Speaker 1: Hi you guys, It's me Arden. I hope you little
Speaker 1: bunnies are doing okay out there. I know it was
Speaker 1: another week with no main episode. Thankfully we have got
Speaker 1: you covered. And if you guys are really jones ng
Speaker 1: HBO Max right now is airing Bachelor in Paradise Australia
Speaker 1: season one, which in my opinion is the greatest season
Speaker 1: of the Bachelor I have ever watched. And uh, we
Speaker 1: did it on Patreon with Brian Sofie. If you go
Speaker 1: on our Patreon page. Um, it's down at the It
Speaker 1: was like one of the very first episodes we ever recorded.
Speaker 1: It's the very first episode with it is called Writing
Speaker 1: the Bipolar High with Brian Sofie in two seventeen. So
Speaker 1: just go if you if you're interested and you're like
Speaker 1: art and I need to be watching a narrative because
Speaker 1: Bachelorette is now not coming out until mid October. And
Speaker 1: if you're jones ing, you can join our Patreon. You
Speaker 1: can go on Bachelor in Paradise Australia season one, you
Speaker 1: can listen along. And we're still doing new things. We're
Speaker 1: still doing Bachelor in Paradise bet Uh sorry Bachelortte New Zealand.
Speaker 1: We're doing Real Housewives of New York. So we're doing
Speaker 1: six episodes a month of new content and then there's
Speaker 1: all the old archives. And I gotta tell you the
Speaker 1: Bachelor in Paradise, Australia one is fantastic. Um, we have
Speaker 1: another episode of Feeling Thorny, and I really appreciate everything
Speaker 1: that you guys have been reaching out with and I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say, we're gonna be back next week
Speaker 1: with a new episode. We're gonna be breaking down the
Speaker 1: Nick Vial Bachelor Best of Season with your boy Jerry
Speaker 1: Trainer and uh, your new fave Miles Gray, and we
Speaker 1: have Alison Rosen joining us, so that'll be really fun.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, I'm gonna read two emails and
Speaker 1: some of the reviews if you want to. And you guys,
Speaker 1: thank you so much everybody who's been ordering the book. Um,
Speaker 1: it comes out. It'll be almost a month from today.
Speaker 1: It comes out September twenty nine. And my goal is
Speaker 1: if I get on a New York Times missseller lists,
Speaker 1: I'm going to throw a show in my mom's yard
Speaker 1: in Rhode Island. I'm gonna make my brother let me
Speaker 1: do it, and I still have that offer that we uh.
Speaker 1: I paired up with UM Premier Collectibles where you can
Speaker 1: get the hardcover book and you can get a signed
Speaker 1: book plate and you can get a little Miss Compton
Speaker 1: canvas tote, all for the price of just the book.
Speaker 1: It's the first two d and fifty people who ordered
Speaker 1: get that, and then the second two fifty just get
Speaker 1: the sign book plate. And then I have another special
Speaker 1: exciting thing I'll tell you at the end of this.
Speaker 1: So here's some funny emails we got UM. This is
Speaker 1: from Nicole Richet and it's Houston's and a long lost Hello,
Speaker 1: dear art m Hi. I've been meeting to write you
Speaker 1: an email forever like over a year. But what prompted
Speaker 1: me to finally do it is because I have a
Speaker 1: mutual shared love for Houston's. I used to live in Boston.
Speaker 1: I went to the Hughes into Fante Hall all the time.
Speaker 1: They've since closed it, which is heartbreaking, but man, it
Speaker 1: was a good time. I'm not sure to remember me,
Speaker 1: but we've actually met a few times before. Back in
Speaker 1: the nine two thousand, I was a casting assistant in
Speaker 1: l a and I worked for Mallie Finn Malle adored
Speaker 1: you and you were always on her list. Yeah, Mallie Finn, Yes,
Speaker 1: Mallie Finn. You came into the office several times for auditions.
Speaker 1: I mentioned you to a friend of mine Andrew Mudge,
Speaker 1: and um, you're always in nice and I followed your
Speaker 1: career and of course Instationable. I absolutely love your podcast.
Speaker 1: I've been listening to it for a few years. It
Speaker 1: brings me a lot of joy. It makes me laugh
Speaker 1: so much, whether you're talking about the Bachelor franchise or
Speaker 1: life in general. It is fantastic. Thank you for being
Speaker 1: so open about your life and it's a blast to
Speaker 1: hear someone I kind of know. I know Quarantine has
Speaker 1: been rough for everyone, but you've been really a bright
Speaker 1: spot for me. Thank you for your honesty and humor.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say you're doing a great job
Speaker 1: and I'm always rooting for you. I follow you on Instagram.
Speaker 1: I love your post, especially dancing in the kitchen after
Speaker 1: getting highlights. Can we to keep listening. I'm halfway through
Speaker 1: the episode with Wells and it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I hope you're well. Have a nice and thank you
Speaker 1: for being so fabulous. Sincerely, Nicole Riche Nicole, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to say and to all of our fans that
Speaker 1: email in Truly, it means so much to me. It's
Speaker 1: so like, I love this, I loved Molly fan, I
Speaker 1: love like I feel like we're all in this together.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, as you know which from listening to me,
Speaker 1: this is a freaking journey and it takes a village,
Speaker 1: and even if it's like an audio virtual village, you
Speaker 1: guys are the sweetest, sweetest group of people around and
Speaker 1: I have felt all of your support personally over the
Speaker 1: last few years, and I hope you feel my support
Speaker 1: now because I've made it through some craziest things and
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you this this at some point in time,
Speaker 1: we will get through this. This two shall pass. This
Speaker 1: two shall pass, and it may not be your best
Speaker 1: year ever, but you don't need to make it your worst.
Speaker 1: It's okay. You can still have a little bright spot.
Speaker 1: Here's one more email that to made me laugh so hard.
Speaker 1: This is called the subject is Mesnick and the Past
Speaker 1: and the Passion Bucket. Rebecca Germano emailed us and she says,
Speaker 1: I recently high Art and Katie, Tanna and the rest
Speaker 1: of the Real Excepts group I recently said, listen to
Speaker 1: your fabulous Rocky tribute episode recapping the Jason Mesnick got
Speaker 1: three hours slog no ship that these are long man.
Speaker 1: The new Rookie crew was on fire, but the discussion
Speaker 1: as to whether or not Jason Mesnick was attractive reminded
Speaker 1: me of a time in twenty Town when I was
Speaker 1: suffering through working at the Gap Let's not get into
Speaker 1: that in a Seattle suburb, my coworkers started freaking out
Speaker 1: because the bachelor was in the store. Not having watched
Speaker 1: the show at the time, I was shocked when I
Speaker 1: saw him, as he discussed he was one short, but
Speaker 1: two he seemed to be exuding no sexual energy. So
Speaker 1: I was really confused as to why my female co
Speaker 1: workers were all a twitter. Given that Arden once proclaimed
Speaker 1: herself the chief Unich Inspector, which I don't remember but
Speaker 1: is incredible, she probably would have a better read on
Speaker 1: the situation, but I thought I would share those first
Speaker 1: impressions during the episode. I kept waiting for art And
Speaker 1: to bring up one of the best tweet of the
Speaker 1: weeks ever, which happened on the Aread finale episode after
Speaker 1: Chris Harrison said it looked like Jason's passion boocket is full.
