135: Mara Wilson, Acting Cults And Isolation Tanks

Welcome to Night Call, Mara. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. I love this show. Oh we're so happy to have you on. Um. We were going to talk today about a couple of night callie things isolation tanks which you have variances with, and also acting classes and how they are like cults with I've written I've written articles about this. It's that's a real thing, perfect. Um. Why don't we kick it off with a Nightcall? My Nightcall?

It's Lindsay. Um. I heard the topic this week was acting classes that are like cults, and that brought back some memories. I was a high school in college, drama geek and a drama major in college, and I took part of some really questionable activities that seemed normal at the time, but that looking back, I'm kind of horrified by. UM. Some examples, in high school drama class, we were regularly made to do stream of consciousness type exercises that ended

with all of us screaming or crying as a group. UM. And I had a succession of drama teachers who, thankfully, as far as I could tell, we're not abusive. Some of them were a little creepy, but I was not abused. But they were very cult leader like and they often had inner circles of students who they spent a crazy amount of time with, and people talked about them sort of like they were gods, and you were not allowed

to criticize them in any way. UM. By college, I felt like acting classes were more like unlicensed therapy, just a lot of exercises again that asked people to draw on childhood trauma, and if you didn't really have any childhood trauma, you would kind of be pressured to make it up. UM. I witnessed quite a few full on emotional meltdowns by fellow students and occasionally professors, and of course there were no clear rules about confidentiality or anything

like that. Um, looking back, I can't believe that I just thought this was normal or deep. So I wonder if mar Wilson or any of you who participated in any acting classes or theater classes have any thoughts on this. Um, Should we start regulating this stuff? Should we have clearer guidelines for acting classes where personal info is shared, or teachers seem to think their therapists, or maybe since it's been like twenty plus years since I did this, maybe

now there are clearer rules or guidelines. Just curious. Marl Wilson loves your work. Thank you for all You're really insightful writing about Hollywood and growing up as a child star. And thank you nightcall as always, nice nightcall. This is something we've been talking about a lot over the past couple of weeks, really starting when we kind of launched into maxium um the acting class as cult phenomenon. Mara, I'm really eager to hear your thoughts on this. Yeah,

none of the things that she said surprised me. I mean, I've been through series like similar things myself, especially the thing about people worshiping a teacher and then um and and the teacher kind of having an inner circle that was very much like that happens at every acting school. I would say, like the favoritism is is absurd. And I definitely new teachers, Like there was there was a teacher I knew who would would take a young boy with him to Europe every summer and yes, and uh

and he would he would there. There would be I can't name any names because of lawsuits probably, but yeah, I knew a teacher who would do that. That this the boys were all over eighteen, but that didn't make it any less creepy. Yeah, and and really kind of nobody commented on it for a while. We were just like, oh,

that's kind of what he does. And then you know a lot of times the the the the boy would come back like, you know, questioning his sexuality or something and um and but at the time it was like, well, how can you even question this? You know? So so I've definitely seen that happen. I also think a lot of the exercises they do, it really does depend on

the school. There's um, there's a lot that's like like Strasburg based, which was like the very early acting school has a lot to do with um, the idea of of like searching through your personal memories and and drawing on your own traumas to do things. And for some people that really works, um, you know, and and there's their substitution where it's like, all right, you're sad on stage because somebody dies, so you imagine that's somebody close

to you dies. Um. I know that that That kind of worked for me when I was a child sometimes, but I was a pretty sensitive child to begin with, so I kind of withdraw on a lot of different things. Now I don't like doing that at all when I'm acting. I I feel like I'm much more like sort of the Adler school, which is more like, no, build a character and become them, because you know, you don't have

to be a murderer to play a murderer. So I do think that there's definitely like, um, there's definitely like it definitely depends on the ones that you do. I will say that, like, I had a really good acting teacher as a child, Like he was intense, but he was very respectful, and I think that's probably because he worked with children and he had children of his own. So he knew he was an intense guy, but he was very smart and very sweet and and you know,

I loved him and I still love him. I saw him a few months before the pandemic started and and like thanked him for always taking care of me. Yeah. I mean, it's such a vulnerable position to be, to be a child actor, and you obviously have to hope that everybody around you has good intentions and isn't a bad person, because it would be so easy to manipulate that situation. Yeah. Um, I feel like you always hear stories about kid actors being you know what you were saying, like,

you know, hey, think of something really sad. And I feel like there's a bunch of stories about like telling some kids like, hey, your dog just died, just to get them to cry, just kidding. That's that's something that they don't do anymore, because they did that a lot in the early days. I mean there's stories of you know, um of of Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien and all of these people being taught being told like we're going to kill your dog, um things. Oh my god. Yeah,

there that that happened a lot. And I think because of that people have been a lot more careful with it. But so so I think that, and I do think that, like by the time that like that the seventies and eighties, we were fucking terrible for child actors. There was just all kinds of unregulated nonsense. And and I can tell because when I talked to to child actors who are even five or ten years older than me, they have

stories that I do not. They definitely have stories where where they're like, yeah, I was definitely abused, or I was left to do really dangerous things, or you know, they had me running through a minefield with no protection and they had to do these things and they had me up late at night and all of this. And whereas whereas I was like, my most uncomfortable moments did not come on filming on sets. They came from, uh, like creepy men writing me messages and and things like that.

