Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: from My Heart Radio. One of my favorite parts of
Speaker 1: any day is reading bedtime stories with my kids, and
Speaker 1: I've come to treasure some of the books we read together.
Speaker 1: It takes a special talent to combine words and pictures
Speaker 1: that delight, inspire, and can be enjoyed again and again
Speaker 1: and again. My guest today, Marla Frasie, is one of
Speaker 1: those talents. She's an award winning children's book author and illustrator,
Speaker 1: and she wrote a book that's been particularly important in
Speaker 1: my life, Boss Baby, playing the business suit wearing hard
Speaker 1: charging infant has been the role of a lifetime. Marla
Speaker 1: Phrasie says she tackles serious topics in her work, such
Speaker 1: as baby's birthday, cake, boxer shorts, boys, and roller coasters.
Speaker 1: She's been honored twice with the Prestigious Call to Metal.
Speaker 1: Among the books she's written and illustrated are A Couple
Speaker 1: of Boys Have The Best Week Ever, Walk On and
Speaker 1: Santa Claus, The World's Number One Toy Expert. She's also
Speaker 1: illustrated books by other authors such as All the World,
Speaker 1: The Seven Silly Eaters, Stars and The New York Times
Speaker 1: best selling Clementine series. Marla Phrasey has always lived in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and she found her life's work early on.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up
Speaker 1: and write and illustrate children's books, and I always said
Speaker 1: I was going to do it, And then I went
Speaker 1: to art school. I went to Art Center College of
Speaker 1: Design in Pasadena, and I majored in illustration. And while
Speaker 1: I was there, I didn't really learn very much about
Speaker 1: publishing because it's on the West coast. Most of publishing
Speaker 1: is on the East Coast. At the time, no one
Speaker 1: taught children's book illustration, and so while I had certain skills,
Speaker 1: didn't really understand the component of writing stories with pictures.
Speaker 1: And I started as an illustrator, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: illustrate somebody else's manuscript. That was the easier path in
Speaker 1: um for me than writing and illustrating, and I thought
Speaker 1: I was ready, but as it turned out, I really
Speaker 1: had to learn what that meant, like how to write
Speaker 1: with pictures before I could get published. So that is
Speaker 1: what took me a long time. But I think the
Speaker 1: main components that really helped me kind of get to
Speaker 1: that point of a wanting to do it, and then
Speaker 1: you know, starting that path of trying to get published
Speaker 1: was you know, I loved reading, I loved drawing, and
Speaker 1: I love telling these stories. So it was kind of
Speaker 1: like I always have done those those things. Just a
Speaker 1: love of children's books throughout your own childhood was the
Speaker 1: foundation of this, of this whole idea. I remember what
Speaker 1: these books were like when I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: there was some really strange ones that I remember, like
Speaker 1: five of Chinese Brothers. Remember five Chinese brothers. I mean
Speaker 1: there was some really odd story that stayed with me
Speaker 1: and beyond uh sus and things like that which everybody knows,
Speaker 1: you know, go Dog Go and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And I was loved all of that. I remember I
Speaker 1: was in fifth grade when I became, you know, just addicted.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't stop reading The Phantom Told Booth. I
Speaker 1: was obsessed with Norton jer and The Phantom Told Booth
Speaker 1: and that book just, I mean literally changed my life.
Speaker 1: All this heavy literature when I was twelve and thirteen
Speaker 1: years old and I just couldn't stop reading. I was
Speaker 1: addicted to reading as as though I was a kid.
Speaker 1: And these children's books that made this stamp on me.
Speaker 1: I was obsessed with them. Now with you, you live
Speaker 1: in the basic area that you would school, and you
Speaker 1: haven't migrated very far from home, have you. I haven't. Actually,
Speaker 1: I've always lived in southern California my whole life, so yeah,
Speaker 1: somewhere around here when I grew up, Like the books
Speaker 1: that imprinted on me were I was pretty young. Those
Speaker 1: early books, like from when I was four or five six,
Speaker 1: those are the ones that made me want to do this,
Speaker 1: such as The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krause and Crockett Johnson,
Speaker 1: Blueberries for Sale by Robert McClaskey, Harold, and The Purple
Speaker 1: Crayon Where the Wild Things Are? Those classics were my
Speaker 1: childhood books. And I was lucky enough to have access
Speaker 1: to books. My mom had been an elementary school teacher,
Speaker 1: so we had some of these books, and we had
Speaker 1: a library in town and at my school as well,
Speaker 1: so you know, I just always loved to read. I
Speaker 1: was obsessed with Schultz as well. I mean, even when
Speaker 1: we were kids watching those TV shows and all the
Speaker 1: cartoon collection, the comic collections of Schultz. I studied those.
Speaker 1: I loved you, poured over them, brilliant. But when you're
Speaker 1: in school, and you go to art school to study
Speaker 1: prior to going there at the college level, had you
Speaker 1: been drawing for years and writing for years and and
Speaker 1: and trying your hand at this? What were your attempts
Speaker 1: prior to that, if any? Well a lot. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I at home. I would come home from school and
Speaker 1: I would make little books, some of which were saved,
Speaker 1: so I still have some of them, and they really
Speaker 1: aren't exceptional in any way. Like I like, i'd like
Speaker 1: to go when I talked to kids, show them because look,
Speaker 1: you know, this is here's my beginnings. You can do
Speaker 1: this too. But when I was about well, I was
Speaker 1: in third grade, my best friend was in second grade,
Speaker 1: and she knew I wanted to be a children's book illustrator.
