Transcript of Robert J. Bernstein: Unlocking the Untapped Potential of Autism Through Understanding, Not Labels

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I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out.

You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you.

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Did you hear the new episode of the Hey Jonas podcast?

We are at D23, so we'll see who stops by.

The cast of Frozen stopped by. Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, and Idina Menzel.

I auditioned for Frozen.

What?

For Kristoff. They said, okay, what are you gonna be singing today? I said, I don't know.

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What if everything you thought you knew about autism and mental health wasn't the full story? Today's conversation might change the way you see it. Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide, where real conversations and lived experiences inspire understanding and hope. I'm Tony Mantor. This is where understanding begins. If this kind of conversation matters to you, then follow the show. So you don't miss what comes next. Joining us today is Robert J. Bernstein, a national recognized educational and behavior therapist who has spent more than 35 years working with children on the autism spectrum and helping families discover practical, real-world strategies for growth and connection. His work is built around the belief that every child possesses untapped potential and that meaningful progress begins by recognizing and nurturing the strengths that already exist. Today we'll talk about autism, his groundbreaking approach, the inspiration behind his books, and why empowering families may be one of the most effective tools we have in helping autistic children thrive. Thanks for joining us.

Well, I'm excited. I'm glad to met you. I didn't know it was, uh, that you had this this background, this passion for autism. It's about— it's my life's work.

Let's start at the beginning. Can you tell us a little about your journey? What first led you into working with autistic children?

Well, a couple of things. Um, I have a brother on the autism spectrum, I have a son on the autism spectrum, and then educationally, I feel like I want to be totally, you know, open and honest and transparent, is that I really felt that could really understand the minds of, of people in general in a certain way.

Right.

You know, so when you say mental health, I'm thinking of well-being.

Sure.

I'm with a client now in his 20s, and it's like he just has to learn to be and be happy and be at peace with himself.

Right.

It doesn't have much to do with autism, but in a way it does because his thinking drives him crazy.

Sure.

I had this connection to people, and I wanted to be in a classroom setting as an educator helping kids. And the system caters to special ed having fewer kids. I didn't care. I just wanted the number not to be 30, to be 8 or 9 or 10, right? And the field that people didn't know about, at least back then when I was doing it, really was autism. Mental retardation, we had at that time, intellectually disabled, we had an idea of what to do, right? Autism has been— it still is kind of a mystery.

Yes.

Like, what, what is going on? You know, we have levels that really does— really don't— they don't tell you much. So I got into the field of a kid on the spectrum who I was the provider for his entire life because I didn't trust the system to help him.

Sure.

And then, uh, these people on the spectrum are fascinating. Like, my friend Stephen Shore, his saying is, if you met one person with autism, You met one person. He's the one who said it. And, and it is. It's like you got me at a good time because I just spoke to a group of parents on how to help their kids. You know, this is the talk. And it's like every person is just— it is inventing the wheel every time. And it's really exciting. People's minds are— go ahead.

You've been fortunate to have your work featured by outlets like Dateline, NBC. The New York Times, which has brought your message to a much broader audience. What do you think it is about your story and your perspective on autism that resonated so strongly with them? And despite all the progress that's been made, what do you believe people still don't fully understand about autism and the families that live with it every day?

Hmm.

The easy answer is that success. I've really had success with— I don't know if you know Bernard Meltzer.

Yes, I've heard that name.

He had a talk show, and I was on his talk show, Fears of the Pocketbook and the Fears of the Heart. I mean, I got— we're going back 40 years. It's ridiculous. I was on his show. He says, what's your success rate? And I had to really kind of figure it out. It's high. I mean, I've been successful in teaching people to help others.

Right.

That's one thing that got people's attention. But I think it's really my approach is a cognitive one. I want understand the why somebody acts the way they do.

Okay. You wrote a book. It's entitled Uniquely Normal.

Yeah.

That's a great title, by the way. What does uniquely normal mean to you personally? How has that definition changed over time?

Wow. Okay. Is this a visual? Can I— should I show what we're talking about?

No, no. It's just audio only. You can show me, but people won't see it.

But I love the subtitle. Tapping the Reservoir of Normalcy, right, to treat autism.

Okay.

And that says maybe more than just the title Uniquely Normal, that even kids who are severely autistic— and almost every parent will agree with me that there are moments when this kid is like so clear, clearly thinking, or he says something that's— where did that come from, right? And I, I feel there's a, there's a reservoir of normalcy there that we could tap into. And this comes up in my practice, I don't know, maybe once a month. I'm telling somebody, you see what I'm talking about? You know, that's the level. Yeah, that I want. I want that level to be 80% instead of, you know, the 10%. I want that to be the norm. I don't want that to be just remarkable. I want that to be who he is.

