Getting Back Up Podcast: Finding Life After Death
Two fathers. Two stories of loss. One mission to get back up.
Real conversations with two men learning to navigate life, raise children, and find love again…after loss.
Hosted by Jamal Jones and David McClain, Getting Back Up: Life after Death is a real, raw, and often humorous podcast about what comes after the unthinkable—losing a partner, facing grief, and finding your way through it. As two widowers, now devoted girl dads (and one remarried man), Jamal and David create space for honest conversations around healing, identity, and starting over.
Getting knocked down is part of life. Getting back up is how we live.
Getting Back Up Podcast: Finding Life After Death
26: The Cost of the Craft with Russell Hornsby (Part 2)
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Getting Back Up: Finding Life After Death (Season 1)
Episode 26: The Cost of the Craft with Russell Hornsby
In Part 2 of our powerful conversation with actor Russell Hornsby, we move from personal loss to professional sacrifice—and how they’re more connected than people think. Fresh off filming two back-to-back movies in Atlanta, Russell talks with Jamal and Dave about what it means to be away from your family for weeks at a time, over and over again, in the name of art, legacy, and livelihood.
We dive into what he’s gained and lost by choosing this path, how the pressure has shifted from early hustle to seasoned purpose, and how starring in August Wilson’s American Century plays and ultimately the acclaimed movie, Fences, forced him to reckon with deeper questions around grief, identity, and creative mortality. Russell also opens up about the rise of AI in entertainment, what it means for working actors, and why—even now—he’s thinking hard about what legacy he wants to leave behind.
Getting Back Up: Finding Life After Death is a podcast that explores the raw, unfiltered reality of surviving profound personal loss—and finding a way forward. The idea for the podcast was born after David and Jamal met in 2023. Both widowers, who had lost their wives to cancer, quickly found a deep connection through multiple conversations about pain, perseverance, and parenthood. They realized that while men often bond over music, sports, or TV, they rarely speak candidly about loss or emotional recovery. Getting Back Up was created to change that narrative—blending the everyday with the existential in a format that’s as relatable as it is real.
Thank you for your support!
Hosts: David McClain & Jamal Jones
Executive Directors: Marlon Jackson & Ted Winners (Like A Gazelle Productions)
Editing: Steve Senisi (Reel Media)
Music:
Grenada, "Treasure"
McDonald, Otis, "Phife for Life", otismusic.com
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