Roseanne's Laurie Metcalf on Lady Bird and Lady Barr

described Metcalf as a monster in the room. She was still at Illinois State when she met the actors with whom she started one of the world's great theater companies, but Steppenwolf was still just a group of friends putting on plays in a church. It took a couple of years for her to abandon her day job as a legal secretary who could type a hundred and twenty words

a minute. She's best known for her role as Jackie, rose Anne's younger sister, but she has also appeared in the norm show Getting On the Big Bang Theory, to name just a few. Lorie Metcalf has been nominated for Emmy Awards ten times, winning three. But even after so many years on television sets, it's the stage that Lorie Metcalf calls home. I have a phobia of the camera. UM. A lot of people like to work with the camera,

and they understand it. Actors, they know exactly how much to give the camera, and they're the camera is their friend. And to me, it just becomes this thing in the room that I have to pretend like he isn't there yes factor in which just makes me self conscious and I don't feel as free as I do on a stage. One of the joys of doing films is working with great camera people, cinematographers and their crew. And I've worked with some of the greatest cinematographers in history, you know,

of of my generation, of my time. But they would say to me, we're going to do this, here's this shop, We're going to do it in this lens, And very early on I had this kind of silly habit of saying to them, I really don't care what lends you're on. It's not going to affect what I'm going to do. The thing I do, I'm gonna do it that way. Now if it should I tone it down, should I make it bigger, small, or whatever to play to the camera.

And I found myself incapable of doing that. Do you feel the same way yeah, but and maybe that's what the piece that I'm missing. I've done such so few films that I've never had been able to develop that relationship with a cinematographer. So maybe that would be the missing piece that would put me more at ease. You know that I knew that somebody was watching out for it and was giving me, you know, advice, too big, too small, or I don't even know what else it

would be. But I just feel pretty much that I can sort of gauge what I'm doing on a stage and in front of a camera. I can't tell at all. If the director says, well, we're moving on, or do you want one more? I always say, oh, let's just move on, because I don't know what we've got. I'm assuming you know that you got it, And so I have no clue. How did the experience of shooting Ladybird

come about? How that they found you? Yeah? I think I was on Scott Ruden's radar and the producer and he suggested me to Greta Gerwig, and Greta sent me the script and I read it and really responded to the material, and then she and I had a quick phone conversation and hit it off over the phone, and it was very small independent movie, and so I thought, oh, I haven't done a movie in about ten years, so this will be a nice little way to put my toe back in the water and see how it is.

Why hadn't you made a movie in ten years? Nobody asked me, it's hard to believe. It's true. Were you living a life where you appeared unavailable? Were you traveling and doing plays and out of town? I have that part that's partly true. Yeah. I had been doing a lot of theater, and that's true. Yeah, pack my word

for it. So um, and then when it exploded, when Ladybird exploded, I was unprepared for I I had no idea what that that publicity circus train was that you have to get on, you know, and ride for for for about three months, to all the awards seasons. I think I'm spoiled for life working with her. She had done all the heavy lifting on on the script itself. So the script was in such good shape that there were never those days when you get on the set

and everybody's looking at each other saying this doesn't really work. Um, what would you say here? You know, there was never that scramble or that uncertainty. Everything was crystal clear from from day one, and Greta is just a natural at it.

She just she gives the kind of notes that, um, click with an actor and our do a bowl rather than get in your head neck and mess you up, and where you start second guessing, Well, I thought I was doing the line that way, but they're telling me to do it differently, So now what do I do? And then you just shut down, You just you just become paralyzed in your head. Whether it's television what you've

done quite a bit of or film. Had you worked with a woman director before, Yeah, I have, Well no, not in film because I just haven't done that much a lot of female directors. And TV though, yeah, and uh and theater yeah, um. And the TV that I've done though has been limited also because it's been sitcoms mostly, um, you know, four camera some women directors, but just that

