Dinner’s on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson - MARCIA GAY HARDEN — on mastering dialects and crying to Meryl Streep

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

Academy Award winning actor Marcia Gay Harden joins the show. Over sushi, Marcia Gay Harden tells me about being in the original cast of Broadway’s “Angels in America,” going back to catering after Coen Brothers film “Miller’s Crossing,” and a very good Mike Nichols apology story. This episode was recorded at Ocean Prime in Beverly Hills, CA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi, it's Jesse. Today on the show, you know her from our Oscar-nominated Hi, it's Jesse. Today on the show, you know her from her Oscar nominated performance in Mystic River, or maybe her Oscar winning performance in Pollock, or perhaps her incredible Broadway career that started with Angels in America, and most recently her children's podcast Snorries. It's Marcia Gay Hardin. I'll be with my kids sometimes and people will come up and, oh my god, do you recognize me and talk to me?

And they always see me come back to them and go, it's so weird, I don't get it. And Son Hudson finally goes, mom, you're a legend. I'm like, no, I don't see myself that way, I'm not. And he goes, mom, especially in the gay community. This is Dinners on Me and I'm your host, Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Marcia Gay Harden is a name I knew long before I moved to New York City. Long before I even left Albuquerque, New Mexico.

She was a name in the original cast list printed on page seven of my worn-through copy of Angels in America. All right, this play, Angels in America, by Tony Kushner meant so much to me when I read it as a teenager. It was like a peek into the world beyond Albuquerque. It taught me what great writing could do.

It felt like a rescue raft, really. I can't even tell you how many times I read that play. And even though by the time I got to see Angels in America on Broadway, the original cast had mostly left, I idolized the people who created these roles on Broadway. The first time I actually got to see Marcia live on stage with my own eyes was in an incredible story production of The Seagull opposite Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep. The year before she had picked up an Academy Award for her performance as Lee Krasner in

the movie Pollock. And I remember thinking, yeah, of course this woman is firing on all cylinders. She's Marcia Gay Harden. I've known about her ever since I first read Angels in America. I mean, you would have thought I single-handedly discovered this mega-talent. I had such grand dreams of how our lives would one day intersect. And indeed, they one day did intersect in the baggage claim line at the airport. Not nearly the glamorous introduction

I was hoping for, but that did not stop me from basically bowing down to her and gushing for as long as it took our bags to arrive. I guess you could say we've been friends ever since, and I still pinch myself that I can call her a friend. Now Marcia has always been a dream guest of mine for this podcast, so I am so excited that it finally worked out. It was even more perfect that she was coming to me mere moments after finishing a session with a dialect coach she was working with for a new character she was about to play. I just finished, um, I was across the street, so I'm sorry, I'm a few seconds late.

Oh, you're fine. I finished, I was across the street, so I'm sorry, I was a few seconds late. But I was doing this accent work with this guy. So it keeps popping in. I know, I was like, are you British now? No, I'm British. I took Marcia to Ocean Prime in Beverly Hills, a sleek seafood and steakhouse restaurant that's as glamorous as it is inviting. The ambiance, think dark wood paneling,

plush booths and sparkling chandeliers, but still relaxed enough to make you feel at ease the moment you walk through the door. The menu is a celebration of fresh seafood, and let me tell you, I love sushi, and this sushi tasted like it came straight out of the ocean. Somehow Ocean Prime has that rare ability to feel both elegant and effortlessly cool at the same time, which is exactly why I thought it was the perfect spot for Marcia. Okay, let's get to the conversation. How do you do this? What do we do? We're already doing it. This is already going. Are we eating? We're gonna eat. Are you hungry? I'm starving. Oh me too, thank God.

Also the fact that I'm like gonna maybe eat sushi with Marcia Gay Harden in Beverly Hills is really making my day. First of all, Jesse, you're making me laugh because when I was doing used people, no used people with Marcello Mastroianni in Canada, we became good friends and he hated to eat alone. And so he would always love me to go out to eat with him

because I ate. So I'm one of the few American actresses that he would know who would actually eat. So we would go and once he had like a hugely famous kind of like Bertolucci type DP in and he invited me to lunch and he's with them and he said, see, see mom, watch, watch. She, see, see, ma, watch, watch. She eats, she eats.

