Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Hello Whipsmarties.
Speaker 1: Today's guest is an incredible multi hyphenet that I think
Speaker 1: is not only fascinating as an artist, but fascinating and
Speaker 1: courageous as a human. Today I'm joined by Nico Tortorella.
Speaker 1: He is an actor, a musician, and an author. You
Speaker 1: may know him from Darren Starr's hit series Younger, from
Speaker 1: AMC's The Walking Dead, A World Beyond, or the incredible
Speaker 1: Apple TV show City on Fire. Most recently, he appeared
Speaker 1: in the indie film Matachin Family opposite Carl Lemons Hopkins
Speaker 1: and Emily Hampshire, who we just love on this show.
Speaker 1: Nico grew up both playing hockey and in the theater
Speaker 1: in Chicago. We had an office a lot to talk
Speaker 1: about with that theater scene that we both love so much,
Speaker 1: and he's leaned into his artistry in the most inspiring way.
Speaker 1: Not only has he become an advocate and a leader
Speaker 1: in the LGBTQ community, but in finding himself in his voice.
Speaker 1: He's also pursued so many other passions as an artist,
Speaker 1: going from TV and film to writing. This spring, he's
Speaker 1: releasing a children's book called All of It Is You,
Speaker 1: about loving and honoring every part of yourself while creating
Speaker 1: conversations around acceptance and self exploration. And he also, in
Speaker 1: preparation for his first daughter with his longtime partner Bethanie Meyers,
Speaker 1: started making music. He's made an incredible album called Born.
Speaker 1: We will make sure to link to it in the stories,
Speaker 1: which he wrote in advance of his daughter's birth, and
Speaker 1: then realized he wanted her to be able to listen
Speaker 1: to it anytime she pleased when she grew up. So
Speaker 1: it is out for all of us to enjoy. And
Speaker 1: I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. Hello,
Speaker 1: how are you? I'm great. There's like so much for
Speaker 1: us to talk about today. We have so many things
Speaker 1: going on. I love it before we jump into anyone
Speaker 1: of the three projects that I know we have to
Speaker 1: talk about. I actually really like to ask people to
Speaker 1: rewind with me because I feel like, you know, audiences
Speaker 1: meet you when you're doing a TV show or you've
Speaker 1: you know, written a book, or you have a movie coming
Speaker 1: out or something, and I'm always really curious to know
Speaker 1: who these artists that I meet in the present were
Speaker 1: as kids. You know, if you look back, like if
Speaker 1: you could rewind the like the TVO to see Nico
Speaker 1: at eight or nine, would you find, you know, an
Speaker 1: artist and a creative? Where were you like a tiny
Speaker 1: little athlete or you know, like who was that little kid?
Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, there's something about having children too
Speaker 2: that demands you go back and look.
Speaker 1: I wondered about that for sure.
Speaker 2: I'm experiencing my own childhood through her eyes right now,
Speaker 2: which is a really cool thing. Eight or nine, I
Speaker 2: was both. I was an athlete and I had found
Speaker 2: the stage right about at that time. Really yeah. I
Speaker 2: grew up in Chicago and everyone in my family was
Speaker 2: a hockey player. We all grew up on the same
Speaker 2: all my cousins. And that's just like what I was
Speaker 2: made to do pretty much ride out the womb. I
Speaker 2: was on the ice and I loved it. But it
Speaker 2: was always a performance for me. It's like I would
Speaker 2: score a goal and take my gloves off and throw
Speaker 2: them in the audience and it was a show, right Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then my mom made us audition for the Wizard
Speaker 2: of Oz when we were right about eight or nine.
Speaker 2: Just like children's theater local Spot cast as a munchkin
Speaker 2: and a Flying Monkey, and the rest is kind of history.
Speaker 2: Like the second I got on that stage, I just
Speaker 2: knew that's what I was going to do for the
Speaker 2: rest of my life.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, So how did that then shape the rest
Speaker 1: of your childhood and your hockey career and all of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, in Chicago, I had like interesting access to
Speaker 2: the stage, you know, and I got tapped into the
Speaker 2: scene there pretty quickly, and I got an agent and
Speaker 2: started auditioning a bunch for different productions, and I got
Speaker 2: casts in a show called Over the Tavern, which kind
Speaker 2: of hopped around a different a few different theaters in
Speaker 2: the Chicagoland area for years, and I wound up being
Speaker 2: in that show for almost four years. I played all
Speaker 2: three brothers throughout the years. I like started playing the
Speaker 2: youngest brother, and just as I got older, I kept
Speaker 2: playing the older brother. And yeah, I mean I was
Speaker 2: missing school every Wednesday for Matine's and h shows a week,
Speaker 2: and you know, you know, being on stage that's a
Speaker 2: whole other right, especially that young And I mean I
Speaker 2: quickly quit playing sports after I fell on the stage.
Speaker 2: Like I was playing soccer, I was playing hockey. And
Speaker 2: I made it very clear to all of my coaches
Speaker 2: that I was done, and yeah, that one way or
Speaker 2: another got me to LA and that's how it all
Speaker 2: worked out.
Speaker 1: Wow. And so then was younger the first on camera
Speaker 1: like big job or were? There were there things in between.
Speaker 2: There were a few other things. I got to LA
Speaker 2: when I was nineteen. I went to business school at
Speaker 2: Loyal in Marymount for a hot second, which was not
Speaker 2: the right place for me, and I dropped out after
Speaker 2: like six weeks. Honestly, I was running a raw food
Speaker 2: restaurant in Santa Monica and I started modeling. I my
Speaker 2: agent in Chicago hooked me up with a sister agency
Speaker 2: in La CSD, and I started auditioning pretty quick and
Speaker 2: I booked. I was testing for a bit for that
Speaker 2: Nickelodeon boy band Big Time Rush. That was kind of
Speaker 2: like the first big audition experience that I had in LA.
Speaker 2: And then I got Making or Break It, which was
Speaker 2: an ABC Family show about gymnastics. Cass is a recurring
Speaker 2: on that show, and after we shot the pilot, I
Speaker 2: got my first series regular on a CW show called
Speaker 2: The Beautiful Life, which shot in New York City. So
Speaker 2: I moved to New York when I was twenty. This
Speaker 2: all happened very quickly when I started auditioning and we
Speaker 2: shot a total of seven episodes. We got canceled after seven,
Speaker 2: only three I think aired, and moved back to LA
Speaker 2: And like within the year I was casting Scream four
Speaker 2: and Younger kind of came a little bit later. It
Speaker 2: was like two years after that. Yeah, I was twenty
Speaker 2: six or twenty seven when I got Younger. It was
Speaker 2: almost like a decade before that.
