Speaker 1: What do you do in life doesn't go according to plan?
Speaker 1: That moment you lose the job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
Speaker 1: with a guest to talk about the times they were
Speaker 1: knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Speaker 1: Some stories are funny, others are cut wrenching, but all
Speaker 1: are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
Speaker 1: every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
Speaker 1: answers one question. Now what I remember like waking up
Speaker 1: one morning and there was like a gentleman who had
Speaker 1: slept over, and um, there there was a rat in
Speaker 1: my kitchen. And I was like, this is an better
Speaker 1: than the opposite, belater than the rat being in your
Speaker 1: bed and him actually true? Yeah, I mean come on, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be It would actually be way worth to
Speaker 1: find a rat in your bed and then like a
Speaker 1: guy in your kitchen. That would be danger. But anyway,
Speaker 1: a gentleman though he was a gentleman. You just said
Speaker 1: he was a gentleman, so perfect, nice person, not going
Speaker 1: to be my boyfriend. Hello, and welcome back to another
Speaker 1: season of Now What. My team and I took a
Speaker 1: few weeks off to recharge, and while it was very
Speaker 1: nice to get some rest, I really missed sharing these
Speaker 1: interviews with all of you each week. Fortunately, I think
Speaker 1: my guest today was very much worth the weight. Jenny Slate.
Speaker 1: She's a writer and actor and a comedian. You might
Speaker 1: also know her as the co creator and voice of
Speaker 1: the newly Oscar nominated sensation Marcelf Shell with Shoes on.
Speaker 1: Jenny is a breath of fresh air. She's authentic, she's open,
Speaker 1: and as you're here in just a minute, she is
Speaker 1: more than willing to talk about her many now What
Speaker 1: moments and all that she's learned from them. I am
Speaker 1: so thrilled to bring you all a piece of her
Speaker 1: story and hope that you'll come to adore her as
Speaker 1: I do. So. Here is Jenny Slate. M. Jenny Slate, Hi,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I
Speaker 1: was so happy when I knew that you said you
Speaker 1: said yes to doing it. I was shocked. I was
Speaker 1: shocked and excited that you would like me to be
Speaker 1: here speaking to you. Are you kidding? I'm such a
Speaker 1: huge fan. Um. And first of all, before congratulations on
Speaker 1: an Oscar nomination. Where were you when you heard when
Speaker 1: you got the news? Um? Thank you? And I was
Speaker 1: in bed. I was asleep finally after a night of
Speaker 1: many wake ups with my little babe, and so I
Speaker 1: had just gotten to sleep, and I saw all these
Speaker 1: messages flickering on my phone, but they were all text messages,
Speaker 1: and I just sort of thought, I think if it
Speaker 1: were good news, somebody would have called. I just think
Speaker 1: it's a lot of apologies, Like I think it's my
Speaker 1: It was my sisters, and I was like, it's them,
Speaker 1: being like, this is actually just the start of your career,
Speaker 1: don't worry your was something like that. I remember when
Speaker 1: it first came out. I was so immediately in love
Speaker 1: with Marcel. I just my daughters and I. It was
Speaker 1: as if we couldn't we just couldn't get enough, couldn't
Speaker 1: get enough of it. And um, it's funny because I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've met Ariana Grande, but she would
Speaker 1: practically only do an imitation of Marcel. She did everything.
Speaker 1: Everything she answered you, she would talk in herself voice.
Speaker 1: Because it was around the time I was working with
Speaker 1: her brother on something and I would have dinner with
Speaker 1: the mom and the kids, and it was so cute
Speaker 1: and so funny, and she did quite quite a good invitation.
Speaker 1: Let me get this straight. You're saying that Ariana Grande
Speaker 1: that she knows about Marcel to Shell, she knows about
Speaker 1: it and would do an invitation of it. So it
Speaker 1: was really kind of kind of sweet love that where
Speaker 1: the character of Marcell come from. Well, you know, what's
Speaker 1: weird is like to answer that question, Like, first of all,
Speaker 1: it like it just was a not even a private joke,
Speaker 1: just a random joke. Just imagine if there was something
Speaker 1: that you were doing with your friend and and suddenly
Speaker 1: like it caught on in a way that we didn't
Speaker 1: We didn't even have an example for that at the time,
Speaker 1: the way that things can catch on now and kind
Speaker 1: of a viral way. And um, but at the time,
Speaker 1: I was doing a funny voice over a weekend while
Speaker 1: Dean and I were with some friends. Dean Fleischer Camp
Speaker 1: the director of the film, co writer, co creator and
Speaker 1: also my ex husband. We were a couple. Then we
Speaker 1: were at a wedding and I had been on SNL
Speaker 1: for a year. But like you know, you get paid
Speaker 1: sag scale. You're not like making big bucks or anything.
