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Hello friends, Happy New Year, and we're so excited to welcome a member of our family to the show this week. She's been with us so much this year. She's such an amazing friend and supporter, but we weren't able to talk to her during the SAG strike about her character at all. So now we finally get to ask her all of the questions. Friends, Tory DeVito's here today. Guys, you are great. How are you.
I'm good.
We're so happy to have you on because we couldn't talk about Nanny Carey during the strike, and so you know, we were able to get to get you so that the fans could enjoy the pleasure of your company, but we weren't allowed to talk about the one thing that everybody's dying to know about. I'm so sorry that we're able to talk now.
I know.
It's so funny. It doesn't matter what I'm doing, Like everybody always wants to talk about her, you know, I like a convention for another show, it's like about her.
He had so much success on other shows too, I mean Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries, Army Wives, and then obviously recently Chicago Med. It's like, you work all the time, and it's so funny that Nanny Carey is the thing that.
Yes, that is the thing. That's the thing. It actually just happened like well yesterday again, but in front of my dad, and he was like, oh did they say one? I was like, Dad all the time. He was like really still and I was like all the time, Yeah, what people want to talk about.
I wonder if it's because people rewatch our show so much, or or do you think it's because she is in that sort of canon of these iconic characters. Like we were talking watching the episode out in the Cornfield with y'all last you know, in our in our last rewatch recording that it's so like, it's so Kathy Bates, it's so they gave you all of this stuff to do.
That really does feel reminiscent of these iconic sort of horror movies and psychological thrillers, and like, I don't know, I almost am realizing as I'm asking you the question, it would probably be great for us at our next convention to ask the fans, like, what is it that makes it so stand out totally?
Did you know that? That's what? So like, because I thought I was done after the first like season five, you know, I thought I had done what I did, and he called me it was like, how would you feel about.
Coming back and doing a misery yes storyline?
And I was like, yeah, obviously that sounds amazing. So yeah, that was so that was so fun.
Did you know when you came into audition for Carrie the Nanny that it was going to be this psychotic or was it just like just a guess?
But it was just like a little recurring and it was and it literally said on the thing, I think like girl next Door, New Nanny and that was it, Like it said nothing else, and I don't even think and I think they didn't even know that it would go all the way there. So it was such a surprise and I was so grateful because at that point, you know, in life and in my career.
I was I think I was like twenty four when I got that, and.
It was like I've always you know, you played the girlfriend or like the wife or like you know what I mean. And I was like, Oh, these rules are so boring, and you always felt like you got to do the fun stuff like in class, not really on set, and so when I got to come back and do that, I was like, oh, and I remember I took it so seriously, like when I had to like use the syringe and stuff, like I was in my hotel room like practicing all the syringe moves and like all these things.
Like I was like, and it's so funny watching the episode back. I watched it this morning, actually the last episode, because I actually made that mistake I did. I did a pretty little liar's podcast and I didn't know I was supposed to watch the episode and I'd never watched any of the episodes. No, And you know when you kind of panic and you realize you should just tell them, like you guys, I messed up. I should have watched it.
I didn't. I didn't do my homework. But then you panic and you just decide I'm going to fake it till I make it, and then at the end of it you go there, No, I sounded like an idiot the whole time. I lied about everything, like I didn't know what I was talking like everything I'd be like and then they did a trivia game with me about No.
No, I didn't.
Even know what they were talking out.
And I'm like, still to this day, I'm like, why didn't I just tell them?
Why didn't I just honestly know what.
I don't know what you guys are talking about.
This is my fault. But anyway, so I watched the episode this morning, and there were so many moments though, because I was like, looking at like, you know, we look all like we're babies. It's so babies, semies, and I was like, and so many things I did I know. I was like taking it so seriously, but watching it now, I was like, oh god, oh.
No, really no, it was great.
What yes, but you know, you know, and like, you know the state of mind you were in and you were like, yes, I'm going to go in there do this, and then they're watching back and you're like, oh my god.
What always makes me laugh about that is sometimes when you get so obsessed with the preparation and making sure you're really in the headspace. Like half the shit you spend months doing or are hours doing, depending on how much time you have to prep never even winds up in the edit and you're like.
Oh, man, yeah, you get new sides that morning.
Yeah, and you're like, oh, I don't believe anymore.
You're like, I'm got to pay for all those lessons.
But Tori, no, I have to tell you. When we were watching it, we were talking about what an unbelievable job you did, and the and the commitment required and and how unhinged Carrie got. Thank god, we finally figured out why they gave you the motivation. We learned about you know, her son and all these things. But I have to tell you because look, I think we're all the same. We watch things back that we've done and we go like, oh my god, what was I doing? So like I A, I feel you deeply, but be
I feel like I just have to repeat. When we were talking about the episode, I said to Joy, I was like, there's this thing that you do. You have this laugh that is so uncomfortable when you sort of like come to and you're having that final exchange with Paul, and I didn't remember it at the time because obviously, when you know, we were making our show, we barely got to watch it Allah You on Pretty Little Liars, But I was like, oh my god, that that sound
and that choice and that specificity. It gave me chills and like my brain immediately went to Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, like doing that sound, and I was like, oh my god, Tori has a Silence of the Lambs moment on our show, like it really, like it feels so iconic and cool, like you were so so fun to watch.
