October 21, 2025 • 35 mins
What do Real Housewives, rage rooms, and Colleen Hoover have in common? Actress and executive producer Allison Williams, of course. In this live episode of Bookmarked, Allison joins host Danielle Robay to talk about adapting Regretting You for the big screen, from messy mother-daughter drama and car-smashing scenes to primal screams and postpartum feelings. It’s emotional, hilarious, and very real. No spoilers, just vibes (and a few tears). Oh, and she may just spill some insider tea about what’s really in those letters.
BOOKS MENTIONED:
Regretting You by Colleen Hoover
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bookmarked by Reese's book Club is presented by Apple Books. Hi,
I'm Danielle Robe. Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese's book Club.
If you want a full on emotional roller coaster. Colleen
Hoover never misses. Her twenty nineteen bestseller, Regretting You dives
(00:20):
deep into the messy, beautiful bond between a mother and
daughter and also love, loss and secrets.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And now it's headed to the big screen.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Colleen Hoover's Regretting You from Paramount Pictures drops October twenty fourth,
and we have an exclusive preview right here on Bookmarked.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I sat down with one of its.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Stars and executive producers, Alison Williams, at a really special
event in New York City. We were surrounded by book talkers,
book girlies, and book lovers.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Basically all my favorite people in one room.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
And I have to tell you I went into this
episode as a fan of Allison's work. I think she
has this quality about her on screen that no matter
what character she's playing, good.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Or evil, you just trust her.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
And that tension is so rare in an actor. But
now I'm a fan of Alison Williams the person. She
is hilarious and grounded, kind and just so real. So
if you're into stories that tug at your heart and
make you think about the people who shape us most oh,
and a little girl's nostalgia, you're in the right place.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Let's turn the page with Alison Williams.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Okay, welcome to a live podcast recording of Bookmarked by
Reese's Book Club.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Our guest today is.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Somebody that you know from Girls from Get Out, from Megan.
She's built a career on choosing stories that surprise us,
and now she's bringing her signature warmth and depth to
something new. She's executive producing and starring in the adaptation
of Colleen Hoover's Gredding You from Paramount Pictures. So let's
(02:02):
stand up and give a big Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club.
Welcome to the Alison Williams.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Alison, Welcome to the club. Thank you so happy to
be here. We're so happy you're in the cloth I.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Mean English major. This is like kind of what it's
all been for. It's true, what else all leading you too?
Why did I read you, Lyssies? If not for this moment?
Can someone answer that?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
So everyone in this room has only seen the trailer
of Regretting You, and we're all dying to see how
you bring the character Morgan to life. For anybody who
has not read the book, we're about fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Here, Okay, okay, great, we'll keep it spoiler free. You
guys are in the no great.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
So for anyone who hasn't read the book so they
can get an idea of Morgan, is she more of
a Marnie, a Jessa, a Hannah, or a show it's
one of.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
The audience is Teamed girls. Fifty percent has read this book.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I would say I think Morgan is It's so funny
picturing any of the girls with this much responsibility. She's
the closest to a Marnie. But I can't tell if
that's just like their share DNA, or maybe she's she's
a shosh rising. I don't know what that means in astrology,
(03:20):
but I went for it. Uh yeah, I think she's
like a Marnie shows hybrid might kind of guess I
actually really agree with you.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Oh good, I'm glad.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Okay, So at first I was going to say that
Regretting You is your first romance film, But then I
went on book talk and there's actually a lot of
debate there on whether the story is a romance or
a family saga.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I'm wondering how you see it.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
When we were making the movie, we kind of talked
about it as being primarily about three relationships, two of
which I would say are romantic in the typical sense
of the word, and then one is kind of about
finding the love and a relationship. And so there's an
older adult love story that I am part of the
there's a younger love story, and then there's the mother
daughter relationship, and to me, that.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Is sort of the heartbeat of the movie.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
But the driving forces of it are kind of a
combination of all three of them. I would say, I
think it's a I think it's I think there's a
love story in here. There's a couple of them, is
what I would say. Do you think that the book
and the film live in the same genre. Ooh, good question, Yeah,
I do.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I do.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I think I'm really proud of, Like, adapting a book
is hard, and I'm really proud of the way we've
been able to do it. We all were so aware
of how high the standards are, and as people who
love books like we intuitively know that it's a challenge.
You want to make these characters feel familiar, like they
(04:49):
do after you've finished reading a book, and this one's
told from alternating first person perspective, so it's like really intimate.
The book finishes, you really feel like you know these
people so knowing that it's it's intimidating, but I feel
very proud that we were able to take the essence
of the book and render it on the screen.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It's so hard. I mean, we only have a movie's
amount of time, but we did our best.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
When you say it's hard as a non actor, non writer, yeah,
what about adapting is so different and difficult?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Great question, because most of what was hard I did
not have to do, like writing the script, but I
guess from like a from even a producing standpoint, like
as a steward of the movie, you just want to
make sure that it is a it is faithful to
the source material, that it has its own thing to say,
because otherwise why do it. Like the exercise of adapting
a book is kind of interesting from the start, because
(05:42):
if the book is excellent, then let it just be
a book. But some books I've put down and I'm like,
I never need to see that adapted I loved it.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It needs to stay there.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
And then some of them are like just dancing in
my head, and I'm like, I would, I would I
want to see that.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Moving in three D, like on screen.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
And so I think making sure that you cling to
the moments, the lines, the dynamics that feel essential to
what it is, and then like expanding in areas where
maybe the book can't because of the medium that it is.
Trying to take advantage of the fact that it is
visual and you have all of these other senses you can.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Work with, but it's hard.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
You're declaring a definitive version of each person, which is
intimidating because who knows if my mental image of Morgan,
which was me because I hadn't read the book before
I read it for this project, but who knows if
that matched what anyone who's read the book already pictured
in their mind's eye. That's like, you know, that's a
lot of responsibility.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
It is, especially a Colleen Hoover book, because people, yes,
are so fanatic.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yes, totally, I'm in the hive. I get it, I understand,
I feel the same thing. I feel very like both
protective and open, kind of like a combo.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Your character, Morgan as we know her from the book
and from the trailer, really goes through it.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
She goes through a lot, she really does. Yeah, it
was fun. Death betrayal that year, it was fun.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, a really angsty teen daughter, which was almost worse
than the death.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yes, that's hard that I have not had to handle
that yet, just toddler, which apparently they're very similar stages.
But I'm very grateful to be dealing with the one.
That's like also talking about dinosaurs and not like drugs.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Did you feel like it was freeing or was it
frightening to sit in the feelings of anger and resentment.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I found it freeing because I don't often. I was
just thinking about this last night watching The Real Housewives
of Salt Lake City.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
About shout out.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
She's one of us, of course, obviously, I'm a person
of the pulse, watching the free expression of rage and
frustration and standing up and sitting down and walking away
and coming back and like these like big physical gestures
like I don't I can't like pull that off in
my day to day. It's all very waspy, it's very understated.
(08:03):
It's very like calm when I'm angry. It's like I'm
just biting and mean less like physically aggressive. So beating
up a car is something that I've never even thought
to do in my normal life. So exercising accessing and
then exercising rage in that way feels good. Like there's
a reason that rage rooms exist. It's all in there.
