Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Hello
Speaker 1: and happy week to all my whip smarties out there.
Speaker 1: I'm really really looking forward to today's interview. I'm going
Speaker 1: to sit down with a fellow circus performer, which is
Speaker 1: what so many of us in the industry affectionately call
Speaker 1: the performers in the sag after Union. Today's guest is
Speaker 1: none other than actor Jason George. You likely know him
Speaker 1: from playing Miranda Bailey's husband, doctor Ben Warren on Grey's
Speaker 1: Anatomy and Station nineteen. Jason is an absolutely incredible human
Speaker 1: off screen as well as the wonderful characters that he
Speaker 1: plays on screen, and today I'm going to talk to
Speaker 1: him about discovering his true calling, having grown up a
Speaker 1: military kid on the East Coast, how his upbringing led
Speaker 1: him to get really active within our own union, advocating
Speaker 1: for better protection for workers, and his latest and deepest
Speaker 1: passion project, working to help solve the gun violence crisis
Speaker 1: in America. Jason is a spokesperson working to change the
Speaker 1: way that guns are portrayed in the media. A year ago,
Speaker 1: Hollywood Health and Society at the USC and and Berg
Speaker 1: Norman Lear Center released a really impactful and significant studies
Speaker 1: surrounding guns in the media, and based on that study,
Speaker 1: HHS has teamed up with Brady, the nation's oldest gun
Speaker 1: violence prevention organization, to raise awareness around this incredibly important topic,
Speaker 1: and Jason is helping lead the charge with Brady, HHS,
Speaker 1: every Town and Mom's Demand. He is an incredibly inspiring
Speaker 1: human someone I feel really lucky to have as a
Speaker 1: peer in my industry, both in my day job and
Speaker 1: in my activism work. And I can't wait for you
Speaker 1: all to hear from enjoy. Hey, hi, Jason, how are
Speaker 1: you good?
Speaker 2: How are you feeling?
Speaker 3: I'm well?
Speaker 1: Thanks? Where do I Where do I find you today?
Speaker 1: Where are you in the world?
Speaker 3: I am back in the studio city, Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: I'm back home. We were running around Italy for.
Speaker 3: A few weeks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's my wife and I was a twenty fifth
Speaker 2: wedding anniversary.
Speaker 1: So oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: Good Italy is our spot, you know.
Speaker 3: We this is like we've been itly a bunch of
Speaker 3: times and taking a cake a bunch of times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's so fun. I look forward to that,
Speaker 1: like sort of all my friends are in the range
Speaker 1: where everybody's kids are too little to do international travel.
Speaker 1: But when I see my friends who have like kids
Speaker 1: that are ten to twelve or that are teenagers and
Speaker 1: they're bopping around, I'm like, God, that would be so
Speaker 1: cool to get to show them the world.
Speaker 3: It's the whole point. It is literally the I mean
Speaker 3: the funny part is that, like, you know, we have
Speaker 3: a twenty year old son, and that we have twins
Speaker 3: that are sixteen year olds.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And when they were born we were buried.
Speaker 3: So like like all of your friends who have little
Speaker 3: kids and like do only certain things, like you know,
Speaker 3: they go to like going to the local restaurant is
Speaker 3: a big outing. Yeah that for like three years, three
Speaker 3: years we were just on like life. If you walk
Speaker 3: slowly in front of my house, I just handed you
Speaker 3: a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah I need to know you just hold hold this
Speaker 2: for a second.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, oh my goodness. Okay, So I love
Speaker 1: I love the tangential parenting moment because it actually, in
Speaker 1: a really interesting way, points back to the thing I
Speaker 1: normally like to ask people first, which is about yourself
Speaker 1: as a child, because like, look me as the person
Speaker 1: interviewing you. So many of the folks who are going
Speaker 1: to listen to this episode, like, we know, we know
Speaker 1: you as grown up Jason George, we know you from work,
Speaker 1: like you you've been our beloved Ben for fourteen years,
Speaker 1: like og Grays fan over here. You know you carried
Speaker 1: him onto other shows. Like it's so easy to think
Speaker 1: you know someone because you have observed their body of work, right,
Speaker 1: And so I'm curious, especially because you're a dad, if
Speaker 1: from this point in your life, if you were to
Speaker 1: hang out with your eight year old self, like, would
Speaker 1: you like him? What was he into? Did he know
Speaker 1: he was going to be an artist? Like, like, do
Speaker 1: you see how that little boy became the man you
Speaker 1: are today? Or has it all sort of happened, you know,
Speaker 1: by by miracle and happenstance?
Speaker 3: Now? Is you know? Is that that's a that's a
Speaker 3: good question. That is a good first question that would
Speaker 3: have had somebody. Could I have seen him as a artists? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I was a goofy I was a goofy show off,
Speaker 3: uh smart ality little kid. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm the middle child and one of three boys,
Speaker 3: and so I was also you know, all of the
Speaker 3: I liked all I believe in all of the good
Speaker 3: stuff that psychiatrists say about middle kids like I got
Speaker 3: to be the baby for four years and then I
Speaker 3: got to be the big brother, and so, you know,
Speaker 3: and so I'm I I. Uh I was a rule
Speaker 3: follower on the surface, like I was the good kid
Speaker 3: as far as you could see. Uh I was. And
Speaker 3: I was in fact a good hearted kid. We were
Speaker 3: never trying to damage anything. But and my older brother
Speaker 3: is part of the reason for this. We were mischievous kids.
Speaker 3: We were really mischievous kids, and so had.
Speaker 1: A sense of humor.
Speaker 2: Oh, the sense of humor was like huge in my house.
Speaker 3: It was there. The whole thing was you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: like we you know, my mom and my mom and
Speaker 3: dad split up, you know, and it was on a
Speaker 3: low train, the slowest rolling divorce of all time, like
Speaker 3: over the course of like ten years and just slowly.
Speaker 3: My dad was like less and less around it, and
Speaker 3: he was like never around.
Speaker 2: But like you know, money troubles and everything like that.
Speaker 3: Mom was always the you know, like you know the
Speaker 3: phrase rob Peter to pay Paul. It's like I should
Speaker 3: have like a tattoo that says that phrase, because that
Speaker 3: was like my mom's whole phrase. And she would just
Speaker 3: lap because she's like better than crying, I mean, and
Speaker 3: that was her whole take. So our whole perspective on
Speaker 3: life from birth was just like, hey man, you know
Speaker 3: it's it's it can it can always be worse, So
Speaker 3: you know, so enjoy wherever you're at, even if today's
Speaker 3: pretty crappy, you know, you know, laugh about it, find
Speaker 3: somebody and find something, find something to just howeverasil it is.
Speaker 2: If you enjoy or whatever you're on grade, it's danced
Speaker 2: out and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: But I mean, it's you know, and then my mother,
Speaker 3: uh and my dad actually both loved music, and that's
Speaker 3: what it thinks. So it was like there was always
Speaker 3: music playing in the house and uh, and there was
Speaker 3: a that joy in the middle of whatever was going on.
Speaker 3: I mean, so that's kind of like how I lived,
Speaker 3: Like I'm always I'm always going to be good where
Speaker 3: I'm at, And even as a kid, that was kind
Speaker 3: of the thing, like.
Speaker 2: Whatever group you dropped me in, I'd find a way
Speaker 2: to hang.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was I was just smart enough to
Speaker 3: hang with the smart kids, just cool enough to hang
Speaker 3: to like get into the cool kid party. I'm never
Speaker 3: the leader of any of these groups. I can just
Speaker 3: just hang with them, you know. And I was, I
Speaker 3: was a geek, but uh but at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, I'm I'm you know, the nerd in me
Speaker 3: is real. You know that age you talk about eight
Speaker 3: year old me, that's around the time that I discovered
Speaker 3: comic books and all that stuff. Uh, and the imagination
Speaker 3: blew wide open. And it was like Martin Luther King.
Speaker 3: Every kid did their book report back then on you know,
Speaker 3: a booker Team Washington or you know.
Speaker 2: And so like I had this dream of, like, you.
Speaker 3: Know, being one of those people who argue in your
Speaker 3: thirdod Marshal, like arguing a case. And I mean like
Speaker 3: I thought, like being that kind of smart person who
Speaker 3: actually made change in the world, that'd be cool. So
Speaker 3: that was the plan and that was the goal. Uh.
Speaker 3: But you always saw this kind of creative bent underneath
Speaker 3: it that like, but no nobody does it. I'm from
Speaker 3: a military town. I mean where I grew up is
Speaker 3: you know, Virginia Beach. Virginia is the largest naval base
Speaker 3: in the world. So like, yeah, and all my friends,
Speaker 3: all of my parents, my dad was navy. Like, you know,
Speaker 3: arts was not a thing that people did for a living.
Speaker 3: You know, you love, you know, music is cool and
Speaker 3: everything like that, but that's other people do all that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff, you know, and I think it's not
Speaker 3: even a thing that was like, you know so but uh,
Speaker 3: you know, but second grade play, I robbed the line
Speaker 3: gotta laugh, you know, and it's stuck. It's stuck in
Speaker 3: the back of the brain.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in just a minute after a few
Speaker 1: words from our favorite sponsors. So then when you fast
Speaker 1: forward to, you know, joining a show like Gray's in
Speaker 1: twenty ten, did that feel intimidating? Were you excited? Had
Speaker 1: you watched the show before?
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, yeah, I mean look, I mean my wife
Speaker 3: and I when we work out, we work out separately,
Speaker 3: and she she will tend to watch her you know,
Speaker 3: quote unquote chick flicks, and I'll watch like just explosion
Speaker 3: after explosion.
