Helen Hunt: When the Universe Betrays You

This is Humans. Humans. Humans. Humans. Humans. Humans. [MUSIC] I'm Hank Green. Helen Hunt has had one of the stranger, more interesting careers that you can have as an artist in Hollywood. Not because of the highs, an Oscar, four Emmys, four Golden Globes, seven seasons of one of the most beloved sitcoms ever made. But because of the variety, she has acted, she's directed, she writes screenplays, she directed it and wrote an indie movie that spent 10 years trying to get made only to have it lose distribution. She's been in hit blockbuster movies, she's been in flops, she's done Shakespeare, she's done comedy, and drama, her IMDB is insane. Her most recent credit is like, now, least recent is from 1973 when she was nine. She had at least one credit in every year from when she was nine until she was 38, and then she took like a one year break. She meditates daily, she serfs in Maui, she takes college literature classes as an antidote to Instagram, and she just received a lifetime achievement award at the Tower Meena Film Festival. This summer, she'll play opposite Kenneth Branagh at the Royal Shakespeare Company. What do women want? Apparently, variety. I am so excited to talk to Helen for a lot of reasons. I want to think with her about how we stay engaged in our world, how we do that intelligently and carefully, what keeps someone choosing harder, more interesting paths. How to not just ride waves, but go and find them. How to be absolutely relentless. Also, I want to take the chance to finally apologize for writing a two minute song about how I had a massive crush on her when I was in high school in my defense. It was the first song I ever released on YouTube, and I did not imagine it would ever reach her ears. But first, Helen Hunt, thank you for being here. Thank you. Here's what I know. You have good friends. Oh, yeah. So I got on Twitter back when it was Twitter. I guess it's not Twitter anymore. Yes. And I used to be on Twitter the way you watch a horror movie, if you're scared, like you've got your hands up and you're peeking through your hands. I like half engaged, but your name kept coming up. Oh, no. And I didn't know who you were and it kept coming up and coming up. I mean, that was a couple years. A couple years of years. Yeah. And there was nothing creepy. But why is this name continually showing up? And then there was like a deluge of people saying it's his birthday, write something. It would mean everything. And so I just took the leap of faith that you were in an axe murderer. And I'm really happy birthday. But like, what happened? Why me? What's, how did it all start? Well, Hank Green, why is your name been in my head for decades and decades? I will explain it to you. I was, you know, in high school as Matt about you was happening. And you're a very beautiful person and very funny. And that show is like, oh, man, the way that Matt about you is sexy is so good. You were wise beyond your year. You were in high school and thought Matt about you as sexy. I thought it was sexy. But like, you thought it was sexy? I did. I did. Well, that's great. I think that's a compliment to us both. Yeah. A lot of people listening probably have not seen Matt about you. But the great thing about it, there's so much like TV sitcom about a husband and wife where the husband is like kind of big and bumbling and useless. And the wife is beautiful and skinny and strong. And and the amazing thing about Matt about you is like, you trade that those roles off. Yeah. Where like sometimes one is weak and the other has to be strong. And that's what marriage is actually like. That was a very conscious goal. Like, let's never let them say he's the neurotic one and she's the strong one. So that was that's good that that landed the way that they were in love physically and mentally was very good. The way that they were playful, the way that like sex was was not something that was out of control, but was something that was like indulged in in loved. Scheduled. Sometimes scheduled. Sometimes scheduled. Much like life. All the marriages. Yeah. And also Paul Riser. No one gives him credit, but he's also hot. Totally. Yeah. And an actor. I knew him stand up and I was just kind of attracted to his stand up because it wasn't mean it lined up with my funny bone. And then I was in an acting class long before anybody knew who I was except maybe you. And I noticed like, oh, he cares enough to sit in this hour's long class. He's an actor. Because there are stand ups who do a perfectly lovely job on their TV shows, but they're not actors. So I kind of got, oh, he's an actor. And then the show came up and I had just started doing movies and that was a time where if you did movies, you kind of didn't do TV like finally I'm out of TV and in movies and I was starting to do movies. And he came over to my house for dinner because his wife knew my roommate. It was all right. Right. And I chatted with him and then he said, I've got this show and I thought, oh, shit, now I've done it. Now I'm going to have to call this perfectly lovely person and say, I don't want to be your wife in the show where I'm just your wife. Yeah. But then I read it and I was like, oh, this is a big juicy thing and I would really like to be in it. It's so interesting because YouTube was also like this for a while where like if you did YouTube, you couldn't be on TV. Now you kind of came. Now it's all just the more the more the more the more the more the more the more. Yeah, let's have it should be. And also what is even TV anymore? You say that like it's not a giant like hunk of the glacier that has fallen off of my work and career and all of my fellows. Like what is it anymore? Yeah, it's very weird. We should get into the industry, but I want to finish my story. Okay. So this came to be which is simply that I started this project with my brother in 2007 where we made videos back and forth through each other every day, which meant that we were always hungry to find something to talk about. And I had just started to learn how to play guitar. It was so fun to try and put that to, you know, like comedy songs. And so I wrote basically a comedy song about being in love with Helen Hunt, which is too much. Because you're like a person in a way that I had no idea was the case at the time. That's such a strange thing about fame. I don't know. Perhaps we should talk about that though, because you've been weirdly famous. There's like mad about you fame. And then there's like winning an Oscar as good as it gets across from Jack Nicholson fame. How have you felt about that? About how you take up space in a lot of people's heads? I mean, it's it's confusing because I take up space in a lot of people's heads. And then you haven't heard of me at all. Oh, Twister. Sorry. Someone just instant message you and say, "Twister." No. Oh, no. Twister, idiot. I just assume that that is the thing you get recognized for the most. It depends on where you are. It depends on the demographic. But you're unusual that in high school you cared about, Matt, about you. So you get some kind of extra points. And I'm not sure what category. Well, I think it served me well. Whatever I learned from that show and/or I learned that led me to enjoying that show has served me well. There was a moment around 2000 where it was all happening at once. And that's when I suddenly went, "Oh, shit. What if this is forever?" I was followed around and all those things that are a little disconcerting if you're a woman, especially. Paparazzi show up. It was not