Speaker 1: Isn't it funny they always say it takes a decade
Speaker 1: of a coming overnight success.
Speaker 2: It's still taking time two decades later, because you know.
Speaker 1: It's so wild. It's one of really the only careers
Speaker 1: where like every time you finish a job, you start over.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's uh, you have to just get used to. Yeah,
Speaker 2: those those in between phases, the highs and lows. The
Speaker 2: highs are like so good when they're there, and you know,
Speaker 2: but the most exciting part of it is like you're
Speaker 2: always one phone call away from an entirely different life, Yeah,
Speaker 2: which like keeps me going, yeah, eail about a breakdown
Speaker 2: or something like I can immediately imagine what my next
Speaker 2: two years looks.
Speaker 1: Like, Right, Yeah, isn't that interesting? And then but to
Speaker 1: your point. You know, it's it's so amazing, but it
Speaker 1: is also really tricky. I think people kind of forget
Speaker 1: that to do this, it's not dissimilar to being an athlete,
Speaker 1: like you're expected to pick up and go. You get traded,
Speaker 1: you're moving in three days, you book a job, you're
Speaker 1: moving to Canada, you're moving to Albuquerque, you're moving to Wilmington.
Speaker 1: And I think it can be really hard to like
Speaker 1: pick up, leave your whole family, you know, and just
Speaker 1: you kind of get plucked and you're gone. And I
Speaker 1: know you've you've been really open and vulnerable about like
Speaker 1: some of that hardship. You know, you've talked about how
Speaker 1: during the first season of Younger you were really struggling
Speaker 1: with alcoholism and to be so young and to be
Speaker 1: on that real sort of yo yo string of this career.
Speaker 2: Do you.
Speaker 1: Feel like part of how hard this can be, the
Speaker 1: up and downs increased your propensity to struggle there or
Speaker 1: do you think that was something you'd maybe been dealing
Speaker 1: with for longer and the work schedule and the intensity
Speaker 1: of the job helped you come to terms with the
Speaker 1: fact that you probably needed to get so at that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was both. I mean I grew
Speaker 2: up in a bar in Chicago, surrounded by alcohol and
Speaker 2: in my blood for sure. And you know that when
Speaker 2: you experienced that level of success at eighteen nineteen years
Speaker 2: old in Los Angeles, that lifestyle is just thrown at you,
Speaker 2: like you don't even have to think about it. Right,
Speaker 2: You're at every event with an open bar, and there's
Speaker 2: older folk that are feeding you all sorts of things, right, Like,
Speaker 2: it's very easy to get wrapped up in that. The
Speaker 2: breaks right ask for high levels of excitement. You just
Speaker 2: like you're working all the time or you're not working
Speaker 2: at all, and part of staying in in the scene
Speaker 2: is going out. Especially at that I think it's different.
Speaker 2: It seems to be different now just because of social media.
Speaker 2: I look back at that decade of my life and
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful that there were not camera phones and
Speaker 2: social leads, because it was it was a whole other world.
Speaker 2: But yeah, around twenty six twenty seven, I younger was
Speaker 2: a very easy job for me, honestly, Like I you know,
Speaker 2: it was number seven on the call. She worked like
Speaker 2: a day or two a week. I was making good money.
Speaker 2: I was living in New York City at that age,
Speaker 2: that it like it was still socially acceptable to be
Speaker 2: out all the time, right, And I once I started
Speaker 2: drinking alone at home, I was like, well this, this
Speaker 2: isn't going to end well. And there we're like a
Speaker 2: couple instances. Thank god, it never really got in the
Speaker 2: way of work. There were like a couple close calls,
Speaker 2: but for the most part, like I kept things very separate.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I just kind of woke up one morning
Speaker 2: I was like that if I don't change this now, like,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to survive, both like physically and emotionally.
Speaker 2: I want way too much in my life to surrender
Speaker 2: to this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And is it scary to be publicly open about
Speaker 1: that or do you feel like, because so many people
Speaker 1: now are having more conversations about mental health and identity
Speaker 1: and all of the sort of aspects of who we
Speaker 1: are as people like you're more safe to do so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's scary to be publicly
Speaker 2: open about anything, really, you know. I mean I was
Speaker 2: having a lot of these conversations ten years ago, and
Speaker 2: I've found myself as of late, especially in fatherhood, retracting
Speaker 2: some from just public discourse. I feel like I've said
Speaker 2: it all at this point, like I really like just
Speaker 2: caught myself wide open and shared so much of who
Speaker 2: I am and who I love and you know how
Speaker 2: I believe I fit into this world. And COVID hit
Speaker 2: and we were all forced to just restructure, right, and
Speaker 2: we were experiencing our own fertility journey and trying to
Speaker 2: create life in a time when life seemed the most fragile,
Speaker 2: and I just needed to to reclaim, you know, myself,
Speaker 2: and I got media for a couple of years, like
Speaker 2: I wasn't having any conversations, and yeah, I feel like
Speaker 2: I've emerged as a completely different person in the last
Speaker 2: few years, especially post daughter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how old is your daughter now?
Speaker 2: Fifteen months?
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, she's just like a little smush.
Speaker 2: Is a smush, She's she's really something. We got another
Speaker 2: one on the way. We were we're having another one
Speaker 2: in October.
Speaker 1: So congratulation. That's so exciting over here. Yeah, so was
Speaker 1: your was your daughter part of the inspia for your
Speaker 1: children's book?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I wrote it while we were trying
Speaker 2: to get pregnant, which is an arduous process, it can't,
Speaker 2: you know, And I just like needed an outlet. I
Speaker 2: needed to have this conversation with the spirit of a
Speaker 2: child while I was attempting to channel and I came
Speaker 2: up with this idea for all of that that really
Speaker 2: like distilled this larger mantra of my life, that is,
Speaker 2: all of it is you, which is this poetry book
Speaker 2: that I wrote, that we are the mirror to the universe, right,
Speaker 2: And I always knew I wanted to distill that down
Speaker 2: to a children's version, like I saw it when I
Speaker 2: wrote the poetry book. But it was it was a
Speaker 2: way for me, like I said, to have a conversation
Speaker 2: with her or him or whoever it was that I
Speaker 2: was trying to talk to and like start teaching before
Speaker 2: they were even born. You know. Yeah, children's are a
Speaker 2: long process, why they yeah, yeah, yeah. It's way more
Speaker 2: complicated than the other two books I had written because
Speaker 2: the art is such a huge part of it too, right,
Speaker 2: Like yeah, you know, there's less than one hundred words
Speaker 2: in my children's book. But then you have to create
Speaker 2: the entire universe.
