Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin you were listening to. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Edie Falco played Carmelo, soprano on the groundbreaking HBO show
Speaker 1: about an Italian American mob family from New Jersey. You
Speaker 1: know what I didn't understand Tony? What does she have
Speaker 1: that I don't have? The late great James Gandolfini played
Speaker 1: her husband, Tony. It wasn't Eadie's big break before The Sopranos.
Speaker 1: Eadie worked with Tom Fontana on the HBO series OZ,
Speaker 1: but it's safe to say the role of Carmela made
Speaker 1: her career. TV Guide named The Sopranos the best television
Speaker 1: show in history. I didn't have any sense of the
Speaker 1: gravity of what we were doing, and might might have
Speaker 1: just been because I was dumb. I didn't realize what,
Speaker 1: you know, the the larger themes that play there. But
Speaker 1: I just enjoyed it. And it was still a novel
Speaker 1: TV working on something that was good, that people enjoyed,
Speaker 1: that seemed to be well received. Yeah, that was the
Speaker 1: excitement of being on something good was still very new,
Speaker 1: And I wonder when you did the show was it
Speaker 1: fun and pleasant? Was it really tough? Was it work? Now?
Speaker 1: It was fun? And pleasant because it was there was
Speaker 1: a lighthearted atmosphere. The writing was funny. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of really funny stuff, and it was a lot
Speaker 1: of these sort of goombag guys that were just felt
Speaker 1: like family to me and very easy to be with.
Speaker 1: Did you participate in the writing of the did you
Speaker 1: just turn that all over? You never got involved? Not
Speaker 1: at all. I was not at all interested. I had
Speaker 1: so much trust in certainly David Chase, but in all
Speaker 1: the staff that he carefully chosen, hand picked. I felt
Speaker 1: like they knew what they were doing. They had much
Speaker 1: better overview of what the story was about, as opposed
Speaker 1: to what would Carmela do want here? You know, I
Speaker 1: just thought it was a huge relief to know that
Speaker 1: I could just let them do their thing and I
Speaker 1: would do what I was hired to do. I felt
Speaker 1: completely comfortable with that. Did they put things about you
Speaker 1: and the characters? They got me? Tina Fey When I
Speaker 1: did thirty Rock with someone who the moment you told
Speaker 1: a story it was an embarrassing anecdote. It was in
Speaker 1: the show. Absolutely. Jim said that all the times, like
Speaker 1: I can't talk to anybody about anything. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: in the next episode. But I didn't notice it so
Speaker 1: much from my life. There was nothing going on in
Speaker 1: my life that was all that interesting, so I didn't
Speaker 1: see a lot of it in the scripts. But I
Speaker 1: know they, like I guess, every show, to some extent,
Speaker 1: they start writing for the actors that have been hired, like, um,
Speaker 1: I eat his character right. A Tour that who played
Speaker 1: his sister was supposed to be a very different thing.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be more like the mom, sort
Speaker 1: of cold and calculating and unkind. And because I A
Speaker 1: Tour was doing it, it's sort of morphed into this
Speaker 1: whole other, like Parvody, that phase that she went through
Speaker 1: where she was sort of like an earth child. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I'm sure they were writing based on what
Speaker 1: they perceived me to be, but I was I was
Speaker 1: not entirely cognizant of myth. They hired you for that
Speaker 1: part because you said I read an interview where you
Speaker 1: talked about how you went and you just relaxed and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: if this happens, it happens, which we all go through
Speaker 1: when you sometimes sit there and go, I can't stress
Speaker 1: about another interviews. What do you think they hired you
Speaker 1: for I couldn't begin to tell you. I think, I
Speaker 1: think probably because of that, because I was completely non stressed.
Speaker 1: It was a script that had been bouncing around for
Speaker 1: a while, but I was doing odds at the time,
Speaker 1: and I was working a lot, and I kind of
Speaker 1: was all caught up in that, and it came along
Speaker 1: and it was called Sopranos, and I thought, it's about
Speaker 1: singers or something, and it's a you know, Italian American
Speaker 1: American woman wife, and I thought that I never get
Speaker 1: cast as that I know who's going to get cast
Speaker 1: I figured it's you know, Annabella Shore or Marissa Tomay
Speaker 1: or some of these women who had played parts that
Speaker 1: sort of felt similar to that. There's no better place
Speaker 1: to be and when you walk into an audition than
Speaker 1: knowing you're not going to get it and not caring.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, I really just sort of enjoyed
Speaker 1: myself and thought, it's just another audition and if you're
Speaker 1: in a good head, you can never not learn something
Speaker 1: from an audition. So I just went in and had fun.
Speaker 1: And you inadvertently you present your best self when you're
Speaker 1: doing that, and I guess, I don't know. I was relaxed,
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed myself. So I guess that's what they
Speaker 1: So I don't know. And when you got the job,
Speaker 1: was that something that was just floored you? Were you
Speaker 1: ecstatic about getting the job? Well, remember so you just
Speaker 1: just a pilot you get cast for, you know, So
Speaker 1: at that point it was whatever. It was two weeks
Speaker 1: of work, and it was a sum of money I
Speaker 1: had never seen before, which now seems not all that shocking,
Speaker 1: but back in the day it meant I could pay
Speaker 1: off my student loan. And so I was able to
Speaker 1: with that one check completely pay off my student loan.
