Queer Grief and the Power of Storytelling: The Story of "What About Me?"

Today's episode is Navigating Grief and Identity, a conversation with Josh Nagler and Sam Wasserman of What About Me.

Welcome to More Human, More Kind, the podcast helping parents of LGBTQ+ kids move from fear to fierce allyship and feel less alone and more informed so you can protect what matters, raise brave kids, and spark collective change.

I'm Heather Hester.

Heather Hester, let's get started.

In this episode, you will gain insight into the intersection of grief and queer identity, challenging the common narrative that being gay is the quote unquote most interesting part of someone's story. You will also feel the power of raw, messy, and real storytelling through Josh and Sam's candid experiences. You are going to be reminded that healing doesn't look like a Hollywood ending. And you will discover how humor and darkness can coexist. Without further ado, here are my guests, Josh Nagler and Sam Wasserman.

Josh and Sam, I am so delighted to have you on the show today to talk about your brand-new show that is coming out very, very soon. But before we get into that and all of the lovely things about that, I'd love— to learn a little bit more about each of you. So I'll let you decide who wants to go first, but just a little bit about your background and how you got from there to here today.

You want to start?

Sure.

Well, first of all, thank you so much for chatting with us. We're really excited and, you know, excited for you, for us, and really just, you know, helpful to connect with others, especially about a topic such as grief. But a little bit about me. I'm originally from Las Vegas. I've been in Los Angeles for about 10 years now doing the acting, writing thing. During the pandemic, decided to kind of pivot and expand as a creative and created the series and am now diving into the world of producing. I've always been a creative at heart, and I am thankful that my life partner has turned into my creative partner as well.

Yeah, I mean, that's a great segue. Also, to echo Josh, thank you so much for having us. We're very excited to chat. Similarly, I've been out in Los Angeles for a bit over 10 years from Chicago. Unlike Josh, though, where he Heather Hester, uh, has been a creative. I've been on the brand and business side, but always cheering Josh on from the get-go, from the moment the idea was conceived all throughout execution. And then I got very lucky when it was actually time to bring it to life that I was able to partner up, not just as a partner, but creatively. And now we have a finished series, which is crazy to think about.

I mean, holy cow. I'd like to just take a moment and sit with that because that's pretty awesome. And I don't think that people realize how much like work and love and tears and all of the things go into that.

All the things. It's been how many years?

Oh, years, decades, um, lifetimes. Um, uh, I guess technically now it's been about 5 years as we've both We've been fortunate enough to tackle this together and grow and learn together. I think we've both realized that we are capable of so much more than maybe we initially thought, both as individuals, but also as a couple. I think navigating any workplace with a significant other can be tricky. So I'm very proud that we navigated that as well and really had each other as a crutch throughout this entire process. Sam has always been my biggest cheerleader, um, aside from my Jewish mother. Um, but, um, having him, yeah, be at the very beginning when this was conceived on a gym floor all the way into release has been really special. And I'm really grateful for that. For the finished product, sure, but for the entire journey, getting to spend it with Sam has been really, really impactful.

Absolutely.

Well, I'm sure that's added layers to this that you would not have normally had, right?

Completely. I mean, I'd say what's been really nice about this project is we've really done it all ourselves. I mean, mostly Josh, but I'll throw myself in there too. But from, you know, the idea to writing it, to actually going into pre-production and then filming, and now we are self-releasing by choice and are able to actually put marketing behind it and see our vision all the way through, which is really special, especially in this current Hollywood landscape, to actually get what you wanted out there, out there.

Yeah, I, you know, just to echo off of that, I'm not as big into the Zodiac as many other Angelenos, but I do think like the most Taurus thing about me is just how maybe determined and stubborn I can be. And I really just, really was determined to just see this all the way through on my own terms. I think this industry can be very guarded and there's gates that you gotta get through and I really just wanted to do it for myself because this project was inspired by my brother and my brother was also a huge cheerleader of me. So it, it really felt like there was no other way to do this but to do it ourselves.

Well, I think that's a good segue too into how, how did this project come, you know, where did it come from? Where did it originate?

The idea?

Yeah.

So it was immediately inspired by the loss of, of my brother Brett, um, in 2018. And I think the idea in general started from some comments that people were making at the funeral. I got a lot of, "Oh, it's like looking at a ghost," or, you know, "Oh, you look just like him." And I would eventually look at myself in the mirror and my own features were his, and it was like an absolute mind— a mind F. In that, I kind of got to thinking, what must it be like to be in someone's shadow and mold? And then it kind of just expanded from there. You know, I think the overall, like, logline was kind of etched out and stretched out on a gym floor between Sam and I. And, you know, I was inspired by Heath Ledger when he passed away. His— His brother actually filled in for him on some reshoots for a movie that he was working on. And all of these ideas kind of turned into what this project, you know, eventually became.

Amazing. Amazing. It is quite extraordinary. I still, like, I can hear you say, "What about me?" I mean, you nailed that. I lost my sister a year ago, and— Oh, I'm sorry. —really connected with a lot of this. Wow. I actually just did a huge episode on grief. So like the timing is so perfect as I completely, I can empathize with you in a lot of these feelings and a lot of things that people say to you that you're like, can you hear yourself right now?

Right. Yeah.

Did you check that before it came outta your mouth? I think, you know, one of the more interesting things that people said to me over and over is, I don't understand why you're so angry. I was like, Heather Hester.

Really? It's like, you don't understand?

What parts? What don't you understand? Like, it's my sister who, you know, you get it, all the things. But it, I think it is fascinating, the things that people say. But then also kind of to what you walked through in this, or at least the pieces that I've seen so far, is that how we deal with grief is likely quite different than we think we would deal with grief. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, I think that your whole eulogy is something that so many people will connect with because it was just, it was so raw and real.

Yeah. And it's true, you know, it, eh, grief is so personal and then it's also so individual and Also, one thing that you end up struggling with, at least in my own experience, is that everyone's idea of who that person was is completely different based off of your relationship, right? So you're like, okay, am I misremembering that? Are you misremembering that? Who has the say in this person's legacy? Um, and I think that was also really interesting and what I hope to explore down the line further. Yeah.

And one thing that you always said throughout this process, and I'm sure you understand this as well, is typically when it comes to grief, people think, you know, parents or grandparents, rarely do they think sibling. And also it's typically your sibling that you are kind of checking in on those stories with to make sure that you're aligned. So when you lose the one person that you're like, you were there, you get it, then it becomes even more confusing because a mother's relationship is gonna be very different than a brother's relationship. And you kind of lose that connection.

Oh my gosh, that's so well said. So, so well said. That was one of the things that I just recently, you know, in this past 6 months, I was like, oh, that is exactly what happened. She was my person. Like, she's the only other person who grew up with me that could be like, oh yeah, yeah.

And I've seen why, right? Because Josh and I, we had our first date 2 months after his brother passed. So I never knew his brother. I only know him through stories. But, you know, the stories I hear from him versus the stories I hear from his mom versus the stories I hear from his sister, I'm like, "Are we talking about the same per—" Like, they are all a different version of the same person, which I find so interesting, but so human. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. I mean, this is a topic that you could have— this could just be season 1. I mean, there's so much there that you could build from that, um, you're just beginning to kind of scratch the surface and, and get people, you know, reeled into it, which— and I think there's such a need to have discussions like this. Like grief is one of those things. Somebody had said to me a long time ago, you know, I think that Americans especially, specifically, are grief-phobic. And I was like, that's such an interesting way of saying that because it's kind of true. And so, you know, addressing it and kind of bringing it out the way you are doing in this show is like, hey, let's talk about it. Like, this is something that every— it's a human emotion. Like, let's not be afraid of it. Let's talk about it and let's be real about it. Like, mm-hmm.

It's so many different— pretty. Yeah. It's a thousand different things. Can look so much more than just someone dying. I mean, grief can be losing a job. It can be losing your identity, losing so much. Um, and that is very human and something that we can all at least connect on. Totally, totally, totally.

Um, why now? Why are you putting this out into the world at this moment in time? Mm. Ooh, I feel like just a bevy of reasons.

Initially, it was really just a way for me to navigate and heal, and then it became more urgent because I was kind of trying to I don't know about you, but when my brother died, I became obsessed with, like, sad songs, sad movies. Like, I wanted to feel it. Yeah. Um, and I, you know, I noticed what I was watching didn't necessarily pertain to me or didn't feel as maybe universal. It was about a parent, um, or just about something else entirely. And, you know, at the time, I really didn't find anything about grieving a sibling or grieving someone in that capacity. And that felt just important. It felt important to address that kind of lack and try to help others. I think all in all, just going back to grieving in so many different ways, the world is not a primarily maybe compassionate place at the moment. And, you know, we are all experiencing a lot of different losses, and there are glimmers in it. There is hope in that. And, you know, I think also Hollywood loves to say like, "Okay, the world's on fire right now. We need happy things. We need to celebrate. We need to do that." But I— that's also not how we as humans work. We can't just turn something off and choose to, you know, be consumed by something else. We're gonna just navigate it on our own. Right. It was important for me to just be real, trust what I thought, you know, trust what I was feeling.

Yeah. I mean, it's also the reason we have decided to put it all out on YouTube versus going through traditional distribution because, you know, also with the change in entertainment, we've seen a lot of these streamers almost gatekeep content by asking you to pay for it. And there are so many people who are grieving who might not have a subscription to this very obscure streamer. And we're like, how can we reach the most people where they are when they need it? Not when, you know, they're sitting on the couch after 30 minutes just going through Netflix, but when they're like, if they YouTube grief and they see it, maybe it'll reach the right people at the right time. Absolutely.

Well, and I think that YouTube is now the biggest search engine. Yeah. What? Yeah.

Yeah. So that doesn't hurt either.

It does not. It was quite smart on your part to do that. Um, and I think, you know, it's, it's really rather brilliant in so many ways, but Something else that you had just said was the whole Hollywood angle about, you know, Hollywood does like to slap a happy, you know, a happy ending. Everything has a happy ending. Everything is buttoned up and neat and 90 minutes, right? And that's not life. And so I like that that's the way you have approached this because it feels messy. Like there were a lot of those moments where it was like the secondhand embarrassment, like that feeling, you know, where you're just like, you're all in it. And I was like, Oh, I can so feel this right now.

Right?

So that's such a good thing, right? People can really identify with that. They've been there. And so I just think all around, what a really well thought out, well executed— and I can't wait to see the whole thing. So I just— yeah, bravo. Oh, man.

No, and I— again, I'm just so fortunate. It's crazy, yeah, to see something that was just in my brain, but I have, you know, an entire community who helped crowdfund, who was the creative team behind this, and my actors. And I can hardly take— A big bulk of the card. You can take a lot.

Yes, you go ahead and take a lot. One of the things that I noticed was that, you know, here we are talking about this, the subject of grief, which is at its core sad, right? That we, it like, we can all feel it when you say the word grief, you can feel it, but you did a really lovely job of weaving in comedy and kind of offbeat. I mean, my gosh, I was cracking up with the app. I was like, oh dear God. It's not that funny. Turn it off. And having a gay son, I was like, oh yes. I mean, just like giggling. And it was just the timing was really, really good. And I'm wondering, was that like that for you from the beginning? Did you know, "Oh, I need to weave in so it's not always sad," or did that kind of come to you like, "Oh, we need a little comic relief here"?

I think I've always been drawn to that balance. It's something that has bonded my siblings and I. We've always had that kind of sardonic, kind of outlook on life. And, you know, those are the comedians that I'm drawn to, that darkness that helps us see the light. And I, you know, I— there's like one specific example that I feel like might have subconsciously played into the whole script. I— my brother had just passed away and I went home to Vegas for the services. And I remember there was one moment where I just like had a huge breakdown in the shower. I carried that breakdown into his closet and was just having, like, a dramatic meltdown moment and made enough noise to have my mom and sister barge into the room and then immediately console me and hug me. And without skipping a beat, my sister made some comment about how hot my body was. And then we all just laughed and it was like a crying, snotty, sad, happy, weird mess. And I look back on it now and go, yes, like that is, that is life. That is what we all navigate through on our own with our family. So all in all, I, you know, it's always been my way of life and it's how I'll continue to produce work and just live.

Yeah. Completely. I mean, Josh is truly one of the silliest people I know. And yeah, I mean, from the beginning, no matter how he was feeling, he was still— I think it was that silliness that helped him move forward. And then putting it into the project, I mean, there's been such a difference between the Josh before he started writing this and the Josh after, just in terms of like his outlook on the world and his healing journey. And I think a lot of that comes down to the ability to laugh and cry simultaneously.

Absolutely. Well, to hold, right? It's like that holding the tension of the opposites. Yes. And you do, you have a very like tangible tenderness to you. At the same time, I can feel the edges. I can feel the— The sarcasm, I mean, it's something I identify with a lot as well. I mean, that's my role here in this household.

I love that. We love that.

Oh yeah. And a lot of dark, very inappropriate humor. I mean, love.

It's not, it's all of that. Exactly. Totally.

I can imagine this process for you has been incredibly cathartic.

Yeah, every step of the way has, has brought up different emotions. I, I'm pretty hard on myself and there have not been many moments in my life where I felt truly proud of myself. Mom or Sam or other people can give me that validation, but there are not a ton of times where, where I feel that and It seems as if they've all been throughout this project. And that's not coming from a place of, you know, "I did it." I just, I felt proud because I felt the ripple effect. I, from a very young age, I've just always been a storyteller and getting able to tell a story that is useful to the greater good. It means everything to me.

I mean— Yeah. I was really fortunate. I got to be there when his mom and sister watched it for the first time. It was the 4 of us on the couch. And as an outsider, I saw that it was not just cathartic and healing for Josh, but for his entire family. Like, it really was almost like a moment of— of celebration and recognition and, you know, recognizing that the next chapter of their lives is starting. And it doesn't mean you have to forget this last chapter, but it's just time for the next one. And to be part of that was really—

it was really nice. I thought it was really lovely to kind of sit there and just hold that.

Yeah. Yeah, I think this whole project, you know, my family thinks it's all about them, which if you watch the show, that would make sense as well. Um, if I was them, I wouldn't want it to be about me, I don't think. Lots of, uh, experiences that we've been through have inspired the story. I think that is the most special experience that I've maybe ever had is getting to share this with my family. And aside from that first initial screening with them, we held a screening with our cast and crew, and they also drove in for that. And them— watching them watch other people watch it was a very out-of-body experience as well because they were touched, how other people were touched, and then that touched me, and it felt— Our family can frustrate us, they can annoy us, they can drive us crazy. They can also make us happy and give us purpose and reason. And, you know, as complicated as things are for my family, as they are with many other people in this world, um, having moments where you can all get together. Um, it's really nice. It's really nice. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. It is. That was very well said. You really threw me with the family bit because that is— I think— I'm sure the family bit is a— it's a piece of everyone's story in one way or another. And the way that you wove the ideas, the truths, the tensions of queer family dynamics into this story, I thought was really meaningful. It was really— it was real. This is kind of an aside, but when my son first came out, um, 7, 8 years ago, He was 16 and there was a lot of stuff that surrounded it, but around the same time that movie Love, Simon came out. Yeah. And so we went to see it and we were in a really rough spot with him. Like he was really, really struggling and going through some stuff, a lot of stuff. Mm-hmm. And I remember sitting through that movie being like, this is not real. This is not how this happened. Me and my sister, we'd be like, but in my house, let's, we should go get on Grindr together. I literally was like, Easy. Think through me. But I watched this thinking, now this is like real stuff. This is messy. And I think it's more often than not messy in some way, right? Like just real and like say the wrong thing. Somebody says the wrong thing, or you say exactly what you're thinking. Weird and maybe not the right thing to say, right? But I think you just nailed that, I guess is what I'm saying. So I'm gonna quit talking and I—

No, thank you. Yeah, no, yeah. Thank you.

