The Supporting Cast

For the last 26 years, Senior Advancement Officer Jim Pattison has spent nearly every weekday waking up at 3:30 a.m. at his home in Goleta nad driving nearly 200 miles roundtrip to his office at the Harvard-Westlake Middle School. In this episode, Jim tells us why. It began with growing up with parents who encouraged Jim to “figure things out” through hard work and perseverance, and continued with...

In 2023, the Writers Guild of America awarded its highest honor for television writing achievement, the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award, to veteran TV writer, creator, and showrunner Yvette Lee Bowser. For more than three decades, Yvette has been telling stories via television—most recently showrunning Hulu’s “Unprisoned ,” starring Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo. But back in 1993, Yvette made his...

In the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District sits a community gathering place called “Manny’s,” where on any day one might find Kara Swisher interviewing a member of Congress, a Q&A with San Francisco’s Chief of Police, a gathering of Gamers of Color, or meeting of the American Jewish Committee. All of this the brainchild of the space’s founder and namesake, Manny Yekutiel ’07. In this epi...

Patton Oswalt is an Emmy and Grammy Award winning comedian, writer, actor, and producer. In this episode, Patton speaks about growing up in a military family and attending a northern Virginia high school, before attending an open mic night during college and falling in love with the world comedy. This initial spark would eventually lead to multiple Netflix standup specials, film and television rol...

Julia Boorstin ’96 is CNBC’s Senior Media and Tech Correspondent and author of the new book When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them . In this episode, Julia speaks about why she chose to look at female leadership through the prism of entrepreneurship, noting how few female founders receive VC funding, but how and why those who do find disproportio...

Doug Kezirian ’95 is the host of ESPN’s first-ever daily betting show, The Daily Wager. In this episode, Doug takes us through the legal and societal evolution of sports betting, and how a subject many regarded as “unseemly” a decade ago now finds a comfortable home on ESPN. Doug also describes his own evolution, growing up in LA as the youngest of five brothers, attending Harvard-Westlake,...

In the vast and challenging landscape of global health, the story of malaria has most recently been one great progress. Many Asian countries, including Thailand, are on the verge of eliminating the disease entirely, demonstrating a 90% decrease in cases over the past 15 years. Standing at the forefront of this fight is Jui Shah ’02, who leads a malaria elimination team in Bangkok, partnering...

Jarron Collins ’97 is an assistant coach with the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans, and previous to that—a three-time NBA champion as an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors. In this episode, Jarron speaks about the many coaches who influenced his championship journey, from Harvard-Westlake to Stanford to the NBA—each of them contributing a style and philosophy that Jarron incorporates i...

Lily Collins ’07 is an actor, producer, and centerpiece of the global Netflix phenomenon, Emily in Paris. In this episode, Lily joins The Supporting Cast from New York amid a massive press tour, wedged between late night talk show appearances, to speak about the responsibility she carries as both the series lead, and more broadly, as a public figure. To the latter, Lily describes her choice...

In the fall of 2017, Harvard-Westlake acquired 17 acres of flat land in Studio City with the aspiration of building a third campus. More than five years later, the project, now known as Harvard-Westlake River Park, is potentially within months of gaining approval with the City of Los Angeles. To help provide insights into this transformational project is Harvard-Westlake CFO and River Park project...

Beloved Harvard-Westlake teacher, colleague, mentor, and friend Ted Walch died peacefully at his home on September 8, 2022. In Ted’s memory, we re-post Season 1, Episode 6, of The Supporting Cast featuring the inimitable Ted Walch.

In the season 3 finale, The Supporting Cast welcomes Tony and Emmy Award winning actor Courtney B. Vance. In this episode, Courtney speaks about growing up in Detroit during the 1960s and 1970s and attending an independent school, Detroit Country Day, before heading to Harvard and then Yale School of Drama. In addition to discussing his career as an actor, Courtney describes many of the broader th...

Kate Benton just completed her 27th year at Harvard-Westlake, where she has served as a performing arts faculty member and most recently as Head of the Middle School Deans. In this episode, Kate explains how middle schoolers have adjusted back to “in-person” school academically, mentally, and socially, and how Kate and her colleagues start their advisory work with “listening.” Kate als...

