Why Julianna Margulies chose happiness over a $27 million paycheck

for controversy. I gave young love bad tan lines in Blue Lagoon, gave frieda calo or run for her money. I even gave Barbie a boot job. Yeah that is right. My mother insisted that the brook doll be flat chested. And let's not forget I became the most shocking thing ever to happen to Denham. I eventually traded my Calvins for a cape and lost my much talked about virginity to Superman. Oh and I got a French degree from at Rutger's. If you don't believe me, just google my grades.

They were published in Life magazine. For the record, none of this is how I see myself. I am an actress, a writer, a wife, and a mother to two incredible young women. I recently started my own company, Beginning is Now, and I have spent years building a life and a brand that I am really proud of. And now I'm joining a long line of celebrities fighting for space inside

your headphones. I'm starting a podcast, Why You Ask, Will because I'm actually really interested in other people's stories, specifically the stories about pivotal moments in their lives, setbacks, and all the times that life doesn't go according to plan. I call them now what moments. We all have them, but we rarely talk about them. For me, I was losing my best friend to suicide, leaving my first marriage, and walking away from a big job opportunity because it

just didn't feel right. Recently, though, I suffered a life threatening injury that left me hospitalized for a month, wondering if I'd ever walk again. During that time, I couldn't do much except think think about what else I wanted from my life, and one of those things was this podcast. Each week, I'll sit down with a guest to talk about the times that they were knocked off course and

what did they do to move forward. Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all are a part of the human experience and what we do in the face of adversity says so much about who we are. I'm Brookshields and this is now what I want to thank you so much. It's a pleasure. You're my I'm your first, You're my first. Okay, wow, I feel really privileged. I'll try and make it painless. That voice she just heard

is award winning actress Julianna Markilles. We met back in the nineties, often crossing paths on the Warner Brothers lot during our must see TV days. Like many of you, I was a huge fan of Nurse Carol Hathaway, the character she played for six years on e ER. In the decades since, Julianna has done it all, including an award winning turn as Alicia Floraic and The Good Wife, and more recently as journalist Laura Peterson on Apple TVs

The Morning Show. She is also a wonderful mom to a teenage son, a wife, and, as it turns out, a very very good writer. Her memoir, Sunshine Girl and Unexpected Life was one I could not put down, mainly because her story is so incredible. The youngest child of divorced parents. Julianna was raised all over the world. Her dad was an advertising executive in New York City, and her mom was a movement teacher and a true bohemian whose career and romantic relationships forced Julianna and her sister

to move constantly. It's a kind of instability that can prove disastrous for a kid, but Julianna managed to adapt and with a lot of hard work and what she says is a little luck, she has built an incredible life for herself. I admire her resilience, her talent, and I think her ability to forgive and move forward is something that we can all learn from. So, without further ado, here is Julianna Marcules. It was a fun I have um a George A George moment and you'll appreciate this.

Our good friend, my best friend, David. You guys were all having lunch and we were there. I think it was a tape day, and so he said, hey, bro, George Clooney is was walking this way. He's walking out. He goes say hi to him. So I was like, really really, and he goes, yeah, yeah, stay hi to him.

So I stood in the middle of the path to sort of obstruct his way out the door, and as he came up to me to have to pass me, I didn't have any words to come out of my mouth, so I just looked at him and I went two thumbs up. And David was like, you are such a geeky nerd. He's like, I can't believe all you could manage was getting two thumbs up like an idiot. Did he have a reaction though to that? He would have had a sweet reaction. I'm sure he was just sweet.

He just kind of like sort of nodded like, oh your porthe but it was but no, I bet you it was like, oh my god, Brookshields just gave me a thumbs up, not not not just one, but two. And then I remember we did we play trades at your house? Yeah, and we played game night. This is all pre children, when you had time to set up those kind of game nights, so serious about it running and your game player you were well, And we'll get to that too, because I think you're I feel a

little perfectionist in there um and competitive for sure. And I remember my first experience with game night at your right perhaps that I thought I don't think I'm going to survive this. I really don't think I'm going to survive this. I can't. I can't handle it. There's too much competition in the world and they're gonna think I'm stupid.