Speaker 1: It was huge. It was a huge occurrence. But again,
Speaker 1: two weeks of work and then onto the next panic thing,
Speaker 1: you know, about what to do next. So soon after
Speaker 1: the pilot was shot, I think it was a year
Speaker 1: you told, so you waited a year to be told
Speaker 1: this was going to move forward. And David Chase called
Speaker 1: me and said, I just won't let you know this
Speaker 1: has been picked up. This is after we shot the pilot.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, nobody's gonna watch this thing, but
Speaker 1: I'm proud of what we made or whatever. And David
Speaker 1: was also apparently he put his head in his hand
Speaker 1: and said, oh, no, when he found out it was
Speaker 1: picked up because I don't think he had intended to
Speaker 1: have to tell more about these people. I think he
Speaker 1: was trying to get a movie made and this was
Speaker 1: almost like a spec script or something. I don't think
Speaker 1: he had anticipated this going on like this, So he
Speaker 1: was had his head in his hands. Jimmy's like, what
Speaker 1: am I doing? And I'm like, I can pay my
Speaker 1: student alone. And you know, here at his four thousand
Speaker 1: years later, and it just goes to show you. You
Speaker 1: wake up every day. I have no idea what anything
Speaker 1: is going to turn into. So well, two things that
Speaker 1: come to mind for me. One I probably told you
Speaker 1: this before and when I would run into you. But
Speaker 1: one was I never watched TV. I just didn't have time,
Speaker 1: and I hit this period toward the last probably four seasons,
Speaker 1: definitely maybe five. I don't want to say obsession, but
Speaker 1: my fondness for you and your character. Remember I watched
Speaker 1: him go, oh my god, I've got to be married
Speaker 1: to that kind of Woman's good by me through thick
Speaker 1: and thin and smart choices, and she's a good partner.
Speaker 1: Did you sense that when you were doing it? I
Speaker 1: loved it for that reason, because it was everything that
Speaker 1: I was not, you know, I mean it was, you know,
Speaker 1: I was a single woman living in New York, didn't
Speaker 1: have kids, and here I was ensconced in this life
Speaker 1: that I saw my grandparents live, you know, married with kids,
Speaker 1: deeply entrenched in a community of people. Family gatherings were huge,
Speaker 1: you know, everything that and even with Jim feeling like
Speaker 1: I was attached to a big man who would take
Speaker 1: care of stuff. It was a tremendously um invigorating place
Speaker 1: to inhabit while I was working. It was completely diametrically
Speaker 1: opposed to what I lived when I left the set,
Speaker 1: And for that reason, I absolutely what did you live
Speaker 1: when you left the set? The life of a single
Speaker 1: actress in Manhattan? You know, I had a relatively small apartment,
Speaker 1: I had my dog, I had my dates. But it
Speaker 1: was not you know, at all what a lot other
Speaker 1: women my age, let's say, in the Midwest, are certainly
Speaker 1: in my family back number of generations. And was your
Speaker 1: boyfriend it was when I dated other guys on the side, Yes,
Speaker 1: exactly was it was, and I was thrilled for it,
Speaker 1: thrilled for it. I loved it. When you grew up,
Speaker 1: what town do you grew up in I grew up
Speaker 1: on the South Shore and Bay Shore and West Icelip
Speaker 1: and then we moved to Northport when I was in
Speaker 1: high school. And when you were growing up, what was
Speaker 1: your relationship to Broadway? Uh, Television, film? Watching TV? How
Speaker 1: did you absorb culture and media when you were a child.
Speaker 1: A lot of TV, but you know, Brady Bunch and
Speaker 1: Partridge Family really all the same. Whatever time those shows
Speaker 1: were on, we would sit around and watch them and
Speaker 1: Match Games seventy four, which is totally uh dating me,
Speaker 1: but after school, Um, I was addicted to Match Games. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too, with what's his name Richard Dawson with that
Speaker 1: crazy an antenna. He said, Lorie likes to blank blank
Speaker 1: and I love that show me too, me too. So yes,
Speaker 1: I watched a TV like all kids my age, but
Speaker 1: it seemed like something far far away from my experience.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, I mean as far as participating
Speaker 1: in any way other than being an observer. So it's
Speaker 1: very crazy. I don't know what happened that I am
Speaker 1: in Broadway Theater? Were you jumping on the bus and
Speaker 1: school trips to come to new works? Like when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, same background trips to Broadway and watching
Speaker 1: people do it live. Oh my god, how did they
Speaker 1: do that? Yeah? Yeah, there were courage a couple of
Speaker 1: those bus trips from from Long Island for sure. That
Speaker 1: was thrilling. Like Sweeney Todd, was one of the first
Speaker 1: things I saw where I thought, oh, I got it.
Speaker 1: I don't know how, but I got it. You did
Speaker 1: feel that way, Oh my god, that one show. How
Speaker 1: old were you when you first had a sense that
Speaker 1: you wanted to do that for a living? Seriously, do
Speaker 1: it for a living? Well, I didn't know that I
Speaker 1: could ever do it for a living. I think until
Speaker 1: I was able to do it for a living, I
Speaker 1: thought I would just do it as after my waitressing gig.
Speaker 1: You know. The idea that I could support myself with
Speaker 1: it was sort of prop ostris um. But my mom
Speaker 1: was an actress. She did stuff at arena players in
Speaker 1: Farmingdale and broad Hollow Theater and Huntingtons all around Long Island.
