Podcrushed - Susan Sarandon

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Susan Sarandon, the actor whose five decade career has earned her six Primetime Emmy nominations and an Academy Award for Best Actress, joins the pod to talk about her early days as a God-fearing Catholic kid in New Jersey. She details the unexpected and serendipitous path that led her to acting, and talks about her new film Nonnas, about a man who risks everything to honor his late mother by opening an Italian restaurant with actual nonnas — grandmothers — as the chefs. And preorder our new book, Crushmore, here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Crushmore/Nava-Kavelin/9781668077993    Want more from Podcrushed? Follow our social channels here: Insta: https://bit.ly/PodcrushedInsta TikTok: https://bit.ly/PodcrushedTikTok  X: https://bit.ly/PodcrushedTwitter   You can follow Penn, Sophie and Nava here: Insta: https://www.instagram.com/pennbadgley/  https://www.instagram.com/scribbledbysophie/ https://www.instagram.com/nnnava/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iampennbadgley  https://www.tiktok.com/@scribbledbysophie  https://www.tiktok.com/@nkavelinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada. And I remember the first time I heard someone say a fucking bag of potato chips, and I was thinking, how can a bag of potato chips be fucking, you know, but not even if you weren't allowed. Welcome to Pod Crush. We're hosts. I'm Penn. I'm Nava. And I'm Sophie.

And I think we would have been your middle school besties. Praying so hard it makes your rosary beads glow. No, is that not relatable? Is that not? Did you not have... Not everyone had that experience? No. Welcome to Podcrush.

Sorry, I'm still figuring this whole hosting thing out. I'm joined by my co-host, Navakavlin, and Sophie Ann. Sorry. And we're here to talk about... Well, I want to talk to you guys about a new hobby I have discovered. So, you know, we were in New York, and every time we're together, of course, we have to record TikToks. We have to film some, some content. We have to. And I realized, yeah, yeah, we have to. It's in your contract, Ben. Um, no, I realized there were a couple where Penn had to,

like, direct me. He had to act just a tiny bit. He's like, okay, now you're going to, you're going to have to look bored and, or you're going to have to look, uh, judgmental. And I couldn't not look worried. Like, my only, my only mode is worried. And then there was another one where he gave me a prompt he's like okay imagine you just took candy from a little child and my mind just like went blank and I was like I wanted to practice but also I was like I just want to see what that feels like when you're an adult who's not in school who's not in like a drama class you don't actually do that so I was like David the person who I feel like the least judged by let's tonight look up some prompts and act for each other that's so cute oh my

God, I love that. It was so fun. It was so fun. That's adorable. Wait, can you tell us your favorite prompt that David did? My favorite prompt that David did was you're a barista and a famous person walks into the cafe and you realize that someone you know. He was really, David was actually so good, which was really annoying. You know, I'm happy for him. Okay, I have to tell you guys a really cute Sophie David's story really quickly, which is that I wrote the first script that I ever wrote a pilot, which is actually how Penn and I came together. It's like the genesis of Ninth Mode.

I shared it with Sophie and David. And I sent it to them as like, I wrote this script and I'd be curious to hear thoughts because you're both like funny and cool. We had no podcast together, no idea that we'd ever work together. And I remember that they wrote me like really quickly with really great notes.

And they were like, we printed it out and we acted out all the parts. And then they sent me their feedback. And I thought that that was so cute. And I still remember that. Wow. Did you guys really do that? Yeah, I remember the printed out pages.

I remember being on a, our bed and, like, reading through it together. It's so cute, yeah. That means, Sophie, that you have had, I think, about the same number of acting classes as our guest today. And that's going to shock people because we have Susan Sarandon. And that's actually true. She never took any acting classes.

