Speaker 1: Quest Left Show is a production of iHeart Radio. Are
Speaker 1: we on?
Speaker 2: Are we on? We're always on? We're always But like,
Speaker 2: so Jimmy did what?
Speaker 3: Okay, So Phil Collins is on the Tonight Show and
Speaker 3: he's agreed to let the Roots play and then air
Speaker 3: Tonight as the song, and of course you know it
Speaker 3: comes with the iconic drum roll.
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
Speaker 3: I went all out for this. I went and found
Speaker 3: the drum set that he actually played.
Speaker 1: Everything you did. We are preparing for it, of course
Speaker 1: you did, and the entire show from the top of
Speaker 1: the show, we have Phil Collins Tonight. Don't mess up?
Speaker 1: Like literally, he meant it jokingly.
Speaker 3: And so we're on the last verse, I remember, and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden I looked to my right and
Speaker 3: you can see Jimmy's head poking out like the parent
Speaker 3: of a school play, like, don't mess this up. And
Speaker 3: whenever I'm in a situation where okay, this is what
Speaker 3: my therapist calls, this is me manifucting myself, and I
Speaker 3: was like, all right, I can't mess up. I can't
Speaker 3: miss You've done this a million times, like literally in
Speaker 3: my head, right this you mess up? And literally he's
Speaker 3: like and you told me, and I'm like, I can't
Speaker 3: mess up.
Speaker 1: Can you know?
Speaker 3: He's like herd doesn't show all right? I mean you
Speaker 3: got this pain still crows. I'm looking at the band.
Speaker 3: Everyone's looking, dude, do you and me? And I hit
Speaker 3: myself right in?
Speaker 2: Of course you did, Yes, of course you.
Speaker 1: Did first hit it. Yeah, I hit myself in the face,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: I played that song last night in the car on
Speaker 2: the drive to the premiere of Scarpetta. It is like
Speaker 2: a fight song, you know. It was raining and like
Speaker 2: it was sort of like my pump up song before
Speaker 2: going into the.
Speaker 1: You still need that after all this time. You need
Speaker 1: to get in the mind state. O I do? I do? Yeah.
Speaker 2: I used to listen to the theme song from Rocky
Speaker 2: Oh Going to Fly now. Yeah, but no, doun dun.
Speaker 2: I used to listen to it in my car and
Speaker 2: its entirety just to sort of like give me a
Speaker 2: little pump up.
Speaker 3: Wow, it's good to know that you still have to.
Speaker 3: I figured after a police in a person's.
Speaker 1: Career where they're already arrived that you know they just
Speaker 1: show up in No, you got to pump it up
Speaker 1: a little. I got that, all right, So let me
Speaker 1: get some context. No, why I got because I'm a
Speaker 1: profession now.
Speaker 2: I know you are with a lowercase p.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So basically, two days ago I had something else totally
Speaker 3: planned and I got a text from uh Today's guests
Speaker 3: or I texted Today's Guests, which I am.
Speaker 2: Smelled me in the hall.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, you were on Kelly Kelly.
Speaker 2: Clarkson and I waffed it down the hall. I have
Speaker 2: a signature scent that lingers.
Speaker 1: Yes you did, and.
Speaker 3: I turned around, but you had already hit the corner
Speaker 3: because I walked fast, and I let it go.
Speaker 1: And ten minutes later I was like, was Jamie Lee
Speaker 1: Curtis just in this all? And literally yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1: I get it anyway, So to let you guys know
Speaker 1: our guest today.
Speaker 2: Is oh, they already know, right, so they already know.
Speaker 1: You won't let me give you. Your flowers are for me?
Speaker 2: I do I avoid flowers. See I avoid the flowers.
Speaker 1: Why we're cool? No, we have to now get in
Speaker 1: the space where we.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know what you do your flowers. I'll just
Speaker 2: check out your cool glass.
Speaker 3: I literally had to check out your cool glass.
Speaker 1: There you go, So literally what more can I say?
Speaker 3: About our guests, Iconic SAG Award winner, Emmy Award winner,
Speaker 3: Golden Globe, Independent Spirit Award winner, Oscar winner.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why is that I have nothing to do with it?
Speaker 2: Why is that.
Speaker 1: Nothing to do with it?
Speaker 2: Are wrong? Wrong?
Speaker 1: You knew this was happening.
Speaker 3: I didn't tell you this way Too many in her
Speaker 3: cannon a bunch of films that have changed our life. Yes,
Speaker 3: you have a canon. It's time for your flowers. I'm ready,
Speaker 3: Jamie Lee Curtis, welcome to the question.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me and for being you.
Speaker 1: And I'll make this not awkward. This won't just be
Speaker 1: a not awkward.
Speaker 2: It's never going to be awkward. I can't be awkward.
Speaker 2: I'm humans. I'm awkward just waking up, do you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? Like, it's not going to ever be awkward, at.
Speaker 1: Least to our first question.
Speaker 3: All right, So we've had a meeting, and for me,
Speaker 3: I believe it was seven am, but for you it
Speaker 3: was for.
Speaker 1: Five am, I believe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I was amazed at how alert you were.
Speaker 3: And I'm under the understanding that people in California also
Speaker 3: have to adjust to other time zone. So my manager
Speaker 3: gets up at three am. Yeah, you know, just to
Speaker 3: because that's when the world starts. H What time do
Speaker 3: you routinely start your day?
Speaker 2: Four o'clock? I wake up at four o'clock with.
Speaker 1: A job, without a job on the clock. Four o'clock.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, just I wake up at four o'clock.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 2: I love? First of all, I was born early in
Speaker 2: the morning, so I think I'm just naturally drawn to
Speaker 2: wake up with the morning. I don't really know. I'm
Speaker 2: a morning person. I'm not a night person. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I want to be at your game nights. I used
Speaker 2: to host game nights. I was famous for hosting game nights.
Speaker 2: I've invented some games that we play at game nights.
Speaker 2: My problem is there at night, I don't do well.
Speaker 2: The lights go down, I go to bed.
Speaker 1: When was your game night period, like.
Speaker 2: In the eighties, particularly in the eighties and nineties, And
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm the girl who says, let's do a
Speaker 2: game night and play all the various different games. My
Speaker 2: favorite game I claim I invented it. We call it
Speaker 2: first line of novel. Where you basically go by a
Speaker 2: bunch of dime store you know, secondhand store books, whatever,
Speaker 2: and you bring them in nobody looks at them right,
Speaker 2: and then each So let's say we have eight people
Speaker 2: in the group. Okay, So then I pick the book
Speaker 2: and I open it and check out the first line,
Speaker 2: and then I show the book and I say, the
Speaker 2: book is called Quest for Love. For lack of a
Speaker 2: better pulp fiction title, the book is called Quest for Love.
Speaker 2: Then everybody at the table writes what they think the
Speaker 2: first line of the book is, or they want us
Speaker 2: to think the first line of the book is. I
Speaker 2: write the real first line of the book, and then
Speaker 2: everybody hands them to me. Then I shuffle them. Then
Speaker 2: I read them all out loud, and then we have
Speaker 2: to vote. Every person votes, and you get a point
Speaker 2: for guessing the right book. You get a point if
Speaker 2: you fool people. So if your first line fools everybody,
Speaker 2: you get a point, And if you end up guessing
Speaker 2: the right first line, you get a point. And you
Speaker 2: go around the table, so everybody gets a chance to
Speaker 2: not be making one because they are reading. And it's
Speaker 2: called first line of novel. I love it because you
Speaker 2: actually get really incredible writing from it. I've saved everyone
Speaker 2: I've ever written, everyone my children have ever written. I'm
Speaker 2: that person. So anyway, I'm a game night person, but
Speaker 2: I can't do game night because you do it late
Speaker 2: at night and you probably have cocktails. And do you
Speaker 2: do a game afternoon? Can you do a game brunch?
