Call It What It Is with Jessica Capshaw and Camille Luddington, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Well, Hello, Hello, Hello, hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Call It What It Is.
I'm so excited to talk to this guest today. I've touched many things. I've seen her live, I've seen her show and she makes me a laugh.
I feel like, for me, she was one of the first like modern comedians.
Yeah that I the were female that I knew knew of.
Yeah, which is crazy to.
Say we need more, but like, I just feel like it was like the name that I knew the most back in the day.
She's a famous comedian, she was very famous. Whitney Cummings.
Okay, let's bring her in.
My god, Ahi, yay, it's annoying the glasses, No, not annoying.
Don't worry mine on so you can be annoyed by my reflection.
Oh my gosh, please no, as long as it isn't.
No, Yeah, Joss, you wear yours too?
Ohther are great frames.
Thanks. I had twenty twenty vision my whole life. I had to my two parents. My two genetic parents were like blind as bats. They got childhood glasses, and I was like.
I got this.
I'm twenty twenty.
And then two years ago I had a kid like put something in front of my face, but like real close, like real close, and I did that thing where I pushed my head away, like I can't see that so close, And I thought, I'm old.
Here's the thing, Jessica, I love getting older. I don't want to see things. I don't want to see the news. I don't want to be old.
I love God a focus.
I'm like, good, I don't have to do that. Great. Yeah, it's freedom.
Whitney, you have a one year old?
I do?
Did he just turn one? As he Sagittarius?
Just turn out? My God. I of all the things I have done in my life, I have worked so hard, my greatest accomplishment is having a Sage baby.
I'm a Sage baby.
By the way, I have never had you're having a Sage baby. I've never heard. No, I've never heard anyone say like, you're having a Taurus baby, Like, what is it with sage babies.
I first off, he's going to be amazing, obviously.
I know. I.
Actually he's gonna be really blunt. We're known for being really blunt. He's gonna love to travel. But I was a good kid. I think we're gonna I think sages are good, solid, like grounded kids.
Do you believe in astrology? Like for real?
I did not used to, but I do now I do. The more people I meet and I'm like, what are you? And now I see like the similarities in all the signs.
So yeah. I also feel like though when someone finds out their sign, they do lean into that more. I'm like, you know what I'm saying, they get more of a sage.
It's a confirmation bias.
Yes, you of course are going to make it sounds smart. I'm kind of fascinated by like that astrology. If it's the stars and the gravity wherever, fine, But I actually think that there also could be another explanation, which is like, are like the proximity of our birthdays to other holidays, Like because when you're young, your birthday is the biggest deal, you know, and the proximity to another holiday, like people are like virgos, Like virgos are like they're all about
work and they're all about being organized. It's like, well, my birthday was the first day of.
School, Like, so you're back to school, back to school.
So Virgos, you know what I mean. So it's like and then Capricorn's like, you know, they're like, you know, don't want a lot, they're insecure, they this and this, but they come right after holiday year. No one's giving them presents. Yeah, on January fifth.
This is a theory.
It's kind of interesting. I don't know. That's kind of like to me, something that makes it work a little more, and like, you know, anyway, I believe it.
I explain my leoness. I know, I was thinking, I have a son who's Leo. Well you're you're you're in summer vacation mode, so no wonder your loving life.
That's it, and no one comes to your party. They're like your birthday party. Kids aren't in town. Everyone's out of town, so you have to work extra hard and like perform. Like from what I understand, Leos are like performers, like.
Oh yeah, charismatic, great with you know.
And I'm not saying I don't know what happened, you know, but yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe something like that.
So let me ask you a question, just a hypothetical question. So if I invite you to my birthday dinner on August ninth, and you came to my birthday diner.
Actually showing the date out so she gets to you a gift.
Go on, I'm just saying that if she came to my birthday in August ninth, mm hmm, because we became a really good friends between now in August ninth, because that's when you'd be invited to my birthday dinner. And let's just say that there was a tradition of going around the table and each person had to say what they loved about me the most.
