From the Archives: Edie Falco

Edie Falco says she is nothing like Carmela Soprano. Nor does she have much in common with Nurse Jackie. But Falco made these characters two of the most identifiable and human women in television history. She has an armful of Emmys, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild Awards—and a cadre of dedicated fans—to prove it. Along the way, she's battled cancer, raised two children on her own, and is a recovering alcoholic. But Falco doesn't want your sympathy; she tells host Alec Baldwin that her greatest professional accomplishment is creating a fun, respectful atmosphere on-set. She credits her multiple successes to good luck, great mentors, and says there's no predicting which way her career could have gone—or will go yet. Originally aired April 28th, 2015. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:47Alec Baldwin?

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• 4:01Alec Baldwin?

  This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing. My chance to talk with artists, policymakers, and performers. To hear their stories, what inspires their creations, what decisions changed their careers, what relationships influenced their work.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  You know what I don't understand, Tony?

• 4:23Speaker 02

  What does she have that I don't have?

• 4:26Alec Baldwin?

  Edie Falco played Carmela Soprano on the groundbreaking HBO show about an Italian-American mob family from New Jersey. The late, great James Gandolfini played her husband, Tony. It wasn't Edie's big break before The Sopranos, Edie worked with Tom Fontana on the HBO series Oz. But it's safe to say the role of Carmela made her career. TV Guide named The Sopranos the best television show in history.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  I didn't have any sense of the gravity of what we were doing. It might have just been because I was dumb. I didn't realize what, you know, the larger themes at play there. But I just enjoyed it. And it was still a novelty to be working on something that was good, that people enjoyed, that seemed to be well-received. Yeah, that was the excitement of being on something good was still very new.

• 5:16Alec Baldwin?

  And I wonder, when you did the show, was it fun and pleasant? Was it really tough? Was it work?

• 5:21Speaker 02

  No, it was fun and pleasant. Because it was a lighthearted atmosphere. The writing was funny. There was a lot of really funny stuff. And there was a lot of these sort of goomba guys.

• 5:30Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah, cutting up.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Felt like family to me, and very easy to be with.

• 5:34Alec Baldwin?

  Did you participate in the writing of the kid? Did you just turn that all over? You never got involved?

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Not at all. I was not at all interested. I had so much trust in, certainly in David Chase, but in all the staff that he'd carefully chosen, handpicked. I felt like they knew what they were doing. They had a much better overview of what the story was about, as opposed to, what would Carmela do in here? You know? I just thought it was a huge relief to know that I could just let them do their thing, and I would do what I was hired to do. I felt completely comfortable with that.

• 6:03Alec Baldwin?

  Did they put things about you in the characters? I mean, Tina Fey, when I did 30 Rock, was someone who, the moment you told the story, there was some embarrassing anecdote. It was in the show.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Jim said that all the time. He's like, I can't talk to anybody about anything about it. It's going to be in the next episode. But I didn't notice it so much for my life. There was nothing going on in my life that was all that interesting. So I didn't see a lot of it in the scripts. But I know they, like I guess every show, to some extent, they start writing for the actors that have been hired. Like Aida's character, Aida Tatura, who played his sister, was supposed to be a very different thing. It was supposed to be more like the mom, sort of cold and calculating and unkind. And because Aida Tatura was doing it, it sort of morphed into this whole other, like, parvati, that phase that she went through where she was sort of like an earth child. And so, yeah, I'm sure they were writing based on what they perceived me to be.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  But I was not entirely cognizant of that at the time.

• 6:58Alec Baldwin?

  Why do you think they hired you for that part? Because you said, I read an interview where you talked about how you went in, you just relaxed and said, hey, if this happens, it happens.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:06Alec Baldwin?

  Which we all go through. We sometimes sit there and go, I can't stress about another interview.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 7:11Alec Baldwin?

  What do you think they hired you for?

• 7:14Speaker 02

  I couldn't begin to tell you. I think probably because of that, because I was completely non-stressed. It was a script that had been bouncing around for a while, but I was doing Oz at the time, and I was working a lot. And I kind of was all caught up in that. And it came along, and it was called Sopranos, and I thought it's about singers or something. And it's a, you know, Italian-American. Yeah, Italian-American woman, wife. And I thought that's, I never get cast as that. I know who's going to get cast. I figured it's, you know, Annabella Shore, Marisa Tomei, or some of these women who had played parts that sort of felt similar to that. There's no better place to be in when you walk into an audition than knowing you're not going to get it and not caring. So, you know, I really just sort of enjoyed myself and thought, it's just another audition.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  And if you're in a good head, you can never not learn something from an audition. So I just went in and had fun. And inadvertently, you present your best self when you're doing that. And I guess, I don't know, I was relaxed and I enjoyed myself. So I guess that's what they saw. I don't know.

• 8:13Alec Baldwin?

  And when you got the job, was that something that was just floored you? Were you ecstatic about getting the job?

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Well, remember, it's just a pilot you get cast for, you know? So at that point, it was, whatever it was, two weeks of work. And it was a sum of money I had never seen before, which now seems not all that shocking. But back in the day, it meant I could pay off my student loan. And so I was able to, with that one check, completely pay off my student loan. It was huge. It was a huge occurrence. But again, two weeks of work, and then on to the next panic thing, you know, about what to do next.

• 8:45Alec Baldwin?

  And how soon after the pilot was shot?

• 8:47Speaker 02

  I think it was a year.

• 8:48Alec Baldwin?

  Were you told? So you waited a year

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:51Alec Baldwin?

  to be told this was going to move forward?

• 8:52Speaker 02

  And David Chase called me and said, I just want to let you know this has been picked up. This is after we shot the pilot, and he said, well, nobody's going to watch this thing, but I'm proud of what we made, or whatever. And David was also, apparently, he put his head in his hand and said, oh, no, when he found out it was picked up. Because I don't think he had intended to have to tell more about these people. I think he was trying to get a movie made. And this was almost like a spec script or something.

