Happy Sad Confused - Sarah Paulson

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Sarah Paulson has evaded the grip of "Happy Sad Confused" no more! On this episode, Josh catches up with one of the hardest working actors in the business to talk about her latest film, "Run", struggling in her 20s, and why her current job, playing Linda Tripp, is the most challenging of her career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, Sad, Confused begins now. Today on Happy, Sad Confused, Sarah Paulson on her new film Run and her comfort movie Postcards From the Edge. Hey guys, I'm Josh Horowitz. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. You might be thinking, wait, I just heard your voice the other day, Josh. Nary two days ago there was a new episode of Happy, Say, Confused.

Well, don't get used to it. I'm not going to promise two episodes a week from here on out. This is, after all, this isn't my day job, by the way. This is bonus. This is the passion project. The stuff I do for MTV and Comedy Central, that's the stuff that pays the bills. Happy, Say, I Confused, believe it or not, this is just for fun. This is mostly for fun and mostly just because I like these kind of long-form conversations, all of which is to

say. I don't know if I can sustain two a week, but it just so happens that now is the time of year, thanks to, I think it's always a combination of all the spate of fall and holiday projects. We're starting to get into award season that oftentimes I find myself with more guests than I can even handle or roll out in a single week. So this might happen again on occasion. Earlier in the week, we did an episode with the cast led by Margo Robbie and Finn Cole and the director of the movie Dreamland. If you haven't checked that out, that's in your podcast feed. And today's episode, as I said, is with Sarah Paulson. Now, Sarah Paulson is somebody who I, of course, have been chasing forever. It's kind of shocking. She's one of those that if you've listened to

Happy Second Fees for years, it might seem odd that she hasn't done the podcast, how much she works and how much great work she does and just the vibe of her. She's definitely my kind of human being and probably your kind of human being. But for whatever reason, it hasn't worked out timing-wise until now. And I'm so happy it finally did happen. Sarah Paulson is a delight. She is one of our finest actors. She can do everything.

Maybe you saw her earlier this year when Ratchett came out on Netflix, and that's been seen by apparently, like, I think the last number I saw was 48 million people have watched Ratchett, which is amazing, good for Sarah. Her collaborations with Ryan Murphy are numerous and very successful. And we zoomed via, again, the middle of actually a production she just started, which I'm very excited about guys. I don't know if you know this. She is playing Linda Tripp in the new American crime story, again from the mind of Ryan Murphy. It's Beanie Feldstein as Monica Lewinsky. You've got Billy Eichner's in it. A really great cast that is Clive Owen playing Bill Clinton. So yes, this is this next American crime story is going to tell

the story of the infamous Clinton scandal, the Clinton Monica Lewinsky scandal. So so many performers I enjoy in that project. And she has just, Sarah has just started a production on it. And a very kind of interesting moment to catch Sarah in because she's just a few days into it. And we kind of talk about how she's like, this is maybe the hardest job of her career. And she's a little unsure of it right now of how it's all going to work out. So that was kind of fun to talk to her about that. And also fun to talk to her about this new film of hers called Run, which is on Hulu, November 20th. It is a really fun ride.

It's a fun genre exercise, as it were, kind of a Hitchcockian tale. it's directed by the same guy that did the movie searching a few years back. I don't know if you guys caught that, starring John Cho. If you haven't seen that movie, that's another tight, taught thriller that I highly recommend. And this one similarly has that kind of structure. And it's basically Sarah Paulson and a young performer who plays her daughter in it. And it's a lot of twists and turns in it. I don't want to reveal too much, but it's a very contained thriller and very effective at what it's trying to do.

So I highly recommend that one. And, yeah, as I said, Sarah's a delight. Her comfort movie was a great pick. The great Mike Nichols adaptation of Carrie Fisher's book Postcards from the Edge. We talk a lot about that. And, you know, sometimes on the podcast, I feel like when somebody picks a comfort movie, there are different levels of their familiarity with the movie. Sarah Paulson is at the extreme.

She can quote every line, I think, of Postcards from the Edge. So respect to her for that. So, yes, that's the main event today, Sarah Paulson on Happy Sack and Fused. Other things to mention, as I said, there's the Marga Robbie podcast that's in your podcast feed. Great new episode of Stir Crazy. If I do say so myself, with Paul Bettney. He was a delight. That's on Comedy Central's Facebook and YouTube pages.

Other things to mention that are coming out, I highly recommend Mangrove, which is the first episode in the small act series. That's on Amazon Prime. That comes out on this Friday the 20th as well. Sound of Metal, I think, is about to drop. I think that's on Amazon Prime. I highly recommend that one. That's Riz Ahmed. Really great performance from Riz as a heavy metal drummer that starts to lose his hearing.

