Summer book series: Julianna Margulies

now she's an author. Her memoir is called Sunshine Girl, An Unexpected Life, and I have the pleasure of interviewing her back in May on a virtual stop on her book tour. We talked about her writing process, what the book was first intended to be, that impressive TV career, and we even check in on some of her famous friends, George Clooney, Damn Her. So enjoy everybody. Let's start with the genesis of this book. I remember interviewing you from

my podcast. I believe it was in two thousand eighteen, and we knew each other, we were friendly. We've since become, you know, gotten to know each other better. But I remember hearing a little bit about your childhood and thinking, my god, you need to write a book. And you kind of said, you know, I thought about writing a book. So my question is why, now, what was the impetus for you wanting to write this book? And and then I'd like to ask you a little bit selfishly about

your writing process. Sure, the genesis of the book started right after I finished The Good Wife, my very um last day of The Good Wife. I came home and I write about this in the preface of the book, where I felt so sick and I woke up at three in the morning and I had the chicken pox and I was so sick that I ended up in

bed for three weeks. And um, I get I think it was my body after in fifty six episode seven years of just spinning plates and go go, go, go go, um, trying to get it all in and do it right, my body just said that's it, You've let go. And so this book came out, um from me trying to shed Alicia because I was thinking, trying to think like her, and um, I wonder what she was always thinking for seven years? She was so so embedded under my skin

that I, UM. I started writing notes down and wondering why seven years before, when I had shot the pilot, why, which for those I mean and most people understand, the pilot is the very first episode. Why that one scene in the hallway hit me so hard? Right? And what it was to me? UM that I hadn't dug deep enough to find out why. I still when I would see that scene or think of that scene, tear up. And I just started writing about it because I wanted

to shed her from me. I wanted to start exploring who I was and not just this person running in circles trying to make it everything work. UM. And the book really, I mean, if I'm gonna have to be very honest, the book started out to be a handbook

UM on set etiquette. Originally, so Michael J. Fox and I used to sit on set and we would talk about how all these incredible actors we shot in New York and we would get the most incredible actors right out of Juilliard and Yale and all these beautiful, beautiful actors, artists, but none of them really understood set etiquette that you might have to wait thirteen hours before you're close up, that it's not always UM about you, It's actually about

the crew. And without the crew, we are enough. And so he and I used to joke about wanting to write a book about set etiquette. And while I was lying there in bed once I wasn't in pain from the chicken pox, and I just looked crazy and couldn't um show my face outside. UM, I started jotting down notes. UM that turned into chapters, and in between the handbooks,

part of it was sort of my childhood story. And I finished nine chapters and I got better and I submitted them to my agent and she politely wrote back handbooks for acting don't really sell. However, in between, you have a really interesting story. I want that story. Can you write me that story? And UM, that was sort of the beginning of it. And then I started to unravel everything and um, and now we have a book.

It was so moving in the prologue about that scene that you talk about and do you think you were I mean, it sounds to me that you never really had time. You became so consumed with the characters you were playing most recently before you wrote the book, Alicia Floric, and it seems like you didn't have a minute to be introspective at all, and it just it was something perhaps you were even avoiding. You're absolutely right, I mean

I think so. There was a confluence of things, which was I was a new mommy and a new wife. I mean Karen was born two months after we got married, um, and he was thirteen months old when I started The Good Wife, So it was more about trying to be a mother. This was a new title for me, A wife another new title for me, and the lead of a very the show was so it was wonderful, but it was so demanding in terms of learning dialogue and always being there and and also when you're number one

on a call sheet, you want to take well. My nature is to take care of everybody who's there. So between the baby, the husband, the show, the learning, the lines, the character, I never really thought of about me and the other side of it. And this isn't a sob story, it's just the truth, which is because it was a hit, there was a lot of publicity, so any spare time I had, I was running off to do photo shoots, which is so great, um, that I would just ignore

my own exhaustion, ignore my own needs. And I remember being it was Vanity Fair did a cover of the Women of Television and it was four of us on the cover, and I had shot all night and then had two hours sleep and ran to this photo shoot uh in Chelsea in New York City cover of Vanity Fair. I should only be excited. And I remember running into

the bathroom and sobbing. I was just so tired. And I was texting my girlfriend Nancy, who's in the book a lot, because she was always the voice of reason for me, and saying, I should be on cloud nine and all I want to do is hide under a rock. I'm so tired. And I realized, like it just wasn't It just kept going um for seven years and I never had a minute to take stock in myself, and so I think the end of it um. And and by no means was I sad during it. I just