Speaker 2: This is back in the day. Pandemic changed her. Now
Speaker 2: she's all blood and guts. Now she's like.
Speaker 3: Vikings and like, you know, yeah, apocalyptic, Like she's a
Speaker 3: whole different persons of the pandemic. And I'm like, you changed.
Speaker 3: As I clutch the pearls and look at her, I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know, sleeping with one eye open. But she would watch,
Speaker 3: you know, in the role was if whatever you're watching
Speaker 3: turn out to the really good, like the chick Flick
Speaker 3: turned out to be when Harry met Sally, stop it,
Speaker 3: bring it in, we'll watch it together, because now it's
Speaker 3: now it's Cinela, Now it's I mean or whatever. A
Speaker 3: friend of hers gave the DVD set of Gray's Anatomy
Speaker 3: and she got like two episodes and stopped it, came
Speaker 3: in and said you should watch this with me.
Speaker 2: And that was probably around.
Speaker 3: Season three or four or something like that, and so
Speaker 3: she and I started watching it, and I was like,
Speaker 3: this is dope. This is most men, Like you'd be
Speaker 3: surprised how many men totally have the fan reaction and
Speaker 3: then try and play it off like it's because why
Speaker 3: watch it my girlfriend a wife?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, honey, try being on One Tree Hill. It's
Speaker 1: the same thing.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent right, And you're like, bruh, if you
Speaker 3: knew my character name, you were not just watching, because.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're invested. My favorite vibe is always, like you know,
Speaker 1: being on location somewhere, everybody goes out for beers, like
Speaker 1: Friday night after you wrap, and there's always some guy
Speaker 1: in a bar that's like, oh, I know you, my
Speaker 1: girlfriend loves your show. And then I can tell when
Speaker 1: he's had like three or four beers and he's like
Speaker 1: when Brooke couldn't have a baby. I was that was
Speaker 1: just like really heavy and it really made me understand
Speaker 1: what women go through. And I'm like, yeah, your girlfriend
Speaker 1: loves the show.
Speaker 3: I guess right, get.
Speaker 2: Just one or two beers. Oh, you know an occasion guy,
Speaker 2: he'll be like, you know who just owned it? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I kind of thing. But I was out to dinner
Speaker 2: with a friend the other day and this is.
Speaker 3: Here in Los Angeles, and nobody in Los Angeles cares right,
Speaker 3: or at least you're supposed to play it off like
Speaker 3: you don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know what happened to dude.
Speaker 3: He stopped, but Grace is one of those shows that
Speaker 3: like will pierce that veil, and like dude was like
Speaker 3: he was like, came over to the table, just interrupted.
Speaker 3: I don't mean to interrupt, and you know, listen, can't
Speaker 3: get a photo, you know, and he was like, can
Speaker 3: I get a photo for my wife was a huge
Speaker 3: fan of the show and everything like that, don't you know.
Speaker 3: Oh boy got in there right next to me as
Speaker 3: he did the selfie the whole night.
Speaker 2: And I was like, right right, it's freet we are
Speaker 2: men of action.
Speaker 3: Lies.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's so sweet, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I really wanted to. So I was.
Speaker 3: I was a big fan of the show before I
Speaker 3: ever did it, And so I've been in the game
Speaker 3: for a minute before that. I've done like, you know,
Speaker 3: a bunch of series, and it'd been a while since
Speaker 3: i'd been nervous on a set. And that first day,
Speaker 3: maybe two days, I was like, I'll screw this up.
Speaker 3: And it was just a guest spot. It was literally
Speaker 3: just a guest spot. It was only oh, Ben was
Speaker 3: supposed to do like three four episodes and then like
Speaker 3: do Miranda dirty, like you know, cheating her, like be
Speaker 3: a player, and then like be out like break her
Speaker 3: heart is what I understand the storyline was supposed to be.
Speaker 3: I think they did that storyline with I think they
Speaker 3: pulled that storyline a little bit later on with with
Speaker 3: Joe Camilla's character. Okay, I think they did it a
Speaker 3: little bit later on with her character. And but for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, Shanda, god bless her, you know, said put.
Speaker 2: That ride for a minute.
Speaker 3: Let's not let's not end that just yet, and that
Speaker 3: was even when like, uh, because I had done a
Speaker 3: pilot for Shonda that that didn't go and that was
Speaker 3: my introduction into shondaaland got a great relationship with and
Speaker 3: everything like that. And then they offered me the guest
Speaker 3: spot to come and play Ben and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I just want to come through the show.
Speaker 2: I just want to hang out.
Speaker 3: And I was like but I also knew like the
Speaker 3: show at that point even had a history of like
Speaker 3: you start as a guest star, maybe you can stick
Speaker 3: around for a minute, but you know, you assume, you know,
Speaker 3: we're actors. You know, you're like, this is just gonna
Speaker 3: this is this is the gate. You show up, you
Speaker 3: join the circus for the day, and then you go
Speaker 3: home and do your thing well.
Speaker 1: And even when you're supposed to show up, maybe it's
Speaker 1: not going to happen. Like I was supposed to start
Speaker 1: a new project on Tuesday, and they were like, so
Speaker 1: we've lost the insurance on our main location and can
Speaker 1: you just stay in New York for a while. And
Speaker 1: I'm sit tight, Sit tight, and you're like, gall it,
Speaker 1: it's the circus. It's an industry, and it's it's technical
Speaker 1: and it's really well scheduled. And then it's also just
Speaker 1: like you're at the mercy of nonsense.
Speaker 3: A lot of moving parts we are, Cardiff. I mean like,
Speaker 3: you know, hey, man, we're not doing the show tonight.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're not doing the show tonight.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: You know, things get you know, any day, things can
Speaker 3: get canceled, that sort of thing. You know, So it's, uh,
Speaker 3: it's it's all that, but uh, but you know, it's stuck.
Speaker 3: It's even when I was doing other shows, they didn't
Speaker 3: move me off. I mean I did a because when
Speaker 3: I guest starred, I then did a pilot, uh another
Speaker 3: pilot for her that took and it was a series
Speaker 3: that we did for like six months in Hawaii, and
Speaker 3: and the fact they let me and again the power
Speaker 3: of having really good people who also happen to be
Speaker 3: tremendously powerful in the industry, you know, and you know,
Speaker 3: so they didn't eliminate my character, and I kept guest starting.
Speaker 3: So I would literally fly from Hawaii, fly back to
Speaker 3: like do a couple of episodes, you do like a
Speaker 3: couple of days on Grays, and then like go back.
Speaker 3: So that's amazing.
Speaker 2: It was real break. It was an absolute blessing.
Speaker 1: I also love when you've got people in power that
Speaker 1: don't kind of weaponize their ego. You know, so often
Speaker 1: you hear, well, once you're on a show, they're going
Speaker 1: to own you. Like they've got you. They'll never let
Speaker 1: you work on something else. And I think like the
Speaker 1: ripple effect of Shanda saying no, you will absolutely be
Speaker 1: on these two projects for me, and we're not going
Speaker 1: to give up a storyline just because good things are
Speaker 1: happening for you as a performer. You know. Now you
Speaker 1: cut to I mean the year that like Reese and
Speaker 1: Carrie Washington did little fires everywhere while Reese and Nicole
Speaker 1: Kidman and you know, Zoe Kravitz were doing big little lies,
Speaker 1: and it's like you could actually just go do the
Speaker 1: good work if you'd be willing to not say, well,
Speaker 1: if you're on one show, you can't be on this one.
Speaker 1: It's so dumb.
Speaker 2: Well, it's so dumb.
Speaker 3: And also the business that you and I have been
Speaker 3: here for a minute, the business is totally different than
Speaker 3: it was, and social media changed it. I mean, you
Speaker 3: know better than anybody, but it's you know, the cross planization.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, I'll bring the audience from that
Speaker 3: thing over to this thing and vice versa, like let's
Speaker 3: rise and tide floats all boats.
Speaker 2: So let's float some boats.
Speaker 3: People, Let's get out there, let's let's go. Let a
Speaker 3: thoroughbred run. And so that mentality, I suppose, the scarcy,
Speaker 3: the mentality of uh, you're you're you know, I don't
Speaker 3: share my toys and you want to buy toys. It's hey,
Speaker 3: everybody go have fun. I mean, I remember saying with
Speaker 3: Betsy Beers, who's a Shanda's producing partner, if you see Sean,
Speaker 3: you know, produce by Shonda Rhymes, you'll see produce by
Speaker 3: Betsy beersh She's a I joke with you. I jokingly
Speaker 3: say that, you know, she's the ginger Rogers to Shonda
Speaker 3: spread as fare makes the whole thing. Where Betsy was like,
Speaker 3: we believe in building a company, an old school theater
Speaker 3: company and keeping everybody happy. They're like if you're if
Speaker 3: you're happy, you're gonna work harder and better. And that's
Speaker 3: sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And that was the truth. Like I flew home, they
Speaker 2: they on off the map.
Speaker 3: When I was shooting in Hawaii, in addition to coming
Speaker 3: back to occasionally shoot Grace, I tried to turn down
Speaker 3: off the bat, you know, and at the time I
Speaker 3: was just moving into that, like, you know, offer only
Speaker 3: blah blah blah thah. I wasn't quite there, and so
Speaker 3: like they were like, I've done the pilot for Shonda.
Speaker 3: I get They'd offer me the guest spot to play
Speaker 3: Ben and then they were like, so Shanda wants you
Speaker 3: to come in and A well, no, the network wants
Speaker 3: you to come in an audition for the Shanda's New show.
