Hey everybody, thrilled to have you back for another edition of Just Getting Started. This time I went deep into my own Rolodexes. I feel like I do every week, because let's face it, you got to make your life easy.
And I feel like I want to hear stories from people that I want to hear from. Selfishly, it's my podcast and I get to choose, right? So I went and asked my friend Elizabeth Banks if she could join us, because she is a fellow mass-hole from Massachusetts.
I feel like we are a very specific breed. Yes. I'm not wrong. Am I- No, I was at a wake recently and someone was like, hey, are you from Massachusetts? And I was like, yeah. And it was Dennis Lehane, who's famously from Massachusetts.
And I was like, yeah, Dennis Lehane. And we, instant connection. I've never met this person a day in my life, but it was instantaneous that we both knew we were mass-holes.
Why do you think people from Massachusetts just know that somebody else is a mass-hole? Do we have a tattoo on our foreheads? Is it the beanie with the pom pom?
What is it? No, I think, you know what I think it is? Massachusetts is mostly a working class town, like the whole state. And I think anybody who makes it out is like, hey, did you make it out?
And by the way, you can do that even in Massachusetts, but I think people who make it out and are doing something in the world, I just think other people from Massachusetts are like, can you believe it? Because we, you know, mostly everybody's just- People don't leave. No.
My whole family- My whole family is there too. Yeah. My mom got out. My mom went to New York to be with me and then I promptly moved to California.
That worked out well. But I just think it's funny. There's something about that Massachusetts mentality that really shapes you as you get older.
I feel like the older I get, the more New England I become. Why do you think that? What does that mean to you? To me, it means my values are very centered. I'm very straightforward. I am less attracted to flash and circumstance and pomp and all that.
Well, pomp and circumstance than I was when I was younger. And I just feel like it's a stalwart sensibility. Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's like the pilgrim's work ethic.
Do you know what I mean? It really takes a lot to cross an ocean. There's rebelliousness in it, obviously, because we had to rebel in order to do it. But then once people got here and pillaged the land and killed a lot of people post genocide. So I do want to recognize that.
But there is a really strong work ethic built into it. You don't think that the pilgrims and the Indians got together? I don't think they shook hands.
I don't think they shook a lot of hands. No, because that's what I learned. I stood on Plymouth Rock and was like, we did it. It's not cool.
I'm really glad our kids are not learning that. No, I mean, I think about how I did take our kids to Lexington and Concord last summer when we were back home after camp. And it was I had forgotten how fun it is to go through that. They were bored for a fair amount of time.
Sure. I thought it was fantastic. Oh, me too. I also love like a Hancock shaker village or a stir bridge. This is like we're getting local for the masses. By the way, for the international listeners, you have no idea what we're talking about. So we do apologize. You can learn a lot of American history in a lot of towns in Massachusetts. And one of those are some of them that you and I have been talking about. The Revolutionary War was begun there and there's some really cool stuff.
One if I land, two if I see. So how did a kid from Pittsfield get to become a Hollywood superstar? How did this happen? Because I always think it's I always think at the end of the day, I remember, you know, like even throughout my career, I'm just a kid from South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, deep down, right? South Dartmouth, Massachusetts. And a lot of people from South Dartmouth stay in South Dartmouth. So the question is, how did that happen? And we can talk about this for the next, you know, five hours straight. But how does a kid from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, become an internationally acclaimed director and celebrity and actor, et cetera?
You know, yes, also self-made millionaire. I do like to I've started to say that because I feel like people, especially women, forget that part. And I know that term is also problematic. We're going to have a lot of problematic terms today, by the way.
The next podcast I launch will become it'll be called Problematic Terms, which, by the way, I kind of like. So, you know, I I don't know. I don't know if it's if it's something that you're born with or that you learn. But I had a really strong sense, one that I wanted. I had city blood. Do you know I did was not like a my town was not big enough for me. And I don't know what that is.