wasn't conscious enough about myself. And clearly your immune system went to put and that's why you've got chicken pots and were so exhausted you could barely move. I think your your body was just giving out. So you regained your strength, you got over the chicken pots. Hoey even scratch them and get scars like I did. When I was five years old. But you know, so you got you got strong enough, and so how tell me a little bit about the writing process, Julianne, did you get

up in the morning, How disciplined were you? How did you kind of retrieve some of these memories from your childhood, which we're going to talk about in a moment, But you know, you write about when you were four, five years old, even younger, I think maybe even three, And I'm just curious how you were able to, as I said, retrieve those memories. Well, a lot of it had Well, first of all, Um, I kept a journal since I was nine, and I have them all, so that was

very helpful. Of course I couldn't write when I was three or four and five, but um, I had journals. And I also because my um circumstance where um, I know, I didn't live with my father, so I had written him letters and he had saved every single letter I ever wrote to him. Um, and I so I had certain things that were actually I could read and remember from that. But also, UM, what you discover when you have a traumatic change in your life, that's what you remember.

I remember certain smells of airplanes I got on when I was seven. I remember distinct um, you know, uh, pictures, images of things when I was three in Paris, and I think because I never stayed stationary, everything seemed to be an event. So those events, I don't remember what I ate yesterday, but I can remember clearly the liquorice I had in my hand and in the tuilerie in Paris when I was three. Um, And it's because everything

is new and different. So you remember that, and you remember anxiety, and you remember it wasn't true, it wasn't trauma, but it was drama. I was gonna say, maybe borderline trauma because her childhood was so you you described I know your your childhood is complicated, and your parents is complicated. I would describe it. Your childhood is nomadic, parapatetic, and unconventional. I think I remember even talking to you about that

a few years ago. And and so for people who haven't read the book yet, um, and I know some have and some haven't, but but give us a quick description if you can. I don't know how you can do it quickly, because so much of the book is very vivid memories of two very different lives that you lead when your parents got divorced. But can you just spend a little bit of time talking about what that was like? Yeah, so you know, because it happened so young.

I was a year old when my parents separated, um, and their their marriage was pretty much over when I was born. UM. I think they tried for a year, but right when I was a year old, my father moved to Paris, and then my mother took me when I was two, with my two sisters, also to Paris after a year apart um, so we lived on the left bank. My father lived on the right bank. Two

years after that, my father moved to London. My mother took me and my sisters to Sussex, which is thirty miles south of London, um where she went to school. And then after five years in Europe, we moved back to New York, where I I actually felt like I finally had some sort of normalcy because we lived in the house I had gone to straight from the hospital when I was a baby in Spring Valley, New York.

And my father lived in Manhattan, and I would see him on weekends, and I had a school, and and and I got to know people, and I felt like I finally belonged somewhere, and five years into that, when I was eleven, I had just turned eleven, my mother decided to move us to Nuremberg, Germany, UM, which didn't really work out for her there um. So just the day before we were supposed to move to Nuremberg, she changed and called my father and said send the kids

back to England. So it was a lot of backwards. So we went to England and then came back to the States, and finally, when I was in the States, my father a year later moved to England. So I was traversing the Atlantic Ocean pretty much since I was a baby and never quite understood the difference. Um. When I was with my father, I always felt like we had money, and when I was with my mother, I

always felt like we were broke. Um. There was It's not in the book now, it's gone through so many iterations, but there there was a chapter in the book where I talked about that. I remember walking in when I was eleven, into this lopsided apartment, UM, one bedroom apartment that my mother had found us to live in, and she was ringing out um paper towels and hanging them to dry, and I burst into tea years and said, we we can't be this poor? Are we this poor?

Because when I was with my father in New York, we were going to see Annie on Broadway and eating at Tavern on the Green in the Russian team room. I just didn't understand how we could be so destitute with my mother and lived this incredible life with my father, even though I only saw my father twice a year. So it was the going back and forth and the constant up and down and surfing this very strange landscape

that didn't quite connect in the middle for me. So I was always trying to connect everything and make sense of everything. UM and I think, And the title of the book, Um Sunshine Girl was was the nickname my mother gave me when I was little, because she she said, I was always a ray of sunshine. When I walked in a room, I was I made people happy, I smiled, I never cried as a baby. I was easy and I and I wore that like a badge of honor because I realized I needed to lighten up situations that

felt very heavy and beyond my grasp. UM And while writing the book UM, I talked about how that actually crippled me as an adult, Because when you grow up with a name like Sunshine Girl, how are you ever going to say, no, I don't like that, No, that doesn't work for me. When you get older or this doesn't feel good, you just sort of learned to grin and bear it and pray that everyone else is happy.

