologue that is so
Speaker 7: specifically the other character that your brain is off to
Speaker 7: the side, allowing you to sort of give off the
Speaker 7: essence of this character that you've created. Anyway, that's a
Speaker 7: whole thing. But yeah, the book Nooks. The book Nooks.
Speaker 7: It's weird to talk about, but it's also like so cool.
Speaker 7: November twenty twenty four, I bought one and I started
Speaker 7: putting it together, and at the time I was doing
Speaker 7: TikTok Lives Will, so to go back to something way earlier.
Speaker 7: Danielle when I got back to the business. The first
Speaker 7: thing I said when I came back to the business
Speaker 7: was I refuse to lose a role to an actor
Speaker 7: who has a better social media profile. Then I refuse.
Speaker 7: And at the time I didn't have one. So I've
Speaker 7: spent the last four years building one. And one of
Speaker 7: the ways to do that is TikTok Live. Just people
Speaker 7: are coming through, Oh my god, it's you click, you know,
Speaker 7: we're good, but doing a two hour live where I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 7: who's the boss? Yeah, Kujo is boring? No that. So
Speaker 7: I'm like, I gotta find a niche. So I was like, oh,
Speaker 7: maybe i'll build this on the live and I built.
Speaker 7: I started building it. I went from thirty people to
Speaker 7: one hundred and thirty and a couple of days later
Speaker 7: somebody said can I buy that? And I was like, what,
Speaker 7: I'm going to put it on my shelf? What do
Speaker 7: you mean you want to buy it? And they're like, oh,
Speaker 7: I don't have time, it's beautiful, you do an amazing
Speaker 7: job with it. Can I buy it? And I said, oh,
Speaker 7: let me get back to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: That was November twenty twenty four. I have since sold
Speaker 7: one hundred and seventy four booknoes.
Speaker 6: What exactly is a book note?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to make sure I have it right,
Speaker 1: So I think I know what it is, but I
Speaker 1: want to know right here.
Speaker 7: It's a model, it's a diorama, and it has a theme,
Speaker 7: and it comes like this. This is what it comes like.
Speaker 7: It comes in pieces like flat boards. What I then
Speaker 7: do is pop those off. I stand the edges, I
Speaker 7: paint the edges and make them look really nice, a
Speaker 7: bunch of stuff, and then I put it together and
Speaker 7: this is Harry Potter diagon Alley Christmas.
Speaker 5: That's so cool.
Speaker 7: It's amazing. All the snow that you see, all the glitter,
Speaker 7: all of the extras. I just got a three D printer,
Speaker 7: so I started three D printing stuff to add to them,
Speaker 7: all of these cool little touches in the back. And
Speaker 7: then because underneath the street is basically gr gringuts vaults
Speaker 7: right turns gold right. The coolest thing people literally will
Speaker 7: I mean people just sit and watch me for hours.
Speaker 7: I have soft music playing. It's super zen and easy
Speaker 7: and cool. And then the other cool thing is that
Speaker 7: I tell the person who purchased it, so then what
Speaker 7: they do is they buy it. Then I build it.
Speaker 7: So when I'm gonna build it, I say, hey, I'm
Speaker 7: going to be building yours today on TikTok. They join
Speaker 7: me and then I'm like, what color do you want
Speaker 7: this to be? Or I mean that was just like that.
Speaker 7: I don't even know how to explain how the joy
Speaker 7: that they feel. This one's what I'm working on.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 7: Christmas one.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: My paint miniature. So this is like this is like
Speaker 1: right up my alley.
Speaker 7: Yeah, oh I love it.
Speaker 1: For D and D.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for D and D. So for D and D yeah, D.
Speaker 7: Look would I just printed today? Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 7: have this sort of cartoon figure of me and I
Speaker 7: made a three D versions.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Three D printing, man is absolutely the way to go,
Speaker 7: especially for Dungeons Dragon that manol, it's already. I mean
Speaker 7: I love it. I love it so much. That is
Speaker 7: so cool, Okay, but it's you know, paying the bills,
Speaker 7: so we enjoy it and you enjoy it and absolutely
Speaker 7: enjoy it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you could, if you had your druthers and
Speaker 4: you could be performing in any capacity, doing anything, Yeah,
Speaker 4: what would you be doing?
