Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. Ali Wentworth has a lot
Speaker 1: of titles, actor, comedian, New York Times bestselling author, wife, mother,
Speaker 1: and podcast host. I'll add another title, one of the
Speaker 1: funniest people I know. You may recognize Ali went Worth
Speaker 1: as Jerry's girlfriend Schmoopy on Seinfeld's classic Soup Nazi episode,
Speaker 1: or from her more than one hundred appearances on The
Speaker 1: Tonight Show, or from when she was a correspondent on
Speaker 1: Oprah Winfries Show. You may also have read one of
Speaker 1: her best selling books, Ali in Wonderland, Happily Ali After,
Speaker 1: and the latest Go Ask Ali, which shares a name
Speaker 1: with the podcast she launched last year. I have gotten
Speaker 1: the biggest get in the entertainment world. It's not Beyonce,
Speaker 1: it's my daughter Ellie. It's Stephanopolis. I'm talking about growing
Speaker 1: a teenager in a pandemic, and you are a teenager
Speaker 1: in a pandemic, and you're my teenager in a pandemic.
Speaker 1: Ali and I have been friends for a while, and
Speaker 1: I've long admired her fearlessness and poking fun at herself
Speaker 1: and at others, including me. Are you taking precautions not
Speaker 1: to have more kids, if I may be so bold,
Speaker 1: because I feel like there's another eight to ten in you.
Speaker 1: My wife and I always struggled with that, which is
Speaker 1: you have a baby and you sit, don't go, I
Speaker 1: think great? Aren't think so great? What's one more? Yeah?
Speaker 1: We do that. We do that with dogs because puppies
Speaker 1: are cute, just as cute as babies. So I get it.
Speaker 1: I understand. I wish you guys could have some more
Speaker 1: for us because one of ours is going to college
Speaker 1: in the fall. Let me ask you about that. You
Speaker 1: got married when you were how old and you had
Speaker 1: your first kid, you in your how old? So it
Speaker 1: was not the typical you know, and believe me, that
Speaker 1: was the right thing to do. I keep telling my
Speaker 1: daughters do not rush into marriage, because everybody I know
Speaker 1: that got married and their twenties is divorced. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't think you're the same person in your twenties that
Speaker 1: you are in your mid thirties. But when you got married,
Speaker 1: and you, certainly, I guess from the get go, didn't
Speaker 1: rule out having kids. Did you say to yourself, is
Speaker 1: going to affect my work? Not? Once you didn't think
Speaker 1: about that at all. Now, well, I don't think I
Speaker 1: was ever big or famous enough to think that it
Speaker 1: would affect my work. And I was certainly not known
Speaker 1: for my body, if you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: it never felt like that. What I did was when
Speaker 1: I married George, we moved to d C so he
Speaker 1: could do his Sunday show this week. And so I thought,
Speaker 1: all right, how do I recalibrate everything, how do I
Speaker 1: pivot and so that I can have a career. But
Speaker 1: I live in Washington, d C. Which is you know,
Speaker 1: if you're an actor, it doesn't exist, you know. So
Speaker 1: I started writing. I started writing a book, and then
Speaker 1: Oprah hired me so I would go to Chicago once
Speaker 1: a week, which was a fantastic job. So I tried
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to have some kind of
Speaker 1: a career. But here at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you know, not to use a disgusting word, but george
Speaker 1: career it trumped mine, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 1: was really like we had to kind of go where
Speaker 1: he went. So no, I mean, I understand, but I
Speaker 1: just was thinking that, you know, you are someone and
Speaker 1: I don't say this, you know, just to be pleasant
Speaker 1: or whatever. I mean, Please do No, but I think
Speaker 1: you're really fucking funny. I mean you're funny. Thank you, Alex.
Speaker 1: And if someone came to you now and they said
Speaker 1: to you, you're gonna do a four camera sitcom in
Speaker 1: New York and you're gonna shoot eighteen episodes or twenty
Speaker 1: two episodes with the answer byes or do you like
Speaker 1: the way things are now, which is you work a
Speaker 1: little bit, you don't have to work, I'd say yes,
Speaker 1: they're ground, they have their own independent lives. I'm used
Speaker 1: for you, No, used for me. They know how to
Speaker 1: make a sandwich. I'm needier than ever. And also I'm
Speaker 1: faced with mortality. You know, I got my shelf life
Speaker 1: is you know, unless they're going to reboot The Golden Girls,
Speaker 1: even those girls were like in their mid fifties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I would absolutely do that. And there are things
Speaker 1: that we would adjust. You know, when I did Nightcap,
Speaker 1: which you and your wife were on and we're so hilarious,
Speaker 1: there are you know. I created a couple of shows
Speaker 1: that took a lot of energy, and in one show,
Speaker 1: Headcase About, I played a very dysfunctional shrink. We were
Speaker 1: shooting in l A and I was going back and
Speaker 1: forth in the Red Eye and I got shingles because
Speaker 1: I was completely stressed out. And that's when I said
Speaker 1: I can't work in l A. I wonder for you.