(08:24):
It's just just sitting there waiting to be like unleashed.
I hurt myself beating up the car. I like partially
dislocated a rib. True, true fact. I know, I'm like
basically Tom Cruise beating up a car with a Duffel bag,
But yeah, like that is cathartic. And I also have
(08:44):
played a lot of characters who are kind of keeping everyone,
including themselves, at arms distance. So it was really nice
to just be able to like feel things and be vulnerable.
And I don't know, vulnerable is such an overused word. Vulnerable, Lisa,
I'm sorry, I just can't. It's not thinking about Saltag City,
Lisa's being vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
We're all vulnerable.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Will you kind of do give like this real house?
So I have primal scream in the trailer, Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That was an improvised scream.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, So I want to know all about this scream
it just I don't know. I've always been like what
must to be like to be an actor? That's just
like having screams, like you don't plan like that seems insane.
And then cut to I'm just like beating up a
car and I just like scream at it at the end,
and I was like.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Oh my god, what did I just do?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
It just came out of you, just came out when
you're like, I don't know, I've never done that before,
but I guess when you do that, when you're beating
up a car, it a scream might come out.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I don't know. It was like this primal howl. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
I didn't have a childbirth thing experience that included like pushing,
and I've heard that that can be part of it,
where like the baby's out and then you're like.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Oh my god, what noises did I make? And where
did they come from? In here?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I've never like seen that part of me before, and
I guess I like bottled it away when I didn't
get to do it during the C section, and then
it's like.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Unleashed it in this moment.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I really liked Morgan and I also wanted to yell
at her I know a lot. Yeah, which speaks to
you as an actress, because that's hard to do.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
There's like, I've played a lot of people that we
want to yell at for different reasons.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
That's true. I may also just be someone you want
to yell at. That's okay. I'm comfortable with that, We've
have done it.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
But here's the tension I'm curious about. Because I've watched
a lot of your interviews, and you're a very forthright person,
and you grew up with a professional communicator in your house. Yeah,
you're honest, you're direct. What was it like for you
to play a character that holds so much back?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
For some reason, I've really always gravitated towards characters that
are not just like open books. And maybe that speaks
to like, I am kind of like that.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I am.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I am actually like very open but simultaneously quite private.
And I don't I don't really know. That's so inarticulate.
I don't really know how to express it. It's just
it feels true. And so the characters that I have
been able to relate to are often like trying to
access something but can't, or are right on the verge
of self discovery in some way, but not quite there.
(11:16):
They're in like process, and so playing someone that was
that we are seeing like really going through it felt
very new to me in this movie and felt very
vulnerable and yeah, I don't know. It was really fun
and challenging of course, like grief is painful, Like it's
hard to go to that place for any reason, and
(11:38):
so it's hard to summon that for a whole movie.
Like McKenna and Mason were joking that in like every
scene they're either like weeping or kissing.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And it's true that.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
We all did a lot of We were sad a lot,
and so that part isn't comfortable. But there is something
and I think some of you might experience this in
pretty soon, but there is something that feels good about
a crash when you need one, and if you can
time that out with your work schedule, like I have
been able to do on occasion, it's it's nice. This
(12:08):
felt like a really cathartic challenge. I guess I learned
recently that we actually release oxytocin when we cry, like
some heres made for us.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
That makes sense, did you like Morgan? I did?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
But she drove me crazy too, and I like have
really big disagreements with her about certain things, but I
don't think it's fun to play someone that I'm like
fully aligned with. I mean, I'm sure like, for I
don't know, if you're Julie Roberts are playing Aaron Brockoviitch,
you're like, yeah, this is like do all those things like.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
You should do that.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
I'm on your side, and I am always on the
side of the characters I play. But like, there's I
don't want to spoil anything, but there's a question of letters,
and I like vehemently and on the record disagree with
Morgan's handling of the situation. And that's interesting. It's interesting
to like walk someone through. I mean, I played like
a like an evil white supremacist, so I'm not a
stranger to disagreeing with.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
The character that you're playing.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
But in this way, I was like, I wish she
made a different choice, But it's my job to understand
that choice.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
That is sort of the job of acting.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
It's like making it feel real and like it's grounded
in something for the character, even if you disagree with it.
This is my only sort of personal question for you,
which is I've already talked about my c section, like,
you're you're good. I heard someone over here whisper, she's
so funny like you.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
But one of Morgan's challenges as a mom to a
rebellious teen is that she's she's not well mannered and
you're you're mad a lot, and I was. I was
watching it thinking we all have our eras. I was
a late bloomer. I had my rebellious era during COVID,
(13:49):
which was like, it's too late.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
In your thirties to be a bad girl.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Now earlier you have to. I believe this, like firmly,
you must. You cannot skip it. It's coming. It has
to come for you. So when coming over your era, oh,
mine was right on. It's very type A.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I was.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
It's high school. It was like right when it was
supposed to happen. When my hormones were raging, I was
super rebellious. But I was rebellious like throughout, like you know,
like little mischief. But it became like you know, like
lying and doing all the things you're supposed to do,
they're just really testing those boundaries. That was like high
school for me, and I feel so lucky that I
(14:28):
did it because it would have come for me at
some point. And can you imagine like being in this chair,
like in the middle of it, Like that would be
so stressful, being like I'm.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Rebelling right now. This is bad. What would I do?
I don't know, be scared. You probably wouldn't have shown up. Yeah, maybe,
or like late, I don't know. I'm a little late.
Any as late as I go. It's like three minutes.
I feel horrible.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Anyone who's read the book knows what I'm talking about
when I mentioned the letters. For anybody who hasn't read it,
the letters are a big sort of moment or turning
point in the film.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, did you read what's in the letters?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
There's like there's levels to it. Okay, the letters on
set are like prop letters, so nothing. It's like I's lorum,
It's like not real words. Shout out to all the
journalists out there, Lauram upsom, I got it.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Reverse.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Then there's my idea of what's in them, which was
sort of consensus, which was never like written down per se.
But I do feel like I read them, and so no,
and yes, I guess is the answer.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Did you would all ask Colleen what was in them?
I know what's in them?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
You do.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I feel like I do.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Oh okay, I needed to come up with like a
definitive answer for it for myself. But crucially and annoyingly,
she doesn't read them right understandably though not understandably. This
is the guest point of departure I have from her.
(16:01):
Would you have done what she does with them?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
No, I'm so nosy. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
I guess I'm a child of journalists, Like this is
my instinct.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I know, I know. That's such a great question. Would
you know?
Speaker 3 (16:15):
That's what I was saying, Yes, one hundred percent. It
very least kept like just a later thing. Yeah, like
a you know, if you weren't ready. Yeah, life is long.
