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Welcome to Ride for the Roll the podcast.
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I'm your host, John Frank Levy.
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Thanks for joining me as I sit down with my friends and colleagues to explore their journeys to discover the roles they're right for, professionally and personally.
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I've long admired the acting skills of my guest today.
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I've had the good fortune to cast her a number of times.
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But in today's conversation, I learned so much more about her.
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That's the delight of Ride for the Role, the podcast.
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Welcome, Lisa Edelstein.
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Your life really exemplifies the theme of the podcast, which is reinvention, growth, change, intentionality, all of those things.
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As I got to know you through the research that we did, you know, it's just extraordinary how uh in charge of yourself you are.
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And I really admire that.
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And normally I start at the beginning, you know, but I'd like to start at the this gigantic transition that's happening.
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Uh there was this pandemic.
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Uh we all remember it.
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And one of the things that you did during the pandemic was move your parents out here to Southern California from New Jersey, where they still in the family home in New Jersey.
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They were they were actually in the Berkshires and part-time in Texas, where where my sister has lived for many, many years.
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Uh-huh.
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They were physically in the Berkshires when I when we started this process.
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And and one of the uh besides reconnecting on a regular basis, you know, with them and uh sharing this experience of the pandemic with them, they brought along a trove of images.
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And you looked at those images, they were the diaspora of your family's life.
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And you translated them into paintings.
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Tell me about that process and how that spoke to you and what was going on in your heart when you found the uh those images Well, it is like revisiting your whole life when you inherit so many images.
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And there was a combination between just sort of being in the receipt of all this, all of these images, and also the kind of way we were spending time during the pandemic.
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I was working, I was doing the Kaminsky method and Lone Star at the same time during the pandemic.
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So I was actually working, but there was nothing else happening.
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Everything else was silence.
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And that kind of sense of not needing to be anywhere, that sense of comfort at your downtime was a really beautiful experience for me.
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And I decided to use my time by making myself a coloring book from these images that I had gotten.
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And when I was looking through them, I started at first I was thinking about the kind of dark side of suburban childhoods, you know, the cigarette smoking in the backyard, give giving your kid a side-eye glare, um, lots of tab.
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That's a soft drink.
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Um, just sort of um this this the affectations of suburbia, et cetera, et cetera.
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And and through that I started to see my own family and the amount of yarmicas that were in my childhood, the the faces of my grandparents and my great-grandparents and my aunts and uncles, these beautiful immigrant faces.
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And all of that sort of became a part of what I wanted to explore with my paintings.
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And you you as a child you were an avid drawer, magic markers, is that what you use?
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I loved magic markers as a kid.
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Yeah.
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And medium, I don't uh I don't know.
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Well, you know, the cheap magic markers you get if as a kid is one thing, but but they are these beautiful markers now that exist in the world.
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There's um two a few different kinds that I know about, and they are like you can blend them just a little bit.
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The colors are extraordinary, they they really stay, and uh they have a paint tip end or one of those um sort of block ends, but I like the paint tip end.
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Um, and so yeah, so I started using what I what I was most familiar with, with which was these magic markers, and then the the work started getting larger and more ornate and more complex and larger and larger.
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And so I started um pouring the ink out of the refills and using a paintbrush, and then finally I started just learning how to paint because it was becoming absurd.
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I just had to learn how to mix colors.
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I needed to learn how to use watercolor and how to mix colors.
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And once I did that, I was sort of like set free.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I I've seen a few of of your paintings, and that they are to me, they I I I felt like that I was looking at a a theater piece on canvas.
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I uh that that it there was there's something wonderfully bigger and more vivid than my life.
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Uh maybe my life is a little dull, but your the diaspora that you are depicting has real depth of color and uh and and it just it as a result it has a real emotionality.
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Thank you so much.
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I feel like uh because I've worked so long as an actress and a storyteller, writer, director, it's definitely a part of how I like to paint, which is very narrative.
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And yeah, it is theatrical.
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I love that.
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And that those are the images I'm looking for.
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A lot of times people will be like, hey, can you paint my family?
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And they'll send me a picture of like them and their favorite aunt or whatever, arm in arm, and it's a completely boring picture.
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It's like blow the picture up.
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It won't make it, it won't make it better to have it as a painting.
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It's just gonna be two people you love.
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So finding the images that actually have sort of an honesty about them or a a secret about them or a question about them, it makes it, it's very exciting for me.
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But it's hard to find that.
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And uh you you you in your rise as a painter has been so fast.
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I mean, nothing happens that fast.
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Uh but but you but you you know, you you and your husband are about to have a show at the Skrble Center.
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Uh uh I don't normally uh help advertise people's events and projects, but I can't wait to to see the this stuff and in uh in in more detail.
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And and uh um I'm very interested in seeing your husband's work as well.
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Um but let's go back to the beginning now, if it's okay.
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Um you know, I I think of drawing and painting as kind of solitary activities, and the the film and television storytelling world that you landed in is a very communal interactive world.
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Were you a girl who spent a lot of time alone with your magic markers?
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I was, yeah, I was.
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And I also enjoyed like I was a dancer and uh which is also sort of an inward experience, even when you're dancing with other people.
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Yeah, I think I always used coloring and drawing as a coping mechanism, uh, as a as a personal retreat.
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Um and I liked making things.
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It was it was fun for me.
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Uh so what was interesting about it for me in retrospect is that I never really thought of it as something to present to other people, uh because it was about struggle.
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It was about if I'm struggling somewhere else, this is what I do self-soothe, or this is this is a practice that I have that I can enjoy on my own and calm my brain.
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Um but when I met my husband, who's he's an extraordinary artist and very accomplished, uh, and really an art historian, he's so he's so well educated in the in all these things.
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Um, I've learned so much from him.
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I started to he gave me a beautiful painting on our second date and and asked me for a drawing in return.
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And so it immediately became a part of kind of our love language.
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And it became, you know, we have so many artist friends and all their work is on the walls, and he would put a couple of things that I made on the walls, and it sort of became part of the way we breathed and moved through space.
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And so when I really started a very serious practice where I was painting or drawing, you know, eight, ten, twelve hours a day, then there was a place for it to go.
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It wasn't just something that was gonna fold up and go away.
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And once I knew that there was somewhere for it to go, I I suddenly had permission to really dive deeply into it.
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Yeah.
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But it started out that you were doing it for the doing.
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Um Exactly.
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Right?
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And and that's such a freeing thing.
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I this past year I wrote and directed a short film for the first time.
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Uh, you know, I've been participating in storytelling for 40 something years, but I had never taken the lead of in that way.
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And I honestly don't care if anybody ever sees it.
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I mean, it'd be wonderful if they did, but that that wasn't I uh that wasn't the point.
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The the point was doing it for the doing.
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And that's so freeing.
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And you you learn so much too.
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I I I wrote and directed a short film right after I finished Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, and and it was uh I I learned so much in the doing of it, and I loved doing it.
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You you and you learn about the and you learn about the whole process in a more holistic way.
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I think it would be great for everybody in our business to have that experience.
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I I think you're right.
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Um and nowadays you can make a fo you know you you can make it on your phone.
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So uh so that there's that.
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So we uh I I asked pretty much everybody who's a guest on the podcast this question, which is where did you get the nerve to think you could have a creative life?
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We've been doing this our whole lives.
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You mean as an actor as well?
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Yeah, I mean as a life.
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You know, it's a good question.
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I think that most people are not blessed with an idea of what they want to do or be in the world.
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And even though what we do is so theoretically impossible, it's a gift to want it.
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It's a gift to have a real honest drive for something, because that is not what most people have.
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Most people are trying to find a job that they don't want to die doing.
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You know what I mean?
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That that somehow they're gonna get pleasure out of.
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And to to have an idea that some there is something that you love out there that you could potentially make a living doing is is a blessing.
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Absolutely.
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You know, uh I wrote this memoir during the pandemic uh while you were painting.
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I I wrote this memoir with you know, with the help of of my friend Trudy Roth.
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And it's called Ride for the Role, and obviously it's a reference to actors wanting to get hired.
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But more than that, it's uh it's about finding the role and roles in my life that I was right for, that my that who I am became assets.
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And um that that is is similar to what your, you know, your journey.
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You found all these things that you that that who you are became assets in instead of deficits.
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And uh I I think that's great.
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Uh self-discovery is an important part of it.
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That's all we have, right?
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That's all we have is is who we are.
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And that, especially as performers, any kind of any kind of artistic expression, who you are is completely unique and wildly valuable, and to be explored and owned and and expressed, and uh, you know, it's it you're the only one that has it.
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So so learning that sometimes, I mean, I as you know, sometimes you can have an amazing audition for a role where it felt so great and there was something that really happened in the room, and not get that part.
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And that's not because you aren't valuable or amazing or brilliant or any of those incredible things, but it's because you weren't actually the right human being to embody that part for the people who are telling the story.
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And you'll get another one down the road just by representing yourself in a really powerful way.
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Yep, absolutely.
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One of the wonderful things that I found out about you, which really surprised me in one way and then not at all in another way, uh at 16, you were a cheerleader for Donald Trump's USFL football team, and you objected to the way the the women who uh uh who who were your cohorts were being sexualized and depicted, and you organized a protest.
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Uh I love that story.
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That just knocked me out.
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Do you remember doing that?
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And were you cautious as hell about it?
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You know, I was I was a kid and I was working with grownups.
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Like these were women in their 20s and 30s who actually were cheerleaders for a living.
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I was a dancer, I was a local dancer, and I was hired to replace somebody very quickly.
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They needed a dancer who could learn all of their cheers in two days.
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And it was really fun.
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Like the outfits were cute.
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I had to get off stronger arms because you had to run the length of the football field with your pom-poms in the air.
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That was very tiring.
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Um, you're dancing in high heels for an entire game.
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The whole thing was hilarious to me.
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I got I got my first bangs.
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I I Yvonne Cut Trump had to make me spin and see if my she liked the way my butt look in the uniform.
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I mean, the whole thing was for me a fun, funny experience.
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But for these women, it was their livelihoods.
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I mean, I got paid$35 a game.
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Um they but somehow it was their livelihoods and it was very important to them.
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And the uh they started having them go to all these bars in their outfits with no protection to promote the league, and they were really feeling very, very unsafe and they were not taken seriously.
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And so that was how it all started.
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And I I I couldn't be treated that way because I was a minor, but but I was the only minor on the team.
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So yeah.
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I was a part of this walkout, and yeah, it was great.
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And then after high school, you went to NYU Tisch, but you didn't go to study classical theater or musical theater or anything conventional.
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You were studying experimental theater.
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Uh uh that that was a brave and unique choice, and that led to the identity of Lisa E in the club scene in Manhattan.
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And that was a uh, you know, you were bumping into Warhol and his people, and you were exposed as a very young, young woman, to uh a world that was a whole lot different than your suburban childhood.
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I was I couldn't have been more thrilled.
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Uh it the that world was it it's different from today.
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That world was a very artist-driven community, very, very much uh microcosm.
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Uh, you don't really have microcosms as much anymore, certainly not multi-generational ones.
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This was very multi-generational.
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Most of my friends were much older than me.
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And it was exciting because there were so many people who were living their lives in ways that were unexpected or unacceptable to the outside world.
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And and that is very grounding for somebody.
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That that is when you see people expressing themselves and all those genuinely expressing themselves, living their lives uh in a way that is so different from what was acceptable, it's it's relaxing because there's no way there's anything wrong with you.
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You know what I mean?
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You're if the world has all these possibilities, then you belong in the world, no matter what you are.
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Uh, and so as a young person, I was just desperate for that because I grew up in a very conservative suburban environment just outside of New York, but still very stifling.
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And I mean, there were so many kids in our high school that I didn't even know were gay, and they they came out very late because they they lived a whole life of uh repression in that town, and and you could feel it, whether or not you that was your issue, you could feel that there was a certain a low ceiling of creative expression.
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And so I was thrilled to be around that.
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And then um it sort of the whole Lisa E aspect of it sort of became uh uh what's it called when you get a little pebble that rolls down the hill and just pick something but and then it just becomes this like huge, unexpected experience um that I was.
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And in today's world, it would be you went viral.
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Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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But there was no real understanding of that.
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So uh when the New York Times, Maureen Dow did this big article on me in the New York Times magazine, and and my phone number was listed in the phone book, and my address was listed in the phone book.
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So I suddenly had, you know, 40 or 50 stalkers, and I was a kid, and I didn't I didn't know how to manage any of that.
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So it was very frightening.
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But it was great because I learned all about celebrity before I was, you know, truly I had true value to the world.
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I was just famous for no reason, and uh it really shifted how I viewed my my dreams and goals for the future that celebrity status was not a goal.
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And you know, that is something kids need to learn because they see their favorite actors on TV or their or their, you know, whatever their influencer fans or whatever they are.
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But it's it's such a a burden.
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The celebrity aspect of what we do is more of a burden than a bonus.
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Um, you get free stuff sometimes, but you also lose control of your own reputation.
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You become public.
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What if private becomes public, et cetera, et cetera.
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So I learned that very young.
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Yeah.
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Interesting.
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You told us a story uh when we visited you at the house that house built.
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Um about about uh being called up on stage at at your temple and f thinking that you you know it was because of some It was our anniversary.
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Yeah, it was your anniversary, but in fact it was because of your celebrity that you had been chosen, and how in in a way you you've been grappling with that since you were Lisa E.
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Yes, I have.
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I it's always been uh when we were on house, that was the beginning of Twitter.
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So the left it was like it since Twitter had just started, you were still in a period where you'd be chased by paparazzi because not everybody had a smartphone yet.
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Um, so people with cameras could make a lot of money if they captured you going in the pharmacy or in a parking lot or whatever it was.
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So there was a different kind of paranoia at that point that was then shifting into the whole Twitter thing where suddenly it was about millions of followers and everybody judging what you say or what you book at such a high speed.
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Uh, and I I actually have never been comfortable with the social media aspect of it because of my early experiences with celebrity.
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I find being exposed to that many people very frightening.
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One of the great accomplishments that came during that period that you were, you know, that you were finding your identity and seeing all of this creativity around was that you created the first AIDS musical at the Cafe La Mama, which by the way, uh when I was in high school in the 60s, I went to Cafe La Mama uh uh and I met Ellen Stewart, and she was very kind to me and encouraging of my dreams of creativity.
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Ellen was amazing.
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About Ellen and about the musical and about the impact that had.
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Again, uh it was such a you've you've done the first of a lot of things in your life, and they've been chosen, uh, which I think is w wonderful.
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The so here's the upside of celebrity.
00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:54.240
I think because I had gotten this celebrity for no particular reason, that experience made me really retreat from the club scene from that whole world.
00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:56.319
Um, I left school.
00:21:56.640 --> 00:21:59.759
I needed to sort of get my head together.
00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:10.400
And I ended up writing this musical about the AIDS crisis because what I was seeing was a lot of my friends dying very rapidly.
00:22:10.559 --> 00:22:14.720
And then friends that I knew from New Jersey thinking it was made up.
00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:17.039
They didn't believe that it was really happening.
00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:19.440
So I was living between these two worlds.
00:22:19.519 --> 00:22:33.279
And I was volunteering for Gay Men's Health Crisis, which uh was an organization that had uh arranged for people to go visit people who were dying of AIDS in the hospital because a lot of times their families wouldn't go in.
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:38.000
Um, people were afraid to touch them, people didn't really understand how the disease was spread.
00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:44.559
Uh so we had done 27 hours of this workshop to learn everything that was known at the time about the disease.
00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:55.279
And when people from the club scene that I knew discovered that I had taken this workshop, then people started pulling me into bathrooms to show me things on their body, to ask me if they were dying, things in their mouth.
00:22:55.359 --> 00:22:58.319
I mean, it was like there was so much terror happening.
00:22:58.480 --> 00:23:11.039
And so that was, and I had been studying experimental theater, I'd been studying with Elizabeth Suedos, I'd been studying like all this, like sort of make yourself ground up, do it how you want to do it, storytelling.
00:23:11.279 --> 00:23:16.480
And I pitched my idea to Ellen at La Mama.
00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:28.319
And I think what helped was that she knew at least for a workshop weekend, I would have an audience because people were curious about what I would actually do with the attention I was getting.
00:23:28.640 --> 00:23:33.519
And then through that workshop weekend, I earned the full production, which was a year later.
00:23:33.599 --> 00:23:35.200
They matched all the funds that I raised.
00:23:35.359 --> 00:23:38.720
I raised funds by singing and dancing in people's living room.
00:23:39.039 --> 00:23:45.039
It was a very, it was a very from the ground up production, and it was an amazing experience.
00:23:45.279 --> 00:23:46.240
Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:46.400 --> 00:24:03.680
Well, when you create something out of nothing but your instinct and storytelling skills, uh it's again doing it for for the doing, you know, with no it wasn't going to enhance you in any economic way or any.
00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:09.599
I was very broke after that.
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:11.279
Yeah, I'm sure.
00:24:11.519 --> 00:24:27.759
Um you know, uh recently I came to you with this play that Talisa Friedman has written, and so we're so excited that you're excited about it, and you've had so many uh interesting ideas already.
00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:36.079
I think it resonated for you because you have a real sense of your Jewish identity and a real active faith.
00:24:36.319 --> 00:24:37.759
Uh where does that come from?
00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:41.119
How has that impacted your storytelling life?
00:24:41.279 --> 00:24:45.680
Uh what part of your journey does faith play?
00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:55.759
Well, I grew up in a very religious, not religious, not like Orthodox household, but much more so than my neighbors.
00:24:56.240 --> 00:24:59.839
Uh we were kosher, we went to synagogue every week.
00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:05.440
So I think there's a certain structure that I grew up with that is maybe different from a lot of people.
00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:23.759
It requires Judaism doesn't necessarily require a belief system, but it requires a practice of questioning uh and and looking at things, always measuring the ethical, the the sort of this ethical scale of things.
00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:29.200
Um it's very thoughtful, more than it is faith-driven, I think.
00:25:29.440 --> 00:25:34.799
Uh, and for me, in my life, I'm much more um I love ritual.
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:38.000
I love the ritual that came with with growing up that way.
00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:43.200
And I try to make a home that way that's filled with like a way of marking time.
00:25:43.359 --> 00:26:00.559
We do Shabbat dinners, not because we are obligated to, but because it's such a beautiful way of reminding us and the whole family to reconnect and to take the time that we've earned to be present with each other.
00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:10.640
I love ritual because it I feel like it ties me to the ancestors that I may or may not have known as maybe even my descendants.
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:13.680
Like it's sort of a beautiful way of flattening time.
00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:17.599
And all all those things are just sort of part of my zeros and ones.
00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:23.119
And in terms of like how they've influenced my career, I I never changed my name.
00:26:23.279 --> 00:26:36.559
I never felt like I really I never felt like I could move forward in life without my name, uh, even though I never really cared for my name until I met a German girl who was like, Oh, Lisa Edelstein, not a beautiful name because it me it means precious stone.
00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:42.960
Um, so it's actually a very fancy name if you speak German, but it's in in America, it is not.
00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:47.359
In America, it sort of pegged me as a thing, a Jewish person.
00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:52.880
And that came with feelings from other people of what they thought that meant.
00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:57.440
Uh, and a lot of times that wasn't an attractive thing to be seen as.
00:26:57.680 --> 00:27:02.000
So it was something to overcome, but also something I couldn't walk away from.
00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:07.359
And then in the end, it just made a lot of my characters Jewish by default.
00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:07.839
Yeah.
00:27:09.759 --> 00:27:10.960
Because I made them that way.
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:11.599
Yeah.
00:27:11.759 --> 00:27:11.920
Yeah.
00:27:12.079 --> 00:27:21.839
Uh there were some characters that you played that had not Jewish names, but uh it seemed like you intentionally asked, perhaps, to have the character.
00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:23.119
They made them Jewish.
00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:26.480
Abby McCarthy is like on Girlfriends Graduate Divorce.
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:32.400
By episode two, they were trying to explain why my name was McCarthy and I was Jewish, but it wasn't my doing.
00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:35.119
It was it was the the creator's doing.
00:27:35.279 --> 00:27:40.160
They wanted to incorporate that part of myself into the show.
00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:42.559
But it was never a demand from me.
00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:43.440
Okay.
00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:47.920
But we did cast you in the live episode of ER.
00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:56.079
You played the director of the documentary that was being made that was the, and I think that must be where you first met Tommy Schlamy.
00:27:57.200 --> 00:28:25.920
No, I met Tommy Schlamy on a sitcom that I had had a recurring character on with Nancy Travis, and he directed me in a few episodes there, and then ER, and then uh Tommy cast me in sports a replacement on sports night, to a last-minute replacement of somebody who had gotten fired on sports night, and that's how I ended up on West Wing.
00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:26.480
Right.
00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:29.519
Yeah, so it's like all relationship building.
00:28:29.839 --> 00:28:33.119
Yeah, I had a little something to do with your ending up on West Wing.
00:28:33.279 --> 00:28:46.400
Uh I'm proud, I'm proud to say, because when I saw your performance in the pilot of the West Wing, that was when I knew we had something.
00:28:46.799 --> 00:29:03.200
Because you were playing a woman that uh had never been on television before, a law student who was also using some of her uh more readily uh visible assets to uh to make money.
00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:06.559
And uh and and she was sympathetic.
00:29:07.039 --> 00:29:15.759
I I I I thought you were fantastic in the West Wing, and and I I bet a lot of people saw you and put you in their files.
00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:25.440
Well, I do think that that role is a big part of how I got house, uh, because Brian Singer was obsessed with West Wing.
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:34.559
And so I walked into my audition for house with this with an advantage that I wasn't aware of, which is the fact that he was obsessed with that character.
00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:38.799
So it does, you know, all these things add up in a wonderful way.
00:29:39.279 --> 00:29:39.839
Yeah.
00:29:40.079 --> 00:29:42.880
And and and after that, house happened.
00:29:43.039 --> 00:29:48.960
And as I said earlier, uh you invited Talisa and I to the house that House built.
00:29:49.039 --> 00:29:51.279
And it's an extraordinary space.
00:29:51.359 --> 00:29:54.960
I only saw the kitchen and the dining room, I guess, and the view.
00:29:55.359 --> 00:29:59.759
But it's I know I have a little house in Burbank that I own.
00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:05.680
And uh I sit out on my back porch almost every day for hours.
00:30:06.240 --> 00:30:19.279
And uh it's a it's an amazing feeling, and it gives me confidence to do for the doing, and it gives me peace, uh, which I I think your house must do that as well.
00:30:19.839 --> 00:30:22.720
It's very hard to leave my house because I love it so much.
00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:23.200
Yeah.
00:30:23.359 --> 00:30:27.200
Now we have two, we have two studios, two art studios on the property.
00:30:27.440 --> 00:30:29.279
Uh it's it's a compound.
00:30:29.359 --> 00:30:30.960
I never want to leave it.
00:30:31.440 --> 00:30:32.480
I love seeing her.
00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:47.599
And it is true, it is a really powerful feeling to know that that you worked for this in a really impossible field, and uh you created this beautiful space and to share it with family, and it's a wonderful feeling.
00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:49.680
And then it nurtures your creativity.
00:30:49.839 --> 00:30:55.279
Your creativity created it, and now it's uh augmenting your creativity.
00:30:55.359 --> 00:30:56.240
It's very exciting.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:30:56.559
Yeah.
00:30:56.799 --> 00:31:14.880
You know, I was interested to learn that, and I've experienced this a lot, after seven years on house, playing uh a role that uh was unique for women to have authority and also, you know, intelligence and standards and all of that.
00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:21.440
Uh uh, you they said to you, we'd like you to come back for the eighth year, but we don't want to pay you as much.
00:31:22.160 --> 00:31:25.440
And you said And you said, no, thank you.
00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:28.559
Yeah, I mean, not pay me as much.
00:31:28.640 --> 00:31:31.680
It was a 75% discount.
00:31:32.960 --> 00:31:36.319
It was it was uh it was crazy.
00:31:36.559 --> 00:31:39.519
It was it was much longer story than that.
00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:42.720
There was a lot of really ugly behavior.
00:31:42.880 --> 00:31:49.759
Um, it was one unhealthy person on the production end that was creating a lot of havoc for a lot of people.
00:31:50.079 --> 00:31:59.440
And um it wasn't something I could really ever talk about because the financial crisis happened that year and people were losing their homes.
00:31:59.599 --> 00:32:02.559
And even at a 75% discount, I was making great money.
00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:13.359
But like at some point when you've invested so much into something, yeah, it's better to just walk away if you're gonna be treated like that.
00:32:13.680 --> 00:32:23.839
Yeah, and whether it's money or artistic freedom or what whatever it was so much more than about money, but but it was it was really ugly when it happened.
00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:25.519
It was really ugly.
00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:31.440
It was it was like nowadays you could sue, but you couldn't back then.
00:32:31.759 --> 00:32:32.240
Yeah.
00:32:32.559 --> 00:32:44.559
So then uh uh you went on to write and direct for Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, uh, which was a whole other kind of uh uh creative endeavor and experience for you.
00:32:44.720 --> 00:32:52.079
Can you talk a little bit about how that came about and what it taught you about yourself as an artist?
00:32:52.799 --> 00:33:01.279
Uh well, I'm you know, that's the one and only time that I've ever met somebody outside of the industry and got a job that way.
00:33:01.359 --> 00:33:08.240
I met Marty Knoxon at a baseball game, a kickball game with a bunch of people that my husband was friends with.
00:33:08.400 --> 00:33:13.359
And she told me about this project that she'd been working on and you know, that I'd be great for.
00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:19.920
And I put it out in my head because these things are said all the time in any party at any day at any time.
00:33:20.079 --> 00:33:21.519
So you just can't hold on to them.
00:33:21.680 --> 00:33:27.440
And about a year later, I saw her again and she said, I'm I'm greenlit and I would love to come to you.
00:33:27.519 --> 00:33:29.039
Would this be something you're interested in?
00:33:29.279 --> 00:33:30.559
I said, Absolutely.
00:33:30.799 --> 00:33:38.880
And then she that once the studio and the network get involved, it's not it's not the showrunner's choice anymore.
00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:41.279
So then they offered it to like 10 women.
00:33:41.359 --> 00:33:45.920
I had to wait for 10 women to pass on this job that she told me she wanted me to do.
00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:54.799
And finally it came to me because they're always looking for somebody more famous who has more, you know, visibility or whatever it is.
00:33:55.039 --> 00:33:56.079
It's always something.
00:33:56.319 --> 00:33:59.519
Anyway, it finally got to me and I was so excited.
00:33:59.680 --> 00:34:16.880
Uh, I was I was mostly excited because um it was the first time I was gonna be number one on the call sheet, which um which meant that my behavior on set and my work ethic would have direct impact on the whole experience.
00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:18.880
And I had never had that before.
00:34:19.039 --> 00:34:31.440
And I have been in very complicated shows with very complicated dynamics, and I wanted to make this like the greatest place to work on earth, and that's what I set out to do.
00:34:31.519 --> 00:34:39.440
And so we we had this amazing crew that they would sing happy birthday whenever they thought a take was really beautiful.
00:34:39.599 --> 00:34:46.480
Like it was a joyous and celebratory place to be, which is just everything I wanted.
00:34:46.800 --> 00:34:47.199
Exactly.
00:34:47.280 --> 00:35:00.000
And so interesting because I've worked on shows where the person who was number one on the call sheet was fabulous and set the tone and and and it changed the environment completely.
00:35:00.159 --> 00:35:04.239
Uh, it encouraged creativity and collaboration and all of that.
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:18.079
And then I've worked on shows where number one on the call sheet was awful, a disgusting human being who was only interested in themselves, and that impacted the creativity and the and the and all of it.
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:23.119
And then you worked with one of my favorite actors in the world, uh, Alan Arkin.
00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:38.320
I I I I just as a young person, his performances in lots of important films were things I just thought, oh, please let me know people like that.
00:35:38.639 --> 00:35:50.079
I know he was reputed to be not the simplest and easiest guy in the world, but he always seemed to be a guy who had principles and values.
00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:50.960
Yes.
00:35:51.199 --> 00:35:51.679
Yes.
00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:54.639
He has principles, values, and a lot of talent.
00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:58.159
And it's it was really fascinating to work with him.
00:35:58.239 --> 00:36:02.239
And working with him alongside Michael Douglas, two very different people.
00:36:02.880 --> 00:36:17.920
Michael, Michael is like the warmest, menshiest, uh lovable guy who made it a point to make every single person on that set know that they were there because he was really excited to work with them.
00:36:18.079 --> 00:36:18.480
Oh wow.
00:36:18.719 --> 00:36:25.199
And Alan, Alan, for him, it was like the first time he'd done a series.
00:36:25.760 --> 00:36:35.840
And Chuck is a sitcom writer, and I think that there was there was definitely a learning curve between the two of them and how to communicate with each other.
00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:40.800
And and Alan simply would not do a sitcom.
00:36:41.039 --> 00:36:43.920
He was not interested in a sitcom, he would not do sitcom jokes.
00:36:44.079 --> 00:36:50.639
He was always gonna own the humor in the way his body produces it.
00:36:50.719 --> 00:36:57.519
Uh and and it was hilarious to watch that sort of those two go nose to nose at times.
00:36:57.679 --> 00:37:01.039
Um, but I mean, it was an incredible learning experience.
00:37:01.199 --> 00:37:02.239
I had the best time.
00:37:02.400 --> 00:37:12.159
I mean, being in a fake car with Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin, like in the tiny little car on a fake road with fake things going past the windows with the city.
00:37:12.320 --> 00:37:14.320
Yeah, those are the kinds of moments.
00:37:14.559 --> 00:37:20.320
Those are the kinds of moments where I always thought to myself, do they know who I am?
00:37:20.719 --> 00:37:21.679
It's so awesome.
00:37:22.320 --> 00:37:26.159
How did I get in this car with these people who are so fabulous?
00:37:26.639 --> 00:38:03.519
You know, uh uh the last show that I want to talk about, I think is just a remarkable performance of yours in Little Bird as this Jewish mother who has an adopted daughter who she loves very much and who she discovers is uh a part of the Canadian horror story of indigenous people who were uprooted from their culture and their heritage and their and for someone whose culture and heritage is so important to you, that I bet that resonated.
00:38:03.599 --> 00:38:12.159
It certainly jumped off the screen with authenticity and just moving emotionality.
00:38:12.400 --> 00:38:16.320
It's some of the best work I've I've uh I've ever seen.
00:38:16.480 --> 00:38:18.000
I just watched it recently.
00:38:18.320 --> 00:38:18.719
Wow.
00:38:18.960 --> 00:38:29.119
Um, and and uh I've been privileged to have great actors six feet in front of me in my office for over 40 years.
00:38:29.280 --> 00:38:35.199
And I I rarely think to myself, that's a show I wish I had cast.
00:38:36.079 --> 00:38:39.039
Uh you were extraordinary in it.
00:38:39.519 --> 00:38:40.639
Thank you so much.
00:38:40.880 --> 00:38:42.239
That show is so beautiful.
00:38:42.400 --> 00:38:44.719
I love that show, and I loved playing that part.
00:38:44.800 --> 00:38:49.920
I was really honored to be invited to play that role.
00:38:50.159 --> 00:38:58.800
And for extended lengths of time, I was the only non-Indigenous person on set, and that was really beautiful.
00:38:59.199 --> 00:39:04.800
The the show runner, the executive producer of that show is half indigenous.
00:39:04.880 --> 00:39:18.000
Uh, her family on that side was victims of that particular um the residential schools, not the 60s scoop, but the residential schools, and on her other side, they were Holocaust survivors.
00:39:18.159 --> 00:39:23.199
So she really came to this honestly, and it was it was just a privilege to be a part of it.
00:39:23.519 --> 00:39:24.239
It was wonderful.
00:39:25.119 --> 00:39:38.159
Uh among them things that I learned about you both at at the House that House built and while we were doing research, uh, is that you are an animal activist as well as a vegan.
00:39:38.559 --> 00:39:49.360
And uh I I read a funny thing that you said that the hardest part about being a vegan is finding shoes without leather.
00:39:50.639 --> 00:39:51.920
It's impossible.
00:39:52.159 --> 00:39:53.199
It's really awful.
00:39:53.360 --> 00:40:08.159
So I've sort of ended up getting used shoes because I have like so many pairs of vegan shoes, beautiful Stella McCartney shoes, and I can't wear them because they don't they they haven't really invented a fabric that quite works.
00:40:08.400 --> 00:40:13.840
Or if they do, they haven't done it in my size because I'm a half size and they just don't bother with the half sizes.
00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:23.360
Um, nobody needs to hear this about my feet, but but it's it's hard to um get to that particular that's the only thing.
00:40:23.519 --> 00:40:24.639
That's the only thing that's left.
00:40:24.880 --> 00:40:26.400
Yeah, that I have to manage.
00:40:27.280 --> 00:40:38.480
You know, Lisa, I I always end the these interviews by playing a little game that my mom played with me when I was a little boy, and I'd be very grateful if you'd be kind enough to play it with us.
00:40:38.719 --> 00:40:44.159
She used to say to me, Johnny, say three words that describe you.
00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:46.880
And of course, I was a moxie little boy.
00:40:47.039 --> 00:40:51.920
I used to say, I'm Johnny, I'm me, and I'm a boy.
00:40:53.840 --> 00:40:58.719
What what three words could you say that might describe Lisa?
00:41:00.960 --> 00:41:11.920
Oh I'm vigilant, I'm loving, and I'm creative.
00:41:12.880 --> 00:41:15.599
Yeah, I think that's true.
00:41:16.320 --> 00:41:18.400
I thank you so much for joining us today.
00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:19.519
It was lovely.
00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:20.880
Thank you, John.
00:41:21.119 --> 00:41:22.719
I'm so happy you asked.
00:41:23.039 --> 00:41:23.840
Thank you.
00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:29.039
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Right for the Roll.
00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:39.360
If you liked what you heard, subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app, and check out other episodes in our catalog for more in depth behind the scenes stories.
00:41:39.599 --> 00:41:44.239
We look forward to speaking with you again on the next episode of Right for the Roll.
00:00:05.759 --> 00:00:08.320
Welcome to Ride for the Roll the podcast.
00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:10.400
I'm your host, John Frank Levy.
00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:20.160
Thanks for joining me as I sit down with my friends and colleagues to explore their journeys to discover the roles they're right for, professionally and personally.
00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:24.079
I've long admired the acting skills of my guest today.
00:00:24.239 --> 00:00:27.199
I've had the good fortune to cast her a number of times.
00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:31.120
But in today's conversation, I learned so much more about her.
00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:34.320
That's the delight of Ride for the Role, the podcast.
00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:36.640
Welcome, Lisa Edelstein.
00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:50.399
Your life really exemplifies the theme of the podcast, which is reinvention, growth, change, intentionality, all of those things.
00:00:51.039 --> 00:01:02.000
As I got to know you through the research that we did, you know, it's just extraordinary how uh in charge of yourself you are.
00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:04.319
And I really admire that.
00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:13.120
And normally I start at the beginning, you know, but I'd like to start at the this gigantic transition that's happening.
00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:15.040
Uh there was this pandemic.
00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:17.040
Uh we all remember it.
00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:26.480
And one of the things that you did during the pandemic was move your parents out here to Southern California from New Jersey, where they still in the family home in New Jersey.
00:01:26.879 --> 00:01:32.640
They were they were actually in the Berkshires and part-time in Texas, where where my sister has lived for many, many years.
00:01:32.959 --> 00:01:33.359
Uh-huh.
00:01:34.159 --> 00:01:37.840
They were physically in the Berkshires when I when we started this process.
00:01:38.159 --> 00:01:52.799
And and one of the uh besides reconnecting on a regular basis, you know, with them and uh sharing this experience of the pandemic with them, they brought along a trove of images.
00:01:53.599 --> 00:02:02.000
And you looked at those images, they were the diaspora of your family's life.
00:02:02.719 --> 00:02:07.680
And you translated them into paintings.
00:02:08.159 --> 00:02:25.840
Tell me about that process and how that spoke to you and what was going on in your heart when you found the uh those images Well, it is like revisiting your whole life when you inherit so many images.
00:02:26.159 --> 00:02:36.560
And there was a combination between just sort of being in the receipt of all this, all of these images, and also the kind of way we were spending time during the pandemic.
00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:42.000
I was working, I was doing the Kaminsky method and Lone Star at the same time during the pandemic.
00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:46.719
So I was actually working, but there was nothing else happening.
00:02:46.879 --> 00:02:48.319
Everything else was silence.
00:02:48.479 --> 00:03:00.800
And that kind of sense of not needing to be anywhere, that sense of comfort at your downtime was a really beautiful experience for me.
00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:10.319
And I decided to use my time by making myself a coloring book from these images that I had gotten.
00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:26.960
And when I was looking through them, I started at first I was thinking about the kind of dark side of suburban childhoods, you know, the cigarette smoking in the backyard, give giving your kid a side-eye glare, um, lots of tab.
00:03:27.599 --> 00:03:29.120
That's a soft drink.
00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:35.599
Um, just sort of um this this the affectations of suburbia, et cetera, et cetera.
00:03:35.680 --> 00:03:51.840
And and through that I started to see my own family and the amount of yarmicas that were in my childhood, the the faces of my grandparents and my great-grandparents and my aunts and uncles, these beautiful immigrant faces.
00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:57.280
And all of that sort of became a part of what I wanted to explore with my paintings.
00:03:57.680 --> 00:04:04.719
And you you as a child you were an avid drawer, magic markers, is that what you use?
00:04:05.439 --> 00:04:07.280
I loved magic markers as a kid.
00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:07.520
Yeah.
00:04:07.599 --> 00:04:10.240
And medium, I don't uh I don't know.
00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:17.680
Well, you know, the cheap magic markers you get if as a kid is one thing, but but they are these beautiful markers now that exist in the world.
00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:23.759
There's um two a few different kinds that I know about, and they are like you can blend them just a little bit.
00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:34.879
The colors are extraordinary, they they really stay, and uh they have a paint tip end or one of those um sort of block ends, but I like the paint tip end.
00:04:35.040 --> 00:04:47.600
Um, and so yeah, so I started using what I what I was most familiar with, with which was these magic markers, and then the the work started getting larger and more ornate and more complex and larger and larger.
00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:58.560
And so I started um pouring the ink out of the refills and using a paintbrush, and then finally I started just learning how to paint because it was becoming absurd.
00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:00.480
I just had to learn how to mix colors.
00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:03.600
I needed to learn how to use watercolor and how to mix colors.
00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:06.560
And once I did that, I was sort of like set free.
00:05:06.959 --> 00:05:07.279
Yeah.
00:05:07.439 --> 00:05:20.000
Yeah, I I've seen a few of of your paintings, and that they are to me, they I I I felt like that I was looking at a a theater piece on canvas.
00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:30.639
I uh that that it there was there's something wonderfully bigger and more vivid than my life.
00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:45.759
Uh maybe my life is a little dull, but your the diaspora that you are depicting has real depth of color and uh and and it just it as a result it has a real emotionality.
00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:47.839
Thank you so much.
00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:57.199
I feel like uh because I've worked so long as an actress and a storyteller, writer, director, it's definitely a part of how I like to paint, which is very narrative.
00:05:57.360 --> 00:05:58.959
And yeah, it is theatrical.
00:05:59.120 --> 00:05:59.680
I love that.
00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:01.600
And that those are the images I'm looking for.
00:06:01.839 --> 00:06:04.240
A lot of times people will be like, hey, can you paint my family?
00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:10.560
And they'll send me a picture of like them and their favorite aunt or whatever, arm in arm, and it's a completely boring picture.
00:06:10.639 --> 00:06:11.920
It's like blow the picture up.
00:06:12.079 --> 00:06:14.319
It won't make it, it won't make it better to have it as a painting.
00:06:14.399 --> 00:06:16.879
It's just gonna be two people you love.
00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:30.079
So finding the images that actually have sort of an honesty about them or a a secret about them or a question about them, it makes it, it's very exciting for me.
00:06:30.160 --> 00:06:31.120
But it's hard to find that.
00:06:31.839 --> 00:06:37.199
And uh you you you in your rise as a painter has been so fast.
00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:41.120
I mean, nothing happens that fast.
00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:48.480
Uh but but you but you you know, you you and your husband are about to have a show at the Skrble Center.
00:06:48.720 --> 00:07:01.199
Uh uh I don't normally uh help advertise people's events and projects, but I can't wait to to see the this stuff and in uh in in more detail.
00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:05.839
And and uh um I'm very interested in seeing your husband's work as well.
00:07:06.079 --> 00:07:11.680
Um but let's go back to the beginning now, if it's okay.
00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:29.839
Um you know, I I think of drawing and painting as kind of solitary activities, and the the film and television storytelling world that you landed in is a very communal interactive world.
00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:35.199
Were you a girl who spent a lot of time alone with your magic markers?
00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:37.839
I was, yeah, I was.
00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:47.199
And I also enjoyed like I was a dancer and uh which is also sort of an inward experience, even when you're dancing with other people.
00:07:47.759 --> 00:07:57.439
Yeah, I think I always used coloring and drawing as a coping mechanism, uh, as a as a personal retreat.
00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:00.160
Um and I liked making things.
00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:01.839
It was it was fun for me.
00:08:02.079 --> 00:08:15.839
Uh so what was interesting about it for me in retrospect is that I never really thought of it as something to present to other people, uh because it was about struggle.
00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:27.519
It was about if I'm struggling somewhere else, this is what I do self-soothe, or this is this is a practice that I have that I can enjoy on my own and calm my brain.
00:08:27.680 --> 00:08:39.120
Um but when I met my husband, who's he's an extraordinary artist and very accomplished, uh, and really an art historian, he's so he's so well educated in the in all these things.
00:08:39.200 --> 00:08:41.200
Um, I've learned so much from him.
00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:47.519
I started to he gave me a beautiful painting on our second date and and asked me for a drawing in return.
00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:51.039
And so it immediately became a part of kind of our love language.
00:08:51.279 --> 00:09:04.879
And it became, you know, we have so many artist friends and all their work is on the walls, and he would put a couple of things that I made on the walls, and it sort of became part of the way we breathed and moved through space.
00:09:04.960 --> 00:09:16.080
And so when I really started a very serious practice where I was painting or drawing, you know, eight, ten, twelve hours a day, then there was a place for it to go.
00:09:16.159 --> 00:09:18.399
It wasn't just something that was gonna fold up and go away.
00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:24.480
And once I knew that there was somewhere for it to go, I I suddenly had permission to really dive deeply into it.
00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:25.200
Yeah.
00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:28.799
But it started out that you were doing it for the doing.
00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:30.080
Um Exactly.
00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:30.559
Right?
00:09:30.960 --> 00:09:32.960
And and that's such a freeing thing.
00:09:33.039 --> 00:09:38.159
I this past year I wrote and directed a short film for the first time.
00:09:38.320 --> 00:09:46.559
Uh, you know, I've been participating in storytelling for 40 something years, but I had never taken the lead of in that way.
00:09:46.799 --> 00:09:51.759
And I honestly don't care if anybody ever sees it.
00:09:52.559 --> 00:09:58.320
I mean, it'd be wonderful if they did, but that that wasn't I uh that wasn't the point.
00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:01.039
The the point was doing it for the doing.
00:10:01.279 --> 00:10:02.639
And that's so freeing.
00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:04.720
And you you learn so much too.
00:10:04.799 --> 00:10:15.440
I I I wrote and directed a short film right after I finished Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, and and it was uh I I learned so much in the doing of it, and I loved doing it.
00:10:15.679 --> 00:10:21.360
You you and you learn about the and you learn about the whole process in a more holistic way.
00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:26.000
I think it would be great for everybody in our business to have that experience.
00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:27.519
I I think you're right.
00:10:27.679 --> 00:10:31.279
Um and nowadays you can make a fo you know you you can make it on your phone.
00:10:31.440 --> 00:10:33.919
So uh so that there's that.
00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:45.039
So we uh I I asked pretty much everybody who's a guest on the podcast this question, which is where did you get the nerve to think you could have a creative life?
00:10:46.320 --> 00:10:48.000
We've been doing this our whole lives.
00:10:48.159 --> 00:10:49.679
You mean as an actor as well?
00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:52.240
Yeah, I mean as a life.
00:10:52.960 --> 00:10:54.080
You know, it's a good question.
00:10:54.240 --> 00:11:03.440
I think that most people are not blessed with an idea of what they want to do or be in the world.
00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:11.679
And even though what we do is so theoretically impossible, it's a gift to want it.
00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:18.159
It's a gift to have a real honest drive for something, because that is not what most people have.
00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:22.879
Most people are trying to find a job that they don't want to die doing.
00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:23.840
You know what I mean?
00:11:23.919 --> 00:11:26.639
That that somehow they're gonna get pleasure out of.
00:11:26.799 --> 00:11:34.639
And to to have an idea that some there is something that you love out there that you could potentially make a living doing is is a blessing.
00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:35.679
Absolutely.
00:11:35.840 --> 00:11:41.519
You know, uh I wrote this memoir during the pandemic uh while you were painting.
00:11:41.759 --> 00:11:46.240
I I wrote this memoir with you know, with the help of of my friend Trudy Roth.
00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:52.480
And it's called Ride for the Role, and obviously it's a reference to actors wanting to get hired.
00:11:52.639 --> 00:12:04.799
But more than that, it's uh it's about finding the role and roles in my life that I was right for, that my that who I am became assets.
00:12:05.279 --> 00:12:10.399
And um that that is is similar to what your, you know, your journey.
00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:17.919
You found all these things that you that that who you are became assets in instead of deficits.
00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:20.159
And uh I I think that's great.
00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:22.399
Uh self-discovery is an important part of it.
00:12:22.799 --> 00:12:23.919
That's all we have, right?
00:12:24.080 --> 00:12:26.799
That's all we have is is who we are.
00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:45.279
And that, especially as performers, any kind of any kind of artistic expression, who you are is completely unique and wildly valuable, and to be explored and owned and and expressed, and uh, you know, it's it you're the only one that has it.
00:12:46.000 --> 00:13:00.159
So so learning that sometimes, I mean, I as you know, sometimes you can have an amazing audition for a role where it felt so great and there was something that really happened in the room, and not get that part.
00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:13.360
And that's not because you aren't valuable or amazing or brilliant or any of those incredible things, but it's because you weren't actually the right human being to embody that part for the people who are telling the story.
00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:17.679
And you'll get another one down the road just by representing yourself in a really powerful way.
00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:19.039
Yep, absolutely.
00:13:19.200 --> 00:13:46.799
One of the wonderful things that I found out about you, which really surprised me in one way and then not at all in another way, uh at 16, you were a cheerleader for Donald Trump's USFL football team, and you objected to the way the the women who uh uh who who were your cohorts were being sexualized and depicted, and you organized a protest.
00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:49.279
Uh I love that story.
00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:50.559
That just knocked me out.
00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:52.000
Do you remember doing that?
00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:55.039
And were you cautious as hell about it?
00:13:55.840 --> 00:13:59.679
You know, I was I was a kid and I was working with grownups.
00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:04.399
Like these were women in their 20s and 30s who actually were cheerleaders for a living.
00:14:04.480 --> 00:14:09.759
I was a dancer, I was a local dancer, and I was hired to replace somebody very quickly.
00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:13.840
They needed a dancer who could learn all of their cheers in two days.
00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:15.279
And it was really fun.
00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:17.360
Like the outfits were cute.
00:14:17.840 --> 00:14:24.639
I had to get off stronger arms because you had to run the length of the football field with your pom-poms in the air.
00:14:24.879 --> 00:14:25.759
That was very tiring.
00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:28.799
Um, you're dancing in high heels for an entire game.
00:14:28.960 --> 00:14:30.799
The whole thing was hilarious to me.
00:14:31.039 --> 00:14:33.519
I got I got my first bangs.
00:14:33.679 --> 00:14:39.519
I I Yvonne Cut Trump had to make me spin and see if my she liked the way my butt look in the uniform.
00:14:39.679 --> 00:14:44.639
I mean, the whole thing was for me a fun, funny experience.
00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:47.279
But for these women, it was their livelihoods.
00:14:47.519 --> 00:14:50.080
I mean, I got paid$35 a game.
00:14:50.240 --> 00:14:55.360
Um they but somehow it was their livelihoods and it was very important to them.
00:14:55.600 --> 00:15:08.399
And the uh they started having them go to all these bars in their outfits with no protection to promote the league, and they were really feeling very, very unsafe and they were not taken seriously.
00:15:08.559 --> 00:15:10.240
And so that was how it all started.
00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:16.879
And I I I couldn't be treated that way because I was a minor, but but I was the only minor on the team.
00:15:17.120 --> 00:15:18.320
So yeah.
00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:22.240
I was a part of this walkout, and yeah, it was great.
00:15:22.639 --> 00:15:31.919
And then after high school, you went to NYU Tisch, but you didn't go to study classical theater or musical theater or anything conventional.
00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:34.639
You were studying experimental theater.
00:15:35.200 --> 00:15:46.799
Uh uh that that was a brave and unique choice, and that led to the identity of Lisa E in the club scene in Manhattan.
00:15:47.039 --> 00:16:04.399
And that was a uh, you know, you were bumping into Warhol and his people, and you were exposed as a very young, young woman, to uh a world that was a whole lot different than your suburban childhood.
00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:07.200
I was I couldn't have been more thrilled.
00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:10.879
Uh it the that world was it it's different from today.
00:16:11.039 --> 00:16:18.080
That world was a very artist-driven community, very, very much uh microcosm.
00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:22.879
Uh, you don't really have microcosms as much anymore, certainly not multi-generational ones.
00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:24.480
This was very multi-generational.
00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:26.720
Most of my friends were much older than me.
00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:34.799
And it was exciting because there were so many people who were living their lives in ways that were unexpected or unacceptable to the outside world.
00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:38.159
And and that is very grounding for somebody.
00:16:38.320 --> 00:16:55.360
That that is when you see people expressing themselves and all those genuinely expressing themselves, living their lives uh in a way that is so different from what was acceptable, it's it's relaxing because there's no way there's anything wrong with you.
00:16:55.519 --> 00:16:56.320
You know what I mean?
00:16:56.480 --> 00:17:03.519
You're if the world has all these possibilities, then you belong in the world, no matter what you are.
00:17:03.919 --> 00:17:13.359
Uh, and so as a young person, I was just desperate for that because I grew up in a very conservative suburban environment just outside of New York, but still very stifling.
00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:33.200
And I mean, there were so many kids in our high school that I didn't even know were gay, and they they came out very late because they they lived a whole life of uh repression in that town, and and you could feel it, whether or not you that was your issue, you could feel that there was a certain a low ceiling of creative expression.
00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:35.839
And so I was thrilled to be around that.
00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:54.640
And then um it sort of the whole Lisa E aspect of it sort of became uh uh what's it called when you get a little pebble that rolls down the hill and just pick something but and then it just becomes this like huge, unexpected experience um that I was.
00:17:55.039 --> 00:17:58.079
And in today's world, it would be you went viral.
00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:01.119
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:18:01.279 --> 00:18:03.279
But there was no real understanding of that.
00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:13.759
So uh when the New York Times, Maureen Dow did this big article on me in the New York Times magazine, and and my phone number was listed in the phone book, and my address was listed in the phone book.
00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:22.319
So I suddenly had, you know, 40 or 50 stalkers, and I was a kid, and I didn't I didn't know how to manage any of that.
00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:23.920
So it was very frightening.
00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:32.880
But it was great because I learned all about celebrity before I was, you know, truly I had true value to the world.
00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:46.319
I was just famous for no reason, and uh it really shifted how I viewed my my dreams and goals for the future that celebrity status was not a goal.
00:18:46.480 --> 00:18:57.359
And you know, that is something kids need to learn because they see their favorite actors on TV or their or their, you know, whatever their influencer fans or whatever they are.
00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:00.880
But it's it's such a a burden.
00:19:00.960 --> 00:19:04.559
The celebrity aspect of what we do is more of a burden than a bonus.
00:19:04.720 --> 00:19:09.680
Um, you get free stuff sometimes, but you also lose control of your own reputation.
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:12.000
You become public.
00:19:12.319 --> 00:19:14.799
What if private becomes public, et cetera, et cetera.
00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:16.079
So I learned that very young.
00:19:16.400 --> 00:19:16.720
Yeah.
00:19:17.519 --> 00:19:18.079
Interesting.
00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:23.200
You told us a story uh when we visited you at the house that house built.
00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:36.160
Um about about uh being called up on stage at at your temple and f thinking that you you know it was because of some It was our anniversary.
00:19:36.400 --> 00:19:48.240
Yeah, it was your anniversary, but in fact it was because of your celebrity that you had been chosen, and how in in a way you you've been grappling with that since you were Lisa E.
00:19:50.400 --> 00:19:51.119
Yes, I have.
00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:56.480
I it's always been uh when we were on house, that was the beginning of Twitter.
00:19:56.799 --> 00:20:06.960
So the left it was like it since Twitter had just started, you were still in a period where you'd be chased by paparazzi because not everybody had a smartphone yet.
00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:15.119
Um, so people with cameras could make a lot of money if they captured you going in the pharmacy or in a parking lot or whatever it was.
00:20:15.440 --> 00:20:29.680
So there was a different kind of paranoia at that point that was then shifting into the whole Twitter thing where suddenly it was about millions of followers and everybody judging what you say or what you book at such a high speed.
00:20:29.839 --> 00:20:38.720
Uh, and I I actually have never been comfortable with the social media aspect of it because of my early experiences with celebrity.
00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:42.400
I find being exposed to that many people very frightening.
00:20:43.759 --> 00:21:20.960
One of the great accomplishments that came during that period that you were, you know, that you were finding your identity and seeing all of this creativity around was that you created the first AIDS musical at the Cafe La Mama, which by the way, uh when I was in high school in the 60s, I went to Cafe La Mama uh uh and I met Ellen Stewart, and she was very kind to me and encouraging of my dreams of creativity.
00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:22.400
Ellen was amazing.
00:21:23.440 --> 00:21:26.960
About Ellen and about the musical and about the impact that had.
00:21:27.119 --> 00:21:40.319
Again, uh it was such a you've you've done the first of a lot of things in your life, and they've been chosen, uh, which I think is w wonderful.
00:21:42.400 --> 00:21:45.119
The so here's the upside of celebrity.
00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:54.240
I think because I had gotten this celebrity for no particular reason, that experience made me really retreat from the club scene from that whole world.
00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:56.319
Um, I left school.
00:21:56.640 --> 00:21:59.759
I needed to sort of get my head together.
00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:10.400
And I ended up writing this musical about the AIDS crisis because what I was seeing was a lot of my friends dying very rapidly.
00:22:10.559 --> 00:22:14.720
And then friends that I knew from New Jersey thinking it was made up.
00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:17.039
They didn't believe that it was really happening.
00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:19.440
So I was living between these two worlds.
00:22:19.519 --> 00:22:33.279
And I was volunteering for Gay Men's Health Crisis, which uh was an organization that had uh arranged for people to go visit people who were dying of AIDS in the hospital because a lot of times their families wouldn't go in.
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:38.000
Um, people were afraid to touch them, people didn't really understand how the disease was spread.
00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:44.559
Uh so we had done 27 hours of this workshop to learn everything that was known at the time about the disease.
00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:55.279
And when people from the club scene that I knew discovered that I had taken this workshop, then people started pulling me into bathrooms to show me things on their body, to ask me if they were dying, things in their mouth.
00:22:55.359 --> 00:22:58.319
I mean, it was like there was so much terror happening.
00:22:58.480 --> 00:23:11.039
And so that was, and I had been studying experimental theater, I'd been studying with Elizabeth Suedos, I'd been studying like all this, like sort of make yourself ground up, do it how you want to do it, storytelling.
00:23:11.279 --> 00:23:16.480
And I pitched my idea to Ellen at La Mama.
00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:28.319
And I think what helped was that she knew at least for a workshop weekend, I would have an audience because people were curious about what I would actually do with the attention I was getting.
00:23:28.640 --> 00:23:33.519
And then through that workshop weekend, I earned the full production, which was a year later.
00:23:33.599 --> 00:23:35.200
They matched all the funds that I raised.
00:23:35.359 --> 00:23:38.720
I raised funds by singing and dancing in people's living room.
00:23:39.039 --> 00:23:45.039
It was a very, it was a very from the ground up production, and it was an amazing experience.
00:23:45.279 --> 00:23:46.240
Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:46.400 --> 00:24:03.680
Well, when you create something out of nothing but your instinct and storytelling skills, uh it's again doing it for for the doing, you know, with no it wasn't going to enhance you in any economic way or any.
00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:09.599
I was very broke after that.
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:11.279
Yeah, I'm sure.
00:24:11.519 --> 00:24:27.759
Um you know, uh recently I came to you with this play that Talisa Friedman has written, and so we're so excited that you're excited about it, and you've had so many uh interesting ideas already.
00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:36.079
I think it resonated for you because you have a real sense of your Jewish identity and a real active faith.
00:24:36.319 --> 00:24:37.759
Uh where does that come from?
00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:41.119
How has that impacted your storytelling life?
00:24:41.279 --> 00:24:45.680
Uh what part of your journey does faith play?
00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:55.759
Well, I grew up in a very religious, not religious, not like Orthodox household, but much more so than my neighbors.
00:24:56.240 --> 00:24:59.839
Uh we were kosher, we went to synagogue every week.
00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:05.440
So I think there's a certain structure that I grew up with that is maybe different from a lot of people.
00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:23.759
It requires Judaism doesn't necessarily require a belief system, but it requires a practice of questioning uh and and looking at things, always measuring the ethical, the the sort of this ethical scale of things.
00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:29.200
Um it's very thoughtful, more than it is faith-driven, I think.
00:25:29.440 --> 00:25:34.799
Uh, and for me, in my life, I'm much more um I love ritual.
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:38.000
I love the ritual that came with with growing up that way.
00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:43.200
And I try to make a home that way that's filled with like a way of marking time.
00:25:43.359 --> 00:26:00.559
We do Shabbat dinners, not because we are obligated to, but because it's such a beautiful way of reminding us and the whole family to reconnect and to take the time that we've earned to be present with each other.
00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:10.640
I love ritual because it I feel like it ties me to the ancestors that I may or may not have known as maybe even my descendants.
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:13.680
Like it's sort of a beautiful way of flattening time.
00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:17.599
And all all those things are just sort of part of my zeros and ones.
00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:23.119
And in terms of like how they've influenced my career, I I never changed my name.
00:26:23.279 --> 00:26:36.559
I never felt like I really I never felt like I could move forward in life without my name, uh, even though I never really cared for my name until I met a German girl who was like, Oh, Lisa Edelstein, not a beautiful name because it me it means precious stone.
00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:42.960
Um, so it's actually a very fancy name if you speak German, but it's in in America, it is not.
00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:47.359
In America, it sort of pegged me as a thing, a Jewish person.
00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:52.880
And that came with feelings from other people of what they thought that meant.
00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:57.440
Uh, and a lot of times that wasn't an attractive thing to be seen as.
00:26:57.680 --> 00:27:02.000
So it was something to overcome, but also something I couldn't walk away from.
00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:07.359
And then in the end, it just made a lot of my characters Jewish by default.
00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:07.839
Yeah.
00:27:09.759 --> 00:27:10.960
Because I made them that way.
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:11.599
Yeah.
00:27:11.759 --> 00:27:11.920
Yeah.
00:27:12.079 --> 00:27:21.839
Uh there were some characters that you played that had not Jewish names, but uh it seemed like you intentionally asked, perhaps, to have the character.
00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:23.119
They made them Jewish.
00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:26.480
Abby McCarthy is like on Girlfriends Graduate Divorce.
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:32.400
By episode two, they were trying to explain why my name was McCarthy and I was Jewish, but it wasn't my doing.
00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:35.119
It was it was the the creator's doing.
00:27:35.279 --> 00:27:40.160
They wanted to incorporate that part of myself into the show.
00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:42.559
But it was never a demand from me.
00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:43.440
Okay.
00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:47.920
But we did cast you in the live episode of ER.
00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:56.079
You played the director of the documentary that was being made that was the, and I think that must be where you first met Tommy Schlamy.
00:27:57.200 --> 00:28:25.920
No, I met Tommy Schlamy on a sitcom that I had had a recurring character on with Nancy Travis, and he directed me in a few episodes there, and then ER, and then uh Tommy cast me in sports a replacement on sports night, to a last-minute replacement of somebody who had gotten fired on sports night, and that's how I ended up on West Wing.
00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:26.480
Right.
00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:29.519
Yeah, so it's like all relationship building.
00:28:29.839 --> 00:28:33.119
Yeah, I had a little something to do with your ending up on West Wing.
00:28:33.279 --> 00:28:46.400
Uh I'm proud, I'm proud to say, because when I saw your performance in the pilot of the West Wing, that was when I knew we had something.
00:28:46.799 --> 00:29:03.200
Because you were playing a woman that uh had never been on television before, a law student who was also using some of her uh more readily uh visible assets to uh to make money.
00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:06.559
And uh and and she was sympathetic.
00:29:07.039 --> 00:29:15.759
I I I I thought you were fantastic in the West Wing, and and I I bet a lot of people saw you and put you in their files.
00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:25.440
Well, I do think that that role is a big part of how I got house, uh, because Brian Singer was obsessed with West Wing.
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:34.559
And so I walked into my audition for house with this with an advantage that I wasn't aware of, which is the fact that he was obsessed with that character.
00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:38.799
So it does, you know, all these things add up in a wonderful way.
00:29:39.279 --> 00:29:39.839
Yeah.
00:29:40.079 --> 00:29:42.880
And and and after that, house happened.
00:29:43.039 --> 00:29:48.960
And as I said earlier, uh you invited Talisa and I to the house that House built.
00:29:49.039 --> 00:29:51.279
And it's an extraordinary space.
00:29:51.359 --> 00:29:54.960
I only saw the kitchen and the dining room, I guess, and the view.
00:29:55.359 --> 00:29:59.759
But it's I know I have a little house in Burbank that I own.
00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:05.680
And uh I sit out on my back porch almost every day for hours.
00:30:06.240 --> 00:30:19.279
And uh it's a it's an amazing feeling, and it gives me confidence to do for the doing, and it gives me peace, uh, which I I think your house must do that as well.
00:30:19.839 --> 00:30:22.720
It's very hard to leave my house because I love it so much.
00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:23.200
Yeah.
00:30:23.359 --> 00:30:27.200
Now we have two, we have two studios, two art studios on the property.
00:30:27.440 --> 00:30:29.279
Uh it's it's a compound.
00:30:29.359 --> 00:30:30.960
I never want to leave it.
00:30:31.440 --> 00:30:32.480
I love seeing her.
00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:47.599
And it is true, it is a really powerful feeling to know that that you worked for this in a really impossible field, and uh you created this beautiful space and to share it with family, and it's a wonderful feeling.
00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:49.680
And then it nurtures your creativity.
00:30:49.839 --> 00:30:55.279
Your creativity created it, and now it's uh augmenting your creativity.
00:30:55.359 --> 00:30:56.240
It's very exciting.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:30:56.559
Yeah.
00:30:56.799 --> 00:31:14.880
You know, I was interested to learn that, and I've experienced this a lot, after seven years on house, playing uh a role that uh was unique for women to have authority and also, you know, intelligence and standards and all of that.
00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:21.440
Uh uh, you they said to you, we'd like you to come back for the eighth year, but we don't want to pay you as much.
00:31:22.160 --> 00:31:25.440
And you said And you said, no, thank you.
00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:28.559
Yeah, I mean, not pay me as much.
00:31:28.640 --> 00:31:31.680
It was a 75% discount.
00:31:32.960 --> 00:31:36.319
It was it was uh it was crazy.
00:31:36.559 --> 00:31:39.519
It was it was much longer story than that.
00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:42.720
There was a lot of really ugly behavior.
00:31:42.880 --> 00:31:49.759
Um, it was one unhealthy person on the production end that was creating a lot of havoc for a lot of people.
00:31:50.079 --> 00:31:59.440
And um it wasn't something I could really ever talk about because the financial crisis happened that year and people were losing their homes.
00:31:59.599 --> 00:32:02.559
And even at a 75% discount, I was making great money.
00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:13.359
But like at some point when you've invested so much into something, yeah, it's better to just walk away if you're gonna be treated like that.
00:32:13.680 --> 00:32:23.839
Yeah, and whether it's money or artistic freedom or what whatever it was so much more than about money, but but it was it was really ugly when it happened.
00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:25.519
It was really ugly.
00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:31.440
It was it was like nowadays you could sue, but you couldn't back then.
00:32:31.759 --> 00:32:32.240
Yeah.
00:32:32.559 --> 00:32:44.559
So then uh uh you went on to write and direct for Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, uh, which was a whole other kind of uh uh creative endeavor and experience for you.
00:32:44.720 --> 00:32:52.079
Can you talk a little bit about how that came about and what it taught you about yourself as an artist?
00:32:52.799 --> 00:33:01.279
Uh well, I'm you know, that's the one and only time that I've ever met somebody outside of the industry and got a job that way.
00:33:01.359 --> 00:33:08.240
I met Marty Knoxon at a baseball game, a kickball game with a bunch of people that my husband was friends with.
00:33:08.400 --> 00:33:13.359
And she told me about this project that she'd been working on and you know, that I'd be great for.
00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:19.920
And I put it out in my head because these things are said all the time in any party at any day at any time.
00:33:20.079 --> 00:33:21.519
So you just can't hold on to them.
00:33:21.680 --> 00:33:27.440
And about a year later, I saw her again and she said, I'm I'm greenlit and I would love to come to you.
00:33:27.519 --> 00:33:29.039
Would this be something you're interested in?
00:33:29.279 --> 00:33:30.559
I said, Absolutely.
00:33:30.799 --> 00:33:38.880
And then she that once the studio and the network get involved, it's not it's not the showrunner's choice anymore.
00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:41.279
So then they offered it to like 10 women.
00:33:41.359 --> 00:33:45.920
I had to wait for 10 women to pass on this job that she told me she wanted me to do.
00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:54.799
And finally it came to me because they're always looking for somebody more famous who has more, you know, visibility or whatever it is.
00:33:55.039 --> 00:33:56.079
It's always something.
00:33:56.319 --> 00:33:59.519
Anyway, it finally got to me and I was so excited.
00:33:59.680 --> 00:34:16.880
Uh, I was I was mostly excited because um it was the first time I was gonna be number one on the call sheet, which um which meant that my behavior on set and my work ethic would have direct impact on the whole experience.
00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:18.880
And I had never had that before.
00:34:19.039 --> 00:34:31.440
And I have been in very complicated shows with very complicated dynamics, and I wanted to make this like the greatest place to work on earth, and that's what I set out to do.
00:34:31.519 --> 00:34:39.440
And so we we had this amazing crew that they would sing happy birthday whenever they thought a take was really beautiful.
00:34:39.599 --> 00:34:46.480
Like it was a joyous and celebratory place to be, which is just everything I wanted.
00:34:46.800 --> 00:34:47.199
Exactly.
00:34:47.280 --> 00:35:00.000
And so interesting because I've worked on shows where the person who was number one on the call sheet was fabulous and set the tone and and and it changed the environment completely.
00:35:00.159 --> 00:35:04.239
Uh, it encouraged creativity and collaboration and all of that.
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:18.079
And then I've worked on shows where number one on the call sheet was awful, a disgusting human being who was only interested in themselves, and that impacted the creativity and the and the and all of it.
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:23.119
And then you worked with one of my favorite actors in the world, uh, Alan Arkin.
00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:38.320
I I I I just as a young person, his performances in lots of important films were things I just thought, oh, please let me know people like that.
00:35:38.639 --> 00:35:50.079
I know he was reputed to be not the simplest and easiest guy in the world, but he always seemed to be a guy who had principles and values.
00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:50.960
Yes.
00:35:51.199 --> 00:35:51.679
Yes.
00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:54.639
He has principles, values, and a lot of talent.
00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:58.159
And it's it was really fascinating to work with him.
00:35:58.239 --> 00:36:02.239
And working with him alongside Michael Douglas, two very different people.
00:36:02.880 --> 00:36:17.920
Michael, Michael is like the warmest, menshiest, uh lovable guy who made it a point to make every single person on that set know that they were there because he was really excited to work with them.
00:36:18.079 --> 00:36:18.480
Oh wow.
00:36:18.719 --> 00:36:25.199
And Alan, Alan, for him, it was like the first time he'd done a series.
00:36:25.760 --> 00:36:35.840
And Chuck is a sitcom writer, and I think that there was there was definitely a learning curve between the two of them and how to communicate with each other.
00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:40.800
And and Alan simply would not do a sitcom.
00:36:41.039 --> 00:36:43.920
He was not interested in a sitcom, he would not do sitcom jokes.
00:36:44.079 --> 00:36:50.639
He was always gonna own the humor in the way his body produces it.
00:36:50.719 --> 00:36:57.519
Uh and and it was hilarious to watch that sort of those two go nose to nose at times.
00:36:57.679 --> 00:37:01.039
Um, but I mean, it was an incredible learning experience.
00:37:01.199 --> 00:37:02.239
I had the best time.
00:37:02.400 --> 00:37:12.159
I mean, being in a fake car with Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin, like in the tiny little car on a fake road with fake things going past the windows with the city.
00:37:12.320 --> 00:37:14.320
Yeah, those are the kinds of moments.
00:37:14.559 --> 00:37:20.320
Those are the kinds of moments where I always thought to myself, do they know who I am?
00:37:20.719 --> 00:37:21.679
It's so awesome.
00:37:22.320 --> 00:37:26.159
How did I get in this car with these people who are so fabulous?
00:37:26.639 --> 00:38:03.519
You know, uh uh the last show that I want to talk about, I think is just a remarkable performance of yours in Little Bird as this Jewish mother who has an adopted daughter who she loves very much and who she discovers is uh a part of the Canadian horror story of indigenous people who were uprooted from their culture and their heritage and their and for someone whose culture and heritage is so important to you, that I bet that resonated.
00:38:03.599 --> 00:38:12.159
It certainly jumped off the screen with authenticity and just moving emotionality.
00:38:12.400 --> 00:38:16.320
It's some of the best work I've I've uh I've ever seen.
00:38:16.480 --> 00:38:18.000
I just watched it recently.
00:38:18.320 --> 00:38:18.719
Wow.
00:38:18.960 --> 00:38:29.119
Um, and and uh I've been privileged to have great actors six feet in front of me in my office for over 40 years.
00:38:29.280 --> 00:38:35.199
And I I rarely think to myself, that's a show I wish I had cast.
00:38:36.079 --> 00:38:39.039
Uh you were extraordinary in it.
00:38:39.519 --> 00:38:40.639
Thank you so much.
00:38:40.880 --> 00:38:42.239
That show is so beautiful.
00:38:42.400 --> 00:38:44.719
I love that show, and I loved playing that part.
00:38:44.800 --> 00:38:49.920
I was really honored to be invited to play that role.
00:38:50.159 --> 00:38:58.800
And for extended lengths of time, I was the only non-Indigenous person on set, and that was really beautiful.
00:38:59.199 --> 00:39:04.800
The the show runner, the executive producer of that show is half indigenous.
00:39:04.880 --> 00:39:18.000
Uh, her family on that side was victims of that particular um the residential schools, not the 60s scoop, but the residential schools, and on her other side, they were Holocaust survivors.
00:39:18.159 --> 00:39:23.199
So she really came to this honestly, and it was it was just a privilege to be a part of it.
00:39:23.519 --> 00:39:24.239
It was wonderful.
00:39:25.119 --> 00:39:38.159
Uh among them things that I learned about you both at at the House that House built and while we were doing research, uh, is that you are an animal activist as well as a vegan.
00:39:38.559 --> 00:39:49.360
And uh I I read a funny thing that you said that the hardest part about being a vegan is finding shoes without leather.
00:39:50.639 --> 00:39:51.920
It's impossible.
00:39:52.159 --> 00:39:53.199
It's really awful.
00:39:53.360 --> 00:40:08.159
So I've sort of ended up getting used shoes because I have like so many pairs of vegan shoes, beautiful Stella McCartney shoes, and I can't wear them because they don't they they haven't really invented a fabric that quite works.
00:40:08.400 --> 00:40:13.840
Or if they do, they haven't done it in my size because I'm a half size and they just don't bother with the half sizes.
00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:23.360
Um, nobody needs to hear this about my feet, but but it's it's hard to um get to that particular that's the only thing.
00:40:23.519 --> 00:40:24.639
That's the only thing that's left.
00:40:24.880 --> 00:40:26.400
Yeah, that I have to manage.
00:40:27.280 --> 00:40:38.480
You know, Lisa, I I always end the these interviews by playing a little game that my mom played with me when I was a little boy, and I'd be very grateful if you'd be kind enough to play it with us.
00:40:38.719 --> 00:40:44.159
She used to say to me, Johnny, say three words that describe you.
00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:46.880
And of course, I was a moxie little boy.
00:40:47.039 --> 00:40:51.920
I used to say, I'm Johnny, I'm me, and I'm a boy.
00:40:53.840 --> 00:40:58.719
What what three words could you say that might describe Lisa?
00:41:00.960 --> 00:41:11.920
Oh I'm vigilant, I'm loving, and I'm creative.
00:41:12.880 --> 00:41:15.599
Yeah, I think that's true.
00:41:16.320 --> 00:41:18.400
I thank you so much for joining us today.
00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:19.519
It was lovely.
00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:20.880
Thank you, John.
00:41:21.119 --> 00:41:22.719
I'm so happy you asked.
00:41:23.039 --> 00:41:23.840
Thank you.
00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:29.039
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Right for the Roll.
00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:39.360
If you liked what you heard, subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app, and check out other episodes in our catalog for more in depth behind the scenes stories.
00:41:39.599 --> 00:41:44.239
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