Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing from iHeart Radio. It's officially summer, and that
Speaker 1: means it's time for our tradition at Here's the Thing,
Speaker 1: where our staff shares their favorite episodes in our Summer
Speaker 1: Staff series. First up is executive producer Kathy Russo. Kathy's
Speaker 1: been and Here's the Thing from the very beginning, so
Speaker 1: when she's selecting a much loved episode, you know it
Speaker 1: has to be good. Kathy, take it.
Speaker 2: Away, Thanks Alec. My Summer Staff Pick is a show
Speaker 2: that features two women that, in my opinion, changed the
Speaker 2: face of TV. One a generation above me Carol Brunette
Speaker 2: and one is a generation below me, Lena Dunham. These
Speaker 2: are two smart women driven by their artistic dreams. They
Speaker 2: could write, direct, and perform like no other in their generation.
Speaker 2: They made me laugh and cry. They were funny without
Speaker 2: being mean. First Lena Dunham. I met her at a
Speaker 2: screening of her first movie, Tiny Furniture, and immediately became
Speaker 2: a huge fan. When Girls came out in twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: a show about four young women living in New York City,
Speaker 2: I couldn't get enough and watched every episode at least
Speaker 2: three times. Girls was spot on, so smart and so
Speaker 2: brave and spoke to me in a way no other
Speaker 2: show had before. Lena took chances, and I loved her
Speaker 2: playing Hannah on the show. She had a way of
Speaker 2: capturing moments I could relate to. Probably the best acting
Speaker 2: I've ever seen on TV was one of the last
Speaker 2: episodes of Girls in twenty seventeen. Hannah is single and
Speaker 2: very pregnant. She spends a day with an old boyfriend
Speaker 2: played by Adam Driver. Adam's not the father, but they
Speaker 2: spend a blissful day in the city and consider getting
Speaker 2: back together and raising this child. They end the day
Speaker 2: sitting across from each other in a diner and come
Speaker 2: to the silent, tears strained realization that their tumultuous relationship
Speaker 2: will never work out. No words, just the expressions on
Speaker 2: their faces says it all, and it's heartbreaking. Now listen
Speaker 2: to Alex's interview with Lena. Just as Girls was making
Speaker 2: it big, Lena.
Speaker 1: Dunham has achieved an astonishing amount in just three years.
Speaker 1: Her portrayal of Hannah Horovath and Girls recently won her
Speaker 1: a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a comedy series.
Speaker 1: This past October, she sold a book of essays and
Speaker 1: advice to Random House, and her boyfriend is a rock star. Today,
Speaker 1: she hardly resembles Aura, her character from Tiny Furniture. I
Speaker 1: thought I wouldn't have much in common with Lena. She's
Speaker 1: half my age and has been fiercely embraced by my
Speaker 1: daughter's generation. But oh, how quickly we realized there was
Speaker 1: common ground between us.
Speaker 3: Literally, my show's moving into the thirty rock stages.
Speaker 1: No, yes, we're taking there, moving to Silver Cup. Yes,
Speaker 1: you and Michael harm.
Speaker 3: We were in Silver Cup. Then we went to Stey
Speaker 3: because we couldn't get our stages back because some show
Speaker 3: that has one word that's about murder took it. And
Speaker 3: then we are coming back because you guys are leaving,
Speaker 3: so we're going to be on your stages and in
Speaker 3: your offices.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: Now, as I'm sitting here meeting you for the first
Speaker 1: time and talking to you for the first time, you
Speaker 1: are nothing like I imagined you would be. Really nothing. I'm
Speaker 1: a bit thrown here because you play someone who is
Speaker 1: I guess in your mind that I want to talk
Speaker 1: about your vision of what kind of character you wanted
Speaker 1: to create is a little bit a beat behind everyone else,
Speaker 1: or I'll let you articulate that what you think she is, I'll.
Speaker 3: Put though the beat behind idea really speaks to me
Speaker 3: because I'm always sort of saying when people ask about
Speaker 3: Han and I'm always sort of saying, she's a version
Speaker 3: of me, but she's a few years behind me, and
Speaker 3: she's also sort of a few minutes behind everyone around her.
Speaker 3: So you really picked up on a concept that I'm
Speaker 3: sort of always thinking about a little bit when I
Speaker 3: play her and when I write her.
Speaker 1: But she's who you used to be.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: It's funny. I think I used to I think I
Speaker 3: in order to convince myself that I should play this character,
Speaker 3: or that I should even write this character, I had
Speaker 3: to say, well, I'm just writing myself. It's that easy.
Speaker 3: I'm just writing myself, because the idea of sort of
Speaker 3: creating an entire other human can be so intimidating.
Speaker 1: And who are you though?
Speaker 3: In real life?
Speaker 1: In real life? Who are you?
Speaker 3: I think that Hannah is someone who I'm very capable
Speaker 3: of being, who's wounded, ambitious but doesn't know where to
Speaker 3: place it. Hannah sort of the version of myself. If
Speaker 3: i'd had less understanding parents and sort of less drive
Speaker 3: to get things done, And I think who I am
Speaker 3: as a person who was always sort of if I
Speaker 3: had to describe the war within myself that exists currently,
Speaker 3: it's sort of the challenge of trying to reconcile the
Speaker 3: part of me that that always thought I would be, like,
Speaker 3: you know, a weird gender and women studies teacher who
Speaker 3: occasionally showed movies at film festivals and hung out in
Speaker 3: my strange apartment that was stacked high with books. Trying
Speaker 3: to reconcile that with the part of me that has
Speaker 3: to like figure out.
Speaker 1: A tress the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
Speaker 3: Exactly, Shoot, the rolling cover of Rolling Stow magazine was
Speaker 3: to figure out a dress to wear that for an
Speaker 3: event that and everyone seems to be worried about whether
Speaker 3: or not the dress is in stores because it has
Speaker 3: to be my own dress. And so I'm dealing with
Speaker 3: all these sort of this strange echosystem and all these
Speaker 3: weird politics that I kind of never imagined would happen
Speaker 3: to me in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: You never imagined, No, you really never imagined it.
Speaker 3: I think my dream situation was that I would be
Speaker 3: someone who people thought, Oh, she's doing important work in
Speaker 3: her own little corner.
Speaker 1: Like a Ra's Chaste cartoon character.
Speaker 3: Exactly, like a ras Chast cartoon character, or like I
Speaker 3: think because I went to pretentious private school, the biggest
Speaker 3: dream you would have is you'd be like I'm going
Speaker 3: to be Joan Diddyon. That was kind of where your
Speaker 3: brain was allowed to wantry maybe Nora.
Speaker 1: E from maybe you'll make films, but you're not going
Speaker 1: to be in films exactly.
Speaker 3: And I don't think when I first started acting, I
Speaker 3: mean I never got parts in high school. I never
Speaker 3: even I never was able. I think I had a
Speaker 3: twofold thing about it. One is that it came from
Speaker 3: a family of artists, and so the idea was sort
Speaker 3: of like you made your work and then got out
Speaker 3: of the way of it. Like part of what was
Speaker 3: I think I internalized the idea that your work was
Speaker 3: supposed to speak for you. You were not supposed to
Speaker 3: speak for your work, And so I think I was
Speaker 3: self conscious about the idea of being any sel self promoting.
Speaker 3: And although that's not what acting is, it's it is
Speaker 3: now it's become that. And then I also think that
Speaker 3: I thought, well, there's people who are professionals who can
Speaker 3: do this better than me. So I'm just going to
Speaker 3: act until I have access to the people who should
Speaker 3: be acting. And sometimes I still feel that way. Sometimes
Speaker 3: I think, like, you know, I'll do this a little
Speaker 3: longer and then Michelle Williams can play me every day
Speaker 3: till I die. Something that's really nice about making the
Speaker 3: show that isn't that is a comedy that isn't stuck
Speaker 3: in any sort of I mean, thirty Rock was able
Speaker 3: to bust out of a lot of network sitcom tropes,
Speaker 3: but a lot of the time when you're on a
Speaker 3: I think one of the biggest things that networks prevent,
Speaker 3: besides curse words and showing your breasts is development. I
Speaker 3: think that when you play, I think so many sitcom
Speaker 3: characters end up playing the same version of themselves in
Speaker 3: various area.
Speaker 1: This is the thing that we talked about in the
Speaker 1: meeting to prep this thing with you, which was shows
Speaker 1: I've seen where the protagonists male or female, they're going
Speaker 1: through the same set of problems in season six that
Speaker 1: they were in season one. It's just different lines in
Speaker 1: different coastars. Yeah, and with you, I'm wondering, do you
Speaker 1: have a bible on the show. Do you have an
Speaker 1: arc in your mind, not even on paper, not even
Speaker 1: approved with your other Could you do this with jud correct?
