Call It What It Is with Jessica Capshaw and Camil Luddington, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello Call It crew.
And welcome to another episode of Call It What It Is, But this this time it's a crossover. We're in the second start. We started with work in Progress with Sophia Bush. I'm staring at her gorgeous face right now. Hi, hialating, And and the second half of this podcast is with us.
She got to You're gonna need to go over to hers to get the first half because a lot got said, a lot got said to get said here too, So we have to start by saying Sophia.
When we started the podcast, we were looking for names you under, you know, to find the name is a big deal, right, And we just kept going back to how annoying it was so annoyed that you guys had taken drama Queens because it was just so good.
Yeah, it is.
It is so good.
Do you member coming up with it?
Did the three of you come up with it together?
Yeah? And it's it just sort of hit us. We were talking about all these things and and it also felt fun, you know, when you do a version of a primetime soap, and especially in the early aughts when we were all getting made fun of for it. We were like, we're going to own this.
Yeah, do you feel like you got made fun of because I remember wanting to be on your show so badly as one of the actresses coming in.
Yes, I thought it was.
One Tree Hill. Yeah yeah, yeah, of course because you auditioned for right.
Yeah, if you listen to how well that went in the.
I am yeah, we got made fun of a ton it was. It was very like ooh teen dramas wah waht like we got we got ripped apart on the soup every week. For whatever reason. Joel McHale loved to talk about how ridiculous honestly, like sometimes he was right. I mean, we had a dog that ate a heart on our show, Like you guys do a medical show, and I don't think you've ever had an animal eat an organ.
It doesn't sound not crazy, But these shows.
Was so sexy. I remember, like the Billboards, I remember being very sexy.
You guys on the cover of magazine.
I feel like it was a smoke show. Yeah, her percent and you so okay. So one of the people, one of the queens is speaking of smoke shows, no one who I made out with a little bit.
Anatomy Hillary Burton.
If you don't already know, this is one of the loveliest humans on the planet. She came over to Grays and she knew she was she was playing. She was playing someone who's gonna like upset the apple cart, and most I think I in my mind, I was imagining most people would come in a little sort of like on tender hooks and be like, Ooh, I'm going to come in and play this part. She was not. She was like bold and smart and sassy, and she just took over and character chemistry.
But you know what, Sophia's kind of Does she give you any tips? Because you can't.
You've just if you.
Guys haven't caught up on grades not and you really have to because Sophia came in to mix some up I love. Does she give you any tips or did she give you a heads up? We?
I mean god, I remember us talking about it then because we were so excited for her to be on the show, because it was a show we'd loved. While we were making hours and I texted her and was like, girl, what what kind of like fun voodoo. Do we have going that? Like, now I get to go and kill a pretty woman on grays Also, Yeah, and it feels right. It's like it's very adjacent and energy for us, and that feels great.
What is something that you felt was unexpected when you started the show?
Your show?
Yeah?
Oh my gosh, god on graze, Like, what is something that surprised you? So? You know what.
One of the things I really appreciate as a fan, not only of the show, but of Shonda as a writer and a world maker, is that I've interacted with her a bit in sort of you know, groups of women like advocating for us to you know, be whole people. Shocker that we want that, And I know how brilliant she is and how lovely she is. What was very cool to me was to hear about the world y'all have built over these years and how you know, professional and well oiled and respectful and smart and bold it is.
And I walked onto set and was like, damn, twenty one seasons in. Everyone is on time, everyone is exc everybody cares about everybody. People are trading pictures of kids and making sure people have what they need, and everyone shows up to the table read and gives it. They're absolute all. I was like, Oh, sets that are like run by women are just different in the best way. And I'm having the most fun. So thank you for having me.
Oh stay, they stay.
Yeah, it's lovely. I love it.
And of course Joy was on the show too, I know that's right. So all three of you three yes, yeah.
So how did you guys decide to come up with the pod together? The drama queens one?
So you know, we talked about this on my show a bit with the two of you. But sets are complicated.
They're amazing, and they're complicated. And for all the sort of wonderful stuff we got to have in our years together, our friendships I think got even more expansive and even more special in the years because there wasn't the kind of like put your life on the back burner to keep the ship of the set always moving at however many knots in the right direction, Like we actually got to be more whole people, which meant our friendships were
more you know, whole friendships. And it was early days of COVID hitting and we were all stuck at home and we were on a FaceTime and the girls Hillary and Joy and I were out on the West Coast and Hillary was back in New York and we were joking like is it too early to open a bottle of wine? And she was like, well, not in New York and we were like, well, neither is it in California.
And we all like opened a bottle of wine together, and then we were just kind of chatting and then suddenly like an hour had gone by and we started making dinner and we were just like hanging out on a FaceTime but it wasn't, you know, a short catchup or like a phone call in the car. We were on video because we had nowhere to go, and it kind of hit me and I was like, wait a second. I do this podcast I do, which I love, and I get to ask fascinating people all the questions that
I want to ask them. But this is kind of fun what we're doing. And none of us are going to leave the house. Everyone keeps saying two weeks. We were like, that's not happening, Like we're not going to leave the house for.
A long time.
Two weeks, the infamous two weeks. And so I had a call with one of my agents and I was like, is this a crazy idea and she was like, I think it's actually a really, really great idea. And then I called Hillary back and said, you know, because she'd left the show earlier, and I said, if you hate this idea, I'll never say I had it. But if you don't hate this idea, like, should we call Joy back? And she was like, let's call Joy. And that was it.
We just decided to build a world and like it's been so healing and confronting and special, and I.
Was so, So that's the piece I'm interested in because you know, we're this is a very nascent phase for us because we're only six months in.
Okay, I mean, it's just like the baby's little babies.
And I'm curious about your experience with you know, actors are sort of we're we're we're meant to say the words of other people and do the things on the set, and of course we have opinions and of course we have ideas, and it's a collaborative process, you know, absolutely. Then you go do this other thing where it's from the beginning to the end, you and the origins of all things are your ideas. Then they're your thoughts, then they're your words, then you're editing them, and then what
you put out into the world really is yours. But again, as actors were sort of trained to when we go out to have our own words, speak in a certain way and sort of like not not protect, but be be judicious about how we speak about things or or represent to project in a way that the project would like to be represented. And then all of a sudden, you find yourself in a podcasting space and you're you're the project that you're representing now, and you my experience
is that you've learned. I'm learning how to speak about myself in different ways, figure out where my boundaries are with regards to like, what it is that I talk about, what is that I don't talk about? What was that like for you all in the beginning?
Yeah, I mean it's all of that.
And do you see a big difference between when you started and now, like when you first picked up the microphone where you like and.
Yeah, I think when we first started, we all got together to be together in person and watch a couple of episodes and record and we got to the end of our first block of watching together and we all just burst into tears, and none of us were expecting to have that reaction, but we were sort of being confronted with our youngest and most in sinceselves who had you know, bonded and loved each other and not yet been through the complexity, and not yet been through the
terrible behind the scenes stuff, and not yet you know, learned we could each open up about our boss and weird dynamics at work that women go through, and it was it was like being on the precipice of something that looked perfect, but you knew how hard it was going to be, and you never get to have that experience, and it was really unexpected and it was really special. And through the years it has been all the things, it has been really confronting. It has been really hard.
It requires that you go through things together, and you know, as you know, winding up on a show together is kind of like experiencing not one arranged marriage, but like thirty or one hundred. Like suddenly you're just with all these people all the time, and they're strangers, but you're supposed to know how to perfectly intimately communicate and make
space for each other and whatever. It's hard, and it's amazing, and it's been a revisiting of those things, but it's also been a revisiting of those things as more adult versions of ourselves, as wiser versions of ourselves. I think, you know, we've been able to make more space for each other. We've been able to make more space for ourselves. Sometimes we do episodes and it's like we're transported to
a place. And there are some weeks where I know, I'll come in so tired and think I am so sick of talking, I have nothing left to say, the world is insane. I don't know what I'm going to do this week, And then something amazing happens, and yeah, it has this life of its own.
Yeah, did you know that in the beginning, in that moment where you know, you went back to that place together and then you all ended in tears, did you did you get the inkling that you were going to go forth and be doing some hard things like doing doing the confronting. Did you know then, like, oh my god, I think that we're going to confront this tough boss, this situation that was not what people thought it was like, did you know that?
