Not Skinny But Not Fat - From Scratch w/ Tembi Locke

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

After bawling my eyes out to limited series “From Scratch” on Netflix w/ Zoe Saldana — I had to talk to the author of the book , Tembi Locke! Tembi’s story, which was brought to screen, is a beautiful one of love and loss. Tembi talks about getting her story out on the page and how she got it seen by Reese Witherspoon, plus the true story of how she met Saro (real life Lino), raising their daughter, and how her current partner is dealing with all of this . don't say I didn't warn you about spoilers!! Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a dear media production. How do I ask my boss for a raise? I'm so jealous of my co-workers' promotion. I just don't know what to do. Is there a good way to brag about my accomplishments? Careers are complicated, and there are so many hush, hush topics we're told we can't talk about. That's why you have the Career Contessa podcast. I'm your host, Laura McGoodwin, and each week I'm joined by experts to help you overcome your

workplace woes with actionable advice that you. you can use today. Subscribe to the Career Contessa podcast and make progress in your career every Tuesday. This is Amanda Hirsch from the Not Skinny but Not Fat podcast. You might know me from Not Skinny Bonifut on Instagram where I spend my time talking about reality TV, celebrities, everything happening and pop culture. I also talk to some of our favorite celebs and reality TV stars. We talk about what's going on. Tune in every Tuesday. And just feel like you're talking to show with your best friends in your living room. Author and actress and just amazing, beautiful human, Temby Locke is on the podcast today.

Yay! I'm happy to be here. If you guys haven't read or haven't watched from scratch, what are you doing? doing with your life. How does it feel, Tempe? You made millions of people around the world. I mean, this was number one on Netflix for quite some time. You made millions of people around the world, like, cry with you, feel with you, be just completely compelled by your story. I'm still trying to find the words to sort of express what this feels like. I mean, it's something that you can't predict. You can't, like, account for it. I mean, we have just been, first, I was in just the trenches of writing the book. And then when we began to adapt it, you're just trying to tell

the best story possible. And I hoped, of course, I hoped that it would connect with people, that they would feel all the feels, as Reese Witherspoon, you know, said when she sort of picked it as a Reese Witherspoon as a book pick. But I had no idea this was going to happen. Like, no clue and it feels beautiful it feels expansive it feels overwhelming but ultimately I'm so proud that we collectively were able to like tell a story that's about something that means something to people I get these beautiful emails and direct messages from people saying it touched this in me It's made me love this way. It's made me think differently about that.

Or I'm a survivor or, you know, I was a character. All the things. It's beautiful. I mean, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. Do you get that a lot too where people were like, we started this, you know, cutesy movie and we were like, oh, beautiful young girl goes to travel across Europe. And then you're in it. Yeah, we call it the prologue really to the story. Like, people think that's the story.

And by the way, you know, look, Attica and I. And my sister, who's my co-creator, she's my sister, as you see also in the case. A.k.a. Zora. But we always knew we were interested in sort of like telling a story about what happens after the meet cute. Like there's the me cute, which is the rom-com. We meet, you know, it's all about them getting together and then, you know, like deciding to be with each other. And then we cut and we're out and we just go like, okay, well, I hope they had a good life together. This story, you know, sort of begins in that way, and you're right, it's a slow burn. You think that's what you're signing up for, but it's a lot more. What's so wild is like the opening scene, you kind of

compete together, okay, something sad is going to happen. But I guess the human brain works in a way where we're like, no, no, she was probably just like, you know, he was at work or like, you know, what I mean? Like, what did we, how do we even explain this that the, the, I want to call it the movie, it's a show. Well, we do. It could have been a movie. It's a compliment. I mean, when we hear people say it's a movie, it's a compliment to us because we all

along us and seeing a hello sunshine, Netflix, we always wanted to make like what we felt was like this long eight hour movie. Like we wanted it to be seamless across different locations, across different timelines, with all these characters, because it felt seamless. So it's a compliment when I, yes, it is a limited series, but I like that it feels like a movie. So that's totally how I feel. But what do you think about that? like you did decide creatively to start the limited series with the scene where you know

you're smelling his journal and obviously there's some sadness you decided that yet as a viewer were like I ignore it like how did we how did you get us to you know just fall so in love with the story that I convinced myself that there can't be anything. sad that's going to happen. No one has asked me that question in that way, and I'm so glad that you've asked it because, one, it's tethered also to the book, right? So the book in that it has this prologue, which touches on that, and then it goes right into the early days of falling in love with Sato, my late husband, Lino, on screen. And when we came to the adaptation, I was like, it's got to start in that now. This is a woman looking back on her life.

