Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. My guest today is famous for
Speaker 1: playing a witch and keeping us in stitches. Actor, comedian,
Speaker 1: and my dear friend, Caroline Ray. The Canadian born performer,
Speaker 1: came up as a stand up comic in New York City,
Speaker 1: working in the Bloomingdale's Perfume counter by day and performing
Speaker 1: open mics at night. In the nineties, she moved to
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and soon after landed the television role that
Speaker 1: would make her famous, Aunt Hilda in Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Speaker 1: Since then, she has taken her talent many places, performing
Speaker 1: stand up on Comedy Central, HBO, and Showtime, helming The
Speaker 1: Caroline Ray Show, hosting The Biggest Loser, voicing the Disney Channels,
Speaker 1: Phineas and Ferb, and appearing as a panelist on game
Speaker 1: shows like Hollywoo with Squeers and With Me on Match Game.
Speaker 1: Yet Ray always comes back to her first love. She
Speaker 1: recently got back on the road performing stand up across
Speaker 1: the country. But don't let the perky, smile and buoyant
Speaker 1: personality fool you. Her humor can be body. It's hard
Speaker 1: to pick a name like, I wanted to name her
Speaker 1: Emmy because I've always wanted an Emmy, And but when
Speaker 1: we were trying to pick her middle name, it was
Speaker 1: like everybody was giving a suggestion. So someone said what
Speaker 1: about Lily, And I'm like, no, that's like a poled answer,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. And no one said what about Marie? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, my mother's like, that's so Catholic. Like oh,
Speaker 1: and so my daughter's father's mother said well, what about Gina,
Speaker 1: And everyone's like that's so pretty, and I'm like, hello, Ava,
Speaker 1: Gina is not going to be my daughter's name now.
Speaker 1: Caroline Ray had her daughter Ava in two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight and took ten years off of her career to
Speaker 1: focus on raising her. I wanted to know what that
Speaker 1: time of her life was like. I did stand up,
Speaker 1: but I would do it. I would do occasional corporates
Speaker 1: and I would but I would cut way back. I
Speaker 1: would maybe go on the road two or three times
Speaker 1: a year, but I would do stand up locally. But no,
Speaker 1: I really thought I was like lucky enough to have
Speaker 1: a baby as old as I was, and I was not.
Speaker 1: There was nothing at the time that was going to
Speaker 1: be more interesting than she was at a comedy club
Speaker 1: and I felt like I'd already been there. And then
Speaker 1: when she was about two and a half, I was like,
Speaker 1: I have to go on stage right now. And then
Speaker 1: I did a special, so I worked on that. But
Speaker 1: I would say in the last year, I've done more
Speaker 1: stand up than I have in fifteen years. I'm like,
Speaker 1: every night I'm at the comedy store or the improv
Speaker 1: doing something I don't know. After COVID, I thought I'd
Speaker 1: never do it again, and then I got COVID and
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, it's not as bad, and then
Speaker 1: I ran to a stage as quickly as possible. But
Speaker 1: it's weird. It's it doesn't matter what I do. That
Speaker 1: is where I'm happiest. Yeah, what is what is your
Speaker 1: happiest like of all the things you do? Being in
Speaker 1: a movie? Probably right, no no no, no no no,
Speaker 1: a plate or this. I like doing this. I mean,
Speaker 1: we do this and we're not trust me, we're not
Speaker 1: getting rich to in this podcast. But you were brilliantly
Speaker 1: funny as a game show host too. You take off
Speaker 1: when you just said that about nothing is interesting in
Speaker 1: a comedy club as this. I said, to watch the
Speaker 1: Journey of human development, day by day, up close the
Speaker 1: good and the bad. Because my kids are either uproariously
Speaker 1: funny or I want to throw them off the balcony.
Speaker 1: There's just nothing I found that could be placed. Though.
Speaker 1: Did you find that when you after that period, when
Speaker 1: did you decide you were going to go back into
Speaker 1: it hard charging in full time? Well, at some point
Speaker 1: I thought, I'm like, I call it a MoMA. It's
Speaker 1: like a mom coma. Or you're just in it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. That's what you're doing. You're being
Speaker 1: a mom or you're being a dad, and you're being
Speaker 1: it so fully, and every minute of that is the greatest.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like my life went from like at
Speaker 1: a great life and the minute ever was born into
Speaker 1: technicolor like it's just it was winning the lottery for me.
