Speaker 1: School's out and there's a lot more young people in
Speaker 1: our midst than during the fall or winter months. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're in your kitchen demanding snacks like Oreo cookies or popsicles,
Speaker 1: or they're in your home office demanding your attention. Maybe
Speaker 1: there's a team knocking on your door to see if
Speaker 1: you need your lawn mode. If they are, take them
Speaker 1: up on it and give them a tip. Maybe they're
Speaker 1: starting their first real summer job. Or maybe they just
Speaker 1: graduated from high school and are packing up for college
Speaker 1: and your heart is breaking. Or maybe they just finish
Speaker 1: college and they're taking a job out of town or
Speaker 1: out of state, or maybe, gasp, they're getting married. Summer
Speaker 1: can be such a time of transition, and transitions can
Speaker 1: be so bittersweet. Big events like these make us long
Speaker 1: for the days that they just wanted you to put
Speaker 1: your work aside and go jump through the sprinkler with them.
Speaker 1: If you've got littles, go jump through the sprinkler with them.
Speaker 1: I promise you you will not regret it. Today's podcast
Speaker 1: guest has a knack for tapping into the emotions of
Speaker 1: our life, whether it's a song she's written or performed
Speaker 1: through her acting career or film production. She'll get you
Speaker 1: right in the fields. As they say. Her latest musical
Speaker 1: single is so perfect for all the graduation and wedding
Speaker 1: rehearsal slide shows you'll be watching this summer. Multi talented singer, songwriter,
Speaker 1: actor producer Rita Wilson is joining me today. It's been
Speaker 1: a while since she and I were able to catch up,
Speaker 1: back when she wrote and recorded Throw Me a Party,
Speaker 1: another tear jerker, but it's her most recent single, written
Speaker 1: and recorded with Emily Shackleton. I'm referring to I Loved
Speaker 1: You First celebrates the deep and complex connection between a
Speaker 1: mother and a child. Fittingly, it was released for Mother's
Speaker 1: Day this year, and it's the very definition of bittersweet.
Speaker 1: Rita calls it a love song between mothers and sons,
Speaker 1: quoting the line of A Shell's Silverstein book. And she
Speaker 1: loved a little boy very much, even more than she
Speaker 1: loved herself. I'm so looking forward to talking with Rita
Speaker 1: Wilson and getting the low down on all she's been
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Speaker 2: Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Really, oh my god, we have so much to catch
Speaker 1: up on, so much to catch them. So I haven't
Speaker 1: talked to you since, uh since you made me cry
Speaker 1: with the song that ripped my heart out?
Speaker 2: Which when was that?
Speaker 1: The Don't cry for Me song?
Speaker 2: Throw me a Party?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it was so sweet. Well let me introduce
Speaker 1: you here before I start asking you a bazillion questions
Speaker 1: and catching up with me. I love someone today is
Speaker 1: the multi talented whirlwind. You are a whirlwind, Rita Wilson.
Speaker 1: You're a whirlwind of sparkly joy.
Speaker 2: But don't you think most, at least in my experience
Speaker 2: from all over my journeys, I think most women are whirlwinds.
Speaker 1: Most of us are taskers.
Speaker 3: They do a lot of things. They're incredibly creative, and
Speaker 3: it's just I think it's something we're good at. I've
Speaker 3: always thought I wish there were more female contractors because.
Speaker 1: Because houses would have better kitchens.
Speaker 2: It's true really quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the house I grew up in was so tiny,
Speaker 3: and my mom and dad, I don't know how they
Speaker 3: did it, but they cooked in that little tiny kitchen.
Speaker 3: And back then we didn't know this, but my mom
Speaker 3: would go to the market every day and just get
Speaker 3: what's fresh. And she was Greek, so that was what
Speaker 3: she was used to. The concept of like buying and
Speaker 3: storing or freezing just didn't compute to her. So, like,
Speaker 3: you would open up the refrigerator and I'd be like
Speaker 3: embarrassed when friends came over because there would be like yogurt,
Speaker 3: a couple of cans of seven apps so they could
Speaker 3: make their cocktail vo and.
Speaker 2: Seven at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: And feta cheese in its own sort of liquid, which yeah,
Speaker 3: so ugly and some constractive.
Speaker 2: I mean, can you imagine a friend going, yeah, let's
Speaker 2: have some ice cream.
