Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Rachel Brosnahan

Episode Date: January 15, 2021

Rachel Brosnahan’s performance in the hit series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has earned her an Emmy, two Golden Globe Awards and international recognition as the spirited stand-up comic, Midge. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist gets together with Brosnahan in New York City to talk about filming that show in the place she calls home and her buzzed-about performance in the new film I’m Your Woman. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. I am particularly excited about this interview today. I'll tell you why. Not just because we have a great guest for you. Rachel Brosnahan, star of the marvelous Mrs. Maisel, where she plays the lead character, Midge, of course, for which she has won two Golden Globes and an Emmy Award,

a show just about everyone loves. And if you haven't seen it, other people in your life are harassing you to see it. and you really need to do that. So that's number one. Number two, though, is that we got together and did this interview in person. As you guys know, from listening to these since, well, March, I guess, early March,

we've been almost exclusively, with a couple of exceptions on Zoom. And they're great, and I always am grateful for the time that we have together. It loses a little bit in intimacy and sound quality and everything else. So when you get a chance to get together, and Rachel was kind enough to say,

yeah, let's do it. We're both in New York. So we met at PJ Clark's great burger place, if you don't know about it, Lincoln Center. And we were, it was the two of us. We had a tape measure between us before we sat down. We were seven feet apart. We gave it an extra foot. And just a small crew. And it was pretty down and dirty. And we just got together and sat down in this burger place. And we talked about her incredible new movie called I'm Your Woman, which is going to have a lot of people talking, I promise. It's really her first big starring movie role and she's really good in it. And she's a producer on the film as well. So we talk about the movie. We talk about Mrs. Maisel. She's getting ready now within a matter of days now to go out and shoot the next season.

Yes, there's more marvelous Mrs. Maisel coming. What else can I tell you? I didn't know Rachel beforehand. A lot of times, and I've gotten to know a lot of these people over the years, We just met in that burger joint, and I was so thrilled that she would come and sit with me seven feet apart and sit down and talk about her career and her life and something she doesn't do a lot, as she told me. She doesn't do many profiles. She told me after she said, I don't do these. I became an actor, so I didn't have to talk about myself, so that I could always be somebody else. So hopefully you enjoy a rare conversation with an incredibly talented and generous actress, Rachel Brodell. Hosnahan right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

Rachel, great to see you. Thanks for doing this. You do. This is a little odd. Let's just say it, right? I was going to say romantic, but yes, a little bit odd. I told you right before we sat down, we literally had the tape measure out so we could have seven full feet between us, which is kind of where we are right now. I mean, overachieving.

I appreciate that. Yeah. For you, we added the extra foot. Thank you so much. You're at A. Lester. You needed seven feet. Thank you. So what, speaking of, what have the,

last nine or ten months been like for you as we've all been staying at home trying to keep ourselves busy you're going to go into production with mrs mazel soon what have these months been like strange strange for everyone um you know being here in new york it was scary early on and and as you said everyone's been looking for ways to stay busy in in our in our industry to stay creative and i feel really lucky that we had a number of projects in post-production and in development. So I'm thankful for this time to catch up and meet amazing artists via Zoom. So much Zooming happened over the last couple months. It's true. But we were actually in post-production for I'm Your Woman when all of this started. So it was a lot of virtual editing and viewing

of the film and ADR in my office with some quilts. And it was strange. But I think people would be shocked to be here. Even at that level, like a big Hollywood movie, it's just you in a closet with some blankets. Absolutely. I mean in a closet with some blankets, trying to figure out the instructions on this box that kind of looks like a bomb. And, you know, it's all glamour all the time. It really is. It's Hollywood glamour. I understand you took up, like a lot of us have been binging, took up Survivor, the reality show, you're just catching on. Well, or you finished. It was a rewatch. Oh, was a rewind? I should clear.

Oh, okay, good. I was like, we're that nerdy. Wow. Yeah, it was a rewant. Better the second pass? Keep that face. Mipe that's work off your face. What did you pick up on a second viewing, Rachel, that you missed the first.

You know, gameplay? I feel like I've been thinking a lot about strategy. No, it was just, it was such a good escape. It was a really nice escape. It was the thing where at the start of it, you know, we went down in a pod with, with, with two friends who were with us when we all found out that the world was shutting down, and we all went down together, and we were looking for something to keep us occupied. There are 40 seasons of Survivors, so we knew that likely, no matter how long this went on,

we'd be covered, and that's really, that's really how it's right. I also think everything is excused right now, right? People are like, whatever you need to do to get through, if you want to watch Survivor twice, God bless. I feel exactly the same. whatever gets you through. It's tough. Is it gratifying in some way to know how many people have been watching

the marvelous Mrs. Maisel during this time? I mean, it's one that keeps coming up. People said, what are you doing quarantine? I either watch it for the first time all three seasons or I'm re-watching it. Yeah, it's been so nice to hear that it made people laugh and brought people joy during a time when sometimes both of those things have been really hard to come by. I've heard a lot of stories from people.

reaching out saying that finding the show or watching the show again got them through a hard time. And yeah, I'm grateful to have been able to be a part of something that helps people escape for a minute. Yeah. We'll talk more about that, but I'm super interested in talking about I'm your woman because I told you I watched it yesterday. It's so, so good. And I promised you I wouldn't jinx you, but I just have a sense that people are going to be

talking about this for a while, your performance as Jean. What grabbed you about the story and what grabbed you about the character? I was so moved by Jean's journey through motherhood, this unexpected journey towards motherhood without going too much way, and her struggles with it. And also that Jean is an ordinary woman, by most accounts, an ordinary woman of the 70s who's been thrust into these extraordinary circumstances. And I appreciate stories that recognize the usually nonlinear journeys towards growth. of ordinary women.

Not everyone comes out of the womb, wanting to change the world. And I'm grateful that a woman like Jean has been centered in this genre that's so traditionally male-dominated. And that's our director, Julia Hart, who's interested in swinging the lens on a character who often lives on the fringes of these films,

but who's definitely there and has had an experience as well. I like the way Julia described it. She said, I wanted to know what happened to Diane Keaton in The Godfather, Once the door closed. Yep. And you could say that about Sharon Stone and Casino

or Lorraine Rocko and Goodfellas. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So without giving away, as you said, too much of the story, he just kind of set up the action to the extent you can. Yeah. Yeah.

It's hard because almost everything gives something away. Right. We meet Jean, who is a fairly traditional 1970s housewife. Her husband Eddie, who we come to learn is a criminal. Jean finds herself unexpectedly on the run with her young child and fighting for their survival. And they meet a family. I can't say too much. They meet a family who helps them on their journey and who becomes somewhat of a chosen family for them through this story.

So do you look... There's some car chases. I know. I'm literally like trying to think of a question that does not have a spoiler embedded in it. So maybe I just will let it go. but just about her specifically, what did you see in her? Because I know you pick these characters very carefully.

You have the nice luxury of doing that. Obviously, Midge is another one of them. But what did you see in her that you said, okay, that's worth the investment of my time and effort? Well, as I said, I was so interested in her, in this quiet woman who felt so alone in her experience, who felt alone in this experience of finding out that she couldn't have a child who was dealing with PTSD when the movie opens.

And it feels so different from some of the roles I've had the privilege of playing over the last couple of years. This is a woman who lives primarily in silence, who chooses her words incredibly carefully, who is lost inside her head for a great deal of this film and certainly the pieces that we, you know, the scenes that we don't see her in. Yeah, it just felt like I felt like I didn't understand her when I first read the script. I didn't understand what motivated her. I didn't know why she was making the decision she was making. And for me, that's always a sign that's something that I'm invested

and that I'm dying to explore more fully who this person is. That feels like the most important marker when choosing to take on a new part is that I don't get it. Yeah, but that's such an interesting way to put it, because I think intuitively you'd think, oh, I get this person, I need to go play that character. But for you, some of that mystery is appealing in a character? Yeah, it feels like that's the dream to be able to reach inside people's heads and hearts that you don't fully understand. It's an exercise and empathy and a constant challenge, and it's always scary. And that's the dream to be able to play roles like that over and over and over. again. There's also the element of the period piece, which is fun in terms of the outfits and the

cars and your kitchen and the design, everything else. The wallpaper. Was that fun to step into, again, as you did with Mitch to step into a different place and time? Yeah. I love that period pieces like sci-fi movies and, you know, movies involve some kind of world building, let you transform more completely and dive a little bit deeper into a character and into a world that feels far away. And I mean, our brilliant production designer, Gaye Buckley, created these incredible sets. And what a gift to be able to walk into these rooms. I mean, the motel sets are some of my favorite.