Would that be weird to you? Or feel right on?
Are you the one initiating it? Or does something?
Yes, yes she is. Why does this matter?
If a Lee show was like, let's go around everyone and say what we love about Jesa. But if you were like, hey, guys, guys, guys, let's all go around and say what you love about it, that'd be a little trick.
Great, Well, now I have a new I have a new strategy for this year.
Here's the thing. Okay, I like a better do you do that every year? I think the better way to do it so that people aren't, you know, full of shit is I'd have them write it down.
You have to come with a written note, no, you like piece.
Of the paper and they write it down and then or whatever.
All of this makes Camilla question her friendship with me. I can't when I explained.
What I like out of a birthday and I actually don't expect anything.
No, no, no, hang on, let me just explain to Whitney. She used to send people a gift registry list.
For her own birthday.
That's sick.
By the way, bud Way, thank you, thank you, I mean thank you, but like, no, thank you next.
And I shouldn't be like this. I don't think i'd care. Now. I got a friend of mine deb won't say her last name for her wedding registry. I got her a couple of things, and then friends of mine we all were like, oh, let's all get her the plates and the forks and you know, to together. Yeah. And then I go to her house for dinner party and like, I kind of expect like the plants to be you know what I mean. You kind of want to see your gift in action, you know. And I remember being like,
where are those plates? And she goes, oh, I returned them off for a mattress. Oh she should be able to do you just be able to do whatever you want. But it was just kind of like, I like someone just telling me what they want. I appreciate that, I don't want to it gets you something you already.
Have or like fucking dish dub.
Also, sometimes when people give you presents that you didn't specifically request, it can be very insulting, like I.
Agree, you know, it'll be like what kind of I'm interested?
What kind of birthday?
Mom?
Do you think you're going to be?
So he's getting bigger, are you going to do like the Kardashian like the balloons, with the you know, with the circus and the bask What.
Are you feeling is going to be your birthday mom?
Vibe?
Is that what they do?
Oh?
People here in La Yeah, of course no.
They go straight to the event planner and they make sure that they have a bang in first, second, third, all the.
Way on up.
But who's it for?
It for the attendees? Is it for the gram?
Is it really for the kid that's unknowns?
Yeah, we don't know.
I think it's probably Cayse.
Specific right the photos to show the kid later?
Oh yeah, yeah yeah. I had one real banger and it was Eve's fifth.
How banging was it so, like I said, I was.
Just reaching into the recesses of the memo.
So when you say, like was it for the kid?
Was it for you?
I wasn't big on Instagram and I don't. I'm not big on Instagram for like super super personal stuff. I mean, I think that there's a whole world to share, but I don't. That's not been where I've done it. But I think that I did.
When you just said that out loud, I think I did enjoy by five.
No, they're there like yeah, but I think it.
I mean for sure. I mean I would say absolutely it was for her, mostly because the entire thing was all her favorite things.
But I done it.
But then I started because it is it all down? Like once you set the bar like is six, if you're not going to do it, is it then? Like well, where's all the shit?
You mean?
Like what what does Eve want now? For like her fourteen?
It doesn't go Yes, That's the problem with kid's birthday parties is like once you're once you're like going all out.
You kind of have to sustain it otherwise like where's where's the balloon?
Or is it good to like prepare a kid for life? Like I'm like, yeah, last year I made a lot more money. We got to do that. This year we're doing the.
Chuck e chee.
How life is? I feel like I'm so different than every parent I talk to, or every parent maybe at least in like California or something, because I come from like the South, like white trash, hill billy shit, where it's like you're not friends with your kid. You love your kid more than anything, and like my job is to protect you. It's not to like necessarily, you know, be your homie. Like I'm fully you know, that's a kind of small thing. I don't. I see people whose
kid calls them by their first name. I'm like, what is happening? What I don't know?
It's wild. Oh they're like hey Kim. I'm like what Like stuff like that.
