Actors With Issues with Juan Ayala

New Year, New Season of Actors With Issues! For our first episode of the year we are joined by former casting director and current acting and audition coach Sam Stiglitz. Sam got her start as a theatre performer with aspirations of becoming a Broadway performer. When she realized she wasn’t the biggest fan of New York City (no offense taken!), she made the move to Los Angeles, and after interning at a casting office, began her career in casting. Since then, she’s worked with some of the biggest offices in LA, started her own office and made the transition to coaching clients. 

“I found with having my own office the same thing that I found with acting: I don’t like promoting myself. I didn’t like having to call executives and say ‘hey I’m here, gimme a show!’” she shared. So, Sam instead turned to coaching actors for their auditions on a referral-only basis, reaching out to agents and managers to connect her to their clients, eventually becoming one of the go-to audition coaches for actors.

For the final Actors With Issues of 2023, we are joined by the delightful star on the rise Diego Tinoco for a special ONE HOUR episode!. At just 26 years old, Diego has four seasons of On My Block under his belt as lead character Caesar and multiple feature film credits including the action-packed Knights of the Zodiac and the upcoming Bad Hombres where he stars as Felix, a young immigrant on the run, working opposite Luke Hemsworth, Thomas Jane, and Hemky Madera. Diego gives such an insightful look into his life, career and hopes for the future, reflecting on hit time on On My Block and how, during its four year run, he learned to put more trust in himself and his abilities, and the importance of finding the techniques and methods of acting that work best for him, not only leading to a great performance, but also allowing him to enjoy his work in the process.Diego speaks with such honesty and openness, this will be an incredibly insightful and helpful conversation for any young actor to hear, whether they’re just starting out or are years into their journey and hope to achieve the successes Diego has. We could not have asked for a better way to cap off another great year of our podcast. 

Cobra Kai alum and rising star Gianni DeCenzo joins us this week to talk all things acting! It’s Actors With Issues, what else would we do? Gianni began his career at just eight years old, booking roles in commercials and co-starring roles in television series like The Middle, The League, and Disney Channel series Liv and Maddie. Since 2018, Gianni has starred in the hit action dramedy series Cobra Kai as Demetri where he was able to use his own martial arts skills in Krav Maga. 

This episode focuses a lot on transitioning, growing and learning as Gianni chats with us about his work as a child actor and shifting his career as a young adult, what his experience was like working on Cobra Kai when it was a YouTube Red series which was then bought by Netflix during the pandemic, and how the industry has changed in recent years, from streaming and content creating to self-tapes and Zoom auditions. 

“We didn’t really get to see the audience and fans' reactions to things in public, we were kind of sheltered from that. It wasn’t until COVID died down and we were able to do premieres for the show that we really saw that not only did we have our extremely loyal fanbase from YouTube, but it had spread everywhere. I wasn’t expecting the show to blow up as much as it did when I first auditioned for it, I was 15. It just took off and it’s been awesome.”

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In this interview, Zamani shares her experience working on the new comedy film Bottoms where she delved into stunts, physical comedy and improv, as well as her roles in Blumhouse projects American Refugee and Sacred Lives, two roles she credits as having learned the most from.

"There were things with those characters that we talked about at table read and with the director that I realized about myself. I thought 'oh, this was self-evaluation for me!'" she laughed. " I was a lot younger when we filmed Sacred Lives and I was at that age where you're just trying to figure myself out in my career and in real life and was the same for [my character] Rashida."

Born and raised in New York City, actor Bibin Shrestha moved to Los Angeles within the last few years and soon found success working in commercials, booking campaigns for brands like Starbucks, Blue Diamond Almonds, Muscle Milk and Maruchan, to name a few. Bibin delves into some of the discoveries he made during the pandemic about pursuing an acting career, the many lessons learned along the way, and (the different approaches to commercial auditions vs auditions for film and television.)

“You have to know who you are. You use yourself all the time as an actor when you’re working on a project, creating something but outside of acting, who are you? That was a major question that I’m always asking myself outside of the industry. That took living my life a bit more, not just staying in classes, and that made me understand my own needs and what I want to do, and what’s important to me. I realized how important family is and finding something outside of acting that is important to you.”

This week we are joined by director Sebastián Rea and actor Diego Mejia from the short film Heritage which had its east coast premiere at the NY Latino Film Festival. The short centers is based on Sebastián’s own life and is a coming-of-age story that “follows Rumiñahui, “Rumi”, as he navigates his future with the guidance of his Indigenous Andean ancestors, ultimately finding the strength to succeed in a world seemingly working against him.”

This week we are joined by actor, director and acting coach James Ciccone, who has appeared in over 50 episodes of television including The Deuce, Manifest, FBI and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, as well as worked with Academy Award-winning directors like Martin Scorcese and Todd Phillips. James is also the founder and teacher at The Actors Axiom, an ongoing virtual and in-person class focused on mastering the self-tape for television.James provides a wealth of knowledge from his years as an actor and coach, sharing his insights and breaking down untouched topics like residuals for theatrical vs streaming films, the art of the self-tape and bringing yourself to each role rather than fitting into what you think a casting director is looking for. "I work all the time because I'm a New York guy, that's who I am. There are a lot of people who tell me I should pay lots of money to lose my accent, but then casting directors say 'no, that's why you work!' We're in a visual medium, you have to be interesting on the screen. The greatest tool an actor needs to have is luck. There's ifs, ands or buts. Some people just get lucky. But you have to still be prepared and present. You're not going to get on a TV show without putting your name in the hat."

This week we are joined by veteran of stage and screen Adam Heller, current and original cast member of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Some Like It Hot, now in performances at the Shubert Theatre in New York City. Heller reflects on his journey with the show, from early readings to its soon-to-be year-long run on Broadway, delves into his theater-going parents that introduced him to theater as a born and raised New Yorker, and how the industry has changed, for worse or for better, since he started his career. 

“Teachers always told us, ‘if there’s anything else you can do, please do it.’ YOu’re gong to experience so many peaks and valleys and always be looking for work, but this is something that’s chronic in our business and it never ends. But those hills and valleys are something you become accustomed to and you have to surround yourself with a support team of friends and family,” he shared. “The pandemic was interesting because we all had to unplug. Civilization was forced to sit back and it was peculiar to know that the acting profession was what was the most aggressive way of transmitting this virus. What an irony!”

Some Like It Hot is in performances at the Shubert Theatre now through December 30th.

The Way We Were celebrates 50 years since its release in 1973, which went on to gross 10x its budget and earn 6 Academy Award nominations and now recognized as one of the greatest romances of all time. Joining us for a retrospective review of the iconic film is dear friend and fellow cinephile Anthony Sanchez Solis. We discuss the history of the film, some of our favorite moments, and how The Way We Were has stood the test of time being referenced in everything from "Sex and The City" and "Friends" to "The Simpsons" and "Gilmore Girls".

This week we are joined by the hilarious and delightful Nehal Joshi who is currently starring in the new farcical comedy The Comedy, at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway. Nehal is a veteran of the Broadway stage, having performed in both plays and musicals, dramas and comedies, from classics like The Phantom of the Opera and Arthur Miller’s All My Sons to new musicals Flying Over Sunset and School of Rock.