October 27, 2020 • 31 mins
What I LOVE about having a podcast is being able to have real, uninterrupted, conversations with interesting, talented and inspirational people. This episode of "LOVE SOMEONE with Delilah" is just that kind of conversation, with a woman who truly has and does it all! Morning co-host of the most popular programs on television, singer, composer, author, actor, and loving wife and mother, the incredible Kathie Lee Gifford joins us today for some girl talk, and the inside scoop on her new movie, "Then Came You." It's a delightful rom-com - proving our second act can be just as scintillating as the first - filmed in the Scotland Highlands and co-staring the hilarious Craig Ferguson. Of course, Kathie Lee wrote the screenplay and the soundtrack... Join us as she dishes on her co-stars and why she chose them for their roles, how she's navigated life after losing her husband, and what might be next for this multifaceted sparkling gem of a woman. It's all here! ~ Delilah
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
I get to turn the tables on today's podcast Gas
because usually when I'm in a room with this woman,
she is the one doing the interview, asking the questions.
She is a four time Emmy Award winner and a
former co host of not one, but two of America's
most beloved morning shows. She sat next to Regis Philbin
(00:28):
for fifteen years, then Hoda for eleven before stepping down
last year to pursue other opportunities. In she was inducted
into the Broadcast and Cable Hall of Fame, and she's
recently been chosen to receive a star on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame. She's a book author, she's a playwright,
(00:49):
she's a producer, a singer, a songstress, an actress. She
has her own record label, and she's written several musicals,
including Broadways Scandalous that got a Tony nomination. Oh my gosh.
I could go on and on and on about today's
guest and her list of impressive accomplishments, but if I
tried to cover them all, there wouldn't be time for
(01:10):
this interview. This podcast Love Someone with the Lila's guest today,
as of course, Kathy Lee Gifford. She is the star
of the hour. Today, she's popping in to talk with
us about her new movie, A delightful rom com. I
got to watch it. It's called Then Came You. We'll
be back to get the full scoop right after I
(01:32):
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latest special offers, and visit them at Save Skincare dot com. Hi,
Kathie Lee, how are you? I am wonderful? Let's talk
about this new movie, because when I got off the
air last night, I gave myself a present and I
(02:37):
watched they sent me a sneak peek of then came you,
and I was laughing. I was emotional. I was I
was blessed, and I thought, oh my god, oh my gosh,
I get to talk to this lady and like find
out more about this. But you co wrote the songs
(02:59):
the soundtrack, yep. I I co wrote the songs, I
wrote the screenplays and produced it. And I star opposite
my dear, dear friend Craig Ferguson, whom I actually wrote
it for. He had co hosted with me on the
Today Show and we had had a blast together, and
he said, you know, if we wait for our agents
to get us another job in television, we're in diet razing.
(03:21):
He said, God, let's just write a I write a
movie together, and he left for home and I went
to bed that night, and right on time, two o'clock
in the morning, bing, I wake up and I knew
what the movie should be, Delilah. I just knew it.
I knew it should be Annabel her name Annabelle Wilson.
He should be Howard Odds, and I knew how I
(03:41):
could get her to Scotland, and I just I just
let my imagination run wild and I had a ball
writing it. Called him that day and said, you remember
that movie. I think I just wrote it because Scott
I haven't even been home a day so anyways, uh,
but I sent him the six scenes that I had
written and he said, this is your baby. I standard
lady deserves. So we had a ball in the highlands
(04:05):
of Scotland. We had so many labs. This movie is
basically a romantic comedy for people who think that romances
in their rear view mirror. You know, they're never going
to have a romance again, they're never gonna love again.
That that's over and nothing's very funny anymore either. And
there are millions of people in the world like that.
(04:26):
Many of them listen to you, Delilah. They listen to
you and love you because you bring hope to them
in the songs that you play. So this this brings
up my first question in the movie, then can you
you play opposite this gorgeous, funny, oozing, sexy character. Yes,
(04:52):
Mr Odds. And in the movie, Cathy, you try to feign,
you try to act like he discussed you. He annoys you,
he ticks you off, he shuts the radio off. But
I wasn't buying that because there was so much chemistry
between you two. Oh my god, we have had that
since the day we met years ago. And nobody understands
(05:15):
it better and and loves it more than his wife, Megan,
who she read the script and finally finished it and
I sent it off to Craig. She read it first
and she said, Craig, you have got to make this movie. Boy,
does Kathy have you down? So it was totally with
her blessing, And yeah, we have chemical reaction to one another.
(05:36):
It's obvious on screen. And I didn't I didn't mean
to imply chemistry as in, um, you know that the
love scenes were real. I meant to imply that there
is such an energy that is between you two. It's
palpable on screen. It's it's palpable. We've always said if
things had gone differently in our lives that we would
have ended up together, we might have killed each other.
(05:58):
But it's there. It's there. So that's what to do
in a movie. You harness it, you know, in a
way that brings it, brings it to life. Without you know,
hurting each other's personal lives. You know, I mean, I
adore his wife and you know, I've spent a weekend
at their house with them and their little boy out
in the Scottish countryside, and you know, no, he's a
(06:18):
really really cherished friend to me, one of the most
brilliant people. And isn't he in a great dramatic actor too.
He played his role brilliantly, like he came across as
this jerky and a caustic guy. But then when he
let the walls down in the scene where you you
(06:39):
wrote it for him, where he let the walls down,
it was so subtly believable. Yes, very very very beautiful.
He wounded too, but we all deal with our woundedness
in different ways. Annabelle has found an actual physical way
for her degree by taking her husband's ashes on this journey.
He in aach box and it's I'm going to ruin
(07:01):
a part of it there, and in a chocolate box.
You know what it's in. It's in the trailer. So
they give half the movie away these days and trailers,
but it does get people, you know, sort of excited
about the movie. And that's what happened with that trailer.
They did a brilliant trailer on it, and there's tons
more in the movie as well too. But it's a
story of two very unlikely people, um dealing with their
(07:25):
own grief and their own needs in different ways, but
discovering that you know, you don't go out. She's got
out looking for love. She isn't, She's just her husband's
been gone for a year. She's she's just doing first
of all, what he said to do with his ashes,
that was part of his will, and the rest of it.
