Speaker 1: My name is Jeffrey Z Carrian and you're listening to
Speaker 1: four Courses with Jeffrey Z. Carrion from My Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and four Courses, I'll be taking you along for the
Speaker 1: ride while I talk with the top talent of our time.
Speaker 1: In each conversation, I focus on four different areas from
Speaker 1: my guests life and career, and during those four courses,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna dig deep and cover new insights and inspirations
Speaker 1: that we can all use to fuel ourselves to push forward.
Speaker 1: My guest for this episode moved to Europe alone at
Speaker 1: the age of fifteen. She has regionally launched a line
Speaker 1: of her own kitchen products, and for more than two decades,
Speaker 1: she's starting TV shows and films loved by millions. Without
Speaker 1: further delay, please enjoy my hilarious and warm conversation with actor, director,
Speaker 1: mother and passionate home cook Laura Prepond. How are you hi?
Speaker 1: How are you? I am great? Thank you for to time.
Speaker 1: Are you in Brooklyn? I am in Brooklyn. You have
Speaker 1: way too many trees outside of your window to be
Speaker 1: in New York right now. I know those are palm trees.
Speaker 1: I'm actually in St. Barts. No, I'm kidding. I wish
Speaker 1: I was. I'm in Florida. Oh okay, yeah, because I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's way too sunny and way too many trees to
Speaker 1: be New York. For my first course with Laura Prepond,
Speaker 1: she tells me about her amazingly unique upbringing, from a
Speaker 1: mother's ambitious and obsessive culinary experiments to moving to Europe
Speaker 1: alone at the age of fifteen. It seems like your mom,
Speaker 1: from what I'm understanding, was completely addicted to mayhem. She
Speaker 1: was okay with that. Is that accurate statement or was
Speaker 1: it just that she didn't really have any desire to
Speaker 1: control it. When people hear about how I was raised,
Speaker 1: there just like, what how did you turn out? Somewhat sane?
Speaker 1: But I loved it. I mean my mom was this
Speaker 1: just eccentric chef, honestly. So there were five of us.
Speaker 1: I was the youngest, and all she wanted to do
Speaker 1: was cook. That's all she did. She would We lived
Speaker 1: in Jersey. My father was a surgeon and he was,
Speaker 1: you know, at the hospital all day, and my mother
Speaker 1: would go to the best restaurants in New York. She
Speaker 1: had as a God's guy that was like dog gear
Speaker 1: zag it's called She would like underline the restaurants as
Speaker 1: she wanted to go to. She would go to them,
Speaker 1: she would try the food, she would annoy the chefs.
Speaker 1: She would literally go back and annoy the chefs to
Speaker 1: tell them like imagine some woman from Jersey going in
Speaker 1: the back kitchen and try to figure out how you
Speaker 1: like made you know your frogois or whatever it was.
Speaker 1: And she would come home and perfect the recipes until
Speaker 1: the morning. So we never had bed times. We would
Speaker 1: go to sleep for school. She would wake us up
Speaker 1: around midnight. All five of us would pile into the
Speaker 1: kitchen and she would have this crazy spread in something
Speaker 1: like all castrol issues on pot trades at midnight us.
Speaker 1: So we would come in to this epic feast like
Speaker 1: literally every night. And then aside from the feast, she
Speaker 1: would have her culinary obsession like peeking duck. Like she
Speaker 1: would make peeking duck. I would walk into the kitchen
Speaker 1: at two o'clock in the morning and she would have
Speaker 1: a duck on the counter with a bicycle pump pumping
Speaker 1: air into the duck. She would Jeffrey, it was it
Speaker 1: was crazy, Like she would unravel a wire hanger, poke
Speaker 1: it through the duck's eyes. Make a hook and hang
Speaker 1: it in the bedroom in her boudou with the fan
Speaker 1: blowing on it like this, you know, Like I would
Speaker 1: go into her closet and there will be a duck.
Speaker 1: You're rubbing your eyes going like what, like you're in
Speaker 1: a horror film? What what do you see? Like hanging animals?
Speaker 1: And then you have to take a fork and knife
Speaker 1: and you know, try to eat it one in the morning.
Speaker 1: This is how I was raised, so I didn't know
Speaker 1: any different. Like my friends were not allowed to sleep
Speaker 1: at our house because they didn't trust our situation. The
Speaker 1: only way I can describe her is like this culinary sorceress.
Speaker 1: Like she would just be in the kitchen creating some
Speaker 1: crazy dish. I remember when she was making homemade sushi
Speaker 1: and she would drive up to this Japanese supermarket an
Speaker 1: hour and a half away from our house, and she
Speaker 1: would like push in with the sushi chefs and pick
Speaker 1: out her toro, like she literally and we would all
Speaker 1: pile in the car and go to this the Japanese
Speaker 1: fish market. Seeing all this as a child, it helped
Speaker 1: inform me in the kitchen. I mean, I would just
Speaker 1: follow her around the kitchen watching her cook. I was
Speaker 1: obsessed with cooking. I loved being in the kitchen. But
Speaker 1: one thing I gotta say is like, as example, like
Speaker 1: my family loves coming to our house for holidays because
Speaker 1: my mother would make the most fabulous food and insane,
Speaker 1: insane stuff. But I don't have a single memory of
Speaker 1: spending time with her at a single holiday because she
Speaker 1: was always in the kitchen cooking and making these extravagant meals,
Speaker 1: everything from scratch. That was like drilled into my head
Speaker 1: as a kid, like from scratch. But the thing is
Speaker 1: is like what if you can't even enjoy it and
Speaker 1: be present. I mean, you have three kids, you get it,
Speaker 1: Like you can't even be present to enjoy the holiday
Speaker 1: with your kids, It's kind of like what is the point?
