Drama Queens - Work in Progress: Nico Tortorella

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

"Younger" and "The Walking Dead: World Beyond" star Nico Tortorella grew up in a hockey family but was bit by the acting bug at the age of nine and never looked back. The actor, musician, and author joins Sophia for a candid chat about his struggles with fame and alcoholism, using creativity as an outlet, his new music, and his children's book inspired by fatherhood. Plus, he shares how his latest film, "The Mattachine Family," helped him cope with his family's own fertility struggles. Sophia and Nico find common ground together as they open up about their respective journeys of self-discovery and coming out, and how each of them believes in using their platforms to advocate for others.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hi, everyone. It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Hello, Whipsmarties. Today's guest is an incredible multi-hyphenate that I think is not only fascinating as an artist, but fascinating. and courageous as a human. Today I'm joined by Nico Tortorella. He is an actor, a musician, and an author. You may know him from Darren Starr's hit series Younger, from AMC's The Walking Dead, A World Beyond, or the incredible Apple TV show, City on Fire. Most recently, he appeared in

the indie film, Matachin family, opposite Carl Lemons Hopkins and Emily Hampshire, who we just love on this show. Nico grew up both playing hockey and in the theater in Chicago. We had an awful lot to talk about with that theater scene that we both love so much. And he's leaned into his artistry in the most inspiring way. Not only has he become an advocate and a leader in the LGBTQ community, but in finding himself and his voice, he's also pursued so many other passions as an artist going from TV and film to writing. This spring, he's a really releasing a children's book called All of It is You about loving and honoring every part of yourself while creating conversations around acceptance and self-exploration. And he also, in preparation for

his first daughter with his longtime partner, Bethany Myers, started making music. He's made an incredible album called Born. We will make sure to link to it in the stories, which he wrote in advance of his daughter's birth and then realized he wanted her to be able to listen to it. anytime she pleased when she grew up. So it is out for all of us to enjoy. And I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. Hello. How are you? I'm great. There's like so much for us to talk about today. You have so many things going on. I love it. Before we jump into anyone of the three projects that I know we have to talk about, I actually really like to ask people to rewind with me because I feel like

audiences meet you when you're doing a TV show or you've written a book or you have a movie coming out or something. And I'm always really curious to know who these artists that I meet in the present were as kids. You know, if you look back like if you could rewind the like the TiVo to see Nico at eight or nine would you find you know an artist and a creative or were you like a tiny little athlete or you know like who who was that little kid I love that yeah there's something about having children too that demands you go back and look I wondered about that for sure I'm experiencing my own childhood through her eyes right now which is a really cool thing Eight or nine, I was both. I was an athlete, and I had found the stage right about at that time. Really? Yeah.

I grew up in Chicago, and everyone in my family was a hockey player. We all grew up on the same block, all my cousins. And that's just like what I was made to do, pretty much right out the womb. I was on the ice. And I loved it, but it was always a performance for me. It's like I would score a goal and take my gloves off and throw them in the audience, and it was a show, right? Yeah. And then my mom made us audition for the Wizard of Oz when we were right about eight or nine, just like children's theater local spot.

I cast as a munchkin and a flying monkey. And the rest is kind of history. Like the second I got on that stage, I just knew that's what I was going to do for the rest of my life. Wow. Yeah. So how did that then shape the rest of your childhood and your hockey career and all of it? Yeah, well, in Chicago, I had, like, interesting access to the stage, you know, and to do it.

I got topped into the scene there pretty quickly, and I got an agent and started auditioning a bunch for different productions, and I got cast in a show called Over the Tavern, which kind of hopped around a different, a few different theaters in the Chicagoland area for years, and I wound up being in that show for almost four years. I played all three brothers throughout the years. I started playing the youngest brother and just as I got older, I kept playing the older brother. And yeah, I mean, I was missing school every Wednesday for matinees and eight shows a week.

And, you know, you know being on stage, that's a whole other point, right? Especially that young. And, I mean, I quickly quit playing sports after I found the stage. Like, I was playing soccer. I was playing hockey. And I made it very clear to all of my kids. coaches that I was done. And yeah, that one way or another got me to LA and that's how it all worked out.

Wow. And so then was younger the first on camera, like big job? Or were there things in between? There were a few other things. I got to L.A. when I was 19. Went to business school at Loyola-Marremont for a hot second, which was not the right place for me. and I dropped out after like six weeks honestly I was running a raw food restaurant in Santa Monica

and I started modeling my agent in Chicago hooked me up with a sister agency in LA CESD and I started auditioning pretty quick and I booked I was like I was testing for a bit for that Nickelodeon boy band big time rush that was kind of like the first big audition experience

that I had in L.A. Wow. And then I got Making a Break It, which was an ABC family show about gymnastics. It's cast as a recurring on that show. And after we shot the pilot, I got my first series regular on a CW show called The Beautiful Life, which shot in New York City. So I moved to New York when I was 20. This all happened very quickly when I started auditioning.