Speaker 1: I mean you've worked and then you raised your kids
Speaker 1: and you worked less than you might have because I
Speaker 1: mean I view you as somebody who you could just
Speaker 1: be working all the time. You could be doing starring
Speaker 1: in a show, uh in network sitcom twenty two episodes.
Speaker 1: I mean, whatever you want to do, you'd have no
Speaker 1: problem doing it. Yeah, although there for me there's a
Speaker 1: different thing, which is I just have no like what
Speaker 1: the funk is how I think about everything? Now? Great,
Speaker 1: if you said to me, right now, let's go do
Speaker 1: love Letters at the Warp Theater, I go, great, let's
Speaker 1: do it, like I have nothing to lose, and I'm
Speaker 1: excited for anything that's sort of new and different and
Speaker 1: happy to perform because I'm not so focused on myself
Speaker 1: anymore at all. When you did Nightcap, whose idea was
Speaker 1: that you? Was that all completely self generating? Yes? And
Speaker 1: how many episodes did you do? We did two seasons
Speaker 1: of about thirty something and it it mad? Yeah? How
Speaker 1: many episodes per season? God? We did? I want to
Speaker 1: say sixteen or so, I mean a lot. But the
Speaker 1: great thing about that show was I used to do
Speaker 1: the Tonight Show all the time. Jay Leno had me
Speaker 1: on all like, I did it over a hundred times,
Speaker 1: and I didn't necessarily have anything to promote. They would
Speaker 1: call me and say, you know, Melanie Griffith has a fluke,
Speaker 1: can you be here in twenty minutes? And I would
Speaker 1: go in and just tell funny stories. And I'm not
Speaker 1: a stand up comedian, so I would really just have
Speaker 1: to pull stuff from my life and why I was there.
Speaker 1: I would see the most incredible things, like from celebrities,
Speaker 1: you know, because I was always the second guest, and
Speaker 1: you know, just like I remember one guy came in
Speaker 1: movie Star, and his stylists came in with racks and
Speaker 1: racks of the same white shirt and the same pair
Speaker 1: of jeans, so he was going to decide right before
Speaker 1: he went up. You know, just crazy stuff. Or the
Speaker 1: publicist and the actress were not coming out of the
Speaker 1: wardrobe room because they were having sex, and the p
Speaker 1: as are running around going like you know where, And
Speaker 1: I just thought, this is the show who gives a
Speaker 1: ship with what the actors say or promoting their movie
Speaker 1: that whatever is happening behind here is that is the show. Now.
Speaker 1: You came from a very proper family, correct, Yes, how
Speaker 1: would you describe it? You came from what kind of family?
Speaker 1: Dysfunctional but proper, proper? Yes, Yeah, I went to boarding school.
Speaker 1: My mother was Social secretary of the Reagan White House.
Speaker 1: Only Democrat in the Reagan White House. Yeah. My stepfather
Speaker 1: was one of the editors of the London Sunday Times
Speaker 1: in chief foreign correspondent, and my father was a reporter
Speaker 1: during Watergate for the Washington Post. So I grew up
Speaker 1: in that world. And when you went into this business, somebody,
Speaker 1: did your family have a different plan for you? Listen
Speaker 1: for my family, when I said I want to be
Speaker 1: an actor, they thought it was just a phase. I'd
Speaker 1: grow out of it. And then I said no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be an actor. And then my mother
Speaker 1: was basically like, well, then just go be a whore.
Speaker 1: Then just go go to a brothel and put your
Speaker 1: name on the So they didn't get it at all.
Speaker 1: At least Las Vegas is sunny, Yes, go to the
Speaker 1: Mustang ranch. It's warm there, yes, and if you can dance,
Speaker 1: even better, So I you know, left all that. I
Speaker 1: went to l A. I didn't know anybody. I had
Speaker 1: no connections in that world at all. And how old
Speaker 1: you went to l A right out of college, right
Speaker 1: out of n y U. Yep, so four years at
Speaker 1: y U. Four years at n y U for what
Speaker 1: acting circle in the Square? And somebody at William Morris
Speaker 1: came to see me in a play and he said,
Speaker 1: you have a nice generic girl next door best friend. Look,
Speaker 1: you should go to l A. And I went all right,
Speaker 1: all right, sure, yeah, sure, And so I went to
Speaker 1: l A. And I thought that I would eventually marry
Speaker 1: Hugh Grant or Matthew Perry or one of those guys.
Speaker 1: And the head of the studio, Yeah, well if my
Speaker 1: boobs are bigger. But then I met George and I,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like the Godfather comedian Ali Wentworth.