I just think you know it inside of yourself that there's something else out there for you. I grew up in a in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It's a small town.
I think there's about 30,000 people in it now. It's actually so it's not that small of a town. There are smaller towns around it.
It's actually the hub of western Massachusetts. But it was a General Electric factory town. My father worked in the factory. And I just knew I wanted something bigger, better. And I grew up going to cities.
I grew up going to New York and going to Boston and going to Montreal and Cleveland and Chicago. And so I knew what cities were. And that was for me. That was a life for me.
Once I saw it, that's what I wanted. And and I just spent my time in school knowing that if I did well in school, like that was my ticket out. I really believe in education for that reason.
For most people, it's it's can be it is a pathway to something else in life. And that's what I did. I went to Penn in Philadelphia. I met a great guy. He's still my husband.
We're sitting in the house that we own together. That helps. Choosing a good partner really helps. I think people maybe overlook how important that life choice is. And I and it really is a choice to people that are like, Well, I fell in love.
And then we did. It's like this is I'm talking like deep, like a see your future with someone plan things together kind of a person in your life. And I think when you find that person, that's really helpful in terms of how do you make things happen.
So that's why self made is problematic. Because of course, I had a really loving, great supportive family. And I had a really loving, great supportive boyfriend who then became my husband. But the dreams were mine, the work was mine, the determination resilience, that was all mine. And and I, I happily own those things about myself.
When you were a kid, and you were in Pittsfield, you talked about education, what were you interested in back then that you think helped field your dreams? I had no idea. You know, it's interesting. I just knew that the people that I looked up to, I had an uncle who went to Harvard Law School. He's my godfather. It's my mother's only brother. I'm from a humongous family. So my dad is from eight kids.
My mom's from seven. So I have a lot of aunts and uncles. And in my mother's family, my uncle, who's the greatest guy, so there's this is no no gel on him. But, you know, he got the family resources as men did back in those days. And so he's a he became a lawyer, and he was he's a lovely person, a humanitarian, etc. And I really looked up to him because I really felt like, oh, that was he got out.
He was the ticket. And, and I don't mind saying like, I wanted money. I did not want to struggle as an adult.
I watched my parents make those decisions about like the car payment, the food, the hot water, and that was of no interest to me. I knew that I wanted to be independent of anyone else. I wanted to make my own my own money. And I, I was a hustler. I started working when I was 12 and a half years old.
And I've never not. What was your first job? My first job was working after school. I was the game room coordinator at the Catholic Youth Center. And I worked there on Saturdays helping to run the basketball league and serving coffee to all the parents and collecting dues. So I my Saturdays were like get up at 7am usually walk a mile and a half to the Catholic Youth Center where they had a basketball league where I was also in the cheerleading league.
And I was a cheerleading coach in that league. And I basically, as like a fifth and sixth grader babysat like younger kids after school in the game room. And then started working. I started working as a waitress when I was 15. I worked as a waitress for 10 years. I also did catering. Were you a good waitress? Yeah, I was a really good waitress. No, no, I'm a very good waitress.
Yeah, yeah. Like good balance. Good hand-eye coordination. Good memorization comes in handy in my other job acting. And yeah, so I was that weirdo who was like, I got it. I don't have to write anything down. And people were like, maybe you need to write this down.
I'm like, I got your order. It's not that complicated. This isn't brain surgery. You don't have to treat me like a moron.
But people don't order like at Los Angeles and Massachusetts at least. It might have just been like the sauteed onions on the side. Literally that's what we're talking about. Yeah. It was like, yes, it was not a big deal. I also, though, was the fastest folder of pizza boxes at the pizza restaurant that I worked at. So you really developed your skills at an early age with origami. I did.
That's right. When you were a pen... Oh, let me ask you this first. How rare was it, how much of an anomaly was it for you to go to an Ivy League school from your small town?
It's mostly just an anomaly in my family. There are other people in my small town. My best friend went to an Ivy League school. My best friend's from high school. Honestly, pen wasn't so much that it was an Ivy League. I wanted to go to school in a city. I didn't want that city to be Boston. It was too close to home for me.
