WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 651 - Patricia Arquette

Episode Date: November 2, 2015

Long before Patricia Arquette won an Oscar, long before she filmed a movie over the course of 12 years, long before she worked with directors like Scorsese, Burton, and Lynch, and long before she delivered a star-making turn in True Romance, she was a kid from a showbiz family growing up on a hippie commune in Virginia. Patricia and Marc get into all of it, including her acceptance speech at the Academy Awards. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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They embody Calgary's DNA. A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what the funkadelics what's happening i am mark maron this is wtf this is my podcast thank you for being here wherever you're at in your day i hope it's going well wherever you are, on a plane, on a train, in a car, at the gym, in a cubicle. Perhaps maybe you're skydiving.

I don't know. I would not waste your time skydiving and listening to me. All right? I feel like I'm falling most of the time. So maybe it'd be perfect. I'm not sure. Today on the show, Patricia Arquette, the actress, the amazing actress, the Oscar-winning actress for Boyhood.

Many of you, you know her because you fell in love with her in True Romance. God, who didn't, man? Who did not fall in love with Patricia Arquette in True Romance? Seriously. Alabama, right? Alabama. She's an amazing woman woman and it was a real honor to talk to her she came over here and of course i uh i i didn't know when it would happen

but it seems to happen that uh i get choked up when she talked about winning the oscar the surprise of it the uh the the bodily sensation of hearing your name spoken in that context as the winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress. I got choked up. I'm looking forward to it. Menopausal Mark is excited to be emoting as frequently as I am. I got two sides, people. I got the side that wants out and the side that keeps that guy in. And I don't know when this battle is going to be over. I imagine it goes on for a lifetime. But, yeah, God damn it, I am sick of the guy that keeps the other guy in. I just really need to, whew, got to switch those roles.

Just this constant battle of the, you know, the defensive dude uh who that that's a pretty broad umbrella though the defensive dude is also the dude that functions publicly and has a certain amount of social grace and uh he's also the guy that works as a comedian uh for the most part but that guy they sort of work together when i'm doing the doing the comedy but there is this this emoting thing that i don't know what it needs to do. I don't know what that guy needs. The one inside of me that's sensitive and scared and really wanting love and wanting to give love. That guy, I just hope he doesn't give up in there.

I just really do. Boy, sometimes the things I do to avoid feeling are pretty profound. Yeah, but some of them are relaxing. But just the ability to just sit with it is difficult. I mean, I'll be honest with you because I don't usually do this. But this is like the fourth time I've recorded this intro because i thought i sounded too fucking sad and there's no reason to be sad i mean i i don't know if it's sad it's just this weird heavy heartedness it's a beautiful day it's finally fall in los angeles so it's a it's a nice

uh 79 82 degrees i miss seasons i think that's what it is is that my heart is actually experiencing like an east Coast fall. But my environment, it's just sort of like just a slight variation on the same dry, sunny. And, you know, look, I know some of you are like, what are you complaining about sunny for? Well, it gets a little weird sometimes. I'd like a little rain. I'd like a little more gray. I'd like to be able to wear some of the new jackets I bought.

Bought a couple new jackets, and I'd like to be able to wear some of the new jackets I bought, bought a couple new jackets, and I'd like to be able to wear them. And also that fall for me, it's sort of a nostalgic and heavy hearted time. But I know when I'm overwhelmed and I know when I'm feeling too much because I wake up aggravated. I wake up about to snap. I start, like, all I want to do is get my mop out and Murphy oil soap, my deck, which is empty. My sad, desolate deck with my newly stained picnic table out there and three old beat-up chairs that should have been thrown out, but we hit them with stain. There's no layout or anything. anything it's all just sitting out there randomly like this set of a an existentially oblique play that i am at every time i go out there i i'm the the the main actor wandering around i'll go look at the table and be like i should hit this with a little more stain i'll go look at the chairs where i go these need a little more stain then i'll sit in one then i'll sit in the other then i'll sit at the table then i'll look at all the cactus. Then I'll fucking go about my day.

Maybe that's the movie. I've had that conversation a few times. We were just talking to somebody. This is the movie. This is it. This is the show. No, it's not. It's a couple of people whining about things.

No, this is the show. It's just me on my deck with the chairs. That's the show. That's the show. But I'm glad this is the show it's just me on my deck with the chairs that's the show that's the show but i'm glad this is the fourth time i did it because i'm coming upon the uh the same i'm about to hit the same place i hit the other four times you know i watched a i watched a movie last night the screeners are coming and uh i watched 99 homes amazing. Amazing performances by Michael Shannon, Andrew Garfield, Laura Dern's in it. The kid's good. But Jesus, what a dark movie, man.

It's about the foreclosures on homes and the guys that made a business out of foreclosed homes and evicting people from homes and that whole real estate clusterfuck debacle that killed a lot of people's lives. uh clusterfuck debacle that killed a lot of people's lives it's about uh it's about a compromise of the soul about a selling of the soul about a soulless motherfucker and a kid who who uh rationalizes the compromise of his soul yeah man it was engrossing it was so fucking engrossing i woke up feeling guilty and dark that that's, there's a hell of a pitch for a movie. It's so dark and troubling that you wake up dark and troubled. I get nothing for plugging this. It just might be why I'm feeling the way I am today. Look, folks, we're getting, uh, we're getting ready for the Warren Michaels episode.

And, uh, it's been, it's been great for me to play these clips of people from the past i had a great talk with mike myers last year and in this you know mike myers is a guy that's been he's been rumored or reported to be uh difficult to work with from time to time and we talk a little bit about that but but it's interesting to hear from a guy who's very protective of his own work and and hear what what he had to say about lauren michaels this is from episode 518 with mike myers i got a call somebody says is this mike myers and i thought oh i was in chicago yeah and i said yeah and i thought it was like immigration or something even all my papers are always fine right and they said uh will you hold

for lauren michaels and i thought oh this is paul fantastic paul mike and he's like uh is this mike yeah lauren um listen i'm hearing things about you that are good and i'm like what the hell i'm like what i was by myself and nobody like what yeah um would you be interested in being on Saturday Night Live? I was like, yes. Yeah. So you come down to New York. How long? After the phone call. So after the phone call, three weeks later, I go down to New York City.

I'd never been to New York City. I go over the bridge, and it makes me cry, the 59th Street Bridge. Because I love New York. I love London. Yeah. And I always loved New York. But I had said to myself, I'm not going to go to new york unless i'm invited for something so this was it yeah i got invited for something right right go over that bridge it was magical you just can't

believe it yeah the only other place that i've approached that's made me cry is venice i still can't believe it it's so i gotta see that oh's fantastic. So you go to 30 Rock. And I was supposed to have a meeting with him at 1 o'clock. I don't actually get in to see him until 1 o'clock in the morning. So I'm there. You waited? I had three full meals. And, you know. Yeah.

And I just waited. And I just go, am I going to see him today? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely see him. And I come in. And Lorne is sitting at his desk, and the window behind him is of the Empire State Building, which I've never seen. At night?

At night. And he's talking, and it's Lorne Michaels. I did a project on him in grade eight of Famous Canadians, and I'm just not believing it. So I walk in, and there's two chairs, and he said, have a seat. And I said, which one? So I walk in and there's two chairs and he said, have a seat. And I said, which one? And he goes, which one do you think?

And I said, which is the one that's going to get me hired? And he laughed. And the other producer was like, oh God. He likes me, he don't like me. I just felt the... Who was the other guy? Jim Downey. Okay.

Who I'm now fantastically in love with. Was he the head writer then? Yeah, he was the head writer. Yeah. When I first got hired, I didn't get an office. So my office was, I was cross-legged on my coat by the elevator bank. Yeah. And he would come in and he'd say, can I help you?