Speaker 1: Right and find an illustrator who you love, and what's
Speaker 1: that like to meet with so many artists and try
Speaker 1: to figure out who can draw the thing you are
Speaker 1: imagining that doesn't yet exist.
Speaker 2: It's weird because you see their art before you meet
Speaker 2: them for the most part, Like you're not having conversations
Speaker 2: with these people. Like I was given like twenty samples
Speaker 2: and it was like, Okay, pick five that you want
Speaker 2: to talk to and three were only available, right, So,
Speaker 2: like I kind of just knew when I saw the
Speaker 2: art that that's who it was. She was also an
Speaker 2: animator at Nickelodeon, and I had an idea of turning
Speaker 2: into a cartoon at some point, so like that checked
Speaker 2: a box immediately. And her name is Melissa, the artist
Speaker 2: on the book, And I mean she really just like
Speaker 2: took my ideas and ran with them and made the
Speaker 2: book come to life in a way that like I
Speaker 2: never even imagined.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you tell us the story of the book?
Speaker 1: Let our audience know what it's about.
Speaker 2: Yeah. All of it is used about a kid named
Speaker 2: Alive who is the entirety of the universe, and you
Speaker 2: follow her in like a day of her life and
Speaker 2: you get to experience how she relates to the world
Speaker 2: in all aspects of herself. It's kind of this like
Speaker 2: age old idea that you can be anything you want
Speaker 2: when you grow up, lifts up on its head, that
Speaker 2: you already are everything that exists in the universe, and
Speaker 2: what does it mean to tap in to that level
Speaker 2: of unfettered freedom?
Speaker 1: And now for our sponsors, do you think that that idea,
Speaker 1: that spirit of unfettered freedom, that that notion that children
Speaker 1: and really all of us should know that we are everything,
Speaker 1: that we carry a piece of everything. It feels to
Speaker 1: me like such an encouragement to include more rather than
Speaker 1: to exclude or to you know, fall prey to these
Speaker 1: really common ideas of binaries, whether they be about you know, love, gender,
Speaker 1: what colors are for girls, what colors are for boys, yeah, race,
Speaker 1: all of it. Do you think that that sort of
Speaker 1: very like inclusive and spiritual awareness comes from, for you,
Speaker 1: your own journey of continuing to expand your definition of
Speaker 1: who you are who you love. Like to me, it
Speaker 1: sounds so beautiful, but I would imagine that, as you said, like,
Speaker 1: you've had to be so open and maybe you don't
Speaker 1: always want to have to be like it does seem
Speaker 1: like it's something that can be hard won sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And I think it even started way
Speaker 2: before me even realizing what any of this was. Really
Speaker 2: As an actor, that's our job to tap into that
Speaker 2: unfettered free right and to continue to be othered always, right,
Speaker 2: And that's why I fell in love with it in
Speaker 2: the beginning. I could just like, not that I needed
Speaker 2: to escape myself at all. I had an amazing childhood,
Speaker 2: and but I could experience more in a very short
Speaker 2: amount of time as an actor, and so much of
Speaker 2: my identity exploration and gender and sexual real is linked
Speaker 2: to my ability to transform through art. It always has been.
Speaker 2: It's about this limitless access, really, and I always knew that, like,
Speaker 2: if I could experience more as a person, I could
Speaker 2: deliver more as an actor. And I don't know if
Speaker 2: that was always a conscious thought, sure it was there constantly.
Speaker 1: Well, and that's why they say hindsight is twenty twenty, right,
Speaker 1: because you can look back and you can see the
Speaker 1: thread that goes through everything that maybe you didn't see
Speaker 1: in real time, but when you look at the past
Speaker 1: you can. And I think it's really fascinating, you know,
Speaker 1: when we think about privilege and presentation and passing and
Speaker 1: all of these things, Like I'm not gonna lie from
Speaker 1: the vantage point I said as a woman, I think
Speaker 1: it's very cool that a guy like you who presents
Speaker 1: as like hyper masculine, you know, Chicago guy hockey player
Speaker 1: is like, actually, I'm very gender fluid and I love
Speaker 1: who I love And I'm like, wait what and not
Speaker 1: to say, like I should like to think that I'm
Speaker 1: not a person who really stereotypes, But I don't know.
Speaker 1: If I, like bumped into you at a bar and
Speaker 1: we didn't know each other, I'd be like that guy
Speaker 1: is probably the most open, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like I might not have known that, And I think
Speaker 1: I think there's something really powerful in your willingness to
Speaker 1: be so frank about your own life, because I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot more guys that look like you, that
Speaker 1: feel like you then maybe admit that they feel like you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a part of me that
Speaker 2: thinks everyone has access to this sort of mentality. But
Speaker 2: we do. We just we we all were taught to
Speaker 2: limit ourselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was it a strange thing, like thinking about just
Speaker 1: the time line, you know, for you to start talking
Speaker 1: publicly about that fluidity about And forgive me if I
Speaker 1: don't know currently, but if you know you're talking about
Speaker 1: at the time being bisexual, being you know, a person
Speaker 1: who really can envision himself or feel you know, all
Speaker 1: all sides of gender within himself, within themselves, like was
Speaker 1: it was it a weird dynamic for you to be
Speaker 1: having those conversations while you were playing this like hyper
Speaker 1: masculine man or do you feel like because you were
Speaker 1: playing that character, it was even more important for you
Speaker 1: to have like frank conversations with people about like don't
Speaker 1: judge a book by its cover.
Speaker 2: I had this anchor that was this character Josh that
Speaker 2: I was known around the world. It's like super straight,
Speaker 2: say his wife dude, right that like had a shit
Speaker 2: together and was like dating older women and was just cool. Right,
Speaker 2: this like Brooklyn and a lot of me exploring my
Speaker 2: sexuality is tied to getting sober, right, Like, I had
Speaker 2: had experiences before I got sober, but I mean the
Speaker 2: first like real relationship with a man happened after I
Speaker 2: got sober. And I had a couple serious relationships at
Speaker 2: the beginning, and I did a play where I was
Speaker 2: playing this like really manic character, and I just like
Speaker 2: I knew that I needed to start having this conversation
Speaker 2: because people were starting to like speculate, right, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to get ahead of it. I had to get
Speaker 2: ahead of it.
Speaker 1: I know that feeling half right, and I.
Speaker 2: Had a pot I like started a podcast. My buddy
Speaker 2: was launching a podcast network, and I was just like
Speaker 2: fuck it, Like if I'm going to do this, I'm
Speaker 2: going to go all the way out and just like
Speaker 2: I'm having these conversations privately, let's just grab some microphones
Speaker 2: and let's just start like exploring all of this in
Speaker 2: real time with everybody else. Like I was just putting
Speaker 2: myself with a microphone and everybody else was learning it
Speaker 2: at the same time that I was. Yeah, which was
Speaker 2: really cool, Like in hindsight, yes, very cool. Would I
Speaker 2: do that in the same way now? Probably not right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but the I mean going going back to this unfettered freedom.
Speaker 2: It was just like I was able to say and
Speaker 2: do whatever I wanted and nobody could say anything otherwise.
Speaker 1: It's really special.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's a really interesting thing though, like the
Speaker 1: way the world will speculate, like people will really take
Speaker 1: your self discovery from you if you're not careful, and
Speaker 1: so I think it's really cool that, unlike what happens
Speaker 1: to so many of us, like you were able to
Speaker 1: get ahead of it. I totally get that. Now you're
Speaker 1: like maybe I wouldn't have had all sixteen of those
Speaker 1: conversations in public, Like maybe I would have just had
Speaker 1: eleven of them. But like it really is brave. It's
Speaker 1: really really brave, and like I guess it's part of
Speaker 1: the reason that, you know, I of course I want
Speaker 1: to ask, like I think it's beautiful and I'm curious,
Speaker 1: and I also don't want to. I don't want to
Speaker 1: force you to like go back and talk about things
Speaker 1: you don't want to talk about anymore.
Speaker 2: Well, no, it's all good. I mean, I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to like avoid these conversations at all. You know. I
Speaker 2: enjoy talking about how I got here for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 2: especially with someone that has experienced similar things, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean I was I was reading your Glamour piece
Speaker 2: before we started, and how long in between, like from
Speaker 2: things starting to leak out to you deciding you were
Speaker 2: going to write this piece, how long was that and
Speaker 2: what made you make that decision?
Speaker 1: Ultimately, I mean what made me make the decision was
Speaker 1: knowing that we'd gotten into like a post fact vacuum.
Speaker 1: So I was like, what I'm going to do is
Speaker 1: sit and just sit and wait. But eventually, what I'm
Speaker 1: going to do is clarify very firmly, bit gently what's
Speaker 1: real because it matters to me. I didn't appreciate it personally,
Speaker 1: but what really frightened me in terms of the public
Speaker 1: nature of it was this is so vitriolic and so
Speaker 1: violent and so ugly, Like, what's this going to do
Speaker 1: to it? Like a young queer girl in Ohio or
Speaker 1: Alabama who sees what the internet is doing to people
Speaker 1: who she perceives to have a lot more power than her, like,
Speaker 1: you can always take your power back, and that was
Speaker 1: part of what felt really important to me, was like
Speaker 1: I'm going to take my power back, and I'm actually
Speaker 1: going to stand up and say the purest and most
Speaker 1: special thing that's ever happened to me in my life
Speaker 1: has happened to me, and you've treated it like the
Speaker 1: ugliest because you're looking at optics and not reality. You're
Speaker 1: looking at a narrative you bought into based on the
Speaker 1: Internet and not the.
Speaker 2: Facts, and like from a place of love, Yeah, really
Speaker 2: hard for anybody else to experience the love that exists
Speaker 2: between right, Yeah, especially behind closed doors.
Speaker 1: That's the thing to finally be, to finally be so
Speaker 1: loved and not to be like trying so hard, like
Speaker 1: because when it works, you don't have to try. And
Speaker 1: I know that sounds really basic, but like I just
Speaker 1: didn't know that I had always had to try so hard,
Speaker 1: and I'd always heard that phrase like marriage is hard,
Speaker 1: relationships are hard. You have to do the work, and
Speaker 1: like the work is supposed to feel constructive, not torturous.
Speaker 1: And that's a big life lesson. And I want other
Speaker 1: people like, look, if I didn't do this job, would
Speaker 1: I talk about any of this publicly? No, also because
Speaker 1: nobody would give as But it's like, what I'm not
Speaker 1: going to let them do is take it from me,
Speaker 1: make make money off of it with like clickbait and grossness,
Speaker 1: and then turn around and be like, well you didn't
Speaker 1: do it and you didn't say it. And it's like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna I'm going to continue to come back
Speaker 1: to like love and power. I'm going to root in
Speaker 1: truth and you can come or not. But the reason
Speaker 1: it feels important for me to do that with whatever
Speaker 1: relative platform I have is because there's kids out there
Speaker 1: who don't have platforms at all, who are so scared
Speaker 1: to be who they are, and I just want them
Speaker 1: to know I don't care if you're fourteen or forty one,
Speaker 1: Like you can choose yourself and that feels important, and
Speaker 1: like that's why I feel like it's such a cool
Speaker 1: thing that you, particularly as a man, we're willing to
Speaker 1: subvert like stereotype and narrative and all of it. You know,
Speaker 1: I think that that's very brave, and I really like,
Speaker 1: I really commend you for that.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean when I started the podcast, I would say
Speaker 2: all the time, like, this is for the kids, this
Speaker 2: isn't for me. You totally understand that sentiment from an
Speaker 2: outside perspective. Yet it does seem very selfish to be
Speaker 2: having these conversations yeah, publicly, but like in the truest
Speaker 2: form it felt so selfless. Yeah, like it wasn't about me.
Speaker 1: Well, and that's the thing. I think what people who
Speaker 1: don't do this job don't understand is that we don't
Speaker 1: actually have a choice in the public discourse, right, And
Speaker 1: like I've noticed that all the bots on Instagram, on
Speaker 1: every pride, they're like, ugh, what narcissists, No one cares
Speaker 1: who you. This is so narcissistic. Why do you have
Speaker 1: to make And I'm like, oh wow, so the bots
Speaker 1: are being activated to call queer people narcissists during Pride, okay,
Speaker 1: but it's like nobody's out here trying to make announcements.
Speaker 1: People are just navigating public life. And if it's public,
Speaker 1: you can either be you can either be dragged by
Speaker 1: it or you can drive it. And I think we'd
Speaker 1: all rather drive than be dragged. And now a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsors that I really enjoy and I think
Speaker 1: you will too.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you another question? Sure, in this new
Speaker 2: version of yourself and post you know, post glamor, has
Speaker 2: the desire for art or the characters that you play
Speaker 2: has that shifted at all? Do you want to be
Speaker 2: telling different stories? Well?
Speaker 1: It's so interesting, Like I've always played queer women on
Speaker 1: tea yeah yeah, yeah, like for twenty years. Anytime I
Speaker 1: get the chance, I do it. And I've always been
Speaker 1: really vocal about like I would never play a character
Speaker 1: I couldn't represent interesting. But what was really interesting for
Speaker 1: me in my twenties was being told by like elder
Speaker 1: queers that I respect so much, like well, you're not
Speaker 1: gay enough to say you're bye right, And I was
Speaker 1: kind of like, oh, well, like what I don't want
Speaker 1: to do is hurt the community.
Speaker 2: Ever, which is the hardest thing to navigate.
Speaker 1: It's really hard if the seesaw is really hard.
Speaker 2: The gay keeping in this community is so real. It's
Speaker 2: ultimately why I retract it, because like I just felt like,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what I do or what I say,
Speaker 2: I will never make all of these people happy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you know what I will say to that,
Speaker 1: my darling, is like, welcome to being a woman, because
Speaker 1: it's the same you're two thing. You're too fat, you're
Speaker 1: too rich, you're too poor, you're too ambitious, you're fucking lazy,
Speaker 1: like you run a company. How dare you you're a
Speaker 1: trad wife? How dare you you're a mother? Lazy, you
Speaker 1: don't have children, frigid bitch Like it's always something, And
Speaker 1: so it's really easy to it's really interesting, not easy,
Speaker 1: interesting to see the way that magnifies itself and like
Speaker 1: shape shifts in queerness because what it really like rings
Speaker 1: the bell for me on is any group of people
Speaker 1: who has been othered will very often have a subconscious
Speaker 1: desire to other another group to save themselves. And I
Speaker 1: think that's tribalistic. I think that's human nature. But I
Speaker 1: think it's also twenty twenty four, and we're supposed to
Speaker 1: be more evolved than like falling prey to our own
Speaker 1: lizard brains. But it's like when you see homophobia in
Speaker 1: communities of color, or you see really intense sexism in
Speaker 1: certain geographical cultures, or you know, you see lesbians eating
Speaker 1: their own because you know, they don't really know what's
Speaker 1: going on in people's lives. Like there is so much
Speaker 1: pain and trauma in communities that have been marginalized that
Speaker 1: sometimes I don't think they see when they are projecting
Speaker 1: that pain onto other marginalized people. So you see stay
Speaker 1: at home moms judging career moms and vice versa. You
Speaker 1: see the elder gays judging the bisexual kids. You see
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And I think what it really is
Speaker 1: is like I have this pain that's built up and
Speaker 1: I don't know where to put it, and suddenly like
Speaker 1: there's a bottleneck and it's all going to shoot through there.
Speaker 1: And you know, maybe that's because we don't have enough
Speaker 1: mental health support in our country, or maybe that's because
Speaker 1: we're not really willing to like take enough accountability and
Speaker 1: do enough self inventory to say like, ooh, that instinct
Speaker 1: I have like, actually, is my that I need to
Speaker 1: deal with myself? Like I need to not make this
Speaker 1: someone else's problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have you had the people language folk who are
Speaker 2: very specific about bisexual verse pain sexual verse question? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Somebody like send me a tweet that was like,
Speaker 1: I am so disappointed in you. You're calling yourself queer
Speaker 1: just say you're bisexual. And I was like, well it
Speaker 1: live what I like? Sorry, what the.
Speaker 2: Language winds up hurting?
Speaker 1: The language policing is so weird.
Speaker 2: I'm in this interesting place now because like I.
Speaker 1: Was going to ask you this because you married a woman,
Speaker 1: So like, are are there all these people that are like, see,
Speaker 1: it was a phase totally totally, Oh, it's so annoying unless.
Speaker 2: You they are seeing me publicly in a relationship with yeah,
Speaker 2: a man or a gender variant person, Like I am
Speaker 2: not a legitimate queer person anymore.
Speaker 1: But by the way, I get it because again, like
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sharing things with you about like things I've
Speaker 1: known about my identity for over twenty years, and even
Speaker 1: like when I finally asked my partner out, which like
Speaker 1: to be clear, our friends were like trying to set
Speaker 1: her up with someone and I was like if she's
Speaker 1: ready to date, she's going on a date with me,
Speaker 1: like sorry, like no way, and people were like wait
Speaker 1: what And she even said to me, she was like
Speaker 1: hold the phone, like I always thought you were straight,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I always thought you were happy,
Speaker 1: but like we're both in single what are we doing?
Speaker 1: And you know it's we were in cackling because I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, dude, I never looked at you as
Speaker 1: an option and she was like I never looked at
Speaker 1: you as an option. And it's like, well, because we
Speaker 1: weren't options, and like, I don't know. I just most
Speaker 1: at least most women I know, like are not out
Speaker 1: trying to finaggle around their relationships, or I guess I
Speaker 1: should say like most monogamous women I know people who
Speaker 1: are Poulie obviously are like doing what they're doing because
Speaker 1: they're communicating about that. But like, it is a very
Speaker 1: interesting thing because even a lot of the queer women
Speaker 1: in my life were like, oh, we just like we
Speaker 1: knew you were like an ally and like we maybe wondered,
Speaker 1: like you know, when we saw like this TV show
Speaker 1: or this movie you've done or like whatever, we were like, hmmm,
Speaker 1: he doesn't really look like acting, but like we didn't
Speaker 1: really know. And I was like, wow, we all we
Speaker 1: all do it, like even in our friend groups. We
Speaker 1: make assumptions. So I can't imagine for you, as someone
Speaker 1: who's spoken so openly about fluidity and identity as the
Speaker 1: man you physically present as, to be married to a woman, Like,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the weird blowback you get.
Speaker 2: It's a weird thing, you know. I mean also, just
Speaker 2: like looking at Pride and the amount of money that
Speaker 2: I was making from campaigns for X amount of years
Speaker 2: and like now I'm married a woman, all that just
Speaker 2: completely goes away. Not to say that that's like what
Speaker 2: Pride is, but like it it's been a very strange transition. Wow.
Speaker 1: Sure, And how long have you and Bethany been married?
Speaker 2: Six years? We're going our seventh. We've known each other
Speaker 2: at nineteen yeah, I mean we started dating in college.
Speaker 1: Stop it, you've been on and off for nineteen years? Okay,
Speaker 1: And then how did you guys decide like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: we're really going to do this. We're going to be together,
Speaker 1: be together and start a family. And like, what tips
Speaker 1: that when you've sort of been in and out of
Speaker 1: a relationship with someone for so long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we grew up queer side by side, like
Speaker 2: we both started started dating the same sex pretty much
Speaker 2: like within a year. And wow, yeah, I mean she's
Speaker 2: my best friend and has been forever, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and uh, we always got I mean, obviously we always
Speaker 2: got in the way of our other relationships that we
Speaker 2: had because nobody really knew like what we were to
Speaker 2: each other. Right at the end of the day. We
Speaker 2: were always each other's emergency contact, no matter we're serious
Speaker 2: our other relationships where I'm.
Speaker 1: Sure that caused jealousy and other relations for.
Speaker 2: Sure for sure, But like years we weren't sleeping together, right,
Speaker 2: uh huh. We went to Peru and did a bunch
Speaker 2: of yaguasca and had a pretty intense physical experience at
Speaker 2: this place beyond the psychoactive experience, and came out of
Speaker 2: the jungle and just I looked at her and I said,
Speaker 2: we're getting married. Huh. And that was that. Wow, there's
Speaker 2: a lot more to the story, but I vet there is.
Speaker 1: I'm like, we need to like have a glass of
Speaker 1: wine and talk about Well, I'll have a glass of
Speaker 1: wine and I'll bring you a sparkling water. I'll talk
Speaker 1: about Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's deeply cool. Does that
Speaker 1: sort of thing then do you get that like, oh,
Speaker 1: this was very destined to be feeling after that sort
Speaker 1: of journey And then you're like, oh, of course we
Speaker 1: were always each other's emergency contacts. Well, of course we
Speaker 1: were maybe like not ready to see how apparent our
Speaker 1: real connection was for so long.
Speaker 2: I think we both always knew. Honestly, we just gave
Speaker 2: each other the space to explore our own individuals and
Speaker 2: like champion each other.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, do you think that also that like
Speaker 1: that space and that way that you've been so consistent,
Speaker 1: do you think that helps you both like as the
Speaker 1: humans and the artists that you are, Because I think about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, even the movie that you just had come
Speaker 1: out on Prime and you know how you you play
Speaker 1: one half of this gay couple. Who is you know,
Speaker 1: going through this journey about being a foster parent and
Speaker 1: then are we going to be you know, parents post
Speaker 1: that that foster child experience and like what are your
Speaker 1: visions for your future? And I don't know, I feel
Speaker 1: like you've probably had to have versions of that with
Speaker 1: your partner, like what is our desire for our future?
Speaker 1: Et cetera et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, over and over.
Speaker 1: The journey almost feels like a movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it should be at some point. That movie came
Speaker 2: at a very interesting time. It was post COVID. We
Speaker 2: were a year into our own fertility journey and nothing
Speaker 2: was working and we couldn't figure out why, which is
Speaker 2: almost more frustrating. And we always knew we were going
Speaker 2: to have kids, and we were convinced the second we
Speaker 2: started trying it would just happen, like this is how
Speaker 2: it goes right, And that just was and you know,
Speaker 2: a year into the journey, this script came across my desk,
Speaker 2: so to speak, and it was about a gay relationship.
Speaker 2: But I saw so much of my own experience on
Speaker 2: these pages and at home, I was the stable one
Speaker 2: in our infertility Bethany was able to experience the emotional
Speaker 2: up people in real time and I needed to hold
Speaker 2: down the floor, right And I got the script, and
Speaker 2: I mean it was a no brainer. I knew I
Speaker 2: needed to play this role and I got to set
Speaker 2: and I was able to experience the heartache in a
Speaker 2: way that I just wasn't at home. Like there was
Speaker 2: not a whole lot of acting that went into this movie.
Speaker 1: That's so cathartic.
Speaker 2: God, you know when those jobs commented just as like
Speaker 2: there is an absolute reason this is here right now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you did channel so much of myself through this character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that feels like your Iah Oscar journey. You're just like,
Speaker 1: this is very divine, what is happening?
Speaker 2: Totally totally and you just got to cry and cry
Speaker 2: and like wow it it prepared me to be a
Speaker 2: father for sure.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's so beautiful. Okay, can you can
Speaker 1: you give our listeners at home? Obviously I've I've read
Speaker 1: all of the things in preparation for today, but will
Speaker 1: you give our listeners at home a little overview of
Speaker 1: what the movie is, like you like you did for
Speaker 1: your kid's book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. The Managing Family is by Andy Ballentine
Speaker 2: and written by his husband Danny Valentine, and it is
Speaker 2: a love letter to their own experience as queer parents
Speaker 2: and bringing life into the world. And it is the
Speaker 2: story of Thomas and Oscar, who live in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Thomas is a photographer. Oscar is an actor who had
Speaker 2: a troubled outing in his own career early on. I've
Speaker 2: been trying to figure out his life after that. And
Speaker 2: they have a foster kid early on in the film
Speaker 2: that they've spent a couple of years with, and he
Speaker 2: winds up going back to his birth mother, which is
Speaker 2: an incredible thing, right, But Thomas my character is kind
Speaker 2: of left with this, well what now and who am
Speaker 2: I without child? And the film tracks really his journey
Speaker 2: to make the decision whether or not he wants to
Speaker 2: be a parent, and Oscar's pretty dead set on not
Speaker 2: bringing another child into the mix. His acting career is
Speaker 2: taking off, He's got all of these new opportunities, and
Speaker 2: they have to make a decision whether they're going to
Speaker 2: choose each other or choose themselves and their own dreams
Speaker 2: and desires. And you know, that is something that made
Speaker 2: a lot of sense to me and my past relationship
Speaker 2: or my current relationship, all the different versions of our relationship. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And it's just it's this beautiful. You see a lot
Speaker 2: of different queer families in such a short amount of time,
Speaker 2: which is not something that we've really seen in film
Speaker 2: and television. In a way I read the script, I
Speaker 2: was like, how has this movie not been made yet?
Speaker 2: Why to go find a comp of just like two
Speaker 2: gay dads and their child, And it just like does
Speaker 2: it really, it just doesn't exist. I know, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean when you think about the fact that Love
Speaker 1: Simon was the first high school story or rom com
Speaker 1: to start a gay character, and it came out in
Speaker 1: I think twenty fifteen, Like hello, yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a really it's a really wild thing when you realize
Speaker 1: that a lot of people just don't they don't get
Speaker 1: to really see themselves.
Speaker 2: I mean when I look back at my own career
Speaker 2: and the conversations that I was having, you know, fifteen
Speaker 2: years ago about playing gay roles, like it wasn't an
Speaker 2: option on my team. It was like we have to
Speaker 2: stay adamantly away from anything queer because it will ruin
Speaker 2: your career. When you just like, look at how Hollywood
Speaker 2: has changed in our careers, like it's a completely different industry. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and to be clear, like it's not just changing
Speaker 1: because look, yes, the cultural conversation is changing, thank god,
Speaker 1: but it isn't just changing for like moral reasons or
Speaker 1: because representation is important. It's changing because our stories are valuable,
Speaker 1: because they do well, because they make money, because the
Speaker 1: comedians tours are selling out, like it you know, when
Speaker 1: you think about what Hannah Gadsby, did you know on Netflix?
Speaker 1: It's like it's, yes, it matters morally for us and
Speaker 1: for kids like us to see themselves, but also it's
Speaker 1: smart business. So it's like the the evolving I think
Speaker 1: is long overdue.
Speaker 2: And we still have a ways, ways, ways to go.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean it's like a drop in the
Speaker 1: bucket at the moment, but at least we're beginning to
Speaker 1: get somewhere.
Speaker 2: One hundred years from now when they look back at
Speaker 2: how the industry and society has changed. You know, your story,
Speaker 2: my story is it's part of all of this, and
Speaker 2: it really is just at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's important, Yeah, sure, hope. So yeah, and now
Speaker 1: a word from our wonderful sponsors, how do you in
Speaker 1: beth Ay navigate these things? Because I hear what you're
Speaker 1: saying about how this felt so cathartic and obviously there
Speaker 1: was a happy ending to that fertility journey and you
Speaker 1: had your daughter, But because you have been so open
Speaker 1: about your sexual fluidity, and I know she's talked about
Speaker 1: how you know, prior to you, she probably would have
Speaker 1: identified as a gay woman, So like, how how does
Speaker 1: that what does that look like? In your conversations about
Speaker 1: like intimacy and your future and the sort of parameters
Speaker 1: of your relationship as it's clearly like fueling you know,
Speaker 1: not just your life and your family, but your art.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're different people post child priorities, dreams, desires, like everything,
Speaker 2: the language that we use at home. Yeah, we are
Speaker 2: building a family a home, you know. And just when
Speaker 2: you have two people directing all of their energy towards
Speaker 2: one specific thing and goal, it just magnifies And who
Speaker 2: we are and who we sleep with is just or
Speaker 2: who we have slept with in the past. It's just
Speaker 2: not important to us. Yes, Like we go through periods
Speaker 2: of time where we like joke and talk about it, right,
Speaker 2: but for the most part, like we're not even thinking
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: No, I totally get that. Yeah, I think about that
Speaker 1: a lot with work. For me, Like I love my work.
Speaker 1: I have always I derive so much pleasure and passion
Speaker 1: from storytelling and creativity and energy on set and like
Speaker 1: being in the circus and I love it. And I
Speaker 1: have always been willing to travel anywhere, anytime, get on
Speaker 1: any plane, whatever it takes, right, And now I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go there. You want me to go to what absolute Alberta? No,
Speaker 1: I'm not going for how long? Absolutely not? And I'm like, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: this is interesting that I don't think the answer was
Speaker 1: ever no before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like what.
Speaker 1: A beautiful thing. As you evolve and grow to continue
Speaker 1: to know yourself more and more.
Speaker 2: There's a lot more nos in this house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you, but that's because your house, your home,
Speaker 1: your family is such a yes. Yeah, and like what
Speaker 1: a gift to find that in your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no questions. Yeah, you've moved down to Florida, you know,
Speaker 2: it's yeah, well world over here.
Speaker 1: And I think that there's something so cool even that
Speaker 1: your family, you know, the experience of waiting for your
Speaker 1: daughter is what inspired your music. Like again, all this
Speaker 1: yes in your house is like bubbling out of you,
Speaker 1: movies and books and an album, Like how cool? How
Speaker 1: would you describe like beginning to answer the sort of
Speaker 1: internal call to make music? And how would you describe
Speaker 1: what kind of music you make to our friends at all?
Speaker 2: You're real good at bringing these back into the story.
Speaker 1: So I just really like it. I see it, like,
Speaker 1: I see I see how this like like the image
Speaker 1: I get is like that the balloon keeps getting filled
Speaker 1: with more air for you, and I think that's really beautiful.
Speaker 2: The art has always been the answer for me. It's
Speaker 2: just like where I go. It's where I feel the
Speaker 2: most comfortable. I just like making things, you know, It's
Speaker 2: like it just makes sense. And music has always been
Speaker 2: something that I've wanted to dive towards. But for the reason,
Speaker 2: it just like it felt like an arms distance away.
Speaker 2: And I was working on an Apple TV show called
Speaker 2: City on Fire, and I was playing a rock star
Speaker 2: and we recorded an album for the show. And it
Speaker 2: was my first time really like in a studio full time.
Speaker 2: And you know, on TV, you don't really have time
Speaker 2: to like develop a character, especially on set, right you're
Speaker 2: just chasing the clock. You're chasing the budget. Things are
Speaker 2: moving fast, strong decisions and you have to go quick. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to like find this character in the studio, I had
Speaker 2: endless amount by myself in the studio finding his voice. Literally,
Speaker 2: I just fell in love with the process, Like I did, they.
Speaker 1: Get you, like a like a vocal coach or anything though,
Speaker 1: like someone to help you like be there.
Speaker 2: That's what That's what I thought was what was going
Speaker 2: to happen. But I showed up to a studio in
Speaker 2: Brooklyn with a producer who, like I thought for sure,
Speaker 2: like we were going to do some vocal exercises a star,
Speaker 2: but it was like, record, here's the song, let's.
Speaker 1: Go shut up. Oh my god, that's so much.
Speaker 2: Pressure, but it was so much fun, like they got
Speaker 2: It happened that way because there were not a lot
Speaker 2: of cooks in the kitchen. It was just me and
Speaker 2: this producer for months on end in the studio finding
Speaker 2: these songs, and we would get all these songs said
Speaker 2: to us, and we would get to like make our
Speaker 2: own version of it. There was little direction at the top,
Speaker 2: and he my studio in Brooklyn was hired by the
Speaker 2: music supervisor, so we had somebody else to answer to.
Speaker 2: But like we were pretty much running our own show, right,
Speaker 2: and we just like formed this chemistry together, me and
Speaker 2: this producer and half jokingly, at the end of the season,
Speaker 2: I knew I was leaving the studio and I was heartbroken.
Speaker 2: I was like, I just I don't want to leave
Speaker 2: the studio. I was like, can we just start making music?
Speaker 2: And he said absolutely, like I would love nothing more
Speaker 2: than diff Wow, And we It was right around that
Speaker 2: time we found out we were pregnant for the second time.
Speaker 2: We were pregnant in January. That same year, we had
Speaker 2: a miscarriage, and we found out that we were pregnant
Speaker 2: around the fourth of July, and I just started writing
Speaker 2: music about becoming a parent, and in the similar ways
Speaker 2: that I was writing the children's book about becoming a parent,
Speaker 2: I just found a new outlet that is almost more digestible.
Speaker 2: I think for so long, I've been really searching for
Speaker 2: a medium that I can like distill a message and
Speaker 2: that can be consumed regularly, and that doesn't necessarily need
Speaker 2: to be explained, you know, similar to poetry, right, you
Speaker 2: can kind of dance around the language and with lyric
Speaker 2: and with melody and frequency like it, just it hits
Speaker 2: different and I experienced for them, I experienced music for
Speaker 2: the first time all over again. In writing like it
Speaker 2: just I unlocked up portal and I just started having
Speaker 2: conversations with my daughter in these songs. And it got
Speaker 2: to the point where I was I would I would
Speaker 2: go to bed and I would dream and she would
Speaker 2: come and we would write songs together. I would hear
Speaker 2: all songs in my dreams, melodies and lyrics, and I
Speaker 2: would wake up in the morning and I would write
Speaker 2: them down, and that's how a lot of his album
Speaker 2: was written. Wow. And originally I didn't know that I
Speaker 2: was making it for the world. I thought I was
Speaker 2: just making it for me and Bethany. We were planning
Speaker 2: a home birth. We had a tent built in our
Speaker 2: living room that we were going to birth in, and
Speaker 2: we would spend a lot of our time in there
Speaker 2: just listening to this music together and just having conversations
Speaker 2: with the spirit of this child and our daughter. Kilber
Speaker 2: Dove was born to the ninth song on the album
Speaker 2: called Santa Madre, which is a song in Spanish about
Speaker 2: the Holy Mother. Shortly after that, I realized that, like,
Speaker 2: I needed to put this music out in the world.
Speaker 2: It was it was bigger than myself. It was it
Speaker 2: needed to be shared. Just like looking for music that
Speaker 2: people can birth to. It doesn't really exist. It's strange
Speaker 2: because I think there should be more.
Speaker 1: One of the most common things that happens in the world.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't exist really for me. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's something that she can always go back to and
Speaker 2: re experience the art that helped make her, you know,
Speaker 2: and is because of her, and you know, we're pregnant again,
Speaker 2: and I am back in a studio here in Florida,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to make new music and I'm planning
Speaker 2: the live show for the album that came out in April,
Speaker 2: and and you know it's a it's a whole new
Speaker 2: thing already. Yeah, performing live is the one thing that
Speaker 2: I don't want to say I'm afraid of but makes
Speaker 2: me nervous for some reason.
Speaker 1: Well, then you have to do it.
Speaker 2: I have to do it.
Speaker 1: Yes, when it feels scary, you have to do it.
Speaker 2: I have to do it. I think I'm planning my
Speaker 2: first show in La and July right now.
Speaker 1: Okay, great, you have to let me know what it
Speaker 1: is for sure. It's so fun. I'm so excited for you.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I love this, you know when when
Speaker 1: our friends at home are like, well where do we
Speaker 1: find him? Like, guys, you can go online and listen
Speaker 1: to Bourne. You can order all of It is you
Speaker 1: and read it to the kids in your family. You
Speaker 1: can go on Prime Video and watch the movie. Like,
Speaker 1: there's so much that it's not lost on me that
Speaker 1: there's so much great art that's come out of you,
Speaker 1: like saying yes to your life. I think that's really beautiful.
Speaker 1: I just went and made a movie and you know,
Speaker 1: post illness recovery and then like post strike, it was
Speaker 1: like the first thing, you know, of all the things
Speaker 1: I've signed on to do, it is the first thing
Speaker 1: that like went after things started wrapping up with the strike,
Speaker 1: and it was the most fun I've ever had on
Speaker 1: a project. And like, I was the least stressed I've
Speaker 1: ever been. And I was like, Wow, this this place
Speaker 1: that I me, myself am in right now. This is
Speaker 1: a nice place to make art from.
Speaker 2: And this is the longest I haven't been on set
Speaker 2: since I started. Yeah, I miss it so intensely right now.
Speaker 2: I feel like my entire sense of community is based
Speaker 2: off of what we do. Yeah, the Carnie lifestyle and
Speaker 2: these relationships with the crew guys, and just like you know,
Speaker 2: we show up through pitch a tent, fallen and out
Speaker 2: of love and kind of all disperse. And I haven't
Speaker 2: had it in so long, and I'm done back to work.
Speaker 2: Short answer here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it. By the way, I'm laughing because
Speaker 1: my like do not disturb turned off on my phone
Speaker 1: and my director from the movie I just did just
Speaker 1: texted me. I was like that's not an accident like that,
Speaker 1: Like energetically, I'm talking about how nice it was to
Speaker 1: go make this piece of art. And now Jeff's like, hey,
Speaker 1: because I do want to be mindful of your time,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm going to ask you my last and
Speaker 1: favorite question. And this could be the live show, it
Speaker 1: could be the you know, impending birth of your second baby,
Speaker 1: it could be something else completely. I don't know. But
Speaker 1: when you sort of look at your life right now
Speaker 1: and how good it feels, what feels like you're work
Speaker 1: in progress.
Speaker 2: It really is just the family building. We want a
Speaker 2: whole pack of cads, you know. Yeah, Like we feel
Speaker 2: like we're just getting started, and we know the second
Speaker 2: one is on the way, and we want three and
Speaker 2: four god willing. And it's just about being the best,
Speaker 2: most inspiring dad as I can be, and like doing
Speaker 2: the work to show them it's possible that there are
Speaker 2: no limits in this life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't have to fit into a box.
Speaker 2: Oh not at all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, best dad, I could be beautiful. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 2: This is awesome.
Speaker 1: This is such a nice chat. I'm so glad we
Speaker 1: got to hang today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally