Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
Speaker 1: And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
Speaker 1: the conversation. It's time to question everything. Shakespeare famously wrote,
Speaker 1: all the world's a stage, and all the men and
Speaker 1: women merely players. The older I get, the more I
Speaker 1: think he was right. I mean, I think he was
Speaker 1: right about a lot of things. But what Shakespeare is
Speaker 1: saying is that all of us are actors. We take
Speaker 1: on these roles child, teacher, mother, wife, The list goes on,
Speaker 1: and he's observing that we're constantly performing for one another,
Speaker 1: whether we realize it or not. And I think those
Speaker 1: roles shift right. We're one version of ourselves at work,
Speaker 1: another with our closest friends, another with our parents, maybe
Speaker 1: another with our kids, and somewhere between all of those roles,
Speaker 1: we spend a lifetime trying to answer a deceptively simple question.
Speaker 1: Who am I when no one's asking me to be
Speaker 1: someone for them? I exhale when I think about that question.
Speaker 1: Who am I when no one's asking me to be
Speaker 1: someone for them? Well, Jennifer Morrison has made a career
Speaker 1: out of becoming other people. You know her from house
Speaker 1: from Once Upon a Time, How I Met Your Mother,
Speaker 1: and more recently as the director behind some of TV's
Speaker 1: biggest shows, including Yellowjackets, The Night Agent, and The Five
Speaker 1: Star Weekend. Spent decades studying human behavior, first as an
Speaker 1: actress and now from behind the camera as a director,
Speaker 1: and it is so fun to hear her opinions and
Speaker 1: experiences on set and about the craft. Just listen very
Speaker 1: closely for the part where she talks about actors as
Speaker 1: emotional athletes. I've been thinking about that ever since, and
Speaker 1: like how we can all become them. Anyways, what I
Speaker 1: was really interested in was what she taught me about
Speaker 1: being human. Jennifer wanted to be an actress since she
Speaker 1: was five years old, and she did it. She did
Speaker 1: the unimaginable. She became the point zero one percent of
Speaker 1: recognizable TV actors. Just to put that in perspective, imagine
Speaker 1: a football stadium with ten thousand people in it, one
Speaker 1: of them becomes Jennifer Morrison. So Jennifer realized her childhood dream,
Speaker 1: and then she realized she'd gotten so good at becoming
Speaker 1: everyone else that she'd slowly stop becoming herself.
Speaker 2: I also could feel this tugging of like a true
Speaker 2: self that just was constantly being pushed away because I
Speaker 2: was sacrificing to succeed. I was sacrificing to succeed. I
Speaker 2: was never seeing my friends, I was never seeing my family.
Speaker 2: I was always missing every event. I was spending every
Speaker 2: hour of the day being someone else, and no hours
Speaker 2: of the day even knowing who I was.
Speaker 1: Now. Shakespeare believed we spend our lives playing different parts,
Speaker 1: but Jennifer made me wonder if he left one question unanswered.
Speaker 1: What if every role we play is still authentically us?
Speaker 1: It's time to question everything with Jennifer Morrison. Jennifer, I
Speaker 1: feel like I have known you for over thirty years
Speaker 1: and I don't know anything about you. Yet. You're a
Speaker 1: very private person. Yeah, I guess I am. I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm an open book but a private person. If
Speaker 1: that makes sense, that makes all the sense in the world.
Speaker 1: I actually think that's very Chicago of you, probably very
Speaker 1: Chicago of me. So you just directed the five Star
Speaker 1: week End, which is out on Peacock now, and it's
Speaker 1: about grief and friendship and the people who show up
Speaker 1: when life changes overnight. But in modern terms, I feel
Speaker 1: like it's a story about the group chat. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, when life gets hard, who do
Speaker 1: you go to for advice, distraction, honesty, presence. What is
Speaker 1: your favorite way to show up for the people that
Speaker 1: you care about.
Speaker 2: It's a really good question because I think it's different
Speaker 2: for everybody, and it's hard to know what to do
Speaker 2: in any given situation. And we had several people go
Speaker 2: through losses while you're shooting the show, which was really
Speaker 2: interesting since the show was dealing with grief. And I
Speaker 2: called my best friend and I said, I don't know
Speaker 2: what to do. I want to be here for people
Speaker 2: and I want to make sure that I'm showing up
Speaker 2: in the right way.
Speaker 1: And she said, she was like, just do what you
Speaker 1: always do. She was like, you hold space. And it
Speaker 1: was so.
Speaker 2: Interesting to have yourself reflected back to yourself by someone
Speaker 2: because I wouldn't have thought of it that way. I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have necessarily framed it that way, but she was like,
Speaker 2: you just hold space for what that person needs, and
Speaker 2: if what they need is to laugh, you'll make them laugh.
Speaker 2: And if what they need is to cry, you'll hold
Speaker 2: them while they cry. And she just said, you know,
Speaker 2: you have a calming presence to do that, And so
Speaker 2: I try to think of it that way. Now you
Speaker 2: know now that I sort of have the words to
Speaker 2: think of it that way. And sometimes I just want
Speaker 2: people to know I'm there without the pressure to respond.
Speaker 2: I think that's the biggest thing, is like when someone's
Speaker 2: going through something, I don't ever want them to feel
Speaker 2: like they have to take care of me while I'm
Speaker 2: trying to take care of them. So I try really
Speaker 2: hard to be clear of like, hey, please don't respond
Speaker 2: to this text. I want you to know I'm thinking
Speaker 2: of you, or leave a voicemail and say cannot call
Speaker 2: me back.
Speaker 1: I just want you to know I love you, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Like, it's just trying to make sure
Speaker 1: that you're not adding one more thing to the weight
Speaker 1: of what they're dealing with. So I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's any right way to do it,
Speaker 1: but that's the best I can do. I think that's
Speaker 1: incredibly tailored and thoughtful. I've seen you post a lot
Speaker 1: on Instagram about girls' nights, yes, And I was wondering
Speaker 1: if you are the kind of friend that is more
Speaker 1: in the day to day or if you're kind of
Speaker 1: the deep end friend where you show up for the
Speaker 1: important stuff but you're not texting back day to day.
Speaker 1: I do text back.
Speaker 2: I do try to make sure that by the end
Speaker 2: of the day, even if I'm on set, I try,
Speaker 2: even if it's at a weird hour, I try to
Speaker 2: make sure that I respond to everything by the end
Speaker 2: of the day. Every once in a while, something will
Speaker 2: go a little longer if it requires a longer, more
Speaker 2: elaborate answer, and I need to give thought to it,
Speaker 2: and I want to make sure that it gets the
Speaker 2: attention it deserves. So I do try to really pay
Speaker 2: attention to that despite my schedule. But I would say
Speaker 2: in terms of like being at events, it has to
Speaker 2: be scheduled. It definitely has to be scheduled at this point.
Speaker 2: So between you know, my home life as I work life,
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, sometimes we're scheduling months in advance,
Speaker 2: but it's worth it.
Speaker 1: What does the typical girls' night look like for you,
Speaker 1: very simple it is on the couch is not Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not complicated.
Speaker 2: It's maybe like a nice restaurant, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Like a nice restaurant or having people over. We definitely
Speaker 2: since having a family, do that a lot more, where
Speaker 2: it's like it's easier to have someone at the house
Speaker 2: instead of getting a babysitter and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So sometimes it's just you know, mordering good food. In
Speaker 2: what I do try to avoid is too much of
Speaker 2: the cooking because a I'm not a great cook and
Speaker 2: no one really wants to suffer through that. But be
Speaker 2: it's the dishes and that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so I try to keep it simple and casual.
Speaker 1: When I have these types of conversations, I go home
Speaker 1: and I reflect so much about my life. I'm wondering
Speaker 1: if when you're directing a show like that, if it
Speaker 1: makes you think about the type of people you want
Speaker 1: around you when things get with five Star Weekend, Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh absolutely. I mean I was so drawn to the
Speaker 1: book in the first place, all in Hildebrand's book just
Speaker 1: because I was like, what a great concept. I am
Speaker 1: so jealous of anyone who gets to have a five
Speaker 1: Star weekend? You know.
Speaker 2: It's the idea is you put together the women who
Speaker 2: were your closest person in each phase of life. So
Speaker 2: it's like her closest person from high school, her closest
Speaker 2: person from college, her closest person from work, and her
Speaker 2: closest person from mom life. And I feel like that
Speaker 2: is a natural evolution of closeness in life, you know.