I'd say, yeah, I'm on the show. Right. Don't have an office? No. Should get one. I'd like one. You should ask. Who would I ask?

Someone. Someone will get you an office. Just don't hang out by the elevator back. It's weird. So I'd go, okay. And I'd say, Lauren says I should get an office. And he goes, no, no, there's no offices. And so he kept running into me.

He goes, do you have a security badge so you should keep it out i i guess it was a bit but i thought he knew i knew who i was until the third show and i did wayne's world and your relationship with lauren did it get more uh candid more intimate i mean as you started to earn well Well, I have such respect for Lorne, like truly, truly is a Canadian hero. This is a man who I just, I guess it's how I was brought up, but, you know, he's my boss, you know. And that's how I feel about the audience, by the way. You know, they're my boss, you know. They pay my bills and they are kind enough to come see what I do. And, you know, if I'm out and they want to come up and take a photograph, you have to be nice to your boss.

Sure. And so, absolutely, of course. And you still have a relationship with Lorne? Yeah, fantastic. I have dinner with him every two months. Really? He's so, when Lorne had kids, he turned into everybody's grandfather. And he was really on me to have kids.

It was his big thing. He goes, you know, it's all good. You won't regret one moment of it. It's all great. And he had one when he was like 60, right? Yeah. And I had a kid when I was 48, my first one. And then I just had one in April.

So it's amazing. It's fantastic, dude. A Canadian hero. There you go. That's a pretty ringing endorsement right there you don't have to wait much longer okay i promise you you're going to hear the interview with lauren you very soon patricia arquette it was great talking to her you know it i it was a it was interesting to to get the hang of talking to her she came over with

her uh her uh boyfriend who's a painter. We had a little discussion about art, kind of warmed up a little in the house, and we got out here, and I was like, all right, here we go. But she's great, and she's an amazing woman, and it was great to talk to her. She's now, she's got a show. What is it?

Oh, yeah, I know what her show is. It's CSI Cyber. It's on Sundays at 10 p.m. 9 central on CBS. So let's let's talk to her. Let's let's let's talk to Patricia Arquette. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream. Yes, we can deliver that Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details.

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18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Now. Well, I appreciate you coming. I know that, did Richard Winkler say something about it to you? He did this show. Oh, he did. Yeah.

And I'd like to feel like he referred you to the show. Did he not? Actually, my boyfriend, Eric White. Oh, yeah? Is he a painter? Yeah, he's a to the show. Did he not? Actually, my boyfriend, Eric White. Oh, yeah? Is he a painter? Yeah, he's a painter. Yeah? Yeah.

He's a fan of the show? A big fan. Oh, really? So now the pressure's on. That's right. You better deliver, man. You better deliver. Why is it on me?

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. I got to ask you a weird question about, I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And there was a family of Arquettes that were my neighbors. Are you related? Do you have any cousins in Albuquerque? Do you remember some of their names? Sure. I think the mother is a children's book or a teen novel writer.

Her name's Lois Duncan. And the sons were like Brett Arquette, Donnie Arquette. And Brett Arquette's actually some sort of mystery book writer. Oh, wow. How interesting. I know. I wanted to. I've been wondering for years because you don't know.

I don't know. But I think my grandfather had a brother who was a prolific breeder across America. So all of a sudden I'll hear, hey, I'm your second cousin. Oh, really? Charisma Arquette. And I, you know, I don't know. I think he spread his seed.

This would be like your grandfather's brother. Right. You come from like this show business family. Yeah. It's crazy. We're fourth generation actors. Fourth generation. Yeah. It's crazy. We're fourth generation actors. Fourth generation show biz. That's right.

So your brother, your grandfather's brother, that would be, what's your grandfather's name? Cliff Arquette. Cliff Arquette. I didn't know until yesterday that he was Charlie Weaver. Yeah, that's right. That's crazy. Yeah, he was a comedian and he was in early radio, live radio. Hollywood Squares.

And then he came out of retirement. He actually retired. He was on Glamour Manor and he did all these live radio shows with like Mel Blanc and all these people. And then he was Slap Happy Grandpappy. All these characters. And then he had retired. And then Jack Parr. Yeah.

On the original Tonight Show. Tonight Show, right? Yeah. Said, you know what? I really miss this guy who used to make me laugh a lot, Charlie Weaver. Yeah. And then he was watching, you know, TV that night. Your grandfather.

Yeah. So he came out of retirement. Then he had this second career in TV with Hollywood Square. He was like Paul Lynde was the center square. Which doesn't get better than that. Never. And then your grandfather was like in the corner somewhere, but he's always quick and funny and had his little hat on.

Yeah. His pork pie hat. Yeah. And is that the guy you grew up with? Was he that sweet a guy? Did you have a relationship with that guy? Well, at one point we lived in a hippie commune in virginia and he'd had a heart attack and a stroke i think and pearl bailey was a good friend of his and for a while she nursed him and then he came to live with us

um in the hippie commune he wasn't very verbal at that time but because he'd had a stroke oh no wait okay so let's can we get to the hippie commune how does that happen where where were you born so I was born in Chicago my dad was an actor my mom was somewhat an actress but really wanted to be a poet and they were in the beat scene and and then they in new york yeah and then they learned about this spiritual brotherhood and they went to a conference and then they which was in virginia and when they were there they said well why are we leaving this is so cool why don't we raise our kids in nature with people where we could talk about religion and God and we're political lefties and let's hang out here.

But it didn't really work out that way. My dad said, you know, you bring the seeds of society with you. So you think this is all a great concept, and then suddenly you realize, oh, that dude has a real anger management problem, and this person's an alcoholic, and that other thing, and this person's greedy, and that other thing and this person's greedy and what are we doing here right so so basically uh he realized that people that would seek to live on a commune in the spiritual community were fucked up no i think basically what he learned is human beings are the way they are right and and it's just a microcosm of the same

thing and you might as well deal with changing society on a larger scale than just being isolated in it. Can't run from it. Can't run from it. Right. And then you went to Chicago? Well, they went to Chicago first. They were kind of wandering around a lot. My dad was in Second City, and they had me there.

Then we lived in the commune. Then we moved back to Chicago. Then we moved to L.A. He was in Second City and they had me there. Then we lived in the commune. Then we moved back to Chicago. Then we moved to LA. He was in Second City as a improv performer and actor? Yeah, we grew up with improv. My dad worked a lot with Viola Spolin. He was in the Broadway cast of Story Theater with Paul Sills. Yeah. And so you were going to theater and show like your whole life. You were just sort of like in it. Well, we were so poor when we lived in the hippie commune. But a couple of times we got to see movies. We saw Dumbo. We saw. Were you all dressed in rags were playing in puddles. We saw Fiddler on the Roof. So then for a month, we played Fiddler on the Roof. We played the village of Anatevka, like, okay, I'm the washerwoman, and now I have the baby,

and now we're going over to the cobbler's house. On the commune, just as kids, that was the fun, playing Fiddler. Yeah, and we would also do story theater games and improvisational games and my first acting thing was i i was five or six and we did a little um henny penny show at the philadelphia folk festival yeah so how now are you you're not the oldest no i'm in the middle and there's five of. So all five kids were on the hippie commune. Just running around doing fiddler on the roof. And your parents

were there and then your grandfather, ill, comes to live with you there. Yeah. And how long was the whole adventure there? I think it was four years. It was very pivotal, four years. For everybody. Yeah, for everybody. And then your parents just kind of ran back to

society well no what happened was i mean they would keep a portion of the money they raised and then contribute a bunch of it back into the community was it a religion was it a uh uh was there a religion to it no because there was multiple religions my mom was jewish um my dad grew up as a lay christian yeah and then he converted he was supposed to go convert to judaism right but he got lost in virginia and he ended up at a mosque and converted to islam so my dad was muslim my mom was jewish i went to catholic school and what yeah so the agreement with your parents was that your dad would eventually convert to Judaism. Exactly.

