WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 694 - Quinn Cummings

Episode Date: March 31, 2016

Writer Quinn Cummings does not let her Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress define her. After all, she was only 10 when it happened. Quinn tells Marc why she rejected acting after her early success and why she prefers to write. They also talk about homeschooling, avoiding marriage, and how Quinn became a patent-holding inventor. 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.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. 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 talked 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. 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. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucksters? What's happening? I am Mark Maron. This is WTF. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. If you're new to it. For those of you returning, it's nice to have you back.

My guest today on the show is Quinn Cummings, the author. She has several books to her name, very funny memoirs, Notes from the Underwire, Adventures from My Awkward and Lovely Life, and The Year of Learning Dangerously, and Pet Sounds. the year of learning dangerously and pet sounds. But she was also kind of the fact about her is that the weird historical fact is she was nominated for the best actress and a supporting role for the Goodbye Girl in 1978. And she was about 11 years old. So that that happened. But her writing is funny and she's interesting and quirky and intelligent.

And it was really nice to talk to her. Before I get too preoccupied with whatever nonsense is going on in my mind, let me do a couple of Mark-related, me-related, no third person, Mark Maron-related plugs. Friday, April 8th, Mission Creek Festival at the Englert Theater in Iowa City, Iowa. Saturday, April 9th at the Rococo Theater in Lincoln, Nebraska. And Sunday, April 10th at the Arvest Bank Theater

at the Midland in Kansas City, Missouri. That one feels, I feel the weight of that one. It might be the weight of some absence's uh let's see if we can get some folks in kansas city to come yeah either way either way my uh television show marin season four which we're editing now premieres on ifc on may 4th okay that's mark related business so monkey got out like i interviewed my buddy brian in here i don't brian scolero hilarious comic uh guy who always makes me laugh that'll air later but we're in here for an hour and uh we finish up and i open the door and i hear like

and i walk out of the garage and monkey is walked out of the house he's like literally trying to get back in the house this is an indoor cat and i don't know maybe some of you who have indoor cats know that when you see your indoor cat outside it's jarring it's like what what this does not match why are you what the hell happened it's like seeing a lost child trying to get in you know and he was just like weird and panicky and and then i let him in i'm thank god he came back i mean years ago he was an outdoor cat but then he was all filled with the fucking beans of being outside like you know mr wild guy bob sledding down the hall i don't know if your cat does i wish i could get video of that but he'll just run down the hallway and he'll go up the wall he'll get a little momentum going and they'll go up the wall like a luge sled and come down the other side. I need to get that on YouTube so I can get a million hits for my silly cat video.

Anyways, rambling, rambling. But this is what's happening. Some big changes in my life, folks. There's some big changes. Life changes. Life does change. Because what's happening right now in my life is I'm getting rid of shit. And I think I've been through this before, but usually it has to do with a lot of unsolicited things that are sent to me.

Now, I process everything. That's why I got a fucking office, which I hope I can stay in. But that's really in AT&T's hands. But I process stuff. I keep what I can keep, and I get rid of what I can't. But there's some stuff laying around that I never thought. And this is something I came up with on my own. I always kind of knew it, but I didn't read any books on it.

But I've got a lot of things that I've had for years. That means things that represent relationships I've had in the past, things that have no meaning anymore. I don't even know where some of them came from, but just things I put on a shelf, knickknacks, this and that, that have been there for years. And I wanted to move things around. So I got rid of this giant piece of furniture that was in my dining room. I don't know what you call it. I can't fucking remember the name of this piece of furniture, but it's on four legs. It's like

half a cabinet, half a dresser. If somebody could please tell me what that piece of furniture is called, because my ex-wife used to refer to it as something but my my brain my old ass 52 year old brain can't process i think it starts with a c but i can't i can't get the whole thing in my head you think and i looked it up doesn't matter what it is it's on four legs and there's a there's two cabinet doors and inside the cabinet doors there's like three or four drawers that slide out and then below the cabinet part there's two big drawers with handles anyways this came to LA in 2002 with me on a van because it was in my wife's my ex-wife Mishna's apartment when I met her she had this piece of furniture forever and it was important to her to keep it and it ended up in

both of the apartment and it's been in my house forever. And I didn't even realize how big it was. And my only intention was to bring it over to the office so I could have drawers over there. And then I moved the thing out, I emptied it and had all kinds of stuff on top of it, knickknacks and things that I had to process. Processing knickknacks and demystifying them and getting rid of them if they're full of magic that is having a negative impact on your life okay haunted vessels cursed

pieces of rock so i bring this thing over empty to the office i'm put in the office and i didn't never realize how big it was and i started to realize like this thing has been taking up a lot of space in my dining room, even though it's practical. I got another piece, a new piece of furniture with drawers. So I moved that over there. But it also took a big piece of my brain. There was no way I couldn't look at that thing. And on some level, subconscious or barely conscious, I knew that was her thing. Not only was it her piece of furniture,

but it was her piece of furniture before she even met me. And it was just sitting there eating up my psychic space, reminding me of a certain primal sadness that was triggered upon her exit. And just sitting there and, you know, creating somewhat of an emotional void in my dining room, something I see every fucking day, but I never

thought that. I just felt like I'm too anxious to buy new furniture. I'm childish, and I just don't want to make changes, so just leave it there. And then when I got it out, it was like something was lifted off of my fucking heart, man. I got it to the office. I'm like, fuck this thing. It's too big to be in here, and you know what? I'm going to get rid of it. Now, I could have just destroyed it, but I thought like, why not reenter it into the ecosystem? Just put it on the street. Let someone else take it. They don't know the baggage.

I don't think it's that powerful magic. It doesn't have that much power. If somebody just picks it up off the street, it's just a piece of old furniture. They don't know that it was in an apartment on 46th street just saturated with cigarette smoke and arguments and you know weird decisions and hopes and dreams and like in the back of it when i pulled the drawers out there was like little artifacts of her there was this a a letter to her roommate at the time and there was some weird photograph portfolio of another model who must have lived with her at some point too and it was some weird photograph portfolio of another model who must have lived

with her at some point too and it was just such a beautiful thing to get rid of it and i saw the guy that picked it up off the street and i'm like what are you doing with that he's like why don't i have drawers put my clothes and i'm like all right well you know enjoy it because it was hurting my heart but it won't have any impact on you purge yourself of the haunted artifacts of the past. It's not that you want to forget it, but you don't have to be reminded of it on an unconscious level every day. I got rid of all sorts of tchotchkes, just things. I found this little box that had pieces of rice in it and some sort of amulet of two people. And I'm like, I don't even know what marriage that one was from.

Garbage, heart rocks, got rid of them, crystals, never a good idea to keep them around if you don't know their source. And I'm not paranoid. I'm not mystical. I'm not saying all this stuff is charged, but it's only as charged as you perceive it to be. And that's all that's necessary for magic to work. You don't have to prove nothing.

There's no great mystical unknown. Well, there might be, but in terms of magic and artifacts, it's all what you invest in the object or the spell. What spell do you have? What spells are you throwing on people? What weird neural and mental and psychological patterns are you in that keep you locked or other people in your life locked in a certain situation? They may not even feel it, but it's magic if you're putting it out there.

Take responsibility for your spells. Okay? Pow! Look out. Just shit my pants. Justcoffee.co.coop available at wtfpod.com it's uh nostalgic for me quinn cummings the reason that uh that i know of her is that several people not just one person a few people sent me her book saying dude she lives like near you and we love her and she's really funny and she's a great writer. And I had her

booked on the show and then I had to reschedule it because I had not read any of her stuff and I don't like to do that, especially with writers. And she took it personally. And we talk about that a little bit, but eventually I read her stuff and I had her on and we had a lovely chat and you can check her stuff out, her writing and get her books at qcreport.com. This is me talking to Quinn Cummings. 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. Death almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Death is in our air.

