Episodes

Send us Fan Mail Someone wiring money into a film isn’t just making a transaction. They’re handing you trust. I close out the season with a solo, from-the-heart conversation about what that trust really means for filmmakers, producers, and investors and why it should shape every choice you make on set, in the edit room, and in your distribution strategy. This is also where I clear up a big misunderstanding about my book Hollywood Money Traps: it’s not a cynical “Hollywood exposé.” It’s a prac...

Send us Fan Mail Someone once told Deborah Kobylt, “You look too ethnic. Go dye your hair.” That moment didn’t end her career, but it did reveal the quiet rules women were expected to follow in local broadcasting. We sit down with Deborah, an award-winning journalist whose path runs through CNN, KCAL9, Fox 11, and decades of high-pressure reporting, to talk about what it really takes to last in a male-dominated media world without losing your voice. We dig into the craft behind her interview...

Send us Fan Mail The moment you realize you can’t “out-strategize” your nervous system is the moment everything changes. We sit down with thought leader, speaker, and former on-camera powerhouse Michelle Soro to talk about the deeper path that opens when visibility and achievement stop working the way they used to and a spiritual awakening demands honesty. Michelle shares what it felt like to fully wake up in August 2021, how that shock can register as trauma in the body, and why the followi...

Send us Fan Mail Most Hollywood heartbreak stories end with the artist. I want to talk about the people who quietly absorb the real damage when a film doesn’t sell: the friends who wire money, the parents who max out credit cards, the “mom and pop” backers who believe in someone they love and never get a real explanation when the dream collapses. After a personal crisis that forces me to slow down and get painfully honest, I connect what I’m seeing in my own life to what I’ve witnessed acros...

Send us Fan Mail A live TV director doesn’t get the luxury of overthinking, because the show keeps moving. That’s why this conversation with three-time Emmy Award-winning director and author Mary Madeiras hit me so hard: she’s spent 30 years making split-second decisions in news, sports, talk shows, and daytime drama, and then life delivered a pivot she didn’t plan for. When her contract isn’t renewed on a major production, the floor drops out and a different kind of directing begins, one foc...

Send us Fan Mail The ideas that haunt you are often the ones you never tried and that’s a 100% failure rate. Pen Densham joins us to unpack a creative life built on persistence more than certainty, from early hardship and foster care to a career in filmmaking that eventually expands into intimate, almost meditative nature photography. Along the way, we keep coming back to one practical question every artist faces: who are your allies when your idea is still small and breakable? We dig into t...

Send us Fan Mail A monkey tears a seasoned primate trainer’s lip off, and the story isn’t told for shock value. It’s a warning about what happens when we mistake wild animals for pets, props, or content. We sit down with Stacy Gunderson, founder of the Animal Tracks sanctuary near Los Angeles, to pull back the curtain on Hollywood animal training, the real welfare challenges behind the “magic,” and why even well-meaning people can create dangerous situations by treating exotic animals like do...

Send us Fan Mail He turned down a sure thing with Sam Peckinpah and said yes to a script with a strange title: Flashdance. That single choice reshaped Michael Nouri’s acting career, and the way he tells it makes you feel how fragile “overnight success” really is. We talk with Michael about the long road behind the iconic roles: discovering theater in school, chasing work in New York, handling early on-camera fear, and learning how craft evolves when Hollywood keeps changing the rules. He sha...

Send us Fan Mail Your phone may be the next movie studio, and the proof is hiding in plain sight: vertical series built from 90-second episodes that people binge in public, then happily pay to keep watching. We’re joined by Mier Liu, an international producer who’s building real momentum in the verticals world and producing at a pace traditional Hollywood rarely matches. We talk about her journey from actress and author to producer, and the moment she stopped letting casting outcomes define ...