Speaker 1: The hero listener tweeted, passion book itt is what Jason
Speaker 1: calls his wife's asshole. Ah so good. I really listened
Speaker 1: to that episode of your podcast. I confirm I was
Speaker 1: remembering correctly, and I ended up bursting out laughing again
Speaker 1: numerous times. It's so so freaking bunny. And if my
Speaker 1: voice wasn't burned out from doing a eight podcast today,
Speaker 1: it would sound like a heartier left. It's so funny
Speaker 1: to me. Paget and Aaron are amazing, as well as
Speaker 1: Art and Katie and Tanna. And the last thing Aaron
Speaker 1: said on the podcast was, you know, I like a
Speaker 1: good low hanging ball on my clavical. Now, whenever Jason
Speaker 1: has brought up on your show or your podcast, I
Speaker 1: immediately think of Passion Bucket and the gap. You and
Speaker 1: your friends and really except this Rose crew are truly
Speaker 1: a goddamn delight, and the Mary Ship show you put
Speaker 1: out is a joy. The humor in it, in the
Speaker 1: words of the new Rookie Trio, makes me feel seen
Speaker 1: and heard and representation matters. I cannot wait to receive
Speaker 1: my copy of Little Miss Little Comptent, and please keep
Speaker 1: up the lord's work. This world of Ding Dong's needs it. Rebecca. Also,
Speaker 1: I would again once again like to shamelessly nominate myself
Speaker 1: for the Listener episode that you have been teasing. Okay,
Speaker 1: you guys, it is next week. This is it. You
Speaker 1: guys officially have two days to email us. Okay, So
Speaker 1: this is coming out on Friday. We're going to decide
Speaker 1: on Sunday, whatever the next rookie episode is. We're going
Speaker 1: to have three guest fan fan co hosts that are
Speaker 1: gonna zoom in and do the podcast with us. So
Speaker 1: if you want to nominate yourself for a friend because
Speaker 1: people have been doing it, you've got two more days
Speaker 1: to do it, okay. Um. Also, I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: I asked you shamelessly. We're trying to get over a
Speaker 1: thousand likes on iTunes. I know it's dumb. It shouldn't matter.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. Sadly, people seem to care about it. So, um,
Speaker 1: here's the deal. You have been doing it and we
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and all of the like like numbers are
Speaker 1: going up, all the review numbers are going up, so
Speaker 1: like that is awesome. And so if you have it
Speaker 1: and you just go just go click click, go perfectly
Speaker 1: a five star review. That's awesome. Go click the review
Speaker 1: thing And if you want to leave an actual review,
Speaker 1: Chef's Kiss They're so good, here we go. So here's
Speaker 1: a review. We only got one actual review, so if
Speaker 1: you want to be read, it's a pretty guaranteed thing
Speaker 1: that you're gonna be read if you leave us an
Speaker 1: actual review. This week five stars. Lori is my queen
Speaker 1: by stay at home Dog Mom. This podcast is single
Speaker 1: handedly getting me through the pandemic arden undertake on the
Speaker 1: Bachelor franchise of the laughs that keep me from crying
Speaker 1: during this roller coaster of a year. Yes, honey, that's
Speaker 1: what we're here for. Although we have come to realize
Speaker 1: that we have little control over anything during this dumpster
Speaker 1: fire every year, this podcast is one of the few
Speaker 1: things that bring a small amount of consistency and routine
Speaker 1: to my week. I find myself laughing out loud to
Speaker 1: her and her co hosts response, and I'm always in
Speaker 1: awe of Laurie's supreme historical knowledge of Bachelor Nation. This
Speaker 1: podcast is a gem of a show has protected my
Speaker 1: heart during troubled times, and We'll always have my rose
Speaker 1: stay at home Dog is a beautiful podcast review. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. UM. So here we are, Here we are.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you an intro. I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: leave you with one final exciting thing that's coming up.
Speaker 1: We've been doing the in depth, intimate feeling thornis where
Speaker 1: we get to know people and this was inspired by
Speaker 1: me writing my book Little Miss Little Compton as comes
Speaker 1: out in a month. UM. We've done one with Rob Benedict.
Speaker 1: We did one with Um the star of Wrong Missy
Speaker 1: and Orange his new Black, Lauren Lattis. We did one
Speaker 1: with Wells Adams Um from the Bachelor franchise, and I'm
Speaker 1: really excited this one was I. I was so excited
Speaker 1: to sit down with this person. UM, I don't. I
Speaker 1: was on this show on Netflix called Instaable for the
Speaker 1: last two seasons and it was the first time that
Speaker 1: I had a female showrunner. It was created by a woman. UM.
Speaker 1: Most of the directors were either women or gay men. UM.
Speaker 1: We had mostly female producers and it was such a pleasure.
Speaker 1: It was so inspiring. I loved this woman so much. UM.
Speaker 1: I talked to today our creator and our showrunner and
Speaker 1: the brilliant writer Lauren Gusus and she wrote on Dexter
Speaker 1: I think for the entire run that it was on
Speaker 1: for like for like five six seven years. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's a terrific writer, and she's brave and she's fearless,
Speaker 1: and she was a fun boss and she unapologetically was
Speaker 1: a woman in charge in a way that was like
Speaker 1: a joy to be witness and fun to work for.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to do a good job for her,
Speaker 1: and I always felt free and accepted enough to take
Speaker 1: chances and take risks. And I felt like if she
Speaker 1: picked you, she thought you were talented and she let
Speaker 1: you do your thing. And so you know, as a
Speaker 1: writer myself, um, it was really fun for me to
Speaker 1: sit down and pick the brain of somebody that you know,
Speaker 1: I get nervous when I pitched things. I contend to
Speaker 1: doubt myself. I get my little weirdo social anxiety, and
Speaker 1: to talk to somebody that seemingly so effortlessly has just
Speaker 1: shown up for herself. And so I'm so excited for
Speaker 1: you guys to hear this and so much of me talking.
Speaker 1: But here's the final thing. I'm really excited about this.
Speaker 1: But um, we're doing kind of like a virtual book
Speaker 1: party like a book release party, like a show. And
Speaker 1: it's the same place that we did the live UM
Speaker 1: Draft Picks the Dynasty Typewriter, which is such a cool theater,
Speaker 1: and they're doing all these virtual shows and so that
Speaker 1: means you can from any time zone you can come
Speaker 1: to the show. And what's cool about it is five dollars,
Speaker 1: so you know, you don't have to fly in, you
Speaker 1: don't have to get a hotel like and even if
Speaker 1: it wasn't like COVID times, you know, this is a
Speaker 1: five dollar commitment and even if you're not available, the
Speaker 1: link is good for a full week afterwards, you can
Speaker 1: watch it. UM. So we're doing our show. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be me and Lauren Laz. It's a book party. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do UM and it's before the book comes out,
Speaker 1: like the weekend before. It's UM Saturday, September at five
Speaker 1: pm Pacific time. Uh, and it's gonna be me and
Speaker 1: Lauren Laciz. People can email in any questions and you
Speaker 1: can order a book through there where you can get
Speaker 1: a customized book plate. So if you want to give
Speaker 1: it as a gift to somebody and you want it
Speaker 1: written out to them, or if there's a certain like
Speaker 1: if you want it written out to yourself you can
Speaker 1: get if you buy it. If you order the book
Speaker 1: through you don't have to get a book. You can
Speaker 1: just come for the show. But Skylight Books, which is
Speaker 1: a super cool bookstore in Los Angeles, is partnering with it,
Speaker 1: and you can get the book with a special like
Speaker 1: custom message, which is kind of fun. And so this
Speaker 1: is my book release party and I hope you guys
Speaker 1: will come. I'm sure we'll talk some Bachelor stuff. So
Speaker 1: that is um September at five pm. So much talking. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll be back next week and breaking down um Nick
Speaker 1: File season with the Rookie. All right, you guys have
Speaker 1: a good time. I'm sorry I chewed your ear off.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys are all doing okay. I hope
Speaker 1: you're all hanging in there. I hope everybody with kids
Speaker 1: it's back to school and it's still at home or
Speaker 1: not at home, or if you know, if you have
Speaker 1: any six loved ones or you're not doing well, like
Speaker 1: just know that your little friend Arden is just I'm
Speaker 1: sending you lots of love and I'm thinking about you,
Speaker 1: and I know everybody's doing the best. That they can
Speaker 1: and um, I appreciate your time and your well wishes. Okay, bye,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Will You Accept This Rose? A production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. You know what time it is. It's
Speaker 1: time for hard to get a little close and a
Speaker 1: little thorny. Woa, Wellton's gonna go one on one, gonna
Speaker 1: be hot, energy, fun convos are gonna be super real,
Speaker 1: and she wants to get with you and all the
Speaker 1: fields feeling thorny, feeling whoay, feeling thorny? We're not Marie? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh my god? Have you probably never heard this? I'm
Speaker 1: an idiot. Oh my gosh, I made this So were
Speaker 1: you accepted me inviting you to my podcast and making
Speaker 1: you a little I'm gonna a close? Oh my god?
Speaker 1: Can you yeah? I commissioned, I had a vision. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, is it right? Oh my god, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can think you're so much. Oh my god. Welcome
Speaker 1: to a very special bonus podcast. If we accept this Rose,
Speaker 1: we're in our offshoot. Feeling thorny. Okay, my friend who
Speaker 1: is here has never heard that song and the look
Speaker 1: on her face, why, like I felt like I just
Speaker 1: gave you the gaft. It was like half joy and
Speaker 1: half Wildest Comfort is exactly right. Well, when I had
Speaker 1: a vision for this, just a little backstory on this podcast,
Speaker 1: I'd never watch I didn't watch much reality TV. I'd
Speaker 1: never watched The Bachelor or anything, and like four years ago,
Speaker 1: I somebody made me watch it and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not a garbage person. I have like better things
Speaker 1: to do, Dan Martin and and I watched it and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, Like I don't watch
Speaker 1: sports or anything, but I became obsessed with like the
Speaker 1: gaming of it. And then I saw on Twitter that
Speaker 1: all of my favorite people like that, all these funny
Speaker 1: people watch it, and I was so I had this
Speaker 1: fever dream on a mountain in Vermont New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: like sledding one year, and I was like, I need
Speaker 1: to make a podcast so I can talk about it
Speaker 1: with people. And I feel like I finally had a
Speaker 1: hobby for the first time of my life. And so
Speaker 1: I commissioned. I hired Mark Rivers, this genius who writes
Speaker 1: for like adult swim and stuff. I was like, I
Speaker 1: need you to write me a song that feels like
Speaker 1: very white slash, like a homeless man is jumped out
Speaker 1: of a bush and like breathe on your neck and
Speaker 1: just on your feet, and I feel like he executed
Speaker 1: that nailed at Um, you are hearing the voice of
Speaker 1: a person. And part of the reason I'm expanding the
Speaker 1: podcast right now, um is outside of the Bachelor franchise,
Speaker 1: is that I am a person with social anxiety who
Speaker 1: built this podcast, and I thought it was just going
Speaker 1: to be me sort of joking around about The Bachelor,
Speaker 1: and what I found is as a nervous, awkward human
Speaker 1: who seems an outgoing but it's actually like a super freak.
Speaker 1: I've been able to get to know people, and I've
Speaker 1: had so much fun and it's been so good for
Speaker 1: me as a human being that I started taking more
Speaker 1: chances in life and eventually I sold a book, and um,
Speaker 1: this is leading up to my book. You preorder now
Speaker 1: on Amazon, little Miss Little Compton. But um, it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of I wanted to bring people in and a
Speaker 1: lot of my book is dealing with, um, you know,
Speaker 1: my parents married on a dare. They weren't dating, and
Speaker 1: they weren't you know, they were never a couple and
Speaker 1: they stayed married for fifty years. And um, so my
Speaker 1: roadmap was a little bit off and so I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring people in who I respect and I admire
Speaker 1: and who I feel like live their lives very authentically
Speaker 1: and who might have also had sort of quirky roadmaps
Speaker 1: and just talked to them about themselves. So with me today,
Speaker 1: a long introduction. UM, as you know, I talked about
Speaker 1: it all the time. I'm on this show and stage
Speaker 1: of a lot Netflix, which is my favorite job I've
Speaker 1: ever had. And I probably you've I talked about you
Speaker 1: actually a lot in the book, But UM, I I know,
Speaker 1: I really I've never been on a show. Um, I've
Speaker 1: never been on a show run by women or a woman.
Speaker 1: Um I've and I've just to you know, they always
Speaker 1: say like you can't it's hard to be it if
Speaker 1: you can't see it. And just like watching you navigate,
Speaker 1: birthing the show, defending the show, and then being the
Speaker 1: joy of like the captain of the show within my perspective,
Speaker 1: with like a strong but light touch, like it's yours,
Speaker 1: but it's I feel like people have room to play. UM,
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to bring you on our creator,
Speaker 1: our showrunner, Lauren Guess. It's nice to you. It's true. Um,
Speaker 1: I feel like our show really has a lot of
Speaker 1: like just the seeds of the creation of it are
Speaker 1: it feels like you gave your voice to your inner teenager,
Speaker 1: like my inner A lot of stuff like my inner shames,
Speaker 1: sort of like the shadow self. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff in the show that I
Speaker 1: felt like when I say shadow self now in the
Speaker 1: Stay and Age, then I have to qualify that by
Speaker 1: saying it's things that probably I shouldn't have had shame
Speaker 1: about did, like what like the lgbt Q stuff. Clearly
Speaker 1: there's no shadow of that, but the shadow self was
Speaker 1: a part of me that felt like I needed to
Speaker 1: keep that in the shadow. Well, I can also say
Speaker 1: from me growing up, you know, when I think about
Speaker 1: a lot of my friends who didn't come out till
Speaker 1: after college, like no one was out, There was no
Speaker 1: There was not one person out in my high school.
Speaker 1: There was one person in my high school, and I
Speaker 1: think they came out the year after I left. Guy
Speaker 1: or a girl. Guy, how did how did people treat him?
Speaker 1: I think fine. I think it was like not a secret,
Speaker 1: so people were fine. But I can't tell you like
Speaker 1: most of my close group of friends came out, including
Speaker 1: my boyfriend by the way came out in somewhere or
Speaker 1: another after we left. It's an interesting thing just talking
Speaker 1: about shame. When I think about, you know, like when
Speaker 1: I when I wrote the proposal from my book, um
Speaker 1: a lot of it. I think I think it was
Speaker 1: more negative, like I had my my dad was tough
Speaker 1: growing up them and like on the one handle, lot
Speaker 1: of my family was really fun, but like my dad
Speaker 1: is pretty nasty, and I think I had so much,
Speaker 1: like shame was such a huge part of my identity.
Speaker 1: I think I still struggle with it. It's sort of
Speaker 1: my default if I'm tired, if I'm not checking in
Speaker 1: with people, like it just washes over me. But I
Speaker 1: recently literally recently, meaning in the last probably thirty six hours,
Speaker 1: had a therapist tell me that my relationship to shame,
Speaker 1: like the shame is the whole mansion in my life,
Speaker 1: Like it's a mansion. And she said, you need to
Speaker 1: make it a closet. And I said, perhaps not the
Speaker 1: best analogy considering my history. And literally she goes, if
Speaker 1: I was closer to you, I would poke you with
Speaker 1: my foot. Let's make it a condo instead of a
Speaker 1: giant man. Um. Yeah, I honestly think and then I
Speaker 1: mean not to be super dark, but like just and
Speaker 1: I don't believe in accident. So they literally I've been
Speaker 1: trying to sell this book for years and the day
Speaker 1: that the offer came in was the day of my
Speaker 1: mom's funeral, which is so crazy. They were like, hope
Speaker 1: you're having a great week. It's like, not really. But
Speaker 1: do you say that though, because that's the thing, you
Speaker 1: can say anything. But I was recently having a conversation
Speaker 1: with somebody about that, like the social norm of when
Speaker 1: someone says how are you, you don't really you're not
Speaker 1: really supposed to answer, and awkward it is really going on.
Speaker 1: So did you actually say you know what? When she
Speaker 1: emailed me? And I think I was like dry. I
Speaker 1: think I was getting driven to her funeral and I, um,
Speaker 1: and I it's funny that you should say that, like
Speaker 1: so much of like you want to spare people like
Speaker 1: you don't want to like do it to them, you know,
Speaker 1: like they can catch it, you know. And so I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, so excited to work with you.
Speaker 1: Side note, funny thing you should not the greatest week?
Speaker 1: Um uh, you know, like my mom actually just died suddenly.
Speaker 1: And but I will say one of the gifts of that.
Speaker 1: I feel like the book in a weird way, became
Speaker 1: more glass, half full and more about her, like she
Speaker 1: was the sort of sunshine and if my dad was
Speaker 1: like the shadows and shame. Um, but that has been
Speaker 1: It's interesting. A shame is not something I don't think
Speaker 1: I ever publicly talked about shame like, but it's something
Speaker 1: that I like they say like guilty, so you feel
Speaker 1: like you've done something wrong, but shame is like you
Speaker 1: feel like who you are is wrong. And I truly
Speaker 1: felt like for years, where did you get the message?
Speaker 1: Like did you have a tough like I know very
Speaker 1: clearly where mine came from, Like do you have a
Speaker 1: clear person of shame or clear I was bullied as
Speaker 1: a kid, and everybody does the best thing can that's right,
Speaker 1: And the response a lot of time was like, well,
Speaker 1: what did you do right? And nothing? Nothing like my
Speaker 1: seven best friends dumped me two weeks before my bat
Speaker 1: Mitzvah when I was twelve, Like what did I do wrong?
