Hey, everybody, thanks for tuning in to six Degrees with Kevin Bacon. My guest today. Rachel Brosnahan, fabulous, fabulous actor. I mean I have been such a fan of hers from the first time that I saw her. I think she just has really phenomenal chops. And while we were unable to speak specifically about projects, given that we were in the middle of the strike, we were able to talk about process and about some of the things also that she just cares very very deeply about. She's a
great person, incredible talent. I think you're going to enjoy our conversation, so Lena in, I'm glad you're Thank you so much for being here with me today. Rachel Brosnahan, the fabulous Rachel Brosnahan, who, as you know, and I've told you, I'm just a giant fan of yours and of your beautiful, beautiful work on so many things, many of which, since we're still knee deep in our Screen Actors Guild strike, we're not actually allowed to address directly.
I don't know, have you done any interviews like this where you try to avoid, like what you do with your entire life while you're doing.
The interview I haven't, and so I've admittedly have been slightly nervous because I've been sort of in a quiet hole focused on the producing side of things over the last couple of months. And so this is my first rodeo trying not to talk about all the things we're not supposed to talk about.
That being said, I have found a really interesting because, as you know, and I think, actually, I want to ask you about this. During this strike, it has hit me that such a big part of what I do is the promotional piece of it. Yeah, and it's the part that I never really wanted from the jump street. You know. It's I don't you know people say to you when you become an actor and you go to a photo session or you go to do an interview, and they go, well, you know, kid, that's just part
of the job. And I think to myself, is it the I mean, is it really? Does it have to be? I do a lot of promoting of the of the stuff that I'm in. I'm a very good boy, you know, I show up and I don't turn things down, and you know, people count on that. But when they started to include a certain amount of promotion in the agreement in order to play the part. I think that's when I just kind of felt like I started pushing back on that a little bit. I don't know, how do you feel about it?
Yeah, I've struggled with this a lot because I became an actress, so I didn't know it to be myself all the time. I think I was born tired of myself, and I feel like I've always had what I've been told is kind of an old fashioned idea that the
work can speak for itself. And really, like a lot of actors, I think started doing this because you know, I was in love with the work and wanted to do that kind of exploration of the human subconscious and blah blah all that, you know, all that actor stuff that has nothing to do with this side of it.
And then.
I'm a part of an interesting generation. And then I feel like there's a handful of people who started when I did, who kind of got away with disappearing and doing a lot less of that sort of thing, and especially as it relates to social media, and I feel like I've struggled with finding ways to do it in a way that feels organic and authentic and in a way that I feel comfortable being myself while still kind of not talking about myself so much that it overshadows
the work or makes it difficult for people to see the characters I'm playing, over seeing the funny story that I told about my dog taking a shit, you know, on right on a late night So I.
Told that same story, by the way, on the late night show. We've all got it, and I don't even have a dog.
Yeah, I think at the same time, I've also seen the value directly and obviously I'm here to talk about some of the nonprofit stuff that I do today with you, and I've found that that's where the real advantage to all that stuff lies. Is the more the followers you have or the you know, the more you kind of promote the projects. You're also able to promote some of this stuff at the same time. And this feels like one of the under talked about ways that that what
we do has the abilit to make an impact. And and it's one of the things that I've loved so much about having a growing platform as the ability use it in this way. And so yeah, it's a I think it's a it's an ongoing battle of the mind and well with this stuff.
Yeah, I know, I completely agree with you, and and uh, you know again, I I I really think that you can. You can make whatever decisions you make around it are are personal, I mean, and when it really comes down to it, you know, you want, like I'm okay talking about process when people really ask you about process of performance and stuff like that, and some people don't want
to talk about that at all. I mean, I'm fine with it, but really what people want to know about mostly is is the personal, not not the process so much, but the personal. And when it comes to the personal, you know, I've often said that an interview is it has becomes its own acting exercise because it is a way to create the impression that you are revealing something you know deep or profound or very personal about yourself while not actually doing it. This is going to be
this is a very cynical start to this episode. So that being said, tell me all about yourself and why you became an actor. Where are you from? I don't even know.
I'm from just north of Chicago. I'm from Highland Park, Illinois. Okay, sure, yeah, where are you from? I don't think I know?
This is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Do you make it back often.
I do, Yeah, I do. I have family still there. I got let's say, two sisters, my brother's got a place down and my nephew. Yeah. I mean I go down, not a ton, but I do go down. Yeah. I moved to New York when I was pretty pretty young. I moved to New York when I was seventeen, so I've been in New York, you know, most through this time. Yeah.
I moved here when I was eighteen, so about the same.
Yeah. But Hiland Parker is awesome. I love it.