Speaker 1: So she said, her name is Lisa Gilden. We're still friends.
Speaker 1: I'll write it, you illustrate it. Let's get started. If
Speaker 1: this is what you want to do. It was almost like,
Speaker 1: if if this is what you want to do, I'll
Speaker 1: help you do it. So she wrote this book and
Speaker 1: I did the pictures, and then are we showed it
Speaker 1: to our teachers and they sent it to like the
Speaker 1: California State Fair, and then we lost interest. In it,
Speaker 1: we've you know, okay, it's somewhere, and then it won
Speaker 1: some award so in the state fair. So our school
Speaker 1: asked us if we would make another copy for the
Speaker 1: school library. So we tried to remember what it is
Speaker 1: that we had written in what I had drawn. We
Speaker 1: made another copy. But then it was in the library.
Speaker 1: So when we would go to our school elementary school
Speaker 1: library was on the shelf. And that was a big
Speaker 1: deal to me to walk into the school library and
Speaker 1: see it with all the books that I love so much.
Speaker 1: It was just right there in the library. I think
Speaker 1: that really cemented it for me. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: grow up and do that. Author and illustrator Marla Frasey.
Speaker 1: If you love hearing about the lives of illustrators, be
Speaker 1: sure to check out my conversation with New Yorker cartoonist
Speaker 1: Rob's Chest. When she started submitting her work, she was
Speaker 1: drawing very tiny, single paneled cartoons. I think in this
Speaker 1: sort of logical but sort a slightly insane way, I thought,
Speaker 1: if I just draw really small, nobody will get really
Speaker 1: angry with me. It was in April of seven eight
Speaker 1: I dropped off this portfolio of cartoons to the New Yorker.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how many cartoons. Who was the editor then,
Speaker 1: William Shaun. When I came back next week to pick
Speaker 1: them up, there was a note from him to come
Speaker 1: back and see him. Turned out I'd sold a cartoon
Speaker 1: and he told me to come back every week. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I've been doing. Here more of
Speaker 1: my conversation with Rob's Chaste and Here's the Thing dot Org.
Speaker 1: After the break, Marla Phrasie talks about what art school
Speaker 1: really taught her. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing. If you ask most adults, they'll say
Speaker 1: they can't draw. But if you ask most children, they'll
Speaker 1: say they're great at drawing and coloring. I know for me,
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, I was proud out of
Speaker 1: my caricature of Groucho Marks I drew on my bedroom wall.
Speaker 1: But I got discouraged when I saw how talented some
Speaker 1: of my classmates were. For Marla Frasy, that moment when
Speaker 1: someone decides they can't draw is a big loss. She
Speaker 1: wishes more kids were encouraged to keep going. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's not the child giving up as much as
Speaker 1: usually I think either they're feeling like, somehow you did that.
Speaker 1: These other friends of yours could draw better than you.
Speaker 1: I mean what you described about the Gratcho marks caricature.
Speaker 1: Every illustrator has that feeling like, oh my god, that
Speaker 1: drawing I did just happened. It's just right, and I
Speaker 1: can't do that again. It's a miracle, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: even after you know, drawing for as my job for
Speaker 1: so long, I still have that feeling when I do
Speaker 1: a particular sketch, I'll never be able to do that again.
Speaker 1: How do I retain that energy or that freedom, or
Speaker 1: you know, the spontaneity of that drawing. So that story
Speaker 1: aside for a second. You know, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of kids stop because they've heard some criticism about their drawing,
Speaker 1: or they're comparing themselves. But I feel like most of
Speaker 1: the people that go on to keep drawing do it
Speaker 1: for the same reason. The kids just do what they do.
Speaker 1: They're more relaxed and calmer through the process of drawing,
Speaker 1: as maybe a kid that goes on to do music
Speaker 1: is sort of a spe sports or whatever. But we
Speaker 1: do all start drawing. I mean, we all start by drawing,
Speaker 1: and we all start by grating pictures right. I was
Speaker 1: labeled early as as a kid that drew at what
Speaker 1: At what age did you know you had that gift?
Speaker 1: At what age did you begin even to see as
Speaker 1: we often do in the eyes of adults. Adults will
Speaker 1: look at you going wow. They're looking at each other
Speaker 1: going wow, Yeah, when did that happen to you? Well?
Speaker 1: I feel like I knew personally when I was a
Speaker 1: kid a garden. Something was different about the way I
Speaker 1: drew than my kindergarten colleagues. That's um. But we were
Speaker 1: supposed to draw this garden outside, and then we came
Speaker 1: in with our garden drawings and it was our little
Speaker 1: vegetable garden, and all the drawings of both the other
Speaker 1: kindergarteners were as if they were floating above the garden
Speaker 1: looking down at it, which wasn't the way we could
Speaker 1: see it. We couldn't fly, you know. I drew it
Speaker 1: the way I saw it, which was from the ground level.
Speaker 1: And I remember thinking this is different and weird, Like
Speaker 1: why do they all think they could fly above the
Speaker 1: vegetable garden to draw. I remember that that moment thinking
Speaker 1: they're wrong. You know, if you're going to draw what
Speaker 1: it looks like, that's not the way we saw it.
Speaker 1: So that was my first awareness that I think from
Speaker 1: looking at an outside control group, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing this differently. I remember in third grade, we
Speaker 1: were all painting at easels and we were supposed to
Speaker 1: paint the person. We were in pairs, so we would
Speaker 1: paint the kid and then we would switch roles and
Speaker 1: then they would paint us. So I was painting one
Speaker 1: of my classmates and by accident, my brush went into
Speaker 1: blue instead of whatever I was thinking was that I
Speaker 1: was painting her neck and it hit the blue by accident,
Speaker 1: and and my brush made like this big blue kind
Speaker 1: of mistake in my mind. And I remember my teacher
Speaker 1: stood behind me and said, I'll be right back, and
Speaker 1: came back in with like the I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was another teacher, I can't remember, but brought some
Speaker 1: other adult in and then they stood there and talked
Speaker 1: about how I had used this cool color to like
Speaker 1: paint the shadow under the neck of the and it
Speaker 1: was a mistake. And I'm listening to them thinking, I mean,
Speaker 1: now I know that they thought already I was sort
Speaker 1: of the school artist, you know, the class artist or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was a brilliant mistake. A brilliant mistake. Now, when
Speaker 1: you go to art school for college to study art,
Speaker 1: when you come in there, I'm assuming because you've been
Speaker 1: doing this for so long since kindergarten and and and
Speaker 1: people are recognizing you as you go along. What becomes
Speaker 1: the purpose of art school, like a professional art school.
Speaker 1: What did you lack that they taught you a lot?
Speaker 1: Art Center College of Design. One of the things that
Speaker 1: the school does this sort of inundates you as a
Speaker 1: student with so much work. It is so grueling and
Speaker 1: hard that you have to be nimble, fast. You have
Speaker 1: to prioritize, you have to produce. You can't be a perfectionist,
Speaker 1: you can't wait for inspiration. You just have to work.
Speaker 1: And actually doing that was probably the most important part
Speaker 1: of it. You just developed sort of a work ethic.
Speaker 1: That's to me the most important thing. There was all
Speaker 1: all these foundational classes like drawing and painting and color
Speaker 1: and typography, design, you know, all kinds of foundational things
Speaker 1: that also factored in, But I think the main component
Speaker 1: was just being able to produce. And by that you
Speaker 1: mean what being able to like, here's a problem, solve
Speaker 1: it and do it fast, Give me an example. Well,
Speaker 1: I was a commercial illustrator for a lot of years,
Speaker 1: so when I left, it was like advertising a lot
Speaker 1: of editorial illustrations, so you know, you were doing all
Speaker 1: kinds of our work. Yeah, toys and games and you
Speaker 1: know T shirt design like um McDonald's happy Meals boxes.
Speaker 1: I designed all the NFL team mascots for kids, so
Speaker 1: like each team had a child version of their mascot
Speaker 1: that was put onto T shirts and stuffed animals. So
Speaker 1: I was working on a lot of jobs that you know,
Speaker 1: I had nothing to do with children's books, but it
Speaker 1: was a chot. So your first children's book, you right,
Speaker 1: is what roller Coaster. It came out in two thousand one.
Speaker 1: So I had illustrated a number of books before that,
Speaker 1: but that was the first I was the author and
Speaker 1: illustrator of. You would illustrated other children's books. Other people
Speaker 1: were the authors of the book, and you do the illustrations.
Speaker 1: Once the first one that was published that you illustrated,
Speaker 1: it was called world Famous Muriel and the Magic Mystery.
Speaker 1: It was what I thought was my foot in the door,
Speaker 1: like it was hit. I had been out of school.
Speaker 1: I've been working as an illustrator. I thought, great, I
Speaker 1: have this first book, like, this is great, I'm finally
Speaker 1: in And then after that came out, it was five
Speaker 1: years to the second book. And that five year period
Speaker 1: was real frustrating because I thought, I, you know, I
Speaker 1: had broken into the field. And so my second book
Speaker 1: was called That Cookery. And then right after that I
Speaker 1: got the third book, which was called The Seven Silly
Speaker 1: Eaters by Marianne Hoberman, and that book is still in print,
Speaker 1: and that was really the book that was more at
Speaker 1: the foot in the door. How do animated children's movies
Speaker 1: come into your eyeline for the first time? Were you?
Speaker 1: Were you aware of them? Did you did you watch them?
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy them? Because for me, I'm going to
Speaker 1: get to this after you answer this question. For me,
Speaker 1: the portal into all that world with my kids has
Speaker 1: led me to watch some films that have just been
Speaker 1: staggeringly beautiful to me and wonderful to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's some of these movies are really they're so brilliantly done.