Speaker 1: Or some you know, coke or something like yeah, and
Speaker 1: we could have some feta.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's an olive, stinky cheese. Eat this.
Speaker 1: My girlfriend Didi, her mom was the cookie mom. Her
Speaker 1: mom bought real cookies, she bought oreos. The cookie jar
Speaker 1: had store bought cookies in it, and we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is so good. We don't have to eat those
Speaker 1: stupid homemade things like our mom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how d that's right. Some animal crackers, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and some popsicles please mom. Your kids are big
Speaker 1: now they're grown. But were you the homemade popsicle mom?
Speaker 1: Or were you the let's go buy the box of
Speaker 1: the plastic sugar water things and just stick them in
Speaker 1: the freezer.
Speaker 2: To this day bought the popsicles, but always always made
Speaker 2: the birthday cakes.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about music. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about your songs, but right now I got to
Speaker 1: talk about man called Ato. Yes, I cried, I laughed,
Speaker 1: I cried, I'm gonna be honest with you. I started
Speaker 1: watching it two or three times and I had to
Speaker 1: stop because I lost a son to suicide and that
Speaker 1: opening scene opening five minutes just I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: But somebody that I love told me, please please watch this.
Speaker 1: I know why it's triggering you, but please, if you can,
Speaker 1: you know, go past the first part because it will
Speaker 1: enlarge your heart ten times. And I'm like, okay, deep breath,
Speaker 1: I can do this. And I did it, and Rita,
Speaker 1: it was so beautiful and this simplistic way his life
Speaker 1: was transformed and his heart was healed. My love imperfect, loud, noisy, obnoxious,
Speaker 1: you annoy the hell out of me. I ain't going away. Love.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just non judgmental too, because culturally, I don't think
Speaker 3: she realized that she was being that kind of I
Speaker 3: don't want to say intrusive, but just herself, and that
Speaker 3: in America maybe.
Speaker 2: We're not so used to that. You know, I grew
Speaker 2: up in.
Speaker 3: A very loud Greek Bulgarian family, so I was used
Speaker 3: to that. But for me, it was about the community
Speaker 3: that you can find if you're open to it, and
Speaker 3: that we all shut down when things happen to us
Speaker 3: that make us feel like we'll never find our way again.
Speaker 3: And sometimes it takes somebody getting you out of that
Speaker 3: comfort zone, dragging you, dragging and screaming out of that
Speaker 3: comfort zone so that you realize again that you know,
Speaker 3: every day is a gift when we're live, and you know,
Speaker 3: it was important to me that story was very it
Speaker 3: was very beautiful. And also it was based on a
Speaker 3: book called A Man Called Ova, and that was a
Speaker 3: huge bestseller in the United States. But I had seen
Speaker 3: the Swedish film made from the book, and that's what
Speaker 3: inspired me to do this as an American version. And
Speaker 3: in case your audiences don't know, I produced it. And
Speaker 3: luckily the actor that I went to, Tom Hanks, was available.
Speaker 1: Was available. He said, listen, baby, you're not getting you're
Speaker 1: not getting the pinata cake this year. If you don't
Speaker 1: agree to do this with me exactly, no care, no cake,
Speaker 1: no cake for you, baby.
Speaker 3: And our director Mark Forrester, who's just done so many things.
Speaker 3: He's done things. He got halle Berry and Oscar for
Speaker 3: Monsters Ball, which he directed, He directed the James Bond
Speaker 3: movie Quantum of Solace, and he did Stranger Than Fiction
Speaker 3: that great.
Speaker 2: Movie with Emma Thompson.
Speaker 3: And Will Ferrell, and I just loved his sensitivity and
Speaker 3: his sensibility of how he handled things that there was
Speaker 3: still humor, but it was all very grounded and very real.
Speaker 3: So and we shot it in Pittsburgh and it was fantastic.
Speaker 3: I loved Pittsburgh, loved the people.
Speaker 1: The setting, and the row houses and the way Otto
Speaker 1: leased the row house. There was just so many little
Speaker 1: nuances in it, you know, from repairing the dishwasher, just
Speaker 1: so many sweet little nuances, even the cat.
Speaker 2: Everything was so everything. You know, it's.
Speaker 3: Almost like a nod to an era that is fading.
