Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Julia Gets Wise with Sally Field

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

On the premiere episode of Season 2 of Wiser Than Me, Julia connects with the one-and-only Sally Field. With a spectacular film career spanning over six decades, Sally – now 77 years old – candidly discusses the introspection that comes with aging, shyness, and playing characters who are taking back their power. Plus, Julia asks her 90-year-old mom, Judy, when she feels most confident.    Follow Wiser Than Me on Instagram and TikTok @wiserthanme and on Facebook at facebook.com/wiserthanmepodcast.   Find out more about other shows on our network at @lemonadamedia on all social platforms.   Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium.    Maker’s Mark is a proud sponsor of Wiser Than Me. Celebrate the wise women in your life by creating a custom, personalized label from artist Gayle Kabaker today at www.makersmark.com/personalize.   Hairstory is a proud sponsor of Wiser Than Me. Check out their hero product, New Wash, today at www.Hairstory.com and get 20% off with code WISER.   This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/wiser for 10% off your first month.   COVERGIRL is a proud sponsor of Wiser Than Me. Check out their Simply Ageless Skin Perfector Essence. Learn more at covergirl.com. Only from Easy, Breezy, Beautiful COVERGIRL.   For exclusive discount codes and more information about our sponsors, visit https://lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/.    For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonade. When I look back on playing Elaine on Seinfeld, Elaine Marie-Bennis, I don't really analyze the character or my performance very much. I just think of how much fun we had doing it. The laughs that we had together. I mean, if you watch any of the blooper reels, you're going to get a sense of it. Just how lucky I am to have been part of something like that. Actually, there's a lot of luck in the story of even getting Seinfeld on the air and of me getting to be in it.

See, they made a Seinfeld pilot before I was cast, before there was even an Elaine character in the script. It was called the Seinfeld Chronicles back then, and the pilot famously tested very badly, and NBC was gonna just drop the whole thing. But Rick Ludwin, a really, really sweet guy who was the head of specials and late night at NBC, talked the network into making four episodes using money from his specials budget.

But NBC insisted that they add a regular female character. I'm sure they said, you know, add a girl. And that's why Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David wrote the character of Elaine. I had met Larry at Saturday Night Live and we bonded because he was miserable there and I was miserable there. And so we were happily miserable together. We really did get along and we became good friends in New York. So when they added Elaine to these four scripts that they are writing, he sent two of them to me.

I think that, I think people forget how different television was back then. The sitcom filmed in front of a live audience was the most popular thing going. Most of the top 10 TV shows were sitcoms. I mean, they weren't all shitty though. I mean, Cheers was on back then. But there was a pattern. They were all basically set up punchline shows, set up, set up punchline, which is great if the jokes are great. But they were all pretty much variations on that theme. And the roles for women were mostly exactly what you think they were, just crap. And then I read these first two Seinfeld scripts that Larry sent over, and my God, it was so completely different from everything that had come before or was on at that time.

It's kind of hard to even explain. I loved the scripts and I was insane for the whole idea of the show and I had an instinct. That's what it was. It wasn't a conscious, well-thought-through thing, but an instinct that I could play Elaine like as a real person with real problems and faults and that it wasn't going to be a sort of a sitcom girl part at all. So, anyway, I met with Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. It wasn't really like an audition even.

We just sort of shot the shit and made each other laugh. I remember Jerry was eating cereal. I don't think I'd ever met Jerry before. I was even that familiar with his act, but it went really well. So well, in fact, that a couple of days later, we start to make those first four shows, which if you watch them now, they're a little rough. You know, the show didn't find itself immediately. We didn't really find our characters right away, but pretty quickly it gelled and it got good. And then it got popular, really popular. And, you know, Seinfeld was a glorious experience creatively

and personally, and that's what I remember when I think about the show. So, recently I stumbled onto one of my favorite episodes and I actually watched almost the whole show straight through, which I hardly ever do. It was the contest episode, which we shot in season four, which is something like 35 years ago, which I actually cannot believe that that is the case, but it is. And if you've never seen the episode, here's the basic plot. George gets caught

masturbating by his mother. And so he tells his three friends, Jerry Kramer and me, Elaine, about this. And he says he's never going to masturbate again. And we all laugh at that. And it leads to a wager, a contest to see which of us can withhold from masturbating for the longest time. So not only was this terribly funny, it was also terribly risky. In fact, you know, when we shot it, I was certain, certain that standards and practices, the network sensors, were never going to let this thing air. But they did.

And it became a very, very famous episode of the show with the line, Master of my Domain, becoming one of those lasting Seinfeld catchphrases. And it really is a fun episode. I'd forgotten so much of it. It's pretty great. And by the way, brilliantly, the word masturbation is never spoken. Never. But here's the crazy thing I started thinking about as I watched it all these

decades later. There's a very subtle, wonderful thing happening underneath the comedy here. Something new and unique. Most sitcoms of the era doing an episode like this would have made some joke, a joke like they would have had Elaine wear something revealing and then she'd look so much hotter than usual, so much so that one of the guys would make it some joke about masturbating to the thought of her and then a contest between the three guys not to masturbate thinking about her might emerge. That's a sort of crappy, racy storyline that I can see being told on about 10 sitcoms that I can think of.

