Cynthia Nixon - ‘Being brave is feeling scared and doing it anyway’

Whilst Cynthia Nixon’s versatility is beyond question, it's fair to say that she has become permanently associated with one character, Miranda Hobbs, in Sex and the City and its companion piece, And Just Like That. She won an Emmy for her performance and a generation of fans who identified with the ambitious type-A lawyer whose cynicism disguised as vulnerability has grown markedly through the decades. Nixon is also a political activist and vocal advocate for progressive causes. She even met her wife at an education rally in 2002. In 2018, she ran unsuccessfully for the governorship of New York. More recently, she has repeatedly spoken out in support of a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Nixon's political conscience recalls perhaps the legacy of her journalist Father Walter, who won awards for his coverage of the Civil Rights Movement. An uplifting, smart and enlightening woman - what a joy it was to meet her. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Intro 03:12 Miranda Hobbs and Lessons on Failure 04:53 Controversial Storylines in 'And Just Like That' 12:38 Political Journey 15:43 Running Against Andrew Cuomo 18:03 Gender and Politics 21:34 Early Political Influences 26:58 Missed Opportunities in Acting 28:24 Influence of Family on Career 30:18 Quiz Show Memories 32:22 Truth and Pretense in Acting 35:15 Filming Amadeus 40:10 Thanksgiving Preparations 44:58 Family Dynamics 48:52 Gratitude and Hope for the Future Elizabeth and Cynthia answer YOUR questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Have something to share of your own? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com All episodes in June are brought to you by @arlalactoFREE - all the taste, easier to digest. Listen to our bonus episode brought to by ArlaLactoFREE with Vicky Pattison here: https://link.chtbl.com/VickyPattison 🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount on your first Saily data plans! Use code [howtofail] at checkout. Download Saily app or go to to https://saily.com/howtofail ⛵ Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Mix Engineer: Matias Torres Studio Engineer: Sam Bair Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Carly Maile How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Elizabeth Day?

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• 0:45Elizabeth Day?

  to start your free trial. That's Shopify.co.uk/fail. Go to Shopify.co.uk/fail today to hear your first...

• 0:57Elizabeth Day?

  How to Fail is proudly partnering with Arla Lacto Free through June. Delicious dairy with all the taste, none of the lactose.

• 1:14Elizabeth Day?

  Hello and welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This is a podcast born out of the realisation that sometimes when things go wrong, actually we can learn a lesson along the way. Every week, I ask a guest about three times they failed in their life and what data they might have acquired.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  But I think we are all clumsy and dumb when it comes to things like race. Our young people have a better roadmap, and I think it's important for us to follow them. Stop acting like in the middle of the tape!

• 1:48Elizabeth Day?

  My guest today is an actor of astonishing range. During the course of her career, she has portrayed maids and bankers, heiresses and lawyers, as well as two former first ladies, Eleanor Roosevelt and Nancy Reagan. A Tony Award-winning stage actor, she was once so in demand that she made Broadway history by appearing simultaneously in two productions, shuttling between curtain calls.

• 2:14Elizabeth Day?

  While her versatility is beyond question, it's fair to say that Cynthia Nixon has become permanently associated with one character, Miranda Hobbs in Sex and the City and its companion piece, And Just Like That. She won an Emmy for her performance and a generation of fans who identified with the ambitious type A lawyer whose cynicism disguised a vulnerability that has grown markedly through the decades. The third season of And Just Like That premieres later this month. Off screen and stage, Nixon is also a political activist and vocal advocate for progressive causes. She even met her wife at a gay rights rally in 2002.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Actually, an education rally.

• 3:00Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, thank you. Okay.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 3:02Elizabeth Day?

  She even met her wife at an education rally in 2002. In 2018, she ran unsuccessfully for the governorship of New York. More recently, she has repeatedly spoken out in support of a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Nixon's political conscience recalls, perhaps, the legacy of her journalist father, Walter, who won awards for his coverage of the civil rights movement. But it also speaks to her determination to be more than just a celebrity. "I feel like I'm a person who knows what she can do," Nixon says. "I really don't like to fail."

• 3:42Speaker 01

  What a great, what a great lead in.

• 3:44Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, so welcome, even though you don't like failing.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  I don't like failing. It's true. It's true.

• 3:49Elizabeth Day?

  How actually has this process been for you, coming up with your three failures?

• 3:53Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's been okay.

• 3:54Elizabeth Day?

  Okay. Well, we'll get on to those in a minute. But I wonder whether the character of Miranda Hobbs has taught you anything valuable about a failure?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  You know, if you think about what's happened to Miranda on And Just Like That, really, right from the get go, we've actually seen Miranda fail at a lot of things that was the best thing that could have happened to her, I think, in a way. I mean, she didn't actually fail at being a corporate lawyer. She succeeded, but I think she realized that her, her life quest to be, you know, on top in the corporate law world was a mistake. That's the wonderful thing about our show is like the age that we are in our 50s. You know, there is, there is enough time to make a change, you know?