Speaker 1: When it comes to great episodes from the Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing Archives, you can always check out my episode with
Speaker 1: Mr Ali Wentworth, George Stephanopoulos, or for more funny women
Speaker 1: who can really write, my conversation with Paula Pell, who
Speaker 1: was a writer at Saturday Night Live for nearly twenty years.
Speaker 1: I was always a bit of a class clown, I
Speaker 1: really pushed the envelope because I would be funny in
Speaker 1: class and I do things like one of my teachers.
Speaker 1: I would go by him and drag my hand along
Speaker 1: the chuck shelf, and then I'd come over and I'd say,
Speaker 1: you know, Mr gracer're just a really great teacher, and
Speaker 1: I pat him on the back and I'd leave like
Speaker 1: a handprint. He'd let me make him a little bit
Speaker 1: the fool for a moment, and then he'd do you know,
Speaker 1: he looked like Rob Briner and all in the family
Speaker 1: at the big bushy mustache and along there he just
Speaker 1: kind of looked a camera three, you know, non existent,
Speaker 1: and the audience, would you know, the audience, the class
Speaker 1: would crack up. Here more of my conversation with Paula
Speaker 1: pell at Here's the Thing dot Org. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Ali talks about being set up on a blind date
Speaker 1: with George Stephanopoulos. I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing. In the spring of two thousand one,
Speaker 1: Ali Wentworth was newly back in New York City and
Speaker 1: found herself talked into a life changing lunch. Where did
Speaker 1: you first see him face to face in personal at Fred's,
Speaker 1: which was the restaurant at Barney's on sixty one to Madison.
Speaker 1: That's where we were going to meet. And of course
Speaker 1: I knew who he was. He was George Chephanopolis. It
Speaker 1: was a blind date ish, I mean I knew who
Speaker 1: he was, of course, But who set you up on
Speaker 1: the date? An old friend of his that worked in
Speaker 1: the White House with him. Why didn't they think that
Speaker 1: would be a good match? We were going to swap.
Speaker 1: I offered up my older brother who was in l A,
Speaker 1: who worked for David Lynch, and she offered up George, thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, George was a one date wonder like. He
Speaker 1: never got serious, so it was very easy for her
Speaker 1: to trade him up because she knew he wouldn't go
Speaker 1: on a second date with me. He wasn't married before,
Speaker 1: never never lived with anybody. I'm the first person he said,
Speaker 1: I love you too, my virgin bride. So when we
Speaker 1: were being set up, I was not interested. And George
Speaker 1: gives me so much shit about it because he said,
Speaker 1: that's not true, that's not true. But I was in
Speaker 1: He was not my type. I didn't want anybody from
Speaker 1: the political world. I like a tall, Simian looking man
Speaker 1: and so he was just you know, I thought, this
Speaker 1: will be my you know, my date with George Stephanopolis.
Speaker 1: It will be like a New Yorker article someday, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, part of my routine. Yeah, part
Speaker 1: of my routine, which it has become anyway. But I
Speaker 1: didn't shower it and shut my legs. I wore a
Speaker 1: black suit because that meant smart to me. I read
Speaker 1: the New York Times, the financial section. I read the
Speaker 1: whole thing, and I thought, we'll have a really interesting
Speaker 1: intellectual conversation and that'll be that. And I got to
Speaker 1: Fred's and there was George in in Armani suit that
Speaker 1: was way too big with the shoulder pads, and I went,
Speaker 1: all right, all right, don't be shallow. Look beyond it,
Speaker 1: look beyond it. And we sat down. The first thing
Speaker 1: we talked about was antidepressants. What are you on? What
Speaker 1: are you want? And I thought, okay, this is good.
Speaker 1: This is the glue. This is the glue. And we
Speaker 1: both ordered crab salad. And afterwards he walked me out
Speaker 1: and he shook my hand. Now, in l A, where
Speaker 1: I was living, if you went out with somebody and
Speaker 1: they shook your hand, they weren't interested. If they didn't
Speaker 1: drag you by the hair like a caveman into their
Speaker 1: gross bachelor pad in West Hollywood, then they weren't interested.
Speaker 1: So and George, but it is very nice to meet you,
Speaker 1: and I went, oh Jesus, okay, very nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: And then that night he called me and said, do
Speaker 1: you want to come out again? And I didn't play
Speaker 1: the game. I don't know how to play games. So
Speaker 1: I said to him, Yep, I'm free to night. I'm
Speaker 1: free tomorrow night. Listen. I'm supposed to go away for
Speaker 1: the weekend with my mom and sisters, but I'll blow
Speaker 1: that off. You liked him, I did like him. What
Speaker 1: about him? Did you like? I was attracted to him,
Speaker 1: which I did not think I would be. I found
Speaker 1: him it'd still do very sexy, and I found his
Speaker 1: brain very sexy. And he had smile. And I've written
Speaker 1: about it and I've said it's like a good melon.