Speaker 1: I have something close to that. We are elevating our.
Speaker 2: Game nights to a TV show.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I can talk about this or not,
Speaker 3: but if hypothetically there were a situation like that in
Speaker 3: which I haven't been at a table with a microphone
Speaker 3: and maybe like four or five people, I want to try.
Speaker 1: This idea that I look super fun. I literally want
Speaker 1: to do this now. I wish I wish I could
Speaker 1: have had Okay, sorry, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: We don't know each other, by the way, for the people,
Speaker 2: But can I actually say, well, we're kindreds sirs, that's fine,
Speaker 2: mutual admiration. We just peop. You know, you see people
Speaker 2: you like, You're like, oh, I like you, like you cool?
Speaker 2: You know that happens in show business. That happens a lot.
Speaker 2: You run into a lot of people, often at award shows,
Speaker 2: and you go ooh, I think you're cool. I think
Speaker 2: you're cool. Okay, hi, and then you never see each
Speaker 2: other again. So you and I met at a screening
Speaker 2: for Everything Everywhere, all at once. At the time, when
Speaker 2: we were still coming out of COVID Yes, I was
Speaker 2: on the publicity tour for that movie. Everybody was still
Speaker 2: wearing masks, everybody was still freaked out about COVID Yes.
Speaker 2: And we were in the basement downstairs at a building.
Speaker 1: So it was a hotel. Yeah, it was a hotel.
Speaker 2: But we went down some stairs and I walked in
Speaker 2: and they had told me that there was a cocktail party.
Speaker 2: And I don't do cocktail parties period. I'm sober, so
Speaker 2: I like cocktail parties to me is nothing but high
Speaker 2: voices and wine breath. People like going, oh my god,
Speaker 2: and they have bad breath. So it's like you get both.
Speaker 2: You get this awful sound and you get this awful smell.
Speaker 2: So I avoid it like the plague. I literally walk.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I'm not going to and I find
Speaker 2: the corner and I stay in the corner and then
Speaker 2: I'm leaving. And I was in this front room and
Speaker 2: I was just about to leave and you came in
Speaker 2: and somebody said, ooh, that's Questlove. Questlove just got here.
Speaker 2: I guess you were coming for the screening of it.
Speaker 2: I was, and as we passed, like at some point
Speaker 2: we met in that lower level and I think I said, Hi,
Speaker 2: I think you're cool or something, and you said these
Speaker 2: words to me, dust off your mental Yes, And I
Speaker 2: looked at you and I said what And you said,
Speaker 2: dust off your mental And then I think I said, oh,
Speaker 2: fuck you, stop.
Speaker 3: It, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you got
Speaker 3: it come in.
Speaker 2: I did not. I just said fuck you and then
Speaker 2: I left and that was it. And then when all
Speaker 2: of that happened, and that night happened, I remember the
Speaker 2: next morning, I think I wanted to like write you
Speaker 2: and go you motherfucker. How did you know?
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 3: Film is why I'm here today. Like I think in
Speaker 3: the pandemic, there becomes a wake up moment or something.
Speaker 1: And because we were so thirsty.
Speaker 3: For content and all those things at the time, I
Speaker 3: was going through a pivot, which was, you know, in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty. I grew up in a showbiz family. My
Speaker 3: father was like an oldies do op singer back in
Speaker 3: the day. By the time I was born, I was
Speaker 3: part of the family business as a nightclub act and
Speaker 3: all those things. And then my best friend and I
Speaker 3: start a group so I'll say that from the age
Speaker 3: of five, I've always at least been on a stage
Speaker 3: entertaining someone or do something in a professional musical artist
Speaker 3: audience capacity since the age of five, Like not three
Speaker 3: weeks of not going by since I was five that
Speaker 3: I wasn't entertaining someone. And then for the first time
Speaker 3: of my life in twenty twenty eight months went by
Speaker 3: and I never touched a drumstick.
Speaker 1: I never had to entertain. I didn't do a set list.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was created by like DJ and online
Speaker 3: and whatnot. But this also allowed me to watch a
Speaker 3: lot of TV and a lot of movies. And this
Speaker 3: is also the time period in which I had a
Speaker 3: lot of time on my hands, did a.
Speaker 1: Lot of therapy and all those things.
Speaker 3: And it's something about that movie that just like I
Speaker 3: saw myself in that film in terms of maybe we
Speaker 3: have this in common where my joke is matrix bullet dodging,
Speaker 3: like compliments, I was the King of no All these
Speaker 3: opportunities come up, and my first thought is I don't
Speaker 3: want my light to shine so bright that it makes
Speaker 3: others uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: I'd rather blend in, I rather dull myself. I'd rather
Speaker 1: try to.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm well aware as a three hundred pounds,
Speaker 3: six foot two black man with primitive, exotic hair and
Speaker 3: all those things like me trying to play small in
Speaker 3: Miss Package is it's stupid, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I mean? And I don't know that. I
Speaker 1: watched that film.
Speaker 2: About It's expansive.
Speaker 1: I watched it ten times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I think that helped me, especially especially
Speaker 3: when that was my moment and when I got my
Speaker 3: Oscar in twenty twenty two, like that was like my
Speaker 3: biggest fear, like, oh God, what will happened now? Like
Speaker 3: no one's going to talk to me and all my
Speaker 3: friends are going to alienate me and da da da
Speaker 3: da da da, And I just I was self evidencing,
Speaker 3: like why I didn't deserve it? And somehow like that film,
Speaker 3: when I see in it, it grounded me and it
Speaker 3: helped me so but more than that, I meant, you
Speaker 3: lost yourself in that character. And I knew instantly, like
Speaker 3: maybe ten minutes into it, this is going to be
Speaker 3: our Oscar moment.
Speaker 1: So there you go.
Speaker 2: I love that I'm looking up something. Yes, I'm just
Speaker 2: going to read you this. I'm sure you know it,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to read it to you anyway, you
Speaker 2: know why from here and you're here, and we're here together,
Speaker 2: and you just said every word you just said. Our
Speaker 2: deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest
Speaker 2: fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is
Speaker 2: our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We
Speaker 2: ask ourselves, who am I to be? Brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually,
Speaker 2: who are you not to be? You are a child
Speaker 2: of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
Speaker 2: There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people
Speaker 2: won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine,
Speaker 2: as children do. We are born to make manifest the
Speaker 2: glory of God that is within us. It is not
Speaker 2: just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as
Speaker 2: we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other
Speaker 2: people permission to do the same. As we are liberated
Speaker 2: from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. Mary
Speaker 2: Anne Williamson wrote that, and then Nelson Mandela took it
Speaker 2: and expanded it and made it his. But she wrote that,
Speaker 2: and it is very important for you and I both
Speaker 2: to know that fun fact, fun fact, that quote fun
Speaker 2: facts with questlove that should.
Speaker 3: Be like a little That quote you just read me
Speaker 3: is on my three uh, I have three post its
Speaker 3: on my mirror. My entire mirror is every morning. Okay,
Speaker 3: so for you you explained the rocky things here.
Speaker 2: Well, I just I used to when I was a
Speaker 2: young actress play the rocky theme that.
Speaker 1: Just like, well for me, I have to.
Speaker 3: Every morning I get up, I have to be nice
Speaker 3: to myself in the mirror, like especially in the morning
Speaker 3: where you know or whatever you look, how you look and.
Speaker 1: Only you, you know.
Speaker 3: That's how especially in twenty twenty six, where you know,
Speaker 3: and I come from a genre of music in which
Speaker 3: my Instagram is turning into a digital morgue of saying
Speaker 3: goodbye to this person, that person, that person.