But the thing about memory, right, is like in one moment, you can be in real time and space and you hear a flash of a song or a bit of a smell or something. And suddenly your time stands still and you're transported back into memory. And so we wanted that feeling on screen. So I was like, we are not going to hang out too long in the kitchen because that is the, because she picks up that notebook, because she's transported, that she's fully transported. And then it's, it will meet up. The story meets up, of course, in that kitchen moment much later in the series. But yeah, you forget it. You forget it. You forget it.

You forget it. You forget it until you come back to it. I want to talk a little bit about, did this whole thing really get crazy when Reese Witherspoon picked it as a book club favorite? Yes. I was an unknown, untested, unproven, unpublished at that point. writer. Oh, unpublished. I didn't realize it was

unpublished. What I mean by that is I had a publishing deal, but the book wasn't on the shelf. She got a peek at an early manuscript, compliments of my sister. There's a story there.

What's the story? Tell us. Well, the story is that my sister who is a screenwriter and a producer in Hollywood as well as a novelist, she was writing on Little Fires Everywhere. The show for her.

I saw it. She was a producer. She's a producer on Little Fires Everywhere. And at the time, she had to go to, Hello Sunshine's offices in Beverly Hills to read the pilot because they had it on like lock down lock and key like it wasn't just floating in the ether so she physically goes there she reads the script she's on the way out the building she bumps into the president of production Lauren

Newstadter and they start chatting Lauren says book she's interested in what addict ask what Attica's up to next Lauren tells her various different stories she's interested in and my sister says huh well I actually know a story for you and she pitched my book which at the time I was still writing. I was still, it was a manuscript, like a word doc in my computer. She pitched the whole story. And Lauren was a little dubious, I think, as I've been told, because I wasn't there, but she said, all right, send it over, we'll read it. So that's how it got in Reese's hands. Warren read it. Everyone at Hello Sunshine Red it. Reese read it early on. And just shortly before it was actually on the shelves in the book, on the shelves in the store. And that's when

Reese was like, we'd love to do this. And we'd also like it to be a book club pick. So my life completely changed, like overnight. Hi, do you like to listen to sexy stories while you're folding your laundry? Download Dipsy. So I feel like I should apply to, you know, tell a sexy short audio story on Dipsy because I don't know. I've decided my voice is sexual. Don't at me. So research shows that sex is as mental as it is physical.

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Sorrow. You say in a beautiful Italian accent, Sado, Sado. I want, I want to try. Okay. He passed away in 2012. The book was published in 2019. So when did you start writing it?

And why? Was your intention for a cathartic kind of experience? what was what was going on there a couple things i around the five year anniversary mark of his passing i had a kind of pivotal moment and people who have suffered like a significant or big loss there is something around the five year mark that's kind of like a a turning point like emotionally and i felt it was barreling toward me this idea of like five years he had been gone and my sense of time was like oh my gosh my life is going to continue to move forward right and all of that's going to be part of my past and I felt like I wanted to just write it down my sister had been telling me

for a while you know you should write you should explore writing you should write this should be a book like you should write you should do this and so that fifth anniversary as it was approaching I was like you know what basically fuck it I'm gonna what do I have to lose right let me go for it and so I started writing in in 2017 with the idea that I wanted to, one, document a time in my life that I knew I would, was in my rear view mirror. I wanted to explore it. I wanted to honor it. I wanted to write a document for our daughter, right, who was, you know, at the time she was 10-ish, 12, my math is bad. But I was like, I needed to sort of write a document of her parents' life down and I thought, if I write this book and it's able to help anyone, I've done what I can do.

