Speaker 1: Today's episode was recorded before the SAG after a strike
Speaker 1: began on July fourteenth. Table for two thanks you as
Speaker 1: always for tuning in and supporting entertainers.
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome back to Table for two.
Speaker 1: We are sitting at the Sunset Tower here on a
Speaker 1: very gray Los Angeles day.
Speaker 2: But that's okay. I'm super excited.
Speaker 1: Because today a powerhouse New Yorker is in the house.
Speaker 3: Do we really eat?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh god? Oh yeah, okay, good, I'm a little hungry.
Speaker 1: She's a Southern girl from birth, moved to New York
Speaker 1: in the eighties, went to Fordham, got a BFA, went
Speaker 1: to Yale, got an MFA. You've seen her in countless films.
Speaker 1: You've seen her in countless Broadway productions. She owns every
Speaker 1: scene she's in.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'll have the Chinese chickens. Are we drinking just water?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: We drank yees verse like dry?
Speaker 2: Is you know?
Speaker 3: Perfect?
Speaker 1: She's outspoken, she is sexy, she's super talented. Today we're
Speaker 1: having lunch with Patricia Clarkson, So sit back and enjoy.
Speaker 1: I'm Bruce Bozi and this is my podcast Table for two.
Speaker 2: Wow, this is a.
Speaker 1: Super special day in LA and you want to know why, Patty.
Speaker 2: Because New York is in the house. Yes, we are
Speaker 2: having lunch today.
Speaker 1: If you hold up a chair with the incredible, super
Speaker 1: talented someone I always have a rock and roll time
Speaker 1: with Patricia Clarkson.
Speaker 2: Can I call you Patty?
Speaker 3: Oh please god, oh please, yes, Hey Darling, welcome. I'm
Speaker 3: so happy to see you again. I have to tell
Speaker 3: you I've been looking forward to this, you know, because
Speaker 3: we were trying to juggle the dates everything. I was
Speaker 3: literally asking if we had worked out a date to
Speaker 3: talk with you, kind of every hour on the hour,
Speaker 3: like we just said, Patty, we're going to figure it
Speaker 3: out with Okay, we're going to figure it out.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, thank you my god. That is such
Speaker 1: a compliment. And so we have a lot to talk about.
Speaker 3: Yeah we do.
Speaker 2: We do a movie that's Monica that we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about. Oh, here's Rose. Okay, let's just be civilized.
Speaker 3: I know. It's so nice, Southern born lady. I so
Speaker 3: adore you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh that's nice.
Speaker 3: It's nice. Right. I feel better. Well, I flew in
Speaker 3: last night. I had a COVID. I'm like, well, because
Speaker 3: I have to I'm doing a few other things after you.
Speaker 3: This is but this is the highlight.
Speaker 1: This is exactly and this is the only time you're
Speaker 1: gonna sit and eat. So Patty, you're born in the South,
Speaker 1: You're Louisiana.
Speaker 3: Orle and girl girl.
Speaker 2: You hit New York, Fordham eighties, the nineteen.
Speaker 3: Eighties, nineteen eighty, I hit New York.
Speaker 1: Big decade for New York. A lot goes down you.
Speaker 1: Then you also go to Yalef. So just talk to
Speaker 1: me about your New York, Like what do you love
Speaker 1: about New York? I kind of want to know, Like
Speaker 1: also like what was that New York versus.
Speaker 2: What is this? Oh?
Speaker 3: Wow, Well, I have to tell you the best story.
Speaker 3: So I come off. I go to LSU, transfer to Fordham.
Speaker 3: Best decision I ever made. It was very hard for
Speaker 3: my father for it because I was nineteen. I left
Speaker 3: New Orleans and it was my parents. I grew up
Speaker 3: very middle class, very very very middle class, and it
Speaker 3: was tough to get me to Fordham. But my beauty
Speaker 3: because no, just tough. No. I had good grades. And
Speaker 3: my aunt, my beautiful aunt restor So, my beautiful aunt
Speaker 3: Becky was dean of Admissions of Loyola in New Ork
Speaker 3: and she said, Patty, let's try to connect you to Fordham.
Speaker 3: So I didn't have to audition then, but I wanted.
Speaker 3: I heard they had a very good theater program. So
Speaker 3: my parents gather the money. I go off to New York.
Speaker 3: Fordham has no dorm at Lincoln Center. So there's a
Speaker 3: rose Hill, huge rose Hill with many and then there's
Speaker 3: Lincoln Center. Guess where I lived.
Speaker 1: Because of the Forum, And funnily enough, I just walked
Speaker 1: by forduam about a week and a half ago.
Speaker 2: I thought about that.
Speaker 3: I think, why am here? I am this southern girl,
Speaker 3: like really not innocent and well a little bit I
Speaker 3: mean naive. I mean, I'm born and raised in New
Speaker 3: Orleans and Norman's is very cosmopolitan and very cool, but
Speaker 3: and very progressive, thankfully. But I get off to New York.