She figures out a way to also try to make
(07:46):
her long lost dreams come true. And I think, Delilah,
you and I are blessed. You and I've had big lives,
big careers, big families. You more than me. You know,
we've got a lot more kids than I do. But many,
many women, I think, have settled in their life, not
because they chose to or wanted to. Many of them
had to because of different circumstances. But Annabelle is like
(08:09):
so many women who never got to see the world
the way she wants to dreams. She could never had
her dreams of being an actress and a singer fulfilled
and This movie is the first of five about these
characters that I want to shoot and and and she
discovers even in her later life, that she has gifts
(08:29):
she didn't even know she had, and we see those
dreams come to pass as Annabelle's journey continues, and each
movie takes place in a different place as she follows
along with the lists that she brings with her to Scotland.
So Craig's on board for all the the Shenanigans of
boards on board. I don't think that Elizabeth Hurley will
(08:53):
be because I sort of got rid of her. Boy,
wasn't that a fun scene The minute she's the minute
she said that's not the tent I ordered. I was like, oh,
let's just get rid of this little gorgeous thing. But
didn't see every woman's worst nightmare. The man you are
falling for is engaged to her Elizabeth early And I'm
(09:18):
in that outfit when I've been fixing the furnace or
something and I look like crap, and I have to
meet her, and I'm going, I hope when you see me,
take the scrunch sheet out of my hair and just
try to make myself halfway pretty and sitting there looking
at Elizabeth Hurley, who is impossibly beautiful and of sweet
(09:38):
girl too. I've known her a long long time, reached.
I wrote that for her too, And one day she
was at the Today Show and I said, after we
finished the segment, I said, can I talk to you
for a moment my dressing room? So she went into
my dressing room with her. I said, listen, maybe this
is unprofessional, but I forgive me. I said, Elizabeth, I've
just written a screenplay for my friend, Craig Ferguson says, Oh,
(09:58):
I love Craig all He's an absolute doll. Yes, she
I said, I wrote a part for you in it,
and it would just mean the world to me if
you if you'd read the scriptures, well let me have it, dolling.
I'll read it on the plane on the way home,
you know. So she took the script, read it on
the plane. Her agent called and said she'd love to
do it if we can fit it into her schedule.
(10:19):
So this was meant to happen, this movie, and I
think it's the timing of it's perfect, don't you, Delilah.
People there are needing escape. They wanted to kick it
on a plane and fly anywhere, and now they get
to get on a plane with Annabelle and go to Scotland.
Well after, after I watched it last night, I did
go online to see you know what the travel restrictions are, because,
(10:41):
oh my gosh, it's so beautiful where you filmed it.
It's in the Highlands, just west of Glasgow and Scotland.
I've been to Scotland many times and always loved it.
But then when we decided to do the movie together
with Craig, I knew that I've had to write a
story set there. And annabel has only seen the world
(11:03):
through movies. So there are a lot of people like that.
And people have places on their bucket list before they die,
and you put Scotland on my bucket list with this movie.
I'm so glad. And the Scottish people are so lovely.
They're so funny, very cleverly written, very good. Thank you.
That means a lot to me. Well again, the soundtrack
(11:26):
is something that is also a star of the movie.
The music really is another star in the film because
it's uh and you don't get to hear all the
lyrics of it and everything except if you get the soundtrack.
And our friends Salo Lavery also wrote this underscore with
breat Somebody said to me the other day that some
critics said, you know what, it's a beautiful film because
(11:47):
it's it's a jolly rump and I went, oh my gosh,
that's what I wanted to be, and I want to
surprise people with it. There are twenty three different places
where it takes a turn that you don't see it coming.
And those are my favorite kinds of movies. You know,
one of my favorite rom coms is Love Actually and
I Love It's Complicated. Those are the movies that I
(12:08):
enjoy watching because they're they're they're for adults. It's, you know,
there for for mature people who've been through life and
they've got a lot of baggage. Now their baggage maybe
Louis Witamp, but they still got baggage. And I find
that sort of entertainments so much more interesting. I don't
want to see things blow up anymore. I never did.
I don't want to see gratuitous sex or gratuitous violence.
(12:32):
I just can we please just go someplace beautiful and
watch life unfurl for two people who who think life
is basically over for them, it's not. It's not. If
you got a pulse, you've still got a purpose. And
I have that. Every morning I take an emotional pulse
rate and if I'm still here, it means God's not
(12:53):
finished with me yet. I have so much work to
do and that I'm just loving and excite it every
day about what's new. And finally this movie's out. It's
on demand now on any service that you can rent films,
and I just can't wait to hear if people are
tapping their toes to the music we wrote and and
laughing in the right places and crying in the right places.
(13:15):
Thanks so much for watching it, Deliland, and for loving
if that means the world to me. I'm not done
talking about it yet. Because the character of Craig Ferguson's
Howard Odds best friend. Yes, Gavin, he was very funny,
but he was he was perfect. He was perfect in
(13:35):
honesty and I don't ever not speaking honestly, but I
did write that role originally for Ricky Gervais. Oh that
would have been good too, yeah yeah, And and Ricky
loved the script but he said, hell yeah, I just
find with Netflix and I can't And I said, okay,
so um, They said, do you know who Ford Karenan
is And I said, no, is that he's a number
(13:57):
one comedic actor in the entire UK. Said let's get him.
He was so brilliant. And when he had the talk
with you with your character Annabelle about his best friend, yes,
that's where I was crying. I wasn't crying at the
other you know parts that I think some people, especially
(14:19):
if you've lost your partner, would cry at. I was
crying there because I have that best friend. Yes, yes,
that would move heaven and earth for me. Yes, yes,
and thank god, boy did that come across beautifully. Yeah. Well,
he and Craig were friends before, they had worked together before.
(14:42):
So Craig was thrilled when we got Forward and we
only I had written a small role because originally I
thought it was going to be Ricky and I knew
we'd probably only get him for a day or two.
But once we started working, and this is the beauty
of an independent film. Once we started working, I said,
can Forward, Can you work next week? Because I have
(15:02):
this idea for a scene for you and can. He
ended up being in about, you know, ten more scenes
than I than I originally anticipated, and he's agreed to
go forward with them as we as we keep writing.
But uh. And then the original title of the movie
was called Loved Me to Death. And then I was
on a two weeks before we wrapped, I was on
a big five hour long hike in the Highlands. My
(15:24):
one and only day off every week was on a Sunday,
and I had to clear my head and take these
long walks. And I felt the Lord saying so clearly
to m Cathy, go back, take your pad and your
pen I have a present for you. So I went
home and walked home, got up to that spot which
you will see at the end of our movie, and
(15:45):
and the lyrics to then came you, came to me,
then came you, then came you. So I couldn't believe it.
I climbed down those steps, called Brett James and said, Brett,
I'm going to change the end of the movie, and
I I'm gonna change the title. And we were able
to change that ending completely two weeks before we even
(16:05):
wrapped the film. Brett added a melody to the lyrics
that I had written. He sent them off to me,
and that's him singing it in the movie. And uh,
that's him also in the in the pub singing with
Me Whiskey and Wine, which is our next single, Bring
the Whiskey, Bring the Wine. I mean, it's just a fun, fun,
(16:26):
fun musical romp too. And so he is not an actor,
but I think he did just great. He did awesome.
And you guys played off each other so well. But
when you when you were doing the bubble bath scene, girlfriend, dang,
you naked. God has blessed you. God has blessed you.
(16:51):
You look as beautiful as you ever have, Oh sweetie.
So I know a theme in the movie is, you know,
when we have to come to grips with the fact
that we're not sixteen anymore, um, and that and you
you work that in very very subtly. You know when
you said, what are you checking? Are you checking my age?
(17:12):
You're checking my age? You're checking my age? And you
know it was subtle. But but for those of us
that have to look in the mirror and see our
mother looking back at us, it's very real. And that
is a morning process that we have to go through
that we're not sixteen. But let me tell you, there
are a few scenes in this movie where I was like, dang,
(17:34):
I I gotta, I gotta kick it back into the gym,
because if she could look that hot in a bathtub,
I got a little work to do here. We thank
you well. I I really got in shape for that movie.
I lost a lot of weight for it because she's
a runner, and the originally in the script she was
she ran, she talked about running and what it did?
You know? So much has to be lost in the
(17:55):
editing process. But it'll all if I get a chance
to do the next four films, it'll all come out. Um. Yeah.
The clothes are also a star of this film. My
friend Michael Hurd's uh British, delightful designer. Every outfit is
made in the UK, one one country or another, so
it's all very organic and authentic to to the United Kingdom.
(18:18):
And I don't think I could fit in one outfit
at this point. I really maybe my shoes, but that's it.
You were, you were beautiful. And the costumes, I gotta
say though, the one you wore to the when you
went out to the pub when you sang um, whiskey
and wine, that was my favorite of them all. Everybody
(18:41):
has a different favorite. Yeah. I love that one too,
Um yeah, oh gosh, God, when he told you to
go change your clothes, if he was gonna take you
of fishing, I was howling because it looks like a
tin something. I forget what he says, a plaids plaid
tin or something? Yes, yeah, cookie tin something. She was
(19:04):
living out her dreams. And you notice in the movie
she he says, what are you checking? Checking movie times?
And I go, no, lifetimes. I've got to get to
a Roman holiday. And he says, what are you gonna
where they're at toga? And I go maybe so um, yes,
I with a great director. Adriana Trigiana has been a
(19:25):
friend of mine for many, many years, and she hasn't
She's a novelist. Just check out her like she's got
like twenty novels and her she's loved details. She's a
really huge fan of movies anyway. This movie is our movies,
like an homage to the screwball comedies of the fifties,
like the Pillow Talk with Doris Day and Rock Hudson
(19:48):
kind of movies. But even back thirties and forties. She's
a real connoisseur of those kinds of films, and she
brought that kind of a directorial sense to the film
as well. Um, so you know it takes everybody to
bring a movie like this to the four And yeah,
the fact that it's now out, Delilah is it's kind
(20:08):
of surreal to me. All I ever wanted to be
when I was growing up was to be in the movies.
I wanted to be Hayley Mills or a net Punicello.
You know, I wanted to sing. And the very first
movie I ever really did see in life in the
theater was his Family Robinson, So that part was true
in the film as well. So there are lots of
(20:28):
little things that I brought from my life. But Annabelle
uh is very, very different from the person that I am.
But you know what, I loved playing her so much
because there's an innocence about Annabelle that I lost a
long long time ago. Fifty years. In this business, you
lose a bit of innocence, and she's fun to play
in that regard. And I can go back to my
(20:51):
my other self years and years ago, and I just
you know, I thought the world was just beautiful everywhere,
and people were all nice, and everybody had two parents
who loved each other. You know that leave it to
beaver kind of world that I grew up in. Okay,
So a personal question, and you don't have to answer
this if you don't want to. But the character Annabelle
(21:13):
was in the beginning grief stages, the first year of
losing her husband, and I remember, I saw you less
than a year after you lost your husband, right, how
much of that real grief? Because one of the beautiful
things about this movie is the characters are multidimensional. Because
(21:37):
my mom gave up all of her dreams for my dad,
but they had a very contentious, bitter marriage. They didn't
it didn't divorce right before both of them died. It's
like they couldn't live with each other and they couldn't
live without each other. But one of the beautiful things
that I really appreciated was that, yes, she gave up
her dreams to be married and to live in Nantucket,
(21:58):
but there didn't seem to be any bitterness or um resentment.
You could tell she truly loved her husband and missed him.