Speaker 3: I do it with Judd and a woman named Jenny Connor,
Speaker 3: who's the other executive producer. And we have a great
Speaker 3: little writer's room. But our writer's room doesn't really work
Speaker 3: like It's not like we write a script and then
Speaker 3: all sit together punching it up. It's much more we
Speaker 3: sit together at the beginning of the season and really
Speaker 3: talk through. It's like a giant therapy session where we
Speaker 3: work out the emotional arc and then we go to it.
Speaker 1: And when you work out that emotional arc, do you
Speaker 1: think to yourself, are the things that she's going through now?
Speaker 1: Your character and the other characters where you're saying to yourself,
Speaker 1: let's make sure they're not going through this, that there
Speaker 1: is growth a season from now or by the end
Speaker 1: of the season completely.
Speaker 3: And that's why I feel like it's okay for me
Speaker 3: to cut my hair, It's okay for me to start spinning,
Speaker 3: or it's okay for me, you know, whatever I whatever
Speaker 3: to change to change, because I feel as though so
Speaker 3: much of what this show is about is about seeing
Speaker 3: these girls off into their adulthood. Like in my Bible,
Speaker 3: the ideal finale to the show would be a feeling like,
Speaker 3: you know, they don't have to have kids, they don't
Speaker 3: have to have husbands, but you look at them and
Speaker 3: you kind of go, they're on their way. They're more
Speaker 3: okay than they were when they started, or they're less okay,
Speaker 3: but we have an understanding of what kind of adult
Speaker 3: we think they're gonna be.
Speaker 1: So describe to me, how does it start? How does
Speaker 1: whose idea was girls? Was it yours?
Speaker 3: It was mine because I basically I went in, I
Speaker 3: made this movie Tiny Furniture, and I made it. You know,
Speaker 3: my mom and sister starred. We shot it in my
Speaker 3: mom's house, my mom and dad's house. We it was
Speaker 3: totally populated with friends, some of whom have made their
Speaker 3: way to Girls with me.
Speaker 1: And what motivated you don't want to do Tiny Furniture.
Speaker 3: I had always wanted to be a writer, and I
Speaker 3: used to think I wanted to be a playwright, and
Speaker 3: then in college I sort of had this revelation where
Speaker 3: I thought, like plays you rehearse, and you rehearse, and
Speaker 3: then they happened twice like I just felt so frustrated
Speaker 3: by the lack of permanence, Like I'd always been sort
Speaker 3: of turned on by the fact that when my parents
Speaker 3: as artists made work, like they had these material items
Speaker 3: that would outlast them. And I was frustrated that that
Speaker 3: wasn't a part of the theater experience. So I started
Speaker 3: making short films, and I made my first feature and
Speaker 3: went to south By Southwest Film Festival with it, and
Speaker 3: then I just had and I'd been making web TV,
Speaker 3: and I just had this itch to sort of tell
Speaker 3: the specific story, and I wrote the script and the
Speaker 3: kind well, that's.
Speaker 1: What I want to talk about, is is that itch
Speaker 1: meaning beyond the arc of the shooting and the and
Speaker 1: the career aspects of it or the burgeoning career, what
Speaker 1: was it about what was going on in your life
Speaker 1: that you want to do that movie?
Speaker 3: On a practical, real life level, I wanted to talk
Speaker 3: about that moment between college and adulthood that felt so
Speaker 3: floundering and so every day I felt like I was
Speaker 3: walking through the strangest, most surreal soup. That would mean
Speaker 3: that on a deeper level, I kind of wanted to
Speaker 3: talk about chain, which is what I always think is
Speaker 3: sort of the most interesting place to find characters is
Speaker 3: in a time of intense change. And so I sort
Speaker 3: of also wanted to capture this moment where I was.
Speaker 3: I knew that I wouldn't live at home forever, that
Speaker 3: my little sister wouldn't be sort of seventeen and ambitious
Speaker 3: but also stuck in her bedroom forever, that my mom
Speaker 3: was sort of looking in this beautiful moment where she
Speaker 3: kind of was I mean, she'd murder me for saying this,
Speaker 3: but she looked that kind of beautiful way where it's
Speaker 3: like you're not quite old yet and you just look
Speaker 3: kind of she just looked kind of perfect to me,
Speaker 3: and I just.
Speaker 1: Look a great car.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I just thought, my mother's what I could
Speaker 3: say exactly, And I just thought, I want to capture
Speaker 3: all of this. I want to capture our cats, I
Speaker 3: want to capture our house. I want to remember all
Speaker 3: of this.
Speaker 1: And so, so you really love your mom.
Speaker 3: I'm obsessed with my mom. Okay, I love my mom.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying, that's interesting that you have that feeling
Speaker 1: and that's what makes you survey what's around. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to capture that because I find typically people who
Speaker 1: are not happy they got to wait a while until
Speaker 1: they can negotiate the pain to go back and talk
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: It's one of the biggest things that inspires me to
Speaker 3: make work is this feeling of looking around and going,
Speaker 3: even if you're not perfect, you're all so perfect right now,
Speaker 3: let's let's capture this and then, you know, I'd love
Speaker 3: the feeling. I was just watching like Panic and Needle
Speaker 3: Park last week, that movie which is you know it,
Speaker 3: Kitty Win, Kitty Gosh, she's so good. Where did Kitty
Speaker 3: Win go?
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me get that vile out for Kitty Win.
Speaker 1: She's incredible.
Speaker 3: But so I was watching that and I was just
Speaker 3: thinking about how exciting it was to be able to
Speaker 3: watch sort of like al Pacino at that first moment
Speaker 3: when he was sort of like he still almost looked
Speaker 3: a little adolescent and he was still and he was
Speaker 3: learning his craft.
Speaker 1: And just behaving on film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I just love capturing that. And that's something
Speaker 3: that I've tried to do with girls too, is sort
Speaker 3: of grab people and go, let's just let's just see
Speaker 3: you as you are right now.
Speaker 1: Now. The so the film did well, So then how
Speaker 1: does girls Happen?
Speaker 3: Girls happened? Because so then I went to LA and
Speaker 3: kind of did that. I went like, Okay, I guess
Speaker 3: what you do next is get an agent, and I
Speaker 3: guess what you do next is try to figure.
Speaker 1: Out what I mean. You're on the runway now, Yes.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 3: I was on the runway, and I was going around
Speaker 3: LA doing the sort of what I call the couch
Speaker 3: and water bottle tour of LA where you meet everybody
Speaker 3: and have those kind of general meetings where and I
Speaker 3: remember it was so funny because at first I didn't
Speaker 3: understand that everybody says to you at the end of
Speaker 3: the general meeting, oh, I'd love to find a way
Speaker 3: to work with you. And so I would call my
Speaker 3: agent after ones and go, oh my god, it was amazing,
Speaker 3: and he said he wants to find a way to.
Speaker 1: Work with me, and he meant he what should come
Speaker 1: clean his pool?
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically, so you're on the sofa water bottle tour
Speaker 3: and what happens on self a water bottle tour and
Speaker 3: my agent, who I feel like, you're not supposed to
Speaker 3: say you love your agent because it makes you sound
Speaker 3: really Hollywood.
Speaker 1: And I have everyone.
Speaker 3: I love everyone, and also I have the best agent.
Speaker 3: He's like, really been at it for a long time.
Speaker 3: He's like a cigar smoking you know, He's what I imagined
Speaker 3: in age. His name's Peter Benedek, and he said to me.
Speaker 3: I was sort of saying to him, like maybe I
Speaker 3: could get I just wanted to move out of my parents' house,
Speaker 3: and I thought and make more movies. And I was like,
Speaker 3: maybe I could should write a spec how I met
Speaker 3: your mother, and I could get staffed on a show.
Speaker 3: I mean, I didn't know any I didn't know how
Speaker 3: any of this worked. And he said that I should
Speaker 3: go for a meeting at HBO, and I did, and
Speaker 3: I said, well, here's what I'd want to see, is
Speaker 3: like a show about all my girlfriends, like sort of
Speaker 3: like Tiny Furniture, but there's more of us, and we
Speaker 3: don't live with our parents anymore, but it's still about that.
Speaker 3: It's like it was pitched so weekly, like a year
Speaker 3: after my movie, but there's more of us and it's
Speaker 3: a TV show.
