WEBVTT - Anaïs Mitchell 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:04.360 I have an eight year old and then this little 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:06.040 baby who's one and a half, and the eight year 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:09.280 old is kind of like curious about all the older kids. Stuff. 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.320 Actually told her what the swear words were this morning, 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.440 she asked, and I was like, I'm going to just 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:17.480 tell you what they are and how to spell them. 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:19.119 And if I tell you them, would you just not 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:21.479 save them? Does not save them? For a while, my 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:23.840 mom had really never told me anything. But then when 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:25.840 I went and I was like, hey, what about this? 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:31.720 She was like, I know, it's crazy. Why don't you 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.200 tell me? She's like, I don't know. I just thought 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:39.520 I'll you'd wait for you. Amazing. Hello, I'm Mini Driver. 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:44.000 Welcome to The Many Questions Season two. I've always loved 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:48.479 Chruz's question at It was originally a nineteenth century parlor 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.839 game where players would ask each other thirty five questions 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:56.040 aimed at revealing the other player's true nature. It's just 0:00:56.120 --> 0:01:00.000 the scientific method, really. In asking different people the same 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.480 set of questions, you can make observations about which truths 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.240 appeared to be universal. I love this discipline, and it 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.080 made me wonder, what if these questions were just the 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.360 jumping off point? What greater depths would be revealed if 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.440 I ask these questions as conversation starters with thought leaders 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:21.560 and trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I adapted 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.399 prus questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.520 I personally think a pertinent to a person's story. They 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:30.520 are when and where were you happiest? What is the 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:35.000 quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.720 defines love for you? What question would you most like answered, 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.360 What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:45.160 What would be your last meal? And can you tell 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:47.600 me something in your life that's grown out of a 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:53.120 personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.280 ones that I am honored and humbled to have had 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.640 the chance to engage with. You may not hear their 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.120 answers to all seven of these questions. We've whittled it 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:06.040 down to which questions felt closest to their experience, or 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:10.919 the most surprising, or created the most fertile ground to connect. 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:17.120 My guest today on many questions is musician and multiple 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:21.560 Tony Award winner Anius Mitchell. Anius wrote the extraordinarily brilliant 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.839 musical Hades Town, which won eight Tony's out of fourteen nominations, 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.520 including Best Musical and Best Original Score. She is, by 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:35.600 any standard of musical bloody genius, and her curiosity, her talent, 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:38.880 and her spirit feel like they permeate all aspects of 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.160 her life. Hadestown is a telling of the Greek myth 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:47.519 of Orpheus and Euridiccy through jazz, folk rock, and pure Americana. 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.639 And if you know the story of Orpheus and Euridacy, 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.880 Orpheus to sends into the underworld to rescue his love Euridiccy, 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.720 and when Hades, king of the Underworld, allows him to 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:02.000 take her back to the world, his only instruction is 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:06.480 that Obvious must not look back as they are ascending 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:08.560 up into the world. And you were to see us 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.560 walking behind him, and in this moment of what I 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.600 have always thought of as sort of thick headed hubris, 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.240 although as sees it differently, Ophous looks back and you 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.240 were to see is lost to him forever. It's a 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:26.320 sad miss but Hades Town is full of the kind 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:31.720 of raw, soulful joy that makes even this sad love 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:41.200 story shine with magic. When and where were you happiest. Yeah, 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:43.600 when and where I was the happiest. This one is 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:47.480 so tricky. There's so many different moments and eras of 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.000 my life, and I feel like immediately I'm like, oh, 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:51.960 I should talk about birth of my children. I should, 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.400 you know, things I should say. But the one that 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:58.040 just popped into my mind first is this moment. I 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.960 was like, I was twenty seven years old, and I 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.320 was coming out of like a kind of a stuck 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:09.400 time in my life, like creatively socially, just feeling like 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.240 everything was inching along and not and then never like 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.480 coming to fruition, and it just felt kind of stuck. 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.919 I guess it was my saddern return, right, kind of 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.200 classic for that. So the first thing that happened was 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:22.640 I read Eckert Totally's book for the first time. Have 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.039 you read those books? Oh yeah, oh yeah? Did you 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.520 read What the Power of Now? It was actually A 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.440 New Earth was the first one I read, and I 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.400 probably wouldn't have read it except someone I really trusted 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.120 kind of said here, if they saw me in my 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.799 sadder Return moment, They're like, here, you should read this book. 