WEBVTT - Summer book series: Julianna Margulies 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:03.840 Hi everyone, I'm Katie Couric, and welcome to next question 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:09.840 on today's summer book tour, A conversation with Julianna Margalie's or, 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:12.920 as you may know her, Alicia Floric from The Good Wife. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.600 Poetry is easy as the parent teacher conferences that are 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.560 heart or maybe you're more of a nurse Carol Hathaway 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:20.880 e er fan. Sometimes I think I should be going 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.120 out with the patients instead of the doctor. I really 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:28.479 really like Julianna Margalie's. She's an actress and producer and 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.120 now she's an author. Her memoir is called Sunshine Girl, 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:35.640 An Unexpected Life, and I have the pleasure of interviewing 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.440 her back in May on a virtual stop on her 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.040 book tour. We talked about her writing process, what the 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:46.320 book was first intended to be, that impressive TV career, 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.360 and we even check in on some of her famous friends, 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:57.960 George Clooney, Damn Her. So enjoy everybody. Let's start with 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:02.240 the genesis of this book. I remember interviewing you from 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.679 my podcast. I believe it was in two thousand eighteen, 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.720 and we knew each other, we were friendly. We've since become, 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.560 you know, gotten to know each other better. But I 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.760 remember hearing a little bit about your childhood and thinking, 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.039 my god, you need to write a book. And you 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:21.240 kind of said, you know, I thought about writing a book. 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.880 So my question is why, now, what was the impetus 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.399 for you wanting to write this book? And and then 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:31.959 I'd like to ask you a little bit selfishly about 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:37.240 your writing process. Sure, the genesis of the book started 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.199 right after I finished The Good Wife, my very um 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.200 last day of The Good Wife. I came home and 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:45.160 I write about this in the preface of the book, 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.640 where I felt so sick and I woke up at 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:51.440 three in the morning and I had the chicken pox 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.080 and I was so sick that I ended up in 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.000 bed for three weeks. And um, I get I think 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.760 it was my body after in fifty six episode seven 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.960 years of just spinning plates and go go, go, go go, um, 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:08.440 trying to get it all in and do it right, 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:12.120 my body just said that's it, You've let go. And 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:17.560 so this book came out, um from me trying to 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.720 shed Alicia because I was thinking, trying to think like her, 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.120 and um, I wonder what she was always thinking for 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.520 seven years? She was so so embedded under my skin 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.040 that I, UM. I started writing notes down and wondering 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:39.760 why seven years before, when I had shot the pilot, why, 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.120 which for those I mean and most people understand, the 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.760 pilot is the very first episode. Why that one scene 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:54.720 in the hallway hit me so hard? Right? And what 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:59.720 it was to me? UM that I hadn't dug deep 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.519 enough to find out why. I still when I would 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.120 see that scene or think of that scene, tear up. 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:07.520 And I just started writing about it because I wanted 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:11.440 to shed her from me. I wanted to start exploring 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.240 who I was and not just this person running in 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:18.520 circles trying to make it everything work. UM. And the 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.760 book really, I mean, if I'm gonna have to be 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.920 very honest, the book started out to be a handbook 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:33.120 UM on set etiquette. Originally, so Michael J. Fox and 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:35.440 I used to sit on set and we would talk 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.640 about how all these incredible actors we shot in New 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.080 York and we would get the most incredible actors right 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:46.440 out of Juilliard and Yale and all these beautiful, beautiful actors, artists, 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.000 but none of them really understood set etiquette that you 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.760 might have to wait thirteen hours before you're close up, 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:57.120 that it's not always UM about you, It's actually about 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.480 the crew. And without the crew, we are enough. And 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.000 so he and I used to joke about wanting to 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.000 write a book about set etiquette. And while I was 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.520 lying there in bed once I wasn't in pain from 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.360 the chicken pox, and I just looked crazy and couldn't 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:17.160 um show my face outside. UM, I started jotting down notes. 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.200 UM that turned into chapters, and in between the handbooks, 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:25.400 part of it was sort of my childhood story. And 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.360 I finished nine chapters and I got better and I 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:32.479 submitted them to my agent and she politely wrote back 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:38.599 handbooks for acting don't really sell. However, in between, you 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.320 have a really interesting story. I want that story. Can 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:47.279 you write me that story? And UM, that was sort 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.600 of the beginning of it. And then I started to 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:55.080 unravel everything and um, and now we have a book. 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.480 It was so moving in the prologue about that scene 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.360 that you talk about and do you think you were 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.760 I mean, it sounds to me that you never really 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:10.040 had time. You became so consumed with the characters you 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.840 were playing most recently before you wrote the book, Alicia Floric, 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.479 and it seems like you didn't have a minute to 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:22.160 be introspective at all, and it just it was something 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:26.400 perhaps you were even avoiding. You're absolutely right, I mean 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.080 I think so. There was a confluence of things, which 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:34.000 was I was a new mommy and a new wife. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.279 I mean Karen was born two months after we got married, um, 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:40.880 and he was thirteen months old when I started The 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.400 Good Wife, So it was more about trying to be 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.480 a mother. This was a new title for me, A 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.120 wife another new title for me, and the lead of 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.880 a very the show was so it was wonderful, but 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.560 it was so demanding in terms of learning dialogue and 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.520 always being there and and also when you're number one 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.039 on a call sheet, you want to take well. My 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:05.800 nature is to take care of everybody who's there. So 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.360 between the baby, the husband, the show, the learning, the lines, 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:15.880 the character, I never really thought of about me and 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.160 the other side of it. And this isn't a sob story, 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:23.080 it's just the truth, which is because it was a hit, 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:26.520 there was a lot of publicity, so any spare time 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.000 I had, I was running off to do photo shoots, 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:33.880 which is so great, um, that I would just ignore 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.040 my own exhaustion, ignore my own needs. And I remember 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.280 being it was Vanity Fair did a cover of the 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.320 Women of Television and it was four of us on 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.240 the cover, and I had shot all night and then 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.200 had two hours sleep and ran to this photo shoot 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.040 uh in Chelsea in New York City cover of Vanity Fair. 0:06:56.080 --> 0:07:00.400 I should only be excited. And I remember running into 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:05.920 the bathroom and sobbing. I was just so tired. And 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.440 I was texting my girlfriend Nancy, who's in the book 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:11.440 a lot, because she was always the voice of reason 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:15.760 for me, and saying, I should be on cloud nine 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:20.360 and all I want to do is hide under a rock. 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:24.920 I'm so tired. And I realized, like it just wasn't 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.880 It just kept going um for seven years and I 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.120 never had a minute to take stock in myself, and 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.640 so I think the end of it um. And and 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.480 by no means was I sad during it. I just 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:45.160 wasn't conscious enough about myself. And clearly your immune system 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.880 went to put and that's why you've got chicken pots 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:51.480 and were so exhausted you could barely move. I think 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.840 your your body was just giving out. So you regained 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.800 your strength, you got over the chicken pots. Hoey even 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:00.320 scratch them and get scars like I did. When I 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.200 was five years old. But you know, so you got 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.960 you got strong enough, and so how tell me a 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.200 little bit about the writing process, Julianne, did you get 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.680 up in the morning, How disciplined were you? How did 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.720 you kind of retrieve some of these memories from your childhood, 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:18.840 which we're going to talk about in a moment, But 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.400 you know, you write about when you were four, five 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:26.480 years old, even younger, I think maybe even three, And 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:30.520 I'm just curious how you were able to, as I said, 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.680 retrieve those memories. Well, a lot of it had Well, 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.800 first of all, Um, I kept a journal since I 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.120 was nine, and I have them all, so that was 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.200 very helpful. Of course I couldn't write when I was 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:46.760 three or four and five, but um, I had journals. 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:52.559 And I also because my um circumstance where um, I know, 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:54.640 I didn't live with my father, so I had written 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.680 him letters and he had saved every single letter I 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.559 ever wrote to him. Um, and I so I had 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.400 certain things that were actually I could read and remember 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:12.120 from that. But also, UM, what you discover when you 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:16.120 have a traumatic change in your life, that's what you remember. 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.400 I remember certain smells of airplanes I got on when 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:27.960 I was seven. I remember distinct um, you know, uh, pictures, 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:31.280 images of things when I was three in Paris, and 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:35.120 I think because I never stayed stationary, everything seemed to 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.520 be an event. So those events, I don't remember what 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:43.560 I ate yesterday, but I can remember clearly the liquorice 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.520 I had in my hand and in the tuilerie in 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:51.040 Paris when I was three. Um, And it's because everything 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:54.200 is new and different. So you remember that, and you 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:58.720 remember anxiety, and you remember it wasn't true, it wasn't trauma, 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.559 but it was drama. I was gonna say, maybe borderline 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:07.400 trauma because her childhood was so you you described I 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:11.920 know your your childhood is complicated, and your parents is complicated. 