Speaker 1: But it felt like, oh, you're my people, my wife,
Speaker 1: same thing, like the way she looked, her hair, color,
Speaker 1: her voice, old of it. I was like, oh God,
Speaker 1: she's might dream girl. You know. I felt that way
Speaker 1: when I met her too. By the way, but you
Speaker 1: and my wife had a very intimate moment on the show.
Speaker 1: It was really well and I wrote that for a reason.
Speaker 1: I wrote, to have your wife's vagina on my face
Speaker 1: for about six seconds, and you got, as they say,
Speaker 1: and bye bye, Bertie. You got a lot of little
Speaker 1: to do, or as I like to say, I got
Speaker 1: a whiff and I get it. So so anyway, yes,
Speaker 1: all that stuff, all that chemical stuff happened. Chemistry, Yes,
Speaker 1: And that weekend I was going to a spa with
Speaker 1: my mother and my sisters, and I spent the whole
Speaker 1: time on the phone with George. They were all yoga
Speaker 1: ing and eating brand muffins, and I was at Canyon
Speaker 1: Ranch with my head out the window, chain smoking and
Speaker 1: talking to George the whole time. Every once in a
Speaker 1: while they come back and they, you know, throw some
Speaker 1: almond butter at me. And then we were engaged two
Speaker 1: months later, and that felt like it took a long
Speaker 1: time he did. It took me two whole fucking months
Speaker 1: to close this, like hello, hello. And then he we
Speaker 1: went to Greece and I knew that he had a ring.
Speaker 1: How did you know his nephew dealt in jewelry? I
Speaker 1: don't know what that means, but it sounds shady. But
Speaker 1: he dealt in jewelry and George had to go at
Speaker 1: breakfast with him the day we were leaving for Greece,
Speaker 1: and I thought, there's only one reason he would meet
Speaker 1: his nephew. He deals in jewelry, and I it was
Speaker 1: in his knapsacks. The whole way to Greece, I kept
Speaker 1: hiding his knapsack in the lounge and on the plane,
Speaker 1: just because I'd like to see him sweat, really suck
Speaker 1: him up. And then we we were in Micanos and
Speaker 1: he proposed to me. And I have to tell you,
Speaker 1: not ever being a celebrity myself, I had no idea
Speaker 1: until he proposed to me in Micaos, and somehow the
Speaker 1: press found out about it, and we had photographers all
Speaker 1: over the rocks across the water from our hotel, and
Speaker 1: we would walk down the street and there'd be thirty
Speaker 1: paparazzi all over us, and George's hand would be sweating
Speaker 1: and he'd say like, oh my god, I'm so sorry, Ali,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I was like, what are you talking? Yeah, George,
Speaker 1: could you step back from them? When you're in my light? George,
Speaker 1: you wants singles? Guys who wants singles. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I all but took my shirt off. It was all
Speaker 1: very exciting that first time, you know, that kind of
Speaker 1: Tom and Nicole moment, and then and then it was horrible,
Speaker 1: but it was fun for that day. Now, that magical
Speaker 1: moment I'm making us when he finally found the knapsack
Speaker 1: that you hit under the rocks and said, oh, some
Speaker 1: guy came in. I think that guy in the bicycle
Speaker 1: there just stole the knapsack. George run, George run. When
Speaker 1: when you did all that at the moment that he
Speaker 1: presents you with the ring, were you both on antidepressants
Speaker 1: at that moment or did you abstain? I was? He
Speaker 1: was off by then. I think the White House really
Speaker 1: took it out of him. But then I was still on,
Speaker 1: definitely still on. And in fact, the funny you should
Speaker 1: bring that up because we went on our honeymoon and
Speaker 1: I decided to self regulate and self medicate, and I
Speaker 1: decided I didn't need antidipressence anymore. I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: you taper off, you know, so I just my cold
Speaker 1: turkey and that was bad because I was naked in
Speaker 1: the fetal position in our bathroom. It was it was
Speaker 1: apocalypse now covered in bird poop. They found you in
Speaker 1: the pond with all the cranes covered in crane plamingo
Speaker 1: leg in my mouth, and I don't know how it happened.
Speaker 1: So I had to get zola FedEx to the Caribbean. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny because in my lifetime, if I've ever taken
Speaker 1: things which were like sleep aids, I've got horrible insomnia.
Speaker 1: And I have all my adult life. I'm thirty five
Speaker 1: years sober. I've been in an A thirty this year
Speaker 1: was thirty. Congratulations, Well thank you. And I always tell
Speaker 1: people that I haven't slept since the day I got sober.
