“You look great? That was not one of the things I told you to say.” (S4 E8 "My Motherboard, My Self")

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know, are you a Charlotte. Oh, everybody welcome to are you a Charlotte today?

00:00:12
Speaker 2: It's such a big day.

00:00:13
Speaker 1: When I tell you that I have been waiting so long.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: This to happen, you want me both.

00:00:20
Speaker 1: I mean, right, you guys who are listening today for the first time, we are welcoming Julie and Elisa, who are our our favorite girl partnership writers that we love.

00:00:35
Speaker 3: So much, brilliant save you justin yes, I know to say we're your favorite writers, we're your favorite.

00:00:41
Speaker 2: Tea because I don't want to get in.

00:00:43
Speaker 4: Trouble any other team writers.

00:00:47
Speaker 2: Exactly.

00:00:48
Speaker 1: You have a very special place, lady, in the history of our show, but also to me personally. So I have been counting the days for so many reasons. And I mean, for one thing, I think I should just say right up front that Julian and Lissa were hugely integral to and just like that, and I feel very much like so close to them as a result, because they are both mothers, they live in Brooklyn.

00:01:16
Speaker 2: Charlotte got a lot of.

00:01:18
Speaker 5: Good the trauma of our lives we were able to share with Yes, you say it.

00:01:26
Speaker 4: You gave a lot, You gave our spirit animal for motherhood, domestic bliss and hell yes.

00:01:33
Speaker 2: And I love that so much.

00:01:35
Speaker 1: And it was such a like because when you came on to Sex and the City it was this fourth season, which, as I've told my listeners before, I have a bit of a blackout.

00:01:44
Speaker 2: I can't remember that.

00:01:46
Speaker 6: I was so I just heard you.

00:01:48
Speaker 5: I mean, first of all, let's just say it.

00:01:52
Speaker 3: That was It wasn't just our first episode of Sex and the City, which in and of itself would be huge.

00:01:58
Speaker 5: That was our first TV job, which is insane.

00:02:02
Speaker 7: And you guys for TV.

00:02:05
Speaker 1: The episode we were discussing is My Motherboard Myself, which is literally possibly our best episode ever written.

00:02:13
Speaker 2: Like the fact that that was your first TV.

00:02:16
Speaker 4: Job is insane.

00:02:17
Speaker 1: We acknowledged that how did it happen, my god, the episode, or that you came to it.

00:02:26
Speaker 3: There's I mean, I don't even know.

00:02:31
Speaker 4: I don't know what answer is. That we were we happened to be in the very beginning of our careers. We were at the same agency as Darren and uh. We were in LA We had this little development deal with Studios USA and we were pitching this little sco okay, we had come up with and we pitched it to all the networks, and then right before where we were set to fly back to New York, our agents said, oh, Darren Starr wants to meet with you guys.

00:03:09
Speaker 6: Before you go back.

00:03:11
Speaker 4: Adorable, and Julie had the famous respond.

00:03:14
Speaker 3: Being an idiot, said, because he said, he wants to meet with you guys Thursday morning.

00:03:20
Speaker 5: And I was like, oh, too bad, We're flying back Wednesday night.

00:03:25
Speaker 3: And I literally said, change your flight, sleep on my kid's floor if you have to.

00:03:32
Speaker 5: You're not missing.

00:03:33
Speaker 4: We had nothing in New York that was waiting for him.

00:03:35
Speaker 6: We had no By the.

00:03:37
Speaker 3: Way, I give him a lot of credit and that just shows how incredible, So thank.

00:03:43
Speaker 5: You, match job.

00:03:44
Speaker 3: So we changed our flight, we slept on another friend's floor actually, and we literally with our suitcases arrived the next morning and we met Michael, Darren, Jenny and Cindy and at that point we were fans.

00:03:57
Speaker 2: We were just the biggest fan.

00:03:58
Speaker 4: Of writing season three.

00:04:00
Speaker 3: So they were in the writers room in LA and just to be in the same room with them was an honor, and we were dying. We were like just like peeing ourselves with excitement. So that felt like the victory, like we just got to meet they just tell love the show. And then we went back to our lives and of course that pilot didn't go and we figured like we're done.

00:04:22
Speaker 2: That was it, that was over our care to our day jobs.

00:04:28
Speaker 5: And lo and behold.

00:04:30
Speaker 3: Like a year later, Michael actually hired us and we were like, you mean to bring coffee to people? Like like really, it was like, yeah, I love, We're going to like sweep, We're going to sweep the floor where they are.

00:04:44
Speaker 2: So so then so did you come to the writer's room?

00:04:47
Speaker 4: So yeah, and then we had like five like we we heard on a Monday that he was going to hire us and that we had to like be in la and like the housing like it was like being shot out of a cannon.

00:05:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, a very exciting canon that we still we got there and we were like is this a mistake and like we'll definitely get fired on the first day.

00:05:08
Speaker 6: And then we learned that Michael Patrick's favorite.

00:05:11
Speaker 4: Joke is you're fired.

00:05:15
Speaker 5: The writer.

00:05:17
Speaker 6: Happening all the time, and we broke.

00:05:19
Speaker 5: His head into our office and be like, you're.

00:05:21
Speaker 2: Fired God, Michael Patrick.

00:05:24
Speaker 3: But anyway, back to the writer's room, so this is season four. We're there for the first time at our very first you know, TV job, just like pinching ourselves. And of course we had gathered a whole bunch of our own stories and ideas and things that happened to us.

00:05:41
Speaker 5: And what might work in the show is did.

00:05:43
Speaker 4: They ask you to do that?

00:05:45
Speaker 5: Okay, Julie, I do have that's true, Okay, fair enough.

00:05:52
Speaker 6: I know you're prepared. You are a good student.

00:06:00
Speaker 4: And then were we were coming up with ideas and themes too, because Sex and City was so thematic, right.

00:06:08
Speaker 3: So I literally I think maybe the first day, maybe the second day, we each shared. We had these separate stories around support. My MacBook had crashed and I went to tech Serve with my very loving, wonderful boyfriend, who I was so irritated by, even though all he was doing was trying to help me. I told this story about text Serve, my Mac and support and tech support.

00:06:35
Speaker 5: Lisa.

00:06:36
Speaker 4: I had just been BRA shopping for no for just no reason in Philadelphia at sex Fith Avenue, and the BRA sales person was extremely handsy and you know, did all the measurement and and I was like Miranda, I was with my mom which was interesting now looking back, I remember being irritated by the woman because it was more than I had asked for, and she was telling me that I was shopping everything, that I was shopping for the wrong size, and here's what here's what you should do. And then I left and I felt like a new person. I was like, oh, I can see now, I can you know, breathe underwater. And so we linked those two, those.

00:07:23
Speaker 3: Support and tech support and Michael because he knew in his mind, he knew he wanted Miranda's mother to die. At some point, I guess we should mention this is the episode where Miranda's mom dies. And he looked at the board and he was like, somewhere around there, and suddenly the idea of tech support, BRA support, friendship support, which just how do we help each other in these different ways?

00:07:52
Speaker 5: And an it just like it clicked together.

00:07:55
Speaker 3: No, it was it was to this day like where it was the life at It was a very very lucky it was a gift because I mean, and we didn't know, we didn't know, we didn't know anything really.

00:08:08
Speaker 5: I mean, obviously we.

00:08:11
Speaker 3: Wrote and we knew how to do that, but what Michael and Cindy and Jenny and everyone else there did.

00:08:19
Speaker 5: What we did in the room together was.

00:08:23
Speaker 3: Build help to build out the episodes and the structure and the beats of the story. You know, what's Charlotte's story going to be, What's how does Samantha's bring into that? That was also something we were excited to do because like Samantha obviously has a ton of sex, is having orgasms like one hundred in an episode, and I remember, like I really wanted to do an episode where it actually wasn't that easy for her to orgasm and actually it was like felt impossible and all the comedy around that and watching it again and oh my god, I mean we should mention Michael Angler directed this episode like so tremendous beautifully, and again we were we were so new, like we didn't even know how lucky we.

00:09:10
Speaker 5: Were, but of course he did this incredible job.

00:09:14
Speaker 3: But even things like looking back, so every episode, obviously there's a question, I guess what's missing from this episode?

00:09:22
Speaker 7: Is there?

00:09:22
Speaker 6: No question?

00:09:23
Speaker 7: No question?

00:09:24
Speaker 6: Question only one?

00:09:25
Speaker 3: And writing that question, we wrote it forever and a day, and Michael kept.

00:09:32
Speaker 4: All I remember is there were Doc Martin's that were mentioned.

00:09:39
Speaker 3: Because okay, and but we had so much trouble circling this question around support. I should have pulled up the but and every time we thought we had cracked it, he was like, no, it's not that, and we go back in that.

00:09:57
Speaker 2: It was like Doug Martin's like shoe support, like there.

00:10:00
Speaker 3: Was I just remember there were we should pull. Somebody has got the dailies exist, she pulls. We had her looking at her shoes talking about support. I guess I'm so glad you remember the Doc Martins.

00:10:12
Speaker 6: I just remember.

00:10:13
Speaker 3: And then of course she tied it together and it was natally was so finally we achieved it and he signed off on it. Right we shot it and we're in post and the episode was running a little long, of course. Oh and I remember and you know what almost.

00:10:32
Speaker 4: Got cut from, which is shocking to even say, but I remember on the possible chopping block was the dressing room.

00:10:42
Speaker 2: Mary pat That would have been horrible.

00:10:44
Speaker 4: I remember that was there was a day we were shooting a coffee shop scene for something else, and it was like, so maybe maybe that, and you know, I felt too close to it to to know, but that and.

00:10:58
Speaker 3: Also like we were like new here, so what was that? Whatever you think right, right, of course. But I remember Michael sitting us down and saying, guys, the episode was exactly, you know, forty eight seconds too long or whatever. That is exactly the length of that question. She doesn't have her laptop, right, it's sort.

00:11:18
Speaker 1: Of perfect because she's right, she's writing the question when it died.

00:11:22
Speaker 2: Well, he comes to kiss her and then.

00:11:23
Speaker 1: Writing the column right, writing column, which would have been the question right right theoretically well.

00:11:28
Speaker 3: And also I had forgotten that he leans over and he reads it out yes, like a radical invationally, and she's like, yeah, I did. Yeah, it's almost like he broke it.

00:11:45
Speaker 2: I know it feels that way. It feels that way, and she's irritated with them even though he is, but you kind of understand, right.

00:11:51
Speaker 1: And also the other thing that I really love, because this has happened in the in this season, when she has to write her first email right.

00:11:58
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I was loving you know, I want to see that again. Wait wait, wait what? Like what is the episode where she writes we see her.

00:12:08
Speaker 2: And she doesn't know if he's seen it.

00:12:10
Speaker 1: And then she's there and Willie's there, Stanford is there, and you remember how he used to AOL used to have like messenger. It's a messenger and it says it would say if you were online, and she duck.

00:12:21
Speaker 2: She's like can't you see me?

00:12:23
Speaker 3: Oh my god, amazing.

00:12:29
Speaker 5: It's really good. But like him reading him, like invadering her.

00:12:34
Speaker 2: Voice, I know, just because reads a loud.

00:12:38
Speaker 5: We have her writing it longhand No, I'm thinking that scene that.

00:12:44
Speaker 7: We was a.

00:12:49
Speaker 6: I think it was just voice over.

00:12:51
Speaker 1: It could have been voice over while she's reaching for her I remember Doc Martin something there was they we and I think then Michael said, like what it should be the only episode where there isn't a question because their computer is like okay, I guess, I guess. No, what do you remember of the filming of it? Like what we're thinking?

00:13:11
Speaker 2: What were you first writing again?

00:13:13
Speaker 5: First time?

00:13:14
Speaker 6: Like on set? Yeah, I mean, I mean that little child.

00:13:19
Speaker 2: We have those pictures, mature. I can't wait to put them on the Instagram. Practically it was to you as anything.

00:13:31
Speaker 5: We were happy. Let's put it that way.

00:13:33
Speaker 4: Yes, I'll just say, like we wrote, we were in La writing the season or the big you know, as much as we could before filming began. And that in and of itself, was out and out of body experience for three months of just being in shock and are we really is this really the show? Like meeting the other writers, getting to know the whole process. But then when we met you guys.

00:14:00
Speaker 5: Yeah that was crazy. I think that was great.

00:14:02
Speaker 4: Like I was starstruck probably for the entire Secson of the City run, Like I'm not kidding, like I really just felt. So it was very hard for me to be critical at table reads because I was just like, I'm I'm watching my favorite but like other people would have notes and I would be like, I thought it was.

00:14:25
Speaker 2: Great, Like no, I yeah, yeah, no, that's a city is critical.

00:14:31
Speaker 1: I'm just like it's fant I love everyone.

00:14:35
Speaker 3: After that first table read, it must have been season four, one, two, yeah, because we would read them together and I remember I was so excited and there was like all that delicious food, it's free, like that was all still. And then I remember at the end of the table and we got to meet everyone, We're saying, hi, I'm so excited, and then Michael's like everybody in my office, yeah that was a disaster, and I was like, wait, what, like I need to go to you.

00:15:06
Speaker 7: Reading.

00:15:07
Speaker 5: I didn't understand why we're so wrong, and it actually really helped me.

00:15:10
Speaker 3: It actually taught me what to listen for in a table read, and like why he felt it had gone so badly, because that's everything right now now that I understand that. It's like learning to look at an extra and saying like, did you notice everyone sort of disengaged right around page eight, you know? Or did you notice that actually felt too harsh for that character? Like, and just what to listen for was so valuable and now it's like the most important tool. I mean, there are so many, but I say, if I have to pick one thing for a writer to think about is have a read, even in your living room with your friends, Like.

00:15:53
Speaker 2: Don't you find that almost no one knows this?

00:15:55
Speaker 5: Now?

00:15:55
Speaker 2: Yes, Like I think that might well.

00:15:57
Speaker 7: Wonderful, Like it's weird.

00:16:00
Speaker 3: It's like to not hear from page one to the end. You have to hear the rhythm of it. And well, yeah, I agree.

00:16:07
Speaker 1: I tried to explain to my young for tend children the importance of this as well, because also as an actor, it's.

00:16:14
Speaker 2: Really really important.

00:16:16
Speaker 5: You have to bring it.

00:16:17
Speaker 1: Your stuff can get cut. You can't just be sitting there with your head in that whispering.

00:16:21
Speaker 7: That's true.

00:16:22
Speaker 2: It's not good, that's true.

00:16:23
Speaker 6: Although Michael I will say.

00:16:27
Speaker 4: Every once in a while, if something was on the chopping block, someone in the right in the writer's you know, meeting, might say like, well, I don't know if I don't know if they really got that joke, and he would say, nope, it's never the never the actor's fault.

00:16:39
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he would say, that's our fault.

00:16:42
Speaker 7: That's so nice.

00:16:54
Speaker 1: I do think also, and I mean, I think all of us have progressed. We've been together now forever, and it's blessing and a joy, as you all know I feel, and I know you feel. And I think that in the beginning, and you guys didn't come in the beginning, beginning, right, because the beginning was like.

00:17:10
Speaker 2: This just exploration.

00:17:12
Speaker 1: Then the pressure kind of like you know, the success, everyone right came together. And then Michael Patrick has such a kind of exacting you know, like the rhythm and the vision of it all, and everything's got to be firing together. And I think all of that came more so. And I remember for myself because as an actor, you go and I did learn, you know, I'd watch Cynthia and Sarah and like you know, they come from theater and they were like, this is a creative this is its own creative experience that they read through.

00:17:43
Speaker 2: Right. I've also been to film film rights.

00:17:46
Speaker 1: That are not that way right, where it's more I mean, I think the executives are listening to it, but maybe not all the actors are relating to bring it.

00:17:56
Speaker 3: As you said, right, I have to imagine you're an act sure, I'm not that you as an actor or you were nervous for your piece of it, right, Sometimes depends because I realized, like, when you've written the episode, you are so nervous.

00:18:13
Speaker 4: I was like, God, because that's scary.

00:18:18
Speaker 3: It happened, right, of course, and then we're up all night writing when we get to change of address, remind me because that's a fascinaka story.

00:18:28
Speaker 2: For me as an actor.

00:18:29
Speaker 1: I didn't really I knew obviously that there was a B C D storyline, right, And you always knew when you got the scripts that you might be D storyline and that might get cut.

00:18:41
Speaker 2: It was just part of it, right.

00:18:42
Speaker 1: That was what I signed on to, you know what I mean. I didn't really take it that personally. I mean, as you always all know Charlotte started kind of as the d storyline, right, and then flowered and grew and evolved under your knowledge.

00:18:57
Speaker 6: Not an accident.

00:18:58
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Thank you so much.

00:19:00
Speaker 1: But you know it was a joy, right, So for me it was all I never was like, yeah, I sucked and therefore it got cover, you know what I mean.

00:19:06
Speaker 2: I never felt so I wasn't nervous.

00:19:08
Speaker 1: I think for me too, I think the table read was so much fun and there's so much energy.

00:19:15
Speaker 2: Like a party. Yeah, we all get to be together, which isn't always.

00:19:18
Speaker 3: True on this right, and also to hear it because we shoot out of order. I know you've talked about this, but that is often surprising to people.

00:19:26
Speaker 5: We shoot way out of order and crossboard.

00:19:31
Speaker 2: Not a lot of things.

00:19:32
Speaker 1: Of people like you don't get to see the other romantic stuff. You get to see the girls at the coffee shop and all.

00:19:38
Speaker 5: That, but then you get to hear everyone else's it's so much I.

00:19:41
Speaker 6: Feel you have a question for you.

00:19:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, as an actor on the show back in the day, did you watch it every like.

00:19:51
Speaker 6: We turn it on every Sunday night and.

00:19:54
Speaker 1: They would give us a vh okay, and sometimes it wasn't one hundred percent like there might be a car.

00:20:01
Speaker 2: There might be.

00:20:03
Speaker 1: Or it might be not complete. But I this was my experience. I don't know everywhere ever, I think everyone had different experiences.

00:20:11
Speaker 2: Right For me, I was like, oh, there, just like when we got the scripts, right, like.

00:20:17
Speaker 1: If they handed us it to us at work in the Manila envelope, that we would I would run home and rip that baby up and amazing, and I would watch it alone, you know, in my apartment, and I might really stress out.

00:20:27
Speaker 2: That would be when I would be critical of myself, right.

00:20:30
Speaker 1: But generally speaking, I think, yes, I would watch it from a critical standpoint of my own performance, but also just generally fanning about what we had been doing and seeing it all come to yes, yes, yes, And obviously it kind of grew and changed and more of you got deeper in all the things, and I just loved it. But then I didn't watch it again. Like I wouldn't watch it on Sunday night. I would be trying to in some way, though I don't know if I would have expressed it this at the time. You know, you're trying to protect your creative process to some certain extents, you know, what I mean.

00:21:08
Speaker 4: You don't want to get into bad habits.

00:21:10
Speaker 1: You don't want to think about the response and think about whatever people like or don't like or whatever.

00:21:15
Speaker 2: And you're just trusting and hoping, right, you know, letting doing what do right? Letting go. Yes.

00:21:20
Speaker 1: So that's what I was doing a lot of the time after until now when I'm rewatching it.

00:21:25
Speaker 3: Right before, which is so yes, all this time later, having not watched it so long. Another a little bit of TV trivia about shooting my mother and myself that scene in Tech Serve And for people who weren't around in the nineties, Tech Serve was the only place if you had a Mac that you could go to get your computer fisk.

00:21:47
Speaker 4: There wasn't there were no.

00:21:50
Speaker 3: We were like Stordos with the Apple right and one place could fix it.

00:21:54
Speaker 5: So anyway, and we love Tech Serve ri ip very sad it's not here anymore.

00:22:01
Speaker 3: But anyway, when we were shooting that, all that stuff with John Corbett and SJ.

00:22:07
Speaker 2: And awesome, Mom's gonna yes.

00:22:13
Speaker 3: Anyway, that night it turned out we wound up shooting super duper late, and it was.

00:22:20
Speaker 5: Like as was our shore in the morning, what.

00:22:24
Speaker 3: It was, And I remember because Carrie has that call with Miranda in Philadelphia, and Cynthia got dressed, came down, did her side right, just to be on the front.

00:22:36
Speaker 1: I told someone we did this other day and they were shocked. I was like, yeah, no, we we we just we it.

00:22:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that that was really an amazing thing and a testament to all of you for being so supportive even when you're not.

00:22:49
Speaker 2: It wasn't her side, she wasn't.

00:22:53
Speaker 1: So basically just to make sure everyone knows what we just said. So it was the middle of the night. Sarah is working with Corbett at the text her with us if assuming and Cynthia got out of bed, got dressed, came down to be off camera for her phone call. When she called Carrie. She tells Carrie that her mom had is she's in.

00:23:15
Speaker 2: Because she didn't pass away yet.

00:23:17
Speaker 6: Often it's just a temp reader. It's just right on you.

00:23:21
Speaker 5: Guys, because I wonder if it's very good.

00:23:27
Speaker 2: She's very good.

00:23:28
Speaker 1: But it would normally be Supervisor, who we also loved gending. I think at this point would have been right.

00:23:34
Speaker 4: Or Betty and did it a lot, which would.

00:23:38
Speaker 2: Really change the whole scene.

00:23:40
Speaker 3: I just thought of a scene that now maybe was it cut because you reminded me because I remember there was a scene where Miranda's looking for a black dress in Philly, had to find a black dress.

00:23:53
Speaker 6: Right, right, black dress, right.

00:23:57
Speaker 3: But because we were in the store that was letting us use their store. Jen Getzing, her amazing script supervisor who is now an amazing director, read the line her pretty black had to find out pretty black.

00:24:10
Speaker 4: Well, that's pretty I am fairly certain that no, no, well that that line was actually yes, that is true.

00:24:21
Speaker 6: I mean I think we were just.

00:24:22
Speaker 5: Trying to not offend the owners.

00:24:25
Speaker 3: We were so excited that we were shooting there, so to be suggesting that that is where one would find a black god.

00:24:33
Speaker 5: Okay, so that scene is in it, Yeah, is there.

00:24:35
Speaker 1: It's very it's very and it's kind of close on her, which now you are explaining why because she's in you you can't really tell where she is when.

00:24:44
Speaker 4: I also just want to go back to what you said about the d story and just for your information, we on Sex and.

00:24:52
Speaker 6: The City, we never that is how we were.

00:24:56
Speaker 4: It's actually not even how Michael talked about it or yeah, so when you talk about it, we would say, like your story, which I just loved rewatching the Martha Stewart of Death was the runner.

00:25:11
Speaker 6: You're the runner.

00:25:12
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm the run.

00:25:13
Speaker 5: That's just like running comedy, never the super interesting.

00:25:18
Speaker 2: Explain exactly what does that mean.

00:25:20
Speaker 4: It's like a comedy.

00:25:23
Speaker 6: It's a comedy.

00:25:24
Speaker 4: Story that's light, so we have it gets like sprinkled through instead.

00:25:29
Speaker 5: Of like a beginning.

00:25:30
Speaker 2: Listen all of Charlotte Toccado.

00:25:34
Speaker 1: I have tried to explain this, especially in the beginning, because we're a band, right or a quartet if you'd like.

00:25:42
Speaker 2: And I was supposed I.

00:25:43
Speaker 1: Needed to be the yeah, you know, through through a little for a long time, and then I got to and.

00:25:48
Speaker 2: Then sometimes but then I might be to come back up. And that's true probably for all the characters. You know what I'm saying.

00:25:53
Speaker 3: You know what else I thought about watching it again all these years later, is that really was a tome And this is this is like poignant because now we're older and we are sadly surrounded by a lot more death. But when you sort of didn't know what to do when someone died like that fact, then it was like we're going to Philadelphia and you knew what to do, Like Charlotte knew what to do. And I always want that person even now, like it feels when you're panicked and there's been terrible news of like the person who's going to say, this is.

00:26:27
Speaker 6: What this is what we're going to do, what we say, and this is what you do. And I loved that role.

00:26:33
Speaker 4: I had the same feeling, and it really for me watching it now, I realized, a you reminded me. You really reminded me of my mother, who is no longer here and who was definitely a Charlotte Like that. I realized, like, just here, you can say this, you can say that, you can say that, and you were like mothering Samantha.

00:26:58
Speaker 7: And now I really wonderful.

00:27:01
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna cry way I watch it. I am a crier, as you all know. But also like I hadn't rewatched this.

00:27:08
Speaker 1: In a long time, right, so I think of it as top three at least of our whole show, you know. And I know what it's about, obviously, right, the detail, you know, and the sweetest and the fact that this was a time in her life where we hadn't gone through all these things that we've gone through now, and then like the fact that Samantha can't feel the feelings.

00:27:32
Speaker 2: And I can't.

00:27:33
Speaker 7: She doesn't know.

00:27:35
Speaker 1: She's also like the way that she goes to sex. You know, it's like such attic behavior, which she's you know, me talking. But it's so interesting, right, and it's funny, but it's also not like it's interesting in so many levels. And then I had fully, fully forgotten. I had remembered filming the funeral and obviously we were so wanting it to have the weight that it needed to have and do all of our different parts within that weight, and I had forgotten that.

00:28:05
Speaker 3: Stephen, Okay, I have to talk about that moment first of all, and I will go on the record, and there are witnesses that was not Originally we had many drafts obviously, but at some point when we were getting notes on the script and Michael had the thought like, let's just have a shot of those guys, and I remember thinking it's too Treaquily, it's too sentimental. And you have to understand our fear in writing this as our very first episode. That was a very dark episode. We were like, are people going to think we ruined.

00:28:45
Speaker 2: The show and brought death in?

00:28:50
Speaker 3: Oh no, I don't know about that, but just that it was like a real departure from what we expected.

00:28:58
Speaker 5: And I think I was so worried.

00:29:01
Speaker 3: I was worried, like is that over is that overly sentimental? And of course, first of all, of course he was right. Of course, like that gets me when I see that shot of them, But also what I realized watching it now, it's one.

00:29:18
Speaker 2: Shot, right, there's no close to them.

00:29:20
Speaker 3: We're talking about the shot when Miranda's walking down well, because it's.

00:29:24
Speaker 1: Been set up that that it's embarrassing for her that she has been shaping.

00:29:29
Speaker 6: People are worried that she's alone.

00:29:31
Speaker 1: At her mother's funeral at thirty five and she has no one to walk down the aisle, which really.

00:29:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, And and then of course Carrie goes with her. But you cut to Steve and they're standing there and it's so surprising and they're just solemn in their suits and like they.

00:29:50
Speaker 2: Got themselves to Philadelphia so good.

00:29:51
Speaker 5: But that's it.

00:29:52
Speaker 1: We never cut there's no close up that's special close, but there's no closer and cut back.

00:29:57
Speaker 4: But we don't even need.

00:29:58
Speaker 2: To, I know, because I forgot treful it is right now.

00:30:01
Speaker 1: Look, if you guys had done a close up and had Carrie have a meaningful.

00:30:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it was all in the execution as well. It's just as it's such a shock and it's just like there they are. They're amazing guys.

00:30:16
Speaker 4: And then with that voiceover of you know, just showing up and it's not really I have to say, you.

00:30:24
Speaker 2: Know what the Chosen Family part, you.

00:30:26
Speaker 4: Know, And I'll say one another thing about the Chosen Family part. I remember when we were assigned this episode, and you know, we had been talking in the room for weeks, if not months, about what episode eight would be, and then at a certain point it's like, okay, Julie and Melissa, you'll work on what you think the scene should be and then come back and we'll on Monday, we'll hear what you what you kind of envision. And so we come back and we had done our little homework together and we came in and we were like, well, what if when we're with Miranda and her sister and her and her the rest of her family, blah blah blah, Like she's in Philadelphia and here are the things that could happen to her with her family, right, And Michael was like no, no, no, no, no, no no no no no, right, we are not playing Miranda's family. We're going to play them tiny, and.

00:31:27
Speaker 2: She can do it in two seconds.

00:31:29
Speaker 4: I loved his reason for you.

00:31:31
Speaker 6: It was like.

00:31:33
Speaker 4: When your people are watching the show, they are they are putting their own family. Everybody has their own idea of what Miranda's family is. And he tells a great story that I don't you've probably heard about, Like I guess when they were doing season one, anytime they started talking about I think it was Miranda's family. Jenny was inserting her family, Michael was inserting his family, and he he realized, like that's how it should be. And the more information you actually have, right.

00:32:05
Speaker 6: The less you out of you.

00:32:08
Speaker 4: So that's why Becky and Baker is just enough.

00:32:12
Speaker 3: But I did love seeing it today. The idea that Miranda, this like strong person is like kind of afraid of her big sis.

00:32:20
Speaker 2: It was so good and it was so good. But what you said about Charlotte mothering.

00:32:26
Speaker 1: Like well, because then in the end when she cries on her shoulder, it's the cutest.

00:32:30
Speaker 3: And also just when she when when they see Miranda and like, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, and Samantha says, you look great, and you I totally forgot this that you say that is not one of the things I told.

00:32:44
Speaker 2: I delivered very lightly, which.

00:32:46
Speaker 7: I was very pleased.

00:32:48
Speaker 5: Another little bit of trivia.

00:32:50
Speaker 3: To make those flowers look as tacky as possible was not easy because it wasn't reading on in life they look insane and Jackie and yeah ur and weird. But then on screen you would look at the.

00:33:06
Speaker 2: And they were just like white flowers. So we kept saying, like more, more more.

00:33:12
Speaker 7: I mean, I.

00:33:12
Speaker 2: Didn't remember any of that.

00:33:13
Speaker 1: I remembered the outfit that I wore, but I would never have placed it in this outfit in this episode. Sorry, the outfit in the episode, and I remember it because there's a cute picture of me walking across the street with my flip phone and my little earpiece that like lives on you know, on Instagram or whatever. I never knew it was this episode and that I was, you know, taking Martha Stewart and the funeral and the situation.

00:33:36
Speaker 2: But I love the entire every moment.

00:33:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, dear, what did the notes tell you?

00:33:47
Speaker 2: I love you?

00:33:47
Speaker 1: I love you so much?

00:33:49
Speaker 5: I did I mention I'm a nerd.

00:33:52
Speaker 2: Best possible.

00:33:53
Speaker 5: Well, I realized that.

00:33:59
Speaker 3: Carrie's having a thing with Aiden where he's trying to be helpful and she's so irritated. Then she gets on the phone and is with Miranda and is like what can I do, like just wanting to support Miranda, and Miranda's like I'm fine. And then at that coffee shop scene, and I remember you said this because we were watching at the monitors, Carrie gets, you know, tears up when she says Miranda's mother dies and you come around and you hand her a handkerchief and she doesn't take it.

00:34:34
Speaker 2: Like I don't remember that part.

00:34:36
Speaker 5: It's very small.

00:34:37
Speaker 3: I remember you saying she's not she's not accepting that moment.

00:34:44
Speaker 6: Nobody wants.

00:34:45
Speaker 3: We all choose to be when we can really let ourselves be vulnerable or accept support. But like it was almost like a not a domino effect, but it was just suddenly I was seeing it in a different way that everyone no one's comfortable with it, like right, yeah, right, right, And that you know when when Carrie gets that call from Miranda and you see Aiden behind her and right trying to support her, and even just.

00:35:12
Speaker 2: Writ she has to go in the bathroom, she goes to the bath right.

00:35:15
Speaker 1: But also he heard when the funeral was, and he totally knows, and then she says she doesn't know.

00:35:21
Speaker 2: Heard me for Aiden. I'm totally sure that that's what he's playing.

00:35:24
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's what you guys intended, but I'm sure that's what he's playing, and which also is so thankful that he gets there.

00:35:31
Speaker 2: It's so good. It's so good.

00:35:44
Speaker 1: And let me ask you guys a general Aiden question because as I'm rewatching this now also we have all of our future knowledge, right, but when I'm rewatching it sometimes I forget because it's super super interesting and we've just we're.

00:35:58
Speaker 2: About to go to the country, right, that's the country is next? Is that right, Hannah? Yes, I think that's not, which is crazy.

00:36:05
Speaker 1: Right, and Big shows up, which is a whole complex thing, right, which I don't know if you guys remember this, it's supers it's super crazy.

00:36:14
Speaker 2: It's really interesting.

00:36:16
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I'm thinking about when I'm watching, you know, the aidan of it all. They're so different, right, but I love it that they're different, and I love it that they're trying.

00:36:27
Speaker 2: But then also you're like.

00:36:29
Speaker 1: They're just so fundamentally different, Like what at the time were you guys thinking big is the end game?

00:36:40
Speaker 2: You know, what was the writer's room thoughts then? No, I okay, I.

00:36:45
Speaker 1: Don't know, Okay, I mean I don't remember that there was a time that I believe also that it wasn't always discussed. It might have always been in Sir Jessica's heart and mind, but I don't feel like as a group that you guys were always like, how are we going to get to the end game of Big?

00:37:02
Speaker 3: I mean we knew then the beginning of the fourth season. We knew Aiden was not going to make it to the end of the season. We had that arced out on the whiteboard.

00:37:13
Speaker 4: I'm just going to say, like, I don't think we knew it was always going to be big, because then there were there were other boyfriends who we seriously Now I could say maybe maybe in Michael Patrick's head it was always going to be big, but I don't think that was openly discussed.

00:37:31
Speaker 2: When you say other boyfriends, do you mean Burger?

00:37:34
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I.

00:37:34
Speaker 6: Think there was a time.

00:37:36
Speaker 4: There was a time when at least some of the writers were kind of like, she needs this kind of guy.

00:37:43
Speaker 6: My god, yeah, kids connect.

00:37:44
Speaker 4: That would be not the actor. I mean we're going to get there.

00:37:50
Speaker 2: We haven't gotten it was written. Everyone knows every everyone listening.

00:37:55
Speaker 4: But it was I feel like it was a it was an open question, and it was like, well, she needs We've never seen her with that kind of maybe that's her guy, right, because a lot of us hadn't found our guys.

00:38:10
Speaker 2: Right, and you were writing for your own lives, so.

00:38:15
Speaker 4: There was like, who is it for her? And then who is it who haven't I met?

00:38:21
Speaker 2: Right? Yes, maybe that's a good point.

00:38:24
Speaker 3: I have to just like insert something because I mentioned for that first writing experience that obviously Cindy and Jenny who had been there before and were very instrumental in all of it, but there was also Amy b Harris.

00:38:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, al later, but I just want to.

00:38:42
Speaker 1: Say writing their own scripts, that's true, which is for me because I also have them in my head because they were around, right, but their names have not appeared on a script, and I were trying to wait till those names as I think it's really important.

00:38:56
Speaker 3: I want to say those names because and especially because Amy was there the fourth season and she was so.

00:39:02
Speaker 1: Absolutely really important, so right, and I also think that it's always great to remember that there was this really vibrant, interesting group of women who are writing our show because everyone thinks of my mythology. Yeah right, which it was only them for just a tiny amount of time without Jenny, Cindy.

00:39:25
Speaker 2: You know, the development, and it grew lucky for us.

00:39:28
Speaker 3: Okay, another line that we worked so hard on, you'll remember in Philadelphia outside the funeral. First of all, let it be said, Alisa and I are from Philadelica.

00:39:41
Speaker 4: Coincidentally, we did not Miranda, she has already been established.

00:39:50
Speaker 6: I don't remember that.

00:39:51
Speaker 4: There's a line season one or two where she says, like my mother's in Philadelphia and blah blah blah blah blah.

00:39:58
Speaker 6: It's something. It was just a throw.

00:40:00
Speaker 3: Okay, already we got very lucky, and maybe that's why we were hired. There's a line, well, first of all, that first shot of we're allegedly in Philadelphia. Of course we're shot up in like the Bronx or something. But and Samantha says, I'm not going to find my orgasm in this town. So first of all, you can imagine how much we got from our filling.

00:40:26
Speaker 2: Up get you know, we had to remember extra.

00:40:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, I believe in the script we were so I think we called them like gross guys, and then we had.

00:40:45
Speaker 2: Extras.

00:40:45
Speaker 3: It was like, oh my god, oh that's embarrassing. But anyway, they didn't know the voiceover. But okay, so so so you say to Samantha, that's not when she says you look great to write Miranda, and you say, that's not one of the things I told you to say. There was a line. Samantha said something back. We gave her a joke back and Michael was like, uh uh, that's not good enough. Come up with something better. And we were like, okay, back to the drawing bird. We came up with another line. Sent it in Julie.

00:41:16
Speaker 6: I'm so glad you still have to remember.

00:41:21
Speaker 2: So we came up with like another line.

00:41:24
Speaker 5: Nope, that's not it. I think we must have gone like round.

00:41:27
Speaker 2: Five to one of them was go home.

00:41:30
Speaker 5: And pull them up today.

00:41:31
Speaker 2: I don't remember any anyway, Here's.

00:41:33
Speaker 3: What the last thing we submitted, our last offering before we thought it was. And it says in the action line the Samantha like shrugs, and he laughed so hard at that.

00:41:46
Speaker 5: He was like, that's it.

00:41:48
Speaker 2: So it wasn't.

00:41:49
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, there's a line she doesn't have a little joke is Charlotte saying that's not Kim was like right, and that was us.

00:42:00
Speaker 5: Which you said, like we're just throwing our hand.

00:42:03
Speaker 1: With That's also the thing that I think is so interesting. Everyone loves it when the writers come on the podcast because yes, yes, first of all, because you guys were there and so you have all kinds of interesting memories and things that I don't have right from your own perspective. Second of all, they don't necessarily realize that you guys were the you know, or inspirational origin stories for all of our stories. So it's really interesting to hear, like Jenny's told us some amazing Cindy both, I mean, really fascinating you know.

00:42:33
Speaker 3: Of those episodes, by the way, of course, yeah, I love hearing them.

00:42:37
Speaker 1: Yeah they're all right, But it's fun for the audience to hear because especially also at the time, it wasn't like we had podcasts where we could have you guys talked about.

00:42:46
Speaker 2: They think no one came and interviewed you guys necessarily.

00:42:49
Speaker 5: Right, they didn't.

00:42:51
Speaker 3: The uncomfortable thing and now rewatching both the episodes we wrote in season four, I'm realizing, like there are a number of moments where people will say, like, that is so awful of her, and it's like that was me.

00:43:06
Speaker 2: Well just like.

00:43:07
Speaker 3: I mean, like viewers will well, like my computer crash and my incredible boyfriend was very helpful. Now your husband my husband and begged me to text her and like stayed there with me while I was like having I was, I was sweating and panicking.

00:43:25
Speaker 5: Everything was in that laptop.

00:43:27
Speaker 2: Because we know to back up.

00:43:32
Speaker 3: But I was irritated by him, much the way Carrie is by Aiden. And when I hear people say like, what is her? God, all he's doing is being a nice guy.

00:43:40
Speaker 2: I don't worry about no, no, no, no.

00:43:46
Speaker 1: First of all, I think it's a lot of what you already said, which is that when she's writing, he.

00:43:51
Speaker 2: Swoops in and just reads aloud. Okay, Like Aiden has a certain very different golden retriever.

00:44:00
Speaker 1: I mean not saying that hEDS On, but also John's bringing John to Aiden.

00:44:04
Speaker 4: You know she has some issues and well, and it's sayer.

00:44:07
Speaker 3: I was going to say, I remember our thing when we joined. I remember you said it in one of our last like conversations with Michael before we got hired, when we were talking about what we would want to do in season four is we were we wanted to lean into their flaws. And I remember you said warts and all, like do.

00:44:28
Speaker 2: You say their floods? You mean the four of us? Yes, ladies, I mean, this is one of the things I was just talking to Evan earlier about it.

00:44:35
Speaker 1: You know, people are complaining now that there aren't and I feel this way as well as as a viewer of you know, television or whatever we want to call it. Now, there's not a lot of flood women characters, and there certainly aren't four of them leading a show.

00:44:50
Speaker 5: I mean except for I Love La, which is great.

00:44:54
Speaker 6: Love that.

00:44:57
Speaker 3: Show.

00:44:59
Speaker 1: The four of them, there's three of them, I think, are they're three or four? Well, it depends if you want to count her boss late and mister.

00:45:06
Speaker 2: If we count her, there's four. Right, there's three friends with plus a guy.

00:45:10
Speaker 3: Right.

00:45:10
Speaker 1: But anyway, let's go back to the complicatedness, right, And you know, I do think it's interesting because at the time, and I don't know from a writing.

00:45:18
Speaker 2: Perspective, we're because right.

00:45:22
Speaker 1: When we start the show, it's you know, into a vacuum, right, like we've got the column Deren Scott Kandas's column. We're taking that as a jumping off point, as you know, the first see, yeah, at the beginning of the show, it's all over, it's all over, It's all over. But great, now that I've re watch, did I understand the really just starting from scratch right right? And how much you feel the city and the time and all of.

00:45:48
Speaker 6: Them right man on the street?

00:45:50
Speaker 7: Oh lord, yes.

00:45:51
Speaker 1: My goodness, all right, yeah, right, and now I do too now rewatching it from a distance, I also like all of it.

00:45:58
Speaker 2: I love all of it.

00:46:00
Speaker 1: But then as time went on and we got to deepen, like as writing and in the room, how much like if you guys talked to Michael before you started and you said, you know, words and all right, like it was discussed how much of the I mean, let's just talk about Carrie, because Carrie is obviously the central we've got aiden.

00:46:21
Speaker 4: She I will say, we never called her that, right.

00:46:26
Speaker 5: But of course as she should be.

00:46:28
Speaker 1: This is what I believed we signed on for, which is why I did never worry about whatever, Like whatever I got.

00:46:34
Speaker 2: Was, you know, icing or whatever. But I mean, how did you all look at her own what you were writing?

00:46:43
Speaker 1: Carrie's you know, issues as or like how aware of that were you?

00:46:50
Speaker 4: I I feel like everyone of us and consciously infused our own yeah things too.

00:47:05
Speaker 1: So it wasn't really discussed, but it was your writing, it.

00:47:11
Speaker 2: Was our person.

00:47:12
Speaker 3: We really wrote from a place of personal experience and and what we were wrestling with or what we had to get off our chests.

00:47:22
Speaker 1: Right, because when we get to a change of address, I mean, it's it's it's it's yeah out there right, it's right out there in a really great, great way. And I don't know, like, would you when you were let's say you got a signed okay, so you're going to do this one, then you're going to do that one? Would you tell the stories of your your own personal self in the room?

00:47:42
Speaker 5: Yeah?

00:47:42
Speaker 4: I mean we start I feel like it kind of goes there's an order, there's a disordered order to it, like you that season four, Yes, but all the seasons, like we start out telling a lot of stories and just trying to entertain each other with the crazy things that have happened in our lives, funny things we've heard from the things we've experienced, embarrassing experience, Like we just kind of do a big dome a brainstorm.

00:48:11
Speaker 5: Yes, everyone sharing.

00:48:13
Speaker 3: Someone's running up and writing things on the board that we want to read that.

00:48:17
Speaker 4: Are really that like get the biggest laughs, phrases, stories, anecdotes, friends, stories, all kinds of things. And then as the conversation develops over time, Michael I feel like one of his gifts is he'll hear a story, he'll hear an issue. Oh, he was so annoying that he was there. Julie's telling a story about tech support and she doesn't know it's going to be a Carrie story necessarily, she's like ooh. And then Ben was there and he was annoying me so much just by being so nice. And he's like, that's Carrie.

00:48:53
Speaker 6: Would have that issue with me, you know.

00:48:55
Speaker 4: And so it's like, you're telling the stories and then he's kind of bring them to people. Oh that's Miranda attitude. I, you know, hurt my neck in the writer's room and we didn't know that was going to be a Miranda story, but he was like, that would happen with Miranda.

00:49:13
Speaker 1: So he's like the conductor and all of you guys are just giving ideas freely, not even realizing where they might fit in or how.

00:49:21
Speaker 4: Do you get more experienced though, like I feel like and just like that not to jump ahead. There were things that ideas that I would have, that I would be like, this is such a Charlotte story. You know, with experience, we still do like every day, every day made me so happy.

00:49:45
Speaker 2: You've made me so happy to keep going. She's still with me, I mean, she's with me to.

00:49:50
Speaker 3: That season four and again it was our first first day rodeo this amazing. And but after we wrote my mother would myself that itself felt like, oh my god. That was like it was our dream come true. And then it was shot La la la, and we were sort of exhaling right when, of course we were in production, we were back in New York. Everything was now we're really up against it, and we figured like we were lucky we got.

00:50:22
Speaker 5: To write one, so you know you had guaranteed.

00:50:25
Speaker 7: No.

00:50:27
Speaker 3: Michael poked his head into our office and he was like, how do you feel about writing four fifteen?

00:50:34
Speaker 5: Wow?

00:50:35
Speaker 2: Like, can you guys believe how many episodes we used to do?

00:50:49
Speaker 4: No, just last night my husband was like, you guys did eighteen episodes.

00:50:54
Speaker 2: I was like, I know, how did they live through it?

00:50:56
Speaker 6: Season six we did twenty.

00:50:57
Speaker 1: I know because you remember why right, No, it wasn't really broken into on the air.

00:51:04
Speaker 2: It was not.

00:51:06
Speaker 1: It was because of the pregnancy season and that was season five, I know. But yeah, because then when they got us back, they were like, well, we're not letting them go anywhere.

00:51:15
Speaker 2: We're going to make them do.

00:51:16
Speaker 1: As many as we possibly can, and then we're just going to do what we want with it later in post. But we worked for a calendar year into the cold when it was five.

00:51:27
Speaker 4: Degrees and we had to wear the real blizzard, yes, the real blizzard.

00:51:33
Speaker 5: The being in New York.

00:51:37
Speaker 3: Once we came back, like as Elsa was saying, like you generally you didn't know exactly what episode you were going to do, And I heard you talking to Jenny about this, and it's true, like if you had, you know, in her case, she gave as a great example a woman's right to shoose right, But if you had, if you had a story, uh, you likened him to conduct. I also feel like like he's a chef opening a refrigerator and things that you would think, like we should throw out this mandarin orange, nobody's going to eat this, but he would find a way to like whip it into something.

00:52:13
Speaker 2: I'm mixing a lot of metaphors.

00:52:15
Speaker 5: Like.

00:52:17
Speaker 3: We once we were back in New York because we'd done all the writing and the not all the writing, but that the planning, the first batch of scripts we wrote out there, but I remember we were here when we got notes, and then back in New York, of course we're living our lives and having more experiences and things that we wanted to put into the season. So that felt like an infusion of we would have different kinds of writers rooms. It wasn't ever like it was in la when we were very methodically.

00:52:47
Speaker 2: Right, it was always methodogis.

00:52:49
Speaker 3: It was just different, right right, right, well, because you were more because we were on set.

00:52:53
Speaker 4: Were out of hysterical let's say, like more frantic pace, and we would be we would have writers writers meet all over the city, right like a restaurant, sometimes at night, like they remember so vividly a night where we were we had a late night, probably like at you know, crew lunch at you know, nine o'clock.

00:53:14
Speaker 2: At lunch could be at any time, you guys.

00:53:18
Speaker 4: It would be dinner for everybody else. But we would be like I remember we were at Blue Ribbon Bakery, having dinner the writers, just the writers, and at the next table there were people who were talking about Sex and the City, this this week's episode of Sex and City, and they were debating amongst themselves, and we were having a writer's meeting about future episodes. I love so thrilling like that, so thrilling, so thrilling happened like that doesn't So.

00:53:46
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this.

00:53:47
Speaker 1: So you you write my motherboard myself, which obviously was huge, and you were you happy with it?

00:53:53
Speaker 4: Like did you feel well?

00:53:55
Speaker 5: First of all, Wendy Stanzler, our incredible editor, went on to become an end credible director, but she cut that episode.

00:54:03
Speaker 3: She was the editor of that episode. And I remember Michael invited us down. When you got invited to see a cut of an episode, like it was very exciting, and I remember watching it and thinking, this.

00:54:17
Speaker 5: Is terrible, This is terrible.

00:54:20
Speaker 3: Why did you think I could see every cut? It was like I was floating. I can't explain how I had zero perspective. All I could see were things I went into, oh tweak. And I remember after that little break you loved it.

00:54:35
Speaker 2: I loved it, thank god.

00:54:41
Speaker 3: I So I was like, I have some thoughts and I remember Michael had to go back to set because you know, and he was like, you sit.

00:54:51
Speaker 2: Down with Wendy, do whatever you want with her, but don't don't mess with that.

00:54:56
Speaker 3: And I remember Wendy was awesome, and I was like, just this moment, is there a take where she did this? I was just you know, I'm mean, yes, yeah, I had to live yet in there a little, but I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it in the way that now I can see it.

00:55:14
Speaker 5: I was closed to it.

00:55:15
Speaker 2: I don't understand.

00:55:16
Speaker 1: I mean, I definitely my first viewing, I have it, but only about me, right, So I mean, first of all, I loved I loved every episode. I don't remember any I don't remember at the time ever being like yeah, that one was bad or whatever. It would never enter my mind, right, But I might think I was bad, you know, or I might think like I didn't do great in that scene, or I didn't do what I wanted in that scene or something like that.

00:55:39
Speaker 4: You know, you ever think like, oh, I thought I was doing a different thing. Like would you ever be surprised like, oh, that's how it turned out or that's how I turned.

00:55:49
Speaker 2: Out, Not fundamentally no.

00:55:52
Speaker 1: And I think that's because I really know Charlotte, right, Like I really know Charlotte. Like certain directors would try to tell me that I was wrong, and I was like, no, no, I'm really sorry, you're wrong. But I didn't have to wherewithal to say that to them, so I'd have to go call Michael prit and be like, Michael, I really need your help down here, and you get down here being told, Yeah, I'm being told something that is fundamentally not true about my girl, and it's like messing with me.

00:56:15
Speaker 2: Sure need help me, back up, help me, help me.

00:56:19
Speaker 1: I do feel like maybe now when I'm looking at it, I can see layers that were going on, Like personally, I guess, meaning, you know, because as much as you're acting, you're also a human being and you're in whatever situation you're in right that day or.

00:56:38
Speaker 2: With that person or whatever.

00:56:40
Speaker 1: Like I was watching an episode recently and I thought to myself, you know, why is my voice so high? And I do think I was. Charlotte was nervous in what she was saying. It was I don't want to say too much because I want to tell the whole story. And if I say too much. You're gonna know what I'm talking about. Then I realized it was a director who didn't really get me. No, we're responding to that, right not you didn't feel safe you right?

00:57:07
Speaker 2: Right?

00:57:07
Speaker 3: Well, it's also I have to say that the distance of time because and it's true I am very critical and and things that bothered me at the time, like really it was hard for me to let that go.

00:57:23
Speaker 1: Let me just say one thing though, you wrote it, so you had a very clear vision in your mind.

00:57:28
Speaker 2: I totally understand why, no matter.

00:57:30
Speaker 1: How great the episode is, if it doesn't match was in your mind.

00:57:34
Speaker 2: Of course, Harry, in a process.

00:57:36
Speaker 4: Of think, there's fear that you have when you're watching it. As much as I'm a fan, like I do relate, I do relate to.

00:57:46
Speaker 6: Is this is this good?

00:57:48
Speaker 5: Oh?

00:57:48
Speaker 2: Yeah it is.

00:57:50
Speaker 6: I think it's good.

00:57:51
Speaker 3: But now I have to say, now, all these years later, my kids are teenagers.

00:57:56
Speaker 5: They started watching the entire series.

00:58:00
Speaker 3: From the beginning, and I they they of course held this up to me. I sat each time it was like, oh that that was really that's better than I remember.

00:58:12
Speaker 2: Like I realized all.

00:58:13
Speaker 3: My criticism, all my criticism, Yes, yes, I think didn't allow me to just sit and enjoy and enjoy.

00:58:20
Speaker 1: It, oh for sure only now yeah yeah, yeah, yeah no, that is the problem being a perfectionist.

00:58:26
Speaker 5: Yea.

00:58:26
Speaker 1: But I also want to say, just as a side note, you're a fantastic director.

00:58:31
Speaker 2: Oh that's you really are.

00:58:33
Speaker 1: I called you and told you this, and I mean, I mean, I knew that you would be because you're so you know, steeped in everything, and your brain already is working like that. For people whose brain works like that, there's people.

00:58:47
Speaker 2: Whose brain doesn't. My brain doesn't really work.

00:58:49
Speaker 6: Like a director.

00:58:50
Speaker 1: You know.

00:58:50
Speaker 2: They were always forever asking me, do you want director?

00:58:52
Speaker 7: Please?

00:58:52
Speaker 2: God no, please go first of.

00:58:54
Speaker 1: All, because I have the children and I can't be asked any more questions.

00:58:58
Speaker 2: During That's how I feel you're with me.

00:59:01
Speaker 4: You want to I'm like, I want to not direct exactly exactly joy directing exactly very natural.

00:59:09
Speaker 1: Here, it does because that's how your brain is already functioning. So I could see why if you're just writing and kind of giving over that there's a process.

00:59:18
Speaker 3: And yeah, I realized because it took me until and just like that to actually direct. But you're right, I think I was like a frustrated director but I didn't realize that it was.

00:59:30
Speaker 1: And a lot of actors are frustrated directors too, and sometimes you can tell because they're trying to say something about what the other actors doing, and I'm almost like, that's not true, that's not.

00:59:41
Speaker 2: Back up, back up. But I'm not that way. I would love to produce. I want to put the people together to make.

00:59:47
Speaker 6: The projects right.

00:59:48
Speaker 2: Let's do that.

00:59:50
Speaker 5: Let's do it.

00:59:50
Speaker 1: Let's do it, you guys, because you guys are such incredible team players.

00:59:54
Speaker 2: That's the other thing that I want to say.

00:59:56
Speaker 3: And you're you're The thing I haven't said enough on this podcast is looking back. We can talk all night long about the writing or the directing. It's you guys, like you know anything.

01:00:08
Speaker 2: I laugh at I realized.

01:00:09
Speaker 5: It's not the writing. I mean is it's your youth.

01:00:16
Speaker 1: We have incredible chemistry. It's true, we have incredible chemistry. And sometimes I'm also I mean, no.

01:00:22
Speaker 7: You can't.

01:00:22
Speaker 2: You can't.

01:00:23
Speaker 1: I agree, But you can also have incredible chemistry. And if you don't have the foundation of the writing, it's just frothy.

01:00:31
Speaker 2: Do you know what I'm saying?

01:00:32
Speaker 1: You just like evaporate into nothing. It won't land without the foundation of the writing, and I feel like, what's so great about the writing? And this is true, and we want to talk about a change of address as well. I was trying to put my makeup on stupidly while I was watching my Motherboard myself.

01:00:51
Speaker 6: Anticipating the tears.

01:00:53
Speaker 1: No, And of course I've cried it all off anyway now, so it's fine, and who really cares.

01:00:58
Speaker 4: I was so stupid, do what you mean?

01:01:01
Speaker 1: But like, also, it's one of those things and people say this to me all the time, like, oh, you know, the first time I watched the show, I thought I was a carrier or whatever, and now with life experience, I think I'm at this that or whatever. Like to watch my mother board myself.

01:01:13
Speaker 2: From this perspective, it's just so good painful.

01:01:18
Speaker 1: You know, it's painful because we were so innocent. You know, we were so innocent, don't you feel But that's also like you guys wrote it so beautifully that you can have these different reactions over the years as.

01:01:31
Speaker 2: You're seeing it. It's amazing.

01:01:33
Speaker 4: Thank you such a Yeah, it's a really blessing to have been part of it.

01:01:39
Speaker 3: We should also mention a big inspiration for that was there was a lot of loss behind the scenes. Melfie had just lost his mother. Yeah, and Grace. Yeah, you felt like we were doing this to honor.

01:01:57
Speaker 2: All of that, and you did a beautiful job. You did a beautiful job. Also, Jenny going through the cancer twice. I mean, at this point in time and.

01:02:05
Speaker 3: Michael had lost his father, right there is all that it was starting.

01:02:09
Speaker 1: It was starting, and obviously we're at many many years later and many losses later. But also I feel like the idea that you even tried, you know that even everyone was like, hey, we've got this comedy that's you know, like getting.

01:02:26
Speaker 4: Thank god Michael had the courage to do to do that. It was he came in on day one and knew that that was going to happen at some point, and there were other there were other things.

01:02:38
Speaker 6: I remember that was the most clear season. Then you knew what Yeah, he was like, this is happening, and that's happening, and that's happening.

01:02:47
Speaker 3: I realized when you're saying this, and I'll try not to cry that watching it again this morning, what got me choked up was that last line.

01:02:58
Speaker 5: She's at her laptop and she says.

01:03:04
Speaker 3: It's something about accepting support, and then she says, so kind a boyfriend if you can learn to let him. And I was like, and that's so big, the busiest transition to four fifteen, because that was like me pushing this great guy away.

01:03:21
Speaker 7: Away.

01:03:22
Speaker 3: I mean, I can get into it in change of address, but like, I did not want to get married for many, many years.

01:03:28
Speaker 2: And he tried.

01:03:30
Speaker 7: That is adorable.

01:03:31
Speaker 2: I don't think I knew this. It's only adorable because it ended.

01:03:34
Speaker 1: Well, right, So well, that was so like when she says, when when your boyfriend gets down in the street and proposed to you, just say this because that's what you do.

01:03:45
Speaker 2: Not that I wanted it. She's basically saying I didn't. I don't want this. Yeah, that's where you were.

01:03:50
Speaker 7: Wow.

01:03:51
Speaker 2: And also I felt like I'd never seen on TV.

01:03:54
Speaker 3: I'd only seen a proposal scene where the woman says yes or true.

01:03:59
Speaker 6: And all to atoms.

01:04:00
Speaker 5: You know, I want to get right right by the woman right.

01:04:04
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:04:04
Speaker 5: And I felt very alone. I felt very alone in not wanting to get married.

01:04:09
Speaker 2: You should have come and talked to me.

01:04:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's let's take a trip back.

01:04:17
Speaker 5: But yeah, I felt really like a freak.

01:04:20
Speaker 3: And it was I was relieved that Michael wanted to put that on the air and give that character.

01:04:28
Speaker 1: Because Michael knows that this is a cultural situation. This is a cultural situation where women message to be.

01:04:35
Speaker 2: You should want to get married, you should want to go.

01:04:38
Speaker 6: You should be patient about it even.

01:04:40
Speaker 2: Right, and thank god this is changing. Yeah, I didn't have that. It's a good thing. It's a good thing, but it is taking so long. Good god. You know what I mean.

01:04:51
Speaker 5: On your other podcast that women are now.

01:04:56
Speaker 2: The highest right, house.

01:04:58
Speaker 1: Owners are a single because we were talking about when Miranda, Remember when Miranda has to keep like saying that she's single when she's buying the house. I've been through this personally. It's that's that still happens. The banks have cut off.

01:05:11
Speaker 2: I mean maybe not quite as much as it was, but it's up.

01:05:14
Speaker 1: There where they're just like wait where they're like even with my kids right at school, the fact that there's only one signature on all of the permissions and the contracts, you know for like they always yes admission, you must get very worried that the other parent who's out there is not an agreement or you know what I'm saying, You have like legal worries. You have to jump through some hoops man to be like, no, I am the only one the soul.

01:05:39
Speaker 2: I am the only one. Pollease get on.

01:05:42
Speaker 4: Board right, let's kind of sign you guys.

01:05:45
Speaker 1: This is so much fun that we're going to have to have a part two, so join us later in the week on Are You a Charlotte?