The Mogul

Julie Anne and Arden interview Betsy Beers, aka Shonda Rhimes's producing partner - she is the executive producer of Grey's Anatomy, Bridgerton, Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder, Private Practice, Inventing Anna, and more. They chat about her New York Broadway inspired upbringing, how she went from performing to producing, her cult hit 200 Cigarettes, working with Julie Anne on Grey's and Bridgerton, her path to becoming one of the most powerful women in Hollywood, and so much more. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M hm, I'm mann. Hello, that's no need distress. She's
taking She's a lady. Oh hello, and welcome to another

(00:29):
episode of Lady of the Road. My name is Arden Marine,
coming to you from my bougie garage in Los Angeles, California,
along with my co host, Miss Julie Ann Robinson, and
we are so excited to have our guest today. I
think we admire this woman very much. And Julianne, would
you like to tell our listeners who we are going

(00:50):
to be chatting with today? I will. I'm so excited.
Betsy b S. You are a force of nature. I'm
sure a lot of people do view by now. We
met about fifteen years ago. I reckon when you plucked
me from obscurity in the UK and invited me to
direct Gray's Anatomy, even before Grey's Anatomy was Gray's Anatomy.

(01:15):
You're a powerhouse producer known for Scandal, Grey's Anatomy, How
to Get Away with Murder, Private Practice, The Catch, David
Station nineteen and now of course Bridgetin. And you've had
your own evening of television on Thursday nights on ABC
UM and all of this is with shonder Land. You
are the land of Shonderland. UM. I would also say

(01:36):
this is a little bit intimidating because I remember very
clearly that you were one of the first people to
use podcasts and social media, and this was your innovation
to promote the programming. I remember you were in Jack
Warner's office back in the day, and I remember coming
in one day and you were like, Oh, I've just
got to finish doing this podcast and then I could

(01:57):
talk to you. So that adds an extra layer of
anxiety into the conversation that we're about to have. UM.
I mean, this is all pretty well documented, but I
in this podcast, I'm interested in what the building blocks
were that went into building this powerhouse producer that we

(02:22):
see before us today. UM, how you were positioned perfectly
when the meeting was Shanda took place too with her
build the empire that is shander Land. Because it's like
that ten thou hours thing, There's a lot of work

(02:42):
goes into building and positioning a person so precisely that
they're able to, you know, then take off. UM. So
I'm super excited and thank you well. First of all,
thank you for that incredibly flattering and in ten Slee
wonderful introduction. And um, I'm also just gonna say to everybody,

(03:05):
one of the joys of this entire experience has been
when Julian Robinson came into my life about fifteen years
ago and knocked our socks off. Um And in a
typical Julian Robinson fashion, was very uh, sort of humble
about the entire thing, but came in as a incredibly
qualified and um celebrated director in England and simply killed it.

(03:32):
And then it started the long relationship with with you,
where not only have you directed on our shows, but
we've developed and produced shows together and you are a
fabulous pilot director. So um, I'm honored to be here.
And I'd also like to point out I had nothing
to do with social media. I hate tweeting, I'm terrible
at instagramming. You don't want to see what I look

(03:54):
like at home. But we did do podcasts in the
early days because it was one of the only ways
I could figure out a way to contribute something to
the social machine. So back in the olden days, we
did We did a pot Shanda podcast about Grey's Anatomy,
partially because it was an easy way for people to
get to hear Shanda's voice, so I asked her questions

(04:15):
and then it's sort of morphed into this Shonda Land revealed,
which was once again my lud eye way in those
days of contributing to social media. And now look at
y'all in your podcast universe and your boogie garage. Thank you.
This is uh, it's it's it's a pleasure. So yeah,

(04:38):
you just ask me, ask me anything, and I'll try
to tell you and make it vaguely interesting. Thank you,
thank you. I'm I'm interested in something that's not very
well documented. Um, so forgive me um baby Betsy, I'm
it's gonna be this on Fridays on CBS as well

(05:00):
as exactly exactly the most obnoxious child on the block exactly. Well,
it's interesting because I've I looked. I did a little
bit of digging as as much as I could, and
I found out that you went to two of the
most competitive UM educational institutions in the world. And so

(05:21):
there must have been an um an element of a
drive there from from early on UM to actually get
into those institutions, which were Milton Academy and Williams College.
And I was interested in even before that I hope
this is okay that I mentioned it. You're crazy your

(05:43):
Marie Claire kind of speech. You said that you had
a volatile, unpredictable mother and a dead father for most
of your childhood. That's pretty accurate. Yeah, And I wondered
whether that or there was if could you just talk
about uh, yeah, I think and I can certainly talk

(06:03):
about the lead up to the experiences at Milton and
williams Um. Yeah. So I grew up on Long Island.
My dad was a theatrical agent. He actually was a
talent agent, and he discovered a lot of talent in
the forties. He worked for William Morrison the old days,
and he also cast um live television for for some

(06:24):
of the folks who are listening in the olden days
in the very beginning of TV and the fifties and
sort of mid to late fifties, and there's in the
nineteen fifties, guys us suppose the eighteen fifties. Let's let's
not make me older than I actually am. But he
was responsible for casting a lot of the live television
theater that they used to do in those days, and

(06:44):
he discovered Grace Kelly. He worked with Jane Kelly. He
was involved with you know, John Frankenheimer and Ingrid Bergmann
and all these different people of that period. And by
the time I was born later, um he unfortunately all
this sort of TV business had moved to the West
Coast and he you could die, died in the World

(07:06):
New Yorker, refused to leave and ended up with a
I would say, a more quiet career as he got older.
And my mother was strangely a Latin and English teacher,
so they were a bit of an odd couple. Um
he did. He died when I just turned ten. And
my mother was a fierce smart, highly passionate, definitely volatile

(07:31):
um you know, with with a lot of her plate,
I think, but she also helped support us by teaching
at the local elementary school, which was a really excellent
private school on Long Island. So I was trained in
two things. Really, I was trained in theater because the

(07:52):
way I read. I learned how to read was on
his lap with these books that actually described every play
that upened on Broadway. And I learned how to read
by identifying actors that he'd represented. And then he turned
on the TV and I'd go, that's Burt Reynolds, and
that was sort of how I learned stuff. But then
the flip side was my mother was highly literate, um,

(08:16):
very book smart, uh, very very protective. She hated bullies,
she was she she her was in the right place.
But one of the huge priorities in our household was education,
without a doubt. So on one night hand I had
this very theatrical background where education was not a huge

(08:37):
part of my father's background, but he was self educated
and my mother, who was fiercely protective of our abilities
to get access to the best education that we could
get because in her opinion, it was a huge portion
of if you're well educated, you have the ability to
look at your options and understand what your choices are.
So long with the way of saying it was sorted

(08:59):
in my d n A too care about school and
love aspects of school, and it was certainly part of
the community that I grew up in and my my
elementary school experience. The expectation was that I would go
off to boarding school and you know that off to college.
So I'd like to take more credit for it, um,

(09:21):
But I think I was lucky in that I did
love aspects of school. But then we always picked schools
that had very strong drama programs and very strong arts programs.
And part of the reason I did go to melt
Academy was because they had one of the stronger arts
programs and it was it was required at Milton as
opposed to a lot of other schools of that that

(09:43):
ILK in that time. And then ended up going to
Williams specifically for their theater program and the educational aspect,
and honestly, truthfully, because they had this amazing year abroad
program and I knew I wanted to get the hell
out of Dodge, so I was really excited about the
opportunity to go to England, which I did for a year,

(10:04):
to study theater in English. So it was it's sort
of I don't think that was particularly imaginative about any
of it, but it was definitely. I'm very grateful that
I had both experiences, I think, and I'm very grateful
that I could have both experiences, both the theater side

(10:28):
and the academic side, which does sound a little schizophrenic,
but it ends up sort of coalescing in the job
that I have now. And one of the things I
always say to people is what's great about whatever you
do is somewhere along the line it'll end up being useful.
So it's you know, a lot of people say that
I wasted my time or did this or the other thing,

(10:49):
and I mean, alright, so my vague minor in medieval
German history, maybe I didn't come in all the time,
but there are aspects about it that I do still use,
at the very least to impress people who think I'm
stupid in meetings. So you do sound like organically perfectly.