I think for me, like if I've learned anything, maybe this's just because I came from like thank you so much, sir. I think because I came from such a raging alcoholics like like and the energy, Like I didn't care about the gifts or that anything, but like watching my mom like stress out about like the day before Christmas wrapping a bunch of stuff, and like we have to do this because it's your birthday and just being like, oh god, like I think that if you had fun planning that
amazing party, that's the best part. It's like I think that, like, yeah, we're for our kid, Yes, you know I did.
I loved that birthday party.
I figured out a way if you go to a kid's party and the mom's like the lady bugs aren't here yet, and like that kind of like now now you're just modeling for your kid that like a day that's insanity should be stressful, you know. So to me, like for the first birthday, I was really torn about what exactly to do, and because I was like I don't want to stress myself out and then not be present.
You know, well, here's what I can tell you, because you're already this is going to be very simple. From you know, the ghosts of future of future with my older children.
Now you're just gonna maybe.
For your son this year for Christmas, like you know, wrap like a par of sunglasses.
But also they're at the point where they like like wrapping in the box.
Better than the thing that Yes, it's so true.
I can just wrap up a bunch of empty Amazon boxes and he'll be happy, like to throw away and just try to get the boxes, give.
Them a remote control.
And he's like, if you're give him the TV remote, that's it.
That's exactly it, you know. So I kind of that's the things that I'm kind of struggling with. Y'all can probably you will have like perfect advice and clarity on like the Santa Claus thing, like I have a and maybe this is a comedian thing, but like I were, I just and maybe this is just a perfectionism thing of like I was lied to so much as a kid. I'm like, do I say the tradition because I love Sanda, I love I love all this stuff, but like Easter Bunny Santa?
Well, did you like Santa as a kid?
No? I I had a very I was like, wait, we're not supposed to tart to strangers, but one.
Is just sitting on the wrong Santa's lap many times.
I don't even get started off feeling. Do you know that I found out you can google you can get the criminal records of the Santas in your area.
My god, oh my god.
What website is this.
I'll send it to you. Someone just got it to me today. I will get it to you today.
Don't they do some sort of wait, don't they do some sort of like checking of that.
I think the mall you do.
I think they just go for it.
They're like, are you you've a beard? You're in Like, it's fine.
I don't even think they need a beard.
No, they're like, oh, you just got fired from NAMBLA, come work here.
Whatever it is.
I just I get I struggle a little bit with that because I also want to be the parent. It's like, I'm not going to do this tradition that everyone else does. And then the kid is like not able to you know, fit in or feel a part of something. But I I thought it was fishy. I didn't like it as a kid.
I love Santa's big in our house, we're like full sand I've like still believe.
I was gonna say, you're I'm.
Not sure you're talking to the right person because I've questioned our lying to children before and she's like, what lie?
But do you just does it?
Just go? Because I think I'm also doing the thing where like my kid's not going to see a screen until they're fifteen. A couple of weeks and you're like it might be.
A little of that. I'm just still in the like yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go.
I think that it's so magical for them and I have really good memories and it's so magical for them, and they're so excited.
Yeah yeah, I'm I'm really worried. There's a lot of things. I'm just like, I guess I'm gonna trust my instincts
and get there when I get there, you know. And I think that's been the biggest Like God, as soon as you become a mom, you start saying journey, like the biggest part of this whole, Like, journey is like feedback you get online or whatever it is, you know, people like, oh mom, Instagram is like brutal and like, you know me, I was like, you know, I went and so I posted a photo of me going into labor. I induced a week early. I really wanted to do it vaginally sea sectioned. I was so close to having
a sea section. If I do it again, I'll probably just schedule it like nothing. I just really want to try it that way. And I wanted to be able to get pregnant faster if I wanted to have another whatever, And so I like posted that and I got your sea section shaming you induced patas, and at first I was like, oh god, I should, but then I was like, you know what, this is awesome, Like these people they care, Like these people care about this baby they've never met.
