March 18, 2024 • 51 mins
Isaac Mizrahi sits down with actor, writer, producer and director Pamela Adlon (“Better Things,” “King of the Hill,” “Californication”) They talk about why she needs a hope boner, how failure is kind of her brand, the dynamic between men and strong women and so much more.
Plus, Pamela shares how when her TV show, “Better Things” and film, “Babes,” coincided with the reversal of Roe v. Wade, it left her shaking.
Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok, Isaac @imisaacmizrahi on Instagram and TikTok and Pamela Adlon @pamelaadlon.
(Recorded on February 20, 2024)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I love men. I love men, I really do.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I love some men. I like most penises. Yeah, but
I don't like a lot of men. But I like
some men.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Go on, I like.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Some men better than I like most penises. That's what
I would say.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
That's wow. Nice one.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of
success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Musrahi, and
in this episode, I talked to Emmy winning actor, writer, producer,
and director Pamela Adlin.
Speaker 5 (00:44):
Hello, Isaac, it's Pamela Adlin, also known as Jupiter. I'm
trying to get Jupiter to stick. That's who I am
at this point in my life. So Hello Isaac, it's Jupiter.
I love you.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Wormish, Bucha the whole.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Maguila, Maguila, Pasalemguilla, Pasale, Miguela Grella Fasale.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Hey, Hey, Hey, I can't believe that I got Pamela
Adlin on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I worship the ground she walks on, and she scares
me a little bit because she's so relevant, she's so
incredibly juicy as a subject, and I mean, there's absolutely
no way we can cover this in one particular hour.
But also I don't want her to hate the experience.
(01:37):
And I know she's so smart and she bores so easily.
Like me, you know, I get very bored, very quickly.
But the one thing I don't want to do ever
is bore Pamela Adlin, So.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Let's get right to this.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Let's let's get into it, because if I wait one
more second, I might.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Lose my balls, I might lose my nerves.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Pamela Adlon, I have to tell you this hilarious thing
before we start this whole mcgilla. Yeah, which is that
when I talked to you at the ninety second Street
why I came in the room with my notes and
my questions and scribbles and red and black and green.
I had a bunch of pens with me, and you
were like, oh, you're not going to ask me the
question about like what is based? I was like, oh shit,
(02:23):
So that was my first seven questions.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
It sounds like me.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I just remember being completely starstruck by you and also
feeling like you are my brother, like at the same time,
like I don't feel starstruck about my real brother.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
But we were misuse.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
We were immediately immediately.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
But like, the thing I don't want to do is
talk about like something you don't want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
First of all, what sign are you?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I am a moonchild? I'm a cancer?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
What is that? You're a cancer? Oh? That's sweet. Really,
I know a lot of cancer ment men.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Cancers are a mess, a hot fucking mess.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Usually. Yeah, it's really because.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
They haven't been told how to deal with their emotions,
like all men. And I mean, hopefully they can work
it out in the future, but.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, ninety second street wide.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
The funniest thing is a bunch of my friends got
mad at me.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
They were so fucking mad because you and I went
to dinner.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
After right, and they all went expecting me to like
hang out with them after and you swooped me into.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Your cigo very fast, darling fast into the car.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Pearls purls and flies curls and.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Fly into the car, into the vaccinate. Let's go, let's go. Well,
here's the thing. Where are you from?
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Originally I was born at the Doctor's Hospital, which was
by Gracie Mansion in New York City, and I grew
up on the coppery side, and then we moved to Scarsdale, Edgemont,
New York, and then we moved to California, and then
I moved back to New York City, and then I
(04:09):
moved back to California, and then I moved back to
New York City, back to LA Then I finished high school.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I went to Professional Children's School in Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Oh, my favorite place of the world. I wish I
went to Performing Arts High School, So.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
My favorite place in the world.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
We used to love the kids.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
We were like, we wish we could go to professional
Oh my god, it's so cool.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Yeah, that's the way we felt about you guys, because
you went to the fame school.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
And yes we did.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
I will tell you I wouldn't have graduated high school
if I didn't go to PCs because I was working
as an actor and I was totally unsupported academically.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And also school was just so fucking stupid.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
We are not institutional people, donning nobody over here.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
So tell me what was the kernel? Like, what brought
the interest? Was it the stage? Was it movies? What
was the thing that penetrated and made you into a
performer and a writer?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I loved it.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
My dad was a writer and producer, and I grew
up on the soundstages, And I told this story the
last time I did The Today Show that it used
to be a show called the Dave Garaway Show, and
my dad worked on Dave Garaway and then it became
AM New York and so my dad stayed on.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Excuse me, I know, I.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Know AM New York.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
You mean with Stanley Siegel, my favorite person in the world.
Could that be the AM New York that you're a
firm two? I mean it was like Bill but Tell
and like Stanley Siegel Darling. Okay, that up, that's before
your time slightly, No, not kidding.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
That's incredible because I have like my autograph book, and
I met Josephine Baker and Soupy Sales and all of
those people, Henry Winkler, who I still know.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
They were all on A New York when I was
a little baby.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
So how did you come up in the business? Were
you a stand up? Were you an actor? Were you
a right?
Speaker 4 (06:07):
I've never done stand up? Luckily, you know, comedy is everything.
That's the world that I grew up in. And even
though my dad was writing softcore porn, dime store novels
to put food on the table, he was a television writer.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
He was a comedy writer.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
And it's very interesting because I recently spent time with
my brother and his new good wife.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well allied over dank you good wife as opposed to
like shitty old wife.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
But go there we go, no no offense, everything's great. Anyway.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Anyway, we were all hanging out and we were spending
time with my mother for her eighty eighth birthday.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Pooh pooh, pooh, toy toy toy.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
And it was so crazy because I realized that my
brother was like so kind of triggered by our mom.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And I looked at him and.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I thought, wow, we had two totally different childhoods. I
mean completely like the Rachman in the three year age
difference was the most. I was like, wow, you just
remember it totally different than I.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Do, because why he was like he's three years older.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, that was the disconnect. He was brought up because
he was a boy and given more freedom.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
So I don't know what you mean by that.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Totally totally you know, the double standard.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
So I was barely allowed to have a friend over,
and if my brother was going on a date, my
father would be like, you're gonna get your pipes clean?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Oh, god, oh jeez.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
And I would be like ew. So my brother was
always naturally a performer. He taught himself how to play piano, guitar,
write songs, all of that, but he went into computers
and finance. And I got the bug from an early age,
and I did want to be a performer, but I
(08:13):
really feel like I wanted.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
To be behind the camera.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Like I remember being on the set of one of
my dad's shows that he wrote and produced, and Jimmy
Komack was the producer of it, who like produced Welcome
Back Cotter and all the classics from the seventies, And
I had a scarf and I threw the scarf around
my neck in a certain way, and I grabbed a
(08:40):
script because I wanted to look like I was a
producer on the show.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
What's so funny to me, Darling, is that, like I
watched every minute of Better Things, and I've watched a
lot of your work as an actor, and I love it.
I think it's an amazing gift that you have, but
also the embodiment of whatever character that you're creating. It
seems like social comment about being a woman, a social
(09:05):
comment about what a man is to a strong woman,
And then when I go.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
To ask you, like how strategy I do?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
But when I ask you about it like really that
old question? But talk to me about that.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
There's a book on my shelf called Female Masculinity, and
I'm in that book. They talk about me as an actor,
and I always felt comfortable in the male space, and
I never felt like a woman ill, like I would
(09:39):
be like, just don't like when people ask me, now,
what are my pronouns? I get offended because I didn't
get a choice my whole life, like people just assigned
whatever to everybody.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
But right.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
I do remember having really short hair, and I was
going to Ethical Culture School on the Upper West.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Side and that beautiful building, gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Where they shot Audrey Rose.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
So I was carving linoleum and I poked my thumb
and blood was squirting out of my hand, and they
wouldn't let the kids use the elevator, so I had
to walk down six or seven flights of stairs and
I go to the nurse's office and they were full,
and I was like, can I just have a band aid?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
And she's like sure, and so I put the band
aid on.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
I walk out into the hallway and I pass out,
and I remember hearing my head hit the marble in
the hallway. And then the next thing I know, I
hear a man's voice say help him up.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
And I was.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Laying there and I opened my eyes and I said,
I'm a girl.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Ha ha, Wow, this is a beautiful thing. I mean,
you're a babe, not just a girl.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
You're a good Isaac.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And by the way, you don't shy away from a
little like beet here and I noticed you were in
an eyeline or a little I did this for you. Really,
come on, Isaac, so you don't wake up in the
morning and do a little jog on the face.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Everything I try to, I try to make an effort.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
You never want anybody to say, oh, they've given up.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Now go back, go back to talking about being a
woman and being a girl.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I want to show you this book.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Nice. That's a nice cover.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
So it's by this woman, Judith Halberstam, and she just
basically writes about this kind of I don't know if
the word is called intersection or whatever, but it was
always me. I was always like a little kind of dude,
and I felt comfortable in that role.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
And I played these parts.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
For men years in the eighties, like I did the
Red Fox Show and I auditioned in Drag. I went
in and my name was Paul Siegel and they would
be like hey Paul, and I'd be like.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Hey man, and uh yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
And then I did a whole movie that I played
a girl whose deepest, darkest heart's desire is to be
a boy. And I'd buy a crystal from Seth Green
and I throw it at the eclipse of the moon
and I wake up the next morning and I have
a penis And.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
That was like yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
And so then I started getting cast like as a girl,
like on.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Camera and you're gonna.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Make out with a guy and like you know, sexual situations,
and then my voice over like the animation stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah, then that took.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
The torch from my on camera stuff of me continuing
as a boy because my voice was like a natural
boy sounding voice. And it was very interesting because then
I ended up like doing all these different crazy parts
through the years. And like Boston Legal, I played this
(13:15):
character who was like an attorney against Jameson.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
I don't remember that. I watched that show and I
don't remember that.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Yeah it was and like William Shatner, who, like I
grew up with because when we first moved to California,
we lived with Leonard and Sandy Nimoy and they were
my guardians. And then then like thirty years later, William
Shatner is grabbing my ass being an inappropriate like boss person,
(13:43):
uh huh. And then I ended up doing a show
called Californication, and I'm literally blowing and fucking like through
the show and wearing people and like showing my body,
like like how did this happen to me?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I don't know, but you know what I feel like,
why watching your career is such a kind of a
precursor and then it kind of culminates on better things.
And it culminates a little bit in Babes because I
watched that this morning. It's really good to love your movie. Congratulations,
thank you. I watched the whole thing. But I got
to say, like, this whole trajectory of you as a woman,
(14:20):
exploring all those different parts of a woman, and then
it culminating in better things where the modern day comes
into it. And you have these kids, which I'm guessing
are based on the kids you have in real life.
You know, they have these gender issues and they have
these identity questions and it becomes a kind of a
real dialogue as opposed to just something happening to you
(14:43):
in your career as an actor.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Right.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Yeah, when I think back to when and I'm kind
of in the same place in my life right now,
which is I had to stop everything and really put
the deep thing on what I was going to do
in order to create better things. And it was like,
(15:06):
do I really want to be like a guest star
on this show that I was doing, Like that had
so much money and they were wasting the money and
it was like nineteen hour days and it was like
circling the drain. It was just terrible. And I finally
said I'm ready. I think I know what I can do,
and I doing my own show. I remember like having
(15:29):
to look at myself on the monitor and having to say, oh,
you cannot move the camera around, you know, for the
rest of the day because.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
You don't like the way your face looks.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Oh, And then realizing that like, I'm the star of
the show and my neckline is going, my jawline is melting,
and you know, I turned fifty making this show.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
And when you let go of this kind of.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Perception of yourself, you relax, and you become happier, and
you become way more powerful because your confidence is like,
oh fuck it, I don't need that. I know what
my neck looks like. Everybody relax. Everybody relax. You're talking
to yourself, and you know the things that were, like
(16:25):
my trials and tribulations and everything. And I have this
kind of mantra when I was making better things, bad
for my life, great for my show and anything.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Oh that's funny, And I think of you as someone
at that point getting the kind of saggy, jowly thing.
But it was a lesson. It was a lesson for
other women watching you. That's probably what was going on.
That's the funny thing. You always think you can control stuff,
and the best shit you do is.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Completely out of your control.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I think absolutely really like you in front of us
or whatever you think was aging in front of us
was the best lesson for us.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
The other thing I got from that character was.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
The tolerance, Like, you know, our general you're much younger
than me, but my generation is sometimes a little bit
intolerant of younger people when they go, oh I'm triggered
by this, or R I don't know what I am,
or something because we were all triggered. Sometimes we have
identity problems, but that character was such a great mom.
Are you a great mom like that? Are you an accepting,
(17:29):
amazing mom like that?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
You know?
Speaker 4 (17:32):
I think that by doing Better Things, it's aspirational for
me as a person, as a filmmaker, as a mom,
you know.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So you put all the stuff into the show.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
That's like when you're coming up with characters, dialogue scenarios.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
It was always like Sam Fox was me in a cape.
She was like the old.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Exactly, and so I would be able to like pontificate
and say, uh boy when that lady was in the
parking garage of the pediatrician and I wanted to, like,
you know, fucking stick my foot in her puppet, and
I just play it out in my head and I'm like,
(18:22):
oh God, wouldn't it have been great if I said this?
Or wouldn't that have been awful if this happened? And
so you put the good and the bad in and
you put it through this character who is being a
relatable person. And what I tried to do in my
(18:45):
show Better Things, which is available on Hulu if anybody
wants to the five seasons, Baby.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
The greatest thing in the world. You'll be glued, but
go on.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Thanks brother.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
And my mandate was to make it for men, make
it for women, make it international because I'm an international family.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
My mother's English.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
And I would say to my network, don't market this
for you know, women or moms. That's a built in market,
like go to the other side. And then people found
it and they feel seen. And I realized from starting
the show until the final season that I really am
a woman, Like I really identify with that, Like that's
(19:33):
where I came from, and like I wouldn't choose anything
else for myself if anybody was like kind of gender
dysmorphic or whatever, it was me.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah, you know, that's what I mean.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
That's what I'm saying. So was it art imitating life?
Was it life imitating you know? Like how intent were
you when you were making that series, when you were
making Babes, Like are you going in there?
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Going?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I need to show the world. I need to teach
them a lesson about what it means to be a woman.
I need them to understand how my vagina reacts to
certain things. It's a lot about being a woman and
what you like and dislike about men. You know, it's
very very very much about the politics of men and
women and also others, you know, because the kids and
(20:22):
better things are kind of very other.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah, you know, yeah, that's so interesting, Isaac.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
I mean, yeah, it really yeah, Darling, true.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
But I think that I really am fascinated by how
women work. And I'm surrounded by the three generations. I
live with any one or two of my daughters at
any certain point, and my oldest been living in London
and she's going to come back and move back in
(20:52):
with me and my youngest, and my middle has a
house and her animals, and then my mother literally lives
next door. So we always are three generations, and then
my three daughters feel like they're each of their own generation.
When you were talking about the youngsters and the words
(21:14):
that they have to identify that.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
We didn't have, No, we did not have.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
I mean growing up in the seventies, talk about the
meanest era to grow up in.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Oh oh, honey, talk about it. The meanest shit in
the world.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
The worst thing you could call somebody was gay, like.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
That was like the w oh completely like, oh he's
so gay exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
I'm really obsessed with women. Who share with each other.
I'm obsessed with women who hear each other and raise
each other up. And I am so disgusted by women
who still align themselves with the page triarchy and hold
(22:02):
other women back, because there are a lot of those.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I think it's predominant, Darling. I think you're living in
a bubble. I do love that in your movies all
the women are a good looking women too, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
It's like, really, oh my god, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Like not just the women who you cast as your daughter,
that woman who was so beautiful I don't know who
she was, God, but eventually she became Hannah one of
the women. Yeah, so beautiful, yeah, I mean like literally gorgeous.
And then you know, you cast these women like Michelle Bhuteau,
who I think is fabulous looking, you know, and she's
so possessed of her own fabulousness, Like she looks gorgeous
(22:50):
because she is gorgeous, you know, yeah, and she.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
She owns it, and she's so brilliantly funny and off
the cuff, and she you know, when she says, I
can't believe you're saying that to my sad, beautiful, tired,
freckled face right now, like it's so like.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Her acceptance of herself.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
And I just saw her do stand up as she
came to the ace in La.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
She's she's next honey, she's next level stand up. Like
that stand up is like state of the art stand up. Yeah,
like we all feel like beholden and less than Michelle Buteau.
But Darling, so talk to me for a second about
like you as an artist. Tell me who you are
as an artist.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Everything for me is visual and sound. So I will
just get lost in a moment and snap out of
it and then go right about what I just experienced,
something that triggers a memory or a thought of something
(23:53):
that I've been keeping on the back burner. Music, any
kind of music transitions for me as an artist, as
a filmmaker, what I do everything is in the transitions,
and there's a little bit of magic. And I like
(24:14):
walking the Hairyage, I really love that. And I like
dark humor, but there has to be humor and there
has to be heart. Like I will watch every single
End of the World movie there is. I'm obsessed with them.
But you got to give me a little bit of hope.
I need a hope boner to get through the day,
(24:36):
I need a boner of hope.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And you need to laugh a little bit, or chuckle
a little bit, even at the scariest, most horrible, tragic
You must otherwise it's just not good. And we know
those projects that are so serious and so take themselves
so seriously, and they don't give you a smile, you know,
and you can't feel the drama. You can't feel it
because there's no humor.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Absolutely, like the nihilistic with nothing redemptive is a bummer.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
But in this place where I am right now, I
realized that I.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Am back to the drawing board because I wrapped my series.
Babes is coming out, and now that the next thing
I have to do, it has to come from me.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I was trying to shepherd.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Other people's shows and everything, but it's always like I
don't want to square peg round hole, and I have
to go back to what is in my head. And
you know, when I finished directing the movie and I
was gone for three months, and my youngest daughter looked
at me rocket and she's nineteen at the time, and said,
(25:45):
what did you get from that experience?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Mom?
Speaker 4 (25:49):
In the first place, I was like, who are you?
That's such a fucking incredible question, and then I said
that I really know what I'm doing. And what I
learned becoming a filmmaker on my show was that people
want you to make a decision and they feel secure,
(26:10):
they feel good about it, and when you second guess
your decisions, it doesn't help anybody.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
You just make a choice.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
And I'll tell you one of the people who really
was my mentor, because I got to work with her
on one episode of her show, it was Tracy Ullman.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Oh my god, what a genius.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Fucking stone cold genius.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
She's a genius.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I played a scene with Tracy Ellman in a Woody
Allen picture called Small Time Crooks, but I played her chef.
You did, Yeah, I played a scene with Tracy Ellman.
It was one of the great moments of my life.
Go on, tell my god, I'm watching.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
So I saw her.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
I was a brand new mom and I looked like
a child, and I only had my daughter, she was
a baby, and I had to shoot this episode and
I'm sitting there kind of in this limpic space of
being an actor and supporting my family, having a baby,
(27:13):
and thinking what's next, like paycheck to paycheck, waiting for
an acting job or an I'm unemployment check. I was
married to a guy who never earned a paycheck.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
I can say that now it's been so many years.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Come on, and so I remember seeing Tracy walk into
the makeup and hair trailer and I had these like
Bjork knots all over my head. And I was wearing
a Calvin Kleine pair of boxers as a bikini top
and the crotch was here with straps, and so I
(27:48):
had the be York knots and I was playing like
we were at an anti patriarchy rally lol, And Tracy
walked in.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
She looked at me and she said, oh, I like that.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
You're having a law She was commenting on my nots,
and she was in complete acceptance of what.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I was bringing.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Right, And then we shot this episode and she's in
the park troubleshooting. Oh how long will it take to
get that? Like she wanted people to walk like a model,
a catwalk, a half circle, and then a long one,
and she chose the one that would take the least
amount of time.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
And she said to me, at the end of the day,
if I'm not home to be with my kids, what
is the fucking point?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Well, you know, this is what makes it okay, This
is what makes it possible to go out there and
do dangerous things and do fucked up good things that
you want to do is to have that security.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Right absolutely, But when you know, sorry forgive me, a
woman is running the set, is mothering, literally being the mother.
I took all of those littlej that I got from
her that day and I kept it in my pocket.
(29:04):
But here's the thing, Isaac, learning from the ones who
are pure and good is not as often as learning
from the bad people.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
That's where you got true, Oh I'm never going to
do that. Oh that is nice.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
You know, that's when it hits you. But when you
take in the information from somebody who is showing you
the way to do things in the most economical, sustainable,
you know, integration, sweet funny way, then you have to
(29:43):
really pay attention. You've got to pay attention.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Back to this movie. I watched This Morning Babes and
your series. I noticed that, like the characters, you take
them to these dangerous places, you take them to places
where you really should not be talking about stuff, and
then you talk about it. And before you were like, oh,
I don't know, I don't know. But darling, you have
(30:08):
to know that this is what you're doing when you're
writing the script. You have to know how an audience
feels when they see a woman who just gave birth
doing shots and doing mushrooms, you know, and she's breastfeed
you have to know that that is dangerous. Or when
a woman is on a subway and she meets a
guy and she goes, let's have unprotected sex.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Right.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Well, I did not write babes. I wrote better things.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Oh I did what I mean, But.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Yes, listen in better things like I'm preparing for my
call and oscopy and you see her doing vodka because
it's a clear.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Exactly, and you see the daughter gets pregnant.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
I mean it's like, right, there's a lot of shift
that goes on, and she goes to have an abortion,
and it's not you who picks her up. It's the
incredible genius. I forgot his name. I really love him.
I want to have an affair with him.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I tell I'm going to text him, write, tell.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Him, tell him. We were born to be lovers. We were
literally bored to be love.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
I think you're wrong, Isaac, and I think that Dedrich when.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
He's strayed or something right, he's straight something okay, But
but I think give it my phone.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
I swear to God. I mean he's married to a
very lovely lady.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
But I definitely tapped into the gay bone of deed.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Babe.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Oh, I love it so much. Go on talk about
the danger. Does your life feel dangerous always?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I mean I walk around in gratitude all the time.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
It's like you can either choose to be like in
gratitude or take it for granted. But telling stories like
the women in Babes, like this is her choice, she's
making it. It's crazy because when we were in prep
and production of Babes, this movie about this woman who's
(31:55):
having her second baby and her best friend who gets
pregnant and has to make a choice, they repealed.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Rome and I was like, oh ja, it was unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
And this is after I have like the scene in
Better Things where we shot outside a planned parenthood and
that wonderful scene with Diedrich and Mikey Yeah, and focused
to see that. Jessica Whites from the ACLU texted me
and said, can you get on this zoom about this
law that they're passing and all of these women were
(32:31):
on this zoom and saying, my name is Patricia and
I'm a nurse.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I have three kids.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
When I had my abortion, it enabled me to go
to nursing school. I never would have become a nurse
and I never would have had the family that I had.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
And I was just like shaking.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
You know, my mother who had a back alley abortion
in the fifties in New York City on a dining table,
which is unbelievable, before she had my brother and then
me because she wasn't fucking ready. And it's like, so politicians,
(33:11):
they're making dangerous choices for us.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
They're creating it. They're creating a danger for women. That's right, exactly,
that's right.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
And so when I say, like, in terms of my storytelling,
I like to walk the hairy edge, It's like you've
got to because then it makes people think if you
spoon feed everybody and absolute, we're doomed. We're doomed. You've
got to be able to see all sides, all sides,
(33:42):
which is why I want to hear what men have
to say. If you're following a character and that character
walks out of the room, I want the camera to
go to the guy who was really irritating her and
irritating the audience, and understand what's going on in his head.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
In his brain, just to make it a three sixty,
like a round storytelling as opposed to a villain. Right, Yes,
Is there a way to be a man in your
world that works besides being a gay man? Is there
(34:22):
a way to be like a straight man? Because I'm
not kidding that whole thing when you were dating and
better things like it was one asshole after another, but
they were all kind of cute. They were all people
I would have taken seriously. As Sam Fox or even
as Isaac Israel, you would have to go, yeah, it's
take a date with them, and then they end up
doing like these stupidests and then somehow you accept them
or don't talk about what it's like.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
What is a man to you? Oh?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
This is so interesting, Isaac. I love this. You're doing
fucking awesome.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
I'm doing all Yeah, this is new stuff like this
is hoay great.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Good think about Hey, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
I love men. I love men, I really do.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
I love some men.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
I like most penises, yeah, but I don't like a
lot of men.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
But I like some men. Go on I like.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Some men better than I like most penises. That's what
I would say.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Wow, nice one.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Okay, this is a pole for social this is a
but you.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Know, I it's so funny because there's this whole phenomenon
of like super gay guys who are married to women
or who are dating women. And whenever I meet my
new gay best friend, like you start feeling like really
secure and you're about to say something and then they say,
oh my god, my wife, my wife would die, she
(35:55):
would die. And I had Mario Canton played that in
my show. Yes, But when I think about that, I think,
oh God, I wish I had met like a fun
gay who married me like Maestro, like Leonard Bernstein.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
And his wife.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Right.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
I love that that relationship, yes.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Like killed me, I know.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
And she's like, let's give.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
It, let's give it a try, and I'm like, fuck yes,
because they adored each other.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
They adored each other, and.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
You know what, there's something about our mother's generation that
was particularly cool in that way. I mean not my
mom specifically, but you're talking about Felicia Montalegro and you're.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Talking about life.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yes, maybe your mom. They didn't apologize. They didn't call
into question how shitty men were. They just kind of
lived with it, which in itself is not such a
great thing. But to some extent, what were their choices,
you know, and maybe that made them kind of stronger
within themselves or something because they just had to sort
of overlook a lot of bullshit. Is that maybe what
(37:05):
you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
That's so interesting, because yeah, there was just an acceptance.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
You just did not You didn't move on, You didn't
think about your own happiness. And you know, I got shotgun, wedding,
hitched up, pregnant with.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
My ferns, bragant with my second, brang it with my third.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
I used to say, accident on purpose, sibling band aid.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
There we go. My kids all know, they all know
that is fucked up.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
I never had a point in my life when I
thought one day I'm gonna get married and I'm gonna
have kids.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Not at all. Never, never, in a million years.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
I was just like, hey man, you know Pam Siegel
from the eighties, what's up?
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yes, yes, And that was like what I was.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
But I want my daughters to be able to like
hold themselves up throughout their lives.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
And they all know that they need to support themselves.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Don't take money from anybody else, and don't let anybody
else take your money. You know, it's it's kind of
a big thing for me. I live in LA and
I'm in my fifties, and you know, being a person
who like is a romantic person or a sexual person,
(38:36):
that's just not a part of my life, and it
hasn't been for many many years because a right, I
work all the time. I'm the boss, you know what
I mean. You can't stoop the help, you can't. So like,
is there anybody who's at my level or above me? Well, yeah,
they're all married. They're all married, and they all run
(38:58):
the studio and everything.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Right, there's this.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
Sweet spot I feel that you know, a woman my age,
you know, there is this window and there's barbed wire
and knives and guns around it where an available man
could be.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Going made like going through maybe.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
He got divorced or pooh poo pooh, somebody passed away
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And then uh, woman, my daughter's age stepped.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
From up right right, But you know what, I got
to tell you something, what I'm gathering more and more
because I'm sixty, so like, fuck you, you're in your fifties.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
I'm in my sixties, right, But.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
What I've gathered is like, I know how you feel,
and I can't guess what your problems are as the
woman that you are, because I'm not you, but I
am hearing something so similar. You know, there was a
time when I thought, oh, Darling, this is never gonna
happen because blah blah blah blah blah and the barbed
wire and the window and the bars on the window.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
And then the minute you kind of like give up.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
You just gotta give up, Darling, give up, you know,
like just fail, fail, Darling, fail fail at it. Yeah,
have you ever failed at something that you just got
so much out of it?
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (40:15):
My god, yes, I based my whole show.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
I'm right, it's kind of my brand. I have a
friend who is an acting teacher. Her name's Leslie Kahan,
and her motto is dare to suck.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
And dare to suck.
Speaker 4 (40:32):
Yeah, And it's literally like it's what stand up comedians.
You know, they talk about going on stage and you bomb.
And the first thing that you get taught when you
learn how to ski is to fall. You know, these
are the things that understandably keep you sharp because you
(40:53):
can't get comfortable. So like when you ask me, do
you feel danger, yes, you feel all the.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Time, because it's like you can't get dull.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
And people stop creating when they lose their hunger and
when you lose your edge. Like I remember when my
parents were going bankrupt and they were living in the
house that I lived in when I was growing up
here in Los Angeles, and I came home and my
(41:25):
dad was very down and he said, I feel I
failed you, and I said, I said why, And he
said I had to sell the Orientals.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
And I was like, okay, in the first place, we don't.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Well, I mean, that's the language in those days exactly.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
He had these two Oriental rugs that they were keeping,
one for Pamela, one for Gregory, my brother, and they
were going to.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Give them to us, and he had to sell them.
And I said, Dad, that's what they were there for.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
And he felt like such a fucking failure because there
was so much like bad blood in the family with
things and when his parents died and all the silly
shit that people get so ripped up over, like things.
And from the time I was a teenager, I was
(42:27):
helping my parents financially because I did a show called
The Facts of Life.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
And I made a nice chunk of money.
Speaker 4 (42:37):
And my parents were able to survive from that money
that I made.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Which that is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
Yeah, it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. So in terms of failures,
they're all around us, and life is just literally living
in between those moments that you got to hold onto
the edge of chairs and tables and really steady yourself
(43:08):
and then you just go, now we build again.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, and you have to be sure you want to
succeed for the right reasons and not for the wrong reasons.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
It's like someone said something so smart to me. Oh
you know it was I was interviewing Matthew Modine and
I did a talk with him at a film festival,
and he said, everybody's like making content now it makes
me want to puke. And I was like, oh, my god, exactly.
It's that that's not really what you want to make.
That's the biggest one insult. That's the biggest So it's
the biggest insult, The biggest thing that would be like.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
Like when you were working with all the supermodels and
designing your fashion empire everything, if you called it content.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Like, no, it's gross.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Better things. Better things is content?
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Like oh no, no, that is.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
The most like debasing way to look at it.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
And I totally agree because if you are succumbing to
the algorithm.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Like my show would never be made today.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
They don't want slice of Life, they don't want anything
like that. They want you to chew it and then
vomit it into the viewer's mouth because they think that
nobody has any teeth. And I'm like, fight to keep
the teeth in everything. That's the hugest challenge. It's like,
don't lose that edge because I have to believe there
(44:37):
are more people than not who crave something that makes
you feel something.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
I have one final question for you.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Do you ever think about your obituary?
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (45:00):
I mean, isn't somebody working on it? Like I heard
that somebody's.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Always working on your Absolutely, your obituary is probably written already.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
But what do you wanted to say?
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Wow, she really knew what she was doing?
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Wow? Oh my god, that is a good one.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
That's I swear to God, because you've started by saying
you were saying earlier that you came away when your
teenage daughter asked you what you got.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
From your new movie.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, wow, I love that. So what do you want
to promote on this podcast.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Well, Babes is coming out May seventeenth, I think is
the premiere date.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
That's the movie I directed, and I love it.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
I love your movie, Thank.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
You, Isaac. And it's headlining it south by Southwest.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
And we're doing King of the Hill reboot work, which
is so fun at a ball is fun be back
doing it and I I mean literally, I am back
to the drawing board, like this is my whiteboard, beautiful,
and I am percolating and writing and all I want
(46:16):
to do is like keep my head down. And you
got to put in the work without the glitter, the pomp,
like all of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Just the hardcore.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Just think it out, just come up with it, create it,
and don't second guess it.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
And my dad used to say, irons in the fire.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
That would be another thing that would be in my
obituary or my epitaph.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
You gotta have at least three irons in the fire.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
And then I would take it another step, which is
when I had three kids and they were all babies
and I was like, oh my god, I got to
kind of get back to serious work because King of
the Hill might not last forever, and so my rule
always was you keep plates in the air, but not
(47:10):
too many that they start falling and breaking.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
You've got to be able to manage what you've got right.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Well, you are divine, I say, are divine.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
You're divine. I love you so much. You're the best.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Well boy, that was sort of the opposite of what
I was expecting from Pamela, just the idea that she
was so engaged, you know, it felt so kind of
freeing from me.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
The minute she showed up.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
I showed up, you know, I was less scared because
I got right away that she was excited about doing
it and that she was excited to kind of open up.
And one thing I think she really did was open up.
It was a conversation that just flowed so incredibly naturally
and just went from one topic to another, and yet
(48:06):
it hit on all of the points that I really
really wanted to make, including how she felt as a
woman and what she was looking for in different men. Anyway,
thank you so much for joining me for that incredible chat,
and I feel like the whole podcast season ended on
(48:27):
such a bang, and it kind of summed up for
me what the whole podcast season was about. It was
one big surprise. And I have to tell you, like,
recently I was interviewed and I was asked what the
four words I would use to describe myself and my
life and what I look for and my dreams and
(48:48):
my hopes and everything, And the first word that came
to my mind was the words surprise. And I feel
like this whole season was such a surprise. I got
completely other things than what I was going for in
most cases, and really such better things, not to make
(49:08):
a joke about Pamela's show better things, but I got
such better things from literally everyone that I spoke to
than I was expecting and that I was prepared to get,
you know, And I got to tell you like, when
you get something unexpected and special from any particular experience
(49:29):
or endeavor, it is really the gold that is the
gold that.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
You look for.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
So thank you so much for listening this season and
for following me, And if you don't follow me, please
do at I am Isaac Msrahi on Instagram and you
can go to my website, Hello Isaac dot com for
more information about my tours, about my appearances, about all
the places you can follow me. Thank you again. Thank
(49:57):
you so so much, darlings. If you enjoyed this episode,
do me a favorite and tell someone, tell a friend,
tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell everyone you know. Okay,
and be sure to rate the show. I love rating stuff.
Go on and rate and review the show on Apple
(50:17):
Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes
such a gigantic difference. And like it takes a second,
so go on and do it. And if you want
more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow
the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast
(50:38):
And by the way, check me out on Instagram and
TikTok at.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
I Am Isaac Msrahi. This is Isaac Misrahi.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Thank you, I love you and I never thought I'd
say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by
Imagine Audio Awfully Nice and I Am entertain Aimen for iHeartMedia.
The series is hosted by Me Isaac Musrahi. Hello Isaac
is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse
(51:10):
Burton and John Assanti, and is executive produced by Ron Howard,
Brian Grazerkarral Welker, and Nathan Clokey at Imagine, Audio production
management from Katie Hodges, sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson.
Original music composed by Ben Waltzer. A special thanks to
Neil Phelps and Sarah katanak at i AM Entertainment
I love men. I love men, I really do.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I love some men. I like most penises. Yeah, but
I don't like a lot of men. But I like
some men.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Go on, I like.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Some men better than I like most penises. That's what
I would say.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
That's wow. Nice one.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of
success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Musrahi, and
in this episode, I talked to Emmy winning actor, writer, producer,
and director Pamela Adlin.
Speaker 5 (00:44):
Hello, Isaac, it's Pamela Adlin, also known as Jupiter. I'm
trying to get Jupiter to stick. That's who I am
at this point in my life. So Hello Isaac, it's Jupiter.
I love you.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Wormish, Bucha the whole.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Maguila, Maguila, Pasalemguilla, Pasale, Miguela Grella Fasale.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Hey, Hey, Hey, I can't believe that I got Pamela
Adlin on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I worship the ground she walks on, and she scares
me a little bit because she's so relevant, she's so
incredibly juicy as a subject, and I mean, there's absolutely
no way we can cover this in one particular hour.
But also I don't want her to hate the experience.
(01:37):
And I know she's so smart and she bores so easily.
Like me, you know, I get very bored, very quickly.
But the one thing I don't want to do ever
is bore Pamela Adlin, So.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Let's get right to this.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Let's let's get into it, because if I wait one
more second, I might.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Lose my balls, I might lose my nerves.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Pamela Adlon, I have to tell you this hilarious thing
before we start this whole mcgilla. Yeah, which is that
when I talked to you at the ninety second Street
why I came in the room with my notes and
my questions and scribbles and red and black and green.
I had a bunch of pens with me, and you
were like, oh, you're not going to ask me the
question about like what is based? I was like, oh shit,
(02:23):
So that was my first seven questions.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
It sounds like me.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I just remember being completely starstruck by you and also
feeling like you are my brother, like at the same time,
like I don't feel starstruck about my real brother.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
But we were misuse.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
We were immediately immediately.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
But like, the thing I don't want to do is
talk about like something you don't want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
First of all, what sign are you?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I am a moonchild? I'm a cancer?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
What is that? You're a cancer? Oh? That's sweet. Really,
I know a lot of cancer ment men.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Cancers are a mess, a hot fucking mess.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Usually. Yeah, it's really because.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
They haven't been told how to deal with their emotions,
like all men. And I mean, hopefully they can work
it out in the future, but.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, ninety second street wide.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
The funniest thing is a bunch of my friends got
mad at me.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
They were so fucking mad because you and I went
to dinner.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
After right, and they all went expecting me to like
hang out with them after and you swooped me into.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Your cigo very fast, darling fast into the car.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Pearls purls and flies curls and.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Fly into the car, into the vaccinate. Let's go, let's go. Well,
here's the thing. Where are you from?
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Originally I was born at the Doctor's Hospital, which was
by Gracie Mansion in New York City, and I grew
up on the coppery side, and then we moved to Scarsdale, Edgemont,
New York, and then we moved to California, and then
I moved back to New York City, and then I
(04:09):
moved back to California, and then I moved back to
New York City, back to LA Then I finished high school.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I went to Professional Children's School in Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Oh, my favorite place of the world. I wish I
went to Performing Arts High School, So.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
My favorite place in the world.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
We used to love the kids.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
We were like, we wish we could go to professional
Oh my god, it's so cool.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Yeah, that's the way we felt about you guys, because
you went to the fame school.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
And yes we did.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
I will tell you I wouldn't have graduated high school
if I didn't go to PCs because I was working
as an actor and I was totally unsupported academically.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And also school was just so fucking stupid.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
We are not institutional people, donning nobody over here.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
So tell me what was the kernel? Like, what brought
the interest? Was it the stage? Was it movies? What
was the thing that penetrated and made you into a
performer and a writer?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I loved it.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
My dad was a writer and producer, and I grew
up on the soundstages, And I told this story the
last time I did The Today Show that it used
to be a show called the Dave Garaway Show, and
my dad worked on Dave Garaway and then it became
AM New York and so my dad stayed on.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Excuse me, I know, I.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Know AM New York.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
You mean with Stanley Siegel, my favorite person in the world.
Could that be the AM New York that you're a
firm two? I mean it was like Bill but Tell
and like Stanley Siegel Darling. Okay, that up, that's before
your time slightly, No, not kidding.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
That's incredible because I have like my autograph book, and
I met Josephine Baker and Soupy Sales and all of
those people, Henry Winkler, who I still know.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
They were all on A New York when I was
a little baby.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
So how did you come up in the business? Were
you a stand up? Were you an actor? Were you
a right?
Speaker 4 (06:07):
I've never done stand up? Luckily, you know, comedy is everything.
That's the world that I grew up in. And even
though my dad was writing softcore porn, dime store novels
to put food on the table, he was a television writer.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
He was a comedy writer.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
And it's very interesting because I recently spent time with
my brother and his new good wife.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well allied over dank you good wife as opposed to
like shitty old wife.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
But go there we go, no no offense, everything's great. Anyway.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Anyway, we were all hanging out and we were spending
time with my mother for her eighty eighth birthday.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Pooh pooh, pooh, toy toy toy.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
And it was so crazy because I realized that my
brother was like so kind of triggered by our mom.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And I looked at him and.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I thought, wow, we had two totally different childhoods. I
mean completely like the Rachman in the three year age
difference was the most. I was like, wow, you just
remember it totally different than I.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Do, because why he was like he's three years older.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, that was the disconnect. He was brought up because
he was a boy and given more freedom.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
So I don't know what you mean by that.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Totally totally you know, the double standard.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
So I was barely allowed to have a friend over,
and if my brother was going on a date, my
father would be like, you're gonna get your pipes clean?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Oh, god, oh jeez.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
And I would be like ew. So my brother was
always naturally a performer. He taught himself how to play piano, guitar,
write songs, all of that, but he went into computers
and finance. And I got the bug from an early age,
and I did want to be a performer, but I
(08:13):
really feel like I wanted.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
To be behind the camera.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Like I remember being on the set of one of
my dad's shows that he wrote and produced, and Jimmy
Komack was the producer of it, who like produced Welcome
Back Cotter and all the classics from the seventies, And
I had a scarf and I threw the scarf around
my neck in a certain way, and I grabbed a
(08:40):
script because I wanted to look like I was a
producer on the show.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
What's so funny to me, Darling, is that, like I
watched every minute of Better Things, and I've watched a
lot of your work as an actor, and I love it.
I think it's an amazing gift that you have, but
also the embodiment of whatever character that you're creating. It
seems like social comment about being a woman, a social
(09:05):
comment about what a man is to a strong woman,
And then when I go.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
To ask you, like how strategy I do?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
But when I ask you about it like really that
old question? But talk to me about that.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
There's a book on my shelf called Female Masculinity, and
I'm in that book. They talk about me as an actor,
and I always felt comfortable in the male space, and
I never felt like a woman ill, like I would
(09:39):
be like, just don't like when people ask me, now,
what are my pronouns? I get offended because I didn't
get a choice my whole life, like people just assigned
whatever to everybody.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
But right.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
I do remember having really short hair, and I was
going to Ethical Culture School on the Upper West.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Side and that beautiful building, gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Where they shot Audrey Rose.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
So I was carving linoleum and I poked my thumb
and blood was squirting out of my hand, and they
wouldn't let the kids use the elevator, so I had
to walk down six or seven flights of stairs and
I go to the nurse's office and they were full,
and I was like, can I just have a band aid?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
And she's like sure, and so I put the band
aid on.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
I walk out into the hallway and I pass out,
and I remember hearing my head hit the marble in
the hallway. And then the next thing I know, I
hear a man's voice say help him up.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
And I was.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Laying there and I opened my eyes and I said,
I'm a girl.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Ha ha, Wow, this is a beautiful thing. I mean,
you're a babe, not just a girl.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
You're a good Isaac.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And by the way, you don't shy away from a
little like beet here and I noticed you were in
an eyeline or a little I did this for you. Really,
come on, Isaac, so you don't wake up in the
morning and do a little jog on the face.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Everything I try to, I try to make an effort.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
You never want anybody to say, oh, they've given up.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Now go back, go back to talking about being a
woman and being a girl.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I want to show you this book.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Nice. That's a nice cover.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
So it's by this woman, Judith Halberstam, and she just
basically writes about this kind of I don't know if
the word is called intersection or whatever, but it was
always me. I was always like a little kind of dude,
and I felt comfortable in that role.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
And I played these parts.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
For men years in the eighties, like I did the
Red Fox Show and I auditioned in Drag. I went
in and my name was Paul Siegel and they would
be like hey Paul, and I'd be like.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Hey man, and uh yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
And then I did a whole movie that I played
a girl whose deepest, darkest heart's desire is to be
a boy. And I'd buy a crystal from Seth Green
and I throw it at the eclipse of the moon
and I wake up the next morning and I have
a penis And.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
That was like yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
And so then I started getting cast like as a girl,
like on.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Camera and you're gonna.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Make out with a guy and like you know, sexual situations,
and then my voice over like the animation stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah, then that took.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
The torch from my on camera stuff of me continuing
as a boy because my voice was like a natural
boy sounding voice. And it was very interesting because then
I ended up like doing all these different crazy parts
through the years. And like Boston Legal, I played this
(13:15):
character who was like an attorney against Jameson.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
I don't remember that. I watched that show and I
don't remember that.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Yeah it was and like William Shatner, who, like I
grew up with because when we first moved to California,
we lived with Leonard and Sandy Nimoy and they were
my guardians. And then then like thirty years later, William
Shatner is grabbing my ass being an inappropriate like boss person,
(13:43):
uh huh. And then I ended up doing a show
called Californication, and I'm literally blowing and fucking like through
the show and wearing people and like showing my body,
like like how did this happen to me?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I don't know, but you know what I feel like,
why watching your career is such a kind of a
precursor and then it kind of culminates on better things.
And it culminates a little bit in Babes because I
watched that this morning. It's really good to love your movie. Congratulations,
thank you. I watched the whole thing. But I got
to say, like, this whole trajectory of you as a woman,
(14:20):
exploring all those different parts of a woman, and then
it culminating in better things where the modern day comes
into it. And you have these kids, which I'm guessing
are based on the kids you have in real life.
You know, they have these gender issues and they have
these identity questions and it becomes a kind of a
real dialogue as opposed to just something happening to you
(14:43):
in your career as an actor.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Right.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Yeah, when I think back to when and I'm kind
of in the same place in my life right now,
which is I had to stop everything and really put
the deep thing on what I was going to do
in order to create better things. And it was like,
(15:06):
do I really want to be like a guest star
on this show that I was doing, Like that had
so much money and they were wasting the money and
it was like nineteen hour days and it was like
circling the drain. It was just terrible. And I finally
said I'm ready. I think I know what I can do,
and I doing my own show. I remember like having
(15:29):
to look at myself on the monitor and having to say, oh,
you cannot move the camera around, you know, for the
rest of the day because.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
You don't like the way your face looks.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Oh, And then realizing that like, I'm the star of
the show and my neckline is going, my jawline is melting,
and you know, I turned fifty making this show.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
And when you let go of this kind of.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Perception of yourself, you relax, and you become happier, and
you become way more powerful because your confidence is like,
oh fuck it, I don't need that. I know what
my neck looks like. Everybody relax. Everybody relax. You're talking
to yourself, and you know the things that were, like
(16:25):
my trials and tribulations and everything. And I have this
kind of mantra when I was making better things, bad
for my life, great for my show and anything.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Oh that's funny, And I think of you as someone
at that point getting the kind of saggy, jowly thing.
But it was a lesson. It was a lesson for
other women watching you. That's probably what was going on.
That's the funny thing. You always think you can control stuff,
and the best shit you do is.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Completely out of your control.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I think absolutely really like you in front of us
or whatever you think was aging in front of us
was the best lesson for us.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
The other thing I got from that character was.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
The tolerance, Like, you know, our general you're much younger
than me, but my generation is sometimes a little bit
intolerant of younger people when they go, oh I'm triggered
by this, or R I don't know what I am,
or something because we were all triggered. Sometimes we have
identity problems, but that character was such a great mom.
Are you a great mom like that? Are you an accepting,
(17:29):
amazing mom like that?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
You know?
Speaker 4 (17:32):
I think that by doing Better Things, it's aspirational for
me as a person, as a filmmaker, as a mom,
you know.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So you put all the stuff into the show.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
That's like when you're coming up with characters, dialogue scenarios.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
It was always like Sam Fox was me in a cape.
She was like the old.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Exactly, and so I would be able to like pontificate
and say, uh boy when that lady was in the
parking garage of the pediatrician and I wanted to, like,
you know, fucking stick my foot in her puppet, and
I just play it out in my head and I'm like,
(18:22):
oh God, wouldn't it have been great if I said this?
Or wouldn't that have been awful if this happened? And
so you put the good and the bad in and
you put it through this character who is being a
relatable person. And what I tried to do in my
(18:45):
show Better Things, which is available on Hulu if anybody
wants to the five seasons, Baby.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
The greatest thing in the world. You'll be glued, but
go on.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Thanks brother.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
And my mandate was to make it for men, make
it for women, make it international because I'm an international family.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
My mother's English.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
And I would say to my network, don't market this
for you know, women or moms. That's a built in market,
like go to the other side. And then people found
it and they feel seen. And I realized from starting
the show until the final season that I really am
a woman, Like I really identify with that, Like that's
(19:33):
where I came from, and like I wouldn't choose anything
else for myself if anybody was like kind of gender
dysmorphic or whatever, it was me.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah, you know, that's what I mean.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
That's what I'm saying. So was it art imitating life?
Was it life imitating you know? Like how intent were
you when you were making that series, when you were
making Babes, Like are you going in there?
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Going?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I need to show the world. I need to teach
them a lesson about what it means to be a woman.
I need them to understand how my vagina reacts to
certain things. It's a lot about being a woman and
what you like and dislike about men. You know, it's
very very very much about the politics of men and
women and also others, you know, because the kids and
(20:22):
better things are kind of very other.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah, you know, yeah, that's so interesting, Isaac.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
I mean, yeah, it really yeah, Darling, true.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
But I think that I really am fascinated by how
women work. And I'm surrounded by the three generations. I
live with any one or two of my daughters at
any certain point, and my oldest been living in London
and she's going to come back and move back in
(20:52):
with me and my youngest, and my middle has a
house and her animals, and then my mother literally lives
next door. So we always are three generations, and then
my three daughters feel like they're each of their own generation.
When you were talking about the youngsters and the words
(21:14):
that they have to identify that.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
We didn't have, No, we did not have.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
I mean growing up in the seventies, talk about the
meanest era to grow up in.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Oh oh, honey, talk about it. The meanest shit in
the world.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
The worst thing you could call somebody was gay, like.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
That was like the w oh completely like, oh he's
so gay exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
I'm really obsessed with women. Who share with each other.
I'm obsessed with women who hear each other and raise
each other up. And I am so disgusted by women
who still align themselves with the page triarchy and hold
(22:02):
other women back, because there are a lot of those.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I think it's predominant, Darling. I think you're living in
a bubble. I do love that in your movies all
the women are a good looking women too, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
It's like, really, oh my god, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Like not just the women who you cast as your daughter,
that woman who was so beautiful I don't know who
she was, God, but eventually she became Hannah one of
the women. Yeah, so beautiful, yeah, I mean like literally gorgeous.
And then you know, you cast these women like Michelle Bhuteau,
who I think is fabulous looking, you know, and she's
so possessed of her own fabulousness, Like she looks gorgeous
(22:50):
because she is gorgeous, you know, yeah, and she.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
She owns it, and she's so brilliantly funny and off
the cuff, and she you know, when she says, I
can't believe you're saying that to my sad, beautiful, tired,
freckled face right now, like it's so like.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Her acceptance of herself.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
And I just saw her do stand up as she
came to the ace in La.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
She's she's next honey, she's next level stand up. Like
that stand up is like state of the art stand up. Yeah,
like we all feel like beholden and less than Michelle Buteau.
But Darling, so talk to me for a second about
like you as an artist. Tell me who you are
as an artist.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Everything for me is visual and sound. So I will
just get lost in a moment and snap out of
it and then go right about what I just experienced,
something that triggers a memory or a thought of something
(23:53):
that I've been keeping on the back burner. Music, any
kind of music transitions for me as an artist, as
a filmmaker, what I do everything is in the transitions,
and there's a little bit of magic. And I like
(24:14):
walking the Hairyage, I really love that. And I like
dark humor, but there has to be humor and there
has to be heart. Like I will watch every single
End of the World movie there is. I'm obsessed with them.
But you got to give me a little bit of hope.
I need a hope boner to get through the day,
(24:36):
I need a boner of hope.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And you need to laugh a little bit, or chuckle
a little bit, even at the scariest, most horrible, tragic
You must otherwise it's just not good. And we know
those projects that are so serious and so take themselves
so seriously, and they don't give you a smile, you know,
and you can't feel the drama. You can't feel it
because there's no humor.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Absolutely, like the nihilistic with nothing redemptive is a bummer.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
But in this place where I am right now, I
realized that I.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Am back to the drawing board because I wrapped my series.
Babes is coming out, and now that the next thing
I have to do, it has to come from me.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I was trying to shepherd.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Other people's shows and everything, but it's always like I
don't want to square peg round hole, and I have
to go back to what is in my head. And
you know, when I finished directing the movie and I
was gone for three months, and my youngest daughter looked
at me rocket and she's nineteen at the time, and said,
(25:45):
what did you get from that experience?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Mom?
Speaker 4 (25:49):
In the first place, I was like, who are you?
That's such a fucking incredible question, and then I said
that I really know what I'm doing. And what I
learned becoming a filmmaker on my show was that people
want you to make a decision and they feel secure,
(26:10):
they feel good about it, and when you second guess
your decisions, it doesn't help anybody.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
You just make a choice.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
And I'll tell you one of the people who really
was my mentor, because I got to work with her
on one episode of her show, it was Tracy Ullman.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Oh my god, what a genius.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Fucking stone cold genius.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
She's a genius.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I played a scene with Tracy Ellman in a Woody
Allen picture called Small Time Crooks, but I played her chef.
You did, Yeah, I played a scene with Tracy Ellman.
It was one of the great moments of my life.
Go on, tell my god, I'm watching.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
So I saw her.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
I was a brand new mom and I looked like
a child, and I only had my daughter, she was
a baby, and I had to shoot this episode and
I'm sitting there kind of in this limpic space of
being an actor and supporting my family, having a baby,
(27:13):
and thinking what's next, like paycheck to paycheck, waiting for
an acting job or an I'm unemployment check. I was
married to a guy who never earned a paycheck.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
I can say that now it's been so many years.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Come on, and so I remember seeing Tracy walk into
the makeup and hair trailer and I had these like
Bjork knots all over my head. And I was wearing
a Calvin Kleine pair of boxers as a bikini top
and the crotch was here with straps, and so I
(27:48):
had the be York knots and I was playing like
we were at an anti patriarchy rally lol, And Tracy
walked in.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
She looked at me and she said, oh, I like that.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
You're having a law She was commenting on my nots,
and she was in complete acceptance of what.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I was bringing.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Right, And then we shot this episode and she's in
the park troubleshooting. Oh how long will it take to
get that? Like she wanted people to walk like a model,
a catwalk, a half circle, and then a long one,
and she chose the one that would take the least
amount of time.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
And she said to me, at the end of the day,
if I'm not home to be with my kids, what
is the fucking point?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Well, you know, this is what makes it okay, This
is what makes it possible to go out there and
do dangerous things and do fucked up good things that
you want to do is to have that security.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Right absolutely, But when you know, sorry forgive me, a
woman is running the set, is mothering, literally being the mother.
I took all of those littlej that I got from
her that day and I kept it in my pocket.
(29:04):
But here's the thing, Isaac, learning from the ones who
are pure and good is not as often as learning
from the bad people.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
That's where you got true, Oh I'm never going to
do that. Oh that is nice.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
You know, that's when it hits you. But when you
take in the information from somebody who is showing you
the way to do things in the most economical, sustainable,
you know, integration, sweet funny way, then you have to
(29:43):
really pay attention. You've got to pay attention.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Back to this movie. I watched This Morning Babes and
your series. I noticed that, like the characters, you take
them to these dangerous places, you take them to places
where you really should not be talking about stuff, and
then you talk about it. And before you were like, oh,
I don't know, I don't know. But darling, you have
(30:08):
to know that this is what you're doing when you're
writing the script. You have to know how an audience
feels when they see a woman who just gave birth
doing shots and doing mushrooms, you know, and she's breastfeed
you have to know that that is dangerous. Or when
a woman is on a subway and she meets a
guy and she goes, let's have unprotected sex.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Right.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Well, I did not write babes. I wrote better things.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Oh I did what I mean, But.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Yes, listen in better things like I'm preparing for my
call and oscopy and you see her doing vodka because
it's a clear.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Exactly, and you see the daughter gets pregnant.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
I mean it's like, right, there's a lot of shift
that goes on, and she goes to have an abortion,
and it's not you who picks her up. It's the
incredible genius. I forgot his name. I really love him.
I want to have an affair with him.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I tell I'm going to text him, write, tell.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Him, tell him. We were born to be lovers. We were
literally bored to be love.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
I think you're wrong, Isaac, and I think that Dedrich when.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
He's strayed or something right, he's straight something okay, But
but I think give it my phone.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
I swear to God. I mean he's married to a
very lovely lady.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
But I definitely tapped into the gay bone of deed.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Babe.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Oh, I love it so much. Go on talk about
the danger. Does your life feel dangerous always?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I mean I walk around in gratitude all the time.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
It's like you can either choose to be like in
gratitude or take it for granted. But telling stories like
the women in Babes, like this is her choice, she's
making it. It's crazy because when we were in prep
and production of Babes, this movie about this woman who's
(31:55):
having her second baby and her best friend who gets
pregnant and has to make a choice, they repealed.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Rome and I was like, oh ja, it was unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
And this is after I have like the scene in
Better Things where we shot outside a planned parenthood and
that wonderful scene with Diedrich and Mikey Yeah, and focused
to see that. Jessica Whites from the ACLU texted me
and said, can you get on this zoom about this
law that they're passing and all of these women were
(32:31):
on this zoom and saying, my name is Patricia and
I'm a nurse.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I have three kids.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
When I had my abortion, it enabled me to go
to nursing school. I never would have become a nurse
and I never would have had the family that I had.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
And I was just like shaking.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
You know, my mother who had a back alley abortion
in the fifties in New York City on a dining table,
which is unbelievable, before she had my brother and then
me because she wasn't fucking ready. And it's like, so politicians,
(33:11):
they're making dangerous choices for us.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
They're creating it. They're creating a danger for women. That's right, exactly,
that's right.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
And so when I say, like, in terms of my storytelling,
I like to walk the hairy edge, It's like you've
got to because then it makes people think if you
spoon feed everybody and absolute, we're doomed. We're doomed. You've
got to be able to see all sides, all sides,
(33:42):
which is why I want to hear what men have
to say. If you're following a character and that character
walks out of the room, I want the camera to
go to the guy who was really irritating her and
irritating the audience, and understand what's going on in his head.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
In his brain, just to make it a three sixty,
like a round storytelling as opposed to a villain. Right, Yes,
Is there a way to be a man in your
world that works besides being a gay man? Is there
(34:22):
a way to be like a straight man? Because I'm
not kidding that whole thing when you were dating and
better things like it was one asshole after another, but
they were all kind of cute. They were all people
I would have taken seriously. As Sam Fox or even
as Isaac Israel, you would have to go, yeah, it's
take a date with them, and then they end up
doing like these stupidests and then somehow you accept them
or don't talk about what it's like.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
What is a man to you? Oh?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
This is so interesting, Isaac. I love this. You're doing
fucking awesome.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
I'm doing all Yeah, this is new stuff like this
is hoay great.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Good think about Hey, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
I love men. I love men, I really do.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
I love some men.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
I like most penises, yeah, but I don't like a
lot of men.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
But I like some men. Go on I like.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Some men better than I like most penises. That's what
I would say.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Wow, nice one.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Okay, this is a pole for social this is a
but you.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Know, I it's so funny because there's this whole phenomenon
of like super gay guys who are married to women
or who are dating women. And whenever I meet my
new gay best friend, like you start feeling like really
secure and you're about to say something and then they say,
oh my god, my wife, my wife would die, she
(35:55):
would die. And I had Mario Canton played that in
my show. Yes, But when I think about that, I think,
oh God, I wish I had met like a fun
gay who married me like Maestro, like Leonard Bernstein.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
And his wife.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Right.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
I love that that relationship, yes.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Like killed me, I know.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
And she's like, let's give.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
It, let's give it a try, and I'm like, fuck yes,
because they adored each other.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
They adored each other, and.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
You know what, there's something about our mother's generation that
was particularly cool in that way. I mean not my
mom specifically, but you're talking about Felicia Montalegro and you're.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Talking about life.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yes, maybe your mom. They didn't apologize. They didn't call
into question how shitty men were. They just kind of
lived with it, which in itself is not such a
great thing. But to some extent, what were their choices,
you know, and maybe that made them kind of stronger
within themselves or something because they just had to sort
of overlook a lot of bullshit. Is that maybe what
(37:05):
you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
That's so interesting, because yeah, there was just an acceptance.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
You just did not You didn't move on, You didn't
think about your own happiness. And you know, I got shotgun, wedding,
hitched up, pregnant with.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
My ferns, bragant with my second, brang it with my third.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
I used to say, accident on purpose, sibling band aid.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
There we go. My kids all know, they all know
that is fucked up.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
I never had a point in my life when I
thought one day I'm gonna get married and I'm gonna
have kids.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Not at all. Never, never, in a million years.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
I was just like, hey man, you know Pam Siegel
from the eighties, what's up?
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yes, yes, And that was like what I was.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
But I want my daughters to be able to like
hold themselves up throughout their lives.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
And they all know that they need to support themselves.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Don't take money from anybody else, and don't let anybody
else take your money. You know, it's it's kind of
a big thing for me. I live in LA and
I'm in my fifties, and you know, being a person
who like is a romantic person or a sexual person,
(38:36):
that's just not a part of my life, and it
hasn't been for many many years because a right, I
work all the time. I'm the boss, you know what
I mean. You can't stoop the help, you can't. So like,
is there anybody who's at my level or above me? Well, yeah,
they're all married. They're all married, and they all run
(38:58):
the studio and everything.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Right, there's this.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
Sweet spot I feel that you know, a woman my age,
you know, there is this window and there's barbed wire
and knives and guns around it where an available man
could be.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Going made like going through maybe.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
He got divorced or pooh poo pooh, somebody passed away
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And then uh, woman, my daughter's age stepped.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
From up right right, But you know what, I got
to tell you something, what I'm gathering more and more
because I'm sixty, so like, fuck you, you're in your fifties.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
I'm in my sixties, right, But.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
What I've gathered is like, I know how you feel,
and I can't guess what your problems are as the
woman that you are, because I'm not you, but I
am hearing something so similar. You know, there was a
time when I thought, oh, Darling, this is never gonna
happen because blah blah blah blah blah and the barbed
wire and the window and the bars on the window.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
And then the minute you kind of like give up.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
You just gotta give up, Darling, give up, you know,
like just fail, fail, Darling, fail fail at it. Yeah,
have you ever failed at something that you just got
so much out of it?
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (40:15):
My god, yes, I based my whole show.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
I'm right, it's kind of my brand. I have a
friend who is an acting teacher. Her name's Leslie Kahan,
and her motto is dare to suck.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
And dare to suck.
Speaker 4 (40:32):
Yeah, And it's literally like it's what stand up comedians.
You know, they talk about going on stage and you bomb.
And the first thing that you get taught when you
learn how to ski is to fall. You know, these
are the things that understandably keep you sharp because you
(40:53):
can't get comfortable. So like when you ask me, do
you feel danger, yes, you feel all the.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Time, because it's like you can't get dull.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
And people stop creating when they lose their hunger and
when you lose your edge. Like I remember when my
parents were going bankrupt and they were living in the
house that I lived in when I was growing up
here in Los Angeles, and I came home and my
(41:25):
dad was very down and he said, I feel I
failed you, and I said, I said why, And he
said I had to sell the Orientals.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
And I was like, okay, in the first place, we don't.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Well, I mean, that's the language in those days exactly.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
He had these two Oriental rugs that they were keeping,
one for Pamela, one for Gregory, my brother, and they
were going to.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Give them to us, and he had to sell them.
And I said, Dad, that's what they were there for.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
And he felt like such a fucking failure because there
was so much like bad blood in the family with
things and when his parents died and all the silly
shit that people get so ripped up over, like things.
And from the time I was a teenager, I was
(42:27):
helping my parents financially because I did a show called
The Facts of Life.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
And I made a nice chunk of money.
Speaker 4 (42:37):
And my parents were able to survive from that money
that I made.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Which that is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
Yeah, it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. So in terms of failures,
they're all around us, and life is just literally living
in between those moments that you got to hold onto
the edge of chairs and tables and really steady yourself
(43:08):
and then you just go, now we build again.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, and you have to be sure you want to
succeed for the right reasons and not for the wrong reasons.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
It's like someone said something so smart to me. Oh
you know it was I was interviewing Matthew Modine and
I did a talk with him at a film festival,
and he said, everybody's like making content now it makes
me want to puke. And I was like, oh, my god, exactly.
It's that that's not really what you want to make.
That's the biggest one insult. That's the biggest So it's
the biggest insult, The biggest thing that would be like.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
Like when you were working with all the supermodels and
designing your fashion empire everything, if you called it content.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Like, no, it's gross.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Better things. Better things is content?
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Like oh no, no, that is.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
The most like debasing way to look at it.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
And I totally agree because if you are succumbing to
the algorithm.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Like my show would never be made today.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
They don't want slice of Life, they don't want anything
like that. They want you to chew it and then
vomit it into the viewer's mouth because they think that
nobody has any teeth. And I'm like, fight to keep
the teeth in everything. That's the hugest challenge. It's like,
don't lose that edge because I have to believe there
(44:37):
are more people than not who crave something that makes
you feel something.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
I have one final question for you.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Do you ever think about your obituary?
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (45:00):
I mean, isn't somebody working on it? Like I heard
that somebody's.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Always working on your Absolutely, your obituary is probably written already.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
But what do you wanted to say?
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Wow, she really knew what she was doing?
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Wow? Oh my god, that is a good one.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
That's I swear to God, because you've started by saying
you were saying earlier that you came away when your
teenage daughter asked you what you got.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
From your new movie.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, wow, I love that. So what do you want
to promote on this podcast.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Well, Babes is coming out May seventeenth, I think is
the premiere date.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
That's the movie I directed, and I love it.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
I love your movie, Thank.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
You, Isaac. And it's headlining it south by Southwest.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
And we're doing King of the Hill reboot work, which
is so fun at a ball is fun be back
doing it and I I mean literally, I am back
to the drawing board, like this is my whiteboard, beautiful,
and I am percolating and writing and all I want
(46:16):
to do is like keep my head down. And you
got to put in the work without the glitter, the pomp,
like all of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Just the hardcore.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Just think it out, just come up with it, create it,
and don't second guess it.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
And my dad used to say, irons in the fire.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
That would be another thing that would be in my
obituary or my epitaph.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
You gotta have at least three irons in the fire.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
And then I would take it another step, which is
when I had three kids and they were all babies
and I was like, oh my god, I got to
kind of get back to serious work because King of
the Hill might not last forever, and so my rule
always was you keep plates in the air, but not
(47:10):
too many that they start falling and breaking.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
You've got to be able to manage what you've got right.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Well, you are divine, I say, are divine.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
You're divine. I love you so much. You're the best.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Well boy, that was sort of the opposite of what
I was expecting from Pamela, just the idea that she
was so engaged, you know, it felt so kind of
freeing from me.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
The minute she showed up.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
I showed up, you know, I was less scared because
I got right away that she was excited about doing
it and that she was excited to kind of open up.
And one thing I think she really did was open up.
It was a conversation that just flowed so incredibly naturally
and just went from one topic to another, and yet
(48:06):
it hit on all of the points that I really
really wanted to make, including how she felt as a
woman and what she was looking for in different men. Anyway,
thank you so much for joining me for that incredible chat,
and I feel like the whole podcast season ended on
(48:27):
such a bang, and it kind of summed up for
me what the whole podcast season was about. It was
one big surprise. And I have to tell you, like,
recently I was interviewed and I was asked what the
four words I would use to describe myself and my
life and what I look for and my dreams and
(48:48):
my hopes and everything, And the first word that came
to my mind was the words surprise. And I feel
like this whole season was such a surprise. I got
completely other things than what I was going for in
most cases, and really such better things, not to make
(49:08):
a joke about Pamela's show better things, but I got
such better things from literally everyone that I spoke to
than I was expecting and that I was prepared to get,
you know, And I got to tell you like, when
you get something unexpected and special from any particular experience
(49:29):
or endeavor, it is really the gold that is the
gold that.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
You look for.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
So thank you so much for listening this season and
for following me, And if you don't follow me, please
do at I am Isaac Msrahi on Instagram and you
can go to my website, Hello Isaac dot com for
more information about my tours, about my appearances, about all
the places you can follow me. Thank you again. Thank
(49:57):
you so so much, darlings. If you enjoyed this episode,
do me a favorite and tell someone, tell a friend,
tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell everyone you know. Okay,
and be sure to rate the show. I love rating stuff.
Go on and rate and review the show on Apple
(50:17):
Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes
such a gigantic difference. And like it takes a second,
so go on and do it. And if you want
more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow
the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast
(50:38):
And by the way, check me out on Instagram and
TikTok at.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
I Am Isaac Msrahi. This is Isaac Misrahi.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Thank you, I love you and I never thought I'd
say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by
Imagine Audio Awfully Nice and I Am entertain Aimen for iHeartMedia.
The series is hosted by Me Isaac Musrahi. Hello Isaac
is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse
(51:10):
Burton and John Assanti, and is executive produced by Ron Howard,
Brian Grazerkarral Welker, and Nathan Clokey at Imagine, Audio production
management from Katie Hodges, sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson.
Original music composed by Ben Waltzer. A special thanks to
Neil Phelps and Sarah katanak at i AM Entertainment
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