Speaker 1: I do believe that it.
Speaker 2: Is a digital morg what a reallyful way of saying it.
Speaker 3: And the thing is that I believe that at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, you kind of have a have
Speaker 3: a will or purpose inside to like to be here,
Speaker 3: like I have a purpose on her if I have to,
Speaker 3: no matter what it's like. And you know, it's easy
Speaker 3: to just cower under the covers and hide and whatever,
Speaker 3: eat it away, smoke it away, sniff it away, shoot
Speaker 3: it away.
Speaker 2: Whatever, you're you're talking to a dope fiend who's sober
Speaker 2: twenty seven years congratulations. So you're talking to somebody who
Speaker 2: understands what you're what you're saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'd read that quote every morning, like literally
Speaker 3: say it to myself.
Speaker 2: I should have just said, do you know the quote?
Speaker 2: And then you have said yes, But I mean.
Speaker 1: I guess what, I skip that exercise this morning?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I mean it is the why me? Why
Speaker 2: do I get to do this? Why do I get
Speaker 2: this life? And other people who are way more talented
Speaker 2: than I am, way more beautiful than I am, way
Speaker 2: more everything than well, no, it is the nature of
Speaker 2: the beast. And yet the rocky theme for me represented
Speaker 2: this sense that you can do it too, that there's
Speaker 2: this dund dun d d d D and it just
Speaker 2: by the end of it, you go, okay, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go do it.
Speaker 3: Well, let me ask you how old were you when
Speaker 3: you realized the lineage you came from. Oh, like, when
Speaker 3: did mom and dad stop being like, oh, those are
Speaker 3: my parents too?
Speaker 2: You know what? Honestly, you have to remember this was
Speaker 2: all pre internet. There was no DVR. There were no tapes,
Speaker 2: there were no DVDs. Your parents were in the movies.
Speaker 2: You rarely saw the movies your parents made because they
Speaker 2: were in the theaters and most of them weren't kids movies.
Speaker 1: How were you when you saw Psycho for the first time.
Speaker 2: I don't even know. I think I made up a story.
Speaker 2: I have no idea I've seen it since. You know,
Speaker 2: obviously people love that movie, and it's amazingly shot, and
Speaker 2: of course my mom wrote a book about the shot
Speaker 2: by shot, and you thing they've recreated the movie. Scarlett
Speaker 2: Johansson played my mother in a version of the movie,
Speaker 2: so obviously.
Speaker 1: You played your mother in a version of us.
Speaker 2: I've played my mother, I know. I mean, what are
Speaker 2: you going to do? It's yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. My
Speaker 2: point is I only appreciate them now because I have
Speaker 2: grown children. Most of my work my grown children haven't seen.
Speaker 2: And this is now a digital world. My children could
Speaker 2: see everything I've ever done. They don't, you know why,
Speaker 2: It's not their fucking life. They're living their lives. They
Speaker 2: don't want to look at my life anymore than I
Speaker 2: wanted to look at my parents' life. I am a
Speaker 2: forward person. I am a forward movement person. I am
Speaker 2: zero sentimentality.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 2: I just don't hold on to something clinging? You know
Speaker 2: what it is? It's there was that play called That
Speaker 2: Championship Season about a group of guys who had great
Speaker 2: success early when they were in athletics, and the rest
Speaker 2: of their lives they've been looking back at that moment.
Speaker 2: When I watch the Olympics, I watch all these young
Speaker 2: people peaking, having these moments. When I see young people
Speaker 2: succeed in any field, I always get a little bit
Speaker 2: of like, I am so happy that I'm the head
Speaker 2: bitch and charge at sixty seven, Like I'm glad I
Speaker 2: wasn't the head bitch in charge at thirty seven or
Speaker 2: forty seven or fifty seven. I'm so happy that I
Speaker 2: have the perspective that I have at my age to
Speaker 2: really be able to put all of this into context,
Speaker 2: versus getting that that attention very early that was not
Speaker 2: in my don't put your finger up. I just saw
Speaker 2: your finger.
Speaker 1: He and I had. Look, I have to counter with it.
Speaker 3: Are you you pulled out a random time period and said, okay,
Speaker 3: when I was thirty seven, yeah, you did true lies.
Speaker 2: At thirty seven, I was thirty five years old that
Speaker 2: I was. I hung under that helicopter three days before
Speaker 2: my thirty fifth birthday. I remember exactly, So even then
Speaker 2: you felt like the underdogbe No, I'm just saying I didn't.
Speaker 2: At that point, I was married, I had young children.
Speaker 2: I was doing the dance of trying to be a
Speaker 2: mom and a domestic person and an employer and a
Speaker 2: home person and a wife and a partner and not
Speaker 2: take all the focus. And you know, I get a
Speaker 2: lot of attention, and you know children are supposed to
Speaker 2: get the attention, not the parents.
Speaker 3: So you are aware at least by that point, I mean,
Speaker 3: you're pretty much.
Speaker 1: Your name behind your back is like jameley Hurst. Damn.
Speaker 2: I honestly, I know.
Speaker 1: I'm allow yourself to bask in that.
Speaker 2: I don't bask in anything, but I just don't it.
Speaker 2: Life's too hard. Life's too hard for everybody. The world
Speaker 2: is too complicated. There are too many great people who
Speaker 2: never get an opportunity to do anything. I mean, die,
Speaker 2: never having manifested their talents into any public forum, if
Speaker 2: they are performers, or if they're artists, or if their
Speaker 2: singers are like I have been able to do so
Speaker 2: much with so little. And I say so little because
Speaker 2: I just didn't have those skill set. I didn't have
Speaker 2: a skill set, Babe. I'm gonna put the oh, you're
Speaker 2: just you and me with our fingers.
Speaker 1: I'm not asking permission. I don't want it.
Speaker 3: This feels like the nice guy version of who am
Speaker 3: I to shot?
Speaker 2: Not I totally understand, I'm not. So here's what I'm
Speaker 2: going to say. Yes, when I was young, I was
Speaker 2: in I think it had to have been Halloween as something,
Speaker 2: and I was in Chicago, and it was when Jeans
Speaker 2: Ciskel and Roger Ebert were the two film critics at
Speaker 2: the two different papers in Chicago, and they ended up
Speaker 2: partnering and making that show. And it was Jeane ciscl
Speaker 2: It was the tall, skinny one. And I remember I
Speaker 2: was sitting with him in his like shitty office filled
Speaker 2: with papers and files, and just like I was on
Speaker 2: a couch and like he was writing up something about
Speaker 2: me for some for the paper. I guess I don't
Speaker 2: really remember what it was. I don't have a copy
Speaker 2: of it. And I remember he was looking at me
Speaker 2: and he was saying, yeah, I don't know what it
Speaker 2: is about you, but you've got something, there's something interesting
Speaker 2: about you. And I looked at him and was like, really, wow, well,
Speaker 2: what is it tell me? I would love to know
Speaker 2: what it is that you're seeing so that I can
Speaker 2: then take that and build on it. You know what
Speaker 2: I mean? Like, what is it tell me? Because I
Speaker 2: was an untrained, uneducated actress sitting in this guy's office
Speaker 2: talking about this job I do, and he said, he
Speaker 2: said to me, he said, no, never know what it is.
Speaker 2: The minute you find out what it is, you're going
Speaker 2: to try to commodify it. You're going to try to
Speaker 2: encapsulate it, you're going to try to turn it into
Speaker 2: a brand, you're going to try to do something with it,
Speaker 2: and it's going to fuck you up. It's going to
Speaker 2: ruin what it is you've got going. And that was
Speaker 2: the greatest gift he could have ever given me, because
Speaker 2: I have just from then on gone, okay, whatever, I
Speaker 2: don't really know what I do. And I'm not being
Speaker 2: self deprecating because it's funny. Do you know the Dopey podcast?