Speaker 1: Once I stopped drinking, I couldn't sleep. So I have
Speaker 1: really really like at times, I have like crippling insomnia,
Speaker 1: Like I sleep like maybe three hours a night, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And the problem with it is
Speaker 1: if I took any kind of drugs and it didn't help,
Speaker 1: I woke up tired and groggy. So I got very,
Speaker 1: very nervous about any kind of medication because God knows,
Speaker 1: if I found one that worked, i'd be I wouldn't
Speaker 1: even be talking to you right now. Bueau. Well, I um,
Speaker 1: I took ambient once I was in l A and
Speaker 1: I come from New York and time difference, blah blah,
Speaker 1: block took ambient, went to the Malibu Mart, that shopping
Speaker 1: center in Malibu, and BT six genes of the exact
Speaker 1: same gene in the exact same size, And I don't
Speaker 1: remember doing it. I also got an email the next
Speaker 1: day from Pottery Barn Kids asking what address did I
Speaker 1: want the Princess canopy bed delivered? Don't remember well. One
Speaker 1: thing I would do when I was in the kind
Speaker 1: of love craft Ian baffles of my insomnia, I'd sit
Speaker 1: there and I'd start to buy things online, like antique
Speaker 1: alarm clocks. I'd I'd be like, you know, I'm like,
Speaker 1: where's this guy in Germany? They probably have better alarm
Speaker 1: clocks in Germany than here. How much does he want
Speaker 1: for the alarm clock? Eight dollars? And I could probably
Speaker 1: get the same thing at a flea market in Syracuse
Speaker 1: for like thirty I don't care, I want it. Do
Speaker 1: you meditate? I do now. I do a lot of
Speaker 1: deep breathing. I do what's called classical breathing, when you
Speaker 1: try to literally fill your lungs up to where you
Speaker 1: almost can feel your lungs at the bottom of your
Speaker 1: chin if you breathe deep enough. And I do this
Speaker 1: very deep breathing meditation thing to sleep, and it does work.
Speaker 1: But one time I take an ambient like I work, work, work, work, work,
Speaker 1: and it gets to be eleven o'clock at night or
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock at night, and I'm like, okay, sleep one
Speaker 1: to three sleep, Simon says, sleep, And I can't sleep.
Speaker 1: So I take the ambient. Nothing happens. I take another one.
Speaker 1: Nothing happened. I take the third one. I think I
Speaker 1: took the third and the fourth one. Then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I'm like, I'm literally living in then and
Speaker 1: I'm watching you know, Jimmy Falloner and and my daughter
Speaker 1: Ireland calls and I think, like, while I'm on the
Speaker 1: phone call she's in California. She was like fourteen, and
Speaker 1: I go, um, so I think maybe tomorrow I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get a ticket. I'm like your your berver raw. I
Speaker 1: go out an Island's going dad, Dad, And I go,
Speaker 1: this is a true story. And I go I'm okay
Speaker 1: until the pound uh to the pound, and I'm playing
Speaker 1: them no I'm like, how in two thousand one they're
Speaker 1: disconnecting care delays, disconnecting my circuits. And the next thing
Speaker 1: you know, I hear bang Nay nick nick name, nick
Speaker 1: name on the service elevator door of my apartment. It's
Speaker 1: three firemen with axes, Oh my god, and an E. M. T.
Speaker 1: Menic and they're like, we got a phone call, Mr
Speaker 1: ball when we're really sorry, we got a call from
Speaker 1: your daughter. You have to put your clothes and come
Speaker 1: with us, sir, right now, to the hospital. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't roll you're joking about, or you a fireman,
Speaker 1: or this is this trigger dreat. You want some guarandy,
Speaker 1: Like I'm so out of it. They take me, make
Speaker 1: me get dressed. I'm in the bathroom, they take me,
Speaker 1: they take me to the hospital and I go, okay.
Speaker 1: I started to stop up very quickly, and I go
Speaker 1: I took one too many ambient because they weren't working.
Speaker 1: They were like, uh huh sure, Mr Ballman, Sure, And
Speaker 1: I never took another one of those fucking things again.
Speaker 1: My daughter called the police because she thought I was odin.
Speaker 1: But good for Ireland to know how to do that.
Speaker 1: I think ambient is dangerous you do. Yes, Yes, people
Speaker 1: have all these crazy ambience stories. I took him away
Speaker 1: from George because he was taking them for a while.
Speaker 1: He only sleeps like four or five hours anyway, because
Speaker 1: of his schedule. Yeah, we go to bed at eight
Speaker 1: and thirty and I go with him. That's love. That's love.
Speaker 1: Now you go to sleep, or you just lay next
Speaker 1: him and you're like on YouTube. No no phones allowed
Speaker 1: in the bed and no TV. You're in bed and
Speaker 1: you're trying to get eight thirty and he's up. What
Speaker 1: time to No? Yeah, he gets up. He reads every
Speaker 1: newspaper and here's here's the thing. We start, just started
Speaker 1: a production company. So he's up at two thirty, not
Speaker 1: only reading all the papers, he's reading scripts, he's reading articles,
Speaker 1: he's doing doing all of it, which he loves. He
Speaker 1: loves this kind of new thing. He's got this deal
Speaker 1: with Hulu and it's all very exciting. So he can't
Speaker 1: sleep because of that. You know, he wants to get
Speaker 1: up and you know, read stuff starring vehicles for Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: So he sleeps, I don't know, five hours. Maybe we
Speaker 1: just were on vacation and you know, he slept in
Speaker 1: because he slept till four, so I never am awake
Speaker 1: when he wakes up in the morning. So I have
Speaker 1: to go to bed with him at night or we're
Speaker 1: not how's the marriage now? What did your family think
Speaker 1: when you married George? They couldn't believe it. My mother
Speaker 1: hysterically cried. I think she wanted to marry him, but
Speaker 1: it was it was okay if I did you know?