Speaker 2: And I was like cool.
Speaker 3: I was super excited and then found I had shot
Speaker 3: in Hawaii and my oldest kid was in first grade,
Speaker 3: twins just started preschool. I was like, Dad needs to me,
Speaker 3: you know, military kid knows. I was like, no, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna big ill. You're not gonna forget my face. I
Speaker 3: need to be home. I can't do it. So I
Speaker 3: turned down the audition. They said, they want you to
Speaker 3: come in and test for can't do it, they said,
Speaker 3: And finally was like, they're straight off me there. I
Speaker 3: was like, I can't do and finally like Shonda called
Speaker 3: me and goes what the hell?
Speaker 2: And I was like cause I was like, you know.
Speaker 3: The whole time, I was like, if I go in
Speaker 3: with thelationship, I have now and looking at this role,
Speaker 3: I can do this role, I can kill this role,
Speaker 3: and it's exactly the kind of thing I want to do.
Speaker 3: And then they wrote the show so that like I
Speaker 3: had three day weekends, at least three day weekends, like
Speaker 3: at least three weekends a month. That's he was like,
Speaker 3: we're gonna screw it up once or twice, but we'll
Speaker 3: basically get you home three weekends out of the month
Speaker 3: for like a long weekend you can do the family thing.
Speaker 3: And I was like, that can work for my family thing.
Speaker 3: And the whole thing was they were like and by
Speaker 3: the way, if you watch the show, you'll never notice
Speaker 3: that the characters been I didn't even realize that. Like
Speaker 3: Audie McDonald, they did the same thing for her on
Speaker 3: private practice, which is why they were like, no, that's
Speaker 3: a doable thing. So she could get home there at
Speaker 3: the time, her kid was in New York, you know.
Speaker 3: So it was like having powerful people who, like you said,
Speaker 3: don't weaponize your ego. And in fact, just because the
Speaker 3: natural inclination is to say no to anybody in this town,
Speaker 3: because no means even when yes is obviously the right answer, yes,
Speaker 3: it's creatively right Yes, gets you more money, But yes
Speaker 3: means you got to learn new stuff. Yes means that
Speaker 3: we've got to you know, this thing's a week dip.
Speaker 3: No means things stay exactly the way they are. I
Speaker 3: don't have to rethink. I don't have to learn anything new.
Speaker 3: I don't have to change anything that I've been doing
Speaker 3: all along. But the same is also boring. Is a
Speaker 3: reason why we're in this business because we didn't want
Speaker 3: to sit behind the desk. We want to, like, you know,
Speaker 3: we want to explore new stuff. We want to get
Speaker 3: out there. Even you're doing the same job, every day
Speaker 3: is way different. I mean, so today we're going to
Speaker 3: blow something up. Today, you're going to reach into a
Speaker 3: woman's something can pull her baby out. You're gonna, you know,
Speaker 3: something insane is going to happen today. So uh yeah.
Speaker 3: So they when they say trying to find a way
Speaker 3: to make Yes work and then trying to went and
Speaker 3: wrote the book, her book.
Speaker 2: You know, Year of Yes, And I was like, so
Speaker 2: she's just you know, she inspired.
Speaker 3: Mese on multiple levels. And I think that she responded
Speaker 3: to the fact that I was actually trying to take
Speaker 3: care of my family.
Speaker 2: Yes, uh, And I think that's one of the things
Speaker 2: that like work for her.
Speaker 3: So it's that, I mean, she has a thing at
Speaker 3: the end of her email that says, uh, if you're
Speaker 3: she used to have it, I'm trying to remember if
Speaker 3: she still has it. It's that if you were reading
Speaker 3: this email after send clock at night, maybe go be
Speaker 3: with your people. Yeah, I mean, and like, that's your
Speaker 3: boss having right, but the priorities are straight. I'll do
Speaker 3: anything for I'll do That's.
Speaker 1: The kind of theater company I want to be in.
Speaker 3: Like, and that's I think there are more people in
Speaker 3: this business starting to get that, starting to realize's let's
Speaker 3: enjoy it. Let's not kill ourselves doing the job. Let's
Speaker 3: let the job actually feed our life instead of suck
Speaker 3: life out of us.
Speaker 1: Well, because that's the thing. If you turn, if you
Speaker 1: turn the immense good fortune to be creative for a
Speaker 1: living into a punishment, it feels like it feels like
Speaker 1: a like a multiplier of x kind of disservice, like
Speaker 1: we should be. Yes, the hours are grueling, Yes, it
Speaker 1: can be totally insane. Yes, having to be on a
Speaker 1: plane every seventy eight hours can be nuts. But how
Speaker 1: lucky Still, how lucky And like let's let it be fun.
Speaker 3: We make believe for living. It's the most fundamental human
Speaker 3: thing that has ever existed, and we get to do
Speaker 3: it for a living.
Speaker 2: It's an absolute blessing.
Speaker 3: So like, you know, you know, tired, sleepless, whatever, whatever,
Speaker 3: I'm like, hey man, the dream.
Speaker 1: The dream. Yeah, I love that. You got to also
Speaker 1: do something that you know, it's not as common in
Speaker 1: our business, but I got to do a little bit
Speaker 1: of it working across the network the universe rather of
Speaker 1: Dick Wolf shows, and you did it in Shondaland, and
Speaker 1: you went from Gray's on to Station nineteen back onto Grays.
Speaker 1: Like taking these characters out into bigger worlds, I think
Speaker 1: is just so cool. Like the day that I showed
Speaker 1: up for my first day on SVU as my character
Speaker 1: from PD, I just was like, what is happening? Like
Speaker 1: I'm having the best day. It was my most favorite
Speaker 1: part of my job. Was it super exciting for you
Speaker 1: to get to do that, to get to explore this
Speaker 1: new world but under the same umbrella one.
Speaker 3: Hundred I mean in this you know, I mean look
Speaker 3: and I can I can only imagine because I mean
Speaker 3: mine was we had the same experience with slightly different
Speaker 3: you going on SVU, because being a guest star is
Speaker 3: like the hardest job in all of Hollywood, with the
Speaker 3: possible exception of being a guest director, because you got
Speaker 3: to like because you're in somebody else's sandbox, but you've
Speaker 3: got to like bring this whole person. And on our show,
Speaker 3: I tell the guest stars all the time, I'm like
Speaker 3: extra love on the guest stars because they've got a
Speaker 3: boohoo with their like loved one dying on this you know,
Speaker 3: you know, the love of their life dying on the table,
Speaker 3: or their kid big, you know, and they've got to
Speaker 3: like carry so much emotional weight and all this crazy
Speaker 3: stuff and then be funny in the middle of it
Speaker 3: and all this stuff. And they're like they know they're
Speaker 3: on this like show that's been around for twenty one
Speaker 3: you know, it's like this juggernaut, and so like they're
Speaker 3: they're really out of their element, and they've got to be.
Speaker 3: They got to do this thing that is only done
Speaker 3: well when you are most comfortable. I mean act, You've
Speaker 3: got to be You've got to be comfortable in order
Speaker 3: to act properly. So I always feel like I got
Speaker 3: to cheat, you know, you got cheat a little bit.
Speaker 3: You're going into you know, Mariska's territory, but you're playing
Speaker 3: a character that you knew intimately. You know this character
Speaker 3: inside and out down to our DNA, so you still knew, like,
Speaker 3: I know this character. So even though this is not
Speaker 3: my set, this character is my joint. I got this,
Speaker 3: you know. I got to take a character that I
Speaker 3: knew intimately and go to a show that was being created.
Speaker 2: And helped create that atmosphere.
Speaker 1: How cool.
Speaker 3: So to like be on the ground floor of like yo,
Speaker 3: like this is in the greatest compliment. I'm about to
Speaker 3: get tierry for a second, because you know, we just
Speaker 3: rapped nineteen only a few months ago. I literally two
Speaker 3: nights ago, had had drinks with my my DP and
Speaker 3: first a D on the episodes that I directed. They're
Speaker 3: in there there, my guys, and uh. But Peter Page,
Speaker 3: the showrunner of the show, said to me and we
Speaker 3: were just talking about the other day and they were
Speaker 3: laughing because his compliment to me was, you don't know
Speaker 3: how much grief we escaped because it was understood amongst
Speaker 3: cast and crew.
Speaker 2: Oh, Jason would never like that's fly.
Speaker 3: I mean like like, oh, you're about to throw one
Speaker 3: at it's like, and I'm all about respect. So if
Speaker 3: you disrespect me, we got a problem.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to talk to you in.
Speaker 3: An intellectual like way, like we're gonna like you will
Speaker 3: not disrespect me. But I also do not do diva
Speaker 3: Like diva is not It does not play in my world.
Speaker 3: And you know, you know, And so that was the
Speaker 3: thing that like he said that to me, and I
Speaker 3: was like, I've been good with the ending of the
Speaker 3: show up to that point, you know, and like that
Speaker 3: was when I was like, you're not gonna make me.
Speaker 2: Correct, go get me, don't do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we'll be back in just minute. But here's
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsors. I also love that that
Speaker 1: was something so well respected in you. I think that
Speaker 1: speaks to the environment. You know. I like to sit
Speaker 1: squarely in that space as well, treat everyone with immense respect.