And you guys were all such good actors too, and it was just but it was I felt so excited that you had invited me, and I know it was through David, but he was like, you guys are gonna really like each other, and uh, I think, um, I didn't spend enough time with you, and was so happy now that we're able to reconnect or even maybe really connect in the first place. Me too. And I have to tell you broke when you know, I'm very new to Instagram and you were going through your leg trauma,

your femur. Right you broke your femur. I followed you every day. I would d M you. I didn't know what that really was, but I was with you every step of the way, and it just was remarkable to watch you recover from that. What a hard time you went through. You know, it was the biggest shock I think of my life to have to go through something like that all by myself in a hospital for a month,

and I made it a real experience, you know. I I sort of delved into the people that I would see every day, like the nurse practitioner or the man that came in and cleaned, you know, he would sort of empty the garbage. And they had just told me I had a staff infection and then didn't know what it was. And he saw my face and he said, oh, he said, may I, May I just do something? And I you know, and then you're kind of like, well,

I can't run, can I um? And he sang Michael Jackson's Smile acapella at the foot of my bed, and I thought, you know what, this is a horrendous experience. But there are angels around us all the time, and and that's what I was able to grab onto that and make all those little mini experiences booing me And what I could control was learning how to walk. So that became my focus. Well, and you did it beautifully because you really took us through your journey, like I

felt like I was in rehab with you. Well, it wasn't a poor me way of doing it. I wanted to make sure that people understood how much were capable of. Yeah, and it didn't come off as as poor MEA came off as a warrior, right, which is sort of what we women have to be now, especially well especially now of warriors. But I think that I find that to be a part of who you always were, because in reading your book, you adapted, you shifted, I mean the number of the sheer number of times that you had

to start over. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about the sort of I call it a beautiful difference between the two full lives that you grew up living within your father's house, your mother's house. Your parents divorced when you were a year a year old old. My parents divorced when I was five months old. Oh you beat me, peacher by a couple of months. But I noticed that approval was always really important. Yeah, and you wanted it from your dad as well as your mom.

But differently, I wanted it more from my father because my mother didn't show me a life that I wanted to exemplify. And and you know, I have a great relationship with my mother and I and I take good care of her and we're good, but she was so out there and such a narcissist. Her needs came first that that I didn't really need her approval, and also

she gave it to me every day, you know. I mean, even with all her crazy, I still was sitting on her lap literally after dinner every night until I was fourteen. But I didn't need her approval because I felt a pretty young age that I had already surpassed her level. Her bar was so low. How did you know that as a little girl? You knew this so innately. I think it's because my father, who was very highbrow, deep intellectual,

and very well regarded um in his business. And you know, he had gone to an Ivy League school, and he was from a very very prominent Jewish family in Riverdale. You know, he was to me, he was sort of what I aspired to be. I mean, it's why I act. I think I was always watching people's behavior from the age of five. What are people feeling? How are they behaving? Then I knew how to act, but I never thought what am I How am I behaving? How am I feeling?

It was always what are they feeling? Then I'll be able to incorporate myself into their world. And so with my dad, I think I wanted his approval because to me, he was the more upstanding citizen. And also I saw how much she disapproved of my mom. But then you still you didn't want to speak ill of your mother because you didn't want him to think even less of

her choices. Yeah. It wasn't until the twenty one year old boyfriend who moved into our house when I was fifteen, and I remember what my father said, and it really freaked me out. He said, well, this just put the nail in the coffin, and I remember thinking, oh my god, it's over. He'll never think well of her now, because I thought because I lived with her that he assumed I was bad too, that my behavior was bad because I chose to live with her. So it was I

was very conflicted. You know. Finally, when I was forty and pregnant, I confronted him because I always blame my mother for everything, and then I thought, I have this little baby. Would I ever allow my child to be in such an unstable home? And the mothers get blamed for everything, what about the dad's And I had never confronted him to say, like, wait a minute, Mr Perfect, where were you? You could have said no, you were the one giving her alimony, you were the one paying

child support. Why didn't you come and get us. Why didn't you say to her, no, you're not slipping the girls to England again, And you're not, you know, living with a twenty one year old. If you choose to have a twenty one year old live in your house, which I pay for, that's it. I'm taking my girls away.