Speaker 2: And I have all those closest people across those phases
Speaker 2: of my life, and I'm like, man, how cool would
Speaker 2: it be to get them all together? You know, because
Speaker 2: they all have so much in common, but they're also
Speaker 2: so different and they don't really know each other, any
Speaker 2: of them. So yeah, I mean, as soon as I
Speaker 2: read the book, I was like, oh, man, I wish
Speaker 2: I could do this. But again, imagine trying to schedule that,
Speaker 2: and it makes you think a lot about I don't know,
Speaker 2: just like the priorities in life, and how tricky it
Speaker 2: is because the only reason the women in Five Star
Speaker 2: Weekend are able to do it is because they're showing
Speaker 2: up for someone who's grieving, and it feels like a
Speaker 2: little bit more of a crisis, and so somehow we're
Speaker 2: all able to rearrange everything for a crisis, but if
Speaker 2: it's just for ourselves, we're like, oh, I can't do it,
Speaker 2: or I can't make it, or you know, it's too
Speaker 2: busy or whatever.
Speaker 1: That does make me think too right. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: a real thing. Backup run Setter who wrote all the
Speaker 1: five Star Weekend. I mean she has a writer's room
Speaker 1: but oversaw the whole thing as a showrunner. She's amazing
Speaker 1: at this and she's probably why she was the perfect
Speaker 1: person to write the show.
Speaker 2: Is like she really like, doesn't matter how tired she is,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter how many school functions, she just wants to
Speaker 2: She's like, my friend has a show opening somewhere, I'm
Speaker 2: going to be there.
Speaker 1: My girlfriends are going away for the weekend. I'll be there.
Speaker 1: And I was like, man, I so admire her ability
Speaker 1: to really just push through and do it, and it
Speaker 1: inspired me to try to be better about it, to
Speaker 1: really show up. Yeah, you directed the first four episodes
Speaker 1: of this year, so it alternates. So Minckey Spiral directed
Speaker 1: the pilot in the second episode and I did three
Speaker 1: and four, she did five and six, and I did
Speaker 1: seven and eight. Interesting, Yeah, so we hold is that like,
Speaker 1: how do you decide that?
Speaker 2: So that is sort of like a logistical need. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've done shows before where I've done all like four
Speaker 2: in a row, which I really don't mind and I
Speaker 2: actually really like as a filmmaker, but is very very
Speaker 2: hard on the department heads because in order to prep,
Speaker 2: you're just prepping a massive amount of material. And if
Speaker 2: you were to do four and four, then while you're
Speaker 2: trying to execute four episodes, which is a ton of content,
Speaker 2: you're also trying to prep the next four, which is
Speaker 2: a ton of content. And so it makes it so
Speaker 2: that it's just very hard to shoulder all that possible
Speaker 2: but harder, and so in this situation, it felt better
Speaker 2: to do alternating blocks. And even with the alternating blocks,
Speaker 2: we weren't stopping to edit, which is also what you
Speaker 2: normally do. So because of Jennifer Garner's schedule and I
Speaker 2: think because of the release schedule a combination of the
Speaker 2: two things, we didn't stop to edit. We just shot
Speaker 2: all eight and then edited all eight, and so it
Speaker 2: was just it was a little bit of a different
Speaker 2: process than usual, but also I think really benefited the
Speaker 2: outcome of the show.
Speaker 1: In the eight episode, Yeah, and you mentioned Jennifer Gardner.
Speaker 1: It's an incredible cast. You have Genah Gemma Chan, Darcy Carden,
Speaker 1: and Chloe Sevenier. What a line up. I know, they
Speaker 1: feel like they have such a vibe on and off
Speaker 1: the screen. Was there a real life group chat? One
Speaker 1: hundred percent? They're absolutely. I mean, I'm not in it,
Speaker 1: so I can't tell you, like I haven't witnessed it,
Speaker 1: but yes, I mean they all got along, they all
Speaker 1: hung out, they all were doing things outside of work.
Speaker 2: We also all spent a lot of time in Nantucket
Speaker 2: together at the end because the show is set in
Speaker 2: Nantucket and we did all of our exteriors there, so
Speaker 2: we shot everything we could up until the end, and
Speaker 2: then the last month of shooting we just crossboarded all
Speaker 2: eight episodes in Nantucket. So also, it's like going to
Speaker 2: summer camp, you know, it's like everybody's living on this
Speaker 2: little island together and doing their things.
Speaker 1: So but they are.
Speaker 2: They're all so extraordinary and so uniquely different and brought
Speaker 2: so much to the table in that ensemble.
Speaker 1: It was very invigorating to be around them. I'm interviewing
Speaker 1: Ellen Hildebrand on Monday, Oh kra Larice's book Club podcast,
Speaker 1: and I had no idea she was the Queen of Nantucket.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, thirty books later, she is the queen. I
Speaker 2: mean she is. I think she's like is Nantucket. Yes,
Speaker 2: she's also like the nicest pools. Still have the best
Speaker 2: time with her. She's amazing. But yeah, she knows everyone.
Speaker 2: Everyone there knows each other. It's like a very surreal environment.
Speaker 1: To be in. I didn't know what to expect, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was definitely a small town. So when
Speaker 1: I first started like asking people questions and entertainment, every
Speaker 1: director that I interviewed was a man for you. Interesting,
Speaker 1: you've stepped behind the camera at a moment with a
Speaker 1: whole new wave of female actors. Greta Gerwig, Regina King,
Speaker 1: Olivia Wilde. I just interviewed Maggie, Jillenhall, Eva Longoria. They
Speaker 1: made that same move and have been taken seriously as directors.
Speaker 1: What do you think actresses are seeing in front of
Speaker 1: the lens that make them want to take control of
Speaker 1: the story.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's a gendered thing as much
Speaker 2: as an actor experience, but maybe it's slightly gendered. I
Speaker 2: think in general, actors are the most underutilized resource on
Speaker 2: a set, and that seems like the opposite because it's
Speaker 2: their faces on the screen. But they're weirdly the last
Speaker 2: people you think of when you're you know, in prep
Speaker 2: and in getting ready for something, because you're just dealing
Speaker 2: with so many other logistics of schedule and locations and
Speaker 2: budget and you know, I mean, if you if there's
Speaker 2: a fire, and like the logistics of the fire bars
Speaker 2: and the what can be lit on fire and what can't,
Speaker 2: and the stunts and this, and then you know, the
Speaker 2: weather will happen, it's only the schedule changes and then
Speaker 2: an actor falls out, and you know what, It's just,
Speaker 2: it's you have a million a million million fires and
Speaker 2: problems before you get to a set.
Speaker 1: So when you get to a set, you're like, oh, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: the actors are here. So sometimes I feel like, because
Speaker 1: the actors are not involved in the prep process, there
Speaker 1: is a accidental dismissal of what they have to offer,
Speaker 1: because there's this sort of subconscious feeling of like they
Speaker 1: don't know they were in the meetings. They don't you know.
Speaker 2: And there's this thing called a tone meeting on a
Speaker 2: television show that you have with the showrunners where they
Speaker 2: talk you through what's important to them in every scene
Speaker 2: and tonally, what they need to have happened, and exactly
Speaker 2: where they think these characters need to be in their headspaces.
Speaker 2: And no one talks to the actors about the tone meeting,
Speaker 2: which is so weird to me because I'm like, isn't
Speaker 2: that exactly who you just talk to about the tone meeting.
