January 7, 2024 • 53 mins
As we begin the new year, we're returning to our conversation with brilliant actor Michelle Williams.
We walk through the making of Showing Up (6:05), Williams’ fifteen-year partnership with director Kelly Reichardt (8:10), and her upbringing in Montana and San Diego (10:42). Then, she describes coming of age on the set of Dawson’s Creek (14:50), her pivotal turn in Tracy Letts’ Killer Joe (20:00), and her path to Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (26:10).
On the back-half, we discuss a healing passage from Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost (29:37), Williams’ memorable performances in Blue Valentine (32:12) and My Week with Marilyn (37:47), and her final day shooting The Fabelmans (40:50). To close, she shares how she remains present as a mother (45:40), a formative Walt Whitman quote (47:22), and how—at age 42—she’s begun to create from “a place of peace.” (50:36).
For questions, comments, or to join our mailing list, drop me a line at sf@talkeasypod.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm saying frago. So welcome
(00:37):
to the show today, I am joined by actor Michelle Williams.
Across nearly three decades of work, Williams has solidified herself
(00:59):
as one of the most dynamic performers working today. She's
been nominated for five Oscars, beginning in two thousand and
six with Broke Back Mountain was the recognize for her
turns in Blue Valentine, My Week with Marylyn, Manchester by
the Sea, and of course, in Steven Spielberg's latest film,
The Fablemans. We discuss each of those endeavors in this conversation,
(01:22):
but today we begin with her turn in Showing Up,
the fourth collaboration between Williams and director Kelly Reigart.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
In it, she.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Plays a Portland sculptor whose preparations for a new opening
are constantly being interrupted by daily life. Here's a clip
for the trailer. Hi, she's amazing. I love the green stockings.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I don't know what I'm supposed to do without hot water.
My show's open on Friday.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I'll be fee you to deal with it. After that.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I have a show too. You know you're not the
only one with a deadline.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I know, but I have two shows, which is insane.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
You should make more like this.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I'm enjoying my retirement.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I get up. How you doing a little of this,
a little of that, and before you know it.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
It's time to watch TV again.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
That sounds terrible. When's my hot water coming back on?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I'm on it.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
You know, I'm sick of not having a hot water.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Joe is such a total drag.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It's such a shitty thing to do to a person.
I'm sick of it.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
That was from the new film called Showing Up. The
film is really worth seeing for a whole host of reasons,
chief among them Michelle Williams, who time and time again
has this uncanny ability to transform herself into each character
pull of surprise whenner Hilton Owls once wrote that watching
(03:08):
Williams work is like seeing a figure from a documentary
perform a fictional re enactment of her own life. She
has control, and even more interesting, no control over where
the role carries her. And so for today, I wanted
to talk to Williams about how she does the work
that she does, and to do that we had to
(03:29):
unpack her upbringing in Montana, then San Diego, coming of
age on the set of Dawson's Creek, working through tragedy
in the mid aughts, and how at age forty two,
she's begun to create from a place of peace. This
is Michelle Williams. As we get started here, I want
(04:00):
to say at the top, if I get a fact
wrong at any point, please feel free to correct me.
Since we're both virgos. Born on September ninth, I think
you understand this compulsion to get things right, or at
least try to get things right.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Oh, we're gonna have so much to talk about.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I know, I didn't know that till today.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
What year are you born?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
You're the only the third person I've ever met.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I think Adam Sandler has the same birthday.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
It's true he does. I haven't met him. But my
friend Zoe Kazanne, She's the only other person that I've
met in life. And I am like, I have so
many questions, like does it feel like to be inside
your brain? What it feels like to be inside my brain?
Because we do God, we like to get things right.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Oh, y, that is what we're going to try to do.
And we'll try to figure that out by the end,
Michelle Williams, it's nice to meet you.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
It's so nice to meet too. I've heard so much
about you.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Likewise, I think, why don't we start with this new
film of yours. It's called Showing Up. It's the fourth
movie with Kelly Reichart that you've made, and in it
you play a rather frustrated visual artist preparing for a
gallery opening and Portland where she lives and works. And
I want to start with this character because you once
(05:13):
said each thing I do is a product of the
thing before, because that was the thing that made me grow,
and I only feel the benefit of that growth the
next time around. Everything feels like it's the bloom from
the seed that came before. I so loved that, and
I was thinking, what was the seed that bloomed while
(05:33):
making Showing Up.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
That's true, I'd stand by saying that. Sometimes it's scary
when you hear yourself repeated back to you because you think, oh, no, like,
what did I commit?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
And do? I agree with myself? But that sounds right?
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
I hadn't worked for a really long time because of
the pandemic and being pregnant, and Showing Up was my
first time back at work since Fossy Verden and then
after showing up, I went to go make the fablements,
so it kind of felt like greasing the machinery again.
(06:13):
And you know what I'll say, I would say that
it was my first time back at work having had
another baby and being happily married, and I thought, Wow,
what source am I going to work from now? Because
I think I'm running on something different. I think previously
there was another kind of energy that powered me through
(06:33):
my work. And with this like current state of happiness
that I'm enjoying, I wondered how work was going to
feel different, and it did. And I think what I
discovered on showing up that then I could take into
the Fablemans was it's okay to work from a place
of peace, and it doesn't ruin it.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
That difference in what's motivating that you're working from a
place of peace. Like I said, you made four movies
with Kelly wright Gart and I was thinking, how has
that relationship changed over the last fifteen years. Like on
Wendy and Lucy you had a crew of fifteen people.
On this one you had your first hair and makeup trailer.
(07:17):
It's true, so if the economics haven't changed all that much.
How has the dynamic between the two of you creatively changed.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I think that there's a deepening of trust because we
keep returning to each other, So there's a feeling of
it being a kind of a marriage. So we feel
safe to show things to each other because we know
that we're not going anywhere. But we had that really
(07:49):
from the start. I have always felt comfortable bringing Kelly
my bad ideas then feeling like she's going to whittle
them into something that actually is going to become useful
for our film. When we made Wendy and Lucy thought,
I was like, what about if she had this, or
like what if she looked like this? And She's like, no, no,
(08:10):
it's too much. And then finally I was like, what
about if she had like an ace bandage wrapped around
her ankle but you never saw what was under it?
She said aah, finally like yeah, that I'm into that.
So we sort of feel comfortable trying things with each other.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
You said that it feels like a marriage between the
two of you. Who's better at arguing between the two
of you.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
She's much better at it. She has a really wicked
sense of humor. And it serves her well. And I'm
not much of a fighter. We got into like one
fight on this film. Other than that, it's like peace,
love and rainbows. But I think, you know, when you're
in a creative environment, when there's time is short and
(08:57):
money is scarce and you are on the clock and
you're working to come up with things like it can
be a place where tension can exist and that's okay.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
You know you said that. A when hearing a quote
back to you, you start to think, like, I don't
know if I still like that one. Yeah, here's a quote,
and see if you like this one. I've always thought
about childhood as being this really fertile time that, if
done correctly, you can keep drawing from your entire life.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I stand behind that.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So I think to understand how you made all the
incredible work you've made, we have to know a little
bit of where you're drawing from. You're born in nineteen
eighty Montana. Your father is self made commodities trader, your
mother a homemaker. But it's actually at your great grandparents'
house that you have your first clear memories. Right, Yeah,
(09:50):
that's true. What were they?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I grew up in Kallispo, Montana, and my great grandparents
had a farm in Shodo, Montana, and we spent all
of our summers there. My great grandparents were Democrats and
they welcomed people into their home and they would take
in families who were traveling. So there was a group
(10:15):
of us kids that would play with each other, Me
and my cousins, and then these strangers that somehow had
showed up and would be sitting at our table and
we would make up plays and we would put a
blanket down in the living room and that would be
our stage for the adults to watch at night. And
(10:36):
that was my first experience of storytelling and my first
experience of community and that you can have these deep
family feelings with people that you aren't related to. Also,
I would say the kind of childhood that I had
(10:56):
at that point was full of freedom. We would just
come back for lunch and dinner, and we would bike
down unpaved roads. We would wander through feel we would
search for animal skins and arrowheads, and there was always
this sense that if you just went a little further,
(11:19):
you might find the treasure that you were looking for.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Is that like a metaphor?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I mean, I.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Guess it's sort of become one that there was something
out there for you, that there was something that the
universe had hidden and you had to find it. And
that is the exact feeling that I look for when
I work today. There's a feeling that I'm trying to
(11:44):
catch between action and cut, and its most simple name
is freedom. But it's what I experienced from birth to
I think eight or nine when we moved to San Diego.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Well, it's when you moved there. I think we're on
the age eleven that you start auditioning. But to set
a scene inside your teenage bedroom, hung an Edward Hopper print,
a collage of people's eyes cut out from magazines, biographies
of Marlon Brando and James Dean, and a quotation from
Walt Whitman that read, I ordain myself loose of limits
(12:21):
and imaginary lines, which comes from the poem's song of
the Open Road Number five. Was that Whitman line instructive
to you at that age? Did it serve as a
kind of mantra?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
You know it?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
It did?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
I still reflect on what his poetry meant to me
at the age that I read it, and how fibrous
it became how it wrapped itself around me and.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Became what I thought, What do you mean?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
It's funny, I digress a little, but I you know,
he just he meant so much to me, this idea
of an inherent good nature and possibility, because it reminded
me of my early childhood. But at the point that
you and I are talking about, you know, eleven twelve thirteen,
starting to audition, living in San Diego, I was not
(13:16):
seeing those words come alive anywhere.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
The inherent good nature.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
No, So it was in my memory because it was
so wrapped up in being a child in Montana. But
though words became important to me because they were the
only manifestation of this feeling that I had of what
it meant to be alive.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
When you're fifteen, you moved to Burbank in an apartment
with like turquoise carpeting, emancipated from your parents, hoping only
to become an actor. And I wonder, looking back on
that now, you moving there by yourself being that age,
when you see that person, when you see that young girl, like,
(14:04):
what do you what do you see? How do you
see her?
