Pod Insights Pablo Torre Finds Out Sarah Jessica Parker on the Seductive Power of Sports and the City About this episode New York is palpably horny right now. And happy. So we invited the patron saint of sex and this town to chase euphoria, appreciate the romance of the American idea, advise these young Knicks, remember the halcyon days of HBO... and make the case for reading books in the crowd.
• Previously on PTFO: Celebrating These Knicks Title Vibes, with Desus Nice https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/NmEzMWI5ZDdjYzU1OTczMmNmNDJhOWYz
• Subscribe to The Athletic https://theathletic.onelink.me/eNRy/ptfo
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Pablo Torre? Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is.
0:06 Speaker 01 Well, I think when we all liked Wemby. Remember those days?
0:11 Pablo Torre? Right after this ad.
0:14 Speaker 02 I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone, and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them.
0:27 Speaker 03 Everybody, listen up.
0:29 Speaker 02 Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed, and the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.
0:45 Speaker 04 Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.
0:51 Speaker 05 Love the crown molding.
0:52 Speaker 04 Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.
0:56 Speaker 05 Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.
1:00 Speaker 04 No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.
1:04 Speaker 05 No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.
1:07 Speaker 04 Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.
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2:26 Speaker 01 I realized on the way here, unless I've completely made this up, that we don't really know each other at all.
2:30 Pablo Torre? I was gonna say.
2:31 Speaker 01 We don't really, we've never met.
2:32 Pablo Torre? Correct.
2:34 Speaker 01 We don't know each other, but I, if somebody, which, you know, I told you I invoke your name all the time. Like anytime I'm in a complicated conversation typically about sports, most especially of these last days, I will wield your name, you know? But then I think, you don't really, he's not your friend yet. You haven't earned that.
2:59 Pablo Torre? I am now gonna play hard to get, because now I realize that I have the power to give friendship. Or not, in the course of this taping. Um, I should say that at the very beginning of our-
3:12 Speaker 01 Relationship.
3:12 Pablo Torre? Of our relationship. I got a voice note.
3:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:17 Pablo Torre? And you're a voice note person.
3:18 Speaker 01 I am.
3:19 Pablo Torre? I have never sent voice notes to people. You're the only person.
3:26 Speaker 01 Is that right?
3:27 Pablo Torre? We have a voice note-based relationship, and that is a unique dynamic.
3:31 Speaker 01 What do you think of, what do you think of voice notes?
3:34 Pablo Torre? If you're Sarah Jessica Parker, you should be using them exactly as you have them.
3:42 Speaker 01 It's my one contribution to modernity, because I'm not at all conversant with technology. I mean, I use the bare minimum of what a phone can offer. But it's a real point of pride how many people have taught, not yourself, because you would be able to figure out how to send a voice-
3:59 Pablo Torre? Just barely.
4:00 Speaker 01 But I have taught, like sincerely, given a masterclass, as it were, and it has liberated a lot of people, and all types of people. And it's very interesting to hear from those people, how it has come to annoy other people in their life.
4:18 Pablo Torre? I just know that on Instagram, you sent me a voice note, and I cursed very loudly and told any number of people that I'm embarrassed to now admit that I just got a voice note slash memo from Sarah Jessica Parker.
4:56 Pablo Torre? Something I really take pride in with PTFO is your surprise at what any given show is gonna be about. Some days, we'll be investigating an endless NBA scandal. Other days, we'll be marking the 10-year anniversary of the assassination of a gorilla by showing you an exclusive, never-before-seen video of that same gorilla eating its own poop. But today, we're bringing you a person of interest, a patron saint of sorts, whose entry into our cinematic universe here is a surprise to me.
5:36 Pablo Torre? Sarah Jessica Parker's collection of Emmys and Golden Globes and all these accolades does not even begin to describe a five-decade career in public performance, ever since she was a child actor in Hollywood and on Broadway and other such Manhattan sidewalks. You, of course, would know her from her role as a relentlessly fashionable newspaper columnist named Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City. And if you don't know her from that, I guess it is extremely funny that this would be how you're finding out about Sex in the City for the first time. But Sarah Jessica's voice-overs, her narrations on that show,
6:18 Pablo Torre? as seen and heard on HBO from the late 90s and into the 2000s.
6:23 Speaker 01 I had a choice. I could run, or I could stand and ask him the question that, if I didn't ask, would haunt me the rest of my life.
6:32 Speaker 03 I thought by the time I got here, I'd know what to say.
6:35 Speaker 01 And?
6:38 Pablo Torre? It got to the point where receiving a voice note from that same woman, who I will note is happily married to another voiceover Hall of Famer, Matthew Broderick, felt exhilarating to me.
6:53 Pablo Torre? And also, to be honest, confusing.
6:59 Pablo Torre? You have been so genuinely kind to me from afar as somebody who I did not think would be in the coalition of consumers of this strange show in this studio that we do.
7:12 Speaker 01 It makes total sense to me. First of all, I want to find out. But I love the kind of work you do. The way I like to receive news and information. And I always have preferred a kind of long form. I like the depth, which is why you just won a really big prize.
7:29 Pablo Torre? Wow.
7:29 Speaker 01 Well, it's true because that's the way you approach it and I love it. And then I started seeing you for the first time really joining the news in a much more public facing way. And then all of a sudden there you were more and more in front of my eyes. So it was really exciting for people like me who admire the kind of work you're doing.