• 9:16Alec Baldwin?

  This is a demo reel.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  I don't think he had anticipated this going on like this. So he had his head in his hands. Jimmy's like, what am I doing? And I'm like, I can pay my student loan. And, you know, here it is, 4,000 years later. And it just goes to show you. You wake up every day, you have no idea what anything's going to turn into, so.

• 9:35Alec Baldwin?

  We're taking a break. Stay with us.

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• 9:47Speaker 03

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  We think they're murder hornets.

• 9:51Speaker 04

  911 Nashville returns.

• 9:54Speaker 05

  It's a homicide detective down here.

• 9:55Alec Baldwin?

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 9:57Speaker 04

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 9:59Alec Baldwin?

  All sins swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 10:02Speaker 05

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 10:04Alec Baldwin?

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 10:06Speaker 04

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

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• 13:29Alec Baldwin?

  Well, two things that come to mind for me. One, I probably told you this before and when I would run into you, but one was I never watched TV, I just didn't have time. And I hit this period toward the last probably four seasons, definitely maybe five. I don't want to say obsession, but my fondness for you and your character. I remember I'd watch you and go, oh my God, I've got to be married to that kind of woman. She's going to stick by me through thick and thin and make smart choices. And she's a good partner. Did you sense that when you were doing it?

• 14:01Speaker 02

  I loved it for that reason. Because it was everything that I was not, you know? I mean, it was a, you know, I was a single woman living in New York, didn't have kids. And here I was ensconced in this life that I saw my grandparents live, you know? Married with kids, deeply entrenched in a community of people, family gatherings were huge, you know? Everything that, and even with Jim, feeling like I was attached to a big man who would take care of stuff. It was a tremendously invigorating place to inhabit while I was working. It was completely diametrically opposed to what I lived when I left the set. And for that reason, I absolutely loved it.

• 14:42Alec Baldwin?

  What did you live when you left the set?

• 14:44Speaker 02

  The life of a single actress in Manhattan. You know, I had a relatively small apartment. I had my dog, I had my dates, but it was not, you know, at all what other women my age, let's say in the Midwest, or certainly in my family back a number of generations.

• 14:57Alec Baldwin?

  Was everything with you about work? Work was primary.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:01Alec Baldwin?

  Work was your boyfriend.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  It was.

• 15:03Alec Baldwin?

  And you dated other guys on the side.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 15:05Alec Baldwin?

  But work was the main commitment.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  It was, and I was thrilled for it. Thrilled for it. Just loved it.

• 15:10Alec Baldwin?

  When you grew up, what town did you grow up in?

• 15:12Speaker 02

  I grew up on the South Shore.

• 15:14Alec Baldwin?

  So did I.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  And Bay Shore and West Islip. And then we moved to Northport when I was in high school.

• 15:19Alec Baldwin?

  And when you were growing up, what was your relationship to Broadway, television, film, watching TV? How did you absorb culture and media when you were a child?

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Lot of TV, but you know, Brady Bunch and Partridge Family, really, all the same, whatever time those shows were on, we would sit around and watch them and Match Game 74, which is totally dating me, but after school.

• 15:45Alec Baldwin?

  Sure. I was addicted to Match Game 74.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. With, what's his name? Richard Dawson with that crazy long.

• 15:51Alec Baldwin?

  Gene Rayburn with the long antenna.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Gene Rayburn, right, right, right.

• 15:54Alec Baldwin?

  The microphone that looked like an antenna.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  And smoking.

• 15:56Alec Baldwin?

  And they'd sit there, he said, Lori likes to blank.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:00Alec Baldwin?

  When her husband comes home with a bowl full of blank. You know, and they, I love that show, Blank.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Me too, me too. So yes, I watched all TV like all kids my age, but it seemed like something far, far away from my experience. It was, you know, I mean, as far as participating in any way other than being an observer. So it's very crazy. I don't know what happened that I am in.

• 16:23Alec Baldwin?

  Broadway theater? Were you jumping on the bus in school trips to come to New York? Like when I was a kid, same background, trips to Broadway and watching people do it live. And you go, oh my God, how do they do that?

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:34Alec Baldwin?

  The courage.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  There were a couple of those bus trips from, from Long Island, for sure. That was thrilling. Like Sweeney Todd was one of the first things I saw where I thought, oh, I got to, I don't know how, but I got to.

• 16:45Alec Baldwin?

  You did feel that way?

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Oh my God, that one show.

• 16:47Alec Baldwin?

  How old were you when you first had a sense that you wanted to do that for a living? Seriously do it for a living?

• 16:52Speaker 02

  Well, I didn't know that I could ever do it for a living. I think until I was able to do it for a living, I thought I would just do it as after my waitressing gig, you know? The idea that I could support myself with it was sort of preposterous. But my mom was an actress. She did stuff at Arena Players in Farmingdale and Broad Hollow Theater in Huntington, all around Long Island, but she had a job and she would do her plays in the weekends and at night. And I sort of thought, oh.

• 17:16Alec Baldwin?

  What was her job?

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Many different jobs, but she was a, she was a DJ at WGLI, was a station on Long Island. She was a copywriter and she did a million different things. She decided she wanted a job and she would get it. But then at night she'd do her plays and I thought that's what you do when you want to be an actor. I just didn't think.

• 17:33Alec Baldwin?

  How many siblings do you have?

• 17:34Speaker 02

  I've got an older brother, younger brother and a younger sister.

• 17:36Alec Baldwin?

  That's four.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Four of us all told, yes.

• 17:38Alec Baldwin?

  And were any of them also interested in the theater?

• 17:40Speaker 02

  Not at all.

• 17:41Alec Baldwin?

  Even though your mother was an actress, you're an actress, and your father was a?

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Painter artist and musician for, when he was younger, but then he went on to do sculpture and painting and.

• 17:51Alec Baldwin?

  And your parents got divorced when you were how old?