Speaker 3 (14:07):
You know, I kind of can't believe that she's the
same person that I am. I can't believe that I
haven't shed three skins. You know, it feels like lifetimes ago.
It can be a little hard for me to relate
to it now because that's sad. I feel worried about her,
(14:33):
and I mean, I know how it turns out, but
when I sort of isolate her in time, it makes
me sad.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well, I think a less sad moment comes pretty shortly
thereafter of this period. You said, I didn't know how
to keep myself warm in the winter or cool in
the summer, and when it came to acting, it was
like a stand in for selfhood, Like maybe I could
get regard for a woman that I was playing and
that would somehow transfer to me this person that I
(15:03):
didn't really know how to inhabit yet. With that, I
was thinking, did landing the role of Jen on Dawson's
Creek did it feel like a kind of intermission from yourself?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Well, I was sixteen when that happened, and I'd been
in Los Angeles by myself for about a year, to
get a job, to get any job, to get a
job in a pizza hut commercial, to get a job
as an extra was such a big deal. So the
elation of being chosen. Because I started auditioning when I
(15:41):
was eleven and would go on one to three auditions
a day, it's an incredible amount of rejection. So to
finally hear the word yes is miraculous. I was beside
myself with joy. I had always wanted to be on
(16:02):
a TV show because I wanted to have a family
that I would keep returning to year after year. It
also transported me to this sleepy southern town. I feel
like I'm kind of partially from the South, you know.
I've kind of spent equal amounts of time in Montana,
(16:22):
San Diego, North Carolina. I really I did a lot
of growing up there. But it was funny to be
playing a kid on high school having never been to
high school and going through these sort of developmental experiences
on a TV show that I didn't have in real life.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
That's so insane. I don't know, I never thought of that.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
So I was a cheerleader and I went to prom
and I went to college.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
But all on.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
TV those years they seem pivotal because it sounds like
you got to have your like Beatles in Hamburg moment
I'm not just referencing the ten thousand hours theory because
this show is produced by Malcolm Gladwell, but it does
seem like you got to figure out how to do
this job.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I did.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
It was it was really good training for simple things
like how you learn lots of lines and how to
hit your mark without looking at it. And because I
was so young, it also taught me how to be responsible,
how to show up on time, how to schedule dental
visits with a work schedule like it taught me how
(17:33):
to take care of myself and earn a living out
in the world. And it also allowed me time to
develop other interests. You know, I probably read more books
and watched more movies in that time period than any
other in my life. Because there was a nice scene
down there. Back in you know, the early two thousands,
(17:55):
there was good music. It's a beautiful record store, and
I would go in there and get my sort of
like weekly update and the Sarah's a DVD store run
by a huge film buff and I would go there
and I would get my film lessons, and I would
sit on the floor of the Barnes and Noble and
(18:15):
just read through a stack. So it was kind of
in some way, Its like where I educated myself.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You got your education out in the world.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I did.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah, I left any kind of formal school when I
was fifteen, So I have had to keep on top
of my self education because without it, I wouldn't have
much to talk about. So I'd always loved to read,
like reading was always a big part of my life
(18:45):
and my family, and I just kind of read my
way through that six and a half years on Dawson's Creek.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Somewhere in that six and a half years you arrive
at what you've called the beginning, where you're offered two
very different projects, and Killer Joe, a play by Tracy Letts,
and then a movie featuring a gun toting cheerleaders. I
think I have it right.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Nothing against gun towarding cheerleaders.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I just want to say, so, at the moment when
you're eighteen years old, what did you see down those
two roads? Well?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Killer Joe is an incredible piece of writing, and I
felt like I was being allowed to touch something great
for maybe the first time. Where something lives and how
big it is or how long it might carry on,
or what I might be compensated for. It has never
really been a motivating factor for me, So doing an
(19:44):
off Broadway play that people may or may not see
didn't occur to me. I knew what beauty was. I
read books, I saw movies, I listened to music. I
wanted to make something beautiful. I wanted to be a
part of something beautiful. And that's what the experience of
Killer Joe felt like to.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Me, something beautiful. Yeah, even though the play is so brutal.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Even though it's an insane play, you know, you really,
as an actor, you live on words. You live for words.
I don't come to life without them. And Tracy Letts
is as talented as they come. His words could bring
me to life.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
This is maybe a silly question, but when you go
to New York City and you work with Tracy Letts
in this off Broadway production in a theater that holds
maybe two hundred people, you're like eighteen years old in
nineteen ninety nine, carrying around a map. But it's my
understanding that when others were near you, you would hide
(20:45):
that map, And I wondered, why did you hide it?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
How as embarrassed to look, I'm like, where are you?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
You are? Really inside of my brain?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah? Wow, this was the Virgo promise we made each other.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
I do feel like we were like you were maybe
there with me, because the things that you've been mentioning,
I'm not been familiarized, you know. Other people haven't brought
them to my attention, and like, I don't even know that.
I can't even remember that I said that, and it's
so true and it's so personal.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And you found it.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
I was embarrassed that I would look like I didn't
know where I was going because I didn't and I
was so overwhelmed in this city of subways. I didn't
know how to do it. I yeah, I had a
huge fear of people thinking that maybe I didn't belong
(21:45):
in New York City, or that I wasn't a real
New Yorker, or yeah, that I didn't belong. So I
would hide this little fold up map and like pretend
to sort of be like looking around in my purse,
but really I'm just looking at my subway map to
see where I transfer. You know, I missed a lot
of time with parents, so there were things that nobody
(22:09):
taught me how to do, and I had to learn
them by myself. And sometimes that's embarrassing because you make mistakes,
and you feel like other people were given the information
and you weren't, And as simple things like I didn't
understand proportions, like when I started cooking for myself, I
didn't understand that you didn't cook the whole box of
(22:31):
pasta or put the whole jar of tomato sauce into
a jar to warm up.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I'm still learning that lesson.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I didn't know what clothes fit me. I didn't know
I was buying pants for years that were too big,
but I didn't know any Differently.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
You often come back to this line about not exactly
knowing where you were going, not being clear about the destination.
And yet it dawned on me. And maybe I'm just
an outsider looking in. We don't know each other, right,
but it dawned on me that, like an eighteen year
old did know that they should go do a strange
(23:09):
play by Tracy Letts in New York City at eighteen
years old in nineteen ninety nine, that means something that's
not a common choice.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Many people would have done the gun toting cheerleaders.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Thank you. That's all I can say.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
That's such a kind, such a kind thing to say
to me, and such a kind observation to make I
can only say thank you. I suppose one thing that
being alone at a very young age does is it
hones your instincts about people because you are in charge
(23:47):
of protecting yourself, and so you become very aligned with
a quiet voice inside. And while these other things feel
like they're falling apart, like why are my pants falling down?
And why do I have all this leftover pasta, there
is something else that's working well.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Even if the pants didn't fit and the pasta was
left in tupperware, there was some artistic engine that was
guiding you forward.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, my relationship with myself was deepening because I didn't
have anybody else around, and so I got good at
keeping my own company and understanding what I was drawn to,
what my nature was. But I think that also goes
back to Walt Whitman.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, the naturalists when Dawson's Creek ended, and you said,
more than anything, I want respect, a good sense of self,
and to be viewed as an artist. And the last
part around artistry is key. And I think understanding what
moves you forward. And I wondered was working with Anglee
(25:01):
on broke Back Mountain in two thousand and six. Was
that the first time you felt like you were viewed
as an artist on.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Absolutely I'd made a movie with Vim Venders. He had
no relation to me as being on Dawson's Creek. I
just met him. He didn't know what I had done.
He just met me and we started talking about Montanas
and all of a sudden, I'm in a Vim Vendors movie.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
He wasn't a big fan of jet.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
I think he actually saw a picture of me from
the TV show after we finished filming, and he said, Oh,
if I had known you look like that, I don't
think I would hire you. I understood.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I heard he was actually a big Lassie fan.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
I mean, who isn't a big Glassy fan.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Sorry, I'm sorry, no more jokes. Okay, So I was.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
I think I was doing a play at Williamstown maybe
right before Broke Back Mountain went out, so I was
came out. So I was building this sense of myself
as like being allowed to be in these places with
these people. But the Anglely thing was pretty huge because
(26:13):
that brought with it a different level of recognition. I
went to the Oscars for the first time. It actually
when it was sort of all over became a little
destabilizing because I felt like now people were looking at
me and I didn't know what to do. And before
I had felt safe trying these new things because nobody
was paying attention.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
What did that feel like? In that moment?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
It was kind of frozen. I didn't know what to do.
And this thing that had felt very natural, decision making
the choices about what to do and what not to do,
that felt like such an instinctive process that was working
well and running smoothly, and then all of a sudden
it just froze. And it took me a while to
(26:54):
unstick myself and realign with the path I'd been so
comfortable walking down.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
We'll be right back after a quick break, coming back,
(27:26):
you know, on the heels of broke Back Mountain. You
have your first child with the late Heath Ledger. And
what I want to ask you about is this passage
that you continue to return to in the wake of
this tragedy. From a book of essays called A Field
Guide to Getting Lost, written by Rebecca Solnet, it reads,
(27:49):
emptiness is the track on which the centered person moves,
said a Tibetan sage six hundred years ago. In the
book where I found this edict followed it with an
explanation of the word track. In Tibetan, shoal a mark
that remains after that which it has passed by, a footprint.
For example, In other context, shoal is used to describe
(28:13):
the scarred hollow in the ground where a house once stood,
the channel worn through a rock where a river runs
in flood, the indentation in the grass where an animal
slept last night. All of these are shoal the impression
of something that used to be there. Reading that passage,
I hadn't revisited that in so long. What did those
(28:37):
words do for you, both then and now? Did they
help you understand the impression that was left behind?
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Gosh, I'm thinking a few things. Yes, they gave me
great comfort because well it's a way to frame loss,
and it made me feel okay with this hollowing. But
(29:10):
the thing when I hear those words now that I
think is it reminds me of the importance of making things,
because they exist for people to find when they need them,
so that when you feel like you have nothing, you
have words to hold. I guess it makes me feel
(29:35):
like I hope that I've made something in my lifetime
that somebody can hold in the way that I don't
know what I would have done or how I would
have seen myself through had I not read the words
that she wrote. And then suddenly being any kind of
(29:55):
artist feels like a really great way to live and
spend your time.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Well, I can tell you the next movie you make
is one called Blue Valentine. And this is strange, and
I've never actually said this to anyone, let alone on
the show, But since we're going here and you kind
of created this prompt, I'll tell you. I remember when
(30:24):
the film came out in twenty ten. I was sixteen
years old, and I had just moved to California after
this divorce in my family, and I went to the
eleven am Saturday showing of the movie with my mom,
which tells you everything you need to know about the
(30:46):
kind of teenager I was. But I remember walking out
of the theater and both of us for five ten
minutes just kind of kept avoiding eye contact a little bit.
How you and I are now. You know, when you're
trying to like hide crying, and you just contort your
(31:08):
face in a way so the other person can't see
what's going on? And I realized only just now that
the reason my mother and I were feeling so much
is because you had articulated through this character, this pre
trembling feeling so beautifully, the tumult, the precariousness, the fear
(31:34):
of what comes next after a house falls, and suddenly,
in that like terribly harsh one pm California sunlight, we
were left to sort through the rubble. And that is
what the movie brought out of us.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I'm gonna say thank you again.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
I'd like to know more about your mother because that
movie almost got an NC seventeen rating.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I remember that wouldn't have stopped us.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
But yeah, when's your mother's birthday September eighth.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
You know, you get used to just sort of just
kind of like skim the surface, you know, when you
go out and sort of converse about, you know, your
your life, because you it's such a funny line to walk,
because you want to leave behind some sort of an
appropriate record. Yeah, this is what I was like, and
this is what I thought about. But you don't want
(32:45):
to give away the things that are so incredibly hard
one because then they feel trivial when you just PLoP
them down and so you kind of get used to
skimming the surface and totally getting away with it. The
way that you like construct the narrative of my life
is so true that it's like just like a little startling.
(33:11):
Just saying that is like a good good don't worry,
it's just like it makes me think about myself in
a way that I don't normally, you know, but it's
a vulnerable thing.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, totally, Yeah, it's a vulnerable thing.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
That line.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
You're making sense of things for me in a way
that I'm like, oh yes.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
And that's definitely the aim. And that's also why you know,
like I I did want to.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Tell you that thank you for being there with me. Yeah,
it's where.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Obviously this performance did a whole lot for me and
sorting through all the bullshit of my childhood. But did
the performances that came after Blue Valentine, in what you've
often called a decade of grief, did that work force
you to do the same to work through what you
(34:00):
had to work through.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
I think they're all teachers. All the women that I've
played have taught me about myself but also how to
expand myself and change myself. I don't find that.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
It's one to one like that.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, there's a place where we meet. But the truth
is I'm always trying to get as far away from
myself as I can. I cannot help but take my
experiences with me. But I what I'm hoping to do
is shift perspective and habit so that I can find
(34:39):
again more freedom. But it was, you know, at this
point in our life, my daughter and I lived Upstate
New York, and we had this really cozy, private, safe
feeling life, and I think it gave me the ability
(34:59):
to take some pretty big chances in my work.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
What's the flabber quote you always use?
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Ugh, I want to live the quiet life of the
bourgeois so that I can be violent and unrestrained in
my work.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Well, then why don't we talk squarely about that work,
because the shift that happens is from naturalism to expressionism,
or at least that seems like the aim in projects
like My Week with Marylyn, Fosse Verdin and now most
recently the Fableman's was that the aim.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
That's what happened to me when I made Marylyn. Before that,
the kind of in my twenties, in my late teens,
in my twenties. I wanted to because I was coming
off of a teen drama. I wanted to learn naturalism.
I wanted to tell the truth. And then when I
(35:58):
went to make Marylyn, I realized I was missing some
tools in the kit. I hadn't played someone who was
far from me physically, and I had to unlearn myself.
I had to break myself down, get rid of myself,
and then rebuild myself in this person's image. And that
(36:21):
work was so painful. It hurt to find new positions.
I'd been assembling myself for thirty years, and all of
a sudden I had to change things that were inherent
and structural. And I started working with teachers in London,
movement teachers, Alexander, teachers, dialect, and I got so excited
(36:47):
and the possibilities it would open up that I am
not I'm not bound to myself. I became hooked on
this kind of training and studying, an external way of
approaching a character.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
You have a quote you said, I wanted to make
work that an audience member had to deal with where
there was less interpretation on their part, because the interpretation
was really my work. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I didn't want people to be able to project things
onto me. I wanted to make things that felt definite,
and I'm interested now in both, for sure. But I
didn't want.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
To be pure projection and you felt like you were yes,
And I.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Didn't want to just be that. I mean, film is
a medium where you take you you are asking people
to relate to it personally, So there is an amount
of projection that's necessary in the audience performer relationship. But
I didn't want it to be just that. I wanted
to risk how much an audience member could love the
(38:02):
person that I was making. I wanted to risk their
love and earn their respect.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
In thinking and thinking about the type of work you
wanted to make. In the Fablemans, you play Mitzi, who
was modeled after Steven Spielberg's real mother, Leah Adler. She's
a mid century housewife and a passionate dancer and pianist
who has in many ways sublimated her dreams to raise
(38:32):
this family. But I want to go to the last
day of shooting, when you say goodbye to this character.
What happens.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I lost it.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
I lost it in a way that surprised me and
scared the people I was working with. I was hunched
over sobbing at a table. You know, it's the last day.
They have food trucks and picnic tables and everybody's like celebrating,
(39:06):
and I was heaving and sobbing so oh hard that
Tony Kushner came over and said, Dolly, what is it?
Something happened?
Speaker 1 (39:16):
What's wrong with you?
