Speaker 1: This is Rebecca Soulnett talking about hashtag me too, if
Speaker 1: the right to speak, if having credibility, if being heard,
Speaker 1: is a kind of wealth. That wealth is now being redistributed.
Speaker 1: There has long been an elite with audibility and credibility
Speaker 1: and underclass of the voiceless. As the wealth is redistributed,
Speaker 1: the stunned incomprehension of the elites erupts over and over again,
Speaker 1: a fury and disbelief that this woman or child dared
Speaker 1: to speak up, that people deigned to believe her, that
Speaker 1: her voice counts for something. Our voice is a reflection
Speaker 1: of our life experience, where we've been and who we've
Speaker 1: listened to. But we can also own it and even
Speaker 1: change it if we want. This is the podcast that's
Speaker 1: all about the voice, but it's also all about power,
Speaker 1: Who has it, how we get it, and how we
Speaker 1: sound when we have it. I'm Samrve. I'm a dialect
Speaker 1: coach for actors in Hollywood on projects like the upcoming
Speaker 1: Wonder Woman's sequel, and I'm also a speech coach for entrepreneurs, politicians, creatives,
Speaker 1: and women everywhere who need to use their voice to
Speaker 1: get what they want. Welcome to permission, to speak. Let's
Speaker 1: do this. Today's guest is Steph Green. She is a
Speaker 1: director for television and film. In fact, one of her
Speaker 1: first films, Short in two thousand and seven, got an
Speaker 1: Oscar nomination right out of the gate, and she's gone
Speaker 1: on to direct film and many many episodes of television.
Speaker 1: She did Billions, she did the Americans Man in the
Speaker 1: High Castle, an episode of Watchmen, the L Word, which
Speaker 1: we talked about in this interview. So she's had to
Speaker 1: use her voice to lead, and this is why I
Speaker 1: really wanted to have her on. The culture that she's
Speaker 1: doing it in is totally unique, you know, hashtag set life,
Speaker 1: but there's lessons for all of us. What's crazy about
Speaker 1: the Hollywood aspect of it is that when you're directing
Speaker 1: on set, things move super fast. There are no walls
Speaker 1: to your office, there's a massive amount of money on
Speaker 1: the line and hundreds of people's jobs. You often have
Speaker 1: to decide things on the fly based on gut instinct,
Speaker 1: and there's a real but often unlabeled and like completely
Speaker 1: nebulous hierarchy of power players whose interests you have to
Speaker 1: juggle or everyone will mutiny. HR isn't a thing, and
Speaker 1: it's also deeply male dominated, and within that you have
Speaker 1: to make decisions and make art anyway. I have gotten
Speaker 1: to see her work firsthand because I dialect coached on
Speaker 1: a show that she directed, and I am very excited
Speaker 1: to be able to bring the magic I saw then
Speaker 1: to you guys. Now Here's stuff staff. It's such a
Speaker 1: pleasant here pleasure to be. I remember when I was
Speaker 1: had the honor of being a dialect coach on a
Speaker 1: Steph Green set for the TV show Preacher, like two
Speaker 1: years ago in New Orleans. Was great, and you called
Speaker 1: me part of the mind meld tear. It was such
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, obviously were I've been in a
Speaker 1: lot of sets. I mean every director deals with the
Speaker 1: dynamic of collaboration on a set differently. I have noticed,
Speaker 1: almost exclusively, the women are the ones who are most
Speaker 1: open to like turning around to the people who sit
Speaker 1: behind them in video Village and actually using those resources.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Your position of that close observation of the
Speaker 1: director is very I mean it's really producers, script supervisor
Speaker 1: and a very select few that are sitting that close
Speaker 1: to the director on set. That's a really interesting person
Speaker 1: for anybody listening. Video Village is where the video monitors
Speaker 1: are set up that we're watching the action happen for
Speaker 1: every single take. And yeah, the front row is usually
Speaker 1: the director and the script supervisor who keeps track of continuity,
Speaker 1: you know, take if by take by take, and then
Speaker 1: hovering around there is often a writer of from a producer,
Speaker 1: and then the strange other person who somehow gets gets
Speaker 1: her way in is the dialect coach. Because really we
Speaker 1: are working pretty intimately with the actors and with everybody,
Speaker 1: trying to make sure that the story is being told
Speaker 1: with both the sounds and also literally the words. And
Speaker 1: I find that that's a sacred space. That's my office,
Speaker 1: that's all of our offices on set. And though many
Speaker 1: different crew members may come up to you as a
Speaker 1: director and ask a question, or you may need something
Speaker 1: and go talk to them, of the hundred people on set,
Speaker 1: there are generally four or five people in that little
Speaker 1: office looking at that screen. And what I loved about
Speaker 1: having you there, and what I love about having that
Speaker 1: coach there is they are scrutinizing what's happening on screen
Speaker 1: with performances the same way I am. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at other things too, but I like the partnership
Speaker 1: of someone else squinting, you know, in this focused way
Speaker 1: at that screen, that little monitor that's that's giving us everything,
Speaker 1: all the results of all the hard work that's happening
Speaker 1: on that set. You know, that capturing Ultimately in the
Speaker 1: editing room, that's what you got. So I really appreciate that,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate all the levels of collaboration. You wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about communication, Maybe we start with set and
Speaker 1: we can kind of talk out from there. But that's
Speaker 1: what I was thinking about on the way here. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about communication on set and sort of energetically
Speaker 1: how you are balancing your very careful position of power
Speaker 1: and leadership with the fact that you need every single
Speaker 1: individual on that set to be helping you at one time,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're looking at them there, You're with them,
Speaker 1: You're in contact with them. I can imagine in other
Speaker 1: industries someone from down in another department maybe doing something
Speaker 1: for you, but you may never interact with that. I
Speaker 1: mean literally, you just referenced video village as your office,
Speaker 1: but it has no walls exactly exactly. So you are
Speaker 1: learning daily and for me, attempting to improve communication with
Speaker 1: such a diverse and constantly fluid group of people, a
Speaker 1: lot of people, So how do you create a shorthand?
Speaker 1: I mean that is where where prep is so important,
Speaker 1: because prep is where you are working with heads of department,
Speaker 1: which would be like costume design, production designer, makeup and hair,
Speaker 1: and you are establishing the shared vision ahead of time,
Speaker 1: you know, getting onto the same page as all your
Speaker 1: heads of department. That's your like board meeting. I guess
Speaker 1: that you're in for prep and then I find like
Speaker 1: really learning who their departments are, who are their key people,
Speaker 1: who are they being supported by? And knowing those names.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a huge thing and that names are
Speaker 1: really hard for me, and it's something I'm really working on.
Speaker 1: You know, being able to look at someone in the
Speaker 1: eyes say a name and then of course they thank
Speaker 1: you or ask your question or listen to their contribution,
Speaker 1: like step one and learning a hundred names quickly is
Speaker 1: a thing. And you know, we talked about it. Some
Speaker 1: of the producers I work with you always are like
Speaker 1: should we put name tags on the first couple of
Speaker 1: weeks of working together? But and I'm for it because
Speaker 1: I think we're moving so quickly. That's the other thing.
