Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. It takes real comedic chops
Speaker 1: to play the woman starring opposite Larry David for eleven
Speaker 1: seasons on the cringe worthy meta hit Curb Your Enthusiasm
Speaker 1: My Guest Today, Actress, director and producer Cheryl Hines plays
Speaker 1: the cantankerous comedian's wife with the improv skills and killer
Speaker 1: timing that have earned her two Emmy nominations for the role.
Speaker 1: As an actress, Hynes is known for her memorable turns
Speaker 1: in the critically acclaimed film Waitress, the sitcom Suburgatory, and
Speaker 1: most recently on HBO's The Flight Attendant. She's also brought
Speaker 1: her talents behind the scenes, producing the Oxygen series Campus
Speaker 1: Ladies and directing the film Serious Moonlight starring Meg Ryan
Speaker 1: and Timothy Hutton. Hines is now also a member of
Speaker 1: one of America's most well known and respected families. She
Speaker 1: married her husband, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. In two thousand fourteen.
Speaker 1: With Hines starring as Cheryl David for two decades and counting,
Speaker 1: I wanted to know how she got her start in acting. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I did commercials when I was young in Florida,
Speaker 1: and then I went to University of Central Florida and
Speaker 1: this is how old I am. Okay, my senior year there,
Speaker 1: that's when Universal Studio is open. So they did like
Speaker 1: a big casting call, like over a thousand actors showed
Speaker 1: up because all these kids wanted to, you know, work
Speaker 1: there and get a job as an actor because they
Speaker 1: had different shows. And so I got hired. And I
Speaker 1: mean so yes, I was getting paid to act if
Speaker 1: you consider that professional. I tell everybody who starts out
Speaker 1: when they come to me and say like, oh, what
Speaker 1: do you do? You know they always want to work
Speaker 1: that angle? What do you do to make it? How
Speaker 1: do I get an agent? All that bullshit. My feeling
Speaker 1: about that is you do anything. I don't have any pride,
Speaker 1: don't have any pride. Just I was doing a soap
Speaker 1: opera in New York, my first job. And while I
Speaker 1: was doing the soap opera, I still went down. This
Speaker 1: is pre internet, of course, when dinosaurs roamed the earth,
Speaker 1: and you go down and we go to the n
Speaker 1: y U Film School bulletin board where they had a
Speaker 1: casting section and they'd say, you know, call Frank, called
Speaker 1: Joe Cole Susie. We're making a movie and they're shooting
Speaker 1: in a bar that they've closed down for like all
Speaker 1: Saturday day and night. We're gonna shot the whole thing
Speaker 1: in one night. Student film. I go down, I do
Speaker 1: the film. But my point is that I would do
Speaker 1: the show, and then I went down and I do
Speaker 1: I did uh a showcase theater. On the weekends, we
Speaker 1: rehearse at night. I finished the show. We finished taping
Speaker 1: at three o'clock. Every afternoon was a half hour run
Speaker 1: downtown Van Dam Theater. Do a play Thursday, Friday, Saturday night.
Speaker 1: My point is, I said to people, say yes to anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. You gotta put it out there. You
Speaker 1: gotta put it out there the way. Oh definitely. I
Speaker 1: mean when I first moved to l A, I mean
Speaker 1: I didn't have an agent. I didn't you know, I
Speaker 1: was bartending. But I would audition for a lot of
Speaker 1: student films. I would audition for everything because somebody had
Speaker 1: advised me to, you know, they were like, you'll get
Speaker 1: better at auditioning the more auditions you go to. And
Speaker 1: of course at the time, I felt like, well that's
Speaker 1: so mean to the productions, to audition for something that
Speaker 1: I probably couldn't even do if I got casts. But
Speaker 1: I didn't have to worry about that part um. I
Speaker 1: did audition for student films because I knew that I
Speaker 1: would get experience. It was good experience to audition for that,
Speaker 1: and that those filmmakers are gonna, if they're good, go
Speaker 1: on to make other films. Right, So everybody has to
Speaker 1: start somewhere. You're standing there one day at a barbecue
Speaker 1: and somebody standing next to you and you're like, and
Speaker 1: this is before history rights itself, and you're like, what's
Speaker 1: your name? That guys like David David O. Russell And
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, could you pass me the mustard? What
Speaker 1: are you working on? I mean like you're there in
Speaker 1: the infancy of someone's career and they remember you. They
Speaker 1: you came to l A when you were how old?
Speaker 1: I was twenty five, and so you stayed there beyond college?
Speaker 1: You stayed in Florida. No, New York. No. I didn't
Speaker 1: go to New York. No. I just went from Florida
Speaker 1: to l A because I knew two people in l A.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anybody in New York. Who in l A?
Speaker 1: Did you know? I? Knew. There was a screenwriter named
Speaker 1: Mike France who has passed away sadly. But he wrote
Speaker 1: Golden I, one of the Bond movies. But but his family,
Speaker 1: My family grew up together in winter Haven, Florida, so
Speaker 1: I knew him although he was a friend of my brothers. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, you grow up and you're like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: kind of the same age and you're cute. But he
Speaker 1: was living out here. And then I had a friend
Speaker 1: from high school named Paul Beckett, and he lived out
Speaker 1: here too, and he was a professional background actor, not
Speaker 1: an amateur background power. It was his full time. He
Speaker 1: was a professional background actor. Yes, Now, when you came here,
Speaker 1: what year was that? A late eighties? When you get
Speaker 1: out there, what's the vibe? Well, so when I first
Speaker 1: came out here, I like, you're saying, do anything, like,
Speaker 1: do everything anything to try to you know, as they
Speaker 1: say in football, move the chains. Right. So there was
Speaker 1: a woman and I won't even remember her name. Her
Speaker 1: first name was Melissa, but I think I saw an
Speaker 1: ad for a quote unquote intern. And I only say
Speaker 1: quote unquote because I wasn't even in school. But it
Speaker 1: was just another way of saying we're not going to
Speaker 1: pay you, but I would love for someone to come
Speaker 1: work in my office. So I did, and I you know,
Speaker 1: helped like go through headg shots and this and that.
Speaker 1: And one day she she looked at me and she
Speaker 1: was like, you're attractive. You should do okay, but you
Speaker 1: should get a boob job. And I was like wow
Speaker 1: when she had to do the card, her Husbane's card, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's I'm going to cost you. Um so describe
Speaker 1: winter Haven. I mean with them saying the girl from
Speaker 1: winter Haven is everybody complete and no one's telling you
Speaker 1: you need to have a boob job in winter Haven.
Speaker 1: Only when you get to l A. But when you
Speaker 1: were home and growing up there was he just very
Speaker 1: ordinary and all Americans. Well, so I went to from
Speaker 1: winter Haven, I went to Tallahassee. That's in Tallahassee. That's
Speaker 1: where I went to went to middle school in high school.
Speaker 1: So yes, all American and conservative in Tallahassee. So you know,
Speaker 1: guys wore khakis and polo shirt. All the guys look
Speaker 1: like football coaches. Your husband. By the way, I had
Speaker 1: at one point it was like you cannot wear khaki
Speaker 1: pleaded khaki's like you can't, so he has left them behind.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and then the girls. You know, it was
Speaker 1: really it was really pretty like I don't want to
Speaker 1: say average, that's but but like group think, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, it's like traditional traditional, that's the word.
Speaker 1: So no, nobody was really that, you know, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know one person who had a breast augmentation
Speaker 1: when I was in high school. But when I was
Speaker 1: in l A in the beginning, I actually heard someone
Speaker 1: say to someone an actress told me that the guy
Speaker 1: or the woman that that that hinted to them that
Speaker 1: they should have their boobs done. The person that said
Speaker 1: this to my friend said, don't you understand? He said,
Speaker 1: this is a sign of how beautiful you are. And
Speaker 1: when you when you, when you, when you have your
Speaker 1: boobs done, you're gonna be right there. You're gonna be
Speaker 1: We're gonna sell you, and you're gonna do so many
Speaker 1: commercials movies like there are women who we could give
Speaker 1: them a boo job, and it's really not going to
Speaker 1: make a difference, he said, They're not gonna they're not
Speaker 1: going to be hirable, expect much like oh God, what's
Speaker 1: your name? Let me write that down to send it
Speaker 1: to my lawyer. It's weird. It's weird. It was interesting
Speaker 1: because at that time I hadn't even thought about it,
Speaker 1: and it did not seem like it was necessary. But
Speaker 1: what you know, I went home and I started thinking
Speaker 1: about all the actors, actresses that I really looked up
Speaker 1: to that I felt like, Goldie Hawn doesn't have big ones,
Speaker 1: you know what. I started thinking of all the actresses
Speaker 1: that I really admired, and did breast size have anything
Speaker 1: to do with it? And I thought, oh, no, I
Speaker 1: don't think those are the parts I'm like going for.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not dying to be on Baywatch, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So it was sort of that
Speaker 1: when I first got here and then I started I
Speaker 1: started studying and performing at some point at the Groundlings
Speaker 1: Theater in West Hollywood, which was all improv and in
Speaker 1: sketch comedy, and you know, I didn't really experience too
Speaker 1: much of the harassment. Yeah, definitely, not not any harassment.
Speaker 1: But even like guys have it easier than girls, like
Speaker 1: at the Groundlings, my experience wasn't that much more democratic.
Speaker 1: The Yeah, I've been so fortunate because I haven't really
Speaker 1: felt that in a sense, you know. And then when
Speaker 1: I I directed a little independent film a while ago,
Speaker 1: but that was the question, and it was was to
Speaker 1: like probably fourteen years ago or something. It was like, wow,
Speaker 1: you're a female director. That's crazy. And I was like
Speaker 1: it is. They're like, yeah, like never even. It was
Speaker 1: just so crazy to them, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I I guess it is. I never thought about it.
Speaker 1: Now for some reason, you have omitted, as we're kind
Speaker 1: of doing, or rather semi chronological stroll down the path here,
Speaker 1: that how did you get to become an assistant for
Speaker 1: Rob Reiner? Well, so I was. I was working as
Speaker 1: a bartender in a hotel downtown at the Intercontinental Hotel.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if it's still there. So I
Speaker 1: was bartending and one of my friends, I had a
Speaker 1: friend who was working for or heard that Rob Reiner
Speaker 1: was turning fifty and they needed an extra assistant to
Speaker 1: help put the party together. And they thought of me,
Speaker 1: and she said, you know, do you want to go
Speaker 1: meet them and see? You know, it's a temporary job.
Speaker 1: You can do it during the day and then still
Speaker 1: barton at night, which is what I did. And I
Speaker 1: really loved Rob and Michelle writer and at some point
Speaker 1: they offered me a full time job. And how long
Speaker 1: did that last? Probably two years, two and a half
Speaker 1: years years. I worked with Rob who had the great
Speaker 1: line once we did the movie Goes to Mississippi and Yeah.
Speaker 1: He came up to me and he said, uh, he said,
Speaker 1: do me a favor. He said, we don't want to
Speaker 1: put a camera in the top in the back of
Speaker 1: the stage in the on the ceiling and shoot down
Speaker 1: like a big overhead master. And he said, is that
Speaker 1: a right with you? Do you mind doing it again?
Speaker 1: I have like a three page moneologue. I said yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, gonna be shot it and covered. And I go, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: you've got a good piece of material. You never get
Speaker 1: tired of doing it because you know the next movie
Speaker 1: you're gonna do, you're gonna have one line of day
Speaker 1: and that line is going to be get down, Everybody,
Speaker 1: get down. So when you have good material, you'll do
Speaker 1: it again and again and again. I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about directing a movie. You did the movie
Speaker 1: with Meg I did, I did. I did a film
Speaker 1: called Serious Moonlight. Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton, Kristen Bell
Speaker 1: and Justin Long they and they were all really great
Speaker 1: and that film. You know, it was a complicated sort
Speaker 1: of moment in time because I had just done that
Speaker 1: the movie Waitress. I was in the movie Waitress as
Speaker 1: an actress, and Adrian Shelley had written and directed and
Speaker 1: was in Waitress. It's part of the Adrian Shelly story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so before Waitress came out, tragically, Adrian was killed
Speaker 1: in New York City, and then Waitress premiered in uh
Speaker 1: Sundance and without Adrian, and it was, you know, it
Speaker 1: was very bittersweet because that film is so it's a
Speaker 1: little bit magical and people really fell in love with it.
Speaker 1: And Adrian had written this script Serious Moonlight. And Andy Oustroy,
Speaker 1: who was married to Adrian, called me after Waitress and
Speaker 1: right after Adrian had been killed and said, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to produce this film that Adrian wrote, and
Speaker 1: I I want you to consider directing it because I
Speaker 1: think you would get the tone of it. And at
Speaker 1: that time I was like, are you talking to me?
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait a second, what what do you ask?
Speaker 1: What are we talking about? Because I had what didn't
Speaker 1: even wasn't even thinking about directing a film. You know,
Speaker 1: I had directed some television, but not a film, and Uh,
Speaker 1: what television did you direct? Well? I directed Curb before them, No, no,
Speaker 1: nobody have since no. I had produced and and I
Speaker 1: helped create a show called Campus Ladies that was about
Speaker 1: these two uh middle aged ladies that go to college
Speaker 1: for the first time and live in a freshman door
Speaker 1: in a triple with a nineteen year old girl who's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I cannot live with you two actually,
Speaker 1: and Jonah Hill played the r A. So I like
Speaker 1: to think that I gave him his first job, which
Speaker 1: is true. So I I directed a few episodes of that,
Speaker 1: but it was really fun. So I had to sort
Speaker 1: of search my soul and figure out is this something
Speaker 1: that I should do? I can do? And then I
Speaker 1: talked to my director friends like Barry Sonnenfeld and and
Speaker 1: they all said, yeah, you should just do it. Like
Speaker 1: nobody can tell you. You can't even tell somebody what's
Speaker 1: going to happen when they direct. It's something that you
Speaker 1: have to experience. We can't even tell you what you're
Speaker 1: going to go through. But just go for it. Do it,
Speaker 1: you know, call me if there was a problem, call
Speaker 1: me with questions, which is what I did, and we
Speaker 1: shot in uh fifteen days, I think fifteen days and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, and then Meg said yes to the script
Speaker 1: and Timothy Hutton and I mean it was it was
Speaker 1: a it was a great and terrifying and stressful experience
Speaker 1: when you went to the Groundlings. Who was your teacher?
Speaker 1: My first teacher there was Lisa Kudrow. Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1: It's so amazing. And the reason I went to the Groundlings,
Speaker 1: like I was saying, is I met Phil Hartman's sister
Speaker 1: at the bar of the Intercontinental Hotel and she was like,
Speaker 1: that's where my brother got to start. And I said,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I've got to go to this theater
Speaker 1: and see what it's about. And when I went, I
Speaker 1: fell in love with it. I couldn't believe what they
Speaker 1: were doing on that stage. But I had no money.
Speaker 1: I didn't even have a refrigerator at this point because
Speaker 1: I didn't know apartments didn't come with the refrigerators. But
Speaker 1: all I did was talking about the Groundlings, and that's
Speaker 1: really what I where I wanted to go, you know, study.
Speaker 1: And so on my birthday, all the regulars and the
Speaker 1: Wade staff Chip did and paid for my first Groundlings class,
Speaker 1: and then my teacher was Lisa Kudro, actor and producer
Speaker 1: Cheryl Hines. If you enjoy conversations with funny and insightful actresses,
Speaker 1: check out my episode with Kristen Bell and the moment
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, I have a thing and
Speaker 1: it's a quirky, weird, funny, bubbly fun thing that's can
Speaker 1: be snarky and I love doing it. I do it
Speaker 1: pretty well. Why not lean into it? And that is
Speaker 1: when I felt like I started becoming happier, when I
Speaker 1: stopped trying to be in everyone else's category. To hear
Speaker 1: more of my conversation with Kristen Bell, go to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing dot Org. After the break, Cheryl Hine shares
Speaker 1: what it's like to direct the One and Only Larry David.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here is
Speaker 1: the Thing. When Cheryl Hines was first introduced to Larry
Speaker 1: David during her Curb Your Enthusiasm audition, the actress had
Speaker 1: no idea if she was about to encounter John Cassavetti's
Speaker 1: Howie Mandel with a funny dweeb from chemistry class. I
Speaker 1: didn't even know what he looked like, and at that
Speaker 1: time I was still working for Rob Reiner, and Rob
Speaker 1: and Larry know each other. And I knew that they
Speaker 1: know each other because because because Sel was a Castle Rock. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but at that time I was auditioning for a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. My agent called and said they were looking
Speaker 1: for an unknown actress to play Larry David's wife and
Speaker 1: it's all going to be improvised. I said, well, how
Speaker 1: old is that guy? Isn't he old? And my agent,
Speaker 1: who my agent at the time, was not a great agent.
Speaker 1: If you're listening, you know who you are, um, but
Speaker 1: he was like because he was like, look, you're probably
Speaker 1: not going to get this part. Just go have a
Speaker 1: good audition. Then maybe there's something else for you in
Speaker 1: the show. And I was like, thank you, Okay, So
Speaker 1: that's what I did. I just I didn't know what
Speaker 1: he looked like. I didn't know anything about him, about Larry.
Speaker 1: And when I was walking down the hallway to audition,
Speaker 1: the casting director said, don't touch Larry. He doesn't like
Speaker 1: for people to touch him. I was like, okay, and
Speaker 1: they said, uh, you know, it's supposed to sort of
Speaker 1: feel like a documentary, so up at any point it
Speaker 1: feels fake or false, the audition will be over. I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay. They were like in here's Larry, there's
Speaker 1: this is a mine field, and there's some minds on
Speaker 1: the floor that will blow up your whole audition. To
Speaker 1: make sure you don't step on them. Right, they're out
Speaker 1: there somewhere. Did they really say that to you? I mean,
Speaker 1: and actually it was good advice because you know, because
Speaker 1: because curb your enthusiasm is all improvised. So I've been
Speaker 1: in the room to improvise with other actors that come
Speaker 1: into audition for our show. And when you're improvising and
Speaker 1: you know this, like you have to make decisions quickly,
Speaker 1: and you have to you how to do yeah, and
Speaker 1: you have to assume a relationship in an improv you
Speaker 1: just do otherwise it's too strangers, you know, yes, and
Speaker 1: we say yes. So if you're improvising with someone, your inclination,
Speaker 1: especially if your husband and wife, might be to touch
Speaker 1: the other person. So, knowing what I know now about Larry, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't touch him. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want
Speaker 1: twenty strangers touching him, even if it's in an audition
Speaker 1: for his show, right, even it might improve the audition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he doesn't want that, is he still that way. He
Speaker 1: still got that, uh how a Mandel thing. Don't touch me? Yes,
Speaker 1: that thing too, your elbow fispum, no touching, don't touch me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never would have guessed that about Larry. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that about Larry. What I only one time had
Speaker 1: an opportunity. They were just like a brief discussion of
Speaker 1: me doing the show, and I guess it was I
Speaker 1: want to guess that it was McEnroe did the show.
Speaker 1: I was going to play myself and Larry and I
Speaker 1: share a limo from l a X coming into town
Speaker 1: and they said to me that here's the idea. And
Speaker 1: I thought, uh, oh great, and we couldn't work it
Speaker 1: out dates wise or whatever, and uh he never called
Speaker 1: me again. It never asked me again. And uh, but
Speaker 1: I was asked to do the show. I think the
Speaker 1: person that played the part I was supposed to play
Speaker 1: was McEnroe. So when you do the show now, the
Speaker 1: show has been obviously over twenty years. Yes, so you've
Speaker 1: been in and around these people for twenty years now.
Speaker 1: I know that when I did a show, and I
Speaker 1: and I love the people, there was like a handful,
Speaker 1: not many certainly, who I never wanted it to end.
Speaker 1: I never tired of being around them. When Curb is over,
Speaker 1: have you had enough of Curb and you're ready to
Speaker 1: take a break. And that is a put down of anybody,
Speaker 1: But it's like, there's a thing where you've done this
Speaker 1: for so long now, No, you like when you have
Speaker 1: a break. No, you can do fifty two shows a year.
Speaker 1: We'll see. That's the thing too, because up for a
Speaker 1: season for us is ten episodes, so and then we
Speaker 1: do it like every other year or something. But I
Speaker 1: have the same sort of feelings about Larry. I mean
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, when you're in high school
Speaker 1: and you're you have a chemistry lab class and they
Speaker 1: pair you up with somebody random and you're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'm stuck with this guy. Um, and then
Speaker 1: you realize, oh my god, this is the smartest, funniest
Speaker 1: guy I've ever met in my entire life. Um. And
Speaker 1: you you know, you love going to class every day
Speaker 1: because the two of you make things explode. And that's
Speaker 1: how I feel about Larry. I mean, I feel like
Speaker 1: in all of them. I mean, I love Susie, I
Speaker 1: love jaff Richard Lewis. It's like I just I could
Speaker 1: do it every day, all day for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. I watched that show, and I mean people,
Speaker 1: you know, the great gift of that show is that
Speaker 1: you gotta have people who can deliver a line. You know,
Speaker 1: Susie Essman, you gotta have that woman was how to
Speaker 1: deliver a line. She's like, she's like the Olivier of vulgarity,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And I think to myself,
Speaker 1: is Larry somebody who does he want to bring in
Speaker 1: new people? Does he want to try new people, Let's
Speaker 1: write new characters, let's freshen up. Or is he one
Speaker 1: of those guys where I got a company of actors
Speaker 1: and I like them and I want to work with them.
Speaker 1: I like what I'm gonna stick with what I have.
Speaker 1: He's a combination. It's always been odd to me that
Speaker 1: we have actors, famous people who play a version of themselves,
Speaker 1: and then we also have famous people who play a character.
Speaker 1: Like Vince Vaughn has been playing a character, so it's
Speaker 1: it's funny, but he it really is uh story driven,
Speaker 1: so he he comes up with the ideas. Larry comes
Speaker 1: up with the ideas, and Jeff Schafers is really amazing
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. So they come up with ideas for
Speaker 1: the shows and then they take it from there. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think he likes to cast people that
Speaker 1: he knows. But also you know the casting. They've casted
Speaker 1: a lot of people casted. Is that a word they've cast?
Speaker 1: I think the past tense of cast is cast. Even
Speaker 1: when you say it wrong, Sherrott sounds great. Well when
Speaker 1: they cast, when you blow the line, it's fantastic. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a combination, is what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: say now. Speaking of casting, I am of the belief
Speaker 1: that for the core, they're real central characters, not the
Speaker 1: guests that come and go or recurrings. And so for that,
Speaker 1: I did thirty Rock, and I fully believe that if
Speaker 1: one of those people was different, we might not have
Speaker 1: made it. Chemistry is the word, obviously, and there's a chemistry,
Speaker 1: and we did we talk about the chemistry because on
Speaker 1: thirty Rock, I really believe it had to be Tina
Speaker 1: and Jack and Tracy and h Jane Krokowski, and if
Speaker 1: they put somebody else in there, it would not have
Speaker 1: been it might not have worked. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I do feel the same way. You know, Curb
Speaker 1: is such a different show because because there's no script
Speaker 1: and there's there it's it's not like you know, I've
Speaker 1: done other um, I've done other shows where there are
Speaker 1: scripts and there's a table read and everybody laughs at
Speaker 1: the funny lines, and so you kind of get an
Speaker 1: idea of that if this is working or if it's not.
Speaker 1: But on Curb there's no table read because there's no script.
Speaker 1: There's no you know, there's no audience camera. You know,
Speaker 1: crew is in a different room and you're just sitting
Speaker 1: in a living room talking. So at the beginning, it
Speaker 1: was really hard to know. Before it aired, I had
Speaker 1: no idea if like people would how people respond to it.
Speaker 1: How many takes do you get a lot of takes
Speaker 1: or no. He likes to move on. He likes to
Speaker 1: move on. If it's just if it's just being Larry,
Speaker 1: we've done it in two takes. You know, if there
Speaker 1: are more people or if it's more involved, then you
Speaker 1: have to cover. But but because it's improvised, there's always
Speaker 1: a camera on Larry and a camera over Larry to
Speaker 1: whomever he's he's the Jackie Gleason of the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, no two takes are the same. So
Speaker 1: if you get a take. If he gets a take
Speaker 1: that he likes, he'll be like, yeah, let's move on.
Speaker 1: What was it like to direct him. It was kind
Speaker 1: of hilarious because it was a real fifty fifty crap shoot.
Speaker 1: Like I would go in and say, this time, when
Speaker 1: you see j B, maybe you're less angry and a
Speaker 1: little and he was like, no, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: And then sometimes I'll say, look, you just chipped your tooth,
Speaker 1: you know, babe, Let's see your reaction to that. And
Speaker 1: he's like, okay, I'll do that. So it was real.
Speaker 1: You kind of never knew what you were going to get.
Speaker 1: I had a famous director once who he said to me, uh,
Speaker 1: let's do it again and just take everything off of it.
Speaker 1: I go, oh really, He goes, yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: you're kind of putting something on it. It's like it's
Speaker 1: too much. I go really. He goes, yeah, not not
Speaker 1: not a great deal, but it's a little bit. Goes,
Speaker 1: just take a little bit off of I go, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I go and I do it again. I do exactly
Speaker 1: what I did the time, and he goes, let's do
Speaker 1: it again, and uh really, just trying to take a
Speaker 1: little bit more off of it. Just try it again
Speaker 1: if you can, and just take a little bit more,
Speaker 1: because I really feel like there's still You're like doing
Speaker 1: something like the guy. And in my mind, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: the character is a performer, the character is trying to
Speaker 1: charm people, the character is a movie star. And he goes,
Speaker 1: do it again. I go, okay, watch this, I said,
Speaker 1: you watch this, I'm gonna I'm gonna take it off.
Speaker 1: I go back out there and do exactly saying and
Speaker 1: I come off the set and he goes, okay, just
Speaker 1: really really just try to take everything off. Don't don't,
Speaker 1: don't do anything, just say the lines and just throw
Speaker 1: it away. And I go, you got it. I said,
Speaker 1: you got I'm sort of sorry, and I said, I said,
Speaker 1: you watch somebody really really get it. I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: everything off it. And I go out and I do
Speaker 1: the exact same fucking thing again, and he said to
Speaker 1: He goes, okay, let's move on like you. We're not
Speaker 1: going to get wed another time to waste here. That
Speaker 1: is the thing about directing. You learn quickly, like you
Speaker 1: can't make somebody do something. Actor director Cheryl hines, if
Speaker 1: you're enjoying this conversation. Tell a friend and be sure
Speaker 1: to follow Here's the Thing on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Cheryl Hynes tells us how marrying a Kennedy has changed her.
Speaker 1: H I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing. Cheryl Hynes has spent eleven seasons on the
Speaker 1: Emmy winning Curb Your Enthusiasm, during which she has seen
Speaker 1: an endless parade of talented guest stars. I was curious
Speaker 1: who made her list of favorite appearances. There was a
Speaker 1: time when we were shooting in New York when Larry
Speaker 1: did the Producers on Broadway. So we were all in
Speaker 1: one trailer off Broadway, and uh, during lunch, We're all
Speaker 1: sitting there with our little paper plates on our laps,
Speaker 1: and David Swimmer was there because he was also in it.
Speaker 1: Mel Brooks was there, Larry, and then Jerry Seinfeld was
Speaker 1: just walking by and he was there, and we're just
Speaker 1: hanging out eating lunch, and then and Bancroft came in
Speaker 1: to change in the other little tiny room in the back.
Speaker 1: But you know, we did, we did, like the sign
Speaker 1: Feld reunion one year and that was amazing. And then
Speaker 1: like Tracy Ullman, you know, I mean to be able
Speaker 1: to work with her, was this has been just been
Speaker 1: one after another. And Dustin Hoffman, I mean you name it. Oh.
Speaker 1: And then Martin Scorsese that was fun. And Marty as
Speaker 1: we call him right um, he was doing this scene
Speaker 1: with Larry and he's playing Martin Scorsese in the show
Speaker 1: and Larry, you know, being a asshole to him like
Speaker 1: let me do this, let me do that, and uh.
Speaker 1: In between takes, I would up to Barty and I
Speaker 1: was like, no, actor, whatever, talk to you like that
Speaker 1: in real life. And he was like, you'd be surprised,
Speaker 1: you'd be amazed. You wouldn't believe what actors say to me.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know, but if you give
Speaker 1: an actor a note, they're not like saying bad to you.
Speaker 1: And he's like, you would be talked like I know,
Speaker 1: So it's departed with him, and he was like that guy,
Speaker 1: that guy right there, that guy right there, that guy
Speaker 1: right there, that guy right there on the screen, that
Speaker 1: guy right there in the green shirt, that guy right there.
Speaker 1: Go yeah, he goes. But he funked up, right, did
Speaker 1: he sunk up? Did he sunk up? He sucked up? Right?
Speaker 1: Did he suck up? I go, yeah, he sucked up?
Speaker 1: Because how do you feel about? How do you feel
Speaker 1: right now? Right now? How do you feel? How do
Speaker 1: you feel? I go, I go, I'm angry? Goes, You're angry?
Speaker 1: How angry are you? Are? You? Really? Are you fucking furious? You?
Speaker 1: Are you? Like unbelieving the guy there in the green
Speaker 1: shirt sucked up? But how furious to you? I go,
Speaker 1: I go, what do you wanta? Do you want to?
Speaker 1: You want to grab me? You want to you want
Speaker 1: to choke him to death? Right? You want you? You're
Speaker 1: really fucking angry? Right? I go, yeah, yes, yes, I'm angry.
Speaker 1: I want to beat the ship out. And he goes,
Speaker 1: ha ha ha, let's shoot that. Let's shoot that. You
Speaker 1: go over there, you Graham. You throw him against the wall,
Speaker 1: You beat the ship out of him. We just made
Speaker 1: it up. We do take one. I bounced the guy
Speaker 1: against the wall. The set is embraced the wall, so
Speaker 1: the set almost falls down. I fling this guy against
Speaker 1: the wall to slug this guy and Mark and you
Speaker 1: hear Marty of him a video village going and I go, okay,
Speaker 1: So they go, okay, let's stop, and we'll embraced the
Speaker 1: set and we'll do it again, and we do this.
Speaker 1: And he was so if he was inspired, you know,
Speaker 1: if he was moved, if he was so uh inclined,
Speaker 1: he's the greatest boy. He was just I mean, I
Speaker 1: only had two small parts in two films with him,
Speaker 1: but he was so, so, so amazing. Now you were
Speaker 1: married once before, and you have your daughter with your
Speaker 1: first husband, and then of course at this point in
Speaker 1: your life, you're very successful. What I learned about you,
Speaker 1: I'm a very good judge of character. And there is
Speaker 1: nobody in the town is a bad word to say
Speaker 1: about you. Everybody loves you. Everybody loves Cheryl Haynes, and
Speaker 1: she's the star, one of the stars of this huge show.
Speaker 1: And everybody and and the and the curb your enthusiasm,
Speaker 1: of course, lives in that weird little quadrant where people
Speaker 1: in the industry watched the show. We stayed at thirty Rocks,
Speaker 1: stayed on the air because Lauren Michaels would be an
Speaker 1: aspen and someone would say, my son broke his arm skiing,
Speaker 1: and he had he couldn't go skiing. We're in the
Speaker 1: hotel room and we watched seasons three and four or
Speaker 1: thirty rocks that shows hysterical. So people in the business
Speaker 1: watched the show. Curbs a show that people in the
Speaker 1: business watched the show. So everybody loves you. The show
Speaker 1: is a great success. And you decided to get married again.
Speaker 1: What do you do, Cheryl my Mary Kennedy? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: how did how Larry and you took Larry's dating recommendation?
Speaker 1: Larry was the he was the opposite of He was
Speaker 1: so Larry. And he didn't set you up with Bobby No,
Speaker 1: I mean he introduced us just because we were at
Speaker 1: the same event. But then later, you know, Larry was like,
Speaker 1: that's a terrible idea. No, no, no, don't don't get
Speaker 1: involved that that's a terrible idea. And then cut to yeah,
Speaker 1: we've been married for eight years something like that. You
Speaker 1: must have a ball hanging out with that crop. We
Speaker 1: have so much fun and you're in You're right, there's
Speaker 1: His family is so so much more I don't know,
Speaker 1: welcoming and more personable than you could imagine. I don't know.
Speaker 1: And when I met him and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to meet all the Kennedy's. That sounds intimidating,
Speaker 1: and then you meet them and they're just really fun,
Speaker 1: a good time. Oh yeah, that's right, that's right. Were
Speaker 1: there things that were issues that you maybe kind of
Speaker 1: sort of had some interest in? Has he deepened your
Speaker 1: passion for any issues at all? Well? I met Bobby
Speaker 1: at a Waterkeeper Alliance fundraiser, so Bobby started Waterkeeper and
Speaker 1: definitely being around him and understanding, you know, the environment
Speaker 1: better and and how big corporations are just they would
Speaker 1: it's much easier and cheaper for them to pay fines
Speaker 1: for killing people bring the product to market at its
Speaker 1: true cost, he taught me. Yeah, so I have learned
Speaker 1: about it sort of on that the bigger scale and
Speaker 1: more of the um legal side of it, more than
Speaker 1: just you know, recycle. So it's definitely a learning And
Speaker 1: I go in and out of being interested in politics
Speaker 1: because and sometimes I cannot. I can't these days, I
Speaker 1: can't even watch the news. But then, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, in six months, I might only be watching
Speaker 1: the news all the time because but but yeah, I
Speaker 1: learned a lot from him. What have you taught him?
Speaker 1: I think I've taught him to I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say lighten up because he's it's interesting. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't think that he's as funny and play phil as
Speaker 1: he is, just if you only knew him from his
Speaker 1: you know, persona that he presents to people. So um,
Speaker 1: I've taught him that, hopefully it's I'm teaching him like
Speaker 1: sometimes check it at the door, like don't bring everything home.
Speaker 1: He's invested in so many heavy chases. Yeah that it's like,
Speaker 1: oh man, sometimes you just need to watch dirty rock
Speaker 1: and get why not. But you're very right, which is
Speaker 1: you can't be saving the world all the time, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's like sometimes I get so frustrated and I'm like, look, yes,
Speaker 1: we're all dying of everything. Whatever you think is killing us,
Speaker 1: it is. It is, so just yeah, let's enjoy the night. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: did Saturday and Night with Larry when we did the
Speaker 1: debate and he was Bernie Sanders. He said, I'm not
Speaker 1: like my opponent. I've got four pairs of underwear and
Speaker 1: I washed them out in the sink every night and
Speaker 1: leave them on the radiator. And we had a ball
Speaker 1: and he was very, very very funny. You and he
Speaker 1: are divorced on the show, Yes, And I'm dating Ted
Speaker 1: Danson on the show. That's kind of a lateral move agewise.
Speaker 1: We thought was like Roger Federer, right, like a hot guy, right.
Speaker 1: And then I pooled around with Larry behind Ted's back. Oh,
Speaker 1: I did the movie. It's complicated. That's what I did.
Speaker 1: I had an affair with my ex wife. I loved
Speaker 1: its complicated. No, no, no, But but when you divorce
Speaker 1: your character you've been with all this time, was it
Speaker 1: a little bit wistful for you? When Larry and you
Speaker 1: got divorced? It was terrible. We're glad you run off
Speaker 1: and go have an affair with Ted Dathson. No, it
Speaker 1: was terrible. I hated it. I still hate it. But
Speaker 1: then we tried to get it back together, and yeah, listen,
Speaker 1: it's not that kind of show. I'm not having love
Speaker 1: scenes with anybody. But I don't know. I keep thinking
Speaker 1: that Larry and Cheryl, they would they belong together. It
Speaker 1: seems like, I gotta tell you, everybody loves you. It's
Speaker 1: a nice position to be in. I wouldn't know what
Speaker 1: that was like, which I knew. I wish I knew
Speaker 1: what that was like. For one day. My love to you,
Speaker 1: my love to your your man. I will my thanks
Speaker 1: to Cheryl Hines. This episode was recorded at CDM Studios
Speaker 1: in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeice,
Speaker 1: and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social
Speaker 1: media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio four. Complete
Speaker 1: contro