This season on my podcast, Baring It All with Call Me Adam, I am spotlighting My Entertainment Idols.
Today I am catching up with three-time Emmy Award Winner Cady McClain, who you know for playing Dixie Martin on ABC's Soap Opera All My Children & more recently, Pamela Curtis on CBS' Daytime Drama, Beyond The Gates!
Cady & I last spoke in 2024 when she was starring in Austin Pendleton’s play Orson’s Shadow and now I am thrilled to be speaking with Cady once again as she returns to the theatrical stage to be directed by Austin Pendleton in Walter John Thompson’s What Happened Was which will be playing in the Chain Theatre’s Summer One Act Festival for 3 performances ONLY!
In this NEW interview, Cady is Baring It All with Call Me Adam about:
- How she got involved with What Happened Was
- When she has felt unseen & how she made herself more visible
- Advice she would give someone on working with their ex
- How Austin Pendleton elevates her as an actress
- So much more
In What Happened Was, a dilapidated bar that flickers between memory and imagination, two actors trapped in an endless loop confront love, regret, and the fragile line between reality, performance and the unbearable silence of being unseen.
Directed by the legendary Austin Pendleton, What Happened Was will play 3 performances ONLY - July 22, 2025, August 1 & 2, 2025.
Click here to watch this interview in video format!
Special Thanks:
- Katie Rosin, Kampfire PR
- Theme Song by Bobby Cronin
- Podcast Logo by Liam O'Donnell
- Edited by Adam Rothenberg
- Underscore Music by Cutique
Connect with Me:
Website: www.callmeadam.com
Facebook: @CallMeAdamNYC
Instagram: @CallMeAdamNYC
More on Cady McClain:
Cady McClain is a history-making three-time Emmy© Award winning actress, two-time Emmy© nominated director, and an accomplished producer and writer who has worked for over 40 years in film, television, and theater. She is proud to be the new Artistic Director for Axial Theatre, a twenty-four year theatrical institution dedicated to the development of new plays.
A Los Angeles Native, Cady spent 25 years living in New York City to pursue acting training and work in theatre. She studied for eight years with Master Teacher Michael Howard and was proud to be the youngest student he ever accepted into his master class. Cady went on to enjoy performing in such historic theatrical productions Off-Broadway as David Ives’ The Red Address at Second Stage, Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at Lincoln Center Theater, A Comedy of Errors at the Hudson Guild, Barefoot in the Park at the Westbury and Valley Forge Music Fair, Quiet on the Set at the Westbeth, and Self Offense at the Cucaracha Theater Company. In addition to performing in a one-woman show of Wallace Stevens poetry called Inventions of Farewell (directed by Estep Nagy) at the Here Theater in NYC, she is particularly proud of Mona7 - a short one-woman show she wrote, produced, co-directed, and performed, in which dealt with the after affects of abuse on a young woman through collaged video by video artist Tal Yarden, surrealist word play, and viewpoints movement.
Her work in film and television includes starring roles in independent films Soldier’s Heart, Home Movie (with Adrian Pasdar, released through IFC), Alma Mater (with Alexander Chaplin and Will Lyman), Simple Justice (with Doris Roberts and Cesar Romero), and Retreat. Studio films include My Favorite Year (with Peter O’Toole) and Pennies From Heaven (with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters). Television credits include Law and Order SVU (with Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Maloni), Cheers (with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson), and St. Elsewhere (with Christina Pickles). She is the first woman to have won three Emmys© for three different characters on three different television shows and networks: All My Children (Best Juvenile, 1991), As the World Turns (Best Supporting, 2004), and Days of Our Lives (Best Guest Performer, 2021). Additionally, she has earned eight Emmy© nominations for her work in daytime.
Cady is also an award-winning audiobook performer, winning an Earphones Audiophile Award and recognition from Entertainment Weekly, Audiophile Magazine, and Publishers Weekly for her first book: Emma Cline’s incredible debut novel The Girls. Other books include Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay, The Witch Hunter by Max Seeck, Home Before Dark by Riley Sager, The Sleepwalker and The Premonition by Chris Bohjalian, Generation Chef by Karen Stabiner, Red, White, Blue by Lea Carpenter, and Home Sweet Home by April Smith - for which she won her second Earphones Audiophile Award.
