2022-08-01
59 分钟So how do you balance both the weight and the sense of possibility of pursuing a massive dream, especially when you feel like you're representing generations and building a life and a living in a very public way from your earliest years?
So we all know the story of the american dream.
Move to America and pursue a better life, one with more resources and access and opportunity, not just for yourself, but for your kids, who so often hold in their hands the dreams and expectations and sacrifices of those who came before them and made it possible for them to be where they are today.
And it can be quite the burden.
On the other hand, there's the dream side of the equation, the example of making hard choices and taking action in the belief that amazing things are possible.
And my guest today, acclaimed actor Joanna Garcia Swisher, learned this from her dad.
So born to a cuban father and american mom, she started her acting career at the age of ten, playing the starring role on Nickelodeon's hit show are you afraid of the dark?
And her career, it truly began to take off after she moved to LA to pursue acting as a career, playing halle on party of five, Brie and Gossip Girl, Vicky on freaks and geeks, and countless others.
And more recently, Joanna plays Maddie in the Netflix hit Sweet Magnolias.
And she's done what so many aspire to, building a great career in a brutally hard business.
Following the dream, but also never abandoning her roots, Joanna keeps returning to the importance of family and community and service, as well as her emerging love of design, with the launch of the Happy place, a destination that explores and motivates and empowers the experience of living a life with intention and how that reflects your interiors.
And she, alongside her husband, spearheads the Swisher Family Foundation, a non profit with a mission to provide kids in need with medical care, education and recreation.
In our conversation today, we dive into the complexities of navigating Hollywood as a young child and a woman, how the values instilled by her dad really molded her in the boundaries that sustain her, and how Joanna explores the shifting nature of the stories that are told in media and their ability to help us relate to one another, to feel joy or even grieve, sometimes in a very public way, as she's had to do.
So join us as she and I dive into her background and then bring it back to the big picture, which is the powerful nature of dreams, joy and storytelling.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
So back in Tampa or somewhere else?
We are back in Tampa.
Yeah, it's been, obviously for everyone, a really wild couple of years.
But I lost my dad right before COVID hit, and my mom had dementia.