Thriving Artists: The Daily JoyRide with Actress and Creative Robyn Cohen

In this inspiring episode of Worthy and Abundant, I sit down with Robyn Cohen — actress, teacher, and founder of The Cohen Acting Studio — for a deeply honest conversation about joy, vulnerability, and the healing power of creativity.

Robyn shares her journey as a performing artist and mentor, and how courage and self-expression have shaped her life on and off the stage. 

For over 30 years, Robyn has brought stories to life as a professional actor, while also shaping the next generation of artists as a dynamic teacher and high-performance coach. Trained at The Juilliard School (BFA) and The Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. (MFA), her career has spanned Broadway tours, Off-Broadway premieres, acclaimed regional stages, national opera houses, and a wide range of film and television roles. Robyn’s work is defined by bold choices, deep truth, and a contagious joy for the craft.

Her stage credits include starring opposite Jeff Goldblum in “The Exonerated,” “Seminar,” and “The Prisoner of Second Avenue;” co-starring with Tony-Award winner Mary-Louise Parker; appearing in the West Coast premiere of Neil LaBute’s “The Shape of Things” and Scott Caan’s “No Way Around but Through” (opposite Melanie Griffith); and collaborating with Tony and Oscar winners including Jerry Herman and John Patrick Shanley. She has performed on renowned stages nationwide — from the Geffen Playhouse and Lincoln Center to The Ford’s Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, LA Opera, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Paper Mill Playhouse, Goodspeed Opera House, and Bucks County Playhouse — as well as the national tour of the Broadway musical “Cabaret.” She has done so much more but not enough room here. 

She shares about her brother and his death and how he inspires her to live in JOY and her podcast Thriving Artists/The Daily JoyRide is her love letter to her brother. 

IG: @RobynCohenActingStudio 
Facebook: Robyn Cohen https://www.facebook.com/robyn.cohen.603600?mibextid=LQQJ4d
Website: www.cohenactingstudio.com - 
https://www.cohenactingstudio.com/#/
Podcast: Thriving Artists: The Daily Joyride with Robyn Cohen 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thriving-artists-the-daily-joyride-with-robyn-cohen/id1786262554
Email: Robyn@CohenActingStudio.com

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Transcript

  📍    Hello and welcome to Worthy and Abundant, the podcast. I'm so glad you're here today. I have a super special guest. She is a performing artist. She's an acting coach and founder of the Cohen Acting Studio, A creative force whose life is a living invitation of courage, craft, and joy. Robin Cohen is a graduate of the Julian School and holds a master of fine arts from the Shakespearean Theater Company in Washington, DC.

For over three decades, she has moved audiences on stages all over the world on television screens, national tours, and in beloved films like Celestion Prophecy and West Anderson's, the Life Aquatic. Opposite Bill Murray and Kate Blanchet as an actor. She has shared the stage with Jeff Goldblum, Melanie Griffith and Mary Louise Parker, and performed at Lincoln Center, the Geffen Playhouse, the Fords Theater, the LA Opera, and more.

She's appeared in 50 plus national commercials, numerous TV and film projects, and as a high performance coach, Robin has spent 20 years guiding legions of actors toward fulfilling upon their creative dreams.

Toward that end, she founded the Cohen acting Studio aimed at helping artists not only refine their craft, but also to reclaim their joy, resilience, and full self-expression. Robin is also the host of Thriving Artists, the Daily Joy Ride, A podcast that dismantles old myths of scarcity and lack and dares us to imagine something bolder.

Artists who flourish, thrive and live. Fully lit lives of creativity and courage. She is that rare combination of humble heart and dazzling spirit. A woman who carries both grit and grace and who doesn't merely perform but alchemizes . Every room she enters into a space of transformation for her art.

A living conversation, a joyful reminder of what's possible. Please welcome the radiant raring to go and ever inspiring. Robin Cohen. .  So welcome Robin to the show. I'm so excited to have you. I love your energy and I'm super excited for this conversation. Thanks, Linda. Thanks for having me. I am too. And I've been looking forward to it. 'cause we were trying to put it on the books and then it I was touring and it got pushed back, and then finally this morning I couldn't help it.

I texted, I was like, I can't wait for our conversation. Today's the day. Yeah. We are so funny. Yeah. So Robin, your journey has spanned Julliard, Shakespeare Theater Company, Broadway, caliber Stages, tv, film and coaching. What's one defining moment that really shaped who you are as an artist and woman? Oh, one defining moment.

Oh when I was in high school. I had been looking through the trades papers that listed auditions. I'm from Maryland. Okay, lemme just tell the truth about that. I'm from Maryland, the DMV outside of dc, born at the Bethesda Naval Hospital for $14 and 27 cents on sale. That's a true story. And then my mom, after she told me how much it costs for me to be born, she looks at me and she says, worth every penny, $14 and 27 cents.

I had always been from a very young age, apparently I didn't walk from room to room, but at two and a half I would dance and cartwheel. And there was always this sort of energy of singing and dancing. I went into some pretty serious training programs, and when I got to high school, I was already in a pre-professional academy and working with professional dancers and I saw this audition that was happening in New York City for this Broadway national tour, and I was like, Hey, mom and dad, we're in Maryland and it's hard to tell I don't know where I fit in this world professionally, I was like 16 years old and I'd been, every day after school I'm going to my singing lessons and I'm in the school musicals and I'm, I'm fully immersed, but in Maryland, right?

Yeah. I was like, can I go and audition in New York City for something just to have that experience right? Just to see what it's like out there in the professional world. And they're like, okay, we have some family in New York. And I got on an Amtrak and we set it up to meet, my cousins and I figure out where I'm going.

