Emmy and Oscar-winning producer Milton Justice joins me to share the remarkable, chance-driven path of his life in theater and film. From studying with Stella Adler to teaching his own philosophy of acting, Milton offers profound insights on craft, career, and the power of saying “yes.” Packed with wisdom, humor, and stories from a legendary journey, this inspiring episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about the arts.
You can listen on the Substack App, and all episodes are also available on Apple or Spotify.
Or, if you want to put faces with voices, you can watch the video version of this podcast over on YouTube.
And here is his full bio:
Academy Award and Emmy Award-winning producer Milton Justice began his career as an assistant director at the New York Shakespeare Festival and has moved between academia and film, television and theatre throughout his career.
On Broadway he produced Tennessee Williams’ Vieux Carre. Off-Broadway he produced Jack Heifner’s Vanities (which became the longest running play in off-Bway history and co-starred the then unknown Kathy Bates) and Das Luscitania Songspiel (written by and starring Sigourney Weaver and Christopher Durang) which was selected as one of the year’s best plays by the New York Times. Most recently he has taught master acting classes in Marseille, Bucharest, Prague, Stockholm, and Berlin.
Milton was mentored by the legendary Stella Adler and after asking him to teach at her school, she appointed him Artistic Director of her theater company in Los Angeles. With the Stella Adler Company, he directed Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night (with the then unknown Mark Ruffalo), Shaw’s Misalliance, Vaclav Havel’s A Private View, Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr. Sloane, and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (also starring Mark Ruffalo). The Company’s efforts were rewarded with seventeen local critics’ awards. In 1995 he was invited by New York University to teach as part of their acting program. He has also taught at Yale University, Unitec in Auckland, New Zealand, given classes in London, Stockholm, Berlin and Sydney, and was the Dean of the Institute for Creative Arts in Seoul, Korea. In 2016 Justice presented a workshop at the International Stanislavsky Symposium in Prague.
As an acting teacher he has had the privilege of coaching, teaching, and directing a wide range of actors including Mark Ruffalo, Margo Martindale, Sean Astin, Kyra Sedgwick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Carmack, Chris Messina, Maura Tierney, and Patrick Stewart. For his work in film and television, Justice received an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe nominations. His most recent film producing venture Losing Chase (directed by Kevin Bacon and starring Helen Mirren and Kyra Sedgwick) for Showtime, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won a Golden Globe award for Helen Mirren, as well as a Cable Ace award for the writer. In the fall of 2022, he directed The Glass Menagerie for the 30th Anniversary of the Tennessee Williams Festival. His book, I Don’t Need An Acting Class, was published in November of 2021 and his podcast, also called I Don’t Need An Acting Class, was recently listed as Number 3 on an international list of The Thirty Best Acting Podcasts.
If you enjoy or find value in this podcast, I’d like to ask you a quick favor.
Leaving a short review or comment helps me out a ton. It tells the algorithmic overlords that people are listening, and it helps other folks discover the show.
So if you can post a review—just click this link to open Apple Podcasts and scroll down to Ratings and Reviews—or leave a comment on this episode here on Substack or over on YouTube, wherever you happen to be listening or watching, I would be incredibly grateful.
I do my absolute best to respond to every comment. Let’s get into a fun conversation!
I use an incredible online app, Riverside.fm, to produce this podcast.
If you’re interested in producing your own podcast, creating other audio or video content, or hosting a livestream, I cannot recommend them highly enough.
Here’s a link so you can check ‘em out! (Full disclosure, this is an affiliate link, but I wouldn’t put it here if I didn’t believe in and use Riverside.fm myself!)
A quick shout out to Ievgen Poltavskyi from Pixabay for the musical underscoring!
Share this post