How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Rita Wilson - ‘I’m 69. I’m At My Most Unfiltered.’

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

I’m so unbelievably thrilled that Rita Wilson chose How to Fail for her FIRST EVER podcast appearance. The acclaimed actor, singer and producer was born in Los Angeles to a Greek mother and a Bulgarian father who emigrated to the United States in 1949. You might know her from early roles like Bosom Buddies, where she met her future husband Tom Hanks, and from standout turns in films including Runaway Bride, It's Complicated and her unforgettable scene-stealing in Sleepless in Seattle. Behind the camera, she helped bring My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Mamma Mia! to the big screen. Alongside her film career, Wilson has built a powerful musical voice, releasing albums since 2012 and collaborating with artists like Elvis Costello and Willie Nelson. She now returns to her solo work with her sixth album, Sound Of A Woman, released on 1st May. In this episode, we talk about growing up in a traditional, private family but later living in the public eye, bringing My Big Fat Greek Wedding to the screen, her friendships with Nora Ephron and Bruce Springsteen - and how her experience of breast cancer reshaped her life and friendships. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 02:39 Sleepless In Seattle Scene Secrets 04:32 Finding Her Voice 07:53 Labels and Late Blooming 13:07 Privacy to Speaking Out 14:56 Greek Wedding Breakthrough 17:43 Drama School Rejections 27:57 Proving Them Wrong 29:03 Onscreen Friendship Magic 31:03 What Friendship Means 32:12 Breast Cancer and Blame 35:07 Honoring Her Father 39:55 Family Secrets and Privacy 45:50 Building Family Values 47:20 Fired as Ticket Taker 💬 QUOTES TO REMEMBER: I’ve come to a stage in my life where I’m only now just finding my voice, both metaphorically and literally. We spend so much of our lives shedding those identities that don't work for us anymore until we get to a place where I am now, which is literally the most unfiltered place you can be when you get to a certain age where you just don’t care what anybody thinks and you can tell the truth more fully. 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Sound Of A Woman is out on 1st May Join the How To Fail community: www.howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Elizabeth’s Substack: www.theelizabethday.substack.com 📚 WANT MORE? Ruth Wilson – on refusing Botox, being rejected from Oxford and living with her father’s Alzheimer's: swap.fm/l/ZbkfbAmZFOX0zB2u1iiC Melanie Chisholm – the former Spice girl on mental health, identity and navigating fame: swap.fm/l/OAU4TwoXfjVLvCdrcSYY Gloria Steinem – my personal hero: on activism, ageing and redefining success: swap.fm/l/WbcOneXzQpdLfYriAQXE 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod Podcast Instagram: @howtofailpod Website: www.elizabethday.org Guest bookings for How To Fail only come from official @sonymusic.com emails Elizabeth and Rita answer listener questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: www.howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Shania Manderson Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Alex Lawless How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] _________________________________________________________________________ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How have your 60s be? 69, a very sexy age. It's the sexiest age. Your whole job if you're an actor is mostly failing. You don't get every job that you go up for. It's one out of 10, I suppose. And there's something really great about working with women. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day.

This is the podcast that believes at the root of failure there is the chance for growth. Before we get into this episode, please do remember to like, follow and subscribe so that you never miss a single conversation. This episode is brought to you by Tell Us Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cybercriminals love tax forms. But I've got Tellus Online Security.

It helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season, or any season. Plan started just $12 a month. Learn more at tellus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. Welcome to crime scene, the new weekly show from The Binge, where we tell you the stories behind the world's most unforgettable crimes. I'm Jonathan Hirsch.

You may know me as the host of my fugitive dad or dear Franklin Jones watching you. I'm an executive producer of The Binge, the True Crime Podcast Network, where we bring you a new series on first of every month. For crime scene, I'm joined by my producer and co-host Cooper Mall, the reporter and voice behind Fatal Beauty and the Crimes of Margo Freshwater. We know there are a lot of true crime podcasts out there. I think what makes crime scene different is that Cooper and I have boots on the ground. We're investigative storytellers. And so many of the stories that come across our desk, we haven't been able to share with you until now. So if you're one of the

millions of people who have flocked to the binge for riveting storytelling, deeply investigative, true crime series. Think of this as all the things that you love about those shows in a single episode. Join us every week in the crime scene office wherever you listen to or watch your shows. This is crime scene. Available now. My guest today is quite possibly the only woman who bears the distinction of having both a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Greek postage stamp to her name. She is Rita Wilson, acclaimed actor, singer and producer, born Margarita Ibrahimov in Los Angeles,

