Pod Insights Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin Gwyneth Paltrow About this episode Gwyneth Paltrow is an Academy Award-winning actress and wellness entrepreneur. Spanning a career over three decades, she is celebrated for her performances in critically acclaimed films such as Shakespeare in Love, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and also in her recurring role as Pepper Potts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Beyond acting, Paltrow is the founder and CEO of lifestyle brand Goop, and she has authored bestselling cookbooks including It’s All Good and It’s All Easy.
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Transcript 12,313 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:02 Rick Rubin? Tetra Grahamerton.
0:24 Speaker 01 I used to make movies a lot in the 90s. And I would travel a lot. And I was very lonely. And I felt very unmoored. And I think part of what gave me a feeling of purpose and comfort outside being on a movie set, which you never know what days you're going to work or not work. And so you can end up being alone, you know, in a hotel room or in an apartment for a long time, is that I would try to crack a city. Because I love food. I love art. You know, my dad was a painting major at Tulane, and then he went into TV.
1:07 Speaker 01 And he instilled like this obsessive love for fine art and food. I got a lot from my dad. So I remember I was doing, I was really young and I was doing my, this movie in Paris. That wasn't very good. And I didn't have a lot of money. And the concierge sort of gave me some recommendations of where to eat and what to see. And they were really terrible and expensive. And I wasted my small paycheck and I was really upset. And I thought, you know, this is terrible. Like clearly this guy is getting a kickback from somewhere. And how does one find the cool stuff?
1:49 Speaker 01 Like, how do you find, you know, the great vintage store? This is obviously way pre-internet. And how do you find like the best, you know, rotisserie chicken place in Paris? And how do you even, how do you do that? So during my time off, I would walk around Paris with a notebook and discover and find things and keep notebooks full of notes. And I would, you know, if I saw a really cool looking girl somewhere, I would stop her on the street and say like, where do you have coffee? And where do you shop? And I just started keeping notes. And that's where this idea of curation or making things from the point of view of getting right to the best of the best
2:33 Speaker 01 and saving everybody time, saving myself time. That's sort of where at first, like I referenced those books all the time when I started to put the site together. It's sort of compounded because, you know, because of my movie career, I was able to like buy a house before my friends and renovate. And so I kind of became like the oracle of info for people my age just because I was a little bit ahead of schedule. And I thought I should aggregate. I'm so lucky, you know, I get to meet this designer and she tells me about this cool fixtures place in the village, you know, East Village.
3:16 Speaker 01 And I gotta aggregate all this stuff so that I can put it there for everybody to find. Like, you know, I had to learn how to make food and all the things. And so over time, it just kind of coalesced into this idea.
3:32 Rick Rubin? So it started as a resource for yourself?
3:34 Speaker 01 Yes.
3:35 Rick Rubin? And then became?
3:36 Speaker 01 And my friends.
3:37 Rick Rubin? And became a resource for everyone else?
3:39 Speaker 01 Yes.
3:39 Rick Rubin? When you went back to Paris after that first time of keeping a notebook, would you refer to the notebook and know all the places to go?
3:45 Speaker 01 Oh, completely. And then I would expand on it and find new places. And I still spend an inordinate amount of time researching places to eat in Paris and wherever else.
3:58 Rick Rubin? Yeah. What are some of the early cities that you went to? And what were the experiences in each? And how were they all different?
4:06 Speaker 01 So they were kind of where I was shooting movies. So Paris, Toronto, Venice, Naples. Also, I had been an exchange student in Spain and spent a lot of time in Madrid. And I kept returning to Madrid. I never shot a movie in Madrid. And I think what was interesting to me is how different the tenor of each city was, how different the cultures were. Even though, you know, Spain and Italy are, the languages are relatively similar and they're in relatively close proximity, is how different. And so my experiences would be so markedly different.
4:49 Speaker 01 You know, in Madrid, I always say like, there's no such thing as cool in Spain. Like, there's no velvet rope that you have to stand behind. There's no, we're cooler than you, right? There's no like indie culture in that way. So Spain was like this incredibly warm, vibrant experience, like very all encompassing and very friendly, you know? London, of course, where I lived forever, that's like the, kind of the capital of cool, you know? It's like very reserved, lots of velvet ropes. And also quite a solitary place in its way, you know? Like incredibly different from, and I always think like the further north you go,
5:32 Speaker 01 the more reserved people are. And the further south, you know, the more open. So I've had a really interesting life of living in different places and traveling to different places. It's funny, like, I never felt quite at home in the UK, but I did so many films there. I lived there, I got, you know, married and had kids there. I lived there for a really long time. And I was always trying to sort of crack it in a way. And I don't know that I ever did. I never felt quite like it was fully at the same frequency as I was.
6:13 Rick Rubin? Were there any places that you spent in Europe where you feel like, I could live here?
6:16 Speaker 01 For sure Italy and for sure Spain.
6:19 Rick Rubin? Yeah. And you'd find information, you'd say mainly by talking to locals? Is that the secret?
6:24 Speaker 01 Yep, that's the secret. I mean, well, now, of course, there's the internet, so there's a million ways to find everything, but still that, I still ask people, like if I see someone.
6:35 Speaker 01 You know, where I'm like, oh, she looks cool. Like, I would want to be her friend if I lived here.
6:41 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
6:41 Speaker 01 Then I'll just like get my notebook out.
6:43 Rick Rubin? Would you say, where did you get those shoes?
6:46 Speaker 01 Yes, totally. I start with more broad, like, I'd love to know your version of the city. Like, where do you go? What do you do? Give me your routine. And then I kind of will drill down into details.
7:01 Rick Rubin? Did you end up becoming friends with any of these people?
7:03 Speaker 01 No, it was very transactional.
7:06 Rick Rubin? That's interesting, because it does seem like an opportunity to create a whole web of just interesting people.
7:10 Speaker 01 It's true, except I was always so transient when I was, you know, filming.
7:15 Rick Rubin? Typically, how long would you be in a city for?
7:17 Speaker 01 It really depends. I guess anywhere from, you know, a day. I was in Naples for a day or two days. And of course, getting all the pizza and gelato places I could find. Up to, you know, London, years and years. I probably did nine or 10 movies in London.
7:36 Rick Rubin? Tell me about the transition from the notebooks to deciding to make it public.
7:42 Speaker 01 So that was many years, because then the internet was born, of course. And then I would be on the internet trying to find some version of that. And it just didn't exist. And so I thought, oh, I think I should, I would like to do this. And I knew, of course, that people would be reactive to it. You know, being in the public eye is such a strange thing. And I think people really, like, they like to discover you and then sort of keep you just as they found you, you know?
8:24 Speaker 01 And so it's hard when you evolve into something else or you, you change the, the idea, right? It's really like there are people, famous people get projected on for good or bad. The people who like you get comfortable seeing you as who they like to see you as, right? And
8:46 Speaker 01 And I think especially for women, it's hard. You know, people like you sort of how they like you. And I knew that it would be, people would be like, what the hell is she doing? So it took me, which they did, by the way. So it took me a long time. First, I was ideating, like, what would this be? And then I thought, oh, it'll just be a website and I can have categories and different information. But then I did what I always do, which is go to speak to a lot of people who are much smarter than me and have domain expertise. And they said, you know, you shouldn't do that because if it's a website, then people are going to expect it to update all the time. Because at the time, it was like just media, you know, with news sites.
9:29 Speaker 01 And I said, well, it's just me, you know, like with WordPress. So I'm definitely not going to be like updating this thing every two minutes. And then, do you know Peter Arnell?
9:39 Rick Rubin? I don't.
9:39 Speaker 01 He's like a, he was this advertising legend in New York. So I was talking to him. He actually named the company Goop.
9:49 Rick Rubin? Great name.
9:51 Speaker 01 Thank you. I thought it was really weird at first, but it's grown on me.
9:54 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
9:56 Speaker 01 And he said, you know, why don't you make it a newsletter that you send out once a week? And that way, that's kind of the event. And then the website can be just where they're all archived. So we built that, we got everything in place. And I think I announced somewhere that there was a sign up. And I got many, many thousands of sign ups.
10:19 Rick Rubin? And this was before there was, before you sent out the first email?
10:23 Speaker 01 Yes.
10:23 Rick Rubin? You got sign ups?