Speaker 2: So sometimes you come on set and your actors have
Speaker 2: a very different idea in their heads of what they
Speaker 2: think is important in the scene compared to what you
Speaker 2: were just told by the showrunners is important to them
Speaker 2: in the scene in the tone meeting. And so if
Speaker 2: you don't have the language to like work together to
Speaker 2: get to a common ground or to just say, like, listen,
Speaker 2: in the tone meeting, they were saying this, like we're
Speaker 2: kind of far apart, let's figure out how to get there,
Speaker 2: you are often finding actors feeling like sort of frustrated
Speaker 2: and shut down, or like what they're bringing to the
Speaker 2: table just kind of gets ignored or pushed away a
Speaker 2: little bit. And I think that at least for me,
Speaker 2: you know, I was in that situation for a very
Speaker 2: long time, for many many years, and I wasn't like
Speaker 2: upset about it, but I was aware of it, you know,
Speaker 2: and aware of feeling like, with the amount of research
Speaker 2: I did and the amount of passion that I had
Speaker 2: for the characters that I was playing, I felt like
Speaker 2: people were getting maybe ten to twenty percent out of me,
Speaker 2: and I was dying to be like pushed and used,
Speaker 2: you know, more than that. And so I'm sure that
Speaker 2: all of the incredible women that you just listed felt
Speaker 2: that way, just as much as I'm sure Jason Bateman
Speaker 2: has felt that way, or you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So like that's why I'm saying, I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: it's a gendered thing as much as a smart actor thing,
Speaker 2: you know. And you just reach a point eventually where
Speaker 2: you're like, I want to offer more, you know, I
Speaker 2: want to give more than just maybe this little corner
Speaker 2: of what you could do, you know. And all of
Speaker 2: those women are brilliant, and so I'm sure they reached
Speaker 2: that point, you know, and then we're like, I need
Speaker 2: I need to give more of myself in the situation.
Speaker 1: I can imagine acting changes the way you view human
Speaker 1: behavior because you're just noticing everything all the time. Has
Speaker 1: directing done that for you at all? I think so
Speaker 1: because I think I think I see more like in
Speaker 1: collective theme. I don't know how, I don't know how
Speaker 1: to put that into like story art kind of. But
Speaker 1: also just like there are these sort of like movements
Speaker 1: of energy in culture and in certain areas or pockets
Speaker 1: of places where you start to go like, ah, this
Speaker 1: is coming up a lot, or this is being said
Speaker 1: over and over again, or why is everyone wearing these
Speaker 1: same shoes all of a sudden. I don't know everybody's
Speaker 1: in the flip flops all of a sudden. I don't
Speaker 1: know if flip flops came out of nowhere recently. I
Speaker 1: don't know what that's about, you know. Like, so it's.
Speaker 2: I think I just I just see like in sort
Speaker 2: of like a bigger picture a way, as opposed to
Speaker 2: like I think as an actor, I'm kind of looking
Speaker 2: more at like little quirks or ticks or little things
Speaker 2: that you're like, oh, that could be interesting to use
Speaker 2: as a character, like a little habit this person has,
Speaker 2: or a way that they move or talk or words
Speaker 2: that they lean on that I might be able to suggest.
Speaker 2: And then also you know, it just makes you pay
Speaker 2: really close attention to therapy because you're like I need
Speaker 2: to understand humans. I need to understand the motivation and
Speaker 2: insecurity of everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I heard Melissa McCarthy one time say that the
Speaker 1: worst part of becoming famous was that she could no
Speaker 1: longer go to like home Depot or Walmart and watch people.
Speaker 1: She had to find like a whole new process, which
Speaker 1: I thought was so funny. That's probably very true. That
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. I know. So your ten
Speaker 1: years into directing now, and you started as you founded
Speaker 1: your production company Apartment three C, which I loved that
Speaker 1: you named after the apartment that you shared with your
Speaker 1: college best friends. I had six one nine. Okay, so
Speaker 1: before you became an actress and people knew you as
Speaker 1: a director and people trusted you, who's the Jennifer that
Speaker 1: lived in Apartment three C. Oh my gosh, so Apartment
Speaker 1: three C.
Speaker 2: Jen I was very passionate and excited about life. I mean,
Speaker 2: I you know, it's like you look back on those
Speaker 2: days of like the starry eyed everything as possible. I
Speaker 2: also felt like I was like infatigable at that age.
Speaker 1: You know, it was like you really.
Speaker 2: Could stay up all night and I didn't want to
Speaker 2: miss out on anything, you know, I wanted to be
Speaker 2: with my friends just as much as I want to
Speaker 2: be prepared for the play, just as much as I
Speaker 2: wanted to get good grades.
Speaker 1: And I was, you know, burning the candle.
Speaker 2: At every end you could possibly burn it, and somehow
Speaker 2: getting away with it. We were all very different in
Speaker 2: a cool way, very different backgrounds, you know.
Speaker 1: I was sort of the actress in the group.
Speaker 2: And then one of my friends was half Italian, half Irish,
Speaker 2: like curly hair, just knew everybody, was like a social butterfly.
Speaker 2: Everybody loved her. She was like Felicity, Like I felt
Speaker 2: like she was like you know. And then another one
Speaker 2: of my girlfriends one hundred percent Greek, very tied into
Speaker 2: the Greek community. We went dancing in our weird black
Speaker 2: pants at many many Greek clubs and had our big hoops,
Speaker 2: and I'd like, you know, we'd have our like Greek
Speaker 2: nights with her.
Speaker 1: And then the other friend was one hundred percent Polish
Speaker 1: and like came from just like a big family, and
Speaker 1: she had so much responsibility in her family and like
Speaker 1: just took care of everybody. Was such a caretaker, all
Speaker 1: all of them like so smart and wonderful, but like
Speaker 1: just keyed into such different corners of the community of
Speaker 1: our school too, and so it was this really interesting
Speaker 1: melting pot of women that came together in that apartment
Speaker 1: three C. This feels like a show. Probably well, And
Speaker 1: there were guys that lived in TWOC. There were four
Speaker 1: guys at two C and we were in three Was
Speaker 1: anybody dating. I don't think we ever dated, but we
Speaker 1: all hung out.
Speaker 2: Like it was like, you know, I would come home
Speaker 2: and I'd be like alone sometimes and I'd go knock
Speaker 2: on TUOC and the I'd sit with those guys and
Speaker 2: like sometimes I'd come home and they'd all be up there.
Speaker 2: I would make these like big ZD Like I would
Speaker 2: get this big tin and like just poor. I would
Speaker 2: make noodles and I would just poor, like you know,
Speaker 2: pre made Mari and Ara sauce with a bunch of
Speaker 2: cheese and noodles and bacon and be like it's big CD.
Speaker 1: And they were so happy to have food. Hence why
Speaker 1: I'm not feeding people.
Speaker 2: But in college it went great, so you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: I'd find them in our kitchen eating my terrible big CD.
Speaker 2: But it was a really it was a really fun time.
Speaker 2: Like I felt like we were all finding ourselves. We
Speaker 2: were all kind of starting to aim ourselves at our dreams,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's the first time you're away from
Speaker 2: your families, and we were all very close to our families,
Speaker 2: and so I think it was interesting that we.
Speaker 1: All had that in common.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we all sort of also needed that
Speaker 2: space to figure out who we were outside of that
Speaker 2: in order to be ourselves and be a part of
Speaker 2: our families.
Speaker 1: You said the word dreams, and I love when I
Speaker 1: hear you talk about how you wanted to become an actress.
Speaker 1: You said you knew at five years old. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: did you you just felt called? I guess. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've gone over and over.
Speaker 2: This because people ask me about it, you know, and
Speaker 2: I just never had a thought in my mind that
Speaker 2: I wasn't a performer, Like it just never occurred to
Speaker 2: me that I might not be.
Speaker 1: Does it feel the way you thought it would? Maybe?
Speaker 1: I mean I don't know that I like.
Speaker 2: Had an idea of what it would feel like as
Speaker 2: much as it just feels like I'm being myself when
Speaker 2: I'm being creative, and so it's I feel kind of
Speaker 2: the same now as I felt when I was five
Speaker 2: years old. You know, I remember doing the first little play.
Speaker 2: I was just recently talking about this, but playing Feely
Speaker 2: and the kid's version of the Hobbit, you know, and
Speaker 2: being so determined to like do it well and do
Speaker 2: it right. I was only like five or six or
Speaker 2: however old you are, in kindergarten, you know, and like,
Speaker 2: I still have that feeling, you know, like and backstage
Speaker 2: still smells the same way, and you still have all
Speaker 2: the same people running around, you know, doing their jobs
Speaker 2: to make it all work and moving the props, and
Speaker 2: so it just sort of feels like I don't really
Speaker 2: know any different, Like that's just kind of what life
Speaker 2: has always felt like. And I guess I just assumed
Speaker 2: always life would always feel that way.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, you've been famous for a really
Speaker 1: long time, and I get the sense from you that
Speaker 1: fame was like never part of the equation or goal
Speaker 1: for you. Do you think that's the Midwesterner in you.