Speaker 1: Especially I like to go out of my way to make,
Speaker 1: as you were saying, guest stars feel really comfortable, especially
Speaker 1: if someone's going to come in for an arc, you know,
Speaker 1: seven years into a show. I was just talking to
Speaker 1: my girlfriend from Wintree Hill, my friend Janna, about this,
Speaker 1: and she was like, I never even told you what
Speaker 1: it meant to me, like when I showed up there
Speaker 1: for three months that you took me to dinner, you
Speaker 1: took me shopping, you showed me around town. I was like, girl,
Speaker 1: I remember what it felt like to show up on
Speaker 1: that set and be terrified.
Speaker 2: Like I get it right, that's and that's what is.
Speaker 2: It's remembering it like never forgetting what it is.
Speaker 3: I think that's like Shonda's superpower or like Taylor Swift's superpower.
Speaker 3: Is what's like to be a fan?
Speaker 1: Yes, oh my god, me neither. My friend's making fun
Speaker 1: of me all the time. We'll go to you know
Speaker 1: whatever we got to go do, like the SAG Awards,
Speaker 1: and they're like, you are a famous person. You can't
Speaker 1: behave this way around other famous people.
Speaker 3: I'm like, but do you know what it is like?
Speaker 1: And I like that it's never I've never gotten jaded
Speaker 1: about it. And what I'm happy to see shifting is
Speaker 1: like that thing you talk about. There's such leadership and strength.
Speaker 1: And I think particularly for you, as you know, a
Speaker 1: charismatic man with a nice voice like you get to
Speaker 1: come in and say this is what respect looks like.
Speaker 1: Years ago for me, I would find that if I
Speaker 1: would talk about where the boundaries were, like respect is
Speaker 1: required and this kind of behavior won't be tolerated in
Speaker 1: this workplace. I got a lot of like, well, you
Speaker 1: can't talk to people about that, that's not your job.
Speaker 1: And I was like why because I'm the girl and
Speaker 1: I'm just supposed to be nice, sweet and cute. And
Speaker 1: it's a cool experience too. I think see sets with
Speaker 1: diverse kinds of leadership, whether that's in terms of you know, gender, race,
Speaker 1: whatever diversity qualifier you want to fill in, because the
Speaker 1: more diversity of leadership there is, the more respect there
Speaker 1: is for different kinds of leadership as well. And you
Speaker 1: see how that makes everybody feel more respected and empowered
Speaker 1: to be the best worker. They can be the best leader,
Speaker 1: they can be the best partner, they can be the
Speaker 1: best advocate they can be. And like I got to
Speaker 1: say again, just as a you know, as a fan
Speaker 1: and a peer, watching the way you navigate that in
Speaker 1: the conversations you've been willing to have about what a
Speaker 1: hair and makeup trailer should be capable of. So the
Speaker 1: actors of color don't walk into a set and go, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be taken care of here. What
Speaker 1: the vibe should be on set where everyone feels immensely respected,
Speaker 1: but nobody has the you know, and nobody has the
Speaker 1: space to be difficult. How you have to be professional
Speaker 1: and you deserve to be treated well, but you shouldn't
Speaker 1: have your ego stroked. How you have a platform, you
Speaker 1: have to spend that privilege and do good for the world,
Speaker 1: Like you're out here doing all the things that I
Speaker 1: believe in in the core of my being. And so
Speaker 1: I don't know, I hope it doesn't sound like cheesy,
Speaker 1: but I also want to say thank you because we
Speaker 1: are part of a circus and when we go out
Speaker 1: and advocate sometimes people say, well, how dare you And
Speaker 1: it's like, y'all, we're just here because we're like weird
Speaker 1: union workers, so of course we're going to defend unions,
Speaker 1: and of course we're going to defend our people. And
Speaker 1: so I don't know. When I see other people like
Speaker 1: carrying all, you know, putting all of those things in
Speaker 1: their backpack and marching along, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: No, I got mad love for you.
Speaker 3: I mean not to turn it into the mutual love fest,
Speaker 3: but but you know, look, my mom would say, you know,
Speaker 3: when you have eyes on you. It's your duty to
Speaker 3: turn that days to what they need to be looking at.
Speaker 2: I mean, don't make it about you.
Speaker 3: Make it about like, look at this thing that's really
Speaker 3: important or like you should be making and you are
Speaker 3: all about that have been since day one, and use
Speaker 3: the platform good and then the whole and then this
Speaker 3: world where people are like, you know, shut up and dribble.
Speaker 3: Celebrities should keep their mouths shut, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: everybody should be talking, but everybody should be making sure
Speaker 3: they actually really do their research and have their stuff type.
Speaker 3: I mean, so you know, like I have friends who
Speaker 3: are like, how do you not get blow Like I
Speaker 3: don't get that much blowback when I advocate for stuff
Speaker 3: on social media. I'm like, how do you not get
Speaker 3: the blowback? And I go, well, part of it is
Speaker 3: I say it like I'm sitting with you at the
Speaker 3: dinner table. I mean, because I'm from a like I said,
Speaker 3: a military town in Virginia, a very purple state, you know,
Speaker 3: Like I have tons of friends that are very conservative,
Speaker 3: very religious, very right, you know that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: if I talk to you and we're trying to solve
Speaker 3: a problem as opposed to win some theoretical debate. I mean,
Speaker 3: if I talk like a human being, then you can't
Speaker 3: get that. You can't get mad. I mean, we can disagree,
Speaker 3: but you can't, you know, like so like in solving
Speaker 3: the problems on sets, or solving the problems in the industry,
Speaker 3: and I mean like working with SAG after and being
Speaker 3: in rooms.
Speaker 2: I was in the.
Speaker 3: Negotiating room for you when we went on strike, and
Speaker 3: there was are you know, knee deep in that. But
Speaker 3: there have been three times where I was ever where
Speaker 3: I thought to myself, I think I just ended my career.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I was like, I'm gonna go home.
Speaker 3: My wife's going to be really really upset with me.
Speaker 3: She was like, maybe you should shut them up. But
Speaker 3: the reality is it doesn't happen. And the reason why
Speaker 3: is because business is business. And when you approach business
Speaker 3: from a take care of your workers. I'm one of
Speaker 3: your workers. Here's what we need to do a better
Speaker 3: job for you and for us, like help us, help you, right,
Speaker 3: you know, And so when you approach it from the
Speaker 3: we're trying to solve problems here, I'm going to show you,
Speaker 3: mister City Executive, mister cdeo, mister whoever it is that's
Speaker 3: in position of power, that's management. I'm going to show
Speaker 3: you problems that are problems for us that will become
Speaker 3: your problem. Yes, Like if I if I don't have
Speaker 3: health care, that's going to become your problem. Very free.
Speaker 3: I mean if I do't have if I can't feed
Speaker 3: my family, if I have to get a second job,
Speaker 3: guess what my productivity at you is going to go
Speaker 3: weigh down, Like, so let's help me help you.
Speaker 2: And when you come in from that.
Speaker 3: Standpoint, it's real hard to get mad at folks. You know,
Speaker 3: they might be annoyed because it's like it's going to
Speaker 3: cost me money. But again, it's a business. You got
Speaker 3: to spend money to make money. Bro, you knew that
Speaker 3: you got in the gate, you knew you know, it's
Speaker 3: what you started up for. So when you approach it
Speaker 3: from that kind of like, let's solve problems, not win
Speaker 3: debates or win fights, Yes, then I think people chill out.
Speaker 3: And I think when you go on social media and
Speaker 3: you're trying to solve problems and you talk to people
Speaker 3: like they're actually instead of looking for the ultimate clap
Speaker 3: back and you know, let me uh, you know, let
Speaker 3: me make sure I get my likes.
Speaker 2: It's like I will take fewer likes and actually have
Speaker 2: people actually.
Speaker 3: Hear my same instead of just preaching to people who
Speaker 3: agree with me and just want to shout down the
Speaker 3: other side and win that absolutely win some philosophical debate.
Speaker 1: What was it like sitting on the board because you know,
Speaker 1: now you're also the chair of the National Union's Diversity
Speaker 1: Advisory Committee, so you have stayed in this leadership role
Speaker 1: in SAG since the strike. And one of the things
Speaker 1: I found really impressive about it is that it finally
Speaker 1: helped poke holes in this illusion that like all the
Speaker 1: Hollywood people are privileged, you know, and that everyone's just
Speaker 1: rolling in money. It's like, no, most of us are
Speaker 1: circus performers and most of the people in our union
Speaker 1: are working paycheck to paycheck, Like, come on, y'all at best,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think people finally, especially I thought
Speaker 1: it was really really powerful when Taraji opened up about
Speaker 1: what it actually looks looks like to be a business
Speaker 1: as an entertainer, and you start to say like, yeah, guys,
Speaker 1: if I make a dollar, my agent makes ten cents,
Speaker 1: my manager makes ten cents. My lawyer takes, you know,
Speaker 1: depending on the job, five to ten cents. A publicist
Speaker 1: takes ten cents. If you have an assistant to help
Speaker 1: you manage your life because you're on set for eighteen
Speaker 1: hours a day, they're taking ten cents. The government's taken
Speaker 1: thirty seven. Like, got I got to make a dollar
Speaker 1: to maybe take home ten or fifteen cents? And people go,
Speaker 1: oh shit, and it's like, yeah, I eat. Everybody eats.
