Podcrushed - Lizzy Caplan

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Lizzy Caplan -- the Emmy-nominated actor you know from Mean Girls, Cloverfield, Party Down, and Fleischman is in Trouble -- joins the hosts to open up about everything from her first crushes to the impact of losing her mother at only 13. She recounts her experiences filming Mean Girls and Fleishman is in Trouble, and spills the tea on her new film Now You See Me: Now You Don't.  Shop SKIMS Fits Everybody collection at https://skims.com/podcrushed. #skimspartner  Head to https://prettytasty.com and use code PODCRUSHED at checkout for your first subscription order FREE (up to a $49 value), plus 15% off every subscription order after that. Podcrushed listeners can grab Rosetta Stone’s LIFETIME Membership for 50% OFF at https://rosettastone.com/podcrushed.That’s unlimited access to 25 language courses, for life! Go to https://airalo.com and use code PODCRUSHED for 15% off your first eSIM. Terms apply.    00:00  Introduction 01:54  Lizzy’s Early Life and Family 04:06  Navigating Loss and Grief 19:37  Transition to Acting 24:15  First Crushes and Childhood Relationships 26:54  Childhood Friendships and Young Love 28:33  Embarrassing Moments and Teenage Relationships 30:55  Early Acting Career and Breakthrough Roles 39:13  The Journey to Mean Girls 43:38  Reflections on Fleischman Is in Trouble 49:35  Personal Life and Relationships 51:33  Returning to the Screen: Now You See Me Sequel 53:09  Final Thoughts and Farewell   🎧 Want more from Podcrushed? 📸 Instagram 🎵 TikTok 🐦 X / Twitter ✨ Follow Penn, Sophie & Nava Instagram Penn Sophie Nava TikTok Penn Sophie Nava See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada And I was talking to him and he came over and I was like wearing a dress and we're like talking to my house before we go out to dinner and he sort of gestured to me like your dress and I looked down and like a full boom

was just out just out of my dress with the boy that I like I can still fucking feel it in my stomach when I tell the story. That's brutal. And guess what? It didn't even work.

The old one titty out didn't even work. Didn't sit here. That's amazing. Horrifying. Welcome to Pod Crushed. We're your hosts. I'm Penn. I'm Sophie and I'm Nava and I think we would have been your middle school besties.

Calling each other bitches at first glance. But only because I'm jealous you're so hot. Oh. Howdy crushies. Today we have another sophy-less episode. Yeah, I'm not in this one, but I absolutely loved listening to it because I absolutely love Lizzie Kaplan, who we have on today. She is the Emmy nominated actor that you know from films like Mean Girls, just that little old film. Cloverfield, she's in shows like Party Down and Fleischman is in trouble, which is a personal favorite of mine. Over the past two decades, Lizzie has carved out a singular place

in Hollywood. She is prolific. She's in so many things. She is just the actress that you know and love. Beyond her early years today, we're talking with Lizzie about her journey into acting, how she navigates vulnerability and humor in her work, and the surprising ways that her teenage self still shows up in her life today. You won't want to miss this one. Keep it locked and we'll be right back. Hey there, it's Julia Louis Dreyfuss. I'm back with a new season of Wiser Than Me, the show where I sit down with remarkable older women and soak up their stories, their humor, and their hard-earned wisdom. Every conversation leaves me a little smarter and definitely more inspired. And yes, I'm still calling my 91-year-old mom, Judy, to get her take on it all. Wiser than me from Lemonada Media premieres November. 12th, wherever you get your podcasts. It's morning in New York.

Hey, everybody. I'm Mandy Patinkin. And I'm Catherine Grotie. And we have a new podcast. It's called Don't Listen to Us. Many of you've asked for our advice. Tell me, what is wrong with you people? Don't listen to us. Our Take It or Leave It Advice show. is out every Wednesday, premiering October 15th, a Lemonada Media Original. So you, 12 years old, living in L.A., just give us a snapshot. Like, what was that like? What was your daily life like? What was your crew like? I had a wonderful childhood. I feel like the rare times I do come on a podcast, it tends to go back to this, like, real bummer.

but hey we start at 12 years old so at 12 years old I was living a very wonderful shockingly suburban idyllic life in Los Angeles we had a lot more freedom as kids then

and then I had I have a brother and a sister there were three of us I was the youngest we lived in the Miracle Mile which was by the La Brea Tarpitz lived on a great block and then my mother got sick when I was 12 and died when I was 13, imploding all of that.

But I did have 12 and a half good years. Yeah, so let's start a little bit earlier then, I think. Maybe, just so we can, you know this is a podcast, right? Oh, it's supposed to start happy. So here's how it works. We have advertisers and, like, we need the numbers to go up, right? Got it, got it, got it. Actually, no.

Nothing bad happened when I was 12. It was all great. Just smooth feeling until puberty. Yeah, just tell us, give us an awkward story. Oh, man, I'm like, let's go in this pimple or the homecoming night. Just so you know, we are, we're no, we're not shy of stories around, around loss and grief here. We do, we do love it. We kind of relish it for those who are willing.