7:53 Pablo Torre? You've gotten in on the ground floor before any of these fancy things and prizes. It turns out you were watching me while I was like kind of sleep deprived on Morning Joe and talking about the news and also posting things about sports journalism and the idea that Carrie [BLEEP] Bradshaw would be in our audience. It brought me to this moment where I was like, the reason, there are so, there are many reasons I wanted to have you in studio here today. I mean, we'll get to all of them, I hope. But first and foremost, is the fact that you're also a New Yorker in a way that has made me-
8:26 Speaker 01 According to whom?
8:27 Pablo Torre? Well, come on.
8:28 Speaker 07 So what's your take? You have to be born in New York to be a New Yorker. Yes. Okay. I know everybody wants to claim the city. No, I know. Everybody wants to claim our city, but you have to be born in New York. You have to be born in the one of the five boroughs to be a New Yorker.
8:47 Pablo Torre? The J-Lo standard, if we're being real here for a second. Jennifer Lopez is standard.
8:52 Speaker 01 You are.
8:52 Pablo Torre? I am.
8:53 Speaker 01 Because you're Murray Hill born and raised, right?
8:55 Pablo Torre? That's right.
8:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:56 Pablo Torre? That's right. Been here for 40 years. I don't believe in blood and soil. Citizenship when it comes to who gets to be a New Yorker. I would like to hear your opinion on this, actually, because you can have the label, but...
9:11 Speaker 01 Well, I guess it really depends on how you want to identify a New Yorker. My father was born and raised in Brooklyn. When we were little, before we moved to New York City, we would visit New York. And then we would travel home in our Volkswagen bus. And I would get to Clifton, which was this beautiful little neighborhood in which we lived in Cincinnati. And I would say out loud to anybody who would listen, or perhaps not, just, I can't believe we were just in New York City. Like, I can't believe there was just this distance. So when we moved, we moved to New York City on January 1st of 1977. So that is just shy of 50 years ago. So I think of myself as a New Yorker because I can't claim Cincinnati because that would be fraudulent to me.
9:54 Speaker 01 I've lived a majority of my life, not just adult, but my life here. And this is not about her definition, but I also feel as if it does speak to the broader conversations we're having in politics. And the political body and social body really is contributions. What are the ways in which we're contributing? And I don't mean like, but look at my contributions, but I mean, all of us, look at the ways in which we're relating to our city, taking from our city, trying to give to our city, wrapping our arms around the city, being disappointed in the city, frustrated by the city. So I think you have to experience all those things to know what it means to be a New Yorker
10:34 Speaker 01 because it's not Sex and the City, which was a very sort of a alternate universe, decadent kind of look at a city at a particular time, economy, politics, sex.
10:47 Speaker 01 So I feel like you have to weather all that to say you're a New Yorker. I always say I wasn't born here, but that too is a point of pride.
10:56 Pablo Torre? The thing about what New York is by definition, it's the place that welcomes those who are not from the place.
11:03 Speaker 01 It's specifically, that's the story.
11:06 Pablo Torre? Yeah. And I think about this a lot with, again, the larger political discourse, but like the cultural discourse around, are we an idea? Or are we something that you need to have this blood and soil to claim?
11:19 Speaker 01 It's such a cool thing that you said this word idea because I had to, I didn't have to, but I was speaking to some students this past weekend.
11:28 Pablo Torre? You are a doctor.
11:29 Speaker 01 I am.
11:30 Pablo Torre? Doctor Sarah Jessica.
11:31 Speaker 01 I'm an honorary doctor.
11:33 Pablo Torre? At Northwestern University.
11:35 Speaker 01 But in trying to fashion my remarks, I was thinking so much about the idea of New York, but the idea of our country, that the revolution was formed around an idea, like this crazy, great, transcendent idea of liberties. And to this day, 250 years later, we're still wrestling with those original notions. So New York is that. I love its promise of that. And it has fallen short for so long.
12:02 Pablo Torre? Of course.
12:03 Speaker 01 Like this idea of coming here with a dream and being able to afford an apartment, to be a dancer, or an artist, or an architect, or an engineer, or a schoolteacher, or a plumber. Like, all of that isn't real anymore, but it doesn't mean that we don't want to make it doable here.
12:18 Pablo Torre? There's a whole statue about this, I think.
12:20 Speaker 01 It has to still mean it, even if we're constantly coming up short of it.
12:26 Pablo Torre? Because you've now given all the characteristics of what New York can be like, but you've left out the adjective that I think has been most felt during this last glorious couple of weeks. And I think it's an underrated aspect. The city has been horny.
12:41 Speaker 01 Yeah. That's so great. I wouldn't have thought of that word, but I would have danced around a bunch of words that if you had to look in the thesaurus, that might, there would be some Venn diagram where they would all overlap.
12:52 Pablo Torre? Pheromones are out.
12:59 Speaker 01 The level of agitation in the best way, you can't even shake it. It's not like spinning it off and seeing it like I don't want it to go. I don't want all of us to drop back down to earth.
13:14 Pablo Torre? We're on a run. Like the New York Knicks, all of us in this city are on a run.
13:19 Speaker 01 I saw you, you had your, you had a guest on yesterday.
13:23 Pablo Torre? Deesus, yeah, yeah.
13:24 Speaker 01 He was talking about.
13:26 Pablo Torre? Stealing the USS Intrepid at one point.
13:28 Speaker 01 I mean, the way he articulated, I'm embarrassed to say I was unfamiliar with him prior to.
13:35 Pablo Torre? Oh, he's a huge fan of yours. He'll be delighted at your things.
13:37 Speaker 01 He is so cool. He is so, he's a poet.
