July 10, 2026 • 24 mins
Success changed Laverne Cox's life—but it didn't answer all of her questions. In this bonus chat, she shares stories behind some of the most profound and painful passages in her new memoir "Transcendence," reflecting on healing, resilience, and why becoming yourself is a lifelong process.
Laverne's memoir "Transcendence" is in bookstores now.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Welcome
back to work in progress with Laverne Cox. Let's dive
back in. One of the things that bothers me, things
(00:22):
I think about. You know, a lot in my life
is and you said this perfectly. Just now, for trans people,
your identity is looked at as being exclusively sexual, and
it's the same for queer people. They're like, queer people
shouldn't be able to adopt children, Queer people shouldn't be
able to get married the children, the children. Seventy three
(00:43):
percent of women in America are unalived by violence done
to them by current or former intimate partners cis male
intimate partners. Most women die by the hand of a man.
Most children are abused by their straight or straight identifying
father or an family relative. They know these people. It's
(01:03):
not gay parents, it's not trans folks.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yet there's not a whole movement saying all men they're like, oh, men,
like the like the ninety nine point nine percent of
like white men who were mass shooters.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
We don't say that. There's like, I mean, some people
are saying it's a crisis with men, but we have
to like pass laws that limit the ability of white
men to get guns and classify them as terrorists. They're
actually would kind of be I mean, but to like
make it about.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Identity, that would be logical though, but they don't want
us to say that.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Statistically it would make more sense. But still just but
it's it's an American to say, did like say that
you if you're a white man, you, if you're a
white man, statistically you are more likely to be a
mass shooter based on the data, But like to pass
to pass a law to say that all white men
can't be can't get access to guns and need to
(01:56):
be like put on a terrorist watch list and classified
as like people casts like they're trying to do with
trans people, like when there's maybe like one.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Or two transs.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I know it's it's I know it's crazy, it's crazy.
But what I what what I think? Like we're we're
in a meta like political space now and I and
I and I love being there. But I also think
that like part of the reason I wrote this book
too is that like how do we how do we
bring it back to ourselves?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yes, because that was going to be my question.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
We can't come together across differences if we have not,
we're not right with ourselves, if we haven't like gotten
to a place where we are not allowing our own
traumas to affect the ways in which we interact with
other people. I feel like sometimes with some of the
turfs that you know, we'll just say it Supporthand with
(02:50):
the turfs a lot, there's a lot of trauma. When
I hear I'll just tracing our name. But the rowling
woman rolling, well, sometimes when I hear a talk and
I hear I heard real trauma there, I hear like
a fear, you know, and like trauma that is unprocessed around,
you know, the thought that she experienced. And I have
amity for that.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, she seems to be very red pilled. But what's
fascinating to me is that anyone would think in a
world or men, look at the Epstein files, Look at
the President of the United States at current and all
of his allies not being required to testify under oath,
not being required to testify in public. Men don't have
to dress up as women to hurt men. Men just
hurt us. Trans women are not having the level of
(03:33):
courage to buck a binary that has been created by
a patriarchal society for hundreds of years as a game.
Your identity has nothing to do with other women. It
has to do with yourself. And trans women are women.
And that's what somebody like her, I think cannot comprehend
because she's clearly never to your point, investigated her own experience,
(03:58):
her own trauma, or her own freedom to that level.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Then how can we decenter ourselves too. It's like we
have to hole the piece around like dealing with our
owning our story, dealing dealing with our trauma, and we're
responding to that as adults, but also decentering ourselves. It's
not just about like my feelings and what's going on
with me. It's like, how do I like look look
out and like not diminish myself but understand that there's
(04:24):
other perspectives and other ways of seeing.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Things and not in making sure that.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I don't let my trauma, my whatever allow me to
not have perspective to like look outside myself and not
like always center myself well.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
And I think that's one of the healthiest side effects
of doing the work is in an interesting way, you
get better at boundaries and you also get more gentle
with people at the same time, you can make more
space for people. And I'm curious if we can, like,
I want to deep dive a few questions specifically on
the book, because I'm like, girl, we need to like
sit with a bottle of line and have this political
(05:02):
conversation for four hours over a good Italian meal. But
the book in particular, when you think about that, because
choosing to go inward and do this project is so personal,
and you do it essentially in these three gorgeous acts.
There's three segments of the book. But in a way,
when you offer us these lessons by being so specific
(05:26):
about your journey, you decenter yourself in a way because
you give us tools that are for everyone. And I'm
curious how you began to figure that out, and especially
when you look back at you, know, I want to
ask a question about every segment. In the first segment,
knowing something was off and then finding your identity and art,
(05:49):
you know, thinking about ASPA, Like, how did that begin
to make sense for you?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So the book is this came from my therapist terms
in the Burned Flyer who I'm seeing tonight, I mean Francisco,
She's coming to the book event. She said to me,
and it's session many years ago that that the journey
of healing from trauma is often going from what's wrong
with me? Think, you know, as a child, like something's
wrong with me, I'm like not like everybody else. And
(06:15):
then I, you know, that was a firm by my mother,
who what's wrong with you? My teachers, what's wrong with you?
The other kids, what's wrong with you? And like internalizing
what's wrong with me, not something's wrong? And then evolving
as I started therapy and understand that it's, oh, it's
actually about what happened to me. There's nothing wrong with me,
Like things happened, and like people put things on me,
(06:35):
and yeah, and so it was about what happened to me,
and some of a lot of the abuse that happened
to me that I was in denial about that I
didn't have the capacity to even hold and so I disassociated.
As a child, there was no way I could process
all that. So I brilliantly disassociated. But at when it's
(06:56):
time to be an adult, like I have to, like
if I'm going to you know, stay on the planet,
be relatively healthy and functional, I have to actually deal
with the trauma and what happened to me and admit
that it happened, and start trying to make sense of
it and the stories that I've told myself around it,
and reality check those stories, reprogram and change those tapes,
(07:19):
and you know, you know, start reprogramming my nervous system,
and then what's right? Part three?
Speaker 4 (07:25):
What's right with me?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Part of that healing that that rewiring my nervous system
is also about a both and that like, yes, there
are neuropathways in my nervous system that are you know,
I've been hardwired for trauma that exists in my body
in specific places.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
But there's also like pathways are.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Brasilience that have always existed there, and I can build
like new pathways and I can fortify the existing pathways
are brasilient.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
You can feed those, Yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Those pathways are brasilience, have always been there. I was
a kid, and like under understanding that and looking back
at like what was really part of the torture was
like trying to go back and like well just going
back and being you know, two years old, being three
years old, and like that's all the fear that I
didn't know how to let myself feel. Feeling that and
(08:19):
trying to make sense of what was going on for
me as that kid, and understanding that, like, I had
a sense of myself from a very early age and
a critical awareness that I developed because like, and I
think a lot of trans people probably have this, and
maybe a lot of queer people too, because we're told
(08:40):
we're supposed to be this way and that you're you know,
you're a boy whatever. I'm like, well, that's not right.
I know I'm not a boy. So I just started questioning.
It was just like a questioning and then I had
a sense that I was here for something bigger than me.
I just that I was here for something big that's
supposed to be a star and like, and I just
(09:00):
in that sense that sounds crazy and delusional in a way,
but the events of my life have like proven that I,
you know, I yeah, maybe I wasn't so crazy. That
that resilience has always been there, that sense of self,
which is such a miracle, such a miracle for me
(09:23):
and to have. And one of the other gifts of
my life is having a twin brother who has been
there the whole time, and you could bear witness, you know,
I'm like, do you remember this? Do you do you
feel like you know? And and for him to be
able to say, you're the same person you've always been.
You're more yourself, You're you're more, you're freer, you're less encumbered.
(09:44):
But you've always this is who you've always been since
you were a kid. And to have that affirmed is
it is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, we'll be back in just a minute, but here's
a word from our sponsors to have a mirror in
that way. And then as you say this, this sense
of knowing that I think so many kids have talked
out of them, you held on too, and it felt
(10:16):
for me at least as a reader, you know, not
wanting to give too much away, that winding up in
the Alabama School of Fine Arts, as you then go
into this, you know, part two, from the what's wrong
with me? To that what's happened to me? As you
as you start to put those pieces back together and
to understand all the aspects of identity and how they
feed your art. Art like that sense that you had
(10:39):
as a little kid that you were supposed to be
on a stage under a spotlight. You have always found
a voice as an artist in.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Pursuit of a stage in pursuit of a camera and
you know, in pursuit of a spotlight, but in pursuit
of the process at being an artists, like the learned,
like really learning to enjoy the process of creating a character,
of rehearsing of you or of writing when you know,
(11:10):
writing a solo show.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
Now the joys of that, Like but I didn't feel
with this book.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
But but the joys of being in process and being
and and technique technical want needing, Like especially when you
study classical ballet, it's a very technical art form. And
so there's there's technique, there's there's I have to keep
my heels down at the till the very last minute
(11:35):
and and pull up so I can get six pure wets.
You know, there's like specific methodology that I need to
achieve to like jump higher, to get my legs higher.
So the relationship between being that the acting things that
I can learn that I learned as an actor that
can help me like in being a better human being
(11:56):
or more effective in my real life.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
It's like it's really cool and that happens that being an.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Artist is like it's such a sacred, sacred, humbling gift.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
I calling feels like, you know, self important.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I feel called. It does feel like a calling, and.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
It's my it's mine.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
And whether you know, you know, I because the world,
I guess I could really self conscious about like what
you know, Oh she sucks, she can't act, you know,
And like I have I have. I'm probably my worst critics,
Like I have moments.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Nobody's meaner to me than me.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Oh yeah, I'm my own worst enemy. So no one
can be more critical of me than me. But sometimes
I have, you know, some I remember the third in
the third EMI nomination, I got I think this season,
and I remember when the season, when the season came out,
and it's this one particular episode and I was talking
to my acting coach and I was like, oh, I
(12:56):
think I pushed. I think I over I overacted, and
it was I saw it. It was just like and
you know, and then like it was a year after
we shot it that it came out, and I was
just kind of like, oh, I just thought it was
I thought it was terrible. And then like literally a
year later because the way when Orange Orange always dropped
in the summer, so it was like the show would
come out of year after we shot it, and the
Immy nominations would come out a year later, so like
(13:18):
so it was like two years later and I got
an Emmy nomination for that episode.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
And I was like, they were like, oh, I guess
I did a good job there, and I know.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I went back in Washington and I was like, but
it was like two years later, and I actually had perspective.
And so often when I think it's too close, I'm
thinking of all the things that I plugged in.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
So I can't I'm not.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
I'm watching as the character in the same sensations, energy, traumas,
whatever I plugged in.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yes, because it's still alive in you. Yeah, I feel
that too.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
I need like two or three years to be able
to look at my work. And actually so I looked at.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
It and was like, oh, okay, that's not that's so bad. Yeah,
it's raw, it's raw, it's dropped in.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
It's big, you know. But sometimes but it's a lot.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
But sometimes it's a love and sometimes I love that moment.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
When did you see that interview when Viola was talking
about doing fences and doing the big scene. I've been
standing with you for eighteen years doing that big scene
in Denzel. She does it and she's like, I want
to be a cinematic actress and she had done it
on stage, and so I want to, you know, do
you know a cinematic performance? And so she does it
(14:31):
and Denzel's like, what was that? And she's like, I'm
trying to you know, not be too big and do
any you know a cinematic performance. And he was like,
show well, show me what you think is too big.
And then she does, you know, she does it, and
I was like, that's it, that's that's actually it.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Don't do the other thing.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Do that.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And then she said, what I learned is that some
some moments in life are big. Some moments in life
are big.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
They just are.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
And when you think about that moment in Fences, yeah,
you see this beautiful.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Wife like she's like, do you know a like taking
care of him and like doing all the things and
supporting him when he like this broke down patriarch you
know who like all about himself really and then he
has the nerve, the nerve, the nerve to have a baby.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
And she's it's like.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
And he's like, you don't know about when you have
to not have your dreams. It's like I've been standing
with you yes, and it was just like you see,
Oh I love Alsh and literally I mean just thinking
of like the things that we do well. But that's
just it, right, is like human beings and the ability to.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Offer, to be so human that other people see themselves.
I watched her give the most gorgeous speech this year
at the end of ACP Awards.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Oh I thought this.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
I didn't see.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
I wasn't there, but oh, it was so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
You know, It's like, I'm lucky. I get to I'm
like the white and plus one with Nia every year
when I'm when I get to be in town and
she just it's the most magical room and her speech
was so gorgeous. Oh my god, I'm sterling and everybody
but God.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
The first like three times and met her, I cried.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I don't know that I could talk to her.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
First Saga, I was on the carpet and she walked
by me. Was like I just I just kind of like,
I was like, oh my god, chill.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
And then we me and Matt McGrory presented you know,
the best actress in a you know TV series or whatever.
She murders and we got to present her with you
with Sag award, which was like epic, and I didn't
really get to talk to her that night. I said
a few words backstage, but then like the next year
at the SAG Awards, are you know one one for
Ensemble and at the after party like she and she
(16:53):
had won, but I think for a second year in
a row. When I passed her and the.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
Photographer, oh, can we get a photo with Viola?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
You said, okay with you and She's like sure, and
then I sit down with her and then they take
the picture and then I start talking to her, and
I just was like, you know, I there was a
show called Judging Amy back in like the nineties, two thousands,
and you had a guest spot on it. I didn't
know who you were, and you were playing a crack
at it who had relapsed and then like was trying
(17:21):
to get her daughter back and lost her daughter because
she relapsed. And you when they took your daughter, you
took your daughter away. You fed the way you fell
down in the street, I was like, who is this woman?
And I was like, I was studying acting, who is
this woman? She fell down in the street and she
was weeping and it was so raw and it was
(17:43):
so real. Oh my god, I can't even yeah, And
I was like, who is this?
Speaker 4 (17:47):
And I googled her and then I started singing on
my oards and stuff, and I was just.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Like, who is this? And so I was just like
and she was like, oh, one of my crackheads. And
she kind of said it, you know, and I.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Was telling you this story.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
I started crying tell you this story because it's so
hard to like when you see something. Yes, you're like, no,
that changed my life, the epitome.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Of what you maybe would hope to achieve as an
artist one day, and it's there. It's like, and now I'm.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Sitting next to you with a Sagaward in your hand, ma'am.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Five years ago or the yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Ol beautiful. We'll be back in just a minute after
a few words from our favorite sponsors. By the way,
my one of my best friends always says that to
me ironically. She always goes with me to the Sagaword weekend.
It's like our annual tradition, and she'll be like, Sophia,
(18:43):
you are also a famous person. You have to stop
being so weird with all that. And I'm like, but
that's but that, that's why old Davis like, it's it's different,
and it is so crazy when someone who just has
affected the whole trajectory of what you believe is possible
is standing in front of you. It's very surreal, Yes
to be though, you know, I think about that, like
(19:04):
to go from watching a guest star when you were
studying to then sitting on a couch together, each of
you holding you know, a sagaboard in the same season
you have, and you cover it, you know, for you
and for us in this beautiful book. But you have
accomplished so much and you've talked so beautifully today and
(19:25):
in other places on this book tour about understanding that
we're at a sort of really intense inflection point where
we have to come up with something new. You understand
our history, you understand your own, you understand what's at
stake for our future. And I guess I just wonder
if it's something personal, or if it's about policy, or
(19:45):
if it's professional, Like when you think and next my
work in progress is what what does it feel like
for you?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
For me personally? Yeah, I mean it's I always try
to remind myself that the reason why anyone has listened
to me is because I was on a TV show
playing a character that they connected to, and that gave
me the platform that I have to do the work,
you know, the sort of advocacy work that I do
outside of acting. So I've even when people want me
(20:19):
to do other things and focus on other things, I've
always prioritized acting. I'm always focused on that. And I'm
at a point now artistically I'm fifty.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Four and it's time. It's time to get better at
this thing of being an actor.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
I want. I want to be.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
I mean, we have Biola Davis and then we have
Emma Stone.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
The work she's been doing. The girls are.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Acting, acting their faces off. My god.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
That's where I'm at, like on a personal level and
using my voice when I can the way I can.
Part of my job is to educate.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
To That's that's what That's what I'm going to keep doing.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
And I see you now there are moments of being afraid,
but you know, I don't have kids. I am this
is my work, this is this is like, this is
my this is what I'm here to do. And I
didn't have moments where like at a moment where I
was like, you know, people don't always survive these things.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
You know, I'm not interesting, but it's interesting in being
a modern or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Like I don't I'm I tend to not go to
protests because it's not. Yeah, I'm like a transforment. I
can't get around you.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Like it's not me getting arrested is not you go
into jail.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
It is not. I did that on TV. I can't
do it in real.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Life, no, ma'am. I just I hope that everywhere you
go in a time where I know the community doesn't
always feel welcome or safe. I hope everywhere you go
at least every day someone looks at you and says,
you you got me through something, You changed my life
because you were doing that for many of us.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
That's been one of the best blessings.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Of this of this book tour good. You've done that
for me, Laverne, that I get to hear that, because
you know it's I. I I think when we three
years ago and all the butt live stuff is happening,
I felt I felt like I failed. I felt like
I felt like I failed, and like all this advocacy
(22:26):
not that it's just about me and it's kind of
egotistical and I have to check myself. But I felt
like I failed, you know, and it was because sort
of my fault, because fancy people all all of a sudden,
they weren't this visible before. Rages in your black and
so not to be like self important, but like I
felt like I failed, and I still feel a little
bit of that. And but I also, you know, so
(22:47):
all of this has been so humbling. It's been so
life will humble you and I and I think I
and I welcome it. I welcome being humbled again. That's
what that's the thing that happens for me as well.
So it just makes me right sized. It like it's
like I'm just I'm no better than anybody else. I'm
(23:08):
just on my journey struggling like everybody else is trying
to do the best I can. And so if there
is something I've done or said that is impacted someone's
life in a positive way, that is I'm able to
take it in in a way that I haven't always
been able to. And I need it. I need to
take it in because that's what it's about. That's what
(23:32):
it's about. It's about being a service. In some way.
I'm filled with so much joy and gratitude, and I'm
so humbled right now by this moment, and I surrender,
I surrender.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It's beautiful. I'm so happy for you. Congratulations, Thank you
for coming today.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
It's so good to see you.
Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Welcome
back to work in progress with Laverne Cox. Let's dive
back in. One of the things that bothers me, things
(00:22):
I think about. You know, a lot in my life
is and you said this perfectly. Just now, for trans people,
your identity is looked at as being exclusively sexual, and
it's the same for queer people. They're like, queer people
shouldn't be able to adopt children, Queer people shouldn't be
able to get married the children, the children. Seventy three
(00:43):
percent of women in America are unalived by violence done
to them by current or former intimate partners cis male
intimate partners. Most women die by the hand of a man.
Most children are abused by their straight or straight identifying
father or an family relative. They know these people. It's
(01:03):
not gay parents, it's not trans folks.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yet there's not a whole movement saying all men they're like, oh, men,
like the like the ninety nine point nine percent of
like white men who were mass shooters.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
We don't say that. There's like, I mean, some people
are saying it's a crisis with men, but we have
to like pass laws that limit the ability of white
men to get guns and classify them as terrorists. They're
actually would kind of be I mean, but to like
make it about.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Identity, that would be logical though, but they don't want
us to say that.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Statistically it would make more sense. But still just but
it's it's an American to say, did like say that
you if you're a white man, you, if you're a
white man, statistically you are more likely to be a
mass shooter based on the data, But like to pass
to pass a law to say that all white men
can't be can't get access to guns and need to
(01:56):
be like put on a terrorist watch list and classified
as like people casts like they're trying to do with
trans people, like when there's maybe like one.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Or two transs.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I know it's it's I know it's crazy, it's crazy.
But what I what what I think? Like we're we're
in a meta like political space now and I and
I and I love being there. But I also think
that like part of the reason I wrote this book
too is that like how do we how do we
bring it back to ourselves?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yes, because that was going to be my question.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
We can't come together across differences if we have not,
we're not right with ourselves, if we haven't like gotten
to a place where we are not allowing our own
traumas to affect the ways in which we interact with
other people. I feel like sometimes with some of the
turfs that you know, we'll just say it Supporthand with
(02:50):
the turfs a lot, there's a lot of trauma. When
I hear I'll just tracing our name. But the rowling
woman rolling, well, sometimes when I hear a talk and
I hear I heard real trauma there, I hear like
a fear, you know, and like trauma that is unprocessed around,
you know, the thought that she experienced. And I have
amity for that.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, she seems to be very red pilled. But what's
fascinating to me is that anyone would think in a
world or men, look at the Epstein files, Look at
the President of the United States at current and all
of his allies not being required to testify under oath,
not being required to testify in public. Men don't have
to dress up as women to hurt men. Men just
hurt us. Trans women are not having the level of
(03:33):
courage to buck a binary that has been created by
a patriarchal society for hundreds of years as a game.
Your identity has nothing to do with other women. It
has to do with yourself. And trans women are women.
And that's what somebody like her, I think cannot comprehend
because she's clearly never to your point, investigated her own experience,
(03:58):
her own trauma, or her own freedom to that level.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Then how can we decenter ourselves too. It's like we
have to hole the piece around like dealing with our
owning our story, dealing dealing with our trauma, and we're
responding to that as adults, but also decentering ourselves. It's
not just about like my feelings and what's going on
with me. It's like, how do I like look look
out and like not diminish myself but understand that there's
(04:24):
other perspectives and other ways of seeing.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Things and not in making sure that.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I don't let my trauma, my whatever allow me to
not have perspective to like look outside myself and not
like always center myself well.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
And I think that's one of the healthiest side effects
of doing the work is in an interesting way, you
get better at boundaries and you also get more gentle
with people at the same time, you can make more
space for people. And I'm curious if we can, like,
I want to deep dive a few questions specifically on
the book, because I'm like, girl, we need to like
sit with a bottle of line and have this political
(05:02):
conversation for four hours over a good Italian meal. But
the book in particular, when you think about that, because
choosing to go inward and do this project is so personal,
and you do it essentially in these three gorgeous acts.
There's three segments of the book. But in a way,
when you offer us these lessons by being so specific
(05:26):
about your journey, you decenter yourself in a way because
you give us tools that are for everyone. And I'm
curious how you began to figure that out, and especially
when you look back at you, know, I want to
ask a question about every segment. In the first segment,
knowing something was off and then finding your identity and art,
(05:49):
you know, thinking about ASPA, Like, how did that begin
to make sense for you?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So the book is this came from my therapist terms
in the Burned Flyer who I'm seeing tonight, I mean Francisco,
She's coming to the book event. She said to me,
and it's session many years ago that that the journey
of healing from trauma is often going from what's wrong
with me? Think, you know, as a child, like something's
wrong with me, I'm like not like everybody else. And
(06:15):
then I, you know, that was a firm by my mother,
who what's wrong with you? My teachers, what's wrong with you?
The other kids, what's wrong with you? And like internalizing
what's wrong with me, not something's wrong? And then evolving
as I started therapy and understand that it's, oh, it's
actually about what happened to me. There's nothing wrong with me,
Like things happened, and like people put things on me,
(06:35):
and yeah, and so it was about what happened to me,
and some of a lot of the abuse that happened
to me that I was in denial about that I
didn't have the capacity to even hold and so I disassociated.
As a child, there was no way I could process
all that. So I brilliantly disassociated. But at when it's
(06:56):
time to be an adult, like I have to, like
if I'm going to you know, stay on the planet,
be relatively healthy and functional, I have to actually deal
with the trauma and what happened to me and admit
that it happened, and start trying to make sense of
it and the stories that I've told myself around it,
and reality check those stories, reprogram and change those tapes,
(07:19):
and you know, you know, start reprogramming my nervous system,
and then what's right? Part three?
Speaker 4 (07:25):
What's right with me?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Part of that healing that that rewiring my nervous system
is also about a both and that like, yes, there
are neuropathways in my nervous system that are you know,
I've been hardwired for trauma that exists in my body
in specific places.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
But there's also like pathways are.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Brasilience that have always existed there, and I can build
like new pathways and I can fortify the existing pathways
are brasilient.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
You can feed those, Yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Those pathways are brasilience, have always been there. I was
a kid, and like under understanding that and looking back
at like what was really part of the torture was
like trying to go back and like well just going
back and being you know, two years old, being three
years old, and like that's all the fear that I
didn't know how to let myself feel. Feeling that and
(08:19):
trying to make sense of what was going on for
me as that kid, and understanding that, like, I had
a sense of myself from a very early age and
a critical awareness that I developed because like, and I
think a lot of trans people probably have this, and
maybe a lot of queer people too, because we're told
(08:40):
we're supposed to be this way and that you're you know,
you're a boy whatever. I'm like, well, that's not right.
I know I'm not a boy. So I just started questioning.
It was just like a questioning and then I had
a sense that I was here for something bigger than me.
I just that I was here for something big that's
supposed to be a star and like, and I just
(09:00):
in that sense that sounds crazy and delusional in a way,
but the events of my life have like proven that I,
you know, I yeah, maybe I wasn't so crazy. That
that resilience has always been there, that sense of self,
which is such a miracle, such a miracle for me
(09:23):
and to have. And one of the other gifts of
my life is having a twin brother who has been
there the whole time, and you could bear witness, you know,
I'm like, do you remember this? Do you do you
feel like you know? And and for him to be
able to say, you're the same person you've always been.
You're more yourself, You're you're more, you're freer, you're less encumbered.
(09:44):
But you've always this is who you've always been since
you were a kid. And to have that affirmed is
it is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, we'll be back in just a minute, but here's
a word from our sponsors to have a mirror in
that way. And then as you say this, this sense
of knowing that I think so many kids have talked
out of them, you held on too, and it felt
(10:16):
for me at least as a reader, you know, not
wanting to give too much away, that winding up in
the Alabama School of Fine Arts, as you then go
into this, you know, part two, from the what's wrong
with me? To that what's happened to me? As you
as you start to put those pieces back together and
to understand all the aspects of identity and how they
feed your art. Art like that sense that you had
(10:39):
as a little kid that you were supposed to be
on a stage under a spotlight. You have always found
a voice as an artist in.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Pursuit of a stage in pursuit of a camera and
you know, in pursuit of a spotlight, but in pursuit
of the process at being an artists, like the learned,
like really learning to enjoy the process of creating a character,
of rehearsing of you or of writing when you know,
(11:10):
writing a solo show.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
Now the joys of that, Like but I didn't feel
with this book.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
But but the joys of being in process and being
and and technique technical want needing, Like especially when you
study classical ballet, it's a very technical art form. And
so there's there's technique, there's there's I have to keep
my heels down at the till the very last minute
(11:35):
and and pull up so I can get six pure wets.
You know, there's like specific methodology that I need to
achieve to like jump higher, to get my legs higher.
So the relationship between being that the acting things that
I can learn that I learned as an actor that
can help me like in being a better human being
(11:56):
or more effective in my real life.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
It's like it's really cool and that happens that being an.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Artist is like it's such a sacred, sacred, humbling gift.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
I calling feels like, you know, self important.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I feel called. It does feel like a calling, and.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
It's my it's mine.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
And whether you know, you know, I because the world,
I guess I could really self conscious about like what
you know, Oh she sucks, she can't act, you know,
And like I have I have. I'm probably my worst critics,
Like I have moments.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Nobody's meaner to me than me.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Oh yeah, I'm my own worst enemy. So no one
can be more critical of me than me. But sometimes
I have, you know, some I remember the third in
the third EMI nomination, I got I think this season,
and I remember when the season, when the season came out,
and it's this one particular episode and I was talking
to my acting coach and I was like, oh, I
(12:56):
think I pushed. I think I over I overacted, and
it was I saw it. It was just like and
you know, and then like it was a year after
we shot it that it came out, and I was
just kind of like, oh, I just thought it was
I thought it was terrible. And then like literally a
year later because the way when Orange Orange always dropped
in the summer, so it was like the show would
come out of year after we shot it, and the
Immy nominations would come out a year later, so like
(13:18):
so it was like two years later and I got
an Emmy nomination for that episode.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
And I was like, they were like, oh, I guess
I did a good job there, and I know.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I went back in Washington and I was like, but
it was like two years later, and I actually had perspective.
And so often when I think it's too close, I'm
thinking of all the things that I plugged in.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
So I can't I'm not.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
I'm watching as the character in the same sensations, energy, traumas,
whatever I plugged in.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yes, because it's still alive in you. Yeah, I feel
that too.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
I need like two or three years to be able
to look at my work. And actually so I looked at.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
It and was like, oh, okay, that's not that's so bad. Yeah,
it's raw, it's raw, it's dropped in.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
It's big, you know. But sometimes but it's a lot.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
But sometimes it's a love and sometimes I love that moment.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
When did you see that interview when Viola was talking
about doing fences and doing the big scene. I've been
standing with you for eighteen years doing that big scene
in Denzel. She does it and she's like, I want
to be a cinematic actress and she had done it
on stage, and so I want to, you know, do
you know a cinematic performance? And so she does it
(14:31):
and Denzel's like, what was that? And she's like, I'm
trying to you know, not be too big and do
any you know a cinematic performance. And he was like,
show well, show me what you think is too big.
And then she does, you know, she does it, and
I was like, that's it, that's that's actually it.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Don't do the other thing.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Do that.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And then she said, what I learned is that some
some moments in life are big. Some moments in life
are big.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
They just are.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
And when you think about that moment in Fences, yeah,
you see this beautiful.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Wife like she's like, do you know a like taking
care of him and like doing all the things and
supporting him when he like this broke down patriarch you
know who like all about himself really and then he
has the nerve, the nerve, the nerve to have a baby.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
And she's it's like.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
And he's like, you don't know about when you have
to not have your dreams. It's like I've been standing
with you yes, and it was just like you see,
Oh I love Alsh and literally I mean just thinking
of like the things that we do well. But that's
just it, right, is like human beings and the ability to.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Offer, to be so human that other people see themselves.
I watched her give the most gorgeous speech this year
at the end of ACP Awards.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Oh I thought this.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
I didn't see.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
I wasn't there, but oh, it was so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
You know, It's like, I'm lucky. I get to I'm
like the white and plus one with Nia every year
when I'm when I get to be in town and
she just it's the most magical room and her speech
was so gorgeous. Oh my god, I'm sterling and everybody
but God.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
The first like three times and met her, I cried.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I don't know that I could talk to her.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
First Saga, I was on the carpet and she walked
by me. Was like I just I just kind of like,
I was like, oh my god, chill.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
And then we me and Matt McGrory presented you know,
the best actress in a you know TV series or whatever.
She murders and we got to present her with you
with Sag award, which was like epic, and I didn't
really get to talk to her that night. I said
a few words backstage, but then like the next year
at the SAG Awards, are you know one one for
Ensemble and at the after party like she and she
(16:53):
had won, but I think for a second year in
a row. When I passed her and the.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
Photographer, oh, can we get a photo with Viola?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
You said, okay with you and She's like sure, and
then I sit down with her and then they take
the picture and then I start talking to her, and
I just was like, you know, I there was a
show called Judging Amy back in like the nineties, two thousands,
and you had a guest spot on it. I didn't
know who you were, and you were playing a crack
at it who had relapsed and then like was trying
(17:21):
to get her daughter back and lost her daughter because
she relapsed. And you when they took your daughter, you
took your daughter away. You fed the way you fell
down in the street, I was like, who is this woman?
And I was like, I was studying acting, who is
this woman? She fell down in the street and she
was weeping and it was so raw and it was
(17:43):
so real. Oh my god, I can't even yeah, And
I was like, who is this?
Speaker 4 (17:47):
And I googled her and then I started singing on
my oards and stuff, and I was just.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Like, who is this? And so I was just like
and she was like, oh, one of my crackheads. And
she kind of said it, you know, and I.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Was telling you this story.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
I started crying tell you this story because it's so
hard to like when you see something. Yes, you're like, no,
that changed my life, the epitome.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Of what you maybe would hope to achieve as an
artist one day, and it's there. It's like, and now I'm.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Sitting next to you with a Sagaward in your hand, ma'am.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Five years ago or the yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Ol beautiful. We'll be back in just a minute after
a few words from our favorite sponsors. By the way,
my one of my best friends always says that to
me ironically. She always goes with me to the Sagaword weekend.
It's like our annual tradition, and she'll be like, Sophia,
(18:43):
you are also a famous person. You have to stop
being so weird with all that. And I'm like, but
that's but that, that's why old Davis like, it's it's different,
and it is so crazy when someone who just has
affected the whole trajectory of what you believe is possible
is standing in front of you. It's very surreal, Yes
to be though, you know, I think about that, like
(19:04):
to go from watching a guest star when you were
studying to then sitting on a couch together, each of
you holding you know, a sagaboard in the same season
you have, and you cover it, you know, for you
and for us in this beautiful book. But you have
accomplished so much and you've talked so beautifully today and
(19:25):
in other places on this book tour about understanding that
we're at a sort of really intense inflection point where
we have to come up with something new. You understand
our history, you understand your own, you understand what's at
stake for our future. And I guess I just wonder
if it's something personal, or if it's about policy, or
(19:45):
if it's professional, Like when you think and next my
work in progress is what what does it feel like
for you?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
For me personally? Yeah, I mean it's I always try
to remind myself that the reason why anyone has listened
to me is because I was on a TV show
playing a character that they connected to, and that gave
me the platform that I have to do the work,
you know, the sort of advocacy work that I do
outside of acting. So I've even when people want me
(20:19):
to do other things and focus on other things, I've
always prioritized acting. I'm always focused on that. And I'm
at a point now artistically I'm fifty.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Four and it's time. It's time to get better at
this thing of being an actor.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
I want. I want to be.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
I mean, we have Biola Davis and then we have
Emma Stone.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
The work she's been doing. The girls are.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Acting, acting their faces off. My god.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
That's where I'm at, like on a personal level and
using my voice when I can the way I can.
Part of my job is to educate.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
To That's that's what That's what I'm going to keep doing.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
And I see you now there are moments of being afraid,
but you know, I don't have kids. I am this
is my work, this is this is like, this is
my this is what I'm here to do. And I
didn't have moments where like at a moment where I
was like, you know, people don't always survive these things.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
You know, I'm not interesting, but it's interesting in being
a modern or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Like I don't I'm I tend to not go to
protests because it's not. Yeah, I'm like a transforment. I
can't get around you.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Like it's not me getting arrested is not you go
into jail.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
It is not. I did that on TV. I can't
do it in real.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Life, no, ma'am. I just I hope that everywhere you
go in a time where I know the community doesn't
always feel welcome or safe. I hope everywhere you go
at least every day someone looks at you and says,
you you got me through something, You changed my life
because you were doing that for many of us.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
That's been one of the best blessings.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Of this of this book tour good. You've done that
for me, Laverne, that I get to hear that, because
you know it's I. I I think when we three
years ago and all the butt live stuff is happening,
I felt I felt like I failed. I felt like
I felt like I failed, and like all this advocacy
(22:26):
not that it's just about me and it's kind of
egotistical and I have to check myself. But I felt
like I failed, you know, and it was because sort
of my fault, because fancy people all all of a sudden,
they weren't this visible before. Rages in your black and
so not to be like self important, but like I
felt like I failed, and I still feel a little
bit of that. And but I also, you know, so
(22:47):
all of this has been so humbling. It's been so
life will humble you and I and I think I
and I welcome it. I welcome being humbled again. That's
what that's the thing that happens for me as well.
So it just makes me right sized. It like it's
like I'm just I'm no better than anybody else. I'm
(23:08):
just on my journey struggling like everybody else is trying
to do the best I can. And so if there
is something I've done or said that is impacted someone's
life in a positive way, that is I'm able to
take it in in a way that I haven't always
been able to. And I need it. I need to
take it in because that's what it's about. That's what
(23:32):
it's about. It's about being a service. In some way.
I'm filled with so much joy and gratitude, and I'm
so humbled right now by this moment, and I surrender,
I surrender.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It's beautiful. I'm so happy for you. Congratulations, Thank you
for coming today.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
It's so good to see you.
Host
Sophia Bush
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