Speaker 1: What were animated films in your life? Did you? Were
Speaker 1: you aware of them? And did you watch them? I did,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, growing up in southern California. One of
Speaker 1: my friends um in our neighborhood. Her father worked at
Speaker 1: Disney and so somehow he had access to the films,
Speaker 1: and every time she had a birthday, we were invited
Speaker 1: over and he would show them in his house on
Speaker 1: a Super eight movie projector, and so we'd be in
Speaker 1: our pajamas and these movies at the time, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember, but they were sort of vaulted
Speaker 1: for maybe seven years at a time. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: about the exact schedule, but let's say Cinderella would come out,
Speaker 1: and then seven years later it would maybe be released again.
Speaker 1: So like they would, they would come out and then
Speaker 1: they would go away. But because of this access to
Speaker 1: these films with this friend who was in the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: we were seeing films that you know, maybe just wouldn't
Speaker 1: have hit at the age that we were interested in seeing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was great, and I just remember how
Speaker 1: magical it was to see them in that way. You know.
Speaker 1: I also would see them when they would come out,
Speaker 1: if possible, in the theater. So I grew up with
Speaker 1: with that love of those movies that felt very personal
Speaker 1: and I just loved seeing them. My dad would teach
Speaker 1: what they used to call social studies, and his high
Speaker 1: school class he taught American government and economics. He taught
Speaker 1: a course called Contemporary Problems, and they would screen films
Speaker 1: in the field outside in the school on the projector
Speaker 1: on a screen. Then he'd bring the equipment home and
Speaker 1: he'd bring the films in the cans of film to
Speaker 1: the house and set it up on our backyard in
Speaker 1: the summertime and showed By Bye Birdie in our backyard
Speaker 1: with our neighbors. And we were never more popular. We
Speaker 1: were never This really guess at the beginning of my
Speaker 1: brothers and our introduction to the power of the movie business.
Speaker 1: Because we would watch Bye Bye Birdie. We probably watched
Speaker 1: it like four time. We watch it like four nights
Speaker 1: in a row. We had four screenings in my the theater,
Speaker 1: and we were We devoured all movies. We just couldn't
Speaker 1: get enough of movies. But with animated films, was there
Speaker 1: ever a discussion before a Boss Baby of any of
Speaker 1: your other books being made into animated features or animated programming. No,
Speaker 1: that came out of nowhere for me. But when I
Speaker 1: left Arts Center, I did work at Disney for a minute,
Speaker 1: and I thought that was going to be my career,
Speaker 1: like to work at Disney and do something in animation.
Speaker 1: I lasted six weeks, as it turned out, because I
Speaker 1: wasn't really trained and Disney animators typically know what they're
Speaker 1: doing when they get there, but I didn't. So I
Speaker 1: left six weeks after I got there, and then just
Speaker 1: became a freelance illustrator who thought I wanted to do
Speaker 1: children's books and that was sort of my path. But
Speaker 1: I always loved it, and I have a lot of
Speaker 1: books on animation, and I try and put a lot
Speaker 1: of sequential kind of illustrations in all my books, like
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of a a frozen animation, like each
Speaker 1: page is still and you turn the page to see
Speaker 1: the next bit of action. But I think of it
Speaker 1: as animation. So when we heard boss Baby had been
Speaker 1: you know, there was interest in optioning it, Like, I
Speaker 1: was blown away. I had no idea that that was
Speaker 1: you've gotten yourself into. Yeah, I mean I was very
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that's that was very exciting. But
Speaker 1: I had no you know, I wasn't thinking about that.
Speaker 1: I wonder for you, when Boss Baby comes out for
Speaker 1: the first time, are you sitting there going, oh God,
Speaker 1: this is not what I had in mind at all.
Speaker 1: You know, I had seen Boss Baby emerge, So between
Speaker 1: the time it was optioned to the time I saw
Speaker 1: it as a finished film, I had seen it over
Speaker 1: those I think seven years, but I do remember seeing
Speaker 1: it was probably about six finished and I was with
Speaker 1: my agent. We were at DreamWorks and it was a
Speaker 1: screening with a lot of like the people who had
Speaker 1: worked on the film, and it was like the first
Speaker 1: time we were seeing anything from like a linear experience.
Speaker 1: And afterwards I needed to sort of check myself out
Speaker 1: of the world for a couple of hours. You know.
Speaker 1: Everybody who knew me were like calling on my cell
Speaker 1: wondering what I thought, like they wanted like an update,
Speaker 1: and I just I had to kind of separate for
Speaker 1: a while and just think about what it meant to
Speaker 1: have something that was so personal to me that came
Speaker 1: out of my head that was like my baby, and
Speaker 1: was now this other thing that was related, but it
Speaker 1: was different, and I had already kind of thought I
Speaker 1: had done that that seeing it it was sort of
Speaker 1: like I really needed to think about that for a while.
Speaker 1: And at the end of that period of time where
Speaker 1: I sort of took myself out of the world and
Speaker 1: then and then when I re entered, it was like
Speaker 1: I was so excited about it was like I kind
Speaker 1: of succeeded in separating my own creative vision for whatever
Speaker 1: I thought I was doing with the book and whatever
Speaker 1: I didn't think. I had expectations, like I think that
Speaker 1: the movie should be a certain way or not be
Speaker 1: a serta way. It was just that it was so
Speaker 1: big and full and its own thing, its own voice.