Speaker 1: And it took so long and it came. You know,
Speaker 1: my dad died, My parents got diagnosed with cancer one
Speaker 1: week apart, and my dad died, and the next month
Speaker 1: I got pregnant naturally at forty three, So I feel
Speaker 1: it was like a spiritual miracle. I was told I
Speaker 1: had a one percent chance of getting pregnant, so I
Speaker 1: believe in all that. So it was one percent, but
Speaker 1: I was just going to say that. At some point,
Speaker 1: I thought I have to be an interesting person for
Speaker 1: my child, and I have in no way sacrifice anything,
Speaker 1: because she's given me everything in raising her and being
Speaker 1: with her. But I want her to have a passion
Speaker 1: in her life that she loves and a purpose. She's fourteen,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it's my purpose to be a comedian,
Speaker 1: and now after having done it for so long, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to get a special I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: get a TV show. I'm not doing it for anything
Speaker 1: other than the fact that if I go in a
Speaker 1: room and at the end of that hour, I've elevated
Speaker 1: anybody in any way to be in a happier place,
Speaker 1: I feel like my job's done, and I feel like
Speaker 1: that's what we need to be doing. I feel like
Speaker 1: concentrating on what we have in common as people again
Speaker 1: like to sort of reunite us. And I also think
Speaker 1: my mom didn't have a voice at this age. I'm
Speaker 1: never going to give up mine, and there are women
Speaker 1: my age that exists that are thriving that need to
Speaker 1: see themselves being spoken about. How is it different now
Speaker 1: than when you started in terms of being on stage. Well,
Speaker 1: you could say anything on stage in nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: and now you know you have to be socially respectful,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's very different. But also stand ups
Speaker 1: how I process my life. The audience is sort of
Speaker 1: therapy and we figure out what's going on. And I
Speaker 1: always say this, but the only reason I was successful
Speaker 1: is I thought it was so unique. It' because I'm
Speaker 1: not in anyone unique. I'm exactly like everybody else. That's
Speaker 1: exactly like everyone else. But when I first started, I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about sex. Then I want to talk
Speaker 1: about everything that women are traditionally not supposed to talk about.
Speaker 1: That's what I want to talk about. I remember being
Speaker 1: called the Liz Fair of comedy and I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: that's like the biggest compliment. You know how to clean right,
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming because you've done a lot of network
Speaker 1: stuff you have to play a clean like Tina. They
Speaker 1: taught me that. She said, this is harder with standards,
Speaker 1: and because we have to find another way to say
Speaker 1: it right. We can't be dropping the F bomb and
Speaker 1: everything all the time. I don't know what your most
Speaker 1: famous thing is, but like if I say you're a name,
Speaker 1: to a man, they immediately say Glen Gary, Glenn Ross. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but for me it was Sabrina, which is what you're
Speaker 1: most known for, which I will be forever grateful for.
Speaker 1: But all of a sudden, I had eight year olds
Speaker 1: in the audience, and I remember saying to them, do
Speaker 1: you know what boundaries are? And they said yes, I
Speaker 1: go because your parents don't. And then I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: now I have to change my ACCT because I'm never
Speaker 1: going to teach a child something it's parents. Their parents
Speaker 1: haven't taught them. You're not their parents now. So then
Speaker 1: I then I sort of adjusted my act and I
Speaker 1: would say, I don't know, it's probably more for everybody now.
Speaker 1: I just like writing a joke about something like I
Speaker 1: wrote a joke that if you date someone in the military,
Speaker 1: I didn't know this, but after sex, the protocol as
Speaker 1: you're supposed to say thank you for your servant, I said,
Speaker 1: and I did it. He was an army ranger, so
Speaker 1: I think he had intimacy issues with After sex, I
Speaker 1: went to the bathroom and he parachuted out of the window.
Speaker 1: So like, to me, that's processing something that actually happened.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into nitty gritty detail anymore.
Speaker 1: Probably maybe if I was in a group full of
Speaker 1: just women, because women speak in the most intricate, disgusting
Speaker 1: way about sex that you have no idea. You're more like, oh,
Speaker 1: her whatever. But we're like, we could do a court
Speaker 1: sketch of any penis we've ever been told about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but when you're out there now, like when you started
Speaker 1: describe your first stand up comedy gigs, this was in
Speaker 1: Canada before you came here. I never did in Canada
Speaker 1: because you know, you can't be a prophet in your
Speaker 1: own town. I moved to New York. Scott Blakeman taught
Speaker 1: a class at the New School to called stand up comedy.
Speaker 1: And then the first time I went on stage was
Speaker 1: at the Comic Strip, and I had all these Australian
Speaker 1: friends who were completely broke, who are now like giant
Speaker 1: titans of business who you know, sold their companies for
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars. And then like, really, because
Speaker 1: I paid for every dinner in the nineties, And as
Speaker 1: I walked on stage and John Wiley said, you're really bad,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I'm not even at the mic yet.