Curiosity is powerful. Like I agree she Yeah, she made
the different choice, which I think is again like that's
what makes it interesting, is like trying to make that
feel real for the character in the movie.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Hopefully we did that. The name of the movie, Regretting
You is it's heavy.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, And I was thinking about it all of my
ex boyfriends, thinking do I.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Regret any of them? Or did they help me become
who I am?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That's the thing about once you have a well I
don't know about everybody else, but once I had a kid,
my relationship with regret changed completely because, like, let's get
granular here, like it's down to the follicle, it's down
to the day of ovulations, down to the egg itself,
like anything went differently. This kid doesn't exist exactly the
way he is, and so I'm like, I can't regret anything.
(17:18):
I can't regret literally anything I can. I have little
regrets since he's been born, but that's hard too, because
he's been around the whole time. So it's like even
the things that I didn't do perfectly as a mom,
I did in an effort to be better for him.
And so it feels like I don't know. I think
my feeling about regret is always commensurate with how happy
and content I am in my life at any given moment,
(17:40):
And in the moments in my life where I have
felt lost or upset or sad or depressed, it's been
much easier for me to access that. So I guess
it's a happy sign that I'm It's hard for me
to feel that way, but I do feel it's so trite,
but like it's got a.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It's all you have.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
To go through it all to if you want to
end up somewhere productive if you want to avoid regret,
which I do think I've I am wired to and
predisposed to try to do everything right and not make
mistakes and get it right the first time.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's very marning of your.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
It's very marny, it's very you know, it's just my wiring.
But luckily it's not possible, and if thank God, because otherwise,
you know, there's no point to doing this whole thing
if you're going to do it right the first time.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
You mentioned motherhood in the film. Your character Morgan is
sort of invisible in her own life. Yeah, in some ways,
it's a great way of putting it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Did you feel like playing her and embodying this person
changed the way that you showed up in real life
as a mother?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
I don't. I don't, but I do.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I did use the inverse was true, like I used
experience is from like my postpartum time when I was
feeling very depressed and like withdrawn to influence the way
we find Morgan at the beginning of the movie. I
don't know that she would diagnose herself with depression or
would even notice that she feels that way in the
book she talks about feeling an emptiness but not really
knowing where it's from. And there's a shot of her
(19:19):
that you're about to see that's so weird and exciting,
where she's just looking out the window of her kitchen
and it's the first time you see me in like
the current time period. And that's what I'm trying to
convey you guys, let me know if you think I
was successful the challenges of a book adaptation and that
emptiness I think she knows intuitively is best left un examined,
(19:45):
Like it's a better choice for her to just keep
putting one foot in front of the other for as
long as she possibly can without stopping everything and just
like looking at it all with a microscope. And so
that's the version of it that I can kind of
really too, of like just needing to just cross hours
off the day. If anyone has ever gone through a
stage of life where it's felt like that, I definitely
(20:07):
could relate to that. But the expression of motherhood from
Morgan like wormed its way into my own techniques. I
say that with Love was also like fundamentally different experiences
of motherhood, Like yes, vaguely we've both had children, but
like doing it at seventeen versus thirty three is like
a completely different experience.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I just remember you doing a podcast about motherhood and
hearing you and it was with two of your friends. Yeah,
and you guys were all talking about your different experiences
of motherhood and one person mentioned not wanting to lose themselves,
and it reminded me.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, she's referring to my podcast Landlines, which you should
check out. It's with my two best friends, two of
my best friends from growing up. We've known each other
since in one case we were zero and then the
other kindergarten.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I think losing yourself in motherhood is sort of like
both inevitable and a worthy way of like checking in
on some people find themselves in motherhood, and so I
don't want to like weigh in on what I think
is the better version of it. For me, it's been
(21:23):
about adding it to the list of ways that I identify
and see myself as a human being, rather than it
coming in and giving meaning an order to everything that
I had been doing already. But I also have friends
who had that experience of feeling a little bit lost,
a little bit at seat and then they became moms
and they're like, oh, this was it. And then I
know people who became parents and were kind of like,
(21:44):
this wasn't it. So it's every experience is I do
feel like there's any version of it is fine. Like
just being able to be a parent is fucking hard.
Being a person is hard, so like do you and
whatever version works is the best version of it. But
it does feel like for me it was more about
mixing and it's a work in progress and it's constantly
(22:05):
evolving because what motherhood means is also changing as he
gets older, and so mixing it in with everything else
is weird.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Like it was much easier to like do a day like.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
This where it's a press day and I'm talking to
people and I can just like exist as a persona
the whole time, rather than like going back to my
phone and I have a message from Bright Wheel of
where my husband is asking the teacher like how to
drop off go, And then I'm like, oh my god,
it was a hard drop off and I wasn't there
like that that tug of war is so human and
helpful and like means that my feet just can't leave
the ground, which is too easy if you have this job,
(22:37):
like I don't know, like a nice way of looking
at it.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah, it's a grounding, it's nice. I just rambled. You did,
That's what I do. It's a podcast. That's the media.
You didn't at all.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Okay, So you've played horror, you've played dark comedy, and
now a Colleen Hoover emotional drama. What connects these roles
for you? And is there sort of a through life?
Are you trying to excavate something about human behavior?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
I feel like my I'm kind of trying to like
mine my identity for everything I can. I'm I feel like.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I don't know how else.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Like the white woman, the whitest of white women is
sort of my corner, and and like they reak havoc,
they do good things. They are loud and proud and
get a lot of focus in our culture. And so
I think like examining that from every angle is sort
(23:38):
of my pursuit. I'm never going to try to tell
the story of someone else's existence.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
But I think that.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Like in Get Out, for example, the Catharsais of being
able to show like the worst of what we're capable
of was like deeply. It felt really important to me
to like really make her as evil as possible, just
to help people understand the amount of harm that can
be people with our demographics, and then in a lesser way,
just the entitlement of like Gemma and Megan of like
(24:09):
just unleashing this thing into the world who's like, yes,
fabulous and a queen, but also is like murdering people
and terrifying and yeah, just examining that identity from every perspective,
I feel like is the through line. It's basically being
like when I was little and I imagine being an actor,
I was like, oh, I'll wear prosthetics and I'll like
look different and I'll you know, I don't know, I'll
(24:32):
transform And yes, some of that is involved, but for
the most part, rather than leaving my identity, it's sort
of being like, you know, what is what's left to
be said about this identity, what's interesting? And given how
much space like women of my demography take up in
the world, like might as well kind of interrogate that
a little bit. And we all know Morgan's we all
(24:54):
live amongst them, and so it's kind of like I
might as well kind of understand a version of what
that means to go through.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
When I look at it, I think that you take
this like perfectionism or like.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
American white female and turn it into cultural criticism.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, that's what I'm going for. Yeah, what was the
Marnie There's thank you so much. There's a quote from
Marnie that she's staying at her wedding about her culture,
which is white Christian woman. I think, and that line
has always tackled me because I'm like, it's not our culture,
but it is like a type of person we're all
just like surrounded by, and so it's like, Okay, let's
(25:37):
let's do the thing. Let's see them do everything well
and badly and find out what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
So every week I ask our guests what they've bookmarked
this week. It can be a poem, a song, a quote,
something that you've sent your best friend Allison, what have
you bookmarked?