Speaker 1: Like I wasn't cool, the boys didn't like me. Isn't
Speaker 1: it just the worst thing? And like I didn't know
Speaker 1: who I mean? It was really so even just the
Speaker 1: question of like what did you do? Yeah, you're like
Speaker 1: kind of ingrained in me that like I was the
Speaker 1: bad guy, and I think that I frankly like sought
Speaker 1: out relationships repeatedly, not on purpose, basically where like I
Speaker 1: end up being the bad guy or I feel like
Speaker 1: the bad guy. It's a very comfortable place for me
Speaker 1: to be. It's so interesting how hard it is to
Speaker 1: break that. Like, but that's one of the things I
Speaker 1: talked about, is like if I would like what I
Speaker 1: wish I knew, is that's why I would go in
Speaker 1: I would be like like that just thinking friends, mostly
Speaker 1: female friends, but then sometimes in dating that like I
Speaker 1: would have like fixed her upper Like if I could
Speaker 1: just cheer lead somebody the best, then like if they
Speaker 1: felt okay about themselves, then like we would be okay.
Speaker 1: And you just do it again and you watch these
Speaker 1: paths about yourself. It's hard to put down, Like it's
Speaker 1: hard when you even when you start to see it,
Speaker 1: it's hard to like you're aware that you're doing it.
Speaker 1: So like, so now now what do I do? Like,
Speaker 1: how do I stop doing that? Um? How did your
Speaker 1: parents meet? Oh my god, my parents went to high
Speaker 1: school together? Okay, and my dad sat behind my mom
Speaker 1: and apparently had a crush on her, Like the entire
Speaker 1: time they were in high school. My mom was cool. Um,
Speaker 1: he had a crush on the entire time they were
Speaker 1: in high school. My mom was cool. My dad was
Speaker 1: not cool at all, Okay, and uh, like she didn't
Speaker 1: know she was. He was alive, Like she was a
Speaker 1: cheerleader and he was like a mathlete like that classic
Speaker 1: like John Hughes ridiculousness. And then they my mom originally
Speaker 1: went to the University of Iowa UM and then ended
Speaker 1: up transferring out to go to the University of Illinois
Speaker 1: because of UM some a because she felt like she
Speaker 1: lived too close to her grandmother and then her grandmother
Speaker 1: was up in her business because there was some scandal
Speaker 1: that I won't talk about. Love family scandal, the family scandal,
Speaker 1: and uh. She ended up going to the University of
Speaker 1: Illinois with my dad, and I think she dated his
Speaker 1: roommate or maybe both of his roommates and that didn't
Speaker 1: work out. And then I think they were a bar
Speaker 1: one night and she's like, I know you, and then
Speaker 1: they ended up together. Yes, I love it was like
Speaker 1: last Man Standing. Yeah, Like he was like a lot
Speaker 1: of bad guys. Yes, not bad guys, but just like
Speaker 1: my dad was so nice to her. He's like a
Speaker 1: good guy. Okay, I don't mean to even be like
Speaker 1: I mean, I will say it's now that I've watched
Speaker 1: numerous seasons of the Bachelor, and I've watched different franchises
Speaker 1: of it because i have a podcast what's fascinating and
Speaker 1: and I can it test this because we've watched Australia,
Speaker 1: we've watched England. Literally, human nature every time whoever is
Speaker 1: like the nice, responsible like I'm I'm a sure thing,
Speaker 1: I will treat you well, I will not try to
Speaker 1: fund your friends. They never pick that one, like it's
Speaker 1: always the final two when if your family likes them,
Speaker 1: they will always pick the other one, the one that
Speaker 1: will give you her base like but like it's truly
Speaker 1: like it's it's truly like like like human nature does
Speaker 1: not want the kind sure thing like always it's fascinated
Speaker 1: across the globe. But it's like, never did they pick
Speaker 1: the right one? Um and by one of the things
Speaker 1: that's interesting just knowing, you know, like when I see
Speaker 1: I know the growing up with some shame and some
Speaker 1: shadowy stuff like you to me as a creator and
Speaker 1: that you, I think more than any showrunner I've ever
Speaker 1: worked with, Like, you know who you are, you know
Speaker 1: what your point of view is, You're you own it
Speaker 1: in a way that is unapologetic and and not people
Speaker 1: pleasy and like but graceful, Like how did you go
Speaker 1: from being like I got dumped from seven friends, something's
Speaker 1: wrong with me too? Being new? Like how did that?
Speaker 1: I still think that something's wrong with me? Okay, I
Speaker 1: have the thing is that I deflected, So I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm very good in a crowded room. Right, So
Speaker 1: if I can write the thing and put it out
Speaker 1: into the universe, then it's somehow farther away from me,
Speaker 1: so I can really be clear about my point of
Speaker 1: view and what my work is because I've alrea like
Speaker 1: it's public and I get the bravado part of it
Speaker 1: makes it easier for me interesting, And I think I
Speaker 1: learned that my mom has so much bravado, like she's abroad,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, so like she's a party and so
Speaker 1: I'm I kind of learned that, like, oh, like if
Speaker 1: I can be on, if I can be the party,
Speaker 1: then people are entertained by me and it's okay. And
Speaker 1: then in my private life. That's when I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a piece of ship. I shouldn't have said that thing.
Speaker 1: I go over and over in my head like maybe
Speaker 1: I should have said that, Maybe I shouldn't done that.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to spend like I don't like to make
Speaker 1: plans with people more than one time in a week
Speaker 1: because I think they're going to get sick of me,
Speaker 1: Like I you know what I mean. I just it's
Speaker 1: that I built a podcast so I can hang out
Speaker 1: with people. So I get very uncomfortable and socially, especially
Speaker 1: if I don't have an If I have an introduction,
Speaker 1: I can usually make conversation like I'm never somebody that
Speaker 1: could walk up to somebody in a bar, like it's
Speaker 1: just you know, my husband was the president of his class,
Speaker 1: like he's very good at being social. So sometimes I
Speaker 1: actually have to pretend like I'm him when I'm in
Speaker 1: a room by myself, like woman might do um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think also, you have a certain amount of out
Speaker 1: in a leadership position, which means I know people have
Speaker 1: to listen to me. So then the anxiety goes away
Speaker 1: a little bit because I don't feel like I have
Speaker 1: to prove that I'm okay, like I've already been told
Speaker 1: I'm okay because I'm the boss. So the part that
Speaker 1: gets I mean, I can't believe I'm saying this to you,
Speaker 1: but I love this. The part that gets wonky for me.
Speaker 1: Then it's like, well, then is everybody being nice to
Speaker 1: me because I'm the boss? Like everything nice that you've
Speaker 1: just said to me, It's like, yeah, but you work
Speaker 1: for me so well. With you, I kind of I
Speaker 1: believe you, but mostly but like a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: I check myself and then I go into that place
Speaker 1: of being twelve where I'm like, well, yeah, it's because
Speaker 1: now I like being the boss is kind of the
Speaker 1: equivalent of being the Queen Bay Like it's a little
Speaker 1: bit like you're being you're popular, but it's because someone's
Speaker 1: paying you to be popular, and so it's just like
Speaker 1: it's a different thing that dynamic gets harder. But if
Speaker 1: I'm in a room full of people where that's not
Speaker 1: my position or nobody knows, then I'm like, oh, right
Speaker 1: back to like I'm a piece of shit again. The
Speaker 1: Eagle is Landed was Dexter your first TV What was
Speaker 1: your first TV gig where I was actually paid to
Speaker 1: be a writer. It was a show on NBC called
Speaker 1: The Ring. It was about the Pentagon, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I heard ear ring and I thought of like like
Speaker 1: that birth control that people have like sewn into their hips,
Speaker 1: you know. Very It was a very confusing title, which
Speaker 1: may have been why the show didn't do so well. Um,
Speaker 1: but yes, it was about the ring as opposed to
Speaker 1: d ring or c ring. Okay, Pentagon, how old were you?
Speaker 1: How did you? Like, like what where did you go
Speaker 1: after college? Where did you go to college? And like
Speaker 1: how did what got you to that first job? I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated by, like the trajectory story. Yeah, it's weird. Uh.
Speaker 1: I went to Northwestern because I was, you know, the
Speaker 1: only child of Jewish parents who like desperately didn't want
Speaker 1: me to leave Chicago, and I was too scared on
Speaker 1: some level to go. How far away were there from
Speaker 1: your dorm? Twenty minute? Too close? Too close? I was
Speaker 1: like scared that I was going to run into them
Speaker 1: at dinner at any horrible time. Because also my parents
Speaker 1: are foodie, so they would have driven from Deerfield to
Speaker 1: Evanston to go so like at any moment I could
Speaker 1: have run into that. Now, the good news about that
Speaker 1: is that my parents hosted for all the Jewish holidays.
Speaker 1: All my friends knew my childhood home, and my college
Speaker 1: friends got to know my high school friends, which is
Speaker 1: really lovely, but also like I didn't really well. I
Speaker 1: was a late bloomer because I didn't really do all
Speaker 1: the crazy rebellious teenage ship until I was in my
Speaker 1: twenties and I moved out to l A. And I
Speaker 1: was just really went hard like that from twenty two
Speaker 1: to twenty seven, I was a catastrophe, what flavor catastrophe?
Speaker 1: All of them? What was your What was the most
Speaker 1: fun naughty year? I had a fun naught year when
Speaker 1: I was nineteen in Chicago. I think I made up
Speaker 1: with everybody and gained thirty pounds in alcohol and and burritos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had the best time the twenty four to twenty
Speaker 1: seven years, but like really was like circling the drain
Speaker 1: when I went met my husband. Really like I was
Speaker 1: making out with everybody, So I don't know. My twenty
Speaker 1: four birthday, I got dared to make out with ten
Speaker 1: people and I did it. That kind of like that
Speaker 1: started the thing that that I was like in a
Speaker 1: bar and like ten people in the same bar that
Speaker 1: somebody tapped me on the shoulder while I was mid
Speaker 1: make out with someone who was like, were you making
Speaker 1: out with that guy before? I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: my birthday. And then I went back to making out
Speaker 1: with the other. I mean, I was a disaster. That's
Speaker 1: really fun, super fun, but it's like kissing it's like,
Speaker 1: who cares, I'm not gonna get pregnant a disease. It's
Speaker 1: like I was all about keeping both of the waist.
Speaker 1: Maybe a fun dry hump we make out in the doorway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great. It was the best. Um. So that was fun,
Speaker 1: but I really like I started to maybe behave less
Speaker 1: ethically as I approached twenty seven and my husband kind
Speaker 1: of swooped in like exactly that moment to be like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be the one I didn't know. You
Speaker 1: guys have been together since we were twenty seven years
Speaker 1: fourteen years on October four. Um, Lauren's husband is so sweet,
Speaker 1: he's so talented, and he looks just like he looks
Speaker 1: just like Rick Morana. So who's such a likable person?
Speaker 1: Like three times a year someone will stop on the
Speaker 1: street like, hey, aren't you that guy? Guy shrunk the kids. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I loved you years older than me. But Mike is
Speaker 1: always like people remember that, they remember the movie star.
Speaker 1: They don't know what it looks like. They like, they
Speaker 1: just know, like you're the guy you you you have
Speaker 1: not aged today. I know. We actually in season one
Speaker 1: of Insatiable, we were like, can we get Rick Moran's
Speaker 1: to play the Jewish priest? And then we were like
Speaker 1: should mikeel was just play the Jewish? We had him
Speaker 1: do the line like five times, were like, no, you're
Speaker 1: not an actor, Let's get someone else. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I love the idea. I would like to see them
Speaker 1: in the same room. I love that. I really want
Speaker 1: to see them in the same room. What were you
Speaker 1: doing out here? From seven? Like? What were you? What
Speaker 1: were you doing? How are you paying your rent? So
Speaker 1: I I moved out here. I got a job as
Speaker 1: an ages assistant at Broder, Curl and web Uffner when
Speaker 1: it was still a thing, because I got absorbed, I
Speaker 1: seem and I was on a desk of two agents,
Speaker 1: one who was below the line and one who was
Speaker 1: above the lie um. And it was like a comprehensive
Speaker 1: education about the television business. And also one of them
Speaker 1: was male and one of them was female. And so
Speaker 1: the guy I and I I just recently found out
Speaker 1: he suddenly passed away, which is really tragic because I
Speaker 1: haven't talked to him in like ten years. But he
Speaker 1: was like he was only two years older than me,
Speaker 1: but he looked like he was forty and he was
Speaker 1: like Tony soprano. He was amazing um and she was
Speaker 1: like Tracy Flick yes, And so I kind of was
Speaker 1: like this is it was too I really had to
Speaker 1: juggle two personalities at one time. That's a vastly different
Speaker 1: prototype of people to go like that is way different.
Speaker 1: But also she's an agent named Jana Carrol lrne. I'm
Speaker 1: giving her shout out because she's amazing. Hey, girl, I
Speaker 1: learned that you could be powerful as a woman without
Speaker 1: being a bitch in Hollywood, which nobody had ever told
Speaker 1: me before. And she really was like they're just smart
Speaker 1: and on her ship. She was amazing. And so that happened,
Speaker 1: and then, uh, were you writing scripts at home? I
Speaker 1: was writing scripts? But also, to be honest, I moved
Speaker 1: out here to be a writer. And then I mistakenly
Speaker 1: got here and decided I moved out here to be skinny. Yes,
Speaker 1: Like I just got confused about why I was here
Speaker 1: because I think it was like I always had body
Speaker 1: stuff and the thing I grew up in Chicago, the
Speaker 1: thing was like nobody actually looks like they do in
Speaker 1: movies and TV. And then I moved here and I
Speaker 1: was like, no, they do here. I didn't have body
Speaker 1: stuff until I moved to l A. I was like
Speaker 1: just I was just like thirty pounds heavier, like it
Speaker 1: was like whatever. And then I moved here. I lost
Speaker 1: I started jogging in college just because I didn't never
Speaker 1: want somebody to tell me to lose weight. So I
Speaker 1: did it. But then I got out and I you know,
Speaker 1: I booked a job quickly because I was silly and
Speaker 1: quirky and different, you know, not not because I was
Speaker 1: everybody else. And then I remember I got the flu
Speaker 1: one year and I lost all this weight and I
Speaker 1: started getting bigger storylines on the show I was on
Speaker 1: and people I was It was just because I had
Speaker 1: such a high fever. I couldn't walk to the fridge,
Speaker 1: but it was like unsustainable and people were like, I know,
Speaker 1: you're really sick, you look so great, So I started
Speaker 1: smoking to try and then it was I picked it
Speaker 1: up like a cold, you know, and then and then
Speaker 1: for a little bit, you lose your personality. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I had to get a recovery. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like right about the time, a bottom down in
Speaker 1: every way. Um, but yeah, I I decided that. So
Speaker 1: I wasn't really writing scripts to the degree that I
Speaker 1: should have been at that time because I was looking
Speaker 1: up like diets and programs ends and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But um, one of the agents clients got her first
Speaker 1: staff writer gig, and so she wanted to have an
Speaker 1: ally on the staff. You know, when you're an agents assistant,
Speaker 1: you talked all the clients on the phone all the time.
Speaker 1: And so she got me into interview for the writer's
Speaker 1: assistant position, and I was the least experienced person, but
Speaker 1: they wanted to hire a female, and so they hired me.
Speaker 1: And I ended up in the writer's room for Birds
Speaker 1: of Prey, which was like this Batman franchise show for
Speaker 1: the w B when it still existed, and magically was
Speaker 1: in a room with a bunch of people who, while
Speaker 1: that show wasn't a big deal, they all went on
Speaker 1: to be massively big deals. Even though at the time
Speaker 1: I don't think any of them are really as big
Speaker 1: of a deal and now they're all huge. In that
Speaker 1: room was Mlissa Rosenberg, who went on to write the
Speaker 1: movies Lyda Calagritas, who's like the most successful female screenwriter
Speaker 1: other than Melissa Rosenberg of all time. M Eddie kits
Speaker 1: Is and Adam Horwitz who created Once upon a Time
Speaker 1: Hanstubius and who's run a million things right like Adam
Speaker 1: Armis and k Foster who created a ton of Ship Like.
Speaker 1: They were all, that's the room you're in, heavy hitters,
Speaker 1: and they were all like not uh, they weren't show
Speaker 1: owners at that time, and so um. They taught me
Speaker 1: to pitch in the room. Eddie Kitts specifically would ask
Speaker 1: me like when the room had a well, he asked me,
Speaker 1: well what he's like, Okay, Rookie, what do you think?
Speaker 1: And I had something to say and then they were
Speaker 1: like either it was good or it was good but
Speaker 1: not right, and they would explain why such a gift.
Speaker 1: But also, Eddie Kitts this read my spec script that
Speaker 1: I had written while I was a brother, was like,
Speaker 1: you're very funny and very talented, and you're not a
Speaker 1: comedy writer. Interesting. I was like what And so he
Speaker 1: takes credit for my career and I was like, what
Speaker 1: do you mean And at the time, he was, you know,
Speaker 1: you needed more space to tell a really emotionally deep story.
Speaker 1: So I wrote a six ft under spec and that
Speaker 1: got me on my work. So from there I went briefly,
Speaker 1: you know, the show got canceled, and I went briefly
Speaker 1: to work for a manager, and ten days into that job,
Speaker 1: I got a call to be the writer's assistant from
Speaker 1: Melis Rosenberg, who had moved on to the o C. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I was like, I just took this other job,
Speaker 1: and I realized every single person who was there was
Speaker 1: dying to get a writer's assistant job. And I had
Speaker 1: an offer, and I'm like, if there's going to be
Speaker 1: a bridge that I burned, this is going to have
Speaker 1: to be the one. And so I did. Also Melissa
Speaker 1: kind of tore me into when she's like, are you kidding,
Speaker 1: Like you're going to call and not be ecstatic that
Speaker 1: I'm offering to this job, Like you're right, You're right,
Speaker 1: You're right. So I went and so I spent the
Speaker 1: first season in the o C, which was like life changing,
Speaker 1: I mean just in terms of learning so much from
Speaker 1: all of a lot of women in that room actually,
Speaker 1: and also josh Is and to be on a hit too,
Speaker 1: like witnessing the birth of a hit, also witnessing the
Speaker 1: birth of teen stardom. Yes, like I was. I feel
Speaker 1: like I may have seen the moment where Adam Brody
Speaker 1: realized he was famous because went to some screening at
Speaker 1: Sharkey's in the South Bay. Yeah, we were in love.
Speaker 1: I love Sharks. We were in the car on the
Speaker 1: way and a couple, you know, all the writers just
Speaker 1: jumped into the cars with the actors and everyone was
Speaker 1: very friendly. And he got out of the car and
Speaker 1: there was like a thousand thousand screaming teenagers. And I
Speaker 1: saw the look on his face. It was like, oh,
Speaker 1: sh I'm famous now, which was magical for me to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I think I just saw a single
Speaker 1: moment in somebody's life. I just I just got chills
Speaker 1: sticking back, like I didn't know going back between season
Speaker 1: one season two. Have insatiable like because because Netflix is
Speaker 1: different than traditional net network where you do a couple
Speaker 1: and start airing and you're still filming. You know, we've
Speaker 1: done the entire thing. The privacy of Atlanta and then
Speaker 1: I remember going with you and the cast to Instagram
Speaker 1: and Facebook headquarters and we'd already dropped and like Michael
Speaker 1: Provost had gotten like who plays Brick, He'd gotten like
Speaker 1: a million in Instagram followers on like a day, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And I was curious to see,
Speaker 1: particularly for the the younger cast, a lot of them,
Speaker 1: it was one of their first jobs, you know, the
Speaker 1: more veteran people. It's like Debbie's been like Debbie was
Speaker 1: gonna be a diction Dorty bad because she's lovely, you know,
Speaker 1: Dallas is lovely. This is a lot like But I
Speaker 1: was curious to see if when we came back with
Speaker 1: all of this, because you can actually have metrics now
Speaker 1: because you see your followers go up. I didn't know
Speaker 1: if the kids would be different, and they weren't. And
Speaker 1: I want to still think about. Part of it is
Speaker 1: the safety too, of filming in Atlanta, you know, like
Speaker 1: that there's like it's just us. It's like camp, you
Speaker 1: know it is. But I also just think we have
Speaker 1: a good group of people. You haven't picked any jerks,
Speaker 1: like it's it's been a great group of people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they I mean, it's a magical puppy pile of human
Speaker 1: beings um and going back to the O c and
Speaker 1: everything like one of the things, like it was interesting.
Speaker 1: It's been interesting writing this book because you're sort of
Speaker 1: you know you I always just like what I just
Speaker 1: moved forward, you know, when it was interesting. The publisher
Speaker 1: requested a chapter on like how did you get from
Speaker 1: this tiny town on with like a chicken caboos, Like
Speaker 1: there's literally a caboost filled with chickens in a field
Speaker 1: and a general store and no stoplights, Like how did
Speaker 1: you get from there? To a TV? And looking at
Speaker 1: a lot of the happy accidents and like putting yourself
Speaker 1: in the right room being even just being good at
Speaker 1: photo copying or being relized. You know, I remember I
Speaker 1: was an internet conent or, I worked for a casting director.
Speaker 1: I worked in prov Olympic in Chicago, like just being
Speaker 1: around and being competent, and then all of the talented
Speaker 1: people that were that they all go on and if
Speaker 1: you just show up and it's a lot of you
Speaker 1: stake your plan of but then the wind blows. No,
Speaker 1: it's true, that's what happened. So so from the O
Speaker 1: c UH I ended up going to a show called
Speaker 1: North Shore on Fox about it like it was basically
Speaker 1: love Boat in a hotel and the show went early,
Speaker 1: so they cherry picked all the writers from the Fox
Speaker 1: Overall deals. So again I was in like a powerhouse
Speaker 1: of writers on this show that was essentially the love Boat. Yes,
Speaker 1: and they were all amazing, and they all took me
Speaker 1: under their wing and then they continue to teach me
Speaker 1: how to pitch and and I kind of did a
Speaker 1: good job at my job, Like I happened to be
Speaker 1: a great writer's assistant because I have perfect oral memory
Speaker 1: and so I can write down verbatim everything. Everybody's the
Speaker 1: fastest typer I've ever seen to and so they liked me,
Speaker 1: and uh, I gave them my spect that I had written,
Speaker 1: Thanks Daddy, kids, this is six ft under and they
Speaker 1: all liked it. And so five people in that room
Speaker 1: had shows that were set to get picked up and
Speaker 1: none of those shows went And I was devastated, was
Speaker 1: my It was year five of being an assistant, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I have to go. I made a
Speaker 1: deal with myself, like if it doesn't happen in five years,
Speaker 1: I think I have to leave. And where I don't
Speaker 1: know where. But I was like, am I really going
Speaker 1: to keeping an assistant for longer than that. Like I
Speaker 1: just kind of, you know, I was a straight a student,
Speaker 1: Like I don't wait like if things happened for me,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, I just like get it done.
Speaker 1: And Uh, I had one more shot because the the
Speaker 1: executive producers of north Shore had an overall deal and
Speaker 1: they've just re upped their assistant. Uh had to leave
Speaker 1: because he had a methodiction yea. So they swooped in
Speaker 1: and were like, if you're not going to be the
Speaker 1: writer's assistant anymore, will you be our assistant? I was
Speaker 1: like okay, and uh. It was Chris Broncado and Bert Sukey,
Speaker 1: which is interesting for a lot of reasons, which I'll
Speaker 1: tell you in a second. And they went, we moved
Speaker 1: them to ABC and they were in their overall deal
Speaker 1: and I was there for two weeks and then one
Speaker 1: of the writers from north Shore called my boss, Bert
Speaker 1: Saukee and Chris Broncado and said, Lauren, get off the
Speaker 1: phone because you know, assistants listening to all the calls.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh shit, what did I do
Speaker 1: or what did I say? Because I'm someone whose mouth
Speaker 1: goes five miles faster than the rest of me. I
Speaker 1: often say, I'm not supposed to say that's like my brand.
Speaker 1: So I was like, what, who did I tell something
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have told? Or what did I do that
Speaker 1: somebody found out about? Because if you remember, that was
Speaker 1: in my period of time where I was really wildly
Speaker 1: misbehaving girl. So uh So I got at the phone
Speaker 1: and I was like, I just was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: oh my god, oh my god. I hope it's just
Speaker 1: a personal problem between it because they were friends. So
Speaker 1: it's like, let's just pray that somebody's having problems in
Speaker 1: their house, but not really. You're never wor step thing
Speaker 1: like I want to fund the nanny, but I'm not
Speaker 1: going to. Let's hope it's that that I don't know
Speaker 1: about you. But things agat I break and then I
Speaker 1: see the light go off of the phone's been hung up,
Speaker 1: and I hear Lauren get in here, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I literally felt all the blood rain out of my face.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm so panicked. And I walk in there
Speaker 1: and Bird's all he looks at me and he goes,
Speaker 1: you need to find another job, Like you need to
Speaker 1: find a replacement for yourself, Like yesterday, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: what happened? And I want to die, you know, and
Speaker 1: he goes kenn of staffing you any rail and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Lauren. So it turned out like I
Speaker 1: didn't know that that was going to be. The guy
Speaker 1: was Ken Billark. He's my fairy godfather. He gave me
Speaker 1: my first job. Um, and he brought me in on
Speaker 1: this Pentagon military ship. I'm like, I'm a Jew from Chicago,
Speaker 1: tick about the military, you know, to be the character writer.
Speaker 1: So once again like I'm designated other in the room,
Speaker 1: which is but that was uncomfortable because I already didn't
Speaker 1: know what I was doing, you know, and I just
Speaker 1: kind of learned to run with it, like Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: not here to tell military stories. I'm here to tell
Speaker 1: emotional stories. So that's what I'm gonna do. I like that.
Speaker 1: I heard that as am in my mind. I'm like,
Speaker 1: if I have a specialty, I'm like, I'm needed, and
Speaker 1: I'm needed if they if not, if not, everybody does
Speaker 1: what I do, that's good news. I think it's great,
Speaker 1: but not when it's your first job. It was very intimidating,
Speaker 1: like I don't even if I can keep up. But
Speaker 1: the good news was I because I didn't know, I
Speaker 1: asked a ton of questions. And one of the guys
Speaker 1: who co created the show was actually a former Green
Speaker 1: Beret and a marine and all the things, and he
Speaker 1: had spent so much time with I got on the
Speaker 1: show late, and so he had become very frustrated with
Speaker 1: writers who said, yes, I understand that's what really happened,
Speaker 1: but that's not a good story. He's like, I literally
Speaker 1: watched people's brain matter splatter out of their heads, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna tell me that's not like he just was,
Speaker 1: you know, understandably like that. I lived a life like
Speaker 1: how dare you? And so instead I learned to say
Speaker 1: things like, here's emotionally what we're going for. What would
Speaker 1: be a good way in that? And and he grew
Speaker 1: very fond of my ability to pull that out and
Speaker 1: then put it into an emotional context without being disrespectful.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting, which was which has helped me enormously
Speaker 1: because since then I have done a lot of adapting
Speaker 1: real life stuff. Two story, which is what Insatiable is
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, say this one more time,
Speaker 1: make it nice and clear for me. So you start
Speaker 1: with like the emotional truth that you want to tell, right,
Speaker 1: and then I say, what's a way to get there?
Speaker 1: Like how do you back that? How do you backfill
Speaker 1: that and make it real? So that was really helpful. Um,
Speaker 1: But then it became clear that the ring was not
Speaker 1: going to move forward. And this is back when people
Speaker 1: were still watching pilots on DVD. Yeah. Uh, the Dexter
Speaker 1: DVD was floating around and we all watched it lunch
Speaker 1: one day, and I had zero interest from writing a
Speaker 1: show about a serial killer, Like I was not at
Speaker 1: the toime. Now I am, but at the time I
Speaker 1: was not obsessed with serial killer as I thought it
Speaker 1: was like too dark and cop shows were not my thing.
Speaker 1: And I saw the pilot and I was like, this
Speaker 1: is a dark comedy. This is my favorite thing I've
Speaker 1: ever said. I couldn't from the moment that he murders
Speaker 1: someone and then you hear really fun, happy Miami music
Speaker 1: and he's on the boat and he's so happy. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is my jam. Like I didn't
Speaker 1: stop laughing. I was so surprised about it. I was like,
Speaker 1: I have to get on the show, and I did,
Speaker 1: and I was there for eight years, and somewhere in
Speaker 1: there was pretty clear I was gonna get fired because
Speaker 1: they had changed showners and the showmenner did not like me,
Speaker 1: and I had to write my way out of jail,
Speaker 1: and so I wrote a pilot. I wrote a specpilot,
Speaker 1: and then that person ended up getting fired off the show.
Speaker 1: So I stayed on Dexter, but you had but I
Speaker 1: had the pilot, and uh. Eventually I got set up
Speaker 1: at Ryan Murphy's company, and then Ryan and I did
Speaker 1: a pass on it together and we did it an
Speaker 1: hpgo and we thought the thing was going to go,
Speaker 1: and that didn't go. But while I was waiting to
Speaker 1: find out what was going to happen with that show, UH,
Speaker 1: CBS reached out with an article called The Patrick King
Speaker 1: of Alabama, which is amazing about a man named Bill
Speaker 1: Alberson Patrick girlsclar who spectacular and I read it and
Speaker 1: like my face exploded, and I was like, I have
Speaker 1: to do this thing. Do you still start your writing
Speaker 1: process from like is your general like? Does it usually
Speaker 1: start with a the emotional core and then you worry
Speaker 1: about the plot. It's different every time. It's really really different.
Speaker 1: Every time for me, I wish I had like also
Speaker 1: because I have, I haven't worked with a ton of people,
Speaker 1: but the people who I have worked with have influenced
Speaker 1: me greatly, and so every single person I have worked
Speaker 1: with has a different approach. And I have to say
Speaker 1: working with Ryan was like life changing. Ryan Murphy was
Speaker 1: life changing because he's with He's all about like the
Speaker 1: big story event, and because I was all about emotion,
Speaker 1: I wanted to tell the very detailed emotional beats of
Speaker 1: the story. And we wrote, we were writing scripts like
Speaker 1: we were breaking stories in the writer's room and he
Speaker 1: walked in and there was a whole episode two after
Speaker 1: the pilot that I felt was so emotionally important, like
Speaker 1: it was it was the heart of the matter of
Speaker 1: everything that the characters were going through in the show.
Speaker 1: And he walked in and he sat down and said,
Speaker 1: I'm bored. We can literally pull this entire episode out
Speaker 1: and jump right to episode three. And I was devastated,
Speaker 1: and I was convinced he was wrong. And then I
Speaker 1: read episode one, next episode three, and I was like,
Speaker 1: he's totally right. He's a hundred percent right. And that
Speaker 1: was like devastating and eye opening and that's part of
Speaker 1: the reason why on Insatiable, the story choose the furniture,
Speaker 1: because I realized how valuable that is. You told me
Speaker 1: that he taught you, don't hoard your story now, horrid
Speaker 1: your plot, burn it, and that you'll trust that you'll
Speaker 1: come up with more. Yeah. I thought that was so interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's interesting because it's the it's in a lot
Speaker 1: always the opposite of the way that I was raised
Speaker 1: in the business, and so I think it's hard to
Speaker 1: juggle which way to go back to. So sometimes now
Speaker 1: I I like think of the big moments and then
Speaker 1: I figured out a way to backwards engineer why the
Speaker 1: emotion makes sense. Yeah, but um, a lot of the
Speaker 1: writers in our room go the other way that I
Speaker 1: used to do. So it's always interesting to be reminded, like,
Speaker 1: oh right, that's also totally helpful. And you know this
Speaker 1: this year, I hired a guy who was on Dexter
Speaker 1: with me almost the entire time, and he's like, where
Speaker 1: did the theme and emotion? Laura go like, you're all like,
Speaker 1: incident incident in yeah, and You're like, I she worked
Speaker 1: with Ryan Murphy. I'm like, thank you for reminding me
Speaker 1: because on Dexter. He was all incident incident incident, and
Speaker 1: I was like, but wait, what's the theme. What's Dexter's emotional?
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't understand what's happening. I feel like
Speaker 1: we've switched places, and it's it's so beautiful. That's why
Speaker 1: long relationships are so helpful, because he was like my brother,
Speaker 1: and the ability to do that was so wildly helpful
Speaker 1: when I hear just just knowing about the show and
Speaker 1: just hearing about your process, to like, what a gift.
Speaker 1: Probably that young girl who got burned in seventh raid
Speaker 1: is great? Like how much in some ways the gift
Speaker 1: of that original wound? I mean, I feel like that's
Speaker 1: where as scary as it is, you know, like I mean,
Speaker 1: this is gonna sound. I mean, I truly both of
Speaker 1: my parents died when I was recording this podcast. Like
Speaker 1: I never like doing stand up and stuff. I never
Speaker 1: ever was honest about. I was never very personal on stage.
Speaker 1: And when life happens and you can't hide it because
Speaker 1: it's like all of a sudden, I'm like I should
Speaker 1: be in my studio and like I'm in my freaking family.
Speaker 1: Then with my brother still doing the podcast, like you
Speaker 1: know one of them was out of the blue, one
Speaker 1: of them wasn't. But like two then it was a
Speaker 1: I could have easily just canceled it that week, but
Speaker 1: like the choice of like here's where I am, I'm
Speaker 1: still gonna do it and and I'm not great, but
Speaker 1: like this is also what helps me get better, is
Speaker 1: like I like making things, um, and then I do believe.
Speaker 1: And you said to me, not like, but this is
Speaker 1: sort of what the book is about. Like and and
Speaker 1: in the oddity of it closing, like the book deal closing,
Speaker 1: you said to me, I just see like butterflies, I
Speaker 1: see like regeneration. Um that I think, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I really feel like the gift of the like certain
Speaker 1: things that are so painful when you're going through them.
Speaker 1: It is like fertilizer for making. I really think creativity
Speaker 1: is such a healing thing. And like without that with
Speaker 1: like if you had been nailing it and like having
Speaker 1: not getting ghosted by those girls like that original hurt,
Speaker 1: I think helps in a productive way, helps make good
Speaker 1: good art because I think that's where my sense of
Speaker 1: humor ultimately, I mean, I think I always had a
Speaker 1: sense of humor, but like, yeah, I'm never fondier than
Speaker 1: when I'm angry or sad hurt. Yeah, oh my god,
Speaker 1: my brother and I the jokes we were making just
Speaker 1: that weekend or just like nobody else could listen because
Speaker 1: they're a little dark. You're like, yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I remember even like Debbie gave me a ride. It
Speaker 1: was like it had happened like ten minutes earlier. And
Speaker 1: I remember like telling that like, oh, it's just as
Speaker 1: my mom would have wanted. I found out at a
Speaker 1: trking class, you know what. It's like, what the fun?
Speaker 1: Like this just happened? This is real? Why are you
Speaker 1: already doing a bet? Like you need to? Just like
Speaker 1: I'm floating, Um, what do you wish? And I know
Speaker 1: you guys haven't dinner that you guys are going to,
Speaker 1: but like, what do you wish you could say to like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, fourteen year old Lauren or twenty five
Speaker 1: year old Lauren, Like what do you wish you knew
Speaker 1: that you know now that you wish you could have known? Then? Uh,
Speaker 1: that's a really it's a really challenging question. I mean
Speaker 1: to fourteen year old me, fourteen year old fourteen stuff? Man?
Speaker 1: So you know I look like barbed from stranger things.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've seen it, You've witnessed stuff. Uh, I
Speaker 1: would have I would have said, don't be afraid to
Speaker 1: be who you are, which is I think what your
Speaker 1: show is, I think in statute, uh, and that not
Speaker 1: And also, don't be so worried about what other people
Speaker 1: think of you. I would say that to me now.
Speaker 1: By the way, year old, like, stop being so concerned
Speaker 1: about what other people think. Like nobody's paying that much
Speaker 1: attention to you. They're always thinking about themselves. So you
Speaker 1: do you and people will figure it out. And by
Speaker 1: the way, you walk through like such a storm, like
Speaker 1: so gracefully. Yeah, thank you. I'm glad that it appeared
Speaker 1: to be graceful because like I know, that wasn't easy,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't It wasn't. And what would you say
Speaker 1: to twenty four year old Lauren h get your ship
Speaker 1: together off that, don't make out with that or that guy.
Speaker 1: Stop emailing that guy, stop telling dirty stories to that guy,
Speaker 1: right that? Um yeah, but I also think, like, take
Speaker 1: the time to figure out who you really are. I
Speaker 1: love that because I think I didn't, and I think
Speaker 1: it bit me in the ass a little bit in
Speaker 1: a way that I had to kind of do it
Speaker 1: backwards and listen, I did it the way I had
Speaker 1: to do it, and again like the pain. You know
Speaker 1: that it works the way it's supposed to work. But
Speaker 1: a lot of life is choose your own adventure at
Speaker 1: a certain point, like you have to learn it. You
Speaker 1: learn it by trial and error, right right, And I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know it's it's weird. It's like the stuff
Speaker 1: that I would have gone back and told my fourteen
Speaker 1: years off of stuff that I still feel like I
Speaker 1: need to learn. It's not like I learned. It's like
Speaker 1: I know now, you know, like you're not the bad guy,
Speaker 1: and uh, stop obsessing about your food in your body,
Speaker 1: which I still need to hear. Help me with that.
Speaker 1: They kept throwing everybody in bikinis and everybody cry and
Speaker 1: remember just going I'm not trying to be a bikini model.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna worry bet if I'm funny, and just
Speaker 1: like trust the worm drump me because I really hated
Speaker 1: how I looked and I was just like, I can't
Speaker 1: hate myself anymore. I'm dumb. I wish I wish I
Speaker 1: were done. Yeah, sometimes I can be mean to my face,
Speaker 1: but I'm nicer to my body. Yeah, I also think like,
Speaker 1: you're cuter than you think you are, and like go
Speaker 1: out and have more fun with that. That would have
Speaker 1: been a nice thing to do. Like I look at
Speaker 1: pictures of myself at twenty four, I'm like, what the fuck? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I'm never going to be that young again. Yeah. Ever, yeah, ever,
Speaker 1: it's so depressing. Yeah, it's so depressing. But then I
Speaker 1: think about, like sixty five year old us is gonna
Speaker 1: look back on us now and think that, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna end with two bachelor related questions. You're on you're
Speaker 1: at the bachelor mansion for a bachelorette or a bachelor whoever,
Speaker 1: what outfit do you wear getting out of the limb
Speaker 1: first night? Your what is your I pick a bad
Speaker 1: I have a bad out at Debbie said she would
Speaker 1: wear men's wear, I say, Debbie, Debbie Winds, I say,
Speaker 1: I would wear like I would get it, and I
Speaker 1: would do like a mullet dress like I would do
Speaker 1: like it would be like Regina in the Pilot. I
Speaker 1: fear I would panic and have like a short in
Speaker 1: the front, but then I'd want to be formal. I'd
Speaker 1: have something in the bags, so I don't watch. It's okay.
Speaker 1: What would you be if you're going, like on a date,
Speaker 1: if you had to go through a singles cruise and
Speaker 1: you're like, what is your I would wear? I would
Speaker 1: wear a jumpsuit And it's all right, So you are
Speaker 1: not about for a watcher. Here's your final question. Which
Speaker 1: one of these is not? So they put up that
Speaker 1: they would say, like Lauren Gus to showrunner writer, like
Speaker 1: they put a little chiron about what somebody's job is.
Speaker 1: Which one of these was not a profession of somebody
Speaker 1: on the show. Oh my god, chicken enthusiast, sloth, tickle monster,
Speaker 1: cry baby, social media participant, lawyer, JumboTron operator or Canadian?
Speaker 1: Which was fake? Chicken enthusiast, sloth, tickle monster, cry baby,
Speaker 1: social media participant, lawyer, JumboTron operator or Canadian? Which one
Speaker 1: is fake? That's actually real? Cry baby was fake? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, yeah, cry baby. But the rest of them
Speaker 1: were at some were people's careers, Yeah, that's the tickle
Speaker 1: monster was also like a pediatrician, which was like the
Speaker 1: creepiest Yeah, that felt like it. He how was that
Speaker 1: a career? In a how did he? Why was he
Speaker 1: the he liked to like tickle people. He didn't last
Speaker 1: very long. He didn't last very long. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: super gross. Um, Lauren, I may I say I love you?
Speaker 1: Is that an inappropriate? Can I say that I love you?
Speaker 1: And I'm just like I just I appreciate you opening
Speaker 1: up your hearts to us via Insatiable and then also
Speaker 1: you coming in and doing this with me. Um. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to get your friend steven On when he
Speaker 1: comes back to Los Angeles and we can promote the
Speaker 1: very fancy and talented steven S. Yeah to spring Away
Speaker 1: and he's going to come promote his book. And if
Speaker 1: you want to pre order my book on Amazon, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm dying too. I want to be a New York
Speaker 1: Times bestseller. Rumor has it you need to sell eight
Speaker 1: thousand copies. If I was rich, i'd pay you all back.
Speaker 1: But I'll say I will sign anybody's copy. If you
Speaker 1: just pre order, you'll forget you ordered it, but then
Speaker 1: it arrives. Apparently it's all about pre sales. It's it's
Speaker 1: all about pre sales, little miss little Compton. You can
Speaker 1: preorder it now on Amazon. Um, Lauren, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: and listeners will be back. Bye. Oh Yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to get all up in you tonight. So I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna wonder, w will you accept This? Rose is a
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.