Okay. Now that Uniquely Normal has been out for a while, You've had the opportunity to speak across the country and connect with so many families. What conversations keep coming up? What themes or questions do you hear over and over again from parents, educators, and have those conversations changed the way you think about autism or reinforce the message you set out to share in your book?

It's a good question. I think my idea of early language development, because of what's happening now, for the most part, is the opposite of my philosophy of education. What happens now —this might be an exaggeration, but it may not— that lots of speech therapists, you know, they're assigned to get the kid to talk, right? And they get the most common early words of kids, and they— whatever, there's a whole list— dog or house— and they show this kid a picture of a dog and say, "Dog." And I'm saying language should come from within. Okay. So in this book, I tell you exactly— I mean, it's like stories, 27 stories of what I— exactly what I do with each person. Okay. I tell you exactly what I do to get this kid to talk, it's getting language from within themselves because that's how we learn to speak, right? So if I asked you your first word, your first word is besides mom and dad, mommy and daddy, whatever. Your first word is probably not going to be chair, right? Or door. Sure. Your first word is often going to be something like up or something that you've heard so many times in different content.

Pick it up. Let me pick you up. Get up. You know, you hear that. And that's natural. We learned in that natural, organic way. And I think one of the themes in this book is how to learn and teach kids in a natural, organic way when there's that gap, when they didn't learn it. Right. So now we go back and have and devise situations where it's natural and organic, and the kid will bridge that gap. And the kids under 6— and I have 6 as a good reason why they're 6— the language, This is what's interesting. Okay. I think the language part of the brain is still developing.

Right.

I asked my friend Steve Strauss, neurologist and a linguist.

Okay.

So he knows more about the development of the brain. He says he has 3 people in the world who are both neurologists and linguists. I said, Steve, when I work with an 8-year-old, they make progress. But when I work with a 3 or 4-year-old, levels of development happen. And he explains to me, if you could catch a kid during— under 6, he says. I'm thinking of more like 7. I've heard from other people up until 7, that if you catch— the language part of the brain is still developing. And if you could kind of bridge that kind of gap, and I could explain what that means in my mind. Okay. Then there's almost like a normalization kind of thing, but mind catches up to itself. So in other words, I'm giving them a way of learning language organically, but they need to be taught that. Sure. You know, I went to a party the other day and it comes up. So to answer your question, that's one thing with this book that's very, very, very present today. Okay.

So how long ago did you write this book? November 2017. 2017. Okay. If you were to rewrite that book today, would you change anything?

I would only add more stories. The stories are great.

Okay.

In fact, I had an argument with my editor who wanted to organize like 2 years old to 6 and 7 to 9 and in ages. I said, you know what, we're talking about the person's mind. If you take a person in their 20s who I work with and I figured them out and they, and they're so much better in relationships and romantic relationships and everything else in their jobs. That mind that I'm working with is going to— could be identical to the mother with her 7-year-old kid that has the same processing issue as a 20-year-old. Right. Some arguments I win with my editor. This one I lost. I said, all right. She said, great, but the rest of the world is expecting, you know, 2 to 6 and 9 to, you know, and I said, okay, fine. So what I'm saying is that these stories of how I work with these kids, all I would do is just add more stories. Sure. So you get more of a spectrum of people. But the reason I wrote this book is so you could find your own kid or your own loved one or yourself in one of these stories.

Right. Then you see exactly what I did in order for them to improve. And sometimes there's just immediate improvement and sometimes it's gradual.

Over the years since your book has been released, have you seen people that you know that may have read it? Have you seen the educational or healthcare systems begin to adopt or rethink some of the ideas you've championed in your work? Have schools, therapists, or medical professionals made changes based upon your philosophy?

And that, that's one of the biggest compliments. Yeah, you know, you could read these 27 stories. This one person psychologist said, I extracted— I saw your method in every single one of these stories. You do the same method, and now I'm going to start using them. But most people, they read it and they go, I want step by step. You're not telling me step by step. So I wrote this little book, this manual, Uniquely Normal Manual. It's like 40 pages that tells step by step, given an individual kind of exercise. Using materials that you have in your house, that kind of thing. Right. But that's the biggest compliment when somebody says, hey, you really changed, or I brought your book to my teacher and my teacher read it or read parts of it, and now that teacher sees my kid differently. That's really good. That's why I wrote it, to help. I want to change the world one person at a time.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great way to look at things. Have you found things that maybe people have read in your book or they have seen these things in real life? Even though they read it, they may not understand it, or they do understand it, but they just don't want to face it.