good. And I thought, "What if this is forever?" But it wasn't. And now I live in a city that's a little bit like, "Yeah, whatever. I just saw three much more famous people than you." So that kind of helps. Yeah. And I don't know. I wanted a civilian life and I got it. Now I want good work, which it helps to be more famous to get good work. Oh, God, yeah. So that's where it's a little bit like I really enjoy being a man among men and living a life on the ground. Yeah. Like you do and other people. But then it's harder to get the work that you want to do because they want famous people. They want famous people. I mean, first of all, you don't have, like I assume. You don't have to work. It's something that's kept you hungry and interested for all of these years. And ambitious. Yeah. Yeah. I am ambitious. It's all comes back to like the words on the page. You know what I mean? I'm about to go do the cherry orchard. This Russian beast of a play and a giant beast of a part. And I'm excited and scared. And I feel like my. I listened to one of your podcasts and I thought, "That our brains are so different." You're seems all scrubbed and clean and sciencey and mind-sall art and fuzzy and filled with literature and then. Yeah. Big giant gaping holes. But I love taking this thing I've done for my whole life since I was nine years old. This is an art, even though it's invisible. Ooh, what does that mean? Well, if you write a book, you hold it in your hand or you hold it in your kindle. And if you paint a painting, you go, "Here it is." And then if you do this piece of work, it can. I believe because I've been on the receiving end of it. It can matter to people. It can move people. It can give them a new perspective. It can give them a break from how hard the world is. I think theater and movies really can matter in a big way. But then it's gone. I'm in a step-off stage in this play. And did it ever happen? Play definitely disappears. Movies don't disappear. But they are very sort of like. They take a time. They happen, you know, one second per second. What does that mean? See, that's your scrubbed crispy brain. What does that mean? One second per second. Well, like a book. I can read a page and I can be like, "Ooh, I really liked that." And then I read the page again. Or I can like, "Ah, this paragraph isn't doing it for me." And I move on to the next one. A painting you could spend zero seconds looking at a painting or you could spend five years looking at a painting. Whereas a movie, if it's 88 minutes long, it's kind of 88 minutes long. You might, you might, you might go back or go to the bathroom. But like mostly it's 88 minutes long. So there is this thing about film and TV where they sort of like happen and then you are expected to move on. Yeah, I mean, there is that rare movie that walks alongside you your whole life. And they're different for everybody, you know what I mean? I've met people who say, who live in places where there are tornadoes who say every year when it's tornado season we put it on I'm like really and it's their comfort thing oh yeah real like I haven't heard it once I've heard it 30 times you know Jim Brooks's movies which I was in one as good as it gets he determines if in deer meant for example that's that's a movie that could walk along side you your whole life and I think it keeps coming back to the writing it's the writing it's the writing it's the writing yeah you don't necessarily even have to like watch it over and over again for it to hit over and over again yeah and if it gets you ten years later that's like attention must be paid something has happened yeah there are those things in the world this is really important I think because I didn't used to do this I used to have these thoughts that I would return to over and over again I'd be like well that's what it's like to be a person and now I'm like wait a second why is that happening why is that sentence coming to you over and over yeah what is it about this thought that like has created such hooks in my brain it like really must have fit into a problem I had and then something that was part of a solution that I needed a lot of people in their twenties read real key I'm not the only one god knows it's almost a cliche but there's a poem and there's a line I want to be with those who know secret things are also alone and I was like that's me and it's still true oh that's good so that's one of my that's that's one that I have do you so I have been on like one set I did like a commercial that was like a five-minute movie so I've done this one time literally and what it felt like is if it had extended for days I would have fallen in love with these people even the ones I didn't like we were like at summer camp you know we had to just like live in it that's it you got it I mean even more in your twenties and thirties you're because you're just you know let's all we're all in a weird city outside of real time it's it's not the day world it's the underworld we're all in it together and then the really disorienting part is when it ends yeah like where did everybody go doesn't take that long sometimes to make a movie sometimes like two weeks and then you never see these people again yeah and you've gotten so close and you've shared whatever the material has stirred up and then it's over when your kid that was hard for me like where did they all go I thought they were my family is there a person who you would pick to just like do a scene every time just somebody who's just like it's comfortable and it's great and they're just a delight all Paul right yeah yeah comfortable in a delight I mean and I often to this day think what if he'd been a drag yeah what if we hadn't gotten along because it ended up being eight years and I still I got a text from him yesterday if you listen to Maggie Rogers music no you should you'd love her so she's still a friend but the luck of that I'm sure you you hear about people on TV shows I directed TV shows I directed a show and season one the two leads got along great and I came back to direct an episode in season two and the first assistant director said can I talk to you for a minute and I went oh no and I wanted to bash their heads together and say in one minute you won't have this job in one minute don't blow it by not enjoying it in one minute you won't have this job that also reminds me of this thing where you had this tension between not wanting to be more famous having been inside of that knowing that it's awful just dehumanizing it's awful except you get good tickets to play as a seats in restaurants which honestly I can't say it's so awful can I please get a table in one minute you know what I mean so to be fair it has both qualities but it can have teeth I mean you know it can be not good it can be dangerous yeah yeah and then being like okay well this isn't worth the trade off for me it may be for some other people but it's not worth the trade off for me so the tables and the work are good parts of it what's the part where like people loved you good it's just I thought you still have James I do still love James Taylor just predictably wouldn't you if somebody said who do you think Alan has this love growing up predictably yeah but I used to go to his concerts and people who are obviously so moved by his songs would I love you James and he'd nod and then he goes it helps not to know me so even though that's a little bit snarky yeah it is very different experience you know for the for sure the person who's being projected upon yeah the weird thing is I think that a fan because