Coming up. How Julianna was able to write so honestly about her pretty complicated mother and what her mom's reaction was. That's right after this. Both my parents were anthroposophists, which really just means the knowledge of man. And it's a philosophy that um Rudolph Steiner Um developed when he started his first school in Stuttgart, Germany. UM and this was in World War One when he realized children were not being educated and he turned a tobacco factory into a

school to help the children. And he was quite an interesting man, very esoteric. Your dad was a philosophy major at Dartmouth, so maybe, and that's one of the reasons he gravitated to him, and your mom did too, absolutely well, I think my so my father introduced my mother to anthroposophy. My father wasn't a philosophy major at Dartmouth, and um, really that's all he ever wanted to do was just

read philosophy books, write a few papers. He wrote a beautiful paper comparing Victor Frankel and Rudolf Steiner that actually, and it was the one paper where I thought, oh, he my father was an anthroposcopist for the people. In other words, he tried to really translate Steiner's works, whereas my mother just sort of floated around in the ideology

of it. And that really was a big backdrop for me as a child growing up, because I grew up around a lot of her searching to find a true meaning for herself in this world, and that didn't necessarily always include the best interest for her children. That's yes, definitely, although I want to talk about that in a moment, but you know, it was interesting. Your dad became sort of a madman and was a copy copywriter, very very

successful in advertising. And just a little known fact that maybe we can include in the new updated version of Trivial Pursuit is he wrote PLoP plot fiz this, Oh what a relief it is. He wrote that jingle PLoP PLoP biz, Oh what a relief it is? Both speedy bubbles, relieve you're upset and look and hit it. Then that's right. It was actually Katie, it was a Jeopardy question once it was it was that's so funny. But your mom,

you're right, I think, you know. And I actually had a lot of sympathy for your mom reading the book because of her era. And you know, I think I've been thinking a lot about, you know, in the process of writing my own memoir and just generationally how things

have changed for women. And your mom was born in a period of time and was even different from my oldest sister, who was ten years older than I. She just didn't really have an outlet or very many options, and you could kind of understand why she was always searching for herself, her true self, her purpose. And um that I think is very much kind of a theme of the book, at least when it comes to your your mom, who then changed her name. She was Janice

and then she became Francesca. She was really searching Julianne, right, she was. And also it was the seventies, you know, it was hippie. She was a hippie, and self searching was in, you know, it was it was the time. It wasn't so strange to bring your kids to a commune like camp in the middle of Canada. I had a chapter about that, but that's not in the book, but that did happen, um, and just say, you know,

figure it out, honey, I'm going to go meditate. You know, even though I was six, like that was kind of normal then. And it's sort of also why the cover of the book, I wanted to feel like a seventies poster. That's true with the writing and the kind of the sunshine and very it's kind of poppy, isn't it. Yeah?

And it and it it was you know. Um. I write about my mother very honestly, but also with tremendous love in my heart because because I love her, and because as hard as it was growing up, I'm so grateful as an adult my mother. My mother's eighty six now and she's still searching. And she understood my need to write this book, and she gave me her blessing to write it and said, I own my stuff, honey,

feel free. I don't know how many people of her generation would be able to do that without this self searching quality of their of their being, because, um, it's hard to admit that you put your kids through a lot, right, Um, but I want to just preface it by saying I was always loved. I was maybe not chaperoned enough and maybe jostled around too much, um and not maybe thought of it as the the first priority. But there was only love and tremendous respect for who I was as

a human being. Um and And so that was also a little tricky. It's a little tricky to navigate as a kid because then you're like, but you're putting me in this terrible situation. How am I supposed to handle that? So that's what I try to write about in the book, and then to be able to say, as an adult, I can change that narrative. I don't have to carry the anger all the time. I can now change that,

and I did. I feel very grateful that I was able to confront both my parents at different times in my life and say, I, I know you love me, and I love you, but I need I need acknowledgement that what you did wasn't okay. I need an apology. And I got that. Yeah, because your dad, I now died in two thousand fourteen, but you have talked to your mom since, and she's very proud of the book.