How much of Kathy Lee and your grief missing your
hobby was written in that. You know, people are asking
me that because it's a it's a very fair question,
(22:18):
and and and and the nastural one. But the truth
is that I didn't. I wasn't really aware. I wasn't
consciously aware that I was dealing with grief. I started
writing it at two years after Frank had passed. I knew,
I knew the grief of widow dim So you're right
what you know, um, But they remember the scene with
the first night she gets to the in and she's
(22:40):
by the fire with the dog in her room. Unfortunately
we had to cut a lot of that scene because
of time. But you see her take her wedding ring
off her left finger and put it on a chain,
and that's I didn't put mine on a chain, but
I wore my wedding ring for a year, and then
on the first hand of her her Frank's passing, I
(23:01):
moved it to my right hand. And then just a
couple of years ago when I moved to Nashville, because
there's a song in the movie called New Everything, and
I just thought, no, I'm starting You know the line
in the movie that says, I gotta make new memories
of the old ones are going to kill me. I
took off my wedding ring off my right hand as well,
and put it on my daughter's charm bracelet that I've
(23:24):
been keeping for her since she was born, and those
are just sort of milestone moments, so I was trying
to do that in the movie. It doesn't make as
much sense now that we've edited it the way it is,
but you can tell she's grieving and she's got the
ring in her hand. That's what she was doing, was
changing it over, which was is a signal that, Okay,
(23:44):
I'm ready for the next step. I have a girlfriend
named Kimmy who started out as my housekeeper and then
became my nanny and now she just my best friend.
And she lost her husband on my birthday sadly um
ten years ago, and she has never never taken the
ring off or moved it. And somebody asked her one day.
(24:07):
I was kind of eavesdropping. They said, do you everything
you'll date again, and she looks shocked. She said, why
would I do that. I'm still married. Oh wow, And
she says, my husband's waiting for me. Oh, and she
is completely content. Mm hmm. He's the only boy she
(24:27):
ever kissed, the only man she ever loved. And she's like,
I don't have any interest in trying to fit my
life in with someone else's again. You know, I understand
both things. I understand you know, so many I've been
out on a few days since in the last year,
and they're all wonderful guys, really sweet guys. But they're
(24:49):
either overwhelmed and by my personality the bigness of my life,
or they're overwhelmed by the fact that I was married
to Frank for almost thirty years. You know, Frank Gifford
is in eight Halls of Fame, and there they sort
of say to themselves, Wow, you know, I can't be
Frank Gifford. She was married one of the greatest guys
they who ever lived, and I don't expect anybody to
(25:12):
be Frank. But it's so funny, Delilah. The guys that
I did I want to date, it's like four they
either wanna run for the hills because I scared them
to death, or they want to get married within two weeks.
And and it's just you know, somewhere, maybe there's a
guy somewhere that you know is writing right down the
middle a little bit, you know, you know, when I
(25:36):
quit looking, when I made up my mind that I
was you know, I had at the time eight kids.
I'm like, what guy is gonna want to date a
woman that's got eight kids? Um, and I really, you know, said, okay, God,
if if it's going to be you and me for
the rest of my life, I'm okay with that. Literally, yes,
I feel that way too. And my life is so busy.
(25:57):
I'm writing these oratorios, I'm directing now. Hopefully I'll start
writing these new films, maybe direct one of those. Well,
you have to you have to write them now, because
you've told me you've got a whole series coming, so
you you can't get out of this. No, I've written.
I've just heard from our main producer this morning and
he just texted me said, I listen, I met what
(26:18):
I said, Let's do all five of these. So um,
I'm excited about that. But I'm I'm just with the
same with you. If this, if God has it for me,
then I'm not going to go out looking for it.
One of my favorites. I love all the music in
the movie, but the song once again has a lyric
and and and when Brett saw the lyric, that's when
(26:39):
he first decided to be to write with me for
the movie. He goes, oh, I love these lyrics. Took
a look at the lyrics for the song called Once Again,
and the lyric goes, you don't find love, Love finds
you in the midst of a moment, right out of
the blue. It sneaks up on your heart, hardly making
a sound, till all of a suddenly find you've been found.
(27:04):
That's a great lyric, straight from heaven. And I'm not
looking for it, you know, but if God brings it,
I will be deeply grateful for it. I was just
going to say. My prayer for you is that if
it is the Lord's will, that you would discover that
you have been found by a man that God has
ordained for you, who will love all of you, who
(27:26):
won't be intimidated. Though you're small, you have more personality
in your little finger than most people have in their
whole body. And to most people that could be intimidating.
But to the man that if God is going to
bring him, he will cherish every bit of you and you.
I mean that. I mean that, and like the cat
(27:50):
and the dog analogy, be just a little bit um,
a little bit playful in that you have to reach
for him. Yeah, yeah, I I'm open to it. Believe me.
And in fact, a friend of mine was asking me
right after Frank had passed. He said, I guess Frank
was the love of your life. Huh? And I said
(28:12):
so far. Even then, I said so far because I
was I'm open to love. I don't want to closed heart.
And he said I've never had a love like that,
and I said, not yet. You'll know when you're ready.
You'll know when you're ready. And so I incorporate everything
that I go through in life and everything I experienced
into whatever I write. And this was especially fun to
(28:33):
write because I wasn't um beholden to a real to
two real people that I wanted to be faithful to,
their their legacy, their their memory. So this was the
first time I could just let my imagination go crazy.
You know. Um. Yeah, I was so good to talk
to you. See. I love talking to you, and through
(28:54):
all these years, you are sort of my my steady eddie.
You know that's because because God has us on different paths,
but the same path, you're walking each other home. Well,
bless you, my sister, have the same prayer for your life,
and I just ask God to bless you richly and
(29:14):
continue to give you that soothing, loving, comforting voice you
have from millions. You bring great joy to people and
great comfort, and you just keep doing what He's chosen
you to do, sweet as beautifully as you do. And
thanks again for having me on. I love you all right,
Thank you, honey, Lord bless you you take care. Bye
(29:36):
bye bye bye. I'm so glad we got to spend
this time together today and catch up on all things.
If I know Kathie Lee, she's got so many irons
in the fire. I know she's working on like sequels too.
Then came You, and then I'll get to invite her
back again to tell us all about whatever is going
on when the time is right. Reserve sometime soon for
(29:59):
this up coming romantic comedy. It's got beautiful scenery. I
mean beautiful scenery. Uh, it's got an award winning cast.
Then came You, available on demand since October two. I
didn't have time to talk about it in this interview.