it's just that style. You know. I've done very little single camera TV, so this four camera sitcom style is also very different, a different beast definitely from theater and film, and that was a huge learning curve for me. Also stepping into Roseanne third years ago again we did the pilot, my god, but when you when you do that, let's ease into that and the the uh. But when you work, is there a difference for you when you work with a woman director or a man director. Honestly, I think

it just boils down to the person. And with this person there was a feminine vibe I will say with Greta, because she's very maternal, and you felt I think everybody in the cast and crew felt very well protected. UM cherished, UM listened to UM, but but very safe. And And I can label that, you know, because she's a woman, or I can just label it because it's Greta, you know, just the person. You grew up in Illinois, southern Illinois, and what'd your dad do? Controller at Illinois State University.

And she was a librarian. And there were how many kids in your family? Just three? How many boys? How many girls? I'm the oldest, and then us sister and her brothers. I don't know. I UM used to put on UM records of musicals and lip sync to them fly through the air in the in the in the backyard on a swing set, or or just like lip syncing UM to Gypsy in the living room. Not even for anybody to watch, just to do it. I don't know, but I so that was in me. But it wasn't

about performing it. It was sort of about a feeling of interpreting it, using their singing and just mouthing it, but feeling like I was interpreting it. Something about that clicked with me. But then I was much too practical to go into theater in college. I thought I'd never make a living at it. So um, Illinois State University. German the most practical of all because German musical Germans. Well, but I thought i'd be a translator, you know. So

there was something about language German. No, I don't think so, not that I know of a swing set. She thinking German. Well, we had a choice of two languages to pick in high school. I picked that one and I liked it. I ended up liking the language. There are definite rules to it. It's very rigid, and I like that. Yeah it is. Yeah, And then fell in with the group that became Steppenwolf at Illinois State. Yes, that's what happened.

Jeff Perry, Terry Kinney, John Malkovich were going to school there. Yeah, all those people I didn't even know this. All of them went to school down there. Jane, Terry, well Joan. Joan didn't go to school there. Harry, Jeff, Perry, and Malkovich all went there. UM Gary Sonice was up in Highland Park. He didn't go to college, so he was like our uh, our wingman for for for being up in Highland Park and scoring us you know a place wheretorcycle where we where we could do our our sad

little one ax. Joane did come into the group later, she did not go to UM Illinois State. Who did you meet first? Uh, Terry Kinney and then Jeff and then John and you met them where you met him in a class, in an acting class or on the street or um. I was, does that group know they want to become Steppenwolf? Yeah? I know, I know. I was actually um dabbling in theater, but I was you know, my I was a German major, so I wasn't going

to go down in the theater room. I was Terry's girlfriend, and so I got brought into the mix as the girlfriend and then and that that's how I got introduced to everybody. And what do you do first? Did you all say let's form a group? Of theater group, or we said, let's form a theater group for the summer for one summer, and we um found a church basement who charged us, you know, a dollar a month, and we built some risers and put some shares in there and did four one axe and uh, I thought well

that'll be it. But then we thought, let's do another one, and then another and another. So there was no plan. It just evolved. When did it change? Probably changed, I would say like about five years later when we were able to quit our day jobs and join equity and then also move into the city into a place space

you found. It became the step in Wolf Theater. We found a space first that was in a Jane Adams Hull house that we rented, and then from there we moved it took over from a group called St. Nicholas Theater, took over their space, and then by that time we had built up a really good board and with their backing, we were able to build a place from scratch, from the ground up, literally, which we're still in now. They're still there now. In New York, you hear about Stepping Wolf.

I remember when that takes off, you know when in New York everybody was like they talked about stepping bof like it was heroin. I mean, like like the chicest thing. Well, the first thing that happened was that Malkovich and Gary Snee brought in um True West. That was the first one.

That was the first one that traveled to New York. Yeah, and then after that it was Balman Gilead, and that one came in and ran for like nine months and was everybody was talking about it and it was such a cool time to be in uh in New York. That was eight three, I think. And we had music in that show by Springsteen, Ricky Lee Jones, and Tom Waits. They all came to see the show. You know. It was wild. Where did you do Gilead off Broadway? Yeah?