Despite the fact that you are pretty open about about her words and all, and I did feel that she loved you deeply throughout it, but that she was just kind of self centered and uh, you know. But anyway, I thought that I was going to ask you to read a passage. I know a lot of people want

to hear more about your roles on e Er. I'm getting questions from the audience about that, But I loved the passage on twenty four, which page twenty four, which made me understand how your childhood experiences informed you and actually me to choose acting as a profession. Yeah, sure, I have it right here. Um when I dig deep to try to understand why acting became my profession even though I had much bigger plans for myself when as a teenager I was plotting out my adult life, I

see now that nothing else would have made sense. What else could I do? I was always trying to be another person as a child, whether it was changing my accent, speaking in a different language, living the high life, or just getting by. I was constantly changing who I was or trying to become someone I thought I was supposed to be. I wanted to fit into whatever since suation

was thrown at me. I became very good at determining which direction I needed to follow depending on where I was or who I was with, which I think really shows how your need to morph into different surroundings. You'd get an English accent, you'd lose your English to accent, you'd moved back to London, you'd have to get an

English accent again, always desperately trying to fit in. And it must have, you know, as you've talked about, you know already trying to square these two very different worlds and often very different cultures, um, which very difficult for especially, I would think for a pre pubescent, you know, adolescent girl who's probably full of angst and um, you know, identity issues already. So you had this overlay of these

two different worlds. And I wonder if you would have become an actor had it not been for this kind of strange childhood you experienced. I'm wondering, do you think you would have been I don't. I mean, I always assumed I would follow in my grandmother Henrietta's footsteps and be a lawyer. To be honest with you, that was sort of what I thought was a noble profession. Um and I I. I just I couldn't have done it. I wasn't good at reading the fine print. I don't

think I would have um been able to. I was studying character and and body behavior, I remember distinctly at the age of six, and I talked about it in a chapter called Jesus in the Van where we were living in a VW camper and my mother and her boyfriend who we called Jesus Christ behind his back because that's what he looked like. Um, they picked up two hitchhiker's somewhere along the coast of Spain, and UM, I

just remember seeing this. The woman had a twitch and I was sitting in that my my place in the van was the very back and just watching her neck. And I remember distinctly thinking can I mimic that? Can I do that? And just being very aware of of um people and what they wear and body and how

you walk and how you talk. UM. So it was like it was it was it was like going to drama school really without me knowing it, you know, Yeah, I remember that, and and how you made that that Bulkswagen band your little home as you guys went on the road. Very different childhood than mine. That's for sure, we're gonna take a short break. But when we come back, how Nurse Halfway almost never was Let's talk about sort

of when you really burst on the scene. I remember it so well when you were Nurse out the Way on E R. And you know, just tell us a little bit about what that was like getting that role and being part of that really true phenomenon. You know, the first year, I don't think any of us really could grasp the enormity of the show because we were working all the time. A first year of any series, especially a drama series here were it isn't an oiled, well oiled machine yet, um, And it's a lot of

learning curves. So we were at work sometimes eighteen hours a day and living literally at home to the studio and back. There was no sort of outside understanding, even though two months into that show we were on the cover of Newsweek. It was such a huge phenomenon. That's in the insert by the way, that cover. Yeah. Um, So so in the beginning I didn't really I couldn't

grasp it, um. And I also think I probably I went from zero to a hundred in such a short amount of time to go from being a struggling actress. Two being all over the world on a show everyone's talking about. Is I still have a hard time believing it. Even though I know what happened and I know I was a part of it, I'm still in awe that I was a part of it. Um. It was an amazing time, and it was an amazing group of people to be with. And you know, I felt like I

was a real newbie. So I learned from the best and I watched and I listened and I learned. And UM, I am so grateful for the discipline of that show, because ah, it taught me how to really work hard

and and not ever complain again. Because once you've done a medical show like we Are, everything else is a piece of cake, really, And and it was such an incredible ensemble past and I know that that George Clooney called you after you had shot the pilot to tell you that you got the job, right, I mean, is that? So in the pilot of the show, I died, Um, And I was only hired for the pilot, And then