Ma, eat, ma, she has a dessert. So I gained 10 pounds on that film. I had to buy a whole new wardrobe, literally. But I do want to eat. Yeah, I definitely eat during this. What are you gonna have? I definitely want sushi. I do too.

Hello there, how are you? Hi, how are you? Good. Would you like to get some filter water, bottled sparkling or bottled still? I would love, I would love sparkling. And then for lunch, there's a few things that are not printed anywhere on the menus. I have a lobster linguini, if you're in the mood for pasta. Wow.

I also have a seven ounce Australian wagyu filling and a 12 ounce Australian lobster tail. Wow. Take your time. Do you know what you want? Do we have questions? Well, I think I want us to try the Devil Days just for a little appetizer. We absolutely need to do that. I'm going to do the nigiri.

The nigiri looks really good. And those are individual pieces that you can customize in however many you would like on your plate. Oh, fantastic. You get one of each, you're saying? If you like. I think we should get the nigiri. Yeah, let's get the nigiri.

And a dynamite roll or something like that. Fantastic. Okay. Oh yeah, let's do it. And then the deviled eggs. Deviled eggs. They're completely off. If a nigiri, do you want to do two pieces of each? So you each have one. Definitely two pieces of each.

Do you want more than three pieces of sushi? Whatever you do, I will. I could do two of each if you think you will. Two of each. Yeah, let's do two of each. Anything other than sparkling water for now? I think I'm OK with that. I think sparkling water is gonna be good. Yeah.

So what is your favorite thing about this? You know what it's been? I mean, I really like actually researching and like watching stuff that I've maybe missed or like forgotten about. Like I went into a bit of a deep dive watching Pollock and Mystic River and but also just like remembering some of the stuff

that I got to see you do on stage. And like, it's just so fun to sort of like, you know, discover new things. I hadn't actually ever seen Miller's Crossing. Oh, that's wild. Yeah. That's wild. And the Coen brothers are like one of my favorite filmmakers of all time. Mine too.

So I was, I got to see that for the first time. So that's been my favorite, sort of doing the research. For each different person, you go down a rabbit hole. I kind of try to. Yeah, like open up doors a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. But I mean, I love that you just came from a dialect

coaching because I was actually, when I was watching Pollock and Mystic River, I mean, those are two such wildly different dialects. Yeah. And I mean, those are two such wildly different dialects. Yeah. And I mean, that's something I, and I'm going to geek out a little bit just as an actor asking another actor I admire, like how, I just feel like when you're on set

and you're starting like the first day of shooting and you have a big swing like that, like a dialect, because it's not like a play where you get to change the way you do it tomorrow. I have to talk in it all the time. I have to talk in it all the time. I have to talk in it all the time, because otherwise they can only do it on the lines and there's no rhythm, there's no cadence to it

because I'm just doing my line reading of the- Right, and you're wearing the accent and it's not part of you. Right, you're wearing it, but I would serve, I think you've probably heard me say this before, I would serve the kids breakfast, thank you, serve the kids breakfast. Thank you. Serve the kids breakfast with it.

Like who wants their cereal? Who's having corn flakes? And be like, Mom. Stop it immediately. It was awful. I would do that like even for this one in Boston. Rosie. I had that she came from Queensburg.

Rose, Rose. I was always talking like Rose to them. And now they still love it. They do those characters. But for me, that's what I'm trying to say. It's why sometimes I'm coming out sounding really stupid with you right now, because I am still a little bit in my mindset.

Yeah, your head space is still there. My head's still a little bit there, because I was just doing it in the car with him and every vowel I'm trying to get lower than my own way of doing it. Well, how do you do it? I was gonna ask you, when do you forget about those tiny nuances and just live in the scene?

Is it really you have to live with that accent first? That's what I think. You don't think so? No, I don't know. I always feel like I flip back into thinking about, oh, that vowel was a little off, or that sound went up too much. Oh, yeah, but I still do that in my head.

