Podcrushed - Three's Company (ft. Penn, Sophie, and Nava)

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

For today's special episode, we are pulling back the curtain and interviewing each other! Penn reminisces on being an awkward teenager, Sophie remembers her globe-trotting childhood, and Nava recalls being TOTALLY COOL when she met Penn in her own apartment.  Follow us on socials! InstagramTwitterTikTokSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada I had this one red flip phone that everyone called Elmo. And one day I was sitting with this guy in the courtyard of our school, and I still always had some sort of fluttery feelings around him. And I pulled out this phone and he goes, oh, what's that? My maidsmaid has that phone. Is maidsmaid?

Oh, my gosh. This is Pod Crushed. The podcast that takes the sting out of rejection, one crushing middle school story at a time. And where guests share their teenage memories, both meaningful and mortifying. And we're your hosts. I'm Nava, a former middle school director. I'm Sophie, a former fifth grade teacher. And I'm Penn, a middle school dropout.

There's three beehis who are living in Brooklyn. Wanting to make stuff together with a particular fondness for awkward nostalgia. Well, I struggle with nostalgia. I'm here for the therapy. Well, today's episode is a little different because our guest, Today is, you might know him. He's speaking right now. What about us?

And then the other two guests are laughing. Him? And still managing to not name his other two hosts. No, if you listened to the rest of what I was saying is that you were the other two guests, but you made an assumption. Listener, this is the 10th time we've tried this. He just keeps forgetting our names. That's what we keep having to, like, start again. Our guest is, you, it's me.

It's all of us. We're doing like a host episode where we interview each other. Hopefully, well. We put out a call on Instagram for everybody to submit questions that they had for us, and we got a lot of responses,

so we decided to just turned it into an episode. So there's no story today. We're going to be telling our own stories and answering questions about what we were like when we were 12 and who we are now, because you know so little about my co-hosts. All the twists and turns

that brought us together to make this here podcast? I mean, who isn't interested in that origin story? So we're just going to hang out, ask each other questions, and it'll be like all that banter you love without a pesky guest in the way. We're going to do a lightning round at the end, and yeah, I think it'll be fun, so 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, Louie. Nom Nom does this with food that actually engages your pup senses with a mix of tantalizing smells, textures and ingredients.

Nom Nom Nom offers six recipes bursting with premium proteins, vibrant veggies and tempting textures designed to add excitement to your dog's day. Pork potluck, chicken cuisine, turkey fair, beef, mash, lamb, pilaf, and turkey and chicken cookout. I mean, are you kidding me? I want to eat these recipes. Each recipe is cooked gently in small batches to seal in vital nutrients and maximize digestibility. And their recipes are crafted by vet nutritionists. So I feel good knowing its design with Louis' health and happiness in mind. Serve nom nom nom as a complete and balanced meal

or as a tasty and healthy addition to your dog's current diet. My dogs are like my children. literally, which is why I'm committed to giving them only the best. Hold on. Let me start again because I've only been talking about Louie. Louis is my bait. Louis, you might have heard him growl just now. Louis is my little baby and I'm committed to only giving him the best. I love that Nom Nom Nom's recipes contain wholesome nutrient rich food, meat that looks like meat and veggies that look like veggies because shocker they are. Louis has been going absolutely nuts for the lamb pilaf. I have to confess that he's never had anything like it and he cannot get enough. So he's a lampy laugh guy. Keep mealtime exciting with nom-num 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. Hey, it's Lena Waith. Legacy Talk is my love letter to black storytellers, artists who've changed the game and paved the way for so many of us. This season. season, I'm sitting down with icons like Felicia Rashad, Loretta Vine, Eva Du René, and more. We're talking about their journeys, their creative process, and the legacies they're building every single day. Come be a part of the conversation. Season two drops July 29th. Listen to Legacy Talk wherever you get your podcast or watch us on YouTube. Okay, so we're going to get to how we met in a second, but first I think we should start with a question that so many people

DM'd us about, which is what are our most embarrassing stories? I racked my brains and thought of this one moment when I was in seventh grade where we had a spirit week. And I mean, this is 2007. You'd think 2007 was a little more progressive than this, but it wasn't. Evidently, at least not in the Philippines, we had, quote, cross-dress day, which is wild to me. Like would obviously never fly. And yeah, I dressed up in my brother's clothes. And we were on our way. home and we lived in an apartment building at the time and we were in the elevator and it was the first time my brother was seeing me all day and he noticed that I had a pair of his boxers on like I really wanted to play the part authentically so I took all of his clothes and uh he said to me

he was like Sophie you better not have gotten your period on my boxers and I was like jokes on you Callan I don't have my period we like rode up to our apartment and I went to the bathroom and pulled down the boxers and there's blood all over them. Had he seen it? Is that why he said it? No. Wow. No. There you go. So that was my first period. It was in my brother's boxers. Oh wait, that was your first? Oh, wow. That's like a, that's a very kismet story. We'll have Penn narrate that again and tell it at the end.

So I was getting ready. Yeah, yeah, but oh, but that was supposed to be embarrassing. Yeah, that was embarrassing. Oh, I guess so. If you're a girl, that's embarrassing. No, no, no, no, can I just clarify. That was a very good. story it was a really good story it just didn't seem to me very embarrassing but that's cool you know

yeah so I this is like a very short story but one day I was transition by the way we have to keep all of this this is the gold right here we're now keep going keep going Nova don't stop

we were between periods and class periods and I um periods Anyway, I was going from one class to another and I had to go up a flight of stairs, as one does. And I think I've said this before, but in middle school and high school, I was obsessed with how popular I was or was not and how popular other people were. And the school was very small. So we like, you knew who everyone was in the high school.

So there was a girl, two grades above me. She and her sister were like really beautiful. Her older sister would enter beauty pageant, stated like, who was considered the hottest guy at school. So I like, everybody knew who these sisters were. and my dream would be for them to, like, talk to me. And the younger sister, I'm going to say her name, Daphne, but I won't say her last name. Daphne was both sisters, Daphne and Saetel. Daphne is so sweet.

And I think she had, like, talked to me earlier that week, and I was so excited because it was like a popular girl had talked to me. Anyway, we were going up the stairs. She was right in front of me. And I tripped and I grabbed her butt. I guess I was falling down the stairs. Not on her. I was just trying to, like, grab something to not fall.

And I grabbed her butt really hard. And she, like, turned around and looked at me. And I was so embarrassed. I didn't explain that I had, I just didn't say anything and I ran away. Oh. Yeah. And I was like, I don't have any embarrassing stories. I know.

I was like, do you just come up with that? Yeah. Well, that really did happen. So I was on the bus and there were, we were all crowding onto the bus from school. This was my sixth or seventh grade year. I'm not sure which one, I think sixth. And I was holding a can of soda that was open. and the bus was so crowded that we couldn't there was no like room to move you know and i was

like smaller than the two people i was in between and somebody like bumped to me really hard in that moment so that it kind of knocked the soda loose from my hand but what happened was that it just sort of turned and then i like was able to catch it but in catching it it was upside down so like technically what had happened is that i saved it but it had flipped so this But then in this moment, unable to, like, get my other hand up because, like, we're also crowded in. This kid in front of me, this older guy looks at me, and I look like I'm holding a can of soda upside down.