I died. My character comes in oded on a gurney, and so I flew back to New York and UM said goodbye to everyone, and Um, I had had such a great time with them all. And then I h was looking for another job and I was offered another job, and that same day George left me a message and said, I don't know if you're thinking of taking another job, but I wouldn't if I were you, because I think they're going to keep you on and they're going to

offer you a series regular role. And that was that was a hard gamble for me because I didn't know if it was true, you know, was it gonna happen. I needed and Tom Fontana, who is a writer and a dear friend of mine. UM, he had offered me the job on Homicide Life on the Street and I called him and he and I said, I don't know what to do, and he said, take the gamble. I'll always have a job here for you. And that George

and Tom changed, They've changed my life. And do you stay in touch with the whole e Er crew, Anthony Edwards and all of them today literally just got off the phone two minutes before I came in here with Eric Leasow. Yeah, it's a really um and Tony's daughter, Um, I think she just graduated, but Um, goes to the same school. My son goes to a New York City, so I'd see Tony in the hallway of my son's school. I mean, it's just, uh, it's been It's it's a

gift that keeps on giving. And George and I have always always, um stayed in touch, you know, we've we I don't know what it was about our relationship on that show, but there was something I think that we both had a way of working together that just um, I don't even think we realized it. You know, every now and then we'll write to each other. Remember when we did that scene. Um, it just was a real that happens. You know, I'm lucky. I feel like I got it with Josh Charles to it. So for me,

it happens twice in a lifetime. You know, when two characters you can finish each other's sentences. I mean that I've just been so so lucky with my leading men. I have to say, you know, George and I have that same thing going Julianna. I mean, I'm actually feeling really quite jealous of you right now, but I'm sorry. That's okay. My husband is here rolling his eyes. He's awesome. Are you right there, John, he's listening to this whole thing. Uh. Anyway,

but would you guys ever do a reunion show it all? Or? I thought would be so fun, but maybe not what we do? I mean we we just did this reunion that on, you know, for to raise money for the Waterkeeper's Alliance. But um, and someone asked that that was one of the questions, And I mean, I think we all feel the same way, which is lightning. You can't catch lightning in a bottle twice. That show was on for fifteen years, and um, I got to be a part of the first six. I just don't know how

you would reboot something that was that good. And we're all so much older now, and you know, I feel like, leave well enough alone and find something else that's great. You know, I think you're probably right. You you speaking of the end of your run on e ER. You write about after six years you decided that you were going to turn down a twenty seven million dollar two year contract and people thought you were insane, and you write about being at the gym, I believe, and turning

on the view. Now I'm kind of mad at Barbara Walters and Joy Behart because they weren't being very nice about your decision, and they were talking some serious smack about you. And it must have been like an out of body experience, and you were really really upset about it. So why don't you tell us why you you wanted to turn down, uh, that that big chunk of change, missy, and why you know, and and how you dealt with

some of the backlacks you got. Oh you know, I feel like because I turned down that amount of money, it's it's definitely defined me to a certain point in this business. She's the girl that turned down that kind of money. Sorry, there's sirens. I hope no one's hearing it. Um, And I write about it because I want to just let people hear my side of the story, which was it wasn't a light decision. I was very methodical about um my decision. I asked everyone I respected what they

would do. Um. Every single person said, take the money. You'll never have to work again. No one gets offered this kind of money, especially a woman. This was quite a while ago. What year was this? This was a two thousand? Yeah, yeah, so this is twenty one years ago, right,

maybe twenty yeah, so whatever, twenty one years ago so. Um. But but before all of the money came into the picture, Um, I had work secured for a year, so I was gonna do my six years on your happily I had signed, I had signed for five, and then I happily signed on for another one, and then I was going to be done and moved back to New York where my my family was back east. I'm I'm an East Coaster. I loved l A, but it's just not my jam. I need a season to move forward. I need people

around me. I felt a little isolated out there in a car all the time. And I had been privileged to have been given a play by John Robin Bates, who I was huge admirer of. He had written apart for me in a new play that I was going to do at Lincoln Center with Jason Robarts. I'm who gets that dangled in front of them when you're thirty one,

thirty two years old? And um, so I had that I was going to and then I was going to go off and do my dream job, which was a four part mini series for T and T called The Miss of Avalon. I grew up reading all the um Arthur legends, you know, King Arthur and the round the and the Holy Grail and the round Table and the Knights of the round Table. And that was I was going to get to ride horses. I was a horseback rider as a kid, and quite a serious one, and here they were, they were paying me a lot of

