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Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Hello Whipsmarties.

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Speaker 1: Today's guest is an incredible multi hyphenet that I think

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Speaker 1: is not only fascinating as an artist, but fascinating and

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Speaker 1: courageous as a human. Today I'm joined by Nico Tortorella.

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Speaker 1: He is an actor, a musician, and an author. You

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Speaker 1: may know him from Darren Starr's hit series Younger, from

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Speaker 1: AMC's The Walking Dead, A World Beyond, or the incredible

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Speaker 1: Apple TV show City on Fire. Most recently, he appeared

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Speaker 1: in the indie film Matachin Family opposite Carl Lemons Hopkins

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Speaker 1: and Emily Hampshire, who we just love on this show.

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Speaker 1: Nico grew up both playing hockey and in the theater

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Speaker 1: in Chicago. We had an office a lot to talk

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Speaker 1: about with that theater scene that we both love so much,

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Speaker 1: and he's leaned into his artistry in the most inspiring way.

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Speaker 1: Not only has he become an advocate and a leader

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Speaker 1: in the LGBTQ community, but in finding himself in his voice.

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Speaker 1: He's also pursued so many other passions as an artist,

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Speaker 1: going from TV and film to writing. This spring, he's

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Speaker 1: releasing a children's book called All of It Is You,

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Speaker 1: about loving and honoring every part of yourself while creating

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Speaker 1: conversations around acceptance and self exploration. And he also, in

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Speaker 1: preparation for his first daughter with his longtime partner Bethanie Meyers,

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Speaker 1: started making music. He's made an incredible album called Born.

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Speaker 1: We will make sure to link to it in the stories,

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Speaker 1: which he wrote in advance of his daughter's birth, and

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Speaker 1: then realized he wanted her to be able to listen

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Speaker 1: to it anytime she pleased when she grew up. So

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Speaker 1: it is out for all of us to enjoy. And

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Speaker 1: I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. Hello,

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Speaker 1: how are you? I'm great. There's like so much for

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Speaker 1: us to talk about today. We have so many things

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Speaker 1: going on. I love it before we jump into anyone

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Speaker 1: of the three projects that I know we have to

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Speaker 1: talk about. I actually really like to ask people to

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Speaker 1: rewind with me because I feel like, you know, audiences

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Speaker 1: meet you when you're doing a TV show or you've

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Speaker 1: you know, written a book, or you have a movie coming

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Speaker 1: out or something, and I'm always really curious to know

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Speaker 1: who these artists that I meet in the present were

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Speaker 1: as kids. You know, if you look back, like if

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Speaker 1: you could rewind the like the TVO to see Nico

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Speaker 1: at eight or nine, would you find, you know, an

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Speaker 1: artist and a creative? Where were you like a tiny

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Speaker 1: little athlete or you know, like who was that little kid?

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Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, there's something about having children too

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Speaker 2: that demands you go back and look.

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Speaker 1: I wondered about that for sure.

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Speaker 2: I'm experiencing my own childhood through her eyes right now,

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Speaker 2: which is a really cool thing. Eight or nine, I

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Speaker 2: was both. I was an athlete and I had found

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Speaker 2: the stage right about at that time. Really yeah. I

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Speaker 2: grew up in Chicago and everyone in my family was

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Speaker 2: a hockey player. We all grew up on the same

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Speaker 2: all my cousins. And that's just like what I was

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Speaker 2: made to do pretty much ride out the womb. I

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Speaker 2: was on the ice and I loved it. But it

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Speaker 2: was always a performance for me. It's like I would

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Speaker 2: score a goal and take my gloves off and throw

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Speaker 2: them in the audience and it was a show, right Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And then my mom made us audition for the Wizard

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Speaker 2: of Oz when we were right about eight or nine.

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Speaker 2: Just like children's theater local Spot cast as a munchkin

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Speaker 2: and a Flying Monkey, and the rest is kind of history.

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Speaker 2: Like the second I got on that stage, I just

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Speaker 2: knew that's what I was going to do for the

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Speaker 2: rest of my life.

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Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, So how did that then shape the rest

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Speaker 1: of your childhood and your hockey career and all of it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, in Chicago, I had like interesting access to

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Speaker 2: the stage, you know, and I got tapped into the

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Speaker 2: scene there pretty quickly, and I got an agent and

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Speaker 2: started auditioning a bunch for different productions, and I got

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Speaker 2: casts in a show called Over the Tavern, which kind

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Speaker 2: of hopped around a different a few different theaters in

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Speaker 2: the Chicagoland area for years, and I wound up being

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Speaker 2: in that show for almost four years. I played all

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Speaker 2: three brothers throughout the years. I like started playing the

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Speaker 2: youngest brother, and just as I got older, I kept

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Speaker 2: playing the older brother. And yeah, I mean I was

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Speaker 2: missing school every Wednesday for Matine's and h shows a week,

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Speaker 2: and you know, you know, being on stage that's a

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Speaker 2: whole other right, especially that young And I mean I

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Speaker 2: quickly quit playing sports after I fell on the stage.

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Speaker 2: Like I was playing soccer, I was playing hockey. And

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Speaker 2: I made it very clear to all of my coaches

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Speaker 2: that I was done, and yeah, that one way or

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Speaker 2: another got me to LA and that's how it all

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Speaker 2: worked out.

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Speaker 1: Wow. And so then was younger the first on camera

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Speaker 1: like big job or were? There were there things in between.

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Speaker 2: There were a few other things. I got to LA

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Speaker 2: when I was nineteen. I went to business school at

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Speaker 2: Loyal in Marymount for a hot second, which was not

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Speaker 2: the right place for me, and I dropped out after

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Speaker 2: like six weeks. Honestly, I was running a raw food

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Speaker 2: restaurant in Santa Monica and I started modeling. I my

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Speaker 2: agent in Chicago hooked me up with a sister agency

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Speaker 2: in La CSD, and I started auditioning pretty quick and

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Speaker 2: I booked. I was testing for a bit for that

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Speaker 2: Nickelodeon boy band Big Time Rush. That was kind of

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Speaker 2: like the first big audition experience that I had in LA.

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Speaker 2: And then I got Making or Break It, which was

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Speaker 2: an ABC Family show about gymnastics. Cass is a recurring

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Speaker 2: on that show, and after we shot the pilot, I

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Speaker 2: got my first series regular on a CW show called

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Speaker 2: The Beautiful Life, which shot in New York City. So

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Speaker 2: I moved to New York when I was twenty. This

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Speaker 2: all happened very quickly when I started auditioning and we

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Speaker 2: shot a total of seven episodes. We got canceled after seven,

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Speaker 2: only three I think aired, and moved back to LA

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Speaker 2: And like within the year I was casting Scream four

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Speaker 2: and Younger kind of came a little bit later. It

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Speaker 2: was like two years after that. Yeah, I was twenty

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Speaker 2: six or twenty seven when I got Younger. It was

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Speaker 2: almost like a decade before that.

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Speaker 1: Isn't it funny they always say it takes a decade

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Speaker 1: of a coming overnight success.

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Speaker 2: It's still taking time two decades later, because you know.

