The Inspired Actor

Hosted by Tobias Jelinek with Craig Mathers
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Performing Arts

The Inspired Actor is a podcast exploring performance, imagination, and the actor’s creative process. Produced in collaboration with MICHA — the Michael Chekhov Association, the series features conversations with international artists, teachers, and practitioners working with the Michael Chekhov technique and related approaches to acting, directing, and creative collaboration. Learn More at www.michaelchekhov.org Tobias Jelinek is an actor and founder of The Inspired Actor, a Michael Chekhov-based acting lab in Los Angeles exploring performance, imagination, and creative transformation. Over a 30-year career in film and television, he has portrayed bold, transformative characters across comedy, drama, and genre storytelling. His work spans from his early role as Jay in Disney’s cult classic Hocus Pocus to appearances in the Marvel and DC universes and acclaimed productions including Stranger Things, Mayfair Witches, and This Is Us. Most recently, he portrayed real-life serial killer Richard Speck in Ryan Murphy’s international hit Monster: The Ed Gein Story. Jelinek’s interest in documenting and sharing artist archives began in the early 2000s through a collaboration with Callie Angell, curator of the Andy Warhol Film Project at the Whitney Museum. He later penned Detour Journals, a column for H Magazine dedicated to the raw exploration of Los Angeles subculture, artists, and creative communities. His upcoming projects include a new Ryan Murphy production as well as a collection of interviews and narrative collaborations connected to the anticipated photo book of celebrity hairstylist and artist Julio “Shampoolio” Romano.

Episodes

  1. 2d ago

    Ep. 5 Jess Maynard

    In this episode of The Inspired Actor: MICHA Conversations, Tobias Jelinek and Craig Mathers sit down with Chicago-based actor, teacher, photographer, and MICHA Vice President Jess Maynard to explore the many ways the Michael Chekhov Technique has shaped her creative life. Jess reflects on her first encounter with the work at DePaul University, where the Imaginary Body gave her a way to remain deeply engaged as an actor even while recovering from injury. She went on to study with teachers including Ragnar Freidank, Ted Pugh, and Fern Sloan, developing a relationship to the technique that she describes as immediate, joyful, and deeply personal. The conversation moves between acting, teaching, and photography, exploring how atmosphere, gesture, form, play, and storytelling carry across all three. Jess shares how Chekhov’s principles inform the way she works behind the camera, from actor headshots to weddings, and how the practice of truly seeing gesture and atmosphere has become central to her photographic work. She also speaks about the importance of artistic community, her work helping connect Chekhov practitioners through MICHA, and the power of creating spaces where artists can reclaim a sense of agency and belonging. At the heart of the conversation is Jess’s belief that the Chekhov Technique offers actors clarity, creative freedom, and a safer relationship to emotional life, allowing them to work fully and truthfully through imagination without needing to harm themselves in the process. The Inspired Actor: MICHA Conversations is produced in collaboration with MICHA, the Michael Chekhov Association.

  2. 2d ago

    Ep. 4 Sarah Kane

    In this episode of The Inspired Actor: MICHA Conversations, Tobias Jelinek and Craig Mathers sit down with UK-based teacher, director, performer, and voice specialist Sarah Kane to explore her decades of work bridging the Michael Chekhov Technique with Rudolf and Marie Steiner’s approach to Creative Speech. Sarah opens a window into Steiner Speech as an embodied practice, one concerned not simply with voice, but with the living activity of speaking itself. She explores how breath, consonants, vowels, syllables, gesture, and movement can awaken language and give the actor new ways into text, imagination, and character. The conversation traces the deep connections between Steiner’s work and Chekhov’s, from speech gestures and movement to atmosphere, qualities, and Psychological Gesture. Sarah shares how these approaches can work together to help actors experience language not only through intellectual meaning, but through the life, movement, and expressive qualities of sound itself. Sarah also reflects on what may be disappearing from contemporary actor training: the integration of the body, imagination, and spoken word. Her work offers another path, one in which the whole body speaks and text becomes something active, physical, and transformative. At the center of the conversation is a shared pursuit: finding practices that awaken trust, imagination, and the possibility of truly inspired acting. The Inspired Actor: MICHA Conversations is produced in collaboration with MICHA, the Michael Chekhov Association.