Speaker 1: But she had a job, and she would do her
Speaker 1: plays in the weekends and at night, and I sort
Speaker 1: of thought of your job many different jobs. But she
Speaker 1: was a She was a DJ W g L. I
Speaker 1: was a station on Long Island. She was a copywriter,
Speaker 1: and she did a million different things. She decided she
Speaker 1: wanted a job and she would get it, but then
Speaker 1: at night she'd do her plays. And I thought, that's
Speaker 1: what you do when you want to be an actor.
Speaker 1: I've got an older brother, younger brother, and a younger sister,
Speaker 1: four of us all told, and were any of them
Speaker 1: also interested in the theater, not at all, even though
Speaker 1: your mother was an actress and your father was a
Speaker 1: patriot artist and he would musician for when he was younger,
Speaker 1: but then he went on to do sculpture and painting.
Speaker 1: And your parents got divorced in your hold, I have
Speaker 1: no idea, because they got divorced and then they remarried
Speaker 1: each other two other times, so it's a very complicated
Speaker 1: childhood with that. They reed each other, yeah, and then
Speaker 1: dovorris and remarried divorce. I don't even know what because
Speaker 1: because I want to make a movie at it as
Speaker 1: I want to play this. They got divorced. And when
Speaker 1: they would get divorced, how long were they apart before
Speaker 1: they were united? A matter of months, no longer it
Speaker 1: was for the first time was a number of years,
Speaker 1: And you know, they kind of the kids were pitted
Speaker 1: against each other at the right against And then we
Speaker 1: found out the parents were sort of hanging out with
Speaker 1: each other again. It was, you know, horrifying for the
Speaker 1: kids that they would sendthly get together again. Then they
Speaker 1: would have a ceremony, we would witness their what it was,
Speaker 1: I don't know led to some psychological issues and I'm
Speaker 1: working on as we speak, but get to that. And
Speaker 1: none of your siblings had the bug, not at all, not,
Speaker 1: I mean the opposite. And so did this become formal
Speaker 1: for you only when you go to Purchase or had
Speaker 1: you done plays before you went to school? Community theater
Speaker 1: plays nothing to and school plays, you know, but nothing
Speaker 1: very serious. Um. And then I went to Purchase first
Speaker 1: as a liberal arts person, and uh, I saw my
Speaker 1: some actor friends had gone into Purchase in the program,
Speaker 1: and I thought I wanted to be there. And that
Speaker 1: program had grown, yes, and has become this very estimable
Speaker 1: program on the East Coast big time. So I auditioned
Speaker 1: and went the next year as an acting student. And
Speaker 1: did you graduate? Did you finish? I did? I did?
Speaker 1: And then when you finished, what did you do? Well?
Speaker 1: Remember the league auditions that whole thing. So we had
Speaker 1: the league auditions, and from those auditions I got a
Speaker 1: part in a movie where I had to be on
Speaker 1: set the day after I graduated, and I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: what's everybody talking about? This is so easy. I just
Speaker 1: kind of glided my way into this career. I didn't
Speaker 1: do anything for five plus years after that, but did
Speaker 1: a movie called Sweet Lorraine that was done up in
Speaker 1: The Cats Skills with the guy's name is Steve Gohmer,
Speaker 1: the director. Anyway, who else was in the movie with you?
Speaker 1: Evan Handler, John Carlo Esposito, Todd Graff, Maureen Stapleton, Almorado,
Speaker 1: like a bunch of people here, Evan Handler? Who was
Speaker 1: in I Hate Hamlet? Yes, the legendary perfession of hate. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right. And that was your first gig? Was that
Speaker 1: from first gig? Yeah? How did that go? It was
Speaker 1: did well, it was I couldn't believe it was on
Speaker 1: a movie set, you know, it was a huge thing
Speaker 1: and I just graduated from school and it was crazily exciting,
Speaker 1: you know what the heck were we like eight weeks
Speaker 1: up in the Cats Skills I think it was, and
Speaker 1: kind of fell in love with all the boys in
Speaker 1: the show. You know, it was being a sleep away camp.
Speaker 1: And I remember when my agents said, I hope you're
Speaker 1: sitting down. You booked that movie, and you're gonna get
Speaker 1: paid more money than you have ever seen in your life.
Speaker 1: They're going to pay you two thousand dollars a week,
Speaker 1: which was more money than I had ever seen and
Speaker 1: had been waitressing not yet, I uh no, except on
Speaker 1: Long Island. I hadn't really happ how to purchase you
Speaker 1: got the movie. So it was after the movie the waitressing. Yes,
Speaker 1: to try to keep up that weekends. The Rainbow Room
Speaker 1: was a champagne, thinking it would be consistent. Yes, but
Speaker 1: now where did you waitress? Oh? Gosh, a million places,
Speaker 1: but formerly Joe's in the West Village just gone. When
Speaker 1: you leave those places, you left because you got a job. Oftentimes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember. I mean one waitressing job I
Speaker 1: was fired from because my had a bad attitude. I
Speaker 1: was told he didn't know the half of it. But um,
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, I guess I got a job or
Speaker 1: I don't know, not really, I mean, not terribly long.
Speaker 1: I was miserably unhappy. I really tried so hard. I
Speaker 1: was a good waitress in so far as how many
Speaker 1: tables I could handle, but if I had to make
Speaker 1: eye contact with anybody, I would fall apart. Was so hard.
Speaker 1: I just they were mean and people would, you know,
Speaker 1: they take their order and they wouldn't look at me,
Speaker 1: and they're be like, you know, just rude and here's
Speaker 1: no connection, nothing, And I just it was awful. It
Speaker 1: was awful. I just felt, you know, it was gross.
