In the Mud with Lisa Ann Walter... (S4 E10 "Belles of the Balls")

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know are you a Charlotte? Hi, everybody, welcome to Are You a Charlotte? Thanks for joining us today. Today we are going to rewatch Bells of the Balls episode four to ten. It aired on July twenty ninth, two thousand and one, and we're going to discuss it with the fantastic Lisa and Walter. You probably know her from Abbott Elementary, one of my all time favorite shows. I love it so much. It's my comfort show that I go to, and she's also had a.

00:00:37
Speaker 2: Very long career.

00:00:38
Speaker 1: You could also know her from The Parent Trap, which is awesome, and she has an upcoming comedy special. She does stand up you guys, and she's raised four kids, so she's super fascinating and she holds a very very rare position in our podcast in that she has not previously seen sex in the City.

00:00:58
Speaker 2: So she's going to be in.

00:01:00
Speaker 1: We throw her right in in the fourth season and she has a lot of thoughts, so this is going to be fun. Here comes Lisa and Walter.

00:01:13
Speaker 3: My mom which was.

00:01:14
Speaker 4: Live, was like, why are we having all these women fight over this dumb guy? Definitely, and I'm like, that's actually the reason why the thing that I loved about the show is that having not watched it when it came out, and I was explaining that it was because I was starring in.

00:01:32
Speaker 3: My own show that I had also co created.

00:01:34
Speaker 4: It was my ABC show, was my second one, and you, I'm doing the job or was doing the job that Quinta is doing now where you're starring, You're in the writer's room, you're out promoting, you are constantly working in I had two children, so there was not I didn't have a lot of time. No streaming, by the way, so you watched it or you missed it, right Sicilian and a huge fan of the Mob if it existed. But I never watched the Sopranos, So I just I never watched it. I remember doing Bruce Almighty with Jennifer Aniston played her sister, and I had to say, like the second day we worked together, I'm like, I'm sorry I never saw Friends because my show was at the same time that that was.

00:02:16
Speaker 2: This is very interesting.

00:02:17
Speaker 1: You're you are like you should be studied as like an anomaly. I've seen facility and you have not seen Friends never. I mean, I start, I can't even get my mind around it.

00:02:29
Speaker 4: So let me just say that the thing that I I put on the episode to watch, the one that we're going to discuss, and I watched five more Yay because yeah, because I loved the celebration of female friendships. It's like kind of what my whole vibe and my projects are all about. I think it is incredibly important to watch adult female friends that will do anything for each other.

00:02:56
Speaker 1: I agree, And that was our whole I mean, we did have you know, we were at HBO during the original programming, you know, kind of like Mecca, right. We were on one down stage and sopranos were down the hall, and we got like two notes ever from HBO. One was that, I mean now I can't even remember what one was, but one was.

00:03:17
Speaker 3: Stop whacking people.

00:03:20
Speaker 1: And they would never have said that, obviously, but it was that the women that we should never argue over a man for any reason.

00:03:27
Speaker 2: So there was one episode that.

00:03:29
Speaker 1: We already rewatched where Carrie had dated a guy in the past that we've never seen before, and they run into him and Miranda thinks he's cute and says, could I could I.

00:03:39
Speaker 2: Him do mine?

00:03:40
Speaker 1: And she goes, well, I don't think you want to because he's kind of a jerk. And she's like, oh, but I think he's cute, and she goes out with him and he does end up being a jerk and they try to have a drink with Carrie and then he's not that nice to carry, like he's got some kind of a wound about her, right, and he kind of lashes out of her. Marina it's like stop it, you will not and exits, you know, And she's like, oh, phew, I didn't mind. I should have believed you the first time said it, you know, right. And so it was wonderful for our perspective because I had previously been on Melrose Place, where that's all soap opera right where you're plotting against the other women.

00:04:12
Speaker 4: And trading and haven't done this mix up yet, right exactly. So what's interesting to me about that is that there is kind of a girl code there, at least they're supposed to be that if you really care for your girlfriend, you just you won't get with her ex husband. You don't know, even if like you guys would be perfect together. It's just it's weird to agree to me if I have a girlfriend who is with a fella, he becomes asexual immediately.

00:04:42
Speaker 2: I'm with you one.

00:04:43
Speaker 4: It's like he's a ken doll, there's no part.

00:04:46
Speaker 1: It's nice because then you can also just be purely friends with that person's spouse, because I think that's important. You know, if it's a good relationship and your support you know, you're supporting. It's nice to just be able to have guy friends. And that's a safe way to have guy that's.

00:05:00
Speaker 4: It makes me feel very It gives me the ick, as the kids say, yeah, yeah, yeah. When girls are pick me and you're with like your girlfriend and her male partner. Yeah, and the girl is your girlfriend's trying to side with him over stuff, it's like, yeah, you sport's your girl.

00:05:18
Speaker 2: That's true. That's true.

00:05:19
Speaker 1: I have two good friends who have been married something like their thirty years or something crazy, right, because because you know they're doing great and it's impressive. Every once in a while, I will side with her husband's Okay, that's okay, But it took for doing that, okay now, but it is always.

00:05:35
Speaker 4: A little you know, when your girlfriend's being a dummy tail right, and I mean.

00:05:39
Speaker 1: You trust to them, Okay, great, but you do feel a little panicked, you know what I mean?

00:05:43
Speaker 3: Do I like you?

00:05:45
Speaker 2: Is it okay? She's going to be really mad?

00:05:46
Speaker 4: Isn't a hard time about that? Like? That's the thing too, is that you're on the outside looking in, like he's doing something you feel is benign, right, But she's been like, why is hething like that? Of course whatever?

00:05:58
Speaker 1: It is right because they're in a relationship, you don't know everything, even if you know them really well.

00:06:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is.

00:06:03
Speaker 1: I also think that the thing I feel and maybe this is just about me.

00:06:07
Speaker 2: I don't know. I find it very risky to right, I don't want to.

00:06:14
Speaker 4: Okay, how many times do you have friends and they are in I mean a real major fight with their guy who, by the way, you probably maybe don't like you've seen all that stuff, right, But all you do is kind of way the pros and cons of do I go yet, No, out he's done, because then they get back together and all of a sudden, you're not on the invite list, like you're no, that would hurt, not that you care about getting invited to a party, whether you lose your friends, right, because now he knows that you're anti that's true, that's true.

00:06:45
Speaker 1: I mean, I struggle with that with my fourteen year old daughter more because most of my friends are like mature enough where I don't really feel like they're unaware, you know what I'm saying, Like, if they're maybe unaware, I have faith they're going to get there, so I might play the long game right little bit. But my fourteen year old because of the friendships.

00:07:04
Speaker 2: Right like you're saying, like, are.

00:07:06
Speaker 4: You talking about more with her girl friends? Like watch out for that.

00:07:10
Speaker 5: One, tell me advice, let me let me get in there, let me let me get let me get my hands story.

00:07:15
Speaker 4: Okay, mom of four, Oh my gosh, because my vagina is a clown car.

00:07:19
Speaker 2: Amazing.

00:07:20
Speaker 3: These are the jokes.

00:07:22
Speaker 4: I they're all pretty grown. Three boys, one girl. The girl was the one that when she was in school, they had a click that all of a sudden decided to be mean girls. And it happened very young, like sixth grade, and they wouldn't play with her.

00:07:39
Speaker 3: She didn't have a baby g watch.

00:07:41
Speaker 4: I feel like since we're discussing a shows that goes back and I'm wearing my vintage, I feel like we can discuss baby g watches.

00:07:50
Speaker 2: I don't even know what that is.

00:07:51
Speaker 3: It was a thing.

00:07:52
Speaker 2: Okay.

00:07:52
Speaker 4: It was a thing that back in the day you had to have if you wanted to be a cool kid. Wow. And she didn't have one, okay, because she kept losing stuff. And I'm like, I'm not buying you that way over priced, dumb plastic watch that you're going to lose by tomorrow. Like, prove to me that you're not going to lose your stuff, and I'll get you to watch for sure. So they were making fun of her. I wouldn't talk to her and play with her, and they did that thing. Do you remember back in the day when they would do this thing where they would get somebody on a call and then other people would be listening in, but you didn't know they were listening in, and one of the girls will try to get you to say bad things about the one that was Oh, it was so mean girl.

00:08:29
Speaker 3: And I never had that.

00:08:30
Speaker 4: Growing up because all of my girlfriends were like tight, tight, tight girl. I loved my girlfriends. There was no let me try to like get you know, get you. So I was like, okay, you've got to stay away from those kids. Look, you've got this girl, this girl, and this girl. They have never let you down. They have always been your buddy. They are not trying to get over on you. Trust those girls. These ones, they're not going to be cool in five years. They're going to be fighting with each other and it's going to be the whole time. Luckily she listened to me. But I remembered back when I was a girl and my mother said watch out for that one, and I wanted to go, what's wrong with you? She's fine, totally. My mother was right, I know. So this is advice for you. This is advice for your fourteen year old daughter, who probably is a fan of the parent trap. So listen up. This is Chessie talking to you. When your mother tells you watch out for that one. Your mother is always right. I love it, and you will figure it out at some point that your mother, your friends come and go. Your mother has only one person that she's watching out for and it's you. So years from now, you'll go, God, my mother was right.

00:09:46
Speaker 2: That's a good point. That's a good point.

00:09:49
Speaker 3: And by the way, your mother holds a grudge like that for sure.

00:09:53
Speaker 4: So you could be out of college and your mother will run into her at the grocery store and be like, I never liked that one.

00:09:59
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure. All right, so let's discuss. Let's discuss again.

00:10:04
Speaker 1: Well, let's discuss that somehow you manage not to watch Us or Friends, which to me that takes some work. Like I understand you were busy, right, but like, how did you avoid it?

00:10:15
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I'm so right.

00:10:17
Speaker 3: Okay, here's the thing.

00:10:18
Speaker 4: Tell me when a show comes on and it becomes that phenomenon that your show was and still is, and that Friends still is. For sure, kids, my twins, my boy twins who are twenty five, watched all of Friends. Oh, I know, and we're talking about different episodes. They got into it when I missed the beginning of it. Yeah, I feel like, well, I'm behind now. Oh and I don't want to everybody's already talking about it, and so now I'm behind.

00:10:50
Speaker 1: Right.

00:10:51
Speaker 4: One night when I was I can't remember what was going on, but I woke up in the middle of the night. I couldn't fall back asleep, Like I don't know what's going on, probably menopause, I don't know, but.

00:11:02
Speaker 2: I woke up nights, Yes, I couldn't fall back.

00:11:05
Speaker 4: You know that thing where you wake up at two in the morning, and you contemplate your death for like three hours and then.

00:11:10
Speaker 3: You finally go back to sleep.

00:11:11
Speaker 4: Well in that night, instead of contemplating my mortality, I flipped the TV on and your show was on, So Sex and Your Lady came on. No, I actually know it was on, and I was doing that thing where I was trying to fall asleep, but I got sucked in. Oh good, So I watched. I couldn't for the life of you, no, I do know what was happening.

00:11:33
Speaker 2: I was going to say, you're in the middle somewhere. Yes, I was in the middle somewhere. Got it.

00:11:36
Speaker 4: So I got the vibe, I got the relationships, I got the humor. It was all great and I was and I continued to watch, and then at some point I went, well, now we're going to start at the beginning.

00:11:48
Speaker 3: But I was shooting. Yeah, I'm shooting the show, so I didn't have time.

00:11:51
Speaker 1: I totally get it. I totally get it. This is this is the TV. If you have COVID, then you.

00:11:56
Speaker 2: Can catch up. Yeah, okay, I have things I save.

00:12:00
Speaker 1: You know, anytime I might be like Australia exactly. Like, for instance, I missed the Leftovers. Yeah, it's really good. It's just and throw and carry coon. They're amazing, amazing asters. And I had COVID.

00:12:13
Speaker 2: I was in New York.

00:12:14
Speaker 1: We were working, so my kids weren't there and it couldn't work. So I watched all of it from start to finish. It was awesome.

00:12:21
Speaker 2: It was really great.

00:12:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:12:22
Speaker 3: I tend to do that with shows that like everybody was into.

00:12:26
Speaker 4: Oh golly, speaking and Carrie. What's the new show that's not Bridger Tam I call it.

00:12:31
Speaker 1: Dark Houses, but that's not what it.

00:12:34
Speaker 2: Is on it. It's called ag Gie.

00:12:37
Speaker 4: Yes, So I didn't watch it, and it was we're into the third season or something like that, and I hadn't watched it, and then either I got sick.

00:12:48
Speaker 3: You're exactly right.

00:12:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got sick and I couldn't go anywhere for a week, and I put on that and I watched all of them, which is where pluribus all of them in one day service is too dark.

00:12:59
Speaker 2: I can't watch Oh really yeah not yet.

00:13:01
Speaker 4: I like, I.

00:13:04
Speaker 2: Know, see, I watch you guys. You are my comfort show.

00:13:07
Speaker 4: Yes.

00:13:08
Speaker 2: I love Quintas so so much.

00:13:09
Speaker 3: I also started.

00:13:10
Speaker 4: Watching Sex in the City the minute I got home I'm not going to stop.

00:13:14
Speaker 2: I just needed a little hook.

00:13:16
Speaker 4: No no, no, no, you didn't need it, because once I watched the one episode that we're discussing now, I watched five more episodes immediately afterwards. I was like, I would have continued to watch it, but I had to get back on a union. I'm a union officer and we're negotiations right now to get back front of me.

00:13:34
Speaker 2: That's good.

00:13:35
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're in there. Well, I mean that's all you can do. Thank you from the rest of us. I also so I for me looking back right, because we would always get the VHS.

00:13:46
Speaker 2: They would send us the VHS.

00:13:48
Speaker 1: I remember right before it aired, and then usually by Sunday night, I was busy. I was I wasn't going to watch with people, you know what I'm saying.

00:13:56
Speaker 2: It was like Sunday night. We had to go to bed early because we would start at five in the morning.

00:14:00
Speaker 4: You know.

00:14:00
Speaker 1: So I wasn't watching it Sunday night, but I would watch it usually alone on the VHS. It might be a little rough. They'd send it to us with something yeah whatever.

00:14:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, things needed to be sweet exactly.

00:14:10
Speaker 1: But we were always like so excited to watch it, and then I didn't watch it for a very.

00:14:14
Speaker 2: You know, thirty years or whatever it is, twenty five, because I mean.

00:14:18
Speaker 4: You didn't watch the old episodes, but you had by that time scene all of the episodes.

00:14:22
Speaker 2: Because I'm originally right, didn't you want.

00:14:24
Speaker 4: To watch to see like which take they picked or did that line make it?

00:14:29
Speaker 2: Did?

00:14:31
Speaker 4: Absolutely?

00:14:32
Speaker 1: And at the time Cynthia would get the dailies because she is a crazy.

00:14:37
Speaker 2: Person, and yeah, no to that.

00:14:41
Speaker 1: Right in the trailer, I know she in her mind because she's really really stage stage, stage trained, and that's what she loves.

00:14:48
Speaker 2: She was learning, she was still learn.

00:14:50
Speaker 3: It was still her rehearsal process.

00:14:52
Speaker 1: Yes, so she that was what she did in the trailer, and then all of us would come and be like, please.

00:14:56
Speaker 2: Take it off, please take it off.

00:14:58
Speaker 1: Right, But it was really nice that they gave them to her. But I could never go through that, right, But I was curious what would make it in and how it was and if it was how I felt it was, you know.

00:15:08
Speaker 3: Saying yeah, did it play the way you were feeling?

00:15:10
Speaker 5: Yeah?

00:15:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so did read as we say. An actor Tyler, who plays Gregory on our show, does not watch anything the entire season because he doesn't want it to change what he's doing.

00:15:24
Speaker 2: Does he watch it eventually.

00:15:26
Speaker 4: Yes, Okay, he watches it. Like sometimes I'll get a text from him off season and it'll be like, that was great, great I'm doing I'm doing Tyler a great, great job in episode sixteen.

00:15:38
Speaker 2: I love it, love it. Well, that's sir.

00:15:40
Speaker 1: Jessica also does not enjoy watching herself. She used to watch herself and I don't think she ever enjoyed it, but she used to do it. And it is sometimes a bone of contention at work because Michael Patrick, our showrunner, you know, our Quinta.

00:15:56
Speaker 2: Like, is hurt that she doesn't want to watch it.

00:15:58
Speaker 1: But I think for her it's about preserving her what she needs to do a good job.

00:16:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, she doesn't want to be judging. How do I look on this angle? How do I come across when I make this face? Totally like, oh god, that's unattracted, like all the things. Believe every time I see myself in profile, Oh my god god.

00:16:19
Speaker 2: I mean that's the thing.

00:16:20
Speaker 1: We can really just get things stuck in our minds and they're not it's not accurate. I mean, there's so many things that I know that I was worried about when we were filming these that. Of course you look at and you're like, I cannot believe that I was spending time back then thinking that I was fat.

00:16:38
Speaker 3: Well, that could be an entire hour, right, entire hour.

00:16:41
Speaker 4: I swear to God, I'm going to call my next comedy special the last fat Actress you.

00:16:46
Speaker 2: But do you know why to say that? But I understand because.

00:16:49
Speaker 4: Because when people postuff of mine from the nineties, where by the way, I thought I was fat, and people are like, it's because the nineties were so stop it. I grew up in the seventies when we still had holdover from the sixties where people were twiggy and literally had to be sticked in, and all of our mothers were busy eating a product called aids ay Ds.

00:17:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a chocolate that.

00:17:15
Speaker 4: Was basically had speed, and yet it was a chocolate with speed in it, and people were doing that we were doing. I was in high school taking something or other that was a diet age that was and I had been drinking it with tab I'm surprised I didn't have a heart attack by the.

00:17:33
Speaker 2: Time I was streaming the diet coke with the thing from the drugs.

00:17:36
Speaker 4: And killing ourselves and putting a whole generation of us into eds, and the same thing is coming around again. I am so sorry, but I do have to go back to what you were talking about with judging. I'm watching you in the episode, the first one, and I'm like, my god, she is the most perfect face I've ever seen. But I was so in love with your nose. I'm like, how many people went to a plastic surgeon and went give me her nose.

00:18:12
Speaker 1: I do have a funny nose story, though, so this is my own nose. I have not done anything to it.

00:18:16
Speaker 4: Yes, there would be very particular and you this is what I want to suit your face.

00:18:20
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I went.

00:18:21
Speaker 1: I had a guy friend who had gotten his nose broken and wanted to go get it fixed or whatever. It was like some internal I don't know. So we're at one of these Beverly Hills plastic surgeons who I don't even know, right, but somebody I was track tagged along to.

00:18:35
Speaker 3: Me, I'm gonna go.

00:18:37
Speaker 1: No, I don't think they, Oh, is he the nose guy. I don't think my friend really knew either, right, And I was no help. I think he thought like the actress was going to be informed, but I was not informed, right, So we're saying, whoever this man was, he was very very nice.

00:18:49
Speaker 2: We're sitting there and he's telling my.

00:18:51
Speaker 1: Friend what he should do, and then he's like, and you your nose And I was like, well, you know, no, no, he didn't mean it about what he just meant like that it's discussed, right. He was like, oh, you know, I've talked to people about your nose. Yeah, I don't really understand, Like what I don't understand because some people think I've done something to my nose. And he said, definitely you have not, because no one can recreate your nose.

00:19:10
Speaker 4: Thank you.

00:19:11
Speaker 2: That's so sweet, but its basically my mother's nose. Yeah, yeah, And that's the record is.

00:19:16
Speaker 3: Mine, very very very particular and singular.

00:19:19
Speaker 4: And that, I mean goes back to what we were talking about, like everybody, I think, I mean, listen, more needs to be said about it, obviously, but I really think that we are at a danger inflection point right now in what we're telling people they need to be And it's just sad social media that you were thinking me too.

00:19:39
Speaker 3: Listen.

00:19:39
Speaker 4: Back in those days, they were busy telling me, by the way, wearing the same dress that I bought on my way to Disney Studios. This this Dian von Fursterberg. I saw it in a window and went, I have to have that. That's so cute. I wearing the same dress now. The reason I can wear the same dress from thirty years ago is because it's bias cut, so A four fits me, but it's a lot shorter because my body is taking up more of the inside of it. So but the point is that I was an hour glass figure. I was from those days, a true size for like thirty six, twenty four, thirty six. Wow, it's always very curvy. That's not what was They told me, so figure, They said, it's not the sould figure. And then you know who they put in front of me. They were like, you know the lawyer on the place opposite us on Fox flock card, Oh is very she doesn't need a brand new thing that had just come out, this product, this product that all the girls on Friends are wearing spank thank you. And they were like, you might need to, you know, look into what she's doing. And I just saw her because I sat next to them at the actor the sage used to be the Saguar still five minutes ago, and there's Cliston Flockhart. I'm still mad at her.

00:20:56
Speaker 3: It's not her fault.

00:20:58
Speaker 4: It's not her fault.

00:20:59
Speaker 1: No, son bar, I went to college with Calista.

00:21:02
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're aware that they.

00:21:05
Speaker 1: No, they tortured her over her weight, did you know, for being too thin?

00:21:10
Speaker 2: Really, we can't win.

00:21:11
Speaker 4: No, we can't win.

00:21:12
Speaker 1: When she was alimentbial, she was on the cover of magazines for being too thin.

00:21:16
Speaker 4: I got it right, we can't win, we can't. Instead of me going, this is what my body is supposed to look like.

00:21:23
Speaker 3: By the way, there was not an executive who didn't.

00:21:27
Speaker 4: Think I was hot a f and and I'm like, I should have just like.

00:21:33
Speaker 3: Happy.

00:21:34
Speaker 2: That's what I think too, That's what I think too.

00:21:36
Speaker 1: I had people in the real world in person telling me that I needed to lose weight. Yes, that was hard, you know what I mean, because I already wasn't that confident, right, So then like on top of that, like at fittings or any magazine. Shoot, I mean, good lord, what I mean?

00:21:52
Speaker 3: And what are they talking about?

00:21:55
Speaker 2: I know it's bad.

00:21:56
Speaker 4: You not only perfect as everybody's body is, no matter if it's bigger or smaller or different, we are in the body that we're supposed to be in, and that there is no magic number. I created and produced a show called Dance Your Ass Off, which was a dance weight laws show, because I was so tired of these shows that I was seeing that were screaming at people to be skinny. This again back in the nineties, that's when the base loser was doing that. God yes, and then as soon as the show's over, people put back weight because if you're not moving your body in a way that you enjoy, you're probably gonna stop. Of course, So the whole idea was that, and people used to reach out to me on social media all the time and talk about I just if I got under one hundred pounds, and I'm like, no, then what hey, You're not supposed to be that number, so you're going to be ill. And I'm like, it's not magic. There is no magic fairy dust that comes out when you hit that thing.

00:22:50
Speaker 1: No. And the other thing is that even if you do hit that thing, because sometimes when I'm looking back at these episodes, I can see my weight fluctuate right like the beginning of the season I've been working out, so it's strong, strong, I'm good towards as we get stressed and we're working all night and I'm sure I'm doing and then do you know what I mean, there's nothing else happening. I get rail thin, right because I'm not healthy. Right, But in my mind, did I ever feel good about myself? No, it doesn't matter yours. Do we waste so many and energy? Yes, so so much?

00:23:21
Speaker 4: All right, So that's the lesson for today's show, Little Girls.

00:23:26
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is this is the thing that I want to know.

00:23:28
Speaker 1: Okay, so you've seen little bits of the show, but not like, not all the through right through?

00:23:34
Speaker 4: Got it? And now I want to because it makes the dynamic always made sense. I don't think you can watch an episode without getting what the dynamic is totally. And they did a real good job. You're writer, Michael Patrick did a really good job in supporting that all the way through. So these people are right.

00:23:50
Speaker 1: Well, Michael wrote this episode that we're talking about Bells of the Balls at two S's Bells and Balls, and he wrote many and directed many. But also we had a bunch of women writers as well.

00:24:00
Speaker 4: That's wonderful.

00:24:01
Speaker 1: Yes, I've met a few of the Jenny, Cindy, Lisa, Julie, I can keep going.

00:24:07
Speaker 2: Liz, Liz, listen.

00:24:11
Speaker 1: She hasn't come yet, but she's coming on the meaning she hasn't come to the podcast because her episode. She hasn't joined us in our in our traje.

00:24:20
Speaker 2: Where she will be there soon exactly.

00:24:23
Speaker 1: So this is a very trippy episode to have dropped you into, because when I was watching it, I have no memory of any of it. Some shows I remember so many things, like.

00:24:33
Speaker 4: This was such a really sweet and dramatic episode for you.

00:24:37
Speaker 3: Was it made you made me cry?

00:24:40
Speaker 4: Wow? When when when you're oh, I hope it's the right episode. Oh it's okay, go ahead, because I watched so I watched you back, but you were worried about getting the fertility information?

00:24:53
Speaker 1: Is because when when Miranda follows me down the street. Yes, yeah, that makes sense. It's not this episode, thank one after.

00:25:00
Speaker 2: I do love it. I'm it's cool.

00:25:02
Speaker 4: It's cool.

00:25:03
Speaker 2: Everyone listening knows all the episodes.

00:25:05
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, right now, but the storyline started in this episode.

00:25:13
Speaker 1: They really did a beautiful job. I think you also on Abbot Elementary do a beautiful job of this where each episode is a standalone episode. Someone could just watch it on the plane or whatever, and it's going to make sense, right, and you're gonna laugh.

00:25:24
Speaker 2: And you're going to get all the characters made.

00:25:27
Speaker 3: There was an arc that made me I think.

00:25:29
Speaker 2: It's also true with you guys, right.

00:25:31
Speaker 1: I mean, there's the the Quinta you know what's his name on the show Gregory storyline and you're like, what's going to happen?

00:25:38
Speaker 2: You know they're on, they're off there.

00:25:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of different things that are woven through subtly, which I think takes so much.

00:25:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they'll lay they'll lay breadcrumbs at the beginning of a season for something, and we don't know, the actors don't know. Sometimes I have to say, is this gonna happen? Because I need to know what I'm playing.

00:26:00
Speaker 1: The Matrick always told us what was going He set us down, which was great. Sometimes things would change, like, for instance, originally Charlotte was supposed to get pregnant when Miranda got pregnant. That was the plan, which is of course what Charlotte wanted, so I was very excited. But then what they realized was that no one in the writer's room had a child, yet they were all single.

00:26:20
Speaker 2: Wow, And they didn't have enough storyline.

00:26:22
Speaker 1: To write too, because the idea would be to write how different they would be as mothers. But they didn't have enough material because the idea was also that they would be writing something that they either they knew about that happened to them in the writer's room or one friend like once removed. It was not supposed to be our stories, though there's some there's some stuff that seeped through, not for us but for the men. But that's okay, that's okay. I'll get to that in a second. But it's interesting to look all look back on. I don't know where that came from, to tell you the truth, I.

00:26:54
Speaker 2: Was watching story.

00:26:56
Speaker 4: I thought it was really delicately handles were delicately him totally, just because I mean to connect a man's concept of his virility or of his selfhood. It really it put in mind to me, like my mother had a mastectomine. She had breast cancer, and you know so many women, Well, no, that's okay, she survived it for forty that's Almo killed her. So yeah, she's frived it for forty plus years. Wow. But the connection that women have with how we sexualized our body parts and what that means if you lose that, right, So I was just, oh, my gosh, that was so well done.

00:27:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I am a great actor. Yeah, he's really he's really really good.

00:27:40
Speaker 1: And it was so sweet when he because at one point he does he wants to get the artificial role and he says women get you know, is kind of like why, it's fine. I don't even notice, and we're all watching it at home, like, why do you support him? My god, I know I didn't think that. I did think that. And she, you know, Miranda is a is a tough cooking. Yeah, so there's parts of it, but also he's him, so he's just so vulnerable.

00:28:05
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, be nice.

00:28:07
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know.

00:28:08
Speaker 2: She does have sex with him at the end.

00:28:10
Speaker 4: That's that.

00:28:10
Speaker 3: She's very nice.

00:28:11
Speaker 1: Yes, so it does work out for him, you know what I mean? And later on, Yes, things happen. I don't know how far you got.

00:28:17
Speaker 4: No, but I know because I remember hearing about it, and also in the episodes that I watched it happened.

00:28:23
Speaker 3: I didn't want to talk about it too much because I'm not.

00:28:25
Speaker 2: Supposed to be no everyone knows, but I will.

00:28:27
Speaker 4: Say, oh good, I'm not breaking the news at all, not spoiling anybody. The scene where you guys are all getting together to take care of her after what you think is going to be her reproductive health visit, and then she's like, no, I'm having this baby, and everybody supports, including Charlotte. I was oh, I was so good.

00:28:46
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's good.

00:28:48
Speaker 4: That's good, really really well.

00:28:50
Speaker 1: It's an interesting season for me, I think in my mind because you know, when you're when you're filming, you're out of your mind in a lot of ways, right, Like everything's about the work, and your life is like weird.

00:29:00
Speaker 4: Half the time you're like, what episode are we doing? What's happening in this one?

00:29:03
Speaker 3: Definitely because you're not in somebody else's storyline.

00:29:05
Speaker 2: That's true.

00:29:06
Speaker 3: But we did we did.

00:29:08
Speaker 1: Readings and everything like did you guys do the.

00:29:12
Speaker 2: Right So we were aware, you know, from that perspective, right. And then often.

00:29:16
Speaker 1: Because we're shooting in New York and so we would always count crossboard, right, so we're doing two episodes at once, So you might have a restaurant and you might go to have a scene, and then you know, Sarah kim Er Cynthia would show up right after you.

00:29:29
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.

00:29:30
Speaker 1: So there's a lot more crossover than you would think in terms of like awareness. But then sometimes also you could have a whole day, like when I'm in all these scenes with Kyle, obviously that would just be a day of me and Kyle and I wouldn't the girls wouldn't necessarily be there.

00:29:42
Speaker 2: I would have to see it later.

00:29:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're not as intimately connected with what you're doing with your stuff.

00:29:49
Speaker 2: Like we did talk a lot about it though.

00:29:52
Speaker 3: Oh that's good. I love that.

00:29:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, we still do, you know, when we were working, like we like, how did it go?

00:29:58
Speaker 2: What happened?

00:29:59
Speaker 4: That's good you guys did that, Yeah, because there we don't do that as much because sometimes you know, it's a whole week where we have all stuff, different stuff to do at night. Sometimes we see each other, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we don't ever see each other. In hair and makeup. We love when we all get together do a scene. All of my favorite scenes when all of us are doing like fast lines back.

00:30:20
Speaker 1: And forth to it, you know, right, like the teacher's lounge, Yes, yeah, yeah, like a coffee shop, yes, right.

00:30:27
Speaker 2: Yes, but you have one an episode or no.

00:30:29
Speaker 4: Not always, but i'd say at least every other Yeah. But yeah, so those are my favorite because then we also have a chance to catch up, like you're talking about, because otherwise I have no idea what you did, right, and then I don't know until I watch the episode.

00:30:46
Speaker 1: Well that's kind of fun too, though it's fun to see. It's fun to see for sure. So for me, I don't remember this particular one at all. There are things that I remember, like I remember the scene I remember filming the same with Cynthia where she where Miranda follows me.

00:31:08
Speaker 2: Okay, tell me what.

00:31:10
Speaker 3: No, No, no, because it's a different episode.

00:31:12
Speaker 2: No, it's fine.

00:31:14
Speaker 4: Fertility Office with Kyle. You don't remember that one.

00:31:18
Speaker 1: You're literally do not remember, Lisa, no memory whatsoever.

00:31:23
Speaker 3: Okay, it was very.

00:31:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, very so glad.

00:31:28
Speaker 3: That's super hot.

00:31:28
Speaker 4: You need to remember when'd you watch a show? When No, I'm saying, why don't you watch your show?

00:31:34
Speaker 1: You should watch I know, I know, I mean I do not. No, she hasn't watched it yet. No, she wants to watch it, but she hasn't watched it yet. And sometimes I'll watch an episode not think, oh, I could show this to Gym, and then sometimes I'm like, no, I can't show this to Jump and definitely with this.

00:31:49
Speaker 2: But the thing about Kyle and I.

00:31:52
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because when I had kyl on, when he first shows up, and I did not realize he was on for two whole seasons because originally he was only supposed to be on for five episodes I think it was.

00:32:03
Speaker 2: But we couldn't part with them. We loved him so much.

00:32:05
Speaker 1: They kept writing and obviously things showed up that made sense, but like, I didn't remember that it was this long. I don't remember anything that happened in this particular. I mean, we had amazing chemistry, right, but like I don't remember making out in the cab. Wasn't that this one? Like were he wants to have section all the places? Or is that the other one? The one? I mean, there's a whole there's like a whole.

00:32:28
Speaker 2: Season that I have just no memory of with him, which is weird, okay, but.

00:32:32
Speaker 3: A relationship at the time, like in your own life.

00:32:35
Speaker 2: I don't think so.

00:32:36
Speaker 1: I was literally trying to think of this today. I was like, why don't I remember anything?

00:32:39
Speaker 2: Why what was I doing?

00:32:40
Speaker 4: This maybe I don't. You know, sometimes if you're if your working world is like something that's not you're not connecting it with a person in your own life. Oh.

00:32:53
Speaker 2: I definitely was not connecting this with any person in my own life.

00:32:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, you were just doing the work.

00:33:00
Speaker 2: I just got a sign to hurry up. I know I have to.

00:33:03
Speaker 1: Do more technical rewatching. Okay, but I totally agree. I don't think that this particular Charlotte storyline, like I was not in a relationship.

00:33:11
Speaker 2: I was certainly not thinking about having.

00:33:13
Speaker 4: Through the character then, because I got to tell you, you should watch it. You do some really good work. You yell in the city, and I thank you.

00:33:25
Speaker 2: I love it.

00:33:25
Speaker 3: I love it.

00:33:25
Speaker 2: I was pleased watching it. I was not unhappy in any way.

00:33:28
Speaker 1: It's just trippy when you don't actually remember it, you know, because sometimes I remember everything and sometimes nothing. So I think what it was was that this was when the show was super successful at a certain huge and we were just like traversing the earth.

00:33:43
Speaker 4: I'm saying, Yeah, there was not a day where there was not a request for you to show up.

00:33:47
Speaker 1: Right and hair and maker here and you're there and you're you know, and it was exciting, right, I think I remember that stuff more than this stuff in a way. But also it's I don't know, I don't know, it's like back there in the subconscious.

00:33:58
Speaker 2: I guess let's.

00:33:59
Speaker 3: Discuss it beside the morning when you were playing a second time.

00:34:02
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Oh that was how we rolled.

00:34:03
Speaker 4: That was totally.

00:34:05
Speaker 1: We werenked till sunrise almost all the time. Okay, so this is when. So I mean, I didn't remember the billiard scene. I don't think I'm in it, so maybe that's why I didn't remember it. I do remember that they had to go film it, and like there was some stress about playing playing pool, right.

00:34:19
Speaker 3: Well there should have been, because.

00:34:23
Speaker 4: There was the one who was supposed to be Samantha was supposed to be a pool shark, and she like, I remember one time, she keeps saying, she keeps saying, there's.

00:34:32
Speaker 3: Only one ball left, and everybody's uncomfortable.

00:34:35
Speaker 4: But then she goes and like hits the ball and it's supposed to be like a dead eye shot, and.

00:34:40
Speaker 3: I'm like, that ball went left.

00:34:42
Speaker 4: I think that's scratched like it. I was like, now, but oh dear, but you know what, she pulled it off attitude wise, I'm watching the ball.

00:34:51
Speaker 2: I understand what you're saying. I think there was some stress about it.

00:34:54
Speaker 1: And this this episode is directed by Michael Spiller, who was one of our dps in the DP.

00:35:00
Speaker 4: And yes, we have that happen on our show, right right, right.

00:35:03
Speaker 1: So I think sometimes also, you know, different people have different skill sets and you know, positives or whatever. And his thing was the shot, right, I'm moving the camera like there were sometimes where it's like, oh, yeah, that's nice camera move, but not necessarily acting or river.

00:35:18
Speaker 3: Wait, I'm the only idiot I noticed that.

00:35:19
Speaker 2: Oh no, I love.

00:35:21
Speaker 1: I mean, when you're an actor watching other actors, you always notice things like that didn't match or whatever. You'll think, you know what I mean, I'll be like, her hairs different. That's okay, it's distracting, but that's okay. So this is also really interesting. So Big, now, I don't know your thoughts being dropped in at this point, what did you think of Big, because it's very unusual she's with Aiden, but Big is calling her all the time.

00:35:43
Speaker 4: And that's and one of the reasons that I continue to watch, and besides the baby stuff, was that. Yeah, because first of all, I like John Corbett as an action great. His energy is so low key hippie, a little bit stone him.

00:36:04
Speaker 3: The two of them together is sweet, like even to the fact that, like his shirtless scenes, he's a little doe. God blessed, God blessed.

00:36:13
Speaker 5: I'm not, but yes, I know, I feel like, Oh doesn't it's hot?

00:36:20
Speaker 4: Women love that. I will say this hang on when everybody was doing the stuff about nobody cares about women don't care about balls. I have a whole thing in my comedy act about that. We love you, we love your balls. Are kidding? All balls look like Winston Churchill is my Thraine. It's like not our favorite, No, but we don't care if a guy is. In fact, a lot of times women don't want their guy to be rock Card Jim bod That's like, that's too much effort. I agree to take care of that ego.

00:36:52
Speaker 2: And also I don't want them to be in better shape than I am.

00:36:54
Speaker 4: Thank you, But John, I always liked my best friend Elaine Hendrix did sex, drugs and rock and roll with him, and I have loved him and in so many things. So they were energy together. I root for and Big just seems like maybe because he's going through it at that point. But it just is like so much worse.

00:37:14
Speaker 2: It's so much, so much worse. I don't remember this at all.

00:37:18
Speaker 1: I'm amazed, because of course I know what happens, right, I'm amazed that Big recovers from this and he does.

00:37:25
Speaker 2: It's such a how baby attracted?

00:37:28
Speaker 3: No baby man?

00:37:29
Speaker 1: Like, why is she having to hold his hand like this?

00:37:33
Speaker 2: What on earth?

00:37:34
Speaker 5: I don't know?

00:37:35
Speaker 2: Me neither, And God love Aiden for putting up with it.

00:37:40
Speaker 3: I was on team if there was a team.

00:37:42
Speaker 1: For sure, there's teams, there's teams.

00:37:46
Speaker 4: I thought for the longest time that Aiden was Michail Bershnakov.

00:37:51
Speaker 3: That's who I thought.

00:37:51
Speaker 4: It was.

00:37:52
Speaker 1: Very Misha is shame right, Wait? What what was his him on machine?

00:38:00
Speaker 4: I don't know either, I know.

00:38:02
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.

00:38:03
Speaker 4: I will tell you that I French kiss him once.

00:38:05
Speaker 3: What it was?

00:38:10
Speaker 4: After the Kennedy Center performance of Giselle, I was seventeen. Oh my god, he doesn't know, by the way, that I was seventeen. Here's this, But I waited backstage because I had a friend. I grew up in the DC area and I had a friend whose father played in the symphony, and I was a huge ballet fan Timothy Shallama, I know, a huge ballet fan, because it takes the most extraordinary amount of dedication to do that. And Brishkoff was unbelievable, even better than yours. When he played at the White House, they had to move the chandeliers up.

00:38:45
Speaker 3: That's how that man left. And so I was so moved.

00:38:49
Speaker 4: That after the show, as I'm standing there with my program, he came out of the stage door, I grabbed him and laid it on him.

00:38:58
Speaker 3: Did he French kissed him?

00:38:59
Speaker 4: He stepped back, blinked his eyes and said, oh my goodness in the most adorable Russian accent, and then he signed my program.

00:39:06
Speaker 2: So he wasn't offended. That's good. And no security guy like pulled you off him or anything.

00:39:13
Speaker 3: A different time.

00:39:14
Speaker 2: Adorable. I love it when he does come on the show.

00:39:17
Speaker 4: Assaulted him. No, that's terrible. I apologize.

00:39:21
Speaker 1: When he came on the show so nervous, so incredibly nervous. I mean, it was incredible for us to have him. And in the scene when he comes on the show, he's he's an artist, and I am in the middle of it because I'm an art dealer, right and I have to go.

00:39:38
Speaker 2: Up and you tie to him.

00:39:40
Speaker 4: I remember that part from the story he cried once.

00:39:42
Speaker 2: Okay, so you do know some things. I remember.

00:39:44
Speaker 4: It wasn't the five episodes that I watched.

00:39:47
Speaker 2: It got oh what I'm talking about?

00:39:48
Speaker 1: They never forget it right, right, right, right right that that that was. I think there are times when I was watching these particular episodes where I was like, Michael Patrick is totally writing in real things, right, Because sometimes I can cry in scenes where I'm not supposed to and they'll be like, why are you crying?

00:40:03
Speaker 2: And I'll be like, I don't know emotions.

00:40:06
Speaker 1: This Charlotte cares, you know what I mean, and that I think that's what he was you're writing about. I am a softie and sometimes you know, things come up that you don't expect. It's not that we're trying to cry.

00:40:20
Speaker 2: Episodes that is so sweet. That's so sweet.

00:40:23
Speaker 1: Pretty way when Breshnikov comes, I Charlotte is fanning over the artist. But I was just fully just Kristen, you know what I mean. And Sarah's just Sarah like embarrassed of me fawning.

00:40:36
Speaker 2: But that's what it was like. Every day We'd be like, oh my god, what are we going.

00:40:39
Speaker 1: To say to him.

00:40:39
Speaker 2: Are we going to try to talk to him? What are we going to do?

00:40:42
Speaker 1: Someone asked him to play the piano because he had a piano, and you know, if we didn't know what to do, we'd just be like, Misa, could you play the piano?

00:40:48
Speaker 2: And then he wouldn't even just sit there and.

00:40:52
Speaker 3: Just look at him.

00:40:52
Speaker 6: I know.

00:40:53
Speaker 3: Did you ever see the movie Turning Point?

00:40:54
Speaker 4: Of course, so many times America watched that.

00:40:57
Speaker 1: America watch that movie Youngsters Turning Points.

00:41:01
Speaker 4: So beautiful and Anne Bancroft, Oh my god, am bankrupt. I saw that in the theater and they bow should have won.

00:41:09
Speaker 2: A crew for that.

00:41:10
Speaker 1: I agree, I agree totally. I love that movie so much. Yeah, when I worked with Shirley, which were totally off the show and I'm going to get back, it was so hard not to just ask her questions about all of her incredible christ and sometimes I would ask her. I asked her about the apartment and she was like, I don't remember anything. It was a lifetime she said, three lifetimes ago. But I also felt like it was like disrespectful to have such a legend in front of me and not talk to her about like.

00:41:38
Speaker 4: The stuff that impacted you feel.

00:41:40
Speaker 2: Like it's just so hard to figure out.

00:41:42
Speaker 4: Some people will come up to me and apologize, I'm so sorry. You probably hear this way too much, but you know, growing up, I loved you in the Paranatraph, and I'm like, you would be so shocked to hear how not upset I am to hear that. I like, I have kids that ignore me, like thank you, I don't mind.

00:41:58
Speaker 1: No, it's lovely, it's lovely, I agree, But it's just weird as an actor too, because you don't know, like, should I try to be in the present with her in acting like an equal though I could never be an equal to Shirley McLain.

00:42:08
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:42:11
Speaker 4: But on the other hand, yes, yes, And I think that when you work with people that you grew up with, that you watched and said, oh my gosh, I hope I get to do that someday, Like it's not even in your head to be an actor, and you're watching stuff that you still remember, beats that they've done, you still remember moments right in terms of endearment, which I mean beyond I literally cried for as I said, my mother at breast cancer. So in that movie because Debra Winger yeah. I walked outside. The guy I was seeing at the time told me he'd loved me for the first time right after the movie, and I'm already crying from the movie. I said, are you trying to kill me? As I broke down in racking sobs, Like there are moments like that where you want to say to a Shirley McLain, get my daughter the medicine, like.

00:42:56
Speaker 3: The impact that that scene had on you.

00:42:58
Speaker 5: Oh.

00:42:59
Speaker 4: Absolutely, But at the same time, you're working with them in whatever project you're in, right, Sometimes they inteer it, sometimes they can't write.

00:43:07
Speaker 5: She talked freely about terms terms. There was a lot you know, it might be how about this. There are times in our career, in our lives where we are fully in ownership of our performance and who we are on screen and the work that we do, like she was in terms of enviarement. There are other times like the apartment.

00:43:25
Speaker 4: Where you're young and you are still at the effect of the men that are running this business. That's true that they're telling you might need to lose weight, right, right, right, And it's maybe not as nice a memory.

00:43:35
Speaker 2: That's a good point. And I didn't get that from her.

00:43:37
Speaker 1: I just got that it was quite a long time ago, you know what I'm saying, and like it was too.

00:43:41
Speaker 2: Much work for her to try to remember, which was cool. I was like, cool, Sheryl Crol cool, anything you want.

00:43:46
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the show. You're super fun though. I like talking about all these things.

00:43:50
Speaker 6: Yeah, I have to talk about this.

00:44:02
Speaker 2: So this is the thing that cracks me up.

00:44:04
Speaker 1: This is the episode I believe where Big is talking about this actress that he has is trying to be with, and they at one point refer to the to the to the MTV Awards.

00:44:15
Speaker 3: Yes, integrated a little bit right.

00:44:18
Speaker 2: They make fun of it.

00:44:19
Speaker 1: Sara Jessica had hosted the MTV Awards.

00:44:22
Speaker 4: Oh and we like it?

00:44:24
Speaker 3: Was it like a side I dig or something.

00:44:27
Speaker 1: This entire plot for Big is relating to that evening, okay, And I do not think that we said this at the time. And I don't want to say the actress's name, which is bad because I don't want to dredge.

00:44:40
Speaker 3: Now that's all I want to know.

00:44:41
Speaker 2: Well, there was so much I didn't know.

00:44:42
Speaker 4: It was based on a real person. Is this someone that he was dating? Yes, so look up MTV. I got my pr person.

00:44:50
Speaker 1: Well, that's where we met them. Okay, that's where we met this person. Chris was there, I was there, This actress was there. People thought that we he Chris and I were dating. We were not dating, though I totally understan and when they say this. We were at this event to support Sir Jessica, and there's this other actress there who wanted to meet Chris and who did meet Chris, and then there was a whole drama that we had to try to help with.

00:45:16
Speaker 3: That she could get him.

00:45:21
Speaker 2: And I didn't remember in the show.

00:45:24
Speaker 3: Okay, look it up MTV.

00:45:26
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's going to show up, because this is a long time. You could maybe slooth it out. Let's not talk too much about it. But it really was cracking me up that this ended up in the show almost exactly how it happened.

00:45:38
Speaker 4: Wow, you know what I mean, it's rare.

00:45:41
Speaker 1: And Michael Patrick, I mean, like I know, but also Chris really leans into it.

00:45:46
Speaker 4: I was gonna say, he's really playing it, So I guess he wasn't embarrassed.

00:45:52
Speaker 1: I mean I think he was upset, you know, like felt because this person kind of pursued him a bit and then was not available or whatever. It was some confusing thing right where he was like, what a lot about it exactly. So anyway, that was trippy for me to see that it was in there. Also, it's just so insane the fight. This is when the mud fight happens.

00:46:15
Speaker 2: It's so good, it's so incredibly good.

00:46:17
Speaker 1: It's so good and not how I had remembered it at all. I have visuals in my mind of it because it was such a very different episode for us. Right to go to the country and then have him come.

00:46:25
Speaker 2: And it's raining and they've.

00:46:27
Speaker 1: Got the ball and she's like, God to go out there and make friends or whatever, and he's like, you know, we're grown ups. We're grown man, we don't make friends. But then by the end they are friends.

00:46:35
Speaker 4: And you know, when when they got into the fight, I was like, as a you know, an actor who's been in this business a minute, I'm like, we're at like twenty one minutes point, you know, Oh, how are I make in friends by the end of this episode now? And it's just like they just cut to rolling in the mud too.

00:46:50
Speaker 2: We're friends because they vented it out of their systems.

00:46:53
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been going for a while right, like they've been kind of pitted against each other because this is when she gets back together with Big. I'm sorry with Aiden because she cheated on Aiden with Big previously. You'll see it all and it's really good, but that he's come back and forgiven her and he's trying to be less jealous.

00:47:10
Speaker 2: That's why he's putting up.

00:47:12
Speaker 4: That happened because there was a reference about like you wouldn't know how it feels that someone cheating or whatever.

00:47:17
Speaker 3: And then and then it's like there's a silence.

00:47:20
Speaker 2: Oh, I know, it was a really good idea.

00:47:21
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, I picked up.

00:47:23
Speaker 1: I know John is so great. John is so great, but Sara Jessica's so great too. I mean that's a lot of what I think when I watch these like just her her, she can do all so many different things, yeah, which is really wonderful. And there is a scene in the fertility clinic where I get the Jugs out that people do quote to me, but I didn't ever really remember. I only remember the first scene, which was a while ago, where he Trey is jerking off to the Jugs magazine because we have our issues.

00:47:51
Speaker 4: And what I loved about that beat was that you were so you were so peppy.

00:47:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just like peppy man, she's got big boobs.

00:48:02
Speaker 2: People cool that to me, and I didn't remember.

00:48:04
Speaker 1: I'm always like, okay, yeah, I mean I intellectually I know why, but I don't really I didn't remember it. But now I'm like, oh, this is what because it was a really cute beat.

00:48:14
Speaker 2: It is a cute beat.

00:48:15
Speaker 1: It is a cute It's very like quintessential Charlotte. She's going to make the best of it. We are in the fertility doctor to get the sperm treated, and he's got to jerk off, and I'm always going to have an issue, so I'm going to be patty.

00:48:25
Speaker 4: You don't remember.

00:48:28
Speaker 3: Being a little helper to him.

00:48:31
Speaker 2: That's right, I don't.

00:48:33
Speaker 1: I mean I remember generally a lot of fun, right, but I don't remember this particular section. So and then okay, so this is the interesting also thing about Samantha where she meets Richard Wright.

00:48:46
Speaker 5: James remark, oh, yes, I've seen him another stuff many You know what.

00:48:50
Speaker 4: That's what's so wild about as I continue to watch the show, yes, is that there's a million people where you're like, oh.

00:48:56
Speaker 1: I was in that, I was in that we have great actors done so many things. Definitely, I had forgotten the whole sexism part of the storyline, and it's so good. It's so good where he's this big hotel guy and she wants the job, but the way that she gets introduced to him is through this architect that she that she doesn't remember. And then he says, well, I can't hire you because you slept with my architect. And she's like, but that's totally unfair. If I was a guy, you would shake my hand and it's so completely true. And he goes something like I don't want to deal with that or something bizarre.

00:49:29
Speaker 4: Like, because you know what, As I sat there, because I did the same thing, and I was like, yeah, I guess that, I mean. And the times were like that first of all, that you could even discuss that as a reason, right, and you could even say that without being sued, ye yea.

00:49:43
Speaker 3: But what was interesting to me was.

00:49:46
Speaker 4: That the attitude of you're not allowed to be sexual with someone else because then I can't in my head, as the boss make in my fantasy, I can't be the object of your sexual attention like the boss needed to be the object of her attention, right, yeah, as wild.

00:50:10
Speaker 1: I loved that part and I didn't remember that that was how this this Richard Wright character comes into our into our world, right, super super fascinating and really interesting because I do feel like that double standards still exist. But as you say, it would not be stated is flat out now, but I don't think.

00:50:29
Speaker 4: That might be the reason.

00:50:30
Speaker 3: But you wouldn't be allowed to.

00:50:31
Speaker 1: Think, just say it right exactly. But also it's so interesting that Samantha wants it so much. It's it's a very interesting Samantha vibe. I thought, I don't remember it at all, and it's super interesting.

00:50:42
Speaker 2: And she does go on to date that guy.

00:50:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, got it, got it, got it.

00:50:47
Speaker 3: You can there's no reason to make him that cute if she's not well.

00:50:50
Speaker 1: This is a valid, valid point, though I have to say, ah, there's so many handsome people in the show. Beautiful, yeah, beautiful and handsome, absolutely all the things, all the things. Okay, So then you've got this very involved storyline with Steve, which is like super super interesting. I vaguely remember it only because it connects to this longer thing, which is that she's going to get pregnant and how there baby, as we all know who's everyone who's listening, Bray, I had forgotten the details of it, and I did think Steve Slush David is just so good and he's just so sweet, you know, and he's just trying so hard to get her Miranda to listen to him and hear him that he is feeling insecure about this, and she's just trying all her weird Miranda ways of like come on, though she does right buck up, she does defend him, like I was happy that she pulled Samantha over and is like you, yeah, come on, pay attention right, right right, because she's not paying attention that she's starting his feelings. But then like there's so many adorable things where they're walking and they see the dog and she's.

00:51:48
Speaker 2: Just like, I don't understand. I don't understand. You know, it's very funny.

00:51:51
Speaker 1: But then he's very like kind of uh sweetly asked her to go to the ball doctor, as my note say, and learns that it's not approved, so she's like, no, if it's not safe, no, But I felt bad for him, like if he wants that, he should get that. Yeah.

00:52:09
Speaker 4: I thought that she was part of the reason why I think that she it's so important to her to have, as everybody calls it, pity sex is too, is because to make up for the fact that she's really not in she's not embracing him in.

00:52:25
Speaker 1: His It's so true, it's so true, and it's really sad when he says, who's gonna fuck a unibal bartender?

00:52:32
Speaker 3: I know the bartender part of that was more her ultimately.

00:52:36
Speaker 1: Well, that had been the previous issue in a relationship. Yes, that they had opposite schedules, and he does end up owning his own bar, just just so you know, Yes, so that that works out pretty well for him, I think. But but it is kind of adorable that he doesn't understand his own charms. His charms would be there no matter what.

00:52:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, yeah, but I mean at that point there there Look, that was still new too when you guys were doing the show. The fact of a woman having such a such an advantage career and money wise over a potential partner definitely any shorter.

00:53:18
Speaker 2: Oh that's true too.

00:53:19
Speaker 4: I never even think of that. There's a power dynamics straight through that relationship has to do with a lot of different things.

00:53:26
Speaker 1: You're so right, but it's also so good for her, yes, because.

00:53:30
Speaker 4: But see that's what's lovely about it is that the message is what you think you're supposed to have might not be for you. Right.

00:53:38
Speaker 1: Well, that's Charlotte's in tart, you know, through line of all of it, which is great, thank god, thank god.

00:53:45
Speaker 2: Okay, this isn't wait, I'm looking at my trivia.

00:53:47
Speaker 5: Oh.

00:53:48
Speaker 2: Tim van Batten was going to direct this episode.

00:53:50
Speaker 3: Oh he's a wonderful director.

00:53:52
Speaker 1: Yes, he did come later, but someone someone in his life died, don't know.

00:53:57
Speaker 4: And Tim van Patten, by the way, HBO friends and went on to direct a lot of Game of Thrones.

00:54:03
Speaker 1: I know, I know directors not all, but Alan Taylor and Timmy did did did all the things, all the important Hbeld things.

00:54:12
Speaker 4: They loved their they loved their little close family.

00:54:17
Speaker 2: Done. Fine. Oh okay, let's hear about it.

00:54:22
Speaker 4: Oh okay, so it's on Hulu. It premieres May fifteen.

00:54:26
Speaker 2: Fantastic.

00:54:27
Speaker 4: It was an accident, and listen, I just have been in this business a long time. I was an actress, a stage actress. I went to a prestigious drama department, a college with a great drama school, and did the Greeks and Shakespeare and all that stuff. And then I moved to New York and it was the height of the comedy boom, and people said, friends that I went to college with that were in the BFA program with me, said you should be doing this, And I just I had a baby right out of college, and I said, you know what, I would be good at this. And I started putting together my material and I started doing it, and within six months I was headlining.

00:55:05
Speaker 2: Amazing.

00:55:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, there were like and I was a road warrior. I went all over the country doing stand up. Well. I was married, so my husband took care of the baby when I was out of town. But then when I had my daughter, I had just bought my first house. That was four years later, and I did stand up up until three days before I had her.

00:55:23
Speaker 3: Went back to work when she was five weeks old.

00:55:25
Speaker 4: WOW nursing when I was on the road, and a lot of times my husband at the time would come with me and take care of both of them, and I would run and do a show, come back in between nurse her, Wow, go back and do the second show. Sometimes I would have milk let down and be lactating all over the stage. Yeah, it was crazy, but I mean I worked really hard. But there are a lot of people that don't know that I did that, that I was the thing that got me invited to the party in Los Angeles. Create and Star on your Own show, which my ABC one aired right after Roseanne, another comic turned stand up I mean stand up turn television actor. It was because of the stand up I did. That's what got me into this whole game. So yeah, so I go back to it here and there throughout my career, but I wasn't doing it like throughout the whole hiatus until I got until I got Abbot, and then I started going back and headlining all over the country and loved it and missed it and had such a good time that I said, I want to do a show like when I'm on stage at a comedy club. I don't want it in a giant, massive theater. I understand why people do that, right, It's easier for cameras and cutting and easier to produce. But I wanted it to be a vibe that felt like being in a room. There's nothing like going to see live comedy every single every time you go and see it could be the same act, but it's different every show.

00:56:51
Speaker 3: So that's what I wanted to do.

00:56:52
Speaker 4: It brought me back to doing live theater and how that felt to be in front of me. The reason I wanted to be in this business to begin with was to make people feel good and make them laugh.

00:57:02
Speaker 2: How great.

00:57:02
Speaker 3: I don't feel anything.

00:57:03
Speaker 4: I don't mind making them cry either, but I really like to make people laugh.

00:57:06
Speaker 1: I agree laughter is really needed in this world, and are so lucky to be able to do it in any form exactly.

00:57:14
Speaker 4: So, yeah, and so there's a lot of just talking about life in general.

00:57:18
Speaker 3: For all of us.

00:57:19
Speaker 4: But I like to say that the show is like me being America's Auntie.

00:57:24
Speaker 2: Oh, I love it. I love it. Now, what's happening with Abbott? Are you guys coming off? Okay?

00:57:30
Speaker 4: Well, we have another bunch of episodes. I don't know when our last episode airs for season five, but we will start shooting season six in the summer and it'll get much more of Usigan's and I mean.

00:57:43
Speaker 2: In your mind, how long do you feel like it'll go?

00:57:46
Speaker 4: Like?

00:57:46
Speaker 2: What do you want? What do you see?

00:57:48
Speaker 4: When we first started, Cheryl and I were very funny because we've been in the business a long time. This has Stan who plays mister Johnson.

00:57:54
Speaker 2: Oh my god, incredible all of you and Cheryl and I have.

00:57:57
Speaker 4: Had a similar experience being in this town at single moms and being financially responsible for our kids and working jobs to make sure that we could take care of them, and a very similar experience. So when we first started talking pilot week, we felt the magic. We really did. We were like, ABC doesn't buy this show, somebody else will. Like you don't feel that chemistry like you guys had and like we have on our show. You don't have it in every cast.

00:58:24
Speaker 2: Oh it's very rare.

00:58:25
Speaker 4: So when you.

00:58:26
Speaker 3: Feel it, you know it.

00:58:27
Speaker 4: And I immediately turned around to Quinta after Cheryl and I were talking, and I said, so, what do you do the arc for this whole story?

00:58:34
Speaker 3: What do you think in nine seasons? And she said, and she goes eight.

00:58:39
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, because I knew that she had walked in with the first pitch saying here's what's going to happen every season. Wow. So I mean, you know, if the business survives and we still have a business, I can see it going other way.

00:58:52
Speaker 1: I love you guys also because you're such a very steady, reliably great show that is so beautifully written, beautifully acted.

00:59:03
Speaker 2: You know.

00:59:03
Speaker 1: She has such a vision, you know, and it was so worked out, and she's so specific with all of you. Each character is so amazing, and I feel so good when I watch it.

00:59:14
Speaker 3: That's what we love.

00:59:15
Speaker 4: I think. The other thing that I love hearing and anytime I travel, I get it at airports and all over is that people say I watch with my kids or my grandmother, and I watch it's.

00:59:25
Speaker 3: A multi generational. That's not like cloying.

00:59:28
Speaker 2: Definitely.

00:59:29
Speaker 4: I think it's funny and I'm not easy totally.

00:59:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, audience, I laugh, and also I love you guys, but also I laugh.

00:59:36
Speaker 2: You know, it's hard to find both.

00:59:37
Speaker 4: The thing about a successful half hour show, and you know this, people have to want to feel like they're friends with you or oh this is like the crew I work with. They have to invite you into their home every week and want to spend time with you.

00:59:51
Speaker 3: So I think we've got that.

00:59:52
Speaker 4: And you know what, I have to be fair, not just Quinton the writers, but we've had incredible support from the network. Like you said, you only a couple of notes and they made sense. The notes we have gotten have been good, and they supported a young black woman saying she knows this world. Let's listen to her voice. Let's have her voice be the thing that permeates the show. So both at Warner Brothers, which is our studio, and at Disney ABC.

01:00:20
Speaker 1: See this is this is why you got to protect Warner Brothers.

01:00:24
Speaker 2: I know where's the where's all the woods is over there?

01:00:29
Speaker 1: I know Warner's TV is obviously such a special place that all of us know and love. Whether we've I mean that's not they didn't do Sex and the City. But I mean I know so many people who work over there. I know you have, of course friends and I mean I spent my life at that casting.

01:00:43
Speaker 2: Office pre Sex and the City.

01:00:48
Speaker 1: So many of us have so many stories I read for friends there.

01:00:51
Speaker 2: I did, Yeah, what part Monica? Of course, Yeah I have, I've seen it. Or do you know you know, you know.

01:00:59
Speaker 3: What about the friends?

01:01:01
Speaker 4: No?

01:01:01
Speaker 3: I know who the characters got it?

01:01:02
Speaker 4: Got it? But and I'm thinking about it, and I'm like maybe, but I just you're so cretable for doing what you did, thank you, that I can't imagine anybody else doing you.

01:01:13
Speaker 1: You can't imagine anyone doing a her job. You know what I mean, right, which is the joy. I can imagine anyone doing your job.

01:01:20
Speaker 4: I agree with you. Yeah, And I have to tell you we talk as actors. We talk ourselves out of things, at least I do so often. Like I mean, I'm out there for pilot season. I see all the people that are fighting, forty seven people fighting for this one role they're not going to and this one came on and I went, there's no one better in this town to play this than Fantastic. I love it.

01:01:40
Speaker 2: That's how I felt about Charlotte.

01:01:41
Speaker 4: And you know what, one hundred percent yeah, because that mix of girl next door, you know she's beautiful, but that she doesn't She doesn't play from the part of I know I'm beautiful, Like, there's enough princess that it makes sense, but she's not being a princess or snotty, so you understand why she's friends with these other girls. All of that balance is clear. I've only seen this many episodes. I love it's.

01:02:05
Speaker 1: Really interesting to talk to someone who hasn't seen the whole thing.

01:02:09
Speaker 2: It's super fascinating. Thank you so much for joining us. I have one last question. Yes, are you a Charlotte.

01:02:15
Speaker 4: Probably not.

01:02:17
Speaker 2: That's okay.

01:02:19
Speaker 3: I don't know if I'm anybody else. Is there a task? Can I take a question?

01:02:22
Speaker 4: No?

01:02:22
Speaker 2: No, there's no test.

01:02:23
Speaker 1: I think there was a BuzzFeed test originally, but I'm not that didactic.

01:02:28
Speaker 4: I'm going to find one and I'm going to post it along with the link for this.

01:02:33
Speaker 2: So great, Okay, great, post it. We'll look it up. We'll look it up. I can't wait to hear what you come up with.

01:02:37
Speaker 1: Some people will say like, oh, I'm a carry with the Samantha Rising or you know what, I understand.

01:02:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's possible, But I've just never been as I've never been as naturally adorable and cute as you are in person or as the character.

01:02:52
Speaker 1: Well you're kind, Thank you so much, thank you so much, But I mean I would have to.

01:02:58
Speaker 2: Know more about your life.

01:02:59
Speaker 1: But like I mean, you have like such perseverance and strength like that seems like some Miranda's in there, right, Yeah I can see that.

01:03:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see that, and you.

01:03:08
Speaker 1: Seem like you call it like it is, which I think is like a head. Of course, she's not naturally but she is on the show. Is totally totally when you Joy, thank you so much.