Transcript of Brittany Snow

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman.

Hi.

Today we have Brittany Snow on. She is an actor, a singer, a director. Pitch perfect.

Oh yeah.

I really leaned into the pitch perfect.

It was like you were trying to do an onomatopoeia.

Yeah, and alliteration.

Sure.

Which I accomplished. John Tucker Must Die, The Beast in Me, and of course, The Hunting Wives.

Season 2.

It's hotter than ever. I watched.

Ooh.

Season 2 starts November 26th. Wow. Is that Thanksgiving?

Around—

Happy Thanksgiving. Sophie trades city life for East Texas and all hell breaks loose. I really loved Brittany Snow. Me too. Me too. What a great personality.

I agree.

Please enjoy Brittany Snow. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking whether the turkey was fully thawed before Thanksgiving morning. You were told days ago to thaw it. Days. And now you're standing in the kitchen holding a 20-pound ice block wondering if a hair dryer counts as cooking. Yeah, checking first is always a great idea. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Allstate North American Insurance Company and Affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois.

Hello! Hello!

I'm so excited to be here. Oh, you are? We're so excited to have you. I'm such a fan of yours.

Oh my goodness gracious.

That can't be possible.

Well, I've never met you before.

I don't think so.

But I obviously have known you forever. Yeah, I've just been like listening from afar and waiting for my turn.

This is so self-indulgent, but do you have an area that you're listening to it? Is it during exercise or you don't have a standard commute like a lot of people?

No, but I'm a podcast girl. I clean with a podcast.

Yeah.

Do you listen at night ever? Yeah, I listen at night.

I don't know what this says about me, but I think it calms me. when I have another voice in my head other than my own.

Same.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

I'm with you.

We'll get into that. But yeah, so that's why I listen to podcasts, because it's like soothing to me.

What are your others?

A lot of true crime.

Nice.

Because I think if I can solve the murder before the detectives do, then I get like a high.

Oh.

And that means you're safe because it means, oh, I'm good at this. I will never be a victim of this. Correct. I can see this coming.

And I also, I like That I'm occupying a part of my brain where I'm not thinking about my own shit. I'm like thinking about someone else's way worse shit.

Yeah. I know like bad stuff is going on out there.

Yeah.

My stuff's small.

Yeah. But I also listen to you guys because I like to hear that other people who are in my business that I relate to and respond to and look up to have shit too.

Yeah.

Well, isn't that, I mean, I guess that was the original premise, which is like, I know all these people, we have all these peers. Everyone thought it was gonna be utopia and it would solve all the internal issues. But yeah, I think that was the thing I hoped to talk about.

That's so. Nice that you thought about that for yourself too. And you're like, I'm gonna do 2 things at once. I'm gonna help other people, but I'm also gonna help myself, hopefully.

Well, I was really just like, oh wow, for people who aren't addicts and don't get to enter a 12-step program, where on earth would they experience what happens in there? It doesn't exist in real life other than these support groups. And I find them so special. And I thought, oh, could you kind of behave like that in public? What would be the response, right?

I have a lot to say on—

Have you been in those situations? And do you find them to be like, so unique? Like, oh my God, 15 people being insanely honest and vulnerable, and no one's judging them. And the worse you were, the more relatable that is, and more helpful it is, you know, an example of the opposite of everything we think, like, I got to be perfect and be a champion. So people like us, and it's like, oh my God, it's the opposite. And how else would you experience that?

I felt like that because I went into program when I was like, I think I started when I was 16. And so it was, I was a kid still, and I I was like, all these women are around here telling each other that they love each other and there's no comparison. And there's an answer to this thing that I thought was so crazy. And it was very helpful. But then in a certain way, I felt like you could get lost in it a little bit. So you have to discern the difference between where you begin and the group ends and vice versa. But that's as you grow up, how you navigate the world. And so it's sort of like a microcosm of, of just growing up. And I was in there.

I totally agree. There's like, and I think for—

Are we going?

Are we in it?

Yeah. I'm just shooting the shit.

For a lot of people that have gone through programs for a very long time, there's a really funny comedian who's been in the program for, I don't know, 20, 30 years. And he's been very honest about his journey with it, which is like, there are points where you're like, okay, it has some cult elements to it that I need to flag those. There's some people presenting as experts that are not. There are things that after it saves your life, it's fair to get a little skeptical of some of the elements, I think.

It's so helpful. I was just thinking about, this has nothing to do, it sort of has something to do with this topic, but I, on Emmys night, met the Love on the Spectrum cast.

Oh, I love them.

And I was like, this is so special. I was more starstruck by them than anybody else that I probably could have ever met. And then I started psychoanalyzing why I was so starstruck and what that show means. And I thought to myself, and why it's relevant, is that it's so beautiful that there is a show that we all collectively agree on and that we have a community of people that really understands the elevation which like the world needs to exist on. Because we all love this show and the reasons that we love it are very beautiful.

What do you think are the reasons?

Because we're seeing like humanity and empathy and we're seeing real people that we don't get to see every day actually do the most basic, truest thing to themselves, which is fall in love or try to find love.

It's the best of us. The part that likes that show, that all of us like that show.

But it's like bringing community together where I'm like, oh, I have restored faith in humanity. And that's what, program did for me a little bit too. I was like, oh, there's people out there that really just want the best for other people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That are rooting for other people. It's hard to believe. Yeah.

And for themselves.

Do you think another layer of Love on the Spectrum, and I've only watched it a little bit, but do you think another element that's quite appealing is, again, back to the thing I just said about like people showing the darkest side of themselves and yet they're still loved. For these autistic kids, they can't even put on a filter.

Right.

They cannot be anything but their truest self.

I love that.

We have so many filters and we're trying so hard to not let anyone see our truest self. So To watch people do it, there's also this element of like, there's bravery, and then you see acceptance around it. Like, I think that's another gear of the show that's intriguing to us.

It's so vulnerable to be so honest. We like look up to that type of person. And so it's nice. It's inspiring in a way.

Yeah.

Oh, I should say what I feel as well. Dylan, who was on the show on NBC, he was like, you should do more singing movies. Ask your agent to do more singing movies.

Okay.

Why don't you? And I was like, Dylan, you're right. I should ask my agent. Yeah. Why don't I?

I don't know.

I guess I'm scared of singing sometimes, but he just like outwardly said it. And I, I would love to go up to someone at an Emmy party and be like, you should do more thrillers.

Yeah.

Right.

Ask your agent.

Yeah.

That's how I feel about Chris Pratt. I want him back in comedy.

There you go.

Oh, I know.

I miss him in comedy. He's so funny. My algorithm is all like Parks and Rec bloopers. Yeah.

And they're bloopers.

Like,

he's so funny on those bloopers.

He's so brilliant. And they're all him. They're all improvised. And like, guys,

let's get

him back on a network sitcom. That's right. NBC, call him up.

Okay, so you're from Tampa, Florida?

I am.

Weirdly enough, I just booked a plane ticket to go to Tampa in November.

On purpose?

On purpose to do something that's so Tampa, which is I'm going to be in a car race of old police cars. Doesn't that sound pretty on point?

It's very Tampa.

Yeah. Yeah. There's

this incredible

guy, Cletus McFarland, that lives down there who's got

That name is also very Tampa.

I love Cletus already.

Okay, now this is impossible and this is great. So your mother's name, it starts with a C.

Cinda.

Cinda. Hit us with your father's name and go the full name.

Jon Snow.

Oh my God.

When I read that, it jumped off the page.

Jon Snow. Yeah. When Game of Thrones was really hitting it hard in the world, we had a lot of problems in our house because every time we would go, my brother is also named Jon Snow. And so he would, you know, be buying beer and they'd be like, Jon Snow. Snow. Winter was always coming in my house. You know, there was a lot of Game of Thrones paraphernalia and like things that we would buy each other.

I guess now I didn't know your brother's name was John. That's fantastic. Although he, I suppose, is Jon Snow Jr.

Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Making a reservation, like, I feel like it would be helpful even though it shouldn't be because it's a fictitious character.

It was helpful. And it was also a really good conversation starter for my dad at the time when it was really relevant.

And what did Cinda and John do in Tampa? Had they moved to Tampa or are they second generation?

They moved to Tampa before I was born. And then my dad was in insurance and my mom was in sales. And then I started working when I was a baby, basically. My mom got me into it when I was like 2 or 3. So I've never known anything else. And so slowly, very slowly over time, my mom sort of became my manager, which I didn't necessarily know. I thought she was just my mom, but she was both. And then my dad retired when I was 12 and I did this soap opera called Guiding Light. And so he took me to New York and we, were together and I went back and forth from New York to Florida. Wow.

He retired because you were successful?

No, no.

Was he an older father when he had you?

Yeah, he was 48 when he had me. Oh, wow.

48. Well, that tops me.

Yeah.

I like that.

And that's not terribly normal in 1986.

No, it was not. I love that you know my birth year too.

March 3rd?

March 9th. You're really good at this. I'm like, I don't even remember my birthday. I'm the second iteration of kids because I have a brother and a sister from his first marriage. And so I'm not sure if he needed to do the whole thing again, but there we were.

Yeah.

All together in Florida. And my dad and I had an interesting relationship growing up. And then when I was doing the soap opera when I was 12, it really shifted for me and we got really close. We were so close.

Oh, that's lovely. Has he passed?

He's not. He has Alzheimer's actually.

Oh, okay.

pretty extreme at this point. And so I shouldn't refer to it as we were close because we are close, but you know, it takes a different shape.

Yeah.

No, my only experience with that was my Grandma Yolis, which was truly my second mother. She raised me every summer. Yeah. And she got it really bad. And it's a very disjointing feeling to look at her and she doesn't know who you are. And you have all of this that you have.

Yeah. It's been such a Beautiful, tragic, sad, all the words, I guess, of understanding how you can have a different type of relationship with someone in such a different shape and form. But I'm looking at it as I'm grateful that I got 6 years with him because he got diagnosed in 2020. So that I got 6 years that I wouldn't have had if he got cancer or something like that, you know. And I got to really be present in those years because I knew what was happening. And so I really— Don't take that for granted.

I think with Alzheimer's, my grandfather also had it. We were also very, very, very close. And because it's more over time, I do feel like there's like 2 deaths in some ways. Yeah. You have your own closure and you just like your own goodbye kind of while they're still living, which is a little complicated and confusing because you're around them and they're physically there, but the one you knew is no longer there.

It's true.

And then you're kind of waiting for this other death. It's, it's a very strange experience. For me, it was anyway.

I think that's exactly how I feel. It was, it's a prolonged grief that you can either take as it being very helpful because you can sort of look at it in such a bigger way, as opposed to just grief hitting you and then it having to come on the back end. You're sort of mining all this stuff before.

Uh-huh.

Um, oh, okay. Are you ready for something?

Oh, it's nicotine.

Oh, it's nicotine.

We're about to kiss. It's about right.

I just didn't tell you. That's part of the show.

I kiss every guest, uh, boy or girl.

I, I was just like, wow, he's just fresh to death no matter what.

Alzheimer's. What was that?

Oh, it's nicotine. I get it.

Okay. Okay. Hypervigilance.

How did you know that? Are you a psychic? What do you mean?

You're hypervigilant.

How do you know that? Oh, 'cause I've said it.

'Cause you're talking to her. No one's even gonna notice what just happened. You're fully focused on Monica and on the very far corner of your eye, you just see me put something in my mouth and you don't miss it.

Wow. Well, I'm gonna get comfortable. It's my biggest thing that I deal with in therapy is hypervigilance. And it sort of seeps into— oh my God, I'm really on armchair expert on it. It seeps into every aspect of my life. It sort of defines everything that's happened in terms of addiction or partners that I've chosen or anything like that. Because When I was a kid actor, I learned very early on, 'cause I was a baby actor, I get the most reward system and the biggest doses of love if I am managing everyone's emotions and really perfect and doing everything right and performing to the best of my ability and everybody gets really happy.

Yeah.

You can control the temperature in the room.

Oh, I love it.

With your existence.

It's my favorite thing to work on too, of just like, I don't need to control the environment. Oh, why would I? You know?

So hard.

Isn't that interesting how much you have to put it into practice? And that uncomfortable feeling that you feel that just feels icky is okay sitting there?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's—

I know. And it goes away. Yeah. You can just sit in uncomfortableness? What do you mean?

You won't die.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, your brain's telling you you're gonna die.

Right. Or you need to get it off of you. And I think that's, I'm sure a lot of addicty people feel like that.

Yeah. For sure.

You gotta do something to change it. Or you don't have to.

What I love, I think, like, I would take it all on because of that. Because I know you right away. You see each other.

Yeah, yeah.

And I love that. I think that's really special. That's like the gift, in my opinion.

I think it's such a gift, and it's been so useful for me for my career to be super in tune with people's needs and empathetic in a way where I can read a room. And I think I learned that not because just only in my childhood, but being a child actor. I could tap dance and do the things, and sometimes that is what people need. And I try to take that as like a superpower instead of it being detrimental.

Also, I would guess as an adult in a scene, it might take a little bit take me 6 goes at it before we have the thing the adults in the room are happy with. Now, as an adult, I go, yeah, that's standard. Everyone is going to need multiple takes. But if I'm a child and I know the adults want something that I cannot give them right now, or that I seemingly am not because we keep doing it,

yeah,

I have to imagine without that perspective, that is an extremely stressful situation on a little person's nervous system.

I learned very quickly to get to where I needed to go and doing it at any means necessary.

Yeah, just be perfect right out of the gate.

Just be perfect right out of the gate. And to use whatever you needed to, to cry or get there. And I'm talking like it's so terrible. I was having a blast, you know. I loved being a kid actor. But

no, no, we don't have to apologize. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But it still was just weird. I shouldn't have to make myself cry to get validation, but, you know, that's what we did.

None of it's complaining. It's just the reality check of it. Like, that's a lot of stress on a little body. Because what I was thinking is you're in the department store catalog at 3 years old, right? So you're part of photoshoot. I can't even imagine getting my 3-year-old to cooperate for a photoshoot.

I just always was so ready to rock. I don't know what that means about me, but I was like, this is my destiny when I was a child. The Lands' End catalogs, the baby commercials.

Did you ever eat any baby food or did you get to play with toys in a commercial?

I remember I had

an Oreo commercial. The dream.

It was Oreos and Wheat Thins. And I think I got the Wheat Thins part of the commercial because it was under the same umbrella.

Because these are both Nabisco.

Yeah, it was a Nabisco commercial. And I had— this was when I was in like 4th or 5th grade, which is weird that I had braces, but I remember that I had braces on or like a retainer that you couldn't take off. And my mom took it off.

Oh, but she got in there and did some orthodontia.

No, like I had to go to the orthodontist and get it taken off because she didn't want to mess up the Wheat Thins commercial.

Sure.

It was going to get stuck in my teeth.

And were you aware of the fact that all that you were accumulating like hundreds of thousands of dollars. Did you have any sense that you were generating a ton of money?

I didn't even know what money was. All right. Yeah, no clue. Okay. I also had no idea where it was going.

Let's be honest, a Wheaties— or rather a—

Nabisco commercial.

Yeah, in the, in the, in the, in the late '80s. Yeah. That's a cash cow. That fucker probably ran for 13 months.

It was in the '90s at that point. I remember it being a big deal. I remember knowing that like, well, I've made it.

Yeah. Yes.

In 4th grade.

Were kids at school seeing you in commercials and what was their reaction to it? I mean, I have a guess. Your advocacy work is about bullying.

Yeah.

I'm assuming that there's some story there.

It could go either way though, because people could be like, that girl's cool, she's in commercials.

Well, that's what you would hope.

Well, that's what I thought would happen.

But jealousy.

I wasn't really aware. I think I was so focused on achievement and, you know, it's like one of those kids who's just really into the schoolwork or soccer or something like that. And I just was laser focused. until about middle school, and then the girls got really mean. I mean, honestly, from their perspective in their little middle school brains, I got to fly in and out of school. I was on a soap opera in New York. I got to go to 2 days of school, take my tests.

Were boys obsessed with you?

Oh no. I had really curly hair and I didn't know what to do with it. It would be curly and then I would put gel in it and then I'd brush it out. So I had like really big,

big

frizz.

Unadvisable.

But Brittany, if I was in 7th grade and you were on television, I could watch you on, I would've been obsessed. I, I can't imagine. imagine none of these boys were like watching the program.

No, I had no— not in middle school.

No.

But the girls, I think they thought, why did she get—

they're jealous.

Yeah, why did she get to do this? And to be honest, I don't know why I got to do this. It just— I was going in and out. It was a lot because my parents thought it would be normal for me to be in school in Florida and go to work in New York. It was a bad decision.

Yeah, they thought it was the best thing. And how does one know? You are afraid your kid's not gonna have a real life, I imagine, if you have a child actor and you don't know anyone to call. I'm trying to make a case for them here.

Of course.

Yeah, you know, who are they gonna call and be like, hey, did you send, uh, Tom to normal school? Oh, Ben Cruise, you know,

right?

Who are they gonna find out from?

The option was that I was gonna go to a professional New York school while I was doing the soap opera, and she didn't like that there was other actory kids there, and she wanted me to have a normal life. But we look back and it was not a normal life either.

Yeah, the ship has sailed once you're on a soap opera.

I was more friendly with the JetBlue flight attendants than I was my friends in school because I was on a plane every week going back and forth.

You got on Guiding Light at 12, right? How did that come about? I don't even know how you're auditioning for things in Tampa.

I went up to New York, I got an agent. It was my first audition.

You and Ashton Kutcher, baby.

His first audition?

Was The '70s Show.

Oh, really?

Yeah. First audition.

That's the only thing we have in common. Not dollar amounts, just that. That was the first audition I went to, and I wish I had as much confidence as I did back then about my acting. I just was like, I'm gonna get this.

Yeah. Yeah.

And now I never can do an audition like that.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it was my first thing, and then we had to move there. And so my mom was like, oh, shit. Good for you that you got your first audition, but now our life is completely changed.

Okay, now I love talking about this because we've had, I don't know, a dozen folks that have started in so And what people may or may not realize about soap operas is you film an entire episode of the show in one day, which would normally take on a sitcom 5 days and on a drama 8 days. And they're hour-long, right? So, 45 pages, you gotta move, right? Oh, thank you. Tiny, tiny sneezes.

Tiny sneeze.

Mouse sneezes.

When you leave, you walk out to cough, right? Is that when you leave?

No, if I'm having a cough attack, I will leave. I'll leave because it's too embarrassing.

Okay.

That's so polite of you. It's disruptive.

This is a war between us. She won't fart. I've known her for 11, 12 years now, and she's not farted in front of me. And I'm like, this is insane.

Okay. So you are with me on this?

Oh yeah.

What about when you're in partner— well, now we're really deep. We were talking about such serious, interesting stuff. We'll get back to it.

It's always there waiting.

When you're in partnership, are you relaxed enough to fart?

So yesterday I was on another podcast and I was with Malin Ackerman, who's on Hunting Wives with me, and she went on this whole 5-minute thing about bathroom behavior. And I like looked off into the distance and I disassociated. And then the podcast, Brittany Broski, was like, are you okay? And I was like, I completely left my body.

Yeah, I

can't

talk about this. It's not for you.

Yep, it's not for you.

I, uh-huh. I think I think it's my mom comes in my head and it's like, that's not a thing.

But this is part of the perfection. I'm gonna bring this back. This is part of being perfect. Don't look over here in any way negative, which I relate to, which is why I've never farted.

Okay. By the way, I know Malin.

You're gonna bring that back.

Yeah.

I know Malin very well.

Yes.

So without you even telling me what her take was, I know what it was. She is a Swede.

They're naked a lot in Sweden.

Fucking naked with their parents. Presumably fart, fart, fart. Who cares?

I mean, if you're naked, like, I don't know. I assume, yeah, some farts are coming out.

It's very free. It's free.

Free.

Yeah.

That would— even saying the word would be a lot, right? Like, it would make— yeah. Okay. That's fine. I'm not gonna ask you to. I think I can feel what your body would feel like inside if you said it.

Yeah. It's also a little sexual.

Oh my God.

That's exclusive.

Honestly, it is. And I'm sweating.

That's an excuse.

Oh my God.

That's, it's so, it's on every headline of every paper.

My publicist is like, how did it go? And I'm like, well, I had a breakthrough.

She's like, I knew it was gonna be stupid. Read all about it. Yeah, exactly. Don't you feel good now?

I do. I do.

No, you don't have to lie either. No, maybe don't feel good about it.

I do.

Yeah.

Yeah. But back to freedom. I didn't think when you were talking about not having control, we're now putting you in a position to not have any control. It is freeing. I was talking to my therapist about this the other day. I was like, man, I was in a situation recently where I normally would behave very hypervigilantly and very like—

Controll-y.

Controll-y, sheriff-y looking, thinking. And I was like, I'm not doing it.

Yeah.

And I didn't. And I was like, whoa, it feels so good.

It's the best. It's my favorite thing to do.

It feels free.

I mean, I'm so proud of myself that now I can see it, whereas before it's reactionary. Now I can like make the choice to not, and it is freeing. It's really important.

What a feeling.

Well, it's just too much of a beatdown on your nervous system to not learn how to put that away at times.

But you don't realize it when it's your MO. It's just what you do.

And you tell yourself that's who you are, as if this is an immovable object.

And that it's on you. It's necessary for you to behave this way or everyone's gonna die or everyone's gonna fall apart. Once you realize, like, you're not throwing them important. It like feels like that's the worst thing you can acknowledge, but it's actually liberating. It feels so good.

Oh yeah, I say to myself, I mean, I don't even know how many times a day, like, nobody gives a fuck about you. Not in a bad way, but like, nobody cares. There's so much— what's that like old adage where it's like, today's news is another man's fish wrap? Or like, today's newspaper is another— whatever.

I love it. Never heard it, but I love it.

But it's something about the front page news is Tomorrow it's gonna be somebody's gonna just throw it away. And I truly think that all the time where I'm like, you could be freaking out about this, but nobody really cares.

Yeah.

I love Jeffrey Johnson. I don't know if you've ever worked with him. He's a prop master and he's also the head of the union. He was a prop master on Parenthood for 6 years. Of anyone I've ever met in the crew, he's my favorite. So every year I go and present or do a bit for the Prop Master Union Award Show.

Oh, that's so cool.

So it was Saturday and he thought this year's bit might be, hey, why don't you carry me across the stage? And then put me down. And then when you go to the microphone, say, the prop department's always carrying us actors. I thought I'd return the favor. So I go, okay, great. No problem. I underestimate how long the stage is, right? And I'm going to say that Jeffrey probably weighs like, I don't know, probably 185, 190. But I'm like, no problem. I'll do that. I carry him like a baby and I'm walking, walking, walking, walking, walking. I'm like, oh, this is a very long walk. And then I set him down. I'm like, I got to get back to the fucking microphone. So then I scurry back to the microphone and then I start trying to read this teleprompter, which is, it's like a 3-page setup for this award. In about 10 lines in, I'm like, I think I'm gonna pass out. I'm trying to not breathe really hard while I'm reading the thing. And then I have to stop and I go, okay, gang, I thought I was in better shape than I was. I can't breathe.

Hahaha. But now that there's laughs, and then I feed that a little bit. I never really get my breath that I needed.

Oh, no.

Yeah. And then I try to continue on reading. And it was the craziest experience I've ever had on a stage because I kept thinking I was gonna pass out and I could barely read out loud. I was so out of breath. I leave and I literally went, and this is the freedom of like being 51 and whatever it is. I shit the bed on that. And who gives a fuck?

Also, if anything, it's kind of, it's kind of cool.

Yeah. It's also memorable.

I think it's endearing.

There was a period in my life where I would've left and the whole ride home I would've been like, oh my God, I fucked that up. I should have blah, blah. And I was just like, oh yeah, that's one thing that didn't go well. Other things have gone well and we're going home and who gives a flying fuck?

Yeah. And reprogramming that your external validation doesn't make up who you are. Like, it doesn't take away from you being, like, great that you went there and did that and had— that you were supportive of your friend and tried something cool. Like, why do we need it to go well in order for that to mean something?

And it didn't. And that was fine. And it's really okay if things don't go well. Like, I'll survive. Life will be pretty much the same.

Yeah, totally.

Okay. We're on Guiding Light for 3 years. You win the Soap Opera Digest Award.

Wow.

Oscars, Soap Opera Digest, it's all in the same.

Is there an award show for that?

There was. I don't know if there is anymore. I do think that soap operas might not be as relevant.

I don't think— yeah, sadly. So many moms I knew, their programs. And you know what?

So many great actors came from soap operas. Like, Tom Pelphrey and I were just talking about it. He just won, and he was like, you were on Guiding Light? I was on Guiding Light. I was like, oh, see, it's not so bad.

No, almost everyone we've interviewed that started there is a phenomenal actor because I think it's great great training. It's like, hey, you're gonna learn how to memorize dialogue in a hurry. You're also gonna learn to, like, move and pace and not be precious.

You're so on instinct. You're not in your head because you don't have time to be in your head. You're just doing the first thing that pops up, which for a kid actor is really good because there's no technique, really. You're not, like, studying Stanislavski and being like, Meisner taught me this. You're just being a kid. There's a lot of acting that sometimes I just go back to, like, what would I have done on Guiding Light? You're trying to just go back to that reactionary sort of feeling. But yeah, it was a really good training ground, but also for a kid, maybe a lot more pressure than I probably should have had.

Taken on, yeah.

But, you know, in hindsight, it made me fall in love with acting because I started to realize the reason that I liked acting was because it was a therapeutic experience.

You were talking to Claire Danes, and you were saying, like, you have a scene on the show, and you're letting it rip against your mom on the show. You're getting to behave in a way you wouldn't be allowed to behave towards your mom. And then at the end of that, there's like a round of applause. Everyone's so happy. And that's like the first time you go from like, oh, I just show up here, I do this thing. And this was like, oh wait, this is rad. I like this.

Yeah. I mean, now it's sort of fucked up to realize that that validation that I got from getting in touch with some teenage anger was probably like discombobulated. I shouldn't have probably found it there. But I think that in that moment, I think that's sometimes what acting is, is using your own experience and sort of going, going into this meditative state where I was yelling at my mom. And so I fell in love with that feeling. That was the first time I did a short film called Milkshake about this, but it was the first time I got like high as a 12-year-old because you leave your body and you're doing something that's way bigger than you. And you're like, whoa, whoa, where was I?

You're in flow. You're transcending it all.

Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Yeah. So obviously at work you were pulling it off perfectly, but where is the anxiety parked? Like all that anxiety that was never shown On your 10-hour day at work, where is it burbling up? What were you doing when you got off work in New York City at 13 years old?

Well, it gets a little dark, but I think that anybody who cares about knowing me knows this story or where it's going because I didn't really have an outlet. And so I decided to start emulating the women on set, and they were all on diets, and they all were all looking at their bodies and talking about their bodies. My body was changing, and I thought, I don't want to be, you know, a chunky teenager. So I start dieting, and then it starts becoming this sort of best friend and definitely like an addiction where I was really hyperfocused on that being the only thing I cared about. So it was just work and that, and controlling that, counting every single calorie, working out for 2 hours after rehearsals before I would shoot the day of soap opera acting. And so it was repetitive, and it made me feel safe that I got a high of, like, every time I got on the scale, there was a new number, and I did well if it went down. Mm-hmm.

There's very few areas of your life that you can quantify and measure.

It's so true. It's extreme validation on an immediate scale. Yes. Literally.

Yeah.

Because you have something coming back at you being like, you're doing something right, supposedly. And at that time, it was right because there wasn't any talk about eating disorders. I didn't even know what that was. And nobody's talking about that being a bad thing necessarily. Everyone's losing weight. I mean, it's the '90s at this point.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking the weather forecast before you walk out the door? You looked outside, saw blue sky, felt great about your outfit choice. No jacket, no umbrella. Fast forward 2 hours, you're sprinting through a parking lot in a downpour, holding a notebook over your head like that's going to help. Yeah, checking first is a brilliant idea. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Allstate North American Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. I remember in '93, my senior year of high school, there's this beautiful girl and she went away for a while and then she came back and she made a speech to our class about where she had been. and what she had gone through.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. And she had gone to treatment for anorexia. That's really brave.

Yeah.

And I remember, like, A, this is the ballsiest thing. Much ballsier than the 2 dudes I just saw fight in the hallway. Like, this is nuts, right? This is so brave. Oh, that poor girl. And she was so beautiful. Trying to comprehend how she could have had some body dysmorphia was challenging for me. And then, yeah, that's a whole new thing. This is the first time I'm really going like, oh, this is a thing someone could have. And that's in '93. And I'm 19. I'm 18.

That's so important that that happened because at that time nobody was talking about that. And what a brave person to even put a name to it because at 18—

Well, she was also the Tracy Flick of our school, right? She was very outgoing. She was very confident. And again, that's another, it's like it doesn't match with your whole stereotype of any of this stuff.

I think that's what was really hard for me too, is that I thought that I could not only control this, but then I could control the recovery of it too. And that it wasn't that big of a deal. And of course it was. And I'm not an addict in, in other other ways, but I am an addict in that way in terms of hyperfixating on something in terms of control in my body. And I got down to a weight that was scary. Dangerous. Yeah. Dangerous.

And who intervened?

My dad, actually. And that was the first time that I went to therapy. I started therapy when I was 16. I started going to program and I learned what an eating disorder was. I read an article in a magazine. I have a charity called September Letters that is about this moment. But I read an article in a magazine about this woman who had an eating disorder. And I was like, the way she is counting her food and the way she is talking about her body, that is exactly what I do. And I said, eating disorder? I do not even know what that means. And so I ripped out the magazine. I carried it around in my back pocket for a while because it sort of signified that somebody had an answer to this and it made me feel not alone.

Yes.

And then later when I got recovery and I did the People magazine article, I talked about how that article had really changed everything for me. And I talked about it in the People magazine article, and I went to a coffee shop, and a girl was in front of me in line, and she was crying, and she turned around, and she was carrying my article in her back pocket.

Oh, yeah.

That's beautiful. And

I started crying, and she started crying. And I always wanted to do something about that notion that you're thinking like the girl in your school, that this is something that you're doing for other people, but you're really doing it for yourself. And making sure that your story means something, that it's going to continue on, and that you can help Someone else in the same way because you're offering hope.

Yeah, I think there's probably a lot of misconceptions about it, but the thing that makes it an addiction, right, is like you're regulating your emotional state with this outward behavior. And that's what I'm doing too when I go buy coke. Yeah, I'm gonna regulate how I feel. Yeah, I don't like how I feel and I have a solution for it. Yeah, it's expensive.

It's— yeah, yours is way more expensive. Mine was like donuts and stuff.

Well, it's expensive emotionally.

Yeah, it all is.

That was what I learned in program that was so fascinating is that you just insert item here, alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, whatever it is. It's that external thing that's supposed to solve the inner hole that you're feeling and you can't seem to fill it up. And so I had a lot of friends that were alcoholics as a kid and things like that because we were all going through the same thing. It made me feel better that in program too, it was taken just as seriously.

Yeah.

That mine was dotted. frivolous sort of disease.

A girly, frivolous, vain— Yeah, or vain, or—

right.

No, it's a life-threatening illness like all these are.

Yeah. And then I directed a movie a couple years ago called Parachute, and that was really about the beginning of figuring out how to get better and the final day that I got better. I have 17 years of recovery tomorrow.

Oh my God, tomorrow! Congratulations.

That's amazing.

The 17th for 17 years. Yeah, it's a golden Recovery day? Birthday?

I don't know. It is?

Yeah. Oh. It's my golden day or whatever.

What are you gonna do?

Nothing, probably.

Your face just made an interesting shape that resembled Emily Blunt. I've never seen that before, but have you ever gotten that?

Yeah, I have gotten that.

Oh, wow.

Such a compliment. Thank you.

Yeah, not a bad thing to hear.

That's fun. I didn't, I didn't catch that.

Yeah, it was really specific.

I wish I had that cool accent and was just as classy.

Okay, so you go from the soap to American Dreams.

With Sara Ramos.

With Sara Ramos. And maybe more importantly to me, Kristin's—

Your wife.

Oh, that's right.

Second guest star of her life. And she said, you know, Brittany was so nice to me, and I remembered that my whole life, and I always loved seeing her just 'cause she was so, so nice to me.

That's so nice.

On my, like, second guest appearance.

I remember. I remember that.

How could you remember? You do.

I do remember.

Really quick, the premise, it's you're a dancer on American Bandstand.

But it's about the '60s. Yes. It was a great show.

I loved that show.

It was a good show.

Yeah.

It was so before its time. Glee and all those shows that had such musical relevance. American Dreams would've really existed in also a social media world.

Totally.

Because these stars that would come on, you know, Usher was Marvin Gaye and— Yeah.

Oh, wow.

People would come on and play their favorite '60s artists. And so my character was a dancer on American Bandstand, but she also was going through the changes of women empowerment and civil rights and all the things that happened in 1963 to 1966. And so it was a really special—

It was a very good show.

Yeah. And you remember Kristin showing up?

I do, because I remember that role was really hard to cast and they kept asking me if I had any friends that could play the role.

What was the role? She played a lot of hookers at the beginning. Was she a hooker?

She wasn't. She was a teenage— she, she was a teen. No, she was—

he kept calling his wife a hooker when I went on the show.

No, if you ever watched the Western she was in, The Milch Project— Deadwood. Oh! She was famously a hooker for a long time and then got cured.

I love that because Kristin doesn't give hot tears to me. But you know what? I play a hooker too, so I—

What is a hooker?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. With a heart of gold, obviously. Yes! She was a teenage pregnant girl.

Oh, yeah. She needed an abortion.

Yes, that's what it was. And it was a big, hot topic, and it was a really important role. And so they were sort of— worried about who was going to play that role.

They had to be good.

Also, it comes with a lot of eyes on it. And so, yeah, especially on NBC on Sunday nights. And then I remember when she got it and I thought, wow, she's really good. So they nailed it.

Ah, that's why I remember. It's an interesting dynamic that you're like, you're the star of the show at a very young age and people that are older than you are coming in. So there's like this contradictory status thing that's on the table when you're a young star.

I don't know. I didn't think about it. Like, I was always so just overwhelmed with everybody who was on the show. And I know that a therapist would have a field day with this, but I dissociated a lot on that show. I didn't think it was really happening to me. I had no idea anyone was watching it. I had no idea that it was a big deal. Whenever we would get Alanis Morissette or Ashanti or someone would come on, I'd be like, hi, what are we doing? Because I was also a kid. I had no idea it was my show.

Okay.

Yeah.

So that was one of my questions. Did you feel like any of the weight of carrying a network show as your second job?

I had no idea.

You didn't know you were doing that at all?

I had no idea. I knew that the show was so good, and I really relied on that, but I was so sick at that point with my eating disorder that I was really trying to just get by.

Manage.

Yeah.

Do you feel— this may be not fair because people are still working, but do you that people on set would've stepped in?

They did.

They did. Okay, well, good.

I'm glad they did. Yeah, I had a lot of really great— and they're still my friends to this day— a lot of directors and the producers. The main producer, David Semel, he might've done a lot of Parenthood, actually. But there was meetings and things.

Was it so embarrassing when that was happening? Or were you in denial enough to—

No. I was pretty worried.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I was worried. And I just didn't have the words. have an answer at that point, and I didn't have time for an answer. You're 16. I'm falling in love with my first boyfriend.

A parachute?

No, that's later. That was in my 20s.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, that was like the relationship that got me better.

Okay, okay, okay. But I'm thinking of the metaphor of the parachute is that sometimes they tell you in early sobriety, no matter what it is, try not to have a relationship in the first year because they become this parachute. That's the metaphor of the movie, right?

Yeah, yeah.

That breaks your fall. Basically.

Definitely. And I got really, really connected to this person who's still a good friend of mine. He's like my best guy friend, and he's friends with my, my current partner. And it's really just a beautiful relationship of this person who was trying to save me in a lot of ways, and I needed to just completely remove myself from that situation in order to save myself. And that's how I got better.

I'm really glad to hear that because sometimes I think when we are watching TV and we see someone who we feel like might be struggling, Especially in an eating disorder realm, a lot of us judge. We're like, why would they let that person work? Why aren't people stepping in? They're just letting her. And it's like, they are, probably.

Yeah. And I was so young, and I think at that time there was not a lot of information about it. It was definitely not prevalent in, in conversation. I mean, now people talk about their mental health all the time. We're talking about it right now. This would never happen back then. And it was definitely not cool to talk about an eating disorder. And so it was all very, not any fault of anyone's, but it was hidden and tried to be dealt with in a contained way.

I've said this numerous times on here, but I'm going to say it again. The compassion I have for that specific addiction is one, it's obvious, right? There's no hiding really. Whereas like on the same cast, some dude's got a gambling addiction no one knows about. Some guy's got a sex addiction no one knows about. Someone's using drugs. Destructively, but we don't know that.

Right.

So yours can be easily observed, you know? So there's really no hiding. So that, that I feel bad for because hiding's half the thing. And then secondly, as I always say, like, if you told me I had to have one line of coke in the morning, one line of coke in the afternoon, and one line of coke in the evening, how? Yeah, that's what makes it the most gruesome. That and love addiction, which is like, you still have to be in love and have sex. You still have to eat.

Be in relationship.

I don't ever have to do cocaine again.

Right.

You know, as I'm not required to.

That was a huge part of when I was in recovery that people would talk about all the time is like, you're letting the lion in and out of the cage, you know, 3 times a day.

Yeah.

Because you're having to face it. And that's why I went to rehab twice. And the thing that worked for me the most was an outpatient situation where I quit acting for a year and I was in an outpatient program with this guy named Ray Santamaria, who I love, at One-to-One Treatment. Props to Ray.

Shout out.

Shout out, Ray.

He saved my life. And it was dealing with doing normal human things, going to a restaurant, going out to eat with your friends, going to the movie theater and not knowing if you should get popcorn or not, you know, things like that, where you had to be really accountable and not lie, which is, you know, we love to lie. And we love to be sneaky about things and to just really show up for yourself and trust yourself. And that's what I learned with outpatient is for a year, I was just like with the thing that I did every day, which was like—

Immersed in it.

Immersed in And I think that's what really helped me is because I learned to trust myself every day.

Yeah. Okay, so you're on this show American Dreams, and then you go get naughty. Now this I remember. This is probably the first time I saw you. No, I would say I know way naughtier than a hooker because sex workers aren't even naughty. But, um, you played a neo-Nazi on—

oh yeah, that's real naughty.

Yeah, I mean, that's as far as naughty as you can get.

That's the worst.

That's the worst. That's what the Nazis expect Germans being a Nazi.

Definitely. I hadn't gone into recovery at that point. So I was really dark at that moment too. Not that dark. There's no way that I could get there.

Not hate crime-y dark?

No. But I tried to draw from things that I just didn't know how to deal with. I didn't know how to wrestle with. And this was a character that had absolutely no perspective on reality. And I sort of had to use my own non-perspective with reality of what I was doing with my life or getting better or recovery and things like that. And that's what I had to draw from, which I felt was an interesting exercise for me. And that's the only way I could do it because you can't relate to a Nazi.

Right.

Yeah.

It was on Nip/Tuck, and it was the beginning of Ryan Murphy being Ryan— I mean, he was already Ryan Murphy.

But that was his first big hit.

Yeah. He directed the last episode that I was in, and that was really cool. And it was such a vision for that show that I really appreciated.

I loved it.

Yeah.

And it was so naughty. It was so, so naughty.

It was so naughty. Everything on that show was naughty.

The Hunting Wives and Nip/Tuck are scratching the same itch for all of us, I think.

That's true. No Nazis on Hunting Wives.

No. But around this time, I got curious. Now, for Nip/Tuck, you're 19. You're clearly starting to notice people your age are, like, on backpacking trips, or they're going to college. Are you at any point during this getting aware of, like, this is a trade-off. I'm not gonna have these certain experiences, and there's no going back to these certain experiences.

I never thought about it.

It never crossed your mind?

I never wanted anything else. I had such a bad time in school that I never looked back. I dropped out, which goes to show how educated I am. I only went to one freshman year of high school, and then I went to school on set on American Dreams. But like, I went to school on set, you know? I don't know what I learned. But then I got my equivalency, which meant that I could work all hours, and I was in LA with these new friends and these new people that were doing the same thing that I was doing. And I was so focused that I didn't ever think about normal.

Yeah, quote normal.

Yeah.

Okay, that's good.

That is good.

Okay, Hairspray, Adam Shankman. Is this the first time you sing? You sing The New Girl in Town. Is that your first time singing on screen? Or you sang backup on American Idol?

Yes, I sang backup on American Idol, and it was the first time I sang, and I was really nervous. And I don't think I'm a very good singer. And so, I think that was really interesting because there were so many really good Broadway stars in that, and legends. And so, I was really intimidated, but I had so much fun. We were in Canada for 6 months doing that.

Holy smokes.

And Zach and I, we had 2 months where we didn't work at all because they kept us there just in case John Travolta or Michelle Pfeiffer had a day that they didn't want to do.

This was in Toronto, wasn't

it?

Earmark a story. You and I, after this, are gonna earmark a funny story about that.

I feel like— 'cause Kristin obviously knows Adam and—

Well, Adam came and directed this whole sequence in a movie that she and I did called When in Rome.

Oh, yeah.

And so we just worked with him for 2 days, and it is the most memorable experience. Like, he had— what an energy Shankman has.

Oh, yeah. He's the best.

Yes, he is. But yeah, what did you guys do in all this downtime in 2 months?

I was pretty sad during that time. But luckily, Zach and I were really close.

He's a sweetheart. I also know him pretty well. Yeah.

And we had such a blast, and we became really good friends. And I knew what a big deal it was to be in Hairspray, and I fought to be in that. And I didn't know if I was going to be, and so I really knew that that was a big, big deal. And so I was fine being there. I was so nervous around Michelle Pfeiffer, and she was so lovely, and it was a lot.

It was intense.

Yeah, it was intense. That is a lot.

Kristin, tell me, you are a great singer, just completely honestly.

I'm not a singer like Kristen.

Well, I'm just telling you what she said.

Oh, that's—

thanks, Kristen.

Okay, when do you take a minute off? Is it after Hairspray? When is this year you take off?

I do Prom Night right after. The cinephile in me will talk about Prom Night. No, no, because it's obviously the best movie that I've ever done. No, it was a campy sort of movie that was very fun to do, and I met a lot of my really close friends on that. But I did that right after And I did another couple movies.

Well, you did John Tucker Must Die. That was—

John Tucker Must Die.

Right before Hairspray.

Was before Hairspray.

Really quick, do you know Jonathan Tucker?

I do. And when John Tucker was coming out, Jonathan Tucker came up to me at a party and was like, you've ruined my life.

I was gonna say, very—

It's a Jon Snow situation.

It's only 3 letters separating him from John Tucker Must Die.

I know. He really had to deal with that for a long time. Thank God it's Jonathan.

But were you tired? I mean, this sounds like you've just been working literally nonstop.

I had no idea about anything else. And of course, I didn't know that that was the way that I was getting— and I still have that sort of feeling where if I'm not working, who am I? And I think a lot of people in this business feel like that.

I think especially if you started young.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Okay. When Pitch Perfect comes around, how do we get that?

The movie I directed, Parachute, is exactly what happened, other than there's a musical theater sort of element and a murder mystery theater that I'm sort of just encapsulating to be Hollywood. And that's in the movie, but everything else really happened. And so it got pretty interesting, and I had to get better, so I took a year off. I was 23 when that happened. And then around 24, 25, I'm starting to try to audition again, and I just— I can't audition. I'm so anxious. I feel like I'm not gonna get my career back. I'm so nervous. I've been put on a lot of different medications that weren't correct for me because I don't think they understood what I needed, my doctors. And medication is great and very helpful, especially for what I was going through, but I think I was misdiagnosed. And so I just could not get a job. And it was really—

That's terrifying.

It was terrifying because I didn't know anything else.

Yes.

And at this point I'm thinking, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Oh, I was doing the show called Harry's Law. I got fired.

Oh no.

Which I understand why it happened because I was still not okay. It was too soon for me to go back to work.

Brittany, you really fucking went through it.

Yeah.

But you know what? It was interesting because it was sort of a ramp into something that now feels really long-lasting. And I have the foundation of I'm never gonna falter like that again. I'm so grateful that I went through all that in those years because now I see my friends who I grew up with in my time that are going through it now. And I, I went through it then, and I'm so—

And you came out of it.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, that's the funny thing is like everyone's gonna have to go through it. Some of us have certain habits that force it to happen sooner.

Right.

Which in a weird way, for me at least, I feel like is a huge blessing.

It definitely is. But anyway, the long story short is Pitch Perfect was my thing that I got back where I don't know how I got it because I was so nervous in the audition, but I ended up doing it. And it just made me fall back in love with acting again and sort of felt really easy and natural. And I made great friends and I was like, oh, I can do this again.

I wasn't there. I would just be guessing that there was a pretty fun energy.

Oh yeah.

Where did you guys shoot?

We were in Baton Rouge for 1 and 2.

Okay.

And then Atlanta for Pitch 3.

Okay. And now Pitch 2 is fucking enormous, right? It makes $286 million. It's the biggest musical comedy of all time.

Oh.

Really? Yeah. Or at least it was at that time. Dethroned School of Rock.

Oh, sorry, Jack Black.

He's okay. Don't worry, he's okay. I saw, I saw he was at a restaurant Friday. He looked like he was doing—

he's living.

He's totally—

I saw him eating, eating a steak. Can you feel— because you sound thus far pretty unaware of the fact that your show even airs on TV on Sunday nights, or that these things are popular. It was that one unavoidable? Was it— did that one penetrate you? Like, were you moving through the world and you're like, oh yeah, wow, this is a fucking mega hit. I'm in a mega hit.

Kind of. I knew that the movie was big, but I'm a perfectionist. And so I didn't feel like I did. I was like, okay, in it, you know? So I'm like, the movie's amazing, but I can do so much better.

Oh, wow.

And my part is fun, but you know, it's silly. So I, I'm still looking at it like I'm enjoying it and I'm so grateful for it, but I always like to have perspective. on. Well, you're not, you

know, you're like, it's still work.

No, it's not work. I just wanted— I

just— she's saying that.

She's saying it's not good.

No, I know it's not. And here's the analogy I'm gonna make is like, I know the math you did to come to this conclusion. Like, that's not a mystery to me how you did it. You're like, well, you know, uh, Anna's blah, blah, blah, and then this and that, right? You just go through this list and you, you start prioritizing yourself at like 9th important or whatever you start doing. But I would urge you to think of your favorite movies growing up. And if you had any sense of who was what, or just, did you just love characters that were in these things? I mean, that's really how it works.

I mean, in Clueless and movies that shaped me, I know every word to that movie.

Yes.

And I know every character and every character is important.

Exactly.

I'm very aware that that is insane to think.

Oh, okay.

But at the time I just thought, wow, this is a great thing that's happening to us. I hope we get to do more because you never know. And I also had such understanding of not knowing if I was ever going to work again. So when people would be on set and be sort of challenging or things would happen on set, I was just sitting there being like, guys, we're getting to sing and dance in a movie and we're working. Let's everybody just shut up.

They're going to pay us on Friday.

Yeah. I really loved being in that seat of gratitude. That sounds so cheesy, but that's what I felt when those movies were happening. We're like, that's the best part of it.

When you were having the kind of crisis of consciousness and identity, like, wow, can I do this? How do I access this? I know specifically from your chat with Claire that it's Like, the tools you were using to act were no longer at your disposal, right?

Yes,

they were gone. All the unhealthiness is gone. It's back to the drawing board in a sense.

Yeah.

Were you having financial insecurity at that point? Because that's where I would be. I just be like, what am I now going to do at 50? I would be in a panic over finances. That's not on your radar?

I mean, not really. Not to say that I wasn't like drowning in money or anything. I think my biggest concern was that I couldn't do the thing that I loved the most and that I know I was supposed to do. I don't know how I'm supposed to do anything else. Not because I don't have another skill, even though I probably don't, but it's the one thing that I know I'm supposed to do, and I can't do it the way that I used to. So I have to now come to another understanding of what that means, and I can't use the same tools that I used to use.

It's dangerous because you could easily tell yourself, oh, well, I was better off when I was sick.

Sure.

You could— that's a very slippery slope.

Well, these are all the comedians who get sober and think they can't be funny because they're not like—

Yeah, you're like, I was working, I was working nonstop. I guess my life was actually pretty good. What have I done? Like, it could get very, very slippery mental health-wise, I think.

I think I never wanted to go back to being sick though, because I was so unhappy and I was so all of a sudden really happy.

Yeah.

But I couldn't work, and so it was this very strange Strange dichotomy.

You have the right answer, by the way, and that would be Kristen's as well. Hers would just be about— she wants to do the thing. The other stuff's just ancillary and the consequence of loving the thing.

Definitely.

I would be like, oh my God, can I buy this? I remember I didn't work for like a year and a half or something. I had a few stinkers in a row, and I was going back to writing. I was like, I needed a couch for my living room. I had no couch in the living room. And it was like, the couch from Sofa U Love was like $2,000, And I was like, Sophie

Love, I know exactly who you're

talking about

on Western.

I was like, I have $100,000, I think, for the rest of my life. I can't buy a $2,000 couch, right? And that's all I'm thinking about all day long. Like, not like, oh, I'll never get to do— that's there too, but just my panic of like, how are we gonna stretch out?

That's real. That's life. Life is you need money to live.

So many people go through this too when they switch jobs or have to recalibrate in a way. And I did feel very a part of a bigger unit where I'm like, okay, we gotta redo this. Yeah. And maybe even redo my mindset on what I'm using or why this is so important to me.

Yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

Can there be a 4?

Good question. I would like for there to be a 4.

Yeah,

me too.

They've all made boatloads of money. I don't know why we wouldn't go ahead and—

Everybody just doesn't want to do it if we're gonna half-ass it.

Yeah,

yeah.

And we don't have a good story yet. Yeah, maybe they do. I'm the last to know. I was the last person cast on Pitch Perfect 1, and so I'm always the last to know.

Parachute, we've talked a bunch about it, but I just, I guess, have a couple directing questions. One, it got acquired. It's super highly reviewed. So you've definitely proven you can write and direct a movie. Do you want to do more of that?

Oh, definitely.

Talk about if you love control like I do.

It's so nice to get that validation and that high of putting a puzzle piece together and all the puzzle fitting.

Solving the problem is so fun, right?

When they, like, fit into place and you're like, ah, I'm the best! But it never really gets there because then the next puzzle piece breaks apart and you have to continually do it. But it was definitely using another part of my brain that I really appreciated. I didn't have to think about me. I got to use my mind in a way that was very helpful for me. And I got to do it as a therapeutic exercise because it was a movie that was about something that I had been through. And I was exercising this thing by seeing it in somebody else's eyes. Yeah. Because the actress Courtney Eaton, who is extraordinary in it, she came with her own experience. The movie became both of our—

Your shared experience.

Shared experience.

Yeah, I think the obsessive mind that is your best friend when you're an addict is an asset when directing.

Yeah.

'Cause there's just a quadrillion little strands that you're constantly trying to weave into this thing. And, like, if you've had a lot of experience juggling a lot of stuff at once, I think it's like it really sets you up well to do that job.

I think that's why I was saying, like, it's turned into a super— not that I'm— it's a superpower because I'm so good at it. I don't even know if I am necessarily. But it was definitely helpful for me, the hypervigilance, being a director, because I knew how to be a different type of person to different actors and different—

Yeah.

The prop department, the makeup department. Somebody needs a different director or a different person for each thing that they're going through. It was helpful because there was a lot of things that I could answer that I used to go through, or I know know personally that I could really understand in someone else. And I thought to myself, wow, this is a great opportunity to use my own experience with this to help someone else.

Yeah. Okay, so 2025 is an enormous year.

Yeah.

Professionally for you.

Yeah.

Why did you smile?

No, because there's so many things happened in 2025.

Okay.

Personally, professionally.

Yeah, it a big year. Shit show.

A big year.

It was a big year. Yeah.

Okay. Well, professionally there was Murdaugh: Death in the Family, Hulu. You were in that. Then The Beast in Me. Mm-hmm. You were in that.

Great show.

Did you fall in love with Matthew?

I love Matthew.

Oh my God. We interviewed him. We were both like, take us home.

I know. He's the best.

He's so funny. He deserves this moment more than anybody. I love him.

Did he offer you to take you on his, um, Moveable Feast? That's the name of the boat, right? Oh yeah. Moveable Feast.

No, actually.

Okay. Bastard. I'm sure if you were in New York, he would've.

Yeah.

Yeah. This is like when we told Gal Gadot she didn't get Tom Cruise's cake, and it was a big— you know, it was a big— we're letting people down all over the place. Yeah.

No, no. He and I became friends, and he was such a good person to have on that set too, because I was in and out. And as a person that's sort of in every couple scenes or every episode, you don't really know where you fit into the whole thing as a whole. And he always made me feel so comfortable. And he was going through the same thing as well. You know, he doesn't feel like he's the greatest actor either. You know, he's always, like, very real and has perspective, and it's really nice. Yeah,

he's so Welsh.

That was a great show.

Tell me the whole experience of getting The Hunting Wife as a script and what your first thoughts are.

At the time, I was in Thailand. I was doing a Night Agent episode where I die right away. And I just remember thinking, oh, I really like this, but I'm sure I'm going to have to work for it and audition for it. But I'm in Thailand. There's not exactly, like, a self-tape studio I can do. And I don't know anybody really here, so I don't know how I'm gonna put myself on tape for this thing. I had a feeling. Sometimes I just get a feeling. And I thought, I think this one I'm gonna get, and I don't know how. And I talked to my reps, and I guess Erwin Stoff, who was our main producer, he had seen my short film that got nominated for an Oscar, Red, White& Blue, and so I didn't need to audition.

Wow.

No way.

And that, at the time, was for stars. And so I was like, oh, I'm just gonna do this, and no one's really gonna see it. see it. So I knew it was really cool. I couldn't put it down. I read all 8 episodes while I was filming there, and I loved it. But I also thought, I mean, no offense to stars, but

who

knows?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Malin had already been cast.

And did you know her at all?

We had friends in common, and we were always told by our mutual friends that we would get along. And so I always knew, and I had heard stories that she was just the coolest, and she had great perspective on what this business is about. And,

you

know, drinking tequila and just, you know, And I was like, that's my girl.

Yeah, she's as cool as they get.

She really is.

Okay, so I think this is gonna be a big spoiler time now. I find it hard to believe anyone would not have seen season 1 at this point. It was wildly successful.

Very.

Did you feel that one?

I did.

Okay.

But I sort of dissociate from it where I think it's happening to someone else. I think this is a good thing that I'm not really walking around thinking that people care about about me or looking at me. I just knew that this show was a big deal because of all the TikToks.

So many.

Oh, tell me about the TikToks. I don't know what to expect.

People having just really wild reactions.

Oh, okay.

And I really appreciated that because it's such a campy, fun show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It has the most plot of any show I've ever watched.

Oh, season 2 is way more plot. Just plot everywhere.

I want to kind of march through what happened in season 1 so that we can then talk about season 2, which is you and your husband move from Boston down to Texas. He's taken a job, uh, he's working for Dermot Mulroney, also a radical dude. We love him.

Right?

What a champ. Yeah. But anyway, you guys move to Texas, you're a fish out of water. Everyone loves guns, they like day drinking, everyone's rich. The girls are all like final touches at all times. They've done hair and makeup. It's a real extreme scenario. And then you meet Malin's character, And yeah, well, how would you describe— because I think some people like to frame what happened one way, and I know you have a different idea of what happened, and I, of course, agree with you, but you know, you decided.

I mean, I'm gonna give you the hot take that— because I'm here on Armchair Expert.

Yes.

But that I don't really talk about. It's not really talked about, but Rebecca Cutter and I really agree on this, is that I think that Sophie is an addict in a way, and she sort of displaces and sort of mismanages her addiction to other things. I mean, in the first season, we have her, like, biting her nails, and is she an alcoholic? Is she not an alcoholic? But she becomes really fascinated and almost addicted to Margot in this way of, this person's going to solve this emptiness that I feel, which is, I need to be this perfect mom. I can't be who I am anymore. I'm moving to this town, and I want to be this free, sort of different person. woman that I've been caged to now become. And I think she latches on and becomes addicted to the idea of Margot, and also falls in love with her at the same time, which is a really dangerous combination. And gets mixed up in this whole sort of murderous plot because she can't quit this woman. And season 2 was even more of a reflection of that.

Why is that a hot take?

Because I don't think we talk about the addiction part of it ever.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah. That's a choice that I made.

I like that. What do you think?

Well, what I love about the show is it's preposterous.

Yes.

And yet you're dead real. And then this element is dead real and truthful, which is, yes, you're what we would call in recovery, you've basically accomplished a geographic cure. So you are clearly an addict. You were in a vehicular accident that resulted in a fatality due to your drinking. That's a pretty big red flag.

That's a low, I would say.

And then so a lot of addicts, I'm moving, you know, I'm gonna move to St. Louis, I won't drink there. And then this kind of worked for you. So your geographic was like, I'm gonna get married, and I'm gonna be a perfect mother. And that's gonna be my solution to this problem.

Right.

And the solution has been working for a while. But as we know, these solutions don't ever really last forever. So then yes, you meet somebody who opens the top of the box you put yourself in. So we could blame her. But really, I I think you're in search of someone that'll give you permission to rejoin the little gremlin you really are and haven't dealt with.

I definitely think that's what it is. I think that's what the show is, and that's why it's so alluring and sexy. It's sort of giving permission of these women behaving badly, but it's also this woman who's just really caged to open back up the lion's den in a lot of ways and to sort of face these demons. And we're watching her sort of fall apart.

Yeah. It's very Esther Perel in that she says that people often think their partner has cheated on them with another person, but in fact, really, their partner cheated on them to be with themselves, to revisit a version of themselves that they miss, or that is gone, or that existed in their 20s. Like, they're actually longing for their old self, and this person is an avenue to that. And so, I think very much that's the dynamic that's happening here.

Oh, definitely. And in season 2, I think something to say that's not giving anything away is that obviously at this point in the season, you know, in season 1 that Sophie has killed Kyle, Margot's brother, with another vehicle by drinking.

Yes.

And so she's totally— Back to the beginning.

Doing the same— doing it— what is it? Doing the exact same thing and expecting a different result.

The definition of insanity.

Yes.

And the definition of insanity is how Sophie is the whole second season. I made the choice from the very beginning. I got the pilot episode, and I read that one of the first things that Sophie does is she has a panic attack in her car, and her nervous system— it says, nervous system is completely shot. And then in the next scene, she's crying, and I think I had a line saying, Sophie paces in every single episode. Wow. She's just having a total nervous breakdown the whole show. And I think it's because she's realizing that she's now back into an addict cycle, of this woman where she's so desperate to get her that her whole life starts falling apart.

Also, we're getting to see the side of you that all addicts have pretty polished, which is you're now going to be the perfect person. The season does start— it picks up right where we left off chronologically. You and your husband are on, like, a trial separation situation, and then you're in therapy together, and you're basically perfect.

Trying.

Yeah, you're perfect.

But she's about to fall apart.

You're saying all the right things. You're taking ownership of everything. you're really convincing that you don't really have a problem anymore. And it's quite convincing and quite addicty.

Yes.

Lies. It's just a lie.

Well, and then I start crying right in the therapist's office. That scene we'd played so many different ways, and it's interesting the takes they pick. I think they pick a lot of the ones where Sophie is just completely unraveling.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I got a lot of notes from the directors in season 2. My one friend, Maggie Kiley, who's a dear friend, she was like, you are a crack addict. Like, you need to go into every scene when it comes to Margot with, I'm going to die if I don't get her.

Yeah.

And so that level of intensity is just— I was tired.

Yeah.

That scene in therapy, there's a few, but there's one scene in particular that I have to say, it ended and I was like, that was a fucking phenomenally written scene. scene. That whole sequence in therapy was like really, really well crafted.

Oh, good. Thank you.

Because again, there's a lot happening in this show. It's like you're getting the juiciest, salacious soap opera drama. Someone's dying every 15 minutes in this show. Again, walk everyone through season 1. You meet her, we find out she's also sleeping with a teenager. Then we find out that the teenager's girlfriend catches her. Then the teenager's girlfriend gets killed. Then we think it's this one mom. No, it's not that mom. Then that mom goes to confront, then she kills that person. Then they And then they go to confront her, and then they kill her, and then you kill— there's like 6 or 7 murders and deaths.

I am so impressed that you said that so eloquently and followed it through. I don't know how I could have done that. Yes, all that happens. And then the funny thing about season 2 is that even more shit happens.

Wow.

You gotta— you're gonna run out of characters. That's what I have anxiety about. It's like Game of Thrones. It's like killing everyone you

I

know.

That's what I sort of feel like.

What are we gonna watch? And you're like, oh, I guess there are still people.

Yeah. So many people die. And also, such outlandish things happen where not one single episode goes by where it's not, what the fuck did they just do?

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

That's so fun. We need fun. And I think that's what people really have enjoyed about this show. They're just like, it's easy, it's fun, it's a little wild. People want an escape.

This is just a fun anecdote, but back to you saying you gotta enter every scene like you're a crack addict. Right. So I'm with my 11-year-old last night and she clearly has a dairy allergy. That is quite obvious to me. I too cannot fuck with dairy. I get so congested, right? And she has a cold. And so every morning when we're walking to school, she's like dealing with that. And I'm like, how much cheese and dairy did you have yesterday? And she's like, you know, this, this, and this. So last night, I'm like, what do you want for dinner? And she's like, I want macaroni and cheese balls from Fred 62. I go, but you know he's gonna fuck you up, right? And she's like, yeah. Yeah. And I go, oh, Delta, this is so great. It's probably so abstract that I'm an addict, but I want you to know this moment right here, it's like you have full knowledge. It's so funny about the mac and cheese.

Yeah.

And you go, yeah, I want it anyways.

Yeah.

I'm like, that's it. You've experienced it at 11. You already know what this thing is. I know it's bad, and watch me go do it anyways.

Yes. Let's hope it, it's just mac and cheese.

But you

know what, I

It's a unique experience when you really know, yeah, this is gonna end poorly, and I'm going to do it.

That happens a lot in season 2. There's about 5 different scenes that I can think of off the top of my head. I think that's also what's really been funny about the reaction of Hunting Wives is that people are so mad at me, my character, not me, but at Sophie, because you're watching someone who just is willingly blowing up their life and making really dumb decisions out of reactionary anger. things put in front of her. She's prone to emotion. She's reactive. She's angry. She leaves her kid at home to go drink and drive. And the amount of anger that people feel towards a mother who would do this to their child, I sympathize with because it's like, well, I'm not really like that. This is obviously a character, but the psychology that's interesting is that we really don't like that emotion in ourselves.

Yeah, we don't mind if a dad's doing that, but we do—

Yeah, it is pretty gendered.

You can't be reckless. You can't make bad decisions. I've done a lot of interviews saying like, isn't that interesting that there's a lot of anger with one of the main female characters doing really stupid things? Really, people do not like that.

Well, also a good percentage of us do this. We do make decisions that we know are wrong and we do it. And I think a good chunk of the audience watching knows the internal feeling, the self-abuse that follows that, the shame and the self-hatred. So it's a real emotion they're experiencing because they've It's not a hypothetical. I think that's why it's so powerful.

And I also think in the brass tacks of it all, it's almost that feeling when you're watching a horror movie, the killer is inside the house, and she's like, I need my bracelet.

Yeah. I have to go back there. Or, don't go in the basement. Don't open the door.

And you're thinking to yourself, you dumbass. Why are you going back in the house? I hate when movies do that. But it's that sentiment in this show a little bit, where you're watching someone be a little silly.

Yeah. And isn't that funny? When I watched the horror one, I'm like, you're being stupid. but I have no actual emotion attached to it.

Oh, that's nice.

Whereas this is like, no, I know what it's like to go, get out of my car. Okay. Stay in my car.

Oh, yeah, that scene.

Yeah, she jumps in the car. Get out of my car. Please don't get out of my car.

But I'm crying 'cause I want to kiss her.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, I love it. It's fucking so juicy. And season 2 is everything season 1 was, or at least what I watched so far. I just want to put a real fine point on it. You're really, really incredible in it. You're so, so good.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, truly, you're really, really good. And I would say in it, kind of just Challenging.

Definitely.

Again, it's like very heightened, and to be really grounded in heightened stuff is a little bit of a challenge.

Thanks. I didn't think I did very well, but thank you so much. No, no, no, I'll never think I do well, you know.

It sounds like it. Is there anything you're proud of that you've made?

Like in life?

That you've made.

I'm really proud of Parachute.

Okay, there we go.

Good.

We need one. Yeah, yeah. Okay, out of 65 credits, that's not bad. One out of 65.

It challenges me. You know?

Yeah.

Truly feel free that if you don't want to talk about this, it's fine. But I couldn't help but notice just in my research, what was the exact day of lockdown? Do you remember? I feel like it was March 15th.

Yeah.

And you got married on March 14th.

Oh, that's hard.

It made me think, boy, if anything didn't have a great shot, it would be getting married and you're starting your new life together and literally The next day we go into lockdown and then I went berserk in lockdown myself. Of all the worst wedding dates I think I've ever heard, that's probably top of the list.

There was so many.

Yeah. We don't have to talk about it.

So many things. Yeah. What a time.

What a time.

I will say now, looking back at that time, I am so grateful that I went through that because the person that I am and the partner I'm with now, it's just so different. And I can't believe I'm grateful for my divorce. Yeah. Yeah. I think people

need to hear that, honestly.

And I was 37 and I was living in an Airbnb just staring at my dog being like, I don't know what's gonna happen. It's just you and me, kiddo. And we're gonna try to rebuild this. I really appreciated so many women friends of mine that were like, that happened to me. And, you know, I would go on Reddit and look up stories from women going through things in their later 30s and finding people later in life. And we have to make it what we make of it. Yeah. of it.

Yeah. Listen, I hope everyone watches. I don't even need to urge them to, but The Hunting Wives, it does come back November 26th on Netflix. I'm really, really blown away and impressed that you went through the thing you went through, found out how to do it again, and have had such an incredible last few years. I'm so happy and proud for you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Happy birthday. Happy golden birthday to you. I hope you do something to celebrate.

I should.

You should. It's a big deal.

I used to have parties. I would honestly—

don't tap me about good times. But

yeah, I should have dinner.

Wholesome. Okay.

Yeah. And then I'm just gonna throw this out. I've met you in real life, like in social situations, and you're very lovely. This is not a presenting self. This is really you. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh my God. I hope not. I've always remembered that you and Kristen had first started dating. And do you guys, do you remember I saw you in a Miami hotel and we talked outside the hotel? You probably don't remember this, but I remember thinking, oh, they're gonna get married.

Really?

Yeah.

That was 19 years ago.

It was so long ago.

Because we were, the funny story behind that is. So we started dating. I was dating her and someone else. And then I got this very distinct feeling one time when I went over to her house, like, oh, she's exclusive, and I'm not. And I feel very unethical about that. And then I just said, I think we're in 2 different places. And I don't want to mislead you. So we had a little breakup, we got back together very shortly after that. But one of the first things was I said to her, I called her, I'll never forget, I was hanging Christmas lights, I was on a ladder. And I'm like talking Talking to her on my T-Mobile cell phone or whatever that thing was, right? The Samsung blue cell phone. And I go, hey, um, I got offered to like come to this New Year's Eve party in Miami, and if I go, it's New Year's Eve, they'll send me then to the Bahamas for a week or 5 days or something. And she's like, oh cool, that sounds fun. And I go, yeah, you think that would be fun? And she goes, hey, if you want to fucking invite me to the Bahamas, invite me.

And I was like—

She said, ask me like a lady.

Oh, nice. Yes, yes. She was starting to really advocate for herself.

Oh, hell yeah.

So I was like, I'm so sorry, let me rephrase this. Would you like to join me? So yes, we went on that trip. It's so memorable because we saw you and we also saw Robert Downey Jr. in the lobby. Did you see Robert Downey Jr.?

I did not.

Okay, that was fun.

I would have remembered that too, I think.

Then we watched Tootsie in the hotel room the night before we went to— that was very memorable. Still my favorite score. Then we went to the Bahamas, and you must remember, we've only been together a couple months, and we start walking down the beach at night the night we've arrived. And she starts bawling uncontrollably because it's pretty. And I'm— I relate

to

this. And I'm like, what am I supposed to do right now? Like, what do I— am I supposed to comfort her? Am I supposed to— it was a real introduction to her emotional availability.

Yes.

Yes. And I was very, very scared. And then the irony is she doesn't cry anymore and I cry nonstop. So it's really— we've 180'd.

Aw, because you're a Pisces, right? I am. Yeah. She's a Cancer. You guys are both water signs. It makes sense that you would cry at—

Oh yeah.

Seeing water. I guess

that is true. I'm about to cry at all times. I'm gonna cry when I get in the car. No, I'm just kidding.

Well, I'm glad you thought that. That's nice. It was very cute. You were dead right.

I was very jealous that that's what was happening.

Oh yeah.

I was like, look at them, they're in love.

Thank you. That's very sweet. Well, Brittany, please come back. We'll do it on the next show. This was so fun.

Thank you for having me.

You're great. You're fantastic. And what an exclusive we got. Fart. Fart. Yeah,

we won't make you say it again.

We already got it in the bag. Fart.

Now she can't stop saying it.

This is like you holding hands with Franco.

I feel free.

Okay, good. Yeah, we adore you. Congratulations on everything. Everyone watch The Honey Wives.

Yay.

Yay. He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God my He's got to let him have the facts.

Did I saw him? He was on his hands and knees.

Oh my God. You see his butt crack?

No, I was respectful and I didn't look. I just, you know, you never know what you're going to see.

It sounds like she had to make a great effort to not see it.

We used to call that plumber's crack.

Of course.

Yep.

Taking potshots at poor plumbers.

Well, to be fair. Okay, that's interesting. That's an interesting take. Do you? To be fair, you do often see their crack, and it is obvious. It's because they're working hard on their hands and knees.

Yeah, yeah, you're right. I think any, any job where you're on your hands and knees a lot, yeah, that crack is going to be a liability.

But it's like, you— then they probably should wear overalls.

But it might be too hot for overalls.

You can wear a tank top underneath.

Mesh overalls?

Oh yeah. No.

Did you have an event this No. Oh, you look very made up.

I have regular makeup on.

Oh my gosh.

I did buy some new— I bought a new blush. Maybe you're really responding to it.

Perhaps.

I like it as well. Um, I'll shout out the brand. It's called, uh, I actually don't know how to pronounce it. It's French. It's like Violet—

Mammouths Bahut?

Nope, it's Violet FR, I assume, for France.

Plumeur de derrière.

That's butt.

Yeah, I think derrière.

Derrière, for sure.

Derrière.

Sure.

Sure. I'm fresh out of the shower. Can you tell?

Yeah, you look clean.

I look— my hair is wet, you know?

Yeah, you can't really tell

anymore

that your hair is wet. Is it so greasy? No, it's just— it's fluffy.

Yeah, I use Jen Aniston's finishing oil in it.

You did? Mm-hmm. I do that

occasionally now. It looks nice. So I went back. My kids are having a blast with this because they've known me for 13 and 11 years respectively. And yeah, I've just started combing my hair in the last 3 months.

Interesting.

Or I'm using their brush.

Oh.

I don't use anything of theirs. They're all over my stuff, as you know. My nail clippers, my tweezers, my toothbrush, my toothpaste. So this is the first role reversal, and they're pretty into it. They're pretty supportive. But anyways, what I'll do is I'll comb it straight back, and then I'll take a little drop drop of Jen Anna's Since I'm calling it finishing oil. I don't think that's the actual term, but

yeah, it's

a light oil.

It looks nice. It looks really nice.

Thank you.

Um, you know who has a new hair care brand out?

Oh,

who I'd like to have on the pod. And she should come on the pod because as, as you just discussed, you're into hair now.

I love hair now.

I'm— I've always been into hair.

Your original OH, original hair.

Yeah, original hair. Uh, Jennifer Lawrence, another What's

her product called?

I don't know. It just came out.

And she goes by J-Law on the streets? Is that the code name for her?

Yeah.

J-Law.

People call her that. Um, let's see what it's called. Hairline.

Mess.

Mess?

Yes.

M-E-S-S.

But spelled M-E-S.

Spelled M-E-S.

Oh, okay. Okay. Spelled M-E-S, but—

Should we change the name of the spelling of Messiness of Being Human to one S?

Well, I was just about to say, she clearly got that from Messiness of Being Human.

Uh-huh.

So she should claim it.

She's a huge fan. She's an enormous fan.

She loves this show.

I wonder if she would remember meeting me. You know that funny— I have a story. I wish I could remember the details better, but I'm aging. But I visited Silver Lining Playbook and I was chatting with her for a while and we were talking about books and I forget how the whole thing went, but lo and behold, I see her on a talk show months later, and she's referencing this, but she's saying how she had this talk with this old— older guy. Older guy.

She said that?

Yeah, yeah. And I remember thinking, well, I'm the exact same age as Bradley, and he's your love interest in the movie. Are you describing him as an older guy?

Oh my God, she should really come on. And

that may be where this whole my, um, isms stems from. That might be the original wound where I started thinking I'm really old.

Oh, how old were you then? You weren't even That old?

2012. So 37.

Yeah. Younger than me.

I don't even know if I did the math right. Is that right?

I don't know. I just take your math at your word.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah.

Oh, that was— yeah.

Wow. So younger than you.

Yeah.

And she's talking to this old man about books.

Oh my God. This is—

She should come on for an apology. She should amend this.

She should really make an amends and talk She's going to talk to us about her stealing of messiness of being human.

She has a lot to apologize for. I'm inordinately joyous when I see her. I love her. I am such a huge fan of hers. Me too.

I love her.

I like her spirit. I like that she was calling me an old man as well.

She's funny like that.

Yeah, she's a hoot and a half.

She really is. Yeah.

She's a mess. M-E-S.

I wouldn't see—

I think— She's not a mess.

No. Well, remember that was kind of her thing for a minute when she like was falling down and stuff and it was like a whole thing?

Yeah, it's cute. It was cute.

She's just really real.

Very real. Yeah.

And, you know, we have— we like to talk about real things, so I think she'd be a great fit.

She'd really— so that's our pitch.

Yeah, someone get this to her, please.

Get back to us.

Yeah. Um,

I had a scary experience last night.

What happened? Oh yes, do tell.

I did improv at the Groundlings.

Yeah, on the main stage.

Yeah, there's only one stage there. Ding, ding, ding. He's the guest today on, um, Mom's Car. Guy Stevenson.

Okay.

So I was in the Sunday Company with him, and then he runs this show, all people who've been kicked out of the Sunday Company.

So is he still in the Sunday Company?

Oh no, he was kicked out. He's a teacher though.

Oh, got it. Okay.

And so when I interviewed him on Mom's Car, he said, um, he invited me to do the show again. He had in the past. And I was like, you know, I'm I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it.

Yeah.

And I think I've done— I did one gas show there in the 24 years since I performed there.

Yeah.

I can't even remember when.

You did a UCB show, right? For a charity thing.

Charity thing at a big theater downtown. Yeah. But I hadn't been there. Whatever. I've been there once in 23 years. And, um, oh my

God,

the whole day it was just kind of looming, you know?

Yeah. You looked a little We FaceTimed yesterday about work and I was like, your hair did not look like it does today. I'll say that.

No, it was a little more—

It was spiky.

More of a MES.

Yeah, it was MES.

Yeah, major MES. Anywho, I just kept going like, yeah, you'll, you'll just, you'll get through it and you'll survive. But I was, I was acutely aware on the ride there, I was like, oh, the way I used to feel driving to this theater versus how I feel now is almost polar opposites. Like, I used to be driving driving to that theater, so hungry, so excited, praying I'm in every improv.

Yeah.

Wanting so bad to get a taste. And the whole ride there, I was like, man, I hope they don't use me much. You know, like, I hope they pad out the show. Yeah. And then fear. And then I was just like, it's so counterintuitive. There are ways you get way more confident as you age, and then there are other ways where you just get way less confident.

Yeah.

Like the appetite to fail publicly has gone down for me.

Of course. I mean, that's normal.

And the thirst for approval and applause and adoration has also gone down. Um, and I'd say a healthy way. Not that I don't appreciate if someone's laughing, but just,

of course,

I needed it so bad a long time ago.

And yeah, well, you also have it in different ways now, and almost it's like you have that to lose a little

Well, they're right. Oh, great. Thank you. Yes. That's the other thing is like, I used to go there hoping someone would recognize me.

Exactly.

And now I'm like, I'm already getting recognized, so I can only kind of disappoint people.

Yeah. The only headline is Dax Shepard did improv and it was just truly horrible.

Bringing into question whether he was ever involved.

Exactly.

In the theater at all. Launching investigation.

But how did it go?

Well, so I'm like, you just put one foot in front of the other. I was the first one there, and then Guy and I hung out, and it was a trip just to be backstage because I'm like, fuck, I mean, it's really been so long. I couldn't remember where we got ready and where the girls got ready, and some things had changed, but I couldn't really tell what. So I'm asking a lot of dumb questions, boring questions. And then I meet the other cast members. They're great. The one dude I'm talking to, Matt, he got booted in 2023.

Wow.

And I'm like, I got booted literally 20 years before you.

Oh my God. And also to remind people, or not, maybe they don't know, they probably don't know. You're either in the Sunday Company for how many?

Like— You go in 6-month intervals.

Right.

So every 6 months you get voted on. Yes. Um, people get kicked out after 6 months.

Yes.

People get kicked out of a year. After a year and a half, you're generally gonna get booted or moved to the main stage.

Exactly.

And there are no slots in the main stage. Yeah. You know, it's just class after class coming through and stuff.

Yeah, it's very hard.

Yeah. So we do a warm-up. We do a couple different warm-ups.

I'm like, I have like—

Yeah, I was a man. I, I literally this morning when I was journaling, I was like, knowing I was going to talk to you about it, I was like, do imagine yourself driving to UCB tonight.

I know. I even when I drive by it, which is— You get a little panic attack. I do get a little jolt of panic, but also like I almost want to cry every time because It marks such a special time.

I also feel that way.

Yeah.

You know, like it's so special to be there.

Yes.

And it's so kind of full circle. And getting that backstage was such an accomplishment.

Just— yeah. Oh my God. To be back there. Oh yeah.

I have a little area for my shit and everything.

Yeah.

So we do some warmups that goes fine. I'm not like embarrassing myself.

Was it like a zip zap zap or like—

We did one word story.

Okay.

Then we did this interesting game I had never played where Where it's like, so you, the person 3 down from you, you give a name.

Okay.

Peter Fairley. Then the next person has to say, give a characteristic of them. Impatient. Then the next person says plumber, ding, ding, ding.

Okay.

And then boom, now we're on Peter and he's gotta act out all those things. Wow.

Okay.

They're short.

Right.

And then it's just going in a circle. So then the person next to them gets a name, then everyone gets to, you know, pass on a thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's scary. And then, um, Mind Meld. Ding, ding, ding.

We love that.

Which this Matt guy and I finally solved.

You melded.

We melded. It was going on forever. It was— people were losing confidence, but he and I got it. Allergies was the word.

Oh wow.

Anywho, that finishes fine. Then we go out on stage and you have to enter to music. And then again, I've not seen the show, so I'm just like, I'm learning so many things. What games we're playing tonight. I don't remember any of the names of these, you know, what all these different scenarios, what we're be in. And then we're supposed to walk out on stage and strike a pose like you're in like a Western or a cop show or something to the song. And I'm like, okay, so I walk out, I do that. And then I can see in my periphery, at some point, the rest of them are now dancing, or they're doing movements in addition to this pose I was told to do. Now I get— I'm right out of the gate. The show hasn't even started.

Right?

And I'm like, oh my God, I'm like, I don't know what to do. And they're all moving. And now aren't we supposed to move tough guy? Or it's just general dancing?

Right?

Trying to get context because And then, like, I basically just— I instigate walking off the stage and getting in the pit, where we'll ultimately have to go. But I certainly was like, time to go.

I don't know what I'm doing.

Office.

Yeah. Yeah.

I also have to add, my favorite writing partner, my writing soulmate at The Groundlings, was Josh Nathan. I talk about him all the time. The Jays! Caitlin and Josh and I were besties.

Yes.

He happened to be at work. He's a college professor.

Oh!

And another professor came in who also weirdly was in the signing room, like, oh, we're going to this show tonight. Dax is performing. So he's like, oh, I'll come. So I'm like, like, no, Josh is there.

Aww.

So that both—

yeah, that's both.

It does both things. It's like, if I eat shit, this will be hilarious because he and I were the same, and we'll get to laugh at this afterwards. Yeah. Also, I, I know someone there, so I want to be kind of—

Impress him a little bit. Yeah. What does he teach in college?

Like comedy? Acting, I believe.

Oh shit. Yeah, then extra, extra stress.

Although I, I know he's not gonna— whether he eats shit or not, he's gonna

Of course. But

the first scene we get in, I end up in— I'm up maybe in the 3rd improv set. And the first one, I'm, I'm out to sea, man. They're doing character choices. They have emotions already. Like, they're, you know, they've been doing it.

Yes, exactly.

I'm more in that scene just starting to remember everything I'm supposed to know. Like, oh, I should have had a character. Oh, I should have— I should already know my relationship. I should bring some emotion. I should be doing space work.

Yeah, I'm not doing any space work.

I'm sitting in a chair on a bus. I don't know.

Yeah,

first one, I'm like, I come off like, whoo, that was rough. Yeah, why even have me out there? Yeah, but then I sit down, I'm gonna shake it off. Okay, what do we got to do next time? It's like, we need to— we need to— you need to pick a character. You need to commit. Yeah, it's time to fucking just get a character and get it going.

Okay.

And so the next one is, oh, it's a town. It's, it's, it's an HOA. meeting, and then the audience tells you what the problem is. Oh, great. And it's frogs. Frogs is the problem. Love it. Okay. And I'm an old man in that one.

Oh, which you are, so it's perfect, according to Jennifer Lawrence.

Physicality going, I got my voice.

Oh, nice.

And, um, that one went pretty well. I had a couple zingers.

Okay. And then we're okay.

So now I'm like, okay, between the first one and that one, I'm kind of at zero.

Okay.

And then 2 more, maybe a really short one, then the last one I was then was guest on a morning news show in like New Mexico. Again, the other performers do all the lifting. By the time I enter, they're doing 2, like, you know, good morning, Hodus and Katie Lee, Kathy Lee and Hodum.

This is why you got to see— what

is it? Hodle?

No. Hodle.

George Hodle?

No, no, I think Hoda. Now I'm in my head.

It's Hoda.

Hoda.

Okay.

And Kathy Lee.

Yeah.

Whoever drinks during the morning show, or those 2 people are. Sure, they're nailing that. Okay. And then I have to enter as a youth pastor.

Oh, okay.

It's to talk about premarital sex.

Oh, you'd be great at that.

Yeah.

Were you pro?

Well, I'm a youth pastor.

I know. I didn't recommend—

the thing I recommend that the teens— there's a lot of options now, and we're— and we are progressive. And so one of the options, of course, is docking. We encourage the teens to dock and to soak.

Yeah, soak.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's just that kind of business.

Okay. People laughed and laughed.

They're like, either— they're easy, right? They're Yeah, because they're fun words. Anyways, it was fine. It was fine. I was probably the least impressive improver of the 8 people.

Because they're doing it every day.

Yeah, I don't know how the freak— certainly

a lot more

than 2023. If the guy— if Matt had never done this, then he's— the point is, I lived.

Yeah.

I lived. And then afterwards, backstage, I saw Karen Moriyama, who was my director, who I loved back in the day. It was so nice to see her. And then in the lobby, I saw Savannah Paige, my niece on Parenthood.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

She was with her older sister, who always was on set. And I'm walking out of the lobby, and I hear a girl say, Uncle Crosby. And in my mind, I'm like, oh, this is so weird. I've been called Crosby in public a lot of times. No one's ever said Uncle Crosby.

Very specific.

It took me a second to compute because she was 11, and now she's 23.

Oh, my God. Is she in the Groundlings?

No, she just was in the audience. Oh. And she just had gone to the show.

So it ended.

Yeah. And I survived. And that's pretty much—

That's good.

That's about as good as I think I could have. And then this morning I was like, do I wanna like find the fire again to want to go on that stage and want to make everyone laugh? Like, could I? Not even do I want to, could I?

Right.

Is that still in me? Do I have enough vigor in the tank? tank to do it. Do you?

No.

No. You know for sure.

Yeah. And it makes me sad.

Yeah. It feels immoral of me to—

It does.

Yeah.

I mean, the mirror neurons just now when you're explaining the warmups and then

like— Bring to the stage these 3 performers.

And doing poses. It's like, I can't do that anymore.

Right.

And what it really tells me, and this is sad, but obviously I just maybe never had it the way some people did.

Ben Schwartz.

Yeah. I mean, and not even— not— yes, Ben, of course, but like people you don't know that are still there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Doing shows, loving it.

Yes.

And they're amazing. They're amazing then. They're amazing now. Like, I was never— I was never going to be that person. I guess, because I just don't— I don't think I— I mean, I thought I did then, but clearly not.

It's just a crazy different dynamic trying to get noticed versus, yeah, trying to hide under the radar. Yeah, it's very weird. It's like I don't know how to operate from that mindset.

You know what's funny with me is I was always nervous.

Yeah,

I was always like— I, I was— I loved it and it was such a high.

You really should have done the sketch. You would have loved sketch because there's no nervousness. You have a role, you've rehearsed it, you have a character, you have props, and you know,

yeah,

it's a scene that's super funny.

I know, but, but the high—

The high is still there.

Was from improv. The high is from creating. Oh, oh, you're saying from sketch it is?

It's still there because even within these written sketches, there's just a million different things that can happen, and you can double and triple down on those things, and you can bring those things And some things, yeah, may stretch to a minute and a half that were 12 seconds, and then something else gets truncated. Like, it's still very alive.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

Well, you know, when I was a clown in college, I had clown class. I did a lot of, you know, that was easy because you did, you had like your clown had a character and a personality. Yeah. And it was easy to play in that world and be funny. I was, people really loved me.

They loved you as a clown.

Yeah.

Now that you could still maybe.

Well, guess what? I'm going to be a clown for Halloween this year.

You decided? How did, where'd this come about?

I didn't have a costume yet and I was looking.

The theme for this year should have almost been classic. Yeah, because no one knew what to do this year. It's totally—

it's, it's willy-nilly.

Yeah, it's not the normal cohesive group theme anymore. And I'm like, I'm like, hon, she keeps hitting me with these different— and I'm like, babe, I just— maybe can I go as a train conductor since I pulled the—

oh yeah,

it makes sense. And I got— I have a lot on my plate. I like— I gotta drive that thing. I had— I have had a couple different costumes that were too big.

Yeah. For

me to be in the car. My ponytail last year was hitting the ceiling. I'm like, I just need to drive this fucking car and not crash.

Sure.

So I'm like, maybe train conductor. But if you went clown, I went train conductor, someone was a ghost, someone was a pumpkin, it could be fun to go—

I like that.

Classic.

I was gonna go pumpkin.

Okay.

I thought this, I was like, you know what, this year because there is no theme that really— ding ding ding— improv and sketch. Like, I felt really like, ah, there's no theme. I, I don't know how to be. I don't know what to do with this open world awaiting me, you know? So then I was like, you know what, back to basics. I'm gonna go pumpkin. I don't think I've ever been a pumpkin actually, ever. Oh no.

Okay.

So then I was looking up those costumes, but none of them seemed that cute. So then I went on Etsy and I was looking for like cuter pumpkin ones. And then I saw this vintage clown costume. And so I bought that and it's supposed to arrive Okay. Which is a little scary because I'm nervous it won't. But he asked me specifically, he was like, you need this by Halloween. I said yes.

Yeah, you and Vinny could have been matching pumpkins.

Oh, he's gonna be a pumpkin.

That's what he picked.

Oh yeah, I love when little guys are pumpkins.

Me too, me too. But I, I can't compete with Vinny. Are you kidding me? I would look ridiculous while he's looking so cute.

Your legs are gonna look real skinny as a pumpkin.

I know, I— it just— I don't— I wasn't gonna be right. Okay, some people's pumpkins on, on Amazon were like not circular enough.

Can you have a sexy pumpkin? Do those—

They had those, but I thought those looked so stupid.

How does a sexy pumpkin look?

Yeah, it's just like kind of a dress.

Oh, it's a mesh.

It wasn't mesh, it just was like a dress.

And just a normal dress.

That looks stupid. I wanted like kind of an inflatable one, like really huge, but I couldn't figure that out. Anyway, I'm excited to be a vintage clown.

You're gonna be a vintage clown?

Yeah, I mean, the The costume looks like vintage retro and hasn't changed. It's really pretty. I don't wanna talk about it.

Well, I want it to be expensive. 'Cause what happens is when I'm looking at these costumes on Amazon or elsewhere, I want it to be more expensive. I look at this like, you can't get all that shit for $12. Like I just got a hat, an engineer hat in case I'm allowed to do that. And it was like, get a hat, a whistle, and a handkerchief for $4. I'm like, all that stuff is gonna be gonna be flammable plastic.

Exactly. Bad for the earth.

I'm like, I want to spend $40 on a train conductor hat. Can't be done.

Did you look at Etsy?

No.

You should have.

Yeah, Etsy is where the like handcrafted stuff— Really? Yeah.

I don't know how to use Etsy.

It's probably too late.

Just make an account.

It's a website or is there an app too?

There's probably an app too.

Yeah, that ship sailed. I just bought the hat about 20 minutes ago.

And it'll be here tomorrow. I mean, that's the thing with these $4 hats.

Plastic hats arrive quick. Quick.

They're light.

They're lightweight.

They really do. Okay. Oh my God.

The fucking ratio of his eyeballs to his face are just— it's not possible. We're looking at a photo of Vinny.

Yeah, in his pumpkin.

The world's cutest little boy.

Oh my God, is he cute? Wow. Speaking of old.

Yeah.

My parents are in town.

Oh sure, they're older than you.

They're older than me and you. Yeah. Um, and no, I feel like I'm like anxious about their age. It's like it's happening where I'm starting to feel a little anxious. I

think you're a little early, but go ahead.

I don't— I, I wasn't anxious until I saw behavior that made me a little anxious.

Is someone incontinent?

Not that I know of.

Okay.

But

did you check the sheets?

I'm not gonna— okay, I don't want to think about that at all. Um, more of a slowness. You know,

maybe you're seeing the ease and contentment of retirement. How many hours a week is your dad working, by the way? How— how—

He's working

full-time, right?

No, not full-time, but most of the

time.

I haven't seen him work on this trip.

Okay.

But like, they were getting out of the car and like, I was just like, oh God, like none of this like seems like it's easy anymore.

And that—

and then they blamed it on the fact that they're used to driving in SUVs and that my car was low to the ground, which like made Maybe, I guess, but it was just like,

yeah,

a little—

Gave you anxiety.

It gave me a little anxiety. Also, like, I don't feel like people can hear as well as they used to, but also I don't know if it's that or they're just checked out. I just—

Yeah, there's a lot of different things that could be going on.

Yeah, and you know me, it's like, so then I'm getting anxious and then that sometimes comes off as impatience.

Or irritability.

Similar, you know.

Cousins, kissing cousins.

Because yeah, I'll be like, like yesterday my dad was like, he's like, what's that sound? And I was like—

Way better than what's that smell.

Well,

okay, what's that sound? You heard a sound?

He— we were going upstairs and then he— we were walking, he's walking past a bedroom and the doors were open and the air was on and he said, what's that sound? And I said, it's the air conditioning. And then I like went into my room and I felt bad about it. But then I was like, maybe he wasn't talking about the air conditioning. Maybe he was talking about something else and I could have asked more questions.

Sure, sure, sure.

But I got— I think I got anxious. I did. I got anxious about the fact that he wouldn't know that was the air conditioning.

Yeah. You rely on him to know this shit.

Yeah.

So I guess— It's not your turn to start answering shit. Yeah. You're supposed to ask him, Dad, what's this noise?

Exactly. But it's happening, you know, and it's upsetting. How old are

they?

My dad's 72.

Okay.

Yeah, he's in his 70s.

I was gonna say you got a long way 'cause my mom's 75 now.

Yeah.

But no, he's only 4 years behind.

42 and he's a man. It is different.

Yeah.

When your parents start to get older, it's stressful.

Yeah, it is. Yeah.

And like, that's gonna be you.

To Lincoln and Delta.

Yeah, like they're gonna start being sick.

I can't wait. I can't wait till they have to take care of me and wait on me and be nice to me.

Well, what if they're mean to you like I am? Yeah. It's just, it's not out of meanness. It's out of fear.

Yeah.

There's a lot of like, oh no.

That was part of the reason my hair didn't look good is they had been mean to me that morning.

You are not going to do well with—

I was like, I don't care what my hair looks like. My girls were mean to me this morning.

That's the one thing I will say that is nice about my family.

Yeah.

If you're mean, They aren't taking it personally.

Thank God. Yeah, that's— they got a thick skin around there.

You have to.

You got to, to survive.

And that's not something I invented. They invented that.

Yeah.

So it's like from, from top down.

I'm too sensitive.

I know.

I'm way too sensitive.

You got to maybe—

Yeah. I woke up and everyone was already in a fight, and then I tried to be my joyous self.

Yeah. And then sometimes that doesn't work.

It didn't work. And then I was disinvited to walk with my Oh no. Yeah, it really hurt. So I didn't care what my hair looked like yesterday.

But then today was better.

Today I walked her.

Yeah.

We had fun today.

Things, you know, these things.

And the older one waved at me as I walked by her on the way home. That's kind of good.

That's great.

That's good. Yeah. Yeah. We were far enough from the school, I think.

That's great. Listen, it's hard.

Okay. Do we have time? What do we— yeah. Um, do you wanna talk about everything? You, you can see everything.

Oh, do we have time?

We could do the next fact check. We could do it tomorrow.

it.

Okay.

Um, because yeah, we— you saw it, so we really have to debrief on it. And hopefully that gives people another day to go to the theater.

2.

2 days to go to the theater.

You have 2 days.

Um, and we have facts. I have actually a lot of facts. Okay. So hold on. This is for Brittany Snow.

Loved her.

Loved her. Yeah, incredible episode. So vulnerable. She's just been through so much. Okay, I looked up how much money do people use Historically, commercial acting was considered one of the most lucrative hidden secrets in show business. During the peak era of traditional television, the '80s through the early 2000s, a SAG-AFTRA union actor could routinely make $20,000 to $40,000, sometimes upwards of $100,000 for a single day's work.

Yeah. Over the course of the residuals.

Yeah.

'Cause some people do a Snickers commercial back in the day when they let those things run for a year. or so and play 1,000 times and you get a paycheck.

It's incredible. So nice. I didn't—

You had it pretty good.

Oh, I, I mean, I booked a lot of commercials in those days.

You never pay attention, but do you know the one you made the very most on?

I don't remember.

So many commercials.

I had a lucky run of commercials. I did. It was past the time where you could make money like this in a day.

Where they ran forever.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. Today's news is another man's fish fry. trap is a saying she brought up. I will say this AI overview is stupid because it says that classic phrase, a clever play on one man's trash is another man's treasure, captures blah, blah, blah. But it's not saying what the actual quote is. You know, it's just saying like, this is what it means. I'm like, I already know what it means.

We know what it means.

We already know that.

Yeah.

Someone else said, today's news, tomorrow's Fish wrap. I like that.

I like it better.

Me too.

That used to be the case. It's like,

I know

something was in the news, you were freaked out about it, but then tomorrow you're gonna wrap fish in it and then it's gone and there's no way to ever read it again, Monica.

Well, if you saved it, but if you were making fish, I guess you had it.

But if like you're— you heard about something, what was it? The whole scandal with so-and-so. You'd be relying on someone's memory of the article unless you went to the library and looked at the archive microfiche.

Yeah.

News did go away.

Yeah, I know.

It couldn't be revisited.

I know.

Now whatever you've done is accessible with a search.

I know.

So watch your step.

Okay. Are soap operas on the decline? Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And are— is there still a Soap Opera Digest Award? No. The last one was 2005.

Okay. 21 years ago. Still more recent than my last improv show.

Yeah. Is Pitch Perfect the basic musical comedy of It says it was upon its release.

Wicked.

But now, well, it's actually like very hard to find, which is annoying. Uh, because if you start looking up, well, where did it go? I have so many tabs. It comes up with like The Lion King and it's like, that's not funny. Oh, now this says—

Don't type live action either.

Should I type in live action?

Yeah.

Okay. Well, Wicked is now coming up.

Yeah. I think Wicked's blown up.

And now it says Beauty and the Beast. See this? Whoa. Maybe it is Beauty and the Beast.

Because that's more recent.

Yeah. Highest grossing live-action musical of all time, bringing in approximately $1.26 billion worldwide.

Whoa.

You probably were thinking about domestic.

I did not. I don't think any movies made $1.6 billion domestic.

Rarebit.

Say what now?

Is Matthew Rhys's boat's name.

Is the movable house.

But I looked it up and it was even in New York Times. A lot of places said Rarebit.

Rarebit?

Yeah. I knew that wasn't what you said, but I couldn't find anything but Rarebit. You gonna text him?

No, I don't have his number, but I think his Instagram.

I think that Movable Feast was the business. It was a boutique boat charter business that he operated. The boat was named Rarebit.

Okay.

Oh, okay. So

I think the website was movablefeast.com.

Okay.

Okay. And the boat is Rare Bib.

I don't even know what that means. Rare Bib? Like a

bit?

Rare bit.

R-A-R-E-B-I-T.

I wonder if that's Welsh.

Probably.

Good for him.

It's probably Welsh for rabbit. Okay. You were talking about your old phone.

Oh, because it sounds like rare bit? Rabbit?

Yeah. Oh, okay. You were talking about your old phone that you were hanging Christmas lights and you talked to Kristen and then you decided and you invited her her to New Year's.

To Bahamas.

Uh-huh. Was it this?

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Okay,

it was a workhorse.

It was Samsung Nokia GH-C225, blue and silver.

Oh, is it Samsung, not a Nokia?

You said Samsung, so I looked up Samsung.

That's it, you got it.

Yeah, T-Mobile. It says very rare cellular.

Oh, you could throw that thing across the room and you'd be fine. I might have Sidekicked her though, now that I think about it, because I do think when we first started dating, we both had Sidekicks.

Sidekick.

That was a device. I still miss the Sidekick.

Was that Samsung?

It's T-Mobile.

Oh.

Well, I think it might be. I mean, they wouldn't have manufactured it.

It says the T-Mobile Sidekick as well, originally known as the Danger Hip Top.

Oh, I don't remember calling it that.

Okay, I'm glad. It looks— there's a lot going on.

It was awesome 'cause you'd flip over the screen and then you had a full QWERTY keyboard.

Yeah, it's that.

What a nice unit. Fuck, I miss that thing.

You do?

Yeah, I could boogie. I could write you a manuscript on that thing.

You didn't have a BlackBerry?

I then had a BlackBerry.

You did. I never had one of those either.

You didn't?

I never had one with a keyboard like

that. Oh, I loved it. I loved it. I could boogie.

Why don't you get it again? You can probably— it says rare, but you could probably find it. I can't imagine it's like—

Maybe I'll go for Halloween as someone that has an old phone.

Well, remember a couple years ago I tried to go as Apple Pay? Like, that was my whole, um,

that

was the whole idea. I was gonna go as Apple Pay, and then, yeah, day of, I couldn't figure out how to go as Apple Pay, so I had to go as a cat. Classic. Um, all right, that's all my facts.

Oh, okay. Well, those were great.

Thank you.

Really good job on the facts.

Um, she was just awesome. I hope People listen.

Yeah.

Nice girl.

All right.

Love you.

Love you.