Speaker 3: I go to the Riots. It's only ladies on one floor.
Speaker 3: The room was literally the size that you had to
Speaker 3: turn sideways to get into the room.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And it was women of all ages and we all
Speaker 3: showered together in a big, pink old bathroom just because
Speaker 3: of the door. And it was the most depressing place
Speaker 3: you could have ever been in the history of depressing.
Speaker 3: And it was brutal. It was brutal. It's sixty fourth
Speaker 3: and Broadway. But I meet this woman, Viviana from Karraka.
Speaker 3: She's studying at Parsons and she did not speak a
Speaker 3: lot of English, but she spoke enough English to say,
Speaker 3: we have to get out of here. She did well,
Speaker 3: showering with some of these lads. Open huge open shower
Speaker 3: and like you walked in it spicts out the wall
Speaker 3: and some of the lady you know, and there were
Speaker 3: people on it was and on Saturday nights there were
Speaker 3: all these young men in the lobby and me, stupidly
Speaker 3: I thought, oh, it's the boy scouts returning from a trip.
Speaker 3: Oh so a lot was going down a lot and
Speaker 3: I finally, you know, I finally we found an apartment
Speaker 3: on the upper with this woman, with Vivian, we found
Speaker 3: an apartment. There was a big bedroom. And even though
Speaker 3: they were so kind to us and they built a
Speaker 3: wall down the center, we got our separate bedrooms and
Speaker 3: we It was the best thing that happened. We got
Speaker 3: out of the y and that was New York. For me,
Speaker 3: it was going to afford him no money. I had
Speaker 3: no money, but that is none.
Speaker 1: So there's so many things that are inspiring about that.
Speaker 1: One is that it's very scary for parents. You were
Speaker 1: one of five sisters and parents are like, okay, and
Speaker 1: now to say it, I'm gonna do this. There was
Speaker 1: no spoiled and titled that might have been fear, but
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm.
Speaker 3: I packed doing bags and went to you know, big
Speaker 3: bags and got there. I knew no one, but I
Speaker 3: met my mentor, one of my biggest mentors at Fordham,
Speaker 3: Joe Jozevsky, and he was at the theater in the
Speaker 3: theater department. A teacher I was taught by. Deborah Monk,
Speaker 3: was my first acting teacher. Deborah Monk, the great, the great, great, great,
Speaker 3: gorgeous Deborah Monk was my first acting teacher at Fordham. Okay,
Speaker 3: it was just I loved for it. I just I
Speaker 3: go back every year now and speak to the graduating
Speaker 3: actors every year. I had to miss a few times
Speaker 3: here or there because I was shooting or something, but
Speaker 3: I just did it, like a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2: What were some of the shows that you did.
Speaker 3: I did Pinter I did the famous pinter play Three Characters,
Speaker 3: the Old Fair Betrayal, Trill Betrayal. You'd like the Trail
Speaker 3: with Ron Morasco, the best actor ever at Fordham. I
Speaker 3: was in his shadow. And I mean he's now an academic.
Speaker 3: He's brilliant, brilliant man of renaissance man. He's writer, actor
Speaker 3: director anyway, But I I formed, I became an actor,
Speaker 3: and Joe Jozevsky helped shape me, directed me, and had
Speaker 3: a gabbler in my senior year, you know, and then
Speaker 3: I he's the one who told me you will get
Speaker 3: into Yale. I said no, they had people were telling
Speaker 3: me you have to have connections to get in the Yale.
Speaker 3: Joe said, no, Patty, we're going to get the right
Speaker 3: two right pieces for you and we're going to work
Speaker 3: your ass off for this and you're going to get in.
Speaker 2: So you knew then at Fordham, when you were getting
Speaker 2: your BFA, yes, that you want your next goal was
Speaker 2: MFA eal.
Speaker 3: Well I always had. I never thought about film. I
Speaker 3: always thought about theater, and I knew how important studying was.
Speaker 3: And really, remember I had only had two years at Fordham.
Speaker 3: I needed more depth and breadth of studying. And I
Speaker 3: thought I just always had this thing about well, if
Speaker 3: I could get into Yale, and I'll never forget the
Speaker 3: day I lived. So we found an apartment, me and
Speaker 3: Viviana on seventy seventh and Broadway and Fordham is at sixtieth.
Speaker 3: And I got that letter in the mail. I opened
Speaker 3: it at my little our little table that was in
Speaker 3: our little apartment, and it says you have been accepted
Speaker 3: to the School of Dramas. I ran seventeen blocks to Fordham.
Speaker 3: Joe and everybody was in a staff meeting, and I
Speaker 3: just went through the secretary. I just opened it in
Speaker 3: and I said, Joe, right, and.
Speaker 1: There's so much great, like I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: like remember that time in your life and everything.