money to do it. And on top of everything, I was going to get to use my English accent ride my horses. I mean it was to me I had everything. I couldn't believe my life like that was incredible. And then the money came in, right, well, we'd love you to stay for two more years. We'll pay twenty seven

million dollars. Um. So I had to dig deep and I did and um and ultimately I knew and I write about this sort of divine intervention moment for me in the book UM on that on top of my father giving me really great advice, which was, when is enough enough? I know a lot of unhappy rich people, Honey,

what if you got hit by a bus tomorrow? You said yes, you'll take the money, and you're living this life and you get hit by a bus before the two years is up, and you're lying there on the street as you're dying and you say, did I live my truest life? It was I true to myself? Or was I just waiting to get rich and not living in the moment? And that rang so true to me and who I am, UM, that I opted to say, thank you so much, but I'm going to not stay um.

And then when the backlash happened, Um, I think for me, when I saw the view as I was on the treadmill, I literally stopped and my heart started pounding because the way these women were speaking about me was as if, just to be clear, I was going off to do a play for two hundred and thirty five dollars a week off Broadway at Lincoln Center, like it's not um, you know. I remember Barbara Watching said, well she she said, she's no spring chicken. Who does she think she is?

And then joy Beyhart getting in there and saying, well, she'll never work again. She I'm gonna be waving to her on my way out the door because she's gonna be my dormant. I mean, the way they spoke about me was so um, cruel and uh and untrue. UM. And so for all you fans that keep asking me, why don't I go on that show? Now you know, um, I've never been on the show, but um, but the truth is I'd be happy to go on and now because I don't care any like, I could talk about

it now and it doesn't matter. But I know I never went on the show because I felt they showed such disrespect because no one bothered to ask me. They just made assumptions. And when I felt horrible, I called my father and I said, Dad, everyone's laughing at me and making jokes and I just want to disappear. This is horrible and he said, well, honey, you turned down the American Dream. So what they're really upset about is they know that that wouldn't have been their choice, and

it makes them angry that that is your choice. Really, it's about them, it's not about you who doesn't take that money? How could she possibly be happy if she doesn't have that kind of money or whatever it was. And I realized I was like, right, this isn't really about me at all. This is about their reaction and to a choice I made. And uh, And you know it wasn't easy at first, but in time I really

stopped caring what anyone thought. It's my life and um, and I've had some amazing things come out of it. Because I'll say, yeah, I want to talk to you about The Good Wife, which, as you know, my husband John consumed voraciously. A couple of years ago. He was like, I'm not watching this show, and then he like, I couldn't stop watching the show. And a lot of men felt that way about the show I think because of because it was called The Good Wife. I think they

thought it was gonna be too girly or something. But most men who watched it, they all come up to me on this y they go, you know, I never watched it, and then I started watching it and I love it. So yeah, he's your number one fan. But I mean, you know, you're so fortunate to have you know, you know, I mean there are a lot of fine actors out there who don't have these incredible opportunities. I mean not that you haven't earned every bit of it.

I'm not suggesting that, but wow, to be on a show like The Good Wife, which um clearly you were consumed by Alicia's character and you gave it your all. But what was it about that show that made it really work in a similar way that e Er did? I think was it the ensemble. Was it the topicality the Silda Switzer Spitzer, Sorry, not Switzer Spitzer. I dated a boy in college named Switzer, but not Switzer Spitzer and he was from the liquorice company. But anyway, Selda Spitzer.

So it was very weirdly timely. But when you look back at that whole experience, what was the key to the success of that show? So I think, what what what everyone has to remember is, um, when you sign on to do a show, you're only given the only thing that's written is the pilot. Is that first episode. And that first episode I had I was a little obsessed with Silda Spitzer and Elliot Spitzer. I watched that press conference where you see her standing behind him, and

I remember screaming at the television. I mean, like, why are you there? Don't leave? Walk away. I didn't understand why she was there, and she looked like she wanted a sinkhole to happen, you know, like she just wanted something to take her away. Um. And what I found so fascinating in the pilot when I was reading the pilot, what really got me was what happens after that press conference when they go into the Green room what happens.