Speaker 1: I think that it is the Midwest.
Speaker 2: I mean when I came in, we started talking about
Speaker 2: the Midwest pretty quickly of just like how lucky I
Speaker 2: feel to have grown up there, Like the values and
Speaker 2: the sense of community that's there is, like they really
Speaker 2: value the idea of working hard and being proud of
Speaker 2: working hard and wanting to be prepared and wanting to
Speaker 2: be a part of a group with people. And some
Speaker 2: of it I think is just that there are incredible
Speaker 2: public schools in a lot of those school districts in
Speaker 2: that area too. I mean, it depends on the suburb,
Speaker 2: and it depends on what part of the Midwest you're
Speaker 2: talking about, but I mean I went to an incredible
Speaker 2: public school. I just think about the books we are
Speaker 2: studying and the group projects that we did, and the
Speaker 2: way that you valued each person because everybody had to
Speaker 2: bring something different to the table. You weren't going to
Speaker 2: get a good grade, you know, And so that was
Speaker 2: just so intrinsic to growing up in that community. And
Speaker 2: then my parents are educators, you know. My dad had
Speaker 2: a nationally competive high school marching band for thirty years,
Speaker 2: and then my brother went on to do the same
Speaker 2: thing for a long time. And like we always say,
Speaker 2: we're from a marching band family, Like our whole life
Speaker 2: was marching band, and we were all in the marching band.
Speaker 2: And there's just something about, like you're so aware when
Speaker 2: you're in a group like that that what you bring
Speaker 2: to the table so deeply impacts every other person around you.
Speaker 1: You have one.
Speaker 2: Person who's out of step, one person who doesn't fit
Speaker 2: in the formation, one person who you know misses the note,
Speaker 2: and it impacts the overall you know, look and vibe
Speaker 2: and result for the entire team. And you're not talking
Speaker 2: about twelve people or sixty people. You're talking about two hundred,
Speaker 2: three hundred and four hundred people depending on how big
Speaker 2: that marching band is. And so at a very young age,
Speaker 2: I was existing in an atmosphere of responsibility to the
Speaker 2: other people who are your like comrades in a circumstance,
Speaker 2: you know, And that was just life. That's just how
Speaker 2: it went, you know. And so the process was the joy.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was like the practices, the learning, the overcoming the
Speaker 2: crazy hard thing, the realizing the impossible drill move was possible.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was like that's just so in my DNA from
Speaker 2: how I was raised with my parents. But also you know,
Speaker 2: being from the Chicago suburbs and having great teachers, that like,
Speaker 2: that's that's the joy for me. You know, Like a
Speaker 2: lot of people ask me, like younger actors will ask
Speaker 2: me like.
Speaker 1: Well, how do you deal with the criticism or how
Speaker 1: do you deal with people judging you?
Speaker 2: And I was like, I mean, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: say I've never had my feelings hurt. I'm a human being.
Speaker 2: I certainly have. But like I'm just another person to
Speaker 2: any other other person, just like everybody else is just
Speaker 2: another person. Like why are we so caught up on that?
Speaker 2: You know, Like at the end of the day, I
Speaker 2: just want to be proud of the stuff that I
Speaker 2: make and like it. You know, if I can lay
Speaker 2: my head on the pillow at night and be like,
Speaker 2: I did my best today. I brought everything to the
Speaker 2: table that I could.
Speaker 1: I did my best. I'm happy.
Speaker 2: I don't need to wait for someone else to tell
Speaker 2: me that it was good, you know. And so I
Speaker 2: can't pretend that I was always like in that headspace,
Speaker 2: but that's where I've been for a long time now,
Speaker 2: and it's just such a more pleasant way to do life.
Speaker 2: You know, no one else really cares that much about
Speaker 2: what I'm.
Speaker 1: Doing, you know what I mean. I feel that way
Speaker 1: as a young actress because I sometimes I would interview
Speaker 1: people who were auditioning, like ten twenty years ago, and
Speaker 1: they would talk about like the audition process and it
Speaker 1: was just a little more brutal.
Speaker 2: It seemed, Yeah, I think, I mean, auditioning never gets
Speaker 2: less brutal because you're you rip your heart open and
Speaker 2: splay it out there, and then you know someone's going
Speaker 2: to tell you something's wrong with what you're doing, you know.
Speaker 1: And I sort of find it inhumane. Actors are some
Speaker 1: of the most sensitive people on the whole planet of
Speaker 1: their artists, and we just like they lay their heart
Speaker 1: out and we're like, thanks by.
Speaker 2: Yeah if we like it, I know. And so often
Speaker 2: it has nothing to do with talent. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: like the amount of times I've seen incredibly talented people
Speaker 2: across the board for something, but you still have to
Speaker 2: pick one, and it comes down to some weird, inexplicable
Speaker 2: vibe that they happen to have or the way that
Speaker 2: they fit into the cast or whatever. And it's it's
Speaker 2: heartbreaking because you want you want to hire everybody. I think,
Speaker 2: like when I was a younger actor, I certainly had
Speaker 2: more insecurities about is it coming off well, you know,
Speaker 2: because you can't see yourself right, so you're always hoping
Speaker 2: and praying that what you're putting out reflects what you're feeling.
Speaker 1: Or what you the work that you're.
Speaker 2: Trying to offer, right, So I think that I had
Speaker 2: to get to a place where I could just trust
Speaker 2: in my own muscles a little bit more and just
Speaker 2: just be like, Okay, I know to a certain point
Speaker 2: this is working, and then I have to trust that
Speaker 2: the director is going to tell me if, you know,
Speaker 2: if it needs to be something different.
Speaker 1: But I think and I'm hoping.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this on set and I was
Speaker 2: just directing on Wednesday with some of the kids on
Speaker 2: Yellow Jackets.
Speaker 1: I say, kids, they're all not kids anymore, but they're
Speaker 1: young actors.
Speaker 2: They feel like kids compared to how old I feel now.
Speaker 2: But and it was so exciting. It's so exciting to
Speaker 2: work with this cast. I love them so much. It's
Speaker 2: the adult cast, adults and the team cast. But it's
Speaker 2: like you go in and you bring a note and
Speaker 2: there's this like voracious hunger to digest it and do
Speaker 2: it and like bring it to the screen. And I said,
Speaker 2: you know, they feel like emotional athletes. Oh I like that,
Speaker 2: And it just it's.
Speaker 1: So cool when you're in an environment like that where
Speaker 1: instead of being like, well, what did I do wrong?
Speaker 2: Why did you give me some start so they're like, yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: I hear you. I hear you. You know, I'm like,
Speaker 2: do you need me to say it a different way?
Speaker 2: Or like no, no, no, I got it, I got it.
Speaker 1: Let's do it, you know.
Speaker 2: And then you like watch them like put it in
Speaker 2: their body and digest it and you're like, holy crap.
Speaker 2: And then just things that like you know what you're
Speaker 2: aiming for when you're giving the note, but it always
Speaker 2: goes above and beyond what you could help for with
Speaker 2: this cast, so cool, and the amount of times I
Speaker 2: turned back to the writer who's on set and I
Speaker 2: was like he was like, oh my god, you know,
Speaker 2: and it really it's exciting if people can sort of
Speaker 2: look at it more that way, because if someone were
Speaker 2: playing professional football, you know, they're not going to take
Speaker 2: a criticism as oh my god, I'm a bad person,
Speaker 2: I'm terrible. They're going to go, oh my god, I
Speaker 2: can run that a tenth of a second faster.
Speaker 1: I'll try it. I can take that tackle a different way.
Speaker 1: I'll try it. I can you know. It's like we
Speaker 1: need a rebrand. This is brilliant, right, And so it
Speaker 1: was like, you need to share this idea of everybody.
Speaker 2: If you if you take the note like the way
Speaker 2: an athlete would take a correction, It's like what the
Speaker 2: person giving the athlete the correction can't do it.
Speaker 1: I can't do it. The coach cannot do it.
Speaker 2: The coach is twenty years too old and they probably
Speaker 2: never could do it in the first place. So they're
Speaker 2: not saying it from a place of judgment. They're saying
Speaker 2: it from a place of how do I make you
Speaker 2: your absolute best? So if the way that you receive
Speaker 2: the note is this person wants to help me be
Speaker 2: my absolute athletic best, yes, you know, then it's invigorating
Speaker 2: and you're going to know right away if it doesn't work,
Speaker 2: and that's okay. Like, just as much as actors should
Speaker 2: definitely have space to fail, the directors have to have
Speaker 2: space to fail in their note too, you know, Like
Speaker 2: everybody's got to feel like they can try, and sometimes
Speaker 2: magic happens and sometimes a disaster happens, and you just
Speaker 2: accept whichever way it goes the course correct.