Speaker 1: And I had, you know, Margarita juice all over my
Speaker 1: clothes most of them. It was just disgusting. Why is
Speaker 1: any waiter hate being a waiter? I mean, and for
Speaker 1: the people who like it, God bless him, But um,
Speaker 1: I was not one of them. What was the job
Speaker 1: for you that did that? Like? When did you get
Speaker 1: a job and then you never went back again? You
Speaker 1: only made a living as an actress. I was waitressing
Speaker 1: at a place called Canyon Road on seventy seven and
Speaker 1: first it was the last waitressing job I had. I
Speaker 1: worked there with Paul Scholzy, my friend who has actually
Speaker 1: been on a bunch of my shows with me, my
Speaker 1: great actor friend, and he was bartending and I went
Speaker 1: off to do a thing called cost of Living, a
Speaker 1: little budget independent thing, and I left and I was
Speaker 1: about to come back to the restaurant job, and I
Speaker 1: just had one of those sort of grace moments where
Speaker 1: I so, no, I'm not going to come back. I
Speaker 1: don't know how this is going to work, but I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna waitress anymore. I really was one. It was
Speaker 1: a total leap of faith. I just I'm gonna live
Speaker 1: in a washing machine box, which set the box preferable
Speaker 1: to taking another order at that restaurant. So we lovely restaurant,
Speaker 1: but just I couldn't do it anymore. Um So yeah,
Speaker 1: and at that I don't know, I guess um oz
Speaker 1: happened shortly after maybe, So what was the experience like
Speaker 1: working with fontana? Um? You know Tom Right, I love him.
Speaker 1: He was one of those angel guys, you know. Because
Speaker 1: I had done a movie called Laws of Gravity with
Speaker 1: a bunch of people from Purchase and it got some
Speaker 1: attention and played the sort of sundance and the the
Speaker 1: festival circuit. Tom saw it and decided he wanted to
Speaker 1: use me for stuff, and so he put me in
Speaker 1: UM series called Firehouse about e MT workers and fire
Speaker 1: people or whatever. Dean Winters was my husband in that show,
Speaker 1: and um then he cast me in Homicide or maybe
Speaker 1: it was the other way around. He just we kept
Speaker 1: putting me and stuff when I wasn't really working much.
Speaker 1: And then he said, I'm doing the series about a prison.
Speaker 1: I have two parts. You can play the nun or
Speaker 1: you can play the correction officer. Which part do you
Speaker 1: want to play? So I'll be the correction officer. And
Speaker 1: that was, you know, and he just decided he was
Speaker 1: going to take care of me. And he did, and
Speaker 1: he did for many years and I was in his troop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was just digital of yeah, gosh, you know,
Speaker 1: I have no idea actually, come to think of it,
Speaker 1: more than a couple, yeah, maybe three? Or did you
Speaker 1: rape anybody? Didn't you rape? Didn't you like sexual abuse people?
Speaker 1: You know what? I would think i'd remember that, But
Speaker 1: you didn't you weren't you? Weren't you weren't you weren't
Speaker 1: a bad person. It was not a bad person. I
Speaker 1: was like, there's somebody else's job. Maybe there was another
Speaker 1: woman who was who was a matron there in the cup.
Speaker 1: I always remember the great actress who I worked with,
Speaker 1: one Shirley Stole. Do you remember Shirley Stole? Shirley Stoller,
Speaker 1: who was an opera singer, she was a very large woman.
Speaker 1: She played the prison matron on like One Life to Live.
Speaker 1: She was on the step and she'd been like getting
Speaker 1: that cell, sayin this cagnet getting a sound now, say,
Speaker 1: but you were not from the Shirley Stolar school of
Speaker 1: prison matron. I was not. I was ineffectual, I think
Speaker 1: because I was, I was sort of quiet and I
Speaker 1: wasn't mean enough, and I was I didn't I think
Speaker 1: there was no work to be had, and like totally,
Speaker 1: it was just so crazy grateful for the work. And
Speaker 1: I remember it was before cellphones. I remember Terry Kinney
Speaker 1: was on the show with me, and he was the
Speaker 1: first person I ever knew who had his own phone.
Speaker 1: I just thought he was the coolest, coolest thing going. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was fun, It was really really fun,
Speaker 1: and it was great to have a steady gig. And
Speaker 1: after that, what did you do? How long between that
Speaker 1: and the Sopranos? Not long? I was doing you know,
Speaker 1: I was doing uh that that was during Sopranos. I
Speaker 1: think that was during two seasons of Sopranos. But I
Speaker 1: was doing odds and then I was doing Sideman play
Speaker 1: that I did for a very long time, and I
Speaker 1: was doing odds at night and Sideman during the day,
Speaker 1: and then sopranos came in, and so I was doing
Speaker 1: There was a period of time where I was doing
Speaker 1: sort of all three of them, and I thought because
Speaker 1: they were so great, and I couldn't say no to anything.
Speaker 1: But I was very unhappy because I was exhausted and
Speaker 1: sick most of the time, screaming my voice out, and
Speaker 1: it was an embarrassment of riches. But I might have
Speaker 1: done better to say no to one of them. But
Speaker 1: be that as it may, it was at a time
Speaker 1: when I couldn't imagine not doing any of those jobs.