And so that's really was the driving force behind writing it. And I also felt like if I didn't write it, I would suffer a different grief, a different kind of grief, you know, that I was compelled to do something, but I was ignoring it. And I didn't want to do that. Was it hard to, to, uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. No, it was, it was one of the, if not... It was hard to decide to do it. The writing of it was emotionally challenging and also intellectually. You know, I'd never written a book before. I'd written like things in writing classes because I'd taken writing classes and I'd written short pieces.

But the idea to endeavor to like create a book length memoir that was actually compelling enough that people wanted to read was like both a creative challenge. But the subject matter was so personal. And I was, I felt vulnerable. I felt like, can I put all of this in the book? Is that too much? I had many conversations with my editor was like, I don't know about that. And she was like, go, push, put it, you know, go deeper, go deeper. And I'm so glad that I was brave enough to do it, that I was encouraged to do it because

writing the book transformed my life. And I don't mean that professionally. I mean that like internally, I know I can do hard things. Not only was it so personal. Even the book cover is the real photo of you, both. And that was by chance because you never know. like they said at one point we were oh yeah no no no at one point they were like hey we're looking at the book cover now you know once they sort of we agreed on the manuscript all the edits were done

and they were like send us family pictures we're thinking about other stuff but just send us some pictures as well and so i just sent like over you know i don't know 10 12 photographs and when they sent a mock up with that picture on the cover I was like oh my god that's it that's it wow that's it wow that's I think when I saw it, I was like, I almost couldn't believe that it was real. Like, wow, that's the real, real photo. So tell me a little bit about how this then became the limited series on Netflix. So once Hello Sunshine agreed and Reese and team, team everything at Hello Sunshine and that Attic and I were going to produce it and co, you know, create the series together.

and write the pilot, we began to sort of develop what would it look like to take it from page to screen, which, thank God, she has my sister years of experience in that space. It had actually just done it with little fires everywhere. I felt like my role in it could be to really sort of be the guardian of the essence of the story, because I knew that things were going to change, I knew we're going to fictionalize things. And so we developed really the arc of the series. We knew and like where it would begin, what would be the middle,

what would be the end. And we took that and we pitched it all around Hollywood. And we went in the room with Zoe with her sisters. Oh, she was attached to the project Zoe from the beginning. Yeah. So what happened is Reese was having dinner. Everything begins with Reese. Everything I noticed.

Everything begins to get through everything begins with Reese. So Reese was having. dinner, she and her husband, it's Zoe and Zoe's husband. And Zoe's husband is Italian for anyone who does not know. And I guess they were at the dinner table and Zoe and his name is Marco. Marco were like speaking back and forth in Italian and they were all lovey-dovey. And Reese is like watching them because she's just read my book, the manuscript of my book. And she's like, I think that this is it. Like this is the character. She's the character. And so we get a call. My sister and I, we get a all saying, you know, Zoe Saldana, and we were like, what? And, you know, we learned that

her husband's Italian. She speaks Italian. She produces with her sisters. And I was like, this feels so synchronistic. Like, what? I mean, it was almost eerie. And I was like, yes. And so once she came on board and we had a sense of where the series would begin, the ground it would cover, how it end. As a team, we collectively went around Hollywood and we pitched everywhere. We pitched to Netflix. They bought it in the room and boom. We were off to the races. Wow. So just because I love detail, did Reese from the beginning when she picked, when she helped with the book and helped you get on the shelves, did she know then that she wanted it to be, you know, turned to to be on screen. I think those conversations were happening in tandem. I was a privy to them.

Yeah. Because that's all in the Hello Sunshine world. But I think that was sort of in the ether. Absolutely. Wow. The thing was Zoe is so crazy because like you said, she speaks Italian. And I could only imagine being Reese in that moment and having everything kind of connect in front of you. And the fact that you were producing on it. And Zoe was producing on it. And Reese was producing on it. Which I love because like, I mean, talk about girl power and amazing women coming together. other. Listen, that set was so powerful. And I'm not saying that just because I was like a part of the team that's in it. I, you know, my background is I was a career as a, as a, as a, what we call a journeyman actor, right? Like on all these TV shows, guest stars, this, that, and the other. So I've been on Hollywood sets. And I have never seen a team of just women, like running everything. And that was powerful. And I hope it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a shift in the industry that is, that is, certainly Hello Sunshine is at the forefront, but it is happening and it's beautiful.

