July 7, 2026 • 23 mins
Constance Zimmer is done waiting around. Jennie and her longtime friend talk about what it REALLY means to be a woman in her 50s. They dive into people-pleasing, the midlife "hamster wheel," Constance's powerhouse performance in Love Story and the life lesson that Barbra Streisand taught her along the way.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
to I Choose Me, the podcast about choices. Today we
celebrate the choices we cannot make until we are seasoned
and have some years of experience under our belts. I'm
(00:21):
sitting down with a woman I have admired for years.
She plays the kind of characters that make you lean in, powerful, sharp, unapologetic.
From the speakerphones of Entourage to her life changing role
in Love Story, Constance Zimmer brings an enviable, genuine fire
(00:43):
to our screens. I've known Constance since way back in
the day, and one of the things I love about
her is that she is the real deal on screen
and more importantly, off screen. Constance has been married since
twenty ten. She's a mom, and at fifty, she co
founded a media company and launched a podcast called Talk
(01:07):
fifty to Me. Because like me, she believes midlife is
not an ending, it's a fierce beginning. Please welcome Constance Zimmer. Okay,
did you ever think you'd be working this hard? No,
at the stage in your life?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
No?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
No, what did you think would be happening for you?
You're You celebrated your fiftieth birthday a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, I'm twenty twenty COVID.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Okay, so you're well into your fifties. Did you have
like a vision of what you think your life in
your fifties was going to be?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Like, Yeah, I thought it was going to be like
my forties, which was I was told that I wouldn't work,
and yet my forties were like my busiest time of
my career.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'm so far mad, so far.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Kind kind of words what I think it was like
for me when my fifthes youth birthday, when I had
this idea that I wanted to like, you know, rent
out like a small boutique hotel in Pump Springs with
like fifty of my friends, and and then COVID happened,
and I was like, oh, I should have taken that
birthday as like a like a hint that my fifties
(02:18):
were going to be fucked, because I feel like ever
since then, everything has been really hard warp speed, really hard,
and yet really slow. And then yes, then the warp
speed kicked into gear right, and then I was like,
how I'm back on the hamster wheel again?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Like, how did I get back hamster wheel? Right?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I've decided that you're you. You were named Constance because
you're constantly working. That's just the truth.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
You know, It's all perspective, perspective, perspective, right, because it's
just weird how like I've worked on things that have
like weirdly timed out that they've all come out on
top of each other, even though like I did.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Them so far apart. But nobody knows that.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Everybody just goes like, oh my gosh, she's on this
show and this show, and I'm like, well, I shot
that one a year ago and that one six months ago,
and they just happened to come out at the same time, right,
But yeah, no, I mean I think you know, I
did you read or listen to Barbar Streisand's book, No.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Book, I need to, Okay, I don't know if I
have six hundred pages in me, but I.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Mean I listened to it, and.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I after listening to it, I was like, oh, we
never stop as women, we never stop. And I looked
at how old she was, and I looked at some
of her most successful films and what she accomplished, and
it was all later in life, and it did not
matter that she had an oscar and Amis and like
(04:01):
it didn't matter. And I think when I listened to that,
I was like, Oh, Barbara streisand is still fucking fighting
to get her shit done, to be hired, to be
heard successful, yep.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
And I was like, oh, we never get to relax.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Oh yeah, I'm so sad right now because I feel
like what you're saying is one hundred percent true. But
when I mean, do you have in your mind like
at sixty, I want to be able?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
For me?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I always said my fifties are my building decade, because
you know, so much of my life has been decided
for me and all of that. But now I have
just this certain perspective that's like, I'm doing what I
want to do now. And then I I thought, maybe
at sixty I'll be able to chill out a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I mean, you know, because you know Heidi, who is
ten years older than me, right who you is?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Your co host?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yes, my co host on my podcast.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
You know she talks a lot about the difference is
that at least in the sixties, in your sixties, you
feel so good that you survived your fifties that there
is a little bit of a relief of what we're
talking about, right, like hopping back on the hamster wheel
and like proving, proving and reinventing and pivoting and planting
(05:40):
seeds because I do agree with you, you and I
are doing that where I think, like we're planting all
these seeds now in.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Hopes that those things will.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Grow so that when we are in our sixties maybe
we can go, oh, it's so nice to see that work.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I can sit back a little bit.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
But I also think, like people who are creatives at
their core, right, we never stop because we can't.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
We can't. And also, you know, I have dreams.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I definitely have dreams of you know, buying a like
an eight bedroom villa in Europe somewhere and making it
a like bed and breakfast and like my income coming from,
you know, like giving people a place to say, in
(06:38):
a beautiful setting. And my husband is this incredible cook,
and like he would make the meals and I would
do like.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Crafts with people, you know, or a garden. Like I
have those dreams.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
But then I go, Okay, concerns, how long do you
think that would make you feel good?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Would you get bored?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah? I don't know, And I guess we won't know
until we do it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, I think we need to try it. Let's just
open the boutique. But honestly, that sounds like a lot
of work running, owning and building another business. And yeah,
I mean when you really break it down, Yeah, I
have to talk to you about love story for a second,
(07:25):
because lady, you were so fucking good in that.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
So I'm really working on trying to accept compliments. It's
been a very big struggle of my whole life.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
But thank you.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
This is definitely a role that I did not see
it having such an impact on people, and as a
part of this show, because it's essentially on paper, it
was very part. But it was a character that you know,
(08:06):
really had so much to.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Tell, right mean, the you knew the levels, you know
that you were asked to play, and that you manage
so beautifully. It's just so much like she was so tough,
but she was so soft and she was so broken
and you know, just all of it. It was just
really incredible to watch and I loved seeing you rise,
(08:35):
you know, within that beautiful cast to the central part
of it.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, I mean, look, that show is based on the book,
and the book is Carolyn Bassett's story like point of view, right,
and the side that a lot of us weren't aware
of and didn't know about, the struggles and how hard
(09:01):
it was and how much it was destroying her, and
so giving a voice to that, not only for her,
but giving a voice to like her sister and her mother.
I knew it was really important, but I just I
(09:24):
didn't know how important it was going to be in
the final product of it.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
And yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
So glad it was. Wow, your part, that's as true
as it can get. You play in Messina Freeman, the
mother of Carolyn Beset Kennedy and her sister Lauren, who
was never talked about. But you bring that story to
(09:55):
the forefront of the whole story and I and you know,
it was BEAUTIFU done.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Thank you. I think.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
It was, you know, specifically after they're gone, you know,
the way that scene in episode nine was written for
specifically me and Grace to.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Do was.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Also like, I didn't change one word, you know, I
changed shit in my scripts all the time.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I'm constantly like, I don't know I would say that,
I don't know how to say that. Who talks that way?
And you're right and there was definitely.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Language in that scene that I was like, how are
we going to make this work? Because this is a
lot of stuff, and it just like it was so
weirdly magical in the moment.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
You feel it. You can feel it when you watch
that scene specifically, it's just there's something just like electric happening.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, Like we didn't rehearse that at all.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
That was just like that, you know, Anthony Hemingway, who's
the director of that episode, Like, you know, it was
like do you want to rehearse? You just want to
do it, And we were like, no, let's just do it.
And we wanted to start in our close ups. And
we started in our close ups. And but weirdly, I
always get nervous about like.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Emotion being done and like running out for.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
The second take and the third take.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah, never never ran out, never ran out of emotions
because it felt so personal and because I had lived
in that character for already, you know, a few episodes,
and I could make Sarah and Sydney who played Carolyn
(11:59):
and Lauren, and I could make them like the loss
of them right, which is so important. But I also think,
you know, going back to age and experience and you know,
I have talked a lot about that. I think it's
(12:19):
also this age that I'm at and that this character
was my age, and I added into that the layers
of what I feel as a woman at this age.
And she was that in the nineties, so like women
in their fifties and the nineties were definitely ignored. And
(12:42):
you know, I thought about that all the time when she.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Walked into a room, and.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I thought about how I felt hitting fifty five and
the differences of the way people reacted to me or
didn't react to me.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
And I gave that all to her. And I've never been.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Able to do that with a character before, because all
my characters have not had an age, right, They've never
They've just been like me, but like nobody would know
what age I was.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So you you, you continually pick roles that are tough ladies,
strong women, you know, really a point of view, and
I love that about your choices. Do you think you
consciously do that or these do these roles just kind
of present themselves to you at this point because you
(13:35):
do them so well, Like I mean, you started out
at Entourage, you know, playing the never seen before h
role of a studio head female studio head.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, I mean from there.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You just kind of kept going with those choices over
the course of your career.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Well, I give Dana Gordon on Entorage, you know, and
I give Doug Allen a lot credit for that because
it really was after that character that I then got
more of those characters.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Again, it's that if you can't see it, you can't
be it. It was like, all of a sudden, there
were these very strong female characters coming out of a
very male dominated show. So we stuck out and then
it was like, oh wow, those women are badass. Like
(14:29):
where do we put We should make more women like that, you.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
And so I mean, and then it just became that's
what I became, which was very weird because it's definitely
not how I've ever seen myself.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I mean, you don't see yourself as like this confident,
assertive woman because that's how I see you.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
No, but I have.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Known I have noticed, like you have this kind of
gooey that you can tap into your emotions real quick.
You cry a but I love it.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
I've been crying a lot more in my fifties than
ever before. Someone told me that it was a menopause symptom.
And I said, you can go fuck yourself, because I
was like, that's not fair. Like, how about when you
get here, you realize that being vulnerable is okay and
it's powerful, and it allows other women to see that
(15:24):
they can relate to you on a level that maybe
they didn't think they could because you seem confident and
strong when you walk into a room. But no, I
am like the most insecure nerdy. Like I don't know
how to say this without completely downgrading myself, but like,
I'm okay with not being the smartest person in the room.
(15:44):
You know, I'm I've always gotten by by making people laugh.
That's been my always my power, and so it is
very weird for me that I became these types of characters.
(16:07):
I was told in a reading, you like a spiritual
readwrit okay, And she said to me, it's no coincidence
that you have been playing these roles on screen.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I said, well, what do you mean, Like she's like, no,
you have just.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Been waiting to become that off screen, and now at
this point in your life, you are going to merge
and you are going to become the women you've played
on screen.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
And I was like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
It's like a lot to yeah, digest.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
But I said on a panel when I was talking about,
you know, being a part of now this whole midlife
movement and empowering women and changing the narrative around aging,
and I said, I feel like I'm in my quinn Era,
which is my character from Unreal And it was.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
The first time I like said that out loud.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
And so then like many months later for this woman
to say, oh, you're merging with your characters on screen,
I was like, oh.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Like bulb uh huh.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Wait what So that's why she was like, it's not
a coincidence, Like people will now listen to you or
take you more serious because you've played those women on television.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Isn't that wild? Do you think it was because you
didn't feel that way about yourself? Do you think that
playing these roles has given you that sort of like
freedom to walk in a room and own it or
do you think that has just come because of age
and in your evolution.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I think it's both both.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I do I think it's I think there is something
incredibly First, it's terrifying your fifties. Then it becomes like
really freeing and then it becomes like this fast warp
speed to make up for the years when you were
(18:19):
afraid of it. Like that's the way I've kind of
seen it, and I was like, oh my god. My
first three years of my fifties was like I was
sitting here just dumbfounded every day like what what?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
What? What? I was just like every day I'm like,
what is? Who is? What is happening? Nobody's okay, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And so now I feel like, oh my god, I've
got to make up for those three years that I
was so confused and lost, and that then becomes that
hamster wheel of like come on, come on, come on,
plants all the seat seat seat seat spread and spread them.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Let's go, let's go. So yeah, I think it's been both.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Because when you were younger, did you have like a
deep need to please, like, because we both grew up,
I mean, we know each other, we've known each other
for a long time, and we've both been in the
industry for a really long time. Did you feel like
the needs for everyone to like you, whether you know
it as partners or people on set or the public.
Because I fell into that and it's really exhausting, you know,
(19:20):
and you kind of grow into yourself and realize that
being the good girl is overrated and it kind of
keeps you from developing into the woman that you are
meant to be.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Right, Yeah, I think people pleasing is definitely a youthful activity,
you know. I do think that that is the first
thing that starts to go away when you have given
yourself the permission to put yourself first. And a lot
of that doesn't come until if you happen to have
(19:57):
a family, that you realize the kids are okay on
their own. Right there, there's definitely that shift that happens,
and if you don't have a family, the shift still
happens because of the reaction of society to you and
(20:19):
about you and your age. So no matter what, the
shift happens, where all of a sudden you're like, I'm sorry,
why do I Why am I caring more about how
you feel about me? Shouldn't I be caring more about
how I feel about myself?
Speaker 2 (20:36):
And then react to how I will.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Even take your criticism or your you know what I mean? Like, So, yeah,
I do think the people pleasing shifts with age because
you're like, what do I need from you? Why am
I being nice to you? What's what is this about?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Right?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
It is so true because you and then that's just
it's the beauty of getting older and wiser and you know,
really being able to assess all of your life's experiences,
especially like if you have had kids and you you
kept them alive and you turn them out into the world,
like you're like, oh my god, whoof I mean, even
(21:18):
if it's if you're a dog mom or whatever, it
is that you feel like this like accomplishment, the sense
of pride in what you are capable of at a
certain point that you don't really feel until you get there.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, And I think like that thing that makes me
the most mad, which is definitely a learning curve, which
is what we talked about at the beginning, Like that
all the experience you've had, whether it's on screen, off screen,
at a desk, not at a desk wherever, that you
(21:55):
get here and it doesn't fucking help you. That has
been the hardest thing for me to even comprehend, like
what you're talking about, like do we ever get to relax?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Do we ever get to rest on our laurels? Do
we ever get to go.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
I've done a lot of stuff whether you've worked on yourself,
whether you've worked you know in the career that you've
chosen and you've succeeded. You get here and you're like, wait,
am I starting over?
Speaker 2 (22:31):
How am I starting over?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
When you know I've been doing this for so long
and yet now everyone looks at me like.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Huh, what do I do with you now? Right? And
like that's been for me the hardest thing.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
So I'm like, oh, I get it now why women
form production companies and start finding their own content and
start buying ips and because we don't want to wait
around anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
That's right. That's exactly the way I felt when I
turned fifty and like maybe like fifty one fifty two,
I started to be able to understand it and take
action because it was it was a lot to accept
and believe, you know, in yourself. But we all go
through that. Constance and I have been friends forever and
(23:21):
we are still learning from one another. I hope you
are too. We are going to continue this conversation. Part
two will come out soon.
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
to I Choose Me, the podcast about choices. Today we
celebrate the choices we cannot make until we are seasoned
and have some years of experience under our belts. I'm
(00:21):
sitting down with a woman I have admired for years.
She plays the kind of characters that make you lean in, powerful, sharp, unapologetic.
From the speakerphones of Entourage to her life changing role
in Love Story, Constance Zimmer brings an enviable, genuine fire
(00:43):
to our screens. I've known Constance since way back in
the day, and one of the things I love about
her is that she is the real deal on screen
and more importantly, off screen. Constance has been married since
twenty ten. She's a mom, and at fifty, she co
founded a media company and launched a podcast called Talk
(01:07):
fifty to Me. Because like me, she believes midlife is
not an ending, it's a fierce beginning. Please welcome Constance Zimmer. Okay,
did you ever think you'd be working this hard? No,
at the stage in your life?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
No?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
No, what did you think would be happening for you?
You're You celebrated your fiftieth birthday a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, I'm twenty twenty COVID.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Okay, so you're well into your fifties. Did you have
like a vision of what you think your life in
your fifties was going to be?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Like, Yeah, I thought it was going to be like
my forties, which was I was told that I wouldn't work,
and yet my forties were like my busiest time of
my career.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'm so far mad, so far.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Kind kind of words what I think it was like
for me when my fifthes youth birthday, when I had
this idea that I wanted to like, you know, rent
out like a small boutique hotel in Pump Springs with
like fifty of my friends, and and then COVID happened,
and I was like, oh, I should have taken that
birthday as like a like a hint that my fifties
(02:18):
were going to be fucked, because I feel like ever
since then, everything has been really hard warp speed, really hard,
and yet really slow. And then yes, then the warp
speed kicked into gear right, and then I was like,
how I'm back on the hamster wheel again?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Like, how did I get back hamster wheel? Right?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I've decided that you're you. You were named Constance because
you're constantly working. That's just the truth.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
You know, It's all perspective, perspective, perspective, right, because it's
just weird how like I've worked on things that have
like weirdly timed out that they've all come out on
top of each other, even though like I did.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Them so far apart. But nobody knows that.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Everybody just goes like, oh my gosh, she's on this
show and this show, and I'm like, well, I shot
that one a year ago and that one six months ago,
and they just happened to come out at the same time, right,
But yeah, no, I mean I think you know, I
did you read or listen to Barbar Streisand's book, No.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Book, I need to, Okay, I don't know if I
have six hundred pages in me, but I.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Mean I listened to it, and.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I after listening to it, I was like, oh, we
never stop as women, we never stop. And I looked
at how old she was, and I looked at some
of her most successful films and what she accomplished, and
it was all later in life, and it did not
matter that she had an oscar and Amis and like
(04:01):
it didn't matter. And I think when I listened to that,
I was like, Oh, Barbara streisand is still fucking fighting
to get her shit done, to be hired, to be
heard successful, yep.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
And I was like, oh, we never get to relax.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Oh yeah, I'm so sad right now because I feel
like what you're saying is one hundred percent true. But
when I mean, do you have in your mind like
at sixty, I want to be able?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
For me?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I always said my fifties are my building decade, because
you know, so much of my life has been decided
for me and all of that. But now I have
just this certain perspective that's like, I'm doing what I
want to do now. And then I I thought, maybe
at sixty I'll be able to chill out a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I mean, you know, because you know Heidi, who is
ten years older than me, right who you is?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Your co host?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yes, my co host on my podcast.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
You know she talks a lot about the difference is
that at least in the sixties, in your sixties, you
feel so good that you survived your fifties that there
is a little bit of a relief of what we're
talking about, right, like hopping back on the hamster wheel
and like proving, proving and reinventing and pivoting and planting
(05:40):
seeds because I do agree with you, you and I
are doing that where I think, like we're planting all
these seeds now in.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Hopes that those things will.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Grow so that when we are in our sixties maybe
we can go, oh, it's so nice to see that work.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I can sit back a little bit.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
But I also think, like people who are creatives at
their core, right, we never stop because we can't.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
We can't. And also, you know, I have dreams.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I definitely have dreams of you know, buying a like
an eight bedroom villa in Europe somewhere and making it
a like bed and breakfast and like my income coming from,
you know, like giving people a place to say, in
(06:38):
a beautiful setting. And my husband is this incredible cook,
and like he would make the meals and I would
do like.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Crafts with people, you know, or a garden. Like I
have those dreams.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
But then I go, Okay, concerns, how long do you
think that would make you feel good?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Would you get bored?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah? I don't know, And I guess we won't know
until we do it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, I think we need to try it. Let's just
open the boutique. But honestly, that sounds like a lot
of work running, owning and building another business. And yeah,
I mean when you really break it down, Yeah, I
have to talk to you about love story for a second,
(07:25):
because lady, you were so fucking good in that.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
So I'm really working on trying to accept compliments. It's
been a very big struggle of my whole life.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
But thank you.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
This is definitely a role that I did not see
it having such an impact on people, and as a
part of this show, because it's essentially on paper, it
was very part. But it was a character that you know,
(08:06):
really had so much to.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Tell, right mean, the you knew the levels, you know
that you were asked to play, and that you manage
so beautifully. It's just so much like she was so tough,
but she was so soft and she was so broken
and you know, just all of it. It was just
really incredible to watch and I loved seeing you rise,
(08:35):
you know, within that beautiful cast to the central part
of it.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, I mean, look, that show is based on the book,
and the book is Carolyn Bassett's story like point of view, right,
and the side that a lot of us weren't aware
of and didn't know about, the struggles and how hard
(09:01):
it was and how much it was destroying her, and
so giving a voice to that, not only for her,
but giving a voice to like her sister and her mother.
I knew it was really important, but I just I
(09:24):
didn't know how important it was going to be in
the final product of it.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
And yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
So glad it was. Wow, your part, that's as true
as it can get. You play in Messina Freeman, the
mother of Carolyn Beset Kennedy and her sister Lauren, who
was never talked about. But you bring that story to
(09:55):
the forefront of the whole story and I and you know,
it was BEAUTIFU done.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Thank you. I think.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
It was, you know, specifically after they're gone, you know,
the way that scene in episode nine was written for
specifically me and Grace to.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Do was.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Also like, I didn't change one word, you know, I
changed shit in my scripts all the time.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I'm constantly like, I don't know I would say that,
I don't know how to say that. Who talks that way?
And you're right and there was definitely.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Language in that scene that I was like, how are
we going to make this work? Because this is a
lot of stuff, and it just like it was so
weirdly magical in the moment.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
You feel it. You can feel it when you watch
that scene specifically, it's just there's something just like electric happening.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, Like we didn't rehearse that at all.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
That was just like that, you know, Anthony Hemingway, who's
the director of that episode, Like, you know, it was
like do you want to rehearse? You just want to
do it, And we were like, no, let's just do it.
And we wanted to start in our close ups. And
we started in our close ups. And but weirdly, I
always get nervous about like.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Emotion being done and like running out for.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
The second take and the third take.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah, never never ran out, never ran out of emotions
because it felt so personal and because I had lived
in that character for already, you know, a few episodes,
and I could make Sarah and Sydney who played Carolyn
(11:59):
and Lauren, and I could make them like the loss
of them right, which is so important. But I also think,
you know, going back to age and experience and you know,
I have talked a lot about that. I think it's
(12:19):
also this age that I'm at and that this character
was my age, and I added into that the layers
of what I feel as a woman at this age.
And she was that in the nineties, so like women
in their fifties and the nineties were definitely ignored. And
(12:42):
you know, I thought about that all the time when she.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Walked into a room, and.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I thought about how I felt hitting fifty five and
the differences of the way people reacted to me or
didn't react to me.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
And I gave that all to her. And I've never been.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Able to do that with a character before, because all
my characters have not had an age, right, They've never
They've just been like me, but like nobody would know
what age I was.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So you you, you continually pick roles that are tough ladies,
strong women, you know, really a point of view, and
I love that about your choices. Do you think you
consciously do that or these do these roles just kind
of present themselves to you at this point because you
(13:35):
do them so well, Like I mean, you started out
at Entourage, you know, playing the never seen before h
role of a studio head female studio head.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, I mean from there.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You just kind of kept going with those choices over
the course of your career.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Well, I give Dana Gordon on Entorage, you know, and
I give Doug Allen a lot credit for that because
it really was after that character that I then got
more of those characters.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Again, it's that if you can't see it, you can't
be it. It was like, all of a sudden, there
were these very strong female characters coming out of a
very male dominated show. So we stuck out and then
it was like, oh wow, those women are badass. Like
(14:29):
where do we put We should make more women like that, you.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
And so I mean, and then it just became that's
what I became, which was very weird because it's definitely
not how I've ever seen myself.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I mean, you don't see yourself as like this confident,
assertive woman because that's how I see you.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
No, but I have.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Known I have noticed, like you have this kind of
gooey that you can tap into your emotions real quick.
You cry a but I love it.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
I've been crying a lot more in my fifties than
ever before. Someone told me that it was a menopause symptom.
And I said, you can go fuck yourself, because I
was like, that's not fair. Like, how about when you
get here, you realize that being vulnerable is okay and
it's powerful, and it allows other women to see that
(15:24):
they can relate to you on a level that maybe
they didn't think they could because you seem confident and
strong when you walk into a room. But no, I
am like the most insecure nerdy. Like I don't know
how to say this without completely downgrading myself, but like,
I'm okay with not being the smartest person in the room.
(15:44):
You know, I'm I've always gotten by by making people laugh.
That's been my always my power, and so it is
very weird for me that I became these types of characters.
(16:07):
I was told in a reading, you like a spiritual
readwrit okay, And she said to me, it's no coincidence
that you have been playing these roles on screen.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I said, well, what do you mean, Like she's like, no,
you have just.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Been waiting to become that off screen, and now at
this point in your life, you are going to merge
and you are going to become the women you've played
on screen.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
And I was like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
It's like a lot to yeah, digest.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
But I said on a panel when I was talking about,
you know, being a part of now this whole midlife
movement and empowering women and changing the narrative around aging,
and I said, I feel like I'm in my quinn Era,
which is my character from Unreal And it was.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
The first time I like said that out loud.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
And so then like many months later for this woman
to say, oh, you're merging with your characters on screen,
I was like, oh.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Like bulb uh huh.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Wait what So that's why she was like, it's not
a coincidence, Like people will now listen to you or
take you more serious because you've played those women on television.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Isn't that wild? Do you think it was because you
didn't feel that way about yourself? Do you think that
playing these roles has given you that sort of like
freedom to walk in a room and own it or
do you think that has just come because of age
and in your evolution.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I think it's both both.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I do I think it's I think there is something
incredibly First, it's terrifying your fifties. Then it becomes like
really freeing and then it becomes like this fast warp
speed to make up for the years when you were
(18:19):
afraid of it. Like that's the way I've kind of
seen it, and I was like, oh my god. My
first three years of my fifties was like I was
sitting here just dumbfounded every day like what what?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
What? What? I was just like every day I'm like,
what is? Who is? What is happening? Nobody's okay, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And so now I feel like, oh my god, I've
got to make up for those three years that I
was so confused and lost, and that then becomes that
hamster wheel of like come on, come on, come on,
plants all the seat seat seat seat spread and spread them.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Let's go, let's go. So yeah, I think it's been both.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Because when you were younger, did you have like a
deep need to please, like, because we both grew up,
I mean, we know each other, we've known each other
for a long time, and we've both been in the
industry for a really long time. Did you feel like
the needs for everyone to like you, whether you know
it as partners or people on set or the public.
Because I fell into that and it's really exhausting, you know,
(19:20):
and you kind of grow into yourself and realize that
being the good girl is overrated and it kind of
keeps you from developing into the woman that you are
meant to be.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Right, Yeah, I think people pleasing is definitely a youthful activity,
you know. I do think that that is the first
thing that starts to go away when you have given
yourself the permission to put yourself first. And a lot
of that doesn't come until if you happen to have
(19:57):
a family, that you realize the kids are okay on
their own. Right there, there's definitely that shift that happens,
and if you don't have a family, the shift still
happens because of the reaction of society to you and
(20:19):
about you and your age. So no matter what, the
shift happens, where all of a sudden you're like, I'm sorry,
why do I Why am I caring more about how
you feel about me? Shouldn't I be caring more about
how I feel about myself?
Speaker 2 (20:36):
And then react to how I will.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Even take your criticism or your you know what I mean? Like, So, yeah,
I do think the people pleasing shifts with age because
you're like, what do I need from you? Why am
I being nice to you? What's what is this about?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Right?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
It is so true because you and then that's just
it's the beauty of getting older and wiser and you know,
really being able to assess all of your life's experiences,
especially like if you have had kids and you you
kept them alive and you turn them out into the world,
like you're like, oh my god, whoof I mean, even
(21:18):
if it's if you're a dog mom or whatever, it
is that you feel like this like accomplishment, the sense
of pride in what you are capable of at a
certain point that you don't really feel until you get there.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, And I think like that thing that makes me
the most mad, which is definitely a learning curve, which
is what we talked about at the beginning, Like that
all the experience you've had, whether it's on screen, off screen,
at a desk, not at a desk wherever, that you
(21:55):
get here and it doesn't fucking help you. That has
been the hardest thing for me to even comprehend, like
what you're talking about, like do we ever get to relax?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Do we ever get to rest on our laurels? Do
we ever get to go.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
I've done a lot of stuff whether you've worked on yourself,
whether you've worked you know in the career that you've
chosen and you've succeeded. You get here and you're like, wait,
am I starting over?
Speaker 2 (22:31):
How am I starting over?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
When you know I've been doing this for so long
and yet now everyone looks at me like.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Huh, what do I do with you now? Right? And
like that's been for me the hardest thing.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
So I'm like, oh, I get it now why women
form production companies and start finding their own content and
start buying ips and because we don't want to wait
around anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
That's right. That's exactly the way I felt when I
turned fifty and like maybe like fifty one fifty two,
I started to be able to understand it and take
action because it was it was a lot to accept
and believe, you know, in yourself. But we all go
through that. Constance and I have been friends forever and
(23:21):
we are still learning from one another. I hope you
are too. We are going to continue this conversation. Part
two will come out soon.
Host
Jennie Garth
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