Speaker 1: I am like feeling hyped up here. I think you
Speaker 1: really hit on something. It's very cool when it happens,
Speaker 1: it's very very I feel like it's really fun to
Speaker 1: be on a set of yours, I hope. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I certainly want that to be the case. I found
Speaker 1: this random fact that you used to buy tons of
Speaker 1: magazines as a way to research characters. Can you explain
Speaker 1: why that works for you. I've literally never heard anybody
Speaker 1: say that.
Speaker 2: I still do a version of this when I'm like,
Speaker 2: not with magazines, but with images. I think I'm just
Speaker 2: a very visual, Like my emotional language is very visual,
Speaker 2: and so I never had a plan when I was
Speaker 2: looking at all those things, just like I don't have
Speaker 2: a plan when I go to my visual like what
Speaker 2: do you call them? Photo albums and things? Now, I
Speaker 2: mean I have a ton of printed photos. I have
Speaker 2: boxes and boxes and boxes of like tangible photos, and
Speaker 2: then I also just have thousands and thousands of digital images.
Speaker 2: And so when I go to start pitching a project
Speaker 2: or I start building a visual for something. If I'm
Speaker 2: directing the pilot, I go through and I don't filter myself.
Speaker 2: I just click and drag or pull out whatever emotionally
Speaker 2: jumps out at me, having known the material, and then
Speaker 2: I look at that pile and there's often patterns that
Speaker 2: I start to see, and so I don't necessarily understand why.
Speaker 1: It's just an instinct thing.
Speaker 2: So with magazines as an actor, I was just going
Speaker 2: through and if anything jumped out, sometimes it was a
Speaker 2: watch or a you know, like a headline or a
Speaker 2: dog or I don't I would just not censor myself
Speaker 2: and I'd be like, tear that out.
Speaker 1: Actually I always had a ruler so that it was
Speaker 1: like a pretty easy tear, and I'd like tear that out,
Speaker 1: tear that out.
Speaker 2: And then I'd have this pile and I would start
Speaker 2: to look at the pile and be like, what is
Speaker 2: this telling me? You know, like, oh, there's like a
Speaker 2: color palette that's emerging, there's texture that's emerging, Like oh,
Speaker 2: maybe this person is really uncomfortable in their clothes, like
Speaker 2: everything feels tight or everything feels restricted, or you know,
Speaker 2: or vice versa.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: And so it was a way for me to like
Speaker 2: turn my brain off and just move from my instinct
Speaker 2: and then look at what my instinct altogether seemed to
Speaker 2: tell me, and then I would start to move from
Speaker 2: that place.
Speaker 1: This is so unique. So do you ever share this
Speaker 1: with young actors? Like you would look at the photos
Speaker 1: and how would you come up with the questions you
Speaker 1: were asking yourself, you were just noticing the themes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would just sort of I mean I have
Speaker 2: most of these I have like in journals that I
Speaker 2: saved like over years, so there's a lot of these
Speaker 2: I can look back on. But yeah, I mean some
Speaker 2: of it was just very logistical.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I'd be like, Okay, I think this was like I
Speaker 2: think she always wears jeans, or I think that this person,
Speaker 2: you know, carries their body weight super forward, because like
Speaker 2: every picture I pulled, they were like, you know, someone
Speaker 2: was like very forward in the image, you know. And
Speaker 2: it was really just about looking for patterns, you know,
Speaker 2: looking for patterns that I wasn't planning on, just patterns
Speaker 2: that I was feeling and it maybe didn't totally understand.
Speaker 2: And then I also, I mean I went to theater
Speaker 2: school and I studied acting, and I studied all the
Speaker 2: you know, I did it all.
Speaker 1: I did the.
Speaker 2: Strasburg and the Meisner and the Stilla Adler and Larry
Speaker 2: Moss's book I love so much. So and I've never
Speaker 2: subscribed to any one way, you know, I think that
Speaker 2: I always am pulling little bits and pieces of knowledge
Speaker 2: from all of those systems. Depending on what it feels
Speaker 2: like is going to serve the person or the character
Speaker 2: or the environment that I have to be in. And
Speaker 2: so the combination of just like letting my guts start
Speaker 2: to build a visual and then noticing those patterns and
Speaker 2: then marrying that to whatever training I had made it
Speaker 2: so that I could start to like make a very
Speaker 2: specific person.
Speaker 1: When you're watching young actors coming up, can you tell
Speaker 1: if somebody has the thing? Like I know everybody can
Speaker 1: work on it. Yeah, right, Like I can see it
Speaker 1: with interviewers. I'm like, in three years she's going to
Speaker 1: be you know, yeah, Like can you just see it?
Speaker 1: I think so, I yes, I mean.
Speaker 2: There is sort of an intangible thing where like I
Speaker 2: remember being on the side of Euphoria at season one
Speaker 2: and being like, Sidney's a star, like a huge star,
Speaker 2: and Jacob too, and saying that and everybody being like,
Speaker 2: I mean, they're all great. I was like, they are
Speaker 2: all great. And by the way, I mean, I guess
Speaker 2: I could have said that about any one of them,
Speaker 2: because they've all gone on to have incredible careers.
Speaker 1: But just like in one take of one scene, I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, Like you just you just
Speaker 2: feel there's like this other thing operating that you can't
Speaker 2: put your finger on. And I've certainly had moments of
Speaker 2: kind of like calling that with people over the years.
Speaker 2: But I do also think there's sort of space for
Speaker 2: everybody differently, like if you do have that in you
Speaker 2: to like work that hard and to study into care
Speaker 2: and to push there's only space for however many you know,
Speaker 2: City Sweeneys in the world or Margot Robbies of the
Speaker 2: World or whatever. But there's a lot of space for
Speaker 2: great actors that don't necessarily like have that kind of fame,
Speaker 2: but are respected and working and admired and you know,
Speaker 2: like very very good at what they do. And I
Speaker 2: do think that there's more space to like move into
Speaker 2: that zone than there is to necessarily just have that
Speaker 2: intang thing that you don't know why someone is just
Speaker 2: like an undeniable star.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. One of the things I noticed about your acting
Speaker 1: is that you're really good at conveying inner conflict without
Speaker 1: ever over emoting. So I think you're known for playing
Speaker 1: women who are strong, but it's not in this flat
Speaker 1: invincible way. They're like usually emotionally complicated. And I also
Speaker 1: notice you're often trying these characters. These women are trying
Speaker 1: to stay soft in a hard world, yeah, or one
Speaker 1: that doesn't let them be an interesting observation, What do
Speaker 1: you think that you understand about women like that?
Speaker 2: I mean, gosh, I think the only thing I can
Speaker 2: pretend to say that I understand is just that we're
Speaker 2: never all one thing. I don't think any woman is
Speaker 2: all one thing, no matter what category you want to
Speaker 2: put yourself into or someone else wants to put you into.
Speaker 2: And I think it's been.
Speaker 1: A really.
Speaker 2: Long time I'm in this business of thinking that people
Speaker 2: kind of just fit into certain boxes. And I think
Speaker 2: women are asked to split themselves in so many ways
Speaker 2: in their lives and are asked to put on so
Speaker 2: many hats, and all of those hats can be authentic.
Speaker 2: Like I am a very different person at home when
Speaker 2: I'm a mom, compared to like when I'm running a set,
Speaker 2: compared to when I'm acting on a show. Those are
Speaker 2: three very different versions of me, but they're all authentic.
Speaker 1: And so I think we just.
Speaker 2: Haven't had a chance to see women who are allowed
Speaker 2: to be different in different circumstances. And then we are
Speaker 2: also telling people like, well, if you're not the same
Speaker 2: all the time, then you don't know who you are,
Speaker 2: And I just think that's bullshit. I think that we
Speaker 2: all rise to the occasions we're asked to rise to,
Speaker 2: and that calls on different parts of ourselves, and all
Speaker 2: those parts of ourselves are little pieces of a whole,
Speaker 2: and so I do the best I can to try
Speaker 2: to think about those layers when I'm playing a character,
Speaker 2: because otherwise, to your point, it does feel flat, because
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, she's just this one thing. So I
Speaker 2: think women really can only feel alive if you're finding
Speaker 2: the layers of just the different splits that we all
Speaker 2: have in order to be able to meet the needs
Speaker 2: in our lives.
Speaker 1: I've actually never heard anybody articulate it like that. We
Speaker 1: are split and even with different friends for different people,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't mean you're any less authentic with any
Speaker 1: one friend than the other. And I think that there's
Speaker 1: something really.
Speaker 2: Beautiful about that, Like, yeah, it's I think that it's
Speaker 2: sensitive to meet someone where they are and also have
Speaker 2: them meet you where you are, and to know that you,
Speaker 2: guys are offering something unique that no one else is
Speaker 2: going to be able to offer, you know, And so
Speaker 2: I get very like itchy is how I say it.
Speaker 2: And when something makes me uncomfortable, like it gets I
Speaker 2: get very itchy when people try to say like you
Speaker 2: are only one thing, you know, or we are all
Speaker 2: only one thing, or we put all these people in
Speaker 2: these categories, and it's like, well, we all have to
Speaker 2: be a lot of things, you know, like who wants
Speaker 2: to do their taxes? But you know what, you got
Speaker 2: to be good at it, you know, you know who
Speaker 2: wants to be super sick?
Speaker 1: At some point we all have to go through it,
Speaker 1: you know. And so it's all these.
Speaker 2: Different pieces of ourselves and you just you kind of
Speaker 2: just have to meet each moment and not feel badly
Speaker 2: that a different part of you shows up for different moments.
Speaker 1: You've had so many chapters, child, model, theater student, TV actress,
Speaker 1: fantasy icon director, producer, now mother, what chapter has changed
Speaker 1: you the most? I would say to have changed me
Speaker 1: the most.
Speaker 2: Equally, I was mentioning when I walked in that I
Speaker 2: heard your interview with Brooke Taylor about her book what
Speaker 2: is it called?
Speaker 1: Healing the Success?
Speaker 2: And when I listened to that, I thought, Man, I
Speaker 2: wish that book came out like fifteen years ago. I
Speaker 2: when I was really at the peak of my time
Speaker 2: on Once upon a Time. I was so lucky and
Speaker 2: so happy to have had all of the work I'd
Speaker 2: had up at that point. I've been on like three
Speaker 2: hundred fifty episodes of television and just been able to
Speaker 2: truly like live an insane dream and have loved every
Speaker 2: second of that. But I also could feel this tugging
Speaker 2: of like a true self that just was constantly being
Speaker 2: pushed away because I was sacrificing to succeed. I was
Speaker 2: sacrificing to succeed. I was never seeing my friends, I
Speaker 2: was never seeing my family. I was always missing every event.
Speaker 2: I was spending every hour of the day being someone else,
Speaker 2: and no hours of the day even knowing who I was.
Speaker 2: You know, people would say like, what are you what's
Speaker 2: your favorite music? I was like, I can give you
Speaker 2: the characters playlist. I have no idea what I want
Speaker 2: to listen to, and so like, I felt like I
Speaker 2: was starting to dissolve as a person because I was
Speaker 2: so committed to the things I was doing, but not
Speaker 2: it had no space to be myself. And it's partly
Speaker 2: what pushed me to start directing. At the moment that
Speaker 2: I started directing because I started to feel like I
Speaker 2: was going to have a breakdown if I didn't do
Speaker 2: something that was mine, not because I didn't love what
Speaker 2: I was doing, but because I just didn't have anything
Speaker 2: that felt like it was mine. I started to realize
Speaker 2: that I could be myself and be creative while I
Speaker 2: was directing. I didn't have to give myself up to
Speaker 2: do the creative thing, so that felt incredibly motivating. And
Speaker 2: I also at the same time started doing the artist's way.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: It was such a perfect fit for what I needed
Speaker 2: in that moment, which was like it was forcing me
Speaker 2: to do things as myself and to assess almost like
Speaker 2: I had to assess myself the way I'd been assessing characters.
Speaker 1: It gave me like.
Speaker 2: A template to deal with myself and figure out myself
Speaker 2: the same way I'd been figuring out all these other
Speaker 2: people for my whole life. So that sort of breaking
Speaker 2: point for me, and like that pushed me really quickly
Speaker 2: into directing. And also just I knew I had to
Speaker 2: make changes or I wasn't going to be okay based
Speaker 2: on how I was feeling.
Speaker 1: Was completely life changing.
Speaker 2: It's probably why I can say any of the things
Speaker 2: I've said, while I've sat here today is because of
Speaker 2: the realizations that started to happen from that change. So
Speaker 2: I would say that the wound of that success, you know,
Speaker 2: was what started to help me repair and become the
Speaker 2: person that I am today. And then undeniably and comparably
Speaker 2: having a child. It is such a wild thing to
Speaker 2: have happened. I remember we were we induced because because
Speaker 2: of my age, they wanted us to induce early to
Speaker 2: make sure everything was safe and healthy, and so we
Speaker 2: knew it was weird to like schedule the birth of
Speaker 2: a child, but we knew when we were having the baby,
Speaker 2: so we we like went to dinner on the way
Speaker 2: and I just remember being in the car with my
Speaker 2: husband and he was like, isn't it's so crazy that,
Speaker 2: like everything's about to change. And I was like, I know,
Speaker 2: and everyone tells you it's going to be this big
Speaker 2: life changing moment, and I believe them, but I still
Speaker 2: don't know what that feels like.
Speaker 1: And in twenty four hours, we're going to know what
Speaker 1: that feels like. It's such a crazy thing, and you
Speaker 1: do sort of just get rewired, Like it's hard to explain,
Speaker 1: Like I went from one moment that baby was inside
Speaker 1: my body, and I was like, yeah, I could probably
Speaker 1: like hurt someone in self defense to like that baby
Speaker 1: was on my chest and I was like, I will
Speaker 1: fucking kill Yeah. Sorry, I don't know if I can swear.
Speaker 1: I can't, you know what I mean. Like it was
Speaker 1: just like and I was like, whoa. All that happened
Speaker 1: was it came out, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 1: you just feel this like primal thing like take over you,
Speaker 1: where you're just like my job now is to keep
Speaker 1: you alive and keep you safe and to love you
Speaker 1: in a way that like I had never felt in
Speaker 1: my life. It's such a different feeling of love.
Speaker 2: And then suddenly you have this little thing that you
Speaker 2: do have to keep alive and you love like you've
Speaker 2: never imagined before, and you still need to keep your
Speaker 2: life going, and so then you have to keep expanding
Speaker 2: and so you know, in order for all of that
Speaker 2: to keep happening together. And so from that point on,
Speaker 2: it's just a constant process of oh, Okay, I need to
Speaker 2: expand in this way.
Speaker 1: Now, I need to expand in this way. I need
Speaker 1: to expand in this way. Now.
Speaker 2: I need to know that I have no control over anything.
Speaker 2: I mean, being a parent makes you realize how you
Speaker 2: truly have no control over anything. So kind of a
Speaker 2: long answer to your question, but I would say both
Speaker 2: are pretty comparable in terms of how big the change was.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your candor. You have really interesting reflections,
Speaker 1: so it's just nice for me to hear you said
Speaker 1: that one of the reasons you love this industry is
Speaker 1: that you never run out of things to be curious about.
Speaker 1: I may be biased, but I love that about you.
Speaker 1: Every project sends you into new research, new people, new books,
Speaker 1: new ideas. What is acting and directing? Made you curious
Speaker 1: about that? Maybe your real life would have never led you.
Speaker 2: To on its own so many things, almost everything I've
Speaker 2: ever worked on. I mean, it's like it's so wild
Speaker 2: because maybe I just don't have that skill to like
Speaker 2: be curious accidentally about things. But as soon as something's
Speaker 2: brought to me, I'm suddenly very curious about all sorts
Speaker 2: of things I could never have thought of on my own.
Speaker 2: Certainly with house, all the medical stuff became a huge curiosity.
