Brooke Shields

On finding creative outlets and keeping your brand consistent

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Plan stalkers. Oh my god, I can't. Okay, So here's
the thing. We have to talk about plans. We have
to talk about plans and the difference between the people
who stalk you for plans and the people who don't
care about plans. And I'm sure that you both are
equally guilty. And this is sort of related to I

(00:33):
guess I could later do another rant on being a
good or bad friend, um and what the definition of
that is, but maybe we'll flow into that. Okay, So
I have a friend who for years, for decades, has
been a plan stalker. And what I mean is they
will say what are you doing? Are you around this weekend?
And then you say yes, And now you've entered the mafia. Yes,

(00:57):
I am okay. Do you want to do blah blah
blah on Saturday? Or do you want to go somewhere Friday?
Do you want to make plans? And it seems super loose,
it's not that locked in, it's just now whatever, maybe
we'll grab dinner. Now you've entered the second realm of
the mafia. And then the weekend comes and then it
comes closer and it still feels safe, and then you
say yes, okay, Saturday. Now we are cooking. Now, the

(01:21):
texts are flying in the phone calls, the text the details,
where what time, when are we going or coming? Are
we eating or nightting? Are we drinking? Are we doing
a drink before? Let's do this? Should we go to
that place? I like that place. I wanted to try
this place. I want the other place. I don't like
that place. I want to go back. Get me the
funk out of this plan now. I want out. Now.
I have panic attacks. Now, I have hives. I don't
want to be part of this. I don't know what

(01:41):
I signed up for. I didn't want this job. I
don't like it. I'm not gonna work. I'm not worthy,
I'm not good enough. I'm gonna cancel. I know I'm
gonna cancel that day. I have a fever, I have COVID,
I I am pregnant, I have twins. I can't do it.
I don't know. And then I start panicking on the
day of the plan because of the anxiety talking about
the plan that I start finding my I start digging

(02:03):
my way out of the hole. I just can't do it.
It's too much pressure. And so then that happens and
then I start to try to do it differently, and
I start to try Yeah, no, we're totally lose. I
just I don't like to make a lot of plans,
so like, I'm not a big planner, and my whole
life is planned within an inch of its life. So
let's just keep it. You have no problem, no problem.
But then somehow it starts keeping in. Okay, Hi, what's so,

(02:24):
what's the story for tonight? I'm like, Hi, I'm going
to get a restraining order. I need a t R oh,
and you need to stay fifteen feet away from your
telephone with my phone number in it. So I realized
this is me being insane also like or maybe solely
I can't explain it. So one night, and this happens
to certain people too. There's some people you know, you

(02:46):
make the plan and you've locked yourself in and you
don't know what you're doing. And that's the same type
of person that you have to make the plan with.
Otherwise there is no plan. So it's not like I
like the people and my world are people that it's
just like, you know, whatever, we'll talk that day, cool,
I'll check in with you, and I make that plan
so many times by the way, I'm nice, I'm free,
I'm a homebody, and I'm really really very close to agoraphobic.

(03:10):
Everybody that works with me or knows me, or has
lived with me, and even introverts says that I am
the single greatest home by the day I have ever encountered,
short of someone that's like in a straight jacket in
a padded cell. Like I seem social because I'm gregarious
and I'm sarcastic, and some find me humorous. But I
don't leave my house and I don't leave my pajamas
unless I'm being paid. I mean, except with the exception

(03:33):
of doing things to my daughter, but putting hair and
makeup on, that's like being paid. Okay, that's why I
was built for a podcast. So one night I was
going with Paul to work doesn't count if it's a
work plan. And I still try to get out of
all of those and make them shorter and make it
the window tighter, and stack it, stack it, stack it,

(03:54):
so I only have to work on that one day
and put it in this window. And I don't want
to breathe for one second or eater p I just
want to be done and then get to be free.
I'm not that person that wants to be busy. I'm
that person that wants to be free. I'm not that
person that wants to be working. I'm that person that
wants to be vacation and cocktailing what walking on the beach,
doing yoga, laughing and and buying things online. That's who

(04:14):
I really am. And pumpkin picking and jumping in the
ocean at all of that. But like this, I don't
count his work because this is me ranting, and I
do need a place to have an outlet. So I'm
going with Paul to go to something that Kelly RiPP
But invited me to. It was right when I had
done the today. Uh, Kelly and Ryan and um, they

(04:35):
invited me to something at Gelman's house, which is business
to me, and it's business meets pleasure and it means
it's a reason to get dressed and look cute and
see Kelly. But it's also slash business and it's also
slash obligation because you know, I'm kissing the ring of
Gelman who puts me on the show, and it's just
you're playing the whole game and you're running, you're knocking
out all of those pins one bowling ball because forty
five people that you won't see for two years will

(04:56):
be there that one day, and you are just stacking.
You just get in there. You're networking, you're having fun,
you're having a cocktail. You put on some lashes, you
wore a nice bag, you get a compliment on your shoes,
you someone took your picture, You did it all, mentioned
it all. So I say to my friend who I
had had a plan with on Friday night with her husband.
She says, you want to have plans Friday night. I said, well,
I yes, And then I said to her, I actually

(05:19):
got invited to something. I'm always honest, always straightforward. I
don't care what anyone thinks. I'm not a liar. I'm not.
I just tell the truth. I don't want to do this,
or I want to do it, or this is what's happening.
So I got invited by Kelly and Ryan to go
to Gellman's on Saturday, and I really want to go,
and I should go because it's good for me and
because I do their show and I never do anything,
and it gets whatever and it's blah blah blah things

(05:40):
I just told you. So I said, so we can't
go out Friday night. She goes, well, anyway, maybe it's
done early, and maybe you'll want to go to dinner
because we're just around. And I said, oh, okay, I
don't want to hold you up and make plan. We're
not making other plans. We won't make other plan if
you're done early, we'll be just around. We're not doing anything.
Quote unquote Okay, well then, but I'm not gonna make

(06:00):
a problem. I don't know. We could go out to
dinner with them after, they could ask us to dinner
after we would go, or who knows, or maybe we're
buzzed and I don't know. Okay, no worries. We're not
doing anything. Just you can call us at any point. Okay.
We're in the middle of the party and I decide,
let's be cool, let's be nice, let's do it. We're here,
we're ready, dressed, we already had a couple of cocktails.

(06:21):
Let's go be social. So I text my friend and said,
we can meet you for dinner. As Julia Roberts said
in Pretty Woman, Big mistake. Huge. Now we're at the party,
my phone starts blowing up, ringing, ringing. It's one my
fucking phone is ringing, Paul's pocket ringing. We're looking at

(06:42):
each other, We're talking to some We're talking to Noah,
who owns Marquee. Then we're talking at Tamin Hall. Then
we're talking at Kelly's husband. Then we're talking to um
Ali went Worth, George Stephanopolis's wife who I love and
like it's Gellman. His wife is great, like interesting people
like this is a whole party. So now my phone's
blowing up. His phone's blowing up. I'm in the moment,

(07:04):
we're having fun. I'm like, here we fucking go. The
mafia is calling. Now we have to go put a
hit out on someone. We are on time or always
on time. The reservation was at eight o'clock. Okay, it's
byably like thirty to eight or forty five minutes before whatever.
Then the text, the text blowing up, the text blowing up,
text blowing up. Now it's like eight o'clock and we're finally,

(07:26):
uh like five minutes away. There, we're gonna be five
minutes late, okay for this thing that started eight o'clock
fifty text. I pick up the phone, like, what what
we're with you? We're coming, We're on the way what
I don't know. It's not me, it's my husband, and
he wants to know where you are with the tables
and wherever. Please relax, get out, have sex, get a vibrator,

(07:46):
do something, run, have an orgasm, eat a chocolate sunday,
have a fucking cocktail, have a three way, do an orgy,
do something. Leave me the funk Alona, Mama, goddamn way.
I'm never making plans again. So that's a really good
friend of mine who I love. And I later said
to her, you gotta, you gotta, we gotta talk about

(08:11):
this like you gotta take it easy because you know
it was not me, it was my husband. It's blah
blah blah. Like no, there's been going on for decades.
You worry about the plan. You've gotta stop. And I
love you and you don't have to take my advice.
But I need to be loosey, goosey, Okay. I can't
have like this go on. And you know what, it's

(08:32):
never happened again. She is no longer a plan stalker.
I did a plan stalker in her invention and it worked.
More plans with her or no plans and actually knows
not to make plans. But by the way, as a result,
I made plans with her because I've been like, hey,
I want to do this. I want to come on
the boat. I want to go for a walk on it,
because now the news is off my neck. Thoughts. Do
any of you know any plan stalkers or equally as

(08:57):
offensive people like me who do not want to be
comm did to anything. My guest today's Brookshields, Mom, actress,
Broadway performer, and model. We cover everything from how her
parents kept her humble while she was a famous teen,

(09:18):
to take in control of her career and finances in
her twenties, and now how her relationship has changed with fame,
vanity and of course social media. We are talking about
why chasing relevance is so dangerous and the importance of
doing things for the joy of it. How are you

(09:41):
nice to see you? So nice to see you? So pretty? Oh?
Thank you? I got a glam squad. I did, I did?
I had to. Um, I needed my hair blown out
and done because we're flying to England tonight and um
we have to go to a wedding and so I
want to like head and just keep it there and

(10:05):
try to make it on. I'll put rollers on the plane. Yeah,
that would be very pretty well, thank you for doing this.
I'll start just by asking you, are you were famous
at a young age you sort of ever resentful of
that path being planned for you? You know, we often
say people who are you probably say about your kids,
they didn't choose this. They didn't ask for this life

(10:25):
or putting a mic on kids on reality shows, they
didn't ask for this. So you're literally the quintessential earliest
example of that that I can think of. So what
about that? Um? I never resented it because I didn't
know life without it. So and you know, it wasn't
It wasn't as if, oh, I wanted to be an
actress and then I became a famous actress and then

(10:46):
all of a sudden I lost my privacy. You know,
I basically never had privacy. You know, my my um
my first period was put on People magazine. You know that,
you know mean it was It was actually not correct
to which is interesting. That's what I was more mad about.
I was like, it wasn't even true. Um, But so

(11:08):
I I didn't have what I see in a lot
of um people who go from relative anonymity to fame.
You know, so I it didn't rob me in that way.
And the odd part about it was it was it
there was a part of it that grew with an

(11:28):
out of so it's I'd been modeling my whole life,
and then that grew into the eighties modeling, which then
grew into Calvin's and and and all that, so that
it did have sort of a path where you it's
not as much about fame as it is about um,

(11:49):
notoriety and success for something you're doing. So my opinion
was I was selling these genes and they made the
price and they made the sales go up, and that
gave me pride because I'd done my job. Or if
Blue Lagoon was a box office or something, I did
my job. I was a dutiful student, kid follower, rule follower,

(12:14):
and the rewards that I got work in the success
of what I was doing with a bunch of other people,
do you know what I mean? So it was like
that it always came before me. And in my private life,
my mom never let me um out of the house.
Now just kidding, UM, I should have not let her
out of the house. That that would have been a
better move. Um. My mom never let me move to California.

(12:37):
Get my high school equivalent C test. Um, you know,
go live the life and and just be an actress,
be a child actress, and that's all that I was
going to be. We stayed in New York City. I
we went to regular schools all through grade school, and
then I went to Dwight Englewood High School, and I
was surrounded by not one actress except for Laura Linney,

(12:59):
and we were in grade school together for three years.
But and we were very good friends still. Um, So
there was this, and then my father's life didn't acknowledge
anything that I did professionally. They never went to see
any of my movies. They only my dad and my
stepmom and my sisters only came to see me when

(13:22):
I was on Broadway, so thirty years, you know later.
So I grew up with this compartmentalized way of living
with my mom. It was bohemian in New York City,
and we were taking doing photo shoots and photographers lofts
and going to studio picked before and it was fabulous.
And my dad's house was dinner at a certain time,

(13:43):
kids in the kitchen, you know, adults have their cocktail hour.
And I am not famous. I am not recognized. I'm
not special. Do not do anything to bring attention to yourself. Interesting. Well,
I think the most interesting thing that you said to
me was that it didn't matter whether you were born
into academia or any other world. You created a path

(14:08):
and just had some sort of internal instinct or from
your parents to work hard, to understand the putting one
front in front of the other and shifting and pivoting.
Even at a young age, you were creating a success
in different arenas. One was modeling and selling the jeans,
another one was box office. And so that's true, it's
not it's all into And it also preceded me, do

(14:30):
you know what I mean? It gave me one layer
of separation from the craziness of it. I understand. But
we had to do it. You were the you were
the work. You were the worker. You were you were
the rainmaker. And being pretty does not make rain in
and of itself. It won't last. I mean, it can
do it for a minute, but it's a it's a

(14:50):
flash in the path. So I find that to be
to be um interesting. I know, yeah, exactly why I
always ridiculous. I mean, I have I a photo shoot
yesterday and you know, everybody's starting to get like, you know,
delirious at fourteenth hour, and I don't know how to
let that take over me. I just go harder, you know,

(15:12):
Yes I'll do I'll jump in the ocean at at
you know, eight o'clock at night and we'll get that picture.
And yes, I'll do that. And oh, yes, this hurts,
but it's okay. There's just a way of working and
a work ethic that I was so I prided myself
on because I got rewarded by it. I was approved of.
People liked me. You know, I gotta I got a

(15:34):
gold star. It stays with you. And it's interesting because
I always say, it's not about Instagram filters, it's not
about fame. You cannot be successful if you don't work hard.
So it's very comforting to entrepreneurs, butting entrepreneurs to say
to them, you can have all that other stuff and
that all is the frosting, but the cake is the
old school hard work ethic. And you've talked a lot
about your relationship with your mother, so I don't want

(15:54):
to drone on about that, but where do you think
that that drive came for her to want that for
you so young, Like, why did she want that for you?
Or was she wanting it for her? Did you think
this isn't for me, this is for you. No, we
were us against the world. We were the duo and
the team. And she was divorced when I was five
months old from my father said I don't you won't

(16:18):
have to pay anything, but put this kid through school.
That's all she wanted. They had a very amicable Neither
one of them ever said anything bad about the other person.
And I um, she was she was an alcoholic. That
was the toughest part of of living with her. But
she was very, very poor. She was from Yark, New Jersey.

(16:39):
She wanted to invent herself, otherwise she did not. She
wanted to get across that that water and and form
herself into an Upper East Side woman who wears pucci
and is cooft and beautiful and intelligent. And she had
street smart at the same time, and she would try
to make up for the fact that she didn't go

(17:01):
to college by knowing all the manners and knowing every
She did it. And she really did it. I mean
my dad, you know, fell fell for her. And she
was in the right place at the right time, and
and she was basically welcomed and you know this other
side of life, which was like the beach club or
famous places like that. And then here she has this baby, right,

(17:24):
and the baby is hers. It's unconditionally hers. You know,
her father died. Her mother was a horror of a
human being. The you know, she was basically rather estranged
as eventually from her siblings, and she was alone. And
you wouldn't really ever know anything really personal about my
mom if you really think about it. She never dive

(17:47):
al It turns out my mom alcoholic. My mom, I'm
your mother. Okay, so you were you must have been
a baby when you well, I'm yeah, no, I understand
a lot of that. Well. And so your father came
from uh means meaning that was a different world, Okay, Okay,

(18:07):
he was. He went to UM University of Pennsylvania. He
was Upper East side. His his father really never made
his own money, but his father always married really wealthy women.
Um and and so my father was in that world.
You know, he went to prep school and he was
groomed to, you know, marry a proctealer or somebody, you know,

(18:31):
and then of course he falls in love with Terry
from Newark, which it's not fitting into the plans. She
sort of cut cut him loose, um because she knew
he was gonna she was you can't fire me a
quick person. You know she would she would break her
own heart to spare herself from you breaking. I understand again,

(18:52):
I'm your mother. Okay, great, so so um, the question
is what is your relationship to money and success? What
is what is your perception of money and success? Do
you have noise about it? Do your how do you
how do you work that out with your kids? A
having money made it your own? How do it your
whole life? It sounds like because you started making Um,

(19:15):
I actually lost almost everything, not one but two times
because for as much as we made, it was different.
It was a different time. But my mom and I
just bought stuff. So you do this movie. We can
get a house in New Jersey. You do this. We
we can get a car, you do that, we can

(19:37):
get this. So it went into this pot and you know,
she was my manager but didn't take a salary. And
whatever we had was just you know, you could own
a tree. You can have a house in New Jersey
and have a tree. And she was all about property.
So at one point we had five properties and no capital. None.

(20:00):
She would she she was this mix of being totally
bad with money. As long as she could have something,
you know, she could have credit card dead and as
long as she could have the thing in her hand,
she would it was. It was working out for her,
and you know, I was watching this all start to
catch up to both of us. So I had to

(20:22):
legally and emotionally, which was the hardest part, separate from
her so that I could legally sell some of the
property so that we could become more liquid. And oh,
I was seven, I really was. Later I was seventeen
when I first started realizing that she would never really

(20:44):
talk about investments. We sort of had this person who
helped us and we would sign papers and that was it.
But there was no education. She didn't know. We were
flying by the seat of our pants. And then it
wasn't really until in my late twenties that I said
this is gonna I'm gonna be destroyed by this because
I'm gonna I'm starting to, you know, do an escafee

(21:06):
commercials in in France for a Japanese company, like and
I'm you know, and I'm doing stuff. That's so dis
ingenuous to who I wanted to know. It sounds like
you were disorganized. Disorganized, I didn't have an agent. We
just needed money. So if they're gonna offer you that thing.
In Japan, there was no through life. I understand that.

(21:27):
There wasn't a career, you know, there wasn't. I just
worked in this movie. You just want to here go
on the Broadway, that would be a good next move. No,
there was no structure. But we were living the highlife,
you know. I mean we had She bought us jewelry
and cars and houses and and we She gave everything
to people too. She was extremely generous. She was the

(21:49):
least cheap person that I had ever really come into
contact with, but the worst with money, which is probably fine. Well,
I say it's funny because is I say to people
this guy Breck said to me, you can make a
lifestyle out of a life, but you can't make a
life out of a lifestyle. And so many people listening

(22:11):
are probably working and making money and figure out which
way to go. That you said through line is very
interesting to me because that's like the centerpiece of knowing
what you're doing, and it could be in any career,
what is the brand? And the brand word brand is
over overused, but what is the theme? What are we doing?
What's the baseline, what's the hypothesis? So in any career
you have to sort of decide what you're doing and

(22:31):
it can change, but you have to have some sort
of mental map and chessboard that you're working with. So
it sounds like that's when you pull I didn't have that,
you know. And I and I said to my my
ex husband, my then husband, and I, you know I
we were, well, he wasn't a husband yet, but he said,
what do you want to do? And I said, well,
I want to be an actress. And it was sort

(22:52):
of like, well, then why are you putting your name
on hair dryers like and like Barbie dolls like this
that that isn't Yeah, I wasn't it, and so and
we really, you know, I didn't. There was damage that
was done too by that point, because nobody in the
industry knew what I was. Was I a model? Was

(23:13):
I serius actory? Well I was going to ask this question.
That was your lull. That was when you sort of
went away and we're more ambiguous in the world like
you were Brookshields as a kid, I'm fifty, were close
in age. I think I'm going to give up your age.
I don't know your age, but I'm fifty. But um,
I'm aware of you, like I'm you know what I mean,
I'm aware of that. I was like literally aware of
Studio fifty four and Calvin clein jeans and lived for

(23:35):
the Blue Lagoon. So I'm sort of there. So then
I remember in my mind that's why I was asking
about perception. You sort of I would never forget the
name Brookshields. You're very always relevant because you're just an icon.
But you did weren't around that much. You got married
to uh, the tennis player. And that's what I knew
in my life. I first started to not be around.
And when the real first kind of oh my god

(23:57):
moment was when I went to college, because I have assumed, yes,
I assumed, I would just continue to make movies during
the summer and I would go to college and then
I would come out even more of a an actress
and a person, and I could study in school and
I could and everybody would welcome me with open arms

(24:18):
because then I was an intelligent, educated actress. Well, I
certainly didn't want an educated actress in Hollywood. But in
those four years I had turned things down and people
weren't waiting for me. They weren't going to wait and
push the movie to the summer for me, you know.
And all of a sudden, I was, you know, gained weight,

(24:39):
and my hair was kind of weird, and I was
in that sort of awkward stage of trying to come
into my own just as a person, and it didn't
fit into Hollywood, and no one knew really what I was.
So I wasn't really and a model anymore because I wasn't.
I didn't look like one in the same way that

(25:00):
wanted me to be, and Hollywood or whatever didn't want it,
didn't know what to do with me because I was
so famous. Did that mean I wasn't an actress? So
by then I was so famous that I wouldn't even
get parts because you couldn't forget it was me. So
that's when I just started studying acting more and really
delving into that and sort of and that's when I

(25:21):
went on Broadway. And it was when I went on
Broadway then I realized, um that they gave me for
a place because I had a job for over six months,
and that's when I started systematically UM going through the
properties and try and legally kind of extricating myself from
my mother. How old do you then that was by
the time let's see, I got out in the eight seven,

(25:43):
it was really ninety three, nenty four. I because I
had then taken acting classes and I started saying no
to projects, which it had never occurred to me. If

(26:08):
you could just say it in a sentence, what is
your brand? Who are you too? To the world, I'm
on the one hand, America's sweetheart and on the other hand,
this larger than life type of UM, like an icon.
I vacillate between that because it's it's really hard to

(26:32):
know what my personal brand is because I crossed so
many lines, so and over generations. You know. Now kids
are coming up to me for Hannah Montana's Mom or
Nickelodeon or Jane the Virgin and their parents loved you know,
lu Laguan or whatever, and now they have these kids

(26:54):
and they feel comfortable with their kids seeing that in me,
so they bring their kids to see me on Broadway.
And so it's a I'm a very confused. It's very
confusing to put me in one one sort of place,
and that's caused me a lot of stress. But by
the same token, I have such a versatile career, including

(27:17):
writing books, in including the education that I got, including
Broadway and television and film and modeling. So it's this
not many people that I know across all those lines.
You seem to me like a strong, honest woman. You
seem like a power mom. To me, That's what I get.

(27:37):
But the through line is the right is the word though,
because that that word, that concept, that sort of um
a connection is what I started cultivating. So that even
though the medium may change, or the entrepreneurial part of
me or the literary part whatever, that is the piece

(27:59):
that I was beginning to develop for the first time
in my life when I went to college, when I
learned just how to think and theorize and um and
and sort of come up with what I thought my
hypotheses were, etcetera. I started for me as the through line,
so that it didn't I didn't work, I didn't I

(28:20):
didn't get freaked out by by this this No, I'm
me and I happened to be versatile and diverse and
I love learning new things, so it freed me up
from feeling that I had to be just one thing
or my brand was weak and it didn't mean anything.
Hard work is very important to you, but um is

(28:40):
relevant important to you being relevant and being busy because
hard work is different. It could be quality versus quantity,
meaning do you look at the calendar and if there's
nothing going on and no one's asked you to do something,
do you get worried? Or that's not part of this
When I don't have time doing comedy and filming something
of a sudden like that bi atrophy. But it's about

(29:03):
the joy and the absolute meditative escape that I get
when I was doing my television show or when I
was doing comedy on Broadway. It's less about being relevant
and more because to me, chasing relevance is really dangerous
for me, and I don't want to have that like

(29:25):
hunger and oh I've gotta you know, Yeah, I'll do TikTok,
but I'm not doing it so I can get all
the followers in the same way and be just like
my kids. And I'm gonna be younger now and no
I can't because I've been relevant at every stage. Do
you know what I mean? In my own life. You
like the outlet. I relate to this because you need

(29:46):
And that's where I don't love quote unquote television because
of all the nonsense that comes with it, And I
don't love all kinds of television because it doesn't give
me that humorous outlet. And as much as I wouldn't
want to go back to the housewise because what I
believe represents now for women, I missed that ranting and
that that outlet. Yeah, just the creative outlet of being

(30:07):
able to be absurd and say absurd things and anything
you want about anybody. And that's why this particularly, I
love this because we're having a conversation and I am
very insular, so that's why I asked you that question. Also,
people crave people crave fame in that way where you know,
the clicking of the photographers and the yelling of your

(30:27):
name and the red carpets, and and that's sort of
the symbol of what this is. I dread that same
dread make up. I dready saying, by the way on
My life, despise despise. Yeah, I hate it. And because
all the time you're saying you have to get you
in the front row you've got and I'm like, how

(30:51):
is that going to get myself show produced? I'm like,
it has nothing to do with me. I'm in pajamas.
I like nice things fashion me because always the thing
that you're gonna go to that know us open, No,
this person's box. No, I'm the same. Yeah, I come from.
It's so funny. Oh wow. I did a movie in
over the Pandemic. Oddly enough, it was just such a gift.
I couldn't believe it. For two and a half months,

(31:12):
I was living in this bubble with the with the
crew and cast in Scotland and we managed to do
a rom com for Netflix. And can I tell you that,
aside from missing my children, I had a pep in
my step. I woke up every day. I was just
because I got to go home. And I grew up
on movie sets having those all inside jokes with the

(31:35):
gaffers and the grips and you know, having a transpoke guy.
If some somebody looked at me the wrong way, he'd say,
you want them to leave with a limp? You know me?
And it's it's like camp and you're doing something and
it's it's not heavy drama, you know. I don't enjoy
living in that space, so that it's always been I

(31:56):
don't crave being front center as me, I even as
a character, but not as me. I get it. And
well also it's the necessary evil to be able to
be you. You have you can't be and nobody and
maybe it just worse. So I'm saying, that's what you're saying,
and nobody. You're not complaining about fame. I'm not putting
you in that box. Nobody wants saying her famous people.
But I'm I get what you're saying, and so does

(32:17):
everybody else listening. I just didn't coveted you know what
I mean. I never coveted it. Maybe it's because I
it was sort of always I was always infamous. I
was always controversial, do you know what I mean? Fame
and infamy to me, we're sort of synonymous. And you
know that was I was like, uh, you know, people say, oh,
it's gonna go into the radar, and like, nothing I do,
no matter how much I wanted to, is not going

(32:39):
to go into the radar. So we have to be prepared.
You know, well, years ago, you used to your weight
used to be a conversation. You gained weight you lost weight,
and it seems that would seem to be a struggle
for any woman, particularly younger. And my question is, are
what's your relationship now with weight? But vanity looks be

(33:00):
being young instagram filtering selfies, this new world of everybody
our generation did not say, hey, look at me, I'm
taking a picture of myself in a bathing suit, Like
what the hell is that? And we all are doing
it because don't hate the player, hate the game. I
can promise you I hate all of it. I like
the humor. I know that you like TikTok as. I
bet you like the humor. But like, it's so counterintuitive

(33:23):
to be like, let me put the camera on myself
and take a picture of you to show you how
good I am, how rich I am, how my handbag,
my ass, my face, my what the fuck? So I
want to know what you think about all that, because
you grew up with other people taking your picture and
being famous, you know, in your Calvin's. But now you've
got to be part of this whole universe. You know

(33:43):
what I think it's how you approach it, because at
first I refused. I was just you know, I'm not
doing it. I don't get it. I don't want to
take a picture of my food. I don't need you
to know what I'm eating. I really don't, you know,
and I don't I you know, I don't. I feel
I don't get into the time that it takes, you know,

(34:04):
the rabbit hole of of all of this that you
get sucked into, or the time you know, I don't
know from filters or or stuff like that. But and
then you hate that you're doing it but then not
doing it right. You'd rather do it and know how
to do it or not do it. But if you're
not doing it, then you're not doing it and you're
not part of popular culture. And if you're doing it
and you're shitty at it, then you look like you

(34:25):
Then it's terrible. So it's like doing a bad movie.
It's like the work. I get it, but now I
will lose jobs. Two influencers that don't actresses, you know,
where my daughters will say, well, they're actresses. I'm like, really, uh,
what can I see something? And I'll be like, yeah,
you should look like their technic. I'm like that guy.

(34:46):
I think, right, all right, i'tally it's like weird, no,
but but but I don't. Um, I don't look down
on them. I just I'm in a different sort of
mindset about it. However, if I'm up for something, it's
a part of the conversation, how many followers do you have?
How many you have to get them up? You have

(35:07):
to get them up. And I thought, Wow, that's like
them saying you're not thin enough. You need to have
you lost weight. You can get this role. Now it's
the new you don't have enough followers. You're fine that
you you are heavier, because that's in, but not having
followers not in. I switched at one point because I
resented it. I hired people to help me understand, Oh,
it's National dog Day and put that on it. I

(35:30):
was like, God, I want to read my book on
my off time, and I wanna my children then, who
are probably on their computers anyway. Um So, but then
I started to have a again. I found the purpose
for it, meaning the career purpose fromout this film, show

(35:53):
the behind the scenes that you're comfortable with. Let people
in on the fantasy of your riding a horse and
over the beautiful countryside in Scotland and a gown, and
you know that the wish fulfillment piece. Um, I it's exhausting.
Though it's exhausting, but if you have the right to
have a team around you to help interface with it

(36:16):
and make sure you're not doing too much. Because when
I first started doing it, I was I would do
like twelve posts in it like two hours, and my
food is like this, and would I'd be like, I'm
done right and my daughter is like, no, it's and
I's like, please don't tell me, it's like this seventies
she said. It's kind of is. I said, I need
I need a buffer and I need someone to teach

(36:37):
me and tell me. And it became no sort of Um,
it cross pollinated, like you know, between pr and and
the movie or PR and the my own company which
I started. I understand it's more purposeful and you you're
organized again, you have a through line with it, you
have a relationship with it. First, is it being scattered?

(36:59):
What about the v nity piece. Here's what's hard is
that I was said to be a certain certain type
of face. I was a I was labeled beautiful. I
was a face of a decade, which I don't understand
who what committee decides that. But mus being God and

(37:19):
all the because it's very arbitrary and I feel um,
but I was that right. So just by virtue of
getting older, I am a disappointment, meaning I don't feel
this way. But if you're not careful, a SBBs T
is to see right, so you are. I'm letting people
down by not looking the way I did it when

(37:41):
I was fifteen. And a lot of the time people
will say to me, oh, you know, and you're still yeah,
but you're still okay. You're thinking, well, no, I'm actually
better now that I was, to be honest, So let's
start with that, and let's but the vanity piece of it.
I will fall pray to it as as he's a
But then I bring myself back to reality and I

(38:03):
and I say you can't be filtered and all of that. Listen.
I want to show a good angle and I'm going
to edit out a picture that that I don't think
is flattering to myself. But I'm not going to go
in and heavy handedly swooth everything and take away every
laugh line, not wrinkle laugh line, because that will just

(38:23):
make me feel worse about myself. Whereas if I'm just
who I am, someone who had postpartum, someone who struggled
with the insecurity for my own reasons. Someone who's never
been skinny, someone who now has a huge scar on
my leg, and it's all uneven and right. That's who
I really am. So I have to educate people and

(38:47):
educate myself as to what I want to accept. And
isn't that freeing? Though? Because I find I'm never wearing
I don't have makeup. This will be on social media
my own friends who aren't public people say to me,
how could you like post like this? You just do
not care my hair. I just don't care because I
find it liberating. I can't explain it. It's like, thank God,

(39:09):
there's no competing. You can't get there. You're not going
to get there. It's a bottomless pit. And what are
we gonna do? The gig is up, or the jig
is up, whatever it's called. The jig is something is up,
the jig the gig is up. I'm not twenty three,
you know, we're not bouncing quarters off my ass and
that's not happening. So I think it's sort of liberating.
But I get what you're saying. My vanity will will
be will come in the form of oh, I don't

(39:32):
feel like I'm in shape because I haven't worked out
in so long. Because so I'm gonna hit it a
little bit hard and that's gonna give me a little
like on my stomach. Were taught and oh I have
more energy. And so I always want to be my best.
Let's put it that way, like I always want to
be at least striving to be that be the best
that I can be within a limit to do. You know,

(39:54):
it's like I never knew how to relax, and when
I broke my femur, I mean I've had to do nothing, nothing,
no exercise for so long and that kind of I
would look at that as lazy idle um. You know,
I feel gross. I feel, you know, just like a sloth.
And I had to relearn about that too. I had

(40:17):
to forgive myself and say, you need time to heal.
And this looks like this, this is what healing looks like. Yeah,

(40:40):
so you've been open about depression. So when you're depressed,
because a lot of people have felt depressed, especially during
the pandemic, even if they don't suffer from clinical depression,
how does it affect other people thinking it's about them? Like,
how do you divide that and make people around you
realize it's literally it's not you, it's me, because I
would think that if you're depressed, or if you have hormones,

(41:02):
or if people are menopausal or whatever is going on
in their life other people like, or if people just
aren't happy on them on their own, you have to
deal with other people. So those people often think it's them,
And I want to know how you recognize and then
define and clarify that. Well, first of all, when that
kind of a reaction you're met with that kind of reaction,

(41:23):
inevitably it is about the other person. Because if you
are all of a sudden different than they know you
to be, positive, upbeat, generous, laughing, whatever the whole thing is,
you know, making people feel good about themselves, all of
a sudden you're struggling. Their world changes. Um kids, their
world gets threatened. If mom's crying, what does that mean

(41:45):
for them? You know, their whole sort of foundation from
the time they were a little you know you. I
always had to balance that, So I when't I was
crying once in the car and my and four year
old said, Mama crying, And I said, I was like,
oh God, do I say to her? No, I just
got something in my eye and your instincts are wrong.
Or do I say yes? And can you believe that

(42:06):
this happened? No, she's a child. What does she need
to know? She needs to know that I'm gonna be
okay and that she's gonna be okay. So I said, yeah,
mom's a little sad today, I'm gonna be okay. I
love you, you are so loved and you are very safe,
and she goes, I'm a crying and I was like,
that's it, that's all I can But it was really

(42:27):
interesting because I've learned at a young age that it's
always about the other person, you know. It's like and
people don't want change, they don't want growth. It's like,
it's why you lose people when you you become people
become sober, they all of a sudden friends of theirs
have to drop away because they don't know how to
relate to a sober person as that person sober so postpartum.

(42:51):
I took so much of the blame myself until I
learned what it was, and everybody else was just spiraling.
But they they didn't think it was about themselves. But
they thought that they had the answers, and most stop breastfeeding. Oh,
don't do that, or you're not getting enough slah, I
don't you know, do this and it's like, no, you

(43:12):
don't understand, you can't help me, and I I appreciate
you're not a knowledgeable advice is not with doctors, But
you know, I realized I had to become educated about
it myself so that a I could take the illness
off of myself, thinking I was just a terrible person
and made a huge mistake and played god because I

(43:33):
used id F and yeah, you just beat yourself up
and all these things and and so that was the
first piece, and then I had to have I had
to turn it around and have more empathy for the
people that were making it about themselves because they had
no idea what was going on, and they weren't feeling
the feelings. So I had to really gently tell them

(43:57):
that this really was something that I was going to
do my hardest to get through and passed, but that
it really wasn't anything that they could change, did wrong,
did differently, but that I would like it if we
all were able to learn about this together. And so
they became a little bit more knowledgeable and therefore more

(44:18):
empathetic instead of fearful and sort of self absorbed. Was
it everybody stronger as a result? It was your I
don't want I don't want to like to pry, you know,
so I did my toe in the pool. Yeah, well
it didn't really make us closer at first, because what
happened was I was so disassociated with the baby that
he swept in and he had this unbelievable bond with

(44:39):
the baby, and I was even more left out, in
my opinion, the more resentful, and I started resenting their
you know connection when all you want for your daughter
to get it, to be happy. But you know, I
was like, now I can't hand now really great, Well
aren't you guys happy, like get happy like? So? You know,
so I it did not make us closer at all.

(45:01):
And that's very male, that's very male with women. How
the women do? I mean just stereotypical, but you know,
the women want to do everything that the man comes
in and does, gives one lollipop. It one lollipop and
a whole life is made. Yeah, I get I get it. Sorry,
but then the you know, that was just it was

(45:22):
so isolating to me with regards to her. But then,
but the raising of children has brought us much closer
together because we're together in it, in that journey. And
if we ever start to part or and I say like,
I need you on my side with this, you can't.
You can't contradict me in front of them. You can't
give them permission to be disrespectful to me because you're

(45:43):
being disrespectful to me, and vice versa. So team you
have to be on the same pas to which is
not they, which isn't always they're only on their team
the kids exactly. Well, I guess that brings me to
something that's important. And I talked to very successful people
who are in relationships with other successful people and the
definition of success success I mean that both people are

(46:05):
successful in business in some regards. So what um what
I what are your experiences about successful relationships? It's how
long have you been married? We're in our twenty first year.
I've noticed that the willingness to like grow and change
is really important to talk about because, for instance, when

(46:26):
my when I met my husband, I was much more broken.
My father was sick, my show ended, my best friend
had died, and I had had a difficult physical diagnosis
and I was I was weak and here was this
strong pillar of strength person who was really funny very

(46:49):
much made me laugh and would um it's more taking
the piss out of someone because I'm so international. Um,
but he would make fun of me, you know. It
would be and were all really nerdy things that I
did do, but it wasn't nasty. It was funny and
it made me laugh at myself. And I love I

(47:09):
loved it because I thought, oh, he really knows me.
You know, she does get the highlighter out. She's gonna
need a red pen and a highlighter and like all
my little idiosyncratic stick things and I'm imitating me and
so and it worked because it endeared me to him
and to myself, and it helped me not take things

(47:29):
so seriously. And I loved that he had an inside
sort of way with me. Um. I never felt put down.
But then I started changing in my career and my
life and my motherhood, and I started saying, no, wait,
I have a different opinion. You know what I'm not.
I'm not don't lead with oh she burned the almonds

(47:53):
or burnt the walnuts or whatever. Let's not do that anymore,
because it actually doesn't fit for me anymore. And but
I'm not. But I'm not. It's not a bait and switch.
I'm not going to just switch it up on you
and then penalize you for it. W's gonna have to
be so I'm evolution asking you to be cognizant of that.
And he's come to me with certain things to be

(48:15):
cognizant of, and I remember it the next time. Or
he'll say, you know, I don't know why you, um,
why do you feel the need to talk about X?
And I'll say, oh, you know what, Actually that's a
part of self deprecation that I don't want to do anymore.
You know what. You're right, I'm not going to do
that anymore. And then if it comes up, then he

(48:38):
he's very receptive to um. You can't say something like
calm down, I'll just make his head and head explod.
You know, if you wait, you and you bring it
to him with a calm here's how I hear this.
Can we work on that? And it's tiring. It's like
it's because you generation shop. It's work. It work, it's workshop.

(49:03):
But it was I'm not the same as I was
when I married him, and if I if you expected
me to be, we probably would be divorced. You know.
We I get it, I really do. It's it's a
well put Paul will say to me once again, the
message is totally correct, But it's the messaging, you know, like,
and it's totally true if you say something in the
appropriate way, and it just takes two seconds of time

(49:25):
to say it right versus you know, and just saying
you me how I feel, versus saying you did or
you are you know, little tools like that. It's also
you know how I took him a long time too.
If I voiced discontent about that was being I was
unhappy about something, he would watch into trying to fix it,

(49:46):
fix it, fix it, and I finally had to say it, Look,
I sometimes just need you to hear me, just let
me vent. Like I'm not asking you to solve every problem.
But I did in the beginning. Do I like to
I look good in this thing? Did you do? Do
I do I like this food? You know? Which is
the way I used to be with my mother. You know,

(50:06):
People would say do you like like the food? And
I'd be like, I never thought consider it, you know,
And so there was a bit of that in our relationship, Babe,
you a little bit and then you grew up in
the relationship I wanted to not very comfortable being taken
care of for a little while. Are you competitive at all?
Because I'm busy and you have that because you're both
a very serious career, so I would imagine, and there's

(50:29):
not similar careers but not totally dissimilar. So is how
does that? Is there a struggle with that? Um No,
it's so different. And I champion his what he's doing
and his I've always wanted him to direct, and now
he's directing more so it's exciting, um and proud of him.
I will say it took me a long time to

(50:50):
get over um not or to to to not assume
that because he was my husband, that I could be
in every one of his movies. I just assumed that
I was, you know, his his mws, and that everybody
was gonna want me, and you know they didn't, you know,

(51:11):
so I've you know, that's hurt. It's you know, when
it was true. And finally I said to him one day,
I was like, oh my god, bab I'm so sorry.
I have been putting this on you quietly and overtly,
which is the worst. And I said, and I've been
I've been pining for it, and then I've been resenting you,
and I was like, there's enough work to go around.

(51:32):
I am fine, please take like, take me off the
list because it's you know, it's inevitably didn't work. And
I don't just because I didn't everybody. It wasn't owed
to me, you know, And you know, he wasn't the
type of he wasn't directing, but he wasn't the type
of director that was going to put his wife and everything.

(51:53):
He's going into those rooms, right, those producer rooms, and
the hearing he's hearing everything that networks say, he's hearing
everything that the executives say. It was so much better
for him to, in his mind and that way divorced
himself from me because it's so brutal, and he would
it's too much for him to have to take. I'm
not saying everything was nic You might not be the

(52:15):
best thing for the same very See, that's it took
me a while to get around to that, you know
what I mean. And that's just the truth. For whatever
they're looking for, I don't mean about and that is
and then you don't know whatever that every film has that.
And I didn't know that until I became a producer,
and you'd see someone with a lot of talent and
you think, oh, yeah, they're unfortunately their teachall. They're burnett,

(52:36):
they're blonde, they need to be a little like And
so once I sort of was on the other side
of that, once I started producing, then I started thinking,
oh my god, it's not personal, but they all have talent.
The assumption is if you're coming in on something or
they're looking there considering you, the assumption is you have
talent the way you wouldn't have been in that room.
So you know, that was a learning curve for me too.

(52:58):
But when I released him from did you write for me?
Did you write for me? Do you write anything for me?
And pick something for me? You know, I wasn't that bad,
but I'm sure he felt it like that. I just grew,
but just brought it broadened our horizon together. I cut
him loose, you know, from my insecurities and needs and

(53:20):
and then it also made me go, like self advocate brook,
you know, do you like your agents? Do not like
your agents? I've never even been with agencies before. It
was all my only my mother. That brings me to
I guess the last thing I wanted to ask you,
which was of your career, Not of your life, not
your kids, um or your marriage, but of your career,
your rose and your thorn, the high and the low.

(53:41):
My high was suddenly Susan, Absolutely suddenly Susan. I could
not wait to get to work every day. Um. And
I'd never been in sitcoms before, so it was it
was a lot of thinking on your feet, a lot
of re memorization and having to to pivot and really
and I love that type of um in the trenches
kind of a thing. And it was the first time

(54:03):
I ever really got to be funny and do it
and no and know that I'm good at it and
learning more all the time and finding finding my own
sense of humor and self and that type of actress
um thorn. I did a Broadway show, first time I

(54:25):
was going to originate it, and I should not have
been cast as the character. Um. My strength on Broadway
is doing all of it. Um well enough. You know,
I'm the whole package. I can dance enough, sing enough,
act enough, be the and then have the name whatever

(54:48):
they need for box office, right, So I'm the whole package.
Put me in a spotlight and have me sing opposite Jeno,
you know, not gonna happen. Like put me opposite the
best person in whatever Broadway show who's a real humver,
and that I'm not going to outdance that person. So
I got hired to this job, and it vocally wasn't

(55:12):
in my range. Um it was. It was just it
was doomed from the beginning. I broke my hand. It
was terrifying, and I worked so hard and I was
working against it wasn't it wasn't right for me. But
they wanted me to get the financing, and they wanted
my name to get the financing. And and then what

(55:34):
what then what started happening was I started getting criticized
for not being talented because I was out. You are
you were all of us put on the field in
the Super Bowl, and you're like, I tossed the ball around,
but I'm not, you know Tom Braid exactly and there
that sounds horrified, and it was, and and I mean

(55:54):
every sign in the world was put towards I tore
my calf muscle, I oake my hand completely through, but
I didn't want to quit. I didn't want to, and
this was my chance to originate a role. And I
and they kept saying, well, we're going to rewrite it.
So I kept thinking they were going to write it
for me, they knew what they wanted, and the you

(56:17):
know what I mean, they weren't and so and they
and I worked so hard. I worked. I was trained
every day and you know, definitely leap some bounds. But
when it got right down to the singleness of it,
I wasn't able to be It wasn't funny enough. I
didn't do any dancing in it. Well, the pressure too.
You can't work like that. You probably couldn't even be

(56:38):
free enough to be creative. And that's a good message
for people that it's good to challenge ourselves, but you
don't want to get too far over your skis because
if you do, you're lucky you were able to recover
from it could have affected your career very, very seriously,
because that stuff happens. You go into something and you're like,
I'll figure it out, and you, like I said, you
have to push it. Like in yoga, you want to
get a little bit stretched, but you don't want to

(56:59):
have you know, otherwise you're gonna hurt yourself. And that
happens in business too. If you go too far. It
doesn't know what happens. I mean, I could learn a
lot from you in business. But um I then I
said to everybody, UM, I don't want to. I should
not take this to Broadway because unless it changes, I will,

(57:19):
I will. It's like being in front of a firing squad.
I said, this is a this is a wrong of
the stake, career and a career destroyer. And they had
gotten the financing from my name attached, but then they
switched it around and they ended up, unbeknownst to me,
casting somebody else. And they were supposed to give me

(57:42):
right of refusal, and I was, you know, to go
to Broadway. I was supposed to say, do I want
to take it to Broadway or do not? So I
thought I was going to get a chance to actually
voice that. So I said it to my agents and stuff.
And they went in such a way and they hired
this other girl and they opened on Broadway while I
was doing Adam's Fanley on Broadway, and and they closed

(58:06):
in a week. What a that was a dodged bullet?
Wow Thorn that's like, actually, that's also a rose because
you got out of that. I mean, that's like a
roseann A Thorne wrapped in one because if you had
done it, that would have been brewed. But it wasn't. Unscared, No,
you know, the press was like, well, she's never been,
you know, a vocal powerhouse. Yeah, it just was. No.

(58:29):
I guess what I've never I never said all your
when you didn't do anything wrong, that's unbelievable. Well, and
when I do, if I do a cabaret show, it's
a show in its entirety. I'm not gonna stand in
front of a mic just like all right, And I
can't look at that as failure, you know, because guess what,

(58:53):
those people of the world couldn't sing and dance and
act in Wonderful Town on Broadway either not therefore take
you know, it's like, and I don't really believe in
knowing your lane. Well, we've learned more from our failures.
We learn more from our famires and our successes, for sure,
you know. So that what an amazing see I know
so much more about you now. I'm so thrilled. And

(59:14):
Jill was so excited for us to talk and I'm
just so excited that thank you, thank you, um, and
just to spend this time together and now we know
each other, I feel much better. And now when I
my launch my show by my my podcast, which I
will be doing, I'll come and we'll chat them again too.
I would love that. Okay, Well tell Chris I said hello,
loved your family and have an amazing day. Thank you too.

(59:43):
That was so lovely. Uh Brookshields was so wonderful to
talk to. Every guest is so different, and that was
more of a free flowing woman to woman conversation, really
getting inside who she is and her journey. I love
it so much. Her website is beginning is now and

(01:00:03):
we wish her the absolute best. That was a delight,
So thank you so much for all of your comments.
Remember to rate, review and subscribe. Loving all the comments,
loving the ratings, UM and we're doing really well thanks
to you, so I appreciate you.