The Supporting Cast

Laura Ross is the Associate Head of School at Harvard-Westlake. In this episode, Laura speaks about helping to lead the school through a pandemic, and what it feels like now to watch students and teachers re-enter physical spaces and experience newfound gratitude for the Harvard-Westlake community. Laura also speaks about her upbringing in Santa Barbara, CA, where she attended Crane Country Day, S...

D. B. (Dan) Weiss is co-creator of HBO’s Game of Thrones. In this episode, Dan speaks about how Game of Thrones came to be. First, how he and co-creator David Benioff read “A Song of Ice and Fire” and believed they understood how to adapt this complex narrative to the screen. Second, how they convinced author George R. R. Martin and HBO that he and David, who had never run a tele...

Aaron Mieszczanski is Director of Admission at Harvard-Westlake School. In this episode, Aaron speaks about his unique year in admission, both the challenge of not being able to welcome families to campus physically, but also the benefits of creating broader points of access through virtual engagement. In describing Harvard-Westlake’s approach in evaluating applicants, Aaron is quick to point out...

Gray Davis ’60 was the 37 th Governor of the State of California. In this episode, Governor Davis speaks about growing up in Los Angeles, attending Harvard School in the 1950s, and how a chance encounter with Harvard teacher Nat Reynolds ’51 changed the trajectory of his life. Governor Davis also discusses his time at Stanford and Columbia Law before serving in Vietnam, where he earned a Bro...

Gina Prince-Bythewood is a director and writer whose films include Love & Basketball, The Secret Life of Bees, Beyond The Lights, and most recently, 2020’s The Old Guard starring Charlize Theron and Kiki Layne. In this episode, Gina speaks about her beginnings in Pacific Grove, CA, finding motivation through athletics and inspiration through the encouragement of great teachers, leading her to...

In 1987, Thomas C. Hudnut took over as head of Harvard School, then an all-boys former military school in Studio City. 26 years later, Tom retired as President of Harvard-Westlake School, a multigender institution featuring 1,600 students spread over two campuses and commonly regarded as one of the finest independent schools in the country. In this episode, Tom shares his perspective on that journ...

Bill Whitaker is a featured correspondent on CBS’s 60 Minutes, which since its founding in 1968, is widely considered the most successful and venerated news magazine show in the history of broadcast journalism. In this episode, Bill speaks about his long journey to get there, beginning with being raised and educated in the presciently named Media, Pennsylvania. With the help of various educators,...

In 1978, a 16-year old Pam Shriver upset the #1 women’s tennis player in the world, Martina Navratilova, to reach the US Open Women’s Final. This improbable showing launched a professional tennis career in which Pam would win an Olympic gold medal in 1988, reach #3 in the world in women’s singles, and garner a staggering 22 grand slam doubles titles–20 of them partnering with tha...

Beanie Feldstein ’11, whose acting credits include critically acclaimed films like Lady Bird and Booksmart, in addition Broadway’s Hello Dolly, was nine years old when Ted Walch cast her in Harvard-Westlake’s upper school production of The Sound of Music. This led to a lifelong friendship and mentorship that influences every role Beanie inhabits to this day. In this episode, Beanie als...

Ellen Chen and Mario Del Pero are the married founders of California restaurant chain Mendocino Farms. In this episode, Ellen and Mario describe the many changes eateries like theirs were forced to undergo over the past year, including migrating a huge percentage of their business “off-premise,” which meant leaning heavily into both technological innovation and a defined employee culture and...

Jon Wimbish is Head of the Middle School at Harvard-Westlake. In this episode, Jon takes us back to March 2020 and the week that changed everything—from on Tuesday, March 10, telling the middle school faculty, “so there’s this thing called Zoom”—to the school’s entire mode of instruction being shifted to Zoom just six days later. What did those days in between look like? How did the school’s unsun...

Chris Jones, or “CJ” to his colleagues, is Head of the Upper School Deans at Harvard-Westlake. In this episode, CJ speaks about how the college admission process changes in a pandemic. For example, how do students choose colleges when they are unable to tour campuses in person? And what impact might “test-optional” policies have on the way applications are evaluated? Is “test-opt...

During her groundbreaking career in entertainment, Stacey Snider became Chair of three major movie studios—Universal (1999-2006), DreamWorks (2006-2014), and 20th Century Fox (2014-2018). In this episode, Stacey shares how attending a Philadelphia-area Quaker school instilled in her a spirit of egalitarianism, which, ironically, helped her to navigate a famously hierarchical industry. In describin...