Speaker 3 (39:18):
I feel like I got everything I ever wanted. Like
I've got my fableman's family. I've got this like vibrant,
expressive character and all these kids and.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Now and these.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Words, these gorgeous words.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
And now it's all over. See.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
This is why when I was first starting out, I
was like, I want to be on a TV show
because I don't want it to ever end. I just
want to like keep going to see my family, keep
going to see my family. Such a big experience for
all of us, for me, for Paltino, for seth Rogen
and Paul felt similarly. He didn't cry like I did,
But you know, when we see each other, since it's
(39:58):
been hard to move on from this film experience.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
What did you feel like you were losing? Once? He
said cut, Well, first there was this woman.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
You know, when you get to inhabit these other people
and see things through their eyes. And she had such
a big, bright life force, and so I got to
borrow that and it was wonderful. When she powered down,
(40:31):
I felt smaller. So I missed her. I missed that
soul running through me goes back to that feeling of
doing my first off Broadway play. So you're really working
with words, and there I am working with Tony Kushner's
words like they're edible, They're delicious. I can have the
(40:56):
most fun with the best writing. And then on that day,
all of those gorgeous scenes are all in the past
and I would never get to live them again, and
I was sad for it.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
I guess I wonder does that Rebecca Soulnett passage we
quoted earlier about the impressions left. I know we were
talking about a real person in that case, but in
some ways, don't the characters do the same to you?
I mean, in some ways do you end up holding
those impressions as the years go on?
Speaker 3 (41:30):
Definitely, And I feel like I am allowed to call
them back and remember them and think about what they
gave me and what they taught me. Playing these women,
They've all helped me accept myself. First of all, watching
movies and watching characters, and second of all, playing characters
(41:51):
and becoming other characters has taught me how to be human.
It has taught me. If I can accept the women
that I play for their shortcomings or idiosyncrasies, how can
I not give the same love to myself? Why would
I deny myself of that when I jump with the
opportunity to give it to them. There's this cybab A
(42:14):
quote that I love. He says, all I ask is
that you take me to your darkest parts, and if
I can go there with these women for these women,
can I do that with myself and let others do
that with me? You know that my friends, my husband,
the people that I trust. So becoming these other people
has ultimately for me been an act of trying to
(42:36):
love myself.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
You know, I only have like three more things for
us before we have to go.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
But when are we going to get to the September
ninth birthday celebration?
Speaker 1 (42:46):
OK, that'll be the fourth. Thing. On the flip side
of that darkness you're talking about is a kind of
joy that you seem to be feeling in this moment.
It's kind of where we started the conversation, and if
embodying this woman in the fablements who was so full
of creativity, who to go back to where we started
(43:11):
this talk, wanted to create a fertile childhood for her
kids to later draw upon an adulthood. Is it making
you rethink with these two new young kids of your
own what this time should look like?
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Because my early childhood really served me so beautifully in
the moment and then also as an adult, and I
continue to reflect upon it. I've always been pretty obsessed
with early childhood. I always would say to my daughter,
you know, your childhood is this big, and your adulthood
is this big, and I'm here to protect this part.
(43:49):
It's it's my preoccupation is making this all too brief
time in their lives magical because to them it is
and it could be. And you know, I got this
very stationary and when my daughter would lose a tooth,
I would write these teeny tiny letters and put I'm
(44:09):
in a teeny tiny envelope and she believed in everything
until she was twelve. And so it's always been I've
always been interested in it. And then I collided with
this role where this woman was a true playmate to
(44:29):
her kids. And it just reminded me and reinforced my
desire to be exactly that kind of mom. It's so
easy to get distracted with like the to do list
and the phone and the you know, entanglements and the technology.
(44:50):
And you say podcast podcasts that you can forget to
do the thing that your kids want most from you, which.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Is to play.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Well, then let's go back to the earliest memory of
play for you. It's where we began. You're eight years old,
riding bareback on horse searching for arrowheads, and as we leeve,
is that feeling you had then what you're most after
(45:22):
now in the work that Walt Whitman quote loose of
limits and imaginary lines, is that in the years ahead
where you want to go.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
It is truly what I'm trying to recreate for myself
every time. Between action and cut. It's the free fall space.
Nothing bad can happen there, there is no death, there
are no bad phone calls, nobody gets hurt. A kind
of timelessness can open up, and it requires lots of
(45:56):
preparation and concentration and planning all this stuff that happens before.
If you line that up, you can make this other
feeling happen. And the only way that I can describe
that feeling is related to the childhood that I had.
(46:17):
And again, like I said, the simplest word that I
can use for it is freedom.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Through raising your first child. You had this quote, you said,
I thought about my life at work and how much
of a mystery it is to her. But one day
she's going to see these movies. So my hope now
is that the work makes her proud and that she
sees the reason I was gone. Will she be proud,
will she recognize me? Or would she be surprised by
(46:48):
what she didn't know about me? And I thought, as
believe as you return to these two lovely young children,
and of course, Matilda, if those questions are still in mind,
and if so, what they mean to you now?
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Yeah, I remember so strongly having that feeling when I
came home from work one night and she was sleeping,
and I went into her room just to be with
her because I hadn't seen her during the day, and
I smelled her hair and there were all these things,
like all these secrets in her hair that I didn't
know where she had been, what these smells were that
(47:27):
she had picked up during the day, chlorine and perfume
and just things that were foreign, and I felt sad
to have missed out on those experiences with her. And
now she's almost a grown up, she's seventeen and a half,
(47:49):
so she does take an interest in my adult life
and my adult work as she's embarking on her own
and she'saw showing up. She saw the fab woman. She
my dream came true, like it matters to her and
it makes her proud to have seen me work hards.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
You know how you said A looking back at these
younger versions of yourself, it's almost they almost are imperceptible
to you because they feel so far away. My actual
last question is like the the person that's here now,
the one that is full of joy, the one that
has these two beautiful new movies, the one that has
(48:32):
three kids, the one that has Steven Spielberg calling you
up to play his mother? Oh can you see that person?
And does it make sense to you? Oh?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
What a good question, I do.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
You know?
Speaker 3 (48:47):
It makes me think about that if a boat leaves
a harbor and is rebuilt in its passage, does the
same boat arrive at its destination? And I feel like
I rebuilt the boat. I don't know. I guess we're
(49:07):
always seeking for sense in order, right, It's how we
function as social creatures, especially as argos. Got you understand
everything so I can make a sense of it. And
when I hear you retell things, there does seem like
(49:29):
there's a you know, a thread.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
An internal logic, and.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
Yeah, an internal logic. Yes, even when whatever was going
on sort of around or outside had no rhyme or reason,
but making sense of it makes it all feel better.
And then there are certain things that will always exist
as outside of the realm of sense, you know, sickness
(49:56):
and traumatic death. Like there are things that will that
can't get incorporated. But how you respond and how you
survive you can find sense in your if you can't
make sense of the circumstances.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Well, I thank you for trying to make sense of
all these things that don't totally make sense together on
this podcast.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
I think things make a little bit more sense now
after the podcast, So thank you for your unbelievably thoughtful
observations and finding the invisible thread that runs through somebody's life.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Oh, I forgot any last questions you have for me?
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Yeah, i'd like to talk about what it feels like
inside of your head being a September ninth or.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yes, I'm so sorry we're out of time, but thank you.
Next time we will do that. Michelle Williams, it was
an honor to stay with you.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Likewise, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
That's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure
to give us five stars on Spotify, Apple, wherever you
do your listening. I want to give a special thanks
this week to the team at i DP. We are
Daphne Javich, Eric lures A twenty four and of course
Michelle Williams. You can see her in Kelly Writchard's new
(52:18):
film showing up now in theaters and limited release. To
see if the film is playing at a theater near you,
be sure to visit our show notes at talkasypod dot com.
If you enjoyed this episode with Michelle, I imagine you
would enjoy our talks with Kate blanchette Ethan Hawk, Kihwee, Kwon,
Laura Dern, Questlove, Steven jun Claire Foy, and Anny Redman.
(52:41):
To hear those and more, Pushkin Podcast listen on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.
You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at
talk Easypod. If you want to support us by purchasing
one of our mugs they Come and Cream or Navy,
you can do so at talk easypod dot com slash
(53:02):
shop Talk easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive
producer is Janick sa Bravo. Our associate produce is Caitlin Dryden.
Our research and production assistant is Paulina Suarez. Today's talk
was edited by Caitlin Dryden and mixed by Andrew Vastola.
Our assistant editor is Chlarice Gavara. Our music is by
Dylan Peck, illustrations by Chrisha Chenoy, video and graphics by
(53:25):
Ian Chang, Garret Gaberzak, Ian Jones and Ethan SINCA special
thanks to Kaylin Ung. I'd also like to thank our
team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond, Julia Barton, John Stars,
Karrie Brody, David Glover, Heather Faine, Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner,
Jordan McMillan, Isabella Navarez, Mya Kanig, Carly Mgliori, Jason Gambrell,
Justine Lang, Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Whitesburg. I'm San Fragoso.
(53:49):
Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you
back here next Sunday with Alison Roman. Until then, stay safe,
and so on.
Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm saying frago. So welcome
(00:37):
to the show today, I am joined by actor Michelle Williams.
Across nearly three decades of work, Williams has solidified herself
(00:59):
as one of the most dynamic performers working today. She's
been nominated for five Oscars, beginning in two thousand and
six with Broke Back Mountain was the recognize for her
turns in Blue Valentine, My Week with Marylyn, Manchester by
the Sea, and of course, in Steven Spielberg's latest film,
The Fablemans. We discuss each of those endeavors in this conversation,
(01:22):
but today we begin with her turn in Showing Up,
the fourth collaboration between Williams and director Kelly Reigart.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
In it, she.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Plays a Portland sculptor whose preparations for a new opening
are constantly being interrupted by daily life. Here's a clip
for the trailer. Hi, she's amazing. I love the green stockings.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I don't know what I'm supposed to do without hot water.
My show's open on Friday.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I'll be fee you to deal with it. After that.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I have a show too. You know you're not the
only one with a deadline.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I know, but I have two shows, which is insane.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
You should make more like this.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I'm enjoying my retirement.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I get up. How you doing a little of this,
a little of that, and before you know it.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
It's time to watch TV again.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
That sounds terrible. When's my hot water coming back on?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I'm on it.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
You know, I'm sick of not having a hot water.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Joe is such a total drag.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It's such a shitty thing to do to a person.
I'm sick of it.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
That was from the new film called Showing Up. The
film is really worth seeing for a whole host of reasons,
chief among them Michelle Williams, who time and time again
has this uncanny ability to transform herself into each character
pull of surprise whenner Hilton Owls once wrote that watching
(03:08):
Williams work is like seeing a figure from a documentary
perform a fictional re enactment of her own life. She
has control, and even more interesting, no control over where
the role carries her. And so for today, I wanted
to talk to Williams about how she does the work
that she does, and to do that we had to
(03:29):
unpack her upbringing in Montana, then San Diego, coming of
age on the set of Dawson's Creek, working through tragedy
in the mid aughts, and how at age forty two,
she's begun to create from a place of peace. This
is Michelle Williams. As we get started here, I want
(04:00):
to say at the top, if I get a fact
wrong at any point, please feel free to correct me.
Since we're both virgos. Born on September ninth, I think
you understand this compulsion to get things right, or at
least try to get things right.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Oh, we're gonna have so much to talk about.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I know, I didn't know that till today.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
What year are you born?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
You're the only the third person I've ever met.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I think Adam Sandler has the same birthday.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
It's true he does. I haven't met him. But my
friend Zoe Kazanne, She's the only other person that I've
met in life. And I am like, I have so
many questions, like does it feel like to be inside
your brain? What it feels like to be inside my brain?
Because we do God, we like to get things right.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Oh, y, that is what we're going to try to do.
And we'll try to figure that out by the end,
Michelle Williams, it's nice to meet you.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
It's so nice to meet too. I've heard so much
about you.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Likewise, I think, why don't we start with this new
film of yours. It's called Showing Up. It's the fourth
movie with Kelly Reichart that you've made, and in it
you play a rather frustrated visual artist preparing for a
gallery opening and Portland where she lives and works. And
I want to start with this character because you once
(05:13):
said each thing I do is a product of the
thing before, because that was the thing that made me grow,
and I only feel the benefit of that growth the
next time around. Everything feels like it's the bloom from
the seed that came before. I so loved that, and
I was thinking, what was the seed that bloomed while
(05:33):
making Showing Up.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
That's true, I'd stand by saying that. Sometimes it's scary
when you hear yourself repeated back to you because you think, oh, no, like,
what did I commit?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
And do? I agree with myself? But that sounds right?
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
I hadn't worked for a really long time because of
the pandemic and being pregnant, and Showing Up was my
first time back at work since Fossy Verden and then
after showing up, I went to go make the fablements,
so it kind of felt like greasing the machinery again.
(06:13):
And you know what I'll say, I would say that
it was my first time back at work having had
another baby and being happily married, and I thought, Wow,
what source am I going to work from now? Because
I think I'm running on something different. I think previously
there was another kind of energy that powered me through
(06:33):
my work. And with this like current state of happiness
that I'm enjoying, I wondered how work was going to
feel different, and it did. And I think what I
discovered on showing up that then I could take into
the Fablemans was it's okay to work from a place
of peace, and it doesn't ruin it.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
That difference in what's motivating that you're working from a
place of peace. Like I said, you made four movies
with Kelly wright Gart and I was thinking, how has
that relationship changed over the last fifteen years. Like on
Wendy and Lucy you had a crew of fifteen people.
On this one you had your first hair and makeup trailer.
(07:17):
It's true, so if the economics haven't changed all that much.
How has the dynamic between the two of you creatively changed.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I think that there's a deepening of trust because we
keep returning to each other, So there's a feeling of
it being a kind of a marriage. So we feel
safe to show things to each other because we know
that we're not going anywhere. But we had that really
(07:49):
from the start. I have always felt comfortable bringing Kelly
my bad ideas then feeling like she's going to whittle
them into something that actually is going to become useful
for our film. When we made Wendy and Lucy thought,
I was like, what about if she had this, or
like what if she looked like this? And She's like, no, no,
(08:10):
it's too much. And then finally I was like, what
about if she had like an ace bandage wrapped around
her ankle but you never saw what was under it?
She said aah, finally like yeah, that I'm into that.
So we sort of feel comfortable trying things with each other.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
You said that it feels like a marriage between the
two of you. Who's better at arguing between the two
of you.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
She's much better at it. She has a really wicked
sense of humor. And it serves her well. And I'm
not much of a fighter. We got into like one
fight on this film. Other than that, it's like peace,
love and rainbows. But I think, you know, when you're
in a creative environment, when there's time is short and
(08:57):
money is scarce and you are on the clock and
you're working to come up with things like it can
be a place where tension can exist and that's okay.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
You know you said that. A when hearing a quote
back to you, you start to think, like, I don't
know if I still like that one. Yeah, here's a quote,
and see if you like this one. I've always thought
about childhood as being this really fertile time that, if
done correctly, you can keep drawing from your entire life.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I stand behind that.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So I think to understand how you made all the
incredible work you've made, we have to know a little
bit of where you're drawing from. You're born in nineteen
eighty Montana. Your father is self made commodities trader, your
mother a homemaker. But it's actually at your great grandparents'
house that you have your first clear memories. Right, Yeah,
(09:50):
that's true. What were they?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I grew up in Kallispo, Montana, and my great grandparents
had a farm in Shodo, Montana, and we spent all
of our summers there. My great grandparents were Democrats and
they welcomed people into their home and they would take
in families who were traveling. So there was a group
(10:15):
of us kids that would play with each other, Me
and my cousins, and then these strangers that somehow had
showed up and would be sitting at our table and
we would make up plays and we would put a
blanket down in the living room and that would be
our stage for the adults to watch at night. And
(10:36):
that was my first experience of storytelling and my first
experience of community and that you can have these deep
family feelings with people that you aren't related to. Also,
I would say the kind of childhood that I had
(10:56):
at that point was full of freedom. We would just
come back for lunch and dinner, and we would bike
down unpaved roads. We would wander through feel we would
search for animal skins and arrowheads, and there was always
this sense that if you just went a little further,
(11:19):
you might find the treasure that you were looking for.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Is that like a metaphor?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I mean, I.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Guess it's sort of become one that there was something
out there for you, that there was something that the
universe had hidden and you had to find it. And
that is the exact feeling that I look for when
I work today. There's a feeling that I'm trying to
(11:44):
catch between action and cut, and its most simple name
is freedom. But it's what I experienced from birth to
I think eight or nine when we moved to San Diego.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Well, it's when you moved there. I think we're on
the age eleven that you start auditioning. But to set
a scene inside your teenage bedroom, hung an Edward Hopper print,
a collage of people's eyes cut out from magazines, biographies
of Marlon Brando and James Dean, and a quotation from
Walt Whitman that read, I ordain myself loose of limits
(12:21):
and imaginary lines, which comes from the poem's song of
the Open Road Number five. Was that Whitman line instructive
to you at that age? Did it serve as a
kind of mantra?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
You know it?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
It did?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
I still reflect on what his poetry meant to me
at the age that I read it, and how fibrous
it became how it wrapped itself around me and.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Became what I thought, What do you mean?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
It's funny, I digress a little, but I you know,
he just he meant so much to me, this idea
of an inherent good nature and possibility, because it reminded
me of my early childhood. But at the point that
you and I are talking about, you know, eleven twelve thirteen,
starting to audition, living in San Diego, I was not
(13:16):
seeing those words come alive anywhere.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
The inherent good nature.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
No, So it was in my memory because it was
so wrapped up in being a child in Montana. But
though words became important to me because they were the
only manifestation of this feeling that I had of what
it meant to be alive.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
When you're fifteen, you moved to Burbank in an apartment
with like turquoise carpeting, emancipated from your parents, hoping only
to become an actor. And I wonder, looking back on
that now, you moving there by yourself being that age,
when you see that person, when you see that young girl, like,
(14:04):
what do you what do you see? How do you
see her?