But unlike Sophie, she's won, or she's been nominated for six Academy Awards. Like Sophie, she can act. And she's won at least one of them. But, yeah, I don't, what do we need to say? She also has like Emmy nominations. She has nine Golden Globe nominations. She is the star of Thelma and Louise and influenced so many of its iconic moments. She's a star of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Dead Man Walking. Now you can see her in Nonas about a man who risks everything to honor his late mother by opening an Italian restaurant with actual Nonas, Grandmothers, as the show. chefs. Susan was so game to to dig into her formative years. It was really, really a pleasure and an honor to speak with her today. Don't go anywhere. Please, please. Don't go anywhere. You're not going to want to miss this. Stick around. Does anyone else ever get that nagging feeling that their dog might be bored. And do you also feel like super guilty about it? Well, one way that I combat that feeling is I'm making meal time everything it can be for my little boy, Louis.

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Nomnum available at your local pet smart store or at Chewy. Learn more at trynom.com slash podcrushed spelled try n-o-m.com slash podcrushed. Why do we do what we do? What makes life meaningful? My name is Elise Lunan, and I'm the author of Honor Best Behavior and the host of the podcast, Pulling the Thread. I'm Pulling the Thread, I explore life's big questions with thought leaders who help us better understand ourselves, others, and the world around us. I hope these conversations bring you moments of resonance, hope, and growth. Listen to Pulling the Thread from Lemonada Media, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, welcome. Hi, everybody.

Hello, Susan. Thank you so much for coming on. I know you had some choice. I know press is not a choice. So thank you so much. It's really an honor to meet you. You're the first person that's recognized that. As some of those same experiences, I understand.

Yeah. So if we can, we would just love to start at 12 for you, given that you have described yourself as falling into acting quite by accident, or at least you have said that. I don't want to hold you to it, but we've heard that. Did you nonetheless see the world? Okay, I try to repeat my stories the same.

Yeah. Did you nonetheless see the world somewhat as an artist at this age, or how did you see the world, do you think? I have to set the story with I'm the eldest of nine children. Right. In a little tracked house in New Jersey with no nanny. And parents who, one was raised, institutionally and the other

ones parents died these two people found their way together and had nine children and were Catholic so at 12 I was in a school yeah because you don't start how old are you when you go

that's middle school so a high school older right yeah so I was still in St. Francis of Assisi which was obviously Catholic grade school populated by maybe 20 families, all of whom had a minimum of seven children, and some had 16 and 18 children. Wow. Wow.

So I was at home. I was not someone who, I see my kids, you know, taking off in little gangs and doing sleepovers and all that stuff. That was definitely not. I didn't know that I was missing out on anything. This was just my life to take care of folding the diapers and taking care of the kids. You know, my mom was fairly. overwhelmed. And I played with dolls very late. I was very shy, very in my head. Already with this innate demand for justice, I believe that they might, there was a possibility that they might, you know, come alive at midnight. So I rotated their dresses to make sure not one doll got the best dress. Local. and I read a lot and I was very quiet so it didn't really even occur to me

I don't think we went out much as a family we went camping it didn't nothing really I was the Blessed Virgin in third grade in my classroom for the you know whatever and I was really terrified the communists were going to come over and hang us upside down on crosses because that's what I

I was told. So I prayed a lot. I had an experience where, you know, I was very religious during the, you know, the boys and the girls were separated, but I would go to church to pray sometimes in the afternoons during our break. And that's when everyone was making out in the confessionals. And I was, I was not, I was way behind on any social skills or anything. And, uh, I had a pair of rosary beads that I slept with, who one night I lived down and they were glowing. And that's when I realized I did not want the Blessed Virgin or any other saint to ever visit me. I was terrified until I found out that my Aunt Betty had given me glow in the dark. Oh, my gosh.

That was a traumatizing experience. But I was not, you know, I was just quiet and questioning and praying. Then I went to public high school, 500 in my class, not the school, my class, middle class to working people, kids. That's where I met the first Jewish people I ever knew who were strangely not the least apologetic for killing Christ. and this is where I had, you know, completely gave up the Catholic Lord's Prayer to do the the other one, just without even asking, I just didn't want to stand out. So whatever dreams I had of being a martyr and state for my faith or whatever, no, I just rolled right over with everybody else. And I had never seen, you know, girls that were this tough.

