Episode 1038 - Geena Davis
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuckadelics what's happening my name is mark maron this is my podcast wtf it's been my podcast wtf for almost a decade since 2009 folks
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:Are you all right?
Marc:How you holding up in the heat?
Marc:It's bad, right?
Marc:It's like end of the world bad, right?
Marc:It's like, oh man, we fucked it up bad, isn't it?
Marc:Or maybe you're of the other way of thinking.
Marc:Nah, it's just, this happens.
Marc:It's happened before.
Marc:No, it hasn't.
Marc:I think it was 175 degrees in Detroit.
Marc:Maybe I'm exaggerating.
Marc:I think it was 192 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Marc:Is that, am I off?
Marc:I think it might've broke 200.
Marc:It might've broke 200 in Maine.
Marc:That seems worrisome.
Marc:I think it was 212 degrees in Florida, but that's, but you have the ocean, so it's nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You just have to wear a sunblock, maybe use paint.
Marc:Yeah, maybe you should just use some kind of a ceramic coating for yourself.
Marc:So look, Gina Davis is on the show today.
Marc:Gina Davis is, I don't use this word a lot, but I hung around with Ira Glass for a few minutes and he uses it.
Marc:Wow, back.
Marc:Wonderful.
Marc:Gina Davis is wonderful.
Marc:She's in GLOW.
Marc:She's in the new season of GLOW, which I think premieres August 9th, I believe.
Marc:But she has a lot more important things going on, to be quite honest with you.
Marc:She'll be receiving the Gene Herschelt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at this year's Governor's Award Ceremony.
Marc:She's got that going on.
Marc:And she executive produced the documentary This Changes Everything.
Marc:It will have a one night only showing across the country tonight, July 22nd, before going out into theaters and on demand on August 9th.
Marc:This documentary blew my mind, changed my mind, changed my life.
Marc:You know, as some of you have gleaned from my disposition, I seem to be putting a lot of new things in the head, opening the heart a little bit, understanding my part in things and understanding the way the world works.
Marc:It's a painful process, especially because the world is ending.
Marc:It's sad that a lot of us are going to be kind of coming into our own and understanding how, you know, what's really happening and how we can help.
Marc:And then it's just going to burn up.
Marc:It was 272 degrees in St.
Marc:Louis last night.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I'm not kidding.
Marc:Your pool better be cold.
Marc:You better have some ice cubes in the pool because it was almost 300 degrees in San Francisco.
Marc:Yeah, don't even talk about Texas.
Marc:It was up around 390.
Marc:Thank God for the suits, right?
Marc:The heat suits that we have now?
Marc:Thank God.
Marc:Yeah, there's not a lot of vegetation to look at.
Marc:It's just kind of a baked landscape with cracks and stuff.
Marc:A few lizards.
Marc:A few lizards lived.
Marc:Yeah, some other weird new bugs, some large spiders.
Marc:Basically, what they used to have in Australia is all the wildlife we have in the continent now.
Marc:Just large spiders, fucked up snakes.
Marc:And yeah.
Marc:And then there are the strange people that have adapted and grown scales.
Marc:They're disconcerting.
Marc:But hey, you know, it's good that we can we have our cooled down apartments and we have our heat suits and we can go out into the 382 degree weather in Houston.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:It's going to be OK.
Marc:Look, look.
Oh, God.
Marc:Sword of Trust.
Marc:Sword of Trust, the movie I'm in, the movie that Lynn Shelton directed, it's spreading.
Marc:We're spreading to theaters.
Marc:It's like viral.
Marc:We're now up to more than 70 theaters across the country showing the movie Sword of Trust this summer.
Marc:Go to sortoftrust.com to check out if it's going to be playing near you.
Marc:This Friday, it expands to more than 20 new cities, including Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon.
Marc:Also, I will be at the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal, where it is now...
Marc:just under 362 degrees.
Marc:That's this weekend.
Marc:I'll be in Montreal.
Marc:And next week, starting Thursday, August 1st, I'll be at Good Nights in Raleigh, North Carolina, where it was a comfortable 194 degrees yesterday.
Marc:No problem.
Marc:Water rising.
Marc:My brother was in town.
Marc:I have a brother.
Marc:I have a little brother.
Marc:And we had a nice time.
Marc:And again, something's happening.
Marc:Something's happening to my heart.
Marc:I'm telling you.
Marc:He just came out for the weekend.
Marc:You know, he called me a few weeks ago.
Marc:And he was like, why don't we hang out?
Marc:We're brothers.
Marc:And I'm like, yeah, I mean, we should.
Marc:But he lives in Phoenix.
Marc:I live here.
Marc:And it was just one of those things.
Marc:It's like...
Marc:Why are we not?
Marc:I just, I just, he said, I just feel like hanging out with you.
Marc:And I'm like, that sounds good.
Marc:So he came out and we just spent the weekend together, had some nice food.
Marc:It was so great.
Marc:It was so great.
Marc:Cause I don't, I don't know.
Marc:You know, it's rare that you like, even if my mom comes here, which she did once, it wasn't bad, but I don't know what to do with my mom after an hour.
Marc:Do you, but you do, you hang out, you do this, you go, you shop, you do whatever you can do.
Marc:But it's my bro.
Marc:It's my brother, my brother, Craig.
Marc:He came out and we just, you know, we literally sat in the car and listened to jazz for like a half hour before one of the screenings of Sort of Trust.
Marc:Had a bite to eat, got up, cooked some food, sat around, listened to music, talked about whatever, just no distance, you know, just brothers, man.
Marc:And we just kind of, we took a walk, we took a hike, and we just talked, no pressure.
Marc:Brothers, brothers, my brother, and I love him.
Marc:And he's a nice guy.
Marc:He's nicer than me.
Marc:It's weird because we're brothers.
Marc:And I don't know what your sibling relationship is, but I look at him.
Marc:I see myself.
Marc:We got the same drive shaft, the same wiring.
Marc:But somehow or another, he he fought the good fight with himself.
Marc:And he's a nicer guy.
Marc:You know, things are heavy for him.
Marc:Things are heavy for me sometimes.
Marc:But generally.
Marc:You know, I'm a little defensive first.
Marc:He's always nice.
Marc:I introduce him to friends of mine, and they're like, he's really nice.
Marc:And of course, I'm like, what are you saying?
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:What does it mean that my brother's nice?
Marc:What about me?
Marc:You're all right.
Marc:All right, I get it.
Marc:He's like a nice version of me.
Marc:It's an inspiration.
Marc:It's an inspiration.
Marc:So...
Marc:This Gina Davis conversation.
Marc:I watched the documentary.
Marc:I didn't know what it was.
Marc:I just recently worked with Gina Davis.
Marc:I love Gina Davis.
Marc:Who doesn't love Gina Davis?
Marc:But I watched a documentary called This Changes Everything.
Marc:And it's really about equal equality.
Marc:opportunity equal pay in show business.
Marc:It's about the struggle women have in that business and in general and what really the product of show business is and how it represents women.
Marc:It kind of focuses a bit on young girls and what they're taking in when you limit the presence of women or limit the characters of women or limit the actual women that can do the work behind the camera in front of the camera that why wouldn't
Marc:Young girls watching it sort of contextualize the world like that.
Marc:Well, the world has been like that.
Marc:And I'm in the process of educating myself and being educated.
Marc:And that was a is really mind blowing because Gina put together this.
Marc:I don't know if it's a foundation or what you would call it to do the research to really get data on representation of women on screen, on camera.
Marc:And also, obviously, in writing rooms and directors.
Marc:But that's easier to get that data.
Marc:But to really... She had people sort of sit down with all the movies and just make notes.
Marc:And the data is disturbing.
Marc:And it's... I'll talk to her about it.
Marc:But it was...
Marc:I've been talking to a lot of very powerful but informative women on this show recently, and it is helping me, and I hope the conversations are helping you.
Marc:I do, and I'm not, again, this is not what you would call virtue signaling.
Marc:This is a person reeducating himself in the proper way.
Marc:OK, so the documentary, This Changes Everything, will have a one night only showing across the country tonight.
Marc:This is July 22nd before going out into theaters and on demand on August 9th.
Marc:And that's also the Day Glow season three premieres on Netflix.
Marc:So you can watch me and Gina in that.
Marc:And also she'll be receiving, as I said at the beginning, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences at this year's Governor's Award Ceremony.
Marc:And she deserves it.
Marc:The work she's been doing, she's just great.
Marc:She's just great.
Marc:And I talked to her.
Marc:And now you can listen to us talk.
Marc:Now.