Speaker 1: So the conversation wasn't coming out of and Tiny Furniture
Speaker 1: in the indie and in the festival world had a
Speaker 1: very good buzz. There was no conversation, but you just
Speaker 1: going right into films and making more films. Normally they're
Speaker 1: gonna want to steer some especially your age was very young,
Speaker 1: They're gonna go, let's just keep making movies.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, there was a conversation, but I think
Speaker 3: I picked up on the fact very early, going on
Speaker 3: the Couch and Water Bottle tour, that the kind of
Speaker 3: stories that I wanted to tell were not really being
Speaker 3: funded on a larger scale.
Speaker 1: And film Tina says that sometimes the Tina I just
Speaker 1: finish working. Yeah, it seems like it's more difficult to
Speaker 1: a to have the control you want in the film
Speaker 1: business and be to say what you want to say.
Speaker 3: It is, And the fact is I could have kept
Speaker 3: saying what I wanted to say, you know, making twenty
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars movies, but I wanted It's weird. The
Speaker 3: reason that I like having some budget is not because
Speaker 3: you know, I want to stage car crashes or I
Speaker 3: want to have you know, ten makeup artists on set,
Speaker 3: although those things would will would be lovely, But but
Speaker 3: it's more because of the fact that I do so
Speaker 3: many jobs, so so exciting to not have to worry
Speaker 3: anymore about answering the doorbell, about returning the equipment, about
Speaker 3: making sure that people had the pizza. Also, that's going
Speaker 3: to happen in TV. And what I has money and
Speaker 3: has HBO is Time Warner. But they have money, but
Speaker 3: they use it in this kind of amazing it's this
Speaker 3: amazing model, which is that they don't have to answer
Speaker 3: to advertisers in the same way, so HBO can sort
Speaker 3: of fulfill its odd little interests. And that's what I
Speaker 3: started out as, and I what I didn't predict was
Speaker 3: how much I would love the opportunity to develop characters
Speaker 3: in this way and the kind of the fiber of
Speaker 3: TV itself.
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, one thing that I noticed when
Speaker 1: I went to college an interesting number of people they
Speaker 1: really knew what they wanted to be. They weren't quite
Speaker 1: sure how to get there. They had a dream. I
Speaker 1: want to become a lawyer. I want to become a doctor.
Speaker 1: I want to go into politics. I want to go
Speaker 1: into and now people today, it seems like younger people,
Speaker 1: they really they think they have more time to figure
Speaker 1: it out. They're turning twenty five and they really don't
Speaker 1: have that picture and focus. Do you agree?
Speaker 3: I do agree, And I think a big part of
Speaker 3: it is being I think the word the Internet has
Speaker 3: cracked things open in a way that's both beautiful and
Speaker 3: that it helps you find. There's so many things that
Speaker 3: I never would have even known about, things that have
Speaker 3: been huge for me that have existed because of the Internet.
Speaker 3: And I think that I've been able to partially, you know,
Speaker 3: connect with people who would be fans of the show
Speaker 3: because of the Internet. I think, you know, it's always
Speaker 3: exciting when like there's this website called rookiemag dot com
Speaker 3: that's run by this girl, Tavi Jevinson, and it's a
Speaker 3: like a smart teen magazine that exists only on the Internet.
Speaker 3: And I just think if when I was a teenager
Speaker 3: there had been that place and that message board, I
Speaker 3: would have felt like the world was my oyster like
Speaker 3: just meeting other weirdo girls who had the same who like,
Speaker 3: you know whatever. At the time, I just wanted to
Speaker 3: talk to someone about Connor Oberst or something on the Internet,
Speaker 3: and that would have been possible. But I think now
Speaker 3: the fact that like the Internet has created so many
Speaker 3: strange specialized jobs and so many things where it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a brand consultant, slash blog enhancer or whatever.
Speaker 3: People are like suddenly the world feels wide open, but
Speaker 3: there are less jobs available, and so it's a really
Speaker 3: confusing moment to make any decisive choice about what you
Speaker 3: want to do.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you say that the Internet is responsible for that,
Speaker 1: and then idea of having too many choices than you
Speaker 1: need you wind up bout.
Speaker 3: That could also be a metaphor for like men in
Speaker 3: their twenties dating. I feel like men in their twenties,
Speaker 3: like I once had dated a guy who told me
Speaker 3: that he didn't feel like he could be serious about
Speaker 3: anyone in New York because it would be like eating
Speaker 3: at the same restaurant every night in New York. Right,
Speaker 3: there's so many amazing choices. It's New York.
Speaker 1: I hope he choked some whate a restaurant. He goes,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say that. That's me. That's wrong.
Speaker 3: I feel like that. So it's helpful to have it
Speaker 3: backed up by Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to here's the
Speaker 1: thing more in a minute. Lena Dunham didn't have to
Speaker 1: look far to come up with her character on Girls.
Speaker 3: Physically, I'd say, Hannah is I mean she's me because
Speaker 3: I play her? But she's it's funny because she's chubby,
Speaker 3: but she doesn't that's not where her anxiety comes from.
Speaker 3: Like she's just not I like playing a character who
Speaker 3: isn't doesn't have a perfect body, but that's not the
Speaker 3: main source of their anxiety. I feel like we have
Speaker 3: very few female characters on television who don't look like
Speaker 3: models and aren't constantly discussing it. So, of course Hannah
Speaker 3: has her moments of self consciousness, just like every woman does,
Speaker 3: but that's not She sort of doesn't notice that her
Speaker 3: clothes don't quite fit. She sort of doesn't think about
Speaker 3: what she eats.
Speaker 1: It's and I have closed her just to cover you
Speaker 1: up and keep you warm, exactly. They have some degree
Speaker 1: of style to the great, but let's.
Speaker 3: Like a character exactly. And I like she's more interested
Speaker 3: in like whether her clothes are funny and witty, Like
Speaker 3: I don't think she really cares about being sexy. She's
Speaker 3: more just like, oh, this dress like has owls on it?
Speaker 3: How sweet I used to be much in college, I
Speaker 3: dressed like a complete loon. I feel like my dad
Speaker 3: always told me I look like a lion tamer all
Speaker 3: the time. I've calmed down just because I realized that
Speaker 3: you could vests so many vests, red vests, so many
Speaker 3: red vests, so many like you know, strained boots, pulled
Speaker 3: over my weird leggings with a three flounced skirt. I
Speaker 3: could never accessorize enough. It was oppressive.
Speaker 1: Now, how many seasons of the show are you signed
Speaker 1: on to do? Well?
Speaker 3: You know, it's not clear. I mean HBO contractually has me,
Speaker 3: I think as an actor for six years, but as
Speaker 3: a writer, and I wish I should pay more attention
Speaker 3: to my deals, but I'm just so excited to have
Speaker 3: my job. I just go, okay, whatever you say. But
Speaker 3: I think my dream world is, you know, I want
Speaker 3: to kind of follow like you know how British shows
Speaker 3: always know British shows and thirty Rock always know just
Speaker 3: when to get off the air.
Speaker 1: The question becomes how you can maybe you know, do
Speaker 1: that TV show? And the schedule is how many months.
Speaker 3: We do it?
Speaker 1: Well, how many episodes we've been doing?
Speaker 5: Ten?
Speaker 3: So i shoot four and a half months out of
Speaker 3: the year, then I'm editing, then I'm doing press, then
Speaker 3: I'm writing, then I'm back. So so it's not four
Speaker 3: and a half months. So it's not it's safe months
Speaker 3: it's actually more like twelve months. And so would you make.
Speaker 1: A movie during the breakfast now?
Speaker 3: No, I couldn't because there was just no time. I
Speaker 3: finish shooting in August. I was editing.
Speaker 1: Why don't you make a deal with HBO with they'll
Speaker 1: finance your films, so you're working for them and it's
Speaker 1: all in house.
Speaker 3: It's very smart. I mean, I really want to make
Speaker 3: a movie. I have two features scripts that I've been
Speaker 3: working on that I just I want to make another
Speaker 3: before I make like a big, massive, ambitious movie. I mean,
Speaker 3: I want to make a creatively ambitious movie, but I
Speaker 3: want to make another small movie I have. I have
Speaker 3: small movie ideas.
Speaker 1: Do you have a massive ambitious movie inside you?
Speaker 3: I do. And I'm also I'm writing a book. So
Speaker 3: that's something that was.
Speaker 1: Really weird about that.
Speaker 3: It's something that was really important to me to start
Speaker 3: doing at this point in my list.
Speaker 1: Star and you write and produce your own TV show
Speaker 1: and you're writing a book. Hmm, who did that remind
Speaker 1: me of? What are you going to write a book about?
Speaker 3: I'm writing a book. Well, I guess it's about me,
Speaker 3: although it's a little less about me because it also
Speaker 3: has advice an advice component, but it's like personal essays.