Speaker 1: Not heard of it?
Speaker 2: Okay, the Dopey podcast is dope fiends that dealt with Yeah,
Speaker 2: And and he lost his partner, not life partner, his
Speaker 2: best friend partner in the show to an overdose, and
Speaker 2: I've I've done the show. I've I did it here
Speaker 2: in New York. And I'm telling you that because I
Speaker 2: read him the same quote that I could read you,
Speaker 2: which is and this would apply to you. Okay. Do
Speaker 2: you know Hannah Gatsby? Okay, Yes, they have a special
Speaker 2: they did called Nanette. I remember where I was watching it,
Speaker 2: and I start soing, but I mean like ugly crying
Speaker 2: because I was so moved by what they were saying.
Speaker 2: And let me just find it on the internet, which
Speaker 2: I will find because it speaks to what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I have built a career out of self deprecating humor,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to do it anymore. Do you
Speaker 2: understand what self deprecation means when it comes from somebody
Speaker 2: who already exists in the margins? It's not humility, it's humiliation.
Speaker 2: I put myself down in order to speak, in order
Speaker 2: to seek permission to speak, and I simply will not
Speaker 2: do that anymore, not to myself or anybody who identifies
Speaker 2: with me. If that means that my comedy career is over,
Speaker 2: then so be it. I loved I remember when I
Speaker 2: watched that. I remember where I was. I was sobbing
Speaker 2: because I have self deprecated my whole life. And it
Speaker 2: isn't humility. It is humiliation. It is a way of
Speaker 2: being very small. And I don't do that as much anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty able to say I know what I'm good
Speaker 2: at and I know what I am not good at.
Speaker 3: I'm probably five years into that process.
Speaker 1: A lot of it is just.
Speaker 3: The rewiring my mind to all of us think you know,
Speaker 3: to think that, but I'm actually shocked that I made
Speaker 3: it five decades to this place. You and me both
Speaker 3: in sort of the worst condition. And Okay, I guess
Speaker 3: like a lot of people when I tell them this,
Speaker 3: they looked at me like an alien, like, but you're
Speaker 3: guys living.
Speaker 1: No, no, no no, and I'm looking at you like, okay,
Speaker 1: they did not know.
Speaker 2: But here's what I can tell you. Those are just
Speaker 2: old ideas. I'm a big the reason I'm not a
Speaker 2: nostalgic person because I'm a new ideas person. I will
Speaker 2: every day you have the opportunity to look at something
Speaker 2: and go, oh, that's an old idea of mine, that's
Speaker 2: an old idea of myself. That's an old idea of
Speaker 2: a friendship. That's an old idea of a behavior. It's
Speaker 2: an old idea of a mindset. And I can have
Speaker 2: a new one because God gave us brains to use.
Speaker 2: That's the amazing thing about the human mind is we
Speaker 2: can change our minds. We can learn, we can rewire,
Speaker 2: we can rethink. We can have a feeling about someone
Speaker 2: and then say, you know what, I don't have that
Speaker 2: feeling for you anymore. And I know that's hurtful, but
Speaker 2: I'm not going to pretend I have that feeling for
Speaker 2: you anymore and spend the rest of my life pretending
Speaker 2: I do. That's a brave statement of self ownership.
Speaker 1: Have you not broken up with friends? But have you?
Speaker 3: Okay, teach me because Spring this part of the journey
Speaker 3: is probably the hardest. And I guess my answer to
Speaker 3: it is to hide and now live out in the country.
Speaker 3: I you know, and I still have to look people
Speaker 3: in the eye and communicate and all those things. So
Speaker 3: how do you know when someone's not serving you anymore
Speaker 3: and that you need to pivot and move on.
Speaker 2: To You know it? You know it the way you
Speaker 2: know it is? You know it? You know what?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 2: Why? Okay? What what is it?
Speaker 1: If you know you know?
Speaker 2: Right, if you know you know, push your tight I'm
Speaker 2: saying you don't even know it. If you know you know.
Speaker 2: But if you know, you know, and I from the
Speaker 2: clips this is your legend. I believe you know when
Speaker 2: you know, and I think you know when you know.
Speaker 2: And the extricating from those relationships is painful. Sometimes distance
Speaker 2: just happens. You know. I'm not suggesting that every one
Speaker 2: of those relationships you should hold a summit and declare
Speaker 2: a break of the relationship, and I you know, never
Speaker 2: the twain shall meet and we will never. But I
Speaker 2: do believe there's a way. It just happens organically, and
Speaker 2: before you know it, you haven't talked to that person
Speaker 2: in six months. And by the way, I'm not saying
Speaker 2: that there's this big pejorative negative attachment to them. It's
Speaker 2: I have changed and I'm no longer who I was yesterday.
Speaker 2: I'm different than I was yesterday, here today with you,
Speaker 2: and then hopefully tomorrow I will be different too. And
Speaker 2: the goal of life is to be able to still
Speaker 2: the gate marriages, children, you know, close friendships, your family.
Speaker 2: You can't really divorce your family. You can't really well,
Speaker 2: you can separate from your family, of course. But you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. I'm just saying that I think
Speaker 2: you know when you know, and I think you just
Speaker 2: you take your own counsel to look at. I'm a
Speaker 2: big to thine own self be true. Like that's just
Speaker 2: a cornerstone for me.
Speaker 1: Got it? Okay? So for me, the number is five.
Speaker 3: I'll ask you who are the three people when or
Speaker 3: if you feel yourself sort of getting close to either
Speaker 3: manifucking yourself or you need to be talked off a
Speaker 3: line they do like manifucking. That's a shout out to
Speaker 3: Lawrensander for that. I got to credit people who to
Speaker 3: take that from. Who are the three people that are
Speaker 3: your alleged talkers? Who who do you turn to when?
Speaker 2: Ah, I'm not that person. I have a beautiful friend
Speaker 2: in Losane who is in our industry, and we were
Speaker 2: very very very close friends, and then since since families
Speaker 2: and children, we have remained very much each other as
Speaker 2: cheerleaders and pride holders. And when I feel like I
Speaker 2: need to be able to share a moment and say
Speaker 2: I need to like I need to share this with you,
Speaker 2: because she shares it with me, I have that I'm
Speaker 2: not a big ledge. I'm not a big ledge girl.
Speaker 2: I'm old.
Speaker 1: Are you the person we were in too? When we are?
Speaker 2: I am a bit and I'm.
Speaker 1: Their pressure for you to always be the wise age.
Speaker 2: And I also am sober. And I talk to and
Speaker 2: communicate with a lot of people every day through lists
Speaker 2: of gratitudes and fears and sort of I share. There's
Speaker 2: a book called the Book of Awakening, which is a
Speaker 2: not necessarily a spiritual book, but it's written by a
Speaker 2: poet and it has a daily sort of reminder. I'm
Speaker 2: that person.
Speaker 1: I'm am I allowed to ask.
Speaker 3: Have you ever went public with your rock bottom moment
Speaker 3: that led you to sobriety?
Speaker 1: Of course?
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I'm billboards of me all over the
Speaker 2: United States right now with the Foundation for a Better
Speaker 2: Life that talks about me getting sober as the bravest
Speaker 2: thing I've ever done in my life.
Speaker 1: What was your lowest year?
Speaker 2: Oh? I got sober in nineteen ninety nine, in February
Speaker 2: of no I was an opiate addict. I was a
Speaker 2: secret opiod addict.
Speaker 1: I was Oh, secrets too, how do.