Speaker 1: We're moving so fast. So I think about communication, but
Speaker 1: I was also sort of driving here thinking I think
Speaker 1: about how I listen, and then how it is a
Speaker 1: demand of the job to be decisive and supportive, because
Speaker 1: that's what I'm information. You're you're listening, but you're also
Speaker 1: not just saying yes to everybody. You can't. You can't
Speaker 1: because they have conflicting ideas. Sometimes you know, one department
Speaker 1: thinks one way, in one department, you're not moderating as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you have your own vision eating that you're trying
Speaker 1: to bring to the table, elevating, shaping the show, shaping
Speaker 1: the storytelling. So can you talk about a moment when
Speaker 1: you actually have to be decisive and it's going to
Speaker 1: make somebody frustrated? Right? You know? It's it's interesting because
Speaker 1: you have to understand and anticipate and know them well
Speaker 1: enough to understand how that disappointment works for them, and
Speaker 1: because it is such compressed time. I do feel that
Speaker 1: it's incredibly important to acknowledge what they are bringing, what
Speaker 1: they have done, how they are guiding the decision making,
Speaker 1: and that in fact there contribution, even though I may
Speaker 1: not see it that way. Has helped me clarify how
Speaker 1: I do see it, and I think that making sure
Speaker 1: that you're you're gracious about that, and you're acknowledging of
Speaker 1: that that that idea is really valuable. Here where people
Speaker 1: start to collapse is when they feel their ideas aren't valuable.
Speaker 1: And it's a really fine line because you need to
Speaker 1: make those decisions quickly. I just snapped at the microphone. Sorry, microphone.
Speaker 1: You need to make those decisions so quickly that people
Speaker 1: can get it can get very personal very quickly, and
Speaker 1: then you know, you find yourself going, I think somebody
Speaker 1: might be offended there, and then I and then I'm
Speaker 1: trying to fix that, but we don't. We don't always
Speaker 1: have time, you know. So it's it's that's why it's
Speaker 1: a tough industry, totally tough to create trust, tough to
Speaker 1: not take things personally. And everybody in every department, from
Speaker 1: you know, the set to the makeup to the dialect
Speaker 1: coach like, we're there because we're obsessed with the thing
Speaker 1: that we're there for and ideally also have a sense
Speaker 1: of the whole, but not always, you know, Well, it's
Speaker 1: kind of to be weirdly obsessed with the one thing
Speaker 1: that we're there for. Absolutely and then I think the
Speaker 1: director's job in many situations is the inclusivity of all, right,
Speaker 1: so bringing your particular passion to the whole. And I
Speaker 1: enjoy that. I like that because I'm surrounded by creative
Speaker 1: artists who are passionate. What you're painting the picture of
Speaker 1: is leadership, right, I mean, that's what we're really talking
Speaker 1: about here, And leadership in I don't know, I guess
Speaker 1: a more stereotypically female way entails that there is a
Speaker 1: sense of empowering other people, that they're making them feel appreciated,
Speaker 1: that you're making sure that they feel like they have
Speaker 1: a voice. And then ultimately decisions have to be made.
Speaker 1: And so you know, you can't obviously make everybody happy
Speaker 1: in every moment, but hopefully you're making them happy overall
Speaker 1: because they feel like they're part of something bigger, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I've I've been fortunate to work for men who
Speaker 1: operated exactly that way too, you know, and those have
Speaker 1: been guides for me as well. And you know, I've
Speaker 1: been working in television for four years straight. That is
Speaker 1: crazy because it seems like longer, and also because you're
Speaker 1: doing amazing or thank you the majority of of who
Speaker 1: I've worked for and with our men and on great
Speaker 1: projects the Americans, Watchmen, Billions, I mean, just robust, fantastic
Speaker 1: storytelling of late There are more women to work for
Speaker 1: in drama, which is exciting, And these last two pilots
Speaker 1: were with women, with Jana Fattory Megan Abbott on Deremy
Speaker 1: and then Marja Lewis Ryan on Hellwards. So it's very
Speaker 1: exciting and it is interesting to be working with women
Speaker 1: who I think do have in general, and I towards
Speaker 1: hiring more women and diversifying and then working with you know,
Speaker 1: tradition really or I'm generalizing, but you know, more feminine traits. Sure,
Speaker 1: I think they do show up. What do you mean, well,
Speaker 1: nurturing and I think there's all sides to that that
Speaker 1: can mean. You know, like you said, ultimately, you can't
Speaker 1: make everyone happy, right, and women have to really I
Speaker 1: think stick to our guns in a way that in
Speaker 1: a way that's still challenging because we we haven't always
Speaker 1: been given the opportunity to be the final word on things,
Speaker 1: the absolutely final word. The buck stops here. This woman
Speaker 1: is fully in charge of this project. So I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of skills that we've by, We like
Speaker 1: the ancestors of us. Yeah, have developed our persuasion skills
Speaker 1: because we're not the final say that's right, and you know,
Speaker 1: and maybe and I'm still working with all of these ideas.
Speaker 1: This is all just part of, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a learning curve. And you know, I guess watching how
Speaker 1: women work with emotion differently because it's been a different
Speaker 1: kind of tool for us. I guess you could say
Speaker 1: the way you're saying persuasion is different. Really it's about power.
Speaker 1: Where do we find our power in a landscape that
Speaker 1: has not doesn't entitle us too much power? In certain environments,
Speaker 1: there's no assumption that we're going to have power, So
Speaker 1: how do we sit in our power? So how do
Speaker 1: you sit in your power? Stuff? Well, I'm working on that,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm watching women around me and I'm getting
Speaker 1: inspired and I'm what do you notice? Ease to be
Speaker 1: at ease with oneself and one's level of knowledge and experience,
Speaker 1: accepting there's of course room to grow, but sort of
Speaker 1: owning the hard work that one has done up until
Speaker 1: this point. And you know, really, I guess it's a
Speaker 1: it's a cliche less fear of failure, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of like this is who I am, Take me or
Speaker 1: leave me. I think that's been a scary thing for
Speaker 1: me because you know also that I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: this town can make you feel like, well, what do
Speaker 1: you need me to be right now? Albeit give me
Speaker 1: this up tunity, I'll be what you need me to be,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm just getting older and working more
Speaker 1: you start to think, well, you know, what can this
Speaker 1: do for me as an experience, and what can I
Speaker 1: do for them? And like it's not just what projects
Speaker 1: are looking that I can fit myself into, but also
Speaker 1: what type of projects do I want to be exactly.
Speaker 1: That's a constant conversation internally and with with my peers.
Speaker 1: I think we're all figuring that out. And also, like
Speaker 1: the times continue to change absolutely, and it's so inspiring.
Speaker 1: I see things changing rapidly, you know, the type of
Speaker 1: artists that are being appreciated, the women coming into their
Speaker 1: power and starting to lead and support other women artists.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think of Lena Wave like immediately,
Speaker 1: that's who's producing the show that I'm on right now?
Speaker 1: Really yeah, right, I mean, she took her success and
Speaker 1: now she is really making things happen. It's just incredibly
Speaker 1: inspiring and I get really buzzed about that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels like we're like, oh, there's a paradigm that
Speaker 1: could be shifting. Let's just um, not just to shift,
Speaker 1: let's shift it. Let's just do it, and let's do
Speaker 1: it consciously. And there's still a real problem. But I
Speaker 1: will say on the L word, Marjah was incredibly adamant
Speaker 1: about diversity hiring the show runner and showrunner for people
Speaker 1: listening means the person who's in charge of the writer's room,
Speaker 1: yes and more, and really the overall kind of boss
Speaker 1: of the series at large. And I'd be coming up
Speaker 1: with and we can talk about prep and you know
Speaker 1: what we're doing in prep, but I'd be coming up
Speaker 1: with sort of the visual you know, participation in casting,
Speaker 1: participation in everything that launches the world that we're gonna
Speaker 1: put this show in. But we were so interested in
Speaker 1: diversity as we were hiring, and we really confronted the
Speaker 1: lack everywhere, just of lists that would come to us
Speaker 1: from different you know, it's that internal kind of Hollywood
Speaker 1: conversation like where and then we but we found people
Speaker 1: and I saw it at work, you know, truly sifting
Speaker 1: the balance. And uh, I'm starting to see that more
Speaker 1: and more. I was reading from Lyndy West's new book
Speaker 1: called The Witches Are Coming, and she has an essay
Speaker 1: about sort of the responsibility that Hollywood might or might
Speaker 1: not have after Weinstein, And what I love about it
Speaker 1: is that she's not actually just talking about in terms
Speaker 1: of hiring, but she's actually talking about the stories that
Speaker 1: we tell. Yes, um, and so I'm going to read
Speaker 1: this quote of hers and maybe we can talk about it.
Speaker 1: She says. To make that reckoning stick, the reckoning of
Speaker 1: the me too movement, we have to look ahead and
Speaker 1: ask ourselves what we want of this new Hollywood, and
Speaker 1: look back to avoid repeating the past. Show Business could
Speaker 1: very well help us get out of this mess, but
Speaker 1: not if we fail to examine how it helped us
Speaker 1: get into it. Hollywood is both a perfect and a
Speaker 1: bizarre vanguard in the war for culture change. Perfect because
Speaker 1: its reaches so vast, it's influenced so potent. Bizarre because
Speaker 1: television movies are how a great many toxic ideas embed
Speaker 1: themselves inside us in the first place, No matter how
Speaker 1: much lips are as we pay tweet quality and progress,
Speaker 1: how many mantras about loving ourselves and one another. How
Speaker 1: many inspirational memes we churn out to counteract the message.
Speaker 1: The basist culture, the culture that sells, the culture we're
Speaker 1: used to, is still there on screen, showing us how
Speaker 1: people are supposed to look and talk and fuck. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: That's great, right. And I thought of you when I
Speaker 1: was reading that, because of the projects that you're working
Speaker 1: on now. I mean, you just did watch Man, you
Speaker 1: just did the L word. It feels like this is
Speaker 1: the new vanguard. I mean, this is the attempt to
Speaker 1: say we can't just tell the same stories and make
Speaker 1: hiring different. I hope and must believe that that's the case,
Speaker 1: and I am choosing projects with that in mind. What
Speaker 1: are we really saying here? And when I write somewhat
Speaker 1: and when I think about what I want to write,
Speaker 1: I think about that I've always thought about message And
Speaker 1: this denial that we do internalize these messages is is
Speaker 1: like denying climate change. We do internalize what we see
Speaker 1: on these screens. This is our campfire now, this is
Speaker 1: the wisdom that has passed to us from these screens.
Speaker 1: And I do feel responsibility. I also feel like when
Speaker 1: I give, I give a d and of myself I
Speaker 1: want to believe that I'm putting something into the world
Speaker 1: that is good for humanity, is for positive growth in
Speaker 1: some way. You're not always right. You do your best
Speaker 1: to feel that out, you know, but um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: really hope. So I hope that's right. And I mean,
Speaker 1: we still have a long way to go to kind
Speaker 1: of recognize our shadow as a race, as a as humans.
Speaker 1: Watchman is really asking questions, and l Ward is really
Speaker 1: looking at shame, and you know, Daremy is looking at
Speaker 1: you know, sort of. I mean, Megan Abbot is brilliant
Speaker 1: in so many ways. But the feminism isn't just about
Speaker 1: heroic women. It's about all women. It's about flaw, it's
Speaker 1: about intent, it's about friendship and the flip side of friendship,
Speaker 1: how women treat each other, and you know, it's it's everything.
Speaker 1: And also, like, what even is female heroism? Like it
Speaker 1: doesn't require that it's sort of that masculine sense of
Speaker 1: heroism where like one person is in charge of some revolution.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. What is female power? What does
Speaker 1: it look like? So? What does it look like? Stuff?
Speaker 1: Obviously it's sort of it's it's comically too big of
Speaker 1: a question, but it is also literally the point of
Speaker 1: this podcast is what does female power look and sound like?
Speaker 1: I feel like we don't have um, it's not that there.
Speaker 1: It isn't there, right we we we all have people
Speaker 1: in our own lives and people certainly that we can
Speaker 1: look at in Congress right now who are who are
Speaker 1: lighting the way, but we don't necessarily have like the
Speaker 1: language to sort of talk about it in the place
Speaker 1: to collect the stories. And there is this sort of
Speaker 1: modern notion. And I would love to ask that question
Speaker 1: to a twenty year old you know, really speak it please,
Speaker 1: because I know from me there was a there was
Speaker 1: a notion of I guess the powerful woman that was
Speaker 1: kind of the having it all, like a little bit
Speaker 1: of the capitalist dream that we had with men in
Speaker 1: the fifties, right that you would kind of come back
Speaker 1: from the war and get a house and get a
Speaker 1: wife and get two kids and have a great job
Speaker 1: and you know, great vacations and for my generations, like
Speaker 1: you as a woman can have all that too. You
Speaker 1: can have the kids and the job and the and
Speaker 1: as I've worked in a career that is fourteen hours
Speaker 1: a day, and I know you know the same. You know,
Speaker 1: you just start to go, well, actually it's not all
Speaker 1: quite possible in the way I idealized it, and I
Speaker 1: actually feel exhausted and depleted and I feel less empowered
Speaker 1: by all these things I'm trying to accomplish. So in
Speaker 1: a way, for me, it's self realization, whatever that looks
Speaker 1: like for you, and getting away from a sort of
Speaker 1: social pressure normalized, you know, heteronormal ideal that we have
Speaker 1: to realize we kind of inherited it was you can
Speaker 1: have it too, what's it for you? And what was
Speaker 1: a response to, like sort of elbowing our way in
Speaker 1: so that we could have the same dream the men
Speaker 1: were sold right, Although you know, having a family and
Speaker 1: having a good job is sort of a general desire
Speaker 1: of course, but I think, I think, I think a
Speaker 1: lot about that, and women I admire are sort of
Speaker 1: seem to be structuring all that for themselves, truly, for
Speaker 1: themselves to self realize what they really want, which could
Speaker 1: be not having it all or what or total definition
Speaker 1: of what it all is. There's a woman I grew
Speaker 1: up with who you know, I think she volunteered abroad,
Speaker 1: like she stayed abroad, she still works in like, you know,
Speaker 1: just defining success for yourself and power. This feels like
Speaker 1: it's really about giving ourselves permission to look at what
Speaker 1: the rules are that we were handed down and say, like,
Speaker 1: who you to these rules? What if we break them? A?
Speaker 1: What do we want? But be can we get it
Speaker 1: by like putting a critical eye on those things that
Speaker 1: seemed like they were hard and fast rules. I mean
Speaker 1: from the vast like you're talking about in terms of
Speaker 1: how we structure our lives and whether or not we
Speaker 1: go for you know, trying to buy a house in
Speaker 1: this amazing l a climate um and having children and
Speaker 1: all these massive questions, but also just the tiny, the
Speaker 1: tiny things like literally how much emotion are we allowed
Speaker 1: to bring into work? I was just gonna say, I
Speaker 1: think we got kind of macro there, but ultimately, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like there's almost like I feel like sometimes we
Speaker 1: feel trip wires, right, Like I can be powerful in
Speaker 1: this way, but I can't be powerful in this way.