Speaker 1: It's like in Ireland they heckle you on the way
Speaker 1: like you're a fat I'm I'm not at the mic yet,
Speaker 1: you can't pre echo me. And then I just remember
Speaker 1: standing there and doing it, and I thought, I have
Speaker 1: no idea where I am or what I'm doing, like
Speaker 1: I said, And then I just said, I can't imagine
Speaker 1: how many times you're at your job and you get
Speaker 1: up and look around and go, I have no idea
Speaker 1: what I'm doing here or where I am. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: a dentist, whatever it is. I just and then that
Speaker 1: was it. And then I went on stage probably five
Speaker 1: hundred times a year for the next few years, going
Speaker 1: to every open mic possible. My sister could lip sync
Speaker 1: my act from the back of the room. She was
Speaker 1: so supportive. It's funny the performance. Jean, Did you know
Speaker 1: you were a performer back then when you were in Canada? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I was always in plays and I was
Speaker 1: always sort of I think that's the thing about a
Speaker 1: stand up. Before they get on a stage they're doing
Speaker 1: those poor people that they grow up with have heard
Speaker 1: their material all the time. There's something that is triggered
Speaker 1: in me. If there's you know, more than a certain
Speaker 1: amount of people you know, it wakes up in me
Speaker 1: that and if it's a thousand strangers, then it really
Speaker 1: wakes up at me. It's a weird thing. It is
Speaker 1: that complete love of performing. Billy Joel came on the
Speaker 1: show in one of our earliest shows he did. Billy
Speaker 1: Joel comes on the show and he says that, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the conditions of his success is everywhere he goes,
Speaker 1: people are like, Billy, do you mind it's Christmas? Just
Speaker 1: a couple of tunes. We just had it tuned. The
Speaker 1: pianos right over here. Just a couple of songs, please, Like,
Speaker 1: everywhere he goes, if this a piano in the room,
Speaker 1: everybody's like, Billy, does everybody ask you to do the
Speaker 1: wedding toast? Do they ask you to do the you know?
Speaker 1: Are you always asked to get up and be funny? Yes?
Speaker 1: Which is like literally the only thing that will make
Speaker 1: me not funny. So the first place you go from
Speaker 1: Canada when you come to the US as where New
Speaker 1: York City? You go to New York I moved by
Speaker 1: I can't remember if it was eighty five or eighty seven.
Speaker 1: I was flying back from Tucson, where my dad lived.
Speaker 1: Sitting next to this very gorgeous model who was talking
Speaker 1: to me about his famous brother who was on Notts Landing. Oh, no, Billy.
Speaker 1: It was with Billy. And then we shared a cab home.
Speaker 1: I was on the opprest side, he was on the
Speaker 1: breast side, and I was so mesmerized by him, handsome,
Speaker 1: he was. I left all of my luggage in the cab. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when you come to New York, is it hard?
Speaker 1: That's terribly hard. It's awful. Was it hard to break in? Yes?
Speaker 1: I felt like New York was a giant balloon and
Speaker 1: I had a cotton ball And I remember my friend
Speaker 1: Norm McDonald was on Letterman and he brought me with him,
Speaker 1: and I remember sitting backstage the old Letterman, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: early nineties, And I remember sitting backstage and Christy Turlington
Speaker 1: was the other guest, and there were these giant cookies
Speaker 1: with jam in them. About the fact that that's what
Speaker 1: I remember from Letterman, right, the treats in the green room.
Speaker 1: And then I remember just thinking I just want to
Speaker 1: be a part of whatever this is. I need to
Speaker 1: And it was like I was invisible. Nobody would even
Speaker 1: you know, like talk to me basically, and I was
Speaker 1: just there for norm sitting in the back and then
Speaker 1: arding him and Melissa Ethritz was the other guest too,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I just want to be this
Speaker 1: is this is all I want. And I loved Letterman
Speaker 1: so much. That was very hard. It was very hard.
Speaker 1: It was. And then I went on the road and
Speaker 1: did colleges and I would just cry and I would
Speaker 1: call my sisters or support. It was just really hard
Speaker 1: because the thing about comedy that's so hard is that
Speaker 1: you're so seemingly connected to people and then you are alone,
Speaker 1: you know, and then you're alone in your room. You
Speaker 1: were with so many people. And I fully understand now,
Speaker 1: like to me, the understanding of an extrovert and an introvert.
Speaker 1: My friend Peter Johnson is like an expert in this,
Speaker 1: and he said, an expert it's someone who really finds
Speaker 1: energy from other people. That's their life source. And an
Speaker 1: introvert is ultimately drained by being around too many people.
Speaker 1: And I am truly an extrovert. I can't even get
Speaker 1: something done if I'm alone, But if someone's in the
Speaker 1: other room, I can function really well. Wow. But if
Speaker 1: I'm alone, I'm like, hmm, no, But you have such
Speaker 1: a command on stage, Like, there are people who come
Speaker 1: up and you know you're not Stephen right right, Well,
Speaker 1: I couldn't even find you inside the wallpaper. They could
Speaker 1: all blends together in terms of his personality. But he's
Speaker 1: very funny. He's incredibly funny. But you are an entertainer
Speaker 1: of the old school, where you're up there and right
Speaker 1: away first of all, and I told them this before
Speaker 1: you came here. I go, this woman is. Everybody loves you.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves you. You have an energy. You walk on
Speaker 1: and you don't even open your mouth and you're halfway home.
Speaker 1: People just adore you. There's a warmth, there's a love,
Speaker 1: there's a graciousness. They know they're going to see a
Speaker 1: good show. You have a persona before you even start
Speaker 1: telling jokes. Did you have to find that a warmth?
Speaker 1: I sound so sappy, but I am genuinely so happy
Speaker 1: to be there, and especially after COVID, I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: to be there, and that the fact that I've been
Speaker 1: doing this long and an audience is still coming to
Speaker 1: see me. I am so happy to see them, you know.
