Lena Waithe

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. And today we have Lena Waithe. Oh, I love Lena Waithe. She's an actor, a producer, and a screenwriter. She created The Chi. She was on Master of None. We loved that show. Yes. Queen and Slim, Boomerang, Them. This is the final season of The Chi, now streaming on Paramount+. You know, Lena, you're going to really fall in love with her if you've never heard her chat. She's just as sweet and wonderful as the cats. That's right. Yeah. Please enjoy Lena Waithe. We get support from Quince. You know what I think about a lot? The stuff in my closet, I actually wear. Like, not the trendy pieces, the sweater that goes with everything, or the pants that fit perfectly, the tee you kind of just throw on without even thinking. That's what Quince does. They make those pieces. That's right. They have 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at $60. Organic cotton. Reno wool. 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It's like being 30 watching a billboard. awards i know i was like wait i don't know anyone me or is it that the stars are from tiktok from things that i'm not on but they're not on my tv i don't think right i think the word star is sort of becoming interesting the word celebrity public figure what does that mean because you can become a celebrity in a week but then you're a has-been that never was yeah in like a year it's so fleeting you've done good you've maintained you're fine back and forth we have this friend i love him so much gordon keith he's on a popular dallas sports radio show and he has been for like 25 years he was visiting last time we were talking about ai and everything and he said to chris and i he goes you know you guys might be among the last mortal stars mortal yeah like the future stars will be ai it's like you might be in history the last of the mortal stars oh my god that's so funny the last of the mortal stars the final season and one of the strongest seasons of the comeback is telling us the future which the comeback has always done that's your first acting job too right that was technically yes he always starts to take credit for my first tv i'm like actually michael patrick king lisa kudrow they threw me in there one episode very grateful to allison jones who discovered me yeah what did they predict this season that ai is going to take all of the shit they've been such a head of the game and the comeback is just sort of one of those great shows i was honored to be asked by new york times about what are the 100 most important television shows it was a very tricky task this is not definitive list they just came out with 100 greatest songwriters ever and movies all that kind of stuff so i was honored to be at the table for the television one and i was really happy to speak about the comeback because it was on when i was in college the first season and i could see in that moment what they were doing with comedy and i was so unique and so special because i was already liking sex in the city i was already a friends fan but to see these two brains come together and make this show about an aging actress in hollywood and what she had to do and the fact that they were ahead of the curve in terms of reality television in that first season and then in the second season getting into the premium cable type thing and what that would ultimately be and for this third and final season i mean now the seasons are spread out between like a decade which is so brilliant because the first season was so beloved and when we talked about it that 10 years later hbo was like yeah do a second season and now 10 years later they're doing the third and final and it is this sort of trifecta of hollywood and what happens to it you know like all about eve you know it's sort of oh this is what happens there's a person that's there that we look at and we love and then she eventually gets put out to pasture and there's someone that comes in to replace and it's cyclical it's sort of telling you you can only be on the mountaintop for so long because you can't breathe the air up there so you have to start climbing a new mountain or you'll die at the top of the one you made it to everything's driven by young people this is also a reality i'll talk to young people i have a third 13 year old we have friends the people that they don't know break your heart i mean literally the people they don't know the movies they haven't seen the movies they're like shawshank redemption what that wouldn't even know i wouldn't even take that swing i mean blazing saddles like what are we doing that one's probably a no-go for most young people what's the bridge what's the bridge it is up to the parents the parents got to get in there like my mom made sure i like prince right although that's not a hard job it was i didn't hear it at first when i was a young person really in the car couldn't hear it i'm in college in chicago he comes to the city she makes me go it's one of the things i'm very grateful for she's like you got to come to the concert i said i don't like i don't hear it i go i'm like baptized i'm like oh got it and then i go out and buy every record which took me like a long time because he was just releasing music every week since he came out i guess you're nine years younger than me so that explains a little bit i couldn't have not loved prince you know i was probably in fifth grade when purple rain came out you were either in the Michael Jackson or Prince. And to me, Prince was dangerous and I liked him. I was like, okay, that guy's dangerous. I'm into him. See, like Michael was like perfect for like, this is going to sound so wrong, but he's perfect for like, if you're a kid. Yes. Sorry. I know, I know, I know. That's the headline. You don't want to talk about your partner, but now you said Michael Jackson's perfect if you're a kid. You tell your problems, there's good news and bad news. We did not talk about- So we did avoid one thing. If you're a kid, like Michael Jackson was like magic. I mean, there is a reason he is so complicated. He was half kid. He seems trapped in his childhood. Smokey Robinson has this really great quote. He said, Michael Jackson had to be a man when he was a kid. And when he became a man, he was a kid again. Yeah. Yeah. I co-sign on all that. What I don't co-sign on, and that is somehow a justification Right. For the behavior that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think he was justified. I think he was just like, that was an observation that he made. I just think we say that. Like, I definitely do think that's right. I think his childhood was stolen from him. And then he lived it out as an adult in Neverland Ranch. I mean, literally creating like- But lest that not take him off the hook. I know. Then we'll take a big digression. Perfect. So I had never met you. I had seen you on Master of None. Yes. I liked you on Master of None. Thank you. I loved the Thanksgiving episode. I remember I had no idea you were a writer. And in fact- In fact, not until much later, I thought maybe that was your first time writing. Right. Like, I didn't know your history. That was my fear, actually, about doing the show. Because I was like, oh, is these people going to think I'm an actor who's trying to write? But actually, I'm a writer that you want to act. Yes, yes. He's like, write, yeah, don't care. Come on, do it. You were already a staff writer on Bones at that point, right? Right, yeah, I did that because I needed a job. A few other shows. I met you in real life. We were at this event. And I'll add, I'm so excited you're a 2 p.m. interview because that means Delta will be here when we get done. Nice. So I was with Delta when we met, and something happened between you two. I don't want to speak for you, but- Instant. There was an explosion of charisma and connection. Yeah, instant bond. I think the first thing she said to you was, I love your voice or something. Yeah, yeah. And then I saw this side of you, and she has that effect on people. Not that it took a lot, but I saw a side of you immediately that was like, oh, I love this person. Yeah. I got to say, of all the stop and chats, I've had in my life, I ranked that very high in like, oh yeah, I really love this person. Wow, yeah. It was a very memorable hour and a half hang. No, it was clear that you're raising kids that know who they are. That was, I think, very interesting to be talking to a young kid who was almost like fully formed. She was probably nine then, yeah. Right. That's why it throws you a bit. Fucked up, yeah. Because I'm going like, what? You know, to be a girl with a husky voice and have one in her life, there was sort of this thing of like, her having like almost her own sort of voice, her scratchy voice. Yeah, hers was real scratchy then too. Yeah, it's so sort of like, oh yeah. The two girls with cool voices were chatting. Yeah, like we see each other. We see each other. I see, I hear you. I hear you, literally and figuratively. It was a lovely meeting. It was lovely. I really enjoyed learning about you today. Starts in Chicago, yeah? 1984, May 17th. We're about to have a birthday. Oh, yeah, damn right. About to have my Jackie Robinson year, about to be 42. How do you feel about aging? You're very accomplished, that helps. Yeah. I think you'll have an Emmy. I think I love it because, you know, it's interesting, Oprah did this really interesting episode back in the day with these amazing women who kind of were known for being beauties in their day-day, like it was Diane Carroll, like Lauren, the model. Nicole? No, no, no, Lauren. I'm forgetting, but she was like a model with like a gap tooth or whatever. But she just had these women on there who were just really known for their beauty and she asked them what they feared the most and they all said aging. Oprah was kind of taken aback by that because Oprah said, that's not a thing that scares me. And Oprah, in that moment, literally is having this light bulb moment in front of people. She's saying, oh, I think it's because I'm not worried about a beauty type of thing fading. Yes. That's not what her value proposition was. Yeah, she's like, that's not what my value was. Some Black people age better. Well, this is true. This is true. We should get something in the deal. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah. Don't get us talking about pep talk. There's very few perks, but that's one of them. We got to deal with some shit. But also, I'm a person, in an interesting way, that doesn't concern myself with the male gaze. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so there's this level of, I don't need to look younger than I am. I don't need to appeal to a certain audience. I just want to get wiser and evolve and grow and learn and know something more today than I did yesterday. There's a lot of factors, too. I would argue, and correct me if I'm wrong, the older Black woman has a matriarchal position that's very cherished and valued. I know you lived with Grandma, right, at some point, right? I did, yeah, yeah. Grandma means a lot. True. Also knowing you're aging into a role of great relevance and purpose versus a lot of the white ladies that are just thrown out of the pasture. Now we're cherished. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So I think there's a lot of different things in the mix. Yeah. I think, to me, it's just whenever somebody says, oh, I hate getting older, I always say, what's the alternative? Yeah, exactly. It's better than the alternative, for sure. But it's funny that you bring up the male gaze part because we just had this crazy experience last week where we interviewed some of the listeners and we had this man on to tell a story and I was like, oh my God, he's so hot. He graduated from the same college as me and I was like, I graduated in 2009. When did you graduate? And he graduated in 2021 and I was like, You had a moment. Oh my God. I had like a real, I'm old. I'm, I guess, a cougar. I hated it. And I don't ever walk around thinking that. I never walk around thinking I'm old. It was because I'm in front of this young, hot guy. She's 53, by the way. I don't know if you know. She didn't say her age. fast math. Okay. I'm 38. But, but. We look great. Good luck. Thank you. You're killing it. Yeah, you're crushing. I was pumped. I was like, oh, good. We're in a phase where she finally, like, is into fucking a younger dude. Like, let's get on with that. I mean. And that's not where it went. No, it just made me feel so old and irrelevant. And I was like, oh, wow. I normally never feel that way in life. I'm pretty confident. But then in juxtaposition to this young guy. So when you say male gaze, there is something very real about that. Yeah. Like, I'm not really concerned about that. Yeah. I feel like the door is open for me to tackle something that's so dangerous to tackle. It is funny that you say, like, I'm not concerned with the male gaze. And I got to say, leading into meeting you. I think the reason I was shocked we got along so instantly, well, by my estimation, was like, I'm nervous around lesbians because I'm so used to my value proposition being you might like me. And so, like, for me to enter a situation where it's like, I know you're not going to like me. Capital L like me. And I have to confront how much capital L like me means to me. That's real. And how much of my own personal self-esteem and value comes from capital L like me. Do you like me? Attraction. And so I know, oh, yeah, you're never going to like me. I start there, which it fucks me up a little bit. No, that's real. And then a lot of your art is deeply activist oriented. You have a lot of causes you care about. And then so my next insecurity goes like, she's going to look at me and be like, this dude doesn't give a fuck about anything. I go in with these two insecurities. And then I start talking to you and I go, no, I think she likes me. Maybe my capital L like me, but I can live with this. And is that enough? Is lowercase L enough? It totally is. And I think everything can get so easily misread. I'm sure there's some lesbians who are like, oh, he don't like me because he only likes people he can fuck. And I'm doing the opposite thing. And neither is true. No, yeah. I can't say I've had a lot of lesbian friends. And I have to acknowledge it's got to be some part of my own insecurity or so I feel like, oh, I'm invisible to this. That's super interesting. A couple of things. I'm so scared saying that. No, no, no, no. This is really great. First thing I want to touch on is the art being rooted in activism. And the truth is, is I don't think of myself as a activist in a way. I think of myself as a human who studies human behavior. And I try to like capture it for us to look at. I think because a lot of stuff I'm dealing with is Black folk. It can be sort of categorized. As, okay, this is what this group of people is dealing with and going through. Especially with a movie like Queen and Slim or something like them coming in, which I produced. I didn't write or direct on that. But that was a Black person who I believe identified as queer. But he was trying to explore something there through that. And Queen and Slim, I was exploring something about our society. And then you look at something like The Chi, which is sort of exploring just sort of life, middle class Chicagoans. But because if it's people who are part of a marginalized community, it sometimes can be seen as. Oh, this is a political thing, because we don't have any choice for it to be anything other than that. But the interesting thing about Thanksgiving