And yeah, it's great. I did want to talk about why the reason for the name changes. Like, is there a, is it, do they do that in movies all the time? You know, I think it happens for sure. I'll tell you two reasons. So the professional and the personal reason, right? So the professional reason was, as I was just speaking of, in real life, And in the book, I was a working, you know, actress, right, going out for commercials and this,

and the other. And it sort of strained credulity to picture Zoe Saldana like at an audition. I mean, it's been done, but it's been, I mean, we've seen it. I get it. I'm with you. I'm like maybe if I, I would probably make the same choice. But they've done that in movies and, and you're right. It takes you out. For me, it would take me out. I'd be like, she is, has been in the avatar. She's in Guardian. I'm like, I don't really. really think. I don't want to see her like auditioning with some sides. Like that doesn't make sense to me. So for me, it would have bumped me out of the story immediately. So we, and Attica and I were aligned in that way. So we were like, okay, we need to sort of reconfigure her job what she does. And so because I was an art history major and I, you know, have painted and I'm

very, you know, artful in that way. We decided to make her an artist. But in terms of the name changes because I was going to be a part of the team adapting and producing it, I needed the psychological distance of having the character be inspired by my life, but not exactly me. And so that whenever we were in the writer's room or when we would be on set, that I could have a little bit of psychic distance to allow Amy to be what she needed to be on screen for the adaptation in the story that we were, you know, as we were conceiving of it and creating it. And I knew, you know, being in Hollywood for 20 plus years, the characters are going to have to do some very dramatic things

that didn't happen in real life. And I didn't want to be beholden to things that Amy did on screen or have my daughter beholden or my, you know, parents. So we thought, let's just have everyone inspired by the real life people, but let's give them different names. And it really helped us to be free to make the story that everyone is falling in love with.

But did you still feel like even though she's Amy, did you feel like you were watching you? there were times absolutely not so much watching me but watching the most intimate parts of my life played out and there were a couple of times on set when watching certain scenes I saw my life this is going to sound so strange but I saw a part of me that wasn't clear to me until I saw it played out which is which is so strange but I saw watching it I said I was like oh my god this woman is so she's tender, but she's strong, which is not something that I would have used to describe myself, but watching it, you know, at the video village on the monitors on set as they were working,

I was like, oh my gosh, like, that young me, she was really strong. Like, oh, holy, she, and I don't know, it just gave, it was so touching. It gave me a kind of a respect for parts of my life that I hadn't slowed down to reflect on in that way. I can totally see that. Okay, guys, I think I've told you about the KiwiCo creates before, but I'm going to tell you about it again because KiwiCo knows a thing or two about delivering fun for all ages, and they're here to help you give awesome, whether it's an awesome time with your kids or an awesome gift. With a KiwiCo subscription, you're giving so much more than a toy. You're getting a season

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I mean, from the beginning, we were, you know, Attica and I were both to all of the actors, but particularly as though we were like make Amy your own like bring your own imprint to her I think and she said in interviews that she sort of watched me and observed and so I think there was like she was taking me in without me knowing necessarily but we also there were parts of the story that she wanted to know more about and we had conversations about aspects you know because there's things in the in the series that aren't in the book and there are some very specific life experiences that unless you've actually had lived them directly, you know, you might not know certain things. So we definitely had conversations, but she really just took it

and ran. And how is it finding Lino, Eugenio? Yep. Eugenio, Mastrandrea. Oh, my God. I'm buttering it all. I'm butering it all. No, you're not. No, no, no, no. I say it like that because I always say like he's such a delight as a human. And his name is so beautiful when said in Italian, I just I'm like, it's like a song, Eugenio Mastra Andrea. But anyway, he, finding him was the luckiest thing that could have ever happened to us. Because we, it's funny, the joke in our writers room when we were, you know, sort of writing up, writing all the scripts and breaking the story, we were like, we are looking for a unicorn. Like, there are the writers in the room we're like, okay, so who's the dude that's going to play this guy?