Speaker 1: After all, before Donny acrylic nails for Carmela, Edie Falcon
Speaker 1: made money in some memorable ways. She dressed up as
Speaker 1: Cookie Monster and beckoned people onto the dance floorid weddings.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to other actresses like Kathleen Turner. In
Speaker 1: our archives, Kathleen told me what she thought about working
Speaker 1: in television. I just hated the commitment. I hated the
Speaker 1: idea of being that tied down. I thought, if I
Speaker 1: had to do the same character year after year, I
Speaker 1: would definitely slip my throat To hear more from Kathleen
Speaker 1: Turner go to Here's the Thing dot org. M my
Speaker 1: guest today. Edie Falco plays Jackie Peyton, an emergency room nurse,
Speaker 1: mother and an addict on Showtimes. Nurse Jackie all Right,
Speaker 1: you know what I would have done in the past, lied, Sweetie.
Speaker 1: I have a sponsor, I am going to meetings. I
Speaker 1: am okay, and I'm going to keep on being okay
Speaker 1: because i have too much to lose. Long before she
Speaker 1: played a nurse, Edie Falco was a patient during her
Speaker 1: tenure at the Sopranos. She found a lump in her breast,
Speaker 1: got a biopsy, and then the news they said, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: there's you have cancer. And I think when those when
Speaker 1: someone said those words to me, like every cell in
Speaker 1: your body changes shape for a second, and you will
Speaker 1: never really be the same. You know, they're they're certainly
Speaker 1: growing up on Long Island or maybe anybody in our
Speaker 1: generation growing up anywhere when you heard those words, the
Speaker 1: next thing you were doing was buying an outfit for
Speaker 1: the funeral. He walks out of a doctor. He's like,
Speaker 1: oh god, oh god, you He's like, can they tell
Speaker 1: me it's a brain tumor? And he's walking on the
Speaker 1: treet I'm gonna die. Oh god, you just stay aside
Speaker 1: his death. That was it though. That was reality, So
Speaker 1: I mean it's not anymore, thank god. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was terrified. Were without getting into any detail the treatment
Speaker 1: and such. Was it something that was prolonged? Did it
Speaker 1: interfere with the show? Nobody knew about it except for
Speaker 1: Eileen Landrus, the producer of the show. I had to
Speaker 1: tell her because they were trying to schedule around my
Speaker 1: chemo because it did, you know, knocks you out. So
Speaker 1: it came over how long, you know what. It's so
Speaker 1: funny about traumatic things. I remember them weirdly. The whole
Speaker 1: thing took I guess about a year between surgery, chemo,
Speaker 1: and radiation. I think it took about a year. I
Speaker 1: think that's right. Year. Yeah, and it affected the schedule
Speaker 1: the show. That show was how many months out of
Speaker 1: the year it varied, you know, it went from it
Speaker 1: started forward, that's right. It started as like eight days
Speaker 1: an episode. By the end it was like thirty days.
Speaker 1: And Peo would always say that to me, how does
Speaker 1: that sopranos workday? Said that, no one. Yeah, I ended
Speaker 1: up getting paid like five bucks an hour towards the end,
Speaker 1: but during that time no nobody knew about it. They
Speaker 1: showed I didn't. You're very privates. I'm very privates. You
Speaker 1: are very private. Also, I don't do private about your
Speaker 1: private I don't do well when people are like, that's
Speaker 1: how you feeling, you know, I don't. I was. The
Speaker 1: truth is we were working such crazy hours that everybody
Speaker 1: on set looked worse than I did. They were just exhausted.
Speaker 1: Nobody was sleeping. I looked like I get to lie down,
Speaker 1: taking care of me and wiping my far. Is there
Speaker 1: a part of you that that that from your childhood
Speaker 1: or something, because you seem very tough. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: don't want anybody to you're You're like, you don't want
Speaker 1: a lot of sympathy, not good with you don't need
Speaker 1: a lot of attention. You tend to play into it,
Speaker 1: you know, they're like, yeah, you're right, I don't really
Speaker 1: feel so good if people don't know anything's wrong, I
Speaker 1: can behave as if things are okay. And did you
Speaker 1: think it was important? Do you feel it was a
Speaker 1: part of view your recovery and your overview of health?
Speaker 1: Not defeed in twit is not for everybody. People go
Speaker 1: through this stuff very differently. But this is what worked
Speaker 1: for me, to keep it private and only my closest
Speaker 1: friends knew. And so when I went to work, I
Speaker 1: didn't people who were like are doing and going about
Speaker 1: their business. And that is absolutely what worked for me.
Speaker 1: Kept me going, kept me busy, and I I don't
Speaker 1: know I did if I needed to be taken care
Speaker 1: of a little better, I saw to it that I was.
Speaker 1: You know, I would go home earlier. Whatever I was
Speaker 1: taking care of myself, I was taking care of you
Speaker 1: at the time. Friends, my dear friends were married. No,
Speaker 1: you've never been married, never been married, having close a
Speaker 1: couple of times. And I did you get rid of
Speaker 1: all those men in your life who were in love
Speaker 1: with you because they wanted to hold the door for
Speaker 1: you to get your hands off me? Dude, give me
Speaker 1: my bag, man, I can carry it back. What did
Speaker 1: I tell you about opening that door? Thing? Not much?