Speaker 2: You have secrets? Well, secrets, that's you know, that's what
Speaker 2: addicts do. That's what so I mean, It's all good.
Speaker 2: I've been sober for a long time and I work
Speaker 2: with a lot of people, and I talk often with
Speaker 2: sober people, men, women.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I'm so I process, I have psychoanalysis. I process a
Speaker 2: lot on the daily, so I don't end up near
Speaker 2: the ledge. The ledge rarely comes for me because I've
Speaker 2: I have anticipated. I'm an anticipator. I'll see that ledge
Speaker 2: coming and I'll start to work on trying to avoid it.
Speaker 1: So you live in the present.
Speaker 2: I live totally in the present, never in the past.
Speaker 2: I don't look back at comments. People will say, oh,
Speaker 2: you posted something, you got a lot. I'll be like,
Speaker 2: really what I was like, don't read the comment. That's
Speaker 2: my secret, Like, don't read comments, Just say what you
Speaker 2: need to say. There was a quote about the Beatles
Speaker 2: was say what you need to say and put a
Speaker 2: backbeat to it. It's just sort of like, say what
Speaker 2: you need to say, and I say what I need
Speaker 2: to say how I need to say it. I try
Speaker 2: to avoid stepping in shit, which I've done obviously, be many,
Speaker 2: many many times, because just the nature of the beast,
Speaker 2: and you know, I try to avoid those moments. If
Speaker 2: I can sit now.
Speaker 3: I'm afraid to ask you ask a question about the past.
Speaker 1: Because ask me the past.
Speaker 3: Go okay, because really this is like truly one of
Speaker 3: the rare times where I get to ask someone.
Speaker 2: That you ask whatever you want to ask.
Speaker 3: Was part of an era, okay. So I always wanted
Speaker 3: to know, especially for an actress. And this comes from
Speaker 3: me watching like Once upon a Time in Hollywood three
Speaker 3: or four times, you know, because you really sort of
Speaker 3: took your first steps into your career in the mid
Speaker 3: seventies to be a teenager, to be a woman and
Speaker 3: a teenager in the seventies, especially in the Sharontate era,
Speaker 3: the Manson era, was there just a general fear surrounding
Speaker 3: you being in that environment in Hollywood that one day
Speaker 3: you might turn up missing or like, how cautious were you?
Speaker 2: So here's what you need to know, Okay. I lived
Speaker 2: on a dirt road in a house with a fairly
Speaker 2: conservative set of parents, and I just was a schoolgirl.
Speaker 1: I had.
Speaker 2: There was nothing Hollywood about my life at all, nothing nothing.
Speaker 2: I was not a party girl. I wasn't a club girl.
Speaker 2: I was a good girl. I was not a bad
Speaker 2: girl on any level. I wanted to be a bad girl.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be Susie Quattro. I wanted to be
Speaker 2: Chrissy Hind. I wanted to be bad and rebellious. And
Speaker 2: I was just a good girl. I said, yes, ma'am,
Speaker 2: Yes sir, And weirdly enough, Sharon Tate's house. I lived
Speaker 2: off of Bennett Canyon, and I passed Clo Drive every
Speaker 2: single day on my way to school and on my
Speaker 2: way back. So I passed Clo Drive twice a day
Speaker 2: every day for my entire childhood. And that's where she
Speaker 2: was killed. I remember my mother was very famous at
Speaker 2: the time, and so I do remember we had an
Speaker 2: armed guard in front of our dirt road gate for
Speaker 2: like a week. I remember there was a guy sitting
Speaker 2: in a chair in front of our gate. But beyond that,
Speaker 2: I was not that girl. That was never even a question.
Speaker 1: So this means you're a kick ass actress, because.
Speaker 2: I am a kick ass actress, is what I am.
Speaker 2: I am just now I can tell you that I'm fearless.
Speaker 3: I since I've gotten to know you, and this actually
Speaker 3: started when I started directing the SNL episode, which I'll
Speaker 3: say that I probably have watched every episode of SNL,
Speaker 3: like a thousand and two, like in a three year
Speaker 3: period of me working on that documentary and especially watching
Speaker 3: your eighty two.
Speaker 1: Episode where you host it. Yeah, well, first I.
Speaker 3: Was like, I probably would have been her friend had
Speaker 3: I been a prominence in the early eighties or eighty
Speaker 3: two whatever. You just seem like the most fun person,
Speaker 3: which I'm skipping. All right, I can't believe I'm doing
Speaker 3: this for the first time in my life.
Speaker 2: You're closing your thing. Close the fucking thing. And by
Speaker 2: the way, don't you worry about like what I'm supposed
Speaker 2: to be talking about. Don't you worry. I'll say the
Speaker 2: name of the show, and life will be good. Everyone
Speaker 2: will be happy. Nobody's going to not watch Scarpetta on Amazon,
Speaker 2: starring Nicole Kidman and me from the Patricia Cornwell novels. Yes,
Speaker 2: because I'm on your pod or not. I appreciate I
Speaker 2: didn't come here to talk about Scarpetta. I know they
Speaker 2: would love me to say Scarpetta on Amazon, but I
Speaker 2: didn't come here. I came here because you said three
Speaker 2: words for me, No, four words, dust off your mantle.
Speaker 2: That blew my mind. I cannot tell you what that
Speaker 2: meant to me, because.
Speaker 1: Are you saying, ma'am was the only person.
Speaker 2: The only person, and it was so out of the
Speaker 2: possibility of realm, just like not possible. Anyway, I want
Speaker 2: to tell you I am the only person who's hosted
Speaker 2: SNL twice, never with Lorne Michaels. My years were Gene
Speaker 2: Domanian that one year she did it right when he left,
Speaker 2: and one year with Dick Eversol when Lorne Michaels left,
Speaker 2: and then he came back the next year and brought
Speaker 2: my husband there, and then I got married to Chris
Speaker 2: that year, nineteen eighty eight four four, And so it
Speaker 2: was weird because I've never met Lorne Michaels. I hosted
Speaker 2: SNL twice, not my metier. I am not a sketch comedian.
Speaker 2: I'm just not.
Speaker 3: You have to acknowledge at least that the last time
Speaker 3: you won the show, which leads me to my I
Speaker 3: just want to story of the entire process of making
Speaker 3: the perfect video with Jamaine Jackson.
Speaker 2: All right, Okay, so it was so bizarre, that was so.
Speaker 1: Well, let me at least give you flowers here.
Speaker 3: You transformed into that character, even as did I purposely
Speaker 3: stayed out the way I didn't want to.
Speaker 1: He told me, guess what I'm gonna do, and I said,
Speaker 1: I already know what.
Speaker 3: You're gonna do, because anything to do with your volta,
Speaker 3: And of course he's here, I know what you're gonna do.
Speaker 3: And Perfect is almost like an underground like it's a
Speaker 3: weird movie.
Speaker 2: Man, it is, but a weird movie.
Speaker 3: The thing is is that Perfect came along when America
Speaker 3: was getting cable, and so I've seen Perfect at least
Speaker 3: four or five times simply because it was always on HBO. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so it might have not been a big box office hit,
Speaker 3: but we know that film, and we.
Speaker 2: Mean it was supposed to be. It was the big
Speaker 2: Columbia Pictures Summer movie nineteen eighty five, this cover of
Speaker 2: Rolling Stone for their double summer issue. It was supposed
Speaker 2: to be. And by the way, it was supposed to
Speaker 2: be great music. I mean, you had the opportunity, and
Speaker 2: somehow the best song they could come up with was
Speaker 2: closest thing to Perfect.
Speaker 1: What.
Speaker 2: I was so disappointed that they couldn't. They ended up
Speaker 2: using Jump. That was the song I used when we
Speaker 2: were like doing the work, and like it was an
Speaker 2: old song, it wasn't even a new song. I couldn't
Speaker 2: believe they couldn't come up with a better soundtrack, closest
Speaker 2: thing to perfect him in a white unitard with a
Speaker 2: with a with an erection.
Speaker 3: Wait, wait, come on, look, Jermaine Jackson's catching a last
Speaker 3: slander on the internet.
Speaker 1: Hair whatever, but.
Speaker 2: Wait, what what happened?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: No, no, oh, stuff it back the fuck off Internet.
Speaker 2: Let the guy be Jermaine Jackson. Yes, it happened to
Speaker 2: wear a white one suit and had an erection.
Speaker 1: I mean everyone did.
Speaker 2: I don't know if everyone did.
Speaker 3: But it was a But they still showed that video
Speaker 3: endlessly on BT, and I always wanted to know, like.
Speaker 1: Just the song's not good, but.
Speaker 3: Somehow they just rammed it down our throats because there
Speaker 3: weren't a lot of product back then.
Speaker 2: That was a weird.
Speaker 3: So you thought you just did a video and it
Speaker 3: just like went down the hole and no one saw it.
Speaker 2: Well I hadn't. I mean obviously yes, but I mean
Speaker 2: I understand it's been seen.
Speaker 3: I'll say for black people, if you're not a hard junkie.
Speaker 3: With Halloween, we really got to know your trading places,
Speaker 3: I know. But Perfect was always on BT at least
Speaker 3: like once an hour. Because it's also like Jermaine's in
Speaker 3: the Shadow of Michael Anything Jackson wise just got rammed
Speaker 3: down our throats and I probably like, if you say Jamie.
Speaker 1: Lee Curtis the first thing I think of, It's perfect.
Speaker 1: It's just you and.
Speaker 2: Yes White, Onesie.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I always white. It was a weird back
Speaker 1: vend It was so weird.
Speaker 2: It was a little weird. I mean, I mean it
Speaker 2: was perfectly lovely. I just hated the song. I just
Speaker 2: couldn't believe this was the fucking song that we were
Speaker 2: going to turn this into a hit movie with that
Speaker 2: was gonna be the song of the summer.
Speaker 1: I was like, really, they tried it, they tried it.
Speaker 3: Of all of your characters, pleaded, which one were you
Speaker 3: given a lease?
Speaker 1: Uh? In terms of elasticity to mold into true lives?
Speaker 2: For sure?
Speaker 1: What was it initially and how did you change it?
Speaker 2: Well, the elasticity was the trust from Jim. Jim Cameron
Speaker 2: wrote it for me. Now I'm me and believe me.
Speaker 2: That was weird to get a phone call and have
Speaker 2: the phone ring at my house. I remember where I was,
Speaker 2: I remember where I was sitting. Phone rang, phone rang, Hello, Hi, Jamie,
Speaker 2: It's James Cameron. Yeah, like, because you know, okay, okay, sure, hi,
Speaker 2: James Cameron.
Speaker 1: Like wife earlier the matter, I stilled the.
Speaker 2: Phone rings and Hyatt's James Cameron like.
Speaker 1: Really, are you generally shocked when you get the call?
Speaker 2: Well, of course, I'm a mom with you know, I'm
Speaker 2: sitting in my house anyway, he said, I've written this
Speaker 2: movie for you. Okay, you may think I am. I'm
Speaker 2: just not sure that I think. And that's lovely. And
Speaker 2: you said dust off your mental And I will never
Speaker 2: forget that as long as I live to the day
Speaker 2: I die, I will remember those four words because it changed,
Speaker 2: it began then something that became, you know, unthinkable and extraordinary.
Speaker 2: But all I want is freedom, Like I want freedom here.
Speaker 2: I don't want you to be here. I want you
Speaker 2: to be here, I don't I want freedom. I want
Speaker 2: to take the material and then be able to do
Speaker 2: with it whatever the freedom that takes me, and being
Speaker 2: free as an actor is not something that I have
Speaker 2: felt necessarily throughout my career. True lies, Jim Cameron can
Speaker 2: do every single job on that movie. There is not
Speaker 2: a job on a movie set that Jim Cameron cannot
Speaker 2: do himself, not one he could even because he would
Speaker 2: learn how to make clothes. He would go, he would
Speaker 2: learn how to work a sewing machine, and he could
Speaker 2: make you clothes. He cannot act, He cannot act. He
Speaker 2: can build a camera, he can build a set, He
Speaker 2: can do every job on a movie except act.
Speaker 1: How will you know to capture the perfect performance?
Speaker 2: Then, so he trusts who he hires, and he loves actors,
Speaker 2: and he loves that process. He loves the the weird
Speaker 2: alchemy of what it takes to take words and turn
Speaker 2: them into feelings and turn them into emotions. And he
Speaker 2: cannot lead you there. He is not going to have
Speaker 2: the secret key to open the door to get you
Speaker 2: emotionally to a place. He hires you to do your job,
Speaker 2: and that level of trust and freedom is extraordinary. The
Speaker 2: same thing happened on the Bear. I had never met
Speaker 2: Chris Starr. We had texted, We had one phone call
Speaker 2: that lasted one minute. I'm so great, I'm so stoked
Speaker 2: you're doing this. That's so great. I asked him for
Speaker 2: a couple of references of how he wanted her to look.
Speaker 2: That was it. I showed up in Chicago having never
Speaker 2: met anybody, not one person, not one person in that kitchen,
Speaker 2: did I know? And I showed up as Donna Brazado
Speaker 2: and he said, let's roll. And I was freed, freed
Speaker 2: to just take the text, which beautifully written, every word
Speaker 2: is written, and interpret it and then play the scenes.
Speaker 2: And I've never been freer.
Speaker 3: Right now, My my comfort zone, my safety is musical documentaries.
Speaker 1: That's my safe zone. Actually, you're one of the first people.
Speaker 2: Who have come to you saying I think you can
Speaker 2: I can think I think you can do a narrative.
Speaker 3: Right So, literally after that phone call, I sat there
Speaker 3: with my manager Sarah, who you met, like something like
Speaker 3: about to have a colonic right there, like I can't
Speaker 3: do this?
Speaker 1: You think I can do that? No? No, No.
Speaker 3: My question to you is what is the process of
Speaker 3: when a director talks to an actor of what they want?
Speaker 3: Like when all right, let me pick something that's okay,
Speaker 3: So when you're chosen for a Freaky Friday, I'm pulling.
Speaker 1: Something random from from your past.
Speaker 3: Been in a situation where you know a director knows
Speaker 3: exactly what they're doing, exactly what they want, and then
Speaker 3: you've been in a situation probably where the director doesn't
Speaker 3: know anything.
Speaker 2: Can I recommend something to you?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Have you had Maggie jillen haul on here yet?
Speaker 1: Not at all?
Speaker 2: Okay, you guys should ask Maggie to come and have
Speaker 2: this convot with you, because Maggie's wrote and directed The
Speaker 2: Bride just coming out with Christian Bale and Jesse Buckley.
Speaker 2: This is a movie Maggie wrote and directed. And I
Speaker 2: watched something on the internets about how she directs the
Speaker 2: two different actors, and that with Christian she would go
Speaker 2: up and be very quiet and whisper in his ear
Speaker 2: and give him little adjustments, and with Jesse she would
Speaker 2: shout out, Jesse, now do it this way. And at
Speaker 2: one point, apparently Christian Bale said to her, I want
Speaker 2: you to yell at me too, like he was feeling
Speaker 2: left out.
Speaker 1: Now one's afraid of Christian Bale.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you this.
Speaker 1: Does he not know that tape still exist?
Speaker 2: Here is my story for you. Okay, the day of
Speaker 2: the bear Io at Debris, who I'm assuming you've had
Speaker 2: in this very chair.
Speaker 1: Friend of mine. No, No, I haven't, but we're friends.
Speaker 2: Okay, she's awesome. You should have her. I will Io
Speaker 2: was shadowing Chris Storer because she was set to direct
Speaker 2: an episode of the show and she wasn't in that
Speaker 2: episode because that episode is the flashback of the family dinner,
Speaker 2: and so she's not in it. And so that whole
Speaker 2: week she was shadowing Chris. So she was coming to
Speaker 2: the set watching Chris set cameras watch and watching him
Speaker 2: work with the actors in the rehearsal if there was rehearsal,
Speaker 2: or where he put his camera and what. And you know,
Speaker 2: it was a very crowded little house. And Io and
Speaker 2: I were sitting on the stairwell, the staircase going up,
Speaker 2: talking for like forty five minutes one day, and we
Speaker 2: didn't know each other, and we were getting to know
Speaker 2: each other. And at one point she said, like, what
Speaker 2: do you like? What do you like from a director?
Speaker 2: And I said, okay, I hate. I did a show
Speaker 2: called New Girl, and the way they directed that show,
Speaker 2: they would shout at me, okay, now Jamie say this, Okay, Jamie,
Speaker 2: now do this. And I hated it because I felt
Speaker 2: like what I said, I like it if somebody comes
Speaker 2: up and just whispers in my ear, I don't want
Speaker 2: my scene partner. You're my scene partner here, I don't
Speaker 2: want you to know what adjustment I'm going to make.
Speaker 2: In the scene. I don't want you to know it
Speaker 2: because I want you to react to what I'm going
Speaker 2: to do differently organically, not oh, she's going to do
Speaker 2: this one with a lot more intensity, whatever, whatever the
Speaker 2: bad direction. And I said to Aole, I like it
Speaker 2: if somebody just whispers in my ear, like simple things
Speaker 2: like faster, slower, hot, or colder. And I said to her,
Speaker 2: I would even love if somebody just set a color
Speaker 2: and nothing else. So I said, I hate if somebody
Speaker 2: yells in front of the crew a direction to me,
Speaker 2: it embarrasses me, it shuts me down. I'd be like,
Speaker 2: I would feel mortified. So we do the dinner table
Speaker 2: scene in the episode of The Bear, and we you know,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of people. These are all these actors
Speaker 2: who I never met, and I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: they're John mulaney and oh there's Sarah Bolson and oh
Speaker 2: my god, there's Bob Owenkirk. And I have these monologues
Speaker 2: and I'm about to like lose my shit. And I
Speaker 2: was like, so, anyway, we did the first take of
Speaker 2: Donna coming in and you know, wreaking havoc at the
Speaker 2: table and shit broke, and shit flew and blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and then we did it again. So we did two
Speaker 2: takes of it. And after we did the second take,
Speaker 2: I was sitting off by myself and Io walked up
Speaker 2: to me. By the way, Christor didn't say a word
Speaker 2: to me, he would say, okay, now let's do it
Speaker 2: again one more time, please. Reset Io walked up to
Speaker 2: me and whispered in my ear, purple. That's all she
Speaker 2: said to me. She said the word purple. And what
Speaker 2: she was saying is, you've done a take red hot.
Speaker 2: You've gone red. The first take I was like, you know,
Speaker 2: an atomic bomb went off. She said this Basically, what
Speaker 2: she was saying is the first take was read. The
Speaker 2: second take was fire, searing hot, yellow flame, orange flame.
Speaker 2: What she said was, you're wounded. All of what's happening
Speaker 2: to Donna in that scene is pain, not anger. Pain.
Speaker 2: The wound is purple, a bruise is purple. And that's
Speaker 2: the take in the show that they used. So for me,
Speaker 2: from a directing standpoint, that's how you talk to me.
Speaker 2: You want something out of me. No one else knew
Speaker 2: what I was, what the adjustment was. She whispered in
Speaker 2: my ear.
Speaker 3: I like that have you ever considered, especially this exact
Speaker 3: point in your life post Oscar.
Speaker 1: And here's here's the thing.
Speaker 3: I don't want to lead people into thinking that, you know,
Speaker 3: once you get this mantle, clear it off and you
Speaker 3: place your ward there an where's your asker?
Speaker 2: In my office she has a do you promise it's.
Speaker 1: Not in the bathroom or anything.
Speaker 3: I have many story whereas doorstopper.
Speaker 2: There's a googly eye.
Speaker 1: You put it on there? Of course, wait, I think
Speaker 1: you did you not post it?
Speaker 2: Of course there's a Google eye. And they them pin
Speaker 2: that my daughter Ruby had because she's sort of gender
Speaker 2: you know there it's sort of genderless, so it felt
Speaker 2: like it needed to They them, yes, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: there's a Google eye.
Speaker 3: Well, my point is that I wanted to know, did
Speaker 3: you ever entertain the thought of crossing the velvet rope
Speaker 3: to the executive side, the director's side.
Speaker 2: I'm a DJA member for a long time. I directed
Speaker 2: the sitcom I did I Was Anything But Anything But Love.
Speaker 2: I was prepared to go off and direct a movie
Speaker 2: that I was going to star in right when COVID hit.
Speaker 2: COVID killed the movie. I was going to direct the
Speaker 2: Truth of the matter is. I am married to a
Speaker 2: film director and I have two daughters. The commitment a
Speaker 2: director has to give to a project, the amount of time,
Speaker 2: is way more than an actor. Now I'm also a producer.
Speaker 2: I produced the movie last year, The Lost Bus, Yes
Speaker 2: Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrar, the true story of the
Speaker 2: Paradise Fire, the story of Kevin McKay and Mary Ludwig,
Speaker 2: who were the school bus driver and school teacher who
Speaker 2: saved the lives of those twenty two children during the
Speaker 2: fire in California. Scarpetta, the TV show that we aren't
Speaker 2: talking about because we don't need to, is a TV
Speaker 2: show that I brought on Amazon. I'm friends with the
Speaker 2: author of the books, Patricia Cornwall. She's written thirty six
Speaker 2: best selling books about a character named Case Scarpetta who's
Speaker 2: a medical examiner, and I I'm friends with her, and
Speaker 2: I brought those books to my partner, Jason Blum, who
Speaker 2: runs Blumhouse, and said, the books are available, no one
Speaker 2: has turned them into a movie or TV show in
Speaker 2: thirty six years. Let's do so. And so I'm producing
Speaker 2: the show Scarpetta, and then I'm only in it because
Speaker 2: Nicole Kidman, who signed on to play Scarpetta, signed on saying, well,
Speaker 2: and you're in the show jam right because I'm producing it.
Speaker 2: Of course I'm in the show. And so then it
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, squeen, I am going to because you
Speaker 2: want me to be, and so I now play her
Speaker 2: out of control, unhinged man, eater, Cray Cray sister.
Speaker 1: Are both roles hard to no manage it.
Speaker 2: I do it all. I do it all, you know what.
Speaker 2: I do everything with love. I love community, I love teams.
Speaker 2: I love the art form. I love collaboration. I love
Speaker 2: that in this job I can't do when anybody else's
Speaker 2: I can't do that job. I need them to do
Speaker 2: their job so I can do my job. I just
Speaker 2: love that it's a it's not a singular art form.
Speaker 2: It's a collaborative art form. And I love it and
Speaker 2: I've loved it. It still turns me on, flips my switch.
Speaker 2: I wake up excited every day of work, every day.
Speaker 1: Every day, gratitude is important.
