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OK. All right, let's do the show then. Lock the gate.

All right, let's do this, how are you, what the fuckers, what the fuck next, what the fuck stirs? What the fuck are delegates that could go on for a while? Sometimes? I don't know if I should keep doing it at all, but we're ten years in. And it was sort of a carryover from something I did back in the day on Morning Edition, a community builder. Now it's a habit and now it's it's a signature thing.

And I do it. I used to have lists of different WTF things, and I, I like doing it.

So I don't know who I'm talking to. It's as if somebody just told me not to do it and that person just lives in my head that there was a moment there in the middle of doing it where I'm like, I'm doing this again. And then there was another voice that said, why? And then the out loud one said, Because it's what I do.

How's it going with you guys? Are you doing what you do? Are you holding on? The bottom line is the last several months, four years has been hard for everybody.

You know, I was shattered with some personal experiences and I'm getting through.

But it's in all this vulnerability and then all of this isolation that, you know, you start to see and I've talked about this a bit before, that you kind of really get a sense of who you really are. And, you know, lately I've really been wondering if I've changed at all.

You know, because I have this compulsion, my you know, some of my old kind of desires to like I want to smoke cigars, you know what I mean? I want to be out in the world. I just like I can feel the discomfort. And my sense of self is kind of fragmented. I find I'm insecure again. I'm obsessing about my weight and this and that. All the things that I used to do to try to somehow feel like I had control over my life by creating more aggravation for myself, more drama for myself, more reasons to.

To beat myself up, that was somehow grounding to me through most of my life, and I've identified that. But now with wind gone and the fact that I was starting to believe her, you know, I was starting to believe her idea of me, I think a lot of it was true. And I was trying to live in that. But now it's like it's a struggle. So the last few weeks have been sort of fraught with this idea that, like, you know, like, well, fuck it, man, look at me.

Maybe and that maybe she was the best thing about me. Even though it had nothing to do with me, you know, maybe I felt better when I was with her and now look at me, I'm just the same old fuck I always was.

And now just beat myself up for one reason or another. And by the way, I have Glenn Close on today, Glenn Close. So when the only things that saves me is like I get to talk to amazingly talented people and enjoy that and wonder in the face of it, do I have any talent? Who am I? What am I?

But you know, Glenn Close from the Big Chill, Fatal Attraction, the natural maybe some of you grew up watching her in 101 Dalmatians. She's currently in the new Netflix movie Hillbilly Elegy, which was quite a stunning performance on her part.

And you know Amy Adams, right? I get some of the. Amy's mixed up. Yes. Amy Adams. So that was great to talk to her, but this meditation thing keeps popping up, you know. I've been doing therapy, I've been doing MDR to try to process, you know, some of the trauma. Of late and of early. I got to sit quietly. My therapist pointed out to me that that negative thinking is sort of the animal thing that we have to choose against.

I never thought about this way. A couple of things that happened in the last week.

I talked to John Densmore from The Doors who who in his book brought up something that I said to Garry Shandling or Garry Shandling said to me, and I'm paraphrasing, It was like people that can't sit in silence or with silence are addicts.

And when you strip it down to that degree, like, you know, in, you know, to get to a place of silence, meditative silence, to not be able to do that is in and of itself addiction to where you like. I have to I have to distract. I have to distract. I have to distract. I have to get away from me. But the interesting thing that my therapist brought up was that on an animal level, we think negative and I'm like, how is that even possible?

Because we're conscious. I mean, negative is a is a value judgment.

And she said, well, as an animal, your first all you're thinking is fight or flight. Really, that's your reaction to the world, you wake up and you're like, all right, here we go. So that translated into human. You know, is like fear and assumptions and negative thoughts and then the beating yourself up, that's a different choice that comes from parenting or lack of parenting. But like, when does this stop?

When do I start making mistakes? When do I fully fucking learn from my experience, I guess not until I live on a goddamn mountain by myself. But that's where the possibility comes in. Why can't I just sit with myself until I like myself? These are tough times, people, and maybe you're you're dealing with some of this stuff, anxiety, depression, relationship, conflicts, anger, you are not alone and better help. Online counseling offers licensed professional therapists who are trained to listen and to help.

It's a simple process. You fill out a questionnaire to help assess your specific needs and then get matched with a counselor in under 48 hours. Then you can easily schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus exchange unlimited messages to communicate with your therapist at any convenience. Everything you share is confidential and you can request a new therapist at any time at no additional charge. Join the one million plus people who have taken charge of their mental health with an experience.

Better help, Counselor. Good therapy has gotten me through some tough stuff this year. Everyone should have access to mental health solutions and better help is an affordable option. WTF Wisner's get 10 percent off your first month with the discount code. WTF get started today a better help dotcom slash wtf that's better hsp dotcom slash wtf. Talk to a therapist online and get help. But this meditation thing keeps coming up. It kind of landed with me when Densmore took that section of my conversation with Garry Shandling, which I don't remember.

And then the knowledge that Lynn used to meditate twice a day. And then my therapist saying that one of the things that it would enable you to do. If you sit with yourself, just learn how to do it, to meditate is to accept yourself and maybe love yourself. See, that's the fucked up thing. I don't want to get into complaining.

We have bigger problems in the world. Everyone's got their own burden. You know, try not to dump it on other people, but. Why can I just sit fucking quietly and figure that out? God damn it. I crave the peace of abandoned. And it seems attainable if I just sit. I know what's up intellectually, I know who I am in my heart. I know my liabilities, I know my shortcomings.

I know my sadness, my anger. I know all this stuff. And I live with it. And some days I accept it. But I need to get to the next place. Where I continue. To honor myself through decisions. And also to. To me, and I don't even like to say it. To like myself, for fuck's sake, to love myself, I'm uncomfortable with even saying that. I'd rather just, you know. Parade around on stage or on Instagram?

But you folks. Doing an emotional wrestling. In the back and forth, doing the song and dance, doing the jokes, doing the anger. Doing the guitar, doing this, doing that, doing the eating, doing the cooking, stripping the pants. Starting things, not finishing things. Loose ends drama. Terrified eating. God damn, a guy gets straight with myself. In terms of. Acceptance. Self-love moving through feelings like there is such a fucking strong part of me that is so fucking young inside, childish even.

And so afraid of being hurt. And that's and I've talked about this before in my act. The monster I created to protect the child inside is hard to manage, that's I mean, I can't get any truth in that. That's his truth or is I can be and it exists. Got to bring I got to get that kid out, I got to get that kid, OK, I've got to show that kid some love and I got to fucking, you know, integrate and meditate.

This is what I'm left with after phase one of the grieving process, I'm left with me again. God damn, I'm going to make a cake. You know, the way things are going, it looks like we'll all be staying put for most of the winter right now is a great time to launch that idea that you never got off the ground in Squarespace can help you turn your dream into a reality. People you can easily make a beautiful website for whatever it is you're looking to do.

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So look, Glenn Close was surprising and talk about things that, you know, I didn't, I couldn't have imagined. It always is that way. When I talk to people I was happy to talk to, I was thrilled to talk to. I watch the movie Hillbilly Elegy. Obviously I've seen many of your movies, but it was very engaged conversation and she looks great. And I love her and I love talking to her. She's in this new movie, as I mentioned, Hillbilly L.G..

It's got her Glenn Close, Amy Adams, directed by Ron Howard streaming on Netflix now.

And this is this is me talking to Glenn Close.

Hi, Glenn. Hi, how are you? I'm fine. Are you still in Northern California?

I am in no, I'm in Southern California. Uh, where are you?

I'm in Bozeman, Montana. Really?

It's snowing right now. Can you see?

That's exciting. I know. It's great. Yeah. We don't have real winter down here. It's just crisp.

We just get this is for you is like sixty two degrees. Exactly. Yeah. For us is minus nine. People are complaining about how cold it is and it's.

Yeah. Six three. You're a bunch of wusses. Look I lived in New York for long enough. I'm from New Mexico. I know what snow is. Yeah.

I know what your show is like in New York. Get cold. Oh my God. With the wind chill. It's crazy, but it's so it's such damp.

Cold.

Yeah. It's the worst year before it is dry. It's not as bad. It's nice.

It's pretty. You can still enjoy the cold in Montana. Yeah. How long have you been up there?

Well, two members of my family, my two siblings have been here for thirty over thirty years.

My parents used to live. They're both gone now, but they they were in Wyoming.

So I was the only eastern holdout for my entire working life until last Christmas where I when I moved here across the yard from my younger sister.

So you live on the same compound, the I wouldn't call it a compound. I call it two houses next to each other, you know, in the nice, fabulous, normal neighborhood.

Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Compound's a little menacing compound. Sounds a little fishy. Yeah. Or a little scary either way. She she's scary.

Yeah. There are compounds out here that are scary. I would think so. Yeah. But wait so you're do you come from Wyoming.

No, we all come from Connecticut. So recently your parents just ended up in Wyoming.

My parents were the black sheep of that. There are ever black sheep.

They we all I mean they both grew up basically in Greenwich, Connecticut, Greenwich, Connecticut, like fancy graboid pretty well now.

It's really different from when I was growing up. But anyway, what's on there now?

I don't even know what's going on in Greenwich. Well, I don't know either.

I but, you know, all these huge, huge, huge, huge mansions all over the place, big, big walls and locked gates. And when I was little, we would, you know, get on our little feisty Shetland pony and ride all over the place.

You know, it was different. It felt like a totally different the rolling hills of Connecticut or something. Yeah. I mean, it was like the back the back country.

But your parents were black sheep. Like, I got like, what was the situation there when you were growing up?

I mean I mean, we were lucky enough to to my grandfather had had a like one hundred and eighty acres and oh my God, that's like half the state he was.

He was. Yeah. So we could have been in Iowa as far as we were concerned.

So that was was that a compound where you guys we couldn't call a farm a compound. It was a farm. Yeah.

It was like a farm widget farm. So your grandfather was the chickens and he wasn't in the farming business.

But yes, I called it a gentlemen's farm. Yeah. So we ran wild.

And what was he, a big landowner?

What was he like, a corporate wizard? Your grandfather, was he from the Mayflower or something?

Well, other ancestors weren't on the Mayflower, but close behind. OK, so old old school America West.

The Yankees. Yeah. I mean, around the world. Like Yankee.

Yeah, it's Yankee. You know, it's not necessarily it can be pejorative. No, no I get it, it's you know it real. Yeah. New Englanders bluebloods. Yeah.

All right. So that's well that's kind of deep right. I mean to. Yeah.

Grow up in that. Well it's this is fascinating. I you know, I want to know everything about my family. I know my grandmother on my dad's side was in the Galveston flood, three years old. Yeah.

And tell me about that. What is the Galveston what you said about this flood was was still 8000 people died. It's still the biggest natural disaster to befall this country.

Oh, my God. It was a storm surge that basically wiped out a huge section of Galveston. So you have to.

So you had family from Texas. Yes, Texas, Virginia. And that was your mom's side? My dad's side here was the one that goes back to in the Connecticut.

Well, the closest do there's a Thomas close on Lake Avenue in Greenwich. And that goes back to way back.

Way back. Yeah. Yeah.

So would you say that they were like old? All kind of waspy, was it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it kind of lived in that world. That's exciting.

That's well, that's where my that's why I say my parents are Blacksheep, because we did not live in that world. They they quit whether they quit the country clubs, you know, we didn't have coming out parties. None of that stuff. They went into that Naipaul's. What did they do.

What was your dad what was your what was your dad's gig? My dad is a surgeon. He went he went into the war. Yeah. And he flew with the Army Air Corps in France. Yeah.

And when he came back on the he went to Columbia, became a surgeon.

What kind of general. General surgeon. Yeah. Is your dad a general surgeon.

Orthopedic surgeon. Sighs Yeah. Yeah.

Like a good orthopedic surgeon. Yeah. My my my dad did everything.

I mean then I mean it's a long story and I, you know, it could be the entire show interview, but, you know, they ended up going he went to the Congo in nineteen eighty, 1960, really with a kind of a quasi missionary type group. And he he spoke fluent French.

So when the mutiny broke out, he stayed, walked into the big hospital there and said, put me to work. I'm a surgeon. All the Belgian surgeons were leaving and he worked all through the the mutiny and stayed for six years in the Congo. And then when they came back, they they went to the least populated county in the least populated state, which was Sublette County, Wyoming, and it became the town doc for the last twenty five thirty years of his life.

Wow. That really is Blacksheep business. Yeah. So you had in the Congo as a kid? I visited the Congo.

Oh yeah. Like were you already like too old. I know how.

I mean, why do you think that's a story they got they got into a kind of a cult group. So Christian, this is why we don't want to go there too far.

Well, we're supposed to be for everybody. You know, if you're a good Muslim, be a good Muslim, good Christian, be a good Christian. But basically, it was like any other cult, you know. Well, we're going to remake the world and. No kidding.

So. So you were you were old enough to say, I'm not fucking doing that. No, I wasn't sorry. I didn't get out of it till I was twenty two. And I went to College of William and Mary as a freshman when I was twenty two years old. Did you.

Was it a revelation that you realized it was a cult or were you like, this is bullshit, I got to get out. Thank God I'm in college.

Yeah, it was that, that.

Oh, and did this revelation I mean it it was always incredibly controlling, so I didn't know what I didn't know. I just knew I was ignorant.

OK, so you didn't know you were in a cult per say it was just the life.

Well I, I felt very separate and different from people of what was the name of the thing.

Moral Rearmament. Wow. Or MRA. Yeah. Why not be able to talk about it at all.

Because I, I felt like there was a stamp on my forehead. Right. And I felt a sense of terrible shame. It wasn't my fault. Right. But I felt terrible shame and it really wrecked havoc with me and my siblings. I, I, you know, but that's why it's, it's a long story. But, you know, it's devastating to go through something like that when you're that young. It's a mindfuck and it's real psychological abuse basically.

Oh, for sure. Was there who you are.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh oh. There was the whole thing huh. Oh the leader.

Yes. It was on your birthday. You got ushered into this room and were given a little. This is when we stayed in Switzerland for deucy getting this little embroidered Swiss hanky. It was like you were being given, you know, gold.

It was, it was just when you think about it, it was so ridiculous.

And, you know, and I remember as a little girl, we would all have to have work shifts. And we if you ever got lucky enough to work in Uncle Frank's dining room, you could set the table. And of course, it had all the best crystal and silverware and. But you felt like you were the anointed I mean, it's the same kind of thing that is such so powerful.

Yeah, it's but it's interesting, isn't it, that your parents like being sophisticated, educated people, kind of like got involved with that, isn't that.

Well, you know, I mean, this is everything. You know, the thing was, my mom didn't finish high school. They got married when they were eighteen. Dad? Yeah.

Dad had a very, very good he went to St. Paul's, then he went to Harvard, but left.

To go into the war and then, yeah, he had he had a great education and he also had as a child, had been sent away at seven years old, which I think had huge repercussions on how he looked at the world but went to English schools, OK, from seven on, you know, so he was like he was away from his parents and just left to the institution.

Yes. Yes. His dad was the director of the American hospital in Paris. So that's why he spoke French.

I mean, so it's fascinating. It's really fascinating. And I've been able to come to terms with it. But it's still I have trigger points.

Yeah. That I've become aware of. And I just know what kind of people to stay away from. It's not healthy for me.

Well, I mean, you've got to be like there's there's an element of that now that I think everybody tries to reckon with, like, you know, how do these people allow themselves to be brainwashed by bullshit and commit to it wholeheartedly? It's hard to understand.

Yeah, I mean, I it comes down to I think my parents, when they got sucked into it, had were in a very, very fragile point in their marriage, you know, and I think they and they this group fills in where you are the weakest tells you, come in, come in, come in and believe what we believe and we're going to change the world.

Is I, I hire I mean, it's we I think as humans, we're very susceptible to that because we're born into this world. We you know, we don't know where we come from. We don't know where we're going. We don't know who we are.

And depending on what kind of what kind of strength you get from your parents.

Right. Yeah. That it's what it's how you can deal with it.

Yeah. That's the voice. You keep your individuality. And I and I do think because I, I, I was born, I you know, I'm very much an introvert.

I've been in my head since I was little. So I had a very active, imaginative life.

So I don't think they ever got me there. But but they got me in a lot of other ways.

They I mean, the group, not my my parents, but your parents obviously needed some parental like their there they out of a gap in their parent, their how they were parented because that you need that. Yes.

Yes. I mean my dad was I mean basically he was abandoned when you send a seven year old.

Right. You know, it's crazy.

So you were able to hide your inner life and you knew that instinctively that that was sort of your.

Well, I you know, you become a little soldier. Yes, I do. My other of my siblings, one, my younger sister was too young, but my other siblings had their own ways of of rebelling.

But I'm I don't I, I don't have the DNA of a rebel.

No, I well, I guess I've learned it in a way, but more retreat inward.

I'm more of a pleaser. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. How can I help.

How can I help you with your, your, your to be who do you want me to be. I can be that. Yeah. Yeah I can be that. Oh I'm not that. Oh I better get out of here. But every single relationship I've ever had that you love me. Oh I can be that. Oh I'm not that help.

And hopefully as you get older takes less time to realise you're not that. Oh I'm so shall I say I have a very empty toolbox.

Oh no.

And I haven't always known the right tools to put in it. But you know, I think I'm at a pretty good place in my life now. You sound good. You're great. Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's like I because I was thinking, well, that explains a lot about because one thing that I was thinking about before I talk to you is the range of women that you have been in in acting.

It's kind of crazy that if you really think about all the different really extreme types of emotional monsters that you've brought monsters, some of them, only one monster that's Cruella, OK, otherwise, but you have to bring humanity to people that are that are troubled and mentally fragile and and have real shortcomings that can be dangerous.

But also, you know, you're really good with the maternal force as well somehow. So I don't know where you tap into all that. But I guess this needing to to be somebody for somebody must have informed the early acting intent.

You know, I really don't know because I think that love of pretending. Yeah.

Which it is when you're a child. Right. In the early days, you know, before I was seven, we had this wonderful landscape. To run on and imagine on, and we did we and I was, you know, I was a cowboy, I was a but I had and we played with puppets and we it was you know, it was, of course.

You lived you you made up things, you made up your games and who you were and where your hideout was and who are the good guys, who were the bad guy, you know, it was all and it's also healthy for a child to do that.

But and I I loved fairy tales. Yeah. I loved even the scary ones. I pretend I was a little match girl, you know. Oh yeah.

More the more kind of forlorn the better. Yeah. And and and so I loved that great classic Disney animated features.

Well, especially snow, especially Snow White, because the the, the Wicked Witch was so incredibly scary. And then I got to play a Wicked Witch later as Cruella a Disney World, right.

Yeah.

Disney, which it was it was so, so wonderful.

So I think I think long it was in my I'm doing what I should be doing.

Well, I mean, in that moment that you were able to go to to college to to sort of escape from, you know, get out from under this weird, shameful life that you had to hide.

Like, I imagine that at that moment like that, that must have just been mind blowing because, I mean, what that was in the 70s, too, right? So a lot of shit was happening in 1970. So like the world was blowing up expressively.

You know, the youth of the country was kind of the music art, you know.

But I had been I had been caught in a very conservative group. Right.

So it was just explosive. When you got what college did you go to yet? William and Mary, Virginia. It was incredible.

What was the campus like? There were people were that were the young people, were they pushing the envelope at Williams?

It wasn't like Berkeley or anything like that, but that kind of spread around a bit. Yeah.

Yeah, I did. But I wasn't kind of you know, I just lived in the theater department. I have to say, I wish now I'd been more of a rebel. But you have to remember that kind of rebellion was not built into me. Right. Right. You know, so I had to find it.

It took me a long time, a long, long, long time. But what I had was the theater.

And so that was what you studied there the whole time you were there? I oh, I studied I studied theater. I well, I majored in theater and anthropology. Anthropology, of course.

It was like literally it was like water in the desert.

I had a brilliant bio 101.

Yeah. Professor, I thought, oh, God, you know, we talk about mitochondria and that's all we know is like, oh, no, no, I want to know more. But I never could have gotten through chemistry, but I couldn't either, you know, just it was like everything philosophy. Yeah. You know, French drama, English literature, poetry, which still kind of intimidates me.

Well, there's always the girl who got the meaning kind of.

But but they're like, hey, you know, it was fantastic. And I have a little dog Penny with me and she you in college.

So, yeah. You brought a dog to college. Yeah, that's nice. I did. I've never heard that before.

Yeah. In fact, in fact my senior my senior year at Phi Beta Kappa Hall, Phi Beta Kappa started at William and Mary and so there's their theater was a beautiful, beautiful I think they're not redoing it. I hope they. But anyway, their theater was where I lived and Penny was very much a part of art there. And I heard my senior year or after I graduated that the the faculty had gotten together and realized that there were too many dogs in the building and they better lay down the law and not allow dogs.

And then there was this pause and then somebody said, but what about Penny?

The the most important, I think.

Yeah. So they didn't I don't think they changed that rule till after we were we were gone.

That's wild. I never I just never I never saw any dogs in college. I guess it was a different time.

There should be more dogs in college. People should not be in their high anxiety and stress. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean my little my little schoolmates just lying right over there.

You got one one Pip Pippin. A bean field. Yes.

Yes. What kind of dog is Pip. Pip is a havanese. Oh I don't even know what it looks like. Well he's well they're like Havanese can come in all different colors but he happens. He was born grey and black and now he's white.

Old nose five. Oh that's not bad.

No, he just turned white. I don't know, it just happened. Yeah.

So when you get there, like when he start doing the theatre work, you had had no real experience with it before.

Well in the group. In this, in the group.

They would they they had theater, but I they had that they used to spread the message and they go on these missions with their theater things, but they like what they like.

Like a singing group. Yeah, well, no, it was an actual they had plays in the cult.

Yeah.

And there was a children's play called Bungle in the Jungle. And I played a tiger once and I loved it probably too much.

You weren't supposed to like it too much for the wrong reasons. You just like the acting because. Oh I feel this is cool. I'm, it's not cool.

It's not about, you know and what these were morality things to leave.

I'm laughing at it. What it's good to laugh at message.

They had a message. The place. Oh everything.

Had a massive recruitment tool. Yeah. Wow.

You were so surprised. I've never heard of the cult. So that was your that was your early theater experience.

And other than that you didn't do any acting in high school or anything.

Let's see. Well, I went to Rosemary Hall from 10th grade on because we came back to this country and I was in the drama club and they had an outdoor amphitheater. It was fabulous. It was an all girls school. But every every spring semester, we'd put on a Shakespeare play in the amphitheater. And my senior year I was Romeo and I was in The Merchant of Venice and blah, blah, blah. Yes.

Did you get Shakespeare early on? I mean, did did it resonate with you like. I mean, no. Yeah, I have a very hard time with it and I'm getting better and I don't I don't practice or anything.

Well, if you want to see if the actor understands that the audience will understand it, I think it's just a matter of staying in the saddle.

I mean, it's hard to listen to.

Goes on a while, you know, mean it's like, oh, my God, they're still talking about what are they talking about now? I checked out for three seconds. I don't know what's happening.

That's my problem. Yeah.

So in terms of training, was there something that changed your life down there with John Howard Scammon?

He was the head of the theatre department. He was an absolute drunk. And yeah, I did my first audition.

You know, literally, when I it was for Twelfth Night and I was in chemistry class, I was in bio, but we were in the lab and we had this kind of wild white hair and you wore flip flops and kind of sherbet colored Bermuda shorts.

And he was peeked around the corner of the door of the lab and asked if I was there. And I went up to him and he said, do you just want to make sure, you know, you have a callback?

So, yeah.

So I got the role of Olivia in Twelfth Night and over he he really the great thing about going to a liberal arts school is that kids from all over the campus would participate in the theater project.

So you couldn't you couldn't really be a snob about what you were doing. You just tried to do it, right? Well, I really liked that. Yeah. There were kids who were there just because of the love of it, not because they wanted to make it their career. And yet there was a triumvirate at that time that were they could have been in any acting school, you know, and Howard Scammon boy, he was a what a character he was.

But he sensed my the seriousness of my intent.

And he he was I remember he said to me as I became kind of, you know, a star at that time, if maybe the William Avery Theater, though, you would have a starring role, then you'd have a very, very secondary role and then you would do you do costumes and then you do, you know, sets the theater community.

I remember him saying to me at one point, just remember, you're a big fish in a very little pond.

So he was a real champion of yours.

He was he he helped me. We did. They did. At that time at Williamsburg, this outdoor called the Common Glory, this outdoor drama about the revolution. And, you know, and so but it did it was in their true and they didn't have any sound system.

And he helped me really with my my vocal range, my speaking vocal range and then my senior year. I've always loved Katharine Hepburn because she's from Connecticut. Her father was a doctor. And I've always felt, unlike me, that she knew who she was. You know, I've always had I always had great respect for her. She she was kind of one of a kind, you know. Right. An original and and apologize for it. And and I was doing sets and penny sets, you know, it was my senior year and for some years there's a television on.

And it was that Dick Cavett, the only time that that happened was on television being interviewed by Dick Cavett. And something in me. I mean, I always knew what I wanted, but at that moment it says, OK, if that's what you want to do, do it.

And the next day I went to Dr. Simon's offices and I had heard about that. You are to TKG national auditions.

And I said, would you, you know, nominate me, write this letter? It was the last day the letter could be postmarked for that year. And I, I went to those series of auditions and I got my first job in New York were the finalists for the I think the ticket of one of them.

One, a ticket was the all the the college theatres, OK, and then there was all the nonprofit theaters.

OK, it was that must so it must have been. Theatre communications groups, I know that's a non-profit TCG, and I got my job with a Phoenix Theatre that had three shows on Broadway, and so my my first job was understudying on Broadway.

Really? That's amazing. I like that you're the voice that told you to do it was actually Katharine Hepburn voice. I think, yes.

But also before Nike or who it just do it was that he used to stand in the in the wings and just say, just do it.

Right. That was what's his name, the teacher scourers. Yeah.

And after I graduated, I think the year after I graduated and oh my God, he I was going into the old Helen Hayes Theater.

Yeah. For my first job was like forty six to read or something.

40 was 40. I think it was forty six straight across from the Lunt Fontanne.

And I saw somebody hovering in the shadows and I looked over and I said, Dr. Scammon you and I went up to What are you doing here? And he said, I just wanted to see you walk into the stage door of that suite.

Yeah.

And then he sent me a little Jefferson Cup with the name of the play and sent me very, very he come to see everything I did. And then and then he would send me really, really good notes. Oh really. Yeah.

So throughout your early career. So you're doing Broadway. Yeah. And he still and he's coming to see everything and really so you he really was like invested and seemed to love you. He did. And I loved him.

And was that, was that really the foundation of your the training that sort of built you still. Oh, absolutely. I never went to acting school.

That was all of it. Huh. What about singing. Where'd you learn how to sing so beautifully.

I don't want to go into that really.

But that's well well my son that I've always sung. I've always done. But I went into a group that was an offshoot of Imari. And was that when it was in that group for five years and it was set up with people.

I see your real troop. I feel I'm feeling a little bolus of shame, even as I say that because I have no control. So I find myself on the girls bus, you know, for five years with up with people, you know, they get involved.

Everyone knew up with people, but not everyone knew that cult. But it came out of it. Came out of them. All right.

No kidding. Yeah. How do we get you past this? Shame? You have to let go of the shame going.

Well, I've just talked about it, so. But that other people. Oh, my God.

Yeah, I just had a dream the other day. This is really cool. I just had a dream and I was in a I, I, I've been doing a show, but it was it was really radical and it was supposed to be up with people.

And then I was exhausted. I was in kind of a a room.

It's almost like a hospital room.

And the leader came in with a little henchmen and and said, oh, we're going to go to Europe.

I said, I'm not going. This isn't what I do in my dream.

And I've gone through a whole series of of dreams. And it was so much fun because in my dream, I just was.

Are you kidding? I'm not going to go there. It's not what I do. You actually I'm in my dream.

And then and then the guy had all these buttons, just little henchmen had all these buttons on his suit.

And one of those buttons you said they're from a Burgermeister Street and everything was in Switzerland. They get these people to come. They're like these VIPs. And they'd be burgermeister of, you know, some town in Germany or Holland or something. And they suck up to them and everything.

And and so the fact that in my dream all these years later, the word Burgermeister would come up was hilarious.

Yeah, it's hilarious. And in your dream, you're standing up for yourself.

Yeah, I'm just saying. And it wasn't even I wasn't even angry. I've had I've had raging dreams where you wake up gasping for air. But this was just. Are you kidding me.

Yeah, I'm over awake now.

So was it was it was it was based in Switzerland.

That's where the big one of the bases was Switzerland. They had they had a fancy place in London. They had a fancy place in L.A. It's got a big house in Tucson. You know what? I don't even want to look it up. And I don't know what where it is. What it is, OK, I don't want to know about either. I think I'd say I think you freed yourself and you've done very well and you are a authentic, unique voice and person.

Yes. OK, so we can move on. Yes. Well, you know, it's interesting because I do I've always felt that that art comes out of somewhere a sense of outrage, Art, that really touches people.

And I certainly have had my bolus of outrage. And I and I think it's it's pretty much a bottomless ocean. Sure.

Yeah, I know you can always I used to do a bit about that. There's a a river of rage that runs through me always. But it's your choice to put the kayak in the water, you know. Yeah, but it's.

Yeah, yeah. It's always there for a resource, you know.

Well luckily my mind's a more maybe a little bit of a calmer thing than a than a river on a kayak, but maybe just a gently paddling down the the rage creek, maybe a lake because the ocean is a little bit scary, just the parts of New England like with, you know, an angry lake.

So I guess like going to New York at that point must have been sort of jarring and exciting. Oh, it's thrilling.

I still was living at my grandmother's house in Greenwich. I take the train in and get lost. I was I do not I'm going to take you know, I want to be a New Yorker. I mean, to take buses or subways. And I'd end up in Queens, you know, and we are rehearsing down on West 18th Street. And and I you know, it's like if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. We'll find true.

Just getting someplace.

Just someplace. What was the first show? That was the first play?

Congreve Love for Love, a restoration comedy that was 70, 1974.

So you were really a theater actress for a decade before you did movies?

I think it's about six years, huh? Because my first movie was Garp.

Well, who are the people that were like, you must have showed up in New York and there must have been the whole community was like, who's this kid? What is who's this woman like?

Well, I mean, that's a whole other story because of how Prince was the director of that love for love.

And I understudied a beautiful English actor. Marry your and my best friend still Mary Beth hurt.

Thank God I never had to go on for her.

But the Saturday before our opening. How was at the theater at the stage door when I came in and he took me out of the stage. He said, I'm thinking of letting Mesure go.

Well, I'll make up my decision during this matinee. So stay in your dressing room after the show. Everybody always disperses immediately. Go get dinner between the shows. So your dressing room and if and if you hear over the intercom that you're wanted down in costumes, I've made my decision and I want you to go on tonight. So, yeah, and did it happen?

It did, and I never had an understudy rehearsal, but the thing was I was so green and hungry that I went to every single rehearsal and for some ungodly reason, I knew the lines because usually you start understudy rehearsals after the show is opened.

So I went on that night, they tried to find everybody and bring them back so we could at least walk through it.

Yeah. And I got through it and I, you know, finished the run for that show. And then it was it was not true repertory and that we did one play after another. But then I went up to the fourth floor dressing room again and became an understudy.

So it was a tragedy for for Mary your who died the following spring and in a in a profession that is so can be so cruel and so demanding.

It was a profound lesson. At the very beginning of my career, she wrote me a note. She had the grace to write me a note before I went on that that night. And in that note, she said, be brave and strong.

She didn't say break a leg or, you know, she said, be brave and strong.

That's heavy. Yeah. What a gift she gave me. Yeah, to be that, um, giving in that moment.

Jesus, unbelievable. And that was the beginning of it.

That was my first step onto a professional stage.

And then you went on to do so much. I mean, like who were like who was like, I don't know, theater as well as I know movies. But I have to assume at that time in the 70s, you were seeing that that world of those actors that were like who were around the people, you were John Lithgow.

Oh, God. Practically everybody in the big chill. Kevin Kline. Yeah.

You know, all of us started Maril. You know, Mary Beth. Mandy Patinkin. Yeah. Who else?

Everybody.

That's such an amazing bunch of talented people. Yeah, pretty fierce, really. I mean, like it. So I don't I think there's plenty of talented people, you know, now, obviously. But I think it was it seems everything seems different.

There seems to be a crew of people that happened in the 70s that have some sort of integrity that that kind of lasts and they're very defining. But that just might be because of my age. Maybe there's plenty of 20 year olds that are along the shore.

You know, I think I think starting out in theater gives you a depth of of craft that you do not get if you start out in television or film.

Yeah, I think they're a great film actors.

They're great, you know, but stage it's you in the audience and your craft and there's nobody to edit you.

There's no but you know, you're there.

You've got one shot. Yeah.

Every show, every eight times a week, a different audience every night. And you you go out and deliver and there's a discipline about it. You get there on time. You do your own makeup unless it's complicated. Yeah.

And you know, if you don't, you get docked.

You know, it's it's it's a discipline that that has followed me these 46 years into how I approach everything still.

And when you say craft, because like when I watch like I watched Hillbilly Elegy the other night and it's a tricky movie, you know, it's heavy and it's, you know, kind of gut wrenching. The characters, the character you played in Amy Adams played.

Unapologetic and broken, but human, did you, like, assess that material and say, like, you know, if we don't embody these characters, perfect as humans, they're there, you're on the edge of something that could be kind of farcical.

Yes, because, I mean, you think of hillbilly, which I now I save a mountain, you know, the mountain people.

We just most of us know him as a cliche.

Right. And which is tragic.

And I think Ron's whole purpose in wanting to tell this story and he will say that he had, you know, his people come from Oklahoma. So it was he called his grandmother mama. You know, it just it was this whole mindset that that a lot of us have just said, oh, that's a cliche. Or and then we read about the opioid crisis and the poverty and the violence.

So, yes, I think the intent was always to take that family and make them human.

And, you know, all great drama comes from family.

And and I think in in creating something very specific, you then the people then can make broader they can they can relate it to themselves, you know, and that's rare that you see those type of people on screen, whether or not played is Rube's or or villains of some bad people.

Yeah. Yeah. So.

Well that definitely worked.

You did a good. Yeah. I mean there was an amazing process. He also you know, we were we were very grateful, first of all, for Ron and all his prep, which is always just astounding. But also Netflix gave us the money to have at least three weeks of preparation. So we we had time to go to Middleton, Ohio, and meet the family, see the neighborhood long before we went there to shoot. And we met whatever members of the family that were there.

Each of us had individual time with them to ask whatever questions we thought were pertinent to the character you're playing. And it was it just was invaluable, invaluable.

And and we all felt it was incredibly brave for that family, especially Bev.

And, you know, Amy speaks to agree to be to let strangers come in and play you, I mean, and to play you as honestly as they could, especially what she went through.

I mean, that's what she went through. Yeah. So and I think because of the humanity of the story, that you will find empathy in places that you might not have had it before.

Well, I think that was that was the amazing thing about how everybody played it and how it was put together. You know, like your character, you know, from the outset, you know, you go through this arc with her. Were you like, oh, what a nice old lady.

And then, you know, well, maybe not, you know, and then, you know, you'd get into that familial darkness that drives, I think, what you said before, drama. You know, that there are these there's a history there that becomes revealed this as as the story unfolds.

But yet, no one you do not you know, the empathy, the empathy stays there.

No real villains, people. It's just it's just the gray of human life, you know? I mean, Mama had made terrible mistakes with her children, right. And she didn't want her children. She didn't want to see it happen to Jade.

Right. And there's that you know, there's that one scene. I don't want to spoil anything where, you know, there's a flashback of, you know, what your character went through as a young. And it was like, oh, my God. It's like one of those moments like I could see how I didn't read the book, but that was like that that was the window into the darkness, right?

Yeah. Deeply traumatizing for children.

But also, I mean, the truth is for anybody that she and she and Paddleball lived, you know, separately, they lived separately because he had you know, he played around and he was, you know, and she never dated or saw anyone else.

Right. But they she would come and spend most of his days at her house and then walk home in real life.

In real life. Yeah.

Well, it must be amazing that the process of actually having to spend time I don't know how many times you did that you did it with. I don't know, you didn't have the same opportunity with von Bulow.

But but but to actually get. Involved with the way that you're portraying that was the opposite with that when I played Sunny von Bulow and it was tragic for me, understandably, and everybody around her who knew her and she was still alive up at Presbyterian wouldn't talk to me.

And I understand that. But I do feel that if they had, I, I would have played her. It would have helped me.

It would it would have only made my performance better. Sure.

But but to have this opportunity to sort of integrate and engage and spend time with and understand the emotional history of the characters you're playing, that must be more pressure in a way. I mean, must be relieving in some way.

But more I approach my questions to her. How did she set what it had to kind of she changed the atmosphere as she walked into a room, you know, how does she hold a cigarette?

She was she always used her hands a lot. If anything, I kind of tamped it down a bit because she was truly larger than life and she was a much bigger woman than I am taller.

But but it was incredibly helpful to just to try to try to, in my imagination, put all those elements together.

And those are decisions you have to make and, you know, based on your own imagination without this resource, like if you're creating if you're playing a fictional person, those are the questions you still ask yourself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The fun of it is all these, you know, kind of like minute to minute choices around behavior and engagement.

And a lot of times, I mean, I remember when when I worked with Mike Nichols, he said it's really, really good to have secrets. And so a lot of times you can have something in your head that's a secret that might be in your in your either imagination or, for example, something like House of the Spirits, where I had an entire book is a Bible in a in a supporting role. The you can you can have things that that that might trigger a certain behavior, reaction that the audience might not totally understand, but it will make it intriguing.

You know, it will interest. Yeah.

So I think secrets are good. So that's and that's sort of different than back story really like that, because that's a character choice. So, you know, somebody can hand you a back story for a character like, you know, or have a couple of pages of where they come from. But to actually choose something that defines them emotionally, that is unspoken. Yeah.

From a back story, there might be certain. Yeah.

Events. Mm. You do a lot of back story work when you do the stuff.

Usually, usually if I feel a need when I did it damages. It was the first time I couldn't they wouldn't allow me to do a back story because they didn't know where they were going to go.

That was very disconcerting, you know, because I'd done beginning, middle and end. And this was, you know, your sign up for six years. We did five years. Yeah. But it was a great exercise. And in those writers, they were so brilliant. And I just said, just promise me that you don't compromise me in a way that I'm not aware of that that you don't have me say something and then counter, you know, turn it around, you know, three episodes from now.

And they never did. Oh, that's good.

Yeah, you're able to trust them, but like over there over time, like I like it just struck me because I remember seeing like when I was younger, I remember seeing Garp and I remember like when you when you mentioned that you had sort of when you were a kid, you you you were sort of an inner kid and you entertained yourself with your imagination. Robin was a lot like that. Mm hmm.

We got to be got to be real friends in that movie that lasted our whole lives, not friends that called each other every week, but friends that, you know, time fell away whenever I saw you. It was that kind of experience.

Well, it feels like you had sort of a similar, you know, a little bit similar background.

And he was an only child, though. Yeah. You you know, but he did come from a big world. Yeah.

But he was very much an introvert. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I knew him from comedy and I interviewed him years ago and he was very shy guy. Really. Yeah. Strange way.

I remember early on the I think what we're shooting up in Millbrook, the school stuff and so a whole bunch of press that come up and Robin was doing press and he they, you know, they asked me to go with him just for kind of moral support, I guess.

Right. And he was before he was really quiet.

And it was one of the most amazing demonstrations of brilliance as he when he spoke in front of the press he brought in.

You know what was happening in the world, I mean, all this stuff, and I've never seen him read a newspaper ad and it was just it was just astoundingly brilliant.

And he came off and he looked at me, said, was that OK?

Yeah.

And then like and then I remember, like, the the the big chill had a profound effect on me somehow. You know, I'm younger, but I like that movie seemed younger.

You said you're younger than me. I'm not. I'm I'm the tail end of the boomer thing.

OK, I'm getting to where everyone is younger than me. 57 I was. Wow. Yeah. I want to be fifty seven.

But that movie was like, you know, for better, for worse. It kind of set the ball rolling of what a boomer was. Yeah. That it defined the spectrum. Yeah.

And somehow or another I don't know what it's like working with Kasdan.

Oh great. But he really kind of like you. That was to me I guess it was really the second film where you played a maternal force. Yes, yes.

Yes. I mean the idea of that character.

Right. Yeah. I wanted to play Mary case part. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

But I remember he had a reading in New York.

He brought some of us in. It was really. Yeah. Oh my God. My my dear brilliant friend Mary Beth had been married to Bill Hurt and he she had just broken up with Kevin Kline as she read the Mary. The She I mean it was just fraught. She read the the the part the Mary Kay place got. So it was all but I after that reading I wanted to learn that I bet you want me to play, you know.

And she said, yeah, OK. But you held it down.

You were the you and I dated Kevin. We all did. Yeah.

But it was great because we stayed friends and so it was no big deal, you know, was great but but hurt.

So you are you friends were hurt still William.

I am when I see him that got that kind of friendship. But I don't have the kind of friendship that, you know, you you call. Yeah. Regularly.

I am my best friend. Is Mary Beth.

Right. So you can. Yeah. Oh no, I can.

I mean, you know, but everything's water under the bridge at this point for me. I mean, I she didn't do anything to me. No, but I mean but they don't get along like Mary Beth and William. Oh.

I think they'd probably be civil but oh I just can't like that whole crew. He just seems everybody seems so defined and he seems so intense. I was kind of obsessed. He was intense.

I he was incredibly intense.

He and Larry had big fights because he wanted to stay looking like that drug dealer, the whole movie, because everybody said how beautiful he was and he was beautiful and he didn't want I guess he didn't want to clean up, you know, be, you know, so but of course, Larry won the fight.

But no, it was it was it was so late.

Made all of us be there all the time, even if we weren't working.

So we really and we had an a month of rehearsal at the Columbia a lot before we did the movie.

Wow. So you guys really knew each other that really intense. Yeah.

Other than those of us who had dated each other, we and there was a there was an epilogue which we actually shot first down in Atlanta where we were all in the city old house that we shared on the show. I heard about that of the University of Michigan.

Right. But it was hard with the costumes. Right.

And not well, I mean, you could say Jeff Jeff Goldblum all of a sudden had a huge beard. And because it was time when everybody was demonstrating and I Costner in it at that time was Kevin Kevin Costner was alive.

Right. You saw him alive and he played the dead guy. And he's a dead guy.

He's a body in the beginning of the movie. But I think it was because it opened up such a can of worms. It was actually the part that made me weep when I read the script because it was a bunch of young friends who did not know what life was going to do to them. You know, that one of them was going to die by suicide and. Right. I felt it. I always find that dynamic incredibly moving, but I think it just it just opened up too much and no one's ever seen it.

The flashback. The flashback. Yeah. It's interesting that he's kept it under wraps, I guess. Yeah, he's got it.

I know he was into the show. Does I know his kids.

I know this is just the best he can make his life. Yeah. They're wonderful people. Yeah, so well, obviously, we can't go through every movie, but it seems like I love the natural. That's one of my I watch it whenever I can. I don't I don't know what it is about that movie, but I just love it.

I love, like and apparently I didn't realize at the end in the end, he doesn't in the book. He doesn't.

It's like he strikes out. Yes.

The difference between movies and how you can't have Robert Redford strike out, but also I think a bit ahead of his strike. That right.

But I think Levinsohn was honoring like he was very like, you know, whatever that book was meant to imply that this was a hero story from the beginning. You know, it's a Homeric tale. Yeah. So he's he's got to hit the home run.

I mean. Oh, and what a moment. Isn't it fabulous. Yeah. And there he is. It's just that's a beautiful score. Oh, it's amazing.

But but like Fatal Attraction was this huge cultural phenomenon where you defined the worst fear of every man alive.

And it's and it holds I think.

Yeah, it does hold. Yeah. You set the standard.

Yeah, I'm proud of that. Yeah. You are pretty hard to get dates, but I'm proud of it. It was a hell of a role.

I mean how do you like how do you make that person a human. What was, what was.

My God that probably was the movie that I did most research on really. Because I wanted to know if her behavior was possible.

So I took that script to two different psychiatrists. And it's it's amazing to me now that they didn't come up with any kind of mental illness or disorder, but.

The guy who I was playing from that research is somebody who had been insisted at a very early age by your father, right.

There's all that weirdness about her father. And when that happens, many people like that. I mean, a disturbing percentage will will do themselves in. This is a woman who was made into a sex object before she even knew what sex was right.

And then made to feel it was secret and shameful. So you have she is incapable of having a healthy relationship.

It's it's a and and it triggered I mean, that character was used by Dr. Guterson, who has since passed, but he was kind of the the guru of of borderline personality disorder research. He said that that was he used that as an extreme case of borderline, which could be triggered by what she had gone through in the past. So I was playing a woman who was damaged and and in need of help and acting, you know, kind of acting out for her.

The last thing Alex Forrest was to me was a villain.

But because it's interesting, you don't get her back story at all. You don't you don't really understand. There is also a scene that was cut out where you where she discovered she was actually pregnant. No, she's not. Just so. It in that scene where I'm turning the light on and off, that was we've put that in to remind people that I was a human being in pain that should have been at the end of the movie anyway.

I could talk about it forever.

No, but I think that's I think that's interesting that, like, the way culturally it gets framed is like, you know, what a monster where, you know.

And I, I didn't feel that because it was played, you know, so emotionally, truthfully, that, you know, she clearly had problems.

But, you know, she was not at fault in her emotional reaction to being what she originally she she killed herself at the house to tell how that the original ending was that she she cut her throat to Madame Butterfly and God, which is the opera, that that they didn't shoot the scene where she's at the opera. And you see Madame Butterfly doing the same thing.

But anyway, it would not have been a hit if they hadn't changed. The ending for changing the ending for me was was a profound I mean, it was profoundly difficult.

I learned from that the importance the what the audience was crying for was catharsis, was closure.

And they wanted me like to like dangerously dogs. They wanted her punished more than, you know, it's like women who overkill because of the vasilyevich they'll kill hit her. You know, it's just it's people needed the assurance that order would be restored. And that's what the new ending gave that movie. And I think that's why it was a big hit.

Yeah. So you're not you don't you're not thrilled with that decision, but you understand it. I understand it.

It was very hard fought against it for like three weeks. I said I won't do that to my character. And then and then finally I was told, as one would be, it won't be released if we don't do another ending. They had done a lot of testing. It's kind of a famous incident, the testing and all that.

Well, so when you dig in with like the with mom, how do you say, my mama, mama, Mama Vantz or somebody like Alex Forrest and stuff, then like, you know, you played Norma Desmond a lot that now I guess there's a wealth of weird narcissistic sadness there that you have to play honestly as well, right?

Yeah. Oh, my God. Is she I hope to do her on film and then I can put her to rest. But yes, I've always been attracted to people who believe in something that we know as an audience is unattainable. Right.

But that belief, even if it's I don't use crazy it there's something noble about it. There's something noble about it. And also people what's really, really important is that those characters don't have any self-pity. There is nothing I hate more than self-pity. Yeah, that's what I loved about the story of Albert Nobbs, this woman who had this dream of finding love and having a little chocolate shop. And we knew it would never happen. But her belief makes your heart breaking.

And and same with Norma Desmond. Her belief finally does her in for all many different reasons. But there's something incredibly moving about, someone clinging to to something that feeds them. But we know that it's going to be a disaster.

Yeah, we're seeing it on the presidential level right now. Oh, my God. Whoa.

Not as heartbreaking that that story, but also, like I read that you you played Blanche once.

I did. In London.

So like that that's another character. What's it for you? What was it the core of that character.

Oh, my God, PTSD. I really I thought, you know, again, I'm fascinated by the why of behavior.

So why was she like that? Hmm.

She famously has that incredible speech about watching her lover or her fiance say, who is obviously gay, killed himself in front of her, put a gun to his head and blow his head off it.

That is, there's no trauma worse than that. It was never PTSD, if it's not treated, becomes only worse and people relive it in their minds. So she heard this music that was playing. She really hears the gunshot and she starts self medicating. To me. That was Blanche to bow. Wow.

That makes sense, yeah, it made sense to me. And so then is it just fun to play Corella? Is that like, oh my God, or if you infuse her with some sort of psychology?

Yeah, well, the first of all, I was so thrilled to be a Disney, which after after my childhood and and knowing in fairy tales, kids have to know that there's darkness and that they can be rescued from it or that they can rescue themselves from it.

So I think the great fairy tales have children who don't have a mother because a mother would not let it happen. And so I.

And and who who get there's a wicked witch or a wicked stepmother. The fathers are usually not there or like very distant, like Bambi or oblivious like the Little Mermaid.

I mean, there's all these thoughts of the fathers, nothing. And and it's about rescuing the children and bringing them back into the light. And that was, again, you know, instead of children, it was the Dalmatian puppies. And I and I learned very early on that the the meaner she was, the funnier she was.

Yeah. Yeah. So you could really push it.

And the original movie has I mean, this original movie that says, you know, you know, poison them.

Yeah. Drown them. Poison them. They didn't step back from doing the same stuff. So what happens now?

We're all just waiting in covid land.

Do you have work coming up? I do. And I've been here since February, so I'm kind of freaking out.

Are you going to go like I just took a little part in a movie and I'm I'm scared about the covid thing is just like.

I know. I mean, especially now it's worse than ever. And now they're like, but they got protocols and stuff. But I'm still like, oh fuck.

I don't know. What does that mean? It's like until they get a test that they can we can just do it home every morning.

How do we you know. I know. I don't know. What are you going to go work?

I'm supposed to go down to L.A. for ten days to do a voice for an animated feature. Well, that's doable.

Yeah, just going to the bunker. I did. Yeah, you can get that can be pretty clean and then.

Yeah. But you have to stay somewhere. And anyway then on the new year I'm supposed to go.

Well actually I've, I missed Christmas because I've got to go quarantine in Canada to do a movie. Two weeks in Canada the queen takes absolute absolute over. Yeah that's great city. Yeah it is. It's pretty. It's like a toy city.

It looks like it was all built from the same box.

The human is a you know, I live I've done two movies there, you know, quite a while ago, but I really liked it. It'll be interesting to go back. I'm sure it's very different.

Yeah, I do like to live there I think. Yeah, well we'll see.

But anyway, it's, they're very, very strict and they.

Well that's so I'm taking my pet, my dog and this movie's going to open up soon and people are going to be blown away. Great job. Thank you. And the hillbilly elegy. It was nice talking to you. It's nice talking to you.

Did you cover things that you wanted to cover? We kind of got hung up in the beginning. No, no, I think so.

Like, you know, usually, like, you know, I like the beginning. I think it's you know, it's interesting to when you have the time to do a long conversation that some you kind of get a sense of how somebody either was put together or put themselves together. So, you know, it all kind of, you know, reveal something.

And we covered a few movies, a few plays, your craft, your childhood, your shame, your age, your sensitivity to psychological motivations, the behavior, your your, uh, physical choices, Montana, the presidency working.

And during covid, we've covered a lot since the first time.

I actually have come out with a political opinion because I was very disillusioned by Clinton and I really worked for the first Clinton campaign.

And then I thought, you know, but this you can't you I could not I could not be Sayam could not be silent, you know.

So, yeah, it's no, I mean, it's crazy, you know, it's it's a toxic, horrendous.

It's like so embarrassing and it's sort of like, how is this fucking real?

The thing is that they've you know, the Republicans have played for years this groundwork of, of course, and and they don't care about him.

He's just like he's like it's all about power.

Stay in a. And also, he's running like they're like, let him do his dance and we can chip away at the agenda we've been diligently working on for 30 years and what our founding fathers and many people feel that that the Constitution, I mean, is amazing that that we still are adhering to it.

But it's it's an old piece of writing.

But our founding fathers never, never banked on professional politicians. That's true. You know, you're supposed to go serve and go home.

And now there these men that have to stay in power and to stay in power, they have to get money to get money. They they get corrupted.

Well, they knew that there would be problems with people who and they tried to think of of you know, I just talked to Heidi Schreck.

Have you seen that? Yes.

And I listen to that. I listen to that whole thing. It was really great. Right. Great. Yeah. Did you did you go to see a woman? Yeah. Have you watched the show? I went to his show on Broadway. Oh, you did? Yeah.

Well, it was so funny because I was so like, you know, the title of it was sort of alienating to me.

I was I know when you said the beginning, I don't want to go to school. Yeah, I know it's true. But it was really great. It was great.

I think this is an opportunity, hopefully, for all of us to to sort of somehow not be complacent and and have a deeper engagement with with the civic process.

You know, I really agree. And what I really hope is that we should have some sort of a truth and reconciliation. We have to now this the scab has been pulled off of the racism in this country. We have to address it.

And I think at that point, we all make our Constitution real for everyone. Right now it's not.

Yeah, and it never has been because of the racism that has existed from the beginning. That was my you know, we're taught that we didn't it didn't really sink in. Right.

Until until the whole Black Lives Matter movement, which is to validate ourselves and to finally kind of grow up in a way that sounds presumptuous to even say that, but I mean that to to really have our Constitution truthful and meaningful and strong and important for all of us.

We have to we have to deal with with these issues.

And I hope hopefully we'll have the enlightened leadership that will help us do that. Yeah.

And we can hold back authoritarianism for a while.

Yeah. Yeah. We're not a pretty species in huge groups.

We're just not that that can go. Yes. Yeah. So it could be an audience or it could be a political movement. We can, we can turn on a dime for sure. I have a good rest of the day here too.

It's nice to meet you and congratulations on your on your podcast is fascinating. And, you know, I really believe in your where you're coming from, and I'm very honored to talk to you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And I feel the same way. Very honored to talk to you. I've been a huge fan for a long time. Thanks a lot. You later.

Good bye. Bye. Wasn't that surprising and good wow, hillbilly elegy with Glenn Close in, Amy Adams is on Netflix now, directed by Ron Howard, who we talked to. Go listen to that. That was an enlightening talk streaming on Netflix. And don't forget, if you're feeling depressed, overwhelmed, your anxious better help offers licensed online counselors who are trained to listen and help talk with your counselors in a private online environment at your convenience. Just fill out a questionnaire to assess your specific needs, then get matched with a counselor in under 48 hours.

Better help is an affordable option. And for WTF listeners, you get 10 percent off your first month with the discount code. WTF get started today at better lpi dot com slash WTF. Talk to a therapist online and get help. All right, so what's playing clean, man, and playing clean? At. Boomer lives, monkey lives, the Fonda lives. An issue in Shelton. And.