Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with Alexander “Boz” Bozicevich of North Hollywood

Alexander “Boz” Bozicevich shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Good morning Alexander “Boz”, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
Someone recently referred to my body of work as “the Boz Cinematic Universe” and it captivated me instantly. The phrase clarified my calling: to break through as a multi-hyphenate. That sounds like a tall order, and it is, but I finally feel prolific enough to claim the mission outright. Today, the Boz Cinematic Universe spans a novel, a feature screenplay, multiple TV pilots, a musical film, two albums, and a constellation of short films, comedy sketches, and essays.

And I’m just getting started…

All these projects might seem scattered, but over time, I’ve noticed shared themes emerging across the Boz Cinematic Universe: reinvention, resilience, and the search for meaning in our age of burnout and automation.

As a teenager, I was obsessed with the board game Risk. I once went on an eleven-game winning streak using a strategy called “Defense in Density.” Instead of stacking troops at the border, I built up each country equally so there were no weak points. This approach let me expand with confidence, while my forces remained stretched thick rather than thin. I’ve been applying the same principle to my creative life ever since.

As 2025 winds down and a new year beckons, my creative army is fortified. Every territory is ready, and it’s time to charge into new ones.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I think of writing, acting, and music as my creative triumvirate: three ambitions that guide my life. I have projects queued in each discipline, and I’m happiest when I get to do all three in the same season.

Here’s what I’m working on right now:

Writing – I am about a third of the way through the draft of a new novel called Ageless University. I don’t want to reveal too much yet, but it’s a science fiction novel set in the near future where the first age reversal procedure has been developed, but only billionaires can afford it. A select few are admitted to a mysterious university where they get the procedure for free, only to discover the scholarship comes with unexpected costs and complications.

Acting – My talented friend and collaborator Anthony Papastrat wrote a whip-smart, mind-bending feature called The Disposable Man, and we are currently in pre-production. I’ll be playing Ezra, a snarky secret agent trying to track down a lost piece of technology that could jeopardize the world as we know it.

We’re also in pre-production for the third installment in a series of zany commercials filmed for Royal Flush Paper, an eco-conscious toilet paper company. The third spot is an Oprah parody, written to be even more out there than the first two. Finally, a horror movie I acted in a couple years ago is set to be released soon, so I’ll share more details on my socials when it’s ready.

Music – I am preparing to record the vocals for a new EP titled Cocoon, which will feature four genre-bending electro-pop tracks. Two of the songs are playful and lighthearted, while the other two are melancholy and wistful, so it should create a balanced listening experience overall.

In the meantime, my novel Blue Tendril is on Amazon, my album Somewhat Worthy is on all major streaming platforms, and past acting projects can be found on my website and YouTube page.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
My whole life I have had a very intense taskmaster living in my brain. Year after year it gave me one command:

Keep pushing.

I pushed myself through school and even harder afterward — through jobs, creative projects, auditions, endless rewrites — all in service of becoming a Big Important Somebody. I pushed past symptoms, anxiety, exhaustion, and told myself all the time that if I just kept pushing, I would make it to the Promised Land, a place where I would finally be successful enough to rest.

It never happened. Instead, I had a series of physical breakdowns. The first one was in June of 2022. I had to quit two jobs working on my feet because I was too dizzy to stand up. But even then, I spent five months job-searching while also writing, making music, and querying a novel.

The second breakdown was in December of 2022. I had worked three months at a remote job and then got some kind of virus (probably Covid) that took away my ability to do that. But even after I went on medical leave, I kept creating: producing a musical, making music, writing, even acting in a film.

I couldn’t stop.

I pushed through the sensation that my brain was on fire. I pushed through the mornings when I threw up. Even at my worst moments, when I felt so ill that I thought I might be dying, I still desperately wanted to be a Big Important Somebody. My taskmaster urged me on:

Keep pushing.

