Transcript of Sharon Horgan

Wndri Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcast, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Horgan, and I'm joined by Monica Sharon. Hello. Hello. I sure hope people are as obsessed with Sharon as I am. When I saw Bad Sisters, I was like, this person intrigues me no end. Yeah. Then only to find out she had created the show and wrote on it.

Amazing.

Is incredible. Sharon Horgan is an Emmy nominated actor, writer, director, and producer. Bad Sisters, Catastrophe, Motherland, together, This Way Up. She's in the new limited series on Hulu, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.

Yes. If you listen to that episode, you will have heard about Sharon as well.

We've never interviewed someone who's created this many TV shows, and we've interviewed some famous showrunners.

That's true.

She's the most prolific.

What about Shonda?

Oh, we did have Shonda.

All right. They're both great women. It might be neck and neck, though. They're both great women.

We love women. We don't need to make them compete.

We're not pitting a woman against another woman.

We don't need to body shame anyone.

That's right. We're not doing it.

Please enjoy Sharon Horgan. I'm Jon Robbins, and on my podcast, I sit down with incredible people to ask the very simple question, How do you cope? From confronting grief and mental health struggles to finding strength in failure. Every episode is a raw and honest exploration of what it means to be human. It's not always easy, but it's always real. Whether you're looking for inspiration, comfort, or just a reminder that you're not alone in life's messier moments, join me on How Do You Cope. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts or listen to episodes early and ad free on WNDRI Plus. How Do You Cope is brought to you by Audible, who make it easy to embark on a wellness journey that fits your life with thousands of audiobooks, guided meditations, and Motivational Series. Hello, I'm Jon Robbins, comedian and host of WNDYRI's How Do You Cope podcast. I'm also, Plot Twist, an alcoholic. I've written a book, Thirst: 12 Drinks That Change My Life, published by Penguin. Thirst is a book about alcohol. It's mystery, it's terror, it's havoc, it's strange meditations. But, John, I hear you cry. Isn't that a rather odd book to write for a sober man who more than anything wants to stop thinking about alcohol?

Well, yes, but I had to go back to find out why the one thing I know will kill me still calls out across the night. It's the story of what alcohol did for me and what alcohol did to me. If that's of interest to you or someone you know, Thirst, 12 Drinks That Change My Life is available to pre order now online and from all good bookshops. I was going to ask because we were all just at the Emmys. Yeah. And are you still a little exhausted from that whole thing?

Yeah. How bad? Well, went to this mental party at the end of the night. I mean, it was weird.

On Sunday night? Yeah. Without naming names, tell me what brand of mental was it?

I can't completely remember, but I think it was these brothers, and I think they just do it every year. Oh, okay. So there was proper people there. I fell over. Look, you can see it from here.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that's a sign of a good evening.

Yeah, maybe I'll be like, That's not going to work. Because I stupidly decided to walk home When you get very like...

You get ambitious sometimes.

I'm fine. So I walked home and then went arse over to it. But yeah, it was these brothers, and they do it every year, apparently. He remodeled his home to be a party house.

Okay.

That was two nights ago, so we're still- Still struggling. We're still struggling. Have we started?

Yeah, we're always starting.

Does it matter that all my shit's just here?

We like it. Yeah. As long as you're happy with it.

You dress so nice, you can now pull off anything. If you throw up at some point in this interview.

I have another engagement after the podcast because I didn't know whether to be casual or dress it up, but because I got to be dressed up for this other thing. It's just the whole thing of coming over for the Emmy stuff is how many outfits you've got to-Pack. Yeah. Change into and put jewelry on and get your hair done.

How many days was this trip?

I arrived over on Friday.

Did you go on Saturday night or did you know better?

I went out Friday night.

Oh, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night. Yeah, and last night. So you're just barely with us.

And last night. You went to last night, too. But last night was just eating pork chops and drinking water. Okay. And maybe just one gin and tonic because I hadn't my friend for a long time.

Did you go to the Dunsmore?

No. Why? Are they a pork chop place? Well, that's the only place I could think of that has pork chops. No, I went to Sunset Tower. Oh, I love Sunset Tower. They do a really good pork chop. Wow, I didn't know. I was so obsessed with eating last night. You know when there's four things on the menu you want? Yes. There's this whole internal struggle and worry that you're going to pick the wrong thing. Yeah. But then I picked the right thing.

The pork chops. What did your friend get?

He got the Filet Mignon.

Did you sample that? Or are you stuck with your pork chop?

I didn't actually.

Did he want to try your pork chop?

I felt like even that was too complicated a move. Okay. The splitting? Just leaning over.

You were hanging on by thread yesterday.

It's a little tiredness. It's the jet lag. I woke up at 4: 30 AM, and then I went back to sleep for about half an hour at about 7: 30.

Well, I did learn something about you in the story that you revealed accidentally or intentionally. Oh, what? Which is, so probably a normal person, if they had had those three days, and they had already had on the calendar, I got to meet Mike. They would have been like, Mike, I love you, but I really need to stay in bed all night, tonight. But I've learned that if you tell someone you're going to be somewhere, come hell or high water, you're going to be there.

Absolutely. He's my good pal who I've known since I was 18, and he's got three tiny children all under five. He doesn't get out much. Exactly. So I felt like if I'd canceled- He had scheduled He got babysitter. He probably had asked his wife two weeks ahead of time. He doesn't have a wife, but got a babysitter. I'm glad I did, but I warned him that I was going to be a brilliant company, but it was fine, actually.

The pork shop prevailed.

The pork shop was great. It lifted you off, didn't it? Yeah. It really did. It made me really happy.

Okay, so quickly, you're one of five. Two younger, two older. I'm a middle child myself.

Are you? I'm not middle, but I'm second eldest.

That's in middle, my friend. If you're not the oldest or the youngest, you're in the middle, right?

All right. I'm one of three in the middle.

Yes. Three in the middle. Three in the middle. One top, one bottom.

Okay.

Then at four, you guys leave and go to Ireland. Yeah. And dad's Irish, but he's a Kiwi. How did that happen?

He's a Kiwi, but he ended up in Ireland. He moved to London from New Zealand when he was really young. He left New Zealand when he was about 19 and worked on a ship to travel the world and then ended up in London. I met my mom. My mom had traveled from the Sticks in Ireland. And this was at a time when women didn't really leave their rural environment to go looking for adventure. And then they met in London at a Irish club because I think my dad had heard that Irish girls were-A party, as we just learned.

I can't imagine you have a ton of memories living in London.

I've got a few. You do? Little, tiny. Why? Well, because my parents had a pub called the White Thorn, and I remember it was one of those East End pubs that had a piano and very family feeling. But it was also an East End pub, so lots of gangsters around and dodgy vibe, which is why we got the hell out. We lived upstairs above the pub. I've got a weird memory of Chinese takeaway, a cat. I've got very Snapshot. Snapshot. I don't think it's just from photographs because in the day, no one took any. I think they're genuine memories from age three to four.

When you go to Ireland and you go to Southern Ireland.

Well, it was central. I mean, Northern, Southern Ireland. Okay, yeah. But we were in the center when we moved there first. We got another pub. This one was called the Green Kiwi. We were there for a couple of years.

Can your dad handle his business? When shit would break out in there?

Oh, he was so tough. He was. Oh, my God. Oh, I love it. He would not mess for them. He was.

Oh, interesting. Not what you associate with the Kiwis, but what you do associate with the Irish.

What? The toughness? Fisticuffs. I don't know about the Fisticuffs. He just had a very strong presence. People admired him, stroke, occasionally feared him.

Sure. I don't think you could own a pub and be a pusher, right?

No. But even when he moved away from the whole public and business, he had a certain way of doing business. Did you like that?

Did you feel safe by that presence or felt scared?

When you're a kid, everything is embarrassing about your parents. My dad God was the person who didn't give a shit what anyone thought of him in his clothes, in his manner. If you were boring him, he'd walk off mid-sentence. How liberating. Oh, my God. It was awful when you're a kid. When he would take us to McDonald's for a treat and the server was being disinterested, stroke, rude, he would call them out for it. He would pick me up from school in a white van with a Rottweiler sitting in the front seat, and he walked around in his farming jeans, rubber boots, bits of blood. He didn't give a shit. Turgy parts. But you know what? I am that parent now. It's so funny. There's so many little things that I noticed that I have that he had.

It's maddening, isn't it? It is, yeah. It is. It really is. I became my dad. When? First, physically, I look in the mirror, I'm like, Oh, my God.

Yeah, my brother has the same. I'm looking identical. My brother has the same thing.

Just all the same character defects, all the same getting I'm into it with people and all this stuff. I'm like, Oh, my God. I hated him for this.

There were things that I didn't love, but there's things that when I think about it now, I'm like, Well, it was great to have a dad that was a presence and that you felt like you couldn't mess with him. He would It's like, you could have it out with parents outside the school if he had to. He would just call people out. I'm quite like that with my girls now, and it's awful for them. They love it.

I know. We were at Target. You're familiar with Target? Yeah.

It's my daughter's favorite place when we come over here.

It's my daughter's. She asked if she could sleep there. We realized we had never taken them to a department store because we order things online. Then it was COVID. The first time she went into a Target, she was seven. She was like, What's going on? They have everything for sale is here. Yeah, and she wanted to sleep there. She wanted to have a birthday party there. That's adorable. Anyways, I have this huge shopping cart on Saturday, and they have a little conveyor belt that will take your cart down the stairs, so you meet it at the bottom. And a guy in front of me put his card in and takes off. And then I put my card in, and I do it correctly. It gets about six feet, and then the whole thing shuts down. And then this guy starts yelling at me. He's like, Oh, you fucking broke the thing. And I'm like, I didn't fucking break. How am I going to break this thing? What are you talking? And I immediately get in through with this guy. And then my older daughter is immediately like, Dad, shut up. You're not doing this. And I'm like, Oh, my God.

This was me and my dad, and I got to let this go, that I'm being accused of breaking a machine I didn't break.

It's very hard to. It's in your DNA, isn't it? It's just deep in your bones.

There's an injustice. I've been accused of something I didn't do, and I'm going to defend myself. But at the expense of my daughter being like, Oh, my God, my dad. Embarrass them. Yes, embarrassed them. How did he land in the turkey trade?

He wanted to get out of the public and business.

I like that you call it public. We don't have that word.

I keep thinking you're saying Republican, and I'm like, What is that?

Republican, that's what you mean. I like it.

That's the name of a of a pub is a public.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

He wanted to get out of that.

Because it wasn't financially great?

No, it was just... I'm sure some people would disagree, but it wasn't a great family environment. I think my mom was done. Some people would disagree. My mom was done cleaning out men's toilets, and dad was very sociable, and so possibly...

Stayed a little late sometimes.

Yeah. They were like, let's get out of that.

Inconcruised with fatherhood.

Yeah. So why turkey farming? I think by that point, he had a good few kids, and he was just looking for a way to get us into a more rural environment. But also, he wasn't trained in anything. In London, he worked on the London underground, and he always was able to make money. But I guess in Ireland, he was like, What do I do here?

I know something about him, too, now. He doesn't do well with the boss.

No. Right.

So he owned one thing and he wanted to do another thing, but he had to be the boss of whatever thing. So that limits your options.

No one could have tell my dad what to do. He found this piece of land and it had these turkey sheds on it. He wanted to build a house on this property where he found the turkey sheds, but there was nothing there. There was no electricity. He managed to convince the local council that he was going to set up this business that was going to employ 100 local people. They invested in putting all this infrastructure in, but you didn't tell them that it would just be for five days over Christmas.

My hunch is it employed six people full-time. Five children, your mom and him.

That's what we did. We were taken out of school to work on the farm.

It's a gnarly business, though.

Yeah, it's nice when there are little chicks.

Sure. That's a very short period of time.

Not very long.

And they shit a tremendous amount, right? What?

More than most farm animals?

I just associate- There's a lot of shit. There's a lot of shit, right? We have this problem in the States, which is we have all this chicken agriculture, and they don't know what to do with all the shit. And then it seeps into the Hudson Bay, and it fucking gets rid of all the oxygen in the water. So I just know we're having a hard time dealing with our chicken shit on an industrial scale.

I don't know what we did with our chicken shit.

Were you shoveling a ton of it?

No, I was mainly plucking and... Did you kill them? No. You didn't have to do that. There was always just some man walking around with very loose jeans. We were all just the plebs standing around waiting to pluck them. And then this guy would just saunder over and break a neck.

That's what I was going to ask what the mechanics were. Is it a shooting situation.

No, they just... Drowning, fire. Just like up against the wall.

Do you overdose them?

No, I never killed a bird.

Did you eat a lot of turkey as a result of this?

I became a vegetarian very young because of that. You did? Yeah.

You've stuck with that. No, you had a pork chop the other day.

What am I saying? I stuck with it for 16 years, though. Then I got back into it.

Okay, so what age do you leave Ireland and go to London? Because we have a similar trajectory, I think. Really? Yeah. Then I think we started late. I did. We both graduated college in 2000, which was late.

I went to Uni in Dublin, but I dropped out. I didn't even finish my first year.

Let me ask really quick, what kid were you? Were you a troublemaker? Were you a class clown? Were you a popular girl?

I was class clown. Got myself in trouble, but wasn't a troublemaker. Got myself in trouble because I was an idiot and in the wrong place at the wrong time. I got caught. I was always second to the popular girl. I wanted friends with the popular girl, and I would find a way in.

What did you want to do? Did you always want to be in?

No. Well, actually, it was a mix. I ended up going to art college. I didn't know what the job would be at the end of it. All I wanted to do was go to art college. Right.

And actually paint and stuff?

Yeah, paint and draw.

Were you any good at that?

I was okay for a little while, just not good enough. I think when I went to art college, I realized my limitations that I found that really hard. I I couldn't find a way to stand out or be the best in any way, so I dropped out. And then I went to London when I was 19, maybe nearly 20.

When you were... I'm moving to London, and what was the fantasy at that time? I'll just have a big city experience or I'll do X, Y, or Z?

No, it was to make my fortune. At that point, I'd started doing acting classes in Dublin at the weekends and thinking, Oh, I think I might like this. I had this slightly strange encounter with an Irish director called Jim Sheridan, who just came up to me in a cafe and said, I want you to audition for my film.

The famous Jim Sheridan.

The famous Jim Sheridan. Yeah, wow. I went along an audition for that film and really failed badly, didn't get it. But somehow, weirdly, it made me think, I want to not fail at that. Yeah, right. I went to London to do that because there's a great fringe theater scene in London, and I thought, that's the way I'll do it. I'll get into fringe theater. But I just wasn't that good at pushing myself forward, and I hadn't found my confidence at that point. So I got a job in a job center, and I stayed there for six years. Six years? Yeah. That was just a bit of a mistake. I was doing other things. I was doing courses and trying to find a back route in.

Were you depressed?

I was going to say- Yeah. Yeah, it's depressing. Yeah, it was very depressing. But then I left there and that's when I went back to college and did my degree.

And you have a degree in English and American Studies? Yeah. And did you learn a lot about America? Do you think you know more about America than most Americans?

I don't know. My brain doesn't retain- It's just a pass-through. It's awful. With learning lines, or I can keep five shows in my head at any time. I've got great recall for that thing. But anything else, it's just gone immediately.

It's way easier to learn your lines when you've written them, don't you agree? It's so much easier. It's so easy. I've done a few things that I wrote, and I'm like, Oh, I know the whole script, basically. I don't even have to look at it.

I know everyone else's lines, including them.

Because I write lines how I think they make sense to me.

They should sound like this. Yes, it's easier to learn. My interests have changed and expanded a bit. But at the time, I was just like, I got to get this degree because everyone else in my family had one. I was like, I just have to do this thing. I was a good student, but I was also, I mean, ridiculously still class clowning it when I was- Right.

An older woman at the college.

A ridiculous woman.

While you were at this college, then you meet Dennis Kelly, right?

Well, actually, no. I met Dennis. It was just before we were doing Youth Theater together. Youth Theater was just under 26, but it was around about the same time.

You meet him, and he has already declared as, I'm going to be a writer.

When I met him, he was concerting to my Nina in the Seagull. So he was being an actor, but very quickly, he realized that he wanted to be a writer. But we had parted ways, and then we met each other one night in the pub, just I bumped into each other and he had written his first play. I was just astounded by this. And that's what got me into the writing. I was like, I want to write sketch comedy. Then off the back of that, a sitcom, mainly that. Skech and sitcom, that's all I wanted to write.

So between 2000 and 2006, you're on TV, you're in Monkey Dust, which is an animated show, and it's sketchy and funny. Yes. And then in '06, we're now six years past graduation. Yeah. You and Dennis create Polling together. Based on the success of Polling, no, that's the next one. What I think is really funny is in 2007, you won the British Comedy Award for Best Female Newcomer for annually retentive. Yeah. Now, again, you were 37.

Was I?

I think so in 2007.

Okay. Yeah, that's true.

Did you feel like... This is a weird... Newcomer feels like something that should go to the kid who won for fucking adolescence or the other night.

No, because I really, really was. I'd done a few shows at that point, but they were culty, no-one-watched things. Actually, that particular award was for Pulling and Annually Retentive. It was my first starring role thing. I just remember it being really surreal because six years earlier, I'd been doing fuck all.

And you had done six years as a temp or whatever the fuck job that was for six years.

Yeah, yeah. Admin assistant.

So 12 years is a long time in the before the newcomer award comes.

Yeah. There was no structure to what I was doing, even though I was trying to find a way into the industry. I was trying to get a job in radio or trying to get a job writing for someone else's show or any route in, I was trying. I just didn't have the right focus or the confidence or whatever it takes to take the plunge and do it properly to just all out go. I'm going to do this now. There was a lot of time wasted, but once I started doing it, it was super for hyper focus.

And then it just doesn't stop. But we must explain this really interesting difference between American television and British television. In the States, when there's a hit, we just keep making it until everyone gets too expensive, I guess, at some point to keep on the show. And it's just not that way in England at all, right? It's very rare for a show to go more than three seasons or something.

Yeah, it's pretty rare.

Is that maddening and frustrating?

I mean, a good few There's a lot of exceptions that rule, but there's a lot of standout shows that were just like, no, to and done.

Well, The Office, famously for us, was like, wait, you have this incredible show and you guys are done?

That's it. Or like 99 or Mighty Boosh. I wanted to do more pulling. We just didn't get recommissioned.

I was going to say, is that frustrating when you finally have a show and you're actually writing it and you're on it?

It's so frustrating. It's so frustrating because it was a dream scenario.

Probably you'll never get more fun than that with my guess.

Never. It was the biggest buzz. We got our show picked up. We didn't even have to make a pilot. We wrote this one script. Next thing we are making a show.

If you turn on the television and this thing you thought of is physically on the TV is It's crazy.

It's such a great buzz. I still find it very buzzy, actually. I still feel like a kid when I'm walking around a set and that whole like, We did this. Yeah, show business. But for your first thing. But also, we got to do it our way with no interference, which makes no sense because we'd never done it before. Everyone who was in it was brilliant. It was just a very joy-filled experience.

When you were doing that, what did you find more fun? And then which one was more rewarding the acting or the writing. I can tell you, personally, I have a lot of pride in being a writer because it's hard. It is. And it's lonely. I don't have a lot of pride in being an actor or being funny. That's a blast, and I like doing it.

I agree with you. Although I think I'm different now. I get much more joy out of the writing. But back then, getting the opportunity to be on TV and to be the lead in something, I found it a huge buzz. Also, it was my first time taking something from the page to the screen and realizing that it can be great on the page and you can make it better and you can exceed your expectations. Also, it's like six weeks. When we make sitcoms, it's six episodes.

Everyone's almost dedicated to not making any money.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

How can we not break even on this? No one makes. Let's do six so we never amortize the cause.

No one makes a bean. God, I was so green. I did enjoy it then. I did get a lot of pride in pulling it off. But yeah, definitely less so now.

Is the next big thing for you? That's obviously a huge moment for you, that show. Is Catastrophe the next big-Yeah, a lot of pilots in between.

A lot of failed pilots.

That you had written?

I had written. Okay. Then I made this UK show called Dead Boss that we only did one season of because it didn't really work. It was funny. You know it's that thing? I think after pulling, not that that many people saw it or that people were waiting with baited breath to see what I do next, but there was an expectation. It did well.

They would assume your next one's going to be even better.

Yeah, exactly.

That was her first thing.

I made this really nutty show set in a women's prison about this woman who's accused of killing her boss. It was bonkers. Not many people liked it. There was lots of funny stuff in it. It just didn't gel in the way you would hope. So that and a lot of pilots over here. I was doing that for years.

Yeah, so when you're there, being London, and you're having some success, I would be like, Well, I'm going to go over there, or everyone's getting rich here.

Over there to the US. Yeah, but I had this weird thing where I was like, I'll go over there now. My agents be like, No, it's not time for you to go over there. I'm like, Why are you sure?

Because people seem to be going over there.

I think I'm ready. People seem to be going there. It took a while. I don't know why. I must talk to my... I still got the same agent because I'm just creature of habit. I'm also it's great.

I'm very loyal per the Monday night dinner.

Yeah, I hope so. But I must ask, it was a real no, you're not ready. Then finally, when I did go over, I think I made about four pilots in a row, maybe five. Wow.

Do you start getting crazy discouraged? Like, Man, I don't know if I'm going to be able to- No, I was...

The weird thing that I noticed that's very different from UK is that people could happily make a great living never getting anything made here. My agents over here were setting me up with the writers where I go, so what are you working on at the moment? They were like, I haven't had anything produced in five years. But there was this sense of it was successful if you were getting pilot scripts commissioned. Whereas I was like, what the fuck?

Yeah, I imagine.

You're not making anything.

I bet the amount they buy here versus make, I bet that ratio is way different than it is in London. I have sold many TV shows, and none of have been produced.

I think it's changing, though. I think that's what people are starting to feel.

I think so, yeah.

It's really hard for writers right now because I think they're not doing that.

Yeah, they shut off that. When you think about all those pilots that have never been seen, it just seems extraordinary.

Thousands of hours of television that no one's seen.

They probably cost what it takes to make a UK TV series.

Yeah, a lot of people have a really good pilot quote as an actor. They'll make 150, then get by for the year. And then next year, they do another pilot, and it can just It must be this weird little trap.

Yeah. But even though I met Rob on Twitter, because I was coming over to make the pilots, we did end up hanging out in real life. When I was making one of the pilots, we were Moonlighting on Catastrophe on the side.

Yeah. Talk about meeting Rob because I, too, was just on Twitter and discovered him. And still, hands down, of all the tweeters, he was the number one funiest on Twitter ever.

The funiest. Rob Delaney. Ridiculously crying, laughing.

Yeah, in 2018, he had some weird tweet. I don't even know what it was about. And then he just hashtag, Cony2012. It was like, who thinks to hashtag Cony2012 six years later?

Yeah, that's great.

It was just so funny. Everything's so fucking funny. Yeah.

He's got such an amazingly specific brain.

Right away, you guys thought we should try to create something together?

No, it was more of a mutual, I think you're really funny. And then he had seen pulling and not that many people had. I mean, it was on over here, but he had to do a quest.

You would need an AI to locate it.

But he found it. Then we ended up doing this little sketch. It was fun. And then because of his Twitter Fame, he got commissioned by the BBC to write the sitcom. Then he got in touch with me and said, Do you want to write it with me? That's how it happened.

It's a spectacular show. Thank you. Yeah. Did you feel very proud of it?

Yeah, I did. It was another one of those things where we had a pretty good feeling that it was going to work at the script stage. But when we started it together, it was a nice feeling of relief that we bounced so well off each other as performers as well as writers. It's such an unknown.

You play the chemistry a lot.

Yeah, that's it, completely. But I mean, I loved making that show.

And then post-catastrophe, Now more doors open, I'm assuming, because your next thing's Divorce, which is written for someone else, is written for Sarah Jessica Parker.

Yeah.

So now we're in another realm where we might just also create shows. Yes. Was that scary or Were you ever exciting or did you feel like, I don't really want to write something I'm not going to be in?

I love the idea of writing for other people. It felt exciting. You're incredibly invested in it, but at the same time, you get to step back a bit and have more of a bird's-eye view. To me, that felt like the best case scenario to create something that then I could just watch it do its thing.

Did you pitch Sarah the idea or were you approached as, Sarah wants to do this?

Actually, I'd pitch this other show idea to HBO, which ended up being Shining Veil made for Courtney Cox. We were about to start making that, or at least developing it. Then they said, Sarah Jessica is looking to make a new show, and she's looking for a writer. She had had a script that she didn't really feel was working. We just met her, got a good notion of what it was she wanted to make and the things she wanted to talk about, that death of a long term relationship thing. I came up with this divorce setting for it.

Were Were you post-divorce or about to start that process? How did it parallel your life?

I wasn't. I was still in my marriage, but I guess maybe- Some of the scenes.

I'm sure you had a lot of faudder of things that are annoying at this point, 14 years in. I'm sure you had a lot of like- Oh, yeah, of course.

It's like Amy Gravitz said, Anyone who's married knows what it feels like to want to be divorced. Yeah, right. But my friend had just very recently gone through one. So through talking to her and just getting the detail from her. I could talk about relationships until the cows come home, but the actual mechanics of the tree something. The proceedings. Yeah. I could write a divorce encyclopedia now, but back then, no, I just had some feelings.

Do you think it made you get a divorce?

Yeah, I don't want to make it too big of a stretch. Was it chicken out the egg? Yeah. Were you living in this thought experiment of divorce?

No, not at all. I mean, thank God for my family. At that point, my ex was traveling back and forth with my kids. It was a tricky time for us as a family, but we were very much all in it together. That overlapped with the catastrophe. It was just a little bit too much. Bad time management, I would say. Yeah.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare. Was it hard for you? Yeah. What feelings did you have? I'm failing. Oh, I had my first. Oh, yeah. Or family shame.

All of it. Terrible. Missed a birthday. Got back for the party, but missed the actual birthday. My daughter's 21 now. Oh, boy. She still talks about it. Sure.

What else is she going to talk about? She needs something. We all need something. Yeah, we need something. I play this game all the time. Our kids are 10 and 12, and I'm like, What's going to be the thing I'm going to hear about the rest of my life? Is it that target argument? Because they have to have something.

I've I've seen so many mothers do it now and having done it myself, remembering that awful push-pull of, I'm away from the family unit for way too long for it to be healthy. I feel like with kids, it's a little bit, for the most part, apart from my daughter remembering the birthday thing, it's a little bit like water have a duck's back a little bit. Whereas I think for us, we- Self flagellating. Yeah, and there's still trauma there. I still think about it.

Is it fair Most of the women, my wife included, that I know that are in this business that have kids, it's like you feel guilty at work because you're not with your kids. Then when you're with your kids, you feel guilty you're not working because that's also your passion. It's like there's no real sweet spot.

Yeah, that's it. You also have that weird thing. I can only assume it's how people feel when they get out of prison. You forget how to operate in normal life. You're isolated from everything else. All you do is get up. Someone picks you up in a car, feeds you, takes you to Zet, feed you some more. All you're doing is working and being coseted and then put back in a car and then brought home. When you get back into your family environment, you just don't know how to operate for a while.

You can also get tricked into thinking that that job is the most important thing in the world.

Yeah, and that you are. And that you are, yes. Because that's how you're being treated.

Objectively, you are important to that world. It's not even like an ego explosion.

No, that's true.

The lead actors are very important to the project. The writers are very important to the project.

To the project, but I think because it is so isolated and compartmentalized and it's every day and you're in a hotel and then you go, you can think that the project is the most important thing in the world.

Sure, sure, sure. You almost have to for it to be good.

Right. You have to buy in a little bit. Then that's complicated when you leave it.

Then you get taken down numerous pegs by your family. You just have to deal with it and get back on the horse.

Okay. Bad Sisters, I'm imagining your first American hit, America's Gone Bad Shit. Yeah. A lot of people love Catastrophe, but it was definitely culty. Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

But Bad Sisters is this epic thing. I watched it. It looked interesting. I saw it. Oh, thank you. Then I'm probably having the same thing other people are where it's like, Oh, yeah, I love Bad Sisters. Oh, yeah. Oh, you know the one sister created the show? I'm like, Oh, she created the show. Then this is when I find that you've created all these shows and that you're writing it, and then it's just so impressive. Very bowled over by it. It was a Danish show?

Belgian. I had seen it. It was brought to me to adapt it. I watched pilot episode and really fell in love with it.

Is it tonally the same?

No, it's completely different.

Is that one darker?

It's really hard to explain, but it's just got that Scandy thing where it's much more crazy. The murders are crazy and there's Chinese Mafia in it and hitmen and people end up being murdered and then ending up in dog food canning factories. It was quite extreme. But it was really amazing, totally, because the sisters were really grounded. Oh, interesting. But it was just a different approach, even to the really brutal, serious stuff in it. It was just a different approach. Like, Eva's rape in the original version, she's having sex with her boyfriend. He needs to take a break. He goes downstairs to the fridge to have something to eat and to cool down. And while she's waiting for him, still on all fours, the break comes up and gets in there. So they totally got away with it because she's brilliant, the lady who created it, Malin. And the actors are amazing. Even in our version, there was a real line to tread in terms of when you're going to be funny and when you're going to destroy people.

I'd argue it's the hardest tone to pull off in anything. It was when you're bouncing back and forth.

Yeah. It's scary when you're doing it because you're like, They could maul us to death.

If it goes wrong, it'll go spectacularly wrong.

You need to just take a punt and then just try and hold fast.

Yeah. Were you shocked with how loved it was? Yeah, of course. Did you write the roles with the actors in mind, or did you write the whole thing and then cast it?

I wrote the pilot and then cast after that. Ireland's a small country, and also it had to be very specific in terms of the ages and for us to seem like we are in the same family. I just had to pray that those girls that I asked to do it were available.

They were it.

Yeah. I'd worked with a lot of them before, so I knew. As soon as I started writing the series, I had their voices in my head. But when it came to the second season, it was just so much easier because I'd spent all that time with them and I knew how one character would respond to another. I knew what the dynamics were that worked within the family. I found the second season easier, but- More challenging story-wise, probably. Although the first one had huge challenges because even though we had the template, in rethinking it, it threw all the pieces out of whack, and then it's got two timelines, and I found that really hard.

How do I say his name? Is it Clayes?

Clayes Bang, yeah.

Holy shit. That was the first time I I've never seen him.

Oh, really? Because I'd seen the square.

He's so good. I mean, he's so repugnant. The way he calls her Mama, Mammy?

Mammy.

Oh, he's so gross. He's so gross, yeah. He's the most hateable character ever. He was perfect. And he's slimy. He's terrible. God bless him. He just was like, Yeah, I'm going to be as unlikable as humanly possible. Did he have any vanity? What was the process?

He had to get his head around being that odious, and it was a bit of a challenge. He didn't love love being hateful and hated every day. But then there was this other side to him that reveled in it. It's fine as an actor. And he really went for it. But it is a thing where every scene you're in, you're just being an absolute piece of shit. But we had to just make sure that there were moments where you could see who he used to be.

How anyone fell in love with him in the first place. Exactly. Why does his child love him?

Exactly. So needed to see him be a good dad sometimes. We needed to see him be vulnerable or feel like a stranger in this Irish family. It really helped that he was not an Irishman. An outsider. Exactly.

How did you just come across him? You had seen Square?

I had seen the square. I had seen the square, but no, it was Nina Gold, our casting agent. It was her idea. Then I rewrote it for him to lean into that. We gave him a Swedish mother, and it ended up affecting a lot of the scripts, but in a way that was only positive. It's amazing when that happens, when you have something in your mind and you do something completely different, and then you go, Oh, no, this has given us so much more.

What's your explanation of the mass appeal of it?

The time it came along, I think at that time, everyone really needed the catharsis of hating an awful white-Man. Religious bigot. We were all on board for it. Also that thing of despite the thriller of it and the caper, it is about family.

Nobody would ever watch that and not want to be one of the sisters. I would argue that's a huge element of it. It's just, again, you guys hit the chemistry lottery. There's such a familiarity and a fun, and everyone's so different. It all works cohesively.

We got very lucky. I love those girls. One of them is the reason why I am this hungover today.

Was it Eve? It was Eve. Yeah, good guess. That was my next question. Did you know Eve before? I didn't. And did you know she was Bono's daughter before you cast her? I did.

That was Nina Gold. But once she mentioned her, then I remembered other work that I'd seen her in. I was like, She's amazing. But I just didn't know. She'd never done any… I mean, it's a drama, but there's a lot of comedy in it. So in actual fact, she came in and did a casting. And she filmed the casting in Bono's front room of his castle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Brilliant in the casting. So clearly funny in that way, where you're not trying to push the comedy. She was just naturally funny.

I wish this were not the case, but it just truly is, which is like, if I know that's Bono's daughter, it's in the mix. I'm aware of it, right? And I think the worst guess I would have for Bono's daughter is that she's going to be perfect in plastic and spoiled. No. The contradiction of what potentially you're afraid could be the daughter of someone uber famous and rich. She's, in fact, quite the opposite, at least on screen.

And in person as well.

Yeah, just in this delightful way where you're like, it's almost even cooler because she seems so fucking real. I know.

She's very sweet, incredibly fun. Bad influence. Takes the work seriously. A bad influence. A bad influence. Well, we all have bad influences on each other. But no, it was just an immediate family. We just got really lucky. We were enjoying ourselves, but at the same time, we had to work as an ensemble, but they all had to be able to carry their own episode because there would always be an episode that really focused on them. All of them are just incredible. Actors, incredibly watchable. You just instantly care about them.

Were you ever, at any point in it, wishing, I wish I didn't have this dual role where I'm also their boss is a little bit like, I just want to be in the Riff-reff crew and bitch about the production.

Oh, Oh my God, I'm so paranoid. I am walking around in a constant state of fear that- That they think you're... Anything. I'm always worrying that people aren't happy or have an opinion about how I'm doing things. I always just wanted to be with them hanging out and chatting instead of on my laptop having a nervous breakdown about reshoots or edits or whatever else goes along with it. It's a pain. You just want to play. You want to enjoy it. There's a real feeling of pride and accomplishment that comes from seeing something you wrote come to life. But you do miss out on a lot of really good gossip.

You want a Peabody for it. Did you even know what a Peabody was before you want it? Yes, I did.

You did? Yeah.

We covet the Peabody Award. We actively campaign to win a Peabody Award. Yeah, it's great. I'm not terribly sure what it is, but I really want that award.

It means something good, doesn't it? Yeah.

What does it mean?

It's a It's prestigious.

It's prestigious.

It is prestigious.

But what is it? It's not an acting award. It's just a culture award?

It is, actually. If you've campaign for them, you know you have to do this whole statement.

By campaign, I write in my Instagram comments. Please give me one of these.

You have to submit your program for it, obviously. Then you talk about what it is that you were wanting to achieve with the show. I don't know, but I think for the most part, there has to be an aspect to it that makes it It's socially important, relevant, across the board, really, in the storytelling, in the casting, in the diversity, and the amount of female directors you use, why you chose to tell that story, representation. It's a big all-around, and it's about how successful the storytelling was, of course, but it's a bit of a...

This is important.

Yeah.

Success with intention.

I guess it's not just about the entertainment. I love that it's just properly entertaining, but I like the fact that it's saying something. Yeah.

Okay. The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox. We interviewed Amanda Knox. Did you? Yes. I found her to be so brilliant. I could barely stand it.

Super bright. She's a great girl. When we were talking earlier about being a mother and a father as well, sometimes. But for the most part, it's harder to be a mother and leave your kids behind. But K. J. Steinberg, who created the show, because we shot it in Rome, in Budapest, in Vancouver, all over Italy, and she had to leave her kids at home and do this. I'm so glad for her. It's taking quite a big swing, isn't it? Like, stylistically, it's a terrible, tragic story. But there's also a lot of absurdity in what happened in the situation. Kj was not scared to show that some of these things were so absurd. They were funny. The stylistic approach of this Amelie-s filming style at the beginning. All those things are big swings. It's very ambitious. The fact that she pulled it I'm just delighted for her because it was really hard for her being that far away from her family and dealing with something that wasn't easy. It's a difficult story to tell for loads of reasons, legally. But Amanda was around a good bit.

You met her mom?

Oh, yeah. I met her mom, I met her kids, I met her husband, I met the mom, I met her sister. Some of the days they were there for some lighter scenes, but some of the days they were there for some really heavy scenes that brought them right back to it. I remember her mom saying to me, It's really hard to watch for loads of reasons, but I wish I'd been that articulate when it was happening. I wish I'd known how to deal with my emotions, and I wish I'd known how to operate within that situation. And it's like, How could you?

Well, I said to her towards the end, and now she has kids, so it's not hard to imagine, but I'm, of course, watching that thing, and I'm no longer putting myself in the position of her. I'm putting myself in the position of, Oh, my God, if this happened to one of my daughters. Yes, completely. I would a million times rather sit in prison than have them sit in prison. In a bizarre way, I do think it could be harder for the parent. And she agreed.

I did the Zoom initially with the producers in KJ, but then I did the second Zoom with Amanda. I don't know about you, but most of the times, if I'm offered a job, I'm like, Why do you want me to do it? I was a bit like, I don't know.

You were a little scared of this role, right?

Oh, completely. Yeah. But it was her talking about that. It was really emotional on the Zoom because when she was talking about her mother, and what she went through, I realized then that maybe I could play it because…

You had the emotion in you.

Exactly. I was more nervous about… It is a bit exhausting doing that.

Coming in, frazzled, panics.

Being frazzled all day long. It's hardcore. It takes it out of you. But yeah, she's a great girl.

So you were scared. It's a big acting challenge. And also you didn't write it. It's not going to be how you might like to land in that challenge.

But I feel like in stuff like that, you have to just be on board for the ride. For the most part, if you're working with normal people, they do want a bit of feedback or they do appreciate a suggestion or two. But really, at the end of the day, I like just to do it and not think about all the other stuff because my day job is so thinking about everything. In actual fact, it's fun just to go there and be an actor, and then at the end of the day, go to your trailer and look at your phone. Yeah. And not just be like, writing more scripts. So I was nervous about it for that reason, but also because it's divisive subject area. People have opinions about her, and you would have opinions about why the show is even being made.

Strongest opinions, knowing the least amount the actual story. Yes, exactly. That seems to be related.

You just never know how something is going to be received.

How has it been? Have people reached out to you?

It was a little bit of like there would be because people are...

There's no consensus anymore.

Online was a little bit funny.

People like to be really very upset said on Meredith's behalf. As if this person is not also allowed to tell their story. Because one scenario was worse, say we got in a car accident and you died and I got fucking paralyzed, I wouldn't be allowed to talk about being paralyzed because they would go, What about Sharon?

Yeah, there was people who were angry on her behalf. But for the most part, I would say the response has been really good. People thought they knew that story like you were saying, and then there was so much that you didn't know.

In my hunch is anyone who's even complaining still hasn't seen this story.

I would say not.

There were people in our comments sounding off. And I literally wrote a few times like, this couldn't be more obvious that you didn't listen to the episode. That's what I know from this comment is that you-Oh, really?

When she was on this show.

She did it. What about Mary? Yes. And I'm like, what I know for sure is you did not listen to this episode because there's no way you could write that comment had you listened to it.

But the show and the story, the thing that happened to her is just a reflection of the world acting very sinister, and then there's a lot of defensiveness that comes out of it. So, yeah, I think a lot of people are like, no, because they are not okay feeling like they live in a world where we could do that to someone or that they themselves have done it unfairly.

Or enjoyed the opera of it while it was happening. Yeah. So to do something lighter, you've taken on Jeanette McCurdy's book. I'm glad my mom died. We interviewed her when she first was promoting that book, and it's for sure one of our best episodes ever.

She's so She's amazing.

She's incredible.

She's, again, a giant-brained person, ridiculously talented. It's a really difficult story to tell, and somehow she's managing to do it. It's funny and entertaining and traumatic.

I think the defining attribute that allows you to enjoy it or not enjoy it, be it Amanda Knox or Jeanette, is if they weren't destroyed by it, it's great. And that really is Jeanette. It's like Oh, no, this bitch ain't destroyed by it. She's gotten stronger. It's so inspiring.

She is.

You play the mom?

No, she's just producing the project. Producing.

Okay, got it.

I'm just delighted to be involved in any way, just getting to see her work. It was a book that I was obsessed with. And talking to her about it before we had it picked up, before we went out and pitched it even, I knew I wanted to be involved. She's really something.

Now, I'm scared for you. You're writing two different projects for yourself, one at Amazon, one at HBO.

I wonder what the Amazon thing is because someone else has asked me that as well. We're developing something with Amazon.

But not necessarily you star.

Not for me, no. I'm writing an HBO show. For you? Yeah, for me. I always still get embarrassed by that. Really? I'm writing it for me.

No one else will be in it. Yeah.

I think it's bragging.

Well, no, I felt it with Pulling as well, even though that was the first thing I was like, and I will cast me. It just feels a bit...

Indulgent maybe. Yes. But it's not.

Just so you know. But the workload, I'm a little worried about the workload. Are you? I am. You've now created more shows than almost anyone, really. You're just racking them up. It's a lot, and you're fine. How many hours a day do you work?

It depends. Well, at the moment, we are making a show for Netflix called Vladimir, and it's shooting in Toronto. It's mad hours because it's a different time zone. So at the moment, it's not great because I finish my work in the UK, and then I go to eat dinner with my girls, and then I go back to work. But for the most part, when you're writing, I'll do a 10: 00 till 5: 00 thing. If my girl's at school and she's leaving at 8: 00 in the morning, I start at 8: 00 and then might end a little earlier. But I don't know. I mean, I'm just sitting at a desk.

You don't feel like you're approaching burnout level or anything.

Now you're worrying me. Yeah, you should be a little bit worried. No.

Here's I watched this incredible documentary. I did not know this DJ. I don't know. I just randomly watched it. Avichi. Have you ever heard that? No. Avichi. He was this enormous global DJ, the kind that can make a million dollars a night. And now everyone wants to start working with him. So it's like this amazing artist, this amazing artist. And this documentary is heartbreaking because, and I can so relate to it, just like you want something so bad. It takes so long to get it. And when it comes, it's nearly impossible to throttle it. And this took him down. I think he died of working. What the hell? Yeah, he killed himself.

You think I'm going to die? No. He killed himself.

He killed himself. Okay. Slash maybe fell on a broken wine bottle. Whatever. He was not in a good spot. Very tragic story. And I was watching it just going like, I very much relate to this. These opportunities don't come around. He had to have felt that way. And it's really hard to govern yourself when it's all things you want.

That's true. And there is definitely an element of that because I did start late. And so I've always felt like I'm playing catch-up. But the other element of it is that I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I wasn't.

Yeah, you said, I'm not very good at twiddling my thumbs. I become a bit more hyperactive as I get older. I don't really know how to relax.

Yeah, I don't really know how to relax. But here's the thing, I was writing this episode of something that was set in Germany. And then every day over the two weeks that I was writing it, I was just like, going to Germany, get out of my head in my house and just be in a different world. I find it very relaxing. Okay, good. When I was doing Divorce and Catastrophe, that was hard. I remember having, I guess they were panic attacks. I didn't know what they were at the time.

I was like, oh my God. You're drowning in the commitments.

Yeah, but it doesn't feel like that now. I mean, I've got a company of amazing people.

The new show, you're playing Divorce moving the world. Yeah. Is there more plot than that that I'm leaving now?

Well, I'm the mother of a son. It's about the salmon generation, really. It's about that point in your life where your children are adults, but they haven't left, and you're still looking after them and your parents are getting older and that becomes also a responsibility. But it's this time in your life when the stakes are so raised because you suddenly become incredibly aware of your mortality. And in this particular situation, she wants to meet someone. She wants to fall in love before she stops being a sexual person. So there's this clock, but the world isn't allowing her.

Well, here's my pitch. You're going to have a lot of lovers in this show. You're going to have to go on a lot of dates, and there'll be good ones and bad ones. And I'm volunteering to be one of the lovers. Thank you so much. I can't commit to a lot of episodes, but it just one, something within reason. I'm letting you know. I will do that.

Would you be a force for good or a force for Whatever you choose that morning.

You're like, I want to see him be naughty. No, I want to see the sweet side of him who has kids.

Not like a builder.

I don't want to play a parking meter made. But let's just say I was giving you a ticket, but then somehow I charmed you. And you're like, I hate you. What does this guy- Can you imagine going out with a parking meter? It would be rough. Yeah.

But they're just people, too. They're just people.

No, you're right. I'm a dick.

They deserve to be in love.

No, it's okay. They're giving us tickets.

You can only like them so much. They are in charge of giving us tickets.

And it's not their fault. It's not their fault.

Once in a while, one will hang out in front of my kid's school at drop off. Really? Just waiting. And I can't let it go. I can't let it go. Because everyone's so fucking hectic. Everyone's trying to get to work. It's a mess.

Yeah, they're like vultures.

And I have on a couple of occasions said, You know an even better spot is the emergency room? You should go hang out at the emergency room where people really don't have time to park.

Blank face or do they give it to you back? No. There's nothing.

Then I feel bad. Then I regret it. And then I've done it twice.

No one wants that job.

Well, listen. Takes a unique person to post up in front of an elementary school to do your ticket.

That person, I'm going to say it's a he. I don't know. You sexist. Probably has to have so many tickets.

Yeah, exactly. Meeting their quota with parents that are struggling to get to work on time. I think we could pick on a better... Let's go in front of an agency.

Is it a showbiz school? No. I mean, are there a lot of showbiz paths? No. Because in a way, I'd I'm going to go like, it's a fair car.

No, and in fact, it has more kids on free lunch than probably any other school in the city. So no, it's the opposite. Screw that. Yes, but you can't afford a ticket.

Let one of those people say it, not you.

I got to use my I'm privileged for good. I'm trying to protect these people, Monica. I can't believe you're not supporting this.

You're not protecting them. You're protecting yourself.

No, I don't care if I get a ticket. Guys, don't fight. I literally- No, we fight all the time. No, we always fight. Yeah, it's part of the charm, I guess.

I've got a very weird relationship with- Money.

Yeah. Yeah, I do, too.

I think I just need a bit of therapy for it.

Yeah, so if you don't cast me in your show, I could also work you through financial insecurity. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you very much.

So a few different services I provide. Do you know what's weird about writing a show that does have sex in it? Yeah. Is that then you just get embarrassed when you send it out to people.

That they think you're a pervert or something?

I can't lose that feeling.

Is that the Irish Catholic?

I don't know. I mean, Rob and I used to get it a bit when we would write these sex scenes, like side by side, and then all of a sudden we'd realize that we're writing it for each other and we'd get really embarrassed and awkward. It feels like that when you write something and then You send it to an actor because you're saying, We're going to do it. Yes. We're going to be kipping. It could be even more. Are you on board?

Yeah. It's like asking someone out in real life. It's vulnerable.

God. But I would think this is where the positive side of being a woman, that side of the coin you should embrace, which is if I write that scene and I send it to Sydney Sweeney, and I'm a 50-year-old dude, and I send this scene. I got this great scene I wrote for us.

You shouldn't do that, though.

No, I shouldn't. Correct. I agree.

That's a bit Woody. I agree.

I'm with you.

That's a bit Robert DeVal, Emma Watson. Yes.

I'm in full agreement. That's why I'm using it to illustrate my point. But you can do that, and it's totally fine, and you should feel nothing about it. If you've earned anything, it should be that. Is that we know you're not a predator. In general, women are not predators, so you're free to do that. There are some. There's a few.

Thank God. I don't know any.

If you're a predator and you're a female, please in the comments, signal yourself out.

Are you vaping?

It's a nicotine spray. Oh, a spray? Yeah. So it's a very healthy delivery system.

I was very addicted to vaping and nicotine gum and occasional rollies. And so I did some hypnotherapy about four years ago.

Well, that brings us to my very last question for you. We've arrived. Oh, wow. So you quit drinking for three years? Yeah. And you loved it, right?

I did. Apparently, I was annoying.

You loved it so much. You talked about it.

I did a little bit. I wasn't like, evangelical, but I was just suddenly going on walks for no reason other than to enjoy the beauty of the walk. And prior to that, there had It would have been a pub at the end of it. So what it did was just give me a whole new perspective, and I loved it. And I figured my brain was on fire at the time.

When you go a couple of years without a hangover, for me, I had hangovers every single morning for a decade. To not have hangovers. It was almost unimaginable. So much of my life was dealing with a hangover and going to work and hoping it would break. And, oh, I'm sweating. Okay, it's going to break. It's that whole madness. And then when we had kids, and even we'd be on vacation with our pod, Monica's a member of, and they drink and we don't. And I'd wake up and I'm like, I can barely deal with the kids without a hangover. I can't imagine what it's like to deal with kids with a hangover.

God, I remember. It's awful.

So my great curiosity is, what brought you back?

My dad died.

Oh, you did? Yeah. Yeah, it's a good reason.

But it wasn't like my dad died and I had to have a drink. I just wanted to, with my brothers and sisters, drink a Guinness. We all needed it. But I didn't go back in full bore. It was very, very occasional. I was still on my smug thing because I was like, I just don't drink it the same way anymore. Then suddenly it just creeps in again. It's a habit. Then the next thing, because I remember saying to my daughters, Do you remember when I used to drink a glass of wine every night with dinner? Then sometimes I would have two glasses of wine, and they couldn't remember it. I was like, Well, that's great. Because I thought that would be something that they'd really aware of. I started slightly getting back into that. Now I've stopped. It was like the excitement of suddenly drinking again. I got a bit gitty. I was buying nice wines. It was like, I remember when I started eating meat for the first time after 16 years. I was so horny for me. I was just like, Give me meat. It was a bit like that with the booze.

Now, the last few days have been nuts because of the parties, but it has adjusted things a bit. It's not like a habit. It was a habit before where you don't even notice that you're drinking wine because you're just always drinking wine.

Yeah, I have that. I 100% have that. But I don't know. I'm back and forth on whether I care.

But you know what? What happened was, and you know the way your phone really gets into your head and sends you loads of videos about whatever it is you're fretting about. While I was not drinking, it kept sending me all these videos about how terrible booze is for your brain. I know. It fed into my smugness. I was like, This is brilliant. Everything is positive about this. Now they're continuing to come up and I'm like, no, no, no, no, studies, I think. What about also the 100-year-old people who drink every day? No one wants to talk about them anymore. They used to talk about them a lot. They used to tell you you have to drink a glass of wine today. You'll be good for your heart. And now it's crazy. They're all over the map. Why? Well, I mean, I think red wine. It's fine. Apparently, on the continent.

It's tasty and it's fine.

Yeah. Live long.

Did you drink Beamish?

I've never loved Beamish. It's too sweet. Are you Beamish? I love Beamish, yeah. But not Guinness.

I love Guinness. I love Guinness. You'll I'm really happy to know I've literally forced Monica to have a Guinness when we were in London.

They're not really for me.

Yeah, but come here. London Guinness is not all that. Okay. So maybe that's the issue. Unless you're the Davenshire. Have you been to the Davenshire?

No. Unless it was across the street from our hotel. Unless that was the one.

Where was your hotel?

Clarages?

No, we weren't at Clarages. We were at- Another one of those.

It's not far from there. It wasn't that place.

It was a shipple. It was.

There's no way it was this one you're thinking of. They do quite good Guinness, and Then obviously, if you go to Dublin or anywhere in Ireland.

Oh, it's so good. It's so smooth.

It's just very thick. Yeah.

It's a little thick.

Well, Sharon, you're as lovely in person as you are on screen. Thank you so much. Yeah, this has been so fun.

Sorry, I was a bit... I was not even hung over because it was from two days ago.

You're just exhausted.

You're just tired. Yeah. I've needed to eat for about the last 40 minutes. Oh, no. You could have told us.

Okay. Also, you can go on the couch. Really? Yes. All right. We adore you. Thank you. Everyone, watch the 96 projects you're in. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong.

Okay. Well, the last time I saw you- Yes, ma'am. Or the last time the people saw you. And me, I guess.

You and the people. Yeah.

I am one of the people.

Yeah.

You're going to go to the hospital. Which I did. Yeah. So tell everyone what transpired.

I went to the hospital. They hooked me up to... No, I peed first.

Yon- You were able to?

Yon sample.

Remind everyone what happened. You couldn't pee.

I couldn't pee. It was painful. I got a crazy fever. I gave blood in Yon at my GP.

That stands for general practitioner.

Yes, although he's not. He's an internist, and he doesn't like... But anyway. And then my family was concerned. I was sepsis. Yeah. Again, I don't know if you say septic or he has sepsis, he's in sepsis. There's something weird about sepsis. Sure. I don't know.

Do you? Yeah, I think it's like, And turns out I was in sepsis.

He went sepsis?

He He went sepsis.

Or did he went septic?

No, I think septic is only about the tank.

Okay, the septic field and the septic tank. Anyways, get there, do some samples. They hook me up to a stronger I have a super antibiotic. My vitals are good, though. Great. So I'm there for some hours. I get a bag of fluid. I... Oh, yes. And then he takes an ultrasound of my bladder. And it's full. Yeah. But I just peed.

Yeah, but you didn't get a lot of pee out.

Yeah. So he's like, Yeah, we're going to have to do a catheter. And I was like, Oh, no. Of all the things in life I hoped to avoid, it was putting two feet of cable up my pea hole. Yeah. God, I did not want to do that. So I think I've had one before, but I think I woke up post-surgery with it.

I also have had one, but it was gone by the time I woke up.

And then I think I was on a tremendous amount of opiates in the hospital when they removed it or something. I don't know. I just have no memory of this. So I guess I'm not saying where I went or anyone's name. So this is the first order business was the nurse was going to... And she told me, I got to put light cane in your urethra. Okay. So she has this syringe about this big, about six inches long. It's a fat boy, right? There's a ton of fluid in there. And so she's holding my penis and She puts it right up to the urethra. And I'm laying on my back trying to just be in another zone, right?

I'm just trying to- Are you worried?

About getting erect? Yeah. No, not at all. Really? No, no, no, no. I am so- Not horny. Terrified about getting this procedure.

Oh, Okay, that's good, I guess, for- Yeah, yeah. That's your positive side.

So she has this syringe. She has it up to the hole. And I don't know if it was stuck or whatever happened, but there was an audible pop. And then the whole thing went in like, boom, the whole... And I went, Oh, my God. I yelled, which I... Oh, my God. And she goes, Oh, I'm so sorry. That's not supposed to happen.

What? Oh, no. That's not what you want to hear.

They're supposed to, obviously, slowly put all that fluid in. But again, I think it was stuck or something. Maybe she pushed you hard and it just made this loud pop, and then it fucking just gushed six ounces of jam in my penis at once.

Eurostom. Jam. Wait a minute.

Was it-And I was like, whoa, we're off to a rough start.

Was this nurse an arm cherry?

No, but I loved her, and I learned a ton about her. We had a very, very connected, intimate conversation about someone in her life who passed. We had a really great time.

Okay, I feel like this nurse is an arm cherry and got nervous.

She was holding the arm cherry for its penis? Yeah, and having to-I don't think so, because we were just speaking so candidly, she would have said she liked the show. No. I think that's where we were at.

Okay.

No, I don't think she was an armcherry.

I still do. Okay.

So anyways, that happens, and then they come back with and then they put the tube in and I'm like... It's just horrendous. I can't believe you don't get anything for it other than the topical. I guess it's just where I'm at such a baby. It's these zones where I'm a total baby, I guess. So it goes in. It's insane. It's insane, and it takes so long because it's going to go through your whole penis and then up and then into your bladder, which is deep in there. It just feels like forever, and it's the worst feeling. Then they blow up the balloon. Then they strapped the bag to my leg and they stick the thing. Now, my one complaint was like, big sticky pad to secure the bag and everything. I have hairy thighs. Sure. She slapped it right on there. I was like, take a set. Let's get a razor. I meant I didn't advocate for myself.

Oh, okay.

Because as it turns out, when I got home, she had put it up too high. So my penis was hanging down much lower than where that thing was, which was making the two go upward and pull my penis up. And I was freaking pull the thing. So as soon as I got home, I had Kristin and Lincoln reattached it lower. And then we shave my leg. But getting that thing off with all the hair. Okay, whatever. Okay.

Is it belted?

No, no. It's just there's a hose. And then I took a photo and I sent it to Eric and Erin, and they screamed out loud, both of them, they said. Because you can tell it looks absolutely miserable. But there's a strap that There's the sticky piece with clamps that hold the top of the hoses. And then you've got two elastic belts that go around two parts of your legs, and then a big bag to fill with your young. Right, right. You immediately look 85 years old. Yeah. I mean, there's so many funny things that happened over the course of the three days I had it. One was we kept telling... I kept complaining about the tube in my penis. And at one point, day two or three, I was emptying the bag in the toilet and Delta came into the bathroom and she goes, Oh, my God, Daddy, I thought you were saying that metaphorically, tube in my penis. She didn't know I had a literal...

What did she think?

I don't know, but I love that she knew to say metaphorically.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I was like, so distracted by how wonderfully she said.

Her vocab.

Yeah, I thought you were saying that metaphorically. Oh my God. And I go, I know. I thought you immediately looked like you're in some serious medical. And I felt like it. I felt like, what's going on?

He felt like infirm.

Yeah, just a week ago, I felt indomitable. And now I have And then the bag, and then the bag... And maybe other people have positive experiences with it, so I'm not bashing Cathy. Sure. And again, a lot of these things I think were just chickens coming home to roost because you remember the Cathy or Cowboy commercial? It was a cowboy. He goes, I've been cowboying for 25 years. I don't like pain when a calf.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. And you've been making fun of that for years.

I have because the guy was 75. I'm like, Hold on, let me get this straight. You started cowboying at 50? He might have.

Look, you're 50.

I'm not ready to start cowboying. I'm ready to start riding a soft chair. The thing about it is mid-sneeze, I was like, oh, my God. Anything abdominal, it sucks because you have that balloon in there. And also just a balloon at the end of your bladder. What it feels like is that painful moment you have to pee so bad you don't think you can hold it. It just felt like that for three days. And any time I moved, it was just the sharp pain in there. I hated it. I really- It wasn't for you. I did not enjoy it. Saturday, I woke up and I said to Chris and I'm like, I'm going in and take it out today. I cannot wait till Sunday. She's like, Okay, but remember, they didn't say that arbitrarily. So then she talked me off the ledge, and I waited till Sunday. That's good. I was so happy to get it out. Yeah. I don't ever want one of those again.

I understand.

No, Silver Linings. Okay. Let's go through them. I slept in the guest house for three days, and I really didn't do anything because I I wanted to move... Anytime I moved, it was just the worst grody feeling of like, I'm peeing my pain. Oh, I'm going to add. Yeah. This is too much information.

What?

Goating doodle was almost impossible because you're-Goating doodle? Going doodle.

Oh, pooping.

Because you're really, I don't know about for a girl, but for a boy, you're using the same area to push the doodle and to push yawn out. Those two things are married for a boy when you sit down on the toilet. You just push and everything comes out at once. But I have this tube, and so there were times when I was trying to doodle, and all of a sudden, he just started coming out of around the tube.

Not in the tube. No.

So it's somehow, it's pushing around the balloon inside the bladder. Also, you take these pills to make you yawn. Super dark orange. It looks like the McDonald's. Oh, really? You remember McDonald's orange drink? No. Okay. They got to call it orange drink. It wasn't orange or juice. Okay. I don't even know if it was orange soda, maybe orange soda. It was dark as hell orange. Okay. I'm just on the toilet and I'm like, Oh, fuck. My penis can't be in the toilet because it's got a tube, Hank, coming out of it that's attached to my lower leg.

Okay, so the bag's at your ankle? Yes. Oh, it's that far down.

Not at my ankle, but around my knee. Oh, wow.

I imagine it supposed... I imagine it high up.

I'm going I'm going to post the picture. No, no, I'm going to crop the photo. Okay. So you can at least see the placement on the leg. Okay. All these pictures of Eric's dad as a lizard. Sure.

We touched on that last week.

Okay, so I've mocked out the offensive.

Okay, hold on. Oh, boy. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Also, yeah. Hold on. The color, yeah.

The color of the pea is... Is McDonald's orange. Again, it's these specific pills they make you take because they want to be able to see the line in the bag really clearly. They don't want to see through Yon.

They don't want... Wow. Okay, because it's like, it's- This is humiliating.

Can I have it back?

No, I'm still looking at it.

Come on. I don't like this anymore. Can I have it back?

Okay, the belt is made of- I'll send you the whole one with my penis so you can see the two coming.

Great. Fuck. So I got it out, and then I thought, that's my only problem in life is this catheter.

How did it smell?

There was any smells, but I didn't... Did I wrap up? There's nothing more disconcerting than there's like, yawn coming out around the tube.

Yeah, that's uncongulating.

I'm like, What's happening? Why is it... Shouldn't the urn be coming through this hose? What's wrong with the hose? Is the hose blocked.

Why am I able to push the urn. And when you wide, were you worried you were going to get it in the tube somehow?

No, no. I've had some follow-up questions throughout this process, but these ones are definitely the best.

What about, was it warm, the pee on your leg? Yeah. Yeah. And that felt good.

I mean, it was really hard to enjoy anything. The other thing I was living in abject fear of is like, Fuck, I hope I don't get a boner.

That's what... Oh, you mean during it?

With this holes in? Sometimes you're sleeping and you have an erotic dream and wake up-Morning wood. Aroused. I'm like, Is it going to jerk? What part of the tubes is it going to... Fuck.

Interesting. I'm sure there's some slack so that it- Kristin did not think this was a thing, but Eric and I thought it was a thing.

I was texting with him most. He had to deal with most of my complaints. Sure. I said, Eric, I'm not going to masturbate, but don't you think that you told me I can't?

Maybe you can.

Oh, my God.

I mean, seriously, some people have catheters in for life. I'm sure they have to masturbate.

I don't think you can. Then also, where is the semen coming from? It doesn't come from your bladder and you have a tooth.

Your vast deference.

Your vast deference is the muscle that's pumping and pushing.

The semen out.

Anyways.

What I said to Eric is- Do you think the semen would go through the catheter?

What's the thing is I don't think it can because I don't think the semen goes into your bladder and then out your urethra somehow.

It would leak out the way the Yes, a man can ejaculate while using- Okay, Rob's pulled up a- an ind dwelling urinary catheter. He googled it.

Okay. Though it requires specific consideration, depending on the type of catheter, the individual's comfort level, mine was low, and the desired sexual activity, mine was low. While intermittent catheters used for self-catheterization are removed before sex, ind dwelling foley catheters can be kept in place, a subreputal pubic catheter, which enters the bladder through the abdomen.

Super pubic.

Preferred for sexual activity as it doesn't interfere with inner quarters. Okay.

So if you have one for a long time, they probably give you a specific kind so you can have sex and masturbate. But yours was only a couple of days.

And I was living in absolute fear, fear of that happening. Sure. To the degree that I was like, oh, I might give myself one because I'm so afraid of.

Exactly. That's what I was about to say when you were talking about getting it inserted. Like, this is what happens during waxes. It's so uncomfortable, but there's a little worry. You're so nervous.

What if- You get visibly- Yeah.

And not because you're into it, but just because you're convinced, you're worried.

You're so afraid of it, you might manifest your fear.

Self-sabotage. Yeah.

So anyways, I got it out.

Okay, great.

More than that, I was bold. I went out to eat on Saturday Friday night. I was like, Fuck this. I'm going out. You did? Yes. And I had to walk. I had to walk like a grampy. I could only walk like a step, like eight-inch steps at a time.

Yeah. Were you worried it was going to fall out of your pants?

Sure. But I knew it wouldn't happen because the balloon would catch it, and it'd start pulling my bladder through my body. So I was more nervous about that. Am I going to feel... We had an armchair anonymous nurse talking about a patient who ripped his catheter with the balloon inflated. God. I kept thinking of that the Oh, my God.

Now, when I just saw that picture, it reminded me of my water babies.

Oh, sure, sure, sure.

When I grew up, and I would make babies out of those grocery eggs. And then I filled with water and carried around and it would be my water baby. That looked like a water baby.

Yeah. Oh, another interesting thing is the one thing I was excited about was like, oh, cool. I had my dream. I don't have to get up to go pee in the middle of the night. Exactly. So I was I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. Well, I woke up in the middle of the night, like 4: 00 AM, and I'm like, fuck, I have to pee so bad. What's going on? I have this bag on. Yeah. Lift up my pant leg. It's 100 % full. Oh. So it's 100% full. So I am trying to relieve it, but it's just backing up another body. So now I am feeling like I have to pee. So now I'm rushing to the bathroom, not to pee, but to fucking empty my bag. Mom, I'm like, This is over. I might get fired from the acting job that I got. No, it's sweet. Okay.

Wait. Go ahead. But was it a relief as soon as they put it in, at least? Because you were all backed up with pee.

No. My stubbornness, I maintain, I probably didn't need that. It's not like... And then on my subsequent video, to get it removed, they were looking at the amount of urine was in my bladder when I got it. She said, Well, that wasn't a ton of urine. And I was like, Yeah, I think it would be... Anyway, who cares?

Did they find out what happened? We'll get to that. Okay.

They didn't find out what happened, but all my blood stuff comes back, and I have all kinds of different things going on. But I just wanted to finish by saying, I had in my mind I was going to feel like a million dollars when I got this catheter out on Sunday. And then I got the catheter out, and I got home, and I was like, Oh, I still I still feel like shit. I still have a massive infection. I'm still on like- Showing antibiotics. And I'm on really heavy ones now. Got it. That make you not feel good. So some of the results, one is E. Coli was in my UTI.

I said that. You did not want to hear it, but I did say that.

Uti, I think prostitus. Okay. Like infection, your process. E coli. We're- That was in the mix.

But you didn't have any tummy troubles.

I never had haunis. No. Or throw up. Yeah, that's so strange. Or a throw-up. But I had had... Can you ever tell you that part? That right before I got the fever, I'd had a piece of...

Bacon?

Elk? Yeah, elk. Oh. That Kristin had cooked while I was away. And I was like, that I was in the fridge too long. I took a bite and I was like, I think we should throw this away. I don't think it is good. So I had eaten- So you had one bite of it? Just one bite.

Well, then maybe that was- And threw it away.

So I don't fucking know, Monica. Like, What? I asked about my... They're not carbonegals. I call them carbonegals, but I don't even think I actually have carbonegals. I asked about those. The doctor says it's completely unrelated. He looked. He's like, there's nothing happening.

Did he say they're okay?

Yeah, he looked and said, there's nothing cooking here. These are fine.

Because I was like, I diagnosed you with something.

What do you have me on? Mrsa. Right. You have me on MRSA. And then he said, now that thing, MRSA is very common when you cycle and wear tight clothes. So he did recommend I use a surgical soap when I cycle. So when I cycle, I am disgusting. I sound like a complete petri dish.

No, it's fine. You're just a person.

You're just saying it to egg me on. So I say even more so. Did they tell you that they found anal warts all over my face? They did. No.

Oh, wow. No. Okay, wait. But MRSA is scary. Remember when MRSA was this huge... There was a huge thing in the hospitals, and they were quarantined and stuff?

Yeah. I think there's degrees of it. But yes, all to I was a little sad that I didn't spring back to full health. Sure. I think it's going to be a longer process than I normally like. I'm impatient. I want to feel good. I'm exhausted all day.

Okay, so you're on antibiotics. You're washing with Mersasol.

No, I haven't gotten that yet. Oh, okay. But I'll get that.

Okay. And you miss your pea bag a little bit.

No, no, no. But again, chicken's coming home to roost. The other thing I was thinking is I took a Uber home from the hospital on Thursday, and there's a line in Chips where Steve Agey is a cab driver, and he goes to pick me up, my character. And it's in front of the emergency room at the hospital. And Agy's character goes, Hold on before you get in. You don't have any fucking leaky tubes or bags or anything, do you? Because I made fun of people that might have tubes and leaky bags, I I gave myself one. Sim. And then the making in front of the caving cowboy. Yeah. So, man, the chicken's their home. They're roost, roost, roosting.

Simmy, sim, sim.

Wow. Yeah. What are your thoughts about all this?

Oh, I mean, I love it. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that it was painful and uncomfortable. Oh, it was rough. So I had a catheter put in when I got my eggs frozen. Oh, you did? Yeah. And I didn't know. They told me after they had to do that. Okay. And it hurt after to pee so bad for a while. So does it hurt still? Because it's like, sore.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That sucks. Yeah. The whole thing sucks.

I I'm insistent, I am insistent. I am willing that I am going to wake up Thursday morning somehow, and I'm going to feel a million bucks. Okay. Like a million bucks.

I think you will. But I think you need to be smart about all these next few days if you want that to be true. This isn't just going to happen like a miracle. You need to be careful with how you're treating your body over the next few days.

I'm taking my medicine.

Take it easy.

Oh, I left out a silver lining. I was in that I was in the guest house for three days by myself, and I got to watch a lot of TV. Oh, yeah. And guilt-free. Yeah. So I can really only watch so much, and I start getting mad at myself. Sure. This was like, go for it. And I watched the entire house of Guinness. Oh, fun. Steven at night, Peaky Blinders. Yes, yeah. It's very Peaky Blinders.

Oh, fun.

And it makes you want to drink Guinness so bad. So I ordered Guinness N A's. Oh, fun. And that night, I get in my bed with my tube hanging out of my dick, and I would have my little pint glass, and I let it breathe the way they said in the show.

And you watch your program?

Yeah, and I'd sip my Guinness with my piss tube in. And I really liked it.

This is a ding, ding, ding.

Why?

Because We talk about Guinness on Sharon.

Oh, yes, we do. We do. That's right.

Yeah, that's exciting.

Their NA is really good.

That's great. Not as good as Ted Seeger's.

Well, that's as good as Ted Seeger's. That's what they say. Exactly. That's what they're saying, everybody. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare.

Wow. Well, that is harrowing. You went through a lot.

How was your weekend?

My weekend was good because while you were going through that, at the same day, actually, Taylor Swift dropped her album.

Oh, I know. I listened.

Okay, yes. Yes. Yes.

How does one eventize the whole day? What was your day? It's dedicated to that, right?

Well, so it dropped Thursday at, I guess, midnight East Coast, so nine hour time, which there are moments in life where I feel just so, so, so grateful to be on the West Coast.

For the time.

Yeah. This is one- Super Bowl. Super Bowl is always one. I'm always very grateful. Now, so I was working, editing, I must have been, because I didn't have time to listen that night. And I'm on a group text, okay? With three other Swifties. Two are- Molly? . Molly, Jake, and Audra. Okay. Two... Well, one is the biggest Swiftie I've in the world. Okay. And people are going to be so mad at me for saying that because they're going to be like, No, I am. And then That's Jake? Yeah, Jake. Molly is number two. She's very high up on the Swift scale. Yeah. Audra and I are some deviations below that, but love her so much, obviously. Yeah. So anyway, I'm trying to not really look at my phone because these techs are- They started at 9: 00. They started listening. They started at 9: 00. They are coming in. They're talking about each song. I was like, Oh, fuck. I don't know what anyone's talking about. Yeah. So I I start listening Friday around 2: 00 West Coast time. It's fun. It's easy listening.

Yeah, it comes out. It's very easy to consume. It's very- It's just like, Yeah, this is Taylor Swift.

It's It's poppy. It's fun. I enjoy it a lot. Yeah. I...

Oh, wow. We're inching closer to something. We're crawling. We're crawling.

No, I love her so much.

We're making our way to the edge of the cliff where the bad guys might be able to see us, but we can take a piece.

I know. I mean, yeah, this is one of those things. You can't say anything, but I'm going to. I thought it was great. I've been listening to it a lot. It's It's fun.

And is it a show or a girl? Or is it like the more you listen to it, the more you appreciate it?

The more I listen, the more I like the sound.

But the lyrics for you are not hitting the way some of them have.

Yeah. So the reason she's so special to me is because of her poetry, the way she writes. I do think this album isn't the best lyrically of hers. Okay. That's okay. Not everything has to be the best. There's one song on there, Father Figure, that I think is...

Michael's.

Is George Michael's. Yes, he's credited on it. I think that is quintessential Taylor lyrics. I think it's so smart and good. It has this great turn, and I love it. I love it. But the rest are They're like...

They're fun.

They're just fun, and that's fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There is a song. I don't know if you've heard about already all the drama. There's drama.

Please tell me.

Okay. There's a song that's about- So romantic? Actually romantic.

Actually romantic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who is it about? Is it about KZZ swigs?

Charlie XX.

Charlie XCX.

You're really dating. You in the bag.

That's a lot. That's a lot It pairs nicely with my piss bag.

Charlie XX is seemingly about her. It's not a nice song. It is not a nice song.

Well, okay. Now, great. There's already I've heard that. That's not how I've heard the reaction.

Really? What have you heard?

Well, the reaction is like, what a cool way to turn this endless you're this, I'm that into like, I'm flattered by your obsession. It's actually quite romantic that you're thinking about me that much.

I know.

Which is a little catty.

It's so catty. It's so catty. It's so catty. Look, by the way, it is a bop. I feel very personally conflicted about this because I really like the sound of this, and I find myself singing.

You find yourself really grooving to it? Yeah. Moving your hips and your shoulders.

And yet I am fundamentally like, you're the most famous person in the world. You don't need to do it. You just don't need to do that.

Really quick. I think this is where you're seeing tension between the internal identity and the external identity. So, yeah, she's the biggest pop star to ever be. Yes. This is below her. Yeah. But to me, it's like, she'll always be the mid-level kid in the school.

That's who she feels.

Yeah. She feels. Yeah, she will always be that in her heart, like a mid-level kid in school. I don't know anything about Charlie Xex, but the name makes me think she feels like that she's owning her sexuality. I literally haven't seen a picture of- She's just cool.

Cool, right? She's cool. Yes, she's cool.

When your internal identity is stuck in eighth grade and someone who's cool, then you lose sight of the fact that, no, actually, I won the bigger war, and this is below me. This This is me. This is my dissonance. When I am the boss of 100 people on a set of a movie. It is really hard for me to understand that.

It shouldn't be, but it is. I know.

I'm against the principal at high school and the boss. So to be one is so confusing.

Yes, I understand. I think actually that is a through line through this whole album. I think there's a lot. There are parts of that to me read like, all these cool kids rejected me, and so I'm swinging back into this other direction. Or just this like, Hollywood didn't like me, so I'm choosing a simple life. There's a lot of interesting stuff in it that is funny because for me, I'm just like, oh, I know that's how you... That is how you perceive what's going on. And that's your internal stuff to work on, because that is not true. You're a billionaire because the world showed up for you. The world, not just middle America, the Coast. They voted. The Coast. Everyone voted, and everyone picked you. But I also... Yes, it's endearing. We all just have stuff that we have to work on. But I do think if you are at that level, you have a bigger responsibility than most to work on it or to have someone tell you like, Hey, you're punching down. I know you can't see it, but you objectively are.

Can I devil's advocate that? And I don't really have an opinion on it. I don't know enough about the players, but my devil's advocate argument would be like, No, your obligation as an artist is actually write about whatever you're going through and not try to be the person you're hoping to be in three years. And maybe in three years, she'll be what you wanted this to be. But she's clearly annoyed, and it's taking up space in her head that this girl wrote this song about her, and that's the reality of what she's processing. And in that way, I think that's the exact song she should write. And then maybe in a year, she'll be able to look back like, I got that venom out of my system, and that was below me. I should have been above that. And that'll be a part of the process. And then hopefully she'll put that experience on the next album. But my devil's advocate would simply be like, No, I don't think you should ever write for who you should be. I think you should write for exactly what you are right now and what you're going through.

And you got to live with the mistakes that are inherent.

Yeah. I think you're right about that. I think she should write anything she wants to write. What you choose to put out in the world when you are the most influential person.

You're saying it's not the most attractive look, whether you support her right to do it.

Oh, yeah, exactly. Of course, it's her right. She can do whatever she wants. But to me, it's like, own the unfairly or fairly. It's going to be a little hard for me to say unfairly when it comes to the a lot of prizes.

It seems like what her hurt is, is that when this has happened, these are girls she gave a shot to.

Yeah, she feels betrayed. Yeah.

So that's deep, right? It's very deep.

And I have people I want to... I have plenty of things I want to say, and I never will. Yeah, yeah. And I am not her. It's like, if I don't get to, then you surely can't.

This is what's great, too. Because obviously we see in each other what we see, what we're struggling with ourselves. And I would say, you are her, actually. And I don't know that you... It's hard to update.

Well, I'm not her. We have to be very... We just literally have to look at our Instagram following and be realistic. I'm not trying to be her.

Oh, I know. I'm I'm just saying, I think you should identify with it because I think it's hard to onboard.

But all to say, I feel a responsibility. And there are things I would love to say to the world that I'll never, ever, ever say to the world. Sure. And it is because it's not the right thing to do.

It's not going to make the world better.

It's not. It's not going to make the world better, and it's causing pain for no reason. And that's for me to deal with in therapy, not Yeah. Again, write about it, do whatever. But to put it out is a real, real, real choice.

Last counter. Just thought of it. There's nothing in the history of rap that's been better for the industry than the feuds.

Distracts, yes.

They fuel everything. This whole Drake. I mean, I would not be surprised if we saw them having lunch in Italy somewhere.

Sure.

I mean, really. Yeah. And you know that a lot of these rappers are long past that phase. You'll hear Ice Keep. Jay-z is writing songs back in the day for East Coast, West Coast. Jay-z is writing a Dre song, his most popular song. A lot of that was not real, and it was great for business. Is it possible that Taylor is like, Yeah, this is below me, but this is part of the game. This is part of the product. And so now Charlie XCX gets to write a counter song to this one. That thing will pop, and this thing popped, and maybe it's just business.

Look, she is...

A business genius.

A true business genius. She's a mastermind. I would not be shocked if... Yes. Also, look, this album is happy. She's happy right now, and that's amazing. I want that for her.

That's what I want to get to.

She's happy, and that is clear, right? And there are songs that aren't happy, Father Figure and this, that I almost feel like she's happy that she almost has to find the fuel again.

Like maybe manufacture a little bit.

Yeah. Mix with like, Oh, yeah, what is bothering me? Oh, yeah, Charlie XCX did this. I don't know that that's really on her mind all the time, and I hope it's not. Yeah.

This is so fun because normally I'm a little critical. I know.

I love her and I love the album.

This has been a fun reverse soul. Yeah. It's been a joy.

Well, because I can't. I'm not ever going to just be like...

Blindly.

Blindly. I've been listening nonstop.

So Eric Amalia came over on Sunday, and I wanted to hear her opinion And as we know, she's a number one top tier swifty. So I was asking what she thought of all the tracks, and she was saying, on this one, she loves the album. And I said, you know, there is a sad truth to art, and I experience it, and I'm aware of it, which is... I might even have said this a few episodes. I'm watching Hit and Run, and this is so cocky to say, but it's true. I'm feeling so much pride over the script. Forget everything else. And I'm just like, God, that That's as good as I could have done.

You're proud of it. That's great. I'm very proud of it.

And then immediate next thought is, I don't think I could write that. I wrote that script in two weeks. I thought I just stepped on a dog. It was my back pain. I just was Man, I don't think I could fucking write this. And it was the scariest feeling. And what I ended up coming up with is the only way I could write the sequel would be we start them divorced, and then we're figuring out what happened. Because the most recent thing I can even remember is that turmoil of having children and how you both get lost. So I got to go back a bunch of years. But in general, I'm so lucky. My life's pretty fucking good. I'm not wrestling with pain, right? Which I do think is the father of art. And so when we were in this on, I was saying, I applaud her if she can figure out how to be creative, happily married, happily financially secure, accomplished her goals. I think that's a hard place to create from. It's hard. And I was saying, if you look at her early music, between 17 20 years old and 30, 70 % of that audience is either looking to go out tonight to find love or they're dealing with having lost it.

It's like a breakup or pursuit.

There's a lot of emotional turmoil with relationships, with work.

Establishing yourself and your identity as in a career. All the main topics that drive pop music, unfortunately, she's no longer imbroyled in. She's not dealing with break up. She's not dealing with getting love or falling love. She's stable. And it's not... Yeah. So it's a challenge, I think.

It's a challenge. But I also think you, like even you, everyone is wrestling with stuff. And you do have to be introspective about that, like your age or your relevance. I agree.

I left that part out. So I'm definitely wrestling with stuff, but it's stuff that a very small % of the potential audience is wrestling with. That's what happens is your The potential audience narrows and narrows. So mine right now is like existential work identity loss. Yeah.

But that is not narrow. I think a good artist makes something very specific, very universal. And I think that she has the capacity to do that and does that. She's writing about John Mayer, one person, and yet that song resonates with so many people, and it's specific, it is talking about his chess game. And so many people are like, I have what. I know that person. I have this. I understand it. And same with these things as we get older, too.

But I think she'll write a motherhood album. I do, too. Yes. And I think that'll appeal deeply to whatever percentage of young people are mothers. But again, it's not this... A hundred % of people are looking for love in their 20s. Right. You know, that's just, I think, the fact. And like, all the pop songs are about love.

Yeah, a lot. Yeah, yeah, yes. It's obviously the most common.

So the next thing she'll be able to do that has the broadest appeal will be to write a really revealing and truthful album about motherhood. But again, it's just a much tiner when no one in their 20s is really- But again, I don't- You don't like that.

I don't think it's true. I think it's the most obvious. It's the most obvious thing going on. But there are deep things going on with all of us all the time. And if you choose to deep dive into those things, like elders. There's a song on there called Eldest Daughter. And that is... Well, I think some people think that's about him, but I don't think it is at all. About who? About Travis. Or connecting it to Travis. But I don't. I think it's about the responsibility of being eldest daughter. And it's like, there are things. We're multifaceted.

We are. But you could look at our most prolific songwriters. There's a bell curve. And then you got to ask yourself, why is there a bell curve? Does her brain deteriorate? Are they losing their creative? I don't think that's it. Yeah. And then there are some artists that stay, but also look at their lives. There are people that never leave the cycle of love addiction, and they can be writing about heartbreak and obsession into their 60s. And so, yeah, if you want to keep your life a mess, which some people did, but I think in general, if you look at people that they deal with all these big mercurial events in life, I do think you just look at the output disappear. And also, that's probably okay. That would be the hard part to get to. That would be my song or my script today, which so few people would... They're not at a place in their life they would understand. I was like, Can I let all that go and still love myself and think I have value and let go of something I work so hard to get? That's where I'm at in life.

Could I make that message broadly appealing?

That's the challenge. Yeah. That would be the challenge. Anyway, Any whom. Okay, let's do some facts.

Okay, great. I want to say Hogan. I'm going to be honest with you. Interesting. I have these little hiccups with people's names sometimes, and this is one of them. In my mind, it's Sharon Hogan.

I know why. It's because there's two R's, and that's confusing. Sharon Horgan.

And what's Hulk Hogan's wife's name or daughter?

Rob?

I have no idea. You don't know off the top of your head what the Hulkster's family?

Candice Hogan?

Sky. Brook Hogan, Sky, Linda, Jennifer. Yeah. He's got a lot of wives? There's no reason then.

Oh, also he's passed. I forgot.

Yeah, we lost him.

Yeah. It's sad when people die.

He entertained a generation, man. He really did. Oh, fuck. I love the Hulkster when I was a little boy.

I really did. What a character.

He body-flammed Andre the giant. He's a 500-pound man.

I wonder if when he did that, if Andre took a fart.

When he landed, I'm almost certain he took a fart. Yeah, I think he took a fart. Do you ever see the memes about Andre the giant, how many beers he drank? I know in the doc, they talked about it.

I don't remember.

But there's these claims that they seem to be substantiated that he drank like 126 beers in one day. I'm just like, I'm like, I understand. Then he's 500 pounds, but 126, that's 10, 12 packs in a six pack.

It's not like shots. It's like that's liquid. Five cases of beer. No, I do not believe that.

The only farts he took. Eew. Oh, man.

This is a ding, ding, ding. Do turkeys poop more than other farm animals? Turkeys do not necessarily poop more than other farm animals in terms of total volume, but they do poop very frequently Frequently. The larger and heavier an animal is, the more waste it generally produces. A turkey's waste output differs significantly from that of a cow or pig, both in volume and how it's concentrated. Like chickens, turkeys have a fast working metabolism that causes them to excrete waste often, as frequently as every 20 to 30 minutes.

Okay. Wow.

Yeah, you were right.

We're watching this nature show about dolphins, the girls and I, and this very, very assertive bird lands on the boat, and the guy's just staying there doing his two camera thing. And also this bird just lands, and it comes right up to his face. I've never seen a more confident bird. He's not afraid of this human at all. That's nice. And then it's sitting there, and they getting a bang out of it, and then it just goes… It just sprays. So rude. It sprays bird poop on the front of the boat. Then it does four more squirts throughout the thing. I'm like, I fucking hate how they squirt their poop. Then it brought back I see the SD of that woman in the grocery store that we saw.

Oh, my God. We didn't see. We saw a video. We did not see in person.

She pulled her Jersey material shorts to the side and just squirted like a goose on the floor of a... In the middle of the grocery store.

I mean, what? It was so... And we have a high tolerance for poop stories, and we understand that sometimes you have to tonka, but this was so... Just go outside.

This was brazen. Yeah. I mean, also, here's what I would have done. If it was like that and it was that desperate, she was in the vegetable section, grab one of the plastic bags that are everywhere around you and squirt into that.

She didn't care about others. At all.

She had no regard for anyone.

I feel like if you're going to do that, you liked it. You enjoyed it. It's a kink. It's a kink. Although we have had some Armature Anonymous stories where people do crazy stuff when they have to poop, and they're just like, my brain wasn't working.

They're good people.

And they're good people.

They're really good people.

So I don't know, but it is such a disturbing video.

Yeah, the way this bird was just… It's squirting. It's so gross.

They're so smug about it. Yeah. Okay. The waste called hot manure is very high in nitrogen and phosphorus compared to most other livestock manure. Cattle, the sheer size of cattle means they produce a much greater volume of manure per day than turkeys. A large dairy cow can produce more than 100 pounds of manure daily.

A hundred? You?

Yeah.

A cow shits you out every day.

Every day. Compared to a turkey's fraction of a pound. So they're doing a lot, but tinnies. Yeah. Interesting.

When I watch nature shows, I'm just so grateful that I'm an omnivore, because if you're an herbivore, you have to eat so much to get any calories out of it. There's just no calories in hay. You have to eat a bale of hay and then dump a monica.

Does hay have fiber in it?

It seems to have. I hope. I think it has a lot of fiber.

Oh, my God. Imagine the constipation. Yeah.

Okay. Then it's got to go through their four-chambered stomach because it's impossible to break down.

Okay, I did a little more research on this. Yeah. While the largest individual poop comes from blue whales in Dolphins. Oh, yeah. Animals that poop the most frequently are small, energy-intensive creatures, like some birds, ding, ding, ding, 40 times a day. Oh, my God. Rabbits 200 to 300 times a day, and penguins 6 to 8 times an hour.

How are their butts not so raw?

I hate rabbit poop.

I don't hate it. I'm just so confused. Is that their food or the poop? Because their food looks identical to their turtles.

How can They tell. They probably- They don't. They can't tell.

They probably don't. Okay, the last thing I'll say about Doodle, because I just said it getting off the commode the other morning, Saturday morning. I was flushing, and I was like, it is funny how disgusting we think it is when it is food. That's all you're looking at. You're looking at food. Yeah, but mixed with- It's not like you're looking at a carcass. It's just the food that you thought looked so good when you were putting it in your mouth. Now, that's it's food.

No, but it's mixed with- Bacteria. Bacteria and stinky bile and stuff.

I know. It is just food.

It's good that we don't think it's just food because It is bad. If we ate it, it would be very bad for us because of bacteria. We don't need to get confused like the rabbits.

I have a hunch. Once we started living in such compact societies, that's when diseases started spreading a ton. When we started living with animals, these are when all these really wild pathogens. So I wonder if when we were hunting and gathering, if we had the same aversion to duty, because, again, no other animal does. They go right up to each other while the other ones- They also, though, ate differently than we eat now.

So the ways we're producing is so much more complicated than they were just eating like natural foods.

I think I'm meaning like they ate, which is just a tremendous amount of meat.

But you put mustard on it.

I But that's the seed.

Mustard's a sauce. Mustard's a seed. Yeah, but the kind you eat isn't just mustard seed. It's made into a paste sauce.

I have no idea what mustard I mean.

Sugar. Actually, there's probably not added sugar, but whatever. It's not pure. I love mustard.

Yeah, it's a great condiment. But it's not pure.

Great for salad dressings. Okay. Oh, to the point that has she made the most shows. Aaron Spelling holds the Guinness World record for the most prolific TV producer, having created over 4,500 hours of television programming by 2003. Whoa. I saw this funny thing of Howard Stern talking about the summer I turned pretty. He loves it.

Yeah, he loves a lot of like, teen shows and stuff.

He's Team Conrad, for people who are wondering. Okay. Okay. So you said that your kid's school, I'm not going to say what it is, has more free lunch than any other school in the city. There was no... It wouldn't let me find in that. Yeah, yeah.

But that school- That might have been an exaggeration.

That school, 45 % of families qualify for free or reduced lunch. So that's a lot. Yeah.

I feel like when I was in elementary school, you knew the kids that were on welfare because they didn't have to pay for lunch. I forget what they had, but you'd be in line and you'd see it. And I think, and I didn't grow up in the fancy part of Michigan. I still think it was like, only one in 15 or 20 kids was on the free lunch.

I wonder what- Or it was half. Is it just family income, right?

Yeah, it's just income.

Yeah. Oh, shit. I forgot to find an important fact, which is where we stayed in London. It started with a C, but it was not- But not clarige. Clarage.

Clarages.

No, that's the same one we've been saying.

Connaught.

No, I've stayed there. That's a It's a great hotel. Ezer Hotel. Maybe it doesn't start with a C. Maybe it starts with an M..

What's that little area we're in? It's by the theater district. Exactly. West End?

Corinthians.

Oh, wow. That one would have even rung a bell for me.

It was the Corinthians Hotel in London. That's where we stayed. I don't think we went to the pub that she wanted.

There's no way that was the pub. The pub we went into was like something that would be on the Jersey boardwalk. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't really authentic or nice.

No.

They did serve Guinness on top. That's all you can say about it. Yes.

Speaking of, we talked about drinking. And of course, yes, there are all these studies. There's lots of debate about- How bad is it? How bad is it? And this Harvard article says, yes, there are, of course, bad things, but it also says everything in moderation. So anyhow, that is it for facts.

Okay. God bless Sharon Horgan. She is a gift to us. Yes. Consume all of her stuff. She's so consistently great.

Agree. Yeah. Right.

All right. Love you.

Follow Armchair Expert on the WNDRI app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wundri. Com/survey.