Oh, all the time, especially behavior problems. Okay. I have this story. I think I called the girl Addison. By this time I forgot her real name. If I have to think of a kid that was the worst, behaved. Okay. She comes to my office, she throws all the papers down on my desk, she throws over my plant, she throws, you know, she goes around the room. And part of me is saying, what? You know, I'm getting, you know, she goes all the way, you know, and then, and then she sits down after all this destruction. And I said something that I read, I said that the perfect line to her And sometimes I actually want to read it, and I don't think I'm gonna be getting— Oh, I don't believe I came right to it. I say to Addison, "It looks to me as if your mind is jumping from thing to thing." In other words, it's not about me. You know, "I'm upset 'cause you destroyed my things." It's not about me, it's about her. And that's the message that comes through with this story. I said, "It looks to me your mind is jumping from thing to thing." I'm talking about her.

I haven't met a kid yet who really wants to misbehave. Right. They're— right? They just can't control themselves. And when I say, "It looks to me as if your mind is jumping from thing to thing," she says, "It does." Right. I said, "Let's call it something." Sure. We call it something. Now when we call it something, then we know what it is, then we could do something about it.

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If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for Thought Daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm gonna have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite BookTok creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is the Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages.

Hey, this is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network.

Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicist for letting them do our show.

We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. Not that great.

I actually— can you help me? Can you help me shape this? Yeah. How about we flip it on its head?

Okay, how about we flip the script? Okay, how—

what if the surprise woman who actually you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird?

Adam Scott.

This entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come.

To visit the show. I, I would never let go of that.

I have—

I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept, you know, Danny McBride. Fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, is that weed? Nope. It's fragile masculinity. Yeah. Ben Stiller. No, because a lot of times in out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? Like, they're like, oh, what's a circle? Everyone's so dumb except for you. Fake, right? Fake. And also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us.

Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy.

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On the new podcast Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait 4 hours for the next bus, or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility.

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When you're talking and you have all these different stories, do you get people that say, "Yeah, that's me," or "That's my child," or maybe even, "That's my brother"? Do they and can they relate to it, number one? And then once they relate to it, how does it affect them in hoping to make changes for themselves?

Yeah, well, I've gotten a lot of feedback from the book. I mean, it won like 6 awards, including the IPPI, if that means anything. The IPPI Awards. Yeah, great. So it got a lot of recognition. And that's one of the things that I've heard many times. This reminds me of my kid, and I saw what you did, and I tried the same kinds of things. Like, I used in my talks, I call it baseball therapy. I mean, I just make it up, but it's using baseball therapeutically because I want to use things that the kid is engaged in. Sure. But I did with him with baseball literally changed his life. And somebody will look at that and say, yes, I saw that, but my kid was into soccer and I did the same sort of thing and it worked. It's a cute little story. I can, I can share it with you. Yeah.

What kind of reaction do you get from people that may see you on these talk shows and all the information and stories that you have to share? And I'm sure many that do see you and hear you can relate to what you're talking about. Do you see change happening because of this? Or do you still see you need to get a jumpstart on some of these things to happen and to get that understanding?

All right, well, now you've hit on a frustration of mine. Okay. Change happens with that parent, with that kid, or that adult on the spectrum who looks at my book. Change happens. The change globally— that's why I'm writing a book, another book now, from a person in— from Yale, in terms of the schools. Change happening globally, or in the schools, or in the system is very, very difficult because the system caters to— in other words, there's one method that's insurable. Right. I interviewed the person. One person is responsible for getting the behavioral program, ABA. Right. Right. Which is kind of the opposite of my cognitive approach. Yeah. But she was able single-handedly get ABA approved by insurance in every single state. Okay. It was an amazing, an amazing job. But what that means, this multi-whatever million or billion industry is the current flow of treatment for these kids. Yeah. Just a quick example so you know what I'm talking about. Kid comes in the classroom and doesn't want to sit down. He's upset. ABA, the behavioral approach, would say, okay, get this kid to sit and giving them a reward. It's a reward-punishment approach. A cognitive approach would say, hey, what's going on?

Right. In other words, instead of looking at the behavior of sitting there going, is there something in your mind? Yes, my dog died this morning. Wow. Oh, maybe you want to just sit down and do nothing or see a counselor or this and that. So if I go to a behaviorist, listening to this story, right? Right. And this is whatever huge percentage of people out there. He'll say, like, you can't do that with everybody. Yeah. You have 30 kids in the class. You can ask everybody what's going on with them. By that time, you won't be able to get to your lesson. Right? Right. And the cognitive person will say, well, maybe there's something more important than my lesson. And so to answer your question, to make global changes. I've done that in schools. I've done that with families. But as far as systematic changes are concerned, it's difficult. It's very difficult.

Yeah, it's amazing that you bring up that example of the dog dying. I was talking with a person the other day that they couldn't understand why this autistic child would go into school, sit down, and have a meltdown. They just couldn't understand it. As it turned out, one day the autistic child goes in, moves his chair back a half an inch, sits down, and he was fine. What was causing his meltdown was his chair was touching the chair in front of them, his desk, and that was causing him to get irritable.

Yeah, so here's, here's my issue with that story, okay? He figured it out himself, right? Right. How about the multitude of kids who aren't figuring it out? He figured it out himself. It's up to that teacher to not say, oh, you're having a meltdown. You have to, you know, leave the class or go, you know, it's like, wait a second. What is it? Could you tell me what's bothering you? No, I can't. It's just happening. All right, then it's a mystery. Let's figure this out. It's a puzzle, right? Uh, is it the lights? Is it the flash, you know, the fluorescent lights? Is it too much noise? Are there different smells because the kids just came back from gym, right? Maybe you could figure out that the chair is touching, you know, it's— I want the atmosphere to be like, whoa, he's having a meltdown. Let's figure this out. I had a girl, she could feel when she's going to have a meltdown. She takes out her iPad and draws. Teacher was offended. Don't you have to listen to me? You put that away. And I told the teacher, okay, do that and you'll see.

Then you're really going to have a problem, right? Then she's just going to explode. This is how she figured out a way to self-regulate, right? Figure it out. I mean, that's great. Usually it's our job. And this is part of the first example. What is it? A kid like 2 weeks ago said, I get this smell and I could feel a volcano. I say, great, you could feel that. When you feel that volcano inside you, that's when you need to do whatever you need to do. Right. Not enough for teachers to say, oh, they all know they could leave and they could go to the counselor's office anytime. Wait a second, how is it going to help that kid? You know, he has to be taught. He has to learn when he feels that way, what's going to calm him down, right? Yes. It could be just Just leave me alone.

Well, you know, that's the problem we have in society right now, or especially in learning institutions, is that we have a neurodiverse community trying to fit into a world that wasn't built for them. You know, so until we figure that out so that everybody can kind of flow together, we're going to have these issues that are going to keep popping up.

So my teacher, from Columbia Teachers College, Columbia, Macy Goldberg. He used to be like one of the world experts on mental retardation, intellectually disabled. He was— he says, you know what pisses me off? He had a wooden leg because he was in the war, right? He couldn't bend his leg. He has a wooden leg, right? This is what pisses me off. I go to a theater— loves theater— and he has to fight for an aisle seat. I mean, there's this— in 1973, this guy had a normalization principle where like, why can't we have aisle seats, 2 or 3, for people who have, you know, legs that they, you know, maybe it's a broken leg, legs that can't bend. Why does he have to fight for that? Why can't that be, why can't we have 2 or 3 seats in the middle front? Why can't we normalize people so they, look, we have the wheelchair thing down, right? You can go in a wheelchair, go into Yankee Stadium, and there's a place, we figured that out. Right. But how about the 90% other things where kids have sensory issues or kids, you know, need to feel safe in certain places?

Right. We're trying. We're trying to have quiet cars and trains. I know we're trying. But that's your point, that we have a responsibility to have these neurodiverse people welcome and appreciated in certain jobs that they're going to be better at. Exactly. If given the chance, they may be horrible in an interview. Right, right. Exactly. You have to talk, you have to look at the person, this. But given the job, they could be the best ones because they concentrate 100% on the job. So, like, can't we just step back and breathe a little bit and say maybe it's more than just the interview? Maybe we should just rethink a lot of things. Exactly. So these neurodiverse people, they could enhance the rest of us, right?

So when people look back at your work, the Uniquely Normal book you've written, the one you're going to write, you're working on now, what do you hope that they say you helped change?

There are different levels. Okay. The first level is to help that parent with that child. Okay. The book that I'm writing now is and you could get a sense of this by the way we're talking, is that kids go through the school system being traumatized, and that's not an exaggeration. No, no. They're being traumatized. Right. Moving sometimes, with some kids, actually helps them think. We had one story that the kid was told, sit as if there's a broomstick, you know, a flagpole right behind you, and, you know, you have to be still. And the kid does it because he has to do it, but he— there's no way he could think about what's going on with what the teacher is saying. He's just concentrating on, you know. But day after day, right, year after year— so that's what my current book is going to be about. So we've had so many parents, when we mentioned that to them, what I just said, please write the book so I could bring it into to school so I have some support because I'm a parent too of an autistic kid. Yeah. Teachers don't listen to parents. At least with me they didn't.

Okay. And I felt I knew what I was doing. And as they say, yes, yes, yes. And they don't listen to me. Yeah. So my first level is to take the book and help that individual parent with their individual kid, or maybe 25-year-old would read the book who's on the spectrum, say, ah, okay, right, I'm going to take a book like this and say, you know what, I may not be good for that interview, but I could be the best worker that you have. Yeah, I want people to feel empowered. Yeah, if somebody says that, they'll say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, sometimes somebody else has to be the one to explain yourself to somebody. That's right. So that's one level. The other level is systematic change. I want the system of— the educational system. That's not too much to ask, but I really want the educational system to look at education differently. Right. So there are two ways of looking at education. There's a curriculum, right? You're going to learn this, or you could have the things that the kid needs to learn. And do what I did in this open school on Long Island.

We built the treehouse and I said to these kids, "Well, look, there's this piece of wood perpendicular to each other. We need a brace that's the hypotenuse of that right triangle." And that's how I taught the Pythagorean theorem, which made sense because we had to cut that hypotenuse So you could teach things that kids are engaged in, follow kids' leads in certain things, as opposed to saying, "You have to learn it this way." My own kid, he was 4 years old. I asked him, "How much is 4 and 4?" He said, "8." I said, "Great, the kid's a genius. Wonderful." Glad you laughed because it's meant to be fun. "How did you get it?" And he said, "Dad, well, I know 5 and 5 is 10. I took one away and then another one away." and I got 8. I, and I said to myself right then and there, this kid's in trouble because when he gets to school, he's going to learn 4 and 4 by making 4 circles and 4 circles and add them. And he's going to learn that his creative thinking, it is wrong or it doesn't work, or his creativity is going to be gone because he has to learn the way the teacher is teaching him instead of saying Hey, let's explore this thing.

So that's— I want to change the kind of the attitude of this.

I like that. Yeah, I like that. Now you're standing on a podium, and this podium just happens to be my podcast, and you've got a chance to tell people what you think is the most important thing that they learn out of this podcast. What is it?

All right. And I mean this, even though it may not sound like it. Don't give up on your kid. In the book, I have 60-year-old, 62-year-old, I mean, this may sound egocentric. I'll see a 35-year-old and I'll figure out what person needs to do in order to feel great and be successful and all that stuff. Right. And he'll say to me, where were you when I was 3 years old? This is true. I've heard this many times. Okay. And he's right. If I knew him when he was 3, I'd be doing the same thing. So the message is, don't give up. You need to have Somebody who, who you trust, right? There are good and bad people in every field. That's right. You know, physical therapists, speech therapists, there's some— okay, here, I thought of this after my talk, what I should have said to these parents, and now I'll say it here. If you have a person who really connected to yourself or to your kid, maybe a second grade teacher, why doesn't that second grade teacher who really got your kid Why isn't there a communication between your second grade teacher and now the fourth grade teacher who can't connect?

Right. Why can't that person got your kid? Why can't that be, you know, you know?

Right. Yeah, I get it.

And I don't know, that's a systematic— so it's don't give up. Find somebody who really could understand yourself or understand the kid. It has to feel good inside. It's going to make sense to you and your child. And it doesn't matter if your kid is 4 years old or 40 years old. Don't give up because monumental change could happen.

Yeah, well, this has been awesome. We could talk hours on this. I really appreciate you taking the time.

We could. We could. No, I appreciate you. I appreciate what you're doing.

Well, it's been my pleasure. Thanks again. A sincere thank you to our guests for sharing their journey with us today. We appreciate their honesty, courage, and willingness to open their heart in hopes of helping others. If today's conversation helped you see the world a little differently, then we've accomplished exactly what we set out to do. Until next time, keep believing, keep learning, and Most importantly, keep asking yourself, why not me?

If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture. With your favorite writers, BookTok creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy, like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actor actors, and really anybody hoping to stand out.

You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you.

Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Did you hear the new episode of the Hey Jonas podcast?

We are at D23, so we'll see who stops by.

The cast of Frozen stopped by. Kristen Bell, Josh Gad and Idina Menzel.

I auditioned for Frozen. What? For Kristoff.

They said, okay, what are you gonna be singing today? I said, I don't know.

That must have been why you didn't get it. Oh, you probably won. Plus, John Stamos, Hayden Christensen from Star Wars, and more.

And I guess I can share that, uh, no way.

Listen to the latest episode of Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, this is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook.

Each week we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicist for letting them do our show.

We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stiller, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.