People had knives. People had guns. And I was bust in. And I remember the first time I heard someone say a fucking bag of potato chips. And I was thinking, how can a bag of potato chips be fucking, you know, could not even. We weren't allowed to say, shut up, fart. We weren't allowed to, you know, my mom, who was. institutions by nuns, thought that, you know, we should have white gloves on in our lower

middle class house going to, I mean, so that formed a lot of my experience. And it was in junior, as when I was a junior, that I was cast in a play, the first play that I ever did. And I thought it was fun. I don't remember really thinking about it too much. It was a kind of stupid play called my sister, Eileen, and I was one of the two leads, and my dad had been a band singer with the big bands. And so he came out of, when it came back from the war, he gave up his career because he was now having a lot of children. But he became active in the early days of television, and actually one of the first jobs I had was in a studio that he designed. It was a soap opera on the Upper West Side.

But I ended up just with the ambition of getting out of New Jersey and, you know, going somewhere. I was accepted at a college at Emerson in Boston. My parents were overwhelmed with everything else. There were no guidance count. Nobody in my school went to college. So, of course, they didn't send in the paperwork. They didn't say, I lost my place at school. And the gal who was my drama teacher and junior as a junior

had left the school to get her master's, and she heard that I was no longer going to go to college. And she was getting her master's at Catholic University in D.C., which happened to be four blocks from where my grandparents lived. So she actually said to the drama department, Can you get that let this girl come? Wow. Can you get her a job because she has no money?

And she can live off campus so you don't have to deal with that. And that's how I got into Catholic U, where I didn't really do anything. I didn't have the right kind of voice that they liked. They were very Shakespearean, which is where I met Chris Sarandon, who was now a grad student. I was 17. He was a graduate student. And he played the lead in every Shakespearean play. and introduced me to Black and Light film and poetry

and basically saved my life. And then after I graduated, he went to the Long Wharf Theater to do a play. And he was seen by someone there. And she said, why don't you come in and read for me? So when he finished the play, he needed someone as a scene partner. And I did one, a scene with him from the hostage.

and they said, why don't you come back, too? Now, take it, I've never had an acting class at this point. Well, I've never had an acting class. He goes away to do stuff in the summer. I still don't really do anything. And we go back to New York, and this woman handled Sybester Stallone, Perry King, myself, and Chris Sarandon. She sends me up, and the first job I went up on,

after I'd been in New York for five days, turned out to be a film called. called Joe. And they'd been looking for the... First of all, it was the company that had never done anything but porno. This was their first non-porno film. Starring Susan Sarandon.

They asked me to improv. I had no idea what that was, but I somehow did it. And they said, wait a minute. And then they came back and they said, all right, we'd like you to do this. And I called her. And she said, just do not sign anything.

We don't know what's going on. Just come back. And that film... which was directed by John Albertson. He wasn't even in the director's union at that point. And it was starring, I won't say who it was, but a male actor, I was playing someone my age, who was a wealthy young girl who was going with a bad boy.

And the guy who was playing the working class guy who meets my father after I've run away, was really crazy. And on his wardrobe fitting in Bloomingdale's, he peed on the escalator. So I realized that this was going to be maybe interesting, but probably also problematic. And that's where, so he went,

and now I've just blanked on his name, became Joe, and brought his Peter Boyle, came from Second City in Chicago and brought with him a character that was this hard hat guy, this kind of, you know, now MAGA kind of guy who meets the father in a bar. And right when they were editing,

and they go on a rampage trying to find these hippie people that, remember, this is like 1970. Yeah, right, right. They are shooting and doing things too. And he inadvertently kills his own daughter, the father. While they were editing the film, there was an incident on Wall Street

where all these hard hats beat up a bunch of hippie kids. Oh. And so they had the sense to re-edit it around him instead of this, you know, family bullshit kind of thing. And they called it Joe,

and it became a huge sleeper. They likened it to Easy Rider, which also was a terrifying, dystopian kind of, you know, the year before or something. And that became a huge hit. And that's how I fell into the business. And then I, you know, got another job with Cephaler in.

