BINGELY STREAMING

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND

Netflix Original

Netflix

We have all seen a number of shifts that have taken place in the last few years; however, Leave The World Behind looks at what

happens when regardless of your social status, you find yourself in a situation where a cyber attack not only makes us disconnected, but even nature and the natural order of things gets disrupted. How do we interact with one another, and how do we navigate when the rules that we know and follow no longer exists.

REACHER

Amazon Original

Prime Video

Reacher is back with Season Two as we follow Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson), a veteran military police officer who ultimately wants to explore the country that he fought for. To that end, he wants to travel around the country with few things that tie him down; however, he finds himself in a number of situations that require him to have to fight to survive. If you have yet to watch the first season, now is a great time to catch up before delving into the 2nd season.

This month, streaming now, the second season finds him receiving a message that members of his former unit are being murdered and he must connect with former team members to find out what happened to them.

As they delve into what happened, they continue to unearth more questions - who set them up and who is the one that will die?

MY FUGITIVE DAD

Smoke Screen, The Binge + Sony Music

Spotify

We've been fans of Smoke Screen that focuses on those who are con artists, cult leaders, and those who are complex characters that bend the rules to navigate their lives. This season in My Fugitive Dad, we learn about a father and dad who have a close relationship where she felt that she knew everything about him. But it wasn't until she was 38, that she realized her dad wasn't who he thought he was.

She learns that her father's favorite movie, Thomas Crown Affair was the inspiration behind a robbery that he did in Cleveland and then he he spent half a century in a quiet New England town. His secrets unearth a number of other secrets in his life, his family's as well as other family's.

With his daughter seeking answers on how he got away with his crimes, US Marshal's looking for him, and finding out how he started over - this season has a number of twists and turns!

Read the DEC ISSUE #96 of Athleisure Mag and see BINGELY STREAMING in mag.

AWARDS SEASON | SAG AWARDS NOMINATIONS

The 30th SAG Awards will take place on Feb 24th and for the first time will be streaming globally on Netflix. Our predictions are in bold, the ones we correctly identified as winners are in bold italics and winners that we didn’t predict are in italics.

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

American Fiction

Barbie

The Color Purple

Killers of the Flower Moon

Oppenheimer

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Bradley Cooper – Maestro

Colman Domingo – Rustin

Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers

Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer

Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role

Annette Bening – Nyad

Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon

Carey Mulligan – Maestro

Margot Robbie – Barbie

Emma Stone – Poor Things

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role

Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction

Willem Dafoe – Poor Things

Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon

Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer

Ryan Gosling – Barbie

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role

Emily Blunt – Oppenheimer

Danielle Brooks – The Color Purple

Penelope Cruz – Ferrari

Jodie Foster – Nyad

Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series

The Crown

The Gilded Age

The Last of Us

The Morning Show

Succession

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series

Abbot Elementary

Barry

The Bear

Only Murders in the Building

Ted Lasso

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series

Brian Cox – Succession

Billy Crudup – The Morning Show

Kieran Culkin – Succession

Matthew Macfadyen – Succession

Pedro Pascal – The Last of Us

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series

Jennifer Aniston – The Morning Show

Elizabeth Debicki – The Crown

Bella Ramsey – The Last of Us

Keri Russell – The Diplomat

Sarah Snook – Succession

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series

Alex Borstein – The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Rachel Brosnahan – The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Quinta Brunson – Abbott Elementary

Ayo Edebiri – The Bear

Hannah Waddingham – Ted Lasso

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series

Brett Goldstein – Ted Lasso

Bill Hader – Barry

Ebon Moss-Bachrach – The Bear

Jason Sudeikis – Ted Lasso

Jeremy Allen White – The Bear

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series

Uzo Aduba – Painkiller

Kathryn Hahn – Tiny Beautiful Things

Brie Larson – Lessons in Chemistry

Bel Powley – A Small Light

Ali Wong – Beef

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series

Matt Bomer – Fellow Travelers

Jon Hamm – Fargo

David Oyelowo – Lawmen: Bass Reeves

Tony Shalhoub – Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie

Steven Yeun – Beef

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series

Ahsoka

Barry

Beef

The Last of Us

The Mandalorian

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture

Barbie

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

John Wick: Chapter 4

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Read the latest issue of Athleisure Mag.

BINGELY STREAMING

AKA MR. CHOW

HBO Original

Max

We always enjoy a good documentary and in aka MR. CHOW, we get to know the bigger than life story about Michael Chow who was born, Zhuo Yinghua. His life is one that the tragedies he endured with trauma, loss, and prejudice never stopped him from being a successful businessman, acting, and becoming the very well known restaurateur, Mr. Chow. His ability to host artists, actors, musicians, designers, and models made him the one that everyone wanted to be around. And as is true with how he has navigated his life, he is engaging on his next reinvention, being the artist M where he has embraced this passion that he has always enjoyed.

SLY

Netflix Original

Netflix

When it comes to an action star, Sylvester Stallone gave us characters and stories that allowed us to enjoy big explosions, navigate hardship, and still be able to find the sensitivities that lies within whom he portrays.

For those that don't know how he made a niche for himself, this documentary takes you through his beginning acting days, meeting and befriending Henry Winkler, and being willing to play roles where he was typecast just so he could get his foot in the door.

Ultimately, he realized that if he wanted to truly use his gifts in the way that he saw himself, he would need to write, direct, and act in his own movies. Thus, he created the Rocky franchise and the Rambo franchise and proved that he could bring his characters to the screen that we could cheer for as they proved that good could truly prevail over evil.

Sly also shows how he navigated the industry by continuing to act in other films, even if they were outside of how we saw him and how he continued to prove that he could keep pushing the envelope of the franchise with The Expendables!

He also reflects on his life as he continues to do what he loves most. In addition to Sly, there are a number of people who share their thoughts from Quentin Tarantino, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Talia Shire, Henry Winkler and Frank Stallone Jr.

THE WEDDING SCAMMER

The Ringer

Spotify

We enjoy listening to podcasts from The Ringer that includes recaps and analyses on our favorite TV shows.

In their first True Crime podcast, The Wedding Scammer introduces us to the ultimate scammer who has multiple aliases, has left many debts in his wake as well as devestated those in the wedding as well as the publishing industry! Hosted by Justin Sayles, he is on a quest to get his answers.

Read the NOV ISSUE #96 of Athleisure Mag and see Bingely Streaming in mag.

BINGELY STREAMING

REPTILE

Netflix Original

Netflix

What happens when the life that you thought that you knew isn't what it seems and in the end, you realize that you're in the midst of a coverup that makes it incredibly difficult to get out of? In Reptile, we're introduced to a real estate family that does a little more than selling houses. Will Grady (Justin Timberlake) is living the dream and seems to have a great life along with a woman that he loves.

We also get to know more about a police officer, Nichols (Benicio Del Toro) and his crew! The two worlds of these men as well as those associated come together in a thriller that leaves you constantly wondering how all of this is connected and where as well as what is the lie?

This is the perfect movie to watch on a weekend solo or with friends!

FBOY ISLAND

CW Original

CW App

We have been fans of FBOY Island for the past 2 seasons on Max as this social experiment is definitely next level when it comes to women finding their ideal man. Now that they have made the move to The CW, we're glad that Nikki Glaser is back navigating the relationships between the 3 women this season and those who are FBOYs and Nice Guys! Interestingly enough, of the 3 contestants that we will get to know more about, Katie Thurston from Season 17 of The Bachelorette is competing for love! It's an interesting crossover, but we know that the Executive Producer, Elan Gale, previously worked on The Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise. In addition to Katie, she is joined by model Hali Okeowo and social media influencer Daniella Grace.

We can't wait to see what will take place this season and to see how these women will go about the experience!

EVEN THE RICH - COURTNEY LOVE: NOBODY'S DAUGHTER

Wondery

Spotify

Even the Rich is a great series that has a number of episodes that focus on getting the inside scoop of a celeb or noted person that you know. You get to know about how they got to where they are, what they had to navigate in order to be who they are, and where they are now!

Previous series have included Jay-Z and Beyonce, The Royals, Selena and so much more! Currently, they are focusing on Courtney Love! In this series we'll get to know more about her, her career, and beyond. Hosts Brooke Siffrinn and Aricia Skidmore-Williams will take us on this journey as well as give a few insights along the way!

Read the OCT ISSUE #94 of Athleisure Mag and see Bingely Streaming in mag.

REGE-JEAN PAGE + SEEDLIP CAMPAIGN

Fans of Netflix's Bridgerton are very familiar with Regé-Jean Page and avid readers of Athleisure Mag know that we have shared Seedlip before when we interviewed Celebrity Event Planner, Mindy Weiss last holiday season! The non-alcoholic brand announced their first major marketing campaign for the brand in over three years Choose Different, a series of compelling content that encourages people to taste more in every occasion. We’re sure that there will be a number of recipes that will take your mocktails to the next level as we navigate the fall and the holiday season.

BINGELY STREAMING

DONYALE LUNA SUPERMODEL

HBO Original

Max

When we look back at the first Black Supermodel, many of us think of Beverly Johnson; however, in HBO's Donyale Luna Supermodel, we are introduced to the first, who covered Harper's Bazaar Magazine, was in a number of campaigns, shot by leading photographers, and jetsetted throughout Europe when she realized that making it here in the US as a Black woman from Detroit wouldn't be a reality for her.

She lives a life as a model and creative who simply wanted to find a place that she could call home, be accepted, and shine in her own skin. Throughout the documentary we learn about her life, her iconic poses, and luminaries in the industry talk about those who opened doors for her as well as those that kept it shut. The importance in reclaiming this history so that more can be aware of her story is one that we truly enjoyed in this documentary.

LOVE IS BLIND

Netflix Series

Netflix

We love a good social experiment and we're back in the pods for the 5th season of Netflix's Love is Blind, we see another round of those who are looking to find their match without seeing one another. They're able to date in pods, talk about their interests, and what a life would be like together, and then if they get engaged, they only see each other when they accept!

Afterwards, they go on a vacation where all the couples are able to begin their lives and then they go

home so that they can see whether they can continue to be with one another as well as to meet their families. In the end, they will see if love is blind if they end up getting married and avid viewers of the show always like seeing the after show as well as another episode that shows what happened with those involved! It kicks off on Sept 22nd with initial episodes and over the 3 week period, additional episodes will be available on Fri.

EXPOSED: COVER UP AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Wondery

Spotify

When you go to a trusted OB-GYN at Columbia University, you expect a higher level of care. But hundreds and possibly thousands of women were allegedly assaulted by Dr. Robert Hadden and although many tried to be heard, it seemed like he wouldn't be held accountable until the survivors engaged in a decade-long fight for justice.

In Wondery’s Exposed: Cover Up at Columbia University, medical journalist Laura Beil shares their stories, what they endured, the cover-up, and how the women got their power back.

Read the SEP ISSUE #92 of Athleisure Mag and see BINGELY STREAMING in mag.

THE VISION | JERMELLE SIMON

There are so many options and genres of shows that we can watch and when it comes to streaming, the possibilities are beyond endless. With so much going on, we do love our feel good shows that take us away from our day-to-day! Earlier this summer, we took some time to talk with Jermelle Simon of NETFLIX's The Upshaws which is one of the top rated shows on the platform who just finished Season 3 earlier this year and Season 4 drops this month! We wanted to talk about his career, his experience on the stage, his Denzel Washington story, being on The Upshaws, and his focus on fitness as a means to make sure that you put yourself first!

This article has heavy spoilers and we talk about a number of plot points, cliffhangers, and arcs from the first 3 seasons of this show. If you have yet to watch and want to be spoiler free, binge the episodes now and then come back to enjoy this article. We have a light discussion on Season 4 as well; however, that discussion is spolier free.

This interview was conducted in May 2023, prior to the start of the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike which began on July 14.

ATHLEISURE MAG: When did you realize that you wanted to be an actor?

JERMELLE SIMON: I don’t know if I ever realized it! I just remember being in the 3rd grade and we had to do a play as part of our curriculum and I remember having that feeling like, “man, I love to pretend, I love to be someone else.” It’s fun and interesting to me and obviously, I couldn’t express it at 8 or 9 or whatever that age is when you’re in the 3rd grade. That feeling just kind of kept growing and I kept craving it and by 5th grade, I was in Drama Club and I think that that is when it hit. I was in the 5th grade, I started to understand it a little bit more. I thought that everyone liked it at first, you know what I mean? I thought it was so great and then I realized that I was the only other one doing it.

AM: I love that! Before we delve into The Upshaws, what is your process in terms of how you prepare for your roles in general and how do you sync in with your characters?

JS: I think just understanding the story. So reading the script and understanding what story the writer is trying to tell. What’s my role in the story? Am I an antagonist, the protagonist, am I comedic relief? You know, it’s about understanding my role in the entire script and then I think that with years of people watching, the stories that are on television, I think that we have always seen those characters before. Maybe I have an aunt or an uncle or even with me having children, with my role now, it was easy to dive into the father aspect, because I have 3 children. Sometimes it’s based off of experience and sometimes it’s based off of people watching, and having a huge imagination!

AM: Exaclty!

JS: I think that that helps a lot too. Repetition – I think that I read that a lot of actors read a script over 100 times. You know it front and back. I can’t build up enough stamina to read it 100 times, but I have read a script 10 times and I know that that’s enough for me. This way, I know that I know the story front and back. I think that it’s one of those magical things where you sleep on it and then it just clicks! I don’t know, it’s a hard thing to explain, but it will click especially after you understand the story. So I think that the most important thing is to understand the story that you’re telling and the part that you play in the story that you’re telling.

AM: We read that you also have experience on the stage. You were in August Wilson’s (The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Radio Golf) Fences for 8 weeks where you played Cory. But you actually got the opportunity to audition for Denzel Washington (Training Day, American Gangster, Equalizer franchise) at his home to play that character in the film adaptation. What was that experience like?

JS: You know what’s so wild? That story still anchors me in those times where I’m feeling inadequate. You know even when I am on a hit show like on Netflix, you’re still human and there are those moments where you don’t feel as confident and you don’t feel as talented. I just think that any artist kind of feels that way. I always go back to, man, I was at Denzel Washington’s house with Viola Davis (How to Get Away with Murder, DC’s Suicide Squad franchise, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Denzel Washington, the whole cast! In order to get to that space, this kind of has to be for you. That always reminds me that this is for me.

To this day, I think that it was one of the most extraordinary things that has ever happened to me. To the point that sometimes I don’t even believe that it happened!

AM: We have to admit that when we read that, we were like, he’s in this man’s house with all of these people – that is a moment. There are times regardless of your vertical or career that you can have amazing things happen, but in the course of things, you ask yourself is this it? You question that which you have excelled at for a number of reasons. But then you think about moments that took place that like you said, you wonder if that happened and you grasp it and realize that you are where you need to be and it gives you that fuel for whatever it is that you do in life.

JS: Yes! That’s what it is. It fills you up! Those are constantly in your memory bank and it’s always one of those things that I can always go back to regardless. If I ever work with them again – I just recently saw Viola Davis at the NAACP Image Awards and I saw her before that at an Oscar Gifting Suite and each time I see her, I forget that she knows me and that she remembers me! That’s still so shocking to me, because I will say, “oh, I worked with you” and she’ll say, “I know." Then I remind myself that I don’t have to say that every time that I see her because I’m just in such a shock that she remembers that.

It was like a 6 week process. I was in the running, I was in the top 3. It was a journey for sure that still gives me high vibrations. In this industry, you need as much as you can because it’s such an up and down thing. Like right now, we’re in the writer’s strike and they should get the things that they deserve and that means that everything has to kind of shut down. So, I’m not working right now and you just go through so many things being an actor in this industry. It comes with so much and so the things that you can hang onto that help you feel confident to feel better, because you still have to go through everyday life. I was just telling a friend today that sometimes it’s difficult because even on the days that you don’t want to perform, you have to and it’s like sometimes you have to be someone else and you do that when you’re on a show. I have to – my job is to become a whole different person. That takes so much energy and me and Kim Fields (Living Single, Insecure, All the Queen’s Men), we were just talking about that the other week. It’s like, our job is to become these people and I don’t think that people realize how that can be exhausting because that takes all of you. To do it justice, to do it right, you have to give all of you because people can sense when you’re not. I know that that’s a long answer!

AM: You’re absolutely right in what you shared. Even in life sometimes in general. I’m a big believer in dramaturgical behavior in the sense that we have many masks that we wear, even if it’s authentic to us. How you are with your best friend might be different from your mom and when you’re in those circles like that, it can be exhausting!

JS: Yes! That’s so true. Because even how I am as a father is completely different then how I am as a friend or how I am as an actor. You know, I try to blend it all. Even when I first started giving interviews, especially when I was doing press for this, I felt that I needed to say this answer and needed to say whatever. Now, I’m learning to just be me and people are appreciating that more and I’m always thinking that I over share and talk too much and then people will be like, “no, we love that!”

AM: Exactly!

JS: I would apologize and I know I did it a few times here and you and other people have been like, we want to hear you, we want to hear who you are. That’s ok and people love authenticity! That’s what makes you who you are and everyone is different and can bring something different to the table and it’s all equally important. So I’m just now learning that on my 3rd season of the show. I think that everything happens so fast and all at once and I had to catch up to it.

AM: You know what, sometimes it’s just a process!

How did you find out about The Upshaws, the character, and what drew you to want to be part of it?

JS: I felt like it was just like any other day where your manager or agent sends you an audition and when you’re on the come up, you’ll kind of do any role to kind of get on. Because I think it’s like so many different worlds and realms that factor in. Like you have the time when no one knows you yet and so you audition for everything, you’re doing commercials and anything that you can to make the dollar because LA is expensive. Then not only that, but you just love acting and the craft, so anytime that you can play, you do it!

So that’s how it started. It was any other audition and I was like here I go, I’m going to give it all I’ve got. Every audition I give it all I’ve got. But I did look at it and I saw Netflix and that was like a dream of mine. I think that a lot of actors have that dream. I mean. Netflix is a powerhouse and they’re the largest streaming platform in the world! It’s international and it’s all the things! So I saw that – then sometimes you can see that and then it can play with your confidence a little bit. So you start to second guess yourself – am I right for this – is it too big for me? Even though you want it, it’s intimidating because it’s Netflix. Then I see Mike Epps (Uncle Buck series, The Hangover, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins), Kim Fields, Wanda Sykes (Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Black-ish) and I’m like – I had to let it go. I let those parts go – the parts that scared me like those names, the platform.

I released it and then it goes back to that Denzel story. I had such an intense scene with him but in that scene, I had to let go of the fact that it was Denzel. I know what I’m doing when it comes to acting and I just had to go for what I know and I know how to embody this Cory character. I don’t care who it is, you lose yourself in that moment.

So I did that same kind of thing when I auditioned for this show. I released Netflix and I released the names. So I did that and I have had many auditions, but this one, I knew that my first audition that if I got a callback for it, then this would be mine. The process is that you go for your initial one, then they call you back and then they might call you back for the 3rd time. Maybe a 4th time and then you test. But I knew that if I got a call back for this one, it’s over!

AM: You’re like, it’s mine!

JS: I get the callback and immediately, I stop second guessing myself. This is how far I went into it. I already knew what I was going to post. It was a meme and he was in the car, his name is Desi Banks and he’s an online comedian. He’s in the car with the top down saying, “yes sir!!!” He’s hyped because something happened. I couldn’t obviously say what it was, but I wanted to do something that was real low key and then people would be wondering. I had everything planned out and I think that I felt it before everything happened. It’s really important to manifest things that I already feel about the thing before the thing even comes and not to wait for the thing to come to then feel it. I feel that people do it backwards. So that was the first time that I've done that where I was already embodying the role and what it would feel like. So I go from that to the callback, 2 days later after the first audition and the callback was at 6pm and my manager called me at 11pm. He told me that I was the choice, we had to go through network approval and he let me know that I had pretty much booked it. What do they say? The rest is history! I didn’t know that it was going to be history like this! I didn’t really realize what I was going to be getting into.

AM: Yeah! I know that the 3rd season was released earlier this year and the 4th season drops in August – doing 2 seasons in the same year!

JS: Yeah, going so fast!

AM: I mean that’s amazing! Before we get into the upcoming season, for our readers who may not have seen this show yet, what is The Upshaws and tell us about your character, Bernard Jr.

JS: The Upshaws is about a Black family based out of Indiana and it’s your Norman Lear (Good Times, All in the Family, The Jeffersons) style sitcom. It’s a bit edgy, we talk about really relatable things, and we bring hilarity to everyday life. I feel like it’s a family that talks about real topics that people really go through. You have a mom, you have a dad, younger children in high school, you have me who my character is the oldest of the Upshaw family. Bennie Upshaw (Mike Epps) has 4 children – Bernard Upshaw Jr., it’s Kelvin (Diamond Lyons), Aaliyah (Khali Daniya-Renee Spraggins), and Maya (Journey Christine). Kelvin is a side kid that Bennie had when he was on a break with Regina, my mom who is played by Kim Fields. You have a show where again, we talk about real life things and we bring light to it, we bring laughter to it, and I think that in the world that we live in now, we need more comfort shows, we need more laughter. I agree that we need all the other things, but laughter is really good for the soul. It’s medicine. So we definitely bring the laughter in each episode and each one has an unexpected twist or turn. Each finale has this cliffhanger that has you on the edge of your seat.

So I think that we’re onto something and that’s why it’s so successful. We have such great writers that are always even for us, that it’s about expecting the unexpected. We go in week after week never knowing what our characters are going to do. I think that that’s the fun part of The Upshaws, it’s always pushing the envelope – we curse. Traditionally, your sitcoms that run on a network, they couldn’t say certain words. We have the freedom to do a lot more things so we can talk about a lot more topics. I think that it makes us that much more relatable.

As far as my character, I play Bernard Upshaw Jr., the oldest of the Upshaw kids. The series starts off with Bernard holding onto this secret and trying to figure his life out. His secret is his sexuality, so he is gay, he doesn’t necessarily know how to come out to his parents so it’s weighing heavy on him and as you can see during the first season, in my opinion he’s very moody and you can just tell that there is something going on. He also has a very challenging relationship with his father who is Bennie Upshaw played by Mike Epps. Bennie and Regina had him when they were kids in high school so he wasn’t there for him as much as he could have been because he was also growing up too. So it was a little bit of a strained relationship with his father because of that as well as with himself because he wasn’t living in his own truth.

As the series continues, you get to see him come out. You see him live out loud, you get to see him become a father. Not to give it all away to those who haven’t seen it – ha!

AM: We have a significant spoiler alert! People need catch up before reading this!

JS: You get to see him become a father, you get to see him date. I think that now in the upcoming season, you get to see him do more of that. You get to dive deeper into who he is as a person because there are levels to everything. We go through different phases in our lives and we just keep growing and growing. You get to see Bernard grow in all of these areas as a partner, a father, and as a family member. So yeah, you get to see him become more and more into the higher version of himself. From Season 1 – Season 3 or from part 1 to part 4, it’s 2 different Bernards.

AM: Which is amazing because like you were talking about, you’re playing so many different complexities and dynamics, we see him struggling with himself and being able to come out and live his truth, then there’s his daughter and what family means and that complexity, and then understanding the relationship with the father dynamic of his dad and himself. Then there’s families you claim versus those you have paradigm as well. Having all of that there, what does it mean to have this form of representation? Growing up as a kid, we had The Cosby Show and other kinds of shows, but this is another kind of representation that is also real and a different dynamic. So what does that mean to you to be able to present that to people?

JS: I love it! I went into this as an actor portraying a role and not really realizing at first, the impact that this show has on people. I think that to be part of something where people feel seen, people feel heard, - so many people reach out and say, “this is such an authentic representation of Black people.” It’s so comforting, this makes me laugh, this is not watered down and I think at first, that was so much pressure to me, because I felt like we had to get it right! It’s like, no, that’s the point.

It’s effortless. The chemistry works it just flows and I think that again at first, it was a lot of pressure. Because even for me and the representation to the gay community, I didn’t really know because I get the question a lot. I didn’t exactly sign up to be a role model, but after the impact and after so many DMs and thank you’s, I realized that it was so important to see yourself because representation shapes how people will react to you. This is how people learn how to live in this world. It’s such a huge responsibility to do it right and I think that I’m just so proud of us for being perfectly imperfect because that is what is needed to be shown on television. Everyone is not the Cosby’s, everyone is not the Winslows.

AM: Yup!

JS: Now we have The Upshaws. I wouldn’t even call it a dysfunctional family, it’s real life. It’s things that happen in real life. I feel super proud to be in a position where me living my dreams helps someone to heal, grow, feel seen, and heard. I feel extremely proud of our writer’s of our castmates, and Netflix for getting it right.

Even for me, for me being on the show, it doesn’t stop it from being my comfort show. A lot of people can’t watch their work. I can put The Upshaws on and I don’t know. It’s one of my comfort shows and it’s always weird to say because it can seem so egotistical when I’m putting on my own show while I’m cleaning up. Me and my son have this thing because I let him watch the show – he loves it. I make breakfast Saturday morning and we sit and he picks his favorite episode of the show because it is our comfort show you know? He gets to see himself you know? I think that that’s just really important for you to be able to see yourself and we provide that for people in a way that some people have not seen before.

AM: What can you tell us, if anything about the upcoming season or what we should keep an eye out for?

JS: I really do think that it’s full of unexpected surprises. I think that in this sitcom world, you can do so many things. We have always had our groove and our chemistry, but you have to remember that part 1, we were all kind of strangers to one another and we still had that chemistry. Now, 3 years later, we’re still working together and I said this in another interview – you can’t tell me that these people aren’t my family. This is legit my family. So going to work, with my family – you can expect this season to have more chemistry and I think that we take more risks because we’re more comfortable with each other. The writers know how to write for us. They always knew but we collaborate now. It’s a well-oiled machine. I think that we have upped the ante with the twists and turns that we have. Our finale is bizarre. It’s really going to keep you on the edge of your seat. Just like in the previous seasons, but I think that it’s like 2.0 now!

AM: Oh wow. I can only imagine.

JS: We watch the show. We’re filming it every week. So we never know what to expect. So when we see it, it’s like how the viewers are doing it when they’re bingeing. For ever how many weeks we do it, we have to put that time into it and we see it weekly. I have to ask myself, “I wonder what Bernard is going to do next?” I’m rooting for him and I want to see what happens. I have to wait week by week! It’s exciting.

AM: Are there any other upcoming projects that we should keep an eye out for that you can share?

JS: Right now, I’m still auditioning. My main focus right now is The Upshaws, but I’m putting it out there that I am going to do a film this summer. Don’t know which one, but it’s going to be something, I already feel it. You know, when we have our next conversation, we can talk about it.

AM: You are passionate about fitness and you have a fitness app. Tell us about this as in looking at your IG, you’re not just acting, you have other things that you are also involved in.

JS: Yes, I have a fitness line called Jrambo Bands which are resistance bands that come in a 3-pack. They’re 5lbs, 10lbs, and 20lbs. It’s like all of your at home essentials for people who feel that maybe the gym isn’t convenient or they are too intimidated so they can work from home. I have ab belts that’s a belt you put on that’s similar to a waist trainer so it can assist you in being able to lose the water weight. This way you can have a more defined stomach. I recently came out with gym bags which is an all in one that you can use as a carryon for your flights or as an everyday bag. It’s my Jrambo bags and it should be out soon.

I’m just building that because I have such an extreme passion for fitness because a couple of years ago, I started training with a trainer. I loved the results, but I love how it made me feel and I think with me being an actor, you need all the confidence that you can get. It gave me such confidence because I was connected with myself, being disciplined, stretching myself far beyond what I could be, and it gave me that superhuman kind of feeling. I wanted everyone to feel that way. Everyone deserves to feel like, “man, I’m really doing this!” Because you’re constantly when you’re working out and are part of that lifestyle, you’re constantly choosing yourself.

AM: That’s right!

JS: I think that that is important in any kind of career – any position in life. If you’re constantly choosing yourself, you can’t fail. So I wanted to spread that feeling to a lot of people and I started off doing classes. I became a personal trainer, but I have way too much energy as you can tell to be with just one person! So my classes are Jrambo HIIT which is high intensity interval training. Jrambo - long story short – comes from one day I walked into a gym and I sweat a lot when I work out. So I put a bandana on my head and they said Jermabo and I said, “what – I like that, but let me change it to Jrambo,” and it just sort of stuck.