We had a number of sets in motels, and they were just so, the colors were so vibrant, and the carpets were amazing, and the lamps. And it just feels like you've time traveled, and you get out of your own way, and just start living in this space in the moment. I did notice that watch. You think like, wow, every cabinet and every chair in that kitchen, every piece of carpet somebody really thought about to make this a convincing world. Yeah.

Is it fair to say this is your first major starring role in a movie? Is that my classifying that correctly? Yeah. So what is that like then to, I don't want to say you carrying the movie because the cast is incredible, but you're certainly the star of the movie. What does that feel like as an actor? I hadn't really thought about it in those terms to be on it. You'd be to make you nervous.

I'm like, oh, God. It's too late. You already did the job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I hadn't really thought about it in those terms. And I think part of that is because this was also my first time producing a film. And so I was involved from a much earlier stage in the process than actors traditionally get to step in. And that also means that I got to collaborate from a much earlier stage in the process than we're usually invited to.

And so it just has. It's been such an extended process, which has been a real gift. And I think in some ways, taken pressure off of just occupying that role or having to think about it because we have producing to do. Right, right. But I mean, I can't imagine a better film to be able to call that than this one and to have been able to work with Julia Hart and Jordan Horowitz. And my friend, Marcia Stephanie Blake, one of my dearest friends, Carly Fomelon, is one of our casting directors. brilliant Arrinsé Kenny and our babies, Justin and James and Charles. I mean, this is a dream an end up.

It's been amazing, and it's so nice to be able to finally talk about it. Yeah, I know here we are. So to the layman who might be watching this, what does it mean to be a producer on the movie? How does that change your job? Because I think some people say, okay, Rachel's a star. They put her name on it. She's the producer, which sometimes happens, I think. Yeah.

But in this case, it sounds like you're really in the trenches helping make. this movie what it is. Yeah, and I'm so grateful to have been invited into that position by Jordan Horwitz, who I produced the film with alongside, and Julia Hart, our director, they are married, they're a married couple, they are also writing partners, they work together all the time, and I'm so grateful to have been invited into their beautiful partnership. A lot of people talk the talk about wanting to include more women in positions of leadership and Julia and Jordan really walked the walk in all of those different discussions. But it was a choice and a deliberate one for them to invite me into this space and to elevate

me into this position and to allow it to be far more than a vanity project. Jordan was an incredible mentor. I mean, he's produced some incredible movies, La La Land. I'm still pinging myself. But he also, one of the greatest things that he did as a mentor was also allow me the space to find my own voice as a producer and to grow. That's a long-winded way of saying that what it really means is to be involved from a much earlier stage. So to be involved in script development, to be involved in conversations about budget and how you want to make the film and to be hiring all the different departments and involved in casting, you basically have a hand in every piece of the making of a film or television project. And then stay with the film after you finish

shooting because you're then in post-production where you're editing and and working on color and sound and figuring out how you want to roll the film out into the world and and strategy and and I've learned an incredible amount from working on that's really cool that you were that involved and I guess the obvious next step or next question would be directing from there. I'm not putting you on the spot to say yes to something now but do you when you I mean having been on this incredible television show you're on in this great movie that you're in now. Yeah. Does that sort of get those gears moving for you a bit?

I love directors. I love directors as an actor, and I'm so grateful for directors like Julia, who are so interested in that collaboration. I admire so many brilliant directors. I don't know that I have that desire at this point. I'm loving, stepping into this new space in producing. I'm a, I'm a, for an actor. and for an artist, I'm a pretty logical, logical-brained person.

And so I think the constant putting together the puzzle pieces and figuring out how, you know, the actual process of making the sausage from a producerial standpoint is really exciting to me. That it's an exciting challenge. And so I'm focused there right now and on acting. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from. Rachel Brosnahan right after the break. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

Now more of my conversation with Rachel Brosnahan. We're sitting here on the Upper West Side, Lincoln Square, we'll call it lower Upper West Side maybe. And you're just, as we sit here a couple of weeks away from beginning shooting on season four of the marvelous Mrs. Maisel. What does it feel like right now to be ramping up to another season? It feels so nice. It feels so.

exciting to be able to get the family back together again soon. We haven't seen each other in more than a year now. God, that seems great. I don't know, I guess we saw each other early this year before everything shut down, but it feels like it's forever, yeah. And it's the long as we've been apart since we started making the show. So it's been so exciting to be back at the studio a little bit, trying on costumes, trying on hats, saying hello to everyone.

We miss each other. and are really excited to get back. So I'm obviously not going to ask you to give anything away, but where do we find Midge as you walk into this fourth season, other than fired, I believe, on an airport tarmac, as I recall? To be completely honest, that is the last, that's the last I know. I haven't seen scripts yet for this season. No.

And I have no idea what we're in store for. I feel like I usually know a little bit more than that. I currently know heading into another season, but I know they're working away. I've seen some costumes. They're amazing. Lots of hats to come in the season, lots of insane hats to come this year. But I have no idea what we're in store for. Is that a scary thought, or do you trust the writers enough that, you know, it's going to be okay?

Both. Both, absolutely. I know that they're going to come up with some brilliant stuff. I know they're going to make us want to tear our hair out, and we're going to have to learn hundreds of pages of dialogue a week. But that's half the fun. You know, you were saying earlier before we started that you're a little bit of an introvert, and you've said that publicly too. I'm not telling tales outside of school.

To play a character like Midge, who is not just an extrovert, but a stand-up comic, which is like the scariest profession you can have if you're that kind of person. Totally. How did you approach that when you first started and say, okay, I have to really be somebody I'm not? It's my worst nightmare. No, it's, it is, it's dreamy in that it continues to be a reach. I feel like sometimes, or at least I've heard from other people that being on a series for a number of years, it can start, it can start to get old.

It can start to feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again. But the great gift of working on this show is that it never gets easier. It never feels easy. It feels like such a reach. And that's very exciting. I've tried a lot of things. I have an amazing acting coach. His name is Ted Slabertsky.

I couldn't do anything without Ted. We've worked together for seven years at this point. So pre-mazal, that helps. Lots of preparation. Coffee, lots of coffee. Power posing in the mirror. I've actually tried it. Oh, yeah.

What is that? I've never done that. Oh, you know, I mean, I won't do it in here, but you just stand with your feet firmly planted on the ground and put your hands on your hips and hold your head up high and just hope that it comes to you. Hope the confidence comes. Just convince yourself. Yeah.

I feel like I heard someone say that once and got really desperate in a moment of great insecurity and tried it. And then was like, I think this works. And now I found myself in various states of, you know, petticoat and, oh, there's a dog's-de-behind behind you outside. Sorry. We started with a garbage truck. And now we've completed the... Just for you a gift.

We've closed the New York Circle by having a dog. Oh, he's now observing it. The whole thing happening over here. What were we saying? Power posing. Yeah, power posing. Yeah, I found myself in various states of, you know, petticoat and sound and various clothing standing in the mirror,

hoping the confidence comes. And that doesn't change. I mean, you've been through three seasons. You still feel that little pit in your stuff. stomach when it's time to get up on the stage and be midge up there? Yes, definitely. But it doesn't let you be complacent. And I feel like it, you know, when you approach every job, if you are an anxious, nervous

person, as I certainly am in a lot of ways, and especially when it comes to things that I'm passionate about and especially when it comes to work, I think when you feel like you have nothing to lose, you just stand. at the edge of the plank every day and make the decision to dive off and just see what happens. And if you can step off, I think it makes you grow,

it makes your work better and more dynamic. But no, it doesn't get easier. Do you think there's though some benefit? I talk to a lot of actors to have a little of that impostor syndrome or this is all gonna end tomorrow, or like because it keeps some edge for you when you go on a set? Absolutely. It keeps you grounded.

It keeps you grateful because genuinely every job could be your last. And I know that I'm not alone in feeling that way, that I've ended my career every time I step on to a set. You know, it keeps you moving forward. You have no other choice, really. You can either be paralyzed by that feeling or keep going. And I take great solace in knowing that I'm not crazy and I'm not alone. I remember years ago shooting something for a couple of days with Sam Neal.

And Sam Neal stepping on to set on the very first day, finishing a brilliant take of something amazing and going, ooh, it never gets easier. And I just remember being like, amazing. Right, right. Many years into this, that you still feel that way. You feel seen. Somebody else feels that way. Yeah, and it lets you know that if they can keep going, so can you.

Yeah, absolutely. Is it wild to you when you started this, I guess, well, it rolled out three and a half years ago, the first season of Mrs. Maisel? Yeah. You knew you had something good, but you could never have imagined it's become what it has become, which is Emmy winning and Golden Globe winning and SAG winning, I think, 20 total Emmys, and for you won and two Golden Globes. what do you think when you think about this sort of cultural phenomenon that the show you made has become?

We just, we can't believe it. This is a group of actors. So many of us started in theater who have been on a lot of stuff, who have been on a lot of stuff that we loved. And we thought was amazing and felt with equally as talented actors and writers and writers and and producers and showrunners and that just never quite found its audience. You just never know. And so we feel so lucky that not only are we a part of this thing,

that continues to challenge us, that makes us better actors and better people, and we get to work with these insanely talented folks in every single department of this show, but that it also found an audience and that other people feel the same way that we do. That's crazy and not something to take for granted. at all. It might be a hard thing to talk about from the inside, but what do you think it is about

this show that has so captured people's attention and imagination? I think there's something in it for everyone. There are all of these different characters from different walks of life. The character at the center is someone who, even if naively, a fair amount of the time, leads with hope and joy and is reinventing herself past when she thought that was possible for her. You know, she thought that her life was set at 26 years old. And at that time, you know, for a lot of people it was. And she's throwing down and figuring out who she is and what she wants. And now you have her parents undergoing a similar journey.

You have Susie, who represents a completely, you know, different energy in this show. And yeah, I think there's, and it makes people happy. It has beautiful clothes and bright colors. And, yeah, those are the things that I think we hear the most often from people who love the show. Is the audition story true that you almost didn't make it to the audition because you were so sick? Yeah. And that maybe you don't even remember the audition because you were so sick. Yeah.

Really? Yes, it feels like a total blur. I had some kind of terrible flu, which now seems crazy that I went at all in the moment that we're living in. But then, you know, you kind of could after a certain amount of time. But I was so sick. I really couldn't get on a plane. It was one of those. I've never been knocked on my behind like that from an illness before.

And I just, I was like sweaty and gross. And, you know, it was like on the tail end. It had been like 12 days or something by the time I finally went. But was nervous because, you know, it was a big opportunity, was sweaty and disgusting and felt like I had lost my whole mind. And I'm so grateful that they saw through it. I mean, I actually had tissues stuffed in the back of my pants. At one point, I took off my shoes because, you know, my feet were so sweaty that I was sliding around in them. It was a disaster.

But probably very midge. I was going to say, maybe that worked for. for you in some backward way. It's incredible. When I ask you about Yearly Departed, which is such a cool idea. Yeah. I mean, amazing women stand-ups and friends of yours getting together. Describe the project a little bit.

Yeah, so Yearly Departed is a satirical funeral for the year 2020, where some of the funniest women that we know and love are going to lay this dumpster fire of a year to rest by delivering eulogies for some of the things we've lost from casual sex to beige band-aids and beyond. And we have this incredible cast, Sarah Silverman, Tiffany Haddish, Patty Harrison, Natasha Rothwell, Zeeway, Natasha Legerro. It was incredible, even in the midst of a wild pandemic to be able to, it was very cathartic to be able to get these women together and say goodbye to 2020, before 2020 was over. Yeah. Yeah, our head writer, Best Cald, is unbelievable.

I don't know if you're familiar with her work. Yeah. She was a writer on Kimmel for a number of years, and this is her first time stepping into this position, and she's unbelievable amassed this incredible writer's room. Yeah. Is that one of those things where you just put up the bat signal to your friends, and you're like, hey, we're getting the superheroes together?

Definitely. We were like, we're getting the folks together. Well, it was a largely, I mean, a lot of the folks who we ended up working with new women from our writers' room, new Bess. Tiffany knew our director, Linda Mendoza. So it was just, it was this amazing group of women coming together to make this thing. We had so many women in positions of leadership in front of and behind the camera, our director, our DP, our editors, our composer. It was so much fun to be able to look around on these Zoom meetings and just see all of these women looking back at us. It shouldn't still feel radical,

but it does. It was amazing. My big thanks again to Rachel for a great conversation. While you wait for season four of the marvelous Mrs. Maisel, you can catch Rachel's film, I'm Your Woman, and the comedy special Yearly Departed, both streaming right now on Amazon Prime Video. My thanks to all of you, as always, for tuning in. If you want to hear more of my full-length conversations with our guests every week,

be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode. And of course, don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.