Drama Queens - Even More Women of Work in Progress

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

The unforgettable moments keep coming! Part Two brings even more standout conversations with Valerie Bertinelli,  Mira Sorvino, Jennie Garth and Kelli Giddish- brilliant women who have shared their humor, bared their souls and made us all a little richer from their hard-earned wisdom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Progress. Hello, friends and whip smarties. We are continuing our celebration of some of the incredible women who've shared their resilience, humanity, friendship and humor with all of us Whipsmarties over the years. There were simply too many standout moments to fit into one episode, so today I'm bringing you part two of our best of,

with even more inspiring revelations, hilarious shares, and pearls of wisdom. I hope you enjoy these conversations as much as I did, and I hope they remind you to celebrate and appreciate the incredible women in your own life, including if you're one of the ladies yourselves. Let's dive back in. When we first sat down, you asked sort of how I'm processing the whole thing, and I just said, oh, no, I'm filled with rage, just on fire with it.

Yeah, I wonder why I wake up, and my heart hurts. Yeah. And it's like, don't open your phone because it's going to hurt more. But in the strangest way, there is also doing my own getting naked, my own processing shame, unlearning things I've learned. And that I think as lucky as we are to do what we do, I do think the inverse, you know, they say scientifically every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I think the equal and opposite reaction to the privilege is the denial of humanity because you're so privileged. How dare you be sad, upset, frustrated, whatever. And for me, one of the things I've worked on to kind of reintegrate, recalibrate, is to find what the kernel of goodness

a gift for me or someone else could come out of the worst thing. Like what will it teach you? What will it illuminate for you? Even if it's a hard lesson, what's the lesson? And there is something about watching millions of files that tell the truth, thousands of women's stories telling the truth, the way they're being ignored, as you said, manipulated, it laughed at even by other women.

And it has unlocked some little chamber in me that goes, oh, it's not, there's nothing I could have done to be believed better. We just are not nice to women. And it isn't just me. And I hate it. But the tiniest seedling of, I don't want to call it goodness, but the one positive, waking a lot of us up. Yes, is to really see, to have the thing I've heard that my brain knows

to feel it in my body and go, oh, it really is so true. Yeah. And this is for all of us. Like we talk about patriarchy, like it's some sort of like esoteric thing, but it truly is something that is suffocating for women. And I say this as a woman who adores men. I love men. I loved my first husband. I love my son. I love my brothers. I loved my father. I love men. Yeah. But there's some really shitty men

out there that are in power and that do really shitty things. Well, and the shitty side of men is the patriarchy, not the men themselves. Yes. Because patriarchy... Well, there's a few shitting men out there that are doing shing things. Yeah, the ones in the files of shit. And they have patriarchy protecting them. Yes. But that's it.

It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, the good men because I feel the same. I have some of the best men in my life. I've also encountered some of the worst ones, but I have some of the best men in my life. And what I find to be a tragedy of patriarchy is that not only is it so terrible and violent toward us, it's terrible for men.

Men are the ones committing suicide at the highest rates in our country. Men are having a mental health crisis. That aren't living up to standards that the dude bros want them to live up. up to and be yeah oh yeah there's a few how do we change it so phoeia well there's a few because i want to change this shit like i want to wake people up but part of the way i think it changes is by showing up as our full selves having conversations like this one by by people writing books like the book you've written you are building community for people to see and experience

themselves, their lives, and the people around them differently. And that, that for me is like the greatest part of the privilege of a public career. Yes. Is that you can offer. I have a bigger audience to be able to offer what I have to give to them. I think back when the Me Too letter was getting put together in 2017 and it was, you know, who's going to sign this thing that's going to go in the New York Times and people on, on calls that I was on about that, talking about you and your work and the experience that's

standing up for yourself and other women had put you through behind the scenes that finally came to light, you know, to have this sensational career and also to know that someone whom you simply asked to respect you as a person and your boundaries, tried to get in the way of your career, discouraged you from being cast in things. I mean, what a, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but from the outside it feels almost like a, like a whiplash. You know, I am amazed at the grace with which you have carried yourself through all of that.

What did it mean to you to know that you weren't crazy when all of that, that came to light. And people did say, oh, yeah, I was told not to cast you in this film, or I was told not to look at you for this job. It doesn't help, but it helps. Is that the right observation? I mean, sure. But, okay. So, and the thing is that I actually turned Harvey down three times.

And when I had spoken to Ronan Farrow, I'd forgotten about the third time, and it only came to mind later. but it was right after the third time that he put the kibosh on my career and blacklisted me for 20 years. I was blacklisted for 20 years. I didn't do a large studio movie for 20 years and I've still only done two since 2018. So I was at the time of the world,

I had an Oscar, and 1998 he shut my career down for 20 years. And I still worked. I did Indies and I did television. but, you know, I did turn down, like, one television opportunity that would have taken me too much away from my little children, you know, so, like, I could have had a bigger career on television probably, but I was, you know, I have four kids, so, and I really wanted to be present there for them. And so, you know, I instead piecemeal together my work through indies and movies, you know, television movies and television shows. but when I found out because I had kind of made peace with my career having fallen from being A-list to somewhere nebulous, you know, and I still love what I do and I still think I have the same talent and drive. But I was like, okay, I guess it wasn't meant to be.

You know, I guess I just wasn't meant to continue at that level of career, right? And when I read on Twitter, it was like December after, you know, the fall of the Me Too stuff coming out and me being part of Ronan Farrow's silence breaker group. And I saw that Peter Jackson had given an interview in which he admitted that he was going to cast me and Ashley Judd in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and then did not because Harvey and Bob, I believe, but definitely Harvey told him that we were crazy not to work with us. I had made four movies with Miramax. So how crazy could I have been? Why did they keep hiring? You know, I don't think it could be possible, right?

But that really sort of broke my heart because it felt like there was this dark hand of malice that had come into my life and stolen something that was rightfully mine away from me, just for me. just for me not wanting to sleep with this disgusting man. Yeah. This disgusting human being. This evil, evil, evil predator. Yeah. And that hurt.

And that took a while to get used to because the one thing of making peace with, okay, well, it's just not your night kid. It's just not happening is different from, I'm going to destroy you. I'm going to make sure you never enjoy what you deserve because you wouldn't play my game. Yeah. You wouldn't let me victimize you. you wouldn't make a deal with me. And now you're going to suffer

and I'm going to make you suffer indefinitely. Indefinitely. And he had that kind of reach. Like, I don't think it was just that he told certain filmmakers. I think that Harvey had a reach with companies beyond his own, with casting directors beyond his own. And that there was literally a blacklist. And there were other actors on it that I know

that were not female that did not reject him, that he just didn't like. And that he affected their, career damped their careers immensely. And once the Me Too stuff came out, they rebounded. So, you know, and I've become good friends with a lot of the fellow silence breakers. And they're really wonderful women. And now for our sponsors. The music you love. Your favorite radio stations. Everywhere you go. The podcasts, everyone's talking about. All in one place. And it's free.

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And I think a lot about that. I mean, I don't know the behind the scenes of your show, but I certainly know on ours. Like, our bosses did not want the girls to be friends. They did a lot of work to make us distrustful of each other. It took us a lot of years and a lot of work to iron through that, to go from being more than like acquaintances who liked hanging out sometimes at work, but were scared to being real friends.

And the industry, frankly, was so terrible to women. Yeah. You know, what was that like for you, girls? Was there any help for you navigating your relationships, or were you also so nervous to rock the boat of the show that you never really wanted to dive too deep into those things? Well, it was hard because there was nobody there to guide us. There was nobody there to, like, bring things down a notch,

know, everybody loved when things got elevated. Things went, when there was conflict, everybody was more interested in the story, you know. And so, yeah, they would definitely rather us not get along than get along. And, you know, the writing pitted us against one another, specifically myself and Shana, Brenda, the character of Brenda, Kelly and Brenda, were always, you know, it was bad. I mean, and iconic fights on screen, but I know how hard that can be off screen. We were probably having a good time when we were fighting on screen. But we, it was really confusing for us as young women and both of, she and I are both Aries, very strong, independent ladies.

And, you know, when, when we weren't trying to clash our horns together, we were actually loving being around each other. And like, we got each other on a different level. So I, you know, it doesn't matter whatever happened then. I know that, like, you just kind of think, wow, it was so. young. I didn't know how to navigate that. And neither did that person. So there's a lot of like forgiveness in that for me, not just for them, but for myself too. Because I know there were times when I could have showed up a better version of myself. I just didn't know that version yet. Yeah. Oh, that's such a crazy part of it, though. I think having such a public life when you're young,

in a weird way people love when you mess up but then they also judge you for messing up and you're sitting there going I don't have any of this figured out yet no one my age does and I'm trying to figure it out with a million eyeballs on me it's confusing like how do you feel like you started to make sense of that because you know you write about it so beautifully in your book you know chapter four oh my god sobbed through the whole thing in a good way i was just like oh i feel this in my bones oh good but i i think it's so special when you can look back and really unpack things and when you choose to be so generous with your audience and tell your story so maybe other people can see themselves but like when did that journey start was it becoming a mom because you did that young

or or was it like a moment into motherhood where you were like hang on i got to go back and pull these threads apart so I can do something else. I think I survived it by not partying. I would go be with my parents. We had a, I had bought them a place up north in Santa Barbara. And so we kind of recreated our farm life up there. And I got horses and trucks and all that, you know, that was like how I spent my money. And I would go up there every weekend. And then I had a baby really young. And when I was. 23 or 4 I was pregnant I was not married but I was like I know I'm supposed to have this baby so I'm absolutely going to have this baby and that was the best thing I ever did that was the

best decision in my life because it took off like the it took off like my attention that I would be normally be placing on myself and you know we get as actors I think we are people often associate us with being like self-centered or self-focused and it's hard not to be because we are our business like so of course we're going to focus on like getting the next job or being the best that we can or whatever but at that time I was so lucky to have something else to focus my energy on and always like running right back to my trailer to be with her and getting her home you know I just, she saved my life probably, like honestly, having, having Luca. Wow, that's really cool.

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Stream Miley's new album, Bass Persuades, today. There's a great book called The War of Art. Yeah, that was based on the Art of War. And it's like the idea that if you just continue making things to make will continue finding you. I think there's something really powerful in that. I do too. How do you kind of balance, though, then?

you know, always being at work, especially when you've been on a series for so long, and then the periods where you do want or need a break, where you do want to go somewhere with your family or work on something else for a moment of freshness. Like, how do you grapple with those things? It's super hard because I have three kids. So if I, if, if work that isn't paying the bills is not, like, if I'm on a break from that, then I'm like, okay, full on, mom, you have me every second, every, every, every hour, every day, you know, and I'm trying to get better about that, you know, like setting some time aside for,

for just my mind for just to, for just staring off it in the, you know, into space at the wall. And yeah, and being open for the muse or whatever. It is, that's, it's really hard balancing that and like just daydreaming and then making, making the conversations happen and the meetings happen that, you know, somebody tells you of an idea or like you, you come up with something and it won't leave you alone. And actually, you know, honoring that to go after it and to keep, to keep cultivating it. I definitely think it's a skill, a learned, a learned skill that, you know, like I said, I'm trying to get better at at honoring that. Because it's, it's, it's really easy when you're,

when you do feel like you have a job that fulfills you. And I get to go to work every day and I get to, you know, figure out some kind of puzzle. And that's satisfying to me, you know. Yeah. And there's, there's also a ton of other stuff I want to do. There's different worlds. I want to, you know, different characters. I want to inhabit, different people I want to work with. So, but like I said, work begets work and right now I'm doing I'm doing like it just feels really good where I am getting to be the mom that I get to be and all of that stuff at the end of the day I fall asleep very well like my head my head lays on the pillow very nicely at night you know like the things that I feel like I'm getting done and you know it's like you know you need to set set some more time

aside to to just daydream and and you know and like have those conversations follow up on those on those inklings of things that you're like that's that's something you know and I have done that you know and it hasn't gone very far yet but you know it's it's going to and and I'm going to keep working at it and like in working with Marischka and seeing all the things that she's you know it took her a long time to make a movie about her mom and she did it but it took her a very very long time to get to a place where it was possible you know for a heart for a brain and and things come at the right time you know what I mean but it's it's certainly nice working with a good role model like that you know who's years ahead of me that I'm like okay all right I see you you know

like that's when you did that that's that's the decade that comes you know and And that's kind of awesome being a woman and just seeing another powerful woman get after it and do the things that make her happy. So I'm totally so happy. I have her as a role model. Well, and I think, you know, for you certainly at work and in your friendship, but I would say that that ripple effects out, you know, also having worked there and seeing it for your crew, when you have someone like her in the position.

of number one on the call sheet, the world is so vastly different from what it could be without her. Absolutely. And a person who leads like that and manages to bring such professionalism and also such humor into a space where, like, y'all are dealing with a lot of really heavy stuff. Yeah. And you manage to laugh a lot on that set. And I think that's really profound. I do too. This is an I-Heart podcast Guaranteed Human