I'm taking them away, you know. And then I mean, I feel lucky because I know that both my parents are sort of well, my dad's passed away now, but both were very spiritually awake in that they could look at their own flaws, and I think that's hard for our generation of parents. I think when I was finally able to confront my father and we had been in such a good place, I think it was such a shock to him to hear, and I think he was able to actually look at his own his own action,

his own inaction, I should say, in my childhood. And the second I got my apologies from both of them, I I left that baggage in the old room. I don't go there anymore because I don't. It doesn't interest me. I don't want to live there. I want to live in what we can have now. I'm also amazed at where your name came from. Sunshine Girl, and that was given to you by your mom, and you said that that's who you were, that's who you were for everybody.

I mean, I think the reason um that my mom named me Sunshine girl because she said I was the easy baby. I'm the youngest of three and I was just and I never cried and I brought sunshine into a room. And that's all sweet and good, right, But it's a huge responsibility for a child. It means that you never get to complain or say this doesn't feel good, or I'm scared, or I don't want to move again. And you know, but I think my mother thought she

was blessing me with that name. But for me as an once I became a woman, a young woman, and was living life on my own without that comfort of a loving parent around, I didn't really know how to function without just being the Sunshine Girl. I didn't know how to draw the line for myself or boundaries for myself. I just thought I always had to figure it out how to be in someone else's space, how to be in someone else's mood, how to tiptoe around something that

looked bad but that I could fix it. I always thought I could fix everything. And then in the end, as an adult, especially once I started having mature relationships, I started realizing, when I got to thirty five, I'm not happy. Why am I doing this song and dance to make everyone else happy if I'm not happy? And therefore is it really being a sunshine girl? Or am I just being scared not to say what I need?

And it's a strange way to go out into the world with these labels that you haven't given your self right, someone else has given you that and you're trying to live on their terms. I think your upbringing was extraordinary because I think it helped reveal you. You know, it gave you culture, It gave you languages, it gave you travel, it gave you different friendships, It gave you it also uprooted you. And you never knew when what was going to happen and when you were gonna have to move again.

And I mean I identify with that because I my dad was very upper crust as well, went to an Ivy League school and just a very very different, different life. And my mom was completely bohemian, completely like abroad, and you know, she put me in this industry, and I wasn't miserable in it. But when I look back, her lack of self esteem and her alcoholism that kept me

absolutely tether. You must have felt very responsible for her behavior, completely response to any child of an addict, keep her alive and stick up for her in the press, because they were always just trying to obliterate her. And and I look back now and I see why. You know, we're all going to want approval. I morphed into whatever was necessary for the environment because all my life people

have wanted something from me. So I'm eating when i'm in you know, I'm sixteen, right, and and somebody wants my autograph, and my mother would say, wait till she's finished eating. So then I'm sitting there tortured, feeling like they're waiting. They're getting impatience and you can't enjoy your food. And sometimes they'd be like, yeah, but I'm leaving now, and my mother would say, well, that's your problem. She's eating now. And then if they left, that meant they

really didn't care about me. If they stayed, I was tortured. And so it's sort of like the whole recognition thing. I mean, I'm interested in how your whole trajectory to being an actress is because you were working so hard, and I don't think people realize what it's like to be on a procedural basically an our show. The hours and days that you're working and then just to have to study and learn for the next day. There's no

you don't even know you're famous. Yeah, it was such a shock to me when I had my first moment outside of the studio and sort of in the real world, to think that anyone I knew who I was. Also, because I learned really early, Er was such a great training ground for an actor because Hathaway was a little bit of a um. You know, you meet her and she's the first time you meet her, she tries to commit suicide, so she was a dark She went to