Speaker 1: It's kind of why when we talk about like healthcare,
Speaker 1: we're like, well, there is enough money, Like maybe if
Speaker 1: we didn't charge thirty thousand dollars for an MRI that
Speaker 1: you know, oversees costs a nine hundred bucks, Like, there
Speaker 1: is actually enough money to keep the people healthy. You
Speaker 1: just got to split it up a little bit better.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people went, oh, we
Speaker 1: didn't realize this about your industry. We didn't understand what
Speaker 1: your unions did. We didn't totally get that. You know,
Speaker 1: the Actors' union's on set with the construction Union and
Speaker 1: the transportation union. It's like, yeah, we're just a bunch
Speaker 1: of weirdos, like hanging out trying to entertain you. I
Speaker 1: thought it was so powerful to tell more of the
Speaker 1: truth and to really talk about workers' rights from you know,
Speaker 1: these platforms that we have, as you say, you know,
Speaker 1: to I always the way your mom talks about I
Speaker 1: always say like, oh, if you turn the spotlight on me,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna grab it and turn it back like over here.
Speaker 1: And I guess I just wonder, like, after all these years,
Speaker 1: you know, because you talk about your career, and obviously
Speaker 1: fourteen years in Shondaland is huge, but like you have,
Speaker 1: you know, more than fifty guest starring roles in nine
Speaker 1: series regular roles, and like you have been a working
Speaker 1: actor for a long time. What was it like to
Speaker 1: rather than just get behind the camera, like get behind
Speaker 1: the boardroom table and really start to see inside union leadership.
Speaker 3: No, it's funny because actually that's that's that precedes any
Speaker 3: of the what people did describe a success and acting.
Speaker 1: Wait, your your work with the union.
Speaker 3: I've been working with the union since like for almost
Speaker 3: my entire time in the industry. Uh, to be dead dead.
Speaker 2: Honestly, do not know that I'm a union kid.
Speaker 3: I'm a super labor guy because unions built the middle
Speaker 3: class in this country. You know, you like having they
Speaker 3: worked with it. They can't you know, they can't work
Speaker 3: you seven days a week for four hours a day.
Speaker 3: You know your union did that. You're welcome. I mean
Speaker 3: most people get their health insurance through their work because
Speaker 3: unions fought for it.
Speaker 2: I mean unions eight hour work days.
Speaker 1: I could just go on and on and on, workers
Speaker 1: compensation for injury at work, all of it.
Speaker 2: My mom was president of the teachers Union where I
Speaker 2: grew up.
Speaker 3: UH, And my mom was a She taught learning disabled
Speaker 3: kids UH in middle school in Norvil, Virginia.
Speaker 2: Then you know Norfolk, Virginia.
Speaker 3: Basically it's all right, there's one city, like you drive
Speaker 3: five minutes here in Norfolk. And she was the president
Speaker 3: of the Novel Education Association, and then when she retired
Speaker 3: from the classroom, she went to work for the Virginia
Speaker 3: Beach Education Association throughout the Virginia Education Association is like,
Speaker 3: I can't tell you how many when I you know,
Speaker 3: I'll do I'll still do, you know, I'll you know,
Speaker 3: Virginia politics, how many like people who are in an
Speaker 3: elected office know my mom and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: She's just that person, she like is not a quiet woman,
Speaker 3: and she is like this force of nature kind of person.
Speaker 3: Having that as my north star. As I'm thinking about
Speaker 3: becoming an actor, there were two things. I was like,
Speaker 3: let me figure out, and this is her thing from
Speaker 3: being an educator, I'm following on this. She would never
Speaker 3: say no. She would ask me questions until you either
Speaker 3: realize it was a stupid idea or you had a plan. Right,
Speaker 3: So eventually, unless you're an idiot, you start figuring out
Speaker 3: the questions she's going to ask you and start finding
Speaker 3: solutions to those answers, so it sounds like you actually
Speaker 3: had a plan and coming in, so you don't sell
Speaker 3: like the idiot when you realize, oh, that was a
Speaker 3: really dumb idea, you're right and you got answers for
Speaker 3: so as I'm thinking I want to become an actor,
Speaker 3: I was like, actors never work, how do you know?
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah blah, And I realized I wanted to
Speaker 3: go to go graduate school only because everybody comes to
Speaker 3: LA takes acting classes. I was like, well, let me
Speaker 3: go do nothing but acting classes, like not have to
Speaker 3: do a day job. So for three years I just
Speaker 3: was in eight in the morning to five.
Speaker 4: At night, class, sixth at night to it to a
Speaker 4: ten at night rehearsals for the play you were doing,
Speaker 4: and then you woulds the scenes that you had for
Speaker 4: the other part of the day, so like literally, and
Speaker 4: then on Saturdays it was ten in the morning to
Speaker 4: sixth at nine, Right.
Speaker 3: So graduate school was going to get me the ability
Speaker 3: to teach acting, so that could be my day job, right,
Speaker 3: teach acting. And then the second thing was there's this union, right,
Speaker 3: there's this union that protects you. That's where you it
Speaker 3: was an actor. You know, it's like suddenly in my
Speaker 3: mind because of my mother's kid and I knew this
Speaker 3: is the response to her when she asked the question.
Speaker 3: You're an actor, you're on your own. It's you versus
Speaker 3: the entire world. And I'm like, there's a union and
Speaker 3: means you never own your own. That's the whole. So
Speaker 3: you know, unions where you get your health insurance, unions
Speaker 3: where you get your pension. Right, I didn't even know about.
Speaker 3: I wasn't even think about, but I heard that.
Speaker 2: I just knew my mom.
Speaker 3: Cared about those things. I was like, you know, I
Speaker 3: was twenty, you know what I mean. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 3: not thinking about a pension, but I knew she cared
Speaker 3: about a pension.
Speaker 2: Being able to say that Union gives.
Speaker 3: Me a pension. She cared, so I started showing up.
Speaker 3: But this is where Rammed Home for Me was on
Speaker 3: my very first gig. It was this daytime soap that
Speaker 3: I did for Aaron Spelling, Rest of His Soul. He
Speaker 3: also put me my first primetime gig. Somebody called and said,
Speaker 3: we're you know, daytime soaps aren't usually syndicated internationally. It's
Speaker 3: Aaron Spelling, so we were. We were like on one
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty countries around the world, Like there are
Speaker 3: people I had met people in Zimbabwe who are like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, And it was funny because it was actually
Speaker 3: when I finally went to Zimbabwe, people knew that show
Speaker 3: and they knew greats and that made me laugh hard
Speaker 3: because I got involved with the Union because literally somebody said, hey,
Speaker 3: my friend was traveling in Zimbabwe and apparently we're on
Speaker 3: the aeron Zimbabwe this Aaron Spelling soap opera, and I said,
Speaker 3: that's so cool. Did we get a Zimbabwe check? And
Speaker 3: nobody knew if we got a Zimbabwe check, So I
Speaker 3: contacted the Union and turns out we hadn't gotten our
Speaker 3: Zimbabwe check. Turns out our Zimbabwe check was way overdue,
Speaker 3: and so the union got us our check and got
Speaker 3: us the penalty payment on top of it. I mean,
Speaker 3: for me, how many days late? And I was like
Speaker 3: union got From that point on, I was sticking my
Speaker 3: nose into it because I was like, if we do
Speaker 3: need to go out on strike, I want to I
Speaker 3: want to know exactly what it's about, to know that
Speaker 3: it's righteous and we don't need to go out on strike.
Speaker 3: I want to make sure that we don't have somebody
Speaker 3: taking the trains off the tracks ego or our lives
Speaker 3: kind of thing. You know. It was like I want
Speaker 3: to you know, what's the handle, and then I want
Speaker 3: to be in the room where it happened. I was
Speaker 3: able to do that. So I've been on negotiating committee
Speaker 3: since like two thousand and one, stuff like that, and
Speaker 3: it was cool and even that first one, like I
Speaker 3: was able to and then realize that this is what
Speaker 3: I preach about the union is all you need is
Speaker 3: your work experience. You need to know anything about how
Speaker 3: all the rest of this crap works. You don't need
Speaker 3: to speak lawyer. You need to be a lawyer. You
Speaker 3: don't need to speak lawyer. You don't need to speak
Speaker 3: contract language. Be an actor and have some experiences and
Speaker 3: as an actor, and we have union leaders and we
Speaker 3: have staff lawyers and staff that will translate your work
Speaker 3: experience into.
Speaker 2: Contract language to help solve problems, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I remember the first in that very first
Speaker 3: negotiation up there, and they were and we were trying
Speaker 3: to pass a thing about what's called paint downs, which
Speaker 3: is where the stunt community.
Speaker 2: It's a problem with the stun community.
Speaker 3: Occasionally it's not huge, but when it shows up, it's
Speaker 3: so egregious. It freaks people out because it's literally getting
Speaker 3: me a person of color and a stunt. My stunt
Speaker 3: double will be a Caucasian person and you literally use
Speaker 3: make them to paint them down, to literally put them
Speaker 3: in black face, to double me. Oh, it's the equivalent
Speaker 3: where they get a man to double you. And usually
Speaker 3: the reason why is, you know, safety's paramount, and safety
Speaker 3: is always paramount, but the excuse is always well, we
Speaker 3: need to do it safely, and we couldn't find a
Speaker 3: woman to do it, or we couldn't do it safely
Speaker 3: and we couldn't find a person of color to do it.
Speaker 2: And I'm like you didn't look hard.
Speaker 1: You just didn't look hard enough.
Speaker 3: Because I and I had exactly that experience just three
Speaker 3: months before that negotiation. And in that negotiation, literally I'll
Speaker 3: never forget this, one really curmudgeonly person on the other
Speaker 3: side of the table was like, this is in the
Speaker 3: nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: That doesn't happen.
Speaker 3: And I was able to raise my hand and go
Speaker 3: three months to me, and then instantly we were in
Speaker 3: a side room because they just you know, and we
Speaker 3: were getting contract language, you know.