Speaker 1: So is it like Paula Pell's Hey Young Girls.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I love Hey Young Girls. Makes me
Speaker 3: so happy. Paula Pel is funny. Paula Pel is someone
Speaker 3: who's funny and not mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Paula Pel's I mean to the right people.
Speaker 3: She's just a dreamy person. But you know, the thing
Speaker 3: that's been so great about writing the book is I've
Speaker 3: always loved writing prose, and I wanted to make it
Speaker 3: a part of my career sooner rather than later. Because
Speaker 3: I didn't want it to be like when I decided
Speaker 3: to write a book in ten years, it was like, oh, look,
Speaker 3: here's a celebrity memoir number fifty seven. I wanted it
Speaker 3: to really feel like I'm a person who writes prose
Speaker 3: and that it's a part of my life and career
Speaker 3: for a long time.
Speaker 1: Like other people that are writing books, they don't have
Speaker 1: TV shows that they're starring in and writing. When you're
Speaker 1: done doing now not just ten but twelve episodes, what
Speaker 1: do you have left to go into the book?
Speaker 3: There's stuff that's just for the book.
Speaker 1: There's still an example. Well, topic wise, I.
Speaker 3: Write a lot about my childhood. In the book, I
Speaker 3: write a lot about my parents. I write a lot
Speaker 3: about college and sort of like that. I write a
Speaker 3: lot about that period. I write a lot about sort
Speaker 3: of the beginning of being sexual person. I write about relationships.
Speaker 3: I'm writing a lot about sort of female role.
Speaker 1: I want to say about sexuality.
Speaker 3: It's interesting. I've had to become more conscious about what
Speaker 3: I say and what I promote, not in a way
Speaker 3: that stifles me, but just in a way where I
Speaker 3: realize now that there are seventeen year old girls who
Speaker 3: come up to me and tell me that the show
Speaker 3: means a lot to them.
Speaker 1: And this is one percent of your audience is influenced.
Speaker 1: This is what I learned from someone. One percent of
Speaker 1: your one percent is genuinely and in any way influenced
Speaker 1: by what you do and say. That's still tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of people.
Speaker 3: It's amazing. It's an amazing thing. And it's like it's
Speaker 3: a platform that you have to take seriously.
Speaker 1: So you are as a role model. What won't Hannah
Speaker 1: or the other girls in the quartet do.
Speaker 3: Jenny and I talk about this a lot. We won't
Speaker 3: fuck someone because they have a nice apartment. There's not
Speaker 3: going to be any version of sort of like prostuding yourself.
Speaker 3: There's not going to be any version of dating somebody
Speaker 3: because he can take you out to nice dinner.
Speaker 1: Now, two things that I think are kind of connected,
Speaker 1: which is how do men present themselves? You have a boyfriend,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to prior to your personal life,
Speaker 1: but you how do men present themselves too differently? You
Speaker 1: said that Hannah was this and that and a chubby
Speaker 1: girl who did and now you're now the name Lena
Speaker 1: Dunham means something else to people. How do men present
Speaker 1: themselves to you now different from the way they used to?
Speaker 5: It's interesting.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm so bad at knowing if anybody's hitting
Speaker 3: on me, Like someone literally has to like beat me
Speaker 3: on the head with a drumstick and drag me back
Speaker 3: to their cave for me to understand that it's going on.
Speaker 3: But you know, the thing is is that sleezy people
Speaker 3: are attracted to and sleazy people and not sleezy people
Speaker 3: are attracted to any sense of GRAVI toss that someone
Speaker 3: might have. I So I definitely have had more. I mean,
Speaker 3: I definitely have had felt less ignored by the opposite sex.
Speaker 3: But I'm also so bad at perceiving any of it.
Speaker 1: And so did you know your boyfriend liked to Well,
Speaker 1: we got sat.
Speaker 3: Up on a blind date, so I knew he liked well,
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 1: Know he liked me, but he was predisposed.
Speaker 3: He was predisposed to like me because what we were
Speaker 3: going on was a date. And then that was a
Speaker 3: special situation because I went, oh, I think he likes
Speaker 3: me and I like him.
Speaker 1: And tell me if don't want to answer this question,
Speaker 1: but I just find it charming. Where did you go
Speaker 1: on your first date with your boyfriend?
Speaker 3: We went to Blue Ribbon Bakery in the West Village.
Speaker 3: And the reason I was happy is because I find
Speaker 3: picking a restaurant so anxiety producing, because I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 3: because it really is to death star. Also, what if
Speaker 3: I choose the wrong restaurant and you have a bad
Speaker 3: association with it or you think I'm.
Speaker 1: Sleepy poor on me?
Speaker 3: Exactly, it's just the worst. And like what if we
Speaker 3: go there and you don't like brand muffin? Exactly? So stressful,
Speaker 3: so he said, before I even had to say anything,
Speaker 3: He said, if it's stressful for you, I can pick
Speaker 3: the restaurant. And I felt like, okay, I'm going to
Speaker 3: be in great hands.
Speaker 1: Where did you pick?
Speaker 3: And then you picked Blue room Maker? And then I
Speaker 3: ate a cheese and then I ordered a hamburger and
Speaker 3: he said, I think you should get cheese on it.
Speaker 5: It's not nice.
Speaker 3: I was so glad he's a very very great person.
Speaker 1: To meet you and tell me if I'm onto something here.
Speaker 1: You seem like someone that regardless of what you look
Speaker 1: like or didn't look like, or what you had or
Speaker 1: didn't have, whoever you were, you have a very very
Speaker 1: healthy and kind of guileless sense of who you are,
Speaker 1: and you presented yourself to people your entire life, going
Speaker 1: this is who I am, and if you like me, great,
Speaker 1: and if you don't, there's another six point five billion
Speaker 1: people out there to go for it. Am I right?
Speaker 3: I mean that's my stress to me. That's the most
Speaker 3: lovely way of putting it. I mean, I think I
Speaker 3: think I always had a feeling like if you just
Speaker 3: stick around and continue to be yourself, the correct people
Speaker 3: will find you. And that's something that's been so wonderful
Speaker 3: about the show is that it kind of confirmed that
Speaker 3: for me, which is not everyone watches it, but the
Speaker 3: people who watch it, understand it, and that feeling I'm
Speaker 3: sure you've had this before of uniting with your appropriate
Speaker 3: audience and sort of uniting with your people is like
Speaker 3: about as comforting as feelings get.
Speaker 2: Saturday Night, eight pm, nineteen sixty seven to sometime in
Speaker 2: the seventies, I'm a young girl sitting with my family
Speaker 2: in front of our black and white TV watching the
Speaker 2: Carol Brunette Show. It was an hour long variety show,
Speaker 2: and the comedy sketches still make me laugh to this day.
Speaker 2: Carol's comedic timing along with her cast mates was pure joy.
Speaker 2: Tim Conway would always add libs something in a skit
Speaker 2: and they all would laugh so hard you thought they
Speaker 2: were wetting their pants on stage. Carol said she never
Speaker 2: broke up on purpose, and at the end of each
Speaker 2: show the laugh stopped, but the warmth grew. Carol would
Speaker 2: sing the closing theme song that began with I'm so
Speaker 2: glad we had this time together. When she finished singing,
Speaker 2: she would tug on her ear, which I later found
Speaker 2: out was a silent message for her grandmother that raised her.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Carol Burnett.
Speaker 5: What brings you to terror?
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 1: You vixen, You Starlet, I love you. That gown is gorgeous.
Speaker 5: Thank you Salt and the Wind, and I just couldn't
Speaker 5: resist it.
Speaker 1: That's Carol as Starlett O'Hara making a grand entrance wearing
Speaker 1: a set of curtains as a dress with the rod
Speaker 1: still attached. Harvey Korman is smitten as Captain Ratt Butler
Speaker 1: in this Gone with the Wind parody on the Carol
Speaker 1: Burnett Show. The chemistry between the players on this show Burnett, Corman,
Speaker 1: and also Vicky Lawrence, Tim Conway and Lyle Wagoner is legendary.
Speaker 1: The show ran for eleven seasons. The first five seasons
Speaker 1: have been recently released on DVD. They haven't been seen
Speaker 1: since airing over forty years ago.
Speaker 5: It is incredible and you see them and it's the
Speaker 5: first time we did the soap opera take off, the
Speaker 5: first I'm you know, Vicky, and when we started out
Speaker 5: and we were pretty raw, pretty raw.
Speaker 1: We're going to get to that because when I watched
Speaker 1: the show, I saw so many little tells and so
Speaker 1: many little things about how you guys crack each other up. Obviously,
Speaker 1: oh yes, and there's things you guys do to each
Speaker 1: other and you can just see you almost with joy
Speaker 1: and almost loathing that they're like, you're kind of torturing.