Speaker 2: First of all, it was nineteen eighty so.
Speaker 3: For everyone to really this was eighty two. Now in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2: Two, eighty two, it's New York City. It's a very
Speaker 2: special time in New York City. Things are real, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And you're young, and we're young
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: Twenty two everything was just like the world was. Everything
Speaker 3: was before me, and I had nothing to regret behind me,
Speaker 3: so everything was forward. And again my parents had to
Speaker 3: find and I had a full ride to study at Rutgers.
Speaker 3: I had a full I was offered a a I
Speaker 3: was offered a soap opera.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was.
Speaker 3: And my father was like, well, well of course she
Speaker 3: takes you.
Speaker 1: What made you know that you wanted to continue with learning,
Speaker 1: in studying as opposed to hitting.
Speaker 2: Did you see Broadway shows?
Speaker 3: I would assume, And I saw it, and you know what,
Speaker 3: you know what I saw like twelve times and I
Speaker 3: had no money. I stood dream Girls. I was j Jennifer.
Speaker 3: Most people would think it was some straight and I'm
Speaker 3: not a musical theater person at all. Just if I
Speaker 3: sang one note, you'd know immediately. I did dance when
Speaker 3: I was young. But but Jennifer holiday that performance. I
Speaker 3: saw that just it informed me in ways as an
Speaker 3: actor that I will never lose.
Speaker 4: You're you're eating that's I have a very tight dress,
Speaker 4: gorgeous Christian Syrianna dress tomorrow night.
Speaker 3: And I.
Speaker 4: But anyway, so I'm yes, I'm girls, you're standing in
Speaker 4: the yes and I because when she hits that last
Speaker 4: closing song of Act one, and I am telling you,
Speaker 4: she's just.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's.
Speaker 2: The earth moves, the earth.
Speaker 3: Moves, and it's it's such a visceral, beautiful performance, and
Speaker 3: you didn't want to change me. It just inform me
Speaker 3: as an actress. Sorry, would go back and back and back.
Speaker 3: You know. It's what I just told that all the
Speaker 3: Fordham kids I just spoke to. I said, nobody, nobody
Speaker 3: was filming anything. This is the Your cell phone is
Speaker 3: a death of you as an actress. I felt everything
Speaker 3: I saw. I didn't have to record it. It was
Speaker 3: my body, my soul, my mind was recording it. I
Speaker 3: will never forget Jennifer Holiday ever. I mean, Jennifer was
Speaker 3: wonderful also, but Jennifer Holiday is my erson now in.
Speaker 1: The eighties, specifically in that show which just blew it
Speaker 1: off the room.
Speaker 3: I had a rich friend and he came to visit me.
Speaker 3: Kathy Smith and her mother bought us tickets and I
Speaker 3: sat in. I sat down to watch it. Finally, Oh
Speaker 3: my god, like really good seats.
Speaker 2: So why didn't you just say I'm ready?
Speaker 3: You know, after Fordam, Yeah, like I'm ready. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I had this. I had this desire to keep trying
Speaker 3: to hone my craft. You know, as actors we it
Speaker 3: is a craft. It is a muscle that needs to
Speaker 3: be flexed and toned and you know, exercise. But what
Speaker 3: we ultimately want is to make art, and I think
Speaker 3: it it's hard. It's hard to take craft and lift
Speaker 3: it art. It's hard.
Speaker 2: How come every senior in you own you own?
Speaker 1: And clearly it started at fordom Patricia clar When you're
Speaker 1: in a movie and you're in and you've done a
Speaker 1: lot of theater, and you've done a lot of movies, when.
Speaker 2: You walk on, can you identify it? Don't you know?
Speaker 3: Do it? This is the only thing I do know
Speaker 3: this as I've gotten older, and I hope this doesn't
Speaker 3: sound pretentious. I think as actors we can only create
Speaker 3: so much and fake so much, and kind of I
Speaker 3: do believe that as we age, we bring more and
Speaker 3: more and more of ourselves, and I think that's essential.
Speaker 3: We have to marry life and art. And yes there
Speaker 3: are times when we're outside the box of ourselves, but
Speaker 3: ourselves we always have to. Our emotional life has to
Speaker 3: somehow mirror our own right and maybe I'm comfortable the
Speaker 3: body wants to shut you down when you act and
Speaker 3: you do these very big emotional scenes, are you just
Speaker 3: or when you're taking on like when I was doing
Speaker 3: sharp objects, you know, these hideous scenes are poisoning my child.
Speaker 3: The body wants to shut you down, but you have
Speaker 3: to actually understand. You have to have the truth around it.
Speaker 3: You have to understand it. You have to understand the
Speaker 3: way Patty would understand it, so then it actually is
Speaker 3: the way the character would understand. And as I've moved
Speaker 3: forward in this world, I realize when I'm not present,
Speaker 3: it's not a good thing. And as difficult as that is,
Speaker 3: I think that's the shame about acting. Although things are
Speaker 3: dramatically changing in Hollywood, as we age, we just we
Speaker 3: get better because we're able to just be there.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Table for two.