Speaker 1: I hate that? Oh no, what can I see the
Speaker 1: key to getting like? You were my little brother? And
Speaker 1: then I'm like, exactly that yourself? What do you think
Speaker 1: I am? What you that that lemon is not gonna
Speaker 1: walk itself over? Bring it over here? You wanted a
Speaker 1: long island you wanted a guy from back home, but
Speaker 1: for you, family becomes a chapter. If you don't mind
Speaker 1: my asking how a bunch of relationships started. We're serious,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of talk of kids in marriage,
Speaker 1: and then the relationship would fall apart for various reasons,
Speaker 1: and the kid things started to grow its own kind
Speaker 1: of roots in me. Cancer happens, I realize I'm not
Speaker 1: going to die, I kind of come out of the
Speaker 1: stupor and realize I want kids, and I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to find the right man first, and
Speaker 1: then I just this feels more prescient. The kid thing
Speaker 1: also not to mention that, and I hear about this
Speaker 1: all the time about women Dayton, and very early on,
Speaker 1: they want to know, is this the guy who's going
Speaker 1: to give me my family that I want. It seemed
Speaker 1: like a preposterous way to go about things. So I
Speaker 1: began the adoption process with my kids on my own
Speaker 1: once I realized that I was healthy, and that's how
Speaker 1: my family started. I adopted my son and then three
Speaker 1: years later I adopted my daughter. So it was relatively smooth.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was completely smooth compared to stories I've heard.
Speaker 1: Was it a difficult thing, did you say, Because as
Speaker 1: a woman, as you said, had dated men and contemplated
Speaker 1: that kind of traditional family and those relationships ended for
Speaker 1: whatever reason. And God knows you're successful. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: one of the most successful actresses in the history of television.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you had no shortage of callers. I
Speaker 1: was but when you but I'm not trying to pry,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying it was like, at what point do
Speaker 1: you sit there and go, Okay, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: wait for that. That was the boom. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go make this thing happen on my own, wen do
Speaker 1: it for me. When I think it wasn't tough. Like
Speaker 1: any decision, You're very self reliant. Any any decision I make,
Speaker 1: I I it means it's gone through whatever it's had
Speaker 1: to go through to kind of come to the you know,
Speaker 1: the the the unequivocal answer, which was get the paper
Speaker 1: and start filling them out. That's what you gotta do.
Speaker 1: And once I made the decision, it just kind of
Speaker 1: the whole thing unraveled on its own. And another thing
Speaker 1: also was as a child of divorce, and as there
Speaker 1: are so few successful marriages I can count on one hand,
Speaker 1: you know, in my life what I would consider a
Speaker 1: successful marriage. Uh. You know, as I was watching friends
Speaker 1: go through divorce and the sharing of the kids, and
Speaker 1: the fights in front of the kids, and the holidays
Speaker 1: split between the family, it just I desperately didn't want
Speaker 1: to give that to my kids. I wanted to know.
Speaker 1: And now that you've raised a family this far, yes,
Speaker 1: ten and six, ten and seven, ten and seven, are
Speaker 1: you at this point? I mean maybe it's just being glad,
Speaker 1: but you at this point and now you were like,
Speaker 1: you know, who needs a man? One? Quite the opposite. Actually,
Speaker 1: now I realized I've got this whole thing up and running.
Speaker 1: My kids are secure in my love for them, in
Speaker 1: family that I've created, which is very unconventional, and that's good.
Speaker 1: And now I'm like I can sit back and like,
Speaker 1: all right, so where and where am I? Now? What
Speaker 1: do I What am I about? And what do I need?
Speaker 1: So I'm you know, back in this other chapter again.
Speaker 1: But it's not about the kids. It's not about trying
Speaker 1: to create a family. Whatever it turns into, it turns into.
Speaker 1: But what I have right now is really quite workable.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of it. And yes it's complicated. It's not
Speaker 1: going to hold the door open for you. I've gotten
Speaker 1: much better many many years of therapy, and I have
Speaker 1: the Italian anti Oakley antok from I am. I can't
Speaker 1: help it. It's the way I was raised, very self reliant,
Speaker 1: but it has been you know, the death of me
Speaker 1: at times. Um. Hello, Well, I'm I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: how to say this. I'm going to write a book.
Speaker 1: I'm writing a memoir that's coming out in a year.
Speaker 1: And in the book, I've got some interesting things I
Speaker 1: talked about, and one of which was I sell a
Speaker 1: bring to my thirtie anniversary. In February this year, I
Speaker 1: went out to Los Angeles, which was the scene of
Speaker 1: the crime from that right, Uh, and can we talk
Speaker 1: about that? How are you on the record about that?
Speaker 1: I was wondering what that, how that affected your career. Well,
Speaker 1: I got sober twenty three years ago, and there was
Speaker 1: really not much of anything going on at the time.