And so there's this pilot and I'm reading it and I was like, oh my god, I want to play that woman. I need to know who she is because like Silda Spit you know, my Mike Alicia Flora graduated topping her class at Georgetown Law School. Higher then then uh, Peter Floric Chris notes character higher than Josh Charles's character Will Garden. She was number one. Silda Spitzer, such a smart woman. Who are these women? I got? I was

so excitement to play her. Then of course you make the pilot and you don't know what the show is going to be because you don't know if it's picked up or not. So nothing's written and then they say it's a go. And then the first script comes in after the pilot, and it's where I do think, Um, I am truly one of the luckiest people on the planet because that that this script fell into my lap. Robert and Michelle king Um wrote such a complex, interesting character.

And yes, it's about the cast, it's about the writing. I mean, ultimately, the first thing it's about is the writing. Really, um. But then, as Robert and Michelle said to me so many times in dailies. They would watch my character and I would wait for a minute before I answered, because I always felt like Alicia really balance things out in

her head and thought things through. I noticed my husband, who calls himself a recovering lawyer, he always looks at two sides of each argument before he has an answer. And I'm I'm an actress, I'm cleric, I'm like, I'm emotional. Everything. I answer like, you know, way too fast everything. And I loved the idea of being more. Let me wait, let me weigh out two sides. And they would then start writing to what I was doing. That's the luxury

of television. It's like a novel. You know, the writer gets to also see the the actor up there every day and then they say, wait, she's really good at that weight. I'm going to write to that strength and and that dance that you get to do with writers. There's just nothing that e Er was the same. You know, we just had great writers. So it's the writing first, and then hopefully you see what you can do with the actors in it. And I I mean, I was

blessed to do that show. And also the character development, you know, the evolution of all the characters, I think, you know, absolutely, they kept growing and changing and surprising us. Yeah, and it's you know, TV, UM, TV is like reading a really good novel. You know, you get to turn each page, you get to live inside the characters. They stay with you week after week. It's very different than a movie, which is two hours of beginning, the middle and an end. With TV, it's ongoing, so it's sort

of this just guilty pleasure all the time. And I couldn't wait to read each script that not all television shows are like that, you know, So, um, listen, we're almost out of time. But I was just gonna close by a question that someone asked, which was in writing this book, what did you what did you learn about yourself in the process? You know, what did you come

away recognizing or realizing that perhaps you hadn't before. I think the main thing that I that that hit me the most was while I was writing about my plates spinning in the seven years I was working UM, I realized and learned about myself that if I do not take time for myself and let go of trying to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect friend or daughter or sister, or even the perfect actor, or even the perfect actor. I will be no good to anyone,

especially myself. And that nobody wants to hang out with a martyr is so boring and so exhausting. And I realized as I was writing it, I was like, you better live by these words, girl, you better, you better. It's funny because in the pandemic people were asking them where what did you do to find a loane time? Because you know, when you're locked down with a kid and a husband anyway, and I and I'm fine out

that everyone did this. I ran to the bathroom and shut the door, because no one will bother you in the bathroom. So I would sit on the floor and maybe return some emails or just breathe, or just reading something to the newspaper because no one can bother you in the bathroom. And I realized that I will always find time to to run to the bathroom and shut the door and be on my own. Um, I need

to be alone. And that's what I loved about the process of writing, was that every day I would be able to come into my office and no matter what, for two hours, make myself right every day if I if I could. And some days were great and some days I had nothing to say, but um, I did love the alone time of that. Well. I know that that people can't wait to see sort of what you do next. And as I said, you've got some people who are serious bands, including me, and I wish you

all the best with the book. It's so exciting and it's such an accomplishment. So I hope you feel proud of yourself for your finger to keyboard and really telling your story. And you did such a beautiful job. So congratulations, Thank you so so so so much, and thank you for doing this and being so supportive in the world to me. And by the way, you can find Sunshine

Girl by Julianna Margalie's wherever you buy your books. Speaking of book tours, Hello, my memoir Going There is out October and I'll be taking the show on the road. To find out when and where I'm headed and to get your tickets, check out ticketmaster dot com slash Going There and hopefully I'll see you there next week. On next question, I have for five seconds the control of the narrative about me. Sharon Stone exposes Sharon Stone like that to actually tell you something that's true about me.

The Oscar nominated actress sharing her story on her own terms. That's next Thursday on Next Question. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers Army, Katie Curic, and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Adriana Fasio, and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and

mixed by Derrek Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go to Katie Currek dot com. You can also find me at Katie Curic on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,