Speaker 1: And I had not saved any money because thirty rock
Speaker 1: is in the same building as like anthropology, and at
Speaker 1: the time I was like, whoa, Like, I have my
Speaker 1: literally my first paycheck other than being you know, a
Speaker 1: waitress or a nanny or I made a cassade commercial,
Speaker 1: like a couple of years before then. I had bit
Speaker 1: parts on TV shows, but I had never had a
Speaker 1: consistent income. I was not responsible with it. Also had
Speaker 1: no savings. So we were sharing a hotel room with
Speaker 1: four other friends and I felt really squished and I
Speaker 1: started talking in like this tiny voice, and Dean was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I forgot to make the video for our
Speaker 1: friends comedy show. Can I interview you in that voice?
Speaker 1: And then maybe I'll make something like I'll animate something
Speaker 1: or something. He didn't even really know, and so he
Speaker 1: and he interviewed me in that voice, and it kind
Speaker 1: of came out that maybe I was small and it
Speaker 1: was a character kind of talking about their social life.
Speaker 1: Like one of the first things Marcella Ever says is
Speaker 1: that like he didn't clean up and that his house
Speaker 1: is messy because he invited some friends from upstate to
Speaker 1: come eat salad just did not make its way into
Speaker 1: the feature film. Um, but then hearing all that audio,
Speaker 1: he was like, Okay, I think I could probably put
Speaker 1: together the physicality of this. And he had a lot
Speaker 1: of different like crafts stuff, and he went to the
Speaker 1: toy store in our neighborhood in Brooklyn and bought kind
Speaker 1: of like a Polly Pocket rip off and helped my
Speaker 1: balls on stuff and finally he made Marcel, and um,
Speaker 1: I came back from having lunch with a friend and
Speaker 1: there was like this little guy on the corner of
Speaker 1: the table and Marcel's really tall. He's an inch tall.
Speaker 1: So if you if you are a super fan and
Speaker 1: you bought one of the with the sneaker season it,
Speaker 1: so even with yeah, he's really interesting it well actually,
Speaker 1: and his shoes are like they're like his body, like
Speaker 1: they're his feet. Yeah, no shoes to ever come off.
Speaker 1: Learn anyway, so he made the body and I came
Speaker 1: in and he was like, I think he's here, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, he's definitely that guy. And then
Speaker 1: Dean interviewed me and it was sort of like, well,
Speaker 1: now that you know what you look like, can you
Speaker 1: say more about yourself? And I you know, just improvised.
Speaker 1: We had also just been to France to visit where
Speaker 1: my one of my grandmother's was before she um went
Speaker 1: into hiding during the Holocaust and during World War Two,
Speaker 1: and her brother's name was Marcel and it must have
Speaker 1: been top of mind. And I just said, like, my
Speaker 1: name is Marcelle, and I'm partially a shell and you
Speaker 1: can see on my body, and I just describe the
Speaker 1: rest of myself. Oh, and it just went on. And
Speaker 1: he's so he's so earnest and honest, and since it's here,
Speaker 1: and I was so excited when the movie was coming out.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it was different. Having to then write
Speaker 1: a full length feature of about it's sort of different
Speaker 1: and the same. I mean, it's actually the story was
Speaker 1: like way too big and long, Like I think our
Speaker 1: biggest challenge was cutting it down. There are there are
Speaker 1: lots of parts of Marcelle's life that, um, we just
Speaker 1: couldn't fit into the film, and we really had to
Speaker 1: decide like what to show about him, and what was
Speaker 1: interesting to us was like for someone who's so willing
Speaker 1: to share himself and for someone who clearly thrives off
Speaker 1: of being in conversation with another why is he alone?
Speaker 1: Like why is he alone? And that was one of
Speaker 1: the things that we decided to try to explore, and
Speaker 1: it became more meaningful to us, especially as we separated
Speaker 1: as a couple and both found ourselves, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: we were in something that was sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: coil together something, and now we were in our own,
Speaker 1: our to own things like alone by ourselves. I'm curious
Speaker 1: what it's like to collaborate with someone that you are
Speaker 1: separated from, but you know who was your ex. You
Speaker 1: seem to have done it very well. How is how
Speaker 1: does that work? I mean, yeah, there's lots of different
Speaker 1: definitions of like doing that well. I think. I think,
Speaker 1: first of all, like we knew that our marriage was
Speaker 1: not going to keep going, and we were like we
Speaker 1: both still want to make this movie. We was never
Speaker 1: a question. And I don't think either one of us
Speaker 1: is like a jerk, I guess I don't know how
Speaker 1: else to put it, Like neither one of us is
Speaker 1: like now the spotlight is mine, or like you know
Speaker 1: these couples where they split up and one of them
Speaker 1: steals the intellectual property or something. It just that was
Speaker 1: never going to be us and and I think also
Speaker 1: like I can only speak for myself, but I never
Speaker 1: was like I never want to see you again. I
Speaker 1: mostly was like, WHOA, why did I think I would
Speaker 1: be the like right for this when like I don't
Speaker 1: think I have the right things to offer to this person,
Speaker 1: but I do think that I have the right things
Speaker 1: to offer them in a creative partnership, So so that's good.
Speaker 1: But I'll also say, like we have good boundaries. It's
Speaker 1: not like like if I'm to get a text from Dean,
Speaker 1: you know, we text back and forth. We have like
Speaker 1: a funny, fun relationship. But like I wouldn't say we're
Speaker 1: best friends. I would say like we're super good creative
Speaker 1: partners and that we just developed into knowing how much
Speaker 1: space to give each other. And I don't really feel
Speaker 1: like there was a lot of conscious like let's sit
Speaker 1: down and let's be like really really evolved about this.
Speaker 1: I actually think we just were so careful, like walking
Speaker 1: on like the thinnest ice or something, just like really
Speaker 1: making sure like your footstep itself. Let's say it's not
Speaker 1: too warm to melt the surface. You know. Marcella is
Speaker 1: obviously the product of an extremely creative person. So I'm
Speaker 1: really curious to know what you were like as a kid.
Speaker 1: Did you have an imaginary friends? I had a lot
Speaker 1: of imaginary personas. Like I think I've always been an actor,
Speaker 1: um and always wanted to be one too, But like
Speaker 1: I didn't have an imaginary friends, but I UM was
Speaker 1: deep into imaginary play, deep into playing characters, you know,
Speaker 1: like just full four hour afternoons of pretending to be
Speaker 1: a princess who was like rejected from her castle and
Speaker 1: had to like win it back from her like evil
Speaker 1: you know, stepmother or something like just sort of a
Speaker 1: version of whatever whatever fairytale I might have heard. And
Speaker 1: I really like to deeply get into that. UM. My
Speaker 1: sisters and I had a game that we would play
Speaker 1: called Dana and Susan and it was about um two
Speaker 1: women named Dana and Susan who lived in the the
Speaker 1: Ritz Carlton in New York and we we lived in
Speaker 1: Massachusetts and we had never been to New York, but
Speaker 1: we lived in the Ritz Carlton and we both had
Speaker 1: husbands and we would like just talk about our husbands,
Speaker 1: which now I think is like a crazy game. And
Speaker 1: if I if I caught my daughter doing it, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, where did you learn this? But I we
Speaker 1: just like we were ladies. I think we were like
Speaker 1: kind of emulating my mom's first cousins and the women
Speaker 1: that we would see, like at Russia Shanna and all
Speaker 1: the Jewish holidays. I love that. One thing about you
Speaker 1: that I really find fascinating, and you've spoken about this
Speaker 1: as well, is that you have really severe stage fright. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about what that feels
Speaker 1: like and how you ward it off and has it
Speaker 1: ever happened at the most inopportune moment um, I still
Speaker 1: get it. I sort of have tried everything to get
Speaker 1: rid of it, including like getting hypnotized and pushed myself
Speaker 1: to sort of hit marks of achievement for for a
Speaker 1: stand up comedian like I I made. I made an
Speaker 1: hour long stand up special for Netflix. In fact, I'm
Speaker 1: about to make another one, and UM, it haunts me. Um.