Speaker 7: You know, it's so hard because it's been already four
Speaker 7: years of trying to come back, and I feel like
Speaker 7: what's currently happening is people are getting to know me
Speaker 7: as a human, which I think is really nice. All
Speaker 7: this press is all about getting to know who I am.
Speaker 7: But the business, the casting directors, the directors, producing, nobody
Speaker 7: knows what I can do as an actor. So at
Speaker 7: this very moment, the answer is truly, I will do
Speaker 7: whatever I can to just get back in front of
Speaker 7: the camera so people can see that I still know
Speaker 7: what I'm doing, that I that I still have it,
Speaker 7: and then I am a capable human being. The hard part,
Speaker 7: of course for me, is that you know, I have
Speaker 7: a lot of boxes, those boxes that we talked about,
Speaker 7: the queer box, the HIV box. Don't forget about that
Speaker 7: from twenty fifteen. Do y'all know about that?
Speaker 4: No? No?
Speaker 7: Oh? Well, by the way, in twenty fifteen, Oprah called
Speaker 7: me or her people and said, we want to do
Speaker 7: a where are they now special on you? And I said, well,
Speaker 7: I'm ready to talk about something else, So what do
Speaker 7: you think about that? So yeah, twenty fifteen, I came
Speaker 7: out to Oprah as being HIV positive on her show. Okay,
Speaker 7: big deal, big big deal actually scarier than coming out
Speaker 7: as gay.
Speaker 4: Sure, well yeah, but you didn't get to really do
Speaker 4: that on your own.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, yeah, for sure, no. And I was definitely
Speaker 7: ready to talk about it. And I also felt like
Speaker 7: it was time for me to do I felt like
Speaker 7: the universe was saying, it's an important thing for you
Speaker 7: to do right now, and at the time, it really was.
Speaker 7: And I made a huge difference in a lot of
Speaker 7: people's lives in terms of just having someone else to
Speaker 7: look to who's living happily with HIV. So I've got
Speaker 7: that box, I've got the day box, I've got Jonathan
Speaker 7: Bauer box, because that's never going to go away, right.
Speaker 7: So it's just it's hard, and I just really just
Speaker 7: need something. It just needs something to come through that
Speaker 7: I can get up there and be like, guys, here
Speaker 7: it is. And it's it's just hard because thirty auditions,
Speaker 7: self tapes, no feedback, no callbacks, one callback. It just
Speaker 7: starts to get to a place where you really doubt
Speaker 7: yourself and you really doubt your ability and and you
Speaker 7: just I have to remember the the outcome of the
Speaker 7: audition is not a reflection of whether I'm a good
Speaker 7: actor or it's so hard though. Yeah, you know, you
Speaker 7: just have to remember that there are a thousand parts.
Speaker 7: But yeah, I'm ready, and I just I mean it
Speaker 7: needs I'm ready. And everybody says that they feel like
Speaker 7: something is coming, which feels really nice, and it's not
Speaker 7: just a sort of like, oh, yeah, you got this,
Speaker 7: it's like no, truly, like in my heart, I can
Speaker 7: truly feel something's coming, and I just I'm waiting patiently
Speaker 7: for that moment.
Speaker 4: Well, we will be there front row screaming your name.
Speaker 4: I can't wait to see what that thing is. I'm
Speaker 4: so thank you so much for sharing your vulnerability, your honesty.
Speaker 4: It is so incredibly refreshing to talk to somebody who
Speaker 4: has absolutely no reason to not be anything other than
Speaker 4: one hundred percent earnest about your life, your journey, where
Speaker 4: you are now, what you're looking forward to, and it's yeah,
Speaker 4: it's just you are. You're a remarkable person, and thank
Speaker 4: you for sharing it with all of our dear listeners,
Speaker 4: who I know are going to love you and be
Speaker 4: there to support you. That you obviously have a thriving
Speaker 4: TikTok live. Where can people find you?
Speaker 7: Yeah, everything is all Danny Pintaro. So just at Kintaro
Speaker 7: everywhere you go. Thanks for saying that, though, I mean,
Speaker 7: it is the best feeling to truly be able to
Speaker 7: say as an actor, as a celebrity that there's nothing
Speaker 7: off the table. It's really cool feeling. I don't know
Speaker 7: if it helps me in the long term with like
Speaker 7: the boxes going away right then, I continue to talk
Speaker 7: about these things so openly, but I'm also not in
Speaker 7: a position to play that game and sort of you know,
Speaker 7: take any steps back just to make your career happen.