Yeah, Yeah, it was a great place to grow up. I feel like i've this is again one of those weird things and they're like, what was it that made you want to be an actor? And you have the kind of ready to go answer that feels interesting and engaging to audience somehow. But I think the truth is is that it was kind of a like a shy,
sort of weird kid. And I love to read. And the part that I loved about reading was that I got to live inside these characters' heads and imagine what they were doing between the chapters, and it sort of created an addiction to trying to addiction, but also a profound curiosity I suppose about people.
And.
An interest in trying them on for size to further understand how their minds worked, and that led me to my famed role as Tree number three in my kindergartenersion of Little Red Riding Hoods. How are you very deep character work?
Oh, I'm sure you're amazing. Okay, this is just classic. This is just classic New York. And I'm going to show this to you please before I move to the next room. But here we have the guys all my scaffolding who at this particular time of this particular day, have decided to work directly outside the window. Ladies and gentlemen. For those people who don't know, that's exactly what was happening.
So here I am moving to another room. Said, you've said two things that I really really, really really relate to. And one is you mentioned that you wanted to be someone other than yourself, and that was so much a driving force for me and continues to be in terms of why I wanted to be an actor. Yeah, I you know, it sounds like like you. I just didn't think that who who I was was interesting and interestingly enough for anybody to want to see it or or
watch it or be it. But if I could walk in this guy's shoes, it was going to be fun, fun as shit. And yeah, it sounds like you kind of had that that same sort of you know, at least launching pad.
Yeah, for sure. I, you know, I I was so interested in other people. And also, you know, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, which was great and idyllic in a lot of ways and came with its own side of challenges. And but you could read stories about people who went to the moon or had magical powers or you know, and then to get to try that stuff on size and live in a world that was so far beyond the one that you lived in.
And then also the you know, the the deeper side of it, the you know, I think, no matter who you are and where you come from, there's so many things that you don't understand about the world around you and the people who operate in it. And the ability to try to think like them or to to you know, uh, interact with people who thought like them through a mechanism that wasn't your own, felt like it kind of eased
the challenge of being alive, you know. And and then also was a heck of a lot of fun, for sure.
And and were your parents in this in this or your family was anybody else in the in the arts in any kind of way?
No, No, not in my immediate family. My my dad worked in children's book publishing, and my mom had come from a hotel and restaurant management, and we were a pretty sports oriented family, so I also grew up playing sports. But they were sorely disappointed. I was like, Mom, Dad, I want to be an actor.
What sports did you play?
I snowboarded and I wrestled.
Oh wow? They were disappointed, though, I mean, what do you think they would have wanted you? Did they want you to be a snowboarder or.
I think literally anything else? You know, they were I don't know if they were disappointed. They were just they were.
Nervous, you know.
They they're very practical people. Yeah, yeah, who were like, this is an impossible career. And I think they just didn't they didn't want me to be disappointed. And to be honest, you know, they had seen shamed performances Tree number three and I think we're a little like I don't know if she's got it.
Oh yeah, Okay, Wow, that's pretty harsh if they could tell from your tree performance that you didn't have the stuff I want to hear about what it's like to be a Were you a high school wrestler?
Yeah, I was briefly. I did two years, and then the wrestling season. I don't know about how this was when you were in school, but like our school plays and musicals changed seasons, so I think so that people who were doing other things like sports could have a shot at it every other year. And so I didn't make the musical my freshman year of high school, so I joined the wrestling team, and then my sophomore year
I was able to do both. And then my junior year I had to choose between wrestling and a production of Cats, the Musing one, and I chose Cats.
Well, who wouldn't choose cats? Come on, right, come on? Have you ever gotten a chance in your later work to I don't know you use the wrestling in any kind of way. Has it ever made any kind of connection to anything that you've ever done?
Not yet, But I think that's all I want from this career is to find a way to bring high school wrestling back into play.
I mean, I think women's high school wrestling is a very interesting subject. I mean I would think that that would there's got to be a story there, you know.
Well, the cool thing about wrestling, at least at our high school, we didn't split the teams. It was I think there were only two women on the team my freshman year, and then it might have just been me my sophomore year. Because it's done by so you.
Were wrestling, you were wrestling men.
Yeah, it's done my weight class, so it more EQUI well, I think especially when everyone is younger. I'm not sure that would necessarily be the case now, but when everyone's younger, you know, at those lower weight classes, I was wrestling like tall Bean Pully, young gentlemen, and so it felt like we were pretty easily matched. It was about different skill set. Somebody was faster, somebody was stronger, somebody you know, was better on offense or defense.
And oh man, mind blown. I had no idea that they would that that would be possible, that they would have, you know, intersex wrestling. I mean, that's really that's really fit and that's amazing. I do think there's a movie there. I'm my ma, there is there there. Yeah, there might be I know, that you have done obviously have done a tremendous amount of theater. So I'm guessing that you
probably started in the besides cats. I mean when you became you know, professional, moved to New York, and and were you in college when you moved to New York? Where you did you come for for the life in the theater?