Navas shares a lot herself. So, you know, yeah, that is such. Yeah. So just go there, go there all for. Yeah, okay, no problem. I live there. I guess an interesting question would be those, who we are at 12, you know, seems to be so impactful regardless of what's happening.

Sometimes you almost feel already like the person you are today. That can be the case. I'm curious then how, you know, not yet knowing the final blow of such a loss, but having this this this like runway this time leading up to it at such a pivotal time in your life i guess i'm i'm curious how you felt going through that you know how how that year of uh i don't know what you know if it's waiting or if it's did you did you did you know the loss was was going to come so soon no uh no in fact we thought it was going to go the other direction i think back to that time and like I see 12, 13 year old kids now and I'm astounded at just how young

they look, just like babies and just completely incapable of like handling really anything. And I was a very young 12 because I had like a pretty sheltered upbringing and I like developed late. I was just like a scrawny little kid and I felt like probably. positioned, like terribly positioned to have to weather anything like this. But I don't know who like is primed for it. Honestly, I don't know like who gets away with that. It was it, you know. I can't imagine your situation because my mom passed away suddenly. It was like a pulmonary embolism. So we weren't prepared at all. But right when I turned 30 and it was so like life altering and devastating that to think of like someone going through that at puberty just like

knocks me out. It just changed my life so much that I can't imagine what it was for you at that age. I think that we all sort of try to make sense of things as human beings. And so like you qualify things as like better or worse. And to me, the idea of like a sudden out of nowhere, out of left field death of a parent is like unimaginably terrifying and tragic. and you really have, like, you know, no tools whatsoever. I don't think, like, anybody goes into it, like, fully prepared, except maybe if you have had a parent that's been, like, very sick for many, many years. But, ugh, the sudden, like, the car crash version of it is fucking awful.

But, yeah, it's, I think, so because it was just a year, and it was, I was an eighth grade, and it was, like, the beginning of the, like, I didn't think I knew anybody who even had a sick parent. And so it was like the beginning of becoming different from everybody I knew. And that was the starkest thing, honestly. Like all of a sudden, I was different. And these are still people who I'm very, very close friends with today. But it was very odd to all of a sudden be like the other.

And then just, you know, like privy to a version of, or an intensity of loneliness that I think that people aren't supposed to have at that age. Yeah. It's interesting hearing about impacting in some way even your friend group. I mean, of course it would. Like, you know, if you're impacted,

your friend group is impacted. And it sounds like you had a pretty intact group there. And I think what, you know, the way that I find most interesting, we can't always go there depending on how people want to open up. But I find, you know, your relationship to your parents specifically at this age is kind of the biggest portal to understanding things, right?

And so you certainly had this relationship completely altered, you know, and like just couldn't be more altered. It feels like it's taken away. I guess I'm curious about some of the, yeah, just the impact it had in your other relationships like that with your dad, your siblings, and those friends. It's really, like they really are still. One of my eight-year-old friends since we were eight,

staying with me right now in new york um i just got a text from like the group of people that i'm going to tell this little tale about i remember the day after she died maybe two days after it was like the shiva week um my three best girlfriends came over and we were all you know they all gave me a hug and somebody like said something strange and they all kind of laughed and like clearly a very uncomfortable laugh and i remember that moment so clearly like oh fuck this is oh shit like I am so another because like that's the thing that sort of breaks my heart the most when I think about like little me is that the people that I had to lean on who were to the best they could and are true friends we were fucking 12 and 13 they didn't really

have the tools to deal with the level of discomfort which really I do think a lot of a lot of it was like trying to navigate and especially at that age for me trying to navigate like other people's discomfort around my tragedy. So I think that honestly had a huge impact on my relationships with other people because I wanted everybody else to feel like, oh, no, it's okay. You asked about my mom and then you remembered that she died and now you feel uncomfortable and I'm going to like do a little song and dance to make you feel okay. It took me many years to stop doing that. And I also was like a super, like I went from, again, being this pretty sheltered kid to like overnight having to be a very scrappy kid. And I was. And I'm very grateful for the lessons that I learned there. Of course, you then have to, you know, like shed all that shit to become like a grown up, all your like defense mechanism, protective things that you do. But it really, I was, I did, I got through it. I convinced everybody that I was totally fine even when I wasn't. And that is still. Still. to me that anybody believed it. But here we are. Lizzie, I'm just wondering if you're open,

if you could share a favorite memory with your mom before she got sick. Oh, man, so many. Actually, I've been thinking about her a lot because we, she took every, every one of us, the siblings, like on a trip just with her. And she took me to New York when I was nine. And I had never been here. And I have many memories from that. And, you know, it's hard. It's hard. It's It's a good question because I, there's so few, like, I've been alive so much longer without her than with her. But, yeah, I mean, I just, I honestly just look back at, now that I'm a parent, I think it all becomes, like, it rushes to the forefront. And she was just a really fucking good mom. Like, I didn't have, I was very lucky to have her as a mom.

