Viola Davis

Viola Davis can do everything but bake. Amy hangs with the award-winning actress and talks about why she loves bad kids, following Meryl Streep around on set, and jumping out of a plane to be cool for her daughter. Host: Amy PoehlerGuests: Julius Tennon and Viola DavisExecutive producers: Bill Simmons, Amy Poehler, and Jenna Weiss-BermanFor Paper Kite Productions: Executive producer Jenna Weiss-Berman, coordinator Sam Green, and supervising producer Joel LovellFor The Ringer: Supervising producers Juliet Litman, Sean Fennessey, and Mallory Rubin; video producers Jack Wilson and Aleya Zenieris; audio producer Kaya McMullen; social producer Bridget Geerlings; video editor Drew van Steenbergen; and booker Kat SpillaneOriginal music: Amy Miles Use coupon code ‘EATCESAR10’ at Cesar.com for 10% offShop your favorite local grocers on Uber Eats! https://www.ubereats.com/brand/kroger 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.

• 0:00Amy Poehler?

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• 0:38Amy Poehler?

  Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Good Hang. We have the best of the best. We have the GOAT. We have Viola Davis joining us. And man, we talk about so many fun things. We talk about growing up in Rhode Island and Boston and how we get rid of those accents. We talk about our mutual best friend, Meryl Streep. We talk about the time she jumped out of a plane and all the swearing she did on the way down. And we talk about the new book that she co-wrote with James Patterson called Judge Stone, out now. So, we're gonna get into a lot of great stuff and we're thrilled to have her here. And as we always do, we talk to someone at the beginning of the show that knows our guest or is a fan of our guest and has a question for us. And we talk well behind their back.

• 1:22Amy Poehler?

  And boy, we've got just a gem of a person. Julius Tenen, Viola Davis's husband, partner, producing partner. Incredible, loving, supportive, wonderful man who makes us all believe in love. He's the only spouse that we've allowed to be on the show so far, and the expectation is high. So I cannot wait to talk to Julius. Julius, thank you for joining us. Hi.

• 1:56Amy Poehler?

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• 2:40Amy Poehler?

  Hello, Julius? Can you hear me?

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Hey. I can. Hey.

• 2:45Amy Poehler?

  Hi. It's such a pleasure to meet you.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  It's a pleasure to meet you, too. And I just want to say quickly that we love you. And you're always amazing and funny as hell and cool and all that stuff. So, so nice to meet you.

• 2:59Amy Poehler?

  Julius, thank you so much.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  You're welcome.

• 3:04Amy Poehler?

  You got me blushing already. Thank you for saying that. I want you to know that we-

• 3:08Speaker 01

  I mean it. I mean it.

• 3:10Amy Poehler?

  Well, I can tell that about you. I think you say what you mean. You and Viola.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes, we do.

• 3:17Amy Poehler?

  Thank you for that. We, you know, so we do this thing at the beginning of whenever we interview someone, we talk to someone that knows them really well and we get a question for them. And we just talk well behind their back. And I want you to know, you are the first spouse that we have spoken to among all of our guests.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  I feel, I feel honored.

• 3:38Amy Poehler?

  And I think it's because you two seem to actually really like each other.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  We kind of do. We kind of do.

• 3:46Amy Poehler?

  Now, pleasure to meet you, Julius. You know, you're an actor, writer, producer. You're the president of GV Productions, which is the company that you and Viola and others run. And you've got amazing projects that you've done and are getting ready to do. But can I start by just asking you to take us back to the day that you and Viola met on set?

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. That was incredible. It was 1999. It was City of Angels. I was playing an anesthesiologist. She was Nurse Lynette Poehler. And I was passing blood to her. And I was dating a girl at the time that I wasn't so happy with. And then so I said, wow, this lady looks like she could be somebody nice I could maybe give my card to. So at the end of the day, I gave her my card and I had my shirt on. The story is, Viola said, if my shirt had been off, she would have never called me. But I had my shirt on and I gave her my card. And I said, hey, if you ever want to hang out, whatever, whatever, give me a call. Well, she did. A month later, she called me. I had literally forgot about it, but I hadn't forgot about her.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  So when I heard her voice, I went, hey. And then she invited me to a cast thing for the main cast because I was recurring on the show. And we went out on our first date almost 27 years ago. And here we are. 23 years married coming up this summer, 27 years this October. So it's been beautiful. But that's how, that's how it started.

• 5:18Amy Poehler?

  Oh, I love that story. And I love that you guys met just your typical way, just passing blood to each other.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, just passing the regular stuff, just passing blood, you know. And she kind of fit in those, you know, she fit in those things pretty good. And I was like, hmm, okay. Let me give this girl my card.

• 5:42Amy Poehler?

  I mean, what's so sweet about hearing the two of you talk about each other is you both met each other when you were coming up.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 5:54Amy Poehler?

  And what's it like to be, you know, two young actors, working hard to make ends meet and, you know, being in love?

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Listen, it's tough. Listen, when I met Viola, she was scared to tell me she had bad credit. I said, hey, baby, it's okay. I got good credit. You know, but it was, it's one of those tough things. But you know, Amy, it's about supporting one another. One, the other one supports the other equally. And, uh, and that's what we did. We just went about kind of loving on each other and being happy for one another with whatever dropped, whatever happened. And so, uh, just so happened that Viola's career just really started to take off and it's been a beautiful thing. And, uh, I'm glad to be a part of it. People say, how do you handle it? How do you do what you do, whatever? I said, because I know who I am. See, for a man, it starts with you knowing who you are.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  I don't care how powerful your woman is or what she's doing. If your woman knows that you can handle yourself and that you know who you are, then she's gonna go, wow, hey, my guy's good. And so that's the way Viola and I have roles. So it's about me supporting her and, and vice versa. So it's just been easy for us.

• 7:05Amy Poehler?

  Oh, Julius. Everyone listening right now is just going, ah, Julius. I'm just gonna play that on a loop.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Well, thank you, and it is the truth.

• 7:20Amy Poehler?

  But you're right.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  You have to know who you are.

• 7:23Amy Poehler?

  You do, you're right.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Especially in our business, because it can be so competitive, even though we're not competing against each other. I'm a man. You're a woman, but we're not competing against each other, but we're in the same business. And sometimes that intersection, when one is elevating and the other is kind of like not, it can create a lot of different kind of weird kind of energy and things in a relationship. And so, listen, what this is what we do, it's not who we are. This acting thing and all this what we do, it's not who we are. So we figured that out early on. And so it's just been always easy because there's always been a support of one another.

• 8:01Amy Poehler?

  Well, it's a beautiful thing because you're you're reminding me of just the the word self in the phrase self-esteem. It really is your own work to do always.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Amy, I can say that I met Viola almost 27 years ago. She's the same woman I met when I met her all those years ago, hadn't changed a bit. But everything that's happened to her, she's still the same Viola. And I think that's what makes people just so drawn to Viola because she's so real and so authentic.

• 8:29Amy Poehler?

  Can we talk about the woman thing? Because congratulations on that.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. What a, yeah.

• 8:36Amy Poehler?

  What was that like making that together?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  It was a great journey. It was great to be able to do a movie like that because a movie like that hadn't been done in Hollywood ever.

• 8:44Amy Poehler?

  That's right.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  And so be able to do a movie like that and have it come out so beautiful, so accepted by the audiences on a global scale. It meant a whole, whole lot to Viola and myself. And so we just went all in despite the challenges, despite not necessarily having enough money to make it, but still saying, you know what? Be damned, we're just gonna go make it anyway because we know it's gonna have a cultural impact and it's gonna be long lasting. And as it turned out, you know, AFI chose it that year to be one of the great films that was made that year. And so we're just so proud to have done that together and battling it out, you know, just battling it out, fighting for what you believe in and what you want, you know?

• 9:30Speaker 01

  As hard as it is, Amy, you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. If you want something, you have to go for it. And that's what Viola and I continually with our team, because I'm a big team guy.

• 9:41Amy Poehler?

  Well, I was gonna say, you're a football, ex-football player.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  I am a ex-football player.

• 9:44Amy Poehler?

  Did you ever coach?

• 9:46Speaker 01

  I never coached.

• 9:47Amy Poehler?

  Because you have a coach vibe.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  But I was, you know, I wanted to act. I was kind of like, I looked at, you know, my idols back in the day when I was thinking about acting and playing football. You know, it was Jim Brown, Bernie Casey, Fred Williamson, some of the old school guys from way back in the day when I was saying, shit, they could do it, I could do it. So, you know, and so that was kind of a thing. And, uh, but I always loved the arts. I always loved it. It started with poetry and then, you know, obviously.

• 10:14Amy Poehler?

  Well, you have, you have Julius, you have, you have a real coach vibe and you do something that I absolutely love, which is every other sentence you say my name.

• 10:23Amy Poehler?

  And boy, does it work. Every time he's naming, I'm like, yes.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Hey, Amy.

• 10:27Amy Poehler?

  He's talking to me. I love it so much. Um, okay. I'm sure you've, uh, you've got a sense now of what Viola likes to be asked and what she like is asked constantly about and doesn't want to answer anymore. Like, you know, there's always these questions that are, you know, people think they're asking for the first time or topics that, is there anything you would, if you don't mind helping me out to make sure I don't get into an area or a question that she's like, oh, this again?

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I think it would be fun to ask her some questions about some of the funny moments that we had together. This one is ask her the origin of Zuni.

• 11:09Amy Poehler?

  Okay.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Ask her, say, Viola, what's this whole thing about Zuni? What is that thing? Well, let me just tell you a little bit. It's, it's, it's a animated Muppet cartoon that I grew up with. And the show was called Fireball XL5.

• 11:25Amy Poehler?

  What?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  And Zuni was one of the endearing characters and they were going on space exploration. It was about that. And I was a kid. I loved that show. And so that's a pet name I gave Viola. I call her Zuni. And, and the reason I do, because I love Zuni so much and I love Viola. So that is so endearing to me. So when I'm calling her Zuni, it's not because of what Zuni looks like. It's because I love the hell out of Zuni.

• 11:48Amy Poehler?

  Okay. But I'm going to have to Google Zuni and see what Zuni.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  You gotta Google them real quick and you'll see Fireball XL5.

• 11:55Amy Poehler?

  Okay.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  And you'll see Zuni. But I love Zuni. So ask her about Zuni.

• 11:59Amy Poehler?

  Okay.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Other thing is ask her about our first theatrical experience, Shadow of a Gunman.

• 12:06Amy Poehler?

  Ooh.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Just say, you and Julius went to a play, the Shadow of a Gunman thing, what is, what is that, Viola? Give, give us, she'll tell you, it's kind of a funny story. You know, the, the regular questions about the business and all that. We can always talk about projects and stuff like that. And she's great to talk about that stuff. But she, she oftentimes doesn't like to talk about the mundane stuff that you have to answer a thousand times. But it always surprises me. She's always able to answer this stuff as if it was new. I'm like, going, how the hell you do that, Viola? You know, like, yeah, I'm like, why you doing that? Okay. Well, she always going, people think I can pull a rabbit out of my ass. And I'm going, well, you kind of can.

• 12:44Amy Poehler?

  Well, Julius, I know, um, you guys, you're the best couple in the world. And you're, we're not going to be able to interview any other spouse after this because you've set such a high bar.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Well.

• 13:01Amy Poehler?

  And not like it's a competition, but you've won a gold medal in relationships.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure being with you this morning.

• 13:09Amy Poehler?

  Same. Love talking to you. Thank you so much for your time and, and it's such a pleasure. Thanks again.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  You too.

• 13:14Amy Poehler?

  Okay. Take care. Bye.

• 13:19Amy Poehler?

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• 14:01Amy Poehler?

  Viola Davis is here. I'm so, so happy that you're here.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  I'm happy to be here. I've, I've been like, not working for the longest time.

• 14:10Amy Poehler?

  Congrats.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  So I feel like it's, I feel like I'm coming out of hibernation.

• 14:15Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  And I'm like, holy shit, this is what I do.

• 14:17Amy Poehler?

  Well, I gotta tell you, we gotta start by saying you were the first EGOT we've had. And probably the last.

• 14:24Amy Poehler?

  I mean, that

• 14:26Speaker 02

  There's not a lot of us.

• 14:27Amy Poehler?

  No, there's like eighteen, nineteen.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  I have to tell you that it wasn't until I won the Oscar for Fences and someone said, "You're one step away from an EGOT." I never thought of it before. I didn't even think about it. It wasn't like that sort of thing for me.

• 14:44Amy Poehler?

  Oh, that's so cool. I mean, it's just, it is. And again, not something anyone's like thinking about when they're starting out, but just.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  It's cool.

• 14:54Amy Poehler?

  It's cool.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  It is, it's cool.

• 14:56Amy Poehler?

  It's cool.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  It's not gonna be on my gravestone, Amy, but it's cool.

• 14:59Amy Poehler?

  It is so cool. On my gravestone, it's gonna be that I interviewed you, the EGOT winner. And also, before we get to her, I just gotta say, the Timmy, Timothy, Timotee, Shalamee shout out was so cool.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  Oh, and my daughter was, that was it for her. She's fifteen, that was it. Timothy Shalamee, mama, ooh.

• 15:21Amy Poehler?

  I mean, good company to be in. And of course, we all agreed with him, but you spoke about it, and I love what you said about how you loved his speech. What did you love about it? Because I did too. Like, the essence of what he was saying in that speech.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Well, because what I loved about the speech is he has a spirit of excellence. You know, some people,

• 15:41Speaker 02

  I always negotiate, Amy, so if you feel like I take a long pause, I'm just negotiating what I'm about to say, so I don't step on toes and I don't work ever again in the industry. But some people don't have the spirit of excellence. They have this spirit of mistaken their presence for the event.

• 16:00Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  For mediocrity, for just beauty. But it's great that he had the spirit of excellence without putting me in it.

• 16:08Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  At all. I'm not saying that. But I love that with young actors.

• 16:13Amy Poehler?

  Me too. And also, I love when people are.

• 16:18Amy Poehler?

  Uh, I guess openly ambitious and in real time saying, I really want to try to get the best out of myself and others, like when they say it.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 16:29Amy Poehler?

  I love that.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Ambition too is different than ego.

• 16:33Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  And I saw the ambition in him and he happens to be incredibly talented.

• 16:38Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  So what it's like, I like young people, listen, just like I love bad kids, I love a bad kid, like a two-year-old bad kid, someone who comes, you know, I had a little bad kid at my wedding, my first wedding, I had three ceremonies, Amy, but my first wedding, I had a little bad kid who stuck his whole finger in my cake. I thought it was the best thing in the world, so I love a bad kid, but I also love young people who have an attitude, I do.

• 17:04Amy Poehler?

  Ooh, why?

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Listen, the world is gonna get at you, it's gonna kick your ass, just leave you in the dumpster, so it's really great when you go out in the world and you have the chutzpah.

• 17:14Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  You have that self-possession, right?

• 17:17Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  That's what I want with my kid, I was so, so much of a good girl.

• 17:21Amy Poehler?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  You know, with shitty boyfriends who made me feel like shit and I was just still like worshiping at their feet, so yeah, I like, yeah, like, I like attitude.

• 17:32Amy Poehler?

  Do you think that's an east coast thing, cause we're both east coast, I grew up in Boston, you Rhode Island, you weren't born there, but you spent most of your time in Rhode Island.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Okay, Boston.

• 17:40Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, and what's the difference between Boston and Rhode Island?

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Nothing, you still say Florida, you know, you parked the car and your father and your father and your mother, oh my god, I eat grinders and cabinets.

• 17:52Amy Poehler?

  Okay, that's different.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  And drink from the bubba.

• 17:54Amy Poehler?

  Oh yeah, bubba.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  The first time I said bubba was at.

• 18:01Amy Poehler?

  Which is a water fountain anywhere else.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  And I said, you know where the bubba is? And guy literally, he stood there for the longest time, he was like, what the fuck are you talking about?

• 18:13Amy Poehler?

  Totally.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  And he finally said the water fountain, I was like, water fountain with the statues?

• 18:19Amy Poehler?

  Well, did you say pocketbook instead of purse?

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Oh, no, pocketbook all the way.

• 18:24Amy Poehler?

  Pocketbook and.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  And wicked good.

• 18:26Amy Poehler?

  Wicked, everything is wicked good. I mean, my parents would, they would go into a bar, they'd be like, can we have a beer? And they'd be like, oh, you're from Boston, and they'd be like, how do you know? Well, just one word. There's a part of growing up on the East Coast that gives you a directness that I I wouldn't want to trade. I like that about people.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:45Amy Poehler?

  But the other side of that coin can be like a roughness, like a just a toughness and roughness.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  And you know, Amy, I'm black, so um comes with a different

• 18:55Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  set of rules

• 18:56Amy Poehler?

  That's right.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  of roughness.

• 18:57Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  You know, and so

• 18:59Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  you know, I came from plain spoken people.

• 19:03Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  You know, I always say it's like, it's like

• 19:09Speaker 02

  I'm negotiating.

• 19:11Amy Poehler?

  Oh, my God, I love the sound of your negotiating. We should put some music over it when you're thinking of what to say.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, Tupac, you can put Tupac music. But I just remember vis- visiting someone's at one point and I took a bus.

• 19:24Amy Poehler?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  And I got off the bus and I told my friend, well, make sure the person who's coming to pick me up, they know who I am, okay? I waited there, Amy, thirty minutes, maybe longer, waiting for the person to pick me up. Finally, I find them, I go to my friend and I said, why couldn't they find me? And he said, well, I described you. I said, well, how did you describe me? Oh, I just said you were cute and you had long hair. Amy, I'm black with long braids. I said, did you tell him I was black? I was the only black girl on the bus. He was like, oh, I didn't feel like I could say that, you know?

• 20:02Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  But the thing with where you're talking about plain spoken thing about black people, they call it as it is.

• 20:08Amy Poehler?

  That's right.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  You know, that black girl who come out and and she got the tattoo on her left titty and she got one tooth coming out of her mouth, it's that girl.

• 20:16Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  So it's it's that sort of plain spokenness I grew up with, with my mom and dad. They were that plain spoken.

• 20:23Amy Poehler?

  Well, you talk, I mean, you've spoken beautifully about your childhood, growing up and the difficulties in it and the way that you've like been processing it in real time as an adult now and but I think and I don't know if this is the same for you, as I get older, I start trying to look at my my origin, the place of origin and figure out what gifts it gave me and what pain it gave me at the same time, right?

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:46Amy Poehler?

  And there is this something about growing up in the East Coast, I don't know, that sticks with you.

• 20:53Amy Poehler?

  And I know this sounds silly, but like the accent that we just did, like the accent sticks around. I always say like when I'm angry or really excited, my accent comes out sometimes.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:05Amy Poehler?

  Does your a- accent?

• 21:06Speaker 02

  My accent comes out too, even when I'm acting.

• 21:09Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  Especially in an emotional scene and it just surprises me. It'll jump out at me. And you know, of course I went to a school in New York that kills your accent.

• 21:20Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  You you'll get thrown out if you still have an accent at Juilliard by your fourth year.

• 21:25Amy Poehler?

  Right.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  And by my second year, they warned me and said, you cannot come back to the school until you fix up whatever the hell this is going on. And so I remember like every single day for two hours, practicing how to say father instead of father.

• 21:44Amy Poehler?

  Father.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  And and you know, at Juilliard, when you speak too, it when you're walking around, they put a pencil in your mouth.

• 21:50Amy Poehler?

  Hmm.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  During rehearsal, they put a pencil in your mouth to see where your tongue is when you're articulating your sentences. So I was traumatized into just catapulting that, not realizing that's a beautiful thing.

• 22:05Amy Poehler?

  Yeah. Have you ever got to play anyone with a, you know, with a Rhode Island accent or Boston accent? And like let it rip?

• 22:13Speaker 02

  No, Amy. Nobody's writing a black girl from Rhode Island roles.

• 22:17Amy Poehler?

  Well, maybe we do a road trip movie is all I'm saying.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  I need to write it.

• 22:21Amy Poehler?

  Maybe you need to, I mean, I mean, you're, what you're talking about going to Juilliard and and you've talked a lot about it and your training there and like what you took from it. And before you got there, who told you or when did you have that feeling of I wanna, I wanna be an actor? It's the reason why I ask, I was, I'm, I'm the daughter of, of, of school teachers. No one I knew was an actor. I didn't know any actors. I didn't, like, of course, I knew famous people in movies and TV, but I didn't know that would be a job of mine. But I was in school plays and people would come up and say, you were good.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:58Amy Poehler?

  You know, like you hung in there.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  And it surprises you, right?

• 23:01Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  But but for me, it's um, it's gradual. So it's hard to pinpoint one person in one moment. But I swear to you, the more I think about it, I have to pinpoint the moment that we won the skit contest at Jenks Park when I was eight years old. Amy, that was it.

• 23:21Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Because I was so shy.

• 23:23Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  You know, and brutally shy.

• 23:26Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  Like to the point where I couldn't speak in public. And so we did the skit, you know, and I played the oo wee kid from That's My Mama. That's Ted Lang. I don't know if you remember that show. I don't want to age you or whatever.

• 23:39Amy Poehler?

  What show?

• 23:39Speaker 02

  It's called That's My Mama.

• 23:41Amy Poehler?

  Okay.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  And he was a oo wee kid. He was a gossipy.

• 23:44Amy Poehler?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  He would come in and go, oo wee, oo wee. I got it, I got it, I'm here to report it. So I was a oo wee kid. My sister Dolores was um, what's his name from Let's Make a Deal, Montel.

• 23:57Amy Poehler?

  Oh, uh, Monty Hall.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Monty Hall, she was in Monty Hall. My sister Anita was uh, was uh, Esther, Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son. And my sister um, uh, Diane was Fred Sanford.

• 24:10Amy Poehler?

  Oh, my God.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  I think I put, I have it in my book, but we created a uh, a game show, sort of reality show, where we had to come on and tell a story of how you saved a life. And whoever had the best story won a million dollars.

• 24:25Amy Poehler?

  What were you, what are you in the, in the birth order of the sisters?

• 24:28Speaker 02

  Um, next to the youngest. I have one younger sister who was my baby.

• 24:33Amy Poehler?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, so wow, so three, so four girls in the same family rehearsing, like doing skits, doing comedy.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  Having rewrites.

• 24:43Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Having rewrites. We had a little wardrobe budget of two dollars and fifty cents. We'd go to Salvation Army and, you know, or raid my mom's closet. The whole thing was, we did the skate contest because we were like, these. Fucking people in this town. Fuck her, fuck her. I mean, people who like were bullies.

• 25:04Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  You know, and we were like, we're gonna stick it to them. We're gonna win. The confidence.

• 25:09Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Once again, the self-possession and just being and everyone in Central Falls was there.

• 25:14Amy Poehler?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  People were sitting on rocks. You know, the newspaper was there, Amy.

• 25:19Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  And we won.

• 25:21Amy Poehler?

  Damn, that must have been so exciting. Viola, I mean, it's gonna be hard for me to not

• 25:29Amy Poehler?

  talk about how great you are this whole time. To me, that story feels like when a athlete realizes like, oh, I'm naturally good at hitting a baseball or something, you know. You are

• 25:43Amy Poehler?

  so good at what you do.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Well, I appreciate that.

• 25:46Amy Poehler?

  And the naturalness of what you do, combined with your determination and skill. It's just so, I mean, I wish I could have a time machine and go back to that day and see you performing because I can only imagine that people pointed at you and said, wow.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know if anyone pointed at me and said, wow, but I pointed at myself.

• 26:10Amy Poehler?

  That's right.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  And I said, wow.

• 26:11Amy Poehler?

  And how do you go from there to Juilliard? How do you? You know what? We'll never know.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  You never know.

• 26:20Amy Poehler?

  But what do you, what do you audition with to get into Juilliard?

• 26:24Speaker 02

  I auditioned with Seeley from Color Purple.

• 26:28Amy Poehler?

  Oh, God.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  That was my dramatic. And then I auditioned with a sort of comedy piece from, um, God damn it, I'm forgetting. Oh, boy. But, um, it was a sort of French comedy.

• 26:42Amy Poehler?

  Like farce, like a farce kind of thing? Uh huh.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:46Amy Poehler?

  I mean, when you were doing Shakespeare, what, do you have a way to memorize Shakespeare? Or like, how do you like to memorize?

• 26:57Speaker 02

  It's a process.

• 26:58Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  So you have to figure out who you are, what you live for, all that other stuff that nobody ever wants to hear about, by the way.

• 27:05Amy Poehler?

  I know.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  It's so boring. It really is.

• 27:07Amy Poehler?

  I know what you mean. I know what you mean. But what is cool about it is I think that the skill involved with the, you know, the hard work, which is the theme, I would say, of looking at your body of work and your life, is that you just have never shied away from hard work. You've never run away from it.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you.

• 27:28Amy Poehler?

  And memorizing is really hard.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Memorizing is, but you know what? Memorizing is the least difficult part of acting.

• 27:37Amy Poehler?

  Oof, I, I think I've, these days, I'm finding it so hard.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  Lately, it's like,

• 27:44Amy Poehler?

  I was just like,

• 27:45Speaker 02

  You know, when you have another actor looking in your face and they're waiting for the line. Now I'm big with this. And then you know that someone has dropped. I did this with Meryl Streep, you know, in Doubt. She had a line, I had a line or whatever, and then, nothing. I'm looking in her face, nothing. She's saying nothing, I'm saying nothing. It's obviously someone dropped the line.

• 28:07Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  And then I realize, she's the one who dropped the line.

• 28:10Amy Poehler?

  Oh my God, thank God.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  Meryl Fagan Streep dropped the line. And so then we did it three more times, three more times that scene. She kept dropping the line.

• 28:20Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  And in my brain, I was like, say the fucking line.

• 28:24Amy Poehler?

  Of course.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  But I can't tell Meryl Streep, you forgot the line, Meryl.

• 28:28Amy Poehler?

  Right, right.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  You keep forgetting the line. And finally, we did it, and she was like, why does something feel off? And I said, because you keep forgetting the line.

• 28:39Speaker 02

  You forgot the line, Meryl.

• 28:42Amy Poehler?

  And she's like, I'm not perfect.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  And then she, no, she just said, well, why didn't you say something?

• 28:51Amy Poehler?

  And you did say something.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did.

• 28:52Amy Poehler?

  But, but the, the, the, um, Shakespeare itself feels just like you really gotta, I guess, your point, you gotta just keep living in it, living in it.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  Well, the, here's the hardest thing about Shakespeare too.

• 29:04Amy Poehler?

  Please.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  What the hell are you saying?

• 29:06Amy Poehler?

  What the fuck are you saying?

• 29:07Speaker 02

  And, and, what are you saying?

• 29:10Amy Poehler?

  I know what you're saying.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  And also the iambic pentameter, and also, boy, actors are gonna kill me for this. But I went to Juilliard, and you don't want it to be boring.

• 29:21Amy Poehler?

  Eg, listen, they're not gonna kill you for that. Here's the thing about Shakespeare. All it is, is people acting it and listening to it and going like this, mm-hmm. And I'm like, you don't know what you're talking about, and we don't know what you're saying.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Well, well, well, well, here's the thing too, and if you don't know what they're saying, then they're not doing it correctly.

• 29:41Amy Poehler?

  Exactly.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  See, but, but you can't say, you know what? It's boring.

• 29:45Amy Poehler?

  I know.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  At Juilliard, I would fall asleep a lot. Oh, my God, I have a friend who, it would piss her off. As soon as I was in the class, we'd have the greatest actors, greatest Shakespearean actors in the world come to the school. Within five minutes, I would be dead asleep. I would be knocked out with my lip hitting my lap. I mean, I would be knocked out. And to this day, she was like, I can't even believe you would do that. I can't believe you would do that. And I said, did you ev, did it ever occur to you that it just didn't excite me?

• 30:18Amy Poehler?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  But that's the thing with Shakespeare. You just don't want it to be boring, because at the end of the day, here's the thing. It's just about people.

• 30:26Amy Poehler?

  That's right.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  Maybe, can be kings and queens.

• 30:28Amy Poehler?

  I mean, it's a soap opera, most of the time, those plays. But is it, I mean, thank you for saying that, because the thing about, like, art in general is if you don't figure out how to find a way in, sometimes you feel really strange when everybody else is in there, and you're like, what is it, where, how come I can't connect?

• 30:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, but Amy, let me tell you something. We going down the road of talking about acting like it's real deep. People don't see it. I see it as deep, you see it as deep, most people do not see it as deep. Because, once again, it's about mistaking your presence for the event.

• 31:05Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  It's about, I mean, my big thing are love scenes. I can't stand love scenes. I can't stand watching them. I can't stand doing them. I'm like.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  I finally said how to get away with murder. I'm not doing any more love scenes anymore. I mean, that's it. You you write a love scene, I'm not doing it. Unless you give me a boyfriend who has a stomach.

• 31:30Amy Poehler?

  Wait, say more.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  A big gut.

• 31:34Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  And you know why?

• 31:36Amy Poehler?

  Why?

• 31:37Speaker 02

  Because you'll actually write the scene. It won't be about taking off the shirt and the six pack abs.

• 31:43Amy Poehler?

  That's right.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm watching. I did a scene with Billy Brown, who I love. Billy Brown, love everyone. And it's TV.

• 31:52Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  So Annalise Keating is in bed. Annalise Keating is sort of sleeps with a lot of people, men, women.

• 31:59Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Which cannot be any opposite for me. I mean, I'm like, oh, my God. So and I'm in the bed, I'm laying down and everything. And then he gets up with his underwear and they, I mean, they're literally just taking his underwear down, putting his makeup on. And he's got his abs. And then they want him to walk into the bathroom and come out with, you know, one of those scrub brushes? And slap it on his hand as if he's slapping my ass. So he's like slap, slap, slap. As we're saying the dialogue.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  I'm in the scene, Amy, and I'm like, you gotta cut. You gotta cut. Please cut.

• 32:42Amy Poehler?

  That is, that's, that's my nightmare. That's a nightmare.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  It's a frigging nightmare.

• 32:46Amy Poehler?

  That's a nightmare.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  So I said, if you write someone with a gut, maybe we won't be in bed. Maybe it'll be about everything else. Maybe when we finally kiss, it's like something that's organically happening. But right now, for me, a lot of love scenes, it's like, that's the time to go to the bathroom.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  You want to pick up, go to the bathroom, you come back, you haven't missed anything.

• 33:08Amy Poehler?

  Oh, my God, I feel you. I feel you. The couple, I've not done many, but the couple of times it's been on the call sheet, I'm like, oh, no. This is my, this is the worst day. And any, by the way, anybody that's like, ooh, I got a love scene today, red flag.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  I had to do a love scene with Tom Verica, who cannot be more lovely. How to Get Away with Murder, first love scene. Well, actually, my first love scene was with Billy Brown. And the, and it got cut. And I'm so happy it got cut. Because we were having sex on my car in Philadelphia. And it was 12 degrees. I was terrified. First love scene in my life. But the second love scene, Tom Verica, who plays my husband, How to Get Away with Murder. So we're getting prepared for the love scene in the trailer. And the makeup artists are saying, so do you want anything to cover? I mean, I have stretch marks. I mean, I got stretch marks everywhere. I got stretch marks on my ass. I got stretch marks on my arms.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  I got stretch marks everywhere. I'm just gonna say it. And so I'm like, yeah, I want makeup. I want makeup on my arms. I want makeup on my ass. And it's like, I got makeup on my ankles. Okay? He's got makeup on. I mean, we're just basically spraying ourselves with makeup. Both of us terrified, okay? And then finally, I had the big aha moment. I said, Tom, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna hold it up for the regular people. We're gonna hold it up for the people out there who, you know, may have a little bit of something sticking out there or whatever. And there was makeup all over the sheet. Makeup all over the bed, you know?

• 34:54Speaker 02

  You know, thank God my wig didn't come off, you know? And that was like my first.

• 34:59Amy Poehler?

  There's nothing sexy about it. Nothing, when you do a love scene, in my opinion, there's nothing sexy about it. It's just, it's hard. Your search for the realness in things, like the, the way you're looking for the truth in things in your own life and in your work, it, it dovetails so beautifully with August Wilson. Can you talk about your, how you felt about doing his work? And like, well, how important he is to you as a, as a writer?

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Well, he's important because he writes about black people. It's our cadences. It's my mom, my dad, my father. It's how we talked, you know? I listened to them, how I talked, you know? And that's the beauty of it. Because, you know, otherwise, listen, I went to Juilliard. We were doing George Bernard Shaw, Strindberg, you know, Chekhov, who I love, you know, Shakespeare. So I did Blanche Dubois. I mean, it was just a scene in it. But I have to do, if, if you've ever read Blanche Dubois, I could not be any different than Blanche Dubois. She's extremely fragile.

• 36:00Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  You know, fading beauty queen. You know, all of those things. So to see and to hear me, you know, take my deep voice and try to whittle it down and sound like a little white southern woman and doing all that. It was like, oh my, I can't do this. I mean, I shouldn't say I can't do it. I can do it. I can transform. I could do all of that. But then, you know, people in the audience have cut it, you know? Let me ignore the fact that this is a deep voice, black woman who is self-possessed and very grounded and is not. But with August Wilson.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  I don't do any of that.

• 36:39Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  I still have to do the work. But I could do a work in a way that invites me in. You know? And that's the beauty of, that's the beauty of August Wilson.

• 36:51Amy Poehler?

  And you're nominated for a Tony three years after you get out of school? For that? I mean, do you remember when you found out you were nominated? That must have been incredible feeling.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  I found out I was nominated. You know, back in the day, back in the day when you had those, um, um, answering machines that you had to call. You had to call the answering machine. I would call every single day to see if I had an audition. So I called and my agent at the time said, Viola, you got a Tony nomination. Oh my God.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  I ran to my parents' house. They don't know what a Tony award is. And my little nieces and nephews, they don't know what the hell a Tony award is. I ran in the house. I said, you guys. My little nieces and nephews, they were in their diapers, running around, acting bad. Like I love bad kids. Um, I ran in the house. I said, you guys, I got a Tony nomination. And they were, ah, they started throwing themselves on the floor. They didn't know what the hell a Tony nomination was. But we all just jumped in. I mean, come on.

• 37:58Amy Poehler?

  Yeah. Amazing.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 38:05Amy Poehler?

  This episode is brought to you by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking which group chat you're typing in before hitting send? Next thing you know, you've sent a scalding hot take about the restaurant to the group with the person who picked it. Yikes. Yeah, checking first is a good idea, so check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary, subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Allstate North American Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. This episode is brought to you by Sleep Number. Look, we all know sleep is great, but if you're chasing an even greater sleep, Sleep Number mattresses can make it happen. You can make them firmer or softer, cooler or warmer, whenever you want,

• 38:50Amy Poehler?

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• 39:34Amy Poehler?

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• 40:00Amy Poehler?

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• 40:37Amy Poehler?

  You were a very accomplished working actor on a lot of shows before a kind of America at Large New Year name. You had a really substantial body of work. Do you feel like that allowed you, you know, it was just like that 10,000 hours idea that you worked really hard and often and kind of figured out? You worked in TV, you worked in film, you worked on stage, you like got to like feel confident in your skill?

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Yes, but once again, that's the task.

• 41:10Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, but it's not always everyone's route.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  No, I understand.

• 41:13Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  And I understand that. And therein lies the problem.

• 41:16Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  With the business that anyone feels like they can do it, you know? But there was never a time when I was at the Guthrie Theater or working in Newton, Massachusetts. I worked in Newton, Massachusetts. I've worked everywhere. I've worked with everyone. Huntington Theater, ACT, Mark Taper Forum, Goodman Theater. I thought I'd already made it.

• 41:40Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  I did.

• 41:42Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  You know, making your 650 a week and then you did your 10 weeks and then you qualified for unemployment. So you got your unemployment and sure, you called in that unemployment every Sunday, got that 350. I think it went up to $390 a week. I thought I'd already made it because I could say that I am an actor. But you do have to put in those hours.

• 42:04Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  In order to have some level of a process, because here's what I think. Whenever I do a job, this is my thing with actors. It's a little bit of my pet peeve, a little bit, is this. If you have a criticism. For a writer, you'd never have it for another actor. You don't criticize them. That's like a no-no. Okay, I don't care if it's a day player. You don't tell anyone how to act. That's the director's job.

• 42:34Amy Poehler?

  Oh, I love this.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  But if you have a criticism of the work, if you say, you know, this scene is not working, you have to tell them why. And you have to know how to fix it. I will say,

• 42:48Speaker 02

  once again, I'm negotiating. I would say ninety-eight percent of the time, people don't know how to fix it.

• 42:53Amy Poehler?

  Yeah. That's such a great point because I've often said that actors should spend a day being a writer, getting notes from actors. Because the way that people give writers feedback is often appalling. It's like, this isn't, and not just actors, anybody, but like, the way writers receive feedback is like dismissive, it's insulting. They don't have a fix, like to your point. Something they've worked really, really hard on, they hand it over and people just kind of like, open it up and barely pay attention to it. They barely read it. They don't know the words. They don't, they don't, they're like challenging stuff before it's even tried out. And then conversely, I always say to writers, now, put on someone else's clothes.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 43:40Amy Poehler?

  Go over there and scramble an egg.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 43:44Amy Poehler?

  While you remember

• 43:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:47Amy Poehler?

  two, two pages of dialogue while everyone you know is on the other side of the room, drinking coffee, looking at you.

• 43:55Amy Poehler?

  And then we're even.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Whenever you have to fix a script, sometimes it's really not that deep to fix something. It could be a simple choice. But what happens is the filter that goes through is, okay, is it going to get more viewers? Are people going to want to see, is it going to turn on the eighteen to thirty-four year old boys? Who come see the movie? That's a big one, Amy.

• 44:18Amy Poehler?

  Oh, yeah. I mean,

• 44:19Speaker 02

  The boys.

• 44:19Amy Poehler?

  The boy, and also will men, yeah, will men care? Will men care about this project? And it's like,

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was the woman king.

• 44:27Amy Poehler?

  Oh, yeah. I bet there was a lot of discussion about like, we want to make sure men show up. And it's like, do we? Do we want to make sure men show up? Like, these days, me too. I've been like, maybe they don't come to this one.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 44:41Amy Poehler?

  How about we just make one? We just make one for us, just one.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  I'm playing a Agogia warrior. I've just chopped off five men's heads in the first two minutes. And maybe it's just not for them. I mean, it's, it's like, it's like, a lot of the, uh, the notes were, you know, um, less dirt and more lipstick. Are you freaking kidding me?

• 45:01Amy Poehler?

  Wild.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Are you kidding me?

• 45:04Amy Poehler?

  Wild.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  I'm playing a, a, a, an Agogia warrior and I'm thinking about lipstick?

• 45:10Speaker 02

  And eyelash extensions?

• 45:12Amy Poehler?

  That film, you are so badass in that film. That film is so beautiful. I loved it. You and your husband produced it together, created, generated it, made it for yourself. Such an example of like, taking the currency that you had and using it and making that project. And the thing I wanted to ask you about Woman King, The Woman King, is, and for people that don't know, it's, you know, based on a real story. For people that don't know about, uh, could you explain what it was based?

• 45:41Speaker 02

  It's based on the Agogia, uh, uh, tribe of warriors in Dahomey in Benin, West Africa in like 1854. And they were all female army unit that would go out and fight neighboring tribes and, you know, Yoruba tribes. Now, you know, the controversy is, is, there was a lot of controversy, you know, involved with the Agogia warriors. Because they would have slaves. Okay? I think ultimately that is what maybe people had problems with. And the other problem is, you know, it was an all-black cast, mostly female cast. Mostly without getting into it, because there will never be enough time in the world, dark-skinned females

• 46:25Speaker 02

  who have muscles and who are taking men down. I mean, I trained for five hours a day and I was the oldest mother freaking warrior in the movie. So we trained five hours a day for months, hand to hand combat. I have to tell you, though, with that movie, without getting too much into it, because there's a lot about that movie.

• 46:47Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 46:48Speaker 02

  That was like, very important to me.

• 46:50Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  I didn't think it was a big deal for women to be warriors.

• 46:57Amy Poehler?

  Right.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  I didn't think that it was a big deal to have a title like The Woman King.

• 47:03Amy Poehler?

  Mm hmm.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Because, first of all, there's a lot of kings who are women in Africa. They're actually called kings. I didn't know that that was going to be a controversy until we did it.

• 47:15Amy Poehler?

  Hmm, hmm.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  I thought, this is badass. I mean, I would take my toy machete home to practice with my husband. I mean, not around my husband, because he would say, oh, V, this is a lot. But, um, but I just didn't know it was a big deal until we started shooting it. And there was, you know, can we make your curls looser and more pretty?

• 47:38Amy Poehler?

  Mm hmm, mm hmm.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  Could we do eyelash extensions?

• 47:42Amy Poehler?

  Mm hmm.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  Maybe a different title.

• 47:45Amy Poehler?

  Mm hmm.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  You know, this whole sort of watering down.

• 47:49Amy Poehler?

  Yes, this idea of like, just don't forget to stay soft.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:54Amy Poehler?

  Like, while you're the hardest warrior ever, don't forget to be a little bit cute and soft, because God forbid, you just step into your full power.

• 48:04Speaker 02

  Absolutely, and God forbid that you don't turn me on.

• 48:08Amy Poehler?

  That's right.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  That you don't look sexy.

• 48:11Amy Poehler?

  That's right.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  And, you know, it, it, it, it sort of leads into the whole thing of the value of beauty.

• 48:17Amy Poehler?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  You know?

• 48:19Amy Poehler?

  That's right.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm definitely like, at sixty years old, I feel fabulous, because I am one of those women, I got that done and over with very, very early in life. You know, I feel for the, the beautiful women who were younger, and now they're older, and they walk in the room and no one's looking at them.

• 48:38Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, that's tough when your beauty is your number one currency, because it goes away fast.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 48:44Amy Poehler?

  It's really fickle.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:45Amy Poehler?

  And, but I will say, and you spoke about this when you were doing The Woman King, like, the way in which you. Created this new relationship to your body in your 50s. I think a lot of women, I know a lot of women, I know, I speak for myself. You start to really take, you really kind of look and you say, okay, this is my one body. I really, you know, the, the ways in which I got to kind of put it in the, on the back burner in my twenties and thirties, I really have to pay attention to it now. And I've joked on here, like, we gotta eat 85 grams of protein and we have to lift weights. But you did that. You, what, what did you learn about yourself when you were training five hours a day?

• 49:24Speaker 02

  And You know what, Amy, it was the first time I could walk into a room with that.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  It, it was a leather sort of shirt I had on, armor that I had on. And so my stomach was exposed. It was the first time I can walk on the field and in a room and totally be in my body. You know, there, there is something about the female body, what you're sort of conditioned to believe about it, that it's gotta be beautiful, right?

• 49:53Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  So it's gotta be thin and beautiful. And the why and the how it has to be beautiful is always tied to male desirability.

• 50:04Amy Poehler?

  That's right.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  It's never tied to being capable.

• 50:08Amy Poehler?

  It's tied to a shrinking.

• 50:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Shrinking and not being capable, not being strong.

• 50:15Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  Not being, you know, it's never ours.

• 50:19Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  And so even in the practicing,

• 50:24Speaker 02

  I was gonna lie a little bit.

• 50:27Speaker 02

  I was gonna lie a little bit.

• 50:28Amy Poehler?

  Well, I hope it was a little tiring. Like, I hope you

• 50:30Speaker 02

  No, no, no, this is what the lie was.

• 50:32Amy Poehler?

  Okay.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  This is what the lie was, Amy.

• 50:34Amy Poehler?

  Okay, cue music for negotiating.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  Cue, cue, you know, Hit Em Up by Tupac.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, you know, if, you know, just to in, in the, in the practicing, because we would do an hour of weightlifting, thirty minutes of running on the treadmill at ten point oh.

• 50:56Amy Poehler?

  Oh, no, I've done ten point oh. That is a disaster.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  It's, it, and it was a disaster.

• 51:02Amy Poehler?

  Thirty minutes straight of ten point oh? Like, was it sprints?

• 51:06Speaker 02

  Sprints.

• 51:07Amy Poehler?

  God damn it.

• 51:08Speaker 02

  And then three and a half hours. I mean, by the end, I mean, and you saw all these young girls, they'd have a little sweat on their bodies. I would sweat out three four shirts a day. So I would go to choreo for three and a half hours and you're taking down eight, seven dudes at the same time, okay? Eight, seven dudes. What I was gonna say is, you know, it was, it was so great because then I could really tap into the part of me that I never tapped into before. That's bullshit.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  I was always that girl that wanted to kick someone's ass.

• 51:40Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  And probably did a couple of times, but it gave me permission to do it.

• 51:46Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  And I mean, I'm, there was one guy, the huge, six, four, two, sixty. I mean, come on.

• 51:55Amy Poehler?

  That's exciting.

• 51:56Speaker 02

  And to make, and, and I felt like I could do it.

• 52:00Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Now, whether I could do it or not in real life, who knows? But the feeling like I could.

• 52:06Amy Poehler?

  You have stood toe to toe with such amazing actors, Denzel, you talked about Meryl, you worked with Chadwick. When you're in that zone with people that good and you're, like, what is it? I guess, I guess I'm like, I'm asking you, like, what's it like to be in the World Series?

• 52:22Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. And, and not pissing your pants. Um, well, with Meryl, that was it.

• 52:29Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, I mean, she's the best. She's so great and funny.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  And funny and

• 52:34Amy Poehler?

  And cool.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  And cool. It's like

• 52:36Amy Poehler?

  Meryl.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  It's like you could be that great and that cool.

• 52:39Amy Poehler?

  Well, you're like that too. That's why you guys are so good, because you're, you're so good that you don't have to be assholes because you know how good you are.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  And you know those assholes out there.

• 52:50Amy Poehler?

  Yes, because they're not that good. You know, or I should say they're not being led by insecurity. So you're, you and Meryl meet, of course you guys are friends and like, respect each other because you're both so good.

• 53:01Speaker 02

  I followed her everywhere.

• 53:04Amy Poehler?

  On set?

• 53:05Speaker 02

  On set. I mean, to the point where it was like, you know, when you say to yourself, okay, tomorrow, I'm not gonna do that because I don't think it made her, it didn't make her feel comfortable. Because at one point, she would never admit this, she probably doesn't remember it, but she was going to set and I was trying to keep her from going to set. Because I was too excited, so I was like, so how's it going? She was like, oh, good, so I'll see you later. She was going upstairs and then I was like, so, so it's going good, right? So, so the day was really good and you could, you know, when someone's trying to do something and you're stopping them from doing it and they don't feel like, they don't want to be rude to you by going, shut the fuck up, I gotta get to set.

• 53:47Speaker 02

  So she was being really nice and I said, okay, so I'll see you later, right? So I work next week. So I work next week and you know, she was like, yeah, yeah. So that was the first day and then I was like, I'm not gonna do that tomorrow. So I'm not gonna do that tomorrow. I went back to my.

• 54:04Amy Poehler?

  Oh, yeah, I mean.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  And we're set, we're sitting there. And then I'm staring at her.

• 54:11Speaker 02

  And I'm really shy. She's not that shy. She's sort of shy, but not that shy. So then I don't, because I'm, I'm not good with small talk. And I go, longest pause. And then I said, um, can I get you some tea? And she said, she said, no, baby, no, you don't have to get me any tea. And I was like, oh, okay.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  So I couldn't think of anything else. I kept staring, staring and you could tell, you know, when you stare, you could tell she was really trying to be gracious. And the only thing I could come up with is like, you got beautiful skin.

• 54:53Amy Poehler?

  I know.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  I actually said that to Meryl Streep.

• 54:57Amy Poehler?

  I love you.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  And then finally, my husband, who is like, V, did you tell that woman that you love her work? You didn't tell that woman you love her work? I said, well, Julius, I just, she's, when I get to that damn set, I'm gonna tell her that I love her work and I'm gonna tell her that you, that she is your favorite actress. I said, don't say that. And Julius finally came to the set and he said, Viola loves you so much and you are so beautiful, Meryl. You are such a wonderful actress. She blushed. She was like, oh, Julia.

• 55:32Amy Poehler?

  Well, I have met Julius and Julius is something else.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:37Amy Poehler?

  Do you find, I mean, I know, I find that sometimes in my life, people want me to be funny and they're a little disappointed when I'm not quite bringing it. Do you feel conversely that sometimes people assume that you're gonna like exchange in something very deep and serious with them and you just wanna laugh? All the time.

• 55:57Speaker 02

  Amy.

• 55:59Amy Poehler?

  Because I feel like what I'm learning about you is that you're, you love, you love to joke around and laugh.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  Oh, but I mean, I can't really even joke around like I want because I'm

• 56:09Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  dirty with it.

• 56:11Amy Poehler?

  Fantastic. Why can't you do it?

• 56:13Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't wanna go down like that, Amy. No, you don't wanna go down. I'm dirty with it.

• 56:20Amy Poehler?

  Who did you love growing up? Like who were your?

• 56:22Speaker 02

  Oh, the first one.

• 56:24Amy Poehler?

  Who did you love?

• 56:25Speaker 02

  Mom's Maple.

• 56:26Amy Poehler?

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  And she was dirty, dirty.

• 56:28Amy Poehler?

  So dirty.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  I would play that album over and over again. Flip Wilson.

• 56:33Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  Over and over again.

• 56:34Amy Poehler?

  Red Fox.

• 56:35Speaker 02

  Red Fox, over and over again.

• 56:37Amy Poehler?

  So dirty.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  The dirtier, the better.

• 56:39Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 56:40Speaker 02

  We can't go there.

• 56:41Amy Poehler?

  Yeah. So funny.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:44Amy Poehler?

  So you would play those records when you were?

• 56:46Speaker 02

  Oh, I would.

• 56:46Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  And you know why too? Because they told stories.

• 56:50Amy Poehler?

  Mm hmm.

• 56:51Speaker 02

  And come on, the original dirty of the dirtiest of the funniest is Richard Pryor.

• 56:58Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  Whenever I feel down, I play that live in concert.

• 57:02Amy Poehler?

  Mm.

• 57:03Speaker 02

  Over and over and over again. Oh, my God, that's just the best. And he talks about his kids. One part where he talks about his kids and how he doesn't know how to swim and every time he gets into the pool, he's drowning. He's basically drowning and his kids are like, ah, Daddy, he's so funny. And he's like, you motherfuckers, I'm drowning, you know? It's like, I love that, you know?

• 57:25Amy Poehler?

  Okay, now I want to get to your book before we finish because, you know. Your relationship to writing is an interesting one to me. I mean, I'm sure you have, you know, we talked about it earlier. This idea of like when you're acting and you're writing and you're working with writers and what that kind of writing looks like. And then there's the different kind of version of writing when you're writing a book, when you're writing fiction, and when you're writing a memoir, at which your memoir was a huge hit. You won the Grammy. That was your EGOT, was your, when you did the recording of it, when you read your book on tape. And that book came out a while ago. And I'm curious, you know, when we write about our stories and then they go out into

• 58:08Amy Poehler?

  the world and everybody gets to kind of

• 58:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:13Amy Poehler?

  read them and process them. Have you ever heard from anyone from your past after that book came out?

• 58:20Speaker 02

  I hear from various ones all the time. My fourth grade teacher in fourth grade, I have the story in my book. That was, and I actually went back to my fourth grade class too, the actual classroom. But my fourth grade, that was almost the height of my dysfunction, my dysfunctional life. But in the book,

• 58:44Speaker 02

  it still has a lot of shame for me. I would go to school, I would smell so bad. I mean, there are no words for it, okay? And this teacher that I had that I loved, I loved her, Mrs. Cody, she sent pictures to my sister, who was a school, she was a schoolteacher in Central Falls. She sent all these pictures that she had saved of me.

• 59:11Amy Poehler?

  Wow.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  I have no pictures of my childhood. She saved these pictures and she saved some of my writings.

• 59:18Amy Poehler?

  Wow.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  And in one of the pictures, I was at a museum, looking at this sculpture and all the kids were behind me who were in my class. But I was looking at the sculpture and my mouth was gapped open in awe.

• 59:38Speaker 02

  And I thought to myself, you captured something in me that I didn't know I had in me.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  Was already that when something was beautiful, when something was created that had, that I would have no connection to otherwise, I saw it?

• 59:59Speaker 02

  That was in one of the pictures. And she told my sister that she never forgot me as a student. And she was the one who actually told me that I needed to go to the nurse one day because I smelled so bad that my mom had to get some soap and hot water and you need to wash yourself because the odor is too much. She was a teacher who told me that. And I loved her. That's why it hurt so bad.

• 1:00:24Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  See, once again, the paradox, right?

• 1:00:27Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, she's looking out for you.

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  But a feeling shame, she's the one who I felt shamed me.

• 1:00:32Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  She didn't really shame me.

• 1:00:34Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  Do you know what I'm saying? But that was a big one.

• 1:00:37Amy Poehler?

  I mean, it feels like writing has been something that's that's been a big thing that you've wanted to do for a long time. And then you write, you're now co-written a book with James Patterson. It's on my shelf. It's right here.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Judge Stone.

• 1:00:52Amy Poehler?

  Judge Stone. Book is out.

• 1:00:54Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:00:54Amy Poehler?

  What is, what is it about?

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  It is about a thirteen year old girl named Nova who has an abortion, who gets raped and has an abortion. In Union Springs, Alabama, Alabama has the strictest abortion laws. And the doctor who performs the abortion is now on trial for murder. So it is definitely To Kill a Mockingbird. It is just, it's pulsating, it's all of those things. But, you know, even like To Kill a Mockingbird, which, you know, the courtroom was pulsating, you know, Tom Robinson, May Yella UO. It was just, just heart stopping, right? But the characters within it.

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  We're just as memorable as the trial. That's what I feel about, uh, you know, Judge Stone and James Patterson is like.

• 1:01:49Amy Poehler?

  Viola, you can do anything and.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  No, I can't. I can't, you know.

• 1:01:54Amy Poehler?

  Tell us what you can't do.

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  Oh, I can't bake.

• 1:01:58Amy Poehler?

  Okay.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  You know.

• 1:01:59Amy Poehler?

  You could probably learn.

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  I have a fifteen year old at home. It's like, it's just me. And you, you, you're probably out of the teen years.

• 1:02:07Amy Poehler?

  No, I'm right in the middle of it. I got a fifteen and a seventeen year old.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  I have a fifteen year old.

• 1:02:11Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, there's no easier way to feel uncool than when your kid, your teen kid looks at you like, what?

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  I'm not cool.

• 1:02:19Amy Poehler?

  No, but you're not supposed to be cool to your kid. If you're cool to your kid, that's weird.

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  I know. I think so. It's like, I'm not cool.

• 1:02:26Amy Poehler?

  Nobody wants to be the parent that like hangs with their kids and like their kids are like, wow, your mom is so cool.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, I don't want to go to an escape room.

• 1:02:37Amy Poehler?

  You don't have to. You don't have to.

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  I tried to. That's why I jumped out of a plane. I tell people I jumped out of a plane.

• 1:02:44Amy Poehler?

  What?

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  Oahu, um, Hawaii. I jumped out of a plane to be cool for my daughter. I did, Amy.

• 1:02:52Amy Poehler?

  What year was this? Just recently?

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  I was fifty-seven, fifty-six, fifty-six, fifty-seven. So I'm sixty now, yeah.

• 1:03:00Amy Poehler?

  What did you, um, think of jump? What, what was it like? Did you, was it awful? It seems awful. It seems, it truly seems like awful.

• 1:03:09Speaker 02

  Have you ever ju- so obviously.

• 1:03:11Amy Poehler?

  No, I'm not jumping out of a plane.

• 1:03:13Speaker 02

  I jumped out of a plane because we had the most awesome nanny. When I say awesome, it's like everyone else's great nanny and then ours was like God, okay?

• 1:03:26Speaker 02

  She jumped out of the plane.

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  You know, you're, you're jumping in tandem with someone who's talking like.

• 1:03:33Amy Poehler?

  I was gonna say, you're jumping in tandem with someone you met like yesterday.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  Yesterday and he was like, so Viola, you know, you're a great actor. So what do you like better, theater or film? And I want to say, shut the fuck up.

• 1:03:44Amy Poehler?

  You're like, focus, Zach.

• 1:03:47Amy Poehler?

  My favorite movie is The Parachute Working.

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  And look at that yummy mommy volcano right there and that erupted and I don't fucking wanna get a volcano and then they roll the curtain up and they say, okay, so let's go.

• 1:04:04Amy Poehler?

  That's cool. I mean, Viola, that's badass that you did that.

• 1:04:08Speaker 02

  I will never do it again, although although it was a terrific experience. I told my daughter as I was falling down because she said, Mama, if you die, can I have your wigs and your money? So I'm falling down. So I'm falling down. I'm falling down and I told her, don't listen to Mama. Don't listen to me. I think every cuss word that I could possibly imagine. I mean, it was coming out of my mouth. You have no idea.

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  But I did it because of Molly.

• 1:04:42Amy Poehler?

  Did it. You did it.

• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  Because of Molly.

• 1:04:44Amy Poehler?

  And you and Julius, we talked about your husband a little bit. You guys have, like, when you do stuff together and you talk publicly together, you laugh a lot. You laugh a lot and you laugh.

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  Amy?

• 1:05:00Amy Poehler?

  You have fun. I mean, look, your your relationship is very aspirational and I don't want to project upon it because I I know everyone's relationship is their own private, you know, a relationship is like a country with its own set of rules and you don't really know it unless you live there. But what it seems like is you have the best relationship ever and you have a wonderful marriage and beautiful loving partner.

• 1:05:21Speaker 02

  It's fantastic. He drives me crazy. I drive him crazy and want to hit him, but then I, the love of my life.

• 1:05:28Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  You know, he's just the love of my life, you know? And when I say laugh, no, Amy, I mean, just, he is a character. And every time he comes up and, you know, in public, you know, he puts, you know, the brave, the mask and everything on, but the guy is absolutely hysterical. I mean, and and does the oddest things that for me, I'm, there's a little bit of me that says, is he crazy? He could be crazy. I mean, he lost his salt, he couldn't find his saltine crackers one day.

• 1:06:06Amy Poehler?

  Oh, that's impressive.

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  Saltine damn crackers.

• 1:06:09Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  And he was convinced that someone broke into our house, was living in our attic, and had stolen his saltine crackers. And so I was like.

• 1:06:22Speaker 02

  Why are you walking around the house with a baseball bat? V, there's some, I can't find my saltine crackers, V.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  I said, well, did you look in the cabinet behind the tuna fish? Yeah, and, and there, there was four packages, V. Now there's only three packages left. V, there's someone in that attic. And here's for me, what for me is about love. I was like, oh my God. I, he's crazy. There's someone living in the attic.

• 1:06:55Speaker 02

  And what did I do? I grabbed my baseball bat too, and we looked for the person together in the attic. Until I finally found the saltine crackers near the tuna fish. And it's just like, I love it. I do.

• 1:07:08Amy Poehler?

  I know, I mean, your love is very, very special.

• 1:07:12Speaker 02

  Talking about his mom and just the stories, he's another one that could tell.

• 1:07:17Amy Poehler?

  Well, we talked, we talked to him before your interview. And I want you to know, he's the only spouse we've talked to. Uh, in the, you know, we, we do a thing where we kind of talk well behind somebody's back before they come in. And I get a question to ask our guest. And Julius was the only spouse we wanted to talk to because we were like, first of all, they seem like they really like each other.

• 1:07:39Amy Poehler?

  And, but he's, he's, he spoke so beautifully, of course, about you, Viola. Uh, but he also speaks to a bigger idea of what women, a lot of women yearn for and hope for. Which is that somebody really sees them, like somebody sees them in real time and celebrates their wins.

• 1:07:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Oh, he does.

• 1:07:59Amy Poehler?

  He does. Uh, you seem like you do that for each other.

• 1:08:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, totally.

• 1:08:03Amy Poehler?

  And again, a simple thing to say, but, but sometimes hard to find like that. Do you think that is the secret to why you've been together so long is the way you do that for each other?

• 1:08:14Speaker 02

  You know, by the time I met Julius, I absolutely understood what love is. You know, first of all, I thought he was cute. You know, I thought he had a tight ass. I'm not gonna lie to you, Amy.

• 1:08:25Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, don't.

• 1:08:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, he had a tight ass. He was a football player.

• 1:08:29Amy Poehler?

  So cute. You guys were actors on a set. He was handing you blood. You were in a hot nurse's outfit.

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:35Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, jackpot.

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  He's really cute and I was really lonely. And, um. So that was it, of course. I mean, I just with him, it was, and I prayed for a football player type dude, you know, and it was him.

• 1:08:50Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:50Speaker 02

  And, um, but you know what got me with him is he told me his story.

• 1:08:58Amy Poehler?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:58Speaker 02

  Cause he's a talker, but he told me his whole story from the giddy up.

• 1:09:03Amy Poehler?

  Cool.

• 1:09:03Speaker 02

  Everything, straight, no chaser.

• 1:09:06Amy Poehler?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:07Speaker 02

  You know, he raises kids on his own. He's been married, you know, all of those things. It just, and for me, it opened me up.

• 1:09:15Amy Poehler?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:16Speaker 02

  He's just a dude. He's, he's been wired right. He, he has.

• 1:09:20Amy Poehler?

  Well, he has three really weird questions for me to ask you.

• 1:09:27Amy Poehler?

  I know he's great in every way, but I don't understand these questions.

• 1:09:32Speaker 02

  Julius.

• 1:09:33Amy Poehler?

  Julius, one of them is tell, ask her about Zuni.

• 1:09:39Amy Poehler?

  Who is Zuni? And can I Google it? Because Julius was talking about a TV show that he grew up with, I've never heard of.

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  Power XL five.

• 1:09:47Amy Poehler?

  What?

• 1:09:48Speaker 02

  Oh, no, Amy.

• 1:09:49Amy Poehler?

  Zuni.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  Amy. It's a cartoon with puppets that he watched when he was a kid.

• 1:09:55Amy Poehler?

  Wow.

• 1:09:56Speaker 02

  Do you see Zuni?

• 1:09:57Amy Poehler?

  Hold on. Z U N I? Okay.

• 1:10:00Speaker 02

  You see Zuni now?

• 1:10:02Amy Poehler?

  With the giant head?

• 1:10:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, you see that?

• 1:10:04Amy Poehler?

  Let's see, let's see, let's see.

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  And you did, you pressed in the images of it?

• 1:10:07Amy Poehler?

  Let's see.

• 1:10:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:08Amy Poehler?

  Let's see, where's Zuni? Okay, Zuni. Z O O N I E.

• 1:10:14Speaker 02

  Oh, Z O N I E, that's right.

• 1:10:16Amy Poehler?

  Okay, Zuni.

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  I'm a classic spelling something wrong.

• 1:10:18Amy Poehler?

  For your listeners, Zuni looks like.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  Zoo, who's Zuni look? No, I'm gonna tell you who Zuni look like.

• 1:10:28Speaker 02

  We were laying in bed and Julius said, V, you know who you look like? Was it soon that I met you, I was like, she make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. She remind me of somebody I know. And then I thought about it. Zuni, you look like Zuni. That's who you are, V, Zuni. And that's the, this is the show that he would watch every Saturday. He was the only one in this family who wanted to watch it.

• 1:10:52Amy Poehler?

  I can't believe the show. It looks like it's dolls and puppets.

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  Dolls and puppets, and he was the only one who wanted to watch it. None of his brothers and sisters wanted to watch it. They say, "Mom, Julius, he wanna watch, we don't wanna watch Zuni." And his mom would say, "Let that, let that damn boy watch a Zuni." That's all you talk about, Lee Lee, is Zuni, Zuni, Zuni, damn Zuni. Watch that damn Zuni and get your ass out of the house after you watch that Zuni. So, Zuni, I remind him of Zuni.

• 1:11:20Amy Poehler?

  And Zuni is-

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  With big lips and big eyes.

• 1:11:22Amy Poehler?

  It's like, almost like a little ferret meets a sloth meets a-

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  Amy, no, Amy-

• 1:11:28Amy Poehler?

  It's cute though, Zuni's cute.

• 1:11:30Speaker 02

  No, Zuni is messed up. I call him Ferdinand, cuz he looks exactly like Ferdinand.

• 1:11:35Amy Poehler?

  Ferdinand the Bull?

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, we name people. He looked just like Ferdinand.

• 1:11:42Amy Poehler?

  Okay, the other question he wanted me to ask you is, ask her about, um, Shadow of a Gunman.

• 1:11:50Amy Poehler?

  He said, he's setting you up for some stories.

• 1:11:52Speaker 02

  Oh, he set me up. It was one of our first dates. He said, "V, you wanna come?" If you, if you know him, you would know that this is a great imitation of Julius. "V, one of my friends is doing Shadow of a Gunman." You know that play, you know that Irish play, Sean O'Casey, Shadow of a Gunman, in some small theater off Abbott Kenny Boulevard in Santa Monica. So, we go to see Shadow of a Gunman, and I'm walking in going, "Oh, we could go see some theater." And so, we go to this theater, we walk in, and I'm like, "Okay, let's sit in the front." Ninety-nine seats, no, no one's at the theater. So, I'm saying, "Let's, let's sit in the front." He was like, "Uh-uh, we ain't sitting in the damn front, let's sit all the way in the back. Let's sit up there in the back." I was like, "But Julius, we're all the way in the back."

• 1:12:37Speaker 02

  He said, "V, let's sit up in the back." We sit up in the back, he's got the chair near the wall. As soon as the curtains go up, he's dead asleep. The only reason why he wanted to sit in the wall is to take a nap all throughout the play. And the only time he woke up is when he thought some sex scene was gonna happen. He woke up for two seconds, he woke up for two seconds thinking he was gonna see some good goodmas, as we call it, and nothing happened. It was the worst production in the world. And, oh my god.

• 1:13:07Amy Poehler?

  Oh my god.

• 1:13:07Speaker 02

  And then afterwards, he went up to his friend and he said, "I love that performance." "You were fan, and you know when you did that thing, that thing you did." I was like, Julius, you slept through that whole damn performance.

• 1:13:25Amy Poehler?

  Well, are you guys watching, listening? Are you, are you, what, what's making you laugh these days? Where do you get your comedy?

• 1:13:31Speaker 02

  In bed.

• 1:13:32Amy Poehler?

  Yes, with each other, with each other, it sounds like.

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  Oh my god, with his imitations.

• 1:13:37Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  I mean, no, Amy, like, I mean, just absolutely hysterical.

• 1:13:44Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  I'm telling you.

• 1:13:46Amy Poehler?

  It's so fun to hear how you guys like to play.

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:13:51Amy Poehler?

  Like, it's like, it really feels like there's like young versions of you, like healed young versions of you.

• 1:13:56Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 1:13:56Amy Poehler?

  Together.

• 1:13:58Speaker 02

  This morning, we were just talking, when I first, when we first got together, and they wanted me to do the play that I won my first Tony Award for, King Headley.

• 1:14:08Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:08Speaker 02

  But I remember when I was offered the role, and I said, "Oh, I don't know if that role is good enough for me, Julius. First of all, can I just tell you, I never talk like this. So the fact that I remember talking like this shows you that I'm full of shit." So I said, "Julius, that role is not good enough for me." And he's sitting in the living room, he's just listening to me, he just got out of the shower. I said, "This role is not good enough for me, and, you know, they think I'm gonna go to New York, and they think I'm gonna do A, B, and C, and they think I'm gonna do that role. I need the lead role, that I need to get the lead role." And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and he's listening, listening, listening, and then there's a pause. And I said, "So, what do you think, Julius?" He said. This what I think, B.

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  You need to take your ass to New York and you need to do that damn play. Because here's the thing, you ain't got no damn job. And we, and we, and we not bringing in any damn money. So you need to go on and take your ass to, to New York and do that play. And we talk about that all the time.

• 1:15:08Speaker 02

  You know, those moments.

• 1:15:10Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 1:15:10Speaker 02

  You know, of when I told him for the first time that I had the most horrific credit.

• 1:15:15Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:16Speaker 02

  And I was about to cry. I said, my credit score was five hundred. And I kept that as a secret because he was so organizing, together and responsible. You know? And I said, Julius, I have to tell you something. He said, okay, B, go ahead, tell me. I said, Julius, I have bad credit. And he said, I knew your black ass had bad credit from the moment I met you. I could tell by the way you dressed and everything, you were all over the damn place. That's okay. I know you starting to cry. Come over here, reuse my credit. Don't worry about it. I knew your black ass had bad credit. And that was it. Like moments like that of levity.

• 1:15:59Amy Poehler?

  Yes, levity.

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  Levity of.

• 1:16:02Amy Poehler?

  Safety.

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  Safety of connection.

• 1:16:05Amy Poehler?

  Yes.

• 1:16:07Speaker 02

  You know, the, the freedom that I had to tell him I had bad credit. But, but also how he helped me build from there.

• 1:16:15Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  That's the thing.

• 1:16:17Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:17Speaker 02

  That was my big thing. I finally found it. Someone who makes your life better.

• 1:16:23Amy Poehler?

  That's love.

• 1:16:24Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 1:16:25Amy Poehler?

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's what a healthy relationship looks like.

• 1:16:28Speaker 02

  And a tight ass.

• 1:16:33Amy Poehler?

  To end our convo today, what's the best thing about being in your sixties? It's the next decade up for me and, I mean, I've been loving my fifties more than my forties and more and more and more. What, what, what, what's, what, what are you loving about your sixties?

• 1:16:48Speaker 02

  In your sixties, your life is yours.

• 1:16:53Speaker 02

  That's the best part of it. Your life is yours. You realize that, you know, it's, it's a quote that it's, it's been running through my mind. Is, I know it's sort of morbid, but on your last day on earth, the definition of hell is your last day on earth. Who you became meets the person you could have become.

• 1:17:19Speaker 02

  I feel that that's 60s, man.

• 1:17:22Amy Poehler?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:22Speaker 02

  The 60s is, I'm gonna become that woman.

• 1:17:26Amy Poehler?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  Because all that bullshit that I was told in the past that, you know, I had to make a certain amount of money, or to be smart enough, or pretty enough, or thin enough, or whatever. None of that means shit.

• 1:17:39Amy Poehler?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:40Speaker 02

  My life right now is about who I love, who loves me, and what I leave behind. That's it. It is clean. And it's given me a certain level of bravery, too. Now, if I could put some hormones in there, that would be beautiful.

• 1:17:59Amy Poehler?

  That's amazing. It makes me really look forward to what's ahead.

• 1:18:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, yeah. It's the other stuff, too, but we won't talk about that.

• 1:18:07Amy Poehler?

  We don't want to talk about that. Yeah, we're just, we'll get, we'll deal with that when it comes.

• 1:18:12Amy Poehler?

  Viola Davis, it means so much that you did this. Thank you, I mean, thank you for being here today and for talking to me and for doing the show. It's, I just absolutely adore you and your work.

• 1:18:25Speaker 02

  Well, I love you, too.

• 1:18:26Amy Poehler?

  And I'd love to move in with you and your husband. It won't be weird. I'll just be a roommate.

• 1:18:30Speaker 02

  But don't go into the attic and don't eat the saltine crackers.

• 1:18:34Amy Poehler?

  I'm sorry, I've been stealing.

• 1:18:35Speaker 02

  Because you make it the baseball bat on your head. Don't steal the crackers.

• 1:18:37Amy Poehler?

  I'm sorry I live in your attic and I'm sorry I steal your husband's saltines, but I get hungry up there, but I want to listen to the two of you. Um, thank you so much for coming. It really means a lot.

• 1:18:45Speaker 02

  Thank you, thank you, Amy.

• 1:18:48Amy Poehler?

  Thank you so much, Viola. Um, you're incredible and so good at what you do, and it was so wonderful to talk to you. Thank you for, for stopping by. For this polar plunge, um, one person we didn't get a chance to talk to Viola about that I know she highly reveres and was deeply influenced by was the actress Cicely Tyson. And so I just wanted to say her name here because I know Viola has spoken about her and got to work with her on many projects, including in How to Get Away with Murder. But do yourself a favor. Um, and, um, if you haven't seen Cicely Tyson's work, it spans an incredible amount of time in, in American history.

• 1:19:32Amy Poehler?

  She lived to 96 and, um, many of us got to know her when she, um, played, um, Kunta Kinte's mother in Roots. But Cicely, at that point, had been working on, on the stage for a very long time, and she's just been in An incredible wide variety of television and movies and is a really terrific actress and was one of our Hollywood legends. So check her stuff out, I guess. Plunge into Cicely Tyson and her work. And Viola Davis, we love you. We can't wait to see what you're doing next. So thanks so much for joining us and see you soon. Bye.

• 1:20:15Amy Poehler?

  You've been listening to Good Hang. The executive producers for this show are Bill Simmons, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and me, Amy Poehler. The show is produced by The Ringer and Paperkite. For The Ringer, production by Jack Wilson, Kat Spillane, Kaya McMullen, and Aleah Zanarez. For Paperkite, production by Sam Green, Joel Lovell, and Jenna Weiss-Berman. Original music by Amy Miles.