And this is before cell phones obviously. And I'm just like there with my maps and how do I get to these Oh wow. Sher Studios. And I walk in and it's this pretty important director. I didn't even know that really at the time. 'cause I'm from Maryland and I'm surrounded by this room of oh, it looks like a movie, like a chorus line.

And they're stretching and they're legs are in the air and they've got these leotards and heels fierce. Just like fierce. Now it's like OMG. This is amazing. But then here's what's interesting. It actually. It got really fun, really fast. And while I was in this audition room, which took all day, they kept cutting people and then cutting people and then cutting people and then cutting people, right?

You're going through this series of auditions all day long and I was having the best time. I was like dancing. I had this brilliant choreographer, stinging, songs that I'd prepared to audition and it was like this amazing day doing what I do on the daily in, at that time in high school and middle school.

And I leave at the end of the day, drenched in my own sweat and creative joy and I get a call, come back to the final callbacks tomorrow. Okay. So I like stayed overnight. I don't know how that works. I must have stayed with my family cousin. I go the next day and it's just a small group of people and again, like singing and dancing, our heart's out and people that are amazing, like people that are like.

They're Broadway performers at this audition. So I go back to Maryland after this this couple of days and two and a half weeks later, I get this call from the producers of this Broadway National Tour of the musical, Bret. And they want me to join them on the road for this show. They offer me the part.

Wow. And I was like, what? What is happening? So I go to my mom and dad, I was like, mom and dad, can I leave high school and go on the road with a tour of Broadway musical Cabaret? And they're like, oh no. What have we done? Yeah. They were like, what have we done? What did we create A monster? Here's the thing, right?

Here's the thing. They did not want to tell me. No. 'cause they knew that I had been looking through these auditions since I'm eight years old. So they said, my mom says to me, go ask your guidance counselor at high school. Okay. So I'm like, okay, because she wasn't gonna say no. She wanted someone else to say no.

You can't leave high, you can't leave school. We don't do that here. So I go to my coun guidance counselor and to make a long story as short as possible. See, here's the thing. My parents didn't know. They didn't know that this guidance counselor, I think her name was Lori, her favorite Broadway musical was the show Cabaret.

And when she found out that I had been cast in it, her first response was, we're gonna work this out. We're working it out. You're gonna do a correspondence, you're gonna send your papers home on the road, you're gonna get all the, oh wow. You're gonna come back in time to graduate and go to your senior prom.

And I was like, let's go. And my parents were like. And they let you. That's amazing. Yes, they did. Because it was okay with the school and that was such a priority, so all that to say, it was a time and a tour almost half a year, where at a young age, in my teenage years, I got to really taste the honey of a life in the arts and surround myself by people that were like that, committed to it.

And it was eyeopening, not only just in seeing our nation and going to the various, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon and places in Oregon and the South, and having all kinds of experiences, people picketing our show because of the themes of homosexuality and ju antisemitism and all the things.

Oh, wow. And it was really quite a dynamic experience. But the thing that happened was, I got clear, this is it. This is it. This is the thing. So blessed to find it. Yeah. To find it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yes. Which, yeah, go ahead. No, I said thank you Linda. You're beautiful too. No, it's beautiful.

And I just think that, thank you for saying that, but I'm just so impressed because part of me is you're 16. Like you would, you're in this environment that you had no fear, like you had no fear. It seems like you were describing it like, oh, interesting. It's this. Not once did you say I was nervous?

Not once. Did you say you were scared? Not once did you say you were intimidated, like you were just in your right. That's so fascinating because I'm afraid all the time. I, it almost for me goes without saying the difference between. So I got cast, I actually was 17 when I went on the road. I turned 18. And yes, the whole thing being new and the audition and going to Times Square, New York City and being surrounded by all these pros, yes it was my heart's pounding.

I am the butterflies, all of that. What's fascinating when I look back now is that it wasn't until I moved to Hollywood, California, right after Julliard, I picked up and flew here not knowing anybody, not having any contacts in the industry, not knowing his soul in the business. How old were you at this time?

This is right after college. So early 20, okay. And and so I'm in Hollywood and something. Had changed between when I was a little girl dancing around between, from room to room and being in that audition room at 1617 for this tour. Something had changed. And the thing that had changed is that my reason for coming out to Los Angeles to make it in Hollywood, were mixed in with a feeling of worthlessness, with a feeling of I needed to make it to matter.

I needed to make it here to be seen. I needed to make it here to feel worthy. I've, yes. Feel worthy. And so no accident that we're having this conversation that we've met, that we are combining because it's the journey of my soul. It took de it's taken decades to unwind that. In other words, siphon out like.

I love being a creative person. I love teaching acting. I love being on stage, like the world of it. Having seen partners, really connecting and experiencing with an audience, our shared humanity. It gets me up in the morning and then that I get to work with the next generation of people. It's it's the thing that lights me up the most.

But it took a long time to dismantle that. Dangerous, the dangerous pursuit of, in a way, trying to get the love that you didn't feel you got when you were a child. And let me tell you something, Hollywood is not a good place to get reparented, right? 'cause Hollywood, in many ways is a whorehouse, and I'm just gonna say that I know Jingly.

But there's there's a lot that is transactional here. Yeah. And when it started to become so transactional. From a place of I'm not worthy until they give me a job. That that took me to the dark nights of the soul. That became the crux of evolving into the next iteration of self. That is, that knows why she's here, know what knows what she's meant to do, and does it with all her might in creative joy rather than from lack or unworthiness.

And so both of those events were earmarks. Like one was for one reason, the second, the latter was for another. And it's been working all that out. So there can be. Congruency. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for that vulnerable truth. Did your mother go with you when you were going out on the road at 17 or whatever?

Did your mom No way. No. No. They weren't allowed. No. At that point I was 17. I think I might have turned 18 on the road. They would come visit me. Oh, okay. In Kansas, they, I remember they came to the Kansas City Light Opera. We would be in these beautiful performing arts centers, of that city. And then I think they visited me in definitely in Maryland.

They brought a bus full of their friends. But I was out there, I was like on the road and and I wasn't prepared, Linda, I wasn't prepared. I was dealing with people that had adult deep emo. I was the youngest person by a lot on the, on this bus and truck tour. And I, and I. I was exposed to a lot that I wasn't fully able to contain or process that over time and working with people and coaches like you and good therapists and people that you know, hold a healing space as you do.

It took time, decades to fully process some of the terror and shame and upset and all those things. But no, my parents were not. With me security on the road. Yeah. And I realized that about LA because I had a friend that lived there. I visited her twice, but she lived in Canyon country and she lived there.

And she would always say this to me, Linda, you're so different. She would say every, it's just so fake. She would just tell me everybody's fake.

That's just her pers was her perception at the time. Yes. In la. But and she just loved my genuine being genuine. But so you've, yes. Yeah. So you've worked alongside legendary names like Bill Murray and Kate Blanche and Jeff Goldblum. What's something you've learned from collaborating at that level that stays with you today?

That's a great question. Thank you for that. Okay. Here's what I, here's a big piece of that and the headline is You Play How You Train. And what I mean by that is, so Jeff Goldblum was actually my professional mentor for 10 years Uhhuh. And eventually we were co-teaching classes in Los Angeles, a professional acting class that we taught together.

And yes, I was on set with Bill Murray for months and watching Kate and soaking all this in. But you play how you train means what I've noticed with actors that I work with and for myself early on, I thought that once they gave me the job. I would be great. If they like people are like, if I could just get an agent, if they would just give me a chance, I would come through.

If they would just give me the opportunity to walk onto a set, I would nail it. But they just haven't given me a chance. So nobody knows me and nobody knows what I can do. And there's like this complaint, it's a rapid, right? And he, here's the truth. There's no such thing as rising to the occasion.

Okay? It's what happens is they turn a spotlight on you or you walk onto set and they call action and your nervous system topples you. If you haven't been in training your nervous system will win the day every time. Because when you're talking about acting, you're talking about adrenaline.

And when you're talking about adrenaline, you are talking about the central nervous system. And so what happens is people are like if they just give me a chance and then they get their chance, even if it's just an audition and there they are in front of the people and it is over before it even began.

Yeah, they dunno because their nervous system has a panic attack. That's exactly it. And that is a pattern that will repeat. However, there's the second part of that statement is that you don't rise to the occasion, but you do sink to the level of your training. Jeff Goldblum rehearses for his roles with more creative joy and putting in more hours than any human I've ever known, whether they're an Olympian and doing an athletic sport.

I was able to glom onto this very early on that it wasn't that it was, he was ever rising to the occasion. You s play how you train for it. Yeah. That's, he was just having another rehearsal. Yeah. He trained it that way. He trained it, he baked it in with creative joy. He baked in imagination In the rehearsals.

We were we've done several shows together and lip Aquatic Film by Wes Anderson, but in the plays that we worked on, he wouldn't start rehearsal until, this is a rehearsal with nobody watching except me and the other co-actors in the play. He's I can't, this isn't the right pair of shoes for this character.

I don't this, it's not carbonating me creatively. And we would wait and he would go get a pair of shoes that he felt like he could walk a mile in that character shoes. Wow. I love that. So this kind of insistence, like it's not about rising to the occasion. You are gonna get nervous and you're gonna sink to the level that you trained it at.

Yeah. And I tell my actors all the time we're in class, I'm still in class because I'm crystal clear that repetition is the mother of skill. And the more we can just get in, whether we're working on a scene in class, whether we're rehearsing for a play, whether we're just getting together and having a play, reading, getting used to bringing my whole heart, bringing my creative joy, bringing my truth, bringing my script analysis of the material, bringing that all every time, all the time.

Whether whatever medium it is, when I walk onto set, when I step onto stage, you're gonna play how you trained. And I was able to be behind the scenes on that in a very real way. And I've never looked back in terms of how I teach my students now because there is this illusion of if they would just give me a chance, but it doesn't quite work that way. Yeah. So I have some questions here. Acting and artistry can be so vulnerable.

How have you personally cultivated courage to stay authentic in your craft? That's a beautiful question, Linda. Thank you. I can speak to something that's going on right now. I just completed a two year stint, a tour of a play that was on Broadway called What the Constitution Means to Me. I've just completed a performance, our final Southern California performance last week, and how do we have the courage?

So this play that was in New York Pulitzer finalist Tony Award, all the things was written by a woman named Heidi Shrek, who tells the true reel, unadulterated story of her family, the legacy of women in her family, how the United States Constitution both helped and hurt her family as they were trying to make it in America.

Her great-great grandmother came here because she was ordered from a catalog. That's how being a woman started in her lineage. And she tells the story about how her mother ended the legacy of violence, domestic abuse, incest, rape. Within the family by testifying at 15 years old. It's a play that has taken over my world creatively in many ways.

I shows of chess. Yeah, I do too. Every time. I, all the time with this play and talk about courage. Heidi Shrek, who wrote and originally performed this play, she had her mom and her aunt who were incested and raped. She had the aunts and uncles, the grand, the great aunts and uncles who were part of this story that she is sharing as the great granddaughter of the woman that came to this country.

So bravely though she was ordered to, she died at age. Did they come? What country did they come from? Her ma great-great grandmother came to Washington State from Genin back Germany in 1879 because her great-great-grandfather ordered her from a catalog. So this is all, and then she died at age 36 of Melancholia Western State.

Mental hospital, 36 years old. So this is how her family began. Interrupting that cycle and then having the courage. She never thought this play would do what it did, but its authenticity and the fact that she's one of the greatest single, greatest writers I've ever come into contact with and performers.

She puts this on Broadway and she's terrified. I met with her. I needed to, before I took this show out, to give her gift to other people, I needed to meet with her and talk to her. And she shared, when she was getting ready to open this show in front of thousands of people, let alone hundreds of thousands, because this would play for almost two years, she would panic stricken.

They're gonna hear this story, they're going to, she got permission. Of course, she got permission, of course, by her aunts and the people that are talked about very vividly in this play. And the fact that she could do that. Gives me the courage. The fact that a woman, because of the lives that it has touched and the people that come up, the people that come after where I get the courage it's the audience members that every time after I've done this show, whether it's been in Michigan, Texas, California, I'll have a woman come up to me and say, my nephew killed himself because it wasn't okay for him to be gay in America growing up when he did and where he did.

And this play gives me hope that there is another way for the next generation. I love it. I've had countless, so many stories like that after the show that I, candy, I've lost count. Yeah. The courage is not inherent. It's something that is I glom onto with the courage that other people have to share their authentic stories.

Yeah. That's beautiful. No, 'cause my son had two friends that took their lives within a year of each other, both around Rosh Hashanah. And I always say, I wanna, I'm a child advocate. I wanna educate the youth, the young adults Yeah. That are worthy for breathing and that they can find their passion and they can do what they love.

And two business mentors said it's nonprofit. So anyway I am just sharing because you said that, and I was just talking to young people this morning at a meeting and I just was like, this is like always a message that comes to me. So yes, me too. Through this play. I love that I'm getting the same message and what your mission is, it's fully in alignment with what you just shared.

Like a passion for that, that knows no limits. Which is why I'm still touring this thing after two years of working on it, because someone needs to hear it and it could save a life. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. I love it. I love, I don't love, I'm grateful that you are, you're getting that kind of acknowledgement and because of somebody being encouraged, being Yeah.

Courageous to take action and stop this kind of stuff. And like you said, just to finish that with your son, with his friends that, with this nightmare, your mission is ultimately, it's like you, you make people feel less alone, right? You make people feel less alone in their strife.

In their struggle. And in doing so, we actually, we realize we are not alone. Yeah. It works in kind. Yeah, because I've been suicidal before. I'll I say podcast. And yeah, the young people though, I've met some young people and it's just interesting. And what they, 'cause we didn't get raised, not that, this is why, but like the social media and the phones we didn't have that when we were children.

No. When you were 17, you were on the road. You weren't like, there was no phone, you had a map. Just saying good and bad. With the technology, but it's a different world. Anyway we can go off on a tangent, but I'm loving our conversation. I am from Michigan. I saw that you were on mic, and I have to say two things before you start talking.

I saw that you were in Michigan recently on social media, and I love your social media and seeing you dancing and all of that. So when you talked about when you were two or three and your whole childhood, you were dancing and you were this and singing and all these things, it just, I love it because I see you on social media doing that, and I just love it.

It just lights anybody up. So I have Thank you, Linda. It's people like you, teachers like you, Kathy Heller, who's a teacher, you with what you do, worthy and abundant. It's like I only recently have given myself that permission, so I've only recently been on social media. Only in the last.

Year and a half. Yeah. I, there was so much that I wa there was still so much resistance around darkness and mess around being seen in that light. Being seen. Yes. Ironic that It's ironic. The greatest desire of an actor is their greatest fear. Front of the hand, back of the hand. I wanna be seen.

I'm terrified. They'll see me. It's like fascinating. Oh, fascinating. Should we unpack that a little bit more? Or do you want whatever you, whatever delights you. I'm just curious. Are you, do you think you're just a private person? And you're an actress and you're out there performing because that's your authentic natural creative that's your calling.

But maybe you're private and that's why you're not like so much interested in the social media is that could it be that? 'cause I kind love the idea of not being on there. I love the idea, but then it's oh, I have businesses and I have to show up and Yeah. It's, I think for a long time I carried a lot of, and we won't get into it and into the muck of it, but there were some, there was, there's always trauma growing up.

I have it. And this wasn't in my, with my parents or my immediate family. Okay. Although my brother. My brother passed away, which was the wrecking and the resurrection of my family. When he was 38, he died. I'm sorry. Thank you. He is my reason for shining light into the world today. So he is everything to me here.

Now, whether he's in physical form or not, but to answer your question, I was very confused about what this world was and the things that I loved so much were so corrupted before hashtag me too, there was raping and pillaging going on of women in this part of the world. Later in, now in retrospect, I realize that the shame and the guilt and the terror that I would be found out and the incongruency that I felt inside, I'm realizing that safety.

Yeah. Being seen on social because you're Yeah, it's, it was that, but it was also, I was being told you shouldn't do that. That's something that's doesn't work for you. You shouldn't like a lot of shoulds about that too, and having to do with shining your light. That's not something you should do.

Yeah. But more than that. But actually it's a positive when you shine your light. We know a hundred percent. And these days, Linda, the reason I'm on social media is because of a clarity around what in the heck is this girl from Maryland doing in Hollywood? And it's because there's a lot of darkness here.

And I think I, call it, woo, I'm pretty woo, but. I think there are some soul contracts that I signed coming here to this earth. And it's not so much about giving light because a lot of people give light wherever they are and it's glorious. But you could do that in Hawaii, you could do that in a park.

You can do that with your friend. You can do that anywhere. But I think it's interesting that I brought my light to a place where there is a lot of darkness. Insidious darkness. Yeah. And I interviewed, yeah, please. I was just gonna say, I interviewed Eric Bigger. He was on The Bachelorette. He's a spiritual coach.

Podcaster. Author, powerful. We had a great time, but was right after the flood, like the, what had happened there? The fires. The fires that happened. Yes. Yes. Is. Thought was that it was a renewal. How did he say it? It was like apocryphal. It's an apocryphal renewal. Yeah. Yeah. Destroying, burn it down, burn it down.

Yeah. Good. Burn it down. I don't want any loss of life ever. Or loss of family, home and heart. And hashtag me too was a, it's funny because my cry at that time was let it all burn down. I kept saying that before the fires. But there, there is that. So a lot of my confusion about shining my light is that for whatever reason I decided to go to a place where there was a lot of darkness that marred my perception, which at times made being here really physically, emotionally, and spiritually uncomfortable to, to a very extreme, getting sick, all this stuff.

Degree. And. I can feel that I have signed off. I have actually come to the, am I still there? Are you still there? Yeah. Yes you are. I see you. I see you. The those contracts are complete. Nice. I feel that in my blood and in my bones and cellularly and toward that end, I haven't even, I've not said this publicly.

I'm moving back to Maryland after a quarter of a century plus of living in Los Angeles, and I couldn't be more at ease. Beautiful. Or delighted by that choice. And I'm just a very plain spoken level. It's i'm just like, why do I always have to be 3000 miles away from my mom, my dad, my, my family?

They're all there on the East Coast, New York, DC they're all there. You've got the, you've got the acting thing that's virtual, right? And then you have the podcast. And so I just had a couple more questions. You just, yes, please describe Art as a living conversation. Can you share what that means to you and how others might bring that mindset into their own work or life?

There is a misconception that acting and being on stage or when the camera is on you, that it's about you, but it ain't, it's actually about the communion and the connection that happens that transpires with the people on the other side of that lens or out there in the stands. I'll give you a little sort of a e true Hollywood example.

A living conversation, a back and forth, speaking and answering, speaking and listening a conversation. Have you watched the Oscars before the Academy Awards? Yes. Yeah. Have you noticed that? Like when Tom Cruise or Denzel Washington or Kate Blanche or Meryl Streep, they get up Sean Penn to accept their award and they hold the award up and they say, this doesn't belong to me.

This belongs to my co-star. This belongs to this, belongs to. And the reason they're talking about that is because they know that it was the other person that dug up their humanity in that scene, which brought them this award. It's their attention on the other person in the conversation of the scene.

Good actors now have to be trained to actually put their attention on other to that degree. But it's the other person that digs up their humanity, which is why it's, they're like, no, this goes to my CoStar. This is my mom. This is, it was that other human in that conversation and the aliveness of that, that gives rise to these academy of winning, performances.

So it is always, even if it's a monologue, you're talking to your inner most self, even if it's a speech and it's Hamlet, you're talking to God. It's never a monologue. It's like in concert with, it's the interactivity. It's the working off of your partner, not just looking at them, but seeing them.

Not just listening, but hearing what they're saying. That makes it a conversation and the kinds of conversations that I wanted to live and breathe and sing and dance in for my whole life. 'cause they're that connected. They're that good, they're that true. Even though they're under imaginary circumstances, the humanity.

Is there and it's real. Wow. I love it. That's great. Very different perspective. I like that. Let's see. After decades in the business, how do you continue to keep joy at the center of your creative life? I love that question. You love all, it's an easy one. Love Jackie. It's an easy,

I love that question because, so when my brother was 37 years old, he got sick with a brain tumor, a glioblastoma, and it killed him when he was 38. Adam Cohen was a Shakespeare professor and he wrote several books where, which are in university libraries around the world. Two little girls, Hailey and Lauren, who are now grown up and driving and going to college.

And before Adam died. In the year after he had a surgery and he was, it was inoperable most of this tumor. But he had he had moments of extreme supernatural clarity even after they, he had this brain surgery, amazing clarity. He was never quite himself after this surgery, but he was still his soul.

And he said to me, we would walk around golf courses because he loved to play golf, but he couldn't play anymore. He couldn't walk very well or see because of where this tumor was. But we would talk out like, that's gonna be a nine iron. He would talk out the course, I would hold him and we would talk out the course that he was gonna play or he would play.

And at the end of one of these runs, these tours of this course, he said, Robin, it's really, I figured it out. And I said, what? He said, I figured it out. This life thing. He was months away from his death. And he said, I figured it out. And I said, what? What did you figure out? He said here's the secret to life and living.

And I said, what? What is it? He said, the secret to life and living is just being happy. We're here to be happy, Rob. Just be happy. Just be happy. Just be happy. That's it. That's the whole game because we keep, because when you keep doing to try to get somewhere, it will never like I was you. Yeah. You have to choose happy now.

And also tomorrow's not promised to anybody. No. No. Why? Why struggle and suffer at the, in this moment when it's not gonna change? You're better off choosing happy every day. Choosing happy. Yes. Yeah. By the way, that was. At the time, something I didn't know how to start to do, I was in the muck of an e true Hollywood experience that was in many ways killing me.

And it took being with teachers, coaches like you, therapists, hypnotherapy, NLP, 20 years of landmark, which is personal professional development, becoming a coach, becoming a teacher to unwind, doing the EMDR, working with a trauma specialist for years and classical therapy years, decades, to finally answer his prayer that he, that the people that he loved be, have joy while they're here.

When he died, he was in his on a, in a bed at his home in the library on the first floor, and he was surrounded. We surrounded him. And a lot of morphine. And morphine. And it was toward the end, the last half an hour of his life and the last word that he ever said on earth. And he said it twice. He said, lucky.