Like this is when women like you know. I mean, I was obviously super sensitive because you're, you know, eating postpartum depression and you're so emotional, and I'm like, just got cut two inches, I'm the healing from a surgery whatever. But I think that like for me, it's been really important to just be able to like take wisdom and not take it personally, like there's a lot I don't know and like, and also how to like take what
you like and leave the rest. I've also gotten the most amazing advice from Instagram that I never would have thought of. Like people were like, make sure to put coconut oil or aqua four on your baby's butthole as soon as they come out because the first poop is really sticky. I'm like, yeah, like thank you. I really need to hear that, you know. So, I've sometimes gotten better advice from like women on TikTok or like an
Instagram comments than doctor. You know. So I think that For me, it's just all about going like okay, okay, like nobody's wrong.
You know, it's knowing when to shut it off too.
Yeah, knowing like that might work. If you want a breastfeeda well he's twelve, that's your progative, that's your journey.
Three months.
I did as much as I could, you know, like, yeah I was a three month or two.
I was a three months as much as I.
Could, Like you know, when you tell yourself, like there's also a lot of literature that like microplastics are in breast milk now, so like oh, like it's just kind of figure out what works for you and what helps you be able to sleep in night, because I think being calm around your child and you know, is thing for them. At this point, I was formula fed Similac like forty years ago. There's pictures of me and drawers.
I slept in a drawer. Yeah, I'm from Missouri.
They're fine, the kids.
I was given tea because I'm from England, Whitney, even though I've lost my accent, and I have pictures of me drinking a bottle tea with milk caffeinated at like one.
Well, and also what was the what did grandma give you whiskey? Just give me a little whiskey now and then ski. Well, so you're ahead of it, you already know all the things.
No, no, I'm his latest. You know, I have no idea what I'm doing, you know. But I think also like you know, but.
You're curious, and I think that that's the thing. I think that been parenting. I think whether it's when they're pre verbal or when they're giving you a real run for your money, because wow, that whole like little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems. That's true, and I think I actually, speaking of comedians.
I was wait, little kids, little problems.
Big kids? Just say that? Why because I'm.
Seriously because the problems feel so big because.
She wants to think this is the hard part. I'm a four and a six year seven year old. Those are small.
I'm gonna lose my goddamn mind.
I think though they say like ten years is when you have the most impact.
After that, thank God, because I'm gonna be mad because you know, it's pre adolescence because neurobiologically is when they're then needing to be okay on their own, because if they're not okay, on their own.
What's gonna happen then? Right, So you've got until then and.
They love and they have to start. I is called identity differentiation, individuation, individuation. And I don't mean to name drop, but I was on a going somewhere for like a work thing, and Mark Wahlberg's wife was there and she was all, my friends with girls are just in dogfights. I don't know. I don't know how you do it. I would never want to be in a fright now.
It's going well for me, but I mean, who knows what I'll have? What's in store for me?
Totally? And I and she, you know, they just want the opposite of whatever you have. So she like has the Chanel purse, and so her daughter wants thrift store stuff. It's like, oh, brands are like they just want to get. If she didn't have something fancy, that's a.
Good problem to have, she'd want the Chanel.
Yeah, exactly.
But if you don't have, you want the Chanelle. I don't want the thrift store about you know, they just want the opposite. There's something that about like the biological basis for it being so that predators can differentiate you like there's like a deep biological basis for it. It's really kind of fat. I believe. There's a book that has a very creepy title, it's called The Wonder of Girls that uh has all of this literature in it.
But the books that I read Hunt gathered parent was really helpful about just like letting him explore and figure it out themselves and only interfere when like real danger, you know, is around. It's really helpful for me.
You know, that was hot. That's hard for me.
I'm not a good I'm a I'm a helicopter.
Why do you think in England you have such good healthcare you don't even have to.
Well, I have, like I mean, I have trauma.
My mom passed when I was younger, and so I and she very suddenly and so a lot of my my own shit comes from like anything can happen at any moment, and I'm getting over that. So in order for me to control the situation, you know, I got to be there. So it's like, yeah, they can go crawl over there, but there's gonna be glass and you won't see it, but I'll see it because you know, so I'm I have had to I'm way better, God bless soul of.
Way way way better with that.
But in the early days, it was so hard for me.
Yeah, for me, it's like a baby with a cold would have like sent me like, I you know, house doctor, er, what do I need to do?
Sure? Sure? Sure? I mean you know for me, I'm you know. I read a while back in Tina Fe had that book called I think it was in her book bossy Pants. It might have been an article. You know, she has that scar, and she talked about it right like saying a secret.
But what happened?
I mean, you know the story is there's some meth head. Just don't When she was five playing outside, a meth had just ran up to her and her in the face.
Did you know that story?
Just wow?
A child? Oh my god, I'll cry. I think about it. A child just playing and then ran off like just some crazy drug addict. She says she thought it was like a pen and she didn't know what was happening, And her therapist said to her, like, when your daughter turns five, the age that that happened, you might just lose your mind, you know, like kind of like our bodies are so smart, they just know yeah, I've never talked about it because like, who cares. Everyone's had shit,
you know. But when I was a year old, i ate a quaylude from my dad was like a you know, cheating on my mom. And it was at some you know, and I went to the hospital and almost died and came in all and so just as he's turned one, I'm like, I'm just gravel in this and that I'm actually like, I'm not beating myself up over it. There have been many times I'll look over and he's just like about to put a piece of gravel in his mouth, and I'm like and I'm like, yes, I try to
look at neurosi's more as superpowers. I think our body is smart. They know what to do all these things that men call us crazy, hypervigil and erotic obsessedment, Like it all comes in handy. As soon as you have a kid, and like you saved their life a few times a day, You're like, why don't you call me a hero?
I think that's what's hard too, is like the kids prove that they need saving all the time. They would eat the gravel.
Only the anxious survive, you know. And I think it's just a matter of you know, and I and I think that, yeah, it's our job to be anxious so that they don't have to be, you know. So I think that like forgiving ourselves is like a real big one.
But it's been so like healing and cool to like not only be able to have awesome connections with women, like, you know, I think that being in a job that's really male dominated, there was always this scarcity complex and I was always like, yeah, can we can we be friends? Even though like I feel like it's always like me or you you know, Yeah, I was back in the day with women there's like one woman on a lineup, so it's like if you came around, you were taking
someone else's job, like you actually were, you know. And so now it's been so cool to be able to just like connect with women that will just DM me on Instagram or come up to me in a grocery store and I'm like, can I have your number? Like do you want to? You know, it's just so cool.
Yeah, no, it's it's definitely that the movement. The movement worked. I don't know who started, but the cool to be kind thing has worked. It's funny.
I I always ended up working with a lot of women. But now that you were talking and I was thinking about and I was, I would have modified or from my experience, it was like the modification of like there's there's only room for like one hot girl characters. There's only a room for one funny girl character.
Like they wanted everybody to.
Be one thing on some kind of angular in some kind of angular way, so that whatever you were, most likely because the grass is green, aro on their'side the fence, if you were the funny one, You're like, I want to be the hot one, always, always one.
You're like, I wish I was a funny one.
Never forget the first time I ever.
Got like my dream.
This will segue nicely into what I would really love to hear about from you. All I ever wanted when I was starting out and I moved out to Los Angeles and started acting was to be on a half hour comedy. That's all I wanted. And I wanted like the real like situation, like not like that you hear the laugh track, but you actually hear.
Yeah.
I wanted that, Like I just wanted to be Jennifer Aniston.
That's what I wanted. I wanted to be the next Jennifer Instant. And so I tried and tried and tried, and I did pilot after pilot that didn't get picked up, and then I ended up landing myself on a drama, and then it was like that drama then maybe one little comedy in between, had been back to another.
Drama drama, I mean the only one.
I mean, right exactly, but I remember again, all I wanted was to be like at the epicenter of some incredibly funny, witty, awesome half hour. And so finally I find myself. I'd been doing that play in New York, and I had gone up to thirty Rock to audition for a new NBC half hour, and and I get picked to network test. I finish my play, I fly out to la The next day, I go to network test. The next day, I get the part. It's for Lauren Michaels. It's written by Paula Pell. Hold On, you guys probably
auditioned for the same stuff. Yeah, maybe, Well, the funny part of that one actually was that was that Kate Walsh was in the waiting room when I auditioned for that.