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Speaker 1: It's so wild. It's one of really the only careers

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Speaker 1: where like every time you finish a job, you start over.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. It's uh, you have to just get used to. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: those those in between phases, the highs and lows. The

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Speaker 2: highs are like so good when they're there, and you know,

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Speaker 2: but the most exciting part of it is like you're

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Speaker 2: always one phone call away from an entirely different life, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: which like keeps me going, yeah, eail about a breakdown

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Speaker 2: or something like I can immediately imagine what my next

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Speaker 2: two years looks.

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Speaker 1: Like, Right, Yeah, isn't that interesting? And then but to

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Speaker 1: your point. You know, it's it's so amazing, but it

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Speaker 1: is also really tricky. I think people kind of forget

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Speaker 1: that to do this, it's not dissimilar to being an athlete,

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Speaker 1: like you're expected to pick up and go. You get traded,

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Speaker 1: you're moving in three days, you book a job, you're

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Speaker 1: moving to Canada, you're moving to Albuquerque, you're moving to Wilmington.

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Speaker 1: And I think it can be really hard to like

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Speaker 1: pick up, leave your whole family, you know, and just

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Speaker 1: you kind of get plucked and you're gone. And I

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Speaker 1: know you've you've been really open and vulnerable about like

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Speaker 1: some of that hardship. You know, you've talked about how

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Speaker 1: during the first season of Younger you were really struggling

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Speaker 1: with alcoholism and to be so young and to be

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Speaker 1: on that real sort of yo yo string of this career.

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Speaker 2: Do you.

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Speaker 1: Feel like part of how hard this can be, the

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Speaker 1: up and downs increased your propensity to struggle there or

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Speaker 1: do you think that was something you'd maybe been dealing

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Speaker 1: with for longer and the work schedule and the intensity

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Speaker 1: of the job helped you come to terms with the

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Speaker 1: fact that you probably needed to get so at that time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was both. I mean I grew

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Speaker 2: up in a bar in Chicago, surrounded by alcohol and

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Speaker 2: in my blood for sure. And you know that when

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Speaker 2: you experienced that level of success at eighteen nineteen years

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Speaker 2: old in Los Angeles, that lifestyle is just thrown at you,

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Speaker 2: like you don't even have to think about it. Right,

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Speaker 2: You're at every event with an open bar, and there's

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Speaker 2: older folk that are feeding you all sorts of things, right, Like,

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Speaker 2: it's very easy to get wrapped up in that. The

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Speaker 2: breaks right ask for high levels of excitement. You just

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Speaker 2: like you're working all the time or you're not working

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Speaker 2: at all, and part of staying in in the scene

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Speaker 2: is going out. Especially at that I think it's different.

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Speaker 2: It seems to be different now just because of social media.

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Speaker 2: I look back at that decade of my life and

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Speaker 2: I'm so grateful that there were not camera phones and

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Speaker 2: social leads, because it was it was a whole other world.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, around twenty six twenty seven, I younger was

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Speaker 2: a very easy job for me, honestly, Like I you know,

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Speaker 2: it was number seven on the call. She worked like

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Speaker 2: a day or two a week. I was making good money.

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Speaker 2: I was living in New York City at that age,

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Speaker 2: that it like it was still socially acceptable to be

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Speaker 2: out all the time, right, And I once I started

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Speaker 2: drinking alone at home, I was like, well this, this

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Speaker 2: isn't going to end well. And there we're like a

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Speaker 2: couple instances. Thank god, it never really got in the

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Speaker 2: way of work. There were like a couple close calls,

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Speaker 2: but for the most part, like I kept things very separate.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, I just kind of woke up one morning

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Speaker 2: I was like that if I don't change this now, like,

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to survive, both like physically and emotionally.

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Speaker 2: I want way too much in my life to surrender

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Speaker 2: to this. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And is it scary to be publicly open about

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Speaker 1: that or do you feel like, because so many people

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Speaker 1: now are having more conversations about mental health and identity

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Speaker 1: and all of the sort of aspects of who we

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Speaker 1: are as people like you're more safe to do so.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's scary to be publicly

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Speaker 2: open about anything, really, you know. I mean I was

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Speaker 2: having a lot of these conversations ten years ago, and

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Speaker 2: I've found myself as of late, especially in fatherhood, retracting

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Speaker 2: some from just public discourse. I feel like I've said

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Speaker 2: it all at this point, like I really like just

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Speaker 2: caught myself wide open and shared so much of who

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Speaker 2: I am and who I love and you know how

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Speaker 2: I believe I fit into this world. And COVID hit

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Speaker 2: and we were all forced to just restructure, right, and

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Speaker 2: we were experiencing our own fertility journey and trying to

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Speaker 2: create life in a time when life seemed the most fragile,

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Speaker 2: and I just needed to to reclaim, you know, myself,

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Speaker 2: and I got media for a couple of years, like

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Speaker 2: I wasn't having any conversations, and yeah, I feel like

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Speaker 2: I've emerged as a completely different person in the last

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Speaker 2: few years, especially post daughter.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, how old is your daughter now?

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Speaker 2: Fifteen months?

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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, she's just like a little smush.

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Speaker 2: Is a smush, She's she's really something. We got another

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Speaker 2: one on the way. We were we're having another one

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Speaker 2: in October.

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Speaker 1: So congratulation. That's so exciting over here. Yeah, so was

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Speaker 1: your was your daughter part of the inspia for your

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Speaker 1: children's book?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I wrote it while we were trying

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Speaker 2: to get pregnant, which is an arduous process, it can't,

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Speaker 2: you know, And I just like needed an outlet. I

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Speaker 2: needed to have this conversation with the spirit of a

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Speaker 2: child while I was attempting to channel and I came

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Speaker 2: up with this idea for all of that that really

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Speaker 2: like distilled this larger mantra of my life, that is,

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Speaker 2: all of it is you, which is this poetry book

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Speaker 2: that I wrote, that we are the mirror to the universe, right,

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Speaker 2: And I always knew I wanted to distill that down

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Speaker 2: to a children's version, like I saw it when I

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Speaker 2: wrote the poetry book. But it was it was a

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Speaker 2: way for me, like I said, to have a conversation

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Speaker 2: with her or him or whoever it was that I

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Speaker 2: was trying to talk to and like start teaching before

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Speaker 2: they were even born. You know. Yeah, children's are a

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Speaker 2: long process, why they yeah, yeah, yeah. It's way more

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Speaker 2: complicated than the other two books I had written because

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Speaker 2: the art is such a huge part of it too, right,

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Speaker 2: Like yeah, you know, there's less than one hundred words

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Speaker 2: in my children's book. But then you have to create

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Speaker 2: the entire universe.

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Speaker 1: Right and find an illustrator who you love, and what's

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Speaker 1: that like to meet with so many artists and try

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Speaker 1: to figure out who can draw the thing you are

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Speaker 1: imagining that doesn't yet exist.

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Speaker 2: It's weird because you see their art before you meet

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Speaker 2: them for the most part, Like you're not having conversations

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Speaker 2: with these people. Like I was given like twenty samples

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Speaker 2: and it was like, Okay, pick five that you want

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Speaker 2: to talk to and three were only available, right, So,

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Speaker 2: like I kind of just knew when I saw the

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Speaker 2: art that that's who it was. She was also an

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Speaker 2: animator at Nickelodeon, and I had an idea of turning

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Speaker 2: into a cartoon at some point, so like that checked

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Speaker 2: a box immediately. And her name is Melissa, the artist

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Speaker 2: on the book, And I mean she really just like

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Speaker 2: took my ideas and ran with them and made the

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Speaker 2: book come to life in a way that like I

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Speaker 2: never even imagined.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, can you tell us the story of the book?

