We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 198. Julia Louis-Dreyfus: Why We All Lie & How Honest Can We Be?

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Julia Louis-Dreyfus joins us to dive deep into: going to therapy with her 87-year-old mom, how to love adult kids well, the metaphor that got her through breast cancer, and why we should all be excited about getting older.  About Julia:  Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of Hollywood’s most influential, iconic actors and producers. She starred in and executive produced HBO’s hit series Veep, she was Elaine Benes in Seinfeld and Christine Campbell in The New Adventures of Old Christine. She has received 11 Emmys with 26 nominations; she broke records for the most Emmys won. She was recently honored with the White House’s National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists who advance the arts in the United States.   On April 11, she released her new podcast, “Wiser Than Me,” a 10-part series of candid, witty conversations with women over 70. And her fantastic new film You Hurt My Feelings is being released in May.   TW: @OfficialJLD IG: @officialjld

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. I'm just going to jump right into this. We have a treat and a half for you today. Because today joining us on the pod is Julia Louis Dreyfus. We all know her as one of Hollywood's most influential, iconic actors and producers. She starred in executive produced HBO's hit series Veep. She was Elaine Benis in Seinfeld and Christine Campbell in the The New Adventures of Old Christine, she has won 11 Emmys with 26 nominations, breaking records for the most Emmys ever won. She was recently honored with the White House's National Medal of Arts. That was so beautiful to see. The highest award given to artists who advance the arts in the United States.

Good job advancing the arts. Thank you. That was my intention. Yes. Yes. Yeah, and it's so hard to tell who's advancing it, so it's good to know. So thank you. Thank you.

She just released her new podcast, Wiser Than Me, a 10-part series of candid, witty conversations with women over 70. I cannot wait for this. It's so good. We got to listen to two secret episodes. Yes, we did. And her fantastic new film, You Hurt My Feelings, which I just, we're going to talk about that later because now I'm rethinking the ways that I parent.

And it's just really done a number on me to tell you the damn truth, is being released in May. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me and for that lovely introduction. Thank you so much. What a treat to be on your groovy, fabulous, successful podcast. Okay, so our new t-shirts that we're going to wear around the house are going to say, groovy and successful.

That is a good thing for a t-shirt. Groovy and successful? Because you can be successful and decide. Not groovy. Most people who are groovy. Decidedly not successful. It's a good cocktail. I just don't know if Glennon or Amanda are groovy.

We're not. We're not grivy at all. We're ungroovy. We don't have a groove to be found. Speaking of, I would love to talk to you about women and being funny. Because I'm funny. You are. I am not Julia Louis Dreyfus.

funny, but I am funny enough to have it be one of my favorite things about myself. And I didn't know that being funny was something powerful about me until I went to college when I was in like a total immersion program with these dozen other hilarious women. And before that, I had kind of thought my job was to be most attractive when I was adaptable. and kind of letting other people shine. And I've heard you say that going to an all-girls school was really wonderful for you because you could be outspoken and a joker. And I just wondered, what is it about the power of women being funny and about being

with all women that allows folks to unlock that? Do you think that that's true? Well, it was true for me to a certain extent. I did go to an all-girl school from third to twelfth grade. And actually, full disclosure, it was a very conservative school. But there is something about the all-female experience, certainly in terms of being in junior high and high school and being with only women that affords a kind of assertiveness and directness.

It helps engender that in a way that I think would, speaking for myself, would not have been the case if boys were there. I would have demurred to boys in an effort to stupidly get the boys. And I was, when I was in high school and stuff, I was involved with student council and I was president of this class and I did all of these things. I'm pretty sure I would not have gone for that if it had been in a co-ed. situation. By the way, this was the 70s too. So a different time. I also very much, I think, to a certain extent, push back against the system there. Certainly towards my junior and senior year, I was a tad rebellious, sort of against the conservative infrastructure of the school. And I don't know. I think that all served me well moving forward and going to college. And do you think funniness is

