Speaker 1: I'd like it, and you have a great manicure. I'm
Speaker 1: keeping my hands out of side like oh I'm and
Speaker 1: I'm getting them done today. They're like little, they're good.
Speaker 1: You know what. I went to high school in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: I know you will. And by the way, that's a
Speaker 1: good thing. Like if it shows in your hands that
Speaker 1: you grew up in and you went to high school
Speaker 1: in New Jersey, that's the right place for it to
Speaker 1: show up. Exactly every now and then. I just need
Speaker 1: a little dose my Jersey hears. I also have man hands,
Speaker 1: so anything anything that makes them look I love your hands.
Speaker 1: They're beautiful. Palm of basketball. Yeah, totally. A friend of
Speaker 1: mine said he saw my hands, it goes Christ he
Speaker 1: goes last time I saw hands that big. They had
Speaker 1: a Super Bowl ring on him. Hello, I'm Mini driver.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Many Questions Season two. I've always loved Prut's
Speaker 1: question that it was originally an nineteenth century harleg game
Speaker 1: where players would ask each other thirty five questions aim
Speaker 1: at revealing the other player's true nature. It's just the
Speaker 1: scientific method really. In asking different people the same set
Speaker 1: of questions, you can make observations about which truths appeared
Speaker 1: to be universal. I love this discipline, and it made
Speaker 1: me wonder, what if these questions were just the jumping
Speaker 1: off point, what greater depths would be revealed if I
Speaker 1: asked these questions as conversation starters with thought leaders and
Speaker 1: trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I adapted prus
Speaker 1: questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I
Speaker 1: personally think a pertinent to a person's story. They are
Speaker 1: when and where were you happiest? What is the quality
Speaker 1: you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized,
Speaker 1: defines love for you? What question would you most like answered?
Speaker 1: What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most?
Speaker 1: What would be your last meal? And can you tell
Speaker 1: me something in your life that's grown out of a
Speaker 1: personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of really arkable people,
Speaker 1: ones that I am honored and humbled to have had
Speaker 1: the chance to engage with. You may not hear their
Speaker 1: answers to all seven of these questions. We've whittled it
Speaker 1: down to which questions felt closest to their experience or
Speaker 1: the most surprising, or created the most fertile ground to
Speaker 1: connect my guest today is actor, author, entrepreneur, and model Brookshields.
Speaker 1: Brooke evolved from Child's superstar to Princeton alum to having
Speaker 1: a successful career in TV, and I don't think many
Speaker 1: people have negotiated four decades of being in the spotlight
Speaker 1: with such grace and humor. It was an absolute pleasure
Speaker 1: to have this conversation, and I'm really happy to share
Speaker 1: her insightful answers to my big questions. I do want
Speaker 1: to point out in the first minute or so of
Speaker 1: the third question of the episode, Brook discusses a friend
Speaker 1: of hers who took their own life. So take care
Speaker 1: while listening, and please feel free to give a had
Speaker 1: if you so choose, When and why were you happiest.
Speaker 1: I have to say that I remember one specific moment.
Speaker 1: I had just gotten married to Chris. I had gone
Speaker 1: to New York to do cabaret and nine eleven happened
Speaker 1: and he couldn't get to me. I obviously couldn't get
Speaker 1: out of New York. And it was this very fraught
Speaker 1: period of time, and we were the first show to
Speaker 1: go back, and everything was just fraught and scary and sad.
Speaker 1: And when my run ended, I went back to Los
Speaker 1: Angeles and we went to someone's house in Malibu and
Speaker 1: the weather was perfect, and I walked down to the
Speaker 1: beach and I just started dancing, just free dancing. My
Speaker 1: husband was my new husband. My mom wasn't either in
Speaker 1: jail or in the hospital, and I was I wasn't
Speaker 1: getting a phone call like that. That's I lived in that.