Speaker 1: For example, anger like anger just we don't really get
Speaker 1: to be angry, or at least that's again I don't
Speaker 1: give myself permission to be angry. That cuts off a
Speaker 1: whole range of feelings and then we're sort of we're
Speaker 1: just perpetuating that a woman can be a great leader,
Speaker 1: but if she gets angry once, she's crazy. But I
Speaker 1: think using anger for focus, for fire, for passion, directing
Speaker 1: different emotional range to your purpose. You know, we were
Speaker 1: encouraged in some ways and we're discouraged. And we've been
Speaker 1: discouraged in so many ways from young ages. I mean
Speaker 1: from a young ageoshold, I'll be a great mom, so
Speaker 1: straight to nurturing, and you know, certain kinds of outbursts
Speaker 1: just did not look good on me, did not look
Speaker 1: good on a girl, right, And I just I think
Speaker 1: they're seen as power. They can be seen as power
Speaker 1: in young boys and as really disturbing in young girls. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk more about this coming up. Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're bad. We were just talking during a little
Speaker 1: break about the reality of how impossible this is. I mean,
Speaker 1: the quote unquote double bind of like you have to
Speaker 1: be strong, but you have to be likable. It shows
Speaker 1: up in these ways where we can all say, as
Speaker 1: women who are finding our way into power late thirties,
Speaker 1: early forties, whatever, where maybe moms for the first time,
Speaker 1: where maybe leaders for the first time, and we're saying like, oh, funck,
Speaker 1: now my version of leadership. What's it going to sound like?
Speaker 1: What rules can I truly break? Because I'm in the
Speaker 1: position where like I could fucking break them and I
Speaker 1: and I won't, you know, there won't be repercussions. And
Speaker 1: then there are people get fired in this town all
Speaker 1: the time. And I have found and my question to you,
Speaker 1: I guess is here's a way that a stereotype tends
Speaker 1: to show up for female directors. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: middle aged I'm just gonna say, schlubby white men who
Speaker 1: hang out on sets because they have their whole lives
Speaker 1: and it's an entire department of say three or four
Speaker 1: people who are all the description I just gave and
Speaker 1: who have never, by the women in their lives or
Speaker 1: by their work context, been asked to become more evolved
Speaker 1: as time moves forward. And then female directors end up
Speaker 1: on their shows, right, and they have really basic level
Speaker 1: like she's going to mess it up opinions, and then
Speaker 1: they're just looking for the confirmation that their worldview doesn't
Speaker 1: need to evolve. Yeah. I mean, the only thing I'll
Speaker 1: say is I that is going to change, and that
Speaker 1: is changing. And I now go to interviews or pitches
Speaker 1: or you know, think about how I would hire and
Speaker 1: I think we are thinking about where will I find
Speaker 1: as a female director a great deal of support for
Speaker 1: the whole me, you know, the meat that has the vision,
Speaker 1: the collaborator me, the meat that's going to get frustrated,
Speaker 1: the meat that's gonna but god, am I gonna do
Speaker 1: my best at every turn? But can I also do
Speaker 1: that while taking care of myself? And I think they're
Speaker 1: more and more of us getting in, and there are
Speaker 1: more and more of us looking for that environment and
Speaker 1: then looking to create that environment. It's like it's really
Speaker 1: the new Hollywood is less about hiring individuals who look
Speaker 1: or define themselves a certain way, and more about hiring
Speaker 1: people regardless of how they look or who they are,
Speaker 1: who are going to enter into it with the sense
Speaker 1: of good faith and who want to bring like their
Speaker 1: masculine and feminine energies in easily, who are interested in
Speaker 1: like not cutting off parts of themselves. That's right, and
Speaker 1: I think that is generationally just the you know, the
Speaker 1: sort of stereotypical you know, teamster dude. I mean, I
Speaker 1: love teamsters, but and they're all actually many of them
Speaker 1: are very evolved. But as you say, that that guy
Speaker 1: with all those sexist views, who's gonna, you know, set
Speaker 1: set himself up to believe that the female director that
Speaker 1: comes on set is going to fail. He's aging out
Speaker 1: right now. So we can only hope trying to not
Speaker 1: like have a celebratory look at the face, because they
Speaker 1: are humans too, and they are products of their They
Speaker 1: are products that we cannot make it personal about anybody
Speaker 1: because everyone is a product of how they've been, you know,
Speaker 1: socialized by the industry. So speaking of what a segue,
Speaker 1: tell me about your socialization, Now tell me about your
Speaker 1: upbringing in arms of finding your voice. You decided pretty
Speaker 1: early on to be a director. You went to film
Speaker 1: school in your twenties. What did that look like in
Speaker 1: terms of knowing what you wanted to do and how
Speaker 1: you wanted to lead. I was always bossy. I was
Speaker 1: a big sister, I'm alio, you know all those ingredients, right,
Speaker 1: But I don't think I saw a lot of women
Speaker 1: leaders early on. It's like the you know, the typical story.
Speaker 1: I was in the drama program at high school. My
Speaker 1: teacher was female. She saw something in me and my
Speaker 1: ability to to sort of block and plan short plays.
Speaker 1: So I entered Northwestern as a theater major, to maybe direct,
Speaker 1: maybe stage manage. I didn't know what what exactly I
Speaker 1: wanted to do, and I didn't even realize you could
Speaker 1: study film and television. And then I studied film. I
Speaker 1: transferred over and I first I produced and I killed
Speaker 1: myself raising money for a music video that a guy
Speaker 1: to direct, and I watched him direct, and I watched
Speaker 1: the choices he was making with, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: the hard earned, backbreaking support we had all given him,
Speaker 1: and I just felt kind of bummed out and I
Speaker 1: felt a little bit betrayed by the process. You know,
Speaker 1: I felt like, gosh, you know, I worked so hard.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like he cares at all about what
Speaker 1: I have to say. And I don't know if I
Speaker 1: believe in this vision that we're what moment, I mean,
Speaker 1: what a shitty moment in the moment, Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: in a way that that's why the worst things I
Speaker 1: mean not that that was the worst thing that got
Speaker 1: but you know, the things you realize you don't want
Speaker 1: to do are very valuable, especially as a young person.
Speaker 1: So then I decided I wanted to be a director,
Speaker 1: but I was always apprehensive about the industry, the Hollywood industry,
Speaker 1: and it's part of why I really developed this independent
Speaker 1: film maker career. And I stayed in Ireland for so
Speaker 1: long I just felt more support, autonomy, kind of intimacy
Speaker 1: and trust with the people I was working with, and
Speaker 1: so I kept making work over there. I'm really interesting
Speaker 1: because I also feel like I've felt a very strong
Speaker 1: pull with this podcast to specifically, at least for now,
Speaker 1: focus on American culture. And you know, a solution for
Speaker 1: handling the you know, flaws of American culture is certainly
Speaker 1: to be LIKEE, see you later. And I also would
Speaker 1: come back here and kind of and I would get discouraged.
Speaker 1: Even after the Oscar nomination in two thousand eight, I
Speaker 1: came to l A and had meetings. They were all
Speaker 1: with men producers, and I mean it wasn't even gendered.