Speaker 3: You know, someone who gave their life to a company
Speaker 3: and then you know they're kicked out because things are changing,
Speaker 3: or forced to retire. Let's say, people who were good
Speaker 3: with tools that could fix things. I know that people
Speaker 3: still can do that, but even from my mom who
Speaker 3: used to sew and crochet, and my dad built like
Speaker 3: a whole section onto our house when we were kids,
Speaker 3: I don't know if the average person knows how to
Speaker 3: do that anymore. Do they still have shop in junior
Speaker 3: high I mean we used to have shop in middle
Speaker 3: school and homemaking, so we would learn how to sew
Speaker 3: and cook. I know it sounds crazy, but there's something
Speaker 3: good in learning how to do all of that stuff.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of those crafts are fading, but
Speaker 3: you are very crafty. Like honestly, I'm like, please do
Speaker 3: another tiling project.
Speaker 2: Because that bathroom was incredible. I was following that whole process.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that was so much fun. But I
Speaker 1: was obsessed. I'd get off the air at midnight and
Speaker 1: then I would start the tile, you know, start the floor,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't come to bed until like four o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning. And then I've got all these kids.
Speaker 1: My husband was like, what is wrong with you? Just
Speaker 1: put tile down, Just put go to home depot and
Speaker 1: get some tile. And I'm like, no, I know exactly what.
Speaker 3: It is, though, de Laila. It's a quiet time. No
Speaker 3: one is going to distract you out the phone, not
Speaker 3: an email, not a kid, not a husband, not a anyone.
Speaker 2: It's your quiet time.
Speaker 3: And it's also I think when you do anything creative
Speaker 3: with your hands or yeah, let's just say, or even
Speaker 3: for it can be sometimes just driving you're doing something
Speaker 3: with your hands, but that's when my mind gets creative.
Speaker 3: That's when I get to listen, that's when I get
Speaker 3: to have my conversations with God. I that's when I
Speaker 3: feel it's good time, you know. So it's hard to
Speaker 3: say no to that, even though you know you should
Speaker 3: be sleeping.
Speaker 1: So when you're writing a song, do you write it
Speaker 1: or do you let God just write through you? I
Speaker 1: know that's a weird question.
Speaker 3: No, I it's I always call it miraculous because you
Speaker 3: go into the room you're writing with somebody and this
Speaker 3: song at that moment does not exist. And through the
Speaker 3: conversation and through the ideas, through the creative process. I
Speaker 3: don't know how it happens, but it does happen, but.
Speaker 1: You give birth to the song.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Once I said, I don't know if I told you
Speaker 3: this before, but I've said songwriting is like this because
Speaker 3: I co write. You walk into the room, fall in
Speaker 3: love with the complete stranger, make beautiful musical intercourse, and
Speaker 3: give birth to a gorgeous song.
Speaker 2: Baby.
Speaker 1: So I loved you first, I knew you first. I
Speaker 1: was the first love in your life and you were
Speaker 1: the ultimate love and mine. Right, how long did it
Speaker 1: take to birth that song?
Speaker 3: Well, my co writer Emily Shackleton had approached me about
Speaker 3: singing it with her, and the version that she had
Speaker 3: and gave me was already the concept, but it was
Speaker 3: written when her newborn was six weeks old, and it
Speaker 3: felt very much like you were singing it to a
Speaker 3: little little baby. And having grown sons, the one who's
Speaker 3: married to who are a single, I said, would you
Speaker 3: be open to thinking about it in a way that
Speaker 3: is for an older child too, an older son, and
Speaker 3: she was like yeah, So rewrote some stuff, sent it
Speaker 3: back to her and we just it all moved pretty quickly,
Speaker 3: and we recorded the song and got it out for
Speaker 3: Mother's Day. But in case your listeners haven't heard it yet,
Speaker 3: it's really a song that you write as a mother
Speaker 3: to your son as he's getting married or as he's
Speaker 3: starting his life, because you, I mean, I still remember
Speaker 3: to this day the moment of childbirth, the moment they
Speaker 3: first put that baby on your chest and in your arms,
Speaker 3: and the overwhelming sense.
Speaker 2: Of love that you have is just enormous, and.
Speaker 3: It's sort of like that will never go away, That
Speaker 3: will never go away.
Speaker 2: You will always say.
Speaker 3: I remember my one son chat when he got his
Speaker 3: first tattoo. I cried so badly because I thought I've
Speaker 3: bathed you.