Like that's something that people don't understand. People be like, Hollywood is so bad to children, and I'm like, yes, it is. But you guys also need to take responsibility for the general public too, because the general public does

a lot of things. Yeah, I mean, I have to imagine that after the John Landis Twilight Zone movie where he murdered two children and tomorrow because of lack of regulation and because of like working them more hours than you're supposed to do and that kind of stuff, that there had to be some kind of a clamp down of, like, yeah, we actually do have to. Like, well, somebody who was who is related to that man was very rude to

me a couple of years ago. And I remember thinking to myself, and I actually met him when I was a child, and um and and uh, I think like at the time, I thought it was because like a director I knew, not Danny DeVito, guys, a director that

I knew was like friends with him. But I'm pretty sure that that director was only friends with him because they worried about his children and they wanted to make sure that like the children were going to grow up okay, and uh, you know, I don't know if that happened, but um, but yeah, but somebody who was related to him, and I remember thinking to myself, like, if if he ever pulls they well now I'm just totally revealing who this is, but everybody already knows anyway, if he if

he pulls the don't you know who my father is. Card on me, I can say, yes, he's the reason that we had child labor laws. He's the reason I was safe on sets. Right. My dad told me some story I've never heard recently because um, you know, I was like a little ginger kids. So people would sometimes be like, hey, you want to like come do some acting, and I was not really interested. Um, but there was a time when like I saw John Landis at a deli and he was like, oh, you know what beautiful

hair you have. And my dad just like grabbed me, pulled me away and was like that's John Landis, Like he can't be in your children. Yeah, yeah, it's I mean. The thing is that that as you get older, though it people don't think about the well being of actors as they get older. And I do know definitely several people who have taken acting classes that were from sports cults or religious groups. Yeah, so let's talk about that, because I heard about this from tests a while ago.

So definitely, acting teachers all have this kind of guru for sharing about them, but some of them really are gurus and are trying to get people either into cults,

are sometimes just like an MLM. I know, some people who went to an acting class that was run by a very shady organization that they knew about, and they knew that it was there, and I'm not even sure how they got into it in the first place, but they I think maybe they assumed that they wouldn't feel obligated to join, but by the end of it, they were so exhausted and so broken down that they almost said, okay, yes,

we'll join just again. And that happens in cults more often than you think, where people are I don't want to do this, and then they do, and then they end up justifying their decision later on where they're like, well, actually, I'm glad I joined. I mean, I know I joined it in a moment of stress, but I'm glad I did it. I was so tired and and you know, I was so tired, and it was this but but it was actually a good thing, because that's the way

human beings work. And we tried to reduce cognitive dissonance, and you know, we try to get rid of anything that is isn't in sync with our ego, you know, in our self concept, and that's and that's a really hard thing to do. So I think there's a lot of self justifying. I think there's something also that's interesting that happens in acting classes and also kind of the improv community and stuff like that, where it just be it takes over your social life if you're really dedicating

a lot of time to it. It becomes such a tight community. And you've been so vulnerable in front of this community that you kind of believe they're your friends, even if they're not actually your friends. And this has happened to me like nothing something that shouldn't happen. It's a natural kind of occurrence. But then I think that makes you extra susceptible to you know, having boundaries be crossed or in the instance of UM acting coaches for instance,

who are affiliated with like religions or organizations. Eventually, yeah, like you said, you kind of feel like beaten down by the fact that everyone around you is normalizing something that's that's not normal, and it kind of it's hard to resist that after a while, right, And also like thosen't it it must be like seductive to be like, oh, if I were part of the inner circle, like maybe I'd book a bunch more work because I'd be you know, I mean they're there are acting schools out there where

they have people there who work like who work for casting, like some of the best acting schools. So so there's a reason why. I mean, most of these actors that come out of these schools are are wonderful actors, but there's a reason that they're getting booked over people who

went to other schools who are also wonderful actors. I think another thing is that acting, for so many people is all about truth and it's all about authenticity, and you spend so much of your time obsessing about being fake, and you spend so much of your time obsessing about what is real and what isn't that after a while it's kind of like you have no idea what you have no idea what real is anymore, and you don't know if the things that you're doing in class are

real or not. And people will always accuse you of being fake and phony and phoning it in and uh, and that's a really big thing. That's like one of an actor's biggest fears is being phony. So there's this idea that you kind of need to break yourself down, and you need to break yourself down and and try all of these things until you're really authentic, until you're really real. That's something that you saw a lot with Alison Max from Alison Mack in Nexium. Yeah, I think

that's how we got on this topic. Is definitely just like, oh, you know a lot of these people are actors that are in Nexium, and they're actors who are like not fully fulfilled in their careers and want something and this guy is like promising it to them. Well, it's uh, there's so much talk about being real and being authentic and really accessing your emotion and and that is something that is incredibly important to an actor, and being being an actor is really like it can be a really

ascetic thing. Like we actually had a class at my school and there was a teacher there. I don't I don't know if he's still working there, but I was not a big fan of his because I did a project for his class and a bunch of us did projects and at the end of the class he was like, I was a little disappointed in the quality of the work guys, And we were like, Okay, well, we'll step it up next time. And then apparently the next class came in and they were like, oh my god, the

previous class was so shitty. The work they did was so bad, and the other teacher was like, I wanted to throw myself out of the window, it was so bad. And after that, I was like, oh, clearly I can't trust you because you're talking shoot about us to your other classes. But other people looked him, and he had a class that he would teach that he said was taught was was based on like Russian and tie and like very sort of like Eastern oriented, you know, kind

of kind of classes. And he um, you had to wear all white and you weren't allowed to eat, drink, use any drugs, or have sex twenty four hours before the class. And he had this class, yes, and you had to in the floor beforehand, like like a you know, like a Japanese monk. You had to clean the floor beforehand. And I was supposed to be put in that class my senior year, and I was like, no, funk that, I'm not saying this. This is my senior year. Put me in the classes that I want to be in.

So I think I took like a I think I took like a voice lessons class instead because I was like, I was like, I'll just get my I'll just sort of sing better, like that's gonna be I think that's that's a practical skill instead of making making artwork that like probably not a lot of people want to see. Anyway, you saw everybody wearing all white, and you were like, m I don't know if Yeah, actually this does look

like a call. And then I know so many people who were doing his shows and we're not getting paid and and we're not We're putting in so much work, and I remember thinking to myself, what do you get from it? Like I had a teacher there who I really loved, but like she had a life that was separate than ours, you know, and she she she we didn't consider like and I used to jokingly call her

like the Guru, but she wouldn't have liked that. I don't think like she she very much had her own life and she lived she didn't live in the city, she lived outside of New York. And she was really wonderful. And the thing is, like I had a really great time at my acting school, and ours was so much better compared to so many of the other schools there. But there's still are these issues. They're still still are these problems. Yeah, really quick. I think we should take

an excerpt from a night email. This one comes from Peter and it's just following up with this topic. He says, my question regarding acting classes as cults is if acting classes are easily susceptible to cult late practices because of the vulnerability of performers. It's hierarchical design and wise leader status of acting teachers legitimized by IMDb credits. For example, how do you think these types of acting groups can avoid such cult like tendencies and be healthy environments to

grow and learn. I mean, that's a really good question. I think that I think that the students need to make sure that they're safe. I think that they need to agree on rules beforehand. Uh, and that I think is very good. Like, I think that sort the the the issue of consent is something that comes up a lot a lot enacting classes, Like I had. I remember in high school and I went to I went to an art school. We had we had some kind of class and uh, maybe it was a mass class or something,

and we had to like a sema character. And there was one kid in there that was getting like really violent and shovy, and and we told like we told him afterwards. We were like, dude, you need to stop shoving people. You need to like be really careful and he and he would just say, well, I can't change

my character right totally. I've heard about very I've heard about similar situations where people are shoving people or getting violent or getting kind of like overly sexual somebody and then they're like, it wasn't me, it was the character. The emotion came over me and like what am I to do? And there really is no framework for regulating something like that, because uh, yeah, what do you do friends?