Thank You. It was so fun to do. I mean the whole from start to finish. It was just like it's still like one of my favorite things, especially like just getting to do because you don't get to do that. And I love that they actually showed the reason why, because she had a son who died, like you, we needed that TV like that. They don't really there's so many holes and so I was so happy that they did that. But rewatching the death thing. I actually forgot that she died three times me too.
She just could not be killed.
She could not I forgot she had that end moment with Dan and I was like, oh my god. But it was so funny because I remembered I was like cleaning my house after the episode had already aired, and I had the TV on in the background, and I remember, you remember the soup with Joel McHale. Yeah, yeah, I remember hearing in the background, you know, on One Tree Hill there's a new nanny in town and she just
won't die. And they literally took all three in my bed edited them together, and he was like, you know, and it's you're so flattered to even be in a position to be made fun of in that way. Be like, oh, oh my god, oh my god.
They loved to make fun of our show.
On that show they did. I remember that. Do you remember that day?
Yeah?
How could you not? It's so ridiculous. So that day in the cornfields was please recount your experience of that, because I have my own version of it, but we talked about it already. Everybody's already heard it. Tell me.
It was insane. It was so it was so hot, from what.
I remember, so hot.
And we were just running around these cornfields chasing.
It.
Just the whole thing seemed so wild. It was just like me holding the syringe. I remember just and like chasing poor Jamie too, like, oh.
My gosh, poor kid, poor kid.
Like how are you not traumatized from this? But I remember it was my first time wearing squibs too, which was really Yeah. I was really like, I get like a little funny about things. So I was like, what if they put it on backwards and it's going to explode and I'm gonna really die. But I did it. I'm still here.
Give everybody a SoundBite. Remind everybody what squibs are for people who don't know.
So, squib is what they put on you, so when somebody shoots you, it pops at the same time, so it looks like you're actually getting shot.
Yeah, and it pops like out from your little sticker full of blood basically that they they put on your skin and then it pops in the same Yeah, you have a tube that runs down your back or something. Somebody squeezes it and it pops at the same time unless you are in control of the tube. Who was doing it with somebody else?
Or were you somebody else? Okay, yeah, I don't think I could have done that. At the same time. I was like, but it was so much fun, Like I just remember we were just running around all day in this point.
Oh you've had fun. Man, it was so hot and buggy, remember all the bugs and oh yeah, every time you ran past all that corn it was the ros are really tight. It did actually start to feel kind of claustrophobic at some point because you can't get up high enough to see over and realize where you are. And at some point I do remember kind of doing a three sixty turnaround and being like, I'm very uncomfortable with the fact that I do not know how to get out of this amaze. I really don't like this.
Did you guys ever get lost in there that day or no?
No, because I had the dollies and they had like you just follow a cable at the end of the day, I guess.
In my head, I'm like, they couldn't have tied something to you so you could follow the rope back like a diver, because you'd see it so funny.
Communication was tough, like how I don't remember how Asher was. Was he on like a bullhorn or was he at the camera that I.
Don't remember, Like I don't remember him in there with us.
I feel like he had a bullhorn.
Yeah, probably, but yeah, it was so buggy.
It was so buggy. And again I remember getting the blood on me too, because it's so sticky and like got top of already being sweaty and sticky and funny like that corn styrup. Fake blood didn't do any favors either.
And of course our base can where your shower would be, is probably like a twenty minute ride away, so you're walking to the van covered in molasses.
Yeah.
I don't think people realize how sticky that thing what is.
It's so worse. It's the worst, especially when it gets in your hair and then you go like this and your hair just sticks and pulls and you hear it rip and you're like, oh.
No, Tori, do die a lot in your shows? No, that was the only minute died in Okay, Yeah, all right, Well it's never mind.
You think that. I think that people assume that because these are like it takes so long to film something, and we film it for so long that we just like have this amazing recollection of the things we've done, and it's incredible to me how I'll even watch a scene and be like, what's that I did that?
You know what I mean?
Like or photo shoots or something, and you're like, that's me. When did I do that?
It's like so weird how it like starts to slip your mind.
What is your interaction with fans, like when they do come up to you, because you know, Paul has told us that they are still actually mad at him, Like people will come up really genuinely upset with him. What's your interaction like?
So when the show was first airing, it was not great because people were so because they loved.
You and James together so much.
Oh my god. I remember like this one time I was in a gym and I was I took my shirt off, I was changing and I was in my sports bra and this girl.
Came running up to me tears tears.