And I just thought this was hilarious. And I had to pay off my school debt. So I was like, okay. And meanwhile, Chris immediately got in a musical called The Rothschilds. So we'd been in New York a week and both of us were working. And I just thought it was so much fun. And then after, and I got on a soap opera work. I was the girl that everything happened to.

So I had to learn to deal with cameras. And then I did a Broadway play. I don't know how, but I did it. And after about 10 years, I thought, I guess this is what I do. You know, this is... Amazing, you know? And so I just was very lucky.

And I think part of my success was due to the fact that I wasn't taking it too serious. and I kind of was relaxed and, you know, granted, no one put me up for like the godfather or anything. I wasn't doing, wasn't getting really extraordinary chances at things, but it was enough for me and I thought, this is really fun, you know, so that's kind of always been my, you know, is this project going to be fun? Are there good people? Is it somewhere I want to be? Maybe I get paid. That would be good too. Maybe it's someone that's not a first, time director that actually knows what they're doing and so I bounced between those kind of low

and independent things some of which turn out like the rocky horror show to be quite extraordinary other ones that you'd ever see and big films like Delman louise or whatever kind of between the two of them and that's that's it you just gave us the most concise and interesting summary of somebody's adolescence into their professional era probably yeah i think the most of any guest it was so so because there's also so much that you've done there's also like just an incredible career you have to to speak to i do want to just go to one but we'll like put a pin in that we'll come right back we do just have a classic kind of pod crushed thing that i do think it's it's it's it's formative for everybody if you're willing to share first love and or for

heartbreak? You know, I went to my high school reunion and I said, why did nobody ask me out? And they said, you were praying. We knew that you weren't going to put out. That's how, wow. You know, I'm talking about amongst the girls with the white lipstick and the sweaters on backwards

with the buttons down the back and lots of hair and everything. And I guess I was kind of the class clown in a way, you know. So I didn't really... have a crush in high school. I kind of dated toward my senior year, but nobody that really felt that stole my heart. Oh, wait a minute. Inchy Davis.

All right, this is the West Side Story of New Jersey. So Richie Davis was our best athlete at Edison High School. He was the quarterback. He was the best basketball player. He was great a track. He was black. Now, I'd ever understood that in the north you could still be racist. You know, my idea at that time was that that was what happened in the South,

but that the North was cool. Except the North was only cool if you didn't step out of line. He was kind of shy, very handsome. Now, I had to verify this when I went to my first reunion, which is the only one I went to. He was not there, but I asked the other guys that had been on the basketball team, you know, these, all these other guys, if this was just some romantic fantasy I had or if it had actually happened. He started walking me to classes. That went on for just a few days.

Clearly there was a heart, you know, quite an attraction on my part. And then everybody stepped in and just made sure that didn't. not happen. His friends, the team, everybody was like, oh, whoa, whoa, no way. So when I went to my reunion, I said, was that true? Did that happen? And they said, I'm ashamed to say, but yes, that did happen. And I've learned a lot since then. And now I, you know, coach an integrated basketball team or whatever. But yeah, that did happen. So that was the only, but it didn't get, we didn't have cell phones. There was no way of, like, I was on the 40-minute trip on the bus to get back to where my house was because it was a strange gerrymandering of the, the boundaries for who went

to what school. And I was actually much closer to a different school. But I got on this bus every morning for like 45 minutes to go where most of the kids lived. So I wasn't, I had to go home after school, I didn't have a car and, you know, take the bus again. So you didn't, there was no hanging around. So I didn't really have a boyfriend. And then when I was in college, Chris Surranden was the first guy I was ever with. And he was so kind and he was so knowledgeable, especially, you know, he's a graduate student. I'm 17. I mean, he just thought he knew everything. And at that time, he actually did. And so that, you know, was someone who I felt safe with. And we were together, I mean, we had to get married because I was in the Catholic University. So before my,

and all this time, I'm living with my grandparents, God bless them, who had never had anyone live with them before. And my grandfather played opera 24-7. He, they didn't really understand. Also, by the way, I'm working a number of jobs. So I'm not really around as much as they wanted me to be around. I would try to be there eating Sunday dinner and going to Mass, whatever. But by my senior year, I was like, I got to get out of here. And in order to live off campus, I had to be married to him.