I don't know. I think what we knew is that it felt important. What we knew is that when the show first ended and we all ran as far away from it as we could and we never wanted to speak about it, it kept coming back and there was no getting away from it, and we had to figure out why sort of spiritually energetically, as a as a
version of a family, we were in this. And then it really has been so special, and there were certain things that just evolved, you know, as as we started to talk about what was going on behind the scenes, we would check in with each other and be like, no, this really matters because nobody gave us advice, so what
if we could give women advice? And then there was a day we realized we'd been sort of going through the sequence of events at one point with our boss, and one of us said his name, and it was like, absolutely not. We will never speak his name. So we talk about our boss, but we do not speak his name because I will not honor him in that way, and neither will anyone else who comes on our show. We're like, you are a man who is a creep
like so many other men, and bye. And that was like a thing we didn't know we were going to do that. We had no idea that no one would use his name, and we just don't. And it's been this kind of cool thing where you're like, oh, we can, we can make decisions for ourselves big and small. You know, there are there are things there are you know, family bust ups we'll never talk about. Every once in a while, I'm like, not everything needs to be on a thing. I do even just mean that for us, I mean
that for other friends who have their own shows. I'm like, some things just keep. But I think the overarching lessons I think not being afraid to be vulnerable and say these are the most cherished relationships, and they're also really complicated at times, like we're human, this isn't actually a TV show. There's a whole bigger life with three dimensional people,
you know, not two dimensional characters on a screen. And so I think it's been really special and it's been cool in our friendships outside of it, and in the ways our families are growing, and in the places we all live and the things we all do together. Even the conversations we have now with the fans who grew
up with the show are rewatching the show. I have this like deeper experience with everyone who ever loved one Tree Hill than I ever knew I could before we started this, and I already knew it was really special, and now it's like we're all in on something together and I can't explain it. It's like it has reconnected
me to why I love doing my job. It's reconnected me to strangers in ways that for a while, like I was really turned off and scared out in the world because of some things that were happening, and now I'm like, I think most people are pretty awesome want to hang out.
Like do you feel like in re talking about it you're able to or what is your relationship with being like, oh man, I would have I could do that differently or yes, yeah, do.
You mean as a person or an actor or both?
I guess both.
Yeah.
I just I think that our history is obviously such an incredible place to learn from. At the same time that again, it can sort of, you know, weigh you down, and so it's like, what's the part that I you know, I'm grateful for that moment that was really hard because I'm here now and I know I can handle that. I talk about all the time, But I just I love I love coach Cara, which is like is it gonna get easier. It's not gonna get easier. You're just
gonna get better at doing the hard exactly. I think that, Like that's how I I It makes a lot of sense to me. So the doing the hard, it's like the hard thing can happen, and you're you're the tiny baby, right you just you don't even I mean I go into fight, fight, fight or freeze, I freeze. I'm like, hmm, what's happening? Yeah, and then I look, when I was younger, I would just look for the grown ups in the room.
I remember saying that time and time again when people would misbehave and I would be like, where are.
The grown ups?
We're taught.
But what's interesting is she's talking about the set being a family, a family dynamic.
Right.
There are moments where, in all the years we've worked in all the different shows and stuff, if someone they're the adults are not in the room, you're looking to adults that don't exist.
Yeah.
Oh wait, I'm curious.
When you guys decided that you were going to do the show and you were just gonna speak your truth?
Was there?
Because we have this a lot of industry, did anyone advise you guys to sort of play it nice. Was there a push ever to be like, you guys, don't talk about the drama behind the scenes.
I love that. I think everybody knows us well enough and is like, if you tell those girls not to do something, they're going to be like watch this. Yeah,
everybody knew probably not to do that. I will say what was really interesting to me, and this was prior to us obviously starting the show, but we all experienced what we experienced on our show, and we were actually the first cast to as a group author a statement about use of power, because it was a way for us to stand as a unified front and to not have any one person's story be like exposed and re
traumatizing for them, but sort of run the gamut. And when we were putting that together, which was then echo and increased in number by the cast on our Old Boss's show, at the time, I had had a job in between, that was for me, as an individual, by far, the worst thing I'd ever experienced. And I was told at the time, you're going to have to pick what story you're going to tell.
Because then you look difficult potentially like, oh, you've had an issue with one show, and now you have an issue with another.
Exactly. It was like men that are old enough to be your father who break the law or the problem. But you've had two men old enough to be your father do this to you, and you run the risk of looking like you're asking for it. And I was like, I was like, anybody who knows me knows I'm like a fire breathing dragon. So that's not it. But that was a really interesting experience and it still is. And
I was very clear. I was like, I'm not just not going to say anything about it, but I'll say I'll say as little as I can and be clear about this circumstance because what I won't do is not stand with my family. Yeah, right, Like, I'm not going to bow out of this conversation, even though my experience in Wilmington was actually one of the earliest and the fastest and then never happened to me again. It was like, no, I'm standing with my family, of course, And that's an
interesting thing. And I think that's a I think that's kind of a symptom of the disease of power that in twenty seventeen we were only just taking the lid off in our industry, and nobody really knew what the ramifications were going to be, so it was like, well, you're going to get out, You're essentially going to go stand on the highway and hope not to get run over.
I hate that, like the feedback that you've got, and it's something that I think that we've all sort of wrestled with that if you've had a bad experience, and most likely had more than one, you're allowed to talk at some point about just one. Pick your ball right, Otherwise it's not their reputation. You're You can't say I've worked with a bunch of people that have it's been tough.
I've had terrible experiences.
You're only then that makes you look bad, like, well the problem to you, and I hate that we are just given the one allowance to maybe talk about it. I'm curious also if if anyone's apologized to you your boss, has there ever been a moment or no, okay, no apologies. Not that you guys need it, but I'm just curious.
Or would you like it? Would you would it? Would it do something if you heard from that person.
The gamma of experience I've had is total silence and denial to this is how I'm going to get away with it. And it's like, wow, y'all are wild. But what I find is helpful because every woman I know has a story, whether you're in our industry or not. By the way, like.
Talking about everybody.
Yeah, like every friend of mine who went to nursing school has a story, Every friend of mine in academia has a story, Like every friend of mine in real estate, like you know. So, what I think has been really helpful for me, and I think for all of us is like when you've been through something horrible, especially at work. For me, it's been helpful to be like mathematical because math helps me process emotion. So I'm like, yeah, I
had two people who were absolutely grotesque to me. And I've been a working actor for twenty years and every set I've been on has been populated by like a minimum of two hundred people. So I actually think my ratio is pretty good. It's just really unfortunate when the two people are the ones most in control of your life, Like that's not great, And how are we going to shift those things? And how are the behaviors around those
things going to change? And you know, how are the reporting procedures going to be made safer for women and all these things because we did it all right and it didn't matter.
The reporting is maybe even the most complex because yeah.
I mean.
Yeah, I mean again, when I was asking, like what you would do differently, I mean, when I think about it, there's so many things right where I'm like, oh my gosh, I would have done that. But I mean, I remember being in a situation where what someone was doing was so bad that someone else called HR.
Yep, I had that too.
I remember, I remember getting I remember getting someone came on set and said, Jessica, someone needs to talk to you,
being like like what I do? What I do, And then when the HR needs to talk to you, and I got taken to a room, and I remember my heart like beating out of my chest and I remember all the sweat, the sweat and the heart beat, and I was at work, by the way, It's not like it was like, you know, I don't respectfully like I'll grab you on a day off, right, like I'm going to do another scene after this, And the HR person asked all the like perfunctory HR questions about this person.
And I remember playing such a chess game in my head because it was I think my thinking then, which was not brave and not courageous and not supported or held by my own self. Firstly, what can I say that will like be the wink to you're not wrong? Yeah, and please don't do anything or still.
My job.
I still want to be liked and I still want to be thought of as someone that's easy to work with.
Absolutely because I am, because I fucking out.
Women, we're not.
We're made to feel like if we say this, I still we're not. And then guess what, it's us who get written It's not that you get fired, it's that you get written off.
Yep.
And you can't argue that's the reason why that you know deep down that's why you're gone.
I know, yes, yes, and I crafted that answer in my head. I think enough to be to then you know, all right, thank you very much, and I left, and I remember going into my trailer and weeping, yeah, and then calling someone who I trusted. This was pre to This was pre people saying and still have your job.
