After plenty of interviews across four years, I spent the afternoon with one of my favorite people in the world, Joel McHale. Whoever said “never meet your heroes” obviously had the wrong ones because boy, am I blessed. This guy is the absolute kindest, most down-to-earth person you will ever know. Getting the chance to spend the day with him on the set of one of his projects was an absolute blast and so surreal. We had so many laughs and hugs and just good ‘ol conversation.
For more on this (coming soon), be sure to check out the Events & Appearances page on my portfolio. Y’all are in for a treat with tons of coverage coming your way at Collider! You won’t want to miss it! In the meantime, check out my interview with Joel and his Animal Controlco-star Ravi Patel, and hear about their experience working with Joel’s Community co-star, Ken Jeong.
It’s not every day that you get to talk to your comedy heroes but when you do, it’s a moment that sticks with you and one that truly means the world. In the past four years across two entertainment websites, I’ve been really humbled to chat with Joel McHale almost 10 times for work. Naturally, each time has been so much fun and incredibly special.
He is one of the kindest, funniest, and most down-to-earth people you will ever know! To say just how much Joel’s comedy has meant to me over the years is something I can never quite put into words (but more into LOLs and smiles). I started watching his version of The Soup from the very start and I was glued — like thighs on a plastic seat during a hot summer’s day. I literally grew up with the show and went through so much of life with it. My sister’s illness, relationship heartache, good jobs, bad jobs, all of it. Like how Conan O’Brien is a big part of my childhood salvation, Joel is too and I’ll never be able to say thank you, no matter how much I try. His comedy has meant a lot to me and I’m eternally grateful.
It’s been a while since I’ve checked out the WordPress Prompts and last week’s was an interesting one that had me thinking.
If there’s one piece of advice I would give my teenage self, it would be to understand that loving people doesn’t mean you let them hurt you. This applies to friendships, family, and of course, relationships. It could also really extend to how much time and love you put into your job and how it treats you in return. But as a teenager, I compromised my feelings a lot of times for others. I never stood up to bullies, I let “friends” practice passive aggressive communication, use me as a punching bag, and by the time I got into my early 20s, I let a lot of things slide.
While I like to think I’ve made some solid progress in understanding my heart over the years and what it endured, there’s a short prose that has stuck with me from Yung Pueblo’s book, Clarity & Connection. He wrote:
“Sometimes it takes your heart breaking a few times for you to become independent in important and healthy ways. heartbreak shows you that your self-worth and wholeness should not depend on another's words or love. use the hurt as a map that leads inward to pursue your healing and ignite your self-love.”
Though I sought solace in books growing up, I sometimes wish I had Pueblo’s works available because it would have really helped navigate my feelings and thoughts as a young woman. Keeping these words close to my heart, I’ve felt they speak strongly to one specific relationship and how it greatly influenced who I am today.
Almost 15 years ago, I fell in love with someone I trusted and deeply valued as a true friend. I thought the world of him and did for years even when he ghosted me for periods of time and only returned when he needed something. I cared about him so much that when we parted ways, I was quick to forgive him for all the hurt inflicted on me. But the truth of the matter was, I didn’t feel it in my heart days later — the weight of relief and letting go. Almost a decade later, I realize I didn’t need to forgive him because he really hurt me.
In ignoring my own feelings for his so that he could get off the hook and my love for him would be “noble,” it ate at me. For the first time in my life, I wondered why I let someone I love and care for walk all over me. I began to hate myself because I didn’t understand why I felt so much pain for someone who made it so easy to just let go. But it should have made sense because he initiated everything, so it was like playing one of his video games. He could turn it off when he wanted to. He was every bit of the “casually cruel in the name of being honest” type.
Looking back, I didn’t see the red flags because it was a relationship through rose-colored glasses. Only now do I understand how he treated me in those microscopic moments spoke to a larger view of his character. He dehumanized me because he was protecting himself and it always stemmed from his perpetual unhappiness. It spoke a lot to his privilege, what it means to be a man who gets the last word, and the toxic environment of imbalance he had succumbed to, both internally and externally. But to the open-hearted me who trusted him with my heart, he could do no wrong — like that time he scolded me on the phone for not picking up in time or telling me to “shut up” when I tried to explain myself mid-argument. Or that time he manipulated my vulnerability to get what he wanted when I had just revealed to him my maternal grandma’s death.