Yeah?
I came. I went to n y U. And so I moved to New York to go to school, and UH did a little bit of theater in Chicago during the summer between my freshman and sophomore year, did this really wonderful play at the Stuff and Wolf called up and that was that was my first experience in professional theater. And then UH graduated from college and made my Broadway debut in a very small role in this incredible ensemble at a play called the in a play called The
Big Knife at the Roundabout. But it's so funny. I I did come from theater. I went to drama spolife, like the basis for that training is theater. And when I was younger and imagining what it was like to be an actor, I think all I ever wanted was to be in lay Mi is the musical but I can't sing or dance, and that was kind of the pinnacle of what I thought success in this industry would
look like. And kind of stumbled into the film and TV thing, into small parts on television shows and in films when I was younger, when I kind of while I was in school. And so I feel like that's also say that I feel like still kind of an impost in the theater space. I've done applying approximately once every six years, and I love it and it it It's just the hardest thing in the world. But every time I made it, I'm just so in awe of the of the folks who kind of moved from show
to show. I don't know how people do that schedule. It's so intensely vulnerable and exhilarating and fun and weird, but so so hard. So I'm still in all every time I get the opportunity.
Yeah, Listen, there was a time when I was young, when I first came up, that I was going from play to play to play to play.
Yeah, And.
I have to say, I really do I miss the intensity of it. I miss the I mean, I kind of get a little bit of the immediacy of the audience experience with the I'm in a band, and when we go out and play a show, there's a thing that maybe that that reminds me of doing theater. And two things. Number one is that like I'm so comfortable on a set now on a movie set, that I
don't get butterflies. Really. I mean, maybe my first day, in my first scene, if I'm doing make taking a big swing and nobody's seen the big swing yet, you know what I mean that maybe I get a little weird about putting that out there, but I pretty much feel like I'm in my living room. And when you do a play or do a show with the band,
you're backstage, you know. You know, it's the same thing when they tell you it's a half an hour until the show and you start, you know, kind of getting dialed in and you think about it and right before you make your entrance, there's always this little bit of butterflies. And to get past that, I think is a very very important part of being a performer. I don't I can't really tell you how it makes you better, but I do think that it makes you better and challenges you.
The other piece of it that I think I would really miss if I didn't have either theater or music. Is that feeling that you're sharing this one night with this one group of people, yeah, and that it's never going to be exactly the same and you can't there's no do overs, you know. It's it's that that just that excitement is kind of.
Magical to me, that's exactly the word for it. It feels like there's this little magical bubble that you all kind of handshake enter into at the beginning of the night.
And.
There's the real there's a power and a fear and an exhilaration and knowing that not only is it the only time it'll ever be like that, but actually you could do anything. You could You won't, but but you could actually, like you could get out there and rip all your clothes off and jump into the audience. You know, no one's actually stopping you from from taking control of
the space. And so it feels like one of the best parts about working in theater and being on stage is figuring out kind of how far you can stretch your own limits night tonight, Like where can you walk? Where can you walk up to the line of I'm going to do something insane in here right right and just sort of leave something on the stage and share that experience with an audience every night.
It's how often do you switch things up if you're doing a play, like like, like, how often do you do you just kind of, I mean, adjust things with that within reason?
Talking about doing something crazy, Yeah, I say that, and I and I don't know that I've ever been brave enough to really do something perceptibly crazy on stage, But there's still time. I I feel like you switch up things in a small way. Every day. You sort of do all that homework and you do all that rehearsal to get a foundation underneath you.
But then.
The more you do a play and you're saying the same things every night, and you're living with the same people every night, it feels like you start sometimes to hear different things, and you start to hear them differently.
You know.
I just did this play, The Sign in Sidney Brustine's Window, and it's this beautiful, unwieldy lay that it felt like we were wrestling with every night, and every night we heard totally different things. Certain sentences jumped out. I heard other things from other characters and I almost had never heard before. And then whether it was for one performance or for a week, it kind of reshaped the way we were tackling this play, or I was tackling the play.
And it was.
It was really fun and made it never get less scary in a way that feels, I guess that's the feeling that I'm hooked on. It feels like you're always kind of walking on a tightrope and you could fall, and sometimes you do, and then you have to figure out to pick yourself back up and do it again the next day with a healthy degree of humiliation.
Yeah. Yeah, And you have had the fabulous Oscar Isaac there with you, and that he's I mean, I'm guessing although I don't know him, I'd never worked with him, but I'm guessing that he's someone who probably you know, is willing to kind of go with wherever things are going. You know that that is also kind of light on his feet in terms of what you guys, as you said, hearing a different line in a different way, or or changing something in a subtle way one night to the next.