Yeah, pre July twenty seventeen was the out West.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I really was yeah yeah, but I called and I said, this just happened, and this was my answer, and what do you think? And they absolutely said that was this They condoned my avoidance. It was you know, you said what you needed to say to keep your job and keep going on and affirmed yes.
You would be.
And by the way, it wasn't dishonest what this person said. They weren't saying. They weren't they were they were furthering the shit like they were furthering what we all thought was what we were supposed to do. But they and they thought they were being protective. But they at the messaging was absolutely you should say nothing and handle it yourself and do what you need to do.
Sophia, we have to We only have a few minutes left, but we have a I have a question for you. So we got asked in an interview what we would love to ask Taylor Swift, and I thought about, what is some sort of misconception about her that she would like to clear up? So I want to offer you the same question.
I don't know because I try not to pay attention to what I think are misconceptions. What I will say is, I think what's really unfortunate is when the most base parts of our industry make a lot of money really being reductive about women. And then no matter who you become, or the complexity that you are or the service you live in, anytime they can reduce you to like a cartoon version of yourself or a trope or stereotype. They'll do that because they make money on it, not even
because it's true. And that's something I find really hard to watch. And I think there's a version of that. I talk to some of my girlfriends about this recently. I think there's especially a version of that with anyone who's come from a teen drama, like they want to keep you in high school drama forever. And I thought about that a lot because I spent a long weekend with a girlfriend of mine from my first show, and we're family. We don't always agree, but like we're family,
and we really sat and just like unpacked. I mean we spent six and a half hours, like on the couch, drinking coffees on Sunday, just like digging into some stuff. And she was like, God, we've been family for twenty years and even I if we're just texting, can forget the way you talk to me? And the space you make for me, rather than the way I hear the things I read because I read them as my insecure, twenty one year old self, and I forget the women
we are when we're not in the room together. And I was like, this can be with your closest people, like of course, like we were joking earlier, of course, the internet is a cesspool. Like what we're expecting people to be like their best themselves from therapy with strangers online. I wish we were, but we're not. And it's like, I just wish, particularly for us, we were given a
little more space. We were given space to be brilliant and imperfect and yeah, we didn't feel like we always had to get it right just to exist at zero,
like when you were asking me about things. When I look back at the show, I think about scenes I wish i'd played differently, been like, oh, I love that we disrupted this, and I love that we screwed up the blocking and I remember, and we did this really cool thing and it's great, And then I'll watch another scene and be like, oh my god, I wish I'd played it exactly against how it was written, so that it communicated like what was coming next, But I didn't
have the wherewithal at twenty two to do that. And now, you know, there's episodes where I watch it and I'm like, who told me I could wear my hair like that? Oh? You know, look at the girls and be like friends and hair. There's these big lessons about artistry, and there's big lessons about how how much courage you have, Like you said, to say the hard thing even though you're
terrified it might disrupt the ship. You know, what does it mean to ask for help even when you feel like you've been somewhere long enough that you're not supposed to need it. Like, I feel like I've learned so much about myself in terms of my intellect, in terms of my humor, in terms of being a really good human, in terms of being absolutely ridiculous. Like I wish we got to be more of our full selves out in the world. Yeah, yeah, but that's probably like a hard I feel.
Like the podcast allows us a little bit to be more us because we're not on a talk show promote you know. Yeah, I feel like this allows us to be a little bit more loose and messy and vulnerable.
But I agree with you, it's it's it's difficult.
I hear you.
Yeah, I feel I feel completely myself in these moments, you know, even just like you know it's over zoom, but we're looking at your beautiful face and just the heart that you bring to you know, the stories that you tell. And I mean again I have I mean I've seen you on screen. I have eyeballs and ears into telephone, right so I telephone is what I just said.
You know, it rings.
Sometimes and I'm like a little banana phone.
I'm a smartphone.
The landline.
I see headlines and yeah, no, it's just it is. That thing is a replacement for being in these kinds of conversations. So thank you for bringing soia and and.
For calling it what it is over and over and over.
I love it.
Yes, well to many more, and hopefully I see maybe I'll see you in the halls of.
Of Graco Memorial.
Yes, please come play.
Okay, stay away from the what is it supply closets or go in I mean I don't know, in guys in.
The supply closet or was it a call room? I'd like to know.
Please answer the question all right now we have to Okay, thank you, Thank you, and let's call it the end of the episode.