The ‘Past Lives’ of Actor Greta Lee

What if it’s true that good things come to those who wait? For Greta Lee, the success of Past Lives came after twenty years of working and finding her way as an actor. Her latest, leading turns come in The Last House and Late Fame. We begin with Late Fame (4:12) and her larger-than-life character, inspired in part by artists like Isabella Rossellini, Marlene Dietrich, and Liza Minnelli (6:37). Then, Lee reflects on her upbringing as the daughter of Korean immigrants (12:20), translating for her parents at an early age (13:10), the sacrifices made by her doctor father and artist mother (16:05), and the high school experience that first made her question where she belonged (22:37). On the back-half, we walk through Lee’s lean years in New York (29:35), the restaurant job that kept her afloat (32:00), and the rejection and financial stress of trying to make a living as an actor (34:55). Then, we talk about how motherhood changed her relationship to identity and representation (41:12), before returning to the miracle of Past Lives (52:10)—from her first days on set to the film’s emotional Sundance premiere (57:20), her mother’s profound connection to the story (1:03:45), and what Greta has learned about finally owning her own story (1:08:20). The Last House is now available to stream on Netflix. Late Fame is in theaters, expanding nationally on August 14th. Subscribe to our ⁠YouTube channel⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@talkeasypod. As always, our email: [email protected]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  It was just this moment for me where I realized I had a knee jerk reaction to earn my screen time. And for me, it came in the form of improv, comedy improv, filling the space, scene stealing, scene stealing my own scene, and begging for the camera to not turn away. I had it ingrained in me and I was doggy paddling for my life in a way that was not necessary or needed. And that happened pretty quickly. Like, in the beginning of the process of doing this, I just had this moment where I was like,

• 0:42Speaker 00

  don't, probably don't improvise lines about Russ and Daughters' bagels. Nobody wants to hear that.

• 0:50Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.

• 1:07Sam Fragoso?

  Today, actor Greta Lee. According to Space and Time, and I think my producers, the movie Past Lives came out three years ago. You may remember it from back then. It's about two childhood best friends torn apart after one family emigrates from South Korea, only to be reunited decades later for one fateful week in New York City. The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and announced the arrival of writer-director Celine Song, who also received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. But for Lee, the movie's star, it was the culmination of two decades working as a struggling actor, a period in which she was often referred to in the press as a scene-stealing performer,

• 1:51Sam Fragoso?

  a term that I don't think she likes very much, but is apt because of her dazzling work in shows like Russian Doll, High Maintenance, and Girls. Fittingly, her latest turn is in the new film Late Fame, directed by Ken Jones and written by Sammy Birch. Set in present-day Greenwich Village, she plays Gloria, an actor of the stage and screen who hearkens back to an era of decadent, larger-than-life cabaret stars like Josephine Baker and Eartha Kitt, the kind of performers that are frankly a dying breed and ones that Lee felt were worth paying homage to. And so that's where we begin today's episode. Later, after the break, we get into her upbringing in LA as the daughter of Korean immigrants,

• 2:34Sam Fragoso?

  the odd job she worked trying to make it as an actor in New York, the rejection and joy and financial stress that came with that period, weathering a Hollywood system that frankly hasn't historically or sufficiently valued a performer like Lee, and of course, how that all led to the miracle that is Past Lives. Also, I want to add that this episode includes maybe my favorite final 15, 20 minutes of an episode this year. And so with that, if you want to watch Late Fame, I believe it just opened in New York City and has plans to expand nationwide August 14. Enjoy.

• 3:12Sam Fragoso?

  Greta Lee, thank you for being here.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me.

• 3:14Sam Fragoso?

  How are we doing?

• 3:15Speaker 00

  Um, I, a lot of different conflicting things because I think on the one hand, this is, it marks the longest hiatus I've had from acting.

• 3:26Sam Fragoso?

  Is that okay?

• 3:27Speaker 00

  It is. It's a great thing. And also a weird thing because in the last few years, it's been pretty nonstop and in a way that I'm genuinely excited about. But I think breaks are useful and I've been spending, you know, I've been doing press for certain things and doing other creatively, creative pursuits. I've been writing and I've been parenting and, and now I'm about to jump back in. So this is, this is a transitional moment for me.

• 3:59Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I love to capture someone at a transitional moment.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. Maybe you can help me figure out if I'm okay.

• 4:06Sam Fragoso?

  I hate to tell you this, but you've come to the wrong place. I'll give it a try. I'll give it a call a try.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:12Sam Fragoso?

  So let's start with Late Fame.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:14Sam Fragoso?

  This film, Late Fame, which is directed by Ken Jones, stars Willem Dafoe, is like very, very important to you.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:22Sam Fragoso?

  So I want to know, I want to start here. Why is that?

• 4:25Speaker 00

  It feels like a very precious, secret gem that I have, which is a funny thing to say about a movie because it's a very public

• 4:33Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  thing, the way that it operates. It's inherent to

• 4:37Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, you mean people go into the theater?

• 4:38Speaker 00

  You have to see, you share it. But it felt, um,

• 4:42Sam Fragoso?

  Are you reluctant to share it?

• 4:45Speaker 00

  I was reluctant to share Past Lives, actually. But there are certain, I think in a similar vein, it felt like something private that we were endeavoring to do with the movie. And Gloria, as a character, is someone that, yeah, I treasure and I adore for very specific reasons. But it feels personal. It feels like who she is and what she represents and what the movie represents to me is personal.

• 5:17Sam Fragoso?

  So I want to talk about what it represents to you because it's set, I think in 2025 or 2026. And it's about these young kids who've created something called the Enthusiasm Society.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  That's right. Yeah.

• 5:31Sam Fragoso?

  And they have stumbled upon this old book of poems from a writer played by Willem Dafoe that's kind of been forgotten, that people haven't recognized. And your character, Gloria, is a theater actor who comes in and out of this world just like a tornado.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:49Sam Fragoso?

  And she's kind of in the, I'm trying to imagine, like, she's in the spirit of like a Isabella Rossellini.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 5:55Sam Fragoso?

  Tell me how you got into the character and like, what matters to you now, having done it?

• 6:01Speaker 00

  I basically think that she is inspired by, or is my homage to a certain type of artist, but specifically a certain type of woman that I have adored and that I fear is now dying out.

• 6:18Sam Fragoso?

  And who is that or what is that?

• 6:20Speaker 00

  It's a diva.

• 6:21Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  An actual diva, capital D. The kinds of women, but you nailed it with Isabella Rossellini. I was thinking a lot about Marlena Dietrich. I would say Liza Minnelli, or Sally Bowles. I mean, there are a lot of women who have inspired me as an artist, but I think specifically for Gloria, this type of woman that I want her to continue to exist.

• 6:53Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I think she's very much alive and well in this movie. So can we take a look, this is early on in the film.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:00Sam Fragoso?

  Your character Gloria is, I think this is the introduction to her character in the movie. And she's given a pretty warm greeting by this group of young aspiring writers and their long-lost village poet folk hero played by Willem Dafoe. This is from Late Fame.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  How's it going, Gloria? Oh, there's never enough financing. One of our key castmates just dropped out to do an episode of some police procedural on network television. It's obscene. I promise I'll let you kids know when we're back on our feet. We'll all be on pins and needles. Anyway, I want to hear more about your reading.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Actually, it's, it's an event, right? Well, Saxberger's giving some serious thought to writing something new. Thinking about it.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  And?

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Well.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Sure, why not?

• 8:00Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 8:03Sam Fragoso?

  How was that?

• 8:04Speaker 00

  I loved doing this movie. I loved playing her and I, and I loved doing it with this group. And I was talking to Willem today, this morning, and was so instantly transported to our time together. And I don't know, I just, sometimes it's, it's almost effortless. And it's, it feels, it does feel like magic sometimes when everyone's on board for, I don't know, for no reason, seemingly, to try to make something.

