Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Couric, and welcome to next question
Speaker 1: on today's summer book tour, A conversation with Julianna Margalie's or,
Speaker 1: as you may know her, Alicia Floric from The Good Wife.
Speaker 1: Poetry is easy as the parent teacher conferences that are
Speaker 1: heart or maybe you're more of a nurse Carol Hathaway
Speaker 1: e er fan. Sometimes I think I should be going
Speaker 1: out with the patients instead of the doctor. I really
Speaker 1: really like Julianna Margalie's. She's an actress and producer and
Speaker 1: now she's an author. Her memoir is called Sunshine Girl,
Speaker 1: An Unexpected Life, and I have the pleasure of interviewing
Speaker 1: her back in May on a virtual stop on her
Speaker 1: book tour. We talked about her writing process, what the
Speaker 1: book was first intended to be, that impressive TV career,
Speaker 1: and we even check in on some of her famous friends,
Speaker 1: George Clooney, Damn Her. So enjoy everybody. Let's start with
Speaker 1: the genesis of this book. I remember interviewing you from
Speaker 1: my podcast. I believe it was in two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: and we knew each other, we were friendly. We've since become,
Speaker 1: you know, gotten to know each other better. But I
Speaker 1: remember hearing a little bit about your childhood and thinking,
Speaker 1: my god, you need to write a book. And you
Speaker 1: kind of said, you know, I thought about writing a book.
Speaker 1: So my question is why, now, what was the impetus
Speaker 1: for you wanting to write this book? And and then
Speaker 1: I'd like to ask you a little bit selfishly about
Speaker 1: your writing process. Sure, the genesis of the book started
Speaker 1: right after I finished The Good Wife, my very um
Speaker 1: last day of The Good Wife. I came home and
Speaker 1: I write about this in the preface of the book,
Speaker 1: where I felt so sick and I woke up at
Speaker 1: three in the morning and I had the chicken pox
Speaker 1: and I was so sick that I ended up in
Speaker 1: bed for three weeks. And um, I get I think
Speaker 1: it was my body after in fifty six episode seven
Speaker 1: years of just spinning plates and go go, go, go go, um,
Speaker 1: trying to get it all in and do it right,
Speaker 1: my body just said that's it, You've let go. And
Speaker 1: so this book came out, um from me trying to
Speaker 1: shed Alicia because I was thinking, trying to think like her,
Speaker 1: and um, I wonder what she was always thinking for
Speaker 1: seven years? She was so so embedded under my skin
Speaker 1: that I, UM. I started writing notes down and wondering
Speaker 1: why seven years before, when I had shot the pilot, why,
Speaker 1: which for those I mean and most people understand, the
Speaker 1: pilot is the very first episode. Why that one scene
Speaker 1: in the hallway hit me so hard? Right? And what
Speaker 1: it was to me? UM that I hadn't dug deep
Speaker 1: enough to find out why. I still when I would
Speaker 1: see that scene or think of that scene, tear up.
Speaker 1: And I just started writing about it because I wanted
Speaker 1: to shed her from me. I wanted to start exploring
Speaker 1: who I was and not just this person running in
Speaker 1: circles trying to make it everything work. UM. And the
Speaker 1: book really, I mean, if I'm gonna have to be
Speaker 1: very honest, the book started out to be a handbook
Speaker 1: UM on set etiquette. Originally, so Michael J. Fox and
Speaker 1: I used to sit on set and we would talk
Speaker 1: about how all these incredible actors we shot in New
Speaker 1: York and we would get the most incredible actors right
Speaker 1: out of Juilliard and Yale and all these beautiful, beautiful actors, artists,
Speaker 1: but none of them really understood set etiquette that you
Speaker 1: might have to wait thirteen hours before you're close up,
Speaker 1: that it's not always UM about you, It's actually about
Speaker 1: the crew. And without the crew, we are enough. And
Speaker 1: so he and I used to joke about wanting to
Speaker 1: write a book about set etiquette. And while I was
Speaker 1: lying there in bed once I wasn't in pain from
Speaker 1: the chicken pox, and I just looked crazy and couldn't
Speaker 1: um show my face outside. UM, I started jotting down notes.
Speaker 1: UM that turned into chapters, and in between the handbooks,
Speaker 1: part of it was sort of my childhood story. And
Speaker 1: I finished nine chapters and I got better and I
Speaker 1: submitted them to my agent and she politely wrote back
Speaker 1: handbooks for acting don't really sell. However, in between, you
Speaker 1: have a really interesting story. I want that story. Can
Speaker 1: you write me that story? And UM, that was sort
Speaker 1: of the beginning of it. And then I started to
Speaker 1: unravel everything and um, and now we have a book.
Speaker 1: It was so moving in the prologue about that scene
Speaker 1: that you talk about and do you think you were
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds to me that you never really
Speaker 1: had time. You became so consumed with the characters you
Speaker 1: were playing most recently before you wrote the book, Alicia Floric,
Speaker 1: and it seems like you didn't have a minute to
Speaker 1: be introspective at all, and it just it was something
Speaker 1: perhaps you were even avoiding. You're absolutely right, I mean
Speaker 1: I think so. There was a confluence of things, which
Speaker 1: was I was a new mommy and a new wife.
Speaker 1: I mean Karen was born two months after we got married, um,
Speaker 1: and he was thirteen months old when I started The
Speaker 1: Good Wife, So it was more about trying to be
Speaker 1: a mother. This was a new title for me, A
Speaker 1: wife another new title for me, and the lead of
Speaker 1: a very the show was so it was wonderful, but
Speaker 1: it was so demanding in terms of learning dialogue and
Speaker 1: always being there and and also when you're number one
Speaker 1: on a call sheet, you want to take well. My
Speaker 1: nature is to take care of everybody who's there. So
Speaker 1: between the baby, the husband, the show, the learning, the lines,
Speaker 1: the character, I never really thought of about me and
Speaker 1: the other side of it. And this isn't a sob story,
Speaker 1: it's just the truth, which is because it was a hit,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of publicity, so any spare time
Speaker 1: I had, I was running off to do photo shoots,
Speaker 1: which is so great, um, that I would just ignore
Speaker 1: my own exhaustion, ignore my own needs. And I remember
Speaker 1: being it was Vanity Fair did a cover of the
Speaker 1: Women of Television and it was four of us on
Speaker 1: the cover, and I had shot all night and then
Speaker 1: had two hours sleep and ran to this photo shoot
Speaker 1: uh in Chelsea in New York City cover of Vanity Fair.
Speaker 1: I should only be excited. And I remember running into
Speaker 1: the bathroom and sobbing. I was just so tired. And
Speaker 1: I was texting my girlfriend Nancy, who's in the book
Speaker 1: a lot, because she was always the voice of reason
Speaker 1: for me, and saying, I should be on cloud nine
Speaker 1: and all I want to do is hide under a rock.
Speaker 1: I'm so tired. And I realized, like it just wasn't
Speaker 1: It just kept going um for seven years and I
Speaker 1: never had a minute to take stock in myself, and
Speaker 1: so I think the end of it um. And and
Speaker 1: by no means was I sad during it. I just
Speaker 1: wasn't conscious enough about myself. And clearly your immune system
Speaker 1: went to put and that's why you've got chicken pots
Speaker 1: and were so exhausted you could barely move. I think
Speaker 1: your your body was just giving out. So you regained
Speaker 1: your strength, you got over the chicken pots. Hoey even
Speaker 1: scratch them and get scars like I did. When I
Speaker 1: was five years old. But you know, so you got
Speaker 1: you got strong enough, and so how tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about the writing process, Julianne, did you get
Speaker 1: up in the morning, How disciplined were you? How did
Speaker 1: you kind of retrieve some of these memories from your childhood,
Speaker 1: which we're going to talk about in a moment, But
Speaker 1: you know, you write about when you were four, five
Speaker 1: years old, even younger, I think maybe even three, And
Speaker 1: I'm just curious how you were able to, as I said,
Speaker 1: retrieve those memories. Well, a lot of it had Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, Um, I kept a journal since I
Speaker 1: was nine, and I have them all, so that was
Speaker 1: very helpful. Of course I couldn't write when I was
Speaker 1: three or four and five, but um, I had journals.
Speaker 1: And I also because my um circumstance where um, I know,
Speaker 1: I didn't live with my father, so I had written
Speaker 1: him letters and he had saved every single letter I
Speaker 1: ever wrote to him. Um, and I so I had
Speaker 1: certain things that were actually I could read and remember
Speaker 1: from that. But also, UM, what you discover when you
Speaker 1: have a traumatic change in your life, that's what you remember.
Speaker 1: I remember certain smells of airplanes I got on when
Speaker 1: I was seven. I remember distinct um, you know, uh, pictures,
Speaker 1: images of things when I was three in Paris, and
Speaker 1: I think because I never stayed stationary, everything seemed to
Speaker 1: be an event. So those events, I don't remember what
Speaker 1: I ate yesterday, but I can remember clearly the liquorice
Speaker 1: I had in my hand and in the tuilerie in
Speaker 1: Paris when I was three. Um, And it's because everything
Speaker 1: is new and different. So you remember that, and you
Speaker 1: remember anxiety, and you remember it wasn't true, it wasn't trauma,
Speaker 1: but it was drama. I was gonna say, maybe borderline
Speaker 1: trauma because her childhood was so you you described I
Speaker 1: know your your childhood is complicated, and your parents is complicated.
Speaker 1: I would describe it. Your childhood is nomadic, parapatetic, and unconventional.
Speaker 1: I think I remember even talking to you about that
Speaker 1: a few years ago. And and so for people who
Speaker 1: haven't read the book yet, um, and I know some
Speaker 1: have and some haven't, but but give us a quick
Speaker 1: description if you can. I don't know how you can
Speaker 1: do it quickly, because so much of the book is
Speaker 1: very vivid memories of two very different lives that you
Speaker 1: lead when your parents got divorced. But can you just
Speaker 1: spend a little bit of time talking about what that
Speaker 1: was like? Yeah, so you know, because it happened so young.
Speaker 1: I was a year old when my parents separated, um,
Speaker 1: and their their marriage was pretty much over when I
Speaker 1: was born. UM. I think they tried for a year,
Speaker 1: but right when I was a year old, my father
Speaker 1: moved to Paris, and then my mother took me when
Speaker 1: I was two, with my two sisters, also to Paris
Speaker 1: after a year apart um, so we lived on the
Speaker 1: left bank. My father lived on the right bank. Two
Speaker 1: years after that, my father moved to London. My mother
Speaker 1: took me and my sisters to Sussex, which is thirty
Speaker 1: miles south of London, um where she went to school.
Speaker 1: And then after five years in Europe, we moved back
Speaker 1: to New York, where I I actually felt like I
Speaker 1: finally had some sort of normalcy because we lived in
Speaker 1: the house I had gone to straight from the hospital
Speaker 1: when I was a baby in Spring Valley, New York.
Speaker 1: And my father lived in Manhattan, and I would see
Speaker 1: him on weekends, and I had a school, and and
Speaker 1: and I got to know people, and I felt like
Speaker 1: I finally belonged somewhere, and five years into that, when
Speaker 1: I was eleven, I had just turned eleven, my mother
Speaker 1: decided to move us to Nuremberg, Germany, UM, which didn't
Speaker 1: really work out for her there um. So just the
Speaker 1: day before we were supposed to move to Nuremberg, she
Speaker 1: changed and called my father and said send the kids
Speaker 1: back to England. So it was a lot of backwards.
Speaker 1: So we went to England and then came back to
Speaker 1: the States, and finally, when I was in the States,
Speaker 1: my father a year later moved to England. So I
Speaker 1: was traversing the Atlantic Ocean pretty much since I was
Speaker 1: a baby and never quite understood the difference. Um. When
Speaker 1: I was with my father, I always felt like we
Speaker 1: had money, and when I was with my mother, I
Speaker 1: always felt like we were broke. Um. There was It's
Speaker 1: not in the book now, it's gone through so many iterations,
Speaker 1: but there there was a chapter in the book where
Speaker 1: I talked about that. I remember walking in when I
Speaker 1: was eleven, into this lopsided apartment, UM, one bedroom apartment
Speaker 1: that my mother had found us to live in, and
Speaker 1: she was ringing out um paper towels and hanging them
Speaker 1: to dry, and I burst into tea years and said,
Speaker 1: we we can't be this poor? Are we this poor?
Speaker 1: Because when I was with my father in New York,
Speaker 1: we were going to see Annie on Broadway and eating
Speaker 1: at Tavern on the Green in the Russian team room.
Speaker 1: I just didn't understand how we could be so destitute
Speaker 1: with my mother and lived this incredible life with my father,
Speaker 1: even though I only saw my father twice a year.
Speaker 1: So it was the going back and forth and the
Speaker 1: constant up and down and surfing this very strange landscape
Speaker 1: that didn't quite connect in the middle for me. So
Speaker 1: I was always trying to connect everything and make sense
Speaker 1: of everything. UM and I think, And the title of
Speaker 1: the book, Um Sunshine Girl was was the nickname my
Speaker 1: mother gave me when I was little, because she she said,
Speaker 1: I was always a ray of sunshine. When I walked
Speaker 1: in a room, I was I made people happy, I smiled,
Speaker 1: I never cried as a baby. I was easy and
Speaker 1: I and I wore that like a badge of honor
Speaker 1: because I realized I needed to lighten up situations that
Speaker 1: felt very heavy and beyond my grasp. UM And while
Speaker 1: writing the book UM, I talked about how that actually
Speaker 1: crippled me as an adult, Because when you grow up
Speaker 1: with a name like Sunshine Girl, how are you ever
Speaker 1: going to say, no, I don't like that, No, that
Speaker 1: doesn't work for me. When you get older or this
Speaker 1: doesn't feel good, you just sort of learned to grin
Speaker 1: and bear it and pray that everyone else is happy.
Speaker 1: Coming up. How Julianna was able to write so honestly
Speaker 1: about her pretty complicated mother and what her mom's reaction was.
Speaker 1: That's right after this. Both my parents were anthroposophists, which
Speaker 1: really just means the knowledge of man. And it's a
Speaker 1: philosophy that um Rudolph Steiner Um developed when he started
Speaker 1: his first school in Stuttgart, Germany. UM and this was
Speaker 1: in World War One when he realized children were not
Speaker 1: being educated and he turned a tobacco factory into a
Speaker 1: school to help the children. And he was quite an
Speaker 1: interesting man, very esoteric. Your dad was a philosophy major
Speaker 1: at Dartmouth, so maybe, and that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: he gravitated to him, and your mom did too, absolutely well,
Speaker 1: I think my so my father introduced my mother to anthroposophy.
Speaker 1: My father wasn't a philosophy major at Dartmouth, and um,
Speaker 1: really that's all he ever wanted to do was just
Speaker 1: read philosophy books, write a few papers. He wrote a
Speaker 1: beautiful paper comparing Victor Frankel and Rudolf Steiner that actually,
Speaker 1: and it was the one paper where I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: he my father was an anthroposcopist for the people. In
Speaker 1: other words, he tried to really translate Steiner's works, whereas
Speaker 1: my mother just sort of floated around in the ideology
Speaker 1: of it. And that really was a big backdrop for
Speaker 1: me as a child growing up, because I grew up
Speaker 1: around a lot of her searching to find a true
Speaker 1: meaning for herself in this world, and that didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: always include the best interest for her children. That's yes, definitely,
Speaker 1: although I want to talk about that in a moment,
Speaker 1: but you know, it was interesting. Your dad became sort
Speaker 1: of a madman and was a copy copywriter, very very
Speaker 1: successful in advertising. And just a little known fact that
Speaker 1: maybe we can include in the new updated version of
Speaker 1: Trivial Pursuit is he wrote PLoP plot fiz this, Oh
Speaker 1: what a relief it is. He wrote that jingle PLoP
Speaker 1: PLoP biz, Oh what a relief it is? Both speedy bubbles,
Speaker 1: relieve you're upset and look and hit it. Then that's right.
Speaker 1: It was actually Katie, it was a Jeopardy question once
Speaker 1: it was it was that's so funny. But your mom,
Speaker 1: you're right, I think, you know. And I actually had
Speaker 1: a lot of sympathy for your mom reading the book
Speaker 1: because of her era. And you know, I think I've
Speaker 1: been thinking a lot about, you know, in the process
Speaker 1: of writing my own memoir and just generationally how things
Speaker 1: have changed for women. And your mom was born in
Speaker 1: a period of time and was even different from my
Speaker 1: oldest sister, who was ten years older than I. She
Speaker 1: just didn't really have an outlet or very many options,
Speaker 1: and you could kind of understand why she was always
Speaker 1: searching for herself, her true self, her purpose. And um
Speaker 1: that I think is very much kind of a theme
Speaker 1: of the book, at least when it comes to your
Speaker 1: your mom, who then changed her name. She was Janice
Speaker 1: and then she became Francesca. She was really searching Julianne, right,
Speaker 1: she was. And also it was the seventies, you know,
Speaker 1: it was hippie. She was a hippie, and self searching
Speaker 1: was in, you know, it was it was the time.
Speaker 1: It wasn't so strange to bring your kids to a
Speaker 1: commune like camp in the middle of Canada. I had
Speaker 1: a chapter about that, but that's not in the book,
Speaker 1: but that did happen, um, and just say, you know,
Speaker 1: figure it out, honey, I'm going to go meditate. You know,
Speaker 1: even though I was six, like that was kind of
Speaker 1: normal then. And it's sort of also why the cover
Speaker 1: of the book, I wanted to feel like a seventies poster.
Speaker 1: That's true with the writing and the kind of the
Speaker 1: sunshine and very it's kind of poppy, isn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 1: And it and it it was you know. Um. I
Speaker 1: write about my mother very honestly, but also with tremendous
Speaker 1: love in my heart because because I love her, and
Speaker 1: because as hard as it was growing up, I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful as an adult my mother. My mother's eighty six
Speaker 1: now and she's still searching. And she understood my need
Speaker 1: to write this book, and she gave me her blessing
Speaker 1: to write it and said, I own my stuff, honey,
Speaker 1: feel free. I don't know how many people of her
Speaker 1: generation would be able to do that without this self
Speaker 1: searching quality of their of their being, because, um, it's
Speaker 1: hard to admit that you put your kids through a lot, right, Um,
Speaker 1: but I want to just preface it by saying I
Speaker 1: was always loved. I was maybe not chaperoned enough and
Speaker 1: maybe jostled around too much, um and not maybe thought
Speaker 1: of it as the the first priority. But there was
Speaker 1: only love and tremendous respect for who I was as
Speaker 1: a human being. Um and And so that was also
Speaker 1: a little tricky. It's a little tricky to navigate as
Speaker 1: a kid because then you're like, but you're putting me
Speaker 1: in this terrible situation. How am I supposed to handle that?
Speaker 1: So that's what I try to write about in the book,
Speaker 1: and then to be able to say, as an adult,
Speaker 1: I can change that narrative. I don't have to carry
Speaker 1: the anger all the time. I can now change that,
Speaker 1: and I did. I feel very grateful that I was
Speaker 1: able to confront both my parents at different times in
Speaker 1: my life and say, I, I know you love me,
Speaker 1: and I love you, but I need I need acknowledgement
Speaker 1: that what you did wasn't okay. I need an apology.
Speaker 1: And I got that. Yeah, because your dad, I now
Speaker 1: died in two thousand fourteen, but you have talked to
Speaker 1: your mom since, and she's very proud of the book.
Speaker 1: Despite the fact that you are pretty open about about
Speaker 1: her words and all, and I did feel that she
Speaker 1: loved you deeply throughout it, but that she was just
Speaker 1: kind of self centered and uh, you know. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I thought that I was going to ask you to
Speaker 1: read a passage. I know a lot of people want
Speaker 1: to hear more about your roles on e Er. I'm
Speaker 1: getting questions from the audience about that, But I loved
Speaker 1: the passage on twenty four, which page twenty four, which
Speaker 1: made me understand how your childhood experiences informed you and
Speaker 1: actually me to choose acting as a profession. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: I have it right here. Um when I dig deep
Speaker 1: to try to understand why acting became my profession even
Speaker 1: though I had much bigger plans for myself when as
Speaker 1: a teenager I was plotting out my adult life, I
Speaker 1: see now that nothing else would have made sense. What
Speaker 1: else could I do? I was always trying to be
Speaker 1: another person as a child, whether it was changing my accent,
Speaker 1: speaking in a different language, living the high life, or
Speaker 1: just getting by. I was constantly changing who I was
Speaker 1: or trying to become someone I thought I was supposed
Speaker 1: to be. I wanted to fit into whatever since suation
Speaker 1: was thrown at me. I became very good at determining
Speaker 1: which direction I needed to follow depending on where I
Speaker 1: was or who I was with, which I think really
Speaker 1: shows how your need to morph into different surroundings. You'd
Speaker 1: get an English accent, you'd lose your English to accent,
Speaker 1: you'd moved back to London, you'd have to get an
Speaker 1: English accent again, always desperately trying to fit in. And
Speaker 1: it must have, you know, as you've talked about, you
Speaker 1: know already trying to square these two very different worlds
Speaker 1: and often very different cultures, um, which very difficult for especially,
Speaker 1: I would think for a pre pubescent, you know, adolescent
Speaker 1: girl who's probably full of angst and um, you know,
Speaker 1: identity issues already. So you had this overlay of these
Speaker 1: two different worlds. And I wonder if you would have
Speaker 1: become an actor had it not been for this kind
Speaker 1: of strange childhood you experienced. I'm wondering, do you think
Speaker 1: you would have been I don't. I mean, I always
Speaker 1: assumed I would follow in my grandmother Henrietta's footsteps and
Speaker 1: be a lawyer. To be honest with you, that was
Speaker 1: sort of what I thought was a noble profession. Um
Speaker 1: and I I. I just I couldn't have done it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't good at reading the fine print. I don't
Speaker 1: think I would have um been able to. I was
Speaker 1: studying character and and body behavior, I remember distinctly at
Speaker 1: the age of six, and I talked about it in
Speaker 1: a chapter called Jesus in the Van where we were
Speaker 1: living in a VW camper and my mother and her
Speaker 1: boyfriend who we called Jesus Christ behind his back because
Speaker 1: that's what he looked like. Um, they picked up two
Speaker 1: hitchhiker's somewhere along the coast of Spain, and UM, I
Speaker 1: just remember seeing this. The woman had a twitch and
Speaker 1: I was sitting in that my my place in the
Speaker 1: van was the very back and just watching her neck.
Speaker 1: And I remember distinctly thinking can I mimic that? Can
Speaker 1: I do that? And just being very aware of of
Speaker 1: um people and what they wear and body and how
Speaker 1: you walk and how you talk. UM. So it was
Speaker 1: like it was it was it was like going to
Speaker 1: drama school really without me knowing it, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that, and and how you made that that
Speaker 1: Bulkswagen band your little home as you guys went on
Speaker 1: the road. Very different childhood than mine. That's for sure,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a short break. But when we come back,
Speaker 1: how Nurse Halfway almost never was Let's talk about sort
Speaker 1: of when you really burst on the scene. I remember
Speaker 1: it so well when you were Nurse out the Way
Speaker 1: on E R. And you know, just tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about what that was like getting that role
Speaker 1: and being part of that really true phenomenon. You know,
Speaker 1: the first year, I don't think any of us really
Speaker 1: could grasp the enormity of the show because we were
Speaker 1: working all the time. A first year of any series,
Speaker 1: especially a drama series here were it isn't an oiled,
Speaker 1: well oiled machine yet, um, And it's a lot of
Speaker 1: learning curves. So we were at work sometimes eighteen hours
Speaker 1: a day and living literally at home to the studio
Speaker 1: and back. There was no sort of outside understanding, even
Speaker 1: though two months into that show we were on the
Speaker 1: cover of Newsweek. It was such a huge phenomenon. That's
Speaker 1: in the insert by the way, that cover. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: So so in the beginning I didn't really I couldn't
Speaker 1: grasp it, um. And I also think I probably I
Speaker 1: went from zero to a hundred in such a short
Speaker 1: amount of time to go from being a struggling actress.
Speaker 1: Two being all over the world on a show everyone's
Speaker 1: talking about. Is I still have a hard time believing it.
Speaker 1: Even though I know what happened and I know I
Speaker 1: was a part of it, I'm still in awe that
Speaker 1: I was a part of it. Um. It was an
Speaker 1: amazing time, and it was an amazing group of people
Speaker 1: to be with. And you know, I felt like I
Speaker 1: was a real newbie. So I learned from the best
Speaker 1: and I watched and I listened and I learned. And UM,
Speaker 1: I am so grateful for the discipline of that show,
Speaker 1: because ah, it taught me how to really work hard
Speaker 1: and and not ever complain again. Because once you've done
Speaker 1: a medical show like we Are, everything else is a
Speaker 1: piece of cake, really, And and it was such an
Speaker 1: incredible ensemble past and I know that that George Clooney
Speaker 1: called you after you had shot the pilot to tell
Speaker 1: you that you got the job, right, I mean, is that?
Speaker 1: So in the pilot of the show, I died, Um,
Speaker 1: And I was only hired for the pilot, And then
Speaker 1: I died. My character comes in oded on a gurney,
Speaker 1: and so I flew back to New York and UM
Speaker 1: said goodbye to everyone, and Um, I had had such
Speaker 1: a great time with them all. And then I h
Speaker 1: was looking for another job and I was offered another job,
Speaker 1: and that same day George left me a message and said,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're thinking of taking another job,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't if I were you, because I think
Speaker 1: they're going to keep you on and they're going to
Speaker 1: offer you a series regular role. And that was that
Speaker 1: was a hard gamble for me because I didn't know
Speaker 1: if it was true, you know, was it gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I needed and Tom Fontana, who is a writer and
Speaker 1: a dear friend of mine. UM, he had offered me
Speaker 1: the job on Homicide Life on the Street and I
Speaker 1: called him and he and I said, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do, and he said, take the gamble. I'll
Speaker 1: always have a job here for you. And that George
Speaker 1: and Tom changed, They've changed my life. And do you
Speaker 1: stay in touch with the whole e Er crew, Anthony
Speaker 1: Edwards and all of them today literally just got off
Speaker 1: the phone two minutes before I came in here with
Speaker 1: Eric Leasow. Yeah, it's a really um and Tony's daughter, Um,
Speaker 1: I think she just graduated, but Um, goes to the
Speaker 1: same school. My son goes to a New York City,
Speaker 1: so I'd see Tony in the hallway of my son's school.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just, uh, it's been It's it's a
Speaker 1: gift that keeps on giving. And George and I have
Speaker 1: always always, um stayed in touch, you know, we've we
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was about our relationship on
Speaker 1: that show, but there was something I think that we
Speaker 1: both had a way of working together that just um,
Speaker 1: I don't even think we realized it. You know, every
Speaker 1: now and then we'll write to each other. Remember when
Speaker 1: we did that scene. Um, it just was a real
Speaker 1: that happens. You know, I'm lucky. I feel like I
Speaker 1: got it with Josh Charles to it. So for me,
Speaker 1: it happens twice in a lifetime. You know, when two
Speaker 1: characters you can finish each other's sentences. I mean that
Speaker 1: I've just been so so lucky with my leading men.
Speaker 1: I have to say, you know, George and I have
Speaker 1: that same thing going Julianna. I mean, I'm actually feeling
Speaker 1: really quite jealous of you right now, but I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: That's okay. My husband is here rolling his eyes. He's awesome.
Speaker 1: Are you right there, John, he's listening to this whole thing. Uh. Anyway,
Speaker 1: but would you guys ever do a reunion show it all? Or?
Speaker 1: I thought would be so fun, but maybe not what
Speaker 1: we do? I mean we we just did this reunion
Speaker 1: that on, you know, for to raise money for the
Speaker 1: Waterkeeper's Alliance. But um, and someone asked that that was
Speaker 1: one of the questions, And I mean, I think we
Speaker 1: all feel the same way, which is lightning. You can't
Speaker 1: catch lightning in a bottle twice. That show was on
Speaker 1: for fifteen years, and um, I got to be a
Speaker 1: part of the first six. I just don't know how
Speaker 1: you would reboot something that was that good. And we're
Speaker 1: all so much older now, and you know, I feel like,
Speaker 1: leave well enough alone and find something else that's great.
Speaker 1: You know, I think you're probably right. You you speaking
Speaker 1: of the end of your run on e ER. You
Speaker 1: write about after six years you decided that you were
Speaker 1: going to turn down a twenty seven million dollar two
Speaker 1: year contract and people thought you were insane, and you
Speaker 1: write about being at the gym, I believe, and turning
Speaker 1: on the view. Now I'm kind of mad at Barbara
Speaker 1: Walters and Joy Behart because they weren't being very nice
Speaker 1: about your decision, and they were talking some serious smack
Speaker 1: about you. And it must have been like an out
Speaker 1: of body experience, and you were really really upset about it.
Speaker 1: So why don't you tell us why you you wanted
Speaker 1: to turn down, uh, that that big chunk of change, missy,
Speaker 1: and why you know, and and how you dealt with
Speaker 1: some of the backlacks you got. Oh you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like because I turned down that amount of money,
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely defined me to a certain point in
Speaker 1: this business. She's the girl that turned down that kind
Speaker 1: of money. Sorry, there's sirens. I hope no one's hearing it. Um,
Speaker 1: And I write about it because I want to just
Speaker 1: let people hear my side of the story, which was
Speaker 1: it wasn't a light decision. I was very methodical about
Speaker 1: um my decision. I asked everyone I respected what they
Speaker 1: would do. Um. Every single person said, take the money.
Speaker 1: You'll never have to work again. No one gets offered
Speaker 1: this kind of money, especially a woman. This was quite
Speaker 1: a while ago. What year was this? This was a
Speaker 1: two thousand? Yeah, yeah, so this is twenty one years ago, right,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty yeah, so whatever, twenty one years ago so. Um.
Speaker 1: But but before all of the money came into the picture, Um,
Speaker 1: I had work secured for a year, so I was
Speaker 1: gonna do my six years on your happily I had signed,
Speaker 1: I had signed for five, and then I happily signed
Speaker 1: on for another one, and then I was going to
Speaker 1: be done and moved back to New York where my
Speaker 1: my family was back east. I'm I'm an East Coaster.
Speaker 1: I loved l A, but it's just not my jam.
Speaker 1: I need a season to move forward. I need people
Speaker 1: around me. I felt a little isolated out there in
Speaker 1: a car all the time. And I had been privileged
Speaker 1: to have been given a play by John Robin Bates,
Speaker 1: who I was huge admirer of. He had written apart
Speaker 1: for me in a new play that I was going
Speaker 1: to do at Lincoln Center with Jason Robarts. I'm who
Speaker 1: gets that dangled in front of them when you're thirty one,
Speaker 1: thirty two years old? And um, so I had that
Speaker 1: I was going to and then I was going to
Speaker 1: go off and do my dream job, which was a
Speaker 1: four part mini series for T and T called The
Speaker 1: Miss of Avalon. I grew up reading all the um
Speaker 1: Arthur legends, you know, King Arthur and the round the
Speaker 1: and the Holy Grail and the round Table and the
Speaker 1: Knights of the round Table. And that was I was
Speaker 1: going to get to ride horses. I was a horseback
Speaker 1: rider as a kid, and quite a serious one, and
Speaker 1: here they were, they were paying me a lot of
Speaker 1: money to do it. And on top of everything, I
Speaker 1: was going to get to use my English accent ride
Speaker 1: my horses. I mean it was to me I had everything.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe my life like that was incredible. And
Speaker 1: then the money came in, right, well, we'd love you
Speaker 1: to stay for two more years. We'll pay twenty seven
Speaker 1: million dollars. Um. So I had to dig deep and
Speaker 1: I did and um and ultimately I knew and I
Speaker 1: write about this sort of divine intervention moment for me
Speaker 1: in the book UM on that on top of my
Speaker 1: father giving me really great advice, which was, when is
Speaker 1: enough enough? I know a lot of unhappy rich people, Honey,
Speaker 1: what if you got hit by a bus tomorrow? You
Speaker 1: said yes, you'll take the money, and you're living this
Speaker 1: life and you get hit by a bus before the
Speaker 1: two years is up, and you're lying there on the
Speaker 1: street as you're dying and you say, did I live
Speaker 1: my truest life? It was I true to myself? Or
Speaker 1: was I just waiting to get rich and not living
Speaker 1: in the moment? And that rang so true to me
Speaker 1: and who I am, UM, that I opted to say,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, but I'm going to not stay um.
Speaker 1: And then when the backlash happened, Um, I think for me,
Speaker 1: when I saw the view as I was on the treadmill,
Speaker 1: I literally stopped and my heart started pounding because the
Speaker 1: way these women were speaking about me was as if,
Speaker 1: just to be clear, I was going off to do
Speaker 1: a play for two hundred and thirty five dollars a
Speaker 1: week off Broadway at Lincoln Center, like it's not um,
Speaker 1: you know. I remember Barbara Watching said, well she she said,
Speaker 1: she's no spring chicken. Who does she think she is?
Speaker 1: And then joy Beyhart getting in there and saying, well,
Speaker 1: she'll never work again. She I'm gonna be waving to
Speaker 1: her on my way out the door because she's gonna
Speaker 1: be my dormant. I mean, the way they spoke about
Speaker 1: me was so um, cruel and uh and untrue. UM.
Speaker 1: And so for all you fans that keep asking me,
Speaker 1: why don't I go on that show? Now you know, um,
Speaker 1: I've never been on the show, but um, but the
Speaker 1: truth is I'd be happy to go on and now
Speaker 1: because I don't care any like, I could talk about
Speaker 1: it now and it doesn't matter. But I know I
Speaker 1: never went on the show because I felt they showed
Speaker 1: such disrespect because no one bothered to ask me. They
Speaker 1: just made assumptions. And when I felt horrible, I called
Speaker 1: my father and I said, Dad, everyone's laughing at me
Speaker 1: and making jokes and I just want to disappear. This
Speaker 1: is horrible and he said, well, honey, you turned down
Speaker 1: the American Dream. So what they're really upset about is
Speaker 1: they know that that wouldn't have been their choice, and
Speaker 1: it makes them angry that that is your choice. Really,
Speaker 1: it's about them, it's not about you who doesn't take
Speaker 1: that money? How could she possibly be happy if she
Speaker 1: doesn't have that kind of money or whatever it was.
Speaker 1: And I realized I was like, right, this isn't really
Speaker 1: about me at all. This is about their reaction and
Speaker 1: to a choice I made. And uh, And you know
Speaker 1: it wasn't easy at first, but in time I really
Speaker 1: stopped caring what anyone thought. It's my life and um,
Speaker 1: and I've had some amazing things come out of it.
Speaker 1: Because I'll say, yeah, I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about The Good Wife, which, as you know, my husband
Speaker 1: John consumed voraciously. A couple of years ago. He was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not watching this show, and then he like, I
Speaker 1: couldn't stop watching the show. And a lot of men
Speaker 1: felt that way about the show I think because of
Speaker 1: because it was called The Good Wife. I think they
Speaker 1: thought it was gonna be too girly or something. But
Speaker 1: most men who watched it, they all come up to
Speaker 1: me on this y they go, you know, I never
Speaker 1: watched it, and then I started watching it and I
Speaker 1: love it. So yeah, he's your number one fan. But
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you're so fortunate to have you know,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean there are a lot of fine
Speaker 1: actors out there who don't have these incredible opportunities. I
Speaker 1: mean not that you haven't earned every bit of it.
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that, but wow, to be on a
Speaker 1: show like The Good Wife, which um clearly you were
Speaker 1: consumed by Alicia's character and you gave it your all.
Speaker 1: But what was it about that show that made it
Speaker 1: really work in a similar way that e Er did?
Speaker 1: I think was it the ensemble. Was it the topicality
Speaker 1: the Silda Switzer Spitzer, Sorry, not Switzer Spitzer. I dated
Speaker 1: a boy in college named Switzer, but not Switzer Spitzer
Speaker 1: and he was from the liquorice company. But anyway, Selda Spitzer.
Speaker 1: So it was very weirdly timely. But when you look
Speaker 1: back at that whole experience, what was the key to
Speaker 1: the success of that show? So I think, what what
Speaker 1: what everyone has to remember is, um, when you sign
Speaker 1: on to do a show, you're only given the only
Speaker 1: thing that's written is the pilot. Is that first episode.
Speaker 1: And that first episode I had I was a little
Speaker 1: obsessed with Silda Spitzer and Elliot Spitzer. I watched that
Speaker 1: press conference where you see her standing behind him, and
Speaker 1: I remember screaming at the television. I mean, like, why
Speaker 1: are you there? Don't leave? Walk away. I didn't understand
Speaker 1: why she was there, and she looked like she wanted
Speaker 1: a sinkhole to happen, you know, like she just wanted
Speaker 1: something to take her away. Um. And what I found
Speaker 1: so fascinating in the pilot when I was reading the pilot,
Speaker 1: what really got me was what happens after that press
Speaker 1: conference when they go into the Green room what happens.
Speaker 1: And so there's this pilot and I'm reading it and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I want to play
Speaker 1: that woman. I need to know who she is because
Speaker 1: like Silda Spit you know, my Mike Alicia Flora graduated
Speaker 1: topping her class at Georgetown Law School. Higher then then uh,
Speaker 1: Peter Floric Chris notes character higher than Josh Charles's character
Speaker 1: Will Garden. She was number one. Silda Spitzer, such a
Speaker 1: smart woman. Who are these women? I got? I was
Speaker 1: so excitement to play her. Then of course you make
Speaker 1: the pilot and you don't know what the show is
Speaker 1: going to be because you don't know if it's picked
Speaker 1: up or not. So nothing's written and then they say
Speaker 1: it's a go. And then the first script comes in
Speaker 1: after the pilot, and it's where I do think, Um,
Speaker 1: I am truly one of the luckiest people on the
Speaker 1: planet because that that this script fell into my lap.
Speaker 1: Robert and Michelle king Um wrote such a complex, interesting character.
Speaker 1: And yes, it's about the cast, it's about the writing.
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately, the first thing it's about is the writing. Really, um.
Speaker 1: But then, as Robert and Michelle said to me so
Speaker 1: many times in dailies. They would watch my character and
Speaker 1: I would wait for a minute before I answered, because
Speaker 1: I always felt like Alicia really balance things out in
Speaker 1: her head and thought things through. I noticed my husband,
Speaker 1: who calls himself a recovering lawyer, he always looks at
Speaker 1: two sides of each argument before he has an answer.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm an actress, I'm cleric, I'm like, I'm emotional. Everything.
Speaker 1: I answer like, you know, way too fast everything. And
Speaker 1: I loved the idea of being more. Let me wait,
Speaker 1: let me weigh out two sides. And they would then
Speaker 1: start writing to what I was doing. That's the luxury
Speaker 1: of television. It's like a novel. You know, the writer
Speaker 1: gets to also see the the actor up there every
Speaker 1: day and then they say, wait, she's really good at
Speaker 1: that weight. I'm going to write to that strength and
Speaker 1: and that dance that you get to do with writers.
Speaker 1: There's just nothing that e Er was the same. You know,
Speaker 1: we just had great writers. So it's the writing first,
Speaker 1: and then hopefully you see what you can do with
Speaker 1: the actors in it. And I I mean, I was
Speaker 1: blessed to do that show. And also the character development,
Speaker 1: you know, the evolution of all the characters, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, absolutely, they kept growing and changing and surprising us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, TV, UM, TV is like reading
Speaker 1: a really good novel. You know, you get to turn
Speaker 1: each page, you get to live inside the characters. They
Speaker 1: stay with you week after week. It's very different than
Speaker 1: a movie, which is two hours of beginning, the middle
Speaker 1: and an end. With TV, it's ongoing, so it's sort
Speaker 1: of this just guilty pleasure all the time. And I
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to read each script that not all television
Speaker 1: shows are like that, you know, So, um, listen, we're
Speaker 1: almost out of time. But I was just gonna close
Speaker 1: by a question that someone asked, which was in writing
Speaker 1: this book, what did you what did you learn about
Speaker 1: yourself in the process? You know, what did you come
Speaker 1: away recognizing or realizing that perhaps you hadn't before. I
Speaker 1: think the main thing that I that that hit me
Speaker 1: the most was while I was writing about my plates
Speaker 1: spinning in the seven years I was working UM, I
Speaker 1: realized and learned about myself that if I do not
Speaker 1: take time for myself and let go of trying to
Speaker 1: be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect friend
Speaker 1: or daughter or sister, or even the perfect actor, or
Speaker 1: even the perfect actor. I will be no good to anyone,
Speaker 1: especially myself. And that nobody wants to hang out with
Speaker 1: a martyr is so boring and so exhausting. And I
Speaker 1: realized as I was writing it, I was like, you
Speaker 1: better live by these words, girl, you better, you better.
Speaker 1: It's funny because in the pandemic people were asking them
Speaker 1: where what did you do to find a loane time?
Speaker 1: Because you know, when you're locked down with a kid
Speaker 1: and a husband anyway, and I and I'm fine out
Speaker 1: that everyone did this. I ran to the bathroom and
Speaker 1: shut the door, because no one will bother you in
Speaker 1: the bathroom. So I would sit on the floor and
Speaker 1: maybe return some emails or just breathe, or just reading
Speaker 1: something to the newspaper because no one can bother you
Speaker 1: in the bathroom. And I realized that I will always
Speaker 1: find time to to run to the bathroom and shut
Speaker 1: the door and be on my own. Um, I need
Speaker 1: to be alone. And that's what I loved about the
Speaker 1: process of writing, was that every day I would be
Speaker 1: able to come into my office and no matter what,
Speaker 1: for two hours, make myself right every day if I
Speaker 1: if I could. And some days were great and some
Speaker 1: days I had nothing to say, but um, I did
Speaker 1: love the alone time of that. Well. I know that
Speaker 1: that people can't wait to see sort of what you
Speaker 1: do next. And as I said, you've got some people
Speaker 1: who are serious bands, including me, and I wish you
Speaker 1: all the best with the book. It's so exciting and
Speaker 1: it's such an accomplishment. So I hope you feel proud
Speaker 1: of yourself for your finger to keyboard and really telling
Speaker 1: your story. And you did such a beautiful job. So congratulations,
Speaker 1: Thank you so so so so much, and thank you
Speaker 1: for doing this and being so supportive in the world
Speaker 1: to me. And by the way, you can find Sunshine
Speaker 1: Girl by Julianna Margalie's wherever you buy your books. Speaking
Speaker 1: of book tours, Hello, my memoir Going There is out
Speaker 1: October and I'll be taking the show on the road.
Speaker 1: To find out when and where I'm headed and to
Speaker 1: get your tickets, check out ticketmaster dot com slash Going
Speaker 1: There and hopefully I'll see you there next week. On
Speaker 1: next question, I have for five seconds the control of
Speaker 1: the narrative about me. Sharon Stone exposes Sharon Stone like
Speaker 1: that to actually tell you something that's true about me.
Speaker 1: The Oscar nominated actress sharing her story on her own terms.
Speaker 1: That's next Thursday on Next Question. Next Question with Katie
Speaker 1: Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie
Speaker 1: Couric Media. The executive producers Army, Katie Curic, and Courtney Litz.
Speaker 1: The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements,
Speaker 1: Adriana Fasio, and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and
Speaker 1: mixed by Derrek Clements. For more information about today's episode,
Speaker 1: or to sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call,
Speaker 1: go to Katie Currek dot com. You can also find
Speaker 1: me at Katie Curic on Instagram and all my social
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