I've had friends, Yeah, I've had friends also say like we were doing this scene and then I was like, this is kind of hot. Do you want to have sex? And the other actor was like no, this is acting, yeah, And I remember them saying that, me being like what, like that's not that's that's not appropriate, right. And you you saw that with like the James Franco Acting School, um,

which was everything bad. We've been talking about sort of being used to manipulate people that are going in actually like genuinely hopeful that this is going to help their acting careers and make them better actors. And then if somebody just wants to use it for their own personal narcissism to be abusive. It's it's not hard to do. Their intimacy coaches now one which I think is really good, and I think that there should be something like that

for for child actors in general. There should be like an onset psychologist. There should be something like that. This has been something that I've been talking about for years now, to to make sure that children are okay. But I also think that there probably does need to be some kind of regulation involved with with acting classes. Um if I don't know if like actors security or SAG wants to do this or something, but she's making sure that

that people are not getting horribly abused. I think that there also needs to be rules agreed upon beforehand, you know, the guidelines there. I had a teacher in college who said that her whole thing was thou shalt not get hurt. So if anybody was was physically hurt, like we had to stop and and and do the you know, and and completely make sure. Like I did one thing where

I was like where I was like upside down. I was trying to to like, uh, I don't know, do like a yoga post or something, and um, and I and I fell back and I fell onto my head and she stopped everything and was like, oh my god, let's make sure that everything is is here, like everything is safe here, and that's great. But I also think that we need to make sure emotionally that everything is okay.

And I do think that a lot of times actors will volunteer personal things about themselves because they feel like that's more, you know, like like that's like the better thing to do. There's, um, there's a lot of like Okay, I need to overshare, I need to be myself, I need to do these things. I have to do this, And and I think that actors need to know like no,

you don't. Yeah, there has to be like a boundary of like actually, like if somebody's hitting you during a scene, like you can stop the scene and say like that's not okay. Marra has a good point that it's not just about like physical acts of aggression. I think that unless there are parameters in place, at least, something that I've heard of happening, especially recently, is like you if you don't really know what the boundary is, and if you just and you could even just say nobody gets hurt.

There's also like this, if you go off book and you're like intimidating someone and you're not really sure of where that boundary is. That's like us that can cause psychological damage. Like it's especially if it's off book. Also that it's also when people are like, oh, we're getting to the heart of it, like this starts. I think a lot of the time that's really kind of encouraged and it and it is to watch, but it's also

you know, kind of unfair. It's like cheating in a way when you when you I mean, yeah, the thing is that there there are like I've noticed, like a couple of different personality types that seem to be drawn

to acting. And one is the very over the top type, you know, and people say, you see that a lot with musical theater and stuff, and these are the people who who And I think I get the feeling that Alison Mack was one of these people, partly because I met her when I was a child really was she she was also a child actor originally, right she was she was she was very sweet and we were doing charity work together and her whole thing was I want

to help people. But she was very sweet and bubbly and and kind and and and it does really it just sort of it serves as a reminder for me that a lot of people who get into cults think that they're helping. They think that they're doing something good for the world and themselves. You really saw that in maxi Um too, you know, and that she clearly was like, I'm gonna I'm here to help people. I'm here to

like improve everyone. Yeah. That was definitely that, like that was something that we, like, I'm pretty sure we met at an organization that was helping like abused children and like like sexually abused girls, and the irony of that

now like blows my fucking mind. But but and I think in the in the in Seduced, the the the better of the two documentaries about Maxium by far, I think India Oxenberg actually points out that she was obsessed with being authentic because people always told her that she was fake. Yeah, And as a child actor, that must be a hard line to walk, because it's like your authenticity comes from the fact that you're like an actual child. Yeah. I mean, like, I don't think that I was a

particularly great actress as a child. I think that I was pretty good different iconic Matilda. I'm hard on myself, but I don't think that I was like like I've seen I've seen better child actors, and I would say that you seemed very authentic and like there was no craft to it, which is very hard to do. You seem like you they just found a kid and put

them on screen. I've always been painfully since here, and I've always had a good ear for dialogue, so I think that those things were good, you know, for me. But um, but I mean I look at like quivention a Walls or somebody like that, and I'm like, okay, she's she's actually a good actress or or you know, I look at at a lot of like child actors and I'd be like, okay, you're You're better than I was.

But it was much easier for me to act as a child because I could access different emotions very easily, because when you're a child, you don't know that you're vulnerable. And then I got older, and you know, and my mother died, and I went through a lot, and I became a teenager, and I and I learned how awful the world was and and uh and and you know, and I got taken advantage of in many ways the way that everybody in the world does, and I became very cynical, and it was really hard for me to

access these emotions. So I often think that, you know, and it felt to me kind of like, um, like like in his Dark Materials, your your demon stops changing form, or in you know, you stop being able to go to Narnia or never never Land or something like that. Like it very much did feel like something like when you grow up, you lose that innocence and that willingness

to be vulnerable. And I think that that did kind of happen to me, and acting is definitely harder for me now because I can't access that that ease I had with emotions, that ease I had with vulnerability. So and that's another personality type used to you see too. You see people who are wonderful when they let go, but they're also very emotional, and uh, they're they're also you know, they're sensitive, most sensitive people or most callous. You know, cynical people are are not callous, but most