And we shot a total of seven episodes. canceled after seven, only three, I think, aired and moved back to LA. And, like, within the year, I was cast and scream, four. And younger kind of came a little bit later. It was like 20 years after that. Yeah, I was 26 or 27 when I got younger. It was almost like a decade before that. Yeah. Isn't it funny? They always say it takes a decade to become an overnight success. It's still taking time two decades later. I know it. Because you know. It's so wild. It's one really the only careers where like every time you finish a job you start over yeah it's uh you have to just get used to yeah those those in-between phases the highs and the lows the highs are like so good when they're

there and you know but the the most exciting part of it is like you're always one phone call away from an entirely different life yeah which like keeps me going yeah the second you get an email about a breakdown or something. Like, I can immediately imagine what my next two years looks like, right? Yeah. Isn't that interesting? And then, but to your point, you know, it's so amazing, but it is also really tricky, I think. People kind of forget that to do this, it's not dissimilar to being an athlete.

Like, you're expected to pick up and go. You get treated. You're moving in three days. You book a job. You're moving to Canada. You're moving to Albuquerque. you're moving to Wilmington. And I think it can be really hard to like pick up,

leave your whole family, you know, and just you kind of get plucked and you're gone. And I know you've been really open and vulnerable about like some of that hardship. You know, you've talked about how during the first season of younger, you were really struggling with alcoholism. And to be so young and to be on that real sort of yo-yo string of this career, do you feel like part of how hard this can be the up and downs increased your

propensity to struggle there? Or do you think that was something you'd maybe been dealing with for longer? And the work schedule and the intensity of the job helped you come to terms with the fact that you probably needed to get sober at that time? Yeah, I think it was both. I mean, I grew up in a bar in Chicago, surrounded by alcohol, and it's in my blood for sure. And, you know, that, when you experience that level of success at 18, 19 years old in Los Angeles, that lifestyle is just thrown at you. Like, you don't even have to think about it, right? You're at every event with an open bar and there's older folk that are feeding you all sorts

of things, right? Like, it's very easy to get wrapped up at that. And the breaks, right, ask for high levels of excitement. You just like, you're either working all the time or you're not working at all. And part of staying in the scene is going out, especially at that age. I think it's different. It seems to be different now just because of social media. I look back at that decade of my life and I'm so grateful that.

there were not camera phones and social feeds because it was I mean it was a whole other world um but yeah around 26 27 I younger was a very easy job for me honestly like I you know was number seven on the call she I worked like a day or two a week I was making good money I was living in New York City uh at that age that it like it was still socially acceptable to be out all the time right And I, once I started drinking alone at home, I was like, well, this, this isn't going to end well. And there were like a couple instances, thank God, it never really got in the way of work. There were like a couple close calls, but for the most part, like I kept things very separate. But yeah, I just kind of woke up a morning.

I was like that. If I don't change this now, like, I'm not going to survive, both like physically and emotionally. Like, I want way too much in my life to surrender to this. Yeah. Yeah. And is it scary to be publicly open about that? Or do you feel like because so many people now are having more conversations about mental health and identity and all of the sort of aspects of who we are as people,

like you're more safe to do so? Yeah, I mean, I think it's scary to be publicly open about anything, really, you know. I mean, I was having a lot of these conversations 10 years ago, and I've found myself as of late, especially in fatherhood, retracting some from just public discourse. I feel like I've said at all at this point. Like, I really, like, just caught myself wide open and shared so much of who I am and who I love and, you know, how I believe. I fit into this world and COVID hit and we were all forced to just restructure, right? And we were experiencing our own fertility journey and trying to create life in a time when

life seemed the most fragile. And I just needed to reclaim, you know, myself. And I got a community for a couple of years. Like I wasn't having any conversations. And I just needed. And And, yeah, I feel like I've emerged as a completely different person in the last few years, especially post-daughter. Yeah. How old is your daughter now? 15 months. Oh, my goodness. She's just like a little smush.

She's a smush. She's really something. We got another one on the way. We're having another one in October. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm so exciting. Last over here.