Speaker 5: It's just like getting the giggles in church.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know.
Speaker 5: But Alec, when we started the show, I wanted to
Speaker 5: do it as a live show. We couldn't really do
Speaker 5: it live because the studio, which I loved that studio
Speaker 5: because it was like a TV TV City Studio thirty three,
Speaker 5: which is like a little theater, you know, it's like
Speaker 5: senium and the seats are down. It's not like the
Speaker 5: tiered things that you have, you know when when other shows,
Speaker 5: you know, and so I loved that, but we couldn't.
Speaker 5: There were no flies in the theater. By that I
Speaker 5: mean where you could fly the scenery in and out
Speaker 5: and really do a live show. But I wanted it
Speaker 5: to go fast because we had a studio audience there
Speaker 5: and I couldn't stand to keep them waiting because if
Speaker 5: they get bored and sit there for a long time
Speaker 5: while we take our time changing clothes and so forth,
Speaker 5: we lose them. So we lose that energy and enthusiasm
Speaker 5: that you get when an audience is hot. So I
Speaker 5: would have a bit with the stage hands that I
Speaker 5: could do a skin out change faster than they could.
Speaker 1: Lose that sofa across the rough.
Speaker 5: And also I didn't want I didn't want to stop
Speaker 5: and do pickups something went wrong. I figured, you know,
Speaker 5: unless the scenery fell down and knocked us out ahead,
Speaker 5: I wanted to keep going. So when somebody would add
Speaker 5: lib or do a bit that we had not done before,
Speaker 5: we never broke up on purpose ever. Ever, I just well,
Speaker 5: let's right, it.
Speaker 1: Was understood that you would add lib. It was understood.
Speaker 1: That was well, we.
Speaker 5: Never said it. It just started happening, so we just
Speaker 5: let it go.
Speaker 1: Who was the bad boy in church? Usually? Do you
Speaker 1: have comedy insurance?
Speaker 5: He asked, yeah, yeah, because Harvey was trying to put
Speaker 5: him on, and then Tim came up and topped him.
Speaker 5: I don't suppose you have comedy insurance down there, do you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: It was brilliant.
Speaker 1: I don't believe when you watch this shows, when you
Speaker 1: watch these shows, your lost episodes, so that audiences from
Speaker 1: our show understand that it was sixty seven through seventy eight, correct,
Speaker 1: Those eleven years and the first five years are the
Speaker 1: shows you're referring to as the lost episodes. And when
Speaker 1: you see so this is the crowd young yes, and
Speaker 1: you see over eleven years people get older. Yes, Harvey
Speaker 1: has a nice kind of auburn color to his hair,
Speaker 1: and then Harvey has like a steel color to his hair.
Speaker 1: VICKI and Vicky grows older. Everybody, not in any bad way,
Speaker 1: but everybody. Eleven years is a long time. You don't
Speaker 1: see that on TeV. Be matured, be matured. But I
Speaker 1: will say with all sincerity that I don't think you'd
Speaker 1: have to go to Fred Astaire and Jeene Kelly in
Speaker 1: my mind to find someone who is as trim and
Speaker 1: fit and lithe as you on stage. You never had
Speaker 1: to exercise a day in your life. The show was
Speaker 1: your work out. The things you do when you're scissoring
Speaker 1: your way across the floor during the fire scene because
Speaker 1: you think the fire is happening. I look at you
Speaker 1: and going, my god, look at this woman, what she's
Speaker 1: doing to herself. Was it physically as demanding as it seemed?
Speaker 1: I never felt that you didn't know.
Speaker 5: I just in it. Well, you know, the adrenaline starts
Speaker 5: pumping when you're performing and everything, and I'm really not
Speaker 5: that live. I mean, I still can't touch my toes
Speaker 5: without bending my knees. I'm not that good, but I
Speaker 5: was able to do a lot of stunts and things
Speaker 5: like that. I don't know, I just threw myself into it.
Speaker 1: You don't think about it when you're doing it.
Speaker 5: And I never hurt myself. I got a few bruises
Speaker 5: here and there once in a while, but I never
Speaker 5: broke a bone jumping out of windows, falling downstairs.
Speaker 1: It crashing through doors with Burt Rentals exactly. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: always funny. I can do it if the characters doing
Speaker 1: that you know that I'm saving a baby from climbing
Speaker 1: into a well.
Speaker 5: I totally agree. And in fact, I never knew sometimes
Speaker 5: how I was going to do a character until I
Speaker 5: got into the outfit. Interesting, I worked from the outside in.
Speaker 5: You know some actors work from the inside out. There
Speaker 5: were lots of times I had no idea what I
Speaker 5: was going to do until I went into the costume
Speaker 5: fitting and saw what Bob Mackie had created for me.
Speaker 1: How did that union with him and that collaboration with
Speaker 1: him begin Where did you first meet.
Speaker 5: Bob Well when we were getting ready to do the show,
Speaker 5: and we said, you know, costuming is going to be
Speaker 5: really important because the costume designer isn't going to just
Speaker 5: design for me. That costume designer is going to design
Speaker 5: for everybody you see on the screen, dancers, singers, guest stars,
Speaker 5: rep company. Everything you see has to be coordinated by
Speaker 5: the one person. So we had seen Alice in Wonderland
Speaker 5: on television. I remember Carol Channing was a Queen of
Speaker 5: Diamonds or hearts or something like that, but fantastic, wonderful costuming.
Speaker 5: And then I'd seen Mitzi Keener I think was in Vegas,
Speaker 5: and aside from the gorgeous gowns she wore, she also
Speaker 5: did a lot of fall down humor and you know,
Speaker 5: fat suits and crazy outfits and so forth. And the
Speaker 5: common denominator was Bob Mackie, and we said, you know,
Speaker 5: we've got to meet Bob Mackie and see if maybe
Speaker 5: he would be the one. So we got in touch
Speaker 5: with him and he came over to our house bing bong.
Speaker 5: I opened the door and there stood this guy that
Speaker 5: looked like he was twelve years old. Yeah, just fresh
Speaker 5: and adorable, and he came in. He was about twenty four,
Speaker 5: twenty four to twenty five years old, and we just
Speaker 5: liked him right away. We knew he had the talent.
Speaker 5: So we hired him right then on the spot, and
Speaker 5: it was one of the best decisions. You see me,
Speaker 5: who was we my husband? Just talk about your husband, well, Joe,
Speaker 5: Joe Hamilton. I was the producer of the Gary Moore Show.
Speaker 5: That's where we met. And so when I was going
Speaker 5: to do my show, of course he was going to
Speaker 5: be the producer.
Speaker 1: So we were and you were on Broadway.
Speaker 5: I had been. And then we moved to California. How
Speaker 5: was that for you, moving to California? Yeah, well already
Speaker 5: I was raised there. Oh yeah, I was raised in
Speaker 5: your grandmother in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah, I'm mean, I know you
Speaker 1: grew up in San Antonio.
Speaker 5: No, I grew up. I was seven years old. And
Speaker 5: then we left and moved to Hollywood.
Speaker 1: We at a granny's house. That's right, We're in Hollywood.
Speaker 5: A one room apartment, one block north of Hollywood Boulevard.
Speaker 1: The one Now this is you pulled on your ear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was to say hi, to say hello to her. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: she And where was she at the end of her life?
Speaker 1: Still in California.
Speaker 5: She was still in Californa.
Speaker 1: Did she come and see? Well?
Speaker 5: She she died before I got my show, but she
Speaker 5: had seen me do the Gary Moore Show, in the
Speaker 5: Sullivan Show and so forth.
Speaker 1: I'm just thrilled by what you accomplished. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, at first, when I got the chance to go
Speaker 5: to New York from California, because I wanted to be
Speaker 5: on Broadway, I wanted to be ethel Merman and Mary Martin,
Speaker 5: you know that. And she was not for it. She said,
Speaker 5: your bloodstooth and you'll be dead in a week in
Speaker 5: New York.
Speaker 1: Why do you think she said that?
Speaker 5: She didn't want me to go.
Speaker 1: She was trying to talk you out of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she didn't want to lose you. Correct to show business.
Speaker 1: Correct is the sodom and gomorrow. She just didn't want
Speaker 1: me to be away from her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, to leave her. But when I got my first show,
Speaker 5: it was a Paul Winchell Kitty TV show. I auditioned
Speaker 5: and I got a gig on that, and I called
Speaker 5: Nanny and I said, Nanny, I'm going to be on
Speaker 5: Paul Winchell's show Saturday. And she said, we'll say hello
Speaker 5: to me. I don't think they're gonna let me say Sanny. Yes,
Speaker 5: So we we figured out i'd pull my ear which
Speaker 5: meant hi, Nanny, I love you. And then later when
Speaker 5: I got successful, it meant high nanny, I love you. Your
Speaker 5: checks on the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when you go how would you describe when
Speaker 1: you're on Gary Moore Show? You're one of a company, yes,
Speaker 1: and you come to Los Angeles to do your show
Speaker 1: and you're part of a company, but you're not just
Speaker 1: part of a company. You're the star of the show.
