Everyone please welcome lovely friend and fellow (voice)actor Maddie McGuire to A Broadway Body: Continued Conversations! Maddie and I met online in 2020 during Ashli Pollard (of The Doers)’s business course, Square One Accelerator. We’d only known each other over the internet until the fall of 2024 when we finally got to meet in person! Since then, we’ve gotten closer and closer, and Maddie was one of the first people to express to me how much she believes in what I’m doing with this project. (Thank you Maddie!)
Maddie is an inspirational gem of a human being. She’s the voice of Comcast on TV (along with many others), and she does a lot of other voice acting work as well. She’s such a humble, caring, talented woman with a heart of pure gold, and I am so excited for you to hear our conversation. Our discussion floats around connecting with our bodies to allow us to use our voice confidently in the spaces we frequent, the journey of embracing aging and our ever-changing bodies (and careers), and Maddie’s journey with running a half marathon. Tune in and enjoy Maddie and I’s conversation!
“It’s been happening recently too, Megan. Probably from a year ago when we first kind of met and I was hearing so much about your business, I feel like my brain – I've just been so much more open to explore what comes up, whether that be a feeling, a thought, challenging myself to be like, “Let's just try something different today with the workout clothes I'm wearing,” or whatever the case may be, instead of getting locked into comfort, not that that's a negative thing at all. I just think that that's become such a safety net, especially in COVID for me. I'm just ready to write a new permission slip, and that's what all these findings are is like, “Okay, what's that permission slip we're writing next, and what are we kind of sorting through to get there?””
- Maddie McGuire
Maddie McGuire: I feel like I've had a couple phases before in my life where it's almost like I woke up and realized my body has changed, and then it's forced me to reevaluate my relationship with my body, health, clothes, feeling sexy, feeling strong, all of those things. And so, I feel like I'm in a period of that, of almost like, okay, things have changed. I'm accepting that. Now, what does past acceptance and actually falling in love with my body again look like, or a different form of the relationship.
Megan Gill: Yeah. It’s evolving and how do you mentally have radical acceptance for the way that it's evolving while also working towards loving and caring for and appreciating the changes, because I feel like it's so easy to be like, “Ah! I’m changing!” Whether it's my body is changing in the sense that it's getting older, or my knee is starting to hurt a little bit more now, or whether it's in a sense of, “Oh, I've gained weight,” or “Oh, I've lost weight, and like now my clothes don't fit, and how am I supposed to feel sexy in a pair of jeans that don't fit me right, whether I've gained weight or lost weight?”
So, oh, gosh. I feel like this is just such a relatable topic probably for so many women and people in general.
Maddie McGuire: Yeah.
Megan Gill: Do you feel like you've gone through different periods in your life of having to reevaluate kind of like you are right now?
Maddie McGuire: Yeah. I feel like – and I was thinking about that too, where I was like, when have I felt like this before? And every time's different, obviously, but I feel like the first big one, I was never like chubby, per se, as a kid, but I definitely had a lot of baby fat in my tummy and my face. And then when I started going through puberty, really, almost like the last two years of high school, growing a little bit and things changed, I got more attention. I was also starting to act at that time, and I was mainly doing theater improv things off camera. And then that was kind of the first time I was also starting to do on-camera acting. My body was changing.
And I feel like I've been pretty lucky because I don't think I've ever had a true issue with disordered eating, per se. But there are two times in my life where, looking back, I was like, oh, I had tendencies that kind of started like ebbing into that category. And that was the first time where I was like, “Oh, I'm getting praise. I'm getting validation for the changes that my body naturally did. Let's do more.”
Megan Gill: Mm, yeah. Wow.
Maddie McGuire: So let's control our eating more, everything. That was the first time I even noticed it. And then from there, there's been a couple other times throughout my twenties, I feel like when I was 25, that was the first time I was like, “Oh, I have hips. My hips are starting to come in.” I was like, “I'm looking different in jeans than I did when I was 21 or 22 or 18.”
And then I really think there was like another big shift into my thirties where I was like, “Oh wow, okay. My body's like becoming more womanly, and it's actually becoming a lot stronger than it used to be.” And also I think I've noticed different things with my face and my neck and other parts of my body. So yeah, I would say around 18, 25 and then 31/32 have been three very distinctive markers where I was like, “Oh.” I woke up and I feel like I noticed the shift.