Yeah.
I learned a lot from working with Oscar through this show and was pushed in directions that were sometimes uncomfortable, but in a healthy way and in a way that made the whole thing better. I think pressed each other in that way sometimes. And yeah, he's really courageous. He's really courageous in that he's constantly searching for ways to stay present and to embrace the present moment and all the stuff that comes along with it in a way that infuses into the work that day and every day.
He's such a student of the medium and loves that part of it. And I was really really admire his kind of discipline and curiosity and how insatiable it is. And I feel like I learned a lot about what's possible and how I might like to work or like to challenge myself moving forward as I you know, eventually go into another play. For working together.
I remember, as a young acting student, uh, I believe it was it was either me or one of my my kids in school did a scene from the Signe
at Sydney Brusing's window. I think that really, I think, yeah, I mean I think it was a there were kind of like it was sort of like a list of of scene study scenes, things that that that would you know, apply to two people having a scene together, which is basically what you need for a scene study class, right, something that takes place in a kitchen or a house or you know is and that is a you know, a medium length scene with some you know, emotion and stuff in order to for it to be a good
scene study scene. And I'm it was either me or or somebody that I know. I can't remember it that well, but it was a tremendous success for you, So congratulations for that. And you guys went straight to Broadway with that right like it was at in Brooklyn for a little while, and I moved right away.
Yeah, it was an incredible experience. We planned to do this six week run at BAM, and you know, certainly that was part of the appeal of jumping in at this play. I had just finished a number of years on a project that we can't talk about, but you know, I had just closed this huge chapter and to be able to move straight into this play that was so thoughtful and radical and full of so many big ideas and required a completely different way of working was really exciting.
And then also that it would kind of come and then go almost as suddenly as it came was exciting.
And then we had this tremendous opportunity and a really rare opportunity to take it straight from BAM to Broadway in under a month and reopen the play and bring it to more audiences, thanks largely to Jeremy o'harris, who's a fantastic play right and wearer of a thousand and a half other hats, producer, actor, wearer of beautiful clothes, and Jeremy became a huge champion for this and helped bring together a lot of other people who helped make
it possible for us to keep going. And honestly, what an incredible gift to get to do something that you think is over. We didn't know we were transferring by the time the show closed. I often have this experience, whether it's in theater or in a film or on television, where you finish it and then suddenly you're like, HU, should I get it now? I understand that I didn't understand for all that time, And so we got to have that experience and then come back and get back
into the rehearsal room for two days. But you know, even two days of getting to crack this thing back open with such a huge gift, and I feel like the show transformed in those three weeks that we had off and then became stronger and more cohesive and a little bit shorter. When that's really cool we brought it to Broadway.
Yeah. I don't know if you've ever been in an experience where you've had to go back and do a reshoot, either for a technical reason or for the you know, I don't know, the one they want to change the ending of a a movie or a pilot or you know, whatever it is. And I'm always like, oh shit, God, I don't want to do that. I already did it, and I want to do it again. I already did it. And then inevitably you go, oh yeah, there was that. Yeah,
I mean, I can you know it. It's it's I've never had to do that and had it be like worse, believe it or not. And it's a little scary when you think about it, because then you think to yourself, well, really, what I should do is go back and reshoot the entire movie, you know, and you just could, yeah, just do one, finish that one and then just I mean, there are people that do that. Who does reshoots like that?
I think maybe I don't know. I'm sure they've heard about direct Woody Allen or so something like that does a lot.
Of times, does things I forget it was somebody was saying to me, And I wish I could have ever a really well known director who used to shoot the beginning of a movie and then reshoot the first three days because you're trying to find your footing in those first couple of days. And yeah, you always felt like it was better the second time, rut. Yeah, but crippling insecurity or whatever it may be. I think I'm never going to complain about another shot and getting to take
another swing at something. Yeah, and I agree, I feel like it's rarely ever been worse the second time.
I often like to say that I discover, I discover the essence of my big scene in a film in the van on the way home. That's where Oh yeah, that was it.
That was it.
By the way, you said you can't sing, and that's not true, because I just saw you sing about a two weeks ago or so. I saw you in a read like when yeah, I know, uh, Kira, my wife was in a reading that I saw of a new play with Rachel. And I bring this up because I'm so often and it's and I was, and I was really especially knocked out that day by you and her
and everybody else in this cast. It's not it wasn't really a musical per se, but it was a play, very heavy play where people the family has a tradition of kind of performing folk songs together. So here's this group of actors that are brought together having never done this play as far as I know, and there is one rehearsal and everybody sits there lined up with the script in their laps, and you know, tries to deliver
a theatrical experience. By the way I might mention that the rehearsal is that day, I don't even know if you could call it a rehearsal. And there was a musical director who had a piano there, and all of a sudden, I'm watching this thing. The performances are magnetic, just timing amazing and harmony and people just singing their
asses off. I you know it just actors sometimes just below my mind when when they when they have the ability to do that, and we talk about doing theater right, and you you do theater and you rehearse for four weeks or whatever it ends up being, uh, and then you have like two months of previews and you know, you still don't really feel that you're getting to it yet, and then you see something like this where people just
come in and just do it. It's it's just it just blows my mind and you were magnificent.
Thank you. But they say, I mean, they say you spend the entire rehearsal process trying to get back to that first reading, because in someways, right, the best part of something like that is that there are no stakes, There was no time to rehearse. There were some really beautiful singers who are just stunn including Cure by the way, she was amazing in this, who can pick up harmonies
at the drop of the hat. And then there's folks like me who can you know, we're actors who can carry a tune, who need a little bit of this distance and probably a lot more time to get there. But you have nothing to lose. You know, there's no
big audience, there's no reviews coming out. You just get to come into a room in front of a group of people who just love art and are there to hear something out loud and see if there's anything there, and you just get to throw down and then leave and walk to the subway and go get a shake shack or something and go on with the rest of your afternoon. And it's those experiences that make theaters so special.
But you do you spend the next four weeks trying to get the magic back of was that one afternoon when nobody had anything to lose and we all just chucked it into the universe together.
It was great. It's great. I just I don't know, I love love seeing that. And while I you know, I'm thrilled that there's great, you know, plays like Sign Sydney Bristine's Window to get a revival, I'm also really a big supporter of new theater and new voices and new playwrights and anyway, I hope something happens happens with that.
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So, Rachel, you're here today highlight Covenant House, which is a nonprofit right that supports youth facing homelessness and survivors of sex trafficking. I want to bring on Bill Beadrosian now, who is the president and CEO of Covenant House International. Hey, Bill, welcome to the show.
Hi Bill, So good to see you.
What we do here is, obviously we shoot the breeze and about stuff, you know, acting, music, art, whatever it is, sports and uh. And then we highlight causes that are important to whoever our celebrity guest happens to be. And in this case, Rachel is on the board of the Covenant House correct and Bill uh runs it. So how did how did you get involved? Rachel? And and and Bill? How long have you been working there? Tell me tell me how this all came together.
So I got involved actually through the theater community. About a little bit over ten years ago, I was making my Broadway debut in a show called The Big Knife. And at the time to Peythia Jenkins and Stephanie J. Block, who were two fantastic theater actors, had been involved with Covenant House, who they lovingly referred to as our Broadway neighbors, because the Covenant House is on forty first and tent at least that original one was right on the corner.
And we did an event called a sleepout where a group of Broadway Community members spent a night in the courtyard in front of the Covenant House, sleeping in solidarity with the young people overcoming homelessness who call Covenant House home. And that night, to put it lightly, profoundly changed my life.
I was sitting across the table at twenty three years old from a young man who was also twenty three and was talking to me about his experience and how he'd arrived at Covenant House in New York, and I was just struck that through a very small shift in circumstances, we could be so on other the opposite sides of
the table. And at the end of that night, Kevin Ryan, who was then the president of Covenant House, asked us to make a commitment to coming back, to staying involved, to doing something to better the lives or be a part of the lives of young people overcoming homelessness. And so that began what's now an eleven year long relationship with Covenant House, and I joined the board after being invited by Kevin about five years ago. Sorry, pandemic time, it's all.
Kind of a flat yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And then Bill stepped in, and I've been so thrilled to be a part of this board under Bill's leadership.
And so, Bill, how did you get involved?
So I've been involved with Covenant House for about ten years.
Covenant House is actually in thirty four cities across five countries, and so I was actually leading the effort out in California for many years before becoming the President CEO of Comany House International, and really kind of got into this work as a result of my family and my parents' commitment to working with young people my entire life, and so that's how I kind of found out through the foster care system what was going on with many of
the young people and learned about how many young people were becoming almost out of foster care and just want to be part of the solution and kind of launched been now a thirty plus year career and working with foster youth and former foster youth.
And young people who are vulnerable tell us because I think people would find this interesting your personal connection to the foster system and your parents that you mentioned your parents, youn.