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:18.439 I would describe it. Your childhood is nomadic, parapatetic, and unconventional. 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.360 I think I remember even talking to you about that 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.000 a few years ago. And and so for people who 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.640 haven't read the book yet, um, and I know some 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:32.160 have and some haven't, but but give us a quick 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.679 description if you can. I don't know how you can 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:36.840 do it quickly, because so much of the book is 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:41.200 very vivid memories of two very different lives that you 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.560 lead when your parents got divorced. But can you just 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.160 spend a little bit of time talking about what that 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:52.240 was like? Yeah, so you know, because it happened so young. 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.200 I was a year old when my parents separated, um, 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.920 and their their marriage was pretty much over when I 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.200 was born. UM. I think they tried for a year, 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:03.800 but right when I was a year old, my father 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.640 moved to Paris, and then my mother took me when 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.240 I was two, with my two sisters, also to Paris 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.160 after a year apart um, so we lived on the 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:15.280 left bank. My father lived on the right bank. Two 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.240 years after that, my father moved to London. My mother 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:20.600 took me and my sisters to Sussex, which is thirty 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.800 miles south of London, um where she went to school. 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.920 And then after five years in Europe, we moved back 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:31.440 to New York, where I I actually felt like I 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.880 finally had some sort of normalcy because we lived in 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:38.000 the house I had gone to straight from the hospital 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.880 when I was a baby in Spring Valley, New York. 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:44.160 And my father lived in Manhattan, and I would see 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.559 him on weekends, and I had a school, and and 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:48.760 and I got to know people, and I felt like 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.920 I finally belonged somewhere, and five years into that, when 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.480 I was eleven, I had just turned eleven, my mother 0:11:56.520 --> 0:12:02.439 decided to move us to Nuremberg, Germany, UM, which didn't 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:06.000 really work out for her there um. So just the 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.400 day before we were supposed to move to Nuremberg, she 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.120 changed and called my father and said send the kids 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.319 back to England. So it was a lot of backwards. 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:15.760 So we went to England and then came back to 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.800 the States, and finally, when I was in the States, 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.360 my father a year later moved to England. So I 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.960 was traversing the Atlantic Ocean pretty much since I was 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:31.880 a baby and never quite understood the difference. Um. When 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:33.800 I was with my father, I always felt like we 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.520 had money, and when I was with my mother, I 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:40.160 always felt like we were broke. Um. There was It's 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.880 not in the book now, it's gone through so many iterations, 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:44.880 but there there was a chapter in the book where 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.800 I talked about that. I remember walking in when I 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:52.319 was eleven, into this lopsided apartment, UM, one bedroom apartment 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:53.880 that my mother had found us to live in, and 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:58.319 she was ringing out um paper towels and hanging them 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:00.600 to dry, and I burst into tea years and said, 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.960 we we can't be this poor? Are we this poor? 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:06.960 Because when I was with my father in New York, 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.480 we were going to see Annie on Broadway and eating 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.280 at Tavern on the Green in the Russian team room. 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:16.439 I just didn't understand how we could be so destitute 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.240 with my mother and lived this incredible life with my father, 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.160 even though I only saw my father twice a year. 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.240 So it was the going back and forth and the 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:31.400 constant up and down and surfing this very strange landscape 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.720 that didn't quite connect in the middle for me. So 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.040 I was always trying to connect everything and make sense 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.040 of everything. UM and I think, And the title of 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.840 the book, Um Sunshine Girl was was the nickname my 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.320 mother gave me when I was little, because she she said, 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:51.280 I was always a ray of sunshine. When I walked 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.520 in a room, I was I made people happy, I smiled, 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.880 I never cried as a baby. I was easy and 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.319 I and I wore that like a badge of honor 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:05.640 because I realized I needed to lighten up situations that 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:10.680 felt very heavy and beyond my grasp. UM And while 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:15.079 writing the book UM, I talked about how that actually 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:19.520 crippled me as an adult, Because when you grow up 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.760 with a name like Sunshine Girl, how are you ever 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:25.400 going to say, no, I don't like that, No, that 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.400 doesn't work for me. When you get older or this 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:30.880 doesn't feel good, you just sort of learned to grin 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:33.040 and bear it and pray that everyone else is happy. 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.080 Coming up. How Julianna was able to write so honestly 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.960 about her pretty complicated mother and what her mom's reaction was. 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:55.040 That's right after this. Both my parents were anthroposophists, which 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:57.720 really just means the knowledge of man. And it's a 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:03.880 philosophy that um Rudolph Steiner Um developed when he started 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:07.320 his first school in Stuttgart, Germany. UM and this was 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.040 in World War One when he realized children were not 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.040 being educated and he turned a tobacco factory into a 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.800 school to help the children. And he was quite an 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:19.800 interesting man, very esoteric. Your dad was a philosophy major 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.720 at Dartmouth, so maybe, and that's one of the reasons 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.800 he gravitated to him, and your mom did too, absolutely well, 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.000 I think my so my father introduced my mother to anthroposophy. 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.880 My father wasn't a philosophy major at Dartmouth, and um, 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:36.080 really that's all he ever wanted to do was just 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.480 read philosophy books, write a few papers. He wrote a 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:44.560 beautiful paper comparing Victor Frankel and Rudolf Steiner that actually, 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.200 and it was the one paper where I thought, oh, 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:52.000 he my father was an anthroposcopist for the people. In 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.760 other words, he tried to really translate Steiner's works, whereas 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.960 my mother just sort of floated around in the ideology 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.040 of it. And that really was a big backdrop for 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.440 me as a child growing up, because I grew up 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:08.640 around a lot of her searching to find a true 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:13.240 meaning for herself in this world, and that didn't necessarily 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:19.560 always include the best interest for her children. That's yes, definitely, 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.120 although I want to talk about that in a moment, 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:24.880 but you know, it was interesting. Your dad became sort 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:29.160 of a madman and was a copy copywriter, very very 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.760 successful in advertising. And just a little known fact that 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.600 maybe we can include in the new updated version of 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:39.320 Trivial Pursuit is he wrote PLoP plot fiz this, Oh 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:41.840 what a relief it is. He wrote that jingle PLoP 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:46.280 PLoP biz, Oh what a relief it is? Both speedy bubbles, 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:49.360 relieve you're upset and look and hit it. Then that's right. 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:52.800 It was actually Katie, it was a Jeopardy question once 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:57.960 it was it was that's so funny. But your mom, 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.520 you're right, I think, you know. And I actually had 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.360 a lot of sympathy for your mom reading the book 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:07.880 because of her era. And you know, I think I've 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.360 been thinking a lot about, you know, in the process 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.440 of writing my own memoir and just generationally how things 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:18.159 have changed for women. And your mom was born in 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:20.600 a period of time and was even different from my 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.199 oldest sister, who was ten years older than I. She 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:28.600 just didn't really have an outlet or very many options, 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.800 and you could kind of understand why she was always 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:37.959 searching for herself, her true self, her purpose. And um 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:41.119 that I think is very much kind of a theme 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.280 of the book, at least when it comes to your 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.320 your mom, who then changed her name. She was Janice 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.720 and then she became Francesca. She was really searching Julianne, right, 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.719 she was. And also it was the seventies, you know, 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:58.920 it was hippie. She was a hippie, and self searching 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.800 was in, you know, it was it was the time. 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:06.439 It wasn't so strange to bring your kids to a 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:10.160 commune like camp in the middle of Canada. I had 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:11.880 a chapter about that, but that's not in the book, 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:14.719 but that did happen, um, and just say, you know, 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.600 figure it out, honey, I'm going to go meditate. You know, 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.000 even though I was six, like that was kind of 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.040 normal then. And it's sort of also why the cover 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.679 of the book, I wanted to feel like a seventies poster. 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.000 That's true with the writing and the kind of the 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.920 sunshine and very it's kind of poppy, isn't it. Yeah? 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.879 And it and it it was you know. Um. I 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:40.720 write about my mother very honestly, but also with tremendous 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:45.480 love in my heart because because I love her, and 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.920 because as hard as it was growing up, I'm so 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.359 grateful as an adult my mother. My mother's eighty six 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:58.760 now and she's still searching. And she understood my need 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.120 to write this book, and she gave me her blessing 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:03.960 to write it and said, I own my stuff, honey, 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:08.000 feel free. I don't know how many people of her 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.800 generation would be able to do that without this self 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:17.880 searching quality of their of their being, because, um, it's 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:22.520 hard to admit that you put your kids through a lot, right, Um, 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:26.320 but I want to just preface it by saying I 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:32.360 was always loved. I was maybe not chaperoned enough and 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:37.520 maybe jostled around too much, um and not maybe thought 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:42.040 of it as the the first priority. But there was 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:47.919 only love and tremendous respect for who I was as 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.760 a human being. Um and And so that was also 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.320 a little tricky. It's a little tricky to navigate as 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:56.399 a kid because then you're like, but you're putting me 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.440 in this terrible situation. How am I supposed to handle that? 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.000 So that's what I try to write about in the book, 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.480 and then to be able to say, as an adult, 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.200 I can change that narrative. I don't have to carry 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.560 the anger all the time. I can now change that, 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:13.800 and I did. I feel very grateful that I was 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.159 able to confront both my parents at different times in 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.679 my life and say, I, I know you love me, 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.680 and I love you, but I need I need acknowledgement 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:30.720 that what you did wasn't okay. I need an apology. 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.160 And I got that. Yeah, because your dad, I now 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:39.280 died in two thousand fourteen, but you have talked to 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:41.920 your mom since, and she's very proud of the book. 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:46.880 Despite the fact that you are pretty open about about 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.280 her words and all, and I did feel that she 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.800 loved you deeply throughout it, but that she was just 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:57.000 kind of self centered and uh, you know. But anyway, 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:58.919 I thought that I was going to ask you to 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:00.920 read a passage. I know a lot of people want 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.280 to hear more about your roles on e Er. I'm 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.720 getting questions from the audience about that, But I loved 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:09.840 the passage on twenty four, which page twenty four, which 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:15.880 made me understand how your childhood experiences informed you and 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:21.040 actually me to choose acting as a profession. Yeah, sure, 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:25.840 I have it right here. Um when I dig deep 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.480 to try to understand why acting became my profession even 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:32.720 though I had much bigger plans for myself when as 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:36.280 a teenager I was plotting out my adult life, I 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.840 see now that nothing else would have made sense. What 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:42.560 else could I do? I was always trying to be 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:46.360 another person as a child, whether it was changing my accent, 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:49.679 speaking in a different language, living the high life, or 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:53.399 just getting by. I was constantly changing who I was 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.040 or trying to become someone I thought I was supposed 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:00.480 to be. I wanted to fit into whatever since suation 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:04.040 was thrown at me. I became very good at determining 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.600 which direction I needed to follow depending on where I 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:12.159 was or who I was with, which I think really 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:17.120 shows how your need to morph into different surroundings. You'd 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:20.280 get an English accent, you'd lose your English to accent, 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:22.760 you'd moved back to London, you'd have to get an 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:27.080 English accent again, always desperately trying to fit in. And 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:29.800 it must have, you know, as you've talked about, you 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:34.400 know already trying to square these two very different worlds 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:40.200 and often very different cultures, um, which very difficult for especially, 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:44.040 I would think for a pre pubescent, you know, adolescent 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:48.680 girl who's probably full of angst and um, you know, 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:53.600 identity issues already. So you had this overlay of these 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.159 two different worlds. And I wonder if you would have 0:22:56.240 --> 0:23:00.720 become an actor had it not been for this kind 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:05.360 of strange childhood you experienced. I'm wondering, do you think 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:08.360 you would have been I don't. I mean, I always 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:12.040 assumed I would follow in my grandmother Henrietta's footsteps and 0:23:12.080 --> 0:23:13.840 be a lawyer. To be honest with you, that was 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:19.200 sort of what I thought was a noble profession. Um 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:24.639 and I I. I just I couldn't have done it. 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:27.160 I wasn't good at reading the fine print. I don't 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:29.679 think I would have um been able to. I was 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:34.760 studying character and and body behavior, I remember distinctly at 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:36.320 the age of six, and I talked about it in 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:39.320 a chapter called Jesus in the Van where we were 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:42.720 living in a VW camper and my mother and her 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:46.600 boyfriend who we called Jesus Christ behind his back because 0:23:46.640 --> 0:23:49.000 that's what he looked like. Um, they picked up two 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:56.480 hitchhiker's somewhere along the coast of Spain, and UM, I 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:00.400 just remember seeing this. The woman had a twitch and 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:02.119 I was sitting in that my my place in the 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:05.160 van was the very back and just watching her neck. 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:10.119 And I remember distinctly thinking can I mimic that? Can 0:24:10.160 --> 0:24:13.520 I do that? And just being very aware of of 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:17.640 um people and what they wear and body and how 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:21.479 you walk and how you talk. UM. So it was 0:24:21.520 --> 0:24:24.280 like it was it was it was like going to 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:27.480 drama school really without me knowing it, you know, Yeah, 0:24:27.520 --> 0:24:30.720