And I try to remember whatever lessons I can from that. which, you know, I can't remember too much, but, and try to just, like, honestly, emulate it as closely as possible. Hmm. You said your child's a boy, right? You have a son? Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious if, because I know from, I have all boys, which is crazy, but. You have four boys? Yeah. Yeah. Two more you can start a basketball team.

Yeah. I mean, that is. Wild. And so, and I really do, yeah, it's such an impactful thing now that, like, I find it, it's relevant no matter what's happening, at least to me, because I'm like, holy shit, I have four boys. Yeah, that's so many boys. So the four is new to me. But what I see with, what I see with the older ones at least, is like, there's moments where maybe this is because they're boys, maybe not. And that's what I'm asking you. Like, I have seen the stuff. threshold moments, two, three, four, or five years old where I'm like, I can kind of see myself at that age. And then I realize what I'm getting to do is partly reparent that child who missed certain things or whatever it is. And that can be so incredibly poignant and like, like,

like, like kind of just psychedelic and mystical and, you know, and, and, and, because it has to do then with my parents. I would imagine that parenting and becoming a mother, has just kind of as you were indicating like blown open maybe some of your maybe that's an extreme way to put it but it's just maybe it's gently massaging open

just certain insights and understandings about like you know maybe who your mom was who you were then you know and I don't know if it's lessened a little because you're not staring at like a little girl is exactly like you know totally

I do think about that all the time. We're going the opposite direction is you, and we're having one. And I never thought I'd only have one. And I did always want to have a daughter at some point. And now I find myself, like, weirdly very grateful that I only have a son. And he is not, he's sort of like 50, 50, 50 gender. It feels like he's really sweet and sensitive. He's not like a truck and break things kind of boy, even though he definitely has that side to him.

But I think you're right. I have been waiting. I remember when my mom passed away, saying to myself, like, just keep your head down until you have your own family and then you can sort of write this. But I had him late, you know, I didn't rush into having kids at all. I was 39 when I had him. And it is the single most reparative thing that I've ever done. which is, you know, not the intention, but a huge added surprise benefit, getting to re-experience all of that.

I mean, it also, unfortunately, I have this, like, well of, like, real fear of leaving him in the same situation, but I don't know, I think we all, I think once you, if you lose a parent, sure, and also when you have kids, you just become, like, so hyper-aware of your own mortality and I can really think about like the effect it would have on him. The difference is my husband, Tom, if I did drop dead tomorrow, Alfie, our son is in very good hands. Like he is such an incredible dedicated dad and parent. And my dad, who actually passed away in January, which just to keep it real light and fun here. Loving it. Yeah, right? I figured this is like what you guys like.

on this, buddy. That's great. He was, you know, my parent, like, loomed so large. I love my dad so dearly, but he was not equipped to all of a sudden be a 50-year-old man with three kids who he was never the primary caregiver for. And it was, it was not easy for anybody in our family. Lizzie, we're going to take an abrupt left turn. I do have one because it's about that it's not necessarily like all death I thought this was a death one

that's why I signed on fucking love talking about this but I seriously talk about it but I do talk about it in podcasts a lot we could just yeah and it is kind of the space for it because you sort of had to turn on this very open vulnerable thing

so we don't need but but you did say something very interesting about you at 12 or I guess it would have been you at 13 which then it is like the runway of time that we like to look at you said you said something along the lines of like to yourself just keep your head down until you have a family and then you can write this that's that's actually really

that's kind of an interesting story like a self-written story for such a young person to give to themselves I guess like is is Maybe could you just, I don't know what the question is quite because, you know, you just said it, but it's like, what, what do you think that was? Did you, did you want a family? Did you feel called to that? Was it just like, I don't know how to deal with this. It must be fine once I'm an adult, that magical stage where you know what's happening, you know? Yeah, I think it's partly that. I think it was also, I mean, my mom did everything. So every holiday, every family trip, going to Hebrew school. all of these things pretty much abruptly stopped after she passed away. So I really missed just like the chaos of a full house of people. It got very quiet in my house. My sister was in college and my brother was at home for two years before he also went to college. And it was the

beginning of my friends, honestly, becoming my family. Because my dad was very much figuring it out in real time and really not having the easiest time. He also would do things like he would have these long-term serious girlfriends, some of whom I loved, some of whom I didn't care for that much. But I can sort of chop it up into chapters of who this mother figure was in my life. And for the most part, I'd say his hit rate was pretty high when I was still living in the house. And there was just so much strange shifting around. So we'd have a girlfriend who had kids.

And then I would become friends with the kids. And there would be like this kind of cool stepbrother, step sister situation. And then they would break up. And all those people would be gone. So nobody was really like holding my hand through that. So it was just like the initial fear of abandonment. I know where it comes from. And then it just like just added a little bit to it every year.