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Speaker 1: Let our audience know what it's about.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. All of it is used about a kid named

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Speaker 2: Alive who is the entirety of the universe, and you

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Speaker 2: follow her in like a day of her life and

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Speaker 2: you get to experience how she relates to the world

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Speaker 2: in all aspects of herself. It's kind of this like

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Speaker 2: age old idea that you can be anything you want

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Speaker 2: when you grow up, lifts up on its head, that

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Speaker 2: you already are everything that exists in the universe, and

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Speaker 2: what does it mean to tap in to that level

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Speaker 2: of unfettered freedom?

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Speaker 1: And now for our sponsors, do you think that that idea,

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Speaker 1: that spirit of unfettered freedom, that that notion that children

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Speaker 1: and really all of us should know that we are everything,

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Speaker 1: that we carry a piece of everything. It feels to

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Speaker 1: me like such an encouragement to include more rather than

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Speaker 1: to exclude or to you know, fall prey to these

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Speaker 1: really common ideas of binaries, whether they be about you know, love, gender,

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Speaker 1: what colors are for girls, what colors are for boys, yeah, race,

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Speaker 1: all of it. Do you think that that sort of

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Speaker 1: very like inclusive and spiritual awareness comes from, for you,

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Speaker 1: your own journey of continuing to expand your definition of

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Speaker 1: who you are who you love. Like to me, it

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Speaker 1: sounds so beautiful, but I would imagine that, as you said, like,

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Speaker 1: you've had to be so open and maybe you don't

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Speaker 1: always want to have to be like it does seem

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Speaker 1: like it's something that can be hard won sometimes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And I think it even started way

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Speaker 2: before me even realizing what any of this was. Really

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Speaker 2: As an actor, that's our job to tap into that

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Speaker 2: unfettered free right and to continue to be othered always, right,

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Speaker 2: And that's why I fell in love with it in

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Speaker 2: the beginning. I could just like, not that I needed

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Speaker 2: to escape myself at all. I had an amazing childhood,

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Speaker 2: and but I could experience more in a very short

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Speaker 2: amount of time as an actor, and so much of

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Speaker 2: my identity exploration and gender and sexual real is linked

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Speaker 2: to my ability to transform through art. It always has been.

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Speaker 2: It's about this limitless access, really, and I always knew that, like,

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Speaker 2: if I could experience more as a person, I could

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Speaker 2: deliver more as an actor. And I don't know if

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Speaker 2: that was always a conscious thought, sure it was there constantly.

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Speaker 1: Well, and that's why they say hindsight is twenty twenty, right,

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Speaker 1: because you can look back and you can see the

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Speaker 1: thread that goes through everything that maybe you didn't see

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Speaker 1: in real time, but when you look at the past

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Speaker 1: you can. And I think it's really fascinating, you know,

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Speaker 1: when we think about privilege and presentation and passing and

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Speaker 1: all of these things, Like I'm not gonna lie from

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Speaker 1: the vantage point I said as a woman, I think

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Speaker 1: it's very cool that a guy like you who presents

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Speaker 1: as like hyper masculine, you know, Chicago guy hockey player

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Speaker 1: is like, actually, I'm very gender fluid and I love

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Speaker 1: who I love And I'm like, wait what and not

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Speaker 1: to say, like I should like to think that I'm

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Speaker 1: not a person who really stereotypes, But I don't know.

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Speaker 1: If I, like bumped into you at a bar and

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Speaker 1: we didn't know each other, I'd be like that guy

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Speaker 1: is probably the most open, you know what I mean,

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Speaker 1: Like I might not have known that, And I think

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Speaker 1: I think there's something really powerful in your willingness to

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Speaker 1: be so frank about your own life, because I think

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Speaker 1: there's a lot more guys that look like you, that

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Speaker 1: feel like you then maybe admit that they feel like you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a part of me that

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Speaker 2: thinks everyone has access to this sort of mentality. But

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Speaker 2: we do. We just we we all were taught to

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Speaker 2: limit ourselves.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, was it a strange thing, like thinking about just

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Speaker 1: the time line, you know, for you to start talking

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Speaker 1: publicly about that fluidity about And forgive me if I

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Speaker 1: don't know currently, but if you know you're talking about

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Speaker 1: at the time being bisexual, being you know, a person

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Speaker 1: who really can envision himself or feel you know, all

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Speaker 1: all sides of gender within himself, within themselves, like was

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Speaker 1: it was it a weird dynamic for you to be

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Speaker 1: having those conversations while you were playing this like hyper

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Speaker 1: masculine man or do you feel like because you were

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Speaker 1: playing that character, it was even more important for you

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Speaker 1: to have like frank conversations with people about like don't

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Speaker 1: judge a book by its cover.

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Speaker 2: I had this anchor that was this character Josh that

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Speaker 2: I was known around the world. It's like super straight,

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Speaker 2: say his wife dude, right that like had a shit

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Speaker 2: together and was like dating older women and was just cool. Right,

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Speaker 2: this like Brooklyn and a lot of me exploring my

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Speaker 2: sexuality is tied to getting sober, right, Like, I had

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Speaker 2: had experiences before I got sober, but I mean the

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Speaker 2: first like real relationship with a man happened after I

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Speaker 2: got sober. And I had a couple serious relationships at

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Speaker 2: the beginning, and I did a play where I was

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Speaker 2: playing this like really manic character, and I just like

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Speaker 2: I knew that I needed to start having this conversation

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Speaker 2: because people were starting to like speculate, right, and I

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Speaker 2: wanted to get ahead of it. I had to get

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Speaker 2: ahead of it.

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Speaker 1: I know that feeling half right, and I.

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Speaker 2: Had a pot I like started a podcast. My buddy

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Speaker 2: was launching a podcast network, and I was just like

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Speaker 2: fuck it, Like if I'm going to do this, I'm

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Speaker 2: going to go all the way out and just like

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Speaker 2: I'm having these conversations privately, let's just grab some microphones

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00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:09,840
Speaker 2: and let's just start like exploring all of this in

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Speaker 2: real time with everybody else. Like I was just putting

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Speaker 2: myself with a microphone and everybody else was learning it

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Speaker 2: at the same time that I was. Yeah, which was

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Speaker 2: really cool, Like in hindsight, yes, very cool. Would I

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Speaker 2: do that in the same way now? Probably not right, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but the I mean going going back to this unfettered freedom.

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Speaker 2: It was just like I was able to say and

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Speaker 2: do whatever I wanted and nobody could say anything otherwise.

