January 24, 2025 • 55 mins
Naomi Watts, celebrated actress pulls no punches in this raw and hilarious conversation with Katie. At 36, Naomi was blindsided by early menopause just as she dreamed of starting a family. The experience left her feeling isolated and under-informed—until she decided to change the narrative, which she writes about in her new book, Dare I Saw It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause. She’s hell bent on creating a community around women entering menopause, one where stigmas are smashed and stories are shared: everything from estrogen-patch removal mishaps to how to choose a doctor that’s right for you. If you’re ready for a refreshingly real take on menopause, Naomi Watts is here to deliver—she dares, and so should you.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question.
Hi everyone. Today we're diving into a topic that has
really only started to get the attention it deserves, menopause.
My guest is someone who's breaking the silence and changing
the conversation around it, the incredible Naomi Watts. You know
(00:27):
her as an award winning actress, but today she's here
as an author, sharing her deeply personal journey in her
incredibly candid, informative, and yes funny book Wait Till You
Hear about the night she was frantically trying to scrub
off her estrogen patch before getting to it, something I
could totally relate to. By the way, the book is
(00:49):
aptly called Dare I say it? Everything I wish I'd
known about menopause, because Naomi definitely goes there. She says
she wanted her book to feel like a cozy chat
with a girlfriend, despite the serious subject. She discovered she
was on the precipice of menopause at just thirty six,
the same time she wanted to start a family. She
(01:11):
felt devastated and alone, and was shocked by a sense
that doctors and even family members thought she should just
suffer through it. Naomi is now in a mission to educate, embrace,
and empower women, so their journey might be a little smoother.
I really had a good time talking to her. Here's
my conversation with Naomi Watts. Naomi, I had so much
(01:36):
fun reading your book. I felt like you and I
were spending a lot of time together, and I learned
a lot about you, a.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Lot, probably too much. No, Actually, I.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Really appreciated your candor and the fact that you were
so open, and also that you used so many experts
and gave so much valuable information. And this is something
I know that you've been thinking about for some time time.
But why did you decide? Damn it, I'm going to
write this book and I'm just going to lay it
(02:07):
out there.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah. Well, I'd been thinking about it, as many of us.
When we have ideas that we sit on them, we
think on them, we percolate on them, we fear them.
So it takes a process to get to that point
where you're ready. If you read the book, then you
will see that I am very I got there very
early and was very much alone and feeling scared and
(02:31):
didn't have a community. I was thirty six when I
was told I was about to go into menopause right
at the prespoe of wanting to start a family. So
that collision of two things creating a huge amount of fear,
just left me undone, frankly, and I needed a support
(02:52):
system and didn't have it. And I wished there was
a book that was a little bit more, you know,
where I could find support, I could find expert advice
and some fun along the way, as it isn't or
it doesn't have to be so doom and gloom, you know.
And I wanted to create a book that had not
(03:14):
just my story, but it was infused with other women's
stories with some humor, pain points their distress, my distress, despair,
as well as the facts as we know them of
the current place, speaking to fantastic doctors. Because there's a
lot of books out there now which are incredibly helpful,
(03:38):
but sometimes they can be too dense, you know, with
all just the facts, and so I wanted it to
feel like a cozy chat with my girlfriend, so that
I could say, hey, this is what worked for me,
this is what was awful, this was what was great,
this is what I've learned along the way, and I
(03:59):
can back it up up with this conversation with that
doctor and that doctor, and.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I think it really was effective because it was so
personal and yet also, as I mentioned, really informational, and
I think some of the struggles to understand women's bodies
is emblematic of a larger issue in the medical establishment.
In your intro, you quote doctor Cheryl Malone, a DC
(04:25):
based obgyn who I happen to know and we use
her in our newsletter frequently. She's wonderful and she's the
chief medical officer at Alloy Women's Health. She's one of
the leading menopause practitioners in the country. And you quote
her saying, I think one of the things that we
have got to understand, and study after study has substantiated this,
(04:47):
is that we have really normalized suffering as a part
of womanhood. We suffer from cramps, we suffer in childbirth,
we suffer from pre menstrual syndrome. These things that exclusively
affect women have been understudied across the board because the
expectation is that if women suffer, it is not deemed
(05:08):
worthy of redress. Women exaggerate, were hysterical, it's all in
your head. This unfortunate perception is still all too common
in medicine today. Women still feel they're not heard, they're
not seen, and they're not believed. And that's the problem there.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
You have it, I mean, yeah, we were told to
suffer through it. When I asked my mom why she
didn't tell me more about menopause, she said, I didn't
have these conversations with you because I never had them
with my mother, as if to say there was some
code of silence that was agreed upon generation by generation,
which is absurd. Why should we suck it up and suffer?
(05:46):
There's absolutely no reason when treatment is available, and the
same thing goes for I mean, I remember having my
first baby. I thought, no, I mustn't have an epidural.
I must suffer through this. Be a natural birth woman,
you know, And that's absurd. If you're feeling extreme pain,
(06:09):
why should you just because other women have said that's important,
or society has said you must be natural. If you
cannot do it, you should not feel bad about that.
And I think that's what doctor Charon Malone is speaking to.
We just said, okay, we should.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Suffer, and not only women have they traditionally not been
listened to. You know, the term hysterical, But the amount
of money spent on research is just absurd when you
compare male illnesses with women. Women for so long have
been just viewed as small men.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Until nineteen ninety three that we were even used in
clinical trials.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Which is insane. And I did a podcast with Susan Dominus,
a New York Times writer, in April twenty twenty three. Yes,
that was one of the most shame changing articles. It
was a cover story in the New York Times magazine
and it was really about the history of hormone replacement
therapy in Naomi. I lived through this because I was
covering that study to some degree, and it got completely
(07:17):
botched in the messaging. And it's probably a little too
complicated for us to go really go deep into it.
But let's just kind of give a refresher on what
happened to the Women's Health Initiative and why it was stopped.
And what I think about, Naomi is all those lost
(07:37):
years of research that could have helped develop certain therapies
for women, therapies that people like I could take, you know,
as somebody who has hormone receptor positive breast cancer but
was on the patch for many years loved it. I
can't tell you how much I miss estrogen, but it
was really misconstruction and mishandled by the NIH. Can we
(08:03):
kind of give a brief premer on it.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yes, So the study was stopped in two thousand and
two because they found that they thought there was a
discovery of breast cancer that was caused by HRT. They
created the study to see if heart disease was actually
going to be diminished.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
For women postman apostle women, primarily because they thought it
would be efficacious in reducing heart disease. And they showed
a very very very slight risk of breast cancer, and
they kind of gave this blanket statement or it was misconstrued,
and then it was in the media, got applified by
the media, basically scaring everyone away from hormone replacement.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And not just women who were taking it, doctors who
were subscribing it. Everyone literally flushed their horme bones down
the toilet and the media went berserk, and then doctors
to this day still hold on to that that discovery
that was unfounded that has now been pedled back on.
(09:14):
But people are just left with this enormous.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Fear right and there are I mean, in fairness, there
are some women who probably shouldn't take estuary.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Of course, it's and that's what I go in.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Therapy, right, who have a history of breast cancer, who
have had breast cancer, et cetera. But it just got
completely distorted in such a way that it not only
scared women, but it kind of stopped the research too.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Right, Yes, and then a whole generation of women went
untreated virtually. So what I wanted to do is in
the book is really go deep into that with doctors research.
And again I am not here on the soapbox saying
take HRT. What is safe for you? What is your
(10:01):
choice is up to you. But I encourage every woman
to make sure they ask their doctor for the full
spectrum of options, based on their medical history, based on
their symptoms, based on the risk benefit. And I don't
want them to have a doctor be in a situation
where the doctor is just plain gatekeeping, right, And I'm
(10:23):
not saying they shouldn't be kept from taking these drugs.
It's just the conversation, right, Everyone should be allowed to
have that conversation.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
One thing that you point out, which I think is
so important, which I mentioned, Naomi, is that estrogen is
this wonder hormone. I mean, it is really responsible for
I think in many ways, and you can correct me
if I'm wrong, but brain health, sexual health, skin health.
You know, I started doing HRT when I was anchoring
(10:56):
the CBS Evening News because I thought, I do not
want to have like the brain a senior moment when
I don't have it. By the way, when like somebody's
telling me the latest economic report and I'd be like, wait,
what on live television. I also did it because of bones,
and you know, in a vain way, I wanted my
(11:20):
skin to be good. And I think that people don't
appreciate what a key role estrogen plays because it also
is a hormone responsible for you feeling good. I sort
of got depressed when I went through menopause, and I
think it was because my estrogen was decreasing.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So there's still so much debate around it about the
benefits of estrogen. You know. It's it's so interesting because
we had that discovery and then the media and then
that's been pedaled back and doctors are getting riled up
about it, and then women are saying, yes, I've got
to have estrogen, And now there's been another you know
(12:03):
curve that has where doctors are saying, well, the benefits
are not what everyone is saying on social media.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Oh really. Well, I also think even thet.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I wrote the book, really you know, still debate to
this day.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
But I also think a lot of people who aren't
experts are offering opinions on social media.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's true. So you have to have to be really careful,
and you have to really do the research on your
own based on your medical history.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
And find a doctor who has time to talk to you,
the one you trust.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, and I feel for these doctors who you know,
they have their eight to ten minute session slots and
you know, three minutes of those you're getting undressed. And
you know, God forbid if you burst into tears because
you've been dealing with you know, struggles in your life as.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
You tell these very personal stories.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah. So it's it's it's really something to consider carefully
and with deep, deep research. But for me, I believe
my quality of life has improved. It's safe.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
For me.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I've trusted my doctors, I do my blood work, and
I'm all about bone health. For me, I'm pretty sure
it is keeping my bone strong.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And you're blonde and your petite, so you're at risk
for osteoporosis.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Absolutely, and it's in my family. So I have to
make sure that I you know, and a lot of that.