I saw this one in Toronto a long while back a year ago, over a year ago, and it really jumped out as one of the best things I saw at the Toronto Film Festival then. So that's well worth checking out, and Riz Ahmed is one of our. very very best actors um so yeah you'll be happy to know that we're going strong lots of podcasts to come i taped um did i take two episodes of stir crazy yesterday yeah i take two new episodes of stir crazy yesterday um i tap taping it one today so we're banking them we're making sure we have them all throughout the holiday weeks um there's one next week's stir crazy guys is a is a person again i don't want to i don't want to say it because i just don't want to ruin the surprise

but it is a person that may be one of the top five people that you guys talk to me about on social media that you bring up with me. So it's somebody that's unhappies say I confused. It's a regular Josh Horowitz friend of the podcast and friend of all the things I do. And she, there you go, there's your hint. It's a she was a delight.

And I was really happy that she agreed to do Sir Crazy. and I think you guys will really, really dig it. That's the hint for now. Not much of a hint, I know, but maybe you can figure it out. You know, someone I've talked to dozens of times. Okay, I'll leave it at that. Remember to review, rate and subscribe to happy, sad, confused. Spread the good word.

And in the meantime, enjoy this chat with a delightful Sarah Paulson. to welcome Sarah Paulson to happy, sad, confused at last. Sarah, I've been stalking you for a while for this podcast. It only took a global pandemic to make it happen. Welcome. Well, thank you for having me. I don't think I knew that. Probably Allah was keeping it from me. Oh, yeah, she knows. Alah who watches all. Congrats on Run. This is a super fun movie that's premiering on Hulu. Any minute now by the time people listen to this. We're going to talk about a bunch of things, though. You've also sent me your comfort movie, which was a good pick, Sarah.

Well done. Thank you. I really appreciate it. First of all, let's just talk life, headspace, where you're at, we've survived the election seemingly. Has a load lifted off your shoulders? How are you feeling? I don't, I would say a load, but like a brick of wood, you know, just because I need

the man to concede. I need the man to acknowledge the reality. I mean, I don't know why I would expect him to do something he has yet to do since he's held office, which is acknowledge reality and take responsibility for the, you know, I just. I'm with you. Yeah. So I'm speaking my language, I get it. I do feel there has been a brick taken off the pile of bricks on my back, but it did. It did feel, I don't know about you.

It kind of surprised me like about a week ago as we tape this when all the networks and the, the cable channels made the announcement, it did feel like, oh, wait, I didn't realize it was going to happen this way and that it was just going to be this like, I mean, I guess it makes sense. Of course, everybody just sort of started, I don't know, it was a celebration. It was kind of a beautiful thing. I was here in New York and it was an amazing thing. Yeah. It was, I was in California and I started hearing people out, you know, I was walking the dog and I started hearing all these weird sort of noises of people screaming. And I was like, what is happening? Is someone, it's too early in the morning and I sat what are people doing and then it got louder and louder and then

I just realized it was really in my mind it was like a movie I had the dawning record wow what's the word realization yeah that it must be because Biden won he did it and I started running towards my house and my name flung his door open he said he did he did it it was that was a pretty a pretty wild thing the music swelled so I'm curious did you have uh I mean I watched a lot of MSNBC that when you watch Nicole Wallace having played Nicole. Do you have a unique perspective on on watching where she is, which is obviously in a much different place now than when you played her? Oh, I think when I played her, no one knew who she was except for real insiders. And now I say I played Nicole Wallace and retroactively there's this collective applause about that because she is such a, such an

extraordinary woman and such a wonderful brain. And I text her sometimes during the debates or when she and Rachel and Joy were the trifect of ladies doing the after, the pre and the post. And I would just, I remember on election night texting her saying, what, what, what, what, what, what, she wrote me back something. I want to know what the text was. What is that equate to in letters? Yeah, I was like, and she was just like, yeah. It just wasn't, it wasn't a text that calmed me down. Let's put it that way. Got it. On election night. I was, I was, I was, it didn't matter how many people prepared us to be, you know, for the red mirage. It still felt so shocking. Yeah, yeah. Really, you know. Thankfully, we have, we have work to distract ourselves with. You do, I know,

and we also have the holidays. You should know that the Horowitz family every year watches a Christmas wedding, the classic Hallmark Channel movie. If that were true, I'd really worry about you. I've never seen it, but I did watch the trailer yesterday. I was, I was unaware of this in your long, illustrious filmography. We're going to start with the embarrassing stuff and then we'll get to the good stuff. How about that? Sure.

Sure. Great, great, great. Great. 2006, the classic Hallmark production. You, the great Dean Cain, Simpatico in so many ways. So many ways. We have so much in common.