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Speaker 1: It's really special.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think it's a really interesting thing though, like the

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Speaker 1: way the world will speculate, like people will really take

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Speaker 1: your self discovery from you if you're not careful, and

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Speaker 1: so I think it's really cool that, unlike what happens

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Speaker 1: to so many of us, like you were able to

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Speaker 1: get ahead of it. I totally get that. Now you're

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Speaker 1: like maybe I wouldn't have had all sixteen of those

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Speaker 1: conversations in public, Like maybe I would have just had

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Speaker 1: eleven of them. But like it really is brave. It's

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Speaker 1: really really brave, and like I guess it's part of

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Speaker 1: the reason that, you know, I of course I want

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Speaker 1: to ask, like I think it's beautiful and I'm curious,

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Speaker 1: and I also don't want to. I don't want to

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Speaker 1: force you to like go back and talk about things

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Speaker 1: you don't want to talk about anymore.

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Speaker 2: Well, no, it's all good. I mean, I'm not trying

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Speaker 2: to like avoid these conversations at all. You know. I

387
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Speaker 2: enjoy talking about how I got here for sure. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: especially with someone that has experienced similar things, you know.

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Speaker 2: I mean I was I was reading your Glamour piece

390
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Speaker 2: before we started, and how long in between, like from

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Speaker 2: things starting to leak out to you deciding you were

392
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Speaker 2: going to write this piece, how long was that and

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Speaker 2: what made you make that decision?

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Speaker 1: Ultimately, I mean what made me make the decision was

395
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Speaker 1: knowing that we'd gotten into like a post fact vacuum.

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Speaker 1: So I was like, what I'm going to do is

397
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Speaker 1: sit and just sit and wait. But eventually, what I'm

398
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: going to do is clarify very firmly, bit gently what's

399
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 1: real because it matters to me. I didn't appreciate it personally,

400
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 1: but what really frightened me in terms of the public

401
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:41,160
Speaker 1: nature of it was this is so vitriolic and so

402
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:45,240
Speaker 1: violent and so ugly, Like, what's this going to do

403
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:50,399
Speaker 1: to it? Like a young queer girl in Ohio or

404
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 1: Alabama who sees what the internet is doing to people

405
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 1: who she perceives to have a lot more power than her, like,

406
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:01,960
Speaker 1: you can always take your power back, and that was

407
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 1: part of what felt really important to me, was like

408
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Speaker 1: I'm going to take my power back, and I'm actually

409
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Speaker 1: going to stand up and say the purest and most

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Speaker 1: special thing that's ever happened to me in my life

411
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Speaker 1: has happened to me, and you've treated it like the

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00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:18,360
Speaker 1: ugliest because you're looking at optics and not reality. You're

413
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:21,439
Speaker 1: looking at a narrative you bought into based on the

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Speaker 1: Internet and not the.

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Speaker 2: Facts, and like from a place of love, Yeah, really

416
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 2: hard for anybody else to experience the love that exists

417
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 2: between right, Yeah, especially behind closed doors.

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Speaker 1: That's the thing to finally be, to finally be so

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00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: loved and not to be like trying so hard, like

420
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 1: because when it works, you don't have to try. And

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00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:53,639
Speaker 1: I know that sounds really basic, but like I just

422
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Speaker 1: didn't know that I had always had to try so hard,

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Speaker 1: and I'd always heard that phrase like marriage is hard,

424
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: relationships are hard. You have to do the work, and

425
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:08,720
Speaker 1: like the work is supposed to feel constructive, not torturous.

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00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 1: And that's a big life lesson. And I want other

427
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 1: people like, look, if I didn't do this job, would

428
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:18,880
Speaker 1: I talk about any of this publicly? No, also because

429
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 1: nobody would give as But it's like, what I'm not

430
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,119
Speaker 1: going to let them do is take it from me,

431
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 1: make make money off of it with like clickbait and grossness,

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00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 1: and then turn around and be like, well you didn't

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Speaker 1: do it and you didn't say it. And it's like, okay, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna I'm going to continue to come back

435
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 1: to like love and power. I'm going to root in

436
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 1: truth and you can come or not. But the reason

437
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: it feels important for me to do that with whatever

438
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,439
Speaker 1: relative platform I have is because there's kids out there

439
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:51,439
Speaker 1: who don't have platforms at all, who are so scared

440
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: to be who they are, and I just want them

441
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: to know I don't care if you're fourteen or forty one,

442
00:26:56,760 --> 00:27:01,239
Speaker 1: Like you can choose yourself and that feels important, and

443
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: like that's why I feel like it's such a cool

444
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: thing that you, particularly as a man, we're willing to

445
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: subvert like stereotype and narrative and all of it. You know,

446
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: I think that that's very brave, and I really like,

447
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: I really commend you for that.

448
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:23,119
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that.

449
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 1: Yeah.

450
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:25,719
Speaker 2: I mean when I started the podcast, I would say

451
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:27,199
Speaker 2: all the time, like, this is for the kids, this

452
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 2: isn't for me. You totally understand that sentiment from an

453
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 2: outside perspective. Yet it does seem very selfish to be

454
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 2: having these conversations yeah, publicly, but like in the truest

455
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:45,159
Speaker 2: form it felt so selfless. Yeah, like it wasn't about me.

456
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:47,640
Speaker 1: Well, and that's the thing. I think what people who

457
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: don't do this job don't understand is that we don't

458
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 1: actually have a choice in the public discourse, right, And

459
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 1: like I've noticed that all the bots on Instagram, on

460
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: every pride, they're like, ugh, what narcissists, No one cares

461
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 1: who you. This is so narcissistic. Why do you have

462
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: to make And I'm like, oh wow, so the bots

463
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:12,399
Speaker 1: are being activated to call queer people narcissists during Pride, okay,

464
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:15,880
Speaker 1: but it's like nobody's out here trying to make announcements.

465
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: People are just navigating public life. And if it's public,

466
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: you can either be you can either be dragged by

467
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 1: it or you can drive it. And I think we'd

468
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:30,160
Speaker 1: all rather drive than be dragged. And now a word

469
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: from our sponsors that I really enjoy and I think

470
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:33,200
Speaker 1: you will too.

471
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 2: Can I ask you another question? Sure, in this new

472
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 2: version of yourself and post you know, post glamor, has

473
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 2: the desire for art or the characters that you play

474
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 2: has that shifted at all? Do you want to be

475
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 2: telling different stories? Well?

476
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 1: It's so interesting, Like I've always played queer women on

477
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 1: tea yeah yeah, yeah, like for twenty years. Anytime I

478
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: get the chance, I do it. And I've always been

479
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 1: really vocal about like I would never play a character

480
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 1: I couldn't represent interesting. But what was really interesting for

481
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: me in my twenties was being told by like elder

482
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 1: queers that I respect so much, like well, you're not

483
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: gay enough to say you're bye right, And I was

484
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: kind of like, oh, well, like what I don't want

485
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: to do is hurt the community.

486
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 2: Ever, which is the hardest thing to navigate.

487
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 1: It's really hard if the seesaw is really hard.

488
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 2: The gay keeping in this community is so real. It's

489
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 2: ultimately why I retract it, because like I just felt like,

490
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what I do or what I say,

491
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 2: I will never make all of these people happy.