(11:10):
It's like perfectly trained, just by naturally where you were
to be fantastic, get your job, and to be aware
that Hollywood was a career, that it was a viable career,
and then to apply the education to it. I was
telling Julianne before I came on. I also grew up
in a volatile house, and I also went to boarding school.
I went to Middlesex. Yeah, and I have to say,

(11:32):
and theater was not a priority there. But they had
a great physical space, and the upshot of that was
no one was interested in using it. So I would
write plays. You know, everyone was playing lacrosse and stuff,
and so I would just they had this beautiful theater,
and so I would just like write plays and stage
them there. But I did really relate to in the
Murray article you're love of television and that that was

(11:56):
a consistent pair all of that, and then the fun
of getting to leave and get out of that house
at fourteen was like such a gift for me. It
totally was, and I think for me, um one of
the things was when my father died. I mean before that,
when I was about five, I was like, I want
to be an actor. I had two choices, princess or actor.
I was like, and I was, and my mother kept

(12:19):
going like, Princess is a rough choice. I'm just getna
be honest, I'm not sure we can pull Princess off.
But in fairness to my mother too, I have to
say that they were always really supportive, despite the fact
that she was always wrestling with her own often wrestling
with her own demons. I think she very sort of
fiercely loving and really really wanted to make sure that

(12:39):
we all got to do what we really really wanted
to do, and that The funny thing is is, I
don't know if this is true for you too, but
I by the way, I'm just pointing at a screen
like an idiot. Because all anybody can do is here
my voice. But I'm pointing at a screen because, by
the way, your garage isn't boogie at all. It's really fabulous,
thank you, it's actually sound. For this is fabric. I

(13:01):
put some my god, I love design, I love to fabulous.
Thank you. But I tryed to be an actor for years,
and it's you know, I feel like I was able
to continue those studies and then moved to New York
and attempt to be an actor and realized I wasn't

(13:22):
a very good actor and went into comedy where it
was a lot more of a natural fit. But you
it is interesting how you end up. You know, all
those years acting have given me a gigantic sympathy for
actors and makes me basically love actors and the profession
and was sort of my introduction into you know what

(13:46):
you're describing, which is you were actually able to find
your space at school at Middlesex and use that area
for your own purposes, which got you interested in writing.
I think when I was doing comedy, I got really
interested in the idea of producing. Because we didn't have
any producers. We didn't know what that was. But I

(14:06):
was sort of the person who was like organizing things
and putting things together and trying to figure out ways
to work things out. So I look back and I think, oh, yeah,
I kind of, despite my best intentions, gave myself the
best training for what I ended up doing, if that
makes sense. And you mentioned that your mom was keen

(14:29):
to make sure that you all did what you wanted
to do in life. How many how many of you
were there in the house. There were three of us,
but I was the youngest. I was definitely a big,
big ups baby. I believe I was like a miracle child,
because I still don't quite understand how that happened. But um,

(14:50):
I have two older sisters, and one of them, you know,
one of them I at the age, was such that
she left home at a particular place. She went away
to boarding school too. So there was a large part
of my childhood where both are a decent part where
both other sisters were off at school and I was

(15:11):
allowed at home with my mom um. But weirdly, my
middle sister she ended up going into later in her
you know, she went to school and lived London, and
I followed in her footsteps, loving London and loving England.
But she ended up moving out to She started in
New York working sort of in the business, and then

(15:34):
moving out to California and getting involved in producing and
ended up running uh, you know, mini series and movies
at a particular point for you know, one of the
largest organizations in l A. So she was she was
in that business too. Um And yeah, I think my
mom was always I don't think she had as many

(15:57):
choices as we potentially did, so I feel like she
she tried to really make sure that we felt like
we had choices. I mean, I have a lot of
sympathy for her now because she was an incredibly and
I probably wrote about this, but she was incredibly strong,
incredibly forceful force of nature. And if you're a teacher

(16:21):
in a elementary school and you're a woman and it's
the sixties and early seventies, that is not popular in
her you know, she didn't have the charming, adorable social
niceties of a lot of this incredibly kind of buttoned
down community. And I feel like she suffered a lot

(16:43):
for that, you know, because she I think she had
higher ambitions and I'm not sure she ever really got
to fulfill them. I don't know, if you have you
all have parents like that too. But yeah, I mean
my my my mom was really interesting. She was a
civil rights activist and she was one of the first

(17:05):
women to go to Africa as part of the Peace Corps.
She was like the first wave of people, and so
that's hence my weird multinational upbringing. So I feel like
she was maybe the first wave of people that actually
was able to just say to her family East Coast family, no,

(17:29):
I'm going to do this. You know, that's impressive. It
is impressive. My mom definitely wore the little white gloves
to work. She grew up in Douglaston, Long Island and
went to Bayside High Oh my god. Yeah, and it
was interesting. It was like Julianne's mom. I will say,
my mom always made me believe that I could do

(17:49):
anything I wanted to do. My father was very sexist,
and they married on a dare and they stayed married
for years. They stayed married for fifty years. And uh
so he was very much against me, and she was
very much like, no, go for it, you got it,
don't have a b plan. But I think but for herself,

(18:09):
you know, they moved to the small town and it
was basically you're a teacher, you're a real estate agent.
So she she sold houses till the day she died.
And but but she always and she she didn't think
she had a good you know, we didn't grow up
wealthy and Middlesex was expensive, and she thought that high
school was where people actually learn. And so she's like,
she would take out like a third mortgage, and she's

(18:31):
I'd rather run out of money for college. Who cares
about college? You can your brain can learn in high school.
I want to. I want you to be a smart
educated woman. And maybe you won't get a college degree
because you might not be able to afford it. But
she doubled down on high school because she thought that's
where because she didn't think she was so incredibly both

(18:51):
interesting and radical. I mean, you think about it, and look,
I totally identify with what you're saying, because we were
in this incredibly well off wasppe chunk of Long Island.
I loathed growing up and we were the we were
the poor kids. Yeah, so it was always that feeling
of being less than anyway. And you know, I'm gonna say,

(19:13):
thinking about it, if you go to a good enough
high school, or you have a good enough experience in
high school. I don't know what your experience was like.
But I loved high school. I loved school. I loved
it like I would have freaking lived there for the
rest of my life. That's what I was gonna That
was gonna be my next question. Actually, how did you
how how did you find boarding school? Loved it, like

(19:33):
go to college at fourteen because it's co eds, so fast,
it's so fun. I loved it, and it was awesome
for me. Um for me, it was the first time.
I mean I went to an elementary school. My mother
taught me. It was she taught Latin. It was not
a pleasant experience. She wasn't a very happy person at
that point. So not only was I sort of like

(19:57):
the poor awkward kid, it was an incredibly pop killer. Anyway.
I was a poor, awkward kid whose mom taught there.
So everybody kind of knew that you were poor an awkward,
and I felt incredibly like tied to that identity. And
you go into boarding school, it's like moving to California,
you know how California is like the wild West still
and you go I could change my name to trout

(20:19):
Fazi McMillan and nobody would be able to figure out
or they would care. They just go, hey, Truffaz, I
don't know who you were before. You're in California. Congratulations.
And that was like what boarding school was like for me.
A boarding school was like, wait a second, I can
develop a personality here, and it was like it was
really really liberating. And also it was such a freaking

(20:42):
good education that to your mom's point, and I'm pointing
at you now, nobody could see me, but I'm pointing
aggressively at the screen in an enthusiastic and passionate way.
I think the amazing thing was I really didn't like
college because I'd already done it. Yes, we did it.
I was ready to go. I was like, do I
have I already did it? Yeah? Now wait where did

(21:05):
you get to college? I didn't go to a great college.
I went to I went to an Okay college. I
went to Colorado College where they have the block plan.
It's one of ye. Because I felt like I had
already done I'd already done the East, I'd already done
small and so I thought I just wanted I wanted
to move to New York or l A. But I
was very young. I was seventeen and my mom was like, you,

(21:27):
you know, let's just but I didn't spend much time there.
I kept finding ways. I went to Chicago when I
was nineteen and did a year there. I did improv
Then I went to New York and worked at Conan.
I was just I was ready to go, but I didn't.
I didn't think I was safe in the world. And
again my mom was the one who she was working
extra hours. She was the one who took on debt
like she was the one. I think just because I

(21:48):
was too young, she didn't think I'd be safe to go.
I get that, I mean, I get it, but it's
it's so funny. I wish i'd talked to you. I
wish I could time traveled to future then back to
past because the I ended up going to Williams, partially
because it was in those days, which were paleolithic fear listeners.
Because I'm three hundred years old, it was like eighteen fifty.

(22:12):
It was pretty in time. But in those days it
was sort of like when you went to school, there
were like three or four or five or six schools.
Everybody just told you had to go to. And because
I was in boarding school on the East coast. Nobody
thought to suggest, oh, I don't know, like Northwestern or
Berkeley or you know, someplace that was interesting and had

(22:39):
a great theater department but was bigger. And the places
that I was choosing from were Princeton, Yale, Harvard, U,
Penn Wesley, and it was all kind of East Coast
e stuff. And I ended up going to Williams, partially
because I also sort of knew I had to be
on the East coast because my mom there. I just
felt like it was better or given a lot of circumstances.

(23:02):
And the minute I got there, I went, wait a second,
this is like a bad version of boarding school. Yeah,
because you had all these kids who have never been
let out of their houses before, and the first weekend, Julian,
you were like standing in the middle of the quad
with what I would say as a bunch of amateurs
all throwing up in the corner and trying to like

(23:22):
bang each other. And You're like, how did I go
back in time to like like I was more sophisticated
as a sophomore at boarding school? This is stupidity. I've
got a couple of questions coming out with that. One
is so you've described that you were being taught by
your mother, but your father was this empresario. Was there

(23:46):
a change in circumstance at a certain point. That's it's
interesting now, by the time I was born, he was
not in a money earning position, because being an agent
at William Morris in the olden days wasn't like being
an agent William Morris now your employee of the only
agency in town, yep. And basically you made a salary.
And then at a particular point when his work all

(24:07):
moved out of town, his job fell on hard times.
So to your point, and my mother, who I can't
remember when she said, I think she started teaching when
I was little, um is my memory. But and my
I would stay at home with my father, who would
babysitney as a tiny, tiny little kid, and my mother
would go to teach school. So we were never we

(24:29):
were never particularly well off regardless. But my mother really
wanted to move to this fancy community on Long Island.
My father would have been happy, I think years before,
just to stay in New York. But that was the
difference between the two of them. They didn't necessarily see
eye to eye In a lot of ways on that.
But so to answer your question, I always grew up

(24:49):
with those circumstances. I was lucky because his family actually
was well off, so in worst case scenarios and like
when I was able to go to good schools because
there was a way to potentially pay at least for education, um,
you know, which is sort of what we're talking about,

(25:11):
But yeah, it was. It's funny because we all think
about you're a big dude in the business. He was
an incredibly talented and smart and um talent friendly agent
who his his exactly. His goal was never to make

(25:32):
a lot of money. His goal was to make sure
the right person got the right part, or that he
would create an opportunity. And he's an artist exactly, and
he's an artist, and he's a self educated artist. So
I think a lot of it too had to do
with um. At the same time, he was doing all this,

(25:53):
and he saw every play that opened on Broadway from
ny to to the day he died from like literally
every single play. He never missed an opening of a
of a theatrical performance on Broadway, and it didn't matter
if it was it lasted a day or not, he
still saw it. Did you go to any of them
with him, did he? You know, It's one of the
saddest things for me is that I was super young

(26:15):
when he died, because my sisters did a lot. And
the other funny thing was my mother was lessened to
theater um but she loved musicals and my father freaking
hated musical like hated them. So he the joke was
he would go to musical and he just fall asleep.
He loved Thornton Welder. He left our town. He left

(26:38):
a bunch oftner place, but he also read voraciously and
wrote a journal about all the stuff that he read.
So I have more um connection in a weird way
as an adult with him now from some of those
pieces of information that I found. And also when I
first came out to Los Angeles, there were some folks
alive that had met him and known him, and so

(27:01):
one of them was this director John Frankenheimer, who a
lot of people don't know about now, but was a
very well known director in life television and then he
made a number of famous movies and was this kind
of crusty, saucy dude who I met in a meeting.
He realized who I was, and we went out a
bunch of times, and he told me stories about my dad,

(27:25):
and that was the some of the best kind of
background information I got about what kind of guy he
was and how he worked, and because I had to
kind of piece some of it together, and you know,
with my sister's stories and stuff, how old were you
when he passed away. I just turned ten, so I

(27:47):
was I was young. He sounds magical. I have to say,
he sounds he was. He was hysterical. He was. It
was like having a little kid in the house. Though
it was sort of like he he told toilet jokes
that he at one point he taught me how to
play shoot craps, but but he called it seven come eleven,

(28:07):
So I think my mother wouldn't know what was going,
but it was it was like it was like having
a kid in the house. You know. He was the
artful dodger, raised you the artful dodger. And then the
Latin teacher would come home. So it was it was
a little Scincy and Julianne contestify to I have both

(28:28):
in me because the Latin teacher sometimes I always wanted
to do like a a blog, which was like called
me and Latin teacher because the Latin teacher comes out. Sure.
On that note, On that note, we will go to
an at break guy, keep train moving, Latin Teachers Keeping

(28:48):
the Train movie, and we will we will come back,
and I'd like to talk to you a little bit
more about when we come back. About being a performer
in New York City. Oh, just gird your loins, babe,
we're back. Betsy. Could you tell us about billyforma in

(29:10):
New York City. So you're an actor and also you
moved then you moved into comedy. You mentioned it a
little bit earlier. What why, what happened? Why didn't you
stick with that particular route? Okay, well, I'm so, I'm
glad you asked this question. That was that was dripping
the sarcasm. So so okay. So I trained like my

(29:36):
from the age of five on. I knew I was
going to be an actor. I did summer stock, I
acted locally. I was in every play in high school.
The drama department and Williams decided I wasn't very talented,
so I didn't end up doing as much there. I
did a lot when I went to England for the
year abroad, but I knew that's what I wanted to do.
So can I just say, where did you go in England?

(29:58):
I'm fascinated? Okay, So they is this program called the
British and European Studies Group, and I went for about
a year and I studied at Rota and Central and
then I had a tutor from Cambridge from it was
Churchill and he was one of the heads of the
English department, and so I did both theater training there

(30:21):
and then I ended up, um you know, doing different
literature courses. And he was lovely. He took a shine
to me in terms of like we I did a
couple of courses with him, and then he became a
private tutor and I go up to Cambridge every week
and we talked about D. H. Lawrence. Actually, how was
that for a big load of pretentious to hope for

(30:43):
people that I don't know who to each? Lawrence says,
But I was. I was absolutely in heaven. And when
I graduated from Williams, I did the prerequisite summer stock
in New Jersey, having already done some earlier in my
college career, got to New York and started realizing that

(31:04):
I just I was not a good serious actor. I mean,
nobody took me seriously. Who was your like dream? Who
is a prototype that you like? Who did you sort
of look up to and want a career like? That's
such a good question. Um, okay, so this is the problem.
This should have told me something really earlier. So you
mentioned the fact that like I loved I love television.

(31:24):
I grew up with TV very often. I didn't know
when my bedtime was because things were relatively chaotic, so
I would know when to go to bed depending on
what was on TV. Right. Yeah, but so like my
role models were like Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett.
So yes, But why I thought I was going to
be Judy Dench, I don't know. I just I thought

(31:46):
that that's what being an actor was. And then I
just would never get any good parts, like nobody wanted me.
And plus I wasn't I wasn't meryles like, I wasn't
classically beautiful. I was kind of funny looking, and very
early on when I got to New York, I discovered this.
I can't remember. I think was like somebody that I
met discovered this improv troop downtown Robin Williams sit in

(32:13):
there briefly, like Bruce Willis trained there. They were a
hot mess. I mean it was like a hot mess,
and it was the early eighties in New York. But
I found out really quickly that I was really good
at thinking on my feet and I was actually and
I've done a certain amount of improv in high school
and college, but I never actually really done formats before.
And this particular group was very big on not doing

(32:35):
set formats. Second City Upgrade Citizens a lot of them
do sketches. We would always do no stuff and we'd
always make it up, which means the shows were kind
of sucky. But we learned a lot um and I
discovered that I was actually pretty good at it. I
was pretty good at coming up things really fast, and
then I did better when I didn't have prep time
because I didn't overthink everything. And Julian can probably testify

(32:58):
to the fact that I can. I can pull something
apart way too much just to really irritate people around myself.
So we don't haven't found that to be true, but
that's let's take it. That's lovely for you to say,
but I found it. I found it very liberating. And
the other thing was that it's all, if you don't listen,
you don't survive. So the key to surviving and doing improvisation,

(33:22):
and then we ended up doing sketch com meeting. I
ended up breaking off from that group and we formed
our own group two men and a woman, and I
started a smaller group. Um one of those people ended
up being like kind of a partner there, and then
my best friend, and then my future husband, and then

(33:44):
my ex husband and now still a really really close friend.
So we've had a credibly long relationship. But we we
ended up like building a lot of the shows ourselves.
And at a particular point, relatively early, I was waitressing
to pay the bills. The gentleman got me a job

(34:05):
as a waitress, and I still think everyone to this
day that I was waitress, as waitressing is the best
training ever for everything in the world. Ever. I cut
my thumb off when I was waitressing. That's not good
at the top of my thumb. Yeah, I cut off
because I was opening a bottle of wine like that,
you know, those pushed down and cuff and it was

(34:27):
really embarrassing. I was at the table. There's blood everywhere, oh, Julianne. Okay,
So I actually couldn't do that thing where you open
wine well at all. So at this one restaurant I
would go to and help out a friend, which was
a nicer restaurant than the restaur I worked at, I
would put the wine bottle between my legs and pull

(34:47):
and they would pay extra for me to come over
and open because they were like, Okay, I want to
see the lady put the bottle. This is like show.
So I had a a minor career as a as
a commercial actor. I didn't book a whole ton, but
what I booked was always whacking and crazy and funny,

(35:08):
and I was like the whacking next door neighbor. My
agent in New York and my partner was writing and
had written a bunch of really good spec scripts, so
he had representation in my New yorccagent said you should
got to l a because you can be a whacking
next door neighbor on the sitcom. So I was like, Okay.
My oldest sister, who I mentioned before, to whom I

(35:29):
was really close, had moved out here. I was working
in the business, and I thought, oh, this is great.
I'll be close to my sister Libby, and you know,
Peter and I will move out here and it's gonna
be great. And I got out and within about ten
seconds it was really clear nobody wanted me is a creaking,
whacking next door neighbor and sitcom because in those days,
whacking next door neighbors and sitcoms all look like Susan Summers, right,

(35:51):
and I looked like you're real next door neighbor. And
plus I just honestly, I wasn't that good. I didn't
audition well, and I found I started to and I
haven't really talked about this very much, but I started
to get real anxiety attacks about auditioning. I didn't I

(36:13):
just wasn't very confident. There was something about it where
I just didn't feel like I was always started second
guessing myself and I was super self conscious. And I
didn't like the camera. I liked live audiences, but something
about the camera I found really difficult. And there came

(36:33):
this point where in order to make money, I couldn't
get a job wateressing because you guys, in California in
the late eighties, you couldn't get a job at a
fine dining restaurant if you were a woman. They only
hired dudes. So a friend of a friend got me
a job reading scripts for freelance. Like they just said,

(36:54):
here right up coverage and for anybody who doesn't know
what that is, basically big studios and networks. What they
would do is they would have a bunch of books
that would come in, a bunch of scripts would come in.
They didn't have enough executives to read the scripts of
the books, so they would hire these outside people to
read and essentially write a book report and a summary
comments as to whether or not the thing was any good.

(37:16):
And here's where the English teacher and Latin teacher and
all the education came in. Because I had this baller education,
and I had studied film, and I had studied all
this other stuff, and so reading was like the easiest
thing in the world. And I discovered that I could
read the stuff and I could figure out ways of
fixing this stuff, and then I would send it back
in and as difficult as it had been being an actor,

(37:40):
within like three months, I was offered a full time
job at a studio. And then the first thing that
I recommended was this movie called I'm Going to Get
You Suka, which was which was Keena. It was during
a writer's strike back in those days in late eighties.
It was Keenan Ivory Layne's first movie. They didn't have
enough executive so they were like, well, why don't you

(38:01):
tag along? And I love that movie? And I was like,
why does everybody say, like, Hollywood so hard? This is
so easy? I stopped acting seconds later the studio shut down.
I lost my job and nothing for a year. But

(38:21):
I was really lucky because I had this sort of
like dark moment of the soul where I was sort
of like, I worked to be an actor for all
these years, but I always sort of thought that whatever
I did, I think would be really hard and really
painful and should be really hard and painful. And I
felt really weird that I found this thing that was
like I just really enjoyed and was interesting and engaging,

(38:45):
and the whole idea that I could help people articulate
what they want to do, what they wanted to see.
It was really fun because the focus didn't have to
be on me, but you could actually you could this
piece of you would be part of what you ended

(39:07):
up seeing in a weird way. Yeah, exactly. And on
that point again, you're Mary clare speech. I'm just fact
checking it for you now, you'll be pleased to hear
you say in it that everything you touched bombed when
it came to movies, the movies that you made. That's

(39:28):
so not true. I mean, look, two hundred cigarettes, let's
look at that was a bomb. It wasn't it was,
but it was a total freaking bomb. But it was
before it's time. It's really interesting because the movies that
you made have stood the test of time. Looking back,
you're like that, that's a damn good movie. And all

(39:50):
of those breakout performances at the comedy, the drama, that
mix the music. It's very familiar to me. The way
the pacing of it an also female director, excuse me,
female director, female line producer, female costume designer, female production designer,
female editor, female exactly like producer, producer. We only had

(40:14):
one dude, and that was the DP mm hmm. I
mean it was like it was all women, and I
looked at them. I can't even believe that it was well,
it was. You know, it's funny, it was cult hit.
It was a cult it is now and you know
it's funny is you can't get it anywhere because I
think there are music rights problems with Paramount. That's partially

(40:36):
my fault because I placed all the music. But but
it was the first thing I ever did. And I
look back on it and it it's more like a
TV series than it is like movie. It really reminds
me of what we do now. Yes, I but I
didn't realize that until I looked back and I went, okay,

(40:58):
And I I give so much credit to Reese Brayon Garcia,
who was the director. She was a casting director, she
got all that talent. She was amazing. I mean, I've
never seen Paul Rudd. I mean, Paul Rud was fantastic.
He was great, despite the Mutton shops he insisted. And
it was it was. It was a total trauma fire

(41:19):
because I never produced a movie before. And it was
Streets of New York. It was thirty five days. We
shot Nights Forever. We had an incredibly oppressive and terrifying
production company with a Harry Cone like boss at the
head of it. Was it the boss the I think,
I know, huh yes, probably probably um And it was

(41:45):
it was this amazing backpism by fire. But I look,
I learned a lot and I really enjoyed the process
and it just people didn't understand what was was Martha
Plimpton and that Martha Plimpton, Uh Bene lazy Atlin Courtney
love crazy. By the way, it's fantastic in it. She's

(42:05):
really good. She's a great actress. She was really she
was really good and she did a really, really good job.
Janine Garoffalo, there's a whole story behind that. She totally
build us out. Um. Dave Chappelle, Kay Hudson, Jay Moore,
what a cast and it was it was nuts. It
was a nuts thing to do, like your first time out.
But to that point, what's weird is honestly poor Mark Gordon,

(42:28):
because if I was really associated with the movie while
I worked with him, it was just prior to the
Shan relationship. Um, and during the Sean relationship, like that
company made like Day After Tomorrow, which I had that
much to do with, and Casanova, which I think is
a terrific movie, which I love and which I was
making the same time I was flying back to grade

(42:50):
season one, I was commuting from veniesettaily to California. How's
that for glamorous. I was a lithering, freaking idiot by
the time I would get a place. Um, But I
thought that was a beautiful movie and great, but the
timing was wrong, Like it was always the timing was wrong,
and it wasn't until I got to TV that I
caught up with my time. Like I felt like the

(43:12):
timing was right in a strange way. There was also
this really weird I'm talking a lot, but yeah, I
think that's what I'm supposed to do, right. So we
had this moment I was I was commuting back and
forth from uh, California to Venice, and I remember sitting
in Piazza's head Marco and the sun was rising and

(43:33):
we were waiting for the right light and I was
sitting there and my foot was twitching in my chair,
and I was reading through the next Grace's Anatomy script
that shan that's I mean, I think we're in like
episode two or three or something that's like that. And
I'm reading it and I'm looking around and I say
to somebody, I don't understand what this is taking so long,

(43:54):
And jokingly I turned I think to like Jeremy Irons,
and I said, you know, it's so funny, is if
I were back home right now, we would have already
done twenty setups, and he looked at me and he went, oh, Darling,
I think you probably like television. Oh wow. It was

(44:17):
something like that. It was probably wiser because it was
sucking Jeremy Iron So, Jeremy, thank you so much. I apologize,
Jeremy um, but I remember thinking, man, you're right, and
I still love movies and I'm still excited to make movies.
And Julianne and I've had this conversation which I think
there's something amazing about a close ended story. But there

(44:40):
was something at that point about the thing about series
was the endless possibility of where you could go and
the fact that like life, TV is about or screen
smaller screens are about, you know, stories about people could
don't change overnight. Yeah, you know, there's you don't have

(45:02):
to have an epiphany in a long running television series.
What you have is life, which is the slow growth
of realizing kind of who you are. M M. I loved.
I loved that aspect of it that you never knew.
I always sort of felt like if you read something
or you hear a pitch and you don't know how
it's going to end, that's a great show. I'm fascinated

(45:25):
listening to this whole journey, like just the pivoting that
you did, Like you I admire so much starting out
wanting to be a performer and then just trusting and
listening to your instincts about because I know so many
people who maniacally stick to their dream to the point
where it almost drives them into the ground, even though
when there's something else that's so much more expansive, like

(45:47):
that their life gets so limited when they have blinders on,
like no, it has to be this, and that it's
I almost think because I did improv like just listening
to you being willing to take the cues of the
universe and trust, like this feels good. What if it's okay,
if it's something other than what I thought it was
when I started out on this journey, and then even
pivoting from movies to TV. I've just been very present

(46:10):
for the ride and not not having to get ahead
of your own story and what you're doing, Like it's
it's inspiring to me to hear that, because I think
people can get very locked into things, that this is
the perfect moment to take another ad break. Oh look
at you doing that, You're sous prod. It's the perfect

(46:33):
time and when we come back, we are going to
talk about being a non writing executive producer. Oh yes,
and we're back. So Betsy, I'm intrigued. Two hundred Cigarettes.

(46:54):
There's a lot of Shonda in that movie, and there's
a lot of Shonda Land output in that movie in
terms of pacing, in terms of fun, in terms of drive.
So it makes me think that as the land, how
does that how does that look? How does that work? Question? Well,
first of all, this one I'm going to say about

(47:14):
being the land is I think in the olden days
I was the land nowadays, just so people understand, Shauna
Land is bigger than my land, like Shanahan is now podcasts,
it is now um a website, it is products and
it is so it's I'm I'm now a small piece
or I'm a section of the land, but it's the

(47:37):
land that you built, you know, it's it definitely is
you know, it's funny. You know, you would have to
ask Shanda, do you think that you're you know, there's
a lot of Shonda or you know Shauna's sort of
style in two cigarettes because I think I think I
think it's certainly in terms of pacing, in terms of comedy,
in terms of because this is the funny thing about

(47:58):
Shanda too, is everybody was six, but Shawnda is this
like drama writer, and Shanda wrote comedy like sure she
did introducing Dorothy Dandridge, but she also did you know,
Princess Diaries, and she the specs that I read, which
were the funniest things that I'd read, like initially when

(48:19):
I first met her. So yeah, there is a there
is a sort of if I think about probably what
she was doing it, she's definitely, you know, more than
ten years younger than I am, so she was at
a different stage when I was making that movie. Certainly,
But when you sort of think about we've talked about
that sort of trajectory of having a lot of light

(48:39):
stuff in your background. And also I think it also
for me is as a woman, I mean, you know this,
Julian is as a woman, people are way more comfortable
with you doing things that are funny, you know, not
necessarily threatening, and I think, especially at that point there

(49:00):
was it was Certainly it's certainly easier And I can't
speak for her, but for me, because I'd always use
comedy as away in the door, and also because I
laugh a lot, and I think a lot of stuff
is fuddy, it felt like a natural thing to be
able to to do. I think there is something about

(49:21):
sense of humor, but also the extremity of the emotional situation,
because there was something about the whole idea of how
horrible we all feel in New Year's Eve, and I
I think that there is a large portion of that
that incredibly tortured internal part of all of us, which

(49:42):
is I don't have a party to go to, I
don't have a date, but that it's as big as
a nuclear holocaust event, and there is there is a
certain amount of that humor. I think that does continue,
at least through the stuff that I continue to like,
you know, which is perspective is in the eye of
the beholder. Mm hmm. But watching people deal with crisis

(50:06):
in a different way, and what one person calls a
crisis another person calls a crisis is always is often entertaining.
We have basically in the last twenty minutes or so,
we've we've just got some questions on some advice, because
a lot of this show is about self help, and

(50:28):
I need a lot of self help all the time.
So one of the joys is being able to talk
to somebody like you and get some selfishly created this
so we can ask people who are on it tips.
Oh god, I want to host this thing too. Then
she's so good. It's Joan Jet had some great self
help yet, So I know you had a question on

(50:51):
do you want to ask you a question about Gray's
about pitching that in the room? I mean I still in,
you know, in did the likability factor like the late
and Likable ladies. You know. It was my writing partner
and I had a script that was getting funding for

(51:12):
a movie that was a woman. It was a dark
comedy about a woman who was in an unhappy marriage
and has an affair and bad things happen, and there
was a male investor. We have a sex scene where
she's having sex with her husband and his board and
his watching television and he was so upset by that.
And it's like, you know they have kids, they you know,

(51:33):
how bad Like he wanted an enthusiastic he wanted her
to be a better wife. The whole thing is. And
it's like my parents had kids and I never saw
them even shake hands. Like it doesn't mean that it's helpful.
No touching, there was no touching. No so no place.
I mean I never been saw in the same room.
Would you mind telling our listeners the you guys got

(51:55):
so much pushback pitching Grays and I was so wowed
by that you were in the room and one of
the gentlemen was judging Meredith Gray and the fact that
you had enough where with all to have your own back,
and and this gentleman was saying, if you wouldn't mind,
the story had knocked my socks off now. And what's

(52:17):
funny is it harkens back to earlier conversation, which is
their advantages to having the actor and the Latin teacher
because the Latin teacher is very impatient, yes, and the
actor enjoys the room, right or try strait or one stranger.
So yeah, So basically we had um. We shot the pilot.

(52:41):
I thinken just for people who don't know, the thing
about Grace Anatomy was every single step of the way
we almost didn't make. So Seanda did this incredible pitch.
We've developed the show. She did this incredible pitch. They
bought the pitch in the run, terrific. She wrote the pilot.
The pilot was what you saw. I mean, we found

(53:01):
an old version of the pilot recently. There were certain
things that were slightly different, but honestly, it was pretty
much what you saw. I watched it again last night.
It hold it's so great, it holds up, and it
was having a complicated female like, thank you for creating
this world. Once again. It was like it never occurred
to us that because this all sort of came out
of partially to this idea that neither of us saw

(53:23):
anything on television that looked like us, that sounded like us,
that acted like us. We're flawed, screwy, dark, competitive, and
there's no reason why you can't be friends or work
in an environment. And I was always friends with the
people that I worked with, and it didn't mean that
we weren't competing for projects. But I had my people's

(53:46):
back and they had my in was like you had
that's what you did. And she had a similar sort
of experience in her world. And so it was a
bit of an anomaly to begin with. And then basically
we're the last pilot to get picked up to shoot.
We were told that they were really sure they didn't
understand the tone of the show. So God bless this woman,

(54:08):
Susan Lyne, who was head of ABC at that time.
She was a co president, I think, with Lloyd Braun
and I remember Sean and I went in and we
were like, okay, we're just gonna sell them. So I
found this article in New York Times that had nothing
to do with our show, but it was all about
like women in the workplace in conflict and and she

(54:28):
we bought this whole sort of like this is why
this is relevant and it's an important time for people
to see women is doctor and what's the conflict of leaving?
How I mean, it was all freaking smoke in arras
and she was like, all right, last pilot to get
picked up to shoot in pilot terms. And Julianne can
understand this for all your listeners because she's genius at

(54:49):
this too. When you're the last person picked up, your
last pilot picked up, let's just say no, one's a villa.
There's there's it is. It is really like picking through
vegetables at the farmer's market at about two o'clock in
the afternoon. But we got really lucky. We had this
casting director Linda Lowe, who was willing to do it.
Who had never really done television before, but she was like,

(55:12):
I don't know, this is really kind of interesting. Yeah,
this is fun. And there's these two women and this
was fun. And we had Peter Horton, who was a
friend of Mark Gordon's whose company it was, and was
really really wanted to do with the pilot and loved
the pilot and was a passionate supporter of and was
the person I think who introduced us to Julianne Um,

(55:34):
who we were able to get us a director, but
was definitely an underdog because he wasn't one of three
people that everybody always hires to do pilots and casting.
We were really lucky because Ellen Pompeo had tested for
another show at ABC, and this genius executive who actually
introduced Sun in the originally Susanne pat War Gibbs, who
unfortunately passed away Um a few years ago. She saw

(55:58):
this audition and she said, you know, you really she
was at the studio at the time. She said, really
should look at her from Merative. She was great. Patrick
Dempsey was terrific. That was That was a whole process,
though it was like the whole thing, The whole thing
was a process we started filming and one of the
first notes we got was they they shot and I'm

(56:21):
making a face right now, like I just smelled poop.
He doesn't know what I'm doing with my face. And
we got to this like first day of shooting and
we shot the lock winded locker room scenes where they're
all meeting for the first time in sandros By the
locker room and Katie Igle comes in blah blah blah.
And the note was the executive was on sta on

(56:42):
set and he was like the hair and we said
what they said they had it's it's messy. Oh my god,
it's natural. And we were like, well there first day
doctor their doctors. He was like no, no, no, So
we had to omb their hair and eating it up
and they left and I was like, messr hairrop again,

(57:04):
like mess ther hair because it's ridiculous. And it was
sort of like that each step of the way. We
finally got picked up last show to get picked up,
had to pitch the whole thing all over again sort of.
And the meeting that you're talking to long would we
have getting to it immediate year describing we walked in
and I can't remember exactly which point of the food chain,
it was. But we were sitting in a room and

(57:25):
it was all men and the two of us, and
this one executive took it upon himself to say, two
year point, every woman's got to be likable in the world. Apparently,
apparently you only want to watch women if they're likable or,
by the way, side note, if they have a disability
which makes them sympathetic and explains why they're being Oh,
I don't know, crusty or slightly impatient. So in this

(57:48):
particular case, he said, I don't know. I just I
find this kind of repulsive. I mean, you have a
lead character, a woman that I'm supposed to like, who
the night before her first day at work working at
this hospital goes out, gets drunk and gets late and
has a one night stand. I mean, who would do that?

(58:11):
And I remember that, skipping a beat because it's true.
I said me, I did it, And I said, I
went out the night before my last job, got wasted, like,
fucked all night, and came back to work like I
went to work first day hungover like an animal. And

(58:34):
let me just say, probably was still drunk. So and
I remember it was some version of that. Probably simpler
and more elegant. But I remember Shan Sean always says
like that moment you want and you you're a keeper
like we this is this makes total sense because no

(58:56):
one could say anything because they couldn't look at me
and go like, you're let horror to my face. But
they were confronted with somebody who's saying, so, see that
was me, and you've been treating me like a normal executive.
But that was me. Ha ha. So it's and and
you know, all the way along, I always say that

(59:19):
I think I said this in this speech, which is
you're not a threat until you're somewhat successful, and then
once all of a sudden you gain a certain amount
of success and agency, that's when the knives come out.
What do you mean by that? I'm really interested in that, Betsy,
which the knives coming out. It's it's the it's the

(59:41):
fact that I think when when you don't have any
power for women, you know, you don't have as hard.
It's like navigating the world is not necessarily as hard
because nobody takes you that seriously. But as soon as
you actually have a certain amount of power or agency
or sway, that's when a lot of conflict gets thrown
in your face and how do you navigate that? This

(01:00:03):
is the self help put Yeah, yeah, I think. I
think it's not until you're challenged over things that you
know you shouldn't be challenged over that you you you
start to develop the wherewithal and the confidence to say no,
this is what I need and this is what more
importantly I want. Very often it's up to us to

(01:00:25):
forge that path and be able to identify the moment
where it happens. But I think very often when you
talk to other women who have gotten to a particular
place where nobody took them as seriously as they could
might have, and there's always an aha moment. For us,
it was a moment where we walked into a meeting
and we realized that there had been a pre meeting
before we got there, and they're all going to try

(01:00:46):
to convince us to do something. And that was my uhha,
that was my oh no, you don't. And let's just
say it didn't go well after that, because that's when
the mean Latin teacher comes out. And I encourage anybody
who's listening is if you honestly feel like you're not
getting your due, you will because you'll find the moment

(01:01:09):
where you can in the moment where you have the opportunity.
And they come in different ways, in shapes and sizes.
But the more you respect yourself and your output, the
less you will have tolerance for the people who are
trying to make your movement towards fully realizing what you
can do and the work that you want to do

(01:01:32):
them with. The more it's up to you to challenge that.
If that makes sense? Would you get nervous along the
way when you would speak up? What would you have
to have your I have this thing which is um yes, sometimes,
but I have to see it's the improv thing, which
is I think I read a room where I think
about a lot and I listen to what people are saying.
And then a lot of the way I operate or

(01:01:55):
I try to focus is I try to I try
to figure out how I can make the most effective message,
like how I can sell my point. And I'm gonna
quote a story from a long time ago. Uh, there's

(01:02:15):
there was a bodyguard who is describing his job. He
he was a bodyguard for a singer, and my friend
asked him, how do you do your job? Like, how
do you bodyguard this famous person. He said, It's very simple.
First you are nice, and then you are not nice.
And in my brain, I'm always started like first for me. First,

(01:02:37):
I will always get people to bet of the doubt.
I will listen, and then the impatience comes out in me,
and I can't control the impatience. So what happens is
when the in patience comes out, then there's a larger
force at work, which means in terms of thinking about it,
I'll think about it up to a point and then

(01:02:58):
my mouth first open and I say, oh, that was me,
you know, I got drunk and had a one night
stand and shut up at work the next day hungover.
That wasn't me thinking about it. That was me literally
saying oh, no, you don't, no, you no, you don't, No,
you don't Because I know I have right on my
side here. I admire that so much that I wish,

(01:03:20):
I wish I could do it all the time. I
love it. I loved it. But I have a question
about producing. What are the building blocks that you use
just in your head, just to go to building blocks
when you're thinking about putting together one of these. You know,
obviously mega hits after mega hits. What are the basic

(01:03:43):
principles that you go to? I gotta tell you, I
think it always starts with something really simple, which is,
do I want to watch this? H It's really simple.
It's just does this idea really intrigue me? Do I
know how this is going to end? Or what the
correct storytelling methodology is? I can't figure it out. Is

(01:04:08):
it something I've ever really seen before? Just like this?
Is it something I've done before? Is it something we've
done before? And you know, is it something just emotionally
unsummilable I relate to? And is there somewhere in it
an unresolvable conflict? I was just actually thinking as well
about the physical production side of it. So for example

(01:04:29):
with Bridget and you are very clear costumes, costumes, costumes, costumes,
And I just wondered if you have a different instinct
for each show or is it is it? Is it?
Is it is an instinctive thing? Or is it a
set of building blocks that you just have as go

(01:04:50):
to instinctively because of your background as a movie producer,
just where that comes from? I'm fast. I think I
think you know what it is? Is it's it's what
is the dominant what is the dominant thing that I'm
trying to convey or we're trying to pay in each show, right,
So with Britain, and we did it in a couple
of different ways. It was costumes for me and music

(01:05:12):
for me in some ways to music Chris Bowers by
the way, amazing, amazing composer, obsessed with that. But and
and Shonda was you know, super obviously involved in instrumental
in all this as well as too as well as Chris,
and then dews And and Julianne who like you know, hello,
directed the first episode and personally my favorite episode, episode six,

(01:05:35):
which my kids have never forgiven me full by the way, sex,
but also the emotional complexity then that that was such
a difficult episode in terms of calibrating the topic sentence
for us, I think, or at least for me going
in was okay, how do you actually make this people
be able to relate to what this is really about

(01:05:58):
in a way which doesn't take them out of the period,
but makes things just relatable enough that they feel like
they're going to make the connection. And the thing about
costumes is we didn't do a literal We we decided
very early on it wasn't gonna be a literal interpretation
of Regency England. It was going to be much like

(01:06:19):
the whole world was, and much like the whole idea was,
which is it's a reimagination of regency England, but it's
close enough that you don't go, oh, this is taking
me out of it because they're wearing you know, Fendi
and holding handbags. It's there. You have to look carefully,
and everything is just a little bit larger than life.

(01:06:40):
Everything is just more joyous and slightly and in the
case of the costumes, they hair and the make goes
all slightly larger than life and bigger, and the colors
were brighter. And with the music, it was the idea
of what if you had what if you actually played
songs people would recognize, but they wouldn't know they would
recognize it. So, very very early on, I remember that

(01:07:00):
there was this group that I used to really love
called Rodrigue and Gabriella, and they were these musicians who
are Mexican who used to perform. They couldn't get any work,
and they would go to resorts in Mexico and they
would play music that was the stuff they loved, like
they were hard rock people, but they loved you know,
Staroid Heaven, and they loved all these stuff and stuff,

(01:07:20):
and so they would play it in flamenco style and
nobody recognized, but it's what they liked, and they put
out a bunch of albums and relatively early on, I
remember talking to Alex Pots officer Genius music people and
I think Julianne and Chris and sort of saying, you know,
there's something about the idea of having music which is
sounds like it's from the period, but if you really

(01:07:42):
listen to it, it's not. It's it's a cover and
it's but that's all just you take It's once again,
it's about articulation. It's you take whatever the creator or
the overarching theme or base of the work is, and

(01:08:03):
then you try to figure out all these different ways
to reinforce and articulate what that is, so that no
matter where you turn, there's a consistency of what you're
trying to say. Something that I'm really interested in. I
heard this program about polyplattum on. I'm a huge polyplatic

(01:08:24):
in anyway. Yeah, and her daughter said that she felt
the polyplatt started getting marginalized when she got older in Hollywood,
and I would. I'm just fascinated by that, And I
wonder what your reaction is to that, because it's it's
definitely something. You know, when I came over, I was
this cute, young good than I actually was looking human,

(01:08:51):
and I I'm just fascinated by this particular question about Hollywood,
whether it actually is still that way or whether it's changed.
You know, it's so weird, is I don't. I have
a hard time answering it because I've been in the
same place for so long, and I've been working, you know,

(01:09:12):
with the same person who I adore for so long
and for whom my age I think has always been.
It's my age has been utilized for for good and
that I've seen a lot of stuff. I've done a
lot of stuff, and I am appreciated and supported for
that information that I have, you know. Having said that, though,

(01:09:35):
look I can't deny that. I think probably I'm very
fortunate because I'm in a position where I am valued
for that experience. I doubt that that is the case
most places. And I went through something a few years
ago where I remember I would never tell anybody how
old I was for years, because I, like you said, Julian,

(01:09:56):
like I, I looked younger than I was at that
particular point, and I really struggled with it. And it
wasn't it till I read an article that mentioned my
age and I think it was like TV Guide and
they were off. They had me younger about like seven
or eight years, and I thought, this is screwed up,

(01:10:19):
like there's something wrong about this, Like they had to
figure it out by going like doing bad math, and
clearly whoever the article is not very good at math,
because it's pretty easy to figure out if you really
want to do a deep die. But it was it
was but flattering, but it was It struck me as
a problem because I thought, here, I am somebody who
has been successfully making a living and doing what I

(01:10:40):
love and been successful at what I do, and I'm hiding.
If I'm hiding, what is that saying to women? And
what is that saying to people? Two men? I mean,
if I don't have the opportunity to be able to say, okay, guys,
I'm in my mid to late fifties and I can't
when I read I wrote this article for Polly Reporter
to think or something. But it was like I think

(01:11:01):
I was late fifties probably, and I remember writing this
up and saying, look, we all need to the more
people come out and say that this is what age
does to me, and I don't want to be actually
I don't my value and part of my value is
my age. And I love this. I think it's like

(01:11:22):
and don't you feel this way. It's like all your
experience and all the things you've done and the things
that and I do feel like it's something which is
it needs to be talked about more. Supple understand That's
why I'm trying. I totally agree with that. And like
you you do you look like your fourteen so it
must be hard, I know, But how is it being
a fourteen year old director? And I've done so much

(01:11:44):
in such a short amount of times and thousand hours
of life. I'm going to go into the last question
because I don't want to keep you any longer. But
this question is absolutely essential to the success of this podcast.
Um and it's a question that if asked everyone, it is,
what would you, Betsy Bs say now to the young

(01:12:07):
you in in that home in Long Island, maybe before
you went to boarding school, what advice would you give
that which which age young betsier we're talking about. You
can make your choice. You could say ten, you could
say seventeen, twenty two, whatever, what what favor age speaks

(01:12:28):
to you? Younger younger Betsy. You know, I would probably
give the advice to myself that I give when people
ask me for advice, which is a couple of things.
I would say, you don't have to pretend to know
what you're doing when you really don't know what you're doing.
Just admit you don't know what you're doing, and it's okay.

(01:12:48):
People won't hate you or judge you. They'll be happy
because people like to share what they know and help
other people learn things. But I also I do think
that at various points in my life I've been I
always struggle with am I good enough? Am I smart enough?
And I did I make the wrong decision? You know?

(01:13:11):
I think for me, there's a lot of I always
want to make sure you don't want to regret things,
and that that at crossroads or when you you know
it's the red shoes the blue shoes. You know, I
got the blue shoes, And did I really want the
red shoes? Should I have got in the red shoes,
I think the second guessing of myself. Probably at points
I think I would go back and probably say there

(01:13:34):
is no wrong decision. Just try to remember there's no
wrong decision because every single one of those decisions I made.
The red shoes, the blue shoes, you know, the ice
cream that I ate, the years as a waiter, the
crappy experiences on stage, the really terrible dinner theater, the
you know, weird jobs, and the the periods where it

(01:13:58):
was way harder doing what I was doing. All of
it has been useful. And the great thing is experience.
Every single one of those experiences will be useful and
you will find will help you, at some point navigate
your future. So if you always think when this is

(01:14:19):
your past, this will help navigate your future. So don't
regret the you know, the the road not taken because
you took a different one, and it'll it will have
as much value to you later on as anything you
thought you should have done. I think that's beautiful. It's
been such a joy speaking with you. I see somebody

(01:14:42):
who's been fully, seemingly fully present in their life and
sort of on this wonderful adventure, and just somebody who's
just appears to be on a daily basis showing up
a and just taking life on life's terms, but like
charting the seas and it's and I thank you you
know what, as a woman on earth, as a woman

(01:15:04):
in Hollywood, thank you and Shawonda and everything, just for
your for your um, for your changing the landscape of
what it can look like for for female leads, for
real people, all of it, for showing that women can
be all of it. I'd also like to say that
thank you very much for the kind words. Thank you
for the opportunity to glather like a maniac for plaster

(01:15:27):
an hour and a half. That's what the conversation I
wanted to have for fifteen years. It's right, had much
time in between shots too. Um. But also I want
to thank you because you are actually creating a platform
for women to discuss their experiences, to share the kinds
of journeys they've taken to do the work that they do.

(01:15:47):
And they're not very many platforms like this out there.
So the fact that you have created this, you know,
Julian and Arden, as a place for people to speak
blunt and joyfully and and hilariously about and profoundly in
some cases about the the paths that they've taken is

(01:16:12):
a real delight. So I'm honored that you asked me,
and I really really appreciate the time. Thank you so much.
It's about being vulnerable, listen, It's about being kind of
brave enough to be a bit vulnerable. That. Yeah, it's
something I find hot. Everybody does, but you've made it
very easy. Thank you. Thank you, Betsy Hue, Thank you, Betsy.
Be nice to meet Betsy. Thank you so much. Have

(01:16:36):
every day. Oh my goodness. For our listeners, how cool
was Betsy. Julianne, thank you for bringing us like bringing
us Betsy, bringing her into our universe. That was amazing.
Thank you to our listeners. You can email us at
Lady Road Podcast at gmail dot com and uh where
can people find you on Instagram? Miss Julianne at Julianne

(01:17:01):
Robinson director. I think that's right. It's you've been nailing
it lately. I have to say. I'm at Arta Marine
m y R. I n my book little Miss Little
Competent as about as out worldwide, and um we will
be back next time. Thank you so much for listening.
Take care, goodbye bye,