Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show your home for open, honest and provocative conversations. I'm Megan Kelly, welcome to The Megan Kelly Show. Today on the program, Justine Bateman. She was a superstar back in the 80s and 90s, thanks to her role as Mallery, the daughter on the hit show Family Ties, working with Michael J. Fox and a cast of All Stars.

And she now has just written, directed and produced a film that's about to come out called Violent, starring Olivia Munn and Justin Thoreau. But the real reason I want to talk to Justin Bateman is because she has written two books. The first one, and I talked to her about this on my NBC show, was about fame and in particular losing fame and just how illusory it is and what it what nonsense it is. But the pain and losing it and what that taught her right is like Post being a huge star and what that's been like.

But the second book, which is called Face One Square Foot of Skin, is about something else entirely and it's really aging and how much pressure there is not to do it right. Like the last thing you're supposed to do is age as a woman anywhere and certainly in Hollywood. And now it's creeping over to men to a lesser extent or sheriff or to a lesser extent, but certainly those who are on camera.

And they're going to talk about what she's learned because Justin has been bullied. She is the victim of online bullying. Why? Because she chose to age naturally, gracefully.

She doesn't go for the needles. She doesn't get the filler Botox, plastic surgery. And as a result, she gets trolled online mercilessly. It's B.S. and she's been really thoughtful about it. And she's here to talk to us about all of this. So don't miss that. She's coming up in one second. Stand by first for this. So time is money. Let's face it, taking trips to the post office is probably not how you want to spend that precious time you do have, especially now, because it's like extra long with covid and the restrictions in the six feet and all that.

Why would you go there when you could do it all from home? It could be so convenient for you to get your stamps, get your stuff mailed. You don't even have to leave your desk at your home. Taking trips to the post office is not what anybody wants to do. So you got to go to Stamps.com. Stamps.com will allow you to mail and ship anytime, anywhere, right from your computer. You can send letters, ship packages and you can pay a whole lot less.

With discounted rates from the US Postal Service UPS and more, Stamps.com has saved businesses thousands of hours and tons of money. With Stamps.com, you get the services of the post office and ups all in one place and you don't have to get off of your bottom. You can just sit there, you can sit there, have your coffee and kind of be at the post office.

At the same time, Stamps.com is going to bring that post office to you and not just them, but UPS, if you're shipping packages or what have you, and you will get discounts of up to 40 percent off post office rates and up to sixty two percent off ups shipping rates, that's good. Not to mention Stamps.com is a fraction of the cost of those expensive postage meters. This is a no brainer. Stamps.com saves a time and money and it's no wonder nearly one million small businesses already use it.

Stop wasting time going to the post office and standing around. Go to Stamps.com, sit instead. Sit Stamps.com allows you to sit. There's no risk.

And with my promo code MGK, you can get a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale.

No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in MRK.

That's Stamps.com promo code. MGK Stamps.com never go to the post office again.

Justin, hi. Hey. Hi. Good to talk to you again. You, too. How are you?

I'm good, thanks. And you? I'm great.

I'm excited for your new movie. I mean, you're like coming out swinging.

So it just so the audience understands is coming out in March. It's called Violet. And you've got a cast of All Stars, Liverman, Justin Thoreau.

You wrote it, you directed it and you produced it. Yeah, yeah.

I produced it with a couple of other people and yeah. Wrote directed it and it was supposedly finishes last year. So we finished this in like October of twenty nineteen. It was supposed to premiere at South by Southwest Film Festival. Twenty twenty. But that was one of the first events to get canceled because of the shutdown. And so here we are at South by Southwest, twenty twenty one for Mariotte.

So I looked it up online just to see what it was about and I thought this is classic Justin Bateman. Like I feel like this messaging is right up your alley, but can you just just tell us what it's about so people understand?

Sir, it's about the thoughts we have in our heads or in the film. I call it the voice that treats us like crap, that tells us, you know, the example I use is it just makes us make fear based decisions. And the example I use is Ill say, like, don't wear that shirt to the party or no one's going to talk to you. And consciously or unconsciously, we think it's true. And so we'll change our shirt.

And I believe the more times we make decisions like that based on fear, the further and further away we get from being our true selves. So it's about someone who realizes that that voice has been lying to her whole life. And it's kind of a map as to how to get from a life where you're making fear based decisions and not being yourself to a life where you're making an instinct based decisions and you are being yourself. And then this is the love story.

And we go into her work life or family life, the whole thing, and then just throw is the voice. Oh, I see. So he's the voice in her head. I like this because in today's day and age, it's all about authenticity.

And I don't think most people really understand what that means. I think they're just trying to try their best to seem authentic rather than just let it fly, let your freak flag fly. And I think that what you find when you are true to yourself is most of the time it works out and it winds up settling as it should. The people who are attracted to you as friends, as lovers, whatever it is, they're there because they should be, because you really are being yourself.

But sometimes it's stepping on the rake. Sometimes your authentic self gets you, you know, some sort of injury that you didn't foresee.

So how do you balance that? Right. That like it's not it's not without peril. No.

And I think that's one of the reasons that most people make fear based decisions and are not being themselves the ones who aren't being themselves. I believe it's has a lot to do with people pleasing and not wanting to feel outside of the tribe, if you will. And I think a lot of that goes back to our evolutionary roots. Your your your your system wants to keep you alive. And part of staying alive is. Again, we're getting really down to our core, the core function of our brain staying alive.

A lot of that has to do with making sure that there that you can be provided for, making sure that you have access to food and shelter and companionship is good for our kind of emotional survival. But a lot of that, I think, is based in just making sure you have enough to win the when the tribe brings in the killed the gazelle or something, want to make sure that you have a piece of that. And if you're outside of that and I know I'm getting really I'm speaking.

Really, I'm not an anthropologist, but from what I know of anthropology, it just rings true to me because if you if you engage that thought that says like, don't wear that shirt to the party, I don't want to talk to you. And if you if you engage it and say, well, why, well, then what will happen? And you follow the chain of of thoughts that follow like, well, then I won't have any friends.

Well, then what will happen? Well then if I ever need someone, I'm in trouble. I won't have anyone to call. And then what will happen? Well, then maybe I will lose my job and then what will happen? And then you follow that chain down and it winds up that you are desolate and in the streets and then you die.