Yeah. But this is the weird thing about an actor's brain, and I wish they would do real scientific research on it because we have these things called mirror neurons, and my theory is that actors have more of a mirror neuron, or they're somehow very enhanced than other people. What is a mirror neuron? It's the neuron that allows you, me,

to imitate your face and imitate, and to empathetically, if you're feeling sad, my face feels sad, and it's like amongst the bonobos. Yeah. The ape that is the one, the right-hand one to the king or whatever of the apes isn't the strongest, which it is in other apes, gorillas. It's not the strongest. It's the most sympathetic. And when you think about great storytellers, there's a new book by the guy who wrote Sapiens.

I haven't read this book yet, but I think I forget what it's called. I'll think of it Anyway, he said that he they don't think the Neanderthals are very good storytellers basically so you can imagine Being back in the day right in the cave day Yeah, and someone's like tell us about the hunt and someone comes in and says well in the hunt the senior leader lifted up the sword and got the wild boar before. Very pragmatic, very factual. And everyone's like, cut, cut.

And then someone's like, no, no, no, they don't have it at all. Okay, we were gathered around the bush and then we heard a crackle in the distance and then creepy go. And they like tell the story with all the detail and the expression and that's the storyteller. That's the storyteller you want to listen to. And this book, he's saying that he thinks that's a huge part of what made humans humans,

storytelling, being able to tell our stories. And of course then we remember our history because we're storytelling too. It's not just primal and instinctive. It's the story. Look. Beautiful. because we're storytelling too. It's not just primal and instinctive, it's the story. Look. Oh. Yeah, that's a little caviar on top.

Beautiful. It's a little crown. That's so pretty. Mm. No, I definitely went into like a deep rabbit hole with all that work. I just feel like you are such a great storyteller and I also love, you know,

with what you're doing right now with the podcast, kind of bringing that into, your storytelling into like helping kids find peace and sleep with snorries. Snorries. Snorries, yeah. Right, three Z's, snorries. S-N-O-R-I-E-Z-Z-Z. Yeah.

The app for sleeping. Did you actually listen to it? I did, yeah. Did you? Yeah. How old are your kids? Four and two. Oh, they're the four year olds right. He's at the right did, yeah. Did you? Yeah. How old are your kids? Four and two. Oh, the four year old's right.

He's at the right age, yeah. On the, like. You know, Beckett is, my four year old's very sensitive and he gets very upset if he's starting to have a bad day in the morning. Like if he's starting off on the bad foot, you know, he gets really upset. He's like, I really wanna have a good day

and it breaks my heart to hear him say that. And so as I'm talking him through, like, okay, let's reset ourselves. Let's really ground ourselves and our surroundings. That's what this podcast is all about. So that you can know that no matter where you are, that you can focus on something other than your feelings. You can focus on the hard facts and what's around you,

and then you kind of know it's okay, I'm okay. I'm going to be all right. And teach him a script. Tell me more about that. Well, I was speaking to Jolita, one of my kids who's in school in Rhode Island, and this guy kind of hit on her. And I was upstairs checking us into the hotel, this guy kind of hit on her and wanted her number,

she said no. And then he wanted her Instagram, she said no. And then he wanted her Instagram. She said no. And then he pushed and he pushed and he pushed. She finally gave him her Instagram. She came upstairs, she was mad at me. She said, I guess I learned I had to be polite to people, kind to people. I thought, no, I taught you, you can say no.

You don't need to decimate them only because that extracts something from you. You're building toxicity that you don't need. And I said, what we need to do is discuss a script that really works for you, GT, so that it comes to you the next time somebody's being pushy. Because they know, it's sort of very predatorial, they know that pushy, that wheedling,

kids do it all the time. They know that wheedling, that pushing is going to get you, boom, come on, come on, and then they make fun of you, come on, what's the worst they can do? see, you know, go, come on, come on. And then they make fun of you, come on, what's the worst they can get? And soon you bought into all that crap as opposed to just saying no.

