Hey there and welcome to the Brandon Sneed Show, a podcast telling stories about people making their way through life in all levels of sports, art, and entertainment — from world-famous all-time greats to local legends and everyone in between.
We cover where people are now, how they got here, moments along the way they weren’t sure they’d make it, and the things that have pulled them through.
I’m your host Brandon Sneed.
You can find links to and information and updates about all of that at my website: brandonsneed.com — and show notes, bonus material, by subscribing to my newsletter there.
Today in Episode 009 we have guest Shaun Weiss. Make sure to give him a follow on Insta at @shaunweiss.
You most likely recognize him as the former child actor who played Goldberg the Goalie in the “Mighty Ducks” franchise. He went on to star and appear in a number of other movies and shows over the course of his childhood acting career, after which he, over the last few years, took a very different journey.
I spent a lot of time with him earlier this year while I was working on a story about him for Sports Illustrated.
Several years ago, he started getting addicted to various drugs, most notably meth and heroin. He ended up homeless and losing everything after a series of truly terrible events in his life that really put him through a hard time. He ended up living on the streets of L.A., kind of making his way up and down Van Nuys Boulevard for a good year or two there.
And then through a series of other, more fortunate events, namely the help of some other good friends and other people, he got sober, got clean, and is now putting his life back together.
I really enjoyed getting to know him. I spent a good few days with him out in L.A. earlier this year over the course of multiple trips and visits, and we just had a great time talking about all of that, talking about his story and everything else for this episode.
We also go deep on the creative process, the evolution of comedy, what’s offensive in comedy versus what’s just not funny, Shaun’s perhaps-surprising self-doubt as a comic — he describes himself more as “a public speaker who sometimes says funny things” — and much more, including the problems he sees with the “corrupt” recovery industry and what he’d like to do about it.
He also got real about what parts of my article he didn’t like being in there, the nature of the artist-journalist relationship, and ultimately why he decided he was comfortable enough to show me me as much of his world and his life as he did.
As you will hear and see, we did experience some confusing technical difficulties throughout the first half of this conversation, which miraculously resolved themselves when we realized Shaun didn’t have his phone connected to WiFi. We got that straightened out quick enough, though.
In the end, we had an amazing conversation. He told some great stories. He’s a funny guy. Real sweetheart. And just happy to see him doing better and think you really will appreciate hearing from him and all he’s been through and all he’s learned along the way.
Thanks again for being here and for listening…
Share this post