Speaker 1: You know, Oh my god, at any moment, something's going
Speaker 1: to happen. She had been was in a facility where
Speaker 1: she was taken care of, so I didn't have to
Speaker 1: worry about her. And I just started dancing up and
Speaker 1: down like an idiot on the beach, and I just
Speaker 1: remember thinking, this is freedom, this is happy, and it's
Speaker 1: funny because I don't particularly love l a and you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a job normally that makes me panic,
Speaker 1: and I had just finished a job and I was
Speaker 1: so depleted physically and emotionally. But to just be able
Speaker 1: to feel the breeze and have my feet in the
Speaker 1: water and just dance down the beach, it was I
Speaker 1: just remember thinking, Wow, this is a gift. Remember this,
Speaker 1: because this is what peaceful feels like. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: how that's quite. I'm just going back to a sentence
Speaker 1: that you said that, you know, I was feeling good.
Speaker 1: My mom wasn't in jail, and she was taken care of.
Speaker 1: Like just the thought that you know that that's a
Speaker 1: barometer for a person in their life is quite intense. Well,
Speaker 1: that she she wasn't on the side of the road.
Speaker 1: She wasn't she hadn't just had a stroke. She hadn't.
Speaker 1: It was like everything in my life had been gauged
Speaker 1: around her being alive, and the responsibility that was mine
Speaker 1: in my mind to keep her alive. I mean the
Speaker 1: irony of also that is my version of finding peace
Speaker 1: and joy has to have come from nine eleven. That's
Speaker 1: what I was just, that was it. That was My
Speaker 1: next question was is happiness predicated on this idea that
Speaker 1: really hard things have to have happened before you can
Speaker 1: feel that freedom and allow yourself to feel happy. Earn it?
Speaker 1: It's like I have to have earned it. Where that
Speaker 1: come from is so so deep. It's probably the alcoholic mother.
Speaker 1: It's a child actress from such a young age. And
Speaker 1: what I did was I crafted things that I knew
Speaker 1: would be there for me in spite of being an
Speaker 1: actress or famous or a celebrity or whatever whatever, And
Speaker 1: I knew that I needed to go to university. I
Speaker 1: knew that I needed to find my husband that was grounded,
Speaker 1: that we could build a life that had healthy children.
Speaker 1: That it was not on the West Coast. There were
Speaker 1: sort of these markers, but actual just relief and joy
Speaker 1: just always seemed that it would only it could only
Speaker 1: be possible after drama, trauma, lots of pain, lots of
Speaker 1: hard work. And that's from my own psyche, you know,
Speaker 1: interesting like I think that's why I asked this question,
Speaker 1: because I think it is such a tub in an
Speaker 1: interesting wit area, this notion of happiness. When I'm happy,
Speaker 1: there is a period of enormous anxiety because I am
Speaker 1: absolutely certain that something bad has to happen because I'm
Speaker 1: happy and I can't last. But so maybe all we
Speaker 1: can do is literally know that about ourselves. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've been well. I feel like I've been working on
Speaker 1: that particular thing, like my whole life, I think, so
Speaker 1: I think I have to. I mean, that's why I
Speaker 1: sort of had this other checklist, so that I could
Speaker 1: at least say like, no, no, no, no, that's you're
Speaker 1: happy there. Yeah, you love your children, children love you.
Speaker 1: I I feel like there's going to be a price
Speaker 1: to pay, yeah, for being happy, and then it's inevitable
Speaker 1: that it can't last. I think that's trauma. I really
Speaker 1: think that has all the hallmarks of trauma, just in
Speaker 1: the therapy I've done, all the books that I've read.