Speaker 1: But you're most comfortable when you're on stage. Probably you
Speaker 1: really love it. Yeah, I feel like I always think
Speaker 1: my stand up as a dinner party. I know what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make, you're my guests. I don't know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. But the thing about stand up that
Speaker 1: amazes me is it's only going to happen in that
Speaker 1: moment in time. Even if we film it, it's never
Speaker 1: gonna be what it feels like live. So I think
Speaker 1: it's just an exchange of energy. Now, you were in
Speaker 1: New York, went out to kept the apartment in New York,
Speaker 1: finally gave up the apartment of New York, and you're
Speaker 1: living in LA what's the difference for you, because I
Speaker 1: have my theory about that. What's the difference for me? Well,
Speaker 1: the difference to me is that there's so many more
Speaker 1: actors out there than there are in New York. Like,
Speaker 1: every time I see a picture of you in your Instagram,
Speaker 1: you're like, you know, hey, it's me and so and so.
Speaker 1: You're like at this eventure, this party, and it's very
Speaker 1: social in the business. There's a lot of opportunities at benefits.
Speaker 1: It's in a giant office, That's what Los Angeles is.
Speaker 1: It's a giant office, but I'm really there more as
Speaker 1: like I don't need to live there anymore. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just that my daughter's in school there now and
Speaker 1: she's connected to that. And even though I lived in
Speaker 1: New York for thirty years, I come back and it's
Speaker 1: the boyfriend who I loved more than anything. But I
Speaker 1: know why we broke up, Like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: live here anymore. It's too many people. Yeah, I feel chlaustrophobic.
Speaker 1: And then when I'm out there, I'm like, stop talking
Speaker 1: about hiking. I don't care. Yeah, it's just it's such
Speaker 1: like I just can't believe you're talking about hiking and
Speaker 1: how the hike was, how it was just walking up
Speaker 1: a hill with rocks. Stop talking about it. It's just torture.
Speaker 1: But I think about that because because most of my
Speaker 1: friends who were living here moved there in the nineties.
Speaker 1: They're all out there. They're all there. They're all there.
Speaker 1: I mean, New York is where you come and live
Speaker 1: because you either don't care or you've made your name
Speaker 1: known well enough when they'll confine you if they want you.
Speaker 1: But for me, I see on your Instagram, and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying in a judgmental way, I'm saying you remind
Speaker 1: me about how out there you could go out every
Speaker 1: night to an event of screening, and I hate doing that.
Speaker 1: I only have to do that for my social stuff.
Speaker 1: I just you know, it's just yeah, I don't I
Speaker 1: could care less about going to those things. I really could.
Speaker 1: I'd much father sit and have a small dinner party
Speaker 1: with somebody that I super interesting. How did your work
Speaker 1: change once you had a child? I mean, who you
Speaker 1: are before you have a child and who you are
Speaker 1: afterwards is completely different. My sons are just I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do in terms of theirs. They have
Speaker 1: all this energy. They don't go to sleep, They collapse.
Speaker 1: I don't know how. I mean, if I had a boy,
Speaker 1: I would have had a nervous breakdown. I always think
Speaker 1: of you because Ava couldn't say certain letters when she
Speaker 1: was like a baby. You know, she couldn't say ell.
Speaker 1: You know how when they go through phases where they're
Speaker 1: like and I remember, sure we'll called water wad and
Speaker 1: an orange or none. And I was like, don't ever
Speaker 1: correct her because it's so adorable. But the little boy
Speaker 1: killing that lived across the hall, who was like, you know,
Speaker 1: they got married at age three. He was obsessed with
Speaker 1: Thomas the tank, your show my magnum opus, Yes, your
Speaker 1: magnum opus, and he couldn't say ours, so he would
Speaker 1: always say do you want to play with pussy instead
Speaker 1: of Percy? And she had a big pink clock and
Speaker 1: she was like, do you want to play with my
Speaker 1: big pink cock? And I was like, this is the
Speaker 1: most horrifying soundtrack I find. Okay, I'm not the Queen
Speaker 1: of boundaries anyway. I think Ava was seven when she
Speaker 1: came home and said, we learned a new word today.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it means. And I go, well,
Speaker 1: how do you spell it? And oh, like, yes, you've
Speaker 1: never heard it at this house. So I think one
Speaker 1: being a single parent, I overcompensate because you know, she's
Speaker 1: with me the most of the I mean, she has
Speaker 1: a lovely father, but she's with me most of the time.
Speaker 1: I've always said to where I go, if we do
Speaker 1: all the yeses, they're far fewer knows, like, if you
Speaker 1: do everything you're supposed to do, I will say no,
Speaker 1: probably much less than the average parent. How are you
Speaker 1: with your daughter about media? We were great until we
Speaker 1: went to Australia and I did the Melbourne Comedy Festival
Speaker 1: and then I was like, she's going to get something
Speaker 1: electronic to, you know, so that she can be distracted.