13:42 Pablo Torre? Yes.
13:43 Speaker 01 He literally created prose. I've never taken drugs or anything, but that's what it seems to me like a kind of euphoria that you would chase forever. Like the, the best version.
13:57 Pablo Torre? And that drug is sports.
14:01 Speaker 01 I was a huge Yankee fan. Like my whole courtship was
14:08 Speaker 01 pretty much based around baseball and Barbara Cook, the Carlyle, and some other cultural stuff. But our honeymoon was going to try to visit every ballpark in, in the country.
14:18 Pablo Torre? Oh, my God.
14:18 Speaker 01 And we didn't do it. But I was a Yankees fan, you know, Tino Martinez, Chuck Knopf, like that whole group, Paul O'Neill and.
14:27 Pablo Torre? That's my childhood. The 90s is my, yes, those Yankees radicalized me.
14:33 Speaker 01 Those Yankees. And Matthew was born pretty much and raised a Mets fan. His father was a Mets fan. So it was complicated at first for him to fall in love with the Yankees. But that team was, you, you couldn't, they were, it was so seductive. So this team felt like somebody took that and multiplied it.
14:55 Speaker 01 By what?
14:56 Pablo Torre? Nothing's like this.
14:57 Speaker 01 By what?
14:58 Pablo Torre? I've been trying to do the math on this and I keep on coming to the realization that I've never felt this. Jesus, again, the poet, said accurately, this is reverse 9/11.
15:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:08 Pablo Torre? And I'm like, yeah.
15:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:09 Pablo Torre? And the thing that I, that made me think of you is as the pheromones are swirling and as the city feels alive, it has this whole Carrie Bradshaw monologue, voice note, lingering over all of it. I mean, inadvertently, like, I'm making puns, I'm doing my own version of what this all means to me, and it is this heightened reality.
15:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:34 Pablo Torre? It feels like we're watching and starring in the greatest television show and also everyone is horny.
15:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, I've got, I mean, this is why the serious and the silly, love you. But the thing that's also really struck me about what's happened is that everything that I look at connects to it. Things that are seemingly completely unrelated makes me think of not just the five, but the entirety of the team because those last two games, we were just seeing the entire bench just in and out. I was thinking about them, as all of us were doing, when they went home after they lost, you know, what was this gonna do to them? How are they? How were they this morning? Did they sleep? Did they eat? Can they eat? Some people can't eat when they're upset, but you need food and fuel for that kind of level of physicality.
16:28 Speaker 01 So they're always on my mind and in ways that are important and meaningful and in ways that are silly. Like, I cannot get over their dop kits. I cannot get over their dop kits. And inside there is what? Speed stick, maybe a good luck charm? That is a point of absolute obsession for me because I've also just never seen that. Like, they have redefined all of it. I can't believe the way they dress. I can't believe the seriousness and the professionalism, the way they've talked about these games from the very beginning. There's so much about them. But then I was thinking the other day also, anytime anybody says something's difficult now...
17:14 Speaker 01 My answer is immediately, well, if they can win in five, I can do this. It's unfreaking believable what happened. It's unbelievable and the movement and how brutal it is. It's so freaking brutal, I didn't know.
17:27 Pablo Torre? As somebody who tends to be this ambassador from the world of sports to political news and other people who are not as steeped in it, the thing I always delight in when I think about this team is how many people have in fact been converted.
17:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's amazing.
17:42 Pablo Torre? I love that sports like New York is a club in which anyone can be a member. You can be a fan and having likable, deeply likable people who also happen to have three of the five biggest comeback wins in the history of the finals in the same series. It's the other version of what New York does to people. And you've experienced this as a New Yorker who's been here for so long, who's been very famous in this city for so long, who has lived in the city.
18:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:10 Pablo Torre? Which is a place that lots of other famous people-
18:12 Speaker 01 Stayed, stayed.
18:13 Pablo Torre? Who have stayed. Exactly. While other people have run away. It's because what New York can do is eat its young.
18:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:24 Pablo Torre? The spotlight can melt you or like Superman feeling the rays of Earth's sun, it can make you stronger.
18:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, there's a reason people, no matter how many times that song is played, if you can make it here, you know, it's like, but it is the greatest crucible. It asks the most, it gives the least, and then it gives. But it's so withholding.
18:51 Pablo Torre? Yes.
18:51 Speaker 01 And its expectations are so high. And those are only based on what has happened here or what has been achieved here. And I just want to be clear that I have not been watching the Knicks all season. I'm like so many people, and it's all because of my son, James Wilkie, who is devoted every single day, every game. He has far too many jerseys, has spent far too much of his own money and likely ours on those jerseys. And it was impossible to not fall in love. It's like the best date you've ever been on where everything is- And he is the guy. He is the right guy. You do not just bring him home to your mother or your parents or whomever raised you. You're bringing him very quickly to your friend group.
19:34 Speaker 01 You're showing him off. You take him to the wedding the first weekend. You don't think, is it too soon? And if you put it all together again, it might not work. It's one of those crazy lightning in a box. I think. Is it or not?
19:45 Pablo Torre? I think that right now, we are living through what feels like this cosmic moment in which suddenly, everything that's bad about New York has been turned into a romantic,
20:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:02 Pablo Torre? deeply romantic opportunity to have lots of new people fall in love with it.
20:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:08 Pablo Torre? And so I don't know if you can do this if the pandemic hadn't happened already.
20:13 Speaker 01 There are a few steps that lead us to this. Like, there was a story being told, and there were kind of very specific breadcrumbs that had they not happened, we didn't, we might not have known how much we needed this because we might not have needed each other.
20:41 Pablo Torre? The end of June and July can be a really rough period for sports fans with football still a few months away and basketball and hockey ended. But this year, we're pretty lucky because not only is there a World Cup, there is a World Cup in our backyard. And so make sure to check out the Athletic Podcast Network to stay up to date on all things related to the World Cup. You can wake up with the Totally Football Show from LA, then dive deep into the biggest talking point of the day with the Athletic FC Podcast. And you can watch the Tifo Podcast fool around on their daily live streams in the afternoon. All shows are free to watch or listen on your favorite podcast platform.
21:24 Pablo Torre? I just have to imagine that as someone who has lived in New York City and managed being famous in New York City and recognizable and the type of person that people want to stop, and they share their whole preconceived baggage with you.
21:38 Speaker 01 Yes.
21:39 Pablo Torre? Tell me what your strategy is, and I want to see if there are lessons for the Knicks in figuring out how do you be famous in this city?
21:47 Speaker 01 I think one of the reasons that we all feel a lot of joy for this team is because we're not worried about them. They don't show any signs of not being fully equipped for this moment. To me, when I hear all of them talk, whether they're being silly or serious, they all have these family ties that are consequential, that are a part of this moment with them. So I feel like they're tethered. They're both levitating and tethered at the same time, and that could not, in my opinion, put them in a better position to reap all the benefits of this. And I sort of feel that this group of men are equipped and capable.
22:29 Speaker 01 And the stuff that will be new, they'll have to figure that out.
22:33 Pablo Torre? How do you handle selfies?
22:34 Speaker 01 I know, I'm very bad at selfies. I've never taken a selfie in my life. I've never done one, never taken a selfie. I'm very bad at it. I always prefer that we chat. But I always say to somebody, if we have a second to chat for a minute, I will remember you for the rest of my life. And when I run into you again, I'm going to say, how's your aunt doing? You know, how did you do on that test? You know, did you have that trip that you wanted to do? How was your wedding? Congrat-- you know. But I think for them, they're much more conversant in that and that because they do it and they know how to do it and they can do it quickly and move. I just feel that they don't need advice from me or from anybody. What they need is our support. And my great hope is that the counsel they're getting is--
23:19 Speaker 01 Telling them all, come back. Don't leave New York. Please don't leave New York. And that's what I want to ask you. I'm not leaving the studio without getting your thoughts on all of the contracts, because I've been through it with professionals. And I've gone down, I know how much every single person makes.
23:34 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
23:35 Speaker 01 So I do want to get to that before you kick me out.
23:38 Pablo Torre? I think it's, I think it's doable. I think they can keep this together.
23:42 Speaker 01 I was worried that we wouldn't be able to keep them, that this wouldn't exist next year, that we're gonna lose some of them.
23:50 Pablo Torre? This is what the drug is like, by the way. Suddenly, you're worried about what's gonna happen in 2028 with Ariel Huckporty. It's just like, Jesus Christ. It does not end. And that is yet another difference between Broadway and the NBA.
24:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
24:04 Pablo Torre? Is that when you watch a play, you are also thinking about the plays five years from now.
24:09 Speaker 01 Right.
24:12 Speaker 01 That is a nice distinction.
24:14 Pablo Torre? Can you remind us, though, what it was like in 1998? When, look, HBO, I should remind people. When Sex and the City came on the air in 1998, and I was 13 years old.
24:26 Speaker 01 Oh, my goodness.
24:27 Pablo Torre? HBO was dude stuff. It was HBO Sports, it was boxing. And so the idea of you becoming this supernova at that moment, in the sort of like, long chart of what media and television was like. 98, do you look back on that nostalgically?
24:47 Speaker 01 Yeah. Oh, yeah, all of us do. For lots of reasons that are related and unrelated to the experience of the show. And New York was not a city of justice. It was in one of those kind of halcyon periods of, there was a lot of money. And post-Gogo 80s.
25:04 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
25:05 Speaker 01 And some literature that was describing it in really interesting ways. Modern, contemporary literature. But it was still a city where actors and artists moved. They could share an apartment with two or three people at most. And what populated the streets was more singular than it became. You know, we didn't have tons of big box stores. We had family-owned businesses. You know this well, even if you were 13, you could imagine. Things look much more like Lexington. You know how Lexington has somehow maintained its... I love, I worship Lexington. Because I think it's, I don't know what...
25:40 Pablo Torre? Lexington Avenue, yeah.
25:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, Lexington Avenue, because it's got... All, it's a lot of family-run businesses. And New York looked much more like that. And I like a kind of dynamism that, that went away. And but then in terms of the show, you know, we were very liberated because, on the streets, because for the whole first season, we weren't on the air. We were just shooting, just shooting everywhere, doing whatever we needed and wanted to do. And we had a network that had such a healthy ego that it didn't matter that there was no point of reference. So we were just, these scripts were being written. They really weren't like anything else. There wasn't a point of reference that we could look to for security or for warnings or cautionary tales.
26:24 Pablo Torre? No, you became the template. You became the reference point for all these other shows that came after.
26:29 Speaker 01 And it was a great studio to let that be the case. And most of us didn't have kids yet. We were young or unattached or dating. Like, I could shoot 18, 20-hour days for months and months and months and, and feel nothing, no guilt. Like, it was where I wanted to be. And it was a really fun and exciting time, and it felt a little bit like a pioneer. You were shot on film, you know, rolling big cameras down the streets, big, like, Klieg likes, like, proper movie lights.
27:02 Pablo Torre? Yes, around the city of New York.
27:04 Speaker 01 Around the city, over potholes.
27:05 Pablo Torre? One of the great, one of the great things is always to see one of the, almost like the multicolor, like, flyers that are saying, "This is shooting right now."
27:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, shooting right now, yeah.
27:13 Pablo Torre? Like, "I hope that Sex in the City, I hope it's Law and Order." Always one of the ones that I know.
27:17 Speaker 01 But it was a great, it was a great time in the city.
27:20 Pablo Torre? And everything I've read about you is that you did not and will not watch Sex in the City.
27:27 Speaker 01 I don't watch anything I'm in.
27:29 Pablo Torre? Anything?
27:29 Speaker 01 Anything.
27:30 Pablo Torre? Why not?
27:31 Speaker 01 No movies, no nothing. That's why I love theater. I think it's just... You know, for me, it's not helpful. You know, when the Spurs were in timeouts, et cetera, there were these three fellows lined up behind them with computers.
27:43 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
27:43 Speaker 01 They're shouting at stuff, shouting to them. And it's clearly about plays and strategy and things like that. My colleague Cynthia Nixon is so good at looking at the work and having it be productive and helpful. For me, it will never be as good as I want it to be, ever. It will never achieve what I did in my bedroom learning lines. Like, I was better in the shower. I was better in the van. And Cynthia can look at the work and say, oh, I want to do that differently tomorrow. Or, yeah, that was good. Like, she can look at dailies and say they were really good. And that's a healthy relationship with that. But mine has been healthy for me because it's just simply the way I've worked. I did a series 100 years ago called Square Pegs.
28:28 Speaker 01 And I had never really worked on film in this fast pace. I'd done movies as a little girl. And I was invited to watch dailies, which I'd never been invited to. And one day, you know, we were in school. So they'd call us from the studio school. And we'd run back to the set. And I'd jump on my mark and say my lines. And then I saw it back. And I was horrified by what I saw. I was like, you don't, you shouldn't be here yet. You're not ready. And so I think from that day on, when I saw that I wasn't happy, I was like, you're not going to be someone that's going to get something good out of watching yourself. So I haven't.
29:09 Pablo Torre? It's hard to argue when you put it like that. If the whole thing is like, my performance is better. I am happier. My quality of life has improved if I'm not stuck in my own head.
29:17 Speaker 01 Yeah. Because all you have to do, and the same with these athletes, you know, you see it all the time. And I'm sure you're in game three and you see it on stage. It's very evident on stage is you can tell when somebody's in their head. And you just are desperate to get to a Saturday matinee. Nothing is better than a Saturday matinee. And that's what I was thinking in game three. I was like, guys, get to the part of the season. Can you do that? And it's a huge amount to ask because the stakes have never been higher for them. And the stakes are never higher when you're in previews and the critics are coming. Or when the camera's rolling, like the stakes are really high. There's a lot of money at stake. There's professional lives that have invested in you and time. Like, all of it feels really important to me. And it's the same for these athletes.
29:59 Speaker 01 Like, we're asking them to be in the zone constantly. That's what makes this story so amazing about the Knicks is that it was humans that did it. It was humans that overcame, fought against, fought back, came back. Like, all of the human stuff in the, with all this chatter about all the things that technology and digital life is about.
30:22 Pablo Torre? Oh, no, this is, this is, this is the context.
30:24 Speaker 01 This is like the antidote. This is the antidote.
30:27 Pablo Torre? Yes, being refreshed by, by the triumph of mortality.
30:30 Speaker 01 And how deeply it cuts and feels and is and satisfies.
30:36 Pablo Torre? It brings me to the question of celebrity now versus celebrity in 98.
30:40 Speaker 01 Wow.
30:42 Pablo Torre? I think it was George Clooney who said it. "I'm lucky that the advent of camera phones happened when I was 43." And, of course, the equivalent of tabloid coverage and paparazzi photographs and all of that is.
30:55 Speaker 01 Although, don't you feel, did you feel paparazzi is sort of?
30:59 Pablo Torre? I think that the cellphone has basically come for all of it.
31:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:03 Pablo Torre? And I'm wondering, is there nostalgia for you as a New York-based person who has to navigate, what am I doing in public? Who's seeing me? How am I being seen?
31:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, except then you're never out. You know, I'm gonna leave the studio. I'm gonna go walk up the street because I happen, I can early vote. And my early voting place is literally up the street from here. And I'll walk there and I'll jump on a train to run some errands on behalf of my daughters. And I don't want to miss out on all those advantages that city life gives you, which is, A.
31:38 Speaker 01 Getting to look in someone's eyes and know why they're happy because of the Knicks. Like, you miss all of that if you are cloistered and afraid of what you might bump into.
31:47 Pablo Torre? Right.
31:48 Speaker 01 And that someone might recognize you, and they do. And you just say hello, and you say, "I'm running," or you say, "I'm on the phone, I'm so sorry." Headphones on. Um, and sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not.
31:57 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
31:58 Speaker 01 Sometimes I'm listening to you. And if you want to live in a city, if you want to be, like, I just love cities. When I travel, everyone's like, "Go to the beach." I'm like, "No, I want to go to Sao Paulo. I want to go to the city. I want to go..."
32:13 Pablo Torre? Sao Paulo is a crazy skyline.
32:15 Speaker 01 It's incredible.
32:16 Pablo Torre? I was there for the World Cup in 2014. As a New Yorker, I was just astonished at how much bigger even their skyline felt than ours.
32:24 Speaker 01 Isn't it incredible? But it's like a city that's like super vibrant. And so, for me, if I remove myself, then I'm like, what am I, why am I here? Then I don't get any of it. I take the train everywhere. I take the train out east. I get on the Cannonball when I can. You know, you fight for a seat, like, it's so great. It is so great. My daughter had two wheels stolen on her bicycle yesterday. You know, she'll have to chain it up two days too many, probably, or four days too many. It's okay. This is like a rite of passage. Matthew's like, "Yep, this is what happens." And now you know what to do, and now you know where to go, and the guy down the street. And then she's like, "Do I sell the bike for parts? Do I..."
33:06 Speaker 01 You know, these are like, you can't do it if you don't give yourself the chance to live it. Like, you can't have it. You can't have it. And everybody's tuning in all over the world because they know that we're tasting this thing that no one else can taste.
33:26 Pablo Torre? Yes, the possibility that anything can happen.
33:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:31 Pablo Torre? And that's the upside. It's also the downside. When you're on a subway car, it's like, "Why is the subway car empty?" It's like, "Oh, someone just took a [BLEEP] here."
33:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
33:39 Pablo Torre? Like, that also is possible.
33:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, or vomits on you, or says something that scares you. But also, too, you know...
33:49 Speaker 01 I feel like my kids are really prepared in a lot of ways because they will come home and tell me what they experienced. And one daughter in particular, she's like, "Why am I always on that car? Why does it always be like, why am I on that car all the time?" But you know, you know what to do. You get out here, you move through the doors.
34:05 Pablo Torre? Yes.
34:06 Speaker 01 You go. When I was really young and I first moved to New York and I had to travel alone, I was like 12, I think, really short, didn't weigh anything. And I had to get back up to Dobbs Ferry from Grand Central. And I thought, oh, you know what I'm gonna do, because they were all, the businessmen were all traveling back up on the Metro North too. I'll just go stand by one of them and they won't know, but I'm gonna look at one of them like they're my dad. So if anybody sees me, I'll be looking up at this man, like the way a child looks at a father. You develop all these coping mechanisms when you're in a city.
34:43 Pablo Torre? That is a child actor. That is almost definitionally what a child actor's commute would be like. I am protecting myself by pretending that I am their child.
34:54 Speaker 01 But you, you developed it too.
34:56 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
34:56 Speaker 01 You have, you found all these ways to navigate the city, get through, pay the fare, don't pay the fare, use your pass from school on a weekend.
35:05 Pablo Torre? My favorite thing remains, my favorite thing remains like just walking through the city. And that's the thing of like, what's different about this place is that I think there is something too, by the way. I don't know if, I'm curious how you feel about this. Because on some level, of course, there is a greater risk of being stopped and bothered and self-eat and all that stuff. But there's also, I think, something to the idea, especially before cell phones, where New York also knows when to not freak out.
35:36 Speaker 01 Yeah. So many, so many people in the subway are like. You know.
35:40 Pablo Torre? And that's the coolest thing. The coolest thing is that.
35:44 Speaker 01 I love it.
35:45 Pablo Torre? When people signal like I.
35:46 Speaker 01 Especially on a crowded train, like on the one, it happens a lot to me on the one at busier times when you're really like, you know, that thing like.
35:54 Pablo Torre? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:54 Speaker 01 You're in someone's armpit and then there's another. It's unbelievable, but I, I love it so much. But that is when a lot of, I'll have a lot of those exchanges where someone's quiet or leans into me and they're like, I see you, I know you, I was raised on you or.
36:10 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
36:11 Speaker 01 You know, you got me through a tough time or whatever it is. But I couldn't have those exchanges if I lived differently and not saying that it's better, it's just what I like.
36:20 Pablo Torre? Yeah, because we're all crammed against each other and it feels like, yes, the coldness. I mean, this is the whole thing of the spectrum of like the coldness of New York is also when it's warm, it feels like it's never been warmer.
36:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:33 Pablo Torre? It's because it, you know, that New York can be very indoors and also extraordinarily outdoors. You cannot know your neighbors that you live on the same floor with for four years. And then you could be out on the street, again, celebrating a championship in a way that suddenly makes you feel closer than you've ever felt to a person before.
36:51 Speaker 01 I have to tell you, I put up a little free library.
36:54 Pablo Torre? Oh, yeah, my daughter loves to stop at any given little free library.
36:58 Speaker 01 You're not near me though, right? No.
37:00 Pablo Torre? No, but now that we know that there are free books.
37:02 Speaker 01 Um, but a lot of times I don't have to replenish it because the whole neighborhood does, it's unbelievable. And bookstore down the street came like the day that I put it up and came and dropped a note and said, can we leave all of our extra books here? It was like, sometimes I'll see someone and I'll say, I'm about to bring more books out, don't go, I've got some really good books and I'll bring them out. And then people talk to me and people have met through my little library. They've gone on dates, they've made best friends. A dog walker told me a story of meeting somebody that now they have drinks together. And I'm like, oh, that just happened because you were walking down the street and then you started talking because we weren't in our cars.
37:40 Pablo Torre? Right.
37:40 Speaker 01 Getting from A to B. We had to step aside, move around during the snow all this winter. I couldn't believe the amount of exchanges that were happening, but it was like so cool to have to.
37:55 Speaker 01 See a grumpy person, you know, mad about the sidewalk and then catch their eye and do a thing and then they get a little smile from them and then you see them Tuesday and you're like, it's us again.
38:06 Pablo Torre? Yes.
38:06 Speaker 01 It's us again. Now we know each other.
38:16 Pablo Torre? This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases like groceries or merch or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
38:48 Speaker 02 I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.
39:19 Speaker 07 Guessing is for game shows, not your business. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT. With AI grounded in your context to get work done and done right. It's a new workday.
39:42 Pablo Torre? So in Sex and the City, of course, you are playing a character inspired by a columnist for The New York Observer.
39:49 Speaker 01 Candace Bushnell.
39:50 Pablo Torre? Candace Bushnell. And there's that part of it, but your love of books as well, in terms of just like the written word, it takes me to one of my favorite sports photographs. And I maybe think you know what I'm referring to, but it's March of 2015 and you have brought one of your books to the Ranger game.
40:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that was a book about a ballet dancer. That book is written by a great writer, a woman.
40:18 Pablo Torre? Maggie Shipstead.
40:19 Speaker 01 Yes, Maggie Shipstead, who's gone on to take great acclaim and included in consideration for some of the most important literary awards, like literally in the world. And this was a story about a ballet dancer. And I was at that game, that was a hockey game. It was a Rangers game with my son and maybe one other person. And that's the young Hanks fellow.
40:39 Pablo Torre? Yes, that is Chet Hayes slash Hanks.
40:42 Speaker 01 Okay.
40:42 Pablo Torre? Noted Jamaican, yeah.
40:44 Speaker 01 Oh, that's right.
40:44 Pablo Torre? Yes, that's right.
40:45 Speaker 01 I thought, that seemed like the perfect place to read. Do you not think so?
40:50 Pablo Torre? Your feet are up and you are loving this book. You are ear to ear grinning.
40:57 Speaker 01 I might be laughing at something my son said. It's very possible. But I was happy, like, to me, that's a perfect combination. Because you're gonna take the book to read on the subway to get to the place. And there are slow innings in baseball. There are things where nothing happens. And it's not like you can't look up.
41:18 Pablo Torre? Well, the reality of what you are doing is you have...
41:21 Speaker 01 Multitasking.
41:22 Pablo Torre? But this is the defense I have of the subway take. Books should be allowed at sporting events. Is that you're gonna be on your phone.
41:30 Speaker 01 Yep.
41:31 Pablo Torre? So the idea that you're engaging with, I have a book here that I'm gonna whip out when the action on the ice is slow and there's a timeout or something.
41:37 Speaker 01 Or halftime.
41:38 Pablo Torre? Or halftime.
41:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:40 Pablo Torre? I think the question is, are you performing reading? Or are you actually reading?
41:44 Speaker 01 No, I was, I'm really reading, yeah.
41:46 Pablo Torre? And in fact...
41:47 Speaker 01 I have a book right here. I was reading while you were still working someplace else.
41:51 Pablo Torre? And your love of books. It's a funny place to bring a sports show back around because one of the people that I reached out to, who I happen to know in the small, little world that is our planet, is Maggie Shipstead, who agreed to leave for you this voice note.
42:11 Speaker 07 Hey Pablo, it's Maggie Shipstead. I am so happy to hear you're talking to Sarah Jessica Parker. And please thank her from me for providing one of the all-time most serendipitous and delightful book moments I've had in my career. I remember waking up that morning in 2015 and having a text from a friend with a link to the photos saying, "Have you seen this?" I had not, you know? And it kind of built and built over the day. I kept getting Google alerts from websites that otherwise never be on, like Us Weekly and Fox Sports. And I mean, part of the charm is that she's reading my book in exactly the way you dream of someone reading your book.
42:55 Speaker 07 Like, she's laughing in one photo, and in another, she's kind of saucer-eyed, like, hopefully with suspense. Authors call it seeing your book in the wild, and this was just the ultimate sighting of books in the wild. And an iconic moment for people like myself, who maybe read at sporting events sometimes. And what I couldn't have anticipated was that it would just live on and on. Like, probably two or three times a year, a sort of clickbaity social media account will repost one of the photos, especially after a big sports event. So people are kind of like, "Can you believe that Sarah Jessica Parker was reading at the 2024 NBA Finals or the Super Bowl or something?" And people send it to me, saying, "Oh, my God, have you seen this?"
43:38 Speaker 07 And I always sort of say, like, "Yep, it's 11 years old at this point." So anyway, have a great conversation and all the best to both of you.
43:48 Speaker 01 Oh, I love her. She really has an incredible career. She has written three books. I've read all of them since then. Her books have been massively successful critically, but also in terms of the kind of attention they've received. It's been thrilling.
44:07 Pablo Torre? Great circle, astonished me, seeing arrangements. I just love the idea that you bringing a book to a sporting event has also inspired book clubs, potentially, to want to read.
44:21 Speaker 01 Well, I think when we all liked Wemby, remember those days?
44:24 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
44:25 Speaker 01 The early days. But he has a book group on the Spurs. So I was like, "He's got a book group, he's a reader, he's always got a book with him." But that couldn't eclipse.
44:41 Speaker 01 Even, even, even a book club couldn't eclipse the action, the decisions on the court. Gosh, man, oh, man.
44:53 Pablo Torre? It has occurred to me as I was revisiting as the younger brother to an older sister and a person grew up in the 90s. It occurred to me that Insects in the City, sports does come up.
45:03 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
45:04 Pablo Torre? Various times. You dated at one point a New York Yankee.
45:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. I think I throw up in his mouth.
45:10 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
45:11 Speaker 01 Yeah. And that's just from memory, not from seeing it.
45:13 Pablo Torre? No, I think that's right. I think that's right. Of course, Miranda, the aforementioned Cynthia Nixon, Steve, just an all-time.
45:21 Speaker 01 Massive sports.
45:22 Pablo Torre? Iconic basketball fan.
45:23 Speaker 01 Right.
45:24 Pablo Torre? Hit half-court shot, that whole episode. Miranda was also sleeping at one point with her neighbor, who was the Knicks team doctor.
45:29 Speaker 01 Oh, that's right. I forgot that.
45:32 Pablo Torre? The cheerleader subplot, when she was jealous. I was like, wait, is he flirting with the cheerleader? And then, no, in fact.
45:36 Speaker 01 I feel like, see, I never remember the plot as well as everybody else, because I haven't seen them.
45:40 Pablo Torre? Miranda also separately dated a guy in LA who refused to take his Knicks hat off.
45:44 Speaker 01 Is that right?
45:44 Pablo Torre? Yeah, played by friend of the show Sam Seder, which is just funny.
45:47 Speaker 01 Oh, wow.
45:48 Pablo Torre? That's Sam Seder.
45:49 Speaker 01 Wow.
45:50 Pablo Torre? Wearing the hat.
45:51 Speaker 01 Sam Seder, Majority Report, Sam Seder.
45:52 Pablo Torre? Yeah, Majority Report, Sam Seder.
45:54 Speaker 01 Air America, Sam Seder.
45:55 Pablo Torre? Yes, that's right, that's right. He was also on your show, which is, again, in the way that I hope that everybody who goes through Hollywood at some point is a bit character.
46:05 Speaker 01 Yes, yes.
46:06 Pablo Torre? On either Law & Order or Sex in the City.
46:08 Speaker 01 Yes, definitely.
46:09 Pablo Torre? And then, of course, the iconic and I think self-explanatory plot of the guy who wouldn't have sex with Samantha unless the Knicks won.
46:17 Speaker 01 Right. And then Carrie has a line, which has been sent to me. Excuse me, but why is that on? And who is Marcus?
46:24 Speaker 04 Marcus can be Knicks forward. Now that Ewing's been injured, he really needs to pull it out.
46:29 Speaker 01 And when did we start caring about basketball?
46:32 Speaker 04 Don is obsessed. I don't get laid unless the Knicks win. And can I just say? They and I have been on a very long losing streak.
46:39 Speaker 01 Well, that's awful.
46:41 Speaker 04 No kidding. The Knicks are the only ones that are getting screwed right now. Come on, you [BLEEP].
46:46 Speaker 01 Why are you staying with them?
46:48 Speaker 04 Because the sex, from what I can remember, was unbelievable. Yes, yes.
46:56 Speaker 01 They won! They won! I gotta go. Go, go. Have sex. Go. Yeah, I'm glad that they were worked into the script so we don't look like complete, you know, bandwagon jumpers.
47:11 Pablo Torre? I was gonna say, if nothing else, what you are responsible for, what this show is responsible for, is the horniness that I have previously described. It is a coaching tree, a lineage, an heirloom, a tradition that you can trace.
47:25 Speaker 01 A chalice.
47:26 Pablo Torre? A chalice presented to us by the patron saint of sex and this city.
47:34 Speaker 01 And the city. Wow. It's amazing that you put it all together. You wrapped that in an unbelievable bow that I was not expecting, though I should have, knowing what I know about you.
47:45 Pablo Torre? Mostly really enjoying the fact that we have now become friends.
47:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, man. So it's official?
47:51 Pablo Torre? I was gonna say, it was teeth at the beginning. We paid it off at the end. My friend, Sarah Jessica.
47:57 Speaker 01 I'm honored. Oh, my gosh.
47:58 Pablo Torre? It is a delight to be at the table with someone whose voice has traveled from my puberty to my cellphone and now to real life, the best version.
48:09 Speaker 01 Thank you, Pablo. Such a big admirer, as you know. And I'll keep repeating it and I'll keep leaving you messages and I'll keep waiting to hear what you're gonna share and what you've been working on. And it's always a surprise because that's the secret sauce of great investigative journalism, is we don't know what people are working on. We know the stories of the day and then some extraordinary story unfolds in front of us and I live for it.
48:38 Pablo Torre? I dare say, and this is a bit of a tease to end this episode, I dare say that we may have a role for you in an upcoming episode.
48:47 Speaker 01 I dare say I've heard that rumor.
48:49 Pablo Torre? Source is close to the situation.
48:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, source is not revealed. Throw me in the clinker, I'm not revealing my source.
49:04 Pablo Torre? This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.
49:32 Speaker 02 I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone. And I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them.
49:45 Speaker 03 Everybody, listen up.
49:46 Speaker 02 Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers. Guessing is for game shows, not your business. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT.
50:10 Speaker 04 With AI grounded in your context, to get work done and done right. It's a new workday.
50:18 Speaker 04 Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.
50:23 Speaker 05 Love the crown molding.
50:25 Speaker 04 Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.
50:29 Speaker 05 Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.
50:33 Speaker 04 No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.
50:36 Speaker 05 No FiOS? Yeah, no thank you.
50:39 Speaker 04 Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.
50:42 Speaker 06 Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.
Previous USMNT's Tim Weah on World Cup Dreams, the American Idea... and Wu-Tang Next What the World Cup Can Teach the American Fan, with John Green and Daniel Alarcón Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated