Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Brooke Shields. I am fifty seven years old
Speaker 1: and I've been in the public eye for fifty six years.
Speaker 1: What can I say? I was ambitious out of the womb.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this podcast, you probably already know
Speaker 1: a little bit about me. I started modeling when I
Speaker 1: was eleven months old, and by the time I was
Speaker 1: eleven years old, was starring in the film Pretty Baby.
Speaker 1: And basically from that point on, I became a catalyst
Speaker 1: for controversy. I gave young love bad tan lines in
Speaker 1: Blue Lagoon, gave frieda calo or run for her money.
Speaker 1: I even gave Barbie a boot job. Yeah that is right.
Speaker 1: My mother insisted that the brook doll be flat chested.
Speaker 1: And let's not forget I became the most shocking thing
Speaker 1: ever to happen to Denham. I eventually traded my Calvins
Speaker 1: for a cape and lost my much talked about virginity
Speaker 1: to Superman. Oh and I got a French degree from
Speaker 1: at Rutger's. If you don't believe me, just google my grades.
Speaker 1: They were published in Life magazine. For the record, none
Speaker 1: of this is how I see myself. I am an actress,
Speaker 1: a writer, a wife, and a mother to two incredible
Speaker 1: young women. I recently started my own company, Beginning is Now,
Speaker 1: and I have spent years building a life and a
Speaker 1: brand that I am really proud of. And now I'm
Speaker 1: joining a long line of celebrities fighting for space inside
Speaker 1: your headphones. I'm starting a podcast, Why You Ask, Will
Speaker 1: because I'm actually really interested in other people's stories, specifically
Speaker 1: the stories about pivotal moments in their lives, setbacks, and
Speaker 1: all the times that life doesn't go according to plan.
Speaker 1: I call them now what moments. We all have them,
Speaker 1: but we rarely talk about them. For me, I was
Speaker 1: losing my best friend to suicide, leaving my first marriage,
Speaker 1: and walking away from a big job opportunity because it
Speaker 1: just didn't feel right. Recently, though, I suffered a life
Speaker 1: threatening injury that left me hospitalized for a month, wondering
Speaker 1: if I'd ever walk again. During that time, I couldn't
Speaker 1: do much except think think about what else I wanted
Speaker 1: from my life, and one of those things was this podcast.
Speaker 1: Each week, I'll sit down with a guest to talk
Speaker 1: about the times that they were knocked off course and
Speaker 1: what did they do to move forward. Some stories are funny,
Speaker 1: others are gut wrenching, but all are a part of
Speaker 1: the human experience and what we do in the face
Speaker 1: of adversity says so much about who we are. I'm
Speaker 1: Brookshields and this is now what I want to thank
Speaker 1: you so much. It's a pleasure. You're my I'm your first,
Speaker 1: You're my first. Okay, wow, I feel really privileged. I'll
Speaker 1: try and make it painless. That voice she just heard
Speaker 1: is award winning actress Julianna Markilles. We met back in
Speaker 1: the nineties, often crossing paths on the Warner Brothers lot
Speaker 1: during our must see TV days. Like many of you,
Speaker 1: I was a huge fan of Nurse Carol Hathaway, the
Speaker 1: character she played for six years on e ER. In
Speaker 1: the decades since, Julianna has done it all, including an
Speaker 1: award winning turn as Alicia Floraic and The Good Wife,
Speaker 1: and more recently as journalist Laura Peterson on Apple TVs
Speaker 1: The Morning Show. She is also a wonderful mom to
Speaker 1: a teenage son, a wife, and, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: a very very good writer. Her memoir, Sunshine Girl and
Speaker 1: Unexpected Life was one I could not put down, mainly
Speaker 1: because her story is so incredible. The youngest child of
Speaker 1: divorced parents. Julianna was raised all over the world. Her
Speaker 1: dad was an advertising executive in New York City, and
Speaker 1: her mom was a movement teacher and a true bohemian
Speaker 1: whose career and romantic relationships forced Julianna and her sister
Speaker 1: to move constantly. It's a kind of instability that can
Speaker 1: prove disastrous for a kid, but Julianna managed to adapt
Speaker 1: and with a lot of hard work and what she
Speaker 1: says is a little luck, she has built an incredible
Speaker 1: life for herself. I admire her resilience, her talent, and
Speaker 1: I think her ability to forgive and move forward is
Speaker 1: something that we can all learn from. So, without further ado,
Speaker 1: here is Julianna Marcules. It was a fun I have
Speaker 1: um a George A George moment and you'll appreciate this.