Speaker 1: So I, very early on as a youngster, was like,
Speaker 1: I so appreciate what she's doing. It's so inspiring and magical,
Speaker 1: but there's got to be a more practical way to
Speaker 1: do this. And that's really where my whole philosophy with
Speaker 1: food was born, was by watching my mother never having
Speaker 1: time with her and being like, there's gotta be a
Speaker 1: way to have both. And that's when I really kind
Speaker 1: of honed in on like how I prepare my food
Speaker 1: in a specific way so I could be with my family. Truthfully,
Speaker 1: it's kind of incredible and it's kind of fascinating. You're
Speaker 1: the youngest and you have such vivid memories. Did your
Speaker 1: do your siblings remember as kindly as you do, or
Speaker 1: did they think like my moms out to lunch, you're
Speaker 1: loving it and she's like, you know, mom, what do
Speaker 1: you do? And can you just wrap it up for tomorrow?
Speaker 1: I'll have it. I'll have it when I get home.
Speaker 1: Out of five siblings, are personalities are very very different.
Speaker 1: I think that I thrived in this freedom, and I
Speaker 1: think that some of my siblings needed more structure. So
Speaker 1: I think it just depends on the personality, you know.
Speaker 1: For me, there were times that were a little like
Speaker 1: like my like my hands and my head in my hands,
Speaker 1: like mommy please, like I remember we had to do.
Speaker 1: I was in Spanish class and we had to do
Speaker 1: like a polock. So parents were bringing in like boxed
Speaker 1: piea mix, like rice ERRONI like whatever, like your parents
Speaker 1: had to bring in a dish. And then my mom
Speaker 1: comes in with twenty five individual handmade flaws in little containers,
Speaker 1: and twenty five times she flipped the flon custard out
Speaker 1: and let the sauce dripped on the side in a hand.
Speaker 1: We were like ten, and all the perils were just
Speaker 1: like looking at my mother like beside themselves, and the
Speaker 1: kids didn't even know what to do with this like
Speaker 1: perfect flaw. Jeffrey. It was so this one was like
Speaker 1: that where I'm just like, oh my god, like this
Speaker 1: is why people don't sleep over our house. It's comical.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would love to sleep over you. I was.
Speaker 1: I was a kid. All that food fantastic. The timing
Speaker 1: is off, like Friday and Saturday, it's okay, right, right, exactly.
Speaker 1: Not This was like a Monday Tuesday, so you were
Speaker 1: like sleep deprived on Monday and Tuesday walking into school
Speaker 1: because getting up and then eating and going back to
Speaker 1: bed must have been like kind of traumatic. Honestly, Jeffrey,
Speaker 1: I didn't know any different. I didn't. It's just what
Speaker 1: we did. It's just what we did, and it was
Speaker 1: you know, my mother just didn't conform, which I really appreciated,
Speaker 1: and I think that it's part of the reason why
Speaker 1: I ended up in this wonderful racket that I'm in,
Speaker 1: because you know, we grew up in a Super Belts
Speaker 1: in New Jersey. You know what I mean, Like when
Speaker 1: I first got into acting and stuff, I had never
Speaker 1: even considered it. And because my mom was so you know,
Speaker 1: just didn't conform any status quo. It was really inspiring
Speaker 1: as a kid, you know, and it it made me
Speaker 1: think I could really do anything I wanted. Even though
Speaker 1: there wasn't like a lot of like Shepherd ng along.
Speaker 1: It was kind of just like, Okay, go figure it out.
Speaker 1: But she let me go do it, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I love the fact that your mom had
Speaker 1: this zagging thing. That's a great I mean, that's when
Speaker 1: Zaggy was printed. We remember that that the original red
Speaker 1: Guy was something you got in the mail every every year.
Speaker 1: She was obsessed dog Gear. I was obsessed to you know.
Speaker 1: And it was everyone's bible. And there were obsessive people
Speaker 1: that brought it to the restaurant and would open it
Speaker 1: up and say, I want to duck Laranche that you
Speaker 1: had the men you said you had. And many times
Speaker 1: it was outdated and we didn't you know, we don't
Speaker 1: have any when they get angry at you. But the
Speaker 1: people that carried that book were the most interested in
Speaker 1: food of anybody. That came in. They were real food, easy,
Speaker 1: and they ate well and they drank well. So it
Speaker 1: was difficult sometimes. But love that you're basically talking about
Speaker 1: your mom's going in back and she's ordering for aggress.