And she was like you're ruining and a great thing and she just and everybody in the locker room stared at me, and I was like what. And people would come up to me on the street like that all the time, like like and then I was getting my emails were getting hacked into, my parents' emails into and people were like not happy. It's like this weird. They
cannot differentiate between real life and not real life. But I think as I've as it's gotten for some reason, it's not really the same reaction anymore, which thank god, And I don't really know why, because, like you said, Sophia, like I think that so many people are watching it, you know, over and over again, Like the younger generation is like it's like a new thing for them. But I'm not getting as harsh of a reaction. It's more
just like you're crazy. But even with friends, like I remember when it was airing, like if I started dating someone and they wanted to introduce me to our friend, if anybody in their friend group had watched it, they were like, we really didn't know. We thought you would be like we were really afraid to meet you, Like we didn't know what you'd be like. And I was like, what it is everybody?
Wow.
I also wonder if there's something too, you know, people are obviously able to watch it and binge it and get to the culmination of the story quicker, and you know, we do win, Nathan and Haley do stay together. But I also wonder if there's something to the fact that now there is social media whereas there wasn't before, and like people know us and they also know we're all friends, you know, Like that's so it isn't like, you know,
Nanny Carey versus Haley. It's like, oh, Tory and Joy and Sofa and Hilary are all friends.
Like yeah, exactly, so easy to look you up and go see yeah, yeah.
You know, and like people come to conventions with us and they get to hang out with us, and they get to we all get to do this with our audience, and like, you know, even you and I getting to go and work together for an overlap of years in Chicago, like we you know, we have we have a bigger life than just these characters who when that show was on there was no Instagram, there was no way to know. You just sort of experienced characters and then that was it.
It is so true. I never thought of that. And also I think getting to like binge it like that you don't sit with it for a.
Yeah, it's so hard to get into it. Yeah, I really connect. I mean I was. I started watching Game of Thrones again with somebody who's had never seen it, and it's like, okay, so we watched two episodes or like maybe maybe three a week, and it just does it's not the same thing. You're not sitting with it, you're not living with it. You're not waiting in anticipation for a week to find out what the hell is going to happen. Yeah, you just answer your instant gratification
needs immediately. And it's bad for all of us. Yeah, bad for everyone, everyone except you because now the fans are nice too, because thank you, there's not.
Real for all the villains out there, we've really thrived in this environment.
Yeah, was it hard at all, like being in the midst of that, because as an actor, you know, you were saying earlier, it's amazing to get a challenge like this and a storyline like this, and what an episode this is. You know, this arc is so cool when you get Dan out there and god, even that scene, like when it first happens and he opens the door to the hospital and we realized we're in the farmhouse. It's so eerie and you got to you know, it's
like having such a big meal. But was it also a little strange knowing that this was going to be the death episode? Was it bitter sweet? Or was it just like you wanted to lean all the way into it and go like level ten?
It was kind of both. I mean, it was definitely bitter sweet because I had so I enjoyed doing this portion of it so much, Like I really felt like I was just able to do so many things, so I didn't want that to end. Like that was really, you know, sad to me, but I also loved that it wasn't just like, you know, a shot and she's dead. I was like, you know what I mean, there was
so much more. And then once you really think she said, I know, they caught away to like some I think it was a Mikayla and Chad scene that was like really like you know what I mean, like yap, so you definitely think, okay, that's done and then it goes back and I loved. Yeah, I was really I was definitely sad that it was over. I was like so sad to say about her, but at the same time, like I was like, this is cool.
This is like a really cool way to go out.
And did you have to did you do research on movies like this, like Misery, the Kathy Bates film and other things? Was there stuff you wanted to put in to the character. Because that final moment with you and Dan is so crazy and the laughing and that you can't kill me like it really is. It's pete horror film. Yeah, did you like watch a bunch of horror films or did you not want to think about what other people were doing?
So I did watch Misery because I actually hadn't seen it, and so when he said we want to do a Misery storyline, I was like, Okay, well I'm going to check this out. And that got me so excited. But then otherwise, like I feel like, especially like when I was younger, I thrived Like I loved doing horror movies. I loved doing that sort of thing. So I just
felt like I thrived in that environment. I was like, oh yeah, So my research more was like the sympathy part for her, like building the sun, like building why she is the way she is, so that then like I could let it all go and be crazy, but it was like grounded in why she was doing it versus like I'm just gonna go wild, do you know what I mean?
Ye give you that information ahead of time before you started with all the kidnapping stuff even a while ago, or were you just did you have to make something up for yourself?
You know what? I actually don't remember. I really don't remember, but you know, and it sounds so pretentious, but like as actors they always say, like when somebody just asked me the other day, like how when you were playing such a horrible character, It's like, even if you can't find reasons to like that, and you have to find reasons why they're doing it and like sympathize with that, right, Yeah, So yeah, I don't know if it was them that told me early on or if I build something, but yeah,
like finding that grounding of like why she's doing this was like the biggest part of the research for me. And then also like all, like I said, all the little prop things, which was so silly, but I was like, for some reason, I was so nervous to use all of them. I was like, oh, can I go home with this? Can I go with that?
Even like I think I had to hold the revolver.
I didn't even have to shoot it, and I went to a shooting range in Wilmington because I was so I was like, she's gonna look silly.
I gotta hold it, right, Like I.
Was so obsessed with everything, And it's funny because I kind of miss that a little bit. I feel like as I've gotten older, like obviously like research and all that stuff, but that feeling of like that anxiety where you can't sleep, you can't eat, You're just like this has to be perfect, Like I don't I don't know that I've had that and in a little bit, you know what I mean. It's like when you're young and you're like, I worked for free. It's so important. This
is so important. Put me out in the cold at three in the morning, I don't care where tak top Like yeah, and now I'm like, where's.
Yeah, is there a Wormington?
What time will we be finished?
That's right? Well, speaking of Wilmington, tell us about your experience in Wilming team because you came in in uh was it the summer. I'm trying to remember the time in the season that you came in and like, yeah, what was going on in your life when you got this job? Just give us away of the land.
So I definitely remember being hot the whole time I was there. I loved Wilmington. I mean it is so charming. It was the first time I had ever had kill One's.
Ice cream and I remember just like the hotel I was saying out was so close to it, and I was like, this is amazing. Like I was like on the water every night, having ice cream every night. And it was interesting because I moved. I moved to LA when I was eighteen, and so being in Wilmington when I was like twenty four was the first time I was back for a long period of time. I had spent my formative years in high school. I mean in high school. I spent my formative years in high school.
I spent my formative years in Florida, and so Florida's weather is very similar to Wilmington. Yes, and my parents split when I was nineteen and it was really really difficult for me and my whole family dynamic changed.
And I remember I was in a rental car in Wilmington and it has that those huge rain drops, like that downpour that LA does not get.
You only get that like in the South.
Yeah, And I had an experience that since high school. And I remember I pulled over and just started sobbing because it felt like home but like letting go and.
All these things. And I had that moving in Wilmington. So whenever I think of Wilmington now still, I just I always think of that moment, like it did so much to heal a lot that I was going through, which was really beautiful. And then I also like I loved being there. I didn't want to leave. I found this amazing Kwanti teacher that I would go see for
like private. She was so incredible. Like I just started being a vegetarian and I was like eating just potatoes every day because back then, like in this it was very difficult.
Matt Damon was farming potatoes on Mars and you were like, that is a good idea.
That idea, so it was really special. It was really And then I also feel really lucky because I know, me and Mikayla McManus came on the show at the same.
Time, and I just like fell in love with her. She's so incredible and I loved that we.
Were both like newbies at the same time, so I feel like we got to like kind of lean on each other in that way. And I was like, oh, what a better person to kind of have that experience with because she was so lovely and wonderful.
Yeah. Yeah, I remember having you guys over to my apartment.
Yeah, pasta, you made us dinner.
I made dinner, that's right, you guys were Yeah, the New Girls. That was fun. That was a really fun night. It was nice to connect with you both. I remember just how smart you both were, but I loved I felt like we had a really good table conversation and it was so nice to just, I don't know, be in a space. I love that age when and you really have nothing but time and you're just happy to sit and get to know anybody and spend the time,
and you can like I long for those days. I long for being able to cut enough out of my schedule so that I can just have anybody over for dinner, just sit and get to know you. I'm like, our curiosity starts to get overshadowed by all the things that we have to just accomplish, and we don't have as much time to sit in that curiosity and miss those days.
It's interesting you talk about it that way. I feel the same, Like it feels like we have so much to manage and do, and days can go by where you're just sort of taking off the to do list. And when I think about that time and you guys both coming out, and what a just lovely injection of spirit you both were to all of us because we've been there for so long. I remember, like I just I just think about the nights of you know, going to circa or going to the brasserie and like getting
a mac and cheese. I'm and in this moment, I'm like, isn't that so crazy? Because we were working, you know, sixteen hours a day and still being like I want to go to dinner. Yeah, yeah, And it does sort of feel like now we're in this time. Maybe it's because we have smartphones and we're supposed to be on an email like every second of the day, but we're we're just like slammed with work. And I miss that too.
I missed like the smell of Wilmington and all of us wrapping and walking out to base camp and being like.
Should we go?
Are we gonna go to the beach or are we gonna go downtown? Like where are we gonna get a table? And gap? That was so nice?
Is that youth or is that the product of the age that we're in, Like do you think the older generation twenty years ago did have time to slow down or worth? Is it always you just the older you get, the busier you get, and you just start steamrolling snowball into occupied.
I feel it's a combo.
I do too.
I feel like it's a combo. I do think that as you get older, like things like like, but I also think like this age with cell phones and like like you just said, there's no cut off for your emails, there's no cut off for phone calls, especially now. I mean, Joy, you're on the East coast right, It's like, so we're three hours ahead of la or and uh and so you know, if somebody's calling me at six pm there, it's nine pm here, Like when do I when do you at all? You know, and it's like when do
we draw that line? And I find that to be so hard with cell phones.