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.120 I've reread it since, but it was the first time 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.479 it really packs the wall of for people that haven't 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:46.479 read it, all about being present in the moment and 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:50.240 kind of detaching like your experience of life and being 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:51.839 in the world from all of the names that we 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.800 put on it. So I'm reading this book and I'm like, 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.120 I'll read a few pages and then just put it 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:01.680 down and feel so alive and jrful. And at this moment, 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.600 I was offered a gig opening a tour in Europe 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:07.800 for a band, a big, much bigger band that I 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.240 didn't really know, but I came to really admire. And 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:13.800 so it was me opening solo acoustic tar for this big, 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.600 beautiful band and riding on their bus, you know, in Europe, 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.240 and we were kind of like stay up all night 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.719 we played the gig, We'd stay up all night listening 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.000 to music. What was the thing before the iPhone, the iPod, 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.720 right like pass around the iPod and everyone would get 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:32.240 to choose music, and we just were so in love 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:36.240 with music. And I remember this one morning that we 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.000 woke up we had a day off, and we were 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.200 in Paris and we were rolled out of the bus 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.800 and there's a little cafe and started to drink beer, 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.680 you know in the in the daylight, like these tall 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:48.760 French beers, and then just like coming out of this 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.719 cafe and the sun was shining, was kind of cold day, 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:54.960 the sun is shining, and I looked across the street 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:57.960 and there was the Louver, and so I went to 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:01.400 the Louver and the art was hearing like a thousand 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:06.240 times as hard because the Eckert totally and the beer, yeah, 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.360 and the friendship, the camaie and just being out there 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:11.600 doing what I wanted to be doing, and so that 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:13.840 was like a moment for me that was a very 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.560 happy time. I love that. You know what's funny is 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.640 like the idea when we think about happiness, and it's 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.160 certainly in having talked to loads of people about it, 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.839 the idea of there being a sort of a purity 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.680 in anything that it is on a Lloyd, that there 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.960 isn't a confluence of things happening at any one moment 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.159 that creates these moments like it's I feel like we're 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.039 extraordinarily binary and going, well, if I'm doing this, I 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:41.400 will be happy this one thing. Whereas it's really totally 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:46.320 and it's beer and it's light and Paris and opportunity 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.880 and probably a certain return it's all these things. Yeah, 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.359 that makes total sense. Again and again I come to 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.839 the realization at like the big moments I'm often not 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.400 as present for like the winning of the Tony or whatever. 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.840 It was like in a fugue stick, you know, like 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.400 I just I wasn't even there. And even my wedding, 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:06.600 you know, which was like so beautiful, it felt like 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.039 such a oh my friends and family, this culmination of 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.000 so much in this commitment, and it was kind of 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.640 like an incredible party that I wasn't entirely at, And 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.440 so I just sort of had stuff looking for satisfaction 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:18.920 and happiness from the moments when everyone's like, how does 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:20.840 it feel? How does it feel? I think that is 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.440 exactly it. And as with most sort of like ruminations 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:26.280 that I think we probably then forget about and get 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.120 them with making the coffee, changing the diaper, it's like 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:31.000 take your eye off the ball, like my dad used 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.400 to say, when something was really bad, was one was 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:37.160 really hard, stop looking at it, even though it feels overwhelming. 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:39.600 To take your eye off it and get back into 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:42.200 the sort of menut shy of what is happening, and 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.840 you will start to metabolize your life again and weirdly 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.440 piggyback your better feeling onto that shitty thing. I think 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:51.840 these in the same way that these huge moments they 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.800 require almost too much for us to be able to quantify, 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.360 whereas it's these tiny moments, these fragments that you patch 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.280 together and suddenly that's where the explosion. Yes, that's huge, 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:04.760 that's huge, And I feel like two things jumped into 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:06.800 my mind. One is like if you're doing a crossword puzzle, 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:08.680 you know, and you get stuck on a clue and 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:10.840 you just want to like bang your head against the 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:15.480 newspaper to find this clue, yeah, or cheat, right, But 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:17.960 usually like if you take a break, like you just 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:19.880 got to take a break and put your mind somewhere else, 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:22.160 and then the soft focus, Like a lot of things 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.920 come out of that soft focus. That's too creatively, I 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:28.640 think you when I'm writing and when it's difficult, I walk. 