Speaker 1: She's spending money, you know, she's spending real dollars at
Speaker 1: a restaurant. And she if she goes alone, did she
Speaker 1: go alone or with someone else with a friend. It
Speaker 1: would depend. Sometimes it was just by herself because it
Speaker 1: was what she liked to do, you know, it was
Speaker 1: her that was her passion. And then coming home and
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes I would go with her. There's times
Speaker 1: w she would take me out of school and I
Speaker 1: would go to like when she was going to the
Speaker 1: Gotham Bar and grill and she'd take me with her. Oh,
Speaker 1: it was incredible, and she was tasting it on a
Speaker 1: completely different level. But when we would come home and
Speaker 1: then she would make the recipe and it would be better.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what was so crazy is she wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to the chef to find out what they
Speaker 1: were doing so that she could come home and see
Speaker 1: if she can make it better, which is insane because
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, you guys work so hard to
Speaker 1: craft these incredible dishes. But that was her thing. Like
Speaker 1: she would go home, she would trying to make it
Speaker 1: and try to improve upon it if she felt she could.
Speaker 1: You mentioned, you know, at fifteen, you left and you
Speaker 1: started modeling, and you went to Italy. So you you're
Speaker 1: coming from a situation where you're basically have the run
Speaker 1: of the house, no rules, and then you went to Italy.
Speaker 1: And I would think it's a normal person that would
Speaker 1: be scary, But I don't presume that you were too scared.
Speaker 1: You just figured it out because you were always getting
Speaker 1: curveballs all the time. You just figure your curveballs out,
Speaker 1: and you know, people like yourself get to read the
Speaker 1: situation really fast and adapt. How is that experience being
Speaker 1: alone at fifteen? As I said, like I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a doctor like my dad. And when I said
Speaker 1: earlier that I had never thought of acting, that's true,
Speaker 1: Like I had never thought about it. My eldest sister
Speaker 1: was working as a managing fashion editor for a magazine
Speaker 1: in Manhattan, and she was like, why don't you, you know,
Speaker 1: go into this agency and see about modeling? And I
Speaker 1: was like, why would I ever? Why would I ever
Speaker 1: want to do that? Like and I had no desire
Speaker 1: to do it, and my mom loved the idea because
Speaker 1: my mom was very fabulous, like she went to sleep
Speaker 1: with her face on, her hair and makeup was perfectly done.
Speaker 1: She would literally go to sleep with her face on,
Speaker 1: and she would wear jewelry. Because she grew up extremely,
Speaker 1: extremely poor, my mom wanted people to know that she
Speaker 1: had money, so she loved the idea of me going
Speaker 1: to this casting for modeling. She loved it. So I
Speaker 1: went in and I and they ended up, you know,
Speaker 1: after a little bit of back and forth, and they
Speaker 1: told me I had to lose weight whatever, and then
Speaker 1: once I did, they were like, we're going to send
Speaker 1: you to Milan. And for me, I saw it as
Speaker 1: an opportunity to because even though I my mom was
Speaker 1: totally inspiring to me, and I I knew that there
Speaker 1: was something that I needed to get away from, Like
Speaker 1: even as a youngster, I knew that I needed to
Speaker 1: go on where like I needed to get out, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So I took it and I
Speaker 1: ran with that, and I my mom was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I was a freshman in high school and she was
Speaker 1: like a job out of school. She drove into the airport.
Speaker 1: I had the name of a man written on a
Speaker 1: scrap of paper that I was supposed to call it
Speaker 1: when I got there. She had no idea where I
Speaker 1: was going or who I was going to meet. Did
Speaker 1: you ever see the movie Taken? But this is I mean,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like it wasn't it was
Speaker 1: different back then? She was like, great, I can get
Speaker 1: reservations in Rome, and I can get some report that
Speaker 1: once she's over there. But you went alone. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: she dropped me off of the airport I was walking through.
Speaker 1: But Jeffrey, this is what's so crazy, is like now
Speaker 1: is a mother. I look back and I'm like, are
Speaker 1: you insane? I would never I would never let my
Speaker 1: kids do that at fifteen. But then again, if she didn't,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be where I am now. My life path
Speaker 1: wouldn't have taken that route. I would bet you she
Speaker 1: knew you were gonna be okay. I would bet you
Speaker 1: they had this sense, you know, I know my daughter's
Speaker 1: gonna be good. This one can handle it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that you say that, because as a parent
Speaker 1: now you do kind of you sense that, right. So,
Speaker 1: whether that's what it was or she was just like
Speaker 1: have fun, like whatever. But I dropped out of school
Speaker 1: and moved him along. I lived there for about a
Speaker 1: year and a half. Oh wow, I jumped around like
Speaker 1: I would do some jobs, you know, like I was
Speaker 1: able to do like a little stint in Paris, little
Speaker 1: stint in London. But it was crazy, like even in London.