And it's just like filtering out? Yeah, and it's all just spilling out. And he looks at me and goes, fucking dumbass. Like, as though I just was holding it upside down the whole time. And if you think about it, And I just remember being so embarrassed, like, what was I going to do? Explain to him. Like, no, no, no.

See, what you see was what, no, just hear me out, please. So what happened was, anyway. So another question that we got a lot of was for each of us to tell about our first crush. I had my first crush in kindergarten. I started quite early, so I'm just going to skip to middle school. First or biggest, biggest crush. Oh, yeah, sure. I had simultaneous crushes growing up.

So back to those two sisters that were really popular, the older one was in my sister's class. My sister's three years older than me. She was dating this guy who was. was a year younger than her, two years older than me. And I thought he looked just like Aladdin. I thought he was beautiful. And I had the biggest crush on him. And I think I had a crush on him until he left the school. And then I was like devastated. And like normally there'd be no way that I would be in his orbit because he was two years older, popular. You know, we've established that I wasn't. But the girl and my sister were friends. So sometimes she would come

over to our place. We lived on the beach and had a pool and like barbecue area. So it was like people would come over to hang out at our place. So she would come and would bring him. And I just remember we were driving our family owned this Mitsubishi space wagon, which I think they don't make anymore. And people, I think we should post a picture of it on our Instagram. It's like such a hideous car. And ours was like terracotta and beige. It was just like the ugliest car you can imagine. And it had seven seats and he and I were in the middle seats next to each other. And there was like a little turbulent moment and he put his hand on my thigh. And I was like, oh my God. I had like ascended to heaven just because his hand was on my thigh.

like so excited even though his girlfriend was like in the frenzy and my sister's good friend and i just loved him so much you said that so earnestly just now like and i just loved him like it was true love i like really want to say his full name well don't don't do that then do you have a crush yeah uh well i mean so like the first one i can remember which was i actually think it might be the first and only time that i asked anybody out because i was rejected and after that i was famous and didn't ask anybody out either. So I'm serious. This actually, I think, is the first.

And only time I asked a girl out, I'll say her first name. It was Kayla. What did you ask her to do? Something specific? I called her, I think, over spring break. And this was in fifth grade, by the way, 10 or 11.

And yeah, I called her. I remember being very nervous. And I asked her to go to the movies. I think I might have even spoken to her mom. And then it was just sort of like, I think maybe she might have said I'll get back to you whatever it is I've clearly blacked it out yeah I just remember being like oh so the answer is no and yeah and then I think that's part of me just being like okay shape up you've got to have to not ask people that again if you know that's rough

yeah my biggest crush spanned third through sixth grade like our relationship was third through sixth grade. We didn't talk. We just, you know, shyly past each other. Wait, I'm sorry. Your relationship? Yeah, I mean, we weren't. You said you were a boyfriend, girlfriend? Yeah, we did. For three years? I did not tell my parents. Wait, hold on, hold on. So how old? So, third grade is eight years old. I arrived in the Philippines in the middle of third grade. So, like, towards the end of the year. So I guess I was nine. And our sisters were best friends. They were the same age. And they kind of orchestrated it. They wanted us to be together and then we like I mean I fell in love and everybody knew everyone in the

school was like oh they're together we didn't do you know we we didn't even talk it just like was a big thing for everybody around us and I really you think it was a big thing for everybody around it was it was a big thing for everyone around us because we were we were I know you're making fun to me but I'm going to continue no I'm sorry I'm sorry I can't come on no no it was actually because there weren't many other couples you were the stars of your school there weren't any other couples as they're right so everybody else was talking about you because yes they were like they would like gather around us you were the prom king of your third to sixth grade exactly now you're getting it right yeah so suddenly this is sophie's show

we barely talked and then in sixth grade i remember i found out that he was like questioning his sexuality and that was you know our essentially our breakup. And then we were friends after that. And I remember he was one of the families that was much more wealthy than our family. And my family kind of famously in our school didn't spend any money on phones for us. It was like right when phones were becoming really like a thing for middle schoolers. Like smartphones or phones? No, no. Just like a Nokia 3310 or like, you know, my friends were having, they had cool phones like sidekick type phones or like their phones were color and had cameras, but my parents never went that far. You know, it was like the free phone that they got at the

grocery store by signing up for the loyalty card, like that kind of phone. And they were embarrassing to pull out. I wouldn't pull out my phone. I had this one red flip phone that everyone called Elmo. And one day I was sitting with this guy in the courtyard of our school. And I still always had some sort of fluttery feelings around him. And I pulled out this phone and he goes, oh, what's that? My maidsmaid has that phone. His maid's maid? Oh my gosh, wow. So he had a good sense of humor.

It was like such a clever remark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The question that we got the most was how we all met. Nava, take that one. I met Sophie when she was 18, I think, or 17 in China. I lived in China for two years. I taught English at a university there called Chinghua. And I think I was at her family home.

Her parents and Sophie and I are all members of the Baha'i faith, and I was there for some Baha'i activity. And I think my first impression of Sophie was that she was beautiful. That's honestly all I remember. That's really sweet. Thanks, Nava. Nava and I have ended up in the same place so many times. Like we lived together in China and then we lived in Brooklyn at the same time.

Now we're both in L.A., so we've kind of had like parallel. And in the same neighborhoods. Yeah. Yeah, we were both in Beijing, both in bedstay and both in like East Hollywood. Yeah. I feel like Nava, you've seen me through a lot of my like adulthood. Stages of your life. Yeah.

All graceful. I have never told Penn this story But I had a close friend who was living in New York And was like telling me about everything I could expect when I got there And she sent me a message one day And she was like, oh my gosh She was like, you'll never believe who was at the Baha'i Center today In New York City for some Baha'i Holy Day celebration

She was like, did you ever watch that show? Gossip Girl, it was Dan Humphrey She said he was sitting behind me And I turned around to say hi And he's like, hi, I'm Penn And she said, Ken And he's like, no, Penn. And she was like, Kenneth? And he's like, no. And he was like, no, Penn. And she was like, oh, Penn. Okay, nice to meet you. And then she's like, and then I turned back around. I didn't pay any attention to him. And then she's like, when we were leaving the center, there was like a big, like mob of girls sort of like swarming him. And then someone like elbowed her and whispered like, oh my God, that's Penn Badgley. And she's like, huh? And they're like, you know, Dan Humphrey from Gossip Girl. She was like, Kenneth? My pal Ken.

So I like went to New York knowing that that I might meet him. And then. did meet him in my own apartment one day. I had just worked out, and I was wearing, like, shorts and a t-shirt, and I had, like, really red, red, red cheeks, very frizzy hair. I specifically remember that, yeah. Do you? No. I was like, it's fine if you do it.

I really did. I think I actually, to my credit, didn't stop dead in my tracks, but in my mind I stopped in my tracks. No, you didn't. No. I just, like, got my water, and I was like, you know, acting chill. But in my mind, I was like, how could Martha not have texted me and told me that pen fucking Batchley was going to be in our kitchen when I got home. Like, I've never met this guy.

And I think I just said hi. I neither pretended to not know who he was or acknowledge that I knew who he was. I was just casual. I remember that. That's an interesting fact, I feel like Penn. I remember one time I asked you like, okay, how do people interact with you, like, when they meet you? And you said it's one of three things. Either they don't know who I am and it's just like a regular meeting or it's very obvious.