Speaker 1: I have inch of that skin, an inch.
Speaker 3: Of that body and that skin and oh, it's just
Speaker 3: it was just, you know, one of those things. And
Speaker 3: then you realize, yeah, you got to let go. They
Speaker 3: had their lives and their adults and they can do
Speaker 3: what they want to do, and you have to let go.
Speaker 3: And you know a lot about letting go.
Speaker 1: I suck at it though I've never let go of
Speaker 1: anything that didn't have claw marks. I do that. How
Speaker 1: can I orchestrate things so that I don't really have
Speaker 1: to let go? You know, like they'll go to college
Speaker 1: down the street. Yeah, that's it, that's it.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they're like, uh no, Ma, that's it's nothing.
Speaker 1: And you know what it's. It has been this year, Rita,
Speaker 1: that I'm talking to my sister, that I realize how
Speaker 1: horrific I was to my mother to not understand that
Speaker 1: when when I flew the nest, because I flew pretty fast,
Speaker 1: pretty hard, pretty far. I mean I wasn't that far away,
Speaker 1: but I was emotionally right, and I didn't even realize
Speaker 1: how that ripped her guts out here I am, you know,
Speaker 1: at this age in life, cling she's been gone for
Speaker 1: almost thirty years going, ma, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: If we're going to get older, at least we got
Speaker 3: to get something in return.
Speaker 2: And it was done.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I think that you can only realize that at a
Speaker 2: certain point in your life.
Speaker 1: I was cold blooded, Like you know, it was the seventies, baby,
Speaker 1: in the eighties, and I had things to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm out.
Speaker 1: There are discos to go to.
Speaker 2: There's koloa and cream to drink.
Speaker 1: If you do the vodkatonic, do not finish the night
Speaker 1: with a koloa and cream.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. The disco era, for sure.
Speaker 1: Did you have the dress, the dress that spun, the
Speaker 1: little lycra dress that spun with the.
Speaker 2: Disco No, oh, that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had a purple lycra you know, the little
Speaker 1: circle skirt. So when I would spin on the disco floor, Oh.
Speaker 2: My god, that's fantastic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, well, you know, it's I really still
Speaker 3: think growing up in that era was kind of amazing,
Speaker 3: particularly like I think the music from that time is incredible. Like,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you know, but you I think
Speaker 3: you would like this album. It's called Now and Forever Duets.
Speaker 3: It's my duets album. That came out last September. But
Speaker 3: it's all covers of seventy songs sung as duets with
Speaker 3: Keith Urban, Smokey Robinson, Jackson Brown, Elvis Costello, Vince Gill.
Speaker 2: Josh Grobin.
Speaker 3: You know, it goes on and on, but it's all
Speaker 3: those songs that we love and grew up with, and
Speaker 3: all duets envisioned as duets because those songs weren't sung
Speaker 3: as duets. Willie Nelson and I do slip Sliding Away,
Speaker 3: and there's something like super poignant about hearing Willie Nelson
Speaker 3: sing the nearer.
Speaker 2: Your destination, the more you're slip sliding away.
Speaker 3: However, I think if anybody is going to break the
Speaker 3: sound barrier of living forever, it's Willie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely Willie. I actually was telling there's a
Speaker 1: young couple that lives on my property that both are
Speaker 1: very musical, and so we have bonfires in the backyard
Speaker 1: and they have my young kids out there and you know,
Speaker 1: they'll sing. And I said to them the other night,
Speaker 1: I feel so bad for you kids, and they're like, why,
Speaker 1: I said, you missed the era of the best music.
Speaker 1: And I was talking about that album, those songs that
Speaker 1: magical place in time where there was an innocence. Even
Speaker 1: though some of our songs are a little naughty, there
Speaker 1: was an innocence.
Speaker 3: I think like that era of music was kind of
Speaker 3: coming out of the sixties where we had writers like
Speaker 3: Carol King, but they were writing for other people, they
Speaker 3: were writing for groups. And then there was this emergence
Speaker 3: of the singer songwriter, and you had Joni Mitchell, Harold King,
Speaker 3: Stevie Nicks, Carly Simon. Linda Ronstadt didn't write that much,
Speaker 3: but she was an amazing interpreter. You had Crosby Stills
Speaker 3: and Nash Jackson Brown, Neil Young, all of these people,
Speaker 3: and they were telling their own personal stories, and that
Speaker 3: is I think what we related to so much is like, wow,
Speaker 3: they're saying what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2: And it felt very real and very intimate.
Speaker 1: The older I get, you know, the wisdom comes. One
Speaker 1: thing I realized I was listening to some great music
Speaker 1: the other day, and in my mind, if it's a
Speaker 1: great song, it's gospel. When a song resonates in your
Speaker 1: soul like that, yeah, it's gospel. To me. It's like,
Speaker 1: you can't refute this, you can't argue this.
Speaker 2: That's a fact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like slip sliding away. That is gospel, that is wisdom.
Speaker 1: That is a whole sermon wrapped up in a three
Speaker 1: and a half minute song.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right. That's what I love about songwriting
Speaker 3: is the storytelling. Is how are you going to tell
Speaker 3: this in three and a half minutes?
Speaker 1: To condense down the truth? Yes, about loving a baby
Speaker 1: first and loving them with every fiber of your being
Speaker 1: and knowing you would trade places with them in a heartbeat.
Speaker 1: There's something bad, it happens, Yeah, And being able to
Speaker 1: tell that in a three or four minute song, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's your gift. That's your magic, is being able to
Speaker 1: preach the truth of love, to condense it down till
Speaker 1: it's just pure.
Speaker 2: It's pure. I think that what you went through is
Speaker 2: maybe the hardest.
Speaker 3: Thing a parent can ever go through, and you have
Speaker 3: handled it with enormous grace, and I think you've probably
Speaker 3: inspired so many people who may have been not able
Speaker 3: to get out of despair. And I know that it
Speaker 3: doesn't ever go away, but I know that it is.
Speaker 3: It's there, and you've accepted and you live with it.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you have read anything by Pauline Boss,
Speaker 3: and she writes about ambiguous grief yep, an ambiguous loss.
Speaker 3: That concept is, you know, we all think that we
Speaker 3: should have closure.
Speaker 1: There is no closure.
Speaker 2: There is no clue.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that people are talking about that and recognizing it.
Speaker 1: One of the sweetest gifts I got after losing my
Speaker 1: first son, Sammy was somebody saying. It was Jill that
Speaker 1: told me the whole doesn't get any smaller, but your
Speaker 1: life will grow around it, your life will expand around it.
Speaker 1: Right now, all there is is the whole. There's no
Speaker 1: room for anything else.
Speaker 3: That's a beautiful, beautiful way to look, to see it
Speaker 3: and to understand. Yeah, you know, it's also like I
Speaker 3: remember after nine to eleven, we were all questioned, like,
Speaker 3: how could something that evil happen? How could something that
Speaker 3: bad happen? How could that occur? And people were asking,
Speaker 3: Where's God? Where's God in all of this? Like, you know,
Speaker 3: how can if you pray to God, how did God
Speaker 3: let this happen? And I read a piece by a
Speaker 3: rabbi in the New York Times and he said, you know,
Speaker 3: evil exists in the world just like anything, But where
Speaker 3: you find God is in the aftermath, in the actions
Speaker 3: of people in the love and the kindness and how
Speaker 3: people come together and the unite in this goodness, And
Speaker 3: that's where you have to look for it, because if
Speaker 3: you stay in that other.
Speaker 2: World, you're going to just lose your mind, be stuck.
Speaker 3: And you'll lose your mind. You'd be on a hamster
Speaker 3: wheel of grief and pain.
Speaker 1: And so read it. You had a song come out
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, right, Yes, and every woman
Speaker 1: needs a Little Black Dress exactly.
Speaker 3: It's called Little Black Dress. I wrote it with Laurie
Speaker 3: McKenna and Phil Barton. Laurie McKenna is an incredible songwriter.
Speaker 3: She has her own albums, but she has written just
Speaker 3: hit after hit when Grammy's and I had this idea
Speaker 3: about a little black dress, because what's more universal than
Speaker 3: a little black dress. But it was really about like
Speaker 3: when you close have memories. To me, I can look
Speaker 3: at something I wore and remember exactly where it was,
Speaker 3: who I was with, what we talked about. It's like
Speaker 3: this weird time capsule. So I thought, what if you
Speaker 3: took a little black dress and put some memories to it.
Speaker 3: So that's what it's really about.