Speaker 1: In my mind, I just did not feel a great
Speaker 1: deal of hope or inspiration when I would kind of
Speaker 1: drop into l A and look around. What are those
Speaker 1: meetings entail? I mean, what was your experience? My experience
Speaker 1: of them was the feeling of it's not enough, You're
Speaker 1: not enough yet kind of thing. Come back when you
Speaker 1: have your Sundance film, Come back when you had the
Speaker 1: next Oscar nomination. Yeah, well it was a short, which
Speaker 1: I told myself also, it was before this moment. You know,
Speaker 1: where where now? I think if you you know, if
Speaker 1: you were here trying to be a female director for
Speaker 1: the past fifteen years, you get to talk a lot
Speaker 1: more than I do about the real struggle. You know,
Speaker 1: the real the real struggle that nobody would address, that
Speaker 1: you knocked on doors, that you kept coming at it,
Speaker 1: and if you're working now, that is so correct and
Speaker 1: keep going, you know. And I want for those women
Speaker 1: to really get what they've been waiting for and deserve
Speaker 1: because I sort of was not. I didn't expose myself
Speaker 1: to it. I wasn't sounds like you kind of saw
Speaker 1: the writing on the wall when you had those meetings
Speaker 1: and like, this doesn't seem like a path. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: loved the country I was in. I felt supported, and
Speaker 1: you know, I came when I was ready, and I
Speaker 1: came at a time where television is just exploding, and
Speaker 1: I found my place in it. I mean, television is
Speaker 1: a great place to cultivate your leadership because you are
Speaker 1: suddenly working with new people every couple of months, potentially
Speaker 1: with incredible scope, budget and responsibility. So yeah, you snap
Speaker 1: into let's do this right. You know, whether you're dealing
Speaker 1: with difficult personalities or you're just having to be decisive
Speaker 1: and you don't know the decision yet. What's your personal
Speaker 1: way of sort of shutting out the noise and figuring
Speaker 1: out what you want. I guess there's two ways my
Speaker 1: process works. One is intuitive decision making, like you just
Speaker 1: got to feel it and go because you are you
Speaker 1: literally have two minutes to make the decision right. And
Speaker 1: that means literally listening to something that isn't your brain.
Speaker 1: Yes exactly, you just sort of feel something and it
Speaker 1: probably is your brain. It's your it's your you know,
Speaker 1: it's your synapses that like know what to do. And
Speaker 1: I think I love directing in part because I like
Speaker 1: that um flow, that creative flow where things just feel
Speaker 1: like they're just coming. You don't know where from, but
Speaker 1: they're coming. And then the other side, I plan and
Speaker 1: visualize and research a lot so that when i'm a
Speaker 1: lot of new ideas are coming at me, I sort
Speaker 1: of have my my firm center and I can sort
Speaker 1: of weigh those ideas against what I'm thinking or with
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking, and do they support do they confuse.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of um, A lot of storytelling
Speaker 1: for me is whose perspective is this? Even though that's
Speaker 1: a really cool shot idea. You know, dps are famously
Speaker 1: will pitch you these like Okay, we come up over
Speaker 1: the building and we swoop down and you know, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of I feel like my job to go
Speaker 1: whose perspective are we and what are we feeling while
Speaker 1: that's happening? Or are we just feeling the exhilaration of
Speaker 1: the shot, which sometimes is great, But it's that it's
Speaker 1: that emotional mind, it's the storytelling mine. It's continually taking
Speaker 1: it back to those questions, which which is I'm sure
Speaker 1: a lot of what you do and that an actor
Speaker 1: may obsess over saying a syllable or avowal correctly, and
Speaker 1: you may take them back to a story place and
Speaker 1: ultimately everyone kind of wants to be in that story place,
Speaker 1: character place. My favorite example of that is that, especially
Speaker 1: English is the second language. Actors which I work with
Speaker 1: a lot, will have will have noticed that, like, for example,
Speaker 1: the word what do we have? Do we use it? T?
Speaker 1: Or don't we write? We Americans quote unquote right? What what? Right?
Speaker 1: They're both options, and they'll say, do I put a
Speaker 1: T on that or don't tie? And I'm like, depends
Speaker 1: what do you want? What do you want? What do
Speaker 1: you want? What's at stake? And I think it is
Speaker 1: also the argument for an idea that you can't debate.
Speaker 1: So let's say everyone's people are coming at you with ideas.
Speaker 1: If you say, no, I don't want that, that's not
Speaker 1: what I want. Okay, that doesn't add anything to the conversation.
Speaker 1: It doesn't. People just feel denied, and that's where disappointment
Speaker 1: sets in. Like we were talking about earlier, if I
Speaker 1: say I love that idea, but I feel like the
Speaker 1: character would be coming actually, because they'd be coming from
Speaker 1: the outside in. Let's have that first action be this
Speaker 1: taking out the jet whatever you know. It's like you
Speaker 1: you ground back to character and story, also showing your
Speaker 1: work when you're thinking that out loud, yes, and so
Speaker 1: they there's trust that's built. And then and then they
Speaker 1: when they do the same thing, like I love nothing
Speaker 1: more than a props person coming to me and saying,
Speaker 1: I know this is what's in the script, but I
Speaker 1: did all this research and this is actually the item
Speaker 1: you know, and that's there contribute you know, And I
Speaker 1: think if I expect to be listened to for the
Speaker 1: depth of my research, knowledge, intuition, instincts, I have to
Speaker 1: do the same. When there's time in prep, you know,
Speaker 1: and we can we can really weigh things up. But
Speaker 1: I I do notice. I'm just gonna bring it back
Speaker 1: to I know what your your expertise, which is that
Speaker 1: I have. I will stop breathing, I can. I will
Speaker 1: notice that I haven't taken a deep breath in like
Speaker 1: four hours on set. My voice will get high if
Speaker 1: I'm emotional, you know, And and then but then in
Speaker 1: trying to control that, you get more tight. So I
Speaker 1: think all these things are fast dating in relationship to power,
Speaker 1: articulation and communication, because these things only work when I
Speaker 1: have a somewhat even keel emotionally. I have to stay
Speaker 1: in that emotionally balanced place to be able to communicate
Speaker 1: authentically like that. And part of the depletion and fatigue
Speaker 1: is when I'm doing all that but I'm actually feeling
Speaker 1: so much more. And also, how do you listen to
Speaker 1: I'm going back to thing number one, right, how do
Speaker 1: you listen to your instincts when you've sort of cut
Speaker 1: yourself off from them? Totally either because fourteen now or
Speaker 1: days do do a number on you in terms of
Speaker 1: sleep and all of that stuff, but also literally in
Speaker 1: the moment, if the stakes feel too high in your
Speaker 1: body is responding to the stakes and not to the content.
Speaker 1: That's right, and where is the effort. The effort should be,
Speaker 1: you know, in the creativity piece and the story piece,
Speaker 1: and you know it's thoughtful planning, but the effort sometimes
Speaker 1: it's just in holding back the slew of true emotion
Speaker 1: that you're feeling or I guess, passion, fire, all these things.
Speaker 1: You know that balance is part of the dance. In
Speaker 1: this sort of advice place that we're at right now,
Speaker 1: tell me about how you prepare a pitch, because whether
Speaker 1: it's for a pilot of a TV show, or it's
Speaker 1: for a product, or it's for an idea to your boss.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of us find ourselves in positions
Speaker 1: where we have to do that um where we have
Speaker 1: to say, like, here's my take on a thing, take
Speaker 1: me seriously, and also I'm flexible, and also you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a yeah, I'm just thinking of this. But dancing
Speaker 1: is a good metaphor in a way or a visual
Speaker 1: because are you dancing for you or them. You know
Speaker 1: you have to first, I think, really really read the script,
Speaker 1: look at the project, look at your if you're selling
Speaker 1: a project, watch it in your mind totally for you, like, truly,
Speaker 1: what are you what are you going to do with this?
Speaker 1: What are you want to do with this? What do
Speaker 1: you want to see? How would you want to make it?
Speaker 1: Before you even start thinking about what they want to
Speaker 1: hear or what they need to hear, or how you
Speaker 1: need to present. And that is a tricky balance. I
Speaker 1: think I often am jumping back and forth to Okay,
Speaker 1: well I see I see it this way, but they
Speaker 1: would maybe want to hear it this way. But this
Speaker 1: is so valuable because I often think about how sometimes
Speaker 1: what stops us from really finding sort of the joy
Speaker 1: and the fire is that we are thinking too much
Speaker 1: how what do they think of me? And use It's
Speaker 1: useful to think what do they really need? And what
Speaker 1: how am I bringing what they need? But you're reminding
Speaker 1: me that there's this first part, which is also what
Speaker 1: is the pleasure that this is for me? You absolutely
Speaker 1: have to think about all that what do they need
Speaker 1: to hear? How do they need to hear it? But
Speaker 1: that's not the first step, and it's really easy to forget.
Speaker 1: I'm saying it because I'm constantly reminding myself of that.
Speaker 1: And I think also any writer will say, you know,
Speaker 1: they first have to go to a very safe space
Speaker 1: for themselves to really create the material in relationship with themselves.
Speaker 1: You know, that is just the first step. So you know,
Speaker 1: giving yourself the kind of gift of your own very
Speaker 1: internal process first, creatively first and foremost. Then then yes,
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, how do I And it's once you
Speaker 1: have that and that feels very firm and strong, it's
Speaker 1: it's so much easier to think about how to present it, right,
Speaker 1: because if you were doing a book report and you
Speaker 1: had the book already, you could start to figure out
Speaker 1: how to present that book report because the book is there, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole point of communication is that there's
Speaker 1: another person, or there's another mass of people or something.
Speaker 1: So to say that, wait, the first step of communication
Speaker 1: is actually our relationship with ourself. That's pretty valuable. I think.
Speaker 1: So I want to go into a room and I
Speaker 1: want to communicate back that I that I really feel
Speaker 1: and see the story, and here's what I either. If
Speaker 1: I'm reading a script. Here's what, here's how it starts.
Speaker 1: It feels like this, then it goes to here I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the arc. I'm basically just feeding back that
Speaker 1: I read the script you actually sent me and I
Speaker 1: felt deeply for it, right, and here's why. And then
Speaker 1: and then you want to go into all these times.
Speaker 1: You can read a million things online that coach you
Speaker 1: on like ways to talk about tone and ways to
Speaker 1: talk about comparisons, and but ultimately, I think I guess
Speaker 1: deeper than that, what you're doing is is sort of saying,
Speaker 1: I really know how I would make this, and you're
Speaker 1: finding clear ways to communicate that so that they can go,
Speaker 1: oh wow, I really really see her version. I really
Speaker 1: see her movie? Is it the movie I want to make?
Speaker 1: In finance? And you can't control, you know, because what
Speaker 1: I think otherwise the risk is I sold a vision
Speaker 1: of a movie that I don't really deeply feel, and
Speaker 1: they bought it, and now I have to make it
Speaker 1: and I'm actually kind of disconnected. Now maybe you could
Speaker 1: then like pour yourself into that version, but you're sort
Speaker 1: of reverse engineering if it happens that way, if you
Speaker 1: sell the thing you thought they wanted, and now you're
Speaker 1: responsible for delivering it, you know. So that's the broad strokes.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, tone are all the pieces of
Speaker 1: a pitch lucky position of getting to hang out with
Speaker 1: you right before you pitched the L word and um
Speaker 1: and reflected back some of the things I was hearing,
Speaker 1: which was honestly a gift for me. It's great for me.
Speaker 1: What stands out is you were struggling with how to
Speaker 1: sort of find your way into talking about this version
Speaker 1: compared to the last version of the L word, which
Speaker 1: had had an impact on you, but you weren't sure
Speaker 1: how to talk about it except to say that it
Speaker 1: was great basically. Yeah. The personal piece, it's hard actually
Speaker 1: to take right without kind of going off on some
Speaker 1: personal we tell our story is something that comes up,
Speaker 1: especially when I'm working with politicians. How do we put
Speaker 1: the eye into it without feeling like we're a bragging
Speaker 1: or be boring people with our personal lives. I sometimes
Speaker 1: would say, I don't know where to stop or start,
Speaker 1: like there's so much there feels like too much, right,
Speaker 1: And I asked you one pointed question that was like, really,
Speaker 1: where were you when you watched the first version of
Speaker 1: the L word, and you you're one sentence response brought
Speaker 1: in that you were abroad, brought in that you were
Speaker 1: in film school, and brought in that you didn't know
Speaker 1: you were gay yet, but that you saw something on
Speaker 1: that screen that made you think I want that life.
Speaker 1: So it ended up being I mean, you're you know,
Speaker 1: sort of quick response to me ended up being the story.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's true, and you helped me see that
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to talk about all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And it also felt, you know, the personal has to
Speaker 1: be part of our our pitch and our story as
Speaker 1: an artist. It just is you have to find a
Speaker 1: way of weaving it in for yourself. Two. And that's
Speaker 1: a hard place for me. Definitely, Definitely. I I can
Speaker 1: default to like, well, I'm just going to do a
Speaker 1: good job and you're not going to know I have feelings. Yep, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not going to know. I'm a person. I'm a robot.
Speaker 1: I'm really creative. I'm a creative robot. But you can
Speaker 1: turn on and turn me off. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: And I will not emotionally because I'm so afraid of
Speaker 1: being emotionally burdensome to someone. I think you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's that's uh a fear women
Speaker 1: have sometimes of just being that that that that won't
Speaker 1: help them to bring those into the room, and they don't.
Speaker 1: They often don't help them, I know from being the
Speaker 1: boss and receiving interesting Yeah, I mean you have to
Speaker 1: be so careful I think when you when you bring
Speaker 1: in personal stuff to your work environment. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that especially in film, it's such an intimate it's
Speaker 1: such an intimate setting. You know, they're just they're do
Speaker 1: have to be boundaries. So it's learning how to use
Speaker 1: your story and your which contains emotion, you know, but
Speaker 1: direct channel and channel it into your work in a
Speaker 1: way that remains professional and powerful. Speak King of personal
Speaker 1: What did it feel like to work on the l
Speaker 1: words specifically? I mean, I think we're it's just we're
Speaker 1: talking about representation, and we're talking about the screen as
Speaker 1: a mirror, and we're talking about how when we see
Speaker 1: ourselves represented, we like ourselves better, we can respect ourselves more. So.
Speaker 1: I think the push to represent as many types of
Speaker 1: people as possible, and I think this is happening at
Speaker 1: every you know, people who aren't size six, people of color,
Speaker 1: people who identify as in a range of gender identities.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it is a push for representation
Speaker 1: that we're all talking about, and and that representation used
Speaker 1: to mean, like in the nineties, representation meant literally one
Speaker 1: person who looks that way, check great. And now we're
Speaker 1: talking about the nuance of actual lived experience for me,
Speaker 1: and for me that's perspective. And who makes that show,
Speaker 1: Whose voice is that show, whose voice is the story,
Speaker 1: who's telling that story? Is that story authentically from the
Speaker 1: person who should be telling that story and representing that character?
Speaker 1: And did you have any stuff during l word, specifically
Speaker 1: when you were like, well, that doesn't ring true or
Speaker 1: that doesn't feel right. I was. I had more moments
Speaker 1: of like, oh my god, that's so true, you know,
Speaker 1: holy sh it, oh god. I felt like that, like
Speaker 1: I've I'm not. I felt like all the ways that
Speaker 1: culture had never shown me back some things that I felt.
Speaker 1: I feel a real sense of gratitude for being involved,
Speaker 1: for exposing me to myself more two parts of myself
Speaker 1: I may have hidden from myself, And I do wonder
Speaker 1: I think, like, what would it have been like to
Speaker 1: see that as a thirteen year old, fifteen year old? Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be back in just a minute with the
Speaker 1: person stuff is brought in for us to hear. Okay,
Speaker 1: we are back with stuff, and we're going to find
Speaker 1: out whose voice she brought in for us. Steph, who
Speaker 1: have you been thinking about when you asked this question?
Speaker 1: I immediately thought of my Angelo. I cannot think of
Speaker 1: a voice I'd rather listen to. Yeah, yeah, I have
Speaker 1: a beautiful clip from her I could have chosen earlier
Speaker 1: in her life. She has this absolutely stunning performance on
Speaker 1: YouTube of her still I Rise poem, which everybody should
Speaker 1: check out all link to it. But you specifically pointed
Speaker 1: me towards an interview she did later in her life. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna listen to a little tiny bit of
Speaker 1: it right now. I learned by the time I was
Speaker 1: eight that I loved the human voice. I loved it,
Speaker 1: the actual sound of the voice speaking words. It just
Speaker 1: means the earth to me, still does singing spoken. They
Speaker 1: help us to distinguish ourselves from each other and with
Speaker 1: each other, and help us to know where we really
Speaker 1: are on this wayward floating motive matter in the universe.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cry like every time. I mean, she's absolutely stunning.
Speaker 1: When I listened to Dr Maya Angelo. I found out
Speaker 1: it's called She. She pronounced Angelo in this thank you,
Speaker 1: this piece, I mean think it's a lesson for all
Speaker 1: of us. Um, when I think about her, I think
Speaker 1: about this thing. I've said for years that your voice
Speaker 1: reflects your life experience, which you know, I say because
Speaker 1: it's true. But we when we listen to somebody, especially
Speaker 1: in the later part of their life, talking like this,
Speaker 1: you know what we hear in her voice, everything from
Speaker 1: her accent, which surely shifted throughout her life and is
Speaker 1: surely a collection of everywhere that she's lived, including you know,
Speaker 1: she spent some time in Egypt and Ghana, and that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily even mean that you pick up the accent
Speaker 1: of those places as much as you go through the
Speaker 1: experience of needing to be understood in a foreign land.
Speaker 1: And what that is to realize that the words that
Speaker 1: you're saying require, you know, a heightened level of communication
Speaker 1: and makes make sure that you're not misunderstood, Um when
Speaker 1: the culture is so different. And then obviously there's this
Speaker 1: pace that she has that we can all learn from
Speaker 1: that not only suggests a lack of arms and a
Speaker 1: general appreciation of language, which I'm going to talk about
Speaker 1: as well, but also a real sense that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do it myself now. I'm noticing a real sense
Speaker 1: that the way that her authority comes out is in
Speaker 1: knowing that she has the floor, and that is something
Speaker 1: that most of us are still grappling with. And part
Speaker 1: of the reason I was looking back actually at the
Speaker 1: still I Rise poem is it's from a lot longer
Speaker 1: ago that performance of hers, and I wanted to find
Speaker 1: it's hard to find on YouTube, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: find something from her even much much much earlier. But
Speaker 1: you know, she she's a PhD. She's she's been in
Speaker 1: positions of power for a very long time, or she
Speaker 1: was rather by the time she died, And so I
Speaker 1: wonder what, you know, the experience was of getting there.
Speaker 1: But but when we all got to know her internationally,
Speaker 1: she already was at the point where you know, clearly
Speaker 1: in every example we have, she doesn't use ums. And
Speaker 1: and the reason we do ums is because we're saying,
Speaker 1: I'm still collecting my thought and please let me keep
Speaker 1: the floor. And so then the other half of it,
Speaker 1: which you know, you and I were talking about in
Speaker 1: the break, is the content of what she's saying here
Speaker 1: is her love of language, but that also comes out
Speaker 1: in the form and the fact that every single word
Speaker 1: feels like it's unwated and is done justice right. And
Speaker 1: for someone to have come up through, you know, the
Speaker 1: levels of trauma that she did and to have gotten
Speaker 1: to that point, I think it is part of what
Speaker 1: people respond to in her. So just the act of
Speaker 1: like opening her mouth and talking. Besides what's coming out,
Speaker 1: the act of the way that she talks makes people say,
Speaker 1: maybe I can do that too, maybe I can get
Speaker 1: to that point. And we hear all of that in
Speaker 1: her voice. What do you think is that why it
Speaker 1: sounds It's like it feels like every time she speaks,
Speaker 1: it's it's speech, it's a poem, it's a song, it's
Speaker 1: has rhythm, it has power. I think paces it's so true,
Speaker 1: there's a confidence. Yeah yeah, and I'm trying not to
Speaker 1: use yeah yeah and just let myself pause at the stuff.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, the word aspirational doesn't even cover
Speaker 1: this completely. It's it's an interesting lesson because you know,
Speaker 1: it is earned for her, and prior to that, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it didn't feel that way. I mean, I'm god
Speaker 1: I wish I could ask her about She talks a
Speaker 1: lot about publicly, or to put in past tense, which
Speaker 1: is very depressing. She spoke publicly a lot about the
Speaker 1: fact that she didn't talk for five years in her
Speaker 1: youth and then read voraciously throughout. But but and what
Speaker 1: that was to come out of her self imposed silence,
Speaker 1: and what version of her you know, was was alive
Speaker 1: then compared to this version of her that we that
Speaker 1: we you know, have captured much more. And that makes
Speaker 1: me think about listening as how she partially how she
Speaker 1: learned to speak, you know, because reading constantly and listening
Speaker 1: constantly for five years, you know, completely. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: said in an earlier podcast, the other half of permission
Speaker 1: to speak is permission to listen her permission to be quiet, right,
Speaker 1: permission to be quiet, because I guess there's a feeling
Speaker 1: that I think you're so right that please let me
Speaker 1: keep the floor, please please hear me, please see me.
Speaker 1: There can be a desperation in that that actually drains
Speaker 1: your power. And she talks all about I mean, courage
Speaker 1: comes up, courage to not talk all the time. I
Speaker 1: mean also in public speaking, like in a in a
Speaker 1: more technical way. This comes up as the power of
Speaker 1: the pause, which is also another way of saying, don't
Speaker 1: use them so much. But the power of the pause
Speaker 1: is something that it's hard. You have to practice, and
Speaker 1: you have to practice knowing that that one thing you
Speaker 1: just said is going to land well enough that you
Speaker 1: don't have to fill in the pause that's about to
Speaker 1: ensue with a try again, and to try again and
Speaker 1: to try again. That's hard, and also part of what's
Speaker 1: hard about it is the courage part of it. The
Speaker 1: other part is that it may not be the case.