Over 27 years at Harvard-Westlake, Ed Hu has assumed many roles, from college counseling to advancement to currently as its Head of External Relations. In this episode, Ed speaks about growing up in Bucks County, PA, as the child of Chinese immigrants, and how working in his family restaurant, Hu’s Chinese Kitchen, forever impacted Ed’s appreciation for the interchangeability of work l...

Paul Stanley is the lead singer, guitarist, and co-founder of the legendary rock band KISS, which has sold more than 75 million records worldwide in a career spanning nearly five decades. Even today, Paul still tours the world, wearing his trademark “star child” face makeup, and eight-inch heels — but that is only part of the story. Born “Stanley Burt Eisen,” the chil...

Beth Slattery is amid her 17th year at Harvard-Westlake, but first as Head of Upper School. In this episode, Beth speaks about the challenges of starting this new role during a pandemic, including her most profound challenge—how does one identify, from a virtual distance, when a student is struggling? Beth also engages on the topic of gender, discussing both her doctoral research into single-gende...

During his 16-year NBA career, Robert Horry won a startling 7 NBA championships, more than any other player outside of the 1960s Celtics. In this episode, Robert speaks about the three coaches (Rudy Tomjanovich, Phil Jackson, and Gregg Popovich) who led these championship teams, in addition to the big games and critical plays that earned him the moniker “Big Shot Bob.” Robert also spea...

Natasha Case ’01 is Co-Founder and CEO of Coolhaus Ice Cream, which you may have noticed lining the frozen food section of your local Whole Foods. In this episode, Natasha speaks about being raised by an animator and architect, the multifaceted nature of her Harvard-Westlake experience, building a business at the cross-section of food and architecture, and how unveiling Coolhaus at Coachella...

Spencer Rascoff ’93 is a serial entrepreneur, from founding Hotwire and Zillow in this 20s and 30s, to his two current ventures, Pacaso Homes and dot. LA. In addition to describing the details of each, Spencer traces many of his entrepreneurial qualities back to Harvard-Westlake, both in the form of a spectacular teacher (HW Chronicle advisor Kathy Neumeyer) and an unimaginable tragedy (the...

As 2021 marks the 100-year anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, The Supporting Cast welcomes Dr. Phoebe Stubblefield ’86, forensic anthropologist at the University of Florida, who is leading the massacre’s forensic excavation. In the Season 2 opener, Dr. Stubblefield discusses the complicated efforts to uncover and identify hundreds of Black victims buried in unmarked graves be...

In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, chef and restaurateur Roy Choi joins The Supporting Cast to discuss its impact on his restaurants, as well as the broader food and beverage industry. Roy also discusses growing up in Los Angeles as a Korean-American immigrant, how watching Emiril Lagasse on television inspired him to pursue cooking, rising the ranks as a “hotel chef” within Hilton...

Upper School Dean Sharon Cuseo is amid her 26th year at Harvard-Westlake, where she counsels students on the college admission process. In this episode, Sharon speaks about her reactions to the Varsity Blues scandal, the “myth of meritocracy” in college admission, and why there is far more “art” than “science” employed in college application evaluation. Sharon also talks ab...

Mark Hoppus is the singer, bassist, and founding member of the band Blink-182. In this episode, Mark speaks about Blink-182’s meteoric rise from the San Diego punk scene to hitting #1 on MTV and watching his dreams come true. Mark also speaks about the thrills and anxieties of touring, approaching one’s creativity with humor and heart, co-hosting a television show with Amy Schumer, and...

In 2014, Jason Collins ’97 became the first openly gay active athlete in any of the four major team sports. In this episode, Jason talks about why the NBA is ahead of other leagues in terms of advocacy and activism, how the language we use around LGBTQ+ issues has far-ranging impact, and about the courage he summoned in 2013 to come out publicly in a Sports Illustrated cover story. Jason als...

Grace Brown believes that learning differences, and the broader notion of “neurodiversity,” should be integral to all teaching and learning at Harvard-Westlake. As the school’s first Learning Resource Specialist, Grace has spent the last three years building a Center for Learning at Harvard-Westlake that empowers students to discover their own cognitive differences and chart a new course for...