When I was an up-and-coming reporter making coffee money, a work interview went past our “date night” hour and I felt awful. But instead of him understanding or being supportive knowing I needed this assignment to get my foot in the door, he got pissy after I got off and ghosted me for a week. He went on to pretend we never had “date night.” The gaslighting and lying were real. But I endured it because I thought it was love and he always came around most sweetly and tenderly, using humor to connect us back.
But in all the ways he hurt me, I realized in the years that followed how loving yourself and others unconditionally needs to be a balance between protecting yourself and giving yourself to others. Whatever was left across the purest parts of my shattered heart, I put into my work — all my writing and poetry, the fragmented script we once worked on, even the on-camera conversations I have with industry talent about love and relationships to this day — all of it. I let all of that guide me to where I am now and I feel better for it. I don’t feel that pulsing ache, even though it has definitely left a scar.
I am not saying a broken heart is a blessing and a module in “Self-Discovery 101,” but I am saying I found my own way through it and used that hurt as a road map. I took all of that love and pain and planted it into something else, which meant I got to share another variation of that love with those around me. Not only has this all helped me understand love and the type of partner I want, but it reinforces how everything starts with loving myself first.
It was a dream meeting Ethan Hawke over the weekend while at @Collider’s MARBL Toronto studio for #Wildcat. He’s wonderful! I got to thank him for his movies and books including my favorite, “Ash Wednesday,” which he signed. Thank you @PNemiroff for making this happen! #TIFF23pic.twitter.com/nxH6JOWgJe
January is almost done and honestly, it’s been such a crazy month. As I try to get back into blogging more regularly, I am so humbled by my first year at Collider. I’ve been so grateful to cover some super fun events and while we are planning for the next ones, a big favorite from last year just so happened to be my “premiere” at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.
For years, all I ever heard when requesting to cover this at work was “no,” “not really” and “nah.” But finally, last September, I got a chance to be a part of it — and most importantly, with a team that equally appreciates film as much as I do. I’ve been watching the festival and its highlights on the local news since I was a little girl and always said to myself that I’d cover it one day. I never knew how or when, but I knew it would happen. When I started writing professionally in 2008, I thought now was the time. It wasn’t — and it wasn’t for at least 15 years. Fast forward to today and I’m really glad that day finally came and with my Collider team of all teams, who were so supportive and helpful in this whole process. I’m so grateful.
While meeting my work family was an incredible highlight, one of my all-time favorite moments was meeting Ethan Hawke, who came into our Collider studio with his daughter, Maya Hawke for their film Wildcat. He was very sweet and kind, and just so warm. We spoke for a few minutes — a conversation I’ll keep close to me. He also signed my copy of “Ash Wednesday,” which meant a lot and just had me over the moon all month. Big thanks to my coworker for giving me the courage too. I am usually so cool around people when I’m doing interviews, but I was absolutely starstruck, haha! Not since meeting Brad Pitt and the Coen Brothers did I feel this way — but that’s a story for another day (blog post).
I can’t wait for the next event! You will have to stay tuned for what comes next. But in the meantime, check out some more photos from my TIFF 23 experience, and read my reviews or tap to check out all our coverage, helped ideated by yours truly!
After months of organizing 15 years of writing and scouring the web for some of my older work, I finally got my website live earlier this month — taniahussain.com!
If you know everything I’ve been through and what it took to get to where I am, you know it was an emotional journey for me. I’m not going to get into a whole thing about my career, but I do want to say how grateful I am to those that have been there for me from the start.
Life pushed me onto the road less travelled and while it wasn’t easy, I’m so grateful to have a steadfast faith in God and a support system that humbles me constantly. I’ve been so blessed to have family and friends who believe in me when I sometimes find it hard to do it myself. Thank you to my family, all my friends and mentors for being there. Without further adieu, check me out at my official website below!