Speaker 3 (14:07):
You know, I kind of can't believe that she's the
same person that I am. I can't believe that I
haven't shed three skins. You know, it feels like lifetimes ago.
It can be a little hard for me to relate
to it now because that's sad. I feel worried about her,
(14:33):
and I mean, I know how it turns out, but
when I sort of isolate her in time, it makes
me sad.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well, I think a less sad moment comes pretty shortly
thereafter of this period. You said, I didn't know how
to keep myself warm in the winter or cool in
the summer, and when it came to acting, it was
like a stand in for selfhood, Like maybe I could
get regard for a woman that I was playing and
that would somehow transfer to me this person that I
(15:03):
didn't really know how to inhabit yet. With that, I
was thinking, did landing the role of Jen on Dawson's
Creek did it feel like a kind of intermission from yourself?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Well, I was sixteen when that happened, and I'd been
in Los Angeles by myself for about a year, to
get a job, to get any job, to get a
job in a pizza hut commercial, to get a job
as an extra was such a big deal. So the
elation of being chosen. Because I started auditioning when I
(15:41):
was eleven and would go on one to three auditions
a day, it's an incredible amount of rejection. So to
finally hear the word yes is miraculous. I was beside
myself with joy. I had always wanted to be on
(16:02):
a TV show because I wanted to have a family
that I would keep returning to year after year. It
also transported me to this sleepy southern town. I feel
like I'm kind of partially from the South, you know.
I've kind of spent equal amounts of time in Montana,
(16:22):
San Diego, North Carolina. I really I did a lot
of growing up there. But it was funny to be
playing a kid on high school having never been to
high school and going through these sort of developmental experiences
on a TV show that I didn't have in real life.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
That's so insane. I don't know, I never thought of that.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
So I was a cheerleader and I went to prom
and I went to college.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
But all on.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
TV those years they seem pivotal because it sounds like
you got to have your like Beatles in Hamburg moment
I'm not just referencing the ten thousand hours theory because
this show is produced by Malcolm Gladwell, but it does
seem like you got to figure out how to do
this job.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I did.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
It was it was really good training for simple things
like how you learn lots of lines and how to
hit your mark without looking at it. And because I
was so young, it also taught me how to be responsible,
how to show up on time, how to schedule dental
visits with a work schedule like it taught me how
(17:33):
to take care of myself and earn a living out
in the world. And it also allowed me time to
develop other interests. You know, I probably read more books
and watched more movies in that time period than any
other in my life. Because there was a nice scene
down there. Back in you know, the early two thousands,
(17:55):
there was good music. It's a beautiful record store, and
I would go in there and get my sort of
like weekly update and the Sarah's a DVD store run
by a huge film buff and I would go there
and I would get my film lessons, and I would
sit on the floor of the Barnes and Noble and
(18:15):
just read through a stack. So it was kind of
in some way, Its like where I educated myself.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You got your education out in the world.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I did.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah, I left any kind of formal school when I
was fifteen, So I have had to keep on top
of my self education because without it, I wouldn't have
much to talk about. So I'd always loved to read,
like reading was always a big part of my life
(18:45):
and my family, and I just kind of read my
way through that six and a half years on Dawson's Creek.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Somewhere in that six and a half years you arrive
at what you've called the beginning, where you're offered two
very different projects, and Killer Joe, a play by Tracy Letts,
and then a movie featuring a gun toting cheerleaders. I
think I have it right.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Nothing against gun towarding cheerleaders.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I just want to say, so, at the moment when
you're eighteen years old, what did you see down those
two roads? Well?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Killer Joe is an incredible piece of writing, and I
felt like I was being allowed to touch something great
for maybe the first time. Where something lives and how
big it is or how long it might carry on,
or what I might be compensated for. It has never
really been a motivating factor for me, So doing an
(19:44):
off Broadway play that people may or may not see
didn't occur to me. I knew what beauty was. I
read books, I saw movies, I listened to music. I
wanted to make something beautiful. I wanted to be a
part of something beautiful. And that's what the experience of
Killer Joe felt like to.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Me, something beautiful. Yeah, even though the play is so brutal.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Even though it's an insane play, you know, you really,
as an actor, you live on words. You live for words.
I don't come to life without them. And Tracy Letts
is as talented as they come. His words could bring
me to life.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
This is maybe a silly question, but when you go
to New York City and you work with Tracy Letts
in this off Broadway production in a theater that holds
maybe two hundred people, you're like eighteen years old in
nineteen ninety nine, carrying around a map. But it's my
understanding that when others were near you, you would hide
(20:45):
that map, And I wondered, why did you hide it?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
How as embarrassed to look, I'm like, where are you?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
You are? Really inside of my brain?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah? Wow, this was the Virgo promise we made each other.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
I do feel like we were like you were maybe
there with me, because the things that you've been mentioning,
I'm not been familiarized, you know. Other people haven't brought
them to my attention, and like, I don't even know that.
I can't even remember that I said that, and it's
so true and it's so personal.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And you found it.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
I was embarrassed that I would look like I didn't
know where I was going because I didn't and I
was so overwhelmed in this city of subways. I didn't
know how to do it. I yeah, I had a
huge fear of people thinking that maybe I didn't belong
(21:45):
in New York City, or that I wasn't a real
New Yorker, or yeah, that I didn't belong. So I
would hide this little fold up map and like pretend
to sort of be like looking around in my purse,
but really I'm just looking at my subway map to
see where I transfer. You know, I missed a lot
of time with parents, so there were things that nobody
(22:09):
taught me how to do, and I had to learn
them by myself. And sometimes that's embarrassing because you make mistakes,
and you feel like other people were given the information
and you weren't, And as simple things like I didn't
understand proportions, like when I started cooking for myself, I
didn't understand that you didn't cook the whole box of
(22:31):
pasta or put the whole jar of tomato sauce into
a jar to warm up.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I'm still learning that lesson.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I didn't know what clothes fit me. I didn't know
I was buying pants for years that were too big,
but I didn't know any Differently.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
You often come back to this line about not exactly
knowing where you were going, not being clear about the destination.
And yet it dawned on me. And maybe I'm just
an outsider looking in. We don't know each other, right,
but it dawned on me that, like an eighteen year
old did know that they should go do a strange
(23:09):
play by Tracy Letts in New York City at eighteen
years old in nineteen ninety nine, that means something that's
not a common choice.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Many people would have done the gun toting cheerleaders.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Thank you. That's all I can say.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
That's such a kind, such a kind thing to say
to me, and such a kind observation to make I
can only say thank you. I suppose one thing that
being alone at a very young age does is it
hones your instincts about people because you are in charge
(23:47):
of protecting yourself, and so you become very aligned with
a quiet voice inside. And while these other things feel
like they're falling apart, like why are my pants falling down?
And why do I have all this leftover pasta, there
is something else that's working well.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Even if the pants didn't fit and the pasta was
left in tupperware, there was some artistic engine that was
guiding you forward.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, my relationship with myself was deepening because I didn't
have anybody else around, and so I got good at
keeping my own company and understanding what I was drawn to,
what my nature was. But I think that also goes
back to Walt Whitman.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, the naturalists when Dawson's Creek ended, and you said,
more than anything, I want respect, a good sense of self,
and to be viewed as an artist. And the last
part around artistry is key. And I think understanding what
moves you forward. And I wondered was working with Anglee
(25:01):
on broke Back Mountain in two thousand and six. Was
that the first time you felt like you were viewed
as an artist on.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Absolutely I'd made a movie with Vim Venders. He had
no relation to me as being on Dawson's Creek. I
just met him. He didn't know what I had done.
He just met me and we started talking about Montanas
and all of a sudden, I'm in a Vim Vendors movie.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
He wasn't a big fan of jet.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
I think he actually saw a picture of me from
the TV show after we finished filming, and he said, Oh,
if I had known you look like that, I don't
think I would hire you. I understood.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I heard he was actually a big Lassie fan.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
I mean, who isn't a big Glassy fan.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Sorry, I'm sorry, no more jokes. Okay, So I was.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
I think I was doing a play at Williamstown maybe
right before Broke Back Mountain went out, so I was
came out. So I was building this sense of myself
as like being allowed to be in these places with
these people. But the Anglely thing was pretty huge because
(26:13):
that brought with it a different level of recognition. I
went to the Oscars for the first time. It actually
when it was sort of all over became a little
destabilizing because I felt like now people were looking at
me and I didn't know what to do. And before
I had felt safe trying these new things because nobody
was paying attention.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
What did that feel like? In that moment?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
It was kind of frozen. I didn't know what to do.
And this thing that had felt very natural, decision making
the choices about what to do and what not to do,
that felt like such an instinctive process that was working
well and running smoothly, and then all of a sudden
it just froze. And it took me a while to
(26:54):
unstick myself and realign with the path I'd been so
comfortable walking down.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
We'll be right back after a quick break, coming back,
(27:26):
you know, on the heels of broke Back Mountain. You
have your first child with the late Heath Ledger. And
what I want to ask you about is this passage
that you continue to return to in the wake of
this tragedy. From a book of essays called A Field
Guide to Getting Lost, written by Rebecca Solnet, it reads,
(27:49):
emptiness is the track on which the centered person moves,
said a Tibetan sage six hundred years ago. In the
book where I found this edict followed it with an
explanation of the word track. In Tibetan, shoal a mark
that remains after that which it has passed by, a footprint.
For example, In other context, shoal is used to describe
(28:13):
the scarred hollow in the ground where a house once stood,
the channel worn through a rock where a river runs
in flood, the indentation in the grass where an animal
slept last night. All of these are shoal the impression
of something that used to be there. Reading that passage,
I hadn't revisited that in so long. What did those
(28:37):
words do for you, both then and now? Did they
help you understand the impression that was left behind?
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Gosh, I'm thinking a few things. Yes, they gave me
great comfort because well it's a way to frame loss,
and it made me feel okay with this hollowing. But
(29:10):
the thing when I hear those words now that I
think is it reminds me of the importance of making things,
because they exist for people to find when they need them,
so that when you feel like you have nothing, you
have words to hold. I guess it makes me feel
(29:35):
like I hope that I've made something in my lifetime
that somebody can hold in the way that I don't
know what I would have done or how I would
have seen myself through had I not read the words
that she wrote. And then suddenly being any kind of
(29:55):
artist feels like a really great way to live and
spend your time.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Well, I can tell you the next movie you make
is one called Blue Valentine. And this is strange, and
I've never actually said this to anyone, let alone on
the show, But since we're going here and you kind
of created this prompt, I'll tell you. I remember when
(30:24):
the film came out in twenty ten. I was sixteen
years old, and I had just moved to California after
this divorce in my family, and I went to the
eleven am Saturday showing of the movie with my mom,
which tells you everything you need to know about the
(30:46):
kind of teenager I was. But I remember walking out
of the theater and both of us for five ten
minutes just kind of kept avoiding eye contact a little bit.
How you and I are now. You know, when you're
trying to like hide crying, and you just contort your
(31:08):
face in a way so the other person can't see
what's going on? And I realized only just now that
the reason my mother and I were feeling so much
is because you had articulated through this character, this pre
trembling feeling so beautifully, the tumult, the precariousness, the fear
(31:34):
of what comes next after a house falls, and suddenly,
in that like terribly harsh one pm California sunlight, we
were left to sort through the rubble. And that is
what the movie brought out of us.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I'm gonna say thank you again.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
I'd like to know more about your mother because that
movie almost got an NC seventeen rating.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I remember that wouldn't have stopped us.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
But yeah, when's your mother's birthday September eighth.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
You know, you get used to just sort of just
kind of like skim the surface, you know, when you
go out and sort of converse about, you know, your
your life, because you it's such a funny line to walk,
because you want to leave behind some sort of an
appropriate record. Yeah, this is what I was like, and
this is what I thought about. But you don't want
(32:45):
to give away the things that are so incredibly hard
one because then they feel trivial when you just PLoP
them down and so you kind of get used to
skimming the surface and totally getting away with it. The
way that you like construct the narrative of my life
is so true that it's like just like a little startling.
(33:11):
Just saying that is like a good good don't worry,
it's just like it makes me think about myself in
a way that I don't normally, you know, but it's
a vulnerable thing.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, totally, Yeah, it's a vulnerable thing.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
That line.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
You're making sense of things for me in a way
that I'm like, oh yes.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
And that's definitely the aim. And that's also why you know,
like I I did want to.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Tell you that thank you for being there with me. Yeah,
it's where.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Obviously this performance did a whole lot for me and
sorting through all the bullshit of my childhood. But did
the performances that came after Blue Valentine, in what you've
often called a decade of grief, did that work force
you to do the same to work through what you
(34:00):
had to work through.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
I think they're all teachers. All the women that I've
played have taught me about myself but also how to
expand myself and change myself. I don't find that.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
It's one to one like that.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, there's a place where we meet. But the truth
is I'm always trying to get as far away from
myself as I can. I cannot help but take my
experiences with me. But I what I'm hoping to do
is shift perspective and habit so that I can find
(34:39):
again more freedom. But it was, you know, at this
point in our life, my daughter and I lived Upstate
New York, and we had this really cozy, private, safe
feeling life, and I think it gave me the ability
(34:59):
to take some pretty big chances in my work.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
What's the flabber quote you always use?
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Ugh, I want to live the quiet life of the
bourgeois so that I can be violent and unrestrained in
my work.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Well, then why don't we talk squarely about that work,
because the shift that happens is from naturalism to expressionism,
or at least that seems like the aim in projects
like My Week with Marylyn, Fosse Verdin and now most
recently the Fableman's was that the aim.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
That's what happened to me when I made Marylyn. Before that,
the kind of in my twenties, in my late teens,
in my twenties. I wanted to because I was coming
off of a teen drama. I wanted to learn naturalism.
I wanted to tell the truth. And then when I
(35:58):
went to make Marylyn, I realized I was missing some
tools in the kit. I hadn't played someone who was
far from me physically, and I had to unlearn myself.
I had to break myself down, get rid of myself,
and then rebuild myself in this person's image. And that
(36:21):
work was so painful. It hurt to find new positions.
I'd been assembling myself for thirty years, and all of
a sudden I had to change things that were inherent
and structural. And I started working with teachers in London,
movement teachers, Alexander, teachers, dialect, and I got so excited
(36:47):
and the possibilities it would open up that I am
not I'm not bound to myself. I became hooked on
this kind of training and studying, an external way of
approaching a character.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
You have a quote you said, I wanted to make
work that an audience member had to deal with where
there was less interpretation on their part, because the interpretation
was really my work. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I didn't want people to be able to project things
onto me. I wanted to make things that felt definite,
and I'm interested now in both, for sure. But I
didn't want.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
To be pure projection and you felt like you were yes,
And I.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Didn't want to just be that. I mean, film is
a medium where you take you you are asking people
to relate to it personally, So there is an amount
of projection that's necessary in the audience performer relationship. But
I didn't want it to be just that. I wanted
to risk how much an audience member could love the
(38:02):
person that I was making. I wanted to risk their
love and earn their respect.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
In thinking and thinking about the type of work you
wanted to make. In the Fablemans, you play Mitzi, who
was modeled after Steven Spielberg's real mother, Leah Adler. She's
a mid century housewife and a passionate dancer and pianist
who has in many ways sublimated her dreams to raise
(38:32):
this family. But I want to go to the last
day of shooting, when you say goodbye to this character.
What happens.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I lost it.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
I lost it in a way that surprised me and
scared the people I was working with. I was hunched
over sobbing at a table. You know, it's the last day.
They have food trucks and picnic tables and everybody's like celebrating,
(39:06):
and I was heaving and sobbing so oh hard that
Tony Kushner came over and said, Dolly, what is it?
Something happened?
Speaker 1 (39:16):
What's wrong with you?
Speaker 3 (39:18):
I feel like I got everything I ever wanted. Like
I've got my fableman's family. I've got this like vibrant,
expressive character and all these kids and.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Now and these.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Words, these gorgeous words.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
And now it's all over. See.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
This is why when I was first starting out, I
was like, I want to be on a TV show
because I don't want it to ever end. I just
want to like keep going to see my family, keep
going to see my family. Such a big experience for
all of us, for me, for Paltino, for seth Rogen
and Paul felt similarly. He didn't cry like I did,
But you know, when we see each other, since it's
(39:58):
been hard to move on from this film experience.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
What did you feel like you were losing? Once? He
said cut, Well, first there was this woman.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
You know, when you get to inhabit these other people
and see things through their eyes. And she had such
a big, bright life force, and so I got to
borrow that and it was wonderful. When she powered down,
(40:31):
I felt smaller. So I missed her. I missed that
soul running through me goes back to that feeling of
doing my first off Broadway play. So you're really working
with words, and there I am working with Tony Kushner's
words like they're edible, They're delicious. I can have the
(40:56):
most fun with the best writing. And then on that day,
all of those gorgeous scenes are all in the past
and I would never get to live them again, and
I was sad for it.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
I guess I wonder does that Rebecca Soulnett passage we
quoted earlier about the impressions left. I know we were
talking about a real person in that case, but in
some ways, don't the characters do the same to you?
I mean, in some ways do you end up holding
those impressions as the years go on?
Speaker 3 (41:30):
Definitely, And I feel like I am allowed to call
them back and remember them and think about what they
gave me and what they taught me. Playing these women,
They've all helped me accept myself. First of all, watching
movies and watching characters, and second of all, playing characters
(41:51):
and becoming other characters has taught me how to be human.
It has taught me. If I can accept the women
that I play for their shortcomings or idiosyncrasies, how can
I not give the same love to myself? Why would
I deny myself of that when I jump with the
opportunity to give it to them. There's this cybab A
(42:14):
quote that I love. He says, all I ask is
that you take me to your darkest parts, and if
I can go there with these women for these women,
can I do that with myself and let others do
that with me? You know that my friends, my husband,
the people that I trust. So becoming these other people
has ultimately for me been an act of trying to
(42:36):
love myself.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
You know, I only have like three more things for
us before we have to go.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
But when are we going to get to the September
ninth birthday celebration?
Speaker 1 (42:46):
OK, that'll be the fourth. Thing. On the flip side
of that darkness you're talking about is a kind of
joy that you seem to be feeling in this moment.
It's kind of where we started the conversation, and if
embodying this woman in the fablements who was so full
of creativity, who to go back to where we started
(43:11):
this talk, wanted to create a fertile childhood for her
kids to later draw upon an adulthood. Is it making
you rethink with these two new young kids of your
own what this time should look like?
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Because my early childhood really served me so beautifully in
the moment and then also as an adult, and I
continue to reflect upon it. I've always been pretty obsessed
with early childhood. I always would say to my daughter,
you know, your childhood is this big, and your adulthood
is this big, and I'm here to protect this part.
(43:49):
It's it's my preoccupation is making this all too brief
time in their lives magical because to them it is
and it could be. And you know, I got this
very stationary and when my daughter would lose a tooth,
I would write these teeny tiny letters and put I'm
(44:09):
in a teeny tiny envelope and she believed in everything
until she was twelve. And so it's always been I've
always been interested in it. And then I collided with
this role where this woman was a true playmate to
(44:29):
her kids. And it just reminded me and reinforced my
desire to be exactly that kind of mom. It's so
easy to get distracted with like the to do list
and the phone and the you know, entanglements and the technology.
(44:50):
And you say podcast podcasts that you can forget to
do the thing that your kids want most from you, which.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Is to play.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Well, then let's go back to the earliest memory of
play for you. It's where we began. You're eight years old,
riding bareback on horse searching for arrowheads, and as we leeve,
is that feeling you had then what you're most after
(45:22):
now in the work that Walt Whitman quote loose of
limits and imaginary lines, is that in the years ahead
where you want to go.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
It is truly what I'm trying to recreate for myself
every time. Between action and cut. It's the free fall space.
Nothing bad can happen there, there is no death, there
are no bad phone calls, nobody gets hurt. A kind
of timelessness can open up, and it requires lots of
(45:56):
preparation and concentration and planning all this stuff that happens before.
If you line that up, you can make this other
feeling happen. And the only way that I can describe
that feeling is related to the childhood that I had.
(46:17):
And again, like I said, the simplest word that I
can use for it is freedom.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Through raising your first child. You had this quote, you said,
I thought about my life at work and how much
of a mystery it is to her. But one day
she's going to see these movies. So my hope now
is that the work makes her proud and that she
sees the reason I was gone. Will she be proud,
will she recognize me? Or would she be surprised by
(46:48):
what she didn't know about me? And I thought, as
believe as you return to these two lovely young children,
and of course, Matilda, if those questions are still in mind,
and if so, what they mean to you now?
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Yeah, I remember so strongly having that feeling when I
came home from work one night and she was sleeping,
and I went into her room just to be with
her because I hadn't seen her during the day, and
I smelled her hair and there were all these things,
like all these secrets in her hair that I didn't
know where she had been, what these smells were that
(47:27):
she had picked up during the day, chlorine and perfume
and just things that were foreign, and I felt sad
to have missed out on those experiences with her. And
now she's almost a grown up, she's seventeen and a half,
(47:49):
so she does take an interest in my adult life
and my adult work as she's embarking on her own
and she'saw showing up. She saw the fab woman. She
my dream came true, like it matters to her and
it makes her proud to have seen me work hards.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
You know how you said A looking back at these
younger versions of yourself, it's almost they almost are imperceptible
to you because they feel so far away. My actual
last question is like the the person that's here now,
the one that is full of joy, the one that
has these two beautiful new movies, the one that has
(48:32):
three kids, the one that has Steven Spielberg calling you
up to play his mother? Oh can you see that person?
And does it make sense to you? Oh?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
What a good question, I do.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
You know?
Speaker 3 (48:47):
It makes me think about that if a boat leaves
a harbor and is rebuilt in its passage, does the
same boat arrive at its destination? And I feel like
I rebuilt the boat. I don't know. I guess we're
(49:07):
always seeking for sense in order, right, It's how we
function as social creatures, especially as argos. Got you understand
everything so I can make a sense of it. And
when I hear you retell things, there does seem like
(49:29):
there's a you know, a thread.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
An internal logic, and.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
Yeah, an internal logic. Yes, even when whatever was going
on sort of around or outside had no rhyme or reason,
but making sense of it makes it all feel better.
And then there are certain things that will always exist
as outside of the realm of sense, you know, sickness
(49:56):
and traumatic death. Like there are things that will that
can't get incorporated. But how you respond and how you
survive you can find sense in your if you can't
make sense of the circumstances.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Well, I thank you for trying to make sense of
all these things that don't totally make sense together on
this podcast.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
I think things make a little bit more sense now
after the podcast, So thank you for your unbelievably thoughtful
observations and finding the invisible thread that runs through somebody's life.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Oh, I forgot any last questions you have for me?
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Yeah, i'd like to talk about what it feels like
inside of your head being a September ninth or.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yes, I'm so sorry we're out of time, but thank you.
Next time we will do that. Michelle Williams, it was
an honor to stay with you.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Likewise, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
That's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure
to give us five stars on Spotify, Apple, wherever you
do your listening. I want to give a special thanks
this week to the team at i DP. We are
Daphne Javich, Eric lures A twenty four and of course
Michelle Williams. You can see her in Kelly Writchard's new
(52:18):
film showing up now in theaters and limited release. To
see if the film is playing at a theater near you,
be sure to visit our show notes at talkasypod dot com.
If you enjoyed this episode with Michelle, I imagine you
would enjoy our talks with Kate blanchette Ethan Hawk, Kihwee, Kwon,
Laura Dern, Questlove, Steven jun Claire Foy, and Anny Redman.
(52:41):
To hear those and more, Pushkin Podcast listen on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.
You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at
talk Easypod. If you want to support us by purchasing
one of our mugs they Come and Cream or Navy,
you can do so at talk easypod dot com slash
(53:02):
shop Talk easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive
producer is Janick sa Bravo. Our associate produce is Caitlin Dryden.
Our research and production assistant is Paulina Suarez. Today's talk
was edited by Caitlin Dryden and mixed by Andrew Vastola.
Our assistant editor is Chlarice Gavara. Our music is by
Dylan Peck, illustrations by Chrisha Chenoy, video and graphics by
(53:25):
Ian Chang, Garret Gaberzak, Ian Jones and Ethan SINCA special
thanks to Kaylin Ung. I'd also like to thank our
team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond, Julia Barton, John Stars,
Karrie Brody, David Glover, Heather Faine, Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner,
Jordan McMillan, Isabella Navarez, Mya Kanig, Carly Mgliori, Jason Gambrell,
Justine Lang, Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Whitesburg. I'm San Fragoso.
(53:49):
Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you
back here next Sunday with Alison Roman. Until then, stay safe,
and so on.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.