At Circle Rep. It's it's gone now. But the one downtown, Yeah, I did to a kiss down there. Yeah, the one down on Sheridan Square, Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, I sub let her apartment. I remember that when you were you were in New York and people couldn't stop talking about you guys. It was just a different style. It was different. It was well they called it rock and roll theater, but um, I think it was just a shared passion that we had that made us just light up on

stage convention. Yes, Yes, that's what I remember about them. Yes and uh. And those plays were perfect um vehicles for that dark yes some of them. And funny. Yeah. It's kind of kind of the mix of like a Martin McDonough, you know, he's a bit a bit of step In Wolf and him. Yeah, and theatrical, that's what they were. They didn't back off. It wasn't trying to

be super realistic or supernatural. Paul mcgilly had had some really strong theatrical moments in it where lights would go out and a spotlight would hit a character and everybody's frozen, and you'd hear the character say two lines and then lights pop back up again and you're in a diner and it would come to life again. You know, what's a show that really stands out that you did back then that you always remember what's the performance you gave. If you close your eyes, you can remember where you

were and when you're holding what you were wearing. Yeah,

I've got a number of them. I think that was certainly one, and even before then was a production of Glass Menagerie that we did way back in that little basement with uh Malkovich was Tom and Terry Kinney was a gentleman caller, and we had a local woman who was played Amanda, and uh that was the production that made we were out in the suburbs, that made critics in towns sit up and take notice of the Stepping Wolf Company and they would start driving up, you know,

to see our shows. It was it was, I don't know what made it different. It was like, um, John didn't try to hide that Tom was gay and desperately, you know, lonely and wanting to meet somebody. And I didn't try to hide that Laura was not um mentally ill, you know, and that there was no clearly no hope

at all. It wasn't. Sometimes it can be played like a young pretty girl who if she's fragile, fragile and if yes, and if she if she had a nice dress, yeah, yeah, yeah, make the make the balls or choice, you know, yeah, yes, Now you were you were dating Kenny, he was your boyfriend at the time. Does that end in the middle of the ascension of Uh, Well, we were a very um insular group and so there was a lot of mixing and matching, right like in a rock band like

Flip with Mac. Yeah, we were all sleeping with each other, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, so which made a lot of also awkward in fighting and you know like, well I can't, yeah, I can't be in that play because you know, I've just now broken up with him, so you know, I'm gonna have to look somewhere else. But yeah, I know, it was, it was. It was in that sense. It was also a very theatrical time. You know, the highs or highs

and the lows were all crazy. All we wanted to do was hang out together, make each other either laugh or cry. And but we took the um the work part very seriously and that made us all better, you know, because we were having to play parts we wouldn't be cast in anywhere else because we were all the same age, and we couldn't find plays you know that would accommodate that.

So we'd have so I'd have to be the mom in Malkovich's Mom in True West, and then I'd have to be his little niece in the fifth of July to cover the gamuts. Yes, So, so we ultimately ended up stretching ourselves into areas that we had no business going into would you say that it kind of unravels and everybody they start to come apart because stardom intervenes. Who's the first person becomes a star And what's the first thing he stars in? Oh? He We did that

movie with Sally Field. He played a blind character. He made chairs Places in the Heart. That's that's the movie that took him out of the mix for a while. And believe me, I mean we were so naive and so inbread and everything at that point. It is like John had this offer to go be in a movie and we all had a big company meeting about it, deciding whether or not to let him do John had his out. Yes, yes, did anyone vote not to let him leave? Probably? I don't remember, you know, because we

did our voting like little kids. We would put our heads down on the table and raise our raise our hands. And whoever had to be artistic director at that time, because that was a thankless, worthless job nobody wanted that had to count the votes. Yeah, so Jon got to go do it. But that's how how you know when he came back and what happened? Well, I think that that was before True West. I think he made that

movie before it. I'm not sure the timeline of that, but we were so because we started out in a little suburb and because we very slowly made our way into the city, and because we were centered around Chicago and not l A or New York, people kind of left us alone for a lot longer that because they would have swooped in if we were on the coast and just taken everybody or access. Yes we were, yes, we were yes. So so that helped us, um, get some more traction as a group. They left us alone

for a longer time. But after places in the heart that he become less and less available, well we all started to yeah, yeah, well, um, it was a big deal that we on mass took bal mc gilead to New York. That was a big learning experience for us all. And and I ended up making a movie Desperately Seeking

