transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:01] Look, man. Where?
Speaker 2:
[00:02] Oh, I see.
Speaker 1:
[00:03] Wow.
Speaker 2:
[00:04] Bowen, look over there.
Speaker 1:
[00:05] Wow, is that culture?
Speaker 2:
[00:06] Yes. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:
[00:07] Wow. Ding dong, Las Culturistas calling.
Speaker 2:
[00:13] This, I just want to say, before we sort of launch into whatever this is going to be, what's making me really happy is that we're watching our guest consume her first ever Celsius on Ice in a Glass.
Speaker 1:
[00:27] And it's a color, it's a color that serendipitously matches her outfit and shoes. And speaking of the word, serendipitous, I've had this vocal stim for at least 12 years. I'm sorry, I don't want to go to serendipity and drink frozen hot chocolates with your uncle's girlfriend, who is a stewardess named Elodie. That is right there in one line, a master class in dialogue. You build and build and build and oh my, I've never forgotten that line of dialogue. Among the legion of other sequences of words on that show called Girls.
Speaker 2:
[01:09] But can I tell you another shorter one?
Speaker 1:
[01:12] Yes, of course, please.
Speaker 2:
[01:13] And sometimes the brevity will be what hits. What do I want to be like you?
Speaker 1:
[01:17] Like mentally ill. Shosh, you're cruel, drunk.
Speaker 2:
[01:21] It's crazy. We really had to work with Allison to try to go back into the foul cabinets of her brain when she was on.
Speaker 1:
[01:30] Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:
[01:31] Was that improvised line, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:
[01:34] It's crazy.
Speaker 2:
[01:35] But then you read this wonderful book, Fame Sick, and you get a glimpse into the creative process. Honestly, here's the thing, everyone out there, you need this book. You actually need to read it. It's required reading, not that there's going to be a test, but consider yourself unprepared for the rest of your life going forward if you don't go out and get it.
Speaker 1:
[01:58] There's no test involved. It's just a book where, and I haven't had this in a while, it's one of those, it's a nodder. You're nodding every page.
Speaker 2:
[02:08] You're like, I recognize this. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[02:12] You knowingly nod at a book like this, which felt really refreshing.
Speaker 2:
[02:18] I mean, just to say, this is obviously a huge moment in the podcast. I mean, the creator of our favorite show, the creator of our favorite words, I mean, become a pal.
Speaker 1:
[02:29] Somehow.
Speaker 2:
[02:30] In a true love at first sight moment, became a pal.
Speaker 1:
[02:33] Yeah. We found love in an apple place. That's all we'll say.
Speaker 2:
[02:38] That's all we're gonna say.
Speaker 1:
[02:39] That's all we're gonna say.
Speaker 2:
[02:40] Let's just say I have one photo. You know how sometimes on your iPhone, one photo... There's that thing of this day last year, or sometimes it's not even a year ago. It's just like your phone just decides pictures that it's gonna keep showing you.
Speaker 1:
[02:54] Terrible.
Speaker 2:
[02:56] Our guest factors in to that for me because I'll just randomly be flipping through and it's like, oh, there's a picture of me and Bow. Oh, there's a picture of me and Greta. Then there's Lena Dunham and Tim Cook. Just the two of them.
Speaker 1:
[03:09] A gorgeous couple.
Speaker 3:
[03:11] My nipples are wrecked.
Speaker 1:
[03:12] We have to unpack this on the anniversary of Apple's 50th birthday. On Apple's 50th birthday. We'll get into this. Everyone, please welcome Lena Dunham. Today is the 50th anniversary of Apple Computer.
Speaker 3:
[03:28] Is it really? We're here together?
Speaker 1:
[03:31] We're here together.
Speaker 3:
[03:32] I don't know how much I can say before a drone strike. But firstly, I just want to say it's an honor to be with you.
Speaker 1:
[03:40] Are you kidding?
Speaker 3:
[03:40] I'm a huge fan, a huge consumer of your content. I love what you do. When we had our love at first sight moment, you said something about the podcast and I never do this. I was like, which I'd love to be on.
Speaker 2:
[03:55] No. See, that's the kind of thing where we earmark it immediately because I'm like, oh, okay, that's something that can happen.
Speaker 1:
[04:01] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[04:02] I was begging for it. I was circling the building. But we spent two full and complete days together at the Apple iPhone launch.
Speaker 1:
[04:12] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[04:12] Which I kept saying, we're here to understand the future. I didn't know what else to say or how to say it.
Speaker 2:
[04:19] Was that just what you were saying as a line to the people that worked there? Like, yeah, I'm here to understand the future.
Speaker 3:
[04:24] Well, I was saying to the people who worked there and then I started to believe it. And then I started to say it to people I care about like you. But I was like, I don't want to be left behind. I was like, when the future comes, I want to be there. When they're having us use the tools, I want to be the one running the tools. Everyone was like, OK, babe, come down. Like, you're going to get a free iPhone. You can breathe.
Speaker 1:
[04:43] It's got a new lens.
Speaker 3:
[04:45] I saw you two walk in. There was a series of sort of public art arches, colorful arches. And I was standing there awkwardly, my heels digging into the sod. And I saw you two and I screamed, a scream that was like pure pleasure. It was like if you were a wolf separated from your child in a Disney movie, and then you encountered them in the forest after a full story arc.
Speaker 2:
[05:09] Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 3:
[05:10] That's how it felt.
Speaker 2:
[05:11] I will say, I was like, I said to Bowen, I was like, how gagged would you be if just to go back to like 2013 and be like, one day we're gonna see Lena Dunham in an event and be like, thank God you're here. Oh my God.
Speaker 3:
[05:23] And I couldn't believe, I was just sitting here in such pleasure because you're better at being Allison and me than Allison and me.
Speaker 1:
[05:30] Oh my God.
Speaker 3:
[05:31] But I will tell you, I don't remember much, but I do know that I don't want to drink frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity with your uncle's girlfriend, who's a stewardess named Elodie, was an improv.
Speaker 2:
[05:42] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[05:43] Are you serious?
Speaker 3:
[05:44] Sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle.
Speaker 1:
[05:48] Lena.
Speaker 3:
[05:49] Sometimes. I remember we were really jacked up. It was the middle of the night. We weren't drinking Celsius, but something equivalent. And it just happened.
Speaker 1:
[05:58] I'm going to butcher this because in that same block of script, you also say, and mind you, you're coked up, your hand is coked up. And you looked at me with your eyes and you lied to me with your eyes when you said by not saying anything at all. Of course, that's all improvised. And I'm like, but that's just your brain.
Speaker 3:
[06:20] Well, that's so sweet. We also snorted a lot of lactose powder.
Speaker 2:
[06:24] Yeah, I was wondering.
Speaker 3:
[06:25] And you can't know what that does. Like Andrew and I recently talked about, we snorted like tons of milk off a toilet that day. And what came later just had to be a sinus infection. Had to. I know we didn't feel good. We were also dancing in a club. We arrived at five in the morning. So by the time we were sweaty, coked up and dancing, it was 7:30 AM. So like this nightlife scene was actually us jacked up on lactose powder. 7:30 AM. And what happens, happens. Improving our little faces. What is it that you do on RuPaul's Drag Race? You dance for your life.
Speaker 1:
[07:06] Lipsync for your life. Yeah, whatever.
Speaker 2:
[07:08] That also broke open Crop Mesh, I think for a new generation.
Speaker 3:
[07:14] Thank you so much. I remember when the shirt came out, we had an amazing costume designer, Jen, and she brought the shirt out and was like, we could do a bra with it. I was like, we're not doing anything with it.
Speaker 2:
[07:23] No, this is tits underneath.
Speaker 3:
[07:25] This is my tits are my accessory. And also you don't know in your 20s how much they're gonna change. You don't know, yeah, your tits. And I was thinking about this recently because I have a pal who lives with me who's in her 20s and they're just up like champagne flutes. And I just looked and I was like, take advantage, take photos, be topless.
Speaker 2:
[07:45] When you're doing a TV show and they ask you if you want a bra underneath your mesh, say no.
Speaker 3:
[07:50] Because someday you're gonna be wearing three t-shirts and a sweater just to hold it back, you know?
Speaker 1:
[07:58] So on this topic, do you want to unpack the reason why your nipples went erect next to Tim Cook?
Speaker 3:
[08:05] It was crazy.
Speaker 2:
[08:06] It's okay if it's attraction.
Speaker 3:
[08:08] It was definitely like he's got, what do we call it? Swag? He's got Riz, whatever is going on.
Speaker 2:
[08:14] Whatever that thing is gonna be next week.
Speaker 3:
[08:16] But I also think like the panic of you have two minutes with which to properly engage with this person. I mean, I kept saying things like, I love your products. I was saying things that I never imagined would come out of my mouth. And then I looked down and like for the first time in 15 years, my nipples were standing at attention. And I looked at the photo and it truly looks like one of those pictures you see of like a married couple that has moved to a vacation destination together.
Speaker 2:
[08:46] I have it on my phone.
Speaker 3:
[08:46] Yeah, you have it on your phone.
Speaker 2:
[08:47] This is a picture that I treasure.
Speaker 3:
[08:49] Yeah, we look, and I remember coming up to him and being like, I just took the picture with him. My nipples popped out, then popped right back in. Don't know why, don't know how.
Speaker 1:
[08:57] Portrait mode.
Speaker 3:
[08:58] He's got searing eyes.
Speaker 2:
[09:00] Okay, so this is something I haven't said.
Speaker 3:
[09:02] Like you, incredibly blue searing eyes.
Speaker 2:
[09:04] So about a few months later, I actually was at the same restaurant as him. When I was in DC, remember this, Melissa? We, Melissa came and we sang backup for me on my tour. We're at a restaurant.
Speaker 3:
[09:15] Thank you, Melissa, for your service.
Speaker 2:
[09:17] Everyone goes, and Melissa knew that I had met him at that event. So the waiter comes over to our table and goes, I do have to ask you guys if you're finished, if you don't mind, I never do this. It's just that Tim Cook has your table after you. And we go, what? And I was like, not sure they were supposed to do that. Anyway, I'm like, yes, we'll go, we'll go, we'll go. And then someone goes, are you gonna say hi on the way out? I was like, no, I am not. And then they go, well, why not? I mean, you've met the guy once. Like, I am not saying hello to Tim Cook on the way out of here. I was like, I don't want to do it.
Speaker 3:
[09:50] Going up to him and being like, we met for two minutes in a picture line. Do you remember my nipples?
Speaker 2:
[09:54] But everyone I was with was like expecting it to happen. And so they described me running by him. Like he was standing at the bar. I got on the ground and basically used all my pads of all my feet and hands to like crawl out. And they were like, what you just did to not say hi to him is the craziest thing we've ever seen.
Speaker 3:
[10:15] It's crazy as if I saw him in the wild, I would never recognize him again. In my brain, he looks like Steve Jobs.
Speaker 2:
[10:21] Well, you're like, it can't be.
Speaker 3:
[10:23] It can't be, but also his face, which was so clear to me in that moment, like we'd been waiting for each other our whole lives, he's gone, disappeared into a puff of smoke. And it's interesting because we were there together and we didn't totally know, I mean, everyone was being really nice to us, but we didn't totally know what our job was. What are we here for? What do you want from us? I like clear instructions.
Speaker 1:
[10:45] It felt like the beginning of The Westing Game or like an Agatha Christie novel.
Speaker 2:
[10:49] I love The Westing Game.
Speaker 3:
[10:51] Well, I love The Westing Game too, and you kind of just shot something through me.
Speaker 2:
[10:56] That's our project we'll do together, is to reach the end of The Westing Game.
Speaker 3:
[10:59] Did they ever make a movie of The Westing Game?
Speaker 1:
[11:01] I'm sure.
Speaker 2:
[11:01] You know what, I'm sure I looked this up. I think they did, Becca, can you look up if they did The Westing Game, maybe in the late 80s, early 90s for television?
Speaker 3:
[11:09] These books that are part of a genre of mysteries for children, like suspense for children, there was one that I loved, I don't know if you have a book called The Wolves of Willoughby Chase?
Speaker 1:
[11:19] No, tell it what a title.
Speaker 3:
[11:20] Did that hit anything? It was about a girl, I loved books about a girl who is an orphan and she moves to a house and something's not quite right.
Speaker 2:
[11:28] Yeah, she gets out her little book and pencil.
Speaker 3:
[11:31] That's exactly right, and I wanted to be that child. And The Westing Game, and also did you like The Giver?
Speaker 1:
[11:38] Of course.
Speaker 2:
[11:39] Wasn't Taylor Swift in The Giver?
Speaker 1:
[11:41] She was in The Giver.
Speaker 2:
[11:42] Yeah, she was.
Speaker 3:
[11:43] She played an important memory in The Giver.
Speaker 2:
[11:46] She played an important memory.
Speaker 3:
[11:48] And remember his job is-
Speaker 1:
[11:49] She plays an important memory in all of our lives.
Speaker 3:
[11:51] Of course. I think about The Giver because she's a brunette in The Giver.
Speaker 2:
[11:55] That's why you think about it.
Speaker 3:
[11:56] That's why I think about it is because she was a brunette with bangs.
Speaker 1:
[12:00] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[12:01] And I loved it. I love every time she acts.
Speaker 2:
[12:03] An era that doesn't get spoken of. Her giver era. It's Ruloculture number 13. No one talks about Taylor's giver era.
Speaker 3:
[12:11] That was so amazing. It's amazing to be on something that you're a fan of because I'm watching this thing I love, but I'm here.
Speaker 2:
[12:18] Well, just to speak on that, it's funny because everyone did the girls rewatch moment. And that had to feel like-
Speaker 1:
[12:27] But it's ongoing, I feel.
Speaker 2:
[12:29] Yeah, well, it definitely, it started, I would say, like 2022. It started to really catch fire. We're all rewatching this, but I wonder how it feels to know that at the time, everyone was like, I don't understand how someone can be in it and capture it. But as a time capsule, it may be growing into its purpose even more as a time capsule of that era.
Speaker 3:
[12:50] That is, for me, the greatest thing, because if we think about it, I remember Judd Apatow once saying to me, you never really, we think the most important moment of anything's life is when it first comes out. And the internet's responding and people, but actually you don't know the role that anything plays until it's been in the world for a long time. Like we all now recognize that My So-Called Life is the greatest teen show of all time. It was canceled after one season. My best friend, Matt Wolf, did put together a petition, which was signed by over 10,000 people to try to get it back on the air. But shockingly, was it ABC? ABC didn't listen to a 15-year-old head of his Gay Trade Alliance in San Jose, California. And that's a big problem with television, because that's who we need to be serving.
Speaker 2:
[13:39] Because we would have had more than one season of Freaks and Geeks then, too.
Speaker 3:
[13:42] Of course, we would have had more than one season of Enlightened, but we can't have nice things.
Speaker 2:
[13:47] Here's the thing, we were just talking, people are so much smarter than they are when they're like, hi, I'm promoting a movie, I'm behind it, it's like, they walk off camera and they're like, I don't know about this.
Speaker 3:
[13:59] Yeah, and even if it's a hit, sometimes they don't know about it, because some things that hit with culture are actually hitting on the worst parts of us, and some things, and we now know that lots of brilliant actors have had to do things that they, so it's just an interesting thing to think, there are things that hit and you go, everyone's talking about it, but what will be happening in five, 10, 15, 20 years? And when we were making Girls, there was so much sort of feedback, probably more, we had more people reviewing it than watched it, honestly.
Speaker 1:
[14:33] And I believe this, and I agree.
Speaker 2:
[14:34] The discussion was something that was paramount.
Speaker 3:
[14:36] Exactly, and then it's really nice when something's out of its discussion phase, and now people are just maybe getting to like, watch it in a cozy context, and also they don't have to be reacting to the reaction to the reaction, or thinking, does this define what it feels like for me to be 24? Does this feel like it reflects, but actually can just engage with it as what it was? There's some TikTok sound where the girl's like, she's like, I don't know, I'm just being goofy. And sometimes I feel about the show, I'm like, I'm just being goofy. And when there's that much discussion, you're like, and now I think people can maybe go like, they were just being goofy. And actually that's more meaningful in a way.
Speaker 1:
[15:16] Oh, good. Because, but I think what Matt's saying is like, you captured it while you were in it, and I think it's kind of, not even kind of, it's completely remarkable that you were able to maintain that sort of valence throughout, despite the discourse around it.
Speaker 3:
[15:32] Incredible use of valence, you just knocked me out.
Speaker 2:
[15:34] He'll always use valence and things like that.
Speaker 3:
[15:36] It's beautiful, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:
[15:38] But like, the fact that you maintained this throughout, and I was even laughing in the book where you were like talking about the last season, you were writing scenes that made no sense, like, you know, Shoshana goes to this place.
Speaker 3:
[15:48] Shoshana goes to a nudist camp, because ending a show is so hard, and you're like, I'm gonna really shock them. And then you're like, this isn't shocking. Shoshana wandered down the road to a nudist camp. We also have to remember, there was a lot of, I always knew where I wanted the show to end, from the beginning, which is I wanted her to have a baby latching. But I was like, how do we get there? And what does that look like? And there was definitely some crawling around in the mud to arrive at, I mean, I remember just like, it was like a maniacal detective, I had like 150 index cards that I was spread, I have these pictures of me sitting in a sea of index cards on my floor, just being like, what if we don't? I remember one day I was like, okay, I have this crazy idea, we don't have a season finale. We do an episode nine, and then we stop. And they were like, but that would then be the season finale. And I was like, okay. It's like my father told me a story about when he did acid for the first time, and he looked at his friend and said, what if we raise our children with no egos? And they thought that they'd like solved it.
Speaker 2:
[16:53] They figured it out.
Speaker 1:
[16:54] And they kind of did.
Speaker 3:
[16:55] They kind of did, but you can't necessarily maintain that when you're not on a heavy dose of LSD.
Speaker 2:
[17:01] They would have to just make sure that when the baby came into the world immediately, they give them the same dose.
Speaker 3:
[17:06] Exactly.
Speaker 2:
[17:06] I went to the sky, see, it's a dome. This is all fake.
Speaker 3:
[17:09] This is all fake. Do a full Truman Show. But I was having a, what if we raise our babies with no egos? What if we just forsake the season finale, blow everybody's mind? Yeah. It's another day. It's over.
Speaker 2:
[17:21] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[17:22] But you can't game the system that way.
Speaker 1:
[17:25] Well, we all would have arrived at that same exact idea had we been creating, starring, running a show, directing episodes of the show while we were at the tender age of 26, 27.
Speaker 3:
[17:36] Definitely reading the book made me realize how crazy it is to give jobs of any consequence. And again, another quote from my father who says, there are no art emergencies because people love to act like they're actually, like my aunt is an emergency room doctor. Sometimes she would have to treat someone who's like leg got caught in a subway door. That is an emergency. Season finale actually not an emergency, but it was still a job that involved actual interfacing with many people and engaging. And I just look back and I go, that is so, like I see people are that age now and I go, you should still be inside your mother's body.
Speaker 1:
[18:17] Yeah, no, that's, you should be a Joey and a kangaroo.
Speaker 3:
[18:20] You should be a Joey and a kangaroo and no one should let you out till you're 32. And so a lot of the book was grappling that. And what was interesting was I was so judgmental of myself at the time. And looking back, I was like, oh my God, like they're definitely, they're definitely low points, but they're definitely some moments where I was like, I should have been nicer to you. You were doing, you were trying so hard and it was going okay.
Speaker 2:
[18:42] And trying, actually trying things. I mean, there were moments in that show where I was like, I would sit perplexed with it. I remember just being a huge fan of the show and the first season had come and gone and the second season happened. And there's an episode where you're, Hannah is at the cemetery and she sits there and she parrots back a story that someone else had told about their own grief to someone else. And the episode ended and I remember being like, at the time I was like, I didn't like that episode. I can't believe she did that. And I didn't like that episode. And then now looking back, I'm like, no, I think I saw something true. And I think there's a testament to you putting that out there even at that age when you know your discourse is really tough and you're judging yourself. There's a lot of checkpoints to get through when you put on your lead character who's like, you know, close to yourself, doing an ugly thing. And she did a lot of ugly things and all those characters did.
Speaker 3:
[19:46] I always forget how many ugly things she did. And then someone was like, oh, I just watched the episode, came up to me and they're like, I just watched the episode where she goes to her boss's funeral and makes it all about herself. And I was like, she did that.
Speaker 2:
[19:58] Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3:
[19:59] You can't go to somebody's funeral that you don't know well and make it all about yourself. And I remember that being, that the scene in the cemetery, first I remember it because I fainted. And then the medic said, I think you're okay because you still have rosiness in your finger nail beds. And I was like, I don't think you are a medical professional. I think this-
Speaker 2:
[20:19] Well, on a TV set.
Speaker 3:
[20:21] I was like, I remember he laid me back and he was like, rosy nail beds, check. And I was like, I think we need to get some Gatorade in this girl's stat. And so that is one memory I have. But the other is I remember doing that monologue where she's like, my cousin had cystic fibrosis and I had to say, which was actually a true, that story was a true story about my father's cousin. That is real and sad that we then gave to Gabby, that we then gave to me. And I remembered feeling sick doing the monologue because there were a couple of things. There's a scene in the first season where Hanna tries to seduce her boss, who's sexually harassing her, to turn the tables and reclaim, and also try to maybe get a bunch of back pay. She's like, maybe if we, then he'll have to give me a ton of money. And I remember the scene and being like, who wrote this for me? Why am I doing? Why am I? Richard Mazur, a kind, talented, seasoned character actor. I'm about to go in and straddle aggressively. And then I saw him recently because he came and did a part in my movie. And he was like, I haven't seen you since that straddling.
Speaker 2:
[21:29] Since that straddling.
Speaker 3:
[21:30] But it was hard sometimes because I was like, also I knew that the valence was... Is it a valence? I knew that the curtain between how people perceived her and how people perceived me was extremely sheer.
Speaker 2:
[21:43] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[21:44] So I also knew when I made those choices. And what I loved thinking about writing a book was also, like, Sasha, Jemima, Alison, all have... I mean, you've been Alison, she's the most... She's hilarious and dirty, but she's also correct and polite. She wants... Everything you need to know about her is she once got tendonitis from writing too many thank you notes.
Speaker 2:
[22:06] That reads 100%.
Speaker 1:
[22:07] You described her as a thank you note and her thank you note writing life.
Speaker 3:
[22:10] Her thank you note writing life. And she and Zosha is incredibly smart and thoughtful. And Jemima is her own iconic Roland. And they were all so down to clown. You'd go up to them and you'd be like, today you are going to get your ass eaten by your friend's boyfriend. They'd be like, all right, here we go. The one time I remember we gave Alison a monologue where she was supposed to say that she'd lost her virginity at 14, and she was like, what? And I was like, yeah, she lost her virginity when she was 14. And she was like, that doesn't really square with how I've been thinking about it. Very thoughtfully, she's like, you know, I've been playing her in one way. And Jemima came up and she's like, what would you have been doing if you knew she lost her virginity at 14? Hi, I'm Marnie. And then she did this voice of the alternate Marnie who talked like this because she lost her virginity at 14, and we were just like, okay, we're not going to be precious about this. We're just going to try it. And then she talked about losing her virginity at 14 and fucking crushed it.
Speaker 1:
[23:10] Yeah. This is what's going on in my head. This is my take on what the person coming up to you saying, oh, I just saw the episode where about the funeral and this is, and with what Matt's saying about like, I don't like what I just saw and then realizing in hindsight that's me is like I think the show kind of conveyed this better than anything else for our generation where it's like the person you hate the most or the person that annoys you the most is would be you if they grew up and lived in your exact same circumstances.
Speaker 3:
[23:41] I remember my first ever therapist, shout out Lisa Spiegel. She a truly important woman in my life. I remember I was talking about a girl that I was not cool at school, and I was like, there's this one girl and I just can't stand her. Every time she sits near me and she was like, do you think maybe you recognize a little bit of yourself in her? I was nine, so it was like saying, what if we raise our kids with no egos? It blew my fucking mind. But of course, and I've always been interested in, I remember the first time I saw the British office, I was like, oh, you're allowed to do this? You're allowed to celebrate characters who are making insane mistakes. I love when a character does not who, you know when you meet someone and they're like, I'm a very empathic person, and you know whatever comes after is not going to be empathic. Or they say, no offense, and whatever comes after is going to offend you.
Speaker 2:
[24:33] How do you know I don't want to hear this then?
Speaker 3:
[24:35] Yeah, 100%. Or when my brother last week started saying, can I be real for a second a lot? And I was like, no, I don't like it.
Speaker 1:
[24:43] What are you the other seconds?
Speaker 3:
[24:44] Yeah, what was happening before and why is this happening to me now? But I've always been interested in characters who see themselves very differently than the rest of the world sees them. And that gap. And it's interesting also because people now know that you're not allowed to say, it's the same way that the Daily Mail stopped being allowed to call you fat, so they had to call you voluptuous or zaftig or whatever other synonym they could come up with for what they used to say, which was like messy fat lady. And now people know that they're not supposed to be angry if women are unlikable. There's a new word that is being used.
Speaker 1:
[25:20] What is it? Give it to us.
Speaker 3:
[25:22] That comes up in notes. Are they rudable?
Speaker 1:
[25:26] Rutable.
Speaker 2:
[25:27] Meaning, can we root for them? Is there any world in which we could want them to succeed?
Speaker 3:
[25:31] Correct. And I do think that is being likable and being rudable are two different things. But it was also really interesting when Girls was on to realize that people could accept the idea of Tony Soprano. They could accept the idea of Walter White. Just like a girl giving an errant hand job was truly the biggest societal problem that we had. And I think that feels very quaint to people now. And also now there's all the like, I have main character syndrome. I'm the main character of my own life. Like there's sort of a celebration of this kind of delirious selfishness that before was considered a major character flaw. So I think there's more room in the world, it feels to me. It's funny because women have never had more problems actually. But on television, there's space to wild out just a little bit more.
Speaker 2:
[26:17] I almost feel like people actually think that they, I think people think they love and support women because they watch television with them. And then they convince themselves of something. And then the second they turn away, it's like, well, I've already spent my time thinking and supporting. You know what I'm saying? I think it's so much more prevalent than people think.
Speaker 3:
[26:39] And it is so interesting. I mean, they're great theorists who are looking at sort of like the gap between what we accept in media and what we accept in the world and what we support in media and what we support in the world. But it was interesting because when we were doing Girls, it was kind of, you know, it was like, it was Obama era. Everything was going to be okay.
Speaker 2:
[26:55] Try it.
Speaker 3:
[26:56] Try it. We were on our way up. Everything, like there was a, even though of course, there was lots of consequence in the world that I didn't have a full, complete understanding of because I was like inside a sound stage and didn't know what time it was. There was, it felt like the world was, we were going to the Women's March. We were having, being sent pussy hats. Everything was happening and now there's been a profound backtracking. I don't know if you remember something called Me Too, but I don't think it happened. It didn't reach a lot of corners of the world, but we know that we're supposed to think that women can be naughty on TV.
Speaker 1:
[27:40] That somehow survived that whole fucking...
Speaker 3:
[27:41] Yeah, and I want that. I want Rachel Weisz to be naughty on TV. Don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2:
[27:45] Always.
Speaker 3:
[27:46] That's why I'm alive.
Speaker 2:
[27:47] No one does it better.
Speaker 3:
[27:49] I mean, I was watching her. I mean, direct to camera address from Rachel Weisz, we don't deserve. We don't deserve. Also, I love how the whole time she's like, I'm old and ugly and no one will look at me. And I was like, you're the single most beautiful woman.
Speaker 2:
[28:03] You're actually famously iconic for your, like, I'll never forget the first time I saw her in the Mummy movies. That's like an arresting image for all time.
Speaker 3:
[28:13] Like, she's almost more so if you're not even attracted to women, cause you go, what am I?
Speaker 2:
[28:18] Yeah, right.
Speaker 3:
[28:18] What am I?
Speaker 2:
[28:19] I know I have questions.
Speaker 3:
[28:21] And they come from you, Miss Weisz. But that being said, yeah, she's an iconically beautiful woman, but at the same time, any iconically beautiful woman who is over 50 is still dealing with these same things.
Speaker 2:
[28:33] Right.
Speaker 1:
[28:34] But it's so funny to bring up, it's not funny.
Speaker 3:
[28:35] Except for J.Lo.
Speaker 1:
[28:36] Except for who? J.Lo, naturally.
Speaker 2:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 1:
[29:23] These statements have not been evaluated by the Food Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. But I feel like you just had this locus of chaos happening around you around the time of this, quote, unquote, reckoning with Me Too, where it's like the show ends, this relationship is on the outs, all these things about your body are sort of coming to light for you. That was my takeaway from the book was just like, oh, how are you writing this in such clear, gorgeous detail while you're talking about how you are in this long dissociative state and how you've grown up with these little flashes of dissociation, like hospital feeling.
Speaker 3:
[30:15] You're like, oh. Hospital feeling, thank you for.
Speaker 1:
[30:17] Something is going on with me and I'm ignoring my basic needs while I'm making this show in the name of ambition and all these things and I have to prove something right about the way the world sees me and sees the show. Now that like the dust is settled, like, I hope you're so proud of everything.
Speaker 3:
[30:34] That is a beautiful thing to say. And thank you. And I think the thing that was really lovely about writing the book was I had a really long time to do it. I mean, I wrote my first book in eight months. I wrote this book in eight years.
Speaker 2:
[30:46] Which we also loved.
Speaker 3:
[30:47] Thank you.
Speaker 2:
[30:47] Love, not that kind of girl.
Speaker 3:
[30:48] Thank you so much. And I didn't want to do it for the sake of, you know, I've been asked to do like, do a Girls Rewatch podcast, get together with the girls. And I mean, people love nostalgia and I love nostalgia. And like, do I want to watch the whole cast of OC respond to episodes of the OC? Yes, I do.
Speaker 1:
[31:07] Tate Donovan, come back.
Speaker 3:
[31:08] Tate Donovan. I want to watch Tate Donovan watch anything. But I'm interested in like forward motion and forward progression. And so I haven't, maybe there will be a time when I go, I'd like to live watch every episode of Girls, but I haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 1:
[31:21] That's OK.
Speaker 3:
[31:22] But I only wanted to write the book if I felt like I had something to say about the larger machine in which women are working and which people are working about like the larger. I do think that Hollywood is a microcosm and it reflects the way the industry works, the way that we see people reflects things that exist in a lot of parts of the world, because it's like where the the center, it's interesting because Hollywood is this very kind of comparatively small industry where we have chosen to center our attention. It's a distraction, it's an indulgence, but it also has something bigger to say about the way that we live. So I only wanted to write the book if I felt like I had something to say about all of that and about, while also being hopefully thoughtful about the fact that like a tiny thousand tiny violins play for the girl who's like, my TV show was too hard. But so thank you for saying that. And it was interesting to realize how much I did do. I had always had, I talk about it in the book, I'd always had dissociative episodes throughout childhood. The more that my life picked up and the more stress was involved, the more they happened. But I think at the time I thought ignoring your basic needs was correct. I thought like if you're really good at being a person, you can suppress and override everything that you need in order to be comfortable for the, and we've all been sent a million signals about what ambition, what's important, what ambition means, what, who we have to be in this sort of, in I'm about to say under capitalism, send me to jail. But, and so I-
Speaker 1:
[33:03] To capitalist jail.
Speaker 3:
[33:04] Yeah, send me to capitalist jail.
Speaker 1:
[33:06] Private prison.
Speaker 3:
[33:07] Send me to a private prison where they'll treat me the way I've always treated myself. But I want to tell you that something is happening inside me, not in a bad way, good way, but I just kind of like, my nipples aren't erect, but I did stand that attention.
Speaker 2:
[33:24] You felt the frisson.
Speaker 3:
[33:26] Yeah, like there's a moment, is there a moment when you're drinking your Celsius or you go, it's on?
Speaker 1:
[33:29] Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:
[33:31] You're starting to buzz?
Speaker 3:
[33:32] Yeah, it's a little bit like when you try drugs with your friends for the first time and you go, is it working on you? Is it working on you?
Speaker 2:
[33:38] It's working.
Speaker 3:
[33:39] It's working. And also because I'm sober and now, thanks to you, this one, vape free.
Speaker 2:
[33:45] Oh, is this where we entree into this discussion? I was just going to say one more before we do that, I just want to say the one thing about girls, so much of it terrified me at the time because I was like, I think I'm feeling uncomfortable because it's me. A lot of it was Marnie.
Speaker 3:
[34:02] Are you a Marnie?
Speaker 2:
[34:03] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[34:04] What are you?
Speaker 1:
[34:05] I think I'm probably a Shosh.
Speaker 3:
[34:08] I was going to say that.
Speaker 1:
[34:10] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[34:10] And I've been public about the fact that I'm a Shosh.
Speaker 2:
[34:13] You're a Shosh.
Speaker 1:
[34:14] I think you told us this. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[34:15] I'm a Shosh.
Speaker 2:
[34:16] You're a Shosh.
Speaker 3:
[34:16] I've grown into a Shosh.
Speaker 2:
[34:18] Yeah. It's not to invoke, but it's like with the Hogwarts houses, my whole thing was like, listen, I was born a Gryffindor.
Speaker 3:
[34:29] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[34:29] In my 20s, I was a Slytherin.
Speaker 3:
[34:31] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[34:32] Right now, I'm a Hufflepuff. I will die a Ravenclaw. You know what I mean? It's like that's sort of what it is. It feels like it's like that with the Girls Girls as well.
Speaker 3:
[34:40] Well, in high school, I was a Charlotte.
Speaker 1:
[34:42] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[34:43] Then I turned into a Samantha.
Speaker 1:
[34:45] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[34:46] Had a moment thinking I was a Carrie, and I will be a Miranda for the rest of my life. Even maybe up to the part where she gets together with Chay, you know?
Speaker 2:
[34:56] Yeah. I think we can't rule it out.
Speaker 3:
[34:59] My husband is maybe a Chay. He doesn't want to hear that.
Speaker 2:
[35:04] Who does?
Speaker 1:
[35:05] He's fingering you in the kitchen.
Speaker 3:
[35:09] It could happen.
Speaker 1:
[35:10] I don't mean to talk about your marriage. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:
[35:13] When you said it, I was almost like, let's call him. I don't know. I'd love to talk about my marriage. But we're five years in, things really settle in.
Speaker 2:
[35:22] They're simmering. I guess what was the big pull for me at the end when I was really sitting with it, and in the rewatch too, I confirmed, I was like, wow, you don't stay friends with everyone forever. And the fact that in the last-
Speaker 3:
[35:35] Mel Robbins calls it the great scattering.
Speaker 2:
[35:37] Yes, the great scattering. She does call it that. But that whole last season is kind of about them realizing that, I imagine. Like, you know what I mean? Like, they're moving into their different lives. Like, all of a sudden, there's something solidifying here, and you didn't know it was coming now, but it is coming now. And this sadness that comes with that, not even the acceptance, the idea that you might have to accept it. And that, I think, is one of the truest things about the show.
Speaker 3:
[36:03] And I don't know about you, but I held on really tight. I was really scared for the great scattering. I held on. I mean, I think my friends and I talked to each other in our 20s. If I look back, it's like people in a relationship. It's like we're act. It's like, I feel like it's been a little strange lately and you're not responding to me the way. And it's like, now I would never say that to a friend in a fucking million years. Because I'm like, you've got a big complicated life. We're all trying to just get through this thing. And it's what happens. And you know, the show was also interesting because it was all about these friendships, but I was also literally always on set. So the friendships, I talk about this, the friendships that it was about were then affected by the fact that I wasn't around. And then it was this big, it was like, I went to sleep one day and then, or like stepped on to this into Hannah's apartment one day. And then I got out when I was 30 and I was like, I'm back guys. And they were all like, we're pregnant. Like you are looking for a boyfriend on Delancey Street, we're pregnant. And I was like, anybody want to hear about my hysterectomy? And they're like, we are wearing clogs in Brooklyn together. And I remember being like, going to visit my friends, being like, I'm that weird aunt lady that's like comes in and she's like, I've brought you guys scarves.
Speaker 2:
[37:29] I was traveling and you know what that means?
Speaker 3:
[37:30] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[37:31] Little gifts.
Speaker 3:
[37:32] Gifts for everyone. My mom had a friend, my mom has a lot of wonderful eccentric friends, but I remember she had one friend who didn't have kids who came over once because she wanted to take some photos of our hairless cat to work into a video art piece, naturally. And she was wearing like full Issey Miyake pleats, please. And I saw a tattoo on her hand and she was like, I loved her partially because she was the only chubby woman that I really knew because downtown was not rife with those. But also she was wearing Issey Miyake pleats, please. And I said, I like your tattoo. And she said, do you want to see my others? And she dropped her pants and she had like a full constellation of all of the constellations on her big, beautiful ass.
Speaker 2:
[38:17] The universe on her ass.
Speaker 3:
[38:18] And I was like, that's what I want to be. I would never drop my pants in front of a child.
Speaker 1:
[38:23] No, I want that to be the-
Speaker 2:
[38:25] But if you did, you'd be her.
Speaker 3:
[38:26] If I did, that was a different time. But I do, I got comfortable with the idea of like, I'm going to come in to take a picture of your hairless cat for a video art piece. And you're going to say, what's that tattoo? And I'm going to say, I've made some mistakes.
Speaker 1:
[38:41] And it's just a matter, I've made some mistakes. It's just a matter of if your friends want to stick around for that. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3:
[38:46] 100%.
Speaker 1:
[38:47] I think the show Girls is about a friendship, a group of friends sort of, I mean, friendship is entropic. It's just inevitable. And I think that's what the book is about. It's about a friendship sort of splitting up. And that's the most universal thing you can write about.
Speaker 3:
[39:04] I remember once saying to my mom, it's so sad, I used to know all these people that I don't know anymore. And she's like, that's called being alive.
Speaker 2:
[39:10] Yeah, living.
Speaker 3:
[39:11] She was like, have you ever heard of Judith Gerrigan? And I was like, no. And she's like, well, she was my best friend till you were three. And then she drank a lot. And that's when I made it up on the spot.
Speaker 2:
[39:22] I used to look at other human being in the eyes and say, we will die together. I haven't spoken to them in 30 years.
Speaker 1:
[39:28] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[39:29] By the way, correct.
Speaker 2:
[39:30] We don't speak outside of this. We speak for representatives.
Speaker 3:
[39:33] And the thing about whether your friends want to stick around for that, that's one of the reasons I think I've had such prolonged and beautiful friendships with queer men is because since my life didn't necessarily conform to some of the milestones that I thought it would, being friends with people who had a different idea about what family and adulthood could mean was like deeply important to me.
Speaker 2:
[39:57] There was commonality there where you may have tried to find it somewhere else.
Speaker 3:
[40:01] I thought that I was supposed to be, and by the way, I love all those women and they were still my friends, but I thought I was supposed to be in Bushwick, but have moved out of the smaller place and into the townhouse and be wearing the clogs. And actually, I was supposed to be at the Esalen Resort in the Hot Springs with Buff Acupuncturist.
Speaker 2:
[40:23] Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:
[40:24] Yes. Talk about the vaping.
Speaker 3:
[40:25] Shout out to Russell.
Speaker 1:
[40:26] Shout out to Russell.
Speaker 2:
[40:28] I just feel like, just in terms of the way you write character, obviously there's a couple huge, the book is really about relationships and there's two relationships that you lose by the end of the book. But, what I wanted to say was, you've always created some of the best characters of our generation, but the way that you write these people in your life, it's like such a beautiful thing, a testament to the place that they held in your life. And I feel like, if you have anything in you, and I'm sure you do, I'm positive you do, which is like, nervous about how they're gonna receive it, which of course you are going to.
Speaker 3:
[41:07] Because of course, whenever you make something, you make it for like two people, and they're probably the two people who won't even look at it, that's life.
Speaker 2:
[41:13] But the thing is, the way you've written them is so beautiful, because what I love about what you do, even if sometimes you were fighting with yourself, because you might feel a different way about these two people on any given day, it's like, it feels like you always held true to, I'm going to try and 360 flesh this person out as much as you can, because with these relationships, like Jenny and Jack, you get a sense of both their humor, you get a sense of both their positive oddities, you get a sense of them on all of their best days.
Speaker 3:
[41:43] They're the two funniest, most special, most defining relationships of 20 to 30. I mean, your first romantic relationship where you feel deeply understood is like the most precious thing that can ever exist. You're like, oh, I thought I really had a crush on that guy in 10th grade, but this is the first time you make a life with someone, the first real adult best friend you have, and I hoped that I could show like why I fell in love with them, and also that it couldn't, I was quoting Casey Musgraves to you earlier saying that when she got divorced, she said, it's a soul connection that didn't work out. I think if you love someone really deeply, firstly, we know that when two people get divorced or something and they're like, I fucking hate them, you're like, that's because you were obsessed with them and your obsession had to, energy cannot be created nor destroyed, therefore it had to transmute into something. And my goal has always been not to have that transmute into something negative. And also if I didn't feel that deep love for them, I'd have to do this like grand erasure of all these memories. And I remember I dated one person after my breakup and it was like a quick, it was one of those four months, like four months that could have been 50 years. And afterwards I deleted all the photos. And it's the one time I've done that and I regret it so much because it's like, it's this whole in my life that I just, in this moment of rash, maybe you can call Tim Cook and you can get them back.
Speaker 1:
[43:08] Yeah, honestly.
Speaker 3:
[43:09] He's got them.
Speaker 2:
[43:10] I did the same thing. I did it with text messages and a lot of photos. And I go back and forth now on whether or not that was the right thing to do.
Speaker 3:
[43:21] What was the right thing for you in the moment? Because you knew that you were not, you could not trust yourself with them.
Speaker 2:
[43:26] Because I was obsessing.
Speaker 3:
[43:27] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[43:28] And I think that like.
Speaker 3:
[43:29] You were self-harming through nostalgia.
Speaker 2:
[43:30] That's really what it was. And I knew in the moment that that's what it had become. And so I was like, I think in order to set myself free from this, I have to do this. But as someone who does, you know, see value in looking back and being like, oh. And also just think the way you talk positively and the way you draw up what it feels like to finally get comfortable in a relationship. Like, actually made me look back on like one particular ex that I, you know, kind of have exclusively like hard feelings about.
Speaker 3:
[44:02] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[44:03] And reading what you wrote about, like an old relationship, and I was like, oh, like one good thing I can say is like, I really liked like being silly with him. There, like I was thinking something when I was reading your words, like, oh, that person, when someone sees you silly.
Speaker 3:
[44:17] What's so funny?
Speaker 2:
[44:18] The movement of it all. The names that you give each other, and like, you know, it's like, it's, it's, it's, you can't replicate that.
Speaker 3:
[44:27] And I ran, I was once just, I was at the Toronto Film Festival, some, one of the places that I've been in my life, I don't know what to say. And I ran into my ex-boyfriend, I was with my husband, and he was watching, and in this totally different way, he was like, you guys were being so funny together.
Speaker 2:
[44:44] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[44:44] And you just get back into this, like, in a way, when you've had a long-term relationship with someone, especially through a very pivotal moment in your life, there's things that they will only, like, there's certain facts about my aunts, particular, my aunts Bonnie and Susan, who are very important, complex female characters. And I will, something will happen with Bonnie and Susan, I'll be like, this is the only person who could possibly understand how funny this is.
Speaker 2:
[45:07] And do you reach out?
Speaker 3:
[45:08] Sometimes, I think that it's, I don't like to have a blockade.
Speaker 2:
[45:13] Right.
Speaker 3:
[45:13] And I, you know, I try to do it in appropriate doses. I'm not like, I'm not like, hey, came across this photo of us, really made me think. I think that's aggressive. That's aggressive.
Speaker 2:
[45:24] To a married man, from a married woman.
Speaker 3:
[45:27] Psychotic. And I'm totally capable of that. I just have to reel it in.
Speaker 2:
[45:30] We've seen the show.
Speaker 3:
[45:31] You know, there's a part of me that could 100 percent be like, there's funny things that you go, this is a value that we remember this. And it's, I remember when my father's, my father's parents died and then his brother died. And he was like, there's nobody else who remembers what it was like to be in my family. First, he kept saying, I'm an orphan. And I was like, okay, you're 70. So I don't know if you get to claim that title. Everyone wants a title these days. And that's the thing is it's really beautiful to have people who remember, even if they remember differently. And my goal in the book was to show how much they meant and how much love there is that still exists for them. Also, and I'm sure that someone could give their account and it would be the same event, but with an extremely different, I mean, that's the amazing thing about the world is like, we're all looking through our own eyes. I'm on acid.
Speaker 2:
[46:22] No, no, no, but I think we're on acid too.
Speaker 3:
[46:27] It's called Celsius.
Speaker 2:
[46:28] It's called Celsius. There was also so much in like your working relationship and close, close, close friendship with Jenny that like, I texted Bowen and I was like, are you reading this?
Speaker 1:
[46:38] This is about relevant stuff.
Speaker 2:
[46:39] I was like, it's about relevant things.
Speaker 3:
[46:41] Well, I think the thing that I've learned, and I mean, those creative relationships that were so intense, they were like marriages. They were like all these. It was like I was, it was like I was in a polyamorous relationship. I mean, it was, and in a way I look back and I'm like, that was my primary relationship.
Speaker 2:
[46:59] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[47:00] And then I had a secondary relationship, which was a boyfriend and then a tertiary relationship, which was my dad. And so that is, that's a wild thing to look back on. And creative relationships, you two know really well, require just as much, if not more, emotional maintenance. Like when you're married to a straight man, there's so much that you just don't even have to say. My brother's like, it must be so relaxing to be married to a straight guy because they are not really picking up on anything. You don't have to, like it's like, whenever.
Speaker 2:
[47:33] And nothing means more than it does.
Speaker 3:
[47:35] That's exactly right. Remember when a queer couple are like, you moved your eyebrows or you're feeling a little bit destabilized, and like you can just hide in your own house for days with a straight man.
Speaker 2:
[47:44] The studying of punctuation, forget it.
Speaker 3:
[47:47] It doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 2:
[47:48] If a queer man or woman is texting you in a punctuation way that is out of the order, I'm like, oh, something is deeply wrong.
Speaker 3:
[47:58] Oh, yeah. No. My husband will just send a text that he doesn't. It's just one word, inexplicable word, because he hasn't looked back. And I will look back at a text and be like, did I say what I meant to say? The amount of text I edit?
Speaker 2:
[48:12] He's just sending a word and meant to send the rest, but didn't.
Speaker 3:
[48:14] Last thing, he just sent me a picture of a broken window in our house with zero explanation. And I was like, were we robbed? And he was like, no, no, it was a wind issue. And I was like, you need to lead with that. But in the relationship with another woman, specifically, the amount that you're picking up, it's like this insane. It's like whatever's traveling between machines at the Apple headquarters. It's like this insane level of information and subtlety. And also in creative relationships, you're in each other's heads in a different way.
Speaker 2:
[48:46] You've been your smartest with that person.
Speaker 3:
[48:49] They know you're the smartest. You've been your dumbest in the middle of the night. You've been your most petulant. You've been your most elegant. You've been your most brave. All of it. It's really amazing. And I think they require a very specific kind of care and maintenance. And that's why I'm sending you to to Esther Perrell.
Speaker 1:
[49:05] Oh, brother.
Speaker 2:
[49:09] During the therapy scene, I was like... Because we've talked, like, at particular moments, there have been like, well, maybe we should see a counselor or a therapist, like, or someone that... And then we land on, like, mediator, you know what I mean? It's like those things where, like, you know, the relationship, like, needs something, but you're not ready to say what kind of person. And then you're, like, kind of filtering through the sand of, like, what is the difference between these people?
Speaker 3:
[49:35] And you're, like, maybe it should just be a friend who likes us both to talk it through.
Speaker 1:
[49:40] But then that... Oh, just to save on, like, the explanation and the...
Speaker 3:
[49:43] Yeah, just, you can... But there is something... I mean, also going to therapy with somebody that you work with is a big choice because you go, okay, I'm really proclaiming the significance of this dynamic because we're in a therapist's office together. So you two have never been to therapy together yet.
Speaker 1:
[50:00] No, we've gotten far along in the process but then inevitably things pop up and we're like, okay, we gotta address this and we will be together and we can work this out ad hoc as necessary.
Speaker 3:
[50:15] We can work this out amongst ourselves.
Speaker 1:
[50:17] Until we really need to, like...
Speaker 2:
[50:19] My therapist says she doesn't think we need it.
Speaker 3:
[50:22] By the way, I trust that. And also, it seems to me as a passionate viewer that you're doing fine. I'm not picking up on any tension right now.
Speaker 1:
[50:29] It's not like, okay, great.
Speaker 2:
[50:31] What I will say is that whenever there is a period of tension, it does break and it blows and we're always literally 50 times better afterwards. I sometimes wish it didn't have to get there. But I also think that we get better at communicating every time. And as we know, that's what it is all about.
Speaker 3:
[50:50] Well, also, it is all about that and I don't know about you. I am extremely conflict avoidant. Except for, I saw this. Don't love it. I don't love it. I saw a meme that was like this man did something and he's about to see the woman that only my father knows. And that's truly like the, I think if you have a, as a woman, if you have a comfortable relationship with others, like I have yelled in a way that's like blown the hair back on his head.
Speaker 2:
[51:10] Oh, forget it.
Speaker 3:
[51:10] And I can't do it with, and he said to me before, he's been like, you need to go in there and act like you act with me. Like a fucking bitch. But it's really hard. And I think one of the reasons I love writing conflict, like I've never been in a four-way scream-off like happened at the Beach House. I would pass out. I would dissociate. I would go to another plane of existence.
Speaker 2:
[51:32] I remember the first time it happened with you and Allison in, I guess it was the penultimate episode of One.
Speaker 3:
[51:37] You are the wound.
Speaker 2:
[51:38] Yeah, you are the wound.
Speaker 3:
[51:39] Bruce Kaplan's great line, you are the wound. And I remember doing it and feeling sick even doing the scene. So I was like, I don't want to yell at you like this. I love you.
Speaker 1:
[51:47] Your body doesn't know the difference.
Speaker 3:
[51:48] No, and you're like, this feels horrible. But then also, it's so fun to do because you're like, this is a world in which I somehow feel comfortable screaming in my friend's face.
Speaker 2:
[51:59] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[52:00] And telling her all these things that I used to always say to anyone who would listen. I'd be like, and then I was like, and then I was like, and they'd be like, did you actually say any of that stuff? And I was like, no, I was like. I was like. We're the same, we're the same.
Speaker 2:
[52:12] Oh, no, you're always like, truly, truly, truly like a Kate Blanchett performance in your mind with someone else. Or like Shonda Rhimes on the best seasons of Grey's, turning to someone and being like, I'm giving it to you exactly succinctly and I can feel proud of the way I express myself.
Speaker 3:
[52:32] One of the great moments of my life, despite the fact that my wig on scandal was not ideal, is that I delivering a Shonda Rhimes monologue, was like, yes, I am a woman who loves sex, but am I a slut? No. It was like I deliver it to beautiful Kerry Washington with all my might. Then of course, I had to get my throat slit because I was a slut.
Speaker 2:
[52:53] You died on that?
Speaker 3:
[52:54] Yeah. Huck killed me.
Speaker 2:
[52:55] Huck killed you for the sin of being a slut?
Speaker 1:
[52:57] You didn't get your throat slit because you were a slut.
Speaker 3:
[52:59] Huck killed me because I was about to kill someone else.
Speaker 1:
[53:04] Well then.
Speaker 3:
[53:05] Who was trying to kill me.
Speaker 2:
[53:06] Getting killed by Huck is hot though.
Speaker 3:
[53:08] It was amazing. I had a backpack of blood and then they made this thing and suddenly there was a man who pulled a thing and blood squirted from my neck. So fun.
Speaker 2:
[53:18] Have you died on screen?
Speaker 1:
[53:19] No, I want to so badly.
Speaker 3:
[53:21] I've died twice. In Scandal and in American Horror Story.
Speaker 1:
[53:26] Oh, the dreams.
Speaker 3:
[53:28] I mean, those are the pieces. And when I died in American Horror Story, I rotted from the inside and what it involved was, I was supposed to have maggots in my eyes. So they glued my eyes shut and covered them in white rice. And then there was a PA who this person deserved. I mean, whoever you are, I couldn't see you. So I'm sorry, but I'm going to speak directly to you. Thank you for what you did. I want to thank you. You led me around by the back so gently all day long, making sure I didn't trip over any scenery while I rotted from many angles.
Speaker 2:
[54:00] There's a guy for everything as you say.
Speaker 3:
[54:03] There's a guy for everything.
Speaker 2:
[54:04] I'm speaking of dying but not the vaping.
Speaker 3:
[54:07] Okay.
Speaker 2:
[54:08] What do you want to say here?
Speaker 3:
[54:09] Here's what I want to say. We're on a text chain.
Speaker 2:
[54:12] We are.
Speaker 3:
[54:12] Do you want to reveal what it's called?
Speaker 1:
[54:15] It's called Life Is So, which is a quote.
Speaker 3:
[54:17] Life Is Just So.
Speaker 1:
[54:18] It's Just So. Which is another gorgeous turn of phrase by Ms. Lena Dunham.
Speaker 3:
[54:24] Thank you so much. I believe because we were at Apple and I just went, life is just so and then you created our text chain and then it's just so. So we're on Life Is Just So and I just, I like sometimes if I feel like they're too far, I just like to pop in.
Speaker 2:
[54:37] And it's the best moment in our life.
Speaker 3:
[54:38] Remind them that I'm there. And I said, how are you? And you let me know that you had been going through an experience with someone you were dating. Fraser. I'm allowed to say it.
Speaker 2:
[54:47] I was trying to be gently. We can bring, we can invoke Fraser.
Speaker 3:
[54:50] So Fraser had an incident that, a vaping induced lung infection, evil.
Speaker 2:
[54:55] So basically what happened was, and some people might not know this, but so Fraser, Fraser was a, he was a vape artist.
Speaker 3:
[55:03] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[55:04] And like so many out there.
Speaker 3:
[55:06] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[55:07] And basically the, the, the, the cartridge, essentially like this can happen when you're sucking on that vape.
Speaker 3:
[55:16] And listen, I'm going to look at the camera again. Listen to this man.
Speaker 2:
[55:19] The, the like oil from the vape cartridge can basically leak into your lungs and it's poison. And so when we were at BravoCon, and I can say this because he has said all of it, and this is all about his health and it's public and I would never share anything if you hadn't been public about it. But we were at BravoCon.
Speaker 3:
[55:36] I stole his medical records.
Speaker 2:
[55:37] Melissa and I were there and we were all there together. I was actually announcing that the culture wars are coming back. He was obviously there for Below Deck. It was exciting.
Speaker 3:
[55:46] A fun moment. We're a power couple. We're at BravoCon.
Speaker 2:
[55:48] You know, I wasn't even going with the idea of like, and we're going to take a photo on the carpet. He wanted to take a picture together. I was like, let's do it. I put it on my Instagram. Then all of a sudden, that very weekend, people were like, oh, Matt and Fraser are dating. As that was happening-
Speaker 3:
[56:01] So intense.
Speaker 2:
[56:02] And I know this is going to sound dramatic. He had a heart attack in front of him.
Speaker 3:
[56:06] Doesn't sound dramatic. It's true. It's traumatic is what it is.
Speaker 2:
[56:09] And I feel like what people don't know is it's like, or if you know, you obviously know because it's horrifying and it's hard to explain, but you don't know a heart attack is happening every time. It's like he had very intense chest pains and like couldn't get comfortable and was short of breath and had to bail on the whole night with us. And we checked in on him later and it was ongoing. And so I'm thinking like, is this stress and anxiety, whatever? We find out much later after tests come in that essentially because of this poison that got in his lungs, he had what was the equivalent of a heart attack. And it was really bad. And we were in the hospital until 5, 5.30 in the morning. We really had only been dating for about three months.
Speaker 3:
[56:52] Which is also really intense because it certainly, you haul lesbians things up a bit.
Speaker 2:
[56:58] Oh, 100%. And so we were already like really enjoying being together. And then there was this health stuff that entered. And so that like accelerated things. And you know, now where we're at is he was, he's off. I can't say where, but he's, you know, creating a secret tropical location. Yeah, he's creating the television program many people like, and I'm going to see him soon. But while he's been gone and I've been sort of busy doing my own thing, we kind of did like take a little bit of space just because of how intense everything had gotten and like personal things.
Speaker 3:
[57:30] And you had to go into caretaker mode, and he's grappling with this terrifying change to his body. And it's really intense. And you shared just the littlest. Thank you for sharing. And you shared just a littlest snippet with me.
Speaker 2:
[57:44] Yeah. And I didn't know you had been addicted to the stuff.
Speaker 3:
[57:48] When we were at Apple, I didn't have my vape because I was trying to be elegant.
Speaker 2:
[57:52] Right.
Speaker 3:
[57:52] And do you remember we got in the car and I was sweating? I was like, can someone get a gas station? Can someone find a gas station?
Speaker 2:
[57:57] Oh my God, we do have to stop.
Speaker 3:
[57:58] We had to stop because I had been off the vape for 24 hours and I was losing my mind. So I was a L-I-L-V, a LILV, a late in life vaper.
Speaker 2:
[58:08] Late in life vaper.
Speaker 3:
[58:09] I started vaping on the set of a little television show called Industry because-
Speaker 1:
[58:14] Yes, because you were a directress.
Speaker 3:
[58:15] I was a directress of the pilot, but also it was in Wales. People loved to party in Wales. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[58:20] Don't I know about English people?
Speaker 3:
[58:22] You know about English people. Hello, Fraser.
Speaker 2:
[58:24] They love sucking those things.
Speaker 3:
[58:26] They love sucking those things. And a friend was like, oh, you don't drink, you don't smoke, you're sober. You know what? This is this, it tastes like candy. It doesn't do anything to you except put you in a great mood. Like literally it was handed to me like it was a ring pop.
Speaker 2:
[58:39] Yeah. How they're marketed.
Speaker 1:
[58:40] And it looks like a toy.
Speaker 3:
[58:42] It looks like a toy. It lights up. It makes noises. And I went, great. Am I anxious all the time? Sure. Do I like to do something with my hands? Absolutely. And I became a person who would like wake up with my vape under my pillow. And I was not proud of it. I was embarrassed about it. I used to like hide it in my sleeve during meetings. I mean, it was really became like a pacifier. And I had this, I stopped. I started. I'm also a chronically ill person. I have no business. I mean, I have practically no business drinking Celsius. This is the craziest thing I've done in months.
Speaker 1:
[59:12] We're so sorry.
Speaker 3:
[59:13] No, I love it.
Speaker 2:
[59:17] New vice unlocked.
Speaker 3:
[59:18] Yup. But I was in this on-off relationship. I stopped. I started for one minute. I was like, you know what would be healthier than vaping? Rolled cigarettes. That's insane. But I was married to an English man.
Speaker 2:
[59:28] So right. Right.
Speaker 3:
[59:29] And he quit and I still couldn't. It was, and I kept, I was in a shame cycle with the vape. And I was sitting there just sucking on my vape, texting my boys, and you said this, and I, because I am dramatic, I literally took the vape and I dropped it into a cup of water so that I couldn't retrieve it. And I went to Days the Day It Stops and I've not taken a puff since it's been.
Speaker 1:
[59:52] You're incredible.
Speaker 3:
[59:53] Thank you so much. But you did that for me because everyone else is like popcorn lung. It's a little abstract. We don't know what happened. You can understand heart attack and I've never understood it more than when it was happening in front of me. And also I could feel the urgency. And you said to me, I'll never forget, you go, these things are so much more evil than we know. We don't even know the beginning of it. His lungs look like a 70-year-old man's and I just went, I want no part of this. And I have to say the first week, it was the week of Thanksgiving and my family had all chosen to assemble without me. Do what that will. No, they were on they were on various little trips.
Speaker 2:
[60:33] And did you figure out phantom grab?
Speaker 3:
[60:35] All day. Every day, I'd reach for it in my pocket. But I spent the week alone sweating it out, which needed to happen because I am generally a pretty, I have my issues, but I'm a good mood girl. I don't take my moods out on other people. I was raised in a house where I was like, if you're in a bad mood, you better turn yourself back around Missy and come back out here with a smile. Because who puts the shoes on your feet?
Speaker 2:
[60:57] Fix your face culture.
Speaker 3:
[60:59] Yes, my father's a wasp, it was fix your face culture. I was in a kind of mood. It was a synthetic nasty mood that could not be controlled.
Speaker 1:
[61:11] Because the nefarious thing about these things is that they were meant originally to help you quit smoking cigarettes.
Speaker 3:
[61:17] Now, yesterday I saw a girl in the bodega and she was crying because her credit card wasn't working and she wanted her vape. She was like 23 and I did pay for it because I was like, I can't watch you in this kind of pain. But I said to her, you gotta stop.
Speaker 2:
[61:31] Yeah, because look at you. Look at your life, look at your choices.
Speaker 3:
[61:34] And I also said, get zins, get lozenges, but also anything that makes you cry in the bodega. There's nothing I want in the bodega that if I can't get it, I'm gonna cry.
Speaker 2:
[61:44] And I'm reduced to tears.
Speaker 3:
[61:46] Yes, and I don't want to live that way.
Speaker 1:
[61:48] Speak for yourself.
Speaker 3:
[61:51] I don't want to live that way. I don't want to live that way.
Speaker 2:
[61:53] I also gotta say, he has remained off the vape. He's doing so much better. I'm gonna see him in a week.
Speaker 3:
[61:59] Does he use lozenges or anything, or has he gone tone, no nicotine?
Speaker 2:
[62:02] You know what's crazy about those British people? It's stiff upper fucking lip.
Speaker 3:
[62:07] When my husband quit smoking, I was like, do you want to do a patch? Do you want to do this? And he was like, that is for pussies.
Speaker 1:
[62:14] Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:
[62:15] He wants to feel the pain.
Speaker 2:
[62:16] He was like, it was so, if you know Fraser from the show, it was so Fraser, it was, right then, it's over. It was just like, it's done. And he loved the thing. Like, I mean, but, and I have to say, then as someone's boyfriend in that moment, I think it might make it easier, too, when you have someone that's like, hi, I'm here too. This like, really was scary and it affected me. And I do think there is a degree of like, all of a sudden, it's like that zoom out thing. It's like football, right? You zoom out, you look at it, you're like, well, that's crazy. Yeah, well, yeah. But I guess my thing to be negative on football is like, you zoom out as an alien looking on the world and you're like, what do they do? Doesn't seem exactly right. Like many forms of like, you know, government, things like that. If you all were to just zoom out, the zooming out that happens when you look at people sucking on a little machine of smoke. Of course. Right there, you'll be like, well, I look crazy.
Speaker 3:
[63:17] My husband was a smoker. He saw me with the vape. He goes, it looks like you're plugged into a USB. Like you have to go back to your USB to charge every five minutes. Like you look like a demented robot. And it's interesting the thing you said about going, this is really scary for me. Cause the only thing that affected my behavior in my twenties when I was not healthy and not making choices to be healthier, was my family looking at me after I had had a terrifying incident in the hospital and being like, that was scary for us. And if you love people, you don't want them to suffer.
Speaker 1:
[63:47] Well, you're moving through the world completely aware of your body. And like-
Speaker 3:
[63:54] I'm starting to be.
Speaker 1:
[63:55] Well, like, and you're hearing this thing that Frase went through and you're like, it's done.
Speaker 3:
[64:00] Totally.
Speaker 1:
[64:01] Drop it in the water.
Speaker 3:
[64:02] Drop it in the water, never look at it again. It was green. And it was green flume. And I think about her every day. And when I see people vaping, I think, I hope that you have fun. And I hope you- a woman once said to me, a powerful one said, when I quit smoking, she said, I didn't judge myself. I thanked myself for what it gave me. And I do think those years- do I think it was good that I vaped for six years on and off? On and off? No. Do I think that during that time, I needed something to stop like darker impulses? Probably yes. And now I'm like, training wheels are off. The vape is gone. But I do have stuffed animals.
Speaker 1:
[64:40] Of course, the woman who- what did she say? I thank everyone it gave me.
Speaker 3:
[64:44] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[64:44] And that woman was Marie Kondo. Wait, what was I going to say? Oh, but this is like when a total fucking stranger tells you, hey, I watched Girls, I read your book and I think you have EDS.
Speaker 3:
[64:57] That was the craziest. It was so crazy. A total stranger wrote to me, I had been talking.
Speaker 1:
[65:04] It's the zoom out.
Speaker 3:
[65:04] It's the zoom out.
Speaker 2:
[65:06] And it was exactly right.
Speaker 3:
[65:07] Everything she said, it was like reading my... She literally, her name is Marjorie, she literally made my life make sense to me because I had had my entire childhood, I had all of these weird symptoms, like you're running in dodgeball and your knee dislocates and your teacher's like, how did you do that? Nobody touched you. I was like, if there was anyone had a cold at school, like within six hours, I was going down. I had migraine starting when I was seven, I had really strong, I used to faint when I was in the sun, which my grandma loved because once I fainted in the customs line in Mexico and we got to skip. And she said, I'll never forget, she said, can you do that again?
Speaker 2:
[65:47] Airport hack, customs hack.
Speaker 3:
[65:49] But what was amazing was I had been, I knew I had endometriosis and I had been writing about my health, which involved more symptoms. And also there were times I had to pause life for my health. And this woman had been paying attention. She said, even the way that you run, the way that your skin flushes, it all makes sense and sent me to this doctor at Johns Hopkins. And now there's more awareness about, there's both more awareness about Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, other sort of autoimmune illness, the intersection between these things and endometriosis. There's increasing sort of people in the medical field to understand. But it was also a huge moment for me, because I was like a Jewish girl who was raised to be like, the doctor's always right. That was who you respected in, my grandfather's great shame was that he was a dentist, not a doctor, because he had not been able to afford that much schooling. And so he loved to be Dr. Samuel Simmons, but he felt shame about the kind of doctor that he was.
Speaker 2:
[66:47] Dr. Simmons, wish I could relieve that pain.
Speaker 3:
[66:50] Andy Kaufman's orthodontist.
Speaker 1:
[66:52] Wow. I remember clocked his teeth anyway, I keep going.
Speaker 2:
[66:57] That's probably a good thing.
Speaker 3:
[66:59] My grandpa wasn't really keeping it doing cosmetic. He was doing like, does one of your teeth go out like that?
Speaker 1:
[67:04] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[67:04] I'll put it back.
Speaker 2:
[67:05] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[67:07] There was a thing in our house, which was you were never supposed to let him look in your mouth, because if you had a loose tooth, he would rip it out.
Speaker 1:
[67:14] No.
Speaker 3:
[67:14] And so my mom would always be like, whatever we do when we get to Passover, do not open your mouth for grandpa. Because his thing was just like, Come on. Let's go.
Speaker 1:
[67:23] Oh, brother.
Speaker 3:
[67:24] And he had his office in the house and his tools were upstairs.
Speaker 2:
[67:26] So I had to say, there's something about an in-home dental or doctor thing, which no, I trusted more. I'm like, this is the center of your life, literally. So you must be carrying down.
Speaker 3:
[67:38] So do you know who the central dental practices in Great Neck Long Island between the period of 1945 and 1983?
Speaker 1:
[67:52] Dr. Sam Simmons.
Speaker 3:
[67:53] Dr. Samuel Simmons and the patriarch from Capturing the Freedmen's. And those were the two warring.
Speaker 1:
[68:00] Remind me.
Speaker 3:
[68:01] Do you remember the documentary about the family that end up maybe being predatory monsters? It was like the first Andrew Jurecki documentary. I watched it at Angelica. Nicole Kidman was sitting in front of me at the theater. And it's about this family that potentially, it's unclear whether they committed sort of like mass acts of pedophilia or whether there was a sort of like satanic panic moment that happened. I'm sure that you end up kind of really siding, of course, with the victims. But he was this orthodontist who's kind of seemed like he had this really perfect family, and then it disintegrates. And his son was Bobo the Clown, the premier bardy clown of downtown Manhattan, so he used to do birthday parties. And the father was the other orthodontist in Great Neck. And of course, when all of this came out, my grandfather was king.
Speaker 1:
[68:57] Of course.
Speaker 2:
[68:57] I have to say, and this is the biggest compliment I could give, that story sounds like a limited series starring Matthew Reese.
Speaker 3:
[69:03] That's so nice. Well, you should watch Capturing the Freedmans. I've never seen anyone nod as emphatically as Nicole Kidman ahead of me in the theater.
Speaker 1:
[69:14] She loves cinema.
Speaker 3:
[69:14] In the Angelica.
Speaker 2:
[69:16] She was just excited to be in the theater.
Speaker 3:
[69:18] She loves it. I still remember what the light looked like pouring on her beautiful face.
Speaker 2:
[69:22] She's just stunning. She sat here just days ago.
Speaker 3:
[69:25] I know, I know. I listened.
Speaker 2:
[69:27] Wasn't it? It really was a transfer. When she saw my The Looney Tunes on my shirt and couldn't handle herself for 45 seconds.
Speaker 3:
[69:35] I can't imagine anything better than making Nicole Kidman happy.
Speaker 2:
[69:37] It was wonderful.
Speaker 3:
[69:38] Except for making Tilda Swinton smile, which I did once.
Speaker 2:
[69:44] Tilda. We need to get her in the chair.
Speaker 3:
[69:47] I have a photo. I'm sure you're the same, which is I don't do a lot of celebrity approaches. I'm always shocked by when it comes out of me. One time I saw Janice Dickinson at the Sunset Tower and I screamed, you mean everything to me.
Speaker 2:
[70:00] I love that part of the book.
Speaker 3:
[70:03] Recently, I FaceTimed Judd and he had FaceTimed me and I was in bed, sweaty mess. He goes, Lena, I'm a little busy right now. Passes the phone to Glenn Powell. Glenn Powell, you're too for pretty much no feelings. The masculinity radiating from the screen. Do you want to know what I did? What did you do? I went like this. Hey, you're my number one movie star. What happened? Who is she? What's going on? Glenn Powell is like, thank you, that's so sweet. Then I go, ain't no set like a Jed Apetow set.
Speaker 2:
[70:41] No lies told.
Speaker 3:
[70:42] No lies told, but what's she doing?
Speaker 2:
[70:44] No, I think she-
Speaker 3:
[70:45] Why is she-
Speaker 2:
[70:46] Something else took over.
Speaker 3:
[70:47] That's exactly what happened. That's usually when I approach a celebrity, it's something else takes over.
Speaker 2:
[70:52] 100 percent.
Speaker 3:
[70:53] I learned the hard way because I once approached theater character actress legend Jackie Hoffman in a bodega. And said, you were incredible in kissing Jessica Stein. And she went, oh.
Speaker 2:
[71:04] Oh.
Speaker 3:
[71:05] And I went, I'm never doing that again.
Speaker 2:
[71:08] Yeah, but you had the right idea, which was to not approach with the most popular thing she's done, you approach with the thing that's going to hit them in the heart the most.
Speaker 3:
[71:15] Always.
Speaker 2:
[71:15] When I met Queen Latifah and three people in front of me said, I loved you in Chicago, and I went up to her and said, I loved you in Life Support, which was her AIDS drama on HBO.
Speaker 3:
[71:25] If you don't think I remember Life Support-
Speaker 2:
[71:27] So much baby.
Speaker 3:
[71:30] She probably was like, that means everything to me. One time when I was at Esalen, my favorite place in the world, a woman said, I loved how you represented pelvic pain in your TV show, Camping. Camping is not even available on HBO Max. It has been scrubbed. Jennifer Garner has probably taken it off her IMDB. Beautiful person, amazing experience.
Speaker 2:
[71:51] Inside and out.
Speaker 3:
[71:52] Inside and out, makes blueberry buckle for the crew. Ain't no set like a Jennifer Garner set. But that being said, like, you never, when someone says something to you like that, you cannot help but be bowled over. And that's what you did for Latifa.
Speaker 2:
[72:07] Okay, so they're telling me we're almost, we're almost out of time, so we have to, I don't think so, honey.
Speaker 1:
[72:11] Oh man, we didn't get to ask you the question, but that's okay.
Speaker 2:
[72:13] Oh my God, we didn't even ask the question.
Speaker 1:
[72:15] Really quickly, do you want to tell us what it was?
Speaker 2:
[72:16] What was the culture that made you say culture was for you?
Speaker 3:
[72:20] It was seeing Sarah Jessica Parker and Jane Krakowski in Once Upon a Mattress on Broadway in third grade.
Speaker 1:
[72:27] Lady Larkin and Winifred, thank you so much.
Speaker 3:
[72:30] And I sang I'm Shy, I'm So Quiet and Shy for my camp musical audition, did not get in, but I just thought I love being a woman. Women can be funny, they can be fun, they can be sexy. Sarah Jessica Parker's wearing rags and screaming. I then went home, aol.com printed out probably 100 low resolution images of Sarah Jessica Parker, made a wallpaper out of them. And it was so big for me.
Speaker 1:
[73:03] I'm so sad we don't have more time to talk about this, but yes, no, keep going.
Speaker 3:
[73:05] It was everything. And then I've also gone back and watched Carol Burnett in it. Once Upon a Mattress to me is, I love it because it's a musical where the central character is not supposed to be good at singing, which is one of the biggest fights my mom and I ever had was when I was going to Impact Performing Arts Camp in Salisbury, Connecticut, where I was in camp with all the Gummer sisters as well as Lily Rape. They were all great at acting. We were doing a review. We were supposed to choose a song. My mom said, you should choose.
Speaker 1:
[73:36] Try, no.
Speaker 3:
[73:37] No, she said from Guys and Dolls Adelaide's Lament because it's a character piece. And I said, I want to sing Adolvice. And she said, you are a character actress. And I said, you are not an ingenue. She was right, but I wasn't ready to see the writing on the wall.
Speaker 2:
[73:56] And you are a character actress.
Speaker 3:
[73:59] You are a character actress. No, it's the best. To have a mom who knows you're a character actress.
Speaker 2:
[74:04] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[74:05] I mean, my mom played Rhett Butler in the camp play. Like that's where she because she was tall. So they always gave her the boy parts. So she was like, take what you got, put on your robe and sing Adelaide's Lament. But I just love that Once Upon a Mattress is a musical for girls who aren't naturally good at musicals.
Speaker 1:
[74:21] Because they can go, because I'm actually terribly timid.
Speaker 3:
[74:27] My favorite one is the swamps of home. Oh my god, bye! I always forget that you're like a musical theater kid. And then it just gets me right in my heart. Then I remember when I watch Wicked.
Speaker 2:
[74:42] You can stream that on Peacock. Okay, so we got to do I Don't Think So Honey. All right. I have one. This is our 60 second segment where we take some time, 60 seconds to rake things across the coals. I do have something directed at our guest.
Speaker 1:
[74:56] This is Matt Rogers, I Don't Think So Honey, directed at Lena Dunham. His time starts now.