a way of asserting yourself. Why aren't we funny when we're young around boys? Well, I mean, I certainly hope that we are. And I certainly hope young women are if that's how they're built. You know, not everybody has to be hilarious or anything like that. But I do believe it's a powerful way to communicate. And I think there are certain boys that can be threatened by that. Not necessarily the boys you might want to hang with. But I do think that there is a, a powerfulness to that that can be threatening. It isn't always, but it can be anyway. In my experience, I have found that a lot of men have been jealous. I used to play soccer. So I am respected in a way that I think probably a lot of funny women are are in some ways respected

by men and then hated by the men who also aren't funny. Right? Because that's a standard in our culture that little boys and men, that's like something that they want to be. Yeah, they want to be funny. Oh, interesting. It's a way of taking control of a situation too, don't you think? Yeah. Yeah, it's like the opposite if the ideal little girl way is to be unassuming. To be funny assumes a lot.

You're like, I am assuming that the eyes should come to me. I'm assuming I have something to say. I'm assuming it might go well. It's such a risk, too. It is. It's always a risk, yeah. I mean, it's always a risk to put yourself out there. But it is definitely a strong way of communicating. Speaking of risks, when your mother was 60, she wrote you a letter and she was talking about some things that happened in your family and she said, I wish that we could talk about what happened. And you called her and said, what's stopping us? And that's how you started therapy with your mom. mom when she was 60? No, not when she was 60, when I was 60. When you were 60. Yes. Okay, so that's how you started therapy with your mom when you were 60. When I was 60 and she was 87. Get out of here.

That is awesome. Swear to God. Yeah, she wrote me, it was around the time of my parents were divorced and I really had no memory of them together as parents. They were very separate. and everybody was doing the best they could, but there's stuff there that had not been unpacked. And so it was around the time, I believe, of my dad's birthday. He's passed, by the way. And my mom wrote me something like, I know it's, this is your dad's birthday and he's on my mind. And there's a lot that, I wish we had been able to talk about certain things. And then I said to her, well, what's keeping us from doing this? And so we did it. And it was really a wonderful experience, hard, hard. But also, ultimately very gratifying and I feel blessed to have been able to have done that with her.

Wow. Did you have confidence when you said that? Because I'm just astounded there's all of these unwritten rules in families about what we talk about and what we don't talk about. And in this case, it was a written rule. Like, sorry we can't talk about this. Were you surprised when she was able to go there with you and agree to go to therapy? No, I wasn't surprised.

I think looking back on this, I was surprised this hadn't come up earlier. My mom is a very thoughtful person and is certainly doing what a lot of what Jane Fonda talks about, actually. I know you guys have spoken with her and she's talking about, you know, the three acts of life and doing a life review. And my mother is very much of that, of the same mind. So I was sort of surprised It was like, oh my God, why haven't we done this before? I'm 47 and I have so many friends who are now looking back on their childhood I always talk about this New Yorker cartoon that I can't stop thinking about.

It's like this guy who's probably like 70 and he's laying on the couch. He's in therapy and he says, I had a really hard childhood, especially lately. And it's like this idea that you wake up and you're like, wait a minute. That wasn't normal. But most people, when they start to bring it up to their parents, there is this no thank you, like a fragility of I can't look back on that because I did the best I could and we cannot judge it up. And because parents are desperate to believe that they were good parents. And they think that their kids are saying you weren't good parents.

Was there some of that in therapy? Like how did it go? She talked about the lens through which she looked at life back then when I was young growing up. And I did the same, trying to fully understand our respective points of view of our life together in a way that maybe really hadn't been discussed in great detail. And I know what you mean about, I mean, I'm a mother. I really, if I do anything in my life, I want to. have mothered my children in a way that it was nurturing. However, having said that, nothing's perfect.

You are going to fuck up as a parent under all circumstances. That's life, man. And coming to terms with that, and I just hope, and I don't, I'm not implying my mother fucked up, but what I'm saying is as a mom, you want to do the right thing, you know, You really do. I just think it's beautiful to normalize the idea of the review, of the actually being open to later with your adult children saying, you tell me your perspective, I'll tell you my perspective. Yes. It's a really beautiful.

We should see more of that couples therapy. Yes. Absolutely. It's not just married people that should go into couples therapy. It's, you know, siblings. It's a great resource if one has access to it. And I also think that as a working mother, because I was really working when I gave birth to both of my kids. And I mean, I just worked my whole life.

So I really had a career in addition to being a mom. And that was always a struggle for me. And I think that like if I were to talk to my kids about that, I think honestly I would be in fear of them saying, you weren't there enough for me or something, you know, because it was this balancing act that was just, completely impossible to tell you the truth. There was no, it was just impossible. It's impossible. It's impossible. If you're a business owner who knows nothing about AI and feels really out of the loop, you're not alone. In today's data-driven world, you really need to understand your customers.

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NetSuite.com slash hard things. It's a new year and instead of trying to reinvent myself, I've been asking a simpler question. What would actually support me right now? And honestly, a big part of that answer is my home. I want my space to feel calmer, more functional, and a little more like a place that can reflect my goals and energy for this year, which is why I've been turning to Wayfair. It's truly a one-stop shop for everything your home needs this season. What surprised me most was how easy it was to find exactly what I wanted in my style and within my budget, whether you're organizing kids' rooms,

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He didn't read me a bad review, but he himself, he was not impressed with my performance. Oh, he gave you a bad review. He gave you a bad review. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, looking back on it, I'm sure he was right. but it wasn't delivered kindly or thoughtfully. And also he was right. So there you go.

First of all, do you have that? Is that a voice in your head? Like that voice telling you that you weren't good enough? Is that a voice that gets stuck in your head? And is that the voice you're speaking back to you all the time? The voice in my head, there's a thing, a sort of a self-loathing thing that can overcome me. If I don't like something that I've done, I can't let it go. It takes me days to relax about it.

And that's not a good feeling. Right, right. Can you talk to us a little bit about your dad and what it was like to be loved by him and get to the place where you were accepting him for who he was? Totally. He was a wonderful man in so many ways, very successful. businessman, but really he was a poet. He wrote a lot of poetry. He was published. And he was incredibly charismatic, very funny. He was a big liberal Democrat. He was on Nixon's

Enemies list. He was very proud about that fact. In fact, the article in which he's listed as being on Nixon's enemies list was framed and hanging in his office. That's amazing. Yeah. And I am now the proud owner of that artifact from his life. That's beautiful. It is beautiful. And he was highly intelligent, a real intellectual guy and also very, very much, yeah, a narcissist. Everything was very much about him. But the thing is, is that he was super interesting. Yeah, passive. And his opinions were meaningful. They were informed and like I said, he was hyper-intelligent.

But he was also, you know, sort of not available in a lot of ways emotionally. But I reconciled that, I think, at the end of his life. Just by being with him and understanding his limitations, he had a very, very, very unhappy childhood, really, I think, borderline abusive and if not abusive. And so he had a lot of stuff in his life that was unresolved. And the more that I understood that about him and what his limitations were, the more I was able to, is forgive the right word, relax. Relax. I'll take that.

That's right. That's good. Just relax about it. Yeah. I love that you just use that word because it's the same word that you used when you were talking about how it's. it takes you a couple of days of self-loathing to relax. It's interesting. Guys, I sound crazy on this show.

Are you freaking kidding? Welcome. We're all crazy on this show. We're going to take a left turn. I want to talk about your son, Charlie, because he played basketball, your alma mater, Northwestern, which is very cool. You sure did. That's no joke.

It's D1. That's like the real deal. I betcha. Yeah, I can imagine you have set on a lot of. of sidelines watching him play throughout his life. And, you know, parents on the sidelines should be a comedy sketch all on its own. Did you experience that? What were you like on the sidelines?

Yes, I did experience that. And I would like to say that I was well-behaved. Wow. You would like to say that or you can say that. I can say that. Nice. Good job. But that does mean I didn't scream a lot.

It was so. much fun to go to his games. Oh my God. And he went to the tournament. His sophomore year, they went to the tournament. Yeah. And they didn't get past the second round, but they did get past the first round. And it was just totally thrilling. I've never been so terrified. I was so nervous. I can't sit next to my husband watching a game. That's the only thing that I could not do. Why? I don't know. Every, I can't describe it. I need. needed space to have my own anxiety about the game that wasn't connected to his anxiety about the game. But I really just loved every second of it. It was such a great experience. How old are they now?

How old are your kids? 25 and 30. Oh my God. Okay. So we're right behind you. We have 2017 and 15. Oh, wow. What is it like to have a 25-year-old and a 30-year-old? What's happening? now. Well, it's pretty interesting. Okay, so your 20-year-old is not at home anymore. No, he's in college. Sophomar in college. Wow. So that transition when each boy went to college was ginormous for me. I was gutted by that. And I think that's because raising them, I never thought about them leaving. You know, there was kind of a denial there. I was just said, oh, yeah, my boys, you know, if they're here, it never occurred to me that they were going to go. And then when they left to go to college, that was a monster transition, like monster transition. But the really nice thing is that

once I got over the grief of that, and I was pretty grief-stricken, then all of a sudden, a new thing emerges, which is they're young adult men, and there's a whole new way to be together now, which is incredibly exciting. And I'm just so pleased to see them operating as adults. And I'm so interested in their point of view. Not that I wasn't before, but I'm learning from them. It's just, I love it. Unfortunately for me, both of my boys live in California.

And so we see them frequently, thank God. But I don't know. I think being a mom of adult kids is more fun than I had ever considered. it would be. Yeah. So you're in for a lot of fun. You are for real. It feels like when they go and come back, because I'm having a little bit of that with the 20-year-old. When you say their points of view, it's like you suddenly see them separate from yourself. I feel like I'm like Geppetto. Like I was making him the whole time. And then suddenly he came to life at 20. And I'm like, whoa, you walk, walking and doing things and talking. You're a real boy. You're a real boy.

That's it. Yes. Right. Exactly. Isn't that wild? It's so wild. It's so wild and wonderful. It really is. So another question I have, I think it's really hard to be young. And when we're growing up, we believe that we know everything. But in reality, we don't. We know nothing. We know no things. We're just like trying, failing. And your new podcast, wiser than me invites us to conversations with women who are older than you. And what are some things that you've learned from them? What are the joys that you can tell us about getting older? What inspired me to do to even embark on this thing was I saw that HBO documentary Jane Fonda. Yeah. It's so spectacular.

So good. Right. And she's had such a remarkable and varied life, right? She had like six of them. I mean. And so, and I, after I watched that, and I was pretty sort of stunned by how remarkable she is and the life she's led has been, I thought, why are we not hearing from older women? What's happening? And the more I thought about it, I really do believe that older women are this demographic, as it, sort of an untapped natural resource that we have as a call.

culture. And certainly as a woman, I really do want to hear from these women about their life experience. What can you teach me? What can I glean from your life? What tips can you send back to us from the front lines of life, which is where they are? So that was sort of the notion for it. I also spoke with Isabella Ianda. I don't know if you guys ever had a chance to do that. We have a time time. She is so extraordinary. And the way she was talking about 80, and how pleased she was to be 80 and to be living the life she's currently living, it made me want to turn 80.

I was like, oh my God, I cannot wait to turn 80. She made it so appealing. And in fact, we didn't even start talking about her writing, you know, because she's this extraordinary writer. We didn't even get into her writing until like an hour into the conversation, which may speak to what, a terrible pocket.

And I'll own that if that's the case. But she was like, she was a journalist and she didn't write her first book until she was 40 years old. These are the stories we need. These are the stories we need. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, the pressure to have figured it out in your 20s.

The 20s are so fucking hard. The worst. I mean, the worst. They are the worst. The absolute worst. made worse by the fact that everyone's telling you they should be the best. Yeah. The worst best years of your life.

Yeah. You're so young. It's all vibrant. You're fabulous. No. And same for 30s to a certain extent. Anyway, the fact that she really embarked on this in her 40s was just totally remarkable to me.

Every single conversation was, and I guess this is probably your experience too during your podcast. But, you know, it got intimate. It got personal. And I like the way that women talk to each other. You know, I like that. I like the experience of speaking with experienced older women. Yes.

You know, I could do that for the rest of my life. Oh. We hope that you do. It is missing from the world. And we don't have any first person accounts. Right. From that. We only have these caricatures of what, like,

an old lady is like from... Right, and like the word old lady, it sort of sounds pejorative. Yes, exactly. But an old man, a wise man, that trope is in place, but not so much for the women. And so we're trying to sort of stick a pin in that.

And Diane von Furstenberg said, I asked her how old she was, and she said to me, you shouldn't ask people how old they are, you should ask them how long they've lived, which I thought was a different lens through which to think about age and aging. So I hope people dig it.

I had fun making it. I'm still making it. It's a lot of work. Yeah. It's been fun. Yeah. Do you guys find it's a lot of work to do this podcast? Yes.

Yeah. It's like the actual conversations. If we could just do that, that would be the most fun. It's just the like getting ready for the conversation. Yeah. You want to get people and you want to be like, what makes them light up and what's the things that I want to talk about. I know.

It's a lot of work and also the best work. Yeah. Getting out of my own head and soaking myself in somebody else's world for a week. It's wonderful, actually. It's wonderful. And I'm a writer, so I'm used to being alone all the time. And so to be able to do something with other people feels like I'm cheating or something. It feels so much less lonely.

And we're all family, the three of us. So it's a good gig. It's nice. It's a good gig. That's nice. This time of year, I am always looking for my sweaters. Luckily, Quince has all of the staple sweaters covered from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts

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That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash hard things to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash hard things. This show is brought to you by Alma. When I first tried to find a therapist, it felt like a scavenger hunt with no map, pages of names, long wait lists, voicemails that never got returned. I remember thinking, if this is what it takes just to talk to someone, no wonder people give up. So when I found Alma, it felt like someone finally turned the lights on. Alma, ALMA, is this beautifully simple way to find licensed in-network therapists without all the runaround. You can browse

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but I had won an Emmy. It was actually, in retrospect, it was the last Emmy that I won for Veep. Oh, Yes, it was the one that broke the record. Yes. And then the following morning, I got confirmation that I had breast cancer. So talk about the ying and yang of it all, right? It's just amazing. I've heard you talk about your journey with breast cancer and you liken it to this story of when you were snorkeling with your husband and he called you back to the boat. Yeah. I have thought about that story one thousand times since I heard it. Would you be willing to tell us that story?

Sure. My husband and I went on a trip back when we were in our 30s, actually, and we were on the this boat and we were doing this really cool stuff on this sailboat and swimming with dolphins and doing research. It was a really neat trip. Anyway, I was in the water. My husband was on the boat. And I was pretty far from the boat, just sort of swimming around, paddling around. And we're out in the open water. And he comes to the bow and he says, yells, has me, Jules, I don't want you to panic, but there's a shark in the water and you need to come back to the boat. And you need to come back to the boat. That was not my reaction, Abby. That's the nightmare of the world. That's the nightmare of

the world. That's right. And so what I did was I didn't look in the water. I didn't look down. I didn't look around me. I just started to swim towards the boat. And I saw the ladder at the end of the boat and I kept my eye on the ladder and I just focused on the ladder. It took so much personal what's the word? Hutzpah. Grit. The determination. Grit. Just all your being. And I kept my mind on that ladder and I'm getting to the ladder. And that is what I'm about. And that's the only thing I'm thinking about is that I'm getting to the ladder. And I got to the ladder. And I likened that to my journey with cancer because I just wanted to get to the ladder. And it was a bit of a wicked swim to get there, but I got there. In fact, my son had a teacher when he was in fourth grade.

And it was the year that they were sort of giving them sort of longer term assignments and papers that were, you know, a little bit extended. And she used to talk to the kids about doing their work in manageable parts. And it's sort of the same idea, just breaking it down bit by bit and tackling it one stroke in the water at a time or one chemotherapy session at a time and just ticking it off and keeping your eyes on the prize. Everything else fell away for me during that period of time except sort of getting better. It's an elite athlete's. It's. An elite athlete's mindset. It's compartmentalizing and becoming really hyper-focused on what is important. And so when you had, yeah, when you have your life, obviously, at risk, it's really something to

hear you talk about that because the amount of times, though my life wasn't in danger, I can vividly remember complete focus, everything else falls away. It's funny. You're thinking that's an elite mind. And I was thinking that's an alcoholic thing. So I was thinking about sobriety, just like the next right thing. The latter is just like one more day of sobriety. Oh, interesting. And I also think that mindset, you know, can be applied to work. Not that work is scary, but for me, when things are, you know, all the engine is really

running work-wise, all pistons firing is sort of the same thing. Everything falls away. Like everything else shuts down and it's a laser photo. And for me, that actually from a work point of view is like, those are my most joyful moments, which is funny. It's a mindset. It's a tool. It's a something that has been applied a lot in my life. Because it's not just what you're doing. It's what you're not doing. Because in that instance, it was a 10-foot bull shark that was in the water. Yes, it was. If in the other instance, it was a terrifying breast cancer.

I mean, if you were to decide to look away from the ladder in either of those instances, that's tempting, right? You want to know where the shark is. You want to Google the cancer stuff and, like, to do that, that's just feeding the thing you can't control, right? The only thing you can control is your movement and your focus. Yeah. The only thing you can control is getting to the ladder.

That's what you can control. That's exactly right. Yeah. Is there also, because you said what you're not doing, sister, it made me think, is there something about those moments where we also just don't do bullshit things? Like what doesn't matter is gone. I have a dear friend who just went through losing her mother and it was an harrowing time. And she's finding that after more harrowing in a different way because at least during that time,

she knew exactly who she was and she knew exactly what she was. supposed to be doing and every single morning she woke up and there wasn't anywhere else that she would be. That's right. Yeah, exactly. And it's like giving birth in that sense. You know, everything else falls away. It's funny how life gives us these opportunities to exercise that kind of focus. Interesting. Speaking of what you've learned about that time, I don't want to do the kind of silver lining bullshit that people do, but I have a dear friend who is going through, cancer right now and she's fighting really, really hard. And I swear to you that when I am in her presence, I have a distinct feeling of this woman knows something that the rest of us don't know,

that she just has access to a different way of seeing the world because of what she's going through. But do you know something now that you didn't know before having walked through and fought through what you did? Yeah, I will answer that in this way. So normally, I was in production at the time that I was diagnosed on VEP. So we had to shut down. And normally, I would never, ever have talked about this publicly. This would have just been my thing and I would have done it and whatever. No one would have known in the public. But because I had, you know, 250, people working on the show, et cetera, et cetera, I had to make it public.

And the benefit of that was that, first of all, it gave me an opportunity to talk about health care and people's access to health care and to highlight how lucky I was to be a member of a union and to be provided with health care through my union and how unthinkable it was to me and is to me that anybody who would be diagnosed in this situation would not be covered is like mind-blown, right? So there was that. But the other thing that happened is that certain people started reaching out to me. First, I started reaching out to others. I have a couple of friends who had cancer and who spoke with me very honestly about. their experience and, you know, talk about wiser than me, giving me a lot of encouragement

and advice as to how to manage this and what to expect. And then I had the experience of being able to do that for others. So I met some people post my, or even during my cancer treatment or just after my cancer treatment, that I could help them get through their cancer treatment. And I have to say something. I mean, I know it sounds kind of polyana-ish, but it was incredibly comforting for me to do that, to be able to provide help and encouragement and comfort to somebody who was going through what I had just gone through. I found that for myself to be very nurturing.

And I still do. And I will say that, you know, having a brush with something as scary as a cancer diagnosis you know, again, at the risk of sounding sort of like you've heard it before, but we're not here forever. And I don't take my mortality for granted. I'm aware of it. And in a way that's good, I think. Yeah. This show is sponsored by Midi Health. Parymenopause and menopause aren't. personality flaws or phases. They're medical transitions.

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So we watched your new movie last week. We settled into the bed and I thought this is going to be a light romp. This is going to be, we're going to giggle and laugh. I don't, I just need what you need to know about me. We did. We giggled and laughed a few times. But, so I am a mother memoirist, okay? I am inseparable from my sister.

I am obsessed a little bit unhealthily with my 20-year-old writer. son who sends me his stuff. Pod Squad, what I'm explaining to you right now is the fucking plot of this movie. Okay. This person in this movie also has a voice inside of her head that maybe tells her that she's not good enough. So she's constantly do-goating and trying to write better and better things so that the world will tell her she's.

And then she's trying to undo the voice in her head from her father with her partner, getting her partner's approval. And then she at some points figures out that while she's desperate for her husband to tell her the truth. We don't want to give this whole thing away? She maybe is not. No, it's all right. Okay. Okay.

I just want to make sure. That maybe she hasn't been telling the truth. I'm just talking about me. Yeah. That maybe she has been. Is it Glennon's plot? Is it your plot? One can't know.

Been totally telling the truth to her son. I actually didn't know which part of this to ask you about. But one time my friend Jen said to me, Glennon, my whole life, my parents have been telling me that I am excellent. And it took me my 20s, 30s, and 40s to finally understand that I am medium. Can we just talk about one string of the movie, which seems to be that we keep telling our kids that they're amazing and excellent and the best at things? because we think that's love, and then they spend the rest of their lives. Talking about failure.

Talk about bad mothering, right? Yeah, feeling like failures when they don't quite live up to those accolades, as it were. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to give the Pod Squad an idea, because you don't understand everything that you do, this movie, your demographic is here. Those are the people that are listening to the entire.

We just talk. We just need to keep talking for the next, like, 85,000 hours. Yes. And we just keep them on board and we'll just all be one big, happy family. That's right. But the story of the movie, you hurt my feelings, is it's a very small story about some very big human emotions and human relationships. And the Nicole Hall of Center wrote and directed the film. We've worked together before. She's extraordinary, not only as a writer, but as a director and as a human being. She's a good friend. I love her desperately.

And I'm really proud of this movie that we made together. And I'm so happy to be in it. But the notion that her husband has not been telling her, my character of Beth, and her husband, whose name is Dawn, played by Tobias Menz, my character realizes that her husband has not been telling her the truth about her writing and has been in fact lying to her about his impression of her writing. And it's like, it's like worse than having an affair. Yes. That's how gutting it is to her. And I totally get that. And we made a movie about it.

You sure did. You asked me right away, you go, do you like the way that I write? Oh, I'm so paranoid now. I'm so, I'm like, I need everyone to tell me the truth. But then I'm like, do I need everyone to tell me the truth? Because actually, it's not that he didn't tell you the truth. It's that he didn't tell you his opinion. Hmm. Because what if his opinion is not the truth?

And that does it discourages you. It's just an incredible exploration about truth and love. and, like, is unfiltered truth what we need, or is love the filter that we put on the truth? Correct. And there's lots of little lies and things throughout the movie. Yes. I think relatable little relationship lies, small, tiny little things that I think we probably all participate in. Probably.

I'm guessing. I mean, what? What am I talking about? We do. Yeah, what are you? Probably. You guys are all liars. You're all liars.

What's the last lie you do? told. I lie all the time, I think. I mean, I don't even know. Oh, my gosh. It's really beautiful. I mean, there's a scene. I'm glad.

Thank you. Where you just are trying to protect your son from something and you actually climb on top of him to cover him. And I was like, that's it. That's my parenting strategy. That's what I've been doing. Yeah, that's mine too. That's mine too. Yeah.

Oh, God, it was so good. It was so good. I really loved it. And I've never seen a piece of art exploring that. Like, how much do we tell each other the truth? And you did it. It's beautiful. Thanks, Glenn.

And I appreciate it. Did Nicole, did she know you very well? And did she write it, like, about you? Because, like, the stuff with the dad and then... No, no. I mean, Nicole and I, yes, we worked together many years ago. we did a film with James Gandalfini called Enough Said. And we've been friends ever since.

So, yes, she knows me very well. I know her very well. But this was completely out of her brain. Wow. And she's a writer. And she could relate. And she told me this premise a couple of years back now. She said, what do you think of this premise?

And I was like, oh, I love it. The premise being finding out you're the most significant person. in your life doesn't like what you do. Oh. It's just that is a gutting premise. And I was like, oh, yeah, let's do it. So I think she did write it with me and mine, but this was maybe more about her personal experience than mine, I think.

And your adult sons, if they wrote something, how would you approach that? Like, if they gave me something. They do. They go to you for feedback. So how do you give them feedback? Like, how do you approach love and truth with your family? Geez, how do I answer that question? Probably lie about it if I were you.

Yeah. It's a cinch, Glennon. It's so easy. You just climb on top of them. I love everything, everybody does all the time. That's great. It's perfect. Great.

And then they go out into the world and just get eaten alive. Eaten a lot. But the other thing, too, is that when there are people that you love and you want to love what they've done, that can be the kind of fuel for understanding their work. And in a way, that can sometimes be bad because you have expectations going in. You want it to be great. If it's not quite what you thought it was, then how disappointed are you because you were expecting, you know, it's so complicated. It's so complicated. Relationships are complicated.

We're all a mess. Can I just say it? Oh, yes. Thank God. You guys are a mess. I'm a mess. Thank God. That's really the headline here.

But we are all incredibly fucked. Actually, that's the T-shirt. Yeah. Fuck the gruelly thing. Don't give up, but we are all incredibly fucked. And incredibly fun. Yes. That's the T-shirt.

Yeah. You're talking about people who love your work and partnerships. And you and your husband, I'm obsessed with y'all. I mean, 36 years married. It's amazing. You are each other's champions. We just had the honor of interviewing Michelle Obama. And she was talking about how despite about 10 years there where she couldn't stand her husband,

she's really grateful to have made it through to a long marriage. What is the unique gift of a long ride with somebody? What do you find at 36 years that you couldn't have found otherwise? Oh, man, we've been through it. I mean, what can I tell you? We have been through so much life arm in arm. And that is just magnificent. I mean, warts and all, by the way, really.

difficult stuff, really joyful stuff. But we've been partners. And there's something about now having that history together. I mean, I'm almost embarrassed we've been married that long. I want to say like, oh, we've been married. You know, we've been married 15 years and that feels, you know, but 36, and she's like, oh, my God. So how about how long has your marriage lived? Yes, how long is your My marriage has lived for 36 years and, or soon to be 36 years. And, you know, I found the right guy. I could have fucked up because we got married. I was young.

He was young. And I could have picked the wrong guy, but I didn't. So that's good. I had a good instinct there. I had pretty good instincts. Yeah, you do. I'd say it's worked out all right for you. Yeah.

We'll see. I don't know. You got potential. You got potential. Thanks, guys. Just thanks for you. Thank you, guys. It was really, really nice to talk to you.

And I was a delight to have this conversation. I feel like there's so much more we could be unpacking, but I don't know what it is at this point. Well, you let us know. I mean, we'll unpack for you all day. And I just want to say, because I was a big Seinfeld watcher, and to see a woman in so many of those male-dominated spaces on that show was a big deal. And for you to carry scenes, like, that was big for me to be watching when I was a kid. And I just want to say, I know that you have had to go through so much bullshit. Being a successful woman, I just wanted to say, thank you.

You walked a path for us. And it just means the world to us. Thanks. That's so nice of you to say, Abby, I really appreciate it. And I was lucky to play that role. And it was unusual for its time. There's no doubt about it. Yeah, yeah.

It's really, but I appreciate that so much. Yeah. Thank you very, very much. Thank you. Julia Louis Dreyfus, unusual for her time. Thank you, Pod Squad. We'll see you next time. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us.

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