They knew who I am and they make it known. Or the third one is that they kind of are mean. Like, they know who you are, but they'll, like, be trying so hard to do the opposite of fan girl that they end up being mean. And I remember when you said that, I was like, oh, I know which one I was. Like, I for sure was like, who? Who are you? Kenneth? A significant part of my middle school.

Was it Kenneth Brown? Yeah. No, well, I was in your roommate Martha at the time. I was in, I was in, I was in her place, okay? Yeah, yeah. I didn't know what was your place. No, I was, we were having a conversation in the kitchen where I was thinking about taking this show I'm on,

this show called You. And I was really on the fence for a number of reasons that I've been pretty explicit about in the press. And then I met Sophie at, this is just all about the Baha'i Faith here. We were at a youth gathering, like a youth conference where young people, I guess between the ages of 15 and about 30. It does have this sort of origin story of this podcast in a bit because one thing that happened there was I became aware of this sort of movement or phenomenon, which is called

the Junior Youth Spiritual Empower Program, where basically the whole premise or idea is that between the ages of 12 and 15, you're at a unique turning point in life where all of these capacities that you have as a human person growing up, suddenly they're just unleashed. And if you channel them in a certain way, namely in service, that you can both contribute to your community and therefore the world's betterment. And in doing that, you're really discovering who you are truly, like in the best most real sense. I actually can't overstate the effect that had on me because I was questioning whether or not I wanted to be an actor anymore. And so I was like really thinking about like, damn, how'd I get into all this? And it was, you know, it was when I was 12.

And so from 12 to 15, I was having all these formative experiences in Hollywood. And so there was just something about it that was very personally, very healing. And Sophie was like a facilitator there. And I think, right? I had to call all the people who were going to be in my little group before the conference. And I remember Penn, you were on my list. And I had to call you. And I remember, I was like on the street.

Yeah, on the street outside my house. And I had to like psych myself up to call you. I was like, I'm so embarrassed. Because you watched Gossip Girl, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved it. And so I was stressed. And I called you and I think I, like, stumbled over my words. I think I said like, hello. I'm Penn. I'm so pretty. Yeah. Kenneth. And I was so embarrassed. But you were so sweet on the other line. Yeah, guys, I'm nice. Can we just put the joke aside?

He's like, I want you to say it. Yeah, no, Penn is really nice. So sweet. And then I remember we got to the conference and you found out how. old I was. And you were like, you're my facilitator. I was like, why am I listening to you? Yeah, you're like, how old are you? But yeah, that's how we met. Actually, I was thinking Sophie and I just did a podcast where we had to summarize a movie in 60 seconds. And I think that we should summarize the Baha'i Faith in 60 seconds. It comes up and I would imagine that a lot of our listeners don't know what it is. Go for it. The Baha'i Faith is a universal religion that was founded in the mid-1800s by a figure named Baha'u'lla.

Bahala is a title that means the glory of God. And Baha'u'llah said that his central mission was to teach about the oneness of humanity. And basically the interconnection of all people are interdependence and that the time has come for all of us to let go of our prejudices and come together in a unified manner to really transform the world and ourselves. So Baha'u'llah teaches that humanity has come of age. We've reached an age of maturity after a very prolonged and sort of difficult and

turbulent childhood, but that to like fully enter that maturity, we have to transform the systems of oppression that have held us all back for so long. And in order to do that, we all have to really transform our inner lives and our outer surroundings. So we, we believe that we all have something called the twofold moral purpose, which is to, like I said, to transform our inner lives and to work on our outer environments and to really like spend our time thinking about how we can make the communities we live in, the social spaces that we move within, more beautiful, more just, and that we should all be really thinking about that

and really concerned with that. And that's really like the purpose of life is to make everything better and more beautiful. I still get raspy. Because you're feeling the spirit. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right. So 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 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 it as 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 the 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. You know, 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 I use the the what is it called the 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 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. As the seasons change, it's the perfect time to learn something new. Whether you're getting back into a routine after summer or looking for a new challenge before the year ends, Rosetta Stone makes it easy to turn a few minutes a day into real language progress. Rosetta Stone is the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years. Their immersive, intuitive method helps you naturally absorb and retain your new language on desktop or mobile whenever and wherever it fits your schedule. Rosetta Stone immerses you in your new language naturally, helping you think

and communicate with confidence. There are no English translation, so you truly learn to speak, listen, and think in your chosen language. The other day, I was actually at the grocery store, and I asked one of the people working there if they could help me find a specific item, and she was like, sorry, I actually don't speak English.

She only spoke Spanish, and I was like, if only I, my Spanish was good enough to be able to have this conversation in Spanish, we would be sorted. And that's where Rosetta Stowe. comes in, I really need to get back on my Rosetta Stone grind. With 30 years of experience, millions of users, and 25 languages to choose from, including Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and more. Rosetta Stone is the go-to tool for real language growth. A lifetime membership gives

you access to all 25 languages so you can learn as many as you want whenever you want. Don't wait. Unlock your language learning potential now. Podcrush listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit rosettastone.com slash podcrush to get started and claim your 50% off today. Don't miss out. Go to rosettastone.com slash podcrush and start learning today. The first few weeks of school are in the books and now's the time to keep that momentum going. I-XL helps kids stay confident and ahead of the curve. I-XL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning. Whether they're brushing up on math or

diving into social studies, it covers math, language arts, science, and social studies from pre-k through 12th grade with content that's engaging, personalized, and yes, actually fun. It's the perfect tool to keep learning going without making it feel like school. I actually used I XL quite a bit when I was teaching fifth grade. I used it for my students to give like extra problems for practice. or sometimes I also used it to just check on what the standards were in my state for any given topic in math or reading or writing. It's just a helpful tool all around for teachers, for parents, for students. I honestly do love it. Studies have shown that kids who use I-XL score higher on tests. This has been proven in almost every state in the U.S.

So if your child is struggling, this is a smart investment that you can make in their learning. A single hour of tutoring costs more than a month of I-XL. Don't miss out. One in four students in the U.S. are learning with I-XL, and I-XL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get I-XL now. And Podcrush listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL memberships

when they sign up today at IXL.com slash podcrushed. Visit IxL.com slash podcrushed to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. a lot of you want to know about the origin story like why did we all come together why are we doing podcrushed it was technically originally my idea there she goes again i was taking credit always usurping so i think at some point in october of 2020 i heard someone tell a story about a middle school experience they had and she actually read an entry from her diary and the entry was so dramatic and it was over the silliest thing. And I was just, like, crying, laughing.

Like, I thought it was so funny. And, like, immediately brought me back to being a middle school teacher and a middle school administrator. Not to my own middle school days, but just, like, in that role, watching middle schoolers do things that would blow my mind that I thought were so insane. And I thought, like, oh, my God,

wouldn't it be amazing if they were a podcast where people could submit their, like, craziest middle school stories? And I think the day before Sophie had posted a YouTube video where she had had an animated set, for the first time that I'd noticed. And I was like, oh, and it might be really cool if we also had, like, some art to accompany the stories, some sort of, like, animation around the stories. And so I reached out to Sophie to find out if she might be interested. I had, like, a burgeoning

idea that I wanted to picture, and she, you know, she was open to it. And then I called Penn, because Penn and I have a production company, I think we've maybe talked about it called Ninth Mode. And I thought, like, well, as a courtesy, I should probably let him know that I'm going to reach out to someone else to do a project together. It actually wasn't my intention for Penn to be part of it. And because I'm really savvy. He weasled his way. And so I reached out to Penn and sort of told him

kind of the initial idea and he was like, that'd be really cool. Like, what if, you know, what if I narrated the stories? I offered that? Did you? Yeah. I think you did because I didn't approach you. Yeah, I think you did.

And then I think it was in a later conversation that we were like, you should just be a host too. You shouldn't just be narrating the stories. Yeah, I do remember that was the evolution. I was just kind of, I wanted to contribute in some manner. Yeah, maybe you said you wanted to help and I said you could narrate the stories. I don't remember that part exactly, but you asked,

which is also like not always characteristic of Penn, so that was amazing. Yeah, and then now the idea is like fully ours, which is why I said the original. Nava, you approached my husband, David and I, David, who many people know is a musician, and so I think the idea was that there would be some form of hosting. I could do some art for it.

David could edit and do the music, which is what he's doing. There's no hosting. David was a host for a little bit. And promptly quit. David, do you want to explain that a little bit? I can't see him because we're thousands of miles away. For the diehard pod crush listeners, you all know when he quit. I won't say what, that's a little Easter egg for the rest of you to figure out,

but we did say on which episode he quit. Yeah, that's true. I used to be a fifth grade teacher, so right before middle school, but I've also worked with middle schoolers, and I just find them, like Nava, hilarious. But also, I feel like we talk about middle school as being really awkward and uncomfortable, but my experience with middle schoolers is that they are like the arbiters of what is cool and what is not cool.

Like I remember when I worked with middle schoolers, I just constantly felt not enough. I was an adult, but I was constantly trying to impress them. And I feel like that is such a funny dynamic that like you can be that age and feel awkward and like you don't know what's going on. But then outwardly you're actually intimidating to older people a lot of the time. The world thinks that 13 and 14-year-olds are the hardest people in the world to impress. Yeah, but then when you are that age, you don't feel that way. So I find that, I find that really interesting.

So Sophie was a fifth grade teacher, and after a year of teaching middle school English, I became a middle school director, which at the charter school I worked at was sort of like somewhere in between being the vice principal and the principal. And during that time, so many stories come to mind. At one school that I worked at, the kids had to write an apology note to each other if they caused harm to another student or, you know, like any kind of inappropriate behavior that involved another peer. Part of their making amends was to write an official letter. And I remember one fifth grade, I don't remember what happened, but I remember that one fifth grade boy stabbed another

fifth grade boy with his pencil, but it didn't like go very deep. So he didn't get in huge trouble, though he, I mean, probably should have. But he had to write an apology note. And I remember that his apology note was I'm sorry that you were stabbed by my pencil for being so awful I remember when I read it I didn't read it front of it I just like lost it I was laughing so hard

I was like a masterclass and like passive aggressive like this is the shadiest apology I've ever read of course we made him rewrite it you know one thing I noticed from my years of teaching fifth grade I remember this one instance we had a week at the end of the year where we would talk about

health and sexual development we did all sorts topics and one of the topics was menstruation. You know, we didn't separate anyone in the class. It was all together and we would just like test out and play with menstruation products. This is so progressive. I'm like amazed by those. You would play with them? Just like, you know, explore them so that it's not some forbidden object.

And we were passing around different products and one of them was a pad and this one boy when the pad got to him, he was like, ugh, like pretending like it was gross. You know, it was fresh out of the package, obviously. And my... Thanks for clarifying, though. It wasn't an old one. Just in case. And my sweet co-teacher, Michael Jervais, stopped the whole class.

And he basically was like, there are a lot of communities where periods are shameful. We have an opportunity to change that. We have an opportunity to react differently around periods, around menstruation, around period products, and not make them something shameful. And we should take that opportunity to change culture. He said that to these fifth graders. And there really was a shift the rest of the week. You could tell, like the air in the room, you could tell that it was a powerful moment for all the kids.

And I do really feel like that age, fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, it's impressionable. It's very, the kids are really malleable and they want to do good. Like, they want to, they're very altruistic. I feel like the opportunities for creating really, like, justice-minded people is rife in middle school. It's also so beautiful that that came from the male. teacher. This is like such an obvious thing to say, but I feel like when men call other men to account, it's more powerful than if a woman calls a man to account. Definitely. Definitely. Like when older men, like I'm telling you, I know that if an older man had said that to me when I was 12,

it would have altered my life course. I mean, I wouldn't be here now. That's for sure. No, I'm sorry. I mean, what I mean is that it would have been, it would have been very... It's like, playing Joe Goldberg? What do you mean? You both were like, I'm trying to figure that one out. I don't get it. Let me just put a um in there. It's been a long day. I so respect you are a co-teacher there because, you know, you do it in the right way. It's a little bit like I'm being firm because it's the only way that you'll hear me and have this feeling in this particular moment.

And this moment will stick in your brain for the rest of your life. And it will change the way you behave. You will think about it, you know? Like, I love that. That's powerful. Yeah, I love Michael. actually pen you've never told us the full story of how you had into acting like what was your last day of school like well so the reality is that i got into acting just a little bit before the

age of 12 so i was professional i mean i was working you know my first role was on will and grace but how did you get into it like how did you even get no no i'm going to get back there i'm going to so so i was i was chill navs okay that should be some merch chill nabs it's good it's good I co-signed yeah so I'm just kind of like painting the picture because I was in order to be professional

working like regularly by the time I was 12 like that means I had an agent I had a manager I was making money I was like on national television I was actually on at the time one of the biggest shows and I'm not trying to say I mean I was at five lines and sound like anybody was like who's that kid he's gonna be a star

I was like this chubby little bully the most sensitive kid ever playing a bully was so silly so years prior when I was probably I still don't know exactly when I moved to the West Coast from the East Coast my parents had a business that just went under

they went bankrupt so we just it was really the starting over of a life and so I moved from Virginia like a upper middle class kind of affluent very boring sort of suburban but idyllic East Coast neighborhood moved to the middle of nowhere in the West Coast this like kind of cabin in the woods

two tire tracks up the mountain And the reality is because I didn't finish that school year I had about four months until I was going to be in any kind of school I didn't have any social outlet My cat died three days after we moved there So I was devastated because I have a heart And I like animals Had a heart

No I really I really did love that cat so much His name was Wilbur And I was devastated I mean I was completely devastated So I'm pretty sure basically my mom Was like We just moved out here And you know the reality

that are their their marriage was you know it was it was dissolving as any marriage does it's on the way to divorce and you know I think my mom was like what is this kid going to do and then because my mom was I think guilty about all the things that were happening and and really wanted to have some kind of social environment saw an ad in the paper for a musical for the music man an audition for a community theater like in this playhouse is like 50 miles away 5-0 so it was far, even just for the audition, but I got it and it is, you know, I did this. And the thing that I got then that I would come to love at that age where I had it, so this is where middle school is very different for me. I was not with kids my age, actually. I mean, I had some time with

them, but a lot of it was with a lot of older people, both like young people and then actually just straight up adults who could be my parents and who played my parents. And, you know, I just found myself in a lot of different environments, you know, and I found that very stimulating. Like that first play that I did back in the day, what I loved was just the community aspect of it because I was an only child. Well, I mean, I have a half-sister who's much older, so we never lived together. So I was otherwise isolated. So like the last time I actually went to middle school, I was in seventh grade and I, the last thing I did was I did the, I actually did the to be or not to be monologue from Hamlet wearing like one of my mom's fur vests. She had many.