Speaker 1: What it feels like to me is I have absolutely
Speaker 1: no assurances that I'm going to be able to do
Speaker 1: my job. I can't when I have stage fright connect
Speaker 1: to the part of me that drums up and really
Speaker 1: inhabits this power. I can't find it at all. And
Speaker 1: I start to think it's not there. It's not there,
Speaker 1: and everybody's gonna see me fail and they're going to be, um,
Speaker 1: really disturbed by me because they're gonna like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: force them to watch me fail and they're going to
Speaker 1: really hate me for that. And um, I think it's
Speaker 1: actually gotten to the point where I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: really know that I that this is like I need
Speaker 1: to keep doing this. I I'm not sure that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ever get past it. And it's a range thing
Speaker 1: to say, but like the more I get into my
Speaker 1: my parenting and my motherhood and like connecting to a
Speaker 1: kind of love that I only thought was for other
Speaker 1: people or something like I had never really experienced it
Speaker 1: like this, the less I actually kind of need to
Speaker 1: earn it, Which is interesting because I want to get
Speaker 1: to you becoming a mom in a minute. But I'm
Speaker 1: also interested in how you decided that you wanted to
Speaker 1: make this your career, make comedy your career, and I'm
Speaker 1: curious as to when you knew you wanted to be
Speaker 1: that and what was that going to look like for
Speaker 1: you in your dreams. I always wanted to be an actor.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be an actress, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be a stand up comedian at all, and in fact,
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up watching any I. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to be like Judy Garland that you know. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be like I don't know, like since Cheri's like
Speaker 1: I like I wanted to be like she had her
Speaker 1: legs ensured. Yeah, really, Like I just was like, don't know,
Speaker 1: I want like a petticoat and like I want being
Speaker 1: stuff where I'm like in a corset that like my
Speaker 1: sisters are lacing up and they're like we're going to
Speaker 1: the drugs. Like I just thought, I know, all the
Speaker 1: anything I saw was from the library. It was all
Speaker 1: those like Technicolor like Briga Dune and Meet Me in St.
Speaker 1: Louis and like things like that. And it never occurred
Speaker 1: to me that there were different kinds of actors. It
Speaker 1: it's that there was genre. And then I got I
Speaker 1: became aware of like Lily Tomlin and majorly of like
Speaker 1: Madeline Cohn and Carol Burnett, and I was just like, wait,
Speaker 1: what is that? What's that about? And when I got
Speaker 1: to college, I started doing improv and it was just
Speaker 1: so easy. It was just so fun. And when I
Speaker 1: graduated from college, my best friend Gabe Lehmann and I
Speaker 1: became a comedy duo, just just a way for people
Speaker 1: to see us and think of us for acting parts.
Speaker 1: And then when I was doing a comedy show, um,
Speaker 1: the director Gillian Robespierre saw me, and she was planning
Speaker 1: to make a short film about comedian who well actually
Speaker 1: about just about a woman who like gets an gets
Speaker 1: pregnant by mistake and has an abortion and was that
Speaker 1: obvious child or no, that became obvious child. I love.
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite movies of yours. I'm so glad.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you've seen it, and I think it's I
Speaker 1: think it's a really great thing for people to watch
Speaker 1: now because it's romantic and it's it's lovely, and it
Speaker 1: also like shows a safe and legal abortion with a
Speaker 1: woman who makes that choice, um, without like having to
Speaker 1: just like assess her entire life and decide whether or
Speaker 1: not she's good or bad. It's just like something people
Speaker 1: need to see. And I think the gillion saw me
Speaker 1: as a leading lady. And before that, I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't think every anyone ever will like I'll just
Speaker 1: be always like playing the funny friend. Okay, So then
Speaker 1: at what point does SNL come in because a lot
Speaker 1: has been made of your experience on that show. So
Speaker 1: I made the short film of Obvious Child. Um. And
Speaker 1: then I at the same time was like trying to
Speaker 1: write a one person and a one woman show, which
Speaker 1: I always kind of thought, I like thought that was
Speaker 1: sort of like embarrassing, and like here I'm like just
Speaker 1: like really like I don't know, like like like theater
Speaker 1: dorc or something, and um. At the time, I you know,
Speaker 1: god forbid, i'd be dorky um. And but I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to maybe see if I could.
Speaker 1: I didn't even think about being on SNL. I just
Speaker 1: thought maybe someone from like Comedy Central will see me.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll just get better commercials. Like I just wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to work more. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be in an offer Broadway play
Speaker 1: of like the Seagull or whatever, Like no one's gonna
Speaker 1: put me in some check off. I've got to figure
Speaker 1: out how to just get on stage and do what
Speaker 1: I think I'm good at, which, by the way, is
Speaker 1: the only way that I've ever had any success is
Speaker 1: to isolate the incredibly specific thing that I am good
Speaker 1: at that only I could describe and just do it
Speaker 1: for like seven people and and like hope that some
Speaker 1: people see it, and sometimes they didn't, sometimes they did.
Speaker 1: But so I performed a one woman play that took
Speaker 1: place at my few gearle if I had died right then,
Speaker 1: as as like a twenty six year old eccentric millionaire,
Speaker 1: and so I eulogized myself and like all these different characters.
Speaker 1: And John Mulaney, the comedian who was a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: was already working on SNL and he happened to be
Speaker 1: at like the I think, the very first show, and
Speaker 1: so he told the casting person and she was at
Speaker 1: the second show, and so by the second show, I
Speaker 1: had an audition and then I got my like callback
Speaker 1: for SNL and then I got on that show, and um,
Speaker 1: and my career kind of like began, or so I thought,
Speaker 1: But then it kind of like just sort of took
Speaker 1: a nose dive almost immediately because I said, I swear
Speaker 1: on my first show by mistake, which is like a
Speaker 1: personal nightmare for me because I hate getting in trouble.
Speaker 1: Get the funk out of here. Yeah, um, and like, wait,
Speaker 1: that's what happened. Well, I don't think I got fired
Speaker 1: for saying fuck, And I think people might think that
Speaker 1: if they're still thinking about it. I mean it's been
Speaker 1: literally a decade and who cares. But no, I think generally,
Speaker 1: like I got really squirrelly after that happened. It was
Speaker 1: sort of like you don't realize that you're like living
Speaker 1: on the edge until suddenly you like almost fall off
Speaker 1: it and then you're like, wow, I'm on live DV.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just like, oh my god, and like
Speaker 1: I am a fragile person actually, like I have incredible resilience,
Speaker 1: but like it's a bit like a sorority fraternity in there.
Speaker 1: I am not meant to be in there. And I
Speaker 1: don't mean that to be like derogative at all. I
Speaker 1: just mean, like the rules of the interior culture of
Speaker 1: that place are really specific. Um, the power structure is
Speaker 1: really specific. I definitely tried to like bow down to it.
Speaker 1: But I I think if you're a creative person and
Speaker 1: deep in your whatever you want to call it, your spirit,
Speaker 1: you don't believe in what you are saying is your
Speaker 1: master or your authority, you're not going to do your
Speaker 1: best work. And I think if you're like me, even
Speaker 1: even though I am I self admittedly totally fragile. You're
Speaker 1: gonna be like I revolt. Do you think your comedy
Speaker 1: fit in? Do you think that that was a brand
Speaker 1: of comedy that No, not at all. But I also
Speaker 1: think the way that I make my comedy is by
Speaker 1: getting a ton of encouragement, not by being like starved
Speaker 1: out and like being like wide eyed and being like
Speaker 1: do you love me, daddy? To like someone who's not
Speaker 1: even your dad, Like I don't even understand the relationship
Speaker 1: with Lauren. I I really wanted him to like me.