Speaker 2: And the problem is you never solve a problem.
Speaker 3: So I feel like sol often you don't solve the problem,
Speaker 3: you're managing it. Because we had to come back for
Speaker 3: the same problem ten years later and then another seven
Speaker 3: years later and we dealt with it. So this contract,
Speaker 3: but you come forward and it's the work experience that
Speaker 3: means something. So it's yeah, So for me, I understand
Speaker 3: you being a part of the union and how much
Speaker 3: the union protects to me, and how much you showing
Speaker 3: up and using your voice and putting your experience and
Speaker 3: advocating for yourself and for your peers means more than
Speaker 3: I understand what it means to be a you know,
Speaker 3: TV star. Yes, absolutely, that's newer in my world than
Speaker 3: the union piece.
Speaker 1: And now a word from our sponsors who make this
Speaker 1: show possible even as a woman. Like in our last
Speaker 1: contract negotiation when we were trying to increase protections for
Speaker 1: women on set, there were we did a side call
Speaker 1: because I was like, listen, I have not been in
Speaker 1: this position, but hypothetical, Okay, let's say we have to
Speaker 1: go do an episode of Westworld on HBO show a
Speaker 1: lot of nudity, especially with women. You know, you get
Speaker 1: into some of those Western towns and like these background
Speaker 1: girls they're essentially shooting like you know what looks to
Speaker 1: be orgies, and they're like, well, now it's going to be.
Speaker 1: If you show up on set and they tell you
Speaker 1: as a background doctor you have to be naked, you
Speaker 1: can say no and leave with no penalty. And I
Speaker 1: was like, do y'all think women trying to get their
Speaker 1: foot in the door who have no power can leave
Speaker 1: and potentially there's supposed to be fifty of them in
Speaker 1: the scene and twenty five of them leave, And you
Speaker 1: think those women aren't going to get blackballed by that
Speaker 1: first d a D staff for fucking up their shot. Day
Speaker 1: of said absolutely, not. There has to be language in advance,
Speaker 1: like you should know two days before your set call
Speaker 1: if you are expected to be without your clothing, so
Speaker 1: you can say I'm actually unavailable and they can find
Speaker 1: someone else and nobody needs to know why. Yeah have
Speaker 1: to protect these people. And it was really interesting to
Speaker 1: see some members of the committee go oh, and I
Speaker 1: was like, you've just you've never been a woman on
Speaker 1: a set. You don't know and that's why. Yes, of course,
Speaker 1: And by the way, that's why I bring it up
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I loved seeing that language make it in.
Speaker 1: But it required people being like, no one will say
Speaker 1: you're going to be black bald, but they'll they'll they'll
Speaker 1: get pretty close. And what we have to do is
Speaker 1: eradicate the circumstance where someone could be black bald in
Speaker 1: the first place. And it's like, that's what I find
Speaker 1: exciting about what you're saying for anyone listening at home. Look,
Speaker 1: we're talking about our experiences as actors. But your experience
Speaker 1: in the workplace can make your workplace better. You can
Speaker 1: be the aha moment. You can turn on the light
Speaker 1: bulb for people, whether it's you know, inside your own union,
Speaker 1: or you turn around and realize that because of your job,
Speaker 1: you have power in another sector. It's like, it's what
Speaker 1: you're doing with Brady, which is you know so close
Speaker 1: to my heart, Like I got my first rifle when
Speaker 1: I was Oh my dad, you know, he spent his
Speaker 1: summers on a chicken farm in Canada. Like I'm not
Speaker 1: an anti gun person. I am vehemently anti insane gun
Speaker 1: laws like we have in America, but to create healthier circumstance,
Speaker 1: Like you know, my dad's history is his my mom's
Speaker 1: father was a navy guy, Like you talk about growing
Speaker 1: up in a military family. Like you know, I did
Speaker 1: weapons work in TV. I've done it on films, Like
Speaker 1: I'm excited about the sanity conversation that you guys are
Speaker 1: having it Brady, that you know Vice President Harris and
Speaker 1: now Governor Wallaser having with us, Like you know, they
Speaker 1: were like he's coming for the guns, and people like
Speaker 1: put out that cute photo of him and his dog
Speaker 1: like out burning with a rightfle.
Speaker 2: And I was like, y'all this is it doesn't have.
Speaker 1: To be crazy. We can have sane conversations. How did
Speaker 1: you know in addition to all your advocacy for the
Speaker 1: union and our industry. How did the sane gun ownership
Speaker 1: and reining in the conversation about you know, guns and
Speaker 1: gun violence. How did that get on your radar?
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I mean the short answer is, I'm
Speaker 2: a dad.
Speaker 3: I mean, and it gets you paying attention to you know,
Speaker 3: because when you're young and single, you're invincible.
Speaker 2: You can you know, I'm indestructible, you can't do anything.
Speaker 3: And then you start thinking about the things that can
Speaker 3: hurt your kids and you realize that they've hurt people.
Speaker 3: That sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Now that's it.
Speaker 3: I'd also and does the world start to pay more
Speaker 3: attention to it? And started to think about guns differently.
Speaker 3: I started to realize things. You know, my cousin, Daryl
Speaker 3: Whipman was was shot and killed and his murder never found.
Speaker 3: I mean, you don't think of that as gun violence.
Speaker 3: You think of that as like, you know, a senseless killing.
Speaker 3: And they said that, so there's things involved and blah
Speaker 3: blah blah. And then like I have members of my
Speaker 3: family who've had crazy domestic abuse issues, guns involved, threatened
Speaker 3: with guns, that sort of thing. But that's domestic but
Speaker 3: that's a whole separate thing that's not gun violence. And
Speaker 3: then you're like, and then I know, we actually have
Speaker 3: a dear family friend who was the flip side of
Speaker 3: that domestic violence scenario where he and the mother of
Speaker 3: his daughter made each other insane because they had that
Speaker 3: passionate on again off again, would test each other, proke
Speaker 3: each other's blogs president and then he had too easy
Speaker 3: access of a gun and he will never see the
Speaker 3: outside of a prison again. And the testament to how
Speaker 3: much that was not him was that the victim's mother,
Speaker 3: his daughter's grandmother, testified that he should not get the
Speaker 3: death penalty.
Speaker 2: But that was not him.
Speaker 3: And at the end of the day, you've got to
Speaker 3: put it on. Everybody snaps and says things they don't mean.
Speaker 3: Every once in a while, hopefully it's every once in
Speaker 3: a long while, you have a moment where you uncharacteristically
Speaker 3: loud or do something out of character. A gun in
Speaker 3: close proximity makes that horrible and in ways that you
Speaker 3: can never take back, and that will change everyone's life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes that regrettable thing you said, a horrifically
Speaker 1: unimaginable thing that no one can believe you did. And
Speaker 1: that's heavy.
Speaker 3: And so all of those things started to coalesce in
Speaker 3: the I started realizing gun violence has been affecting my
Speaker 3: life all this time, and I'm looking at my kids
Speaker 3: now having to do you know, active shooter drills, and
Speaker 3: how traumatizing that can be because you know, you don't
Speaker 3: want your kid to think about it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: we did fire drills and like that was like that
Speaker 3: was annoying, but hey, we got to get outside for
Speaker 3: a little bit. I remember bringing in elementary school, but
Speaker 3: the idea that somebody was going to come and try
Speaker 3: and hurt you was a far more threatening, you know.
Speaker 3: And now we're looking and that. You know, then the
Speaker 3: more you start to pay attention, the more you start
Speaker 3: to freak out and realize that, Like there were laws
Speaker 3: that said that we couldn't research gun violence for decades,
Speaker 3: which was insane, Like we can't research this thing. That's
Speaker 3: how partisan it had become. That's how we'rediculously about people
Speaker 3: trying to win a fight as opposed to solve the problem. Yes,
Speaker 3: we're going to solve the problem. Let's just research it.
Speaker 3: Like I'm not even saying we're going to pass a law.
Speaker 3: I'm saying, let's just let's just get real numbers and
Speaker 3: facts on the table.
Speaker 2: So we can all talk about it. And when that
Speaker 2: went away.
Speaker 3: Now we're having this open floodgates of information where we're realizing,
Speaker 3: you know, the number one cause of death for children
Speaker 3: in America today is guns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's that's nuts. That's that's sugges nuts.
Speaker 1: And and you know every other country people struggle with depression,
Speaker 1: people are having a hard time at work, people have anxiety.
Speaker 1: They all watch the same movies we do and play
Speaker 1: the same video games we do. It's the guns, It's.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, we're you know, the idea that you know,
Speaker 3: you know, the going thing that stops the back guy
Speaker 3: with the gun is a good guy with the gun
Speaker 3: or guns making people taper. You're like, we have four
Speaker 3: times as many guns. We have four times as many
Speaker 3: uh you know guns, as much gun violence is yeah,
Speaker 3: as any other country in the world.
Speaker 2: And that's just not an accent.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think we've we've seen, we have enough
Speaker 1: proof to know that that adage is just not accurate.
Speaker 1: You know, women are five times more likely to die
Speaker 1: in a domestic violence situation if there is a gun
Speaker 1: in the house. We have seen, I mean we saw
Speaker 1: it in Uvaldi. What happened at that school in Texas.
Speaker 1: How many armed, trained, good guys with guns were there
Speaker 1: and those children were executed, you know, very similarly to
Speaker 1: your family story. My little cousin was the little girl
Speaker 1: shot and killed the day Gabby Gifford's was shot in Arizona,
Speaker 1: and you know, she was an elected official. There were
Speaker 1: armed police. It's like this idea that more guns helps
Speaker 1: has been disproven, and I think I think in particular,
Speaker 1: it's important for folks like us to help have these
Speaker 1: conversations because it is is you know, the the on
Speaker 1: screen firefighters or cops. It is the movies about the
Speaker 1: good guys that make us think like, oh, it's doable.
