Meet Your Heroes! Plus, Hannah Pittard
A Monday morning hello.
Happy Monday!
You know, they say you should never meet your heroes, but I gotta admit, I’ve met a bunch of mine and they’ve all been incredible.
Case in point: last Friday I had my Zoom call with Mackenzie Astin. You may remember that roughly 40 years ago, he was my first big celebrity crush. In fact, a few days ago I found a journal entry from 1987 in which I declared that my affection for him was not a phase, but “true love.” (I was nothing if not dramatic.)
Anyway, on Friday we chatted and I’m pleased to share that it was fantastic. We talked about his career—everything from The Facts of Life to his recent arc on The Pitt, as well as what it was like to grow up surrounded by actors. (His mom was Academy Award winner Patty Duke, his dad is John Astin of The Addams Family, and his brother is actor Sean Astin.) He also surprised me by telling me he’d read my work and loved an essay I wrote back in 2019 about my son.
For the record, I did fess up and tell him about my mid-80s crush on him and he seemed flattered. So, no complaints whatsoever. By all means, try to meet your heroes. They’re probably just as wonderful as you hope they’d be.
I hope you enjoyed last week’s interview with Ellis Rosen. I so love his work and his sense of humor. It was fun to talk a bit about his cartooning process.
Later this week, I’ll share my recent interview with the wonderful Hannah Pittard, whose new book If You Love It, Let It Kill You is getting heaps of press. (It’s a great read.)
That’s it for now! Hope you have a wonderfully creative week!