So we decided to get married. but to renew every year to decide if we really wanted to be together. And so we had known each other for 11 years, and after seven years of marriage, we gracefully split. But he was, you know, really so instrumental to my feelings of safety and also emotional safety and everything. So that was really sad. I felt really guilty.

when we split, but it was, I felt necessary at the time, you know, it's one of those things. We just, you know, how that happens. Yeah. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right. So, let's just, let's just real talk, as they say for a second. That's a little bit of an aged thing to say now.

That dates me, doesn't it? But no, real talk. How important is your health to you, you know, on like a one to ten? And I don't mean the, in the sense. of vanity. I mean, in the sense of like, you want your day to go well, right? You want to be less stressed. You don't want to get sick. When you have responsibilities, I know myself, I'm a householder. I have two children and two more on the way, a spouse, a pet, you know, a job that sometimes has its demands. So I really want to feel like when I'm not getting to sleep and I'm not getting

nutrition when my eating's down, I want to know that I'm being held down some other way physically. My family holds me down emotionally, spiritually, but I need something to hold me down physically, right? And so, honestly, I turned to symbiotica, these vitamins and these beautiful little packets that they taste delicious. And I'm telling you, even before I started doing ads for these guys, it was a product that I really, really liked and enjoyed and could see the differences with. The three that I use, I use the, what is it called, liposomal vitamin C, and it tastes delicious. like really really good comes out in the packet you put it right in your mouth some

people don't do that I do it I think it tastes great I use the liposomal glutathione as well in the morning really good for gut health and although I don't need it you know anti-aging and then I also use the magnesium L3 and 8 which is really good for for I think mood and stress I sometimes use it in the morning sometimes use it at night all three of these things taste incredible honestly you don't even need to mix it with water. And yeah, I just couldn't recommend them highly enough. If you want to try them out, go to symbiotica.com slash podcrushed for 20% off plus free shipping. That's symbiotica.com slash podcrushed for 20% off plus free shipping. The first few weeks of school are in the books,

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You're in this beautiful set that we can see right now. and sort of one of the prevalent themes is like a lovely warm meal prepared by Anona and I'm curious if you have a meal or a food that you prepare for your kids or that was prepared for you that makes you feel very nostalgic. Well, my mom, my, oh,

see, if you're raised in foster care and then live with nuns and that's an orphanage, you don't learn to cook. So, you know, and then you have one child after the next or the next, and you've never even held a baby. She was not making big meals,

You know, nobody, we were spam, Campbell soup, tuna fish casserole made with Campbell soup, tuna. You know, we were this, the usual kind of, that stuff. But I definitely, well, I was vegetarian for about eight years. And when I divorced, I wanted meat. And then, um, and then, um, For my kids, I mean, I was very much about, I used to walk down to Soho to get clean vegetables, you know, before it was so easy to get organic. I definitely my daughter had everything that was organic. And so I definitely learned to cook. Chris Around him, his mom, Greek, taught me a few of a lemon, no soup and a few other things that were very comforting. And I think with my family, I love, I love not only having big food.

families, but having tables that have tons of friends and, you know, I gravitate towards chaos. That's probably just my conditioning. But so I think most of the stuff that I made was in the Italian realm because I really love pasta myself. I'm definitely bread spitch for sure. I've never heard that. That's great. That would make a good T-shirt, actually. I was just going to say that.