• 8:35Sam Fragoso?

  Which is, which is funny because this was almost like this close to it not happening, right?

• 8:42Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:43Sam Fragoso?

  My understanding is Sandra Holder from a lot of things, but Anatomy of a Fall, she was supposed to do it.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:49Sam Fragoso?

  Then she drops out. And then you get the calls. Is this how that goes?

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Which to me is completely insane as it is because Sandra, who I love and is a pal, I don't, we're not in the same audition rooms together often, so to speak. I mean, I don't, we don't audition anymore, lucky for us. But what I'm trying to say is we're so different. And I couldn't believe the pivot that they were endeavoring to make with this. And I kind of couldn't believe my luck because I, the role I thought was so great. And I thought, well, what about everyone else you're going to go to first before me? So I, yeah, I just, I jumped at the chance.

• 9:34Sam Fragoso?

  So when you get to set How quickly did you feel that thing that we just saw, which is, oh, there's an effortless quality. Everyone's bought into the same idea.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  It started with my first conversations with Kent.

• 9:48Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  I was like exploding with ideas about what I wanted her to sound like and hoping that he would agree. And he did. I could have been way off base, but I was just, I was obsessed with the idea of like, I'd just come off of past lives and that is such a naturalistic style of acting. And I wanted subconsciously to do something very, very different.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  And in my body, inhabiting something different. And this was that in spades. And I just said, you know, what are you thinking? What kinds of women are you thinking? Because you could go a lot of different ways. And that's when we started talking about old movies and this older style of acting even, that technically speaking. And we just started, you know, Shanghai Express. And I watched, you know, Marlena's entire canon, which I'd never really done before. And once you stop and you see what that kind of performance is, it's completely wild. It's huge. It's so unnatural. And yet I find it mesmerizing.

• 10:58Sam Fragoso?

  It seemed like that came pretty naturally to you.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  Oh, thanks. But it was challenging because I can't, it's so easy for them to flip over into like SNL territory with this woman. And we did collectively have to dial it in certain directions at times. So she didn't seem like a not real person.

• 11:17Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, because past lives, it is a very naturalistic approach.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  I think of it more as supreme restraint. So sitting on and suppressing, whether it's emotion or physicality or and just letting things exist in silence.

• 11:37Sam Fragoso?

  So the character of Gloria, this is my read, and tell me if I'm wrong on this. She seems to represent this very like interesting intersection for you. Because she's an actor who works in theater, which is where you started out. She's part of an old New York that you didn't obviously get to live, but you did spend time in New York and even that New York is completely gone. One of the earliest things you did was perform Liza Minnelli songs at a mall.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:05Sam Fragoso?

  So you're first generation. Your parents met in Seoul, moved to the US in the 1970s. Did they appreciate or encourage like your artistry or what you, you know, it seems like you were a kid who performed a lot. Did they like that?

• 12:21Speaker 00

  Actually, they did. Because, and it's kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around it. I feel like I have to wade through a lot of confusing territories in terms of like model minority stuff and stereotypes and different expectations, because all of it existed. So let me just try. I grew up in a very traditional household. It was a Christian household. There were high expectations. I was the first born, so I was the first person in my family to speak English fluently. And I was sort of the gateway, you know, for everything. I remember having to write letters

• 13:02Speaker 00

  on behalf of my parents to the landlord to like, figure out how do we get something fixed for the house and and at a very young age.

• 13:10Sam Fragoso?

  How old were you?

• 13:11Speaker 00

  As early as like kindergarten, I would say. Or I would, I remember opening up the instructions to a new, a swing set, a playset. And building it myself at a really young age, following the instructions in English. And doing all kinds of things. I was also just talking about how I remember teaching my parents the Star Spangled Banner and helping them study for their citizenship tests.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  So, you know, it is that thing that I think a lot of immigrants share and that you, you grow up fast. You become, you take on adult things quickly.

• 13:49Sam Fragoso?

  So that's the traditional part.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  That's a traditional part, but layered in with all of that, my mom was a concert pianist. And she went to Yiwu University in Korea. It's a very prestigious place. And she is so thoroughly an artist. She paints, she sings. She, she can do anything. Our joke is she's like a CIA agent, like we don't understand.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  Masked in this cloak of like, you know, Korean mom, but there was an appreciation, I think, for my artistic interests. And I think that I was taken seriously, which is amazing. And maybe a little different from some of my other friends who are Asian American, who were discouraged, I think, from pursuing the arts.

• 14:43Sam Fragoso?

  Did you see that?

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. I saw it. And I think, and I had other things going on in my family, though, where they were still concerned about what that actually meant. Like, how was I going to survive? I remember even after I'd fully established that I was going to be an actor and I was living in New York, I would still occasionally get phone calls from my dad suggesting I go to, you know, get, become a prosthetician. Which is a quick degree. And he would pitch it to me like, it's the arts, left brain and right brain. It's like sculpture. You can make body parts.

• 15:22Sam Fragoso?

  And you responded in what way?

• 15:24Speaker 00

  With rage. Yeah. And like a total sense of like, how do you not believe in me? How could you? This is so insulting. And, you know, a real frustration about that. I understand where he was coming from.

• 15:39Sam Fragoso?

  You don't strike me as having a ton of rage.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  Really?

• 15:43Sam Fragoso?

  But I think you may be masking it pretty well.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  I know. I think I might be.

• 15:49Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:50Sam Fragoso?

  You're welcome to let it out here. I mean, preferably not at me. But if you need to, I'm here.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  Okay, that's good to know.

• 15:57Sam Fragoso?

  So you would go and say, wait, like, I, I am going to do this. Like, this is something I want to do and have to do. And some part of him must have thought, well, my wife was a concert pianist and we did come here to do something. I mean, they sacrificed an amount that I think is hard for some people to understand. Like, this is a guy, as I understand, was a doctor in Seoul. Came here, he couldn't find a goddamn hospital that would hire him.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:30Sam Fragoso?

  Because of his English. And your mother, who, as you said, was amazing, is this amazing artist and pianist. Had to put that on hold.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:41Sam Fragoso?

  And I want to, there's this thing that you said once about your parents. You said, my parents always said that at the end of the day, you only have yourself. Whether you like it or not. So be sure to tend to that relationship because that's it.

• 16:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:59Sam Fragoso?

  And I have thought about that quote since the first time I read it. And I I kind of understand what it means, but I want to know what it means to you.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  Well, it's fully loaded because as I sit with that now, I think what strikes me is like, how devastating that is. Because the idea is also you are entirely alone, fundamentally. Existentially. And with that, it's requiring you to, like, there's a death of something, of letting go. Which sounds very bleak, but also reminds me of that the Mary Oliver quote of, tell me, what will you do with your one wild and precious life?

• 17:50Speaker 00

  That sentiment for me is captured in all of that as well. I think because my dad and my mom overcame insurmountable, impossible odds, that has always in the back of my mind put things into a certain perspective. That no one's entitled to anything, but also you are

• 18:18Speaker 00

  capable of doing anything.

• 18:20Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  But that, these are big, weighty things to tell a child.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  Right? A child is just like, Mom, I want to be a pop star.

• 18:34Sam Fragoso?

  Did you finish your homework, Greta? Um, also, you are fundamentally alone in this world.

• 18:39Speaker 00

  You only have yourself.

• 18:41Sam Fragoso?

  Get used to it.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah, yeah, kind of.

• 18:45Sam Fragoso?

  How did they demonstrate that to you? Like, this idea of, at the end, it's only you. Like, how do you think they arrived at that wisdom?