But I also encourage you to pick up a copy
of the beautiful little book Kathy Lee has just written,
(30:20):
called Hello, Little Dreamer. Get one for every child on
your holiday gift giving list, because the gift you'll be
giving is that of encouragement to follow their dreams. And
if you're having a tough day, a bad day, a
down moment, try this little trick. Go do something for
someone else, Go do something from your heart without expecting
(30:44):
anything in return. Will be back with another episode of
Love Someone with the lina I
I get to turn the tables on today's podcast Gas
because usually when I'm in a room with this woman,
she is the one doing the interview, asking the questions.
She is a four time Emmy Award winner and a
former co host of not one, but two of America's
most beloved morning shows. She sat next to Regis Philbin
(00:28):
for fifteen years, then Hoda for eleven before stepping down
last year to pursue other opportunities. In she was inducted
into the Broadcast and Cable Hall of Fame, and she's
recently been chosen to receive a star on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame. She's a book author, she's a playwright,
(00:49):
she's a producer, a singer, a songstress, an actress. She
has her own record label, and she's written several musicals,
including Broadways Scandalous that got a Tony nomination. Oh my gosh.
I could go on and on and on about today's
guest and her list of impressive accomplishments, but if I
tried to cover them all, there wouldn't be time for
(01:10):
this interview. This podcast Love Someone with the Lila's guest today,
as of course, Kathy Lee Gifford. She is the star
of the hour. Today, she's popping in to talk with
us about her new movie, A delightful rom com. I
got to watch it. It's called Then Came You. We'll
be back to get the full scoop right after I
(01:32):
give today's podcast sponsor a little love. You've heard me
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latest special offers, and visit them at Save Skincare dot com. Hi,
Kathie Lee, how are you? I am wonderful? Let's talk
about this new movie, because when I got off the
air last night, I gave myself a present and I
(02:37):
watched they sent me a sneak peek of then came you,
and I was laughing. I was emotional. I was I
was blessed, and I thought, oh my god, oh my gosh,
I get to talk to this lady and like find
out more about this. But you co wrote the songs
(02:59):
the soundtrack, yep. I I co wrote the songs, I
wrote the screenplays and produced it. And I star opposite
my dear, dear friend Craig Ferguson, whom I actually wrote
it for. He had co hosted with me on the
Today Show and we had had a blast together, and
he said, you know, if we wait for our agents
to get us another job in television, we're in diet razing.
(03:21):
He said, God, let's just write a I write a
movie together, and he left for home and I went
to bed that night, and right on time, two o'clock
in the morning, bing, I wake up and I knew
what the movie should be, Delilah. I just knew it.
I knew it should be Annabel her name Annabelle Wilson.
He should be Howard Odds, and I knew how I
(03:41):
could get her to Scotland, and I just I just
let my imagination run wild and I had a ball
writing it. Called him that day and said, you remember
that movie. I think I just wrote it because Scott
I haven't even been home a day so anyways, uh,
but I sent him the six scenes that I had
written and he said, this is your baby. I standard
lady deserves. So we had a ball in the highlands
(04:05):
of Scotland. We had so many labs. This movie is
basically a romantic comedy for people who think that romances
in their rear view mirror. You know, they're never going
to have a romance again, they're never gonna love again.
That that's over and nothing's very funny anymore either. And
there are millions of people in the world like that.
(04:26):
Many of them listen to you, Delilah. They listen to
you and love you because you bring hope to them
in the songs that you play. So this this brings
up my first question in the movie, then can you
you play opposite this gorgeous, funny, oozing, sexy character. Yes,
(04:52):
Mr Odds. And in the movie, Cathy, you try to feign,
you try to act like he discussed you. He annoys you,
he ticks you off, he shuts the radio off. But
I wasn't buying that because there was so much chemistry
between you two. Oh my god, we have had that
since the day we met years ago. And nobody understands
(05:15):
it better and and loves it more than his wife, Megan,
who she read the script and finally finished it and
I sent it off to Craig. She read it first
and she said, Craig, you have got to make this movie. Boy,
does Kathy have you down? So it was totally with
her blessing, And yeah, we have chemical reaction to one another.
(05:36):
It's obvious on screen. And I didn't I didn't mean
to imply chemistry as in, um, you know that the
love scenes were real. I meant to imply that there
is such an energy that is between you two. It's
palpable on screen. It's it's palpable. We've always said if
things had gone differently in our lives that we would
have ended up together, we might have killed each other.
(05:58):
But it's there. It's there. So that's what to do
in a movie. You harness it, you know, in a
way that brings it, brings it to life. Without you know,
hurting each other's personal lives. You know, I mean, I
adore his wife and you know, I've spent a weekend
at their house with them and their little boy out
in the Scottish countryside, and you know, no, he's a
(06:18):
really really cherished friend to me, one of the most
brilliant people. And isn't he in a great dramatic actor too.
He played his role brilliantly, like he came across as
this jerky and a caustic guy. But then when he
let the walls down in the scene where you you
(06:39):
wrote it for him, where he let the walls down,
it was so subtly believable. Yes, very very very beautiful.
He wounded too, but we all deal with our woundedness
in different ways. Annabelle has found an actual physical way
for her degree by taking her husband's ashes on this journey.
He in aach box and it's I'm going to ruin
(07:01):
a part of it there, and in a chocolate box.
You know what it's in. It's in the trailer. So
they give half the movie away these days and trailers,
but it does get people, you know, sort of excited
about the movie. And that's what happened with that trailer.
They did a brilliant trailer on it, and there's tons
more in the movie as well too. But it's a
story of two very unlikely people, um dealing with their
(07:25):
own grief and their own needs in different ways, but
discovering that you know, you don't go out. She's got
out looking for love. She isn't, She's just her husband's
been gone for a year. She's she's just doing first
of all, what he said to do with his ashes,
that was part of his will, and the rest of it.
She figures out a way to also try to make
(07:46):
her long lost dreams come true. And I think, Delilah,
you and I are blessed. You and I've had big lives,
big careers, big families. You more than me. You know,
we've got a lot more kids than I do. But many,
many women, I think, have settled in their life, not
because they chose to or wanted to. Many of them
had to because of different circumstances. But Annabelle is like
(08:09):
so many women who never got to see the world
the way she wants to dreams. She could never had
her dreams of being an actress and a singer fulfilled
and This movie is the first of five about these
characters that I want to shoot and and and she
discovers even in her later life, that she has gifts
(08:29):
she didn't even know she had, and we see those
dreams come to pass as Annabelle's journey continues, and each
movie takes place in a different place as she follows
along with the lists that she brings with her to Scotland.
So Craig's on board for all the the Shenanigans of
boards on board. I don't think that Elizabeth Hurley will
(08:53):
be because I sort of got rid of her. Boy,
wasn't that a fun scene The minute she's the minute
she said that's not the tent I ordered. I was like, oh,
let's just get rid of this little gorgeous thing. But
didn't see every woman's worst nightmare. The man you are
falling for is engaged to her Elizabeth early And I'm
(09:18):
in that outfit when I've been fixing the furnace or
something and I look like crap, and I have to
meet her, and I'm going, I hope when you see me,
take the scrunch sheet out of my hair and just
try to make myself halfway pretty and sitting there looking
at Elizabeth Hurley, who is impossibly beautiful and of sweet
(09:38):
girl too. I've known her a long long time, reached.
I wrote that for her too, And one day she
was at the Today Show and I said, after we
finished the segment, I said, can I talk to you
for a moment my dressing room? So she went into
my dressing room with her. I said, listen, maybe this
is unprofessional, but I forgive me. I said, Elizabeth, I've
just written a screenplay for my friend, Craig Ferguson says, Oh,
(09:58):
I love Craig all He's an absolute doll. Yes, she
I said, I wrote a part for you in it,
and it would just mean the world to me if
you if you'd read the scriptures, well let me have it, dolling.
I'll read it on the plane on the way home,
you know. So she took the script, read it on
the plane. Her agent called and said she'd love to
do it if we can fit it into her schedule.
(10:19):
So this was meant to happen, this movie, and I
think it's the timing of it's perfect, don't you, Delilah.
People there are needing escape. They wanted to kick it
on a plane and fly anywhere, and now they get
to get on a plane with Annabelle and go to Scotland.
Well after, after I watched it last night, I did
go online to see you know what the travel restrictions are, because,
(10:41):
oh my gosh, it's so beautiful where you filmed it.
It's in the Highlands, just west of Glasgow and Scotland.
I've been to Scotland many times and always loved it.
But then when we decided to do the movie together
with Craig, I knew that I've had to write a
story set there. And annabel has only seen the world
(11:03):
through movies. So there are a lot of people like that.
And people have places on their bucket list before they die,
and you put Scotland on my bucket list with this movie.
I'm so glad. And the Scottish people are so lovely.
They're so funny, very cleverly written, very good. Thank you.
That means a lot to me. Well again, the soundtrack
(11:26):
is something that is also a star of the movie.
The music really is another star in the film because
it's uh and you don't get to hear all the
lyrics of it and everything except if you get the soundtrack.
And our friends Salo Lavery also wrote this underscore with
breat Somebody said to me the other day that some
critics said, you know what, it's a beautiful film because
(11:47):
it's it's a jolly rump and I went, oh my gosh,
that's what I wanted to be, and I want to
surprise people with it. There are twenty three different places
where it takes a turn that you don't see it coming.
And those are my favorite kinds of movies. You know,
one of my favorite rom coms is Love Actually and
I Love It's Complicated. Those are the movies that I
(12:08):
enjoy watching because they're they're they're for adults. It's, you know,
there for for mature people who've been through life and
they've got a lot of baggage. Now their baggage maybe
Louis Witamp, but they still got baggage. And I find
that sort of entertainments so much more interesting. I don't
want to see things blow up anymore. I never did.
I don't want to see gratuitous sex or gratuitous violence.
(12:32):
I just can we please just go someplace beautiful and
watch life unfurl for two people who who think life
is basically over for them, it's not. It's not. If
you got a pulse, you've still got a purpose. And
I have that. Every morning I take an emotional pulse
rate and if I'm still here, it means God's not
(12:53):
finished with me yet. I have so much work to
do and that I'm just loving and excite it every
day about what's new. And finally this movie's out. It's
on demand now on any service that you can rent films,
and I just can't wait to hear if people are
tapping their toes to the music we wrote and and
laughing in the right places and crying in the right places.
(13:15):
Thanks so much for watching it, Deliland, and for loving
if that means the world to me. I'm not done
talking about it yet. Because the character of Craig Ferguson's
Howard Odds best friend. Yes, Gavin, he was very funny,
but he was he was perfect. He was perfect in
(13:35):
honesty and I don't ever not speaking honestly, but I
did write that role originally for Ricky Gervais. Oh that
would have been good too, yeah yeah, And and Ricky
loved the script but he said, hell yeah, I just
find with Netflix and I can't And I said, okay,
so um, They said, do you know who Ford Karenan
is And I said, no, is that he's a number
(13:57):
one comedic actor in the entire UK. Said let's get him.
He was so brilliant. And when he had the talk
with you with your character Annabelle about his best friend, yes,
that's where I was crying. I wasn't crying at the
other you know parts that I think some people, especially
(14:19):
if you've lost your partner, would cry at. I was
crying there because I have that best friend. Yes, yes,
that would move heaven and earth for me. Yes, yes,
and thank god, boy did that come across beautifully. Yeah. Well,
he and Craig were friends before, they had worked together before.
(14:42):
So Craig was thrilled when we got Forward and we
only I had written a small role because originally I
thought it was going to be Ricky and I knew
we'd probably only get him for a day or two.
But once we started working, and this is the beauty
of an independent film. Once we started working, I said,
can Forward, Can you work next week? Because I have
(15:02):
this idea for a scene for you and can. He
ended up being in about, you know, ten more scenes
than I than I originally anticipated, and he's agreed to
go forward with them as we as we keep writing.
But uh. And then the original title of the movie
was called Loved Me to Death. And then I was
on a two weeks before we wrapped, I was on
a big five hour long hike in the Highlands. My
(15:24):
one and only day off every week was on a Sunday,
and I had to clear my head and take these
long walks. And I felt the Lord saying so clearly
to m Cathy, go back, take your pad and your
pen I have a present for you. So I went
home and walked home, got up to that spot which
you will see at the end of our movie, and
(15:45):
and the lyrics to then came you, came to me,
then came you, then came you. So I couldn't believe it.
I climbed down those steps, called Brett James and said, Brett,
I'm going to change the end of the movie, and
I I'm gonna change the title. And we were able
to change that ending completely two weeks before we even
(16:05):
wrapped the film. Brett added a melody to the lyrics
that I had written. He sent them off to me,
and that's him singing it in the movie. And uh,
that's him also in the in the pub singing with
Me Whiskey and Wine, which is our next single, Bring
the Whiskey, Bring the Wine. I mean, it's just a fun, fun,
(16:26):
fun musical romp too. And so he is not an actor,
but I think he did just great. He did awesome.
And you guys played off each other so well. But
when you when you were doing the bubble bath scene, girlfriend, dang,
you naked. God has blessed you. God has blessed you.
(16:51):
You look as beautiful as you ever have, Oh sweetie.
So I know a theme in the movie is, you know,
when we have to come to grips with the fact
that we're not sixteen anymore, um, and that and you
you work that in very very subtly. You know when
you said, what are you checking? Are you checking my age?
(17:12):
You're checking my age? You're checking my age? And you
know it was subtle. But but for those of us
that have to look in the mirror and see our
mother looking back at us, it's very real. And that
is a morning process that we have to go through
that we're not sixteen. But let me tell you, there
are a few scenes in this movie where I was like, dang,
(17:34):
I I gotta, I gotta kick it back into the gym,
because if she could look that hot in a bathtub,
I got a little work to do here. We thank
you well. I I really got in shape for that movie.
I lost a lot of weight for it because she's
a runner, and the originally in the script she was
she ran, she talked about running and what it did?
You know? So much has to be lost in the
(17:55):
editing process. But it'll all if I get a chance
to do the next four films, it'll all come out. Um. Yeah.
The clothes are also a star of this film. My
friend Michael Hurd's uh British, delightful designer. Every outfit is
made in the UK, one one country or another, so
it's all very organic and authentic to to the United Kingdom.
(18:18):
And I don't think I could fit in one outfit
at this point. I really maybe my shoes, but that's it.
You were, you were beautiful. And the costumes, I gotta
say though, the one you wore to the when you
went out to the pub when you sang um, whiskey
and wine, that was my favorite of them all. Everybody
(18:41):
has a different favorite. Yeah. I love that one too,
Um yeah, oh gosh, God, when he told you to
go change your clothes, if he was gonna take you
of fishing, I was howling because it looks like a
tin something. I forget what he says, a plaids plaid
tin or something? Yes, yeah, cookie tin something. She was
(19:04):
living out her dreams. And you notice in the movie
she he says, what are you checking? Checking movie times?
And I go, no, lifetimes. I've got to get to
a Roman holiday. And he says, what are you gonna
where they're at toga? And I go maybe so um, yes,
I with a great director. Adriana Trigiana has been a
(19:25):
friend of mine for many, many years, and she hasn't
She's a novelist. Just check out her like she's got
like twenty novels and her she's loved details. She's a
really huge fan of movies anyway. This movie is our movies,
like an homage to the screwball comedies of the fifties,
like the Pillow Talk with Doris Day and Rock Hudson
(19:48):
kind of movies. But even back thirties and forties. She's
a real connoisseur of those kinds of films, and she
brought that kind of a directorial sense to the film
as well. Um, so you know it takes everybody to
bring a movie like this to the four And yeah,
the fact that it's now out, Delilah is it's kind
(20:08):
of surreal to me. All I ever wanted to be
when I was growing up was to be in the movies.
I wanted to be Hayley Mills or a net Punicello.
You know, I wanted to sing. And the very first
movie I ever really did see in life in the
theater was his Family Robinson, So that part was true
in the film as well. So there are lots of
(20:28):
little things that I brought from my life. But Annabelle
uh is very, very different from the person that I am.
But you know what, I loved playing her so much
because there's an innocence about Annabelle that I lost a
long long time ago. Fifty years. In this business, you
lose a bit of innocence, and she's fun to play
in that regard. And I can go back to my
(20:51):
my other self years and years ago, and I just
you know, I thought the world was just beautiful everywhere,
and people were all nice, and everybody had two parents
who loved each other. You know that leave it to
beaver kind of world that I grew up in. Okay,
So a personal question, and you don't have to answer
this if you don't want to. But the character Annabelle
(21:13):
was in the beginning grief stages, the first year of
losing her husband, and I remember, I saw you less
than a year after you lost your husband, right, how
much of that real grief? Because one of the beautiful
things about this movie is the characters are multidimensional. Because
(21:37):
my mom gave up all of her dreams for my dad,
but they had a very contentious, bitter marriage. They didn't
it didn't divorce right before both of them died. It's
like they couldn't live with each other and they couldn't
live without each other. But one of the beautiful things
that I really appreciated was that, yes, she gave up
her dreams to be married and to live in Nantucket,
(21:58):
but there didn't seem to be any bitterness or um resentment.
You could tell she truly loved her husband and missed him.
How much of Kathy Lee and your grief missing your
hobby was written in that. You know, people are asking
me that because it's a it's a very fair question,
(22:18):
and and and and the nastural one. But the truth
is that I didn't. I wasn't really aware. I wasn't
consciously aware that I was dealing with grief. I started
writing it at two years after Frank had passed. I knew,
I knew the grief of widow dim So you're right
what you know, um, But they remember the scene with
the first night she gets to the in and she's
(22:40):
by the fire with the dog in her room. Unfortunately
we had to cut a lot of that scene because
of time. But you see her take her wedding ring
off her left finger and put it on a chain,
and that's I didn't put mine on a chain, but
I wore my wedding ring for a year, and then
on the first hand of her her Frank's passing, I
(23:01):
moved it to my right hand. And then just a
couple of years ago when I moved to Nashville, because
there's a song in the movie called New Everything, and
I just thought, no, I'm starting You know the line
in the movie that says, I gotta make new memories
of the old ones are going to kill me. I
took off my wedding ring off my right hand as well,
and put it on my daughter's charm bracelet that I've
(23:24):
been keeping for her since she was born, and those
are just sort of milestone moments, so I was trying
to do that in the movie. It doesn't make as
much sense now that we've edited it the way it is,
but you can tell she's grieving and she's got the
ring in her hand. That's what she was doing, was
changing it over, which was is a signal that, Okay,
(23:44):
I'm ready for the next step. I have a girlfriend
named Kimmy who started out as my housekeeper and then
became my nanny and now she just my best friend.