Speaker 1: I I'm not someone who benefits from tough love or
Speaker 1: from deprivation. And I I understand there's a point at
Speaker 1: which like performers pushed through and then they're given the
Speaker 1: go ahead and the writers write for them. And the
Speaker 1: weirdest thing is that, like all of those people are
Speaker 1: nice people, but as a collective, I think there was
Speaker 1: something for me that felt really bad and it really
Speaker 1: hurt my confidence. And you know, I was like deeply
Speaker 1: humiliated to get fired, but like a billion trillion percent,
Speaker 1: it is the best thing that ever had been to me, ever, ever, ever, ever,
Speaker 1: So I named the show now What because I'm interested
Speaker 1: in those moments that sort of devastate us and throw
Speaker 1: us off course, you know, and how you get through them,
Speaker 1: and for you to say that this was the best
Speaker 1: thing that could have ever happened. Undoubtedly didn't feel like
Speaker 1: that at the time, But how did that experience shape
Speaker 1: the way you decided to go forward in the trajectory
Speaker 1: of your own career. I think I've had twin experiences
Speaker 1: in this, in my professional creat you know, creative life,
Speaker 1: and in my romantic life. You're a fool if you
Speaker 1: think that you are going to evaporate your injury. If
Speaker 1: something is big enough to hobble me creatively or to
Speaker 1: break my very alive heart, then that means it was big.
Speaker 1: And I think the way that I've gotten through it
Speaker 1: both times is by being like, you just have to
Speaker 1: do the movement that you can do that will not
Speaker 1: exacerbate your emotional injury. But you cannot stay still, you
Speaker 1: cannot fossilize in the posture of the moment where you
Speaker 1: were taken down. That is absolutely not the way to live,
Speaker 1: not for me at least, And so like after SNL
Speaker 1: I I started auditioning again, I made myself to stand
Speaker 1: up even though my stage right was like exponentially worse
Speaker 1: and sometimes I really failed, but like, yeah, there is
Speaker 1: no like symmetrical justice that came in that was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you found out you got fired on deadline Hollywood because
Speaker 1: no one even called you, because I think you were
Speaker 1: solo worth well, now like someone like a fancy producer
Speaker 1: is gonna ride in and give you your own show,
Speaker 1: like nobody cared. The only person that cares or knows
Speaker 1: that I'm this deeply in jured is me. And so
Speaker 1: after SNL, I just was like, just find a way,
Speaker 1: just like, keep performing again, keep being social, don't treat
Speaker 1: yourself like you're an outcast. Nobody wants you to be that,
Speaker 1: nobody has it out for you. But also I was like,
Speaker 1: remember that you never have to feel this badly ever again.
Speaker 1: Everything else that I will ever kind of encounter is
Speaker 1: like it is a job in a life, you know,
Speaker 1: even if it seems like really important or cool to me,
Speaker 1: like it is a job. And I just I was like,
Speaker 1: I will never forgive the expression, but like I will
Speaker 1: never eat it like this again. There is absolutely no
Speaker 1: way if I feel bad, I'm leaving and then that
Speaker 1: you know, I also learned after my divorce going into
Speaker 1: other relationships and being so freaked out and being in relationships.
Speaker 1: I should I should have just like been by myself,
Speaker 1: Like truly I should have. I should have done the eat,
Speaker 1: pray love thing or whatever. I just should have gone
Speaker 1: somewhere like slurped a bunch of spaghetti and just like
Speaker 1: stared into a canal. That would have been much better
Speaker 1: for me. But I chose things I wasn't ready for.
Speaker 1: And it's in my in my book. I wrote a
Speaker 1: book called Little Weirds and there's a piece in there
Speaker 1: called Creed, and it's about like I don't need to
Speaker 1: be in relational experiences like where I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm crouching in a small environment when I'm like I'm bigger,
Speaker 1: Like I'd rather be my own size emotionally and be
Speaker 1: by myself than be like getting like little meager morsels
Speaker 1: from someone who doesn't understand me. And I was like,
Speaker 1: you never have to feel like this again. It might
Speaker 1: be that you are like single alone forever, but like no,
Speaker 1: but you know you've God, You've said so many things
Speaker 1: just in this last I mean throughout the whole chat,
Speaker 1: but that focus just as a performer, because you get
Speaker 1: knocked down so many more times than you you get
Speaker 1: held up right, and everybody also wants to have these
Speaker 1: more and to make them be this this this huge,
Speaker 1: huge thing, and they feel that way at the time,
Speaker 1: but they're part of such a bigger, bigger story. And
Speaker 1: for you to be able to just knowingly and still
Speaker 1: with an open heart, refuse to not try again and
Speaker 1: be Judy Garland looking over the rainbow, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? And in a way, what a beautiful, what
Speaker 1: a beautiful now what moment? And I think it's really important.