In the spring of 2014, Erik Swoope ’10 laced up his cleats for the first day of rookie camp with the Indianapolis Colts. While the NFL is a rare destination for any aspiring professional athlete, this was especially unusual for Erik. Erik Swoope never played college football, nor high school football, nor youth football–nor had he watched the Super Bowl in more than a decade. Yet someh...

After 12 years at Phillips Andover, Rev. Anne Gardner joined Harvard-Westlake in 2020 as the school’s chaplain. While prior to Anne’s arrival, Rick Commons had framed the role as an “entrepreneurial chaplaincy,” Anne had no idea how unorthodox it would actually become. Anne spent the first year of the job remote from Los Angeles, and then the second year working with students and adults who were s...

Sabrina Singh ’05 is Deputy Press Secretary to Vice President Kamala Harris. In this episode, Sabrina speaks about the heightened stakes of White House communications, the delicate balance between policy precision and personal authenticity in political speech, and how the Harris and Biden press teams collaborate as a unified administration. Sabrina also describes both her past—growing up in...

John Gatins is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter. In this episode, John speaks about initially coming to Hollywood to be an actor, before landing a chance opportunity to re-write a high school football movie called Varsity Blues in 1999. The film’s success launched a screenwriting career that would place John as one of the most sought-after “script doctors” in Hollywood, working on films rangi...

Jocelyn Medawar has taught English at Harvard-Westlake for more than 30 years. In this episode, Jocelyn speaks about the magic of finally teaching “in-person” again, how to build a community of both levity and trust within her classroom, and also the art of assembling an effective college recommendation letter. Jocelyn also speaks about growing up in Los Angeles and commuting across town to Immacu...

Constitutional law professor Kimberly West-Faulcon is the 2022 Kutler Center Scholar in Residence at Harvard-Westlake. In this episode, Kimberly speaks about constitutional interpretation, including what she describes as more contemporary notions of “originalism” and their application to the Second Amendment. Kimberly’s previous research and practice relate to education, including &#82...

Wolfgang Puck is a world-renowned chef and restaurateur. In this episode, Wolfgang speaks about the teenage restaurant apprenticeship that changed his life, at L’Oustau de Baumanière in the South of France. It was during this era where Wolfgang also met the late Sidney Poitier, who not only inspired Wolfgang as an actor, but whose friendship evolved into Sidney becoming the godfather to two...

Dr. Mark Krieger is Surgeon-in-Chief at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), where for the past two years he has helped to lead complex conversations and address critical questions about Covid-19 and its risk to kids. As the Omicron surge (hopefully) nears its end in Los Angeles, many of these difficult questions remain top-of-of mind for educators and parents alike. Dr. Krieger also speaks abo...

In the season two finale, The Supporting Cast welcomes former Dodger pitcher Chan Ho Park, who was the first Korean-born player and winningest Asian-born pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball. In this episode, Chan Ho speaks about growing up in Gongju, South Korea, and initially playing third base before an encouraging coach convinced him to be a pitcher if he could build “strong l...

Actor Dulé Hill is best known for playing Detective “Gus” Guster on the USA series Psych and Charlie Young, personal aid to President Jed Bartlett, on NBC’s The West Wing. In this episode, Dulé speaks about growing up in Sayreville, NJ, as the son of Jamaican immigrants, and how exposure to ballet and tap by age 3 set Dulé on a path to starring on Broadway in The Tap Dance Kid at age 1...

Juliette Kayyem ’87 is a CNN National Security Analyst, Harvard Kennedy School professor, Atlantic columnist, and expert in the field of emergency preparedness, consequence management, and risk reduction. As it happens, Juliette joins The Supporting Cast on the day the CDC lifted its indoor and outdoor mask mandate for vaccinated people. For this reason, Juliette was both limited in her time...

In the 2015 film “Woman in Gold,” Ryan Reynolds plays Randy Schoenberg, a 30-something lawyer who takes up the case of a family friend named Maria Altmann, played by Helen Mirren, who is trying to retrieve a painting from Austria that had belonged to her family as a child before it was stolen by Nazis in World War II. While such a matter would not typically receive the attention of Hollywood, this...