Agreed. And so it was kind of like, I was looking in Chicago and DC. And honestly, I just drove through Philly one day on the way up the East Coast and was like, we should check this place out. And then I fell in love with it and I applied early decision.
And that was that. How much acting did you do there? I did it, but recreationally I did.
It was my extracurricular activity. It was not a game plan for a career. I didn't know any artists growing up, despite being from Western Massachusetts, which is filled with artists.
That wasn't my scene growing up. And so I didn't know anybody who was an artist that wasn't actually just a waitress or a waiter. And it didn't seem like a career path that had the stability I was looking for. And so I didn't really, I was not pursuing it. And then I kind of fell in with a group of fellow actors at Penn who all really wanted to be actors and wanted to go to MFA programs and were applying to Yale Drama School and Juilliard and things like that. And honestly, I applied kind of, I wouldn't say on a whim. I thought like, if this door opens, I'll walk through it. But otherwise I was looking for corporate jobs in New York City after school. What would you have done? I have no idea.
Probably news. I was really interested in being like Diane Sawyer. Even though I loved acting, it just did not feel safe to me and I wanted a sense of security. And then I ended up getting into, I had an amazing, I went to New York City on my birthday when I was 22 years old. I turned 22 that day, February 22, and I visited my sorority sister who was living there, who was older than me. I stayed at her place and I auditioned for ACT in San Francisco, the American Conservatory Theater for their MFA program. And I went to the audition. I was having the greatest day. You know, New York, it was just one of those beautiful days.
It was crisp, but it wasn't too cold. And it was sunny and I just loved the city and I felt so energized being there. And I walked into this audition, which was in a room at NYU. I'd never been at NYU. And I thought, oh, NYU was cool. And I met people in Washington Square Park that morning who were cool. And I just, I kind of saw my whole life all of a sudden like, oh, I'm going to be an artist and this is going to work out. And I went to the audition with literally nothing but like c'est la vie confidence. Like, let's see what happens. And I showed up early.
They were eating their lunch. So I ended up kind of sitting and talking with the program director, Melissa who's since passed away. Actually, she just passed away last year. And we just got on. We just got along. And then I did my audition very, kind of threw it away, which is what they tell you to always do. Never want it too bad.
And I didn't want anything that day, but just for the day to like never end because it was such a good day. And I got in. And what was that experience like? Going to school.
Yeah. I can't imagine what it would be like going to school to study a craft like that. I never went to school for journalism.
I only went for history and art history. So I always, I always wondered what it was like for people who went to go study broadcast because I thought I was lucky. I got to practice in the field. So what was it like to study acting? Well, the great thing about any of those programs and just being young and, you know, it's true also of like going to the Williamstown Theater Festival or doing any summer stock or anything like that is when you're young and idealistic and naive, it's the best because you don't know what's not possible. You only think about what is possible and you get to dream a lot there. And so you get to tell stories that you don't actually get to tell in real life. You know, I played Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, for instance, and it was really, and I was really physical in the role and it was really fun. And so you get to do things that you just, you stretch yourself and you talk about storytelling and you immerse yourself in stories that you just never in your professional life really ever going to get to do again, honestly.
I mean, it becomes experimental, right? It becomes like you can do it, but I needed to make money doing it. So how did you support yourself while you were doing it? I worked. I was a waitress and I worked at an insurance company.
You know, I'm that person. I never went on a spring break. I never went on a vacation. I worked constantly. So I didn't really socialize. In my 20s were like, I would work until midnight and then go to dance and dance until 3 a.m. and then sleep all weekend and go back, you know, keep going. I had that life.
I was a vampire basically in the 20s. Were you in love with the acting by then? Had you figured out that this was going to be- Once I got into school, once I got into school, so I went to that same uncle, my uncle Rick, the lawyer and I said, oh my God, I got into drama school. I have these huge loans, student loans and I don't know. I mean, what am I doing? Am I going to take on, you know, three more years of loans for masters of fine arts and acting? Like, what am I doing?
This is not the game plan. And my uncle reminded me, he's like, you just got on Ivy League degree. You're totally employable. Like, follow the stream now because I don't think it's going to happen again. And he was right. So he's like, go now. And if it doesn't work out, go get a job.
Like, what's the difference? And I've had that energy of what's the worst that can happen? I can always drive a bus is what I used to tell myself because I got a special class license to drive a bus once. You do not. I don't still have it.
I mean, I don't still have it. I used to drive this big, but this like Sprinter van for cater. I was the driver for the catering company because I made extra money and you worked longer because you had to go pick up the van from the special place and like go pick up everybody who was going to cater and then it bring the van back at the end of the night. By the way, as a young woman in West Philadelphia, I'm dropping off a Sprinter van at two a.m. after a wedding reception.
But I made but I made but I made like 18 extra dollars and I took every penny that I could find back then. Does your antiperspirant keep you dry all day? Dove Men PlusCare Dry Spray goes on instantly dry for a cleaner feel and offers 48 hours sweat and odor protection.
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Try Dove Men PlusCare Dry Spray goes on dry, clean feel all day. Student loans. I mean, I'm glad you brought that up. Obviously, it's part of the vernacular right now and totally about whether or not people will get forgiven for their loans.
How much of a saddle was that for you? How much of a burden was it knowing that you had those loans piling up? Well, this is my point is I do think it affects everyone's decision making. I mean, I really struggled with that decision about whether to go to school and that that is what led me to my career going to school. I didn't know how. I mean, maybe I could have gone to New York and figured out how to like go through backstage magazine and go to an audition.
I don't know. But I knew how to be a student. I didn't know how to be an actor yet. I really needed that transition into grad school to figure that out. Also, grad school for me was partially just a way to, again, secure. It was safety net. I just always had safety net safety net. So the Ivy League education was just a safety net.
The MFA was a safety net. It was like, okay, so if things you're pursuing don't work out, you've got backup plans galore. You've got B, C and D. You can go be a teacher. You can be a professor.
You can do both. So it's always about like making sure that I wasn't going to have to hustle forever. I say I've never been busier in my life, by the way.
I think I just like being busy. But I liked having those backup plans. But I do think that student loans are absolutely a burden that I'd love to see forgiven. I mean, I'd love to see higher education become more affordable for everybody.
I don't know how to do it. It's a big deal. But if I could wave a magic wand, the executive order, I would. I mean, executive order in so many ways, but that's a whole different podcast. That can be executive order. That can be the next podcast. After whatever the one I already filed. Yeah.
The name of the other one. It really does. Of course, it's a burden and affects people's decision making. I had the best case scenario. Again, I had a supportive family. I mean, they didn't have any money to give me, but I could live with other people. I mean, I lived frugally. I would live in closets. Literally, I had a bed in a closet in college. So I knew how to make a dollar go really far. But even so, I didn't want to work at McKinsey & Company or whatever. I was going to end up being employed in order to pay off my thousands and thousands of dollars in debt. It ended up being a Crest commercial that paid off my loans.
Really? Yeah. Was that your first job? No, but it was early on. Tell me your first job. Well, I worked in a lot of commercials. My very first job actually was I became a catalog model for Petite Sophisticate. Well, that's when I think of Sophisticate. That's me.
I think of Elizabeth Banks. I loved that job. It was so much fun. I met great people.
I'm still friends with some of the people I met on that job. I became a catalog model really early on in New York. I went to a lot of commercial auditions, which is a great way to lose your dignity very fast.
You learn really quickly like, oh, this is what Hollywood's going to be. I remember going on a show and they were like, oh, this is in a bikini. You didn't bring a bikini? I was like, no. They're like, just take off your clothes and we'll just photograph you in your underwear using this Polaroid camera and horrible lighting.
