Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 3: It's International Women's Day, and here's how the world's top
Speaker 3: feminist organization is celebrating.
Speaker 4: Pttel is also celebrating International Women's Day with seven new
Speaker 4: role models. The new Barbie lineup was inspired by the
Speaker 4: likeness of female leaders in STEM fields from around the world.
Speaker 4: The company hopes the role models, including former YouTube CEO
Speaker 4: Susan Wojiski and UK space scientist doctor Maggie addm and Pocock,
Speaker 4: will inspire the next generation of girls to pursue their
Speaker 4: passions despite women being underrepresented in stemfields.
Speaker 5: This is so important. Kids learn so much from that
Speaker 5: toys they play with. You want them to have scientists
Speaker 5: dolls and ceo dolls that can sissor each other. From
Speaker 5: all this story, we turned a DESI Lightecki.
Speaker 3: How's your International Woman's Day going?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 7: Thank you for asking. It started out so great this morning.
Speaker 7: The random guy who usually yells nice ass instead yelled
Speaker 7: I respect your nice ass and this is why we march.
Speaker 7: So yeah, I was feeling pretty good. I mean, at
Speaker 7: least until I saw this Barbie story.
Speaker 5: Wait, you don't like these brand new Barbies, but they're
Speaker 5: so accomplished. They got scientists, and they got a YouTube ceo.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, equally great role models. You could be a
Speaker 7: scientist who helps humanity, or you could design a YouTube
Speaker 7: algorithm that says, hey kids, if you like Pepa Pig,
Speaker 7: you'll love QAnon.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's fair.
Speaker 5: But some of them adoptors and engineers, and one of
Speaker 5: them is a professor.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I know, they're all so successful, those barbies.
Speaker 6: All.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's bad enough. Barbie was always hotter. Now she's
Speaker 7: smarter than me too. I want a doll that makes
Speaker 7: me feel bad about my body, not my mind.
Speaker 5: So you're saying we should get rid of these Barbies.
Speaker 7: Well, no, I'm not necessarily, but why can't we also
Speaker 7: have some mediocre Barbies who don't make us feel pressured?
Speaker 1: Right, not.
Speaker 7: Mediocrity. Not every Barbie has to be a girl boss.
Speaker 7: Let's have a Barbie who's a paralegal at a mid
Speaker 7: sized law firm, or one who works the lunch shift
Speaker 7: at a just salad. There is nothing wrong with barbiees
Speaker 7: who are just trying to make it through the day.
Speaker 3: But Barbie's supposed.
Speaker 1: To be aspirational.
Speaker 7: No, no, marlin, they're not give me a barbie who's
Speaker 7: okay with letting five thousand emails pile up in her inbox. Okay,
Speaker 7: the barbie who spilled coffee on her shirt, but no,
Speaker 7: she can still get another day out of it if
Speaker 7: she puts a blazer on top. The barbie who spends
Speaker 7: her Friday nights in bed binge watching Vander Pump Rules
Speaker 7: Duncan carrot sticks into a jar of peanut butter, and
Speaker 7: letting her kids drive themselves to taekwondo. For the love
Speaker 7: of God, stop judging me, Marlon, I wasn't.
Speaker 5: But those do feel very specific.
Speaker 7: You're specific. My point is they don't all have to
Speaker 7: be rock stars. You think every ken is a Nobel
Speaker 7: Prize winning aeronautical engineer. No, he's just a man with
Speaker 7: a car and a pubic mound, and we all accept him.
Speaker 7: That's what I want. The dream of every woman to
Speaker 7: be as successful as an average white man.
Speaker 3: Doesn't. So like women achieve in their dreams.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, are you man explaining my dreams to me
Speaker 7: on International Women's Day? I wouldn't kind of feel I
Speaker 7: feel like you want.
Speaker 1: I swear I was not.
Speaker 3: I think desil please.
Speaker 8: My guest tonight makes her directorial debut with the critically
Speaker 8: acclaimed movie, which she also wrote, Cold Lady Bird. Please Welcome,
Speaker 8: Gotta goigg Hi, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me. I'm a big
Speaker 6: fan that clip.
Speaker 8: I think everyone is a big fan of yours, and
Speaker 8: if they aren't, they really should, because that clip is
Speaker 8: just a tiny piece of the amazingness that is this film.
Speaker 8: If you were to distill it into one thing, because
Speaker 8: I feel like it's every story, you would you say
Speaker 8: the main story in Ladybird is well.
Speaker 6: The main story is a kind of a love story
Speaker 6: between Ladybird and her mother, and it's a conflict ridden
Speaker 6: relationship because she's seventeen and her mom is like, oh
Speaker 6: my god, I might done raising you yet they do.
Speaker 6: I'm going to send you out into the world. But
Speaker 6: there's like a lot of love there, and I find
Speaker 6: mother daughter relationships to be really rich. It's exciting, and
Speaker 6: I wanted to make a whole movie about it.
Speaker 8: It was an interesting story in that it was told
Speaker 8: from a completely different perspective. You know, so many times
Speaker 8: it feels like stories are told from the outside where
Speaker 8: people I think, this is how a mother and daughter
Speaker 8: would fight. But I know all the women I spoke
Speaker 8: to who watched the movie went like, that was me,
Speaker 8: that was my mom, we thought, but we loved but
Speaker 8: it was complex as opposed to being a caricature. Is
Speaker 8: that something you strove for when you wrote that? Is
Speaker 8: that why you wrote it yourself?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Well, I mean I've always loved like a great
Speaker 6: mother daughter's story, like you know, Terms of Men is
Speaker 6: one of my favorite movies, but I feel like there
Speaker 6: aren't enough of them, and I felt like when I
Speaker 6: had so when I had the script, I brought it
Speaker 6: around to different producers, most of whom are our men
Speaker 6: who have money to make movies. And if they had
Speaker 6: if I'm just saying just stroke and if they had
Speaker 6: daughters or if they'd been raised with sisters, they were like,
Speaker 6: totally know what this is. But if they hadn't, they
Speaker 6: were like, do women fight like this? And I was like, oh, yes, no,
Speaker 6: it's it's crazy down here.
Speaker 8: It's also interesting to watch a movie where women are
Speaker 8: on screen for the entire movie and it's not about men.
Speaker 6: No. I mean yeah, I mean there are other men
Speaker 6: in the movie, wonderful men, male actors. I mean, I
Speaker 6: just have to say I have a brilliant cast and
Speaker 6: Timothy Shalomey who's also called me by your name, isn't it?
Speaker 6: Lucas Hedges and Tracy Letts and Stephen McKinley Henderson and
Speaker 6: it's a great cast of men, but there are stories
Speaker 6: or secondary and it was actually amazing because most of
Speaker 6: the time women have to be the secondary supporting characters
Speaker 6: with the men's story. And then these wonderful actors so sweet,
Speaker 6: they were like, oh, we just love being here for
Speaker 6: you guys. And it's the.
Speaker 8: Idea that they're like, no, no, no, please carry a
Speaker 8: carry on.
Speaker 6: No. Yes, you're like, please, you do all the acting,
Speaker 6: We'll just be here. No, they're they're wonderful in the movie.
Speaker 8: When you're when you're directing your first film, it must
Speaker 8: come with all the pressure in the world. It must
Speaker 8: come with all the fear in the world. And you've
Speaker 8: gone from what I assume is is maybe a nervousness
Speaker 8: to now having your film be the most highly rated
Speaker 8: film ever on Rotten Tomatoes, right, I think, beating the
Speaker 8: previous record, which was set by Toy Story two.
Speaker 6: Yes, Toy Story Too. But my brother thinks that Toy
Speaker 6: Story Too is like pretty perfect. And he texted me
Speaker 6: and He was like, I don't know, he's.
Speaker 2: Going to drop your tomatoes by one.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, No, I mean it's it's it's amazing, it's
Speaker 6: I mean, my one of my favorite things about filmmaking
Speaker 6: is what a collaborative art it is, because it's you know,
Speaker 6: you have your entire cast, which they're they're so amazing,
Speaker 6: and they bring themselves to it, and then you have
Speaker 6: your crew and your your design team making it with you.
Speaker 6: So even though it was a huge leap for me,
Speaker 6: it was not like I was doing it alone. I
Speaker 6: was doing it with all these people who gave so
Speaker 6: much to it. And also, I've wanted to direct forever.
Speaker 8: You you also have a lot of people who see
Speaker 8: you as you know, an indie voice, an indie star.
Speaker 8: They go like you you you are, you are the
Speaker 8: star of that world. Do you think you'd ever have
Speaker 8: aspirations to go into a mainstream film? Would you ever
Speaker 8: want to direct like a blockbuster movie? Or you against that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 6: I would love to. I would love to have this
Speaker 6: right Oh yeah, yeah yeah, but.
Speaker 8: You would be into that.
Speaker 6: You have to send it to my agents? Oh wow, wow,
Speaker 6: I'm getting you guys. I accept unsolicited material. No, no,
Speaker 6: I'm I would love to. I mean, one of the
Speaker 6: big inspirations for me this year was watching you know,
Speaker 6: Patty Jenkins directing Wonderful and it was so amazing, and
Speaker 6: I just like, for me, you know, she made Monster,
Speaker 6: which is an incredible Mama and Andy, and then she
Speaker 6: made this sleep And I'm interested in all different sized canvases.
Speaker 6: And I hope I just keep making movies, and I
Speaker 6: hope some of them are our big fantasy lands and
Speaker 6: other our tiny life stories, and I just want to
Speaker 6: do it all.
Speaker 8: I will tell you this, after watching the film, I
Speaker 8: will not be shocked when I hear your name nominated
Speaker 8: for an Oscar. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 8: The Lady Birds in theaters now credit going everybody. My
Speaker 8: guest tonight is an actor, a writer, and a producer
Speaker 8: of all your favorite Things Ray. She's here to chat
Speaker 8: about her amazing career thus far and an exciting new
Speaker 8: partnership that she's kicking off.
Speaker 6: Ray.
Speaker 8: Welcome to the daily social Distancing Show.
Speaker 1: Heank char DOA thank you for having me distance.
Speaker 8: Yes, having you very distanced, although I feel like you
Speaker 8: have been somebody who I feel like you're always in
Speaker 8: my life, you know, like there are some people who
Speaker 8: make the kinds of shows that make you feel like
Speaker 8: you know them as a person, Like I would probably
Speaker 8: be one of your creepy fans who comes up to
Speaker 8: you in the streets and thinks I know you more
Speaker 8: than I do. I'm sure you have people like that
Speaker 8: because you make those kinds of shows where whenever I
Speaker 8: watch Ray, I go like, I know her, this is
Speaker 8: my best friend, but we're not best friends, and I'm
Speaker 8: actually very creepy when I do that to you. Do
Speaker 8: you do you have that a lot with people. Do
Speaker 8: they'll feel like they know you?
Speaker 1: What a high compliment? Yes, people do.
Speaker 9: I take it as the compliment until they start like
Speaker 9: insulting me and my character.
Speaker 1: My literal character. But you know, I don't have to
Speaker 1: be honest, and you me, I welcome it.
Speaker 8: What do you What do you think that is? I've
Speaker 8: always wondered how you do that, because, like, everyone can
Speaker 8: make a show, but when Ray makes her shows, there's
Speaker 8: a connectivity to it that that connects me. Even if
Speaker 8: you give like a speech at an award show, there's
Speaker 8: there's a there's a familiarity that you have that connects
Speaker 8: people to you. Have you ever wondered what that is.
Speaker 1: I haven't.
Speaker 9: I don't try to look at a gift towards in
Speaker 9: the mouth I and it's not something that I realized
Speaker 9: until people may bring in it.
Speaker 1: But I think for me, it just comes down to relatability.
Speaker 9: I do strive to like just find the commonality there
Speaker 9: and create the only one that goes through things.
Speaker 8: I think what makes Insecure such a fantastic show and
Speaker 8: and hopefully a show that will change shows forever, is
Speaker 8: you created a show in which black women specifically can
Speaker 8: occupy all spaces and places within society. You know, there's
Speaker 8: no there's no archetype of what the black woman is
Speaker 8: supposed to be. Can be the lawyer, you can be
Speaker 8: the brocast friend, you can be the person who's focused,
Speaker 8: not focused, the person who's you know. There's something powerful
Speaker 8: in that, and I I've always wanted to know whether
Speaker 8: you set out to create that or whether you were
Speaker 8: just replicating your world as you saw.
Speaker 1: It is definitely the ladder.
Speaker 9: It was that, and I think that's what was the
Speaker 9: frustration about not seeing that on television for so long,
Speaker 9: because I was surrounded by these women who occupied so
Speaker 9: many different spaces, and I seeing that reflecting on television
Speaker 9: and it was just like, but.
Speaker 1: This is my life, this is their life, this is
Speaker 1: my mom's friends life. So what is the problem. Where
Speaker 1: is the disconnect now?
Speaker 9: And of course we had that during the earlier decades,
Speaker 9: but there was you know, that dearth in the early
Speaker 9: two thousand, right from two thousands, and it was just.
Speaker 1: Like where are we and where are these women that
Speaker 1: I know so well?
Speaker 9: And so I wanted to intentionally reflect that world just
Speaker 9: because it was missing.
Speaker 8: The show has been extremely successful, and then you drop
Speaker 8: the bomb show on us and you tell us that
Speaker 8: Insecure is now coming to an end. The question is why,
Speaker 8: because it's.
Speaker 9: A story and good stories end, And you know, even
Speaker 9: in pitching it that first season, I knew that I
Speaker 9: wanted to end it the f and Prentcess and I've
Speaker 9: talked about.
Speaker 1: That and he was just like, yeah, I have that
Speaker 1: feels right.
Speaker 9: Right, And so we've been putting towards this journey to
Speaker 9: finish telling the story. I love watching television that kind
Speaker 9: of has a that takes me a story, like there's
Speaker 9: nothing like meandering story. And so for me, I hope
Speaker 9: that people leave feeling satisfied, like, oh, I'm glad I
Speaker 9: watched that.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I watched that story.
Speaker 8: He told I think everyone's going to have that feeling.
Speaker 8: And what's cool is if you're an Esray fan. I
Speaker 8: mean from what I read in the magazines, there's not
Speaker 8: going to be a shortage of Eso Ray in the world.
Speaker 8: Like you are. You are doing mogul things is what
Speaker 8: the Internet calls it. You know when Twitter goes like, oh,
Speaker 8: making money moves, then you know like things are happening. Yeah,
Speaker 8: you're getting the bag, You're making the money moves. Uh, congratulations.
Speaker 8: First of all, because you you are just making things.
Speaker 8: You've signed a giant deal, You're going to be creating
Speaker 8: everything across the board. Firstly, where do you find the time? Secondly,
Speaker 8: what are you now looking to do that you haven't
Speaker 8: already done so much?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm thank you.
Speaker 9: I am I have the time because I work with
Speaker 9: incredible people and so, like you know, there's different our
Speaker 9: company and people are.
Speaker 1: You have incredible taste and work very hard.
Speaker 9: And then for me next, I just want to I
Speaker 9: want to go behind the scenes, Like I love exploring
Speaker 9: the business parts of the industry.
Speaker 1: I love producing, uh, the work of people that I'm
Speaker 1: a fan of and.
Speaker 9: I have not made a film yet that is my
Speaker 9: personal next go. And yeah, there's just so much, so
Speaker 9: many things that I want to do, and I don't
Speaker 9: want to just do anything to do it.
Speaker 1: I want to do things well.
Speaker 8: To me, talk me through your your partnership with Life Water.
Speaker 8: This is this is really interesting. I saw I saw money,
Speaker 8: I saw opportunity, and I show Easter Ray and I
Speaker 8: was like, all right, I want to know what this
Speaker 8: is all about. What's happening.
Speaker 9: So I've always in the spirit of collaboration, we wanted
Speaker 9: to find other people to work with. And you know
Speaker 9: this this industry right now talk so much about diversity
Speaker 9: and representation and where do you find these people? And
Speaker 9: it's like we're trying to create the pipelines basically, Like
Speaker 9: when I have a partnered to quote a contest to
Speaker 9: find people and artists and creatives who need that opportunity
Speaker 9: to have their work BC all, Wow, they've created a
Speaker 9: twenty bottles with the work of these various artists that
Speaker 9: we be hand selected, and then we're doing a contest
Speaker 9: to find five more and get ten thousand dollars to
Speaker 9: have their work commissioned.
Speaker 8: I wonder if part of the reason you did this
Speaker 8: is because in many ways, your career was also started
Speaker 8: by the people. I mean, you know, your original show
Speaker 8: was this awkward Black Girl, and you had people on
Speaker 8: a kickstart of saying, oh, we're gonna make this thing happen.
Speaker 8: Without that, you might not be here today, or maybe
Speaker 8: the journey would have taken much longer.
Speaker 1: Without a doubt.
Speaker 9: I know what it's like to be in those early
Speaker 9: stages and be like, I just if.
Speaker 1: Someone just sees my work, if just that one.
Speaker 9: Person believe me you have a platform, then that could
Speaker 9: change the game for me, or it could not. But
Speaker 9: I just need to either see this and be like
Speaker 9: this is great, or see this and be like this sucks.
Speaker 1: Don't ever try again.
Speaker 9: And so we are hopefully providing this platform for these
Speaker 9: artists and looking out.
Speaker 1: For them in a way that the industry isn't necessarily doing.
Speaker 9: Specifically by having like water commission to study to see
Speaker 9: like where there's a lack of representation in these areas.
Speaker 9: It's visual art, fashion, music, and filmmaking.
Speaker 8: Oh okay, story, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 8: I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sirv.
Speaker 2: Explore more shows from The Daily Show podcast universe by
Speaker 2: searching the Daily Show wherever you get your Watch The
Speaker 2: Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central
Speaker 2: and stream full episodes anytime on Fairmount Plus. This has
Speaker 2: been a Comedy Central podcast