I am a fan of many people I can project something on to someone that is correct it lines up but it's still side by side it's still two different things how you are in my projection even if I'm spot on do you know what I mean over sure I always say that like everything you see of me is me but you don't see all of me yes I guess that's it but even if they even if they guessed all of it it's not it that the two things well yeah I mean like it's a venn diagram but it doesn't line up totally eventually you have to add on all the parts where you're just like annoyed because you're in the same room with me because that's like what we do eventually you know eventually even like all of the best is annoying in some moments mere exposure it can be too much so your dad directed theater he directed theater that's primarily what he was and then when he directed a lot of plays then there weren't a lot of plays and he was really a model of you keep making work and the outside world will want it and then they won't want it and they'll want it and they won't want it but you keep finding a way to make work so he became an acting teacher he directed animation he directed television and then kind of aged out of that and someone approached him and said would you ever want to do motion capture video games oh my dad at like 77 wild I know so he learned I've a great picture of him working with someone with the dots all over their face uh-huh is like a renaissance man he just kept making work so your parents were somewhat aware of entertainment when you started yeah I grew up in an artsy community my parents best friends were children's book illustrators and art historians and composers so I wasn't like sorry everybody I want to be an actor it was not outside their imagination that that might be right land you have a credit on IMDB for like 49 of the last 53 years that's freaking weird it is weird it is weird so I want to talk a little bit about like starting out at nine but then like it seems like you're fairly unscathed being a kid in Hollywood is not like famously the healthiest thing but maybe there were things that made it a little safer for you a couple of good things happened I started by studying acting even before the nine-year-old first job and then studied all the way through and yesterday had a coach over here to work with me on checkup so studying has been I love it I believe in it I'm very rabbinical about the work you know only so that I can throw it out and have fun when I step in front of a camera on stage but I am like coaches come over here and they're like Jesus one person said to me they'll like offer something up and I taste it and go put that's not it but when it's the right thing I get very lit up and that's slightly more rewarding for them so I think that was one thing is that the acting itself was fun it wasn't the set or the come and go of the famousness the other thing is that I was lucky not to have the you know addiction gene because that takes so many people in our live-down in the business and I didn't have that very lucky and I was never on a big hit show as a kid so I didn't have to overcome that that's really interesting the good thing about all these weird credits you haven't heard of this I just got to act and work and meet people and I had a couple of not great things happen on movies that's definitely but I never had to over I see what Daniel Radcliffe is doing on stage and he's like fuck all y'all I'm working and working and working and coaching and working and singing and working and you can Harry Potter all you want but here I am in my next show I mean that's yeah I didn't have to do quite that because I didn't have that huge thing and by the time I met about you happen I was in a bunch of movies so it all kind of became a deck that got shuffled and I wasn't pigeon-holed into anything there's such a gift I've had this in my career too to like no exponentials just linear's there's your brain again dumb it down and tell me what you mean no like suddenly I'm huge but instead like it's just getting a little bigger every year or it's getting a little smaller every year it's getting a little bigger every year correct and you're just sort of like you ramped into Matt about you and I don't know how old you were in that series but like you were an adult 29 or 30 to 30 seven or eight so yeah I had already worked a lot in fact when people came you know we had the best guest stars of any show in the history of television shows it just became a cool thing for these generation before us comedians to come on the show and they just kept coming and coming and coming but when we'd have younger people guest star none of us were like hi we're the home team you're here for a day we all were very aware that in five minutes we'd be a guest star on their TV show that we're all just journeyman actors right now we can exhale because we have a cushy job tomorrow we won't so that was I think what made the set a place people wanted to be did you always see it as work did you understand it as like a job people have I was with my dad when I was very young and he was directing plays and he took me to the theater and I just knew I want to be in these rooms I really never thought about acting I certainly didn't think about big six I wanted to be in these rooms with these people overwhelmingly yummy people are drawn to the theater like inclusive weird in the best way literary people are drawn to being in those rooms I was like I want to be with them I also had that feeling of like a story is being told that might be scary or sad but But it's also safe because we're in this container together. We're all in this room. And we know it's going to end so we can put our toes in these funny waters, these spooky waters. I loved that. So that's what I knew. In terms of getting jobs at that young age, it was sort of like other people were in band practice at school and I was going off to do a couple of episodes of a TV show or being a movie. It wasn't a career path at all. It was just, I'm liking this the way people say. I like cheerleading. I like, you know, math club. I liked this. And I've heard you say that if you don't like it when it's a grubby bunch of weirdos playing for 30 people, just don't do it. Don't do it. Because that's mostly what it is. Yeah. Truly, in the best way. I was surprised the first time they put me in a room with like a true crew and like how much of it was nothing. Just like me standing around while the cameras got set up. Just like huge amount of that. But the exception is when the crew actually gets invested in the story. I was in this movie called The Sessions and it was a very delicate story about a man, a differently abled man and his desire for sexuality and that's where I come in. I mean, it was so vulnerable, not hot steamy love scenes like the most deconstructing sexuality. And it was vulnerable for the characters we were playing. It was vulnerable for the actors and I remember this moment where the dolly grips, so the guy who's got the camera on wheels and has to roll it into place. We had this tender scene where naked or half naked or something and I remember him rolling the camera onto the mark while looking away. Oh my god. And I thought he cares. He cares to not embarrass the actors. But he also, I could tell they believed in the story. And so that's cool when people other than the actors and the director actually care about getting it right and overwhelmingly, that's true. It matters to the costume designer if the raincoat is off because a bad raincoat could ruin a