cynical people are sensitive. And I feel like that cynicism is like a callous right, which is also why in the acting class. They're like, you gotta rip off the callous and like get back to that sensitive, innocent inside. Well, first of all, that's not how skin works. Yeah, no, that's that's the thing, and it and and but then instead it clearly doesn't work, and it's like, well, maybe it's time for a different kind of acting. There's there's

many different kinds of acting. You know. There's there's Grotowski, which is all about physicality, and there's Meisner, which is all about being in the moment, and there's Adler, which

is all about, you know, being a character. And I think a lot of the best actors I saw were in like an n Yu, were in the experimental theater Wing because what they did is they allowed you to be very in your body, very in your moment, and there wasn't a lot of shame, Like there might have been weird stuff that I didn't know about, but for them, it was just sort of like, let your free flag fly, let's let's have fun, right, and that stuff is all

super fun when it's consensual. Well, let's take a quick break and then when we come back, we will talk with Mara about isolation tanks. Okay, Maraa. When you were talking about being in your body, is that Meisner use that? Um, well, that's that's pretty much any kind of acting I think. I mean, I don't know as much about Meisner as

I thought I did. When I met up with my old acting teacher, I started talking to him about Meisner, and then I realized that he knew all about it and I didn't, so so that he actual of it, really trained in Meisner. So what I thought was Meisner wasn't actually but U but most people use like a different kinds of you know, different kinds of acting. But but I'm not somebody who's very much I'm like, I can't dance. I'm I'm really bad at it. I never

know what to do with my hands. You know, I have an expressive face, but but I've never felt particularly in my body. I think I think that's probably true for a lot of smart kids too, though I'm a little brain. You know. Well, I was wondering if you'd ever tried to get in your body by going in an isolation tank. There we go, I have, Yes, I have, I did it. So last year I was having a really really hard time. Um, I was dealing with a lot of physical illness problems and that was causing me

a lot of mental illness anguish too. I was having some confusing situations with relationships. My cat was diagnosed with cancer. I was having a lot of like professional struggles. It was really it was a really, really hard time. And my friend came to visit. And my friend is is she's like sort of an expert on on like chronic illness and pain and things like that. And she also is she's much more like new age and open to things than I am. I'm always like the skeptical one.

But she said, why don't we do an isolation tank? And I think I only said yes because I actually have a friend um who we call Dr Flux, and Dr Flux is a neuroscientist and he does a lot about mental illness and such, and he has studied the effects of of of isolation tanks on the brain. And I told him, I said, I thought that we talked about it once and I said, I don't think I could ever do that. I would get so claustrophobic. And he goes, I'm claustrophobic and it wasn't a big deal.

He says, you find ways to deal with it. And so my friend Alison and my sister and I did this and I was like, Okay, Dr Flux says, it's okay. I trust him. I trust Allison. We'll see what happens. And and so we went to one in in West l a And near where my sister was living at the time, and uh, and we did it and it was an incredibly positive experience. How long were you in there? Two hours? Whoa Mara, Yeah, but I mean I kept

getting out because like I had to pee. Um, so you'd get out, you'd you'd use the toilet and you'd like wash yourself off and then get back in the isolation. Thank Yeah. Two hours. And I think the first hour was kind of a struggle because I was getting used to it, or it wasn't a struggle, but it was I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be feeling. But the second hour was amazing, absolutely amazing. I feel like, you know, maybe this is just for anyone who is

sort of an overly in their brain person. It always takes me so long to get out of my brain into my body, and then when you finally do and it, it is like, you know, there's this uncomfortable period where you can't stop thinking. This happens to me anytime I do yoga. It's like there's half an hour of me being like I want to I don't want to do this, I have to, you know, I'm thinking about something else, and then a certain point you're like in your body

and it's amazing. Yeah, it takes me forever. I I my brain fights it every step of the way. Um, but yeah, it was a really interesting experience. I didn't hallucinate or anything. And what I did with the it wasn't like one of those pod like tanks. It was like a small room. And what I did because I was afraid of the of like being coming claustrophobic. There was also like a button you could press in case everything was worried was in case you got in case

anything was wrong. Um. But I got in and you know, your your nude and the water is like completely cleaned and you have to put you have to put your plugs in and you have to sort of be like face up. And I mean I'm pretty short, so there was still a lot of space around me. But I I left the door open, you know, two inches, and then after a while I closed it to an inch, and then after a while I closed it to half an inch, and then after a while I closed it fully and I did that, and that I think made

it feel much better. And yeah, the first hour, I was thinking about a lot of weird things. I was sort of trying to find my like buoyancy. I was lying on my back. I was trying to make sure that, like the water, you know, solution didn't go into my mouth or my nose. And I think I like briefly fell asleep and then I like clear, I like quickly woke up, you know, I like I like dozed off.