• 18:55Speaker 00

  How did they arrive at it? I think it's because they and their families survived a war.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  My dad was born the year the Korean War ended and had a profound impact on his family

• 19:10Speaker 00

  in ways that I will never understand. And how did they demonstrate it? It's my dad playing the cello every single night, usually at around midnight, without fail.

• 19:21Sam Fragoso?

  And this was in childhood?

• 19:22Speaker 00

  Uh huh. So dinner, right?

• 19:24Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  We go to bed and then I start to hear the cello go off. Still, still now, as an adult, if we are ever staying in the same place, if I'm staying over and he's up, he will get up in the middle of the night and play. And it is only for himself. Like, I know that to be true. It is entirely a self-pleasurable act, a ritual for him.

• 19:50Sam Fragoso?

  So he's sleeping, then he wakes up?

• 19:53Speaker 00

  He gets up and he'll, he'll play Ave Maria.

• 19:57Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, my God.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  And terribly, terribly.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:03Sam Fragoso?

  You buried the lead.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Were you imagining a prodigy? Were you imagining?

• 20:08Sam Fragoso?

  I was moved.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  Wine musicianship? I know, I saw you. I, I saw your tears well up. But it is, it is, it's moving for me, too. It, it is to see that.

• 20:21Sam Fragoso?

  I didn't know he wasn't good.

• 20:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I really got you.

• 20:23Sam Fragoso?

  That's a real, yeah.

• 20:25Speaker 00

  But it's part of it, that he's not good. Because that proves that it's not about the product.

• 20:32Sam Fragoso?

  And so when you were a kid, and then eventually going to high school at Harvard Westlake.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  I cared about the product.

• 20:39Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I was thinking, you, I mean, look, there's a list here. You split time between playing piano.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:46Sam Fragoso?

  This is in 90s Los Angeles. Playing piano, studying opera, acting, singing Liza Minnelli numbers at the local mall, taking modern dance classes and competing in the classical musical festival.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 21:00Sam Fragoso?

  Which I've, I've heard you won.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, I did.

• 21:02Sam Fragoso?

  I couldn't fact check that.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 21:05Sam Fragoso?

  But I believe you.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I won. I won first place.

• 21:07Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. Is it hard winning this much?

• 21:11Speaker 00

  But I didn't feel like, no, no. It was hard winning that much because I still felt invisible. As a child, one of my major wounds was feeling like, no matter what I did, and tangibly, like I could hold a trophy and show that I, I won something or I was recognized for something. It never felt like enough. I was still ignored or felt like I was missing out or I always felt like the kid with the raised hand who wasn't called upon in so many different ways.

• 21:45Sam Fragoso?

  You said in one interview, "The world around me, being Korean and having immigrant parents and being at this private school in LA that was very elite, but feeling always, oh, I can beat you, but beat them at what?"

• 22:01Speaker 00

  God.

• 22:02Sam Fragoso?

  Do you know the what in that now?

• 22:06Speaker 00

  Well, of course, I'm going to cringe a little bit hearing that now, but it is a pretty honest reflection of what I was feeling as, as a youth, as, as a teenager. I think specifically what I was feeling then was feeling like, as an actor or performer or singer, I was good enough, more than good enough, but I still wasn't getting the chances that I wanted at school, which then, I don't know, maybe was the universe's way of preparing me for what was going to come after that.

• 22:37Sam Fragoso?

  Well, one of the chances at school that you didn't get is Into the Woods.

• 22:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:42Sam Fragoso?

  Can you explain what happened?

• 22:45Speaker 00

  To set the stage, this is like the last chance. And there's a sort of understanding that you pay your dues to finally get, like, a leading role, if you hadn't yet, your senior year. And there's this built-in opportunity. It's an ensemble cast, lots of different roles. And basically, I'm not cast at all. I don't know if it was like a caveat or sort of like, all right, I'm going to throw you a bone, but the theater director at the time then asked if I would play, like, a kabuki puppeteer, like, a, a new role that he, they'd invented. So another Asian-American actor, actor, student and I

• 23:28Speaker 00

  were asked to be sort of this silent kind of specter of a something. And, and if you're confused, you should be because this doesn't exist in the show of...

• 23:39Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I mean, hard, but the specificity of specter of a something, you would think. It recalls, and then you remember that's not in the play.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  It's not. But I agreed because I just wanted to be in it. This is my last chance to do a show with my friends and I'd already decided I want to be an actor. But I remember how angry I was.

• 23:58Sam Fragoso?

  How did you feel performing it?

• 24:00Speaker 00

  I hated it. I, I hated it and I was such a good student and I was so disciplined. Because remember, outside of school, I was rehearsing and competing and engaged in professional settings. And yet, in doing this, I, I fucked it up on purpose. I think the last night, I, like, dropped the puppets and, like, threw them. And, I mean, my tiny, you know, 17-year-old frame, like, holding whatever the props. I, I remember the kabuki. I, I threw them during the performance. I, like, I think they dropped. I just, like, and I think I laughed and, I don't know.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  That was it.

• 24:46Sam Fragoso?

  Amazing.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, a small act of rebellion, I guess.

• 24:50Sam Fragoso?

  It's amazing to me when I, when I hear this now. I'm like, I can't believe that you were like, okay, I'll, I'll do that.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:02Sam Fragoso?

  I'll pursue it. Maybe the real question is like...

• 25:05Speaker 00

  Why didn't I give up?

• 25:06Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:07Sam Fragoso?

  And, and was there just some part of you that went, I think they're wrong?

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, there was. There was then. It makes me emotional and I don't want to cry on the show. But I, I do think, if there's anything that's going to make me cry, it's thinking about...

• 25:24Sam Fragoso?

  Sounds like a threat to me.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  No, I'm like, don't, no, no. Um, I see where you're going with this. I still have a little bit of resistance in, uh, really going there. And, and I think dipping into the pain of what it was like for so long. And my gratitude to this little girl, this crazy girl, I don't understand it. And I, and I look at her and, and I, I want to grab her and, and ask her, what, how? How did you do it? What was it that gave you so much moxie?

• 26:06Speaker 00

  And this crazy confidence that was not coming from anywhere externally? I mean, it was the opposite. Um, I, I don't get it. I don't get it.

• 26:20Sam Fragoso?

  I, I don't know if we have to get it.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  The painful parts of your story, you don't want it to outweigh everything else. And I feel like, uh, it's hard to talk about certain things, certain, what I felt as a child and a young adult, what I felt were certain injustices. And also protect and carve out space for my own joy and my own identity outside of these things that I had refused to let define me. So it's sort of like an unspoken promise that I made with that girl. And I can't break it now of, I didn't let that destroy me then.

• 27:08Speaker 00

  So I, and, and I can't let it now.

• 27:10Sam Fragoso?

  So let's balance it.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:12Sam Fragoso?

  Why don't we take a break? And when we come back, uh, we'll talk about what you did.

• 27:17Speaker 00

  Great.

• 27:17Sam Fragoso?

  That's coming up next with Greta Lee. Whenever I'm getting ready to leave town, like, when I'm heading to New York or Aspen for live shows, there's a small ritual before I walk out the door. I water my plants, unplug a few things, make sure I didn't leave behind my notebook and chargers. It's interesting, though, how much time and attention we pay to the trip itself, but not much time and attention to the time in which we're away. That's changed for me recently, over the past year, especially as I've been thinking about listing my space on Airbnb whenever I'm out of town. It gives someone else the chance to experience Los Angeles from a neighborhood that actually feels lived in. It can also help offset the cost of my own plans while I'm away. I like ideas that don't require you to reinvent the wheel

• 28:01Sam Fragoso?

  or your entire routine. You're already traveling. Listing your space is simply another way to make the most out of that time and help someone else connect with the city along the way. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host.

• 28:20Sam Fragoso?

  August is National Wellness Month and every year I notice the same thing happening, a flood of advice about what you should buy, eat, or add to your regimen. Personally, I prefer to stick to a routine that works for me. And instead of guessing what my body needs, I'd rather understand what's actually going on beneath the surface. That's one reason I use Function. Through the Function platform, I get access to more than 160 lab tests each year. They measure things like vitamin D and zinc, which plays a crucial role in your immune system. They also measure HSCRP, which can reveal underlying inflammation, or ferritin, which helps explain whether your iron levels might be affecting your energy. For me, it's less about chasing the latest health trend and more about having real information.

• 29:05Sam Fragoso?

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• 29:47Sam Fragoso?

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• 30:30Sam Fragoso?

  You can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com/talkeasy. That's MUBI, M-U-B-I dot com slash talkeasy for a whole month of great cinema for free. I think the best clothes you own are probably the ones you spend the least amount of time thinking about. They're just there when you need them. The sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants with the tee you always reach for first. That's what I've always liked about Quince. They focus on everyday staples made with premium materials like organic cotton, merino wool, and 100% Mongolian cashmere. Their cashmere sweaters start at just $60, and everything is designed to be versatile enough to work with what you already own.

• 31:13Sam Fragoso?

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• 31:55Sam Fragoso?

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• 32:28Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:29Sam Fragoso?

  Even as a kid, you said in one interview, "I always wanted to get far away from Los Angeles."

• 32:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:35Sam Fragoso?

  And be one of those adults in New York City.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 32:37Sam Fragoso?

  So tell me about this period in New York that sounds kind of crazy and also fun and scary and daunting, where you're splitting time between, you know, bit roles and working as a hostess at a few different David Chang restaurants.

• 32:52Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:53Sam Fragoso?

  How was that? Is it what you expected adulthood to be?

• 32:57Speaker 00

  I remember crash-landing into New York, basically. The summer of 2005 with, you know, huge aspirations. I was like Dorothy in Oz. Like, I was like, here we go. I was the girl at the mall, you know, singing "City Lights" or like "Start Spreading the New York, New York."

• 33:20Sam Fragoso?

  Wow.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  And I found a sublet with a guy who had a trashcan company. And I remember locking the door every night to my bedroom because he... I was scared. And I remember immediately, I got an agent through a showcase that I did at Northwestern, so I had that, but I, like, hit the ground running and I was like, "Let's fucking go." And I did, I did well.

• 33:51Sam Fragoso?

  SVU?

• 33:52Speaker 00

  SVU, boom, got that out of the way.

• 33:54Sam Fragoso?

  Mariska Hargitay comes in?

• 33:55Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:56Sam Fragoso?

  You were in a play on Broadway?

• 33:57Speaker 00

  On Broadway, did Spelling Bee.

• 33:59Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  I, you know, was doing the tour, replaced the original Broadway cast. I really felt, all right.

• 34:05Sam Fragoso?

  Things were...

• 34:06Speaker 00

  I got it.

• 34:07Sam Fragoso?

  They were zooming.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. But then there was a great, the great humbling of young Greta Lee.

• 34:16Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  For years.

• 34:18Sam Fragoso?

  So that's going to be the subtitle of this segment?

• 34:19Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 34:20Sam Fragoso?

  The Great Humbling.

• 34:21Speaker 00

  The Great Humbling of young Greta Lee.

• 34:23Sam Fragoso?

  Of the great Greta Lee?

• 34:24Speaker 00

  The soon-to-be-great.

• 34:26Sam Fragoso?

  Soon-to-be-great, imminently great.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  This is like, couple auditions a day, so much rejection, close calls, getting pinned. You know, that was the terminology of like, you got it, you're on hold, you almost have it, but there are two other girls who are also pinned. Like, I remember Gossip Girl was a really big blow.

• 34:48Sam Fragoso?

  EXO, EXO.

• 34:49Speaker 00

  Because I thought, yeah, I was pinned.

• 34:51Sam Fragoso?

  How many times, working at Momofuku, all these restaurants, did they throw a goodbye party for you?

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Well, we can't be overly... To be clear, they were not throwing it for me. Unbeknownst to them, maybe I was staging a sort of...

• 35:13Sam Fragoso?

  Parties like nicknames, good when you do it yourself.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  Or like, certain employees who, you know, we had like a good rapport, they would like send me as a parting gift, you know, some pork buns and like a bottle of Momofuku sake or whatever it was. But several times, a very embarrassing kind of like, goodbye, handkerchief wave, you know, nice to know you.

• 35:37Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  And then I'm right back in a few months.

• 35:40Sam Fragoso?

  You're going, "Next time you see me..."

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:44Sam Fragoso?

  "...we'll be on a billboard and..."

• 35:45Speaker 00

  "Remember this face? Remember this face?"

• 35:47Sam Fragoso?

  Times Square.

• 35:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:49Sam Fragoso?

  Cut to three months later.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  So embarrassing.

• 35:51Sam Fragoso?

  As a hostess at Momofuku, where you were, quote, "encouraged to be mean," was that a hard role to slip into for you?

• 35:59Speaker 00

  That was great. That was so great. Okay, but I have to clarify. I was not explicitly told, of course, to be mean.

• 36:08Sam Fragoso?

  You intuited that.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  There is no, there is no reality in which it is acceptable to tell someone with a straight face, "Your wait time is four hours."

• 36:19Sam Fragoso?

  So I walk in?

• 36:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:21Sam Fragoso?

  I know you guys are out of reservations, but do you accept walk-ins?

• 36:26Speaker 00

  How many are you?

• 36:30Sam Fragoso?

  Two, but it can be one.

• 36:31Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, that doesn't even make any sense. Are you, do you know if you are a solo diner?

• 36:38Sam Fragoso?

  Two, okay, but two.

• 36:39Speaker 00

  Is your other person here?

• 36:40Sam Fragoso?

  No, no, I just am really...

• 36:41Speaker 00

  Are they here now? Can I see them? I don't see them.

• 36:44Sam Fragoso?

  They're 10 minutes away.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  They're 10 minutes away. You can come back when they're here.

• 36:47Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, and what do you think the wait time will be?

• 36:48Speaker 00

  For two?

• 36:49Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  It's going to be two and a half, probably three hours.

• 36:52Sam Fragoso?

  When the restaurant closes?

• 36:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. You can try again tomorrow. I mean, it's really, it was a persona.

• 37:02Sam Fragoso?

  Really good.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  I had so much power for that, such a brief window of time, to offset the incredible rejection I was facing.

• 37:13Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 37:14Speaker 00

  On a daily basis, I could then tell, you know, a grown-ass man desperate to get in and eat some, you know, whatever it was, spicy porks, rice cake, what have you, and tell him with a straight face, like, basically, "Get the fuck out of here."

• 37:30Sam Fragoso?

  You once compared yourself, when you're doing this, back and forth between acting and working in restaurants, to an asshole trying to be Carrie Bradshaw. "I think I would own a house if it weren't for Sex and the City."

• 37:44Speaker 00

  Oh my God, okay.

• 37:46Sam Fragoso?

  How much credit card debt did you go into?

• 37:48Speaker 00

  Oh, oh, God. You know, it wasn't even the credit card debt so much as the tax, the tax, doing your taxes.

• 37:56Sam Fragoso?

  Oh my God.

• 37:57Speaker 00

  I remember being 27, 26, and doing my taxes and using whatever actor taxes or whatever, there's like a workbook that you filled out, and getting to the final amount and seeing the numbers, "You owe $14,000." And then immediately going to Craigslist and looking up different jobs, like, "Should I be a bottle girl? Like, should I be, should I..." You know those people who walk the streets of New York and ask you, "Can I, can I talk to you about your hair?" And they have these spa packages? I did that for one day.

• 38:30Sam Fragoso?

  So were you worried about...

• 38:31Speaker 00

  Money?

• 38:32Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  All the time.

• 38:34Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  And I, I'm not going to pretend that I didn't have a lifeline if I was on the streets.

• 38:41Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, your parents were doing well.

• 38:43Speaker 00

  My parents, my dad's a doctor, but I think there was that desperate panic of like, "Oh my God, how am I, I don't know how I'm going to do this." The numbers don't add up. I can't.

• 38:58Sam Fragoso?

  It's kind of the opposite to all the kids in late fame.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:03Sam Fragoso?

  Because that's the thing, in New York, I found, in my experience, I'm sure you had this too, where you, you go, "Well, we're all young and we're all trying to be artists." And then you elect, for some reason, to go to a house party.

• 39:19Speaker 00

  Right.

• 39:20Sam Fragoso?

  And then you walk in and you go, "Oh no, why did, why did we ever split a bill?"

• 39:24Speaker 00

  I've said this before, but I remember picking up the tab.

• 39:28Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  For guys, for, for, being like, "Yeah, I got this," you know? And then...

• 39:34Sam Fragoso?

  You got high maintenance.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  Thinking about later, yeah.

• 39:38Sam Fragoso?

  But also, an early piece that I remember is as the art gallerist in Girls.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  I'm opening my own gallery. Are you serious? It's been such a fucking whirlwind. Literally don't have time to breathe. And I'm dirt poor now. It's so sad. Well, you went shopping. I know. This is just a tax write-off. All my money has been going to the space and the publicity, and my parents are ready to murder me. It's just so freeing to be your boss, you know? I have my own architect. I'm like, where did my youth go? I'm sure.

• 40:10Sam Fragoso?

  You said once that getting the part was very exciting, but I also felt like a Make-A-Wish Foundation charity case.

• 40:20Speaker 00

  What did I mean by that?

• 40:22Sam Fragoso?

  I think because she saw you in a play.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 40:25Sam Fragoso?

  And that was it. But I wanted to kind of clear the record because that's on the internet. And Lena's having a moment.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  We talk. And we're still, over the years, we, I can't say we had consistently kept in touch, but we're, we're good as far as I know. And we're working on something together.

• 40:42Sam Fragoso?

  She's one of one. We love her.

• 40:43Speaker 00

  The Make-A-Wish Foundation. Yikes. Yeah. Yeah.

• 40:49Sam Fragoso?

  Is that what it felt like?

• 40:50Speaker 00

  Uh, no. Um, when did I say that? That's incredible.

• 40:57Sam Fragoso?

  It was 2016.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  It was 2016 I said that? Oh, so spicy. You know what that was? This was around the time when I really felt like my path was only via a certain kind of person.

• 41:09Sam Fragoso?

  You mean a white woman?

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. You said it, not me, okay?

• 41:13Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, why are you making me do the hard parts?

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:15Sam Fragoso?

  Why are you?

• 41:16Speaker 00

  Because I've done enough of the hard parts in my life.

• 41:18Sam Fragoso?

  So true.

• 41:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. So now someone else do it.

• 41:22Sam Fragoso?

  That's honestly, you got me so badly. I don't even know if I can recover. That's true. But you, a lot of white ladies.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  I think at the time, there started to be a point when I was having to hold a lot of different feelings. Feelings of gratitude, undeniable gratitude and appreciation, and also this feeling of, I don't know how long, how sustainable this is. I don't know what my actual function is. And I think it started to get to me a little bit.

• 41:58Sam Fragoso?

  What did you mean, sustainable?

• 42:00Speaker 00

  Like, what I was in service of. You know, often I was in service of certain stories, propping up certain types of characters, and feeling like I was like, decoration. And usually happy to be so, but also that keenly aware that's all I had.

• 42:17Sam Fragoso?

  Right. It wasn't your thing.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  It wasn't. And again, it's hard because I was also happy to do it, but I think as I started to get older, and I think also starting, having my own children, forced me to feel differently about certain things.

• 42:33Sam Fragoso?

  Why do you think that is?

• 42:34Speaker 00

  I think that when you are parenting and you are teaching your own child and modeling certain things about empowerment and equity and freedom and possibility and all these things, you can't keep lying to yourself. Yeah. Yeah.

• 43:00Sam Fragoso?

  So when did you stop lying?

• 43:03Speaker 00

  It was, I think around the time I had my, my son, my first son. It started with him and, and then by the time I was undeniably a parent and a mother, it felt like it solidified for me a lot of different feelings. And the pandemic, and there was a lot of anti-Asian hate going on, and things that I was experiencing living in a city alongside, you know, the summer of like, total racial reckoning, George Floyd, and, and my encounter with Minor Feelings

• 43:43Speaker 00

  as a text. And it was a very intense, to put it lightly, summer.

• 43:51Sam Fragoso?

  You know, there was, there was a profile you did in Kinfolk. Right at this time you're talking about. It's like a month before the pandemic.

• 44:00Speaker 00

  Oh, boy.

• 44:01Sam Fragoso?

  The pandemic starts like two years later. It's insane.

• 44:04Speaker 00

  Okay. Kinfolk, March 2020. "After we meet, Lee has to run to Brooklyn to go to couples therapy with her husband. They're doing great. They just go for maintenance. Then pick up Apollo and Raphael. Quote, 'My children, for better or for worse, are undeniably 98% of my existence right now.'" Bear. "Then go over Koreatown scripts. Then prepare to fly to Europe to film a new television show that she can't yet discuss. It's a jam-packed life, but she is far happier having too much work to do than she was serving, than when she was serving ramen, daydreaming about someone writing a good part for her. One day, she simply got angry enough and tired enough of waiting around to write her own dream

• 44:49Speaker 00

  role. And now she'll be able to create similar opportunities for other women like herself. She no longer needs to fantasize about becoming the Korean Natalie Portman of her generation. She's her generation's one and only Greta Lee.'" Oh, my God. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, what do you want, what do you want to talk about in terms of that, that, that excerpt?

• 45:16Sam Fragoso?

  I love that in this interview, you've oscillated back and forth between like, I like him a little bit. God, not this. But when I read that, I don't know, it brings up, I have a lot of conflicted feelings.

• 45:30Speaker 00

  Well, what are your conflicted feelings?

• 45:32Sam Fragoso?

  I think when you say that there was a racial reckoning in 2020, when you talk about the violence against your community, the larger Asian community here in the city that we live in, it happens to coincide, I don't think it's a coincidence, with this increase in the industry to quote unquote, amplify voices. And it's complicated. And I'm hearing that and I go like, oh, I don't know. I, I'm conflicted about whether actors should have to be like a model for something.

• 46:12Speaker 00

  Spokespeople.

• 46:12Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. And also that you have to make work about ramen or kimchi. There's another profile where they say, you know, that I didn't want to put my culture first and foremost every time. I wanted to just like be in Tron or something like that. And so, I don't know. That's where, that's my complicated read of it. But I didn't live it.

• 46:38Speaker 00

  I think I feel a little bit like, oh, gosh. Maybe it's heartbreak, a little bit, because.

• 46:46Sam Fragoso?

  Heartbreak over what?

• 46:47Speaker 00

  Over the impossible scenario that I was put in and found myself in. And just like, you know, I read this and it's like, yeah, everything's great. I have this and this, and couples therapy, my marriage is great, my kids, and like, working on this show, I love it. Everything's wonderful. But what I know, and what I can feel vibrating off of this page even, is like, doggy paddling furiously for their life, trying to survive, not in like, a literal way, you know? I'm fine. But how, how tumultuous and chaotic and terrifying this moment was for me.

• 47:27Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean?

• 47:29Speaker 00

  I did not know how to navigate things that felt unnavigatable. People, friends were getting canceled around me. I was feeling scared for my life. I mean, I, I've mentioned this before, but I was having experiences just existing in spaces where I, for the first time, felt unsafe. And had near misses walking down the street, things happening during this time, while we're also talking about race in a new way in America.

• 48:04Sam Fragoso?

  And some kind of progress.

• 48:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:06Sam Fragoso?

  It's coded in, in a kind of progress.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  Yes. It was a hard time for me privately, for, you know, amongst my family, my friends. It was, it was difficult. And then to try to figure out, yeah, this idea of like, do you capitalize on your identity?

• 48:26Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 48:27Speaker 00

  I mean, and when you are sort of tricked into feeling like that is all you have to.

• 48:34Sam Fragoso?

  Or that people value it.

• 48:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:36Sam Fragoso?

  And in a way that's not capitalistic.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:40Sam Fragoso?

  I would love to see The Minor Feelings show. A24 bought it?

• 48:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:46Sam Fragoso?

  Right? And you're making it, and I believe it's not happening now?

• 48:49Speaker 00

  No, no, it's not.

• 48:51Sam Fragoso?

  So that's when you're asking me, that's how I feel.

• 48:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:54Sam Fragoso?

  Reading it.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. But you know, can I add though, that I've made a certain piece with certain things not coming into fruition. And for now, Minor Feelings is one of those. And I've talked to Cathy Parkong about it too, and we kind of feel similarly. I will be forever indebted to that book and what it did for me. Like, it did change my life. But I can see that that was a container for things that I can now inject differently into other things, if that makes sense. I don't need, I don't, I don't need it in the way that I did then.

• 49:30Sam Fragoso?

  In, in Late Fame, there's a line at the end where Willem Dafoe says, "You know, it's probably not a good idea to put your self-worth on a platter for an old man like me." But like, when you think of that impossible place they put you in.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:47Sam Fragoso?

  How do you understand it now? And how did you move forward from that?

• 49:54Speaker 00

  The world keeps shifting and changing. It just does. And I have changed too, along with it. I feel like I am a different person than I was a few years ago in terms of some of this stuff about.

• 50:12Sam Fragoso?

  Identity.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  Identity.

• 50:14Sam Fragoso?

  Politics, all that.

• 50:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. My whole family votes completely differently than me. My whole, talk about Minor Feelings.

• 50:22Sam Fragoso?

  You're the only Republican?

• 50:23Speaker 00

  I, exactly. No, my husband and I, we are in the minority in our family, for the first time. And it is wild. And I'll just leave it at that, you know? Yeah.

• 50:37Sam Fragoso?

  Speaking of your kids, and all that, all that happened, and all that like changed in you once you had them. My understanding is that you have two kids, and I want to know, which tattoo do they tease you about the most?

• 50:51Speaker 00

  Oh, um, all of them, but specifically the one.

• 50:59Speaker 00

  On my back, I have the word psychopath in Korean inside of a red heart on my back and they tease me about that one.

• 51:07Sam Fragoso?

  Can I ask what led to getting that tattoo?

• 51:12Speaker 00

  I got it after I did Past Lives. It's recent. Yeah.

• 51:15Sam Fragoso?

  So this doesn't sound like a bad decision at all.

• 51:17Speaker 00

  Oh, but it was. No one should get a tattoo. When you finish a movie, you are not, you need to re-acclimate and become you again.

• 51:31Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  You, no one should be getting a tat. They should do, you know, the testers are like, okay, are you drunk? Are you high?

• 51:37Sam Fragoso?

  Yes.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  Have you just finished a movie?

• 51:39Sam Fragoso?

  And why psychopath? Is that how you felt at the end of making Past Lives?

• 51:42Speaker 00

  Uh, yes. And it's, it's a line in the torae, it means psycho in, in Korean. But the, the thing with my kids, it's like their favorite thing to announce.

• 51:52Sam Fragoso?

  What do they do?

• 51:53Speaker 00

  They're like, my mom has a tattoo of psycho on her back written in Korean. They love, they, they love telling people that.

• 52:00Sam Fragoso?

  Want to be talking about Past Lives after the break?

• 52:02Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 52:03Sam Fragoso?

  That's coming up next with Reda Lee. People typically see the final product, not the process. On Talk Easy, that's hopefully the conversation you're watching today. But in any business, there's a lot that happens behind the scenes. Building the website, learning how to ship and package your items. And of course, there's marketing to help grow the thing you've created. That's why I appreciate Shopify. If you have an idea, Shopify gives you the tools to turn it into a real storefront without needing to know how to code. Their templates make it easy to create something true to you and tailored to your brand. If you ever get stuck, Shopify's built-in assistant, Sidekick, is there to help you with the next step. And then, when customers are ready to buy, Shopify Checkout streamlines the entire simple process,

• 52:48Sam Fragoso?

  making it easier to hear that. All you need is the idea. Shopify handles the rest. If you're serious about hearing your first, start your free trial at Shopify.com/talkeasy today. You heard that right. Start your free trial today at Shopify.com/talkeasy. That's Shopify.com/talkeasy.

• 53:12Sam Fragoso?

  Summer has a way of stretching your schedule. Late dinners, weekends away, nights that end a little bit later than planned. And before everything picks up again in the fall, I've just been trying to get the basics right. And sleep is, well, at the top of that list. Especially all that we put into production, taping every week. A good night of rest helps me process all that I've read and written and of course, show up more fully for each conversation. That's one reason I've been really happy with my Helix Midnight Luxe mattress. It's supportive without feeling too firm. It stays cool throughout the night, creating the conditions to wake up in the morning and actually feel rested. Which, for me, is no small feat. What I also appreciate is that Helix doesn't just make one mattress.

• 53:54Sam Fragoso?

  They have more than 20 different models, whether you're a side sleeper, back sleeper, looking for something softer, firmer, or with extra cooling. They even ship it straight to your door with a 120-night sleep trial, a limited lifetime warranty, and the happy with Helix guarantee. So you can really make sure it's the right fit. If you're looking to upgrade before fall gets underway, I start with the one place you spend a third of your life. Go to helixsleep.com/talkeasy for 20% off site-wide. That's helixsleep.com/talkeasy for 20% off site-wide. Helixsleep.com/talkeasy. Hey, everyone. If you're enjoying Talk Easy, be sure to subscribe on YouTube or follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.

• 54:39Sam Fragoso?

  All of this really does help us continue making the program week after week. And with that, I want to thank you in advance for the love and support. Now, back to the show. Coming back, you auditioned for the part. You don't get it. Right, of Past Lives. Then it comes back, they do some rewriting. I think some time passes and Celine, she said that she kind of figured it out. I want to go to the day on set when you're, when you're there, like locking in. Before we play a clip of it, can you tell me about this moment where you're doing everything you've learned in 15 years of acting?

• 55:14Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:15Sam Fragoso?

  And she goes, don't do that.

• 55:18Speaker 00

  What it was, and she, she doesn't think this is like a big deal or like, she's heard me tell this, and she's like, sure, whatever, Reda. Like, maybe that happened, but it was just this moment for me where I realized I had a knee-jerk reaction to earn my screen time. And for me, it came in the form of improv. Comedy improv, filling the space, scene-stealing. Scene-stealing my own scene. And begging for the camera to not turn away. I had it ingrained in me and I was

• 55:59Speaker 00

  doggy paddling for my life in a way that was not necessary or needed. And that happened pretty quickly. Like, in the beginning of the process of doing this, I just had this moment where I was like, don't, probably don't improvise lines about Russ and Daughters' bagels. Nobody wants to hear that. You're fine. You, you're fine.

• 56:24Speaker 00

  You know?

• 56:24Sam Fragoso?

  That's

• 56:24Speaker 00

  And I have to be clear, for Celine's sake, it wasn't like this big, like, stop, you know. It was just, we don't need that. Let's do the, you know. It was my own sort of

• 56:36Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  moment of understanding.

• 56:38Sam Fragoso?

  Should we take a look at the film for a second?

• 56:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:40Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 56:45Speaker 03

  Ya.

• 56:53Speaker 03

  Na Young ah.

• 56:56Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 57:08Speaker 03

  이거 또 전생이라면

• 57:11Speaker 03

  우리의 다음 생에서는 벌써 서로에게 다른 인연인 게 아닐까?

• 57:23Speaker 03

  그때 우린 누굴까?

• 57:28Speaker 00

  모르겠어.

• 57:35Speaker 03

  나도.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  그때 보자.

• 57:57Speaker 00

  Hmm. It still gets me every time.

• 58:03Speaker 00

  It's a good movie.

• 58:06Sam Fragoso?

  You know, everyone has a future there.

• 58:10Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 58:10Sam Fragoso?

  What gets you about it?

• 58:12Speaker 00

  I can watch that movie as an audience member. Um, and I can really observe from the outside, like, what, what the movie, what it means to people. I've also been lucky enough to just hear firsthand from people in my life and also complete strangers telling me so many people. So it's, um, you know, it's overwhelming to watch and to appreciate and, oh, God, I'm also just so, you know, the kind of gratitude that feels like a gasp of air. Like, thank God for so many reasons. Yes, personally, and what it did for me. But what it means for us, that,

• 58:55Speaker 00

  God, there's so many bad things to say about, you know, not just the world, like about our industry, about whatever.

• 59:06Speaker 00

  But movies, man, movies. And what it can do, what I, like, there, there is some real currency in it. And, and it, I just feel really lucky that I, I have the privilege to be a part of it, but also like the sense of, of purpose that, that it gives me and, and what I'm doing.

• 59:28Sam Fragoso?

  The vulnerability of that movie. Like, I was re-watching it this week. And it's, it's so painful.

• 59:37Sam Fragoso?

  And I read this thing where you were like, I think Celine said it, that when you first saw it, you were like, please.

• 59:47Speaker 00

  Don't show it to anybody.

• 59:48Sam Fragoso?

  Does this have to come out?

• 59:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:50Sam Fragoso?

  Did part of you mean that seriously?

• 59:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's so uncanny to shoot something and feel while you're, while you're shooting it, that it was going to be something, something, I don't know, important, something meaningful, something, something.

• 1:00:04Sam Fragoso?

  Something was happening.

• 1:00:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, something was happening, but you are, uh, you, you can only be so hopeful and after so many years, you are protecting yourself and you're prepared for the worst. And, and this felt like it's just too unfair. Don't do this to me. Don't do, it can't, I cannot, um, treat this like everything else I've done and sort of let it, I don't know, face a certain fate that I feel like it can't, it doesn't deserve.

• 1:00:36Sam Fragoso?

  What did you think was gonna happen?

• 1:00:38Speaker 00

  I thought everyone was gonna hate it. I, I've said this, but you know what? The first time anyone saw it at Sundance, at the end, all I could hear at that time, it sounded like people were getting up to leave. Because people were shifting in their seats and reaching for their bags. And I was convinced, truly, that's it. No one gives a shit. No one gives a shit about this thing that I was so certain that people would care about or that I care about. Um, and then a few minutes passed and it was because people were crying.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  And people were reaching for tissues and recovering up their feelings. And I could not believe it. I was so convinced that we were dead, like that, that we had failed. Um, and it felt bigger than a sort of humiliation or like a, um, a failure. It just felt

• 1:01:43Speaker 00

  Too, too, too much to lose, like what that, what that meant.

• 1:01:47Sam Fragoso?

  Because there's so much of you in it.

• 1:01:49Speaker 00

  Yes, but you know, I am not Nora. And you know, I don't want to make light of the fact that for me, finally, a person like me was in a role in a kind of movie that I wanted to watch myself and had wanted my whole life. Finally, I mean, in the West, in America, in Hollywood, it finally that was happening. And if it didn't work, where would that leave us? And what would that mean? How many steps back would that result in if this did not work? So there was, there was, there was so much on the line and there's so much that was put forth.

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  And yeah, I, I couldn't believe like when we got up on stage after that moment. And that pivot, that mental pivot of like, no, oh, oh my God. And everybody is crying was one of the most confusing and spectacular moments of my life.

• 1:02:51Sam Fragoso?

  I don't think it's surprising though, given what we've talked about today. How could you not have had that defense mechanism?

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:04Sam Fragoso?

  Like hearing that young kid who was more than qualified to be in Into the Woods.

• 1:03:13Sam Fragoso?

  For a theater director or whatever, the professor to like make up a role for Kabuki puppets.

• 1:03:24Sam Fragoso?

  How does that person not think they're not grabbing tissues? They're leaving, they're leaving the theater.

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  Of course it hurts.

• 1:03:33Sam Fragoso?

  Is it resolved, I guess, is what I wonder, do you feel in some ways?

• 1:03:39Sam Fragoso?

  Maybe it's the two kids, maybe it's because it's gone so goddamn well since. I don't know, like, where are you at with that?

• 1:03:46Speaker 00

  I don't know. It's not done.

• 1:03:52Speaker 00

  Whatever that is, there's, there's so much work to be done.

• 1:03:59Speaker 00

  On multiple fronts and it's factual, it's statistical, you know?

• 1:04:05Speaker 00

  If I were better prepared, I would have the actual numbers, the current numbers. But you know, the number of female led movies, you know, not just for women, for people of color. And I think I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I sit here today and I, and I'm asking like, are we done with that? Are we done with talking about people of color and, and you know, wage disparity? And complete lack of opportunities? Are we done? Is this, does no one want to hear this anymore? I, I, I'm asking, I'm wondering, you know? Should we no longer talk about, you know, mixed race families?

• 1:04:48Speaker 00

  Should we refer to them as mixed cultural families? Like, are we there? We might be.

• 1:04:55Speaker 00

  I think I'm trying to say I'm just starting and that can feel exhausting and scary. And like a lot.

• 1:05:03Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:03Speaker 00

  And because of things that we've discussed, it's been made clear to me that the idea of spokesperson can be a trap, can be impossible, can be brutal and can be so just unfair.

• 1:05:19Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I hope that one of the takeaways from this conversation is that it really,

• 1:05:26Sam Fragoso?

  it's not even that it shouldn't just fall on you.

• 1:05:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:31Sam Fragoso?

  Which obviously it shouldn't.

• 1:05:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:32Sam Fragoso?

  It literally can't because it, it won't, the tide will not turn. Things will not, you cannot do it. There has to be some way for this to be a collective.

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:47Sam Fragoso?

  When I see past lives, I can see the way that when I watched Late Fame, I was thinking about Rossolini. Of course, I'm watching about, I'm watching past lives and thinking, you're clearly inspired a little by like a Charlotte Rampling in 45 years.

• 1:06:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, more than a little bit.

• 1:06:05Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, two modern films and like a naturalistic performance. And I know you had this kind of anxiety when the film played at Sundance. About how people took it in and how, how they watched it and if they felt anything. And I want to know, because we've talked about her so much. What did your mom think of the film?

• 1:06:35Speaker 00

  I think in the way that only she can

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  articulate and, and she basically was like, this isn't your movie, it's my movie.

• 1:06:52Speaker 00

  She told me explicitly, she said, oh, you think you're Nora? I'm Nora.

• 1:07:02Speaker 00

  But it makes me cry because it's true.

• 1:07:08Speaker 00

  And I definitely was not expecting to hear that.

• 1:07:13Sam Fragoso?

  From her?

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:07:22Speaker 00

  I mean, I think that that really for me was

• 1:07:29Speaker 00

  the perfect end to an experience.

• 1:07:36Speaker 00

  I, I don't think I could have ever asked for anything more than that from hearing that from my, from my mom.

• 1:07:42Sam Fragoso?

  When you, when you heard that, did you go, oh, I can see how you see yourself in that.

• 1:07:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course. Yeah.

• 1:07:52Sam Fragoso?

  And what's lost and what's gained and?

• 1:07:54Speaker 00

  The ghosts of your life. It relates back to that thing we were talking about, my, my parents' advice to me of like, you only have yourself.

• 1:08:03Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:03Speaker 00

  It's always going to be the relationship you have between you and yourself. And yeah, I, I see that with, with my mom.

• 1:08:12Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean?

• 1:08:13Speaker 00

  Her life and her life experience are things that I will never know. I, I will never ever have access to.

• 1:08:21Sam Fragoso?

  Her being a concert pianist back home?

• 1:08:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, everything that was put to the side.

• 1:08:32Speaker 00

  The dreams that died to make space for the new ones.

• 1:08:38Speaker 00

  There was like impossible goodbyes.

• 1:08:42Speaker 00

  And like, and it possibly an extreme longing

• 1:08:48Speaker 00

  that will be forever unresolved and living with that, with joy. I mean, that, I, I, I can't comprehend that. But I, I see that in her when she, when she said something along those lines, when she said, you know, this is not your movie.

• 1:09:10Sam Fragoso?

  It's also perfect, like, it's so sincere and also really funny.

• 1:09:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, and like a little petty and a little.

• 1:09:17Sam Fragoso?

  A hundred percent petty. But also love, also because why would someone, they wouldn't admit that if you didn't do your job.

• 1:09:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:27Sam Fragoso?

  It would, it would, if the movie wasn't good, she wouldn't be like, yeah, that's me.

• 1:09:33Sam Fragoso?

  She's like, the movie's really good, my daughter's in it. It's a little bit me.

• 1:09:37Speaker 00

  Not even a little bit, it's, it's all me.

• 1:09:39Sam Fragoso?

  If the movie was terrible, she wouldn't.

• 1:09:41Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 1:09:44Sam Fragoso?

  What did you say to her?

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  I cried on the spot. She, it was on the phone. Oh God, it was terrible. I, I, I don't want anyone to ever experience this with their own mother or any parental figure to have your parent call you and tell you that they're still crying because of, you know, the movie or something they'd experienced. It had been days and they're still thinking about it and to tell me that. Yeah, there, there wasn't a long conversation after that. She told me that and, and we had to get off the phone.

• 1:10:19Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:19Speaker 00

  There really wasn't that much to say.

• 1:10:21Sam Fragoso?

  And it was on the phone, so did you ever have a in-person talk about it?

• 1:10:27Speaker 00

  Not like that.

• 1:10:29Speaker 00

  I think that's one of those things you cannot really say with the real physiological intimacy of being face to face with your offspring.

• 1:10:39Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:40Speaker 00

  I don't think.

• 1:10:42Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I can't pretend to have a clean resolution for this episode.

• 1:10:46Speaker 00

  You don't have any unresolved jokes written on those pages over there?

• 1:10:53Sam Fragoso?

  No, I have one last thing. In thinking of your family.

• 1:10:59Sam Fragoso?

  I'd like to tell a little bit of a story together before we go.

• 1:11:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:11:03Sam Fragoso?

  During the Korean War, your grandfather had polio. And he couldn't fight, which meant that he was enlisted to do, you can tell this part of it.

• 1:11:15Speaker 00

  He was enlisted to be the painter, the billboard painter at the army base.

• 1:11:24Sam Fragoso?

  And of movie posters, right?

• 1:11:27Speaker 00

  Among other things.

• 1:11:28Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:29Speaker 00

  The movie posters.

• 1:11:30Sam Fragoso?

  But the thing I've been, I, when I read this, I, I lost it, which is not surprising because I cry easily.

• 1:11:39Sam Fragoso?

  Is your grandfather is, is painting these billboards.

• 1:11:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:46Sam Fragoso?

  For like coming attractions. And it's like movie stars like Catherine Hepburn and Clark Gable and Elizabeth Taylor and Greta Garbo. And I'm thinking like you, now having moved back here after never wanted to be an adult in LA. Like you've probably had a moment with your two kids in the backseat. I'm assuming they're not sitting in the front seat. Where they've gone like, oh my God, that's my mom on a billboard.

• 1:12:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:18Sam Fragoso?

  And I cannot get past the like familial circularity of that. That like, I don't know. Do you see yourself in some way closing like this loop? That he began back in the 1950s?

• 1:12:40Speaker 00

  I've never thought of it that way.

• 1:12:46Speaker 00

  I hope so. I mean, I certainly hope so. It's it's the least I can do.

• 1:12:56Speaker 00

  Right?

• 1:12:58Speaker 00

  Jesus. It's the least I can do.

• 1:13:03Speaker 00

  For him and for my family, of course. If he could be here.

• 1:13:09Speaker 00

  If he could see.

• 1:13:12Speaker 00

  You know, everything that's happened. But yeah, the billboards.

• 1:13:17Speaker 00

  I I I that is, that is the actual science fiction. I can't, I can't even picture what.

• 1:13:24Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:26Speaker 00

  What would that be like? What he would say to me?

• 1:13:30Sam Fragoso?

  And beyond the billboards, like, I don't know, like, what does that mean to you in this moment?

• 1:13:37Speaker 00

  I don't know. But what that means for me and being able to say, I don't know, is it means I'm free.

• 1:13:49Speaker 00

  I am able to say that I don't know and that that's okay. And like, that's great. After so long of feeling like, you know, I, I'm like.

• 1:14:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:08Sam Fragoso?

  You get to not know.

• 1:14:09Speaker 00

  I get to not know. And that is exciting. It's a privilege, I think.

• 1:14:15Sam Fragoso?

  You did start this interview by saying that you're in a moment of transition.

• 1:14:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:14:22Sam Fragoso?

  Did we figure anything out?

• 1:14:24Speaker 00

  We did figure some things out. You're good, Sam. This is like, oh, my God, like, wow. I think that I, you know, it's hard for me to put into words like what, what it is I've learned, but I I think it has to do with like

• 1:14:42Speaker 00

  your own, your story, it, it really does only belong to you. Um, and even when it feels like it's pulled out and taken away from you and shape shifting into something else and re-presented to you, that it's still just your own story.

• 1:14:58Sam Fragoso?

  I hope you know, and I hope you have felt that, um, I'm really grateful that you decided

• 1:15:07Sam Fragoso?

  even to share some of it or part of it.

• 1:15:09Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:09Sam Fragoso?

  Here, it means a lot to me. I'm so glad you don't know what the hell you're doing next. And I thank you for all the time.

• 1:15:17Speaker 00

  Oh, thanks, Sam.

• 1:15:18Sam Fragoso?

  Greta Lee.

• 1:15:33Sam Fragoso?

  Thank you for watching Talk Easy. If you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe on YouTube, follow on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen or watch. You can also leave us a review on Apple, drop us a comment on Spotify. And of course, you can follow us on social media at Talk Easy Pod. I'll see you back here next Sunday.

• 1:15:57Speaker 04

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• 1:17:07Speaker 05

  I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together.

• 1:17:15Speaker 06

  We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.

• 1:17:18Speaker 05

  I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there?

• 1:17:21Speaker 06

  There were 32,000 pounds of them.

• 1:17:23Speaker 05

  32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

• 1:17:29Speaker 05

  Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast What It's Like to Be.