I don’t know exactly when I stopped. I still have to negotiate with the taskmaster. I still have to remind myself that pushing didn’t get me where I wanted to be. I have to remind myself to rest and reassess whether I even want to do the things I’m doing. At some point, I started imagining a union rep one office down from the taskmaster, someone who would advocate on my behalf.

I have committed myself to finding balance. And I think that’s good enough for now.

When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
2022 was the year everything shifted. A health crisis forced me to question everything about how I had been living my life and how I presented myself to the world.

It all started with a set of personal essays that I wrote for my website. Instead of trying to sell myself, I began writing with more honesty. At first, I wrote about the struggles of pursuing a creative life, but as my health worsened, I took more risks, publishing secrets that part of me thought I would take to my grave.

The reactions surprised me.

“I saw so much of myself in this,” one friend said.

“They’re a good read,” another friend reassured.

“Keep writing,” A third friend encouraged.

I had published some of my most intense secrets and it had not destroyed me. More than that, I was able to connect on a deeper level with people who already knew me. And throughout the process, I found my voice, the one I had been trying to cultivate for years.

The following year, I took the essays down and shifted my focus to Medium. I still have them, though, and I’m debating whether to compile them into a book of essays at some point. They’re hard for me to reread, but they also capture the most dramatic turning point in my life thus far. And when I read them now, I can take comfort knowing how it all turned out.

I survived.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
I tend to be utopian in my thinking. That’s part of why I’m so drawn to science fiction and fantasy. My whole adult life I have questioned the assumption that society should be organized around work. The idea of committing to a job just for money sounded like a life sentence to me, especially as someone who wanted to do many things. In recent years, I’ve dedicated myself to the task of imagining better ways to live and be, if only to find that path for myself.

During the years of my health crisis, the main hurdle to getting better continued to be the pressure to work rather than rest. Some of that came from within, but I learned quite quickly how much institutional pressure is built into any kind of welfare or insurance. Most people feel trapped by our economic system, and for good reason. Any time I’ve been unable to work, either because of layoff or illness, I felt a justifiable panic. Life became a countdown before the money ran out. If your survival hinges upon work, then it’s hard to be objective about what kind of work you are best suited for. Ideally, social nets would help people through this transition, but in practice, these benefits are hard to obtain and harder to keep, even with medical evidence.

Here’s an example from my own experience…

When I was on medical leave, my insurance told me in a voicemail that they were cutting me off in two days based on their doctors’ assessment, not mine. The appeal process would have taken too long for me to avoid running out of money, and they would be the ones deciding the appeal anyway. Everything felt hopelessly stacked against me, especially since I was still so unwell.

And the sad thing is, that was not an unusual situation. Many Americans have stories like that, and many of them do not have happy endings.

In my ideal future, people don’t look for jobs, they look for their vocations, and they are able to consider factors beyond mere survival. I’m not sure what would be best from a policy standpoint, but from a creative view, I am committed to envisioning a better way forward while also believing that it is possible.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I hope they will say that I used creative work to approach difficult subjects with enough humor and optimism to give people hope. When I explore dark places, my aim is always to find a way through, not to abandon the audience somewhere depressing.

I consider entertainment to be a form of investigation. It’s a search for solutions. I write, act, and make music because I have trouble accepting the world as it is. I always have. Imagination is a form of resistance against the status quo, and I haven’t given up yet in the pursuit of progress. And if I ever do find my audience, I suspect it will be composed of people who also harbor a defiant sense of idealism in a sea of reasons to be cynical.

In the meantime, there’s still a lot of living to do. And for me, that means a lot of creating as well. I plan to add a lot more chapters to this story and make it one worth telling.

Stay tuned for the book.

Stay tuned for the films.

Stay tuned for the EP.

Stay tuned for more living.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thebestofboz.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bozalexander/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@boz5863
• Other: https://medium.com/@BozAlexander
  
  https://artists.landr.com/somewhatworthyboz

Image Credits
Jose Valencia
Anthony Papastrat