I was wondering about what kind of a script can a young child have that helps them in these situations? Yeah, yeah. Right? Absolutely, yeah. You know, I mean, I've been such an advocate for LGBTQ rights for my entire life. And you've been obviously very private with your life,

which I really respect. And I know you've talked about, like, there's a difference between being an actor and a celebrity and like a celebrity group. You know, you are your personality and you share so much of yourself. And, you know, that's not how you felt comfortable moving forward, but like in recent years,

you have been very open about the fact that all three of your kids are identified as queer. And I really appreciate the way you've used your opportunities and your platform to talk about how you mothered these queer kids. And I mean, that was that a scary thing for you to talk about? Did you have conversations with them about, or is it just sort of happened naturally as our world is sort of changing? No, I had conversations because I didn't want to out them. Yeah. And if they weren't ready for people to know,

or even people in my family who I have a lot of really conservative and some super religious people in my family, I'll say everybody accepts them, but that doesn't mean everybody approves of them. So I did, but I don't think I've ever gotten so much hate mail as when I spoke at one of these functions. It was drag isn't dangerous. And you could tell that there was a real engine of hatred that was put in place.

And people said about grooming, what are the chances that all three of your kids, and I think the ancient world, I suspect it would be so much more normalized. I suspect that there weren't the Moore's traditions and ideologies of disapproval. I suspect that people were attracted to both certainly much more than we admit to today. Well, I find it very natural. But that's just all I've known.

Darling, it is natural. I mean, that's the whole thing. It is, it is natural. Yeah, yeah. Now for a quick break, but don't go away. When we come back, Marcia tells me about being part of theater history with Angels in America, her infamous wig dispute

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Marsha, have I ever, I mean, I've known you for a while now and I don't know if I've ever actually told you how much Angels in America means to me. Did I have, I shared that with you? I don't think so. No, I didn't see you in the show because by the time I got kicked in New York, you had left.

And I saw it with Cynthia Nixon, who I think was your replacement. Yes. What does it feel like to be a part of a piece of art and a piece of theater that so many people have such deep emotional connection to. I mean. It's so rare.

Yeah. A, my first boyfriend was gay and had died of AIDS in 1984, I believe it was. So the reality of that was so much on my mind. And in that play, as you know, when we were performing it, men were bringing their parents to see the show. And I was living in the West Village, and they would come up to me and they would say,

are you Marcia Gay Harden? I'd say, yes. Well, I took my parents to see the show, and then I told them I was dying. I took them to see the show, and then I told them I had AIDS, which to their parents meant they were dying. So I was a part of this. Tony was a part, through Tony and George,

I mean in this play, we got to be a part of this, these moments of watching the AIDS story shift. So for me, it feels like one of the biggest honors of my life, like probably the biggest honor of my work life to have been in that play. It's also, I mean, I was coming out of high school, just moving to New York when that play was on Broadway. Were you out?

Yes, ish. But when my dad took me to New York, he drove me to New York from Albuquerque, New Mexico in the suburban, the family suburban, and dropped me off at my student housing and stayed with me for about a week. I took him to go see Angels in America. Wow. I sat with him and he was already aware of this play just because

he'd seen me do this cutting of it for my speech and debate tournament in high school. But here we were watching the Broadway cast and the George C. Wolf directed production and this Pulitzer Prize winning play. It was a very profound moment for me because we didn't talk about it afterwards. We didn't talk about the play.

But I think there was a big shift in my relationship with my dad. Having sat next to me Watching that play knowing that his son was gay Never having that conversation and when you're talking about just having conversations and how storytelling is so important I felt like just sitting in the presence in that theater and watching these actors Tell us a story was a conversation between me and my dad as well. It was enough. It was enough, yeah. Okay.

That's beautiful. Yeah, so that play really means so much to me. I do have a follow-up question for you though. Yep. I've asked Tony about this. I've asked George about this. And I've read about it in the oral history. There was, from what I read,

and you participated in this too, because you talk about it, there was a wig that you were determined to wear as Harper. And George said, you need to lose the wig, you need to lose the wig. You said, I need the wig, I need the wig, I need the wig. And it ended up in what I understand to be a wrestling match with the wig backstage.

Yes, you're not wrong. Do you want to elaborate on any of this? On Critics Night. On Critics Night? Okay, so the New York Times was there. It was the night before opening, I think. Okay. Right?

Uh-huh. It was on Critics Night. And he said, I had a wig, it was beautiful, long, brown, kind of curly hair, because I had the idea of this pioneer woman, and it was a character I was playing, and George said, we can't see you. This is George Seaworth, the director. Well, the director said, we can't see you.