Speaker 1: And during COVID you've had you've had such what a
Speaker 1: what a year? I mean, your heart was open enough
Speaker 1: to get married again and then have a child. How
Speaker 1: did you know you wanted to be a parent And
Speaker 1: what has that? How has that changed you when you
Speaker 1: actually realized you or the mother of this little human being?
Speaker 1: It has unconditional love for you. By the way, the
Speaker 1: thing that you talk about wanting, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: know it was. I mean I already like I have
Speaker 1: like some new stand up about how like I just
Speaker 1: so desperately want my daughter to like me that I
Speaker 1: like she throws food on the floor and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I love how that's so cool, Like I just I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm just like puss up um because I think she's
Speaker 1: so cool. Um. I I mean when I met my husband,
Speaker 1: it was after that, as you might what you call
Speaker 1: I guess and now what moment. And so a friend
Speaker 1: introduced us and um, we wrote a couple of emails
Speaker 1: to each other. Um, but then we just fell out
Speaker 1: of touch. And then I was writing my book and
Speaker 1: I was like a lot of pieces were taken from
Speaker 1: ideas that I had had in the few emails I
Speaker 1: had written to him. And I I wrote to him
Speaker 1: and I was like, you know, it seems like because
Speaker 1: we had sort of tried to have a romantic start
Speaker 1: and it just didn't take off. And um, I was like,
Speaker 1: maybe you're not like into me, or we're not right
Speaker 1: for each other that way. But I've got to say,
Speaker 1: I really like you, and it's really weird to me
Speaker 1: that you're not my friend, because there's something about when
Speaker 1: I interact with you that it just is like pure
Speaker 1: goodness and I I really get into like speaking and
Speaker 1: thinking things that are incredibly exciting and important to me.
Speaker 1: And he was sort of like, oh yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we should definitely be friends. Um. It's weird that we're not.
Speaker 1: And then of course we like immediately fell in love.
Speaker 1: But I did not know if I wanted to have children,
Speaker 1: and and then I met my husband, and he really
Speaker 1: wanted to have children. And he is a completely unique person.
Speaker 1: I've never met anyone like him, man or woman. And
Speaker 1: I just was like absolutely certain that not only would
Speaker 1: he be a good father, but that like if I
Speaker 1: were to have a baby, that he would be there
Speaker 1: for me, because I was like, I am not exploding
Speaker 1: my vagina and like putting my mind through like chemical
Speaker 1: hormone like roller coaster at best with someone is not
Speaker 1: going to understand that I'm doing all of that while
Speaker 1: they're not, and that's hard for them because they're also
Speaker 1: not taught it, you know. I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: a whole other kind of podcast, but it is very
Speaker 1: true because a lot of what what what you do
Speaker 1: experience they don't know and there and then it also
Speaker 1: takes us telling them, please be open to this, but
Speaker 1: this is exactly what's happening. And so that's a I mean,
Speaker 1: that's part of the communication of of of a relationship
Speaker 1: where children become a part of it. Um, So, okay,
Speaker 1: you find out you're having a little girl. Well, we
Speaker 1: got engaged and then um, and then I got pregnant
Speaker 1: kind of just like a few months after that. But actually, well,
Speaker 1: actually what happened was we got engaged and we planned
Speaker 1: our wedding for June, and we were like, well probably
Speaker 1: like We're like, well, this thing will probably be over
Speaker 1: by then, right like in March. We're like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like should we cancel it? And then I was also
Speaker 1: planning on starting like fertility treatments because I went to
Speaker 1: a fertility doctor. I was I was about to turn
Speaker 1: thirty eight at the time, and I had never had
Speaker 1: an unplanned pregnancy, so I've never been pregnant. I was like,
Speaker 1: maybe I can't be like it kind of seems like
Speaker 1: I should have actually at this point. So I and
Speaker 1: I was told that it would can't believe it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um and uh. The doctor was kind of like, you're
Speaker 1: really gonna need to You're gonna need to do fertility.