You've got a patent that. It's pitch. Yeah. So we made big Thanksgivings. My dad actually would cook more than my mom on the big meals and then, you know, 15 minutes and there'd be some kind of flare up and he'd leave the table in a huff. And when we were growing up and we had the big meal on Christmas or Thanksgiving, they never figured out. We moved to a little bigger house and there was a dining room and then the kitchen had a table. And they never figured out to make two plates of each thing.

So someone would always be walking the turkey over to the other table, bringing the dressing back to the other table. You know, it was a constant give and take between these two rooms until my dad blew up and left the meal after he'd been slaving all day. And he would always make, well, we went to church. He was an atheist. Yeah. And we would come back and he would have.

mustache on one of the younger kids and say Cafe Philippe or something and we would have pancakes already and he would do a whole thing or if he was making burgers for a birthday he would somehow manage to not stamp them brand them with who was ever initial so he he was a rather he could make an event and those big meals were his but I think for me it was I did a lot of baking. But once I was by myself or, you know, if I was living by myself, I didn't tend to make huge meals anymore. I guess the self-love thing hadn't kicked in. I wasn't like having a glass of wine in my kitchen for four hours, myself a meal. I never, never got to that phase. I have to ask you about stepmom because it's, I think, one of my favorite films. And as a whole family,

my nuclear family that's one we would watch all the time and I find it so moving and I just found out I heard you say that some of the things that you did as a mother in that film came from your own experience as a mom like the quilt the famous quilt which is so yeah I produced it

so the first thing we did was a big rewrite and I had to fire the original director because I was like do some of these scenes have to go tell me which scenes are absolutely have to stay in as far as you're concerned

and they were every scene I wanted to cut so I got it Chris Columbus came in and I was and I wanted him because I knew that he would be good

with kids and I wanted those kids to feel safe and I'm still in touch with both of them the little boy looks exactly the same except stretched out

New York acting now and I see him regularly and Jenna I've seen so we were close and Ed was really fabulous, but I had a friend whose wife had died leaving him with two small children, and it was a slow death, and so I talked to him about the fears that the kids had.

I talked to the kids. Liam's dad had passed when he was quite small. What they would want to hear. I talked to a number of people, and I came up with the, you know, the idea of the photographs and the things that the cape and, you know, also singing because I was like, what would she do after finding out that her cancer's back and came up while I had to lose so much weight, so I was always walking in my trailer. And I wanted to lose it before Christmas, so because we were going away to Morocco and I wanted to be able to eat. So the nice thing about being the producers, you can schedule your death.

yeah so we did it before the christmas break so i could eat while i we were gone oh and i was on and ain't no mountain high enough came on and i was like yeah that's i wanted something that the kids could act to and i thought of midnight trying to georgia and then i listened to the lyrics i was like no that's not good it's not good yeah perk up a cancer scene no that's not good so i chose that And Chris was totally down. And so, yeah, it was all your fears, because I don't know if you all have kids, but when I had my first child, which was very late, because I never even thought about doing that, having already felt like I did that, everyone says, oh, life, you know, comes in. But I really found death came in. I had never thought about death.

I had never thought about how long I needed to live or, you know, being safe in a house where you're by yourself, where are the windows, where are the doors, what's it, there's a fire. And so doing that film and dealing with this question really moved me and really gave me a chance to learn something and isolate something. and, you know, yeah, is that answer anything? It was beautiful. Yes, no, thank you for telling us about it. So tying something here to, you know, the idea of a non-na. Actually, there's a beautiful line from the film when one of the characters, one of the nonas, I suppose you say,

she's estranged from her four children. So she's essentially a non-in without a family. And she says, I was a strong mother. I raised them to be strong, just like my mother. And then she pauses and says, I would love them differently now. And you already have spoken about your parents, I think, in a way that shows an immense amount of, like, love and admiration and respect. So, but I just thought, like, what kind of love do you feel that you got from your parents, specifically during adolescence?