Speaker 1: You may actually need to rephrase what you just said
Speaker 1: because it didn't land, and you may be actually picking
Speaker 1: up with like your spidy set that the audience isn't
Speaker 1: with you. So it's not like the pause is always
Speaker 1: the right answer. But if we never use it, we'll
Speaker 1: never know. How do I how do if I said
Speaker 1: I want to you know, there's my you know, I
Speaker 1: want to just cultivate stronger qualities in my speaking, pausing, listening.
Speaker 1: How do I be like my not um you know,
Speaker 1: have her life experience. No, what you're really what what
Speaker 1: we're really saying? What I'm what I My real answer
Speaker 1: is you must sound like staff? You must sound like
Speaker 1: the strongest and most love yourself version of Staff and
Speaker 1: that is for all of us obviously, um, but my
Speaker 1: other aunts, because there really wasn't to mya before my
Speaker 1: you know there there's no there's no one even close. No.
Speaker 1: But also but also that she probably didn't have the
Speaker 1: perfect uh you know, archetype to emulate, and that just
Speaker 1: wasn't the point. And she said, you, I'm going to
Speaker 1: probably butcher this, but you can't do better till you
Speaker 1: know better, right right about her own evolution and change,
Speaker 1: which has now become like an Oprah is m because
Speaker 1: I think she said it too Oprah and over was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. She's a huge inspiration to Oprah.
Speaker 1: Who is you know, such an inspiration to so many. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there you go, I mean, And and also really,
Speaker 1: you know, um, I'm sure that there were there. There
Speaker 1: clearly were people in Maya's life who were those you know,
Speaker 1: archetypes of power to her. She talks about her grandmother's
Speaker 1: talks about her uncle Willie. I imagine it was not
Speaker 1: in a way where where what she thought was I
Speaker 1: want to sound like them. I think it was really
Speaker 1: I want to sound like the most like profound version
Speaker 1: of myself exactly. And the other half of your question
Speaker 1: is for people who do want to work on what
Speaker 1: it would be like to umless or fill in the blank.
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't have to be UM. It can
Speaker 1: be you know, or it can be uh, not just
Speaker 1: a tick of phrase, but like a way that we
Speaker 1: continue to fill in silence. I think the best thing
Speaker 1: there is two things. One acknowledge that there's going to
Speaker 1: be an element of self consciousness going into this. You
Speaker 1: cannot avoid that. And self consciousness does not have to
Speaker 1: equal paralyze paralyzation A. So just just know that for yourself,
Speaker 1: be um, record yourself and listen back. And no one
Speaker 1: likes to look you know, disclaimer, no one likes to
Speaker 1: listen to the sound of their voice. And that's like
Speaker 1: a culturally agreed to pump thing. I'd love to change it.
Speaker 1: I'd love everyone to just decide. Maybe I do. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's just a learning tool, Maybe it's just you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of the things, like the way my hands work,
Speaker 1: that is a communication unit, and I should and I
Speaker 1: should embrace it. But I just want to say that
Speaker 1: when we listen back to ourselves, we can start to
Speaker 1: notice what those things are and maybe even say the
Speaker 1: same phrase that we said when we were making that
Speaker 1: recording for ourselves telling you know, some story or telling
Speaker 1: something about our past, and try saying the same thing
Speaker 1: but without the in between sounds and just feel that discomfort,
Speaker 1: because getting better at not saying um is about getting
Speaker 1: better with feeling that discomfort and not doing anything about it.
Speaker 1: That is such good advice and we all can do
Speaker 1: that now with our iPhone. Voice Memo is like that
Speaker 1: the app that shows up on everybody's Apple phone, regardless
Speaker 1: of if you want it, because how often do you
Speaker 1: speak to people say do they know what they sound like?
Speaker 1: And then it's like, do I know what I sound like?
Speaker 1: It's really good? Well, And the other thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: talk to friends, get reflections from people, work with a
Speaker 1: voice coach, whatever. But the stuff that that we can
Speaker 1: feel empowered to do on our own, there is just
Speaker 1: that little hurdle over the top of the self consciousness
Speaker 1: aspect of it and the you know, opinions that are
Speaker 1: going to come up about your own voice. But if
Speaker 1: you're serious about you know, wanting to evolve your voice
Speaker 1: in some way, like let's be honest, those are things
Speaker 1: we can handle, they will feel icky. Light a candle,
Speaker 1: trust yourself. Know that, like you know, we all this
Speaker 1: is like such a universal that our voice feels different,
Speaker 1: our voice, it sounds different on the outside than it
Speaker 1: sounds in our own head. That is anatomy, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, how many people listen to their own voicemail message,
Speaker 1: you know, twelve times before they stick with one yeah,
Speaker 1: and then end up with one that doesn't sound anything
Speaker 1: like us, because we're like this one sounds the most
Speaker 1: like somebody that I would want to hear. Hello, you've
Speaker 1: reached Steph Green. I don't know what business you are promoting, right,
Speaker 1: Sometimes you hear people's voicemail and you that sounds nothing
Speaker 1: like that. I might be guilty of that. Now that
Speaker 1: we're saying this, I should go back and listen and
Speaker 1: record like the most authentic version of my voice, the
Speaker 1: most profound quote unquote tomorrows end up for yourself version
Speaker 1: of your voice. It is. It is a thing. It
Speaker 1: is a thing. Steph. Thank you for bringing in Dr
Speaker 1: Maya Angelo. Thank you for teaching me more about her
Speaker 1: incredible voice. Oh my god, I'm always happy to think
Speaker 1: about her. Thank you. Thank you to Steph Green for
Speaker 1: coming in. You can find out more about her in
Speaker 1: the show notes or on our website Formission to Speak
Speaker 1: pot dot com, where you can also go right now
Speaker 1: and send me any questions you have about your own voice,
Speaker 1: any feedback from these episodes, anything that doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: or doesn't feel like it fits for you, anything that's
Speaker 1: coming up during this bizarro quarantine time in terms of
Speaker 1: using zoom or you know, Instagram Live, or any any
Speaker 1: sources that you're using for getting your own voice out there.
Speaker 1: Let's talk. We're gonna do a mail bag episode coming
Speaker 1: right up, and I want to answer as many questions
Speaker 1: as I can about what's really going on with you,
Speaker 1: with your voice, with your sense of power, and how
Speaker 1: all those things interconnect, because we need good people in
Speaker 1: power now. Guys like right now. Also feel free to
Speaker 1: send d M s or voice memos to our Instagram
Speaker 1: a Permission to Speak pod, where we're posting a bunch
Speaker 1: of content and please join the community. Thanks as well
Speaker 1: to Sophie Lichterman and the team at I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: to Megan Read, to my family and cohort, and to
Speaker 1: all of you. We're recording this podcast in the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio studios in Hollywood on land that used to
Speaker 1: belong to the Tongva indigenous tribe, and you can visit
Speaker 1: U S d A C dot us to learn more
Speaker 1: about honoring native land. Permission to Speak is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Double Vision Executive produced by
Speaker 1: Katherine Burke Canton and Mark Canton. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, listen on the ihart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your favorite shows.