And it fucked me up. It fucked me up. And only when I started therapy and earnest, which I really didn't do, I started like maybe 19, 20, but I really like did it, did it from maybe 24, like, really just like cancel my schedule. I'm going to do this now. That it took me a really, really, really long time to actually like sort through all of those feelings and anger and resentments towards these people. with my family that like I look now at a 13 year old kid like probably take care of the 13 year old kid and don't believe her when she says everything's fine but you know we all have to sort of sort through the detritus of our upbringings it's and I really do believe like we it's the armor

that you create at that age that gets you through at least for me gets got me through like my teens my 20s into my 30s and only when I was willing to like dismantle it and like face all of that stuff. Did I feel like maybe I was ready to have my own family, like in reality? And that's how it worked out. Well, we'll check in with your husband to see if all this, you know, checks out. Yeah. I'll call him in.

I'll call him in right now. At that time, there's also a young artist that's being, like, formed. Probably those, like, artistic pangs or longings are amplified as, like, a way to access another world. And I'm curious because I had read that you studied piano first or you were like really into piano and then you kind of made this shift into performance. So I'm curious if you could tell us about that. Like Lizzie, the musician or the pianist who then starts like seeking out acting. Like tell us a little bit about that journey.

Yeah. So I played the piano for 10 or 11 years. And it was very much one of those like middle class Jew in Los Angeles. I played soccer for all those years. I played the piano. This was just the thing that you did. So it was a lot of like my mom forcing me to do it in practice. I wasn't like, oh, this is this is me.

I need to be a pianist at all. But I did get pretty good because I played for so long. So I wanted to go to this high school in Los Angeles called Hamilton that has Performing Arts Academy. It's a big, huge public L-A-U-S-D school, but it has this really incredible music academy. And so I auditioned with the piano. I got in with the piano.

then I quit playing piano halfway through high school because I, I mean, I was never, I never wanted to be a pianist. Everybody was getting like so much better and I was like kind of playing the same piece over and over again. I always think back to, because I can't play at all anymore, like for more than two seconds, which is really a bummer. But I was able at the time to like go and play like a 12-page thing from memory with the piano and the spotlight and now I can't do any of that shit. so I quit piano and I needed to get another performing art selective and so I picked acting because again this was kind of like a fame type school and I wasn't going to be able to fake playing another instrument or being a dancer or a singer or any of that so I said all right I'll do acting and then very quickly I realized how much I liked it and I definitely to answer

your question had that thing like oh I'm so fucked up because of this trauma that I'd been through, like, that's why I can be an actor because I have this darkness to me. And I really didn't believe that for her a long time. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. With the holidays coming up, I'm all about comfort. I want cozy sweaters, fuzzy socks, and now skims. The Skims' Fits Everybody Collection is just all about comfort.

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Okay, I'll be honest with you. There are some things where there's areas in my life where I still find it hard to truly adult, you know, go full adult mode. I may have four children. I may never feel like an adult. We'll see. One of the things that I never do is set up a plan when I'm traveling to a foreign country so that I have service when I land. It's almost, it's comical. It's terrible. It's really frustrating. And to be honest, the last several years, is considering how many children I have. The only time I travel is for work for like maybe say an event, you know, and I land and I've really got to find people and I often discover that I cannot. And, you know, if it weren't for having an airport greeter and a driver pick me up, I'd be completely lost. I would be in total panic mode. Now, for those of us who, you know, might not have a greeter at the airport or a driver

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It sounds like you maybe weren't initially super drawn to performing until you discovered acting. And it sounds like even then maybe it was a slow burn. Is that accurate? I think that I liked it pretty immediately. It was like in tandem, this acting class at school with this performing arts English class, which just had like a huge element of performance to it. And it was the combination of those two things. but I mean

I did like it but I think I liked it because I had some kind of an aptitude for it like I don't know like which sort of came first but I was always

you know I was the youngest child so I was a lot of like razzle dazzle like the loud obnoxious one but no I wasn't I didn't like have these dreams of being an actor even in L.A. like at all and I guess yeah

I wasn't, I didn't consider myself somebody who just wanted to be on stage performing, like, at all. Did you consider when you quit piano? Did you consider leaving that school? Like, did you, did you ever consider, like, no, no, this whole thing isn't for me? Or was it like, no, no, I'm definitely going to stay. I'll find something else. Yeah, I was definitely going to stay. For sure. Okay. Okay, cool. That's good that you had, like, constancy. It sounds like you definitely yeah. Yeah. And it was like, I, God, I loved that school. It was a, it was a wild play. to go to high school and, you know, I had friends that went to public school and friends that went to private school and this was like such a huge fucking crazy as school. And yeah, to the

degree that like I was such a staunch defender of all public school things. And now that I send my own kid to school, I don't send them to public school and it makes me feel really bad every single day. Okay, wait, before we get into your career, which we, I promise we're going to do, We do have some classic questions, just like classic tween, teen things that we all experience. So can you tell us about your first crush or infatuation, your first rejection, whether you rejected someone brutally or you were rejected brutally, and an embarrassing memory from middle school or high school? So my friend, Aric, who is staying with me now, who's the godfather to my son, he was my husband from age 8 to 12. That's a long time. Yeah, it's pretty, you know, successful first marriage.

Was he aware of this? Yeah, yeah, we got married on those. I love that. Yeah, we didn't kiss, though. We never kissed once in all of those years. So it was a loveless marriage? Yeah, it was. It was a marriage of convenience.

There was a boy that everybody loved. His name was Kevin, and he was the best. at soccer. He looked like Dennis the Menace. Everybody was obsessed with it. Wait, I don't think of Dennis the Menace as being hot. Or even like, isn't he sort of just? I mean, he's, yeah, that's not how I remember him. At this time, 1990, whatever, a blonde bowl cut and a bright blue-eyed little jock. That's all it took. Yeah. And I loved him.

And then I found out that, but I was married to Aric. And then I feel like Aric and I at this point were in separate junior highs and we didn't even talk to each other. But, you know, I was loyal to my husband. And I found out that Kevin had a little crush on me and he wrote me a letter, but I couldn't be with him because I was still with Aric. That was brutal. That was the beginning of a lifetime of interesting. dating yes then i remember in seventh grade meeting this boy andy and he was a kid actor and he did um like guest spots on home improvement and stuff and he was my seventh grade boyfriend but the

whole time i was with him i was obsessed with this like skater boy from eighth grade it's a lot of that stuck with one into another so when did that stop honestly uh i would say that probably stopped in my 30s. Yeah, fair. Fair. That's the time. Yeah, that's when you got to like, sort of make it all right. Yeah. Ish, enough, you know, just to like.

Yeah. No, sure. I mean, some practice before this. When you say you were like, you know, this marriage to Eric, really going, dialing in here. What? Do it. So at first when I thought, oh, that's funny, that's cute. But now, but then you, but then I'm realizing, oh, like four years, four years into this childhood relationship, which I've never really heard of. I've never really heard of that at that age.

And then there's so much so that you stayed committed to him when you were in love with Dennis the Menace. Like, I'm really, was that the beginning of you being like, I have to end it with Aric? And I guess I'm just curious, like, who, what did you both think of that? Especially because now you're still friends. I know.

We're very good friends. We've been good friends for our whole lives. I don't remember how it ended. I don't think of Aurek as an X in any way. Right. It doesn't sound like it. What were you guys thinking? What was the...

It was a thing. It was like a recess thing that people would get married. Did anybody last as long as we did? No, not even close. And there was a real mix in our friends. And again, so many of us, like the group is still pretty intact. And it was a real mix of guys and girls, which was wonderful. And sort of all I wish for every kids to have that.

mix of everybody in your friendship group. But all we did to be married was like we hung out all the time. We'd have three doors down from each other. We hung out all the time and we bought each other birthday presents and like a Hanukkah presents. That was pretty much good. Yeah.

It's cute. It's so cute. I've just never really heard of it be like it's yeah. So I guess now, but did you, have you heard of this before? I think I've heard of people marrying on the courtyard, but not for like more than a week. I've never heard of a four year. It's just, you guys had a cute group.

Yeah, we really did. We were very committed. We were very old-fashioned. All right. So how about an embarrassing story? I mean, apart from the ones you've told, you know? I mean, the worst one I was older than high school, but am I not allowed to talk about anything older than the class? No, you can.

Yeah. Yeah, tell us. We draw a hard line. No, no, no. No, no. And was like, one of the most embarrassing things that's ever happened to me around a date. was, I mean, I was young. I was probably like 18 or 19.

And this guy I really liked, who was like definitely keeping me at arm's length and I was so into him. He came over and he was going to take me out to dinner for my birthday, mixed messages, one might say. Because I don't think he was at all interested in being my boyfriend. And I was talking to him and he came over and I was like wearing a dress

and we're like talking to my house before we go out to dinner and he sort of gestured to me like uh your your dress and i looked down and like a full boo no no was just out just out of my dress with the boy that i like i can still fucking feel it that's brutal my stomach when i tell the story that's brutal and guess what it didn't even work the old one one one one Titty out. Didn't even work. Didn't seduce it. That's amazing. Horrifying. Yeah. Yes, but also in high school, like, I had a really sweet boyfriend in high school. When I was in ninth grade, he was in 11th grade. And we went out for two years, and he was like my first great love. And we had like a really sweet thing going with each other.

I wish that for every, every young person to have, like, such a, like, loving, respectful, like, beautiful first relationship. It was great. Yeah, it sounds amazing. Which is not at all interesting to talk about, I guess. Boring. I know. Let's get back to the old death thing. I mean, because this is pretty tepid.

And then he died. Great. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let's hear about, I mean, it is true that Freaks and Geeks was where you, it sounds like your first major role. It may have been your first role.

I'm not exactly. Okay, great. Awesome. Even better. Better for us. Better for a story. That's why I did it. What is the arc from, you know, you're going to Hamilton, you're now kind of turned on as a performer, just how things became like, yeah, I'm really going to do this.

I'm going to become professional. you already lived in a town where that's both it's like you're surrounded by it but it's also an alien world i'm kind of interested in that shift and then how quickly freaks and geeks comes along because that was such um huge i mean it was it was i will say also in the industry so i was living in l.a and working then too i was i'm a little younger than you but i was like i remember i was on my first like series lead when that had come come out. And I remember just that seemed like just an incredibly special project and group of people. That's so fascinating. Because I haven't heard that perspective before. Most people are like,

oh yeah, you know, it's like this beloved show after the fact canceled too soon. But it took people a minute to like fall in love with it. What show were you on? You wouldn't know it. It was called Do Over. It was on the WB. No, I feel like I would know that show. I mean, so I would have been, I would have been just younger. I was not, I would have been like four years younger than you. So when you were like, you know, doing what I was much younger. I was like, you were a baby.

Yeah, at that, at that age, the age gap is huge. And anything I was doing was definitely not cool or, or becoming, you know. But do over sounds familiar to me. Maybe, maybe. I mean, yeah. Yes. So I had an uncle. Good news.

He also passed away. Bro, God, I love it. Actually, this uncle you said, this uncle you said taught you everything you know about how to die graciously. Is that true? That is true. Look at you.

Yeah. See, I do talk about this shit a lot on the podcast. No, but he did. He was a huge influence in my life. And he was a crisis publicist. So his clients were like Monica Lewinsky. Like all it was happening, that kind of thing. Yeah, really interesting.

man. And he did a lot of entertainment stuff too. So he... So he was assassinated. Yeah. Okay. Anyway. He introduced me to a manager he knew who took like a meeting to be nice to my uncle, I guess.

And then they pawned me off on like the lowliest assistant in this tiny, tiny like three person management company. And then he started sending me out on auditions. He was my first manager, this guy, Ryan. So without my uncle Howard, yeah, I don't know how I would have started really going on auditions. And I was auditioning for everything and getting nothing. And then I got one line on the pilot of freaks and geeks.

And at first I was disappointed that I was not cast as the lead, because in my mind, it was going to be straight to the top. And how old are you now? 15 for the pilot Okay, okay, cool And yeah, it was like the experience The only way I can like really Think about the experiences

That I was like such a fish out of water I had no idea what I was doing I felt like deeply uncomfortable The whole time I was there I didn't get it I don't know why I don't know what in that experience Kind of

Was enough to convince me to keep going because it wasn't like a pleasurable experience for me. It was like just intimidating and frightening. But then I guess I got a pilot, which ultimately didn't go. But I was a senior in high school and doing like the school plays and stuff. And I got this pilot. And I had already applied to and was accepted to theater school at NYU. And I didn't know what was going to happen with the pilot.

And I remember asking my dad, like, hey, can I, obviously, if this pilot goes, I have to stay here and I can't go to school. And he was like, yeah, of course. And then the pilot didn't get picked up. And I remember very vividly going to dinner with him and asking him like, hey, I, my show didn't get picked up, which means I'm supposed to go to college. But to be honest, I really just want to try this. Can I just try this for one year? And he said yes, which looking back is, It's not surprising that he would have said, yes. We were sort of, like, allowed to do what we wanted, but that yes was very meaningful to me.

And had my mom still been around, like, there was just no fucking way that she would have let me do that. Like, no way. Oh, yeah. Again, who knows? Like, if I was not an actress, I didn't think about being at it. Like, none of that was on my radar when my mom was around. So, like, I don't actually know how she would have reacted, but not going to college would have been, like, a huge no-no. in my family.

And so he let me do it. And then that was the loneliest worst year ever trying to make it work in L.A. Well, literally all my friends were away having fun in college. And yeah, for whatever reason, like I just, and I don't know if you had this experience, but it was like I was just doing enough. Like there were just enough crumbs to like sort of get me to the next job, like emotionally. but it wasn't like I wasn't the lead of anything I was just doing like little little little bits like oh

and it was just enough to keep me going I don't know because I really do look back and it was like I remember a lot of fearful times and probably trying to think like what the first really fun job was maybe mean girls maybe the class this show that I did that it was like oh okay this is what it's supposed to be like fun. Yeah, I think for me

fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. I still struggling. I mean, it must have been fun if you were the star of the do-over. Yes, you're right. And that was probably from 12 to 20, that was kind of a unique experience where it was, it was,

there was something there that I really hung on to. Yeah. So I was going to say, it probably would have been mean girls or something around that time for you where it's like, probably you feel like

I mean fun to me is like that's just like little spearhead into it finally becoming something that you can imagine doing enjoying an occupation I mean that's like a that's a special thing

for all the ups and downs of the strange career that we have and I mean you and may not never that it's that it's you know it's um it's an incredible gift to be able to to be able to love your occupation totally absolutely completely agree and I know that there are plenty of actors that haven't had that special job and still keep showing up and doing it and I'm always impressed by that because I need it to

also be like a worthwhile experience in making it like that almost matters to me the most especially as you get into a space where you're then known and you have to be on podcasts and stuff because that's that's an aspect to a job that I think you really do have to love something integral to it otherwise it can be so kind of grading totally every other part of the job is not my favorite but being on set doing the thing making the thing is it's just yeah I feel the same way as you I feel very very very fortunate that it's my actual job Can you give us a snapshot of what it was like to book Mean Girls and how it felt on set and being a part of something? Did you feel at the time that it was, because honestly, I don't recall, it was huge when it came out, no doubt.

But, like, you know, you don't know when you're on set, right? It was a huge deal for me because I guess the only other time, I had gotten like a guest star role on the show Smallville, which shot in Vancouver. and it was like my first time flying like in business class and then they put me in a hotel and it was a sweet and I could order room service all it was such a big deal like that was just not at all how I was raised um and then mean girls was the whole thing was in Toronto for probably three months or something and we lived in the hotel and it felt like a dorm which looking back was a really important thing for me since again all of my I would go visit them in college and they were like having these really exciting new experiences and I was in Los Angeles like going to the supermarket at three in the morning hoping that anything would happen to me like I would meet anybody and like anything would happen but Mean Girls was like it scratched that college experience itch and it was so fun I believe that it was really fun for everybody we were sort of in like

little subgroups. And my subgroup was very much Danny, Franzazi, and Jonathan Bennett. And we had the greatest time, just like bombing around Toronto. And I don't know if I thought, like just being in a movie felt like such a big deal to me at the time. I definitely wasn't focused on like box office or anything like that. It was just, it was the funniest script I had ever read. I wanted to be in it's so bad. I fought so hard and then it worked out. Really? What do you mean by thought so hard? Was it a long audition process? Very, very long. It was one of those where everybody had to audition, I think, for like one of the two main, like Katie, the Lindsay Lohan part of the Rachel McAdams part. Probably everybody

had to audition for the Lindsay Lohan part. And then they kind of sorted us into and then we would get called back. And yeah, I went in and and they were resistant to casting me. Somebody reminded me of this recently. They, like, the studio wanted, like, Kelly Osborne to play that role. And I, yeah, so at one point, like, I don't remember who was on my side and who was, like, fighting against me getting the part. I was probably never privy to that.

But they sent the hair person from Ken. Canada down to L.A. And we went to Hollywood Boulevard and like put on dark wigs and just anything to send them screen grouts of like me looking like a goth kid. And I don't remember how long the process was, but I remember getting the phone call and where I was when I got the phone call that I got the part. And I do think like, how many times does that really happen to you in your career that it's like so that you just want to like celebrate and it's nothing but exciting there are no caveats and no like that you get older you know like two or three times maybe yeah that's great it's great to hear you say that because sometimes I'm like in all of this celebrity there was

no celebration yeah totally yeah that's really that's very that's very cool to hear though that that felt that way I think there's a few jobs that if you're lucky you get to to really go out and celebrate them. And that was one of them. And it was a blast. I loved making that movie. Stick around. We'll be right back.

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Well, we'll have to cut that part, but we have, we, this whole podcast, we have, this whole podcast, we have we love Fleischman is in trouble um really an exceptional series Adam Brody yeah that's it yep yeah yeah that's who it was it does something with his

with its twists that as a person who makes a lot of television I was impressed by that just as a just as a formula bending or breaking inverting subverting I was like wow I it takes a lot for me to be impressed truly impressed by a show, that one did it.

Like, that one did it in spades. Because it also, I mean, it had so much else going for it. But that right there was, like, at its foundation, it's quietly a little TV revolution. You know what I mean? So, like... That's very kind. And I do agree.

And I, it's all Taffy, Brodesser, Akner, A, the novelist who also wrote every episode of the show. And it's a combination of her, I mean, she's like so ridiculously talented. Like she's my favorite writer. She's amazing. It was her just like raw talent combined with her complete inexperience with television. Like had she been, you know, like a career TV writer.

Yeah. She would know, you know, there were things like, oh, there's no way that she would put like an 11, page scene with two people just talking to each other sitting on the with like nothing dynamic happening around them like nobody would do that uh they wouldn't let somebody like read an entire i basically like read the book over voice in voice over the whole series i think probably you'd be like oh nobody's going to want me to do that so i won't do that but she didn't know and they really championed her and uh it's it's it's all her but i that was a really special very very wonderful show to be a part of. And I think also part of it is, for me, it reminded me of the stuff that I remember

watching, and it's not even like a specific movie or TV show that I could even name. It was just, I remember wanting to be an actress because I was raised on these character-driven stories, which were really just about normal people figuring it out. And we don't get that very often anymore there always has to be some hook or genre gimmick or something and that was just people quite honestly in like navigating middle age and we're this age now and i feel like our parents generation had many many many things to watch that were that was common we're commenting on their experience at the time and we really don't have very much of that at all and so this show i know i talked to so many of my peers about it and they all watched it and they all

like it fucked them up in the best possible way and everybody's just like really hungry for stories that feel like oh this is making me feel slightly less alone in the world like is that not the whole fucking point like oh these thoughts that I have in my head are actually potentially more universal than I initially thought

and that makes me feel less despondent that's what it did for me every I don't know if this is your experience I think this is kind of universal among actors but like when you're doing a job even if you don't even if initially you don't think you like it that much you don't connect to it I mean this one is of course not that

but I guess what I'm trying to say is like kind of no matter what you end up finding this symmetry between yourself and your character where it feels almost like spiritual in a way where you're like this is exactly what I'm working on right now and in a way there's like I don't I can't imagine not doing this right now

and for that reason it's sort of like I can't imagine anyone else playing this role right now I'm curious if well it threatens to be potentially too personal of a question but if it's one you can answer you know what were some of those symmetries

you were going through with your character yes and I have I think there have been many points about probably like the majority up until Fleischman I guess I have felt that many times that like this is exactly where I'm at in my life or the questions I'm asking myself in my head and now I get to like play them out in other ways. That is definitely one of the coolest parts of the job when it happens. With Fleischman it was it was such a very specific time. My son was three months old.

It was the first job that I did after having him. It was also coming out of the pandemic. So everything was very strange. And I was playing this character who had two older kids, had been married forever, was living in the suburbs and sort of given up on her own personal dreams to raise her family, which is, you know, not a unique life path. Many people do that. And I was living the exact opposite.

I was completely besotted by my baby and the fact that we had just had a baby and we were in New York and everything felt exciting, nothing felt stale, monotonous, all the things that my character in that show is being suffocated by all of those feelings and stagnation. It was the total opposite. But it was probably,

it probably enhanced that experience for me, like the gratitude around not finding myself in that really stifled life position. It was just so different, yeah. I did want you to tell your fun, fun story about meeting your husband. We were like aware of each other before I left to go to London to make this movie. And then he was going through this breakup, a very long term relationship. And so that was definitely not where his head was at. I went and shot this movie, ended up having, like, this wonderful time.

And, like, halfway through, he reached out to me because he was going to go to L.A. And he was like, oh, we could get coffee in L.A. And I was like, I'm in London. We should, you know, hang out here. And he resisted it. And then we did. And then we had great dates. And that was 10 years ago.

And the cool part of this story is, because I won't go into the details. of this, sorry, but I won't go into the details of my early dating with my husband. But the, he came to visit me one day on set in 10 years ago, 11 years ago, in London. And I was doing this stunt with like a bunch of doves. I had to get the magic trick releasing doves. And then when we were shooting this new one in Budapest, he came to set to visit me with our son. and it was another dove day and we have these pictures of our son

like holding these doves and that was like a very lovely book-ended thing. Very cute. That's very cool. Kind of encapsulates the bright side of a possible answer to this question I'm going to ask now. Okay.

Given how, you know, 10 years ago, 11 years ago, the state of the world might not have been called into question as readily as readily kind of in any circle as it is now, right? How did it feel

did it feel surreal returning to like I can only imagine that you did not see a sequel well I mean maybe you did I don't know did you see yourself doing this again

like a decade later? No no I mean I had heard you know rumors that they were going to reboot it and there were a few different iterations. But no, I didn't know if it was ever going to happen. And I think the biggest, like the biggest trip about the whole thing has been, there's these three younger actors in this.

And they're like the new guard of the horsemen. And we, like, they're young. Ariana's like 17. Justice is maybe 30. but they're all, and Dom isn't somewhere in the middle there. So, like, they're young. And we're the fucking old ones now. That is weird.

Before, like, 10 years ago, it was like Woody and Mark Ruffalo were slightly older than us, but then it was like Michael Kane and Morgan Freeman. And now we are, I guess, like Woody to Ariana. Like, it's just too weird. Yeah. It's really, really odd. And everybody, like, of our cat, like, you know, nobody looks back. better than Woody Harrelson on this earth because he just eats like leaves and sunshine.

But it's nuts that he's 10 years older and looks exactly the same. And it kind of the same for everybody. Well, I'm saying that. Hopefully the audience will not. I think it's true. I definitely think it's true. Yeah. It's a hard left turn. But if you could go back to you at 12 years old, is there anything you would say or do?

I would say that the plan of putting your head down and getting to this point in life, your own family, actually is a very worthy goal worth striving for. And there will be many adventures and misadventures along the way, but ultimately the initial plan, if I were to stick with the initial plan, it would pay off. It has paid off. Thank you so much. Lovely to meet you. Yes.

You can check out Lizzie Kaplan in Now You See Me, Now You Don't, in Theaters November 14th, and you can follow her online at The Lizzie Kaplan. Pod Crushed is hosted by Penn Badgley, Navakavalin, and Sophie Ansari. Our senior producer is David Ansari, and our editing is done by Clips Agency. If you haven't subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet, now's the perfect time, guess what? You can listen completely ad-free. Plus, you'll unlock exclusive bonus content, like the time we talked to Luca Bravo about the profound effect that the film Into the Wild had on him. The conversation was so moving and you are not going to hear it anywhere else.

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