Speaker 1: It's your show. However, I remember transition, but.
Speaker 5: I remember Gary Moore, and I learned a lot from him.
Speaker 5: He was so wonderful and it was his show, The
Speaker 5: Gary Moore Show, and it was very popular, variety comedy
Speaker 5: variety show. And Derberd Kirby was a sidecar. Gerbert and
Speaker 5: Me and I'm Mary and Laura were the second bananas,
Speaker 5: but he never treated us as second bananas. For instance, Alec,
Speaker 5: we would come in on a Monday to read the
Speaker 5: script for that week, and he'd look at it and
Speaker 5: he said, and he'd have a joke or something. He said,
Speaker 5: you know, I can't I can't give this joke to
Speaker 5: Dirward he can do it better than me. Or give
Speaker 5: this line to Carol. She she can say it funnier
Speaker 5: than I can't. So it was a true rep company.
Speaker 5: And that's what I learned about my Showmple. He set
Speaker 5: a true you know, so his name was on it.
Speaker 5: But we were a true rep company. My name was
Speaker 5: you know, at the head of it. We were a
Speaker 5: true rep company. Because when that happens and you don't
Speaker 5: want to hog it, you know, the show gets better.
Speaker 5: You give it to Tim, you give it to who's
Speaker 5: got yeah and do it?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: Oh, you know, years ago when I was doing the
Speaker 5: Garrymore Show, one of the guests that week one week
Speaker 5: was ed Wynn, you know, the old wonderful Vaudevillian comedian.
Speaker 5: And so we were sitting around lunch one day and
Speaker 5: he was regaling us with stories and stuff, and he
Speaker 5: said he started to talk about the difference between a
Speaker 5: comic and a comedic actor, and Gary said, what is it?
Speaker 5: He said, Well, a comic says funny things like Bob Hope.
Speaker 5: A comedic actor like Jack Benny says things funny.
Speaker 1: Well, is that good? Who was the woman you're in
Speaker 1: a sketch, the one with the French Revolutionary sketch February She.
Speaker 5: Was on our show nineteen times. She's still with us,
Speaker 5: Nanny's about. She's in her nineties now, and she was
Speaker 5: wonderful to work with, absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1: You are You see you're talking to someone who you know.
Speaker 1: Back then, show business was show business. He did Broadway,
Speaker 1: did sitcoms and variety shows like yours, the old great
Speaker 1: variety shows you don't see as much anymore. You did
Speaker 1: game shows. Password, they passed Alan Ludden, Yes, you saw.
Speaker 1: You saw Jean Rayburn with that antenna like microphone.
Speaker 5: The match game. Richard Dawson was.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. And who was the one that was
Speaker 1: Klugman's wife. Oh, oh, Brett Brett, Summers, Brett, those people,
Speaker 1: because you knew they all had like a flask underneath
Speaker 1: the desk were having a drink. It was a party.
Speaker 5: Well, they did that with the Hollywood Square.
Speaker 1: Hollywood Square, it'd.
Speaker 5: Have they would have breaks and everybody would.
Speaker 1: Get snucker exactly. We would do. Paul into my house
Speaker 1: to harass my mother. I had a childhood that was
Speaker 1: just immersed. It was just a wash in this comedy.
Speaker 1: I watched you, I watched Gleason, I watched Alan Funt.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a kid born in nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: grew up in the sixties watching TV. Pretty much abandoned
Speaker 1: TV after that. And then I go and I go
Speaker 1: to acting school, and of course everyone wants to do
Speaker 1: O'Neill and check Off and Ibsen and we all want
Speaker 1: to plumb the depths of our soul, and rightfully so.
Speaker 1: But then I do a sitcom and I realized I'm
Speaker 1: stealing from all those people that I saw, And no
Speaker 1: one more than Corman, no one more than Mean. He
Speaker 1: is so talented. He was one is timing and his
Speaker 1: tone he could.
Speaker 5: When he did Zachary Scott in Mildred Fears, you know,
Speaker 5: unbelievable how he was, smarmy he was, and he channeled
Speaker 5: Clark Gable. I mean, I swear he didn't know how
Speaker 5: he was. He was so nervous that week when we
Speaker 5: were going to do Win with the Wind and he said,
Speaker 5: I can't do Gable. Okay, But the minute he got
Speaker 5: into the drag, he became again.
Speaker 1: What I was talking about.
Speaker 5: He became costume led the way, yeah, and that wig
Speaker 5: and the mus sash and the whole outfit and everything.
Speaker 5: He became Clark Gable.
Speaker 1: The show is, of course, I mean I want to
Speaker 1: talk about it in terms of not how things have
Speaker 1: changed because I think people beat that to death a
Speaker 1: little bit. But I mean, you're a woman, it's your show.
Speaker 1: And did everybody treat you the way you wanted to
Speaker 1: be treated back then? Or was all like yeah, yeah, sure, honey,
Speaker 1: put Joe on the phone.
Speaker 5: That's about right.
Speaker 1: They did well.
Speaker 5: I it was my doing too, you know. I in
Speaker 5: that era, the only one who really would speak up
Speaker 5: was Lucy. She was very strong. But it's not in
Speaker 5: my nature to take over confront or anything. You know,
Speaker 5: if a sketch wasn't working or something, instead of like
Speaker 5: gleaes and or Sid would say, look, guys, this stinks, now,
Speaker 5: come on, you got to fix it. But but you
Speaker 5: know they would do that. I would say, I'd call
Speaker 5: the writers down into the rehearsal hall and I'd say,
Speaker 5: you know, guys, I'm not doing this too well. Do
Speaker 5: you think maybe you could help me out with a
Speaker 5: different line here or there, because you know, otherwise I
Speaker 5: would have been a bitch in their other way, you know.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and I hired the writers. Joe, how many
Speaker 1: writers did you have.
Speaker 5: Well, we had about seven for the comedy, and we
Speaker 5: had three special material writers who did all the original
Speaker 5: music and songs in medley and finales.
Speaker 1: And sofa Like SNL house, they have a music department.
Speaker 5: Right, and so that was fine. But I would have
Speaker 5: a say and I'd walk into the writer's room. Ernie
Speaker 5: Rosen was our head writer, and I say, you know,
Speaker 5: I'd love to do Mildred Peers. Can we do Mildred
Speaker 5: Pierce someday? Or I want to do Postman Always Rings twice,
Speaker 5: Double Indemnity, African Queen Love Story, all of those you got, well,
Speaker 5: we never did that. Let me go back and do
Speaker 5: that one, you know. And so they would do that.
Speaker 5: But I did dream a sketch once.
Speaker 1: I dreamed can you say it on the air?
Speaker 5: Was sure it was. I dreamed it, and we put
Speaker 5: it on the air. I was in a shower, I
Speaker 5: mean the door covered me, you know, and the water
Speaker 5: was coming down. I was, you know, getting wet and
Speaker 5: washing and I'm singing. Well in the moment I wake up,
Speaker 5: I dream a little dream of you and I'm singing.
Speaker 5: The band is playing so forth and then I turned
Speaker 5: the water off, get a towel, kind of dry off,
Speaker 5: wrap it around myself, open the door, exit and the
Speaker 5: camera pans in and there are three musicians and tuxedos
Speaker 5: playing ringing.
Speaker 1: Wet is there.
Speaker 5: It worked, It was very funny.
Speaker 1: So you had those writers, and how much writing did
Speaker 1: you do? I did expand over the years where you
Speaker 1: became more confident. So how about this and about this one?
Speaker 5: We wrote on our feet. When we'd get the sketch,
Speaker 5: we'd start to rehearse and Harvey would say, you know,
Speaker 5: can I I just feel like saying this and instead
Speaker 5: of that, so we do it. I would do it
Speaker 5: tim so forth, and I have to compliment our writers.
Speaker 5: They never complained. They came down and if it was
Speaker 5: funny and working, they said, great, keep it in.
Speaker 1: Carol tells a story about her friend Lucy hall Ball
Speaker 1: addressing the writers of The Lucy Show when the pilot
Speaker 1: wasn't working. Lucy wasn't afraid to speak her mind. She
Speaker 1: told her kid, that's when they put the S on
Speaker 1: the end of my last name. Explore the here's the
Speaker 1: thing archives. I talk with Kristin Wigg, who early on
Speaker 1: preferred her scenes unscripted.