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I cannot stop thinking about a conversation that I had
with our son two nights ago. He's very into how
things work, and this includes a gestation and delivery of
babies right now. And I'm not pregnant. I'm not announcing anything,
although I now I'm like very split on like could
he handle emotion now that he knows what he knows,
(26:25):
which he knows everything about how it all works, Like
can he could he handle walking helping someone through that experience?
I think he'd be kind of anyway. He asked me
why placenta doesn't get belly buttons, which was a great question,
and I now I'm gonna like start do a startup
for where No, I'm kidding, it's like a Jordan Peele,
(26:46):
here's your next movie. He was asking how he was
able to communicate what birth felt like to him while
he was being born. He was like, how could I
tell the doctors if it was painful or not? How
did they tell me what the plan is? And I
was like, WHOA. First of all, this is like what
(27:08):
happens when you just communicate a ton with your child
as they expect to have been communicated with pre when
they were still in the womb, which he was. I
talked to him constantly, But also like it just it's
just gotten stuck in my head thinking about like this
is the first thing in some ways that we all
go through is like coming into the world and wondering
(27:32):
his like concern for the efficacy and advocacy in that
moment of the person going through it is just something
I can't stop thinking about. Like he was yearning for
there to be a line of communication between like just
to coordinate the delivery, you know, Like, how did they
know if the if it was painful to be slipping
(27:54):
out or painful to be being pulled out or or both.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
How do they know.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
If it was gonna hoot? He said, quote like that,
How didn't you know if it was gonna if it
was hooding? And then he said, and how the doctors
decide they have so many things in their minds, it
might get lost. And he was just very like.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I was like, wow, it's a very sweet, like sensitive
thought that's going to haunt me for the rest of
my days. It's like a bookmark. So speed read.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
We put sixty seconds on the clock and we're going
to see how many rapid fire literary questions we can
get through it.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Which is good. Rapid fire, that's good.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Good to put a time limit on it. I'll still
make it. I'll still take too.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Long, okay. Three two? What is your favorite page to screen? Adaptation?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Sense and Sensibility a book you're dying to bring to
the screen The Phantom told Booth, great answer.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Favorite book all time.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Book that best captures motherhood.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Like Emily Oster books. That's one for the mother hive
out there.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Last book that made you cry?
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Oh a biography for children about David Bowie.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Ooh yeah. Favorite R. L. Stein book? Real ones know
that you wrote R. L. Stein A le eight.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Wow, thanks for being a real one, I think, ooh,
this is so hard. Any of the choose your own
ending books. I loved those so much. Favorite book to
recommend Tant'm Toldbooth. Best book you've never read. Oh, I
never read. I haven't read Warren Peace. And it's also
just not coming up, like that opportunity is not rising.
(29:34):
But I never read. I made it through all of yeah,
my whole English measure without reading it.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
What's a book that shaped the way you see the world?
Oh my god, Oh that's so hard. Oh there's so many.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
One of the biggest influences on the way I saw
the world were like anything I read in my anthropology
classes in college that like fundamentally changed the way I
see the world and the way it functions is like
seeing us as a species has like I don't know,
I was like anthropology pilled. So maybe like the Harari
books like human or Sapiens or you know, Homodaus or whatever.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, Okay, this is my last and favorite question. What's
the most Alison Williams book Club snack.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Movie theater butter, microwave popcorn, extra butter as is?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, movie theater butter, which is its own quantity of butter.
It is like, it's its own amount.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I love it so much.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Yeah, and warning, you're gonna crave popcorn when you see
the movie because someone works in a movie theater and
there's a lot of popcorn in the movie.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Alison, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us
on Bookmark.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Everybody Alison a round of a plug.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Okay, friends, Before we wrap today's episode, I'm bringing back
our monthly comfort segment from Cotton, called the Booknook. This
is where we explore the rituals that make reading feel
just right. And as you know, cotton is at the
heart of so many of those everyday comforts. Whether it's
your softest worn in tea, the coziest throw you curl
(31:08):
up with, or the crisp cotton sheets you sink into
after a long day, Cotton can ground us in comfort,
which makes it the perfect companion for a good book.
Let's hear from another Bookmarked listener sharing their ideal reading setup.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Hi, Danielle high Bookmarked. My name is Avery and I'm
calling in from Brooklyn. I take a book with me everywhere,
but my favorite reading ritual is particular to us moving
into autumn and might be a little morbid to some people,
but hey, don't knock until you try it. I live
(31:45):
extremely close to a cemetery with super tall trees. The
light filters with the trees in a super pleasing way,
and leaves have already started to fall on this winding
path that leads to a long wooden bench, And this
bench is also shaded, which is perfect to keep the
(32:05):
sun out of your face no glare while you're reading.
I sit down in this spot and I just listen
to the slice of nature around me, and usually there's
the hum of one or two or three lawnmowers tending
to these expansive cemetery grounds. After a few minutes of
(32:26):
just grounding myself, I'll take out my book and a
pen if it's not a library book, because I love
to annotate while I read. The general lull of this
environment is enough to keep me engrossed in any book
for a good hour. I'm really wondering, though, are there
any other listeners that have some unusual spots where they
(32:48):
like to delve into a good book. Thanks for listening,
Happy reading everyone, Avery.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
I love this. There's something so vivid about your ritual.
The filtered light through the tree, the crunch of the leaves,
the quiet hum of the world going by. It's a
reminder that comfort doesn't always have to mean indoors. Sometimes
it's about the natural textures all around us, and of
course the literary companions we bring. I can just picture
(33:15):
you with your book in hand, maybe a cotton sweater
to ward off that autumn chill, completely tucked into your
own reading world. So friends, keep your ideal reading setups coming.
What are you wearing? What's around you? Are you reading
by sunlight or lamplight, under a cotton throw or your
coziest false sweater. Take me right into your perfect reading ritual.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Leave me a.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Voicemail at five zero one two nine to one three
three seven nine, or email a voice memo to bookmark
at Reese's book Club dot com. Thanks to Cotton for
bringing this segment to life and reminding us that comfort
and style can go hand in hand. Don't forget to
check the tag for cotton. And if you want to
learn more, head to the Fabric of OurLives dot com.
(34:02):
And if you want a little bit more from us,
come hang with us on socials. We're at Reese's book
Club on Instagram serving up books, vibes and behind the
scenes magic. And I'm at Danielle Robe Roba y come
say hi and df me And if you want to
go nineties on us, call us. Okay, our phone line
is open, so call now at one five zero one
(34:24):
two nine one three three seven nine. That's one five
oh one two nine one three three seven nine. Share
your literary hot takes, book recommendations, questions about the monthly pick,
or let us know what you think about the episode
you just heard. And who knows, you might just hear
yourself in our next episode, so don't be shy, give
(34:47):
us a ring, and of course, make sure to follow
Bookmarked by Reese's book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your shows. Until then, see you
in the next chapter. Bookmarked is a production of Hello
Sunshine and iHeart podcast. Its executive produced by Reese Witherspoon
and me Danielle Robe. Production is by ACAST Creative Studios.