episodes, like so many straight white dudes come up to me and tell me how much they love it. Oh, I love it. And that was a breakthrough for me, because I used to think of it as the Black episode of Master of None. Oh, interesting. This is going to be, oh, we're going to have a Black episode of these? Oh, cool. Oh, yeah. Okay. A gay Black episode. Yeah, yeah. And I just thought it was for the gay Black folk. Gay Black folk love the Thanksgiving episode. Sure. I think everyone loves it. But that's the thing. Yeah, yeah. That's the trick. Yes. Is that, yes, it's specific, but it's also universal. So, you know, I don't think you're preachy. I think you're telling the stories that are true to you. You're supposed to write what you know. Exactly. And you are in these two groups that inevitably are going to seem political. Oh, absolutely. But for me as an artist, my goal is to not separate myself from the things that make me who I am, but to get folks who don't look like me, love like me, come from the walk of life that I do, to be able to look at the work and not only see it through a particular lens. It's to say, hey, you can see yourself in this character. Just the way I see myself in the lead character in "Baby Reindeer." Well, I was going to say, even when you listed the shows that you like right now, of course, those are the shows that you like. Some people might go, oh, I'm surprised that she's watching that show. Oh, really? Yes. As a Black woman, they're like, oh, you're not just watching "Power" and "Girlfriends"? Oh, okay. You don't say, nothing wrong with those shows. Yeah, they did actually watch those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also love "Bait." Want to shout out Riz Ahmed on Amazon, if you haven't seen it, check it out. Oh, I heard it's great. Beautiful show. He going to be mad you ain't seen it. I know, see? I was like, so? Exactly. Everyone's in trouble. How am I assuming you've seen "Bait," right? Exactly. But I'm also like, why have you not seen "Bait"? What issues do you have? Let's just start with everyone's in trouble. I know. To go to the thing about me and straight men, I feel like I have really great relationships with straight dudes. And a big part of that, I think, is because sex is not on the table. So they don't feel this need to perform, because nothing's coming from it. And I think that's why I also have very interesting relations with straight women, because that gets a little dicey, because it's a level of, huh, you're kind of mad. But you're a woman. And I kind of like this energy. I'm kind of confused. It can get a little tricky. I'm going like, are we cool? Are you hitting on me? You are, but I don't know what's going on. And so I just hear what you're saying in terms of, oh, but if you couldn't like me, then what's my end? What am I doing? What's my value to anybody who wouldn't like me? Right. And the truth is, it's like, there's so much value, because that isn't all that you have to offer me. Yeah, I know it's stupid as I'm saying it. But it is the emotion I have, right, that I have to think through. I go like, oh, I've got nothing to offer this person. They're not going to want to interact with me. And I got to step over that. I think that's super fascinating to me, because I think, for me, when I approach, I'm just, I'm curious what's the energy going to be. I'm more curious about that, because my brain isn't always there. I more so want to know, well, who are you? What's the thing? The word I dislike the most is assume. Anytime someone says it, what follows it is sort of like, so what you're saying is you didn't ask, you didn't go to the source. You came up with a narrative for yourself about a person. And by the way, there are people that have narratives about me that are completely based on nothing. I think I had created one. She won't like me. She'll think I don't care about anything. Why would she want to talk to me? I'm talking to her. Wow, she seems to like me. She's smiling. That's what a lot of our society is doing right now, which is why I think it looks the way it does. We assume things about each other. Rather than having that moment of talking to each other, really hearing each other, because even like what you just said, I try to be an active listener. That's why I was like, I heard a couple of things. I was like, OK, I want to address the activist thing. I was like, that's really interesting to me. It's not combative, but it's sort of like, oh, that's interesting thing. I know that word's dicey. Like for me to even say activist, I know that's a loaded word. But to me, it's like, I get what you mean. It doesn't seem like an odd thing at all, what you said. But I think for me, it's helpful to hear and to kind of go, OK, I see how the work can be perceived that way. And because I have no control over how people perceive the work. But I think for me as an artist, it's always about, OK, that's how it can be seen. OK, cool. And how do I continue to make work that no one feels ostracized from it? Because some people may go, I don't want to work because that's activist. I don't want-- I want to just kind of chill. I don't want to be taught a lesson. Exactly. And sometimes work, especially by women or women of color, or if you have to add queer to that mix, there's this idea, this assumption-- That you're going to be taught. --that, oh, this is going to be a lesson. There's going to be a moral here. I don't want to be told, this is about to be woke. Versus just, oh, that was just kind of funny and human and grounded. It can be a burden. Because even if you're saying something or you're making a piece of art that a white woman made straight, people might not be like, it's an allegory or it's a lesson or it's trying to teach me. That's part of the thing. I mean, sometimes we'll get in debates here. But if I'm saying something, it's kind of like I'm speaking on behalf of always. Right, right. And not always. I'm just saying what I think. Right, but you have to always identify that. You just say, I'm just talking from my point of view. I don't represent everyone. I know. And then that's exhausting. It is. Because no one else has to do that. But if you don't do it, I know if you don't do that, they'll be like, oh, so you're speaking for us, you're speaking for me. It's just like, oh, no, I'm not. I'm speaking for myself. That's a part of the way people do interviews. If you pay attention to it, they're like, I'm just talking about me. No offense to this person. No of that. I don't want to. I'm sorry I'm married in a healthy marriage. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, because people at home are going like, well, fuck you. And you're just waiting for us like, what? It's like, Jesus, what? Crap. You know, it got really out of control. No, but anyway, but I like you. I have to get to know you. I have to meet you. I met your kid. Yeah, I like you so much, too. I didn't let any of that get in the way. It was just like passing thoughts as I consumed your art. We're programmed. So you were 0 to 12 south side of Chicago. Correct. And what was that like? Mom and dad divorced at three? At two. Dad died suddenly when I was 14. But I only saw him from like until I was like seven. And then like seven years kind of went by, he was gone. Was he an addict? Well, you know, it's crazy because I wanted to get his death certificate because I didn't know anything about how he died. And he was. He was actually killed by someone, but it was sort of in self-defense. So it wasn't a situation like that. But the coroner did show that there was cocaine in his system. There is a history of addiction. My dad loved cocaine. And then I grew up to love it, too. It smells so good. This is why my grandmother told me. She said, the grandma is going to say it's in your blood. So be mindful. Be thoughtful. A lot of us kind of got told that. They told me that, too. Oh, shit. You didn't. They told me. And I said. Let me just see what's up. I got to find out for myself. Oh, they were right. Did you see the Chevy Chase doc? Yes. Oh, Jesus Christ. I wanted to answer that. I would love your analysis. I thought it was quite fascinating. I thought it was quite human. I'm a person that's done a documentary about a person who was no longer here, being Murray Tyler Moore. That can be a little bit trickier. I don't want to say there's more pressure, but her widower was kind enough to give us the life, rise, and the space to tell that story. It took us about five years just going through a lot of interviews and things like that. Obviously, written a memoir when I was much younger and just obsessed with the Murray Tyler Moore Show and Dick Van Dyke and all that kind of stuff. But it's tough to kind of create a portrait of a person, and obviously, that person is still here, and he's being interviewed, and I've heard the stories. I think a lot of us have. And they're in the doc. Yeah, exactly. It's pretty unflinching on his many, many outbursts and shittiness. Absolutely. I learned a lot of things that I didn't know, which I think is the point of a documentary. Childhood didn't sound great. No, not at all. It's tricky because it's not about making excuses, but rather about giving you context for a person. It's an explanation, not an excuse. That's what I like to say. Those are different things. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think the thing with Chevy that got me the most was the 50th SNL bit. To watch that and to see him still be affected. Can't get out of his own way. For people who haven't seen it. Well, I also don't want to, okay. No, no, you're not going to ruin anything. Checking it out. But if people know that there was a 50th anniversary special on SNL with like everybody that ever pretty much touched it and a lot of the people that were important to the show. By the way, Lorne Michaels is interviewed as well, which I thought was really important. But Chevy talked about not being in the show. And even though he was very much part of the origin of the show. I mean, that's not disputed. But also he came back and hosted. It wasn't the best energy for, I think, either party when he came back to host. And sometimes your reputation, you leave a mark that can stick with people and who knows what happened. That's the thing. He doesn't know what happened. Lorne kind of is Lorne sort of, I don't know. We try. But also Martin Short said something really interesting. He was like, Billy Crystal was there as well. He didn't speak either. So what are you going to say? So Martin Short definitely gave some context to the situation. But, you know, what I appreciate is that Chevy Chase said, like, I was hurt by it. He was hurt. He reaped what he sowed. What I respect is vulnerability. Yeah. I respect the honesty. The toughest thing for people to do is just to say, that hurt my feelings. Yes, literally. Do you know where my compassion came from? Where? It'd be one thing if he was so happy and unaffected by the wreckage he seemed to be, incapable of not creating, right? Like, if he was sitting there high on his horse, feeling great about it all, and enjoying life and feeling good, he is a victim of it all. He's very uncomfortable. He's in such discomfort. It's very obvious. That's true. And so I look at it and I go like, yeah, he was terrible to a lot of people. And primarily himself. And I have compassion for that. That kind of self-destructive, I can relate to it. And then also these crazy glimpses of him where he's still a fucking genius. Like, just him interacting, with the dude with the flowers. And I shared, so I'm lying back from the NBC upfronts and they put me in a car with him. I've never met him. Oh my God. We're sitting in a car together. Of course. And then we pull up to the hotel and there's 600 people out in front of the hotel to see stars. And when he gets out, everyone's so excited, right? And he's trying to walk through this crowd and goes, oh yeah, so feeling much better now. Thank you for asking. And keeps moving. And I was like, feeling much better now. It's one of the funniest things I've ever heard. And that's also part of him, right? But I think that's sort of a, a portrait of a person. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare. 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Give it a try for yourself. Start streaming, streamlining your workflows with Superhuman. Try today at superhuman.com. What I love about those documentaries, adding my own to it, you know, with Mary Tyler Moore, is that she's the woman that could turn the world on with her smile, but she also was an alcoholic and dealt with a lot of death in her family and her son has an accidental suicide and he was in his 20s and then she also did Ordinary People before that and then experienced it in real life. She went through a ton, but was sort of the Jackie O of television of her time and so I think ultimately when you're trying to paint a portrait of someone, there's a lot of colors you have to use and you have to really let people speak to their experiences of them and the truth is everybody's right. Even though there's a moment in the doc where someone talks about how he was treated by them and he was saying I don't recall that, but this person's truth exists. The documentary allows Chevy's truth to exist as well. Yeah, they're just wreckage. But that's, that's the thing. It's like the Pee Wee Herman doc I thought was really phenomenal because I grew up with that. I loved that doc. That doc, I watched it multiple times. Yeah, that's a beautiful. So stunning because I didn't realize what I was actually getting when I was watching that show. Me neither. He was speaking to the crazy weird kids. Yes. It was all misfits. Yeah. And I didn't even get that, but I felt very connected to him. Yeah. I didn't know I was a misfit until I realized, I'm like, what is it about this language that he's speaking that I understand? Sometimes you don't know what you're saying until somebody points it out to you. And so I think that's the other thing too. You get perspective. You can look back on a career and go, oh, and then you see the downfall. You go, I see, oh, this is interesting. That kind of went how they tried to make it like he was a bad dude. Breaks my heart. That's crazy. He was straight and fucking hookers. Like he could have done anything straight and nothing would have happened. Oh, yeah. That's the thing. Hello. Anyway, it's the thing about these people's lives and the impact they have on us that we don't even realize. And then you realize that this person that has such an impact on you was a person. Oh, yeah. Everyone. It's weird when you realize your parents are a person. You're like, oh, that's weird. There's only one person I think might not be a person. But this is one. Who? Steven Seagal. I'm not. You could have went anywhere. I know if I watched the doc and I saw the records, he'd be very comfortable. You're like, I don't know. It's begone, yes, begone, yes, begone, yes, begone, yeah. So I read that you wanted to be a TV writer at seven. And this feels impossible to me because when I watched TV at seven, it wouldn't have even occurred to me that it had started with writing. It's just like these people exist on this box. I think that might be real. I think the truth is I knew I liked writing as a kid. I liked the assignment of having to summarize the book or tell about what you did the day before. And I remember my teacher really affirming me that young, saying, I look forward to reading your papers. We both know our teacher's name. Who was it? Mrs. Tarbunis. Yeah, Larry LeClaire. Come on. Yeah. When they tell you you're a good writer. You're like, OK. I think what we say is so powerful. The power of the tongue is real. Yeah. And I just need to always any opportunity, give any little kid that thing. Yeah, because they'll remember it. It stays with them. Both ways. Whether you're told you're not good at something or you are good. Yeah. just sticks for sure so no i was really grateful to have that but also obviously loved watching television as a young person i used to watch old tv because i had the grandma in the house so we was watching like all in family shows oh yeah we're gonna watch what i want my grandma yeah all in the family well we like the jefferson's good times obviously being a family chicago i got to watch that old tv that had a really big impact on me a different world was really important to me which is the spinoff of the cosby show for the younger audience really sort of speaking to me even though i was like didn't even know what college was i had beef with that show okay what's the beef i'd say my first number one love of my life was lisa bonet of course forget it and then she gave birth to herself come on zoe kravitz is also stunning i got to dance with her one night for like two hours i just need to tell you chris and i were at a thing of course this is how every story starts and kristen goes there's your girl this is why you're married to the best lady on the planet she goes there's your girl and she's dancing and you love to dance so get over there okay anyways the spinoff was like she took us to the spinoff right correct and then she got the boot after the first season but that's the way it's supposed to go i lost my lead season three you know people knew about that but there's something that happens when the universe takes someone away like that where we're like we're gonna hang the hat on this person well let's remove that person now see what you do and what happened was a different world became the show was ultimately meant to become which was supposed to be about jasmine guy and kadima and i was like i'm gonna go with jasmine guy and kadim hardison and chris summer and chanel brown and daryl bell and simbad and everyone that came in and touched the show so that show was like everything it was just everything it's like even i'll talk about you just want to live in the world did you want to be in that college weren't they all in a college that show is a big reason why a lot of folks went to historically black colleges my black ass loving a different world the way i did i'm going to columbia college in chicago study writing producing and television but i did go visit fisk which was a hbcu as well i wanted to stay in chicago and i wanted to go learn how to write television is columbia chicago a part of university a part of the new york they're completely different things completely different i was trying to figure that out i was researching you today i was like i'm reading all about it university i went to the college that tells you like you know okay but she was an exec or is an exec and i'm a writer so it makes sense it's like okay like all this different parts of your brain but i went to columbia and it was really the best thing can i ask really quick though who are you in elementary who are you in high school who are you in junior high oh who was i yeah in chicago and you moved to evanston but tell me the first 12 oh my god in elementary school i was the conduct grade was always low just a busy body talking too much mama having to come up to the school you said you're not adhd but this is sounding a teeny bit i was a social butterfly way young i was there to socialize the grades were solid though the reading and the writing and all that i was killing it you know i was talking too much and then junior high i was very much like a tomboy but i hung out with all the pretty girls and stuff like that i was in that crew i loved movies that was a big part of my personality people could ask me about anything can i ask how early you were fully aware of being queer and then when you started sharing that with friends oh man that's so interesting because i feel like i'm a person that believes it's sort of in you from the beginning it's about where you recognize it but i mean for a minute you're just not even sexual true no but the thing is when your kids like you laugh you have crushes that's true you like other kids like you like your teachers and shit there's teachers you like that was never one of my fantasies though because my teachers were like my aunts and moms like they were like amazing but they just were giving that but it was really about i was looking at these actors and stuff coming up and the janet jackson's that was like okay what's happening over here holly bear is beautiful i can recognize whitney houston is beautiful but i also considered my mother to be beautiful and so there was a level of like oh you're beautiful she's beautiful okay these women that i could recognize it was a different thing did you have a young mom are you the older sister i'm the youngest and my mom was like in her 30s like she had a son it feels like the usual age you have kids and my sister's like almost two years older than me and so it's just the two of us and i just gravitated toward the female energy but then i was also a tomboy like outside with my sister and my sister was like boys and stuff like that and so i think for me high school i definitely felt very queer but the thing about tomboy girls don't really get teased the way boys who are effeminate do no right because in a patriarchal society it's not odd to be a girl that wants to be a boy it's odd to be a boy that wants to be a girl because girls are sort of second class citizens right yeah and so that was the thing like i was never teased or made fun of so i was never it was never eyeball and then in college i was still living with my mom so i wasn't really out exploring it wasn't until i moved to where i was like okay where are the gay clubs at where the gay kids this and that and then when i would go to those clubs i would feel very much like an outsider like i wouldn't feel welcome you feel inexperienced definitely felt inexperienced and also felt like i don't have any gay friends either and so i've just cultivated this sort of like queer black women it's not like a requirement but the thing is like we had to curate that cultivate that community like it wasn't just like oh where's my other queer black mask women it's not turnkey no like you got to find folks and we've literally found that we were hanging out last night and it's private we don't have our phones we're just having dinner we're sharing it's amazing but it took a beat for us to like figure that out yeah and so i think that's the interesting thing about community is that it takes effort it takes time it takes energy everything worth having no one ever knocks on your door and gives you something that's worth having no i do think there's this desire everything you can have delivered to your door and not friends no not friends not partners not any of that stuff no jobs all the shit that's worth having you gotta fight for it they don't hand it out they don't and then once you get it that's when the real work begins yeah yeah so you got i don't want to say lucky because obviously you'd gotten a degree in it but you land pretty quickly in la after graduation as an assistant to an executive producer of girlfriend yes yeah right which i was loving and the creator of that show at the time had been the youngest black showrunner ever like 30 maybe right because he betley bowser who wrote on a different world she was up top she had a crazy show called living single so she was outside as well i want to give her her flowers and then mara brock akil was also coming up at that time mara yeah anytime m-a-r-a i'm afraid is it mara or mara i've had to go in this case it's mara mara i have to interject i have to please come on last week or two weeks ago i met mara twice in like one week she's stunning and she's incredible i went to a dinner yeah one of my events monica's right into a lot of events but she was at two and she's the best and we exchanged numbers i told her the story of the show and she was like i want to listen what episode so i was like sending her episodes so hopefully she'll hear this oh yeah so big shout out mara brock akil i'm gonna send it to her i'm gonna send it up but that feels like a real blessing to land awesome with that person as a potential mentor oh my god and she has she has been she came to the queen of slim premiere gina prince bythewood i want to shout out as well who wrote and directed love and basketball mara got me a job working for her on secret life of bees once i was done with it i was like oh my god mara and then gina got me a gig working for ava duvernay when she went to go direct her first film so that's my trifecta of fairy godmothers in the business and gina and just hit me like today because she got a chance to look at my play that i did in baltimore and her and reggie bythewood her husband who was also a big mentor of mine they literally sent me a text today saying hey we love this play it was very well done really proud of you and i was like it's like my parents are telling me they're probably right now okay so when you leave that show is your first staff writing job on bones or is it on the nickelodeon show nickelodeon i'm not sure i'm not sure i'm not was first and then i got bones so i did the half hour multicam and then i did the hour-long procedural and culturally going from so different yeah and how did that go i kind of struggled on the multicam kids show thing because it's just sort of not my vibe you're not watching a lot of that yeah but like i needed a job and the lead was a black girl and so they couldn't hire shout out to izzy i love him he was like all right i must have you two black women split the check because he's otherwise i can only have one i know it's sort of how it goes not his fault i mean it's a paper team situation so me and another black female writer shared an office and we were on a writing team then i didn't like work for a bit but i wrote the pilot of the shy had a table read for it did you sell to nevins yes i love i love him so much he's the best i call him my clive davis he was like come on in and he taught me a lot too he said to me whatever you don't get in your first season you'll get in your second whatever you don't get in the second season you'll get in your third it was so great at breakfast and he just sort of gave me such he bought the pilot in 15 but you didn't shoot it till 18 we shot two pilots of it we did one pilot he said this could be better and he was right and we did it again and then that was the one he greenlit so two things a hard to hear that b what a champion to say go get it right yeah right was it hard to hear it or did you know it as well or was he wrong no he was right ultimately i can't have to give him that i though didn't think the director we have for the first one was the right director for it i will say that and they were like no this is a big deal by the way don't need to say his name whatever but don't disrespect anyone because he is very talented and amazing i just and so then we did that and in essence like nevins was like yeah okay we were both right and so he said let's go here and we got rick fama yua who directed dope who directed the wood and he directed the pilot of our show which is a big reason why i think it went and we had a beautiful cast and alex hibbard who came from moonlight right over to our set and uh obviously jason mitchell was coming off of straight out of compton and yolanda ross and jacob latimore just the whole cast was really wonderful and they sort of brought us into this space of oh okay this is the show i always wanted to be an ensemble piece but they were like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know you need a lead and then of course season three our lead was taken away due to some events and then it became the show that i think i always intended it to be do you think this description fair I've read this many times where people say like it's a hopeful version of The Wire I mean that is maybe the greatest show ever made so it never hurts to be in the same sentence more hopeful you know yeah I definitely get the comparisons for sure and I think The Wire did something that hadn't been done on television before and I never feel like weird about comparisons or people mentioning things in the same sentence because I think that's such an honor and I think The Shy really for me was the slice of life ensemble I didn't want to necessarily go too deep into these different organizations or places or things like that because I really wanted to have people in living rooms having conversations while people in living rooms are watching it and maybe be encouraged to have their own conversations I'm a writer that I think leans into conversations wanting to start conversations not even wanting to start them but have them I love Matthew Lopez playwright recently said to me that which by the way what you got from Mike Nichols but he was saying that every conversation there's like three categories it's like it's a negotiation it's a competition or something like that and so I really kind of carried that and I'm maybe paraphrasing but I really do love the art of a conversation yeah conversing for me it's a very fun game it's like the best game and you can play it all day long yeah exactly I just love games and I think talking to people is just this super fun game sometimes people like to be in combat in conversation and I prefer to be in dialogue I mean you're saying something I'm digesting it I say something you digested yeah and we can kind of accept that mine would be opposite of comeback it would be I say something and it opens the door for you to say something even scarier which opens the door for me to say something even scarier yeah that to me is like the ratcheting up of it not like a conflict more just like I'm going here oh fuck okay I'll meet you there and then plus one yeah that's the fun game of it I love that I think because that's really how you get to be close I'm gonna say something scary and that gives me permission to say something scary too so I think Master of None is a very interesting and probably unexpected deviation yeah but ultimately has to be a wonderful thing to integrate into the overall thing it changed my life I learned the story today I would have assumed you and Aziz were friends and that the role was written for you I know but that is not at all what it was yeah no not at all it was written for a white woman that might become his love interest correct oh yeah so walk us through how I don't want to do as he's like I don't know if it was a white woman it was just supposed to be a straight woman whatever he can come on this show and tell us himself look here's the truth I don't know how likely that is but get Brad Pitt Aziz Ansari I don't know we'll see what happens he's hard to get this guy he is trust me I know I know I love him I love him he's my brother he doesn't like to talk he doesn't want to talk to people like that's just how he is he talked to Amy which was surprising we've had maybe 15 text exchanges come on and they're all about watches I'm like that's all we're gonna do huh we're gonna yeah take it it's more than when we first started the show there was like a list of like eight people that we wanted he'd be great though and he's on there having me here doesn't hurt because now he'll be like okay all right talk to me about it she lived let me call