Speaker 1: I remember, I found a place to live and all
Speaker 1: the women were always really nice to me, and I
Speaker 1: was always the youngest. Like my nickname in Italy was
Speaker 1: Queen Duchy, which is fifteen. Like all the locals call
Speaker 1: me Queen to Chy because I was just this American
Speaker 1: girl by myself. Like I look back at it now,
Speaker 1: I'm just, oh my god, I cannot believe how dangerous
Speaker 1: that actually is, you know, because I'm like taking the
Speaker 1: Metro on the bus and the tram and all the
Speaker 1: stuff on myself. But um, in London, I'm in this
Speaker 1: this apartment that you can rent by the day or
Speaker 1: the week. And I realized after I'm there for like
Speaker 1: a week, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like a brothel,
Speaker 1: Like I'm staying in a brothel. And I didn't even
Speaker 1: and everyone was really nice, but I would find it's
Speaker 1: insane I was find myself in these situations just like
Speaker 1: this is. And I remember my apartment in Milan was
Speaker 1: like so not great and I would call my mom
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night because there were so
Speaker 1: many cockroaches. I was like, what do I do, Like
Speaker 1: I'm scared, and she said, when you go to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: look away and turn the lights on. They don't like
Speaker 1: the light. But it's weird because like this, this whole experience,
Speaker 1: it's a big part of who I am. And you know,
Speaker 1: in Milan is where I first started acting because I
Speaker 1: got this audition for an Uncle Ben's rice commercial and
Speaker 1: I ended up booking it. I didn't work much as
Speaker 1: a model, but I loved my experience over there. It
Speaker 1: was my first kind of real introduction with like food
Speaker 1: prep because I would go to the local market, I
Speaker 1: would get a bunch of food. I would come home
Speaker 1: and I would batch cook all my food and like
Speaker 1: reimagine it in a couple of different ways. But um,
Speaker 1: I booked a sancle Ban's rice commercial. I did the
Speaker 1: job and I called my mom in Jersey like I
Speaker 1: want to try this acting thing, and she said okay.
Speaker 1: So I came home, I dropped everything in Milan. I
Speaker 1: came home and she's like, so, what do we have
Speaker 1: to do. I'm like, I have to learn how to act.
Speaker 1: So she literally, Jeffrey, she opened a Yellow Pages and
Speaker 1: we just pointed at a teacher in New York and
Speaker 1: I started taking lessons and then within a year I
Speaker 1: booked that seventies show. Wow, that's like a that's like
Speaker 1: a wingman. Yeah, that's a mom and a wingman and
Speaker 1: like a shrink all at once. For our second course,
Speaker 1: Laura tells me about her drive to learn and master
Speaker 1: her craft of acting into wrecking. So in nineteen, before
Speaker 1: you were nineteen, you're on the seventy show, huge hit,
Speaker 1: and then you decided to go to film school. You
Speaker 1: saw like, Okay, I want to see how this works
Speaker 1: because I know I can do it better. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean not like my mom and the restaurant, Like I
Speaker 1: can improve upon this. But but like that kind of
Speaker 1: what I was getting, you know, But I knew you
Speaker 1: know what it was though. There was just something inside
Speaker 1: of me that when I first saw, first of all,
Speaker 1: our director on that seventy show. His name is David Trainer.
Speaker 1: He was phenomenal. He directed every single episode except for
Speaker 1: the pilot, so he directed like a hundred and nine episodes,
Speaker 1: like he was our father figure. He was wonderful. I
Speaker 1: learned so much from him about dealing with different personalities
Speaker 1: because we were all very young and we all had
Speaker 1: very different personalities, and he balanced all of our personalities
Speaker 1: in such a wonderful way that we never felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, not taken seriously, We never felt invalidated for
Speaker 1: having an idea that was ridiculous, like the way that
Speaker 1: he dealt with us as actors. I studied him because
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe how he and a lot of it
Speaker 1: with directing. It's like do you deal with so many
Speaker 1: personalities on a daily basis? It's something that a lot
Speaker 1: of directors fail at that they can't balance, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to work with these different kinds of people. And
Speaker 1: I always love that part of the job. And David
Speaker 1: was just so a wonderful study with that. But I
Speaker 1: didn't have a g. E. D. Because I didn't go
Speaker 1: to high school. So I tracked down this guy. I
Speaker 1: would not leave him alone. And he worked at a
Speaker 1: local film school close to where we filmed in um
Speaker 1: Studio City, and I met with him and was like,
Speaker 1: will you please put me through your curriculum. I don't
Speaker 1: have a g e Z, but I want to be
Speaker 1: a director, and I wouldn't leave him alone. And after
Speaker 1: like three times, he's like, finally, fine, Fine, I will
Speaker 1: put you through my program. And I got all my
Speaker 1: film gear. I did all the same assignments. I basically
Speaker 1: he saw how serious I was about it that he
Speaker 1: literally would put me through the same thing that he
Speaker 1: put his college kids through during the day, and we
Speaker 1: would go and I went to night school. Um. He
Speaker 1: ended up producing my first short film. He's no longer
Speaker 1: with us, but he was a wonderful teacher. And then
Speaker 1: from there I just kind of did boots on the
Speaker 1: ground experience with my own film gear. I directed a
Speaker 1: short film, I started doing this web series called Nigh
Speaker 1: Rows that I was a one woman crow. Um, and
Speaker 1: then I just kept kind of honing it, and then
Speaker 1: I ended up directing multiple episodes of Orange as a
Speaker 1: New Black. So it's just been, um, it's been a process,
Speaker 1: but I I love it. I absolutely love it. So
Speaker 1: this is all happening as you're doing full scale productions TV,
Speaker 1: full scale movies. Girl, this is all happening. So you're
Speaker 1: you're in and out of this world directing and acting
Speaker 1: at the same time. Never like letting on that you're
Speaker 1: trying to do anything to disrupt anything. You just you're
Speaker 1: a worker. You're a worker, obvious like you're up, You're
Speaker 1: an organized worker. You get ship done. No, it's obvious.