AM: Love it!

JS: So it’s my Sasha Fierce like Beyoncé! So I use that and everything is Jrambo Bands, Jrambo Bags, Jrambo Abs and that’s where that came from! My classes, once I got the show, I couldn’t teach my classes so I developed that app. So the app where I train people with the classes is Jrambo HIITs.com. I come from South Carolina where it’s Soul Food capitol to me. So I’ve learned how to eat now. I fell in love with wellness and health and wellness in general. That keeps me busy when acting is not. I think that people should have multiple passions and multiple things that make you feel alive!

IG @jermellesimon

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | PG 134 + 137 Russell Baer | PG 138 Max Hemphill | PG 142 - 147 Netflix |

Read the AUG ISSUE #92 of Athleisure Mag and see THE VISION | Jermelle Simon in mag.

BINGELY STREAMING

SHELTER

Prime Video Series

Prime Video

Bestselling mystery and thriller author, Harlan Coben brings his book Shelter as a series as we find out the connection between a family, town, and whether death is as finite as we believe it to be.

We get to know about Mickey Bolitar (Jaden Michael) who goes back to his father's NJ suburban town after his death. Although there is something nostalgic about having his aunt, Shira Bolitar (Constance Zimmer) take care of him, playing basketball in the same school as his dad and making friends. There is something idyllic about this quaint town. Through a series of strange events, disappearances and secrets, he works with his friends Ema (Abigale Corrigan) and Spoon (Adrian Greensmith) to figure out how his dad's death is connected to the unease that continues to grow within him.

SURVIVE THE RAFT

Discovery

Max

We enjoy a good reality competition show that shifts the social experimentation paradigm! The premise of Survive the Raft is inspired by the 1973 Acali Experiment by Mexican anthropologist, Santiago Genovés. He curated a group of people from varying backgrounds to see how they would come together, live, work, and accomplish goals. The experiment had a lot of conflict and tensions.

With this experiment and the studies that resulted from it, this competition builds on that and is hosted by Nate Boyer (US Army Green Beret, NFL Seattle Seahawks, Mayans MC) who announces the challenges to the contestants who live on the raft and work together in order to win money for the group. The contestants do a series of challenges, navigate conflicts and even have opportunities to win money for themselves without the group knowing or to stay true to the assignment to build the pot for everyone to share equally. It's a game of the ultimate believe in unity as well as questioning whether those you came in with should stay or be swapped with those that are a better fit!

PAINKILLERS

Netflix Originals

Netflix

Painkillers, a Netflix Original Series focuses on the opioid epidemic that we have been navigating for the last few decades. The availability of these drugs comes with immense consequences and this series follows all who are involved from the companies that make the drugs, the victims that use it, those who are related to users who are also caught up the effects and the investigation of how all of these elements converge together.

Read the AUG ISSUE #92 of Athleisure Mag and see Bingely Streaming in mag.

THE DESCENT | LAURA MCGANN

Prior to the release of Netflix's The Deepest Breath, we had the pleasure of watching the screener for this documentary film that not only brings us into the world of freediving, the relationships between freedivers as well as safety divers, but the dedication and the complete use of the athlete's body when they are competing. We are introduced to Alessia Zecchini who is known as the Deepest Women on Earth at 123 meters, 38X Freediving World Record, and 17X World Champ. We also meet her safety, Stephen "Steve" Keenan who was passionate about this sport as well as protecting the freedivers who continue to trailblaze in this sport.

For those that may not be aware, we wanted to give a bit of background on the sport as well as some terminology. Freediving is the practice of holding your breath when diving underwater without the use of breathing equipment, such as a scuba tank. This takes on more meaning when you realize that prior to Alessia winning the 2023 AIDA Oceanquest Philippines in Camotes Island, she broke a world record in the Bifins discipline during the 2023 Secret Blue International Depth Competition in the Philippines by achieving a 109 meter dive in 3 mins and 38 seconds. She broke her own 2-day old record of 107 meters set on a 3 min 26 sec dive in March and surpassed the previous AIDA record by a 10meter margin. Her world and Italian records are definitely astounding and even more so when you realize that this is done by simply holding your breath as depths are being navigated!

In this sport, there are blue holes which are a large marine cavern or inkhole, which is open to the surface and has developed in a bank or island composed of a carbonate bedrock. They can be an oasis in an otherwise barren seafloor. Blue holes are diverse biological communities full of marine life, including corals, sponges, mollusks, sea turtles, sharks, and more.

If you have yet to see this documentary film, you can stream this now on Netflix, but this interview may have spoilers. We sat down with the film's director, Laura McGann to find out about why she wanted to share this true story, bring this sport to life, show how one trains to do it, and to transport us to phenomenal locales around the world.

ATHLEISURE MAG: What drew you to want to direct The Deepest Breath and how did you find out about this story?

LAURA MCGANN: Look, I love the sea and we moved to live by the sea because we love swimming all year around and it gives me a lot. I’m a better person for the sea for sure!

So I suppose, that I would be attracted to anything about it and I remember seeing it in the Irish Times and I didn’t know what freediving was and I had to Google it. I was met by these incredible images of humans behaving more like dolphins and holding their breath for what felt like forever. It was kind of like learning that there was a group of people who had cracked the code on flying and that they had just learned how to fly! I was like, what? So it started there and then I learned more about Steve and Alessia, that’s when I really felt like, oh God this could be an incredible story, an incredibly cinematic documentary and if I were possibly able to tell it in the moment, and go on their journey with them – Alessia the World Champion freediver and Stephen Keenan an expert safety diver and their lives are just so incredibly dramatic and also just really inspirational. Just seeing that if you just live your life a little bit differently, follow your dreams – what it is that you can end up doing!

AM: When we first heard about the movie, there was a general sense of what freediving was but the first 5 or 10 minutes of actually watching your film, you get the depth of the intensity of what the film as well as what the sport is about! It really puts you in awe about all the things that have to come together to compete in this with holding that breath and really using your body as an instrument.

How did you immerse yourself in being able to really know about what the sport is and to get those moments so that as a viewer, you’re able to translate those anxiety filled moments as you’re watching it?

LM: Well, I suppose I came to this not knowing anything. It was really a long time before I would see a freediver with my own 2 eyes! It would actually be years, about 3 years and so the free divers from all over the world, held my hand and spent many an hour explaining to me over Zoom on what they did, why they did it, how they did it and how it all was. Then eventually, the first place that we went to where I saw Alessia dive was in fact the Blue Hole in Dahab, Egypt. One of our participants in the film, Kristof Coenen, he describes it as like putting his head in the water for the first time and holding his breath and all the shit from daily life just vanishes. I was at the Blue Hole and I looked in the water and I saw all of the little fish and the coral and I was only up to about my hip, but then I swam about 5 meters out and then all of a sudden, it just drops like a cliff for about 100 meters deep from 1 meter to 100 meters – just like that! It was an incredible blue, the kind of blue that calls you down and so getting to see that for myself, experience it for myself, I think it was really important as the filmmaker that I could kind of grasp something from it and try to bring that onto the screen.

AM: From an organizational standpoint, the way that the film reveals itself is really interesting and it tells a deeper story. You have so many people that talk throughout this film. How did you coordinate it all as it must have been massive?

LM: I suppose that part of it was that we had the pandemic which stopped us from doing a lot, but it also allowed us to do a lot as well in terms of the research and being able to spend so much time talking to them. It allowed us the time to really sit with the story and I would use our Zoom transcripts to piece together, kind of as a script to see what people were saying and to figure out the best way to tell this story in the most compelling way and to try to figure that out. And really, just to do it justice.

AM: What’s the big story that you want people to walk away from in terms of having the freediver and having the safety diver, what is it that we should be getting from that?

LM: I suppose that one of the things is to open people’s eyes up to what humans can actually do as that’s just fascinating! To watch that play out in someone’s life, to see them develop the skill, but it’s also like, 2 people that had this wild streak, this curiosity for the life and this world and just living their life in a way that was different from the way that it was expected or would have liked from their parents. Going on that journey with them is a bit like living vicariously through Steve and Alessia and doing something that maybe a lot of us would not be brave enough to do, but perhaps should be!

AM: We’re taken on a journey of a number of locations in this film. What were all of the locations?

LM: Oh my God, it was incredible! Freedivers know how to choose locations and they were more like that of a Bond film! So we started in the Blue Hole in Dahab and we went to Dean’s Blue Hole on Long Island in the Bahamas – it’s a 200m sinkhole. It’s just stunning. We went to a number of cenotes (Editor’s Note: Cenotes are a natural pit, or sinkhole resulting from the collapse of limestone bed rock that exposes groundwater. This term originated in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, where cenotes were commonly used for water supplies by the ancient Maya.) in Mexico. I didn’t even know what a cenote was and looking at some of the footage from Daan Verhoeven, he’s a freediving cinematographer – I had seen these incredible images. Our main image is of Alessia swimming up towards the light in a cenote and I remember seeing images like this from Daan and asking him, “Daan, what’s this?” He explained that it was a cenote in Mexico. So it was just such an incredible learning curve for me. Then, filming off of the Caribbean Sea off of Mexico as well with the freedivers along with incredible freediving cinematographer Julie Gautier, she would with the safety and the divers, dive down to 30m, pop back up, show me the shot, I would be holding onto a noodle on the surface and I’d say, “that’s great Julie, could we just do that one more time, slightly different?” She’d say yes and pop back down to 30m and then come back up again. It was like having a fleet of dolphins on our crew. That’s what it was like!

AM: What was your favorite moment of this production?

LM: Oh God, there has been many really! Many moving moments. I would struggle now to name 1. It was in the Blue Hole in Dahab and as I said, it was our first shoot and it was my first opportunity to see what it was all about and it was swimming out over that cliff like I was saying to you. There was that moment when I was looking down at the fish and then it broke down and away into 100m. It was just this blue that went on for forever! It looked more like you were looking into the sky or something and you could see for 30 or 40m. You could see fish and that was just a moment that I will never be able to forget for my entire life! There were core memories made there in that moment.

AM: What was the most difficult part of this production?

LM: For me, I would say, getting it right. It was really important to me, not just as a filmmaker, and as a film that people would be able to get something from and enjoy. But for the people that are in it. It was just really important to me that Peter, Steven’s dad and his family, Alessia and her family were happy and felt like it reflected their memories of what happened and that it was true and it was fair. That was something that was always at the forefront of my mind and it was really important.

I wouldn’t say that it was a difficult thing, I would say that it was extremely important that we would have to look after.

IG @netflix

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | Netflix/The Deepest Breath

Read the JUL ISSUE #91 of Athleisure Mag and see THE DESCENT | Laura McGann in mag.

BINGELY STREAMING

FULL CIRCLE

Max Original

Max

We've been enjoying the limited series, Full Circle directed by Academy Award winning director, Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's Eleven franchise, Her, The Girlfriend Experience) whose cast includes Timothy Olyphant (Justified, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Amsterdam), Claire Danes (The Hours, Homeland, Fleishman in Trouble), Dennis Quaid (The Long Game, Goliath, Lawmen: Bass Reeves), Zazie Beets (Atlanta, Joker, Bullet Train), CCH Pounder (Face Off, Sons of Anarchy, NCIS New Orleans), Jim Gaffigan (Luca, Tesla, Peter Pan & Wendy), and Phaldut Sharma (EastEnders, Avenue 5, The Personal History of David Copperfield).

Each episode looks at how a series of events are more connected than what you may think and how these actions that are done in plain site and in secret, converge! You can binge all the episodes now to see what goes around comes around regardless of who you are.

FIVE STAR CHEF

Netflix Originals

Netflix

We always love a food competition show and in Five Star Chef, we get to know more about the fine dining world and how Langham Hotel in London executes their vision. Each challenge focuses on another portion of the menu and the kinds of dishes that they offer. We also get to see key staff at the property, how they present the service of the hotel to guests as well as well known people in the industry!

All episodes can be enjoyed now and we hope that there will be an additional season whether it's at this hotel or another 5-Star property that we'll have on our list to visit next!

L.A. MADE: THE BARBIE TAPES

LAist Studios

Spotify

We've all seen a number of promotions that have been focused around the Barbie movie that dropped on July 21st. We've been listening to L.A. Made's The Barbie Tapes by LAist Studios which looks at the origin story of this doll. Birthed from a European doll that was a gag gift of sorts and meant to be an adult sexy toy, it would transform to a doll that has been a symbol for many everywhere in terms of occupational roles, the proof that women can do anything as well as being increasingly more representative by showcasing an array of sizes, abilities, race, and more.

This podcast also goes into the business of Barbie and how the team created and infused these concepts of her that we continue to enjoy in the present day.

Read the JUL ISSUE #91 of Athleisure Mag and see Bingely Streaming in mag.

HYDRATION IS KEY | SAMUEL ARNOLD

One of our favorite series that we can't wait to see come back later this year for it's latest season is Netflix's Emily in Paris! We love the idea of leaving the US to work and live in Paris, navigating a job that you're great at but doing it in a place whose culture and customs are different than what you've grown up with!

When Emily Cooper (Lily Collins), comes to Paris she learns how to think on her feet in her personal and professional life and along the way we see how her colleagues interact with her. One of her Parisian co-workers is Julien, played by Samuel Arnold. We know that he too is a rising star who wants to make a name for himself and we see how he grows to accept Lily. We caught up with Samuel to find out how he approaches acting projects, Emily in Paris, the importance of hydration and his ambassadorship with Jovē.

ATHLEISURE MAG: You have worked in television and in film, what are you looking for when you're deciding on attaching yourself to a project/role?

SAMUEL ARNOLD: When starting a project I hope to be surrounded by passionate people who are in love with storytelling. I hope to be challenged by having to play a complex tri-dimensional character and I hope to have enough space to create and say what I have to say through my acting.

AM: Emily in Paris is an amazing show from the storyline to the fashion, and of course Paris, it's a binge-able treat. What drew you to the series?