Speaker 1: After earning not one, but two prestigious drama degrees, Patricia
Speaker 1: Clarkson began her professional life on stage. I want to
Speaker 1: know when she first sensed that her career was taken off.
Speaker 2: What's the first play you nail?
Speaker 3: Hit?
Speaker 2: Past that?
Speaker 3: You were like, holy shit, you mean that? I got yes, well,
Speaker 3: House of Blue Leaves on Broadway. I replaced Julie Haggerty
Speaker 3: right after they won that, but I had an audition
Speaker 3: for it. Originally had given this crazy audition, got a
Speaker 3: standing ovation, but they went with Julie Haggerty. Nine months
Speaker 3: later we.
Speaker 2: Got standing ovation in the.
Speaker 3: In the audition, John, they were so sweet. They were
Speaker 3: so sweet to me, and so I think I'm getting this.
Speaker 3: I bought a new dress, I had no money, I
Speaker 3: had my hair because I'm playing you know, you can
Speaker 3: say the hearing impair. She wasn't deaf, she was hearing
Speaker 3: impaired movie star Corina. And I fell out my chair
Speaker 3: and you know, and I didn't get the part. And
Speaker 3: then nine months later, after they win the Tony, Julia
Speaker 3: Haggerty's leaving to go do one of her big films
Speaker 3: at the time. And I have a message on my
Speaker 3: answering machine from Jerry's Axe Patricia.
Speaker 2: Jerry's right, We're.
Speaker 3: Giving you the part, you know. And it was one
Speaker 3: thousand dollars a week. I thought I died and gone right.
Speaker 3: I'd never made.
Speaker 2: Any money, that's so amazing.
Speaker 3: I stepped in to House of Blue Leaves. I'd done
Speaker 3: a few plays off Broadway before that, some Richard Greenberg
Speaker 3: and atest some beautiful and then but then I got
Speaker 3: House of Blue Leaves on Broadway right after they won
Speaker 3: the Tony. Know that. Then I'm in that for three months,
Speaker 3: but then I have to leave it to go do
Speaker 3: the Untouchables.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So she just kind of throws the
Speaker 1: Untouchables in.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the.
Speaker 1: First movie This Gorgeous Woman Across from Me is in
Speaker 1: is a Palmer film starring Kevin Costner in his height oftitious.
Speaker 2: Gorgeous How did I mean? What I mean? That's it.
Speaker 2: That's a huge, huge thing. You nail it.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about the process working with Brian
Speaker 1: de Palmer making out with Kevin.
Speaker 3: The famous great acting a great casting director who passed
Speaker 3: away not long ago. Anyway, it'll come to me. And
Speaker 3: I go in to read for him, and I kind
Speaker 3: of was a little dulled up, and he goes listen.
Speaker 3: I think Brian would like you, but you need to
Speaker 3: come back in no makeup and don't wear that sexy dress.
Speaker 3: So I go out by like a little house in
Speaker 3: the prairie, drows seriously like like crunchy, like puffy sleeves
Speaker 3: and like like a midt like a tie around the thing.
Speaker 3: I walk in very unsuthered, like no makeup, like oh,
Speaker 3: I hit my life, and and there's Brian to ball
Speaker 3: and he the reader's there, but Brian reads Elliott nests
Speaker 3: opposite me, and I think Brian liked the juxtaposition of
Speaker 3: my kind of you know, deep voice, my kind of
Speaker 3: you know, baritone dux opposed to my kind of you know,
Speaker 3: upturned nose and you know, and my big hair. I
Speaker 3: think he just liked that I was this sweet looking
Speaker 3: person and I kind of had a little bit of
Speaker 3: a naughty voice. Well, so I walk out the room
Speaker 3: and the next thing I know is they're flying me.
Speaker 3: I'm now in the middle of doing housabilities, but they're
Speaker 3: flying me to Chicago to meet Kevin Costner. I have
Speaker 3: a matinee I have to do, but they fly me on.
Speaker 3: Like you it's seven, no, no, no, no, seven o'clock.
Speaker 3: I walk in again. I wear kind of like a
Speaker 3: plain Jane dress. I'm like Jesus, like these ugly shoes
Speaker 3: and no make I'm like, oh God. And I walk
Speaker 3: in and Kevin's kind of sweet and he's like, I
Speaker 3: hear Brian, Brian loves you, Patricia. And I read with
Speaker 3: Kevin and they tell me I have the part right
Speaker 3: in the room, but my agents didn't believe me. So
Speaker 3: I walk out. I'm like, I got the park. They're like, no, no, no, Patty.