Speaker 4: For some reason. It was less scary to me than
Speaker 4: having words in front of me, because I think when
Speaker 4: you're handed a script, you know that you're supposed to
Speaker 4: do it in a certain way, and people will think like,
Speaker 4: how is she reading this? But when you're improvising, there's
Speaker 4: nothing to compare it, tou and you can do whatever,
Speaker 4: Blanche Dupi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now take a listen at Here'sthething, Dot Org. This
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: The Carol Burnett Show was an ensemble show that welcomed
Speaker 1: the biggest stars of television and film as its guests.
Speaker 1: Burt Reynolds, Jerry Lewis, Phyllis Diller, the Jackson Five Share.
Speaker 1: Everyone wanted to work with Carol.
Speaker 5: That was what we talked about, you know, at the
Speaker 5: get go, I said, you know, aside from having a
Speaker 5: rep company, I want to have guest stars. But I
Speaker 5: don't want to have a guest star, say like a
Speaker 5: Steve Lawrence who would come on and just sing a
Speaker 5: song and maybe we'd see him next in the finale.
Speaker 5: I wanted to integrate everybody into the show so many times,
Speaker 5: I mean almost every sketch, Almost every guest star we had,
Speaker 5: we put in sketches, so they were throughout the.
Speaker 1: Show, remember of the company.
Speaker 5: Yeah, correct, And so that's certainly what Burt.
Speaker 1: Was without naming names. When people came out, were some
Speaker 1: better than others? Yes? What did you do when they
Speaker 1: came on? Did you just kind of diminish the role
Speaker 1: for the show?
Speaker 5: No? No, they were all pretty good, but some were.
Speaker 1: You guys have knows for that.
Speaker 5: Fabulous Steve Lawrence is one of the funniest human beings
Speaker 5: in the world and hysterical, and he was one of
Speaker 5: my favorite sketch performers. We did Postman Always Drinks twice,
Speaker 5: We did African Queen together, we did Double Indemnity together,
Speaker 5: we did From Here to Eternity together.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 5: And he was brilliant. And so when we first went
Speaker 5: into syndication many years ago, we had to cut all
Speaker 5: the music out, so it was only a half hour
Speaker 5: in syndication of the sketches because of cost of clarences
Speaker 5: and all of that. So Steve, of course all of
Speaker 5: his music was cut out and so forth. But one
Speaker 5: time during this time, he and Edie were in an
Speaker 5: airport one day and these teenage girls ran up up
Speaker 5: to him and said, you're that funny guy on the
Speaker 5: Brunette Show. And he used to say, if you're long
Speaker 5: cut my song, don't.
Speaker 1: Cut the cut my song. I can sing anytime, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I can't do this anytime. Who were some of
Speaker 1: the other ones that came on that you Ken.
Speaker 5: Barry wonderful, wonderful, but sing dance. He was in Chris Well.
Speaker 5: He's a great dancer, great hoofer, and he sings and
Speaker 5: he's funny. He was adorable and so we used him
Speaker 5: a lot. Bernadette Peters was the first.
Speaker 1: She was a kid.
Speaker 5: She was the first person we asked, we signed. She
Speaker 5: wasn't on our very first show, but she was the
Speaker 5: first person we asked to be on our show.
Speaker 1: Who was some of that surprised you? Oh gosh, if
Speaker 1: you remember who was a movie star, maybe they came
Speaker 1: on that surprised you.
Speaker 5: Betty Grabel. No, we had Betty because I was raised
Speaker 5: in the forties and so you know, she was my
Speaker 5: favorite movie star and so I was thrilled when we
Speaker 5: got her on the show. She was funny, very very sharp, funny,
Speaker 5: wonderful sense of humor. And at the same time on
Speaker 5: that show was Martha Ray. So we had Betty Grabel
Speaker 5: and Martha Ray. And that was the first time we
Speaker 5: ever did the soap opera as the Stomach Turns, and
Speaker 5: they were in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your show plays during a time of incredible political
Speaker 1: upheaval in the country, the late sixties in the early seventies.
Speaker 1: It doesn't get any more tumultuous, pretty heavy. And was
Speaker 1: that something that you cast an eye toward or did
Speaker 1: you decide to ignore it completely?
Speaker 5: Well, I don't know if it was a decision to
Speaker 5: ignore it, but we just didn't do it. Nothing political, No,
Speaker 5: because I don't know. I'm a clown and I just
Speaker 5: wanted to a lot.
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you about it.
Speaker 5: I just want belly laughs. That's what I wanted, you know,
Speaker 5: like a Sid Caesar. You know, I loved his show,
Speaker 5: And so that's really.
Speaker 1: You consider yourself a comic or a comic comedic actor,
Speaker 1: comedic act, right exactly, because for you that range I
Speaker 1: want to get back to the Vietnam era thing. But
Speaker 1: for you, you see you come in and of course
Speaker 1: the wardrobe and the wig and the eyebrows make it
Speaker 1: in Mildred fierce the moment you walk in. But also
Speaker 1: you have that core of Joan oozing out of you
Speaker 1: when you walk on. Oh, I just and then you
Speaker 1: dump out of it. And you can go from one
Speaker 1: extreme to the other and then you're a clown and
Speaker 1: then you're doing voices and you're the character's collapsing in
Speaker 1: that way and.
Speaker 5: Kind of you know, in the family sketch, Eunice and
Speaker 5: Mama and Ed you know.
Speaker 6: Sorry, sorry, Well we did a little We did about
Speaker 6: thirty five of those, and one time we had Maggie
Speaker 6: Smith on the show, and so the sketch was with
Speaker 6: the family.
Speaker 5: Maggie Smith was a school teacher and she called Eunice
Speaker 5: and Ed and Mama in to talk about the fact
Speaker 5: that Unison Ed's son was a bully. Bubba was you
Speaker 5: never saw him, but was a Bubba in school, and
Speaker 5: she wanted to discuss it with us. Well, during the
Speaker 5: course of the sketch, she discovers why poor Bubba is
Speaker 5: that way. It's because of this horribly dysfunctional family.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: So, I don't know whose idea it was in rehearsal.
Speaker 5: Might have been Harvey's, it might have been mine, I
Speaker 5: don't know. We decided, just as an acting experiment, let's
Speaker 5: not do it as these characters. Let's do this sketch
Speaker 5: as if it's a one act And so we did it.
Speaker 5: We didn't go over the top with the screeching and
Speaker 5: all of that. We did it very straight. Now, those
Speaker 5: sketches never had jokes in them. They were all about character.
Speaker 5: So when we did that, it was devastating. It was
Speaker 5: like doing a very serious one act when Eunice is
Speaker 5: trying to to defend her role as a mother. It
Speaker 5: was very very serious. So that was really great writing.
Speaker 5: And then we topped it off with the way we
Speaker 5: talked and all of that scream like that you and
Speaker 5: then it became funny. It was a great piece of
Speaker 5: writing and a great acting experiment. We just did it
Speaker 5: in rehearsal.
Speaker 1: You partnered with your then husband. Yes, no, you didn't
Speaker 1: stay married to him.
Speaker 5: We were married for almost twenty years.
Speaker 1: Right, and you got divorced. But during the time you
Speaker 1: were married, that was a good thing.
Speaker 5: We were doing the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're doing the show, and you're doing a show
Speaker 1: with your husband, day in, day out with your husband. See,
Speaker 1: I love that idea, And some people think that's anathema
Speaker 1: to them. They never want to do that.
Speaker 5: Well, is that like, Well, I kind of liked the
Speaker 5: extent you want to say, I let him be the boss.
Speaker 5: He protected you. Yeah, he totally protected me. And you know,
Speaker 5: I could just come in and have fun. Right, he
Speaker 5: worked with the writers and the this and the that
Speaker 5: you know that I would work with the writers was
Speaker 5: when we were staging it.
Speaker 1: And that's when do you think you were funny?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 1: Did you crack him up?
Speaker 5: I'm not really that way in person, as they say
Speaker 5: in real life. Don't you love that term? What's somebody
Speaker 5: like in real life? I'm very kind of quiet?
Speaker 1: And was he honey?
Speaker 5: Yeah, he had a great sense of him.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a performer in any way.
Speaker 5: Well, he actually was a member of the Skylarks, which
Speaker 5: was a okay, The Skylarks was a great musical group
Speaker 5: like the High Lows and so for you know, and
Speaker 5: he started out writing special material music material for the
Speaker 5: Dinoshaur show years ago.
Speaker 1: Wow, you know your show was done in a different
Speaker 1: era in terms of standards and practices. What was that like?