to a Greek mother and a Bulgarian father who emigrated to the States in 1949. Wilson wanted to be a singer from a young age, but she ended up at the London Academy for Dramatic Arts and soon got parts in sitcoms including Bus and Buddies, where she starred opposite her future husband, Tom Hanks. Notable movie roles follow, including runaway bride, it's complicated,

and a scene stealing turn in sleeps as... I love this scene so much, I can't get it out, and a scene stealing turn in sleepless in Seattle when she memorably bursts into tears recounting the plot of an affair to remember. As producer, she was the driving force behind developing theatrical productions of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Mamma Mia

into some of the highest grossing movies of all time. Alongside this, she has a successful musical career, releasing album since 2012 and reaching the top of Amazon's singer-songwriter chart. Known for her collaborations with major artists such as Elvis Costello and Willie Nelson, she now returns to her solo work with her sixth album, Sound of a Woman, released in May. I've come to a stage in my life where I'm only now just finding my voice, both metaphorically and literally, Wilson says. Many times I felt muted, not necessarily by the world itself, but by my own sense of propriety as a very private person in a very public life and profession. Rita Wilson, welcome to How to Fail. Hi, Elizabeth. So nice to be here, really.

Thank you. Oh, it's so lovely to have you sitting opposite me, and I'm sorry I stumbled over the Sleepless in Seattle recollection, but truly one of the greatest scenes of all time. There is a naturalism to your performance on screen, and I'm going to get onto your music in a minute. But that naturalism, I wonder how hard it is to stay so natural when you're being filmed. Well, everybody should have the luxury of being able to say Nora Ephron's words. That screenplay was written by Nora Ephron, who also directed the film and her sister, Delia Ephron. And if you have good material, that's it. Then your job is done for you.

Her scripts are actually quite musical. They have a rhythm and a tempo for comedy. So we had gotten a few of the takes down. And at the end, I said, may I try something? because the scene actually continued on a little bit further than what Nora had written. And I said, do you want me to just continue on, like maybe a little improv?

And she said, yes, try it. But because Tom's character and Victor Garber's character didn't know that was coming, then they improvised the whole scene about, that's a chick flick, and that reminds me of the dirty dozen, and the guy's jumping off and how that made the men cry.

And so Nora kept it in, which was really great. And I was very, you know, surprised that she did that. And Talkie of Musicality brings us to your album, Sound of a Woman. And I'm very interested in some of your lyrics. So there's a track called Michael Angelo, which I love, because the whole premise of that track is that there is something beneath this rock that is generally, that is gradually sort of carved out and there is the woman beneath.

Can you talk to us a bit about that track and what you were trying to say with it? Yes. There was a quote that I used to have on my bulletin board and it was a quote from the artist Michelangelo and someone had asked him how do you carve these spectacular statues out of these massive, massive chunks of marble?

And he said, I see the angel in the marble and I carve until I set him free. And when I read that, it just, it opened something up for me because I think as humans, we all have a vision for ourselves. Like, who do we really want to be? And I think as women, we come in and where it's so easy to assign labels to women, Oh, you're such a sweet young girl or you're a sassy teen or, well, you're a little bit of a workaholic, or, you know, what a great mother you are, or you're a wonderful wife. And all of those things are wonderful and they're beautiful. But they're also the sort of superficial exterior things. And I think we spend so much of our lives shedding those identities that don't work for us anymore until we get to a place like now where I, am, which is literally, you know, I guess the most unfiltered place you can be when you get to a certain age where you just don't care what anybody thinks. And you can tell the truth more fully. What's the most annoying label that people have given you that you are delighted to have

shared? You know, it's a series of labels because I grew up in a generation where I, you know, I was very much influenced by my mom's generation. My mom and dad, you know, were, I'm a first generation American, so my mom and dad were immigrants. And dad was from Bulgaria, as you mentioned, and my mom was from Greece. And then, so I had values that were very, very traditional. And then I'm in this little middle section, and ahead of me were already these women like Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug and feminists who were fighting for women's rights. And I knew that that was incredible. Like I thought, wow, this is very different than what I'm growing up with. But I was a little too young to sort of go

off and burn my bra or go to Woodstock. But I was very keenly aware of the strides that they were making for, you know, financial equality, job equality, you know, glass ceilings that we all know about. women's rights. And so I've always been straddling those two generations. So the labels I can say are, I always wanted to do the right thing by my parents because they were the greatest people and I loved them. So I was not much of a rebel. So I think my rebel phase is coming much later in my life. I think shedding, putting good in front of anything. You know, we're always a good daughter, a good wife, a good girl, a good worker, a good student, you know. And so I'm enjoying discovering, you know, like shaking it up a little bit. Yes. And although I don't believe this,

because you are so unbelievably gorgeous and youthful, apparently you're 69. That's right, ladies. bring it, I own it. How have your 60s be? 69, a very sexy age. It's the sexiest age. Well, here's the thing, though. I really feel that we are only limited by, well, that could be a label. What does that mean?

What does that mean to be 69? It means that I'm living my fullest life. You know, the sands and the hourglass are going, fast now. They're coming through there in a much quicker tempo than when you're 16 or 19.

And boy, that really encapsulates what it is that you want to be doing with the rest of the time that you have left on this planet. And, you know, I started, as I said, started doing music in my 50s, but I

and I struggled with that because I thought I don't know anybody who has done it. I didn't have a role model for that, but in music. But there are role models all over in poetry, in journalism, in writing, in painting. And there are so many women who got later starts. And a friend of mine who's, you know, we've been friends for many, many years, Bruce Springsteen was one time we were talking and having a conversation about songwriting. And, you He was basically giving a little mini master class on songwriting, kind of like very, very quiet and listening to him.

And when he paused, I said, okay, Bruce, then I have a question. What makes me think that I can start writing now when you've been doing it all your life? And he said, because Reitz, creativity is time independent. And that to me is so true, because I thought to myself, Absolutely right. Who's the one that sets the clock on creativity? Who is the one that says, oh, sorry, that window, according to my creativity clock, passed for you. That was supposed to happen at 32 and a third, and you missed that window. I'm sorry, no. I wouldn't have had, I wouldn't have been able to write the songs then that I'm writing now. I wouldn't have been able to do it.

I didn't have a voice to say these things then. So I'm very thankful that it's happening at this point in my life. And really, so much of creativity comes through wisdom, which comes through lived experience. So actually, the older you are in a conventional sense in many ways, the more creative you can be, because the more you can draw on. Can I also just say that I love the sound of your friendship group, like Nora Fon and Bruce Springsteen, sign me up. That's like, wait, that's not name-droppy because, you know, I really mean that, you know. It didn't come across as name-dropping at all.

Okay, good. I know of several people personally who have been helped by work that you've put into the world, pieces that you've written, you wrote this extraordinary piece about breast cancer and surviving breast cancer from Arthur Zazaar, which was beautiful. Maybe we could come on to that. But also my big fat Greek wedding, my aunt is Greek. Yes. And you are a hero in that household.

And my two cousins who are like sisters to me, obviously are half Greek. And they felt so seen by the story that you brought to scream. You know, but this is the thing. Like, again, I want to credit, you know, the writer, Neo Vardalos, because really she wrote something that was so, to me, it was so specific to my life and my upbringing. I loved that we could look at our own cultural heritage and be able to embrace it and love it and also understand that, you know, it may not apply to everybody. And yet if you're with somebody who's not from that same cultural heritage, that it might seem like really outside the box for them.

I found this play when it was in a 99-seat theater. And I saw the little ad in the paper, which was about an inch big. And it said my big fat Greek wedding, Nea Vardalas, and I thought, just that title made me laugh. So I went to see it. I thought, worse comes to worse. I took my mom and my sister and my nieces. Worse comes to worse.

We've seen a bad play, but we had a great dinner beforehand. And it ended up being the most fun play. And afterwards, I asked to meet the writer, who was Nia, and she came out and I said to her, gosh, this is so good. And I think it would make an amazing movie. and she said, I have a script, and I said, let me have it. And that's how it happened. Did your mom love it, too?

She loved it. Oh, she told the funniest story after she saw the movie, which, by the way, we could not get a distributor for. We could not get anybody to finance it. Nobody wanted it. But even after the movie was finished, our distributor sort of just bailed and said, I don't get it. And, of course, you know, it became the biggest, the biggest grossing independent movie of all times. time, which is very grateful for that. But my mom, after she saw the movie for the first time, I said, Mom, what did you think of the

movie? And she said, oh, this movie is funny. This is very, very funny. These people are crazy. They're not like us. And I was like, no, not at all, Mom. Like, they're totally like us. By the way, my sister has a house next to my mother's.

when they were alive. They had the houses next to each other, my mom and dad. Yeah. And was your mother using Windex for every minor ailment? No, that's all, Mia. I didn't know anything about Windex. When I started this podcast, I honestly felt like I was learning a brand new language overnight. Scripts, artwork, scheduling, tech. Suddenly, I was the entire team, and it was kind of overwhelming. There were so many moments I wished I had a proper business partner to help me figure it all out. That's why I love Shopify. It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses, and it gives you everything you need in one place. You can build a beautiful online store in

minutes with hundreds of ready-to-use templates. Their AI tools help you write product descriptions and even polish your photography, which is a lifesaver when you're spinning 100 plates. And you can manage everything, inventory, payments, analytics, without juggling 10 different tabs. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing sign up for your £1 per month trial today at Shopify.com.uk slash fail. That's Shopify.com.com.com slash fail. Infamous is the gossip show that's smart. We talk about Tyra Banks and bringing down top model. We talk about Jenna Jameson and how she dominated the 90s. You know, she's horny and she's in charge.

was very smart about marketing herself. We talk about celebrities who maybe shouldn't be celebrities, like the Beckham guy. Brooklyn is their first kid. He's had a little bit of the Nepo baby curse. We investigate orgasm cults. A woman's erotic power can unlock many other powers in her life. And, of course, we discuss people who have gotten into lots of trouble. My name is Molly McLaughlin.

I am one of Jen Shaw's many victims. She was defrauding the elderly, and her tagline was the only thing I'm guilty of is being shamazing. Listen to Infamous, the gossip show that's smart. The show's called Infamous. Susan Galbraith was a housewife in Mayfield, Kentucky. But after a murder in town, Susan took it upon herself to find witnesses who could point to a killer. She thought she's going to be a hero. But that's not what happened.

The lies, a lot of lies. What were Susan's real motives? She wasn't in it to help them find the killer. Why then, did the cops take her seriously? It was known that she was getting funds from them. Susan's son is wrestling with his mother's legacy, to this day. I mean, my mom was, I used the word diabolical. And perhaps the biggest question of all is,

did she help convict an innocent man? I do feel like that they got the wrong people. From Sony Music Entertainment and Message Heard, this is My Mother's Lives, available now on The Binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcast to start listening today. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes all at once, add free. Your first failure is dropping out of college and then being rejected from true drama schools before being weightlisted at Lambda here in London. Yes. Yes.

So tell us this story, because. From what I understand, singing was your first love. It was. So how did you end up applying for drama school? Back in the day when I was working, I started working when I was 15 and a half and I got my Screen Actors Guild, my union card doing an episode of the Brady Bunch. And that sort of got me into acting. And I was working.

I worked all the time. I did commercials. I did television shows. I modeled. I just never stopped working. But in my head, that wasn't really a job. That was sort of like, this is what you can do right now. But a job to me was, you know, being a teacher, which was what my sister was going to be.

And I didn't really think that you could make a living being an actor. And yet I was doing that. So I applied to community college, which we back then was called junior college. And those were only for two years. And then you would take that two-year degree and then go on to a college to finish and get your baccalaureate bachelor's degree. So I went to the first junior college and I was taking general ed classes. And this one junior college was kind of far away. and it was a long commute.

So I decided to transfer to one that was closer. And I was taking all my general ed classes, you know, English and history and just the same things that you would have taken in high school. I kept having to, you know, retake a class over and over again because I couldn't be there and I would miss classes because I was working, but I also had to support myself. And so it was always a conflict of,

being able to do I take the job or go and do this class and you know our business was paying really well back then and I would take the jobs but I knew I wanted to stay in college because it was so important to my parents you know they didn't have really high school or college education but I knew that it was so important to them because they they impressed upon us that if you have a college degree, then you would have a much better chance at having a better job. My dad was bartender. And my sister was the first person in our family to actually get a college degree. So I felt like an utter complete disappointment when I had that conversation with my parents, which was, I don't think I should stay in college because I think acting is my real job.

And it was also back then, if you were an actor and you were a woman, and believe me, I was only a teenager back then, it had a little bit of a taint to it. Like, oh, you're, you know, like a loose lady or something, you know. It wasn't a respectable job. And so that was also like a little scary to me because my mom used to say to me, your reputation is very important. You know, once you lose that, it's very hard to get it back. And so I had these old school ideas of like, am I going to lose my reputation by being, you know, in this business? But I went for it. And I have to credit my parents for never telling me I couldn't do something.

they never put their foot down and said, absolutely not. So I really credit my parents for not shedding that down for me. What was Hollywood like in the 1970s? Fantastic. Oh my gosh, it was everything. I mean, I was born and raised in Hollywood, California. I went to Hollywood High School. It was the only town I ever knew.