So I do believe that when we when we make the decision to change our shirt because we're afraid no one's going to talk to us, we're actually reacting to the fear of being desolate in the streets and dying. I mean, because it's an irrational fear that is linked to this ear, this core concern that our system has of of actually perishing. So I think it's something to look at because I have found that once you expose those sort of thoughts, those irrational kinds of fears, then just the mere exposure.

Starts to dissolve that fear, it starts to erode that fear, just like anything in nature, you know, you put it out in the elements and it'll will start to erode. I always try to not edit those fears before I express them to a person or write it down or something so that it can get that kind of exposure.

And and I've found that to you know, I've had a lot of success with that kind of process to having because I can relate to this people around me. I don't want to change people around me. I don't have time for that. I'm here for like a second in a in the timeline of life. But I want to change how I react to what I want to remove my buttons. I don't want to remove the button pushers or change how they're pushing buttons.

I just want to remove my buttons so I can be around all of that and and have it and have it not affect me at all. And that's one that's a that's the way to do that. Yeah.

And be well that's one of my things actually that I hate about, like all the Kinsel culture is there's always going to be mean people.

You know, we're not we're not going to get rid of all the people who do something bad or say something bad or feel something bad.

It doesn't work that way. You have to work on yourself. You have to work on shoring up yourself.

And as you say, removing your buttons, which is possible, doesn't mean you don't fight injustice or, you know, stand up for what you think is right.

But now I'm tired of you. Yeah.

I mean, more like somebody says something that just really, like affects you, like you're going along, you're having a happy day, and then somebody makes a comment about your hair and it just it tweaks you, you know, and the rest of your day you're consumed with the thought of this.

And it makes me feel it makes you feel bad about yourself and all this. And when something like that happens to me, then I have to go right about it and go like, OK, what what button did that push me? Why did that affect me? That that person should have been able to say that. And I can just and it can not bother me at all. But why some there's something in me that really pricks some sort of saw or flew in through some sort of open window or door in me if I use the metaphor of me being a house.

So that's what I want to figure out. Well, that's what I want to figure out is when I that piece like physical critiques, I actually don't relate to that because I'll tell you, I grew up in a house where I was criticized all the time, but not a mean way.

You know, we just made fun of each other. We were Irish and it was a half Italian, half Irish, and it was just sort of our bread and butter to mock one another lovingly. Sometimes it hurt. Most of the times it was funny. And I wonder, like, what was your childhood experience when because you you talk about this in your books, you grew up pretty.

So did you have as much of that are like the physical barbs? They're hurtful because they're new.

Well, the whole reason that that I wrote the second book was because of that, you know, that one chapter in the first book, fame, where, you know, all the attacks I've gotten, I mean, some school people, kid, and everybody's got a nickname. Right. But I don't know. That's just like if you didn't have a nickname, you feel left out, you know, like some sort of mocking nickname. No, but for me, all the attacks came from fans, I guess the incline and anti fans online.

So, yeah, I had that one chapter in fame about how people criticize my face as it was getting older. And and and then I talk about why I decided to absorb that, why I thought they were right and I was wrong. And I go into that in the same book. And then I thought, well, why do you even think that way about women's faces? So that's where the second book came, came from. But that was those are harder.

Those were harder for me to remove my buttons for because there were so many people saying, I mean, I could find many, many, many message boards related to that topic.

So, you know, part of my brain goes, well, if there are a lot of people saying it must be true, I mean, I like it.

But then I had to go, no, no, no, it's not. And they're they're all wrong about that. They're all wrong. And I'm right, you know. So I hope I'm not deluding myself. I hope I'm not gaslighting myself about this. And I had all those kinds of thoughts. Well, I love the saying.

Your only problem is your belief that you have a problem, you know, and if you can get mind control over how you see it, then you dismantle your critics.

Well, and when you think about it, the way you think about a situation, I mean, the only thing I feel like we have control over is, I mean, we control the choices we make and stuff. But a lot of times the only thing we have control over is our perception of the situation.

So so, yes, if somebody says something to you that that affects you, affects your self-esteem in the way you your identity, identity, I heard somebody say you can either have an identity or personality, pick one. So let's say it affects your personality or your confidence. Better, better word so affects your confidence. The only person is keeping that negative thought alive that is affecting your confidence is you really I mean, you the mind rehearse it over and over and over and over and over again until it's dug in there pretty well, until it becomes this idea then becomes a belief about yourself.

And I'm not talking about like self-help methods like affirmations, because I've not found maybe that's worked for some people. I've not found that to be helpful. I find it more helpful to get to the root fear that is keeping that reversal of that negative thought alive, get to that root fear, because that's the thing that is that's the engine for that the repetition of that thought. You know, I was thinking about this after the Meghan Markle interview because she made a comment that she tried to stay away from the press coverage of her, and I thought right on that was the right move.

And then she said, but her her, quote, friends would call her up and say, it's bad, it's bad.

You know, they're not protecting you. And A, the thought that she could be protected from tabloid press is, I think, a fantasy baby. I thought people have done this to me. And I always tell them, don't forward me to negative articles about myself. You may think you're dumb if you're not doing me any favors. I don't I don't need to know. There's a reason I avoid that stuff like the bus exhaust it is. And I thought, you know, maybe some of her unhappiness could have been avoided.

I realized it's out there. It's the buzz. It's the smog hanging over.

But you can't get rid of all of that.

You can only try to shield yourself from the most negative forces and sort of try to put in more positivity in that hat.

And, you know, her world had a lot of positivity to look at, a lot of positivity, as does mine, you know, as does most peoples.

And if it doesn't, then you get to work on that. Right. But willingly taking in the negativity is step one. And then step two is when it gets to you, whether you're willing we taking it in or not working on how you react to it, how you choose to react to it.

I'm going to offer something slightly different for me, knowing it was out there, knowing that it's specifically negative and negative things about my face because I needed to get to my root beer. When I see my fear, I mean, like, OK, let's say that's true, then therefore what in my life if that's true, then what? Then what am I going to lose in my life? What's going to happen to me if all that's true? So for me, it was reading all of it.

So for me, it was I want to see all of this because I want to be able to read all of it and have it not affect me at all. So I want to go like, oh, that that thing that they just said. Oh, that now I know. It's just somebody doesn't know me and God knows what they look like, but it's me like that's not, you know what I mean.

Like it's not like all the the the most attractive, smooth faced people in the world. We're saying the stuff about my face getting older. So, OK, so let's assume that and I was like, I wanted to read it and then and then I go like, OK, how does that why does that hit me? How does it hit me, for example? OK, I read that and like, I'm afraid if everybody thinks that, then nobody's going to look at my face.

Few people will will turn away from looking at me and then therefore they won't look at my work. And then no one will ever buy my books again, and then no one will ever go see the films I make, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then I will never be able to work again, which is something that's really important to me. I love working. So you see how it's tied to, just as an example, tied to like a really core fear of mine.

Because if I couldn't work anymore, then I would. I would. That's not what I signed up for. I'd be really unhappy in this life that I have. So see how it's tied to that. So why what's the next step? So when is the next day then? I had to go wait.

OK, write it out without judging it. Right, without editing it. And then after reading that going like we do now. Wait but this flies in the face of what I believe to be true in my life, which is that I get a basket of things, I get a bunch of opportunities, I get a bunch of situations with work that are for me. You know, you get you get a bunch that are for you, Susie gets a bunch that are for her, you know, Damian gets a bunch that are for him and that can't be taken away from me.

So no matter what anyone thinks of my face, these things can't be removed from me. So I'm like, oh, so my fear is irrational. Will, let me ask you that.

How do you get to that point when in your industry looks are important, especially if you're going to be on camera.

There's this ridiculous standard that's totally unattainable by mere mortals, but women do a lot to meet it. So how do you get yourself past the point that you can still access your basket, which means you have to count on camera work?

Yeah, well, if they counter it with with how I understand life works, that's why I counter with like, you wind up what you should have.

Yes. Regardless, regardless of my gender, my age. Any of those things, my my future, my fate, if you will, I mean, I don't look, I'm just guessing maybe I'll know all this stuff, whether or not it's real when I die. But I tell you this thinking this way. Makes I like the results in my life better than imagining that all these people are right and it's proven itself out, is what I'm saying, it's proven itself.

Let's take a step back just to get the audience up to speed on how we got here. Most people know you were very famous.

I don't know if we can even call you a child actor. Should we call you a child actor?

What you started when you were what started when I'm 16. So you say it's a teen age at a young age. Sure. Very, very, very successful.

And I don't know if it was certainly one of the most successful shows of the 80s, if not at least top three. Right.

Family ties. I mean, one of the most successful shows of all time for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Ever.

So you get this role, you make it into something really special. You were this gorgeous sort of you played the ditzy sister to Michael J. Fox, and he was a breakout star, too. I mean, he I love the story about him that I saw not long ago saying everybody said he remained a gentleman throughout the whole thing, that even though it became this huge star, he never wanted star treatment, that he always deferred to the older actors, and that NBC actually wanted to give him special billing in the opening credits of the show.

And he declined state the third top billing for the entire. That's why we all love him.

And that's why, like, we all love Michael J. Fox. So you're on that show. Huge, huge fame if six years. Seven, yeah, OK, seven years at a time and just set the stage, because at a time when there weren't 200 channels, everybody was watching one of three channels and everybody like, what were the numbers on that show?

Just explain how popular you got. Well, when you had a number one. OK, so the 80s, you didn't have a consumer facing Internet, you had because this is so long ago, it was about you'd get about somewhere between 20 to like 40 million people watching you every every week. And it was because it was you had to I mean, unless you're really good with a VCR, you had to watch it live. But, yeah, I mean, it's definitely not that way now.

So, yeah, the same was with was big. And then when I moved on from there and did like work as an actress for many, many years in plays and films and and then I started doing other things.

And, and just so the audience has a perspective, the Golden Globes this year got seven million people watching the Oprah Meghan Markle special Prince Harry had 17, which is considered a huge success. So this is more than double and 17.

Right. 17 million people. Would you would be on the on the what they call on the bubble. You may not if you were a show back in the 80s, you had a 17 it's 17 million viewers. You're probably going to get canceled.

Oh, my gosh. Think about it for sure. You see you for 17 and you're like, oh, shit. Oh, no, we're going to get cable.

Yeah, it's it's hard to, like, get your arms around.

But it does explain what superstars, people like Ted Danson were starring in Cheers and Kelsey Grammer, Frazier and the cast of Friends is more the 90s. But still the numbers were huge back then.

OK, so you you're rocking and rolling. And your first book was more about fame and what it's like when it starts to leave. And your second book is about I love it at face one square foot of skin and about aging. And it's such a such a different, sadly, perspective.

You know, like I said in that book fame, there was that one chapter about accidentally Googling my name and and seeing the autocomplete be just being a little old. And at the time I was like I was like 40 and I'd always look young for my age.

And I was like, wait, what am I there now? And but then once I got on the other side of that, it took a while to sort of shape that interesting way. And I talk about that in the book and the one you talking about. But then I started thinking about like four four for the new book Faces. Why why do we even wider society even have this position? I mean, it's just like, you know, it's the one one square foot of skin on someone's face, like, why do they have this position that it needs to be fixed?

And I didn't like the fact that we had jumped from wild plastic surgery. Oh, that's so unusual. You know, it would be unusual for anyone to get it, you know. Joan Rivers was getting it. And then maybe somebody's grandma, wealthy grandma or something.

Dolly Parton. Jane Fonda. But you can count them. You can count them on one hand, the ones who are sort of publicly getting it.

Yes, it was it was like unusual. You know, it wasn't it wasn't a consideration. It wasn't a it wasn't it seemed like an option, really. And then we we just seem to hustle so quickly over to, well, these are the procedures that are possible. You know, you can do Botox or you can put use filler and all this sort of thing. And then we just slammed right into it. When when is everyone getting it done?

Not should you, but when are you going to start young again? Start at twenty. And I'm like, wait, what?

I just think it's I just think it's insane. I think and I think the core thought that that motivates a lot of these procedures. The core thought that, oh, there's something wrong with my face and I need I need to fix it. I think that is a very strange idea that has now become kind of woven into the fabric of the American woman now.

And I, I just I just think it's worth looking at going on. Why why more with Justin and one minute on the Hollywood standards imposed on mere mortals. That's it. Once I say to. I feel it, I feel a pressure to try to keep looking young, you know, in order to be attractive. One of the reasons I admire you because you're just like, man f that.

But my husband, he doesn't think like that at all. You know, he's he's also getting some wrinkles on men. It's considered distinguished or hot or sexy, which all of which I think it is. And on women, it's a totally different standard. And we've accepted it with women. We have fought it. In fact, we're the ones driving it.

Right.

I mean, that's what I that's what I wanted to read the book, because I was like, why have we received this letter? They said, like, it's a suggestion. And we go, OK. And we like, you know, if we're walking in a line like with our hands out and they just hand the suggestion who they is, I don't know. Right. But the suggestion gets handed to us and we go, OK, and we just sort of inhale it.

Why? But but and I don't mean that to be a rhetorical y. I mean, I really wanted to get in there. Go. No, there's got to be some core reason like I was talking about earlier. There's got to be some irrational fear that Anker's that. The desire to believe that, the desire to believe that, you know, our faces are repulsive and we need to fix them is impossible.

And I read in the book about how how what's valued in girls is getting your pretty card and that's your contract with society, that you get it, you're born with it. Or if not, you make sure you get it and you make sure you don't lose it as you get older. That's your contract.

And it's that weird. Like you even you even said you want to make sure you continue to look younger. And I want to put words in your mouth. But what you just said and make sure you continue to look attractive now attractive is is what if someone's attracted to maybe they're attracted to your energy or your style or something like that. But we we've put so much emphasis on the face, make sure the face still looks attractive. OK, then you go, what is the face?

What is the face telegraphing? Is it telegraphing the the plump lips or cheeks or so you still look like you can breathe. Is it that part of it tied into so then when we look at like, all right, well, let's look at it evolutionarily then. When we're looking at the tribal level, then, are the people in the tribe that can still breed? Are those then those people then get more resources are the ones that can't breathe.

Maybe they'll be left behind if the tribe moves along to another area. You know, all of these things I think are I think some of them have been I think they're vestigial thoughts that we still have in our brains. And I do believe it's possible to just kind of. Well, this is my fear. And you write it out and look at it go. We still think that's true because is there anything about the way my face is going to change, is going to prohibit me from going down to the supermarket and buying whatever things I need, whatever resources I need?

Do you know what I'm saying? So I wish we could just look at it, go, hey, I don't. There's a lot of ideas here that don't apply to two thousand twenty one. Maybe they applied to the year fourteen hundred.

How do you think we got from A to B from where it was like you could name on one hand the women who had had a facelift or plastic surgery to now where it's like expected, as you point out. I think it's science, affordability and profits, so the methods got better, right? I mean, used to be like when somebody's got to look like you knew it. I mean, you know, it was like it's all very uncanny valley.

But it was super specific back then. Right? It was that film, Brazil, where they pull the saran wrap back on her face. And if you recall that film, but no very is very extreme.

So we have the science and then we have affordability. You know, there's I, I think facelifts are more affordable. I believe. I don't know that for sure than they used to be. But also, you have all these other in between procedures with fillers and Botox and all these things and and half a lift or just your eyes are just you know, it's there are affordable ways to get your face cut up and then profitability.

This is big business. It's big business. Like a cosmetic company is going to make more money depending on the culture. I will say, though, based on my my interviews with people that that work in this industry, the if you're selling to America, it's going to be you make so you look you look younger, look younger, look younger. So you'll name the same product that you're selling in France and the United States. So you'll name it like age defying in France.

Maybe it's just like. Skin enhancing. I'm just making up phrases here, but you know what I mean, it's depending on like what is that culture afraid of, really?

Right.

And then there's a lot of a lot of money in in selling fixes to a bunch of frightened people, a lot of money. You know, it's not it it's not just faces. Right. It's like now people are blowing up their butts to look like enormous.

You're no longer allowed to let your butt sag or have a flap, but you got to have it huge and then you got to wear a bunch of tight leggings to show off how big your butt is. How do we get to that point? Like you're not allowed to have saggy skin anywhere? Megan, have you heard about the hand treatment, like I think they shoot it up with fillers or something like and it's called like the Instagram engagement hand or something.

Look where you so you just got married. You got to have a picture of your ring on your hand, but. Oh, my dear, your hand looks like a worker and it's vain. And you know how hands look, right. Is that so you're going to do like, like kind of update your hand so that when you have that engagement ring picture your hand looks like a 14 year old. I don't know. There's no limit.

There's no limit to the vest.

I mean, of course, I my layperson assessment is it's all the fault of the Kardashians and others like them.

You know, it's like social media influencers, reality television, which is anything but and these crazy false images that are put out there for young girls to think that is how women look through.

But I think it started a bit before them. And I think if you also combine the the digital recording, the high definition digital recording of films and TV to where you see more recording on film, hardly ever now, where you have like this sort of grainy richness to the to the film seems amazing.

When I was on camera, I desperately wish I noticed that. Yeah.

In your own work, I'm sure you notice that sometimes, especially in your industry, it's like I will not get the role if I look my age.

I have no choice if I want roles in Hollywood, but to make myself look younger.

That's a truism, isn't it?

Well, to me, as a director, I can't really use faces that have been altered because it's I'm going to get Uncanny Valley from my audience. And what I mean is, like the audience is going to be I want to draw them in emotionally is as much as I can. I want them to be really all in emotional. And if I am doing anything that rings untrue in the film, either through my dialogue or or the locations or or behavior from the characters, they're going to those maybe continue watching it, but then they'll become arms length to the project.

So and one of those things is going to make them arms length is if that if there's something wrong with somebody's face, because somewhere in the core of them as a human, they're going to go, something's wrong, something's wrong. Right. So I don't want that to happen. And also, there's a certain type of person that changes their face. And I think there's a level of fear and insecurity that is going to come across on camera. There's going to be hard to shove down on camera and that.

So I don't really want to capture that.

It's a it's a sadly, you are in a class of one or two.

I don't think I don't know your industry that well, but it just seems like these Hollywood directors or the casting agents that they have, as you point out in your book, The Standard of Beauty, and all the women are clamoring to meet it in Hollywood and elsewhere because it's not just the Hollywood casting folks who set this standard.

It's it's us setting it on ourselves. And I think if you're in your industry in particular. It's very hard for women, are you what are you, 50? How old are you? I'm fifty five.

I just turned 50 and I'm 50, so it's very hard for women in our in our age range because when you're, let's say, under 40. You're still holding it together pretty well, generally, like you're whatever. I guess there's a judgment in just the way I put it, but you're not really aging on your face that much.

And if you're over, let's say sixty or sixty five, if you're Judi Dench, if you're a Helen Mirren, you're your older face can be celebrated in and cast in certain roles.

But Queen right. She has to have some wrinkles.

But the women between 40 and 60, 40 and sixty five are in this weird space. Like what are we, are we, are we old. Are we mature. Are we.

You know, and I think you see a lot less sadly of those women stars you fell in love with in their 20s when they hit, I don't know, around our age, I feel like there's a lot of women at this age is not not in the business, but just in life that sort of fold into they sort of start becoming they start developing as individuals, it seems to me, and they start folding into kind of what might be expected of them, what they imagine is expected of them, like certain types of older women that they're supposed to become like the easily indignance, the or the the caring, you know, pre grandmother.

There's there's certain sort of. Tropes, if you will, and and I think when writers are looking around older like this, a lot of what they're seeing and so they're writing, I mean, there's a lot of reasons that I don't act anymore. And one of them is that, like, I like playing me so much more than those characters. And that's what I mean.

Is it also because Hollywood wasn't catering to the parts you would have played that you would have leaned into now?

Because this started happening when I was younger? I guess what I'm saying is when we look at women who are around that age in life, what are they doing? Like what are what are some examples of what are they doing or what kind of personalities do they have? I'm just saying, a lot of times writers are looking around and reflecting what's going on and then maybe women see that in films and then reflect that in real life. And then maybe it's chicken and the egg kind of situation.

I mean, I am going to do a film adaptation of the book Face, and the show will be a lot of older women in that film.

Let me just back up and ask you about something you said earlier when you're saying I can't put somebody on screen who looks wrong. Right.

And for the women who are out there who have had surgery on their face or Botox, I've had Botox, but filler up to the eyeballs and so on. You know, they would say it's not wrong. It's a personal choice. It's no different than wearing makeup or doing your hair. You know, you you don't like you're not satisfied with the way you look when you wake up in the morning and therefore you make an effort to look what you would consider, quote, your best.

And is it really so much of a far afield of wearing makeup and getting your hair done and wearing a nice outfit to then have a sniper attack or a filler or Botox or what have you?

Right. And I explore that in a couple of the stories that position. So let's say the root fear is as I get older, people aren't going to want to work with me anymore. OK, so then you change your face. You you have an attendant to that fear. I just saved it off temporarily. Maybe you haven't even staved it off you still. So now you've got for me, if I were to do anything to my face and let's say that was my fear and I and I did something like this, then I instead of having one problem to deal with, I would then have two problems.

Now I've changed my face, which for me personally isn't something I want to do and I still have that fear. So if what if somebody attended to that fear and after attending to that fear, they still want to change their face, then fine. But I feel like every time I'm challenged with like I get a button push, I have an opportunity to become bulletproof. And I am not going to push off any of those opportunities because, like, I don't have that much time.

I mean, I want I want I want the time I have here to be more free. So. Yeah.

So have you got other than that, I can't have you do you feel like you, you've gotten to the bulletproof place because that what I remember is you talking about the pain of entering your name, Justin Bateman in the Google search and seeing the autofill come up with something like Justin Bateman looks old or something not nice and just how painful that was for you.

So and you you won't you're not changing your face.

You're not doing the things.

You're aging like a normal person. It's is somehow it's news worthy of it, but you're educating a normal person.

So what was it just soaking in all of that negativity, like looking at all the criticism and then just keeping on keeping on like how did you get from the pain of that moment to now?

It wasn't a pain, which was the curious thing to me. It wasn't a pain. It was a it was confusion. Basically, it was I didn't know what they were talking about. I mean, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I just had never been like comics.

I know this is like I never even really thought about it. I was just like accepted as like, quote, attractive to the to this society standards, whatever. Right. So I'd never been attacked on my face. And I was just like, wait, what?

So it was confusing to me. And then as I go in the book, I, I had a choice to make. I could either make. Yeah. Them wrong and me right or them right and me wrong. And because and this is a while ago, because I was still I was dealing with the fame going there was something about making them right and me wrong that kept just a little bit of well, they're all talking about me. So it's a little bit famous.

It's almost like being like the fat kid in the third grade. It's like. You let them call you Fatty, and they're like, hey, we're just kidding, we're just kidding and you get to be with them and hang with that gang. If you let them call you fat, if you reject that idea, you're like, I don't want to play that part. All right. Well, then you're not part of the gang. And you're going to be eaten lunch by yourself.

So it was that kind of choice for me and and that was a big mistake for me because it brought in that those criticisms, it really planted those criticisms in me. And it took me a while to get that off of myself, but that because that was a while again.

And that was something in the in the last book, you went into life. But you say looking forward to aging, you thought there was something kind of cool, exotic, sexy about the women you saw who are no longer like the French.

I got that. Yeah. So it was basically society that started to take that away from you. And now where you saw the. Was it even society? It was these people online. There were these people online. It was these message boards online.

And, you know, you empowered them, you empowered them by putting them in your own head. I received it because it is. It's it suited something I was looking for at that time that had nothing to do with my face, there's actually an ode to them in one of the stories where there's a story. I'm going to get the name for you. There's a story about a very famous actress, way more famous than I ever was. Let's call let's call it like a and Julia Roberts level actress, OK?

Am I saying this about Julia Roberts at all? But let's say that level of fame. And it's now it's Chapter eight and Donna oh, yeah, this is Don, a 10 year old who went to her union exact, which goes to her high school reunion. And all these people are saying things about it. There's a batch of women that say a bunch of things about it. And then there's a batch of men that say a bunch of things about her.

And these are things that were said about me. Ms. So if people want to read some of the stuff that they can read that a story in the book face, yeah, that's my ode to all those. All those little assholes. Exactly. Well, whatever, you know, it's yeah, yeah, it's just going to say. Can we just spend a minute on why it's different for men? You know, I mean, you you have a very famous brother who I grew up watching a little House on the Prairie, but now he stars in Ozark and all sorts of different things.

And that was where I fell in love with him. He was with my friend Melissa Francis.

He played Melissa Frances's.

That's right. And he had trouble cut his career. He cut hair cut. Yeah.

It was appropriate for the show was so.

Hee hee. Men are allowed to age in Hollywood and in life. They are like I was saying about my husband, Doug. I mean, he doesn't he has no vanity. So even if you weren't, quote, allowed to, I just can't see him ever doing anything but. Women are raised to be more vain, I think, right from birth, so. So how do we wind up in the place where and I don't presume to know anything about your brother's approach to surgery, just saying that the difference is stark.

And so how are we at that point where I realize some men are being some men do feel the need to get a nipple attack.

Even in my business, even in media, I, I definitely know some men who've had hair plugs put in or have had that Major Jowell thing that happens underneath the male chin fixed and Botox for sure.

I mean, people can see that with their own eyes when they watch the television screen.

But I just I really don't. Other than what what you say in your book about women needing the pretty card and society deeming pretty to look young, why doesn't it apply to them? How how can we be more like them in this way?

There's a lot of things that guys do that I want to be more and more and more like. Because I like a lot of things, OK? Like someone says, can you do this job? Do you have these skills? And they go, Yeah, sure, where you got the women going? Well, I know some of Excel. I don't know all of Excel. I don't know. And the guys are like, yeah. And they're like, just fucking stupid.

And if we can focus on no, it's fine, OK.

They're like, I'll just figure it out, I'll just figure it out. And and just like, I don't know, look, I'm speaking very generally, there's lots of men that are more neurotic about stuff like that, but I find that men, more so than women, don't sweat the small shit.

They just kind of like wolves is some way to solve this. Let's just do it.

And I'm speaking probably to generally. But anyway. Yeah, and one of the things is like not being concerned about their faces now. I think I think again, I think a lot of this is tied to. Is tied to evolution, is tied to procreation, is tied to, let's say there's a parent who looks at his daughter. Oh, just keep it to a women's, since we're saying guys don't necessarily this, but say a mother looks at her daughter and her daughter's not really brushing her hair and she's in our faces kind of slapping, put any makeup on or anything.

And she just kind of I don't know, maybe she's got some dirt on her face or she mark a face of the pen by accident when she's drawing or something like this. And the mother might say, you know, Ellen, get yourself put together. You look a rat. Now, why is this being said? Is it oh, my God, is is there some vestigial fear, like just in the human pit that is concerned that the daughter won't find a mate and then what will become of her?

I mean, and I'm not saying we think of these things consciously, but even the whole idea of when you see somebody's little girl, you know, you haven't seen them for a while and you're like, oh, this is my daughter. Think you matter? Oh, my God, she's two years old or she's a year old or whatever you go, oh, my God, she's so pretty.

She's so pretty.

Now, if you were to not say that, you'd create a little elephant in the room.

You say like, oh, wow, that's great. Congratulations right now.

Immediately somebody the parents, there's something is going to like. You raise the flag and they're like, oh, wow, she's pretty like, that's weird.

We went to my daughter's all girls school, which is amazing. It's a wonderful school to work for my taste, but a wonderful school.

And they produce these super smart, strong young women who I admire a lot. And when we went to the school, we went to one of those parent parent nights where you go and they put on a panel of existing parents at the school and they tell you about the school.

And there was this one guy who got up there and he's talking about his daughter and she's at this amazing all girls school and she turns out super accomplished.

And the guy stands up and literally like the first thing he said about his daughter when he was describing her to us, she wasn't there was you know, my daughter's a whatever grader and she's beautiful.

She's she's so pretty. And whatever came next. And I remember thinking, like, oh, my God, it's so jarring.

In no world would any dad stand up talking about his son and say, my son is so good looking, he's so handsome.

I wouldn't happen to know. What would he say? What would you say? My son has a here's Malia and he has been six months and know that the president confident young man. Yeah, but strong because if you say something like that or if you say that you try to send somebody else on a date with some guy and you say, oh, you got to meet my friend Jenny, you know, she has a great personality. And then he's immediately like y y y.

Right. That's code for ugly.

Totally interesting thing to contemplate, you know? I mean, I don't know I don't know what the fix is there anything but it's more for more of us to get unattractive, lean into our unattractiveness.

I mean, really, it's like it's like I, I watch you refusing to do anything to your face and letting yourself age gracefully, naturally. And I think, yes, that's the solution.

I want I want that to happen for my daughter and I think, OK, so stop getting Botox. And I'm like, fuck that.

Like, I can't get myself out of it. Justin. Up next, we're going to talk about what the messaging should be to children when it comes to appearance. Right. How many times have you heard about a young girl? She's such a pretty girl. That's like the number one thing. So pretty. Well, what does that mean? Should we be doing that? Is that sexist? Is it damaging? More importantly, she's got some thoughts.

And it's interesting what she said to her own daughter, how she handled it. But before we get to that, we're going to bring in a feature called Asked and Answered. And that's where Steve Krakauer comes in, are up with a question from one of you, all y'all. And I'll hopefully give an answer.

Hey, Steve. Hey, Meghan. Yes. This is comes to us from questions at Devil May Care Mediacom and from Max Wilson, who worked in local TV news for a decade. And he has a question about the legacy media. Will they ever recover from covid-19? What a financial mess they're in. Make no mistake, the legacy media is in real trouble because how are they ever going to get their workers to return to work to their massive studios?

They better threaten them, right? I mean, like that's what's going to have to happen here in New York. Some of the bankers are doing that, like, hey, you want to come back in or New York money. Great. No problem. Get down to the building. You can't you cannot work remotely from Oklahoma, where prices are one tenth what they are in Manhattan. Expect us to pay you the same amount.

And listen, there are certain bodies that kind of have to be in studio and we've seen that. So they're going to have to go back and probably already are. And certain people don't have to be there. And I think there's nothing wrong with letting those people continue to work remotely. But I don't see the legacy media going out of business because of covid. If anything, they're going to go out of business because of cord cutting and how, you know, media has just changed in general to a much younger, more dynamic way of consumption.

Now, you can have it on your phone. You can watch your favorite show on your way to work while you're driving your car. You don't need to sit around waiting until nine o'clock to watch your favorite anchor. You can see him or her whenever you want.

But I do think in general, like especially here in New York, which is the hub of media, there's so much fright overcovered that it's going to take a while before they get people back in these buildings. You know, they've been led to believe that they can get it from touching desks, which really has not turned out to be true.

And so until we sort of collectively lower the. Moral panic that is still lingering over the city like a hangover, it's going to be tough for these employers and I, I don't think it's good. I don't think it's good for so many people to be in their houses by themselves working all day.

I've got to get out. You get to see other people. You got to interact with other human beings is as much as we dislike them. I think we have to do it, don't you? Every once in a while you need to see other humans. So I hope that happens.

I think that'll happen just as soon as New York gets on its way to recovery. As for the bias in mainstream media, that's their problem.

Good luck. Thank you for the question. And what's the address? I always forget the address, Steve. Where do they where do they contact us? Questions that devil may care.

Media, dotcom. OK, why don't you do the toss to Justin Bateman right after this. When I was in my 20s, my goal was to I thought, oh, man, when I'm old, I want to live like Georgia O'Keeffe and I'll never get there. If I do anything to my face, I'll derail my goal. So there's no way. And also, like, I just feel like it's it's one of the most defiant things I can do.

I think it sounds so ridiculous, but that's just.

But you're right. Put it not just by letting my face grow into whatever it's going to become, but also at the same time having an attitude that is, hey, I am now what I don't want to say pretty or beautiful or anything like that because of what we've just said. But I want to say, like, I am somebody that people are drawn to.

Let's just say that. Because of my face, because I have a pretty face. What, if attractive, just means people are drawn to you because you're magnetic or you're confident you have something they want? I don't mean like like they want to use you. I mean, like they whatever you've got going on, they wish they had that going on right now, like.

So I hate it. This is a weird turn.

Very weird. Forgive me, but I'm thinking about. Bill O'Reilly, the reason I'm thinking about it go on, because in the media industry for a long time, he was the biggest star, certainly one of them, and definitely the biggest star in all of cable, and had the number one show in all of cable for like almost 20 years.

Now, Bill is not a particularly attractive man. He has nice blue eyes. I'll give him that. And I think Bill would be the first to say this about himself, he used to be pretty self deprecating about his himself and his looks.

No one cared. He became a huge star because he was a great television presenter. He knew how to spin a really interesting story, how to condense information in a very compelling way. He had strong opinions. He used humor.

There were all sorts of reasons why he was such a success and he didn't have to be attractive and he didn't really care. He wasn't the guy who had all the surgery. And I I admired that. You know, I, I can see I can see other people doing it and we need more we need more women doing it. OK, but it's now. Gary, wait. Now, let's take that example. Knowing now I'm going to assume a lot of things about Bill, I don't know, Bill, but this bill is a quote unquote Bill as an example of generic, right?

Yeah, OK. Knowing that he couldn't use his looks, he developed other ways to attract viewers.

Now. Let's let's what if we went to all the ladies and we said, you're going to do all of your broadcast? With a bag over your head. So you will have to develop other ways to attract viewers. Do you think if that was the case or if they even thought that was the case, if they operated like that? That we would have. We would be attracted to some of these broadcasts. Do you think the women would develop more complex and interesting ways to get viewers shit?

Yes, I don't know. I do. I know I do. And I think to your points, it it applies beyond broadcasting to that.

What if we were more rich, more layered, more interesting beings?

I always joke, Justin, that that skirts and high heels were men's way of holding women back. Just it was a joke, but.

Kind of a grain of truth and what if this whole narrative is is a way of it's not just men, but like men and women holding women back?

What if we what if we could be more of a kaleidoscope? What if we could be more layered if we weren't so obsessed with the with the face this one square foot of skin, as you say? Well, yeah.

I mean, I don't want to want to lay all that on men because I think women I think I think it's like split between women and men as to who who's like, you know, and Susie that, you know, she should get her face changed or that there's something wrong with her. So I think for the men, it has a lot to do with how they are going to be perceived by other men. So if a man has a frumpy wife.

Then do his friends then think less of him? If but if he has a wife that looks like. Because the aspirational look to her, whatever do they go that like, hey, Joe had just met Katie, she's amazing looking. Whoa, dude, what did you do to get her? So it it elevates who he is, what kind of person he is.

Meanwhile, his looks don't do the same. Right. Vanity and a man is still not attractive. I think we have crossed over to where, you know, you see a man who's like to Botox and like to obsess like, I'm sorry, you don't have to comment on this, but like Chris Cuomo putting out the videos of him, lifting the weights and trying to look super tough and muscly, that stuff, I think is still generally unattractive in society.

And so they've been for a place on a news show like they can get into. OK, I'll say this.

I will say this in my experience. Very attractive women and very attractive men. Are far less they are far less interesting personalities, generally speaking, in my experience, than people who are not. And I do think that's because people who are not. Instead focused on becoming interesting people. Were you OK now? But you and I. Let me ask you about it, because I think you and I have had had a different experience because you you talk about in your book, you grew up pretty.

I did not grow up pretty, which was a blessing for the very reasons you're talking about. I had to develop other skills. I was not an attractive child. I really pretty much look like a boy for the first 12 years of my life. And then I just look like a chunky, acne ridden teenager with a weird space between our two front teeth, which I later have fixed.

That's my experience was until I got to like high school, that I was like, maybe if I made an effort I could get the social chit of being attractive like that would I think it would help me. But by the way, not for nothing, but I was voted the most popular girl in my 8th grade class when I was still at attractive, I was still unattractive and I have the pictures to prove it. So I had the experience of like work.

The other skills, like how the blind man is a great listener. I got there. So. So how did you get so complex, you know, having either a pretty girl experience.

But I wasn't I don't know if it was like the school I was going to or the cities I lived in or something like that. There was just no emphasis on it. I mean, I guess I would just. You know, I guess was one of those things where, like I said earlier, like you meet your parents friends and they go to so what a pretty girl. I don't know. I guess I was just like, oh, I guess I'm 30.

I don't know. I didn't. I didn't. My friends didn't emphasize it, I didn't go to schools where where there were sort of I mean, if they were if they were mean girls, it was like, I don't know, everybody was just sort of kind of mean to each other in that school. Where were you? Just like like you said, the house you grew up in or something like that? I don't know. I guess I just didn't go to schools where there was like an emphasis on it on.

But you were in how popular girls and stuff? No, no. See, it wasn't until it wasn't until I got on a show that there was so at 16. So I was developing myself as a person like all up until I still did at 16. But it wasn't until I was 16 that it started being it started get there, started being a focus on on my face like, you know, Justin Bateman's gorgeous or she's so beautiful or whatever.

And I was like, oh, OK. I mean, I was just like, it didn't really. It was just like it seemed like this matter of fact thing that they were enlarging, one of the reasons I we talked on NBC when I was there, it was about your first book.

You were honest about what it's like when that starts to fade. And I do think you would say now the fading was a blessing.

It wasn't enjoyable while it was happening and you realized maybe you couldn't get the reservations you used to be able to get.

But like NetNet, wouldn't you say? I don't know. Would you say it's a blessing? I'll tell you what the blessing is.

My ability to process the experience. That's the blessing. Yeah, I mean, I say that in the book, like I say, like I have a privileged life. The privilege I'm referring to is. That process being able to having those tools. And that's one of the reasons I wrote that book is like through this explanation, I mean, that book famous for a lot of reasons. One of them was just sharing how I process the things. And because I've had so much success with that particular method, I just want to be like, hey, if this will help anyone else use it.

Mm hmm. You're married. Yes. Yeah. And you have two kids. Yeah. How old are they? Eighteen and seventeen. And you have a daughter.

Yeah. So with her is your messaging kind of along the lines of what we've been talking about?

I think about it with my daughter because I do think she's pretty and I think it's a compliment. And I think my boys are beautiful too, and I tell them as well. So I try to keep sort of equal and I try to not make it number one, with my kid, my daughter especially. But, you know, sometimes just overwhelmed by the beauty of your child's face. And even if a kid's not that cute, you see it, you see face looking back at you.

So how did you balance trying to raise a daughter who wasn't too focused on this with what I assume is your natural gravitation toward what you thought was a beautiful face?

I have a lot to say about that. So let me truncate it or summarize it. First of all, when I was a kid, when you were a kid, we had only the people in our world to compare to, to compare to or to be to be compared to the people at your school. And it gets a little wider as you get older. Right. The people maybe in your town. All right. And then as you get older and you go out into the workforce, everything, then it's like the people in your city or the people in your industry.

And if you're in the entertainment business and you that you're being compared with a lot more people. But now a 13 year old who in the past would just be comparing herself to other people at her junior high school or her middle school is now on Instagram. You comparing yourself with back then? OK, we have the fashion magazines, of course, but they were removed from us.

They were there were these were people who these women that were, you know, lived in New York or Milan or Paris. And they were in these photos that were. So removed from our situation, zevin. Getting pictures taken in front of the Taj Mahal or some nightclub in Berlin or I mean, it was just like it was so Sepah, you knew it was a model, you knew it was on and it was a model.

And these were seriously models. They weren't, quote, Instagram like self no self-proclaimed Instagram of the real models like there was. That's right. There was a you know. There were a lot of a lot of competition they had to beat out to get that they were beautiful for a living.

They was very specific. Yeah. OK, so now you're comparing yourself to everybody on Instagram and also with the Internet.

You're comparing yourself to all the pretty women that have ever existed in all of time, like, you know, Ted Serranos, Netflix.

I think all of programming at Netflix, I'm not sure its position right now, but he had a great quote once. He said, you know, it used to be that when you released a film, you were going to compete just against the other films that were that were out at the same time. Is now you're competing with all films that have all the films that have ever been made. Right. So in the same way, you put a film as like, well, people can choose from all the films that were ever made and, you know, you're one of them.

And the same way, that's that's what we're doing with the look. OK, so the first thing is. I wanted her to be one when she first started looking at like Instagram and stuff like that one, to make it very clear to her before she was like all these women, how are they how do they afford to go to all these? They must be really rich, that they can go to all these places and take all these pictures and be on all these yachts and all this.

And I was like, come sit on my lap. Let me tell you a story about how these women are affording to go there. So tell her things like that. Tell her about the filters. Tell her about like just outside this shot, you know, is this kind of raggedy backyard that this woman has not aged.

Right. It's staged. So she's making pop that bubble of all of that stuff. And then just and then the selfie after selfie after selfie after selfie after selfie, she she has said to me, like, I would say, like, oh, my God, why don't they just stop or whatever. And then she'd go, she's funny. They're just insecure. That's why they're doing that, because they're insecure. And I was like and like she was saying to me, like, you're being unkind because these people are insecure.

And I was like, oh, you're right.

You're right for correcting me. Like, I am being on time right now.

So so she I don't know, she, she she gets and also like I try to be very with both my kids. I try to be. I try to make a big I try to focus on make a big deal about things that they've accomplished. Things look at you, you come in, you're put in a bag, you're born, you put in a bag. It might be a bag of Chinese descent.

It might be a very tall, darker skinned bag. You might be a very short, pale skinned bag that's female. I mean, you don't have any say. You're I mean, this is how it seems to me personally. You're a spirit that gets put in a bag. OK, so. So is any of that an accomplishment that you have know, looks that are deemed, quote, pretty in this society? No, but but the things that you set out to do that, then you make happen like that's an accomplishment.

And that I feel like focusing on by people being rewarded for those things, I feel like really build their sense of who they are as a person, what they can make happen as a person. And I think it's a really good way to build their their sense of foundation of a person.

Mm hmm. You're awesome. You do think differently. You're you're not like anybody I know. That's it's a great line from as good as it gets. You're not like anybody. That's how I feel about you in a great way. Thank you for coming on. Well, thank you and I and I always appreciate your you know, this is the second time we've we've done an interview and I just want to tell you, I I really appreciate how prepared you are, how engaging you are to talk to how prepared you are with material.

And that's not as common as you would think it should be for people to do this for a living. So I just want to pay you that compliment, because I appreciate that. Thank you.

And let me I mean, I prepare for everybody because I feel out of respect. I want to, but some people are, you know, easier to do it with than others because their stuff is really interesting or just speaks to me for whatever reason. And you are definitely one of those people. So I definitely recommend the book. Everybody check it out. It's called Face One Square Foot of Skin. And then don't forget to go see Justin's new movie, Violet.

Violet, it's great to talk to you. You too.

Coming up in our next episode, Dave Ramsey years like one of the most popular personalities in America. He's got some thoughts on DDO finances, the national debt and how to dig yourself out from the hell of a year. Don't miss that. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bias, no agenda and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a devil may care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.