Speaker 1: It's so strongly what it is in all kinds of
Speaker 1: amazing ways that I just needed to serve accommodate to that,
Speaker 1: and I did, and I just find the whole thing
Speaker 1: to be just incredibly fun. Well when I when I
Speaker 1: go and do those movies. I did Madagascar too. I
Speaker 1: had a small part that I did Rise at the Guardians,
Speaker 1: which was not as successful as they hoped by any measure,
Speaker 1: but I had a lot of fun doing that piece
Speaker 1: for them. And then they came to me and said,
Speaker 1: you want to do Boss Baby, And I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll give it a world because I loved Tom McGrath.
Speaker 1: What Tom had the recipe, He knew how to put
Speaker 1: these films together. But when I go do the film,
Speaker 1: I go in there, and they take me on the
Speaker 1: little tour. We walk around this conference when we would
Speaker 1: they lay out the story as it was then and
Speaker 1: I go in and you know, the first day or
Speaker 1: two you're doing this, you have no idea what you're doing,
Speaker 1: like what's too much, what's not enough? You're holding back,
Speaker 1: but you got to go in there and give it
Speaker 1: everything you had. And I and it's very similar to
Speaker 1: another character I played on the show thirty Rock, where
Speaker 1: the guy is like, there's a public self and a privateself.
Speaker 1: There's boss Baby who's always bombasted and kind of commanding
Speaker 1: and intimidating people and and pushing people around. And then
Speaker 1: boss Baby who gets real and it's terrified and filled
Speaker 1: with fear and wants to be loved and begins to
Speaker 1: cave and get real. And the movie comes out. And
Speaker 1: I must say, my kids have watched the film many times,
Speaker 1: the first film, and we sat there and I would
Speaker 1: watch it, and every time I watched it, I saw
Speaker 1: something different that I didn't see. And and animated films
Speaker 1: are so dense. When you say to people you can
Speaker 1: do anything you want to in animation, the question that
Speaker 1: follows that statement is, well, what have you got can
Speaker 1: your imagination keep up with the technology. They're amazing. But
Speaker 1: the other thing I noticed is that the film is
Speaker 1: made for a certain demographics, so it's the little kids
Speaker 1: and the pace. I mean, I watched the second Boss
Speaker 1: Baby and I had a splitting headache when it was over.
Speaker 1: So fast paced, and you realize, this is what kids want.
Speaker 1: Kids want boom boom, boom boom. You know, I I
Speaker 1: completely agree about the pace. I mean, the first time
Speaker 1: I saw it was just like out of breath. But
Speaker 1: I have to go back to what you said about
Speaker 1: like you voicing Boss Baby. One of the early conversations
Speaker 1: I remember my agent and I had I think it
Speaker 1: was Damon Ross and Ramsey Nato, who's the producer, And
Speaker 1: Damon is the one who brought the book to DreamWorks.
Speaker 1: They knew that you were already attached, but they were like,
Speaker 1: who do you guys think should voice Boss Baby? Like
Speaker 1: if just high in the sky, who would you want?
Speaker 1: And Steve and I were both like Alec Baldwin And
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, well you know, besides Alec Baldwin, who else?
Speaker 1: And we're like, well, well, well we'll push together a list.
Speaker 1: And later we got on the phone together and we're like,
Speaker 1: well that that's who. I mean, who else? Anyway, You're
Speaker 1: yours are the heart and soul and anchor of that movie.
Speaker 1: And plus I have a little key chain that came
Speaker 1: in some sort of swag bag and the first movie,
Speaker 1: like all the screenings and your voice emits from it's
Speaker 1: in my compartment, so so occasionally if things joggle in
Speaker 1: there all of a sudden, I hear you. To me,
Speaker 1: it's the joy for me is because we all want
Speaker 1: to make animated content for our kids as actors and
Speaker 1: do that voice thing. But God, you really hope that
Speaker 1: you work with the right people. And when we did
Speaker 1: the first Boss Baby, thank God for Tom, I mean
Speaker 1: thank God for Tom. Yeah, he's amazing. I love the
Speaker 1: heart that both of the you know, the Boss Baby, Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's like the center of both of them. Just
Speaker 1: hearing him talk about how that came to be and
Speaker 1: how important that was to him. And I think it
Speaker 1: makes sort of like the the fast pace and all
Speaker 1: the stuff that's going on, it's almost coming at you
Speaker 1: so quickly. It it holds it all together always. And
Speaker 1: I think my books, at my picture books don't have
Speaker 1: necessarily a quality like that. But I do hope a
Speaker 1: child will be eat them again and again and go
Speaker 1: back to them over and over again. And that's always
Speaker 1: the hope, always that there's like an emotional center, like
Speaker 1: a heartbeat, you know that. And that was the thing
Speaker 1: about Boss Baby that was probably one of the hardest
Speaker 1: things to make sure was still there. As I worked
Speaker 1: on on that book. It was trickier than some of
Speaker 1: the other books that i've I've done. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's because, you know, I think comedy is trickier.
Speaker 1: It just is. So. In the little documentary I saw,
Speaker 1: the little four or five minute documentary of you, a
Speaker 1: lot of sweeping shots and tracking shots in your fortress
Speaker 1: of solitude there, your cabin, your studio, and lots of colored,
Speaker 1: beautifully sharpened It was like a commercial for pencils and
Speaker 1: beautiful cans or containers filled with bouquets of different colors
Speaker 1: of pencils. And I'm wondering, is that still it's hand drawing.
Speaker 1: You're not doing it with a computer at all? No, No,
Speaker 1: not at all. The computer stresses me out, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe my age, maybe my temperament. I just don't find
Speaker 1: it relaxing. I would rather do a piece over again
Speaker 1: than struggle with something technological that I don't understand some problem.
Speaker 1: Do most people who illustrate books these days do an
Speaker 1: old school away like you, Most are on computer? Yeah? Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so, or some part of it might be
Speaker 1: on computer, Like they might do a lot of traditional
Speaker 1: drawing or painting and then scan that, put it into
Speaker 1: a program, and then work on it on the computer.
Speaker 1: I just don't. I just sort of do the whole
Speaker 1: thing on a piece of paper, which sometimes takes me
Speaker 1: longer than it probably should, depending on what I'm working on.
Speaker 1: I don't mind the time in I actually like it.
Speaker 1: It's what you need to do to do what you
Speaker 1: do correct. Yeah. Yeah, And when you're in the cabin,
Speaker 1: there is that where you go. I remember I think
Speaker 1: I might have mentioned this to you that different people
Speaker 1: in my life have told me about their parents Styron's children,
Speaker 1: Roth's intimates, Fever's children, when the mother would say, whatever
Speaker 1: you do, don't knock on the door of that room,
Speaker 1: or don't go out to the cabin, don't don't disturbed dad.
Speaker 1: There it is. There's the difference basis. Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: prefer concentration like any writer? Well, I'm still in the
Speaker 1: house in which my three sons were raised in. They're
Speaker 1: now grown up, so they're not here. But at the
Speaker 1: time that they were little, they all were in one
Speaker 1: bedroom of the house and I had my studio in
Speaker 1: one bedroom. And that worked until my oldest was probably
Speaker 1: about fourteen or something, and it was kind of like,
Speaker 1: they can't still be in one bedroom, the three three
Speaker 1: of them. And so what you do because I got
Speaker 1: four sons. Yeah, I'm seriously, what did you do? Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: built this little cabin in the backyard, so I'm in
Speaker 1: it right now. Actually it's twelve by twelve by twelve
Speaker 1: six twelve high two and I love it. I still
Speaker 1: love it. But even when we built it in the backyard,
Speaker 1: they were still little young, but they just all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I mean, it was good for all of us.
Speaker 1: It was good for them. It was good for me
Speaker 1: to have this sort of space between me being inside
Speaker 1: and helping with homework and doing the car put all
Speaker 1: that stuff, cooking whatever, and having my own, you know,
Speaker 1: space that they really respected it. They would come out,
Speaker 1: they like look through the door and to cand, you know,
Speaker 1: come in, and they it was also important for them
Speaker 1: to see that this was like a life that I
Speaker 1: had that was separate from them, and it was important
Speaker 1: to me, and they respected that. Did your children did
Speaker 1: all did three boys, as they became teenagers require their
Speaker 1: own rooms? We never had that space, so so they
Speaker 1: grew up together in the same room where you had
Speaker 1: two rooms for them. Well, then we had two rooms.
Speaker 1: So the oldest got his own room, and then when
Speaker 1: he went to college, then the second oldest took over
Speaker 1: that room. And so then they each then that's two
Speaker 1: had their own Number two and number three had their
Speaker 1: own room. Number one was gone. Yeah, I say, I
Speaker 1: say to my wife, and I'm terrified of this because
Speaker 1: I feel like my kid's got to have their own
Speaker 1: room or it's gonna be ma'am. You know what's funny
Speaker 1: the book I did, the Seven sal Eaters that I mentioned,
Speaker 1: it's seven kids that all live in this sort of
Speaker 1: cavenish house, and I illustrated their bedroom where they're all together.
Speaker 1: They're just all gamed together and in sort of an
Speaker 1: addict space. And so many kids have come up to
Speaker 1: me over all these years that this book has been out,
Speaker 1: and they're like, I love their bedroom. I wish I
Speaker 1: had a bedroom like this, And it's it's just I
Speaker 1: think there's something about it being sort of like Peter Pan,
Speaker 1: like you know, that idea that like kids are just
Speaker 1: in a big puppy pile together. It's an interesting emotional
Speaker 1: feeling that I think kids have when they talk to
Speaker 1: me about like wishing they had that, because you do
Speaker 1: they really I don't know, but they feel like they
Speaker 1: want that. Marla Phrasie, author of boss Baby. If you're
Speaker 1: enjoying this conversation, be sure to follow Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, Spotify, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. When we come back. Marla Phrasie talks
Speaker 1: about why she makes books for kids at the age
Speaker 1: just before they can read. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
Speaker 1: listening to Here's the Thing. For as long as stories
Speaker 1: have been told to children, there's been a tension between
Speaker 1: entertaining and educating them. Marla Phrasie's primary goal is to
Speaker 1: delight her readers, and while she's willing to challenge conventional
Speaker 1: norms along the way, she doesn't feel pressure from the
Speaker 1: industry to do so. Not in that way in my experience,
Speaker 1: although I know that the last few years there have
Speaker 1: been many, many conversations and rightly so about having more
Speaker 1: issues being covered and representation in children's books and stories.
Speaker 1: When I started to illustrate certain books that allowed for
Speaker 1: me to do this, I was really it was important
Speaker 1: for me to put you know, a lot of diversity
Speaker 1: and inclusion in the represented in the illustrations when I could.
Speaker 1: I think Boss Baby is a pretty good book to
Speaker 1: explain like why it wouldn't have worked then, because like, basically,
Speaker 1: Boss Baby is about what it's like when you have
Speaker 1: a new little creature in your house who's like the
Speaker 1: boss of you, who's getting all the attention, right, But
Speaker 1: it's also about sort of a patriarchal kind of system,
Speaker 1: and that's what I was started playing off of, in
Speaker 1: which case it had to be a white male boss.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's interesting. I did do a book, um,
Speaker 1: you know, after Boss Baby, called The Boss of Your Baby,
Speaker 1: in which you know, there's a little girl, that sibling
Speaker 1: that comes in and so plants the boss baby, and
Speaker 1: it was interesting to see the little girls, you know,
Speaker 1: Tabitha and Tina in the in this boss Baby family business.
Speaker 1: But basically, like this, the heart of the story in
Speaker 1: the film is still about Ted and Tim and their relationship,
Speaker 1: which is wonderful. And in the book, however, it was
Speaker 1: the subtext was sort of the patriarchal breaking apart of
Speaker 1: having this little girl boss come in and sort of
Speaker 1: get rid of the guy. Also just what happens when
Speaker 1: you have a little sibling. Another question about your writing
Speaker 1: is writing to delight children versus writing to educate them.
Speaker 1: Do you feel some compelling obligation in both areas. I
Speaker 1: don't feel any obligation to educate them at all. I
Speaker 1: feel a very strong obligation, however, to tell a story
Speaker 1: that means something to them and me. If I have
Speaker 1: something to say, if something means something to me, it's
Speaker 1: going to mean something to them, just because that's sort
Speaker 1: of where you kind of find the universal theme. But
Speaker 1: I really am so lucky that I get to work
Speaker 1: with children as my audience, because, especially as an illustrator
Speaker 1: who tells stories with pictures, sometimes in my books I'm
Speaker 1: writing the story too. Sometimes I'm illustrating somebody else's story.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I have wordless books that don't have any words.
Speaker 1: And so I think, well, children read pictures better than
Speaker 1: we do. They're way better at it than adults are.
Speaker 1: And and so when I know like, children are going
Speaker 1: to be looking at these pictures and they're going to
Speaker 1: be following the story. I know I can put in
Speaker 1: all kinds of levels of subtlety or secondary things that
Speaker 1: just adn't adult would miss, but kids will see it.
Speaker 1: And I also know that they will read the pictures
Speaker 1: at a much higher level of understanding than they could
Speaker 1: read words, Like at their age, they're better at reading
Speaker 1: pictures and they take it in differently. So I never
Speaker 1: think I wish I was telling stories to grown ups.
Speaker 1: You know, I really love the idea of telling stories
Speaker 1: to children at the age pretty much before they learn
Speaker 1: how to read. That's sort of my sweet spot. And
Speaker 1: I don't think they need to be educated. I think
Speaker 1: they just need stories to kind of identify with and
Speaker 1: look to to make sense of their world in a
Speaker 1: way to help them. Like, oh, I feel like that too.
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty much what I That's where I
Speaker 1: go when I'm trying to figure out if this, if
Speaker 1: whatever I'm working on is going to rest resonate. It's
Speaker 1: more about resonating with a child, like are they going
Speaker 1: to care? And then can I keep them in their attention?
Speaker 1: And once you have their attention, then you know you've
Speaker 1: kind of got them if you if I care about,
Speaker 1: you know, making sure that it makes sense, which is
Speaker 1: is sort more what I'm you know, whatever I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do. Does this make sense to them if they
Speaker 1: were to look at it, and so, you know, it's
Speaker 1: all on me if they can't understand what what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you my sindex story really quickly.
Speaker 1: I'm in an apartment building in New York, a very
Speaker 1: desirable building, beautiful building in the village, and I'm I'm
Speaker 1: on the verge of buying an apartment there. And uh,
Speaker 1: this is before I was married, and I wanted a
Speaker 1: decent size, and so the apartments on the floor there
Speaker 1: was a good size one two or three bedrooms, and
Speaker 1: then there were two apartments across the hall, which was
Speaker 1: probably the same apartment broken up into two apartments. And
Speaker 1: they show me the one apartment and I say, that's beautiful,
Speaker 1: and they said, but the woman who owns it, she's divorced,
Speaker 1: she's never here. She'll probably sell it to you. And
Speaker 1: I said, what about the other one across the hall
Speaker 1: from the main apartment, so to speak with the two
Speaker 1: smaller ones. He said, well, that's not on the market.
Speaker 1: I said, well, is there any way we could contact
Speaker 1: the owner? And she said, no, no, I'm not allowed
Speaker 1: to do that. I would not I would not recommend
Speaker 1: you do that, nor what I want to facilitate that.
Speaker 1: And then finally the time came when she said to me,
Speaker 1: I think there's an opportunity here for you to talk
Speaker 1: to the owner. I've spoken to him and he's very
Speaker 1: private and he has this apartment for many, many years,
Speaker 1: and he told me that he is prepared to discuss
Speaker 1: this with you theoretically. And it was Maury Sendeck and
Speaker 1: I get more Sindeck on the phone of his home
Speaker 1: in Connecticut, and I have one of the funniest conversations
Speaker 1: I've ever had with another person in my life. In
Speaker 1: the background, you hear a child screaming and being disciplined,
Speaker 1: and he's yelling at his mother. And I said, what's
Speaker 1: that sound in the background, because that's my housekeeper in
Speaker 1: a very elegant but he said, that's my housekeeper, Mr Baldwin,
Speaker 1: He said, my housekeeper. That's her child, his son who
Speaker 1: comes to work with her now. And then he said,
Speaker 1: Mr Baldwin, I I am a rather well known writer
Speaker 1: of children's books. I have a reputation for writing children's books.
Speaker 1: But the truth matter is I don't really like children
Speaker 1: at all, and I have no use for them, and
Speaker 1: I prefer when they're not around. Thing to say, then,
Speaker 1: I said, when we got to the business end of it,
Speaker 1: and he was so kind to me and so lovely,
Speaker 1: and he said to me that his partner had just died.
Speaker 1: And he said, in order to make this work with you,
Speaker 1: I'd have to go in there and go through everything.
Speaker 1: And he goes, and I'm not ready to do that.
Speaker 1: He said, I can't unpack my life with my partner.
Speaker 1: And when I'm ready to do that, I'll let you know.
Speaker 1: And then by then I found another apartment that I
Speaker 1: bought in a role just and then he died, Sendac,
Speaker 1: but he was when he said, he said, I just
Speaker 1: prefer when the children are not around. Yeah, that sounds
Speaker 1: very Sandac. And now have you noticed changes in parenting
Speaker 1: trends as they're reflected in themes and children's books? You know,
Speaker 1: I definitely think they are one of the things about
Speaker 1: children's books that's interesting. And send Doc was like amazing
Speaker 1: at this very thing, which is you can't really date
Speaker 1: his books you know, they're just as much of the
Speaker 1: moment now as when he did them, however many decades ago.
Speaker 1: Some of them timeless and when you look through them,
Speaker 1: you know, a bed like the Bedroom and where the
Speaker 1: Wild Things Are, for instance, is a very odd children's bedroom.
Speaker 1: It doesn't look it looks sort of like a hotel,
Speaker 1: a generic hotel room, Like there isn't anything in there
Speaker 1: that you think, oh, yeah, well that was from you know,
Speaker 1: it just looks. It kind of says what it needs
Speaker 1: to say. Bed table, you know, window cake. That sort
Speaker 1: of is My hope with my work is that it
Speaker 1: has a timelessness because like the kids that may read
Speaker 1: it now are going to grow up in hopefully shared
Speaker 1: the book what you want them to be sharing it
Speaker 1: with their kids. And so I've really tried very hard
Speaker 1: to not date the book so that it will resonate.
Speaker 1: Is there something you've written in the last several years
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't write again now? You wouldn't write it now?
Speaker 1: I don't, And I think it's I mean, I'm really
Speaker 1: proud of each of the books that I've done, and
Speaker 1: I feel like they are each a part of what
Speaker 1: I was going through when I did them, and so
Speaker 1: it's sort of a chunk of where I was in
Speaker 1: my life and what was going on in the world.
Speaker 1: And I mean in terms of like the pandemic. I
Speaker 1: am certain that books and everything parenting and education will
Speaker 1: be different, but how I don't I don't know how.
Speaker 1: I do know that the book on my drawing table
Speaker 1: right now, the one I've been working on this year,
Speaker 1: is different for me because it's sort of a and
Speaker 1: I know I couldn't have done it without having gone
Speaker 1: through the last year and a half. So it's just
Speaker 1: it just feels very gantically part of what we've all
Speaker 1: been through. Whether that resonates when the book finally comes out,
Speaker 1: whether we're going to be, you know, past, whatever the
Speaker 1: emotional issues are right now, who knows. But I know
Speaker 1: that in the making it, I kind of have to
Speaker 1: be feeling sort of a certain compulsion to do it
Speaker 1: right now. Whenever that right now is well, let me
Speaker 1: just say that I look forward to the possibility of
Speaker 1: Boss Baby three. Maybe we have an environmental theme, maybe
Speaker 1: we clean up the Amazon, maybe we do something to
Speaker 1: save the planet. I'm very grateful to be doing the
Speaker 1: two films. Has been one of the highlights of my career,
Speaker 1: and I owe a lot of that to you, So
Speaker 1: thank you, Thank you. Children's author and illustrator Marla Frasey.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie donohue, and
Speaker 1: Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, is ought to you by iHeart Radio.