Because he's like, sexy and strong and poetic and tender and stubborn, but also, you know, gentle. And they were like, it's such a particular combination of energies also has to speak Italian, also has, clearly, but also has to speak English really well, also has to speak Sicilian. Like, we were basically looking for a unicorn. So when it came time to cast, we had a wonderful casting director, Armando Pizzuti, out of Rome. And he just literally started sending us tapes from, I don't know, I think we saw like every actor from age like 25 to 45 in the whole. country of Italy. Like we just got we just got tape after tape after tape and I was like Eugenio's tape was in the first round of submissions that we got. My sister saw it first

she called me and she says okay look these tapes I need you to be prepared that there's one actor that when you see him you're it's going to be a trigger because he there's some things that he will remind you of saddo my late husband and so i kind of had that going into you know sitting down so i sat in my house in my living room and i was like okay let me watch these tapes and you know it's a cute guy cute guy because they're all cute right all that thing and when a eugenio came on the screen i had to close the computer i was like i can't i don't know what i just saw because there was yes a physical resemblance, you know, sort of echo, if you will. But energetically, there were things, mannerisms, sort of ways of being that I was like,

who is this? It was too much. It was like it was too much. And so I came back to it later and I watched it again. He was a really good actor. And I watched it again. I'm like, oh, he's a really good actor. This isn't just me like responding as the person who was married to the guy. This is, this guy is the real deal. Like, he's got the goods. And he continued through rounds of auditions and finally through a chemistry read with Zoe. And by the way, he's in Rome this whole time. We're doing this whole thing over Zoom because it's the middle of the pandemic. And, like, there weren't, no one was vaccinated at the time because there weren't even, you know, the vaccines weren't even ready. So we're just like, well, let's cast this guy and let's hope. You know,

he'd never been to America before. It was it was truly weird the luckiest people to have found him because he, first of all, the chemistry between the two of them is incredible. He is a wonderful human being and incredibly talented.

I, wow, first of all, we all fell in love. We all fell in love with him. And you're so right, like, the Italian guy is so stigmatized in, like, movies. and shows where it's like, you know, he's running down the alley and like wearing a leather jacket and, you know, you're hopping on his motorcycle. And like, yeah, Lino had a motorcycle, but you're right, he was tender and different from the stereotypical. Yeah, I was, so first

of all, having been married to an Italian man, I know just like in America, we have many different kinds of men, but for whatever reason, sort of the stereotype, the truth. The trope of the Italian man is so ingrained in our psyches as viewers that I was like I can't that wasn't who I was married to first and foremost like he was a sensitive man he could be he could be masculine he could also be feminine like it was all the things he was a whole human and so we wanted to bring that to screen and to some degree almost you know sort of upend a stereotype Because I, you know, and so Augenio just, he, he is just amazing in the part. Wow.

No, he was so, so great. So I have a lot of questions. I'm here for them. Because I'm so interested in your story and how it, you know, parallels to the, to the series and maybe some things that were different. So you're an actress. We talked about the decision there with Zoe. So why were you in Italy studying abroad? were you really studying art?

Yeah, I was. So Amy in this series is in law school and has decided to sort of drop out, take her time off. I was an undergraduate and I was an art history major. So that's why I was in Italy and I was in Florence. So I was there for like the junior year abroad. Did you do junior year abroad? Yeah. I did in Barcelona.

I didn't meet like a hot. No, it didn't happen for me. Probably went for that reason. you know, I remember I could have chosen to go do like an L.A. internship or go and I'm like, I'm going to Barcelona, but it didn't happen for me. No, no cute guys there. So lots of cute guys like everywhere. Everywhere. And by the way, I was 20 years old. So for me, not the most discerning human at the time. Like that is not a time in your life. You don't have, I didn't. Let me speak in the first person. I didn't have enough deep lived experience yet to know.

