Speaker 1: It's two thirty three am at the Kaminsky Method Acting
Speaker 1: Studio and you're listening Tonight Call. Hello, and welcome Tonight Call,
Speaker 1: a call in show for our dystopian reality. I am
Speaker 1: Molly Lambert and with me as always is Tess Lynch
Speaker 1: and joining us today we have a very special guest,
Speaker 1: uh Maura Wilson. MARAA is a writer, a playwright, and
Speaker 1: an actor. She's done a lot of voice acting. She
Speaker 1: has a sub stack called Shan't We Tell the Vicar
Speaker 1: and is the author of the book Where Am I now?
Speaker 1: Welcome to Night Call, Mara. Thank you so much. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy to be here. I love this show. Oh
Speaker 1: we're so happy to have you on. Um. We were
Speaker 1: going to talk today about a couple of night callie
Speaker 1: things isolation tanks which you have variances with, and also
Speaker 1: acting classes and how they are like cults with I've
Speaker 1: written I've written articles about this. It's that's a real thing, perfect. Um.
Speaker 1: Why don't we kick it off with a Nightcall? My Nightcall?
Speaker 1: It's Lindsay. Um. I heard the topic this week was
Speaker 1: acting classes that are like cults, and that brought back
Speaker 1: some memories. I was a high school in college, drama
Speaker 1: geek and a drama major in college, and I took
Speaker 1: part of some really questionable activities that seemed normal at
Speaker 1: the time, but that looking back, I'm kind of horrified by. UM.
Speaker 1: Some examples, in high school drama class, we were regularly
Speaker 1: made to do stream of consciousness type exercises that ended
Speaker 1: with all of us screaming or crying as a group. UM.
Speaker 1: And I had a succession of drama teachers who, thankfully,
Speaker 1: as far as I could tell, we're not abusive. Some
Speaker 1: of them were a little creepy, but I was not abused.
Speaker 1: But they were very cult leader like and they often
Speaker 1: had inner circles of students who they spent a crazy
Speaker 1: amount of time with, and people talked about them sort
Speaker 1: of like they were gods, and you were not allowed
Speaker 1: to criticize them in any way. UM. By college, I
Speaker 1: felt like acting classes were more like unlicensed therapy, just
Speaker 1: a lot of exercises again that asked people to draw
Speaker 1: on childhood trauma, and if you didn't really have any
Speaker 1: childhood trauma, you would kind of be pressured to make
Speaker 1: it up. UM. I witnessed quite a few full on
Speaker 1: emotional meltdowns by fellow students and occasionally professors, and of
Speaker 1: course there were no clear rules about confidentiality or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Um, looking back, I can't believe that I
Speaker 1: just thought this was normal or deep. So I wonder
Speaker 1: if mar Wilson or any of you who participated in
Speaker 1: any acting classes or theater classes have any thoughts on this. Um,
Speaker 1: Should we start regulating this stuff? Should we have clearer
Speaker 1: guidelines for acting classes where personal info is shared, or
Speaker 1: teachers seem to think their therapists, or maybe since it's
Speaker 1: been like twenty plus years since I did this, maybe
Speaker 1: now there are clearer rules or guidelines. Just curious. Marl
Speaker 1: Wilson loves your work. Thank you for all You're really
Speaker 1: insightful writing about Hollywood and growing up as a child star.
Speaker 1: And thank you nightcall as always, nice nightcall. This is
Speaker 1: something we've been talking about a lot over the past
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, really starting when we kind of launched
Speaker 1: into maxium um the acting class as cult phenomenon. Mara,
Speaker 1: I'm really eager to hear your thoughts on this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: none of the things that she said surprised me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been through series like similar things myself, especially the
Speaker 1: thing about people worshiping a teacher and then um and
Speaker 1: and the teacher kind of having an inner circle that
Speaker 1: was very much like that happens at every acting school.
Speaker 1: I would say, like the favoritism is is absurd. And
Speaker 1: I definitely new teachers, Like there was there was a
Speaker 1: teacher I knew who would would take a young boy
Speaker 1: with him to Europe every summer and yes, and uh
Speaker 1: and he would he would there. There would be I
Speaker 1: can't name any names because of lawsuits probably, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I knew a teacher who would do that. That this
Speaker 1: the boys were all over eighteen, but that didn't make
Speaker 1: it any less creepy. Yeah, and and really kind of
Speaker 1: nobody commented on it for a while. We were just like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what he does. And then you know
Speaker 1: a lot of times the the the the boy would
Speaker 1: come back like, you know, questioning his sexuality or something
Speaker 1: and um and but at the time it was like, well,
Speaker 1: how can you even question this? You know? So so
Speaker 1: I've definitely seen that happen. I also think a lot
Speaker 1: of the exercises they do, it really does depend on
Speaker 1: the school. There's um, there's a lot that's like like
Speaker 1: Strasburg based, which was like the very early acting school
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with um, the idea of
Speaker 1: of like searching through your personal memories and and drawing
Speaker 1: on your own traumas to do things. And for some
Speaker 1: people that really works, um, you know, and and there's
Speaker 1: their substitution where it's like, all right, you're sad on
Speaker 1: stage because somebody dies, so you imagine that's somebody close
Speaker 1: to you dies. Um. I know that that That kind
Speaker 1: of worked for me when I was a child sometimes,
Speaker 1: but I was a pretty sensitive child to begin with,
Speaker 1: so I kind of withdraw on a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: Now I don't like doing that at all when I'm acting.
Speaker 1: I I feel like I'm much more like sort of
Speaker 1: the Adler school, which is more like, no, build a
Speaker 1: character and become them, because you know, you don't have
Speaker 1: to be a murderer to play a murderer. So I
Speaker 1: do think that there's definitely like, um, there's definitely like
Speaker 1: it definitely depends on the ones that you do. I
Speaker 1: will say that, like, I had a really good acting
Speaker 1: teacher as a child, Like he was intense, but he
Speaker 1: was very respectful, and I think that's probably because he
Speaker 1: worked with children and he had children of his own.
Speaker 1: So he knew he was an intense guy, but he
Speaker 1: was very smart and very sweet and and you know,
Speaker 1: I loved him and I still love him. I saw
Speaker 1: him a few months before the pandemic started and and
Speaker 1: like thanked him for always taking care of me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's such a vulnerable position to be, to
Speaker 1: be a child actor, and you obviously have to hope
Speaker 1: that everybody around you has good intentions and isn't a
Speaker 1: bad person, because it would be so easy to manipulate
Speaker 1: that situation. Yeah. Um, I feel like you always hear
Speaker 1: stories about kid actors being you know what you were saying, like,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, think of something really sad. And I
Speaker 1: feel like there's a bunch of stories about like telling
Speaker 1: some kids like, hey, your dog just died, just to
Speaker 1: get them to cry, just kidding. That's that's something that
Speaker 1: they don't do anymore, because they did that a lot
Speaker 1: in the early days. I mean there's stories of you know,
Speaker 1: um of of Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien and all
Speaker 1: of these people being taught being told like we're going
Speaker 1: to kill your dog, um things. Oh my god. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there that that happened a lot. And I think because
Speaker 1: of that people have been a lot more careful with it.