Yeah, yeah, so I actually have connections to both the communities you guys grow up And I was born and raised in Philadelphia, and my parents said, Yeah, my parents had me as teenagers, and so really kind of changed the trajectory of their lives and kind of how they viewed the world and how people perceive that. And so from a very young age they started thinking about helping other people who may have not experienced acceptance when they
had life experiences that were different from others. And so even as a little kid, my mom and dad brought in other pregnant teen girls into our home, and so I got to kind of see just like what caring about community was and that there were people out there that maybe weren't it, even as fortunate as us, as
poor as we were in Philadelphia. And then when we moved to the suburbs of Chicago when I was a teenager, my parents started fostering, and over a twenty year period, they ended up adopting eight of the many foster kids we had in the home, and so there ended up twelve of us total. Wow, with a range of about thirty years in between.
Wow, your parents, that's amazing. Yeah, wait, so there were how many of you?
Don't say that, you know, so there's twelve. Well no, most of them could probably are young enough to be my kids at some point, because I was a teenager when they started, uh fostering in the Chicago area.
But yeah, all all my.
Siblings were a pretty close knit group. And so we've dispersed around the country, most of us looking for warmth after spending a few winters in Chicago, and but we get together all the time. We go to games, big Philadelphia sports fans. We travel to see Eagles games and Phillies games and go words and just secondary all the kids who were born in Chicago are big, big bear stands and cum fans.
That's funny. That's like a commercial that I saw recently. You know, yeah, the people to the two sides of the family sitting on the couch and in the competing jerseys. Well that is boy talk about a personal talk about a personal connection. But that being said, Bill, you know, uh, you you also could be growing up in that world and decide, Okay, well what do I want to do
with my life? I just want to go I want to be a painter, or I want to or I want to make a whole boatload of money, or you know, I want to There's a lot of other things that that you know, you're you're a lot of a path that you could have taken. So I'm just curious what it is that I'm always curious when somebody just decides to devote their life to because it's not what I do to to the to the idea of trying to give back.
Well, you're right, I actually, you know, out of college, I did want to make a boat load of money. I actually studied finance and I studied for my serious sevenths license to be a you know, a stockbrooker and work on the Chicago Board of Trade. And I sort of, you know, always felt kind of called to working with
young people and loved being around young people. And I had kind of a come to Jesus quote unquote moment working on the Chicago Board of Trade for a couple of weeks and I had a helmeless guy actually asked me for some money, and I was on my giant Soul cell phone, you know those old cell phones we had in the mid nineties that were like as big as a forearm, trying to act cool. I probably was talking to my mob, I don't know, or something. Boy,
no one else would talk to me. And the guy asked me for money, and I said, I just kind of ignored him, and he he goes, hey, asshole, I just asked he for some money. You got five thousand dollars suit on. You can't even give me a little money. First of all, my suit was probably from like TJ Max or something. It definitely was not a five thousand
dollars suit. But I was like, I was stunned and like really jarred, and I turned around and looked at him, and I just stopped and just realized kind of like, man, this is a guy who needs something. Hundreds of people are just walking past and completely ignoring him, and like how sad that was, And just it really moved me to say, you know, one, I'm going to help this guy out, and then two like this is not what
I should be doing with my life. And I actually just went back to graduate school in Chicago, got my masters in social work, and then started working in the foster care system out in Los Angeles, and largest foster care system in the world.
Thought I could.
Change the world then was not right, but did get a lot of experience and really started understanding how vulnerable young people coming out of foster care system were if they didn't have a support system. My expectation, my experience was there was families like mine who not only would love and care for kids, but they'd enable them to
go to college or help them start businesses. And the truth was most of the kids that ended up in foster care were not landing in situations like my family, and so just really wanted to be a part of something like Covenant House that kind of creates that environment for young people that didn't have it to be able to thrive and pursue their dreams.
Can you talk a little bit to where we're at in terms of kids, teens and the biggest issues and the homeless situation for young people in this country right now and elsewhere.
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the most alarming statistics to me is that in the US alone in twenty twenty three, there will be four point two million young people who will have at least one night where they don't have a safe place to sleep. That means somebody we know, you know, a niece or a neighbor or a cousin is probably having something happened this year where they're not going to have a safe place to sleep.
And it's really alarming to me. In a country that you know, purports ourselves to be so wealthy and have everything together, we've got some major problems if our young people don't have safe places to sleep. And when you look at who these young people are, Rachel's right, it could be any one of us that could be in
this scenario. A lot of young people coming out of foster care juvenile justice systems that you know, we took into systems under the pretense of having to protect them or keep them safe, and then they turn eighteen and we're saying good luck. Meanwhile, most of us with our own kids are staying in our homes till they're twenty six or thirty years old, and we're trying to figure out, like,
what do we do here? So it's just unrealistic expectations for what young people are going to be able to do after, you know, years of being in system care. The other thing that's so startling to me is that you know, forty percent of young people nationally the experience homelessness identify as LGBTQ. So you've got kids who are becoming homeless as the result of their identity and being rejected by their families or their communities because of their identity.