And or what, you know, you felt you didn't. And how has your experience with motherhood impacted the way you remember them? My parents were not really, they didn't have the school. to deal with, because they did the best they could. My mom was really smart, really beautiful, and really didn't get a chance to blossom until she was in her 60s. And I think there's a lot of women of that generation

without birth control who were very bitter in their lives because they didn't feel their lives were theirs. They didn't have the autonomy that we have. I know that all the mistakes that I've made were mine. I didn't feel my life. was done to me. And my mom definitely felt her life was done to her

and things were taken from her. So she said to me, I never had that much fun with my kids as you do. Because I'm a sloppy mom. You know, I really, I don't care. I mean, I don't care if my house is impeccable. You know, if I have to defrost the refrigerator, I'd rather play with my kids

and find some other time to do that. And we, you know, we were fortunate enough to have a space and to have money. I dragged my kids everywhere when I shot until they could present a really good, a really good argument, like when they were teenagers. And then they were so happy to have me go, actually. But before that, I tried to do pretty much

all my big films during the summers. and I took them with me to New Orleans for dead men I mean like and I would find a way to educate them there I would you know do an actual syllabus of places they could learn whatever and I picked schools that allowed that to happen so that they weren't but then at a certain point you know I remember when we did dead man walking the ducks were hatching in third grade and we were going to be leaving and we planned the whole schedule so Eva could be there when the ducks hatched, and then it changed, and she had to come to New Orleans, so then I got ducks, you know, that were hacked. We had all these ducks in the tub when the lightning hit and the flood came and whatever. And I just, I mean, I think now they appreciated it.

They didn't complain really that much. But one of the biggest gifts I've given my kids, I think, is flexibility and a bigger eye towards the world of different kinds of people. their bubble was really big. And in New York, that's a pretty easy thing to achieve, too. Your kids are in schools with different language kids and different kinds of families and everything. But being able to take them to the South,

being able to take them to, you know, Australia, whatever, I think that it exposed them to and allowed them to be comfortable with different kinds of people. There wasn't a fear of the, other as much as some of the kids that are really sheltered. In a way, I wish I had been even less pushy about education. They all went to college. I wanted them all to go to college. Eva, you know, was doing a film with all these kids that had, she took her high school, whatever it is that you'd get out of school just because everybody else did it. And then she was going to

college. Everybody else was just working. So, you know, she was really a misfit in a lot of And the other kids all went to school, too. And I think now that that pause to be out of the house and be safe and to possibly be exposed to some interesting thinking people is a real gift if you can do it. But the early part of education, I think, sucks in this country. I think that you don't spend your time finding people's strengths. You're plugging them into a system that's been around, even the private. it's supposedly progressive schools are too much of, you know, homework books and shit like that. I wish in a way that they had been even exposed to a more interesting formative year.

I mean, as teachers, you know, I think it's pretty much over. If your curiosity is killed by the time you go into high school because you're in a crummy middle school. And middle school, by the way, seems to be the weakest of all the, areas, I got to say. It is, yeah. People that have been there for 20 years, these great women and guys, and then you get some of the expert high school, but the middle school, every single one of my kids, I felt that there was a real lack of enthusiastic, interesting teachers in middle school.

Even though they graduated with languages from high school and they, you know, have some sense of history and everything, I would have liked even more hands-on, more interesting, more creative, and not the arts, but just necessarily, but when I say creative, just looking at science and everything in a more creative way. And so I'm glad that I kind of punched holes in that by ripping them from their secure schools in taking them on the road. And the crews are always so nice. You know, they're always, when we were doing Lorenzo's oil. We were in St. Louis, or no, we were in where, what's his name? Anyway, it doesn't matter, but it was

an amazing Halloween. Everybody got expert makeup on the kids. They were all like gangs of kids hanging out. And so I'm really grateful for this as my job because they've seen women doing jobs that you would think are just men's jobs. There's, you know, all kinds of people. So I think it's been a really great thing. Unfortunately, now they're all in the business in one way or another. So I was hoping they would kind of make it less romanticized.