Yeah, well for me too, it's the blessing and the curse of being connected. You know, we're more connected than we've ever been, but we're also more stressed out than we've ever been. And you know, I think it's also it's so incredible that so many people can have creative careers now, and it means that everyone needs a job
and a side hustle. You know, we all have day jobs and then we do this job and then we do other jobs and we do It's like there's so much available, but it also means that every moment of your time is taken. Yeah, and you know are we are we more connected than we ever have been.
Like I know the ease of functional like I guess literal communication is easier.
And that's what I mean A little bit is like what Tory was saying about if somebody from your office on the West Coast calls you at six, but it's nine and you're at dinner with your parents but you're trying to close I don't know a deal for a film, like do you pick up the phone or not? How do you set boundaries? We are expected to be connected
all the time. We do have more access to information, but it also does create a sort of vacuum of I think intimacy because in a way, you know, like today, for whatever reason, I slept with my sliding door open and the birds woke me up up at five, which was so lovely. But yeah, like I was up at five am and I was like, well, what am I going to do with myself? It's five o'clock in the morning,
so it's pittering around the house and make coffee. And then I started checking on everyone on Instagram because I was like, what's everybody doing, and I knew we were going to talk today, and I was like, is there anything that's happened in Tory's life in the last couple of weeks that I don't know about? So I'm scrolling and then I was like, Oh, I just love that pumpkin photo. And I'm like looking at this picture of you with a pumpkin, and I'm and I'm like, she's just so happy.
But she has no idea that you're well exactly in the So it's this.
Really interesting thing right where we can kind of say, oh, I miss this person, Oh I want to check on someone, but are we really connecting? So again, I think it's I think what happens is as these things expand, as these avenues of connection and opportunity grow, in a way, as they get wider, they get a little shallower because you really can only hold so much. So you can hold columns that are narrow and deep, or you can
hold nine columns that are shallower and wider across. And I don't know necessarily what's better, but I do think it is the journey of our generation, certainly to try to figure out how to bridge this divide.
Yeah, because we're the only ones that remember what it was like before and really fully embraced the current, even like, Yeah, I was singing the other day about the fact that, in you know, nineteen ninety five, we were all listening to exactly the same songs in the radio and watching exactly the same shows on TV because that's all anybody had access to. Like every single person in the United States was listening to Mariah Carey sing Hero on the
radio do you know what I mean? Or Nirvana, I don't know when I should have a song list up in front of me right.
Now, Nirvana, Tupac, Maria, all these these like change makers of culture, and we all knew them.
We all were doing it at the exact same time, like every yeah, like every kid was sinking Gangs's Paradise with every Middle America because dangerous Minds came out and we all were watching everything the same. And so even though we weren't maybe connected talking about it all like we knew that that's we were sharing this cultural sameness. And now it's all so so so different for better
in a lot of ways. It's so nice to have the variety and to be able to have access to things that you wouldn't normally see in your current bubble. But it is kind of weird to be like, oh, there's just so many options now that we're not I think, actually that's one of the things to type back to our show, because our show was one of the last of that breed where everybody everybody was watching it. Yeah, it was right before all that all the options came out.
I mean it's wild to watch, you know, even to be watching these episodes and all of our characters are on flip phones. Like you couldn't text Novella's back and forth between your friends. You had to get on the phone because to type the word the took nineteen key
tags like on TEENNI. It was just different. And now you know people like I have a friend who edited a book they wrote on an iPhone, just like, oh yeah, every time I was on a flight, I was editing my chapters and you know is miming this the thumb taps and I'm going, whoa we are from our grandparents or our parents rather to our children. Like the shift is so big, It's just so big.
Yeah.
We saw around the world in the sort of last big political cycle what fake news did, but how it looks like real news on all these social websites, on Facebook, on X on everything, and you think about media literacy and how we're starting to talk about we've got to teach it to kids, not just college students in journalism class, for example. But it's like, we can't forget that in when was the first silent picture? I can't remember if it was like nineteen twelve or nineteen twenty, but.
It was in that era twenty is I think?
Okay, So let's say nineteen twenty, nineteen twenty one. People go to the first Silent movie. There was a shot of a train coming toward camera, and you know, we do stuff like that all the time. We put the camera on the road and the car barrels toward us and we watch and we're like, oh, why speed chase. But at the first Silent movie, when the train was barreling toward the audience on screen, everyone got up and ran out of the theater screaming.
They freaked out because people.
Didn't know that something they were seeing in front of them was not going to leave the screen, because they'd never seen something that wasn't three D before.
I think this is an eighteen ninety five, okay, short film that you're talking about. Okay, obviously would have been silent at that, yes, but still wow.
So let's call it just barely over one hundred years. We ran out of theaters because we thought trains on film, we're real, and now we're supposed to like know how to do this.