• 17:53Speaker 02

  I have no idea. Because they got divorced and then they remarried each other two other times. So it's a very complicated childhood with that stuff.

• 18:00Alec Baldwin?

  Oh, they remarried each other?

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah, and then divorced and remarried and divorced. And I don't even know what they are right now.

• 18:04Alec Baldwin?

  So if you're on my ass, because I want to make a movie out of this, actually, I want to play this. They got divorced and when they would get divorced, how long were they apart before they were united? A matter of months?

• 18:12Speaker 02

  No longer. It was for, the first time it was a number of years. And you know, they kind of, the kids were pitted against each other or the red against, and then we found out that parents were sort of hanging out with each other again. It was, you know, horrifying for the kids that they would suddenly get together again and then they would have a ceremony and we would witness their, it was, I don't know, led to some psychological issues that I'm working on as we speak, but yeah.

• 18:32Alec Baldwin?

  We'll get to that.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, all right.

• 18:34Alec Baldwin?

  And none of your siblings had the bug?

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Not at all. Not, I mean, quite the opposite.

• 18:37Alec Baldwin?

  And so did this become formal for you only when you go to Purchase or had you done plays before you went to school?

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Community theater plays, nothing to, and school plays, you know, but nothing very serious. And then I went to Purchase first as a liberal arts person. And I saw my, some actor friends had gone into Purchase in the program and I thought I really wanted to be there.

• 19:01Alec Baldwin?

  And that program had grown.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  Yes, each year.

• 19:03Alec Baldwin?

  And now it's become this very estimable program on the East Coast.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:07Alec Baldwin?

  Big time.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  So I auditioned and went the next year as an acting student.

• 19:10Alec Baldwin?

  And did you graduate? Did you finish?

• 19:12Speaker 02

  I did, I did.

• 19:13Alec Baldwin?

  And then when you finished, what did you do?

• 19:15Speaker 02

  Well, do you remember the league auditions, that whole thing? So we had the league auditions and from those auditions, I got a part in a movie where I had to be on set the day after I graduated. And I thought, you know, what's everybody talking about? This is so easy. I just kind of glided my way into this career. I didn't do anything for five plus years after that, but did a movie called Sweet Lorraine that was done up in the Catskills with, the guy's name was Steve Gomer, the director. Anyway.

• 19:44Alec Baldwin?

  Who else was in the movie with you?

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Evan Handler.

• 19:48Alec Baldwin?

  Evan Handler.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  Giancarlo Esposito.

• 19:50Alec Baldwin?

  Oh my God.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Todd Graff, Maureen Stapleton, Trina Alvarado, like, yeah, a bunch of people, yeah.

• 19:56Alec Baldwin?

  Evan Handler, who was in I Hate Hamlet.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:59Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah, the legendary production of I Hate Hamlet.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Yes, that's right.

• 20:02Alec Baldwin?

  And that was your first gig, was that film?

• 20:03Speaker 02

  My first gig, yeah.

• 20:04Alec Baldwin?

  How did that go?

• 20:05Speaker 02

  It was.

• 20:06Alec Baldwin?

  Did it drive you forward?

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Dreamy. It sure did. Well, it was, I couldn't believe I was on a movie set, you know? It was a huge thing. And I'd just graduated from school and it was crazily exciting, you know? What the heck, were we like eight weeks up in the Catskills, I think it was? And kind of fell in love with all the boys in the show, you know? It was like being at sleepaway camp. And I remember when my agent said, I hope you're sitting down. You booked that movie and you're going to get paid more money than you have ever seen in your life. They're going to pay you $2,000 a week, which was more money than I had ever seen in my life.

• 20:38Alec Baldwin?

  Had you been waitressing?

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Not yet. I, no, except on Long Island, I hadn't really had to.

• 20:42Alec Baldwin?

  Right out of Purchase, you got the movie. So it was after the movie, the waitressing began.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 20:47Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah, to try to keep up that $2,000 a week income.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 20:50Alec Baldwin?

  You were at the Rainbow Room.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  I was living it up.

• 20:53Alec Baldwin?

  You were at the champagne counter at the Rainbow Room.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Thinking it would be consistent, yes, but no.

• 20:57Alec Baldwin?

  Where did you waitress?

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Oh gosh, a million places, but formerly Joe's in the West Village, which is gone.

• 21:04Alec Baldwin?

  When you leave those places, you left because you got a job?

• 21:06Speaker 02

  Oftentimes, yeah. I'm trying to remember. I mean, one waitressing job I was fired from because my, I had a bad attitude, I was told. He didn't know the half of it, but I guess, yeah, I guess I got a job or, I don't know.

• 21:19Alec Baldwin?

  Did you ever last for a long time as a waitress?

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Not really. I mean, not terribly long. I was miserably unhappy. I really tried so hard. I was a good waitress insofar as how many tables I could handle, but if I had to make eye contact with anybody, I would fall apart.

• 21:35Alec Baldwin?

  Why was that so hard?

• 21:36Speaker 02

  I just, they were mean and people would, you know, they'd, I'd take their order and they wouldn't look at me and they'd be like, you know, just rude and...

• 21:44Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah. There's no connection?

• 21:46Speaker 02

  Nothing. And I just, it was awful. It was awful. I just felt, you know, it was gross. And I had, you know, margarita juice all over my clothes most of the, it was just disgusting. Why does any waiter hate being a waiter? I mean, and for the people who like it, God bless them, but I was not one of them.

• 22:01Alec Baldwin?

  What was the job for you that ended that? Like, when did you get a job and then you never went back again? You only made a living as an actress?

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Uh, I was waitressing at a place called Canyon Road on 77th and 1st. It was the last waitressing job I had. I worked there with Paul Schulze, my friend, who has actually been on a bunch of my shows with me, my great actor friend. And he was bartending and I went off to do a thing called Cost of Living, a low-budget independent thing. And I left and I was about to come back to the restaurant job and I just had one of those sort of grace moments where I thought, no, I'm not gonna come back. I don't know how this is gonna work, but I'm not gonna waitress anymore. It really was one, it was a total leap of faith. I just...

• 22:43Alec Baldwin?

  I'm gonna be homeless.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Didn't have a plan.

• 22:45Alec Baldwin?

  I'm gonna live in a wash machine box.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Which seemed...

• 22:48Alec Baldwin?

  I dicked out the box.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  Preferable to taking another order at that restaurant. So, lovely restaurant, but just I couldn't do it anymore. So, yeah, and at that, I don't know, I guess Oz happened shortly after that, maybe?

• 22:58Alec Baldwin?

  Talk about that. So, what was the experience like working with Fontana?

• 23:01Speaker 02

  You know Tom, right?

• 23:03Alec Baldwin?

  I met him a couple of times.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Forget it. I love him. He was one of those angel guys, you know, because I had done a movie called Laws of Gravity with a bunch of people from Purchase. And it got some attention. It played the sort of Sundance and the festival circuit. Tom saw it and decided he wanted to use me for stuff. And so, he put me in a series called Firehouse about EMT workers and fire people or whatever. Dean Winters was my husband in that show. And then he cast me in homicide, or maybe it was the other way around. He just, he kept putting me in stuff when I wasn't really working much. And then he said, I'm doing the series about a prison. I have two parts. You can play the nun or you can play the

• 23:48Speaker 02

  correction officer. Which part do you want to play? I said, I'll be the correction officer. And that was, you know, and he just decided he was gonna take care of me. And he did. And he did for many years.

• 23:56Alec Baldwin?

  You were in his troupe?

• 23:58Speaker 02

  I was in his...

• 23:59Alec Baldwin?

  His acting troupe?

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I was just thrilled.

• 24:01Alec Baldwin?

  How many seasons did you do?

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Of Oz?

• 24:04Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  Gosh, you know what? I have no idea, actually, come to think of it.

• 24:06Alec Baldwin?

  More than a couple?

• 24:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe three or four.

• 24:08Alec Baldwin?

  Did you rape anybody? Didn't you rape, didn't you like sexually abuse people too?

• 24:11Speaker 02

  You know what? I would think I'd remember that, but, uh...

• 24:13Alec Baldwin?

  You didn't?

• 24:14Speaker 02

  I did not.

• 24:15Alec Baldwin?

  You weren't, you weren't a, you weren't a bad person?

• 24:16Speaker 02

  I was not a bad person. I was a...

• 24:17Alec Baldwin?

  Wasn't there somebody else? It must have been another woman.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Tough woman in a man's job.

• 24:20Alec Baldwin?

  Maybe there was another woman who was a, who was a matron there in the...

• 24:23Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 24:24Alec Baldwin?

  Because I always remember the, the great actress who I worked with, Shirley Stoller. Do you remember Shirley Stoller? Shirley Stoller, who was an opera singer. She was a very large woman. She played like the prison matron on like One Life to Live. She was on the soap. And she'd be like, you know, get in that cell, see? She would, I think this Cagney kind of, get in the cell now, see? But you were not from the Shirley Stoller school of prison matron?

• 24:44Speaker 02

  I was not. I was ineffectual, I think, because I was, yeah, I was sort of quiet and I wasn't mean enough. And I was, yeah, I didn't, I think I, there was no work to be had in whatever the town was.

• 24:55Alec Baldwin?

  Boy, Fontana really liked you, huh?

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:57Alec Baldwin?

  He just kept you on.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  I totally, I was just so crazy grateful for the work. And I remember, it was before cell phones. I remember Terry Kinney was on the show with me and he was the first person I ever knew who had his own phone. I just thought he was the coolest, coolest thing going. Yeah.

• 25:10Alec Baldwin?

  Of course he did.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It was fun. It was really, really fun. And it was great to have a steady gig.

• 25:15Alec Baldwin?

  And then after that, what did you do? How long between that and The Sopranos?

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Not long. I was doing, you know, I was doing Oz...

• 25:22Alec Baldwin?

  Frankie and Johnny?

• 25:23Speaker 02

  That, that was during Sopranos. I think that was during two seasons of Sopranos. But I was doing Oz and then I was doing Sideman, a play that I did for a very long time. And I was doing Oz at night and Sideman during the day. And then Sopranos came in. And so, I was doing, there was a period of time where I was doing sort of all three of them. And I thought, because they were so great and I couldn't say no to anything, but I was very unhappy because I was exhausted and sick most of the time, screaming my voice out. And it was an embarrassment of riches, but I might have done better to say no to one of them. But be that as it may, it was at a time when I couldn't imagine not doing any of those jobs.

• 26:00Alec Baldwin?

  After all, before donning acrylic nails for Carmela, Edie Falco made money in some memorable ways. She dressed up as Cookie Monster and beckoned people onto the dance floor at weddings. Take a listen to other actresses like Kathleen Turner in our archives. Kathleen told me what she thought about working in television.

• 26:24Speaker 07

  I just hated the commitment. I hated the idea of being that tied down. I thought if I had to do the same character year after year, I would definitely slit my throat.

• 26:36Alec Baldwin?

  To hear more from Kathleen Turner, go to hereisthething.org.

• 26:55Speaker 07

  911, what's your emergency? Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder warrants. 911 Nashville returns.

• 27:05Speaker 05

  There's a homicide detective down here. Three bodies on the ground.

• 27:08Speaker 07

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 27:11Speaker 05

  All sins swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 27:18Speaker 07

  Ryan Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 27:24Speaker 03

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• 27:55Speaker 00

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• 28:51Speaker 07

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• 29:33Speaker 07

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• 29:44Speaker 04

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• 30:14Speaker 03

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• 30:53Alec Baldwin?

  My guest today, Edie Falco, plays Jackie Payton, an emergency room nurse, mother, and an addict on Showtime's Nurse Jackie.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  All right. You know what I would have done in the past? Lied.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Sweetie, I have a sponsor. I am going to meetings. I am OK. And I'm gonna keep on being OK, because I have too much to lose.

• 31:16Alec Baldwin?

  Long before she played a nurse, Edie Falco was a patient. During her tenure at The Sopranos, she found a lump in her breast, got a biopsy, and then the news.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  They said, yeah, no, you have cancer. And I think when someone said those words to me, like, every cell in your body changes shape for a second, and you will never really be the same. You know, they are certainly, growing up on Long Island, or maybe anybody in our generation, growing up anywhere, when you heard those words, the next thing you were doing was buying an outfit for that funeral.

• 31:47Alec Baldwin?

  Sure. It's a Woody Allen movie. He walks out of the doctor, and he's like, "Oh, God. Oh, God." And he's like, "They tell me there's a brain tumor." And he's walking to the tree, "I'm gonna die. Oh, God." He just fantasizes about his death.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  That was it, though. That was reality. So, I mean, it's not anymore, thank God. But, yeah, it was terrifying.

• 32:04Alec Baldwin?

  No, without getting into any detail, the treatment and such, was it something that was prolonged? Did it interfere with the show?

• 32:11Speaker 02

  Nobody knew about it.

• 32:12Alec Baldwin?

  Nobody knew about it.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Except for Eileen Landris, the producer of the show. I had to tell her, because they were trying to schedule around my chemo, because it knocks you out. So...

• 32:21Alec Baldwin?

  Chemo for how long?

• 32:23Speaker 02

  You know what? It's so funny. About traumatic things, I remember them weirdly. The whole thing took, I guess, about a year, between surgery, chemo, and radiation. I think it took about a year. I think that's right.

• 32:34Alec Baldwin?

  A year?

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:35Alec Baldwin?

  And it affected the schedule of the show?

• 32:37Speaker 02

  No.

• 32:38Alec Baldwin?

  That show was how many months out of the year?

• 32:39Speaker 02

  It varied. You know, it went from, it started like...

• 32:42Alec Baldwin?

  It went from four to nine.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  That's right. It started as, like, eight days an episode, and by the end, it was like 30 days an episode.

• 32:46Alec Baldwin?

  People would always say that to me. "How does that Sopranos work?" They said, "No one knows."

• 32:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. I ended up getting paid, like, five bucks an hour towards the end.

• 32:52Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah, right, right, right, right.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  But during that time, no, nobody knew about it. They, I showed up.

• 32:57Alec Baldwin?

  You didn't want people to know about it.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  I didn't.

• 32:59Alec Baldwin?

  You're very privates.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  I'm very privates.

• 33:01Alec Baldwin?

  You are very privates.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  But also, I don't do well when people are...

• 33:03Alec Baldwin?

  You're private about your privates.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  I don't do well when people are like, "How you feeling?"

• 33:08Alec Baldwin?

  You don't want that attention.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  I was, the truth is, we were working such crazy hours that everybody on set looked worse than I did. They were just exhausted. Nobody was sleeping. And I looked like the one who was taking care of myself.

• 33:19Alec Baldwin?

  Chemo was a vacation. I get to lie down in a room while I drip the shit in me.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Exactly. And somebody's taking care of me and wiping my forehead and all that.

• 33:24Alec Baldwin?

  But is there a part of you that, from your childhood or something, because you seem very tough?

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:30Alec Baldwin?

  And you don't want anybody to, you're like, you don't want a lot of sympathy.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  I'm not good with sympathy.

• 33:36Alec Baldwin?

  You don't need a lot of attention.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  You tend to play into it, you know? And they're like, "Yeah, you're right. I don't really feel so good." If people don't know anything's wrong, I can behave as if things are OK.

• 33:47Alec Baldwin?

  Did you think it was important? Do you feel it was a part of your recovery and your overview of health, not to feed into it and think too much about it?

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Absolutely, right. But this is not for everybody. People go through this stuff very differently, but this is what worked for me, to keep it private. And only my closest friends knew. And so when I went to work, I didn't, people were like, "How you doing?" And going about their business. And that is absolutely what worked for me. Kept me going, kept me busy, and I, I don't know. If I needed to be taken care of a little better, I saw to it that I was. You know, I would go home early or whatever. I was taking care of myself.

• 34:21Alec Baldwin?

  Who was taking care of you at the time?

• 34:23Speaker 02

  Friends. My dear friends were...

• 34:26Alec Baldwin?

  You weren't married?

• 34:27Speaker 02

  No.

• 34:27Alec Baldwin?

  You'd never been married?

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Never been married.

• 34:29Alec Baldwin?

  Ever been close?

• 34:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, a couple times. And I...

• 34:32Alec Baldwin?

  And did you get rid of all those men in your life who were in love with you, wanted to marry you? Because they wanted to hold the door for you?

• 34:37Speaker 02

  That's, I said, "That's enough. Get your hands off me, dude. Give me my bag, man."

• 34:42Alec Baldwin?

  You were like, "Yeah, I can carry the bag. What is wrong with you?"

• 34:44Speaker 02

  I can carry my, I can carry your bag.

• 34:45Alec Baldwin?

  What did I tell you about opening that door thing? You know how much I hate that?

• 34:49Speaker 02

  I don't know. What can I say?

• 34:50Alec Baldwin?

  Was that the key to getting you in the end? Was the guy should just treat you like...

• 34:53Speaker 02

  Slam the door in my face.

• 34:54Alec Baldwin?

  Like you were my little brother.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  And then I'm like, "Exactly."

• 34:56Alec Baldwin?

  Open the door yourself.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  "No, I'm home. What do you think I am?"

• 34:58Alec Baldwin?

  What are you, that lemon is not gonna walk itself over. Bring it over here. You wanted a Long Island, you wanted a guy from back home. But for you, family becomes a chapter.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:11Alec Baldwin?

  If you don't mind my asking, how does that happen?

• 35:12Speaker 02

  No. A bunch of relationships started, were serious. And there was a lot of talk of kids and marriage. And then the relationship would fall apart for various reasons. And the kid thing started to grow its own kind of roots in me. Cancer happens. I realize I'm not gonna die. I kind of come out of the stupor and realize, I want kids. And I don't think I'm gonna try to find the right man first. And then I just, this feels more prescient, the kid thing. Also, not to mention, like, and I hear about this all the time, about women dating, and very early on, they want to know, "Is this the guy who's gonna give me my family that I want?" It seemed like a preposterous way to go about things. So I began the adoption process with my kids on my own, once I realized that I was healthy.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  And that's how my family started. I adopted my son, and then three years later, I adopted my daughter. So it was relatively smooth. I mean, it was completely smooth, compared to stories I've heard.

• 36:07Alec Baldwin?

  Was it a difficult thing, did you say? Because as a woman, as you said, had dated men and contemplated that kind of traditional family, and those relationships ended for whatever reason. And God knows, you're successful. I mean, you're one of the most successful actresses in the history of television. And I'm sure you had no shortage of callers.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  I was, uh...

• 36:28Alec Baldwin?

  But when you, but I'm not trying to pry, but I'm saying, it's like, at what point do you sit there and go, "OK, I'm not gonna wait for that, that was a boom. I'm gonna go make this thing happen on my own. I'm gonna do it for me." When?

• 36:39Speaker 02

  I think...

• 36:39Alec Baldwin?

  Was it tough?

• 36:40Speaker 02

  It wasn't tough.

• 36:42Alec Baldwin?

  No.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  Like, any decision...

• 36:43Alec Baldwin?

  You're very self-reliant.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Well, any decision I make, I, it means it's gone through whatever it's had to go through to kind of come to the, you know, the unequivocal answer, which was, get the papers, start filling them out. That's what you gotta do. And once I'd made the decision, it just kind of, the whole thing unraveled on its own. And another thing also is, as a child of divorce, and as there are so few successful marriages, I can count on one hand, you know, in my life, what I would consider a successful marriage. You know, as I was watching friends go through divorce, and the sharing of the kids, and the fights in front of the kids, and the holidays split between the fam, it just, I desperately didn't want to give that to my kids. I wanted to know...

• 37:27Alec Baldwin?

  And now that you've raised a family this far?

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:30Alec Baldwin?

  Ten and six?

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:31Alec Baldwin?

  They're ten and six?

• 37:32Speaker 02

  Ten and seven.

• 37:32Alec Baldwin?

  Ten and seven? Are you at this point, I mean, maybe this is being glib, but are you at this point, yeah, and now you were like, you know, "Who needs a man? I got this far without one."

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Quite the opposite, actually. Now, I realize I've got this whole thing up and running. My kids are secure in my love for them, in the family that I've created, which is very unconventional. And that's good. And now I'm like, I can sit back and like, "All right, so where am I now? What do I, what am I about? And what do I need?" So I'm, you know, back in this other chapter again. But it's not about the kids. It's not about trying to create a family. Whatever it turns into, it turns into. But what I have right now is really quite workable. I'm proud of it.

• 38:13Alec Baldwin?

  Yes.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  It's complicated, and it's not perfect.

• 38:15Alec Baldwin?

  Are you gonna let them hold the door open for you?

• 38:17Speaker 02

  I've gotten much better, many, many years of therapy. And I have...

• 38:21Alec Baldwin?

  You're like Annie, you're the Italian Annie Oakley. You're the Annie Oakley from Bejaure, Long Island.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  I am. I can't help it. It's the way I was raised. Very self-reliant. But it has been, you know, the death of me at times.

• 38:37Speaker 02

  Hello?

• 38:38Alec Baldwin?

  Well, I'm trying to think of how to say this. I'm gonna write a book. I'm writing a memoir.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 38:43Alec Baldwin?

  That's coming out in a year. And in the book, I've got some interesting things I talk about. And one of which was, I celebrated my 30th anniversary.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 38:53Alec Baldwin?

  In February 23rd of this year. I went out to Los Angeles, which was the scene of the crime from there.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Is that right?

• 38:58Alec Baldwin?

  And can we talk about that?

• 38:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 39:00Alec Baldwin?

  Are you on the record about that?

• 39:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 39:02Alec Baldwin?

  I was wondering what that, how that affected your career.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  Well, I got sober 23 years ago. And there was really not much of anything going on at the time. And I'm grateful for that, also because, you know, the access people have to your life nowadays. I'm just glad that none of that was going on. Nobody was interested back when I was a mess. So I was able to get kind of squared with a lot of that stuff.

• 39:26Alec Baldwin?

  Before you stepped into the spotlight?

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, before anything big was happening in my life.

• 39:29Alec Baldwin?

  Me, too.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  So I was very, very grateful for the timing of all that.

• 39:32Alec Baldwin?

  And when you walk into a room in AA, there's not a lot of people who have 25 years.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 39:37Alec Baldwin?

  How many people make it that far?

• 39:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:38Alec Baldwin?

  I mean, there might be, when they do the hand-raising thing, I'm in a room the other day in LA where there was 300 people, and there might have been, like, six or eight of them that had over 20 years.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. We're the old timers now.

• 39:50Alec Baldwin?

  Right, we're the old timers now.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:52Alec Baldwin?

  Is it still a part of your life?

• 39:53Speaker 02

  I go on my anniversary, which was last week, and just to announce it, and, you know, I'm a Buddhist, which is what I do now.

• 40:03Alec Baldwin?

  You are?

• 40:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I spend a great deal of time at a Buddhist center in New York, where it has given my life a tremendous amount of richness.

• 40:10Alec Baldwin?

  If you don't mind my asking, when did that enter into your life?

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Uh...

• 40:12Alec Baldwin?

  Because you're not the first person I know who has supplanted sobriety.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 40:16Alec Baldwin?

  And 12-step sobriety with Buddhism or a Buddhist type of...

• 40:19Speaker 02

  There are a lot of crossovers. I see a lot of people that I know from both places.

• 40:22Alec Baldwin?

  So I see.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like, 20-something years ago, I inadvertently ran into a meditation class, and it was this teacher. And then I kind of wandered away, and then I kind of went back, and it was the same teacher. I thought I was going to some other thing. This happened a number of times. And then a good five or six years ago, I went back again. And here's the same darn teacher in a different place. And I've been going consistently for, I don't know, four or five years, as much as I can. It feeds me in a huge way.

• 40:50Alec Baldwin?

  How so? What do you get out of it?

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Well, it's not just sort of mumbo-jumbo, spiritual kind of, it's also, it's like a science of the mind, really, that was established 2,500 years ago. And so they've got, they've got history on their side. And I see the people who spend a good deal of time there, and the teacher there, they have what I want. You know, the stick with the winners thing. I love AA, but, you know, there are a lot of cuckoos in there. You know, and I love them because I understand them. But to be in a place where there's somebody who really has something that I want is very meaningful to me. It becomes harder and harder to find that. That's huge, though.

• 41:25Alec Baldwin?

  And for you, what I'm wondering, what did it give you? What did it help you deal with or manage or...

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Well, single parenting is not for the faint of heart, shall I say. You know, you live for 40 years where you're the center of your universe. You know, when you want to get a massage, you go get one. And as you know, that kids enter the picture, and it just turns your whole life, I mean, there's nothing recognizable about it. And it was really a crash course in, uh... Not being the center of my universe anymore. So, and I didn't always handle it great. Spent a fair amount of time just not being okay with the fact that I couldn't control my environment. So, a lot of it is about remaining calm, about being patient, about remembering what's important, about patience is, I think, the biggest part of it.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  I have a short temper that people may not believe, but, you know, in my home environment.

• 42:19Alec Baldwin?

  I can believe that.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not pretty. So, it has helped me immeasurably with that.

• 42:24Alec Baldwin?

  Describe your son.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  Cute.

• 42:27Alec Baldwin?

  Loveable?

• 42:28Speaker 02

  He's lovable and blonde. He's a spectacularly amazing kid, and he's been through a lot. And he has some learning stuff and also ADD, ADHD, and all those acronyms, which, you know, single parenting under the best of circumstances is difficult, but when you have a kid who's bouncing off the walls and then a kid who's not, who's getting beat up by the kid who's bouncing off the walls, it's complicated and it's

• 42:55Alec Baldwin?

  So, the little one is.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's the sort of the survivor.

• 42:59Alec Baldwin?

  The recipient.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 43:01Alec Baldwin?

  The receptacle.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  So, but, you know, she's a tough kid. She can take care of herself.

• 43:06Alec Baldwin?

  Come on over here, let's play sword fight.

• 43:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no, you're the sword. And he's constantly beating the crap out of her. And, you know, she's

• 43:13Alec Baldwin?

  Scratch her.

• 43:14Speaker 02

  She's learned to kind of make the, make the best of it, but the fact that she has to is what is a drag, so. But, you know, we all had our stuff growing up and the middle child and, you know, everybody, we all have some order in which we were born and the difficulties we had and being the first one or the last one or whatever. My kids' challenges are not that unusual, but, you know.

• 43:36Alec Baldwin?

  I say to my daughter, my older daughter, I've said to her recently, I said to her, you know, to me, a god or the presence of some kind of force like that in your life manifests itself in the instincts that you have. And I said to her, the minute you get into trouble in this life, in my experience, is when you stop listening to your instincts.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:57Alec Baldwin?

  That's all we can do is try to get them to listen to that voice in them.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:01Alec Baldwin?

  Because in the end, they're going to do what they're going to do.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 44:03Alec Baldwin?

  We can't make them do what we want to. It's painful.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  Boy.

• 44:06Alec Baldwin?

  It's painful.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  Shocking, too. I mean, especially in this industry, we have so many people running around, you know, telling you how great you are and, you know, making sure that your every need is taken care of, and then you go home and your kids just couldn't care less.

• 44:17Alec Baldwin?

  Your kids have no idea who you are.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  What you're asking. But they do, but I think they think everybody's parents have some kind of life like this. I don't know, they're exceedingly unimpressed, but, you know, just to hang up the damn coat, you know what I mean? They just couldn't possibly care less the way I want the house to look and, you know, all that stuff that used to be so important that I'm learning slowly to let go of.

• 44:35Alec Baldwin?

  Do you see yourself doing this for the rest of your life?

• 44:38Speaker 02

  I have no idea.

• 44:39Alec Baldwin?

  You don't?

• 44:40Speaker 02

  I don't.

• 44:41Alec Baldwin?

  There's nothing else you want to do?

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Ah, I like animals. I always had this fantasy of working with animals. I don't know what, certainly nothing that could support the homes that I have, so, you know, I'll probably end up.

• 44:51Alec Baldwin?

  You want to keep going?

• 44:52Speaker 02

  I do love the acting part. It's all the stuff around it that is difficult. I really don't know. I've never known what was going to happen next. If something comes along, catches my eye, it's almost like, oh, look, something glittering.

• 45:04Alec Baldwin?

  How did Nurse Jackie happen?

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Kind of like that. Sopranos ended and I just started reading scripts and nothing appealed to me and I thought, I don't know, maybe I'm done? And I think I just wasn't ready, or maybe there really wasn't anything good. And then I read that one, at the time it was Nurse Mona, it was written by Evan Dunskey, and I read it and it was very dark, but there was something about the character I liked and I kind of, it came to life that way. I was ready, the script changed, it morphed into something that felt better to me, and that's how it happened. But I had similar feelings, like maybe I did what I wanted to do with all this stuff. I don't know, I mean, I have no idea. I really don't know what the heck's going to happen next.

• 45:44Alec Baldwin?

  And in the, how many seasons, this just finished, what season?

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Seven.

• 45:47Alec Baldwin?

  Nurse Jackie? Seven!

• 45:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, go figure. You know, you sign up, you're like, ah, it'll be a couple of years. You have no idea. Crazy.

• 45:55Alec Baldwin?

  And then during that seven years, and you had the break when you weren't working, did you always take off? You shot some stuff or you did some plays?

• 46:03Speaker 02

  I did, yeah, I did a bunch of plays and I did, I did, yeah.

• 46:07Alec Baldwin?

  Where?

• 46:08Speaker 02

  I did one at Manhattan Theatre Club, I did one with Ben Stiller, House of Blue Leaves, I did other things which escaped me now.

• 46:17Alec Baldwin?

  But in town, you don't like, you don't like to go away?

• 46:19Speaker 02

  Not if I, not if I don't have to. It's different. You have kids in school, it's a different thing.

• 46:23Alec Baldwin?

  What's the most successful thing you've done?

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Professionally?

• 46:27Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah, what do you think?

• 46:28Speaker 02

  The most

• 46:29Alec Baldwin?

  Other than the obvious one, what were the most successful? Is it the obvious one?

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Um, not necessarily.

• 46:35Alec Baldwin?

  Okay.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, for me, the greatest success I've had professionally is the environment that we created at Nurse Jackie, the working environment.

• 46:44Alec Baldwin?

  Really?

• 46:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:46Alec Baldwin?

  How so?

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Well, that we assume at a certain level of expertise that the people you're going to hire for your ADs and your camera people and stuff, you know, that they're all, they've been working a long time and they're good at what they do. More important to us was that they were manageable and kind after 16 hours or whatever. So, we made a lot of phone calls to people who'd been on sets with them after a long day to find out what they would be like, because, you know, having been around other environments, I just feel like I've just gotten too old for the craziness.

• 47:20Alec Baldwin?

  That's interesting, that Nurse Jackie, which you're still doing, that's, that's still on the air, that is these epic days, it's long days?

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Not terrible. Actually, I've had way more epic days, but even a normal day of 12 or 13 hours is still a long day to an average individual. It's a lot of days to spend doing this one thing. But regardless of the length of the days, you just want to be hanging with people who are nice, so.

• 47:43Alec Baldwin?

  And you're there so long.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, we got, we really did a great job with Nurse Jackie. I loved the people, they were nice and respectful.

• 47:50Alec Baldwin?

  And I read somewhere that you said you're like Nurse Jackie in some ways and not at all like her in other ways.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  Well.

• 47:59Alec Baldwin?

  What are the ways that you are? What are the ways that you are like Nurse Jackie?

• 48:03Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know. I don't recall saying that, but that doesn't mean I didn't.

• 48:07Alec Baldwin?

  Well, then let me be the first to pose here. What are the ways you are like Nurse Jackie?

• 48:12Speaker 02

  I think she's diligent about her job. I think she takes it seriously. It's important to her to be good at it.

• 48:19Alec Baldwin?

  She's professional.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  Professional, but also competent, you know? She knows that she, there are very few situations she can't handle. I think that's important to her, and I think it's important to me, too. I don't know, other than that, we veer. I kind of think it's cool that she doesn't really give a shit the way she's perceived. She gets what she needs done, she gets done without worrying about the ramifications, who she might have hurt. I mean, I spend far too much time thinking about that stuff. It has led me to not good places where, so I often thought it'd be fun to be more like her in that way.

• 48:52Alec Baldwin?

  Did you become like any of your characters?

• 48:53Speaker 02

  No.

• 48:54Alec Baldwin?

  Never?

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Not really.

• 48:56Alec Baldwin?

  No?

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Took off the nails and the hair, or I took off the scrubs and it was gone. I don't think so.

• 49:02Alec Baldwin?

  Never.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  I don't think so. I mean, maybe other people would tell me otherwise, but I don't know.

• 49:11Alec Baldwin?

  There's a humanness to Edie Falco's characters. No matter how tough their exterior appears, her women are vulnerable and fallible, and we can't get enough of them. This is the seventh and final season for Showtime's Nurse Jackie. After that, we'll eagerly await to see who Edie Falco inhabits next. She told me she's hoping for a new play to come her way. This is Alec Baldwin. You're listening to Here's the Thing.

• 49:50Speaker 00

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• 50:26Speaker 04

  This week on Game Recognized Game with Brianna Stewart and me, Myles Turner, we talk with two-time WNBA All-Star and current ESPN analyst, Shanae Ogumike, about tearing her Achilles tendon while playing in China and how a deep connection with her sister Nekka helped the recovery process.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Nekka claims to have felt something while she was sleeping and that's why she was up when I called. And I was like, oh my gosh, Nekka, I'm hurt, and I think this is a problem.

• 50:49Speaker 04

  Listen to Game Recognized Game with Stewie and Myles on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's that? My fresh detector. Uh, your what? There it is. What is it detecting? Fresh produce, fresh meat. Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh? Apparently, we celebrate. At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices when your fresh detector is going off. Head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com. One number can save your round, so when the pressure's on, don't guess. Bushnell Golf gives serious golfers the confidence to pull the right club with range finders,

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• 52:11Speaker 00

  We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Iwanu. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisi DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The WNBA playoffs are here, and Good Game with Sarah Spain is the only daily podcast that'll keep you up to date on all the action. We'll make sure you're the smartest fan at the bar by bringing you interviews with some of the best minds in basketball, including your favorite coaches and players.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  No one cares what we did last year. If anything, that's a bigger target on our back. Want to know what's really going on in the WNBA? We got you. Listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 53:11Speaker 04

  Why have so many crop circles appeared around Britain? How did thousands of people demonstrate powers of telepathy? Can the dead suck the life from the living? Join me, Tim Harford, for a trip into the paranormal throughout Halloween month on Cautionary Tales. Listen to Cautionary Tales on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 53:39Speaker 00

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