Susan because I was in town. And but for me that didn't spiral out into um, you know, a lot more movie or a movie career obviously, but um, we were starting to very slowly as a group but also individually starting to get known and we became more available because we were adding people to the company, and that made us more available to take time off, go off

and do a different project and then return. But for a decade, we all tried a lot to return and and rejuvenate, you know, get get, get our batteries charged on that stage each again. Yes, it definitely was home. Who else has come up through the ranks of there in? Anybody else I would know? And did that success replicate itself with future generations of people? Or you guys it and nobody else you ever really became famous after that? Um, boy, i'd have to do. You know John Hill, he's a

young actor that you would recognize. He's um taken off after having come into the company. Sally Murphy, um has done a lot of work here in New York. She's gonna play right now called come Admissions. I think i'd have to look. You know, the list has gotten big. There's like forty people in the company now and uh it's tough for us to get I haven't been back in five years. You know, it's tough to go back and commit to uh four or five months out of

a year. And because we're on a subscription season, they want to know like at least a year in advance. When you can you know, rope off that time. It's hard, right, I find segregating that time and protecting that time to do a show, it is very difficult. The last show I did was with you, when we did the show in two thousand fifteen, when you came to New York.

What was your first show on Broadway? On Broadway? Uh, it was November written by David Man, Yeah, with Nathan Lane, directed by Joe Mantell and um it was a small part and I just wanted to um be in the room with those people, those specific it was the political one. Yeah, yeah, which I would love to revisit that now because you know it's just this idiot sitting in the set with

the Oval office. I need to go back and read that, or we need to do it like as a benefit, you know, just do a one reading a reading of it. It's wicked, funny, um and more timely now than ever. That was your first show on Badway. Yeah. Did you feel that Broadway was different? Yeah? I did. I mean it's you know, it's the same amount of work that you put in, whether it's there or at Guildhall or even a smaller space like for fifties seats. You know,

the work is the same. You're still doing, you're putting in and you want wanted the best that it can be, and you never give up working on it during the whole run. But yeah, it's startling to walk out on a set that big. And we went from the rehearsal room to invited dress and it was packed with a thousand actors, you know, And that was a friend. Yes, that was quite a shock. That was my first first

time there. But I got burned on a show called Brighton Beach Memoirs that was supposed to open up in REP with Broadway Bound, and I've never done REP before, so I thought, oh, this will be really interesting and it's on Broadway so I can be in New York. And it's uh, these two plays go very really well together. Neil Simon, it's the same family, but a decade later and uh, I don't think he ever yes, well he wasn't in it, No, but I don't think that that. Neil Simon never meant them to be to to go

together and REP. But they just it was a natural. Everything turned out wrong about it. They opened up one and expected it to take off and it didn't. And then the other one we had fully rehearsed it, and we had the costumes, we had everything, and it never even saw the light of day. And the first one closed after three weeks, and it was that was a huge low. I had relocated, not my family, but one of my kids out, had them in school. This was

a real of the material. Yes, and I was trying and and and I had signed off for a year, thinking okay, well these things are going to run for that long. And and after three weeks, well a rehearsal period, and then three weeks you know, every we have a toast on stage. You know, well this didn't work, sorry everybody.

By and then I was stuck with this apartment in New York and my kid in school, and I would just like walk take him to school and then walk up and down the sidewalks, thinking what the hell am I going to do? What am I? It was really I was stuck with no work for about a month, and then for some reason, um Ethan Hawk gave me a call and said, well, there's no money here at all, but you want to come down and do a lie of the mind with us down at the Group theater.

So that was something to work on, and that got me out of my head, you know. Oh. I talked to Lorie a couple of months ago, just before the recent cancelation of Roseanne. After it all happened, I called to get her take on ABC's decision. Lorie declined to comment. Coming up, we talked about what it was like to gather the team, cast and crew together. Again, this is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to. Here's the thing. Although Lori Metcalf's heart is in the theater, she's always cautious

about what roles she chooses. I did a roll of the dice last year Doll's House Part two, and that went well. It went well, yes, but I didn't know, um it was a roll of the dice because when Scott Rutten sent me the script and I thought, this is either going to be really really funny and clever or really bad. The nerve that takes name's name your play a Doll's House Part two and Lucas Naith. I knew of him as a writer, but I didn't know him. And I knew of Sam Gold as a director, but

I hadn't worked with him, and the play wasn't finished. Yeah, I mean it was finished, but it was really raw, and that we were going to do workshops and so it's it's it's scary to go out on that limb and commit yourself to something that you have no idea how it's going to turn out. But it had got Rouden behind it, so I knew that it would be take care of. When you and I did the Miller together, you've done it a couple of times before, and one of them was in London. Correct. Was it different for

you there? You find the difference between performing there and in the United States, Well, I did because it was at the National, So the National is so specific. Um. I loved the vibe that there's these three theaters, the big, medium and the small one, and they all feed into this communal lobby and there's a great restaurant there and everybody's having drinks before their show and then the and

then the whole place just sort of uh evaporate. Everybody goes into their certain theater that they're seeing and uh and then regroups at intermission and then back again. It's got a real flow to it that way. So I felt it was cool to be a part of that specific building. British cast and mixed them with an American cast for when you did the Miller over there it was mostly British. Yeah, I difference in the way that

they act rehearse. Do they have a different approach? Would you say it's the opposite of the stepping wolf approach. I wouldn't call it rock and roll. Um. Well yeah, quartet, yes exactly. I like to be um really uh um theatrical if I can find moments like where the characters theatrical, Yes, exactly. When we built yes, we built in some ourselves, you know, where there's a shove, things that aren't expected, those are theatrical if they're not expected, I guess yeah. Yeah. When

we did all my sons, remember we had Chris choke me. Yeah, he would choke me. Yeah, and we all thought, well, wowhoa, I don't know if we should do that. I loved it. I do too, because sometimes the trap when you're working on a classic that that is you feel like you have to treat it with kid gloves. You know, you feel like you should wouldn't make those big um choices, that you should be more reverential towards the material, but

that keeps it from being alive and seeming contemporary. I always wanted to sneak a camera on stage with me for the very last moments of our play because I had the best ringside seat available to watch your last monologue. I wish I had done it because I'd like to have a record of it, But of course I never did. But I loved watching that every night. Right. It's a great ending. It's a great ending. You know. Now you did a play, You did another play right after that.

You left that show to go do the Stephen King. Oh yes, And I asked your advice on that. Do you remember? Well? But when you do plays with people who this is your doing misery, misery with Bruce Willis, who hadn't done a play in how long, like thirty, He hadn't been on stage in forty years. He like, turn to you like a life preserver and say to help me leading on your baby. Was there some of that? Well? We were codependent on each other because it was basically

two people. There was a sheriff that showed up, but I shot him dead, you know, towards the end he no, he's not no. So it was just the two of us and we, you know, we relied on each other very much, and Bruce worked his ass. Yes, he had a wonderful time. Yeah, thank god. I was worried because you know, I didn't know if your co lead is having a bad time, you know, it's everybody's miserable. But Bruce would show up, you know, like an hour and

a half early before the shows. Of course, he had to get into a bunch of body makeup because he'd been, you know, um in an accident and he's got his head's all banged up, and he's got scar cuts and scars all over his legs. So he was always the first one there. He was. Oh, he all. We would do you know, like a seven eight hour rehearsal day, and then he would go home with uh the dialect coach and drill lines over and over and over again. He really really cared about it, and U audiences ate