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.240 There was a whole thing neurologically that literally, when you 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.440 are physically doing something else, your brain stops worrying at 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:37.480 your right and left brain are sort of more balanced 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:39.800 when you add in another activity. So it actually kind 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.040 of makes sense. But I always find that the great 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.240 unblocking comes when I do something else. Yeah. Yeah. At 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.800 one point when I was working on Hades Sound, I 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.760 was living in Park Slope in Brooklyn, and I was 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:53.600 kind of borrowing my friends studio, which was in Lefford's 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:55.480 Cardens around the other side of the park as a 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:57.720 writing spot. So I would get on my bike and 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.000 I would ride around Prospect Park to get to the studio, 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:03.280 and I would have all these ideas, like I'd have 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.800 ideas on the bike. Sometimes I roll around the park, 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:07.480 the whole park, and then get to Leffords Guard and 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.400 get to the studio, get to the desk, and then nothing, 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:12.800 you know, nothing would happen at the desk, just as 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:14.960 such an illustration of the app soft focus. And I 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.120 even feel like in my life I've noticed side projects 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.920 often are so magical and had son. You know, for 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:22.959 a long time it was a side project. I felt 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:25.160 like my songwriter career was the main thing, and then 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:27.360 this is this weird other thing I'm going to kind 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:29.640 of soft focus on. At a certain point it became 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.000 the main thing. But there's a charmed quality to those 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:35.440 things that were not obsessing over how did you write? 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.800 Because you wrote another record while you were writing Hadi's 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:43.959 time Bonnie exactly, Bonnie lad Horseman. But was that what 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:45.760 you were talking about was that you had to take 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.680 your eye off the ball and do something else or 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:50.120 did you just owe a record and you had to 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.800 write it. Yeah, that felt the same way. It was 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.079 a side project. I was like, this is not my identity. 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:57.439 There's not a lot of anxiety around that music at all, 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.520 and it was easy as working with these two beautiful 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:03.800 friend collaborators, Josh Kaufman and Eric D. Johnson, And it 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:08.240 felt easy. And usually I don't trust that, like I 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:10.160 think it's got to be hard or it's not going 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:12.959 to be good, but that band felt like, oh wow, 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.520 it's it feels so intuitive and natural. And so it 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.360 was at that point that was the side project that 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.440 was sort of giving me life interesting. I think my 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:24.400 dad might have been a bit of an act cart Tolley, 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:26.640 because I do think it's like, take your mind off 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.520 the thing and put it elsewhere, and then the thing 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.400 will work itself out and you'll get everything that you 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:35.160 need to solve that problem by doing this other thing. 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.760 As with most personal growth, it sounds counter into your type, 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.040 which is probably why we don't do it enough, because 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:42.599 it's like Wow, that sounds great. I'm not going to 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:47.760 do that right, Yeah exactly. The director of Haiti Sound, 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.240 Rachel Chapkin, is like kind of a Jedi, yeah, Jedi 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.520 creative person and she gets a lot of good ideas 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.160 when she's napping. And she'll take these little naps where 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.560 she's very good at falling asleep in the middle of 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:00.599 the day, you know, anywhere, just kind go in the 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:02.800 back room and lay on the floor and can make 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:04.680 herself fall asleep. And the way that she does it 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:06.760 is she kind of she lays down and then she 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.640 says she phrased the mind by thinking about like three 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.080 or four things at once, like three or four things 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:13.920 that she's interested in. She put her mind on him 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:15.880 at once, and that kind of is like enough to 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.080 knock her out. And I love she fries her own 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:24.280 circuit board. Yeah exactly exactly, And somehow the frying of 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.280 the circuit board then leads to like these great ideas 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.760 that happened in the Knap state, in the knap space. 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:45.480 Well that's also her book now, it's called Knapsack. What 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:49.480 quality do you like least about yourself? I am definitely 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:55.080 someone who overthinks and second guesses a lot, and I 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:59.360 think just insecurity that I feel like I've lived with 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:01.800 my whole life and I keep expecting it to go away, 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:03.839 you know, as like I get older, I'm like, when 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:05.960 am I gonna give less? Can I swear on the 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.599 show or no swearing? Oh? Yeah, you can swear absolutely. 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.319 I'll give you full permission, like not like, give no 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:15.719 Fox anymore? If the fewer, you know, give fewer. I 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:19.280 haven't arrived there yet. I just I care too much. 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.280 Sometimes did I say something awkward? Is this song you 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.320 know as good as it could be? Do I look bad? 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:26.760 You know? Things like that it's exhausting. Do you find 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:30.280 that the achievements so as you're standing there with the 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:35.199 hardware of a tony, like multiple Tonys in your hands, 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:38.040 did you ever sort of consciously allow that to mitigate 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:40.840 that other voice? Like, do you ever think back to 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:45.160 your achievements and help them soothe those moments of insecurity? 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.959 I think no. The one thing I will say I 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.319 feel a little bit more confident about now is that 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:55.160 I've written enough songs that I know that at the 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:57.160 moment when I'm like, I don't know how to write 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.120 a song, there's no way I'm going to finish the songs. 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:01.360 You know, I kind of can look back and be like, well, 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.000 you did finish all those other songs, so probably it's 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.679 going to happen. You know. That feels a little more 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:09.199 sure for me. But in terms of like I'm meeting 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.680 somebody at a party and I'm like, I want to Tony, 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:18.439 it doesn't cross my mind. You know, taking like a 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.200 power stance and in the women's room, we certainly allow 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.680 ourselves to be haunted by the shitty things that happened 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:25.840 to us. Oh yeah, why didn't we allow ourselves to 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:29.120 be beautifully haunted by those things that we've achieved. I 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.480 wonder why we don't do that more. They're they're they're 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:37.760 available energy and actually fundamentally tangible, like you did these things. 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:39.679 I do that sometimes with my son. I look at 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:41.880 Henry when when things are not working out and go, 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.280 I made a person. I made a person who is 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.920 so funny and talented and kind and good, and give 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.400 myself some sort of credit for that. Yeah. Kids do 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:54.120 kind of change the equation a little bit because it's 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.800 like your relationship with them has nothing to do with 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:01.600 your creative accomplishments. You know, it's kind of like there's 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:05.920 a foundation of family love that is going to be there. 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.160 However awkward you are at a party, it's going to 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.319 be there. Yeah, exactly how old is your son? He 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:17.360 just turned thirteen? Amazing. Wow, it is completely bananas because 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:19.680 it's the same. It's the same feeling as when they 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:21.240 were one and a half or when they were six 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.040 months old. I'm seven thousand miles away from my son 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.640 right now, and it's brutal. Yeah, even though I know 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.480 he's totally fine and happy and doing his thing. It's 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.320 just I don't think that ever goes away that feeling 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.520 of I need to be in close proximity. Yeah. I 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:38.800 wonder what it's like for my parents now, you know, 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.360 like an adult life, if you still have those vieelings 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:44.880 or not. It's funny. I think they do. I just 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.720 think that there's more space in between because that the 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.480 letting go, which is what nobody ever tells you about 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.080 about parenting. The very first thing literally physically that you 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:57.600 do with your child is let go. Everything is more 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.080 letting go, and I think as you get older. I 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.320 was very close with my mother, but I watched how 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.400 she would foster those spaces in between because she knew 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.200 that we had to go and do our thing, but 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.440 I know now that it was active and conscious and 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:14.600 probably quite painful, right, I know it's brutal, actually, I 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:18.000 mean it's beautiful. It's beautiful and brutal parenting because I 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.560 would literally I would have Henry carry me around his 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.600 book bag, like if possible, I just like get inside, 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:27.320 back back, I'll stay here through double chemistry with you. 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:37.760 I just wanted what relationship, real or fictionalized to find 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.520 love for you. I'm a kind of a romantic, like 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:44.200 I always have kind of been a romantic and love 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.040 to the idea of you know, love at first sight 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.040 and a kind of twin souls, you know, and yeah, 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.440 that idea that you meet someone I'm thinking of worth 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:56.240 us and your reality right now, because it's that's what 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.000 it was. Yeah. I remember, like a bunch of times 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:02.480 in the sort of amateurgical trenches of working on the show, 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:04.800 people with the dramaturg or like someone else would be like, 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.320 but why does you love her? You know, why does 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:09.200 orpheus love you? Real Tocy and I would be like, 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.240 because he's orpheous and she's your really, which is not 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:14.000 enough for you know, a lot of people they need 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.640 to see the kind of causality. But the idea of this, 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.880 what's what is written in the stars. And oh another 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.120 kind of fictional version of that that went deep for 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:24.920 me is that Hemmingway book for Whom the Bell Tolls. 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:30.840 You know, just these like young revolutionaries like fighting fascism 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.280 and their love and it's like the earth moves and 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:35.920 all that stuff. And I feel like I've had an 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.160 experience of that with my life partner. I've been went 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.720 the same guys since I was nineteen. We were like 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.440 not fully formed in our identities, you know, we were 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:47.120 like wet clay when we met, and it wasn't full on, 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:49.000 you know, from the age of nineteen. There was kind 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.480 of a courtship and there was some breakups and stuff, 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:53.760 but there were a bunch of moments that felt like 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.600 these star cross moments like oh my god, this is 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:00.200 my person, you know, and almost like a scary terrifying 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.840 because you see your mortality connected to it. It contains 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.080 everything this idea of like the love at first sight. 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:10.719 It's like youthful infatuation and beauty and then also you 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.040 know you're gonna die with this person, like you you 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.520 see the whole thing, and it contains all of it, 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:17.359 and and so there's a way in which it's almost 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.399 like it's tragic even if it's not ortheous in your Idacy, 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.360 or or Romeo and Juliet. It's like, even if you're 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.359 married for seventy five years and then you die in 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.880 each other's arms, it's still like a tragedy at some level. Right, Wow, 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:32.440 the span, I think that's pretty amazing, Like you hold 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.679 the paradigm that is pretty massive at the idea at 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.640 nineteen to be able to be with someone that kind 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.600 of love and the love. Now are you in your 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.720 like late thirties, like around I just turned forty. Look 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.720 at that, like that twenty year span, Like that's incredible 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:49.879 to be able to see the end and to not 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.800 let it derail then now, to see it as tragic, 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.520 to see it as beautiful, to see it as never ending. 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:59.679 I mean, no wonder you love the Greeks. Really. I 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.240 work up this morning thinking about Orpheus and euridacy because 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:05.359 the last thing this person that I he was my 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:07.439 best friend and I loved him very very very much. 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:09.480 We were together for a long time and then it 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:13.199 ended horribly. The most helpful thing he ever said to 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.720 me was don't look back. And I've always linked it 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:20.080 to orpheous and euridacy. I've always linked it to that 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.080 moment of just don't look back, Just don't. I know 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:26.440 what happens if you do. You know what happens if 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.560 you do. Just don't do it. I think about those 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.280 gifts that you get from people that have hurt you, 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.919 and I wondered if he got it from orpheus. He 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:40.280 loved the Greeks too so, and but I don't look 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.359 back for you? Was it to not doubt yourself? Was it? 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.639 The idea of like, don't look down almost is literally 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.679 coming back to the Eckhart totally idea of it is 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.600 a complete illusion to look back, to look back and 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.800 feel that that is going to have really any relevance. 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.199 And I know that's sort of a bold statement, but 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:02.080 the now, this moment, trust this now, to trust that 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.199 all of the ideas that you think, like, if I 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:06.160 look back, I will get this if I look back 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:07.960 and I pick over the bones at this thing, if 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:10.320 I look back because I'm frightened, it will somehow make 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.280 mine now better. And that that is a fallacy. It's 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.840 such an extraordinary gift that he gave me because I 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:20.159 think it often, particular, when I start being frightened about 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:23.040 historical stuff that I'm worried is going to play out 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.119 again in this now, I shriek it at myself Sometimes 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.359 this morning I was shrieking it orvious, like just don't 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.960 just don't look. I just keep walking, Just keep walking, 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.160 and it's going to be fine. Like trust you can't 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.320 hear anything, you can't see anything, you don't know anything. 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:40.960 Trust this very moment and you will be all right. 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.800 Oh man, Yeah, a cosmic thing that kind of happened 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.280 with our orpheus and you're to see I think I'm 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.719 allowed to tell it's quite public at this point, but 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:52.720 our actors that play orphous and you're to see totally 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:57.560 film love you know they really that's amazing. Yeah, And 0:19:57.600 --> 0:19:59.679 I thought, oh, you know, when I saw that that 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:01.800 was hapening, I was like, I hope they can keep 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.679 it together because it's not going to be easy. You know, 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:07.199 six months down the line, if there's a breakup and 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.439 they're like trying to play these start cross lovers and 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:11.760 but they're still together. They made it through the pandemic. 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.359 They're like got a dog, Like it's beautiful and they're 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.320 so beautiful together. It's crazy because it's a story that 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:19.359 the people know how it ends, but there's still a 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.000 gasp like when he turns around, it's like, how did 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.960 this happen? That's exactly it. We want to change the 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.080 ending of the story, maybe like seeing the repetition of 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.359 that over and over again, it's like you, you can't 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.840 change that story, but you can take the piece that 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.080