Speaker 1: You don't have a lot of like follicles left, it's
Speaker 1: not going to happen. And I was. I was so
Speaker 1: blown away by that and I was gonna start that process.
Speaker 1: When the lockdown happened and no quote unquote elective procedures
Speaker 1: could be done, and I was like, I was suddenly
Speaker 1: so scared, like something I wasn't ever sure that I wanted.
Speaker 1: I wanted it so badly, and I felt, yeah, like
Speaker 1: very very sad. And then my husband and I did this,
Speaker 1: like we drove from l A to Massachusetts in about
Speaker 1: three days just to try to like make it to
Speaker 1: Massachusetts and locked down there, and um, on the night
Speaker 1: that we got there, I guess I must have gotten pregnant,
Speaker 1: Like I just can't believe. Like two weeks later, I
Speaker 1: woke up at dawn and I was like, I think
Speaker 1: I'm pregnant. And it was just this weird feeling, and
Speaker 1: I took four pregnancy tests and they all said yes.
Speaker 1: And then when my husband woke up, I waited for
Speaker 1: him to like go to the bathroom, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'll just wait till he gets out. But then I
Speaker 1: like burst in, holding the four pregnancy tests the way
Speaker 1: that people hold like cards in poker when they have
Speaker 1: like a good I don't play poker, but when it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, a flush or like whatever. And I came in,
Speaker 1: I was like look and I just showed him and
Speaker 1: I just remember his face, it was like he was
Speaker 1: so happy. Oh, I'm I'm so happy for your as
Speaker 1: what kind of little girls. She She's very social, she's brave,
Speaker 1: she's incredibly um like warm. She loves um, things that
Speaker 1: are saw off. She likes like especially it's like hilarious
Speaker 1: that animals have tails, and like every time she sees
Speaker 1: any animals tail, she wants to point it out. And
Speaker 1: I actually also feel that way about animals tails. Um.
Speaker 1: She's she's really affectionate. Um. She loves like salty things
Speaker 1: like pickles and olives. Um, she's really mischievous. A lot
Speaker 1: of my friends say she looks like a shattic, but
Speaker 1: she acts like a slate. Well, she's lucky to have
Speaker 1: you as parents, you as a mama. I I love
Speaker 1: what you're putting out into the world, and I just
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time to be on this
Speaker 1: on this podcast. You're a delight and I'm excited to
Speaker 1: see whatever is next for you, and I wish she
Speaker 1: the best and thank you. I also just want to say,
Speaker 1: like I have been a fan of yours for my
Speaker 1: entire life, and I just kind of like that's possible
Speaker 1: because I'm fifty seven. That always sounds bad when people
Speaker 1: say that to me, like when they're like, I watched
Speaker 1: marcelf I was a baby, and I'm like, oh, you
Speaker 1: go fund yourself. But but no, but no, not at all.
Speaker 1: In fact, I I appreciate it. But I just mean
Speaker 1: to say, like, it is very meaningful to me that
Speaker 1: you would turn your eye on me. And you are
Speaker 1: someone that I see in in our culture as a
Speaker 1: person of extraordinary talent and beauty and your and such
Speaker 1: intelligence but also like real realness. I could have stayed
Speaker 1: in this conversation for hours. And I thrive on encouragement.
Speaker 1: I don't thrive because I have some like weird well
Speaker 1: of confidence. I I thrive relationally and much like a
Speaker 1: plant needs water and sun. And you were really that
Speaker 1: sunshine for me. So thank you so much. That was
Speaker 1: the delightful Jenny Slate. If you want to hear more
Speaker 1: from her, check out her book. It's called Little Weirds.
Speaker 1: And if you're like me and you love Marcel the Shell,
Speaker 1: do yourself a favor and watch Jenny's OSCAR nominated film,
Speaker 1: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. It's on Prime Apple
Speaker 1: TV and in theaters. That is it for today. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening now. What with brook Shields is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Our lead producer and wonderful
Speaker 1: show runner is Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by
Speaker 1: Darby Masters and Abou Zafar. Our executive producer is Christina Everett.
Speaker 1: The show is mixed by Bahed Fraser.