492
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you know what I will say to that,

493
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: my darling, is like, welcome to being a woman, because

494
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: it's the same you're two thing. You're too fat, you're

495
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 1: too rich, you're too poor, you're too ambitious, you're fucking lazy,

496
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: like you run a company. How dare you you're a

497
00:29:56,480 --> 00:30:00,040
Speaker 1: trad wife? How dare you you're a mother? Lazy, you

498
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 1: don't have children, frigid bitch Like it's always something, And

499
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: so it's really easy to it's really interesting, not easy,

500
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 1: interesting to see the way that magnifies itself and like

501
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: shape shifts in queerness because what it really like rings

502
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: the bell for me on is any group of people

503
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: who has been othered will very often have a subconscious

504
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: desire to other another group to save themselves. And I

505
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: think that's tribalistic. I think that's human nature. But I

506
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: think it's also twenty twenty four, and we're supposed to

507
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: be more evolved than like falling prey to our own

508
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 1: lizard brains. But it's like when you see homophobia in

509
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: communities of color, or you see really intense sexism in

510
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: certain geographical cultures, or you know, you see lesbians eating

511
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: their own because you know, they don't really know what's

512
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: going on in people's lives. Like there is so much

513
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 1: pain and trauma in communities that have been marginalized that

514
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: sometimes I don't think they see when they are projecting

515
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: that pain onto other marginalized people. So you see stay

516
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: at home moms judging career moms and vice versa. You

517
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 1: see the elder gays judging the bisexual kids. You see

518
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And I think what it really is

519
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: is like I have this pain that's built up and

520
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 1: I don't know where to put it, and suddenly like

521
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 1: there's a bottleneck and it's all going to shoot through there.

522
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: And you know, maybe that's because we don't have enough

523
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: mental health support in our country, or maybe that's because

524
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 1: we're not really willing to like take enough accountability and

525
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 1: do enough self inventory to say like, ooh, that instinct

526
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 1: I have like, actually, is my that I need to

527
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: deal with myself? Like I need to not make this

528
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: someone else's problem.

529
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, have you had the people language folk who are

530
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 2: very specific about bisexual verse pain sexual verse question? Yeah?

531
00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:00,440
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Somebody like send me a tweet that was like,

532
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: I am so disappointed in you. You're calling yourself queer

533
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: just say you're bisexual. And I was like, well it

534
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 1: live what I like? Sorry, what the.

535
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 2: Language winds up hurting?

536
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:14,960
Speaker 1: The language policing is so weird.

537
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 2: I'm in this interesting place now because like I.

538
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 1: Was going to ask you this because you married a woman,

539
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: So like, are are there all these people that are like, see,

540
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 1: it was a phase totally totally, Oh, it's so annoying unless.

541
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 2: You they are seeing me publicly in a relationship with yeah,

542
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 2: a man or a gender variant person, Like I am

543
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 2: not a legitimate queer person anymore.

544
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 1: But by the way, I get it because again, like

545
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sharing things with you about like things I've

546
00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: known about my identity for over twenty years, and even

547
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 1: like when I finally asked my partner out, which like

548
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 1: to be clear, our friends were like trying to set

549
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 1: her up with someone and I was like if she's

550
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 1: ready to date, she's going on a date with me,

551
00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 1: like sorry, like no way, and people were like wait

552
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 1: what And she even said to me, she was like

553
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: hold the phone, like I always thought you were straight,

554
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 1: and I was like, I always thought you were happy,

555
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:12,720
Speaker 1: but like we're both in single what are we doing?

556
00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 1: And you know it's we were in cackling because I

557
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, dude, I never looked at you as

558
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 1: an option and she was like I never looked at

559
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:23,239
Speaker 1: you as an option. And it's like, well, because we

560
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 1: weren't options, and like, I don't know. I just most

561
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: at least most women I know, like are not out

562
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: trying to finaggle around their relationships, or I guess I

563
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 1: should say like most monogamous women I know people who

564
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: are Poulie obviously are like doing what they're doing because

565
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: they're communicating about that. But like, it is a very

566
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: interesting thing because even a lot of the queer women

567
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 1: in my life were like, oh, we just like we

568
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:52,720
Speaker 1: knew you were like an ally and like we maybe wondered,

569
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: like you know, when we saw like this TV show

570
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 1: or this movie you've done or like whatever, we were like, hmmm,

571
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: he doesn't really look like acting, but like we didn't

572
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: really know. And I was like, wow, we all we

573
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: all do it, like even in our friend groups. We

574
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 1: make assumptions. So I can't imagine for you, as someone

575
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 1: who's spoken so openly about fluidity and identity as the

576
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: man you physically present as, to be married to a woman, Like,

577
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the weird blowback you get.

578
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 2: It's a weird thing, you know. I mean also, just

579
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:29,840
Speaker 2: like looking at Pride and the amount of money that

580
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 2: I was making from campaigns for X amount of years

581
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 2: and like now I'm married a woman, all that just

582
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 2: completely goes away. Not to say that that's like what

583
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 2: Pride is, but like it it's been a very strange transition. Wow.

584
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: Sure, And how long have you and Bethany been married?

585
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 2: Six years? We're going our seventh. We've known each other

586
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:56,560
Speaker 2: at nineteen yeah, I mean we started dating in college.

587
00:34:56,640 --> 00:35:00,760
Speaker 1: Stop it, you've been on and off for nineteen years? Okay,

588
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 1: And then how did you guys decide like, oh, no,

589
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:05,720
Speaker 1: we're really going to do this. We're going to be together,

590
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,880
Speaker 1: be together and start a family. And like, what tips

591
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 1: that when you've sort of been in and out of

592
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: a relationship with someone for so long.

593
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:16,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we grew up queer side by side, like

594
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 2: we both started started dating the same sex pretty much

595
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:25,479
Speaker 2: like within a year. And wow, yeah, I mean she's

596
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 2: my best friend and has been forever, you know. Yeah,

597
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 2: and uh, we always got I mean, obviously we always

598
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 2: got in the way of our other relationships that we

599
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 2: had because nobody really knew like what we were to

600
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 2: each other. Right at the end of the day. We

601
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 2: were always each other's emergency contact, no matter we're serious

602
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 2: our other relationships where I'm.

603
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 1: Sure that caused jealousy and other relations for.

604
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 2: Sure for sure, But like years we weren't sleeping together, right,

605
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 2: uh huh. We went to Peru and did a bunch

606
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 2: of yaguasca and had a pretty intense physical experience at

607
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 2: this place beyond the psychoactive experience, and came out of

608
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 2: the jungle and just I looked at her and I said,

609
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:21,920
Speaker 2: we're getting married. Huh. And that was that. Wow, there's

610
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 2: a lot more to the story, but I vet there is.

611
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 1: I'm like, we need to like have a glass of

612
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: wine and talk about Well, I'll have a glass of

613
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: wine and I'll bring you a sparkling water. I'll talk

614
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 1: about Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's deeply cool. Does that

615
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:39,640
Speaker 1: sort of thing then do you get that like, oh,

616
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:43,719
Speaker 1: this was very destined to be feeling after that sort

617
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,239
Speaker 1: of journey And then you're like, oh, of course we

618
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 1: were always each other's emergency contacts. Well, of course we

619
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 1: were maybe like not ready to see how apparent our

620
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:55,919
Speaker 1: real connection was for so long.

621
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 2: I think we both always knew. Honestly, we just gave

622
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 2: each other the space to explore our own individuals and

623
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:04,439
Speaker 2: like champion each other.