What are your memories? Where were you at when you made a Christmas wedding? Did you know you had struck gold? I was an actress not working very much. And it was one of those times and anyone who's had this experience, and I know there are plenty of, and this is not to disparage lifetime. They were wonderful to me, and I was happy to be employed. Don't get me wrong. But it was certainly not, you know, my fantasy job. But they were in a position to offer me the part without an

audition, and they offered me money that was money that I hadn't seen in other places. And so I took the job and I don't regret it. But when I hear people, sometimes people will tweet me or say something like, my mom loves a Christmas wedding and I just think oh your mom sweet but I'm not sure it's just not it's just not my finest hour no it's not the Mount Rushmore it's not on the top five no it's definitely top 10 it's not top oh give me a break it's in the bottom 10 we all know it might even be well we'd have to see what else you come up I was gonna say I'm not gonna dig that far down I want to you're not if you really want me to but I don't know what else there would be the way. I don't know either. Well, this does bring to mind, though, a generalization

about your fantastic career, which is that I have been watching you, it seems like, for a while in theater and film and TV, but it's, you haven't had, I mean, I guess I was going to say the usual arc of an actor's career, but there is no usual arc, as we know. But I guess, like, you know, you were working for many years, a couple decades even, arguably, before kind of the world really took notice of you. You were, obviously a successful jobbing actor in theater and film and TV, but I guess I'm curious like who you were like in your 20s when you were working a lot. And did you feel like you were wanting for more or was it like, yeah, this is, this is, I'm getting what I need and want

out of my professional life. Oh my God, no. I was so, um, I think I had a funny, uh, right out of high school. I, for the first six months out of high school, I didn't work. I did not go to college. I got a job understudying Amy Ryan in the Sisters Resensweig on Broadway. And then I got an episode of, I think I got an episode of Law and Order. Then I got that. Then I did a pilot that then went to series called American Gothic. And I did a TV movie with Kathleen Turner called Friends at Last.

I'm not going to ask you where that ranks too. Yeah, I won't say. But, you know, I had a little bit of a moment. right out of school where I had a lot of friends who weren't working at all professionally, and I was. But then there was the sort of crushing blow that I think happens for a lot of people where you just sort of, the thing I sort of thought as a young person, a young person's awareness of like what possibility was and what I thought this would mean. The fact that I was working that way right out of school, I thought, well, you know, it's obviously going to keep going.

And there was a very rude awakening where I didn't work for almost two years. And that was really scary and I'd moved to California and I had a roommate in Burbank and it was it was not a great time so there's there's definitely I was definitely wishing and hoping and dreaming of more not fully knowing what I might be capable of I had no idea what I could do or couldn't do I just hoped for something more but you know it just wasn't it wasn't happening it really wasn't I was excited to talk to you for for another reason in that I realized that you like me actually survived an upbringing in New York City. I feel like, I don't know about you,

but when I would tell people, like, I grew up in the city, they'd be like, they didn't even compute. It's like, how does that work? You're a unicorn. And also, how are you not like a psychotic murderer? And you're like, well. Well, I am. I just hide the bodies really well.

Beginning way with something for a very long time. Did you enjoy, where did you grow up in the city? Where were you? And did it feel like a... It was all over. We were, we moved around a lot, we were Gramsie Park for a while, we were on West 11th Street for a while, before West 11th Street was the, you know, coolest place in town to live. My mother tells stories about Bank Street Park, remembering when the trees were very, very small, were not as tall as they are now. And it's really wild to think about, there was no, there was no magnolia bakery. There was none of that. It was, it was, it was not the place it is now.

But then we moved to Park Slope into different parts of Brooklyn. I lived in Cobble Hill, Park Slope. In Park Slope alone, we lived in Berkeley Place for, Street, Carroll Street, and 10th Street, all within the span of a couple of years. So I moved around a lot, but New York, I always feel sort of funny because I was born in Tampa, Florida, owning New York as, you know, saying I'm a child of the city, but the truth of the matter is, I was there since I was five years old. So it sort of feels like it counts, but it does have to be, I have to disclose that it's not where I was born. You know, the snooty New Yorkers, yeah, some of, some of us were just, but I don't really from New York. You're not, you're not, I don't know, you were there for the important year. I was there for the important years. That's exactly right. Formative years. Yep. And in terms of, was your mom the greatest influence in terms of helping define what was

important in film and theater and TV? Like who helped shape your taste as a kid? You know, that's an interesting question. My mother is certainly incredibly artistic. She's a writer. An incredibly smart woman who moved to New York when, you know, she was 27 years old, not knowing really, anyone there. It's kind of amazing when I think about it, how brave it was with the two young daughters. But no, I mean, I know my mother was really interested in movies and theater, and she took me all the time, but it was, I don't know, I feel like I sort of went from being a growing pains, facts of life, so goons, Punky Brewster obsessive, to thinking that, you know, Deer Hunter was a very special movie and watching the movie, Francis, and seeing Jessica Lang for the first time.

And it, you know, showing on a Sunday afternoon at 4 o'clock and I fell on the movie and in a, you know, towards the middle or to the end of it. And I went right out to the, to the old video store back when you could do such things and rented the full movie and started it from the beginning and started to get really interested in all these actresses. I was just so fascinated by it. And so on some level, I'd like to give my mother credit, but I kind of feel weirdly like it was my own discovery. There were things that just happened to speak to me. Yeah. Although the one thing I will say is that I had a lot of kids who were listening to a lot of Madonna and stuff, and it wasn't that I wasn't, but I was taking my mother's Joni Mitchell albums, The Pretenders Albums, John Arma Trading albums, you know, Rehuelly Jones albums. And I was playing those on her turntable when other people were, you know, bopping around to Cindy Lopper, which I was doing too, but I also was really interested in this other music and stuff. But I do hear you in kind of, I think you can have both, right? You can have the important influences in your life that help kind of like steer you towards some important parts of pop culture, but like there's nothing like kind of finding your own rabbit holes and finding those actors and directors and

suddenly like being like, wait, I just saw the godfather. It just blew my brain apart. I need to see everything this guy ever directed. And same for you for Jessica Lang, clearly. And I had that with Mike Nichols as a young, younger than I think I would be. Like when I think about it now, I think that it's really interesting that you sort of were aware that Mike Nichols had a real point of view and was a real, you know, that something about his work continually spoke to you. How interesting is that and why? You know, I mean, I don't, I don't really know the answer. So wait, you've got, uneniably, he's, he was incredibly special,

as was, you know, Coppola is Coppola and all that. You've given me the perfect segue. So the, I asked for a comfort movie and you chose a great one. I hadn't seen it in a long while, but it gave me a good excuse to go back to it. Um, yes, from the great writer, Carrie Fisher, from the great director, Mike Nichols, from the God among humans, Merrill Streep. Uh, you have chosen post-scol from the edge, talk me through how, why, when you encountered it, just give me some extemporaneous thoughts on this one. It's just one of those movies. I mean, my mother is not in show business,

but it did remind me slightly of our dynamic. You can read into that, you know. But I was just really taken instantly by the writing. I mean, Carrie Fisher, I had an experience of running into Carrie Fisher at a store in Los Angeles, you know, and literally fawning all over her. And then we did become friends. did become friends and it was always a sort of wild thing to me that I didn't I have all these emails from her that are that are very very special to me obviously they were then but they

certainly have a greater resonance from me now that she's no longer walking around the planet but I was struck by the writing I remember being so struck by the writing it was so sort of searing and also wildly funny and so true and just I don't know I don't know I just loved it so much. It's a movie poster I have in my house. I remember, you know, leaving the school building at LaGuardia High School and the movie poster was on the bus stop between us and the Juilliard school. And I remember walking by it to the train station. And, you know, I just remember so vividly the earrings that Merrill was wearing on the cover of the poster and the sunglasses that they both had on and the reflection of Hollywood. I mean, I just remember it so, so vividly. And

there was just something about it just to me it comes on and you don't want to watch it with me though I'll tell you this right now when you watch it with me I don't shut up I'm saying the movie with I'm just the entire movie I'm saying the rocky horror experience yeah just the rocky horror experience and it's just really people are like this is not enjoyable for me because you're and it's like I just can't help it maybe you should do the one woman postcards from the edge maybe this is what when theater comes back this is what we relaunch theater with don't tempt me make promises I can't keep Get me excited, Josh, because this is a good idea.

This is a very good idea. I really, I just think the writing is so extraordinary, and I just love it. So for those that don't know, some basics, if you haven't caught on, Carrie Fisher wrote this, it's a thinly veiled autobiographical work that was based on her great novel. Merrill Street played Suzanne Vale, Richard Shirley MacLean, plays her mother. It's got a great cast. Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman is the director. Oh, my God.

I mean, he's my favorite. ever. There isn't enough mommy in the world to further a cause like yours. Oh, Lowell. I'm sorry. I mean, sorry. I could just, you don't want to let's, we should just shouldn't. No, no, no. It's okay. I want to, if it makes you feel better, do the whole movie. I just think about Jean Hackman when she comes in and says, can I get a Coke, Coca-Cola? Can I get some? Does it depict, obviously, when you saw it when you probably were 15 by my mouth when it came out, but in the years since where you've accumulated experience, it is kind of an interesting document, yes, about a woman struggling with addiction and a relationship with her mom, but it's also kind of a great set life behind the scenes.

I mean, I'm sure that when I watch it now, I am sort of soothed by this, the familiarity that I have with what I'm watching in terms of, you know, her holding on, gripping the ledge and the green screen is behind her and she lets go and of course doesn't fall down and Simon, but this is not relaxed. This is incredibly upset. If this is the quality you're looking for it. As a producer, Oliver Platt ever come up to you and said, you know, you just need to have more fun. It's not as if you just farted all over your dialogue and we sat there during rushes wondering what was that noise all over her lines i'm so relieved that analogy has just bathed me i mean it's so good just this whole idea you know the lonely

it really i think at the end of the day too like what i what i take away from it now is that sort of the absolute um isolation in a funny way of working on something no matter how many people are around there is there are so many people with their opinions and their thoughts and their expectations and everybody's sort of jockeying for their position on the set. And I don't mean in terms of power, but in terms of being taken seriously and having a voice and all of these dynamics that are at play, it's like high school on steroids or something. It's really something. And so you do think about this, this actress. I'm sure I can relate to, you know, feeling totally with everyone and yet by yourself, uh, in a way, you know. Did you ever get to cross paths with the great Mike Nichols?

I surely did. It was, it is really one of the, uh, One of the really special things. When I was doing Studio 60, I remember Aaron Sorkin coming up to me and saying, I got an email for Mike Nichols last night. He really loves a show and he thinks you're great. And I was like, excuse me? Say it again, but slower. Slow it, slowly down.

Mike Nichols thinks I, meaning me, am great. What? And then years later, Nora Ephron and Mike Nichols were doing reading of her play. Lucky Guy, I think it was, yes. And it was, at the time, it was Hugh Jackman. and me were reading it, along with just a constellation of some of the greatest theater actors in New York, and it was Mike Nichols was directing it, and Nora was obviously had written it, and we sat in a room, Diane Sawyer was there, and Scott Rudin was there, and it was like

one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my left, really, actually. I was like, this is not, I'm not cut out for this, folks. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, and I'll just never forget him coming up to talk to me and just saying, you're so good, you're just so good, I hope you know that. And it was before I did a reading, and I'm sure after I did the reading, he was like, oops, but it was he wrote me a card he sent me like five bars of chocolate i have this card it's the most one of my treasured possessions it's yeah so i did have i got a couple of those experiences in my working life that have really been a bit mind-blowing to me amazing that you have that experience yeah he's one of those directors that comes up over and over again on the podcast oh really yeah just the people

that have been lucky enough to know him and work with him he just was like you know the cliche He was an actor's director, clearly. Yes, I have to tell you, there are so few of them. Well, I was going to say he and Merrill had a fantastic working relationship, obviously, even just looking at the breadth of their different kinds of work. They did, you know, what they did this. They did heartburn, angels in America. I mean, it can't get more.

Heartburn's another one for me. Nice. So, so talk to me a little bit about, here's what I'm curious about. Like, do you have a Mike Nichols-like collaborator in your life, someone that feels like you has been watching out for you and vice versa, and you have a sympathico with, Who would that be if there is somebody? There's no question that Ryan Murphy, you know, I mean, I've said this a million times,

so it's certainly not new information. But, you know, I have him to think for the entire shift in my career in the sense that not only has he given me the roles that have been the most challenging and also the most sort of recognized outside of the experience of doing them, but he continues to come back to me again and again and again, which, you know, only engenders a kind of confidence in yourself because he continues to say, here's this very precious, scary thing, and I want you to hold it, and you take it and you do something with it. And you're going, I'm scared. And he believes that you can do it. And that kind of, you know, like any really good parent, which any actor will tell you

who has a real working relationship with any director that has any, you know, real semblance of intimacy, there is absolutely a parent-child dynamic. And it can shift back and forth. But there is that trust where you take the training wheels off the bike and you keep a little. looking back and somebody's, well, you can do it, you can do it. And it's a very, it's, it's, sometimes you're taking really big swings and you, you want to feel that you've got the support of someone who sees you, yeah, owes you, uh, well enough to know where you're pulling back and how to push you more. And I definitely have that with Ryan. Well, and all the facets of you again, like we were just talking about Mike Nichols, these different kind of parts that he

gave Merrill. I mean, look at the work you've done with Ryan. I mean, you're playing Linda trip now, far cry from Ratchett and you're, yeah, I mean, hardest thing I've ever done and we've just begun and it's really just so far the hardest thing I've ever done really wow um we'll get to that I want to hear about that a little a little bit later but I do just another thing I want to mention it sounds this sounds crazy but I actually kind of believe this I feel like Meryl Streep is somehow underrated as a comic actor and I feel like this film if you look at three of three of really the great 90s comedies came in quick succession um this defending your life and death becomes her I mean three of

my favorite movies. I'm obsessed. You can quote this one. I can quote the other two probably. Depending your life is one of the great, I mean, to me, one of the great movies ever made. Absolutely. I mean, bar none to me. Yeah. And broadcast news as well. I also go crazy for broadcast news. Podcast news is a perfect movie. Like, unobjectionably. And also this one, I feel like people didn't know Merrill could sing until this movie. Now we know, but like back then she belts it out it's amazing back them dark and dusty drapes lit in some laughing

big boy come sorry I could really just don't make it done I was going to ask you for your favorite line from the film but you've already quoted a few do you have like a single solitary line you've quoted the most I'm not the performer you're the performer I couldn't possibly

compete with you what if someone actually won you've got a much better voice than that Madonna girl Oh, she doesn't have happier voice. I'm not the performer. Oh, God, it's just too good. I love that line that Gene Hackman says to Merrill when he says, you know, look at what you can do. You know, she says, oh, it's just, I'm sorry.

It's just this thing with my mother. And he says, I don't know your mother, but I know you. And I know that you make a mother out of anyone. And we can go back and back and forth. And eventually you have to say, fuck it. I start with me. And he turns her towards the screen. And he says, look it, look what you can do.

And you weren't even half conscious. imagine what you know anyway I could go on I like when I was watching the other day I wrote down what were designed more for public than for private yeah Ed speaks so you chose in drunken brawl with tree you chose oh my god I need to control Sarah I told you it's not fun no I like I'm enjoying it but I just want to get to a lot of different things fine fine fine you chose I don't know if this was just, you know, on brand for promoting run, but you chose a mother-daughter story and look at what we're promoting here. A mother-daughter story, very similar. Yes. What's your point, Josh?

I'm just making the connections in case... What is your point? Wow. Yes, I, it's true. I mean, there's just no question that there's a correlative thread there. The, I was a big fan of searching. This is... Me too. Me too. Great. I think it was his debut film, right? Anish's... So Anish is the director of this. I don't want to butcher his name, Anish Shiganti. Did I have that close? Yes. Writer director of searching, which if you guys haven't checked out, you really should.

This is like a really smart, clever, fun kind of piece of genre filmmaking. It's not a lot of characters. It's you and a young performer who has not really done much of anything on screen yet. It's 90 minutes. It goes by like a bullet train. And I think it's a real ride. A real ride. And the great thing, Anish, there are many, many things to recommend him as a filmmaker and as a human being, of course. But I was really impressed with this commitment he had from the jump that they not cast the sort of flavor of the month, not to be disparaging against any actress who was ever the flavor of the month. I mean, what a blessed thing to be ever. I don't think I was ever the flavor of the month, ever. But I think, you know, he was really important to him that ought that there be proper representation and authenticity. as part of the story and I think the studio was pushing back and wanted a particular girl or two

that had been, you know, newly minted and anointed and could guarantee that, you know, some butts would be in some seats and he just really held firm and Kira, this is her first movie and I'm sure it will not be her last and I think she more than holds her own. I think the movie belongs to her and I think that's just a really special, exciting thing to feel you were there when a person, you know, blossomed into becoming, you know, the performer that they're on the road to be. It's really special. Do you feel any kind of responsibility on set when this is her first kind of experience like this?

Like, obviously, she's got the goods or she wouldn't have been cast. But, you know, there's a lot to learn. Is it just through experience of what it's like to carry a film and be on a set? Did you kind of have to, like, or feel like it was incumbent on you to kind of help out in some ways? I felt what I felt was important was that she know how much I believed in her so that she didn't worry that I wasn't, you know, on board. I made sure to just remind her that she had every right to say that she would like another take,

that she had every right to take the time she needed before a particularly emotional scene. You know, especially when you're younger, you think the minute they call action, you're supposed to just be able, as if you're a robot, turn that on. And I said to her, you need a second before you start. That is your right and is something you have to protect in yourself. So I would do things like that. But, you know, she's a really self-possessed young woman. and I thought, you know, who's studying in an Ivy League, you know, and I'm just like,

I'm an actress. I hear some advice for you. Meanwhile, she's like, you know, missing neuroscience class to make the movie. And so I just sort of felt like I had no business offering her any advice other than to try to remember to remind her to breathe because it was a very big, you know, at the time before the movie was going to be on Hulu. This was a Lionsgate movie to be released in theaters. And she's the lead of this movie. And it, I don't think I would have at that age been able to manage it. I don't have that kind of, I'm not built from that kind of material. I'm much more of a nervous Nelly. And she was like, okay, let's do this. And it was really impressive. I found her to be a really impressive person and a wonderful actress. Without ruining where the

film goes and the twists and turns for your character, et cetera. It's twice to say you've played both the chasey and the chaser in various genre projects, which is more pleasurable for you, Sarah. I think in the horror or thriller genre, I think there is certainly a lot of meat on the bone in terms of opportunity for emotional crescendos and things that can be really, really fun, particularly earlier in your career when, for me, I was really waiting for an opportunity to have something to sink my teeth into. Now, I think my tank might be running a little bit on the old running and screaming and weeping tank. I think it's a little low. So sometimes for right now, I feel like having the role of the pursuer and the chaser rather than the chasee feels a little bit more suited to my physical and mental capabilities, emotional capabilities for the moment. I think I've run that well. I've rung it out and I need to refuel.

Fair enough. You, I mean, you allude to this. You have done a surprising amount of genre stuff. And I guess it's the classic tale of like you succeed in something. you get five more offers like that and just so happens we've gotten a lot of good offers in that realm.

Thank you, Josh. And you've made the most of it. But, but Sarah, Marvel and D.C. world have alluded you. They have. What the fuck is going on? Oh, shit. Marvel and D.C. have not called me.

I don't know the answer. That's a good question. I mean, I got, you know, the closest I got to that was being in Night Shyamalan's glass, which was obviously sort of a superhero movie before it's superhero movies were superhero movies, really.

Right. But I would love to do something like that. It would be obviously really fun, but no one's calling, and I'm not going to lament that too much. No, you're doing fine, but I'm just... I'm sorry, but I just, I do think they should call. I mean, it would be nice to get the phone call.

It would be nice if I got the call. It'd be nice to have the privilege to say no. It would be nice to be like, I'm not doing your stupid piece of shit comic book movie, Marvel. No, I would never say that. It'd be so desperate. I mean, that's my way of seeming like I don't care when really, I'm like, please call me.

You're just taking a different tack now. You're like, the other one hasn't worked. So now, please. Desperry doesn't work. So I'll just pretend I don't care. You are, though, producing more. Is that part of the game plan to both create unique different kinds of work for yourself and others? What's the, what's the reasoning behind getting into the producing game?

That concept, what you just said is I think arguably why most people do it, that has never occurred to me. I'm not thinking about it like that at all. We need to call a team Paulson meeting right now. I think the truth is I have been, you know, I've had this ever since People versus OJ, I have not stopped working in a way that has been so extraordinarily shocking to me and thrilling and also not left a lot of room for what do I want to do and what do I want to develop and what do I want to put my stamp on and what does my stamp even mean? And the producing components have come out of my relationship with Ryan and his feeling that it was time for me to have some ownership of the things we were creating together.

And they're his ideas and they're his, they come out of his mind and he thinks of me for them and wants me to have a real seat at the table. And that is to his credit that he has continued to want that for me. I got my first directing opportunity with him as well. And I would like to do more of it. It's just there are only 30 days in the month and 12 months out of the year. And there's a moment where it's like, I would have to be willing to sort of step back and just say, I'm not going to do anything for a minute. I want to really get quiet with myself and think about what it is I want to do. And I just haven't had to, I haven't had time to do that yet.

And one would argue I could make the time. I haven't chosen to do that either. You've devoted your time instead of memorizing all postcards from the edge. Correct. Correct. The important things. You are producing, are you producing this new American crime story? Are you produced on this one? Yes, I am. So you alluded to this being, what was the description? You said, this is the hardest thing you've done? I've ever done from an acting standpoint, yeah.

Okay. So for those that don't know, you are playing Linda Tripp. I love this cast. I mean, B.D. Feldstein, amazing. Playing Monica Lewinsky. You got Billy Eichner in there as a Matt Drudge, I think. Wait, is Betty Gilpin playing Ann Coulter? Do I have that right?

Maybe, kind of. Okay, we can skip that. Yeah. And Annalie Ashford is playing. Paula Jones, Terran Kilms, playing her husband. Yeah, it's just, it's, you know, Clive Owens playing President Clinton. Right. So what's, so, so give me a sense of why so challenging. You've played real people before. I played real people before, but I've always played real people with whom I have some alignment in terms of my moral center. Linda does things that I have to sort of go a more

circuitous route, travel a more circuitous route to figure out how to understand the behavior. Because there are, you know, and that's my job as an actor is not to judge her. My job is to try to figure out the why. And if I'm going to play her, I have to figure out, you know, all of the facets of her personality and what she cares about and what she's fighting against and where she feels her moral line lives and dies. And it's very different from mine. And so trying to, you know, I don't look much like her. I did look like Marsha Clark Moore. So there's that thing of trying to figure out how to straddle doing what we can to change the shape of me facially, which I think we've done successfully, without going so far as to feel like there's somebody just in a sea of plastic.

It's like, if you're going to cast me doing it, you've got to have some of me present. Otherwise, what's the point? Get me someone who looks more like her, I guess. So it's just been an interesting thing to try to figure out how to regulate for myself. And also, she had a lot of physical traits and things she did physically that were very particular, like the way she used her hands or the way she raised her eyebrows and the way she looked to the side and the way she used her mouth. And so as an actor, you sort of go, she blinks a lot. And it's like, do all that blinking.

I don't think I can do all that blinking or I think it's going to be really, really irritating to the audience. So you go, let's not do that, but how much of this will I do? So calibrating all of that is really hard. And when it's not cut together, you don't know if it's going to be like me over here, like Tickey Bond, Tickerstine, and then you've got everybody else sort of doing things really, really on the level. And then you go, is that going to make me look like I'm doing something much? And so it's how do we find a way to let the truth of it live?

Because she wasn't as, you know, still as most people. Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, I was hearing like Brendan Gleason talk about that one playing Trump recently in the Comey Rule. And like they almost had to like tone it back because the truth is some people, a lot of us are big and like and the expressions and the ticks are big. And sometimes it can read as like, what are you doing? You're playing a caricature when you're actually playing the person. That's what the person is. So that's the thing. And we've only been shooting for a couple of days that I've been watching the dailies. And it's sort of like the things I respond to most are when there's like a hybrid of really doing the things that she did and then also some stillness. Because I think. you have to have a moment where the audience can go, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it. And you don't want to just seem like an actor who's so excited to be playing somebody so, so different from yourself that you, you know, got really, really high on the idea of doing all of the things that she does. And it's just like, right, I think the great Stella Adler,

it's a wonderful acting teacher, said, nobody wants your 100%. Like you don't, nobody actually wants that, uh, you know, you don't, there's a, there's a moment where it's actually been become something you can't get inside of as an audience because you're just sitting there going, oh, look at that actress, doing all those things, you know, and then you're not really part what, you know, you're not involved in the story. So I haven't quite, I just don't know if I'm, you've caught me at a moment. We're seeing a work in progress. I've just done it. So it's like I'm only three or four days in and it's like, I don't quite know exactly what the perfect threat is. And maybe it won't be perfect and it will be found in the editing room of picking pieces. And

And I don't, I don't know. It's really scary. I speak for the audience. We believe in your magic. We believe in you. It feels like a big swing for me. It feels like the biggest, like I'm up at bat, and I feel a little bit that feeling of post-horror story. I mean, post-crime story, OJ, and I feel like there's an expectation or something, and it makes me feel nervous.

I wish I had the postcard script on lockdown in my brain, because I would quote the Gene Hackman lines when he was talking to Merrill, as you were saying, to look at your son. I want you to have the confidence, Sarah. It's going to be okay. I appreciate it, Gene. Jean, Josh. He's my favorite actor. I just wish she was still, I mean, he's my favorite. I know.

How could he go out with Welcome to Mooseport as his last movie, Sarah? It's cruel. And he seems healthy and okay. He's writing his like military books in like San Jose. I just want Gene Hackman. And I want to be involved in it somehow. I'd give anything. He's the most like naturalistic actor.

It's not a false move in any Gene Hackman role. I think he's so incredible. What's your favorite performance? of his pretty into the conversation really you know can't go wrong with that but i love him in the firm i mean i'll take him any way i can get him i think he's a real i love him in bird cage yeah i mean i i i the french connection all of it i i love all of it you know i just think he's i'll take him in heartbreakers or whatever that movie i'll take him in for what puitt yeah yeah i'll take him in anything that's how much that's how deep my love run we we have a mutual

acquaintance, your buddies with Zach Quinto. Do you go way back with Zach? We go back to him suckling my teat. This is a metaphor? No. I missed that episode. Sorry. It was an episode of American Horror Story where, you know, here we are good friends and, you know, we had to do these really, really dark things on Season 2 of American Horror Story where he did have to, you know, I had a lovely cover on the boob, but he had to do some things. We had to do some things. It was really Nothing brings people together. Nothing brings together like an old. It's just so upsetting.

It was really, we shared a trailer. We had either side of this double-banger trailer, and we would just put each other's like, he had to wear a sock, it's called. And he would tape it to my trailer, and I would tape my little, my personal covering. We just put it. It was just, you know, we were young.

The Halcyon days of American Horror Story. I was going to say, this wasn't that long ago. No, it was 2011, 2012. Oh, wow. I like him because he presents as normal and very and calm, but clearly, as evidenced by what we were just saying, he's a whack job like the rest of us. He's a real, he's a really, really good friend of mine and I find him to be a very soothing, wonderful person who is, yeah, he's the greatest. You've been in a couple films with the Spirit Animal for me in this podcast, Michael Shannon. Oh, yeah.

What's your Michael Shannon experience? My Michael Shannon experience was, man, I did a play called Killer Joe that Tracy Letts wrote and I did it with Scott Glenn and Amanda Plummer and Michael Shannon in New York City at the Soho Fet rep, I guess it was called at the time. I was at a different location than it is now, I think, if it's still in existence. And yeah, he was a, he was a real, how would I describe it? It's indescribable. That's why he's a, that's why we love. And then we did mug together as well. Right. I think he's from another planet. And I mean that in the most complimentary way, I don't mean that he's freakish. I feel him to be, he's a very, very, very deep person.

He's just a very deep well. Talk about still waters. But he's also wildly funny. And just every time I'm around him, because we play brother and sister, sister and we were both so young and it was the beginning of our career is really for both of us. I remember after Killer Joe opened, we both got calls from Steven Spielberg's casting director, Leslie Feldman, who he apparently had come to see the play, and he had her call us both, and we both had to go in and meet her for a general meeting, and it was like, I remember that was

kind of the coolest thing in the world. And I happen to think he's a, he's just, there isn't anyone better than Michael Shannon. He's an extraordinary actor. I'm with you. Sarah, we did it. I tracked you down in the middle of the most arduous production of your career, no less. That's why you know how much I wanted to talk to you, John. I appreciate that. You lived up to my high expectations. Congratulations on run. Everybody should check it out. No, truly, I'm impressed always by your work, but Kira, this young performer is excellent as well.

She's so amazing. I think this is a really exciting thing. And I will say, honestly, the director, Anish, is definitely one to watch these first two films show a great facility behind the camera and just sort of creating entertaining. creating entertaining pieces of genre work. So thank you, Sarah. Say sane. You're going to kill it as Linda Tripp. I appreciate your, you'll always be my Gene Hackman. Oh my God. There's no higher compliment. No, there isn't. But I'll remember this moment when you try to impress upon me the importance of believing in myself. There you go. I didn't have my shrink session this week, so I appreciate you. That'll be $180. What's the going rate? Thanks again, Sarah. I appreciate it.

And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressured to do this by Josh. The Old West is an iconic period of American history and full of legendary figures whose name James still resonate today. Like Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and Butch and Sundance, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Geronimo,

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