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There's this scene in Nonas where your character takes all of the Nonas and talks about beauty and says, you know, feeling beautiful is not so much about how you look, but it's about how you feel. It's being, feeling seen, feeling heard, feeling confident and strong. And I'm curious, I'd love to know either you can, you can answer this about your adolescence or about how you feel now. But I'm curious, given that definition, when you feel the most beautiful. I didn't see my, I saw myself,

well, I certainly didn't think I was beautiful growing up. I mean, if you saw pictures of me, I looked like an ostrich with these big eyes, like skinny little thing. It's pretty unattractive, actually. And I was in my school uniform. And I wasn't allowed to wear stockings, even in high school. So, you know, I had a limited.

But when I got in college too, I don't think so. When I, I mean, later, I went into the business thinking of myself more as a character actor because I wasn't the really beautiful lead of the film. A lot of times I was the second woman who, and usually it was the way I got the part was they couldn't find somebody that could do it or nobody wanted to do it. And the main parts, the big films that I got were mostly because, whatever reason the people were on the A list turned it down. Bull Durham. I wasn't on the list. I had to fly myself from Italy where I was living, you know, because no one would read.

The people they wanted refused to read. So that was a break for me. Phelman Louise. I know they offered to do a few other people who, you know, the scriptless kind of needed some work. And I don't know. They just thank you very much. But so I, that's how I got that one. So it's, it's never been really my self-image that I was beautiful. Early on in my career, I was asked to do Playboy. And I had no problem with it, except all the gals just always looked so like a piece of meat, you know, I thought, how do they manage to take these pictures and everyone loses their personality, everyone.

And so I started looking at nude pictures a lot and talking to different photographers, and every year they would approach me. about it. And I, in looking at the women that I admired, and some of them were foreign actresses, you know, they're, like the Greek, famous Greek actress, Malena McCory, or, you know, and they weren't perfect women. And I thought, what makes them seem, and bankrupt? You know, they weren't like Anne Margaret, sexy, beautiful. What made them so charismatic? And it was because they all had something that seemed like they were saying yes

to life. You know, there was some quality that they were game, but also that they'd been hurt, but yeah, but okay, they're still saying yes. And they could age that way in Europe. You know, oh, God.

You know, the famous French actress, Moreau, you know, Jean-Marot, same thing, met her later in life. What was it about these people that just were so vital and welcomed you in? And I thought, it's just, they're saying yes to life. You know, that's what it is. It's so appealing. And they're not worried about if they're perfect, and they're not worrying about if they, you know,

which is easy to come to when you're 22. As you hit 50, 60, I'm almost 80. I'm 79 years old. So, you know. It's shocking. You find that the light that you have inside, which was really tested with no makeup playing Sister Helen, that was scary, that it's going to come from years of loving, really, everything, you know. Yeah. Susan, I hope this isn't shallow, but I think that word vital is just right, because when you first came on screen on Nona's, I actually gasped.

I was just like, she looks so incredible. I googled your age. I was like, how is this possible? She looks amazing. But I think it's that vitality and that spirit really comes through. Thank you. If you could go back to 12-year-old, Susan, what would you say or do, if anything? I'd say, hang on.

That's perfect. Susan, I have to say, you're an incredibly. warm and open book and your career is astounding your confidence and humility at the same time is an inspiration and it was a real pleasure

to have you on. Thank you. You can watch Nonas on Netflix now and you can keep up with Susan Sarandon online at Susan Serrano. And then. Podcrushed is hosted by Penn Badgley, Navacavalin, and Sophie Ansari. Our senior producer is David Ansari, and our editing is done by Clips Agency. Special thanks to the folks at Lemonada.

And as always, you can listen to Podcrushed ad-free on Amazon music with your prime membership. Okay, that's all. Bye. I always tell my kids when they're about to go into some family situation that they don't really want to go to for some reason, I say, Just think of it as a sitcom. It'll be a muting. Won't be upsetting. Just relax.

Imagine you're in a sitcom. That's a great reframe.