Speaker 2: I wake up vitamin G. Like, first first shot of
Speaker 2: my day is vitamin G gratitude.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I literally it was like, wait, that's the
Speaker 1: one I don't take out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but guess what I think you do?
Speaker 3: Oh, I have to I have to question how intimidating
Speaker 3: was it to enter the well oiled machine of Monty
Speaker 3: Python when you did Wanda, Yeah, you know it wasn't.
Speaker 2: I assumed that John Clees was calling because I was
Speaker 2: married to Christopher Guest. I had just gotten married to
Speaker 2: Christopher Guest. Yeah, who in that circle in America was
Speaker 2: that level of appreciation for cometic ability was the sort
Speaker 2: of commensurate you know what I mean, Like people loved
Speaker 2: spinal tap to the degree as you know that. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's mental how much people love Chris and the work
Speaker 2: he doesn't know, the movie people right, and then the
Speaker 2: movies he made, you know, and he's a really singular talent.
Speaker 2: So I assumed that John Clees wanted to talk to
Speaker 2: Christopher Guest and kind of using me as the portal.
Speaker 2: I did not know he was going to ask me
Speaker 2: to be in this thing. And the truth is.
Speaker 1: Did he think about osmosis effect that you two would
Speaker 1: be as silly and innovative with your humor?
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know what he thought. I had
Speaker 2: a newborn, I had a six month old. I was
Speaker 2: going to London to make this weird little movie with
Speaker 2: a six month old and my husband to move to
Speaker 2: London for a few months. It was challenging. I'm a mom,
Speaker 2: so all of the work I do, the first thing
Speaker 2: I think about is how complic hated my personal life
Speaker 2: was because of childhood. I'm not just an actor for
Speaker 2: hire where I can just go wherever, and I have
Speaker 2: no ties that bind I'm bound fully and so to
Speaker 2: take to be an actor, I have to extricate every
Speaker 2: day from I have a dog. I don't like leaving
Speaker 2: my dog.
Speaker 3: Is there an understanding with the director and the production
Speaker 3: that you have a boundary as far as time is concerned.
Speaker 2: Well, to some degree, But I mean at the same time,
Speaker 2: it's a bitch of a job in that way. I
Speaker 2: mean it's it's a time consuming job, and as you know,
Speaker 2: movies and television and stuff, it takes time. The good
Speaker 2: news is for most people, most people work all their
Speaker 2: lives movies and television. There are short lived, little sections
Speaker 2: of time and you commit a lot. But there's just
Speaker 2: a lot of extricating and a lot of tie breaking,
Speaker 2: and that's hard for me. That's been hard for me
Speaker 2: since I had children, and it's hard for me. When
Speaker 2: I leave my house with my dog, I pack when
Speaker 2: my dog is on his walk, I hide the.
Speaker 1: Suitcases because he knows you're leaving.
Speaker 2: If he saw the suitcases, he would know I'm leaving.
Speaker 2: And then now, but I hide the suitcases. Then I
Speaker 2: don't let him see me leaving the house, so he
Speaker 2: just thinks when I say I'll be right back, he
Speaker 2: doesn't know I'm going to be gone for a week.
Speaker 2: And what I'm trying to do is what I've learned
Speaker 2: from dog trainers, is if when you walk back in
Speaker 2: the house after being gone a week, and you just go, oh, hey, Rooney,
Speaker 2: how are you, what's up? And talk to people as
Speaker 2: if you haven't been gone, your leavings start to not
Speaker 2: affect them so much. The problem is we when we're
Speaker 2: gone and they and we open the door, we're like
Speaker 2: and that then ramps them up, and that gives them
Speaker 2: the idea that you've been gone. So I'm yes, so
Speaker 2: extricating from Pet's husband's children.
Speaker 3: And this is what I learned, like, this is you
Speaker 3: returning it me with dust off your mantle. You taught
Speaker 3: me a valuable lesson When I tell you, patience is key,
Speaker 3: it's helping me grow more.
Speaker 1: I realized that animals are about.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's what I'm gonna tell you. Yes, this is
Speaker 2: your girlfriend's dog.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yes.
Speaker 2: Wait till you get a dog that's yours. See it's different.
Speaker 2: It's your girlfriend's dog. You're not her person. But wait
Speaker 2: till you get a dog of your own.
Speaker 1: I'm at I'm a cat person.
Speaker 2: Wait till you get a cat.
Speaker 1: No, I've had cats.
Speaker 2: That connection, that idea. Come on, it's the most delicious,
Speaker 2: it's so sweet, it's it's going to be good.
Speaker 1: It's working on me. Wow. I can't believe this is
Speaker 1: where you let me to. Yeah, Jamie, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: I'm very happy to i'm's and podcast. And by the way,
Speaker 2: let me say this, Yes, I think you are way
Speaker 2: more than maybe even you think you are. And I
Speaker 2: think you're going to expand into the narrative form in
Speaker 2: a beautiful way, and you will figure out what people
Speaker 2: want and need from you because you can go to
Speaker 2: them and say, what do you want to need from
Speaker 2: me here? Do you want a lot of feedback? Do
Speaker 2: you want a little feedback? Do you want loud feedback?
Speaker 2: Do you like soft feedback? It's like a lover. It's
Speaker 2: like it's in a way, it's very much saying it's
Speaker 2: an intimate thing we're doing. And even though we're not
Speaker 2: talking about sex per se, there is a sex.
Speaker 1: There's intimacy there.
Speaker 2: There is a big intimacy. And so it's really just
Speaker 2: do you like it when I do this? Do you
Speaker 2: want me to do this? More? Like? Do this less?
Speaker 2: How about this? And I think you will find your
Speaker 2: voice as a director that.
Speaker 1: Way I have.
Speaker 3: I think the fear that I hold with it is
Speaker 3: that I've heard, well one you know, the aforementioned Christian
Speaker 3: Bale yelling tape still on the internet. There's a story
Speaker 3: that Frank Oz tells about the difficulties of directing Marlon Brando,
Speaker 3: and you know, the abuse that he had to take
Speaker 3: from Marlon Brando to the point where Robert de Niro
Speaker 3: was sort of like the go between, like they wouldn't
Speaker 3: talk to each other and whatever.
Speaker 1: And I think that also ties into in the music world.
Speaker 1: I do not like cutting vocals.
Speaker 3: I love creating the music, I love engineering, I love
Speaker 3: every aspect of production and songwriting. But I do not
Speaker 3: have the patience to sit there and coach something out
Speaker 3: of you. Now now that I'm in the place where
Speaker 3: I am and the roots happened to be working on
Speaker 3: our album right now.
Speaker 1: I just started giving notes for the first time to
Speaker 1: let my partner.
Speaker 3: Trek in thirty four years of this group professionally, forty
Speaker 3: years as just a high school friend, Like, this is
Speaker 3: the first time where I'm giving him notes.
Speaker 1: Previously I can hide behind and yeah. The first time,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that wasn't bad. I think in
Speaker 1: my mind, I'm like, you know, could you do it again?
Speaker 1: Or I don't like this verse? Or how'd you feel
Speaker 1: he took direction well, and I was shocked.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, so maybe he's been waiting for
Speaker 2: you to give him some.
Speaker 1: I found this out recently, so my work is done here.
Speaker 1: Jamie Lee Curtis, thank you very.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Uh, this is the first I'm not asking you know.
Speaker 2: What I'm I'm If you had asked me a bunch
Speaker 2: of like pre planned questions, I would have been all right, now, this.
Speaker 1: Is a great conversation. Thank you for coming on. The
Speaker 1: Quest left, so see y'all later.
Speaker 2: Oh bye, everybody.
Speaker 3: Quest Loft Show is hosted by me Amir quest Love Thompson.
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