Cady moved into directing in 2013 and since has directed six short films, two web series, a full length play, and a documentary feature film. Her shorts include: Burnt Feathers, Broken Wings for Kids in the Spotlight (Winner: Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Ensemble - Paramount Sponsored “Movies by Kids” awards; Winner: Best Impact Film - Santa Fe FF 2020; Winner: Best Short Documentary - Mystic Film Festival 2020) which can now be seen on INDIEFLIX. The World of Albert Fuh (Premiere - SOHO International Film Fest 2015; Winner: Best Comedy Drama Short at the Indie Gathering Festival 2015; Honorable Mention: Best Director - Los Angeles Film Review 2015; Honorable Mention: SaMoIndie FF; Award of Merit: Best Shorts Film Festival 2015; Official Selection: LA Indie Film Fest 2015). Flip Fantasia (Official Selection Macon Film Festival 2014). Other Kids in the Spotlight films include The Last Day (Nominated for Best Ensemble - “Movies by Kids Awards”) and The Missing Piece (Winner: Best Ensemble and Best Supporting Actress at the Movies By Kids Awards hosted by Ty Burrell), also now available on INDIEFLIX.
Devoted to helping more women become directors, her foray into documentary film, Seeing is Believing: Women Direct, premiered at the 2017 SOHO International Film Festival winning the Audience Award for Best Feature Film. A grant awardee from the Awesome Without Borders Foundation, Seeing is Believing: Women Direct has been featured in Indiewire as “Project of the Day,” NPR, Salon, Film Threat, PBS SoCal, Good Morning Texas, The Alliance of Women Film Journalists, and Women and Hollywood, to name a few. It is now available through the educational distributor Collective Eye. It can be seen on KANOPY and PBS stations and is in the collections of The University of Miami, Exeter University, The University of San Diego, Philip Exeter University, The University of Delaware, The University of Michigan, Pennsylvania State University, Temple University, Minnesota State University, Loyola Marymount University, the St Louis Public Library, the New York Public Library, and the Anchorage Public Library. It was picked up for further distribution by an APT (American Public Television) awarded grant and sold to eight regional PBS stations in 2020 including Connecticut PBS; KPBS, San Diego CA; KQED, San Francisco CA; KUEN, Salt Lake City UT; Maryland PBS; North Carolina PBS; WHUT, Washington DC [Howard University station] and WILL Illinois Public Media, Urbana IL.
Cady interviewed highly experienced directors and producers for the film including Lesli Linka Glatter (Homeland, Mad Men), Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry), Sarah Gavron (Suffragette, Rocks), Bethany Rooney (Bull, Pretty Little Liars, co-author Directors Tell the Story), Joanna Kerns (Jane the Virgin), Jann Turner (Chicago Fire), Jon Wells (ER, West Wing), Oscar© winner Lee Grant, two-time Oscar© winner Sarah Kernochan; Michael Rauch (EP Royal Pains, Instinct); Mike Robin (EP Major Crimes, The Closer, NYPD Blue); and one of the highest grossing female directors in film, Betty Thomas (Dr. Doolittle, The Brady Bunch Movie), among others.
Seeing is Believing: Women Direct has screened at multiple organizations and academic institutions including Pepperdine University in California, University of San Diego, Rochester Institute of Technology School of Film and Animation, Johnson Community College in Kansas City, LA City College, Women in Film - Los Angeles, and Webster University in St. Louis.
Cady self-published her memoir, Murdering My Youth, in 2014. TV Guide called it “raw, wild, and shocking… yet also dazzlingly funny.” The release of the book was supported with a feature interview with Cameron Mathison on Entertainment Tonight. Murdering My Youth has received wide acclaim and has received over 129 five-star reviews on Amazon.