Speaker 3: I was like, no, no, no, no, They're not going
Speaker 3: to lie to me. I would not lie to a
Speaker 3: southern girl like with with who walked in with no
Speaker 3: makeup and big hair, and of course, like you know,
Speaker 3: I get back on the plane. I'm in my dressing
Speaker 3: room preparing for my matinee. I made it back with
Speaker 3: me matinee. Okay, but I'd never flown like first class. Really,
Speaker 3: I never had a car picked me up. I never
Speaker 3: had I had everybody just waiting on me. I never
Speaker 3: had any of that. So anyway, I get back to
Speaker 3: the dressing room in the phone rings and my agent
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, you were right, you got the car.
Speaker 3: But Bruce, it was wall to wall white men. Even
Speaker 3: my makeup artist was a white man. Really beautiful man.
Speaker 3: Mike can't got beautiful and beautiful. Everybody everybody was mail.
Speaker 3: My mother came to visit me in set because my
Speaker 3: mother had business in Chicago at the time, and she
Speaker 3: came to visit me. She was like, petty, Petty, I
Speaker 3: don't know if this is good or bad, but there's
Speaker 3: a lot of handsome men and there's just nothing but man,
Speaker 3: if I can see for are there any ladies here?
Speaker 3: Are there any ladies in Chicago? I mean, it was
Speaker 3: just wall. I was the only woman on the set
Speaker 3: and then there was my mother for a day and
Speaker 3: my mother was like, oh, hello, but no, Brian was
Speaker 3: Brian was incredible to me. And I'll tell you what
Speaker 3: he did, and it still moves me to this day.
Speaker 3: I was broke and I was being paid but minimum.
Speaker 3: You know, they got me for scale, but I was
Speaker 3: still struggling in New York City. And he knew it,
Speaker 3: and he couldn't get me more money. But he told paramount,
Speaker 3: he said, I think we need miss Ness in the courtroom.
Speaker 3: I think we need her in the courtroom. And they said, well,
Speaker 3: it's a it's not We're not shooting the courtroom till
Speaker 3: the month. He said, well, I guess you're just gonna
Speaker 3: have to pay her for a month because we need
Speaker 3: her in that court. I got paid an extra month,
Speaker 3: a whole month. It saved me. Yeah, and I just
Speaker 3: sat in New York and went back and shopped the
Speaker 3: court right, but I got paid.
Speaker 2: That makes me so happy.
Speaker 3: That till this day, he's my hero. He's he was amazing,
Speaker 3: amazing to me.
Speaker 1: You bring up something that's so obviously changed, which is
Speaker 1: a white male set, and that was you know, obviously
Speaker 1: probably over the last ten years, massive, massive, how has
Speaker 1: that now been for you and work and the whole
Speaker 1: movement of really diversifying the place, the movie set.
Speaker 3: It's the thing that's ever happened in Hollywood. It's single.
Speaker 3: It is the best thing. The best part of Hollywood
Speaker 3: now is its diversity on camera. Off camera. We still
Speaker 3: have a way to go, but I'm telling you off camera,
Speaker 3: the things I've shot recently, everybody is reflected. When you
Speaker 3: go to a movie set, you want to see yourself
Speaker 3: reflected in all the people because the crew is part
Speaker 3: of your life. You see them every day for twelve
Speaker 3: fourteen hours a day, and often you're working for no money.
Speaker 3: What are you there for if you're not reflected in
Speaker 3: all of the people on that set, or more importantly,
Speaker 3: if you're not reflected on film. Now sometimes you know,
Speaker 3: we have to do things that don't include people of color,
Speaker 3: if talking something historic but something important, but you know,
Speaker 3: as a white woman, but an older white like, there's
Speaker 3: older people now on sets. It used to just be
Speaker 3: really young people, I mean young white guys and some
Speaker 3: old guys that ran the show, and now it's older
Speaker 3: women who are not giving up their careers, Beautiful makeup
Speaker 3: artists and beautiful costume designers and beautiful set designers, all
Speaker 3: of these women of many nationalities. We still have a
Speaker 3: way to go, but it's the best thing that's ever
Speaker 3: happened in Hollywood is the diversity.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Back on table for two, Patricia and I have had
Speaker 1: a wonderful lunch talking about her career on Broadway and
Speaker 1: the silver screen. All of a sudden, when I mentioned
Speaker 1: Chelsea Handler in passing, she calls her her hero.
Speaker 2: Let's find out why.
Speaker 3: I'm a sixty three year old, single, straight Southern woman
Speaker 3: who never married and never had children. You know that
Speaker 3: man who's got the squeaky voice, who says she must
Speaker 3: be the most unhappy when in the world. Come to
Speaker 3: our house one night and see just how unhappy Chelsea
Speaker 3: and I are. I mean, look, I have so many
Speaker 3: sisters who have beautiful children, and they now have beautiful children.