I have to protect my bones with exercise.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Right, I was going to say, come lift some weights
with I've just started.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I weigh that all the time as much as I can.
It's the most boring kind of workout.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
But it is put on some good music.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It can be music and have an entertaining you know,
gym buddy, Yeah, you know so. I mean I sometimes
do it at home with videos. I sometimes go to
the gym, but yeah, it's very important.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
It's hard for me just in the category is when
I was diagnosed with hormone receptor positive breast cancer. Unfortunately
it was early. Not only did they take me off
estrogen my patch, I missed my patch, but they also
put me on aromatase inhibitors, which basically get rid of
(14:19):
any sintella of estrogen I might have coursing through my veins.
So it's kind of hard because now I have to
really focus on other ways to compensate for a lack
of estrogen through exercise and supplements ET cetera.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And how do you feel.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I mean, you know, I'm making do I generally feel
pretty well? I take care of myself and.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Night sweats or any of that still or.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Not too much. I had night sweats, I never had
hot flashes. They sound miserable.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, I had, yeah, the worst night sweats And sometimes
still one might sneak up on me and a few
hot flashes. But yeah, the night sweats can lead. You know,
obviously a disturbed sleep can lead to all kinds of things, depression, anxiety,
(15:15):
that memory blip thing. And so many women talk about
how they can be in a meeting with filled with
men and talking and then suddenly they lose a word
and that causes real anxiety and then you lose your
focus in the meeting and it can be very you know,
you can just flood with shame, right and not be
(15:36):
able to explain it to your colleagues. Like so you know,
again going back to why I wrote the book was
to create not just education, but community. And you know,
we need.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
To support, right and like if that happens, and.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
In every place, not just at home or in our friendships,
our relationship, but in the workplace as well. This is
a very normal part of life, and we should have
support and compassion and empathy, and like we do when
our kids are going through puberty, which is a different
kind of hormonal disruption, but it's it's real, and you know,
(16:18):
we have empathy when a teenager slams the door in
our face, we understand where it's coming from. But when
a woman is going through menopause and her hormones are
plummeting and she's having angst or you know, my kids
get furious with me if I you know, forget what
I'm saying, or mom just focus, you know, and I
(16:41):
feel bad, but there's no I mean, I try to
make them understand it, but they haven't been there, have they.
So so yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
The community is important and also demanding more of our
healthcare system and the medical establishment that they need to
pay attention to this. If you want to get smarter
every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating
takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up
(17:13):
for our daily newsletter, wake Up Call by going to
Katiecuric dot com. One of the things I thought was
so important that you talk about in the book, Naomi,
is there's a whole panoply of symptoms that accompany both
(17:35):
perimenopause and menopause, and I think doctors often don't connect
the dots. For example, you talked about someone in the
book who had heart issues and she was afraid to drive,
and she had gone to the cardiologist. Can you tell
that story.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, that came from doctor Kelly Casperson, she was a
doctor as well. Yeah, and she was having hot palpitations,
which is a very common symptom. Again, I had that
too and didn't know, but I also had been diagnosed
with a heart murmur very long ago. But this woman
(18:12):
was literally at the point where she had to go
and get an EKG and they said, no, you're fine.
And then the doctor said, well, how about we test
your doctor her friend or doctor, doctor Keli Caspusen said
let's test your hormones, let's test your bloods, and sure enough,
she was in menopause. And she said, I'm pretty sure
(18:32):
that's what it is. And this is a woman who
was about to give up.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Driving, right because she was afraid that she would yeah,
some hard heart attack, yeah, driving her kids or something.
But I think that's also so illustrative of the fact
that even doctors don't study this. They spend very little
time in medical school studying it. So when these symptoms
are presented to medical professionals, they often.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Connecting the dots. I mean every time I do a movie,
I have to fill out a questionnaire, a medical questionnaire,
and it's like a hundred questions. I was ticking night
sweats for a good eight years and no one said, oh,
that could be you know, they were I even say
it in the book. There's one moment where they think
(19:18):
it could be TB tuberculosis because that's a symptom. No
one signaled it as that, and I was worried. I
was like, what about my night sweat? Oh, that's probably analogy.
Maybe you know I have some food or that extra
glass of wine or you know, again like oh it's
(19:40):
something I did. My fault, my fault, you know. And
skin was another big problem for me as an actor,
working under hot lights, lots of makeup day and day.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Out, because you have extremely dry skin. I have very
dry skin, irristraated. Do you get eczema?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I get roseatia? I used to and yeah, I was
really like having these moments where I was scratching off
my skin. It was red irritated. I didn't know what
was happening. I went to the dermatologist multiple times, got
ointment that was soothing for a minute, but then it
would recur. And I had no idea that that was
(20:18):
related to menophause, and the doctors neither.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Your story, Naomi, was particularly traumatic because, as you mentioned,
you learned you were going through menopause at thirty six,
and it coincided with you trying to have a family.
So that was sort of a double whammy for you,
wasn't It talked about that period of your life and
(20:44):
what you experience when you learn that.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, it was shocking and lonely and scary, and I
knew I really wanted to be a mother, and I
went into all kinds of panic. I it wasn't a
candidate for IVF. I tried clonid, I tried IUIS.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I felt so for you as you were talking about
this journey.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, and there was a lot of shame that came
up with it, like if I didn't have my fertility,
I didn't have my worth or something, which is absurd.
There are lots of ways to become a mother, but
I just was self loathing, flagellating all of it. I
felt terrible about myself and I felt like it was
(21:37):
me that had caused it. I had ruined my body.
It was really terrible. I eventually found this fantastic book
because I had what's called a high FSH level follicle
stimulating hormone, and this book became my savior. Again. Why
I wanted a book, you know, because I would read
(21:58):
that book secretly. I've tied that book.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
What was it called again?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
It was called Inconceivable by Julia Indichova, and she also
had a high f SH level and she went through
different ways of how to create a lower level. And
for whatever reason, whether it was the book, I also
was trying Chinese herbs. I went to China. There's a
(22:24):
funny story.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
With the translator and the doctor and.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
It happened to be filming there and I found my
way to a herbalist. So, you know, I don't ever
want to presume to, you know, push any of these
ideas on anyone. What works for you. I mean, if
I had been told just cut the toenails off the
off your dog and eat them, I would have. I
(22:49):
would have. I wanted a baby so badly and nothing
was working for me, and it created such depression in
me and a sense of failure. But it shouldn't have.
It shouldn't have.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
But I think also the one of the lessons is
that you had no idea that you had a finite
period of time. Yeah, and that might have changed some
of your choices if you had been aware that perimenopause
can start very early.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yes, exactly right. Yeah, I mean I think I knew
that fertility changes, it slows down at thirty five, but
I didn't know that, Yeah, perimenopause can be And by
the way, that word was not mentioned to me, which
feels like a much softer word. I did know. I
(23:45):
did remember that my mom had said she went into
early menopause at forty five, but I was still a
long way from that, right, And I also knew that
there were women around me in Hollywood and other places.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Sometimes, by the way, just parenthetically, I think that sort
of does a disservice because I think a lot of
times these women and I'm happy for them. I'm not
saying anything negative. I'm thrilled they're having children. But sometimes
I think people don't appreciate it's through IVF or you know,
(24:20):
other means, And I think that we have to be
more honest with young women about fertility declining as you
get older, you know, just so they can make decisions
if they want to freeze their eggs or whatever it is.
But I think there was a period of time people
had these unrealistic expectations that you could have babies well
(24:42):
into your forties, and it's often not very easy. I
know you talk about the Miscarriac rait for example.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yes, and also, by the way, I tried to freeze
my eggs in my early thirties, right when my career
started getting going, because I had a feeling that I
was going to have to work because another story I
mentioned in the book is because I came into it late,
at least with my launching, I was told to work, work, work,
because it'll all be dried up at forty, right, and
(25:12):
no pun intended. So I had my foot on the
gas and I thought, Okay, let me be productive or
proactive and go and talk to a doctor about freezing
my eggs. And again I was told, don't be silly,
you're way too young, that's fine, and it's not a
perfect science anyway, and I was sort of turned away.
(25:33):
And yeah, and then I came back at thirty six,
and it was it wasn't Those eggs weren't freezable. So
I just had to find a way to find my
last best possibility and there must have been just a
couple more eggs in there.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
And happily you did have two children, did I did,
And I know after a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
So that was a wonderful thing. But I think the
cautionary tale is really understand, right, understand your fertility, yeah,
and be realistic, I think, and.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
I think, yeah, I wanted to be honest about it
because to your point, yeah, there's a lot of these
women that are having and whatever way you want to
do it, that's fantastic, But being honest is helpful. I
think to the community around you.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
You have found love again, which is so nice. You
split with leav Shreiber, your partner and the father of
your kids. But you know, I know initially, and I
related to so much in your book, having lost my
husband and having to start dating again in my forties.
But at first you thought, I'm not interested in a
(26:51):
romantic partner. I'm just going to focus on my children
and my friends.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, and my work and your work.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
That was a lot, yes, yeah, and of what changed
your mind or did events just take over?
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yes, I had my head down and wanted to just
focus on all of that. And it was the last
thing I was expecting. But a friendship created in the
workplace and then we just yeah, I was very surprised
by it. But we moved so so slowly, really, I mean,
(27:28):
people didn't know we were dating for quite a while.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Why don't we name the man in question to whom
you're married.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Now I'm married to him, it might be the world.
I was working on a show with him, Billy Crudep
and the show was called Gipsy. And yes, we formed
a great working relationship which led to a great friendship
and now a good, wonderful marriage.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
That's so, that's so great. And I know that you
talk in the book about sort of different needs that
you you have at different ages and different things that
you may be looking for, which I think is also
really helpful to people, because I think it's very difficult
for women, I think, to jump back into the dating
pool these days, and it's quite scary and different with
(28:19):
you know, apps and all that stuff. And what advice
would you give to women who would like to find
a partner. I feel very lucky that I found a
partner and remarried at fifty seven for crying out loud,
and you know, we've got married for ten years. Yeah.
And I always say, just get out there and meet
(28:41):
people and don't necessarily think of it as finding prince charming.
But you know, basing a relationship, I think on friendship
is really important. Companionship similar values. Is that what you
basically say to your friends who say, does Billy have
a brother? Because I get that a lot about the
(29:02):
way is he single? He is? Is he good?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
He's great? Okay, So I think the thing about and
I and I'm always reluctant to go to deep on
my personal stuff with my relationship, but yeah, we have
both been through some things, I mean, as you would
(29:26):
have it in your late forties, which is when we met,
and just you know, not willing to play games and
you know, and being able to sit in your most
authentic self and just share and communicate easily and or
more easily.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, good relationship, Yes, like being exactly who you are
and not being afraid that that's going to scare someone off.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, I mean, and I have a moment in the
book where I talk about it rather awkward moments.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
That was so funny. As a farmer patch wearer, I
could totally relate to that because at one point I
was dating someone I know, sorry everyone, it was a phase.
I don't know what I was thinking. He was nice
and whatever, but seventeen years younger than I was, and
I had my estrogen page and nothing really turns a
guy on like an estuga bat, right, especially if they're
(30:25):
seventeen years younger. But you do tell a hilarious story
about you and Billy when you're frantically trying to scrub
off your estraghip pat.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
And if anyone has won one, you know that they
take quite a bit of sello grease to get it off.
In fact, my doctor at the time said use car oil,
and I'm pretty sure I don't want to use that
on my body.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
And I'm pretty sure I don't have that handy in
my bathrooms exactly my handbag.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
So yeah, I slipped away, not to get in a
nice little sexy let neglige, but to scrape off my
patch and leave a nasty.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Because you were embarrassed that you had to pat.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah, But again, being with someone who is uh, you know,
understanding and not squeamish. He was not spooked at all,
and I was met with compassion and curiosity rather than
his own and his own admission, which I'll say for
(31:27):
the reader, but it was it was something you know,
See again, we gaslight ourselves. We think this is this
is all going to be terrible, and we don't give
a chance, you know, for we we just yeah, I mean,
if you are owning it and naming it and sharing
(31:48):
it with your partner whoever you're with, every chance that
they be they might be willing to be helpful, compassionate
or yeah, just supportive in ways that we need. So
it's a much better option, I think, to just lean into.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
It, definitely. And you know we're too old to fake it, right,
And it was a.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Great litmus test, like if you can't handle this, then yeah, okay,
maybe we're not meant to be.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I think one of the things you said about Billy
and your friends reminded you of this at your bachelorette party,
which I'm sorry you didn't invite me, Naomi, No, you right,
you said, loving him is the kindest thing I've ever
done for myself. What a lovely thing to say.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I'll get a lump in my throat, Katie. Yeah, it was.
It was It was the truth, and it was something
really special that I've let myself have and I hadn't.
I didn't think I would be able to do that.
I needed a lot of work on myself to get
(33:00):
to that place.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
I remember this is sort of off topic too, but
not necessarily. My late husband when he died, I wrote
something about him and I said, he always made me
feel safe, sane, and secure. And I think if you
have a partner who does that, that's what I think
we all should be looking for. And if you don't
(33:23):
have a partner that does that, you should reconsider who
makes you feel bad about yourself or makes you feel
on edge or walking on eggshells, run for the hills.
(33:53):
You know. I wanted to ask you a question that
so many of my followers wanted me to talk about
with you, which I think is indicative of the.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Age of most of my followers.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
And that is pain during sex. And you know, this
is something that I think people are really embarrassed to
talk about, because I mean, who really wants to talk
about vaginal dryness? But it's a real thing, and it
can really hurt a relationship and stop people from being intimate.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
And when that happens, communication breaks down. Yeah, it can
lead to all kinds of.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
But having said that, it's really you know, it's something
that hasn't gotten a lot of medical attention, and there
are ways that you know, basically I think we can
explain to everyone. Most people probably know who are asking
this question, is a lack of estrogen affects the tissues.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, the rules of the vagina get thinner and more delicate.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
And drier, and so oftentimes sex is painful. And this
is again where estrogen comes into play. You know, it's
not necessarily it doesn't necessarily go into your body systemically.
If you use vaginal estrogen. There's also a ring that's
kind of like a diaphragm that you can use that's
incredibly hard to get by the way, and expensive, yes,
(35:19):
very expensive. But you know, but just to.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Say that estrogen cream, vaginal estrogen cream is pretty safe.
The doctors are pretty aligned on that right, pretty.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Much everyone exactly, because it doesn't, as you say, go
into your whole system. But this is something that I
guess we should say women need to talk with their
doctor about and there are things that they can do
that will help.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Yes, and also I will just if I can plug
my own product. We have vaginal moisturizer called Vadge of
Honor because the vagina must be honored and that's also
incredibly helpful, and using lubricants that there should be no
shame about having a nice pump right by your bed. Yeah,
(36:11):
and as you say, I mean, I think women fear
having sex because it's painful, and then they can't tell
their partners because that's also humiliating, right.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And makes it sort of like men, I'm so sorry,
I'm old. I don't have estrogen and it hurts.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
And if the conversation doesn't take place, you start making
up stuff in your head. The person who's being told no,
they can't, you know, they don't want to have sex
with you, So it starts thinking, oh, they don't love
me anymore, she's having affairs or you know, like.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Or they're going to go somewhere else, They're going to
cut somewhere exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
And also, by the way, affects your libido to your
sex drive. Yes, what can women do about that.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
About their libido? Yeah, well they're I mean again, this
people that say testosterone can help, and it's not FDA
approved for women yet, but I take testosterone. I started
taking testosterone a long time ago. I didn't like it.
(37:16):
It had adverse effects on me, and I started feeling
a bit like that and I stopped taking it. But
I came back to it later on based on a
conversation I had with a doctor multiple doctors actually, And
now I like it, and I think it's all about
trial and error, but it's not for everyone.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
And I think they've learned more in the interim from
when you first started taking it.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
And now yes, exactly, and I feel a bit better
about it, and I'm not regular about it, but every
now and again I have a little droplet, and there's
different delivery methods for testosterone. I have lots of friends
who take it and lots of friends who are vehemently again,
so again dealer's choice. You do the research and wik
(38:05):
it out what's best for you. But it is said
to be helpful for libido.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
You were an early adapter, Naomi, when it came to
coming up with some products that are helpful, and you
have your own company called Stripes. But I was curious
because it seems like every time I turn around and
every time I scroll Instagram, I'm assaulted. Actually I get
more older stuff than that, like zaggy breasts and wrinkles.
(38:34):
But there's so many products out there and so many companies,
and I personally worry that some of them are not,
like they don't have any medical evidence behind them, and
that in some cases people are jumping on this menopause
bandwagon and selling products that may or may not help.
(38:57):
Do you worry about that too, And how do you
ensure or that women who were buying your products are
actually getting real help and real relief, because I'm sure
you care about that.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah, I do care about that, and I you know,
our big thing was to help a woman feel seen
because so many and heard and like we're really talking
directly to her symptoms, which mostly it's about skin from
scalp to vadge. We need hydration, We just need you know,
(39:29):
ultra ultra rich products that are going to sink into
our skin, into our scalp, into our hair, into our
body and face and vaginas. And they are all clean ingredients,
not harmful ingredients at all. And I just wanted a
(39:50):
woman to feel like that she's really being spoken to
and supported, where so many brands are telling you you
can reverse a aging you know, we can get rid
of your wrinkles, or we can you know, promise the world,
and then here they have like a twenty five year
old on their campaign ads or whatever. And that's not
(40:13):
what it feels good for a woman of my age.
I don't want to be promised to the world, and
I don't want to look like a twenty eight year
old anymore or a twenty five year old. I want
to be just me, but as hydrated as possible and
spoken to authentically.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
I know that you write about being worried, and you
mentioned in our conversation that you know, being all washed
up by the time you're forty, and that was common
sort of knowledge in Hollywood, or at least that was
what women were told or thought that at a certain
age they become unfuckable, right, that was the charming expression
(40:53):
that you even mentioned in your book. And I'm curious
if you think things are changing in Hollywood. I was
very heartened to see a lot of older actresses being
celebrated at the Golden Globes.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yes this year. Look at all of the Oscar nominees
and yeah, Golden Globe nominees. There's a litany of women
in their fifties driving stories, telling brilliant stories, of sexual stories, stories.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
About baby your Fellow be.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
A more sexual movie, right right, We've all enjoyed that one.
Thanks Nick.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
I'll never look at a glass of milk the same
way again.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
But he needs to do it an email can for
sure that will be funny.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Got milk?
Speaker 2 (41:46):
So yeah, it's it's heartening things have changed. We're seeing
it take place in real time, and I think it's
it's a barrage of a lot of things that have
converged all at once, and probably mostly driven by the
fact that we're living longer.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Right, but we're not living better, which always bums me out.
And that's why I think your book is so important,
because we are living longer but not in a healthy way,
and we have to start thinking about health span instead
of lifespan, which I think your book is going to
be so helpful about. I wondered if you could read
this paragraph you wrote, Oh God, reading aloud is my
(42:31):
unrealistic expectations for women in the public.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
But grosses, Katie, Oh do you want mine?
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Well? They are really strong, they're two point five.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I'm a strong one too. Oh that's good, Okay, good
this bit.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
In Feud Campodi versus the Swans, I got to play
the age range of forty to sixty three. I am
my age, and my face represents that, and what I
bring to a story or a character represents that too.
I experienced grief, I've experienced loss. I've experienced a major breakup,
and I felt so much shame about having a broken family.
(43:07):
Even knowing that my ex and I are both in
a happy, healthier relationship and our kids love their new
family members, I still feel a sense of failure sometimes.
And so that's the kind of woman. I'm going to play,
one who's made sacrifices and hard decisions. I'm not going
to be playing someone who's falling in love for the
first time. So why shouldn't I just embrace this and
(43:30):
own it. It's fair to say I'm all over the
place on this issue, sometimes for cosmetic interventions and sometimes against.
I just hope society can get to a place where
it can handle a woman who looks her age. I'm
counting on people to adjust their tolerance rather than my
having to adjust my jows.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
I thought that was such a great paragraph. You know,
and you want to play a woman who has lived, yeah,
and experienced all these things.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Yeah, for now. But I also follow the ideology that
one day I might change my mind, So let me
have that sure, and I but yes, this is the
face I live in. And I wanted to reflect not
just the story of the character I'm playing, but the
(44:19):
audience's story, and for that to be reflecting what they
are going through, and that needs to be as truthful
as possible.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
You talked about experiencing loss, and I know recently you
lost a very close friend in David Lynch, who really
I think recognized in you, Naomi, something that you felt
a lot of people were overlooking. On Instagram, you wrote,
the world will not be the same without him. His
(44:50):
creative mentorship was truly powerful. He put me on the
map the world I've been trying to break into for
ten plus years, flunking audition and left and right. Finally
I sat in front of a curious man, beaming with light,
speaking words from another era, making me laugh and feel
at ease. How did it even see me? When I
(45:11):
was so well hidden and I'd even lost sight of myself.
It wasn't just his art that impacted me. His wisdom,
humor and love gave me a special sense of belief
in myself I'd never accessed before. What a beautiful thing
to say about someone.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
He really really was that special. And again, I mean
I walked into that room and I just felt this
beaming energy that put me at ease. And he wanted
to connect and I hadn't had that. I would had
(45:54):
been flunking all those auditions for ten years and started
to put barriers out and was basically what my agent
said was unhirable because I was walking into the room
with all of this shut down energy. I was, you know,
making people feel uncomfortable with that intensity. I was told
(46:17):
I was not funny, not sexy, too intense, to this,
to that list goes on, and I was just keen
to get out of their way. I would get in
the room and be like, I just want the job.
You're not gonna give it to me, Okay, I'll just
get out of your way. It was really uncomfortable and
(46:38):
painful and humiliating, and I was in a loop. And
he somehow connected with me despite what I was, you know,
bringing in and allowed me to just release all of
those barriers, and he kept me in the room for
forty five minutes and just got me talking. And from
(47:05):
that day my life changed. I don't think I would
still be living in America. If it wasn't for him,
I wouldn't have American children. I would have thrown the
towel in. You know. I was at that point where
I couldn't have tolerated it any longer if I didn't
have a breakthrough. And not only did he give me
(47:28):
a role of a.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Lifetime in Mulholland.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah, I mean there were two I've had two characters
to play that were diametrically opposite, and sometimes you don't
get those kind of roles in one whole career, much
less a movie. So it was just like this unbelievable
showcase for every I mean obviously every director saw that
film because David Lynch, his body of work comes with,
(47:57):
you know, extraordinary interest.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
And he's so he was so courageous, right and how
he did things and why he did things.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Yes, and that film stands up today. I was just
on his birthday on January twentieth, which he didn't live
to see. We created a collective meditation around the world
as well as he's At the IFC, they played his
(48:31):
movie muholland drive our movie, and we went and introduced
the film myself and Justin threw and yeah, that film
does live on and it is one that will continue
to be talked about because it was so unique. And
that's all of his films. He doesn't explain them for
(48:52):
people to say, this is the formula and I get
it right away. He wants you to take it away
and make it your own version and of you know, whatever,
however you understand it.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
I watched a wonderful clip of you doing crying at
a table and then turning away, and then everyone on
the set burst into applause. Do you remember that?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
I do? I do. He created an environment where not
only did you feel safe, but unbelievably creatively charged and
at your best. He accessed all the best parts of everyone.
And so that's the loss that I'm experiencing it, But
(49:41):
I'm comforted by the joy. You know, if you've spent
any time reading articles about him over the last week,
there's so much joy that people have experienced through connection
with whether it's his film or him personally, And people
(50:03):
are so expressive about that and that is the comfort
and in his loss. But I wish there were more
like him. I wish there were more people like him,
because he was, yeah, one of a kind, a real teacher.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
When we lose people like that, I think we think
about the people they were and how we could be
more like them. Yes, and I wonder if you have
been thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yeah, certainly his presence, his ability to be so present
and so himself unapologetically. You know, there's another great video
there where he gets annoyed by someone telling them him
(50:54):
that he's taking too much time in a certain shot
and he's like, screwed, time, don't tell me about time.
And so his anger is justified because he doesn't want
to obey the rules. He wants to do it his way.
And there's something just so wonderfully pure about that he's
(51:16):
on He's doing making art on his own terms, and
that's admirable.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
I feel like you are sort of at a similar
place in your life. You know, you're living your life
on your own terms, your authentic self. You're sharing very
personal things I think in service of the greater good
to help other women. I feel like you're you must
think about that, Naomi, like this is a really good
(51:46):
place to be. I'm happy, and I'm fulfilled, and I
have purpose and I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
I was going to say that it has given me
a sense of purpose and at this point in my
life that I didn't know I find and through owning
my story, I've found the most remarkable community of women
as well as doctors and people who want to share
(52:16):
their stories. And it's been I feel very bolstered by
that community and very empowered about sharing and bringing people
into the same community as And yeah, it should be
a time to thrive. It should be. And I've a
(52:36):
lot of great things have happened for me in my
fifties that I'm really proud of. And it's to do
with the fact that I have done a lot of
work on myself and I'm much more conscious and in
my mind and in my body, and I hope that
for others too.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
I thought it was funny that people DM you all
the time, all the other actors and actresses. I know
we're supposed to say actors, but I still, yes, in
this case, we can say actresses. Questions about menopause, you know,
I'm often a clearing house for questions about cancer, you know,
I get so many people asking me about that. But
(53:20):
it must be funny. You have a constant stream of
dms with people asking you questions about menopause.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Yes, it was a funny moment where random people that
I've sort of met but not I don't know necessarily,
and someone's linked us up. And I think it's just
that confession that need to Oh God, I'm here, what
do I do? And you know, whether it's a need
for just an ear or a shoulder, I'm there for them.
(53:49):
You're the metopause guru, right who knew that would be
my future? Or if it was, it's you know, I
need a doctor. I asked what city they're in. If
I don't know, I'll find a way through the doctors.
I know there's a circuit we all communicate with each other.
And yeah, I kind of love that. I love that
(54:12):
I'm one of their first calls.
Speaker 1 (54:14):
Well, the book is called Dare I say it everything
I wish i'd known about menopause. I just admire you
so much. I love your work and I'm so happy
you wrote this book because I think it's going to
help so many women.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Thank you. Thanks for having me, Katie.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Thanks for listening. Everyone. If you have a question for me,
a subject you want us to cover, or you want
to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,
reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would
love to hear from you. Next Question is a production
of iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. Executive producers are Me,
(55:01):
Katie Couric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz,
and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian
Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,
or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call,
go to the description in the podcast app, or visit
(55:22):
us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me
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wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question.
Hi everyone. Today we're diving into a topic that has
really only started to get the attention it deserves, menopause.
My guest is someone who's breaking the silence and changing
the conversation around it, the incredible Naomi Watts. You know
(00:27):
her as an award winning actress, but today she's here
as an author, sharing her deeply personal journey in her
incredibly candid, informative, and yes funny book Wait Till You
Hear about the night she was frantically trying to scrub
off her estrogen patch before getting to it, something I
could totally relate to. By the way, the book is
(00:49):
aptly called Dare I say it? Everything I wish I'd
known about menopause, because Naomi definitely goes there. She says
she wanted her book to feel like a cozy chat
with a girlfriend, despite the serious subject. She discovered she
was on the precipice of menopause at just thirty six,
the same time she wanted to start a family. She
(01:11):
felt devastated and alone, and was shocked by a sense
that doctors and even family members thought she should just
suffer through it. Naomi is now in a mission to educate, embrace,
and empower women, so their journey might be a little smoother.
I really had a good time talking to her. Here's
my conversation with Naomi Watts. Naomi, I had so much
(01:36):
fun reading your book. I felt like you and I
were spending a lot of time together, and I learned
a lot about you, a.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Lot, probably too much. No, Actually, I.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Really appreciated your candor and the fact that you were
so open, and also that you used so many experts
and gave so much valuable information. And this is something
I know that you've been thinking about for some time time.
But why did you decide? Damn it, I'm going to
write this book and I'm just going to lay it
(02:07):
out there.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah. Well, I'd been thinking about it, as many of us.
When we have ideas that we sit on them, we
think on them, we percolate on them, we fear them.
So it takes a process to get to that point
where you're ready. If you read the book, then you
will see that I am very I got there very
early and was very much alone and feeling scared and
(02:31):
didn't have a community. I was thirty six when I
was told I was about to go into menopause right
at the prespoe of wanting to start a family. So
that collision of two things creating a huge amount of fear,
just left me undone, frankly, and I needed a support
(02:52):
system and didn't have it. And I wished there was
a book that was a little bit more, you know,
where I could find support, I could find expert advice
and some fun along the way, as it isn't or
it doesn't have to be so doom and gloom, you know.
And I wanted to create a book that had not
(03:14):
just my story, but it was infused with other women's
stories with some humor, pain points their distress, my distress, despair,
as well as the facts as we know them of
the current place, speaking to fantastic doctors. Because there's a
lot of books out there now which are incredibly helpful,
(03:38):
but sometimes they can be too dense, you know, with
all just the facts, and so I wanted it to
feel like a cozy chat with my girlfriend, so that
I could say, hey, this is what worked for me,
this is what was awful, this was what was great,
this is what I've learned along the way, and I
(03:59):
can back it up up with this conversation with that
doctor and that doctor, and.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I think it really was effective because it was so
personal and yet also, as I mentioned, really informational, and
I think some of the struggles to understand women's bodies
is emblematic of a larger issue in the medical establishment.
In your intro, you quote doctor Cheryl Malone, a DC
(04:25):
based obgyn who I happen to know and we use
her in our newsletter frequently. She's wonderful and she's the
chief medical officer at Alloy Women's Health. She's one of
the leading menopause practitioners in the country. And you quote
her saying, I think one of the things that we
have got to understand, and study after study has substantiated this,
(04:47):
is that we have really normalized suffering as a part
of womanhood. We suffer from cramps, we suffer in childbirth,
we suffer from pre menstrual syndrome. These things that exclusively
affect women have been understudied across the board because the
expectation is that if women suffer, it is not deemed
(05:08):
worthy of redress. Women exaggerate, were hysterical, it's all in
your head. This unfortunate perception is still all too common
in medicine today. Women still feel they're not heard, they're
not seen, and they're not believed. And that's the problem there.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
You have it, I mean, yeah, we were told to
suffer through it. When I asked my mom why she
didn't tell me more about menopause, she said, I didn't
have these conversations with you because I never had them
with my mother, as if to say there was some
code of silence that was agreed upon generation by generation,
which is absurd. Why should we suck it up and suffer?
(05:46):
There's absolutely no reason when treatment is available, and the
same thing goes for I mean, I remember having my
first baby. I thought, no, I mustn't have an epidural.
I must suffer through this. Be a natural birth woman,
you know, And that's absurd. If you're feeling extreme pain,
(06:09):
why should you just because other women have said that's important,
or society has said you must be natural. If you
cannot do it, you should not feel bad about that.
And I think that's what doctor Charon Malone is speaking to.
We just said, okay, we should.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Suffer, and not only women have they traditionally not been
listened to. You know, the term hysterical, But the amount
of money spent on research is just absurd when you
compare male illnesses with women. Women for so long have
been just viewed as small men.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Until nineteen ninety three that we were even used in
clinical trials.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Which is insane. And I did a podcast with Susan Dominus,
a New York Times writer, in April twenty twenty three. Yes,
that was one of the most shame changing articles. It
was a cover story in the New York Times magazine
and it was really about the history of hormone replacement
therapy in Naomi. I lived through this because I was
covering that study to some degree, and it got completely
(07:17):
botched in the messaging. And it's probably a little too
complicated for us to go really go deep into it.
But let's just kind of give a refresher on what
happened to the Women's Health Initiative and why it was stopped.
And what I think about, Naomi is all those lost
(07:37):
years of research that could have helped develop certain therapies
for women, therapies that people like I could take, you know,
as somebody who has hormone receptor positive breast cancer but
was on the patch for many years loved it. I
can't tell you how much I miss estrogen, but it
was really misconstruction and mishandled by the NIH. Can we
(08:03):
kind of give a brief premer on it.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yes, So the study was stopped in two thousand and
two because they found that they thought there was a
discovery of breast cancer that was caused by HRT. They
created the study to see if heart disease was actually
going to be diminished.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
For women postman apostle women, primarily because they thought it
would be efficacious in reducing heart disease. And they showed
a very very very slight risk of breast cancer, and
they kind of gave this blanket statement or it was misconstrued,
and then it was in the media, got applified by
the media, basically scaring everyone away from hormone replacement.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And not just women who were taking it, doctors who
were subscribing it. Everyone literally flushed their horme bones down
the toilet and the media went berserk, and then doctors
to this day still hold on to that that discovery
that was unfounded that has now been pedled back on.
(09:14):
But people are just left with this enormous.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Fear right and there are I mean, in fairness, there
are some women who probably shouldn't take estuary.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Of course, it's and that's what I go in.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Therapy, right, who have a history of breast cancer, who
have had breast cancer, et cetera. But it just got
completely distorted in such a way that it not only
scared women, but it kind of stopped the research too.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Right, Yes, and then a whole generation of women went
untreated virtually. So what I wanted to do is in
the book is really go deep into that with doctors research.
And again I am not here on the soapbox saying
take HRT. What is safe for you? What is your
(10:01):
choice is up to you. But I encourage every woman
to make sure they ask their doctor for the full
spectrum of options, based on their medical history, based on
their symptoms, based on the risk benefit. And I don't
want them to have a doctor be in a situation
where the doctor is just plain gatekeeping, right, And I'm
(10:23):
not saying they shouldn't be kept from taking these drugs.
It's just the conversation, right, Everyone should be allowed to
have that conversation.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
One thing that you point out, which I think is
so important, which I mentioned, Naomi, is that estrogen is
this wonder hormone. I mean, it is really responsible for
I think in many ways, and you can correct me
if I'm wrong, but brain health, sexual health, skin health.
You know, I started doing HRT when I was anchoring
(10:56):
the CBS Evening News because I thought, I do not
want to have like the brain a senior moment when
I don't have it. By the way, when like somebody's
telling me the latest economic report and I'd be like, wait,
what on live television. I also did it because of bones,
and you know, in a vain way, I wanted my
(11:20):
skin to be good. And I think that people don't
appreciate what a key role estrogen plays because it also
is a hormone responsible for you feeling good. I sort
of got depressed when I went through menopause, and I
think it was because my estrogen was decreasing.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So there's still so much debate around it about the
benefits of estrogen. You know. It's it's so interesting because
we had that discovery and then the media and then
that's been pedaled back and doctors are getting riled up
about it, and then women are saying, yes, I've got
to have estrogen, And now there's been another you know
(12:03):
curve that has where doctors are saying, well, the benefits
are not what everyone is saying on social media.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Oh really. Well, I also think even thet.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I wrote the book, really you know, still debate to
this day.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
But I also think a lot of people who aren't
experts are offering opinions on social media.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's true. So you have to have to be really careful,
and you have to really do the research on your
own based on your medical history.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
And find a doctor who has time to talk to you,
the one you trust.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, and I feel for these doctors who you know,
they have their eight to ten minute session slots and
you know, three minutes of those you're getting undressed. And
you know, God forbid if you burst into tears because
you've been dealing with you know, struggles in your life as.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
You tell these very personal stories.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah. So it's it's it's really something to consider carefully
and with deep, deep research. But for me, I believe
my quality of life has improved. It's safe.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
For me.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I've trusted my doctors, I do my blood work, and
I'm all about bone health. For me, I'm pretty sure
it is keeping my bone strong.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And you're blonde and your petite, so you're at risk
for osteoporosis.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Absolutely, and it's in my family. So I have to
make sure that I you know, and a lot of that.
I have to protect my bones with exercise.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Right, I was going to say, come lift some weights
with I've just started.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I weigh that all the time as much as I can.
It's the most boring kind of workout.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
But it is put on some good music.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It can be music and have an entertaining you know,
gym buddy, Yeah, you know so. I mean I sometimes
do it at home with videos. I sometimes go to
the gym, but yeah, it's very important.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
It's hard for me just in the category is when
I was diagnosed with hormone receptor positive breast cancer. Unfortunately
it was early. Not only did they take me off
estrogen my patch, I missed my patch, but they also
put me on aromatase inhibitors, which basically get rid of
(14:19):
any sintella of estrogen I might have coursing through my veins.
So it's kind of hard because now I have to
really focus on other ways to compensate for a lack
of estrogen through exercise and supplements ET cetera.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And how do you feel.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I mean, you know, I'm making do I generally feel
pretty well? I take care of myself and.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Night sweats or any of that still or.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Not too much. I had night sweats, I never had
hot flashes. They sound miserable.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, I had, yeah, the worst night sweats And sometimes
still one might sneak up on me and a few
hot flashes. But yeah, the night sweats can lead. You know,
obviously a disturbed sleep can lead to all kinds of things, depression, anxiety,
(15:15):
that memory blip thing. And so many women talk about
how they can be in a meeting with filled with
men and talking and then suddenly they lose a word
and that causes real anxiety and then you lose your
focus in the meeting and it can be very you know,
you can just flood with shame, right and not be
(15:36):
able to explain it to your colleagues. Like so you know,
again going back to why I wrote the book was
to create not just education, but community. And you know,
we need.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
To support, right and like if that happens, and.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
In every place, not just at home or in our friendships,
our relationship, but in the workplace as well. This is
a very normal part of life, and we should have
support and compassion and empathy, and like we do when
our kids are going through puberty, which is a different
kind of hormonal disruption, but it's it's real, and you know,
(16:18):
we have empathy when a teenager slams the door in
our face, we understand where it's coming from. But when
a woman is going through menopause and her hormones are
plummeting and she's having angst or you know, my kids
get furious with me if I you know, forget what
I'm saying, or mom just focus, you know, and I
(16:41):
feel bad, but there's no I mean, I try to
make them understand it, but they haven't been there, have they.
So so yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
The community is important and also demanding more of our
healthcare system and the medical establishment that they need to
pay attention to this. If you want to get smarter
every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating
takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up
(17:13):
for our daily newsletter, wake Up Call by going to
Katiecuric dot com. One of the things I thought was
so important that you talk about in the book, Naomi,
is there's a whole panoply of symptoms that accompany both
(17:35):
perimenopause and menopause, and I think doctors often don't connect
the dots. For example, you talked about someone in the
book who had heart issues and she was afraid to drive,
and she had gone to the cardiologist. Can you tell
that story.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, that came from doctor Kelly Casperson, she was a
doctor as well. Yeah, and she was having hot palpitations,
which is a very common symptom. Again, I had that
too and didn't know, but I also had been diagnosed
with a heart murmur very long ago. But this woman
(18:12):
was literally at the point where she had to go
and get an EKG and they said, no, you're fine.
And then the doctor said, well, how about we test
your doctor her friend or doctor, doctor Keli Caspusen said
let's test your hormones, let's test your bloods, and sure enough,
she was in menopause. And she said, I'm pretty sure
(18:32):
that's what it is. And this is a woman who
was about to give up.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Driving, right because she was afraid that she would yeah,
some hard heart attack, yeah, driving her kids or something.
But I think that's also so illustrative of the fact
that even doctors don't study this. They spend very little
time in medical school studying it. So when these symptoms
are presented to medical professionals, they often.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Connecting the dots. I mean every time I do a movie,
I have to fill out a questionnaire, a medical questionnaire,
and it's like a hundred questions. I was ticking night
sweats for a good eight years and no one said, oh,
that could be you know, they were I even say
it in the book. There's one moment where they think
(19:18):
it could be TB tuberculosis because that's a symptom. No
one signaled it as that, and I was worried. I
was like, what about my night sweat? Oh, that's probably analogy.
Maybe you know I have some food or that extra
glass of wine or you know, again like oh it's
(19:40):
something I did. My fault, my fault, you know. And
skin was another big problem for me as an actor,
working under hot lights, lots of makeup day and day.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Out, because you have extremely dry skin. I have very
dry skin, irristraated. Do you get eczema?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I get roseatia? I used to and yeah, I was
really like having these moments where I was scratching off
my skin. It was red irritated. I didn't know what
was happening. I went to the dermatologist multiple times, got
ointment that was soothing for a minute, but then it
would recur. And I had no idea that that was
(20:18):
related to menophause, and the doctors neither.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Your story, Naomi, was particularly traumatic because, as you mentioned,
you learned you were going through menopause at thirty six,
and it coincided with you trying to have a family.
So that was sort of a double whammy for you,
wasn't It talked about that period of your life and
(20:44):
what you experience when you learn that.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, it was shocking and lonely and scary, and I
knew I really wanted to be a mother, and I
went into all kinds of panic. I it wasn't a
candidate for IVF. I tried clonid, I tried IUIS.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I felt so for you as you were talking about
this journey.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, and there was a lot of shame that came
up with it, like if I didn't have my fertility,
I didn't have my worth or something, which is absurd.
There are lots of ways to become a mother, but
I just was self loathing, flagellating all of it. I
felt terrible about myself and I felt like it was
(21:37):
me that had caused it. I had ruined my body.
It was really terrible. I eventually found this fantastic book
because I had what's called a high FSH level follicle
stimulating hormone, and this book became my savior. Again. Why
I wanted a book, you know, because I would read
(21:58):
that book secretly. I've tied that book.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
What was it called again?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
It was called Inconceivable by Julia Indichova, and she also
had a high f SH level and she went through
different ways of how to create a lower level. And
for whatever reason, whether it was the book, I also
was trying Chinese herbs. I went to China. There's a
(22:24):
funny story.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
With the translator and the doctor and.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
It happened to be filming there and I found my
way to a herbalist. So, you know, I don't ever
want to presume to, you know, push any of these
ideas on anyone. What works for you. I mean, if
I had been told just cut the toenails off the
off your dog and eat them, I would have. I
(22:49):
would have. I wanted a baby so badly and nothing
was working for me, and it created such depression in
me and a sense of failure. But it shouldn't have.
It shouldn't have.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
But I think also the one of the lessons is
that you had no idea that you had a finite
period of time. Yeah, and that might have changed some
of your choices if you had been aware that perimenopause
can start very early.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yes, exactly right. Yeah, I mean I think I knew
that fertility changes, it slows down at thirty five, but
I didn't know that, Yeah, perimenopause can be And by
the way, that word was not mentioned to me, which
feels like a much softer word. I did know. I
(23:45):
did remember that my mom had said she went into
early menopause at forty five, but I was still a
long way from that, right, And I also knew that
there were women around me in Hollywood and other places.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Sometimes, by the way, just parenthetically, I think that sort
of does a disservice because I think a lot of
times these women and I'm happy for them. I'm not
saying anything negative. I'm thrilled they're having children. But sometimes
I think people don't appreciate it's through IVF or you know,
(24:20):
other means, And I think that we have to be
more honest with young women about fertility declining as you
get older, you know, just so they can make decisions
if they want to freeze their eggs or whatever it is.
But I think there was a period of time people
had these unrealistic expectations that you could have babies well
(24:42):
into your forties, and it's often not very easy. I
know you talk about the Miscarriac rait for example.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yes, and also, by the way, I tried to freeze
my eggs in my early thirties, right when my career
started getting going, because I had a feeling that I
was going to have to work because another story I
mentioned in the book is because I came into it late,
at least with my launching, I was told to work, work, work,
because it'll all be dried up at forty, right, and
(25:12):
no pun intended. So I had my foot on the
gas and I thought, Okay, let me be productive or
proactive and go and talk to a doctor about freezing
my eggs. And again I was told, don't be silly,
you're way too young, that's fine, and it's not a
perfect science anyway, and I was sort of turned away.
(25:33):
And yeah, and then I came back at thirty six,
and it was it wasn't Those eggs weren't freezable. So
I just had to find a way to find my
last best possibility and there must have been just a
couple more eggs in there.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
And happily you did have two children, did I did,
And I know after a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
So that was a wonderful thing. But I think the
cautionary tale is really understand, right, understand your fertility, yeah,
and be realistic, I think, and.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
I think, yeah, I wanted to be honest about it
because to your point, yeah, there's a lot of these
women that are having and whatever way you want to
do it, that's fantastic, But being honest is helpful. I
think to the community around you.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
You have found love again, which is so nice. You
split with leav Shreiber, your partner and the father of
your kids. But you know, I know initially, and I
related to so much in your book, having lost my
husband and having to start dating again in my forties.
But at first you thought, I'm not interested in a
(26:51):
romantic partner. I'm just going to focus on my children
and my friends.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, and my work and your work.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
That was a lot, yes, yeah, and of what changed
your mind or did events just take over?
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yes, I had my head down and wanted to just
focus on all of that. And it was the last
thing I was expecting. But a friendship created in the
workplace and then we just yeah, I was very surprised
by it. But we moved so so slowly, really, I mean,
(27:28):
people didn't know we were dating for quite a while.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Why don't we name the man in question to whom
you're married.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Now I'm married to him, it might be the world.
I was working on a show with him, Billy Crudep
and the show was called Gipsy. And yes, we formed
a great working relationship which led to a great friendship
and now a good, wonderful marriage.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
That's so, that's so great. And I know that you
talk in the book about sort of different needs that
you you have at different ages and different things that
you may be looking for, which I think is also
really helpful to people, because I think it's very difficult
for women, I think, to jump back into the dating
pool these days, and it's quite scary and different with
(28:19):
you know, apps and all that stuff. And what advice
would you give to women who would like to find
a partner. I feel very lucky that I found a
partner and remarried at fifty seven for crying out loud,
and you know, we've got married for ten years. Yeah.
And I always say, just get out there and meet
(28:41):
people and don't necessarily think of it as finding prince charming.
But you know, basing a relationship, I think on friendship
is really important. Companionship similar values. Is that what you
basically say to your friends who say, does Billy have
a brother? Because I get that a lot about the
(29:02):
way is he single? He is? Is he good?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
He's great? Okay, So I think the thing about and
I and I'm always reluctant to go to deep on
my personal stuff with my relationship, but yeah, we have
both been through some things, I mean, as you would
(29:26):
have it in your late forties, which is when we met,
and just you know, not willing to play games and
you know, and being able to sit in your most
authentic self and just share and communicate easily and or
more easily.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, good relationship, Yes, like being exactly who you are
and not being afraid that that's going to scare someone off.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, I mean, and I have a moment in the
book where I talk about it rather awkward moments.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
That was so funny. As a farmer patch wearer, I
could totally relate to that because at one point I
was dating someone I know, sorry everyone, it was a phase.
I don't know what I was thinking. He was nice
and whatever, but seventeen years younger than I was, and
I had my estrogen page and nothing really turns a
guy on like an estuga bat, right, especially if they're
(30:25):
seventeen years younger. But you do tell a hilarious story
about you and Billy when you're frantically trying to scrub
off your estraghip pat.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
And if anyone has won one, you know that they
take quite a bit of sello grease to get it off.
In fact, my doctor at the time said use car oil,
and I'm pretty sure I don't want to use that
on my body.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
And I'm pretty sure I don't have that handy in
my bathrooms exactly my handbag.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
So yeah, I slipped away, not to get in a
nice little sexy let neglige, but to scrape off my
patch and leave a nasty.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Because you were embarrassed that you had to pat.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah, But again, being with someone who is uh, you know,
understanding and not squeamish. He was not spooked at all,
and I was met with compassion and curiosity rather than
his own and his own admission, which I'll say for
(31:27):
the reader, but it was it was something you know,
See again, we gaslight ourselves. We think this is this
is all going to be terrible, and we don't give
a chance, you know, for we we just yeah, I mean,
if you are owning it and naming it and sharing
(31:48):
it with your partner whoever you're with, every chance that
they be they might be willing to be helpful, compassionate
or yeah, just supportive in ways that we need. So
it's a much better option, I think, to just lean into.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
It, definitely. And you know we're too old to fake it, right,
And it was a.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Great litmus test, like if you can't handle this, then yeah, okay,
maybe we're not meant to be.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I think one of the things you said about Billy
and your friends reminded you of this at your bachelorette party,
which I'm sorry you didn't invite me, Naomi, No, you right,
you said, loving him is the kindest thing I've ever
done for myself. What a lovely thing to say.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I'll get a lump in my throat, Katie. Yeah, it was.
It was It was the truth, and it was something
really special that I've let myself have and I hadn't.
I didn't think I would be able to do that.
I needed a lot of work on myself to get
(33:00):
to that place.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
I remember this is sort of off topic too, but
not necessarily. My late husband when he died, I wrote
something about him and I said, he always made me
feel safe, sane, and secure. And I think if you
have a partner who does that, that's what I think
we all should be looking for. And if you don't
(33:23):
have a partner that does that, you should reconsider who
makes you feel bad about yourself or makes you feel
on edge or walking on eggshells, run for the hills.
(33:53):
You know. I wanted to ask you a question that
so many of my followers wanted me to talk about
with you, which I think is indicative of the.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Age of most of my followers.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
And that is pain during sex. And you know, this
is something that I think people are really embarrassed to
talk about, because I mean, who really wants to talk
about vaginal dryness? But it's a real thing, and it
can really hurt a relationship and stop people from being intimate.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
And when that happens, communication breaks down. Yeah, it can
lead to all kinds of.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
But having said that, it's really you know, it's something
that hasn't gotten a lot of medical attention, and there
are ways that you know, basically I think we can
explain to everyone. Most people probably know who are asking
this question, is a lack of estrogen affects the tissues.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, the rules of the vagina get thinner and more delicate.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
And drier, and so oftentimes sex is painful. And this
is again where estrogen comes into play. You know, it's
not necessarily it doesn't necessarily go into your body systemically.
If you use vaginal estrogen. There's also a ring that's
kind of like a diaphragm that you can use that's
incredibly hard to get by the way, and expensive, yes,
(35:19):
very expensive. But you know, but just to.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Say that estrogen cream, vaginal estrogen cream is pretty safe.
The doctors are pretty aligned on that right, pretty.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Much everyone exactly, because it doesn't, as you say, go
into your whole system. But this is something that I
guess we should say women need to talk with their
doctor about and there are things that they can do
that will help.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Yes, and also I will just if I can plug
my own product. We have vaginal moisturizer called Vadge of
Honor because the vagina must be honored and that's also
incredibly helpful, and using lubricants that there should be no
shame about having a nice pump right by your bed. Yeah,
(36:11):
and as you say, I mean, I think women fear
having sex because it's painful, and then they can't tell
their partners because that's also humiliating, right.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And makes it sort of like men, I'm so sorry,
I'm old. I don't have estrogen and it hurts.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
And if the conversation doesn't take place, you start making
up stuff in your head. The person who's being told no,
they can't, you know, they don't want to have sex
with you, So it starts thinking, oh, they don't love
me anymore, she's having affairs or you know, like.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Or they're going to go somewhere else, They're going to
cut somewhere exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
And also, by the way, affects your libido to your
sex drive. Yes, what can women do about that.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
About their libido? Yeah, well they're I mean again, this
people that say testosterone can help, and it's not FDA
approved for women yet, but I take testosterone. I started
taking testosterone a long time ago. I didn't like it.
(37:16):
It had adverse effects on me, and I started feeling
a bit like that and I stopped taking it. But
I came back to it later on based on a
conversation I had with a doctor multiple doctors actually, And
now I like it, and I think it's all about
trial and error, but it's not for everyone.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
And I think they've learned more in the interim from
when you first started taking it.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
And now yes, exactly, and I feel a bit better
about it, and I'm not regular about it, but every
now and again I have a little droplet, and there's
different delivery methods for testosterone. I have lots of friends
who take it and lots of friends who are vehemently again,
so again dealer's choice. You do the research and wik
(38:05):
it out what's best for you. But it is said
to be helpful for libido.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
You were an early adapter, Naomi, when it came to
coming up with some products that are helpful, and you
have your own company called Stripes. But I was curious
because it seems like every time I turn around and
every time I scroll Instagram, I'm assaulted. Actually I get
more older stuff than that, like zaggy breasts and wrinkles.
(38:34):
But there's so many products out there and so many companies,
and I personally worry that some of them are not,
like they don't have any medical evidence behind them, and
that in some cases people are jumping on this menopause
bandwagon and selling products that may or may not help.
(38:57):
Do you worry about that too, And how do you
ensure or that women who were buying your products are
actually getting real help and real relief, because I'm sure
you care about that.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah, I do care about that, and I you know,
our big thing was to help a woman feel seen
because so many and heard and like we're really talking
directly to her symptoms, which mostly it's about skin from
scalp to vadge. We need hydration, We just need you know,
(39:29):
ultra ultra rich products that are going to sink into
our skin, into our scalp, into our hair, into our
body and face and vaginas. And they are all clean ingredients,
not harmful ingredients at all. And I just wanted a
(39:50):
woman to feel like that she's really being spoken to
and supported, where so many brands are telling you you
can reverse a aging you know, we can get rid
of your wrinkles, or we can you know, promise the world,
and then here they have like a twenty five year
old on their campaign ads or whatever. And that's not
(40:13):
what it feels good for a woman of my age.
I don't want to be promised to the world, and
I don't want to look like a twenty eight year
old anymore or a twenty five year old. I want
to be just me, but as hydrated as possible and
spoken to authentically.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
I know that you write about being worried, and you
mentioned in our conversation that you know, being all washed
up by the time you're forty, and that was common
sort of knowledge in Hollywood, or at least that was
what women were told or thought that at a certain
age they become unfuckable, right, that was the charming expression
(40:53):
that you even mentioned in your book. And I'm curious
if you think things are changing in Hollywood. I was
very heartened to see a lot of older actresses being
celebrated at the Golden Globes.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yes this year. Look at all of the Oscar nominees
and yeah, Golden Globe nominees. There's a litany of women
in their fifties driving stories, telling brilliant stories, of sexual stories, stories.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
About baby your Fellow be.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
A more sexual movie, right right, We've all enjoyed that one.
Thanks Nick.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
I'll never look at a glass of milk the same
way again.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
But he needs to do it an email can for
sure that will be funny.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Got milk?
Speaker 2 (41:46):
So yeah, it's it's heartening things have changed. We're seeing
it take place in real time, and I think it's
it's a barrage of a lot of things that have
converged all at once, and probably mostly driven by the
fact that we're living longer.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Right, but we're not living better, which always bums me out.
And that's why I think your book is so important,
because we are living longer but not in a healthy way,
and we have to start thinking about health span instead
of lifespan, which I think your book is going to
be so helpful about. I wondered if you could read
this paragraph you wrote, Oh God, reading aloud is my
(42:31):
unrealistic expectations for women in the public.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
But grosses, Katie, Oh do you want mine?
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Well? They are really strong, they're two point five.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I'm a strong one too. Oh that's good, Okay, good
this bit.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
In Feud Campodi versus the Swans, I got to play
the age range of forty to sixty three. I am
my age, and my face represents that, and what I
bring to a story or a character represents that too.
I experienced grief, I've experienced loss. I've experienced a major breakup,
and I felt so much shame about having a broken family.
(43:07):
Even knowing that my ex and I are both in
a happy, healthier relationship and our kids love their new
family members, I still feel a sense of failure sometimes.
And so that's the kind of woman. I'm going to play,
one who's made sacrifices and hard decisions. I'm not going
to be playing someone who's falling in love for the
first time. So why shouldn't I just embrace this and
(43:30):
own it. It's fair to say I'm all over the
place on this issue, sometimes for cosmetic interventions and sometimes against.
I just hope society can get to a place where
it can handle a woman who looks her age. I'm
counting on people to adjust their tolerance rather than my
having to adjust my jows.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
I thought that was such a great paragraph. You know,
and you want to play a woman who has lived, yeah,
and experienced all these things.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Yeah, for now. But I also follow the ideology that
one day I might change my mind, So let me
have that sure, and I but yes, this is the
face I live in. And I wanted to reflect not
just the story of the character I'm playing, but the
(44:19):
audience's story, and for that to be reflecting what they
are going through, and that needs to be as truthful
as possible.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
You talked about experiencing loss, and I know recently you
lost a very close friend in David Lynch, who really
I think recognized in you, Naomi, something that you felt
a lot of people were overlooking. On Instagram, you wrote,
the world will not be the same without him. His
(44:50):
creative mentorship was truly powerful. He put me on the
map the world I've been trying to break into for
ten plus years, flunking audition and left and right. Finally
I sat in front of a curious man, beaming with light,
speaking words from another era, making me laugh and feel
at ease. How did it even see me? When I
(45:11):
was so well hidden and I'd even lost sight of myself.
It wasn't just his art that impacted me. His wisdom,
humor and love gave me a special sense of belief
in myself I'd never accessed before. What a beautiful thing
to say about someone.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
He really really was that special. And again, I mean
I walked into that room and I just felt this
beaming energy that put me at ease. And he wanted
to connect and I hadn't had that. I would had
(45:54):
been flunking all those auditions for ten years and started
to put barriers out and was basically what my agent
said was unhirable because I was walking into the room
with all of this shut down energy. I was, you know,
making people feel uncomfortable with that intensity. I was told
(46:17):
I was not funny, not sexy, too intense, to this,
to that list goes on, and I was just keen
to get out of their way. I would get in
the room and be like, I just want the job.
You're not gonna give it to me, Okay, I'll just
get out of your way. It was really uncomfortable and
(46:38):
painful and humiliating, and I was in a loop. And
he somehow connected with me despite what I was, you know,
bringing in and allowed me to just release all of
those barriers, and he kept me in the room for
forty five minutes and just got me talking. And from
(47:05):
that day my life changed. I don't think I would
still be living in America. If it wasn't for him,
I wouldn't have American children. I would have thrown the
towel in. You know. I was at that point where
I couldn't have tolerated it any longer if I didn't
have a breakthrough. And not only did he give me
(47:28):
a role of a.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Lifetime in Mulholland.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah, I mean there were two I've had two characters
to play that were diametrically opposite, and sometimes you don't
get those kind of roles in one whole career, much
less a movie. So it was just like this unbelievable
showcase for every I mean obviously every director saw that
film because David Lynch, his body of work comes with,
(47:57):
you know, extraordinary interest.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
And he's so he was so courageous, right and how
he did things and why he did things.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Yes, and that film stands up today. I was just
on his birthday on January twentieth, which he didn't live
to see. We created a collective meditation around the world
as well as he's At the IFC, they played his
(48:31):
movie muholland drive our movie, and we went and introduced
the film myself and Justin threw and yeah, that film
does live on and it is one that will continue
to be talked about because it was so unique. And
that's all of his films. He doesn't explain them for
(48:52):
people to say, this is the formula and I get
it right away. He wants you to take it away
and make it your own version and of you know, whatever,
however you understand it.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
I watched a wonderful clip of you doing crying at
a table and then turning away, and then everyone on
the set burst into applause. Do you remember that?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
I do? I do. He created an environment where not
only did you feel safe, but unbelievably creatively charged and
at your best. He accessed all the best parts of everyone.
And so that's the loss that I'm experiencing it, But
(49:41):
I'm comforted by the joy. You know, if you've spent
any time reading articles about him over the last week,
there's so much joy that people have experienced through connection
with whether it's his film or him personally, And people
(50:03):
are so expressive about that and that is the comfort
and in his loss. But I wish there were more
like him. I wish there were more people like him,
because he was, yeah, one of a kind, a real teacher.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
When we lose people like that, I think we think
about the people they were and how we could be
more like them. Yes, and I wonder if you have
been thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yeah, certainly his presence, his ability to be so present
and so himself unapologetically. You know, there's another great video
there where he gets annoyed by someone telling them him
(50:54):
that he's taking too much time in a certain shot
and he's like, screwed, time, don't tell me about time.
And so his anger is justified because he doesn't want
to obey the rules. He wants to do it his way.
And there's something just so wonderfully pure about that he's
(51:16):
on He's doing making art on his own terms, and
that's admirable.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
I feel like you are sort of at a similar
place in your life. You know, you're living your life
on your own terms, your authentic self. You're sharing very
personal things I think in service of the greater good
to help other women. I feel like you're you must
think about that, Naomi, like this is a really good
(51:46):
place to be. I'm happy, and I'm fulfilled, and I
have purpose and I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
I was going to say that it has given me
a sense of purpose and at this point in my
life that I didn't know I find and through owning
my story, I've found the most remarkable community of women
as well as doctors and people who want to share
(52:16):
their stories. And it's been I feel very bolstered by
that community and very empowered about sharing and bringing people
into the same community as And yeah, it should be
a time to thrive. It should be. And I've a
(52:36):
lot of great things have happened for me in my
fifties that I'm really proud of. And it's to do
with the fact that I have done a lot of
work on myself and I'm much more conscious and in
my mind and in my body, and I hope that
for others too.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
I thought it was funny that people DM you all
the time, all the other actors and actresses. I know
we're supposed to say actors, but I still, yes, in
this case, we can say actresses. Questions about menopause, you know,
I'm often a clearing house for questions about cancer, you know,
I get so many people asking me about that. But
(53:20):
it must be funny. You have a constant stream of
dms with people asking you questions about menopause.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Yes, it was a funny moment where random people that
I've sort of met but not I don't know necessarily,
and someone's linked us up. And I think it's just
that confession that need to Oh God, I'm here, what
do I do? And you know, whether it's a need
for just an ear or a shoulder, I'm there for them.
(53:49):
You're the metopause guru, right who knew that would be
my future? Or if it was, it's you know, I
need a doctor. I asked what city they're in. If
I don't know, I'll find a way through the doctors.
I know there's a circuit we all communicate with each other.
And yeah, I kind of love that. I love that
(54:12):
I'm one of their first calls.
Speaker 1 (54:14):
Well, the book is called Dare I say it everything
I wish i'd known about menopause. I just admire you
so much. I love your work and I'm so happy
you wrote this book because I think it's going to
help so many women.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Thank you. Thanks for having me, Katie.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Thanks for listening. Everyone. If you have a question for me,
a subject you want us to cover, or you want
to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,
reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would
love to hear from you. Next Question is a production
of iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. Executive producers are Me,
(55:01):
Katie Couric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz,
and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian
Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,
or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call,
go to the description in the podcast app, or visit
(55:22):
us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me
on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Katie Couric
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