Yeah. Yeah. So was your daughter part of the inspiration for your children's book? Yeah, for sure. I wrote it while we were trying to get pregnant, which is an arduous process. It can't, you know. And I just, like, needed an outlet. I needed to have this conversation with the spirit of a child while I was attempting to channel. and I came up with this idea for all of that that really distilled this larger mantra of my life that is all of it is you which is this poetry book that I wrote

that we are the mirror to the universe right and I always knew I wanted to distill that down to a children's version like I saw it when I wrote the poetry book but it was it was a way for me like I said to have a conversation with her or him or

whoever it was that I was trying to talk to and like start teaching before they were even born, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and children's books are a long process. Are they? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's way more complicated than the other two books I had written. Because the art is such a huge part of it too, right? Yeah. You know, there's less than 100 words in my children's book, but then you have to create the entire universe. draw. And find an illustrator who you love. And what's that like to meet with so many artists and try to figure out who can draw the thing you are imagining that doesn't yet exist? Yeah, it's weird because you see their art before you meet them. For the most part,

you're not having conversations with these people. Like, I was given like 20 samples. And it was like, okay, pick five that you want to talk to. And three were only available. Right. So like, I kind of just knew when I saw the art. that that's who it was. She was also an animator at Nickelodeon, and I had an idea of turned this into a cartoon at some point, so like that checked a box immediately. And her name is Melissa, the artist on the book.

And, I mean, she really just, like, took my ideas and ran with them and made this come to life in a way that, like, I never even imagined. Yeah. Can you tell us the, the, story of the book, let our audience know what it's about. Yeah. All of it is you is about a kid named Olivet, who is the entirety of the universe. And you follow her in like a day of her life.

And you get to experience how she relates to the world in all aspects of herself. It's kind of this like age-old idea that you can be anything you want when you grow up. lips up on its head that you already are everything that exists in the universe. And what does it mean to tap into that level of unfettered freedom? And now for our sponsors. Do you think that that idea, that spirit of unfettered freedom, that notion that children and really all of us should know that we are everything, that we carry a piece of everything. It feels to me like such an encouragement

to include more rather than to exclude or to, you know, fall prey to these really common ideas of binaries, whether they be about, you know, love, gender, what colors are for girls, what colors are for boys, yeah, race, all of it. Do you think that that sort of of very, like, inclusive and spiritual awareness comes from for you, your own journey of continuing to expand your definition of who you are, who you love. Like, to me, it sounds so beautiful, but I would imagine that, as you said, like, you've had to be so open and maybe you don't always want to have to be. Yeah. Like, it does seem like it's something that can be hard one sometimes. Yeah, for sure. And I think it even,

started way before me even realizing what any of this was. Really, as an actor, that's our job to tap into that unfettered freedom, right? And to continue to be othered, always, right? And that's why I fell in love with it in the beginning. I could just like, not that I needed to escape myself at all. I had an amazing childhood, but I could experience more in a, very short amount of time as an actor and so much of my identity exploration and gender and sexuality is linked to my ability to transform through art it always has been um it's about this

limitless access really and i always knew that like if i could experience more as a person I could deliver more as an actor. I don't know if that was always a conscious thought. Sure. It was there constantly. Well, and that's why they say hindsight is 2020, right? Because you can look back and you can see the thread that goes through everything that maybe you didn't see in real time, but when you look at the past, you can.

And I think it's really fascinating, you know, when we think about privilege and presentation and passing and all of these things. Like, I'm not going to lie, from the vantage point I sit at as a woman, I think it's very cool that a guy like you who presents as like hyper masculine, you know, Chicago guy, hockey player is like, actually I'm very gender fluid and I love who I love. And I'm like, wait, what? And not to say, like, I should like to think that I'm not a person who really stereotypes. But I don't know if I like bumped into you at a bar and we didn't know each other. I'd be like, that. guy is probably the most open, you know what I mean? Like, I might not have known that. And I think, I think there's something really powerful in your willingness to be so frank about your own life because I think there's a lot more guys that look like you that feel like you than maybe admit that they feel like you. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a part of me that thinks everyone has access to this sort of mentality. But we do.

we just, we, we all were taught to limit ourselves. Yeah. Was it a strange thing like thinking about just the timeline, you know, for you to start talking publicly about that fluidity, about, and forgive me, I don't know, currently, but if, you know, you're talking about at the time being bisexual, being, you know, a person who really can envision himself or feel, you know, all, all sides of gender within himself, within themselves. Like, was it, was it a weird dynamic for you to be having those conversations while

you were playing this, like, hyper-masculine man? Or do you feel like because you were playing that character, it was even more important for you to have, like, frank conversations with people about, like, don't judge a book by its cover? I had this anchor that was this character, Josh, that, I was known around the world. It's like super straight cis white dude, right? That like had his shit together and was like dating older women and was just cool, right?

This like Brooklyn dude. And a lot of me exploring my sexuality is tied to getting sober, right? Like I had had experiences before I got sober, but I mean the first like real relationship with a man happened after I got sober. I had a couple serious relationships at the beginning and I did a play where I was playing this like really manic character and I just like I knew that I needed to start having this conversation because people were starting to like speculate right and I wanted to get ahead of it. I had to get ahead of it. I know that feeling.

half, right? And I had a pot, I like started a podcast. My buddy was launching a podcast network and I was just like, fuck it. Like if I'm going to do this, I'm going to go all the way out and just like, I'm having these conversations privately. Let's just grab some microphones and let's just start like exploring all of this in real time with everybody else. Like I was just putting myself with a microphone and everybody else was learning the same time that I was. Yeah. Which was really cool.

Like in hindsight, yes. very cool. Would I do that in the same way now? Probably not, right? Yeah. But the, I mean, going to going back to this unfettered freedom, it was just like I was able to say and do whatever I wanted and nobody could say anything otherwise. That's really special. Yeah. I think it's a really interesting thing though. Like the way the world will speculate, Like, people will really take your self-discovery from you if you're not careful. And so I think it's really cool that unlike what happens to so many of us, like, you were able to get ahead of it. I totally get that now you're like, maybe I wouldn't have had all 16 of those conversations in public.

Like, maybe I would have just had 11 of them. But, like, it really is brave. It's really, really brave. and like I guess it's part of the reason that you know I of course I want to ask like I think it's beautiful and I'm curious and I also don't want to I don't want to force you to like go back and talk about things you don't want to talk about anymore no it's all good I mean I'm not trying to like avoid these conversations at all you know I enjoy talking about how I got here for sure yeah especially with someone that like has experienced similar things you know I mean I was

I was reading your glamour piece before we started. And how long in between, like, from things starting to leak out to you deciding you were going to write this piece, how long was that? And what made you make that decision ultimately? I mean, what made me make the decision was knowing that we'd gotten into, like, a post-fact vacuum. Yeah. So I was like, what I'm going to do is sit. and just sit and wait but eventually what I'm going to do is clarify very firmly but gently yeah what's what's real because it matters to me yeah I didn't appreciate it personally but

what really frightened me in terms of the public nature of it was this is so vitriolic and so violent and so ugly like what's this going to do to it like a young queer girl in Ohio or Alabama who like sees what the internet is doing to people who she perceives to have a lot more power than her like you can always take your power back and that that was part of what felt really important to me was like I'm going to take my power back and I'm actually going to stand up and say the purest and most special thing that's ever happened to me in my life has happened to me and you've treated it like the ugliest because you're looking at optics and not reality you're looking at a narrative you bought into based on the internet and and not the

facts you know and like from a place of love you know yeah hard for anybody else to experience the love that that exists between right yeah especially behind closed doors that's the thing to finally be so loved and not to be like trying so hard like because when it works you don't have to try and and and I know that sounds really basic but like I just didn't know that I had always had to try so hard and I'd always heard that phrase like marriage is hard relationships are hard you have to do the work and like the work is supposed to feel constructive not torturous and that's a big life lesson and I want other people. Like, look, if I didn't do this job, would I talk about any of this publicly? No. Also, because nobody would give a fucking. But it's like, what I'm not going to let

them do is take it from me, make money off of it with like clickbait and grossness, and then turn around and be like, well, you didn't do it and you didn't say it. And it's like, okay, well, I'm just going to, I'm going to continue to come back to like love and power. I'm going to root in truth and you can come or not but the reason it feels important for me to do that with whatever relative platform I have is because there's kids out there who don't have platforms at all who are so scared to be who they are and I just want them to know I don't care if you're 14 or 41 like you can choose yourself and that feels important and like that's why I feel like it's such a cool thing that you particularly as a man were willing to

subvert like stereotype and narrative and all of it you know I I think that that's very brave and I really like I really commend you for that well I appreciate that yeah I mean when I started the podcast I would say all the time like this is for the kids this isn't for me you know totally understand that sentiment it from an outside perspective yeah it does seem very selfish to be having these conversations about ourselves publicly. But, like, in the truest form, it felt so selfless. Yeah. Like, it wasn't about me.

Well, and that's the thing. I think what people who don't do this job don't understand is that we don't actually have a choice in the public discourse. Right. And, like, I've noticed that all the bots on Instagram, on every pride post, they're like, ugh, what narcissists. No one cares who you fuck. This is so narcissistic.

Why do you have to make? like, oh, wow. So the bots are being activated to call queer people narcissists during pride. Okay. But it's like nobody's out here trying to make announcements. People are just navigating public life. And if it's public, you can either be, you can either be dragged by it or you can drive it. And I think we'd all rather drive than be dragged. Totally. And now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy, and I think you will too. Can I ask you another question? Sure.

In this new version of yourself and post, you know, post-glamour, has the desire for art or the characters that you play, has that shifted at all? Do you want to be telling different stories? Well, it's so interesting. Like, I've always played queer women on TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like for 20 years.

Anytime I get the chance, I do it. And I've always been really vocal about, like, I would never play a character I couldn't represent. Interesting. But what was really interesting for me in my 20s was being told by, like, elder queers that I respect so much. Like, well, you're not gay enough to say you're by. Right. And I was kind of like, oh, well, like, what I don't want to do is hurt the community ever. Which is the hardest thing to navigate.

It's really hard. The seesaw is really hard. The gay keeping in this community is so real. ultimately why I retracted because like I just felt like it doesn't matter what I do or what I say I will never make all of these people happy yeah well you know what I will say to that my darling is like welcome to being a woman because it's the same you're too thin you're too fat you're too rich you're too poor you're too ambitious you're fucking lazy like you run a company how dare you you're a trad wife how dare you you're a mother lazy you don't have children frigid bitch like

it's always something and so it's really easy to it's really interesting, not easy, interesting to see the way that magnifies itself and like shape shifts in queerness. Because what it really like rings the bell for me on is any group of people who has been othered will very often have a subconscious desire to other another group to save themselves. And I think that's tribalistic. I think that's human nature. But I think it's also 2024 and we're supposed to be more evolved than like falling prey to our own lizard brains but it's like when you see homophobia in communities of color or you see really intense sexism in certain geographical cultures or you know you see lesbians eating their own because you know they don't really know what's

going on in people's lives like there is so much pain and trauma in communities that have been marginalized, that sometimes I don't think they see when they are projecting that pain onto other marginalized people. So you see stay-at-home moms judging career moms and vice versa. You see elder gays judging the bisexual kids. You see whatever it is. And I think what it really is, is like, I have this pain that's built up and I don't know where to put it. And suddenly, like, there's a bottleneck and it's all going to shoot through there. And, you know, maybe that's because we don't have enough mental health support in our country, or maybe that's because we're not really willing to, like, take enough accountability and do enough self-inventory

to say, like, oh, that instinct I have, like, actually is my shit that I need to deal with myself. Like, I need to not make this someone else's problem. Yeah. Have you had the people language folk who are very specific about bisexual versus pansexual versus queer? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I had somebody, like, send me a Twitter. that was like, I am so disappointed in you. You're calling yourself queer. Just say you're bisexual. And I was like, well...

What? Like, sorry, what? The language winds up hurting. The language policing is so weird. I'm in this interesting place now because, like... I was going to ask you this, because you married a woman. So, like, are there all these people that are like, see, it was a phase?

Totally, totally. Oh, it's so annoying. Unless you, they are... Seeing me publicly in a relationship with a man or a gender variant person, like, I am not a legitimate queer person anymore. But by the way, I get it because, again, like, I'm sharing things with you about, like, things I've known about my identity for over 20 years. And even, like, when I finally asked my partner out, which, like, to be clear, our friends were, like, trying to set her up with someone. And I was like, if she's ready to date, she's fucking going on a date with me. Like, sorry, uh-uh.

Like, no fucking way. um and people were like wait what and she even said to me she was like hold the phone like i always thought you were straight and i was like i always thought you were happy but like we're both single what are we doing and you know it's we were fucking cackling because i was like yeah dude i never looked at you as an option and she was like i never looked at you as an option and it's like well because we weren't options and like i don't know i just most at least most women I know, like, are not out trying to finagle around their relationships. Or I guess I should say, like, most monogamous women I know.

People who are poly obviously are, like, doing what they're doing because they're communicating about that. But, like, it is a very interesting thing because even a lot of the queer women in my life were like, oh, we just like, we knew you were like an ally and like we maybe wondered, like, you know, when we saw like this TV show or this movie you've done or like whatever, we were like, that doesn't really look like acting but like we didn't really know and I was like wow we all we all do it like even in our friend groups we make assumptions so I can't imagine for you as someone who's spoken so openly about fluidity and identity as the man you physically present as to be married to a woman like I can't imagine the weird blowback you get it's a weird thing you know I mean also just like

looking at pride and the amount of money that I was making from campaigns for X amount of years and like now I married a woman, all of that just completely goes away. Not to say that that's like what pride is, but like it's been a very strange transition. Wow. And how long have you and Bethany been married? Six years. We're going on our seventh. We've known each other 19. Yeah. I mean, we started dating in college. Stop it. You've been on and off for 19 years. Yeah.