Marc:Did you have fun doing that show?
Guest:I did, yeah.
Guest:I had a good time.
Marc:You guys are great, yeah.
Marc:I know, it was weird this season because we're all, and I can't spoil anything, I don't think, but we're all sort of off doing our own lives.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I missed all of that, the singing, the show.
Marc:Like, I wasn't there.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:So I got to wait.
Marc:I have to wait to see it.
Guest:I have to watch it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that was good.
Marc:I was so happy you were part of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was really fun.
Guest:You guys are great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're all so, it's crazy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In Vegas.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did it get crazier?
Marc:See, I feel like I missed everything.
Marc:I can't, now I feel we're into the spoiler territory.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So I watched a doc last night.
Marc:This changes everything.
Marc:You did?
Marc:Cool.
Marc:Well, it would have been pretty awful if you showed up and go like, no, I didn't really have time to watch your little lady thing.
Marc:You know, hopefully I'll be able to get it.
Marc:You know, I'll try to fit it in at some other point, but we can talk about it anyways.
Marc:That lady thing, yeah.
Right.
Marc:Yeah, it seemed pretty interesting.
Marc:I just, you know, I hope you guys work it out.
Yeah.
Marc:But I found it, you know, being, you know, somebody – what's interesting is I've been talking about this a lot lately because I talk to Eve Ensler and I've been talking about it in my stand-up as well about my generation of men.
Marc:And I was keeping it specific that, like, I'm 55.
Marc:So I would say things like, you know, my generation of men, you know, really needed this waking or this education.
Marc:But it really turns out culturally that I think that the documentary shows very specifically that –
Marc:It's not in any way that men are victims here in the sense that we all got the same information.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So like the patriarchy or the cultural sexism was not my generation.
Marc:It's something that all of us grew up with.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So so there's like, you know, for me, like I made this assumption somehow that there's this younger generation of the evolved dudes that are sensitive to all these things.
Marc:And it's not true that all generations and you prove it fairly specifically.
Marc:Right.
Marc:are were brought up with this cultural education and institutional education and i and it just broadened you know what i was already sort of dealing with and trying to wrap my head around right into a more common experience that like there's no men that that get off the hook in terms of what they grew up in there's no like maybe some are more evolved than others and more sensitive yeah
Marc:But we're all getting the same information.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So we're all sort of, that was the ocean we, white male entitled fish were swimming in.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right?
Marc:That's true.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But when you look back, I guess, you know, because I want to talk about the whole thing.
Marc:But I think that your experience, you know, as a woman and obviously, you know, a lot of this starts with, you know, what are young girls taking in?
Guest:Right.
Marc:You know, because, you know, the this industry dictates the cultural narrative in a lot of ways.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But when you look back at your own life starting out, are there things that you frame as regrets?
Yes.
Guest:No, no, I don't.
Guest:I wish that I became woke a lot sooner because we're getting the same message as the men, which is frankly that women are second-class citizens, but nobody realized that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Women didn't.
Guest:Women.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I don't think men did either.
Guest:I don't think consciously they thought, well, women are second class citizens.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It was just the way things were.
Marc:Just kind of the way things were.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There was a sort of weird sort of established historical codependency.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right, right, exactly.
Marc:And that's being, you know, probably trivializing it actually.
Marc:It's worse than that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But so I wish I'd noticed things sooner.
Guest:And partly for me, one of the biggest things was...
Guest:learning that it's okay to speak up and stand up for yourself.
Guest:I was raised in a very, very specific way.
Guest:Where?
Guest:In Massachusetts, small town.
Guest:What part?
Guest:Wareham.
Guest:It's right near the Cape.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I started my career there and doing one-nighters all over the Cape.
Marc:Oh, no way.
Marc:And all over Massachusetts.
Marc:That's cool.
Marc:So I'm familiar with those towns.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:The ones that are closer to Boston, some of them are pretty dicey.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:True.
Marc:But how were you brought up?
Guest:Well, that being polite was the number one most important thing in the world, to have people like you and not cause any waves and have no needs.
Guest:In fact, I keep thinking if I wrote a book, maybe a title would be, I Almost Died of Politeness or something.
Guest:Something like that.
Guest:Because actually, I'll tell you the funny story.
Guest:When I was a little kid, I had an uncle that was 99.
Guest:And we went to dinner with him.
Guest:My parents and I went to dinner with my uncle.
Marc:The 99-year-old uncle?
Marc:And his wife.
Guest:And he drove.
Guest:And when we were driving back, he kept kind of veering into the oncoming traffic lane and then veering back and veering in.
Guest:And it was all kind of okay but scary.
Guest:And my mom, I was behind the driver.
Guest:She picked me up and put me in the middle of the two of them so that when we died, I would die a little bit less.
Guest:And then he veered into the oncoming traffic lane and stayed there.
Guest:And we were about to have a head-on collision.
Guest:And nobody said anything.
Guest:My parents didn't say anything.
Guest:And it was literally like, we're going to die in one second.
Guest:And finally his wife said, a little to the right, Jack.
Guest:And he veered right.
Guest:And I still remember the faces of the people...
Guest:with the horror on their faces as they drove by.
Marc:Thank God she stepped in.
Guest:Inches away.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But my parents would have rather die and kill me than say, you know, steer right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or even very politely, like she said, maybe a little bit to the right, Jack.
Marc:But when they got home, did either of them go like, why is he still driving?
Marc:No.
Marc:No.
Marc:No.
Marc:What did they do, your parents?
Guest:My dad was in the Corps of Engineers his whole life.
Guest:And my mom was a teacher's aide and worked as a nursing home craft person and was a waitress in a restaurant.
Guest:She always had some kind of job going on.
Marc:And was it a religious thing or just a New England thing?
Marc:Or like the politeness and the kind of... I mean, how were you brought up in that way?
Guest:I don't know if it was...
Marc:I guess it's not inherently religious.
Marc:I just wonder.
Guest:Well, they were very religious, but it was something about, you know, and also having no needs from anybody else.
Guest:You absolutely don't need anything from anybody.
Guest:Like when I went to a friend's house to play, I couldn't eat or drink anything.
Guest:Like even if they were handing you an ice-cold glass of water that they already poured, I had to say, no thanks, I'm not thirsty.
Yeah.
Marc:That's polite.
Guest:Yes, evidently.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was weird.
Guest:So I grew up never thinking about my opinions of anything, you know, that I just should go along and try to make sure that everybody really, really liked me.
Guest:And when I dated, I drove guys crazy because they'd say, what do you want to eat?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Where do you want to go?
Guest:Nothing, really.
Guest:And it would finally be like, oh, my God, will you just say what you want?
Guest:But so I entered the business with that kind of mindset.
Guest:And so there was never any question that I was going to say, can we change this line or I don't want to do that or something like that.
Marc:But when you started, like, when you're in Wareham, when did you start getting interested in expressing yourself in acting?
Marc:Because you do a lot of things.
Marc:I mean, you play instruments, you shoot arrows, you act, and now you're an activist.
Marc:But what was the first thing?
Guest:Well, my parents said I told them when I was three that I wanted to be in movies.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I can't even... What would I have seen?
Guest:How would I know that was a job even?
Marc:You probably saw some kid that was having a good time.
Guest:I saw something.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So anyway, yeah.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:That was my... That was it.
Guest:It was either that or I also was attracted to wrapping presents in a department store.
Guest:I thought that was like the coolest job ever.
Marc:Around the same time, I'm hoping.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I hope that one drifted to the wayside by about five.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So did you act in high school and all the way through it?
Guest:No.
Guest:I kind of kept it to myself.
Guest:It was kind of like this thing I was going to do once I left.
Marc:No arts?
Guest:Well, music and art, art.
Guest:I was really into drawing and painting and stuff like that.
Marc:What did you play?
Guest:Flute, piano, and pipe organ.
Marc:Do you play any of them still?
No.
Guest:Not regularly, though.
Marc:Pipe organ.
Guest:Yeah, well, because my piano teacher was also the organist at our church, and so she taught me how to play the organ, and then when they had an early youth service at church, I played the organ.
Marc:That's a powerful feeling.
Marc:It was fun.
Marc:Playing a big pipe organ.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So when did you actively start doing it, the acting?
Yeah.
Guest:I decided I was going to study it in college.
Guest:I didn't know there were schools a year ago where it was only acting.
Guest:I would have gone there.
Guest:But I asked my music teacher, where do people go if they want to study acting?
Guest:And he said, oh, Boston University.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So that's where I went.
Marc:In School of the Arts?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I went to BU.
Guest:You did?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Where did you study?
Yeah.
Marc:I was in the English department, but I took classes up there with Bill Young, I think his name was.
Guest:Oh, yeah, Bill Young.
Marc:He was my teacher, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Oh, what do you know?
Marc:He was kind of intense.
Marc:He was pretty intense.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He was cool, though.
Marc:I liked him.
Marc:So it's become a pretty good program.
Marc:Was it good when you were there?
Guest:It has become a great program.
Guest:It was good.
Guest:They...
Guest:there was very little emphasis on film acting or television acting.
Guest:It was all about theater.
Guest:And I think they sort of looked down on anything besides theater.
Guest:And so I kind of felt out of place.
Marc:Like this is the nuts and bolts of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You can do whatever you want with it after, but don't talk to us about it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:We're giving you the pure stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I felt a little bit out of place.
Guest:And then...
Guest:They never said, if you want to go into movies, you should go to LA.
Guest:Nobody ever said that.
Guest:So I went to New York with everybody else.
Guest:Everybody went to New York after school.
Marc:For theater.
Marc:Was there anyone else in your class that we know?
Guest:Well, Nina Tassler was the, what did she end up being?
Guest:Chairman of CBS for about 10 years.
Guest:And she's my best friend, and we went to school together.
Marc:Oh, you were together?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She was in the acting program?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I always find that interesting that there are people like in comedy as well who you know they have a skill set or they learn the skill set but they don't always end up in that position in the business.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know like a lot of comics end up actors or producers or you know something but like you know she became she's in show business.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Did she used to direct or do any of that stuff before or was it like did she just go the business route after?
Marc:She went the business route.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:She was like this acting is not going to do it.
Marc:I ain't going to make a break on this one.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:It's tough, right?
Guest:It is.
Marc:So, you go to New York?
Guest:Yeah, I went to New York.
Guest:Scramble around?
Guest:Scramble around.
Guest:I didn't know how I was supposed to get in a movie.
Guest:So, oh, well, so I had this idea because, what's her name?
Guest:Christy Brinkley was getting offered movie parts and Lauren Hutton, too.
Yeah.
Guest:I thought, oh, okay, I'll just become a model, and then they'll just ask me to act.
Guest:Because, you know, it's so much easier to become a supermodel.
Marc:Sure, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Good plan B. Good plan B, yeah.
Guest:That's my backup plan.
Guest:But anyway, I did become a model.
Guest:I didn't have that kind of success.
Guest:I was on the cover of New Jersey Monthly, though.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, do you have that framed at home?
Guest:I had a...
Guest:You know I don't.
Guest:I should have it up on the wall because my face doesn't even show.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I'm in a bathing suit with a hat over my face.
Marc:Oh, that's it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Anyway, but I did get cast in Tootsie from being a model.
Guest:The part required the character to be in her underwear a lot.
Guest:And they figured, let's see if there's any models who can act.
Marc:Comfortably in her underwear.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Just very comfortable.
Guest:And so they called my agency.
Guest:And they said, we have one.
Guest:We have a model who can act.
Guest:And I read for the part.
Guest:Just put it on tape or whatever with the casting assistant.
Guest:And they had said, wear a bathing suit under your clothes.
Guest:And if you read well, they want to see you in a bathing suit because, you know, the part.
Guest:And so I went and I had a bathing suit on under my clothes.
Guest:But they never said, can we see your bathing suit?
Guest:So I put it completely out of my mind.
Guest:What are the odds my first audition I'm going to get a part with Dustin Hoffman?
Marc:I mean, that's ridiculous.
Marc:And what are the odds you're going to get a part where you don't have to take your clothes off in the audition?
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:And you got it.
Guest:But then I got it because I was in Paris when they said, hey, we like this girl.
Guest:Where's her bathing suit stuff?
Guest:And I said, oh, we forgot.
Guest:Get her back.
Guest:Oh, no, she's in Paris.
Guest:Well, do they have any photos of her in a bathing suit?
Guest:And I had been in a Victoria's Secret catalog.
Marc:I thought you were going to say the cover of New Jersey magazine.
Marc:Yeah, well, they could have said that.
Guest:But yeah, they sent them the Victoria's Secret catalog and they were like,
Marc:Okay, look at her.
Marc:Okay, so like, okay, in retrospect, you know, in terms of, because my first wife was a model, and that was the trajectory she was on.
Marc:Now, are you noticing, you know, this sort of like, you know, the propensity towards objectification completely?
Marc:I mean, did you have any reaction to that experience, you know, as somebody who was in that business?
Marc:Right.
Right.
Marc:Not, no.
Marc:Because you didn't frame it that way.
Marc:I didn't frame it that way.
Marc:You were living within the patriarchal framework.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:That was just life.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That was the ocean that we were all swimming in.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:And you had what you wanted to do and it was starting to manifest.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So it was not, there was no injustice to the system.
Marc:It worked quite well for you in that moment.
Guest:It did.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:I never thought about that.
Guest:So.
Marc:So the experience of working with Hoffman and Pollock, was that?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So fabulous.
Marc:Was it?
Marc:I can't imagine.
Guest:It was so great.
Guest:So this funny thing happened because obviously I'd never been on a set before and I was terrified they were going to say, well, she doesn't know what to do or we're at a stand and everything.
Guest:So I never asked any questions.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But your upbringing as well, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So nobody ever told me, you don't have to come every day.
Guest:You just have to come the days you're working.
Guest:You weren't looking at the sheet, right?
Guest:No.
Guest:So I came every day, all day.
Guest:You showed up for work.
Guest:I showed up for work.
Guest:You had a job.
Guest:Nobody ever said, you know, it's interesting that you come every, you know, I guess they, I don't know what, they just assume.
Guest:And I would get a chair and put it right next to Sidney Pollack and sit next to him all day.
Guest:And just watch?
Guest:I just, like, here we are.
Marc:And no one said anything?
Marc:Here we are making this movie.
Marc:No, he loved it.
Marc:He was kind of always like.
Marc:Was it like you must have learned that way?
Marc:I did.
Marc:If it was a mistake, at least you were like getting a class.
Marc:You were a class.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I did.
Guest:And Dustin took me to dailies every day.
Guest:He did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which was fantastic.
Guest:He said, you got to learn how to, you know, what you think you're doing.
Guest:Is it translating onto screens?
Marc:Oh, that's amazing.
Marc:So that was the advanced course you were looking for.
Marc:That was the course in college that you didn't get.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Let's look at what you did.
Marc:Did he give you direction?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Dustin did?
Guest:He did, too.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:About acting?
Guest:Sure, yeah, about everything.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:When you go to L.A., when you, you know.
Marc:Was he decent?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, he was.
Guest:He was to me, for sure, yeah.
Guest:I didn't, yeah.
Marc:That's nice.
Guest:I know.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:And Pollock, like, you know, I love that guy.
Guest:I love Sidney.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:What was it like?
Marc:What did you guys talk about?
Guest:Oh, he was genius.
Guest:It was such an education to watch him.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Direct.
Guest:Gosh, we've talked about everything.
Guest:And, you know, he,
Guest:It was famously sort of a difficult shoot I think for him that, I don't know, there had been a lot of writers and there was a lot of stress anyway and he'd be rubbing his face with his hands and I'd say, I think it's all going to be great.
Guest:Okay, all right.
Marc:See, that politeness paid off.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Look at the chipper upbringing.
Marc:It worked out.
Marc:You saved Pollock's sanity.
Guest:Oh, there we go.
Guest:That's why it happened, so I could save his sanity.
Marc:Well, I mean, but again, in retrospect, that model is the one we're trying to shift a little bit.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That wasn't your role.
Marc:No, I didn't mean to take that job.
Marc:But fortunately, it was a great education.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And then what happens?
Marc:Do you stop modeling?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then I got cast in a TV show from that and then moved to LA and that was it.
Marc:I started working.
Guest:Buffalo Bill?
Guest:Buffalo Bill, yeah.
Guest:Because Dabney Coleman was in Tootsie and he thought, oh, she'd be great in this part in my new show.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Now, what about Dabney?
Marc:Good guy?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Fantastic.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:I think sometimes it's nice to hear nice stories about guys that play assholes.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Right, right, right, yes.
Marc:He was one of the great assholes on Scream.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But what was it?
Marc:What was the transition to television like?
Marc:Because like what's interesting about like like I think a lot of people associate you with movies.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And being, you know, having that presence for for the as long as you did and the movies that you were in, which made a tremendous impact.
Marc:But I mean, but you right at the beginning, you were like, I'll do TV and you still don't mind doing TV.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I love TV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had a great time.
Guest:I wanted to have a spinoff of it.
Guest:I had a lot of plans.
Marc:Of Buffalo Bill?
Guest:Of Buffalo Bill.
Guest:Was it on for a couple seasons?
Guest:Yes, two seasons.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then I did a lot of guest spots on every show you can think of, like Fantasy Island.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Knight Rider and all those crazy shows.
Guest:Remington Steel and everything.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And so you're just working.
Marc:I was just working.
Marc:And it was coming pretty steady.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Yeah, it came pretty steady.
Marc:So where do you fit the archery in?
Marc:When does that happen?
Guest:Oh, that wasn't until, gosh, that was after Long Kiss Goodnight.
Marc:Oh, so after the craziness.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:After the crazy patch.
Marc:You needed to focus on just a singular circle.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:You got to get zen.
Marc:So the next big film you do is The Fly?
Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What a movie.
Guest:That was my first lead part.
Guest:And it was really intense.
Guest:Yeah, it was so great.
Marc:Like Cronenberg.
Marc:It's interesting because like a lot of the movies like that was, I would assume at that time, a fairly risky movie to do in terms of like it wasn't it must have been some some version of an independent movie on some point or was it a big studio?
Marc:This is a horror movie.
Marc:We know what to do with this.
Guest:It was a Fox movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And Mel Brooks was the producer.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:Interestingly, yeah.
Marc:I think he produced The Elephant Man, too.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Marc:Yeah, I talked to Mel.
Marc:He's a good guy.
Guest:Such a great guy, yeah.
Marc:So he always had sort of like some weird kind of faith or the guy who worked for him in these kind of like real, you know, singular kind of vision directors.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:So it was a big production.
Guest:Yeah, it did feel like a big production.
Guest:And we loved it.
Guest:Jeff and I just loved it.
Marc:Is that where you met him?
Guest:No, we met on Transylvania's 65,000.
Guest:You left that off.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I really focus on the ones I remember enjoying and seeing.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:What was Transylvania's 65,000?
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:This crazy, awful small movie that we shot in Yugoslavia.
Guest:In Yugoslavia.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:That was crazy.
Guest:I was a nymphomaniacal vampire in that.
Guest:Oh, there you go.
Guest:Yeah, it was very strange.
Guest:But that's where I met Jeff.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We were together five years old.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:He's like, you know, both of you, really.
Marc:I mean, there are certain people whose personalities always sort of transcend whatever role they're in.
Marc:Like there's a natural intensity to the being.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Me too?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:No, you're singular.
Marc:There's no doubt about it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:So, all right, so The Fly.
Marc:Now, Cronenberg, like, you know, obviously, you being new to the game with Pollock, you know, everything was eye-opening.
Marc:But working with somebody like Cronenberg, who has, like, a very specific and very peculiar vision and is sort of meticulous about, you know, how he captures it in almost all his movies, you know, what was the experience working with him?
Guest:Not really that different.
Guest:He's incredibly confident and calm and knows what he's doing, which when I worked with more and different directors, I found out that that's not always the case, that you're not always this calm, focused genius who knows exactly what they're doing and is very comfortable if other people have ideas.
Marc:That's an important part of it is- Are you saying some of them are tyrannical madmen?
Guest:Well-
Guest:Possibly.
Guest:It's happened.
Guest:It's happened.
Guest:But it seems to me that that comes more out of insecurity, you know, that I have to be tyrannical because I'm scared of other people's ideas because I don't know quite what I'm doing and it all might go crazy.
Guest:Right.
Marc:They're trusting their own creative process is daunting.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Ridley Scott is like that, too.
Guest:Exactly like that.
Guest:Just totally so comfortable, happy, knows what he's doing.
Marc:It really takes a certain type of person to direct.
Marc:I'm friends with Lynn Shelton, who I don't know if she directed you.
Marc:on GLOW.
Marc:And she's very excited about the director element in the movie, in the documentary.
Marc:It resonated because she's a director.
Marc:Just that moment where you have a woman director saying she was denied
Marc:the opportunity to create a a body of work right you know like that's a very powerful thing to to really put that into perspective that you have these you know talented people that for no other reason than the systemic sexism uh you know have all the talent and all the ideas and all of the wherewithal and uh to execute and and create you know a body of work that they they don't have access right
Marc:Yeah, and it's sort of like, it's powerful, disturbing stuff.
Marc:Yeah, it really is.
Marc:But back to like Cronenberg, because that's really a weird kind of a failed romance movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, that's how we looked at it, a sort of an operatic tragedy.
Guest:And, you know, David said it was really a metaphor for, could be for somebody having a fatal disease or something, you know.
Guest:Oh, no, yeah, definitely.
Marc:It's also there is an element of profoundly toxic masculinity in the character.
Marc:Especially when he defends, you know, that moment where he defends, like, you're just trying to bring me down.
Marc:And he's like, you know, able to climb on the ceiling.
Marc:This is amazing.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:That moment's a great moment.
Marc:I can't believe you remember that.
Marc:It's a profound moment, you know, in any relationship where especially somebody who is, you know, bipolar or has found something that their life, you know, it's like it's made them feel relevant and strong and everything has come together for them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how dare you?
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, and meanwhile, he's got weird hairs growing out of his arm and things are falling off.
Guest:Yeah, his ear falls off.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And that was an amazing vulnerable moment where he's like, oh.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And he's putting stuff into the cabinet.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, yeah, his teeth and things.
Guest:So that moment, you know, we thought that was a very important moment where his ear falls off and, oh, my God, he realizes and, you know, and I hug him and...
Marc:Everybody says, what's happening to me?
Guest:Yeah, what's happening to me?
Guest:It was very wonderful.
Guest:So Jeff and I went to Times Square opening night to watch the movie, stand in the back and watch the movie with people.
Guest:And it was so great because all anybody's doing is saying, don't go in there, there's a fly, don't go in there.
Guest:But when that moment happened, which we thought was so tender and wonderful, people screamed and were talking so you couldn't hear the next two scenes.
Guest:And it was because I hug him on the side where the ear fell off.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so it was so gross.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:Goopy.
Guest:So I jammed my face up against this goopy thing.
Guest:And people were like, bleh!
Guest:That's hilarious.
Guest:We were like, oh, we should have done that.
Marc:Well, I mean, no, it's good.
Marc:Yeah, I guess it's good.
Marc:It's a nice element.
Marc:It shows you really care.
Marc:I cared.
Marc:And then you go right into a more wackier horror movie.
Guest:I went right to Beetlejuice.
Marc:Another wildly independent, crazy thinking director.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:See, I had to work with some great directors.
Marc:Tim Burton, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:In his youth.
Guest:In his youth.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:When I met him, I said, listen, I want to be in this movie.
Guest:I get this movie.
Guest:I just get it.
Guest:I really picture it.
Guest:And he said later, I hired her because she said she gets it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I wasn't sure that I got it.
Guest:So I thought at least somebody on the set, well, I could ask her if I get lost.
Marc:I picture these.
Marc:I'm glad these guys turned out to be good experiences.
Marc:And Kasdan directed the Accidental tour?
Guest:Yeah, he did.
Guest:Yeah, he's another brilliant, brilliant director.
Guest:Very just comfortable in his skin and just knows what he's doing and knows what he wants.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you feel yourself growing as an actress during all this?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Did you study more when you were out here?
Guest:Yes, I did.
Guest:So when I got cast in Accidental Tourist, I knew it was like a huge deal.
Guest:And I thought I better get an acting coach to make sure I do a good job.
Guest:And Gary Shandling, who I was friendly with, recommended Roy London.
Marc:I hear this name a lot.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He passed away, unfortunately, a little while back.
Guest:So I went to see him and it was such a genius move.
Guest:I worked with him on all my movies up until he passed away.
Marc:What did he offer specifically?
Guest:So we would just, the two of us sit down with the script and just go through every line, every scene, every moment and figure out, you know,
Guest:What is going on?
Guest:What do I want?
Guest:What am I trying to get?
Guest:And it just helped me focus so much better instead of sort of just feeling it and acting it that way because you feel like that's the right thing to do.
Guest:But really try to, what's the most interesting choice I can make here?
Guest:And things like, this is a tiny example, but I made this movie Quick Change with Bill Murray.
Guest:And there's a line, so we're trying to catch this plane.
Guest:The whole movie's about we're trying to get to the airport.
Guest:And at one point, Randy Quaid, we see a plane take off and Randy Quaid says, oh no, that was our plane, we missed our plane.
Guest:And my line is,
Guest:No, if that was our plane, it would be crashing.
Guest:And so my instinct would have been to say, no, if it was our plane, it would be crashing.
Guest:And he said, what if you're trying to comfort him with this?
Guest:And so I ended up saying, no, if it was our plane, it would be crashing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was just better and funnier.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:All that kind of finding something that seems like the opposite of what's obvious, that your intention is almost always the opposite of what you're saying.
Guest:Like if you're saying, I hate you, you mean I love you.
Marc:Right, right, yeah.
Guest:That's very simplistic, but yeah.
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Marc:Because it is kind of bizarre when you look at a script just
Marc:how much choice you have around that.
Marc:I mean, there is a way it's written, and you do have instincts around how to play it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But with just minor tweaks about where it comes from within you can change the whole kind of tone of the conversation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he also, well, this sort of fit with my personality, too, because he...
Guest:One of his goals was to make you director proof that you know so well what you're doing that you're not going to get screwed up by direction.
Guest:And so let's say I'm doing a scene where I'm very, very upset.
Guest:And then the director says, no, I want you to do this scene very calm.
Guest:And so instead of throwing out what you're going to do, okay, now I'm very upset, but I'm trying to be calm.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you protect your choice by just making an adjustment.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then it turned out I don't have to talk to the director about, you know, I don't have to argue.
Guest:No, I want to play it this way.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I just work with a guy that like he and I didn't mind it at all because I know I'm just sort of raw in a lot of ways.
Marc:And I, you know, I come to the thing with a certain amount of energy, usually too much.
Marc:So really with most directors, it's sort of like, could you just take that down?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like he would just literally say like, I think this line is more like, you know, like he would like give me a line.
Marc:But I could feel the emotion of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, I can do my version of the emotion you were expressing.
Guest:Yeah, I don't mind when directors do that.
Marc:No, do me a favor.
Marc:I'm that committed?
Marc:It's like, no, let's really run.
Marc:And I know actors do that all the time.
Marc:I guess I'm so grateful and sort of insecure enough to not become that guy.
Marc:Sometimes I don't understand how some of these bigger stars become monsters.
Marc:I don't know how they live with it.
Marc:How they become monsters?
Marc:I kind of understand that, but still, I always give people the benefit of the doubt.
Marc:But people are like, I'm not fucking getting out of this trailer into you.
Marc:get me these shoes oh god you know and it's like it happens a lot oh god it does and it's like and it's another thing that they like not unlike well it's unlike it but but this the kind of stuff that the the industry absorbs and coddles
Marc:Mm hmm.
Marc:Is, you know, in the name of of of bottom line or just habit is kind of profound that, you know, entire productions are revolving, you know, economically and time wise and with so many people involved around a guy in the trailer throwing a shit fit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Crazy.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:Just do your fucking job.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've run into that for sure.
Marc:But I guess you get to a certain pay grade where they're not in a position to go, fuck that guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The whole investment is hanging on that person.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I started thinking about this, too, when I was watching the doc, too.
Marc:The systemic tolerance for not only sexism, but just insanity because of the artist on all levels is kind of amazing.
Marc:It really is.
Marc:And almost every project has somebody like that.
Marc:So the Academy Award, you won that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was fun.
Marc:It must have been fun.
Guest:It was so shocking.
Guest:Was it shocking?
Guest:No, you know what happened?
Guest:I was getting ready.
Guest:I was so excited and nervous.
Guest:And I sat down to eat some spaghetti before going and put on the TV.
Guest:And it was Oprah's show.
Guest:And she had like Gene Siskel and Rex Reed and all these people.
Guest:And they were right at the Best Supporting Actors category when I turned it on.
Guest:And they were talking about this one.
Guest:Oh, yeah, she might.
Guest:And she might.
Guest:Yeah, no, no.
Guest:And then the last one was me.
Guest:And every single person went, oh, no, no, no, no.
Guest:Really?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Just what you want to see.
Guest:I have been thinking, you know, I have a one in five chance or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was so demoralized.
Guest:I was like, oh, I guess I'll still go.
Marc:Speculators.
Marc:Yeah, that would have done it.
Marc:I can't go.
Marc:It's going to be too hard.
Guest:Oh, well.
Marc:Yeah, but you got it.
Marc:And then.
Marc:And you got up there and you got to get the award.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:In front of everybody.
Shh.
Marc:Back then, it was like half the world was watching.
Marc:Now they can't get anyone to watch or even host a thing.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it still means something, right?
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Well, it was interesting because it kind of felt like, wow, I got that out of the way pretty early.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:it kind of felt really good.
Guest:Like, well, I just, I checked off something.
Guest:And so, yeah.
Marc:Now, it seems like in the doc, this changes everything, that Thelma and Louise represented some sort of
Marc:Pivot point.
Guest:Right.
Marc:In terms of the industry, you know, putting some confidence and faith in female leads.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Having a female-driven movie.
Marc:Right.
Marc:With specifically female themes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because, you know, throughout the doc and this mission you have with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That whole part of it, the research that your crew put in, the whole idea that, primarily, I think the two areas of like, in the name of the children, to some degree.
Marc:You know, but also in the name of the, you know, grown up women who want to work.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That the evidence had to be presented.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:You know, on this level of like, you know, how women are depicted in descriptions.
Marc:Right.
Marc:In scripts.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:You know, what are women saying and would women say that?
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, they're just their screen time in general.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:You know, and then, you know, behind the camera on the writing level, the directing level and, you know, all the way down the line.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:that you had to amass evidence of institutional sexism.
Marc:It wasn't enough just to spend a day, anybody, watching movies or television.
Marc:But because of this kind of institutionalized and cultural sort of habit of framing women like this, that no one was really, other than women, some women, were kind of pushing back on it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, what happened is, I mean, I knew what everybody knew.
Guest:There were fewer female directors and writers and fewer female stars, you know, lead characters and all that stuff.
Guest:But like...
Guest:You were saying that's kind of the way it is or something was my thinking.
Guest:And then when my daughter was a toddler, I started watching kids things with her, showing her preschool shows and things like that.
Guest:And I immediately noticed that there seemed to be far more male characters than female characters.
Guest:In what's made for the littlest kids, you know, Teletubbies is gender balanced.
Guest:I don't know if you can tell.
Guest:But other than that, it seemed to be a big problem.
Guest:But apropos of what you're saying, I decided first I'm just going to bring it up when I have meetings with whoever, studio execs or producers or...
Guest:And every single person said, no, no, no, that's not true anymore.
Guest:That's been fixed.
Guest:And I asked dozens and dozens of people this question.
Guest:And every person said, that's not true anymore.
Guest:And sometimes they would name a movie with one female character as proof that gender inequality was fixed.
Guest:And so that's when I realized I want to get the data done.
Guest:Because I can't be wrong in what I'm seeing, I don't think.
Guest:And so that's what I did.
Guest:And, of course, it proves to be absolutely true.
Marc:It's fascinating data, you know, and the sort of work that went into doing it.
Marc:And also the doc goes into the fact that
Marc:That wasn't the way it always was.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I think that's a kind of profound piece that in the silent era, there were literally hundreds of women working in film and directing film and in the production side of film.
Marc:Starring.
Marc:Yeah, starring, of course.
Marc:And Mary Pickford had her own United Artists.
Marc:She was part of it.
Marc:Was it Griffith, Chaplin, Fairbanks and Her?
Marc:Maybe one other one?
Marc:I don't remember who was involved.
Marc:But the primary reason it changed was when the studios sort of became kind of property of banks and the corporate structure was less kind of Wild West-y and more organized along corporate hierarchical lines, which were intrinsically male.
Marc:So the distrust of women or the condescension was brought in from another business almost.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:It's almost like there was a silent era that could have been flourished as an artistic kind of independent world of maybe not so much multicultural at that point, but certainly gender balanced profession.
Marc:You come under the scrutiny of bankers and corporate interests.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Which were men.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that's when it changed.
Marc:Like it was actually there was this weird utopic time.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And not many – I had no idea.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And there's a few areas you can think of that started out balanced and then got – usually it's been – everything's been male-dominated and then women try to get in.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Yeah, but at the time, it wasn't until they realized this is big money in this, that this is the most powerful cultural medium ever, harnessed by humans, pulled down from the ether, this celluloid business.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:We're going to own the brains of everybody.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And men have got to be in charge of owning brains.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:We have a certain message we want to send.
Marc:So did you feel when Thelma and Louise, when you got that script and you saw the impact it could have, were all these issues pressing at that point?
Marc:Is that when it began to sort of become apparent that this was going to be a breakthrough movie and you were aware of the issues at that time?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No.
Guest:And nobody involved in it had any idea, the nerve that it was going to strike or had that as a goal.
Guest:I just thought it was the best script I'd ever read.
Guest:And it was unusual in that it had two female leads.
Guest:And I couldn't decide which part I wanted to play, but anyway.
Guest:And it wasn't until the movie came out.
Guest:I mean, we were literally thinking, oh, we hope somebody sees this movie, you know.
Guest:It seemed like a smallish movie, pretty low budget, certainly for a Ridley Scott movie.
Guest:And when it exploded like that, we were stunned.
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:And very...
Guest:impactful because it wasn't just that people were talking about it and it made money and all that, but it was so different when I ran into somebody who recognized me from that movie than before.
Guest:People would say, oh, I liked Beetlejuice or whatever.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Now they wanted to talk about it and tell me...
Guest:who they saw it with and how many times they saw it and what it meant to them and how it changed their life.
Guest:Sometimes people would say, my friend and I acted out your trip.
Marc:I'd be like, which part?
Marc:Really?
Marc:There's a few people dead.
Marc:But also I think that in thinking about it in light of the information, they were fully realized
Marc:female characters because a woman wrote it.
Marc:That there are things that happen in that movie that are specifically so intimate and related to the female experience that they were beyond the conception of a man, really.
Guest:I could, yeah, I can agree with that.
Marc:You know, because I started to think about those scenes.
Marc:The horrible sadness of whatever Susan went through, which sort of remains unspoken.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then, you know, you're kind of falling for Brad Pitt, who wouldn't, and you've given your predicament of the crazy, weird, tightly wrapped, toxic husband.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:You know, and this is the first time that you, and then the money, it's just like, and how you reacted to that was specifically from a woman's point of view.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:And it would not have worked in any other way.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:Stuff that's in there probably wouldn't have been there if a man had written it right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So when does the kind of like obviously you talk to some directors.
Marc:I don't I don't remember their names.
Marc:You know, obviously there were plenty of women in Hollywood realizing the problem.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Before, you know, Thelma and Louise and going way back, you know, these fights had been fought before.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, you go into there's a couple of arcs in the movie.
Marc:But one of the major through lines is the DGA, the Directors Guild and those directors.
Marc:What kind of happened politically in a show business way after Thelma and Louise around the issues that are now kind of at the forefront?
Guest:Well, the interesting phenomenon I noticed was that all the press about it said that now everything is going to be different because this movie had such an impact.
Marc:Women can carry a movie.
Guest:Yes, women can carry a movie and we're going to see so much more of that now.
Guest:And then the very next movie I made was Lee of Their Own where people said the same thing.
Guest:Now there's going to be so many more female sports movies because it's been proven that
Guest:that there's an appetite for that and then none of that happened uh you know i think the thought was from everybody that this that things really would start to change people because like you know we did what they all want to do we made money right we made money so you know how how could it like it's good
Marc:Big hit.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah, let's copy that.
Guest:Actually, Callie Corey, the writer, told me a story that she had a writer friend of hers that three years later was pitching a movie to some studio and it also happened to have two female stars, but it had nothing else to do with Thelma and Louise.
Guest:And they said, no, no, no, there's been Thelma and Louise.
Guest:It was almost like now we can't have movies anymore with two female leads.
Guest:Because it's been done.
Guest:It's the craziest thing.
Guest:And then, you know, what I noticed was every few years a movie would come out starring women and everybody would latch on to that and say, okay, well, now we're done.
Guest:Now things are done and it's all changed.
Guest:And it absolutely didn't.
Marc:So this sort of reflective reaction of a male-dominated business was we threw them the bone.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, that should placate them for a while.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that they're a fluke, that they're always a one-off.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That you never get any momentum going because everybody says, yeah, but, you know, we can't trust that that will happen.
Guest:Because I felt like, you know...
Guest:realized that Hollywood seemed to be run on the idea that women will watch men, but men won't watch women.
Guest:So everything we do has to be based on that fact.
Guest:And it includes girls will watch boys, but boys won't watch girls.
Guest:So everything had to be male-dominated.
Guest:And if there was a fluky instance where a girl was the lead, yeah, but we still have to stick to our formula.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because it's what people expect.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I guess the thing that struck me that was interesting is that, you know, what's being presented here is logical, it's logical and it makes sense.
Marc:But because of the paradigm that exists, you know, these are men that don't think they're bad men.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:Yeah, so like, and they just can't get the brain pop.
Marc:Right.
Right.
Marc:that makes them see how stilted it is, or that it is fundamentally discriminating.
Marc:Because it's always been the way it's been.
Marc:And that's sort of a weird thing to me, because
Marc:You're dealing with thousands of years of history.
Marc:It's almost genetic.
Marc:But the switch that has to be thrown is a fairly simple one to throw.
Marc:And once men realize it, what they do with that crossroads really determines are you going to commit to being this kind of person or are you going to be a monster?
Guest:Are you going to consciously support, you know, instead of unconscious, having it be unconscious discrimination, are you going to now consciously discriminate?
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:It's sort of like, you know, once you go to AA and you get sober, if you start drinking again, you still got a head full of AA.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Saying like, what are you doing?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What are you doing?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So, and if you're saying like, you know, shut the fuck up, I'm doing what I want to do.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Then, you know, you got personal problems to reckon with.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:And there's a lot of people that have personal problems directly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, I think people don't realize how much unconscious gender bias we all have, particularly men.
Guest:I think you could say, well, no, I don't have gender bias.
Guest:I have friends who are women.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But we all have it.
Guest:Men and women have it.
Guest:And it's perhaps genetic by now.
Guest:But the popular culture is reinforcing it every minute from the second you start consuming popular culture.
Guest:You're seeing that men are more important than women.
Guest:And you just take it in.
Guest:You don't even have to realize, well, that's, you know, like there's no little girl who says...
Guest:I'm not seeing myself fairly represented up there.
Marc:Yeah, and also then the sexualizing that happens in women to themselves in order to do what they think is necessary to function in the world.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:But don't you feel like this industry thinks of itself as this separate thing?
Guest:Because we're a creative community.
Guest:It's different.
Guest:We have to make decisions based on creative process rather than what's fair or right.
Marc:No, I think so.
Marc:But I also think that really on the bigger level, it's
Marc:Big, big money.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like, you know, it seems like now, you know, whether progress has been made in a mainstream way that, you know, more people are making things of different, you know, ethnic groups and sexual orientation and gender.
Marc:But, you know, it doesn't get the support of a larger movie.
Marc:But that's true with a lot of things in the movie business.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that right now, I guess they're all pretty excited that they've successfully, they being the executives, is that we've integrated the Marvel Universe.
Marc:And so that's all that matters culturally and on a bottom line level.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But so the disappointment of Thelma and Louise and the momentum that happened after that was that it did just recede back into its standard format.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I mean, it changed me tremendously.
Guest:It was kind of the start of all my awakening.
Marc:League of their own Thelma and Louise.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A very powerful one-two punch.
Guest:And it made me...
Guest:Well, what it made me realize was how few opportunities we give women to come out of a movie feeling inspired and empowered by the female characters.
Guest:And that's kind of the best part of watching a movie is you get to identify with somebody and you live vicariously through them.
Guest:And it just made me...
Marc:sick to think about women being robbed of that experience right of seeing themselves in things right you know people of color as well and absolutely and it's just like yeah because when you really think about how important tv and movies are your music's a little different because you know it seems like really everyone's pretty well represented in music you can find your own way there right
Marc:But in the stories that the culture tells, there's one point in the doc where someone says, a black woman is like, do I even exist?
Guest:Whoa, yeah, I know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I don't know that, again, I don't know that I put that much, in my own mind intellectually, that much emphasis on the reflection that movies provide.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And I just...
Marc:You know, I understand the issues, but I never really, you know, extended my empathy to like, you know, I don't know if I'm really representative movies, but certainly I identify and I can latch on to a character.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:As my guy.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But that's just it is my guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Do women have their woman?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, not not usually.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a lot of times if there's an ensemble of like, let's say there's six and there's one woman, I think as a sort of trying to placate women or feminists or whatever, you know, she's very tough.
Guest:She's the toughest one and she's the not funny one.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that's written in the description of the script.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:She's tough as nails.
Guest:And there's even, I noticed a bunch of kids movies, animated kids movies where there'd be like four main characters and one is a woman.
Guest:And they cast somebody who's not a comic.
Guest:All the other guys are Ben Stiller or Chris Rock and she's the web blanket.
Marc:The bitch character.
Guest:Yeah, the one, come on, you guys.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, going back to your career, so when you do, what happened after Cutthroat Island, you know, that, you know, in relation to, because like, you know, in the information about you, and I don't know how you see it,
Marc:that they kind of hung the sort of failure of that movie on you.
Marc:Do you feel that?
Guest:Let me think.
Guest:I know there's been a lot of talk about what a big failure it was.
Guest:I don't know that I saw so much that people said, oh, it's a failure because it was a woman instead of a man.
Guest:But people were certainly very eager to,
Guest:Jump, jump on that, yeah.
Marc:And that was Rennie Harlan.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Who you were with at that time.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That must have made things difficult.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I was, we were able to commiserate with each other.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But, you know, because we put a lot of effort and passion into that.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:And then the next movie we made together was Long Kiss Goodnight, which got a much better reception.
Marc:That did all right at the box office.
Marc:It did all right, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But did you feel that there was a shift in your career after those movies that was particularly because you were a woman?
Guest:Well, yeah, there was a shift for sure.
Guest:And it was right around when I turned 40.
Guest:Let's think.
Guest:Yeah, I think I turned 40 sort of right after Long Kiss Goodnight.
Guest:And so, you know, I had thought from the beginning that it wasn't going to happen to me, you know.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Because when I was starting out was when Meryl Streep was winning, you know, French Lieutenant Women and Glenn Close and all those women.
Guest:Sally Field were having these fabulous movies every year.
Guest:And I thought, well, they're fixing everything.
Guest:I don't have to worry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What happened to me was I was averaging about a movie a year, and I was being very fussy about what I said yes to until I was 40.
Guest:And then from when I was 40 to 50, I made one movie.
Marc:But you did live TV.
Guest:I didn't do a lot of TV.
Guest:I did some TV.
Marc:When did the Geena Davis show happen?
Guest:Right.
Guest:That was about when I was 41, I think.
Guest:And then when I was 50, I got commander-in-chief.
Guest:Got to be the president.
Guest:I got to be the president.
Guest:I had a short administration.
Marc:A one-season administration.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But that was really...
Guest:demoralizing i mean it wasn't that i wasn't offered anything uh but nothing that you know that spoke to me or that i wanted to uh to play it was just completely different all of a sudden you know and so my theory is from examining this a great deal is that uh
Guest:People think of having a female character when it needs to be female.
Guest:Like she's the girlfriend of somebody or the wife or whatever.
Guest:And that's going to tend to be somebody younger.
Guest:And then...
Guest:So for characters that could be either, nobody's thinking about that.
Guest:The default is always male.
Guest:So if it's the 50-year-old boss or whatever, or even the best friend of the character, of course, male, male, male, male.
Guest:And if they stop to think about it,
Guest:They could realize, and this is what I talk about when I meet with studios, look at all the characters and see which ones you can turn into female because it doesn't make any difference.
Guest:If they're not having sex with somebody, it doesn't matter if it's a male or female.
Guest:And that's why I think so many women over 40 are not working is because people aren't being creative enough and thinking, well, wait a minute, why couldn't this be a woman, you know?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you would think that these men in their 40s and 50s, who's at this point, you know, I would assume their wives are involved in things and doing things in life.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Daughters are doing things in life.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They might have some friendly relationships with women that are non-sexual and whatnot.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But it's still that, it's a paradigm thing still.
Marc:You're up against this, you know, this, the way it always has been.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Still.
Guest:And unconscious bias.
Guest:And, you know, it's just so easy to default to male.
Guest:You just don't think of it.
Marc:But it's interesting, too, like, you know, there's...
Marc:I had a conversation with somebody about this, about this kind of idea that, you know, and this is something I see as a dude, and I think that it happens a lot on all levels, in front of the camera, writing, directing, is that, you know, now that things are kind of publicly and culturally shifting and the industry is aware and I think trying, you know,
Marc:to do something about it, is you get a bunch of white dudes going like, well, I couldn't get the job because they're only hiring women.
Marc:I couldn't get the job because they only want black people.
Marc:I couldn't get the job.
Guest:It's right.
Guest:It's true.
Marc:But see, the fundamental fault in that is interesting because the system, given the way it is, is that men on all levels, no matter how shitty they are at their job,
Marc:If they can do them, even if they're just hackers, they're going to get the job because that's just the way the system is built up.
Marc:So these guys who claim that it's not about whether you can do the job or not, that's the fallacy.
Marc:A lot of people have to realize, well, maybe you weren't doing it that good.
Marc:What's happening is it's become, with equality on some level and less discrimination, it becomes more competitive because you have a whole world of people that are fucking great at it, that have been denied the opportunity, and now your shoddy little resume is not going to stand up.
Marc:on the new field right right it's not that it's being stilted in any way it's just become more competitive because they've entered there's a whole other world of talent coming in right right so these guys who were complaining anyways about their place in the world and why couldn't they get their own show on the air whatever it is right you know now they can hang it on this yes
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's amazing how many people, men, think that way, that now they only want black women.
Guest:Or say, well, really?
Guest:Let's look at the numbers.
Guest:Is it really that more than 50% of the people working now are black women?
Marc:But the assumption that that's the only requirement is really, that's not like unconscious bias.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, or unconscious racism.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's biased bias because you don't take it to the next step, which is like maybe that person is completely qualified, has an interesting vision, you know, is better than you at the job.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Marc:Mm hmm.
Marc:Like they didn't even want those possibilities to enter the conversation.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They stop at black.
Marc:They stop at women.
Marc:They stop at gay.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:You know, my theory is that the easiest thing to change is the onscreen representation because I really feel like that's unconscious for the most part, that that's unconscious bias.
Guest:People don't realize they're doing it.
Guest:This is just from my experience and how the data makes all the difference that they say.
Guest:What are we doing?
Guest:Really?
Guest:But that behind the camera, it's conscious bias because everybody's known those numbers for decades.
Guest:Everybody's been completely aware and it does nothing.
Guest:Knowing the numbers does nothing to make anybody say.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Let's do better.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I'm guilty of it.
Marc:I mean, I had a show.
Marc:I'm sad that my mind is so blown by all this, but it's good.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, what are you finding now?
Marc:And I don't know how recent those experiences of you telling what you're telling to studio people.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, we changed that.
Marc:Now, are you finding a shift in that?
Marc:Because in the doc, you know, the 2018 numbers for directorial employment were still pretty – they were low?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, nothing is improving as far as behind the camera.
Guest:And directors –
Guest:It does nothing but kind of go down and maybe, you know, it's always single digits.
Guest:And you can't even say, well, in 500 years we'll be equal because there's no progress whatsoever.
Guest:So, like I said, that's a big...
Guest:problem that's going to take people making very conscious decisions.
Guest:I'm doing a bad job and I'm going to do better by being very conscious of it and taking these steps.
Guest:You can't just think I'm hiring.
Guest:I don't think anybody can say I hire based on merit.
Guest:if they haven't made conscious proactive steps to overcome their unconscious bias.
Guest:Like you can't say, I'm so woke.
Guest:All I do is make my decisions based on merit.
Marc:I think that, again, it stops at that thing that there's this sort of idea that this is all some kind of expansion of affirmative action.
Marc:that they're not looking past the idea of like, well, how many women are there?
Marc:We gotta get women in here.
Marc:As opposed to like, what is the full expanse of people that are capable of doing this?
Marc:And I wanna see the resumes of women, people of color, and the regular white guys.
Marc:So if we're gonna start to integrate this decision-making process, let's see the full pool of talent.
Marc:Not like, well, we're required
Marc:Yes.
Marc:To get one of those ladies in there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when I was in Australia a couple of years ago, they told me about this short film competition, very well known there.
Guest:And every year, only about 17% of the films that are chosen for the competition are directed by women.
Guest:And a couple of years ago, they had the thought, you know what?
Guest:Let's just try taking the names off of these movies.
Guest:So nobody knows whether a man or a woman.
Guest:directed it straight to 50-50.
Guest:And these are people who were trying to do a good job.
Guest:I really want to make sure we're fair.
Guest:And they had to take the names off.
Guest:So it just shows how deep it is and how you can't just think your way out of it.
Marc:You have to make, you know.
Marc:Yeah, and also, you know, I'm talking to men.
Marc:It's like, okay, look, we've all been assholes.
Yeah.
Marc:You know, I certainly have, you know, and I've talked about it at length and I've had to reckon with myself around a lot of it, but it is sort of on us.
Marc:You know, that now that the push is there and the awareness is there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like it is on us.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're struggling against a history of madness and your own stubbornness and your own unchecked bias that is just intrinsic.
Marc:So it is an active struggle in, I think, a lot of dudes.
Marc:And it's a struggle within themselves.
Marc:And to sort of step out and sort of take the hit of dug-in douchebags going, look at the virtue signaling white knighting fuck.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I'm a grown-ass man.
Marc:I'm 55 years old.
Marc:I'm not going to talk to you like a comic book character.
Marc:It's like you can be the way you want to be, but it's our responsibility as evolved people to do this.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, you know, John Landgraf, it was when he heard the data, when he heard the numbers about how he was doing and how low they were ranked, that he decided he was going to do something about it.
Guest:Bottom line.
Guest:Bottom line.
Guest:So, like you're saying, once you know that, you got to do something about it.
Guest:it right and also it's sort of like if this helps you know it's sort of like there's money in these women exactly exactly well movies starring women have made more money at the box office for the last few years in 20 uh 2017 they made 38 percent more money at the box office uh if there was a female lead character so um
Marc:Well, on some level, it's because it's exciting and new.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:You know what I was going to tell you that I've never really talked about?
Guest:So we'd meet with everybody, every union and guild and whatever.
Guest:This is with your institute?
Guest:With my institute, yes.
Guest:But we had never spoken to anybody at the director's guild.
Guest:And so the woman who my CEO was constantly calling them and trying to, can Gina speak to the DGA?
Guest:And at first they said, no, she's too controversial.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Adding more women is too controversial.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But she kept calling and trying different people and whatever.
Guest:And then they said, oh, we don't let anybody who's not in the union speak to the union.
Guest:And then we find out that's not true.
Guest:Of course, they have lots of people come in.
Guest:And then finally, a year later, they call and say, guess what?
Guest:We are going to let Gina come and speak to the DGA, but only to the women.
Guest:In 2013, they said out loud, Gina can only speak to the women directors, who I don't need to talk to, obviously.
Guest:But I went anyway to this conference and I said, I don't need to be talking to you guys.
Guest:And they were like, we know.
Guest:And that was 2013.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where are we at now with that?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I haven't been back.
Guest:I haven't yet talked to, you know, had an opportunity to speak to the male directors as a group.
Guest:But it's a big problem.
Guest:All I'm talking about is add more female characters.
Guest:That's all I wanted to say.
Guest:Hey, by the way, add more female characters.
Guest:Or, you know, cast women in some of the men's parts.
Marc:Or let them direct.
Marc:It wasn't about even directing?
Guest:No, it was, you're the director.
Guest:Here's what you can do for on-screen representation.
Marc:Given, you know, your visibility in the industry, have you found any receptive or actively supportive men in these different areas of business as you have these meetings or like directors?
Marc:I mean, you know everybody.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:That's why I thought that the thing to do with the research was to go directly to the creators.
Guest:I don't have to get the public aroused and have them demand whatever.
Guest:I could just go very quietly and privately in a very friendly and collegial way and say, I don't think you knew this.
Guest:What do you think?
Guest:And the reaction has always been...
Guest:oh my God, what are we doing?
Guest:And that they want to change it.
Guest:Obviously, I'm mostly talking to men because they're the ones that are decision makers and most of the writers and most of the producers and all that and directors.
Guest:But they're very receptive to it.
Guest:And I think part of it is that I'm talking about what kids see first.
Guest:And people that make kids entertainment do it because they love kids.
Guest:And so they're
Marc:Pretty receptive.
Guest:Horrified to find out what they're doing.
Guest:Out of habit.
Guest:Yes, yes, without even realizing it.
Guest:And that's why I knew I needed the data because none of them realized it without that.
Guest:So we're actually making progress as far as on-screen representation goes.
Guest:And like I said, that's the lowest hanging fruit.
Guest:That's the absolute easiest thing to change.
Guest:And I think it will change dramatically within 10 years.
Yeah.
Marc:It's just so, like, you know, and I have one.
Marc:It's kind of amazing how fragile the male ego is.
Marc:Because, like, so much of this.
Guest:When you said I have one, you meant a male ego?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But a lot of it, that is the day-to-day individual autonomous face of this thing are in these vessels that are manifestations of this ego that is fundamentally threatened by women.
Guest:And why do you think that is?
Marc:I'm trying to think right now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In other words, I don't dispute what you're saying, but what makes a male ego so fragile when you're the guy's...
Marc:Oh, I think it's because I think not unlike what we're talking about, it is built on on the history of dominance.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So, oh, OK.
Marc:You know, even in even in mundane situations, you know, I imagine even, you know, in in in situations where the power dynamic is is, you know, limited that, you know, even in a relationship.
Marc:Mm hmm.
Marc:that, you know, there's a part of the male ego that's sort of like, don't manipulate me.
Marc:You know, I'm better at you than this.
Marc:You know, I'm a man.
Marc:You know, I'm not going to cry.
Marc:You know, I don't need to show that part of me to you.
Marc:You know, I'm a man.
Marc:And don't try to get it out of me, lady.
Marc:I think that the wiring of the male ego is built on the same foundation as all these problems.
Marc:But that's how, as a person you're sitting across from, that's how it's going to reveal itself.
Marc:It's based on that.
Marc:But in trying to open up to a more vulnerable place,
Marc:Yeah, I have to assume it's fairly emotionally infantile, you know, that reaction, you know, to be threatened like that.
Marc:And who knows where it comes from in a lot of individuals.
Marc:But to sort of put yourself forward and live in the vulnerability or at least...
Marc:untether yourself from that male-dominated paradigm is weird and new and scary, and you feel like you might just cry or get beaten somehow.
Marc:So to sort of wade into that pool, it's sadly a lot to ask of some dudes.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:You know, because it's scary on an existential level.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Yeah, everything you thought was right might not be.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:In terms of work now, do you feel like you're working enough?
No.
Marc:Well, you're busy with this stuff, which is important.
Guest:Busy with that stuff, which is important, but it's not my day job.
Guest:I would definitely work much more if the stuff was there.
Marc:Do you like doing like when you, because I know like as I talk to actors, there's a lot of things that you do that you know going in, it's not going to be the greatest thing, but you're going to do the best you can.
Marc:you know, I assume there are some acting jobs.
Marc:Well, this show is like, I don't know how it's going to go.
Marc:Or like this movie, like it could be good.
Marc:I'm not sure it's out of my, it's in my control, but I, you know, I like the part.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Well, you don't have to.
Guest:Well, you know, I've been really lucky in that, frankly, I haven't run out of money yet.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:I always say I can only be this choosy because I can afford to wait.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And someday I'll be in some horrible movie or whatever.
Guest:Being something that said, oh, I don't know how this is going to work out, but I hope it's okay.
Guest:Usually, it's not that I think, oh, this is going to be successful, but I love the part and I love the director and it seems like a great idea.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And Stuart Little was fun?
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:It was really fun.
Marc:People loved those.
Guest:people loved them yeah kids that was fun it must be nice to do kid stuff it is it is it's fun to have little kids recognize you yeah yeah it is they get all excited they do they do although they really you're a real person yeah but they stare at me a lot because i don't look exactly like i did before right and so they're like wow i
Guest:think that's mrs little but is it really but one of the most fun parts is um talking to girls or young women that play sports because of league of their own that's really fun i know that was great in the documentary that like you know that that's a whole other sort of result of that movie that you couldn't anticipate no no like i got into sports you know yeah that's very cool
Marc:Well, you're doing great work.
Marc:I certainly liked working with you on GLOW.
Guest:I love working with you, yeah.
Marc:I'm excited for that to come out.
Guest:Yep.
Marc:And thanks for being part of my education.
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I don't know how much you know.
Marc:Are you a producer on the doc?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes, I am.
Marc:So, yeah.
Marc:Thank you.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Thank you.
Guest:That was fun.
Thank you.
Marc:Gina Davis, I love her.
Marc:I love her.
Marc:Everybody loves her, but I just talked to her.
Marc:The documentary, This Changes Everything, will have a one-night-only showing across the country tonight, July 22nd, before going into theaters and on demand on August 9th.
Marc:You can see her in GLOW, Season 3, and she's also going to win...
Marc:Is it a winning thing?
Marc:She is being honored with the Gene Herschel Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at this year's Governor's Award Ceremony.
Marc:I'm going to play some meditative guitar that has a tinge of sadness to it.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:It was 400 degrees on the nose in Boise, Idaho.
Marc:And it was raining sideways.
Marc:Inhaling.
Marc:But that's just the way it is now.
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Guest:Boomer Lives!