Speaker 1: I regret it terribly, I really do, because I think
Speaker 1: that we're all so addicted to it, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I lost my iPhone recently and they were three of
Speaker 1: the happiest days of my life. You know. It's nice
Speaker 1: to be disconnected in the summer, no electronics until six
Speaker 1: and we're all together, like my sisters and all the
Speaker 1: we are all together as a family. So I like
Speaker 1: that now, you do, Sabrina, Yes, and when I'm want
Speaker 1: to talk about that in a little detail about what
Speaker 1: that experience was like, because that's a classic TV show,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And that's all I ever
Speaker 1: wanted to do was be on a sitcom, That's all
Speaker 1: I mean. I have this thought that many people have,
Speaker 1: which is that you know, these things are now on forever,
Speaker 1: you know, I know, if you're one of the stars
Speaker 1: of Friends or Seinfeld, it's like that's going to just
Speaker 1: follow you around forever. Sabrina has been on television every
Speaker 1: day somewhere since the two thousand and then. Amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And what was that experience like for you? Did you
Speaker 1: love it from the beginning. It's so funny. I have
Speaker 1: this horrible, horrible boyfriend and we went to Hawaii. This
Speaker 1: is pre cell phones or whatever. It's the old, like
Speaker 1: ever your pictures developed, And I said it and we
Speaker 1: broke up before the pictures were developed. And I was
Speaker 1: like so devastated by this. And I was sitting in
Speaker 1: the Upper West Side and I got this phone call
Speaker 1: from Neil Scovell, who created Sabrina, and she said, are
Speaker 1: you sure you won't reconsider the part? And I'm like, now,
Speaker 1: I have no idea what you're talking about. My managers
Speaker 1: had never forwarded it to me. Weeks before, well, they'd
Speaker 1: never forwarded it to me. They'd passed on it. I
Speaker 1: knew nothing about it. And she said, will you please
Speaker 1: you know we're casting this week. I'm going to send
Speaker 1: you the script. And it was so long ago that
Speaker 1: she sent it, and it was printed on like it
Speaker 1: looked like it came on a scroll from like Yeo's exactly,
Speaker 1: because so I went across the street all the curled papers.
Speaker 1: I read the script immediately, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I absolutely want to do this. I want to be Zelda,
Speaker 1: which was not who I was. And she said we're
Speaker 1: really thinking of view is Hilda And I said, well,
Speaker 1: tell me about the character and she said she traps
Speaker 1: a man in her ring for not loving her. And
Speaker 1: I literally said, yeah, I'll do that. I'll do the
Speaker 1: part because I had heartbroken. Yeah, I was like, I
Speaker 1: just was like, I want this guy trapped in a ring.
Speaker 1: That's literally what I said. And then I flew out,
Speaker 1: and you know you. I did the first test and
Speaker 1: then I went to producers and then they sent me
Speaker 1: to the network and I had just done a pilot
Speaker 1: that for some reason, it's just for that network. Now.
Speaker 1: For see, I'd done a pilot that didn't get picked up.
Speaker 1: It was called Daisy's Mom, about being a single mother
Speaker 1: to a girl. And I was like, everything in my
Speaker 1: life I always came it always came true in some
Speaker 1: element was something I was playing. It was weird. And
Speaker 1: then I went to network and I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what, this show is going to be on the
Speaker 1: air forever. I don't want to do this. I don't
Speaker 1: think I can do this. So I left my network
Speaker 1: test and they were so bad. Yeah, I left it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not signing. That's the quickest way to
Speaker 1: get hired. By the way, it's exactly what you show.
Speaker 1: Go to hell. I just had this panic and I
Speaker 1: don't know what I was thinking, and I flew home
Speaker 1: and then they immediately called me and said, you don't
Speaker 1: have to test. You can have the part. You know,
Speaker 1: you just can you let us know and then you
Speaker 1: could just have to fly out and do like a
Speaker 1: chemistry tester with whoever's going to play your sister, but
Speaker 1: please come. And I was such an idiot. I was like,
Speaker 1: now an I want to And then I remember my
Speaker 1: mother called me and said, good lord, that's not like
Speaker 1: they've asked you to be a bricklayer. Don't be such
Speaker 1: an idiot. You're appointing me exactly. She disappointed her. So
Speaker 1: then so then I took the job. And then of
Speaker 1: course I went to the psychic and he said, the
Speaker 1: show that you're starting in September will be on the
Speaker 1: air for seven years, which it was. I stand on
Speaker 1: it for six, but it was it was there for seven.
Speaker 1: It was the greatest thing that's probably ever happened to
Speaker 1: me in many ways because and this is really hooking,
Speaker 1: but it was like, what a gift to be able
Speaker 1: to entertain kids, right, and like in an adult show
Speaker 1: that was the loyal audience, powered by women about powerful women.
Speaker 1: The only objective my character ever had was she was
Speaker 1: six hundred years old and she had a playmate. And
Speaker 1: the only thing I ever thought and ever scene is
Speaker 1: you love this kid. You just love her and you
Speaker 1: have someone to like, play with and be silly with.