Speaker 1: The idea that there must be payment for it comes
Speaker 1: from a young person's mind of going these bad things
Speaker 1: happened because I was happy, or the norm is the
Speaker 1: hard things happening. But I do think it's associated with trauma.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember that every time I would have
Speaker 1: a a plan that we were excited about, I never
Speaker 1: believed it was really going to happen because it would
Speaker 1: change because I'd get a job, and so I sort
Speaker 1: of lived in this sort of like just be at
Speaker 1: the ready all the time because you're just going to
Speaker 1: have to spring into action in some way. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's also I think the trauma of living with an
Speaker 1: alcoholic mother is that you never know really what you're
Speaker 1: going to get, what you're going to get, and how
Speaker 1: long the good part is going to last. You know,
Speaker 1: I used to say, I wrote this in my book.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I remember saying to my mom
Speaker 1: once I wish I just only knew you in the mornings,
Speaker 1: because in the morning hours she was peppy and up
Speaker 1: and we would get our coffee and our role with
Speaker 1: butter and we laughed. I mean, and by the time
Speaker 1: three o'clock came, I knew. I'd look at I'd look
Speaker 1: at the way her lipstick looked, and I thought, oh God, okay,
Speaker 1: it's already hitting the sauce. So let's see, let's see
Speaker 1: what's let's see what's going to unfold. And I think
Speaker 1: you're always living at the ready and doing to the
Speaker 1: movie like Pretty Baby. When I was was just trauma.
Speaker 1: Even as a child, I knew that you were going
Speaker 1: to have to somehow survive that beginning. I knew that
Speaker 1: you were going to make it out the other side.
Speaker 1: I remember just being so impressed knowing you and knowing
Speaker 1: just how warm and generous and interesting and interested you
Speaker 1: are in life. When I think about the impact of that,
Speaker 1: your image in advertising and in the movies, like it
Speaker 1: was so kind of it was so iconic and distant,
Speaker 1: but I never forget. It's so funny. I really always
Speaker 1: from I always remember when you went to school. I
Speaker 1: always remember hearing that and really feeling like there's something
Speaker 1: else beyond being appreciated for how beautiful or but how
Speaker 1: marketable or how big a movie star someone is. That
Speaker 1: there is this there's this other world, and it felt
Speaker 1: it felt important to remember that. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I knew that I in order for me to be
Speaker 1: whole and to survive, but really survive, like thrive na survive,
Speaker 1: you know. I remember thinking this will be the one
Speaker 1: thing that can't be taken away from you. I thought
Speaker 1: I was going to be heralded and welcomed back into
Speaker 1: this industry, that I was not only an actress, but
Speaker 1: I was now in an religion actor, I was a scholar.
Speaker 1: And that clearly was not the way it happened. But
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, if I don't cultivate my intellect and
Speaker 1: have it be a tool for me, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I'm emotionally prepared to continue in the spotlight in this world.
Speaker 1: I needed something that was just mine. And of course
Speaker 1: the whole industry took it as a threat. I was,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden threatening to them exactly. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's what is interesting. What is the quality that you
Speaker 1: like least about yourself? Oh that my insecurities surrounding my
Speaker 1: talent still pop up that I still pine for recognition,
Speaker 1: for actual talent. It's still a journey that I have
Speaker 1: to go through to not compare myself and say, but
Speaker 1: do they think you're talented? I'm in these meetings, I'm
Speaker 1: a CEO, I'm I'm all of this, I'm my phrase children.
Speaker 1: I have to remind myself daily that I am good enough.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's two things going on, which is
Speaker 1: sort of the external impact of it and the way
Speaker 1: that you're so think about it. I think it is
Speaker 1: most definitely too prompt. I think that from a very
Speaker 1: early age, I was so constantly criticized. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say. I was so
Speaker 1: constantly told how great I was, and it was on
Speaker 1: such a public level, and everything had a disclaimer, not
Speaker 1: but she's pretty, But it was always sort of, well,
Speaker 1: she's not a vocal powerhouse. If I was singing work,
Speaker 1: she's no somebody. And then they'll pick the person who
Speaker 1: just won the Academy Award or somebody. And you know,
Speaker 1: every time I had an interview, you could feel the tone.
Speaker 1: And I was so young, and then later on I
Speaker 1: read all of it and I was so raked over
Speaker 1: the coals for for not being talented that it was.
Speaker 1: It was always sort of like, she doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be because she can just look that way. And that's
Speaker 1: also why I wanted to go to university, is because
Speaker 1: I thought I'm so much more than all of this.