10:24 Speaker 01 Yes, I think I, I'm wondering how I would have done it in those days because there wasn't even Instagram yet. But maybe I, who knows, spoke to People Magazine or something and said, you know? And this is like before blogs, like this is a long time ago.
10:40 Rick Rubin? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What year did it start?
10:43 Speaker 01 2008. So I gathered all the email addresses. And I had decided to sort of categorize everything. So there would be kind of a food, travel, wellness, style, and culture. And every week, I would choose a category and send out some content. And the first was like my favorite recipes, a couple of them that I made at home. You know, literally shot on my BlackBerry, the lowest quality. Just, I look back and it was so earnest and so sincere and like so homespun.
11:24 Speaker 01 It seems insane now when I look back that I did it.
11:29 Rick Rubin? And maybe that's the reason it worked, though. Maybe it's, it's like in a world of everything being a big corporate statement.
11:38 Speaker 01 Right.
11:39 Rick Rubin? Making something personal that you care about.
11:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:43 Rick Rubin? Speaks to people.
11:44 Speaker 01 Maybe. I mean, I guess so. And I think what's really right about what you're saying is that there's always been a deep authenticity there. And when I started, you know, I didn't monetize it for years and years. Sometimes I'd be like, why am I doing this and pouring all my own money into this thing? And, but it was, I felt like it was really important to me. And I, I really loved doing it and I love connecting people to something that will be positively impactful to them.
12:22 Rick Rubin? Did you ever get to talk to people who used the site or who read the newsletters? Did you get emails?
12:27 Speaker 01 Yes, because I would get feedback, you know, like.
12:30 Rick Rubin? And what were the kind of things that people would say?
12:33 Speaker 01 I think people were really, in the early days, like very charmed by it. And they really, really liked it a lot. And, you know, I would hear things like, everybody waits for Thursday in our office for the newsletter to come out.
12:49 Rick Rubin? So nice.
12:50 Speaker 01 You know, we all like want to know where you've been and what you've eaten and what's cool and what's coming around the corner. And so it was nice, you know, once you filter out the like, I'm going to eat your liver ones.
13:04 Rick Rubin? Would you say it had a diary-like feel in the beginning?
13:07 Speaker 01 Yes, very much so. Very much so. It was like very from the heart. And I guess it could be introspective at times, but then it was also kind of like from my, yeah, from my diary, like I ate here, I made this, you know, that like content coming from my life.
13:26 Rick Rubin? Did you keep a diary typically?
13:29 Speaker 01 No, you know, when I was younger, I used to keep a diary religiously. And then somebody betrayed me and read my diary. And I never kept one again.
13:42 Speaker 01 Which is a shame, I think. Because I would have really loved to have that record. And now that basically I'm senile, I would love to know.
13:52 Rick Rubin? Do you remember your dreams?
13:56 Speaker 01 I do.
13:57 Rick Rubin? Do you ever write those down?
13:58 Speaker 01 No, should I?
14:00 Rick Rubin? It's up to you.
14:00 Speaker 01 Do you?
14:01 Rick Rubin? I've done it. I've gone phases where I keep a dream journal.
14:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think dreams are so interesting. And I'm always never that happy in dreams. So I don't know. Like, it's never like a place of ebullience and joy. It always feels a little weird and indecipherable.
14:21 Rick Rubin? The good thing about the dream journal is that when you look at it in the moment, you write down the dream and it doesn't make any sense. But years later, if you look back on it, it all makes sense. And it's like, oh, it's so clear.
14:32 Speaker 01 Wow.
14:32 Rick Rubin? But we're too close because it's coming from our subconscious.
14:35 Speaker 01 Right.
14:36 Rick Rubin? So the categories were travels. Travel was always a key. And it sounds like that was the initial.
14:42 Speaker 01 It was.
14:43 Rick Rubin? Spark.
14:44 Speaker 01 It was, absolutely.
14:45 Rick Rubin? And then food.
14:47 Speaker 01 Yep, where I was eating or what I was making.
14:50 Rick Rubin? Mm hmm. And then wellness.
14:52 Speaker 01 Yes.
14:52 Rick Rubin? When did you get into wellness?
14:55 Speaker 01 Really early. Basically, my dad, who, until he died, was the love of my life. He was diagnosed with cancer when he was 54, which is so fucked up because I'm 52. And now I'm like, you know, at the time, he seemed like this old man. And now I'm like, this is crazy. Like, it's so young.
15:17 Speaker 01 So, anyway, he went through horrible things. And the radiation that he had burned his throat and burned away his salivary glands. He had a very hard time eating. And while he was having the radiation, and stop me if this is too gory, he had a feeding tube. And I used to push the Ensure or whatever, you know, out of a can, sort of high protein nutritional drink directly into his stomach.
15:50 Speaker 01 And no shade to ensure whatever the brand was. One day, I was doing it and I turned it over and I read the ingredients. And I was like, what is in this?
16:00 Rick Rubin? It's like what's in baby formula now. It's not good stuff.
16:04 Speaker 01 Right, and I couldn't pronounce or recognize one ingredient. And I looked at this man who was suffering and I thought, is there possibly a correlation between like, can we be maybe thinking about this in a different way? And I, it was like a light bulb went off. And that's when I started researching, you know, all the way back to Hippocrates who's allegedly said, you know, let food be thy medicine, let medicine be thy food. And started to understand this idea that we really are what we eat. And that so many of our health issues, our chronic health issues in the Western world are due to what we're eating.
16:46 Speaker 01 And at the time, this was like a totally radical idea. So I went on this deep dive and then I started to read about genetically modified gluten and how many gluten per parts like we have in our wheat as opposed to the EU and glyphosate and all the things. And I tried to sort of present him with all of this information. Like when he went to get a PET scan and they gave him a glass of sugar water to drink before because it lights up all the cancer cells and makes him really happy and energized. And I'm like, well, maybe we shouldn't have sugar then. And he was like, I'd rather die than not, you know? And I would make him like gluten-free food and he hated it.
17:31 Speaker 01 But I felt really galvanized to try to heal him and to try to figure it out. So that put me on this very crazy journey of researching environmental toxins and, you know, the gut-brain access, which at the time, like I remember, we wrote about it one time and everyone flipped out. You know, it was like really, really early to start talking about this stuff. And it's funny now.
18:00 Rick Rubin? A lot of stuff that's all mainstream now.
18:02 Speaker 01 Fully mainstream.
18:03 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
18:03 Speaker 01 Like fully, fully mainstream. Which is kind of hilarious.
18:11 Rick Rubin? How would you approach the style piece?
18:15 Speaker 01 So the style, you know, that piece was like,
18:20 Speaker 01 I'm such a girl like that. And I'm somebody who really like to express themselves through clothing. And obviously, we make an impression on people when we see them. And we're the architects of that impression, right? It's like you have this fabulous gray beard and it's so incredible. And your muscles and your tan, like you're telling me a lot right now, right? And for me, like clothing was always the way that I felt like I could express myself. Even in high school, you know, with like wearing all the Madonna bracelets and, you know, mixing that with like a really preppy Upper East Side vibe.
19:02 Speaker 01 That was my thing, like I loved clothes, I loved accessories and...
19:07 Rick Rubin? And you viewed it as a form of self-expression?
19:10 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm. And some people don't at all. Like some people don't even think about what they wear, which must be a relief.
19:19 Speaker 01 And so that piece was sort of talking about, you know, great stores or things we had found and...
19:25 Rick Rubin? And would they typically be like small boutiques and out of the way type things?
19:30 Speaker 01 Yes. Always like a treasure, like we were always trying to unearth a treasure for people. Something special.
19:37 Rick Rubin? Yeah, and something that only someone who lived in a place and had cool taste would know about.
19:43 Speaker 01 Exactly.
19:44 Rick Rubin? That's great. And then culture, what was that piece?
19:48 Speaker 01 So that was what events are going on around the world. You know, what's opening at the Met, what...
19:58 Rick Rubin? Museum shows, concerts, those type of things?
20:01 Speaker 01 Exactly, exactly, those types of things.
20:02 Rick Rubin? Great.
20:03 Speaker 01 And also books, there's a culture, you know, is there a great book?
20:08 Rick Rubin? What are your reading habits like?