When her husband assumed the presidency, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote It’s Up to the Women, a book written during the height of the Great Depression brimming with advice to women of all ages, on every aspect of life. She became a champion of women’s rights and of civil rights, and today is honored with the foundation Eleanor‘s Legacy which recruits, trains and supports pro-choice Democrat women to run for state and local office throughout New York.
It’s a foundation I love and first learned about from my very dear and amazingly kind-hearted friend Caileigh Scott, who is also a member of the organization lending her voice and support in making a difference. (She is a literal superhero, I love her! Go give her a follow on Instagram.) When you realize women make up 51% of the U.S. population but are only a mere 23% in Congress, you know it’s time for women to take a seat and make a difference. Why sit back and be passive about laws being decided by archaic, patriarchal models based on ideologies of cis-white men? It makes no sense. When women run and win, we all win and that’s the goal here with this super cute tee I bought from Shop Social Goods that helps fund Eleanor’s Legacy and its Conference Committee, which aids in the continuation of its creation and funding of a pipeline for women leaders up and down the ballot across the city. If you would like to get one, head to their shop! This is an off-white tee, super adorable and comfy, and printed by Prink Shop.
One of my absolute favorite sitcoms this season has been Ghosts on CBS! If you haven’t tuned in yet, you are seriously missing out. It is incredibly funny, so cleverly written, and just wonderfully cast with a very talented and gifted group of performers that I love and respect so much and am honored to have in my life. I’ve had a chance to cover the show at PopCulture.com since its premiere last October and have been fortunate to chat with the showrunners and every cast member about their quirky characters and storylines every week. It might seem strange to say — call it fate or luck, but this beautiful, sweet and magical show landed in my lap at the most opportune time in my life when I had just lost one of my best friends to suicide and to have this show kind of fill in the gaps, and then chat with these wonderful, beautiful kind people about it has been a godsend and one that has left me in a new phase of life. One where I am the happiest I’ve ever been, while also filled with love and friendship.
With the series brilliantly encapsulating a sincerity with immense heart, reminiscent of a familiar hug, it brought to life a subject matter we rarely speak of and one I am grateful for. With the arts like film and TV being accurate representations of how we interpret life, Ghosts offers room to understanding grief in this affable, humorous containment of sorts. One that encourages healing with stories that are charming and permit reflection of that pain because it is understood and appreciated in terms of grief’s take on loss and rebuilding. Most of all and through conversations with the cast, it has opened up parts of my heart I haven’t recognized in a while and I am so grateful for it. Through conversations with these genuine spirits and the show’s sharp sense of humor, this series has shown me how valuable it is to be the things you loved most about those who are gone and I think that is the greatest testament to the ones we love. (For more on these thoughts and how the show brought to life a controversial theme, please read this.)
Go check out the coverage of the show here at PopCulture, and watch the show this summer on CBS! Below, check out a playlist of all my on-camera interviews with the cast, including Utkarsh Ambudkar, Asher Grodman, Richie Moriarty, Devan Chandler Long, Román Zaragoza, Sheila Carrasco, Danielle Pinnock and Rebecca Wisocky.
And check out some of my favorite micro-moments from our full-length interviews:
As this blog’s history has seen, Wisdom Wednesday is usually just a few quotes that really mean something to me. But because the last few years have been up and down through learning experiences that hit both internally and externally, I wanted to do something different.
Every Wednesday (or so), I’d like to share things I’ve learned over the years stemming from events that have opened my eyes like relationships, friendships, family and sadly, death. For those wondering what the title of this blog signifies, it’s just one of my favorite songs from Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum that’s left me with a lot of thought at the end of some very starry nights.
To kick off this Wisdom Wednesday 2.0, here are seven things you should never apologize for.
Failing. It is not a permanent experience.
Following your dreams even if others don’t believe in it or they sound silly.
Putting yourself first. Your self-worth impacts your relationships, emotional and mental health.
Wanting more. Why should you settle?
Trusting your instincts. If you have to rely on others for your answers, you are living wrong.
Making mistakes. No one’s got it all figured out — and I still don’t.
Loving someone. Especially if you’ve been made to feel bad about it.
What are some things you won’t ever feel sorry about or apologize for? Share in the comments below and give the song a listen while you’re at it!
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