Speaker 1: It's like, how do you decide what you're going to
Speaker 1: do and what you're not gonna do? Do you have
Speaker 1: any like like, oh, yeah, I'm not doing X y Z.
Speaker 1: I would never do that. This is what I want
Speaker 1: to How do you feel? How does that happen? It's
Speaker 1: different for everybody, you know, but for me, because I
Speaker 1: booked the Sebody Show at such a young age, I
Speaker 1: was able to be in a position where I could
Speaker 1: choose things based on material. While I was on the
Speaker 1: seventies show, as we just talked about, I was hustling
Speaker 1: trying to like, you know, I was doing full school
Speaker 1: at night. I sold my first show that I executive
Speaker 1: produced as when I was like twenty three was a
Speaker 1: poker show because I was obsessed with poker. But it
Speaker 1: really is a material based you know, as example, when
Speaker 1: Orange is the New Black came along, nobody knew what
Speaker 1: Netflix was. Um House of Cars hadn't aired yet. They
Speaker 1: had one show called Lily Hammer, which no one it
Speaker 1: wasn't in the zeitgeist, like no, but he knew what
Speaker 1: Netflix was. So when I got the pilot for Orange
Speaker 1: is the New Black, I read it and I knew
Speaker 1: immediately that it was special. And the role of Alex
Speaker 1: Voss was so incredible, you know, like the Genji Cohen
Speaker 1: who wrote it is just she's a phenomenal writer. But
Speaker 1: when I read the pilot, it just stands out from
Speaker 1: everything else, and when you read these characters and how
Speaker 1: incredible the show was, and no one could ever expect
Speaker 1: it to become the rocket ship that it did, which
Speaker 1: was just a phenomenal experience. But that was one of
Speaker 1: those things in my gut, I'm like, I have to
Speaker 1: be a part of this, and then Alex is just
Speaker 1: she's part of me. I just love her so much.
Speaker 1: And I ended up getting it and it was just
Speaker 1: an actually an absolute dream come true. But that was
Speaker 1: one of those things Netflix was not what it was.
Speaker 1: We came up like House of Cards, you know, air
Speaker 1: we aired right after them, and you know, we helped
Speaker 1: kind of pave the way for what is now current,
Speaker 1: the way that people consume television like we were pioneers
Speaker 1: with that, and that's a wonderful thing to be a
Speaker 1: part of. When you look at where we've come in
Speaker 1: the last ten years, it's just it's insane and we
Speaker 1: were part of that. We didn't we used to, you know,
Speaker 1: back when you're like, oh wait, I gotta wait for
Speaker 1: my episode to come out once a week, like every
Speaker 1: new episode, and now it's just everything that your fingertips.
Speaker 1: Being a part of that, like Boots on the Ground,
Speaker 1: was really really a wonderful experience to be a part of.
Speaker 1: Do you prefer directing or acting? I asked this question.
Speaker 1: I it's people ask me, so you like cooking or
Speaker 1: writing restaurants, and I'm like, I don't, you know, it's
Speaker 1: one and the same. But sometimes it''s good, sometimes it's
Speaker 1: not quick. But what do you prefer? If there is
Speaker 1: a preference? I love directing, like direct The thing I
Speaker 1: love about directing is it's all encompassing. It's everything. When
Speaker 1: I'm directing, I think like an actor, but I'm also,
Speaker 1: you know, telling the story visually as well through the camera,
Speaker 1: so and you have to get all of these pieces
Speaker 1: moving together, and it's extremely challenging. And I love that,
Speaker 1: and I thrive on having to come up with those
Speaker 1: solutions and being able to tell this story while you're
Speaker 1: getting all of these departments to like think in line
Speaker 1: with what your vision is. It's phenomenal to have something
Speaker 1: in your head that then gets on the screen. You're
Speaker 1: dis like, oh my god, but it's like it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: And acting is a piece of it, you know what
Speaker 1: I means. So when I'm acting, I don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about all this other stuff. I can just focus
Speaker 1: on that craft directing. The only thing I can really
Speaker 1: explain it is it is all encompassing and I and
Speaker 1: I kind of thrive in that kind of experience. Acting
Speaker 1: is just a very different It's just a very different muscle.