movie. Jim books once said. That's interesting. So you are in a way performing in public. It's just for a smaller public. Like there is a little bit of an audience there. But all people who are very invested, well, not necessarily, I guess. There are times when you're acting or hard out, you look over and some grip is texting and you're like, oh, it matters not at all to you. Yeah. I'd never heard this before. But I heard you talk about the magic sentence. Can you explain what the magic sentence is? Yeah. I've written now three screenplays. I'm about a week away from being done with the third one. Oh, congratulations. Humbly. And I've been in a lot of movies with a lot of good writers and directors and the best ones you find what is the magic sentence of the movie. So for example, I made this movie called Then She Found Me, which does me a whole lot to me. I told my daughter, when I die, I don't have a memorial. Just show that movie. Everything that is me is in that movie. It's so beautiful. It will be done. It will be so easy. Thank you very much. So it took me a decade to find what the sentence of the movie is. And for that movie, it ended up being you can't really love until you've made peace with betrayal or the capital B. And I got that there's a writer I love. Do you know James Helman? No. Oh, fun to turn you on to a writer. He's a first generation Jewish young in and he wrote an essay called Betrayal. And I was going through something in my life, Hank, where that essay, in fact, I had it on my desk for a long time. A therapist had given it to me. And I mean, three times I had it in my hand over the trash and then went, maybe I'll keep it. And then one day I was like, I think it's time to read the essay on Betrayal. But it's not just about the kind of betrayal you would imagine. It was about feeling betrayed by, let's not go down the rabbit hole of what it is. Is it something bigger than me? Is it fate? Is it the way things go? Is it God? Whatever it is. Yeah. The universe is cruel. Yes. And in the worst circumstances, people rightfully fall to their knees and go, why? Why? Yeah. And this essay dares to take that on. And I can't probably do it on a podcast or squish it down into that, compress it into a thumbnail or something, but it got to me that maybe betrayal isn't outside of the plan if there is a plan or the way things are. Maybe it is part of it. I'll just leave it at that. And then I went, that's what this movie is about. And then I was able to write it and anything that supported that you keep in everything that doesn't, you throw away. And it affected things, betmiddlers in the movie. And she plays someone who betrays me over and over and over. And it affected what she wore. She thought she played a daytime talk show hostess. She kept saying, I thought I'd be in Pucci Blouses. I don't know what a Pucci Blouse even is, but I put her in this classy jewel tone colors so that the audience and my character would go, I think she's actually the real deal. Smash, you can betray it. Betmiddler, her character is like spot on in that like I understand every choice she makes and they are all bad choices. Like she keeps making totally understandable bad choices, which I love because you want to not hate these people, even as they hurt each other. So the magic sentence, I wrote two novels and I think that I had one stronger for the first one than the second one, but I didn't know what it was until I heard you talk about this and then I wrote down the magic sentence for an absolutely remarkable thing, which is you will become what the world wants you to be. Oh, wow. Oh, hey, really? Wow. One of the things you said about the magic sentence is it's not really a good one unless you can argue about it. The one I remember when I worked with Jim Brooks is he said in broadcast news, you can't love someone you don't respect. Yeah. So if you think about that movie, she loves this guy and then sees this moment of horror from everything that matters to her, can she still love him? So you and I could go have dinner and go, she still loves him right or wrong and you could say it's not real love because you know, like it's juicy in that way. But do you think you become what the world wants you to be? I really hope not. Yeah. I really hope not. I mean, I, because I don't know what the world wants me to be, but for an Instagram, you know, it's not bad. Yeah, yeah. So my story is about a young woman who has a bunch of very weird things happened to her and as a result, becomes very, very famous and she becomes what the world wants her to be and it's not pretty. I mean, maybe that's life's work to not be that. Yeah, right. I don't know. I think maybe one of the reasons you even want me on this podcast is who could figure out, but the world wants me to be really. What do you think? I mean, the world wanted you to be things at certain times and let's be honest, like what the world really wants of, you know, aging women is not much, you know, or get plastic surgery or why do you get plastic surgery? To me, you know, the universe wanted you to be famous. The universe wanted you to go hard and you took the break. You said, no. So I mean, I kind of took the break and the break was kind of thrust upon me. I did somewhat take the break. I wanted to have a civilian life, you know, did you see that George Clooney movie where he plays a very famous movie star, Jay Kelly and he says something like the business was saying you cannot stop for one second or will abandon you and then he says and it was true. I was right. If I had stopped it, would have. And so I did feel like I don't necessarily want to do the next romcom. I do want to be able to not do that movie so I could have a minute to have a real life and really be there with my kid. And naively didn't quite understand. It would, you know, not be there in its full bloom when I returned. But then the business changed too. So also, if there's any design to the whole thing and I'm not saying there is, I am now doing these plays. I have been handed these parts that are like what I started the whole thing for. Interesting, yeah. Would I have said yes if I was on another TV show free, here's what I have even been available know. So at some point begrudgingly cranky as anything, you have to have faith that it's happening in a way that is good for you. Yeah. I mean, it feels like you want to work. I want to work on good stories. That's really all it is. It's not even the part like a good story. So my wife acts in theater and it looks so good to be thrust into the space with these people and then to be asked to do hard things and deep things and that's what it is. Hard deep things and I have an appetite for that. You have written and then you ended up directing, starring in and producing. I mean, producing the whole time, I'm trying to figure out how to get this thing to happen. That's all that means producer is begging, producing it. You know, get the thing off the ground. I mean, with then she found me, you started with source material. I did. But did a lot of creating from scratch on top of that source material. What are you getting drawn in by? What do you think that is? Well, I just want to get the story made and no one else wrote it. So I had to write it and no one else was making it. So I had to make it and there was one time we were getting ready to make the movie. At four times the budget ended up being made. We got the money. I had bags packed and kids in camp and really a suitcase out. And I got the call. It fell apart. And I said to him, like, who gets their