I don't know why my mom had a fur pelt I need to see one of them And like I wore like a like a sashay belt kind of thing And I think I wore like stockings and like leather Just all of my mom's clothing And I did the to be or not to be And it was like one of my last days at school And I remember feeling kind of triumphant

Because it was like This fat little nerd is gonna go He's gonna go be on television He's wearing his mother's clothing And he thinks he's gonna be a star And look at me now And yeah, so then I moved to L.A. It's funny.

I remember when I first went to L.A., and this is definitely at 12 years old, I went for like a few weeks and I had some pretty formative experience. People are always asking about like first crushes, first kisses. My first kiss was then during a game of truth or dare in a hot tub. Me too.

All of ours were in water during a game of truth or day. I was like, I'm not going to say that on the podcast because it sounds so scandalous. And mine was with like older, girls and people and it sort of was and I remember and I had some other experiences when I first consumed

a couple of different substances at 12 yeah yeah wow and I went back and told these stories to my not even a friend I just remember being in the library of the school where I was going and he literally scoffed in my face when I told him this he was like that's not true

you know because he just thought it was so absurd that I would have done that Because I'm telling you, I don't know that I was a nerd, but I was very, like, sweet and I was, like, shorter and younger than everybody and chubby. And, like, suddenly I was, like, having more advanced experiences than anybody in my grade. Wow. Just because I went to LA for a few weeks, for a few weeks. That must have been kind of frustrating.

You know what's funny? So now I look back on those three experiences I had, and I am glad that, because it would progress in a way where by the time I was, what, 15, 6 and 17, I mean, my relationship, to all of those things, to my own sexuality, to substance, to just being happy and stuff, it was becoming to be very, very, very tested and strained and would ultimately culminate in my mid-20s. But those experiences then, I just thought I was super cool. I just suddenly thought I was like, holy shit, I'm suddenly cool.

I mean, I had no idea that what I was being exposed to was a dangerous fire. and yeah it was so frustrating because I was telling all my friends well again like the slightly cooler people than I was who were people I knew and they were just like they just straight up did it wasn't even a question in their minds like they didn't even entertain it I remember that's where I was like wait a second so if this doesn't if I actually did the thing and it doesn't make me cool it's like if a tree falls in the woods but nobody hears it I was like if I have my first kiss in a hot tub at 12 and nobody sees it does it matter and do I even like that I have had it. Exactly. It was that kind of thing. Yeah. I didn't ever feel like I dropped out of middle school, but the fact is I did, I didn't feel like I was dropping out of middle school.

Actually, technically, I tested out of high school before I finished middle school. Was it your idea, your mom's idea? Was your dad involved at this point? Well, it was, you're trying to find this way to work around Hollywood hours. As a kid, you can only work like eight hours and then you have to do three hours of schooling. Or maybe you have to be five hours. I love that it's only eight, and that's like normal people's schedule is eight-hour days.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it's just, you know, I think that experience. with a tutor on set can be really just not school. And I think my mom probably, you know, for all of the questionable decisions made along the way to me being a child actor or a, you know, a tween actor, she definitely knew that I was enough of an autodidact

and enough of just like, I don't know, like a person of the world that taking me out of the constraints of the Hollywood tutoring system and just letting me kind of like work freely and then educate myself freely. it worked you know it did it did work like I never I never had that experience that I think gets that I think a lot of middle schoolers and high schoolers and then college students have where they learn to hate learning because of the I don't know the drudgery of a lot of the school the school system autodidact that's the new word I learned from Penn today today today yes he's like so if you didn't know I mean I can guess what it means from auto and didact I hope I used it right Sophie, tell us how you grew up. Because I know that you went, you lived between a lot of different countries, right?

Not just places, but countries. Yeah. I moved a lot, but not from country to country. And leaving your friends is such a pivotal... See, I didn't have friends. So what was it like to have friends and then move from country to country and then make more friends? What was that like? Yeah, I did.

I moved around a lot. My family moved around every two to five years to a different country. My dad worked for UNICEF my entire life. And with UNICEF, they make it actually quite difficult. for you to stay in a place beyond five years. Like they start cutting a bunch of your benefits if you stay beyond five years. UNICEF is ruthless.

I know. I'm not sure exactly what the reason is. But anyway, we lived in Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Albania, Israel, Italy, the Philippines, and then China. But most of my, like, formative years were the Philippines and China because I was in the middle of third grade

when we moved to the Philippines and I was there up through the middle of eighth grade and then we moved to China. So my middle school years were most... Wait, just out of curiosity, were you born in Pakistan? No, I was born in Australia, actually. Oh, okay. I think my family became really close through that because we would move so often.

We were the only people who we had. But I think it also made me really adaptable. People often ask me, like, did you hate it? Were you depressed? And I loved it. I loved moving around. I felt like it was really exciting. My parents did a lot to make that the case.

Like, I remember when we were living in Albania, we were there. right after there was a civil war between Kosovo and Albania and it was a wild time like rubble in the streets, buildings had been torn down and nothing had been done about them like it was a war zone. So like the power was really spotty and I remember

it was my brother's birthday. I don't remember how old he was like maybe 10 and my mom was doing everything she could to try to give us like a normal experience and the power went out during the birthday party and then she like lit all these candles and it became like this spooky party and

that kind of thing. My parents were really good at making it feel like an adventure. That sounds amazing. That's so sweet. Yeah. I think I assumed that I would end up moving around all the time. I never expected that I would end up in the U.S. I imagined myself like married really young, kids really young, living outside of the U.S. But, you know, my life has changed. My life ended up... Did you want to be a photojournalist at some point or something like that? Yeah, when I was in high school, I wanted to be a photojournalist. But then I sort of came to the conclusion that I wanted to also be a part of a community. And that didn't feel possible.

The two things felt diametrically opposed. Yeah. Yeah, I sort of changed paths. Anava, you had a really multicultural, is that maybe accurate to say? I don't know. Well, I realize I don't know how long you lived in Puerto Rico. You were raised there, but you were not. born there? Is that right? Yeah. Where were you born? So I was born in California, in the valley. So technically

a valley girl. And finally back home. Finally came back. My family moved to Puerto Rico when I was three and stayed there until basically last year. But I left when I was 18. So the longest I've ever lived anywhere is Puerto Rico, 15 years. The U.S. I think has been like 11, so it's catching up. So I sort of had a different experience to Sophie where my entire element, High School, elementary middle and high school was all at the same place. So I went to a very small Episcopalian school called the Episcopal Cathedral School in San Dursa. And the classes were tiny. Like every graduating class was between 20 and 30 kids. My class was 25. And I think there were like 13 of us that started together since kindergarten. And there were five girls that started

together since kindergarten. And we have a WhatsApp group called the Kindergarten Girls. And we're still like in touch every week. One of my friends, I have to shout her out. Please don't edit it out. Because I know she listens to the podcast. Maria Luisa. Maria Luisa listens to the podcast every week and sends me a little recap, either a voice note or a video of what she liked the most. It's so sweet. And she's like trying to get everyone to listen to it. So, so sweet. So anyway, we're all really close. But so I went to the same school, K through 12 and like ethnically am American and Persian and Russian. And I think sort of some things that I remember about it is like Puerto Rico is a really interesting, it definitely feels like home for me. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm,

I can't even think about it without getting emotional. My mom passed away there and she's buried there. So for like two reasons, it will always be my favorite place. That's very beautiful. So there's like nowhere that I'll ever spend more time with my mom than Puerto Rico. And there's nowhere else that she'll be buried. So it's my favorite country. I love it.

My childhood there was very sweet, but it was also challenging. I think the most challenging thing, and I've never talked to my friends about this. So I'm like, oh, I don't want them to hear this on the podcast. But I did feel like an outsider a lot. I was a different ethnicity. I ate different food. I feel like the food was actually a really big part of it. And I was a different religion.

And I looked a little bit different. And so just like in every marker that, like, you fit in, you're the same. I was different. Right. And the language we spoke at home wasn't Spanish. It was Farsi or English. So I did feel a lot like an outsider. I feel like that really shaped my identity in a big way.

Like it's not something like... Your whole family spoke fluent Spanish though, isn't that right? Yeah, but not to each other. You know, it was like it wasn't our comfort language. But yeah, we all speak Spanish very well. So we weren't like alienated from the culture. But did you ever have an experience when like a friend came over to your house and you felt embarrassed about something? Yes.

So Persian food, a lot of it is stews and they're like very green. And then some of them are very yogurt based. So neither of these things is like common in Puerto Rico like green stews and like yogurt based foods are not like the norm. And I think now like, you know, there are Arab. restaurants on the island. I don't think there are any Persian ones. But I like want to say this in the right way. I think it was at least part of the culture to be very blunt about things. There's not like a sense of political correctness in the way that there is here. So if someone thinks something is weird, they will tell you that they think it's weird. More than I've experienced in the U.S.

So people frequently told me they thought my food was weird. It registers. Yeah, of course. So one of the questions that came in was, how did you envision your adult life and how does it compare now? And we have like a tradition of teachers in my family. My mom was a teacher. My grandpa was a teacher. When I was little, I would line up my stuffed animals and we had a little whiteboard and I would like teach them math, which doesn't make any sense because I'm terrible

at math. I was probably teaching them incorrectly, but I would teach them math problems. And yeah, it was just like always there, that love of teaching. And even though I'm not doing it anymore, I love it. And I actually really hope that I can somehow like get back to it one day alongside the stuff that I do in media. but I always thought I would be a teacher. I thought I would get married at 22 and have four kids by 30. And that was my plan for like a long time. That's what I really wanted. My life looks really differently. I work in media. I don't have a large family yet. But it's beautiful. I love my life. I was telling someone recently like a feeling that I hardly ever experiences jealousy and I'm really glad. I think when I was younger I did, but as an adult I don't. I like I'm really grateful for the life that I have. The only thing that makes me jealous are dance couples on TikTok. Like married couples who do dance routines together, I feel

jealous. I'm like, I wish that were me. Like, if I could redo anything in my life, I would have done dancing very seriously from a young age. Okay, so it's not because you, like, I was going to say, do you dance? I take dance classes, but I'm not like a professional dancer, but I love dancing. And I wish I could post amazing TikTok videos dancing with a really handsome man who's my husband. You know, one of the things that I did like very seriously from about 12 to 15 was I, I danced. Really? I didn't know that.

What kind of dance? I took hip-hop, jazz, and I took tap for a little bit, but then I'm focused on hip-hop. And I mean, there was a teacher who kind of for a little bit, like, I went long enough. He sort of took me under his wing, and I remember another teacher once referred to me as his protege, which, like, whether or not that was the case, I was good enough that when Cisco's The Thong song came out, I was probably 13, maybe 14. So what he would, what the teacher would do in a lot of these classes, every class he would always single out like one person who was nailing it

and like tell everybody to sit down and watch them do it. And he did that to me that time, which in the moment, as a budding performer, I definitely like got really nervous that was happening but committed and then just kept doing it. And yeah, it was just like that stuck out in my brain as like an incredibly, the power of encouragement. like that meant so much to me you know it meant it meant so so so much to me can you do a quick little dance move now um no because then you'll turn it into a little TikTok oh for sure that's why

I wanted you to do it I want to make a little video wait side of one that I could do that makes me really sad because I feel I feel like one of the first things you said Penn when we talked about having the dance party as our launch party you're like I can't dance because it'll just become a video that's sad that that's something you used to do and now you can't really do You know what? I got to say dance. Dance is, well, singing and dancing. One of the first things I ever said was I want to be a singer in a dancer stage when I was like, I don't know, four years old or something. I love to sing and dance. I love singing and dancing at the same time. I love it. I actually, the truth is I love it. But the context in which you normally do that is just cheesy. And I'm also not like interested in that.

This is where Penn and I most diverge. I love cheese. love cheesy things and then doesn't it's true yeah yeah it's true i like live for a good musical and pen's like do you ever like dance and sing at home i mean i dance to sing with my son all the time right i kind of just wish i could just like perform on a stage but not have to have it mean that it's in front of an audience do you know what i mean it's like i just just just the space to do that to take it seriously to hear something and then just move to it and like mean it and have it be meaningful it's like actually in that way it's it is like an offering like a prayer or something it's it's very to me it's very spiritual and i think for much of my life it got caught up in uh you know

the mire of materialism and i wanted to turn it into a career i did want to be a professional singer more than anything and that just never that never materialized and we'll be right back fall is in full swing and it's the perfect time to refresh your wardrobe with pieces that feel as good as they look. Luckily, Quince makes it easy to look polished, stay warm, and save big without compromising on quality. Quince has all the elevated essentials for fall. Think 100% mongoling cashmere from $50. That's right, $50, washable silk tops and skirts, and perfectly tailored denim, all at prices that feel too good to be true. I am currently eyeing their silk miniskirt. I have been dying for a silk miniskirt. I've been looking at. I've been looking

everywhere at thrift stores, just like all over town. But I just saw that Quince has one on their website. It is exactly what I've been looking for. So I'm just going to click, put that in my cart. By partnering directly with ethical top tier factories, Quince cuts out the middlemen to deliver luxury quality pieces at half the price of similar brands. It's the kind of wardrobe upgrade that feels smart, stylish, and effortless. Keep it classic and cozy this fall with long-lasting staples from Quince. Go to quince.com slash podcrushed for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash podcrushed to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash podcrushed. 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 by making meal time everything it can be for my little boy, Louis. Nom-Num does this with food that actually engages your pup senses with a mix of tantalizing smells, textures, and ingredients. Nom-Num offers six recipes bursting with premium proteins, vibrant veggies and tempting textures designed to add excitement to your dog's day. Pork potluck, chicken cuisine, turkey fair, beef mash, lamb, pilaf, and turkey and chicken cookout. I mean, are you kidding me?

I want to eat these recipes. Each recipe is cooked gently in small batches to seal in vital nutrients and maximize digestibility. And their recipes are crafted by vet nutritionists. So I feel good knowing its design with Louis' health and happiness in mind. Serve nom nom nom as a complete and balanced meal

or is a tasty and healthy addition to your dog's current diet. My dogs are like my children, literally, which is why I'm committed to giving them only the best. Hold on. Let me start again because I've only been talking about Louie. Louis is my bait. Louis, you might have heard him growl just now. Louis is my little baby and I'm committed to only giving him the best. I love that Nom Nom Nom's recipes contain wholesome nutrient rich food, meat that looks like meat

and veggies that look like veggies because shocker they are. Louis has been going absolutely nuts for the lamb pilaf. I have to confess that he's never had anything like it and he cannot get. enough. So he's a lampy laugh guy. Keep mealtime exciting with 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. Now we're going to do rapid fire questions submitted by you guys. Go, go, go, go, go, go. Who's going? Aim username, MySpace URL. Okay, aim username was NAVA in PR, super-inventing

and I do not remember my MySpace URL. NPR? N-P-R. N-A-V-A-N-P-R. N-A-N-P-R. Yeah. My A-M-U-N-U-N-R-N-P-R-N-E-R-N-E-R-N-U-N-N-U-N-SER-E-N-E-N-E-N-RAT. Wow.

Love it. Okay, go-to outfit to impress your crush. Ooh, definitely a mini-denum skirt. That was it. I had a school uniform, so I would straighten my hair to impress my crush. For me, this was a horrifying idea. Clothes were, because I was chubby,

I was just so self-conscious. And, like, it just always would have been probably, like, a button-down shirt. I don't know. I don't know. Favorite song is a 13-year-old. I'm really trying to remember 13. What was I doing? 13, 13, 13, 13.

It was, like, 2001 or something for you? 2000? No. Why would that help? Rapid fire is Penn's night. I know. I can't, I don't even, I'm trying to remember the, okay, maybe, maybe mama, boys to men. I remember at some point that you're listening to that song.

I think, I don't, it was either 12 or 13, but it would have been dreaming of you, Selena. Mine was, hey there, Delilah, just because I wanted to do a slow dance with somebody at the middle school party, so bad to that song. What is your hidden talent? This isn't a talent, but I'm double-jointed and I can make very strange fingers with my, very strange noises with my fingers. but I have to come up right to your ear to do it I'll try to do it on the I don't know if you can pick that up but that's me with my double jointed fingers

Oh wow Wait were you just touching the mic No at first she was Oh and then my other hidden talent Is that I can only whistle out of the side of my mouth And in high school my friends who's call me Popeye Yeah that's interesting And I can't do it otherwise

That's really good Interesting What is your head and talent I can fit my fist into my mouth. Oh, Sophie, do you have another one? What?

I mean, I can't do it so it's not my talent. Surely everybody tries at some point. Okay. A hidden talent is I'm pretty good at accents, picking up accents. Oh my gosh, you're so good at accents.

Can you do a few? I hate to do them. I hate to do them. So it'll have to just stay hidden. No, no, no, wait, wait. I think it'll really endear the listeners. Can you just do your favorite one? She's very good, you guys.

Okay, this is an impression of Rebel Wilson in one of her interviews, so it's an Australian accent. So I wanted to park my car in the red zone, because I thought red was the color of love. So I thought, like, they'd love you to park there, right? But turns out that it wasn't the case, and I just ended up for the heap load of parking tickets, really. That's all.

Wow, that's really good. She's really good. I want to hear from our Australian listeners. I bet you're like, hey, that was really good. really good. Hidden talent. Oh, I don't know if they're hidden because I'm friggin' famous guys. I don't. No, no, no. I have one for you. Oh, for me? Drawing. Drawing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it's funny I was going to say that, but I thought it's not enough of a talent. No, it's such a talent. It is. Um, yeah. Guys, would you like it if Penn

designed one of our merch items? Like, if he, like, hand drew something? Chime in. Who were y'all celebrity crushes in middle school? Okay, in middle school, I basically had no personality except for my sister's personality and her crush was hating Christensen so he was my crush Jennifer Lopez I think I might have been in elementary but my first celebrity crush

that I remember and I loved him dearly was Elijah would I just like I loved him dearly I had posters the whole thing what was your hobby in middle school what's a hobby like define surprising no one

mine was reading I really I don't think I've ever read more than I read in my whole school time. Like, I was just always reading. Nice. I played softball throughout, like, elementary, middle school and high school, like, on and off, and I loved it. That's awesome.

Soccer. Soccer was so, I loved soccer, but then I was sort of gutted because I started to, I don't know, my, it was, sports became really stressful, and then I stopped playing, and then I wouldn't play it again until I was, like, 20 years old, but I did love soccer. Penn, what roles did you play back in the day that people might not know about? I mean I just I was constantly doing that I was in a gushers commercial where my head turned into a fruit

You guys remember those? Yeah I love gushes Oh my gosh is that on YouTube I want to see that It might be it might be Were you in something with Amanda Binds Is there like a series? Yeah yeah no yeah so I was on

So when I did my first like lead role in a series It was on a Warner Brothers show Called Doover and I was on Like a crossover promotion thing I did a guest star on her show What I like about you Can you do the the Mario voices that put you on the map?

Yeah, I was the voice of Kid in Mario Tennis and Golf, 64. Nintendo 64. I still never heard it or played it. Can you do it? They're just a, yeah-ha! No, that's just Mario. What did I do? I went, Achoo! Or something.

I don't remember much of the sounds. I actually played that game. I remember those noises. Yeah, I did. I do remember them, too. I had to say, kid is tops! But I didn't have given false out, so my voice was high. I remember that too. And then I was on Jay Leno when I was 15, by the way, guys, which is interesting.

It was a guess. I was a get with Ellen. So Ellen DeGeneres was on Leno to promote that she was having a show that was going to come out, you know, like her daytime talk show. Wow. That's crazy. So I was on Leno with Ellen. Wow.

Oh, my goodness. So what piece of advice from a middle school teacher did you get that stuck with you? I cannot remember anything except something that my mom told me that a middle school teacher told her about me and he said that I was a leader and I was like really shocked sweet

I had great teachers but I just have this one thing in my head of like something negative that a teacher said that stuck with me we were practicing a dance and a teacher said that I looked like I was stomping cockroaches with my feet

and I stopped dancing after that that's why I stopped doing dance classes and all that yeah wow I never forgot it that's awful sorry Nava Yeah, mine similar depends Is something a counselor Middle school counselor told my mom about me

And he said that she needed to watch out Because I was starting to become a mean girl Like he had watched a transition Based on who I was hanging out with And that my mom needed to watch out And at the time she was like How dare you say that? Not my Sophie

But it was totally true And I thank him for for stepping in 90s R&B or 2000s pop punk 90s R&B How is that even a question? 90s aren't. That's not, I'm not allowing that question. David's would probably be 2000s pop punk.

Best or worst prank you pulled on a friend. I could never do pranks personally. Because you were too shy or you thought they were mean. Both. I wished I could have been the kind of person to pull a prank, to be honest. My sister and I, I don't know why we did it. My mom was going to sit and we pulled the chair and she fell on the floor and got really hurt. And we never did anything like that again.

Oh, geez. I was with a group of people, and they called Pizza Hut and ordered a pizza to somebody, like a random address. And then I think the delivery person had to pay for the pizza. It was really bad. Yeah, it was actually so bad. It's funny because the way you're telling that story is a little bit like you guys were the first ones to have that idea. And you're like working it out in your head. So I think what must have happened is that like the pizza went there.