And she lost her husband on my birthday sadly um
ten years ago, and she has never never taken the
ring off or moved it. And somebody asked her one day.
(24:07):
I was kind of eavesdropping. They said, do you everything
you'll date again, and she looks shocked. She said, why
would I do that. I'm still married. Oh wow, And
she says, my husband's waiting for me. Oh, and she
is completely content. Mm hmm. He's the only boy she
(24:27):
ever kissed, the only man she ever loved. And she's like,
I don't have any interest in trying to fit my
life in with someone else's again. You know, I understand
both things. I understand you know, so many I've been
out on a few days since in the last year,
and they're all wonderful guys, really sweet guys. But they're
(24:49):
either overwhelmed and by my personality the bigness of my life,
or they're overwhelmed by the fact that I was married
to Frank for almost thirty years. You know, Frank Gifford
is in eight Halls of Fame, and there they sort
of say to themselves, Wow, you know, I can't be
Frank Gifford. She was married one of the greatest guys
they who ever lived, and I don't expect anybody to
(25:12):
be Frank. But it's so funny, Delilah. The guys that
I did I want to date, it's like four they
either wanna run for the hills because I scared them
to death, or they want to get married within two weeks.
And and it's just you know, somewhere, maybe there's a
guy somewhere that you know is writing right down the
middle a little bit, you know, you know, when I
(25:36):
quit looking, when I made up my mind that I
was you know, I had at the time eight kids.
I'm like, what guy is gonna want to date a
woman that's got eight kids? Um, and I really, you know, said, okay, God,
if if it's going to be you and me for
the rest of my life, I'm okay with that. Literally, yes,
I feel that way too. And my life is so busy.
(25:57):
I'm writing these oratorios, I'm directing now. Hopefully I'll start
writing these new films, maybe direct one of those. Well,
you have to you have to write them now, because
you've told me you've got a whole series coming, so
you you can't get out of this. No, I've written.
I've just heard from our main producer this morning and
he just texted me said, I listen, I met what
(26:18):
I said, Let's do all five of these. So um,
I'm excited about that. But I'm I'm just with the
same with you. If this, if God has it for me,
then I'm not going to go out looking for it.
One of my favorites. I love all the music in
the movie, but the song once again has a lyric
and and and when Brett saw the lyric, that's when
(26:39):
he first decided to be to write with me for
the movie. He goes, oh, I love these lyrics. Took
a look at the lyrics for the song called Once Again,
and the lyric goes, you don't find love, Love finds
you in the midst of a moment, right out of
the blue. It sneaks up on your heart, hardly making
a sound, till all of a suddenly find you've been found.
(27:04):
That's a great lyric, straight from heaven. And I'm not
looking for it, you know, but if God brings it,
I will be deeply grateful for it. I was just
going to say. My prayer for you is that if
it is the Lord's will, that you would discover that
you have been found by a man that God has
ordained for you, who will love all of you, who
(27:26):
won't be intimidated. Though you're small, you have more personality
in your little finger than most people have in their
whole body. And to most people that could be intimidating.
But to the man that if God is going to
bring him, he will cherish every bit of you and you.
I mean that. I mean that, and like the cat
(27:50):
and the dog analogy, be just a little bit um,
a little bit playful in that you have to reach
for him. Yeah, yeah, I I'm open to it. Believe me.
And in fact, a friend of mine was asking me
right after Frank had passed. He said, I guess Frank
was the love of your life. Huh? And I said
(28:12):
so far. Even then, I said so far because I
was I'm open to love. I don't want to closed heart.
And he said I've never had a love like that,
and I said, not yet. You'll know when you're ready.
You'll know when you're ready. And so I incorporate everything
that I go through in life and everything I experienced
into whatever I write. And this was especially fun to
(28:33):
write because I wasn't um beholden to a real to
two real people that I wanted to be faithful to,
their their legacy, their their memory. So this was the
first time I could just let my imagination go crazy.
You know. Um. Yeah, I was so good to talk
to you. See. I love talking to you, and through
(28:54):
all these years, you are sort of my my steady eddie.
You know that's because because God has us on different paths,
but the same path, you're walking each other home. Well,
bless you, my sister, have the same prayer for your life,
and I just ask God to bless you richly and
(29:14):
continue to give you that soothing, loving, comforting voice you
have from millions. You bring great joy to people and
great comfort, and you just keep doing what He's chosen
you to do, sweet as beautifully as you do. And
thanks again for having me on. I love you all right,
Thank you, honey, Lord bless you you take care. Bye
(29:36):
bye bye bye. I'm so glad we got to spend
this time together today and catch up on all things.
If I know Kathie Lee, she's got so many irons
in the fire. I know she's working on like sequels too.
Then came You, and then I'll get to invite her
back again to tell us all about whatever is going
on when the time is right. Reserve sometime soon for
(29:59):
this up coming romantic comedy. It's got beautiful scenery. I
mean beautiful scenery. Uh, it's got an award winning cast.
Then came You, available on demand since October two. I
didn't have time to talk about it in this interview.
But I also encourage you to pick up a copy
of the beautiful little book Kathy Lee has just written,
(30:20):
called Hello, Little Dreamer. Get one for every child on
your holiday gift giving list, because the gift you'll be
giving is that of encouragement to follow their dreams. And
if you're having a tough day, a bad day, a
down moment, try this little trick. Go do something for
someone else, Go do something from your heart without expecting
(30:44):
anything in return. Will be back with another episode of
Love Someone with the lina I
Host
Delilah
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