It was my hometown. But I knew people came from all over the world to try to make their dreams come true there. But, I mean, it was Sunset Boulevard was our story. That's where we went. I mean, we would go to the Whiskey a Go-Go. We would go to the On the Rocks. We would go to, or the Roxy. You know, there were so many music venues to go and listen to music and dance clubs.

And it was fantastic. Laurel Canyon, the Laurel Canyon scene. It was everything that you think it would be. It was that. I'm so jealous. It was really fun. Would you see Joni Mitchell walking along Laurel Canyon sidewalk? No, but my parents were.

My parents met Joni Mitchell once, and they knew how much I loved her. And they met her at this little restaurant, and it's still there called Dan Tannas, right next door to the troubadour. And my mom and dad came home from dinner one night, and they said, we met Johnny Mitchell. She's so nice. And she came and she sat down at the table and talked to them because my mother happened to be in the ladies' room with her and recognized her. And Joni came and sat down with my parents and talked to them. that's how incredible she was Wow

I know but oh my gosh Can I add this one story You're not taking too long No Please take all the time we need Okay so my high school We was Hollywood High And our class was too big

So we didn't graduate from the high school We graduated from the Hollywood Bowl And we would get You know We're our caps and gowns And get our diploma On the Hollywood Bowl stage That was in 1974

In 2024 In 2024 Brandi Carlisle did the Joni Jam, which is Joni Mitchell and other people singing all of Joni's songs. And Joni was on stage. And Brandy said, would you come in and be part of the Joni Jam? Which means you're singing the harmonies and singing along with Joni. And some of the people that were those people were,

Elton John, Annie Lennox, Allison Russell, Merrill Streep, and John Batiste, and Jacob Collier. Okay, no pressure. Right, no pressure. It occurred to me. That was 50 years to the year of graduating high school. And if somebody had said to me when I was getting my diploma, you're going to be back on this stage. I've never stepped on that stage since my high school graduation. and I'm from Hollywood.

In 50 years, you're going to be back on this stage singing with your idol, Joni Mitchell. I would have said, okay, first of all, why is it taking 50 years, but I'm so glad I'm there? I mean, that just blew my mind. I still can't get over it when I think about it. And that is why Hollywood, whatever it's going through right now, is the place where you can write those stories. It is the place where you can make your dreams. come true. What a full circle moment. Wait, so how did you end up in Lambda? So, so more failure to come here, Elizabeth. I was cast in a play, but it was in a very small theater,

but it was all good people. And the director of the play was also an actor. And he said to me, you know, you seem to really like the stage. Have you ever gotten any formal training? And I said, no. And he said, I said, what do you mean formal training? Because, you know, I'd been working. I'd been doing a lot of television. And he said, you know, like stage training, voice, movement, classical literature, and plays. I was like, no, where do you go to get that? And he said, well, there's places like Rada. There's places like Lambda, a place called Juilliard in New York. And he put me together with a woman who had just come from Lambda. And she told me about the program, and I thought, this is incredible. And at that point, I don't know if they still do it, but they had a one-year overseas program. Usually their course was three years. So I figure out how to apply, and I figure I might as well apply to all the drama schools that he mentioned. So I applied to Rada, I applied to Juilliard, and I applied to Lambda, and they all come to the U.S. to audition people.

So I did my auditions, and then you wait, and you wait, and you wait to hear. and I get turned down from Juilliard, I get turned down from Rada, and then I got waitlisted at Lambda, and I thought, oh my God. And I would call them like, hi, is there any chance that you know yet if I'll be accepted? I mean, I didn't know why I was being waitlisted, you know, because I was already a professional. I was a little bit older than kids just getting out of high school, so I was probably like 23 or something, as composed to 18. And when I got the call that I was accepted, I was ecstatic, ecstatic. And it was one of the greatest years of my life, but it was scary because I definitely thought I was, I had already failed two other auditions

and didn't get in. And then being waitlisted as a failure also, because you're, You're like, it's not just a slam dunk. And I loved that course. And I remember the principal at the end of our course, at the end of the year, he came into the class and he said, I want you to look around. And only five of you will still be doing this in five years. And I was like, don't look at me. I'm going to be doing it in five years.

Now, I'm not one of the others. I think we were maybe a group of 30. I was like, speak for yourself, sir. But I think it is true. Because I think so I already was experienced with rejection and not getting jobs. I mean, your whole job if you're an actor is mostly failing. You don't get every job that you go up for. It's one out of ten, I suppose.

So I was bound to prove him wrong, which I think I did. I hope I did. I mean, forget five years. You'll hear 50 years later. Yeah, exactly. Good for you. You often on screen have played a really good friend. And I feel like you would be a really good friend in real life.

But maybe we can come on to that because friendship's one of the subjects I'm most passionate about. I love my friendships. Love my friendships. There's one friend that you play in It's Complicated, opposite Merrill Street. Again, one of the greats Nancy Myers, like, I've always wanted to ask you about this. It's so weird, it's like I've manifested you. Because again, the naturalism of that group of friends on screen, I felt so understood by it. And it felt so real.

How much of it was real? Did you develop a real friendship? Again, I have to say so much of what makes an actor's job easy is good writing. I do have to say that

Nancy also was very much trying to create this camaraderie of girlfriends and she did that. And you do have that moment when you're working opposite Merrill that like every film she's ever done flashes in front of your eyes. This was before we had done Mamma Mia. So I didn't know her as well. And it was just so lovely to work with her and work

with those ladies. And there's something really great about working with women. Maybe that's what it is. That's what I was picking up on. Yeah. There's something really great. I was doing an indie film and it was all women. And I was driving home and I thought, gosh, I'm in such a good mood. And why am I in such a good mood? And I realized, oh, I'm working with all women. And then I thought to myself, oh, this is what it must feel like for men every day when they go to work. Yeah. Or just in the world. Exactly. Right. Right. So tell me about friendship. What for you is the essence of friendship? acceptance for who we are, an ability to really feel like you can be yourself, that sort of authenticity of being able to share with someone and feel that they really get you. They're not judging you.

They're just listening. And there's got to be laughs and there's got to be humor. There's got to be all of that. but it's an intimacy that is a real understanding of what the experience of like is like being a woman, but also who we are, you know, to each other, to our friendships. And that, I mean, I owe so much to my girlfriends. I love them so much. They're just fantastic. My goodness, I feel so lucky to have that.

Do you mind my asking you about breast cancer? No. Because I wonder how much your friends helped you through that period of your life. You were diagnosed in 2015. Yes. And you had a bilateral mastectomy. Correct. And as I mentioned earlier, you wrote this extraordinary piece, magazine piece, about,

the thing that really struck me about it was you were tackling the idea that so many women are guilted into feeling that their stress might have caused their illness. Right. And I thought that was very powerful. But could you talk to us about that part of your life and how important your friends were through that? Well, I want to address that part because I think that so many times you'll hear women say,

I brought this on myself. Stress brought this on, and that's why I got sick. And I really felt that I wanted to understand that. And so, So I called a doctor at Stanford University and I said, is there a connection at all between stress and breast cancer? And he had done a study on that. And he said, there is not. And also my doctor told me that too, that there is no connection.

He said there's a connection between stress and if you're going through chemotherapy and any kind of treatment that they found that the more relaxed you are if you did meditation, if you did something like that, that the chemo, it was a bit easier to go through chemo. But when I asked him why this happened, why do women say I brought this on, why do they take responsibility for it? He said such a fascinating thing. It actually goes back to, I don't know what period, but let's say the 1800s. And it was about venereal disease. And if you got a venereal disease, if you were a man and you got a venereal disease or a woman, then you were considered dirty. And so you were, you know, didn't want to be, nobody wanted to deal with you, right? And if you

recall, even in the 60s, if you got cancer, you never said cancer. You said the C word. Because it was not to be spoken of. And so there's this kind of shame and this thing that got attached to this earlier thing of venereal disease, but it's all this sort of thing that just gets translated over the course of years and years to people not talking about it and people feeling as if there's shame around it and there's something that they did wrong that brought it on. Fascinating. Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us.

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with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Rita, your second failure is not recognizing the true value of your dad until a fateful dinner with friends. Yes. Tell us this story. Okay.

So I mentioned earlier that my parents were uneducated, but they were incredibly smart and incredibly intuitive and very hardworking, incredible values. And of course, I knew this. but my dad was bartender and we grew up in the Hollywood Hills and everybody around me in my school they were all, I would say, upper middle class. And I was dating a guy

and he was from a very wealthy family and all of his friends were incredibly wealthy. And so I was just getting to know all of these people and they were, you know, I mean, I had never been exposed to that sort of lifestyle or anything. And we were having dinner in Laguna Beach, which is a community south of Los Angeles. And there was another couple there. We were on a double date.

And we're all like 23 or something like that, 24. And this young woman said to me, what does your dad do for a living? and I knew that she was really wealthy and she had taken over her father. She was working in the family business. And I said, oh, my dad's a bartender. And she goes, why do you say it like that? Oh, he's just a bartender. And I said, well, I don't know.

I mean, you guys all have businesses and your families are all, you know, different than mine, you're very wealthy. And her father had passed away. Oh, Rita. And she said, she said, I would give anything. I would give up everything that I have to have my father back here with me. And it really changed instantly in a minute. how I represented my father out in the world because he was an extraordinary man.

He escaped communist Bulgaria. He escaped a labor camp. He got on a freighter's ship to get a job so he could come to America. He jumped ship when he got to America. He got a job as a barback in New York and worked his way up to being a bartender. And he supported a family. He bought a house. He never had debt in his life.

He and my mom were married for 59 years, and they were an incredible couple and an incredible parents. And I knew that in my heart, but my own insecurities that time, I really failed to honor my father in the way that he should have been honored at that time. Fine, I was 23 years old, but still old enough to know better and to really value what he had accomplished and what he had sacrificed in order to have a life of freedom in America and to escape from communism. And he was such an incredible person. So that she taught me an enormous lesson. And I was able to have my dad for so many years.

So, yeah. How moving. Thank you so much for sharing that. Oh, you're welcome. And I think there's a lesson there for so many of us who take our families for granted because that's all we've ever known. Yeah. Were you able then to have a conversation with your dad?

Everything changed. Everything changed in that moment. changed in that moment. I looked at him in a completely different way. The realization that he could be gone and she was saying, my dad died young and yes, I have this business and yes, I have a fancy car and a fancy house, but I don't have my dad. I'd rather have my dad. Your father, I mean, both your parents sound utterly extraordinary. And your father had this whole story, this whole life that you only found out about after he passed. Yes.

About his first wife. Do you mind sharing that? And the December of the 26th of it all. That, okay, you did your research girl. Okay, so I did this show, you know it. It's an English show. Yes. Who do you think you are?

And usually in those genealogy shows that go back many, many generations, But what they found with my dad was that his story was so shocking and unusual that they stuck with his story. And so we went to Bulgaria and they're telling you all these different things. And one day they take us to kind of like their Hall of Records. And that day, I have a driver. and this driver, I'm just chatting with him, and I said, what's your name? And he said, Ameal. And I said, oh, what a beautiful name. I've never known anybody named Ameal. And we're just chatting. We go to the place. And we look at this book of records and it says, oh, now this is

where your dad was living and names, it goes read the names of the different people in the house. and I'm kind of trying to figure this out and they said, well, your dad was married. I said, what? Yes, he was married. And he had a child. I said, am I going to meet someone? Am I going to meet a family? It was a little boy.

And they're like, no. My dad's first wife, whose name was Alice, gave birth on December 26th, and she died three days later due to complications from delivery. Her son and my dad's son, Emil, lived for four months. This was right after the war, and then he passed away. I don't know the name of it, but it was like, an infection. And what happened during that, I can't imagine they were so poor. It was right after the war. It was Bulgaria. I don't know how they would have afforded formula or something, but I'm sure they made ways. I mean, he didn't die from starvation. He died from an infection. But this is where it gets weird. My sister's first born child,

was born on December 26th, and my youngest son was born on December 26th. And I think of my dad all of those years celebrating all those birthdays and knowing that he had a child born on December 26th, Emil, who passed away. I just, I still can't get over that. He never said anything to us. I wish, wish I could have talked to him about that. They kept things so private. This is another thing about privacy. You know, there's no word for privacy in the Greek language. Really? No, there's words for private. That's private, the private room or private property. But there's no word for personal privacy. Why? Well, the Greeks grew up, you know, if you grew up in a community, you grew up in a little village,

and everybody knew your business. So everybody was talking, looking, observing, watching. My mom told me that in her village, if you went to somebody's house and this was during the war, you were hungry. And they said, would you like something to eat? She was instructed to say, no, she was fine because she didn't want, her mother didn't want anybody to say, they can't afford food or they're poor or whatever they were going to say to talk about you. What a burden. What a burden to be having to do that to feel. And I think in my own generation as we talk about public versus private, I think this privacy thing was something I grew up with that I was like, don't ever talk about anything, anytime, anywhere because you don't know what's going to

happen. It's going to backfire on you. That's so fascinating. Thank you. What a beautiful and tragic story. I know. But the privacy part is so interesting because I think my parents and certainly my grandparents are absolutely of that mindset. And so what I do is so strange. Exactly. I think if we were all more open with each other, then we all can see that we're all in the same boat. Yes. So can I ask how the experience of being raised, in this exceptional family has informed how you create family? Everything. I think all the values that I have about family come from my parents.

I lived at home until I was like 23 years old. People were saying, what are you moving out? I'm like, where would I go? I mean, we're like, cut the cord, read it, cut the cord, meaning the umbilical cord. And I'm like, I like my parents. Why would I move out? I eventually did move out and get an apartment.

But I valued everything that my parents brought. I learned everything. Everything about who I am today is informed by my parents. Work ethic, love, family, connection, humor. All of that has been so impactful in my life. I really, it, it, it, I think. I think the biggest challenge is realizing that the world was not often as warm embracing and understanding as my own family was. So I had to learn a little bit about that.

But they're just... You must miss them. Oh, I do. I do. I still talk to them every day, though. Oh, do you? Oh, good. I love hearing that.

We're running out of time because I'm so sorry. I've been so invested in every single story you've been telling me. But your final failure is being fired from a job as a ticket taker. Tell us this story. I told you earlier that I love music, right? And so I got a job in the summertime working at this place called the Universal Amphitheater. It was part of Universal Studios. And it was this gorgeous outdoor venue.

So beautiful. Absolutely fantastic. And the job as a ticket taker was you would take the tickets. They were paper back then. You would cut them in half. Then you would go and count them. So you would do an accounting of all the tickets of the people who came through. And then you could go and watch the concerts. And then after the concert, you'd have to clean the bathrooms and then you could go.

Let me just set the stage for you about what our uniforms look like, though. The uniforms were orange polyester suits, pants and a jacket with a white shirt. And then we had orange and blue plaid capes with these, like, almost they looked like Bobby hats, like, you know what a Bobby would wear here? Also in blue and orange plaid. How fantastic. That was, everything had uniforms back then. So really, like, so weird, it's maybe 90 degrees.

what is that, like 30 degrees Celsius in the middle of summertime and you're wearing a suit and a cape. Why they would do that, I don't know. So that's the look. But this one year, I had about three weeks left in the season. And there was somebody that I had met who said, I'm going to be coming to the show, I think it was a Bonnie Raite show. and can you meet me backstage after the concert? I finished the job, finished cleaning the bathrooms,

put on my regular clothes, and I go backstage. And my name was on a list and everything, so I wasn't like crashing or anything. And my boss is backstage, and he sees me, and he's like, what are you doing here?

And I said, oh my friend invited me to come be backstage. He's like, you can't be backstage. I said, but I'm done working and I'm a guest. But you can't be here. He was just, he could not, he could not grasp that it was okay for me to be there. I had permission to be there. Could not grasp it.

And he fired me. But there was only three weeks left in the season. So technically it was a suspension. but he fired me. And I was so mad because, like, I, there was no, I couldn't respond. There was nowhere I could go to fight him on it. There was, what am I going to do? Get proof of the backstage list or something.

It was no big deal. But it just made me, it made me feel so bad because I thought, I'm following all the rules. Like, this is one of the things. I'm a rule follower. I'm trying to get better at breaking rules as I get older, more rebellion. But I was so mad that I had no way to sort of defend myself and to write it, you know, that it just really bothered me because I couldn't, there was nowhere to go with it.

And so, and I never got to, you know, resolve it. The injustice. The injustice of it. It was like, I, is anybody kicking me? out here, I'm supposed to be here. Yeah. How interesting though that that experience still lives with you and it's clearly taught you something very meaningful, which is that sometimes rules are unfair or they're wrongly defended. That's right. And therefore you have to break them. That's right. That's what I'm all about now. Breaking the wrong rules. Yes. The unnecessary rules.

Long may you, Rita Wilson, continue to break the wrong rules. Come on, Elizabeth. I've loved talking to you. Thank you for letting me be your first ever podcast interview. Thank you. Thank you. Please do follow how to fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast.

Thank you so much for listening. Thank you.