Full Transcript for Work in Progress: Megan Park

to do, which was writing and directing. But even and you'll probably relate to this, like, really, I was in TV for most of my acting career, and I was on a lot of shows where creativity wasn't necessarily always at the forefront of what was the most important thing. And a lot of times, you know, after six or seven seasons of a show, the actors are really running the set, and so the directors would sweet some directors that would come in and and have really exciting ideas and stuff. But I never really saw the director in a lot of situations as somebody who was getting to really be super creative. So I never I look back, and I'm like, that's so crazy that I never really want I had end no desire. I never would have expected that I would end up directing or writing. The writers were just like we were on the sound stage in the lot, they were in another area. We never really saw them. It wasn't that type of a set where it was a super like the writers were constantly there, you know, throwing out dialogue. So it was very separate. And then but I just absorbed so much. I mean I spent like seven years making you know, twenty seven episodes of TV show, a TV and a season, and I feel so comfortable on a set, like I know everybody's role inside and out, and worked with so many different types of actors. So it was like this weird you know education, but I'm not like a cinophile. Nobody in my family was like I just saw Forrest Gump for the first time, catching up on the classics, and so I was always like, I can't direct, like I don't know anything. But yeah, I think that acting it had to go the way that it went because I never would have just I never would have been like I'm going to go to film school and I'm going to study cameras and lenses. I would have it just wouldn't have interested me. But once I found it through acting, I was like, oh, this makes sense. In a way that acting, truthfully never has. 00:08:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, do you think that why do you think that is? 00:08:31 Speaker 2: Like? 00:08:31 Speaker 1: Was was acting too small a project for you? Do you think that directing gave you the full like the full scope? This is going to sound so stupid. I don't know why this just popped into my head, but the image that I had when I did this, I was like, I mactored like a piece of pizza and then a whole pizza, Like you know, is directing just more slices for you? 00:08:57 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that there was. I thought a lot about it because as I've been doing press, a big press cycle for the first time because the Fallout came out during the pandemic and I was able to not have to really do any of that, I've been so triggered again in the same way as an actor, which is like getting my hair and makeup done, being in fittings like that stuff is so it truly is like it's not my favorite part of it. And I think that, Yeah, I think that as an actor, I would watch my peers be so driven to like get these roles. And I remember shay Shane Woodley, who was on

Secret Life with me. She specifically that movie The Descendants that really broke her out. She was so young, she was like sixteen or seventeen, and she auditioned and like didn't even get a call back, and she was like, no, like I know, this is my part, and she went to a new acting class and like fought to get a callback. And I was kind of like just sort of there for the ride, like I would be on side and be like, this is fun, but there was nothing about it was that felt like it was fulfilling to me creatively. I was having a lot of fun doing it. I was meeting really interesting people, I was having some success doing it, but I really hated certain elements of it as well, Like I really hated the hair and makeup trailer. I hated fittings, Like I just didn't love that part of it. And then truthfully, the first time I directed, I was like, wait a second. I get to be on set, which I love. I get to work with actors, which I love. I get to work with other creatives and be collaborative, which I love. And I don't have to go through two hours of hair makeup in the morning or ever do a fitting like I'm already this is oh yeah, wait I love this so much. And it's not that like, I don't know, shame on the hair and makeup part of it. Maybe I'm just like two insecure for that side of it. And I could never ever put myself in one of my own projects. You've always asked me, Yes, that's like my personal nightmare. God, it's just something I'm I'm objective enough, you know. 00:10:55 Speaker 1: It's really interesting. I have a friend who's such a talented right now and such an amazing comedian, and he's doing a show right now that he's also writing on and he was like, Oh, this is really hard and to do all of it, yeah, and to do it at the same time because he obviously writes his comedy, He's written his specials, right he writes them and then he performs them. And he was saying that having I'm a huge fan the best and he was just saying that having to do both is like so hard. Yeah, So I get that. It really made me think. And not to say that it's in any way, shape or form the same as I think it would be now. But one of the things I think they did really well for us when we were making One Tree Hill is that when we finally started directing. They really would do their best to kind of stack our scenes so that we could do two heavy days of acting and then we'd have seven days of just directing on set. 00:11:55 Speaker 3: Right, And yeah, I can't. 00:11:57 Speaker 1: Imagine like having to perform in a scene and then. 00:12:00 Speaker 3: Be like, hold on, was that funny? 00:12:01 Speaker 1: Let me rewrite my own lines right now on the fly, like I would die. 00:12:05 Speaker 2: I know. I think people that can do it, I feel like it's it's so admirable because you really do have to like really be removed from yourself and take a step back, and I so admire people that can do it, and a lot of people can do it really well. For me, it's like I also I find the actors that

I cast become such muses to me, and I'm just like too insecure to be my own muse. Like you know what I mean, I can enny good one began. 00:12:31 Speaker 1: I don't know, you really nailed that, girl, pat yourself on the back. 00:12:34 Speaker 2: And nailed it. But yeah, it does take the ability to switch brains, and I think I just turned off the acting side of my brain too. I don't miss it yet. Maybe someday I will, but I just don't miss it. I don't miss it yet. 00:12:46 Speaker 3: Wow, you know what's funny. 00:12:48 Speaker 1: I I don't think I let myself miss it. I think we did One Tree Hill for so long, and I wonder if you felt this way it was secret life, Like we did it for so so long that I looking back, there's like certain projects I did on hiatus that I never should have, but I was just so desperate to like do anything else that I was like, I don't even care if the script isn't that good. It's the only movie that shoots in the days that I'm off. And then it was like I jumped into a show. Immediately I went onto Partners, and then immediately I went onto PD. Like I did not take a break for fifteen years, dangs, And now I've kind of allowed myself to take time in between things, and like the strike forced us all to take time. 00:13:31 Speaker 3: But even this year, I. 00:13:32 Speaker 1: Had these two movies planned and then one had to shift because you know what it's like with production and locations and whatever. And the space I got in the shift actually was such a gift to me. And now I'm doing this fun thing on grays and like I went to set. 00:13:49 Speaker 3: And I was like, oh my god, acting is so. 00:13:52 Speaker 1: Fun, And it had only been three months in between the movie wrapping and the show. But I find that my bounce back into really enjoying what we do on set is faster and faster than it used to be. So I do wonder if you'll find that. 00:14:10 Speaker 2: I think so. And I think also, these projects take so long that it feels like you get as I'm you know, now, I'm already like I started a new project this week, and I'm already, you know, fifty pages into my next film. But you do have these I mean, we shot this movie almost three years ago or three years ago, and so it takes so long that and so much of it for me is in the writing of it, like in before you're ever even on set. Yeah, so it feels like it's yeah, there's a sense of completion, you know, and you do get to kind of breathe through it and really see it, and once you put it out in the world, it already feels like it's in my brain. I've already moved on to the next creative thing. And I spend so much time in that quiet space. I'm not sitting in my computer writing every day. I'm that's not at all my process, Like I spend so much time just kind of living and thinking about the characters and just figure out what the next story I want to tell is. And I think that's why I've been so like passionate about the things that I have been able to work on, because it's I've had that room to breathe in between. 00:15:09 Speaker 3: I love that. 00:15:10 Speaker 1: And now a word from our sponsors who make the show possible. 00:15:23 Speaker 3: How did that start for you? 00:15:25 Speaker 2: Like? 00:15:25 Speaker 1: How did you go from TV? You know, set life, actor life. Where did the writing come from? How did you know that this is where you wanted to go? 00:15:37 Speaker 2: I didn't really, but truthfully I don't. I'm feeling I'm figuring out my own brain, still in my writer brain. But I worked with this actress writer director named Zoe Kazan who's very talented, and we played sisters, and I just was so obsessed with her and looked up to her so much, and I thought she was like the smartest person I'd ever met. She's very smart and very cool. And I was just coming Secret Life had been canceled, but we were still had to film like ten episodes or whatever, and so for the first time I was kind of thinking about what was next, and I had this idea about a show that I want to write about this child, this girl who was like, you know, almost thirty, who was playing like a fourteen year old on a Disney show, who was just always like high out of her mind. It was called Calver Collins Is High. And I was pitching it to Zoe as an idea and she was like, you should write it, and it was just literally I knew she was so smart and so talented. Her even thinking that I could do it, it was like a light bulb went off in my head. Nobody had ever said to me before, like have you ever thought about it? I don't know. I just had never had anybody that I believed in so much believe in me in that way. And I remember she kind of read the first draft of it and thought it was really great, and I ended up just sending it to my agents and everybody, of course, was like, we love how There's there's no structure to this show, like it's just very and I was like, because I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how, I don't know how to write act breaks or anything. But I end up CBS ended up buying it and we actually went through sort of like they hired a showrunner and I learned a lot. It never got made, but it was immediately I was like, oh, this is so therapeutic for me to write. I didn't even think about directing it at that point, but just the writing process was so fun for me, and I knew then that I was like, I'm going to write forever, whether people are reader it or not, Like this is something that I can't not do. This is for me, Like this is just so personal. And then that didn't get made, and the fallout was something that I'd been thinking about. I was still acting and just like taking like whatever kind of roles came my way. And I was in Vancouver at the Sutton Place, like film something I just couldn't stop thinking about. I mean, obviously, unfortunately there wasn't one specific event, but I started thinking about just the reality of being a teenager in an American and going to school every day. And I grew up, of course, like

a millennial and going to school in Canada, and I never ever felt scared. I never felt scared going to school, not once, never even entered my mind. And I think I was starting to think about having kids and I was like, well, fuck, like this is just I can't believe this is actually a reality. I would for sure not be able to go to school every day if I was sixteen right now, Like I just knowing who I am, I couldn't do it. And I just kind of started thinking about how can I talk about this in a way that's palatable, because it was so triggering to me, Like I have a really hard time, you know, watching stories about gun violence and school shootings, but yet I felt like there hadn't been this story about kind of somebody who wasn't directly affected by it necessarily, but was obviously, you know, greatly affected by it. And so just this veda character was very much a part of me, and it was just a story that I wanted to tell. And maybe it was nice that I am a millennial and I am Canadian and had the sort of like a removed perspective on it in a sense that helped me to kind of of tap into that in some way. But I talked to a lot of people who had been through Beta's experience. I talked to a lot of people involved with every town and did a lot of research and had a lot of people read it and give me notes and feedback, and unfortunately, there's so many people who who could give perspective into this story, and it was important to me to make it, you know, not triggering for people who had been through that experience. But once I thought about it and talked about it so much, I wrote it in like a week or maybe two weeks. It came really, really really fast because I knew who all the people were, and it was the same with mild Ass. Soon as I figure out the characters, then everything just kind of flows. I never write an outline and never like do anything like that. I'm just kind of like, Okay, I know the people, and now I can just sit and write a scene and their voices will kind of come to me. But yeah, that was sort of like the prime and then I yeah, two weeks and then somebody wanted to make it. We made it for a million dollars, which I was like, that's so much money to make a movie. And then I was like, oh, that's not a lot of You're. 00:20:01 Speaker 1: Like, actually, when there's a whole giant set and locations and rentals and transfer and gas you have to buy for the transfer cars and the. 00:20:10 Speaker 3: People and like a lot like The Office. 00:20:13 Speaker 1: It suddenly you realize when you employ that many people, you're building a world goes fast. 00:20:18 Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean we shot that movie in like fifteen days, I think, and we edited it and not even thirty And I thought that was normal because it's just the first time I'd directed something, but you know, it was it was also really special to have such a small, yeah crew like we had. It made it like a really intimate, cool experience. 00:20:36 Speaker 1: Which I think you can feel and the movie feels so intimate, and I think for the subject matter of The Fallout, that probably enabled people to feel a little like safer to be open. What what was it like then, because that film was, I mean a such an amazing film, be so critically acclaimed, like it brings all the attention and all the things and puts you in front of so many people. How was the process different with my old ass? 00:21:07 Speaker 2: It was? It was so different because I mean, yeah, we took The Fallout to south By and won, you know, the Grand Jury Award, and we won the Audience Favorite, and also I won the Directing Award and I was at home and the festival director called me because it was you know, twenty twenty one. Everything was virtual. She was like congratulations, you know you won, and it was like, thank you, and then I hung up the phone and went back to doing whatever. 00:21:34 Speaker 3: I just like finished my laundry. 00:21:36 Speaker 2: Yeah, like I yeah, Whennie had just been born, my daughter, and so yeah, it was a very very removed. I like still don't feel like I made that movie and it went out into the world like it's still shocks and we were like the Fall and I still have never seen that movie on the big screen with the cast or an audience, which is also so surreal. The whole thing was really really removed, but also kind of freeing because I got to just I really was like just so not in my head about it because I was like, no, no one's going to see this movie. And then HBO Max bought it and people saw, which was really exciting. And then this time I was definitely having like sophomore album anxiety because I was like, oh, fuck, like this feels it was out of sort of the COVID of it all. The set experience was really different. We had like big time producers. I felt like there was more eyes on me to you know, succeed or fail. But luckily again I've got so lucky with the group of people we were making it with where like creativity was I was so protected from the bullshit of everything. And we got to film it like in this small town in Canada on a lake and we were like voting to the boating to base camp and it was just it was very disarming, I think for everybody. So it was a really like incredible experience on set, and then it was so I think it really honestly all hit me at Sunbance opening it, which Hillary was there with job, which was so sweet. But to sit there in an audience and it was like a packed theater. It was the biggest theater. I don't even know how many people it was. I think it was like close to a thousand or something, insane. And to have the movie start and then then being like you have to like go out and introduce it and you know, go on stage afterwards, it's like, oh my god, people are going to see this, which felt so it was terrifying. It was probably the most top five terrifying moments of my life for sure, that that first thirty seconds of the film starting and then we got a laugh and like part of me relaxed. I was

like, Okay, here we go, and then the roller coaster since then has just been it's like amazing, it's it's been surreal. And everybody kept saying, you know, this is a sundance experience, and people dream about having like soak it up, you know, to be in the middle of a bidding war and having it was just the whole thing was I mean, it was insane. It's hard to metabolize moments like that. You know, it's really crazy. 00:23:47 Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, where do you do you now being not exactly on the other side of the process, but you're at the point where now it's out in the world. Yeah, you know, And you talk about you filmed this movie three years ago, you know, up on a tiny lake in Canada, like it was so removed and now it's everywhere. Do you feel like you have a different perspective on where the idea for the movie even came from. 00:24:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I feel like I don't know what parts of myself I'm figuring out while I'm writing until much later in the process, or I'm seeing certain parts of myself in different characters every step of the way, And I think it's yeah, I mean, so much of my life has changed too since I made the movie, Like I had a second kid, I lost my dad really tragically and unexpectedly. So the movie definitely has like a whole new meaning to me in a way that I never could have expected or you know whatever. But I think that, yeah, it's interesting even it felt like such a moment in time. And really that movie had nothing to do with the idea initially of talking to your older, younger self or doing the mushrooms. No, it was really like, there's two moments in the film. One is the idea that there was a last time you played pretend with your friends and you didn't know it was the last time you played pretend, And like, how sad that made me. It was that idea, and also that led to me thinking like I was home during the pandemic and I was like, oh my god, there was one night when my family as a nuclear family before like my sister moved off uent University or this, and that change that we all slept here under this roof for the last time and we didn't know that it was god like as that you know, before things changed. And that thought made me so sad and I was like fuck like, and then I started thinking, if you know it's the last time for me, I would it would definitely ruin it, like I am somebody. I would be like no, like I wouldn't be able to enjoy it. Yeah, And that sort of snowballed into this idea of like how much do you want to know about the past and the future and and is there some sort of full ignorance and like not knowing this something is the last time? Or or is it nice to be able to savor it? And just that kind of thought had me spitballing on just that conversation. But really I was writing the movie very much from like old ass's perspective, and I had just become a mom, and I think so much of this movie was like me reflecting on my childhood and like you start to think about what kind of world do you want

to curate for your own children? And I started thinking about this beautiful place in Canada that I grew up in that I was so excited to leave, and then I came back and I was like, it's so magical here. Why did I ever want to leave? So it was it was those feelings really that set the tone like for me wanting to explore this weirdly, like that was really the core of the whole movie for me, and then everything else was just like an avenue to explore that again in a palatable way, like it's kind of a heavy, heavy thought, but I was like, how can I how can I make this not so dark? 00:27:00 Speaker 1: But the interesting thing is the idea of lasts and you know, the stuff you can't wait to leave and then how much you miss it, Like they're so universal, you know that obviously what happens in the film is very specific. This group of friends that decides on one of their last weekends to you know, have a slumber party and take mushrooms. Like maybe not everyone's had that experience, but I think the themes of the film are so universal. We've all felt that sort of longing to leave the nest and then the craving for the nest. And I don't know, there's so much I want to talk to you about in the movie, but that I don't feel like I can talk about on the podcast because I don't want to give anything away. But what has it been like for you to see audience reactions? Because I'm imagining you get some pretty emotional feedback. The movie is so funny, and the second the second sort of fantasy sequence. 00:27:59 Speaker 3: I was cackling. 00:28:03 Speaker 1: It's such an uplifting film, but it does deal with like some really you know, raw emotional ideas. So what does feedback look like for you. 00:28:14 Speaker 2: I've had a lot of people sob to my face, you know, like it's a lot of people which is so beautiful, and it's almost like it's a huge responsibility. You know, people have been really moved by the film, which you don't ever at least I don't ever think about, Like you don't even want to put your hopes there. I wasn't trying to write something. You know, it's almost too scary to think that anyone's going to even have any reaction to anything you make. That's like too scary a hope to have to be let down by that. I think you think about jokes working or not working because that's easier to try to nail. But the emotional stuff, like you really and in the edit too, you can kind of get a feel for the comedy of what's working and what's not. But you really are just so insulated in that process that you do not know how that's going to hit people until you're in your real first big screening like Sun Dance, but to hear people actually during the there's a moment at the end that I don't want to spoil, but there's like quite an emotional moment, and there was it was so quiet that I started getting nervous as something wasn't working. And then I looked around and I saw people going like this, and I thought, oh my god, people are laughing, and I started freaking because I was like, oh, oh no, this is like the pinnacle of the movie and if this moment doesn't hit like, we've failed, we fucked up. And then I realized that people were crying so hard that it looked like they were like laughing, like they were were eaving sobbing. And then it started to really hit me. I was like, oh my god, this is not fake. This is not like, oh, you know, sniffle, people are being so gutturally, not everybody, but you could see, you know, a lot of people really really really moved, and it was again quite shocking and hard to metabolize. And one of the most interesting things is we keep joking about this, but it is not you know, it's amazing, it's beautiful. But old men have fucking been destroyed by this movie. Like men over sixty, I swear to God, have the most viscerally emotional reactions to this movie because I think there's something about regret and time specifically for old men that really hits them in this film. And we would never in a billion years like even think to target. I'm like, to me, I'm making a movie, and I'm like, if men like it, cool, but who cares, Like that's not who I'm making movies for, so whatever, But old men have really been fucking moved by this movie, which has been really interesting to see and it's also cool to see. There's such different takeaways for people. Like when we tested the movie, young people really related to the younger characters and definitely understood the bigger feelings of like nostalgia and time passing, but they definitely had a different takeaway than people who are sort of the old asses as we would call them, the people over you know, thirty five. I think that feeling of time becoming sort of your worst enemy, that's really your only enemy as you get older is time in so many ways, and that was I think a big, really interesting takeaway for the older audiences. But it's been really beautiful. And when people come up and say, you know, I called my mom, I called my dad, you know, I apologize my parents were being such an asshole when I was younger, things like that. It's really it's really beautiful and so surreal, so surreal to see somebody like move to tears. It's insane. 00:31:44 Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I wept no shock there. 00:31:50 Speaker 2: Now. I've had many friends send me these voice notes after the movie and they're like, they can't even they can't even breathe. Their crimes are and I never know where there to be. It is like amazing. It's so cool to hear people so moved. But you're also like, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to like fuck you up. So it's so hard, but it's I know, my bad. 00:32:06 Speaker 1: And now a word from our sponsors. When you talk about how you wrote it, you know you relate so much, obviously to Aubrey's character, to the older of these two women. If you ever had the opportunity to go back and talk to your seventeen year old self, what do you think you would say. 00:32:38 Speaker 2: I would say some things that I couldn't say on this podcast

that I would say. 00:32:41 Speaker 3: To you, love it. 00:32:42 Speaker 1: You and I both can't wait to talk about it in an hour. 00:32:45 Speaker 2: I think you could probably know all of them. I think I would try to encourage myself to live more consciously and to be more aware that life doesn't necessarily have to happen to you, like you can make things happen. I feel like I was almost late to kind of become alert and become aware, and I was just sort of following whatever kind of came to me. And I wish that I could sort of like wake myself up a little bit and be like, life, whatever you want to have happened in life, you can make have happened. Life isn't happening to you. And I was really inspired by Mazie because she and a lot of younger people that I've worked with, they are so alert and aware and so conscious, and she and also so blissfully young and naive in so many beautiful ways. I think the movie touches on it's like this bravery that young people have, but it was really cool to I was just not like that at her age, Like it was amazing working with her and she was already kind of like, oh, you know, like my mom and really like connected with those feelings of like, I don't want to be an asshole my mom and time is going by so quickly and really knows what she wants and is like going after it. And it was really inspiring and beautiful to work with so many young people who already have that, and it made me wish I could go back, and I wish like a seventeen year old we could hang out with seventeen year old Mazy and be inspired by that energy. 00:34:16 Speaker 1: Yes, I totally get that, you know, even you saying that you wish you could tell your younger self that you can be a little more in control. I feel like I've intellectually understood that that was true. I don't think I've understood that that was true for me until the last I don't know, twelve eighteen months. Maybe, Yeah, like I realize that, and it's even a thing I like about myself. I My reaction is often to serve, to be in community, to gather, to want to, you know, create goodness in the face of things that are. But I've really thought a lot this year about, well, what if it wasn't so reactive, and what if I shifted into more proactivity, Like what if I cared about my own life the way I care about everyone else's lives. 00:35:17 Speaker 2: You know, yes, no, it's exactly that I mean. And you know it's so funny is everyone's notes to me always in scripts, are your lead characters aren't active enough? They're so reactive? They always tell me that, and I'm like, well, that's part of the journey. But yeah, I feel the same way, like I say, you don't say yeah, and I think that's I don't know if it's like also our generation. I hate to like say, are but there wasn't. I don't know. I felt like, especially being an actor and just being a young woman at the time that we were, and I don't know, really like in that position, I never felt like I could say anything like I was just I was just there and people were telling you what to do, and it was not the vibe to even have an opinion. So maybe that's why I didn't let myself go there. 00:36:08 Speaker 1: Well, what I also think is sort of wild is at least for me, I'm like, oh, I had plenty of opinions, but it was. 00:36:15 Speaker 3: Always a fight. 00:36:17 Speaker 1: It was always so hard to even be heard that the idea that you could fight for more than just being heard, not even necessarily being listened to, but the idea that you could take control and write a narrative for yourself. Like it never, it didn't cross my mind for so long. 00:36:37 Speaker 2: No, I think it's just crossing my mind right now. Actually, as we're having these conversations good morning, I just look up. Yeah I know, No, it's I mean, and yeah, it's it's it changes so much. I actually this thought as I was driving the other day because I've realized, like you were saying, sort of your go to is to serve, and now my go to as I'm processing some many crazy changes in my life and different things, is like I immediately, instead of dealing with them myself, I like create a character or multiple characters that are all pieces of me, and I like come up with a story that is not a direct reflection of what I'm trying to figure out, and then I work out what I'm going through through that story, which is what I've done in both of my movies and when I look back on it, but I was like, what is what do other people do? Because I'm like, if I didn't have this, if I didn't have this ability to write and create these characters and have these conversations that I want to be having with people secretly, you know, with two other people, or about something else. But it's really about what I want to talk about. Yeah, layered in, I don't know what I would do because it's like the only coping mechanism in so many ways, maybe the healthiest coping mechanism that I have. 00:37:51 Speaker 1: I think yours is a really good one. Like I have not known what to do with myself for a week, and so yesterday I spent six hours that my storage in it like cleaning out, making donation piles, organizing. Right, I was like I needed a tactile, physical thing, and I'm like, god, it would be so cool if instead I just wrote myself a movie. 00:38:16 Speaker 2: I mean, let's do that. No, that's what I do. It's it's but it's so yeah, it's a you could totally do that. You could totally do that. I believe that you could. We can do that together. But yeah, it's really it's an interesting And I also like, literally as I'm writing, I will put on one song on repeat for like thousands of times, and it helps me to just like literally go into another dimension and like figure shit out, and then I like, what was your song for my old best It's it's so so random that I don't think anyone knows it besides Macie. I've never said it. Okay, I'll tell you if you want. It's not like that embarrassing. It's a good song. 00:39:00 Speaker 3: I mean, he's up to

you. If you want it out in the. 00:39:02 Speaker 2: World, I'll put it on in the world. Okay. So I mad respect to this artist. I actually I think it's the only song of hers I have on my playlist. I don't know how it came into my stratosphere. I don't know how it got on there. And I don't even know why it was this song because there's nothing to do with the movie at all. It was The Bones by Maren Morris. Oh my god, love great song. But just like how random is that I would put on the Bones and I would write for I mean, I listened that song thousands. There was also a few like later on that came in like it was sometimes changed, but I remember initially and I would always screenshot that and send it to people, like a few people who knew what and they'd be like, oh, you're writing you know, and for the fallout. It was like something else, really random. It was like some kind of rap song. I don't know, it's so funny. 00:39:46 Speaker 1: But the Bones, I'm going to have to tell Maren. She came on the show, and I just think she's the best, absolutely the best We're all going to have to have. 00:39:55 Speaker 2: She's the best, and I owe her so much. Thanks for like helping me write the movie. The song should have been in the movie, but we did an all Canadian soundtracks, so that's the only reason why The Bones was not in the movie. But great songs. 00:40:08 Speaker 1: Sweet Okay, So Maren Morris influenced the film. 00:40:11 Speaker 3: We love that. 00:40:12 Speaker 1: Also, we have to talk about the fact that Margot Robbie produced this movie with you. 00:40:17 Speaker 2: What is it like. 00:40:19 Speaker 1: Working with her? Like, what how does she work as a producer like tell us? Because obviously we know she has an amazing track record from this incredible film to you know, the biggest blockbuster of all time, Barbie. What is she like as a collaborator. 00:40:34 Speaker 2: I wish I could say she sucks. 00:40:37 Speaker 3: Well, she clearly doesn't. 00:40:39 Speaker 2: She's the opposite of that. Like she is. She's so amazing and I've known her now for three years and there's not a fucking crack, you know what I mean, Like it's very real. She's just like an amazing, amazing human. She's really kind. She just just like she is such like a nerdy cinophile, like she loves movies. She's such a hard worker. She was on set with us up there, you know, at the monitor. She was using my bunkie as her office and literally cleaning it, making my bed, cleaning my bathroom for me so that when I came home it was like nice at the end of the day, it brought me a present to set. Like every single day it would be like, I, here's some gluten free, dairy free banana bread I got you at the farms market. I'd be like, thank you. But she's so so smart, and she has really incredible notes and thoughts. But she's also very hands off and very protective of, you know, the creativity and like that sort of sacredness of a set. She treats everybody the same. There's no hierarchy, which is how I love sets to be and how I want them to be. And she's a dream of her and her husband Tom, who was up on set, and Bronte Payne and Josie that the company they're all amazing, and it's just really real. And they really protected me and protected the process and the film and just believed in me such an incredible way. Right on the heels of the fall, they saw that film and just reached out and we're like, what do you want to do next? And I mean, I'm doing my TV show with them and my next movie with them. So I think that's like they're it's not a surprise to me that they get so much repeat business because they just they are like the real, the real fucking deal. They're so great, They're. 00:42:20 Speaker 1: So great, so happy. That's wonderful. You would love, Margo, And that's exactly how it should be, you know. And I love that we're in a moment, and I mean the moment has been years in the making, but it really does feel like so many great groups of creative women are building teams. Yeah, and we all know what it's like not to have that, So to not only to see your people have it, but also to see the work that is then created out of it is so like relieving to me. 00:42:55 Speaker 2: It's incredible, like what their company set out to do and what she set out to do and is doing to such a high, you know level, and the amount of multitasking that she does is truly inspiring and just how much of her heart she puts in everything. And then there's also so much support behind the scenes too, Like it's not just she really is, like you know when we're like supporting Maisie, you know, like helping her now as an actress to get like the right team together, and just so she's just she's doing so much, not for herself. She really like walks the walk, you know, she's really behind the scenes also doing so much incredible work and support of female filmmakers and just trying to like make good shit and and help people tell the stories they want to tell. And she's not always in everything that she's making. It's not about her, it's about like helping other people have She's using her platform to just like genuinely help as many people as she can that she believes in. And it's like such it's there's not that many people who are doing that in such a real and authentic and like high caliber. She was like taking production meetings for a movie in her Barbie trailer, like in her wardrobe. Who are you like me? Just never stops. It's really amazing. 00:44:16 Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. And what a cool thing too, for Mazie to get to really dive in with like in this stage. I can't imagine being, you know, eighteen and like being with you and Margo, like it would have been so cool. 00:44:32 Speaker 2: She is the sweetest and it's funny because she even jokes about it now she's what almost almost twenty one now, And yeah, she was like I thought I was so like I was like Elliott, you know, I was like, I haven't all figured out as a memehile she

was very much going through so many of the exact same things that Elliott was experiencing at eighteen, and you know, yeah, she's handled this with so much grace. And I remember asking her, like, did you feel so nervous that you were, like I'd never been number one on a call sheet of like a major movie, Like I'd never had to carry that. So I really tried to like not put that pressure on her. Yeah, and she was like, yeah, she was like I was so fucking scared every single day, Like I really was so so nervous and wanted do a good job. But you'd never have known, Like she just really was cool, calm, collected and just so open and joyous. But it's been really beautiful to kind of watch. I mean I knew it from like the first day. I was like, I can't wait to watch her when the Golden Globe for like something at some point at the Oscar like this, what she can do is is so endless, and she reminded me so much of Jenna, who obviously has just like gone on to do incredible, incredible things. So I feel like I have become her old ass and she is my young ass, and it's really fun to like watch just all these amazing things happened to such a talented, deserving person. 00:45:55 Speaker 1: How do you think because knowing what it's like to be on a set from a young age as you do, as I do, how do you think you wanted to cultivate freedom and as little self consciousness as possible for Mazie, knowing what the pressure can do in such an intimate way. 00:46:15 Speaker 2: I mean I had to have like some serious conversations with like people before about like people don't take I had very very strict guidelines on like how any kind of scene that might make me see feel vulnerable would be shot? Who would be there? And I got pushed back from people sometimes, you know, people in certain department heads like, no, this is my job, and I was like, I don't care, Like this is how it's going to be, and this is what's going to make her comfortable, and this is what's important to me. And so it was interesting that there was some pushback on that because there is like a way things are done historically on sets, and if you try to buck against that, a lot of old school people just like, don't, don't vibe with it. But again, that's when you have great producers who are always there to back you up and protect that. But I put it, like honestly top of my list because I was in so many really icky, uncomfortable situations as a young actor that have stayed with me forever, and I never wanted to ever put anybody, any actor of any age, but especially a young woman in that position. And so it was a constant, constant check in with her to make sure she was comfortable. And yeah, you just know, as an actor there's even little things like if you don't feel confident in a certain piece of wardrobe or you feel self conscious, that will throw your whole fucking vibe or your whole day, like if it's not you know, part of the care and you're supposed to be feeling good. You know. There's things like that that I think. And also something that's so specific to me and how I like to run things on set is I used to find that like the small talk when they would put all the actors' chairs together, you know, when trailers are like too far away, base camps too far as I have has to be on location, and so they're just like, Okay, here's a small room. We're gonna put everyone's chair in here, and like for the the ten hours that were not actually shooting of the day, everyone's going to be stuck in this room and making small talk. And I found that to be so draining as an actor, especially when I was making especially thinking about the fallout and the energy on set. It was really heavy shit, you know, and I wanted people to be able to preserve their preserve themselves, and so I always make sure that every actor has their own space if the trailers aren't around. So and everybody gets so annoyed with me because it is a hassle. You know, if you have a lot of people there that day, it's like, well, we don't have enough space. And it's like just put a pop up tent somewhere over there in the trees and put a chair, and if people want to hang out, they can hang out, you know, and they can put their chairs together, they can go to crafty. But give everybody, all the actors some space, because like acting cannot be not be on set, cannot be an introverts like favorite place sometimes. So I try to like just do stuff like that that I remember feeling really uncomfortable, you know with as an actor or just very drained by and some of it's like weird and quirky and little things like that. But and I just always listen to them and check in with them and talk to them, and you know, if it's like I'm not going to put them on the spot in front of them, it's like, let's let's go over here and let's like talk away from everybody, like how are you feeling? For real? What do you need? Just constantly kind of having those conversations and creating that sense of trust and safety from even the pre production, you know, like amazing. And I just sat in a boat house for three days and talked to the script and there was moments of the character's life that she could experience in moments that she hadn't shared with anyone else. That's share with me. And there are parts that she hadn't experienced and that you know, she was asking me about that I could kind of talk to her about. So we really created like a deep, you know, trust and sense of understanding right away. And I really like cherish that and take it very seriously, and especially with young young people. 00:49:55 Speaker 1: I love that, and I think it's so important. It's like this idea that you're always supposed to be on and always supposed to have time for everyone and always supposed to be perfect and conversing, and the amount of mental gymnastics that it takes to do our job, for some reason, is not often taken seriously, and if you try to take it seriously, you'll often get a lot of pushback. And so I think for

someone in your position, for a director to say, no, I'm gonna I'm going to take that expected performance on this away so my performers can do their job when the cameras are rolling, and then the rest they have space to decide what they need. That's really pretty profound. Hats off to you. 00:50:39 Speaker 2: My friend, thank you. I want to get on a set with you and let's say no, okay to say a space and make profound shit hopefully. 00:50:47 Speaker 1: Oh my god so much. Well, I mean, the idea of that feels amazing to me. I realized I was responding to you personally and starting to ask a question, and was like, I just combined the two and in one sentence. 00:50:59 Speaker 3: My brain is mad potatoes since last week I. 00:51:01 Speaker 2: Have two sick children. My veriest mashed potatoes. 00:51:04 Speaker 3: Great. 00:51:05 Speaker 1: By the way, I'm loving the Christmas cup. I saw this woman out in public on Friday. It was my first time leaving the house, and she had her Starbucks cup and we looked at each other and we just nodded, and I was like, your Christmas cup is my first joy in four days, and I'm going to go home and put up a Christmas tree because I need it. 00:51:25 Speaker 2: I ubered this Starbucks one Starbucks, which was pretty fucked up, but I really needed it. You know. I've been up since four thirty this morning with two six children, and I was like, I'm going to treat myself. And when it came in the Christmas bag with the Christmas it did, it brought me a little bit of joy. I realized that it's that time. Yeah, it's my first one of the season, and it brought me a lot of joy. 00:51:45 Speaker 1: It's that time, and I'm like, I might need to put up a tree like today and now a word from our wonderful sponsors. We're sort of in this amazing moment for you right where you're your creation. This film Child is out in the world and you're, like you said, fifty pages into the next and you're working on all these things that are to come. And I think as a as a creative, it's it's almost like a really delicious limbo. 00:52:23 Speaker 2: That you're in right now. 00:52:25 Speaker 1: So when you think about this moment, this sort of suspension, and you look out at what's to come, what feels like you're work in progress. 00:52:36 Speaker 2: My work in progress is actually trying to not focus on what's happening right now with the success of the movie in any in any way besides supporting the movie, because it is so important for me to you know, maybe like there's been so much love put into this movie by so many people, and this does feel like a child to me, So I want to put everything I can behind it to make sure that it gets like seen by people who want to see it. But I think it's really easy in this in this industry, in this town to get caught up in sort of what's not real and the stuff that is not serving me as an artist or as like a human. And I also think that I'm not really you know, I don't think yet I don't have even had the skill set to be like a writer and director for hire, you know, Like, I think what is so exciting to me is creating these worlds and people and it's so personal and therapeutic that I have to kind of block out all of the other stuff and just focus on the stuff that I'm dealing with internally and channeling through these characters in this new world that I'm creating. And yeah, it might, it might take a little bit of time. And I think there's always this like, you know, take advantage of the moment and keep your foot on the gas, and these opportunities only come around, you know, once in a lifetime. And that may be true. And I've been really enjoying the ride and it's been really beautiful and I'm soaking in it as if it may never happen again. But for me, the part that I love more than anything is the writing. It's like the part where I'm listening to the bones seven hundred times and I'm hearing these voices and I'm figuring out things about myself and I'm alone in a room with my computer. That is like the most sacred of the process for me. And it's not very glamorous, and nobody kind of sees it happen, and so it feels like it never really happens. But I'm trying to just focus on that. And maybe it'll take me three years to write this next thing. Maybe it'll finish it by December. I don't really know, but that part of it has to be protected because then I think that's when you lose like what you make and what's what makes your stuff, I guess specific and unique is knowing what you can do and knowing what you can't do. And I know what I can do, and what I can do is I can like open my computer and figure out my shit through fake people that I create. So I just have to keep doing that and then hopefully when it's done, it's done and people like it. But that's out of my control. But what is in my control is that special sacred part of it. So that is very much my work in progress is to just turn off the noise and just keep doing that because I need to do it. I need to do it. It's not even like a want, it's like a need for me. 00:55:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's very inspiring. 00:55:44 Speaker 2: Give it a try. Put on the boat, see what happens. 00:55:47 Speaker 1: Honestly done, I'm excited for what's next for you though. I'm very very exciting. 00:55:53 Speaker 2: Thank you. We'll come play anytime. 00:55:57 Speaker 3: I'm coming. I'm ready to get on a boat. Let's do it. 00:56:00 Speaker 2: I mean, there are some boats and the next thing I'm writing, you think I would be smart enough to be scared from filming on boats ever again, because that shit is really annoying. But it just looks It just looks so beautiful. 00:56:10 Speaker 3: It just looks so good. 00:56:12 Speaker 2: Though a mazy he had so much fun on that piece of shit. Tenner. She was just having the time of her life. 00:56:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, by the way, that's what I mean. I'm not talking like I don't expect a yacht. I'm like, give me that little pup pup boat. 00:56:23 Speaker 2: It was, so let's go. I don't need a yacht. Yachts are boring. You get to drive or so boring. 00:56:31 Speaker 1: I think they should all be impounded for tax, but that's a separate converse. 00:56:34 Speaker 2: One hundred percent, they should go. 00:56:38 Speaker 3: I love you, Thank you, I love you. 00:56:41 Speaker 2: It was so nice to see your beautiful face and your famous to me background. 00:56:46 Speaker 1: Also, I would be remiss at the end of day's episode not to say thank you all so much for the fan feedback on Lego Masters. 00:56:54 Speaker 3: You guys know that Lego was my. 00:56:57 Speaker 1: Obsession as a child, is still such source of joy for me as an adult, and getting to compete on the show was honestly the most amazing fun adventure for me. I can't believe I had to keep this a secret from you all for a full year because we taped this special last December. But I can't wait for you all to see Episode Tuba air next week on Tuesday, December seventeenth on Fox. You can also stream it on Hulu. There are surprises coming, friends, So for my fellow Lego fans out there, let's go