SA: When I was asked to audition, I knew it was going to be something big when I heard Darren Star (Younger, Sex and the City series and movies, And Just Like That) and Lily Colins (90210, The Blind Side, Curb Your Enthusiasm) were the names attached to it. They are both the best at what they do and I want to work with people like that. And of course, I discovered Julien and I was dying to play this character after I read the script.

AM: Julien is such an interesting character that has been great to watch as he navigates his career and relationships with others. How do you approach playing him as he is that friend that you definitely want in your group of friends who will always keep it real with you?

SA: I have a very physical approach when it comes to playing Julien. Obviously I am enormously influenced by the wardrobe. It gives so much to the character, but also I found that dancing was working for me. So I’ve been dancing the character to life for three seasons now.

AM: We can't wait for the next season which will drop this year. What are you excited about that you can share with us?

SA: I’m like everyone else when it comes to season 4. I have no idea what they have in store for us and I quite like that. I trust Darren and the writers to create something exciting and amazing like they’ve been doing so far. I can’t wait to see what’s next for Julien.

AM: The cast of this show is incredible! What are some of your biggest takeaways from being part of this show?

SA: Meeting all those beautiful and talented human beings was the best thing that happened to me on this show. We’re like family now. And we see each other as much as we can in between shoots.

AM: At Athleisure Mag, we believe in hydration as it's essential! You are the first brand ambassador of Jovē, which was announced at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Why is hydration important to you and what is the synergy between you and the alkaline brand?

SA: I used to be a professional dancer, and now I’m an actor. So my body has always been my main instrument. And to keep that instrument healthy and ready to go, proper hydration is one of the top things you can do. This partnership with Jovē comes at a moment in my life where I'm getting back to the gym and getting into a more healthy diet, so Jovē has been the perfect companion for the actor that I am.

AM: What does Deep Hydration mean to you?

SA: Deep Hydration is not only about quenching your thirst but it’s about hydrating every single cell in your body. Not only do you feel better on the inside and out, but Jovē is clinically shown to support skin and cellular health, supporting healthy hair, skin, nails and bones.

AM: Jovē has launched their Let Your Skin Do The Talking campaign, which focuses on skin health. Can you tell me about this and what will you do to amplify that message?

SA: Jovē’s Let Your Skin Do The Talking™ campaign amplifies the voice of what healthy skin would ask for — deep hydration at the skin and cellular level. My goal as a Jovē ambassador is to amplify this message and introduce Jovē all over the world as I travel because a high-quality product like Jovē deserves international success.

AM: How important is your personal well-being/self-care to you and what do you do to achieve that?

SA: As an actor, my main instrument is my body and it made so much sense for me to partner with Jovē, who hydrates and supports my instrument in a healthy way. It feels good to promote something that you love and believe in.

AM: You're an ambassador of Or Bleue which focuses on providing drinkable water to underserved communities. Why is being involved in this organization so important to you?

SA: Water is such a basic need, it blows my mind that some people don’t have access to it. I have it on tap and it’s easy to take it for granted. I want to make the world a better place and for me, it starts with drinkable water for everyone.

AM: Are there upcoming projects that you have that we should keep an eye out for?

SA: I shot a movie last winter in Canada where I played a character very different from Julien. I can’t say more about it but keep an eye out for it.

IG @superssama

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | PG 102 + 103 9LIST STORI3S Netflix/Emily in Paris | PG 107 Jovē |

Read the JUN ISSUE #90 of Athleisure Mag and see HYDRATION IS KEY | SAMUEL ARNOLD in mag.

BINGELY STREAMING

BLACK MIRROR

Netflix Series

Netflix

It's been awhile but Black Mirror is back with 5 new episodes that let you think about connectivity, technology, interpersonal relationships and so much more! This season we're left with wondering about the extent of privacy and how by giving it out, we may be allowing more access to who we are then we ever thought! We also look at how much our love for True Crime may uncover secrets and behaviors that we never thought that those who we know have! It also makes us think about how the act of assisting someone or giving time to others can have adverse affects. We found that we were able to binge all the episodes in one weekend day and left our screens wondering about these themes as well as hoping that there would be another season to keep us pondering soon!

AND JUST LIKE THAT

Max Original

HBO/Max + Spotify

Fans of Sex and the City were treated to And Just Like That last year which picked up with the our favorite ladies of NYC. We returned to them last year in new circumstances as well as bringing in new friends to shake up what we knew about them and to diversify their lives!

This month, the second season is back with more stories to tell, more challenges to take on, and to to continue to strive to live their best lives with an array of nuances!

As you know, this show also has a podcast companion series which takes us into the writer's room to talk in depth about each episode as well as to talk about how they approached writing the episode, whose personal experiences it was based on and how it ties into art, styling and more. Episodes of this spin-off series drop weekly and if you missed anything, you can catch up on Max for this series as well as Sex and the City. Also listen to the podcast show on your favorite platforms.

HIDDEN SIGNAL:EVERGREEN

QCODE

Spotify

We're enjoying another immersive audio drama from QCODE has been released and it takes us to the end and possible beginning of the world in Hidden Signal: Evergreen. Hidden Signal is an Anthology for QCODE and Evergreen focuses on a hand selected team of the world's greatest minds who are trapped in a subterranean biosphere. They realize that on Earth, an asteroid has destroyed the surface and that they are tasked to create a new society. Mistrust abounds among the group and the line between hero and villain is not easily seen in this fictional podcast. With so much uncertainty, can they come together and trust one another?

Read the JUN ISSUE #90 of Athleisure Mag and see BINGELY STREAMING in mag.

9LIST STORI3S | SAMUEL ARNOLD

Read the JUN ISSUE #90 of Athleisure Mag and see 9LIST STORI3S | Samuel Arnold in mag.

ATHLEISURE MAG #90 | OVY ON THE DRUMS

In this month’s issue, our front and back cover story is with 4X Latin Grammy Award Nominated, 2X Billboard Latin Music Awards Nominated, Premios Juventud Winner, Producer, Composer, and Singer/Songwriter, Ovy on the Drums! We talk about how he got into the industry, being the producer for Karol G, and working with an array of artists from Steve Aoki, Becky G, Shakira, Future, and more! We also interview singer/songwriter and entertainer, INNA who has a number of songs that are known for feel-good vibes. We talk about how she got into the industry, how she approaches her songs, her collaborations with SOFI TUKKER, Alok, and many more.

We also took some time to talk with New York Yankees shortstop and second baseman, 2X All-Star player Gleyber Torres! We talk about how he took his passion for the game in Venezuela to join one of the most iconic MLB teams in the country. In addition, we talk about how he stays in shape, his passion for his family, and his collaboration with Kings Bred.

We caught up with Chef/Partner Charlie Mitchell of Clover Hill in Brooklyn. Recently, he received a Michelin 2022 NYC Young Chef Award - he is the first Black chef in NYC to receive Michelin recognition and only the second in the US! He was also a James Beard finalist this year as well. We talked about how he got into the industry, his passion for cooking, his approach to food and he gives us an inside scoop into the mind of a chef!

This month, our editorial was shot at Kimpton Eventi Hotel here in NYC. Because we live for a great weekend, our editorial WEEKEND VIBES ONLY is focused on a number of fun accessories and trends and we’re excited to introduce to you our new line, ATHLEISUREVERSE which is all about pieces that you can wear when you're out and about from various sweat sets that are paired with joggers and shorts. We're all about a number of colors, styles, having pieces that are genderful, matchy matchy when you want to wear them with your friends, family, and significant other, and more! We also talked with the property to find out more about the hotel, their location, and what we can enjoy there whether we're on vacation, staycation, traveling for business, etc.

We're fans of our favorites that are within Bachelor Nation and if you're like us, you're watching the current season with Charity Lawson for The Bachelorette! This month, we caught up with Jason Tartick who is engaged to Kaitlyn Bristowe to find out about his partnership with Wyndham Rewards and their Cubicle Caddie for those that want to stay connected and optimize their time on the golf course! He talks about this as well as his thoughts on Charity, hitting the course with Kaitlyn, and his upcoming projects with his podcast and book.

We chatted with Samuel Arnold who plays Julien in Netflix's Emily in Paris. We talk about how he connects with his roles, we ask him about the upcoming season and also being an ambassador for Jovē water and why hydration is so important to him.

We've been fans of Sepideh Moafi for years as she has been in a number of our favorite shows. This month, we find out about how she approaches her roles, her latest limited series, FX's Class of 09 with all episodes streaming now, and we talk about her upcoming projects.

Jordana Brewster of Fast X talks about her latest movie in the Fast and Furious franchise, her new movie Simulant, and how she approaches being a mom with kids in sports!

We have been fans of FX's Mayans MC which is the spinoff to Sons of Anarchy which is another favorite show of ours! As we are watching the final season of this series, we caught up with Sarah Bolger to talk about how she got into this industry, her roles previous to the show, what we can look forward to this season, and upcoming projects!

Last month, we had the pleasure of interviewing the founder of Governors Ball, Tom Russell who prepared us for what we could expect as they inaugurated their new home at Flushing Meadows Corona Park Queens. This month, we have a recap of our favorite moments from Governors Ball which took place Jun 9 - 11th.

This month’s 9PLAYLIST comes from singer/songwriter/entertainer INNA. This month's 9DRIP comes from EDM DJ producer/songwriter Ferry Corsten. Our 9LIST STORI3S comes from Sepideh Moafi of Class of 09 as well as Samuel Arnold of Emily in Paris. Our 63MIX ROUTIN3S comes from New York Yankees' Gleyber Torres and Mayans MC's Sarah Bolger.

Our monthly feature, The Art of the Snack shares our new drool-worthy restaurant, Goa New York. This month’s Athleisure List comes from Hakkasan Las Vegas and Restaurant Yuu in Brooklyn. As always, we have our monthly roundups of some of our favorite finds.

Read the JUN ISSUE #90 of Athleisure Mag.

BEING THE ECHO | CHEF YIA VANG

There is something about a great meal that allows you to enjoy the flavors, the ambiance and so much more. When the food becomes a gateway to a deeper understanding about the people and culture, it's truly an immersive experience that leaves you with a bigger takeaway.

This month, we're pleased to sit down and chat with Chef Yia Vang, who infuses his passion for food by sharing his love for Hmong food, his parents as well as the people that it comes from. This multi-nominated James Beard Award chef whose restaurant is up for Best Chef: Midwest for a 2nd year in a row, has two restaurants in Minnesota, Union Hmong Kitchen and Vinai. He is also the host of Feral, competed on Iron Chef: Quest for An Iron Legend, hosts his podcast Hmonglish and more. He tells us about the food, his philosphy and the importance of representation.

ATHLEISURE MAG: When did you first fall in love with food?

CHEF YIA VANG: You know, food and I have a really weird relationship. If you say food in terms of kitchen cooking, I would say that kind of for me, it’s kind of like that high school sweetheart that you started dating and then said, “I don’t know man, I’m going to college and we’re kind of like different people right now.” So I did some other things and then we went through this really weird break up thing where we were together, broke up, and got back together and then like 15 years into it, I said, “I think that I kind of love you!” I might as well put a ring on it! Then, when I got into that mode where it’s like, “hey man, we’re each other’s kind of ride or die right now, huh?”

I always say that about 10 years ago, what happened for me was that I re-fell in love with my first love. I always knew that there was something about working in kitchens. It made sense to me and there was this thing inside of me that it made sense, I just didn’t know why. It took me awhile to figure out my why and once I figured out my why, everything connected and through the hard, the bad, the good, the ugly, and whatever, I knew that this thing made sense.

AM: At what point did you realize that you wanted to be a chef?

CHEF YV: I never – I don’t think that, see I was the dude that grew up saying, I don’t want to do this. I’m not trying to be you the guy who says, don’t give me that title. I really believe that titles are something that you earn and it’s something that is given to you, so I never went out claiming that I wanted to be a chef you know? I knew that I loved to cook, but again, it had to be more than just food and cooking for me. So for me, it was this idea of storytelling. My father is a great storyteller. We always as kids growing up – when he put us to bed or you know, when we would sit down, he would tell us Hmong legends and myths and he was really good at telling stories. So, I found myself as a kid, have you ever seen the movie Big Fish?

AM: I have!

CHEF YV: Yeah, you know how the whole movie, Billy Crudup’s (Jackie, Watchman, Almost Famous) character has weird issues with his father because of the stories that he tells and he doesn’t understand him. That was me growing up because I didn’t understand my father. As I got older, I realized that I am my father and as much as he is a primal storyteller, he can captivate an audience, that was also a part of me. Instead of using pen and paper, a typewriter or a computer, we get to use food as a canvas to tell stories.

AM: What was your journey in terms of where you trained or kitchens that you came up in to get to where you are today?

CHEF YV: I never knew that culinary school was a thing. I didn’t do that and I’m so glad that I didn’t do that. For some people it works! We have chefs that work with us who came from culinary school and they’re incredible you know? I’m one of those people that if my hand touches it, then I can understand it. If I understand how the concept works, then I will be able to do it. My dad, he doesn’t understand English but if you give him a table, he can look at it and reverse engineer it in his brain and he can build it. So for me, that's how I work also. It was just me working in kitchens and I was so young when I started that I was too dumb to realize that what I was doing here, that was very hard. I was just working on my feet for 12 hours and felt that that was what everyone did. I know that I had a sense of what was “kitchen culture,” when I first started, 20 years ago it was like, “hey kid, you just go and you just earn your spot.” Because, that’s just what you do. Don’t try to talk about how you feel. I worked in a lot of kitchens and again, while I was doing it, I never thought that I would actually be doing this. I felt that that was a job, I was doing it at that point to get to the next bigger and better thing.

AM: In preparation in speaking with you, I like reading that you said, that for you, cooking is about intention and interpretation and that that came from your background as a communications major at University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. That struck a chord with me as I was a Telecommunications major at Indiana University and I got that! Can you tell me what you meant by that?

CHEF YV: Again, my first goal in college when I got in, all I cared about and I was kind of a gym rat. I wanted to play football and I wanted to play college football. That meant that you had to be an Exercise & Sports major or you had to be a Science Teacher. Right when I got into Biochem, I was like, “dang this is too hard!” So, I literally changed majors a couple of times and I ended up with communications. In my first class, the professor asked, “what is more important? The interpretation of the message or the intention of the message?” We had this big discussion and she gave us this study and we read that 70% of the people based on this qualitative and quantitative study said that the interpretation of the message is more important than the intention of the message. So as cooks, when we’re cooking food, I can say, “oh yeah, this is what my intention is and this and this.” I want to do it this way, because it should be eaten this way. But if the interpretation of the message isn’t interpreted like that, I think that as cooks, we need to readjust ourselves. That doesn’t mean that we’re changing our values and beliefs in what we’re doing, but we have to say, how do we get the message across? In communication, communication is not a monologue. It's a dialogue between 2 people. So, if I am trying to explain something to someone and they’re not getting it. I have to ask myself, “what do I need to adjust on my end?” I think that we live now and the pendulum swings right? It started with the customer is always right. I think that the pendulum swung to that side and then there’s a whole group of chefs who are like, “F- you! The customer is not always right, and we need to explain our intentionality.” Now, it has swung to the other side and what we’re doing is we’re having guests who are dining with us and they don’t get the food. They pretend that they do because you have to look good in social media. So that’s why for us, that’s why I say, “hey, there’s a happy medium over here.” I want to talk about Hmong food. What makes Hmong food, Hmong food? Even Hmong people, we can’t make a decision and be consistent on what is Hmong food. If our own people can’t figure out what it is, how are cultures from the outside going to be able to figure it out? So for the last 7 years, we have had the pleasure – I call it the pleasure, the pain, and the everything to try to say how do we create guard rails, not rules and guidelines around Hmong food. So yeah, it’s been a pleasure in being able to do that.

AM: It’s great that you said it like that because when I interview chefs that are known for Mediterranean cuisine, Italian, French etc. I will ask questions that focus on foods, ingredients and tastes that are indicative of those culinary styles. But again, in watching your videos and hearing you talk about this food and how you see it, you say that Hmong food is a philosophy, and it involves the people that are woven into the food. That is such a great concept. How important are the people to the food in your opinion?

CHEF YV: It is the most important thing. Our food is our people and our people is our food! When you get a group of people that doesn’t have a home and doesn’t have a country of their own, and they don’t have any kind of “marks of identity,” what they do is gather around food.

Because if you think about food, food is so core to survival right? It’s that thing that keeps us alive. Well of course what keeps us alive and is so core to our survival is the closest things to our hearts. It is for us, the way that we think about food, it’s the same way that some people think about their family. They think about the people that are the closest to them.

You know, when my parents came to America, they had to change the way that they cooked because cooking in the mountains of Laos over woodfire, pots and pans in huts made out of tree barks and bamboo, is different than cooking in a duplex apartment in Wisconsin, you know?

AM: Right!

CHEF YV: They had to change and they had to adapt and to survive the way they did things. The reason why is that they had to raise and take care of their kids! As a kid who’s 5 years old who comes to America and then I eat the food that my mom and dad cooks here in the United States and of course it’s going to be different than where they’re from and have a different flavor and taste! But the heart of it is still the same! What we love talking about is the food that we grew up with is Hmong food because it’s made by Hmong people. It’s Hmong food because it’s touched by Hmong hands. Our people if you can see back from generation to generation, it’s about survival and for the first time, my generation, my group of people as I’m 38, those of us that are here now, all the millennials that are the Hmong kids, this is the first time in a long long time in our history, that we don’t have to worry about uprooting and constantly having to move. We don’t have to worry about war and we don’t have to worry about death. When you have a civilization that doesn’t have to worry about that, they have the ability to grow, to dream and to imagine. They have the ability to wonder. I was just joking with a friend this morning and I told him that I felt like Moana from Disney! I can wonder beyond the reef! I feel like I can ask those questions like mom and dad, what’s beyond the reef? Because everything that I have known is in the reef, but now we’re one of the first generations like myself and my nieces and nephews and those that are younger, they can wonder and talk to themselves and think about this idea of wanting to be an architect – what’s an architect? I want to go into finance, what's finance? All of these things are completely different and it's a whole new world! The reason that we can do that is off the backs of mom and dad who cooked this food for us. I’ll be damned if I look at that and say, “well, I’m going to make a twist on it.” How dare I make a twist on anything? I get to add on to what they do. So that’s the way that I think of Hmong food and that’s the way that we can challenge the way that people think of it. We get a lot of push back here and there. But the truth of the matter is, I think that that is food generally. Isn’t that what it’s about?

We have a big family! So there is that thing of wanting to have something better and being able to sacrifice for it. It’s the same thing that our parents did for us. It’s great that we pay an homage to the old school stuff. I think it’s amazing and I do that all of the time. But to say that this is how we have to be – no, that’s how a civilization or a group of people remain stagnant. We live in a world of advancing forward. For our food company, we always say that our core DNA, our core functional values are 3 words are “moving forward together.”

We got those words and are inspired by them because of my mom and dad’s journey escaping Laos after the war.

My dad always said that as a group of people that lived in the jungle for months and months to escape the murders, the genocide as a group, we always had to keep moving forward together. Move forward together.

The question of why are there melting pots all through the Midwest?

AM: Yup!

CHEF YV: Like go to Dearborn, Michigan. There is a huge Muslim population there. Like Dearborn? Dude, they didn’t go to Dearborn, Michigan because of the weather. St. Paul, Minneapolis, has the largest Hmong population. We didn’t come here because we love the winter. We’re from the hills where it’s sunny and muggy, here it’s -30˚ for 5 months!

We didn’t do that, it was survival! In that connection of survival, especially with food, it connects our humanity together. As much as we are different, we’re not that different. That’s what we choose to tap into. In a society and a world that’s all about the pendulum’s swing where it’s let’s all the be the same or we can’t all be the same – that pendulum continues to swing back and forth to create that dichotomy in this country. I say, “hey, we are different, but we’re not that different.” We can share that with Hmong food. We don’t have to wait for a culture to dub us worthy or to hear our stories. No, we have our stories and if you allow us a little corner of the stage, allow us a little corner of a soapbox, we want to tell you that story.

AM: We have spent the last 2 years trying to get an interview with you because of everything we've seen about you on TV and although we have yet to go to your corner of the world to eat at your restaurants personally, We love the messaging and awareness that you do through your food. It’s an honor to be talking with you right now.

CHEF YV: Thank you so much! That means so much! At the end of the day, I have these college buddies of mine and we’re so tight and they always ask, how do you keep it together and I’m like, “I don’t know, I hang out with you idiots!” I tell them that they keep reminding me that I’m just a Wisconsin boy that still doesn’t really know what he’s doing. I love that you know? I love going home and my mom – I remember the first year that we got our first James Beard Award nomination and I was so excited and told her. She was like, “that’s nice honey. Just take the trash out when you leave.”

AM: Haha well that’s the Midwest in us!

CHEF YV: Oh yeah, that is! I remember last year when we were finalists and I was explaining to my mom what it is and she was like, “oh, does everyone in Minnesota get one of these?” And I’m like, yeah, yeah mom sure haha! It’s like bless her heart you know? I feel very very honored to be here and to be able to do all of these things, the TV and it’s such an honor to be part of all of these things.

AM: You’re the chef/owner of Union Hmong Kitchen. Like you said, it was a James Beard Award nominated semifinalist, tell me about this restaurant and what are 3 dishes that we should try on our next visit?

CHEF YV: For sure, we have all of these things going on and we’re very blessed that Union Hmong Kitchen started as this tiny little pop up tent thing at Farmer’s Markets. We always say that Hmong food consists of 4 elements. We don’t say that Union Hmong Kitchen is authentic Hmong food. We don’t say that. It’s a gateway to understanding our people and our food. So we always have the following. Think of meats and three. We always talk about that. It’s the best way to communicate with people especially Southerners when you’re talking about meats and three.

So Hmong food consists of 4 elements. There’s a protein, there’s some kind of rice – it’s either jasmine rice, sticky rice and then you have some kind of vegetable. Sometimes our vegetable is in a broth or sometimes it’s just a vegetable. The 4th element is a hot sauce and there has to be a hot sauce. So when you come to Union Hmong Kitchen, that’s what you’re going to get. You get to pick your meat – your protein and you have your sticky rice – we have purple sticky rice which is historically connected to Hmong people and then you pick a vegetable side. Sometimes it’s a noodle or straight up right now it’s Brussel Sprouts or something and we’ll change it up since Spring is coming. Then we have a couple of different hot sauces that we traditionally grew up eating. So it’s meat and threes, it’s dealers choice.

What we’re very proud of is the Hmong sausage that we created. It is a recipe that my dad showed me growing up. It wasn’t like he taught it to me. He made it and I watched. As I grew older, I would say, “hey dad, can we try that?” We won a couple of awards with it and it’s funny. Again, I told my dad, I mean we’re from the Midwest so you have all of these sausages since it’s sausage central and I said we won it with the Hmong sausage that he created. I brought the trophy to my dad and he was like, “really they liked that silly recipe?” I was like, well this is in your honor I guess! To me, that’s a very very special thing. It’s part of dad’s legacy. We’re to the point with that where a really great Eastern European sausage company, they now make this for us with our recipe. It’s the coolest thing ever to see a Hmong recipe being made in a Ukrainian family which is almost a 70 years old company here.

AM: Oh wow!

CHEF YV: Yeah, you know what I’m saying? How amazing is that?

Nick, the son who is the owner, he’s just like, this is one of our best sellers here. A Ukrainian family making a Hmong sausage which they love themselves using and now it’s in Twin Stadium and now we’re trying to get it out to local shops and stuff like that.

AM: That’s really cool.

CHEF YV: Exactly, so me and Nick are talking together and with everything going on in Ukraine – all the refugees in Ukraine and all the war in Ukraine. I’m talking to him and I understand that as a kid who is a refugee and comes from war too. It’s different parts of the world and yet again, we’re very different, but we’re not different.

That was a tangent but yes, we have Hmong sausage and we worked very hard on our pork belly. Obviously, we have the chicken, and our tofu is good as well! Again, I don’t want to say, these are our 3 dishes, just come in – but we do have what we call the Graze Feast! For me, it came from when we were very poor in college. But when all of the dudes scraped all of our money together, we would pitch in and we would go to Famous Dave’s and we would get the Trash Can Lid BBQ. Do you know what I’m talking about?

AM: Yeah I have had friends who went there!

CHEF YV: Yeah so basically, you get the highlights of the menu on a trash can lid and Famous Dave’s still has that. So this is an homage to that and we call it the Graze Feast. It’s served on a bamboo rice basket. We lay it out on a banana leaf and we put everything on it and it’s like the best of both worlds. If you’re 4 people, I tell them to get it because it is the bang for the buck. You get the whole tour and secondly, you also get a whole fried fish on there too. We have a fried Bronzino fish that we throw on there and that’s another mom and dad classic. My mom loves cooking a whole fish and deep frying and grilling it for dad. Dad just sits there and lives his best life now. His favorite thing that he loves to do when he has the whole fish and all of the sauces on it, if his grandkids are around, he likes to pick off all the meat and to put it on their plates so that they don’t have to fuss with it.

AM: That’s really cute!

CHEF YV: It is. Apparently for King Crab as my nieces and nephews love it, he takes them out of their shell and for shrimp, he peels it for them. I look at them and I stare at them in their eyes and I say, “you don’t know what struggle is kid!” We used to have to pick our own meat and now they’re living it up, those Gen Z kids!

AM: True, but that’s a food memory! They’ll be 20/30 years old and every time they eat that, they will remember what their grandfather would do for them.

CHEF YV: Yup and Kimmie, they’re going to all be soft! They’ll complain that they have to pick it off themselves.

AM: You also opened up Vinai. What does that name mean and I love this residency concept and we’d love to know more about it.

CHEF YV: Over the last summer, we had the chance to run this residency. Vinai again has been that problem child. I love it so much, but they don’t sleep and it cries all of the time. We struggled a lot with the financing to get that building going. So the last 6 months has been an exciting time for us as we can now visually see that this is coming together the way that we thought. My parents always taught me this idea. You don’t just sit there and sulk when there is a problem. My dad always says that you work the problem and you keep moving forward. My mom said that when they were in the refugee camp, it wasn't with us. They had to live everyday and just continue to move forward.

So we said that Vinai wasn’t really about a building. It’s about the people, it’s about the food. So what we have been able to do with Vinai, is to do this residency. After COVID, there were spaces that were open and they were looking for partnerships – a lot of bars, cocktail rooms, etc. They were like, frick, we have to figure something out to get people back and to get butts in seats. So we connected with some of our friends that had these places and partnered up. So we started these residencies so that we could give people a glimmer of what Vinai would be.

Vinai Is the name of the refugee camp that my parents met in ’77, they got married in ’78, I was born in ’84 and as a family, we left there in ’88.

AM: Oh wow!

CHEF YV: Oh yeah, they were there for 10 years. So Vinai from 1975 to 1992, hosted about 90,000 refugees. Out of those 90,000 refugees, 90% of them were Hmong people. And all of those Hmong people who came through Vinai, ended up in the Midwest – all over from Ohio to Wisconsin, Kansas City and Minnesota. So mom said to us, Vinai is not where our story ended, but is where our story started.

So Vinai, the current brick and mortar that we are working on right now, is a love letter to my mom and dad. It is their legacy captivated in a menu, in a building that has a specific design. Vinai is also one of those things that as we were growing up, as Hmong kids, we would talk to each other and ask which camp you were in. It was a way that we would identify with each other. To the white kids that heard us, they didn’t get it that we were born in a camp somewhere that was a summer camp. We’re like, “yeah it’s a summer camp, but not really – you don’t know when you’re going and you don’t get letters.” I just wanted to be able to make these names that we grew up with to become very normal just like if someone says Washington, D.C., Seattle, and NYC. In American culture, we know those names. I wanted to take the name Vinai outside of the Hmong vernacular and conversation so that it becomes part of majority culture. So when people talk about Vinai, I get to talk about mom and dad. I get to talk about the war and how they suffered for 10 years and not knowing as it was a stop gap for all of these Hmong people – 90,000 refugees. The Thai government didn’t want anything to do with them. The US government didn’t want them to come in because of issues regarding refugees. To claim these refugees would be claiming that the US was at war and there was a secret war in Laos that the US had won, but people didn’t know and there was a deal that was made with all of the people that fought. Fought like my father that regardless of what happened, that he would be able to come to America and get free citizenship because he fought for the US government. Then that conversation became one that people said that that didn't happen.

So there was denial in that. So all of that was going on during those years and just a little name, we can talk about that.

So that’s what it means and the dishes that we get to do in there, it comes from mom and dad’s table. Now is it going to be exactly like there’s? Absolutely not. I don’t think that our mom and dad would want us to do that. I know that they don’t want us to do that. My mom has said don’t make it like this, add your touch to it, but this will always be a part of you. We get to showcase our chefs and we have some incredible chefs. The majority of our chefs aren’t Hmong. We always talk about that and I’m very clear. Hilltribe, our mother company, is not about Hmong people just for Hmong people. If you look at the history of the word Hilltribe, those were the tribes of the people that lived in the mountains. It was the people that nobody wanted, the people that they said were the low people and they were not wanted by others. I couldn’t imagine living off of the mountains. I told all of our staff that we were the people that when people said that we were cooks or working in kitchens that we weren’t going to amount to much. It’s where a lot of the troubled kids go to right? It’s that culture mentality, the never will – so I tell them, we need to prove them wrong. What happens when a group of people come together and say we’re going to change the way that we live. We're going to deal with mental health issues, we’re going to deal with substance abuse and deal with all of this stuff. We’re not going to run away anymore from this. That’s why our company is called Hilltribe and we always say, cook from who you are. I don't expect you to be a Hmong cook. But I do want you to love your background, your culture and to love all of that as much as I love being Hmong. To my Mexican brothers and sisters who work with us, I want them to dig into that. To my Ecuadorian brothers and sisters, I want you to dig into that. To Tony who is Chinese, I want you to dig into that Tony. So Hilltribe isn’t just Hmong for everyone, it’s a place where the people can come – the outcasts and the broken can come in and show people what a group of broken people as they come together can go and reach out for more broken people and to create a place of refuge.

That’s why at Hilltribe, our restaurants have to be out more than just the food. If we're only all about food, then all we're going to do is just have pats on the back and accolades so that magazines can write about us. But it has to be more than just that.

So that’s the culture of what we’re driving, but everything comes from mom and dad. Our kitchen table was always open to anybody. If mom was making dinner, she didn’t care what color you were, what you were socioeconomically, or your background. You always had a place at that table. I learned that watching them. I want to be able to continue to do that for all of our restaurants.

AM: That sounds amazing and just doing that is a lot. Yet, you are constantly on so many different TV shows. You have Relish the PBS show which is a great look at the culinary cultural heritage of a number of people who are in the Twin Cities. Such a great concept and are you working on another season of this?

CHEF YV: Yeah we actually are next week! This time instead of doing these 10mins vignettes where we stitch together all of those 10 mins to create an entire show, we’re going to do full episodes. So we’re starting on Mon and it’s Relish but they call it a Relish 2.0. I think that the show is so much fun especially being in the Twin Cities. It's great to engage with people and the show is so much fun. We’ve been super blessed to be on so many different media outlets and many different shows.

I can always tell because I will get stopped you know in public once in awhile and they’ll say, “I love your show!” I can always tell by the age of the person who’s saying it, what show they are talking about. It’s like, are you talking about the Outdoor one, are you talking about Netflix or our feature on Bon Appetit or whatever? It’s always that age group that’s at 62 or above you know it – it’s PBS, public television. Prime time on public television is Sun at 2pm. So when they’re saying it, I know you’re talking about Relish. They’re so funny. They always think that we filmed it last week and we just put it on. So they’ll say, that I was talking about a certain restaurant and they’ll describe it to me and I know it was 2 years ago. They'll say that it sounds good and they should go visit it and I have to tell them that with the pandemic, they had to close.

AM: Right!

CHEF YV: Yeah and they’re like, “but the episode was last week!” So I have to explain to them how TV works and how production works. It’s always fun and that one I really love. My agent is always really funny about it. She’s LA and she’s always focused on getting the best deal. I love her and I get what her job is. She’s like, there’s no pay in that and she doesn’t want me to do things where she feels that I am not getting my worth. I’m like, Lauren, I love this and the producers Amy and Brittany they’re always great to work with and initially the concept was that my mom and I would cook together, but when the idea was pitched, they let me know that they wanted me to host this show for 6 episodes. People ask me where I went for my media training and I tell them that I learned at PBS. I was very blessed and the producers and directors are amazing. I love them and now with this other season coming up, we’re growing it and it’s going to be really big.

AM: That’s awesome! Last summer I enjoyed seeing you on Netflix’s Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend. I’m a huge Iron Chef fan so seeing you on Quest, I was like, what?

CHEF YV: That show was incredible!

You know, first of all, I was just dumbfounded that Gabriela Cámara was standing next to me. Dude, in my mind, I was like, don’t fanboy man. Act like you have been here before, be professional. In my head, I was like, “I love you!” She’s the sweetest lady ever. Very small and petit, but huge personality! She gives me a big hug and after we were done, she hugs me and whispers in my ear, “yeah, I didn’t want to cook against you, I wanted to cook with you.”

AM: Nice!

CHEF YV: I thought oh wow, could we record that for everyone so that everyone can understand that she said that to me and I didn’t make it up? It was amazing and it was a great time! We filmed it in the midst of the pandemic.

So as a group, and as a restaurant, we were like, we need this win. Not like to actually win it, but to be there and to do this for fun and to celebrate together. It was incredible and the response from it globally, was incredible. Hmong people from all over the country and there’s a group of Hmong people that ended up in France because of French colonization in Southeast Asia. One of my favorite things is that I got a DM from a young Hmong lady who lives outside of Paris.

She said, “hi I want you to know that I’m Hmong. We watched the show because my boyfriend is a huge Dominique Crenn fan and she was on there. When I was scrolling through there, I saw you and your name and I thought to myself, I think he’s Hmong. When I watched that episode and that first introduction, by no means of me doing anything, I cried because it was the first time that I saw our people on this global level.” She continued by saying, “my boyfriend’s French, I’m disconnected from my culture and I felt so proud being Hmong at that time. I looked at my boyfriend and I said to him that’s our people, that’s our story. She told me that being in France, they don’t talk about Hmong people.”

It was a global thing. There were Hmong people in Australia that DM’d us letting us know that they loved sharing the episode with their friends to let them know about our people. That to me, I’m not a huge competition TV person. I knew that when Netflix came and they had that offer, we had to do it and we were doing it, we would do it the Hmong way. We were going to do Hmong food on there. Even though some of the producers wanted us to be more global, we told them that we were sticking with Hmong food. I knew going in that we probably wouldn’t win. I didn’t care, just being on there was a win for us! As chefs, we were like, “dude, if we beat Gabriela Cámara then we know that this was rigged!” That was amazing and it was fun to be part of that and to be in that Iron Chef family.

AM: You also have Feral! Congratulations on the 1st season and I know you’re renewed for the 2nd season as well which drops later this year.

CHEF YV: I don’t mean to interject, but we’re actually just shooting season 3.

AM: What?

CHEF YV: Yeah, I leave in 10 days to start shooting season 3!

Season 2 was all filmed this fall right before the beginning of winter. But I’m leaving in a couple of weeks here to shoot season 3. The 3rd season was renewed about a month and a half ago. I think that they have all the creatures down and the locations down. They just need to clear up a couple of them. I’m really excited about that.

I tell my team that filming wise, I need about 8 weeks a year to do filming projects. 10 months out of the year, I’m there, I’m a restaurant guy. We train and we have an incredible team that takes care of business. They take care of everything while I’m gone which is the equivalent of 8 or 9 weeks.

There are some creatures coming up where I’m like, ok holy crap. I have no idea how I’m going to handle that, but I will just have to get it done. There’s some freaky stuff where I’m like – frick!!! Season 2 was pretty crazy, we had some freaky moments where I was like, what the hell am I doing here? It was amazing and season 1 was awesome. I learned a lot from season 1 to season 2 and heading into season 3. Sometimes you learn that nature doesn’t go along with filming production crews. You just have to say, ok, I'm trapping a beaver right now. The beaver literally looks like an overgrown rat and I have to skin and cook it up. It has some weird teeth looking at me, it’s 40lbs and it’s heavy, and it smells like wet dog. You gotta do it!

AM: What drew you to the show? It’s an interesting concept, you have these animals that are invasive in the environments that they are in. You learn how to trap them and then you cook them. What was it about this that made you want to host this show for all these seasons?

CHEF YV: So, here’s a couple of things. Before I get into anything, I always ask myself, what am I doing? First of all, I will be very very honest. I have been very honest about this. When you think of Outdoor, you think of white dudes, hillbilly hicks, hunters that lean towards the right. When you think of the Outdoor Channel, you know the persons that you’re thinking of, right?

AM: Yes.

CHEF YV: I get that. To be completely honest, some of the media stuff that we did for Outdoor - this is a media outlet. We live in a world and a country where it’s ok to have different perspectives. Right away I knew that this was different. Most of them have never heard of Hmong people. They have never heard of the Hmong story. They never heard about the fact that if you want to talk about patriotism, the Hmong people like my dad at a young age, was contracted out by the US government and trained by the CIA and Special Forces to fight in the mountains of Laos for American interests. They were patriots before ever being guaranteed any citizenship to the US. So when you have people who are saying, true citizenship and patriotism, my father is one of those. He loved America so much that he risked his life to fight for America not even knowing if he would ever come to America. I get to talk about that, the whole intro of our show is about that.

At the end of the day, the idea that going out into the woods, the jungle to some waterway and finding whatever invasive creature is out there to harvest and to hunt them, and cooking them – that is what they do in the mountains of Laos. Lizards, bats, sparrows, weird looking eels, and fish. That’s what my parents did. That’s what my dad did as a boy. I get to do what our people have been doing for thousands and thousands of years. I get to do that and there is a show about it. While others might think that it’s weird or gross, eating an iguana or a lizard for Hmong people in the mountains of Laos, it’s not eww or gross, it’s actually a Tuesday. That’s the protein that they can get. Having pork and beef, that’s a luxury. Saying you have pork to us, that’s amazing that’s a celebration!

AM: Like you said, it’s about survival and what you have that is in abundance to you. There are dishes that can support this if this is what you have in order to nourish your body. It’s important to juxtapose that and let people know that this is not just something that happens in other parts of the world, but in various parts of the US as well. Either by necessity or people simply enjoying it.

CHEF YV: I also think that what I am trying to say to the audience is this, look at home, you may make Chicken Dumpling Soup, but now, we’re making Squirrel Dumpling Soup. You’re just changing the protein out. Again, we’re different, but we’re not that different. Because the base to both of these things is still the base. The reason why you use chicken is because it’s easier to get chicken at your store. Why is Darrel from Southern Illinois using squirrels? Because that is in his backyard and the closest grocery store is an hour away. This isn’t him trying to be cool and to use it as a shock factor, he’s using that squirrel because there are plenty of squirrels that have been gnawing on those frickin’ acorns and they have that extra thick hind quarters, you know what I’m talking about? Like 3c’s kind of thick.

AM: Squirrels are vicious!

CHEF YV: Yeah like if that squirrel had yoga pants on its ass would be turning heads kind of thing. That’s delicious! We’re still talking about squirrels right?

AM: So in addition to your work in TV, you also have your podcast Hmonglish. It focuses on people, culture and Asian excellence. How does it feel to use your platform in this way, but also to talk about people that you also want to highlight?

CHEF YV: Prior to Hmonglish, we had this little podcast called White on Rice. We were interviewing all these people from Minneapolis and it was kind of our way to counter not being able to hang out and be with people during COVID. So, we thought, we’d bring people in a room that were 6' away from us so that people could hear what they were doing. It was cool because people enjoyed and felt that they were getting to meet all all of these people because of our longform podcast. We weren’t really smart about anything. But then when we really started thinking about it, Hmonglish came from when we were growing up, we would speak to our parents in Hmong but then there would be these English words. So if I was asking for a computer, I would say it in Hmong but then would say computer in English. So the Hmong kids, we just started calling in Hmonglish. I noticed that what Hmonglish really meant was this beautiful collision of 2 cultures. When you have 2 cultures collide, you’ve created a 3rd culture and in that culture, you’re trying to make sense of what it means. When you create a new culture, you’re trying to figure out what the norms are. You’re trying to figure out how to speak another language like for example you do fashion and all of that stuff, so when like Hip-Hop culture struck mainstream culture, there was this 3rd culture that was created right? Because mainstream had this culture where everything was formal and you enunciate very clearly and then you have Hip-Hop culture that hit it and that was more of a go with the flow and you had this different flowage and then it’s like does mainstream culture become Hip-Hop culture? Is Hip-Hop culture mainstream culture? Or how does mainstream culture affect Hip-Hop culture or does Hip-Hop culture become more diluted? There’s all these questions and all of these conversations.

The same thing with Hmong people or Hmong Millennials who either came to this country really young like I did or was born in this country. The Hmong Gen Z. I was born, I’m an American, but man, I’m still Hmong. How does this work? So we just had all of these Hmong guests come in who straddle these different cultures and who talk about their experiences.

Like Xee Reiter is a good friend of mine and is an incredible, incredible artist. Water painting, water color – all of that stuff. Her husband is white and they have been married for 15 years and she’s talking through that. We’re talking to another friend of mine, Pahoua Yang Hoffman who is the Senior Vice President of Government & Community Relations of one of the largest healthcare provider here. She’s an executive and she's Hmong. What does it mean to be an executive and you're rolling with all of the big boys that make the decisions that are billions of dollars. How do you do that not only as a woman but as Hmong? There are all of these expectations like Hmong women are docile and submissive – how do you navigate that? It’s such an incredible podcast and we dig deep into that.

We have these incredible guests such as Lee Pao Xiong who is the foremost and knowledgeable Hmong historian of our people. He traced our people back to 7,000 years in China. So, talking to him and listening to what he has to talk about in the Hmong stories and in our culture. It helped me understand that this is where we come from. We get to share that with a huge audience group. And again, we have gotten some really incredible responses. People DM our producer and it’s one of those things that I want to be able to put some really good production value on it so we spent a few good pennies on it to make the production value really well. We believe that in doing something beautiful, we want to make it great. We also know that for Hmong people sometimes, it’s just about getting the product out there, it’ll be good. We were like, no, we’re in a world where looks matter, the way it sounds and how it’s put together strategically – it’s been really cool!

AM: That is amazing and just looking at the accolades, the restaurants, the awards, being a TV personality, being a host, having your podcast and I’m sure you have a ton of other things that you have coming up as well, what do you want your legacy to be seen as?

CHEF YV: Honestly and I mean this with all of my heart, I actually don’t want to be seen in terms of a legacy. There is no legacy here. It’s mom and dad’s legacy. I am merely a mirror that reflects them. I want people to look at what we do and then I want them to be driven by these 2 people. My mom and my dad who are in their 70s, who are grandparents, who live in the suburbs, they have a little plot of land where they have a small farm where all of their produce comes to our restaurant – no money asked, no money put down.

AM: Wow!

CHEF YV: All they want to do is that they want us to live a life where they knew that they could never have. But they want us want us to live it. So that’s all it is. I want people to look at what we do and I want to direct them back to my mom and dad.

So the reason why is this. Last year I won when I was a nominee and then a finalist, my sister is a therapist. She’s the family therapist. But she always therapizes the whole family and I don’t even know if that’s a real word, but I always say that. I’m pretty sure she called my mom and explained to her what the James Beard is and what that honor meant. Because my mom wouldn’t know that by herself. When mom called me randomly that night after it was announced, to say that I was so proud of you, I was like, oh my sister called you.

I’m driving home from work and I’m pretty drained and tired. She congratulated me and said that she was so proud of me. She told me that she wanted to tell me a story that she felt a little ashamed to tell me. She said her plan was not to tell us kids about it until she was on her death bed as she felt ashamed about it. She said that when she was younger, she was caught and put in this war prison. She said that they were in there for a year. It was the worst time ever. There was no food. Communist propaganda would come in and say, just leave your family and marry a Communist man and forget your life. There was not enough food for the children, kids were dying and her first husband was killed. Her babies were all taken away and she said that it was the worst thing possible. We grew up in a Christian household, so when she was there, she told me that every morning she woke up in that camp and she would pray to God that he would let her die as an act of mercy. She felt that life was so tough, that the only way that she thought that she could escape is to die. She wanted to die, every morning she wanted to die. She said that one morning she woke up and she had that same prayer asking for God to let her die that day. She said that what was different in that morning was that there was a voice inside her heart and that that little voice said to her that, “I’m not going to let you die, because I have great plans for your children. They are going to change the world. They will do big things so I’m going to need you to survive a little longer and I’m going to need you to push forward a little longer.” She said that when she heard that my name is among the names of all of these great people in the country and you were one of the best, and they were looking to you for leadership, “I knew in that moment that it made sense. That moment 50 years ago made sense. That’s why God didn’t let me die in that camp and I can hear that today.”

I don’t know Kimmie, when you hear things like that, for me, everything changed. For me, it was no longer about this legacy that I was going to leave, it’s them. Somebody suffered, somebody went through pain, somebody went through a war camp – talk about trauma. To live on a glimmer of a hope that one day your children, to know that there is a special plan for your children and I need you to go through all of this to take all of this and one day you’re going to see it.

AM: Wow.

CHEF YV: That’s it, I don’t give a shit about my legacy. I don’t want to be known. I love these interviews. I get to talk about them. Do you know why I do this TV stuff? I don’t want to be a TV star, it’s too much bullshit in it. I do that so that people can look at it and say wow, we have to go to this restaurant, wow we want to know more about his mom and dad, we want to know more about their story. I’m just an echo. If there is a word about legacy, I want to be an echo of them. That’s it, hands down. The rest of the stuff is just little details.

AM: I have never talked to someone where in every facet of everything that you do, is paying homage to your parents, your people and how it is ingrained in every single thing. I’ve never talked to someone who has just been so authentically that.

“That’s it, I don’t give a shit about my legacy. I don’t want to be known. I love these interviews. I do that so that people can look at it and say wow, we have to go to this restaurant, wow we want to know more about his mom and dad, we want to know more about their story. I’m just an echo. If there is a word about legacy, I want to be an echo of them.”

— Chef Yia Vang

CHEF YV: We were interviewing PR groups and one of them said, “yeah the whole family thing and culture – that’s your schtick.” I was very angry and I wanted to say F- you dude. If you think that this is a schtick, I don’t think that you're the right people for me to work with. This isn’t a schtick man, this is life. There’s going to be chefs that come out and out cook us, great - awesome - good for you. But they’re not going to tell our story better then us. I live this and I will die this, you know? I don’t give a crap. I will live in the basement of wherever to keep everything at low cost so that we can put all of our funding into making this work. I want you to know that I am the first to make all of the sacrifices. I’m the first to inject my own personal money when we can’t get payroll going for last month. We’re going to do that and there’s no amount of cost that I wouldn’t do and we’re going to do this.

That’s the thing that I want to be able to teach our chefs on our team. Find something in your life that you’re that passionate about. I don’t care what it is. Find it and work for it, fight for it in the same way just like mom and dad. To this day, they still do that. They’re retired, we’re all adults. They don’t have to do that. We have our own lives and we do our own thing. They still on my frickin’ birthday gives me $100 and he’s like, this is for gas. I’m like, what and he tells me that he wants to make sure I have enough in my car. They’re still warring for us! It never stops and I think that they’re heart has this go go nature. I look at my father and I don’t give a crap, I had a great example of what a man is, what a good father is, what a good man is and I tell people.

How do you know what it means to be a good man? Look at my father. If I can be quarter of who he is, how he takes care of us, how he loves us, how he fought a war to get us here – if I can be a quarter of that, if I can be a good husband one day and hopefully to be a good dad one day – that’s who I’m looking to!

My mom ferociously loves us. She never gives up on us. When I visit her, she always tells me that she’s praying for me and the restaurant. She says it constantly and even when I want to give up on myself and say that I’m done, she’ll pull me aside and say, “hey, this too shall pass. It’s ok.” This is coming from someone who sat in a war camp as prisoners and tells me that it will pass. She has seen it all, she has seen hell, she has seen evil. She still says that it will will pass. In COVID, they looked at us and said it was ok and it would pass. She said that they had been through things like this before. They never panicked about COVID. I love it, that’s my parents. Like I said before, the food is just the tip of the iceberg. There is something deeper and richer here.

I really appreciate media outlets like yours that want to dig into that. Like we have the easy and low hanging fruit like culture, being all about family and if you want to do a 500 word piece on that, that’s great and we can do that too. But for those that sit there and say that they’re going to sit down for 2 hours and hear about this, I’ll go deep man! I’ll go deep deep into this!

AM: We have a lot of stories and we love sharing them!

CHEF YV: It’s awesome to see the different kinds of groups of people that are there. There’s also people there that I admire myself and I’m like oh that’s awesome! So I felt all fanboy like yeah!

IG @yiavang70

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | PG 30, 52, 55, 56 + PG 132 63MIX ROUTIN3S Eliesa Johnson | PG 33 - 34 + PG 132 3MIX ROUTIN3S Courtesy of Chef Yia Vang | PG 38 - 44 Netflix | PG 48 Outdoor Channel/Feral | PG 51 TJ Turner Photograpahy PG 58 Emilie Ann Szabo |

Read the APR ISSUE #88 of Athleisure Mag and see BEING THE ECHO | Chef Yia Vang in mag.

BINGELY STREAMING

BEEF

Netflix Series

Netflix

BEEF is a must-binge that's perfect to enjoy over the weekend. All 10 episodes of this dark comedy starring Steven Yeun (Nope, Everything All at Once, Okja) and Ali Wong (Birds of Prey, American Housewife, Love, Victor) shows us what happens when a beef takes over your life and how it can completely change everything that you thought you knew about yourself and those around you! It even looks at how a beef can cross gender, class, and other demographics.

FIRED ON MARS

HBO Max Original

HBO

When you've gotten through a number of series on a designated streaming platform, you're always looking for the next item that you'll want to watch. We just found out about Fired on Mars, an animated workplace comedy on a Martian tech company which focuses on a guy who leaves Earth to work on Mars with a number of his colleagues from his office as well as others who are there to populate the planet. We watch him go about his job as a Graphic Designer and how he spends his days there while communicating with his girlfriend who works at the same company who is back on Earth. We can see that she is slated to be there at some point down the road.

As he navigates his days and nights, we also see that a new planet doesn't change the state of office politics, interesting coworkers and the need to fit in. One day, the world that he continues to adjust to is drastically altered and he is forced to try to find a new way to be involved in this new environment as well as to stay connected to the love of his life on Earth.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

FX/Hulu Originals

Hulu

There's nothing like a classic retold and when it comes to FX and the way that they retell Charles Dickens pieces, we couldn't wait to see how this would be done with Great Expectations a 6-episode limited series.

The adaptation is written by Steven Knight (Spencer, See, Peaky Blinders) who is also an Executive Producer alongside Tom Hardy (Venom franchise, Legend, Inception), Ridley Scott (Kaleidoscope, House of Gucci, The Last Duel), Dean Baker (A Christmas Carol, Taboo, Driven to Extremes), David W. Zucker (Still Missing Morgan, Kaleidoscope, The Good Fight) and Kate Crowe (The Third Day, A Christmas Carol, Taboo).

This new look at this beloved classic brings us an orphan named Pip (Fionn Whitehead) who grew up as a blacksmith's apprentice. Suddenly, he receives a windfall from an unknown benefactor that allows him to travel to London and enter high society. His journey includes love, Miss Havisham (Olivia Colman) and more!

Read the APR ISSUE #88 of Athleisure Mag and see Bingely Streaming in mag.

S3. E5. | ATHLEISURE KITCHEN CHEF YIA VANG

On today's episode of Athleisure Kitchen, we know that there is something about a great meal that allows you to enjoy the flavors, the ambiance and so much more. When the food becomes a gateway to a deeper understanding about the people and culture, it's truly an immersive experience that leaves you with a bigger takeaway.

Today's conversation with Chef Yia Vang explores a history that is infused with his passion for food by sharing his love for Hmong cuisine, his parents as well as the people that it comes from. This multi-nominated James Beard Award chef whose restaurant is up for Best Chef: Midwest for a 2nd year in a row, has two restaurants in Minnesota, Union Hmong Kitchen and Vinai. He is also the host of a number of shows including: The Outdoor Channel's Feral, Food Networks' Stoked, and PBS' Relish. He has competed on Netflix's Iron Chef: Quest for An Iron Legend and hosts his podcast Hmonglish just to name a few of his projects. He tells us about the food, his philosphy and the importance of representation.  

Athleisure Kitchen is part of the Athleisure Studio Podcast Network and is a member of Athleisure Media which includes Athleisure Mag. You can stay in the loop on who future guests are by visiting us at AthleisureStudio.com/AthleisureKitchen and on Instagram at @AthleisureKitchen and @AthleisureStudio. Athleisure Kitchen is hosted by Kimmie Smith and is Executive Produced by Paul Farkas and Kimmie Smith. It is mixed by the team at Athleisure Studio. Our theme music is "This Boy" performed by Ilya Truhanov.

Read the latest issue of Athleisure Mag.

PATH TO SET | TETIANA GAIDAR

When we watch our favorite TV shows and movies, there are many people who come together in front of and behind the camera to bring a story to life. Some people hold roles which gives, us additional insight into the time, dedication and care that is involved for our programs!

This month, we caught up Tetiana Gaidar a choreographer and actress who has been in Amazon's FreeVee BOSCH: Legacy as well as Netflix's Day Shift. But she is also known as a tactical trainer due to her martial arts work. She worked with Keanu Reeves (The Devil’s Advocate, The Matrix, 47 Ronin) to prepare him for John Wick: Chapter 4 as well as a number of Hollywood's top talent! We wanted to know how she got into the industry, how she combines the talents that she has acquired along the way, the community in the industry and upcoming projects we should keep an eye out for.

ATHLEISURE MAG: When did you realize that you wanted to be in the arts and wanted to be an entertainer?

TETIANA GAIDAR: When I was 10 years old, I saw X-Files with David Duchovny (Twin Peaks, The Estate, You People)! My first instinct was, “oh my God, I love David Duchovny, I want to marry him and I want to be an FBI agent!” Ha! I think that I didn’t really think that I would be an artist or an actress. I was inspired to be a spy. To become an actress and to act and turn it into a career, this happened when I saw John Wick with Keanu Reeves and I saw how beautiful the action was and the choreography and it looked so mesmerizing. I thought that by being a spy I would have that action and life, but he was doing that up on the screen with himself! So I thought, “wow, ok well, maybe that’s a career for me and maybe I can just do that in the movies and can portray those characters like assassins and my family would be a lot happier with that.

AM: In prep for this interview, your background is amazing from acting, dancing, choreography, professionally training in Kung Fu - how did you embrace all of these skills?

TG: I think that I just honestly, I don’t think about it. I go with one skill at a time and I try to be really good at it and then I go for the next skill and the next one. I’m just so hungry for it because I love it so much. It’s so inspiring to be able to do those things and I never thought about how I embrace them! I just love learning and growing!

AM: Clearly you do! You started as a ballerina in the Ukraine and due to your training, you found yourself being a choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance Ukraine. What was that experience like for you and how long did you do that?

TG: When I was a little girl, my mom, she dreamed of me becoming a ballerina because that was her dream. So she said, “well I always dreamed to dance, but why don’t you become a ballerina?” I kind of rejected the idea of doing it as a career. Dancing and ballet really came into my life because my boyfriend died and I was 18 and it became a beautiful therapy that I was able to tell so many stories through dance. So You Think You Can Dance, because I was dancing so much as a therapy, I was coming from a very poor family and we didn’t have money for a therapist. So to go through a trauma like that, I was dancing day and night like seriously, 24 hours a day learning choreography and training myself. I was so into that so things were happening around me so fast and people were noticing my talent and pulling me on the show to assist and then I auditioned myself and was on the show. Everything was happening so fast and we’re talking about a time frame of 6 months, such a super fast process. I think it happened because I was so focused on healing myself through dance that I wasn’t paying attention about the things that were happening around me as I was advancing in dance and booking jobs. It was the storytelling that was so inspiring to me and it was mesmerizing and so healing – that’s what I was drawn to. To me, it didn’t matter if it was So You Think You Can Dance or a dance studio. To me, the story that I get to tell through this dance is what matters. I think that that’s why things happened so fast in my life and in my career because I wasn’t orienting myself in terms of planning to get on a show. I just loved the process, what could I say more about the story, could I dance more?

AM: At what point did you get your first acting gig? Was it after being on the show?

TG: The first acting gig, it was actually a short film music video with Max Barskih, a Ukranian singer who has is very famous. He has actually been at war this year as he was fighting and I am very proud of him. He’s very recognized in Europe and in Russia. He actually has some music videos in English. So his first project for an American audience was called Dance and it was about zombies and it was dancing, acting and it was like a short film basically, but still very musical. It was my first acting experience playing a zombie wife and choreographing a dance like a zombie and I fell in love with that. I thought, “wow, this is awesome!” I get a chance to choreograph for his music video, to dance in it and to act, “I’m like, ok – I love it!”

AM: Yeah! It’s a nice trifecta!

TG: Then it was so funny because my first acting experience, was playing a zombie in Ukraine – a hot girl that becomes a zombie and dances! When I moved to LA, my first breakthrough was participating in Day Shift directed by JJ Perry (Iron Man, Machette Kills, Gangster Squad) starring Jamie Foxx (Ray, White House Down, Spider Man: No Way Home), Dave Franco (21 Jump Street, Now You See Me, If Beale Street Could Talk), Meagan Good (Eve’s Bayou, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, Harlem) and Snoop Dogg (Training Day, Soul Plane, Pitch Perfect 2) and I was a zombie in this one too! So that was interesting!

AM: So how did you start incorporating Kung Fu into this ecosystem?

TG: Kung Fu came way before dance. My mom wanted me to be a ballerina. I told my mom that I wanted to be a spy, I didn’t want to do ballet and I was learning English from subtitles and I was going to marry David Duchovny and dancers don’t make money. So my mom was like, if you want to be a badass, then you’re going to go to martial arts school. She literally dragged me into the first martial arts school on the way home and they had Kung Fu, karate, jiu jitsu and other kinds of disciplines. That day there was a Kung Fu class and my mom asked if she could sign me up. I saw the swords, how they were fighting and dancing and I felt that that was so cool and it was like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So I was in and that’s where my journey in Kung Fu started way back in school. My parents were very strict and my said that if I didn’t win the competition that she wouldn’t go home with me and there were a couple of times when I lost competitions that my mom would just leave me there and I would find my own way home. My parents are very strict and I appreciate it so much and I appreciate the journey through Kung Fu because it gave me the core inside of my heart to be a good person and I think martial arts is very beneficial for everyone to do because it is a very good discipline to have inside of you for who you are, to stay loyal to yourself and to have good qualities in this life. I’m very thankful for my mom to do that.

AM: It seems like your mom put you on such a great path for you to acquire all of these skill sets that you have and that you can use them interchangeably.

TG: She did and my dad too! My dad and my mom, they’re both scientists. My entire family does physics! Everybody in my generation, even right now, my sister and brother – they’re scientists. I’m the only one that is loving the arts and acting.

AM: You’ll have that!

TG: I did! Even when I saw my mom and dad recently a few weeks ago in Poland, because I just rescued them from Ukraine. My mom said, “why didn’t you tell me that you wanted to be an actress when you were in school? I would have put you in theater. You always wanted to be a spy and an agent, I don’t understand how you are doing this now! How did this happen?” I told her I didn’t know it just happened because I was inspired by Keanu and John Wick – it truly did. I’m thankful that my mom put me in dance and Kung Fu and my dad gave me the freedom to choose who I want to be and I think that that is very important.

AM: I’m a huge fan of BOSCH and I had the pleasure of interviewing Titus Welliver (Deadwood, Lost, Sons of Anarchy) a few weeks prior to the premier of the spinoff, BOSCH: Legacy last year.

TG: Oh!

AM: Yes, loved it. We remember watching the series and loved it. You were this badass that had us holding our breath in those episodes! When you hit the screen you had my attention. What was it like for you to be on that show, to have that role that embodies the assassin/spy and to showcase all of those skills together?

TG: It was absolutely a dream come true! We were on set for John Wick 4 later on and I told Keanu that I had just came from shooting BOSCH: Legacy and I told him that he inspired me to be an actress and now I’m working with him because I was training him on weapon manipulation.

The BOSCH team gave me such creative freedom to show the character in the way that I saw it and the way that I wanted to play it. The entire BOSCH family was so nice. You have no idea, it felt like family. Everyone loved each other, the energy on set was unbelievable and we were working crazy hours like all night and then havng a 5am call time. Everyone was positive and Titus was just a sweetheart. He is one of the nicest people and an incredible human being and very talented. It was such an honor to play scenes with him. It was an absolutely fun night shooting each other, going after each other like cat and mouse. I was so proud of him because he actually wrote those episodes!

AM: I wasn’t aware!

TG: Yeah it was his first writing and it were those scenes that I was in. He did an incredible job. In post-production, they didn’t have anything that they needed to change or edit. I had the best time in my life and it was a dream that came true that you didn’t even believe that you were in it until a year after that it actually happened to me! It inspires me to keep going and I hope it inspires other people to keep going for their dreams as one day it can happen to you.

Keanu was like, “wait, I inspire you?” He got so shy and he was so cute and humble. He couldn’t believe it. I told him that I had just done BOSCH: Legacy and he knew what that was. I mean BOSCH is such a famous show and loved by people because of the people who are actually making the show – the creator, producers, Titus, everyone puts their hearts in the show and that’s what makes it so successful.

AM: We're fans of the franchise and can’t wait for future seasons as well as spin-offs, but seeing you in those episodes from last season, you had such a presence and love programs that have assassins and spies.

So being able to work with Keanu for John Wick 4, you and your fiancé worked with him for his tactile training. What was that like?

TG: For me, it was surreal, that was the person who inspired me to be an actress and here I am helping Taran to train Keanu. I was very honored and at the same time, I felt very at ease because Keanu is one of the most humble people that I have ever met. Recently, I also worked with Cameron Diaz (Charlie’s Angels, Vanilla Sky, Gangs of New York) another example of humble people that you can work with. They make you feel relaxed, they are so into you and what you do. They are not into themselves.

Keanu was into training, being better, listening and he is such a sweetheart. It’s so true what people say about him. He’s very focused and I didn’t even feel like I was working with him. I am working with one of the biggest actors in the world and it didn’t feel like that. It felt like I was working with a friend that was very interested in becoming better and I found him inspiring. It’s great when you meet people like that to be honest with you.

AM: You’re a trainer at Taran Tactical. What is this and what do you do as a trainer?

TG: I help Taran get actors prepared for their action films and we work with some of the biggest people out there. I feel very grateful but when I am out there doing my job and the people we work with make it feel like a friendly relationship. I love helping them and knowing that I have the skills to help them to where they want to be.

AM: In your role with Keanu, did you help him prior to him going on set to prepare him for his role or were you on site to tweak things as filming was taking place?

TG: On set, they have armors who will help them there. All the training for the films are done prior to shooting. So when you’re on set, the moment happens when you’re filming and so you’re not thinking about training anymore. Keanu has a le git and incredible reputation for being the actor who actually puts in 100% into his training before. So it’s like on BOSCH, same for me, all my prep and training was done before filming so that when you’re on set, you have this beautiful space to create and do the choices that you feel you need to do for the character. For Keanu, when he was on set, he was able to make the choices that he felt was right for his character in the moment.

AM: Amazing, it’s always interesting to see what is involved behind the camera and in many cases, before you’re coming to set to shoot. You have worked with so many people from Kevin Hart (Little Fockers, Jumanji franchise, Night School), Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead, The Many Saints of Newark, American Gigolo) and Olivia Munn (X-Men: Apocalypse, The Newsroom, Six) to name a few. You must be busy meeting those schedules.

TG: Very busy!

AM: I heard that pause!

TG: Yes! It’s sometimes nice to have that break because it just gets too busy sometimes with things happening all the time.

AM: As someone who is in great shape, we always like knowing what are 3 workouts that you do that we should think about incorporating into our own practices as we prepare for the spring and the summer.

TG: I honestly know that from my own life experience, workouts are great, but your diet is the priority always! You have to figure out your diet first and what works for your body. But workouts that I love and that I personally suggest is to stretch everyday 10-20 minutes, every morning or afternoon – whenever you have time. For me, it’s mornings because I have the most time and I feel like I have accomplished something if I have worked out for 20 minutes in the morning. I like an ab exercise because that's in our core. Abs and stretch for me! My third workout is my stunt, but it’s not for everybody! I would highly suggest to do 20 minutes every morning before you eat. Warm up your body, stretch a little bit and do your abs and then you’ll see your body start to have this beautiful definition.

AM: Do you have any projects that we should keep an eye out for?

TG: I did my first short film, my own. I was very inspired last year after BOSCH so I decided to learn how to produce, how to find the right people, getting the ideas – everything and I am very happy about it. It’s in post-production right now and it should be done in a week or two. It’s close to being done and hopefully we will get to go through some of the short film festivals so it’s very exciting and we’re looking forward to releasing it publicly. I showed some pieces to Cameron and some other friends of mine and they love it! I’ve learned so much and I have also learned about how much work it is to produce and shoot your films. It’s not easy and there are so many things involved. It’s not just about having the right idea, script and actress. It’s about finding the right producers, negotiations, locations – so many things.

IG @tetianagaidar

PHOGRAPHY CREDITS | PG 90, 95, 9LIST STORI3S PG 139 + 140 Josh Ryan | PG 92, 96, 99, 101 + 9LIST STORI3S PG 140 Images courtesy of Tetiana Gaidar | 9LIST STORI3S PG 140 Tony Duran |

Read the MAR ISSUE #87 of Athleisure Mag and see PATH TO SET | Tetiana Gaidar in mag.

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YOU

Netflix Series

Netflix

We've been a fan of YOU since the beginning and Season 4 drops this month for the first half of the season and the remainder will continue on Mar 9th! We continue to follow along with Joe (Penn Badgley) as he starts a new life as he tries to find love while also living the life that he feels he needs. After Season 3, we saw how he finally found a way to leave Love (Victoria Pedretti) and other portions of his life.

If you have yet to watch the previous seasons, you definitely need to binge these episodes. For those who are caught up, we won't spoil what takes place this season, but we meet an entirely new cast of characters and a few of Joe's ghosts! But true to Joe's ability to adapt in any environment, we see how he gets into a number of issues and finds ways to get out of it.

MAYOR OF KINGSTOWN

Paramount Original

Paramount+

Not everyone who runs a town and has the ability to connect others in an official capacity. Mike McClusky (Jeremy Renner) was formerly incarcerated and since being out, has worked in his brother's business which helps those in the community to get things done when the proper channels aren't available to him. For those that have yet to see the 1st season or need to catch up, you'll see how Mike works whether it's interacting with Kingstown's gang groups, the police and more.

Mike is in constant fixer mode and in coming off of last season, there continues to be unrest as the city tries to heal itself and put order back on the table while also making peace with the gangs as well as those that are still in jail.

Although Mike always seems like he's moments ahead of everythign falling apart and on the cusp of deals falling through, he always finds a way to make things come together to fight another day. The Mayor of Kingstown is yet another Taylor Sheridan (1883, 1923, Sicario) series that much like Yellowstone's universe as well as Tulsa King, looks at the intersectionality of communities, the players who run things and the need to see who is on the verge of trying to become the one that grabs the power to create a new kind of order.

STOLEN HEARTS

Wondery

Spotify

We love a good true crime story, it takes on another level when someone whose job it is to investigate crimes finds themselves in the midst of a scandal. In Stolen Hearts, we meet a police officer who falls in love with a man who treats her like royalty. It's only after she starts a family with him and meets his friends and enjoys his lavish lifestyle, where she learns that he's arrested for a robbery. In this podcast we hear how she learns about what he lied about, his real family and the implications of how this boyfriend has affected her job and has left her in a cloud of suspicion.

Read the FEB ISSUE #86 of Athleisure Mag and see BINGELY STREAMING in mag.

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KALEIDOSCOPE

Netflix Series

Netflix

At the end of last year, we were excited for the New Year to see what all the buzz about Kaleidoscope was all about! A move focuses on a series of colors that allows you to choose in which order you watch it in or you can see what was randomly selected for you. You're able to see how a major heist came together and depending on where you start you will either be many years prior to the heist, starting the the heist itself or the aftermath!

This cast includes Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Mandalorian) the mastermind, Tati Gabrielle (The 100, Uncharted, You) and Hemky Madera (Brockmire, Weeds, Queen of the South) to name a few from this ensemble.

THE LAST OF US PODCAST

HBO Original

Spotify

Whether you are a fan of the video game or came to this show without prior knowledge, The Last Of Us has definitely become our Sunday show to watch! We learn how fungi can turn deadly in a new look at a dystopian society where humans navigate a world with those that are infected by a global pandemic.

Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Appeal, The Mandalorian) and Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones, His Dark Materials, Becoming Elizabeth) navigate this world as he focuses on delivering her as man's last hope as she is immune to the virus that has taken people across the world, devastated cities and has created the need to merely survive as opposed to living the lives that they had hoped for!

We see this world through 2 lenses, how the world was prior to this occurrence and being able to find a new way to cope with the way that things are. We also see what it's like to grow up in a pandemic where one has no idea the way the world worked before mandates that have been put in place.

This podcast by the HBO team fills in the gaps for those of us that have not played the game, it also shares how the series differs from the game and we get first-hand knowledge from the creators as well as the man who voices the man character! We love a companion podcast!

PAUL T. GOLDMAN

Peacock Original

Peacock

We've all watched a true crime story that is being retold and played by actors, but Paul T. Goldman replays the events that took place with Paul playing himself and actors playing th other parts! In this retelling, we realize that although the swindle on some level took place, Paul's belief in what happened may not be as accurate as he thinks it is and we're left to wonder what really did happen - but it makes for a great binge on a lazy afternoon!

Read the JAN ISSUE #85 of Athleisure Mag and see BINGELY STREAMING in mag.