it up, you know. They It was a different crowd than I've ever performed for because it was a lot of first time theater goers. Because they wanted to see Bruce. They want to see an action hero on stage, and and if they had to go, if they had to go to theater to see him live, then they went

to the theater. So these were people that hadn't been before let alone on Broadway, and and and the play itself, you know, it stemmed from the book, and then it went through the movie version, and now they're trying to do it as a play. So it was this odd journey. Yeah, and it ended up being half this, half that, not not any part of that though, and it was just was its own animal. So we tried to uh will

free Stephen Freer's son. We tried to make it also as funny as it could be, because there was a lot of odd ball humor in it, and audience has got to kick out of that. But I it was kind of a learning curve for me to wrap my head around the fact that, you know, if the script never was perfect, if we were never perfect in it, the audience was still having a ball and and feeling like they were getting their money's worth. I always forget all the names of yeah, really think yeah, oh yeah. Oh.

And and it sold well, he sold the tickets. When you think about plays, think about a moment. And I'm sure there's many of them, but try to think about a moment of you on stage with someone or another group of people, and in terms of what acting means to you, well, it was one that you just never can get out of here. And he thought, this is it, this is what it's about out This is what I

got into this for. I don't know. I'm not going to say a specific thing, but it's the feeling of being in such control that you know that you've got a moment coming up and it's like a big softball, this big coming at you and you've got to back this big and you're gonna hit it out of the park. There's no doubt about it. It's coming and boom you get to do it, and you hear the immediate reaction from the from the audience, whether it's a laugh or whether it's a sob whatever it is, or whether it's

a you can hear a pin drop. And it's that control, I think. And you've done your homework and you know exactly what you're doing in that moment, and and you know it's going to be a surprise to them, and you know you'd like to be in the audience with this thing coming up. And I love that moment. I always tell people when you when you when you see a play that I've ever been in, I ruined play people with me as I'll lean over and I go. I didn't do it that way. I had this thing

I used to do with this bottle. I mean I didn't. I didn't do it that way at all. You gotta do another play. Haven't one up in the I got one open right now. You're running in three tall women, three tall women. You're doing three tall women the Alby play, which I love. And it's you and Glenda Jackson, I know, I know, and Allison Pill directed by Joe Mantello. How's that been? It was a crazy hard rehearsal period. I

don't know what well. I've never done Alby, so for some reason it was very I found it very slippery. And again it's that trap. I started falling into that trap of treating a classic with kid gloves, and so I had to take those gloves off and just sort of um, play just why why? Why? Why was it different? In terms of my guesses And this is very lazy guess as it all be. His characters are very waspy and very cautious, and then and they're not and then as volatile. That's a part of it, yes, yeah, but

where where it's up and running now? And it was a play that. Um, the audience taught us a lot when we finally got an audience in there. They really were the missing piece of the puzzle of this play. And now, um, it's it's been very well received and goes through June. You're never gonna get up to give up doing the theater. I not the theater. No, I could give up the other two, but not the theater.

The rush is so visceral when you're when you have those moments and when you build it, you rehearse, you live it, you live it, you live it. And I'm the kind of actor where I'm fantastic four weeks after we open, you come see the show after I'm not ready by the time I rehearsal. I think that's normal. I I feel that I feel that I'm not either. I feel like I got to get a few weeks after opening under my belt. So so I appreciate a

long ish run. Now, um, So, once upon a time you did a TV show, and you did this TV show, and I mean the Norm McDonald show. That that was a great show. I love him, by the way, Yes, you did the show with Roseanne bar and that ran for how many seasons? Nine? You ran for nine seasons. Now, that's old school sitcommun If nobody you're like, if you get five, especially at the old schedule, Yes, how would

you describe that experience? And you're much younger then, and the show is a big phenomenon then and then you come back. What was it like when you did the show the first time? The first time, well, the first time job, I didn't know what if it was going to succeed or not. I got offered this pilot. I knew Roseanne is a stand up I knew John Goodman had done a lot of theater, but we all didn't

know each other. There's three kids on it, you know, and the writers didn't necessarily know how to write for each character. And that was the combination of us doing some initial shows and the writers watching what our strengths were created those characters. They saw the strengths, they started writing towards the strengths. Someone pointed that out to me about Will and Grace when I went on that show.

They said, you know, in the first season, if you watched uh footage, if you watch old episodes of the first season, none of them are really hitting those notes that they hit later. They're finding those that first year, they're stretching and trying to find out what they want to do in terms of the crazy. That's what it took. And so going back to it literally thirty years later, I mean from the first preview from them, from the first pilot, it was thirty years ago. From when it

went off the air was twenty years ago. So going back to it, and we half of the writing crew was the same, and with some new people thrown in. So great people, but like Norm had been on the show and uh, and so they knew those voices. Well, everybody knew him. What am I saying? Even the new writers knew those voices. And so that was like riding a bike again. So everybody came back, Yeah, everybody. Everybody

was happy to come back. Was a young woman's name wol played the daughter who was on the talk show when I was forgetting her name, Sarah Gilbert. She came back. Oh, she initiated the whole thing. She she had John on her show at the talk and they did a little sketch,

like a twenty second sketch of them. They recreated the couch with the afghan and it was Darlene and John, and Darlene was trying to come out to him and he just wanted to watch baseball on TV or something like that, and the and the audiences thought it was funny. And then they asked John on the show afterwards, would you ever do a reunion show? And he said, of course I would. And then Sarah took the ball and ran with it, called Everybody, and it turned in from

a reunion show into a little nine episode arc. Obviously people who have made a big deal, which to me, it's kind mystifying to me about Rosanne Bars politics and that she's a big Trumpian and that her characters a Trumpian on the show. When you're doing the show, I would imagine I get the impression none of that comes up on the set of the show. Everybody just having a good time. Yeah, let's just get the work done,

let's keep the funny going. Exactly doesn't bring it up, and they had to address it, you know, how can you not in the pilot, this new pilot, and I thought they did it really well because, um, I mean, we don't talk about names, but we talk about there's a rift in the family because of how how we all voted. The sisters haven't talked to each other for a year, which is something that's really going on, you know,

across the country. That's that's uh, totally legit and honest, I think to explore and and then and then what they it was the same as what they all used to do with all of the stories. They would take a big issue and then shrink it down to the family. So the rift becomes what is it between these two sisters set aside from the election that causes them to, you know, to dysfunction like that. So when you come back and you have the same group of people, and

everybody's older, and I mean significantly older. It was many years ago you did the show. You mentioned the writers. What about the directors? I mean, did you get some of the directors you had? We have some of the

same directors. Yeah. And the coolest thing is that I thought I would sit on the side watching a scene like between Sarah Gilbert and her kid now who's on the show, do a scene in the on the kitchen set, which is a set that Sarah really did grow up on and now she's parenting her kids on that same set, and Rosanne is in the scene watching her parents, you know, and being very judgmental about it. It's the kind of

history between characters that you can't buy. You can cast people together as a family, and they did thirty years ago, but because we spent that decade together, we really did become one. And now as we revisit it, there's these built in layers because we're back in the same house and we've had all that time together. So it's I

think it's weirdly deeper the second time around. And the way that Roseanne had always set up that show is that, um it was the writing she wanted, a kind of writing that was able to support heavy issues for a sitcom, for a multi cam sitcom, I don't think of I don't know of any other one that could go to the places that she did, you know, and bring in a darkness sometimes and really address things and not have

it be really jarring for the audience. You know. She just that that was set up perfectly, I think, so that she could address issues that she wanted to as as seasons went by, until, of course, Rosanne was can at the end of May. In an interview, Lori said Roseanne should do a play quote. I'd like to watch her do something dramatic like Tennessee Williams or Edward Alby. She'd be brilliant unquote, while we stay tuned for that. Lorie Metcalf herself can be seen in Albi's Three Tall

Women on Broadway until June. This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's the Thing.