But he got lost. And when he came home, he said, I actually converted to Islam today. She was like, oh, my God, what is going on? Was that a practice he held to? Oh, yeah. He went to Mecca. And, yeah, he did the Hajj. Oh, my God.

Oh, yeah. And we grew up kind of looking at all religions i mean they both believed there was only one god right that there was you know different paths to this you know it's kind of the same god isn't it i think so yeah and i do believe how jewish was your mom pretty religious she grew up pretty jew, but also she'd broken so many laws just by not marrying a Jew. You know, her parents, she went to college at 16. She was really brilliant, but they really said, all right, we're buying you these clothes. You have one year to find a husband. It wasn't about your education.

Yeah, yeah. Really? That's interesting because usually it is sort of about the education. But in those days, it wasn't. College was just about finding a better husband. Right. And she found her dad, an actor, a non-Jewish actor. Yeah.

It was a big, big upset. Did they disown her or anything? They were very mad, I'll say that. I don't think they had two nickels to disown anyone. Yeah, yeah. But they were upset. They were upset. And you went to Catholic school. And Iown anyone. Yeah, yeah. But they were upset. They were upset. And you went to Catholic school.

And I went to Catholic school, yeah. I wanted to be a nun. Really? I mean, for reals? For real. Yeah, and we grew up doing, like, Ramadan and all this stuff, fasting, and yeah. And you were the Catholic one? I was the Catholic one, yeah.

My brother went and lived in Thailand for a while. He was, for a while, the Buddhist one. Oh, he was Buddhist? For a bit. Did anyone end up Jewish? My brother, the Buddhist one, he got his... Which brother? Richmond.

I mean, I think we're all of them. You know, like theoretically, by Jewish law, you're all Jewish. I know. This is not new news to me. But none of you are leaning on that, really. I don't know. I can't deal with politics, the politics of religion. Of being Jewish?

No, of all religions. Right, right, right. So out of all this chaos, how the hell do you all end up in California? So my dad, since he was an actor at a certain point, just went to where the work was. So we moved to California. But when did he start working? Like, did it for reels? I mean, after the commune?

Well, he was always working. Even in Chicago, there was a lot of work. There was theater. There was comedy. There was different kinds of commercials and things. Because he was, like, in everything. I mean, he was, like like a big TV character actor. Yeah,

he worked a lot. He worked all the time, yeah. Was he, like, he was on the Waltons? Yeah. He lived a while,

right? When did he pass? I don't know. It was a long time ago. I don't like to memorize death dates. No, no,

I can understand that. My sister always calls me and she's always like, you know, in four days, mom died 15 years ago. I'm like, why do you always calls me she's always like you know in four days mom died 15 years ago i'm like why do you always remind me why i don't want to remember that but he was like didn't he do some christopher guest movies too he did he did waiting for guffman yeah wow so when you were a kid like

because all of you are kind of in show business right right? Most of you? We all are. Yeah, we all are. Richmond is too? Yeah. And how does that, like when you were growing up, where did you live? Did you live in the Valley? Hollywood. Right in Hollywood where you still live now? You're not in the same house.

No, but I'm close. It's dingy old, when we grew up, you know, Hollywood of the 70s was a real dingy little dirty place. Yeah. And criminal. Do you remember like Sunset Boulevard and shit from when you were a kid? Oh, yeah. I used to ditch school and hang out on Hollywood Boulevard at the Loves. Me and my best friend would smoke cigarettes, chain smoke.

We were 12. Yeah. What's Loves? What was it? Loves was a steakhouse. Uh-huh. We would just have coffee all day and smoke cigarettes. Sure. We were 12. Yeah. What's Love's? What was it? Love's was a steakhouse. We would just have coffee all day and smoke cigarettes. Sure.

And we were 12, and then we would talk to these little street hustlers. Because that was a cool thing to do, right? Yeah, like little child prostitutes that were working Sunset Boulevard. It was bizarre. Because in my mind, it was just weird, frenetic, rock and roll drug chaos, like that whole block, the whole stretch of Sunset. Oh, Sunset. Yeah, yeah. But Hollywood Boulevard was a little different.

But then Hollywood, you know, what's that guitar school that came there? G.I.T.? I'm not sure. Well, then when that opened up in the early 80s, then you had all those long haired rock guys walking around with bases slung over their backs. Yeah. But before that, it was even dirtier. And when did you guys, who was the first one to start acting out of the crew? Of the kids?

Yeah. Rosanna. Yeah. Yeah. And how did you all get into the business? So she started acting and she started doing well. I was really torn because part of me wanted to be an actor. Yeah.

But I didn't know if I'd be good at it and I felt sort of shy. But the other part of me wanted to be a midwife and I didn't know which direction to go. But I didn't want to turn away from acting just from fear so the nun thing passed though well the nun thing passed because of a very sad tale the nun thing passed because I was number one in my catechism class and I was about to get my first communion and they called my house and they said is your mom and they said, is your mom there? I said, no, is everything okay? They said, well, we can't give you your first communion tomorrow. And I said, why? They said, well, because your mom's Jewish, and we can't. And I said, well, it's okay.

They said, no one will be able to take you to church. I said, I walk to school anyway. I'll walk to church. And they said, well, we can't because your mom's Jewish and she's going to hell. So I was like, I said, well, I don't, I guess maybe I do think of a different religion than you. Maybe you're right. And then when I was hanging up, I said, oh, and Jesus was Jewish. And I hung up. You showed them. Well, I was hanging up, I said, oh, and Jesus was Jewish. And I hung up.

You showed them. Well, I was right. You were right. It's true. I don't understand how. So you are your dad's Muslim. Your mom's Jewish. I know it's all religions, but they just let you be Catholic.

Oh, yeah. They're like, you're at school. So you're learning to be Catholic. To them, they said, you know, religion is a very personal thing. And there's only one God, and that is the most beautiful thing on earth. And so you get to decide for yourself what is your religion. You get to decide for yourself the life you want to live. And you're 12?

Or 11? All of our lives. Uh-huh. Yeah. And you just chose Catholicism because you were in a Catholic school? In a weird way, even though there's all these different rules and these religions have different sins and so on. In a way, you could say that's probably one of the greatest sins is dictating to someone else what their personal love of God should be. Well, yeah, I think it's a control thing, usually.

And fear, I guess. Yeah, right, to keep people in the tribe of one kind or another. Do you still have faith? I do have faith, yeah. Yeah? You've got a good sense of God at this point in your life? Yeah. I mean, when I wanted to be a nun, I had that sort of ecstatic love, that real kind of being in love with God and Jesus and this concept of, and I still feel really close to Jesus' teachings.

Yeah. Not the church that necessarily surrounds it. Right. Did you explore Buddhism and other stuff too? A little bit, but i never felt that same kind of thing to me jesus was a real radical oh so you just you like the whole uh non-conformist yeah radical question authority yeah also i i look at jesus like a feminist he was a really early feminist at a time where they were stoning women to death. Like on one hand, he had this archetype of a virgin, right?

His mother. And the other hand, he had a prostitute, another Mary, two Marys, like symbolically the same name, two different sides of women, one being completely, you know, non-sexual or rejecting sexuality and the other having experienced sexuality. But to say cast the first stone or you can't live in glass houses, when you're talking about female sexuality at that, you know,

that time is seriously radical. And then also the concept to me of baptism, it's like the mikvah so i think it's really it's all connected and it's a and yeah i guess that's true isn't it it was sort of a feminist i never hear that much you know you don't hear that jesus being championed as a feminist that often but also because i think also his openness to feeling and empathy and vulnerability and fear and sadness. And, you know, it's not like I'm going to raise my sword and chop everyone's head off or, you know, kill your child on top of the mountain if you love me. It's like a real human suffering and concern for the human condition.

And so the midwife thing, that was an actual thing too? You were going to be a midwife? I didn't do that yet. Oh, yeah? Don't give up on me yet. You're going to be a doula? Is that the same thing? Yeah, maybe.

Have you delivered any babies? No, I've been at a lot of births. Yeah, I delivered my own babies. The last one with no painkillers at home. Really? Yeah. Like in the bathtub or no? You know, I really had this great idea about the bathtub, but it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Yeah. I actually hated being in the water. So that was what was recommended and you were going to do it that way? No, I read all about it and I kind of bought into that party line.

But when I was in it, I was having back labor. So the last thing you want is kind of this hard tub on your back. Right. Back labor, that's just, what does that mean? I don't know.

It means the baby's head is sort of pushing against the back of your spine. How old is this child now? She's 12. Oh, yeah. But so i've only talked about childbirth one other time really with um well i mean i don't have any children but uh uh lake bell went deeply into her childbirth oh my god and she just had it and she she came in here like her boobs were

leaking it was very exciting it is exciting let's face it yeah oh no it was like she just told it all and it was like it was very exciting very graphic and she had a pretty good attitude about it right yeah wow you have two kids intense yeah i have two one's older though yeah my son's older like how old he's 26 what's he up? He's a really cool guy. Yeah? He went to SFAI. It's an art school in San Francisco. Yeah. So he paints.

He does photography. And he's just a really cool guy. And you guys get along? Yeah, I love him. It's pretty insane, right, to have almost two different lives with your children. Yeah. All right, so you decide midwife you're going to put on hold and be an actress well okay so here we came down to it all came down to fear yeah i was like i want to do these two things but one i'm really afraid of failing at which is acting yeah and i'm afraid of being bad at it. So you've never done it before? Ridicule and all of that.

Not publicly. But I said more than being an actress or being a midwife, I want to be brave. So that's my job. For the next year, between 18 and 19, I will be willing to fail every day at acting. Because every day that I fail and then I still show up and try the next day yeah then I'm getting my real need met which is to be brave and was this in Trent were you training did you take classes I was studying my sister Rosanna was paying for my acting classes as a gift and I was uh who are you studying with uh Milton Katselis oh yeah i've heard of that guy yeah he's like one of the big

guys right he's pretty big i mean i started with cal bartlett which was his beginner's class yeah he was a really good teacher i think i studied with different people i studied with larry moss and julie areola do you remember because i when i to actors, I don't talk to a lot of them, do you remember what elements of learning that you sort of keep with you? Like, is there, like, because from what I gather from talking to actors, you kind of cobble together your own craft in a way

to do what you do. Are there things you do every time you take a role on? Well, my biggest teacher was this guy named Roy London, who was a really interesting teacher. And he would say to me, you know, most directors you're going to work with are men and they're not going to understand you. But what they really don't understand about women is your interior emotional life. So if you make a choice in a scene

and the director tries to dissuade you, say the scene is you're playing a woman whose child gets hit by a car, and they're like, yeah, I don't think that choice is the greatest thing. You just say, but when my kid got hit by a car, this is exactly what I did.

He was like, you manipulate everyone. And I had my nun brain, and I was just like, I cannot lie. I cannot do that. But he was a really, he pushed me to be more brave and to trust my instincts. And then when I worked with Tony Scott, he really, every single idea I had, when we did True Amounts, he was so supportive of every single idea I had. Yeah, that movie is a classic. People love that movie.

I actually dated a woman who was like, just coincidentally, I have a copy that we knew. She's like, that's my favorite movie. I watch that every year. Oh, it's so sweet. It's a hell of a movie. Yeah, it was really fun making that movie too.

You remember it pretty well? Yeah. But that wasn't your first big movie. I'd done Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3. Ah, that's classic. I'm a dream warrior.

Just in case. Was that the first one? Was that your first movie? it was the third one no it wasn't my first movie my first movie was called Pretty Smart and it was

a total disaster in fact it was such a disaster working on it when I came back I said to my sister I don't think this acting thing

is for me why what happened? it was right after Chernobyl I was a vegetarian we shot it in Greece I didn't know there were rules about lunch so they would bring in our lunch we'd work through lunch every day

yeah and they brought in like meat with fur on it and maggots were pulling out of it really for real i'm not kidding we had to like wash our own wardrobe and figure out continuity and i i don't know some producer's girlfriend was on coke and punched this tiny other producer. Welcome to show business. Yeah, with a fake nail through her cheek. It was just craziness. Oh, my God. There were all these girls taking off their clothes in certain scenes.

And they were paying to be in the movie. I don't know. There was so much insanity going on. Is this movie seeable? Yeah, I mean, it actually exists on Earth, yeah. It's not a very good movie. It sounds like it was

a little chaotic production-wise. It was so chaotic. You were in charge of your own continuity? Yeah. Sometimes you have to be as an actor, though, right? Sometimes you've got to remember

what you were doing, but they were literally like, what were you doing? And I've worked on a lot of low-budget movies in New Mexico. In fact, I remember driving the wardrobe slash makeup slash my dressing room RV. I was driving the RV while we were shooting it. Yeah, that was a good old days. What movie was that?

That was called Time Out. It was a Danish-American production. movie was that? That was called Time Out which was a Danish American production. You were driving the RV? Yeah. So what had Rosanna done by that that she was doing so well

and that you know you were at that point what had she already done by then? After hours? I don't think it was because she was very young.

She was doing TV stuff. She did TV series called Shirley with, and James at 16. Oh, James at 16. She'd done a bunch of things, Zuma Beach, and a bunch of movies of the week, and yeah. James at 16. Was that an after school special, or was that a series? No, it was a series, yeah. All right, so you tell her, like, I'm not up for this.

This is bad. bad yeah and she goes when i told her all the stories she goes oh no honey that's not how it usually is you've got to keep on soldier on yeah and then um so you did a few movies before uh you did a lot of movies before i'm now looking at the movies you did before True Romance. There was quite a few before that one, huh? Yeah. And was your dad into the fact that you were all acting? No, my mom was really bummed about it because she thought,

she and my principal in my school thought I could be a lawyer because I had this interest in medicine that I could be a doctor. And she saw how difficult it was to make a living as an actor. Did your parents stay married? They had a very tumultuous marriage. Yeah, they did stay married. All the way through? Yeah, but they were separated for a while.

Yeah. They had a lot of drama, but they really loved each other. It came back around? It did, yeah. Isn't that crazy? Isn't love crazy? Love is really crazy sometimes. I mean, don't you see people where you just make assumptions,

like, why can't it just be like those people? And they're just walking down the street not doing anything. Like, why am I so crazy? Yeah. And they're just walking down the street not doing anything. Like, why am I so crazy? Yeah. I think also really sometimes it really is finding the right fit of the right person.

Right. And I think it's different as you get older. Yeah. Right? You let certain things go. Like, you don't need the same shit. Thank God you let some of those things go. It's so stupid. I mean, we have this youth-oriented culture, but I would never go back to being 25.

My mind, the brain, and all the things I went through, I wouldn't go through that again. How do you frame it now when you look back at your, like, because I was a pretty angry man for a lot of years. And I feel a certain amount of shame about it. You know, like, sort of like, oh, God, I don't have to do that. Like, you make different choices for yourself. mean that's really what happens right you get exhausted yeah sometimes that anger will just beat the out of you until you get to the other side and you're like surrender right oh it's such a relief to not carry that around anymore i didn't have that angry thing but i i definitely had a desire to fix broken things.

Did you grow up in chaos? Yeah. And they say kids that grow up in chaos do gravitate to Christianity because there's rules. There's ten commandments. There's all of these rules. If you do this, that happens. If you do this, that happens.

Yeah. Well, that makes sense. Was there booze? Was someone boozy? My dad was boo Sure. You do this, that happens. Yeah. Well, that makes sense. Because that's what, was there a booze? Was someone boozy? My dad was boozy. He got sober, though. Oh, yeah? Yeah, eventually, yeah.

Because that's like the boozy offspring thing. Either you become a boozer or you become like the control person. Yeah. So you're kind of lucky then if you didn't become the boozer. I mean, yeah, I guess so. It has its own challenges, though. Yeah. The world of the codependent.

Right. So you've done some research on that? I've done some personal research. I have, yeah. I didn't realize that, like, I was always the boozer sort. And I wasn't introduced to my codependency until much later, like just a few years ago. And I was like, holy fuck. Yeah, a lot of times you're double winners like that.

I'm definitely a double winner. Because I'm like sober like 16 years. And then like I got into this relationship and I'm like, what is fucking happening? Like everyone around me was like, what are you doing? I'm like, no, she's going to come around. I'm like, what are you doing? I'm like, no, she's going to come around. I'm like, what? Some people in AA, they say, if they're double winners, and they also end up going into Al-Anon or whatever,

they say, wow, Al-Anon's like the graduate school. Right, exactly. Oh, my God, it's so much more hidden and insidious and hard to see. It is, man. It really is. Especially when you're the other side. When you get sober, there's sort of like the two teams. We've caused their problems.

We are their problem, but we have the problem. Right. But we have the problem. Right. And then when it really happens to you, it's leveling to wake up and realize you're in a codependent bottom or nightmare. It's just leveling. Also, just the chaos that comes with active disease. It's like there is no controlling it.

And the more you try to control it, the worse it gets. Especially when it's a person. Oh, it's just a horror show. We had some pretty public, weird relationships. Right? I mean, like the Nicolas Cage thing. That was quick and weird. Well, I don't know.

Was it quick? I don't know. I mean, we knew each other since I was 17. From acting? No, we dated when I was 17. So we first dated. No, we dated when I was younger. Yeah. Or 19. But the weird thing is like to the world.

Yeah. They see that relationship as like some actors. Right. Or celebrities who dated. But to me, it's somebody I really loved and dated. Right. And it feels like a weird invasion, the focus from the world.

Yeah, I can't imagine it. I don't know. It's bizarre to me that the assumptions the public, and myself guilty of it too at different points, makes about the lives of people who become public. Like, because, you know, people are just people really. And most people I've met, no matter what level of celebrity they are, you know, they just like, you know, they've got to do what everyone else does on some level. I mean, like people talking about Justin Bieber or Selena Gomez, like, wait, newsflash.

These are like 20-year-old people. Yeah. Who are doing the best they can to have any kind of relationship. Right. Oh, are they not marriage material? Are they not making the perfect choices? Right. Okay, they're 20 years old.

And also they're insulated by all that money and the people that operate them. And I don't know how they have lives at all. And fame is a very weird, I look at it like a circus mirror. Yeah. That you're projecting back on people. They're looking at you, but really they're looking at this distorted concept of themselves. Sometimes they're like, hey, I need your autograph. And you're in the middle of working or your kid's on the phone with you.

And you're like, just a second. I said, you know what? Fuck you. Or whatever. It's like, okay. Somehow that triggered in them their feeling of rejection or less than. Meanwhile, your kid is at school and they forgot their lunch or whatever. Right, you're dealing with life. Yeah, you're just like, buddy, I'm doing the best I can here.

I didn't mean to poke you in the eye with some deep injury. Yeah, didn't mean to reopen your wound but it's not my fault yeah i mean sometimes people project a lot of stuff on you or if you're my friend that means my i'm more valuable in the world or i have to talk to you we have to hang out it's like it means so many different things to people that and they're not even seeing you next exactly that's what i'm saying it's a whole different level of objectification. You deal with... There's a standard sort of idea of women being objectified.

But if you're a celebrity and a woman, then it's twice because celebrities are already objectified. It's just being like some weird walking distortion. Yeah. But now, I think selfies have made a little easier then you have to you don't have to have a pen and a piece of paper just some person will come up like can i do selfie i mean people are usually awesome and i know i'm not complaining about people saying hi yeah i'm just saying sometimes you feel a weird extra thing and you yeah and you're like this isn't really about this moment right now.

Yeah. This is about a whole lot of other stuff. Yeah. Okay, so you work, you do a lot of movies. What was the first movie that you did where you were like, you know, you worked with a director or other actors where you really felt like, you know,

you had done something amazing? Was it True Romance? Maybe The Indian Runner. Oh, right. Sean Penn directed it and Viggo Mortensen was in it. Was that the one with Charlie Bronson in it

as the father? Mm-hmm. And my son's in that movie. Really? Yeah, he's the little boy, Raphael. Yeah, he was. That was a pretty intense movie, man.

Yeah. So what was it about working in that environment that made it? Was it because you were working with a director who was an actor? Did you know Sean before? He was such a good actor. Yeah.

No, I didn't know him before. Everything about that movie was different, like even the audition scene. The audition scene, I didn't get the whole script. The audition scene was never in the movie. It was actually the written, it was the scene where Dorothy meets Frank. And everything about Sean was really different. He would sometimes come up to us in scenes and whisper different things in our ear about what had happened to us before the scene or how we were. He was just so emotionally free as an actor and so present as an actor. I'd also

worked before that. Another pivotal thing for me was working with Diane Keaton before that. She directed me in two projects, Movies of the Week, and working with her as an actor to have this woman who was such an incredible actress and such a powerful director, so emotionally present.

I think that was really pivotal for me. Then working on Indian Runner with Sean, True Romance, definitely. And it was part of the reason I got True Romance was because of Indian Runner. Oh, yeah? Mm-hmm. Because Tony had seen it?

I think they'd heard about it, and then Tony had talked to Sean, I think. And do you still have a relationship with Diane Keaton? I just saw her because she was being honored the other night, and I wanted to see her. And I love her very much. Because I always wonder about that with people that have these moments professionally. I mean, I know that actors is sort of like a gig is a gig. But in my mind, in terms of,

I want to believe that all big, talented people are sort of on the phone with each other occasionally and checking in. But I guess that's just my fantasy. That's the delusion that I have about actors. I'm sure there are some. Yeah. And I think, okay, there are some that are really doing that because they're isolated

in a weird way and they do understand each other. Then there's another whole contingent that's like the hustlers, the connectors. So they want to keep those relationships open. Oh, right, right, right, right. There's a lot of those. The annoying people. I don't know. I just slink back into my family life.

But you've worked with some pretty amazing directors. Yeah. What was the Ed Wood experience like? It was great. I'd always wanted to work with Tim Burton. And I love the story of Ed Wood, the story of this dreamer. And with his distorted reality, that was kind of a better reality. And a good enough reality and a magical reality.

And Johnny was great in that movie. And I'd known Johnny since I was a teenager. We'd auditioned for a lot of movies together. He's turned into quite an actor. He was always a good actor, yeah. Was he? Like 21 Jump Street? Well, around that time I'd met him in the parking lot of counters. But I remember Johnny pushing me around some supermarket in a shopping

cart and he put a strainer on my head and we were running around buying like water guns and candy. But like someone like Nick Cage, do you talk to him still? No. Never? I mean, I think sometimes just with relationships, it's good to move on with your own lives. Oh, yeah. I think so. Who is your second husband?

Thomas Jane. He's a really great actor, too. And are you guys okay? Do you talk to each other? Well, we have a daughter together, so better. And you figured out a way to kind of make that okay yeah i mean it's hard when you get divorced with kids huh it's very good to keep in mind that this person gave you one of the most beautiful gifts of your life yeah and you both love this person yeah yeah well and at the end of the day

you know a kid needs their parents yeah and it's good not to be so selfish as to not realize that yeah and also all those people in your life are your great teachers and okay so let's go through directors can we um when you work with scorsese how was that awesome yeah? What makes them different? How are they all different? Like, in a sense, like, working with Tim Burton, how was he? Because you mentioned a little bit about how Sean Penn does it. And he was sort of giving you backstory in your ear to provoke emotional reactions, I imagine.

And Diane Keaton, like, I would be doing a crying scene, and she would be crying off camera. I'd be laughing. She'd be laughing. Like, she would touch you before and just kind of infuse your whole body with this electrical support system. That was really intense. Tony, let's see, Tim Burton. He was funny.

He was honest. He had this great visual interest and he was very humble and warm. But he knew exactly how he wanted the movie to look. Yeah, there was no doubt about it. Right. But he also wanted us to have fun. Okay.

But he would be really honest, like, this time, do it better. And he'd start laughing, like, oh, what does that mean? And Scorsese? That's a weird movie, that movie. Yeah. The Scorsese. Bringing out the dead. Yeah.

It's an odd thing. Like, it just sort of stands alone. It almost doesn't feel like a full movie. It's just like this weird journey. Well, I think the weird journey of the nocturnal experience and the world of the dying and dead, it is like some kind of dream state but he was incredible we were doing this one scene and i felt really frustrated with myself and he was like what's going on it's like i don't just i don't feel like i'm there and he's like it's looking

good but you know take all the time you want i I go, well, we have a crew move, so we were supposed to change locations and go somewhere else, and they have to get permits, and that means all the stuff, and parking trucks, and all this crap. So I felt this pressure, and he's like, oh, no, no, no, don't feel any pressure. And I was like, I know we need to move on, and he's like, no, no, we could stay here all day. We could stay here all day tomorrow.

Don't worry about it. We could anything you know yeah he really meant that and he said at one point his monitors went out and he was like oh that one was really good and i was like how could you tell marty the your monitor went out he goes you can hear it when it's right right you hear a person connected to their body through their voice. And he said, you know, I could be in the editing room and stop a frame anywhere and listen to that. And then you just know if it's there or not. That's wild. Well, I like that when you're under stress, your default is sort of like to worry about everything else. That's not even your job.

I know. How about David Lynch doing Lost Highway? Awesome. Yeah. Great. Funny, sweet. You know, a lot of times people subconsciously or consciously, it's like the director is the final voice. It is really their vision.

They kind of mastermind the whole look, feel, department so it all comes together with david it was like you know this story i'd say david am i two different people am i one person is one a dream is one a hallucination is one a ghost am i two ghosts what's going on here yeah i don't know why you tell me and but the freedom of that, the trust of that, like the adventure of exploring, his team would be so excited to bring him anything. Okay, so I'm walking down a dark hallway, and there's the camera. And then behind the camera, you're only supposed to get within three feet of minimum focus. So if you get closer than that, it gets blurry because they can't get focus in that darkness, that sharp.

Closer than three feet. So we're walking down the hallway. I'm trying to stay three feet away. And after the take, David goes, cut, print it. That's great. And they go, no, no, David, it's not good for camera. She moved inside minimum focus sometimes and it went blurry. Great.

Let's look at it. Audiences have to get used to different kinds of focus. And then he would say, like, there's no real top and bottom. There's no side or side. You know, people look at filmmaking or storytelling or all of these things like it has these strict boundaries, but it doesn't have to have those boundaries. Wow. So in the moment, he was building a new language of film. And also just opening up your own mind to like, oh, film isn't this solid thing with these sharp corners, 90 degree turns.

solid thing with these sharp corners 90 degree turns it's actually this stretchable pliable moving thing which is exciting and scary yeah they kind of you have to reckon with those movies maybe a couple of times they have to reckon with making them too i mean it's i can't imagine definitely because you're like floating and like, if there's no definition necessarily or boundaries, I imagine that's pretty challenging. Well, and because I have a logic to the way that I feel safe in the world and also making choices as an actor, so I decided... I knew that David had written it around the time of O.J. Simpson, and David was very obsessed with that trial. Uh-huh.

And so here's this guy who all the evidence says killed his wife. Yeah. But he's saying, no, no, no, I didn't do that. And at a certain point, do you start believing your own lie? Do you start to believe that? Yeah. So I looked at that movie as an examination of women through the eyes of this misogynist. So my character, Renee, is married to Bill.

Yeah. But he touches the hood of her car when he gets home to see if it's warm, if she's been out. Like there's this weird space between them. She doesn't feel safe with him, but she's kind of trying to just bore him to death or just give him nothing so he'll leave because she just doesn't feel safe with him. He kills her, but he doesn't remember it. He sees it as this other thing that's not him. Then he reinvents himself as this younger guy and he gets to re-meet her again and now she wants him. But even in this dream fantasy reality, she's a lying whore.

She will always be a lying whore. And he can never have her and he can never figure her out and she will never love him enough and she will never be someone safe to love. And you put all that together? I had to do something. I was confused.

And what about like David O. Russell? David O. Russell is cool, too. I mean, he's a very mercurial person. He's very immediate, funny. We had a lot of fun rehearsing. We had a long rehearsal process on that movie. I love that movie. Yeah, I loved it, too.

It's kind of a fun ensemble comedy thing. He's pretty ballsy in terms of the risks he takes and the genres he plays with and how he makes movies. I think he's kind of a genius, that guy. I do too. I do, absolutely. And I think they're all geniuses. Yeah, they are actually the ones we're talking about.

I've got a lot of good ones. Some of my bed post yeah what uh and so link ladder you worked with him first on um on the fast food nation movie which i know we started boyhood before fast food nation oh really we were already shooting boyhood so he's like why don't you and eason come ellers even in in that movie for a second. Who? The little boy from Boyhood is in Fast Food Nation. So how did that work? So you signed on. He says to you, we're going to do a movie.

It's going to take, it's going to arc out. It's going to take 12 years. So it's the pod between first and 12th grade. Right. And you'd shoot every year? Yep. And how did he pitch that to you? What was that meeting like?

It was on the phone. He just called me and said, what are you going to be doing for the next 12 years? And I was like, I don't know, man. Hustling, raising my sign, same thing I'm doing right now. What are you going to be doing? He was like, oh, I'm thinking about doing this movie where we shoot like a week a year for 12 years. And I was like, my whole, all the blood rushed through my body my body and i was just like are you thinking about me for this he was like yeah i was kind of wondering if you'd be interested ethan's gonna do it i was like i'm in he's like we don't have

any money i was like i'm in and then i was like oh shit what's my part man he's like you're gonna be the mom i was like cool so i just imagined it would be like, hey, man, don't forget your ball. Don't forget your mitt. What's going on? And each year it's a different line. Don't forget your condom. Exactly. Don't forget your.

Don't forget you stole money out of my wallet. And was the experience of it, I mean, did, you know, in the process of making that, just doing, did you actually only shoot a week a year? Yeah. So, how, did you, were you able to even connect what that might end up as? Well, after that first little bit of that conversation, he then, I said, what's the movie about? And he told me the whole story of the movie. And it's the same movie he made. And it had the same feeling he made.

You know, he said, you know he said you know there'll be like a presidential campaign now we had no idea who would be running for president at the time so those things would be inserted closer to the time right but he'd call us a few months before and say start thinking about this stuff these are the scenes this year but it was still like one week of shooting a year so So I imagine, like, what was the experience of seeing that movie for the first time for you? Because just for me, it was like, it was kind of brain altering somehow. How did it, I can't imagine what it must have felt like for you to actually see yourself move through, you know, over a decade on screen. Well, it was really surreal in a million ways. Rick had offered to let me see it, you know, over a decade on screen. Well, it was really surreal in a million ways.

Rick had offered to let me see it, you know. Okay, the movie's done. Do you want to see it? You know. Yeah. I said, you know what? I want to see it with an audience. He's like, are you sure?

So the first time I saw it was the first time I'd ever had an audience. 1,200 people at Sundown. Yeah. Me and my boyfriend had just started dating. It was the first time we saw a movie I was in together. So that's a whole other element. Then watching that, yes, you're self-aging.

But also on top of it, it was like watching it through four brains. Because there was the brain of myself watching the movie. There was the brain of watching myself age. There was the other part of me that knew oh that's the year ethan got divorced oh right that's the year real life i got divorced yeah our own stuff oh lr's family got divorced that year oh the makeup lady couldn't be there that year oh our wardrobe lady was so pregnant that year yeah all of that stuff right is in the background of another part and then because i would only have the scenes that i in the background of another part and then because i

would only have the scenes that i was in there was another part of it where my character my son mason in the movie eller's character would say i'm going to sleep on my friends and i knew he was lying but i didn't know what that next scene was so then my character was watching the movie and my character was seeing them throw these darts and this guy is kind of a pervy weird dude and my character was like i don't like that fucking guy you can't hang out with him anymore and my character was making all these judgments and decisions like wow your dad was really a good dad oh yeah you know wow if you could just be a fly on the wall of the other parent you'd probably see like i really chose well to have kids with you did that inform your

your real life yeah it did it made me definitely think you know i need to step back and have a bigger picture of things the chances are if you have really great kids that are loved and happy and full, probably the other parent's doing something right. Yeah. It's very moving. So you actually, having all those four narratives going in you during the movie emotionally, it was almost like a crash course in emotional growth. It was. And then also I had this fierce feeling of protectiveness because I'd been through so many movies and screenings and film festivals and movies that were great.

I mean, True Romance was a bomb. It found its own audience over time. But here was this movie that I really was connected to emotionally and the people in it. And I really loved. And I knew it had a different meter. And I knew it was different. And it was dealing with more nuances of being a person human than sort of these obvious plot kind of things so again it was like i kind of think i'm gonna get really not like people if

they don't understand this movie or if they don't accept it or see what's special about it i'm gonna really have an emotional time with this one. And it was, how did you feel about its reception? It was amazing. I bet. Thank God it was amazing. Because we were like, all right, here we go, man. I don't know how this is going to go down.

Especially with the kids. It was their first movie like that. Like, you know what? No matter what happens, it doesn't matter. Like, I love you guys. This is our thing. It doesn't matter. Right. But after the guys. This is our thing. It doesn't matter. But after the movie,

there were just all these people crying. And there was an 18-year-old boy like, this is like my life. And then there was a 60-year-old lady like, this is my life. It was beautiful. And it was, you know, recognized by the industry and by the public. It was bizarre. Crazy. you won an oscar i know

i heard about that that was crazy too i can't even imagine that me either i i still can't imagine is it hard it's really weird yeah it's really yeah because it was not an easy path for you as an actor after a certain point. I mean, you had some rough times. I don't really feel like I had that rough of a time. Right. I mean, I don't. I don't. But I imagine that some part of your heart was sort of like, I want to win an Oscar.

Well, when I was a little girl, I'd be like in the bathtub or when I'd be watching the Oscars, like, oh, that's so cool. But then very early on, I sort of chosen an artistic route, you know, that path in the road that doesn't really lead there. At what point, though, do you think that happened? Very early on. Before the movies even? No, no, no. Like after True Romance? I don't think True Rom is even oscar stuff you know it's but it was definitely leading lady kind of like you know

like big it felt like a big movie to me like you know that you could have like it it felt like to me something between entertainment which isn't really really Oscar material kind of acting thing. Right. Or it also felt radical because, you know, Quentin had just only written Reservoir Dogs. He actually wrote True Romance before Reservoir Dogs. So this came out right after Reservoir Dogs. So that was a whole new world of, whoa, what is this thing? It's a little fringy.

I think I meant not by leading lady, but movie star. It felt like it could have been that there was a point there where you're like, I'm going to go after movie star-ness. No, that came to me because of that movie. I could have. And I turned down a lot of stuff that were the obvious fare. And I was like, I want to work with David Lynch. And I want to work with these other filmmakers. And I saw Spanking the Monkey. And I want to work with David Lynch and I want to work with these other filmmakers. Right.

And I saw Spanking the Monkey and I want to work with this dude that made this little movie and, you know. So I didn't, I was purposely sort of took a right turn on that path.

And I imagine you're pretty grateful for that. I am really grateful. I'm grateful for the whole ride. So you're at the Oscars and they say your name.

And it was like somebody injects you with this elephant tranquilizer that makes time and space just go. And it almost feels like every millisecond is a million years. What, heading up to the podium? Yeah, everything distorts out. Like, whoo, whoo, whoo. Yeah. They're like, yeah, they said my name right. I'm hugging you.

No one's saying sit down. No. I'm moving up there. This is really weird. How can this be happening? I mean, afterwards, I went backstage. I was shaking, and I almost fainted. I was like, ah, I think I'm going to throw up.

I was shaking and I almost fainted. I was like, I think I'm going to throw up. I was so. And when you were up there, you know, you said some stuff that was very heartfelt and very, you know, pointed. And like, you know, I think it might have changed my girlfriend's wife. Yeah, she got a raise. Well, she's a painter, so she's doing okay though okay yeah um but in that moment did it just come to you was at the time like did you was there forethought to saying you know oh yeah no that was a plan oh yeah i mean look you're not really supposed to be political it's very very sure no kind of known that you're not supposed to be political. But here I was winning this for a woman who had to keep moving her kids from place to place and put herself through school and be the main caretaker and be the main breadwinner.

And I just thought how different her life would have been. Would she have married that guy? Or was there a subconscious? How attractive was this idea of stability? Right. What if you remove that? What if instead of making 78 cents on the dollar, she made an extra 22 cents?

How different would her life, her kid's life have been when they have had to move that time, say goodbye to their friends, change their school? So I knew I wanted to talk about equal pay for women. You know. Which shouldn't even it's that's

to me it's like it's not even politics it's just it's it's um it's just basic justice yeah it is basic justice it is and you know so it's weird that like people would frame it politically because it's it shouldn't even be yeah uh a charged topic yeah but the weird thing is, yeah, unfortunately it is. No, no, I know. I know, but did you get backlash from that, that you had politicized? Yeah, there was a bunch of people that didn't claim that it doesn't even exist, even though the Department of Labor, it's sort of like, oh, global warming doesn't exist.

It's like, guys, you would be crushed to death with all of the material that supports this. Right, right. But you also brought up just even in Hollywood. Yeah, but I wasn't even really talking about it. No, I know. I wasn't thinking about Hollywood, but Hollywood is one of 98% of all industries that it exists in. So that's part of it, but it's a minor part of it.

And look, we just don't even look at the correlation. We don't live in this Ozzie and Harriet world anymore. 70% of women are now working, so they're contributing the income, or they're the sole providers. Right. And one out of five kids in America is hungry. The richest country in the world. That's crazy. We have an astronomical amount of hungry kids

and let's say it is 70 of the african-american community is being raised solely by single bread winning moms who are getting paid 60 cents on the dollar is there a relationship between hungry kids and women making 60 cents on the dollar or latina women making 55 cents on the dollar right yeah there's a relationship with that so it's not just women's equality oftentimes women making 60 cents on the dollar or Latina women making 55 cents on the dollar. Yeah, there's a relationship with that. So it's not just women's equality oftentimes or women's rights or women's fair pay. The reality is the new America, you have to look at women and children. Right.

Economic survival really depends on women. At this point, we're at a pivotal junction where we need to really make a radical change. Yeah, even it up, make it right. We do. Like the missing middle class is all these women and their kids. Yeah, nobody talks about class. Not in America. There's rich people and people are going to be rich soon. Yeah. Or they're not working hard enough to be rich. Yeah, that's right.

Are you active in your personal life around these issues? Do you go do stuff? Yeah, I do a lot of speaking engagements. Like I went to the Milken Convention, which is this very fancy convention with huge CEOs, and called for them to do gender audits. There's this amazing CEO, Mark Benioff, who runs Salesforce, and he did a gender audit on his company, and he said he's not going to stop until there's gender parity. Oh, so that's good. That's progress. Yeah. And then Governor Brown signed the strongest fair pay bill in California that Senator

Hannah Beth Jackson presented, which is great. Yeah. But that's California. That's one state. It'll start in January. It'll change some of the laws in a radical way, so we'll see how those work out. But the rest of the country, it's really hard for women. Yeah.

And it's still hard for women here. Yeah. Oh, and also I'm helping my friend produce a movie she's been working on for six years called Equal Means Equal, where they examine all these relationships. It's a doc? It's a documentary, yeah, Equal Means Equal. Camel Lopez is her name. And it looks at judicially the justice system,

underfunding of projects, how fair pay is playing out. I mean, there's so many crazy things when you start really examining all of this. For years, for decades, the FDA was looking at all the scientific data for drugs, but they didn't even know that none of them were being tested on women at all. And that ended up overdosing women, killing women. Seatbelts were never tested on women. And then to the last couple of years, and then when they made a female crash test dummy, what they found was all of these safety ratings of a bunch of cars dropped because a lot of them, where the airbag was placed,

ended up killing women and 12-year-old kids who are more similar. And people think, oh, well, airbag is where an airbag is. But in Europe, the airbags are in a completely different place because in europe the car companies have to assume that the person in the car is not wearing a seat belt so these are all things like just this subconscious bias where you're not even part of the conversation because you're a female yeah i guess i guess they would say a patriarchal oversight right yeah it's and i do think for a large part it's subconscious and then part of it is also conscious because it's more complicated

to look at but don't we think to do the extra population should be looked at yeah yeah right like oh there's boobs we got to make a new machine right or their necks are a little thinner right you know oh wow so as as somebody as a working mother um when you do tv over movies or you know instead of movies do you do you approach it differently do you see it you know when like i mean you were on that show medium for years yeah and is is that as as fulfilling as doing movies, or is it sort of like a job? It's really different. It's a different, it's more like a theater company that's traveling all the time and doing, it's almost like live theater in a weird way. You have to shoot eight pages a day.

You have to learn this astronomical amount of dialogue. You have to leave it there. You never get to go back to it to fix it. You don't get to look at the whole arc of the whole thing. So you learn to memorize much faster. You have to be present in the moment more. And be that character for years. Yeah.

And you also really establish a deep relationship with your crew. Mm-hmm. So there's, and then there's things that are hard. You don't have the same relationship with the director. They're shooters. They come and they go. It's very different, your relationship with the director in a movie. But imagine the relationship with the crew is deeper, in a sense, or the other actors, at least.

Yeah, the whole thing. I think you bond for a long, long time. Yeah. So I'm grateful for that. It's also nice to be here in town. Sure. Where your kid's living. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, right. And the CSI show, how's that going? I feel like we've really improved a lot this year. I'm liking the writing. Is this the second year? Mm-hmm. And do you like doing the procedur writing. Is this the second year? Mm-hmm. And do you like doing the procedurals? Is this the first one you've done?

It's not my go-to. It's not easy for me. Right. So it's a challenge. In what way? A lot of my characters are heart-based, and this character's all brain. Yeah.

Very brain. Yeah. The cyber part of it, but also the analytical, therapeutic part of her. And that's a survival mechanism. Uh-huh. But also the lingo

and the whole thing is different. But I'm excited about this year. Is she a control freak? Yeah. She's much cleaner than I am. Much more organized. Like, I'm the Oscar. what's Oscar's last name? Felix Unger and Oscar.

Oh, what is his last name? What, is he just Oscar, like Cher? Felix. Like, he doesn't even. Oscar. Felix Unger and Oscar. Madison. Yes!

I wanted to say the grouch. Oh, good. There's one of those, yeah. Yeah, so I'm kind of the Oscar. Oh, good. There's one of those, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm kind of the Oscar. Oh, yeah? In real life. Uh-huh.

And she's my Felix Unger part. Oh, good. So this is another, you know, it's a learning thing. Yeah, they're all learning things. Oops, sorry. New tools. All new tools. How's this current relationship working out?

Good? It's awesome, yeah. Yeah? You like dating a painter? I do. Do you? Yeah, they operate in a different time zone. Yeah. relationship working out good yeah you like dating a painter I do do you yeah they're they they operate in a different time zone yeah they don't look at things regular the it seems like the clutter that that defines my life it's just not something that concerns them isn't that great it is great it's it's sort of

weird and they're they're right here all the time. Is that your experience? They're probably different. What kind of paintings do you do? I'll show you. You'll see. Abstract? I don't even want to label it.

What about her painting? She's an abstract painter. Oh, okay. Yeah, big, big, big abstract canvases. He's more figurative. Oh, yeah? And so where's the studio? In the house?

Yeah. So you get to kind of... Well, it's got its own Oh, yeah? Yeah. And so where's the studio? In the house? Yeah. So you get to kind of... Well, it's got its own little... Area? Yeah. The painter area? It's a studio. Yeah, yeah.

It's wild, right? It's like a little Zen temple when you walk in. Well, I don't know what yours is. Oh, I love it. Yeah, yeah. I love going in there. And I love just his process. And I mean, because he's such a perfectionist and so detailed his work and I mean I can't do

anything like that so it's neat to have people talk about different disciplines right it's great to be with somebody who's not in the business and he loves other painters work and turns me on to art and that's oh let's go life force's exciting. Let's go look at some paintings. Yeah, let's do it. Good talking to you. Good talking to you. Okay. See, that was moving.

I'm so grateful that I am able to talk to people out here. If I don't talk to a guest for a week, I'm in trouble, man. I like to talk to people out here. If I don't talk to a guest. You know for a week. I'm in trouble man. I like to talk to people. I like to do it right here. In my dirty garage. And I'm glad you guys like it too. And thank you for all the stuff you send me.

I read a lot of your emails. Someday I'll get it together to. Put together an email show. Because there's a lot of touching stuff. And I'm glad to be part of your lives. Those of you, you know who I'm talking to. The people that get more than I could have ever imagined

out of this show. I'm glad to help, and I'm humbled by your feedback. Thank you for that. You can go to WTFpod.com for all your stuff. Get on the mailing list. can uh get the howl

premium there there's a merch there's posters new posters there might i might uh pull some more posters out of the vault and put them up oh man all right everything's all right oh yeah i'll play guitar Oh, man. All right. Everything's all right. Oh, yeah, I'll play guitar. Thank you. Boomer lives! Boomer lives! Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations,

how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Calgary is a city built by innovators. Innovation is in the city's DNA. Thank you. Calgary's visionaries are turning heads around the globe, across all sectors, each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward.

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