Speaker 1: And are they your memories? Is there truth in the
Speaker 1: air is there? Are they your memories? Are we going
Speaker 1: to discover?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Not yes, in some ways yes, I mean all songs
Speaker 3: are truthful, and all songs are they come from your
Speaker 3: own sort of like were.
Speaker 1: You wearing a little black dress the night that you
Speaker 1: and Tom fell in love?
Speaker 2: No? I wasn't.
Speaker 3: But there was a design I had a little black
Speaker 3: dress by this Parisian designer. She was American, but she
Speaker 3: moved to Paris and she used to design for Elizabeth Taylor.
Speaker 3: Her name was Vicky Teal, and Vicky Teal she said
Speaker 3: to me once when I was buying a little black dress,
Speaker 3: she said, whenever Elizabeth Taylor wants to close the deal,
Speaker 3: she comes to me and I design her a little
Speaker 3: black dress because her dresses were just like they take
Speaker 3: advantage of the female.
Speaker 1: Let's say, and she was a work of art.
Speaker 3: And she was a work of art. So I love
Speaker 3: little black dresses. I still do now they're a little
Speaker 3: bit looser than sometimes. But but no, there was truth
Speaker 3: in it in that, you know, these little black dresses
Speaker 3: can be alluring. And you know, we took the song
Speaker 3: into a place that was sort of like, all right,
Speaker 3: so this couple they meet, she's got the hot little
Speaker 3: black dress on and flash forward now they're married, they
Speaker 3: have kids, they have a house, and you know, she's
Speaker 3: trying to put that little black dress on and it's
Speaker 3: a little tight. But he there's a lot of the
Speaker 3: song that I love. He still sees her like he
Speaker 3: did that first night, and she still believes him even
Speaker 3: if the dress don't fit just right, and that I love.
Speaker 2: It's that to me. It's about love.
Speaker 1: So it is about you and Tom, I still see
Speaker 1: you that way.
Speaker 2: You know, you still look like that girl I met,
Speaker 2: you know, very sweet.
Speaker 1: I was wearing sweats when my husband fell in love
Speaker 1: with me. We worked out at the same gym. That's
Speaker 1: how we met. He never saw me with makeup on
Speaker 1: for six months.
Speaker 2: Oh amazing. Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was because I had a dog, a yellow lab,
Speaker 1: and I only owned black workout clothes. So not only
Speaker 1: did I not have any makeup or a little black dress,
Speaker 1: I was covered in white dog hair every time I
Speaker 1: go to the gym.
Speaker 3: That was interesting is you weren't really lifting a a
Speaker 3: bar bell, but you were lifting lit rollers.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh my god, that's a funny scene in my
Speaker 1: head now. Oh gosh, so Where would you like to
Speaker 1: go in a little black dress that you've never had
Speaker 1: a chance to go to because you've traveled all over
Speaker 1: the world. I mean you were where were you in
Speaker 1: Spain when COVID hit no Australia shut down in Australia, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That was crazy. Where would I like to go to
Speaker 2: the little black dress?
Speaker 1: Or maybe someplace you've been and would like to revisit
Speaker 1: again in a little black dress.
Speaker 2: You know, when I think of a little black dress,
Speaker 2: I really think of Paris. It's just like that kind
Speaker 2: of romantic thing.
Speaker 3: I see myself getting dressed in a beautiful Parisian hotel
Speaker 3: room and go walking to a little bistro down the street.
Speaker 3: You know, just something very I see the street lights
Speaker 3: that are lit.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's a little bit.
Speaker 3: Of a mist on the ground, like post rain, so
Speaker 3: it's reflecting. The lights are reflecting. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It just feels like that.
Speaker 1: Little tables setting outside. Yeah, you cross your legs and
Speaker 1: you wear in a little black dress and you have
Speaker 1: to kind of scooch it down exactly. Yeah, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: see it. I see it. Oh fun. We're getting to
Speaker 1: know Rita Wilson a little better today and hearing about
Speaker 1: the many, many projects she's been involved with recently and
Speaker 1: what's been going on in her life. I am so
Speaker 1: grateful to my podcast sponsors for helping to make this happen.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to love Someone, Rita. So what are you
Speaker 1: doing this summer? Anything? Like? Are you planning a trip?
Speaker 1: Are you having I want to have Grandma Camp where
Speaker 1: I can have some of my grand kids come and
Speaker 1: do just crafts for a few days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh gosh, that'd be great.