what I was looking at when I met my love husband. I was like, oh, he's a cute guy. Like, there's a bunch of cute guys here. Oh, have fun. I'm going back home soon. Like, I've got to finish college and get on with my life. I was not thinking that this one particular cute guy would change the course of my life

and would induct me into a kind and quality of love that I had not known and that would imprint me in the deepest, most profound ways. and he was older and he saw me this 20-year-old American black American girl from Texas and he's like, you're my person

and I will pursue you and I will let you know that you are my person. I will stand by as I dated other Italian guys while I was there and he quietly in the background observed, watched

and was like, why don't you come have dinner at my restaurant? like that scene is almost exactly totally real and so he was showing me who he was and he was and he was showing me the kind of human he was and he let me catch up to his vision of what we could be I didn't I can't say I saw it initially that's how it comes across in the in the series too we're not understanding what's happening like you are dating other people but you you are keeping him close as like a friend or whatever, and he's like, who am I to you? So that's kind of how it was in real life, too. Oh, yeah. In fact, in real life, I broke up with it. Like,

we went out like two days. And I was like, he's really intense and serious. I was like, this is. And so I formally, quote, unquote, you know, told him, you know, let's, let's just be friends because this feels like, let's just be friends. And he, I said, let's see each other like a couple of times a week. And he was so funny. He said to me, what are you saying? And I said, let's see each. I said, I'm going to say this in English so that I'm really clear. Let's see each other one or two times a week. And he said to me, you're saying you're going to prescribe the amount of times we see each other in a week. I don't understand what that is. He's like, I just, I don't get that. And I said, okay, well, let's just be friends. And I think what he was saying, ultimately, was,

love doesn't work like that like either we want to see each other all the time or you don't want to see me but this like middle of the road stuff this like maybe kind of couple of times that conditional like that's not a thing and so he was like you need to think about that because i think we could be something great and that's when he said the line that is in the series and then i was when he left it like hit me like a bolt of lightning when he left when he left I physically felt when he left the room that, like, things were different. Like, the idea that he might not ever walk back through the door stopped me cold. And I was like, whoa, what was that feeling?

Like, I thought I was just saying, let this be friends and I'll see him next week. He left the room and I thought, I made the biggest mistake of my life. I need this guy to come back. And that is what we try to dramatize in the series. With the rain. With the rain. Similisan. Say with me. Samilisan. Next time you or your kid has pink eye or an earache, you will be like, Similisan, I heard that somewhere. And I will say, you welcome. Because Similasan

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so they're offering sweepstakes for a $500 visa gift card and a Samilasan School Essentials prize pack. Go to SimilasonUSA.com slash win to enter. That's Similasan, S-I-M-I-A-S-A-N-U-S-A-N-U-S-A-N-U-S-A-N-U-S-A-S-W-F-Fat in your entry. Include my show name, Not Skinny, but Not-Fat to enter. It took me two days. can be two days like of migraines and I'm not alone you know oh my god no it was bad it was bad the scene with the rain was the dramatization of that but in real life how did that turn into a long

distance relationship you go back to america you stay long distance on the phone there wasn't like face time no there was no face time oh listen Amanda it was not just the phone by the way I have a point by the phone. It was letters. We wrote letters. I have, and that's actually how I was able to write the book. I have all of our letters from when we were corresponding long distance. And we were trying to figure out how to make a life together while I was back in school in the States and he was in Italy. And we were like, what is this? And he was like, I'll, you know, I've got to wrap up my life here and I want to be with you. And they were all of the logistics of like, how do you, How does someone move their life to another country?

And here I was, like, I was still at school. And, you know, I was, so the phone part of it is that we would have these Friday night dates. And my friends would go out, go out. They would, like, go go party, go to the bar, and you'd go hang out. I would stay home and wait for the phone to ring. Like literally, like something from the 1950s, I would wait for the phone to ring because we had, it was a six-hour time difference. And he would be getting off work, right? And I would just be like, I'm going to stay here and I'm going to take a call.

And then we talk for like 45 minutes or an hour. And back then, this is pre, you know, cell phone unlimited data plan situation. It costs money. It costs a ton of money. I had a job at one point just to pay the phone bill. Like, just to pay the phone bill. So at that point, you were all in. Oh, I was all in.

I was like, no one understood it was really. No one understood it. Because people were like, you went abroad. You went apart. You had fun. And who's this guy? No one had met him. They thought he was like some fan.

And you had had people who thought, is he using her? Like, like, who is this Italian guy? And then when they found out, there were members of my family. Actually, we didn't put this in the series. When they found out that he was like from southern Italy, of course, all of the, we talked about stereotypes, right? So the stereotypes of what that, it was like, oh, what is he? Like in the mafia?