Speaker 1: When I was invited two purely do comedy, that was
Speaker 1: the first time that I ever really understood where my
Speaker 1: talent was unique. And it was so natural to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, comedic actresses are not as sort
Speaker 1: of brilliantly praised the way drama is. And and that's
Speaker 1: you know, it's fine. That is not something I covet doing.
Speaker 1: The purity and comedy to me is just is where
Speaker 1: I find a great deal of joy. There was a
Speaker 1: movie on the other night and it was a comedy
Speaker 1: with two women, and my kids were watching it, and
Speaker 1: I had loved the movie, and I started going down
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole saying, my kids don't know that I
Speaker 1: can do that, And all of a sudden, this was
Speaker 1: like this insecurity just wafted over me, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: you have got to get your ship together. I don't
Speaker 1: know why you're doing this, but I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of that comes from trauma from childhood.
Speaker 1: This profession being an actor is there were just so
Speaker 1: many schisms in it, like faulted people make really good actors.
Speaker 1: It's like we're trying to fill a bit of a void.
Speaker 1: And it's not enough that you think you're good. It's
Speaker 1: not enough that one can sort of self generate. You
Speaker 1: have to have other people also during the kool aid.
Speaker 1: Like I said in my book, I said, it's not
Speaker 1: you know, you're not expected to win the lottery once
Speaker 1: you're expected to win it over and over again, and
Speaker 1: then you're also punished when you don't win the fucking lottery.
Speaker 1: Even though I didn't have the same experience of you,
Speaker 1: I was not a child actor or model or icon,
Speaker 1: but that same feeling of whereas the next job, if
Speaker 1: no one's hiring me, your self worth can be around
Speaker 1: your feet if you let it. It's endemic in this
Speaker 1: in this industry as well. I mean, it's funny because
Speaker 1: I used to to say, I mean I would I
Speaker 1: went to the Academy Awards when I was a baby.
Speaker 1: That was just nirvana to me, and I coveted it.
Speaker 1: I coveted it, covered it, covered it, and finally my
Speaker 1: therapist said she's like why and I said, you know why,
Speaker 1: because of other opportunity And that's all it was about
Speaker 1: for me. Really, someone would probably want you to do
Speaker 1: another movie, and you feel like, yes, do another reacy
Speaker 1: that that never goes that that never goes away. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are people for whom it does. I
Speaker 1: don't think Tilda Swinton is worrying about like her next No.
Speaker 1: I think it's very hard to carve it out there,
Speaker 1: like if you've got to make a living. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've spoken to more actors who feel this way, and
Speaker 1: then I think there are these these creature like bird
Speaker 1: like anomalies who who can who can kind of apparently
Speaker 1: conjure it out of nowhere. I've always had to be basically,
Speaker 1: I've always been a brand, you know. I've always been
Speaker 1: right nurturing something so that we could pay our mortgage,
Speaker 1: or if you did this movie, we got a car.
Speaker 1: Everything was basically transactional. So there was never a plan
Speaker 1: to to concentrate on craft. You know. My mother, I mean,
Speaker 1: she wasn't a manager. She just she was like like,
Speaker 1: as long as they're talking about you keep your right
Speaker 1: and that was okay. Because I got very rewarded for it.
Speaker 1: I was liked and I went to a good school.
Speaker 1: So to me, it was just how do you make
Speaker 1: a living just being you? Yeah, that's that's that's exactly,
Speaker 1: That's exactly it. That has always been my approach as well.
Speaker 1: What question would you most like answered? Oh, the ones
Speaker 1: that we've loved to have died, Where where do they go?
Speaker 1: Where are they? I lost my best friend. He was
Speaker 1: sort of just like an extension of me. And when
Speaker 1: you lose someone like that, so so young, and he
Speaker 1: took his own life and I can't reconcile it to
Speaker 1: this day, you know, and it's you know, twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: and those are the answers I would just love to know,
Speaker 1: you know, and have it be beautiful. I just want
Speaker 1: to know that they're okay. I mean, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like, yeah, I want to know that he
Speaker 1: doesn't regret his decision. I never was afraid of death
Speaker 1: until recently. For some odd reason, I had a youthful
Speaker 1: attitude about it. Just live every day with gratitude, I
Speaker 1: really do, and I I can find joy. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it was spiking and there was a little
Speaker 1: boy with a nanny I think, and their dog and
Speaker 1: she was walking him too a playdate or something like that,
Speaker 1: and he stopped and he said hi, and he must
Speaker 1: have been like five six, and I could tell that
Speaker 1: the nanny was trying to shuffle him away, but he
Speaker 1: was very forward and wanted to engage and talk with me,
Speaker 1: and of course I stopped and I engaged with him,
Speaker 1: and I said, look to look at this color of
Speaker 1: this bike. It's yellow, and isn't it a pretty color? Yellow?
Speaker 1: And he's like, we're going to Frenchie's house or something
Speaker 1: like that, and I said, oh, that's wonderful. I said,
Speaker 1: you just have the best time. I don't know his name,
Speaker 1: I didn't know anybody that we're all strangers, and he said,
Speaker 1: you have nice like time, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: just thanked him, and I went on my way and
Speaker 1: I started crying. I was like like a blubbering idiot
Speaker 1: because it was so pure. I find such joy, and
Speaker 1: then in recent times I've started to fear losing it.
Speaker 1: Everything is moving so quickly and you just start thinking,
Speaker 1: oh God, I'm gonna I'm gonna die one day, you know.
Speaker 1: And I didn't plan for this, and I'm bugging on yeah,
Speaker 1: facing my mortality when I really just want to be
Speaker 1: having interactions with small, pure little kids. Have spy time,
Speaker 1: have nice by time, don't die have The irony would
Speaker 1: have been I got hit by a truck, right, that's
Speaker 1: all right? Turned away. The nanny would have been the
Speaker 1: only person who could recount the story. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: she would have moved on in your life, what person, place,
Speaker 1: or experience most altered it. I had a very bad
Speaker 1: accident just over a year ago. I was in hospital
Speaker 1: for a month and I got a staph infection and
Speaker 1: a blood clos and nobody could visit me because it
Speaker 1: was COVID. I think it was the most alone I'd
Speaker 1: ever felt, and I was really scared, and I realized
Speaker 1: that I just was so much more of a fighter
Speaker 1: and a survivor than I probably ever really gave myself
Speaker 1: credit for. And it's when I decided full on to
Speaker 1: start my own company and sort of create this movement
Speaker 1: for women over forty and really sort of harness that
Speaker 1: energy to make a difference for women. It just felt like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he didn't die, so what are you gonna do now?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm so sorry that you were hurt. It's
Speaker 1: so interesting how to look at that, like when you've
Speaker 1: had a kind of near death experience, and yet out
Speaker 1: of that comes this clarity and this decision and this
Speaker 1: strength and this idea of what this next chapter is
Speaker 1: going to be. I think only thing that I could
Speaker 1: do was learn how to walk. And I had to
Speaker 1: learn how to walk again, which was so bizarre. I
Speaker 1: had to tell my brain to tell my leg to
Speaker 1: keep to move and and I thought, Okay, you're gonna
Speaker 1: walk faster than anybody has ever walked with this injury.
Speaker 1: You know. I made them give me p T twice
Speaker 1: a day. And it was funny because people, lots of
Speaker 1: people were like, why do you think it happened? You know,
Speaker 1: were you moving to my life? Did you need to
Speaker 1: find more gratitude? I was like, no, sh it happens.
Speaker 1: It was an accident. The accident itself didn't come from
Speaker 1: the universe to slow me down in my pursuits or whatever.
Speaker 1: It just happened. But how I responded to it was
Speaker 1: going to be the defining factor. It was just an
Speaker 1: important time. I mean, I remember one other when I
Speaker 1: lost my first child. I lost a lot of my
Speaker 1: my youthfulness. That next day, like by that next day.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, oh, you're an adult. Now you're you're different.
Speaker 1: How old we when that happened. I was thirty one,
Speaker 1: and you know, I immediately went to my fault. Of course,
Speaker 1: it had to be my fault, and it was really
Speaker 1: important for me to learn that it's actually an unviable pregnancy,
Speaker 1: that is nature taking care of that for you. I
Speaker 1: didn't take too many yoga classes or I didn't didn't
Speaker 1: do anything wrong. You know, it wasn't a fault of mine,
Speaker 1: and that was kind of that. I grew up a
Speaker 1: lot from that um. But this last, this last sort
Speaker 1: of experience just sort of brought me into my next chapter.
Speaker 1: I I mean, I think that actually answers one of
Speaker 1: my other questions is in your life, can you tell
Speaker 1: me about something that has grown out of a personal disaster?
Speaker 1: And I think that that would be the loss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well both actually well also when I lost that first baby,
Speaker 1: I had had a very very invasive surgery years earlier
Speaker 1: and actually couldn't even get pregnant naturally, had to do
Speaker 1: IVF and that baby was implanted through my belly button.
Speaker 1: Actually it's odd I could argue I was still a virgin.
Speaker 1: I guess but so that was the pregnancy that took
Speaker 1: and then I lost that pregnancy. But in the loss
Speaker 1: of it, it actually changed my physical being in a way.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of scar tissue, and the miscarriage
Speaker 1: was sort of so violent that it actually created space
Speaker 1: so that I was able to then get pregnant naturally.
Speaker 1: You know, that was definitely a change in a gift.
Speaker 1: So you don't always know the reason for things that quickly.
Speaker 1: That's really really amazing. I've talked about it a little
Speaker 1: bit on here, that I was told I couldn't have children,
Speaker 1: like flat out when I was eighteen, so just it
Speaker 1: was never it was never something I thought was going
Speaker 1: to happen. So when I when I got pregnant, it
Speaker 1: was so interesting, like wondering whether it was the psychosomatic
Speaker 1: idea of you know, this old patrician doctor who had
Speaker 1: said you're never gonna get pregnant, or whether there was
Speaker 1: something physiological as I grew old, or just your things
Speaker 1: move around and change. I mean, you had something, you
Speaker 1: had an actual you know, surgery which which helped it.
Speaker 1: But I wondered so much about that. We just put
Speaker 1: a lot of emotional judgment on on all these things.
Speaker 1: That happen in life. But it's really just life, life thing.
Speaker 1: It is just life. We always want to find meaning
Speaker 1: and yeah, the poetry in it and and sometimes it's
Speaker 1: just it just is. You know, I think it just is.
Speaker 1: I think life just life's and you you kind touched
Speaker 1: whatever meaning you choose to all of it. It's amazing
Speaker 1: to me, Like all these things that have happened to you,
Speaker 1: I think you've been blessed with a really big life,
Speaker 1: big hands, big life, Brook grabbing it in, grabbing, grab
Speaker 1: onto it like a bed, really iconic Koala. You can
Speaker 1: hear more from Brooke on her podcast Now What with
Speaker 1: Brookshields from My Heart Radio, Brook interviews guests about the
Speaker 1: most pivitual moments in their life. Previous guests include Patton
Speaker 1: Oswald and Gina Davis, with new episodes released every Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Also be sure to check out Beginning is Now, which
Speaker 1: is a global community Brook started for women over forty
Speaker 1: to celebrate strength, wisdom, optimism, and humor in each other.
Speaker 1: Find out more at the Beginning is now dot com.
Speaker 1: Many Questions is hosted and written by me Mini Driver,
Speaker 1: supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, producer Morgan Lavoy Research Assistant Marissa Brown.
Speaker 1: Original music Sorry Baby by Minni Driver, Additional music by
Speaker 1: Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by me Mini Driver. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella
Speaker 1: and Nick Oppenheim at w kPr, de La Pescador, Kate
Speaker 1: Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support
Speaker 1: Henry Driver,