movie made? I was super at the peak of these peaks and valleys at that moment. Like, who? And he said whoever doesn't give up. So that's been my motto. You can quit or you can keep going. And so if it's true that the person who gets the movie made is the guy who doesn't give up, I have a good chance because I'm not a very givy, epi kind of person. Do you think then she found me as a romantic comedy? Sure. about betrayal by God. (laughing) - Perinthetically. - And also lots of other people around you. - Yes, it's so funny. - Thank you. - But okay, I'm gonna do something that, so there's a chat on the right-hand side here, and I'm gonna paste in a scene from this movie. Can you see it? - Not yet. I knew this would happen. This is the generational moment. Yes, I do. I see it, and I've clicked it. Oh, yes. - It's okay if you don't wanna do this, but can we run this scene? - You wanna switch parts? (laughing) - Come on, don't make me do my own scene in a movie. - Okay. - Come on. - Okay. (laughing) - All right, I'm playing Colin Firth. - And you're playing Helen Hunt. - Playing Helen Hunt. - Yes. - Perfect. This is not what I thought was gonna happen. You're making me do much more work. - Okay. - Check. Okay. - I know what I did to you, to you in particular. Kind of worst nightmare kind of thing, right? I knew that, even at the time I knew that. - What else? - I'll do it again. I will. I'll hurt you again and again. Not like that. You'd have to leave me if I hurt you like that. If we were together, you would leave me if I hurt you like that again, wouldn't you? - Yes, yes, I would. - Good. But I'll hurt you in other ways, little ways. I won't mean to, but I will, and sometimes I will mean to. - This is quite an offer you've worked out. - You'll hurt me too, you know? You'll hurt me and change on me. You might even leave me after you promise you won't. How about that? - I wouldn't. - But you might. - But I wouldn't. - But you might. - Yeah, I guess I might. - You're so sweet to notice that. Thank you. This is what I mean. So at my funeral, which you hopefully will attend. If you have any sense of DCZ, just make sure they play this movie. - You said it enough now. I feel like it's a requirement. So romcoms have this moment where like Tom Cruise busts into the elevator in a Zalviger. It's like you had me at hello. - Yes. - This is like the sweetest one I've ever read because it's way more honest than all the other ones because like it's saying what we will promise here is that we're gonna do the hard thing. And then at the end of it, your character makes Frank, Colin Firth's character, makes him admit it. This is in sickness and in health, but in like a much more beautiful, strong, it's not just sickness and health. It's like I'm gonna be part of the sickness sometimes. Like I'm gonna hurt you. - This is the wish of the betrayal thing. This is the trying to fit the betrayal message. Now it also says if you've seen the movie you can see, there's certain kinds of betrayal we're not hanging around for. - Yeah, yeah. - We don't do that. But nevertheless, those things that come out of our mouth, those things we forget, those things we do on purpose even. And then have to go, oh my God, I just took a bite out of the person I love more than anything on Earth. I was interested in that. In two people who might step forward together knowing that that is part of the human experience. - I mean, what a frickin' tear jerker. - It is just a little weepy at the end. And I have to go credit to the DP, the very last shot was supposed to be like the second to the last shot. And as he was shooting the last shot, he said, this is your ending, out loud. - Oh yeah, that actual last shot is really good, yeah. - That's all Peter Donahue. It's called that she found me and like it couldn't find an audience quickly. - Well, because it didn't come out. It came out in two little cities and got some really lovely reviews, not all, but a couple people really got it. And it was supposed to come out on Mother's Day and then the company that bought it fell apart on the day. And so they went chapter 11 and there was no ads in anywhere. Talk about a heartache 10 years later, like, what do you, how do you make meaning out of that? - How did you handle that? - I wish I had some hack. Well, I just took four walks a day and it didn't hurt anymore. I just was super sad and shocked and devastated. - Yeah. - I don't have any spin on it, you know. When people come up to me and say, for these reasons that movie mattered or for no reason, 'cause the movie got them, but for some people they have personal stories that line up with some of the stories in this, that's super satisfying. You know, it's Colin Firth, it's fat middle, where it's hell and hot. - Matthew Broderick. - Matthew Broderick, who I don't even wanna mention 'cause his character's such a. (laughing) - But he's so good. - He's so good. That guy, I hate that guy. I have known that guy. - Me too. I love that guy. You hope to graduate from that guy at some point. (laughing) - Something super interesting that I heard you say that when you write something, you sort of hit the last draft, but then when you get to direct it, that's yet another draft. This hit me kind of hard, and it's gotta be so weird and scary, 'cause like you're drafting it as a director, you're drafting it with these tools that you don't have total control over, which are these people, whether they're the actors or the crew. Is that, how does that feel? - That's the best part. You can't believe it. You've been sitting in a room for one year or 10 years or seven years, writing something, writing something, writing something, and you give it to a few people to me. Let's say you give it to a production designer or a cameraman, and they come back to you and they go, "Here's what I see, and this makes me think of this movie, "and what if all the colors were muted, "and what if the camera never cut here, "and what if it was hand?" And you're like, "You see what I wrote, "not to mention, you can bring it to life "and create another draft just by how you shoot it, "or whether you put wallpaper or paint on the walls, "you cannot believe that anybody even gets "or gives a shit about what you poured your heart into, "and suddenly they do, and they are bringing it, "you know, from Dorothy in the house to the yellow brick road, "in front of you, that's one of the most fun parts." - Is it just fun? Are there moments where you're like, "You just don't get it, like I can't get this guy to get it?" - Well, I directed a movie where the prop guy was mostly high and not there, so that was hard. - Sure, sure, I like that. - That was tough. - Just people being bad at their jobs. - Yeah, they're just bad at their jobs. That kills you because you expect rightly and wrongly for people to care as much as you. You hope they do, and people are good at their jobs, take pride in their jobs, they're running through the sand, not making enough money and trying to help you get that last shot 'cause you can't afford to come back another day. It's very moving to see people give a shit. It really is to me. - You know, most actors don't become directors. - Yeah. - And most actors don't become screenwriters. And-- - Not working helps. - Really? - That phase where I wanted to have a baby. - Oh, let me tell you. I think a lot of actors aren't working. - Yes, that is true. I look around at my community and everyone's like, what happened? But honestly, I never would have made it and she found me except that I was pregnant and wanted to have a little