her first and make sure she lived and talk to me about it no the Michael thing's really gonna throw him he's like I'm never going on there I don't know oh Jesus Christ again I gotta give a shout out to Allison Jones we had her on by the way yes friend of the park that's right I did I watched it we love her that's also a rare thing because she's also doesn't talk to people I know she's like I just discovered you know not because she doesn't want to per se she made it very clear she was so flattered and no one ever cares about casting directors she just didn't think anyone she kept thinking why are you interviewing me which is insane yes it's insane but it's very endearing she's phenomenal she literally saw something I put out online which I wasn't even in it was a pilot presentation for a show ultimately did called 20s I would put it out there because I wanted somebody to see it and go okay we could do this and so then I got a call that she wanted to meet me I didn't know who she was but I was I went and sat with her and I walked by the poster for freaks and geeks and bridesmaids and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and I thought oh okay she's like Lauren Michaels got it yeah so that's across from her and I just talked to her about television and she has such great taste and everything and I talked about Maud and watching that and watching Golden Girls are you pretty encyclopedic with TV stuff yeah I mean I worked at Blockbuster for a while yeah yeah and Best Buy and yes in the movie theater you did your homework I do I know all my stuff so we were just like and she just kind of goes have you ever considered acting and I said I have not she's like okay so can I bring you in for some stuff just for like you know shits and giggles and I was like sure and she did she brought me in for Veep and I wasn't able to really handle that because Julia Louis-Dreyfus was like in front of me and so I wasn't expecting that so I just like completely you gotta be a fucking gunslinger to be on Veep like that's not a great starter acting job but then she did bring me in for a tape and I got the comeback which was cool and then I got a call that said can you just go meet with Aziz wait really quick can I ask yeah at that time were you like extra money or were you like I want to act I have a desire to act no I just really trusted her instincts I didn't think that that was something that was in the cards for me though I'm a writer that's what I do so because Aziz and her she was obviously brought on to do the show I didn't even have a title it took forever for us to get the title of the damn show it's Untitled Aziz Ansari Project because y'all know how that goes but obviously I was a fan of Parks and Rec and New Hizikas comedy but I got a call that was from her office that says won't you go meet with Aziz and I was like why is it casting? people calling me what's about the staffing yeah I don't know but go meet with Aziz and Alan Yang and obviously I knew Alan Yang's name as well and so I thought okay all right I'll go sit with them but it's from Allison's office so this is strange and they were like I don't know just go to his house and sit and talk to him and so I later found out that Aziz told her that he didn't want just people to come in and read with him he wanted to meet people first and see if they were interesting and then read so he just said to her send me interesting people and by the grace of God she and I just met she said oh Lena Waithe is interesting you should meet her and he's like okay I don't know who that is but send her to the house and so I went to his house and sat with him and Alan not unlike this literally kind of almost similar the furniture and everything and I just sort of talked to them like I would if it was a staff writing meeting but it clearly wasn't and I just was like myself I had recently fallen in love I was just being myself and comfortable with my own skin and then I got the call okay he wants you to read with him and I was like oh okay so okay he thought I was interesting so I came in sat down read with him and it was just instant then I came in to test for it the casting couch it was a very straight white woman sitting next to me and she's like are you going in for Denise and I was like yeah are you going in for Denise she's like yeah she's like it's funny we get bummed with each other all the time and I was like right yeah by the way it's so much better oh yeah it's way better in other words when you sit down it's like yeah I'm kind of the same but way less good looking you're like different variations of each other yeah yeah and so as he's to me who I looked at it was Alan and Michael Schur too who was our parent on that it was basically them saying this is the NBC 1994 version of this show this one we're bringing in of course when I come in it's like this is where this shit is going like this is what it is and so I totally get what they were doing and so obviously when I went in I had a cold too and when I went in I was like oh I told Michael Schur this is my flu game I'm gonna talk right around this man because I was like let's go because I could just feel something was interesting and of course after I read and tested as he was like come on come on were you encouraged to be loose and improv in that audition a little bit because again if I'm going from okay we had this one archetype right we're trying this other thing out let's see all the flavors like I would want to know they knew I was a writer and they were like but I also didn't come in there I didn't want to blend the two so the season one I didn't write anything yeah me and Z's would have conversations where he would take little things from there and put it in there but this season two is success he was like okay I want to do a Denise centered episode and I was in season two a lot less because I had gotten ready player one and that was a very interesting tricky thing because it was like classic like we got a season two and now you say you want to go do this Spielberg movie only be in there for a couple episodes and I was like yeah I was like but this is an opportunity I'll give you a great episode just talking shit yeah I'll give you a great episode it'll be fine man don't worry about it like I gotta go to this movie and he's all like oh god classic and so sure enough he came to London where I was filming so he and I could write the episode because I actually told him I said I can't write that episode with you I said because I gotta focus on this movie man I'm like how many times do you get to be in a fucking Steven Spielberg movie I gotta show up he was like if you don't write it with me it's not happening uh-huh good for him and so I was like fine and I won an Emmy yes it did you won an Emmy for that yeah I became the first black woman to win for outstanding writing in the comedy series yeah and did you love acting in the comedy series yeah I did love acting in the comedy series yeah I did love acting in the comedy series yeah I did love acting in the comedy series yeah I did love acting in the comedy series yeah I did love acting in the comedy series yeah I did love acting in the comedy series yeah and you're in New York City I was in New York City baby going to restaurants with him like yeah just I mean he's like show me he's like the reason I know how to like eat oysters and like caviar this kind of stuff because he's such an old school gentleman type guy he knows every restaurant and I'm like okay this is all fascinating yes what a tour guide to New York he must have oh my god I mean even in London too I watched the show I'm like I want to spend a week with him and fucking meet him at corners and eat shit I know that's being eaten look at girls and eat shit let's go no it was fantastic I remember we used to go see Moonlight together and Barry Jacobs was doing a Q&A after and it was just like crazy and then we were because we knew we had Thanksgiving coming up and we were like oh this is crazy he's someone that is a big part of not just my career but I think just my evolution as an artist and as a person in the world and I'm really grateful for his existence because my career wouldn't look the way it does if it weren't for him and I wouldn't be able to do it if it weren't for him and I wouldn't be able to do it if it weren't for him and I wouldn't be able to do it if it weren't for him and I wouldn't be able to do it if it weren't for him and I wouldn't be able to do it if it weren't for him and Allison Jones and Alan Yang and Michael Schur and and Netflix those guys over there it's just such a big part of my career now what did you have to learn to run the shy I'd never run it I'm not a show oh you've never run a training program with the WGA and I realized yeah someone said getting your own TV shows like being beaten to death with your own dream and nothing is truer than that I always say the hardest core motherfuckers in all the show business are showrunners you have to give it to them showrunners you have to give it to them showrunners you have to give it to them that's why I don't do it because they're that's why I don't do it because they're that's why I don't do it because they're doing budgets they're dealing with actors doing budgets they're dealing with actors doing budgets they're dealing with actors they're dealing with execs they're the they're dealing with execs they're the they're dealing with execs they're the edit they do every single piece of of it. The way I get to sit here, you know, shout out to Jewel and Justin who co-showrun it together. I do think it's a two-person job. I get to be the creator, you know what I'm saying? And I get to like give notes and things like that. You were in the writer's room? I was in the writer's room for season one and season two. And those were rocky times because I was a young buck. Like I was 30, 31. That's young to be a show creator. They have showrunners they put you with who are older and wiser. But at the same time, I'm doing something new and you're holding on to something old. That's the inherent tension in all these situations. Always. Is I'm trying to do something new, but you know how to do it. Right. Both of you are right. Yes, correct. But we're fighting, but you can't get the green light until they're like, well, we approved this guy to come oversee. If they spend a hundred million dollars on something, they want someone that has done it many times successfully. I lightly call Michael Schur our parent on, you know, Master of None because you need that person that's going to kind of watch over. Okay. All right. What are y'all doing? Okay. What's happening? Okay. You want to do what? That's the nature of the beast. And I think people that watch television don't always think about all those things. Or sometimes you have a whole episode. And this actor got sick or this actor got a movie. Okay. You go here, we got to rewrite this and that changes that storyline, but we'll figure it out. These two actors who we wanted to be a couple don't really have great chemistry. Okay. So we'll go over here. It's like all these different things. It's not creative, it's logistics. Yes. It's logistics. It's like, it's also a workplace. It's like everybody don't always get along. Yeah. You're doing a lot of therapy for people in HR. Exactly. Okay. HR dealt with that. So it's just like, okay. It's eight seasons. I was like, yo, I'm going May 8th is we're going to be in Chicago. Last day of filming. We're going to do the whole thing and go promote it in New York. Now explain this to me. So seasons one through five, 10 episodes, season six, 16 episodes. They did that. They asked us for more. Yeah. Season seven. 12. 12. And eight, I asked us to go back to 10. Okay. So for our last season. It's going to be 10, baby. Okay. Yeah. Unconventional. By the way, Parenthood, which I was on for six years, we never did a season of the same number. Same thing. We did 13. We did 21. We did 18. We did 14. Was that because of the streamer or the network? It was the network. It was like, they would never kind of commit to us. We were always on the bubble all six years. And it was like, this year is a good news. 16. We're like, what fucking, what number is that? You're either doing 13 or you're doing 22 at that time. We're going to do 16. And then one year we're going to do it. They tell us midway through. I don't know. It was very confusing. When they told us they wanted 16 episodes, we had already had our 10 episode pitch. So we had to go to them and say, well, you got to give us a few more weeks to figure out what that is. And they were like, okay, but it's good news. They want more episodes. And it's like, I had a new guy come over and he wanted more episodes because it was doing well. But we had never told a story that way before. People don't realize that you're being told. You're like, okay, so we're going to do 16. Got it. And then seven. Oh, you're doing 12. Okay. And that's why they say, yo, eight. I got to, this will be 10. Okay, cool. Yeah. Do you have the pride of having a show that went eight seasons? It's crazy. This is like, you're in the thinnest of air. I know. There's a lot of gratitude, but also knowing that when we came on at that time, it was a different world. Eight years ago, things were very different. Very different. Even more, slightly more than eight because we did the first pilot. Then we did the second one. We had a mini room and then this and that. You mean you sold the pitch in 2015? Correct. Yeah. So you've been doing this for 11 years. Exactly. You've only seen eight seasons, but you know, as a pilot, they'll never see the light of day. There's things that I've lived through that have really made me the artist I am now. And maybe someone that can really see things from a lot of different angles. In 2018, you became the voice of AT&T. And I'm wondering what your tagline is. Can you say it? I want to hear it. Oh my God. I made Billy Crudup do the Visa commercial, priceless, MasterCard. I made him do it to Monica. It was incredible. This is how you know. I wrote one to fuck with Monica that he had to write. MasterCard was fantastic. Oh my God. He did a cold read. It was perfect. What? What was my main? Because it was like, what was my main tagline? I'm forgetting it. I haven't done it in a while. Have you been ready, AT&T? Just okay is not okay? Is that it? Does that feel familiar? It was that, but it was something else too. It was something else. How many years did you do that? I did that for a few years, like maybe like three. That's the best job in Hollywood. It was the best. And I could do it. The crib too. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, after that bike. And the pay is nice. It's lovely. It's like nice payday. Yes, it is. Yeah, for minimal work. Like another VO situation. If you looked at your career and you charted your hourly rate, there would just be this huge spike and it'd be your AT&T. It's right there. It's right there. And people would recognize me from my voice. Uh-huh. Speaking of the voice thing. Well, Delta, yeah. They knew. They're like, hmm, your voice sounds familiar. Oh, maybe Delta's like going to have a huge campaign. No, she will. She will. She will. I'm speaking it. Oh, I'm jealous. She's the kid who, you know, I'm certain to be wrong. What I love is she loves writing more than anything. She writes compulsively. We just had the conversation last night. You would love this. I imagine if you could imagine having a kid, this would be the ultimate conversation you could ever have, right? She wants to win. There's like a writing competition at school to write basically the closing statement of elementary. And so all the kids are writing something. She really wants to get picked and to be able to read it on stage. She wrote it and then she read it to Kristen. And Kristen said, it's really good. But I think, and you're better off speaking to your dad about this, but I'm not sure that it's you. And so she came upstairs and she's like, mom said this, I'm going to read it to me. And I got to have this conversation with her. And I said, the challenge as a writer is to never write for anybody but you. And it's so hard. It's true. I said, so you could choose to write this to try to win a contest, or you could choose to write the story that you would tell your best friend Inka about your experience at school. CWC, what would you say about your experience to Inka, your best friend? And she was like, I get that. Okay, I get that. And I was like, this is like the dream of all dreams. To have a conversation like that with my daughter about what it means to find your voice as an artist. Oh, that's good. I was just floating on a cloud this whole conversation. It was so fun. You know, it's interesting because I am childless by choice. And it's when we talked about this a little bit. Like, if you don't remember that, I'm still in that camp. It's so fascinating because there's so. There's so many things that I think about in terms of like why I don't want to be a parent. A lot of it is because you have to have a sort of mental capacity for that at the end of a day. What's interesting is you have the capacity to sit and like hear it, give the note. You don't hear the rewrite. You're going to maybe be there if she wins. You know, it's going to be, it's a lot. If she doesn't get it, then there's also that, you know, emotional showing up that you'll do. The most likely thing is if she succeeds at writing the thing. She'd really tell her friend, Inca. It's not going to get picked. Oh, well, who knows? We don't know that. We don't know. But at this age, at this age, in that context, it probably won't be rewarded originality and true voice. But that's also the lesson you got. Well, I told her, I said, look, hon. Okay. I always wrote her up. Well, luckily I got my own storyteller. It's like, I've always written what I wanted and it didn't work. It didn't always work. Well, I wanted to car chase a movie. That was a love story. Nobody wants that. I wanted that. And it didn't work. But I kept doing. And one day the podcast happened. It took so many years of me being truthful to that. Sometimes it takes a while, but you will have the pride of having always told the story you wanted to tell. And that is invaluable and worth more than any amount of money you could have made. Absolutely. Where I do that because I have this mentorship program where there's writers, there's actors, there's people who want to be execs. And I get on Zooms with them once a month and they can ask me whatever they want. We have these lovely private conversations. And I think that's where I realized, oh, that's where I can show up and be real. Because also it's that element, too, of being supportive and encouraging, but also being grounded and being realistic. And I think that is the path you're walking with your kid. Maybe for me as a mentor, which I've become and I try to do that, it's still a responsibility. Yeah. But I think you're doing, I always say parents are doing God's work because it's a different kind of responsibility that you have. This is a person that is a reflection of you, but also you want to make sure that they're on a carbon copy of you. Yeah. So it's like you got to give her guidance. Also, make sure she has a space to become more of herself. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We get support from Instagram teen accounts. So we talk a lot on this show about how the world is different now than when we were growing up. And one of the biggest differences is obviously social media. And I think a lot of people wonder, OK, what's actually being done to make it safer for teenagers? Which is a fair question. Yeah. So. So Instagram has got something called teen accounts and they come with automatic protections built in by default. So anyone between 13 and 17 is automatically placed into this experience. They get age appropriate content settings, contact limits so that by default, only people they're already connected to can message them. And time management tools, daily time limit reminders and also sleep mode that mutes notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Sleep mode is genius. Right. And here's the thing for anyone under 16. A parent has to give permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. The guardrails are on and Instagram keeps building new safety features to create age appropriate experiences for teens. I am really glad Instagram is helping to give parents peace of mind with teen accounts. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram dot com slash teen accounts. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. We've talked before about. Rob building our website on Squarespace and I bring it up again because it's a perfect example of what they do. Well, Rob had all the pieces, the content, the vision, the ideas, but he needed something to actually take all that and make it public facing. And Squarespace was that bridge. Maybe you're in the same spot. You've been developing something, a business, a skill set, a body of work, and it's been private. It's been yours. But at some point, you're ready to put it out there. And that transition from private to public can feel like a huge leap. Squarespace makes it feel like. a step. Beautiful templates, built-in SEO, email campaigns, scheduling analytics everything you need to go from i've been working on this to here it is come find me all in one place no code no stitching together a bunch of different tools so if you've been sitting on something and waiting for the right moment this might be it head to squarespace.com slash dax for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code dax to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain we are supported by auto trader all right if you've been putting off car shopping because it sounds like a whole thing buying your car online on auto trader makes it way easier really you can shop tons of cars online compare prices check financing and trade-in options all from wherever you are and if you want to start online and go to the dealership for a test drive you can do that too really what i like is the flexibility start online finish at the dealer or you can do that too really what i like is the flexibility start online finish at the dealer or the other way around your info stays with you so you're not starting the process from scratch plus you're working with local dealer listings so you've got real people helping behind the scenes and when you're ready you can pick up your car or have it delivered really buy your car online on auto trader really this episode is supported by helix okay so summer's officially over sad and i'm trying to get back into a real routine and honestly the first thing i fix is my sleep because everything else falls apart when that's off it's so true and what i love about helix is they have over 20 models so you're not just guessing and hoping for the best you take a quick quiz they match you to the right mattress for how you actually sleep i have the cooling one and it is a game changer sleeping hot has become a non-starter if i'm not on the helix like we were at hotels i can only sleep with the sheet on that's how hot i run and kristen just the other day was like are you only sleeping on the sheet i'm like yeah and it's off me half the night because i'm so hot i have to have the helix cooling i agree and if you spent all summer sleeping on random mattresses like dax that weren't yours and you're ready to actually feel rested again in your own bed this is it go to helix sleep.com armchair for 27 off site wide which is exclusive for armchairs right now that's helix sleep.com armchair for 27 off site wide helix sleep.com armchair the thing you fight the most as a parent constantly is they are their own thing oh my it's all you're doing like you're trying your hardest but think about how many parents don't do that there's so many parents whose children are really doing the thing that parents want them to do it's very natural and gratifying to see yourself in other things we search for that and that's how we bond and it's great invariably you do that you see a lot of people that are all these things that are similar to yourself in it and it's very gratifying but then you have to go like and that's 10 of them i might miss the other 90 it's not like me at all because i'm not looking for it right you got to remind yourself to constantly look for it yeah back to the baby thing so what happened to me was a i've always wanted kids so that's standard but also i had a friend who had a daughter who i just fell in love with i'd take her trick-or-treating she'd ride on my shoulders and i just constantly was like if i don't get a madeline before i die i'm gonna i'm gonna you know built for it yeah i'm built for it but delta fuck you up a little bit oh yeah no that's not a problem no yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah because then i'll meet kids and i'm like oh can my kid be cool and chill yeah but then the jerky part is though they gonna have moments of not being chill not being cool like upset it's just a lot going on there is a lot you know i'm just like how much do i have like i got responsibility for myself my community my work and you feel fulfilled i do yeah yeah yeah i'm whole yes and i do think it can be very societal i think sometimes people say oh why do you want to have kids oh you know on that age i can finally afford it or it's that time and although now there's so many every other week there's an article in new york times about people can't afford to have the children now so they're deciding not to for certain reasons or people don't like the world they may bring them into but for me it's more of an internal thing about what do i actually have the mental capacity for what i also think about is at the end of a long day what do i want to do with myself and i think the first thing that i think about is that the first thing is to not take care of someone else yeah yeah that's fair because it's a different kind of thing that you're doing because also anything could happen with kids like they fall break something that's so they say can i hit you with something now i'm trying to convince you but i'm just i just want to point out a lot of these counterintuitive things yeah you might be shocked to learn or find out or experience that taking care of them is taking care of yourself in a way that was unimaginable oh that's interesting the amount of healing and perspective that's happening in those moments and the right sizing of all of your concerns and all these existential things you have in the racket in your head and the things that are important like somehow it can alleviate all of those things so you think you're going to be overwhelmed but weirdly it prioritizes things in this way oh this is weirdly nurturing to me and has yeah just prioritize things in a very clean and lovely like here's what i miss about being an actor when you're in the middle of the night and being an addict the beauty of being an addict is you have a single goal yes it's true i'm telling you it's a liberating thing it's like i have one mission today do not fall off of this high that's so peaceful is it difficult for you to watch stuff like euphoria or like i love it so you can watch oh i love it yeah yeah because i know it's not like i just see it i'm like oh i've been in that room i know this thing yeah i love it gotcha some addicts can't watch yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no yeah but i hear you because i love jada pinkett calls her children her teachers she says they teach me things about herself life all that kind of stuff and i thought that was a really interesting way of looking at parenthood because obviously you're thinking this the other way around but i think for me i am taught something by human beings every single day and that's why i feel like i don't need to produce one or have somebody produce one because it really is a writer's job to be a witness to really look at human behavior and try to understand it and accept things about it that don't make sense to us sometimes because when i look at society it's easy to get frustrated but rather i say why are we behaving this way because it's not out of sheer desire for destruction right it's out of the sheer desire to be seen to be loved to be a part of something and so i think yeah i may not be a parent and i don't have a desire to be but i think what i do have a desire to do is to understand humanity and have empathy for us and be able to reflect us back to ourselves so that way we could better understand ourselves i mean chelsea handler says this so perfectly all the time she's like i don't have kids so i have the capacity to give to all these other kids like my friends have kids yeah and just like she gives all these charities she's just like i have space if i had a kid i could not feasibly do all of that yeah and i will say my friend melina mitsoukas who has a little one who's like her son not yet one and he is in that space of when i come over there i can just like hold him and i was over there holding him and she's like you come over here to get your baby fix and i was like what no no because when i hand them back when i'm sitting there also low-key getting tired he's getting heavy as hell yeah he's heavy she noticed i'm like girl this is not normal girl what is happening what's in the breast milk she's like i know child but as i give her back because i'm like yo i'm exhausted before i leave and she's just like this you give it back over here i was like yeah i want to give him back i want to give rock him back we had a terrifying moment when kristen was probably like six months pregnant we went out to eat with our friends the hansons and they already had two little kids and we were at bob's big boys trying to have dinner impossible it was not possible to have dinner with these kids there and so you guys were like look what we're about to do oh lord we can't go to bob's big boys anymore like that's a wrap i'm going out to fucking eat a hamburger y'all don't want to leave the house though let's build an excuse that's nice that's the thing parents don't be going nowhere anytime i don't want to go somewhere there's a play that night oh look see look i'm here i go out i go out a little bit yeah i'm outside a little bit just a little bit you're social you've been since elementary problem social yeah it's your life it's your life force you're social too i am you're social too drives my wife crazy like how many people do you need to talk to i'm like everyone hopefully i think there's like seven billion left i have to talk to like it's your job it's your job she always says the greatest gift about this show is that like i do get to talk myself out enough so that i'm tolerable at night yeah yeah the load's not all on her shoulders i love you guys i love you guys together i'm not team share what happened i'm not i'm not i'm like guys no i'll say internet what are you doing can i tell you my conclusion did you see all that stuff oh god that's all we got asked about when we got nominated this year but i think my final conclusion on it is the best way for me to digest that is nobody's good enough for her oh my god and i love that and that's true but i'm the next best thing that's right brother yeah yeah you're killing it you're killing the message the message isn't against me no it's nobody's good enough for her and i love that i'm glad that's how she feels about her and i'm glad that's how america feels about her this is real this is real i can live with that but to me i just love what you two represent which is 1950s old school no but i think sometimes people have an idea of who they're supposed to be with that idea is never as good as it used to be as who they're actually supposed to be with she said i was supposed to marry like head of unicef you're supposed to marry mike sure oh wow you know a good boy mike's pretty successful wait and he's just a good human being oh my god he wakes up thinking how he can help other people i don't i wake up thinking about speedboats okay i'm like should i order a donzi or buy a used one no but you also type of person that said i gotta get a madeline before i die yeah yeah that's true that's real i do want to ask one thing and you can say no okay but you were with someone for a couple years uh-huh and then you got married and it only lasted a couple months and i'm dying to know if something about the title fucked everyone up or you up personally it wasn't the title no okay it was me also feeling like even though i'm not as happy as i should be i think this is what i'm supposed to be doing and i just didn't have the language or understanding of that my happiness didn't feel like it was important i think what was most important was that i honor this relationship keep this thing going whether you're enjoying it or not because of how much it's changed my life and how grateful i am for it and how amazing this human is and i don't want to say happiness i want to be frivolous about that like i think we wanted different things one of the things is like i actually realized i didn't want to have children and that's a pretty big life change yeah so but i at that time i just thought i just kept putting it off and so that wasn't me lying it was me still trying to understand what i wanted and who i wanted to be and i think that's why for me it's really important having this perspective stepping back because like we have to really ask ourselves whose life we want to because a marriage and a relationship is the blending of two lives truly and so you have to really ask yourself what life do i actually want and i don't think i was very clear about that all i knew was i want to be with this person i want to have this house i want to have this dog i want to have this mural but then i didn't ask myself but like where do you want to be in five years like really and in its best version it's like i wanted this life this person wanted this life and then magically when we get together the two of us get a life that neither of us even thought of right and that's like maybe the greatest thing that can happen yeah i mean or you could say yo we have impacted each other's in such a significant way and now this might be where we give each other room to go and have lives that make sense for both of us yeah but i didn't do it in a way that was noble that was honest that was kind it was done in a way that felt like a car crash and that's because i just sort of like was driving the car too fast not knowing the gear and just just sort of going and that doesn't remove accountability for my behavior it's hard to exit these things elegantly people i wish i could have you know landed the plane better you know what i mean but i think ultimately and again it's about giving your self-grace and kind of looking back and i go oh you could have handled that much better you could have dealt with that in a different way but what i do also understand except is that i'm where i'm supposed to be i know she's where she's supposed to be and i don't have any ill will toward anyone if anything the will is toward myself that's i think for me the greatest feeling is i was with a woman for nine years i still love her to death we're friends and her life turned out so fucking good nice and i'm like oh yes oh yeah this person's life is like two miles better that's where i could if you crash the car and the person's fucked up that's hard to live with but if like you can look back and like oh good she's so happy she has the perfect husband and the perfect kids and fucking well it's so happy and that to me is how you know you really love somebody is that when you want them to be happy and happier without you yeah yeah yeah because i don't know if that happiness would have ensued if i would have stayed there to me removing myself i think was actually the right thing to do because i wouldn't have been able to deliver the life that i wanted to live life that i think she would have wanted yeah what are you most excited to do you've done so many things you have created many many shows you have them on amazon obviously we have the shy the shy yeah wrapping up may 22nd coming out may 22nd paramount plus last season the shy says goodbye okay shy says goodbye seasons what are you dying to do you're also a producer in cats which just got nominated evangelical ball myself cynthia revo jeremy pope la roche john legend dominated today for nine nine nominations one of the ones thank you so much one of the ones i'm in there is for best revival of a musical uh-huh yeah yeah yeah now let me ask you were you a fan of cats no yeah the whole time i'm like what's going on and then i went to go see this version where it's told through queer black ball culture okay which really makes so much sense it lends itself to this world so well it's almost like it was meant for this world couldn't agree more it's phenomenal it was that world would have made sense in the ball world and almost nowhere else exactly paris is burning i highly recommend everybody check out also you know criterion collection jenny livingston phenomenal documentary changed my life as well what's that about that's about the ball culture she made a documentary about it when she was coming out of nyu and it just is a movie that has been such a archival of our queer black ancestors and what they were doing at the time and the things that they were saying but also speaks the reality of the time what was going on so obviously love that and then i went to go see this show at pack which is where it started and then i wanted to be a part of it and they were kind enough to let me join the team and came over to broadway and here we are really so do you want to do another show next or do you want to do a movie or do you want to do more at&t commercials i'm doing a movie writing a movie now was an adaptation of a short story called grand rising which is something that you guys if i say that you kind of go like huh i don't know what it is it's a different way that sometimes black folks and certain groups say good morning instead of good morning they say grand rising grand rising is something that sometimes i feel like a little more enlightened you sort of say that yeah so when we wrote this amazing short story i read it loved it i raised my hand to see if i could possibly come on and adapt it they were kind enough to trust me with that fox searchlight is doing it we're not telling much about what the movie is because i think that's the new thing now be a little bit mysterious about the storyline let folks come experience it for themselves and see what it is but i'm working on that right now a couple tv show ideas maybe want to play with like what it is to be in your 40s so stay tuned and then yeah theater theater theater that's what i care so much about just because i think with everything happening with the streamers and the people not really want to go pay go see the movies live entertainment is something that we can't deny and it's like station 11 it's like they're going around town performing shakespeare for the people for entertainment because when all of this stuff shuts down what do you have is people that can interpret words on the page and inspire you and move you i think it's why hamnet hit us all shakespeare sort of wrote about the most difficult thing he ever had to experience and we just know it to be one of his great works but to see it and to see it in a different way it's like it's a lot of fun to see that movie and to see how that story was happening in real time obviously the way they were showing it just reminds me that this is how we actually like to be communicated with i'm ashamed to say i haven't seen it yet it's okay don't worry i have kids isn't there just that's another yeah that's okay she didn't see f1 when brad came she was like i don't you know why i was editing this show i couldn't make it like brad i haven't seen the movie i hear it i hear it's fine i heard you're fine i heard you look fine no yeah yeah yeah so theater's my shit lena i just i adore you i really really really like you i'm really really like you i'm so glad i got to spend a couple hours with you that day and my heart swells when i think of you and i'm really glad you came and i want everyone to watch the final season of the shy may 22nd on paramount plus go see cats yes please watch them i was a one of them covenant season two i wasn't but i think both seasons are really strong okay also tony's we're putting out good vibes come on win all the tony's the anthony's as i call them get you a couple anthony's let's get that he got going come on let's go i know we got the enemy we're gonna see what happens all right be well thanks for coming cute shoes by the way so much stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong what's up what it is what is up how are you i'm good you're good yeah yep yep yep okay well we both went to delta's play oh my heavens that was a big event it was a huge event big event in events that happen within the event yeah tell do tell yeah um okay mary poppins yes and i think some backstory is necessary and you can help me be objective here but delta's like she's never been super into acting or musical theater or singing yeah like just a mild interest i think she's done a few little plays uh i think she did last year's school play but she just seemed she seemed to be in it for the social aspect of it which is great so we all went you know me kristin who else was in that one o'clock show uh kristin's mom and dad oh yeah kristin's mom and stepdad and um for the first two-thirds of the play no delta she's not in it she was not in it yeah and we you were directly behind us with anna and we were having some fun up until then right yeah because there's a lot of goof it was the first run through of it there's yeah there's lots of mic errors there's you know there's a lot of like there's a lot of like there's a lot of there's the expected stuff yeah we've discussed the plays before yeah it's the whole it's the whole school so there's second graders out there you know yeah and everyone did a great job everyone did a great job and it was also very fun you know you can hear the mics of the bat you know the same same same old stuff yeah yeah all the standard fair and uh i think even on us uh is delta in this you know at some point yeah then she came out she was mrs anderson and for people don't remember and i'm not super well versed either mary poppins yeah meredith poppins yeah she splits at one point and they bring in mrs anders and she's an old-fashioned old anders or anderson anders or anderson you know take your pick okay tomato or tomato okay she comes out and she's a bitch she's mean to the girls and she's shoving people around yeah and right when she came out she full commitment full energy yes she came out with a real present a real presence a real intention yeah um her immediately her dictation was off the chart oh yeah they have to do accents which i should i just wish they would take that off these kids plates i think you know all in all they did pretty darn good yeah i think if you got like adults to do it the accents would have been much worse like just a random sampling of adults doing british accents i was like it's not i was expecting to hear some real it could be worse some real snafus yeah i what what what was going on like they need enough on their plate yeah yeah but anyway she did a great accent she did a great accent and you could understand everything she said and she was projecting she was loud she was and then she has a solo song all right maybe you take over now because i might sound too subjective as a father i'm subjective too i don't know that i can be very objective yeah but no she just did so she just like had so much confidence she sang it so well she wasn't like you know you're kind of scared when these kids are singing yes like obviously anyone's singing if in any play it's like oh god like what if they mess up or what if they it's very stressful and um she just knocked it out of the park and was so confident and like loud like she belted like with her diaphragm like she did it all right and it was oh it was so wonderful yeah two mega belts it was the last one with her on top of a staircase and she looked possessed yeah she like the level of commitment and she was screaming to the rooftops and it was holding yeah i couldn't believe it i couldn't believe it i mean from last year's play to this year's play major jump oh my goodness major jump like we have four performers in the family sure and she just threw down a performance that i think might top you know both kristen and i's professional work well okay i don't want to now i guess we are getting subjective because that's not true but but it was like i think last year at this time we had this conversation here that was a little touchy but i was like she's not committed like no well she was more her mission of her life and she was like i don't know i don't on that previous one as we talked about was to make sure everyone else was doing yes she was being very bossy like vocally like up on stage like telling people what over here over here yeah yeah and i was like oh no like i wish she would just commit yeah no and then boy did she take the note i mean i didn't give it right right she learned on her own and she really just she brought the fucking house down it was so good it was so exciting i said we cheered like it was a super bowl yes i said wow okay so that's what the experience is for these people who have kids that are great athletes and like score a touchdown i've never really had that experience yet yeah touchdowns in the family no no goals scored and this was i get how the parents get addicted to it oh yeah it was so exciting i know yeah we were rowdy screaming for her it did remind me i told you this but um there's a picture of the state championship second year i think maybe first year i don't remember but there's a picture of the parents and you know everyone is just like freaking out there's this picture and my dad is out of wearing a hat he's like wearing a boa and yeah they like hand these out or so i think in my head he has a boa maybe he didn't he's like yeah up out of his seat screaming and it does it takes a lot of time to get to the point where you're like oh my god it takes over it takes over when your kid is like crushing yeah it's so exciting and then the moment that was tied for that moment where she was on the steps at the ends yelling from the bottom of her soul as loud as she could was i was in lincoln was there all day volunteering to help all the girls backstage yes get in their outfits and as an as an alumni yes yes and i had this you know 30 anxiety over okay well one child has already declared this as her path the younger sibling now has just come out and fucking crushed oh wow okay what will this reaction be you know what we'll seen her get so much attention and praise from us um do i had some anxiety about that yeah and i think you were standing there it was so when lincoln ran out and they met each other in in the seat they were a huge hug she picked her up off the ground and squeezed her and she was genuinely so pumped she was so proud of her it was so sweet it was so sweet my heart was just destroyed at that moment i'm like oh yeah siblings man yeah it's more important than anything else yeah well no you know you don't know um yeah so it was did you ever see neil crush at anything and did you give him the full no no okay only now now i mean he's crushing that father he's about to crush fatherhood yeah no um no i was really hard on him yeah um but he needed it yeah he needed it uh he's look at him now he's doing great yeah because of my mothering um but yeah no it was really hard on him really really sweet and i loved it um and then there was a five o'clock which i didn't go to but there was a big incident yes so we're at the five o'clock the curtain's down we're we're intermission right it wasn't intermission it was just between some scenes where there was a little downtime oh and so the curtain was down and then all of a sudden you hear from the audience this horrendous crashing sound yeah and it's like it's substantial right the the kind of ground shook yeah and my only thought was like oh did one of the sets because they have pretty big sets on stage like two-story sets did one fall forward yeah and oh my god are where are the kids yeah and so i'm thinking this and then kristen jumps up and goes backstage because she's like you know clearly something's happening you can hear kids back there like they weren't screaming but there were noises okay so she goes back there scopes out comes back and she's like you are not gonna believe me i'm not gonna believe you you're not gonna believe me you're not gonna believe me you're not gonna believe me and so after the play i went and looked back and there's this like you know like a cement balcony with like a really huge steel railing maybe a loading dockish thing off the back of the gym and this enormous tree like the width of our oak tree in the front yard like the the trunk had to be like 36 inches in diameter maybe more it just exploded and it fell in all these directions it bent like the the big tree and it fell in all these directions it bent like the the big tree fence post size uh railing yeah it was just crumpled like a taco uh huge branches on there a table that they were all sitting on so scary 10 minutes before was flattened it's crazy and i was like oh my god i just was like yeah my first thought was oh this is why it's completely pointless to worry about your children because you're not even gonna think to worry about i hope a random tree doesn't fall on them on the fucking playground of the school some people do think like that i mean but it's a lot too much it's not generally people are worried about kidnapping and all these other things that's true yeah and it's like okay so thus far the closest call we've ever had was just a tree exploded in the backyard of the school yeah i mean freak accidents do happen yeah yeah it's very scary and like you just don't even know what to worry about yeah that was my thing yeah that's a good takeaway like yeah that's crazy that was almost a fucking newsworthy disaster oh my god that would have been it was crazy but everyone will have a different takeaway someone will be like i knew god was real you know someone will say sim me probably um yeah there's there's a lot of takeaways you just choose yeah you get to pick yeah i mean i don't think there's much meaning behind it for me other than just oh it's a good reminder that like life's that way And it's really pointless to even worry about anything. Yeah. That's a great example of confirmation bias, right? It's like whatever your overarching theory on life is, everything, every bit of proof will file in and support that. So it's like for you, that proves the world's scarier. Well, I didn't say that. Sorry, didn't mean to give you that. Yeah. Label. Yeah. And then for me, it immediately confirms like, yeah, what a waste of time to worry. I don't think I thought like the world's scarier. I just feel like, yeah, things go wrong all the time. Yeah, yeah. But also I think like, wow, so lucky. Just like so lucky. And we're just missing things all the time. Oh, yeah, yeah. Just like constantly avoiding catastrophe all the time. Yeah. But yeah, like yesterday I was walking down the street and there were so many cop cars. But they weren't. They weren't regular cop cars. They were all like just like black. Unmarked cop cars. Unmarked. But then one was like on, like headlights or whatever in the back. But there were so many in a row. Where was this at? On Western. And I was just walking by noticing all these cars. And I was like, oh, well, something is going on. Something significant. Something probably bad. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought, oh, do I, should I go home? Like this is right. Where I'm about to be. Okay. And. Are you on the car? Yeah, I was walking to Cara. And so it was next to Cara. By the Baskin Robbins or that weird apartment building. Yeah. That sketchy apartment building. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, I mean, there could be a bomb in there. Should I go home? But then I was like, I mean, they'll probably get it. Tell us to leave. I guess I trust that someone in charge would tell us to leave there. And there was a cop on the street and he just said, hi. When I walked by. So I was like, I can't be that bad. Right. He didn't say, ma'am, go on the other side of the street. Yeah, exactly. Or you shouldn't be here, ma'am. Ma'am, you shouldn't be here. You didn't ask him what was cracking. I wanted to. I should have. And then, cause when we left, that's still there. And someone was yelling at them because cars were blocked in and he was yelling and I didn't want to bother them. They're probably executing a search warrant. He said when I heard one of the cops say something like when we finished the investigation, invest, we're almost finished with the investigation. Okay. So. So someone went missing and. I was like, maybe it's a bomb or maybe it's a jumper or maybe it's a big drug, like probably a big drug situation or hijack. Sex work. It could be a sex situation, a negotiation, a standup hostage negotiation. I mean, there could have been so many things. Uh huh. Yeah. In fact, I wish he would've asked cause he would've told you. I know. I know. You're a cute young girl. He would've like, wanted to tell you. I thought about it. You would've made it a little more dangerous than it was. Like, yeah, we just, you know, we had this, you probably like, you know, fluffed it up a little bit. Officer. Should I go home? Or should I stay here? Am I safe to go home? Or should I stay next to you? Will you protect me? I feel safer next to you. Um, yes. He's like, I'm just coming out. I was first one in. Yeah. Yeah. I was first one in. So they're telling me, go ahead and have 10 minute break, which is why I'm out here. But I was first one in. But normally I'm in there. I was. I was first one in there. Once I saw it was not dangerous, then I was like, okay. Oh, it's not dangerous? Well, it could be. Could always be. Oh. Could always get dangerous. Probably want me to want to stay close. Oh, okay. Yeah. What are you doing for dinner? I'm hanging out with my friend, Jess. You'd love him. Oh. You can go. All right. Have fun. I think we're all wrapped up here. Yeah. Okay. This is interesting on. Okay. Dates. So we have a friend who just went on a first date. Oh, we do? And this person brought me up a few times because I'm in stories. Sure. Right. Yeah. And then at some point the girl, a girl, it was a girl on the date. It's a lesbian on a date with a girl. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And then at some point the girl on the date said, should I know who that is? Oh, okay. And then my friend said, oh, she's my friend, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I, then she was telling me this and I was like, yeah, this is tricky. It's it can get tricky if you're bringing up your friends a lot on a date, but they don't really know the backstory. They don't know like the level of friendship. Or. Whether either party are. Lesbians. Compatibly. Exactly. Sexually attracted to one another. Yeah. If you're bringing up Jess all the time. Exactly. They don't know he's gay. You gotta go my gay friend, Jess. I have to tell him. You go my gay friend, Jess. I know, but then that seems. And then she shows up my straight friend, Monica. I know. Yeah. But that seems like a weird thing to say. Like, oh, I mean, he comes up, like he, he's, he comes up. Right. And so, yeah, I guess I have to say like, oh, my, my friend, I think I'll just say my friend, Jess, and maybe it'll be obvious he's gay. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. To me, it's obvious. He's gay, but I know it. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He at least has a name that could pass as a female. Oh, right. Oh, that is true. But if you're talking about, um, Berg, beefy burger or anything, penis related hill. Don't think I'm probably gonna bring up beefy burger. Um, yeah. Not yet. It will come up. It will come up. Um, but anyway, yeah, it's like a weird thing about how much you talk about the other people in your life. On a date. On a date. I think it's only. You are of the opposite sex if you're straight and same sex if you're gay. I think it's only, um, a thing if you're talking about your ex a lot. Right. Which is also fine. Oh, on a first date, I don't think you should. Yeah. And, and there are versions of it that are totally fine. Right. But do you still have complicated feelings about your ex? Right. It's not the place to discuss that, nor is it this new person, their, their duty to comfort you through that. Right. There are all these rules. But if you've been with someone for a decade and you're talking about your life and then we're gonna ignore the last 10 years of your life, you know, like, of course, if you were with someone. They're gonna come up. Yeah. I don't think that's a big deal. I don't think that's a big deal for me. Yeah. But I think a lot of people would say that's wrong. Like, everyone has these rules. I think those people are really insecure and that's their issue. Yeah. I don't think it would bother me. Like, if the, the thought of someone have, have, having had an ex is too disturbing for you. Right. You have some insecurities. Yeah. That's not, it's not that other person's. I know. I think I'm kind of like, I wanna know. Sure. All the details. Yeah, I do. Yeah. But I don't want them to ask me. So I think I'm just leaving that off. Okay. I think it's like a, it's just like, hey, let's never talk. What kind of questions would you wanna ask? Let's not talk about any of our past. Okay. But we're, we're now on a date. We're on a date. Okay. Hi. Well. I like your hair. No, no, no. Further along. Oh, okay. We're dropping into like the, the, the, the, I wanna know exactly like what kind of info you're interested in about the ex. Okay. Yeah. Cause I think. So, well, you have to bring her up, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Well, we had to, we were sharing our dog. Oh. And then it just got kind of ridiculous. Oh. And then finally I was like, just, you can have Snickers. Ah, that was probably hard. I have a friend who is going through that too. It's really. A boyfriend? No, no. A girlfriend. A girlfriend. A girlfriend of mine. Yeah. But it's tough. It's tough. Yeah. She's gay. No, she was straight. She was my girlfriend. Cindy. No, my friend is gay. Oh. Okay. So don't worry. I was hoping you would, I would figure out what your, what you wanna know about the ex. I don't know. Well, what do you wanna know about an ex? I don't know. We have to practice and see. I think you wanna know what they'd look like physically. Don't you? No, I actually don't. You don't. I don't. I don't. Are you sure? Well, sure. You don't wanna find out if they were Indian? Oh, fuck. No. Cause I know you got a whole thing about that. No, I don't want. Okay. Do it again. You might need to. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So anyways, we had booked this trip and like we talked about going on it together, but I was like, I don't wanna be in Bombay with my ex. So I was like, you can just take someone else. Oh. Yeah. And I transferred my ticket. Okay. Oh my God. First of all, that would not to me, I'm not like, oh, so she was Indian just cause you were going there. I'm just trying to, um, to tempt you in that direction. Okay. So, oh, um, have you, I don't even, I wouldn't even ask. I would just be, okay. I would say, I would say, I would say, how long have you, how long were you guys together? I don't think you go. Have you been to India before? I mean, no. You don't care. You just want to know about the girl now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I almost was about to say, oh my gosh, I went to India last year on this kind of random crazy trip and it was, it was so, it was so cool. Cause I've only been one time before when I was little and it was really cool. Oh, are you Indian? I am. Yeah. Well, I thought you were Lebanese. Oh no, no, no, I'm not. Well, I mean, I, I was born in Georgia. I was raised there, but my parents are Indian. Oh, cool. How long were you with your ex or how long were you with her? Five years. Wow. Wow. Yeah. From 46 to 51. What happened? Do you mind me asking? Sorry if that's too private. God, I mean, what happened? Like a million things happened. Really? Yeah, as happens in a relationship. Yeah, it's hard. Like I could list things and it'd probably just be me blaming her, but I'm sure I'm half the reason. That's very evolved. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's evolved of you. Yeah. What are you going to order? But she's, oh, you're off of it. The old? She young? Is she Indian? I'm not asking that. I never asked. Okay, I was on a date once where it came up, but I didn't ask. He brought it up. What did he say? He said like she was Indian and her family and something about an Indian princess. And I was like, I hate this. I absolutely hate this. Oh, wow. If anyone says Indian princess to me, you're not for me. Well, what is the stereotype of me? I don't know. I know of the Jewish American princess. That's a stereotype. Yeah, that has a name. Jap. It offends both people. It does. Two groups of people at once. It's a twofer. Even if someone said Jap to me, I'd be like, I wish you didn't say that. Yeah, sure. You know? Actually, someone I love said it recently. And I was like, oh. When they were referring to a Jewish American. A Japanese American princess or a Japanese person? Oh, a Jewish. You didn't even get that part? Oh, yeah. I forgot. Oh, gosh. Okay. Jewish. I thought you were saying it offends princesses and Jewish. Oh, no. I don't care about offending princesses. They're a tiny group. Your wife is a princess. Not a real one. She is the closest we got. She played a princess. No, there's actual princesses on Earth. I forgot. Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't want to offend them either, but Jewish. I can live with that. Me too. Me too. Like, I'm picking the group. Talk about princesses. I'm talking about punching up or down. Royalty. Yeah. Yeah. Punching up or royalty. I'm okay with that. It's more the Jewish part I didn't love when they said it. Yeah. Well, I'm from a very Jewish area of Michigan. I know. So that term was used a lot. Right. And quite often by Jewish people. Right. Well, they're allowed. Mm-hmm. But this person wasn't Jewish. Anyway, okay. If you said it to me on a date, say it somehow. Jap. Oh, are you Jewish? Yeah. Oh, cool. Hard to be Jewish. Are you Jewish right now? Oh, my gosh. I know. I feel like the world is nuts. By the way, if the first date is somehow straight into Palestine, Israel, it's a bad date. I'm going to the bathroom. Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm going to shit. Have you heard of tonking? I'm going to go tonka all over the floor in the bathroom. I'm going to go to my car. Because I prefer doing that than having this conversation. Well, yeah. No, I know. I know. But, you know, I do get deep. And I do worry sometimes that, like, I get us to a place we're not supposed to go to soon. Oh, well, that can be fun. I know. But then it's, like, not fun. Because then, yeah, we're talking about. They're talking about. I don't think what I know so far, which, oh, I guess I should tell people I'm going on a date. That should be clear. Oh, okay. From what I know so far, I just don't. I think he's very chill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't think we're going to talk about global news. Global politics. Global politics. Yeah. That's good. If you dare. This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I have my dream job. I get to talk to folks I admire like crazy and ask them virtually any question that I want to. I can't imagine a better way to spend my time. But even dream jobs have some not-so-dreamy parts. The stuff that gets in the way of that. The actual work. Now, that's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it. Start to finish. Cases closed. Requests handled. No extra work for you. So you and your team can focus on what matters most. Which for me is, are they obsessed with male bodies on the same level as I am? They never are. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com. What if he's super into crypto and he wants to tell you about crypto the whole time? That's a hard one. Even if everything else was like a thumbs up. Yeah, I think I would say. What would you say? I'd say. I'd go, have you heard of Belizium? Oh, it's a one-to-one currency. It's so strong and promising. Oh, I haven't heard of it. They offer $13 a coin and it's already up to $13. Ninety. That's cool. Do you know Ben McKenzie? Have you ever heard of Ben McKenzie? He was from the OC, but he's also. Oh, I never saw the OC, but I heard it was really great. Yeah, I actually also didn't watch it. Oh, okay. But he was a big actor on that show and he's also an expert in crypto and he was just on. What's his holdings? Which ones is he into? Well, he's actually pretty critical. Oh, oh, he's a hater. Well, he's just mad. He didn't get in when Bitcoin was. Yeah, he's just jealous. Yeah, maybe. But I do have a podcast. I do. I do. Yeah. Are you? Are you Lebanese? Oh, no, I'm not. I'm not. Are you sure? Yeah. Do you think only Lebanese people have podcasts? That's an interesting. Hey, I got to go Tonka. Oh, that's what you parked in a lot called Tonka or something. That's when you poop in your car. Oh, so you're going outside to poop in your car. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck. Yeah. Can I come? Oh, you're you're in. That could salvage the whole. Yeah, I just got I got perked up. Yeah, that's right. Can I come? It would probably be a crypto guy that was into it. Yeah. So it all makes sense. You know, trade offs. Yeah. Everyone. No one's perfect. You're not going to get it all. No one's perfect. It's good. You got to get the right things. Any who. I mean, full honesty. Oh, Rob, he might be here. Lucas or the breast milk guy? Huh? Breast milk guy. Colossal man. Rob is going to pick up another drink for us using his ID, not alcohol. Full honesty. Yeah, I'm on a date. Yeah. And the girl goes, if you excuse me, I have got to go shit in my car. I'm going to get a new car. I don't want. Okay. I don't want to be the girl who's in her car all the time. Okay. It happened one time. Not all the time. No one wants to be that all the time. I know, but you're the one, you're kind of manifesting it for me. You wanted me to put a bag in my car. Trash bag. Why not? You just act like that's where you put your trash. No, that's manifesting. That's manifest destiny. Do you know if you're driving together, you're meeting there? Okay. That's supposed to be the safe thing to do. I don't know if it's safe or not, but one time I was on a date where the man picked me up. The male. And at first I was like, oh, I like that. Yeah. And as soon as he picked me up, I hated it. Oh. I was like, I really don't like being trapped in the car. I don't, now I'm aware of how he's driving me, precious cargo. Yeah. And at one point he was just staring and I didn't, then I was like, you need to look at the road. I didn't like any of it. Oh, man. Yeah. So we're just going to meet there. Okay. Right. What though, how do we handle a nighttime? He's not, we're not doing this first date, dad. But you guys can kiss. Oh my God. If he drives you home, then, then he's got to get out and like open your door and clean out the Tonka from your backseat, put it in your trash can, and then he might want to give you a kiss goodnight before you go inside. If he wants to kiss me after I've Tonka'd, what a. Yeah, what a stud. Well, a stud. A stud and kinky, he's kinky. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool. We like him. We like him. It's pretty cool. Okay. All right. Anyway, some facts. Let's do some facts. Okay. Okay. She talks about Halfman, the show, and you've since watched it. I'm glad you're bringing this up. Yeah. She was dead right. She loved it and you loved it. I love it. And now I even see what she was saying. Because at the time, remember, I think I said like, yeah, you and I watch things differently. Like your recognition. When someone's being represented, like that's important to you and you'll always notice it, but anyone would notice it. Yeah. Like the show is, is that type of show where it is. It's exploring some weird shit that goes down in most boyhoods that I'm aware of. Yeah. Just weird. Boys are so fucked. I don't. Yeah. I don't think girls know how weird boys are. Little boys. There's like a whole window. There's a whole window where they're so bizarre. I cannot tell you how many of these boys were constantly trying to show me their penises and they wanted a sword fight and stuff. And like, they just don't, they have these penises and they don't know what they're doing. They don't know what to do. They want to get them out. Yeah. Smack them around. I was just like, I'm not into all this sword fighting. You weren't? No. Oh. Because you were already molested. I think because I had already been molested maybe. It was like, I didn't like the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. But when, when we were in like hunting and gathering, we were like, oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I bet they weren't playing with them. It was like, it was just normal. This is when I read this really interesting article and it was about how cultural everything is to the degree of molesting. Yeah. Here it means one thing. It's always inappropriate and it's always some kind of like deviant sexual behavior. Whereas they were paralleling it with this group, this hunting and gathering group that like when they say, oh, I don't know. see little kids they juggle their balls right as a greeting oh wow the dudes aren't perverts right there's nothing sexual going on yeah they they do the same activity that here we would it would be trauma yeah and it's just so interesting that how the power of i know what and it's all about does it induce shame or not and in that culture it doesn't because everyone is getting greeted by getting their balls fondled i know but that is weird though because innately though it is sexual because that is also a way to get aroused but again because the the the culture is so strong and the context is so strong it's not they don't get aroused it's not a sexual activity i didn't grow up there so i have my thing right anyways i'm off on a long trajectory here uh i can't remember what we left half man is so good yeah with similar tones being explored as dtf st louis like that relationship between bateman and harborer was so intimate yeah it was male friend they're constantly hugging and stretching each other and breathing on each other it's just like this level of intimacy that certainly i didn't see on tv growing up right and by the time i did see it on tv growing up it was explicitly sexual between two homosexuals exactly this is this weird zone i know of this yeah even though you weren't it wasn't represented for you you still did it with aaron yeah so like aaron and i had a very very intimate very physically touchy friendship yeah but no penis business there were no but you like snuggled yeah but not nothing there was no there was no weird sexual component i'm talking about the behavior that had all oh i was like this weird sexual well bateman and and david harbour didn't have any sex they didn't but it was confusing and there were times where it seemed they were both confused by the intimacy sure sure sure and then he's even gonna hook up with a dude or he's like he's open to if he can give a guy an erection he'll like that right just because he's like oh my god i'm just like oh my god i can't do it he's like oh my god i can't do it he's like oh my god i can't do it he'll be desired right so just getting into all this fun gray area so nate and i loved that show of course as you did you i loved it yeah but we were talking about it at lunch and he goes dude the other show that's even more extreme than that that i i've been watching i want you to catch up so we can start watching together is half man yeah so i did and then the last friday when we had the day off nate and i went to lunch and then we came and got in the theater room and watched two episodes back to back and it was it was so fun oh you remind me like being in my 20s or something or just watching tv i love that that's really fun um okay quick quickly is adam the one adam oseri the one on instagram with glasses who sends updates i mean i think so oh yeah okay he has glasses that's definitely what she's talking about he makes tons of posts directly to camera letting users know of new features yeah regularly post direct updates about the platform he's so fun he's so cute he said we were his favorite food he's so smart too he is who is the model with the gap tooth named lauren lauren hutton ah iconic model something came up and you said everything worth having like everything worth having what's hard yeah basically and it reminded me that in high school callie's mom got her this little compass necklace it was from kohl's and on the back it said there are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going yeah okay good and i loved that and then they bought me the necklace because i loved it so much oh that's nice and um i love that saying um there's a dude in a who has a similar um saying that he says all the time almost every sherry says it and i love it every single time which is uh i found out that the shortcut is the quickest way to the back of the line i like that similar yeah yeah yeah shortcuts the quickest way to the back of the line although it'd be quicker to just go to the back of the line before you do the shortcut so it's not it doesn't hold up yeah because like if you're if you're cutting the line which is the shortcut to the back of the line you're not at the back well the point is the shortcuts never work and you always have to go back and start yeah the way you understand the point okay yeah we'll stick with yours i like mine what was yours there are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going uh okay i love it kohl's cash man uh uh callie also got a tattoo of a compass that was her first tattoo she got a compass on her ankle it was in college she has since gotten a rematch she has she didn't like the way it looked in pictures when she was like in heels and stuff okay okay um compass is very popular tattoo is it i don't know anyone else with one i mean i don't know a lot of people with tattoos other than you about your scene uh-uh um and her um and anna okay i know a lot of people charlie really rob natalie natalie everyone has tattoos actually erica wow yeah charlie yeah okay matt whoa um at least half mike nichols yeah at least half my friends that's probably right mike nichols says about conversation a conversation falls into three categories a negotiation a seduction or a fight a negotiation a seduction or a fight this isn't this isn't theatrical realm right this isn't every scene or or every scene yeah okay it says or conversation falls has to be one of those three things a fight a seduction but life doesn't have to be a fight a lot of conversations doesn't have to but i think he's kind of saying like it is like he's representing life and like that is what happens in life life as we know it network um yeah um okay the catchphrase from our at&t commercial rob said it in the interview just okay is not okay she thinks there's another that's what i'm seeing too i think i found another one did you after let me um you're away right away more for your thing spots i think was her oh get more for your things let me see that's not a good that's abstract that's not a good phrase if at&t wants to hire me yeah i will say the shortcut line okay only that line yeah oh wow i'll say anything you want at&t actually i will too not to outcompete you but yeah oh god god you could hire you could hire monica you should know she's only going to say one sentence they should hire me because a long time ago i think have i done an at&t commercial i'm sure Maybe have, but I do know one of the commercials I lost was an AT&T commercial and it was down to me and this, my nemesis and she was my nemesis. I lost, I lost, um, a couple roles to this girl. Okay. She wasn't Indian or Lebanese. Did you end up knowing her? Um, I like your chat with her at auditions. Um, Hey, you beat me out, but you beat her out a few times too. Maybe I forget her name, but she was like up in, she was like becoming a thing. Um, and I forget her name, but she beat me out for this AT&T, I think like campaign. Okay. So I was upset and I knew the directors. Well, I had worked with them a couple of times, really loved them. Um, and so that was upsetting. Yeah. That was a, that was a hard one. He lost a couple hundred grand probably. Anyway, so they should make up, for that and hire me now as a voiceover and like now you're getting bigger bang for your buck. I only say one thing, but you're getting a bigger bang for your buck. That's right. Yeah. Trade-offs. I have a voice for radio and AT&T commercials. That's what they say. Yeah. You have a face for AT&T commercials. Oh yeah, I have a face for radio. Okay. I have a face for radio and a voice for AT&T commercials. That's what they always say. Yeah. Um, all right. Well, that is all. Those were the facts. That is all. Well, I love Lena. Me too. Great app. I love her. Great app. Love her. She's so lovable. She is. She's, um, very smart and wise. Yeah. And interesting. And accomplished. And accomplished. Accomplished is cool. And just a good chatter. Yeah. She's a good chatter. All right. Love you. I love you. Bye.