Megan Gill: This is so interesting, and how fascinating that it's coming out of like our teenage years, and into your early twenties, and then sort of around that 25 mark where you're like, “Okay, well, I'm definitely not a teen teenager anymore. I'm like a full young adult.” And then I do think moving into your thirties, I mean, I'm experiencing it myself where you're like, “Oh, these are the gray hairs that they talk about, that our moms talked about. These are the crow's feet or the wrinkles,” or “My friends are getting Botox? Like, what? Okay, do I need to get Botox?” Like, all of those things that then come with being in your thirties. Or, gosh, I was in my yoga class this morning and seriously my knee, there was a little pain there. And I'm like, “Am I good?” Oh, my god.
Maddie McGuire: You know, when they're like, “Okay, whatever, obviously be aware of your body,” in different classes. You’re like, “Not for me, I'm fine.” And then yeah, all of a sudden you're like, “Is this one of those moments where I'm pushing myself?” Because I want to be like, “No, you're fine. That's not happening. But you're like…”
Megan Gill: Like, I'm literally aging. Yeah, I'm 32, but at the same time, our bodies day by day are getting older and just having that recognition. But that's beside the point.
I think that what's most interesting to me about what you were saying before about your recognition of, “Oh, I'm coming into –,” I think you said like your last couple years of high school when you started to notice that the way your body was naturally changing and evolving was leading you to get more attention. I think that's a really important piece to pull out and note here. And how that, then, catapulted you to want to continue to maintain that.
Maddie McGuire: Right.
Megan Gill: Because I also can very much relate with that sentiment as well. And for me it was when I entered college was when I started to realize that if I ate this and worked out like this, my body would get smaller.
Maddie McGuire: Mm-hmm.
Megan Gill: And then that’s when I started to get the attention that I'd never gotten in high school, middle school, prior. And, I mean, I think I was very much driven by a similar mentality of like, “I need to maintain this because I don't ever wanna go back to the world before where I didn't get attention - in acting, from my peers, from my family, from boys.” Whatever it was, it was like, “Oh yeah, no, this is what –,” like the comments about how my body was changing and how my body looked at that point. That is what society teaches us is “good” or what we should “strive for,” right? At least like when we were going through our high school and college years in the 2000s/2010s.
Maddie McGuire: Well, and you said two things, Megan. There was something you posted on your Instagram that pretty much was like, “Bodies are meant to change. Bodies are literally always in a state of growth,” and that really stuck with me when I saw it. So I've been thinking about that since I saw it on your Instagram a couple weeks ago, and then you just said something about “maintain,” this need or this want to maintain this size, this look, this whatever it is that we've been getting validation and praise for. And I feel like those two thoughts literally just captured so much of the duality that I've been in of this acceptance of, “Wait, my body's like a growing, living organism that is changing every day, and this trying to relinquish that almost gripping on wanting to still maintain something that, one, is not even relevant or longer there anymore. But there still is this little bit of a fight that I'm constantly trying to reframe that's like, “What if XYZ could lead back to the ballpark of what that size was,” you know what I mean?
Megan Gill: Yes. No, I know exactly what you mean because I think that's when we get caught in this really, really detrimental cycle of control in order to get the thing that we think we should want. And there's no freedom in that. There's no joy in that, at least in my experience. And it's just like a lot of unfortunate mental gymnastics that, then, we are hyper-focused on like the eating and the exercise and the equation of if I do this plus this I'll get this result, which then takes us away from all of the wonderful things that we want to do with our lives, all of the wonderful things that matter.
I think that it's so difficult, and it does take a lot of energy to do what you're doing with bringing yourself back to like, “Okay!” Do you find that every time that comes up for you and every time you recognize that those thoughts are there and are present for you, that you're able to have a lot more awareness now at this stage of your life to be like, “Oh, this is coming up. Okay, we need to really sit with this for a second and remind ourselves that we are an ever-changing organism, and that's what really matters more than trying to bring myself back to a certain size.” I'm just curious kind of what your mental process is now when those things come up for you.
Maddie McGuire: Great question and I think, yeah, there's definitely so much more awareness on the thoughts coming up and then not getting attached to that thought being something that I actually think or believe, and then kind of giving it meaning and not being so attached to myself or my self-worth.