And as a parent, that one's really hard for me to reconcile as well. I just can't imagine anything my kid would do or be or say that would you know, have me push them out of my house? And so I think we've got some real education and some real peer accountability that we need to start creating in our communities to say, hey, these are our kids and we got to take care of them.
That is a really fascinating overlap between intolerance and struggle and homelessness. And I that I'm really shocked to hear that that's not a statistic I was aware of either one of those. That is really really, really fascinating. Can you tell me, sort of like on a day to day basis, what what the work of Covened House is doing? So just kind of explain if you were a kid or you know, what, what what how would it function? I mean, either one of you, I'm sure you've had experience,
you know, being on the board, Rachel. So I'm just curious about, Uh, you know what is what's what's the day, what's the what's the day's work at Covenant House?
Well, I mean, I I'll tell you the last ten years be that Covenant House has been one of the It has been the greatest joy in my life from having to be around these young people and hear their stories and just see how resilient they.
Are and how hopeful they are.
And what we're trying to do in these thirty five cities across the America is is just creating an experience for them where they get to feel unconditional love, acceptance, and then just people who pursue them in a way that they may not feel worthy of. And so I say that because where we start in most cities is doing street outreache, actually looking for young people, and even if we don't have beds for them, because we're full.
In every city that we work in, we want to demonstrate to young people that they're worthy of being pursued, that there's people out there that care about them, and that we want to create connection for them so that they can have their basic needs and that and most importantly, we're trying to show them that they're loved and that they're worthy of love, and so once they come into our programs, we're really creating an environment that has kind
of a full continue of support everything from short term housing to long term house housing, but the medical attention, mental health support, educational and employment support, and just engaging them also in the ways the things that bring them joy. And so like Rachel and her team, they've done kind of actor workshops with our young.
People are cool come in that.
Do game nights or playing basketball. I mean, one of the most beautiful thing I think about our Covenant House communities is that we ask people to volunteer and engage in a way that they're doing things they love to do, so that when they're doing it with our young people, they get to experience that joy and doing something new that they may have never ever experienced, that opens their eyes to you know, develop relationships with people and have a good time.
Because this is one of the things I think we don't talk about a lot, especially as it relates to young people experiencing and overcoming homelessness, is that it looks
like so much more than what we can imagine. You know, Bill was talking about these staggering numbers of young people who are going to experience some form of homelessness that could mean that they have housing instabilities for one night, or experience kind of bouncing around between family members but not exactly knowing where they're going to sleep at night
for a month, you know. And at the same time, a lot of young people at Covenant House, and a lot of young people who arrive at Covenant House are trying to balance their lives in school and sometimes work responsibilities, and so young people who are arriving at Covenant House. And one of the things I've been so grateful for during my time there has been to learn about so many of these different stories, and they vary so far.
These are our future lawyers and doctors and artists and teachers, and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters and friends of other people. And so one of the things that I feel like Covenant House does so successfully is, as Bill mentioned, you know, there's this continuum of care. There's so many different avenues for support, and so many different potential avenues for the direction that young people can head in with additional support after their time at Covenant House.
You know, as Bill said, you know, I had been a part of some arts workshops with the young people there. But I've got friends who have come in and helped with job readiness, so preparing young people to do job interviews to find employment. Bill, I know that for a while, I'm not sure if this is still a program that we've been doing, but the partnership with the US open or we were training young people to be security guards, for example, there was an avenue towards nursing programs towards
obtaining a ged if that's necessary. Legal support. You know something that I didn't know before working with Covenant House is that a lot of young people, as you can imagine, especially if you're spending time on the street, may have run into legal trouble, even for things as small as jumping a turnstile, or may not have access to proper identification, to birth certificates or driver's licenses. And this is all
support that Covenant House can offer. I feel like it is about meeting young people exactly where they're at and then asking them and acknowledging whatever their dreams are and figuring out how we can be a part of getting them between where they are and where they want to be.
Wow, that's so fascinating and so helpful and built.
I have.
There is a two prong question. Number one is what would you say is the most pressing need right now for COVET in house and how can people get involved and help out?
Yeah, I mean I think there's a couple things. I mean one is just like you've been surprised by some of the things you're here today, right, And I think that's part One of our biggest issues is people just don't know. People don't know how many young people in our country are at risk. You talk about four point two million that aren't going to have a safe place
to sleep at least one night this year. We've really got to get the word out and people understand that, hey, there's a lot of young people are at risk here. And the truth is that if you experience homelessness as an adolescent, you're so much more likely to be one of those people who then end up being chronically homeless as an adult. And this is so preventable. There's just no reason that this should happen. We should be able to ensure that our young people have a safety net.
So raising the awareness, we've got to change some laws to ensure that kids coming out of foster care and juvenile justice.
And we're growing up in welfare.
Don't have to fall through the cracks and end up in these really vulnerable situations. And then one of the other biggest drivers of homelessness that's starting to happen is just the lack of affordable housing, not just for young people but anybody. But in no major city in North America right now can you make a living wage and afford a market rate apartment. So we used to tell people like, well, just get a job and then you
won't be homeless. The truth is you could be working fifty sixty hours a week and still not afford to be in an apartment. So we've got some real work to do to address that housing disparity. And you know, one of the things that I think, you know, Covenant House has taught me is that none of these young people deserved to be given up on. And even in the situations where you think like, well that's a hopeless situation,
there is hopefulness and they have dreams. And there's a young man named Derek I just want to share about because he just is such an inspiration. I mean, he grew up on skid row in Los Angeles, So his whole life, people would drive by and be like, you know, that kid doesn't have a chance. Had to stop going to school of third and fourth grade because his mom
was homeless and struggled with addiction. And this is a guy who came to Covenant House at the age of eighteen and got back into school and started thinking about what was possible for himself as a result of people believing in him. And what was remarkable to me is despite his mother's addiction and mental health issues and the way he grew up, she loved him and she always instilled in him a kind of a sense of gratitude.
And so throughout Derek's journey at Covenant House, he always had this sense of joy and I guess just kind of this resilience that always inspired me. And Derek stayed with us for a couple of years, kind of worked through our housing programs and got into his own apartment, worked a couple jobs at a time to be able to afford this apartment. It was so amazing is a lot of the young men that he would meet at Covenant House would not have it as good as him.
Kind of the year after they moved out and Derek would let them come to his house and crash at his house until he got them on their feet. But his way of getting them back on the feet was reconnecting with Covenant House and saying, hey, this is your family. If you have a challenge after you leave Covenant House, you got to go back. They're going to help you. It was just so amazing. He's been such a great
ambassador for us. And I saw him a couple of weeks ago and could not have been more happy for him because he became the property manager of our first affordable housing site in Los Angeles, where he's going to live there and kind of maintain the culture and accountability for another twenty five young people that are going to come into their own apartments that are working, and he gets to set an example for them of just living in joy and living in purpose in a way that
no one ever thought was possible for him as they drove by this little kid on skid row. And so I think it just speaks to the power of being enabled to invest in a young person, even when they're an adolescent, that there is so much purpose and possibility for them that we can be a part of. And it's been a joy for me to be a part of stories like Derek's and hundreds and hundreds of more that I've gotten to see over the last ten years.
That's amazing. I love that story. And if anybody wants to check out the work, it's Covenant House dot org. Is that correct, that's right, Covenanhouse dot or Covenant House dot org. Well, I want to thank Bill Badrosian for being here today and telling us about this amazing organization. I think that people will be really fascinated to see it here and look at all that good work that
you're doing. And thank you so much for taking the time, Bill, and to the marvelous Rachel Brasnahan for being here with us today and sharing just hanging out with me. I mean, I could talk to you all day about the process, and as I said, I'm thrilled with you as a performer and I can't wait to see what you what you do next.
Well, this is really cool. Thank you for taking the time, and you've also just been such a kind champion of mine for such a long time, even from Afar, So thank you and thank you for taking the time to highlight Covenant House and the important work that they do, and I also just want to very quickly at as far as ways that people who might be listening could get involved.
She's a good board member, she's a good board member.
Of great great board member.
You said, you know, you mentioned you can go to Covenant House dot org to learn more about the organization. Follow Covenant House International or your local Covenant House. As Bill mentioned, Covenant House operates in thirty is it thirty five cities now built? Thirty four to thirty five cities
across Yeah, across the US, Canada, Latin America. So you can follow your local Covenant House, your closest Covenant House and see how you might be able to get involved on a local level on Instagram, on Twitter, and there's also there are sleepout events that happen either one that you can create during what is this event called now, Bill the sleepout that happens all over the country.
Yeah, it's a national sleepout.
National sleepout. It's changed titles a couple times over the years. But you can start a sleepout event where you can sleep out with friends or family or colleague or community members to support young people overcoming homelessness. You can raise money and awareness through your own sleepout. You can join a sleepout if you happen to live near one that's happening.
There are so many different ways to get involved, so keep track of these various Covenant Houses through these different channels, because we would love, we would love to have you join us.
Thank you, thank you for that, and thank you guys, and thank you everybody for listening, and we'll see you next time. Hey, everybody, thanks for listening to another episode of Six Degrees with Kevin Bacan. And if you want to learn more about Covenant House and all the amazing war that they are up to over there, just go
to their website, which is Covenanthouse dot org. You can find all the links in our show notes, and hey, if you like what you hear, make sure you subscribe to the show and tune in through the rest of our episodes. You can find Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'll see you next time.
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