624
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, do you think that also that like

625
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 1: that space and that way that you've been so consistent,

626
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 1: do you think that helps you both like as the

627
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:20,400
Speaker 1: humans and the artists that you are, Because I think about, like,

628
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 1: you know, even the movie that you just had come

629
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 1: out on Prime and you know how you you play

630
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:32,359
Speaker 1: one half of this gay couple. Who is you know,

631
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 1: going through this journey about being a foster parent and

632
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 1: then are we going to be you know, parents post

633
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: that that foster child experience and like what are your

634
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:48,280
Speaker 1: visions for your future? And I don't know, I feel

635
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: like you've probably had to have versions of that with

636
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:54,800
Speaker 1: your partner, like what is our desire for our future?

637
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: Et cetera et cetera.

638
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:57,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, over and over.

639
00:37:57,760 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 1: The journey almost feels like a movie.

640
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:04,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, it should be at some point. That movie came

641
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 2: at a very interesting time. It was post COVID. We

642
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 2: were a year into our own fertility journey and nothing

643
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 2: was working and we couldn't figure out why, which is

644
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 2: almost more frustrating. And we always knew we were going

645
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,840
Speaker 2: to have kids, and we were convinced the second we

646
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 2: started trying it would just happen, like this is how

647
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 2: it goes right, And that just was and you know,

648
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 2: a year into the journey, this script came across my desk,

649
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 2: so to speak, and it was about a gay relationship.

650
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 2: But I saw so much of my own experience on

651
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:48,919
Speaker 2: these pages and at home, I was the stable one

652
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 2: in our infertility Bethany was able to experience the emotional

653
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:58,479
Speaker 2: up people in real time and I needed to hold

654
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 2: down the floor, right And I got the script, and

655
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 2: I mean it was a no brainer. I knew I

656
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:05,439
Speaker 2: needed to play this role and I got to set

657
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 2: and I was able to experience the heartache in a

658
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 2: way that I just wasn't at home. Like there was

659
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 2: not a whole lot of acting that went into this movie.

660
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:19,239
Speaker 1: That's so cathartic.

661
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 2: God, you know when those jobs commented just as like

662
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 2: there is an absolute reason this is here right now. Yeah,

663
00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 2: you did channel so much of myself through this character.

664
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, that feels like your Iah Oscar journey. You're just like,

665
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:33,800
Speaker 1: this is very divine, what is happening?

666
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 2: Totally totally and you just got to cry and cry

667
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:41,719
Speaker 2: and like wow it it prepared me to be a

668
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:42,439
Speaker 2: father for sure.

669
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,399
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's so beautiful. Okay, can you can

670
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:49,719
Speaker 1: you give our listeners at home? Obviously I've I've read

671
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,359
Speaker 1: all of the things in preparation for today, but will

672
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 1: you give our listeners at home a little overview of

673
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:56,799
Speaker 1: what the movie is, like you like you did for

674
00:39:56,880 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: your kid's book.

675
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. The Managing Family is by Andy Ballentine

676
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:05,840
Speaker 2: and written by his husband Danny Valentine, and it is

677
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 2: a love letter to their own experience as queer parents

678
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 2: and bringing life into the world. And it is the

679
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 2: story of Thomas and Oscar, who live in Los Angeles.

680
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 2: Thomas is a photographer. Oscar is an actor who had

681
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 2: a troubled outing in his own career early on. I've

682
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 2: been trying to figure out his life after that. And

683
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 2: they have a foster kid early on in the film

684
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 2: that they've spent a couple of years with, and he

685
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 2: winds up going back to his birth mother, which is

686
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 2: an incredible thing, right, But Thomas my character is kind

687
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 2: of left with this, well what now and who am

688
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:56,360
Speaker 2: I without child? And the film tracks really his journey

689
00:40:56,360 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 2: to make the decision whether or not he wants to

690
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:09,319
Speaker 2: be a parent, and Oscar's pretty dead set on not

691
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:13,239
Speaker 2: bringing another child into the mix. His acting career is

692
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 2: taking off, He's got all of these new opportunities, and

693
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 2: they have to make a decision whether they're going to

694
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 2: choose each other or choose themselves and their own dreams

695
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:29,359
Speaker 2: and desires. And you know, that is something that made

696
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 2: a lot of sense to me and my past relationship

697
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:36,439
Speaker 2: or my current relationship, all the different versions of our relationship. Yeah,

698
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 2: And it's just it's this beautiful. You see a lot

699
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 2: of different queer families in such a short amount of time,

700
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 2: which is not something that we've really seen in film

701
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 2: and television. In a way I read the script, I

702
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 2: was like, how has this movie not been made yet?

703
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 2: Why to go find a comp of just like two

704
00:41:57,120 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 2: gay dads and their child, And it just like does

705
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 2: it really, it just doesn't exist. I know, it's crazy.

706
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:06,000
Speaker 1: I mean when you think about the fact that Love

707
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:09,760
Speaker 1: Simon was the first high school story or rom com

708
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: to start a gay character, and it came out in

709
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: I think twenty fifteen, Like hello, yeah, you know, it's

710
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:20,720
Speaker 1: a really it's a really wild thing when you realize

711
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:23,879
Speaker 1: that a lot of people just don't they don't get

712
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 1: to really see themselves.

713
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:27,680
Speaker 2: I mean when I look back at my own career

714
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 2: and the conversations that I was having, you know, fifteen

715
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:34,359
Speaker 2: years ago about playing gay roles, like it wasn't an

716
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:36,359
Speaker 2: option on my team. It was like we have to

717
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:41,240
Speaker 2: stay adamantly away from anything queer because it will ruin

718
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 2: your career. When you just like, look at how Hollywood

719
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:48,759
Speaker 2: has changed in our careers, like it's a completely different industry. Yeah.

720
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:52,960
Speaker 1: Well, and to be clear, like it's not just changing

721
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 1: because look, yes, the cultural conversation is changing, thank god,

722
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: but it isn't just changing for like moral reasons or

723
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: because representation is important. It's changing because our stories are valuable,

724
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 1: because they do well, because they make money, because the

725
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:13,239
Speaker 1: comedians tours are selling out, like it you know, when

726
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,960
Speaker 1: you think about what Hannah Gadsby, did you know on Netflix?

727
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 1: It's like it's, yes, it matters morally for us and

728
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:25,359
Speaker 1: for kids like us to see themselves, but also it's

729
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:29,319
Speaker 1: smart business. So it's like the the evolving I think

730
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: is long overdue.

731
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:33,359
Speaker 2: And we still have a ways, ways, ways to go.

732
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:35,960
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean it's like a drop in the

733
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:39,440
Speaker 1: bucket at the moment, but at least we're beginning to

734
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 1: get somewhere.

735
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 2: One hundred years from now when they look back at

736
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:51,320
Speaker 2: how the industry and society has changed. You know, your story,

737
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 2: my story is it's part of all of this, and

738
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 2: it really is just at the beginning.

739
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's important, Yeah, sure, hope. So yeah, and now

740
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:13,360
Speaker 1: a word from our wonderful sponsors, how do you in

741
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:16,640
Speaker 1: beth Ay navigate these things? Because I hear what you're

742
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:19,839
Speaker 1: saying about how this felt so cathartic and obviously there

743
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:22,920
Speaker 1: was a happy ending to that fertility journey and you

744
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: had your daughter, But because you have been so open

745
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:32,759
Speaker 1: about your sexual fluidity, and I know she's talked about

746
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 1: how you know, prior to you, she probably would have

747
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:42,799
Speaker 1: identified as a gay woman, So like, how how does

748
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 1: that what does that look like? In your conversations about

749
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 1: like intimacy and your future and the sort of parameters

750
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 1: of your relationship as it's clearly like fueling you know,

751
00:44:56,800 --> 00:44:58,719
Speaker 1: not just your life and your family, but your art.