(35:11):
Our producers are Matty Foley, Britney Martinez, Sarah Schleid, and
Darby Masters. Our production assistant is Avery Loftus. Jenny Kaplan
and Emily Rudder are the executive producers for a Cast
Creative Studios. Maureene Polo and Reese Witherspoon are the executive
producers for Hello Sunshine. Olga Kaminwha, Kristin Perla and Ashley
(35:32):
Rappaport are associate producers for Reese's book Club. Ali Perry
and Lauren Hansen are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts.
Bookmarked by Reese's book Club is presented by Apple Books. Hi,
I'm Danielle Robe. Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese's book Club.
If you want a full on emotional roller coaster. Colleen
Hoover never misses. Her twenty nineteen bestseller, Regretting You dives
(00:20):
deep into the messy, beautiful bond between a mother and
daughter and also love, loss and secrets.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And now it's headed to the big screen.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Colleen Hoover's Regretting You from Paramount Pictures drops October twenty fourth,
and we have an exclusive preview right here on Bookmarked.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I sat down with one of its.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Stars and executive producers, Alison Williams, at a really special
event in New York City. We were surrounded by book talkers,
book girlies, and book lovers.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Basically all my favorite people in one room.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
And I have to tell you I went into this
episode as a fan of Allison's work. I think she
has this quality about her on screen that no matter
what character she's playing, good.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Or evil, you just trust her.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
And that tension is so rare in an actor. But
now I'm a fan of Alison Williams the person. She
is hilarious and grounded, kind and just so real. So
if you're into stories that tug at your heart and
make you think about the people who shape us most oh,
and a little girl's nostalgia, you're in the right place.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Let's turn the page with Alison Williams.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Okay, welcome to a live podcast recording of Bookmarked by
Reese's Book Club.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Our guest today is.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Somebody that you know from Girls from Get Out, from Megan.
She's built a career on choosing stories that surprise us,
and now she's bringing her signature warmth and depth to
something new. She's executive producing and starring in the adaptation
of Colleen Hoover's Gredding You from Paramount Pictures. So let's
(02:02):
stand up and give a big Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club.
Welcome to the Alison Williams.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Alison, Welcome to the club. Thank you so happy to
be here. We're so happy you're in the cloth I.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Mean English major. This is like kind of what it's
all been for. It's true, what else all leading you too?
Why did I read you, Lyssies? If not for this moment?
Can someone answer that?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
So everyone in this room has only seen the trailer
of Regretting You, and we're all dying to see how
you bring the character Morgan to life. For anybody who
has not read the book, we're about fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Here, Okay, okay, great, we'll keep it spoiler free. You
guys are in the no great.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
So for anyone who hasn't read the book so they
can get an idea of Morgan, is she more of
a Marnie, a Jessa, a Hannah, or a show it's
one of.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
The audience is Teamed girls. Fifty percent has read this book.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I would say I think Morgan is It's so funny
picturing any of the girls with this much responsibility. She's
the closest to a Marnie. But I can't tell if
that's just like their share DNA, or maybe she's she's
a shosh rising. I don't know what that means in astrology,
(03:20):
but I went for it. Uh yeah, I think she's
like a Marnie shows hybrid might kind of guess I
actually really agree with you.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Oh good, I'm glad.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Okay, So at first I was going to say that
Regretting You is your first romance film, But then I
went on book talk and there's actually a lot of
debate there on whether the story is a romance or
a family saga.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I'm wondering how you see it.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
When we were making the movie, we kind of talked
about it as being primarily about three relationships, two of
which I would say are romantic in the typical sense
of the word, and then one is kind of about
finding the love and a relationship. And so there's an
older adult love story that I am part of the
there's a younger love story, and then there's the mother
daughter relationship, and to me, that.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Is sort of the heartbeat of the movie.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
But the driving forces of it are kind of a
combination of all three of them. I would say, I
think it's a I think it's I think there's a
love story in here. There's a couple of them, is
what I would say. Do you think that the book
and the film live in the same genre. Ooh, good question, Yeah,
I do.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I do.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I think I'm really proud of, Like, adapting a book
is hard, and I'm really proud of the way we've
been able to do it. We all were so aware
of how high the standards are, and as people who
love books like we intuitively know that it's a challenge.
You want to make these characters feel familiar, like they
(04:49):
do after you've finished reading a book, and this one's
told from alternating first person perspective, so it's like really intimate.
The book finishes, you really feel like you know these
people so knowing that it's it's intimidating, but I feel
very proud that we were able to take the essence
of the book and render it on the screen.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It's so hard. I mean, we only have a movie's
amount of time, but we did our best.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
When you say it's hard as a non actor, non writer, yeah,
what about adapting is so different and difficult?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Great question, because most of what was hard I did
not have to do, like writing the script, but I
guess from like a from even a producing standpoint, like
as a steward of the movie, you just want to
make sure that it is a it is faithful to
the source material, that it has its own thing to say,
because otherwise why do it. Like the exercise of adapting
a book is kind of interesting from the start, because
(05:42):
if the book is excellent, then let it just be
a book. But some books I've put down and I'm like,
I never need to see that adapted I loved it.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It needs to stay there.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
And then some of them are like just dancing in
my head, and I'm like, I would, I would I
want to see that.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Moving in three D, like on screen.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
And so I think making sure that you cling to
the moments, the lines, the dynamics that feel essential to
what it is, and then like expanding in areas where
maybe the book can't because of the medium that it is.
Trying to take advantage of the fact that it is
visual and you have all of these other senses you can.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Work with, but it's hard.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
You're declaring a definitive version of each person, which is
intimidating because who knows if my mental image of Morgan,
which was me because I hadn't read the book before
I read it for this project, but who knows if
that matched what anyone who's read the book already pictured
in their mind's eye. That's like, you know, that's a
lot of responsibility.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
It is, especially a Colleen Hoover book, because people, yes,
are so fanatic.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yes, totally, I'm in the hive. I get it, I understand,
I feel the same thing. I feel very like both
protective and open, kind of like a combo.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Your character, Morgan as we know her from the book
and from the trailer, really goes through it.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
She goes through a lot, she really does. Yeah, it
was fun. Death betrayal that year, it was fun.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, a really angsty teen daughter, which was almost worse
than the death.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yes, that's hard that I have not had to handle
that yet, just toddler, which apparently they're very similar stages.
But I'm very grateful to be dealing with the one.
That's like also talking about dinosaurs and not like drugs.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Did you feel like it was freeing or was it
frightening to sit in the feelings of anger and resentment.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I found it freeing because I don't often. I was
just thinking about this last night watching The Real Housewives
of Salt Lake City.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
About shout out.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
She's one of us, of course, obviously, I'm a person
of the pulse, watching the free expression of rage and
frustration and standing up and sitting down and walking away
and coming back and like these like big physical gestures
like I don't I can't like pull that off in
my day to day. It's all very waspy, it's very understated.
(08:03):
It's very like calm when I'm angry. It's like I'm
just biting and mean less like physically aggressive. So beating
up a car is something that I've never even thought
to do in my normal life. So exercising accessing and
then exercising rage in that way feels good. Like there's
a reason that rage rooms exist. It's all in there.
(08:24):
It's just just sitting there waiting to be like unleashed.