Just over one hundred years. And then think about, just on a very personal level, how long it takes for personal change. We think about the people that we know who are fifty sixty seventy, and people can change, I believe, throughout their course of their life, and they grow and they evolve, but it doesn't happen overnight. So now you are going to apply that to an entire culture and say everything's supposed to be different, boom within one hundred years. It's not that much time.
Sometimes you can be sixty five and still working on something that your parents did in your childhood.
Two hundred thousand percent.
Let alone this big massive shift, it's really hardy. It honestly makes me more and more reclusive for lack of a better word, because I still like connect with my family and friends and you.
Know, go and play on my tennis teams here and there, But like.
It's cut me like off like I've been and like I get very I just don't want anything to do with it. It freaks me out, and so I have these like little tactics I'll do, like I don't I try not to charge my phone. I'll charge my phone in my car, but I won't charge it at night, so hoping that it dies throughout the day and then I don't have access to the charger now, like kind of like let it die.
What a funny subconscious game to play with yourself.
My fiance will like call me, so my my mom and my sisters, they don't even call me anymore.
They just call my fance Jared because they're like.
Why did you call me there?
Because you never answer your photo, Like I can't. I just there's got to be aligned sometimes, you know what I mean.
But then on the flip side, sometimes I've realized that lately it's been making it so I'm kind of like lacking in what's going on, and I like to know what's going on. So it's like, how do you find that balance? How do you connect with your friends while also not being so like allowing that you know, well, you didn't get back to me for a couple of days and.
It's like, oh, that's okay, that's okay, you know what I mean.
It's like we need that.
Balance different priorities. Yes, yeah, but everybody's living with different realities in their life, different priorities that they have to set into place because everybody can't do everything, and all the more reason why empathy is really important to be able to, you know, recognize that everyone's growing at different paces. Everybody has to prioritize different things. It's not going to be a perfect process, you know.
But when you're just viewing things off on the internet, like how you know, is that building empathy or is that taking it away?
Like we're talking, Yeah, it's taken it away. But can you have empathy for the person who's doing that understanding that where they came from and the pace that they're growing at is different than yours. And how do we walk that fine line? Because it's really nuanced. It's not an easy black and white like you get on this checklist, you get on that checklist.
It's tough. Yeah. I actually remember this happening with the start of reality TV because I remember it was so new, I mean, beyond the real world, like that was something we had all watched. But when they started doing these and you saw everybody fighting and going at each other and getting like smashed on TV in a way that you're like, ooh, that person clearly is hurting to be
doing this to their body repetitively. I remember my little sister and I got into an argument because she wanted to watch something while we were eating and I was like, it was over the holidays, we were home for Christmas, and I was like, turn it off. It makes me uncomfortable. And she's like, oh my god, get over it, and I was like, no, I think that it's putting this weird energy in the house and then it does something
to our psyche, like I want nothing to do with it. Yeah, now cut to like what fifteen years later or something.
I watched The Housewives all the time.
I have Reality on my care and there, you know, shifted your window. It shifted my window. So it's like my threshold went up for this. But it's definitely I can say for me, I don't even think it's not a good thing. I don't it's I know it's not a good thing, do you know what I mean?
Like I don't like that, Okay, can I give you guys a wreck. It's we're taking a left, but it is related. Stay with me here. I can't handle that stuff, like so many and to each his own. Like, I know a lot of people love reality TV. I can't do it. It stresses me out. It's bad for me emotionally.
Yeah.
Also to be clear, like one of the things I find the most stressful in the world, even though I watch them because I think he's funny, or Adam Sandler movies, because watching someone make mistakes for two hours and like set their life on fire is so I have to walk around the house, I have to take breaks. My friends are like, are you okay? I like, no, I can't handle it, Like it gives me a full panic. This man, he just needs to tell people like so, I understand that I am my own brad anxious human.
But the reality show Lane that I love, and you have a farm, and we're all a little exhausted by technology and would like to be disconnected. It's why you know. I've had Instagram paralysis for at least six months. I can't be there anymore. I don't know what to do about it. I try to share a little news in my stories every day and pretty much that's almost it. My respite in reality TV is a show on the History Channel called Alone. Have you watched it? No, you guys.
It is like it is a survivalist show about incredible like hunters, outdoors men, environmental experts who know every herb and leaf and mushroom in the forest, and they go and they compete and they literally get dropped off in the middle of nowhere alone and they have to be their own camera crew and they get checked. I think it's like every ten days they come in and they bring a medical team to make sure no one is you know, emaciated and dying.
Because you have to.
Live off the land, you get to bring ten things with you and then the gear that they give to everyone that is the same and you just have to survive. Oh wow, all isolation, I mean all.
Sorts of things practically, Not practically, I mean emotionally, because you're saying this is your respite, Like, what are you walking away with?
I just can't stop watching it. I'm fascinated by the human spirit. I think one of the things I really like about it is watching these people be in such connection to nature, but that it always circles back to why they love the people in their lives, Like it really is human connection that we live for, and it's our connection with nature. I think that enriches our life. And oh my god, you guys, it's just so good.
