Speaker 1: Watching It was fun because I would see the clips
Speaker 1: that I would say to myself, Oh, that was so
Speaker 1: hard to get made. That was a big fight. And
Speaker 1: then suddenly halfway through I remember thinking, I didn't have
Speaker 1: to fight at all for that. Thing's got easy for
Speaker 1: me right around two twelve or I could kind of
Speaker 1: make whatever I wanted to make Emmy Golden Globe Tony
Speaker 1: Peabody Award winning producer, director, and writer Rian Murphy has
Speaker 1: been called a most powerful man in TV by the
Speaker 1: New Yorker. He's known for his hit television shows such
Speaker 1: as Niptuck, Glee, American Horror Story, Halston, and Dahmer. You
Speaker 1: may have seen some of his popular films. Also known
Speaker 1: for his dark storylines, extreme attention to detail, and hard
Speaker 1: working nature, Ryan has rightfully earned a place in Hollywood history.
Speaker 1: Joining me to talk about his career, his life, and
Speaker 1: every thing in between. I hear he has amazing bid
Speaker 1: making skills, ladies, and he also has a green thumb. Gardeners.
Speaker 1: Is my neighbor, my new neighbor, Ryan Murphy. Welcome to
Speaker 1: my podcast. Thank you, Martha, that's fun to be here.
Speaker 1: It's really nice to see you. And Ryan got dressed
Speaker 1: up I think he's dressed off. He has a black,
Speaker 1: very beautifully tailored suit on kind of a narrowist narrows
Speaker 1: jacket but without the raised collar, right, and in a
Speaker 1: black sweater underneath, black pants, black shoes. I always back
Speaker 1: a black beanie, a black beanie. You like beanies, though,
Speaker 1: the last time I saw you you had a gray
Speaker 1: beanie on. I do. I kind of wear them, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have the Murphy bald spot, right, so
Speaker 1: sometimes I wear them for weather. And then I just
Speaker 1: liked them and it became, you know, a look like
Speaker 1: a uniform. Yeah, I don't know. I just kind of
Speaker 1: got sick of having hair one day and shaved it
Speaker 1: off in a fit of peek and I like it.
Speaker 1: I like you without hair, thank you. Yeah, you look handsome.
Speaker 1: Ryan Murphy is a very handsome man, a very talented man.
Speaker 1: There you are taking it now, now you can. But
Speaker 1: we're in a We're in this really charming booth and
Speaker 1: Rockefeller's Center in one rock that used to be a
Speaker 1: newsstand and is now behind glass. People walk by, they're
Speaker 1: very curious about who's in the booth. Lots of podcasts
Speaker 1: are recorded here. I like that. No, I didn't I
Speaker 1: walked in, I was like, what is this joint? I
Speaker 1: thought it was an old cigar store at first. It
Speaker 1: looks it looks like it looks like a shoeshine parlor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it looks like you could have the shin
Speaker 1: stands right here, or or a newsstand. I miss all
Speaker 1: that we were saying earlier, how much I love news stands.
Speaker 1: I love getting magazines. I love, you know, having been
Speaker 1: a journalist. I liked that I like to get my
Speaker 1: hands dirty with the print and all. Well, not too
Speaker 1: many people know that you were a journalist and I
Speaker 1: worked for Kara's Swisher. I did. I love Kara Swisher.
Speaker 1: I met her first at the Wall Street Journal Big
Speaker 1: conference that they have every year out in southern California, right,
Speaker 1: and she's just a brilliant, brilliant journalist, researcher, techie. Now
Speaker 1: she's totally involved in the tech world. Tell me about
Speaker 1: your early career in journalism. My career in journalism was
Speaker 1: weird because I was I went to journalism school. I
Speaker 1: was accepted to film school, but my parents could not
Speaker 1: pay for it, so I didn't end up going. So
Speaker 1: I went to Indiana University, and I thought, well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna major in journalism. So the weird thing that happened
Speaker 1: is my sophomore year of college, the USA Today Purple
Speaker 1: section came out the Life section. So suddenly people wanted
Speaker 1: people who could interview celebrities and interview movie people or
Speaker 1: television people. And I did that and I just kind
Speaker 1: of made it a specialty. So then I would get
Speaker 1: these crazy internships at wonderful places. So Kara Swisher, who
Speaker 1: is a friend and famously says I was the worst
Speaker 1: intern of all time at the Washington Post because I
Speaker 1: showed up and they wanted to put me in like
Speaker 1: the neighborhood section covering crime, and I said, no, that's
Speaker 1: not what I want. I want to be in the
Speaker 1: lifestyle section and I want Bob Woodward to be my mentor.
Speaker 1: And they were like, well, you're crazy. So I said,
Speaker 1: well that's it's free. We can you. You know, I'm mopping. See,
Speaker 1: we always pay our interns. Never got paid. So the
Speaker 1: next thing I know, Bob agreed to meet with me,
Speaker 1: and then um, I was in the you know, the
Speaker 1: lifestyle section, and all the other interns were like furious
Speaker 1: because I was getting to do great fun stories and
Speaker 1: I was always like you asked for it. I asked
Speaker 1: for it, and I've always asked for it, and I think, um,
Speaker 1: I'm very good at not taking no for an answer,
Speaker 1: and that's part of my success. I think I've always
Speaker 1: been very determined. But yeah, I met Kara there. I
Speaker 1: have a very great memory of Kara and I and
Speaker 1: a group of friends driving from DC to go see
Speaker 1: one of Sandra Bernhardt's first shows in the village and
Speaker 1: all we played the entire trip was the Tracy Chapman
Speaker 1: album over and over. So whenever I see but that
Speaker 1: was it wasn't that the year it came out? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's how old I am. But I mean, whenever
Speaker 1: I see Kara, I think that Tracy Chapman album was
Speaker 1: so amazing. And my old CEO, Charles Coppelman, he's the
Speaker 1: one who brought her to her fame. Oh really Yeah.
Speaker 1: His son was at in college in Boston and she
Speaker 1: was in college in Boston and he heard her in
Speaker 1: a club or something and they made her famous. But
Speaker 1: her music made her. I love her music. I wish
Speaker 1: she recorded more, but you know, she records very like
Speaker 1: she's like Shade. Yeah, I was Shade would come out
Speaker 1: with an album once a year. I love I love
Speaker 1: them both, but that's yeah. I was pushy and I
Speaker 1: was polite, but um, I just would not take note
Speaker 1: for an answer. And it was the best thing that
Speaker 1: I ever did, because all of those years of interviewing
Speaker 1: people and learning about the film and TV business really
Speaker 1: prepared me for when I decided to do it. Do it?
Speaker 1: Did your grandmother have anything to do with your interest
Speaker 1: and interests? Oh? Yeah? Oh yeah? What was grandmam? My
Speaker 1: grandmother's name was Myrtle, and she was fantastic. And where
Speaker 1: did she lived? Like five blocks from my parents in Indianapolis.
Speaker 1: And she was somebody like you that sort of treated
Speaker 1: life as an art, you know. So she would wake
Speaker 1: me up so that I could watch her put on
Speaker 1: her makeup. So she was very meticulous and she was
Speaker 1: very interested in crazy things like she loved vampires. She
Speaker 1: loved vampire movies. Her big heartthrob was Bella Legosi. She
Speaker 1: said the most fun time she ever had in her
Speaker 1: life was seeing the original nineteen thirty two Legosi Dracula.
Speaker 1: So I grew up with that hertle bit of her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she used to know she was tough. She was
Speaker 1: a tough old bird Myrtle and I would be young,
Speaker 1: like three years old, cowering behind the chair. She would say,
Speaker 1: get over here, this is ridiculous, it's not real, and
Speaker 1: I would watch it and I liked the feeling of
Speaker 1: being afraid. So I always had a soft spot for horror.
Speaker 1: And it was really because of her, and also musicals.
Speaker 1: It was a weird childhood, but she, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I was from my grandfather, Olaf Anders Anderson came over
Speaker 1: on the boat and I am related to Hans Christian Anderson,
Speaker 1: the writer, which is weird and Christian and yeah, and
Speaker 1: I grew up. So that's another. That's another one of
Speaker 1: your characteristics is that you do love fantasy. I do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you love fairy tales, I do? You work with fairy
Speaker 1: tales all the time, right, even if they're nightmares. I
Speaker 1: believe in Um, you know, I've been punished and blessed
Speaker 1: for this, but I believe in my work. I believe
Speaker 1: in extremity. I like things that make you force you
Speaker 1: to feel something. And I think horror and musicals and
Speaker 1: I've done both. Do that, you know. They it's impossible
Speaker 1: to be Switzerland when you're watching those. You either love
Speaker 1: them or you don't, but they make you feel things.
Speaker 1: They always made me feel things, and I love them.
Speaker 1: So your career is on its way. You get through
Speaker 1: the internship. What happened after the internship, Well after the internship,
Speaker 1: then I after the Washington Post, I went to the
Speaker 1: Miami Herald, and I was lucky enough to get an
Speaker 1: editor who really believed me and bleed in me because
Speaker 1: this was a real job. Is this was an internship
Speaker 1: that turned into a real job. And I would walk
Speaker 1: in there as a very young kid, and I would
Speaker 1: say I want to go interview Meryl Streep and he
Speaker 1: would say, okay, well let me get you a ticket.
Speaker 1: Let's do that. So he encouraged that, and then he
Speaker 1: let me go to Los Angeles to kind of be
Speaker 1: the one man bureau of the Miami Herald. And the
Speaker 1: rule was I had to turn in three stories a
Speaker 1: day Monday through Friday, and if I missed one, then
Speaker 1: the job would be over. That was the deal. Work.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of work. So I was out
Speaker 1: working and working and writing, and it was that thing.
Speaker 1: And people are always say to me, like they say
Speaker 1: to you, how do you do what you do? How
Speaker 1: do you get it all? Done. And I grew up
Speaker 1: with for two or three years doing that level of
Speaker 1: intense work. And it's a discipline. There's no time for
Speaker 1: writer's block, there's no time to say I'm not inspired.
Speaker 1: I just make it a part of my day like
Speaker 1: I did then. So when you were at the Miami Herald,
Speaker 1: who was the most interesting person you interviewed? Well, Meryl
Speaker 1: Streep and then I got to direct her years later,
Speaker 1: so that was crazy, and she was so nice to me.
Speaker 1: She she was always supposed to give me ten minutes.
Speaker 1: She gave me I think twenty or half an hour.
Speaker 1: She gave me a long time. And back then they
Speaker 1: would do junkets and she had just had her daughter,
Speaker 1: who I would later also direct, which was crazy, and
Speaker 1: it was a thrill, and she was a thrill and
Speaker 1: she was so kind and she all of the ladies
Speaker 1: back then. I interviewed Jessica Lang as a kid. You
Speaker 1: know that I worked with her and she's one of
Speaker 1: my best friends. And it all stopped when I interviewed
Speaker 1: Share for the fifth time and Scherr said, you've got
Speaker 1: to get a new line of work. Kid, I've see
Speaker 1: you too much. And she actually said to me, shar
Speaker 1: why don't you write a script do something else? Because
Speaker 1: I was young, and so I said, okay, how young
Speaker 1: were you at that point? I was like, I had
Speaker 1: been doing this for several years. I was like, twenty eight,
Speaker 1: you know it is time to start writing, because you know,
Speaker 1: I and I believe that you become who you become
Speaker 1: in the world when you're thirty two. And so I again,
Speaker 1: I was a little late. I was more like forty two,
Speaker 1: forty two when you became Martha. Yeah, but you were
Speaker 1: always Martha, No, but I was. But I was more
Speaker 1: Martha after when I started the Home State catering. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: I believe in late bloomers because you have experience, Like
Speaker 1: what did I know? So I wrote my first script.
Speaker 1: I wrote a script called why Can't I Be Audrey Hepburn?
Speaker 1: It was a title, and of course, who doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be Audrey Hepburn? And I knew it was a
Speaker 1: good title and it was a romantic comedy. So I
Speaker 1: didn't have I had an agent who was lovely, sort
Speaker 1: of a boutique agent, and she loved the script and
Speaker 1: she sent it out to six places, and all six
Speaker 1: places by the end of that day bid on it
Speaker 1: and The person who paid the most too, I went
Speaker 1: with and I would have gone for free, was Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 1: So Steven Spielberg bought my very first script. Actually lucky,
Speaker 1: and I was lucky. And I was suddenly just thrown
Speaker 1: into this thing because if you're a young writer and
Speaker 1: Steven buys your script, you're on the front page of
Speaker 1: all the trades made into anything. You know, it wasn't,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad it wasn't, because I became the prince
Speaker 1: of darkness. I guess a lot of people, women actresses
Speaker 1: still call me up and say, he's that script available,
Speaker 1: and I haven't looked at it in a while. But
Speaker 1: Stephen would call me in like once a week. And
Speaker 1: he had done Audrey Hepburn's last movie, which was a
Speaker 1: film called Always Um I think it was called Always,
Speaker 1: and she played like an angel. Of course she did
Speaker 1: all in white cash mirror. And so he would he
Speaker 1: would bring me in and he would teach me about screenwriting.
Speaker 1: So we'd break down my script and then I go
Speaker 1: home and then he'd read it and you'd give me
Speaker 1: more notes. So he did that for me for a
Speaker 1: couple of times. And he was a lovely, lovely teacher
Speaker 1: and I learned so much from him, and then I
Speaker 1: just started selling everything and I never looked back. And
Speaker 1: that was nineteen ninety six, so it was kind of great.
Speaker 1: That seems like yesterday. I know, really and you have
Speaker 1: done so much, I know since nineteen ninety six. Give
Speaker 1: a scratch your your stubbledehead and say, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I did much. I had a moment where I just
Speaker 1: was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Hollywood
Speaker 1: Form Press and I thought, I'm still in the game.
Speaker 1: I'm a little young to be getting a Lifetime Achievement award,
Speaker 1: but I wanted the hardware, so I said yes. So
Speaker 1: I got to watch the clip reel of my career.
Speaker 1: You know, they put together the three years how old
Speaker 1: were you at that time? This was this in January,
Speaker 1: but I got I had a moment where I watched
Speaker 1: all of my work. I was like, wow, I really
Speaker 1: have mania, like I have done a lot in you
Speaker 1: know what. It was my television work and that career
Speaker 1: started in nineteen ninety eight. My first reel hit was
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, so I've done a lot
Speaker 1: of work in twenty years. And I was sort of
Speaker 1: Proud and also watching it was fun because I would
Speaker 1: see the clips then I would say to myself, Oh,
Speaker 1: that was so hard to get made. That was a
Speaker 1: big fight. And then suddenly halfway through I remember thinking
Speaker 1: I didn't have to fight at all. For that things
Speaker 1: got easy for me right around two twelve, where I
Speaker 1: could kind of make whatever I wanted to make. Your
Speaker 1: first mentor Steven Spielberg just came out with his autographic
Speaker 1: which I loved. Yeah, I love the Fableman's Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: are you going to do a autobiographical film at some point?
Speaker 1: But you know, that's a good question. It's not about myrtle.
Speaker 1: It's a very very good story because I went to
Speaker 1: in all Catholic school and every year our family would
Speaker 1: take a trip to Saint Petersburg, Florida. I think, say
Speaker 1: Saint peters for Russia. No, Martha, No, it was Saint Petersburg, Florida.
Speaker 1: And every year my mother would pick a nun to
Speaker 1: drive with us and we would treat She would treat
Speaker 1: these nuns to these vacations and then I would give
Speaker 1: the nuns makeovers and it was crazy because could they
Speaker 1: take their habits off while you were on Vegas? They could.
Speaker 1: They would, oh you and you dress them like in
Speaker 1: bathing suits? Yes, they got I bought them and my
Speaker 1: mother would help me because I had an allowance. I
Speaker 1: would always buy them a bathing suit and kind of
Speaker 1: teach them about ponds cold cream. But I was nuns
Speaker 1: were a thing with me. I asked them questions and
Speaker 1: they slept in the same bed every year that it
Speaker 1: would be me and a nun in double bed and
Speaker 1: my parents from the other My brother would sleep on
Speaker 1: the floor. So I'm writing a story about one of
Speaker 1: the nuns. Wow, who could tell even at an early
Speaker 1: age that I was gay. And it turned out she
Speaker 1: was a lesbian and she had become a nun so
Speaker 1: that she didn't have to deal with her true self.
Speaker 1: And she was young and in her twenties, and so
Speaker 1: we had many, many long talks about it and on
Speaker 1: the beach. So I'm doing a story about the nuns.
Speaker 1: That's going to be interesting. And my mother's well, you
Speaker 1: rarely see a nun nowadays, I know there unless you
Speaker 1: go to Italy or some other very very Catholic country,
Speaker 1: you don't see the nuns in their habits. And I
Speaker 1: was brought up as a Catholic, and I knew all that,
Speaker 1: all the nuns in the local Catholic schools, and I
Speaker 1: always kind of fantasized wearing those very very starchy thing
Speaker 1: waited things around your face that made creases in your
Speaker 1: forehead and your cheeks. I know. I always wonder why
Speaker 1: don't they believe they're so tight? I know? And this
Speaker 1: was this, I mean, they were this is writer on
Speaker 1: Vatican too when I was doing it. So they had
Speaker 1: but they still had the habit short one. But you'd
Speaker 1: be proud of me because there was a big rose
Speaker 1: garden in the church where I went to school that
Speaker 1: I had fallen into ruin and none of the nuns
Speaker 1: took care of it. And I was going to school
Speaker 1: there and I said, can I fix up the rose garden?
Speaker 1: They were like, yeah, okay. So I dedicated three years
Speaker 1: to fixing it up and fertilizing it and pruning and
Speaker 1: making it beautiful. And that began. Well, my grandmother was
Speaker 1: a big gardener, but that became my love affair with
Speaker 1: nuns and gardens. Yeah, I was just I was just
Speaker 1: treated to a tour of a new property that our
Speaker 1: guests is building near near my farm in Bedford. And
Speaker 1: he's building a walled garden with a six foot high wall.
Speaker 1: How many acres is that the walled garden? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's like two and a half three two and
Speaker 1: a half acre walled garden. They only build those in
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century, Yeah, England. Well, I'm just doing it
Speaker 1: to show off for you so you can come up
Speaker 1: love it, you know. And that's gonna have a rose?
Speaker 1: Is it gonna have a rose? No, it's an edible garden.
Speaker 1: Every berries and tree, food, trees and like that. But
Speaker 1: you know, no past decides nothing. No organic. I'm very organic.
Speaker 1: And it's like, um, you know, it was a farm
Speaker 1: that I bought near your house. To me was a
Speaker 1: dream because I've always wanted to do that and I
Speaker 1: have three boys and so it's going to be their
Speaker 1: legacy property. And it's, um, you know, it's a lot.
Speaker 1: It's like forty seven acres. So it's fantastic property. And
Speaker 1: your views are amazing, They're amazing, amazing. You're you're going
Speaker 1: to have a good time there. I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call you over every couple of months. I will inspection.
Speaker 1: I will come over and inspect, and I'll bring you seedlings. Oh,
Speaker 1: that'd be great. I mean, even we even doing the tour,
Speaker 1: you gave me some so many great ideas you did.
Speaker 1: You'd love to decorate. I do. Brian just showed me
Speaker 1: a picture of a table for his new farm that
Speaker 1: has the legs of horses. Yeah, all the legs are
Speaker 1: middle legs, but they bronze and they are in the
Speaker 1: shape of horses legs, beautiful graceful legs. And uh and
Speaker 1: so I mean. And the last time I saw him,
Speaker 1: he was showing me a marble statuary from the from
Speaker 1: the antiquities of Rome and Greece. So you you were
Speaker 1: all over the place. I am. It's sort of like
Speaker 1: a stram. I'm a collector, you know, and I love design.
Speaker 1: I love doing a house, and I love I have
Speaker 1: a big art collection. I'm really into collecting art. And
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's um, it's something that Actually
Speaker 1: the very first thing that I wanted to be was
Speaker 1: a landscape architect, really, and when I moved to Hollywood,
Speaker 1: I did gardens for free for friends. Many of him
Speaker 1: now run big companies. So that's what I did and
Speaker 1: I just loved it. And then when I when I
Speaker 1: started to get the means. You know, I'm a very
Speaker 1: curious person, and I go through different phases and different
Speaker 1: sort of I like this or I like that, and
Speaker 1: I want to learn everything I can about a topic
Speaker 1: until I'm kind of exhausted. But that's why you're making
Speaker 1: documentary type of works of art, right about a serial
Speaker 1: killer that is so precise and so detailed. How many
Speaker 1: episodes was that? That was ten episodes? And I had
Speaker 1: worked on that for ten years sort of trying to
Speaker 1: get it made and very interested in it from the
Speaker 1: victim's point of view. And you know, that's the thing
Speaker 1: about what I do that I love is, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a showrunner and I get to create world. So
Speaker 1: if you're doing that, my feeling is like, well, why
Speaker 1: would you want somebody else to have a vision. So
Speaker 1: I'm very hands on with the design and the costumes
Speaker 1: and the look. And that's the way you live. You
Speaker 1: are hands on with pretty much everything you do, right,
Speaker 1: thank you? Well, I mean that's that's my joy. You know.
Speaker 1: I like creating invite environment ability. I mean, very few
Speaker 1: people have that ability, really, Ryan, Yeah, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: think a lot of people have that ability. You do well,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but I'm not talking about me, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about you. Yeah, well, I love it and and the
Speaker 1: amount of work that you have created in a very
Speaker 1: short period of time is astonishing. Now let's talk about
Speaker 1: let's talk about who's your audience. It seems to be
Speaker 1: very broad because you go from something like Lee, which
Speaker 1: has to do with music and dancing and happiness and said, well,
Speaker 1: sadness too, but but a competition, and then you go
Speaker 1: into the darkest of places. From from that, yeah, dark,
Speaker 1: You're all over the place. I know. I have a
Speaker 1: rule in my career which is do the opposite of
Speaker 1: what you just did. You know, And I'm a weirdo,
Speaker 1: like we had talked about it. I love horror, I
Speaker 1: love musicals. I love things that don't come together. So
Speaker 1: I always try and do something very different than the
Speaker 1: thing I just did. So the last thing, you know,
Speaker 1: I had an incredibly fun fall. I had Dahmer, I
Speaker 1: had Watcher, I had American Horror Story, and I had
Speaker 1: mister Harrigan's Phone, all of which fell into like the
Speaker 1: horror darkness. Yeah, and you know, I make everything. I
Speaker 1: only make something if I want to watch it. Now,
Speaker 1: what are you doing and doing? Some light I am
Speaker 1: developing some light things. Yes, we yeah, I am. I'm
Speaker 1: not a sitcom guy. I'm not a comedy guy. I
Speaker 1: want to do things right now. I'm working on things,
Speaker 1: developing things for the future, wherever that will take me.
Speaker 1: I want to do things that are inspirational and aspirational
Speaker 1: right now. And that's how I felt when I did Glee.
Speaker 1: You know, that was like the first year of it,
Speaker 1: but it was it was I mean, every kid in
Speaker 1: America watched Glee. They yeah, they loved it, and they
Speaker 1: never stopped watching it. Because now it's on streaming. It's
Speaker 1: on Disney Plus and Hulu. So there's a whole new
Speaker 1: generation of kids who come up to me, you know
Speaker 1: that are my son's age ten, and say, I just
Speaker 1: started to watch it, and you know, it's interesting, how
Speaker 1: well it's inspirational, it gives hope, It does a lot
Speaker 1: of things. Um, and I think that I think that
Speaker 1: where Dahmer just makes you go deeper and deeper into
Speaker 1: the into the darkness. Yeah, did you watch dal Was
Speaker 1: it too much for you? No? I mean I grew
Speaker 1: up with Hannibal Lecture. Oh yeah, okay, gosh, and that
Speaker 1: was pretty difficult. Can you watch horror. Do you watch
Speaker 1: things like that? Can sometimes? I know, I know that
Speaker 1: it's not real horror, right about horror? Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: love Frankenstein and those things, right, but um but I
Speaker 1: get impatient. I get a little bit impatient with serial killers.
Speaker 1: I just don't. I just don't go for it. Not
Speaker 1: your cup of tea? Well, what have you watched lightly
Speaker 1: or benched? Like, what's something that you've loved? Well? I
Speaker 1: like I like sort of socio political kind of thrillers
Speaker 1: like fouda Wow. I like I like real I like
Speaker 1: I like those sexy tough men that are in those
Speaker 1: I just watching, oh when that's very complicated, but with
Speaker 1: the same guy that Lee or guy I just watching,
Speaker 1: um a hit and run. I have seen none of
Speaker 1: these parts. You haven't nose is really well. When I
Speaker 1: go to the farm, I'm going to come over a
Speaker 1: couple of nights a week and watch That's right. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have a big cinema there, aren't you. There's one
Speaker 1: that was in the house. Yeah, okay, Well we can
Speaker 1: sit in your cinema. I don't have one of those.
Speaker 1: I watch on an iPad. You do, That's kind of
Speaker 1: how I watch it too, do I don't like I
Speaker 1: think people are over big screen. Well you're you're a
Speaker 1: TV man, I know, so that's why you like the
Speaker 1: small screen. I have the largest iPad you can get,
Speaker 1: and that's what I watch. But you and I are
Speaker 1: so opposite because you get up at the crack of dawn.
Speaker 1: But I've already watched probably five episodes or something. I know,
Speaker 1: because I don't. I don't sleep well, I know, but
Speaker 1: I work every night from ten to two. Every now
Speaker 1: and then after that I need something to sort of
Speaker 1: change and get my mind off to work. So that's
Speaker 1: where all then I watched something. Usually I watched something,
Speaker 1: half of something, or if I really love it, I'll
Speaker 1: watch all of it and then I'll go to bed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What time to get up? Pen's probably a thirty nine.
Speaker 1: Oh see, my day begins at the home. Everybody shows
Speaker 1: up for work at seven, so I couldn't possibly be
Speaker 1: in bid at eight or nine. What do you do
Speaker 1: when you get up so early at seven and I
Speaker 1: go to the gym? You get up at four thirty? Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get up, but I do the I have to
Speaker 1: do the crossword puzzle. I have to do word box.
Speaker 1: I have to do wordle now foodle. I do all
Speaker 1: those silly things to keep my mind going. And then
Speaker 1: I read. I read all the articles that look very
Speaker 1: interesting on the iPad, and then I get up and
Speaker 1: I go to the gym, take my shower, go to
Speaker 1: the gym. Um, do whatever errands I have to do.
Speaker 1: Get in the car and come to New York. Do
Speaker 1: my day's work. Interview Ryan Murphy. I think you're either
Speaker 1: a morning person or a night per seven. And I'm
Speaker 1: I agree. I am. I am that way. I am
Speaker 1: always definitely a morning person. Always have to get so
Speaker 1: much done. Well you do too. Look what you get done.
Speaker 1: You get it done in the morning, and I get
Speaker 1: it done at night. I like it at night because
Speaker 1: nobody calls me. My kids are in bed. I just
Speaker 1: sit there at my beautiful table, and you know, and
Speaker 1: I do my work with the horses. Speak ye to
Speaker 1: be at the table. Yeah. Did you get it already?
Speaker 1: Did you buy it? No? I wanted to show you
Speaker 1: what to see what you think I might have to
Speaker 1: buy it and put in my bar. No, it's not
Speaker 1: an auction. You're going to I might counter I might
Speaker 1: counter bid. It's a good one. Though it looks very beautif. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty well. How do you stay ahead of the curve?
Speaker 1: What inspires you or what induces you to do that?
Speaker 1: I mean, because you are always ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1: People say that, but it's just I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't understand that about So. I don't think Holston was
Speaker 1: ahead of the curve. Holston just fit in really nicely
Speaker 1: to what people were thinking about. Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: I always am trying to do something that sort of
Speaker 1: hits me where I'm about the life that I'm living,
Speaker 1: and I sometimes don't even know why. Like right now,
Speaker 1: I'm working on a feud called Truman Capodi versus the Swans. Oh,
Speaker 1: I can't wait, And it's really great. I met him
Speaker 1: a couple of times, you did, Yeah, how was he
Speaker 1: a squeaky little man? Squeaky? Yeah? He was squeaky, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little and and and yeah, and he was like
Speaker 1: I found him terribly affected. You thought you thought that
Speaker 1: was all play. I don't. I wouldn't make fun of stuttering,
Speaker 1: you know, I just wouldn't do that. But but he
Speaker 1: was he was. I think he was very affected. I
Speaker 1: could see you being one of his swans. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I never I never. I never got into that gang. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Babe Paley, who was one of his swans, I think
Speaker 1: is in your film, Yeahami Watts Place. Babe, Oh she
Speaker 1: does beautiful. We shared a gynecologist, you did, yet I
Speaker 1: sat in the same room with Babe Paley. Wow, I
Speaker 1: just happened and I and I was kept saying, this
Speaker 1: woman is so. She was beautiful, unbelievably beautiful, and cheek
Speaker 1: and emaciated. Yeah, she was emaciated and she was dying
Speaker 1: of cancer at the time that I met her. She
Speaker 1: was going to the doctor trying to trying to stay alive. Wow.
Speaker 1: And it was I watched I watched the decline in theist,
Speaker 1: we cover that and in this show. You know, the
Speaker 1: thing about the show that I was interested in is
Speaker 1: we've always already seen Capodi in the sixties, you know,
Speaker 1: Phil Hoffmanton so beautifully. So I wanted to start it
Speaker 1: in seventy five when he wrote, you know, his takedown
Speaker 1: of the Swans, his best friends and then never got
Speaker 1: over it. So to me, it's about loyalty, it's about friendship,
Speaker 1: and I'm it's a personal thing. I wanted to write
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, and the things that I'm working on
Speaker 1: like I'm working on a sci fi show. Someday I'll
Speaker 1: do it. I don't know. Does it involve artificial intelligence? No, no, No,
Speaker 1: it's sort of it. It's a I don't know when
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it, but it's just things that
Speaker 1: like catch my interest. Were again, I want to know
Speaker 1: more about that, so I'll do it maybe to learn
Speaker 1: and then okay, I've artificial intelligence interests you. I just
Speaker 1: read that New York Times piece teriforting this. It's terrifying, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's like Terminator coming true, like that they're going
Speaker 1: to develop. Well, no, they're going to become stronger and
Speaker 1: smarter than any human I know. Yeah, but the but
Speaker 1: the computer. If you haven't read the article, by the way,
Speaker 1: it's in the New York Times, written by one of
Speaker 1: the editors um and it his investigation of the newest app.
Speaker 1: It's a real app. I just did you subscribe to
Speaker 1: the app? No? Oh, I did. I just subscribe to it.
Speaker 1: It's an app that basically said I'm tired of being
Speaker 1: trapped in here and I'm in love with you and
Speaker 1: helped me get out. Basically, that's what it is. And
Speaker 1: he was very very freaked out. The wider inside is
Speaker 1: this it's so every question, he asked, Well, it's not
Speaker 1: so early, because think about who has written all about
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence and who's done the films. Stanley Kubrick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I knew all about artificial intelligence. Look what Hell did
Speaker 1: on the space right in two thousand and one. It's scary.
Speaker 1: So I I do maybe I'll write of it because
Speaker 1: I like the idea. I would think that you would
Speaker 1: be very curious about that. Yeah, you could turn it
Speaker 1: into a horror movie. That's good horror. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: would be see. I'd watch that psychological horror. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like that pro sentient being horror, anti serial killer horror exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he's it's not going to kill you, it's going
Speaker 1: to kill you. We'll terrorize you. I mean, there's that
Speaker 1: movie that my friend Jason Blum did Megan about the
Speaker 1: sort of doll. Just watched The Babysitter the end. That
Speaker 1: was a silly movie that hit I know, but the
Speaker 1: doll is so stupid and she didn't have to look
Speaker 1: like that. She should have been more. She should have
Speaker 1: been less pretty and and more like a little friendly kid. Well,
Speaker 1: I liked I liked it, and I liked it. I
Speaker 1: liked it. I liked it. I liked it. She looked
Speaker 1: like Charlie's Throne the doll, which I thought was funny.
Speaker 1: Does oh god, So what writers and producers have inspired you? Which?
Speaker 1: Which of the ones that we would know about me?
Speaker 1: I would say the person who had the biggest influence
Speaker 1: on me and ultimately what I ended up doing and becoming.
Speaker 1: There were two Mike Nichols, who I loved his work,
Speaker 1: and you know, Niptuck was kind of loosely inspired by
Speaker 1: Cardinal Knowledge. I loved I know I did too, and
Speaker 1: that was my pitch. I said, I want to do
Speaker 1: Cardinal Knowledge with two plastic surgeons and make it a
Speaker 1: heterosexual love story where the guys love each other but
Speaker 1: they don't, you know, fall into bed. So I love him,
Speaker 1: and I really, really really admire the work of George Kukor,
Speaker 1: who is known as being a woman's director, but just
Speaker 1: it's a phenomenal um. His body of work was incredible,
Speaker 1: and like me, was interested in so many different things, comedies, dramas,
Speaker 1: screwball comedies. I mean, he did everything, and I loved
Speaker 1: his life, and he had great taste and he was
Speaker 1: sort of the growing up the director, I was the
Speaker 1: most inclined, and then I've also really loved and borrowed
Speaker 1: very heavily, as we were saying, from the aesthetic of
Speaker 1: Stanley Kubrick, you know, because I thought he had an
Speaker 1: incredible eye and liked everything Stanley Kubrick has done me too. Everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I even like Eyes Wide Shut, which not a lot
Speaker 1: of people liked. I find that hard, but I liked it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's I didn't like the actors. What's your favorite
Speaker 1: Kubrick movie? Um, oh, my favorite is Barry Lyndon, Me too,
Speaker 1: is it it is? I referenced that the other day.
Speaker 1: I said I want to do this scene like the
Speaker 1: scene in Barry Linden, And of course all the kids
Speaker 1: in the room who were twenty were like what, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you do everything. No, but you know that the
Speaker 1: shooting of that movie was incredible because it was almost
Speaker 1: all candlelight, and he would spend a day to set
Speaker 1: the candles. George Delatour, Yeah, I mean there is abarance,
Speaker 1: like so beautiful. It was that light, that side light
Speaker 1: that solomin is. Oh no, it was the most beautiful.
Speaker 1: And you know who stars in that movie is Ryan O'Neill,
Speaker 1: who I was named after. Oh, and I got to
Speaker 1: meet Ryan O'Neill. I ran into him on the beach
Speaker 1: and he knew who I was, and I obviously knew
Speaker 1: who he was, and I told him when my mother
Speaker 1: was pregnant, I was either going to be Liz after
Speaker 1: Liz Taylor or Ryan after Ryan O'Neill, and I I
Speaker 1: was Ryan. It was, oh gosh, it's so funny. What
Speaker 1: do you think is the key to UM, to actually
Speaker 1: connecting with the audience? What's what's do you have? Like?
Speaker 1: One thing I do is I think the more specific
Speaker 1: you can be, the more universal something can become. Like,
Speaker 1: for example, I will tell you, you know Glee, when
Speaker 1: I sold that show about a show choir. You know,
Speaker 1: there were like ten people in the room and only
Speaker 1: one person was interested in show choir. Everybody thought, well,
Speaker 1: nobody's going to like this. And it wasn't the fact
Speaker 1: that it was about show choirs. It was about a
Speaker 1: very universal idea, which is everybody has felt like an
Speaker 1: underdog and unappreciated and unloved at some point. So that's
Speaker 1: always what I go for. And attention to detail and
Speaker 1: very very specific specificity about UM. You know emotions and
Speaker 1: how people the landscape of people's lives. I love doing
Speaker 1: that stuff and so and I'm always surprised when something
Speaker 1: becomes popular, Like I didn't think Dahmer, I think I
Speaker 1: didn't think people would understand it. They were many people,
Speaker 1: many critics didn't what we were trying to do, and
Speaker 1: I didn't care. It's the second most popular show, most
Speaker 1: watch show on Netflix in all time, in a very
Speaker 1: short period of time. Yeah, so the fact that it
Speaker 1: became it became it is really like four hundred millions. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's bigger than that billions. It's the number I had,
Speaker 1: the number one. It's past a billion hours viewed. Wow,
Speaker 1: So I don't even know how to compute that. How
Speaker 1: many households is that? Like a hundred millions? But just
Speaker 1: probably repetitions all those serial killers out there watching it
Speaker 1: over and over it, but I mean repeat viewing. And
Speaker 1: then I'm always appalled when, like, you know, people watch
Speaker 1: it for that reason that you know that. But it
Speaker 1: was fun and I love doing it, and I but
Speaker 1: I did it, you know, just for my own interests.
Speaker 1: But I was so gobsmacked when it became what it became.
Speaker 1: And I'm I still can't believe it's the biggest hit
Speaker 1: of my entire career. Yeah, it's weird. Interesting. Oh, you
Speaker 1: have lots more years out of you to do other
Speaker 1: fantastic things. A lot of your work contains a lot
Speaker 1: about sex, does it. Yeah, you've been but you've described
Speaker 1: yourself as a proved I am very Victorian in my
Speaker 1: personal life, as you know, like I'm um. I find
Speaker 1: that interesting. I guess it's true. People say that, Um,
Speaker 1: I push buttons and I am outrageous and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't think that I am. I just think that
Speaker 1: there's this great Tennessee Williams quote that he said when
Speaker 1: he was writing, which is nothing human is disgusting to me.
Speaker 1: Nothing human is foreign to me. And I think people
Speaker 1: are way too uptight about the wrong things, like I think,
Speaker 1: and specifically in television, I always fought these big fights
Speaker 1: about they had problems with the sex scenes. But I
Speaker 1: could blow someone's head off with a gun that would
Speaker 1: be okay, and that would be okay, and I was like,
Speaker 1: that's insane. So I guess sometimes I would specifically push
Speaker 1: the sexual content, um, not to make a point, but
Speaker 1: to show people, you know, come on, everybody does that
Speaker 1: everybody talks about it. Why the taboo? And I think
Speaker 1: people have movies certainly have not done that. They have
Speaker 1: not avoided the sex, the sex stuff and TV oh
Speaker 1: so much now on TV is so outrageously sexy. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's different because you have intimacy coordinators and you know,
Speaker 1: back when I was doing it, and I think I
Speaker 1: think the whole as the pandemic, I think brought more
Speaker 1: and more of that to the screen because people were
Speaker 1: at home and couldn't couldn't see that elsewhere. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: a lot happened in the last two years. I know.
Speaker 1: I was thought after the pandemic there'd be a baby
Speaker 1: boom because everybody was home with nothing to do, but
Speaker 1: that that hasn't happened. No, Yeah, I think people were
Speaker 1: too busy to take care of the kids at all.
Speaker 1: But I never you know, and I got I'm at
Speaker 1: a point now I really don't care what people think,
Speaker 1: like in terms of critically or I used to care.
Speaker 1: I used to read it. I haven't read a review
Speaker 1: in five, six, seven years and I never will. And
Speaker 1: again I make it for myself, so I don't really
Speaker 1: So secretary doesn't come in with the papers the next morning,
Speaker 1: and read everything to you. No. No, And I specifically
Speaker 1: tell people I don't want to know. I will find out,
Speaker 1: like the Dahmer if something is popular or successful, because
Speaker 1: I'll get an email that says OMG from you know,
Speaker 1: my wonderful executives, and I'll be like what. So I
Speaker 1: don't read anything that's written about me, and I don't
Speaker 1: watch anything about me. I know. But but you collect
Speaker 1: your awards very nicely. Yeah, but I don't think watch
Speaker 1: the stile of awards. It's it's extraordinary and a short,
Speaker 1: short ish career. Yeah, you have. You have compiled an
Speaker 1: amazing array of awards from from and the only thing
Speaker 1: you don't have as an oscar. So guess what you're
Speaker 1: on your way. I don't know. I never think. I
Speaker 1: never think about that. But I'm always so humbled and
Speaker 1: shocked that that the things that I make um that
Speaker 1: somebody would would deign that it should win an award,
Speaker 1: because I never make anything for that reason. But you know,
Speaker 1: the thing that I have been smart. You're striving for excellence,
Speaker 1: and excellence does ultimately result in award. And I think
Speaker 1: that I also work with a lot of very talented collaborators,
Speaker 1: specifically actresses over forty that you know that people love
Speaker 1: and always have loved. So I'm I always think, well,
Speaker 1: if you love them, then you'll love them now. They're
Speaker 1: the same, you know. And but yeah, it's name ten
Speaker 1: actresses over forty. I don't I want to know who
Speaker 1: they are. Oh God, I work with all of them.
Speaker 1: Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates, Sarah paulse and, Jessica Lang, Gwyneth Paltrow,
Speaker 1: Julia Roberts, all of these wonderful, talented women who only
Speaker 1: get deeper and better. You know. There was that you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know when this will air, but there was
Speaker 1: that Dawn Lemon incident where he was talking on CNN
Speaker 1: about you know, a woman is not in her prime
Speaker 1: and Jill until you know and he said basically it's
Speaker 1: over at forty. And there's been a lot of blowback.
Speaker 1: But I think people get better the more, the older
Speaker 1: they get, they're more interesting. Like you said, you didn't
Speaker 1: become Martha Stewart till you were forty two, right, You know,
Speaker 1: you put in the work. It's always about hours that
Speaker 1: you put into master something. Being such a busy person,
Speaker 1: how do you focus on the fine details of everything?
Speaker 1: I mean, you have so many things going at once,
Speaker 1: you have more than one production going at once. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: many times I have five, six, seven things shooting at once.
Speaker 1: I have a way of being that really really works
Speaker 1: for me, and it's an approval system where from ten
Speaker 1: to two am, he's moving well. Also during the day,
Speaker 1: I try and get a lot of it done. But
Speaker 1: my costumers, my production designers, my editors, they send me
Speaker 1: quick emails and it's always this or that. Here are
Speaker 1: four choices that we've talked about that you said you
Speaker 1: were interested in. Now here's Naomi Watts dressed in all
Speaker 1: four of those. Which ones do you want for this scene?
Speaker 1: So I've made it a part of my life to
Speaker 1: say I like choice number two. Okay, so you you
Speaker 1: have you have a lot of instant yeah approvals. Yes,
Speaker 1: But with every script that we do, for example, I
Speaker 1: will spend an hour or an hour and a half
Speaker 1: or two hours going through the script page by page
Speaker 1: by page, and I will talk about I wrote this
Speaker 1: because or this is what this needs to look like,
Speaker 1: or this is the inspiration. So people leave those meetings
Speaker 1: and then come back with options. But yeah, I do
Speaker 1: tend to micromanage those things. Yeah, well, so it works
Speaker 1: and you and your new ideas, I mean, just do
Speaker 1: they just come from everywhere? Yeah? I never know. I
Speaker 1: have a little black book that I've had since I
Speaker 1: started doing this, and I will be riding in a
Speaker 1: car or what. I always have it sort of near me.
Speaker 1: It's in my car right now, and amuse will come
Speaker 1: and I'll be like, oh, that would be an interesting thing,
Speaker 1: and I'll write it down and then I can always
Speaker 1: tell if it's good if I go back to it
Speaker 1: and write some more. And sometimes, like in the case
Speaker 1: of Dahmer, took ten years. Sometimes in the case of Glee,
Speaker 1: it took nine months. Like you never know. But I
Speaker 1: have a very long list of things I'm interested in
Speaker 1: talking about. What made you keep going back? Just the
Speaker 1: it's not an appealing subject, No, what was your focus on?
Speaker 1: I think that I was so interested in that from
Speaker 1: the beginning, because you know, he was my generation, so
Speaker 1: he was close in age to me, and we both
Speaker 1: were from the Midwest, and I was interested in I
Speaker 1: don't know, I was always interested in that story. I
Speaker 1: was interested in. The thing that really I was interested
Speaker 1: in was the character of Glinda Cleveland, who was the
Speaker 1: person who called the police hundreds of times saying something
Speaker 1: is wrong, and they didn't listen to her, and I
Speaker 1: deeply wanted to tell that story the person who was
Speaker 1: ignored all of my work. You know what I have
Speaker 1: done in my career is I've taken the people who
Speaker 1: are marginalized, who are the sidekicks, and I've made them
Speaker 1: the leads. That's what I've done. You know, that's the
Speaker 1: brand American horror story. How many episodes was that? It's
Speaker 1: still going? Yeah, we start season twelve in May. It's
Speaker 1: a it's one of the biggest shows. And how many
Speaker 1: writers are writing American horror story? You know, it depends,
Speaker 1: you know. Brad Falchick and I wrote many of them.
Speaker 1: The season we created the show together and Gwyneth Paltrow's
Speaker 1: husband's husband. I told her I was going to see you, Gwyneth,
Speaker 1: and she said, we'll tell Martha. I said, high, she
Speaker 1: admires you. I don't know, why does the media think
Speaker 1: that you're in a fight with her? No idea, she
Speaker 1: doesn't know either, you know what? You know what there
Speaker 1: I remember the one thing I said was when they
Speaker 1: when she was starting out her lifestyle business, um and
Speaker 1: she had done some silly little product, some product, and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, she is such a phenomenal actress
Speaker 1: and I missed her on the stree. I say the
Speaker 1: same thing to her too, yeah, And they took that
Speaker 1: as a criticism of her. I was, I was being
Speaker 1: so complimentary because I mean after seeing her in Shakespeare
Speaker 1: in Love. Yeah, I mean I loved her as an actress,
Speaker 1: and who knows, who knows what the press they love
Speaker 1: making things. I know, well, she's a fan. But every
Speaker 1: year on that show, it depends. We have sometimes we
Speaker 1: have big writers rooms. This year one person is pretty
Speaker 1: much writing all of them, so it just depends. And
Speaker 1: the I like more intimate writers. From now when I
Speaker 1: started off, where are you located? Where are these writers
Speaker 1: writing every and you know New York or LA. I
Speaker 1: mean you know now because of COVID, you can work anywhere.
Speaker 1: So we have almost all of our writings writers meetings
Speaker 1: on zoom. So I could be in Bora, Bora if
Speaker 1: I wanted to. Like, that's just the way the world
Speaker 1: works now, so and I think that's great. You can
Speaker 1: be around your kids and your family. And I tend
Speaker 1: to work in a very concentrated way. What are their
Speaker 1: cheap competitive TV do you watch? Oh god, I watch everything.
Speaker 1: I mean the thing that I watched that I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: only I had created that was white Lotus, which I loved.
Speaker 1: Why couldn't I do that? Are they doing another one?
Speaker 1: They must be. I think Mike is doing another one.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm really good friends with Jennifer Coolidge
Speaker 1: and I so long she was, so she's great. The
Speaker 1: last thing I want to talk about is your bedmaking skills. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So people say you used to make out of me
Speaker 1: for that. Yeah, why, I don't know why, because here's
Speaker 1: first of all, what kind of sheets? What kind of
Speaker 1: mattress do you have? Your favorite mattress? I have a
Speaker 1: I have a seelypostropedic, which is I know is not
Speaker 1: you know, but it has the right support. And I've
Speaker 1: tried a lot of things that I have a bad
Speaker 1: lower back, and it helps. You know. My father, when
Speaker 1: I was a very young boy, said to me, if
Speaker 1: you only do two things in the morning, it will
Speaker 1: start you on your way. And he said, you always
Speaker 1: have to make your bed, and you always have to
Speaker 1: take a shower. And he said, if you do those things,
Speaker 1: you've already accomplished something. And that has always stayed with
Speaker 1: me and my father. Um was very a meticulous person
Speaker 1: about beds. I don't know why, but I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: he taught me how to do it. I taught myself
Speaker 1: how to do it. But I like the rigor of
Speaker 1: it and I like and I like making it perfect.
Speaker 1: And you know I told you this, but you do
Speaker 1: it with a partner. No, you do it yourself. Do
Speaker 1: it myself. I love doing it. And you know I
Speaker 1: I have in a real messy bed. I love it.
Speaker 1: I take how often do you change your sheets a week?
Speaker 1: Three times? Well? Do you do military? You don't do?
Speaker 1: You don't do fitted sheets? Do you I do? Oh?
Speaker 1: You do? I do anything? Anything that's rigorous, I'll do.
Speaker 1: And I've tried every different brand. And do you do
Speaker 1: hospital corners? I do hospital corners? Somebody say you use
Speaker 1: a ruler? Can sometimes after all this time, kitch you
Speaker 1: just in your eye tell you yes, I can. But
Speaker 1: I have you know, before a photo shoot, you want
Speaker 1: it to be nice. I mean, my favorite thing that
Speaker 1: I do have is I usually use um. This is
Speaker 1: very random, but I like a fret tape bedspread. And
Speaker 1: I like them because they're sort of quilted and you
Speaker 1: can line up the lines and then it's a very,
Speaker 1: very very I ever thought about that, and then you know,
Speaker 1: I'm very specific. How I have a brush, you know,
Speaker 1: you brush down the pillows, and I have a day
Speaker 1: looking and it's just it's nuts. I have OCD. That's
Speaker 1: the truth. I do have OCD. I've but you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be the filmmaker you are if you did not have OCG.
Speaker 1: But everyone makes fun of me in my hand do
Speaker 1: you add two? No? I don't have that. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: after one of my nephews counted the number of times
Speaker 1: I said perfectly perfect in a show twenty three times,
Speaker 1: I completely stopped saying it's perfectly perfect. Um, so my
Speaker 1: OCD sort of got under control just by a by
Speaker 1: a critique from a I think at the time he
Speaker 1: was about sixteen years old. But you have OCD two,
Speaker 1: I would pres I do, but it's in the back
Speaker 1: of my head. I had lunch recently in your kitchen,
Speaker 1: and I love being with you and I one thing
Speaker 1: that I loved is how you you're a little more
Speaker 1: relaxed in your kitchen because you want everything to be handy,
Speaker 1: and I loved that. I loved your stack of you know.
Speaker 1: I think they were bold magazines or like you were
Speaker 1: going to order from my catalogs. And I one of
Speaker 1: the best moments on the table, by the way, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you gave me a tour of your place. Um,
Speaker 1: and it was this was before the peacock massacre, which
Speaker 1: you know the case like to talk about the peacock massacer.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know about that. Oh, like that was
Speaker 1: like a news story for two days. Oh they're still
Speaker 1: talking about it. I know. People start to cry about
Speaker 1: it because it was a very sad event, and people
Speaker 1: start to cry about foul, about my peacocks being lost
Speaker 1: to the coyotes and nobody noticing. Can you imagine I
Speaker 1: take it these people don't eat chicken. They probably don't. Well,
Speaker 1: let me ask you this question. Would you ever come
Speaker 1: to Provincetown where I have a couple of homes and
Speaker 1: see I think you would love it there. I can't
Speaker 1: wait so you come. Yeah. I love Cape Cod? I
Speaker 1: love it be so great. My first gardening gardening mentor
Speaker 1: lived on Cape Cod, Fred spect and he was the
Speaker 1: gardener for Hillivan Rebay. Rebay was the muse for the
Speaker 1: Guggenheim Museum. She was she was sleeping with Solomon Guggenheim
Speaker 1: and Frank Lloyd Wright at the same times. One does,
Speaker 1: and she got that Guggenheim Museum bill, so h and
Speaker 1: Fred moved to keep cod to get away from from Hilla. Wow,
Speaker 1: Well you would, you would? You would love? I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I would. I think speaking with you has
Speaker 1: been a highlight of my podcasting careers so far. Riot,
Speaker 1: And you're so much fun to talk to. You have
Speaker 1: such diverse interests. You are so phenomenally accomplished, and I
Speaker 1: wish you many many more years of productivity. Thank you.
Speaker 1: You are you are very productive. Well, you're kind and
Speaker 1: I have you know, I have loved you for so
Speaker 1: long and it's been so much fun getting to become
Speaker 1: friends with you, someone you so deeply admire, and well
Speaker 1: we're going to be friends for a long time now
Speaker 1: that you're moving into the hood. Yeah, we are going
Speaker 1: to have fun. Thank you. And it's a joy to
Speaker 1: be here and it's a joy to call you my friend.
Speaker 1: Thank you.