Who That's funny it was on graz not me.
So anyways, I get the part, and there I am, and I'm number one on the call sheet and all my dreams.
Are coming true. I didn't get any of the funny lines.
Not one. Well, that's the thing is, if you're the star, everyone's funny round you. If you want to be the funny friend, you want to be second, third, or fourth on the call sheet.
Everyone else was funny.
You're the straight that sucks.
I was there to deliver the chicken platter.
Yeah, no, you're the exposition person.
Yeah.
I told the story, and then everyone divorced a couple of years ago, like, you're that person.
Yeah, exactly, Lee, I t up the joke. But Martin Bull played my dad, and Sharon Glass played my mom. Chris Parnell was in it, and then my sister had all the laughs. And then we had this tiny little like Chris Parnell said, a friend of mine, you know, she's from I can't remember if it was Groundlings or Second City, but a friend of mine. She's just out here in LA and she's really trying really hard, and like, do you think we could give her a little part?
And everybody was like, yeah, of course, of course, of course. So she played like a model booker, and she literally her line was like next or something like that, and it was Kristen Wig who wow yeah, And then she went that that it must have been like the season for her to then go to New York where she then started and she got a regular.
She became a series regular and she started and I.
Remember watching that season and being like I think.
That girls, yeah, yeah, yeah wild.
Meanwhile, we got canceled after six of the twelve episodes.
We were supposed to make Good times.
Well, you'd have no secrets to keep on fast friends, but but tell us what you'd tell us what it is, tell us what you're doing, what's happening.
Well, look, I mean, you know, once you I don't have to tell you have kids, You're kind of like, I guess I need to make something my son can watch a bit. Yes, I feel that strongly, like I gotta get all this stuff offline, Like I've worked so hard to do like six stand up specials and about to do my seventh, and you're like, oh god, I really want people to watch this until my son's able to watch it. And uh, And you know, I was just really in a place where like I had you know,
got sober. Both my parents had passed away kind of just like awfully and uh. And then I was pregnant and just finally got some time to think, honestly, like I've really struggled with workoholism and you know, the busy addiction of just like you know, keeping busy at all costs and not have to be alone with my own thoughts or in a while unrecovered codependence of like okay, let me just like fix everyone around me and like
be everyone, you know, mother, micromanage martyr, myself everywhere. And and then I had some time alone with myself and I was like, you know, I really and I was, you know, working on shows and which I'm still there's a couple of TV things I'm gonna do next year. But at the time TV, I was like, I feel like comedy stop being funny. That doesn't mean they're not good, like the Barren Baby Reindeer are amazing, but like I'm not like laughing out laugh, you know. And then entertainment
kind of stopped being entertaining. It started being freachy and lectury and not all of it obviously, but there was like agendas behind everything, and you know, which is again fine, you know, but I was like, can we just like make people laugh? Like, why are we lecturing people how to vote? Like, I don't, why are we? Why did I leave this movie? And now I feel bad about climate change? Like I feel like just like there's not that much entertainment where there's just like we're gonna make
you laugh, that's all we're gonna do. We're not going to tell you how to vote. We're not going to lecture you on anything. And you know, I really want to be a part of something that brought people together instead of divided them. Where you know, I think most things like they want you know, you to you watch a show and then you end it with like that's not what I thought. Oh that's what you sa Oh you think? You know? There was just so much everything
vis of of course, it's like simplify it. The election happened, of course. I just wanted to make something that like three generations of people could sit down and all watch together and not be a like drama. And so to me, I was like, Okay, I feel like nobody agrees on anything anymore. I think the one thing we can all agree on is that like Friends was a good show.
So they just came to me kind of randomly and you know, and asked me, and instead of overthinking it, I don't have to tell you, Jessica, Like there is a time where like if you wanted to act, you could not host. If you hosted, it was over, you know, and you couldn't do anything fun. Like they came to me for like Dancing with the Stars. I was like, that sounds so fun and they're like no, no, no, you can't do that, or like it's over and you're like okay. So there were all these rules before and
then now it's like we're all just Nick Cannon. We can all just do anything. You know, was something banks hosting, like match game or something else.
Let's go, Like I agree, and I'm glad by the way, because I feel like we are multi hyphen it and we can do all the things, So let us fucking do it.
Yeah, let us do it without it being a block to something else.
It didn't occur to me also that things could be fun and good. I always thought these hard and ping and painful in order for them to be good. And I had this sort of like come to you know, Jesus moment where I was like wait a second, Like, especially with getting some mental health help, I always felt like, oh, I won't be as funny, you know, interesting, I'm not broken. I won't be as funny if I'm happy and in love and in a good relationship, you know. And so I also was like, oh, this won't be.
Because it's the material.
I mean, it's the fuel, right on some level, because it's this, it's it's what you have, which is this incredible mind and this incredible acuity and feel for humor and what is funny. And then you're going out into the world and you're bumping up against all these things where you're seeing like that, oh, that piece and that piece and that piece, and then you're putting them all together. Because I mean, listen, I'm not just saying this because I don't just say stuff.
Stand up is looking hard. Oh like it's the craziest ever. And as far as I'm concerned.
If you can do that, yeah, you can do everything anything. You should get a cape and you could fly around as wherever.
I really appreciate that, but I'm also I just I can't totally receive that because if you come from a certain thing, it's harder to not stand up's not that hard. It's like when you like grew up needing to like make alcoholics laugh. It's just second nature. I'm not saying it's like it's hard for people that don't have that kind of trauma. If you do, you're like, it's it's so much harder to not be on stage. Right in I Love Do I Matter? You're literally like, do I
I matter? Am I complete piece of garbage?
You know?
And then you go on stage You're like, okay, and like until tremen just counting the hours to the next time you do it. But the help get, the harder it becomes.
I'll say that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard. I've heard. I've heard quite a few people say that, you know, and.
I think that it's it's I think there's also a I also thought, oh, it'll get easier the more I do it. It definitely does in some ways in terms of like I'm better writing jokes clearer, but it doesn't, you know, I don't have to sell both of you. Like, the more successful you get sort of the higher the bar gets in.
A weird way, and it's more scrutiny and all of it.
Yes, and the kind of pressure to be like clever and original and different kind of changes and and look, I'm not I've never played like the girl card of like you know, stand ups harder because you're a girl. And dah da da, Like it's you know, it's weird that it's a male dominated business. I've always found this weird because like it is a female skill, Like you're you're like going on stage like talking about your feelings and you're like complaining about your our thing. That's that's
an our thing. You want moms on set. They know how to diffuse conflict, They move fast, they know how to manage their time, Like when there's a drama, moms are just like do you need a water?
That's the thing is that I think that like I don't know.
I mean, I feel like entertainment is a is the most interesting to talk about being like that, yea. And yet I have aunts that are lawyers and judges. I have friends that are in business and I mean, yeah, same different shovel.
Yeah, but I don't I don't know another I mean doctors for sure. But sometimes I'm like, wait, so we this is a thing. If you're an actress, I don't have to tell you this or you're the crew, like you do have to get there at six am. You're in makeup for two women have to be there longer because to be on camera calk and grout and special effects, it's attractive. And then you're there six in the morning sometimes till like eleven at night. I mean it is
a wild amount of time. So my thing is always just like, let's like does anyone need this much a craft service? Like can we just add a couple of days to the schedule? Can we add a week to the schedule? Like what is this like time crunch? Let's just like spend the money a little differently so that we can have childcare at work and people can go home.
That would be a dream.