Speaker 1: Caroline Ray. If you enjoy conversations with hilarious women, check
Speaker 1: out my episode with Paula Powell. I used to write
Speaker 1: a sketch called six Degrees Celsius and it was like
Speaker 1: a boy group and Will Farrell was their manager. They
Speaker 1: had tinted glasses of course, you know. It was Jimmy
Speaker 1: Fallon and Chris Katan and Chris Parnell and they were
Speaker 1: a boy group. And then we'd have the host in it. Well,
Speaker 1: that week in Sync was there. We asked and Sync
Speaker 1: to be another boy group in this competition on the show,
Speaker 1: playing a fake boy group, And so I wrote a
Speaker 1: song called hold the Pickle and they were like McDonald's employees,
Speaker 1: and so in Sync came out with like McDonald's outfits
Speaker 1: on and saying hold the pit gull and they're so
Speaker 1: they were so crazy talented, like they got there and
Speaker 1: looked at it for ten minutes and had full harmonies
Speaker 1: and full choreography. I mean, they threw that shit together.
Speaker 1: I was just amazed to hear more of my conversation
Speaker 1: with Paula pelle Go to Here's the Thing dot Org.
Speaker 1: After the break, Carol Line Ray shares the gifts that
Speaker 1: working on Sabrina the Teenage which has brought into her life.
Speaker 1: I'm not like Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: When Caroline Ray was hired on Sabrina the Teenage, which
Speaker 1: she had already done years of stand up, I wanted
Speaker 1: to know if her comedic background brought about any improvisation
Speaker 1: on set that was not a big improvised show. They
Speaker 1: were pretty, they were they were very nice about But
Speaker 1: I had done a lot of pilots, and I had
Speaker 1: done I had done a series that had lasted six
Speaker 1: episodes and was canceled with a nineteen share. So now
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm actually writing a pilot because I
Speaker 1: want to be able to write my voice, which I
Speaker 1: you know, it's fun. I like acting. I like playing
Speaker 1: a character, but I think I want to do that too.
Speaker 1: Four camera, yeah, four camera, yeah, you're gonna be on it.
Speaker 1: I haven't told you yet, but I'll play Carlton the doormat. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: but you are you really working on this right now? Yes?
Speaker 1: I am. Did I answer the question about Sabrina. I
Speaker 1: I don't know if I did. It followed Sabrina yet
Speaker 1: everywhere I've been called a witch in every country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. But you know what, I've also been able
Speaker 1: to walk into the wall to read and see soldiers.
Speaker 1: I've been able to go into children's hospitals. I've been
Speaker 1: able to be sort of you know, it's in its
Speaker 1: fourth generation of like little girls who come up and
Speaker 1: hug me. You know, it's nice to be on something
Speaker 1: that was sort of a good like you can watch
Speaker 1: that show. And I've watched so much children's television now
Speaker 1: because of my daughter. I didn't watch an episode of
Speaker 1: Sabrina until Ava was seven. Wow, and then we watched
Speaker 1: an episode every night. But I remember, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've had this experience. I remember when I had done
Speaker 1: a Sesame Street video and Ava saw me on television
Speaker 1: and then she asked me one day, she goes, Mummy,
Speaker 1: are you the same mummy as you are as that
Speaker 1: person on television is that person on television also my mummy.
Speaker 1: I was like, it's a very confusing way to put that,
Speaker 1: but yeah, all forms of me and any any image
Speaker 1: of me is still your mummy. Talk to me about astrology.
Speaker 1: Why did you become interested in an astrology? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's because always look, I grew up with
Speaker 1: a very open minded family who we had a ghost
Speaker 1: in our house and it wasn't scary. It was just
Speaker 1: sort of accepted, and we were big believers in the unseen.
Speaker 1: And I think it's just anything that's like a further
Speaker 1: understanding of what it's just like breaking down a character
Speaker 1: in a play, right, like who they are. You're an aries,
Speaker 1: You're full aries. You're such aries energy. You know what
Speaker 1: the condition of the aries is, don't you? How lonely
Speaker 1: it is? Being right all the time. Really, that's pretty capricorn.
Speaker 1: That's my wife. That's my wife. I should have brought
Speaker 1: you my cards, did I know? I've sent them to you.
Speaker 1: The original one for arias I had to put for Queries,
Speaker 1: which was dear Aries, your compliment hurt my feelings were.
Speaker 1: So if you're talking to another areas, you don't get
Speaker 1: hurt feelings because you know exactly what you're saying, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure, Yeah, we've heard a lot of people's feelings
Speaker 1: done intentionally. Let's get to the point. Yeah, what's the point?
Speaker 1: Fast forward? Blah blah blah, what are you trying to
Speaker 1: say saying? I'll say to exactly I will say to
Speaker 1: my sister, and I'll see to numerous people in my
Speaker 1: family has this and today's Saint Patrick's say they've got
Speaker 1: this Irish disease. Where I'll talk to him and I'll go, oh,
Speaker 1: I heard that Jerry's daughter was in a car accident.
Speaker 1: They'll go, well, you know Jerry. Now I remember that
Speaker 1: time with Jerry, and we got to loop around oh yeah,
Speaker 1: like six spins around the track before we finally get
Speaker 1: to the point. And I will just talk to my
Speaker 1: family and go, wait, wait, wait, wait, what happened to
Speaker 1: Jerry's daughter. That's how this began. And then and they
Speaker 1: never get to the point. I have a really funny
Speaker 1: memory with you two before we were friends. So it
Speaker 1: was nineteen ninety six and I was sitting happily in
Speaker 1: first class in my first class seat, I fell asleep
Speaker 1: and I thought we had arrived in LA And They're
Speaker 1: like We're sorry for the Serira delay, but this plane
Speaker 1: is broken. You know, we'll get you on another plane soon.
Speaker 1: And we ended up getting I had to take a
Speaker 1: flight that I had to fly coach. That day. I
Speaker 1: had gone to look at an apartment with my sister
Speaker 1: in New York and the girl who answered the door said,
Speaker 1: you know you're intelligent. That's weird. This is Ted Danson's
Speaker 1: old apartment. I go, that's weird, and she goes and
Speaker 1: I was the original Maryland on the Munsters. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: this woman blonde, she was married, Yeah, she was, so
Speaker 1: that that happened. And then I go to the airport
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting next to Georgia Engel from marriage other Moore. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting next to her, and that was like
Speaker 1: another throwback, right, And then I finally get on the
Speaker 1: plane and I walk by and in my seat from
Speaker 1: the previous flight is now a very heavily bearded Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin in my exact seat, who I did not know.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, so annoying that you're in
Speaker 1: my seat. And I'm not not that it was you,
Speaker 1: just that I was I was like in thirty seven. Eh.
Speaker 1: And then when we Land. Aaron Murphy comes up to
Speaker 1: me and says, Hi, We're kind of related. And I said,
Speaker 1: how so? And she said, I was Tabitha on Bewitch.
Speaker 1: This is all in the same day. And then she said,
Speaker 1: and this is my friend. He was Ernie on My
Speaker 1: Three Sons. I'm like, when did this plane leave? This
Speaker 1: is like the longest delay. Right behind her was Greg
Speaker 1: Evigan from BJ and the Bear. I mean that was
Speaker 1: the celebrity that was the TV celebrity flight. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: just watched a movie with Greg Evigan's daughter in it. No, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's beautiful. She looks exactly Greg Egan. Yeah, very handsome
Speaker 1: leading man Gregory Harrison, who had a great career in TV.
Speaker 1: He was the one that said the thing that really
Speaker 1: kind of changed my acting career in a way. He said,
Speaker 1: I walked into the audition and I stopped pretending like
Speaker 1: I was doing them a favor. He said, you called
Speaker 1: me here. I'm here for a reason. I'm like, oh God,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, and like being so needy. He said,
Speaker 1: you want something I have. Now I want something you have,
Speaker 1: which is the power to cast people in a show.
Speaker 1: But I got something you you want as well. And
Speaker 1: once I stopped asking, like they were doing me a
Speaker 1: favor and were that I had something of value as well.
Speaker 1: And I walked into and I was like a grown man, going,
Speaker 1: what what do you want me to play? What? What
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? Right? And and that
Speaker 1: that imbued him with a kind of a confidence. I
Speaker 1: always tell these young comics, I'm like, just remember that
Speaker 1: manager and that agent work for you, right. You don't
Speaker 1: have to please them. You're not like afraid of the
Speaker 1: they are making money off your talent. Your talent, you're
Speaker 1: very kindly said that I had a command on stage.
Speaker 1: And I read a review that Malcolm Gladwell had written
Speaker 1: about a book, and he said she wrote in a
Speaker 1: manner in which she was saying, don't you dare take
Speaker 1: your eyes off this page? And I remember reading that
Speaker 1: and it gave me, you know, like, even though I've
Speaker 1: done this for so long, you're always learning something new.
Speaker 1: And I have this thing in my head now where
Speaker 1: I'm like, don't you dare take your eyes off me?
Speaker 1: Don't you dare? I have something to share with you,
Speaker 1: and it's really important that I get this message across.
Speaker 1: And I too think that now when I'm on stage
Speaker 1: comedian and actor Caroline Ray. If you're enjoying this conversation,
Speaker 1: tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. When we come back, Caroline shares the one
Speaker 1: time she completely bombed on stage. I'm Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing. After three decades in
Speaker 1: movies and television, Caroline Ray is a back performing stand
Speaker 1: up in front of live audiences across the country. I
Speaker 1: wanted to know why the comedy club stage remains such
Speaker 1: a magnetic draw for her. I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that to me still so exciting about comedy is like,
Speaker 1: I remember when I first moved to New York, I thought,
Speaker 1: I don't know where my gift is from. I don't
Speaker 1: know what this is. It's not tangible. It's not like
Speaker 1: I memorized actuarial tables and I can go be an accountant.
Speaker 1: I don't know where this is. It's something that comes
Speaker 1: from a place that I don't you know, I can't
Speaker 1: see it. And then the longer I've done it, the
Speaker 1: more is like you are going to trust that your
Speaker 1: gift is there and you're sort of channeling it like
Speaker 1: wherever it's coming from. I think it's funny that your
Speaker 1: mother was an obstetrician, your father was a guy in college.
Speaker 1: That's funny is the magazines that came to your house,
Speaker 1: of professional periodicals that came to your house were probably
Speaker 1: just unsettling. My father had I had a pen in
Speaker 1: the second grade that was for the pill, and it
Speaker 1: was like a little pill that went up and down.
Speaker 1: I had no we had all those things. We had
Speaker 1: like Gina lotraman, notepads, no idea what they were. The
Speaker 1: most hilarious is that when because my dad was also
Speaker 1: medical director at Planned Parenthood, and my slutty friends in
Speaker 1: college would call up and say, can you ask your
Speaker 1: father if you can get herpies from giving a blowjob?
Speaker 1: But don't don't say it's for me. Says for you,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I dance for me. I mean the
Speaker 1: seventh time I asked, my father's like, good God, what
Speaker 1: are you doing at that school? Exactly? Now? When did
Speaker 1: you first sense that things had changed and this cancel
Speaker 1: culture thing was coming and people started to change their
Speaker 1: acts and the contents of their Did you become aware
Speaker 1: of that at a certain point. I think when Louie
Speaker 1: sort of got canceled overnight, right, and it was very
Speaker 1: conflicting because he's such an old friend of mine, right,
Speaker 1: and about getting into details. When you see someone being canceled, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: but but why they're canceled. I mean, there's people who
Speaker 1: get canceled and I don't get it. Yeah, Now, Louis,
Speaker 1: when you understand what happened, you ask yourself, well, does
Speaker 1: he deserve it to be canceled? I mean, when you
Speaker 1: do that, well, it was very wrong what he did.
Speaker 1: I don't know. People make mistakes all the time. I
Speaker 1: don't think their lives should be judged one one event
Speaker 1: that they've made a terrible choice in. I don't. I mean,
Speaker 1: but when that happened, that's when you saw it like
Speaker 1: a turning point. Yeah, and then I thought, and then
Speaker 1: I was very conscious of you know, you do have
Speaker 1: to be respectful of where society is going. You have
Speaker 1: to be able to honor what people think and say
Speaker 1: without you know, losing your own individual take on things.
Speaker 1: What's the worst experience you ever had on stage? I'll
Speaker 1: tell you right now. It was when I had to
Speaker 1: perform at a wedding. I was dressed as a bridesmaid
Speaker 1: and they weren't expecting me at their request, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it was the worst experience. All of the saliva left
Speaker 1: my body and it was just me horrible. And then
Speaker 1: when the woman paid, man, I thought she was giving
Speaker 1: me a paper cup with the chick it was and
Speaker 1: it was like the first five hundred dollars I'd ever made.
Speaker 1: And I was just, Oh, nobody's bombing at a wedding
Speaker 1: where they're not expecting you, and they just oh, oh,
Speaker 1: I still I'm having a flashback. Horrible, horrible, horrible. What
Speaker 1: are among your favorite cities to perform? And what's a
Speaker 1: city where you just almost invert? And I'm on my
Speaker 1: way there because I'm gonna film a special there in May.
Speaker 1: What's a special? I can't say, I can't say. What
Speaker 1: do you think of this as a title. I'm trying
Speaker 1: not to hate man. I think that's just gonna make
Speaker 1: every man hate you even more. I just I seriously
Speaker 1: don't understand, man, and I'd like to They won't hate you,
Speaker 1: but they're gonna go clicks. We used to say, turn
Speaker 1: the dial. I think men listen to these comics and
Speaker 1: they'd be like, you know, what would the world be
Speaker 1: like if there were no men? We don't need man. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about that. You've always been hypersensitive about
Speaker 1: being a man. I've noticed that you are. You're always like,
Speaker 1: so hard, I'm not going to take all I remember.
Speaker 1: You're like, I'm not going to have somebody else's bad
Speaker 1: experience projected onto me, and like, oh, yes you are,
Speaker 1: because you're a very handsome movie star. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that's the you know, for men, they're always like, why
Speaker 1: do you understand women? Do I understand women? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think I do in terms of you're very loving and
Speaker 1: kind with your wife. Well, if I'm not as hell
Speaker 1: to pay, my kids will look at me and go,
Speaker 1: don't you talk to mommy that way? I love that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, when did my kids become my wife's legal team?
Speaker 1: I'm like her lawyer. God, that's mom. But what is
Speaker 1: the difference you think between the relationship between mother and father?
Speaker 1: Just innately, like from birth on? How do you think
Speaker 1: it differ from what I consider a great line my
Speaker 1: dad gave me. He goes parent He says, parented it
Speaker 1: as a competition between two people where the father always wins.
Speaker 1: The bronze medal. Oh my god, Yeah, the mother was
Speaker 1: the gold and the silver. You come in third in
Speaker 1: a competition between two people, you're a third. But when
Speaker 1: then in Canada, when we grew up in the Olympics,
Speaker 1: we thought brons was the highest you could right, But
Speaker 1: let me just stop with this. I want to say
Speaker 1: I love you whenever I hear from you, whenever I
Speaker 1: talk to that energy of yours that's made everybody love you.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves you, everybody loves you. What's your wrap up?
Speaker 1: That I love you and that you're a great man,
Speaker 1: and that everything's going to be okay, and you're a
Speaker 1: great dad and you make the world a better place.
Speaker 1: My thanks to my dear friend Caroline Ray. This episode
Speaker 1: was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City. We're
Speaker 1: produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach McNeice, and Maureen hoban Ow.
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is
Speaker 1: Danielle Gingwich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought
Speaker 1: to you by iHeart Radio.