The Daily Show: Ears Edition - America Gets Diarrhea, CDC Has No Money to Help & Iran War Budget Explodes | Molly Shannon
Episode Date: July 16, 2026An explosive diarrhea parasite called cyclospora sweeps the nation and premieres on TikTok, Taco Bell prematurely signals responsibility for the spread, America's original budget for the Iran War prac...tically triples, and Michael Kosta highlights the connection between government funding for forever wars and the country's outbreak of forever diarrhea. The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship in a 6-3 ruling, but John Leguizamo is wondering: How was this not a clean sweep? Leguizamo examines the right-wing freakout over the court's decision, from xenophobic fever dreams about pregnant foreigners invading the U.S. to boilerplate conspiracy theories about election plots, in another edition of In My Opinion. Michael sits down with comedy legend and Emmy-nominated actor Molly Shannon to discuss her new Netflix series, “The Hawk.” They get into her close-knit relationship with co-star Will Ferrell, how a traumatic childhood car crash informed her reckless style of physical comedy, and all the odd jobs she had before landing “Saturday Night Live.” Plus, Kosta shares what he took away from Shannon’s powerful memoir and asks what advice she has for young people. -- New customers can save 35% on your first month of subscription by going to https://dosedaily.co/TDS or entering TDS at checkout. CarShield is offering our listeners 20% off with the code TDS at https://CarShield.com/TDS -- The Daily Show airs weeknights at 11/10c on Comedy Central. Stream full episodes on Paramount+ Follow TDS: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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You're listening to Comedy Central.
From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news.
This is The Daily Show with your host, Michael Costa.
just a chance to scare us again.
John Leguizamo takes on the Supreme Court.
And if you're watching this on the toilet with diarrhea,
what a great off.
On the toilet with diarrhea.
Let's get into the headlines.
Hey, America, how you feeling?
Good?
Is your tummy okay?
Well, enjoy it while it lasts.
This is not a happy morning topic.
Explosive diarrhea afflicting more than 3,000 people.
The parasite is called cyclospora.
So far, 3,000 cases have been reported in 32 states.
The symptoms are nasty, to say the least.
Explosive diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, muscle aches, debilitating fatigue.
You know, honestly, it could have just stopped at explosive diarrhea.
Muscle aches aren't an issue at that point.
I'm not going to be sitting on the toilet shitting my brains out like, and my biceps are sore.
Seriously, this is not a helpful list.
these are also all the symptoms for being over 35
I had a piece of cake at my kid's birthday
I had every single one of these
but I will say butthole COVID really does sound awful
it was really bad there were there were moments where I was
literally just camped out in the bathroom and like I don't care I'm just
going to lay on this floor anyway you're going to blur my face and change my voice
before this airs right
I'm not going to be the face of lying on the floor pooping to death
right? I'm just joking.
She's actually sharing her experience to raise awareness.
She shouldn't be embarrassed.
It's these clout-chasing TikTokers
who should be embarrassed.
I eat healthy, and I end up getting diarrhea
for seven days straight.
Like, bam, all day on the toilet.
The cramping the stomach pain?
The worst thing about this was I felt disgusting.
Yeah, that's...
That's how diarrhea works.
It's the scumpting.
It'd be even stranger if you were like, I had diarrhea for five days, and man, did I feel sexy?
By the way, we shouldn't even be talking about how you felt when you had diarrhea.
TikTokers, can I have a quick word with you over here?
Hey, chat.
You don't have to share everything.
You can always ask yourself, did anyone ask me if I had explosive diarrhea?
If the answer is no, do what you couldn't do.
last week and hold it in.
You might be wondering, where does this parasite come from?
Well, one company was taking responsibility.
Taco Bell saying they have voluntarily removed some ingredients at select locations
as the food-borne parasite cyclospiriasis rapidly spreads across the U.S.
Yeah, well, I guess we should have known they did just come out with their new dioritos,
locos tacos.
So Taco Bell's been giving people the parasite.
I'm glad we cleared that up.
Case closed.
The company stating public health officials have not confirmed a link to Taco Bell or any specific ingredients, supplier, restaurant, or retailer, adding they will closely monitor the situation.
Wait, so Taco Bell didn't cause this?
They just heard explosive diarrhea, and they were like, yeah, that must have been us.
We'll take it.
It actually turns out no one is sure where it's coming from, and our media isn't helping us figure it out from using these terrifying red out.
break maps, highlighting basically all the states, high-tech graphics of the supposed parasite
cell. And when that's not, it seems scary enough, feeling an entire screen with just four
words, weeks of severe diarrhea. I'm so scared by these graphics by the time I get the parasite,
I'll have already shipped myself. Why come every time there's a pandemic or outbreak? They show us
these close-up headshots of the virus like it's a wanted poster. Like I'm going to see the
parasite on the street and be like, hey, it's the guy from the news. Get them.
Please, News. You don't need to convince us that explosive diarrhea is bad.
We're on board already. Just tell us what we can do to avoid getting this parasite.
We'll do anything.
Wash the lettuce under running water.
Yeah, I'm out. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that.
You're adding chores to eating a salad?
Eating a salad is the chore.
I'm not washing lettuce. I'll give you.
fruit, a quick rinse. Will that
help? I would let it run
over these. How long? Probably for
about five or six minutes.
Five to six minutes.
It's a kitchen, not an
AI data center.
Okay, so fruits out, lettuce
is out. I guess I'll be grocery shopping at the gas
station until the CDC gets a handle on
cyclospora. By the way,
why hasn't the CDC
gotten a handle on the cyclospora?
The CDC is also tackling
the outbreak with fewer staff,
because it had cuts to its funging last year.
CDC actually scaled back a decades-long federal-state partnership
that monitors food-borne illnesses,
including those caused by cyclospora.
Hmm, okay.
Let me see if I can track this.
We cut the funding for the program that tracks forever diarrhea,
and now people are getting forever diarrhea.
Let me see if I can figure this out.
I don't see any connection.
All I saw were these complicated math equations.
But hold on, if we're cutting the funding that prevents Americans
from getting the disease that turns our guts inside out,
where exactly is our money?
An internal Pentagon estimate puts the cost of the war with Iran
at between $80 and $100 billion.
That marking a significant increase from the roughly $30 billion
estimated just three months ago.
Oh, I see.
It looks like our military budget.
also has diarrhea.
Well, America, I'm sorry to say,
but the money it takes to blow up Iran
is the reason we're blowing up our own bathrooms.
It's like how our grandparents grew their own crops
to support the troops during World War II,
except our version of this is power washing the toilet
with our butthole.
So, when you hit week three of hell squirts,
remember, you're doing it for Uncle Sam.
When we come back, John Leguizamo,
This opinion.
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I've got great opinions, but I'm not the only one.
Studies show that other people also have opinions.
So here with another installment of, in my opinion, is our good friend, John Leguizamo.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Yo, yo, yo, what's up, what's up?
I'm John Leguizamo, theater legend, civil rights icon, and breakout star of the Odyssey,
and most importantly, proud American by way of Colombia.
Grazie, Grazie.
Now, I came to the
States of U.S.S. Unido as a very
adorable child and then became a
citizen, but one of the cool things
about this country is that
if you're born here, no matter where
your parents are from, you're
automatically a citizen.
You're free to do all the things
that Americans are allowed to do.
Like vote,
like serving Congress,
or light a bus on fire when the
Knicks went in five.
Wait, you're not allowed to do that?
All right, my bad.
Now, not everyone thinks this birthright citizenship is a good thing,
but luckily, it's in the Constitution.
And I was certain that when it got challenged recently,
that the Supreme Court would uphold it 9 to 0.
The Supreme Court with just a narrow majority
ruled that Donald Trump's effort to undo birthright citizenship
was unconstitutional.
The decision was 6'3.
6-3, 6-3? How was that not unanimous?
This is the kind of thing you want everybody to be aboard with like a threesome.
Y'all are dirty.
Or in the case of the Supreme Court, a nine-sum.
Okay, I'm sorry I put that in your heads.
Alito sits in the cuck chair.
You know, it's called birth-right.
citizenship. Either you're born here or you're not. There's no gray area. It's not like the duty-free
shop at LaGuardia. Birthright citizenship has been in the Constitution since the 14th Amendment in
1868. It's literally older than the light bulb, the zipper, and Mitch McConnell, barely.
But when the ruling came down, Constitution-loving conservatives started freaking out.
It's the legalization of an invasion of America.
It is an attack on this country, its borders, and its people.
Demographic destruction.
It essentially just handed out birthright citizenship to millions of Chinese birth tourists.
No, wrong.
It didn't just do anything.
It's continuing a right that already existed.
It's like if they ruled that Jersey is still a state.
I mean, I'm not happy about it either, but there's nothing, nothing's changed.
Look, it's not like the 14th Amendment is confusing.
It says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof are citizens of the United States.
Forget hooked on phonics.
You could understand that sentence if you were hooked on crack.
My God, you don't need to translate into a modern language.
like that, some kind of ancient Greek text that's getting an incredible adaptation in theaters this weekend?
The point is, America works on the Olive Garden rule.
When you're here, your family.
Like these breadsticks, garlicky.
Now, the Trump administration says that we're not talking about all children of immigrants.
We're only saying birthright citizenship doesn't apply to children of people here illegally or temporarily.
But how far back do you want to take that?
Because at some point, every white person was here illegally.
So Trump's case got shot down for now.
But it's pretty clear that his people plan to make another run at this.
And to sway public opinion, they're conjuring up some pretty wild scenarios.
The idea that you could have a cruise ship filled with foreigners,
and they just dock at a port for an hour.
And someone has a baby, Jesse.
The baby's an American citizen.
citizen.
What?
Maybe in an hour?
Forget birthright citizenship.
I don't think you understand how birth works.
It's not a cruise excursion.
You can't just pop into port and squeeze out a baby while getting cornrows.
You're marketing over birthright citizenship.
Isn't just about taking white people's jobs or exposing them to food that has flavor?
They're also claiming it's about national security.
So this is a huge national.
security threat and birthright citizenship. It's not random. It's organized.
Chinese birth tourists come to America, have their kid in America on American soil, have no
allegiance to the United States. They could populate Detroit or they could populate a swing
state and swing an election with just a few hundred thousand votes.
Yeah. Swing this.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
If you're concerned about democracy,
don't worry about 100,000 Chinese kids
swinging an election in 20 years.
Worry about the one trillionaire
with 100,000 kids doing that right now.
And this isn't even a cost-effective way
to steal an election.
Do you know how much kids cost today?
The Chinese government's got to be like,
we just wanted to take over America,
and now we're on the hook for 100,000 private piano lessons?
That's not even the craziest theory they're putting out there either.
We have people from all over the world, from third world nations, nations that on their own would have never invented the wheel, let alone modern technology, let alone medicine, let alone air travel.
And they can just come into the country, have a baby at a hospital, paid for it by you and me, and then that baby's automatically a citizen.
That baby can sit on a jury when he turns 18 and sit in judgment of you and sit in judgment of you and sit in.
judgment of me and sit in judgment of our loved ones.
Okay.
Okay, first of all, I do like knowing that Stephen Miller worries he might actually be put
on trial someday.
Oh, I can't wait to Nuremberg that motherfucker.
But also, a baby who sits on a jury when he turns 18 is not a baby anymore, okay?
Although that could be pretty cute.
We the jury find you.
adorable. We sentence you to the electric chair.
My God, these conservatives are just making up the most ridiculous anti-American plots.
The Chinese could take over deterrent. The Mexicans could all come in a cruise ship.
The Greeks could send a giant wooden horse as a gift and then leap out of night.
I'm telling you, you got to see this on IMAX. It's incredible.
The point is, these people call themselves conservatives, but they're actually kind of radical.
They want to change the way we've understood citizenship for nearly 200 years.
So we're now wasting the Supreme Court's valuable time on birthright citizenship
when they could be doing better things like going on a billionaire-funded Gulf Junkett.
The tragedy of this is that we're rehashing questions that were already answered,
looking backwards when we should be looking forwards because we have more important questions to answer today.
Like how do we speed up the naturalization process?
How do we help people seeking asylum?
And most importantly, how do we get tickets to see The Odyssey
opening this Friday in a theater near you?
But hey, that's just my opinion.
Molly Shannon will be joining the show.
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My daily show, my guest tonight is a comedy legend, an Emmy nominated actor who stars in the new Netflix series, The Hawk.
Please welcome, Miley Shannon.
Your dick in two on a brioche bun.
Oh, my God. Word for word, that's what they wrote for me, because people ask me if I improvise, and I was like, nope.
Not that one.
Will Ferrell and his team of writers, that is exactly what they wrote.
And it was fun to perform.
Also, what an honor for them to write those words
knowing you're going to be excited to say those words.
I know, exactly.
The Hawk, you know, you play a very mean wife.
Yes.
I've only known you for 35 seconds,
but you seem and you have a reputation of being a nice person.
How are you able to play mean so well?
Do you hate Will that much?
I know.
That's so funny.
Well, when Will asked me to do it, I was on the phone.
He goes, Molly, can you play my wife in this TV show?
And you have to yell at me.
And I said, yes, of course, because it's Will Ferrell.
Like, of course.
You just say yes.
You don't look at a script.
You say yes.
But in all honesty, I was like, really, you think I'm right for that?
And it requires real acting ability because Will and I are so close in real life
that we are thick as thieves.
We've been friends for 30 years.
We're such good buddies.
and so it's hard.
What's the key to you guys being good teammates together?
Because, I mean, I remember watching you together in SNL.
Yeah.
And this whole series, is it that you support each other?
How do you do that?
Exactly.
We really support one another.
We knew one another years ago when we were first starting on in comedy,
doing, you know, little gigs at comedy club sketches.
And, yeah, he came into my restaurant.
I waited on him.
We met through a mutual friend.
So we were working with him.
working at a coffee shop?
I worked at a coffee shop.
And was Will a famous actor yet?
No, he was just doing the Groundlings Comedy School.
And I worked across the street at Melonrose baking company.
And a friend said, I really think you're going to like this guy, Will.
And I go, yeah, bring him over to my restaurant.
And he came in.
It's funny when I go to coffee shops in LA, I think, look at all these losers.
But really, I should be saying, these could be the next Molly Shannon and Will Ferrell's
hanging out here.
That's so funny.
You write about a lot in your book, which, man, I love your memoir.
You're so open and honest.
There's so many funny stories.
So many of your characters have this physical toughness attribute.
Interesting.
Right?
Even that clip, you're going like this.
I love.
Mary Catherine Gallagher, I mean, she's constantly
Yeah, yeah.
It's hard not to just do superstar when I see you.
Yeah, oh, good.
I love that.
Do you approach a character wanting to use your body
in a physical way?
I think it was like,
oh, I love that.
Do I approach it wanting to use
body. No, I don't really think about that. But I do think that after our, you know, my mom
died when I was little, we were in a car accident, and I think I had a recklessness when I did
comedy where I just didn't care. I would be so wild when I did Mary Coffin Gallagher. I did it in
my stage show, and I would definitely hurt myself. My legs would bleed. I would, in the stage show,
I would climb the rafters. I would do crazy improvs. And I felt
nothing. And then I would wake up in the morning and like, oh, my God, I'm like bruised and caught.
And I kind of treated it like punk rock, but I had a recklessness because I think I, you know,
went through trauma when I was little, so I just didn't care. I thought of it, like, just,
I just didn't care. But I would say, and Sally O'Malley is kind of me imitating my dad.
It's like a character who looks kind of like she's limping, she's weak, but then she can kick.
You know, it's like she has power.
So it was basically, thank you.
Are we still able to act with that physicality?
I mean, look, my back hurts sitting here for 30 minutes.
My back hurts.
That's so funny.
Are you still able to superstar it?
Yes, I can still do it.
But I was going to say, so that character is basically because my dad had a brace on his leg
after our car accident, it's kind of like, I'm doing an impression of when I was little,
my dad couldn't walk fast, I couldn't jump on his lap because he was injured.
So I think it's like, it's a,
supposed to be kind of like, I may look weak.
I look like I'm limping, but it was like my wish for him to kick the braces off his legs.
Like, be strong.
Like, I can fuck you all.
You know what I mean?
You kind of like, sorry to swear.
Even tying this trauma from your childhood into a character years later at SNL, it's like when
we watch you, it has a therapeutic release.
I don't know if it's for you. It is for us, but they're so grounded in reality.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Is that the second most important question?
I love it. I love it. But I was going to say, to answer your question, like, when I went back for the 50th,
I thought they might want me to do Sally O'Malley because she's 50, it's 50th.
And I was like, oh, God, can I still do this? And so I definitely exercise and stretch and swim.
And I want to make sure I can still do that because it's not, it's, you know, yeah, it takes physical ability.
I'm from Michigan.
You're from Ohio.
I'm from Ohio, yeah.
I'm always rooting for all Midwest people
to make it in show business.
Oh my God, I love it.
Yeah, yeah.
The hardest I ever saw my father laugh.
Okay, I know the two times,
and I'll share with you the two times,
and you have not asked, but I'll be happy to show it.
Okay.
The second hardest he ever laughed
was when we were watching a fish called Wanda together,
and he fell off the couch laughing.
The hardest I ever saw him laugh
was when you did Jeannie Darcy,
the stand-up comic,
in the old person's home,
who has this confidence,
even though she's not really good at stand-up comedy,
and people are literally dying around her.
Dying. Dying.
I just want to share with you how much joy that.
My father's no longer with us,
but I think of him laughing like that,
and isn't that cool I get to talk to you?
You're Jeannie Darcy.
Yes.
Yes.
Cool.
Yeah.
That he loved that because that was kind of toward
the end of my run on SNL,
and I was so tired of him getting laughs all the time.
I was like, it's hard.
It's hard.
Comedy's hard.
I think Conan said it once.
He's like, do you know how exhausting it is to constantly be thinking of comedy bits or to be funny?
I'm actually a little more serious in real life.
But that character was a reaction to, I want to do a character that's like a terrible comic.
She does not get laughed.
I did it almost as a creative exercise, like a bad stand-up who's really awkward and should
not be in the field of show business.
But she keeps trying.
And so it was based on that.
And I really just did it to make Will Ferrell and John.
Jimmy Fallon laugh.
And so Scott Weanio wrote that sketch in the old age home
where people are dying.
Yes.
And she doesn't even care.
She keeps doing her act.
Yeah.
I mean, as a stand-up comic myself, I've done hard shows.
And I think, well, it can't be as bad as Jeannie Darcy.
I mean, that's, uh...
Let me ask you a question.
Do you feel...
You're not allowed to ask me a question of it.
Do you feel, Michael, like, comedy and joking is a way to...
Do you look at it as, like, wanting to bring people closer or to push people away?
Well, I think, for me,
I mean, if we're going to do this shit, let's get into it.
I'm the youngest of four.
And I truly think, even at this age,
I'm just trying to get my parents to pay attention to me.
Is that right?
Is that both of them?
Yeah, both of them.
And I think it was a busy house.
A lot was going on.
You felt loved, but there's just a lot going on, Molly.
Yeah, four kids, sure.
Yeah, and I remember, like, the very first time I ever got a laugh,
I was like, oh, this is good.
They're actually looking at me and want me to talk.
Aw, that's so sweet.
But comedy takes on a therapeutic element.
What was your first joke, though, where you got them to laugh?
Or when you were a little kid like this?
The first joke or the first joke that got them to laugh.
The first time you made them laugh and realize, like, ooh, that's good.
On stage or my family?
In your family.
Yeah.
My brother and I used to do Michael Jackson moonwalk impersonations.
And I remember seeing them be excited and laugh with us.
That was fine.
But enough about me.
That's sweet.
Do you feel the Midwest shaped you at all?
Yes.
Where you're at?
Tell me how, because I love sharing.
If there's anyone from the Midwest listening,
I wanted to know, like, you can still make it in showbiz.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a lot of funny people that come from the Midwest.
And we grew up in a double house.
We split paper towels in half.
And my dad would have a sneak into the pool
so we didn't have to pay.
He would say, say, you're under 13.
And we would, you know, and then we go to Geaga Lake,
and he would want to,
us to hop the fence and we didn't have to pay.
And so it was like, you know, snowing.
And I just feel like Midwestern, I feel like there's good values
from Ohio.
And I try to bring those in Michigan.
And I try to bring those that politeness to show business.
I think I treat Lorne Michaels.
He probably thinks of me as a very Midwestern girl.
I'm polite, you know, and grateful, I would say.
Yeah.
Even just from watching you interact, you treat everybody
with a level of respect.
To me, that seems Midwest.
Yes, yes.
And I think when people get really miserable in show business
where they're snapping or, you know, being nasty to people,
I get like they must be unhappy.
Like, you know, yeah, I don't want to be like that.
I come from knowing the value of, I started out working in restaurants.
I bused tables.
And my dad, I remember picked me up after my, you know, restaurant job.
And I was like, it's so tiring.
We have to bust these tables.
And he was like, that's how you make a dollar.
It's important for you to understand that that hard work is,
that's, you know, what it takes to make one dollar.
He was tough, you know.
I mean, you were grind, and you referenced this in the book a lot,
which I was so thankful of.
You were grinding out getting people to show up to your one woman's show.
Yeah, yeah.
And I was like, that's how a Midwesterner works.
Yes, exactly.
I love that.
And also, I think it was important, too, I was like, you know,
it doesn't matter what happens.
I'm doing what I love.
I'm doing my show.
This is very meaningful.
You know, I was working.
restaurants, but I'm passionate and I get to do that.
And I was really into creative visualization.
I would write stuff in the present as if it already existed.
Like, I'm on Saturday Night Live.
I'm making millions of people laugh.
I wrote it in a book.
I have a book that I wrote all that.
And I would buy people tickets who couldn't afford it
because I truly believe that the money would come back to me.
So I was very into like a spiritual practice with my comedy.
Yes, isn't that interesting?
And then I also love in the book, you then say,
and then after a while I realized this wasn't paying off.
so I said, fuck this, and I took a year off.
And then you got S&L!
Yes, yes.
I used to write in my tennis notebook,
I will respond well to pressure.
I like that.
You did?
But then I would double fault on match points.
Oh, my God.
You experienced such a tragedy at a young age.
You were age four.
You lost your mom, your sister, and your cousin in a car accident.
Yes.
Thank you.
You are this positive ray of light.
It feels like a lover of your life.
How did you do that?
That is so hard.
It was very hard.
How did you choose because people experience tragedy
and maybe don't do that?
Yeah.
I think it was like it gives me like,
it was very sad.
I only had my mom for four years.
But it gives you a gift of life
and appreciation of like,
oh, I'm so glad I at least had her for four years.
And it gives you a kind of resilience
where you can, I could handle the punches
and show business because I was like,
nothing will ever be as hard as that.
Like, it was just, like, such a loss.
And it informs how I am as a parent.
Like, I can't believe I'm alive in my house,
and I live far beyond the years of my mother.
And I just think, like, I think of life really, like,
this is it.
Like, you're batting up.
It's like a kind of urgency for life and time with people,
and your time is your life.
So it gives you this, like, almost gratefulness.
Does that make sense?
And I was very close to my dad.
And so...
The stories of your dad and your book are tremendous.
Thank you.
What an awesome guy who supported you in so many ways.
Yeah.
I just, I am so thankful of your memoir because you were open and vulnerable and thank you for writing that.
Thank you, thank you.
A few more things.
You've really been generous with your time.
Oh, good, good.
Your daughter just graduated from Tish.
Yes.
She wants to be an actress or?
Yes.
Okay.
Isn't that amazing?
Yes, yes.
Does she have to do the same things that you did to make it?
Has it changed?
all these years? What advice have you given her?
And does she even listen to you because your mom?
I was, and I want to say too, my son, Nolan is in college and he's an amazing surfer.
I like talking about, bragging him up with my kids.
Also, you post these awesome videos of him surfing.
I know.
Yeah, he's so good.
Yeah.
Stella, I just asked her, I talked to her on the phone right before I came on and I go,
do you, can you think of advice I give you?
And she said, yes, because it is harder now because they have to put the actors on self-tape.
they self-tape so they can cast a much wider net seeing so many more people than when I was
breaking into showbiz where we had to go in in-person.
So she said that I tell her that, look, if you know how to write, if you're an actress who knows
how to write, write because you have more power.
And then the second thing I say is, you know, just keep putting yourself out there,
trying to take it personally, because you never know what they're going to look for.
So just be yourself.
Don't feel like you have to try to be what they want.
Be yourself.
Do a good job.
You know, do what you think will be right for the part.
And then let it go because you just don't know.
It could be nothing personal.
How do you teach these kids toughness and grit?
I got a six and a three-year-old.
I want to be rich.
I want to fly first class.
I want to have a ski house.
But if I do all that, they're going to be soft.
Oh, my gosh.
You had this childhood where there's something very difficult
happened that maybe influenced you and gave you some grit.
But how do you give a kid grit?
I know.
That is so interesting.
I mean, it's all I could think about is what my dad would tell me.
So I think he definitely, you know,
I came out to LA on my own.
with my own money that I made from waitressing
and I rented a wreck and I just rented a cheap apartment.
And so I really had to go broke and, you know,
really live on very little.
So that was a good lesson because it was like, you know,
so I think that was good that he really made me learn about money on my own
because just kind of threw me out there.
But of course, if I really did need money, he would help me.
But he really did, I did try on my own with the money.
I was always bouncing checks and I didn't know that much about that.
And I remember going to the bank, and I would ask what my balance was.
I was like, what is my balance?
Am I checking out?
And I would be, look, can you see, softly?
Because it was always, like, negative, you know, bouncing checks and, you know, yeah.
I used to always pull the ATM receipts in L.A. out of the bank trash can
because you'd see these guys getting, like, this expensive car.
And then you would see they have, like, $14 in the bank, you know?
So everyone is, a lot of people were lying about how much money they were making.
Yeah.
One thing I was going to say, too, I got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame recently.
Yes, you did.
We have a picture of that.
You did superstar on the...
Oh, yeah.
You did, yeah.
I think I might post this speech on my Instagram because I spoke about all the jobs that I had
way before I ever got SNL or started getting acting jobs.
I worked in so many restaurants and dating services and hostess.
And I tell this a lot...
Gym membership.
Gym membership.
You were selling gym membership.
You're selling gym membership.
I just, I remember, you know, so if I act normal,
it's because I'm always still driving by looking,
like help wanted signs.
It feels like it was just around the corner.
I'm not kidding.
So I think that I like to share to college kids
of like, you don't have to have it all figured out right away.
It's really hard.
It takes time.
It's little baby steps.
And, you know, these little jobs, you know,
it just can take so much time.
And if you want to pursue your passion on the side, that's great.
But so I did that for years and years and years.
I did not.
I really struggled.
And I, so I do share that with college kids and they appreciate it.
And I'm going to put that on my Instagram because I talk about every job I had.
That's great.
And it's a lot of jobs in, you know, restaurants.
Also, college kids oftentimes at the commencement, they hear from a successful person.
And it feels like it went from commencement to success instead of like the 28 years of bouncing checks and working at cravings and selling blueberry muffins or whatever you were doing.
Yes, right.
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
The Hawk is fantastic.
You're so great in it.
Thank you.
It's a great show.
Yeah, it is a great show.
I think you're just so funny and so wonderful.
Thank you for spending time with us today and talking with me.
The quick break, we're right back after this.
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Hey, Ontario.
Come on down to BetMGM Casino and see what our newest exclusive the Price's Right Fortune Pick has to offer.
Don't miss out.
Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show only at BetMGM.
Check out how we've reimagined
three of the show's iconic games,
like Plinko, Clifhanger,
and The Big Wheel,
into fun casino game features.
Don't forget to download
the BetMGM Casino app
for exclusive access
and excitement
on the Price's Right Fortune Pick.
Pull up a seat and experience
the Price's Right Fortune Pick,
only available at BetMGM Casino.
BetMGM and GameSense
remind you to play responsibly.
19 plus to wager.
On only.
Please play responsibly.
If you have any questions
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Here it is your moment of dance.
77-year-old South Florida woman's new license plate
is the talk of her retirement home.
The woman says she went, quote, ballistic
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Z-A-55. Now, if you look at that, I'm just going to say it out loud to spell it out for the rest of you squeeze ass. That's what it seems to say.
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