That photo is out there somewhere. I was like, okay, because you just said yes to everything. I didn't get that job. I was so uncomfortable.
Anyway, I remember auditioning for a Wisconsin cheese commercial. It was like, all right, pretend you're riding a bike. You're sitting there. You're pretending you're riding a bike. You're looking around.
You're having a great day. Smile. I'm smiling, looking around. Then you see a little boy and he's on a tricycle and you see a dog and then you see a dancing wheel of cheese. I just burst out laughing. I'm like, I'm sorry, what? Yeah, there's a dancing wheel of cheese.
The casting directors are so overt. They're like, oh, okay, go back. You're on the bike. You're smiling. There's a dancing wheel of cheese. What's the big deal? You're just like, what am I doing?
How does one react to a dancing wheel of cheese? This was my question. Apparently not the way I did because I did not get that job. So was Crest the big payoff? So Crest was a big one. Yeah. So I did a bunch of really good national commercials back then and Crest was the one that made me the most cash and I paid off a lot of loans with that Crest commercial.
Yeah. Then how does a kid start figuring out auditions? How does that work? Whereas you start auditioning after Crest, after some of the stuff you do. Well, I mean, look, I tell people, you can do the flip through things and send your... It's all about getting an agent. I mean, I got an agent from school. We do a showcase.
All the programs do showcases in New York. I did my showcase and I got an agent. I actually got a contract to be on a soap opera for two years as well. I would have had to leave school early, not graduate my class and move to New York overnight. I remember calling my mom and saying, mom, I'm not doing it and I burst into tears because that would have paid off all my student loans. But it was my first day in New York and I thought if I can get a two year contract on a soap opera on day one in New York City, what can I do tomorrow?
That's how I approach most things in life. What was the soap opera? It's one of the A1s, so it's either As The World Turns or... Well, it was the other one that began with an A.
It might have been As The World Turns. Anyway, I didn't take it. $250,000 contract. Wow.
Yeah. That's a lot of money. That's the most money I'd ever heard of in my life at that point. I want to reiterate that though because I think that for people who watch this and they are trying to figure out their own way, the fact that you wouldn't just take the first offer that seemed easy in there, I think is incredibly telling. It sets the stage for the rest of your life.
That wasn't my dream. I'd invested too much in figuring out what my dream was and what my life was meant to look like and that wasn't it. I just knew in the moment that I needed to stay on the path that I believed in.
It would have been an amazing detour probably, but it just wasn't what I wanted to do. By the way, it's not like I got a great job a minute later. I didn't, but I did work pretty consistently after that offer, mostly in commercials. And prioritizing graduation as well. That was right. I really wanted to finish out my education.
I did. It's funny because I just think that many people tend to write actors off as, oh, they didn't even go to high school. Oh, they didn't even go to college. In your life, especially having branched out into business and directing what have you, that you have not only a degree to lean back on and also to show people. I think, well, because I'll tell you, I mean, I know from my own experience, Phil Jackson saying to me one day when I was doing a series of interviews with Kobe and with him when I was the host of the Lakers, he would look at you a certain way and he would write you off because you were a woman a lot of the time.
Yeah, totally. And at one point, I had a book in my bag. He asked me what book I was reading. I told him and he said, oh, where did you go to college? I said, I went to Columbia.
Where did you go Phil? And we had a different relationship from then on. I think for women in a business, in acting, in broadcast, in whatever you're doing, because I really don't, I don't think it matters to have the education that if somebody is to challenge you, you can challenge them right back. It sets the table for the relationship you're going to have with someone. I do think it's unfortunately that's the case. Do you know what I mean? By the way, I meet incredible people who are not formally educated, but who are interested in the world around them. That's what I care about. I care about curious people. I care about people who take notice, who read, or who are well read. I know people that are so knowledgeable just about Hollywood and history and whatever it is. I just want somebody, I just enjoy people, I think we all do, who are interested in the world around them, who are curious and who can sort of talk. You don't have to talk deeply about anything, but I don't know.
You don't have to split an atom. You don't have to, yeah, you don't have to tell me you're going to the moon, but I do think there's something about people who put in the work, and that's what college or any of that formal education makes you do, right? It's about learning how to think and question and research and all of those things, and it does take hard work to get through it. So I think that's what it is, like tells people that like, no, no, I competed and I won.
You know, that's what it is. What was your first bona fide acting role? In a movie, in a TV show? You know, really, well, my very first TV show, I did a reenactment on America's Most Wanted of a gruesome murder, and I was the victim, and I was run over by a car, and I actually did the stunt on the day, so unsafely looking back on it.
I mean, you know, it was a professional-ish set, and probably like an after set, I bet, back then, and the worst part about that, so I had to go, I shot it like outside Baltimore or something they shot, America's Most Wanted, and I was living in Philadelphia. I went to Baltimore, and I went to take like a Greyhound bus back up to school, and I missed the bus, and I ended up kind of staying in a bus depot in Baltimore. Again, I was like 20 years old. I weighed 98 pounds, and I remember asking the person, you know, they're closed, they're like kicking everybody out, and it was like me and some, you know, unhoused people getting kicked out onto the street at midnight, and I remember calling my mom from a pay phone back then, and saying, I need your credit card number. I have to go stay at a motel or something until the bus comes in the morning, and she was like, I want you to run there and then call me when you get there, and it was like, you know, the Motel 6. I mean, it was dark.
It was not a happy moment in my life actually. Well, no, I can't imagine running through a downtown Baltimore at midnight. I mean, of course, my idea of Baltimore is the wire, so it makes it that much darker, but so Omar could have been coming down the street behind you.
It was just unfamiliar to me. I'm sure Baltimore is a lovely place, but for a young woman at midnight in the darkness of the bus depot was not, didn't feel safe. This segment is sponsored by Dell Technologies Small Business Virtual Podference starting on May 10th.
Whether you're still working remotely or back together again, let Dell Technologies help safeguard your business with modern devices and Windows 11 Pro. In the continuing theme of looking for confidence and finding your confidence and finding your stride, how did you then start landing roles that started putting together the acclaim that you've developed over the last couple years? Well, I will say everyone feels, everyone has imposter syndrome.
It just depends how long you have that. I mean, I really think most people get to work when they're young and they feel like they don't know what the things they're doing. I certainly felt that way. I was very insecure in a lot of things. At the same time, I remember going to the set of Catch Me If You Can, which was directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, Amy Adams was in that movie with me. We're still friends to this day. It was, I remember being on set and hanging out in Video Village and I had won that role.
I was there for a reason. Steven Spielberg picked me and that gave me a ton of confidence. Why do you think he picked you? I don't know.
We'd have to ask him. Well, what do you think it was about you that made you stand out? This town is filled with beautiful blonde girls.
That's true. What do you think it was about you? I remember that audition. I remember what I did in that audition. I'm very good at improv and I improved the end of that sequence. I remember I danced and I also remember Deb Zane was the casting director.
I still work with her. She was filming it and I did a dance like, I pretended I'm with Leonardo DiCaprio, which was not hard by the way. Pretend that Leonardo DiCaprio is sweeping you off your feet.
I was like, well, I'm literally going to be swept off my feet. I danced and fell off camera basically. I remember she played it back for me because she was like, visually, this is interesting.
That was a really good lesson. It was like, make something. If you just sit on camera and you do your lines, that's not as visually like, they're going to see a hundred tapes or a hundred girls. How do you make yourself interesting in the frame, which is a good lesson for a director too. She was like, you just did it. The other thing was a hundred people auditioned, but I now have been on the other side of it.
There's maybe four, maybe five people that you're going to feel are even in the running for what you're really looking for. I think for that particular job, there was just a real, an ever-vescence and an energy. I made money on this crest smile and that's what I brought to that moment was just ever-vescence.
I just knew this character just needed to just love life and be super excited by this handsome boy. That was that audition. I remember it really well. I don't remember most auditions, but I remember that one. There's something about that kind of fresh all-American look that's always been so appealing too and that you had it for the crest commercial, I suppose was good validation.
I am very all-American. That's true. I forget this though. The other thing was I read the script for Catch Me If You Can and I do believe in this. I wrote down, I wrote down, I want to be in Catch Me If You Can and I put it on my refrigerator.
I just say that because I do think there is something to setting intentions and real goals and goals that are makeable. There were six female roles in that movie and there were very few scripts around at the time where there was that much to do for women and girls in big studio Hollywood films with big actors in them. I just remember writing down, I want to be in Catch Me If You Can and then I was. Who's been your favorite ensemble to work with? I remember you for the first time from 40 Year Old Virgin, so I wonder if that would have been something that would have occurred to you.
40 Year Old Virgin was a reset for me. My very first ensemble had American Summer and I had the most amazing time making that movie. It was an interesting time. I was really looking back, it was so fun. I didn't live in New York really that long at that point and I was not in the scene yet and all of those guys were immersed in the theater and comedy scene in New York. The state was such a cool institution in that moment in time.
It was just young people getting to do what they were really good at and that was really fun to be a part of. Who was the actor that stuck out to you the most that you thought, this guy's going to become a huge star? We made a lot of fun of Paul Rudd at the time. He was either on the cover or in Interview Magazine, which was everything back then.
He was in Clueless, he'd been in Clueless. We were like, this guy is making it. I remember I think he was leaving our set to go make an action movie in Hong Kong or something.
I don't remember. We were all like, Paul Rudd is going to be a huge star. You have to remember, we were with Molly Shannon, Janine Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, who was on Frasier and was a huge star in his own right. They were part of our ensemble.
That's who we looked up to, Janine Garofalo and Chris Maloney. These were working actors and none of us were working actors yet. We were all just excited that actual working actors had showed up to play alongside of us.
How about that Steve Carell movie? How about working with that whole ensemble for 40 Year Old Virgin? For a young actor being a part of that, what was that like? I had done Why Hot and then I had made a lot of drama. I was in Seabiscuit, Catch Me If You Can, for instance. I made this movie, The Heights, this Merchant Ivory film. I think I was the last person to audition for the role of Beth in 40 Year Old Virgin.
They were having a hard time finding the person is my recollection. I went in and auditioned. It was like going back to comedy. It was like the reset of my career of like, oh yeah, Elizabeth Banks. I was getting roles that were like Jennifer Connelly and Elizabeth Banks were up for this role.
We are not similar in actuality. What was really fun about doing that was just the freedom. It was a lot of improv. I loved meeting that whole gang. I mean, I loved working with Seth and Paul.
It was familiar to me in a way that I hadn't worked on something that felt that familiar in a long time. I feel really at home doing comedy in that way and just being allowed to run free and make a total ass of yourself. Do you prefer comedy to drama? No, I don't have a preference, actually.
I prefer just really good storytelling. I'm more – what's the word I'm looking for? I'm a little more – honestly, I have no language skills in this moment in time. Can you tell?
Comfortable, chameleon. No, it's about choices. Sometimes choosing to do comedy is really a life choice.
It's about like this will be fun. Sometimes it's just this is a really good story. Honestly, it's harder. There are better roles for women in dramas, if I'm being honest.
I mean, at least that's what I've been seeing lately. It's very hard to find – I mean, people are starting making comedies right now. I think it's so depressing. All I want is a really good rom-com.
I know. It's all I want. I love them, too.
We grew up on them. I don't need another miserable zombie apocalypse. I just want to see a really handsome boy sitting in front of a really beautiful girl asking him to love her.
That's right. I want people who complete each other. I just want a break. So before – I will say your fans would probably freak out if I didn't ask you about Hunger Games. Oh, sure. I would love to know about auditioning for that and getting and being in it.
I know we're tight on time. So give me a sense of being in that world and what you took from it. Well, I love the book.
Let me just say this. I read the book really early on and I have a production company with my husband and we looked at the rights to that book and, of course, Nina Jacobson had snatched them up. But we were – because we were in the running also for the Maze Runner series and just several – we ended up – we have Red Queen with our company now. So I love YA I think because it has romance and it has action in it. I love the sort of – I don't even mind the dystopia of all of those things. I think thinking about Red – they're all revolutionaries too. And, you know, like that's our Massachusetts spirit.
Let's bring it full circle. I love that spirit and thing. And I loved those books. And I was connected to that character of Effie weirdly from reading it. I thought she was the representative from the Capitol and was your own – and the book – first book was really the only way in.
I mean you heard about the Capitol. You kind of – you knew that they were putting on a television show called The Hunger Games. But she was really – you know, she went to the districts. She pulled Katniss and Peeta out of there and became their mentor. And then also she is the one who changes. Nobody else in the – nobody changed over the course of that first book except for Effie.
She was really affected by what Katniss did and it made her rethink like everything. And I thought that was a really interesting arc to be able to play. I also knew Gary Ross because I had been in Seabiscuit and I knew his producing partners. I knew the casting director. It was like I famously wrote a lot of letters back in the day. I think letter writing is underrated. And also, again, it's like putting into the world what you want. I was like, I want to be Effie in your movie, Gary. What do you think?
And here's all the reasons why I like it. And I know he was talking to other bigger stars and I just kind of like bided my time. And then I went in. We had a meeting and I was like, dude, let's just do it. So that translates actually to your directing because that means – and I know we're going to wrap in a second, guys, but I know that directing obviously you're controlling the dynamic of a movie set.
Yes, that's true. And so as we finish up and you're giving advice into moving forward, how did directing pull everything together for you so that you felt like as a woman who wanted to control her own destiny, you are now controlling these bigger sets? I directed plays in college and drama school, so it wasn't like I'd never thought about it before. But directing in Hollywood, as I was coming – I mean, really, I was like breaking through barriers as it was happening. Obviously there are actresses that came before me. Jodie Foster comes to mind.
Penny Marshall comes to mind who had directed. So I had role models, but not a lot. And it really was about controlling, looking around and going, I want to have as many choices going forward as possible.
And I felt like playing third banana was not that interesting. And making Pitch Perfect as a producer and seeing how you could actually put a group of diverse women's stories at the forefront of a big Hollywood movie and then making a franchise out of it, that was incredibly liberating and seemed really powerful as an idea. And I just wanted to keep doing more of it. And it really came down to like, well, that's not something that occurs to most people in Hollywood.
You don't see a lot of posters with six, seven women on them. And so if you want to make those stories, I just felt like I had to just do it myself. And so, I don't know, here we are. We keep doing it. I'm going to have to ask you to come back for part two. Let's do it. Part two, of course I will. We barely got into it.
We barely scratched the surface. This is what happens. I just feel like I want to share with our audience much more about how you developed your sense of business, how you put together your production company, how you look forward to what you're building as you go forward with Max and on your own and what have you. But I know you have to go out to other things right now. So I will say thank you.
Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah. I always say have really good plans. This is my life advice and my directing advice.
Have good plans, have backups, have your B, your C, lay it out, do the work, investigate, get it all laid out, and then be open to all the changes that actually happen as you're trying to put the plan into motion. Yeah. Because life will just come at you and that's fine too. So that's the improv part of it. Then you got to improv. So I think the answer to everybody is to go out there and take an improv class. Either that or waitress.
I'm not sure what it is. You need all of those skills. Our thanks to all of us at BANGZ. Thank you, Susie. Thank you for coming on. I do appreciate your time. So we will see you next week and thanks for tuning in again.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-02-04 01:32:57 / 2023-02-04 01:50:36 / 18