And I said, well, you don't want to fucking see me. You want to see her. And the hair is making you see her. And I am not taking it off. I'm not taking it off. I had to perform one night with that on, with that in my brain, but I kept it on. And the next, there was the next night, you have to take it off.

We cannot see you. And it did end up in a wrestling match, and I was sobbing. He was pulling it, and I was pulling it, and I was sobbing, no, you can't have it. Honestly, Jesse, I probably even ended up like going, oh, and I'm ugly, I'm ugly, like having a big tant, ripping it off

and having a tanty and screaming that, I'm ugly, I'm ugly, Harper's Notch, it's fair, and then just like punishing myself. Right. And then I had to, and then like, places, fuck. Oh my God, Marcia. And you go down and my face is like, oh, like that. It was so scary and awful and I was so vulnerable,

but it was the right thing to do. Whenever you're hiding, you have to come out of hiding and it's the right thing to do, right? Anyway, I just wanted to confirm. You, Tony Kushner, George C. Wolfe, and you all have the exact same story. I mean, it's just pretty much the same thing. So it all lines up.

What did George say? Oh, he basically reenacted you screaming and taking it off backstage. Yeah. Marge. I just remember that Wig was literally thrown at one point. Did he say he threw it? Because I bet he threw it. He might have. The other one they probably don't tell you is that in the audition,

when I went to the audition, I had just broken up again with my born again bag piping boyfriend. That sounds like a vocal warm up. I know. My born again bad piping boyfriend. I was a mess cut too. I have an audition for Anderson America. So I go into one of those little stupid ass audition rooms.

I see Tony and George sitting over there. And as I start doing the scenes, I burst into that kind of snot dripping on the floor. But I think what they saw that they liked was that Harper was in pain. Was in deep, deep pain. It wasn't the drugs. The drugs were to get her out of pain.

You don't play the drug. You play the pain of betrayal and being gaslit and all that stuff. So they don't tell you that story because they're probably embarrassed about the little pile of snot that was on the floor. That was there. That's incredible.

Yeah. Oh my God. It was crazy. Do you know that George C. Wolf gave me my first job in New York, which was on the town at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. He directed a revival of that. And I only bring it up because it was such a big moment for me. And I'm fascinated with this moment, with your first big break

being Miller's Crossing, the Conan Brothers film. I know you went back to catering after that. So right before I got on the town, I was working at several different coffee shops, but also at a theater gift shop. And I folded t-shirts, you know, that was my job, put scripts on the shelves. Oh, God, I love that story. I did, I got to do Shakespeare in the Park that summer. So I had three months of doing this incredible play.

Everyone came to see On the Town, it got wonderful reviews. But then afterwards, I needed a job. And so I went back to the gift shop, and I was 21 at the time, I was like, I have to pay the bill. And I love that you had a similar situation with after your big break with Miller's Crossing, and you were catering and you went back into that.

There's a company called Great Performances. Did you ever cater? No, no, I didn't. You never catered? No, no. I love this company. They're still around, great performances. And it was all actors and singers and artists

and great people catering. But Miller's Crossing, I got paid a penny for Miller's Crossing, but for me, it was a lot of money, but Millers Crossing, I got paid a penny, you know, for Millers Crossing, but for me, it was a lot of money, but it was not much money, and I paid off my school debts right away. Incredible. So that was the first thing I did, so I was like, just pretend like you don't have it.

So you had a penny left, yes. Had a penny, a penny left, and then I went back to catering, because just like you, I have to pay the bills. But the movie hadn't come out yet, so people weren't like, what are you doing? But it wouldn't have mattered really, because you have to do what you have to do.

But I do remember when I was working also at serving tea at the Pierre Hotel, because I was also doing that part time. I remember businessmen would come in and go, when are you going to give up this hobby? When are you going to give up this hobby? You mean the acting? Yeah, the acting.

And you think, it's not a hobby, asshole. It's what I do. But I would think, at what point, if you've been waiting tables for years and years and years, is it? At what point do you say, enough is enough? Yeah, enough is enough. I think about that a lot.

I don't know if you're gonna remember this, but we were talking, we were waiting for our bags to baggage claim, either in JFK or LAX. I don't know if you're gonna remember this, but we were talking, we were waiting for our bags of baggage claim, either in JFK or LAX, I don't remember which coast we were on. And it was right before God of Carnage, the movie was gonna come out. And I had seen, obviously you, in that brilliant performance on Broadway,

in which you won a Tony Award, very deservedly for. That play, by the way, is still one of my favorite things I've ever seen. And I asked you, you know, are you going to see the movie? And I was like, because I was just curious. You know, you weren't in the movie that they were making. I mean, I was sort of shocked that you weren't because at this point, you had already won an Oscar and you were being replaced by someone who was obviously, Jodie Foster is incredibly talented.

But you know, it's like, I don't know. It was just strange to me. I guess it was like one of the first moments that I realized, like, you couldn't have it all. You could have won the highest trophy that you can win as an actor and still have to claw your way to be considered for things. And I was thinking about that. I was thinking about,

and this is not to make you feel bad at all, but like, I was thinking about Angels in America, which I know, I don't know if you want to talk about that. Same thing, same thing, but same thing, you didn't get to do that in the HBO version, you didn't get to play your part in God of Carnage on screen, and I remember you saying, even after Millers Crossing

and after you won the Oscar for Pollock, that it was hard still, and I just, part of me, I guess, it's refreshing to hear that it's always hard. How do you feel about- Bitter, bitter. I don't think you do though. Bitter, bitter. You know, that's a good question.

How do you do that and not be bitter? At some point I have to go just go, this is where I am and it's work. It is work. So I think that's probably it, just having that inner dialogue. Like here's the weird thing, I'll be with my kids sometimes and people will come up

and oh my God, do you recognize me? And talk to me more lately, a lot of people. And they always see me like come back to them and go like, it's so weird, like I don't get it. And son hides and finally goes, mom, you're a legend. I'm like, no, I don't see myself that way, I'm not. And he goes, mom, especially in the gay community. So anybody comes up.

Not wrong. Says hello to you. And so I think, well, you don't wanna walk around life seeing yourself as a legend, right? That's so stupid. But you do at least, it would not be fair to not know that we've affected people's lives. 100%, which is why I shared that story

about Angels in America, even though I didn't actually see you on stage doing it. The fact that you were part of that production, I mean really, I mean, when I first got to know you, like just knowing that you had, your DNA was part of that character meant so much to me. I know that's absolutely right. Now for a quick break, but don't go away. When we come back, Marcia tells me about her full circle moment with director Mike Nichols, the advice Meryl Streep

gave her and who she'd like to collaborate with in the future. Okay, be right back. to collaborate with in the future. Okay, be right back. Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls. The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast. After last year, he's no stranger to the spotlight. And it turns out he might even love the limelight. You can listen with the whole family

as guest stars like Jon Hamm, Brittany Broski, and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's anything to love about the insufferable holiday season. Follow Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. So you know that feeling where you've just left the cinema, you were excited to talk about the movie in the pub or on the car ride home or on the walk home. Well, that's our podcast. I'm Dave and this is my wife, Kathy. Hello. And our podcast is The Cinemile, where we walk home from the movies.

And we are not film critics. We're just two movie nerds who've been doing this for the last eight years. I don't take our word for it. Here's some recent reviews on Apple Podcast. A charming couple with bad movie taste. I mean, their taste in movies is putrid. Your taste in movies is putrid. But hey, if you like listening to that sort of thing, right, okay, ignore that one.

Another great one we recently got was, I absolutely love this podcast. There's nothing like the raw feeling after watching a movie and Dave and Cathy perfectly capture that. Great reviews, great fun, and you just love listening to nice people chat about movies. Yes, I swear we are nice people. And if you don't believe them either, well, maybe you'll believe the Independent Podcast Awards, who named us the best film and TV podcast of 2024. So that's us. We are the Cinemile. You'll find us wherever there are podcasts.

And we're back with more Dinners on Me. Um, I... Can we talk about Mike Nichols? Yeah, okay, good. You've worked with so many incredible directors and even when you're working with the greats, like things happen, things happen. Like there are misconnections,

there's miscommunication. There are, you know, things don't always go incredibly how you would hope that they would go. I shared a story about turning down Spam a lot, which Mike Nichols directed, and I was so nervous that he was going to be so angry at me. And the industry was telling me, you do not turn down Mike Nichols. But I turned him down to do a role in this musical, the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Fast forward, you know, Spelling Bee ended up transferring to Broadway in the same season that Spamalot was on Broadway.

We were up for Tony Awards against one another. And there was one night at the end of Spelling Bee where I have to stand in the audience and sing the last song to the audience. And I go to my spot in the audience and I'm standing right next to Mike Nichols, who's seeing the show. And he has a big grin on his face.

And I was like, oh my God. My heart was just beating out of my chest. Hadn't spoken to him since I turned him down. And finished the show, went backstage, was in my dressing room. Anyway, there's a knock on the door. I open it up and Mike Nichols is standing in the hallway with his arms outstretched to me and gives me a big hug

and says, you made the right choice. And I was like, wow, I built so much up in my head about how you felt about me. But you shared a very interesting, not similar story, but a journey. Mine is such a fucking worse story than yours, Jesse. So in mine, I had won an Oscar for Pollock and I got an offer, not even an audition, an offer to play Masha in The Seagull in Central Park, which was the cast of names.

Bonkers. Bonkers. Bonkers, it was Chris Walken, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Steven Spinella, Larry Pine, Deborah Monk, John Goodman. So of course I'm gonna do it. And I had in my mind, my vain little mind that Mike would see me and realize I was the new Meryl Streep.

He needed to now make Sophie's Choice too, but with me. I just had a mind that he would love me and that he would find someone similar in spirit and passion that he had for Meryl. By the way, I didn't know that anyone is similar to Meryl. I think she's singularly one of the most inventive and she's a goddess. But I was thinking he might think I'm goddess too. I'm in another tier maybe. Sure, we all might think we're goddesses. You would do, right?

And so you go in thinking that. And I do find in theater that there's often a guinea pig more than in film, but it's not an unusual syndrome that there's a guinea pig. Explain what that means, because I know what that means. Oh, you know what it means. It means that there's one person who gets picked on,

and when the show isn't going to be successful, it's going to be that person's fault. And there's nothing, no way that person can ever be successful. Anyway, we're doing it, and it's that cast of all those people. And actually Meryl, rightly so, was the reigning queen of that particular play. So it very quickly became clear that no matter what I did

as Masha, it was the wrong thing to do. And we sat around talking about the play for days, then we went into rehearsal. I remember even in tech rehearsal, I was like, Masha opens the play, like three minutes into the play. They're like, I'm sorry, can I go back and take this again? I'm like, no, no, Mike says no.

Cut to Meryl, like we're at the end of act two or something. She's like, can I go back to the beginning? I'm like, yeah, of course. Like this is my perception of it, right? That, but she was very, I don't separate the two of us in any way, she was a huge supporter of me and told me the secret that I needed to know. You said you shared the dressing room.

We shared a dressing room. And at one point I sobbed to her and I said, I don't think Mike likes me, I don't think Mike likes me. And she said, I don't know if he likes you or not and it doesn't matter. I don't think he likes Masha. I don't think he likes Masha and I don't think he likes Masha, and it's your job to stay loyal to your character.

I'm like, okay, okay. We had a couple sips of vodka, even though I've been sober for a couple years. I did a few sips of vodka to go play the drunk scene. I'm like, you're amazing. Not because I'd had a couple sips of vodka, but because I decided I didn't give a shit. When he thought I had to be loyal to Masha.

And it was never, playing Masha was never my finest hour because I don't think I realized it because I don't think Mike directed me to help me realize it. You didn't trust it. Yeah. I just didn't, Jesse, I didn't, it didn't, the brain didn't crack open to let that make sense to me.

And that kills me that things like that can happen. But probably that didn't crack open to let that make sense to me. And that kills me that things like that can happen. But probably that didn't happen because we by then already didn't have a great trusting relationship. So cut to, we do the play, it's fine, it's fine. He sort of in little ways and I in little ways tried to patch it together. But my big experience is doing the play with Meryl

and just being in New York City, doing a play in Central Park. Delacorte Theater, the most special place in the world. Delacorte Theater, the world, riding my bike home. Yes. Where I was living at the time in the 70s, cut to years later now, 2009 I think it was, I do got a carnage. And unbeknownst to me, Mike's in the audience one night with Diane Sawyer, his wife.

And someone says, you know, runs upstairs, Mike wants to come back after the play. Are you okay to see him? I'm like, yes. Was this after you went to Tony Award for it or? No. Okay. I don't, you know what?

That's a good question. I don't actually know. I'm on the third, I'm on the top floor and he comes up and when he gets to the top, he's red faced and sweating because it was three floors up and it was hot. And Diane's kind of slightly behind him and he opens his arms just like with you and he bursts into tears. And I hug him and he says, I was really hard on you during The Seagull, wasn't I? And I said, yes.

And he said, even Philip Seymour told me, I was really hard on you during The Seagull. And I said, well, you were. And he says, who knew? You're one of the greatest actresses in America. That's why the end of the story is a little embarrassing to say because- But he said it.

But he said it. And I agree with him. And I think that the takeaway for me is that it was a two way street. Mike was disappointed in what I didn't know. And he was also playing favorites as he does. He can be very hard on people. But he was disappointed that I didn't instinctively

come at it with what he knew. And so he punished me a little bit for it. And also he was catering to a lot of other people in the play, a lot of big names. A lot of big names. And the story for any actor listening isn't that it's always beautiful. It was very, very painful.

Being the guinea pig is very painful. Not being liked. Not being liked, oh my God, you're an actor. Like me, like me, like me, tell me I did okay. That's all you want. And being in that moment and going, oh, I'm not Meryl Streep too. But also, I sort of felt this a little bit after

I got to win a Tony Award for taking me out and I was expecting so many big things to happen after that. And the phone not ringing was really painful. I mean, I was fine, I had great opportunities, but like I expected, I had higher expectations for myself

than what were really happening. And it was, I had to stop being so hard on myself. I, same thing. Won the Oscar, I'm at the shutters. They're gonna do this entertainment weekly photo shoot the morning after. And I throw open the shutters. They're gonna do this entertainment weekly photo shoot the morning after, and I throw open the curtains, fully expecting the lawn to be made of emeralds.

Yeah. And, oh, is that Steven Spielberg kneeling on the lawn out there begging me to be in his next movie? You know, like, nothing. Nothing, none of that. And I'm about to say, like, you're one of the people I dream of working with. I know, I hope you know that.

Some people like smoke up your ass. But I was wondering, because you've worked with so many incredible people, if there are people that you dream of having jobs with, or if it's just exciting to sort of see what happens. I mean, it's like the new ones, Todd Haynes, right? It was not so new anymore, but Todd Haynes, that would be fun to see what does he bring.

Yeah, I love him. Kenneth Brown, I've always wanted to work with Kenneth Brown now. I think that'd be really lovely. I like his work as an actor and as a director. Just really good jobs, frankly. Yeah, same, same. Thank you for doing this with me.

Yeah. I love you. I think this is such a sweet idea. ["Dinner's on Me"] I love you. I think this is such a sweet idea. This episode of Dinners on Me was recorded at Ocean Prime in Beverly Hills, California. Next week on Dinners on Me, you know her from Friends, The Comeback, and her upcoming series No Good Deed, It's Lisa Kudrow. We talk about how a firing led her to play Phoebe on Friends, the private reunion she'll always remember,

and the show that was so good she forgot she was on it. And if you don't want to wait until next week to listen, you can download that episode right now by subscribing to Dinners on Me Plus. As a subscriber, not only do you get access to new episodes one week early, you'll also be able to listen completely ad free. Just click Try Free at the top of the Dinners On Me show page on Apple Podcasts to start

your free trial today. Dinners On Me is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and a kid named Beckett Productions. It's hosted by me, Jesse Tyler Ferguson. It's executive produced by me and Jonathan Hirsch. Our showrunner is Joanna Clay. Our associate producer is Angela Vang. Sam Baer engineered this episode. Hans-Dyl She composed our theme music.

Our head of production is Sammy Allison. Special thanks to Tamika Balanz-Kolassny and Justin Makita. I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Join me next week.