We discuss the connection between life and acting. Recorded in the studio in north Phoenix. Every episode here has the recording, the moments worth skipping to, and the whole conversation in writing.
87 episodes
Nothing matches that. Try a shorter word.
Every actor is afraid of the silence, and so is every person. Joey and I on the game tape that exposed our fillers, why does that make sense weakens what you just said, the kindest interruption there is, and the exercise I’m rebuilding for this quarter: two boxes in your head, and what to do in the four seconds everyone else finds unbearable.
The first episode after a long hiatus, and Joey and I used it to answer the question honestly: why did we stop? Outside voices, instant validation, the seven views we never heard from, and the two habits we corrected in each other. Then the takeaway for anyone whose good thing is fading: stop asking the people who keep telling you it doesn’t matter.
The week before Valentine’s Day, Joey and I on romantic love, honestly. It’s okay to want it. Rumi on the barriers you built against it, Mother Teresa on the smile, Martin Luther King on enemies, the time Leeann told me not yet, the Tony Robbins list, and the question that follows the list: who would that person be attracted to? Five couples have met in this studio. Here’s where love actually is.
Romans 12:21, overcome evil with good, and Philippians 4:8, think about these things. Our first guest of season two was Madison Taylor, fifteen, a competitive dancer with 13,900 followers who told teenagers the truth about the numbers. Then Brian, Joey and I on why you can’t stop a thought by fighting it, the influencer who answered a comedian’s cruelty with thanks, and the sentence I say to my kids.
Nobody’s favorite subject, and one of the keys to success. Galatians 6:9 and Philippians 4:6, then an hour with Brian and Joey: why patience starts with being patient with yourself, why Bruce Lee called it concentrated strength, the running back who waits for the hole, the improviser who plants a seed and pulls it right back out, and Aristotle: patience is bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
Ecclesiastes 2:24, find enjoyment in your toil, and an hour on a serious subject: play. Why highly successful people grind their way to unfulfilled, why there’s no fear when you’re having fun, the shy kid doing cartwheels in class, my uncle on a bench watching his son play catch with an NFL recruit, and the list I’m making for the times I’m weakest.
Highs and lows are exhausting, even the highs. Brian, Joey and me on the first move (stop saying nothing, I’m good), the question Leeann asked me that I’d never been asked, why every emotion layers down to love and how an actor uses that, Obi-Wan on feelings, and the fantasy draft that proved our anger was about us.
Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. Joey and me the day before a Chaos Comedy show: how we teach improv as observation, a student who’s funny but hard to play with, Charlie Chaplin and Dr. Seuss, the day we both forgot to laugh, why funerals are full of laughter, the marriage trick of a code word, and why I take comedy dead seriously.
God does not change his mind, and that’s the model. Brian, Joey and me on why it’s hard to do the little things when nobody’s watching, the path that gets worn into the forest, why the unluckiest thing is the big stage before you’re ready, a local agent’s rule to stay in fighting shape, the recommendation letter I couldn’t wait to write, and why a restaurant called Biscuits and Gravy shouldn’t sell steak.
I slept through my alarm, Joey and Brian called until I woke up, and the day’s topic became the day itself. Ecclesiastes 4:9, iron sharpens iron, why values come before talent when you pick a team, trust over skill every time, what I actually want from a teammate (steel), and the takeaway: radical transparency, because holding back is the selfish move.
Goliath looked at David and saw a kid, and that was his downfall. Joey and I with Dr. Layla Hyshaw, pediatric dentist, author of Cavity Free Kids and the mother of a child actor, on the parent’s half of a kid’s career; then true leaders create leaders, the toddler who thinks picking up the dog poop is an Easter egg hunt, why I sent my eight-year-old onto the roof alone, and the challenge: learn from someone younger this week, and teach someone the difference between a job done and a job well done.
Outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are being renewed. Joey and me on what to do with pain: J.K. Rowling on why numbing it makes it worse, Mary Tyler Moore on courage, why you deal with it now and never carry old pain into a new fight, a blind Jedi, Bryant McGill’s three steps, and my eight-year-old doing snow angels in 20-degree weather for $125 and a story he’ll tell forever.
I was on set, so Brian and Joey ran this one on their own, and it’s one of the best hours the show produced. Proverbs 18:2 and 19:20, why hearing isn’t listening, the rubber band on Joey’s wrist during The Lonesome West, the Steven Covey line about listening to reply, why a good teacher throws out the lesson plan, and a teenager named Phil doing heightened listening from behind a curtain.
Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. A guest, Madison Steves, former Miss Arizona, author of Boy on a Swing and founder of the nonprofit Don’t Dis Abilities, on what people assumed about her and what she learned to ask instead. Then Stephen Covey on why we judge ourselves by intentions and others by actions, a live tiff with Joey that became the textbook example, Voltaire, Walt Whitman, and the takeaway: be a soldier for good.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be renewed in your mind. Brian and I on the programs running in your head that you never chose: a seven-year-old who told me he wasn’t smart, a kid on a stack of chairs who only needed the why, Aristotle on entertaining a thought without accepting it, Earl Nightingale on repetition, a computer virus as the picture of a negative thought, and why you can’t run Windows on a Mac.
Be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded. Brian, Joey and me on why the finish line feels the way it does, what cross country taught me about the guy next to you, a student who finished her short film and got my time for free, the extension cord nobody would move, the one more rep and why coaches exist, and an intern who bought his own cleaning supplies and earned a sound effect.
Mark 1:35, Jesus got up while it was still dark. I’ve been getting up at 4:30 since 2017 and it changed everything, so here’s the whole case with Brian and Joey: why the snooze button is a sentence about who you are, what an ER night-shift nurse’s early looks like, Viktor Frankl on the eight-hour myth, Rumi on the breeze at dawn, Denzel on shoes under the bed, and why I never book anything before 7:30.
Galatians 6, a man reaps what he sows, and Newton’s third law, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Brian, Joey and me on the phone call to your mom that changes a stranger’s day, the rock steps Brian climbed at the cabin, my one-year-old and the DVDs, why I got up at 3:30 for a show I could have prepared over the weekend, and the three-step takeaway: be honest, adjust, track.
Hebrews 12:28, a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and an hour with Brian and Joey on how to be that in life, at work and on a stage. The old tree and its roots, a baby’s diaper, my kitchen floor torn out by a restoration crew, the car Brian talked me out of by asking one question, and the student I told to sit closer to my desk.
What fear actually does to your body, why naming your own reaction is the first move, the stand-up class where five of twenty raised a hand, and the exercises we use in the room to walk toward it on purpose.
The first show of 2021 and the launch of season two, with Brian back in the room. Philippians 3:13-14, three honest weeks where I lost my goals to worry, why you have to have a why before goals mean anything, and the framework: a dream goal, five years, this year, this month, this week, today. My three months out of the Arizona summer, Brian’s river, Joey’s voice in sports, and the rule that goals should pull you out of bed instead of making you push.
Joey took the microphone alone for this one, with a slide he made himself, and told a story I had only heard in private: the year he was told he could not graduate on time, the year he hid from it, and what finishing did for him.
Elizabeth Selby, a teacher and new mom, felt called to submit for a feature film shooting in New Mexico, drove herself out there and opened the movie. Then she spent a weekend crying on camera for thirty hours and went back to work numb, and asked me what to do about it. Get to versus have to, giving yourself a timer, what to do with the role where you were only a silhouette on HBO, how to track acting expenses, why your network is your net worth, and a director who signed a film reel for an extra.
If you’re an actor you run a business, so Joey, Brian and I brought on my college roommate Joe Laux, a financial planner at Silverhawk Financial. The ice cream truck we ran in college and what a negative business taught two kids about partners, inventory and licenses. Then Joe’s top ten: surround yourself with the right people, start with the end in mind, have the conversation about expectations, put your own mask on first, check your credit, manage risk, track your money like a business, get rid of debt, save early and often, and number one, invest in yourself.
Brian, Joey and me on ageism in both directions: the 15-year-old who belongs in the adult class, the 20-year-old who was scared to teach, an 18-year-old rookie dominating the playoffs, my one-year-old and his basketball form, and Bob Nimlow, a Golden Gloves boxer who started acting in his eighties, beat the twenty-year-olds for a role written as a young priest, and called it one of the best things he ever did.
Joey’s story, told by all three of us: out of a basement and a Fortnite squad, a job he turned down first, and a mop. Why doing the work when nobody is watching is the key to everything, and what it took for him to believe it.
Danielle Parker, a high school teacher and a student here since 2018, came on the morning after an online masterclass feeling five steps back. What positivity actually is: the decision you make the night before, starting your affirmations over when the world changes, the coffee shop that beat a giant by doubling down on its drive-through, the question that invented the teacher cam, and how to journal wins and losses so you can find your own way out of a rut.
Danielle did the self-growth workshop, kept the journal, said the affirmations, and still felt like she was spinning her wheels, and she’d walked into the first online masterclass half-prepared because it wasn’t the real thing. What I told her: you took five steps back and you’re still ten ahead of everyone who bailed. Now start over, on purpose.
Brian runs an improv troupe and admitted he has no idea how to start a show. So we started one. Jason Jackson, Brian and me, no plan: two college buddies on a new motorcycle, an officer with a government-issued umbrella, rain, parking tickets, and a police dog in training. Twelve minutes, all made up.
Ariella asked how you become your character when the 50 questions give you facts you don’t know what to do with. Why the questions are a starting point and never the finish, how to take one question and write the short story under it, finding the key to a line, why every fight needs context, inside out then outside in with an animal, and how I built a backstory that let me love a man who shot his father.
An episode of Mornings with Matt on the lie actors tell with their eyebrows and the lies the rest of us tell with our phones. Why a character starts with the shoes, what ‘putting mustard on it’ means, and the Epictetus line that comes down to three words.
The title came from Joey’s search history. Jason Jackson, Joey and I made up the rest: Chip, who feeds the horse late; Megan, who is always right; Seymour, a talking horse who wants a female acquaintance and a house to live in; two strays with a Marlboro saddle; and Deputy Officer McGee with a warrant about square footage. How a play finds its ending in a word from the first minute.
Amanda grew up in Indonesia, is signed with an agency, trains with us, and can’t tell her family she’s an actor without hearing get a real job. What I told her: stop putting yourself in the pain, answer the question in three words, and then work like you’re in med school, because that’s where the confidence comes from.
Shea and Joey ran the podcast without me. A four-year-old who lapped Shea in character work, why a teacher never has to be better than the student, the light bulb moment that makes the hours worth it, a conversation with a student about choosing people by their values, why Joey films every class like a movie, and how Shea taught herself to run our website because she asked what she could do.
No suggestion, no plan, sixteen minutes. Joey is Uncle Joey, I’m Little Mark, and the science project on the table has popsicle-stick trees, an ant colony in paper clothes, a graveyard with named headstones, a prison, and one detail Uncle Joey really should not have explained. How a scene builds itself when two people agree with everything.
Joey put a chart on the table: podcast numbers up, up, up, then down. What we decided to do about it, the outdoor table I stripped and stained for two weeks in 110 degrees, the difference between honest and petty, and why we overuse the word love.
A coaching call with Tyler Weeks, a coach and actor who had more time than ever and was spending it on video games and TikTok. Why more free time made him less consistent, the one question that gets you out of bed, treating acting like a startup, my non-negotiables, why you post before it feels good enough, and the seven-day media fast I sent him on.
Connor Malone, a working actress who also coaches volleyball and designs homes for her family’s building company, had three questions in the spring of 2020: how do my players and I keep training, how do I get my routine back, and how do I stay positive? The answers are the same for any crisis: accept it, act as if it’s forever, shock your system, and work the soil.
A nursing student named Eliana asked how to fix her sleep schedule and stick to a habit. Half an hour later we’d found the real problem: her dream wasn’t specific enough to get her out of bed, and a sentence from years ago was still running. The plane that leaves without you, good fear, why nobody pays a student nurse either, and the morning that builds a dream.
Brian, Joey, Shea and me on the week we ran virtual and in-studio students in the same class for the first time. Two students’ notes and why we treat every piece of feedback as gold, the stress of inventing something nobody has done, why I was on the floor with the cords instead of my to-do list, and what I did with a bad headspace before the best first day of improv I have ever taught.
Jason Jackson on the phone, Joey and me in the studio, one word from a documentary binge, and fifteen minutes of a play nobody wrote: a rat trap in a corner, a man who is afraid of corners, a new guy in HR who turns out to be a therapist, and his sidekick. How a whole story comes from saying yes.
Joey, Brian and me on the way I approach a wall: what can I do instead of what can’t I do, put yourself in the thing before you ask anyone else to, and why we want to be known for being excited about change. Then the studio floor Joey painted without telling anyone, the white spots I found on it, mastery for the rest of your life, letting go of the people you love, and the big news: Valleywood, our June movie camp, is on.
Joey walked in seven minutes before the show in a great mood and the room went weird. Nobody did anything wrong. What happened, why it happens in audition rooms every day, and the five questions I ask myself every time I cross a threshold: energy, my state, my goal, seen or invisible, and how can I help.
Joey and I at 11:43 at night after clearing thirteen years of paper out of the storage unit: why a clean space changes how a business feels, why we keep three backups, and the lesson Joey handed me on air. Ask before you get to seven.
Keegan, a high-school senior from the Shadow Mountain drama program, came in looking for part-time work and passed our secret tests. Nine minutes on what an internship here is actually like: wax on, wax off, why we are selective about who is in the building, the terrible interview that became his first lesson, and the difference between have to and get to.
Shea walked into the studio in the middle of a lesson, and the day she should have been on a beach in Barcelona turned into this episode. We made her sing the song she was scared to sing, Brian explained why a gift is a responsibility, and Shea told us how a honeymoon that did not happen became the most productive stretch of her life. Everything is a mindset and a choice, no matter the situation.
Nick, one of our adult students, came on the show honest about a stretch of sleeping in and pushing things off. What I gave him is what I use: decide tonight that you are getting up, lock in how good the early morning feels, cut the decisions you do not need, put a deadline on the thing that has none and tell somebody, set the old goals aside and write new ones for the world you are in, and act as if the change is forever.
Brianna asks how you know you are getting better when nobody hands you a grade, how to push through the days you want to sleep in, and which paid classes are worth it. Compare you to you, book it the night before, quadrant two and the audition that doesn’t exist, ten times the value, and the 6 a.m. call time you give yourself.
Jenna Del Pozo is graduating from ASU with a film degree, a new marketing job with a family of Phoenix restaurants, a food blog, and a fear about the future. Letting go of the timeline, the math I did when I left pre-med, combining the things you love into one profession, the pitch she prepared and never had to give, becoming a servant of all, and why she has to audition now, because she is afraid to.
Jada Warner asks whether she is doing enough and whether to study acting in college. Counterbalance instead of balance, the lie that you don’t have time, why nobody goes pro on two hours a day, college as a babysitter and as a business, the editor I paid to hold me accountable, and where God is pulling the studio.
Brad Sweeney, Brian and Joey’s father, joins the boys and me. The studio that started in a doctor’s office and then eight parking spots on McDowell Road in 2007, sign spinning with my new bride, the habits that go with you anywhere, why the television belongs out of the bedroom, Joey’s growth, and a thousand dollars in gift cards from two strangers.
My aunt, Vicki Sweeney, sat down with me a few days after I told her something hard: she is one of the most giving people I know, and she is not a positive person. This is the conversation that followed. The bunny question I ask every class, the sign on our barber’s wall, why bottling things up robs the people who love you, lunch at Zipps, the bike ride with my son that taught me what tough love is, and how to call someone you love so they want to pick up.
My son Jack hosts, with Brian and me as his acting coaches, and we teach him the first exercise every improv kid learns here: Yes Because. Why you say yes to your partner’s idea, why you repeat every word they said before you add your own, what a specific is, the difference between building up and building sideways, and two rounds you can hear us play, one of them as a boss and a grandma.
Shea was making slides for her first real speaking engagement and got stuck on one word: speaker. Yoga instructor, yes. Actress, yes. Speaker? She’d done it twice. This is about the two different I ams, the one you say to other people once you’ve earned it and the one you say to yourself before it’s true, plus Matt the friend versus Matt the coach, and Leeann coming back to teach the kids.
Joey fought through a day of roadblocks to get us live, and it turned into the best day he’d had in a while. That’s the episode: why finishing strong feels good whether or not you finish, Napoleon Hill on going the extra mile, a week of Valleywood, what Mercury in retrograde has to do with gratitude, why you choose what you spread, and two students who told strangers where they trained.
Two of our teen students behind a microphone for the first time, with Joey and me. Cardinals football and why Brian never knew where Kyler Murray was, the coach who told a nine-year-old she had to mature, the night the teen class sat in a circle and got real, a happy birthday sung to someone whose birthday it wasn’t, a freshman class of 600, deleting social media, and what makes this place special to them.
The Masterclass format was new when we recorded this, so Shea, Brian, Joey and I talked about what actually happens in that room: 20-minute scenes from Pulitzer and Tony winning plays, four days straight, and the year and a half of monthly failures it took to earn it. Then the rocks we hiked for yesterday, and the note Brian gave himself that changed his teaching: teach the person, not the piece.
Tony Calvis of Nextiva in the studio on a Saturday: why you make the next sales call when the clients are already rolling in, why conflict is the energy for growth, and what a producer is really looking for in an audition.
The studio ran a week without me and two castings landed in the middle of it, one of them a national SAG job. Shea, Brian, Joey and me on what a casting week is really like from our side of the table, the local agents who pull over in the grocery aisle to get talent submitted, hurry up and wait, why an actor should audition for themselves on the day nothing is scheduled, and a Valentine’s Day at the studio.
Jared Mishlove of Altered Athletics joins Shea, Brian, Joey and me. Why he walked into a gym with no confidence and what he found there, stick to the basics and progress from there, the first thing to do at home if you’re not training at all, how my wife manifested a trip to Disney World, my fail day alone with the kids, and the phrase my daughter now uses on me: would you be my hero?
Two teenage interns, Wyatt and Courtney, on what changed after a few months in the adult class: a Southern accent out of nowhere, carrying a conversation at school, wiping a table nobody sees, and why you can count your real friends on one hand.
Three days with mom away and two of my kids on the microphones. The ten-minute rule that got Rosalyn on a bike, why the big bike makes the little bike easy, how Jack’s drum kit and mom’s Disney World trip actually happened, and the goal I told my kids we’re chasing at the studio.
Chapter three of the book I’m writing is called Focus, and I had spent two weeks unable to focus on it. Joey and me on the L.A. masterclass where a teacher told me to start over and I memorized a 20-minute scene in 48 hours, why every moment of your life is a photograph with one thing in focus, hyper focus and the 13 minutes it takes to get back in, and what you feed the machine coming back to you.
Dakota George is in class with two players who are about to make their Chaos Comedy debut, and he is not sure he is ready. Brian, Joey and me on why the only cure for stage fear is stage time, how not to get discouraged when nobody tells you that you did great, why an actor should crave the critique, and what to do about the people judging you from the ground.
Shea back from her best friend’s wedding, Joey after his first night teaching, and a conversation about the most obvious form of listening: what happens when you stop talking. The sales script that lost every time, why real presence is exhausting, the sentence that washes away resentment, learning to say no, and thoughts plus emotions equals movement.
A Friday night after hours with Brian and Joey. Why the podcast is a non-negotiable like brushing your teeth, the callback actor who memorized both roles, what I did my best really means, the night Leeann called me out on the book, and why the hardest thing in the world is to say thank you to the person who corrected you.
The first kids episode, twelve minutes, with my own two on the microphones. Rosalyn owns up to an episode she wasn’t supposed to watch, Jack explains how an older kid talked him out of a toy, and we run the scene twice, once giving in and once saying no, so he can feel the difference.
Our first teen podcast. Brian with two teenage interns, Isabel and Truman, on self-image in high school, a bad haircut and a beanie, why listening made them better friends, and the one move that changes a room: be the first to jump.
Bebe Katsenes, back from USC, on walking into masterclass at sixteen with her mom, seeing truth on a stage for the first time, and the audio drama she wrote and cast at college. Why the class went from weekly to a four-day intensive, and the pillar of the next book: we versus me.
Shea hosts with the Sweeney brothers while I’m at Christmas: the thirty minutes they spent rapping before the show, the question every coach asks before pushing a student somewhere new, the day Shea refused to scream in the old back room, and why they were all at the studio at 7 a.m. two days before Christmas.
December is when everyone quits and January is when everyone hoards. We decided to do the opposite, on air, with one commitment each and a report due Friday. Cold showers, Sunday scaries, the tiny thing that wrecks a morning, and why a dip never has to go all the way down.
The week before Thanksgiving 2019. Brian lost his voice to six hours of Ninja Star, Shea asked for my mom’s deviled egg recipe, and we got into Black Friday, Santa, white elephant rules and the roofer who did his job like a craftsman. Then the real point: why people stop investing in themselves in December, and why the studio is the gym for your soul.
Why we show actors the inside of a casting room, the hour our improv troupe spent telling each other things nobody knew, a college football player who came in to learn listening, and what a CEO’s visualization has to do with a scene.
Kyle Maynard, born a quadruple amputee, climbed Kilimanjaro and wrote a New York Times bestseller. I met him backstage at NextCon while coaching a CEO’s keynote. He came on to talk about mastery with no summit, why he stopped talking in absolutes, and the night he danced alone in the Phoenix airport until two police officers asked if he was okay.
Shea sent me a thank-you text after a hard week and it made everything melt away. I read it, showed my wife, and forgot to reply. Twelve minutes on why a thank-you matters more than you think, and why the people who loved your audition will never tell you.
A team argues, on air, about the etiquette of asking someone to bring you coffee, what replying K actually means, and whether a favor comes with a debt. It sounds like nothing. It’s the whole reason this team still works: the small fights get had out loud, kindly, before they grow.
Hanna Spence-Schehr of The Phoenix Theatre Company on a company that opened in January 1920 and never shut its doors, the camps where four-year-olds with autism share the main stage with their peers, and what a ballet dancer learned about mastery.
A student emailed to say she couldn’t get emotional in the scene and put the credit on the coach. Shea told her the truth: you’re afraid of something, and you are the only person who can remove it. Why we refuse the credit, why we don’t want students dependent on us, and the light switch.
The night after what Joey called the best class ever: why you can’t grow until you get to failure, how perceived pressure in a room with no stakes teaches you to handle the real thing, and the ex-ASU football player with the notebook.
The sound on a Monday livestream was botched, three tired people started blaming each other at 10:45 at night, and the next morning we did it differently. Forty-five minutes on watching your own game tape, the wrong Sally, accountability, and how to handle a teammate who screwed up.
The first Boondocks improv show in years, and what the rehearsals exposed: breaking character is pride, arguing over choices is pride, and giving without expecting anything back is the opposite. Fifteen minutes with Brian and Joey.
Joey slept through an afternoon and decided I was mad at him. I had decided to let him sleep. Two stories, one true. Why the first story your head writes about someone is usually wrong, the highlight reel that decides your worth, and why honesty is attractive.
Asher Angel trained here as a kid, and the week Shazam came out we went to see it at 10 in the morning. Brian and Joey Sweeney join Jason, John Luke and me on what Asher was doing in the early scenes, why the lead in the biggest movie in the country was still pushing himself, the 4 a.m. wrestling match in your own head, taking your goals as seriously as a plane ticket, and Will Smith’s brick wall.
Frank Caliendo walked into the studio already famous and asked to be treated like a beginner who knows nothing. An hour with Frank, John Luke and Jason on what three weeks of memorization taught him, why repetition in acting is not doing the same thing twice, the moment acting became listening, and a Jack Nicholson improv on a boat that breaks down what point of view does for a scene.
Phoebe and Bebe grew up in our program, interned their last year, and were about to leave for Columbia College Chicago and USC. Shea and Joey sat them down: why go, what the degree does and doesn’t buy you, what an editor really wants from an actor, and the only thing in this business you control.
Joey’s first audition ever, told on air: Walgreens headshots, a cold read where he hadn’t seen page four, a callback the same day, and the job. What we found in it, and why the way you nail auditions is to audition every day whether you have one or not.
The Monday after Valleywood, with Shea and Joey at the table and Brian on the phone, on the mindset behind all of it. Kids love discipline and so do adults, the difference between get to and have to, how the three of us talked each other through a rough morning, Brené Brown on vulnerability, why Monday is no different from Saturday, and the routine you fall back on when the day goes sideways.
Copyright © 2026 | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
10806 N. 32nd St, Phoenix AZ 85028 | 480 313 9901 | [email protected]