Speaker 2: And I read so many I mean, I've read so
Speaker 2: many memoirs for so many reasons with this industry, with
Speaker 2: the different projects. But you know, read all these memoirs
Speaker 2: of like phesiologists and pre med students and med students
Speaker 2: and doctors that had terrible accidents of things that happened,
Speaker 2: and doctors who saved tons of lives, And so I
Speaker 2: just went down such a rabbit hole of curiosities about
Speaker 2: like how you shoulder that kind of pressure in life,
Speaker 2: you know, like the pressure of running a set is
Speaker 2: nothing compared to like having someone's heart literally in your
Speaker 2: hands and a heart surgery.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I got to revisit those curiosities when I was directing
Speaker 2: Doctor Death and I got to watch a bunch of
Speaker 2: spinal surgeries, and You're just standing in there going like
Speaker 2: these guys because it's so natural for them, they're like
Speaker 2: shooting the shit and talking while they're like and I'm like,
Speaker 2: just pay attention to their neck. You don't have to
Speaker 2: talk to me. It's fine, you know your neck totally,
Speaker 2: you know. But to them, it's that's that's what they're
Speaker 2: gifted at, you know, And so for them, it's very natural.
Speaker 2: So I'm also curious about that, like who is born
Speaker 2: that way? Who's born in a way where cutting into
Speaker 2: someone's back and dealing with their spine feels like a
Speaker 2: normal day and they're.
Speaker 1: Fine with that and they can like go to bed
Speaker 1: at night. You know.
Speaker 2: So all that stuff was huge coming off of doing
Speaker 2: five Star Weekend. You know, there was so many different
Speaker 2: little nuances of things that came off. Even the idea
Speaker 2: of like I never imagine going to Nantucket. It wasn't
Speaker 2: a place I was really aware of. And just like
Speaker 2: the curiosities of that whole island. I mean, it used
Speaker 2: to be a whaling island and it used to be
Speaker 2: that like before electricity, it was one of the most
Speaker 2: like wild wild West places to make money killing whales,
Speaker 2: which is so dark because they needed the blubber to
Speaker 2: make the oil for the oil lamps for everyone everywhere.
Speaker 2: And so then that whole industry shifted and the whole
Speaker 2: island shifted once electricity came around, because it was like
Speaker 2: not as like you know, so to watch the history
Speaker 2: of like or to dive into the history of like
Speaker 2: a place that had this kind of like dark trade
Speaker 2: that was fueling it and then becoming this high end
Speaker 2: vacation place you know, two hundred years later.
Speaker 1: It's just things like that are just so fascinating.
Speaker 2: But it all speaks to what ends up on the
Speaker 2: screen with the project, right, and it might be very subtle,
Speaker 2: but you feel all those textures and things, and it
Speaker 2: just it's just an opportunity to constantly go down those
Speaker 2: rabbit holes.
Speaker 1: You mentioned house and I heard that you almost didn't
Speaker 1: go to that audition. When you think about that, how
Speaker 1: I mean that was a life changing, yes, role, When
Speaker 1: you think about that, how much of your career has
Speaker 1: been serendipity and how much has just in sort of
Speaker 1: your direction?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, none of it's my direction. All of it
Speaker 2: is just whatever I'm lucky enough to have happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was a weird one because I was testing for
Speaker 2: so many other pilots. This was back when they were
Speaker 2: making a ton of pilots, like we were talking about
Speaker 2: earlier in this conversation, and so you know, back in
Speaker 2: the day, you could audition for like six things in
Speaker 2: a day, and you had thirty five pages you had
Speaker 2: to know, and you'd read five scripts the night before,
Speaker 2: and you're changing clothes in the back of your car
Speaker 2: and you're trying to read the Thomas Guide to figure
Speaker 2: out where you're going because there was no navigation systems.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is like totally aging me, But it
Speaker 2: was a very different time, and this was sort of
Speaker 2: the tail end of that time, and so I heard
Speaker 2: you knew, I was like getting the I already had
Speaker 2: these test offers for other pilots, and that my pilot
Speaker 2: season was going well, and I really wanted to work
Speaker 2: with Brian Singer, who was directing the pilot. So I
Speaker 2: was very interested from that standpoint. And the writing was
Speaker 2: incredible and I loved the character. But I'm like, who's
Speaker 2: going to hire me to play a thirty two year
Speaker 2: old amiology. I was twenty four years old, and.
Speaker 1: It was like pouring rain, and I didn't know if
Speaker 1: I had time to prepare properly, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to go in and like do a bad job for
Speaker 1: Brian Singer and think at first I tried to just
Speaker 1: move it to another day and then they couldn't. And
Speaker 1: I remember a friend, I think a friend of mine
Speaker 1: went with and like ran lines with me in the
Speaker 1: parking lot because I felt so unprepared because it was
Speaker 1: like I did so little time and yeah, and it
Speaker 1: was raining and I was like a drowned rat. When
Speaker 1: I went in, I was like so wet. I didn't
Speaker 1: have my umbrella.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, La when it first starts to
Speaker 2: rain in February is like such a disaster.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one knows how to drive. No. I think
Speaker 1: that was part of the magic maybe.
Speaker 2: And also, you know, again, it's like the luck you
Speaker 2: were talking about, or the kismet or I can't remember
Speaker 2: what word you used, I'm sorry. But I had worked
Speaker 2: with John Ottman on Urban Legends to the final cut,
Speaker 2: and he was Brian Singer's editor normally, and Brian had
Speaker 2: visited that sat years before briefly.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: I had a little bit of a sense of him,
Speaker 2: and so I didn't feel as intimidated I guess, as
Speaker 2: maybe someone might have going into this big director for
Speaker 2: this thing. And also I think because I thought I
Speaker 2: wasn't right for the role, I didn't have as much
Speaker 2: pressure in my head about trying to do it right.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was kind of like, well, I'm not really right
Speaker 2: for this anyway. And I remember thinking I'm drenched, I'm
Speaker 2: walking in I just need to get to the bathroom.
Speaker 2: I need to go to the bathroom. I need to
Speaker 2: like try to dry my hair off. I need to
Speaker 2: put myself together. I need to figure out if there's
Speaker 2: mascara all over my face. I need to just look
Speaker 2: at my sides and collect myself. And I walked in
Speaker 2: and Brian Singer was sitting in the lobby.
Speaker 1: I know. Hey.
Speaker 2: I was like, ah, so we're not going to get
Speaker 2: to pull ourselves together here, but I you know, leaned
Speaker 2: on having met. I said, you know, we met briefly
Speaker 2: years ago. You would never remember it, but like, and
Speaker 2: he's like, oh, I love John.
Speaker 1: He's the best.
Speaker 2: And I was like, it was so great working with him,
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah. So we had a little bit
Speaker 2: of a shorthand from that. And he's a real ca
Speaker 2: character too, so he was, you know, saying a much
Speaker 2: of crazy stuff. And he was like, come on in,
Speaker 2: and I was like, holy crap, I'm really not getting
Speaker 2: any chance. I did not even get a chance to
Speaker 2: go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So I go in and he's like, yeah, don't don't
Speaker 2: worry if I don't give you notes, I don't give
Speaker 2: anyone notes. And I was like, all right, big fancy director.
Speaker 2: If you're not going to give me notes after, why
Speaker 2: you give me notes now? And he was like and
Speaker 2: then he did.
Speaker 1: He started talking about the character and he started, and
Speaker 1: I mean I said it like playfully, where he could
Speaker 1: have been like, just go ahead and do it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like he could have just dismissed
Speaker 1: it and said go but he actually like realized I
Speaker 1: wasn't intimidated, and I was like, I really want something,
Speaker 1: you know, And so he gave me notes before I
Speaker 1: did it, which were super helpful, and I got a
Speaker 1: sense of what he was looking for. And then I
Speaker 1: did it, and then he gave me more notes, and
Speaker 1: he gave me more notes, and I was in there
Speaker 1: for a long time and we just played around and
Speaker 1: did it a bunch of different ways, and then I
Speaker 1: left and I still felt terrible, not because it like
Speaker 1: went terribly, but I was like I went to the
Speaker 1: bathroom and I was a drowned rat. There was mascara
Speaker 1: on my eyelids, like my hair was everywhere. I realized
Speaker 1: I had this like bra that like had stuck to
Speaker 1: my shirt. Weard and like my bra was.
Speaker 2: Showing, and I was like, I'm not getting this job.
Speaker 2: I look at like a mess. And so I went home.
Speaker 2: It was like kind of later in the day at
Speaker 2: this point, and I like just turned off my phone
Speaker 2: and went to sleep. I was like, I don't want
Speaker 2: to think about this. This is like how I would
Speaker 2: compartmentalize at the time. And I woke up to like
Speaker 2: just a thousand mis texts and messages everywhere trying to
Speaker 2: find me, you know, and I was like.
Speaker 1: They're like, they love you, they want to test you.
Speaker 2: And I was like, wait what And then he I
Speaker 2: guess Brian that night they had said he was like,
Speaker 2: that's her, like he just said.
Speaker 1: As soon as I left the room, He's like, I
Speaker 1: just want to hire her. There, Brian, you have to
Speaker 1: see everybody else. You can't. He's like, no, that's who
Speaker 1: I want.
Speaker 2: And they're like, well, you have to go through today's
Speaker 2: sessions and then you need to look at some other
Speaker 2: like offer only tapes tonight. So they sent him offer
Speaker 2: only tapes that night, and they also sent my reel
Speaker 2: with the offer only tapes, just so that he had
Speaker 2: a point of reference of other stuff. When I walked
Speaker 2: in the room, I had because I was doing Mister
Speaker 2: Missus Smith at the time. The tape that they sent
Speaker 2: I had blonde hair. He called them in the morning
Speaker 2: he said, all right, you guys are right, there's one
Speaker 2: other actress I like there's this blonde girl. I'll test
Speaker 2: her against Jennifer. You're kidding And they said, Brian, that
Speaker 2: is Jennifer. So yeah, and so I mean it was fate.
Speaker 1: I mean I knew you were. It was just for
Speaker 1: whatever reason. I was it like, that's a hilarious story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I didn't even I didn't know that storytell
Speaker 2: he told that story when we were on a panel
Speaker 2: and I was like, I didn't know that happened.
Speaker 1: So yeah.
Speaker 2: So then they were like, Okay, well we just need
Speaker 2: to get her in because we're going to lose her
Speaker 2: to these other test offers. And so then that night
Speaker 2: I had to go in and test, and Gail Burman
Speaker 2: was running Fox at the time, and she gave me
Speaker 2: the job in the room.
Speaker 1: So it was good. It must have been so exciting.
Speaker 1: It was wild. It was also it was exciting, It
Speaker 1: was wild, and it was like such a gift from
Speaker 1: the universe in many ways, as you were point out earlier,
Speaker 1: but also because the previous pilot season, I had tested
Speaker 1: for fourteen pilots and not gotten one, so just statistically
Speaker 1: I should have gotten one, and so I had a
Speaker 1: lot of heartbreak the season before, and so I felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, when that happened, I was kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you for giving me some grace and some gentleness
Speaker 1: this time around, you know, And also like, had you
Speaker 1: gotten one of those other ones? No, and none of
Speaker 1: those shows went yeah, yeah, okay. I have some rapid
Speaker 1: fire questions. Thanks for you a role that changed you house,
Speaker 1: a character of yours that you'd want advice from, probably Cassidy.
Speaker 1: And this is Us a show that you wish you
Speaker 1: could direct an episode of. That's a really good question.
Speaker 1: Paradise you just you and Sterling have a thing. I
Speaker 1: watched you guys in an interview. I love him, you
Speaker 1: get each other. We do that whole cast though, and
Speaker 1: I mean dan fulwoman who's the show. He's just he's
Speaker 1: so spectacular. I didn't see you with the show runner,
Speaker 1: but in that interview, I was like, everyone's close, but
Speaker 1: you guys were in just a different ways. Hopefully with
Speaker 1: you know, some way in the future we'll get to
Speaker 1: work together. Yeah, A director who shaped the way you
Speaker 1: see Scorsese, JJ Abrams, and Kevin O'Connor. Sorry that's three,
Speaker 1: but it's okay, a comfort rewatch. Well, I did answer this.
Speaker 1: I have a couple comfort rewatches.
Speaker 2: But I did just answer this specifically for your question set,
Speaker 2: which is usually the graduate. But I also could say,
Speaker 2: like when Harry met Sally that before Sunrise Trilogy, I
Speaker 2: have a few different comforts that.
Speaker 1: I turned to. I love when Harry met Sally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lesson from acting that made you a better director?
Speaker 1: I think sort of a variation on what we were
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 2: It just like knowing the actors come with so much
Speaker 2: in their pocket and that as a director I could
Speaker 2: gain so much if I can like get in that pocket.
Speaker 1: How about the opposite, A lesson from directing that made
Speaker 1: you a better actor? Do whatever anyone asked you to do,
Speaker 1: Just try it, Just try all of it, Like look
Speaker 1: in every direction, stand on whatever mark, make everything possible
Speaker 1: because you have no idea how it's going to come off,
Speaker 1: and you have no idea how it's all going to
Speaker 1: fit together. A character you weren't ready to say goodbye
Speaker 1: to Zoe? And how I about your mother? A question
Speaker 1: that you ask yourself before saying yes, do I feel
Speaker 1: at peace? What's something every woman should try once?
Speaker 2: The first thing I thought was sleeping, But that's probably
Speaker 2: because I'm really tired right now.
Speaker 1: That could be number one answer all the time for
Speaker 1: that question. I was like, if I'm gonna be honest
Speaker 1: about my gut reaction, I was like, sleeping. We need
Speaker 1: more of it, We do need more of it.
Speaker 2: We should try once, though, I feel like taking a
Speaker 2: trip by yourself.
Speaker 1: I think that it's like if you go to.
Speaker 2: A movie alone compared to going to a movie with
Speaker 2: a friend or a loved one or whatever. You just
Speaker 2: have a different experience watching that movie. Not necessarily bad,
Speaker 2: not necessarily better or worse, but just different. And I
Speaker 2: think that there is something too, like the way you
Speaker 2: move through a new space when it's not at all
Speaker 2: edited by another person. And so I think every woman
Speaker 2: should like take a vacation by herself once.
Speaker 1: A book that you love, something you think everybody should read.
Speaker 1: East of Eden is one that I go back to
Speaker 1: all the time. It's always felt really powerful to me.
Speaker 2: And then I read I can't remember what it's called now,
Speaker 2: but it's like his journals of when he was writing it.
Speaker 2: When Steinbeck was writing it, and he talks about how
Speaker 2: he wrote the book because he knew he wasn't always
Speaker 2: with his sons, because he was separated from their mother,
Speaker 2: and that he wanted to try to articulate his understanding
Speaker 2: of good and evil to them. I did not know
Speaker 2: that when I fell in love with the book, but
Speaker 2: like talk about it, like changing your perspective of the book,
Speaker 2: because I probably read that six seven, eight times, I
Speaker 2: mean maybe more and so. But the latest reread was
Speaker 2: after reading the journals. And it's really powerful when you
Speaker 2: realize how personal it is.
Speaker 1: Beautiful, Well, you grab the card game, yes, pick whichever
Speaker 1: question calls to? Boy? Oh boy? Who signed your mic?
Speaker 1: By the way, you know, you are the first person
Speaker 1: to notice that, really it's pretty fancy. It is Larry King. Ah.
Speaker 1: I love that you asked that he was my mentor.
Speaker 1: I was like, this has got to be someone really
Speaker 1: special because this is all white and that is that
Speaker 1: is a real signature. In almost two hundred and fifty episodes,
Speaker 1: you are the first person to add I'm very honored.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to see the noticing. You're amazing.
Speaker 2: All right, let's see what's happening here. Oh dear, do
Speaker 2: plants thrive or die in your gear? They die me too,
Speaker 2: They die so fast. Yeah, I've even tried talking to
Speaker 2: them recently.
Speaker 1: I was like, I feel like there's something wrong with
Speaker 1: me that I can't keep plants alive. Do I keep
Speaker 1: this out or do I know you could throw it
Speaker 1: back in there. I just want you to know I
Speaker 1: kill even succulent, so you're not alone. That makes me
Speaker 1: feel a lot better. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, I just worried that maybe it said something about
Speaker 2: my soul. And I do love plants. I just don't
Speaker 2: know how to care for them.
Speaker 1: Jennifer Morrison, you are just exquisite. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. It's so nice to talk to you. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad this worked out. Thank you. Okay, you know
Speaker 1: what time it is. Today's a good day to have
Speaker 1: a good day. I'll see you next week. H