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18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. You can really get close on that mic so I can get... Okay. Yeah. Because I'm not tall. Well, no, it's adjustable. There's no standard. I used to joke that I was the height of an eighth grader,

and then my daughter was in eighth grade, and then she was in ninth grade, and she was taller than I was, and I realized, wasn't a joke that was just a statement but but okay all right but you're not short i'm like a person you washed in hot water how about that well all right quinn now let's let's let's address some things right up front. Yes. The blog post you wrote about... Well, you put it up there. Do you want me to explain to you what happened? You apologized so beautifully.

And I... Okay. This was never about you. I know that. If you read it, it was just sort of a... Because the thing is, is that if you walk away from acting, the question people outside of acting inevitably ask is, why? Why would you do that? Weirdly enough, actors never ask that.

They're like, yeah, I get that. I recommend that nobody gets involved in show business, ever. um so you know when when you have walked away as i have yeah and people think that they know you because they grew up with you they inevitably and quickly get to so why aren't you doing this anymore and going through this where i realized this was never about you and in some ways this was never about me yeah but this was about this all it took for me to go back to cringing self-doubt actor crazy land population me yeah was one person saying can we push an interview and then having them not call back and i thought oh this is why i am nowhere near that side of the business i like me better when i'm not up in the middle of the night going was

it my writing it was my writing wasn't it i don't like that version of me right but you're telling me that you don't have that feeling in in your life other you know only because i get that too i mean and i and it's very easy to to think there are conspiracies or that somebody you know that guy doesn't like me or maybe he talked to somebody that didn't like me. Or there's somebody more important than me. How could I think? And all that, a lot of that was in your blog post. But here's what happened. I didn't know who you were.

And not when I booked you. But I had, I don't know who it is. A big fan of you or somebody. But two people. Two strange people. That I don't know. I wish I knew their names. Sent me your books. So two people are like, she that I don't know. I wish I knew their names. Sent me your books.

So two people are like, she's just down the street, and she's a child actress that ran off, quit courageously, and wrote these amazing books. I'm like, all right, all right, all right. And then one guy, I don't know who it was, marked chapters and stuff. You might want to know who that is, but I wish I knew for you. I think he lives in my front yard and waves at me in the mornings.

It's probably him. He put post-its and made notes. So when you said a strange person sent it to you, you don't mean someone you don't know. You mean someone genuinely a little odd sent it to you. Sure. Well, a fan. And they can be odd, but somebody who loves you, clearly. I don't know if

it's a bad thing or not, but he's a big fan. It's heartfelt. Absolutely. So he sends you these loves you clearly i don't know you know you know if it's a bad thing or not but he's a big fan it's heartfelt yeah absolutely so he sends you these books and i don't know who you are and i see the books and i mean to get to things i get a lot of stuff here uh yeah right so then someone else talked to me about you and then i kind of read some background on you and i'm like well this would be interesting and then i booked we booked you and i was excited and then it was like a lot of things just creep up on me. And I hadn't read the books. I hadn't read anything. So I didn't want to be rude.

So it was really just about like I really need to read some of her shit before I have her on because it's disrespectful. So that's what happened. The date was coming up. Had not read anything. And I'm like, I can't do it because I haven't read it. And I think that's what I told you. Yes, absolutely. But you were after I and then it took too long so you were like oh I blew it my writing stinks yes and here's the thing I have I wrote

my blog I have written the blog and I have no problem with it the blog I think it was a nice piece I just want to make sure we clear it up I was always fine with you. This was always about, the blog is always about me. When I started the blog, it was based on the idea that I am usually an idiot. It's just because people only see me in small, in any given point, they don't get enough of me to realize what an idiot I am. And I thought, you know, let me just start putting down all of the ways in which I'm an idiot. I got seven years of material out of that before I started to repeat myself. Very hard on yourself. No, just very, just terrible clarity.

Terrible, terrible awareness of, oh, God, you just did that thing again. You know, just. But just being able to say that means that you have some clarity. At least you can recognize that you're doing a thing again. I'm doing a thing again i'm doing a thing again and what was kind of wonderfully comforting about it was that i would write some of my more mortifying experiences and more often than you would think somebody would write in and say thank you of course i honestly thought i was now i will tell you the only one that i have ever written where people were like yeah that that's bad, and you're alone,

was I inadvertently kept insulting a little person. By saying midget? No, my dog, who was the most passive dog in the world, got upset about this person for once, and in my haste to explain it and normalize it, I kept trying to explain it, and it got further and further into, into well maybe it's because and it was and then I think oh by all means right now let's double down talk faster and make sure that she fully understands that you are the least socially uh comfortable person in the entire east side of LA and she knows she's a little person and that she knows a little she's a little person because she might not.

That was the only one where people just wrote in and went, you know, maybe drink decaf. You might want to just chill out a little bit. So I had left the blog alone for a lot of reasons. I felt like I had said everything I wanted to say. The kid is getting...

When I started it, my daughter was five. When I really finished, and I was doing two or three a week for years. And there was a point at which I realized she was more specific. When you write about a five-year-old, there's a lot of generalities. If they're a girl and some boys, they're going to be into pink. So you can talk about the pink thing without interfering with their privacy. As she got older and had more specific interests, I was going to need to start flogging her in a way I wasn't comfortable with.

Or asking her for permission, which might be coercive at a certain age. Exactly, because her attitude is, I am hilarious, you should use all of this, but 12 and 13-year-olds are not necessarily known for being able to predict the years-out consequence of their behavior. Hell, I can't. So I just decided let's dial that back a bit. And last year, it was a tumultuous year

on a number of levels, and there was a lot of things. For her or you? Pick a person. Everybody. Anybody attached to my attached the whole crew i think one of the house cats was fine but everybody else had something it was it was that year where you just you look up and go really really are you are you never going to be bored with me right right um and there were so many things i couldn't write about to protect people's

privacy because there were things going on but this one i could write about because this one here's me well yes you but no but it came back to me it was me i know you keep saying that i understand but it was me being an idiot it was me obsessively ruminating over something that ultimately didn't matter all that much this is very important quinn it is very important, Quinn. It is critically important. No, I mean, don't get me wrong. WTF changes lives. I understand that. I don't know if it does that, but yeah. Well, I just needed, I knew if I wrote about it, then it was done.

Yeah. And by the time you wrote to me and apologized, I had to remind myself that it was like, oh, that's right, that mattered. Because truly, if I write about it, I just... It's out. It's out, it's exercised, and it's moved on. And I thought your apology was beyond unnecessary and world-class gracious. Well, I knew I would like you. I don't just, you know, find...

I get a lot of books, and, you know, it took me a while to get to your book. I've read most of the first book. Is that okay? Is that enough? Yeah. Okay, let me tell you something right now. Writers, we're happy if anyone gets the book. You don't even really need to read it.

We're just happy somebody... It's a very low expectation kind of a job. I have relatives who haven't read my books yet. Sure, sure. Yeah, absolutely. I know books are rough. But the weird thing was, is that I knew, you know, what everybody knows. I knew that the struggle, this idea of the expectations of show business and how horrible

it is. I mean, when you, how old were you when you were nominated? Nine. For an Oscar? No, I did the movie when I was nine. I nominated when i was 10 it's ridiculous yeah so i was single digits when i did the movie but double digits right so you grew up right but which is also interesting about sort of learning to respect or having respect for your daughter's privacy at an age where you know you really were kind of intruded upon in a lot of ways.

Oh, yeah. But nonetheless, so I started reading the book and then I'm on the plane. I was on vacation. I'm laughing. I enjoy it. I identified with something in you. I imagine it's the paralyzing insecurity and self-judgment and constant self-awareness that self-consciousness and self-awareness can be very similar. What is self-awareness. Self-consciousness and self-awareness can be very similar.

What is self-awareness? Is that the evolved version of self-consciousness? Like, is that where you go, shit, I'm doing this, but it's okay, I do this. That's self-awareness as opposed to self-consciousness? Okay, then, in the interest of total disclosure, I have not reached self-awareness yet. It's just, for me, it's just the one where you pick up the cell phone and you're talking and you can hear yourself a second after and you say to your friend, look, let me call you right back.

I can hear myself talking. I can, you know, I can hear myself talking. So you're like, you've got it kind of bad a little bit. You've got it, you know, do you spiral to the point where you have an anxiety attack? No. Oh, good. I have found that writing for me was, is the trick. If I can, I think it's always the thing that saved me.

Even in the most awkward and uncomfortable situations, there's always been a part of my brain going, yeah, but this is going to be a great story. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I mean, it's okay. It sucks. Start imagining the story. Yeah. If I can write about it, if I can make a joke about it, it stops the ruminations.

While you're writing it or after? Like you said that you're kind of purged of it once you write it. But while you're writing it, you're kind of immersed in the process of writing. You get lost in that, right? Yeah. But also there's something kind of pleasant. I mean, if you've got an awkward experience or if you, you know, if you were inadvertently repeatedly insulted a little person afterwards, trying to break it down and figure out, oh, God. Yeah, that was when she started to look panicked.

That was when she was trying to inch out of the room. Figuring out the structure of it takes the heat off of it. You know, and trying to figure out the most apt metaphor for the draining blood from my face, horror, and yet the mouth kept moving. Sure. You know, at that point, I've exercised it. Right. But it may not have made it right with the little person.

No. But. No, that will never be okay. But you're okay with you around that issue. At some point, I'll meet her and apologize incredibly awkwardly. And maybe I'll write another blog then because I'm sure I won't handle it any better this time. But let's go.

I mean, let's do this story because it's rare that i get to talk to somebody who um courageously turns her back on this miserable fucking business and and actors i think you know it's i don't know how some of them do it i don't know how they go from audition to audition waiting for something having the expectations i don't even know what they're expecting sometimes. I guess you expect that there's going to be a role that's going to deliver you and make everything okay and make you a star and make people love you. I don't know how they do it. And I don't know what they do when they're not acting. I don't know what they do.

So for me, reading your story, even though you were incredibly young when you had all this amazing attention you you didn't stop for years yeah because i cannot speak for all i will speak for all actors now i cannot speak for all actors but i can tell you about my experience well let's let's let's let me be clear about what it is you were nominated for an oscar for your performance in the goodbye girl yes you were the daughter marcia mason's daughter yep and and i remember that i was young when that movie came out when i mean i'm 52 so i remember seeing that i'm when did it come out 77 really so i was like 14 right something like that yeah i remember seeing it richard dreyfus you can't hang the panties on. Yep. Right. And you were this sort of precocious, adorable, emotional kid.

Right. And it's weird. Like, I haven't seen the movie in a long time. But when he started talking, I'm like, oh, yeah. That hurt. Oh, no. There are pictures of me where I am newborn. I'm in the hospital where you look at and go, oh, yeah, that's Quinn.

Same face, same affect. It's just freaky. It's good. It's consistent the hospital where you look at and go, oh, yeah, that's Quinn. Same face, same affect. It's just freaky. It's good. It's consistent. At least you have that. Yeah. Yeah, there is exactly. And I have an older half-brother, and I look like that side of the family.

I know how I'm going to age slowly and consistently. We're like, you know. You're doing all right. Thank you. Yeah. You know, just cringing self-doubt. You're doing all right. Thank you. Yeah. You know, just. So how does it. Just cringing self-doubt.

Yeah. I'll keep the person young. Yeah. I try to like. Don't you. Aren't you exhausted by it at a certain point? Yeah. Doesn't that stifle any of it? I mean, how much are you playing up?

All right. That's a really good question. I can turn the volume up and down to a certain degree on self-awareness. Yeah. But there are points where it just runs the show. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's spiral, you know, spiral.

Yeah. All right. So how does it start? So you grew up where? I grew up in the West Hollywood Hills. I was one. There was one girl, one family with a child that was me and everybody else was a gay man. Oh, that's right. I mean, that story in the book, in the in the first book, which I should say the name of Notes from the Underwire Adventures from my awkward and lovely life. of Notes from the Underwire, Adventures from My Awkward and Lovely Life. The AIDS hotline story was very touching.

There's a lot of stories in there that are touching. Thank you. And I know the book's been out for a while, but books are books. See, that's the one benefit of books is that you can always go get a book and it's going to be new to you. So you grew up in West Hollywood when it was pre-AIDS gay. Pre-AIDS gay. And you were the only family. Yeah.

And you had relationships with all these gay men on the street. Oh, yeah. I love them. I mean, what is not to love? They're young. They're hilarious. They're attractive. There's always a new selection of attractive young men coming in on the weekends.

A lot of action. A lot of action. Halloween was a joy because i was the only child and i would walk around the neighborhood and men i you know that i knew very well would open the door and they'd be dressed as marilyn or norma desmond and they would be mystified because here was a child dressed up in a costume and i really think they completely forgot this had also been a child's holiday and then they would look at my mother like can we give her little bottles of alcohol from the plane i it's the only small

thing we have did not prepare for kids we did not prepare for children i'm sure one of them offered my mother a popper at one point it's small not for the kid but you can have fun on the walk home exactly yeah um so but where does uh so in that neighborhood, neither one of your folks are in show business. No. My mother, well, my mother was tangentially, she was a accountant, she was a bookkeeper for talent agents. And my father was the president of a manufacturing firm. We were that thing that no longer exists.

We were middle class. And what would your father manufacture? Neckties. Neckties? Yes. Really? Okayckties. Neckties? Yes. Really? Okay. We had, and it has gotten lost in one of the moves.

Somebody had taken, one of the salesman's wives had taken the sample book of all of the 1975 collection of neckties and made it into a crazy quilt. Imagine 1975 ties. Now imagine them eight feet by six feet. All together. It was the most fantastically ugly thing you have ever seen. You had it? Yes. It was so ugly that it swung back around to kind of beautiful again.

Yeah, of course. Just the sort of effort that went into putting it together, I imagine, transcended the tackiness of it. No, the tacky still bled through. It's like lead in the water. You know, it's groundwater. It's poison. The tacky. Yeah.

The tie's practically shown. Uh-huh. But, yeah, I mean, my parents were... You lost a quilt? Yeah. It saddens me. It's just gone, huh? It's just gone.

It's got to turn up somewhere. Yeah, because that thing is not going to ever erode. I assure you there is nothing... There's no fabric got to turn up somewhere. Yeah, because that thing is not going to ever erode. I assure you there is nothing. There's no fabric. Polyester. Yeah, that fabric. Those fabrics are never actually going to die.

So, okay. So he's in the necktie business. Yeah. And your mom's a bookkeeper. Yeah. So how do you get into show business? We lived in the Hollywood Hills. Yeah. It is ultimately a company town.

It is. People forget that. Well, it used to be even more then. Yeah. And it was smaller, the industry. It was smaller, I think, because there wasn't 500 cable channels. There wasn't 500 cable channels. There wasn't North Carolina picking up a lot of the work. Right. There wasn't Toronto.

It felt like people knew each other. People did know each other. People knew each other's secrets. Yeah. We had a neighbor with whom we walked our dog and uh his name was james wong how he had been one of the great cinematographers of the first 50 years of the entertainment industry uh did incredible work when let's see so when i'm about seven years old yeah he wants me to come in for he says i'm i'm the cinematographer of a movie they need a

child they should bring you in they didn't bring me in they hired uh they had hired somebody by then yeah but uh he had called an agent to say you should see this kid i of course know none of this i am in i had come home from school one afternoon and i am sitting in the bathtub and i had been i had scraped my knee at school rather uh substantially so i'm sitting in the bathtub picking gravel out of my knee and my mother pokes her head and says um can you get dressed you're going to go meet an agent now yes now yeah yeah okay um you know put a large bandage on my knee hoped it didn't seep down into my sock put my hair together again. Went and met the agent. She sent me on an interview.

I got the commercial. I was on the set the next day. And the only thing that I can think, the reason this happened was that there were two kinds of, it was kind of, it was bifurcated. Children were unbelievably beautiful on television. They were clean. They were neat. They were composed. Yeah.

Or they were odd looking. They kind of looked like troll dolls. I looked profoundly normal. I mean, including walking in there with blood seeping down into my sock and my ponytail holders. You know, I put my ponytails back in and I'm sure I hadn't done it evenly. And I was pleasant, and I was garrulous, and I was different. Yeah. I was different by virtue of being normal.

Right. And I remember being on the set the first day. At the commercial. I remember. What was it for? Future Floor Wax. Uh-huh. I was nine feet above the ground.

They were indicating, they had a camera underneath a sheet of plexiglass, and they're showing, oh, look at all the damage children do to your floor i remember with the scuffs very good yeah yeah yeah um and i'm supposed to be dressed up in mommy's clothes and i go scuffing across and they've got it lit so that they can see the floor and a little bit of me but what they can't see is they have a guy a pa sitting dressed all in black at the edge of the plastic to grab me because I can't see the end of the plexiglass and I'm told to just keep walking that this guy will grab me. Or, you know, new teeth. I was charmed by this.

You were asking about why actors continue to do this. You know this. The stuff between action and cut almost makes it all worthwhile. If you like it, there is nothing else on earth like the bit between action and cut. And you start telling yourself it'll come back around again. Oh, yeah. This is like an addiction. It's a junkie.

Yeah. Did you are you are you did you have any addictions? The Internet. That's it. No. Oh, that's it? No. Yeah, I was... It wasn't... Weren't a party person?

Part of the reason I was not a party person was by the time I was a teenager, there were an army of child actors who were getting into a lot of trouble. And I would be out in public and some guy with a lavish mullet and a rat tail mustache would come up to me and say some version of hey yeah i you know i've gotten stoned with some child actors i've gotten high with them and i'd look at him and think so we're what related yeah and i am uh turns out i'm a huge snob and kind of perverse i would look at at this person and think, you, sir, will never be able to say that about me. I will never get high with anyone so that this will never happen to me. If anyone says this about me, they're lying. Yeah.

So it was a survival instinct. Yeah. Innately creepy person. Exactly. It was just one step too close to a Camaro for my life. Right. Right. It probably was a Camaro. It was a Camaro. Yeah, a Camaro for my life. Right. Right. It probably was a Camaro.

It was a Camaro. Yeah, sure. Maybe a Trans Am. All right. So you did a bunch of commercials? Yeah, I did 13 in my first year, which was- So you're going, you're making money, stashing it. The parents are responsible. Yeah. Why am I not crazy? My parents did not confuse me for an ATM. I mean, I'm regular crazy, but I'm not former child actor crazy.

Right. My mother never thought it was her money right well that's nice they were responsible had boundaries they didn't uh did they out were they always checking in and saying like do you still are you sure you want to keep doing this there was a period there where i did not oh quinn you youthful fool i didn't get a job for six months and i declared that i was over it and it was boring and you were how old 12 no i declared that i was over it and it was boring and you were how old 12 no i was eight yeah i'd been doing it for a year did very very well and then i didn't get a job for six months and i said to my mother i'm done yeah i don't want to do this anymore and she said fine uh you did you did agree to go on the audition this afternoon you got to

finish your obligation i got the job and then my answer was what quitting this is delightful it's fun the bit between action and cut can't beat that there are there's craft service table on the set but also getting the parts getting the part i mean that's got to be right next to between action and cut i mean getting the part i mean that's like that's all of it it's a big part of it right and if you've got any sort of competitive instinct in you, it is like, I do not like losing. I like winning. Yeah. So, was that for the movie?

No. I worked, I did the movie when I was nine. So, I had worked for about two years before I got the movie. So, now, all right. So, this movie. Now, obviously, you write about this. You talk about this you talk about this it's defining um of of who you are being uh nominated for an academy award at 10 right well it's funny i was thinking about that as you said that

it i'm not sure i know that it defines me for everybody else it doesn't define me for me growing up in the canyons i think had more of an impact on who i am than the movie but i also know that no one wants to hear about listening to the coyotes yip as i lay in bed and looked over the cityscape that that's my memory that's not theirs they like they like the collective memory well i mean also the fact that like i just imagine that the burden like you said before you have this creep that says i've gotten high with child actors before the burden of being a child actor. And then like the sort of burden of of like thankfully not getting fucked up and becoming a disaster or a tragedy or a freak. That's got to be relieving.

You know what I mean? Yeah. to be relieving you know what i mean yeah and and i i guess i guess by defined means like just the fact that even in in the first book you know you had to reckon with it so i i know that coyote's yipping you may be your fondest memories but on some level you have to reckon with show business like like you did when you know i i didn't call you back yeah yeah absolutely and and that's the perfect way to put it. I have to reckon with it. It's like, okay, what is this thing?

Because it's not leaving. Right. We're heading hand in hand together. Bette Midler once said that when she dies, she knows her obituary is going to say, Bette Midler, who began her career singing in bathhouses, died yesterday. I know if my obit is anywhere, I know how it's going to begin. It doesn't matter what I do. So if you know that that's going with you everywhere, then the next question becomes, okay, then how do you feel about it?

What does it mean? And I'm like, okay, I like the work I did. Again, I love the bit between action and cut. the work I did, again, I love the bit between action and cut. I would love to see if I can make that. I think that was part of the reason. I mean, I wrote the first book because someone offered me a contract, but I think they would have been a lot happier if it had been straightforward. Former child actor woke up in a pile of naked bodies and $20 bills.

You know, I just didn't have that experience. Yeah. Thank God. Thank God, except, you know, the publishing houses. I could be just a little. Isn't there one? Isn't there one? Did you sleep with someone famous?

Maybe someplace public. When you were underage or something. Underage, please. That'd be great. Yeah, it would be great. Any creepy things with people we would heard of? And my answer is, yeah, I know all sorts of creepy things and I don't say them. Oh, you don't.

I do. People say stuff around children all the time. Uh-huh. Because they don't think you get it? They don't think you get it or they're incredibly high. Remember, it was the late 70s and early 80s. Yeah, and it was Dreyfus, who was a fairly notorious party guy. I saw nothing.

And I'm not being, no, no, no, I'm not being coy. I genuinely, he was, Richard and Marcia were really good eggs. Who directed it? Herb Ross. Uh-huh. So this is real 70s business here. Top of the form, babe. Yeah.

So, all right, so you do all these commercials, you're working, and then you get into the movie. I get into the movie. You inch your way up. I had done some movies of the week. The movie, it was actually a fairly short process. I read for the casting director. I read for Neil Simon and Herb Ross. Neil Simon's a nice guy, right?

Neil Simon is an excellent man. Yeah. We should all be written for it. When people commend me on how funny I was, my answer is, you know I didn't write that stuff, right? That was one that wasn't a play, too, right? Or was it a play? It was not a play.

Right. Right to the movies. Right to the movies. So you didn't have to follow anybody. Yeah. It was originated on Broadway by some other girl nope it was it was all you it was all me yeah but uh it was you know it was um it was good you know i i wish i had i wish i had great and terrible stories to tell but the stuff that i know about people

you know i saw people at their weakest moments i would it's my job to keep my mouth shut because they're either sober now or dead or this is later just in general in general i've seen stuff again i grew up out here yeah nobody really leaves yeah i grew up with people's kids i went to prep school out here a lot of people had you know the children in the business right sure sure i you know you you wait around here long enough you see stuff and then you see it again and then some and you just realize there's like maybe eight people eight types of people tops in l right well now because of tabloid journalism and it's so much of this stuff gets out so quickly and that's another thing that i

think about how intimate or smaller the business was it took a little while if at all for stuff to to sort of get out and surface and i i kind of i like that more i am so grateful that i would finish my work and i would go home and i'd go up in the hills and I'd walk the dog and no one cared. And there was nothing interesting about me when I wasn't working. Yeah. I mean, it was bad.

I've got a fair amount of less than completely ideal newspaper interviews I've done. When you were 10? When I was 10. That's a good story in the book, too. But I guess what I can't imagine, because I've never been there. I've never, like, that when you found out what the Golden Globes were probably first, right? Yeah.

And you got to go to the Golden Globes in the 70s. I did. Which must have been fucking amazing, but you were 10. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is that people say well what is it like right well all i can tell you is what a 10 year old saw it was really good food yeah it's like okay a lot of people are getting louder and sweatier as the evening went on but uh yeah and then i got tired because i was 10 right and then you do the oscars same thing same thing that is a long night i am here to tell you i do not mean to sound ungracious but if you have ever

sat at home and watched it and gotten up and made yourself something to eat or maybe switched over to another channel for a little while for a little while when you're in the chair that is not an option and that's when they went they did all of did all of them. I think that the one that I went to may still be going on. It was endless. What you were nominated for? Best Actress? Supporting. Supporting. Who beat you? Vanessa Redgrave won correctly because if you're

going to lose, you lose to the person who was supposed to win and it should have been Vanessa Redgrave. Yeah, so you were okay with it? I was 10 so I was a little disappointed and then she got up there and started talking about the PLO which meant the entire audience. That was that year, huh? That was that year

which means the whole audience started breaking out in booze and I leaned over to my mother and said, if I had won, I would have been nice. Did you really? Yeah. She said, I know, I know. Here, have a lemon drop. She had been feeding me candy for the entire trip. Just to keep you awake.

Just to keep me awake. Because Best Supporting probably came later. Actually, I think that year it came first. So then you have like 17 years of I don't care. Oh, good. Richard Dreyfuss won. Did he win that year? He did.

For Best Actor? Yep. Really? Yep. I mean, unless I'm making this up. No, I don't think you're making it up. I don't know. I don't research effectively. I mean, unless I'm making this up. No, I don't think you're making it up. I don't know. I don't research effectively.

I'm glad to hear that he won. But do you know him anymore? I am really bad at keeping in touch with people. But I find that's the same with a lot of people, because as a fan of things, and I know this a long time ago when you were a child, but it's just, you know, these are jobs. And like in my mind, when I see a movie with people in it, I'm like, oh, they got to be friends, right? Almost nobody. Almost nobody I've talked to really maintains relationships with the, I guess, people that come from SNL or whatever.

But if you're on a job, you're on a job. It doesn't mean you guys are pals or that he's checking in. He's still doing okay. Periodically through Twitter, Marsha Mason will say hello to me and I'll say hello back. And I chat with Richard Dreyfuss' son on occasion on social media. But I mean, I put it on me. I put everything on me. I put it on me.

I'm not great about staying in touch with people. So the fact is that anybody who's in my life is because they have made that deal with me, which is I will call you every four to six months and say, hello, Quinn, and we need to go out. Yeah. No, I'm the same way. Like, I start to feel bad. Yeah. Yeah. I have like three people right now that the thought of them gives me a small amount of pain because I realize the phone call that we need to have to get caught up now is of such magnitude it may never actually happen.

Yeah. Or else like I just forget. Like I just, people text and even like texting. Like I'll find texts that's like, oh, that was three weeks ago. Like in that moment I saw it, like I'm like, I'll get that later. And then it just goes away. Or the one where you read the text and you answer it in your mind yeah like oh yeah because i'll be back in in town on the 17th

right and then you go tra la la because you've answered it only you didn't actually type it or anything and then they're mad and then they're mad well though anybody who knows me who's around for longer than like a year is like gwyn yeah no you you you got to go out now. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. You're that way? Well, I have a 15-year-old daughter. She's 15 now. She's 15.

And so there's a bunch of stuff that she does so that at any given week, I feel productive without actually having accomplished anything. I guess that's the joy of parenting. Yes. It's a subtle joy. But it's like, check, check, check, check, check. Actually, nothing's gotten done. But look, she's still alive.

And seems to be okay. And seems to be okay. I've made her tired today. I got her to two different sports. Well, there's some stuff in the book about, like, camping. Like, it was very funny. Thank you. I feel bad because I'm talking about it.

Because I know you've done two other books. But do you consider that first one the breakthrough for you? Thank you. was about the world of American homeschooling and this world that is both more recognizable and stranger than you could possibly imagine was me consciously saying, you know, I've actually talked enough about me. Yeah. It turns out even I can grow bored with me and I wanted to move more into reporting.

And did you homeschool your daughter? Yeah. The whole time? No. From what year to? We started when she was about eight, and you could make the argument that we're no longer homeschooling because she takes one class in an online school and she goes to community college. Now, what made you decide that? What made us decide that?

How old was she first? Okay, she was eight. Yeah. And she had skipped a grade, and she was eight. Yeah. And she had skipped a grade. Yeah. And she was still coasting. You know, the teacher was saying, well, she's working as hard as she can. And I'm thinking, no, she's not.

She is becoming, well, me. Yeah. And there were two, no, there were three years in a row where my daughter convinced each teacher she had that she didn't know how to do fractions. When in fact, she just didn't like fractions. So she spent the entire year learning, quote unquote, how to do fractions. And at the end of the year, she would magically, you know, oh, look, she's learned how to do them.

And then in September, she'd start all over again with a new teacher. I don't know how to do fractions. She just figured, ah, that's the hill to die on. I don't really like math. Let's just stay here. And I'm looking at her thinking, crap, I gave birth to me. Yeah.

Figured out a way around it. Figured out a way around it. I was smart and I was lazy and I did not learn how to learn. Right. And I didn't want her to have the same experience. And the schools that promised, oh, we'll teach her all right, were also saying, and she'll have between three and four hours of homework a night. And I'm thinking, that's not it either. That just proves that she can endure.

That's not learning. That's just forbearance. And a lot of tears from her friends who have kids in those kind of schools. And then this little voice in my head said, well, maybe we can build something where you can teach her how to learn and keep her invested and engaged in education. I think it was Satan. I really do. This was – we were not the people to be homeschooled. Right.

But you can just do it? Don't you get a license or do you got to get permission or what do you got to do? Okay. I am so fond of you right now. Why? Because you did not ask the first question everybody asks. What? But what about socialization?

Because that's a non-issue. And I would just take my word for it. Kids who... I threw you a curveball. No, I'm so happy because the question you asked is actually the more important one. The problem is not

with how these kids are socialized or not because the kids, people say, well, I met someone who homeschools and their kids are really weird. Genetics are most of what our personality is. Right, well, socialization, it's like, you mean, did they get the opportunity to be amongst bullies

or amongst the bullied? Yes. Or the opportunity to isolate and not only not socialize, but feel antisocial and peculiar? Yes, yeah. And the kid who is, the homeschooler who is weird and monosyllabic and stares at his feet, guess what? Genetically, he was going to be that kid at school.

At least now at home, he's not being tortured. Right. Because that personality was not going to be changed by a classroom full of 22 other people his age. people his age. No, the greater concern and the one you hit on unerringly is that each state has their own standard of recognizing homeschooling. Some of them are fairly rigorous, like you have to test the kids at the end of the year, see where they are. California, one of your large states, has no regulations.

I can set myself up as the school of the garage, and when she's 18, I can declare her graduated, and no one will ever check as to what I taught her. Huh. So how do you, you mean you can, did you print up a diploma? Yeah. She hasn't graduated high school yet, though, right? Well, she's going to community college.

Mm-hmm. So you can just determine that she's done all the work necessary to be a high school graduate? Really? In California? Yes. And now she's going to community college in preparation and go to... So she's basically going to community college where most people would be sophomores in high school. Yeshuh and she wants to go to college yes so she'll transfer there's no social services involved no one comes by and checks okay so you're seeing the problem here the the potential for abuse is ripe yeah in general in general so is this like are there a lot of people doing this just haphazardly the homeschooling situation? God only knows. Oh, so you didn't do that much.

Oh, no. Oh, no. I can tell you all the numbers. I mean, the families who are on the radar, actually, if they go to college, the statistics show that the kids tend to do better. Kids who have homeschooled who go to college have a higher GPA at the end of their first year,

have a higher graduation GPA, and are more likely to graduate in four years because most students are now graduating in five. How much did you have to learn in order to teach your things? Okay. Yeah. I don't have kids, but I have no idea. I couldn't do fractions right now. I couldn't do algebra right now.

I couldn't do chemistry. I couldn't do almost anything that required numbers. It would just be ridiculous. Yes. The reason I shouldn't teach those things is we're trying to use me as a cautionary tale, not the North Star of education. But you can outsource virtually anything. To tutors? To tutors, to online classes. I got her through Algebra 1 with a book that had answers in the back. And I just, we went through it that way. So you learned it together?

We learned it together. And I was making more mistakes than she was by about a third of the way through the book. And I would get weirdly confident, like, I know I have it now. It is 1x over 3. And she'd look at me and go, no, it's seven. Oh, so you had a good experience with your kid. Yeah, it depended on the day. There were days that we drove past the local elementary school

and I would point to it and I would say through gritted teeth, they have to take you. They legally have to take you. And it probably looked like a prison in that context. Well, yeah. And she'd be like, I will do that to get away from you. I mean, we had days. Did she get to calculus?

Yes. Really? Yep. See, I didn't even get past. I just barely got out of algebra. When she was going through algebra two through an online class, my mantra was, remember, baby, just remember, there is no algebra three. You just got to get through algebra 2, and then you're done. You're okay.

And then she got to calculus, and we determined it's basically Algebra 3. And then I was like, oh, honey, I'm sorry. See, I went the geometry route. I don't know why, but I remember taking geometry and actually engaging with that. There's shapes. I can handle shapes. I understood the idea of a proof and a theorem. I'm actually getting a little nauseated and giddy just hearing this.

This is just geometry, and I have agreed that we just split up the friends, and we have agreed to never talk again. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is why her dad, when we were going through all of this, I said to my partner, Donald, I said, you can't die. Yeah. Because I don't understand anything she's doing anymore. Oh, really?

So you must stay alive through high school. Uh-huh understand anything she's doing anymore. Oh, really? So you have to, you must stay alive through high school. Uh-huh. And what, what, geometry is a problem for you? Oh, it's no problem.

I just get nowhere near it. Now this partner business, because in your, in your book, you call them, what do you keep referring to them as? A consort? Yeah.

Now, no married? Nope. Homeschool, no married? Yeah, we sound like bigger hippies than we are. Yeah. Yeah, we don't make our own shoes or anything.

Well, there's time. Don't say no. We have yet to make our own shoes. Never say never. This is going to happen. I know you make things, right? But why no married? I always knew it didn't matter to me. I don't know why.

It just, by the time I was 14, I remember telling my mother in the kitchen one night, apropos of nothing, I will make you a grandmother before I make you a mother-in-law. And I remember she came to an absolute stop and she breathed in and out and she said in a conspicuously level tone, are we talking now, Quinn? And I went, oh, God, no, no, no, no, not now. Just sort of in general. Ew, no, no, not now. But I just I just I knew I'd stay happy as long as I didn't feel like I had to stay.

Uh-huh. I don't like authority figures telling me what to do. And if I had this piece of paper that said, now there's a way you must behave, I would get perverse immediately. Right. And in terms of like growing up in show business, how much of the, you know, like on set schooling did you have to deal with? Legally, every day you have three hours private tutor. And no school no i'd go back to school when i wasn't working it was a

my mother was very clear on the fact that she was not raising an actor she was raising a human being so i mean when i wasn't working i went back to i went back to school now let's talk about so i i imagine that there must have been some lessons like so when going back to school. Now let's talk about, so I imagine that there must have been some lessons. Like, so when going back to your childhood, what, when did you realize that acting wasn't working out? What was the heartbreak? Because, you know, my, you know, my brother was very, you know, gunning for a big tennis career. And at some point you just realize it's not going to happen or you have to choose something different to avoid a lifetime of pain how what was the evolution of that it well okay uh back to my mother wanting to raise a human being i i did two years on the show family and then my mother said you're going back to school

and i was offered a bunch of work you know i'm coming off a series and my mother said no if you can work in the summer that's great but you've got great. But you've got to go back to being a person and a kid. Your mother had a very healthy opinion of show business. Yes. Fun times over. Fun times over. Yeah, exactly. This is lovely.

You're becoming obnoxious. But I think, I mean, there weren't that many jobs. If you're 12, there's maybe two or three jobs a year. Yeah. And 13, 14. And if they don't sync up exactly with your summer break, lo and behold, you're not working this summer. And now I'm 15 and they can hire an 18-year-old. Also, I'm not adorable anymore.

You know, I was always just sort of person-shaped. I wasn't adorable anymore. I was always just sort of person-shaped. I wasn't greatly cute. And then adolescence hit me and continued to hit me for a great many years. And I just wasn't sellable. So you would go out to these auditions? Oh, yeah. It was demoralizing. A lot, right?

Oh, God. I mean, it abrades your soul. A lot, right? Attractive best friend. Oh, crap. There are a lot of things you want to be at 15. The funny, ugly one is not it. Yeah. So, but, you know, by 15, then I knew I wasn't going to work until I was 18. Because they could hire an adult. They didn't have to worry about child labor laws. They didn't have to get a teacher.

They could just get an 18-year-old who sort of passed for 15. We hired one of those. Yeah. On my show. Yeah. Yeah. No judgment. It makes a lot more sense

than all the plus ones that come with an actual teenager. Yeah. We've also hired kids, though. We did that. Good for you. Yeah.

We're mixing it up. So you go out on these roles where you weren't even unattractive in the right way to get the part. Exactly. Yeah.

It was, I was just shaped like a human, and it was disappointing to everyone. Could you be wackier? Yeah. I don't know. Could you get... Yeah. Do you have a twitch? Do you have a twitch?

Is there something weird? Do you have a polyester pantsuit? Glasses. Do you wear glasses? Could you? Yeah. Could you just start buying a pair? Maybe something with a cat eye.

Uh-huh. And then I turned 18, and I thought, thank God, now I will be able to go out for these jobs. But I was still person shaped. And there weren't really, you know, are you the hot girl? Oh, certainly not. No. Are you her unattractive friend?

Well, I suppose I am. Okay. And so that was about four years. And the problem was, is that I am such a border collie. You know, you show me the sheep. Doesn't matter if I've had a crappy day. Show me the sheep. I'll herd the sheep.

Put me in an audition and I would perk up. It was like, okay, I know what I'm doing here. I know what I'm doing in no other place in the universe. But in this room with a casting director smiling at me. Yeah. Pages in my hand. I know what to do here. Yeah.

And you sort of, the feeling of it when it works is so good that you carefully train yourself to ignore how little you're actually enjoying it right you know that you're not getting the the skin pop you used to get sure it's like just like addiction yeah the high isn't pure anymore right it's just keeping you going and i guess the difference between that and addiction is this weird i guess it's similar in the sense that, no, it's different because theoretically, an addict can keep doing the drug and then get diminishing returns. But as an actor, there is a chance that you will get the high back in the way that it was delivered to you when you were a kid.

Addicts are always chasing that, but they don't stop doing the thing that gave them the high. You're denied access to that until someone says you got it. Exactly. Why is writing better? Because I can sit at home and write. So it's worse than addiction. Thank you.

That's what I need. You know what? That's all I've ever wanted to hear was that this sucked worse than addiction. Because I suspected that, but I didn't know for sure. Because you don't have access to the high with addicts. It's like if you get the drug, at least you got a shot. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Well, I'm 22. So, you know, I'm inching along because I'm stubborn. And also, I can't think of anything else to do. Right. I like these circus folk. I know this world. I don't want to leave it. Right. What else am I going to do? Right. Nothing else looks like any fun. i don't want to leave i don't want to leave it right what else am i gonna do right nothing else looks like any fun you don't gotta tell me i you know i when

i hit the wall five years ago there was nothing and i was 45 i was like no i got no i didn't prepare for anything else and the pride see that's that was the hardest thing for me when i was really confronted with the idea of of having to do something else, was like, how do you quit something that you decided to do? Yeah. It's, you know, like my pride was not going to let me do it. Like it was too dark to give up. I am certainly not leaving here.

I'm going to leave when I'm up here. I'm going to leave on a high note. Or just how do you leave? How do you just leave? How do you just leave? How do you just leave? You leave where it just erodes you a little bit all the time. And you realize that you don't like what it's making you into. And then I'm about 22 years old.

And two things happen. And I have them as being relatively close in time. They may not have been. I went in and read for something for a casting director. And I guess that was the last audition of the day. She said, what else is going on in your life? I said, well, I'm writing and I'm doing this and I'm doing that. I don't know what day she had had, but she looked at me and said, Quinn, if anything makes you one tenth as happy as acting does. Go do it and run like fucking hell from acting and never look back. It was so jarring. It was like, are you talking to me in general?

Are you telling me or are you just telling everyone? This was a casting director. This was a casting director. I think she had had a bad day. She was saving your life. She was saving my life. So that was there in my head. saving your life she was saving my life um so that was there in my head and then um i had worked as an agent's assistant uh for a woman who was brilliant and a mad woman and i realized oh

uh this is actually quite terrible i'm no longer sleeping i'm just crying at night being an agent's assistant is a magnificent job if you like pain um but i ended up briefly being represented by the agency because we always go back to the bad boyfriend like while i figure out what i do next could you represent me right yes uh and they called uh my agent called me i got the second job in two weeks i booked two jobs in a row and it was a nice part on a show i liked. And I hung up and I thought, yes, my dental insurance through SAG is covered this year. I can get that thing fixed in my tooth. Right, yeah. And I thought, I am 23 years old.

And if the highest compliment I can pay acting is I can get that tooth fixed. Now, I think I'm done. It's not nothing. Oh, believe me, at this point, if I knew my insurance was covered through SAG for the year. But again, 23, you should be aiming for more than that tooth has been giving me problems. And that was the point at which I realized, oh, I'm out of here. Yeah. It isn't breaking my heart anymore.

I don't need to win at it. I'm just done with it. And you can get out and still have a life. I can still get out. I still have a life. You had a pretty good childhood. You had a pretty good childhood. You had a pretty good run. There was a few years there that it took to wear you down, but you're 23 and you can have a life.

I can have a life. And that was kind of it. And I love, you know, I've done things around the business. I like the business. I like writing. I like writing a lot. And I look at it. You're good at it.

Very funny. Thank you. Why don't you write for TV and movies? Okay. I had two pilots optioned last year. Oh, good.

Nothing came of them. But I figured out like recently my great joy in life is I like dialogue and I like gags. I just want to sit on. Gags aren't easy.

You're good at them. Thank you. I told the director about you. I don't have any pull. But I told Lynn Shelton to read your books. I want to sit in a room. I want to sit on a staff and write jokes. Yeah. Because

that to me, I can do that. God damn it. I would have hired you this season. God damn it. I would have been you this season. God damn it. I would have been hired this season. God damn it. Whatever is meant to happen. I truly rarely am I Los Angeles, but you know what? You have to think about it that way.

I do. I need to think about it that way more than I do. You relax a little bit when you think about it that way. Yeah. That's why I drink the chamomile tea. To find my inner peace. Yeah. That works. That's Yeah, that's why I drink the chamomile tea. You know, to find my inner peace. Yeah, that works. That's enough for you.

Good for you. Chamomile tea. Not even close. But it just, okay. So at one point in my 20s, a friend of mine got me an interview with Ben Stiller to be his director of development. And we were supposed to meet for lunch. And I was a few minutes early because I was very excited. And I have a bad habit.

I cannot nurse a drink. If I drink, I drink too much. They keep pouring, keep pouring. He showed up a few minutes late. I was so ramped up on iced tea. I'm sure he still remembers that as, remember that day I met Quinn, the one on meth. Yeah. So I have to, after a certain point in the day, switch to chamomile tea.

Otherwise, the force of my personality chamomile tea. Otherwise, the force of my personality just makes people disturbed. Uh-huh. So you were, but, so you still kind of want to be in show business? I don't think of writing

as show business. Oh, good. Okay. So it is definitely different. It is in my twisted little mind. No, no. It definitely is. You know,

you have, you know, the pressure's not the same. Okay. You know, you have, you know, the pressure is not the same. Okay. You know, you have a certain amount of creative control. There's still disappointment involved, but at least you create something no matter what. This is exactly it. I sit at home, you know, or, you know, frequently if I'm tweeting, it means I'm waiting for my daughter someplace and picking up.

I can make jokes. Yeah. And no one, sure, no one is paying me, but no one can stop me. Yeah, we waste a lot of jokes on Twitter. We waste so make jokes. Yeah. And no one, sure, no one is paying me, but no one can stop me. Yeah, we waste a lot of jokes on Twitter. We waste so many jokes. They're so, I just spoon them out. The greatest waste of content ever created.

One time I printed out all my tweets just in case there was something in there that I could use. And when you do that, it's actually a function on Twitter that you can print them out. Really? But it's like, it's actually a function on Twitter that you can print them out. But it's like it's spaced differently. It's in computer language almost. So there's like you literally have like, you know, a thousand pages. I was going to say this is going to be a book and I'm not sure I want to be. I'm not prepared to hear that yet. But OK, so going back to a second, you know, the idea about comedy.

All right. So this past year, a year ago, a year ago this month, a friend of mine said, you know, because I'd been told before, you should try stand-up. You should try stand-up. If you catch me in January, I will try stand-up because I'm all in my Oprah. Oh, I should try new. I should say yes to life. Yeah. Okay.

And okay, this year I won't do a juice cleanse. This year I'll do a night of stand-up. And I had my bit and I I went, and it was- Where'd you go? Flappers. Oh, you went to Flappers out in Burbank? The wilds of Burbank. And I realized that I don't need to hear people laugh at my jokes.

I am perfectly happy just writing them. As a matter of fact, I am incredibly uncomfortable being watched doing jokes. It makes me feel very self-conscious. I am so much not an entertainer. No kidding. I am so much not an entertainer now that that very process fills me with some kind of horror. Oh, yeah. Unfortunately, I figured this out while I was on stage.

Yeah. I literally wanted to grab the mic after about 90 seconds say I'm sorry this was a terrible terrible misunderstanding you have to understand it was January I thought I should say yes to life and then I just wanted to wander off stage so yeah I that's not a great set not I have no idea I have no idea I was just listening to the voice in my head saying calmly, no, no. Was there a lot of people there? Well, there were four of us there, all of whom were green.

So everybody there had friends but me because I was – Not bringing your friends? No. Yeah. No. I think I already kind of knew this isn't going to end well. But darn it, it's January and I'll try something new. Yeah. All right. Well, so you know that. So you didn't get the bug at all? You weren't like, I'm kind of knew this isn't going to end well. But darn it, it's January and I'll try something new. Yeah.

All right. Well, so you know that. So you didn't get the bug at all? You weren't like, I'm going to nail this? I am in awe of you people who do it. But it reminded me. It was like, yep, this is kind of like acting and I'll just go back to writing. Thank you.

And didn't you like invent something too? Yeah, I have a patent. I invented a baby carrier. When you had a baby. So this is pretty, it's not making your own shoes, but. Oh, no, but I never sewed it. I basically created a drawing of it and we went into, you know, it was a great educational experience, but it was a lot of engineering. It wasn't, there was no sewing involved.

What's it called? It is called a hip hugger. So, and they, like, they're big, right? They sold just fine. We did well for a while i still have the patent um it not long after um we actually did it until about 2005 and my business partner and i looked at the numbers of what we were making monetarily relative to the amount of time we were spending yeah and it was one of these like are we going

to leap forward are we going to try to find investors are we going to get big of time we were spending. And it was one of these like, are we going to leap forward? Are we going to try to find investors? Are we going to get big? Or are we going to move on? Because we couldn't chug along at that. We were at an awkward size. And I wasn't prepared to start going out and taking out loans. And I knew people who said, well, just get a mortgage on your house. And I was like, no, I don't think so.

I don't believe in that kind of orderly universe where I put my house on the line. Yeah, no. You're from show business. Get someone else to pay. Exactly. That's the way you do it. Exactly. You need a producer.

I needed a producer. So what happened? We closed it down. We've still got the patent. You know, if anybody ever decides they want to make something like it, they will hear from us. Oh, really? Yeah. But you can't sell the patent?

We could. Someone comes to us and wants to. But you'd rather just wait to litigate? That's your business model these days? No. No, I just didn't assume that anybody would want to buy it. Again, a little pessimistic. I just assumed the next time I heard from it would be litigation.

But did you see them on the street and go like, I made that? I did. I had a few of those where I just, I wandered down the street behind somebody and was just kind of giggling. And I was like, I made that. You didn't bother them? I'm surprised. How's that working out for you? I'm thinking about it.

I think I met, there were a couple of people. And I think one of them I stopped and she was pleased for me. And then we lapsed into awkward silence. And I realized, okay, that's not something I need to do again. Saying that you're wearing my product is, yeah. That works out better in your head than it does as an actual conversation. Yeah. Well, I, you know, personally, I'm proud of you.

Thank you. I mean, it's a good story. You seem all right, despite, you know, your declaration that you're, you know, that you have all these. I mean, you made a baby thing. You were nominated for an Oscar. You quit show business courageously. You published and wrote three funny books. And you've got a pretty good, you know, and you're homeschooling a kid.

You've got a man that won't leave even though you won't marry him yeah he is waiting for me to make him an honest man yes that could happen oh so but but i think it's sort of interesting that you you still do like your hope is that do you write movies you don't write movies uh why not i wrote a flurry of pilots last year i was on a pilot for half hour comedies Like your hope is that, do you write movies? You don't write movies? Why not? I wrote a flurry of pilots last year. I was on a pilot. For half hour comedies?

Two half hour comedies, one hour long drama. And I have an idea for a movie. And now I just have to sit down and stop. Do it. Yeah. It's ever so much more fun thinking about these things yeah oh god i believe me i know and then when i talk to people and hear about what it takes to get something made if you want to get it made it's a real like to me it's sort of like that

is not gratifying enough it quickly enough for me yes well that is part of my problem is that i've gotten the i've gotten used to if i about writing it, and then I write it on my blog, and then I get a reaction, and then I move on, it's kind of done. I have a friend who wrote a pilot. It looks, fingers crossed, knock wood, it will finally get made this year. It's a terrific pilot. It's been in his file for nine years. pilot. It's been in his file for nine years. Yeah. See, to me, it's sort of like, I hope it just pays out really well for him because it's so, you talk to people that have that kind of stuff happen. And then even when it goes into production, like it's canceled, we're not even

going to shoot it. Yeah. It's fucking horrible. It breaks your heart. It's just horrible. This business is designed to break your heart. So the trick is how to live within it without having any vital organs touching it. Good luck. And what do you do? So you wrote another book called what? What was the third book? Pet Sounds, which is some of the stories from the blog about animals. I've done a lot of animal rescue.

You have? Yeah. Cats? Yeah. How many cats do you have? We have two. Oh, yeah? they were foster failures they were with us when our cat uh lupak shepur took off one day and did not come back so the fosters we had at that point stayed yeah i had a cat that did that boomer he didn't come back yeah

and i got these other two and like my girlfriend's got a got a lot. I'm not even allowed to say publicly. But yeah, so what other, like any, mostly cats? We have two cats and a dog. But you mostly do rescues with cats? Yeah, although I currently always have a slip leash in my glove compartment because you just never know. The wandering dog? The wandering dog the wandering dog more times than i can begin to tell you the first time that i did a um uh book signing i'm out in

the backyard at roman's bookstore in pasadena and it's all very lovely and very pasadena and all of a sudden i feel something brush by my nose and plop into my lap and and I look down. It's a baby bird. A baby bird has literally fallen out of a tree and into my lap. This is how I work. Animals find me. I can just stand. If I stood out in front of your house for about 10 minutes, eventually a dog would come wandering by and look hopefully at me. So, no, I'm always in animal rescue.

Donald is extraordinarily patient because his only rule is now we have a 20-leg rule in the house. He said, we're down to the last two legs. We can either have a bird or if I find a two-legged cat or dog, then that's it. The quota is hit. The quota is hit. He's been extraordinarily patient. What did you do with that bird? Luckily, a friend of mine who had come to support me, he was also in animal rescue,

she gently took the bird and put it back up in the nest so I could go back to signing. I hope you made it. Yeah, I do too. You don't think about that. You did do what you could do. Yeah. You can't go back and check on the bird. I feel like the bird, you know what?

I feel like the bird was good. Okay. It didn't look sickly. Yeah. It just looked like maybe you should have tried flapping a few more times wait a couple days then try the yeah you don't have the upper body strength right now you think you do maybe your mother was overly confident about your abilities well it was good talking to you it was great how do you feel about it all i feel such closure do

you i do okay good you feel happy about everything You're not going to leave here? Go fuck. No. Oh, good. Never. All right, thanks. That was Quinn Cummings. I enjoyed talking to her. And again, if you want to get her books or check her stuff out, qcreport.com. Okay? Okay? Thank you. guitar solo Boomer lives! Almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice?

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