Speaker 3: I love being an aunt. I love it more than
Speaker 3: probably more than acting, which is odd. Okay, they're on
Speaker 3: a par okay, but but I'm telling you, these are
Speaker 3: gorgeous children. But that defined that, that doesn't have to
Speaker 3: define every woman.
Speaker 2: You know what, Like, You're right, you made a choice.
Speaker 3: I made a big choice.
Speaker 5: I made it.
Speaker 3: But I knew it when I was young, and I've
Speaker 3: had beautiful men in my life. And I thought about
Speaker 3: it with this one artist I dated where it's I
Speaker 3: was like thirty eight. I had a window, well, a
Speaker 3: window to have a child. I was thirty eight, so
Speaker 3: I had a window. But in the end of the day,
Speaker 3: I loved working. And I grew up with great parents
Speaker 3: who sacrificed everything for me. And you have to really
Speaker 3: be committed to having children, right, you have to be
Speaker 3: a great parent, And I was afraid I couldn't be.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to fail at being a parent. I'm
Speaker 3: fine failing as an actor. I didn't want to fail
Speaker 3: as being a parent. But look, I'm a Southern woman.
Speaker 3: But let me tell you who's the coolest about it
Speaker 3: is my mother, like my mother, my father. My mother said, Patty,
Speaker 3: I just don't want you to wake up at fifty
Speaker 3: and be unhappy. I woke up at fifty in stilettos
Speaker 3: and a fall far. I let me tell you, no,
Speaker 3: I mean I had great sexy asfeh. I mean I
Speaker 3: I'm just saying is, And it's not that my whole
Speaker 3: life is that.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying is.
Speaker 3: I love being an a. I love being a sister,
Speaker 3: I love being a daughter, I love being a great
Speaker 3: best friend. I'm a very good friend. I think it's
Speaker 3: not what I wanted to define me because I didn't
Speaker 3: want to fail.
Speaker 1: I also just watched for the first time Pieces of April,
Speaker 1: and my question around that it was a serious family
Speaker 1: you're sick with cancer.
Speaker 2: Katie Holmes is.
Speaker 3: Sort of like, oh, delicious, and Katie was delicious.
Speaker 1: You have you come from a family of five sisters,
Speaker 1: like are the traditions that like? You know, this was
Speaker 1: about Thanksgiving and this was about the complexities of it.
Speaker 2: Do your family and it was a great one. All
Speaker 2: of you should see it and.
Speaker 3: We all have Yes. Well, well, my mother she doesn't
Speaker 3: cook anymore. You know, my parents are still with me.
Speaker 3: They're eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're in credit.
Speaker 3: My mother doesn't cook anymore. But you know it was
Speaker 3: always you know, she was going to make Merlaton crab meat.
Speaker 3: She's going to make jamalaia but very specific. You're very
Speaker 3: going to make very specific jamalia. Not a Cajun. People
Speaker 3: can flat Cajun and Creole. I'm Creole. We grew up
Speaker 3: with Creole cooking. Creole is the Spanish and French influence
Speaker 3: that really landed was throughout the people. It is. You know,
Speaker 3: the people of New Orleans are a real gumbo. They're
Speaker 3: such a mixture and that's the beauty of this city.
Speaker 3: But the cooking, like my mother, my mother never saw
Speaker 3: sausage in her life. You know, they did not cook.
Speaker 3: My mother didn't cook with sausage really.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: Everything was crab meat, shrimp.
Speaker 2: That's all Cajun.
Speaker 3: That's all Cajun, and sausage and meat on doing. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: my mother, My mother cooked you know, creole. So everything
Speaker 3: we ate, we had big you know, and we always
Speaker 3: my mother never allowed a container on the table like ketchup.
Speaker 3: Everything had to be even though we were like but
Speaker 3: my mother had nice things because she was given nice
Speaker 3: things from like her bubby, from her you know, from
Speaker 3: down the line. But you know, we were living in
Speaker 3: the suburbs of our years outside New Orleans, going to
Speaker 3: public school, but we still a ketchup bottle was not
Speaker 3: allowed all the time. But I'm like mom, I think
Speaker 3: we can put the.
Speaker 2: Clarks and sisters kind of wild.
Speaker 3: No, well, we were all very different, but we were
Speaker 3: all we all have the same tambur of voice. Like
Speaker 3: if all my sisters, any of my sisters walk in,
Speaker 3: it just got deeper and deeper and deeper. But no,
Speaker 3: we all have these kind of de voice of that
Speaker 3: I think we got from my grandmother on my father's side.
Speaker 3: We are very close. We were all like we were
Speaker 3: all sixteen eighteen months apart. Wow, we were all like
Speaker 3: five of us. We were all, you know, we were
Speaker 3: born with them out you know, we all there were
Speaker 3: five sets of hot curlers, five sets of you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, we all we you know, boxes of
Speaker 3: Tampa everywhere, my all, I mean like we just like
Speaker 3: our whole house with curlers and tampas and Panny Huges.
Speaker 2: Curlersas that's the memoir. That's the name of the memoir.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I that that was there, like any
Speaker 2: of that? Like, did you have any like sparring with one? Yes?
Speaker 3: Well, Kevy my oldest sister, My sister was just ahead
Speaker 3: of me. Her name is Kevin. My mother in nineteen
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty in nineteen fifty eight named my sister
Speaker 3: Kevin Elizabeth. She knew a little girl named Kevin. How
Speaker 3: cool was that? First of all, because my father was
Speaker 3: never going to have a boy, so well, we'll give
Speaker 3: her a boy name. Buzz that's my buys name, but
Speaker 3: it'll be close enough, all right. But Heavy and I
Speaker 3: had to share clothes and share a room, and as
Speaker 3: we got into teenage years and hormones raising, racing, and
Speaker 3: we even I think one year I had to share
Speaker 3: hot curlers. I mean, we were always we had to
Speaker 3: share everything, and that was rough. But you know, my
Speaker 3: mother and father didn't. My mother wasn't working at the
Speaker 3: time when we were growing up. My father was working
Speaker 3: and he was running a children's home, and we didn't
Speaker 3: have money, you know, so we sparred. We would fight.
Speaker 3: But then but my fiercest, staunchest defenders till the day
Speaker 3: I die. If something bad happens to me in this industry,
Speaker 3: my sister's life that I don't care. I hate that,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean, they defend me to the death.
Speaker 3: You do not want to best with the clarks And girls, No, no, no,
Speaker 3: So they're beautiful.
Speaker 2: So let's talk to you. Are starring in Monica.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean the star is Tracey Lazet, but I
Speaker 3: am a bigger I'm a bigger supporting character, very big.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it's a huge supporting character, and it's really
Speaker 1: kind of the emotional thing around.
Speaker 3: Yes, I had to carry the emotional a lot of
Speaker 3: the emotional way hinged on this character.
Speaker 2: And again Patty Clarkson, just you own it, Honey, you
Speaker 2: just own it.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a You've always been a very strong
Speaker 1: advocate for the LGBTQ plus.
Speaker 2: Community, always always always talk to.
Speaker 1: Us about this movie and about the complexities of the story.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, Bruce, if I can get through this
Speaker 3: without crying, and and it's it's it's it's a very
Speaker 3: it's taken a part of me being in this film
Speaker 3: right now at this moment when I watch you know,
Speaker 3: that beautiful woman who is just silenced on the Montana
Speaker 3: floor for the rest of the year.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I met on the day at Baloo who's like you.
Speaker 3: Boo's just a gorgeous pan physically and of fears and
Speaker 3: just a beautiful director. And I met him long ago
Speaker 3: at Marrakesh when I was on the jury and he
Speaker 3: said I want to work with you someday and then
Speaker 3: he finally cast Trace and then he came to me
Speaker 3: to play the mother and I said yes. In one day.
Speaker 3: I literally said yes. By the end of the day,
Speaker 3: maybe the next morning. And so Trace and I were
Speaker 3: attached to this film for quite some time. But raising
Speaker 3: money for a transgender film it's hard.
Speaker 2: It's hard.
Speaker 1: Can you take a beat and explain Trace so everyone
Speaker 1: who's listening can understand.
Speaker 3: Trace is a beautiful transgender actress. The real thing. We
Speaker 3: finally have a transgender actress that I'm not denigrating anybody
Speaker 3: else who played transgender. You know, we were politically incorrect
Speaker 3: often in Hollywood. It's not new to us. We've all
Speaker 3: been at moments politically. But she is a absolutely beautiful
Speaker 3: inside and out, beautiful transgender woman. And this story grew
Speaker 3: up in Ohio. This story of Monica echoes hers. She's
Speaker 3: still playing a different woman, but she left home also
Speaker 3: like Monica. So the story of the movie is she's
Speaker 3: an eighteen year old, leaves home, is not well treated
Speaker 3: by the father. I don't know that I did the
Speaker 3: best I could as the mother. There is guilt and
Speaker 3: shame in my world. She transitions on her own, which
Speaker 3: must have been brutal. And anyway, she's returning home to
Speaker 3: me because I'm in the final stages of cancer, and
Speaker 3: this is brutal cancer. It's brain cancer. I'm in the
Speaker 3: final stages and I'm dying, and I think she's hospice.
Speaker 3: This beautiful comes in. I have a nurse played by
Speaker 3: the Great Adriana Barrazza, who was in battle. And anyway,
Speaker 3: it's a pot of to where we get to. But trace,
Speaker 3: you know, on the day I auditioned many, many, many people,
Speaker 3: and then he got to trace and he found he
Speaker 3: found Monica and very you know, there was no question
Speaker 3: she is. And she's so beautiful and subtle and truthful
Speaker 3: and open and available. And you know, I've been asked before,
Speaker 3: how did you do these emotional scenes? And I say, well,
Speaker 3: she was. The love I have for her off screen
Speaker 3: is on screen. The reverence and the respect I have
Speaker 3: of what she went through to get to where she
Speaker 3: is now moves me to the core. And so it
Speaker 3: was very emotional. The whole shoot of this movie was
Speaker 3: very emotional because dealing with the real thing and someone
Speaker 3: who has made this remarkable transformation. But you know, I
Speaker 3: tell you, Bruce, I don't think a transgender person's life
Speaker 3: is up for debate. They are Americans. They are free
Speaker 3: to be here and free to be themselves. That's why
Speaker 3: we fight. We're born here and stay here, or we fight.
Speaker 3: People lose their lives fighting to get to this country
Speaker 3: to what be persecuted. They're fleeing persecution. What the hell
Speaker 3: are we doing persecuting people in this country? How do
Speaker 3: you know how that person feels deep inside? They know,
Speaker 3: their parent knows, often their doctor knows. Whenever they transition,
Speaker 3: that is their choice, that is their freedom. Everybody balks
Speaker 3: about freedom. Yeah, I don't think there's anything more American
Speaker 3: than being transgender. There's nothing more beautiful than being transgender.
Speaker 3: You have made it to the life you've always wanted.
Speaker 3: You know, Trace Lessette is a beautiful, beautiful woman. And
Speaker 3: I said, someday, Trace, you know, you are carrying the
Speaker 3: banner and the flag. Thank you God for the transgender community.
Speaker 3: She's so beloved in the transgender community. It's you know,
Speaker 3: it's very moving to me, you know, to be a
Speaker 3: part of all of this. But at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, someday Trace will just be two actresses playing spies,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. And that's ultimately her goal
Speaker 3: is just to be an actress. She's just a beautiful
Speaker 3: woman in this world navigating a career completely.
Speaker 1: I've had such an incredible lunch with Battye today. I
Speaker 1: so admire her passion and how much she cares about others.
Speaker 1: Before we go, she and I talk about how it
Speaker 1: took a while to get the funding together for Monica
Speaker 1: and how that led to a very interesting casting decision.
Speaker 3: You know, this movie had no money, and you know
Speaker 3: that the dog in the film is.
Speaker 5: My own eyes because but and so on day, it
Speaker 5: took us quite a while to get some filmed, some
Speaker 5: money together.
Speaker 3: So Andrea I would see easy in New York. She
Speaker 3: he's here at the chateau because she just owned the chateau.
Speaker 3: She roams free, and she's like Eloise, and.
Speaker 2: You've made EASi, No I have.
Speaker 3: She passed and so through that she she had plaits,
Speaker 3: a kind of a dog form of lupas, and but
Speaker 3: she lived to do the movie. Yeah, and she she
Speaker 3: was so sweet during the filming. No, it was very hard.
Speaker 3: Everybody in New York, who's coming to you know, all
Speaker 3: my friends, they're all coming, I said, brinkleanex Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, because when you well, for other reasons, but
Speaker 3: when you're going to see Izzy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they all loved.
Speaker 3: Oh, she was the love of every single friend of mine.
Speaker 3: Everybody loved Dizzy. Everybody she was like it was like
Speaker 3: she was like a little black fawn. I had like
Speaker 3: a black fawn in my house or something, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Pricia Clarkson, as we sort of, I know you
Speaker 1: have a very busy day. I want to say that
Speaker 1: not only do I know you're one of the most
Speaker 1: talented human beings on the silver screen, on a Broadway stage,
Speaker 1: you are completely one of the kindest, most just generous humans.
Speaker 1: And I love running into you on sixth Avenue. I
Speaker 1: love sitting with you in Hollywood, and thank you so much,
Speaker 1: and and I admire your courage and everything that you've
Speaker 1: done from that why I.
Speaker 2: Amc a shitdes form room to this movie. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 3: You realize everything's going to be downhill from here on out,
Speaker 3: but I'm taking the rest of my.
Speaker 2: All right, everyone, thank you for pulling up with s
Speaker 2: heare today. Thanks miss Patricia clarks Thank you.
Speaker 6: Table for two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeartRadio
Speaker 6: seven three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are
Speaker 6: Bruce Bosi and Nathan King. Table for two is researched
Speaker 6: and written by Bridget arsenalt Our sound engineers are Paul
Speaker 6: Bowman and Alyssa Midcalf. Table for two's LA production team
Speaker 6: is Danielle Romo and Lorraine Verrez.
Speaker 2: Our music supervisor is Randall poster.
Speaker 1: Our Talent booking is by James Harkin. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Amy Sugarman, Uni Cher, Kevin Yvane, Bobby Bauer, Alison Kanter, Graber,
Speaker 1: Barbara and Jazz, and Jeff Klein and the staff at
Speaker 1: the Tower Bar in the world famous Sunset Tower Hotel.
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