But on Seinfeld, Elaine was in the contest with the other guys. She wasn't a woman, in quotes. She was just another human being with a very basic equity, the equity of sexual desire. It's a sexual subject, sure, but it's equal opportunity. It's not gender-based. It's just human.

This was absolutely groundbreaking and hysterical and wonderful. It was huge. I mean, it would still be huge, even now when masturbation jokes are a dime a dozen and female masturbation is like literally an industry, as well as a great pleasure, if you don't mind my saying so. I mean, I wasn't playing the President of the United States or a pioneer woman who saves her family or anything, but this was a real powerful young woman, not a perfect young woman at all, but a woman with agency, a woman who

knows herself, who very much is herself. Watching the episode, I was just laughing so hard at Jason and Jerry and Michael. They were all just so fucking great. But the show put a little smile on my face for another reason. I was a little proud of a very subtly progressive message about women that was woven right into the comedy, which leads me to Wiser Than Me. Doing this podcast has been a game changer for me in so many ways, and here we are, we're starting season two. So I'm looking back at the conversations I got to have last year in season

one and thinking about the themes, you know, the common threads we found that tied those women together. One major thread is this. All of these women have all struggled and fought and worked to earn the right to be themselves. And here they are, 70, 80, 90 years old, and they all say in different ways that they are now, in this late chapter of their lives, themselves at last. That is a superpower. And it's what I loved about playing Elaine. She was just able to be herself. And God damn it, isn't that what we all want?

On Wiser Than Me, talking to these inspiring, thoughtful goddesses, we've heard so many wonderful stories of women reaching deep inside of themselves to find the sustaining, deep, resonant power of self-realization, of women finding agency and strength and resilience. So how perfect, then, to begin Season 2 talking to a woman who has lived just this kind of life

and has built one of the greatest careers in cinema history, creating just this kind of powerful character, Sally Fields. ["Wiser Than Me"] Hi, I'm Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and this is Wiser Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me. Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me. Before we talk to these awesome ladies on Wiser Than Me, we do a big old serious deep

dive into their work. We read a lot of interviews and all of their books. We listen to their music. We watch them on the screen. We watch their everything. So with today's guest, I got to watch her dance on the beach as Gidget, fly around San Juan, Puerto Rico as the flying nun. The flying nun, Jesus Christ. Try pitching that

series today. And then I got to see her transition from TV to movies, a feat so few women pulled off back then and make these crazy 70s action comedies like Hooper and Smokey and the Bandit. And then I watched her transition again into the Oscar-winning star of Places in the Heart and Norma Rae. And I get a lump in my throat just thinking of her standing on that table in that textile factory holding the sign that she's made that says Union, one of the most recognizable moments in cinema history. These are the movies that just killed me when they came out.

There's something about her vulnerability and goodness that makes me root for her. I want her to win. But she doesn't stop there. She then goes back into comedy for Mrs. Doubtfire in Soap Dish and fuck do you have any idea how impossible it is to have that kind of range? To disappear into that many iconic roles. To be just excellent all the time. I bet she doesn't even know how many movies and TV shows she's been in, but it's a staggering number and the breadth and scope of her performances, Steel Magnolias, Lincoln, Forrest Gump, My Name is Doris,

I mean, it's cuckoo bananas. It's no surprise then that last year the Screen Actors Guild gave her their Lifetime Achievement Award. Oh, and she can write. Her autobiography in pieces. Well, I honestly, I couldn't put it down. It's a spectacular read. She has always been an advocate for mothers and women's rights and gay rights. And in fact, during her 2007 speech when when she won the best actress Emmy for her role on Brothers and Sisters, she said, if the mothers ruled the world,

there would be no goddamn words in the first place, which Fox famously cut from the broadcast, first shutting off the sound and then going to commercial until she was off of the stage. Idiots. On the screen and in life, she puts herself on the line for what she believes in. I just love her. I love her and I'm crazy about everything that she does. Yes, the great, great Sally Field is here and she is so much wiser than me.

Hello, Sally. Hello, Julia. Hello, hello. Thank you so much for being here. What a treat it is to talk to you today. Thank you. So Sally. Yeah. Are you comfortable if I ask your real age?

Yeah, I am. And what is your real age, Sally? My real age is 77. I had to think for a minute. I find that every one of the big decades are really monumental, not only in how you are physically, but who you are. I mean, how you see the world, how you see yourself. You change so much from decade to decade. And it's almost like it isn't until you really get up there in the numbers that you can look back and go, wow, that really is true. When I hit 40, when I hit 50, when I hit 60, and when I hit 70.

And so there's part of me that's going, gee, I wonder what 80 is going to be like. How old do you feel? It depends. It depends on the day. Because I want my body to be what it was when I was in my 40s and could run and do all of those things, but I can't. I have a little frame and I'm very lucky in that things that are challenging me are not the big ones, not the big ones where you just lean down and kiss your ass goodbye.

It's osteoarthritis and that I don't have any more cartilage in my body. Is that true? Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. So at first was a shoulder that I needed replacement because I couldn't lift my arm up. I was on stage and started to notice, oh my God, I can't lift my arm up to hug. And it just got worse and worse. so I had to do that one.

And then slowly now it's going to be, I need the knees and then I'm hoping that it's just knees and I can hold off on any of the others and then just be old for goodness sakes. Do you still have your hips? I have my hips. My hips are good. My hips are okay so far. I'm so happy you've had this good luck with your health and you're still working. Yeah.

So, okay, let's talk about acting, the craft. I certainly feel as an audience member watching you, when you perform, people are rooting for you, Sally, no matter what character you play, they're rooting for you. And I think that's because there's an enormous amount of vulnerability in your work. You wear your heart on your sleeve. Do you think that's why? Do you think, what would you describe that quality? If you can, I don't know if you can step outside yourself to recognize something like that, can you?

I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes I rarely look back or rarely even recognize that I've accomplished anything, because I've always felt I had to keep my head down, that you can't look up, you can never pat yourself on the back, you just have to look for the next place to land. But I guess lately or over the last few years, I go, oh, huh. Is that right? Is that me? What do you mean, when you're watching yourself? No, just when, you know, when I, like you said, the SAG awards or whatever.

Yeah. And then I have to write about myself. I have to write about when you get an award, you have to give a speech. And then I have to think, well, okay. And then it forces you to look at what you've done. I don't know, part of me always likes to think it's because people have known me so long and maybe it's my way of sort of discrediting the work and saying, ah, it's just because they're confusing craft with endurance.

No. I don't know. I studied with Lee Strasburg at the actor studio. I was lucky enough at that time when the actor studio had just started a wing of their work in Los Angeles and Lee would spend six months out of the year there. And that was right smack dab when I was doing The Flying Nun and I was so depressed because I didn't want to be doing it. And so the wonderful Madeleine Sherwood who played the mother superior took me to the

actor studio and it changed my life because I saw what I wanted. What I wanted to do is learn how to do this. Learn these tools. And I think that forever after I've spent my life exploring those tools, and those tools were always about exploring yourself. of finding how the characters' pieces interwove with your own somehow. Sure. Yeah, exactly. And it made you recognize how connected we all are. We're all these humans that you may interpret your life differently or behave differently, but you have the same feelings and drives and longings and loss and anger and rage and confusion and

sadness as everybody else. Right, exactly. And I think you're really talking about being empathetic and finding your truth in the work. And that is seen as an audience member watching you, and it's what certainly I try to do. You try to find an in to a role that speaks truth to you. I know sometimes people have said, well, if you're playing a bad guy, if you're playing a villain, you as an actor don't approach playing that role like a bad guy.

There's no judgment. You're trying to figure out how does this character who's made terrible choices come to these terrible choices? And how can I find some overlap there in my own experience? Exactly. Do you think about Lee Strasberg a lot? Is he on your mind a lot? Not him particularly, but certainly his words.

And he would say things that just stayed with me. Like what, Sally? I mean, things that you'd have to be there to understand. He would say things like, do not capitulate to the moment. Now people would go, what? What? What does that mean? Well, it means if you're saying something sad, it does not mean you necessarily need to go, because

many times saying something sad and not going with it, holding it back, is much more, do not capitulate to the moment. He also taught these things of repeating yourself in your body behavior. It was very interesting, very hard to do. If you talk very fast, you're a person that's giving this whole speech and you're talking very, very fast, very, very fast, and he said, if you're going to do that, then move very slowly at the same time. Yes.

It's extremely hard to do. Yes. You're talking about, you're always pushing against something. Watching somebody try not to cry is often much more moving than seeing somebody bawling their eyes out, right? Right, exactly. That's so interesting. By the way, In Pieces, your book, In Pieces, is a real work of art.

Congratulations. Oh my goodness. Oh my gosh. Sally, really honestly, I just, it's just beautifully written. Oh, thank you. So insightful about human behavior and so honest. Anyway, I thought it was a real work of art. You talk about, in the book, you talk about finding your voice in character and having confidence while you're performing. So when you're in between jobs, does that sort of fade away? Does your confidence,

where does that voice, the Sally Field confident voice live? In reality, I think I am more confident as an actor than I am as a human. Oh, really? Still to this day? Yeah, I think probably. And I think probably part of it comes from that I still suffer from so much social anxiety and shyness that part of me just is backed away from pushing, constantly pushing to change that and make that different. It's just who I am and when I'm working, that's all gone. Even like in between takes or on down days, you're not on set, it's gone then too. Is it because you're part of a team, do you think?

Yeah. It's because I'm in this family. You don't have to make friends with the family. They don't have to like you. You need to be there and everybody needs to do their work and everybody knows what their work is and sometimes you flub up and then you've got to get back in on the horse and do it better and so it leaves off any kind of social norms, as you well know. You go from meeting someone that you don't even know and all of a sudden you're intimate friends. There's no barrier between stranger and close friends. It's just

there's no guard gates. They're all gone. There's an intimacy, a closeness there that I don't think I've ever found anywhere else except with my children and my grandchildren. But even then, there's a different dynamic. Sure. You know, they're my children. But in work, there is a safety in the danger of it all. Yeah, I totally get it. I think also because, to your point, it's a sort of a singular focus and it requires

the intimacy that you speak of because everybody's, assuming they're worth their salt, everybody's doing that work that we discussed earlier, going to the most true, honest, authentic place to bring your best work out and you're doing that with other people. So therefore, you have to trust them and that is the intimacy I think that you're speaking of. Yeah. But I mean like with your family, with your kids, it's multi-leveled.

It's a straight up fucking relationship. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Exactly. And you know, also the other thing that, in fact, you may even speak about this in the book, I can't quite remember, but so many of the roles that you have so carefully taken in your life are about women who are trying to take back their power, you know? And I'm assuming that's something that you're aware

of, right? You know, I am, I could see that now, I could not see it at the time, but I have to honestly say it wasn't like I was sifting through five or six really good scripts and picked that one. I would be lucky that one came my way. Every single solitary year of my life, of my career was such a goddamn fucking struggle. And especially getting to work that I wanted to do. I mean, there was a few things that came my way.

Places in the heart came my way. Glory hallelujah. And, you know, and then Mrs. Doubtfire came my way. But then again, I had no idea what it was going to be. I just thought it would be great. I'll work with Robin. But it was hard for me to accept to do Mrs. Doubtfire because I at that time was at the height of my career. So I was like, okay, so I'm going to take a supporting role. Wait a minute. Is this a good idea? And then part of me said, back,

just go with the work is. And the work was, it was this high comedy. It was Robin, who I had such admiration for. I did Mrs. Doubtfire and then went right into Forrest. They were like right on top of each other practically. And I did it because Tom called me and I had worked with Tom when he was a baby in his career in his movie career in a movie that I had produced called Punchline. And I played a struggling housewife who wanted to be a comedian, and he was the troubled, dark, but incredibly talented comedian. And he sort of takes me under his wing because I kind of mother him.

But then he gets confused as to what am I? Am I a mother or am I a girl? And I had done that with him previously, and so he called me to be in Forrest Gump. I just loved the script so much and it was Tom. So I said, yeah, okay. Who knew? What about saying no? Are you good at saying no? I am. I am. I say no a lot now because they're like, who's making this movie? Who would be making this thing? I have to say no to something this afternoon and can you do it for me?

Yeah, tell them to give me a call. Is there any role that you really wanted but you didn't get it? I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. And also, I am incredibly competitive and a real creep. Many times I don't go watch movies. I don't want to watch the movie. I don't want to see her do that.

I don't want to watch it. I am not exactly generous. I mean, if I ran into that actor face to face, I wouldn't be a total creep. But I hope. But like I say, I'm so always saddled with this social anxiety and shyness, I probably wouldn't be out to meet them in the first place. Uh-huh. Got it. Got it. I had one hideous experience once. Do you remember that movie? Oh, God damn it. What was the name of it? It had Jim Belushi and it was a play in Chicago

and they made a movie about it. Okay, it'll come to me. Yeah, it's gonna come to me. But anyway, I was up for a part and I went in and I read, and I read terribly, like terribly. And I knew that I could do better than that. So, and so I did this bold thing, I say in air quotes, and I wrote a note to them and I left it,

they were at a hotel, and I left at the hotel, I said, would you give me a chance to come in again and read, because I, you know, I was off my game, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they very kindly did. Yay. And I went in and as I got there, Demi Moore was there. And I sort of entered and she was about to exit, but as she was exiting, she did sort of this little twirl of a confident

twirl she was owning the room. Oh dear. And I thought, oh, fuck, I'm fucked. And then I read, and it was worse than the day before. Oh, no. Yes. Anyway, I didn't get the part. It's called About Last Night. That's the name of the movie.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Anyway, I wasn't in it. And I didn't see it either. I remember one though, actually in the 60s or so. This was early on, I was still stuck in early television before you were born. I wanted to do True Grit so badly, but they wouldn't even consider it. I mean, I was doing The Flying Nun. No one wanted to see me. What, are you crazy? I knew this was my baby. I could have killed this. I could have killed this. But no, they wouldn't even let me in the room. I could have killed this. I could have killed this. Oh.

But no, they wouldn't even let me in the room. I was not in them. Oh. I showed them. You showed them those motherfuckers. We have to take a break now. My conversation with Sally Field continues in just a bit. If you've been listening to this show since the start, you've probably heard us mention hair story. Since then, there's been an incredible outpouring of love for hair story, especially from listeners who never thought they could show off their hair's natural texture. But that's what Hair Story is all about, embracing your hair

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45% alcohol by volume. Copyright 2024 Makers Mark Distillery, Incorporated, Loretto, Kentucky. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. A lot of us suffer from decision paralysis, like we all wish we had more time, but when we actually find time in our schedules, we don't know how to spend it.

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Okay. That's a happy subject. Wait a minute. Did you ever happen to see the sketch that I did on Amy Schumer's show called Last Fuckable Day? Yeah. Okay. Of course I did. Well, the only reason I ask is because you're mentioned in the thing. You're mentioned. I know it.

I was shocked. Yeah. Anyway, I did it with Tina Fey, and she actually references you in Punchline and then Forrest Gump six years later. Let's just talk about ageism in the industry. What's your experience with it? Why do you think that that happened that six years later, but What's your take now that here you are 77 on ageism in Hollywood? Well, obviously it's awful

Yeah, it's just awful I don't think that was I mean, I've always had to defend forest and all of that and punchline because of the nature of the story. I mean, in forest, for instance, I got to play younger than I was and I got to play older than I was. So that as an actor, I mean, that's fun. Who cares? Right.

Yes. Yeah, I just wanted to do that. But of course, it's hideous. And always since I've been here, which has been long enough now to know, there's just so few real stories written about women of any age. Certainly, as you get older, it gets less and less and less and less and less. And it's usually women who are looking for a man, or women who are dating several guys, or young, really pretty women who is trying to figure out her sexuality, but all of that is good, but women do more things than worry about who they're going

to fuck. That's exactly right. Yeah. So it's just been hard. I think every woman, every actor who is female, they will tell you the hardest thing has just been how do you find any roles because the industry will constantly say, well, you know, women don't bring in the money. Well, you don't put any money behind any women's films, guys. Right. You don't pay for the stories. You don't pay the writers. You don't, you know, you make it so the only stories about women are about women dating men. What? In relation to men, always. There was so many other stories you could have told. I remember in the, just to go on a tangent of my own, I had a production company early on in

the early 80s. In the mid-80s, I had this production company with the great Laura Ziskin was my partner. We had these projects and one of them was so good. Before the films really started to come out about Vietnam and we had this book called Home Before Morning, which was about nurses on the front line of Vietnam. And it was jaw dropping. It was, who knew? And it was the first time you took a look at the trauma of war. And of course, we would go to these studios and they would go, we don't want to see our little Sally do this. What? And it was so

hard to get any serious films about women made. And yet here you are, age 77. Here I am. Yep. Still working. Still doing it. Any other industry you'd be like retired, you might be playing golf. I don't know, I have fucking idea. Oh, I know, I know.

I know. Well, not with my knees. Anyway, going back to in pieces, you said that you started writing it after your mom, your ba, passed, and because it inspired a lot of digging into your own life. Can you talk about that process of discovery, Sally? Yeah. It was an interesting thing that just sort of shook me and woke me up. I'd always been writing, just always, always, always been writing in journals or taking writing classes and little short stories. And it was just always writing. And I always

had my journal with me and I would go in the bathroom and write. I would go- Do you still write? Do you write today? It's funny. Since I did the book so intensely for so long, it lessened my need to talk to myself like I would do on page. I do some, but not to the intense level I used to. So when my mother passed away, it was sort of starting to come out as she was coming to the surface as she was so ill for a while. And I think I say in the book, what happened was this, one of my really good friends is

Elizabeth Lesser, who started the Omega Institute in upstate New York, which is a wonderful place, beautiful campus, and you go for like weekends and she would do these things, women in power conferences. The most jaw-dropping women on the planet would be there, whether it was the poets or the Nobel Prize-winning women who were fighting for their country. I would go and sit in the back and go, wow, oh my God, wow, wow, wow. This one year she called me and said, I want you to give the keynote address. And I said, what?

Are you crazy? I mean, out of your mind. Yeah, that's making me sweat. Yeah. I said, no, no, no, no. She said yes. And she knew me well enough to know. She said, you have a story to tell.

Tell it. And I went, I do? And I knew she was right. And it ultimately is the last chapter of the book. No shit. Yeah. About my needing to talk to my mother. And so I wrote this speech and I think they were expecting me to have a little warm up, a little five minute speech, welcome everybody, turn to your neighbor and say hello. Shake hands and off we go for a great weekend.

It was a 45-minute speech about the darkest, most heart-ripping out of your chest story about your mother, about my mother, and about finally coming to the truth. And I sent it to my friend Elizabeth and her partner went, it's a little bit long. And Elizabeth said, do it, just like it is, do it. And in this speech, did you broach the subject of the sexual abuse that you had endured? You told that story within it? Yeah. No kidding.

Yeah. Yeah. And Oprah's people were there and I wouldn't let anybody record it. I wouldn't let anybody record it. I felt very careful of myself. I wanted to just be with this group of this dark thing that I know called an audience and let me be with this audience, my friend, this audience that I've known my whole life and let me just talk to them. It was the turning point where I knew I had to write the book.

I knew I had to tell a story because I had to uncover my mother in a way that I wasn't able to uncover her when she was alive. And I must have known somewhere because I had things that would happen or that my real father sent me that he didn't have the strength to look at at the time. In my 20s and 30s, I can't look at this. I can't know what he thinks. I can't know what he feels. I can't do it right now. But he didn't throw it away. I put it away in boxes that I kept and drug along with me from house to house, from place to place, until I started to write the book when I was in my late 60s, early 70s.

Sally, do you still have that reaction to certain aspects of your life, which is, I can't look at that now, I'm going to put it away for later? Do you still do that about things that are hard? Yeah. Yeah. I kind of do it. I kind of have to gear myself up to like, okay, I'll do it now. I'm just going to look at it, I'm going to know it, I'm going to own it, it'll be fine. But I can't always, sometimes I just say, I can't do that right now. I'm going to do it later. And I think for someone who has learned to survive in a really tough business from a young age and also in my childhood

when there were things that were really hard. And I think that I learned a mechanism to deal with things as I could deal with them. I can't deal with that right now, so I just won't know it. I won't know it. And it took a long time for me to realize that I had actually divvied up parts of my personality, you know, it's a civil-esque kind of thing. So I won't feel that right now, and I'll only feel this. And I would separate the parts of myself, so much so from my early memories and the trauma in my early life, that it took

me a long time to understand my process and make them come back together. The pieces of yourself are supposed to speak to each other and is supposed to collaborate on what you do. But when they're all individual, you don't collaborate enough. And sometimes your firing temper is all you hear. And you could be in real trouble if that's all you hear. And you don't have the voice inside of you that says, maybe you don't want to say that to this person right now, because he might hit you right in the nose.

Perhaps you should turn around and walk away. You know, anything. So it took me a long time to put them together. It took a long time, but you could also argue that that way of surviving as a young person, even as dysfunctional as that is, if you want to use a word that's overused, but it was also functional. It worked for you. Mm-hmm. It worked at a certain point.

Well, you know, the brain is incredibly creative, the brain. Yes. And the brain figures ways to help the child survive. And that was a way my brain taught me how to do this to help me survive. But, you know know the task as a grown-up person is to realize what garment you have knit for yourself to survive as a child, the winter of your childhood, but when you're in the summer so to speak of your adulthood you're boiling hot and you can't figure out why am I so fucking hot all the time and it's because you can't figure out why am I so fucking hot all the time? And it's because you can't take off this garment that you knitted for yourself as a child and you no longer need and you can't Realize you don't realize that this way of behaving this functional way that your brain taught you to behave to survive

It gets in your way now It keeps you from really being able to move forward. And you have to be able to, in most cases, it takes a really, really good therapist to help you see how a pattern of behavior from childhood is no longer serving you, is in your way, and it's making you suffer. It's like Jane Fonda was, you know, we talked to her on this thing, and, you know, she talks about life in review and you're disgusted. This is what, it seems like a lot of women your age and younger and older both, talk

about this review, looking back, reviewing and the benefit of the review, right? To understand where you've been and how you've come to be here now. I think that's partly what aging does. You don't mean to do it. When you have so much more life behind you, certainly, than you have ahead of you, you can't help but gather up the things you know for sure and try to sift them and put them in a little pile and then sort out the things that you still realize you don't know how to do. And maybe you never will, or maybe you really like to still try to figure that one out.

It's those unconscious people who just sort of blithely go along in the same rote pattern and complain about whatever life forever after and never look back, never have any introspection or never have any rear view mirror that you can look and say, oh, that was a really dumb move. Huh. Well, I can see why I did it, but I can also see that it was for shit. Do you still have a, because you talk a lot about this in your book, do you still have that yearning for your mother or is that something that's, has that morphed into a different kind of a feeling now? How does that work? No, I still have moments when I say stop and say out loud, why aren't you here? Where are you?

What would you say? I wish you would hear. I miss you so much. Talk to me. Just talk to me. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, I always will.

I always will. I always will. Just saying that out loud makes her feel closer. Because then again, if she were there, she might be critical. Like, oh, you know what? Never mind. Stay where you are. It's fine. It's fine. I'll get by.

Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more wisdom from Sally Field after this quick break. Expressing yourself is everything, particularly when it comes to style. It's always the little touches that really pull an outfit together. And one of the best things you can do is play with your accessories. There's no better way to elevate your look into something bold and daring, something that's uniquely you. Pear Eyewear makes that fun and easy. Pear lets you transform your look in a snap with their innovative base frames and interchangeable magnetic toppers.

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you had similar obstacles to your mom, but except that you didn't give up, you kept pushing through. But it seems to me that once you had your kids, at least my impression from the book is that it was kind of a lifesaver for you. Oh, absolutely. And do you feel like having your children and those boys, was it in a weird way, an opportunity to almost reparent yourself? Does that make sense?

Or talk about why that was a lifesaver for you. It certainly has been for me, but I was interested about that. I think partly, certainly as time went on, I was mothering myself, but I was so young. I was so young. Oh, right. Yes. I was just 23. But having my first son, Peter, it was because, first of all, I wasn't alone anymore. And it was also because there was something in me that felt so fiercely about him that I felt if I can take care of him, I can take care of myself. And God damn it, I'm going to take care of him. I can take care of myself. And God damn it, I'm going to take care of him. I don't care if I go down. So it started to connect with a fierceness

in me that I didn't recognize. I didn't recognize the fierceness in me. I recognized, I knew I had this rage. I knew I had that. But what I didn't see is that the rage and the fierceness went hand in hand. Peter, and I've said this to him, this big grown-up, now middle-aged man, he saved my life because it is also who he was. He was so gentle and compliant. He wasn't like the kid who was always sick or always crying all the time and you just didn't know what to do.

You want to tear your hair out. It was too much. So he was always listening to what you wanted. He was this little boy, little baby, and you can't do that. But he was like sleeping through the night, you know, two weeks or three weeks, I'd go in there and poke him. What? Are you? What's going on? Yeah, to make sure he's okay, yeah.

Yeah. He was always this creature brought into my life that just forever after was my savior. And you've also talked about the inherent tension of supporting the ego of men in your life and seeing that men have the need to be supported, etc., etc. How did all of that translate into the mothering of boys and then boys into men? How did that work for you? I'm curious about that. Because you had to take care of men in your life in a way that was maybe unhealthy, but I'm guessing with the boys, something kind of balanced out your own boys, I mean to say. Yeah. I don't know. I was never really good at picking a partner for myself.

And so, I can't blame them, those men. We were not a good match. And several people that I was dating around would say, why can't you treat me the way you treat your sons? Because you're not my son? Red flag. That would be one reason. Red flag.

Red flag. Yeah. Oh, fascinating. And I don't know what that meant except that I treated them with more respect or more, I don't know. So I can't really even answer that question because I've just never been good at picking a person, a partner to be with who would be loving and know me and not want to change me and also be challenging to me but wouldn't be hoping that I would be less than what I

am. Be less so that I don't feel like I have to be more, meaning the man would feel that. So I'm guessing you don't have any interest in getting married again in your life, do you? No, just based on what you've said. Maybe I'm wrong. I can't imagine? I mean, maybe I'm wrong. I can't imagine. I mean, it would certainly all depend on meeting somebody I wanted to spend more than 37 seconds with. And I can't imagine that either. So I don't know.

Oh my God. What about being a grandma? How many grandkids do you have? Five. I have five. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's it like being a grandmother? What's that relationship all about? Well, that's hard.

Oh, really? Everybody speaks in these idyllic terms of like, oh, it's so wonderful. You just get the kids and then you get them back to the parents and say goodbye. I don't think that's the way it goes. I think the parents drop them off and say, we'll be back in a week. Or a weekend, come get them for the weekend. And that's all great, except you have to get to know a whole different group of people,

and they are raised by different people. So you have to know what that framework is. And then you have to find a place that you land together, some place that belongs just to the two of you, and that this is what you land together, a place, some place that belongs just to the two of you and that this is what you do together. That's just yours. Otherwise, you're just a glorified babysitter. What do you want for dinner?

Well, that's so fascinating. And have you found that place with each of these kids? Yeah, I have. Well, certainly the oldest two, we meet on adult terms. And then Noah, my oldest grandson, he and I always had a place where we lived together, and that was we would play computer games together. From the time he was little, I would take him over to my house for the weekend, and I would say, don't tell him, but we're going to play computer games all weekend and not do anything else. And so we would sort of take a quick walk around the neighborhood and tell them, oh,

we went for walks. We've just had such a great, you know, and all we did was play Zelda, you know. Oh, that's so nice. Yeah, so you have to sort of cultivate the relationship that comes in and out and in and out. You're not the parent. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. I'm going to just take this moment to ask a couple very quick questions that I like to ask the ladies when we're talking on the show. Is there something you go back

and tell yourself at 21? I would say, you know, don't worry about your thighs that much, that they'll, your body will start to adjust things. I was always so worried about weight. Yeah. Yeah. I know that you have called yourself a people pleaser. Are you still that? Or have you reconciled it? I don't think I'm that, that much anymore, but I do know that I have pulled away from the feeling that I have to be better socially and have to get out. I used to just push myself to do things and I go, eh.

No more. Eh. I just so, so I would probably be out there pleasing more people if I were out there. So what would you then say to those who struggle with that, with people pleasing and want to find their voice? Just tell them to go, eh, forget it. No. It's something I say to my granddaughter who's also anxious about socializing.

I would say listen to what they have to say. If you were talking to somebody, somebody you're thinking you're pleasing them Ask them about themselves. Hmm wonder in your own mind. Do you even like this person? Hmm say you know, what do you do? Where did you you know, where do you live? Where do you did you go to school? I mean what are you reading any good books? Are you and if they have nothing to say to you, if they're just literally, you know, and not, you know, engaging you in a conversation that's interesting, then why are you worried about whether you're placing them?

You know, what's the deal? Why are you worried about that they're not going to like you if you don't like them? Oh, it's good advice. Ask them questions. Find out who you're dealing with. I think that's really good. Yeah, find out who you're dealing with. I think that's really good. Yeah, find out who they are.

Yeah, exactly. Who are you? Are your parents still alive? Where do they live? Do you ever see them? The list goes on and on. It goes on and on. I could send them a list. Oh, God. Is there anything you want me to know about aging? Not that I'm that much younger than you are, but is there anything? Oh, yes, you are. I do think in this society, it's so hard to you and it becomes less and less as more of the my generation, the baby boomers get older and older.

It makes, you know, we grease the wheel for you. But there is a sense that you should feel ashamed. There is a sense in society that you should feel ashamed for being old. It's like a goo that just sort of, you know, that greases up the lens a little bit. And I realized what a crock that is. And who made that? Who made that feeling that women should be ashamed about being older?

And it is there in this quiet underbelly. Men don't have that. But that no matter what I do, my waist is just going to thicken. I can't make it not. I could starve myself to death, and then I think I don't want to starve myself to death anymore. It's just what age is doing, and my body needs to react like this. And I will still keep it healthy, and I will still do what I can, but I have to constantly keep myself from being slightly the color of whatever color that is of shame

creeping in. Well, you got nothing to be shamed of, woman. And that's why we're doing this podcast for this very reason, to talk about exactly this and to debunk those nasty myths about aging and about women in particular. And you are just a glorious human being. And it's been a pleasure to talk to you. Certainly, even though it wasn't your intention, you've certainly pleased me as a person today. Thank you, thank you.

It's always so great to talk to you. Likewise. And how glorious, glorious, glorious your work has been. Oh Sally. Oh my God. Oh, how nice of you. No, no, no. Oh, so glorious.

Thank you. No, no, no. Oh, so glorious. Thank you. Oh, so much wisdom kicking off season two. I can't wait to tell my mom all about this conversation with Sally Field. Let's get her on a Zoom. Hi, mommy. Hi, love. How are you? Good. So I just had a fantastic conversation with Sally Field. Aren't you a fan of hers, Mom?

A complete fan of hers. How could you not be? There's something so authentic and dear about her. Yeah. You know, she wrote the most extraordinary memoir called In Pieces. And in this book, it's an autobiography, and she talks about her putting the puzzle pieces together of her childhood and her life. It's interesting because writing the memoir

really freed something up for her, you know, sort of after the fact. And she talks about this in the memoir and she talked about it in conversation too, about the fact that when she's playing a character, when she's performing, that's when she is, I think, most confident and most at ease with herself. And that's even, I think, still the case to this day. And I was wondering for you, Mommy, when do you feel most confident if you know when you feel most confident?

When I feel I've gotten to some point of understanding, when I feel I've written a poem that works, that reveals something, and I carry that with me in order to sometimes put up with things, you know, and I think about that. And sometimes when I've accomplished things, just, you know, daily things that are hard for me, but when I've accomplished them, then I feel like, oh, okay, now, you know, I'm okay. Did Sally feel, did she have a tough upbringing? Well, she had a loving upbringing up to a point. She was very close with her mother.

Her stepfather abused her, her entire childhood. And so that is just informed so much of her life moving forward. And it took a long time for her to understand that damage, but she was able at the end of her mother's life, she was able to talk about it with her mother and able to tell her mother that it had happened. Her mother was only slightly aware, but not entirely aware of the scope of the horrible abuse. Well, that's something to reckon with.

Oh my God. But no wonder why being another character was a huge relief for her. Totally. Yeah. She had agency, you know? She was the person in charge of this person as opposed to her own life, which she was not, didn't have any power over.

And I pointed out to her, as I'm sure others have, that so many of the characters, in my view, the characters that she really fucking nailed perfectly, like Norma Rae and like Places in the Heart, which I recently rewatched and boy does that movie hold up. But she's playing women who are struggling to find their power. And she really, she comes by that honestly. Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure. She has five grandchildren, like you. And she's had to work at cultivating separate relationships with her grandkids. So, you know, as she goes, otherwise you're just a glorified babysitter. And I thought that was interesting that she was talking about cultivating

a separate relationship, you know? Have you found that to be the case? Yes, because getting to know your grandchildren is such an interesting task. I mean, really getting to know them, getting so that you feel they're talking to you. And I don't mean that they're not just talking to a grandmother, but that they are really talking to you. They're really telling you something about themselves that they want you to know. And it makes you feel so good to know them. Okay, mommy.

So that's good. I think we've done it. We've discussed Sally Field. Well, I'm happy. Very happy. Yes, I'm very happy too. And unlike that, everything okay there? Yeah, everything is fine here, honey.

Just fine. Son, you can't believe how gorgeous the day is. So sunny. Oh, how nice. All right. Bye, Mommy. Bye, sweetheart. Love you.

Love you. There's more Wiser Than Me with Lemonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content from each episode of the show. Subscribe now in Apple Podcasts. Make sure you're following Wiser Than Me on social media. We're on Instagram and TikTok at wiserthanme and we're on Facebook at wiserthanme podcast. Wiser Than Me is a production of Lemonade Media created and hosted by me, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. This show is produced by Chrissy Pease, Jamila Zaraa Williams, Alex McCowen and Oja Lopez. Brad Hall is a consulting producer. Rachel Neal is VP of New Content

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