Speaker 1: But what I will say is I've always appreciated good actors,
Speaker 1: but as a director, you live and die by how
Speaker 1: good your actors are. I mean, you really do. And
Speaker 1: as a director, working with great actors is just like
Speaker 1: an orange. With these actresses that are just absolutely phenomenal,
Speaker 1: I was just like, I am so blessed to be
Speaker 1: able to direct these women right now, and some men,
Speaker 1: but it was mostly women. You know. It was absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1: But as an actor, you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: like you're making your day, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like you don't have to have a clock and a
Speaker 1: producer like breathing down your neck all day like and
Speaker 1: making your day. And like there's a snowstorm, we lost
Speaker 1: a location, like this actor is sick, this person is
Speaker 1: you know whatever, a family tragic, Like it's all it's
Speaker 1: so much to juggle. So as an actor, I can
Speaker 1: show up and do my job and I'm like, you
Speaker 1: get to worry about everything else. I get to this
Speaker 1: act now that I have two young children, Like would
Speaker 1: I take a directing job right this second? It wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to check a lot of boxes for me because
Speaker 1: you're gone before the sun comes up, your home when
Speaker 1: the sun is down, and you're thinking when you're laying
Speaker 1: down about what you missed. For a third course, Laura
Speaker 1: and I discussed something that we now have in common,
Speaker 1: selling cooking products on TV. Laura has teamed up with
Speaker 1: hs AND to launch prep on Kitchen, their exclusive collection
Speaker 1: designed to make preparing your meals easy and fun. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about your new line on HSN Prep
Speaker 1: on Kitchen, which is a fantastic name. Thank you tell
Speaker 1: me this is HS and I worked where with QBC,
Speaker 1: which is the same company. Oh yeah, fantastic. I love
Speaker 1: doing it, doing it for two years now and my
Speaker 1: wife actually runs everything and she um is the person
Speaker 1: that came up with the first product. And I just
Speaker 1: didn't know how much I would love it as soon
Speaker 1: as you get on air, because you're almost like a
Speaker 1: stand up comedian and a salesperson at this him I mean,
Speaker 1: and you have authentic relationship to what you're sounding because,
Speaker 1: as I understand, you're selling things that brought you back
Speaker 1: to your time in Milan where you're cooking for yourself
Speaker 1: and doing all this stuff. Not to mention mom who
Speaker 1: had her own Like, it's gonna be so fantastic to
Speaker 1: tell those stories and just watch the stuff fly out
Speaker 1: of there because it's gonna thank you. Every product needs
Speaker 1: a story. Everyone has a bowl, everyone has a knife,
Speaker 1: everyone everyone has everything. But it has to be a connection.
Speaker 1: And that's really I'm very excited. Tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about it and how this sort of I kind
Speaker 1: of know now and I know you, I kind of
Speaker 1: know how it came about, But tell me what I
Speaker 1: don't know. I have been sketching the line for years,
Speaker 1: Like I have little scraps of like different renderings of
Speaker 1: products and whatever, really all based on things that I
Speaker 1: would come up against in the kitchen. Like as example,
Speaker 1: one of my pieces that I'm launching with is this
Speaker 1: cutting board, the prep board, my prep on kitchen prep board,
Speaker 1: and I created this arm that attaches this biodegradable compostable
Speaker 1: bag to it because whenever I'm food prepping, I would
Speaker 1: always get like bigger and bigger cutting boards because it
Speaker 1: would get filled with shavings and I wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: like interrupt everything to go over to the garbage and
Speaker 1: spill it out and then come back or go put
Speaker 1: in my compost or whatever it is, or if I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do that, I would just work on
Speaker 1: like smaller and smaller spaces of a cutting board. Like
Speaker 1: by the end, I'm like chopping carrots on the corner
Speaker 1: of the board, and I was like, there's gotta be
Speaker 1: a better way to do this. So then I started
Speaker 1: just tucking a bag under the edge of my cutting
Speaker 1: board and just scraping all the things in there, and
Speaker 1: I finally was like, there has got to be a
Speaker 1: better way to hold this bag upright, I don't want
Speaker 1: it hanging out the counter. I don't want it hanging
Speaker 1: down here where my legs are because I want to
Speaker 1: be able to freely move around. Because I mean, you
Speaker 1: can speak to this like when you're cooking, you get
Speaker 1: in a flow, you know what I mean. In any
Speaker 1: friends of mine who work and for national kitchens, they're
Speaker 1: like you kind of it's like a dance and you
Speaker 1: have to get into the rhythm of it and the
Speaker 1: flow of it. And when I'm cooking, I love getting
Speaker 1: as the flow and I don't want to break it
Speaker 1: up by having to like bring this board over the
Speaker 1: garbage and whatever. So I create, you know, I create
Speaker 1: a design whatever word you want to use. This cutting
Speaker 1: where that holds a bag in place, so you can
Speaker 1: just push all your food scraps into this bag. You're
Speaker 1: the clean cutting space. Um, you're the clean prep space.
Speaker 1: And you can just get in your rhythm and go
Speaker 1: and then afterwards your bag goes into the garbage or
Speaker 1: if you compost, it goes in your compost. You're solving
Speaker 1: a problem, which is what it's all about. When you're
Speaker 1: selling a product, it's like, this is the problem. The
Speaker 1: problem is you run on a room and the problem
Speaker 1: is you don't want to mess everything up, and your
Speaker 1: problem is you don't want to cut yourself. I love that,
Speaker 1: thank you. Similar to that, I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: have my my nylon tools, which are which I love,
Speaker 1: Like I wanted a spoon and a bigger fork, and
Speaker 1: my my turner has like the sides on it, like
Speaker 1: everything is geared to words, things that I would run
Speaker 1: into in the kitchen and that I wanted solutions for.
Speaker 1: And I pitched this too, you know H s N.
Speaker 1: And they totally saw my vision and they just they
Speaker 1: loved it. So you know now here we are. But
Speaker 1: I had a whole like I remember when I first
Speaker 1: went to find UM to get my branding agent. His
Speaker 1: name's Andy Cohen. He's awesome and he's the one who
Speaker 1: helped me meet with H s N. When I pitched him.
Speaker 1: I came in with a bag. I had a cutting
Speaker 1: board in it. I had all of my food storage
Speaker 1: glass containers in it, and I put it on the
Speaker 1: thing and I did like a whole demo like this
Speaker 1: is my problem in the kitchen. I want to find
Speaker 1: a solution for all this up. And I'm like and
Speaker 1: he got it, and then he ended up taking me
Speaker 1: on and then we went and got hs N. H
Speaker 1: s N has been awesome, Like they totally get my
Speaker 1: vision for it, and it's been wonderful. Well, if you
Speaker 1: if you do hs N one place, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to visit where I live in Tampa because that's where
Speaker 1: they films. Is Yeah, well soon hopefully. Yeah. No, they're
Speaker 1: gonna get back in there by what do you what
Speaker 1: is it in the fall? Or my my launch is
Speaker 1: on May seven. It's such a fun thing and I
Speaker 1: see the excitement in your face, So you're gonna do
Speaker 1: great at it because that's who you were. But thank you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been working on this for years. I'm
Speaker 1: really really excited about it. For our fourth and final course,
Speaker 1: my conversation with Laura continues with some of my favorite
Speaker 1: food questions. Can a home kitchen be prepped like a
Speaker 1: professional kitchen? What diet can help us perform out our best?
Speaker 1: Can cocktails ever being healthy? I was watching your food
Speaker 1: videos on YouTube. I love your margaritea recipe. Most margarite
Speaker 1: is too sweet, and I wanted just wanted to mention
Speaker 1: that to you because most people it's just a sugar rush. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you one thing I'm trying to figure out is
Speaker 1: some of the best margaritas I've had, they're shaking so
Speaker 1: hard that you almost get some like little shavings of ice.
Speaker 1: I can't figure out how to get that, and I
Speaker 1: how you get Do you know how to get those
Speaker 1: shavings in there? You're probably gonna need a silver plated,
Speaker 1: heavy duty shaker. You're gonna need ice that it's very square,
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna need to put more ice than
Speaker 1: you want. The only problem with that and shake it
Speaker 1: for quite a while. The only problem with that is
Speaker 1: that when you end up shaking it too much, you
Speaker 1: delude the drink. What I usually do is shake it
Speaker 1: with very little ice and pour it over ice, so
Speaker 1: it really stays the same. Jeff Morrow says non delution,
Speaker 1: but it's non delution. But you can shake it. You
Speaker 1: just keep shaking it and you're gonna get it. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do the next time. I appreciate you commenting on
Speaker 1: on my margarita. I mean, it's a class a recipe.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows it, but thank you. So I appreciated comment
Speaker 1: on that for one reason because everyone who's a young
Speaker 1: and hip drinks tequila and everybody else who's young and
Speaker 1: hip and on is either on keto or no sugar.
Speaker 1: So I'm figuring that there was a diet, a dietary
Speaker 1: um sort of choice to make something that is pseudo
Speaker 1: healthy because we have alcohol, but it is it because
Speaker 1: you take very good care of your like knowing that
Speaker 1: you've been eating for bra and caviare as a nine
Speaker 1: year old, are you now sick of all that luxury
Speaker 1: food and giving back to the basics. It's funny that
Speaker 1: you bring up the keto thing, because I find that
Speaker 1: when I talked to people who are doing Keto and
Speaker 1: Caveman and all this stuff whatever you want to call
Speaker 1: that diet, for me what it is. And I don't
Speaker 1: even do keto or anything. I try to do this moderation.
Speaker 1: But one of the biggest tools that I took from
Speaker 1: the keto kind of lifestyle is literally insulin. It's that
Speaker 1: you don't eat for long periods of time so that
Speaker 1: your insulin doesn't spike. From my understand saying, and all
Speaker 1: the research I've done on the body, which is quite
Speaker 1: a bit in certain regards, is that you can't really
Speaker 1: gain fat without insulin, right, So keto really lowers your
Speaker 1: insulin insulin levels. And for me, that's my main thing
Speaker 1: is I allow myself to drink alcohol if I want to,
Speaker 1: everything in moderation, and I eat carbs, fat, proteins, vegetables,
Speaker 1: I eat everything, but I really try to keep my
Speaker 1: insulin in check where I don't snack anymore specifically because
Speaker 1: and based on keto and all this other stuff, even
Speaker 1: if you think about food, your insulin can spike. I
Speaker 1: mean there's studies that show that. But for me, is
Speaker 1: like if you just don't eat for hours between your meals,
Speaker 1: it's a form of intermittent fasting and you keep your
Speaker 1: insulin super low. So that is pretty much now as
Speaker 1: a working mom, you know, trying to figure out the
Speaker 1: easiest way to stay healthy while doing all my food prep,
Speaker 1: while being able to you know, have a cocktail if
Speaker 1: I want my insulin is really the key for me.
Speaker 1: So what are you cooking now? I'm curious what's in
Speaker 1: your larder? What I normally do is I get a
Speaker 1: bunch of vegetables and proteins and I kind of half
Speaker 1: prep everything so that it's ready in my fridge so
Speaker 1: I can easily cook. So I always have like my staple,
Speaker 1: like workhorse veggies. You know a lot of cauliflower. There's
Speaker 1: a ton of zucchini. Now, I prepare my fridge in
Speaker 1: a way where it makes it easy to want to
Speaker 1: use it. I basically do what you might do in
Speaker 1: your restaurant, Like I literally prep my kitchen like I'm
Speaker 1: going into a Friday night at a restaurant. It is
Speaker 1: so funny that you I mean, my gosh, it's no
Speaker 1: trouble at all if you if you take a little time,
Speaker 1: you know, you once you get the food home, it's
Speaker 1: half the work. You've got to take care of it
Speaker 1: when it goes in the fridge. Otherwise. You know those
Speaker 1: mushrooms you bought in the plastic wrapper, you put them
Speaker 1: in the back without realizing that they're gonna be stinky
Speaker 1: in the day. It's a living organism, you know. It's
Speaker 1: it's there is work involved in cooking. There is, and
Speaker 1: people need to know that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But it's so worth it. It's like cooking for my family,
Speaker 1: my friends. It fills me with it fills me like,
Speaker 1: it fills me with such joy, like I I love.
Speaker 1: The kitchen to me is the heartbeat of the home.
Speaker 1: Everything surrounds food like, if you think about your family life,
Speaker 1: how much time is spent like perched at the countertop
Speaker 1: in the kitchen or around the dining table with your
Speaker 1: family or you know, whatever it is, there's always food involved.
Speaker 1: It all kind of ties into my kind of philosophy
Speaker 1: of how I live, which is I want to be
Speaker 1: the most efficient in the kitchen so that I can
Speaker 1: have more time with my family. I mean, my kids
Speaker 1: are growing so quickly, and especially at the age year
Speaker 1: kids are ound. Oh my gosh, Like I see time
Speaker 1: because I see my kids grow so like my son's
Speaker 1: about to walk any day, and I'm just like the
Speaker 1: problem with the kids that that the good problem is
Speaker 1: like my kids this year, just last year, they wrote
Speaker 1: a cookbook together and it was best selling cookbook. And
Speaker 1: what was great about it was it was a family
Speaker 1: cookbook and we wrote it pre pandemic. We had no
Speaker 1: idea what was going to happen. But they that cooks together, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's themselves just by just by observing. So remember even
Speaker 1: if you don't think they're looking, they're watching, they're smelling,
Speaker 1: they hear, they get it, they get it, and it's
Speaker 1: that's just such a gift you give them to let
Speaker 1: them sort of be around the food always, whether you're
Speaker 1: preparing it, shopping, imagine shopping, preparing, eating, and then cleaning up.
Speaker 1: It's part of it. Also, that's four segments of life
Speaker 1: that everything happens, Every conversation happens in that. For four
Speaker 1: segments you are, you're cooking, and you have a family.
Speaker 1: Everything happens in those four and then might be fights
Speaker 1: at the table, but at least you're at the table, right.
Speaker 1: I'd basually tell people all the time, three four meals
Speaker 1: minimum a week at the table. As difficult, that is
Speaker 1: it as it is. It's worth everything in Your children
Speaker 1: will mimic that because they will have that as a
Speaker 1: good memory most of the time, and they'll mimic it
Speaker 1: with their kids. It's just the way it is. I
Speaker 1: think it's beautiful, and it sounds like you're doing a
Speaker 1: yeoman's job of deconstructing your mother's So yeah, shall I
Speaker 1: say thank you into a more healthy You're channeling them
Speaker 1: while being an incredible actor, while directing, and while like
Speaker 1: now going to be an hscent store. I just want
Speaker 1: to thank you so much. I had a great interview,
Speaker 1: but I'm also so happy to talk to you and
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see you on his and I
Speaker 1: really really mean that. Thank you. I so appreciate it,
Speaker 1: and good luck with everything. I know you have so
Speaker 1: much going on, but I'm a big fan and I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you having me on your podcast. Oh You're
Speaker 1: very sweet. Have a great day. I don't know what
Speaker 1: you haven't put dinner, but bonapet. Thanks Jeffrey, you as well. Okay,
Speaker 1: bye bye, Thanks very much for listening to Four Courses
Speaker 1: with Jeffers and carrying a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created by Jeffrey Zacharion,
Speaker 1: Margaret Sacarrion, Jared Keller, and Tara Helper. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Christopher Hesiotis. Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Haws Dressler.
Speaker 1: This episode was edited by Joe Tisdale. Our research is
Speaker 1: conducted by Jescelyn Shields. This episode was engineered by Molly
Speaker 1: Swanson and Laura Prepond. Our talent booking is by Pamela
Speaker 1: Bauer and Dogtown Talent. For more podcast from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.