some dark places. And I realized early on that if I didn't leave her outside my home when I got home from work, I wouldn't survive. I couldn't be city. So if I had a really heavy scene, I would just drive around on the four or five for a while until I and listen to music until I could let it go before I would walk in my door. Because I just didn't want to bring it into my

own personal space. Once I got to the good wife and I had a family to come home to every night, I put my key in the door and go leave her outside, leave her outside, and I would just strip down, take a breath, walk in, and then be mom and wife. But you know, I used to struggle with that because I used to think, well, if I'm not angst written and granted, comedy as my my home, my happy place.

But I always wondered because most of the actresses that I have met, and I don't have very many friends who are actresses, but the ones that were tortured, I would put on this pedestal and I think that's really acting. That's they get it, you know. And and look at there such a thespian and there's and so I always

put myself down. Yeah, and it's so interesting to hear you say that, because the struggle is real, but you realized for your own self, sanity, sanity, that you needed to draw the line so that you could actually do your job absolutely. And also, you know, I I, until I met my husband, I really only dated actors. And I remember I dated this actor who will remain nameless and I said, your moves are nuts, like you are, you are nuts, and he was like, but this is

what makes me such a great actor. And I remember having such a bullshit meter on that, being like even just to say that seriously, so you're gonna treat me like a piece of ship because you're about to go off and do a part Like, No, that's actually not

how we live life. And once I married someone outside of the business, and I would come home sometimes with stories of some actors who just behaved really badly on set, and he would he would go, if I ever walked into my office and through a tantrum, because you know that doesn't happened like it. If it happened, you're fired. Like, you don't get to do that in the real world.

Only your industry gets to do that. That's ridiculous. Although now I think less and less, but I think it's less and less, and I think because that that behavior is not getting rewarded the way it used to. And I think that the business has changed increminentally. Yeah, and I think now everyone has a camera on you, So I think people that I'm sure the people that I experienced bad behavior with now probably would know that someone was probably filming them and then putting it on TikTok

or something. I don't know. I don't even know really what TikTok is, to be honest with you, but I mean that's my podcasts. Yeah, that's another podcast. My teenage girls are like, you've got to get a better TikTok presence, and I was like, ah no, I don't. Let's go back to your day's doing e er. Practically overnight the tone changes. You're you're famous, you're winning these awards, and

by all appearances, everything is just fine. But all the while you're in this relationship, which already had lasted for more than a decade. I mean, you you say it's unhealthy at best. How do you come to that conclusion? Like what do you think that was? Like? What made you decide like this is not working for me right? Which I finally figured it out when I finally extracted myself from that relationship and went to therapy to figure out what I was doing. I didn't want to be

my mother. My mother went through so many boyfriends. It was just a revolving door of boyfriends. And I have it in one of my I wrote journals since I was you know, since I could write. Probably then kept the journals and I went back and painfully read all of them when I was writing the book, and I wrote, I think when I was nine, I'm never going to be like her. So as an adult, I think in my brain I thought, stick it out, kid, because you can't be that. You can't be the one going from

man to man to man. Instead, it was like, stick out a long relationship and be miserable, not to be your mother. Be miserable. But honestly, I think I was really afraid that if I left the relationship, I would be much more like her, and I didn't want to do that. What are the parts from her or the life that she sort of forced you to live that you would want to retain. That's a great question, and I'll tell you. She taught me to be fiercely independent,

just by circumstance. You know. She was really out there and definitely thought of herself first. But she loved me fiercely and told me always, honey, you can do whatever you set your mind to it. You know, we had our fair share of fights and all that, but who doesn't with their mom. But she always champed and me. She was like you know the world's your oyster. My dad used to say it to me too, But you were able to follow your heart. And maybe somewhere in