Speaker 7: It's going to happen on my terms, whether whether they
Speaker 7: like it or not.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Mean anytime, anytime you're living in an inauthentic way, it's
Speaker 4: going to be painful. And if you are the type
Speaker 4: of person who loves to be mysterious and isn't an
Speaker 4: open book, then that's not inauthentic for you. But for
Speaker 4: those of us who pride ourselves on being able to
Speaker 4: speak honestly and from the heart and all of that,
Speaker 4: it's like forcing ourselves to not do that because we
Speaker 4: think it's going to benefit us in some career ways.
Speaker 4: Just it's just another version of living, you know, exactly,
Speaker 4: So you know, I couldn't respect you more and I
Speaker 4: really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us.
Speaker 4: So great to officially meet you, even though we're.
Speaker 7: Yeah one day in person for sure. I'm so proud
Speaker 7: of you all for making this happen. This is such
Speaker 7: a big, huge success, and thank you. I'm so proud
Speaker 7: of you for for actually doing it. I do not
Speaker 7: envy you, but it is something that I would like
Speaker 7: to be better at, which is just taking a big
Speaker 7: risk right and creating something and hoping that it succeeds.
Speaker 7: And it has by far succeeded for you all, So
Speaker 7: congratulations much. I'm being brave enough to make something happen.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you so much. We wouldn't have done
Speaker 4: it without writer. Thank you, Danny.
Speaker 5: It was great to see you.
Speaker 7: Thank you have a great day, and thanks so much
Speaker 7: for having me you too.
Speaker 5: Bye bye.
Speaker 4: Wasn't that a refreshing conversation just like, well, I think
Speaker 4: you're right.
Speaker 5: There's no pretense, Yeah, there's no literally like no, like
Speaker 5: you just drop the idea of like wanting to be
Speaker 5: cool or wanting to be impressive and instead of just
Speaker 5: being like, here's my journey, here's who I am, here's
Speaker 5: where I'm at and it's all pretty interesting and pretty great,
Speaker 5: and like, yeah, I.
Speaker 7: Was really loushed.
Speaker 4: I think maybe one of the things I really resonated
Speaker 4: with with what he was so many of the things
Speaker 4: he was talking about is you know when I mentioned
Speaker 4: that he had been outed at when he went to Stanford,
Speaker 4: and it was like, oh my gosh, Yeah, it was devastating.
Speaker 4: He thought his career was over, and yet immediately he
Speaker 4: was also able to say it was it was also
Speaker 4: very well written because I participated it was hard and
Speaker 4: and and so it's something we come up with on
Speaker 4: this podcast all the time, is that there can be duality.
Speaker 4: Two things can exist at the same time. It can
Speaker 4: be a tragic thing that someone outed him, and also
Speaker 4: it could be something he looks back on fondly in
Speaker 4: the sense of just the heartfelt interview and the way
Speaker 4: it was handled and the fact that he got the
Speaker 4: advice from Judith Light and yeah, so I don't know,
Speaker 4: I just it felt like he sees both sides to
Speaker 4: every you know, even something like sharing that he was
Speaker 4: HIV positive. He was called from Oprah and they were
Speaker 4: going to and he said, I have something I want
Speaker 4: to talk about. I don't know It's just there's something
Speaker 4: so nice about people able to recognize and say, maybe
Speaker 4: one of my biggest hardships is also one of my
Speaker 4: biggest bussings, and you know, being able to see both
Speaker 4: sides of it. So anyway, I thought he was very impressive. Yeah,
Speaker 4: thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Speaker 4: Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on
Speaker 4: Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your
Speaker 4: emails pod meets World Show at gmail dot com and
Speaker 4: we've got.
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Speaker 5: I love you all, pod dismissed. Podmeets World is an
Speaker 5: iHeart podcast producer hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfridell and Ryder
Speaker 5: Strong Executive producers Jensen Krp and Amy Sugarman. Executive in
Speaker 5: charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tarasubasch producer,
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Speaker 5: Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow
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