The Rescue Story Behind
The Trouble With Billy

Long before The Trouble with Billy became a scripted streaming series, I was filming my real life with my dog, Boo.

In the 90's I was star. Me and Boo, lived on the beach in Malibu – invited to all the big Hollywood parties. But within a few years, this "star" was living in his car!

Raw. Handheld. Unfiltered.

I made small vignettes for Facebook documenting my struggle — living in my car in Los Angeles — but I kept my sense of humor.

It wasn’t meant to become a show.
It was just a camera… and survival.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, I was working steadily in Hollywood — Malibu, movie sets, the whole machine. The trajectory was clear.

Then I walked away. I got sober. I realized there was more to life than red carpets and parties.

I left acting to dedicate myself to animal activism.

I joined Sea Shepherd and was dispatched to Taiji, Japan — the “killing cove.” I was part of the original team that documented the cove where dolphins were rounded up and slaughtered. I was arrested in Japan and charged with “interference with commerce.” The footage our team captured helped bring global awareness to the issue and contributed to what became The Cove.

I put my money where my convictions were.
After returning to the U.S., I relocated to Texas — living in hotels with Boo — to investigate and document exotic animal abuse. That documentation became Animal Intervention, a non-scripted series with my rescue partner Alison Eastwood, which sold to National Geographic.

But activism doesn’t pay like Hollywood.
By the time I returned to Los Angeles, my savings were gone. My credit was damaged. And Boo — my pitbull — made finding housing nearly impossible.

“Breed restriction.”

At one point, I was told I could stay — if I gave up my dog. That was the offer.

Within 24 hours, Boo and I were back in the car.

That was never negotiable.

The footage I had self-shot — love, humiliation, absurdity, pride, survival — would later become the emotional DNA of The Trouble with Billy.

Then things unraveled further.

Boo was misdiagnosed with heart disease and later correctly diagnosed with cancer. Her chemotherapy was $1,200 a week. I had no pet insurance. No financial cushion.

So I traded my Honda Civic for a 1998 Chevy Monte Carlo — not for style, but because it had an engine that could idle for hours with the air conditioning running.

Los Angeles summer heat is brutal.

We lived in that car.
And I spent my remaining savings keeping her alive.

I do not regret that decision.
Not for one second.

Some people distanced themselves. A few even told me they couldn’t associate with me because it might affect their “brand.”

But others showed up.
Randall Batinkoff.
Angus Macfadyen.
Billy Baldwin.
RJ Wagner.
Tom Sizemore.
Costas Mandylor.

They worked for almost nothing. Crew members donated time. Friends opened their homes as locations.

They believed in the story — even when it looked like I had lost mine.

The Trouble with Billy became a dramedy. It’s funny. It’s absurd. It satirizes Hollywood. But underneath it is something very real.

It’s about loyalty.
It’s about ego.
It’s about losing everything — and refusing to lose your sense of humor.

It’s about a man who wouldn’t give up his dog.
And a dog whose love made giving up impossible.

She is the heart of the show.

A man chooses loyalty over survival.
Everything else unfolds from that.

Boo eventually lost her battle with cancer.

When she died, everything went quiet.

I stopped filming. I stopped creating. I decided I would never get another dog.

Life had other plans.

After Animal Intervention, Alison Eastwood founded Eastwood Ranch Foundation and asked me to serve on the board. During a major rescue operation in San Bernardino County, dozens of animals were saved. One pitbull wasn’t adopted.

I fostered her.
I named her Twinkie.
I fell in love with her — and kept her.

Twinkie became the bridge between grief and creation. She inspired me to revisit the footage I had abandoned — to memorialize Boo and to transform survival into story.

Twinkie plays Boo in the series. She is extraordinary on screen — intuitive, expressive, grounded. A rescued pitbull as the emotional center of a television show.

Both Boo and Twinkie have now passed.
The Trouble with Billy is an homage to them.
Those two rescued dogs didn’t just give me companionship.

They gave me purpose.
They gave me discipline.
They gave me direction.

They rescued my life.
They rescued my creativity.
They rescued my career.

I took raw documentary footage born out of survival and turned it into a ten-episode independent television series — written, directed, and produced outside the traditional studio system.

By Hollywood standards, that rarely happens.

It shouldn’t have happened.
But it did.

Not because of studio backing.
Not because of traditional financing.

But because responsibility creates discipline.
Commitment creates endurance.
And rescue builds character.

The comeback isn’t fame.

The comeback is character.

The Trouble with Billy exists because of rescue.

If your life isn’t what you hoped it would be, rescue an animal.

Miracles follow responsibility and commitment.

Recent Press Highlights

Recently, McNamara was profiled in Yahoo Entertainment when Copycat began trending on Netflix (Yahoo Entertainment article). He also made international headlines for rescuing animals during the Palisades Fire, covered by Entertainment Weekly and News.com.au.