752
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're different people post child priorities, dreams, desires, like everything,

753
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:14,319
Speaker 2: the language that we use at home. Yeah, we are

754
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 2: building a family a home, you know. And just when

755
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 2: you have two people directing all of their energy towards

756
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 2: one specific thing and goal, it just magnifies And who

757
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 2: we are and who we sleep with is just or

758
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 2: who we have slept with in the past. It's just

759
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:41,560
Speaker 2: not important to us. Yes, Like we go through periods

760
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:43,799
Speaker 2: of time where we like joke and talk about it, right,

761
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:45,720
Speaker 2: but for the most part, like we're not even thinking

762
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:46,279
Speaker 2: about it.

763
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:49,480
Speaker 1: No, I totally get that. Yeah, I think about that

764
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:53,840
Speaker 1: a lot with work. For me, Like I love my work.

765
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: I have always I derive so much pleasure and passion

766
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 1: from storytelling and creativity and energy on set and like

767
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 1: being in the circus and I love it. And I

768
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 1: have always been willing to travel anywhere, anytime, get on

769
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: any plane, whatever it takes, right, And now I'm like,

770
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:13,200
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. I'm not going to

771
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:17,480
Speaker 1: go there. You want me to go to what absolute Alberta? No,

772
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: I'm not going for how long? Absolutely not? And I'm like, oh, oh,

773
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:26,719
Speaker 1: this is interesting that I don't think the answer was

774
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:28,400
Speaker 1: ever no before.

775
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like what.

776
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 1: A beautiful thing. As you evolve and grow to continue

777
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 1: to know yourself more and more.

778
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:36,760
Speaker 2: There's a lot more nos in this house.

779
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you, but that's because your house, your home,

780
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 1: your family is such a yes. Yeah, and like what

781
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 1: a gift to find that in your life.

782
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, no questions. Yeah, you've moved down to Florida, you know,

783
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 2: it's yeah, well world over here.

784
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:56,400
Speaker 1: And I think that there's something so cool even that

785
00:46:56,480 --> 00:47:00,279
Speaker 1: your family, you know, the experience of waiting for your

786
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 1: daughter is what inspired your music. Like again, all this

787
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 1: yes in your house is like bubbling out of you,

788
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:11,279
Speaker 1: movies and books and an album, Like how cool? How

789
00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 1: would you describe like beginning to answer the sort of

790
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:19,800
Speaker 1: internal call to make music? And how would you describe

791
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 1: what kind of music you make to our friends at all?

792
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 2: You're real good at bringing these back into the story.

793
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 1: So I just really like it. I see it, like,

794
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 1: I see I see how this like like the image

795
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 1: I get is like that the balloon keeps getting filled

796
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 1: with more air for you, and I think that's really beautiful.

797
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:42,719
Speaker 2: The art has always been the answer for me. It's

798
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:47,839
Speaker 2: just like where I go. It's where I feel the

799
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 2: most comfortable. I just like making things, you know, It's

800
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:59,879
Speaker 2: like it just makes sense. And music has always been

801
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:07,040
Speaker 2: something that I've wanted to dive towards. But for the reason,

802
00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:09,360
Speaker 2: it just like it felt like an arms distance away.

803
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 2: And I was working on an Apple TV show called

804
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:14,520
Speaker 2: City on Fire, and I was playing a rock star

805
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 2: and we recorded an album for the show. And it

806
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,720
Speaker 2: was my first time really like in a studio full time.

807
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:24,239
Speaker 2: And you know, on TV, you don't really have time

808
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 2: to like develop a character, especially on set, right you're

809
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:29,520
Speaker 2: just chasing the clock. You're chasing the budget. Things are

810
00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 2: moving fast, strong decisions and you have to go quick. Yeah,

811
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 2: to like find this character in the studio, I had

812
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:40,400
Speaker 2: endless amount by myself in the studio finding his voice. Literally,

813
00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 2: I just fell in love with the process, Like I did, they.

814
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:47,279
Speaker 1: Get you, like a like a vocal coach or anything though,

815
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:49,560
Speaker 1: like someone to help you like be there.

816
00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 2: That's what That's what I thought was what was going

817
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:54,719
Speaker 2: to happen. But I showed up to a studio in

818
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:57,879
Speaker 2: Brooklyn with a producer who, like I thought for sure,

819
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:00,120
Speaker 2: like we were going to do some vocal exercises a star,

820
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:02,760
Speaker 2: but it was like, record, here's the song, let's.

821
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 1: Go shut up. Oh my god, that's so much.

822
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 2: Pressure, but it was so much fun, like they got

823
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:13,960
Speaker 2: It happened that way because there were not a lot

824
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 2: of cooks in the kitchen. It was just me and

825
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 2: this producer for months on end in the studio finding

826
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:22,239
Speaker 2: these songs, and we would get all these songs said

827
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:24,040
Speaker 2: to us, and we would get to like make our

828
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:26,919
Speaker 2: own version of it. There was little direction at the top,

829
00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:31,320
Speaker 2: and he my studio in Brooklyn was hired by the

830
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:33,880
Speaker 2: music supervisor, so we had somebody else to answer to.

831
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:36,879
Speaker 2: But like we were pretty much running our own show, right,

832
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:41,600
Speaker 2: and we just like formed this chemistry together, me and

833
00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 2: this producer and half jokingly, at the end of the season,

834
00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 2: I knew I was leaving the studio and I was heartbroken.

835
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 2: I was like, I just I don't want to leave

836
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:54,160
Speaker 2: the studio. I was like, can we just start making music?

837
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 2: And he said absolutely, like I would love nothing more

838
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:02,880
Speaker 2: than diff Wow, And we It was right around that

839
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 2: time we found out we were pregnant for the second time.

840
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:09,400
Speaker 2: We were pregnant in January. That same year, we had

841
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:13,839
Speaker 2: a miscarriage, and we found out that we were pregnant

842
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:20,240
Speaker 2: around the fourth of July, and I just started writing

843
00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 2: music about becoming a parent, and in the similar ways

844
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 2: that I was writing the children's book about becoming a parent,

845
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:31,880
Speaker 2: I just found a new outlet that is almost more digestible.

846
00:50:31,920 --> 00:50:35,120
Speaker 2: I think for so long, I've been really searching for

847
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:39,200
Speaker 2: a medium that I can like distill a message and

848
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:45,399
Speaker 2: that can be consumed regularly, and that doesn't necessarily need

849
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:48,920
Speaker 2: to be explained, you know, similar to poetry, right, you

850
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:54,640
Speaker 2: can kind of dance around the language and with lyric

851
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 2: and with melody and frequency like it, just it hits

852
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 2: different and I experienced for them, I experienced music for

853
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:06,759
Speaker 2: the first time all over again. In writing like it

854
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:12,120
Speaker 2: just I unlocked up portal and I just started having

855
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:14,839
Speaker 2: conversations with my daughter in these songs. And it got

856
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:17,479
Speaker 2: to the point where I was I would I would

857
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 2: go to bed and I would dream and she would

858
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:22,839
Speaker 2: come and we would write songs together. I would hear

859
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,520
Speaker 2: all songs in my dreams, melodies and lyrics, and I

860
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 2: would wake up in the morning and I would write

861
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 2: them down, and that's how a lot of his album

862
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 2: was written. Wow. And originally I didn't know that I

863
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:35,840
Speaker 2: was making it for the world. I thought I was

864
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,560
Speaker 2: just making it for me and Bethany. We were planning

865
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:40,719
Speaker 2: a home birth. We had a tent built in our

866
00:51:40,760 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 2: living room that we were going to birth in, and

867
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 2: we would spend a lot of our time in there

868
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 2: just listening to this music together and just having conversations

869
00:51:49,040 --> 00:51:55,720
Speaker 2: with the spirit of this child and our daughter. Kilber

870
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:58,720
Speaker 2: Dove was born to the ninth song on the album

871
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:02,520
Speaker 2: called Santa Madre, which is a song in Spanish about

872
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:08,200
Speaker 2: the Holy Mother. Shortly after that, I realized that, like,

873
00:52:08,360 --> 00:52:10,360
Speaker 2: I needed to put this music out in the world.

874
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 2: It was it was bigger than myself. It was it

875
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 2: needed to be shared. Just like looking for music that

876
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:24,080
Speaker 2: people can birth to. It doesn't really exist. It's strange

877
00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:25,960
Speaker 2: because I think there should be more.

878
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:30,360
Speaker 1: One of the most common things that happens in the world.

879
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 2: But it doesn't exist really for me. Yeah, and you know,

880
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:37,839
Speaker 2: it's something that she can always go back to and

881
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 2: re experience the art that helped make her, you know,

882
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:47,560
Speaker 2: and is because of her, and you know, we're pregnant again,

883
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:50,880
Speaker 2: and I am back in a studio here in Florida,

884
00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to make new music and I'm planning

885
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 2: the live show for the album that came out in April,

886
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:02,920
Speaker 2: and and you know it's a it's a whole new

887
00:53:02,960 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 2: thing already. Yeah, performing live is the one thing that

888
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:10,320
Speaker 2: I don't want to say I'm afraid of but makes

889
00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:11,800
Speaker 2: me nervous for some reason.

890
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:13,279
Speaker 1: Well, then you have to do it.

891
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 2: I have to do it.

892
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 1: Yes, when it feels scary, you have to do it.

893
00:53:17,040 --> 00:53:18,319
Speaker 2: I have to do it. I think I'm planning my

894
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:21,200
Speaker 2: first show in La and July right now.

895
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:23,920
Speaker 1: Okay, great, you have to let me know what it

896
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:28,839
Speaker 1: is for sure. It's so fun. I'm so excited for you.

897
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:31,319
Speaker 1: And I mean, I love this, you know when when

898
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:33,440
Speaker 1: our friends at home are like, well where do we

899
00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:36,760
Speaker 1: find him? Like, guys, you can go online and listen

900
00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 1: to Bourne. You can order all of It is you

901
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:41,759
Speaker 1: and read it to the kids in your family. You

902
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:44,880
Speaker 1: can go on Prime Video and watch the movie. Like,

903
00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:49,719
Speaker 1: there's so much that it's not lost on me that

904
00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:51,719
Speaker 1: there's so much great art that's come out of you,

905
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:54,640
Speaker 1: like saying yes to your life. I think that's really beautiful.

906
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:59,279
Speaker 1: I just went and made a movie and you know,

907
00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:05,040
Speaker 1: post illness recovery and then like post strike, it was

908
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:07,160
Speaker 1: like the first thing, you know, of all the things

909
00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 1: I've signed on to do, it is the first thing

910
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:12,520
Speaker 1: that like went after things started wrapping up with the strike,

911
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 1: and it was the most fun I've ever had on

912
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:19,359
Speaker 1: a project. And like, I was the least stressed I've

913
00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: ever been. And I was like, Wow, this this place

914
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:25,600
Speaker 1: that I me, myself am in right now. This is

915
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 1: a nice place to make art from.

916
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 2: And this is the longest I haven't been on set

917
00:54:29,480 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 2: since I started. Yeah, I miss it so intensely right now.

918
00:54:36,280 --> 00:54:38,840
Speaker 2: I feel like my entire sense of community is based

919
00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 2: off of what we do. Yeah, the Carnie lifestyle and

920
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 2: these relationships with the crew guys, and just like you know,

921
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:52,279
Speaker 2: we show up through pitch a tent, fallen and out

922
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:54,840
Speaker 2: of love and kind of all disperse. And I haven't

923
00:54:54,880 --> 00:55:00,960
Speaker 2: had it in so long, and I'm done back to work.

924
00:55:01,239 --> 00:55:02,200
Speaker 2: Short answer here.

925
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:04,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it. By the way, I'm laughing because

926
00:55:05,040 --> 00:55:07,280
Speaker 1: my like do not disturb turned off on my phone

927
00:55:07,320 --> 00:55:09,400
Speaker 1: and my director from the movie I just did just

928
00:55:09,440 --> 00:55:12,279
Speaker 1: texted me. I was like that's not an accident like that,

929
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 1: Like energetically, I'm talking about how nice it was to

930
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:18,239
Speaker 1: go make this piece of art. And now Jeff's like, hey,

931
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:21,640
Speaker 1: because I do want to be mindful of your time,

932
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:23,920
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm going to ask you my last and

933
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:26,719
Speaker 1: favorite question. And this could be the live show, it

934
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 1: could be the you know, impending birth of your second baby,

935
00:55:29,560 --> 00:55:31,759
Speaker 1: it could be something else completely. I don't know. But

936
00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:35,280
Speaker 1: when you sort of look at your life right now

937
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:40,040
Speaker 1: and how good it feels, what feels like you're work

938
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:41,239
Speaker 1: in progress.

939
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:44,279
Speaker 2: It really is just the family building. We want a

940
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:47,319
Speaker 2: whole pack of cads, you know. Yeah, Like we feel

941
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:49,920
Speaker 2: like we're just getting started, and we know the second

942
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:52,319
Speaker 2: one is on the way, and we want three and

943
00:55:52,480 --> 00:56:00,800
Speaker 2: four god willing. And it's just about being the best,

944
00:56:00,840 --> 00:56:05,160
Speaker 2: most inspiring dad as I can be, and like doing

945
00:56:05,239 --> 00:56:11,400
Speaker 2: the work to show them it's possible that there are

946
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:13,040
Speaker 2: no limits in this life.

947
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't have to fit into a box.

948
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:17,160
Speaker 2: Oh not at all. Yeah.

949
00:56:17,160 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 1: I love that.

950
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:23,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, best dad, I could be beautiful. Thank you, thank you,

951
00:56:23,560 --> 00:56:24,280
Speaker 2: This is awesome.

952
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:26,640
Speaker 1: This is such a nice chat. I'm so glad we

953
00:56:26,719 --> 00:56:27,680
Speaker 1: got to hang today.

954
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:28,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally