Actor and director Josh Leonard (though he'd introduce himself to you as Joshua) launched into the spotlight as one of the stars of The Blair Witch Project. After a bit of a wayward youth (getting in trouble for having alcohol and Playboys at school, time spent in a boys home and legal emancipation) followed by a bit of a wayward next-phase-in-life (culminating in heroin addiction), Leonard was only a few months into sobriety when the indie movie he'd made in two weeks became the Next Big Thing. In the years since, he's done time on many a TV series (including Hung and The United States of Tara) before 2009's Humpday put him back in the indie spotlight. Also a successful director, Leonard has done both music videos (Morcheeba, Fitz and the Tantrums) as well as feature films (2011's The Lie). He's also maintained not only his sobriety but also his humility, which wasn't so easy in the beginning (stick around for the white limo story, which comes hear the end). Here he and AfterPartyChat's Anna David talk about how as kid, he used to try to work through recess to avoid getting his ass kicked, the letter he wrote that helped his brother get sober and whether crying out of gratitude is "girly" or not.
Author Carrie White has lived many lives. The first female hairdresser to the stars, White tended to the tresses of everyone from Ann Margaret and Elvis to Sharon Tate and Elizabeth Taylor. And she did it all on rollerskates (it was the 70s, people). But her high-flying life—which included three husbands and five children—was masking a crippling drug addiction which eventually left her curled up in the fetal position outside her dealer's door. Now sober for multiple decades, White built her hairdressing business back up and published a best-selling memoir, Upper Cut, about the entire thing. Here she talks to AfterPartyChat's Anna David about bottoming out, coming back, and how getting sober but continuing to smoke is like switching seats on the Titanic.
Actress and reality star Jennifer Gimenez first worked as a teenage model before acting alongside Johnny Depp in Blow and Cameron Diaz in The Sweetest Thing. But many first came to know her when she was the house manager on Sober House—a job she got after she went from being one of Dr. Drew's nightmare clients to one of his miracles. Here she and AfterPartyChat's Anna David talk about the drug dealer they used to share, how they first got sober together back in the early 2000s and whether or not Gimenez would use her real name if she was a drug dealer.
Comedian Danielle Stewart will say anything any time, anywhere. And so her conversation with AfterPartyChat's Anna David covered addiction, yes, but also jealousy, hope, Facebook, sex addiction and more. Arguably NSFW or the conservative.