Speaker 1: Pushkin. The fragility of live stage is the most beautiful
Speaker 1: thing in the world. We all play pretend it's different
Speaker 1: than in movies because the people up there are real
Speaker 1: and the people in the audience are real two and
Speaker 1: there is a back and forth, give and take. It's
Speaker 1: not a wall. The fourth wall is not a wall.
Speaker 1: It's a group of people. It's a population. It's just
Speaker 1: this fragile, beautiful thing that you can mess up. If
Speaker 1: you don't believe. That was Alison Pill. I'm San Fragoso
Speaker 1: and this is Talk Easy. Welcome to the show. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: a bit of housekeeping before we get into today's episode,
Speaker 1: and Allison Pill, I just want to thank people who
Speaker 1: wrote in enthusiastically about the show's return. We have I
Speaker 1: think something like forty more episodes to do in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Seems like a lot. It is a lot. If you
Speaker 1: want to drop us a line, please feel free to
Speaker 1: do so at talk easypod at gmail dot com. I
Speaker 1: love reading and responding. I usually respond. I think I've
Speaker 1: responded to every email that we get on the show.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to donate, do remember that we are
Speaker 1: an independently operated podcast, at least for now, so feel
Speaker 1: free to do so on PayPal or Venmo at talk
Speaker 1: easypond dot com, slash Donate. Every donation, no matter the size,
Speaker 1: whether it's one time or recurring, really does help us
Speaker 1: continue doing this thing week after week. So with that said,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be doing this show in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: I'm excited for the next forty episodes, and I'm very
Speaker 1: excited about today's episode. Alison pill I'm not going to
Speaker 1: give much of an intro here. She's incredible. You have
Speaker 1: seen her in many films and television shows. She has
Speaker 1: worked with so many wonderful filmmakers like Bong June Ho,
Speaker 1: Aaron Sorkin, The Cohen Brothers. You probably saw her in
Speaker 1: Vice American Horror Story. She has a new show on
Speaker 1: Hulu from Ex Machina director Alex Garland. It's called Dev's.
Speaker 1: She has also worked a fair bit in the theater.
Speaker 1: She was in Blackbird with Jeff Daniels in the mid
Speaker 1: two thousands. She was also recently in a play called
Speaker 1: Three Tall Women by Edward Alby. In it, she co
Speaker 1: starred alongside Glenda Jackson and Laurie Metcalfe and their rendition
Speaker 1: of this Edward Alby play was as special and transfixing
Speaker 1: of a live theater performance that I've ever seen. And
Speaker 1: what I learned from that play, if I didn't know
Speaker 1: it already, I definitely knew it leaving the theater is
Speaker 1: that Alison really is as dynamic and versatile as they come.
Speaker 1: You need only to look at her performances in Scott
Speaker 1: Pilgrim Versus the World and the news Room and then
Speaker 1: in a short film by Jannick's a Bravo called Woman
Speaker 1: in teep Line. Those three performances up and what you'll
Speaker 1: discover is the kind of range very few people possess.
Speaker 1: My hunch is that the best is yet to come
Speaker 1: for Alison. So without further ado, here is the one
Speaker 1: and only Alison Pill. Alson Pill. How are you feeling? Okay?
Speaker 1: Do these things make you anxious? Uh? Yeah, I mean no,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Uh well, it's a bit of both.
Speaker 1: I mean, part of it's exciting because you're like, somebody's
Speaker 1: going to ask questions about my experience, which you know
Speaker 1: a lot of humans really want because we're all pretty
Speaker 1: self obsessed, So you're like a somebody cares. But then
Speaker 1: the other level on yours, specifically where you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is going to require self exploration. So it's also
Speaker 1: a little anxiety producing. I see. Do you think actors
Speaker 1: are especially self obsessed? Hmmm, it's an interesting thing. I
Speaker 1: think we're more likely to be vain than self obsessed. Necessarily,
Speaker 1: it's a very very easy career in which to become
Speaker 1: self obsessed, because you have people fawning all over you, truly,
Speaker 1: like there's somebody doing your hair and doing your makeup,
Speaker 1: and it's really easy to forget that that's their job.
Speaker 1: They're not there because they want to be. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: may want to be, they may love doing that word totally,
Speaker 1: but it's still their job. It's not like, you know,
Speaker 1: they're not your mom. It's not like they really love you.
Speaker 1: They didn't sign up for free. Yeah. Yeah, so that's confusing.
Speaker 1: You know something that struck me in the beginning. So
Speaker 1: you're born and raised in Toronto, you find that you
Speaker 1: want to act pretty young. I want to go to
Speaker 1: this moment when you're twelve with your mother, you're shooting
Speaker 1: in Montreal and you're staying at a hotel and with
Speaker 1: you is a thing that's very important and as in
Speaker 1: a blanket, and I was thinking about why it matters
Speaker 1: so much the blanket. And I think it's because when
Speaker 1: you're a kid, all you have are your things. They're
Speaker 1: everything to you because they're literally all you have. You
Speaker 1: don't really know about relationships. There's not like intangible things.
Speaker 1: It's just what's physically in front of you. And when
Speaker 1: you're done shooting, you go back home and you find
Speaker 1: that you do not have this blanket. Yeah. So my
Speaker 1: blankie had been with me since you know the word
Speaker 1: go in my life. I mean, it was a torn, ragged,
Speaker 1: vaguely yellow, knotted, ripped monster of a blanket. It had
Speaker 1: been through, It had been through some shit, had been
Speaker 1: through twelve years of shit, and and I had always
Speaker 1: been really aware of not leaving it in the bed
Speaker 1: because we're staying at a hotel. Somebody's like housecheme begins
Speaker 1: going to come in, they're going to change the sheets,
Speaker 1: and nobody's gonna notice my blankiet. And that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: One day, I had forgotten to put it on the
Speaker 1: chair separately, and we called like the laund and tried
Speaker 1: to find it, but it was it was gone. And
Speaker 1: it was at that moment I was like, I'm an
Speaker 1: adult now that's it. I'm a grown up. You remember
Speaker 1: that pretty vividly very much. So, No, it was highly traumatic.
Speaker 1: It was also kind of a traumatic shoot. Otherwise, I was, um,
Speaker 1: I was working a lot of illegal overtime for a kid,
Speaker 1: So I was working much too long, like twelve thirteen
Speaker 1: hour days. Um, that's illegal. So that's that's not didn't
Speaker 1: sound great, No, And so I was just really tired.
Speaker 1: They had a cot for me just off the set
Speaker 1: so that between takes I could run over. I had
Speaker 1: I got really sick and had a fever, so I
Speaker 1: would just like run between takes and just like lie
Speaker 1: down on this cot, right, and I just get back
Speaker 1: up and dance. Okay. Yeah, Um, I mean they knew
Speaker 1: it wasn't Canada was kind of the wild West and
Speaker 1: terms of a lot of kid production stuff like Road
Speaker 1: to Avonlea. Sarah Pauly spoke very critically of that experience
Speaker 1: for her and a lot of there's just less oversight.
Speaker 1: There's fewer productions, and people didn't want to upset what
Speaker 1: few productions there were. Budgets were tighter if it was
Speaker 1: fully Canadian, So you just kind of did it. And
Speaker 1: thinking about that time, did you really know in that moment,
Speaker 1: Oh shit, maybe I'm not a kid anymore. I knew
Speaker 1: that it was weird to still have a blankie that
Speaker 1: at twelve it was weird. My brother's twenty one and
Speaker 1: still has one. See, that's just wise. Transitional objects are
Speaker 1: for transitioning. You can be transitioning for a really long time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the way it goes. It may be a lifelong transition.
Speaker 1: It might be a lifelong transition. I would happily have
Speaker 1: been buried with my blankie, but I shall not be
Speaker 1: because now I'm a grown up. This could be like
Speaker 1: a one woman and play you acting this out? Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be a It would be a short one.
Speaker 1: I didn't say. I didn't say yeah, yeah, yeah, it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be and it would be short. But it could
Speaker 1: be compelling something. The New York Times would call it riveting, transcendent.
Speaker 1: What are the other words they used to describe theater.
Speaker 1: It's always like a salient piece about our time? Is
Speaker 1: it's all of those things. I'm sure it would be. No,
Speaker 1: it not, it would be it is now it is
Speaker 1: a thing, and I'm doing it on Broadway next year. Great,
Speaker 1: just give me an EP credit being a kid in
Speaker 1: a grown up space. You did this your entire teenage life?
Speaker 1: How did you do that? Uh? It struck me as
Speaker 1: pretty normal at the time. And when I moved out
Speaker 1: and moved to New York later and sort of overtime
Speaker 1: met other beautiful traumatized former child actors. Is that how
Speaker 1: you guys introduce yourself? Yeah? Oh hi, Yeah, we're all
Speaker 1: pretty messed up about it. You know, some people don't
Speaker 1: die early or maintain a career, which is like the success.
Speaker 1: But there were huge gaps in my knowledge for so long,
Speaker 1: odd ones like what, there are a bunch of us
Speaker 1: who never got driver's licenses when we were supposed to.
Speaker 1: Because we've been driven everywhere. We have a crew driver
Speaker 1: come to pick us up for now. I learned about
Speaker 1: five years ago, five or six years ago. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: did your mother think about you being a working actress
Speaker 1: at the age of twelve, thirteen, fourteen? She was with
Speaker 1: me all the time, so she was the one who
Speaker 1: was traveling with me. I mean, here's the thing I
Speaker 1: credit them with being awesome parents. They were and I
Speaker 1: was never I never had to support my family, which
Speaker 1: creates really messy power dynamics that I've seen play out
Speaker 1: to a terrifying degree in other places, just because you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be cowtowing to your child because they're the main earner,
Speaker 1: Like you should be like, hey, jerk, stop that. And
Speaker 1: if you can't because they are earning all the money
Speaker 1: in the family, it's it's a really messy power dynamic.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't my case. I think my mom thought
Speaker 1: that I was good, good at acting, and I was
Speaker 1: really happy on set. I mean, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I didn't um the one place where I had found
Speaker 1: that I fit in as a kid with the wonderful
Speaker 1: arts program that I went to in Toronto, UM called
Speaker 1: Claude Watson. But then they asked me to leave because
Speaker 1: I was missing school. Didn't they have some other description
Speaker 1: for you? I was a waste of space. That one
Speaker 1: that was the one, thank God of kindness. I just
Speaker 1: didn't write that down. I thought, that's a line that's
Speaker 1: like swirling around in your head forever, forever, forever, especially
Speaker 1: for somebody exiting grade seven. Like in the first year
Speaker 1: of middle school, there was just one more year to
Speaker 1: finish and then the transition could be made to high school.
Speaker 1: But I was like, really, I have to go to
Speaker 1: regular high school, I mean regular middle school for one
Speaker 1: year when everybody else has been there for another year
Speaker 1: before me like a new kid for the second year
Speaker 1: of one like insane middle school that's only grade seven
Speaker 1: and eight. Because they just sort of shunted us crazy
Speaker 1: pubescent people to their own building. I was like, keep
Speaker 1: them all together, but keep them away from everybody else,
Speaker 1: which in some yeah, like in some ways is wise
Speaker 1: because you're not quite big enough to be in a
Speaker 1: high school, like physically, you're just like not prepared for
Speaker 1: big people. Did you think at that age were you
Speaker 1: confident about yourself and your abilities. I've been pretty consistently
Speaker 1: confident in my acting abilities. There have been times when
Speaker 1: that's been misplaced, and I've learned lessons like that overly confident,
Speaker 1: you know where I've been like, oh, I there was
Speaker 1: a movie called Perfect Pie that I did. There's an
Speaker 1: adaptation adaptation of a beautiful play me and Rachel McAdams.
Speaker 1: It was her like second feature out of school, and
Speaker 1: she was extraordinary, and I just was like, I was
Speaker 1: a little bit miscast, but I anyway, I didn't make
Speaker 1: my hair dirty, like I didn't make bigger acting choices
Speaker 1: that I could have. I mean, I was like maybe
Speaker 1: sixteen at the time, so you know, I'm cutting myself
Speaker 1: slack on that one, where like I could have you know,
Speaker 1: that's also director, that's also producer of just anyone could
Speaker 1: have stepped in there. Yeah, But looking back, I was like,
Speaker 1: I wanted it so much, and I wanted it to
Speaker 1: be so good. And I'm speaking purely of my performance,
Speaker 1: so it's like it wasn't quite at the level that
Speaker 1: I wanted it to be. But it was a great
Speaker 1: learning experience in terms of taking control of some of
Speaker 1: the things that I could and I'm still learning that lesson.
Speaker 1: But overall, No, it was the one area of my
Speaker 1: life and it's why many other areas of my life
Speaker 1: felt minuscule in comparison, because I just didn't I did
Speaker 1: not feel as confident. What do you mean by minuscule, Well,
Speaker 1: I just didn't care about. The most important thing in
Speaker 1: my life was always acting. Did you have that in there?
Speaker 1: I do? I do? Actually, yeah, thank you for setting
Speaker 1: me up as I appreciate it. In twenty thirteen, you
Speaker 1: were asked if acting was the core of your life,
Speaker 1: and you said yes, Is that so true? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: because now I'm a Mama, you weren't then I wasn't then. No.
Speaker 1: I was talking to my husband about this because I've
Speaker 1: gotten to be quite a SaaS pans at work, not
Speaker 1: in a bad way, not in an actual saspans way,
Speaker 1: in a I think I brought some of it here,
Speaker 1: but I'm totally here for it. Also I expect it
Speaker 1: as much because we had met once before. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: hope that you would bring all the sassas. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: SaaS and the pants there they kind of come with
Speaker 1: now it used to be I would be much quieter
Speaker 1: and more resentful. We don't want that here, no, No,
Speaker 1: and people don't want it on set. And it's also
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a few things. It's age, it's experience,
Speaker 1: it's my own actual power, and a production now has
Speaker 1: shifted as I've gotten more things. And also the now discounted.
Speaker 1: But you know that that like stand like a gorilla
Speaker 1: pose before a meeting. Thing that's now totally discounted. And
Speaker 1: but I was just thinking in my head, like if
Speaker 1: you believe it, people might believe you more. So I
Speaker 1: feel like I became more of a gorilla. It could
Speaker 1: be a gorilla sas pants yeah, oh fully, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: that now because I have the belief that people will
Speaker 1: listen to me about notes on script, about things that
Speaker 1: I feel about a scene or whatever else like that
Speaker 1: belief now travels with me in a way that it
Speaker 1: didn't used to, where now I'd be like I need
Speaker 1: dirty hair, dirty this hair, you know whatever, like they
Speaker 1: would they would have to listen to me. My husband
Speaker 1: was listening to me talk about the production on now
Speaker 1: and telling one of my wonderful co actors to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we should have had more food. You should have brought
Speaker 1: that up. You don't like that line, tell him you
Speaker 1: gotta tell them, write an email, just go for it.
Speaker 1: And he's like, who even are you? You didn't used
Speaker 1: to be this way? And it's a series of showrunners
Speaker 1: who have empowered me to a great But you've arrived
Speaker 1: at that place. Yes, it wasn't always the case. No,
Speaker 1: because in two thousand and four year in a movie
Speaker 1: called Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, which I think
Speaker 1: I watched as a kid, but yeah, you probably did.
Speaker 1: Everybody has, I swear it. It's honestly the thing that
Speaker 1: I'm still most recognized for. I was the right age
Speaker 1: for it. Yeah, you didn't have power in this production.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of things that you found, i'd
Speaker 1: say wrong about it in terms of the writing, the
Speaker 1: making of it. It was your first kind of big
Speaker 1: thing on a big studio level. What do you remember
Speaker 1: now fifteen sixteen years removed from it. I mean, I
Speaker 1: will say this, I've come to a place of peace
Speaker 1: with it. Your arms across now, yeah, this is my
Speaker 1: I will loosen and be more open to discussing this
Speaker 1: project because it was a real It used to be
Speaker 1: a really defensive place for me to even talk about it.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm not I'm more than this. I'm
Speaker 1: more than this Disney movie. And now like fifteen yeah,
Speaker 1: fifteen years on, I'm like, cool, man, it's still alive.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know you were in it till this morning,
Speaker 1: so if it helps, I don't know anything about that. Yes,
Speaker 1: it seems like it was a learning experience in retrospect
Speaker 1: and painful in the moment it was clarifying. It really was.
Speaker 1: I had just graduated high school. I was figuring out
Speaker 1: whether I would try to go to university or not,
Speaker 1: and I only applied to one university, which was Oxford UM,
Speaker 1: partly because of the Golden Compass honestly partly because of
Speaker 1: Philip Pullman. Truly, did you get in? No? I interviewed there,
Speaker 1: but I did not get in, which fair enough. Um,
Speaker 1: I was at this moment of deciding whether I really
Speaker 1: wanted to be an actor, um like, starting to have
Speaker 1: a realization that child acting is really kind of crazy
Speaker 1: and that you had been mistreated. Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I don't think I was even at that one yet. Honestly,
Speaker 1: that's later I think, actually another trauma and didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't arrive there yet. Thanks for incorrectly. No, I mean
Speaker 1: it was all true. I just don't think I realized
Speaker 1: it as such at that point in time. And the
Speaker 1: amount of money that was spent on the production that
Speaker 1: I saw is wasteful. I was also being introduced to,
Speaker 1: I mean, one of my best friends in my life
Speaker 1: I met during that summer through the director's assistant, Henry,
Speaker 1: who he just introduced me to this crew of Toronto guys,
Speaker 1: all of whom were about twenty three, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like the Zoey Deschanel, like one
Speaker 1: day you'll be cool. And that was also that summer.
Speaker 1: At the same time, separate from the production but because
Speaker 1: of the production, I was like, man, I might be
Speaker 1: able to talk to people, like I might be catching
Speaker 1: up with my age finally, like I have my peer
Speaker 1: group is now only slightly older than me. And that
Speaker 1: was a big transition. But then the film itself was
Speaker 1: just kind of I didn't feel like it had good
Speaker 1: messages for girls, and I felt really strongly about that.
Speaker 1: The script kept getting changed, changed, and that was really disappointing, um,
Speaker 1: because of studio notes, Like originally we're trying to run
Speaker 1: away from home to see a concert in New York City.
Speaker 1: We're going from Jersey to New York City, and the
Speaker 1: whole thing is we're going to sneak out. But then
Speaker 1: halfway through production they changed it so that we weren't
Speaker 1: sneaking out anymore and we got permission. And I was
Speaker 1: just like, but you guys, that was the whole movie.
Speaker 1: That's the whole Like, that's the whole thing, the entire conflict. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the movie is, hey, um, want to go to this concert?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, let's go to concert. So it's about
Speaker 1: a time minute film exactly. It's about as long as
Speaker 1: you as my one woman play. Yeah, uh yeah, just
Speaker 1: slightly just a little bit um. Yeah, we can edit
Speaker 1: that out. I have editing rights, right, that's what we do.
Speaker 1: I edit this aff Yeah, we're friends. Go ahead, Dallas,
Speaker 1: and you just take the whole thing. That's how this works. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: who cares about this movie? Truly? I only brought it
Speaker 1: up because it seemed to be an important moment in
Speaker 1: your life. However painful it was at the time, however
Speaker 1: stupid it is in retrospect. What I liked about what
Speaker 1: you said is you're bringing up that scene and almost famous.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the best part of the movie in
Speaker 1: looking back at it. That's Man, ta good caver in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Man, one day it'll be cool. Yes, who
Speaker 1: couldn't you been? It'll set you free. I watched that
Speaker 1: movie a lot because I also not as young as you,
Speaker 1: but started very early working around people that were older.
Speaker 1: That's when I thought I wanted to be like a
Speaker 1: film critic. I was like fifteen. It's great because it
Speaker 1: captures a thing I think maybe we both had, which
Speaker 1: is there is a desperation to be taken seriously and
Speaker 1: to feel equal, even though you're not exactly equal, and
Speaker 1: you don't even have the intellectual bandwidth to be equal, right,
Speaker 1: but you're asked to do the things that the people
Speaker 1: around you are doing, and it's very confusing. It's also
Speaker 1: very easy to get addicted to precocity. You're just like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm ahead of my time. Yeah yeah, yeah, I'm better
Speaker 1: than the people my age, and you just I tried
Speaker 1: to block that word out because it was said all
Speaker 1: the time, and it's troubling because you start believing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just makes aging harder, which is already a kind
Speaker 1: of weird thing to do. I mean, we all do it,
Speaker 1: but it's um, i'd say a woman in Hollywood, but
Speaker 1: a person anywhere it's I mean, it's it's an existential threat,
Speaker 1: this aging thing you will end. So to make any
Speaker 1: of that harder seems cruel. And this sort of petering
Speaker 1: out of the use of the word precocious. I was like,
Speaker 1: but I'm still precocious, And now I'm like, no, I'm not. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not precocious at all anymore. I'm just kind of
Speaker 1: a thirty four year old lady. You know, like, you're
Speaker 1: a very precocious you're ahead of your time. Thanks, What
Speaker 1: did it do to your sense of self in your twenties?
Speaker 1: Did you realize, oh that those things that happened to
Speaker 1: me I kiss on set, Yeah, the cot all of that,
Speaker 1: you know, which was only a decade prior. Was that
Speaker 1: when you realize as, oh, this is maybe a little peculiar.
Speaker 1: That's when I started to realize it. And I was
Speaker 1: also in the midst of dating men in their mid
Speaker 1: to late thirties and again that you're just like, you're precocious.
Speaker 1: It's cool, and kind of by my late twenties, I
Speaker 1: was like I started dating people my own age and
Speaker 1: kind of trying to figure that out and kind of
Speaker 1: more age appropriate. And that was a real transition because
Speaker 1: it was like, Okay, I think you were still chasing
Speaker 1: precocious there or trying to figure out how to be
Speaker 1: around the grown ups, and that's not how you do it.
Speaker 1: It was also a position I felt comfortable in and
Speaker 1: being the kind of you know, you're like, you're the ingenue.
Speaker 1: This is what people want from you, you know, and
Speaker 1: this makes sense. And also in terms of first kiss
Speaker 1: being on set, like showmance's became deeply confusing in a
Speaker 1: way that they're always confusing. I mean, to have any
Speaker 1: chemistry with somebody who's not your partner. Now it's just
Speaker 1: like what but you But I've been through enough relationships
Speaker 1: and have enough history to go like, okay, that's what
Speaker 1: that is. Can you explain that term to make okay? So,
Speaker 1: a showmance is when you fall deeply in love with
Speaker 1: someone who you're in a show with because you're playing
Speaker 1: romantic partners, and you get really confused as to what's
Speaker 1: real and what's not, and then you end up dating
Speaker 1: that person what's reality and what's in character right, and
Speaker 1: and it can get very confusing, especially if you're twenty
Speaker 1: one twenty two, and again your first kiss was on
Speaker 1: set because no boy had ever kissed you when they
Speaker 1: weren't being paid to do it, like you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? So it was I don't know why that
Speaker 1: makes me more uncommon. I know you're really well, just
Speaker 1: finish your thing and I'll tell you why. That's a showmance.
Speaker 1: And they happens among many actors because you're lines get
Speaker 1: blurry and you're kind of a fantasist anyway, like anybody is.
Speaker 1: But you actually get to act on it a way
Speaker 1: that people don't, or get to live through these really
Speaker 1: romantic gestures that aren't your own they're your characters, but
Speaker 1: you kind of get confused. Was it confusing for you
Speaker 1: in terms of how you felt about someone? Did you
Speaker 1: ever think, do I actually care about this person or
Speaker 1: is it just the character that cares about this person?
Speaker 1: Well you find out kind of swiftly after the production
Speaker 1: ends if it has legs. But I also was such
Speaker 1: an extreme fantasist that I was like, it's got legs.
Speaker 1: No matter what, it's got legs. They're like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, but you might be wrong about that. Like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not, it's for real. So that was me in
Speaker 1: my twenties. How did that manifest in your twenties dating
Speaker 1: older dudes? I've done played with and insisting and insisting
Speaker 1: this is real? And when did that change? I think
Speaker 1: around twenty six. I think when I was twenty five.
Speaker 1: I started dating at twenty five year old, and then
Speaker 1: I was twenty six. I got into a more serious
Speaker 1: relationship with somebody who was just a couple years older
Speaker 1: than me, and I was like, oh, yeah, we're idiots
Speaker 1: at the same level. This feels good. So that's what
Speaker 1: you want. You want idiocy at the same level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that you can't have that with
Speaker 1: I mean, my husband now is ten years older than me,
Speaker 1: but he's an idiot at the same level. Right, I
Speaker 1: gotta think on this. Okay, you're in a play called Blackbird.
Speaker 1: This feels adjacent to the showman's of it. But you
Speaker 1: have a quote here about being in that play with
Speaker 1: Jeff Daniels, and you said, when I was in Blackbird,
Speaker 1: I just didn't have the capacity to deal with anything.
Speaker 1: I didn't have support from the director, and I was
Speaker 1: feeling very lost. So my solution was to have for
Speaker 1: martinis a night. I'm not really interested in the martinis,
Speaker 1: although we can talk about the martinis. They were good.
Speaker 1: There's a great bar across the street from the theater. Yeah, strong,
Speaker 1: excellent martiniz fairly priced? Uh no, they were extreme. I
Speaker 1: mean it was midtown, of course, they were not fairly priced. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seventeen dollars, Yeah, yeah, great. I'm interested in the what
Speaker 1: you were willing to do and are still willing to
Speaker 1: do in terms of submerging yourself and a character for
Speaker 1: a role. Is that what happened here? Am I misreading that? No?
Speaker 1: That one that was a real confusion for me. I
Speaker 1: was also at a very dark period in my life
Speaker 1: generally speaking, But I didn't feel arms are crossed again. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this one can be arms crossed. This might be arms crossed.
Speaker 1: I um, that play honestly almost destroyed me. I was
Speaker 1: really what happened? I uh, And it's because now we're
Speaker 1: now we're good. But I had a really tough time
Speaker 1: working with Joe Mentello, who directed that production. We'd had
Speaker 1: a great working relationship, and there was one kind of
Speaker 1: blow up that happened to be the week that critics
Speaker 1: were arriving, and he sort of tore me down, and
Speaker 1: I'm and I'm not sure whether it was to get
Speaker 1: at my vulnerability, whether I was, you know, keeping something
Speaker 1: back that might have been his feeling. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: But I basically spent the first three months of that
Speaker 1: production really not wanting to go on stage. I really
Speaker 1: didn't want to subject the audience to my bad acting
Speaker 1: and badness. And I knew that the play became a success.
Speaker 1: We got extended, people said it was really big and
Speaker 1: important stuff that was happening. Yes, yeah, salient, exponential FARSI
Speaker 1: one they really use elegiac, Oh yeah, I and Elegiac.
Speaker 1: I don't think ours was elegiac. I don't think so,
Speaker 1: but I think they were like, this is deeply creepy.
Speaker 1: I just wasn't taking care of myself. I mean, halfway
Speaker 1: through the production, my stage manager because I fell every night,
Speaker 1: like there's just a moment when I fall, and that
Speaker 1: the stage was carpeted wonderful stage design, anyway, the stage
Speaker 1: is like kind of shitty office carpet and I would
Speaker 1: fall every night on the same knee and was fine,
Speaker 1: but I kept rubbing the same spot over and over.
Speaker 1: The carpet was not the cleanest, and I just never
Speaker 1: did anything about it because it was like, this is
Speaker 1: just happening. And my stage manager finally looked at it.
Speaker 1: She was like, oh my god, your knee is really
Speaker 1: infected and it was like green pus was exiting my
Speaker 1: knee and like I had the hydrogen peroxide it a lot,
Speaker 1: and she was like, you've really gotta to hear this.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, okay, sure, Like I hadn't
Speaker 1: even processed that pact, like noticed it. I don't know,
Speaker 1: like it was at that level of not taking care
Speaker 1: I was really and it's a really dark play. There
Speaker 1: was no housekeeping, no none. And then at the time
Speaker 1: they brought up wanting to take it to Broadway, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm pretty sure I'll I might die,
Speaker 1: Like I think I might. That's the end of Allison. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And since then, Joe and I have repaired our relationship.
Speaker 1: You know, we worked together on Three Tall Women and
Speaker 1: it was really good in many ways, but it was
Speaker 1: I've never not want to go on stage. I'm always like,
Speaker 1: where's the stage, gem me to it. I love it.
Speaker 1: I don't have stage fright. What was it about that
Speaker 1: performance that you felt, oh, this is not fit for
Speaker 1: people to see? Well, Joe really and we were late,
Speaker 1: late enough in the process that hearing him say the
Speaker 1: things that he was saying, which were like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what you're doing right now, and we just went
Speaker 1: to word one of the play and it wasn't just
Speaker 1: general notes anymore. It was just like start again, start again,
Speaker 1: start again. And by the end I was hyperventilating and
Speaker 1: and left and then I was like rehearsals over. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, because I can't talk because I'm like preventilating.
Speaker 1: I just don't. And we were also doing five show weekends,
Speaker 1: so it was Friday to Saturday to Sunday, which for
Speaker 1: a two hander of this level of yeah, I should
Speaker 1: say the play is about pedophilia. The play is about
Speaker 1: a twenty seven year old woman coming to visit the
Speaker 1: man who she had a relationship when she was twelve.
Speaker 1: And it's very complicated and really dark and really, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's an incredible play by David Harrower, but it was
Speaker 1: dark material. How did you pull yourself out from that?
Speaker 1: The wonderful director Doug Hughes came along and at a
Speaker 1: very similar moment in the rehearsal process for a play
Speaker 1: called Mauritius, it was just we were about to leave
Speaker 1: the rehearsal room and about to move into the stage,
Speaker 1: and so it was a real moment of transition and
Speaker 1: instead of you know, I know what Joe was doing
Speaker 1: and I understand it now, but to myself then I
Speaker 1: didn't And with Doug, Doug just took me aside and
Speaker 1: pulled me into a different rehearsal room, sat me down
Speaker 1: and said, you know, I think you can go deeper.
Speaker 1: I think you're holding back in a very one on one,
Speaker 1: respectful conversation, and I burst into tears and I was like,
Speaker 1: you're right, And his assistant actually got the photo of us,
Speaker 1: there's just like the two of us on opposite sides
Speaker 1: of a table, and his assistant was standing in the
Speaker 1: hallway and he just took a snap randomly and it
Speaker 1: was just like, and I have that, and I just think, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful to that man because it was that
Speaker 1: moment of like the respect to say, I don't need
Speaker 1: to break you down in order for you to find
Speaker 1: your breakdown. I think you're very talented and you can
Speaker 1: find your breakdown yourself. But I think you can. I
Speaker 1: think you also have it in you to take this
Speaker 1: breakdown further on this stage and not to your house
Speaker 1: but the lot. Yeah, it seems in looking at so
Speaker 1: much of what you've done, you are being directed by men. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is that a conversation when looking back at your experiences
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, maybe some of the things that
Speaker 1: didn't work were gendered. I hesitate to say that it's gendered.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it has been decidedly um yeah, please correct man.
Speaker 1: This is just a no, no, no no. And and
Speaker 1: that's where I I've worked with really just untalented women,
Speaker 1: and I've worked with some untalented men, but the I
Speaker 1: would say the untalented men that I've worked with um
Speaker 1: or the talented ones have been more toxic than the females,
Speaker 1: but that's just probably because they're more prevalent um and
Speaker 1: because they can they can get people to listen to
Speaker 1: them in a different way. Yeah, just like like beyond
Speaker 1: beyond the production, you know, it's just their their megaphone
Speaker 1: is bigger. Something I was struck by when when we
Speaker 1: saw three tall women, not only how compelling you were,
Speaker 1: but how locked in you seem to be in that performance.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you were in other performances. I just
Speaker 1: only went to the one and then I was reading,
Speaker 1: and you have this approach towards audience that I am
Speaker 1: really fascinated by. I could quote you on it, but
Speaker 1: I would prefer you just talk about it because I'm
Speaker 1: just interested what your methodology is going in because it's
Speaker 1: I could describe it as harsh, but that seems harsh. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's laughing as I was asking that question. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm laughing because I don't like them. I don't think
Speaker 1: many of them are good. You're talking about in theater,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the butts and seats that make my job possible.
Speaker 1: I have a contentious relationship with that's a better word.
Speaker 1: I've also recently been doing some really helpful work with
Speaker 1: OCD stuff. Um misophonia as treated as OCD. So a
Speaker 1: lot of it is like people move like sound things,
Speaker 1: movement things in the audience, um would send me into
Speaker 1: a crazy rage, which I'm now doing some work on
Speaker 1: to try and facilitate my own improvement around. Is that
Speaker 1: why you're not wearing headphones? Um No, that's just because
Speaker 1: I hate the sound of my voice. Um No, that's
Speaker 1: an easier thing. Um No, people are just theater is
Speaker 1: my church, I mean, besides my real church. It's my
Speaker 1: other journey church too. It's my church too, and it's
Speaker 1: been it's been my getaway, it's been it's the place
Speaker 1: I respect the most. And so when people are disrespectful
Speaker 1: of the work, but of the sanctuary itself, I get
Speaker 1: really upset, like very angry, and then I will do
Speaker 1: the show at them that person, or be like you
Speaker 1: don't deserve this show, Like asshole, who's like you got
Speaker 1: your feet out, you came in fucking jeans, you got
Speaker 1: some fucking pretzels, Go fuck yourself. You're dead to me,
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna do the show for you, you cocksucker,
Speaker 1: So you're doing a better job for them? Is that
Speaker 1: what it is? Yeah, You're looking at them and you're
Speaker 1: like you're yeah, I'm gonna be great. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really make sense that um. During Reasons to
Speaker 1: Be Pretty, we at the Lucille Lortel, which is a
Speaker 1: much smaller theater um and because of the set, we
Speaker 1: could kind of peek through these like um. Part of
Speaker 1: the set was like the plastic um you know when
Speaker 1: like a loading dock, like the plastic kind of freezer flaps,
Speaker 1: the like plastic freezer flaps that you walk through. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like a curtain of plastic. Okay maybe Anyway,
Speaker 1: we were obscured enough behind them that they couldn't see,
Speaker 1: so I would literally look out and be like, M
Speaker 1: four is gonna get it, And by get it, I
Speaker 1: mean a good performance because I'm angry at them. Why
Speaker 1: does that work for you? I mean, I suppose it's
Speaker 1: the same kind of thing as naked picturing, just trying
Speaker 1: to make the audience vulnerable in a moment when you
Speaker 1: yourself are really vulnerable, and also when you are vulnerable
Speaker 1: and people are invulnerable, like they've not come in the
Speaker 1: right headspace. The fragility of live stage is the most
Speaker 1: beautiful thing in the world. We all play pretend it's
Speaker 1: different than in movies because the people up there are
Speaker 1: real and the people in the audience are real two
Speaker 1: and there is a there is a back and forth,
Speaker 1: give and take. It's not a wall. The fourth wall
Speaker 1: is not a wall. It's a it's a group of people.
Speaker 1: It's a population, and they can fuck up a show
Speaker 1: just as much as we can if they're not in
Speaker 1: the right headspace. And so, I mean, I think every
Speaker 1: age actor we'll talk about a good audience or a
Speaker 1: bad audience. And it's energetic too, And because it's just
Speaker 1: this fragile, beautiful thing that you can mess up if
Speaker 1: you don't believe. It's like Tinkerbell, you've got a clap.
Speaker 1: I've never watched the video of Peter Pant which I
Speaker 1: watched every day at the Mary Martin nineteen fifties version.
Speaker 1: It's troubling, I mean, in many ways, Tiger Lily, it's
Speaker 1: got a lot of issues, but you have to clap
Speaker 1: for tinker Bell so that she lives. And I've never
Speaker 1: even alone as a kid in the room, did I
Speaker 1: let it go by like I was, like, you got clap.
Speaker 1: I mean, I understand it's a tape from you know,
Speaker 1: fifty years ago that we taped off the TV on
Speaker 1: our VHS player, Like, I understand that, but you got
Speaker 1: a clap. And you think most audiences are not entering
Speaker 1: in the right head space. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: the audience doesn't know how to be vulnerable. I wonder
Speaker 1: if it's not a question of if they don't know
Speaker 1: how to be vulnerable, but that they don't know that
Speaker 1: they ought to be vulnerable right now and they don't
Speaker 1: have the training. I mean, and it's just like, but
Speaker 1: that's why I find myself obligated to stare at them
Speaker 1: and try and make eye contact with them while I'm
Speaker 1: on stage, to be like, I can see you eating.
Speaker 1: I can see you, just as you can see me.
Speaker 1: I too can see you and your rapper and your
Speaker 1: goddamn gum. When I was doing The Miracle Worker, which
Speaker 1: is in the round, there would be people with their
Speaker 1: feet stretched out on the stage, so I would circle
Speaker 1: the edge of the stage trying to kick them. They
Speaker 1: really put their fear, they would put their feet on
Speaker 1: the stage. I mean, it's this is what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about Well, there's another problem with later, which is that
Speaker 1: it's yes, which is rich white people. Yeah, which some
Speaker 1: folks are trying to fix, But it's Jeremy O. Harris
Speaker 1: being one of them. Exactly what I was going to say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the Peter Pan and I was looking at
Speaker 1: all the things you've done. There are a handful of
Speaker 1: people that you've worked with that I think you've delivered
Speaker 1: great work in but they have a legacy that has
Speaker 1: been tarnished for various reasons. I'm curious with someone like
Speaker 1: what's been happening with Woody and where we're at, and
Speaker 1: it's a whole bunch of people, how do you think
Speaker 1: we talk about work that's tethered to a tarnished legacy.
Speaker 1: I am as confused as the next person, because I
Speaker 1: think we're all confused. And I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've always liked T. S. Eliot problematic. We can go
Speaker 1: down the line. I mean, we can go down the
Speaker 1: line for everybody's problematic. I don't know how to separate
Speaker 1: the artist from the art. I don't think, and I
Speaker 1: don't get the same enjoyment from the art, which I
Speaker 1: think is probably good. Where you can look at it
Speaker 1: from a critical I think the argument to be made
Speaker 1: for not writing off all of Woody Allen's work is
Speaker 1: how it would also erase so much of me, of
Speaker 1: Pharaoh's amazing work, of Diane Weis amazing work, of all
Speaker 1: these other people's amazing work. I think that's the part
Speaker 1: that I can't reconcile. That's the really hard I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone wants to throw those out. No, Like I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, but I think it's okay that they're not
Speaker 1: enjoyable anymore. I mean, I have bad feelings about I
Speaker 1: have complicated feelings, and really I talked about it a
Speaker 1: lot before Enduring and then post Rodan Pharaoh, and Dylan's
Speaker 1: greater public exploration of it, and specifically her public letter
Speaker 1: was very affecting, affecting to me. Yeah, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think we get to just flat out enjoy
Speaker 1: those eyes anymore. Like I can read the Waste Land
Speaker 1: and I can love it, but I can also be like, wow,
Speaker 1: I've been reading um tight Rope by Um Nick Christoph
Speaker 1: and Cheryl wu Dunn. They wrote Half the Sky there,
Speaker 1: you know, the coolest journalist couple. Yeah, I think we
Speaker 1: think they have that title pretty fairly, and they they
Speaker 1: talk about a politics of grace. It's not something as
Speaker 1: easy as a second chance, but it is saying do
Speaker 1: people have room for improvement? Like it could because I
Speaker 1: think the idea of canceling out without process and not
Speaker 1: it's not due process. I mean, I understand, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's so complicated because I I would like to have
Speaker 1: grace towards people if they show remorse. Yeah, And then
Speaker 1: you get into this whole like is their remorse performative? Yes? Right?
Speaker 1: Is it sincere? And how even one gaide sincerity? Did
Speaker 1: you listen to that? There's a couple of things that
Speaker 1: I've really gotten me thinking in wonderful ways about this
Speaker 1: complicated ways but wonderful and examining my own feelings about it,
Speaker 1: in my own generations feelings about it. Radio added a
Speaker 1: series of three about consent, which was excellent, and the
Speaker 1: second one is the woman who helps young men reapply
Speaker 1: to university after having been accused of sexual harassment or
Speaker 1: assault or unwanted sexual advances or whatever, and her take
Speaker 1: on it was so amazing and I found myself really
Speaker 1: leaning towards her and also being confused by the female
Speaker 1: journalist who's younger and her take on it, and that
Speaker 1: there's this generational divide and in the same ways that
Speaker 1: I've had kind of fucked up power dynamics in relationships
Speaker 1: of my own and times that I'm like, well, sure
Speaker 1: in this day and age, I would have Yeah, at
Speaker 1: the same time, I'm like, I do not want my
Speaker 1: agency removed from me at any point. And I see
Speaker 1: it as that, and I see it as as somebody
Speaker 1: trying to take away my agency, many of them women,
Speaker 1: And then then that's my generational feeling and I know
Speaker 1: it's that's not what they see. And I you know,
Speaker 1: I understand. I would love to get to a place
Speaker 1: where you and I can talk about this even kind
Speaker 1: of comfortably here, yes, because we're both like tightening right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I know after we'll talk about this part, yeah,
Speaker 1: and be wondering did we say the right thing? Yes,
Speaker 1: and that that doesn't work and if we're we even
Speaker 1: kind of know each other and we can't just because
Speaker 1: we know people are going to hear this. Yes, we
Speaker 1: have to be so selective. And I really hope when
Speaker 1: Donald Trump loses this year, I'm going to say when Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and we get past this. I really hope
Speaker 1: we can arrive at a place and dialogue where there
Speaker 1: is conversation and we really do hear from all sides
Speaker 1: and try to get some kind of middle grounds, sometimes
Speaker 1: just some kind of empathy at all. Yeah, because this
Speaker 1: is not going to work long term, and it's hard
Speaker 1: to even bringing it up. I feel uncomfortable bringing it up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And there's nothing wrong with discomfort, that's like where great
Speaker 1: work lives all the time, but discomfort with fear. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's the fear portion of the discomfort because all of
Speaker 1: these discussions would be uncomfortable. Yeah, we're talking about power, gender, sex,
Speaker 1: people's ideas of all of those things bumping up against
Speaker 1: your own and also a real cultural shift that's long
Speaker 1: overdue and wonderful. But is I mean shifting sands under
Speaker 1: a lot of feet. And I think it's the fear portion,
Speaker 1: and that it's just the fear of saying something not wrong,
Speaker 1: because of course I'm going to say something wrong, but
Speaker 1: something that will be taken to mean that I have
Speaker 1: ill will towards one or the other party. That's exactly it.
Speaker 1: And I've said this before on the show. It's like
Speaker 1: the amount that people believe that other people are acting
Speaker 1: and speaking in bad faith is astonishing. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: really hope that we can get rid of That's why
Speaker 1: I started going to church honestly, really yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for real, I didn't know any of that non with
Speaker 1: the church I started going. When you mentioned the whole church, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the other church, I thought, yeah, no, I um,
Speaker 1: because liberal secular humanism is taking a turn for the
Speaker 1: hateful in a lot of ways. I don't know what
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm uh, it's there's just there's
Speaker 1: just a lot of fear and tension bound up in
Speaker 1: it right now. And I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm going to need a little break to think outside
Speaker 1: of this. And truly, like the church I go to,
Speaker 1: our youth minister is like on a good day, I'm agnostic,
Speaker 1: So like we're not really you know, um, I like them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we were all struggling with faith and we
Speaker 1: all come at it from different, very different backgrounds, very
Speaker 1: different places. But I unfortunately went to Catholic school for
Speaker 1: my parents are not Catholic. It's a whole different conversation
Speaker 1: about education. Yes, but I did read something that I
Speaker 1: wanted to bring up before we leave. Back in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: you were asked about marriage, and one of the reasons
Speaker 1: you were reluctant to getting married is because of some
Speaker 1: of the bylines in the church and in the Bible
Speaker 1: about divorce. Now that you are married, you know, you
Speaker 1: said this thing that made me laugh, because did I say,
Speaker 1: I think about my family? You said, on the subject
Speaker 1: of getting married and having a whole wedding, you said,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether I can trust the world enough.
Speaker 1: Just statistically, statistically for people and then statistically for actors
Speaker 1: are like two different sets of figures. I would say
Speaker 1: there is a one in seven million chance for actors,
Speaker 1: and the one in seven million was Paul Newman and
Speaker 1: Joanna Woodward. And that's it. That's the only one. I
Speaker 1: say that, knowing that you are married. I'm married to
Speaker 1: an actor also and a filmmaker, a director. So where
Speaker 1: are we at here, Allison? We're still married? Why know
Speaker 1: that part? Congratulations? Thanks making it to year even just five.
Speaker 1: That's better than most of what I've seen them. Where
Speaker 1: are you at in terms of that kind of sentiment
Speaker 1: around partnership. I think partnership is amazing. I think what's
Speaker 1: his name? That Elene de Bauton, the Um philosopher guy.
Speaker 1: He's like, if you're happy sixty percent of the time,
Speaker 1: you're in a good marriage. So that's a lot of
Speaker 1: the time you're not happy. But he's like, if you
Speaker 1: aim for that, you're in a good marriage. Like, if
Speaker 1: it's not a lot that it'll outweigh the less happy times.
Speaker 1: But it's enough that you're like, if we were just
Speaker 1: talking kind of economically, you're in a better situation than
Speaker 1: you would be otherwise. Sixty forty that's the that's the
Speaker 1: good marriage. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. And I
Speaker 1: think I've been really aware of this in UM. I've
Speaker 1: just become aware of this as we've started to institute
Speaker 1: family movie nights and kind of introduce our kid to movies.
Speaker 1: And there's just a lot of unnecessary romance in children's movies.
Speaker 1: Like looking back, I'm like, why are are we trying
Speaker 1: to sell this point that this fish lady who can't
Speaker 1: talk is actually falling in love with this guy who's
Speaker 1: too old for her, Like, no, this isn't this isn't
Speaker 1: going to be helpful in your life. My friends early
Speaker 1: on and I just and I'm so I'm really kind
Speaker 1: of determined to not introduce romance because I just think
Speaker 1: it does a disservice to us all because long term partnership,
Speaker 1: maybe it's romantic. Listen, Joanne and Paul made it look romantic,
Speaker 1: and they really, I mean, they really sold it. Maybe
Speaker 1: they were just like not that. I don't know, they
Speaker 1: seemed really happy. I'm gonna go with they were happy,
Speaker 1: because let's just go on there. But I mean, I
Speaker 1: think long term love is different. We don't see enough
Speaker 1: of it in media. I don't think, like we just
Speaker 1: don't see what that looks like in a real way enough,
Speaker 1: because I think it's interesting. And I think in talking
Speaker 1: to people now, when we're trying to negotiate what partnership means,
Speaker 1: and as these gender roles are upset, and as these
Speaker 1: power dynamics are shifting, like what is this institution to
Speaker 1: everybody right now? Like what if it's not a faith
Speaker 1: based institution, if it is a civil institution, what does
Speaker 1: it mean? Why do we do it? You know? And
Speaker 1: I think parsing that out and looking more like hey,
Speaker 1: sixty forty success is important and I think we should
Speaker 1: talk about that more because it's not I mean, I
Speaker 1: love my husband, he's amazing and we talk a lot
Speaker 1: about interesting, wonderful things. He's an incredible co parent, and
Speaker 1: it's also weird to be married. He's just like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's this person. There's just this other person, always there,
Speaker 1: always there. I'm interested in how all fair in that
Speaker 1: the whole always there, always there, still there, You're still
Speaker 1: You're just like, you're just another person who's part of
Speaker 1: my life. They're basically the same. We're basically here in
Speaker 1: the same space and the same person. Yes, and you
Speaker 1: start and all those things are true. Where you start.
Speaker 1: It's not even finishing each other's sentences. It's having the
Speaker 1: same thought at the same time. That's really You're like, wow,
Speaker 1: our minds have melted to a maybe frightening degree. Who
Speaker 1: can say? Who can say? And that's what I mean about,
Speaker 1: is like trying to Yeah. Yeah. You talked about claiming
Speaker 1: autonomy in your work and now, at thirty four, having
Speaker 1: access to that vocabulary to say, oh, maybe my hair
Speaker 1: ought to be dirty. Yeah. You've also said in the
Speaker 1: past on the subject of love that I'm a perfect
Speaker 1: example of somebody who will make it work no matter what. Well,
Speaker 1: do you feel that way now? No, because I have
Speaker 1: a much better sense of self. I don't think I
Speaker 1: would make it work no matter what. That's a much
Speaker 1: better place to be. Yeah, that's a really unealthy way
Speaker 1: to describe yourself. Holy cow. Yeah, No, those are dark times.
Speaker 1: I guess you're asking me, like, I know we just
Speaker 1: do you have it in your sheets of paper? Was
Speaker 1: that a dark time for me? Was that traumatizing? I really? Uh?
Speaker 1: Oh man, I really have changed in the last six
Speaker 1: years significantly, I would say in the last six most
Speaker 1: especially almost. And I think being dependable and really trying
Speaker 1: to make something work is really a great idea. And
Speaker 1: I think and not inherently a bad quality. No, no,
Speaker 1: And I think we live in a very throwaway culture,
Speaker 1: in a this is difficult or this thing can't be fixed,
Speaker 1: Let's just throw it and move on and move on.
Speaker 1: But we are literally drowning in garbage, toxic emotional garbage
Speaker 1: and actual plastic garbage. So we have to start figuring
Speaker 1: out a way to reduce, reuse and recycle. I'm glad
Speaker 1: we brought your love back to this full circle before
Speaker 1: we leave, I know Thornton Wilder is important to you
Speaker 1: in our town. There is a back and forth. I
Speaker 1: like that. I wanted to bring up. Emily says, does
Speaker 1: anyone ever realize life while they live in every every minute?
Speaker 1: The stage manager says, no, Saints and poets, maybe they
Speaker 1: do some. Do you think you've realized? Sorry, that one
Speaker 1: gets me every single time. Why does it get you?
Speaker 1: If you want to talk about a politics of grace?
Speaker 1: Thornton Wilder's the place to go, man, that crazy cat,
Speaker 1: his love of this simple day to day things that
Speaker 1: actually that means something like cooking breakfast means everything in
Speaker 1: the world. I saw that production at Barrow Street Theater
Speaker 1: of our Town and it was spectacular because the whole
Speaker 1: play is very much we know or you can see
Speaker 1: the rest of the audience. There's no lighting. Everything is
Speaker 1: just school chairs on top of desks and you know,
Speaker 1: there might be an umbrella, but that's about it. So
Speaker 1: the town is really it's very pared down and there's
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing theatrical about any of it. And then in
Speaker 1: the last moment when she's saying goodbye, the curtain of
Speaker 1: the back opens, and I feel like, can't The curtain
Speaker 1: of the back opens and there's an actual set that
Speaker 1: is a Northeastern town of the time period. Her mom
Speaker 1: is in full period costume. She is actually cooking bacon
Speaker 1: and eggs on the stove, and you smell the bacon
Speaker 1: and you smell the eggs, and you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: smells are amazing. Oh my god, breakfast is amazing. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, love is amazing. And so I think that's
Speaker 1: the most important thing to remember. I think this country
Speaker 1: would be in much better shape if we all read
Speaker 1: more Threaten Wilder. Honestly, I think the skin of our
Speaker 1: teeth most especially, but just his novels, there's just be
Speaker 1: full of grace, be full of gratitude, and just be like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is crazy. We're flying through an
Speaker 1: ever expanding universe full of incomprehensible science that's happening all
Speaker 1: around us. I mean, half of the stuff we feel
Speaker 1: is not even really there. We we might be this
Speaker 1: is a real thing. We might actually be two D
Speaker 1: hologram on a black hole. You know, Like that's real.
Speaker 1: So just live it up, you said, as an actor,
Speaker 1: I obsess about the text, But it's really just those
Speaker 1: fleeting moments during your day when you have extreme sadness
Speaker 1: or extreme happiness for two seconds and then the rest
Speaker 1: of the day is normal. But how do you capture that.
Speaker 1: How do you capture two seconds of utter joy or
Speaker 1: utter sadness then cover it up again? Happens to people
Speaker 1: all the time. Exhibit Ay, it was sad as android mixed.
Speaker 1: It was like both, it was both. So that's why
Speaker 1: I'm good life. Do you think you've done that as
Speaker 1: an actor? Man? I hope so I try to. It's
Speaker 1: about the two seconds thing because it takes an extra
Speaker 1: umph to get to a point of sadness. It takes
Speaker 1: the brain a minute to get there, so to then
Speaker 1: cover it up before you've gotten there, you might not
Speaker 1: make it read on screen, but hopefully I'm getting there.
Speaker 1: I mean, man, do I love it? I love practicing it,
Speaker 1: and maybe one day I'll get two seconds of joy
Speaker 1: sadness in one take and I'll be really pleased. Well,
Speaker 1: for my perspective, I think you have, especially in three
Speaker 1: tall women. Seeing that in person, I thought, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the best thing I've seen in you know, five years,
Speaker 1: so when you're thirteen years old, so that's like a
Speaker 1: big deal. Yeah, it was a huge deal. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Glad we can. I'm with an insult sadness. Alison Pella,
Speaker 1: thank you very much, thank you. And that's our show
Speaker 1: special thanks this week to Alison Pill. Her latest performance
Speaker 1: is in the upcoming Hulu show called Dev's It's from
Speaker 1: Ex Machina director Alex Garland and a premiers on the
Speaker 1: platform Thursday, March fifth. To learn more about Alison, you
Speaker 1: can visit our show notes at www dot talk easypod
Speaker 1: dot com. There you'll find a back catalog of episodes
Speaker 1: with a whole bunch of actors I think you may like,
Speaker 1: including Laura Dern, Randall Park Edward Norton, Jackie Weaver, Pam Greer,
Speaker 1: Britt Marling, Kenneth Branagh, and many many more. If you
Speaker 1: haven't done so already, be sure to give us a
Speaker 1: review on iTunes. The show is also available on Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. We're also on Twitter, Facebook,
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Speaker 1: us out, The best thing you can really do for
Speaker 1: us is to share the show with a friend online
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Speaker 1: we do here. It means the world to us and
Speaker 1: it really is the best way for new listeners to
Speaker 1: find the show. If you'd like to drop us a line,
Speaker 1: you can do so at Talk easypod at gmail dot
Speaker 1: com and as always, this show would not be possible
Speaker 1: without our incredible team that includes our executive producer, Jeannick
Speaker 1: so Bravo. Music by Dylan Peck and Jin Sang, illustrations
Speaker 1: by Krishna Chenoe, designed by Ian Jones. Our editor is
Speaker 1: Andre Lynn, our engineer is Tim Moore, and we tape
Speaker 1: out of York, recording here in Los Angeles, California. Our
Speaker 1: associate producer is Nicky Spina, and the show is produced
Speaker 1: by Caroline Reebok. I'm Sam Frecoso. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next Sunday
Speaker 1: with Sam Watererston. Until then, have the week everyone, m
Speaker 1: hm m m