Speaker 1: Did you sit there sometimes they go, No, they left
Speaker 1: us alone, They left you alone. We had when you
Speaker 1: stick that sword in Harvey Korman's crotch? What do they
Speaker 1: say about that? It was an accident? Was it an accident? Oh?
Speaker 5: Yes? You oh, you know one time though we were
Speaker 5: doing we had this wonderful censor that sat and you
Speaker 5: know Charlie Petty John, God bless him, and he was
Speaker 5: a hoot. We just loved him anyway. He never bothered
Speaker 5: with anything. So Harvey and I were doing a sketch
Speaker 5: where I was a nudist and I was being interviewed
Speaker 5: by him like Edward R. Murrow, you know, and I'm
Speaker 5: behind a fence that says keep out and a bare
Speaker 5: shoulder and you know, I'm leaning on the fence bare
Speaker 5: legs with high top sneakers on. So it was jokes
Speaker 5: about a nudist colony, right. So one of the lines
Speaker 5: was Harvey said, so tell me, how how do you
Speaker 5: new this? What do you do for recreation? And my line, well,
Speaker 5: we have dances every Saturday night, you know. And he said, oh,
Speaker 5: how do you new this dance? And my line was
Speaker 5: very carefully well. For some reason the higher ups Charlie
Speaker 5: didn't mind that line. They said, no, that's too too suggestive.
Speaker 5: Come up with something else, are you ready? So this
Speaker 5: is what we came up with, and this is what
Speaker 5: went on the air. So what do you do, Well,
Speaker 5: we have dances every Saturday night? Well, how do you
Speaker 5: knew this dance?
Speaker 1: Cheek to cheek?
Speaker 5: And and that was funnier.
Speaker 1: You know, there's material that gets revived and it comes up,
Speaker 1: none more so than Annie and you are the miss
Speaker 1: Hannigan as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: And who directed that film? John Houston? Was that like
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 5: Well, it's very funny, you know. He was not really
Speaker 5: uh into musicals or right.
Speaker 1: King.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I have a theory. Race Stark produced it, of course, okay,
Speaker 5: And I have a theory. Race Dark never liked to
Speaker 5: get a no out of anybody. I think this is
Speaker 5: all in my mind that Ray called John Hugheston to
Speaker 5: play Daddy war Bucks. That's my theory. And because he
Speaker 5: would have been wonderful Daddy Warbucks, and uh, he didn't.
Speaker 5: Mister Houston didn't want to do it. So Ray, not
Speaker 5: wanting to get a no, said well then how about
Speaker 5: directing it? That's my theory, you know. But he was
Speaker 5: find the movie. Finny did the movie. Yeah, and Tim
Speaker 5: Curry and Bernadette Peters we were the villains, the three villains,
Speaker 5: and I love doing it. I loved doing uh. And
Speaker 5: something that was just great fun was we would sing live.
Speaker 5: I sang Little Girls live. It was not pre recorded.
Speaker 5: The orchestra was previously you.
Speaker 1: Were I was not living. They would play, they would
Speaker 1: and I sang, they played a track, and you sang,
Speaker 1: I sang live and great number you and him doing
Speaker 1: you doing that and him doing easy Street?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: How was John to work two takes?
Speaker 5: That said print?
Speaker 1: That's it. He knew what he wanted, had the right people.
Speaker 5: One of the funniest pieces of direction I ever got
Speaker 5: was when I went to him, I said, Uh, I
Speaker 5: talked to him. I said, you know, I think she
Speaker 5: should drink, because she's really drink. I mean, she should
Speaker 5: have a little you know, you know, uh knock him
Speaker 5: back every so often because she's miserable, you know, and
Speaker 5: asy's kids and so forth. So the only kind of
Speaker 5: solid she gets is to knock him back a little bit,
Speaker 5: you know. And so he said, well that's a very
Speaker 5: good idea there, Yes, that's good. And so I said, okay,
Speaker 5: so I'm not going to play her drunk, but I'm
Speaker 5: going to play her like she you know, she kind of.
Speaker 1: She needs one.
Speaker 5: She needs one. And so the first scene was with
Speaker 5: Hannigan and uh the secretary who's coming in to get
Speaker 5: to uh get Annie, you know. And so I said, mister,
Speaker 5: he call me John. Dear, Uh, mister John, how do
Speaker 5: you see this? How do you want me to do?
Speaker 1: He said?
Speaker 5: He said, just covort, dear, for I had we finished,
Speaker 5: We wrapped. But what they did, they made a big mistake.
Speaker 5: They filmed Easy Street with four hundred dancers and singers
Speaker 5: on the Easy Street with a monkey grinder, and we
Speaker 5: would jump on fire escapes and jump all It just
Speaker 5: was overkill. At that time. They spent a million dollars
Speaker 5: on that one number. It took a week to shoot,
Speaker 5: and Tim and Bernadette and I said, this is it
Speaker 5: should just be the three villains in the Orphanage, because
Speaker 5: that's the way it was in the original. They are
Speaker 5: killing this song. But okay, so it wrapped. So I
Speaker 5: went back to Honolulu and I had a procedure done
Speaker 5: on my chin. I had always wanted a bit because
Speaker 5: I had a weak chin. And so this oral surgeon, no, no,
Speaker 5: he pulled it somehow. He pulled the out three millimeters.
Speaker 1: Didn't have the full John DeLorean implant.
Speaker 5: No, no implant. So anyway, so I had a little
Speaker 5: more of a chin, which I felt was good. Wasn't
Speaker 5: Kirk Douglas. It was just a little more of a chin. Okay,
Speaker 5: So I had that done by this oral surgeon in Honolulu. Now,
Speaker 5: two months later, I get a call from racetar we're
Speaker 5: going to reshoot the Easy Street number. I said, well,
Speaker 5: that's great. I said, but Ray, you know now I
Speaker 5: have a chin And he said oh. And I explained
Speaker 5: it to him. He said, oh, with all that Hannigan drag,
Speaker 5: you know, not gonna worry about it. Also, it's not
Speaker 5: going to be pictured a picture. It'll be a totally
Speaker 5: separate thing. But we're just going to do it with
Speaker 5: the three of you in the orphanage. And it is
Speaker 5: a great So we all flew back and we report
Speaker 5: to work and there's John Houston sitting here and so forth,
Speaker 5: and we're going to shoot it. And he said, well,
Speaker 5: this is what I want to do. He said, I
Speaker 5: would like to take it from when Carol ran into
Speaker 5: the closet to get Annie's lock it. When she comes
Speaker 5: back out, that's where we'll pick it up.
Speaker 1: And I thought, oh oh.
Speaker 5: So I went up and I said, mister Hugh called
Speaker 5: me John, mister Houston, Uh, two months ago, when I
Speaker 5: ran into the closet, I didn't.
Speaker 1: Have a chin, Brave exactly.
Speaker 5: Now you're picking up where I come out of the
Speaker 5: closet and I have a chin. I just thought I
Speaker 5: would call that to your attention. And here is what
Speaker 5: he said. He thought and thought, and he said, oh well, well,
Speaker 5: dear than, just come out looking determined. Is that a
Speaker 5: great piece of direction?
Speaker 1: I remember that. That's clever. I want to say this.
Speaker 1: You know who you are to all of us who
Speaker 1: grew up watching TV then, and I can say to
Speaker 1: you from the bottom of my heart and without equivocation,
Speaker 1: what people think of when they think of you, when
Speaker 1: they think of you as you're the most talented woman
Speaker 1: was ever on TV. You're the most talented woman that
Speaker 1: was ever on TV. You really are. Because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are like you, and they did
Speaker 1: some things that were great, but none of them did
Speaker 1: as much as you did as well as you did
Speaker 1: and had the warmth and the sweetness and the nut
Speaker 1: and the insanity. I mean, I'm assuming there's some therapists
Speaker 1: out there who must know something about you out there
Speaker 1: in Beverly Hills. We won't get into that, but you
Speaker 1: are the most talented woman that was ever on TV. Ever.
Speaker 5: Excuse me, I've got to go down and buy a
Speaker 5: bigger hat.
Speaker 1: Just look determined. Just just look determined today. Just cavort,
Speaker 1: just cavort out there in New York.
Speaker 5: I'm so glad we had this time together, just to
Speaker 5: have a laugh.
Speaker 1: If you've seen the Carol Burnett Show, then you wreckon
Speaker 1: nies this tune. Carol ended her show each week singing
Speaker 1: this song that her former husband and then producer wrote
Speaker 1: for her. The Screen Actors Guild will bestow the twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen Life Achievement Award upon Carol Burnett early next year.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin you're listening to. Here's the thing