Like, what is he? What is she doing? It was insane. insane. When I look back on it, I think about what we had to sort of go up against to manifest the heartfelt desire just to be together. Because there was like, you know, how do you merge two lives across language and culture and continents and citizenship and currencies with two families who truly don't understand the other? You know, my family was like, it sounds nice. nice, but he's a cook.

Like, he's a chef. Like, they didn't even say chef. They were like, cook. Which, you know, I was like, they couldn't wrap their minds around it because no one in either of our families had a template for the kind of relationship we were attempting to build.

People had married people they went to college with or went to the street or went to work and who were, you know, pretty much from the same block and pretty much alike. So what was this? international, like, age, difference, culture, different, racial, all the things. They were like... How much older was he?

It was 12 years older. 12 years older. So how long was the long distance part? It was a full, almost two years. Wow. I know. So you lived in Florence. I lived in Florence.

And then I, so I was there for a year that I went back to the States, finished school. And after I finished school, then I was like, I had a couch. him in a New York City for a while. I was waiting table so that I could, like, you know, just see him as much as I could. And he had to sort of wrap up his life in Florence. And then he came to New York and started there and then moved to L.A. It was a whole thing.

And we became best friends. Listen, I'm going to tell you right now, the best way to have a long term something with someone is to build that foundational thing that we built. I mean, look, he was in another country. We couldn't see each other. We couldn't hang out of it. We had to just make the commitment to say, you matter to me. My friends are going out, but I'm going to stay in because I want to talk to you.

And we'd have to fill each other in on all the day-to-day minutia and stuff that was going on. But we were building this base of a foundation of our relationship that when he came to the States and we went through all the other stuff we would eventually go through, the friendship was always there. Tembi, how did you move on? I saw that you have a new man in your life. And for people listening that, you know, lost somebody and went through that grieving process, which I'm sure never ends in a way. It's ongoing. It is an ongoing thing.

And I'll say, you know, I say move forward as opposed to move on because. that move forward because the moving on somehow suggests like oh that is in the past that it belongs in the past and it only is in the past whereas moving forward integrating all of my life and my love and my heart and my past and every experience you go forward with all that with all of that present right saddo's never not present in my life and not because there's a show on netflix Not because he's never not present. He literally so much of who I am is imprinted by the time we spent together, by the conversations we have, by the love that we had.

So anyone who meets me today is also meeting him. How does he feel about that? How is that for the other person? Like not only everything you just said, but also the book, the show. Yeah. So here's what I'll say. say is it takes someone who's to partner with someone who has been partnered before and not divorce where there was a conscious choice to part to to uncouple because something didn't work out

but to lose someone and to have that sort of heartbroken peace that can't really mend when you partner with someone who's had a loss, you're saying, I want to be with you for the totality and fullness of who you are, and that includes this person. So talk to me about them. Tell me about him. We talk about Sato. Wow. I have a daughter. She's not going to not talk about her dad because mom is dating someone. I mean, that's not whole. That's not honoring. That is disruptive and make someone feel invisible. So there are pictures of Sado all over the house and there's pictures of my new husband Robert all over the house and we're all together because it's all a part of a life. And by the way, when I meet him, I am meeting the totality of his past

and his life that predates me. And so I think if you can, if someone wants to be partner after loss, a big part of that is being willing to state open and curious and being willing to listen and love very, very consciously and intentionally. When I wrote the book, I said to him, I'm writing a book about my late husband. Like we were dating at the time. And I was like, so every day, when I see you at the end of the day, I've been with my other guy all day. And he's like, huh?

And it's like, so what I ask of you. give me some transition time in between because it does take a really special person to yeah yeah and you got to feel really secure and confident who you are and in your ability to love and in your ability to love and he said to me look reading your book gave me a template an understanding of your heart and what matters to you he saw it as a gift not as a threat you read it you read it god he read it Oh, yeah, he read it. Oh, yeah, he read it. Absolutely. And he was, you know, when we were filming would come and drop me lunch off at set while we're filming from scratch. Met Angelio. Do you feel like, because what you said is so important, like, of course, you have a daughter together. You know, you're continuing to celebrate his life. Is there some sense of, I don't know, to call it closure after writing the book and putting it on screen that you do feel?

What I feel is that I've carried our story almost, I would say, from the moment we met, right? Like there's, I always sort of knew, once I was on board, I was fully like, oh my God, you're my person too. Like, let's do this.

I knew there was something special about the how we've met and the things that we were up It's because none of my peers that had, like, you know, they had more traditional stories. So in some sense, I've known that I've carried our story from the beginning to be at this juncture now after the book has come out, after we've produced the series, the series is out in the world. It feels to me not so much like closure in terms of my heart, because my heart is still open and full and available to him. And I feel grief sometimes. I feel the love.

always but I do feel that a cycle of my life has had a beautiful ending and what I mean by that is you know at this stage of life I can look back at my 20 year old self and I can feel wonder and I feel grateful to her for being so awake and alive and brave to the possibility of what could happen I look at the young mother and me who in my brought my daughter home. And I can look back on my life and say, oh, I did the best I could. And I did okay. And I loved really deeply. And now what is ahead? You are going to make me cry again. Temby, I could talk to you for so long. I think your story is so beautiful. And I think that it will probably help so many people who've dealt with grief and not even dealt with a

different sort of loss, you know? And somehow you've managed to make people feel so connected to this. Even though there are so many losses in the world, we're in your world. You brought us into your world in this wild way. You know what I mean? Thank you for saying that. And that is one of the things that Attica and I held strong. We held, it was our North Star. It was like, although it is one woman story, it has to reflect everybody's story. Because we all want to love deeply and fully. We want to be seen.

We want to heal the hurt parts of ourselves. And so we always wanted to sort of pull those threads forward and have them front and center in this story that's on screen at this time. in the world after a pandemic, right, after all of this loss. And we need to feel more connected, more whole, more inspired to love deeply. I mean, my gosh. So that feels to me like the story we were endeavoring to tell. And yes, it's rooted in the specificity of my story, absolutely, right?

But ultimately, when I see on TikTok and I, you know, get the direct messages and I, you know, the emails that people are like, this shook me and it inspired me. Woo, baby. I feel good about that. You have a lot to feel good about. You are an amazing woman.

I am just moved by you like your energy. I'm not an energy person. But let me tell you guys, even via Zoom, I'm like, I would move from Italy for you. Like, I get, I get it. I freaking get it. Hempi, thank you so much for coming on my podcast. and everybody read the book, watch the series on Netflix, and what's next for you?

Are we going to get more of you? Well, first of all, Amanda, thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed this conversation so much. You've asked me questions. No, I've asked me before. And I love that. I love it. I love it.

I love it. I have a podcast, too, that's going to be coming out. Maybe we'll chat there. Who knows? And then my sister and I are working on a next project together, which is sort of in development. Oh, I love that. And I love your family, by the way. And I, you know, I freaking stalked you.

So I could tell that the family part mirrors kind of what we saw in the movie. And although I have a close family and I'm super grateful seeing your close family, I was like, wow, that's, she couldn't do it without her family. No, let me tell you right now, absolutely no way that this could have been done. None of it, none of it could have happened, not the caregiving years, not the solo parenting years, not the writing of the book, not the making of the series. the sharing the series. I lean into my people all the time because they are a bedrock for me. And by the way, that's not just the people who are my, you know, sort of biological lineage. It's my tribe of close friends. Those are my family, too, who are holding me up. And we all need that. And I hope the show inspires people to show up for each other. Yeah. No, it definitely,

definitely that came across so strongly as one of the show. the things. There was the love, but the family part was like equally as important. Anyway, Temby, thank you so much. Thank you guys for listening. And everyone, if you haven't watched and read from scratch, Tanby Lock. Thank you so much. Amanda, this has been a delight. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of Not Skinny but Not Fat. Follow me on Instagram at Not Skinny but Not Fat. Subscribe to the podcast. We don't miss any episodes. Rate the podcast that you love so much on Apple Podcasts and write a little review. If you tell me you did, I'll give you a big virtual smoocheroo. Thank you guys so much for listening and I'll see you

next Tuesday. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode. Thank you.