Speaker 1: But so so I think that, and I do think that,
Speaker 1: like by the time that like that the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: we were fucking terrible for child actors. There was just
Speaker 1: all kinds of unregulated nonsense. And and I can tell
Speaker 1: because when I talked to to child actors who are
Speaker 1: even five or ten years older than me, they have
Speaker 1: stories that I do not. They definitely have stories where
Speaker 1: where they're like, yeah, I was definitely abused, or I
Speaker 1: was left to do really dangerous things, or you know,
Speaker 1: they had me running through a minefield with no protection
Speaker 1: and they had to do these things and they had
Speaker 1: me up late at night and all of this. And
Speaker 1: whereas whereas I was like, my most uncomfortable moments did
Speaker 1: not come on filming on sets. They came from, uh,
Speaker 1: like creepy men writing me messages and and things like that.
Speaker 1: Like that's something that people don't understand. People be like,
Speaker 1: Hollywood is so bad to children, and I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: it is. But you guys also need to take responsibility
Speaker 1: for the general public too, because the general public does
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Yeah, I mean, I have to
Speaker 1: imagine that after the John Landis Twilight Zone movie where
Speaker 1: he murdered two children and tomorrow because of lack of
Speaker 1: regulation and because of like working them more hours than
Speaker 1: you're supposed to do and that kind of stuff, that
Speaker 1: there had to be some kind of a clamp down of, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we actually do have to. Like, well, somebody who was
Speaker 1: who is related to that man was very rude to
Speaker 1: me a couple of years ago. And I remember thinking
Speaker 1: to myself, and I actually met him when I was
Speaker 1: a child, and um and and uh, I think like
Speaker 1: at the time, I thought it was because like a
Speaker 1: director I knew, not Danny DeVito, guys, a director that
Speaker 1: I knew was like friends with him. But I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure that that director was only friends with him because
Speaker 1: they worried about his children and they wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure that like the children were going to grow up okay,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I don't know if that happened,
Speaker 1: but um, but yeah, but somebody who was related to him,
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking to myself, like, if if he
Speaker 1: ever pulls they well now I'm just totally revealing who
Speaker 1: this is, but everybody already knows anyway, if he if
Speaker 1: he pulls the don't you know who my father is.
Speaker 1: Card on me, I can say, yes, he's the reason
Speaker 1: that we had child labor laws. He's the reason I
Speaker 1: was safe on sets. Right. My dad told me some
Speaker 1: story I've never heard recently because um, you know, I
Speaker 1: was like a little ginger kids. So people would sometimes
Speaker 1: be like, hey, you want to like come do some acting,
Speaker 1: and I was not really interested. Um, but there was
Speaker 1: a time when like I saw John Landis at a
Speaker 1: deli and he was like, oh, you know what beautiful
Speaker 1: hair you have. And my dad just like grabbed me,
Speaker 1: pulled me away and was like that's John Landis, Like
Speaker 1: he can't be in your children. Yeah, yeah, it's I mean.
Speaker 1: The thing is that that as you get older, though
Speaker 1: it people don't think about the well being of actors
Speaker 1: as they get older. And I do know definitely several
Speaker 1: people who have taken acting classes that were from sports
Speaker 1: cults or religious groups. Yeah, so let's talk about that,
Speaker 1: because I heard about this from tests a while ago.
Speaker 1: So definitely, acting teachers all have this kind of guru
Speaker 1: for sharing about them, but some of them really are
Speaker 1: gurus and are trying to get people either into cults,
Speaker 1: are sometimes just like an MLM. I know, some people
Speaker 1: who went to an acting class that was run by
Speaker 1: a very shady organization that they knew about, and they
Speaker 1: knew that it was there, and I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: how they got into it in the first place, but
Speaker 1: they I think maybe they assumed that they wouldn't feel
Speaker 1: obligated to join, but by the end of it, they
Speaker 1: were so exhausted and so broken down that they almost said, okay, yes,
Speaker 1: we'll join just again. And that happens in cults more
Speaker 1: often than you think, where people are I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this, and then they do, and then they
Speaker 1: end up justifying their decision later on where they're like, well, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I joined. I mean, I know I joined
Speaker 1: it in a moment of stress, but I'm glad I
Speaker 1: did it. I was so tired and and you know,
Speaker 1: I was so tired, and it was this but but
Speaker 1: it was actually a good thing, because that's the way
Speaker 1: human beings work. And we tried to reduce cognitive dissonance,
Speaker 1: and you know, we try to get rid of anything
Speaker 1: that is isn't in sync with our ego, you know,
Speaker 1: in our self concept, and that's and that's a really
Speaker 1: hard thing to do. So I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of self justifying. I think there's something also that's interesting
Speaker 1: that happens in acting classes and also kind of the
Speaker 1: improv community and stuff like that, where it just be
Speaker 1: it takes over your social life if you're really dedicating
Speaker 1: a lot of time to it. It becomes such a
Speaker 1: tight community. And you've been so vulnerable in front of
Speaker 1: this community that you kind of believe they're your friends,
Speaker 1: even if they're not actually your friends. And this has
Speaker 1: happened to me like nothing something that shouldn't happen. It's
Speaker 1: a natural kind of occurrence. But then I think that
Speaker 1: makes you extra susceptible to you know, having boundaries be
Speaker 1: crossed or in the instance of UM acting coaches for instance,
Speaker 1: who are affiliated with like religions or organizations. Eventually, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you said, you kind of feel like beaten down
Speaker 1: by the fact that everyone around you is normalizing something
Speaker 1: that's that's not normal, and it kind of it's hard
Speaker 1: to resist that after a while, right, And also like
Speaker 1: thosen't it it must be like seductive to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: if I were part of the inner circle, like maybe
Speaker 1: I'd book a bunch more work because I'd be you know,
Speaker 1: I mean they're there are acting schools out there where
Speaker 1: they have people there who work like who work for casting,
Speaker 1: like some of the best acting schools. So so there's
Speaker 1: a reason why. I mean, most of these actors that
Speaker 1: come out of these schools are are wonderful actors, but
Speaker 1: there's a reason that they're getting booked over people who
Speaker 1: went to other schools who are also wonderful actors. I
Speaker 1: think another thing is that acting, for so many people
Speaker 1: is all about truth and it's all about authenticity, and
Speaker 1: you spend so much of your time obsessing about being fake,
Speaker 1: and you spend so much of your time obsessing about
Speaker 1: what is real and what isn't that after a while
Speaker 1: it's kind of like you have no idea what you
Speaker 1: have no idea what real is anymore, and you don't
Speaker 1: know if the things that you're doing in class are
Speaker 1: real or not. And people will always accuse you of
Speaker 1: being fake and phony and phoning it in and uh,
Speaker 1: and that's a really big thing. That's like one of
Speaker 1: an actor's biggest fears is being phony. So there's this
Speaker 1: idea that you kind of need to break yourself down,
Speaker 1: and you need to break yourself down and and try
Speaker 1: all of these things until you're really authentic, until you're
Speaker 1: really real. That's something that you saw a lot with
Speaker 1: Alison Max from Alison Mack in Nexium. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's how we got on this topic. Is definitely just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of these people are actors that
Speaker 1: are in Nexium, and they're actors who are like not
Speaker 1: fully fulfilled in their careers and want something and this
Speaker 1: guy is like promising it to them. Well, it's uh,
Speaker 1: there's so much talk about being real and being authentic
Speaker 1: and really accessing your emotion and and that is something
Speaker 1: that is incredibly important to an actor, and being being
Speaker 1: an actor is really like it can be a really
Speaker 1: ascetic thing. Like we actually had a class at my
Speaker 1: school and there was a teacher there. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know if he's still working there, but I was
Speaker 1: not a big fan of his because I did a
Speaker 1: project for his class and a bunch of us did
Speaker 1: projects and at the end of the class he was like,
Speaker 1: I was a little disappointed in the quality of the
Speaker 1: work guys, And we were like, Okay, well, we'll step
Speaker 1: it up next time. And then apparently the next class
Speaker 1: came in and they were like, oh my god, the
Speaker 1: previous class was so shitty. The work they did was
Speaker 1: so bad, and the other teacher was like, I wanted
Speaker 1: to throw myself out of the window, it was so bad.
Speaker 1: And after that, I was like, oh, clearly I can't
Speaker 1: trust you because you're talking shoot about us to your
Speaker 1: other classes. But other people looked him, and he had
Speaker 1: a class that he would teach that he said was
Speaker 1: taught was was based on like Russian and tie and
Speaker 1: like very sort of like Eastern oriented, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of kind of classes. And he um, you had to
Speaker 1: wear all white and you weren't allowed to eat, drink,
Speaker 1: use any drugs, or have sex twenty four hours before
Speaker 1: the class. And he had this class, yes, and you
Speaker 1: had to in the floor beforehand, like like a you know,
Speaker 1: like a Japanese monk. You had to clean the floor beforehand.
Speaker 1: And I was supposed to be put in that class
Speaker 1: my senior year, and I was like, no, funk that,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this. This is my senior year. Put
Speaker 1: me in the classes that I want to be in.
Speaker 1: So I think I took like a I think I
Speaker 1: took like a voice lessons class instead because I was like,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'll just get my I'll just sort
Speaker 1: of sing better, like that's gonna be I think that's
Speaker 1: that's a practical skill instead of making making artwork that
Speaker 1: like probably not a lot of people want to see. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you saw everybody wearing all white, and you were like,
Speaker 1: m I don't know if Yeah, actually this does look
Speaker 1: like a call. And then I know so many people
Speaker 1: who were doing his shows and we're not getting paid
Speaker 1: and and we're not We're putting in so much work,
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking to myself, what do you get
Speaker 1: from it? Like I had a teacher there who I
Speaker 1: really loved, but like she had a life that was
Speaker 1: separate than ours, you know, and she she she we
Speaker 1: didn't consider like and I used to jokingly call her
Speaker 1: like the Guru, but she wouldn't have liked that. I
Speaker 1: don't think like she she very much had her own
Speaker 1: life and she lived she didn't live in the city,
Speaker 1: she lived outside of New York. And she was really wonderful.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, like I had a really great
Speaker 1: time at my acting school, and ours was so much
Speaker 1: better compared to so many of the other schools there.
Speaker 1: But there's still are these issues. They're still still are
Speaker 1: these problems. Yeah, really quick. I think we should take
Speaker 1: an excerpt from a night email. This one comes from
Speaker 1: Peter and it's just following up with this topic. He says,
Speaker 1: my question regarding acting classes as cults is if acting
Speaker 1: classes are easily susceptible to cult late practices because of
Speaker 1: the vulnerability of performers. It's hierarchical design and wise leader
Speaker 1: status of acting teachers legitimized by IMDb credits. For example,
Speaker 1: how do you think these types of acting groups can
Speaker 1: avoid such cult like tendencies and be healthy environments to
Speaker 1: grow and learn. I mean, that's a really good question.
Speaker 1: I think that I think that the students need to
Speaker 1: make sure that they're safe. I think that they need
Speaker 1: to agree on rules beforehand. Uh, and that I think
Speaker 1: is very good. Like, I think that sort the the
Speaker 1: the issue of consent is something that comes up a
Speaker 1: lot a lot enacting classes, Like I had. I remember
Speaker 1: in high school and I went to I went to
Speaker 1: an art school. We had we had some kind of
Speaker 1: class and uh, maybe it was a mass class or something,
Speaker 1: and we had to like a sema character. And there
Speaker 1: was one kid in there that was getting like really
Speaker 1: violent and shovy, and and we told like we told
Speaker 1: him afterwards. We were like, dude, you need to stop
Speaker 1: shoving people. You need to like be really careful and
Speaker 1: he and he would just say, well, I can't change
Speaker 1: my character right totally. I've heard about very I've heard
Speaker 1: about similar situations where people are shoving people or getting
Speaker 1: violent or getting kind of like overly sexual somebody and
Speaker 1: then they're like, it wasn't me, it was the character.
Speaker 1: The emotion came over me and like what am I
Speaker 1: to do? And there really is no framework for regulating
Speaker 1: something like that, because uh, yeah, what do you do friends?
Speaker 1: I've had friends, Yeah, I've had friends also say like
Speaker 1: we were doing this scene and then I was like,
Speaker 1: this is kind of hot. Do you want to have sex?
Speaker 1: And the other actor was like no, this is acting, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I remember them saying that, me being like what,
Speaker 1: like that's not that's that's not appropriate, right. And you
Speaker 1: you saw that with like the James Franco Acting School, um,
Speaker 1: which was everything bad. We've been talking about sort of
Speaker 1: being used to manipulate people that are going in actually
Speaker 1: like genuinely hopeful that this is going to help their
Speaker 1: acting careers and make them better actors. And then if
Speaker 1: somebody just wants to use it for their own personal
Speaker 1: narcissism to be abusive. It's it's not hard to do.
Speaker 1: Their intimacy coaches now one which I think is really good,
Speaker 1: and I think that there should be something like that
Speaker 1: for for child actors in general. There should be like
Speaker 1: an onset psychologist. There should be something like that. This
Speaker 1: has been something that I've been talking about for years now,
Speaker 1: to to make sure that children are okay. But I
Speaker 1: also think that there probably does need to be some
Speaker 1: kind of regulation involved with with acting classes. Um if
Speaker 1: I don't know if like actors security or SAG wants
Speaker 1: to do this or something, but she's making sure that
Speaker 1: that people are not getting horribly abused. I think that
Speaker 1: there also needs to be rules agreed upon beforehand, you know,
Speaker 1: the guidelines there. I had a teacher in college who
Speaker 1: said that her whole thing was thou shalt not get hurt.
Speaker 1: So if anybody was was physically hurt, like we had
Speaker 1: to stop and and and do the you know, and
Speaker 1: and completely make sure. Like I did one thing where
Speaker 1: I was like where I was like upside down. I
Speaker 1: was trying to to like, uh, I don't know, do
Speaker 1: like a yoga post or something, and um, and I
Speaker 1: and I fell back and I fell onto my head
Speaker 1: and she stopped everything and was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: let's make sure that everything is is here, like everything
Speaker 1: is safe here, and that's great. But I also think
Speaker 1: that we need to make sure emotionally that everything is okay.
Speaker 1: And I do think that a lot of times actors
Speaker 1: will volunteer personal things about themselves because they feel like
Speaker 1: that's more, you know, like like that's like the better
Speaker 1: thing to do. There's, um, there's a lot of like Okay,
Speaker 1: I need to overshare, I need to be myself, I
Speaker 1: need to do these things. I have to do this,
Speaker 1: And and I think that actors need to know like no,
Speaker 1: you don't. Yeah, there has to be like a boundary
Speaker 1: of like actually, like if somebody's hitting you during a scene,
Speaker 1: like you can stop the scene and say like that's
Speaker 1: not okay. Marra has a good point that it's not
Speaker 1: just about like physical acts of aggression. I think that
Speaker 1: unless there are parameters in place, at least, something that
Speaker 1: I've heard of happening, especially recently, is like you if
Speaker 1: you don't really know what the boundary is, and if
Speaker 1: you just and you could even just say nobody gets hurt.
Speaker 1: There's also like this, if you go off book and
Speaker 1: you're like intimidating someone and you're not really sure of
Speaker 1: where that boundary is. That's like us that can cause
Speaker 1: psychological damage. Like it's especially if it's off book. Also
Speaker 1: that it's also when people are like, oh, we're getting
Speaker 1: to the heart of it, like this starts. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the time that's really kind of encouraged
Speaker 1: and it and it is to watch, but it's also
Speaker 1: you know, kind of unfair. It's like cheating in a
Speaker 1: way when you when you I mean, yeah, the thing
Speaker 1: is that there there are like I've noticed, like a
Speaker 1: couple of different personality types that seem to be drawn
Speaker 1: to acting. And one is the very over the top type,
Speaker 1: you know, and people say, you see that a lot
Speaker 1: with musical theater and stuff, and these are the people
Speaker 1: who who And I think I get the feeling that
Speaker 1: Alison Mack was one of these people, partly because I
Speaker 1: met her when I was a child really was she
Speaker 1: she was also a child actor originally, right she was
Speaker 1: she was she was very sweet and we were doing
Speaker 1: charity work together and her whole thing was I want
Speaker 1: to help people. But she was very sweet and bubbly
Speaker 1: and and kind and and and it does really it
Speaker 1: just sort of it serves as a reminder for me
Speaker 1: that a lot of people who get into cults think
Speaker 1: that they're helping. They think that they're doing something good
Speaker 1: for the world and themselves. You really saw that in
Speaker 1: maxi Um too, you know, and that she clearly was like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm here to help people. I'm here to
Speaker 1: like improve everyone. Yeah. That was definitely that, like that
Speaker 1: was something that we, like, I'm pretty sure we met
Speaker 1: at an organization that was helping like abused children and
Speaker 1: like like sexually abused girls, and the irony of that
Speaker 1: now like blows my fucking mind. But but and I
Speaker 1: think in the in the in Seduced, the the the
Speaker 1: better of the two documentaries about Maxium by far, I
Speaker 1: think India Oxenberg actually points out that she was obsessed
Speaker 1: with being authentic because people always told her that she
Speaker 1: was fake. Yeah, And as a child actor, that must
Speaker 1: be a hard line to walk, because it's like your
Speaker 1: authenticity comes from the fact that you're like an actual child. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, I don't think that I was a
Speaker 1: particularly great actress as a child. I think that I
Speaker 1: was pretty good different iconic Matilda. I'm hard on myself,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that I was like like I've
Speaker 1: seen I've seen better child actors, and I would say
Speaker 1: that you seemed very authentic and like there was no
Speaker 1: craft to it, which is very hard to do. You
Speaker 1: seem like you they just found a kid and put
Speaker 1: them on screen. I've always been painfully since here, and
Speaker 1: I've always had a good ear for dialogue, so I
Speaker 1: think that those things were good, you know, for me.
Speaker 1: But um, but I mean I look at like quivention
Speaker 1: a Walls or somebody like that, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: she's she's actually a good actress or or you know,
Speaker 1: I look at at a lot of like child actors
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, okay, you're You're better than I was.
Speaker 1: But it was much easier for me to act as
Speaker 1: a child because I could access different emotions very easily,
Speaker 1: because when you're a child, you don't know that you're vulnerable.
Speaker 1: And then I got older, and you know, and my
Speaker 1: mother died, and I went through a lot, and I
Speaker 1: became a teenager, and I and I learned how awful
Speaker 1: the world was and and uh and and you know,
Speaker 1: and I got taken advantage of in many ways the
Speaker 1: way that everybody in the world does, and I became
Speaker 1: very cynical, and it was really hard for me to
Speaker 1: access these emotions. So I often think that, you know,
Speaker 1: and it felt to me kind of like, um, like
Speaker 1: like in his Dark Materials, your your demon stops changing form,
Speaker 1: or in you know, you stop being able to go
Speaker 1: to Narnia or never never Land or something like that.
Speaker 1: Like it very much did feel like something like when
Speaker 1: you grow up, you lose that innocence and that willingness
Speaker 1: to be vulnerable. And I think that that did kind
Speaker 1: of happen to me, and acting is definitely harder for
Speaker 1: me now because I can't access that that ease I
Speaker 1: had with emotions, that ease I had with vulnerability. So
Speaker 1: and that's another personality type used to you see too.
Speaker 1: You see people who are wonderful when they let go,
Speaker 1: but they're also very emotional, and uh, they're they're also
Speaker 1: you know, they're sensitive, most sensitive people or most callous.
Speaker 1: You know, cynical people are are not callous, but most
Speaker 1: cynical people are sensitive. And I feel like that cynicism
Speaker 1: is like a callous right, which is also why in
Speaker 1: the acting class. They're like, you gotta rip off the
Speaker 1: callous and like get back to that sensitive, innocent inside. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, that's not how skin works. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing, and it and and but then
Speaker 1: instead it clearly doesn't work, and it's like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: it's time for a different kind of acting. There's there's
Speaker 1: many different kinds of acting. You know. There's there's Grotowski,
Speaker 1: which is all about physicality, and there's Meisner, which is
Speaker 1: all about being in the moment, and there's Adler, which
Speaker 1: is all about, you know, being a character. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the best actors I saw were
Speaker 1: in like an n Yu, were in the experimental theater
Speaker 1: Wing because what they did is they allowed you to
Speaker 1: be very in your body, very in your moment, and
Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot of shame, Like there might have
Speaker 1: been weird stuff that I didn't know about, but for them,
Speaker 1: it was just sort of like, let your free flag fly,
Speaker 1: let's let's have fun, right, and that stuff is all
Speaker 1: super fun when it's consensual. Well, let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break and then when we come back, we will talk
Speaker 1: with Mara about isolation tanks. Okay, Maraa. When you were
Speaker 1: talking about being in your body, is that Meisner use that? Um, well,
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty much any kind of acting I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know as much about Meisner as
Speaker 1: I thought I did. When I met up with my
Speaker 1: old acting teacher, I started talking to him about Meisner,
Speaker 1: and then I realized that he knew all about it
Speaker 1: and I didn't, so so that he actual of it,
Speaker 1: really trained in Meisner. So what I thought was Meisner
Speaker 1: wasn't actually but U but most people use like a
Speaker 1: different kinds of you know, different kinds of acting. But
Speaker 1: but I'm not somebody who's very much I'm like, I
Speaker 1: can't dance. I'm I'm really bad at it. I never
Speaker 1: know what to do with my hands. You know, I
Speaker 1: have an expressive face, but but I've never felt particularly
Speaker 1: in my body. I think I think that's probably true
Speaker 1: for a lot of smart kids too, though I'm a
Speaker 1: little brain. You know. Well, I was wondering if you'd
Speaker 1: ever tried to get in your body by going in
Speaker 1: an isolation tank. There we go, I have, Yes, I have,
Speaker 1: I did it. So last year I was having a
Speaker 1: really really hard time. Um, I was dealing with a
Speaker 1: lot of physical illness problems and that was causing me
Speaker 1: a lot of mental illness anguish too. I was having
Speaker 1: some confusing situations with relationships. My cat was diagnosed with cancer.
Speaker 1: I was having a lot of like professional struggles. It
Speaker 1: was really it was a really, really hard time. And
Speaker 1: my friend came to visit. And my friend is is
Speaker 1: she's like sort of an expert on on like chronic
Speaker 1: illness and pain and things like that. And she also
Speaker 1: is she's much more like new age and open to
Speaker 1: things than I am. I'm always like the skeptical one.
Speaker 1: But she said, why don't we do an isolation tank?
Speaker 1: And I think I only said yes because I actually
Speaker 1: have a friend um who we call Dr Flux, and
Speaker 1: Dr Flux is a neuroscientist and he does a lot
Speaker 1: about mental illness and such, and he has studied the
Speaker 1: effects of of of isolation tanks on the brain. And
Speaker 1: I told him, I said, I thought that we talked
Speaker 1: about it once and I said, I don't think I
Speaker 1: could ever do that. I would get so claustrophobic. And
Speaker 1: he goes, I'm claustrophobic and it wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 1: He says, you find ways to deal with it. And
Speaker 1: so my friend Alison and my sister and I did
Speaker 1: this and I was like, Okay, Dr Flux says, it's okay.
Speaker 1: I trust him. I trust Allison. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: And and so we went to one in in West
Speaker 1: l a And near where my sister was living at
Speaker 1: the time, and uh, and we did it and it
Speaker 1: was an incredibly positive experience. How long were you in there?
Speaker 1: Two hours? Whoa Mara, Yeah, but I mean I kept
Speaker 1: getting out because like I had to pee. Um, so
Speaker 1: you'd get out, you'd you'd use the toilet and you'd
Speaker 1: like wash yourself off and then get back in the isolation.
Speaker 1: Thank Yeah. Two hours. And I think the first hour
Speaker 1: was kind of a struggle because I was getting used
Speaker 1: to it, or it wasn't a struggle, but it was
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be feeling.
Speaker 1: But the second hour was amazing, absolutely amazing. I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe this is just for anyone who is
Speaker 1: sort of an overly in their brain person. It always
Speaker 1: takes me so long to get out of my brain
Speaker 1: into my body, and then when you finally do and it,
Speaker 1: it is like, you know, there's this uncomfortable period where
Speaker 1: you can't stop thinking. This happens to me anytime I
Speaker 1: do yoga. It's like there's half an hour of me
Speaker 1: being like I want to I don't want to do this,
Speaker 1: I have to, you know, I'm thinking about something else,
Speaker 1: and then a certain point you're like in your body
Speaker 1: and it's amazing. Yeah, it takes me forever. I I
Speaker 1: my brain fights it every step of the way. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it was a really interesting experience. I didn't
Speaker 1: hallucinate or anything. And what I did with the it
Speaker 1: wasn't like one of those pod like tanks. It was
Speaker 1: like a small room. And what I did because I
Speaker 1: was afraid of the of like being coming claustrophobic. There
Speaker 1: was also like a button you could press in case
Speaker 1: everything was worried was in case you got in case
Speaker 1: anything was wrong. Um. But I got in and you know,
Speaker 1: your your nude and the water is like completely cleaned
Speaker 1: and you have to put you have to put your
Speaker 1: plugs in and you have to sort of be like
Speaker 1: face up. And I mean I'm pretty short, so there
Speaker 1: was still a lot of space around me. But I
Speaker 1: I left the door open, you know, two inches, and
Speaker 1: then after a while I closed it to an inch,
Speaker 1: and then after a while I closed it to half
Speaker 1: an inch, and then after a while I closed it
Speaker 1: fully and I did that, and that I think made
Speaker 1: it feel much better. And yeah, the first hour, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about a lot of weird things. I was
Speaker 1: sort of trying to find my like buoyancy. I was
Speaker 1: lying on my back. I was trying to make sure that,
Speaker 1: like the water, you know, solution didn't go into my
Speaker 1: mouth or my nose. And I think I like briefly
Speaker 1: fell asleep and then I like clear, I like quickly
Speaker 1: woke up, you know, I like I like dozed off.
Speaker 1: But then something happened in the second the second half,
Speaker 1: Like I can't imagine having hallucinations in there, and I
Speaker 1: really don't think it would be a good place to
Speaker 1: do psychedelics. I really don't think it would. Uh. But
Speaker 1: I was lying there and I heard this sound and
Speaker 1: I was like, that's a really beautiful sound. What is it?
Speaker 1: And then I realized it was my own breathing. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's cool. And I felt this like tremendous
Speaker 1: feeling of joy and like clarity and purity, and I
Speaker 1: was like, this is amazing. Everything is so beautiful. Right now.
Speaker 1: I feel weirdly at peace. And it was the most
Speaker 1: piece I had felt in years. And what I ended
Speaker 1: up doing was I would reach for the wall and
Speaker 1: then I would kind of like push myself off it
Speaker 1: and like go find the other wall. And I would
Speaker 1: go found to find the bottom walls, and I was
Speaker 1: like I was playing a game with myself. I felt
Speaker 1: like an otter or something where I was just like
Speaker 1: I can touch the wall and touching things is amazing,
Speaker 1: and I'm swimming around and here like I was. I
Speaker 1: was just full of delight. Yeah, so you it sounds
Speaker 1: like you were having a psychedelic experience just it kind
Speaker 1: of was. Yeah, it was like it was Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I've never I've never done them because I'm a
Speaker 1: control freaking I'm scared. But yeah, but actually it does
Speaker 1: sound a lot like like when a lot of my
Speaker 1: friends micro does, that's what and a lot of my
Speaker 1: friends do. Um. One of them met Nfia, well Micro
Speaker 1: does saying Nity Roman and gave her rug and was like,
Speaker 1: thank you for what you're doing for the city in
Speaker 1: the world and my sister and Nithia was like, is
Speaker 1: she okay? Does this affect you in a negative way,
Speaker 1: and I was like, now's signed, she signed. Don't worry
Speaker 1: about it, It's just just micro docing. She's she's happy.
Speaker 1: Some people on this call may have experience with micro
Speaker 1: do sing. I won't say who. Somebody might be a
Speaker 1: big fan of micro dose thing, but could easily see
Speaker 1: how a slightly more macro dose would lead you to
Speaker 1: hug a city official. Um, yeah, it was. But it
Speaker 1: was like it was like the the So it was
Speaker 1: kind of it wasn't probably a bit like micro dosing
Speaker 1: in that like finding everything beautiful, you know, everything becoming
Speaker 1: really lovely kind of way. You know. No, I didn't
Speaker 1: have any visual hallucinations. I didn't have any you know,
Speaker 1: not really any auditory but it was like my my
Speaker 1: senses were amped, and I felt I felt like joy
Speaker 1: and delight in a way that I hadn't felt in
Speaker 1: a long time, because I've been in physical pain and
Speaker 1: I'd been depressed that I was in physical pain and
Speaker 1: and but it was just the coolest thing because it
Speaker 1: did feel it felt very much like a childlike sense
Speaker 1: of wonder. Yeah, And I felt like I could find
Speaker 1: the beauty and things. I could find the beauty in
Speaker 1: my own breathing that's amazing. So when you say it
Speaker 1: wasn't the pod, but it was like a room, how
Speaker 1: big is the room and is the room entirely filled
Speaker 1: with is there like a tank in the room? It was, well,
Speaker 1: there was like it was like there was a bathroom
Speaker 1: and they're like there was I think there was like
Speaker 1: a toilet in a shower and and there was or
Speaker 1: maybe actually the toilets were in the hob and I
Speaker 1: might have had to go down the halliday use them,
Speaker 1: but there were there was a shower there and there
Speaker 1: was like a bench it so it was like a
Speaker 1: little bit like a gym shower. And then there was
Speaker 1: this thing that kind of looked like it looked like
Speaker 1: like a big box or like with like a vault
Speaker 1: door or something. And then you would open the door
Speaker 1: and get in and uh. And that was that was
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe like maybe like eight ft by
Speaker 1: like like six ft or something like that. And so
Speaker 1: it was too tiny. It wasn't too tiny like I
Speaker 1: could I could comfortably. I could comfortably like like swim around,
Speaker 1: not swim around, but like push myself around a little
Speaker 1: bit and not immediately touch a wall. Um. I'm like
Speaker 1: I said, I'm also very short, but I think that
Speaker 1: they do take like different body sizes into and into consideration,
Speaker 1: and tall people into consideration and everything. Um So, so
Speaker 1: there definitely wasn't enough room and there was water, but
Speaker 1: then there was also like a high ceiling above me,
Speaker 1: so I wouldn't hit my head when I got out. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't remember how high the ceilings were, but like
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would have been able to
Speaker 1: stand up. It's probably like five feet, but you know
Speaker 1: you could. You could are actually probably taller than that.
Speaker 1: Um And so, yeah, it felt weird because at first
Speaker 1: it's like, whoa, am I like putting myself into like
Speaker 1: a little freezer right now or something like that. It
Speaker 1: did look like a little like it looks it looks
Speaker 1: kind of like a freezer, like if you work at
Speaker 1: like a restaurant or something. But yeah, walk in it
Speaker 1: looked like a walk in freezer. And that felt a
Speaker 1: little weird. And there was probably only like a foot
Speaker 1: or two of like I'd say probably a foot or
Speaker 1: so of water, and the water definitely had stuff in
Speaker 1: it that was going to help you float, like extra
Speaker 1: salt or that kind of like like yeah, like like
Speaker 1: the stuff that's in like the Dead Sea. I guess
Speaker 1: like there's there's different kinds of chemicals. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is exactly, And and and I didn't totally float
Speaker 1: at first, Like I feel like my butt kind of
Speaker 1: dragged me down, you know, like like I had to
Speaker 1: I had to sort of manage manage that. But like
Speaker 1: there was eventually I was like, Okay, I get the
Speaker 1: hang of it. Yeah, yeah, have you gone back since
Speaker 1: I've wanted to. I've wanted to so badly, but but
Speaker 1: COVID happened, So yeah, I really want to go back.
Speaker 1: And I was actually talking like I was talking to
Speaker 1: my friend Chris Fleming and his partner Melissa about it.
Speaker 1: And Chris is Chris is a a he's comedian and
Speaker 1: he's very weird and and so is his partner. And
Speaker 1: I thought, I was like, I was like, you guys
Speaker 1: would really love this. I think like if for for
Speaker 1: nothing else, it would make a great story. And so
Speaker 1: I was looking at like the different places like in
Speaker 1: Pasadena and and places that were like a little closer
Speaker 1: to where I live. Uh, And then COVID happened, and
Speaker 1: I was like, well, probably nobody's going to be able
Speaker 1: to do this for a really long time. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: like last on the list of things they're gonna exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And that makes me really sad because I really did
Speaker 1: feel this. I told my friends it was like meditating
Speaker 1: without having to do the work of meditating, right, because
Speaker 1: my my brain does not work well for meditation, like
Speaker 1: my sister and I sometimes do. Uh, we do like
Speaker 1: a chanting thing. She found a thing that was chanting
Speaker 1: in it, and I think I was a little worried
Speaker 1: about that at first because I was like, is this
Speaker 1: a religious thing? But it's not. It's just that saying
Speaker 1: things and imagining things, Like you say certain things and
Speaker 1: you imagine certain things when you say them, and that
Speaker 1: like that helps me I think more than just sitting
Speaker 1: and thinking. Yeah. But being in the tank, Yeah, being
Speaker 1: in the tank, it was like I was meditating, but
Speaker 1: I didn't have to do the hard work of meditating.
Speaker 1: It was like it was meditating for me. Well, now
Speaker 1: we're all in isolation tanks of the mind, it's true. Well,
Speaker 1: I was just thinking. I was like, I wonder if
Speaker 1: there's a way to kind of d I y and
Speaker 1: isolation tank. Yeah, I'm a Y. I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: if you just cover that with a dome and your
Speaker 1: own an outdoor isolation I mean maybe because but it's
Speaker 1: it's like it feels very different than what we're doing
Speaker 1: now because right now we're we're forced into it, and
Speaker 1: this going into an isolation tank is definitely is definitely
Speaker 1: like a a you know, a reprieve from everything. So
Speaker 1: I think that that's, you know, it's it's definitely different
Speaker 1: because because I don't know, it's it's like a it's
Speaker 1: like a weirdly joyous thing. I think something something about
Speaker 1: floating in water too, just like does take you back
Speaker 1: to being in the womb. I definitely just feel that
Speaker 1: way anytime I'm in a pool and floating. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I feel so happy and comfortable. I used to fall
Speaker 1: asleep in the car like um, like while you grew
Speaker 1: up in l A right, yeah, so you probably have
Speaker 1: the experience that I did where your parents would drive
Speaker 1: you around and you would sit in the front seat
Speaker 1: and just stare at yourself in the rear view mirror
Speaker 1: all the time while they like listen to their oldies.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, t tu knows what this is. Also, yeh,
Speaker 1: I moved here at that time as well, Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: so I have that. I have a lot of memories
Speaker 1: of like sitting in the front seat and like staring
Speaker 1: at myself in the rear view window and and thinking
Speaker 1: that I looked prettier in that or the side mirrors
Speaker 1: actually and uh, and thinking that I looked much prettier
Speaker 1: in that light, and like listening to like sitting on
Speaker 1: the dock of the bay or something. But on long
Speaker 1: car trips, like we would have to go to like
Speaker 1: I think we had to go to Calibasses because my
Speaker 1: psychiatrist was out there, which is a very l a
Speaker 1: sentence totally. My psychiatrist was also in the West Valley,
Speaker 1: and it's just like the worst thing about therapy was
Speaker 1: you had to drive to the West Valley exactly. But
Speaker 1: I would, like, I remember, like I would always fall
Speaker 1: asleep in the car on the way there and the
Speaker 1: way back, and I would I would either listen to
Speaker 1: oldies which I secretly loved, or I would like listen
Speaker 1: to like Weezer's Pinkerton or you know, Third Eye Blind
Speaker 1: or some ship and like, and I would always take
Speaker 1: a like take a little nap. And I've heard people
Speaker 1: say later that like sometimes being in a car can
Speaker 1: can kind of be like the womb to some people,
Speaker 1: it puts babies to sleep. To Coliguy babies, you put
Speaker 1: some of them some of them like yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know now that you're saying that. And though I like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I do have all these road trip memories
Speaker 1: of being in a car, yeah, when somebody else is
Speaker 1: driving and you can just fall asleep in just like
Speaker 1: the sound of the road and the music my parents
Speaker 1: would play like a like a Pat Metheny album always
Speaker 1: and like if I hear it, it just and I
Speaker 1: had a lot of trouble just falling asleep as a kid.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of like albums that my parents
Speaker 1: would put on to try and help me to relax,
Speaker 1: and one of them was Avalon by Roxy Music was
Speaker 1: a big one. So like anytime I hear Avalon, which
Speaker 1: I like love as an album anyway, I just will
Speaker 1: get so relaxed. Yeah, that's that's me. With Paul Simon
Speaker 1: and Paul Simon's Graceland, I think I think I feel
Speaker 1: like Graceland is the one for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, And I didn't realize like all the
Speaker 1: issues with it until I was much older. Oh yeah. Oh.
Speaker 1: He recorded this during a part type like, Okay, that's
Speaker 1: the worst. I'm a I'm a strong anti Paul Simon.
Speaker 1: Molly's very allergic, very allergic to Paul Simon. But I
Speaker 1: I understand that it's like a lot of people, a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of white people, white Jewish people
Speaker 1: in particular, we we have a soft spot for him,
Speaker 1: you know. I can't can't ant apologize for so I
Speaker 1: feel like it's just my my Los Angeles nous overrides
Speaker 1: it because I'm like, he stole music from Los Lobos
Speaker 1: and like, you don't funk with Los Lobos, come to
Speaker 1: l A. But I understand people's affection for it. And
Speaker 1: Tess was listening to River of Dreams the other day
Speaker 1: of the Billy Joel album, which is the Billy Joel
Speaker 1: was another one. Yeah it was Billy, but it was
Speaker 1: early Billy Joel for my childhood drives. If my parents
Speaker 1: had played River of Dreams, I would have been like
Speaker 1: so mortified. I think they probably just played in private.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite songs of the child was for
Speaker 1: the Longest Time, which probably foreshadows like my my teenagerhood
Speaker 1: and like acapella groups, and yeah, yeah it was. It
Speaker 1: was definitely I think thanks for making me into that
Speaker 1: kind a kid, Mom and dad. But no, the worst
Speaker 1: actually is my stepmother's taste in music. It's it's very
Speaker 1: very like overwrought um ballads and very like syrupy ballads
Speaker 1: that she does that she puts on UM a lot
Speaker 1: of like seventies stuff, but like not good seventy stuff
Speaker 1: like bread things like that the carpenters, but not like
Speaker 1: the good carpenters, not like not like Superstar, which you
Speaker 1: know which rules to like, but like they're they're more
Speaker 1: like the stuff that you know that. Karen was like,
Speaker 1: why are we doing this? Can I just drum? Can
Speaker 1: I just drum and be myself? Yeah? So, so riding
Speaker 1: in the car with her, like I remember we went
Speaker 1: to we went to we drove to Las Vegas and
Speaker 1: back with like my best friend from high school and
Speaker 1: uh and we all just spent time like swapping um
Speaker 1: swapping albums back and forth and and yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there was a lot of Bent Folds five and weirdly
Speaker 1: Rick Astley was there too, Yeah the early Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think, you know, in absence of being able
Speaker 1: to go own an isolation tank or even an acting class,
Speaker 1: I think, um it's you know, visualizations of this type
Speaker 1: of thing. If you can just like visualize yourself in
Speaker 1: an isolation tank or like visualize yourself in the back,
Speaker 1: you know, in the car on that road trip. Like
Speaker 1: I find that very comforting. I was doing a visualization
Speaker 1: about being a beaver who lives in a beaver. It's
Speaker 1: really nice then because I watched some nature show and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I wish I were a beaver.
Speaker 1: I definitely had some dreams where where you know, and
Speaker 1: and I and like that brought me like joy, which
Speaker 1: is surprising because usually my dreams are just stuff like
Speaker 1: like um, I need to do the dishes, and like
Speaker 1: mine are like yeah, mine are really boring. Mine are
Speaker 1: like I'm in I'm in the shower and I can't
Speaker 1: find I can't find my like scrubs, my like you know,
Speaker 1: I can't find like my mesh lufah, where did it go?
Speaker 1: Is it on the floor of the tub. No, it's
Speaker 1: not so like grocery shopping. It's like exact thing to
Speaker 1: dream about. Yeah, it's just like yeah, it's like like
Speaker 1: a dream that like I threw something out and then
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, it's not actually empty at
Speaker 1: like a bottle of cleaning fluid or something, and then
Speaker 1: I took it out of the trash and I woke up,
Speaker 1: and I was like, that was my dream. My dream
Speaker 1: was that I threw out like a bottle of legion,
Speaker 1: was like, oh, it's not empty, I should probably use
Speaker 1: this up first. That was my fucking dream. It's horrible
Speaker 1: to be robbed of the opportunity to have a good dream, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: But lately I have been having like really weird, vivid dreams,
Speaker 1: and I wonder if that's because of like isolation and everyone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And one thing I have to remind myself is like,
Speaker 1: like that that like that feeling of joy and like
Speaker 1: safety and wonder that I felt in that tank. I
Speaker 1: have that all the time, Like that I can at
Speaker 1: least remember that even if I can't make myself feel that,
Speaker 1: that that came from my mind. And I think like,
Speaker 1: even if you use like hallucinogens or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you know safely to to get to that point, it
Speaker 1: still comes from your own mind. And you can remind
Speaker 1: yourself that, And even if you can't feel that again
Speaker 1: in the moment, you can at least feel the memory
Speaker 1: of it, which is something. Thank you. So much, Maura,
Speaker 1: this was amazing. You're such a great guess, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. I mean I talk a
Speaker 1: lot and I pontificate a lot, so that's what we love.
Speaker 1: Perfect yeah and so so yeah, so I figured that,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I figured that we would all have a
Speaker 1: good time. Yeah, we love talking. We've been We've been
Speaker 1: wanting to have you on for a long time. So
Speaker 1: thank you. Yes, I'm so happy I've done this, and
Speaker 1: so everyone can join our new acting class that we're starting.
Speaker 1: Where definitely not a call. Yeah, and I sit in
Speaker 1: the back with my arms folding and if something's not okay,
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's not okay. Yeah, stop we have flags
Speaker 1: get hurt physically or emotionally. Yes, cool, thanks Mara. Where
Speaker 1: can people find you? They can find me. Let's see,
Speaker 1: they can find me Maura Wilson on Twitter, Mara Wilson
Speaker 1: on Instagram, My substack Mara dot substack dot com. I
Speaker 1: also just started a cameo if anybody wants to watch
Speaker 1: videos of me and my cats for their birthday and
Speaker 1: do shout outs and stuff. So yeah, so I'm on
Speaker 1: there too. Um yeah, I'm pretty much just under my
Speaker 1: real name everywhere these days, so yeah, you can find
Speaker 1: me there. Cool. Well, thank you so much, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. This has been great. Hey, guys, we have
Speaker 1: an announcement to make that is kind of bitter sweet.
Speaker 1: We are going to be wrapping up this show. We
Speaker 1: started Nightcall almost three years ago and it was a
Speaker 1: reboot of our show Girls and Hoodies, which was when
Speaker 1: we were all at ESPN a long long time ago.
Speaker 1: We've had so much fun doing Nightcall. We're all so
Speaker 1: so proud, and we're all really grateful for the relationships
Speaker 1: that we've formed with our listeners. Um, you guys are
Speaker 1: really cool and that's been an amazing experience for us.
Speaker 1: We decided to wrap the show because we started getting busy.
Speaker 1: Emily in particular, is taking some time off to do
Speaker 1: some cool projects, work stuff, and we just felt like
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be the same without the three of us,
Speaker 1: So we thought the right thing to do would be
Speaker 1: to wrap it up as a team and then hopefully,
Speaker 1: maybe at some point down the line, do a third reboot,
Speaker 1: or would it be a second reboot, because this is
Speaker 1: the first reboot you tell us, we will be doing
Speaker 1: one more episode. It will be our finale, and that
Speaker 1: will be probably at some point in December before the holidays,
Speaker 1: and it will be all three of us. Were really
Speaker 1: looking forward to that. If you would like to call
Speaker 1: in and leave a voicemail for that show, please do
Speaker 1: to four oh four six Night. You can also email
Speaker 1: us at Night Call Podcast at gmail dot com. There
Speaker 1: may also be one more Patreon episode for our subscribers
Speaker 1: at Patreon dot com forwards last Night Call. This was
Speaker 1: a very hard announcement to make and we just wanted
Speaker 1: to let you guys know what was going on because
Speaker 1: we really like you and we're grateful for you. So
Speaker 1: thank you for supporting the show, thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you one last time at some point.
Speaker 1: We'll let you know in December. Goodbye.