People die driving home to Santa Clarita, like, because that's the other thing is actor when we wrap, everyone else is still has to drive home, and they don't live in Beverly. They have to drive an hour, they have to drive two hours, you know. So that's what a lot of these strikes are have been about, which is like you can't you don't count my out time as
when I left. It should be when I get home, so I can actually get that eight hours of sleep turn around, you know, so I just think that, like it's like when people like, how come women don't play football because it's dumb? And we know it's dumb.
I mean, I'm a little bit more straight about this stuff because I'm a little bit like I preach, like there is no balance.
Yeah, in any of them. Totally.
On any given day, I'm gonna have been a better mom than I was a worker in whatever I'm working on. And another days I work and I come home to kids who forgot the eight consecutive days in which I was there for every single second and we're.
Like you were, God, all, yeah, of course this is it.
I'm like, right, I was.
And you know what.
I also never say I never apologize for going to work. I hate it, but I very strong.
Actually you taught me that, and I ever do don't ever apologize.
I do not say I'm so sorry that I have to go to work and I'm so sorry I have to leave you to go to work. I well, I'm lucky because I love my job. Not every single day, but I for the most part love my job, and I'm so grateful that I do. And then I'm able to find my place in it that looking at my kid and being like, I'm so sorry would send exactly the wrong message, because of course I'm always sorry to leave them.
I love being with them.
I want to smash the litle faces all day long. But I gotta go to work, and I go to work for lots of reasons. It's not a volunteer job. I'm compensated for my job. I create value at my job. I bring home the value.
We can't apologize girls if we haven't done anything wrong, because the epidemic of women apologizing sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm like, what is like, it's I workshop. I had to do a thirty days no apologizing unless you did something wrong, because I was like pathological sorry sorry. I would run into someone and be like or they'd run into me and I'm so sorry I was in your way, Like I just you know, it's something that I think that we like do to make ourselves feel small or
whatever it is. But that's cool, that's real, that's that's gnarly. But four and six, that's kind of that's young. Young.
She's four and seven.
In the trenches, baby, I'm in the trees in the trench. It's okay, though I can't.
Wait to watch your show. I know because I'm a big Friends fan.
So let's tell the listen.
I want you to tell a listener.
The Friends, it's like it's like amazing race. But on the set of Friends, like Friends Trivia, like everyone that I've shown it to because I've watched like cuts, because of doing like voiceover whatever, they're like involved and engaged, and you know, it's like it's just pure fun, pure bliss, no politics, no nothing triggering, nothing, you.
Know, just where can they watch it?
On? Max?
Max?
And when does it air? What's the first air date?
It of December?
All right, Winnie, thank you so much, Thanks o, my god so much for coming on and talking about all the things with us.
Come on again the time.
I would love to of course, of course, thank you so much.
Nice to meet you, Samela, get to see you again.
I was like, oh good, I really am a huge Friends man, and I will be trying to win.
This from my couch.
Yeah, I know, I didn't.
Well, there's a winning there's a winning component.
It's so interesting.
I love I do love it when new mamas, you know, you hear them talk because she's a year into this whole parenting situation and they come out and they're already pretty confident, I know, do you know what I mean? Like, I love it when I'm like because I remember just being so clueless. Still I want to say, like I was not feeling it great until almost three, and then I was like, Okay, I think I'm in some sort of rhythm.
I don't even know if it's a right rhythm.
But she's so fun Yeah, she's so funny and such a quick mind. And I love this just all the self awareness.
I know.
I feel like I came out parenting like with really strong and very sort of like binary ideas about how things had to be, kind of like when I came out with the voice that you do for me. When I found out about the picture, it sound like the cookie monster.
You can't do ye can do this.
Yeah, I feel like I when I first started this whole, this whole, this whole Shenanigan called parenting, I was a little more like this is the right way, this is the wrong way. And I definitely feel like I've learned that there is a spectrum, and I I love I don't know, maybe a couple of years ago I heard this be said by a dear friend, but it's the idea that you have strong convictions.
Yeah, held, I like all loose real list, just like all three fingers. That's how loose you're holding fall right through. If they're not serving you, they're going to fall right up. So you can catch her show on Thursdays on Max.
Best Friends and so let's call it the end of the episode.