Speaker 1: We love a hero story. But data is not a story,
Speaker 1: and data is not an opinion, and data is not
Speaker 1: an emotion. It's just fact, and we have the facts.
Speaker 3: It's inconvenient.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's why they tried to make it illegal to
Speaker 1: research gun violence for so long, because it was inconvenient
Speaker 1: to the profit of the gun industry.
Speaker 2: And that's why I'm so proud of the Brady campaign
Speaker 2: doing the trigger warning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you tell us about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a guy that they literally are going to
Speaker 3: the media. I mean, you just hit the nail on
Speaker 3: the head that you know, how many people learned, you know,
Speaker 3: learned to think that smoking was cool because they watched
Speaker 3: people do it in the movies, and that's sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Well, we all learned to think that guns are cool
Speaker 2: because we watched movies and TV.
Speaker 3: Well, Brady campaign is, you know, trigger Warning is about
Speaker 3: let's have conversations with the industry to figure out how
Speaker 3: to make gun safety cool. Right. Yeah, and again not
Speaker 3: anti gun. You said, you know you shoot, I'm a
Speaker 3: good shot. Every I grewup around guns my entire life.
Speaker 3: The reality is when you see the cop shooting at
Speaker 3: the bad guys, he runs down the street and he
Speaker 3: gets an he's heroic, and everybody pats him on the
Speaker 3: back for you know, getting the bad guy of all.
Speaker 3: You know, let's let's roll it back and say, let's
Speaker 3: have the cop get yelled at you because you know,
Speaker 3: one we begin to think that all cops are firing
Speaker 3: at bad guys all the time and that's cool. And
Speaker 3: then you find out that like something like one in
Speaker 3: four police officers have ever fired their gun in a
Speaker 3: line of dude, you suddenly go, oh, that's a completely
Speaker 3: disproportioned idea. Of what's going on.
Speaker 2: So let's let's make it a more realistic scenario you can.
Speaker 3: Let's find another way to make it cool in action
Speaker 3: without necessarily or let's have the cop get yelled at
Speaker 3: for firing in a crowd.
Speaker 1: Yes, out in public where you could have endangered the
Speaker 1: lives of other people.
Speaker 3: Right, we percussions for the discharge of your weapon and
Speaker 3: that sort of thing, and then simple little things like uh,
Speaker 3: like you know, how many movies have you seen where
Speaker 3: they know they have a gun underneath their pillow, they
Speaker 3: have a gun in their in their side.
Speaker 2: I mean, we have candidates.
Speaker 3: Talking about how their grandmother had guns in this drawer
Speaker 3: and that drawer and guns all over the house, and
Speaker 3: I just thought, that's just begging for somebody to catch
Speaker 3: a bullet.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean again, another stat for you.
Speaker 3: One out of every four kids says that they have
Speaker 3: handled a gun without their parents.
Speaker 2: Knowing about it.
Speaker 3: Yes, so the kids are and as a mischievous kid,
Speaker 3: I guarantee you your kid knows where your gun is.
Speaker 3: I guarantee you. You know, if you have multiple kids,
Speaker 3: at least one of them is figured out where it
Speaker 3: is and you know, and then it is showing it
Speaker 3: to friends and seyada YadA YadA. We all know these
Speaker 3: stories and people think about it may be part of
Speaker 3: these stories, and then you know, these are the moments
Speaker 3: when I go, how did we not die back in
Speaker 3: the day, Yes, there is you were lucky because there
Speaker 3: are kids that do you know eight kids die every day,
Speaker 3: and so it's the so like so if you have
Speaker 3: in the show, if you see the cop come home
Speaker 3: from work, they didn't discharge their their weapon. They got
Speaker 3: the you know, information that they got the bad guy
Speaker 3: in a more responsible, more realistic way. They come home,
Speaker 3: they take their gun out and they put it into
Speaker 3: their they then into the secure box.
Speaker 2: Then that becomes just cool.
Speaker 3: That becomes the way you handle this as opposed to
Speaker 3: this wild West mens out I mean, and again we
Speaker 3: changed mythology. We think the wild West was so wild
Speaker 3: there were tons of towns in the wild West where
Speaker 3: you had to leave your gun at the border of
Speaker 3: the town, where you couldn't come into town with your guns.
Speaker 1: Specifically because we've never seen that on screen.
Speaker 3: No I've never seen you know, like, well, who's making
Speaker 3: that movie? And so putting that out there in a
Speaker 3: chance to just like with that wild West, example, show
Speaker 3: something that's cool and interesting and get completely historically accurate.
Speaker 2: You know, like you know, just.
Speaker 3: Like you know the tons of black cowboys and like go, oh,
Speaker 3: that's not the We only know what Hollywood shows us.
Speaker 2: We only know what newsreel show us.
Speaker 1: That sort of thing.
Speaker 3: You and so flipping the script and take a little
Speaker 3: look at your script. You don't have to change your
Speaker 3: story fundamentally. You don't have to change how your heroin
Speaker 3: gets down. You don't have to change that much. But
Speaker 3: a little touch here and a little touch there will
Speaker 3: really begin to change the way we all view gun safety.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, having a secure lockbox is cool, it's smart.
Speaker 3: Protects my kids. If you show a kid and if
Speaker 3: you show the ramifications of not blocking you know safely,
Speaker 3: that's a great storyline.
Speaker 2: That's the thing, you know. I've got the show to do.
Speaker 3: In this last season an episode about extreme risk protection
Speaker 3: orders most people known as like red flag laws, and
Speaker 3: there's basically the laws that we're ad say, if this
Speaker 3: person is demonstrably uh a danger to themselves or others,
Speaker 3: you can take.
Speaker 1: A domestic violence situation. You can take their guns away.
Speaker 3: It is the prime I mean domestic violence and mental
Speaker 3: uh and and someone who's mentally unhealthy. Mental illness are
Speaker 3: the two prime examples where you can say, yo, this
Speaker 3: veteran is in a really bad place, and this is
Speaker 3: the thing where I feel like we've got because the
Speaker 3: whole joke, the whole goal now is to get.
Speaker 2: Everybody on the same page.
Speaker 3: Yes, remember we watched the scene, the social media posts
Speaker 3: of it's the guy who was a he's a self
Speaker 3: proclaimed gun nut.
Speaker 2: That's how he would refer to himself. I'm a gun nut.
Speaker 2: I want that one. I want that one, I want
Speaker 2: that one.
Speaker 3: And it's a funny bit and everything like that, and
Speaker 3: he shoots and it's and that's all great, that's fine.
Speaker 3: But even he would say, if you're a veteran and
Speaker 3: you're in a dark place, maybe give your guns to
Speaker 3: your buddy. Yeah, maybe give your guns to your body.
Speaker 3: Because if a veteran's going to kill themselves, it's going
Speaker 3: to be with a gun. Yes, no, uh, you know,
Speaker 3: police officers, they're going to do it.
Speaker 2: They were.
Speaker 3: And people forget how much suicide is the bulk of
Speaker 3: gun violence. Yes, and again it's and again, the more
Speaker 3: you start to learn, the more you start to it
Speaker 3: starts to reshape what you picture as gun violence. We
Speaker 3: all think of mass shooters because that is the big,
Speaker 3: scary what causes that? How do you ever prevent that?
Speaker 3: And we realize how much of it really is preventable.
Speaker 3: And again this and this is my argument to the
Speaker 3: whole more guns. I'm like, bounce prevention is worth a
Speaker 3: pound of cure. Right, So, if we can separate the
Speaker 3: mentally unhealthy person from their guns just while they're in
Speaker 3: their dark space, if we're going to separate the abuser
Speaker 3: from their guns while the person being abused is still
Speaker 3: vulnerable until they get to a safe place, until things
Speaker 3: have calmed down in that relationship. If you can separate
Speaker 3: the mentally unhealthy person who's angry, who's been bullied at school,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera, if you can separate them from
Speaker 3: the guns or make it difficult to access guns.
Speaker 2: You know, most school shooters.
Speaker 3: I think something the number is like something like seventy
Speaker 3: six percent of school shooters that are teens got the
Speaker 3: gun from their own or a friend's house. Yes, that
Speaker 3: neck end goes too. If it was in a lock box.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't add access.
Speaker 3: I can't get to my you know I can get
Speaker 3: to my friend's house maybe, but I you know, and
Speaker 3: even if he showed me where his parents keep their gun,
Speaker 3: I don't know the code. If there's a code, right,
Speaker 3: it was just in a drawer, came on and nothing
Speaker 3: and there's nothing to stop me. It's about putting those
Speaker 3: impediments between people and doing damage to themselves up. Bunce
Speaker 3: of prevention is worth of pound of cure. And when
Speaker 3: you talk about it in real calm, trying to solve
Speaker 3: the problem, not win some political fight. Right, I don't
Speaker 3: care about that. I mean over a beer. I have
Speaker 3: yet to meet a gun owner who, over a beer
Speaker 3: would acknowledge that. The fact that I can walk.
Speaker 2: In screaming about how much.
Speaker 3: My wife pissed me off, and when I get home,
Speaker 3: blah blah blah blah, punk down my id, get a
Speaker 3: case of beer and AK forty seven.
Speaker 2: That's a bad.