20:10 Speaker 01 My reading habits are when I'm on vacation, I'll burn through novel after novel. I love novels more than...
20:21 Speaker 01 More than nonfiction. Though I do love books like your book. I love books that are reflective and, you know, books that sort of help you understand something about yourself or the human experience. I do like that. And I find that with novels as well that really, or all art, like it helps me understand my feelings, my place in the world. It's my inspiration.
20:47 Rick Rubin? Were there any references or inspirations in starting of anything that anyone was doing? Anything like it?
20:58 Speaker 01 I mean, not really.
21:03 Speaker 01 You know, it had sort of, I guess, like, elements of a magazine in a certain way. But there was nothing in the digital space that I found was analogous to what I was doing.
21:18 Rick Rubin? What was the first product available? The first Goop product? Or were there any products that you sold that were not Goop products first?
21:26 Speaker 01 So it started, you know, so now I was like five years into this thing or something like that. And
21:33 Rick Rubin? And how many readers would you have at that time?
21:35 Speaker 01 Probably like a million.
21:37 Rick Rubin? It's a lot.
21:37 Speaker 01 Quite a few.
21:38 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
21:39 Speaker 01 And I thought, this is taking up a lot of time. And also, people started to come up to me and say, what are you going to do with this thing? This is like, there's something here, you know?
21:57 Speaker 01 And I think I felt like I always loved business. I was always fascinated by business. I grew up in New York City amongst the kids of the titans of business. And, you know, when I was a really little kid, I was in L.A., where it was like artists and showbiz people. And then we moved to New York and it was like this whole other paradigm of success. And
22:19 Rick Rubin? How old were you when you moved to New York?
22:21 Speaker 01 We moved permanently to New York when I was 11. It seemed like so unfamiliar and so aspirational.
22:29 Speaker 01 And like one of my best friends, his dad was one of the partners in KKR. And you know, my friend Ally's dad ran Bear Stearns. And it was like that very finance and very intriguing and very elegant. Like I remember Mr. Kravas of one of the K's, you know, always being so beautifully dressed, impeccable. And when we went there, we were expected to dress, you know, it was like this sort of Whit Stillman thing was like true, you know? There was this very kind of amazing aspirational environment in New York. And I remember reading Barbarians at the Gate and like starting to read the business section. I was just fascinated by it.
23:12 Speaker 01 And I remember being on set, I would always read the business section first. And people would be like making fun of me, you know? But of course, I didn't finish college. I only went to college for a year at UC Santa Barbara, which was amazing. But I also was being pulled to start acting. So and I had had a great education in high school, like a superb education. And really, I went to an all-girls school in New York. They really taught us how to think, how to critically think, how to synthesize information, how to follow curiosity. Like they set me up very well, but still, I didn't finish college. I didn't go to business school. And I certainly did not think I had the authority to start a business or to turn it into a business.
23:56 Speaker 01 And I had no idea the journey that it would send me on. But I remember a woman who actually stopped me at a cocktail party in New York, who's become one of my best friends, you know, only 17 years later, saying like, what are you gonna do with this thing? It's so, it's great and there's so much engagement. And I said, you know, I have like secret desires of turning it into something, but I don't even know how to start and I don't know if I have the guts to do it. And she said, you know, you should go talk to my friend Seb Bishop, who was the CEO of Red, you know, Bono's thing. And he's from the e-commerce world and he's ready to, I think, do something different.
24:40 Speaker 01 So I went and met him and I brought him lunch in his office. Like I made him lunch and brought it.
24:47 Speaker 01 And he became my first CEO. And we sort of sat down and thought about how to monetize this thing.
24:53 Rick Rubin? At that time, was it still the newsletter? Or had it become the website? Or was the website always just a reflection of the emails?
25:04 Speaker 01 It was up until that point, just like housing the emails.
25:08 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
25:08 Speaker 01 So it was just emails.
25:09 Rick Rubin? The email was the main.
25:11 Speaker 01 That was it.
25:11 Rick Rubin? The main way to communicate.
25:13 Speaker 01 That was, that was the whole kit and caboodle. And then I worried about how to monetize and like, isn't transaction horrible in and of itself? And then a really interesting thing happened to me, which was I did a piece on the French pharmacy, like all the great stuff you buy at a French pharmacy. And a woman stopped me on the street. And she said, oh, my God, I love that article on the French pharmacy. It kind of transported me to Paris. And I, I wish I could have just clicked to buy your edit. And I was like, there we go.
25:49 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
25:50 Speaker 01 So we started to build an e-commerce.
25:54 Rick Rubin? Isn't that interesting? How it came from you're looking for a way to solve this problem. You know, you have something valuable. You want to figure out how to monetize it.
26:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:04 Rick Rubin? And someone tells you what they want.
26:08 Speaker 01 Yes.
26:09 Rick Rubin? It's amazing. It's like how the universe supports these beautiful endeavors.
26:14 Speaker 01 Yes, it's true. It is true. Yeah, she, she unlocked something for me. And we also were doing some brand partnerships. So like a brand would call and say, can we integrate product in a shoe? Like if you're doing a fashion thing.
26:28 Rick Rubin? Give me an example of how that works. I don't know what that is.
26:31 Speaker 01 So for example, like we did a big integration with J Crew, where we did a collaboration with them with certain pieces. And then we shot it. And it was a collaboration, but it was paid. So it was great because it helped subsidize. You know, by that time we were hiring teams. And I also was really very, very strict on who could advertise on the platform or not.
26:59 Rick Rubin? Stuff that you liked or used.
27:01 Speaker 01 Correct. Only stuff that I liked or used.
27:05 Speaker 01 And I felt that it was really important to maintain that integrity. That it was OK to to accept a brand partnership, but it had to be something good.
27:14 Rick Rubin? It's really an extension of if you're recommending to people where you think is a good place to eat, or what's a great store to go to, to say, this is a great product that I use.
27:26 Speaker 01 It's the same thing. It's about curation. It's about offering a point of view. I think also I had established a lot of trust, which was kind of the the secret sauce because because it was so unmonetized for so long and because it just came from a place of me wanting to share and connect. I had built a lot of trust with the audience and I I still think I have that to this day and I never ever would want to do anything to jeopardize that.
27:56 Rick Rubin? In the early days, was there a point where you decided I'm gonna stop acting?
28:05 Speaker 01 Basically, yeah.
28:06 Rick Rubin? And was that related to Goop?
28:09 Speaker 01 I mean, that was percolating while I was still doing movies, right?
28:11 Rick Rubin? Yeah, but would you say it was more like a hobby?
28:15 Speaker 01 It was more like a yes, it was because basically, the sequence of events was, you know, I was doing movie after movie after movie.
28:27 Speaker 01 And some amazing films that I'm so proud of to this day, some really lame films, you know, that that's just the nature of the beast.
28:38 Speaker 01 But I was working relentlessly and breathlessly and one year I did five movies in one year. I mean, just crazy. And I don't think I was protecting my brand enough. And I think I was trying to sort of fill a bit of a hole that some of us artists have, or maybe everybody has, you know, where it's like you want to achieve something both internally and externally, and then you think it's gonna make you
29:06 Rick Rubin? You think that our external success is gonna make you feel better and
29:09 Speaker 01 Right.
29:10 Rick Rubin? It doesn't work that way. We learn it doesn't work that way.
29:13 Speaker 01 Exactly. So then I got pregnant with my daughter. And I basically did the last movie that I starred in, meaning I was in every scene of the film, was when I was pregnant with Apple, who will be 21 in two weeks.
29:36 Rick Rubin? Wow.
29:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:37 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
29:38 Speaker 01 So I had her and I looked into her eyes and it was like my whole world reoriented in the most profound way. And I was like, I just want to be here.
29:53 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
29:53 Speaker 01 I just want to do this. And luckily, I could afford to.
29:59 Rick Rubin? So parenthood really changed everything.
30:02 Speaker 01 Changed everything, everything. And I just thought, I'm burnt out. I'm absolutely in love with this child and I'm just going to take a break. So I stopped for three years. I had my son in that time as well. And I was so fulfilled. I still am so fulfilled by it and them.
30:25 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
30:26 Speaker 01 You know, it's like so astonishing. It was like my reason for being was made so clear. And then I did, you know, supporting things here and there. And I think, you know, some things like the first Iron Man that we did, for example, was really fun because Robert's an old friend of mine and Jon Favreau was. And it was kind of like treated like an independent film. Like, nobody thought it was going to turn into anything. And I was in L.A., was staying with my mom. I could work like two days a week. And it was a gentle reentry, basically. But, you know, I haven't done a lot of, a whole lot of filming. I did a film actually this past fall because my kids all went to college.
31:14 Speaker 01 So yeah, that was, I had, I made a big, big pivot, like a huge shift.
31:19 Rick Rubin? The way you're describing it, it had more to do with parenthood than it did with changing to a new career.
31:28 Speaker 01 Yes, definitely.
31:29 Rick Rubin? The new career kind of happened simultaneously, but it wasn't, I'm leaving acting to, for Goop.
31:36 Speaker 01 No, it wasn't. It was, I'm leaving acting to be home with these kids.
31:40 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
31:41 Speaker 01 And then all of that creative force that wasn't going to the usual channel.
31:46 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
31:47 Speaker 01 Wanted to be expressed in some other way. And I think maybe with more autonomy and agency, you know, it's like, I could just put something into the world, as silly as a newsletter or a recipe, you know, whereas when you're acting, you really need to wait to get a job or to say yes to the right thing. And, you know, it's, you don't have-
32:10 Rick Rubin? You're dependent on a lot of other things happening.
32:12 Speaker 01 Exactly.
32:13 Rick Rubin? And in this case, you were free, and you could do what you want, and you could share what you want.
32:17 Speaker 01 That's right. And I, I found it liberating and kind of empowering in a weird way.
32:26 Rick Rubin? So you had the meeting with Seb.
32:28 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
32:29 Rick Rubin? And tell me about that meeting and what was discussed in the meeting and what you came up with.
32:35 Speaker 01 So I was like, look, I would like to turn this into a business. I have no idea how to do it. And he said, I think I can help you figure it out. We're gonna need to spend a lot of time and talk about like what, what you are thinking and where you'd want it to be. And he said, you know, the natural thing would be that sort of media model of like ads and brand partnerships. So we kind of started with that because it was low hanging fruit. And then we talked about what we wanted the e-commerce to look like and how it could be- Something cool and unique. And we started with collaborations and selling things that we just really loved and believed in.
33:20 Rick Rubin? Remember what some of those things were?
33:23 Speaker 01 You know, I remember there was like a T-shirt collaboration. There was this beautiful little like lapis box that we did. There was.
33:31 Rick Rubin? It wasn't only clothing.
33:32 Speaker 01 No, there was bracelet that we did. There was, you know, it was like one kind of special thing every week.
33:40 Rick Rubin? Every week?
33:41 Speaker 01 Every week, and it would sell out.
33:43 Rick Rubin? Yeah. So things tended to be limited edition?
33:47 Speaker 01 Limited, yes.
33:47 Rick Rubin? That's cool.
33:49 Speaker 01 That's how we started.
33:51 Rick Rubin? And then what was the first Goop branded product?
33:55 Speaker 01 So the first Goop branded product was our beauty product because, again, going back to my dad and
34:04 Rick Rubin? The ingredients.
34:04 Speaker 01 The ingredients.
34:07 Speaker 01 I started to realize that it's so interesting too, because I'm still kind of dealing with the repercussions of like putting all this toxic stuff on my body for all these years, but.
34:18 Rick Rubin? Pre-Goop.
34:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, pre-Goop.
34:20 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
34:21 Speaker 01 And before we made anything, you know, there was very little clean beauty on the market. I think we really helped start that discussion.
34:33 Rick Rubin? I read something about nail polish being wildly toxic.
34:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's terrible.
34:38 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
34:38 Speaker 01 It's wildly toxic. So is fabric softener, so is synthetic fragrance. I mean, all these things that we don't even think about that we're not protected from.
34:46 Rick Rubin? Yeah, laundry detergent, everything.
34:48 Speaker 01 Right, endocrine disrupting, you know. So I was researching again for the site, like we need to get great.
34:57 Rick Rubin? And also for you, it sounds like it was, it really was always your own quest.
35:03 Speaker 01 Right, it was like I identified a white space. There's no clean beauty that's beautiful and it works. Like you could go to a health food store and get something. Or literally the top moisturizers had ethylene glycol, which is antifreeze.
35:21 Speaker 01 In them.
35:22 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
35:23 Speaker 01 I was like, I want to make this for me and for my friends. And we started with skincare. Because also, it felt really urgent to me. We transdermally absorb like up to 80% of what we put on our skin. We just suck it right in.
35:37 Speaker 01 And it felt like we deserved better. Just women, people deserve to have a choice that's efficacious and that's non-toxic.
35:46 Rick Rubin? And how was the reaction to the beauty line?
35:49 Speaker 01 It was good. You know, I think that was something that wasn't too hard for people to understand. And I think, again, like because it came out of a lot of content of us talking about this kind of thing, like it felt very intuitive.
36:05 Rick Rubin? Did you ever get attacked by the people who make the toxic stuff?
36:09 Speaker 01 All the time. They're very clever how they do it, too. It's funny, I was, I have this one group chat. And there are a lot of young moms on it. And they're rightfully incredibly concerned about various things. And, you know, I'm like the elder statesman on this group chat, you know? And one of the moms was saying, oh, this blogger, you know, said that there's tons of lead in this product and we shouldn't buy it. And I said, that might be the case, and it might not be. It might be that the big incumbent is funding this blogger. And so that she will say negative things about this product or a movement.
36:53 Speaker 01 And I definitely was the recipient of a lot of that. Like, I can't prove it, but I know I was.
37:00 Rick Rubin? Did non-toxic stuff for children, like non-toxic parenting, did that come into the loop at some point?
37:08 Speaker 01 Yes, I mean, we, we've never made children's products specifically.
37:13 Rick Rubin? But would you do articles about it?
37:14 Speaker 01 Oh, we did tons of articles about it, absolutely. And again, like I had this personal experience where Apple was a baby. And, you know, someone had given me something and it was so fragrant. I was like, what is this? Like, what am I rubbing on her?
37:30 Rick Rubin? Burns your eyes.
37:31 Speaker 01 Yeah. You know, a lot of the content came out of that as well.
37:34 Rick Rubin? After the beauty line, what was next?
37:36 Speaker 01 Fashion. I think that was in 2016 or 17, something like that we started.
37:42 Rick Rubin? And would you work in collaboration with brands? Or would you do your own branded stuff?
37:46 Speaker 01 No, this was our own label that we started. That's all made in Italy and.
37:52 Rick Rubin? Tell me about that whole adventure. How do you, meeting the people, meeting the manufacturers in Italy?
37:57 Speaker 01 Yeah. This is the part of my job that is so fun to this day. I love making things and again, I'm making things for myself, you know? I also felt that there wasn't a lot of by way of sort of designer quality that was more in a contemporary price point. And the direct to consumer model really allows for you to kind of pass on the savings to your customer. So I remember again, like I was at a store in Hollywood, a really expensive, beautiful clothing store. And I tried on a blazer, a designer. I was like, this is beautiful. And it was thousands and thousands of dollars. And I was like, this is crazy.
38:42 Speaker 01 I'm not spending $6,000 on a blazer, you know? And then I, when I went to start doing the discovery and the research, like the factories in Italy, they're making all of the designer clothing and they can also make your clothing. But you just can decide not to 6X the price or whatever.
39:00 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
39:01 Speaker 01 And we work with this great factory in Italy that we've worked with the whole time. And, you know, the way that I approach it is clothes that really are beautifully made, that are cool, but are not overtly trendy, like you have them forever. You know, it's sort of like.
39:19 Rick Rubin? Timeless designs.
39:20 Speaker 01 Timeless designs. I still wear almost everything, you know, from back when we started. And that's kind of my take on sustainability. Like you buy it, it lasts and you don't throw it away.
39:34 Rick Rubin? If it's too flashy, you can't wear it all the time.
39:37 Speaker 01 Right.
39:38 Rick Rubin? And it could be your daily.
39:40 Speaker 01 Exactly.
39:41 Rick Rubin? Your daily clothing.
39:42 Speaker 01 Exactly.
39:44 Rick Rubin? Tell me about the direct-to-consumer model. How did that work? How did it come about?
39:49 Speaker 01 So I think when you think about ways to sell product, right, you're starting a line. And you think about what are the ways in which I want to distribute this? So when we started, everything was direct-to-consumer, meaning everything came through our own channels. So our own website and our own stores. And it was also at that time where direct-to-consumer was, you know, it started to become this big thing. And you had these companies that were had big valuations because everybody was into this idea that you have these great margins and you can protect them. And then, over time, it's been more challenging because the way that you acquire a customer
40:34 Speaker 01 in a digital direct-to-consumer model is really meta. And there's so-
40:39 Rick Rubin? A lot of competition for those spaces.
40:42 Speaker 01 Exactly. So our skincare was direct-to-consumer for a while. And then, in order to grow it and also to, you know, I really wanted to meet the customer where they were. And our customer is on Amazon. Our customer is at, you know, Nordstrom or Sephora or, you know, so we opened wholesale channels.
41:04 Rick Rubin? For everything or just certain products?
41:06 Speaker 01 Just our beauty. And our fashion is still just direct. So you can only get our fashion at goop.com.
41:12 Rick Rubin? Were there any pieces in the fashion line from the beginning that never changed? And they're just forever? Or is it always changing every season?
41:21 Speaker 01 It's always changing. It gets a strong DNA, but it's always changing and evolving. Yeah.
41:27 Rick Rubin? Overall, in the Goup universe, what things do you do in-house and what things do you farm out?
41:34 Speaker 01 We do everything in-house. We don't farm anything out. We do it all, you know. I always joke like that, you know, I have friends who were like, great, I want to, you know, co-found a business and like, they just were able to kind of become a co-founder. And I'm like the moron who like, brick by brick was going, you know, built like, going, finding a co-man and like sourcing raw materials and all the things. But I liked doing it all in-house. I think, you know, for me and for Goop, I think it's very important that everything we make has a reason, it's incredibly authentic, you know, it's filling a white space in some
42:19 Speaker 01 way and that it's of the highest possible quality and offered at a price that's not insane.
42:26 Rick Rubin? What was the Goop Lab?
42:28 Speaker 01 The Goop Lab was a Netflix show that we, we did two seasons of a Netflix show. The first one was called The Goop Lab and the second one was called Sex, Love and Goop.
42:40 Speaker 01 And The Goop Lab was kind of about these different healing modalities. One was about psychedelics for healing PTSD. This is a long time ago, before it was like in the conversation. One was on psychic mediums, which is just fascinating, you know, it's sort of, sort of like going across the catalog of like, different cutting-edge ways that people feel, you know, heal or can feel more connected, et cetera.
43:10 Rick Rubin? Sounds great.
43:12 Speaker 01 It was, it was good.
43:13 Rick Rubin? What would you say were some of the biggest breakthrough moments in Goop?
43:19 Speaker 01 Wow. You know, I remember when we first, well, our first e-commerce platform was this thing called Magento, which we got off of. And when we were, we were on Shopify for a while, then we got off of Shopify, now we're going back on Shopify. The joys of being a non-technical founder. And I remember when we were on the Shopify app. It has this feature where it'll go like chaching, like a cash register, and you can see orders come in. And I was like, I can't believe like we built something. And now like, you know, orders are coming in on the phone. Like, I felt like it was this huge moment.
43:59 Rick Rubin? It's also interesting when you, when you have a virtual business, to be able to see in real time.
44:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:06 Rick Rubin? It reacting, because if you had a store, you would see all the people in the store.
44:09 Speaker 01 I know.
44:10 Rick Rubin? But when it's virtual, it's hard to know anything.
44:12 Speaker 01 It's true. And so you get that real time feedback.
44:15 Rick Rubin? That's exciting.
44:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was really exciting. It was really cool.
44:19 Rick Rubin? Tell me something that you were excited about to do with Goop, but for whatever reason, it just didn't work.
44:25 Speaker 01 Oh, my gosh, there's a lot. I mean, you know, there are certain products or product lines that we did that, you know, we had these great vitamins. For example, we had, I worked with these, a different M D for each one.
44:39 Rick Rubin? So supplements.
44:40 Speaker 01 Supplements, yeah. And they came in packs and they were to address certain issues. Like, we had one for fatigue. It was called, Why Am I So Fucking Tired? And it was this fantastic vitamin pack and we, we.
44:57 Rick Rubin? And they were vitamins that you would take yourself?
44:59 Speaker 01 Yes, exactly. And made in the best, you know, triple certified manufacturers, et cetera. And one was called High School Genes, like for metabolism. And I've had this incredible experience of learning and failing and learning and succeeding on the job, right? So when we made the supplements, I didn't know to build enough margin in so that we could like advertise them and put some marketing behind. So they were never really profitable. And it just became too difficult, even though they were great. And when we discontinued them, people were very upset. But I would say, you know, things like that where like wellness products.
45:42 Speaker 01 When we did them, I didn't understand like the margin profile and how to do it. So that was hard. It's always hard when you sunset a product, you know? It's like, we did these bath soaks and now we only have one that remains. But you have to, that's part of, you know, doing, like you always have to be doing a reconciliation of your SKUs, of the other brands that we work with that are on the site. You know, in a business like mine, I cannot be only creative minded. I will run out of money and not be able to pay people, you know? So there's always this balance of...
46:18 Rick Rubin? The realities of the business have to be paid attention to.
46:22 Speaker 01 Right, and they have to be profitable and they have to work and there has to be product market fit. Like, I could make product all day that I would love and buy, but, you know, it might not work and it might not be a sustainable thing.
46:37 Rick Rubin? When did the idea come to have the first store, physical store?
46:42 Speaker 01 So, it must have been, well, I moved to LA from London in 2013. And repatriated the company here. It was tiny. And hired a couple of girls and we worked. I had this little barn in the back of my house in Brentwood and we worked in there. And I had, like, one of my first employees, she actually was with me in London and she moved to LA with me. Her name was Britt, and I'm so close with her, I love her. She was like full of creative fire and she was a great partner for me. And she was like always helping me find like chic things and always had great marketing ideas.
47:26 Speaker 01 And she said to me, "Oh, there's a space in the Brentwood Country Mart and we could do a pop-up there." And I was like, "That is fantastic, let's do it." So, we kind of quickly threw together this pop-up.
47:42 Speaker 01 And we were getting inventory from God knows where, but like scouring the earth to, you know, get great stuff in there. And we had this-
47:51 Rick Rubin? So it was curated stuff as well as your own products?
47:54 Speaker 01 I think at that time, we didn't have our own yet.
47:56 Rick Rubin? Oh, so it was all curated?
47:58 Speaker 01 It was all curated.
47:59 Rick Rubin? Great.
48:00 Speaker 01 And we opened it up and it was a huge success. And I know it was awesome and we kind of sold out of everything. And then the landlord there, Jim, was like, "Do you guys want to open a permanent store here?" And so we did. And for a while, we did this pop-up model where we would go around the country and do these pop-up stores, which was great and so much fun. And then little by little, we would make some permanent stores. And then during COVID, we closed a couple. And now we're opening more again.
48:38 Rick Rubin? What is Good Kitchen?
48:40 Speaker 01 Oh, you know, my first newsletter was about food. And again, like going back to the let food be thy medicine, this is a physical manifestation of that. And my unrelenting desire to make things easy for people, like to get right to the good thing as quickly as possible. We started a, it's cloud kitchens only, so it's delivery and pickup only.
49:11 Rick Rubin? So it's not a restaurant?
49:13 Speaker 01 It's not a restaurant.
49:14 Rick Rubin? Delivery or pickup?
49:16 Speaker 01 That's right. Only.
49:18 Rick Rubin? And do you subscribe? Or do you order a meal and get that meal?
49:23 Speaker 01 You just order a meal on DoorDash or Uber Eats or whatever.
49:27 Rick Rubin? How many places does it exist now?
49:30 Speaker 01 So now we're up to seven-
49:32 Rick Rubin? That's a lot.
49:32 Speaker 01 -in L.A. And we are doing Northern California this year. And then we'll go to New York City in 2026.
49:42 Rick Rubin? When did it start?
49:43 Speaker 01 It started five years ago. That's when we started talking about it. And then I'm trying to remember when the first one opened, probably three years ago? And it's really fun because it's that intersection of totally delicious food, like really bold flavors, but super clean.
50:04 Rick Rubin? How do you find the healthy ingredients? Where do you source them?
50:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, so the team who works on that business is incredible. And they know that it's quality above everything. And so they have their supply chain and they work directly with farmers. And we get beautiful things. We get beautiful salmon from New Zealand. We, you know, have the best possible chicken that you can have. And no seed oils and there's no gluten at all and no corn. And the best part is that it's so good. Like you would never know that it's quote unquote healthy.
50:44 Rick Rubin? Tell me about the home you grew up in.
50:47 Speaker 01 I grew up here in Southern California when I was very little. My parents had me when they lived in Trancas, so not too far from where we are right now.
50:58 Rick Rubin? Do you remember that life at Trancas at all?
51:00 Speaker 01 Not really. I remember being a little bit older and coming out to Trancas to visit their friends. But I was a baby baby when we were there. And then we moved to Brentwood and then to Santa Monica. And, you know, it was a childhood full of a lot of art. And my father was hilarious and very loving. My parents were, you know, my mother had this incredible artistry and warm femininity. And we were around a lot of actors. And it was anchored in a lot of troupe spirit, you know, of like your band of players, you know? Like we went to Williamstown.
51:44 Speaker 01 Every summer, my mother would do the Williamstown Theater Festival. So we would go there and my brother and I went to camp in Vermont. And we had a lot of exposure to creativity.
51:58 Rick Rubin? Tell me about your relationship with your brother.
52:00 Speaker 01 My brother is my best friend. He is, you know, it's like, aside from my husband, I just like rely on my brother. So my brother is like incredibly brilliant and very wise. And he's three years younger than me, but. I call him, you know, for basically, I mean, everything. Sometimes we call, we just kibbitz on the phone for an hour. But he's very wise and we're very, very close.
52:31 Rick Rubin? Tell me your memories of seeing your mom onstage.
52:35 Speaker 01 Oh, my gosh.
52:38 Speaker 01 She was so incredible, like that. I think that's why I wanted to act because my mother onstage was so powerful and so fulfilled and like channeling something from the heavens and like she is the best theater actress. It's actually crazy, like so inspiring, so moving. And it's funny because in life, she's, I think she seems to feel like less integrated in life, but onstage, she's like this fully, she's integrated powerhouse.
53:16 Rick Rubin? So cool.
53:17 Speaker 01 So cool.
53:18 Rick Rubin? Yeah. Do you ever talk to her about, like, after a show, would you talk about it? Or was it just such a normal part of life that it went unsaid?
53:28 Speaker 01 I remember talking about it. I remember, I was a teenager and she played Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire in Williamstown with Chris Walken as Stanley and Sigourney Weaver as the sister. Like, it was incredible.
53:45 Rick Rubin? Amazing.
53:46 Speaker 01 And my mother gave the most brilliant performance. And at the end, you know, Blanche Dubois really comes apart at the seams. I don't think there's ever been a better performance ever in the world than my mother doing that play at Williamstown. And I was devastated afterwards. I couldn't get out of my chair. I sobbed for hours. And I remember asking her a little bit about that and what it was like and how she did that. And but a lot of times, it was just normal. I remember also later, when I was a teenager in New York City, she would do a play and she would come home at night and come up to my room and we would hang out because I'd be doing homework at 11 at night or whatever.
54:30 Speaker 01 So I have a lot of fond memories of her tied to the theater.
54:34 Rick Rubin? Was there ever a time that you were watching her in a play and you forgot that it was mom and she became the character?
54:44 Speaker 01 All the time.
54:45 Rick Rubin? Isn't that amazing?
54:46 Speaker 01 All the time.
54:47 Rick Rubin? In acting work, have you ever been in a scene where it's so real, you forget it's a movie?
54:58 Speaker 01 It's hard to explain, but there are these moments that happen where you're so in something that it's not that you totally forget that you're in a movie, but you're connected to this other energy of like pure, I don't know, it's almost like you're transported to some other place where there's an interchange and maybe it's like this in music, I bet it is. You know, where you're-
55:31 Rick Rubin? You feel like it's actually happening.
55:33 Speaker 01 You feel like it is happening.
55:35 Rick Rubin? It is happening.
55:35 Speaker 01 It's happening.
55:36 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
55:37 Speaker 01 And you have sort of the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you're in this incredible moment. And those moments, I think, are few and far between, but they're indelible.
55:47 Rick Rubin? Yeah. Are you ever surprised by a choice that a fellow actor makes? Like when you're playing against them and they do something unexpected?
55:56 Speaker 01 I love when that happens. And it's very rare.
56:00 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
56:01 Speaker 01 Robert Downey Jr. surprises me all the time. Whenever we do anything, I'm like, okay, like, it's almost like he's the pitcher and you have no idea what he's gonna throw and you just have to like be there with the bat and like be as tuned in as you possibly can be. I love when actors do weird, unexpected things.
56:23 Rick Rubin? How much of the work is listening?
56:28 Speaker 01 Like 90%.
56:31 Rick Rubin? How much of a performance is in the words you're saying?
56:38 Speaker 01 It's interesting because sometimes if you're doing a great work of art, like if you're doing a Shakespeare play or a Chekhov play, the words are the wind in your sails, you know? And sometimes you're doing something that's less remarkable,
57:01 Speaker 01 but it's still giving you a good framework and you're working with good people and still magic can happen. So I guess it would depend on the material, really.
57:13 Rick Rubin? So sometimes- Great things can happen if the material's not great. But when the material's really great, it does the work, would you say?
57:22 Speaker 01 Yes, it does the work. I mean, great material always does the work.
57:26 Rick Rubin? How did you learn your craft?
57:28 Speaker 01 Watching my mom.
57:29 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
57:30 Speaker 01 Like, from the time I was born, being on set with her, watching her rehearse plays. You know, she played Nina in The Seagull. And she said I knew her whole monologue, you know, at 18 months old. Really early.
57:48 Rick Rubin? Yes, you were born into it.
57:50 Speaker 01 I was born into it.
57:51 Rick Rubin? Yeah. Did your mom have any good habits that you've adopted?
57:57 Speaker 01 Yes, I mean, you know, my mother always struggled with learning her lines. So she would go over them. I would read them with her. She would have them on a tape, like, so really knowing your lines, that's key. Because you can't play around, you know, if you're searching.
58:18 Rick Rubin? If you're distracted with them.
58:19 Speaker 01 Yeah. She really taught me how to let the stage be sort of the conduit between heaven and earth. You know, like, she taught me how to ground on the stage such that the body could be a conduit.
58:38 Rick Rubin? That's amazing. I've never heard anyone talk about that before. I've seen musicians channel, but I've never heard anyone in theater talk about that.
58:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, she taught me that.
58:50 Rick Rubin? That's great. Have you ever done theater?
58:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:53 Rick Rubin? And what's the first time you performed in front of an audience?
58:56 Speaker 01 When I was little, because in Williamstown, they would throw me on the stage, you know, to play like Dead Kid Number Five or something like that.
59:03 Rick Rubin? Were you excited when you got to do it, or was it scary?
59:05 Speaker 01 Yes, I loved it. I loved it. I always wanted to be an actress from the time I was little. So, you know, then I did plays in school. And then I went back to Williamstown and was an apprentice when I was probably 17 and got auditioned for a little part. And that was my first, like, real.
59:22 Rick Rubin? Like, professional acting gig?
59:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
59:25 Rick Rubin? And what was it like playing in front of an audience that you remember with the feeling?
59:30 Speaker 01 Intoxicating.
59:32 Speaker 01 I think being onstage is a very specific and special thing. And so different to being on camera.
59:42 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
59:42 Speaker 01 And very energizing and, you know, it's really the actor's medium, right? It's like, that's when you are kind of in control. And in film, it's very much not the case, like.
59:55 Rick Rubin? It's the director's medium.
59:57 Speaker 01 Film is the director's medium and TV is the writer's medium.
1:00:00 Rick Rubin? Yeah. What was it like going to an all-girls school?
1:00:03 Speaker 01 The best. When I got there in seventh grade, I was so out of my league. Like, I had gone to this hippie, sweet school in Santa Monica, where I still have like best friends from, which is so hilarious.
1:00:21 Rick Rubin? What was that life like?
1:00:23 Speaker 01 It was called St. Augustine by the Sea. And then it became Crossroads because Paul Cummins, who was the head of, he was the head of both and then he combined them. So I must have started kindergarten in like 1976.
1:00:41 Speaker 01 And Santa Monica was cool. In the seventies and the early eighties, it was kind of like this bleached-out, stained glass, ocean-y, briny, free life. It was amazing. And.
1:00:59 Rick Rubin? It was kind of like discarded in some ways.
1:01:02 Speaker 01 Yes, totally. It felt like no one was there, you know, there was like this.
1:01:07 Rick Rubin? I remember the first time I came to Santa Monica to go to a bookstore and it was on the Third Street Promenade. And the whole Third Street Promenade was boarded up and there was this one cool bookstore, an art bookstore.
1:01:17 Speaker 01 Wow, yeah, it was like vacant.
1:01:20 Rick Rubin? Yeah. It seemed like it had a time in the past.
1:01:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:01:25 Rick Rubin? But now it's, it's no more.
1:01:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's right.
1:01:30 Speaker 01 And we had this kind of great, you know, childhood. You know, there were some ups and downs, of course, but in terms of like, I really loved my friends and I loved being in California. But then we would travel a lot because my mom, she would do a Broadway play and we'd all pack up and go, which I loved too. Or we went to South Carolina. She did The Great Santini and we all went and we would like enroll in public school in South Carolin- in Beaufort and we would live there. So there was a bit of a gypsy thing to it. But I didn't learn very much at my elementary school by way of, you know, spelling or arithmetic, you know, the basic things.
1:02:13 Speaker 01 So I don't know how I got into Spence, the school that I went to. I have no idea. I think it was because, going back to reading, I had read novels early and I remember talking about them in my interview and I remember the look on the lady's face like, wow, this 11-year-old kid's already read, you know, Jane Eyre and whatever else. And I think that's why, because I'm sure my test would have been just terrible. And so I got to Spence. I was totally out of my league.
1:02:42 Rick Rubin? What were the other kids like?
1:02:44 Speaker 01 They were New York girls. Like they were faster-
1:02:48 Rick Rubin? Sophisticated?
1:02:49 Speaker 01 Sophisticated, even in 7th grade, you know? They were, they knew what was what. And they were incredibly independent. Like, so I learned to, you know, hop on 3 subways to get to my best friend Julia's house in the village. You know, I learned, I got mugged. I, you know, I would go to the steps of the Met and the boys would skateboard and, you know, we would go at night and like smoke cigarettes and, you know, like, it was, it was a much different world than LA. And the girls were brilliant, really smart. And it was like this super steep learning curve. Like I had to learn how to learn, how to write, how to spell.
1:03:32 Speaker 01 It took me like 2 years to catch up, which was hard on my self-esteem. But I got there.
1:03:39 Rick Rubin? Did you feel a need to catch up?
1:03:42 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:03:44 Speaker 01 I'm much better since I turned 40 and then way better since I turned 50. But I I used to be very susceptible to people's opinions and expectations.
1:03:54 Rick Rubin? Would you say it was more peer pressure or competitive nature?
1:03:58 Speaker 01 It was more like lack of self-esteem. The weird thing about me is I'm probably the least competitive person you'll ever meet. Like, I just don't care. I don't look to the side. It doesn't bother me what anybody else is doing. I'm here on earth to do my thing and like all my trials and tribulations. And so is everybody else, and it's nothing to do with me. But I am susceptible to feeling, you know, especially then, less than or...
1:04:26 Rick Rubin? Did you want to fit in?
1:04:28 Speaker 01 I wanted to fit in. And the cool thing about my school is that being intellectual was cool. So I had to like get on it, you know?
1:04:40 Rick Rubin? Tell me about living in Spain when you were young.
1:04:43 Speaker 01 It was incredible.
1:04:45 Rick Rubin? How old were you?
1:04:45 Speaker 01 I was 15.
1:04:46 Rick Rubin? You were there by yourself?
1:04:47 Speaker 01 Yep, I signed up in my Spanish class. And I remember my dad bringing me to the TWA terminal.
1:04:55 Rick Rubin? You flew there yourself?
1:04:56 Speaker 01 Yep. I got to Madrid, I got on a bus. I went to this tiny town. And my Spanish mother picked me up off the bus.
1:05:06 Rick Rubin? Did you speak Spanish already when you got there?
1:05:08 Speaker 01 Nope.
1:05:09 Rick Rubin? Did anyone speak English when you got there? Wow, that's radical.
1:05:14 Speaker 01 It was insane.
1:05:15 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
1:05:16 Speaker 01 I probably spoke Spanish like 10 days later because there was literally no other.
1:05:20 Rick Rubin? Otherwise you wouldn't have had food or...
1:05:23 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:05:23 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
1:05:24 Speaker 01 That's right. It was really one of the most special experiences of my life to this day. It changed me. It made me understand the scope of the world and how different people are in different cultures and foods and how when you learn another language, you...
1:05:45 Speaker 01 You get given another life. You know, it's like a whole other framework and culture and meaning. And I'm still very close to my Spanish family. In fact, my Spanish father walked me down the aisle when I married Brad.
1:06:01 Rick Rubin? Beautiful.
1:06:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:02 Rick Rubin? That's great.
1:06:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
1:06:04 Rick Rubin? You've had close relationships with some strong, successful artistic men over the course of your life. Would you say there's a quality that runs through all of them that you can recognize?
1:06:19 Speaker 01 I think I've always been attracted to artists. And I think there's something very beautiful about a male artist, that they're sort of eschewing or turning on its head the idea of what masculinity is supposed to be. Because creativity is such an archetypal of the feminine, right? It's collaborative and creative and channeling and mysterious. And, you know, my dad was an artist. He, I mean, he was so tough in his own way. You know, like this tough Brooklyn Jewish Long Island, you know, guy.
1:07:01 Speaker 01 But he had this incredible softness and creativity. And, and so I love that. Like, I love the balance of masculine and feminine qualities. And like that, men who are unafraid to have vulnerability in their work. It's so beautiful.
1:07:23 Rick Rubin? How was your parents' relationship?
1:07:27 Speaker 01 I mean, they were married for 32 years until my dad died. And they were very entwined with one another. I think they were, my dad absolutely worshipped my mother. Like, she was like the shiksa goddess, you know, like on a pedestal. And he took great care of her and was so respectful of her career and her art and just kind of in awe of her. And she was just madly in love with him and...
1:07:58 Speaker 01 You know, he took care of her and provided this great structure to their life. And you know, he's very social and she's very introverted.
1:08:10 Rick Rubin? Did they balance each other in that way?
1:08:12 Speaker 01 I think they did. You know, he got her out, out of her shell and having fun. And I think she got him a bit more internal and introspective. And I think they were a good balance.
1:08:22 Rick Rubin? How has the experience of working with different directors different? Like, tell me extremes of how it works with one person versus another.
1:08:33 Speaker 01 So the best directors, and you know, it can be subjective in the sense that people like certain films or not, but I think generally by my standard, the best directors, and the world tends to validate, are those who have this hyper specificity about the world they're creating and what they want. So I've done so many kind of movies where it's like you're day three on the movie and you're like, this is gonna suck. Like, this guy doesn't really...
1:09:10 Rick Rubin? Not a vision for the big picture?
1:09:12 Speaker 01 Nope, there's no vision. He doesn't really know what he's looking for here. Or he thinks he does, but he's missing the mark. And you're like, great, now I'm gonna be in, you know? That's sort of at the low end. At the absolute highest end, you have someone like a Wes, our friend Wes.
1:09:31 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
1:09:32 Speaker 01 Who, it's like, I always liken it to sort of stepping into a painting. There's something so relaxing about being in good hands like that.
1:09:43 Rick Rubin? With Wes Anderson, there probably aren't a lot of choices to make because he sees it so clearly.
1:09:50 Speaker 01 Yep. Zero choices.
1:09:52 Rick Rubin? Yeah, it's just, this is how it goes.
1:09:55 Speaker 01 This is how it goes.
1:09:56 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
1:09:57 Speaker 01 And for me...
1:09:58 Rick Rubin? I think Hitchcock was like that, too.
1:09:59 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:10:00 Rick Rubin? Very specific.
1:10:01 Speaker 01 Very specific.
1:10:01 Rick Rubin? Didn't know different films, but that idea of like having a worldview that they're presenting.
1:10:07 Speaker 01 Yes. Paul Thomas Anderson is like that. David Fincher's like that.
1:10:13 Speaker 01 It's funny, right? Because you could say that to me. Like, there's not a lot of choices to make, and that could sound constricting. But actually, it's so freeing. Because you feel the scaffolding around you of the specificity of the director's vision and brain. And then you're freed up to just find your character and be and find your inspiration. And you're not worried about like, oh, God, like, am I gonna have egg on my face here? Because this guy doesn't really know what he's doing.
1:10:43 Rick Rubin? Have you worked with any great directors who are more improvisational in what they like?
1:10:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, I did a movie once with Alan Rudolph, who was of the Robert Altman School. And I did a movie with him and a great bunch of people in Montreal about Dorothy Parker. I just had a small part, but it was like Jennifer Jason Leigh and Campbell Scott. And it's where I met Jon Favreau. And Alan was very improvisational. So that was different and fun. And then Iron Man 1 was, we improvised almost the whole movie. Every day, we would kind of just improv, which was unusual for a big-budget film.
1:11:24 Rick Rubin? Yeah. How has success been different than you might have imagined it?
1:11:31 Speaker 01 I think that we all have this idea that if we're ever successful,
1:11:38 Speaker 01 we will feel whole. We will feel home. We will feel embraced by some, you know, universal spirit. And it's just not what happens. It's quite complicated. Of course, it's wonderful to have success and to have your dreams come true. It's incredible. But if you haven't worked on the fundamental things, which a lot of times are driving the need for success, then it's not gonna be necessarily what you thought.
1:12:14 Rick Rubin? Tell me about your spiritual life.
1:12:16 Speaker 01 I'm a meditator. And
1:12:19 Rick Rubin? When did you learn?
1:12:21 Speaker 01 I learned in probably 2009. And I had very sporadic, you know, periods of doing, being very religious about it and then not.
1:12:31 Rick Rubin? How did you come to it?
1:12:32 Speaker 01 You know, I had done yoga for a very long time, and which is really a meditative practice. And there's meditations at the end. And in shavasana, at the end of yoga, I would often go to like a very deeply connected place, like deep into parasympathetic and feel that kind of wonderful God connectedness. So I was talking to somebody about that and I had been doing yoga less and, and they, I can't remember who suggested that I meet my meditation teacher, Bob Roth. Do you know him?
1:13:03 Rick Rubin? Yeah, he's a friend.
1:13:05 Speaker 01 So he came and taught me how to meditate and
1:13:09 Rick Rubin? TM?
1:13:09 Speaker 01 TM.
1:13:12 Speaker 01 And I actually use lots of different meditation techniques. Like I love TM in the morning and then I do a lot of breathing and a lot of sort of nervous system, kind of quick meditations, also open eye meditation I do sometimes. You know, I think when I can get into my parasympathetic, that's really critical for me because my life is a bit frantic and nature is a big part of my spirituality too, even though it sounds weird, but you know, just being in grass or in the woods or in a body of water. My best friend Mary always says like it reorganizes the molecules, you know?
1:13:52 Rick Rubin? Tell me something you believe now that you didn't believe when you were young.
1:13:57 Speaker 01 I think that healing is possible. I don't think I believed that when I was young.
1:14:03 Rick Rubin? You think you didn't believe it when you were young because of things you saw?
1:14:06 Speaker 01 Yeah. I think I weirdly have more faith in people now.
1:14:13 Rick Rubin? For many people, it's the opposite. You know, many people, as they grow older, have less faith. That's interesting.
1:14:19 Speaker 01 I know. I think I have consciously make my circle smaller just because I have so little time, but I actually have more faith in more people.
1:14:32 Rick Rubin? Anything that you can think of that you don't believe now that you used to believe when you were a kid?
1:14:38 Speaker 01 That you can escape the axioms of your life.
1:14:45 Rick Rubin? And have you managed to do that to some degree?
1:14:48 Speaker 01 I think you never can escape the axioms.
1:14:52 Rick Rubin? All the way.
1:14:52 Speaker 01 No. I think when you're little, you think, you know, one day I'll grow up and this pain will wash away and the places in which I'm broken will be healed. And it actually doesn't happen. But if you are able to, you learn tools with which you can use those things to make your life, make all of the important things come out of those broken places and then actually see them as an asset.
1:15:25 Rick Rubin? Yeah.
1:15:25 Speaker 01 But they're always with you.
1:15:27 Rick Rubin? Without them, you wouldn't be who you are.
1:15:28 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:15:29 Rick Rubin? So you'd say self-acceptance, is that a part of it?
1:15:32 Speaker 01 Yes, I think really being incredibly honest with yourself about who you actually are.
1:15:40 Rick Rubin? What is your favorite restaurant in the whole world?
1:15:43 Speaker 01 Rick! This is so hard.
1:15:48 Speaker 01 Well, I could go so many ways with this, you know? I mean...
1:15:52 Rick Rubin? This is today's answer.
1:15:53 Speaker 01 This is today's answer.
1:15:55 Rick Rubin? That's always today's answer. Like, anything you say is like...
1:15:58 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:15:59 Rick Rubin? Maybe it's a different one tomorrow.
1:16:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, but meaning like, for example, there's a restaurant in New York that I grew up going to every Sunday night called Elio's. And I just love it so much. But is it like, you know, a Michelin-starred? Like, no, it's like...
1:16:17 Rick Rubin? No, but it's your favorite.
1:16:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think it's my favorite.
1:16:20 Rick Rubin? Okay. Or if you could transport yourself anywhere in the world to have dinner tonight, where would you choose?
1:16:25 Speaker 01 Paris.
1:16:25 Rick Rubin? What restaurant?
1:16:26 Speaker 01 Paris.
1:16:26 Rick Rubin? And what would be the restaurant?
1:16:28 Speaker 01 I think I would go to this kind of newish place that I love called La Renommée. Delicious.
1:16:35 Rick Rubin? What kind of food is it?
1:16:37 Speaker 01 It's French, but it's like, got, you know, a great cheeseburger as well.
1:16:44 Rick Rubin? The most beautiful place you've ever been on the planet.
1:16:49 Speaker 01 I think when you ask me that, I have this memory of being in Thailand at this really amazing hotel. You can do this thing where you take a boat down a river to this incredible little restaurant. And I remember being in this boat and going down this river. And it was kind of wordless and at sunset. And it was the most beautiful place I think I'd ever... I still, to this day, when I think of that, I have chills.
1:17:23 Rick Rubin? That sounds great.
1:17:24 Speaker 01 Incredible.
1:17:26 Rick Rubin? How do you think you're most misunderstood?
1:17:30 Speaker 01 Let me count the ways. I think for people who don't know me or haven't interacted with me or maybe haven't listened to me on a podcast, I think I'm misunderstood. Like, I think I've been in the public eye for a long time. I think people think, you know, I was raised in a particular way, like, I was raised in privilege and that I'm sort of live in a rarefied air. And it's just not who I am.
1:18:25 Speaker 02 Tetragrammatin is a podcast. Tetragrammatin is a website. Tetragrammatin is a whole world of knowledge.
1:18:40 Speaker 03 What may fall within the sphere of Tetragrammatin? Counterculture? Tetragrammatin. Sacred geometry? Tetragrammatin. The avant-garde? Tetragrammatin. Generative art? Tetragrammatin. The tarot? Tetragrammatin. Out-of-print music? Tetragrammatin. Biodynamics? Tetragrammatin. Graphic design? Tetragrammatin. Mythology and magic? Tetragrammatin. Obscure film? Tetragrammatin. Beach culture? Tetragrammatin. Esoteric lectures? Tetragrammatin. Off-the-grid living? Tetragrammatin. Alt spirituality? Tetragrammatin. The canon of fine objects? Tetragrammatin. Muscle cars? Tetragrammatin. Ancient wisdom for a new age.
1:19:27 Speaker 03 Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day.
1:19:32 Speaker 03 Take a breath, and see where you are drawn.
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