I hurt myself beating up the car. I like partially
dislocated a rib. True, true fact. I know, I'm like
basically Tom Cruise beating up a car with a Duffel bag,
But yeah, like that is cathartic. And I also have
(08:44):
played a lot of characters who are kind of keeping everyone,
including themselves, at arms distance. So it was really nice
to just be able to like feel things and be vulnerable.
And I don't know, vulnerable is such an overused word. Vulnerable, Lisa,
I'm sorry, I just can't. It's not thinking about Saltag City,
Lisa's being vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
We're all vulnerable.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Will you kind of do give like this real house?
So I have primal scream in the trailer, Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That was an improvised scream.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, So I want to know all about this scream
it just I don't know. I've always been like what
must to be like to be an actor? That's just
like having screams, like you don't plan like that seems insane.
And then cut to I'm just like beating up a
car and I just like scream at it at the end,
and I was like.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Oh my god, what did I just do?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
It just came out of you, just came out when
you're like, I don't know, I've never done that before,
but I guess when you do that, when you're beating
up a car, it a scream might come out.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I don't know. It was like this primal howl. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
I didn't have a childbirth thing experience that included like pushing,
and I've heard that that can be part of it,
where like the baby's out and then you're like.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Oh my god, what noises did I make? And where
did they come from? In here?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I've never like seen that part of me before, and
I guess I like bottled it away when I didn't
get to do it during the C section, and then
it's like.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Unleashed it in this moment.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I really liked Morgan and I also wanted to yell
at her I know a lot. Yeah, which speaks to
you as an actress, because that's hard to do.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
There's like, I've played a lot of people that we
want to yell at for different reasons.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
That's true. I may also just be someone you want
to yell at. That's okay. I'm comfortable with that, We've
have done it.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
But here's the tension I'm curious about. Because I've watched
a lot of your interviews, and you're a very forthright person,
and you grew up with a professional communicator in your house. Yeah,
you're honest, you're direct. What was it like for you
to play a character that holds so much back?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
For some reason, I've really always gravitated towards characters that
are not just like open books. And maybe that speaks
to like, I am kind of like that.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I am.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I am actually like very open but simultaneously quite private.
And I don't I don't really know. That's so inarticulate.
I don't really know how to express it. It's just
it feels true. And so the characters that I have
been able to relate to are often like trying to
access something but can't, or are right on the verge
of self discovery in some way, but not quite there.
(11:16):
They're in like process, and so playing someone that was
that we are seeing like really going through it felt
very new to me in this movie and felt very
vulnerable and yeah, I don't know. It was really fun
and challenging of course, like grief is painful, Like it's
hard to go to that place for any reason, and
(11:38):
so it's hard to summon that for a whole movie.
Like McKenna and Mason were joking that in like every
scene they're either like weeping or kissing.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And it's true that.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
We all did a lot of We were sad a lot,
and so that part isn't comfortable. But there is something
and I think some of you might experience this in
pretty soon, but there is something that feels good about
a crash when you need one, and if you can
time that out with your work schedule, like I have
been able to do on occasion, it's it's nice. This
(12:08):
felt like a really cathartic challenge. I guess I learned
recently that we actually release oxytocin when we cry, like
some heres made for us.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
That makes sense, did you like Morgan? I did?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
But she drove me crazy too, and I like have
really big disagreements with her about certain things, but I
don't think it's fun to play someone that I'm like
fully aligned with. I mean, I'm sure like, for I
don't know, if you're Julie Roberts are playing Aaron Brockoviitch,
you're like, yeah, this is like do all those things like.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
You should do that.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
I'm on your side, and I am always on the
side of the characters I play. But like, there's I
don't want to spoil anything, but there's a question of letters,
and I like vehemently and on the record disagree with
Morgan's handling of the situation. And that's interesting. It's interesting
to like walk someone through. I mean, I played like
a like an evil white supremacist, so I'm not a
stranger to disagreeing with.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
The character that you're playing.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
But in this way, I was like, I wish she
made a different choice, But it's my job to understand
that choice.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
That is sort of the job of acting.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
It's like making it feel real and like it's grounded
in something for the character, even if you disagree with it.
This is my only sort of personal question for you,
which is I've already talked about my c section, like,
you're you're good. I heard someone over here whisper, she's
so funny like you.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
But one of Morgan's challenges as a mom to a
rebellious teen is that she's she's not well mannered and
you're you're mad a lot, and I was. I was
watching it thinking we all have our eras. I was
a late bloomer. I had my rebellious era during COVID,
(13:49):
which was like, it's too late.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
In your thirties to be a bad girl.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Now earlier you have to. I believe this, like firmly,
you must. You cannot skip it. It's coming. It has
to come for you. So when coming over your era, oh,
mine was right on. It's very type A.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I was.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
It's high school. It was like right when it was
supposed to happen. When my hormones were raging, I was
super rebellious. But I was rebellious like throughout, like you know,
like little mischief. But it became like you know, like
lying and doing all the things you're supposed to do,
they're just really testing those boundaries. That was like high
school for me, and I feel so lucky that I
(14:28):
did it because it would have come for me at
some point. And can you imagine like being in this chair,
like in the middle of it, Like that would be
so stressful, being like I'm.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Rebelling right now. This is bad. What would I do?
I don't know, be scared. You probably wouldn't have shown up. Yeah, maybe,
or like late, I don't know. I'm a little late.
Any as late as I go. It's like three minutes.
I feel horrible.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Anyone who's read the book knows what I'm talking about
when I mentioned the letters. For anybody who hasn't read it,
the letters are a big sort of moment or turning
point in the film.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, did you read what's in the letters?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
There's like there's levels to it. Okay, the letters on
set are like prop letters, so nothing. It's like I's lorum,
It's like not real words. Shout out to all the
journalists out there, Lauram upsom, I got it.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Reverse.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Then there's my idea of what's in them, which was
sort of consensus, which was never like written down per se.
But I do feel like I read them, and so no,
and yes, I guess is the answer.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Did you would all ask Colleen what was in them?
I know what's in them?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
You do.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I feel like I do.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Oh okay, I needed to come up with like a
definitive answer for it for myself. But crucially and annoyingly,
she doesn't read them right understandably though not understandably. This
is the guest point of departure I have from her.
(16:01):
Would you have done what she does with them?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
No, I'm so nosy. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
I guess I'm a child of journalists, Like this is
my instinct.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I know, I know. That's such a great question. Would
you know?
Speaker 3 (16:15):
That's what I was saying, Yes, one hundred percent. It
very least kept like just a later thing. Yeah, like
a you know, if you weren't ready. Yeah, life is long.
Curiosity is powerful. Like I agree she Yeah, she made
the different choice, which I think is again like that's
what makes it interesting, is like trying to make that
feel real for the character in the movie.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Hopefully we did that. The name of the movie, Regretting
You is it's heavy.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, And I was thinking about it all of my
ex boyfriends, thinking do I.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Regret any of them? Or did they help me become
who I am?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That's the thing about once you have a well I
don't know about everybody else, but once I had a kid,
my relationship with regret changed completely because, like, let's get
granular here, like it's down to the follicle, it's down
to the day of ovulations, down to the egg itself,
like anything went differently. This kid doesn't exist exactly the
way he is, and so I'm like, I can't regret anything.