Speaker 3: Idea, A bad idea. He's just it's a bad idea.
Speaker 1: Period, bad idea. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's like this because it makes a lot of people
Speaker 1: a lot of money. The gun lobby has made so
Speaker 1: much money making the rest of us unsafe. As as
Speaker 1: a hobbyist, as a gun owner. That pisses me off.
Speaker 1: The idea that they have sold people on marketing that
Speaker 1: folks at home need to have weapons of war in
Speaker 1: their garages. I'm like enough, And I loved what Secretary
Speaker 1: Buddhacheg said back on the campaign trail leading into the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty election. He was like, listen, you want to
Speaker 1: say we can't infringe on your Second Amendment rights? Enough,
Speaker 1: He goes, because you can't have a predator drone. I
Speaker 1: say that as a veteran. You don't get to have one.
Speaker 1: So there's a line somewhere, and we need to walk
Speaker 1: the line back to these types of weapons. And I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, that's the best way I've ever heard
Speaker 1: a person say, like I can't buy a tank. I
Speaker 1: can't do that, and I don't and I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to.
Speaker 3: Well, the reality is, I mean, and I'm the first
Speaker 3: one to say shooting guns is fun. Shooting is fun,
Speaker 3: and it is funny. I'm like shows blowing stuff up.
Speaker 3: There are rules about dynamite.
Speaker 2: There's rules about dynamite, nitriglitz you, I mean, and that's
Speaker 2: just and that's that's the thing.
Speaker 3: And so it's just common sense things and so that's
Speaker 3: why I'm like so proud of like the the you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, look the trigger warning getting Hollywood to start
Speaker 3: to reframe how we see it in media. I mean
Speaker 3: it was put together by the Hollywood Health and Society, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, at the the US's Norman Lear Center, and
Speaker 3: I give them, I give them, you know, and it
Speaker 3: makes me laugh because I go, Norman Lear at the
Speaker 3: heart of so many cool things in America. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: shows that brought black folks into your home every week
Speaker 3: were from Norman Lear that put women at the front
Speaker 3: of being funny.
Speaker 2: Where Norman Lear uh that.
Speaker 3: Like got into the controversial stuff and made it funny
Speaker 3: so we could laugh, chill out and talk about it.
Speaker 3: Of course, Norman Lear and Hollywood Health and Society at
Speaker 3: the heart of that because you know, like let's just
Speaker 3: talk about it, like not not argue about it. Like
Speaker 3: we're gonna show you what, We're going to break it open.
Speaker 3: We'll make you laugh about it, will make you cry
Speaker 3: about it, and then we're going to make you think
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: Like for ree, it's making space for the entire human
Speaker 1: experience of problem solving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a relief problem. Don't just win the fight
Speaker 2: and now a.
Speaker 1: Word from our sponsors. So where do people go, Like,
Speaker 1: if this kind of you know, sane and inclusive dialogue
Speaker 1: sounds great to people, how do our listeners get involved?
Speaker 3: Well, you can check you can check out Hollywood Health
Speaker 3: and Society. You can check out Brady Campaign. I do
Speaker 3: work with every Town and Mom's Demand Action. I mean,
Speaker 3: these are these groups are out there getting it done
Speaker 3: and uh, and I love them all and they each
Speaker 3: have real special niches. Uh. How the Health Society is
Speaker 3: talking to Hollywood h literally and was on the forefront
Speaker 3: of getting people to realize, you know, the power that
Speaker 3: we have, ah, and some of the mistakes that we've
Speaker 3: been making unintentionally, uh, in the kind of messaging that
Speaker 3: we put out there, and that we can just a
Speaker 3: simple little flip. You don't lose any of the power
Speaker 3: of the story, but you can make a big difference.
Speaker 3: And then on the other end of the spectrum, you
Speaker 3: got Mom's Demand Action that I love. That's so they're
Speaker 3: all greased, but Mom's Man Action. It's like, I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm I remember when like Mom's against drunk driving changed
Speaker 3: the entire situation, and it wasn't The laws eventually were
Speaker 3: part of it. But really what they did was they
Speaker 3: made it uncool to drive drunk. They made it cool
Speaker 3: to ask you to tell you to get your friend
Speaker 3: to give you the keys because I know you've been drinking,
Speaker 3: you know. So now my hope is that we're going
Speaker 3: to make it cool to ask when your kids go
Speaker 3: over for play date, ask if there are guns in
Speaker 3: the home? Yes, and then asking the follow up of
Speaker 3: properly yes. It makes it cool to have the conversation,
Speaker 3: get a fight, It makes it It's making it cool
Speaker 3: for Hollywood to show responsible gun safety and a lot
Speaker 3: of boxes and that sort of thing. You know, that's
Speaker 3: all making that stuff cool is the thing, and I
Speaker 3: think that's what Mom's demand action is about. I think
Speaker 3: when Hollywood Health Society has taking that and really getting people,
Speaker 3: they're like showing, you know, putting trigger warning in their
Speaker 3: face and making them understand. So you can find them
Speaker 3: on social media, you can find their websites. They're out there.
Speaker 2: And by the way, it's your friends and neighbors. Everybody's
Speaker 2: in this conversation.
Speaker 3: And what I want, what I pray is you know,
Speaker 3: you as a person who's used guns, and me as
Speaker 3: a person you know, like all the gun owners getting
Speaker 3: the game. Then the gun owners start getting in the
Speaker 3: game because that fear of they're going to take the guns.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, we're going to control gun safety. It's
Speaker 3: not they're going to do anything. It's we are going
Speaker 3: to make ourselves safer. And it doesn't mean but it's
Speaker 3: not about taking the guns. It's about let's make sure
Speaker 3: we're smart. We're just gun safety just be a watch
Speaker 3: word that we all pay attention to exactly.
Speaker 1: I love it, I absolutely love it. There's a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've covered a lot, from your twenty fifth
Speaker 1: anniversary to parenthood to you know, career and advocacy and
Speaker 1: all of these things you have You've done so much,
Speaker 1: and you've you've also given so much with your career
Speaker 1: and with your platform. I wonder as you sit here,
Speaker 1: you got to come to terms of the fact that
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four is going to be over before we
Speaker 1: know it. As you kind of look out ahead over
Speaker 1: the rest of the year and beyond what what feels
Speaker 1: like you're work in progress right now?
Speaker 2: Oh, my work, My work in progress is I've.
Speaker 3: It's funny because I'm I'm staring at empty nester. I mean,
Speaker 3: I got sixteen olds driving cars. They can get themselves
Speaker 3: to and from where they need to be on their own.
Speaker 3: They can uber if they need to because they're they're
Speaker 3: older responsible.
Speaker 2: I think he drive themselves there and so you know,
Speaker 2: and I've won in college and so.
Speaker 3: I'm it is that thing right now where I'm starting
Speaker 3: to do more things for me, which, funny enough, some
Speaker 3: of that's in the business, you know, things that I
Speaker 3: was like, just notice the Grindstone show up, get the
Speaker 3: work done, build the acting career. And now I'm like,
Speaker 3: I want to be a part of creating this thing
Speaker 3: from the jump, from get go and bringing the elements together.
Speaker 3: And that's exciting and also just enjoying book. We just
Speaker 3: celebrated our twenty fifth wedding anniversary and so for a
Speaker 3: long time you did that that kids are the most
Speaker 3: important thing in the world. Yeah, and I've told them
Speaker 3: since they were little. I was like, if you see
Speaker 3: daddy kissing mommy, never interrupt you, never interrupt daddy kissing mommy,
Speaker 3: because it's just happening before you. This would be going
Speaker 3: on when you all leave. And it was funny and
Speaker 3: I was serious and it was a joke, and yet
Speaker 3: it's also you know. Now I'm at the spot where
Speaker 3: I'm like, hey you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you're like, wait, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: Later was like, you know, and so we've been in
Speaker 3: that space for the last little bit. We're like, you know,
Speaker 3: hey kids, you know where what do you want for dinner? Oh,
Speaker 3: I'm out gonna be over here? Or what we're doing?
Speaker 2: That thing?
Speaker 3: I got practice, I got this, that and the other thing,
Speaker 3: and everybody spread out to the four winds and we
Speaker 3: just looked at because you and mean. So so we
Speaker 3: rolled to the pub around the corner that we love
Speaker 3: and you know, pop down and chill with, you know,
Speaker 3: call a couple of.
Speaker 2: People to be like, hey, what you're doing?
Speaker 1: And I love it.
Speaker 2: I'm with my four year old. I can't make it.
Speaker 3: So like you talk about your friends, we have a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of our friends who are at that stage,
Speaker 3: and my brother being among them, and I'm like, hey man,
Speaker 3: he's like, I can't, Ben, I got the kids. So
Speaker 3: but we're finding So the work in progress now is
Speaker 3: going back to getting your young and sexy on, you know,
Speaker 3: getting your young and sexy and ambitious on and final
Speaker 3: projects that you get to be at the center. That's
Speaker 3: what I'm I'm excited about right now.
Speaker 1: I love that. Well, thank you, I mean truly, you know,
Speaker 1: from what you do on screen to all the things
Speaker 1: you choose to do off it, really it means a lot.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you, and right back at you.
Speaker 3: This is a perfect example, just this podcast and who
Speaker 3: you choose to put on and what you choose to
Speaker 3: amplify on your podcast again amazing, and and to do
Speaker 3: it all with grace and and eating and and not
Speaker 3: caught up in all of that.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you. I appreciate that very much much love yeah,
Speaker 1: right back at you, thank you for today, Jason Oh
Speaker 1: to be appreciate you