time to have a regular life. And then I was like, what, where's all the 50 movies where I left off and they weren't flying in. So guess what, I sat down and wrote this thing that even though it broke my heart 'cause everyone in the world hasn't seen it, it's, you know, I'm very, very proud of it. And I wouldn't have done it if, you know, Martin Scorsese had been demanding, I'd be in three movies in a row, it wouldn't happen. - Why is Salman Resty and then she found me? - Okay, there's a reason. - That's really weird. - I know, that's the bummer. It is weird, you're right. And it's a bummer that it's weird. Here was the thing, are you ready? - Well, let me just say, Salman Resty is a writer, he is not an actor and he is just the doctor in this movie. - Okay, hold on, there's a reason. This movie touches on, for lack of a better word, God, I don't have a great relationship with that word, but I don't think I made everything. So that's where I sit with all of that. And it's not only a movie about betrayal by, you know, me or Colin Firth, it's a movie about betrayal by something, something bigger. And so when they pray, three quarters of the way through the movie, I didn't want it to necessarily be a Judeo-Christian version of praying, it's not about that. It's about wanting something so bad, even if it's not your thing, you know, there's no atheists and foxholes. Whatever that is, I didn't want it to necessarily be a Judeo-Christian version of that, I wanted it to be more inclusive. So I auditioned a bunch of people, South East Asian actors couldn't find the right person, they approached him, without even me knowing it, are you willing to audition? Yes, and he did it. And he was good in the audition and in the thing. - He was great. - But I get that it's weird, I get that it's weird. - You were talking just now about how you don't have a great relationship with the word God. Would you be willing to talk about that? - Yeah, tentatively gently. If I talk about it, I don't want to be poking it. It's people's very, very, very precious thing. I'll just say, Annie Lamotte, I believed, you know her, you must know her. Bird by Bird, do you have that book? Hank. - Look, call me. - I'm a big old nerd. I read sci-fi. - You're a writer, you're a writer. Read Bird by Bird. It's about writing. I can hand it to you, it's right here. I think she says it's like a bad nickname to her. She's very Christian actually and very devoted to God in recovery. She writes about it. Here's actually the one thing I'm gonna say about this. There are comedians, directors, I love that have made work absolutely proving the lack of whatever you want to call it. Let's call it God for a shorthand. - Yeah. - And there are obviously tons of people who say, not only is it real, I know what it is and it looks like this white guy and nothing else will do. Both sides annoy me honestly. Is there no space for mystery? Can we not say there is one thing we don't know for sure? It's what keeps the whole thing of being alive sort of spicy is we don't know. Well, I've heard you say that you're not a God person. Can't we say we don't know? And there be one thing we just don't know for sure. - Oh, there's so much that we don't know for sure. When I say that I don't believe in God, what I mean is I don't believe that God as it was pitched to me. - Amen. No pun intended, yes. That's all I'm saying. - God could be everything from the alien that pushes the button on the simulation that started the universe to the thing that exists between two people that is not measurable but is the most interesting and complex thing in the universe. - That's closer to me. Even if you go broader than two people, it is that thing that words can't touch. I don't know what it is. I don't know. And I don't even know that it is, but I know that I don't know. And I don't think anybody else knows either. And that's exciting. That's like, and then when people use the word faith, I think they're saying, well, whatever road you choose, you don't get to know. And maybe that's good. - I mean, the big thing, I believe in this people, but I think that it's so hard to know how to be a person that I begrudge no one any tool that allows them to do it well or better or to handle the betrayal. - Right. And so it helps me to say, help. And I look up or out if I can see one leaf or one bit of sky that helps. Beyond that, I know nothing. I know nothing. - I don't expect you to know what the universe is made of. But I do-- - How big was this brush? (laughing) - Not that big, I guess. - I like that you think this is the past tense crush. How different is it to act in something that someone else has written and is directing them to do it yourself? - Very different. I don't even know if it's acting when you wrote it yourself. I guess it is, but you always are, you know, there is a moment, I do all this work, I've been working for a year on this freaking play. And then at the one yard line, I'm going to let it all go and walk out there and hope that something happens and that all that work will inform what happens. But I will not be able to call on it or remember it or use it intentionally. But when you're directing, it's like whatever the most twisty yoga poses in the world on the one hand you're pouring yourself into the part and on the other hand, you're going the camera got their late. I know it got their late. I could see it out of the corner of my eye. So you just have to be extra ready. - Yes. - And there's a loss and there's a gain. - I have this weird thing, Helen, where I feel like we celebrate the actors, but we don't celebrate the writers. And it's just because they're the faces that we see and so they're easier to pay attention to is what it feels like to me, but they're just saying the words that the people wrote down. They're saying them good, but like the-- - I won four Emmys from Ad about you and I always heard, you're like us in our living room. Our writers never got noticed. The reason this show is special was the writing, the writing, the writing that's not taking away from this weird chemical thing that happened with me and Paul, what an incredible actor he is, but all of these incredible writers and somehow everybody thought, oh, it's Helen and Paul. It was not the case. - But there is, I mean, obviously there is something to the performers. You know, the way you talk in that show, I love your voice in that show. Like I love her voice. - It's me. - Very me if I had great writers staying up till three in the morning organizing it and putting it on paper. - All of your quips at a cocktail party. - And part of it's not me. - Yeah. - Yeah, I mean, and then if you talked about as good as it gets, all of his movies, I mean, I think the reason he's one of those filmmakers that you can't change the channel if you come upon it, it's the writing. I'm so proud of the work I did in that movie, and Jack Nick, I mean, come on. It's actors working at their highest level. And I can say at the same time, all of it is the writing. - Do you really not feel as much of a connection when you are acting as when you are? - I feel at least as much of a connection because I've poured myself into it, but then I have to go home and I can't change it. I can't, I can't, I can't, I'm not in charge of it. I can't edit it, I can't, but you pour yourself in. - Okay. - Jack said once, he's directed movies and he said acting is harder. And you know, what's harder than, define hard, but what he meant was you pour yourself in a very non-linear, non-thinky way, like it is, it is flirting with being out of control when you act, which is why it's good for me. 