Speaker 2:
[75:01] I Don't Think So Honey, what you're about to do to role model, making him a movie star is so dangerous. I don't think so honey that we're going to be able to handle it. I've been seeing Tucker rise and rise and rise. I've seen the Sally Phenomenon. I said they're making a movie star now. We are, if you think Hudson and Connor have taken over, just you fucking wait. The little tattoos all over his body, his sort of easy way with the smile, the hair that looks unstyled, but you know it is, the sort of natural charm and charisma. I Don't Think So Honey, that we're ready for this person to show us perfection in this type of way. Not to put pressure, because I think putting pressure on it would then sort of like, I don't know, I would hate for any thought to run through his head besides, well, I'm up, I'm in a good mood, I'm going to do my thing today, which seems like the vibe.
Speaker 1:
[75:53] That is his mood.
Speaker 2:
[75:54] I Don't Think So Honey, that we're going to be able to get through, but I do think so honey that I'm going to be there, because you, Natalie Portman, Tucker, I'm in the seat. I do think so.
Speaker 3:
[76:04] And Rashida Jones kind of giving him like a little askance look. And I will say this, that I showed an early cut of the movie to a friend of mine who's like a very thoughtful 45 year old writer, like who's like half queer. And she was like, you're ruining my life. Like I didn't think I still had feelings like this in me. And it's funny, because I so want Tucker never to feel objectified that I literally talked to him like, I'm like, put her here, pal. Like I was like, I talked to him like I'm a friend's father who's just walked in from golfing and doesn't really want kids at the house, because I so don't want him to ever feel like all of these like creepy, like I want him to feel freedom. And I'm like, anyone can be objectified like this. I don't want this like lovely young boy who like loves his mother Susan so much to ever feel that he's being like, controlled.
Speaker 2:
[76:55] Well, that seems to be too late on that.
Speaker 1:
[76:56] He has the perfect perspective on it though, because, and by that I mean, he has a sense of humor, because he recently or a couple of months ago posted something on Instagram stories where it was a meme, because they have the same haircut of a famous Sean Cody porn star named Brandon. And he was like, come to the show tonight. He has an awareness of what he does to people, but doesn't flaunt it too much and too flagrant of a way that he will be perfect and objectify him.
Speaker 3:
[77:25] He's also just a good boy. Like, I was around him for long enough that if the facade was going to crack, it would have. Let's just say if someone was going to kick a rug or throw a chair, it would have happened. And he is a good boy. Like, he's from Maine. He gets really happy when dogs show up. Like, there's an ease, and he is obviously poetic and complicated. I just like love him. He's my buddy. Like, I like texting pictures of my pigs all the time, and he writes LOL. And it's very healthy to have young friends. And he writes LOL!
Speaker 2:
[77:57] He writes LOL!
Speaker 3:
[77:58] I love him. But he's a really good actor, and it's annoying.
Speaker 2:
[78:00] Oh, I love that.
Speaker 3:
[78:01] It's very like Brad Pitt in California, where you're like, who's that?
Speaker 2:
[78:04] Yeah, okay. Well, get ready for that. Who's that moment? Here's Bowen Yang's I Don't Think So Honey.
Speaker 3:
[78:09] I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:
[78:10] Also inspired by August.
Speaker 2:
[78:12] Okay, this is Bowen Yang's I Don't Think So Honey. His time starts now.
Speaker 1:
[78:15] I Don't Think So Honey. More places should be like the Tower Bar at Sunset Tower and serve what? Chicken pot pie. I don't care that it costs $34 like it does at Tower Bar. Price it up. Inflate that all you want. I know I'm paying for something premium, even if it's pretty bad. I love the crust. And you're thinking, oh, but Bowen, it's so hard to make and it's so hard to scale up at a restaurant. Buy the puff pastry ahead of time.
Speaker 2:
[78:45] 30 seconds.
Speaker 1:
[78:46] Put it in the freezer, lay it out on the day, you'll be okay. Cut it out on just above the dish. It will be fine. It's not that hard to make. I just want it made from the expertise and curatorial sort of-
Speaker 2:
[79:00] In 15 seconds.
Speaker 1:
[79:01] Just POV of a chef. And Tarabar, I do lament how populated it's been. It's gotten since your time there in making it a home. I love going still. It has a new valence to it now.
Speaker 3:
[79:18] It has a really new valence.
Speaker 1:
[79:19] And that is one minute.
Speaker 3:
[79:20] That was incredible. I agree with you 100%. I will say, and I talk about this in the book, that during COVID, I was, for a period, the only guest at the Sunset Tower.
Speaker 1:
[79:30] Incredible.
Speaker 3:
[79:31] There was one guest. There was a gentleman at the desk. There was a lady upstairs in 1109. She was me. And my dog Ingrid, who has her own relationship to that place. And because I was alone, I could go work on my computer in the bar. I could go sit by the pool. I could go sit on the roof. The freedom, I was Eloise. It was the greatest time of my life.
Speaker 2:
[79:54] And no one knew that the burger was famous, so they couldn't charge $46 for it.
Speaker 3:
[79:58] Well, they weren't even serving food. They were literally serving croissants wrapped in, you know, croissants wrapped in whatever. Yes, tin foil, because they, I forgot the word for tin foil.
Speaker 2:
[80:10] They have good pigs in a blanket too, I believe.
Speaker 3:
[80:12] I am a vegetarian, but that's not a judgment. More for me. It's just, but I've had them before in my pat when I was acting out of pocket and eating meat. And I loved them. But, and now I was alone at the Tower Bar and it was really beautiful. And then you set one table on fire. And they didn't kick me out, which was incredible. What they did was monitor me. And now every time I see lovely Jeff, who runs the Tower Bar, he says, are you going to set anything on fire today? And I go, no, no, no, I don't have matches. I don't have a lighter. My husband won't let me.
Speaker 1:
[80:50] You can't live down something like lighting something on fire. And once you walk back into that establishment, it's tough. Okay.
Speaker 2:
[80:56] Well, you're about to set this whole place on fire with your, I don't think so, honey.
Speaker 3:
[81:00] I thought about it in advance. I can't be as good at Nicole Kidman saying bad breath. And everything will ever be as good.
Speaker 2:
[81:05] Listen, we're all trailing in her dust. But are you ready? This is Lena Dunham's, I Don't Think So, Honey. Her time starts now.
Speaker 3:
[81:12] I Don't Think So, Honey, quiet luxury. I don't. If I'm going to have luxury, I want it to be loud. Firstly, since when did elegance mean that you were wearing oatmeal with bone, with beige, with tan? We have so many colors. We have so many materials. Why is looking like you work at a spa suddenly a sign? Did rich people get so bored with having so many things that they thought the most important things are going to be things that look like nothing? And I Don't Think So, Honey. What? You're a fashion blogger and you're showing me that you have a top that looks like someone's baby's skin and a pants that look like someone else's brother and both those people are white. I don't want it.
Speaker 2:
[82:06] Five seconds.
Speaker 3:
[82:07] I don't think so, honey. I when I get something and I spend a lot of money on it, I want everyone to know.
Speaker 2:
[82:13] Headlines.
Speaker 1:
[82:14] And that's one minute.
Speaker 2:
[82:16] Honestly, it does. I think I'm going to say something big. Fashion got worse when we went minimalist.
Speaker 3:
[82:24] The other thing to know is that like minimalism looks very different on a person who spent 20 years creating their body.
Speaker 1:
[82:30] Of course.
Speaker 3:
[82:31] Whereas like minimalism on a person who's just trying to survive is a different energy. Yeah, it's just a shirt that looks and like what you want me to get spend $500 on a t-shirt that looks like the one that I wore over my bathing suit when I went to the breakers with my grandma in 1992.
Speaker 2:
[82:51] Well, it looks dirty on purpose a little bit, so that's why it's more expensive.
Speaker 3:
[82:54] Yeah, that's exactly right. It looks like someone sewed it in a shaker community. I'm mad.
Speaker 2:
[83:03] You can see the stitching, that's why it's $8,000.
Speaker 3:
[83:06] I'm mad. I'm so mad. I see things and I just go, you're really trying to tell me this? I don't want to indulge in fast fashion. I'm not trying to hurt the planet.
Speaker 2:
[83:14] No.
Speaker 3:
[83:15] But I don't want what you're offered. So I'm going to have to go to Forever 21.
Speaker 2:
[83:20] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[83:21] I'm going to have to go to Forever 21. Thank you for giving me the space to say that.
Speaker 1:
[83:24] Of course.
Speaker 2:
[83:25] I'm going to have to go to Forever 21 being the pull quote.
Speaker 1:
[83:28] Being the pull quote.
Speaker 2:
[83:28] Maybe that's the title of that.
Speaker 1:
[83:30] I'm going to have to go to Forever 21.
Speaker 3:
[83:32] The first time Forever 21 opened, I was like, this is a utopia for women like me.
Speaker 2:
[83:36] It felt like something that wasn't for us in one of the things that... It was one of those moments where it's like, when you're a little gay boy and you see Justin Timberlake and all the girls are excited, but you can't be, so you get angry. That's how I felt about Forever 21. They have a place to go hang out.
Speaker 1:
[83:52] But then we would go at NYU at the Forever 21 Union Square, and that was a haven.
Speaker 2:
[83:58] Well, finding out that they even sold things for boys slash men.
Speaker 3:
[84:02] I used to like, if it was a hot day and I was in a dress and my thighs were rubbing together, you just pop into Forever 21 and get a pair of neon bike shorts, and suddenly your outfit is singing.
Speaker 1:
[84:10] Yeah, beautiful. Fame Sick, April 14th.
Speaker 3:
[84:15] I love being with you two, and it's so special to have our group chat come to life in this way. And thank you for everything you've given me. Friendship, changing my life through helping me quit vaping, reading the book so thoughtfully.
Speaker 2:
[84:27] We love every single page of it, just like we love everything that you've done. I mean, like, it's not a lie. That show, you're one of the most important people to our generation in terms of pop culture, in terms of what you contributed.
Speaker 3:
[84:43] Life is so, just so.
Speaker 1:
[84:46] That's the title of it.
Speaker 3:
[84:47] I love you guys.
Speaker 1:
[84:48] Life is just so.
Speaker 3:
[84:49] Thanks for having me and for jacking me up for three days.
Speaker 2:
[84:52] We love you.
Speaker 3:
[84:53] I'm going home to take 42 Benadryl.
Speaker 2:
[84:56] That's actually in vogue. Okay, we end every episode with a song. You know the one. You know the one.
Speaker 1:
[85:03] You go.
Speaker 2:
[85:03] I would be curious if you know the one. So, listen to the rest of that, watch the best episode of television of all time.
Speaker 3:
[85:17] Sexistential, she's out.
Speaker 2:
[85:19] It's so good. Bye.
Speaker 3:
[85:20] I love you guys.
Speaker 1:
[85:21] Las Culturistas is the production by Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and iHeartRadio podcasts.
Speaker 2:
[85:25] Created and hosted by Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Executive produced by Anna Hosnier and produced by Becker Ramos.
Speaker 1:
[85:32] Edited and mixed by Doug Bane.
Speaker 2:
[85:33] And our music is by Henry Kibursky.