“Life Is Just So” (w/ Lena Dunham)

In a world of Apple conferences, HBO gems, and insightful memoirs around career building experiences, we would be remiss to not remind ourselves that life is just so... so much so that the sisters are joined by Lena Dunham to talk, and mostly quote, one of our great post-feminist works: Girls. And of course Lena's new memoir: Famesick. Which is out now, honey! So get to listening and reading and reading and listening. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:05Speaker 03

  Look, man.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  There.

• 1:06Speaker 03

  Oh, I see. Wow. Why? Bowen, look over there. Wow, is that culture? Yes. Goodness. Wow. Las Culturistas.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Ding dong, Las Culturistas calling. This, I just want to say before we sort of launch into whatever this is gonna be, what's making me really happy is that we're watching our guest consume her first ever Celsius.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  On ice in a glass. And it's a color. It's a color that serendipitously matches her outfit and shoes. And speaking of the word serendipitous, I, I've had this vocal stim for at least 12 years. I'm sorry, I don't want to go to Serendipity and drink frozen hot chocolates with your uncle's girlfriend who is a stewardess named Elodie. The bill, that is right there in one line, a masterclass in dialogue. You build and build and build. And oh my, I've never forgotten that line of dialogue. I mean, among other, among the legion of other sequences of words on that show called Girls.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  But can I tell you another shorter one?

• 2:17Speaker 02

  Yes, of course. Please, that's a long one.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  And then sometimes the brevity like will be what hits. What do I want to be like you?

• 2:22Speaker 02

  Like mentally ill? Show, you're cruel drunk. It's crazy.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  And we really had to work with Alison to try to go back into the file cabinets of her brain when she was on.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Was that improvised line. It's crazy.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  But then you read this wonderful book, Fame Sick, and you get a glimpse into the creative process. Honestly, here's the thing, everyone out there, you need this book. You actually need to read it. It's required reading. Not that there's gonna be a test, but like, consider yourself unprepared for the rest of sort of your life going forward if you don't go out and get it.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  It's not even, there's no test involved. It's just a book where, and I haven't had this in a while, it's one of those, it's a knocker. You're nodding every page.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  You're like, I recognize this.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. You knowingly nod at a book like this, which I, which felt really refreshing.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  I mean, just to say, this is obviously a huge moment in the podcast. I mean, the creator of our favorite show, creator of our favorite words, I mean, become a pal.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Somehow.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  In a true love at first sight moment, became a pal.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. We found love in an Apple place. That's all we'll say.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  That's all we're gonna say.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  That's all we're gonna say.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Let's just say I have one photo, you know how, you know how like sometimes on your iPhone, like one photo, like, there's that thing of like, this day last year, or sometimes it's not even a year ago, it's just like, your phone just decides pictures that it's gonna keep showing you.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Terrible.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Our, like, our guest factors in to that for me, because it's just, I'll just randomly be flipping through and it's like, oh, there's a picture of me and Bo, oh, there's a picture of me and Greta, and then there's Lena Dunham and Tim Cook. Just the two of them.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  A gorgeous couple. My nipples are wrecked. And we have to unpack this on the anniversary of Apple's 50th birthday. No, to date, did they, okay, well, we'll get into this. Everyone, please welcome Lena Dunham.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Today is the 50th anniversary of Apple Computer.

• 4:33Speaker 04

  Is it really?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  And we

• 4:35Speaker 04

  And we're here together?

• 4:35Speaker 01

  And we're here together.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  Okay, so I don't know how much I can say before a drone strike happens right here. But firstly, I just want to say it's an honor to be with you.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Are you kidding?

• 4:45Speaker 04

  I'm a huge fan.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 4:47Speaker 04

  Huge consumer of your content.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  I love what you do. And when we had our love at first sight moment, you said something about the podcast and I never do this. And I was like, which I'd love to be on.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, no. And that was, see, that's the kind of thing where it's like, we earmarked it immediately because I'm like, oh, okay. That's something that can happen.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 04

  I was begging for it. I was circling the building. But we spent two full and complete days together.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:15Speaker 04

  At the Apple iPhone launch.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:17Speaker 04

  Which I kept saying, we're here to understand the future. I didn't know what else to say or how to say it.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Was that just what you were saying as a line to the people that worked there? Like, yeah, I'm here to understand the future.

• 5:29Speaker 04

  Well, I was saying to the people who worked there and then I started to believe it. And then I started to say it to people I care about, like you.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  But I was like, I don't want to be left behind. I was like, when the future comes, I want to be there. When they're, when they're having us use the tools, I want to be the one running the tools. And everyone was like, okay, babe, calm down. Like, you're gonna get a free iPhone. You can breathe.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  It's got, it's got a new lens, yeah.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  I saw you two walk in. There was a series of sort of public art arches.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:54Speaker 04

  Colorful arches.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  And I was standing there awkwardly, my heels digging into the sod.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  And I saw you two and I screamed, a scream that was like pure pleasure. It was like if you were a wolf separated from your child in a Disney movie. And then you encountered them in the forest after a full story arc.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, 100%.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  That's how it felt.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  I will say, I was like, I said to Bo and I was like, how gagged would you be if just to go back to like 2013 and be like, one day we're gonna see Lena Dunham in an event and be like, thank God.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  You're here.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Like, oh my God.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  And I couldn't believe, I was just sitting here in such pleasure because you're better at being Allison and me than Allison and me.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  No, my God.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  But I will tell you, I don't remember much, but I do know that I don't want to drink frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity with your uncle's girlfriend who's a stewardess named Elodie.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, no.

• 6:46Speaker 04

  Was in improv.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Are you serious?

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Lena.

• 6:54Speaker 04

  Sometimes. I remember it was, we were really jacked up. It was the middle of the night. We weren't drinking Celsius, but something equivalent, and it just happened.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  I'm gonna butcher this because in that same line of, in that same block of script, you also say, and mind you, you're, you're coked up, your character's, Hannah's coked up. And you looked me with your eyes and you lied to me with your eyes when you said, by not saying anything at all. Like, it was, it's just, that's, and that's, of course, that's all improvised. And I'm like, but that's just, that's just your brain.

• 7:25Speaker 04

  Well, that's so, we also snorted a lot of lactose powder.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was wondering.

• 7:30Speaker 04

  And you can't know what that does. Like, Andrew and I recently talked about, we like, we snorted.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Milk, yeah.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  Tons of milk off a toilet that day. And what came later just.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Had to be a sinus infection.

• 7:43Speaker 04

  Had to, we, I know we didn't feel good. We were also, we were dancing in a club at, we arrived at five in the morning. So by the time we were sweaty, coked up and dancing, it was 7:30 a.m.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:56Speaker 04

  So like, this nightlife scene was actually us jacked up on lactose powder.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  7:30 a.m. And what happens, happens. Improving our faces, little faces. What is it that you do on RuPaul's Drag Race? You dance for your life.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  For your supper, yeah, whatever, yeah.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  That also broke open, um, crop mesh, I think for a new generation.

• 8:19Speaker 04

  Thank you so much. I remember when the shirt came out, we had amazing costume designer.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:24Speaker 04

  Jen, and she brought the shirt out and was like, we could do a bra with it, we could, I was like, we're not doing anything with it.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  No, this is tits underneath.

• 8:29Speaker 04

  This is tits under, this is, my tits are my accessory.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 04

  And also, you don't know in your twenties how much they're gonna change. You don't know, yeah, your tits.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  And I was thinking about this recently because I have a pal who lives with me who's in her twenties and they're just up like champagne flutes. And I just looked and I was like, take advantage, take photos.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  Be topless.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  When you're doing a TV show and they ask you if you want a bra underneath your mesh.

• 8:54Speaker 04

  Say no. Because someday you're gonna be wearing three t-shirts.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:58Speaker 04

  And a sweater just to hold it back, you know?

• 9:03Speaker 02

  So on this topic, do you want to unpack the reason why your nipples went erect next to Tim Cook?

• 9:10Speaker 04

  It was crazy.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  It's okay if it's attraction.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  It was definitely like, he's got, what do we call it, swag? He's got riz, whatever's going on.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Whatever that thing is gonna be next week.

• 9:21Speaker 04

  But I also think like the panic of you have two minutes with which to properly engage with this person. I mean, I kept saying things like, I love your products. I was saying things that I never imagined would come out of my mouth. And then I looked down and like, for the first time in 15 years, my nipples were standing at attention. And I looked at the photo and it, it truly looks like one of those pictures you see of like, a married couple that has moved to a vacation destination together.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  I have it on my phone.

• 9:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, you have it on your phone.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  This is a picture that I treasure.

• 9:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, we look like, and I remember coming up to him and being like, I just took the picture with him. My nipples popped out, then popped right back in. Don't know why, don't know how.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Portrait mode.

• 10:03Speaker 04

  He's got searing eyes.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Okay, so this is something I haven't said.

• 10:07Speaker 04

  Like you incredibly blue searing eyes.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  That's, so about a few months later.

• 10:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  I actually was at the same restaurant as him when I was in DC. Remember this Melissa, we, Melissa came and sang backup for me on my tour. We're at a restaurant.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Thank you Melissa for your service.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Everyone goes, and, and Melissa knew that I had met him at that event. So the, the waiter comes over to our table and goes, I do have to ask you guys, um, if you're finished, if you don't mind, I never do this. It's just that Tim Cook has your table after you. And we go, what? And I was like, not sure they were supposed to do that. Anyway, I'm like, yes, we'll go, we'll go, we'll go. And then someone goes, are you gonna say hi on the way out? I was like, No, I am not. And then they go, well, why not? I mean, you've met the guy once. I was like, I am not saying hello to Tim Cook on the way out of here. I was like, I don't want to do it.

• 10:55Speaker 04

  Going up to him and being like, we met for two minutes in a picture line. Do you remember?

• 10:59Speaker 01

  But everyone I was with was like expecting it to happen. And so they described me running by him. Like, he was standing at the bar. I got on the ground and basically used all my pads of all my feet and hands to like crawl out. And they were like, what you just did to not say hi to him is the craziest thing we've ever seen.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  What's crazy is if I saw him in the wild, I would never recognize him again. In my brain, he looks like Steve Jobs.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you're like, it can't be.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  It can't be, but also his face, which was so clear to me in that moment, like we'd been waiting for each other our whole lives, he's gone. Disappeared into a puff of smoke.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  Um, and it's interesting because we were there together and we didn't totally know, I mean, everyone was being really nice to us, but we didn't totally know what our job was.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  No.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  What are we here for? What do you want from us? I like clear instructions.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  It felt like the beginning of, um, The Westing Game, or like an Agatha Christie novel.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  I love The Westing Game.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  Well, I love The Westing Game too, and you kind of just shot something through me.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  That's our project we'll do together.

• 12:03Speaker 04

  By the way, did they ever make a movie of The Westing Game?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  You know what? I'm sure I looked this up. I think they did. Becca, can you look up if they did The Westing Game? Maybe in the late 80s, early 90s for television?

• 12:14Speaker 04

  Books that are like part of a genre of like mysteries for children, like suspense for children. There was one that I loved. I don't know if you ever heard of it called The Wolves of Willoughby Chase?

• 12:24Speaker 02

  No, tell it what a title.

• 12:26Speaker 04

  It was like about a girl. I loved books about like a girl who is an orphan and she moves to a house and something's not quite right.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and she gets out her little book and pencil.

• 12:36Speaker 04

  That's exactly right. And I wanted to be that child. And, and The Westing Game, and also, um, did you like The Giver?

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Of course. The Giver. Wasn't Taylor Swift in The Giver?

• 12:46Speaker 02

  She was in The Giver.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Yes, she was.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  She played an important memory in The Giver.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  She played an important memory.

• 12:53Speaker 04

  And remember his job is-

• 12:54Speaker 02

  She plays an important memory in all of our lives.

• 12:56Speaker 04

  Of course. I think about The Giver because she's a brunette in The Giver.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, she is. That's why you think about it.

• 13:02Speaker 04

  That's why I think about it is because she was a brunette with bangs.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:06Speaker 04

  And I loved it. I love every time she acts.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  An era that doesn't get spoken of. Her Giver era. It's rule of culture number 13. No one talks about Taylor's Giver era.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  That was so amazing, a fast. It's amazing to be on something that you're a fan of because I'm watching this thing I love, but I'm here.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Well, just to speak on that, um, it's funny, like, because everyone did the, the girls rewatch moment and that, that had to feel like. It's ongoing, I feel. Yeah, well, it's definitely, it started, I would say, like, 2022, it started to, like, really catch fire, like, we're all rewatching this, but I wonder how it feels to know that, like, at the time, everyone was like, I don't understand how someone can be in it and capture it, but as a time capsule, it may be growing into its purpose even more as a time capsule of that era.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  That is, for me, the greatest thing, because if we think about it, like, I remember Judd Apatow once saying to me, you never really, we think the most important moment of anything's life is when it first comes out and the internet's responding and people, but actually, you don't know the role that anything plays until it's been in the world for a long time.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  Like, like, we all now recognize that My So-Called Life is the greatest teen show of all time. It was canceled after one season. My best friend Matt Wolfe did, uh, put together a petition, which was signed by over 10,000 people that, to try to get it back on the air, but shockingly, um, was it ABC?

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, ABC.

• 14:32Speaker 04

  Didn't listen to a 15-year-old head of his gay straight alliance in San Jose, California.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Problem.

• 14:38Speaker 04

  And that's a big problem with television. Because that's who we need to be serving.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Because we would have had more, more than one season of Freaks and Geeks then, too. Yeah.

• 14:47Speaker 04

  Of course, we would have had more than one season of Enlightened, we would have, but we can't have nice things.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  No. Here's the thing, we were just talking, people are so, so much smarter than they are when they're like, hi, I'm promoting a movie and I'm behind it. It's like, they walk off camera and they're like, I don't know about this.

• 15:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, and then they, and even if it's a hit, sometimes they don't know about it.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  Some things that hit with culture are actually hitting on, like, the worst parts of us.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:13Speaker 04

  And some things, and we now know that lots of brilliant actors have had to do things that they, so it's just an interesting thing to think, like, there are things that hit and you go, everyone's talking about it, but what will be happening in

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:26Speaker 04

  five, 10, 15, 20 years. And when we were making Girls, there was so much sort of feedback, probably more, we had more people reviewing it than watched it. Honestly.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  And I believe this and I agree.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  The discussion was something that was paramount.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  Exactly. And then it's really nice when something's out of its discussion phase. And now people are just maybe getting to like, watch it in a cozy context. And also, they don't have to be reacting to the reaction to the reaction. Or thinking, does this define what it feels like for me to be 24? Does this feel like it reflects, but actually can just engage with it as what it was? There's some TikTok sound where the girl's like, she's like, I don't know, I'm just being goofy. And sometimes I feel about the show, I'm like, I'm just being goofy.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 04

  And when there's that much discussion, you're like, and now I think people can maybe go like, they were just being goofy.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:19Speaker 04

  And actually, that's more meaningful in a way.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Oh, good. Because, but I think what Matt's saying is like, you captured it while you were in it. And I think it's kind of, not even kind of, it's completely remarkable that you were able to maintain that sort of valence throughout, despite the discourse around it.

• 16:37Speaker 04

  Valence, you just knocked me out.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  He'll always use valence and things like that.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  It's beautiful. It's beautiful.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  But like, the fact that you maintained this throughout, and I was even laughing in the book where you were like talking about the last season, you were writing scenes that made no sense, like, you know, Shoshana goes to this place.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  Goes to a nudist camp, because ending a show is so hard. And you're like, I'm gonna really shock them. And then you're like, this isn't shocking. Shoshana wandered down the road to a nudist camp? We also have to remember, there was a lot of, I always knew where I wanted the show to end, from the beginning, which is I wanted her to have a baby, latching. But I was like, how do we get there? And what does that look like? And there was definitely some, some crawling around in the mud to arrive at. I mean, I remember just like, it was like, a maniacal detective, I had like, 150, you know, index cards that I was spread, I have these pictures of me like, sitting in a sea of index cards on my floor, just being like, what if we don't?

• 17:35Speaker 04

  I remember one day, I was like, okay, I have this crazy idea. We don't have a season finale. We do an episode nine, and then we stop. And they were like, but that would then be the season finale? And I was like, okay. It's like, my father told me a story about when he did acid for the first time. And he looked at his friend and said, what if we raise our children with no egos? And they thought that they'd like solved it.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  They figured it out.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  And they kind of did.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  They kind of did, but you can't necessarily maintain that when you're not on a heavy dose of LSD.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, they would have to just make sure that when the baby came into the world immediately, they give them the same dose.

• 18:11Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Point to this guy, see, it's a dome. This is all fake.

• 18:14Speaker 04

  This is all fake. Do a full Truman Show. But I was having a what if we raise our babies with no egos? What if we just forsake the season finale, blow everybody's mind?

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:24Speaker 04

  They're just, it's another day. It's over.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:27Speaker 04

  But you can't game the system that way.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  Well, we all would have arrived at that same exact idea had we been show, like, creating, starring, running a show, directing episodes of the show while we were at the tender age of 25, 26, 27.

• 18:41Speaker 04

  Definitely writing the book made me realize how crazy it is to give jobs to of any consequence. And as I, again, another quote from my father who always says, there are no art emergencies.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:55Speaker 04

  Cause like, you know, people love to act like they're actually, like my aunt is an emergency room doctor. Sometimes she would have to treat someone who's like leg got caught in a subway door. That is an emergency.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  That would be, yeah.

• 19:06Speaker 04

  Season finale, actually not an emergency, but it was still a job that involved actual interfacing with many people and engaging. And I'm, I just look back and I go, that is so, like I see people are that age now and I go, you should still be inside your mother's body.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Yeah, no, that's.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  You should be a Joey and a kangaroo.

• 19:25Speaker 04

  You should be a Joey and a kangaroo and no one should let you out till you're 32.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  And so a lot of the book was grappling that. And what was interesting was I was so judgmental of myself at the time. And looking back, I was like, oh my God, like they're definitely remote, they're definitely low points, but there are definitely some moments where I was like, I should have been nicer to you. You were doing, you were trying so hard and it was going okay.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  And trying, actually trying things. I mean, there were moments in that show where I was like, I would sit perplexed with it. I remember just being a huge fan of the show and the first season had come and gone and then the second season happened. And there's an episode where your Hannah is at the cemetery and she sits there and she parrots back a story that someone else had told about their own grief to someone else. And the episode ended and I remember being like, at the time I was like. I didn't, I didn't like that episode. I can't believe she did that. And I didn't like that episode. And then now looking back, I'm like, no, I think I saw something true.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  And I think there's a testament to you putting that out there, even at that age, when you know discourse is really tough and you're judging yourself. There's a lot of checkpoints to get through when you put on your lead character who's like, you know, close to yourself.

• 20:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Doing an ugly thing. And she did a lot of ugly things and all those characters did.

• 20:51Speaker 04

  I always forget how many ugly things she did. And then someone was like, oh, I just watched the episode, came up to you and said, I just watched the episode where she goes to her boss's funeral and makes it all about herself. And I was like, she did that?

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, right?

• 21:04Speaker 04

  You can't go to somebody's funeral that you don't know well and make it all about yourself. And I remember that being that the scene in the cemetery, first thing I remember it because I fainted. And then the medic said, I think you're okay because you still have rosiness in your finger, nail beds. And I was like, I don't think you are a medical professional. I think this-

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Well, on a TV set.

• 21:25Speaker 04

  On a, I was like, I remember he laid me back and he was like, Rosie nail beds? Check. And I was like, is this?

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Pels?

• 21:31Speaker 04

  Pels check? I think we need to get some Gatorade in this girl's stat. And I, so that is one memory I have. But the other is, I remember doing that monologue where she's like, my cousin had cystic fibrosis and I had to, which was actually a true, that story was a true story about my father's cousin. That is real and sad, that we then gave to Gabby, that we then gave to me. And I remembered feeling sick doing the monologue because there were a couple of things, like there's a scene in the first season where Hannah tries to seduce her boss who's sexually harassing her to turn the tables and reclaim, and also try to like, maybe get a bunch of back pay.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  She's like, maybe if we fuck, then he'll have to like, give me a ton of money.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 22:12Speaker 04

  And I remember the scene and being like, who wrote this for me? Why am I doing, why am I, Richard Mazer, a kind, talented, seasoned character actor, I'm about to go in and straddle.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 04

  Aggressively. And then I saw him recently because he came and did a part in my movie. And he was like, I haven't seen you since that straddling. But it was hard sometimes because I was like, also, I knew that the valence was is it a valence? I knew that the curtain between how people perceived her and perceived me was extremely sheer.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  So I also knew when I made those choices. And what I loved thinking about writing the book was also like Sasha, Jemima, Allison, all have, I mean, you've been Allison, she's the most she's hilarious and dirty, but she's also correct and polite. She wants, everything you need to know about her, she once got tendonitis from writing too many thank you notes.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  That really

• 23:12Speaker 02

  You described her as a thank you note and her thank you note writing life.

• 23:15Speaker 04

  Her thank you note writing life. And she and Sasha is incredibly smart and thoughtful and Jemima is her own iconic world. And they were all so down to clown.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:27Speaker 04

  You'd go up to them and you'd be like, today, you're, today you are going to get your ass eaten by your friend's boyfriend. And they'd be, all right, here we go.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Here we go.

• 23:37Speaker 04

  The one time I remember we gave Allison a monologue where she was supposed to say that she'd lost her virginity at 14. And she was like, what? And I was like, yeah, she lost her virginity when she was 14. And she was like, that doesn't really square with like how I've been thinking about it very thoughtfully. She's like, you know, I've been playing her in one way. And Jemima came up and she's like, what would you have been doing if you knew she lost her virginity at 14? Hi, I'm Marnie. And then she did this like voice of like, the alternate Marnie who talked like this because she lost her virginity at 14. And we were just like, okay, we're not going to be precious about this. We're just going to try it. And then she talked about losing her virginity at 14 and fucking crushed it.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  This is what's going on in my, this is, this is my take on what the person coming up to you saying, oh, I just saw the episode where about the funeral. This is, and with what Matt's saying about like, I don't like what I just saw. And then realizing in hindsight, that's me is like, I think the show kind of. conveyed this better than anything else in our, for our generation where it's like, the person you hate the most, or the person that annoys you the most is, would be you if they grew up and lived in your exact same circumstances.

• 24:46Speaker 04

  100%, I remember my first ever therapist, shout out Lisa Spiegel. She, a truly important woman in my life, and I remember I was talking about a girl that I, I was not cool at school, and I was like, there's this one girl and I just can't stand her and every time she sits near me, and she was like, do you think maybe you recognize a little bit of yourself in her? And it was like, I mean, I was nine, so it was like saying, what if we raise our kids with no egos? It blew my fucking mind. But of course, and I've always been interested in, I remember like, the first time I saw The British Office, I was like, oh, you're allowed to do this? Like, you're allowed to celebrate characters who are making insane mistakes, and I love when a character does not, who, you know, when you meet someone and they're like, I'm

• 25:30Speaker 04

  a very empathic person, and you know whatever comes after is not going to be empathic? Where they say, no offense, and whatever comes after is going to offend you.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  How do you know I don't want to hear this, then?

• 25:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, 100%. Or when my brother last week started saying, can I be real for a second a lot? And I was like, no, I don't like it.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  What are you the other second?

• 25:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, what was happening before and why is this happening to me now? But I, I've always been interested in characters who see themselves very differently than the rest of the world sees them.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  And that gap. And it's interesting also because people now know that you're not allowed to say, it's the same way that the Daily Mail stopped being allowed to call you fat, so they had to call you voluptuous, or zaftig, or whatever other synonym they could come up with for what they used to say, which was like, messy.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:16Speaker 04

  Fat lady. And now people know that they're not supposed to be angry if women are unlikable. There's a new word that is being used.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Oh, what is it?

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Give it to us.

• 26:27Speaker 04

  That comes up in notes. Are they rootable?

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Rootable. Meaning, can we root for them? Is there any world in which we could want them to succeed?

• 26:36Speaker 04

  Correct. And I do think that is being likable and being rootable are two different things. But it was also always really interesting when Girls was on to realize that people could accept the idea of like Tony Soprano, they could accept the idea of Walter White, but just like a girl giving like an errant handjob was truly the biggest societal problem that we had.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 26:54Speaker 04

  And I think that feels very quaint to people now. And also now there's all the like, I have main character syndrome, I'm the main, I'm the main character of my own life. Like there's sort of a celebration of this kind of like delirious selfishness that before was considered a major character flaw. So I think there's like more room in the world, it feels to me. It's funny because women, it's, women have never had more problems, actually.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:16Speaker 04

  But on television, there's space to wild out just a little bit more.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  I almost feel like people actually think that they, I think people think they love and support women because they watch television with them in it. And then they convince themselves of something.

• 27:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  And then the second they turn away, it's like, well, I've, I've already spent my time thinking and supporting.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? I think it's so much more prevalent than people think.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  And it is so interesting. I mean, they're, they're great theorists who are looking at sort of like the gap between what we accept in media and what we accept in the world and what we support in media and what we support in the world. But it was interesting because when we were doing Girls, it was kind of, you know, it was like, it was Obama era, everything was gonna be okay.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Try it.

• 28:01Speaker 04

  We try it, we were on our way up, everything, like, there was a, even though of course there was lots of consequence in the world that I didn't have a full, complete understanding of because I was like inside a soundstage and didn't know what time it was. There was, it felt like the world was, we were going to a women's march, we were having, being sent pussy hats, everything was happening. And now there's been a, a profound backtracking. I don't know if you remember something called Me Too, but I don't think it happened.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  It's, it didn't reach a lot of corners of the world. But, but we know that we're supposed to think that women can be naughty on TV.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:42Speaker 02

  That that somehow sustained, it survived that whole fucking.

• 28:46Speaker 04

  And I want that. I want Rachel Weisz to be naughty on TV. Don't get me wrong.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Always.

• 28:51Speaker 04

  That's why I'm alive.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  No one does it better.

• 28:54Speaker 04

  I mean, I was, I was watching her, I mean, direct to camera address from Rachel Weisz. We don't deserve. We don't deserve. Also, I love how the whole time she's like, I'm old and ugly and no one will look at me. And I was like, you're the single most beautiful woman.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  You're actually famously iconic for your, like, I'll never forget the first time I saw her in the Mummy movies. That's like, that's like an arresting image for all time.

• 29:18Speaker 04

  Like, she's almost more so if you're not even attracted to women, because you go, what am I?

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 29:23Speaker 04

  What am I?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  I know I have questions.

• 29:26Speaker 04

  And they come from you, Ms. Weisz. But that being said, yeah, she's, she's, she's an iconically beautiful woman, but at the same time, any iconically beautiful woman who is over 50 is still dealing with these same things.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  Right. But it's so funny to bring up.

• 29:40Speaker 04

  Except for J Lo.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Except for who, J Lo, naturally?

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• 32:44Speaker 02

  Um, but I feel like... You just had this locus of chaos happening around you around the time of like this quote unquote reckoning with me too, where it's like, the show ends.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  This relationship is on its, is on the outs.

• 33:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  Like, all of these, these things about your body are sort of coming to light for you.

• 33:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Like, that's, that was my takeaway from the book was just like, oh, how are you writing this within such clear gorgeous detail?

• 33:15Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  While you're talking about how you are in this like long dissociative state and how you've grown up with like these little flashes of dissociation, like hospital feeling.

• 33:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  You're like, oh, like.

• 33:27Speaker 04

  Hospital feeling, thank you for.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Something is going on with me and I'm ignoring my basic needs while I'm making this show in the name of ambition and all these things and I have to prove something right about the way the world sees me and sees the show. Now that like the dust is settled, like, I hope you're so proud of everything.

• 33:45Speaker 04

  That is a beautiful thing to say and thank you. And I think, the thing that was really lovely about writing the book was I had a really long time to do it. I mean, I wrote my first book in eight months. I wrote this book in eight years.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  Which we also loved.

• 33:57Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Love, not that kind of girl.

• 33:59Speaker 04

  Thank you so much. And, and I don't only want, I didn't want to do it for the sake of, you know, there's, I've been asked to do like, do a Girls rewatch podcast, get together with the girls and, I mean, people love nostalgia and I love nostalgia and like, do I want to watch the whole cast of OC respond to episodes of the OC?

• 34:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:17Speaker 04

  Yes, I do.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  Tate Donovan, come back.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  Tate Donovan, I want to watch Tate Donovan watch anything.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  But I'm interested in like forward motion and forward progression and so I, I haven't, maybe there will be a time when I go, I'd like to live watch every episode of Girls, but I haven't gotten there yet.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's okay.

• 34:33Speaker 04

  But I only wanted to write the book if I felt like I had something to say about the larger machine in which women are working, in which people are working, about like the larger, I do think that Hollywood is a microcosm and it reflects the way the industry works, the way that we see people reflects things that exist in a lot of parts of the world because it's like where the, the. Enter it's our it's interesting because Hollywood is this very kind of comparatively small industry where where we have chosen to center our attention. It's a distraction. It's a it's a indulgence, but it also has something bigger to say about the way that we live. And so I only wanted to write the book. If I felt like I had something to say about

• 35:18Speaker 04

  all of that and about while also being hopefully thoughtful about the fact that like a tiny thousand tiny violins play for the girl who's like my TV show was too hard, but um, but so thank you for saying that and I it was interesting to realize how much I did do. I had always had, I talked about in the book, I'd always had dissociative episodes throughout childhood. The more that my life picked up and the more stress was involved, the more they happened. But I think at the time I thought ignoring your basic needs was correct. I thought like if you're really good at being a person, you can suppress and override everything that you need in order to be comfortable for the and you know, we've all been sent a million signals about what

• 36:01Speaker 04

  ambition, what's important, what ambition means, what you know, who we have to be in this sort of in I I'm about to say under capitalism, send me to jail, but um, and so I

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Capitalist jail.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, send me to capitalist jail. Send me to a private prison.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 36:21Speaker 04

  Where they'll treat me the way I've always treated myself, but um, but I want to tell you that something is happening inside me, not a bad way, good way. But I just kind of like my nipples are erect, but I did stand that attention.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  You felt the free song.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, like there's a mo- is there a moment when you're drinking your Celsius or you go, it's on?

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  You're starting to buzz?

• 36:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a little bit like when you try drugs with your friends for your first time and you go, is it working on you? Is it working on you?

• 36:48Speaker 01

  It's working.

• 36:50Speaker 04

  It's working. And also because I'm sober and now thanks to you.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  This one.

• 36:55Speaker 04

  Vape free.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Oh, is this where we is this where we entree into this discussion? I was just gonna say one one more before we do that. I just want to say the the one thing. About girls that that it's so much of it terrified me at the time because I was like I'm I think I'm feeling uncomfortable because it's me. A lot of it was Marnie. I I know.

• 37:13Speaker 04

  Are you a Marnie?

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:14Speaker 04

  What are you?

• 37:15Speaker 02

  I think I'm I'm probably a shosh.

• 37:19Speaker 04

  I was gonna say that.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:21Speaker 04

  And you know, I've been public about the fact that I'm a shosh.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  You're a shosh.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  I think you told us this. Yeah.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  I'm a shosh.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  You're a shosh.

• 37:27Speaker 04

  I've grown into a shosh.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kind of like it's not to not to invoke, but it's like with the Hogwarts houses, my my whole thing was like, listen.

• 37:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  I was born a Gryffindor.

• 37:39Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  In my twenties, I was a Slytherin.

• 37:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Right now, I'm a Hufflepuff. I will die a Ravenclaw. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, that's sort of what it is.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  For stuff.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  It feels like it's like that with the girls, girls as well.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Well, like in my in high school, I was a Charlotte.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  Then I turned into a Samantha.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:57Speaker 04

  Had a moment thinking I was a Carrie.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 38:00Speaker 04

  And I will be a Miranda for the rest of my life.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. But I guess.

• 38:03Speaker 04

  Even maybe up to the part where she gets together with Chey, you know?

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, I I think we can't. We can't rule it out.

• 38:10Speaker 04

  My husband is maybe a Chey.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Uh huh, uh huh.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  He doesn't want to hear that.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Right. Who does?

• 38:16Speaker 02

  He's fingering you in the kitchen.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  I it could. It could happen.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  I'm sorry. I don't mean to talk about your marriage. I'm sorry.

• 38:23Speaker 04

  I when you said it, I was almost like I was almost like, let's call him like, I don't know. I'd love to talk about my marriage. You know, we're five years in, things really they things really settle in.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  They're simmering.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  I guess what I what I'm what was the big pull for me at the end when I was like really sitting with it and in the rewatch too, I confirmed. I was like, wow, you don't stay friends with everyone forever. And the fact the fact that in the last.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  Robin's calls it the great scattering.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, the great scattering. She does call it that. But that whole last season is kind of about like them realizing that, I imagine. Like, you know what I mean? Like, they're they're moving into their different lives. Like, all of a sudden, there's something solidifying here, and you didn't know it was coming now, but it is coming now. And this sadness that comes with that. Not even the acceptance, the idea that you might have to accept it. And that, I think, is one of the truest things about the show.

• 39:13Speaker 04

  And I don't know about you, but I held on really tight. I was really scared for The Great Scattering. I held on. I mean, I think my friends and I talked to each other in our twenties. If I look back, it's like people in a relationship. It's like we're act, it's like, I feel like it's been a little strange lately and you're not responding to me the way. And it's like, now I would never say that to a friend in a fucking million years. Because I'm like, you've got a big, complicated life. We're all trying to just get through this thing. And it's what happens. And, you know, the show was also interesting because it was all about these friendships. But I was also literally always on set. So the friendships, I talk about this, the friendships that it was about were then affected by the fact that I wasn't around.

• 39:58Speaker 04

  And then was, it was this big, it was like, I went to sleep one day and then, or like stepped onto this, into Hannah's apartment one day. And then I got out when I was 30 and was like, I'm back, guys. And they were all like, we're pregnant. Like, you are looking for a boyfriend on Delancey Street? We're pregnant.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:19Speaker 04

  And, and I was like, anybody want to hear about my hysterectomy? And they're like, we are wearing clogs in Brooklyn together. And, and I remember being like, going to visit my friends, being like, I'm that weird aunt lady. That's like, comes in and she's like, I've brought you guys scarves. I was.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Well, I was traveling and you know what that means?

• 40:41Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Little gift.

• 40:42Speaker 04

  Gifts for everyone. My mom had a friend, my mom had, has a lot of wonderful eccentric friends. But I remember she had one friend who didn't have kids, who came over once because she wanted to take some photos of our hairless cat to work into an art, a video art piece, naturally.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Well, yes.

• 40:58Speaker 04

  And she was wearing like full isimiyaki pleats, please. And she, I saw a tattoo on her hand and she was like, she was, I loved her, partially because she was the only chubby woman that I really knew. Because downtown was not rife with those. But also, she was wearing isimiyaki pleats, please. And I said, I like your tattoo. And she said, do you want to see my others? And she dropped her pants and she had like a full, um, uh, like constellation of all of the constellations on her like big, beautiful ass.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  On her ass.

• 41:29Speaker 04

  And I was like, that's what I want to be.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:31Speaker 04

  I would never drop my pants in front of a child.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  No, I want that to be the.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  But if you did, you'd be her.

• 41:37Speaker 04

  If I did, that was a different time.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:39Speaker 04

  But I do, I, I got comfortable with the idea of like, I'm going to come in to take a picture of your hairless cat for a video art piece. And you're going to say, do you, and there you're going to say, what's that tattoo? And I'm going to say, I've made some mistakes.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  And it's just a matter, I've made some mistakes. It's just a matter of if your friends want to stick around for that. You know what I mean?

• 41:57Speaker 04

  One hundred percent.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  I think the show Girls is about a friendship, a group of friends, sort of, I mean, friendship isn't tropic. It's like, it's, it's just inevitable. And I think that's what the book is about. It's about like a friendship, sort of, um, sort of splitting up. And that's, that's kind of, that's like the most universal thing you can write about.

• 42:15Speaker 04

  I remember once saying to my mom, like, it's so sad. I used to know all these people that I don't know anymore. And she's like, that's called being alive.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, living.

• 42:21Speaker 04

  Like she was like, have you ever heard of like Judith Garrigan? And I was like, no. And she's like, well, she was my best friend till you were three.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:28Speaker 04

  And then she drank a lot. There's, that's a.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, we used to look. I used to look another human being in the eyes and say, we will die together. I haven't spoken to them in 30 years.

• 42:38Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  It's time I mean.

• 42:39Speaker 04

  By the way, correct.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  We don't speak outside of this.

• 42:42Speaker 04

  I know.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Representatives.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  And the thing about whether your friends want to stick around for that, like, that's one of the reasons I think I've had such prolonged and beautiful friendships with queer men.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 42:52Speaker 04

  Is because, because since my life didn't necessarily conform to some of the milestones that I thought it would.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:58Speaker 04

  Being friends with people who had a different idea about what family and adulthood could mean was like deeply important to me.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was commonality there where.

• 43:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  You may have tried to find it somewhere else.

• 43:12Speaker 04

  I thought that I was supposed to be, and by the way, I love all those women and they're still my friends, but I thought I was supposed to be in, um. In Bushwick, but have moved out of a small place into the townhouse and be wearing the clogs. And actually, I was supposed to be at the Esselin Resort in the hot springs with a buff acupuncturist.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Yes. Talk about the vaping.

• 43:36Speaker 04

  Shout out to Russell.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  Shout out to Russell.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  I just, yeah, I just feel like in it's just in terms of like the way you write character. It's like, obviously, there's a couple huge, the book is really about like relationships and there's two relationships that you just, you lose by the end of the book, but what I wanted to say was you've always created some of the like best characters of our generation. But the way that you write these people in your life, it's like such a beautiful thing. A testament to the place that they held in your life. And I feel like if you have anything in you, and I'm sure you do, I'm positive you do, which is like nervous about how they're gonna receive it. Which of course you are going to.

• 44:18Speaker 04

  Cause of course, whenever you make something, you make it for like two people and they're probably the two people who won't even look at it. That's life.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  But the thing is like, the way you've written them is so beautiful because what I love about what you do, even if sometimes you were fighting with yourself because you might feel a different way about these two people on any given day. It's like, it feels like you always held true to, I'm going to try and 360 flesh this person out as much as you can. Because, you know, with these relationships like Jenny and Jack, you get a sense of both their humor. You get a sense of both their positive oddities. You get a sense of them on all of their best days.

• 44:54Speaker 04

  They're the two funniest, most special, most defining relationships of 20 to 30. I mean, your first romantic relationship where you feel deeply understood is like the most precious thing that can ever exist. You're like, oh, I thought I really had a crush on that guy in 10th grade, but this is a whole, the first time you make a life with someone. The first best, real adult best friend you have. And I hoped that I could show like why I fell in love with them.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 04

  And also that it couldn't, I was quoting Kacey Musgraves to you earlier.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:25Speaker 04

  Saying that when she got divorced, she said, it's a soul connection that didn't work out.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:29Speaker 04

  And that doesn't, I think like love is. I think if you love someone really deeply, firstly, we know that if when two people get divorced or something and they're like, I fucking hate them, you're like, that's because you were obsessed with them and your obsession had to, energy cannot be created nor destroyed and therefore it had to transmute into something. And my goal has always been not to have that transmute into something negative. And also, if I didn't feel that deep love for them, I'd have to do this like grand erasure of all these memories. And I remember I dated one person after my breakup and it was like a quick, it was one of those four months, like four months that could have been 50 years.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 04

  And afterwards, I deleted all the photos. And it's the one time I've done that and I regret it so much because it's like there's this hole in my life that I just, in this moment of rash, maybe you can call Tim Cook and he can get them back.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:19Speaker 04

  He's got them.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  I did the same thing. I did it with, um, I did it with text messages and a lot of photos. And I, I go back and forth now on whether or not that was the right thing to do.

• 46:32Speaker 04

  Was the right thing for you in the moment because you knew that you were not, um, you could not trust yourself with them.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Because I was obsessing.

• 46:38Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  And I think that like-

• 46:39Speaker 04

  You were self harming through nostalgia.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  That's really what, what it was. And I, I knew in the moment that that's what it had become. And so I was like, I think in order to set myself free from this, I have to do this. But as someone who does, you know, see value in looking back and being like, oh, and also just like the way you talk positively and, and the way you draw up what it feels like to finally get comfortable in a relationship, like actually made me look back on like one particular ex that I, you know, kind of have exclusively like hard feelings about.

• 47:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  And reading what you wrote about like an old relationship. And I was like, oh, like one good thing I can say is like, I really liked like being silly with him. There, like, I was thinking something when I was reading your words. It's like, oh, that person, when someone sees you silly.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  Well, it's so funny.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Like the movement of it all.

• 47:30Speaker 04

  The movement of it all.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  The names that you give each other. And like, you know, it's like, it's, it's, it's, you're, you can't replicate that.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  And I ran, I was once just, I was at the Toronto Film Festival. It's some, one of the places that I've been in my life. I don't know what to say. And I ran into my, um, ex boyfriend. I was with my husband and he was watching. And in a totally different way, he was like, you guys were being so funny together.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:55Speaker 04

  And you just get back into this like, in a way, when you've had a long-term relationship with someone. Especially through a very pivotal moment in your life, there's things that they will only, like there's certain facts about my aunts, particular, my aunts Bonnie and Susan, who are very important, complex female characters. And I will, something will happen with Bonnie and Susan, I'll be like, this is the only person who could possibly understand how funny this is.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  And do you reach out?

• 48:19Speaker 04

  Sometimes, I think that it's, I don't like to have a blockade.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:24Speaker 04

  And I, you know, I try to do it in appropriate doses. I'm not like, I'm not like, hey, came across this photo of us, really made me think, I think that's aggressive.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:34Speaker 04

  That's aggressive.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  To a married man, from a married woman.

• 48:37Speaker 04

  Psychotic. And I'm totally capable of that, I just have to reel it in.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  We've seen the child.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  You know, like, there's a part of me that could 100% be like, there's funny things that you go, this is of value that we remember this, and it's, I remember when my father's, my father's parents died, and then his brother died, and he was like, there's nobody else who remembers what it was like to be in my family. First he kept saying, I'm an orphan, and I was like, okay, you're, you're 70, so I don't know if you get to claim that title. Everyone wants a title these days.

• 49:07Speaker 04

  But, and that's the thing, is it's really beautiful to have people who remember, even if they remember differently. And my goal in the book was to show how much they meant, and how much love there is that still exists for them, will also, and I'm sure that someone could give their account, and it would be the same events, but with an extremely different, I mean, that's the amazing thing about the world, is like, we're all looking through our own eyes. I'm on acid.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  No, no, no, but I think, I, we're on acid too.

• 49:37Speaker 04

  It's called Celsius.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  It's called Celsius. But I, there was also so much in like, your, your working relationship and close, close, close friendship with Jenny, that like, I texted Bowen, and I was like, are you reading this? This is about relevant stuff. I was like, it's about relevant things.

• 49:52Speaker 04

  Well, I think the thing that I've learned, and I mean, those creative relationships that were so intense, they were like marriages, they were like all these, it was like I was, it was like I was in a polyamorous relationship. I mean, it was, and in a way, I look back, and I think that was my primary relationship. And then I had a secondary relationship, which was a boyfriend. And then a tertiary relationship, which was my dad. Um, and so that is, oh, that's a wild thing to look back on and, and creative relationships, you two know really well, require just as much, if not more emotional maintenance. Like when you're married to a straight man, there's so much that you just don't even have to say.

• 50:34Speaker 04

  Like my brothers, it must be so relaxing to be married to a straight guy because they like, are not really picking up on anything. You don't have to, like, it's like whenever.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  And nothing means more than it does.

• 50:45Speaker 04

  That's exactly right. Whenever I'm around queer couples, they're like, you moved your eyebrows or you're feeling a little bit destabilized. And like, you can just hide in your own house for days with a straight man.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  The studying of punctuation, forget it.

• 50:57Speaker 04

  It doesn't mean anything.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  If a queer, if a queer man or woman that like, like is texting you in a punct, in a like punctuation way that is out of the order, I'm like, oh, something is deeply wrong.

• 51:09Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. No, it's, my husband will just send a text that he doesn't, it's just one word, inexplicable word, because he hasn't looked back. And I will look back at a text and be like, did I say what I meant to say? The amount of texts I edit.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  He's just sending a word and meant to send the rest, but didn't.

• 51:25Speaker 04

  Last thing, he just sent me a picture of a broken window in our house with zero explanation. And I was like, were we robbed? And he was like, no, no, it was a wind issue. And I was like, you need to lead with that. But in the relationship with another woman specifically, the amount that you're picking up, it's like this insane, it's like whatever's traveling between, uh, machines at the Apple headquarters. It's like this insane level of information and subtlety. And, and also in creative relationships, you're in each other's heads in a different way.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  You've been your smartest with that person.

• 51:59Speaker 04

  They know you're, they've been your smartest, you've been your dumbest in the middle of the night. You've been your most petulant, you've been your most elegant, you've been your most brave, all of it. It's really amazing. And I think they require a very specific kind of care and maintenance. And that's why I'm sending you two to Esther Perel.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  Oh, brother.

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• 54:25Speaker 01

  During the therapy scene, I was like, because we've talked like at particular moments, there have been like, well, maybe we should see

• 54:33Speaker 04

  A therapist.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  A counselor or a therapist, like, or someone that, and then we land on like mediator.

• 54:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? It's like those things where like, you know, the relationship like needs something, but you're not ready to say what kind of person. And then you're like, kind of filtering through the sand of like, well, what is the difference between these people?

• 54:51Speaker 04

  And you're like, maybe it should just be a friend who likes us both. To talk it through.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  But then that, oh, just to save on like the explanation.

• 54:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, they just, you can, but, but it, there is something, I mean, also going to therapy with somebody that you work with is a big choice because you go, okay, I'm really proclaiming the significance of this dynamic because we're in a therapist's office together. So you two have never been to therapy together yet?

• 55:16Speaker 02

  No, no, we've, we've, we've gotten far along in the process, but then inevitably things pop up and we're like, okay, we gotta address this and we will be together and we can, we can, we are, we can work this out, uh, ad hoc as necessary.

• 55:32Speaker 04

  We can work this out amongst ourselves.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  Until, until we really need to like.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  My therapist says she doesn't think we need it.

• 55:38Speaker 04

  By the way, I trust that.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:40Speaker 04

  And also it seems to me as a passionate viewer that you're doing fine. I'm not picking up on any tension right now.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  It's not like, okay, great.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  I, what I will say is that whenever there is a period of tension, it does break.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  It breaks.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  And it blows and we're always literally 50 times better afterwards. I sometimes wish it didn't have to get there, but I also think that we get better at communicating every time. And as, as we know, that's what it is all about.

• 56:07Speaker 04

  Well, also it is all about that. And I don't know about you, I'm extremely conflict avoidant, except for I saw this.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Don't love it.

• 56:13Speaker 04

  I don't love it. I saw a meme that was like this man did something and he's about to see the woman that only my father knows. And that's truly like the, I think if you have a, as a woman, if you have a comfortable, it should be done. There's like, I have yelled in a way that's like blown the hair back on his head.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Oh, forget it.

• 56:27Speaker 04

  And I can't do it with, and he said to me before, he's been like, you need to go in there and act like you act with me. Like a fucking bitch. Like, and, but it's really hard. And I think one of the reasons I love writing conflict, like I've never been in a four-way scream off like happened at the beach house. I would.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:43Speaker 04

  Pass out. I would dissociate. I would. Go to another plane of existence.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  I remember the first time it happened with you and Allison and I guess it was the penultimate episode of one.

• 56:53Speaker 04

  You are the wound.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  You are the wound.

• 56:55Speaker 04

  Bruce, Eric Kaplan's great line, "You are the wound." And I remember doing it and feeling sick even doing the scene.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:01Speaker 04

  Cause I was like, "I don't want to yell at you like this. I love you."

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Your body doesn't know the difference. Yeah.

• 57:05Speaker 04

  No, and you're about, you're like, "This is, feels horrible." But then also, it's so fun to do because you're like, "This is a world in which I somehow feel comfortable screaming in my friend's face."

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:16Speaker 04

  And telling her all these things that I used to always say to like, anyone who would listen, I'd be like, "And then I was like, and then I was like," and they'd be like, "Did you actually say any of that stuff?" And I was like, "No, I was like."

• 57:26Speaker 01

  I was like.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  We're the same. We're the same.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  Oh, no, you're always, you're always in, you're always like, truly, truly, truly like a Cate Blanchett performance in your mind with someone else. Like, or like, like, like Shonda Rhimes in, on the best seasons of Grey's, like, turning to someone and being like, "I'm giving it to you exactly succinctly and I can feel proud of the way I express myself."

• 57:48Speaker 04

  One of the great moments of my life, despite the fact that my wig on Scandal was not ideal, is that I delivering a Shonda Rhimes monologue, and it was like, "Yes, I am a woman who loves sex, but am I a slut? No." And it was like, I delivering it to beautiful Kerry Washington with all my might. And then, of course, I had to get my throat slit because I was a slut.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  You died on that?

• 58:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, Huck killed me.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  Huck killed you for the sin of being a slut?

• 58:14Speaker 02

  You didn't get your throat slit because you were a slut.

• 58:15Speaker 04

  Huck killed me because I was about to kill someone else.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  Oh, well then.

• 58:21Speaker 04

  Who was trying to kill me.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  Getting killed by Huck is hot, though.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 58:24Speaker 04

  It was amazing. I had a backpack of blood, and then they made this thing, and suddenly, there was like a man who pulled a thing and blood squirted from my neck.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  So fun.

• 58:34Speaker 04

  My parents.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Have you died on screen?

• 58:35Speaker 02

  No, I want to so badly.

• 58:37Speaker 04

  I've died twice. In a, in Scandal.

• 58:41Speaker 04

  And in American Horror Story.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Oh, the dreams. I mean, those are the.

• 58:45Speaker 04

  And when I died in American Horror Story, I rotted from the inside and it, what it involved was, I'm supposed to have maggots in my eyes. So they glued my eyes shut and covered them in white rice. And then there was a P A who, this person deserved, I mean, whoever you are, I couldn't see you, so I'm sorry. But I'm going to speak directly to you. Thank you for what you did.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:06Speaker 04

  I want to thank you. You led me around by the back so gently all day long, making sure I didn't trip over any scenery. While I rotted from many angles.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  There's a guy for everything, as you say.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  For everything.

• 59:19Speaker 04

  There's a guy for everything.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  I'm speaking of dying, but not, um, the vaping.

• 59:24Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  What do you want to say here?

• 59:25Speaker 04

  So here's what I want to say. We're on a text chain.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  We are.

• 59:28Speaker 04

  Do you want to reveal what it's called?

• 59:31Speaker 02

  Uh, it's called Life is So, which is.

• 59:33Speaker 04

  Life is just so.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  It's just so.

• 59:36Speaker 02

  Which is, which is a word, which is a, it's another gorgeous turn of phrase by Miss Lena Dunham.

• 59:40Speaker 04

  Thank you so much. I believe because we were at Apple and I just went, life is just so. And then you created our text chain and then.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  It's so.

• 59:46Speaker 04

  It's just so. So we're on Life is Just So and I just, I like, sometimes if I feel like they're too far, I just like to pop in.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  And it's the best.

• 59:54Speaker 04

  Remind them that I'm there. And I said, how are you? And you let me know that you had been going through an experience with someone you were dating, who had. Fraser, you, I'm allowed to say it.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  No, no, please, we, we can bring, we can invoke.

• 1:00:06Speaker 04

  So Fraser had an incident that, a vaping induced lung infection, evil.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  So it, basically what happened was, and some people might not know this, but so Fraser, Fraser was, uh, he was a vape artist.

• 1:00:19Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  And, um, like so many out there.

• 1:00:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  And basically.

• 1:00:24Speaker 04

  It's a medium.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  The, the, um, the cartridge, essentially like, this can happen when you're sucking on that vape.

• 1:00:32Speaker 04

  And listen, I'm going to look at the camera again. Listen to this man.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  The, the, like, oil from the vape cartridge can basically leak into your lungs and it's poison. And so when we were at Bravo Con, and I can say this because he has said all of it, and this is all about his health and it's public, and I would never share.

• 1:00:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Anything if he hadn't been. Public about it, but we were at Bravo.

• 1:00:52Speaker 04

  I stole his medical records.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  Melissa and I were there and we were all there together. Um, I was actually announcing that the culture wars are coming back. He was obviously there for Below Deck. It was exciting. Um, and then.

• 1:01:03Speaker 04

  Fun moment. We're a power couple. We're a Bravo con.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  You know, I wasn't even going with the idea of like, and we're gonna take a photo on the carpet. He wanted to take a picture together. I was like, let's do it. I put it on my Instagram, then all of a sudden that very weekend, people were like, oh, Matt and Fraser are dating. As that was happening.

• 1:01:17Speaker 04

  So intense.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  And I know this is gonna sound dramatic. He had a heart attack in front of.

• 1:01:22Speaker 04

  Doesn't sound dramatic. It's true. It's traumatic is what it is.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  And I feel like what people don't know is it's like, if you, or if you know, you obviously know, cause it's horrifying and it's hard to explain. But you don't know a heart attack is happening every time. It's like, he was, he had very intense chest pains and like, couldn't get comfortable and, you know, was short of breath and had to bail on, uh, the whole night with us. And we checked in on him later and it was ongoing. And so I'm thinking like, is this stress and anxiety, whatever? We find out much later after tests come in that essentially because of this poison that got in his lungs, he had what was the equivalent of a heart attack. And it, and it was really bad. And we were in the hospital until five, 5:30 in the morning. We really had only been dating for about three months.

• 1:02:09Speaker 04

  Which is also really intense because it certainly U-Haul lesbians things up a bit.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Oh, 100%. And so we were already like really enjoying being together. And then there was this, this health stuff that entered. And so that like accelerated things and, you know, now where we're at is, um, he was, he's off. I can't say where, but he's, you know, creating.

• 1:02:30Speaker 04

  He's at a secret tropical location.

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's creating the television program many people like, and I'm gonna see him soon. But while he's been gone and I've been sort of busy doing my own thing, we kind of did like, take a little bit of space just because of how intense everything had gotten and like personal things.

• 1:02:46Speaker 04

  And you had to go into caretaker mode and he's grappling with this terrifying change to his body. And it's, it's really intense and you shared just the littlest, thank you for sharing. And you shared just a little snippet with me.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  And.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  And I didn't know you had been.

• 1:03:03Speaker 04

  Addicted to the to the Oh, when we were at Apple, I didn't have my vape because I was trying to be elegant. Right. And when do you remember we got in the car and I was like sweating like I was like, can someone get a gas station? Can someone find a gas? Oh, my God.

• 1:03:15Speaker 04

  Because I had been off the vape for like 24 hours and I was losing my mind. So I didn't, I am a was a L I L V, a live, a late in life vapor. Late in life vapor. I started vaping on the set of a little television show called Industry because Yes, because you were directress. I was directress of the pub, but also it was of it was in Wales. People love to party in Wales. Yeah. I had been Don't I know about English people? You know about English people. Hello, Fraser. They love sucking those things. They love sucking those things. And a friend was like, oh, you don't drink, you don't smoke, you're sober. You know what? This is this, it tastes like candy. It doesn't do anything to you except put you in a great mood. Like literally, it was handed to me like it was a ring pop. Yeah. And then And it looks like a toy.

• 1:03:58Speaker 04

  It looks like a toy. It lights up. It makes noises. And I went, great. Am I anxious all the time? Sure. Do I like to do something with my hands? Absolutely. And I became a person who would like wake up with my vape under my pillow and I was not proud of it. I was embarrassed about it. I used to like hide it in my sleeve during meetings. I mean, it was really became like a pacifier. Yep. And I had this, I stopped, I started. I'm also a chronically ill person. I have no business. I mean, I have practically no business drinking Celsius. This is the craziest thing I've done in months. We're so sorry. No, I it's, I love it.

• 1:04:33Speaker 04

  New vice unlocked. Yep, but I was in this on off relationship. I stopped, I started for one minute. I was like, you know, it'd be healthier than vaping. Rolled cigarettes. That's insane. But I was married to an English man, so. Right, right, right. And he quit and I still couldn't. It was, and I kept, I was in a shame cycle with the vape. Mm hmm. And I was sitting there just sucking on my vape, texting my boys. And you said this, and I, because I am dramatic. I literally took the vape and I dropped it into a cup of water so that I couldn't retrieve it. And I went, today's the day it stops. And I've not taken a puff since. It's been You're incredible. Thank you so much. But you did that for me because Well, everyone else is like popcorn lung. It's a little abstract. We don't know what happens.

• 1:05:17Speaker 04

  No, you can understand heart attack.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  And I've never understood it more than when it was happening in front of me.

• 1:05:23Speaker 04

  And also I could feel the urgency and you said to me, I'll never forget you go, "These things are so much more evil than we know."

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:30Speaker 04

  "We don't even know the beginning of it." "His lungs look like a 70-year-old man's." And I just went, "I want no part of this." And I have to say, the first week, it was the week of Thanksgiving, and my, um, family had all chosen to assemble without me. Do with that what you will.

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  Okay, okay.

• 1:05:45Speaker 04

  No, my, um, they were on, they were on various little.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  And all, and did you figure yourself phantom grab?

• 1:05:51Speaker 04

  All day.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:52Speaker 04

  Every day I'd reach for it in my pocket, but I spent the week alone sweating it out, which needed to happen because I am generally a pretty, I have my issues, but I'm a good mood girl. Like, I don't take my moods out on other people. I was raised in a house where it was like, if you were in a bad mood, you better turn yourself back around, missy, and come back out here with a smile.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 1:06:11Speaker 04

  Because we, who puts the shoes on your feet?

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Fix-your-face culture.

• 1:06:14Speaker 04

  Yes, it was a, my father's a Wasp, it was fix-your-face culture. And so I don't, and I was in a kind of mood. It was a synthetic nasty mood.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:06:25Speaker 04

  And that could not be controlled.

• 1:06:28Speaker 02

  Because the nefarious thing about these things is that they were meant originally to help you quit smoking cigarettes.

• 1:06:33Speaker 04

  And now, yesterday I saw a girl in the bodega, and she was crying because her credit card wasn't working and she wanted her vape.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Speaker 04

  And she was like 23, and I did pay for it because I was like, "I can't watch you in this kind of pain." But I said to her, "You gotta stop."

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, because look at you, look at your life, look at your choices.

• 1:06:50Speaker 04

  Correct, and I also said, "Get zins, get lozenges, but also anything that makes you cry in the bodega." Like, there's nothing I want in the bodega that if I can't get it, I'm gonna cry.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  And I'm, I'm reduced to tears.

• 1:07:02Speaker 04

  Yes, and I don't want to live that way.

• 1:07:04Speaker 02

  Speak for yourself.

• 1:07:07Speaker 04

  I don't want to live that way, I don't want to live that way.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  I also gotta say, um, like, he, he has remained off the vape. He's doing so much better, I'm gonna see him.

• 1:07:16Speaker 04

  Does he use lozenges or anything, or he's gone tolling?

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  You know what's crazy about those British people? It's stiff, upper, fucking lip.

• 1:07:23Speaker 04

  When my husband quit smoking, I was like, "Do you want to do a patch, you want this?" And he was like, "That is for pussies."

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, no, wow.

• 1:07:31Speaker 04

  He wants to feel the pain.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  He was like, he was, it was so, if you know Fraser from the show, it was so Fraser. It was, right then, it's over. It wa, it was just like, it's done, and he loved the thing. Like, I mean, like, but, and...

• 1:07:48Speaker 04

  I know.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  I have to say the then as someone's like boyfriend in that moment, you I think it might make it easier too. When you have someone that's like, hi, like I'm here too. This like really was scary and it affected me. And I do think there is a degree of like, all of a sudden, it's like that zoom out thing. It's like football, right? You zoom out, you look at it, you're like, well, that's fucking crazy. Yeah, well, yeah. But I guess my thing to to be, you know, negative on football is like you zoom out as an alien looking on the world. And you're like, what do they do? Doesn't seem exactly right. Like, yeah, many forms of like, you know, uh, government, things like that. Like, if we all were to just zoom out, the zooming out that happens when you look at people sucking on a little machine of smoke.

• 1:08:29Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Right there, you'll be like, well, I look crazy.

• 1:08:33Speaker 04

  My husband was a smoker. He met, he saw me with the vape. He goes, it looks like you're plugged into a USB. Like you have to go back to your USB to charge every five minutes. Like you look like a demented robot. And it's interesting, the thing you said about going, this is really scary for me because the only thing that affected my behavior.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:50Speaker 04

  In my twenties, when I was not healthy and not making choices to be healthier, was my family looking at me after I'd had, you know, a terrifying incident in the hospital being that was scary for us. And if you love people, you don't want them to suffer.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:04Speaker 02

  Well, you're moving through the world completely aware of your body. And like,

• 1:09:10Speaker 04

  I'm starting to be.

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  Well, like, and you're hearing this thing that phrase went through and you're like, it's done.

• 1:09:17Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 1:09:17Speaker 02

  Drop it in the water.

• 1:09:18Speaker 04

  Drop it in the water. Never look at it again. It was green. And, um, it was green.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  I remember her every day.

• 1:09:25Speaker 04

  And I think about her every day. And when I see people vaping, I think, I hope that you have fun and I hope you. A woman once said to me, a powerful woman said, when I quit smoking, she said, I didn't judge myself. I thanked myself for what it gave me. And I do think those years, do I think it was good that I vaped for six years on and off, on and off? No.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:09:43Speaker 04

  Do I think that during that time I needed something to stop like darker impulses? Probably yes.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but.

• 1:09:50Speaker 04

  And now I'm like, training wheels are off.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:53Speaker 04

  The vape is gone. Um, but I do have stuffed animals.

• 1:09:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, the woman who, what'd she say? Uh, I think, I think if it were to gave me.

• 1:10:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  And that woman was Marie Kondo. And that woman, wait, um, the, what was you say? Oh, but this is like when. A total fucking stranger tells you, "Hey, I watched Girls, I read your book, and I think you have EDS."

• 1:10:14Speaker 04

  That was the craziest. It was so crazy. The, a total stranger wrote to me. I had been

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  It's the zoom out, yeah.

• 1:10:21Speaker 04

  It's the zoom out.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  And it was exactly right.

• 1:10:23Speaker 04

  Everything she said. It was like reading my, it, she literally, her name is Marjorie. She literally made my life make sense to me because I had had my entire childhood, I had all of this weird symptom, like you're running in dodgeball and your knee dislocates and your teacher's like, "How did you do that? Nobody touched you." You know, I was like, I was the const, there was, if there was anyone had a cold at school, like within, you know, six hours, I was going down. I had migraines, starting when I was seven. I had really strong, I used to faint when I had to be, when I was in the sun. Um, which my grandma loved because once I fainted in the customs line in Mexico and we got to skip. And she said, I'll never forget, she said, "Can you do that again?"

• 1:11:04Speaker 02

  Airport hack, customs hack.

• 1:11:06Speaker 04

  But what was amazing was I had been, I knew I had endometriosis and I'd been writing about my health, which involved more symptoms. And also, there were times I had to pause life for my health and this woman had been paying attention. She said, "Even the way that you run, the way that your skin flushes, it all makes sense." And sent me to this doctor at Johns Hopkins and now there's more awareness about, there's both more awareness about Ayler-Danlow syndrome, other sort of autoimmune illness, the intersection between these things and endometriosis. There's increasing sort of people in the medical field to understand. But it was also a huge moment for me because I was like, you know, a Jewish girl who was raised to be like, "The doctor's always right."

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:49Speaker 04

  That was who you respected in, like, my grandfather's great shame was that he was a dentist, not a doctor, because he had not been able to afford, like, that much schooling. And so he loved to be Dr. Samuel Simmons, but he felt shame about the kind of doctor that he was.

• 1:12:04Speaker 02

  Oh, Dr. Simmons. Wish I could relieve that pain.

• 1:12:06Speaker 04

  Andy Kaufman's, um, orthodontist.

• 1:12:09Speaker 02

  Wow. I never clocked his teeth. Anyway, I keep going.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  That's probably a good thing.

• 1:12:15Speaker 04

  My grandpa wasn't really keeping it doing cosmetic. He was doing like, does one of your teeth go out like that?

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:21Speaker 04

  I'll put it back.

• 1:12:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:23Speaker 04

  He, there was a thing in our house, which was you were never supposed to let him look in your mouth because if you had a loose tooth, he would rip it out.

• 1:12:30Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:12:30Speaker 04

  And so my mom would always be like, whatever we do when we get to pass over, do not open your mouth for grandpa. Because his thing was just like.

• 1:12:38Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 1:12:39Speaker 04

  Let's go.

• 1:12:39Speaker 02

  Oh, brother.

• 1:12:40Speaker 04

  And he had his office in the house and his tools were upstairs, so.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  I, I, I had to say, I, there's something about an in-home dental or doctor thing, which no, I trusted more. I'm like, this is the center of your life, literally. So you must be carrying down.

• 1:12:55Speaker 04

  So do you know who the central orthodontist, the central dental practices in Great Neck, Long Island? Between the period of 1945 and 1983?

• 1:13:09Speaker 02

  Dr. Sam Simmons.

• 1:13:10Speaker 04

  Dr. Samuel Simmons? And the patriarch from capturing the freedmen's. And those were the two warring.

• 1:13:17Speaker 02

  Remind me?

• 1:13:18Speaker 04

  Do you remember the documentary about the family that end up maybe being, um, uh, predatory monsters? It was like the first Andrew Jarecki documentary. I watched it at Angelica. Nicole Kidman was sitting in front of me at the theater. And it's about this family that potentially it's unclear whether they committed sort of like mass acts of pedophilia or whether there was a sort of, um, like satanic panic moment that happened. I'm sure that it, you end up kind of really siding, of course, with the victims. But he was this orthodontist who's kind of seemed like he had this really perfect family and then it disintegrates.

• 1:13:57Speaker 04

  And his son was Bobo the Clown, the premier party clown of downtown Manhattan. So he used to do birthday parties. And the father was the other orthodontist in Great Neck. And of course, when all of this came out, my grandfather was king.

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  I have to say, and this is the biggest compliment I could give, that story sounds like a limited. Series starring Matthew Reese.

• 1:14:20Speaker 04

  That's so nice.

• 1:14:22Speaker 01

  Well, that's the best compliment I can give.

• 1:14:24Speaker 04

  Watch Capturing the Freedmen's. I've never seen anyone nod as emphatically as Nicole Kidman ahead of me in the theater.

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  She loves cinema.

• 1:14:31Speaker 04

  In the Angelica in 2000.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  She was just excited to be in a theater.

• 1:14:34Speaker 04

  She loves it. I can still remember what the light looked like pouring on her beautiful face.

• 1:14:38Speaker 01

  She's just stunning. She sat here just days ago.

• 1:14:41Speaker 04

  I know. I know. I listened.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  Wasn't it? It really was a transfer. When she saw my little Looney Tunes on my shirt and couldn't handle herself for 45 seconds.

• 1:14:51Speaker 04

  I can't imagine anything better than making Nicole Kidman happy.

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  It was wonderful.

• 1:14:55Speaker 04

  Except for making Tilda Swinton smile.

• 1:14:58Speaker 04

  Which I did once. Once.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  Tilda. So we need to get her in there.

• 1:15:03Speaker 04

  You do. I have a photo. I don't do, I'm sure you're the same, which is I don't do a lot of celebrity approaches. I'm always shocked by.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Of course. Yeah.

• 1:15:10Speaker 04

  When it comes out of me.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:15:12Speaker 04

  Like one time I saw Janis Dickinson at the Sunset Tower and I screamed, you mean everything to me.

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that part of the book.

• 1:15:17Speaker 04

  Yo, thank you. You know that, um, recently I FaceTimed Judd and he had FaceTimed me and I was in bed, sweaty mess. He goes, Lena, I'm a little busy right now. Passes the phone to Glenn Powell.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:15:30Speaker 04

  Glenn Powell, here to for pretty much no feelings. The masculinity radiating from the screen. Do you want to know what I did?

• 1:15:37Speaker 01

  What'd you do?

• 1:15:38Speaker 04

  I went like this.

• 1:15:42Speaker 04

  Hey, you're my number one movie star. What happened? Who is she? What's going on? And Glenn Powell's like, thank you. That's so sweet. And I, then I go, ain't no set like a Jed Appertow set.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  It's, it's so like, gosh. No lies told.

• 1:15:58Speaker 04

  No lies told, but what's she doing?

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  No, I, I think she.

• 1:16:01Speaker 04

  Why is she?

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  Something else took over.

• 1:16:03Speaker 04

  That's exactly what happened. And that's usually when I approach a celebrity, it's something else takes over.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 1:16:09Speaker 04

  I learned the hard way because I once approached theater, character actress legend Jackie Hoffman in a bodega. And said, you were incredible in Kissing Jessica Stein. And she went, oh.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Ow.

• 1:16:21Speaker 04

  And I went, I'm never doing that again.

• 1:16:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you know what? You had the right idea, which was to not approach with the most popular thing she's done. You approach with the thing that's going to hit them in the heart the most.

• 1:16:31Speaker 04

  Always.

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  Like when I met Queen Latifah and three people in front of me said, I loved you in Chicago. And I went up to her and said, I loved you in Life Support, which was her AIDS drama on HBO.

• 1:16:42Speaker 04

  If you don't think I remember.

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  She said, thank you so much, baby.

• 1:16:46Speaker 04

  And she probably was like, that means everything to me. One time when I was at Esalen, my favorite place in the world, a woman said, I loved how you represented pelvic pain in your TV show Camping. Camping is not even available on HBO Max. It has been scrubbed. Jennifer Garner's probably taken it off her IMDB. Beautiful person, amazing experience. Inside and Out. Inside and Out, makes Blueberry Buckle for the crew. Ain't no set like a Jennifer Garner set. But that being said, like, you never, when someone says something to you like that, you cannot help but be bowled over. And that's what you did for Latifah.

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• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  So they're telling me we're almost, we're almost out of time. So we have, I don't think so, honey.

• 1:19:26Speaker 02

  We didn't get to ask you the question, but that's okay.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  Oh my God, we didn't even ask the question.

• 1:19:30Speaker 02

  Really quickly, did you, do you want to tell us what it was?

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  What was the culture that made you say culture was for you?

• 1:19:35Speaker 04

  It was seeing Sarah Jessica Parker and Jane Krakowski in Once Upon a Matress on Broadway.

• 1:19:42Speaker 02

  Lady Larkin and Winifred. Thank you so much.

• 1:19:45Speaker 04

  And I sang, I'm shy, I'm so quiet and shy for my camp musical audition, did not get in, but I just thought like, I love being a woman. Women can be funny. They can be fun. They can be sexy. Sarah Jessica Parker's like wearing rags and screaming my, I then went home, AOL.com, printed out probably a hundred low resolution images of Sarah Jessica Parker, made a wallpaper out of them. And it's, it was so big for me.

• 1:20:18Speaker 02

  I'm so sad we don't have more time to talk about this, but yes, no, no, keep going.

• 1:20:21Speaker 04

  It was everything. And I mean, it's still, and then I've also gone back and watched Carol Burnett in it. Like Once Upon a Matress to me is, I love it because it's a musical where the central character is not supposed to be good at singing. Like which is, one of the biggest fights my mom and I ever had was when I was going to Impact Performing Arts Camp in Salisbury, Connecticut, where I was in camp with all the Gummer sisters as well as Lily Rabe. They were all great at acting. We were doing a review. We were supposed to choose a song. My mom said, you should choose, um, no, she said from Guys and Dolls, Adelaide's Lament, because it's a character piece. And I said, I want to sing Edelweiss. And she said, you are a character actress. And I said, you are not an

• 1:21:06Speaker 04

  ingenue. She was right, but I wasn't ready to see the writing on the wall.

• 1:21:11Speaker 01

  You are a character actress is.

• 1:21:14Speaker 04

  You are a character actress. No, it's the best. Have a mom who knows you're a character actress.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:20Speaker 04

  I mean, my mom played Rhett Butler in the camp play. Like, that's where she, because she was tall, so they always gave her the boy parts. So she was like, take what you got, put on your robe and sing Adelaide's Lament. But I just love that Once Upon a Mattress is a musical for girls who aren't naturally good at musicals.

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they can go, because I'm actually terribly timid.

• 1:21:40Speaker 04

  Shy. My favorite one is The Swamps of Home.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  Are brushed with green angles.

• 1:21:46Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 1:21:47Speaker 01

  Africa Day.

• 1:21:49Speaker 04

  I always forget that you're like a musical theater kid, and then it just gets me right in my heart. Then I remember when I watch Wicked.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  You can stream that on Peacock.

• 1:21:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  Um, okay, so we gotta do I Don't Think So Honey.

• 1:22:01Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  All right. I have one. This is our 60 second segment where we take some time, 60 seconds, to rake things across the coals. I do have something directed at our guest.

• 1:22:12Speaker 02

  This is Matt Rogers, I Don't Think So Honey, directed at Lena Dunham. His time starts now.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  I don't think so, honey. What you're about to do to role model, making him a movie star is so dangerous. I, I don't think so, honey, that we're gonna be able to handle it. I've been seeing Tucker rise and rise and rise. I've seen the Sally phenomenon. I said they're making a movie star now. We are, if you think Hudson and Connor have taken over, just you fucking wait. The little tattoos all over his body. His sort of easy way with a smile, the hair that looks unstyled, but you know it is. The sort of natural charm and charisma. I don't think so, honey, that we're ready for this person to show us perfection in this type of way. Not to put pressure, because I think putting pressure on it would then sort of like, I don't know.

• 1:22:59Speaker 01

  I would, I would hate for any thought to run through his head besides, well, I'm up, I'm in a good mood, I'm gonna do my thing today, which seems like the vibe. I don't think so, honey, that we're gonna be able to get through, but I do think so, honey, that I'm gonna be there, because you, Natalie Portman, Tucker, I'm in the seat. I do think so.

• 1:23:19Speaker 04

  And Rashida Jones kind of giving him like a little askance look. And I will say this, that- I showed an early cut of the movie to a friend of mine who's like a very thoughtful forty-five-year-old writer, like, who's like, half queer, and she was like, "You're ruining my life."

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:23:35Speaker 04

  Like, I didn't think I still had feelings like this in me. And it's funny, because I so want Tucker never to feel objectified, that I literally talked to him, like, I'm like, "Put her here, pal." Like, I was like, I talked to him like I'm a friend's father-

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:23:50Speaker 04

  -who's just walked in from golfing and doesn't really want kids at the house, because I so don't want him to ever feel like all of these, like, creepy, like, I want him to feel freedom, and I'm like, "Anyone can be objectified like this." I don't want this, like, lovely young boy who, like, loves his mother Susan so much to ever feel that he's being, like, controlled.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  Well, that seems to be too late on that.

• 1:24:11Speaker 02

  He has the perfect, um, perspective on it, though, because, uh, and by that, I mean, he has a sense of humor, because he recently, or a couple of months ago, posted, uh, something on Instagram stories where it was, uh, a meme, because they have the same haircut of a famous Sean Cody porn star named Brandon, and he was like, "Come to the show tonight." He has an awareness of what he does to people, but doesn't flaunt it too much and too flagrant of a way, that he will be perfect and objectify him.

• 1:24:40Speaker 04

  He's also just a good boy. Like, I was around him for long enough that if the facade was going to crack, it would've.

• 1:24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:47Speaker 04

  Let's just say if someone was gonna kick a rug or throw a chair, it would've happened. And he is a good boy. Like, he's from Maine. He gets really happy when dogs show up.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 1:24:56Speaker 04

  Like, there's a, there's a, an ease, and he is obviously poetic and complicated. I just, like, love him. He's my buddy. Like, I like texting pictures of my pigs all the time, and he writes LOL, like, and it's, you know, it's very healthy to have young friends.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  And he writes LOL!

• 1:25:12Speaker 04

  He writes LOL! I love him. But he's a really good actor, and it's annoying.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:25:16Speaker 04

  It's very like Brad Pitt in California, where you're like, "Who's that?"

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. Well, get ready for that. Who's that moment? Here's Bowen Yang's "I Don't Think So Honey."

• 1:25:24Speaker 04

  I'm so excited!

• 1:25:25Speaker 02

  Also inspired by our guest.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  Okay, this is Bowen Yang's "I Don't Think So Honey." His time starts now.

• 1:25:30Speaker 02

  "I don't think so, honey. More places should be like the Tower Bar at Sunset." Sunset Tower and serve what? Chicken pot pie.

• 1:25:38Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:25:39Speaker 02

  What? I don't care that it costs thirty four dollars like it does at Tower Bar. Price it up, inflate that all you want. I know I'm paying for something premium, even if it's pretty bad. I love the crust and you're thinking, oh, but Bowen, it's so hard to make and it's so hard to scale up at a restaurant. Buy the puff pastry ahead of time.

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  Thirty seconds.

• 1:26:01Speaker 02

  Put it in the freezer, lay it out on the, on the day, you'll be okay. Cut it out on just about, you know, above the dish. It will be fine. It's not that hard to make. I just want it made from the expertise and curatorial sort of.

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  In fifteen seconds.

• 1:26:16Speaker 02

  Just POV of a chef and Tower Bar. I, I, I do lament how populated it's been.

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  Five seconds.

• 1:26:25Speaker 02

  It's gone since your time there and making it a home. It's, I love going still. It has a new valence to it now.

• 1:26:33Speaker 04

  It has a really new valence.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  And that is one minute.

• 1:26:35Speaker 04

  That was incredible. I agree with you a hundred percent. I will say, and I talked about this in the book, that I, during COVID, I was for a period, the only guest at the Sunset Tower.

• 1:26:45Speaker 02

  Incredible.

• 1:26:46Speaker 04

  There was one guest, there was a gentleman at the desk, there was a lady upstairs in eleven oh nine, she was me. I was, and my dog Ingrid, who has her own relationship to that place. And because I was alone, I could go work on my computer in the bar.

• 1:27:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:02Speaker 04

  I could go sit by the pool. I could go sit on the roof. The freedom, I was Eloise. It was the greatest time of my life.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  And no one knew that the burger was famous, so they couldn't charge forty six dollars for it.

• 1:27:13Speaker 04

  Well, they weren't even serving food. They were literally serving croissants wrapped in, in, um, uh, you know, croissants wrapped in whatever, like.

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:22Speaker 04

  Tinfoil because they, I forgot the word for tinfoil.

• 1:27:25Speaker 01

  They have good pigs in a blanket too, I believe.

• 1:27:27Speaker 04

  I am a vegetarian, um, but that's not a judgment.

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  More for me.

• 1:27:31Speaker 04

  But I've had them before in my pat when I was, um, acting out of pocket and eating meat. And I loved them, but, um, and now I was alone at the Tower Bar and it was really beautiful. And then you set one table on fire.

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they.

• 1:27:47Speaker 04

  And they, they didn't.

• 1:27:48Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 1:27:49Speaker 04

  Kick me out, which was incredible. What they did was. Look at, monitor me. And now every time I see lovely Jeff, who runs a tarot board, he says, are you gonna set anything on fire today? And I go, no, no, no, I don't have matches. I don't have a lighter. My husband won't let me.

• 1:28:05Speaker 02

  You can't live down something like lighting something on fire. And then, and once you walk back into that establishment, it's tough.

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, you're about to set this whole place on fire with your, I don't think so, honey.

• 1:28:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I thought about it in advance. I can't be as good in Nicole Kidman saying bad breath. And everything will ever be as good.

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  Listen, we're all trailing in her dust. But are you ready? This is Lena Dunham's, I don't think so, honey. Her time starts now.

• 1:28:27Speaker 04

  I don't think so, honey. Quiet luxury.

• 1:28:30Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:28:31Speaker 04

  I don't, if I'm gonna have luxury, I want it to be loud.

• 1:28:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:28:35Speaker 04

  Firstly, I'm not, since when did elegance mean that you were wearing oatmeal with bone, with beige, with tan? We have so many colors. We have so many materials.

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:48Speaker 04

  Why is looking like you work at a spa, suddenly a sign? Did rich people get so bored with having so many things that they thought the most important things are gonna be things that look like nothing? And I don't think so, honey. What, you're a, you're a fashion blogger and you're showing me that you have a top that looks like

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  Fifteen.

• 1:29:12Speaker 04

  Someone's baby's skin and a pants that look like someone else's brother? And both those people are white? I don't want it.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Five seconds.

• 1:29:22Speaker 04

  I don't think so, honey. I, when I get something and I spend a lot of money on it, I want everyone to know.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  Headlines. And that's one minute. Honestly, it does, I think, I, I'm gonna say something big. Fashion got worse when we went minimalist.

• 1:29:39Speaker 04

  The other thing to know is that like minimalism looks very different on a person who's spent 20 years creating their body.

• 1:29:46Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:29:47Speaker 04

  Whereas like minimalism on a person who's just trying to survive

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:51Speaker 04

  is a different energy. Yeah, it's just a shirt that looks, and like, what, you want me to get, spend $500 on a t-shirt that looks like the one that I wore over my bathing suit when I went to the breakers with my grandma in 1992?

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  Well, it looks dirty on purpose a little bit, so that's why it's more expensive.

• 1:30:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. And it looks like, um, someone sewed it in a shaker community.

• 1:30:18Speaker 04

  And I'm mad.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  But you can see the stitching, that's why it's $8,000.

• 1:30:21Speaker 04

  I'm mad, I'm so mad. And I see things and I just go, you're really trying to tell me this? And I don't want to indulge in fast fashion. I'm not trying to hurt the planet.

• 1:30:29Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 1:30:30Speaker 04

  But that, but I don't want what you're offered. So I'm gonna have to go to Forever 21.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:36Speaker 04

  I'm gonna have to go to Forever 21. Thank you for giving me the space to say that.

• 1:30:39Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  I'm gonna have to go to Forever 21, being the pull quote.

• 1:30:43Speaker 02

  Being the pull quote.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  Maybe that's title of that.

• 1:30:45Speaker 02

  I'm gonna have to go Forever 21.

• 1:30:47Speaker 04

  The first time Forever 21 opened, I was like, this is a utopia for women like me.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  It felt like something that wasn't for us in one of the things that, like, it was one of those moments where it's like, you know, when you're like a little gay boy and you see Justin Timberlake and all the girls are excited, but you can't be?

• 1:31:02Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  So you get angry? That's how I felt about Forever 21.

• 1:31:05Speaker 02

  But then-

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  I'm like, they have a place to go hang out!

• 1:31:08Speaker 02

  But then we would go at NYU at the Forever 21 Union Square.

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  And that was a haven.

• 1:31:13Speaker 01

  Well, finding out that they even sold things for-

• 1:31:16Speaker 02

  For men.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Boys slash men.

• 1:31:17Speaker 04

  I used to like, if it was a hot day and I was in a dress and my thighs were open to it, you just pop into Forever 21 and get a pair of like neon bike shorts and suddenly your outfit is singing.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:26Speaker 02

  Beautiful. Um, fam sick, April 14th.

• 1:31:30Speaker 04

  I love being with you two and it's so special to have our group chat come to life in this way. And thank you for everything you've given me. Friendship, changing my life through helping me quit vaping, reading the book so thoughtfully.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  We love every single page of it, just like we love everything that you've done. I mean, like, it's not a lie. That show cha- You're one of the most important people to our generation in terms of pop culture, in terms of what you contributed.

• 1:31:58Speaker 04

  Life is so-

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  Life is just so.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Life is just so. That's the title of that.

• 1:32:02Speaker 04

  I love you guys.

• 1:32:03Speaker 02

  Love you.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  Life is just so.

• 1:32:05Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me and for jacking me up for three days.

• 1:32:08Speaker 01

  We love you deeply.

• 1:32:09Speaker 04

  I'm going home to take 42 Benadryl.

• 1:32:12Speaker 01

  That's actually in vogue. Okay, we end every episode with a song. You know the one. You know the one?

• 1:32:18Speaker 02

  You go.

• 1:32:19Speaker 01

  I was curious if you know the one.

• 1:32:27Speaker 01

  So listen to the rest of that, watch the best episode of television of all time.

• 1:32:30Speaker 04

  So nice and raw.

• 1:32:31Speaker 01

  All adventure.

• 1:32:31Speaker 04

  It's out. Sex existential.

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  Sex existential. It's so good.

• 1:32:36Speaker 04

  I love you guys.

• 1:32:37Speaker 02

  Lost Culture Racist is a production by Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and iHeart Radio Podcasts.

• 1:32:40Speaker 01

  Created and hosted by Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Executive produced by Anna Hosni and produced by Becca Ramos.

• 1:32:47Speaker 02

  Edited and mixed by Doug Bame.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  And our music is by Henry Kamersky.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  This is Stugatz from Stugatz and Company Live. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla Sedan with the latest features and tech, or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you can get more at trade-in. Get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 1:33:32Speaker 06

  Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 1:34:01Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.