Speaker 3: Well, so I did CMA Fest and the Bluebird And
Speaker 3: you know, to me, when you get to perform live,
Speaker 3: it's it's like taking a vacation.
Speaker 2: I really really love it.
Speaker 3: We also have Asteroid City that is the new Wes
Speaker 3: Anderson movie that I'm in, as well as Tom and
Speaker 3: a cast of thousands, I would say, Scarlett Johansson and
Speaker 3: Jason Schwartzman, Brian Kranston, Tilda Swinton.
Speaker 2: It goes on an on, Margot.
Speaker 3: Robbie, So we had the premiere for that. That's super fun.
Speaker 3: And then we always take time out. We'll do a
Speaker 3: family trip somewhere with everybody, So we'll do that and
Speaker 3: just relax. You know, there's I don't know if it'll
Speaker 3: be done by then, but right now currently there's a writer's.
Speaker 2: Strike, so we can't really work as actors. I'll still
Speaker 2: do some writing, but I'm just also going to make
Speaker 2: sure that it's good family time.
Speaker 1: Well, have a blessed, wonderful, RESTful take a break. Like
Speaker 1: you said, you'd take a family vacation. Do not work,
Speaker 1: do you just?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I am literally that concept, which I would like to
Speaker 3: call a sabbatical, which is what people do, is they
Speaker 3: take three months off. You know, it came out of teachers.
Speaker 3: For every seven years of work, they would get one
Speaker 3: year so that they could go out into the world
Speaker 3: and take in so that they could bring these new
Speaker 3: ideas and new interesting facts and stories to their classrooms.
Speaker 3: And I feel like as creative people we.
Speaker 2: Have to do that.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you can't always just be in the output mode.
Speaker 3: You have to have quiet time where you just are
Speaker 3: out there absorbing and taking it in.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I definitely will do that.
Speaker 1: Road trip trip.
Speaker 2: Nothing better.
Speaker 1: We should do a road trip together someday.
Speaker 2: We could be like Gayla and Oprah.
Speaker 1: We could be like Thelma and Louise, only not do
Speaker 1: that last scene.
Speaker 3: The last scene for us, for me would be driving
Speaker 3: through an in and out.
Speaker 1: Rita Wilson, I love you, love you, love you. Please
Speaker 1: give me my love too. You're happy in your family
Speaker 1: and we will catch up soon.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for having me. Really great seeing you.
Speaker 1: Hye bye bite. Rita Wilson has been involved in a
Speaker 1: non stop fluri of projects, her star studded album Rita
Speaker 1: Wilson Now and Forever Duets, her collaboration with superstars Sebastian
Speaker 1: Yatra Untill Your Home and Emily Shackleton on I Loved
Speaker 1: You First, her new production company Artistic Films, and a
Speaker 1: recent appearance at the June CMA Fest named just a
Speaker 1: few of the iron she's had in the fire. Oh
Speaker 1: and she's in the new Wes Anderson film. We talked
Speaker 1: about that Asteroid City too. There's got to be at
Speaker 1: least a dozen more projects you're gonna find out she's
Speaker 1: involved with. That's just who Rita is. Crazy, talented, crazy busy,
Speaker 1: a fierce family mama, a devoted life partner to her
Speaker 1: husband Tom Hanks, and the kind, genuine friend you all
Speaker 1: got to know a little better today. Whatever she's doing,
Speaker 1: it's worth your time and probably a box or two
Speaker 1: of tissues if you haven't done so already. Watch A
Speaker 1: Man Called Auto, the American film adaptation of a book
Speaker 1: from a favorite author, Frederick Bachman. Download all of Rita's
Speaker 1: latest music and get out to see Asteroid City. Keep
Speaker 1: up with Rita by visiting her official web page Rita
Speaker 1: Wilson dot com, follow her on social media, and get
Speaker 1: out and enjoy your summer. Jump through a sprinkler, take
Speaker 1: a few minutes to yourself with a tall glass of
Speaker 1: iced tea, Connect with friends at a barbecue. Spend a
Speaker 1: hot summer evening in an air conditioned movie theater. Listen
Speaker 1: to great music and make some homemade popsicles. I'll keep
Speaker 1: your company every evening on the radio, and I will
Speaker 1: continue to encourage you every day to slow down and
Speaker 1: love someone