  3. Sep 17

    Ep.3 Danielle Carter

    In this episode of The Inspired Actor: MICHA Conversations, Tobias Jelinek and Craig Mathers sit down with Australian actor, educator, and author Danielle Carter for a conversation about discovery, creative freedom, and the enduring power of the Michael Chekhov Technique. Danielle shares how an unexpected encounter with Chekhov changed the course of her work, and how that discovery eventually led to her new book, Discovering the Michael Chekhov Technique: In the Studio with Ted Pugh and Fern Sloan. The Inspired Actor: MICHA Conversations is produced in collaboration with MICHA, the Michael Chekhov Association.

  4. Jun 11

    Ep. 2 Tobias Jelinek

    In this episode of The Inspired Actor: MICHA Conversations, Craig Mathers and Ray Caspio sit down with actor and Inspired Actor founder Tobias Jelinek to explore his journey into the Michael Chekhov Technique and the ways it has transformed his approach to acting. Tobias shares how a desire to revitalize his imagination led him to Chekhov, the teachers who shaped his practice, and how the work has become an essential part of his process on stage, on screen, and in the audition room. The conversation moves through atmosphere, archetype, embodied exploration, and his preparation for the role of Richard Speck in Monsters, including his work with master teacher Dawn Arnold in Chicago. At the heart of the conversation is a simple idea: Chekhov gives actors a practical way to move beyond habitual choices, expand the imagination, and access qualities and psychology beyond their everyday selves. The Inspired Actor: MICHA Conversations is produced in collaboration with MICHA, the Michael Chekhov Association.

  5. May 11

    Ep.1 Dominika Handzlik

    In this first episode of The Inspired Actor, Tobias Jelinek and Craig Mathers sit down with Polish actor, musician, educator, and intimacy coordinator Dominica Hanslik to explore her path into the Michael Chekhov Technique and the sense of creative freedom she discovered through the work. Dominica shares how an early encounter with Chekhov sparked her curiosity, eventually leading her to study with teachers including Graham Dixon, Joanna Merlin, Leonard Petit, Ted Pugh, Fern Sloan, Craig Mathers, Bethany Caputo, Dawn Arnold, and Ragnar Freidank. She reflects on the importance of the body, the archetypal world, and the limitless possibilities of imagination. The conversation also explores a defining realization in her training: that an actor does not need to rely solely on personal experience in order to access truthful emotion. Through gesture, direction, and imagination, she found a practical way into material that once felt out of reach. For Dominica, the Michael Chekhov Technique ultimately offers the actor two essential things: a sense of freedom and a deep connection to the body. The Inspired Actor: MICHA Conversations is produced in collaboration with MICHA, the Michael Chekhov Association.

  • 5 Episodes

About

The Inspired Actor is a podcast exploring performance, imagination, and the actor’s creative process. Produced in collaboration with MICHA — the Michael Chekhov Association, the series features conversations with international artists, teachers, and practitioners working with the Michael Chekhov technique and related approaches to acting, directing, and creative collaboration. Learn More at www.michaelchekhov.org Tobias Jelinek is an actor and founder of The Inspired Actor, a Michael Chekhov-based acting lab in Los Angeles exploring performance, imagination, and creative transformation. Over a 30-year career in film and television, he has portrayed bold, transformative characters across comedy, drama, and genre storytelling. His work spans from his early role as Jay in Disney’s cult classic Hocus Pocus to appearances in the Marvel and DC universes and acclaimed productions including Stranger Things, Mayfair Witches, and This Is Us. Most recently, he portrayed real-life serial killer Richard Speck in Ryan Murphy’s international hit Monster: The Ed Gein Story. Jelinek’s interest in documenting and sharing artist archives began in the early 2000s through a collaboration with Callie Angell, curator of the Andy Warhol Film Project at the Whitney Museum. He later penned Detour Journals, a column for H Magazine dedicated to the raw exploration of Los Angeles subculture, artists, and creative communities. His upcoming projects include a new Ryan Murphy production as well as a collection of interviews and narrative collaborations connected to the anticipated photo book of celebrity hairstylist and artist Julio “Shampoolio” Romano.

Information

  • Creator
    Hosted by Tobias Jelinek with Craig Mathers
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    5
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Inspired Actor
  • Show Website
    The Inspired Actor