But then something happened in the second the second half, Like I can't imagine having hallucinations in there, and I really don't think it would be a good place to do psychedelics. I really don't think it would. Uh. But I was lying there and I heard this sound and I was like, that's a really beautiful sound. What is it? And then I realized it was my own breathing. Oh my god, that's cool. And I felt this like tremendous feeling of joy and like clarity and purity, and I

was like, this is amazing. Everything is so beautiful. Right now. I feel weirdly at peace. And it was the most piece I had felt in years. And what I ended up doing was I would reach for the wall and then I would kind of like push myself off it and like go find the other wall. And I would go found to find the bottom walls, and I was like I was playing a game with myself. I felt like an otter or something where I was just like I can touch the wall and touching things is amazing,

and I'm swimming around and here like I was. I was just full of delight. Yeah, so you it sounds like you were having a psychedelic experience just it kind of was. Yeah, it was like it was Yeah, I mean I've never I've never done them because I'm a control freaking I'm scared. But yeah, but actually it does sound a lot like like when a lot of my friends micro does, that's what and a lot of my

friends do. Um. One of them met Nfia, well Micro does saying Nity Roman and gave her rug and was like, thank you for what you're doing for the city in the world and my sister and Nithia was like, is she okay? Does this affect you in a negative way, and I was like, now's signed, she signed. Don't worry about it, It's just just micro docing. She's she's happy. Some people on this call may have experience with micro

do sing. I won't say who. Somebody might be a big fan of micro dose thing, but could easily see how a slightly more macro dose would lead you to hug a city official. Um, yeah, it was. But it was like it was like the the So it was kind of it wasn't probably a bit like micro dosing in that like finding everything beautiful, you know, everything becoming really lovely kind of way. You know. No, I didn't

have any visual hallucinations. I didn't have any you know, not really any auditory but it was like my my senses were amped, and I felt I felt like joy and delight in a way that I hadn't felt in a long time, because I've been in physical pain and I'd been depressed that I was in physical pain and and but it was just the coolest thing because it did feel it felt very much like a childlike sense of wonder. Yeah, And I felt like I could find the beauty and things. I could find the beauty in

my own breathing that's amazing. So when you say it wasn't the pod, but it was like a room, how big is the room and is the room entirely filled

with is there like a tank in the room? It was, well, there was like it was like there was a bathroom and they're like there was I think there was like a toilet in a shower and and there was or maybe actually the toilets were in the hob and I might have had to go down the halliday use them, but there were there was a shower there and there was like a bench it so it was like a

little bit like a gym shower. And then there was this thing that kind of looked like it looked like like a big box or like with like a vault door or something. And then you would open the door and get in and uh. And that was that was I don't know, maybe like maybe like eight ft by like like six ft or something like that. And so it was too tiny. It wasn't too tiny like I could I could comfortably. I could comfortably like like swim around, not swim around, but like push myself around a little

bit and not immediately touch a wall. Um. I'm like I said, I'm also very short, but I think that they do take like different body sizes into and into consideration, and tall people into consideration and everything. Um So, so there definitely wasn't enough room and there was water, but then there was also like a high ceiling above me, so I wouldn't hit my head when I got out. Um. I don't remember how high the ceilings were, but like I don't know if I would have been able to

stand up. It's probably like five feet, but you know you could. You could are actually probably taller than that. Um And so, yeah, it felt weird because at first it's like, whoa, am I like putting myself into like a little freezer right now or something like that. It did look like a little like it looks it looks kind of like a freezer, like if you work at like a restaurant or something. But yeah, walk in it looked like a walk in freezer. And that felt a

little weird. And there was probably only like a foot or two of like I'd say probably a foot or so of water, and the water definitely had stuff in it that was going to help you float, like extra salt or that kind of like like yeah, like like the stuff that's in like the Dead Sea. I guess like there's there's different kinds of chemicals. I don't know what it is exactly, And and and I didn't totally float at first, Like I feel like my butt kind of dragged me down, you know, like like I had to

