Jun 23, 2026 · 1 hr · 14 segments
Actor Josh Murray joined me for a thoughtful conversation about his award-winning performance in *Gym Rat*, the dark psychological thriller that earned him Best Actor honors at the Beverly Hills Film…
Alan LocherHostI'm sure some people see those kind of speeches and go like, is that staged or whatever? I literally told a friend who's not in the industry before I went to the ceremony when they asked me if I was nervous about the awards ceremony.
And there were... um i've been to festivals where i felt like you know i should win honestly uh and this is one of those festivals where like i'm not expecting anything i'm very impressed with the caliber i mean you you would recognize a number of the the actor names uh that were in the lineup of this festival who've had much bigger resumes and careers than me uh so i just didn't think it was even in the in the in the runnings uh in the cards so when they called my name i was genuinely like kind of stunned and so i i did no speech prepared not sure what to say but uh i said whatever i said from the heart Yeah.
But really the the after party when I was connecting with a lot of the other peers and even some of the other festival winners who happened to be at the screening and like had other things to say about the performance or.
know wanted to talk about the film and and how they much they appreciated it was was really like what kind of galvanized the whole thing is like wow this this was really a a true moment of validation affirmation of all the efforts and the sacrifices we made that like it landed with people And, you know, the film is not going to be for everyone.
Like there's going to be people who hate it, I'm sure, and have lots of things to critique about it.
But for that night, I had a whole bunch of peers, people I respect, people that I knew, people I had just met who appreciated what we did.
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I'm sure some people see those kind of speeches and go like, is that staged or whatever? I literally told a friend who's not in the industry before I went to the ceremony when they asked me if I was nervous about the awards ceremony.
And there were... um i've been to festivals where i felt like you know i should win honestly uh and this is one of those festivals where like i'm not expecting anything i'm very impressed with the caliber i mean you you would recognize a number of the the actor names uh that were in the lineup of this festival who've had much bigger resumes and careers than me uh so i just didn't think it was even in the in the in the runnings uh in the cards so when they called my name i was genuinely like kind of stunned and so i i did no speech prepared not sure what to say but uh i said whatever i said from the heart Yeah.
But really the the after party when I was connecting with a lot of the other peers and even some of the other festival winners who happened to be at the screening and like had other things to say about the performance or.
know wanted to talk about the film and and how they much they appreciated it was was really like what kind of galvanized the whole thing is like wow this this was really a a true moment of validation affirmation of all the efforts and the sacrifices we made that like it landed with people And, you know, the film is not going to be for everyone.
Like there's going to be people who hate it, I'm sure, and have lots of things to critique about it.
But for that night, I had a whole bunch of peers, people I respect, people that I knew, people I had just met who appreciated what we did.