Speaker 1: Our good friend, my best friend, David. You guys were
Speaker 1: all having lunch and we were there. I think it
Speaker 1: was a tape day, and so he said, hey, bro,
Speaker 1: George Clooney is was walking this way. He's walking out.
Speaker 1: He goes say hi to him. So I was like,
Speaker 1: really really, and he goes, yeah, yeah, stay hi to him.
Speaker 1: So I stood in the middle of the path to
Speaker 1: sort of obstruct his way out the door, and as
Speaker 1: he came up to me to have to pass me,
Speaker 1: I didn't have any words to come out of my mouth,
Speaker 1: so I just looked at him and I went two
Speaker 1: thumbs up. And David was like, you are such a
Speaker 1: geeky nerd. He's like, I can't believe all you could
Speaker 1: manage was getting two thumbs up like an idiot. Did
Speaker 1: he have a reaction though to that? He would have
Speaker 1: had a sweet reaction. I'm sure he was just sweet.
Speaker 1: He just kind of like sort of nodded like, oh
Speaker 1: your porthe but it was but no, I bet you
Speaker 1: it was like, oh my god, Brookshields just gave me
Speaker 1: a thumbs up, not not not just one, but two.
Speaker 1: And then I remember we did we play trades at
Speaker 1: your house? Yeah, and we played game night. This is
Speaker 1: all pre children, when you had time to set up
Speaker 1: those kind of game nights, so serious about it running
Speaker 1: and your game player you were well, And we'll get
Speaker 1: to that too, because I think you're I feel a
Speaker 1: little perfectionist in there um and competitive for sure. And
Speaker 1: I remember my first experience with game night at your
Speaker 1: right perhaps that I thought I don't think I'm going
Speaker 1: to survive this. I really don't think I'm going to
Speaker 1: survive this. I can't. I can't handle it. There's too
Speaker 1: much competition in the world and they're gonna think I'm stupid.
Speaker 1: And you guys were all such good actors too, and
Speaker 1: it was just but it was I felt so excited
Speaker 1: that you had invited me, and I know it was
Speaker 1: through David, but he was like, you guys are gonna
Speaker 1: really like each other, and uh, I think, um, I
Speaker 1: didn't spend enough time with you, and was so happy
Speaker 1: now that we're able to reconnect or even maybe really
Speaker 1: connect in the first place. Me too. And I have
Speaker 1: to tell you broke when you know, I'm very new
Speaker 1: to Instagram and you were going through your leg trauma,
Speaker 1: your femur. Right you broke your femur. I followed you
Speaker 1: every day. I would d M you. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what that really was, but I was with you every
Speaker 1: step of the way, and it just was remarkable to
Speaker 1: watch you recover from that. What a hard time you
Speaker 1: went through. You know, it was the biggest shock I
Speaker 1: think of my life to have to go through something
Speaker 1: like that all by myself in a hospital for a month,
Speaker 1: and I made it a real experience, you know. I
Speaker 1: I sort of delved into the people that I would
Speaker 1: see every day, like the nurse practitioner or the man
Speaker 1: that came in and cleaned, you know, he would sort
Speaker 1: of empty the garbage. And they had just told me
Speaker 1: I had a staff infection and then didn't know what
Speaker 1: it was. And he saw my face and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: he said, may I, May I just do something? And
Speaker 1: I you know, and then you're kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: I can't run, can I um? And he sang Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson's Smile acapella at the foot of my bed, and
Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, this is a horrendous experience.
Speaker 1: But there are angels around us all the time, and
Speaker 1: and that's what I was able to grab onto that
Speaker 1: and make all those little mini experiences booing me And
Speaker 1: what I could control was learning how to walk. So
Speaker 1: that became my focus. Well, and you did it beautifully
Speaker 1: because you really took us through your journey, like I
Speaker 1: felt like I was in rehab with you. Well, it
Speaker 1: wasn't a poor me way of doing it. I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that people understood how much were capable of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it didn't come off as as poor MEA came
Speaker 1: off as a warrior, right, which is sort of what
Speaker 1: we women have to be now, especially well especially now
Speaker 1: of warriors. But I think that I find that to
Speaker 1: be a part of who you always were, because in
Speaker 1: reading your book, you adapted, you shifted, I mean the
Speaker 1: number of the sheer number of times that you had
Speaker 1: to start over. Can you tell our listeners a little
Speaker 1: bit about the sort of I call it a beautiful
Speaker 1: difference between the two full lives that you grew up
Speaker 1: living within your father's house, your mother's house. Your parents
Speaker 1: divorced when you were a year a year old old.
Speaker 1: My parents divorced when I was five months old. Oh
Speaker 1: you beat me, peacher by a couple of months. But
Speaker 1: I noticed that approval was always really important. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you wanted it from your dad as well as your mom.
Speaker 1: But differently, I wanted it more from my father because
Speaker 1: my mother didn't show me a life that I wanted
Speaker 1: to exemplify. And and you know, I have a great
Speaker 1: relationship with my mother and I and I take good
Speaker 1: care of her and we're good, but she was so
Speaker 1: out there and such a narcissist. Her needs came first
Speaker 1: that that I didn't really need her approval, and also
Speaker 1: she gave it to me every day, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: even with all her crazy, I still was sitting on
Speaker 1: her lap literally after dinner every night until I was fourteen.
Speaker 1: But I didn't need her approval because I felt a
Speaker 1: pretty young age that I had already surpassed her level.
Speaker 1: Her bar was so low. How did you know that
Speaker 1: as a little girl? You knew this so innately. I
Speaker 1: think it's because my father, who was very highbrow, deep intellectual,
Speaker 1: and very well regarded um in his business. And you know,
Speaker 1: he had gone to an Ivy League school, and he
Speaker 1: was from a very very prominent Jewish family in Riverdale.
Speaker 1: You know, he was to me, he was sort of
Speaker 1: what I aspired to be. I mean, it's why I act.
Speaker 1: I think I was always watching people's behavior from the
Speaker 1: age of five. What are people feeling? How are they behaving?
Speaker 1: Then I knew how to act, but I never thought
Speaker 1: what am I How am I behaving? How am I feeling?
Speaker 1: It was always what are they feeling? Then I'll be
Speaker 1: able to incorporate myself into their world. And so with
Speaker 1: my dad, I think I wanted his approval because to me,
Speaker 1: he was the more upstanding citizen. And also I saw
Speaker 1: how much she disapproved of my mom. But then you
Speaker 1: still you didn't want to speak ill of your mother
Speaker 1: because you didn't want him to think even less of
Speaker 1: her choices. Yeah. It wasn't until the twenty one year
Speaker 1: old boyfriend who moved into our house when I was fifteen,
Speaker 1: and I remember what my father said, and it really
Speaker 1: freaked me out. He said, well, this just put the
Speaker 1: nail in the coffin, and I remember thinking, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's over. He'll never think well of her now, because
Speaker 1: I thought because I lived with her that he assumed
Speaker 1: I was bad too, that my behavior was bad because
Speaker 1: I chose to live with her. So it was I
Speaker 1: was very conflicted. You know. Finally, when I was forty
Speaker 1: and pregnant, I confronted him because I always blame my
Speaker 1: mother for everything, and then I thought, I have this
Speaker 1: little baby. Would I ever allow my child to be
Speaker 1: in such an unstable home? And the mothers get blamed
Speaker 1: for everything, what about the dad's And I had never
Speaker 1: confronted him to say, like, wait a minute, Mr Perfect,
Speaker 1: where were you? You could have said no, you were
Speaker 1: the one giving her alimony, you were the one paying
Speaker 1: child support. Why didn't you come and get us. Why
Speaker 1: didn't you say to her, no, you're not slipping the
Speaker 1: girls to England again, And you're not, you know, living
Speaker 1: with a twenty one year old. If you choose to
Speaker 1: have a twenty one year old live in your house,
Speaker 1: which I pay for, that's it. I'm taking my girls away.
Speaker 1: I'm taking them away, you know. And then I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel lucky because I know that both my parents
Speaker 1: are sort of well, my dad's passed away now, but
Speaker 1: both were very spiritually awake in that they could look
Speaker 1: at their own flaws, and I think that's hard for
Speaker 1: our generation of parents. I think when I was finally
Speaker 1: able to confront my father and we had been in
Speaker 1: such a good place, I think it was such a
Speaker 1: shock to him to hear, and I think he was
Speaker 1: able to actually look at his own his own action,
Speaker 1: his own inaction, I should say, in my childhood. And
Speaker 1: the second I got my apologies from both of them,
Speaker 1: I I left that baggage in the old room. I
Speaker 1: don't go there anymore because I don't. It doesn't interest me.
Speaker 1: I don't want to live there. I want to live
Speaker 1: in what we can have now. I'm also amazed at
Speaker 1: where your name came from. Sunshine Girl, and that was
Speaker 1: given to you by your mom, and you said that
Speaker 1: that's who you were, that's who you were for everybody.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the reason um that my mom
Speaker 1: named me Sunshine girl because she said I was the
Speaker 1: easy baby. I'm the youngest of three and I was
Speaker 1: just and I never cried and I brought sunshine into
Speaker 1: a room. And that's all sweet and good, right, But
Speaker 1: it's a huge responsibility for a child. It means that
Speaker 1: you never get to complain or say this doesn't feel good,
Speaker 1: or I'm scared, or I don't want to move again.
Speaker 1: And you know, but I think my mother thought she
Speaker 1: was blessing me with that name. But for me as
Speaker 1: an once I became a woman, a young woman, and
Speaker 1: was living life on my own without that comfort of
Speaker 1: a loving parent around, I didn't really know how to
Speaker 1: function without just being the Sunshine Girl. I didn't know
Speaker 1: how to draw the line for myself or boundaries for myself.
Speaker 1: I just thought I always had to figure it out
Speaker 1: how to be in someone else's space, how to be
Speaker 1: in someone else's mood, how to tiptoe around something that
Speaker 1: looked bad but that I could fix it. I always
Speaker 1: thought I could fix everything. And then in the end,
Speaker 1: as an adult, especially once I started having mature relationships,
Speaker 1: I started realizing, when I got to thirty five, I'm
Speaker 1: not happy. Why am I doing this song and dance
Speaker 1: to make everyone else happy if I'm not happy? And
Speaker 1: therefore is it really being a sunshine girl? Or am
Speaker 1: I just being scared not to say what I need?
Speaker 1: And it's a strange way to go out into the
Speaker 1: world with these labels that you haven't given your self right,
Speaker 1: someone else has given you that and you're trying to
Speaker 1: live on their terms. I think your upbringing was extraordinary
Speaker 1: because I think it helped reveal you. You know, it
Speaker 1: gave you culture, It gave you languages, it gave you travel,
Speaker 1: it gave you different friendships, It gave you it also
Speaker 1: uprooted you. And you never knew when what was going
Speaker 1: to happen and when you were gonna have to move again.
Speaker 1: And I mean I identify with that because I my
Speaker 1: dad was very upper crust as well, went to an
Speaker 1: Ivy League school and just a very very different, different life.
Speaker 1: And my mom was completely bohemian, completely like abroad, and
Speaker 1: you know, she put me in this industry, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't miserable in it. But when I look back, her
Speaker 1: lack of self esteem and her alcoholism that kept me
Speaker 1: absolutely tether. You must have felt very responsible for her behavior,
Speaker 1: completely response to any child of an addict, keep her
Speaker 1: alive and stick up for her in the press, because
Speaker 1: they were always just trying to obliterate her. And and
Speaker 1: I look back now and I see why. You know,
Speaker 1: we're all going to want approval. I morphed into whatever
Speaker 1: was necessary for the environment because all my life people
Speaker 1: have wanted something from me. So I'm eating when i'm
Speaker 1: in you know, I'm sixteen, right, and and somebody wants
Speaker 1: my autograph, and my mother would say, wait till she's
Speaker 1: finished eating. So then I'm sitting there tortured, feeling like
Speaker 1: they're waiting. They're getting impatience and you can't enjoy your food.
Speaker 1: And sometimes they'd be like, yeah, but I'm leaving now,
Speaker 1: and my mother would say, well, that's your problem. She's
Speaker 1: eating now. And then if they left, that meant they
Speaker 1: really didn't care about me. If they stayed, I was tortured.
Speaker 1: And so it's sort of like the whole recognition thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm interested in how your whole trajectory to
Speaker 1: being an actress is because you were working so hard,
Speaker 1: and I don't think people realize what it's like to
Speaker 1: be on a procedural basically an our show. The hours
Speaker 1: and days that you're working and then just to have
Speaker 1: to study and learn for the next day. There's no
Speaker 1: you don't even know you're famous. Yeah, it was such
Speaker 1: a shock to me when I had my first moment
Speaker 1: outside of the studio and sort of in the real world,
Speaker 1: to think that anyone I knew who I was. Also,
Speaker 1: because I learned really early, Er was such a great
Speaker 1: training ground for an actor because Hathaway was a little
Speaker 1: bit of a um. You know, you meet her and
Speaker 1: she's the first time you meet her, she tries to
Speaker 1: commit suicide, so she was a dark She went to
Speaker 1: some dark places. And I realized early on that if
Speaker 1: I didn't leave her outside my home when I got
Speaker 1: home from work, I wouldn't survive. I couldn't be city.
Speaker 1: So if I had a really heavy scene, I would
Speaker 1: just drive around on the four or five for a
Speaker 1: while until I and listen to music until I could
Speaker 1: let it go before I would walk in my door.
Speaker 1: Because I just didn't want to bring it into my
Speaker 1: own personal space. Once I got to the good wife
Speaker 1: and I had a family to come home to every night,
Speaker 1: I put my key in the door and go leave
Speaker 1: her outside, leave her outside, and I would just strip down,
Speaker 1: take a breath, walk in, and then be mom and wife.
Speaker 1: But you know, I used to struggle with that because
Speaker 1: I used to think, well, if I'm not angst written
Speaker 1: and granted, comedy as my my home, my happy place.
Speaker 1: But I always wondered because most of the actresses that
Speaker 1: I have met, and I don't have very many friends
Speaker 1: who are actresses, but the ones that were tortured, I
Speaker 1: would put on this pedestal and I think that's really acting.
Speaker 1: That's they get it, you know. And and look at
Speaker 1: there such a thespian and there's and so I always
Speaker 1: put myself down. Yeah, and it's so interesting to hear
Speaker 1: you say that, because the struggle is real, but you
Speaker 1: realized for your own self, sanity, sanity, that you needed
Speaker 1: to draw the line so that you could actually do
Speaker 1: your job absolutely. And also, you know, I I, until
Speaker 1: I met my husband, I really only dated actors. And
Speaker 1: I remember I dated this actor who will remain nameless
Speaker 1: and I said, your moves are nuts, like you are,
Speaker 1: you are nuts, and he was like, but this is
Speaker 1: what makes me such a great actor. And I remember
Speaker 1: having such a bullshit meter on that, being like even
Speaker 1: just to say that seriously, so you're gonna treat me
Speaker 1: like a piece of ship because you're about to go
Speaker 1: off and do a part Like, No, that's actually not
Speaker 1: how we live life. And once I married someone outside
Speaker 1: of the business, and I would come home sometimes with
Speaker 1: stories of some actors who just behaved really badly on set,
Speaker 1: and he would he would go, if I ever walked
Speaker 1: into my office and through a tantrum, because you know
Speaker 1: that doesn't happened like it. If it happened, you're fired. Like,
Speaker 1: you don't get to do that in the real world.
Speaker 1: Only your industry gets to do that. That's ridiculous. Although
Speaker 1: now I think less and less, but I think it's
Speaker 1: less and less, and I think because that that behavior
Speaker 1: is not getting rewarded the way it used to. And
Speaker 1: I think that the business has changed increminentally. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think now everyone has a camera on you, So
Speaker 1: I think people that I'm sure the people that I
Speaker 1: experienced bad behavior with now probably would know that someone
Speaker 1: was probably filming them and then putting it on TikTok
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know. I don't even know really
Speaker 1: what TikTok is, to be honest with you, but I
Speaker 1: mean that's my podcasts. Yeah, that's another podcast. My teenage
Speaker 1: girls are like, you've got to get a better TikTok presence,
Speaker 1: and I was like, ah no, I don't. Let's go
Speaker 1: back to your day's doing e er. Practically overnight the
Speaker 1: tone changes. You're you're famous, you're winning these awards, and
Speaker 1: by all appearances, everything is just fine. But all the
Speaker 1: while you're in this relationship, which already had lasted for
Speaker 1: more than a decade. I mean, you you say it's
Speaker 1: unhealthy at best. How do you come to that conclusion?
Speaker 1: Like what do you think that was? Like? What made
Speaker 1: you decide like this is not working for me right?
Speaker 1: Which I finally figured it out when I finally extracted
Speaker 1: myself from that relationship and went to therapy to figure
Speaker 1: out what I was doing. I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: my mother. My mother went through so many boyfriends. It
Speaker 1: was just a revolving door of boyfriends. And I have
Speaker 1: it in one of my I wrote journals since I
Speaker 1: was you know, since I could write. Probably then kept
Speaker 1: the journals and I went back and painfully read all
Speaker 1: of them when I was writing the book, and I wrote,
Speaker 1: I think when I was nine, I'm never going to
Speaker 1: be like her. So as an adult, I think in
Speaker 1: my brain I thought, stick it out, kid, because you
Speaker 1: can't be that. You can't be the one going from
Speaker 1: man to man to man. Instead, it was like, stick
Speaker 1: out a long relationship and be miserable, not to be
Speaker 1: your mother. Be miserable. But honestly, I think I was
Speaker 1: really afraid that if I left the relationship, I would
Speaker 1: be much more like her, and I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do that. What are the parts from her or the
Speaker 1: life that she sort of forced you to live that
Speaker 1: you would want to retain. That's a great question, and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. She taught me to be fiercely independent,
Speaker 1: just by circumstance. You know. She was really out there
Speaker 1: and definitely thought of herself first. But she loved me
Speaker 1: fiercely and told me always, honey, you can do whatever
Speaker 1: you set your mind to it. You know, we had
Speaker 1: our fair share of fights and all that, but who
Speaker 1: doesn't with their mom. But she always champed and me.
Speaker 1: She was like you know the world's your oyster. My
Speaker 1: dad used to say it to me too, But you
Speaker 1: were able to follow your heart. And maybe somewhere in
Speaker 1: there your mom did teach you that. Absolutely, they both did.
Speaker 1: They both did. They both always said, you know, happiness
Speaker 1: is from within. It's not about objects or things. Listen.
Speaker 1: I really do love having money. I love that I
Speaker 1: can pay to take really good care of my mom
Speaker 1: now that she's an assisted living I love that, you know,
Speaker 1: I love all of that stuff. But it could all
Speaker 1: go away tomorrow. In the back of my head, I
Speaker 1: always think, whenever I'm at a restaurant, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's a good waitress. Yeah, I'd be that good. I
Speaker 1: could survive. You could take all of this away, and
Speaker 1: I know how to work. She taught you, though, to
Speaker 1: be there for yourself. She did, even though it came
Speaker 1: at a sort of side door roundabout white you. And
Speaker 1: and it's true. And I still hear her, you know,
Speaker 1: in the morning, after I brushed my teeth, I still
Speaker 1: hear my mother in my head, Honey, after you brush
Speaker 1: your teeth or wash your face, just take a tissue
Speaker 1: and wipe around the ink. And literally every morning, that's
Speaker 1: what I do and I hear her in my hand. God,
Speaker 1: now I'm going to think that. You know that now
Speaker 1: whenever I brush my teeth and to think about you
Speaker 1: and your mother, it's just that thing, you know what
Speaker 1: We're like. My dad always saying to me, honey, always
Speaker 1: flost your teeth. Just don't make the same mistakes I did.
Speaker 1: Floster feet, and literally every night I'm floster with him, like,
Speaker 1: thanks thanks that, Thanks God, thanks Dad. Most of the
Speaker 1: things that my mother said to me were just made up,
Speaker 1: but she would say them with such conviction. I mean,
Speaker 1: my mother was quote unquote teaching me how to swim,
Speaker 1: and she teaching me to dive. And I dive off
Speaker 1: and I come up and I go, how did I do?
Speaker 1: How did I do? How did I do? And she said,
Speaker 1: you know, she gave me instructions. You know, keep your
Speaker 1: toes pointed, think to the other end of the pool,
Speaker 1: don't think down, think forward, think ahead, and I'd gotta
Speaker 1: do it again, and I'd want to approval. And she
Speaker 1: never learned how to swim. Your mom didn't couldn't swim. No,
Speaker 1: oh my god, she couldn't whim. And it was a shoe.
Speaker 1: And she taught you how to swim. She made me
Speaker 1: think she knew how to swim. So I'm diving in
Speaker 1: the water with thinking the power of conviction. There you go.
Speaker 1: You know the stories I could go into about and
Speaker 1: she I believed these things. I believe them. So at
Speaker 1: least your parents gave you some good, good advice. They
Speaker 1: gave me a lot of good to the point where,
Speaker 1: you know, I say, I'm so nervous about like swaddling
Speaker 1: my child too much. You know, when I realized at
Speaker 1: seven he couldn't tie his own shoes because I've been
Speaker 1: tying them for him, and realized that struggling is really good.
Speaker 1: It builds character, it builds resilience. It's important for kids
Speaker 1: to struggle. Our children are a little too pampered. Everything's
Speaker 1: at their fingertips. Everything happened so fast, and there's something
Speaker 1: to be said about the struggle. And I don't want
Speaker 1: to take that away from him. Ever. I think it's important,
Speaker 1: and I think it's important for parents to to apologize
Speaker 1: to their parents, to their children. When parents can say
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you know what I was wrong, it allows
Speaker 1: the child to learn how to apologize in life well.
Speaker 1: And also it allows you to be human, you know,
Speaker 1: and I don't think we're taught that our parents are human.
Speaker 1: You know, we want them to be you know, we
Speaker 1: want them to be superhuman and we and and that's
Speaker 1: you know, as a mom now I often say I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but I failed to. It's a fine balance between being
Speaker 1: a safety net for your child they always know you're
Speaker 1: going to be there, but also feel free to fly, right,
Speaker 1: you know. And I never was free to fly. But
Speaker 1: you were very different. I mean, your circumstance was not
Speaker 1: so because you didn't have a childhood. You had a
Speaker 1: work hood. My real salvation and place was college. I
Speaker 1: mean that was the first time I was completely on
Speaker 1: my own, in my own world and I found out
Speaker 1: who I was. But when I was on a movie set,
Speaker 1: I was so happy. You felt like your home because
Speaker 1: there were rules, there were times, and in a weird, weird,
Speaker 1: kind of twisted way, I think it saved me from
Speaker 1: a lot. Can I get personal? Yes, absolutely. So. Did
Speaker 1: you go to therapy like when you had to sort
Speaker 1: of figure out and sort of cut the ties from
Speaker 1: your mom? No, I didn't go to therapy at all.
Speaker 1: I did it all of course. I went to therapy.
Speaker 1: My god, and was she what was your relationship as
Speaker 1: a healed adult with her. Once you did, I think
Speaker 1: I was healing till the day she died. And I
Speaker 1: think she had to die before a whole part of
Speaker 1: me could actually emerge in a different way. But I
Speaker 1: was blessed enough to on my own in college start
Speaker 1: going to therapy and bounced around owned a little bit.
Speaker 1: You know, you kind of have to date, yeah, and
Speaker 1: and you know, sometimes they tried to be cute and
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, that's not gonna work for me.
Speaker 1: I was lucky enough right out of college to find
Speaker 1: an extraordinary therapist for me, and I'm still going to her. Wow,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's amazing. And the first thing I
Speaker 1: said to her and she brings us up to me,
Speaker 1: she said, she'll never forget it. You sat in my
Speaker 1: office for the first time and you said, I'm afraid
Speaker 1: if my mother dies, I will die too. And that
Speaker 1: was the first session. And obviously we delved into all
Speaker 1: of it. And I was lucky enough too. In my
Speaker 1: first marriage. He helped me separate from my mother financially
Speaker 1: and logistically, and I wouldn't have been able to do
Speaker 1: it without him, and he did it with love. He
Speaker 1: helped me do it with love. But I did one
Speaker 1: thing that was so brutal. Um. I basically gutted her
Speaker 1: office out one night. She left on a Friday, and
Speaker 1: she came in on Monday to our offices and I
Speaker 1: had taken everything. Oh my god, And I regret that.
Speaker 1: I will always feel terrible about that. I didn't know
Speaker 1: any other way. I needed to rip the band aid off.
Speaker 1: And that was a whole other chapter of therapy that
Speaker 1: really I had to forgive myself. And when I found
Speaker 1: the right therapist, it was life changing, right, absolutely life Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I got really lucky. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: found the right person for me, which is not easy.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but I mean you say lucky, but I
Speaker 1: think it's a lot of work. You have to put
Speaker 1: in the work to have the life you want. You
Speaker 1: just do. The show really is about the make or
Speaker 1: break moments in our lives, when we're faced with having
Speaker 1: to make a decision, having to pivot, whatever that means
Speaker 1: in your life. You've talked about many different ones, but
Speaker 1: is there a was there on now what moment that
Speaker 1: was the most profound? Were you almost thought I might
Speaker 1: not be able to get through this? I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was probably my decision to LEAVR and to walk
Speaker 1: away from twenty seven million dollars. When I made the decision,
Speaker 1: it was a difficult decision to make, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: I really felt like I had made the right decision
Speaker 1: until everyone started talking about it. I think I had
Speaker 1: a real panic moment of realizing that the world had
Speaker 1: opinions about my choices, and um, it kind of devastated
Speaker 1: me for a little while. And it took me, you know,
Speaker 1: a few months to grow a thicker skin and realize
Speaker 1: that your choices are only for yourself and no one else,
Speaker 1: and everyone can judge them, you know, from now until doomsday,
Speaker 1: but no one else is living in your shoes. Well,
Speaker 1: and and asking that question, I wasn't hinting or trying
Speaker 1: to lead you there. Um oh, no, I know, but
Speaker 1: I think that was the most significant sort of Wow,
Speaker 1: what have I done? In retrospect now? Had no one
Speaker 1: ever talked about it, I probably wouldn't have even thought
Speaker 1: about it, to be honest with you. It was like, no,
Speaker 1: this is right. I did six years. Now, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go to a play and then I'm going to go
Speaker 1: and do a mini series and moved back to New York.
Speaker 1: It just sort of all seemed right, But then when
Speaker 1: everyone started throwing these daggers of who does she think
Speaker 1: she is? It's sort of like, oh, was I wrong?
Speaker 1: And it took me a lot. I went back to
Speaker 1: therapy a while to sort of get back on my
Speaker 1: own two feet without worrying about the daggers at me.
Speaker 1: I knew how to now I know how to dodge them.
Speaker 1: But what a backlash for Nope, for nobody deserves to
Speaker 1: be in that position. Yeah, I mean, my dad said
Speaker 1: it best. He really helped me with that one because
Speaker 1: he said, it has nothing to do with you. All
Speaker 1: of these naysayers they're angry you because they all think,
Speaker 1: what would I do if I was off for twenty
Speaker 1: seven million dollars and I would take the money. So
Speaker 1: when you don't take the money, they get angry at
Speaker 1: that decision because that's not what they would do. It
Speaker 1: actually has nothing to do with you. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: you know I can. I'm sure I probably rolled my
Speaker 1: as is someone. You know, it was the idea that
Speaker 1: they all thought, you know what if she thinks she's
Speaker 1: going to be some big movie star, which you know
Speaker 1: what you get paid at Lincoln Center for you know,
Speaker 1: a play you were going to do theater, you weren't.
Speaker 1: You weren't jumping to I hate injustice. I hated to
Speaker 1: be unfairly accused. And that is great learning because it
Speaker 1: makes you aware that it actually doesn't matter what anybody
Speaker 1: thinks about you. All that really matters is what do
Speaker 1: you think about you? And that is the bravest place
Speaker 1: that you can be. It's always about someone else, It's
Speaker 1: always about them. And but you followed your heart and
Speaker 1: you taught that to everybody. And when you look at
Speaker 1: the at the your life as a whole, I mean,
Speaker 1: who do you see? Honestly, I see a really happy person.
Speaker 1: I love my life and I'm back around to Sunshine Girl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I really love I really love my family, like
Speaker 1: my little nuclear family. I feel so lucky, and that
Speaker 1: includes my dog. I actually feel much more brave now
Speaker 1: as an actor than I would have without them, because
Speaker 1: I always have this safe place to come home to
Speaker 1: and I feel so loved by them. Just true and
Speaker 1: utter joy and frustrations. To believe me, I'm a fourteen
Speaker 1: year old, so we all know what that's like. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I just I got
Speaker 1: the life I wanted, because the truth is, not in
Speaker 1: a million years did I expect to be this settled,
Speaker 1: to be this calm, and to walk in the door
Speaker 1: and know exactly where I'm going. That was the talented
Speaker 1: and down to earth Julianna Margulies. If you want to
Speaker 1: hear more from her, pick up a copy of her
Speaker 1: book Sunshine Girl, An Unexpected Life. If you want to
Speaker 1: hear more from me, well subscribe to this show Now
Speaker 1: What with Brook Shields on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. Now
Speaker 1: What is produced by the wonderful Julia Weaver with help
Speaker 1: from Darby Masters. Our executive producer is Christina Everett. The
Speaker 1: show is mixed by Bahed Fraser and Christian Bowman. A
Speaker 1: special thanks to Nikki Etre, Jess Crime Chitch, Will Peterson,
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Warner.