I had to sort of manage manage that. But like there was eventually I was like, Okay, I get the hang of it. Yeah, yeah, have you gone back since I've wanted to. I've wanted to so badly, but but COVID happened, So yeah, I really want to go back. And I was actually talking like I was talking to my friend Chris Fleming and his partner Melissa about it. And Chris is Chris is a a he's comedian and he's very weird and and so is his partner. And I thought, I was like, I was like, you guys

would really love this. I think like if for for nothing else, it would make a great story. And so I was looking at like the different places like in Pasadena and and places that were like a little closer to where I live. Uh, And then COVID happened, and I was like, well, probably nobody's going to be able to do this for a really long time. Yeah, that's like last on the list of things they're gonna exactly exactly. And that makes me really sad because I really did

feel this. I told my friends it was like meditating without having to do the work of meditating, right, because my my brain does not work well for meditation, like my sister and I sometimes do. Uh, we do like a chanting thing. She found a thing that was chanting in it, and I think I was a little worried about that at first because I was like, is this

a religious thing? But it's not. It's just that saying things and imagining things, Like you say certain things and you imagine certain things when you say them, and that like that helps me I think more than just sitting and thinking. Yeah. But being in the tank, Yeah, being in the tank, it was like I was meditating, but I didn't have to do the hard work of meditating. It was like it was meditating for me. Well, now we're all in isolation tanks of the mind, it's true. Well,

I was just thinking. I was like, I wonder if there's a way to kind of d I y and isolation tank. Yeah, I'm a Y. I was like, wait, if you just cover that with a dome and your own an outdoor isolation I mean maybe because but it's it's like it feels very different than what we're doing now because right now we're we're forced into it, and this going into an isolation tank is definitely is definitely

like a a you know, a reprieve from everything. So I think that that's, you know, it's it's definitely different because because I don't know, it's it's like a it's like a weirdly joyous thing. I think something something about floating in water too, just like does take you back to being in the womb. I definitely just feel that way anytime I'm in a pool and floating. It's like, oh,

I feel so happy and comfortable. I used to fall asleep in the car like um, like while you grew up in l A right, yeah, so you probably have the experience that I did where your parents would drive you around and you would sit in the front seat and just stare at yourself in the rear view mirror all the time while they like listen to their oldies. Oh yeah, t tu knows what this is. Also, yeh, I moved here at that time as well, Yes, exactly,

so I have that. I have a lot of memories of like sitting in the front seat and like staring at myself in the rear view window and and thinking that I looked prettier in that or the side mirrors actually and uh, and thinking that I looked much prettier in that light, and like listening to like sitting on the dock of the bay or something. But on long car trips, like we would have to go to like I think we had to go to Calibasses because my psychiatrist was out there, which is a very l a

sentence totally. My psychiatrist was also in the West Valley, and it's just like the worst thing about therapy was you had to drive to the West Valley exactly. But I would, like, I remember, like I would always fall asleep in the car on the way there and the way back, and I would I would either listen to oldies which I secretly loved, or I would like listen to like Weezer's Pinkerton or you know, Third Eye Blind or some ship and like, and I would always take

a like take a little nap. And I've heard people say later that like sometimes being in a car can can kind of be like the womb to some people, it puts babies to sleep. To Coliguy babies, you put some of them some of them like yeah, yeah, you

know now that you're saying that. And though I like, I'm like, I do have all these road trip memories of being in a car, yeah, when somebody else is driving and you can just fall asleep in just like the sound of the road and the music my parents would play like a like a Pat Metheny album always and like if I hear it, it just and I had a lot of trouble just falling asleep as a kid.

We had a lot of like albums that my parents would put on to try and help me to relax, and one of them was Avalon by Roxy Music was a big one. So like anytime I hear Avalon, which I like love as an album anyway, I just will get so relaxed. Yeah, that's that's me. With Paul Simon and Paul Simon's Graceland, I think I think I feel like Graceland is the one for a lot of people. It is. Yeah, And I didn't realize like all the

issues with it until I was much older. Oh yeah. Oh. He recorded this during a part type like, Okay, that's the worst. I'm a I'm a strong anti Paul Simon. Molly's very allergic, very allergic to Paul Simon. But I I understand that it's like a lot of people, a lot of a lot of white people, white Jewish people in particular, we we have a soft spot for him,

you know. I can't can't ant apologize for so I feel like it's just my my Los Angeles nous overrides it because I'm like, he stole music from Los Lobos and like, you don't funk with Los Lobos, come to l A. But I understand people's affection for it. And Tess was listening to River of Dreams the other day of the Billy Joel album, which is the Billy Joel was another one. Yeah it was Billy, but it was

early Billy Joel for my childhood drives. If my parents had played River of Dreams, I would have been like so mortified. I think they probably just played in private. One of my favorite songs of the child was for the Longest Time, which probably foreshadows like my my teenagerhood and like acapella groups, and yeah, yeah it was. It was definitely I think thanks for making me into that kind a kid, Mom and dad. But no, the worst

actually is my stepmother's taste in music. It's it's very very like overwrought um ballads and very like syrupy ballads that she does that she puts on UM a lot of like seventies stuff, but like not good seventy stuff like bread things like that the carpenters, but not like the good carpenters, not like not like Superstar, which you know which rules to like, but like they're they're more like the stuff that you know that. Karen was like, why are we doing this? Can I just drum? Can