(17:18):
I can't regret literally anything I can. I have little
regrets since he's been born, but that's hard too, because
he's been around the whole time. So it's like even
the things that I didn't do perfectly as a mom,
I did in an effort to be better for him.
And so it feels like I don't know. I think
my feeling about regret is always commensurate with how happy
and content I am in my life at any given moment,
(17:40):
And in the moments in my life where I have
felt lost or upset or sad or depressed, it's been
much easier for me to access that. So I guess
it's a happy sign that I'm It's hard for me
to feel that way, but I do feel it's so trite,
but like it's got a.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It's all you have.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
To go through it all to if you want to
end up somewhere productive if you want to avoid regret,
which I do think I've I am wired to and
predisposed to try to do everything right and not make
mistakes and get it right the first time.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's very marning of your.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
It's very marny, it's very you know, it's just my wiring.
But luckily it's not possible, and if thank God, because otherwise,
you know, there's no point to doing this whole thing
if you're going to do it right the first time.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
You mentioned motherhood in the film. Your character Morgan is
sort of invisible in her own life. Yeah, in some ways,
it's a great way of putting it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Did you feel like playing her and embodying this person
changed the way that you showed up in real life
as a mother?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
I don't. I don't, but I do.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I did use the inverse was true, like I used
experience is from like my postpartum time when I was
feeling very depressed and like withdrawn to influence the way
we find Morgan at the beginning of the movie. I
don't know that she would diagnose herself with depression or
would even notice that she feels that way in the
book she talks about feeling an emptiness but not really
knowing where it's from. And there's a shot of her
(19:19):
that you're about to see that's so weird and exciting,
where she's just looking out the window of her kitchen
and it's the first time you see me in like
the current time period. And that's what I'm trying to
convey you guys, let me know if you think I
was successful the challenges of a book adaptation and that
emptiness I think she knows intuitively is best left un examined,
(19:45):
Like it's a better choice for her to just keep
putting one foot in front of the other for as
long as she possibly can without stopping everything and just
like looking at it all with a microscope. And so
that's the version of it that I can kind of
really too, of like just needing to just cross hours
off the day. If anyone has ever gone through a
stage of life where it's felt like that, I definitely
(20:07):
could relate to that. But the expression of motherhood from
Morgan like wormed its way into my own techniques. I
say that with Love was also like fundamentally different experiences
of motherhood, Like yes, vaguely we've both had children, but
like doing it at seventeen versus thirty three is like
a completely different experience.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I just remember you doing a podcast about motherhood and
hearing you and it was with two of your friends. Yeah,
and you guys were all talking about your different experiences
of motherhood and one person mentioned not wanting to lose themselves,
and it reminded me.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, she's referring to my podcast Landlines, which you should
check out. It's with my two best friends, two of
my best friends from growing up. We've known each other
since in one case we were zero and then the
other kindergarten.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I think losing yourself in motherhood is sort of like
both inevitable and a worthy way of like checking in
on some people find themselves in motherhood, and so I
don't want to like weigh in on what I think
is the better version of it. For me, it's been
(21:23):
about adding it to the list of ways that I identify
and see myself as a human being, rather than it
coming in and giving meaning an order to everything that
I had been doing already. But I also have friends
who had that experience of feeling a little bit lost,
a little bit at seat and then they became moms
and they're like, oh, this was it. And then I
know people who became parents and were kind of like,
(21:44):
this wasn't it. So it's every experience is I do
feel like there's any version of it is fine. Like
just being able to be a parent is fucking hard.
Being a person is hard, so like do you and
whatever version works is the best version of it. But
it does feel like for me it was more about
mixing and it's a work in progress and it's constantly
(22:05):
evolving because what motherhood means is also changing as he
gets older, and so mixing it in with everything else
is weird.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Like it was much easier to like do a day like.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
This where it's a press day and I'm talking to
people and I can just like exist as a persona
the whole time, rather than like going back to my
phone and I have a message from Bright Wheel of
where my husband is asking the teacher like how to
drop off go, And then I'm like, oh my god,
it was a hard drop off and I wasn't there
like that that tug of war is so human and
helpful and like means that my feet just can't leave
the ground, which is too easy if you have this job,
(22:37):
like I don't know, like a nice way of looking
at it.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah, it's a grounding, it's nice. I just rambled. You did,
That's what I do. It's a podcast. That's the media.
You didn't at all.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Okay, So you've played horror, you've played dark comedy, and
now a Colleen Hoover emotional drama. What connects these roles
for you? And is there sort of a through life?
Are you trying to excavate something about human behavior?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
I feel like my I'm kind of trying to like
mine my identity for everything I can. I'm I feel like.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I don't know how else.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Like the white woman, the whitest of white women is
sort of my corner, and and like they reak havoc,
they do good things. They are loud and proud and
get a lot of focus in our culture. And so
I think like examining that from every angle is sort
(23:38):
of my pursuit. I'm never going to try to tell
the story of someone else's existence.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
But I think that.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Like in Get Out, for example, the Catharsais of being
able to show like the worst of what we're capable
of was like deeply. It felt really important to me
to like really make her as evil as possible, just
to help people understand the amount of harm that can
be people with our demographics, and then in a lesser way,
just the entitlement of like Gemma and Megan of like
(24:09):
just unleashing this thing into the world who's like, yes,
fabulous and a queen, but also is like murdering people
and terrifying and yeah, just examining that identity from every perspective,
I feel like is the through line. It's basically being
like when I was little and I imagine being an actor,
I was like, oh, I'll wear prosthetics and I'll like
look different and I'll you know, I don't know, I'll
(24:32):
transform And yes, some of that is involved, but for
the most part, rather than leaving my identity, it's sort
of being like, you know, what is what's left to
be said about this identity, what's interesting? And given how
much space like women of my demography take up in
the world, like might as well kind of interrogate that
a little bit. And we all know Morgan's we all
(24:54):
live amongst them, and so it's kind of like I
might as well kind of understand a version of what
that means to go through.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
When I look at it, I think that you take
this like perfectionism or like.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
American white female and turn it into cultural criticism.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, that's what I'm going for. Yeah, what was the
Marnie There's thank you so much. There's a quote from
Marnie that she's staying at her wedding about her culture,
which is white Christian woman. I think, and that line
has always tackled me because I'm like, it's not our culture,
but it is like a type of person we're all
just like surrounded by, and so it's like, Okay, let's
(25:37):
let's do the thing. Let's see them do everything well
and badly and find out what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
So every week I ask our guests what they've bookmarked
this week. It can be a poem, a song, a quote,
something that you've sent your best friend Allison, what have
you bookmarked?
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I cannot stop thinking about a conversation that I had
with our son two nights ago. He's very into how
things work, and this includes a gestation and delivery of
babies right now. And I'm not pregnant. I'm not announcing anything,
although I now I'm like very split on like could
he handle emotion now that he knows what he knows,
(26:25):
which he knows everything about how it all works, Like
can he could he handle walking helping someone through that experience?
I think he'd be kind of anyway. He asked me
why placenta doesn't get belly buttons, which was a great question,
and I now I'm gonna like start do a startup
for where No, I'm kidding, it's like a Jordan Peele,
(26:46):
here's your next movie. He was asking how he was
able to communicate what birth felt like to him while
he was being born. He was like, how could I
tell the doctors if it was painful or not? How
did they tell me what the plan is? And I
was like, WHOA. First of all, this is like what
(27:08):
happens when you just communicate a ton with your child
as they expect to have been communicated with pre when
they were still in the womb, which he was. I
talked to him constantly, But also like it just it's
just gotten stuck in my head thinking about like this
is the first thing in some ways that we all
go through is like coming into the world and wondering
(27:32):
his like concern for the efficacy and advocacy in that
moment of the person going through it is just something
I can't stop thinking about. Like he was yearning for
there to be a line of communication between like just
to coordinate the delivery, you know, Like, how did they
know if the if it was painful to be slipping
(27:54):
out or painful to be being pulled out or or both.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
How do they know.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
If it was gonna hoot? He said, quote like that,
How didn't you know if it was gonna if it
was hooding? And then he said, and how the doctors
decide they have so many things in their minds, it
might get lost. And he was just very like.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I was like, wow, it's a very sweet, like sensitive
thought that's going to haunt me for the rest of
my days. It's like a bookmark. So speed read.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
We put sixty seconds on the clock and we're going
to see how many rapid fire literary questions we can
get through it.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Which is good. Rapid fire, that's good.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Good to put a time limit on it. I'll still
make it. I'll still take too.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Long, okay. Three two? What is your favorite page to screen? Adaptation?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Sense and Sensibility a book you're dying to bring to
the screen The Phantom told Booth, great answer.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Favorite book all time.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Book that best captures motherhood.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Like Emily Oster books. That's one for the mother hive
out there.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Last book that made you cry?
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Oh a biography for children about David Bowie.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Ooh yeah. Favorite R. L. Stein book? Real ones know
that you wrote R. L. Stein A le eight.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Wow, thanks for being a real one, I think, ooh,
this is so hard. Any of the choose your own
ending books. I loved those so much. Favorite book to
recommend Tant'm Toldbooth. Best book you've never read. Oh, I
never read. I haven't read Warren Peace. And it's also
just not coming up, like that opportunity is not rising.
(29:34):
But I never read. I made it through all of yeah,
my whole English measure without reading it.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
What's a book that shaped the way you see the world?
Oh my god, Oh that's so hard. Oh there's so many.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
One of the biggest influences on the way I saw
the world were like anything I read in my anthropology
classes in college that like fundamentally changed the way I
see the world and the way it functions is like
seeing us as a species has like I don't know,
I was like anthropology pilled. So maybe like the Harari
books like human or Sapiens or you know, Homodaus or whatever.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, Okay, this is my last and favorite question. What's
the most Alison Williams book Club snack.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Movie theater butter, microwave popcorn, extra butter as is?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, movie theater butter, which is its own quantity of butter.
It is like, it's its own amount.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I love it so much.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Yeah, and warning, you're gonna crave popcorn when you see
the movie because someone works in a movie theater and
there's a lot of popcorn in the movie.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Alison, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us
on Bookmark.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Everybody Alison a round of a plug.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Okay, friends, Before we wrap today's episode, I'm bringing back
our monthly comfort segment from Cotton, called the Booknook. This
is where we explore the rituals that make reading feel
just right. And as you know, cotton is at the
heart of so many of those everyday comforts. Whether it's
your softest worn in tea, the coziest throw you curl
(31:08):
up with, or the crisp cotton sheets you sink into
after a long day, Cotton can ground us in comfort,
which makes it the perfect companion for a good book.
Let's hear from another Bookmarked listener sharing their ideal reading setup.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Hi, Danielle high Bookmarked. My name is Avery and I'm
calling in from Brooklyn. I take a book with me everywhere,
but my favorite reading ritual is particular to us moving
into autumn and might be a little morbid to some people,
but hey, don't knock until you try it. I live
(31:45):
extremely close to a cemetery with super tall trees. The
light filters with the trees in a super pleasing way,
and leaves have already started to fall on this winding
path that leads to a long wooden bench, And this
bench is also shaded, which is perfect to keep the
(32:05):
sun out of your face no glare while you're reading.
I sit down in this spot and I just listen
to the slice of nature around me, and usually there's
the hum of one or two or three lawnmowers tending
to these expansive cemetery grounds. After a few minutes of
(32:26):
just grounding myself, I'll take out my book and a
pen if it's not a library book, because I love
to annotate while I read. The general lull of this
environment is enough to keep me engrossed in any book
for a good hour. I'm really wondering, though, are there
any other listeners that have some unusual spots where they
(32:48):
like to delve into a good book. Thanks for listening,
Happy reading everyone, Avery.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
I love this. There's something so vivid about your ritual.
The filtered light through the tree, the crunch of the leaves,
the quiet hum of the world going by. It's a
reminder that comfort doesn't always have to mean indoors. Sometimes
it's about the natural textures all around us, and of
course the literary companions we bring. I can just picture
(33:15):
you with your book in hand, maybe a cotton sweater
to ward off that autumn chill, completely tucked into your
own reading world. So friends, keep your ideal reading setups coming.
What are you wearing? What's around you? Are you reading
by sunlight or lamplight, under a cotton throw or your
coziest false sweater. Take me right into your perfect reading ritual.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Leave me a.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Voicemail at five zero one two nine to one three
three seven nine, or email a voice memo to bookmark
at Reese's book Club dot com. Thanks to Cotton for
bringing this segment to life and reminding us that comfort
and style can go hand in hand. Don't forget to
check the tag for cotton. And if you want to
learn more, head to the Fabric of OurLives dot com.
(34:02):
And if you want a little bit more from us,
come hang with us on socials. We're at Reese's book
Club on Instagram serving up books, vibes and behind the
scenes magic. And I'm at Danielle Robe Roba y come
say hi and df me And if you want to
go nineties on us, call us. Okay, our phone line
is open, so call now at one five zero one
(34:24):
two nine one three three seven nine. That's one five
oh one two nine one three three seven nine. Share
your literary hot takes, book recommendations, questions about the monthly pick,
or let us know what you think about the episode
you just heard. And who knows, you might just hear
yourself in our next episode, so don't be shy, give
(34:47):
us a ring, and of course, make sure to follow
Bookmarked by Reese's book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your shows. Until then, see you
in the next chapter. Bookmarked is a production of Hello
Sunshine and iHeart podcast. Its executive produced by Reese Witherspoon
and me Danielle Robe. Production is by ACAST Creative Studios.
(35:11):
Our producers are Matty Foley, Britney Martinez, Sarah Schleid, and
Darby Masters. Our production assistant is Avery Loftus. Jenny Kaplan
and Emily Rudder are the executive producers for a Cast
Creative Studios. Maureene Polo and Reese Witherspoon are the executive
producers for Hello Sunshine. Olga Kaminwha, Kristin Perla and Ashley
(35:32):
Rappaport are associate producers for Reese's book Club. Ali Perry
and Lauren Hansen are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts.
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