Speaker 1: She was beyond excited. I was bringing home comedy writers
Speaker 1: and then I brought home a French director and my
Speaker 1: mother goes, you have an affair with him, you don't
Speaker 1: marry him. So they were beyond thrilled when I married George.
Speaker 1: I mean still they all love him the most. What
Speaker 1: does George want? What does George say? What would George
Speaker 1: want for dinner? There's a lot of that beyond the
Speaker 1: war room, Burgala and Clinton and Carville and your husband,
Speaker 1: beyond all of them. In the promotional lap that you take,
Speaker 1: I am always happy to do Good Morning America, and
Speaker 1: I will say, can I do it with George? Can
Speaker 1: I do my segment with George? Because I'm still admiring
Speaker 1: of him and he did my podcast. I will say
Speaker 1: one thing to this, which is what I love about
Speaker 1: George is he's genuinely curious. It could be anybody. It
Speaker 1: could be Chuck Schumer, it could be Zac Efron. If
Speaker 1: it's not an area that he knows about, he's interested
Speaker 1: to know about. Truly, you know, he doesn't just go oh,
Speaker 1: it's an actor who cares. He's like, all right, I'm interested.
Speaker 1: What is this person? What can I glean from this?
Speaker 1: Which I think is a very interesting trait and a
Speaker 1: great trait. Comedian and author Ali Wentworth. If you're enjoying
Speaker 1: this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. After the break, Ali
Speaker 1: talks about parenting in a pandemic, her social media rules
Speaker 1: for her teenage daughters, and how she learned to be funny.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Ali Wentworth as one of those people everyone friends and
Speaker 1: strangers alike ask for advice. Last year when she got COVID,
Speaker 1: she had the inspiration for her own podcast, Go ask Ali.
Speaker 1: We were you know, everything takes forever in this business,
Speaker 1: So we were talking. I was talking to Shonda land
Speaker 1: about it, and then in the middle of COVID, I
Speaker 1: called them and I said, you know what I had COVID.
Speaker 1: I'm lying here in bed. I have two teenage daughters downstairs.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm ready to do a podcast and it's
Speaker 1: going to be how you grow a teenager in a pandemic.
Speaker 1: And they're like, great, what's been the challenges for you?
Speaker 1: But um, there have been good and bad. You know.
Speaker 1: The girls have anxiety like me and George, so they worry.
Speaker 1: They worry about school and they worry what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And then we're worried about college. Our eldest, Elliott, is
Speaker 1: going to Brown in the fall, but there's no prom.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of that now. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: there's no fomo, so you're not missing anything, but it's
Speaker 1: not natural for two teenage girls to be home with
Speaker 1: their parents for a year and not see anybody. On
Speaker 1: the flip side, in terms of our family, it was
Speaker 1: fantastic to have George have that kind of time with
Speaker 1: his kids. We would have three hour dinners where we
Speaker 1: had amazing discussions. We as a family, we really kind
Speaker 1: of grew and it was fantastic. But it's not good
Speaker 1: for them. I kept saying, like, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want them to go drop Molly or give hand jobs,
Speaker 1: but they should be out kissing boys and you know what,
Speaker 1: having normal teenage experiences they should be living, should be living. Yeah,
Speaker 1: making mistakes of it. And then there's the social media
Speaker 1: part of it, which is, you know, their whole. I
Speaker 1: got sucked into that little social media void which was
Speaker 1: their only contact, their only connection, which you know, I
Speaker 1: have such specific and strong views about social media. Also,
Speaker 1: I don't want my girls to sort of sexualize themselves,
Speaker 1: because there's such a dangled carrot about like get likes
Speaker 1: be sexy, and I'm like, I don't ever want to
Speaker 1: see bikini shots. I don't you know. To me, that's
Speaker 1: a whole you're trying to fill, like be substantial. You
Speaker 1: have two girls, two girls. Yeah, And I said the
Speaker 1: stuff also that you can put on social media colleges,
Speaker 1: everybody looks at that stuff, and that stuff can come
Speaker 1: back to haunt you. So yeah, I've made my mistakes
Speaker 1: on social media because what I realized was I thought
Speaker 1: to myself, oh, this is my chance to bypass the
Speaker 1: mainstream media and talk directly to my fans. After about
Speaker 1: a year and a half, I thought maybe I would
Speaker 1: like to have a little membrane between me and my fans.