I just drum and be myself? Yeah? So, so riding in the car with her, like I remember we went to we went to we drove to Las Vegas and back with like my best friend from high school and uh and we all just spent time like swapping um swapping albums back and forth and and yeah, I think there was a lot of Bent Folds five and weirdly Rick Astley was there too, Yeah the early Yeah, I mean I think, you know, in absence of being able to go own an isolation tank or even an acting class,

I think, um it's you know, visualizations of this type of thing. If you can just like visualize yourself in an isolation tank or like visualize yourself in the back, you know, in the car on that road trip. Like I find that very comforting. I was doing a visualization about being a beaver who lives in a beaver. It's really nice then because I watched some nature show and I was like, oh, I wish I were a beaver.

I definitely had some dreams where where you know, and and I and like that brought me like joy, which is surprising because usually my dreams are just stuff like like um, I need to do the dishes, and like mine are like yeah, mine are really boring. Mine are like I'm in I'm in the shower and I can't find I can't find my like scrubs, my like you know, I can't find like my mesh lufah, where did it go? Is it on the floor of the tub. No, it's not so like grocery shopping. It's like exact thing to

dream about. Yeah, it's just like yeah, it's like like a dream that like I threw something out and then I was like, oh no, it's not actually empty at like a bottle of cleaning fluid or something, and then I took it out of the trash and I woke up, and I was like, that was my dream. My dream was that I threw out like a bottle of legion, was like, oh, it's not empty, I should probably use

this up first. That was my fucking dream. It's horrible to be robbed of the opportunity to have a good dream, right, Yeah, But lately I have been having like really weird, vivid dreams, and I wonder if that's because of like isolation and everyone. Yeah, And one thing I have to remind myself is like, like that that like that feeling of joy and like safety and wonder that I felt in that tank. I have that all the time, Like that I can at least remember that even if I can't make myself feel that,

that that came from my mind. And I think like, even if you use like hallucinogens or whatever it is, you know safely to to get to that point, it still comes from your own mind. And you can remind yourself that, And even if you can't feel that again in the moment, you can at least feel the memory of it, which is something. Thank you. So much, Maura, this was amazing. You're such a great guess, thank you,

thank you for joining us. I mean I talk a lot and I pontificate a lot, so that's what we love. Perfect yeah and so so yeah, so I figured that, uh yeah, I figured that we would all have a good time. Yeah, we love talking. We've been We've been wanting to have you on for a long time. So thank you. Yes, I'm so happy I've done this, and so everyone can join our new acting class that we're starting.

Where definitely not a call. Yeah, and I sit in the back with my arms folding and if something's not okay, I'm like, that's not okay. Yeah, stop we have flags get hurt physically or emotionally. Yes, cool, thanks Mara. Where can people find you? They can find me. Let's see, they can find me Maura Wilson on Twitter, Mara Wilson on Instagram, My substack Mara dot substack dot com. I also just started a cameo if anybody wants to watch videos of me and my cats for their birthday and

do shout outs and stuff. So yeah, so I'm on there too. Um yeah, I'm pretty much just under my real name everywhere these days, so yeah, you can find me there. Cool. Well, thank you so much, Thank you so much. This has been great. Hey, guys, we have an announcement to make that is kind of bitter sweet. We are going to be wrapping up this show. We started Nightcall almost three years ago and it was a reboot of our show Girls and Hoodies, which was when we were all at ESPN a long long time ago.

We've had so much fun doing Nightcall. We're all so so proud, and we're all really grateful for the relationships that we've formed with our listeners. Um, you guys are really cool and that's been an amazing experience for us. We decided to wrap the show because we started getting busy.

Emily in particular, is taking some time off to do some cool projects, work stuff, and we just felt like it wouldn't be the same without the three of us, So we thought the right thing to do would be to wrap it up as a team and then hopefully, maybe at some point down the line, do a third reboot, or would it be a second reboot, because this is the first reboot you tell us, we will be doing

one more episode. It will be our finale, and that will be probably at some point in December before the holidays, and it will be all three of us. Were really looking forward to that. If you would like to call in and leave a voicemail for that show, please do to four oh four six Night. You can also email us at Night Call Podcast at gmail dot com. There may also be one more Patreon episode for our subscribers

at Patreon dot com forwards last Night Call. This was a very hard announcement to make and we just wanted to let you guys know what was going on because we really like you and we're grateful for you. So thank you for supporting the show, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you one last time at some point. We'll let you know in December. Goodbye.