Would love to hear your thoughts on if there was like kind of an underlying reason why you were like, I wanna weave the idea of grief with queer family dynamics, with humor, with all these things.

Yeah. Um, why I guess I kind of wanted to challenge was this idea that being gay is the most interesting thing about someone. Um, from, from my perspective, a lot of the queer media that, that I grew up with, um, these stories revolved around family members or friends who struggled to accept the main character. And that was the story. That was the plot. That was what it was. But wasn't my experience and wasn't what I thought life was, you know. And what about me? Our main character, Josh, is gay and is loved and accepted by his family, but he's the only one that kind of ponders if being gay has negatively affected his life. To his family, it's like sometimes a comment here and there, but like Who cares? So I really wanted to show that it's very fluid to be a queer person and be a family member of a queer person. You know, sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong. We say the right thing, we say the wrong thing. And that comes from both ends of the spectrum. Me as the queer person and my family as the family of. That was important to me.

Yeah. And also, I think you know, especially for queer kids, they're always told that it gets better. And I think it's important to be like, it does get better, but that doesn't mean it's always going to be great. And it's okay to, like, be great and confident in yourself in one part of your life and then have to deal with grief or hardship in another part of your life, you know? So just that story of like, yeah, Josh, his family loves him, but now they are dealing with something really hard. So like, it got better and now it's bad again. And that's just, that's life. Right, right.

Well, too, and I think the other point that you brought up that is so important, and it is something that I think most, most people coming out and most families of people coming out deal with in some respect, is that whole idea that being gay is the entire identity, right? And It's not. And I remember saying that to Connor, like, that is a piece of who you are. Right? So it's one of those— I think that was also very well done in that it was part of the story, which is super cool because I think that representation is so important. But to your point, it's a great example of a main character who's gay. And yes, who's grieving and has a family who's a mess and right. Like, like all these things that's like real, like this is a, these are real family dynamics. These are real things that real people go through. Right. And I mean, your mom with the chain smoking, I literally was just, I'm dying right now. Funny. It was true.

It was so real.

Ripped straight from real life. Yeah. Right. That was the giveaway for my mom.

Yes. I'm sure she was just cracking up because that was very, very, very, very funny. Oh my goodness. So talking about grief and visibility, about how they are both obviously two separate things, but they are very personal. They're very found, and sometimes they come out sideways. And so I'd love to hear you talk about that a little bit and how, how you navigated that. All right.

Um, you know, I think, I think there is a sense of mourning when, when someone comes out from maybe the queer person's perspective. Mourning who you thought you were supposed to be. And for maybe the parent mourning who you wanted them to be. Um, and I think to be queer is to, in a way, mourn. There's been historically a lot of strife. And so that I feel like is baked into our existence. I came out when I was 14, which I know sounds like it was yesterday, but it actually was decades now ago, and things were different. It wasn't completely legal to get married, and HIV treatments and research were nowhere near what they are today. And we now live in an era where kids are figuring out who they are because of how big our bubble has become. And I think that is amazing.

It's taken you on a journey, but I do think things have gotten easier in some ways for kids. I think it's also okay for a child who comes out or a parent to mourn just in the same way that it's okay to mourn when you lose someone, because it is a big change and you do have to go through a period of recognizing what that change means for what your life will now look like. And I think there's sometimes a worry that like, oh, if I am mourning this, that means I'm not happy about it or that I'm questioning it or I'm sad about it. But sometimes you're just, you're just mourning and you're just figuring out the next phase, and that's okay.

And isn't mourning from a place of remembering the love? Mm-hmm. Ultimately, mourning comes from a place of light, of positivity, of reflecting on something that was better. Uh, yes. I think queer people innately have that. Yeah. And I'm grateful that we subconsciously or consciously got to display those parallels in a way.

Yeah. I mean, obviously it's a different spelling, but you know, morning always comes after a period of night and darkness, but morning itself is not the darkness. It is what's bringing you into, you know, the day. I think it's important that people remember.

And that is the quote.

Here we have it. And you're out. I'm all finished. Thank you so much, Sam.

Okay. I wanna put that on a t-shirt and sell it.

Do it.

You might have like a new tagline.

I mean, yeah, I want to explore it. Yeah, we did.

This is, uh, uh, wow. So the title was originally called Good Grief, but— And Dan Levy eventually released a Netflix movie with the same title. I will say, when I first wrote the first draft of the script, there was no other project called Good Grief. There's now, if you go on IMDb, probably like 37. I really thought I was original, but my first backup name was Good morning.

Yeah. And then, you know, you saw it, you heard it, you know.

So good.

I think third time's a charm. You got it. Great. Perfect. So good. I will say, though, I think you have to use that. Yeah, right.

Or on a shirt. Well, sure.

Some kind of merch. I love it. Well, and I, you know, it's funny because that was one of the first things I I didn't realize I was kind of figuring this out, but I remember first sitting in my son's like high school counselor's office and I was having a full-on meltdown because I was so worried about him. He wasn't going to school. Like we were having the whole school refusal thing. It was, it was a hot mess. And I was just like, oh, it was this whole thing. And I was like, it is just like my entire movie reel has exploded. And he was like, Well, I think you might have something there. And I was like, I think I might, like my biggest fan. Like, this is what happens. Listen, parents, it's okay. Like when your child comes out, it's totally fine. Like they need to be upset because their everything's turned upside down for them. Like encourage them to mourn and you mourn. Like be sad. Like let go of it. I'm mourning. Because then you get to like enjoy all the cool stuff on the other side. Yeah, completely. 100%. Good. Let that move on. Exactly.

It's all good.

So funny, the crazy things we come up with, right? So, okay. So let's talk about all the ways that people can find you. Obviously, when is this official, like officially out into the world?

Officially out on May 30th. Which is Friday, May 30th, 2025. All 6 episodes are gonna be dropped at once. Okay. So you'll be able to hopefully binge it all. And then fingers crossed for, you know, more to come. Thank you.

You can find us on YouTube, Wham! The Series. That's where it will be. We're on Instagram @WhamTheSeries.

We are on TikTok @wamtheseries, or you can go to the website, which is wamtheseries.com.

Excellent. I love it when things work together like that. Right. Please do. I mean, and that's WAM, W-A-M. Yes. Or what about me? As opposed to the band.

As opposed to the band. Yeah. So, No, he didn't. He checked the URLs. They're dead.

But if the band gets us more views, then we can stay for the band.

Right. You know, come for the band, stay for the grease. Exactly. Thank you.

There we go. Another tagline.

That's on the back of this, this fabric. I think it's gonna have to be. Oh my gosh. Okay. This has been such a delight. Is there anything else you would like to leave with? One final thought.

Support queer art. That's it. Yeah.

Queer art and queer independent art.

Independent. Independent.

Because it's hard to make things. It's expensive to make things. And yeah, so just throw your money at any queer person you know. Just give them all your cash.

I love it. Well, that's where we're leaving it today.

It has been such a delight to have you. Thank you.

What a beautiful invitation from Josh and Sam of What About Me into their journey of creating a project born from profound grief, grief that is both universal and intimate. They've revealed how grief can be a catalyst for connection. Healing, and deeper understanding of family dynamics, queer or otherwise. Together, they showed us that mourning is not darkness. It is the first light of dawn, a testament to the love we carry. Their conversation is a beautiful reminder that art doesn't just reflect life. It can help us live it more fully, more honestly, and with more compassion for ourselves and others. Thank you so much for joining me today. Make sure to catch new episodes of More Human, More Kind every Tuesday and Friday. Finally, if you've ever been curious about what kind of ally you are, take my new quiz to find out. Just click on the link in the show notes. Until next time, remember, you are not alone.