And then like that. I truly did not know anyone else. This is like the first prank call that anybody does. It's because I grove overseas. I'm like, we thought of everything. That's funny. Worst hair fad that you were in love with. I had really curly hair, especially in the Philippines, is super humid.

So it was very curly, very poofy, and I straightened my bangs. I got my bangs chemically straightened. I did too, yeah. I would with a curling eye and like straighten the front of my hair into like this kind of... Some other kid once said that I looked like Duran Duran. I didn't know what that really meant at the time. But like I would put wax in the hair and like how it was kind of messy. It could never spike fully because it was curly.

You're just trying things out. My friend Hesha would chemically straighten my bangs and she would use a product that is for hair that is like much coarser than mine. So one time I was like, what if I just did my whole hair with this thing? And on the package, it says to do it for 15 minutes. And I knew that my hair was like finer. So I did it for 10. And it ruined my. I mean, my hair was like crinkly and like it was horrible.

And I, anyway, a friend of mine, her aunt is like one of the top hair stylists on the island. And she like rushed me to her hair salon, got her to do like an emergency appointment for me. My friend Carla, gracias Carla. and her aunt was like like people were gathering in the salon like what did you do what did you do and when I told them the product I used they started laughing they're like

girl that's not for your hair like what were you thinking and anyway they saved my hair what were your guys dream jobs as kids mine really until I was pretty old it was still a spy really that's interesting I mean it's ridiculous it means that would be

well it's funny I'm like I don't want to offend any spies the spy contingent in our audience is a strong so be careful. Well, we wouldn't know. Did you ever lie to a teacher? Yeah, I remember cheating on a Chinese test in high school. It was like the one and only time I ever cheated, but I did. We actually had a little cheating consortium. We were so, I like, I was like, I knew this story, but I was like, I shouldn't tell it because I think the implications are different in the, in the U.S., but it just wasn't

that big of a deal at my school. I don't know. Cheating? Yeah, it just wasn't, it wasn't like, I don't know, it was just like, can you get away with it or not? One of my only, like, truly, like, good friends was this really smart kid. He started sneaking into our English teacher's room during lunch and would look up the answers to, I think it was called the wordly wise. It was like a series of tests that was standardized, and he would sell them. So once I looked out for him, I stood outside of the class, and I don't know that I ever used the answers, to be honest.

I don't think I was interested in that But I can't remember All right Let's keep going That's funny How and when did you get that Fucking voice, Penn Yeah

It was puberty That was surely the only time it happened And that was also how And that's the end of that story Do you remember getting like different attention From people when your voice changed? I do remember a little bit

I was about 14 years old And I was in a pool and I called out to a friend of mine and I believe she was female and I said something like I was calling to her to say come get in the pool and it changed a little

at least a little in that moment and there were a few of us and I think we read out wait can you dispel a rumor pen apparently there's been like a series of posts that you do like a secret erotica audio account and people are convinced that it's you

and she's apparently posted it multiple times can you just dispel this? You can buy it? No. I don't do that. Sorry to crush everyone's dreams. It's not Penn. That is shocking. Lots of people have asked us if we could tell you to do a story on the calm app, which is less scandalous. Less erotic. Yeah, yeah, if they want to pay me.

What word or concept did you not realize you had a complete misunderstanding of until you were an adult? I think when I was younger, I did value the idea of humility, and I thought humility was thinking little of yourself. like thinking you were bad at things. So basically I confused humility with low self-esteem. And then when I was maybe in my 20s, I heard someone that I really admire, we know him Firesam Arbob, was talking about sort of this concept of self.

And he was saying that humility is not like thinking low of yourself, but it's not thinking high of yourself. It's just not thinking about yourself. Like to be forgetful of yourself and to just always be able to learn and to put things into practice and not center yourself is like a key part of humility. And that was like a complete shift for me in an understanding of that concept.

For me, it was thinking it was doggie dog world. Like doggy dog rather than dog, each dog? Yeah. Yeah. It's a doggy dog world. It's just a doggy dog world. Like Snoop doggie dog. Like I thought that way was just kind of, it was all probably the same canon.

You know, it was like, yeah, doggy doggy dog world. Exactly. I mean, Snoop comes from a doggy dog. That's really funny, actually. I love how serious novels was. So he's like, yeah, mine was doggy dog. Mine, this is going to be really obnoxious, kind of to say. But the one that comes to mind is God.

The word God, which by the way I try to avoid using as an expletive, and I actually went through a period of disciplining myself out of that. Because if you think about it, people say, oh, God, oh, my God, just all the time, all the time, all the time. And that word didn't mean anything to me growing up. And it does now. And I try to only say it when I'm like, you know, actually mean it. And so that's, you know, not saying that I have a complete understanding, but it's changed. Well, no one can.

Yeah. As always, we have our traditional closing question. So this week we get to answer it. So what advice would we give our 12-year-old selves if we had a couple minutes together? I would tell myself to slow down, to not try to grow up so fast. I felt like I was really in a rush to grow up and be mature and I regret it now and I wished I had cherished more of the goofiness and the like unbridled joy and like kind of like physical comedy and goofiness of that time. I did a lot of work to try to hold that in. So I would go and tell myself not to do that.

The person that I have been the meanest to in my whole life who I was like genuinely mean to many times was my mom. and I would tell myself to never be mean to her. When we ask our guests this question, I've thought about it a lot and I would honestly just hold him and say, I love you. I love you. I know that I needed to hear that then. Like really hold him so that he knows. I mean, this is why people listen hopefully, you know.

It's like, hey, we're not always just here for the laughs, guys. When Penn is speaking, we're never here for the last. Yeah, quick fire. That means I have 17 minutes? Okay, great. So hold on, let me start. So I was three. No, actually probably was about the one.

So in the book of Genesis. Thank you guys for sticking it out. See you next time. Podcrushed is hosted by Penn Badgley, Navakavalin, and Sophie Ansari. Our executive producer is Nora Richie from Stitcher. Lead producer and editor is David Ansari. Our secondary editor is Sharaf and Twistle. Special thanks to Peter Clowney, VP of Content at Stitcher,

Eric Eddings, Director of Lifestyle Programming at Stitcher, Jared O'Connell and Brendan Bryans for the tech support, and Frutti Marante, who transcribes our tape. Podcrush was created by Navakaval and is executive produced by Penn Badgley and Navakavalin and produced by Sophie Ansari. This podcast is a 9th mode production. Be sure to subscribe to Podcrush. You can find us on Stitcher, the Serious XM app, Spotify, Apple Podcasts,

wherever you listen. If you'd like to submit a middle school story, go to podcrush.com and give us every detail. And while you're online, be sure to follow us on socials. It's at Podcrush, spelled how it sounds, and our personals are at Penn Badgley, at Nava, that's Nava with three ends, and at Scribble by Sophie. And we're out. See you next week. I was doing something else. I was actually working in L.A. in what we call Hollywood, which is both a state of mind and a physical place. the school of hard knocks what's a what's a what's a play on words

it could sound like school of hard knocks but it's Hollywood the school Penn's pickups are like 12 minutes Penn's pickups are episodes unto themselves would be this is really outdated

School of Hard Knockers as in fake breasts Oh Ben Never Stitcher Thank you.