It is so good and you just learn all this shit about Like I'm like, you know what, prior to starting this show, I probably would have died in the woods in three Now I think I can make it a solid seven. Like I think I would last seven days and then I might die. But like, I've really learned a lot a whole week. Great, I'm telling you this. We are not getting paid to advertise this show. I'm
just obsessed. I will never be able to go on it because I am not a trained survival expert, but I will watch it forever.
Are you not so enious of this information that these people have?
So much?
I just want to know all of it, Like I think I am so bad at like gardening and all most.
I want to learn. If you want to start a gardening club, I'm in. I have a plant club.
Here in Nashville. Great, we literally get together go dig up plants and talk about them.
My god, I would love that let's do it. Oh my god, can we FaceTime in one hundred percent?
We can just we can group chat it. See, this is where the cell phones are helpful. But like, we'll get there. We'll be like, no, we're we're doing tech, but we're doing it to get into the dirt and that's.
How we get How else are you going to get into all that information except by not being on your email and not being on your phone and just going out there and getting into it.
And it's good to do in community because when you do it with your friends, then you're like, well, what did you grow this week?
It's a dream, right, what'd you grow?
Oh my god, I can't wait to talk to you guys after you both watch your first episode of Alone. I'm vibrating.
I'm so excited to watch it.
I can't wait.
It's so good. It's a perfect holiday show.
Let's all just grow mushrooms and become experts at those I would love that. Okay, they're asking us to move on to some question, producer, are ridiculous.
There are fan questions stop talking about surviving in the.
Woods, speaking of Nanny Carey in the Woods. The questions are pretty funny here actually Oh, here's a really good one. Speaking of Nanny Carey in the Woods from Jackie, how did you deal with the roach cereal that you had to feed? Dan?
You have to remember this. I definitely remember this. First of all.
One of the most fascinating parts of.
This I remember is there is like I didn't know there were certain different breeds of cockroach. Oh, the different breeds, and they use a specific breed for film and TV because they're more.
Trainable these ones. What That's what the guy told me.
Whether he was lying to me or not, I never like fact checked him, but yeah, it was so crazy.
It's so funny because right now, like if you were like, oh, feed this cop.
You got it, I'd be like, oh, but I think I was so in that Nanny Carey roll. I loved it. I don't feel so bad for Paulo. I remember that was the first time, like I looked at him and I think I even said, I was like, who did you piss off on this show? You're strapped in a bed with a cockroach this close to your face. It was so gross.
How did he find it? Was he buggy? Was he okay with the bugs? Or was he a lie? No?
No, I don't think he was particular.
Paul's okay with a lot of things, but I don't.
Think it's hard.
You know, I don't like that one.
No, So if I dropped it, it's on somebody else to come over it because I'm sorry.
I also remember because later I don't know if this season or next season, but Lisa Goldstein and I had to do a big scene with a bunch of roaches, and they are very strict about the fact that you can't touch them, squish them, hurt them, flick them. So like your natural instinct with a bug to fling it off you, and these are like protected set animals, insects, and you are not allowed to put them at any
in any sort of risk. So like poor paul A knows he can't, you know, throw it off of him if it falls on them, and be probably isn't even allowed to anyway. Disgusting, I cannot.
Oh honestly, it kind of makes me feel better knowing that they're trained. It makes me feel a little bit more like I care about them more. I could be like, Okay, you serve a purpose. I guess I don't have to be so scared of you, right, I don't know, it's all psychological.
I've gotten really far in your life, little roach, Like, I don't want to be the one to hurt you. Very proud of where you've come, Sophia.
What do they want to what do they want to know?
For me?
This?
I actually think is really interesting because you were saying this earlier about Jackson, like the moments where you were like, how is this child not traumatized?
Well?
Yeah, were there ever days or moments where he was afraid of you? Or did you guys gamify this stuff so much that he was having a good time?
Yeah?
Good question.
I think he was pretty much having a good time.
Because the scene where I kidnap him from the wedding and I take him to the hotel and that's where Dan comes and finds me, and he like strangles me and puts me up, gets a long against him.
You would think for a kid that'd be trauma. They gave him so much candy.
This okay, But I saw Jackson literally I watched it with my own eyes. He ran around the room and then he went oh because I think he was like the sugar high, so hardcore. I was like, oh my god, this kid get a pad that from Sugar.
So he had a fantastic time.
I think that's great.
Oh good, But the corn Maze, I don't know. I don't know. He may still have dreams about that. I don't know.
Yeah, we'll have to find out. Yeah, find out one day. Was it hard being on this one? That was from Alexa And this last question is from Emma. She's saying, what was it complicated being on the Vampire Diaries and Winter Hill at the same time.
I actually don't think I was. I was on Pretty Little Liars and Vampire Diurs at the same time alone. Vampire didn't start yet when I was on One Tree Hill with you, because yeah, because Paul and I were together then, so I remember he started that after I was done with that, that's right, because he was. I remember the only episode I did watch. He was doing Army Wives an episode and I went down there and
we watched the episode together. I totally forgot about that. That was the one I remember watching in the hotel room and was like so excited. I think it was like my first episode coming out. We're like, oh my god, it was so great. But yeah, so no, I did pre Little Liars and Vampiredires at the same time, and that was hard because I did Little Liars for seven years and I went so in and out of that show.
I mean I even did the finale while I was doing MED, so I was so used to doing everything else that it wasn't cool.
Do you do you have anything else coming up that everybody should be paying attention looking out for? What do you want to talk about and plug?
No? Quite Truthfully, I'm like taking especially the top of this year to kind of focus on myself and grow my own little family. So not that I'm taking a break, It's not like that. I'm just being a little pick here and kind of waiting for something really special to take me out. And until then, I'm kind of like ruminating. Are at home, focusing on a lot of writing things I want to produce, and yeah, I feel like the next acting thing that comes through, I just want it
to be something really really special. Because not that I don't love everything we've done, I mean Montreal, Like, I'm so grateful to have been a part of this show that just keeps going on and on, and you know, same with the whole like Chicago World and stuff. But I've never actually watched something that I've done something that I would actually sit down and watch, So that's kind
of like my new goal for the future time. And anytime I thought like I was doing a movie that I would, I'm like, oh, I'm so excited, it's like a cool Indie and then it just turned out not to really like you know, So that's kind of my goal with things next. But where that goes, I'm not quite sure. I'm just kind of like enjoying the holidays and taking it slow right now.
That's great?
Yeah?
Nice, Well, I loved having you. I'm so glad you came back. We finally got to talk about car.
I know, I know, I love talking about her.
I love her.
I love her.
Do you have a favorite Onset moment or Wilmington moment? I mean, I know you said the feeling the comfort of home from Florida, but anything on set, any fun anecdotes for the fans out there.
Honestly, Joy my most favorite one. And I know I've told you this guy. I told you guys this already. It was just that first dand Set. I was so nervous, but you just made me feel so comfortable and I still have it. I told you you gave me that it had a little turtle on it and it was that letter opener. But you knew that I was going to try to kind of break you in James up. So you said, like, this is for all the not so nice meal you'll probably be getting. But you said it and it made me laugh.
And you used to protect yourself too, Yeah, to protect yourself.
You made me feel so comfortable, and so that was one of the memories. Did you always have that right, like you remember the people that really were like impactful or gave you like the good piece of advice or really kind of showed up. Because we always talk about as actors it's so hard to go on other people's shows. At this point, you're in season five, you're all a bit exhausted. You've been doing this forever. You don't have
to prep the same way somebody knew coming in. So when somebody stops and has that like moment of like kindness, because you were the first person I met, you were the only person who really worked with for a while.
So well, that was also that was that was going to I mean, that was up to me. I had to do that for you because not that I didn't want to it's not in me, but like it is. But I did feel a way of the responsibility of that because I knew you were coming in to exactly what you're saying, an established show and you were going to try and break up this couple, and like, I didn't. I just really didn't want you to think that it would like I didn't like you or that, you know,
because it was just going to be us. Like that would have been so awkward for you to come into an environment where it was like, oh, God, is she actually mad at me? I don't know.
Me?
And then it was really great too because I got to reconnect with Daphne, who played my mom on my first show and fine, Yeah, we shared fine. So I was like, yeah, so there was a lot of like that. That show had so many firsts for me that it's like, I'll carry that with me for a long time.
Do you remember going to Fondue with Daphne.
Daphne, remember she was like, he's never been to Pondu before, been fond Wait, you.
Guys, why was Fondue such a big deal in Wilmington? Like I just gave away the Fondue set that I bought there. I was like, I'm never going to do this. We used to go in Wilmington all the time. I don't make fun do at home, Like, who do I think I am? And I finally gave it to a friend. Was it like a two thousand and six nationwide craze?
Like it was kind of yes, because I remember in high school too and being very popular, like, oh.
The rest of the fondue restaurants. Well, there was a fond restaurant the Melting Pot, and we all sat around, we had dinner, and Daphne was kind of like she was game for it at first, like oh, interesting, okay, fun, you know, And we're sticking the raw meat on the stick and cooking it over the flames. She's like, how long does this take? About an hour and a half into the meal, the guy comes over and he's like, okay, so I'll clear your plates, can I can I get
you dessert? And Daphne looks at him and she goes, do I have to cook it?
I can't believe I remember. So she's like, I can't believe I pay to cook my own food?
Obsessed? Hey, guys, we should take her to we should take her to Korean barbecue in La just to just to make her laugh.
Oh yeah, it'd be fun.
Oh my god, Oh my god.
Well, it's great to see you, mama. You look great. You seem so happy.
Always nice to talk with you. So good to see you. Guys.
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