Okay. And then how did you guys decide like, oh, no, we're really going to do this? We're going to be together, be together, and start a family. And, like, what tips that when you've sort of been in and out of a relationship with someone for so long? Yeah. And we grew up queer side by side. Like, we both started dating the same sex pretty much, like, within a year. And.

Wow. Yeah. I mean, she's my best friend. and has been forever, you know? Yeah. And we always got, I mean, obviously, we always got in the way of our other relationships that we had because nobody really knew, like, what we were to each other.

Right. At the end of the day, we were always each other's emergency contact, no matter how serious our other relationships were. I'm sure that caused jealousy and other relationships. For sure, for sure. But, like, years we weren't sleeping together, right? Uh-huh. We went to Peru and did a bunch of ayahuasca and had a pretty intense physical experience at this place beyond the psychoactive experience and came out of the jungle and just I looked at her and I said, we're getting married, huh?

And that was that. Wow. There's a lot more to the story, but. I bet there is. I'm like, we need to, like, have a glass of wine and talk about, well, I'll have a glass of wine and I'll bring you a sparkling water and we'll talk about. Oh, my goodness. That's deeply cool. Does it, does that sort of thing then, do you get that like, oh, this was very destined to be feeling after that sort of journey? And then you're like, oh, of course we were always each other's emergency contacts. Well, of course we were maybe like not ready to see how a parent are real. connection was for so long. I think we both always knew, honestly. Wow.

We just gave each other the space to explore our own individuals and, like, championed each other, you know? Yeah. Do you think that also, that, like, that space and that way that you've been so consistent, do you think that helps you both, like, as the humans and the artists that you are? Because I think about, like, you know, even the movie that you just had come out on Prime. and you know how you you play one half of this gay couple who is you know going through this journey about being a foster parent and then are we going to be you know parents post that that

foster child experience and like what are your visions for your future and I don't know I I feel like you've probably had to have versions of that with your partner like what is our desire for our future, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, over and over. The journey almost feels like a movie. Yeah, it should be at some point. That movie came at a very interesting time. It was post-COVID.

We were a year into our own fertility journey and nothing was working and we couldn't figure out why, which is almost more frustrating. We always knew we were going to have kids. and we were convinced the second we started trying, it would just happen. Like, this is how it goes, right? And that just wasn't. And, you know, a year into the journey, this script came across my desk, so to speak. And it was about a gay relationship, but I saw so much of my own experience on these pages.

And at home, I was the stable one in our infertility. Bethany was able to experience the emotional upheaval in real time and I needed to hold down the fore, right? And I got the script, and I mean, it was a no-brainer. I knew I needed to play this role. And I got to set and I was able to experience the farting in a way that I just wasn't at home. Like, there was not a whole lot of acting that went into this movie.

That's so cathartic. God. You know when those jobs, comment it just as like, there is an absolute reason this is here right now. I think it's channel so much of myself through this character. Yeah, that feels like your I-O-A journey. You're just like, this is very divine. What is happening?

Totally, totally. I just got to cry and cry and like, it prepared me to be a father, for sure. Oh, my God, that's so beautiful. Okay, can you give our listeners at home? Obviously, I've read all of the things in preparation for today. But will you give our listeners at home a little overview of what the movie is like you did for your kids' book? Yeah, for sure. The Managing Family is directed by Andy Ballantyne and written by his husband, Danny Ballanty.

And it is a love letter to their own experience as queer parents and bringing life into the world. And it is the story of Thomas and Oscar who live in Los Angeles. Thomas is a photographer. Oscar is an actor who had a troubled. outing in his own career early on and trying to figure out his life

after that and they have a foster kid early on in the film that they've spent a couple years with and he winds up going back to his birth mother which is an incredible thing but Thomas my character

is kind of left with this well what now and who am I without child and the film tracks really his journey to make the decision

whether or not he wants to be a parent and Oscar's pretty dead set on not bringing another child into the mix his acting career is taking off he's got all of these new opportunities and they have to make a decision whether they're going to choose

each other or choose themselves and their own dreams and desires. And, you know, that is something that made a lot of sense to me in my past relationship or my current relationship, all the different versions of our relationship. Yeah. And it's just, it's this beautiful, you see a lot of different queer families

in such a short amount of time, which is not something that we've really seen in film and television in a way. Like, I read the script, like, how has this movie not been made yet? Yeah. I tried to go find a comp of just like two gay dads and their child. And it just like doesn't really exist. Just doesn't exist.

I know. It's crazy. I mean, when you think about the fact that Love Simon was the first high school story or a rom-com to star a gay character and it came out in, I think, 2015, like, hello? Yeah. You know, it's a really, it's a really wild thing when you realize that a lot of people just don't, they don't get to really see themselves. I mean, when I look back at my own career

in the conversations that I was having, you know, 15 years ago about playing gay roles, like it wasn't an option on my team. It was like, we have to stay adamantly away from anything queer because it will ruin your career. When you just, like, look at how Hollywood has changed in our careers, like, it's a completely different industry. Yeah.

Well, and to be clear, like, it's not just changing because, look, yes, the cultural conversation is changing, thank God. But it isn't just changing for like moral reasons or because representation is important. It's changing because our stories are valuable. Yeah. Because they do well. Because they make money because the comedians' tours are selling out. Like it, you know, when you think about what Hannah Gadsby did, you know, on Netflix, it's like it's, yes, it matters more.

for us and for kids like us to see themselves, but also it's smart business. So it's like the evolving, I think, is long overdue. And we still have a ways, ways, ways to go. Oh yeah. I mean, it's like a drop in the bucket at the moment. But at least we're beginning to get somewhere. A hundred years from that when they look back at how the industry and society has changed you know yeah your story my story is it's part of all of this and it really is just at the beginning yeah why it's important yeah I sure hope so yeah and now a word from our wonderful sponsors how do you and Bethany navigate these things because I hear what you're saying about how this felt so cathartic. And obviously there was a happy ending to that fertility journey and you had your

daughter. But because you have been so open about your sexual fluidity and I know she's talked about how, you know, prior to you, she probably would have identified as a gay woman. So like, how does that, what does that look like in your conversations about like, intimacy and your future and and and those sort of parameters of your relationship as it's clearly like fueling you know not just your life and your family but your art yeah we're different people post-child priorities dreams desires like everything the language that we use at home yeah we are building a family a home you know And just when you have two people directing all of their energy

towards one specific thing and goal, it just magnifies. And who we are and who we sleep with is just, or who we have slept with in the past, it's just not important to us. Like, we go through periods of time where we, like, joke and talk about it, right? But for the most part, like, we're not even thinking about it. No, I totally get that. Yeah.

I think about that a lot with the work for me. Like, I love my work. Yeah. I have always, I derive so much pleasure and passion from storytelling and creativity and the energy on set and, like, being in the circus. Yeah. And I love it. And I have always been willing to travel anywhere, any time, get on any plane, whatever it takes, right? And now I'm like, I don't want to do that.

I'm not going to go there. You want me to go to what? Absolutely. Alberta? No. I'm not going. For how long? Absolutely not. And I'm like, oh, oh. This is interesting that I don't think the answer was ever know before. Yeah. Like, what a beautiful thing as you evolve and grow to continue to know yourself more and more. There's a lot more knows in this house. Yeah. But you, but that's because your house, your home, your family is such a yes. Yeah. And like, what a gift to find that in your life. Yeah, no questions, yeah. We moved down to Florida, you know, it's, yeah, it's a whole new world over here. And I think that there's something so cool, even that your family, you know, the experience of waiting for your daughter, is what inspired your music. Like, again, all this yes in your house is, like, bubbling out of you, movies and books and an album, like, how cool, how would you describe, like, beginning to answer?

the sort of internal call to make music and how would you describe what kind of music you make to our friends. Yeah. You're real good at bringing these back into the story. I just really like it. I see it. Like I see how this like the image I get is like that the balloon

keeps getting filled with more air for you and I think that's really beautiful. The art has always been the answer for me. It's just like where I go, it's where I feel the most comfortable. I just like making things, you know? It's like, it just makes sense.

And music has always been something that I've wanted to dive towards. But for the reason, it just felt like an arm's distance away. And I was working on an Apple TV show called City on Fire. And I was playing a rock star, and we recorded an album for the show. It was my first time really, like, in a studio full time. And, you know, on TV, you don't really have time to, like, develop a character, especially on set, right? You're just checking the clock. You're chasing the budget.

Things are moving fast. You have to make wrong decisions, and you have to fucking go quick. Yeah. To, like, find this character in the studio. I had endless amount of time by myself in the studio, finding his voice, literally. Wow. And I just fell in love with the process. like I had they get you like a like a vocal coach or anything though like someone to help you like be there that's what I that's what I thought was what was going to happen but I showed up to a studio in Brooklyn with a producer who like I thought for sure like we were going to do some vocal exercises to start but it was like record here's the song let's go shut up oh my god that's so much pressure it was but it was so much fun like they got it happened that way because wow they're

were not a lot of cooks in the kitchen. It was just me and this producer for months on end in the studio finding these songs. And we would get all of these songs said to us and we would get to like make our own version of it. There was little direction at the top. And he, my studio in Brooklyn was hired by the music supervisor. So he had somebody else to answer to. But like we were pretty much running our own show. Right.

And we just like formed this chemistry together, me and this producer. And half jokingly at the end of the season, I knew I was leaving the studio, and I was heartbroken. I was like, I just, I don't want to leave the studio. I was like, can we just start making music? And he said absolutely, like, I would love nothing more than to figure out. And we, it was right around that time we found out we were pregnant. For the second time, we were pregnant in January, that same year.

We had a miscarriage. and we found out we were pregnant around the 4th of July and I just started writing music about becoming a parent and in the similar ways that I was writing the children's book about becoming a parent I just found a new outlet that is almost more digestible. I think for so long I've been really searching for a medium that I can like distill a message in that

can be consumed regularly and that doesn't necessarily need to be explained you know similar to poetry right you can kind of dance around the language and with lyric and with melody and frequency like it just it hits different and I experienced for the I experienced music for the first time all over again in like it just I unlocked a portal And I just started having conversations with my daughter in these songs. And it got to the point where I would, I would go to bed and I would dream and she would come and we would write songs together. Wow. And I would hear all songs in my dreams, melodies and lyrics, and I would wake up in the morning and I would write them down.

And that's how a lot of his album was written. Wow. And originally, I didn't know that I was making it for the world. I thought I was just making it for me and Bethany. we were planning a home birth. We had a tent built in our living room that we were going to berth in and we would spend a lot of our time in there

just listening to this music together and just having conversations with the spirit of this child. And she, our daughter, Kilmer Dove, was born to the ninth song on the album called Santa Madre, which is a song in Spanish about the Holy Mother. And shortly after that,

I realized that, like, I needed to put this music out in the world. It was bigger than myself. It was, it needed to be shared. A, just, like, looking for music that people can birth to. It doesn't really exist. Which I think it's strange, because I think there should be more. Yeah, it's like one of the most common things that happens in the world. But it doesn't exist, really, for the most part.

And, you know, it's something that she can always go back. to and re-experienced the art that helped make her, you know, and is because of her. And, you know, we're pregnant again. And I am back in a studio here in Florida and I'm trying to make new music and I'm planning the live show for the album that came out in April and, you know, it's a whole new thing already. Performing live is the one thing that, I don't want to say I'm afraid of, but makes me nervous for some reason.

Well, then you have to do it. I have to do it. When it feels scary, you have to do it. 100%. I have to do it. I think I'm planning my first show in L.A. in July right now. Okay, great. You have to let me know when it is.

For sure. Yeah. Oh, that's so fun. Yeah. I'm so excited for you. And I mean, I love this. You know, when our friends at home are like, well, we're at, we find him like guys you can go online and listen to born you can order all of it is you and read it to

the kids in your family you can go on prime video and and watch the movie like there's so much that it's not lost on me that there's so much great art that's come out of you like saying yes to your life i think that's really beautiful i just went and made a movie and you know post illness recovery and then like post-strike. Yeah. It was like the first thing, you know, of all the things I've signed on to do, it was the first thing that like went after things started wrapping up with the strike. And it was the most fun I've ever had on a project.

And like, I was the least stressed I've ever been. And I was like, wow, this place that I, me, myself, am in right now, this is a nice place to make art from. This is the longest I haven't been on set since I started. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I miss it so intensely right now. I feel like my entire sense of community is based off of what we do. Yeah.

The Kearney lifestyle and these relationships with the crew guys. And just like, you know, we show up, pitch a tent, fall in and out of love and kind of all disperse. And I haven't had it in so long. And I'm dying to get back to work. short answer here yeah i get it by the way i'm laughing because my like do not disturb turned off on my phone and my director from the movie i just did just texted me and i was like that's not an accident like that like energetically i'm talking about how nice it was to go make this piece of art and now jeff's like hey um because i do want to be mindful of your time i'm gonna i'm gonna ask you my last

and favorite question and and this could be the live show it could be the you know impending birth of your second baby it could be something else completely I don't know. But when you sort of look at your life right now and at how good it feels, what feels like your work in progress? It really is just a family building. We want a whole pack of kids, you know? Yeah.

Like, we feel like we're just getting started. And we know the second one is on the way. And we want three and four, God willing. And it's just about being the best, most. inspiring dad as I can be and like doing the work to show them it's possible that there are no limits in this life. Yeah, they don't have to fit into a box. No, not at all. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Best dad I could be. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. This was awesome. This was such a nice chat. I'm so glad we got to hang today. Yeah, totally.

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