So one, I've been to a significant amount of therapy, so that helps. Also conversations like this, and I think a couple of my friends, we've actually started having more and more conversations like this. And so, that's helped a lot because then it's not as isolating. You don't feel as alone. I think in general, being able to kind of thought map or thought track a little bit has helped me, again, not attach meaning to every single thought that I'm having and to replace it with something else as opposed to just being like – whatever is coming up and around mainly like how I'm viewing what I look like in my body rather than what I'm feeling like in my body.
Half the time when I'm trying on clothes, I will, as if I'm like, “Oh, this doesn't feel good.” And I'm like, “Why doesn't it feel good? Is it because I'm probably not that size anymore, and there's something like, what are the clothes that do make me feel good? Why do those things feel good?” And also reminding myself, too, “Before I put on these jeans, I felt great.” So maybe just don't wear those effing jeans, you know what I mean? Stop trying to force that.
I also think there is a fitness studio that I go to now, and it's a mix of kind of like a Barry's Bootcamp type of strength training, HIIT classes, spin classes, and then sculpt classes. And in the studio I've never seen a wider range of women at different ages and points of their life where there's a ton of people in their twenties, tons of people in their thirties and forties, and a lot of women in their fifties, sixties, seventies. So in one class, there could be 20 of us, and we're in so many different age groups.
I went out to a happy hour with one of the girls in my class, and she brought that up. She was like, “I feel so empowered when I walk into this space. We're all in different phases of our life, and we're all here like empowering each other, showing up, trying to become a better version of ourselves, trying to be stronger.” And then I was like, “Oh yeah, that is why I love –.” I never walk into that space worried about what I'm looking like in the mirror as I'm doing a workout, or you feel more alive from the energy of the community around you, and you're like, “That woman is 75, and she's kicking ass right now,” and it’s, again, more about that feeling rather than even noticing what she looks like. So I think that's been a huge help in changing that inner dialogue.
Megan Gill: Mm-hmm. I'm just on the brink of [tears] because how beautiful that is and how wonderful that you have a space that has helped you, has helped kind of pull you out of the thinking about it and like pull you back into your body and into the feeling. I can relate as well with my yoga studio that I go to. It's so, so freaking incredibly inspiring and amazing to look around and see an array of different bodies, an array of different ages altogether in this hour class. And that has also been something for me I think that like, gosh, I didn't even really realize until just listening to you reflect about your fitness studio and the culture and community there that, as actors, as someone who grew up in front of the mirror dancing for a lot of my childhood around other kids my age, and even in college dance classes and in theater and high school and different things like that where everyone is your same age, it’s, I think, so much easier to play the comparison game and to be like, “Oh, we're basically the same age, so we “should have a similar body,” or look similarly or blah, blah, blah, whatever that is.
But I think being able to look around a room where you're there to show up and, like you said, better yourself and gain physical strength for your actual health and wellness, instead of it being like, “I'm here to lose X amount of calories,” or whatever, you know, other markers there are out there. I'm so grateful these spaces exist because I think it helps pull us out of that.
I’m just spinning off of everything you just said, but I'm just sitting here thinking one of my good friends at my yoga studio is in her – I believe that she's turning 60 this year, and it's so cool because there's a sculpt class, and it's like the hardest of the classes. It's really gnarly, really intense. And this woman is always at a sculpt class, and it's incredible, and it's so inspiring and she'll sometimes turn to me and be like, “Oh, my gosh, I looked over at you and like, you're still doing it, and you inspired me.” And I was like, “Jenn, are you kidding? I looked over at you, and like you are still in the movement, and that you inspire me.” And just how wonderful to have that experience. I don't know what the point of this is, but I just think it's really special.
Maddie McGuire: I think too, Megan, it's exactly kind of the reframe we're talking about of being more connected, again, to the energy. Again, when you're there, like you're like, “Wow, I'm in a room, yes, for the point of moving my body, and I'm not even thinking about my body, right? And it's like when we're talking about there's so much focus that we have on our bodies, from ourselves, from the career paths that we've chosen. There's so much attention on that.
I didn't even think about what a great thing you brought up of like, oh, when we're in classes, it's all the same age of people. I'm like, I didn't even think about that until we're kind of unpacking this here, but I think that's part of it, to be able to have these spaces where there's celebration, there's all the focus on strength, and again, that empowerment, because I do a sculpt class, so effing hard. I'm always like, “Why am I here? I love/hate it,” you know? I’m going through all the mantras to get through it, and it is true. I never am like, “Oh wow, I need a break right now, and she's still going, I want that in a negative way.” Again, there's so much more empowerment I think when there are spaces where, yeah, it's women of all different ages and phases of life. I'm in a small town right now, and also a lot of people are pregnant, which is like people younger than me, a lot of them younger than me are pregnant. So I've seen them go from not being pregnant to pregnant to after being pregnant and having the baby. There's so many, again, different phases where it's like even if they are focused on how they're looking, that's not the conversation that's happening, and that's not what's being shared in that space.
Megan Gill: Yeah. Oh, gosh. Yeah, and also just like adding the pregnancy body into it all. It's like all of these different bodies. It's really cool and really special to be able to be in a space where it's become less about us staring in the mirror and looking at our bodies and analyzing our bodies.
I think that, just throwing this out there as a little piece for me, I'll force myself to not hike up my leggings when I'm sitting down in a class, or I think I always have the tendency to hide my stomach, just as a side note.
Maddie McGuire: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Megan Gill: Something that my yoga studio space and community has just inspired me to do is to not. Sometimes I'm like, “Okay, I'm just gonna –,” because it feels more comfortable to me, which is something I also feel like I need to unpack on a different day. But I think that just the act of being like, “My body's safe here in this studio. It’s not going to be criticized by this community,” and guess what, I'm never analyzing other people's bodies. So no one's looking at me, at my tummy rolls thinking anything about them. Phew. Yeah, I feel like there's been a lot of personal unpacking for me in that sense as well, which has been really interesting to explore.
Maddie McGuire: Absolutely. And even you bringing that up, Megan. Yeah, it's so funny because as my body's been changing, I noticed a habit. I've had it, I think, since I was a kid, again, that puberty, let's say like 13, 14, 15 range where I didn't even realize I was doing it. I was always kind of grabbing by my love handles or by my stomach. Teeny, little pinches just to be, I don't know, like, “What's there? What's not there,” like a fixation of some sort. And it's been really interesting exploring even wearing different types of clothes to the gym or taking different classes like a spin class versus the sculpt class versus the strength class and how I feel, because I think I've also had a similar fixation with my stomach.
What's funny is I also do a lot of voiceover, and now I do voiceover from home, literally in a closet. I'm not going into a studio where I'm dressing cute and whatever because I'm around producers and around clients, and now it's such a push pull with my stomach because I think, even naturally, if I'm sitting on the couch, I will bring a pillow. I always want something to hold onto and protect that part of me. And I've been trying to be more like, “What if it's open? What if it's free? I'm at home. Let's challenge myself to just lay it all out there.”
And what's funny in voiceover, I got so used to not wearing stuff that had pressure on my stomach, I realized how much better I breathe with my diaphragm and how much more strength and power I have. And so, it's just been something funny that I've started playing around with the clothes I wear in workout classes because sometimes I'm like, “Why can't I breathe?” I'm like, “Oh, because everything's tight. My pants are tight on my stomach, and my sports bra’s tight on my chest, and I can't fricking breathe.” And so, it's been interesting with voiceover. I was like how can I take some of this openness, this fluidness into the clothes I'm wearing working out? What would that change?
Megan Gill: Oh, wow. Ooh, that is a word, truly. And just taking that into the other spaces of your life. I'm even thinking, as a stage actor, my god, the amount of times I was on stage and like the tightest tights and a tight ass leotard, and there was always talk about, “Oh, the dichotomy between keeping your core tight while you're dancing, but at the same time you're fucking singing because it's musical theater,” and that dichotomy too of keeping it tight, yet you need to breathe in order to support your voice. Wow, that's really lovely that you've had this discovery.
Maddie McGuire: It’s been happening like recently too, Megan. I think since we – probably from a year ago when we first kind of met and I was hearing so much about your business. I feel like my brain – I've just been so much more open to explore what comes up, whether that be a feeling, the thought, challenging myself to be like, let's just try something different today with the workout clothes I'm wearing, or whatever the case may be, instead of getting locked into not that being locked into comfort, not that that's a negative thing at all. I just think that that's become such a safety net, especially in COVID for me. Yeah, I'm just ready to write a new permission slip, and that's like what all these findings are is like, “Okay, what's that permission slip we're writing next, and what are we kind of sorting through to get there?”
Megan Gill: Yeah, I think that's a beautiful way of looking at it, giving yourself the permission to explore and have freedom and maybe find the joy in the exploration. Because also hearing you say – oh, what word did you just say, locked into this place of comfort also makes me think of how much control we have to constantly be putting out and having –
Maddie McGuire: Yes.
Megan Gill: – in order to keep ourselves locked in. Whereas giving yourself this permission to go and not have the pillow guarding your belly space and being able to let it relax a little bit, and allowing that to be okay and seeing what that brings up for you, I think there's just so much more freedom and play in that that will hopefully lead to expending less energy on the things that keep us locked in and keep is small and keep us, honestly at least for me from experience, struggling or in that toxic cycle or in the negative self-talk loop or whatever it may be.
Maddie McGuire: Well, and I think that's such a beautiful way to look at it too, Megan, of just the amount of energy expended on control, because that really is what it is. It's like trying to control to feel safe, right? It's like all of it's trying to make us feel safe, but it's almost like when they say you're kinda like the creator of your own cage, you're keeping yourself stuck. Even though you have the key. The door is open, you just don't realize it's open. I feel like it's that same thing. It's like the safety that ultimately is keeping everything contained and stuck in a certain place.
So what I was thinking about in general too, I think that energy, for me it can look a lot like questioning myself, like micro questions of this or that, this or that for my body or for the way I look, and what I've even noticed – and again, I'm so happy I'm in this process of knowing and noticing to, again, figure out ways I want to accept, ways I want to adapt. But I find it that I'm so much more in tune with myself now. Like this workout class, I have the unlimited pass so I can do spin, I can do whatever I want at the studio, and it's so nice to have that freedom to be like, “Okay, what do I wanna do today? Boom, sign up for this.”
But part of what I have is also they've got this really cool infrared sauna that's in the back, and there's only one. And so, you have to sign up for it. You can't go online and sign up because of the way it works. So you have to either go to the front desk and call in or go in and organize a time. I've had this pass since July, let's say, like last July, and I've never used the infrared sauna. And I was like, “Why? Why is that?” And it's so funny, Megan, because even then I was uncomfortable to ask the front desk woman. I was like, “Hmm, how funny. I'm paying for it. Everyone's so nice here. They'll be like, ‘Great, let me show you!’ Like no one's going to care at all.” And so, I've noticed, I feel like it's that it bleeds over into, again, questioning my space or my place in a space and how I'm showing up in this space.
And so, it's just been interesting to notice when I feel very rooted and grounded and connected to my being in my body and how I'm showing up and when I'm like, “Oh, I feel like I'm walking behind myself,” if that makes any sense, trepidatious in even just like a basic ask of, “Hey, can I use this facility? How do I do that? Can I sign up?”
Megan Gill: Almost like a fear of showing up kind of? Or is it there's a little bit of a fear of something? I mean, I can relate with this. I know where you’re going.
Maddie McGuire: It definitely is a fear, right? I don't know exactly what it is, but yeah, it's been funny because it's like even to go to this studio, I passed it so many times before I finally signed up and went, right? So I was really afraid. I was really uncomfortable. And then I did, and I loved it. And so, I feel like there's something that's in this. I don't know if it's – I don't know. It's interesting because, initially, going to the studio, it could be it's obviously new. I don't know any of these people. Will I be accepted here? Will I feel good here? Will I fit in here? So I think there's definitely some form of that. But yeah, it, I just notice it even trickles down into like, I don't know, my movement within my body in spaces.
Megan Gill: Oh, gosh, I feel like this is such an important thing that you're bringing up and something I feel like I can relate with as well. I wonder if it's something to do with being seen possibly?
Maddie McGuire: Yeah, for sure. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Megan Gill: I'm trying to relate with you through my own experiences too, and something I've personally been working on a lot in the last year, for sure, is getting away from the anxious spin of what other people are going to think about me.
So, for instance, with this front desk person, just totally being so present and rooted in myself and my system and my body and my wants and needs to not even worry about what this person is going to think about me, which I think is so hard because, as someone who's a recovering people pleaser –
Maddie McGuire: Oh, same. Preach!
Megan Gill: – who has constantly had these thoughts of, “What do people think about me? What do people think about my body? What do people think about how I look, and am I a good person?” All of these things and these thoughts, it's so, so difficult to be so present and to be so rooted in yourself. And I just love that you're even like acknowledging this and that this is even coming up for you and that you're even questioning why this type of stuff is happening for yourself.
Maddie McGuire: Right?
Megan Gill: Because we never we never talk about this shit. I, for the longest time, didn't fucking realize that I was so anxious about what other people thought about me in anything, in anything. God, it was ruling my life. And I don't know what the answer is, but I do think that something that has been really helpful that I've noticed is presence, presence, presence and knowing that we are good people with good intentions, and this person is probably not going to think anything.
Maddie McGuire: No, because like you said, they're worried about themselves, right? We know that, but it's so – I've been very much so trying actively to be more present, whether that means going for a walk and not taking headphones and looking at my phone or different things, because then I feel like I'm actually more in touch when these feelings erupt inside of me to notice.
And I didn't even realize this until we were talking. I went in with the intention of, “I'm gonna ask about the infrared sauna,” and then her and I were talking about other stuff, and I left, and I literally was walking out the door, took a couple steps out, and I'm like, “Go back in and ask about the infrared sauna.” I got scared even in the moment. I made myself go back in and ask, and it was a lovely conversation, and now I know how to sign up.
But, again, it’s even having that awareness. I felt in my body be like, “What are you doing?” So I don't know. I think that the presence has helped so much. I think this whole year has been that exploring all that comes up with being present and how, again, there's so much duality in that moment. The duality of connecting with her and asking the question and catching myself almost, I don't know, I guess be too afraid to ask her, to go back in, and “Oh, is she gonna think I'm weird that I went back in?” And I'm just like F it, whatever. Here we go. Opening the door again!” And then the duality of yeah, the moment and like letting it unfold.
So the whole year has felt like those two things kind of being held, like the new presence and what that's bringing to my mind and how I'm feeling about things, and then the experience of all of the different things that are coming up within my relationship to my body.
Megan Gill: Almost like proving yourself right and/or wrong in a certain way. Which is again, I think I'm just over here geeking out because I'm sensing this freedom and the joy and the play in that, the play and getting to be like, “Okay, we're gonna take ourself out of our little comfort zone here, and we're gonna just challenge it, whatever that may be. We're gonna just challenge judging ourself for going back in to ask about the infrared sauna. We're gonna do it, so that we can prove to ourselves whatever we need to prove to ourselves.” There doesn't have to be an answer, but the fact that you did that and then I feel like that just opened a new door in a sense of even being like, “Okay –.” And I don't mean to speak for you, but what I'm gathering from you is like, “Okay, I needed to do that to sort of get over the hump of it in a way.” But what's interesting is these humps are always, always, always gonna consistently, consistently, consistently come up.
Like, my god, even this morning in my yoga class, my teacher – I've been going to the studio for over two years now, which is wild. Crazy to think of that. My teacher was like, “Megan, what do you do? What do you do with your life and your work that allows you to be here at this 9:00 AM class?” And we were chatting, chatting. I told her what I did, and then I said, “Do you only teach yoga?” And then I judged myself after that conversation. I judged myself in the conversation, while it was finishing up, and after the conversation I was like, “Why did you say, ‘Did you only teach yoga?’ like you're insinuating that only teaching yoga is a bad thing, because if she wasn't doing other stuff?’” And then I was like, “Well, if you said, ‘What else do you do aside from teach yoga?’ and she didn't do anything else, then you would've made her feel bad in that sense.”
So I really had to have a me-to-me moment where all these different parts of me are chitter chattering, thinking all these different things, and I had to be like, “Okay, no. It’s fine. Literally fine. She's not thinking –,” like how you were saying with the front desk person. “She's not thinking a damn thing about me. We had a lovely conversation with our teacher. So what? We're not perfect. She doesn't care.”
Maddie McGuire: I love this. No, and I love this, Megan, because I feel like what this is is us examining our experience in our bodies and how we show up and what that looks like with connecting with others, connecting to ourselves, the conversations we're having. And I love that example because, you know, being in a town where I am newly making in-person friends, and I love, “Ooh, happy hour with the girls.” I was like, “Yes, let's go!” We’d go for a run on the beach all together, whatever the case may be, those in-person times to connect. And then moving to a new city in a much smaller city that doesn't have as much of an art community that I would naturally be connecting to with acting, with voiceover, with, you know, theater, all the different things, that's been something that's been super interesting is now making new friends, which has been lovely.
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Megan Gill: There are a couple things that are coming up for me and like, I don't even know what I'm trying to say around one of them, but I think there's this interesting tie between the way that we show up when we are so hyper aware of when we're in our thoughts around how our body looks and how our body's perceived and those times in our lives where we've been so like, “Oh god, I need to show up this way so that I get this thing or get this result or so that this person likes me or whatever.” And then showing up in the times when that is no longer running the show and we are able to tap in and be present and be unapologetic and show up and be like, “Yeah, this is me. Take it or leave it.” It's so effing hard when the conditioning is – and you've learned that if you do this thing and you show up in a certain way or you look this certain way that people will like you and you'll be generally accepted. And I think that like I also, I don't know, I just think that this is so much of what goes on for a lot of us.
And then the theme that I keep coming back to that you brought up in the beginning of our conversation is, “How do I feel?” Not, “How do I look?” Not, “How the jeans look on me?” Not, “How does this person think I look?” It's, “How do I feel?” And I feel like all of this is connected in a sense, but I think that that piece is so important and such something that I want to shout from the rooftops, from the mountaintop, if you will. Oh, gosh. And even just recently for me, like I got this pair of jeans from Old Navy on sale for $20, and they looked so good. I was like, “I’m snatched. These look so good on me!” in the store. And then I put them back on when I got home because I'm like, “Do I really like them though?” And I was like, I think I need to return them, man, because yeah, they look good. Yeah, they make like, you know, like a lot of my jeans these days are baggier and really comfy, cozy. I can sit down and fucking breathe in them.
Maddie McGuire: What a thought. Yes.
Megan Gill: What a thought, and this is just what you said in the beginning about the jeans and how do I feel in them? I'm like, yeah, dude. I had a similar experience where I am gonna return them because, sure, they look good, but I don't feel good in them. And I think that leading our lives from this place of like feeling, whether it's, “How do the jeans feel on me, how do I feel in my body? How does my stomach feel when I consume certain foods? How are my energy levels? How do I feel after I go for a walk outside or take a nap.”
This, I think, is such an important theme of being able to tap in and recognize and have the awareness of how you feel and switching the narrative of what we were taught and conditioned by society of the thinking, thinking, thinking, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts ruling our lives and switching it to, “How do I feel in my body?” and letting that like steer the ship more so, you know?
And even in our lives with the work we're doing, it's like, “Well, how do you feel when you're doing voiceover work? Would you feel the same if you were to get back into the theatrical world and auditions were being thrown at you and you were so fucking stressed because you had all this voiceover work to get done, which is what you really love and care about, but you're trying to memorize all of these sides that you don't even really care about, and just being so real and honest and discerning with ourselves about how we want to feel in our bodies, in our lives, around the people that we share them with.
Maddie McGuire: Girl, that was like, preach. I was like, “Pastor Megan is in the house!” No, honestly, Megan, what you just said, I think is so beautiful and so pertinent. That is kind of the antithesis of, I feel like the conversation we're ultimately having. And I think that that is exactly it. I ultimately know, in this moment, I'm living my life. It's happening right now. Never gonna get it back. And how I feel right now is what I'm gonna remember. I probably actually won't remember any of the bullshit going through my head. Rarely do I. Even if I think back to the moment when I left and then went back in to go ask for the sauna, I don't remember exactly what I thought; I just remember how I felt in the entire interaction. And so, it's like, yeah, what would being so cognizant and aware and almost prioritizing the feeling, how would that shift how we serve ourselves and, again, create because that's ultimately the experience, right, is like the feeling of what's happening. And I feel like once you start getting more connected to that, you can't depart from the feeling.
Megan Gill: It's like once you see it kind of a thing, but once you feel it, you can't unfeel it.
Maddie McGuire: Yeah, truthfully, right? Because it's like, you know how there's always, they call it like bottoms up or top down, to self-soothe or different things in therapy? That's not the word of soothing, but it's like, “Bottoms up.” We can essentially use a technique to calm the body down and then work with the mind, or some people, specifically people who have ADHD, sometimes that is hard for them to do. So it's actually better to go top down and maybe play a game of Solitaire while they're talking about something, so their brain actually has something to do while they're organizing through their thoughts and feelings. And I feel like when I started learning about that, I'm like, oh yeah, how funny that we instantly go to the brain to help ourselves when the body is so much larger than just the brain. Why are we not utilizing that more? And I feel like that's kind of what we're discussing. That's the feeling, and this is the thinking.
Yeah, that's how I'm starting to feel even in life as I'm putting on clothes to go out, as I'm walking into a restaurant with my husband or to meet a friend, noticing what the hell is going on feeling-wise inside.
Megan Gill: And how that brings you into presence and allows you to show up as your truest self, I would imagine, because we’re not stirring in our brains and we're not overthinking and we're not in the anxiety spin or the thinking about the past. We're right here. We're able to fully show up and just allow our hearts to be open.
Oh, gosh, it's so interesting also because as actors and performers we've studied this for so long and we're so used to doing this type of work, what a cool thing that we're able to talk about and share today. It's like, “Oh gosh. This is what I want for all of us. I wish I had this ten years ago for my little actor self,” you know?
Maddie McGuire: Oh, preach, girl. I know. I can't even imagine. I go back to my cute, little actor self ten years ago and what if she got to listen to this conversation! What's so cool too, Megan, is I had no idea where this conversation was gonna go when we started. Who knew we'd end up here, but here we are. And I'm like my little 22-year-old actor self I think just would've felt so seen so much earlier than I did actually finally feel seen.
Megan Gill: And safe to actually be or explore what it is to “be yourself!” We're told as actors, “Be yourself,” in different ways, whether it's in your slate or like bringing piece of yourself to the character or just showing up as ourselves onstage even if we're playing a character. But it's so hard to connect to yourself if there's such a disconnect to your body and to yourself.
Maddie McGuire: Well, and I think you and I have probably seen that not only have we experienced that probably as young actors – and you could tell. You could tell when someone is like technically a very, very good actor and they work their ass off, but that there's a disconnect because they're not rooted within who they are or they're wanting to use acting as kind of like a scapegoat to not be seen or heard as they are. But yet you will never be able to fully depart from yourself.
Megan Gill: Right.
Maddie McGuire: I always say it's the relationship we obviously need to prioritize is you literally never can get away from you. From the time that you are born to the time that you are not here, you're with you every step of the way.
“ That was a gift that I feel like being in creative circles, being in creativity, on one hand there were times where I was overly critical about what my body looked like. And then there was this beautiful time period and season where I remember just being so rooted in myself and rooted. I had so much self-trust in what was gonna happen and what I was gonna do. And I was way more connected to the storytelling aspect than the character, than how it looked on screen and what the end product ended up being. And so, I think that part of me is exploring, now that I'm not currently in that type of a creative community or circle, not to replicate that feeling or that thing, but what does that mean or look like now?”
- Maddie McGuire
Maddie is a certified coach and a SAG-AFTRA performer. She’s been in the entertainment industry for over a decade and is obsessed with storytelling. She’s done over 100+ voiceover jobs, booked national commercials, guest stars, indie features, and print jobs. She’s also created her own projects that have gotten into film festivals and has written TV pilots that were semi-finalists in writing competitions… And she’s never stopped growing, learning, and expanding her skillset and definition of who she is as an artist…. AND as a business owner steering the ship of her career.
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Maddie’s WebsiteMaddie is currently recording season 2 of her podcast Get Messy - and she’s VERY excited about some of the amazing women I've already been interviewing. Spotify Link / Apple Podcasts Link
While I’m not a licensed therapist, registered dietician, or medical health professional and cannot speak to body image topics from a clinical, trauma-informed place, I am an expert of lived experience. I’m an academic of my own body, and I’m passionate about facilitating conversations with other humans about their relationships with their bodies. I believe it’s important to continue conversations about healthy body image in creative spaces as a means to heal individuals as well as the collective whole. But just know the information presented in this medium is not professional mental health advice or medical advice, and any questions or concerns you have should always be directed to your health providers.
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