Speaker 1: And I'm grateful for that also because you know the
Speaker 1: access people have to your life nowadays. Um, I'm just
Speaker 1: glad that none of that was going on. Nobody was
Speaker 1: interested back when I was a mess. Um, so I
Speaker 1: was able to get kind of squared with a lot
Speaker 1: of that stuff before you stepped into Yeah, before anything
Speaker 1: big was happening in my life, I was very very
Speaker 1: grateful for the timing of all that. When you walk
Speaker 1: into a room in a a there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of people who have twenty five years. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: People make it that far. Yeah, they might be when
Speaker 1: they do the hand raising thing. I'm in a room
Speaker 1: the other day in l A where there was three
Speaker 1: people and they might have been like six or eight
Speaker 1: of them that had over twenty years. Yeah, time or right,
Speaker 1: where the time is right, it's still a part of
Speaker 1: your left. I go on my anniversary which was the
Speaker 1: last week, and just to announce it and h now
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm a Buddhist, which is where what I
Speaker 1: what I do now? Yeah, I spend a great deal
Speaker 1: time at the Buddhist Center in New York, where has
Speaker 1: given my life a tremendous amount of when because you
Speaker 1: have the first person I know who has supplanted sobriety
Speaker 1: interesting twelve steps sobriety with Buddhism or Buddhist a lot
Speaker 1: of crossovers. I see a lot of people that I
Speaker 1: know from both places so I see, yeah, uh, like
Speaker 1: twenty something years ago, I inadvertently ran into a meditation
Speaker 1: class and it was this teacher and then I kind
Speaker 1: of wandered away, and then I kind of went back
Speaker 1: and it was the same teacher. I thought I was
Speaker 1: going to some other thing. This happened a number of times,
Speaker 1: and then a good five or six years ago I
Speaker 1: went back again, and here's the same darned teacher in
Speaker 1: a different place. And I've been going consistently for I
Speaker 1: don't know, four or five years as much as I can.
Speaker 1: It feeds me and huge way. So what do you
Speaker 1: get out of it? Well, it's not just sort of
Speaker 1: mumbo jumbo spiritual kind of it's also it's like a
Speaker 1: science of the mind really that was established years ago.
Speaker 1: And so they've got they've got history on their side.
Speaker 1: And I see the people who spend a good deal
Speaker 1: of time there, and the teacher there. They have what
Speaker 1: I want, you know, the stick with the winners thing
Speaker 1: that I love a but you know, there there are
Speaker 1: a lot of cuckoos in there, you know, and I
Speaker 1: love them because I understand them. But to be in
Speaker 1: a place where there's somebody who really has something that
Speaker 1: I want. It's very meaningful to me. It becomes harder
Speaker 1: and harder to find that. That's huge and and and
Speaker 1: for you, what I'm wondering, what did it give you?
Speaker 1: What did it help you deal with? Or manager? Well,
Speaker 1: single parenting is not for this faint of heart. Uh,
Speaker 1: shall I say? You know, you live for forty years
Speaker 1: where you're the center of your universe. You know, when
Speaker 1: you want to get a massage, you go get one,
Speaker 1: and as you know that, kids enter the picture and
Speaker 1: it just turns your whole life. I mean, there's nothing
Speaker 1: recognizable about it. And it was real a crash course
Speaker 1: in in uh, not being the center of my universe
Speaker 1: anymore so. And I didn't always handle it great. Spent
Speaker 1: a fair amount of time just not being okay with
Speaker 1: the fact that I couldn't control my environment. So a
Speaker 1: lot of it is about remaining calm, about being patient,
Speaker 1: about remembering what's important about patients is I think the
Speaker 1: biggest part of it. I am. I have. I have
Speaker 1: a short temper that people may not believe, but you know,
Speaker 1: in in my human environment, yeah, it's not pretty. So
Speaker 1: it has helped me immeasurably with that. Describe your son
Speaker 1: cute blonde. He's uh spectacularly amazing kid, and he's been
Speaker 1: through a lot, and uh he has some learning stuff
Speaker 1: and uh also a d D D H D and
Speaker 1: all those acronyms, um, which you know, single parenting under
Speaker 1: the best of circumstances is difficult. But when you have
Speaker 1: a kid who's bouncing off the wall calls, and then
Speaker 1: a kid who's not who's getting beat up by the
Speaker 1: kid who's bounce off the wall, it's complicated and it's difficult. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's the sort of the survivor, yes, yes, so, but
Speaker 1: you know she's a tough kid. She can take care
Speaker 1: of herself. Over here. Let's play sword fights. Yeah no, no,
Speaker 1: you're the sword. And he's constantly beaten the crap at
Speaker 1: ever and you know she's learned to, uh, she's learned
Speaker 1: to kind of make the make the best of it.
Speaker 1: But the fact that she has to what is a
Speaker 1: drag so um. But you know, we all had our
Speaker 1: stuff growing up in the middle child and you know,
Speaker 1: everybody we all have some order in which we were
Speaker 1: born and the difficulties we had and being the first
Speaker 1: one or the last one or whatever. And my kids
Speaker 1: challenges are not that unusual. But you know, I say
Speaker 1: that my daughter, my older daughter, I said to her recently.
Speaker 1: I said to her, you know, to me, a god
Speaker 1: or the presence of some kind of force like that
Speaker 1: in your life manifests itself in the instincts that you have.
Speaker 1: And I said to her, the minute you get into
Speaker 1: trouble in this life, in my experience, is when you
Speaker 1: stopped listening to your instincts. That's all we can do
Speaker 1: is try to get them to listen to that voice
Speaker 1: in them, because in the end, they're gonna do what
Speaker 1: they're gonna do. We can't make them do what we
Speaker 1: want to do. It's painful. It's shocking too. I mean,
Speaker 1: especially in this industry, we have so many people running around,
Speaker 1: you know, telling you how great you are, and you know,
Speaker 1: making sure that every your every need is taken care of.
Speaker 1: And then you go home and your kids just couldn't
Speaker 1: care less what you're asking. But they do. But I
Speaker 1: think they think everybody's parents have some kind of life
Speaker 1: like this. I don't know, they exceedingly unimpressed, but you know,
Speaker 1: just to hang up the damn coat, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It just couldn't possibly care less the way
Speaker 1: I want the how's the look? And you know, all
Speaker 1: that stuff that used to be so important that I'm
Speaker 1: learning slowly to let go of. Do you see yourself
Speaker 1: doing this for the rest of your life. I have
Speaker 1: no idea. I don't there's nothing else you want to do.
Speaker 1: I like animals. I always have this fantasy of working
Speaker 1: with animals. I don't know what. There's certainly nothing that
Speaker 1: could support the homes that I have, so you know,
Speaker 1: probably in I do love the acting part, it's all
Speaker 1: the stuff around it that that is difficult. I really
Speaker 1: don't know. I've never known what was going to happen
Speaker 1: next is something comes along catches my eye. It's almost like, oh, look,
Speaker 1: something glittering happened, kind of like that Sopranos ended. And
Speaker 1: I just started reading scripts and nothing appealed to me,
Speaker 1: and I thought, I don't know, maybe I'm done, and uh,
Speaker 1: I think I just wasn't ready or maybe there really
Speaker 1: wasn't anything good. And then I read that one at
Speaker 1: the time, it was Nurse Mona. It was written by
Speaker 1: Evan Dunsky, and I read it and it was very dark,
Speaker 1: but there was something about the character I liked, and
Speaker 1: I kind of came to life that way I was ready,
Speaker 1: the script changed and morphed into something that felt better
Speaker 1: to me, and and that's how it happened. I but
Speaker 1: I had similar feelings, like maybe I did what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do with all this stuff. And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have no idea. I really don't know
Speaker 1: what the heck is going to happen next? And in
Speaker 1: the how many seasons this just finished? What? Season seven? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Go figure? You know you sign up, You're like be
Speaker 1: a couple of years. You have no idea? Crazy? And
Speaker 1: then during that seven years and you had the break
Speaker 1: when you weren't working, did you always take off your
Speaker 1: shot some stuff for you? Yeah. I did a bunch
Speaker 1: of plays and I did I did, Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: want to Theater Club, I did one uh, the Ben
Speaker 1: Stiller and How to Blue Leaves. I did other things
Speaker 1: which escaped men. Not if I not if I don't
Speaker 1: have to, it's different. You have kids in school, it's
Speaker 1: a different thing. What's the most successful thing you've done professionally?
Speaker 1: What do you think the most other than the obvious one?
Speaker 1: What were the most successful? Is it the obvious one? Um?
Speaker 1: Not necessarily? Yeah, I mean for me, the greatest success
Speaker 1: I've had professionally. Is the environment that we created at
Speaker 1: Nurse Jackie the working environment. Yeah, well, that we assume
Speaker 1: at a certain level of expert ease that the people
Speaker 1: you're gonna hire for your A, D. S and your
Speaker 1: camera people stuff, you know that they're all they've been
Speaker 1: working a long time and they're good at what they do.
Speaker 1: More important to us was that they were manageable and
Speaker 1: kind after sixteen hours or whatever. So we made a
Speaker 1: lot of phone calls to people who have been on
Speaker 1: sets with them after a long day to find out
Speaker 1: what they would be like, because, uh, you know, having
Speaker 1: been around other environments, I just feel like I've just
Speaker 1: gotten too old for craziness. That's interesting that Nurse Jackie,
Speaker 1: which you're still doing. That's that's still on the air.
Speaker 1: That is these epic days. It's long days. Not terrible. Actually,
Speaker 1: I've had way more epic days. But even a normal
Speaker 1: day of twelve or thirteen hours is still a long
Speaker 1: day to an average individual. It's a lot of days
Speaker 1: to spend doing this one thing. But regardless of the
Speaker 1: length of the days, you just want to be hanging
Speaker 1: with people who are nice. So and we we got, yeah,
Speaker 1: we got we really did a great job with Nurse Jackie.
Speaker 1: I love the people. They were nice and spectful. And
Speaker 1: I read somewhere that you said, you're like Nurse Jackie
Speaker 1: in some ways and not at all like her in
Speaker 1: other ways. Well, what are the ways that you are?
Speaker 1: What are the ways that you are like Nurse Jackie? Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't recall saying that, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean I didn't the first supposed here? What are
Speaker 1: the ways? I think she's diligent about her job. I
Speaker 1: think she takes it seriously. It's important to her to
Speaker 1: be good at it. She's professional, professional, but also competent.
Speaker 1: You know, she knows that she did very few situations
Speaker 1: she can't handle. I think that's important to her, and
Speaker 1: I think it's important to me too. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Other than that we veer. I kind of think it's
Speaker 1: cool that she doesn't really give a ship the way
Speaker 1: she's perceived. She gets what she needs done, she gets
Speaker 1: done without worrying about the ramifications who she might have heard.
Speaker 1: I mean, I spend far too much time thinking about
Speaker 1: that stuff. It has led me to not good places
Speaker 1: where so I have I often thought it would be
Speaker 1: fun to be more like her in that way? Did
Speaker 1: you become like any of your characters? No? Never, not
Speaker 1: really really took off the nails and the hair, or
Speaker 1: I took off the scrubs and then was gone. I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: other people would tell me otherwise. But you know, there's
Speaker 1: a human nous to Eadie Falco's characters, no matter how
Speaker 1: tough their exterior appears. Her women are vulnerable and fallible,
Speaker 1: and we can't get enough of them. This is the
Speaker 1: seventh and final season for Showtime's Nurse Jackie. After that,
Speaker 1: we'll eagerly await to see who Edie Falco inhabits next.
Speaker 1: She told me she's hoping for a new play to
Speaker 1: come her way. This is Alec Baldwin you're listening to.
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing two