Published in Gurus Magazine: June 2026
From Teen Heartthrob to Hollywood Survivor
In the 1990s, Hollywood specialized in beautiful disasters. The films were glossy, the parties were nonstop, and MTV still dictated culture. Somewhere between a stack of Tiger Beat magazines and movie theater moments, William McNamara became one of those faces you had pinned up on your wall. You knew him instantly — the soulful eyes, the reckless charm, the kind of actor who looked like he belonged leaning against a convertible outside The Viper Room at 2 a.m.
Back then, McNamara was living the Hollywood highlife. He worked with Jodie Foster in Stealing Home, starred opposite Corey Haim and Corey Feldman in Dream a Little Dream, and built a résumé that typified late-’80s and early-’90s cinema: Stella, Doing Time on Maple Drive, Chasers, Copycat. It was a different time. He came of age in an era when actors were mysterious. There were no branding consultants or Instagram. Careers were volatile, and everybody had a story.
Perhaps nobody collected stories quite like Billy McNamara.
A Series Unlike Anything Else on Television
Now, decades later, those stories have mutated into The Trouble With Billy, a gloriously strange, self-aware fever dream of a series that McNamara says “feels like Melrose Place wandered into Curb Your Enthusiasm after an ayahuasca retreat somewhere off Mulholland.”
The series stars McNamara alongside longtime friend Randall Batinkoff and an improbably stacked cast that includes Billy Baldwin, Claudia Charriez, Costas Mandylor, Ele Keats, Angus Macfadyen, Alison Eastwood, Robert Wagner, and Marilu Henner. It also includes performances from the late Tom Sizemore, Sally Kirkland, and Corey Parker.
Produced by ZTA Entertainment, The Trouble With Billy is now streaming on Red Coral Universe.
The Show That Refused to Quit
After talking to the cast, you come to realize the wild thing is not simply that the show exists. It’s that it survived.
Because The Trouble With Billy was stitched together over nearly eight years with indie grit, emotional duct tape, favors from friends, and the kind of chaotic devotion that only exists when people genuinely love the person at the center of it all.
And through it all, everybody loves Billy McNamara.
Alison Eastwood and Billy McNamara with Betsy. Betsy is available for adoption at Eastwood Ranch Foundation!
Why Everybody Shows Up for Billy
“He is just such a unique character. Really, there’s no one like him,” says Randall Batinkoff, a fellow veteran of the era. Batinkoff is another one of those unmistakable faces of the time. For Keeps, School Ties — he and McNamara had some of the biggest hits of the early ‘90s under their belt.
“In my entire 30, 40 years — oh, almost 50 years now — in the entertainment business, I’ve never met anyone like Billy. He’s just so raw and unfiltered.”
Batinkoff pauses, smiling like someone remembering a story too absurd to summarize.
Billy McNamara with Betsy. Betsy is available for adoption at Eastwood Ranch Foundation!
“He was at the top of Hollywood and saw life with stars, and there was a lot of decadence he was in the middle of. There were so many pitfalls. Billy fell into every single one of them. And here he is exposing all of it with his own creative mind.”
That may be the secret ingredient of The Trouble With Billy: nobody is pretending. The show openly pokes fun at Hollywood’s desperation, vanity, corruption, and surreal absurdity because the people making it have actually lived through it all.
Chaos, Comedy, and a Pit Bull With Heart
McNamara describes the series as “a dramedy,” but that description doesn’t even come close to doing it justice.
There are alien abductee support groups. Homelessness. Dogs. Redemption arcs. Celebrity cameos. Existential crises. A pit bull who quietly becomes the emotional center of the show.
“The pit bull, my little girl, is the heart of the show,” McNamara says. “She really is, she’s the heart. And just all these zany things that happen — and based on facts. I mean, alien abduction, going to AAA, which is Alien Abductees Anonymous. I mean, people don’t even know AAA exists.”
Making Television the Hard Way
Nothing about the production sounds remotely conventional.
McNamara wore practically every hat imaginable: writer, director, producer, editor, cinematographer, and even music supervisor. The cast frequently improvised. Angus Macfadyen and Claudia Charriez ad-libbed scenes.
Original casting plans shifted constantly — Charriez’s late husband Evan was originally supposed to play Costas Mandylor’s role, while Billy Baldwin was initially eyed for Tom Sizemore’s part.
The whole thing evolved in real time, often chaotically, which somehow became the point.
“Everything with Billy is always wild,” Alison Eastwood laughs. “There are always a lot of crazy stories.”
More Than a Television Series
Eastwood knows this firsthand. Long before The Trouble With Billy, she and McNamara bonded over animal rescue work and collaborated on Animal Intervention for Nat Geo Wild. Their friendship eventually led her back in front of the camera after she had largely stepped away from acting.
“Billy’s a great guy,” she says. “One of the best hearts, and he’ll do anything to help animals.”
That generosity appears to radiate outward.
Part of the show’s proceeds will benefit animal rescue organizations, including Eastwood Ranch Foundation, while another portion supports trans nonprofit organizations connected to Claudia Charriez’s advocacy work with the TransLatin@ Coalition.
Even the production itself became an act of communal belief.
Built on Friendship and Loyalty
Costas Mandylor remembers the atmosphere less like a set and more like an impromptu family reunion.
“It really does take a family, a community, to build your show or your movie,” Mandylor says. “You let the artists do what they want to do, and nine times out of ten it’s going to be great.”
Then he laughs.
“Everybody showed up. It’s almost like everybody said, ‘Oh, I’m getting up today, and I’m gonna go see Billy.’”
Including Robert Wagner.
McNamara still sounds stunned recounting Wagner’s involvement.
“He flew in from Aspen on his own dime,” McNamara says. “I didn’t have a trailer. I didn’t have anything for him. He had to sit in a little chair. He didn’t care.”
McNamara tried to reimburse him.
“He goes, ‘No, Billy, you can’t afford me. Let me just do this as a favor to you.’”
That kind of loyalty hovers over the entire project.