Lucky. That's my. And then he died. And then he died. Lucky is he saying he lucky. I'm lucky. I'm lucky. 'cause he had all of you there because he had the love. Because he was supported. He could have been alone. He could have, he had, yes. Oh, that's beautiful. Oh, thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Beautiful. How long ago was this?

He passed in 2010, 2010. And these days my teaching, my performing my podcast is a love letter to him. It's all just a love letter to my brother Adam Cohen who gave me. The prescription and I had to go fill it, and I had to go fill it, yeah. It's been the journey of a lifetime. It's been the journey of a lifetime.

Your podcast is called Thriving Artists, the Daily Joy Ride, and I was gonna ask you where the name came from. It's such an idea. Yeah. Thriving artists. Yes. To answer that, was there, sorry. No. What inspired you to create the podcast, Adam? And it used to be called The Daily Joy Ride. When I look back, if I were to map my experiences so high, so low, I'm working with Bill Murray, and now I wanna kill myself because I have outsourced all my power worth, value, joy, and creative freedom.

I've signed it, I've signed it away. I have given up, abandoned myself so fully and so utterly, and it was like that. And, for those who are listening, is this on YouTube as well or is this for Yeah, listening. Pleasure. And for those in the viewing pleasure, you can see that I'm doing this up down thing, which of course looks a lot like an EKG, like a heartbeat.

And it was very much like that, very alive. It was it was the Daily joy ride because when we first started talking today, you said, I love your energy, your light, and I get that from people, it's like when people say what's what's a superpower? I'm like here's a superpower.

I can turn your frown upside down. Like I could make you smile like it's not heart surgery, but in an emergency I can make you smile if it's an emergency. But a lot of that was not authentic. As an actor, trained Julliard, Shakespeare, all the things, masks, right? Become the man or the woman in my case, and talking authentically about the ups and downs.

That it isn't all what we see on social media, it isn't all what we see when you look at the credits and who I've worked with or where I went to school or any of that. There's an entire mountain and valley and mountain and valley experience. And how in that do we navigate that? I put the word joy in it because it is signature to Adam and to the purpose of my life here.

And then I rebranded it. To really talk to the people that I was working with, that I was teaching, that I was learning from. Because thriving artists is out to dismantle this myth of, and we've all heard these terms. They're actual nomenclature, starving artists, struggling, creative suffering actor.

Like it actually, yeah. And so it's bringing on people and conversations out to dismantle this lie. And scarcity of separation. So how do you approach people to move your artists with that rejection, scarcity, how do you coach people to move from that mindset that you just described into the thriving in abundance?

It starts as with what you do and how you Yes. And how you. Yes, it does. And as we've heard, this phrase, walking ourselves back home to ourselves, reconstituting ourselves, giving with love, giving your the love you want, right? That's right. Validation that you want from others, right?

Knowing you're worthy just for, and failure is required in everything. Almost like entrepreneurial journey. It's required. It's going to happen, right? Yes. So what role has self-love and self-worth played in sustaining your career in such a competitive industry? It's everything and it is what I teach.

And the first step is exactly what you just shared. And even the word failure, it has been reframed for me. It's all feedback now. Yeah. It's like now I'm one stick, like I'm one step closer now. Oh, now I'm one step closer. That didn't work. What if I put in a little more cinnamon or a little more sugar?

Oh, it's gonna taste even better. I love for the next No. Or whatever. No. Yeah. Like I was in sales for many years and I'm still basically in sales other than the podcast because, coaching and all that. But the reality is, rejection. I was in a rejection business and I'm an empath, and I self-diagnosed with A DHD very recently.

And so it's very interesting to find out the things about A DHD and women and like how I have extra empath. I'm more empathetic than others. Yes. More sensitive. I am all these things. And I'm harder on, I have a more inner critic, a meaner inner critic than the other. Yes. So it's I feel that I get that and Linda, like, when I look at your eyes, I'm gonna cry.

Like I, I just have to look at your eyes to see your heart. You're that clear with your soul, your empathy that you described, which is a supernatural power in you, this compassion, this endless ethos, pathos with other. And to answer your question, how does this get infused and roles and parts and with students, it starts with.

A simple exercise. Let's say if we're in an acting class or we're on set and you just look at another person and you notice them, and you might say something like, your eyes are shining. And then you would repeat that back to me. My eyes are shining. My eyes are shining. Or your eyes are shining. No, but you said it right.

My eyes are shining. Oh, okay. So your eyes are shining. Your eyes are shining. Your eyes are shining. My eyes are shining. Your eyes are shining. Thank you. Thank you. There's something that happens when two human souls actually get connected, which dismantles a lot of these lies and a lot of these myths about we're terrible people, we're no good.

There's something that brings us into wholeness in the eyes of another. That is a pharmaceutical drip that I never want to be away from, and it's probably why I'm still in this business of show because it all boils down to your eyes are shining. My eyes are shining and seen. I love that because I was taught, like my parents didn't have friends and I was taught like competition and jealousy and like I always say it's complete opposite.

We need each other. We're supposed to, we're supposed to like women especially, women need, we, it take, it's so powerful when we gather, and women like you, Linda your heart is so big. It's like crazy. It makes me, touches me. It's like your heart is it's unique in how much it emanates.

It really is. Listen, I've been around, I'm around a lot of people, a lot of characters, a lot of types my whole life since I'm two years old. And if I was casting a character that was to play you, oh my God, I'd have to get you to do the part. 'cause it's very rare to have someone with that much generosity of spirit and heart as you have.

Sweet. You're so generous. It's so true. It's so obvious. It's so obvious. You, I, we could have a life, my life story could absolutely be something. 'cause it's, nobody knows a lot of what I am currently navigating as well as had in the past. So it's, may I ask you on your podcast if you'll be a guest on mine?

So we could, I could, we could begin to share. Sure. Thank you so much. Of course. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. You're so beautiful. So after, let's see, I have a couple more questions. You've coached countless actors to fulfill their creative dreams. What's one common block and how do you help them break through it?

Is that what we just described? That they're all looking for that external and you coach them on giving it, it really, it does speak to it that 4,000 times more important than who your agent is, who you know. Is that you walk into the room as an authentic human being, and here's the news on that and what I share with my students.

Can you imagine, just for a second being, let's say a casting director or a producer in Hollywood, you have thousands and thousands of people coming to you every week, every month, every day, sometimes hundreds, trying to get something from you. Can you imagine the exhaustion of a casting director who sits there behind a table trying to get a bathroom break and a sandwich with a thousand desperate humans trying to feel like they matter, trying to get a job to pay their rent, get their health insurance, and a myriad of other things, the overwhelm of that.

Okay. On the flip side, imagine for yourself the actor that comes in fully prepared to give something. Not to get something not, that's not even on the table. Can you even imagine the breath of fresh air for that casting director who has been pillaged by the desperation that is clouding their entire central nervous system.

Sounds like the thousands have commission breath and the one comes in that's gonna give value. Something like that. Like you go in the sales world, it's like that, or you go to a networking event and it's here's my card, here's what I do. Instead, you go in saying, what do you do and how can I find a client for you?

Or, yeah. It's like the opposite, right? So yeah, like the generosity and that, that's gonna take you the distance. Like you cannot even imagine. Listen, you might not be right for that role, but they will call you back in and when the role is right and the time and the character, you're it. Because it is, it's oh, a real actor just walked in, in their craft.

Not trying to get anything but trying, but giving me something that I'll never be the same for your having just done it. So it's a paradigm shift. Yes. Yes. Yes. That is awesome. Tell us about the Coen Acting Studio. What makes it unique and what transformation do your students experience? You shared what makes it unique is that you have this piece, but is there anything like specific transformations that your students yeah.

It became very important to me. Yes. How long have you been doing your acting studio? I've been, I'm now in my 20th year of teaching in various studios, and then with Jeff and at Playhouse West and Studio four during hashtag, many years ago before the pandemic, I. It occurred to me that it was time to start something for actors as a woman going forward, running things.

I love that. And did you connect with Karina? 'cause I connected you with Karina. I sent her a text like a message via, I don't have her phone number, so I only have her, I don't, social media don't. Yeah. And I don't know if she's available there, but she was very sweet on our but I'm, I would love to have her on the show 'cause there's such a crossover.

Very sweet. I did message her back and I said, contact me anytime. I know she has kids and the whole thing and Yes. But I hope to continue the conversation. But the main thing about being with groups, number one for me and where I teach, wherever I teach, whether it's my studio or I'm guesting or whatever the case may be, is do no harm.

Number one, do no harm, number one. And then after that, over the course of many years of teaching, I realized that yes, I want my actors to be on TV series and films and plays and Broadway. I want them to have any and all of the success that they want and desire. But more than that, I want that they have a healthy approach to this craft.

Because without that, there's no future for any of us. That's great. That's beautiful. So it's the headline on that is this is a place where we are coming with a healthy approach and we are going after it with creative joy. With creative joy. And that's my bottom line. I love it because, joy really is, I used to say it all the time and I still believe that we're here for joy.

Like we're not here to suffer and struggle. God wants his children happy. We're supposed to be having a good time here, but we all get caught up in the mind and we get caught up in the, external everything. But we really are, we're here. My opinion, we're here to heal, grow, evolve, help others and have fun.

We are supposed to have fun and we're both Jewish. And I know in there's something about joy. It is. Yes. And there's something about Linda and what we talked about earlier, being a candle in the darkest part of the night that can really make an impact beyond what being a light at high noon in the broad day of light can do.

There's something about that too, and it is based in a. Jewish teachings. We like the Shabbat candles, right? Yes. Yeah. That's right. One candle can light a lot of dark, dark darkness. Yeah. Yes. So if you could rewrite the narrative of what it means to be a starving artist, what would the new story be?

It's go time with joy, passion, purpose, wholeness. Wholeness. We are here as actors on the daily and as artists. Literally tapping into the infinite field of creative possibility. Let it in if you can. Allow for it. If we can decongest all of this emotional bag, if we can de, if we can free ourselves from the constraints of our stories what will become available creatively and otherwise will take your breath away.

Beautiful. And so it's about dismantling the strain, the tension, and allowing for the abundance of this infinite universe to come to us to allow for it not to fight and strive and struggle and starve for it, and die for it, but to live for it with it by it. Beautiful. I love that so much.

What do you feel most worthy and abundant? What do you feel most worthy and abundant about in your own life right now? I guess abundant. What? I'm gonna cut that back. Yes. What do you feel? I love that. I know that you're worthy that you've gone through, you've healed so much it sounds like.

And you told me before we hit record that you have a fiance and I'm so excited for you for that. And so you are very abundant. And tell me your perspective, how, of how abundant you are. 'cause I'm gonna be totally honest. Okay. This is it. Being with you in the fullness of this beautiful conversation is the abundance that speaks to my heart and makes me wanna sing.

Oh, you are something. I love you so much. I love you so much too. It's really the truth though, right? Like it's not it's like wherever you are, there you go. And if you keep the channels open, and if we keep breathing and taking on the practices that you so lovingly instruct the people that you coach and teach, if we can actually take on those practices, we can experience the fullness, the aliveness, the magic.

It's actually magic. Yeah. That's right here, right now. I see it in your eyes, right? This very second. This is the whole universe. This is it. Like you said, no one promised us tomorrow, or let alone an hour from now. Knock on wood. But this is it. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. The present moment. You're right.

Beautiful. Thank you. If you could leave our listeners with one piece of advice for living a fully lit, courageous, creative life, what would it be? Look to the natural world.

I hang out outside a lot. I have this sort of unconventional in the last couple years way of working, whether that's emailing, texting, coming up with the syllabus for my students, learning my lines, getting prepared for a role in a film, tv, whatever it may be. I go outside to do it and I look at the trees and I'll put my hands on the oaks and I say out loud if I'm with someone, I definitely say it out loud sometimes just to myself and I'm like, look at this oak tree.

Look at this oak tree. All look at, look. First of all, it goes up a mile into the sky. It's the most beautiful, right? Like a paint. It's beyond, it's breathtaking and all it's doing is sitting there in the mud receiving sunlight and air and oxygen and growing into its magnificence every second. Okay.

That's something. Yeah. Allow receive, allow, receive. Let yourself be nourished and nurtured. And I look to the natural world to see how that's happening in every single direction. So effortlessly. Yes, that's right. Effortlessly. That's right. I love it. It's been such a pleasure talking to you.

Is there anything else you wanna share before we find out where people can find Robin Cohen? I wanna share what a gift it has been, not only being with you in this time space reality, but like literally looking forward to it. And even just filling out like the email, Google form to what we might talk about and inter even that it's just, you are so delicious.

So that all of this, which is an outpouring of your heart and your spirit, it's also it's like everything is dust. It's like fairy dusted. And I wanna just thank you for meeting me where I'm at and for inviting me and for being with me and being such an incredibly beautiful open vessel to have conversations like this.

These are not everyday conversations. I'm not having this conversation every day. I wanna be, but let's face it, right? I gotta take out the cat litter after this. We gotta take out the bot, right? Like this. Yeah. And that's all beautiful too. Now I love my kitten like life, but you know what I'm saying? And so thank you for providing this space and which you do for so many people.

And and more love. More love is what I would say. More love. More love. More love. More love. Thank you. More love. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love your personality. I love you. I love you. Yeah. I've never seen such a beautiful human combination of your eyes, and that is gorgeous. For those watching, she's got this gorgeous gloss on.

And then just like the palette of green and blue in your eyes, it's like mesmerizing. If you're listening to this right now, check it out on YouTube as well because wow. It's beautiful. Stardust. Stardust. So sweet. You're so sweet. When is the you're Aries, you're March, right? You said March was your March 23rd, Aries.

That's the Ram, right? Yeah. I don't know much about it. I wanna know more about it. Yeah. But I do feel like a ram in my Joyful Resistance. Yeah. I'm Aries April 10th, but like I knew there was, as soon as we were together in on Series podcast, I was like, I gotta have, I just, yeah, you're ener. I'm just like, we're magnets to each other, I think.

I feel that. I totally feel that. By the way, my, I was supposed to be named April because I was supposed to be born in April. So was I was supposed to be named April, and I wish she named me April. I swear to God. 'cause I was born. Yeah. She goes, it was Lisa, Linda, or April. I get called Lisa all the time, but I was like, Ugh, I almost changed my name to April when I think about changing my name.

My God. Why? That's amazing. That's so fucked. They're both on the I ended up coming early in March and then when I grew up I was like, where did they get Robin? And when I was old enough, I discovered that the wallpaper in the nursery that I like share with my older sister had birds, robin birds all over it.

I was like, did you name me after this wallpaper? But my mom's birthday is April 9th. Oh, she's April 9th. You're April 10th. We were both supposed to be named April. Oh. And but it worked out. It all worked out. Yes. And my son was, is an Aries too. And he was born in March 28th. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Urin Aries.

Your mom's an Aries. I'm an Aries. My son's an Aries and yeah, April. That's so wild. I love the name April though. I think it's so pretty. Yeah, it is. Maybe we'll name a goddaughter April. Yeah. Also we'll find a goddaughter to name. I also just doing the self-love work, I decided like I finally like the name Linda.

It's pretty, and I'm like, it means, it literally means pretty in Spanish. Yeah. But I honestly, like all the years, like finally doing this work, I'm starting to like, oh, it's a pretty name. Linda. Linda. Linda. That's like Linda. Linda Kay. Linda. How beautiful. Kay Linda. I go outside all the time and I say her name.

I go, Kay Linda. My father's abuela Abuelas ancestors are actually from Spain before the Spanish Inquisition when all the Jewish people had the diaspora and then to Middle East. But he speaks like really, it's literally ancestors from the 14 hundreds from Spain. But our family, we speak Spanish just because we wanted to learn it.

And he does very well. And I'm always like, hi Linda. When I see something I love, I say, K, Linda, how pretty all the time. My great grandma on my mother's side's, last name was Bravo. So there's some kind of a span Spanish, something inside. Yes. And then mom's side, Eastern European, Russia, Poland is my mom on the eastern European side.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. My side, my mother, Russia, but there must be some Spanish thing. And then my dad's is like Poland and I guess Austria. I found out I my uncle's c funeral. They said he was part Austrian. I'm like, Austrian. Oh, I'm part Austrian too. I guess I didn't know that you're, the whole world had been you.

Yes. And all the. I've been healing for a long time. Wow. But still work to do. It's always a journey. Just like self-love is a practice. You don't just, yeah. It's practice. But thank you Robin. This was beautiful. I love talking to you. Totally. I love it so much. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Linda.

Ah, that was a big kiss for those listening in. Yes. And now I'm hugging my computer. I think my computer thinks I'm in a relationship with it because I'm always hugging my computer. Aw. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I can't wait to.