• 4:46Speaker 01

  And if, if you want to, if you feel like you're on the wrong path, and I think then she felt like two, you know, two more big things. I think she felt like she was in a marriage that just wasn't working anymore. And so she ended it. She ended it pretty clumsily, but she ended it. And she also decided that she was, you know, an alcoholic, that she was relying far too much on, on alcohol and she was, as most alcoholics are, determined to not accept that. And then, you know, she failed to convince herself and her friends that she was not an alcoholic.

• 5:24Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, that's so beautifully expressed. And I think I'm relatively unique in that I watched And Just Like That before I watched Sex and the City.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Oh, that is very interesting.

• 5:39Elizabeth Day?

  It's fascinating in the sense that I was really surprised how divisive some of the storylines were.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:45Elizabeth Day?

  Because I was just seeing the show on its own terms.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 5:49Elizabeth Day?

  Were you surprised by how?

• 5:51Speaker 01

  I mean, here's what I think. I was not surprised that people were upset about Miranda not only leaving Steve, but cheating on Steve, right? You know, people were very fond of them as a couple, very devoted to them as a couple. But I guess I was surprised that there was pushback on when Miranda decided to go back to school and had an African American professor and sort of put her foot in her mouth the first day of class, sort of over and over and over.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  I think people were really horrified. And that surprised me because I think, I think a lot of people identify with Miranda and I think as the years have passed, that more of them have identified with her. I mean, there was a book. That was written called We Should All Be Miranda's, you know, which was like twenty five years ago, or whatever it is now, twenty six, twenty seven years ago. Miranda's positions maybe seemed a little strident or whatever, and now the culture has just moved and the things that she was saying, you know, a quarter of a century ago seem like just common sense. So I think, but I think that everybody thought, oh, Miranda's the smart one and I'm the smart one, I'm like Miranda.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  So to see her sort of flop and fail, I think, um, you know, I think made people feel like, well, Miranda's not that clumsy and dumb because I'm not clumsy and dumb. But I think we are all clumsy and dumb when it comes to things like race.

• 7:35Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  And I think that that was, you know, the show succeeded so wonderfully, the original show, but I think one thing that always was not great about the show was how incredibly white it was. And so I feel like, you know, that was a big goal of ours when we did And Just Like That, to make sure that that was no longer the case. But I think to have us all just magically have, you know, be be friends with people of color and it was like, you know, just snap your fingers, I would have been sort of more, I think that would have been more problematic. I think it's good to, you know, if you look, if you're a white person and you look around

• 8:19Speaker 01

  and you realize you don't have any black friends and you sort of like a bull in a china shop, because that is who Miranda is, she is a bull in a china shop and she always has been, and she's going in the right direction, but her eagerness to get there trips her up.

• 8:34Elizabeth Day?

  I love how much you love her.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  I do love her.

• 8:37Elizabeth Day?

  And I think you've nailed it, I think people found it confronting, it's like holding a mirror up, which is what great art should do.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:43Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, so The Gilded Age, I just have to put a question there because I love it so much.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 8:48Elizabeth Day?

  And you play Ada Brooks, a very different character from Miranda.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:52Elizabeth Day?

  And you did your simultaneous role thing again. You were filming both of them at the same time.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  I found it very, very, very hard. I did not expect to find it as hard as I did. Because as you say, when I was a young person, I had done those two shows simultaneously. But that was, and and I, there have been lots of times in my life when I've been, you know, filmed, but this was, this was hard. Because what I didn't count on, well, first of all, I'm older. So there's that. There's a lot of lines to learn in both of these shows. There's that. But that wasn't the primary problem. The primary problem was when you're acting on film, so much of it is about believing you're in the world because there's not really rehearsal,

• 9:37Speaker 01

  you know, so being steeped in that world. So to have this sort of schizophrenic, you know, jumping back and forth, I found really hard. And I also realized when I did both of those plays at the same time, I had done them each separately. I knew the characters, I knew, but which is true of these two shows too, except with these two shows, it was new material that I was having to digest and, you know, filter through myself. And that was very hard to trying to be discovering what to do with each of these characters when it was like yesterday, I was, you know, in modern day New York and today

• 10:21Speaker 01

  I'm a widow in the 19th century, like very hard.

• 10:25Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. And so fascinating that these shows, so The Gilded Age, which as you say, is 19th century New York, scripted by Julian Fellows, and Sex and the City and And Just Like That have done so much for New York as a city. And New York really is the extra character in both of those shows. And I wonder if they have helped you reinterpret your own city?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Whether it's helped me resee the city, I would say two things. One is the world of Sex and the City and And Just Like That is really different than my world, particularly on the original show. It was like all of this dating and on the town and being at the like trendiest place. That's, you know. That's, it might as well be a make believe world as how little it had in common with my New York. And the, the Gilded Age, do you know the end of Planet of the Apes, when the, this, you see, they walk by the Statue of Liberty now submerged in sand over thousands of years, and you realize, oh, this is not another planet.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  This is New York. I feel that with the Gilded Age. It's, it's so hard to remember that, you know, with a few buildings aside, like Grand Central, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the New York Public Library, that it was here. It does feel like another planet.

• 11:55Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD, because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialized treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's Exposure and Response Prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable, so you can live more of the life you want to

• 12:40Elizabeth Day?

  live. If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail. Well, talking of New York and its iconography brings us on to your first failure, which is your failure to get elected governor of New York in 2018.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:03Elizabeth Day?

  Tell us about this and why you chose it.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Well, it's a little bit of a cheat. I have to admit, it's a little bit of a cheat. I tried really hard to get elected governor. I did everything I could, you know, morally and reasonably do to become elected. But I had almost, you know, my belief that I might be elected was less than 1%, I would say. So, and, you know, running against Andrew Cuomo, which was something that I felt was very important to do. And I was, no one was really stepping up to run against him. And I was sort of uniquely suited, I thought, to run against him. It was, in the end, such a win.

• 13:49Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Because, you know, by my running, I brought so much attention to the race. And I brought so much attention to the situation in New York. And we were able to take back the New York State Senate for the Democrats. And we had, you know, a super majority in, that we had not had in, I don't know, since like 100, 100 years. And so, so many pieces of legislation that had been part of my campaign platform

• 14:24Speaker 01

  were then passed by the legislature. And Cuomo was, you know, kind of shamed into it. So, I mean, like the most progressive rent regulation in the country. The Reproductive Health Act, which finally codified abortion law, you know, Roe versus Wade into New York state law. Agenda, the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act, which protected queer and trans people in employment. The Green New Deal. I mean, the driver's licenses for undocumented people, an end of cash bail for all but.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  The most violent felons, I mean, it really goes on. And the most important, the reason that I ran, if I had to boil it down to one thing, was the funding of the campaign for fiscal equity, which meant this windfall of cash for not just New York City schools, but across the state, that our kids had been robbed of this education funding for a long time. And there had been, for 25 years, there had been this lawsuit that Cuomo refused, even though the highest court had said, you must implement this. Cuomo just pretended not to hear it. And so that money was finally come through.

• 15:40Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  So it was, you know, a failure, but it was such a win.

• 15:47Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, and you also got 35% of the vote, which is pretty impressive.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  I think even, yes, I was, I think we spent $2.5 million and he spent almost 30.

• 15:56Elizabeth Day?

  Huh. Now, talk to me about Cuomo himself, because you said that you were uniquely positioned to run against him.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:04Elizabeth Day?

  And part of the reason, my perception is, is that you weren't scared, and he is someone who is famously vindictive.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:12Elizabeth Day?

  Were you scared?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Of course, I was terrified. I was terrified, and I have to say, I debated him on television, and that was maybe the scariest thing I've ever done.

• 16:23Elizabeth Day?

  Really?

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Yes. But it went pretty well. It went pretty well. But, you know, Eleanor Roosevelt, who you mentioned I played, you know, famously said, being brave is not not being scared, being brave is being very scared and doing it anyway. And the reason, though, that I said that I was so uniquely positioned was that I was not in his business. I was not in the business of politics. And the reason no one was running against him was he is very adept at ending people's careers in a moment. If they say something disparaging against him, much less, you know, run against him and point out.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  The many, the many problems and corruptions and failures. So, and, and also, you know, the, a woman named Zephyr Teachout, who's a constitutional lawyer, ran against him four years earlier. And she, she was able to, you know, we, we've banned fracking in New York State because Zephyr ran. And the thing about Zephyr's campaign was, as brilliant as she was, they wouldn't take her seriously, they wouldn't put her on television. And she did so well, and she won so many things for New York. And I was like, one thing I know is that they will put me on television. And so, he can't, I don't, I can't see the way in which he can really hurt me.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  I'm very steeped in the progressive activist community, and I can just bring everybody into this big tent, and together we can make a platform. I mean, that's why my platform passed, right? It wasn't that nobody had ever thought of these ideas before. It was literally the activists on the ground were brought in and wrote the platform. And so, once there was a super majority in the legislature, we could, we could pass these things that were so long overdue.

• 18:18Elizabeth Day?

  I'm very interested in your thoughts about gender and how it played into this particular contest, but also where we're at culturally and politically, globally, but particularly in America, where it feels to me, I, I hope it's the death rattle of misogyny, this resurgence in kind of maleness.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:43Elizabeth Day?

  And male violence in the political landscape. And I wonder if you were aware of that shifting temperature at the time that you were running against Cuomo?

• 18:58Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I don't think this is anyway the death rattle of misogyny. I feel like particularly when times are scary.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  We want someone who's going to take care of it. You know, I don't know if you've ever seen A Few Good Men.

• 19:16Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Have you seen that movie?

• 19:17Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  You want me on that wall.

• 19:20Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Right? It's like, it doesn't matter that I'm a monster. You want to sleep comfortably, safely in your bed at night and not have to think about it. And that's why you get a monster. And I think we're just not at a place where we feel like a mommy can protect us in the way we feel like a daddy can.

• 19:41Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  I think that so many female politicians, there's so much stuff thrown at them about, you know, being naggy or the things that we, whatever our gender, the things that we bristle against in our mothers. We see that in, in female politicians, particularly if they're not 25.

• 20:04Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  And it was very interesting to me during the campaign, when I would wear a dress, it would be one vibe. And when I would wear a suit with pants, it would be a very different vibe. People would just automatically take me more seriously. And so it was interesting. So when, so I've talked to our wardrobe department on And Just Like That about this, that as Miranda is becoming more of a, kind of a front-facing political person, as she's, she'll, we'll see her like, go on televis-, we started to see that, go on television more to speak on behalf of Human Rights Watch. I was like, you know, they would pull out dresses for me and I would be like, I think she's going to lean into the suit.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Not just because she's queer now, but just in terms of being taken seriously.

• 20:54Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. I love a suit.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great.

• 20:58Elizabeth Day?

  When I started wearing what you call a pantsuit and I call a trousersuit, I realized why men have been wearing them for centuries, because there are so many pockets. And you can put stuff places and you don't need a separate bag.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:11Elizabeth Day?

  And so there's power in that, right? Because your hands are free and you are unencumbered.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:16Elizabeth Day?

  And it's sort of a radical act of feminism to wear.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:20Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. Well, I look forward to seeing Miranda in her pantsuit.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Shelley Jensen was about to retire early after selling her veterinary practice for millions. But a moment of vulnerability became a way to take away her rights.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Don't you see how destroyed I am as a person?

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Her husband fought to save her before Shelley lost her freedom forever.

• 21:45Speaker 03

  This is a life or death matter. My wife's life is at stake.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  From Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, this is Free Shelley Jensen. Available now on the binge.

• 21:56Speaker 04

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• 22:25Elizabeth Day?

  Before we get on to your second failure, because your second failure takes us back to your childhood, but I would love to know a bit more about the molding of your political consciousness and how much your parents had a part to play in that.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  I think they had a very big part. I think that, so as you mentioned, my father was a journalist and he worked for WRVR, which was a forerunner of National Public Radio. It was based out of Riverside Church, which is an extremely political church in Upper Manhattan. I was little and I don't actually remember, but just as an indication, like I was brought to a lot of Vietnam protests and stuff. And I think, I think one of the reasons that my father left Texas where he's from was not just because he wanted to live in New York and be a journalist in New York. I think he wanted to, you know, get a front row seat

• 23:24Speaker 01

  at the Civil Rights Movement. And I think having grown up in the South and watching segregation and all of its horrors, I think he wanted to, you know, be part of, of ending that. And certainly, my parents were pretty, my parents separated when I was six, but I think they were pretty united in their political thinking. And I think You know, my mother, when I was old enough to understand, you know, she told me about that she had had an abortion when it was illegal and how horrible it had been and how it was important to really fight to protect this right and never let anyone take it away. And so I would say from the time I was like 13,

• 24:07Speaker 01

  I was doing, you know, political fundraisers for Planned Parenthood or the National Abortion Rights Action League. And certainly, I grew up, I was a teenager in the in the 80s when AIDS struck and, you know, we all marched and did what we could in that. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's a it's a thing that I was I was born into. And so when I met my wife at this education rally, I mean, it was right, it was an it was an incredible way to all of these things that live in me. Here is someone who actually does these things for a living and like, what a great team we would be.

• 24:52Elizabeth Day?

  Do you feel pessimistic or optimistic about the future, given where we are politically?

• 25:00Speaker 01

  It's a really, really terrible time. And the upside of it being a terrible time is people can't sit on the sidelines anymore. I think that's very important. I mean, I think that's why I ran for governor. It wasn't just that I despised Cuomo for so long and wanted someone to really give him a run for his money. It was when Donald Trump was elected, I was like, we can't, you know, women have women and progressive people and people of color and queer people, we have to run for office. We have to try and wrest this system back from the from the millionaires and billionaires.

• 25:38Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, your second failure is your failure to be cast as Alice in Wonderland in 1982.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:45Elizabeth Day?

  I've got no context for this, so tell me the story.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Okay, all right. Well.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  I love Alice in Wonderland. I love her in every one of her incarnations. I cannot tell you how much Alice in Wonderland stuff there is in my house. And anyway, there was an amazing actress and director named Eva Legalian, who was an actor-manager in the early through the mid 20th century. And I was a fan of hers. She was actually queer. And actually, it's interesting, that was not why I was a fan of hers. I was a fan of hers, I didn't even know that she was queer for a long time. But actually,

• 26:29Speaker 01

  so she had a company called The Civic Repertory Company. And they famously did Alice in Wonderland multiple times in their history. And they would do the costumes, just they looked like they walked right out of the book, the Tenille drawing. So, and she actually, I learned much later, that the, other than loving Alice in Wonderland, the reason that they did that work, was that her lover, the two of them did the Red Queen and the White Queen. And it's so hard to find a vehicle if you have two leading ladies in the company. Yes.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  When I made my stage debut at the age of 14, in a play, The Philadelphia Story, it was directed by Ellis Rab, who had a few years before directed The Royal Family, which was Edna Ferber, George Kaufman play. And Eva Legalian had been it as the old lady, the matriarch of this, of the, basically, the Bar Mores, who dies on stage, incredible. Anyway, so I sort of felt a kinship to Eva Legalian. And I thought, I'm 14, I'm 15, I have long blonde hair, I look like, I am Alice. And I thought she would see that. And then I would get to, you know, be in this world, like a living embodiment, you

• 27:59Speaker 01

  know, come to life of the book. But I think she thought I was too young. And she cast Kate Burton, who is wonderful, and maybe 10 years older. She was just out of Yale. And, you know, but it still pains me that, you know, that I did not get to experience

• 28:17Speaker 01

  You know, being in a play with Eva Legalian and and playing that role. Although I have to say, there are a few fictional or historical characters that I that are some from my childhood that I so, um, I don't know, they live inside me. And Emily Dickinson is another one, and I did get to play her. And so if I guess if if I had to choose between being Alice or being Emily, I guess I would choose.

• 28:44Elizabeth Day?

  And and forgive my ignorance, but is Eva Legalian still alive?

• 28:48Speaker 01

  No, no, no, she was very old at the time.

• 28:50Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, and did you ever get a chance to?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I mean, I auditioned for her. But and I was very young and inexperienced, but, you know.

• 29:00Elizabeth Day?

  Someone you admired not quite seeing you as you saw yourself.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly.

• 29:06Elizabeth Day?

  I I'm fascinated by your focus. And I also knew what I wanted to do very, very young. And I don't know where it came from. It just appeared. It was just in my head.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:18Elizabeth Day?

  What, uh, when did you know that you wanted to be an actor?

• 29:21Speaker 01

  My mother had tried to be an actress and failed. And she tried for a long time and she went to Yale Drama School and she studied with Uta Hagen and she did all these things. But she finally, after about 15 years, she was like, I'm not getting anywhere. I'm gonna stop.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  But that that part of her never stopped, there, you know. And so my childhood was, you know, in a wonderful way, but in a total indoctrination way. My childhood was filled with going to the theater and going to the movies and going to see old movies and endlessly talking about them and dissecting them. And I actually think now that I've started to become a director also, I realized that I think my mother was more of a director than a than an actress. Because so much of my childhood was spent going to stuff and being like, now what was wrong here? What didn't work?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  And she said to me once, you can learn a lot more about how to make a play or how to make a movie or. You know, a piece of art from a failed piece of art. Because then you can see, you can see the spine. You can see the stitches. You can see the bones. You can see the construction because it hasn't quite worked. So it was a very natural thing. You know, my, you know, people whose parents or dads or whatever love sports, they grow up wanting to be athletes. Well, my mother loved the theater. And so I grew up wanting to be on stage.

• 30:59Elizabeth Day?

  You mentioned that your parents divorced when you were six.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  They actually separated. They didn't divorce for a very long time, but they did separate. Yeah.

• 31:05Elizabeth Day?

  And your mother was the main breadwinner?

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Always.

• 31:09Elizabeth Day?

  And she had this very interesting job on a quiz show?

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Yes. So my mother, my mother, when she came, she was from Chicago. When she came to New York, um, she was trying to be an actress. She would do freelance for a friend of hers who worked for Goodson and Todman, who were the game show people. Because the game shows used to be in New York. They eventually all went out to California, but they used to be in New York. And she would write questions for, you know. So she worked on a lot of, she worked on shows, I don't know. I've Got a Secret and Play Your Hunch and What's My Line? And then when I was a kid, she worked on a show called To Tell the Truth, which, um, I think they've remade not that long ago. And it involves a panel of celebrities who are judges and are guessing.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  And there are three people there who are all pretending to be one person, the same person. And one of them really is the person and two of them are not. And so the judges have to guess.

• 32:09Elizabeth Day?

  And you were on it?

• 32:10Speaker 01

  I was on it four times, but only once as a pretender.

• 32:14Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  I was on it, like they had a guy who was like, doesn't sound very interesting, but like a toy.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Inventor for Fisher Fisher Price toys or something. And so at the beginning, the show opened with a bunch of kids on stage playing with toys and those were all me and my friends. And there was one, a person who made like records about caring for your pet for kids. And I came on with my cat and things like that. So, but once, when I was nine, I was on pretending to be a young Blue Ribbon winning horseback rider who rode a Shetland pony, which is like a mini little horse.

• 32:55Elizabeth Day?

  Did you convince them?

• 32:57Speaker 01

  I, you know, my mother told me later that when there were children on as contestants, which there weren't very often, the panel was always sure that every child got a vote.

• 33:08Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  So, one of the, one of the panelists did vote for me, but it was probably a mercy vote, I think.

• 33:17Elizabeth Day?

  I find it so interesting, the balance between truth telling and pretense in acting.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:24Elizabeth Day?

  How much do you think acting is truth and how much is it pretense?

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it was very interesting when I ran for governor. So two things, one is when I played Nancy Reagan, I read, I'm not a fan of the Reagans, but I read a lot about them and I tried to steep myself in them and try to get into their thinking. And, you know, a lot of people attacked Ronald Reagan for being an actor, basically. And they said, what kind of a preparation is that for being a governor or president? And he said, I actually can't imagine not having been an actor, trying to do this job. Because there are so many things in common, like, first of all, people know who you are. That's a plus. You're used to interacting with the public.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  You're used to having someone hand you a sheet of pages moments before and you have to stand up in front of people and make them sound like they're your own thoughts and ideas. But what, and, and so I agree with him about all those things. But the thing that I found really difficult is when you are running for office, or probably when you're in office, you have to project a sense of optimism and confidence all the time.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  And you have to say things that you know are not true. Like, we're gonna win, even when you know you're not gonna win.

• 34:50Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  That's the tip of the iceberg. You have to say many, you know. And so I actually feel that acting is almost entirely about telling the truth. That it's it's about trying to believe the conditions of the character. And then just reacting as you would. And that's what makes it seem real, is that it's coming from a real. If you believe it, then you're really reacting. Like, my mother used to say, you should never, if your, if your character has to cry, you should never try to cry. No one in life tries to cry. You can't try to cry. It doesn't work.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  You can try, you can think of something painful or beautiful and try not to cry. Because that's what we do in life. We try not to cry. Or she said, if you, if you have to play someone with a limp, don't try to limp. No one tries to limp. Distort your foot and do your absolute best to walk well. Because that's what people who have an impairment do. So I think, for me, acting is almost entirely about telling the truth.

• 36:04Elizabeth Day?

  Amazing advice. What an answer. Thank you. Before we get on to your third failure, I hope you'll indulge me because Amadeus is one of my top five favorite films of all time. And you were in it.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  I was.

• 36:16Elizabeth Day?

  And I just want to know something about filming it. I actually interviewed Simon Callow for this podcast. And I asked him the same question. So what was filming Amadeus like?

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Okay, well, so I was 16 when I did it. I was 16 and I turned 17. And of course, I had seen the play when it came here with Ian McKellen and Tim Curry and Jane Seymour. And I had been thrilled by the play. And I was a huge, as all my friends were, fan of Milos Forman from, from Hair and from Ragtime. I had not yet seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but, so the combination of these two things. Also, I had never been to Europe and it was shooting in Prague. So, I mean, I wanted to be in this so badly. And there was this wonderful part that wasn't in the play of this maid who, who Salieri plants in the Mozart household as a, as a mole.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  And Milos auditioned me a million times and they thought there was something funny about the way I breathed through my nose or something. They sent me to a speech person at Juilliard, all this kind of stuff. And so finally I was cast. And I knew by then the lay of the land, I was like 16, so I'd been acting for four or five years at that point. And I knew it was five months in Europe and I knew I was very low down on the totem pole. And so that they were, I knew that they were gonna do, they were just gonna put me in a hotel for five months and pull me out for a handful of days. So I went to them and very respectfully said, I want to be in this film so badly, I can't

• 37:54Speaker 01

  even tell you how much, but I would just ask, please, if you don't use me for more than 48 hours, that I get sent home. And because of my schooling. And so they agreed. And the very first time they flew me out, I think they were testing me, they flew me out for a fitting and a 45 minute rehearsal and then flew me back to see whether I would balk. And I did not. And luckily, my character, almost every scene she's in, except for the funeral that they put me in at the last minute, it's all interior. So it's not like they have to worry about rain, you know. So they did that. But it was, he, I mean,

• 38:35Speaker 01

  I've worked with so many wonderful directors, but he was my favorite director. He was my favorite. Because I, because my mother was my first and really mainly only acting teacher. And so being directed always feels like love and attention from my mother. So you can't direct me enough. Yeah. And that's what Milos is like. He's constantly directing you. He's like right there with you. And he even directs you within the take. You know, Murray Abraham, who played Salieri, who came from the stage, he was very watchful of Murray, that Murray didn't get too ornate or too big. And he would, he would scream in a friendly way,

• 39:20Speaker 01

  but all the time, I want to back up from the microphone, he would scream to Murray, "Stop acting!" Like in the middle of the take. Stop it.

• 39:33Elizabeth Day?

  This is amazing.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:35Elizabeth Day?

  And did he, did he ever scream at you? Did he ever give you?

• 39:37Speaker 01

  He didn't scream at me, but he was so, he was so watchful that he saw everything I did. And he would work again and again and again and again. And that is my absolute favorite way of working. Till he got just what he wanted.

• 39:52Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, well, it really worked.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  It really worked. And I have to say, you know, I feel like Milos's movies endure because they're so earthy.

• 40:03Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  And as much as I love the, loved the play and loved Ian McKellen, like it was so English. And these people aren't English, you know? These people are German and Italian. And I feel like it was such a surprising idea. We had Roy Dottreese, who's English, but by and large, it was an American cast. And I think that he felt, which seems so surprising at the time, that actually Americans were a little closer, even though it was from a, a, a British play, essentially.

• 40:38Elizabeth Day?

  You're so right. There's a, there's a sort of joyous realness to it.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  It's, it's very earthy. It's very earthy and real. And it's not, even though we're dealing with this highfalutin stuff like Mozart, but that's the point, is that Mozart is a genius, but he's not highfalutin at all.

• 40:54Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm. And, and it made me obsessed with Mozart's Requiem. So thank you so much. That was an amazing piece of intel.

• 41:04Elizabeth Day?

  Okay. Final failure is your failure not to be a nightmare when preparing Thanksgiving.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:10Elizabeth Day?

  Every year, you say.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Every year, every year. I'm still working on it. I'm still hoping.

• 41:18Elizabeth Day?

  But one of the things that you have said in the past, where you and Miranda diverged in the early days, was that she did not feel she was a domestic person. She was almost.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  She was, I would say she was anti-domestic.

• 41:33Elizabeth Day?

  Whereas you, I get the impression have leaned into that side of yourself.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:38Elizabeth Day?

  Tell me more about that, about your love of domesticity.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  I make a really wonderful Thanksgiving, but I think it's really unpleasant for my family. And I, I, I hope that I would become less.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Panicked about it as I grew older, but it doesn't seem to be happening. It might, I might be even, I don't know if I'm more panicked because I'm just always panicked about it.

• 42:05Elizabeth Day?

  Talk to me about when your preparations for Thanksgiving start.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Well, this past year was hard because I was shooting the Gilded Age in Newport, Rhode Island. So I, you know, usually they start three or four days before.

• 42:21Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, I thought you might say three or four months.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 42:25Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, so when do you become a nightmare? Are you visibly a nightmare to other people or is it internal?

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes, my, my son, we were at the table with my wife's family the other day. And he said, Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday because mom screams all the time. And my middle son very sweetly said, maybe it's because you don't help enough. But I don't know, my, my kids are, I think my kids are very sweet about trying to help. I just, it's, I don't know, it's like an existential panic that things are not going to turn out.

• 43:06Elizabeth Day?

  And where does that come from?

• 43:08Speaker 01

  You know, I got cancer in 2006 and my wife, we hadn't been together that long. And she's, she was very panicked and I was really not. Partly because my mother had had cancer and survived it and it, you know. And I think how one reacts to cancer in particular, so much has to do with your experience of it. And if you have no experience of it, it seems like it's a death sentence, right?

• 43:40Speaker 01

  And I feel like there are a lot of, like running for governor, you know, I was very scared, but you know, I think there are a lot of big things in life that I can take on. But I think it's the it's the little things that, you know, like I'm a terrible flyer.

• 43:57Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  And I really mean I'm a terrible, like, I do it, I get on the plane, I know it's in my head, but I can't help, you know, when there's turbulence, I I'm vocal and I cannot help myself. And I, you know, if I'm next to a stranger, I say to the stranger, hi, we don't know each other, I'm a very bad flyer and I might grab you. I'm sorry, it doesn't mean anything. I know the plane will be fine, but I can't help myself.

• 44:28Elizabeth Day?

  What a moving response. And you're so right that those seemingly little things are the things that almost open up the stitching of life.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 44:39Elizabeth Day?

  And you suddenly become aware of its fragility.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:43Elizabeth Day?

  I'm the same with airplane turbulence, by the way, so we'd be no good if we were sitting next to each other.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Right, well, we'd be grabbing each other and screaming. Do you scream? I bet you don't scream now.

• 44:51Elizabeth Day?

  I don't scream.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  I scream.

• 44:52Elizabeth Day?

  You scream.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  I go, ah!

• 44:54Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, my god.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  I do, I really do. And I often grab the seat in front of me, which surely will have a stranger on it.

• 45:01Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  I might have a family member next to me, but the poor person ahead of me.

• 45:06Elizabeth Day?

  Your family, and I know you get asked about this so much, but I just think it's such a beautiful family. And how you have gone about creating your family, and obviously Thanksgiving is such a family focus.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 45:20Elizabeth Day?

  I would love to know about your family and how it all works and how you got to where you are.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Well, so my boyfriend and I, we were together for 15 years and we had two children, who are now respectively, 28 or 29. It's when you get, Sam was born in 96, so that would make him 20, 29 at the end of the year, not yet. So my kids are respectively 28, 22, and 14. And the last one was had, I did not give birth to him, my wife gave birth to him. And we had him with a male couple, who are both his dads. And and my my ex, we were never married,

• 46:10Speaker 01

  but he is married to a woman who is a widow, who was a widow, and who has two children, two twins, from her her first husband. And so, yes, we have, um, we have between us five children, but I think I calculated at one time, because I do worry about how many people there are in the world. And I thought, well, we have five children. But in order to get those five children, there were 11 adults involved.

• 46:40Elizabeth Day?

  Is it a scary time to be an unconventional family in America?

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Not in New York, I would say. I mean, I think, you know, we're not just a family with queer parents, right? We're a family with, you know, our nuclear family has a trans kid in it, and my wife's sister's family has a trans kid in it. And I think that's more scary. Um, you know, nothing is really off the table. I mean, I suppose they could try and abolish gay marriage, but I, I don't feel like they could do it

• 47:28Speaker 01

  everywhere, I guess is what I, what I feel. And I feel in some ways, less worried about us, or even our kids. I feel more worried about like, my mother-in-law, and like, is her social security going to go away? Or, you know, my, my, my wife's father, we just, this past weekend, we had my wife's, my father-in-law's memorial, and he's

• 47:54Elizabeth Day?

  I'm so sorry.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Thank you. And he's from France, and his relatives, some of his relatives, um, happened to be, they were in Canada at the time of the memorial. And we were originally like, great, you can come. And then, things got so scary with, you don't know who they're gonna snatch, and what they're gonna do with them. So, we were like, I don't think you should come. And they were like, yeah, we don't think we should come.

• 48:21Elizabeth Day?

  Wow. Well, we were talking about Thanksgiving, and I'm thankful for you. I'm thankful for people like you, who are courageous, and speak up, and speak out, and live their truth. I wonder if I could ask you a final question, given that we have been talking about Thanksgiving. What one thing are you most thankful for right now?

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Oh Cynthia.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  I'm most thankful for young people.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  I just feel like I see my kids

• 48:58Speaker 01

  and my ex's kids and I just feel like these are such impressive people. And I feel as hard as we want to fight for things like, you know, fighting climate change or fighting intolerance

• 49:19Speaker 01

  or fighting, you know,

• 49:23Speaker 01

  the dehumanizing of Palestinian people.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  I think our young people have a better roadmap and I think it's important for us to follow them. Because I think no matter how hard you try and see, you come to the age that I am, which I think is 59, I think. Yeah, 59. You can't erase the decades of, well, this is how it is. This is always how it's been. And I think young people can say, why? And we won't accept it. And we can do something better. We can do something revolutionary that a person my age,

• 50:10Speaker 01

  no matter how much goodwill I have, I wouldn't see.

• 50:16Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you so, so much for this beautiful conversation.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 50:20Elizabeth Day?

  And thank you for coming on How to Fail.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 50:25Elizabeth Day?

  Thanks so much for listening and watching. This June on How to Fail, we're all about celebrating wellness from the inside. If you'd like to hear more on this, go and listen to my episode with Vicky Patterson, brought to you by Ala Lacto Free. The link is in the episode description. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently it helps other people know that we exist.