Alexi Pappas Talks with Robin Tunney on the Talkhouse Podcast

Actress, writer and Olympic athlete Alexi Pappas, whose memoir Bravey is out now, talks with mentor and fellow actress Robin Tunney.

By Robin Tunney and Alexi Pappas

9:01 AM EST on January 14, 2021

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On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, actress Robin Tunney chats with multihyphenate extraordinaire Alexi Pappas, the filmmaker and Olympic athlete whose excellent new memoir, Bravey: Chasing Dreams, Befriending Pain and Other Big Ideas, is out now through Random House. Tunney, most recently seen in ABC’s The Fix and best known for her roles in Empire Records, The Craft and TV’s The Mentalist, is not only one of Pappas’ mentors, but she’s also her cousin by marriage, and their familial ease with each other is evident in a very open, insightful and sometimes funny conversation that takes in such topics as the shadow of mental illness, the challenges of finding the balance between career and family, bonding with others over trauma, how the thing we’re best at may still give us discomfort or pain, and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.

This week’s episode was produced by Kevin O’Connell, and the Talkhouse Podcast theme is composed and performed by The Range.

(Photo Credit: left, Kelia Anne MacCluskey; right, Ed Herrera; Edited by: Keenan Kush)

Robin Tunney

Robin Tunney most recently starred in ABC’s legal drama The Fix as Maya Travis, an L.A. district attorney who suffers a devastating defeat after prosecuting an A-list movie star for double murder. The series premiered on March 2019. Tunney gave her breakthrough performance in Empire Records in 1995 and attracted further attention by starring in cult-favorite The Craft in following year. Tunney was nominated for an Indie Spirit award for Best Female Lead and won  Best Actress  at the Venice International Film Festival for her performance in Niagara, Niagara, opposite Henry Thomas. Among her many film credits are starring opposite Nicolas Cage in the thriller Looking Glass, Guillermo Arriaga’s The Burning Plain opposite Charlize Theron and Jennifer Lawrence,  and Focus Features’ Hollywoodland opposite Ben Affleck and Diane Lane. Additional TV credits include The Mentalist, Prison Break, Love, Insatiable, House M.D., The Twilight Zone and Robot Chicken. (Photo by Ed Herrera.)

Alexi Pappas

Alexi Pappas is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, and Olympic athlete. Her new memoir, Bravey: Chasing Dreams, Befriending Pain and Other Big Ideas, is out now through Random House. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Runner’s World, Women’s Running, Sports Illustrated, The Atlantic and Outside, among other publications, and she has been profiled in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, New York, and Rolling Stone. Pappas co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in the feature film Tracktown with Rachel Dratch and Andy Buckley. Most recently, she co-wrote and starred alongside Nick Kroll in Olympic Dreams, the first non-documentary-style movie to ever be filmed at the Olympic Games. A Greek American, Pappas holds the Greek national record in the 10,000-meters and competed for Greece in the 2016 Olympics. She lives in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kelia Anne MacCluskey.)