Speaker 1: Lauren Michaels had a great line. He said, you know,
Speaker 1: he said, you know YouTube the logo is broadcast yourself,
Speaker 1: he said, And one thing we've learned is maybe it's
Speaker 1: nice to have a layer of producers and executives between
Speaker 1: you and the camera and you and you're broadcasting yourself.
Speaker 1: And to a large degree, he's right. Elliott is going
Speaker 1: to Brown. And the other one is how old she's fifteen?
Speaker 1: She's a sophomore. And let me tell you something. She's
Speaker 1: an amazing babysitter, Like she is a baby. I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: She's a baby whisperer. She'll take all seventy four of
Speaker 1: your kids at one time. What do you think it
Speaker 1: is that? For me? When I was young, I would
Speaker 1: watch TV. You had to watch TV and had to
Speaker 1: really watch it. There was no pause, nor rewind, no VCR,
Speaker 1: no nothing, Szippo network, TV, broadcast TV. So you watched
Speaker 1: and you become funny by absorbing what's funny from other people.
Speaker 1: And I'd watch anything. I'd watch Bob Hope of your
Speaker 1: name it how was that in your life? Like, what
Speaker 1: was media like in your childhood? Well, we were only
Speaker 1: allowed to watch one hour of television a week, that
Speaker 1: was the rule. But I had divorced parents, so when
Speaker 1: I went to see my dad on the weekend, his
Speaker 1: second wife hated the fact that he had kids from
Speaker 1: a former marriage. So she would put me in front
Speaker 1: of the TV with one of those heat up TV
Speaker 1: trays and I would watch Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett, I
Speaker 1: would watch that whole Friday lineup. And that's exactly where
Speaker 1: I learned, Oh, that's funny if you wear the curtain
Speaker 1: rod on this show, that's funny. That's funny. And it's
Speaker 1: instinctual too, because I remember once I had a meeting
Speaker 1: with Jodie Foster and she said to me, did you
Speaker 1: take classes for comedy? I said, it, never took classes.
Speaker 1: I was part of the groundlings when I moved to
Speaker 1: l A And she goes, that's because it's instinctual. You
Speaker 1: cannot teach it, And she's right, it is instinctual, and
Speaker 1: that watching Carol Burnett was an instinctual kind of osmosis
Speaker 1: for me. What I think is interesting about you is
Speaker 1: that I've worked with people who their actors by and large,
Speaker 1: and the concentration is comedy. They're comic actors who themselves
Speaker 1: are not that funny off the set. They don't think
Speaker 1: of funny things, they don't say funny things. Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 1: And you, yourself are funny. You're funny whether you're whatever
Speaker 1: the writing is, whatever the situation is. And you're saying
Speaker 1: that that came from just osmosis. And then you learn
Speaker 1: over the years, you learn, oh, this makes people laugh.
Speaker 1: When I was a teenager, I was fat because I
Speaker 1: went to Spain and I ate as much as I could,
Speaker 1: and my mother walked by me in the airport, looked
Speaker 1: at me right in the eye and kept walking, didn't
Speaker 1: knows me. You went to Spain when you were a teenager, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I went for four months. I love Spain and I
Speaker 1: loved the country, the people, the language. And I went
Speaker 1: to live with a family who were obese, and they
Speaker 1: ate like they ate like six meals a day, like
Speaker 1: potatoes and oil sangria, and they fed me like a
Speaker 1: fog walk goose. They just shoved food in my mouth.
Speaker 1: I gained forty pounds and I couldn't be happier. I
Speaker 1: even broke a chicken's neck, you know, the whole thing.
Speaker 1: So I came back and I was fat. And listen,
Speaker 1: when you're fat in high school, you go all right,
Speaker 1: so I'm not. No one wants to hook up with me,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to find a different route. So I
Speaker 1: was funny, And what ages you were? You were overweight
Speaker 1: between what years of your life? Uh, sophomore year in
Speaker 1: high school till sophomore year in college. So not that
Speaker 1: long five the most formidable years, critical years. But I
Speaker 1: still got the guy. But that's all about again, like
Speaker 1: honing that comedy thing. And you have an audience of
Speaker 1: people at a party or hanging out, and that's where
Speaker 1: you learn it. You know, you've learned very quickly what
Speaker 1: gets a laugh what doesn't. In same with stories. The
Speaker 1: reason I would go do the Tonight Show all the
Speaker 1: time is because I had already rehearsed those stories at
Speaker 1: a dinner party and so I knew they worked. So
Speaker 1: if I got a call, you know, even today when
Speaker 1: I go do a talk show, I go, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: it was really funny? Was that thing that George and
Speaker 1: I just did? And I remember telling my kids that
Speaker 1: and they were laughing, really hard. I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: that story. So that's why you do. It's like the
Speaker 1: little metal box your mother had in the kitchen with
Speaker 1: recipes where the index cards went and yours. This is
Speaker 1: your brain. You have a file with all those stories.
Speaker 1: You tell. How did you lose weight? It fell off naturally.
Speaker 1: It just it wasn't supposed to be. It fell off naturally.
Speaker 1: She reversed. But you know, I have only had one
Speaker 1: scene where I was scantily clothed. I never had a
Speaker 1: career where I worried about that feeling of oh, I'm
Speaker 1: going to do this film. I gotta get in shape,
Speaker 1: I gotta work out. Never Now you have a cadre
Speaker 1: of show business chicks that are your great but I have.
Speaker 1: I have a little posse. You guys have your own
Speaker 1: little club. Yeah you have a posse, Yeah I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Mariska Brooke Shields dead Messing dead messing. Yeah. When she's
Speaker 1: in town. I mean, Marska and I during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: we kind of quarantined together like our families. So I
Speaker 1: saw her a lot during the pandemic, too much. And
Speaker 1: so you know, some of the other girls I haven't
Speaker 1: really seen as much. Brook. I have but you know,
Speaker 1: now that things are opening up and people are getting vaccinated,
Speaker 1: we can be a full on girl power group. What
Speaker 1: do you watch? Name two or three things you watched
Speaker 1: drama or come that you really really thought were special.
Speaker 1: Because I respect your opinion a lot. I watched Lupin
Speaker 1: on Netflix. Okay, you say it like, oh, like everyone
Speaker 1: knows Lupe. I'm sorry. I thought, well, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: didn't go to boarding school. What is Lupin? No, these
Speaker 1: people in my literary soire and I watched Lupin and
Speaker 1: Lupin is fantastic. It's this incredibly dynamic, handsome black guy
Speaker 1: who's a thief and whose father was set up to
Speaker 1: seem like he was. He was like a butler that
Speaker 1: he stole a diamond necklace from a made off type
Speaker 1: guy and went to jail and killed himself in jail,
Speaker 1: and the sun becomes this international thief and seeks revenge
Speaker 1: by stealing this necklace at Southeby's. Anyway, It's it's a
Speaker 1: cat and mouth great show. Um. I watched The Promising
Speaker 1: Young Woman. I thought that was a great movie. Streaming movie. Oh,
Speaker 1: call my agent, you would love it, Alec. It's just
Speaker 1: like Nightcap. It's about a dysfunctional agents in Paris. They're
Speaker 1: always pandering to their clients in French with subtitles, with subtitles, Yes,
Speaker 1: tell me what you've been watching besides Nickelodeon, right, besides
Speaker 1: a lot of Powerpuff Girls. I sent him an email
Speaker 1: to Owen Wilson and I said, Owen, I said, my god,
Speaker 1: these cars movies. I said, you are such a part
Speaker 1: of my kids, child, You're such a part of my life.
Speaker 1: We've watched these fucking movies. We've watched each of the
Speaker 1: three movies a hundred times each. And I can't tell
Speaker 1: you how fabulous you are. And this you're so great
Speaker 1: these movies means so they have every cars, every Lightning McQueen, bedsheets,
Speaker 1: bath towel, slippers, every fucking thing. And he writes me
Speaker 1: back and she's like, oh the great great, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Lightning McQueen was so good for me too. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Disney Plus, it's like the Eternal Flame at Arlington. It's
Speaker 1: on in my house twenty for hours a day. Disney plus.
Speaker 1: But for me, because the Hampton's International Film Festival is coming,
Speaker 1: I watch a lot of docks. I watch a lot
Speaker 1: of dogs, a lot and there's one that came on
Speaker 1: that was really fun if you can, because we look
Speaker 1: for like a mix of something serious and topical or biographical.
Speaker 1: You know when Susan Lacy did the bio of Jane Fonda.
Speaker 1: I love that movie, Loved, Loved, and I'm really well done.
Speaker 1: But there's one called Lily Topples the World and it's
Speaker 1: about a woman who's the dominoes champion. She's the Chululi
Speaker 1: of dominoes. She does arrangements that all radiate out into
Speaker 1: patterns that are like Georgia o'keeith painting results from her
Speaker 1: tapping one thing. You can't believe this school, this young woman,
Speaker 1: what she does. Let me tell you something, You're still
Speaker 1: one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life.
Speaker 1: I gotta part for you, all right. What do I
Speaker 1: gotta do? I hope there's nudity. There is no nudity.
Speaker 1: Thank you for doing this with us, Alex, thank you,
Speaker 1: My love to you, My love to you. Actor, comedian
Speaker 1: and author Ali went Earth. I'm Alec Baldwin and this
Speaker 1: is Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio. We're produced
Speaker 1: by Kathleen Russo, Carrie Donohue and Zach McNeice. Our engineer
Speaker 1: is Frank Imperial. Thanks for listening.