there your mom did teach you that. Absolutely, they both did. They both did. They both always said, you know, happiness is from within. It's not about objects or things. Listen. I really do love having money. I love that I can pay to take really good care of my mom now that she's an assisted living I love that, you know, I love all of that stuff. But it could all go away tomorrow. In the back of my head, I always think, whenever I'm at a restaurant, I'm like, oh,

she's a good waitress. Yeah, I'd be that good. I could survive. You could take all of this away, and I know how to work. She taught you, though, to be there for yourself. She did, even though it came at a sort of side door roundabout white you. And and it's true. And I still hear her, you know, in the morning, after I brushed my teeth, I still hear my mother in my head, Honey, after you brush your teeth or wash your face, just take a tissue

and wipe around the ink. And literally every morning, that's what I do and I hear her in my hand. God, now I'm going to think that. You know that now whenever I brush my teeth and to think about you and your mother, it's just that thing, you know what We're like. My dad always saying to me, honey, always flost your teeth. Just don't make the same mistakes I did. Floster feet, and literally every night I'm floster with him, like,

thanks thanks that, Thanks God, thanks Dad. Most of the things that my mother said to me were just made up, but she would say them with such conviction. I mean, my mother was quote unquote teaching me how to swim, and she teaching me to dive. And I dive off and I come up and I go, how did I do? How did I do? How did I do? And she said,

you know, she gave me instructions. You know, keep your toes pointed, think to the other end of the pool, don't think down, think forward, think ahead, and I'd gotta do it again, and I'd want to approval. And she never learned how to swim. Your mom didn't couldn't swim. No, oh my god, she couldn't whim. And it was a shoe. And she taught you how to swim. She made me think she knew how to swim. So I'm diving in the water with thinking the power of conviction. There you go.

You know the stories I could go into about and she I believed these things. I believe them. So at least your parents gave you some good, good advice. They gave me a lot of good to the point where, you know, I say, I'm so nervous about like swaddling my child too much. You know, when I realized at seven he couldn't tie his own shoes because I've been tying them for him, and realized that struggling is really good. It builds character, it builds resilience. It's important for kids

to struggle. Our children are a little too pampered. Everything's at their fingertips. Everything happened so fast, and there's something to be said about the struggle. And I don't want to take that away from him. Ever. I think it's important, and I think it's important for parents to to apologize to their parents, to their children. When parents can say I'm sorry, you know what I was wrong, it allows the child to learn how to apologize in life well.

And also it allows you to be human, you know, and I don't think we're taught that our parents are human. You know, we want them to be you know, we want them to be superhuman and we and and that's you know, as a mom now I often say I'm sorry, but I failed to. It's a fine balance between being a safety net for your child they always know you're going to be there, but also feel free to fly, right, you know. And I never was free to fly. But you were very different. I mean, your circumstance was not

so because you didn't have a childhood. You had a work hood. My real salvation and place was college. I mean that was the first time I was completely on my own, in my own world and I found out who I was. But when I was on a movie set, I was so happy. You felt like your home because there were rules, there were times, and in a weird, weird, kind of twisted way, I think it saved me from

a lot. Can I get personal? Yes, absolutely. So. Did you go to therapy like when you had to sort of figure out and sort of cut the ties from your mom? No, I didn't go to therapy at all. I did it all of course. I went to therapy. My god, and was she what was your relationship as a healed adult with her. Once you did, I think I was healing till the day she died. And I think she had to die before a whole part of

me could actually emerge in a different way. But I was blessed enough to on my own in college start going to therapy and bounced around owned a little bit. You know, you kind of have to date, yeah, and and you know, sometimes they tried to be cute and I was like, Okay, that's not gonna work for me. I was lucky enough right out of college to find an extraordinary therapist for me, and I'm still going to her. Wow,

oh my god, that's amazing. And the first thing I said to her and she brings us up to me, she said, she'll never forget it. You sat in my office for the first time and you said, I'm afraid if my mother dies, I will die too. And that was the first session. And obviously we delved into all of it. And I was lucky enough too. In my first marriage. He helped me separate from my mother financially and logistically, and I wouldn't have been able to do it without him, and he did it with love. He

helped me do it with love. But I did one thing that was so brutal. Um. I basically gutted her office out one night. She left on a Friday, and she came in on Monday to our offices and I had taken everything. Oh my god, And I regret that. I will always feel terrible about that. I didn't know any other way. I needed to rip the band aid off. And that was a whole other chapter of therapy that

really I had to forgive myself. And when I found the right therapist, it was life changing, right, absolutely life Yeah, and I got really lucky. I mean, you know, I found the right person for me, which is not easy. Well yeah, but I mean you say lucky, but I think it's a lot of work. You have to put in the work to have the life you want. You

just do. The show really is about the make or break moments in our lives, when we're faced with having to make a decision, having to pivot, whatever that means in your life. You've talked about many different ones, but is there a was there on now what moment that was the most profound? Were you almost thought I might not be able to get through this? I would say, yeah, it was probably my decision to LEAVR and to walk

away from twenty seven million dollars. When I made the decision, it was a difficult decision to make, but it wasn't I really felt like I had made the right decision until everyone started talking about it. I think I had a real panic moment of realizing that the world had opinions about my choices, and um, it kind of devastated

me for a little while. And it took me, you know, a few months to grow a thicker skin and realize that your choices are only for yourself and no one else, and everyone can judge them, you know, from now until doomsday, but no one else is living in your shoes. Well, and and asking that question, I wasn't hinting or trying to lead you there. Um oh, no, I know, but I think that was the most significant sort of Wow,

what have I done? In retrospect now? Had no one ever talked about it, I probably wouldn't have even thought about it, to be honest with you. It was like, no, this is right. I did six years. Now, I'm gonna go to a play and then I'm going to go and do a mini series and moved back to New York. It just sort of all seemed right, But then when everyone started throwing these daggers of who does she think she is? It's sort of like, oh, was I wrong?

And it took me a lot. I went back to therapy a while to sort of get back on my own two feet without worrying about the daggers at me. I knew how to now I know how to dodge them. But what a backlash for Nope, for nobody deserves to be in that position. Yeah, I mean, my dad said it best. He really helped me with that one because he said, it has nothing to do with you. All of these naysayers they're angry you because they all think, what would I do if I was off for twenty

seven million dollars and I would take the money. So when you don't take the money, they get angry at that decision because that's not what they would do. It actually has nothing to do with you. And I'm sure you know I can. I'm sure I probably rolled my as is someone. You know, it was the idea that they all thought, you know what if she thinks she's going to be some big movie star, which you know what you get paid at Lincoln Center for you know, a play you were going to do theater, you weren't.

You weren't jumping to I hate injustice. I hated to be unfairly accused. And that is great learning because it makes you aware that it actually doesn't matter what anybody thinks about you. All that really matters is what do you think about you? And that is the bravest place that you can be. It's always about someone else, It's always about them. And but you followed your heart and you taught that to everybody. And when you look at the at the your life as a whole, I mean,

who do you see? Honestly, I see a really happy person. I love my life and I'm back around to Sunshine Girl. Yeah, and I really love I really love my family, like my little nuclear family. I feel so lucky, and that includes my dog. I actually feel much more brave now as an actor than I would have without them, because I always have this safe place to come home to and I feel so loved by them. Just true and utter joy and frustrations. To believe me, I'm a fourteen

year old, so we all know what that's like. But at the end of the day, I just I got the life I wanted, because the truth is, not in a million years did I expect to be this settled, to be this calm, and to walk in the door and know exactly where I'm going. That was the talented and down to earth Julianna Margulies. If you want to hear more from her, pick up a copy of her

book Sunshine Girl, An Unexpected Life. If you want to hear more from me, well subscribe to this show Now What with Brook Shields on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. Now What is produced by the wonderful Julia Weaver with help from Darby Masters. Our executive producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Bahed Fraser and Christian Bowman. A special thanks to Nikki Etre, Jess Crime Chitch, Will Peterson, and Elizabeth Warner.