'Cause I'm awfully organized. So it's good to mess that up. - Interesting. - But when you're directing, I mean, you get in this state of mind where you are like, I'm going to, I'm going to land this ship. - Yeah. - And I'm gonna be soft with you 'cause it helps you do good work and I'm gonna be harsh with you 'cause that helps you do good work and I'm gonna beg this person for a favor. And I'm gonna, I mean, you get very singular of focus. - This is a weird thing to bring up but I was listening to Christina Cook, the astronaut who just went to the moon and back. - Yes, the crew, we're all a crew. - The crew. (soft music) - A crew is people are, you know, a group that is in it all the time, no matter what. That is stroking together every minute with the same purpose. That is willing to sacrifice silently for each other, that gives grace, that holds accountable. A crew has the same cares and the same needs. And a crew is inescapably, beautifully, dutifully linked. So when we saw tiny earth, people asked our crew what impressions we had. And honestly, what struck me wasn't necessarily just earth. It was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe. - I may have not learned, I know I haven't learned. Everything that this journey has yet to teach me. But there's one new thing I know, and that is, planet earth, you are a crew. - Thank you. (audience applauding) - That's gonna stick with me for so long. - Me too, how beautiful is that at this moment? - So a piece of that is that humans are the crew. We are all in this together. What is this? - Yeah. - We're in it. - All, not kind of all. Not all that fit into my box, all. - Yeah. - It's a tall order if you really hear what she said. - Oh no, it's the tallest order. But there's also a piece of what she's saying that, there are times when you have a job, you're working on a team. But when you're in a theater, you're working on a crew. I don't think that we should ask that of each other all of the time, but it is really nice to have some moments when we are all of these 10 people, all have to be pulling the, or in the same direction at the same time, at the same speed. - And I do better if you do better, and I do better if you do better. - Those moments are so lovely. - The psychedelic thing is then it applies to the audience that comes in, like somehow you're saying, and you are also part of the crew. - I'm such like an indie little guy. - You are, you're writing books and in your room with your headphones on. - I'm just editing my own videos. When I do stand up, like I'm on a stage, but it's just me. And like all the words that I've written. - I really need community. Like that's something I need. I have people in the living room doing play readings, and I'm meeting a dear friend for lunch after this, and I need community for sure. - Do you ever miss comedy though? Like just straight comedy? - So bad. (laughing) - There are no words for how much. I grew up on Lucille Paul. I grew up on I Love Lucy. Like that's how I grew up. And then I ended up, and as it comes, about a married couple living in New York City. But the joy of, and you know, it takes so much detailed, kind of, brainy work to say, you gotta put the napkin on the edge of the counter, 'cause if I don't grab it the first time, it won't be funny when I slam the refrigerator. But then you go, and if you have a partner that you trust, which I did, I miss it so bad. - Have you ever thought about like, I mean, I think the answer is no, but have you ever thought about just like-- - Are you about to stay stand-up? - No. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! - Oh my god, I can't picture it, but I think that you would do great. - No, I can't quite, I can't quite picture it. - Yeah. - One woman show, maybe? - That's the bridge. - Yeah, that's the gateway job. - Just tell a story and have jokes in it, you know? - But why not have other people with me? Why'd be alone? - Because I'm, because I don't know what's wrong with me, Helen? - I don't know. Do overwhelmingly like it, and once in a while, wish you had more community, or is it a real thing where you're like, I gotta figure out how to turn this into having more of a crew. - Uh-oh. - Yeah, I'm so sorry. (laughing) You're welcome. - Yeah. - I'll take that one, and I'll work on it later. - Okay, when we do this again in a year, you can tell me what you came up with. - Oh my god, that's an interesting question. That's an interesting, what is going on here? Kind of thing. I think that I can get frustrated by other people. - That's the annoying thing about other people, is that they can be annoying. - When you spend so much time doing it on your own, where it's just like, I don't know, like I like the inner critic. I don't like the outer critic. (laughs) - Amen to that. I don't even like the inner critic. - Oh, I love the inner critic, man. He's got great taste. (laughs) He's always right. - You should read that in the monthbook. - Okay. Okay. Is there a part of how you're looking for projects now as like community a big part of that? - Well, looking for projects. I don't know how to look, 'cause either they offer to you or they don't, which is the worst, worst, worst part for you work on it yourself. So I have a writing partner and we wrote a piece based on things I'd been through and then it all got fictionalized and brought a whole other story into it. And we were gonna make it as a TV show, a perfect network bought it, and we had a writer's room and it was all, they didn't make it. So we licked our wounds and are now just about done writing it as a screenplay. And that's been nice. It just helps if you're not a person who's alone in the room with the headphones, if you are out there in community, it helps like I gotta write with Wayne at 10 o'clock. Really gets your ass in the chair, which is a big part of the overcome for me. - You know what I found was the thing that got me to finish the book, was like once I created characters that were like real enough, I just couldn't imagine leaving them there in the middle. I like had to get them all the way through. They were like the community. - They were counting on you. - Yeah, yeah. - Well, the beautiful, torturous thing, if you ever step into the movie world, is you won't believe someone could actually bring it to life, or you'll go, "That is not exactly what I. " - Yeah, I don't watch movies I'm in. I'll go to see them once if there's a thing. - From here, yeah. - Because, for me, working on material, especially something as rich as what I'm working on now, is this 3D I use my dreams. I free associate. I use Michael Chekhov's work, who was Anton Chekhov's nephew, who developed a whole thing about Imagine. It's so rich. And then I see the movie and I'm like, "Oh, it's fine." - I don't know. - Sure, it was fine. Or yeah, it was kind of moved, but it's not the feeling of working on it. That is when people say process, that's the rich part. - So obviously, the incentives have continued to change in movies, but like media is such an incentive-y thing, that the medium is the message, how we can build economies around content, really affects what kind of content gets made. And that has changed a ton in your career. How are you processing that? - I wanna make sure I understand. You mean like the way it used to be in terms of there were four or five networks, and then now there's a million. - Yeah, I mean like there's like a TV difference. There's a movie difference in terms of like, you know, does anybody go and watch a dialogue-based comedy anymore? - I can't even, this is so excruciating. It really is, can't you do something? You're on the cutting edge of things. Can't you fix it somehow? - I can tell you a bunch of things that will not make you feel good. - No, I don't want that. - I can add to the list of worries. - No, thank you. No, thank you. Hard pass. - Oh man. - My daughter goes to movies, that's promising. - Yeah. - To be 22, they matter to her. - The biggest piece of hope that I can say is that like people under the age of 30 were on the internet less this year than they were last year. - Right. - From a very high peak. (laughs) - Yes. - But it is the first time it's gone, you know, the last few years of the first time it's gone down in a long time. And I think- - Everything falls apart. Everything falls apart ultimately. So yeah. - There is this weird effect where, you know, everything is fractured. And when everything fractures, there's just less money to go around. - Right. - You know, I'm out here on YouTube getting two million views on a video. And I, you know. - I can't believe I was on a television show during a time when how many millions of people watched it at the same time. - It's shocking. Yeah. - It's a different world for sure. - You know, art is subject to the incentives, art is subject to culture, art is subject to technology. It feels like it isn't. It feels like it should exist sort of like out there in some between everything space. But it is- - Here comes another reference you're not gonna care about "Do You Know Sunday" in the park with George. - I've heard of it. - You and I should really be pulling our resources. 'Cause you know so many things I don't know that I can't even smart enough to even quantify it. - The thin diagram of "Hell of Hunt and Ink" is really not overlaps at all. (laughs) - Well, a little bit, but not a lot. Anyway, Steven Sondheim wrote a musical about George Sarat the Painter. That's all about this. There's a song called "Art Isn't Easy" and there's a song about what it means to finish the painting and you have to get money if you want anyone to see it, but you've got to finish it. It's an honest fight. That's what I can say. It's an honest struggle and there's something to that. - Yeah, I feel so entirely, like not entirely, but like, you know, I wrote a book that's about like you becoming what the world wants you to be. And I feel that way about art. I feel like that like the art that gets created is the art that will get viewed, that will get supported, that will- - Not me. - I've made the art, not a lot of people saw it. - Yeah. - But on my deathbed, am I gonna wish I made something I didn't love as much to more people saw? No, I'm not. - I have like an itch in me before we end to pitch people on this movie, on then she found me. (laughing) - I am grateful. I didn't even talk to you about it ahead. I want everybody to know that. - Yeah, like, do you love like Pride and Prejudice? - It's very meaningful to me, thank you, 'cause I think you're, the technical term is a smarty pants. And so the fact that you feel that way is very meaningful and I really appreciate it, really, really. - I love Colin Firth. He's like, yeah. - I know what a dream boat, he showed up with all of that, but like, just I gave him one tiny little nudge for one take. That's the most fun part of directing. You say something to an actor that doesn't, like how many pieces of direction have I gotten where my shoulder's just droop? Like, how am I gonna make this director think I'm doing it? - Right. - The way they want. But really I'm gonna try to keep some kind of creativity alive. So when you can say something to an actor and it lights them up a little, that is the best, best, best, best part of the whole thing. - Whereas when I have acted, I'm always like, can you just say it the way you want me to say it? And I can do that. And the directors are like, no, we're not allowed to do that. - No, 'cause we were all told, we're not allowed to get behind me. - One of the things I have found as I have approached mid-career is, I always feel better about the great work that I help other people with than the work that I do myself. Because I never believe that my stuff is that good. Like, my success doesn't feel as good as the success of someone who I helped. - What's here then, she found me? What's the thing that you, whether a lot of people saw it or nobody saw it, you know in your heart of hearts that I'm proud of that. - That's just not how I am. I make so much stuff. I'm really proud of my comedy special. So I was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. And I did a special that is entirely about my experience going through that. And ultimately, the scariest thing about doing that is because of course everybody's cancer experience is different. And so if you're somebody who is diagnosed at like stage four with lung cancer, you don't have the same experience as somebody who's diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma stage two, which is what happened to me. - Right. - And so there's this terror of being like, I'm gonna tell stories about cancer and you are going to hear that I'm making jokes about it when it is not a joke to you. - I want to absolve you of that fear. I just walked through someone's bad version and they died this year and it was totally devastating. But I know enough to know there is a breadth of experience and that there is a lot of rich stuff to come out of different kinds of experiences. So let that one go. - It's what it means so much to me is because what I have heard from people who are cancer survivors, whether they are 20 years out or they're terminal is that they all seem to really appreciate it. - And. - And speaking to them, I mean that's all we want is to be in a circle of people who can nod when we talk and recognize you. So way to go. - Helen, I would like to ask you our final question, which is if there's something you've learned from doing this work that you think everyone in the world should know, what would it be? - It goes fast and joy it, enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it. It all goes so fast and joy it, enjoy it. - Kind of poaching it from Thornton Wilder in our town. Tell me you know our town. - It's gonna end up on gas. - Oh my God. - Oh my God. Together we make one incredible person. (laughing) - The world grabs us and pulls us in. - I mean it's generational a little bit, but my God, the things I would like to know that are in your brain. And clearly you have some reading today. I hope you've been taking notes. Not been handing you lightweight stuff. I'm handing you James Helman and Thornton Wilder for God's sakes. - Helen, thank you so much for being on this show and for being such a good sport. And I do apologize for my weird song. - What weird song? - That I wrote about you. - Oh, that you wrote? - That you forgot about already. - I'm sorry. Well that's also generational. It's okay. Clearly you don't have to worry. You can let that one go too. - Okay, that's great news. I might just take it off the internet. It's pretty embarrassing. (laughing) Take it off tomorrow so I can try to find out. - Okay. (gentle music) - Thanks to all the humans who helped make this episode. Morgan Levy is the show's supervising producer and Greg Rippen is our engineer. Peyton Mitchell manages our social media, Andrew Huang. compose the music and James Barnard designed the artwork. You can and should follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. It's less to you all more time. He will never lose.