Sarah Jones

It's a great exercise for figuring out whether you're okay with who you are, and maybe a sense of self is what a lot of this work is really about. Are you okay with who you are? If so, be it and say it. If you're not, then change something. This sounds easy, but it is the work of a lifetime to be at ease with yourself. Welcome to the podcast. That's all about the Voice, which means it's all about power. Who has it, how we get it, how we sound

when we have it. I'm your host, Samarve, and this is permission to speak, where we can throw all our best ideas about how to get ourselves heard into the pot and Start. Today's guest is Sarah Jones. She has one Tony Award and an Obie Award for her one woman shows, starting with Bridge and Tunnel, which was originally produced by Meryl Streep and then went on to Broadway. Her TED mainstage talks have gotten millions and millions of views, and I truly hope you go and check them out

after this if you haven't seen them already. She has performed for the Bamba's. I mean, she's friends with Gloria Steinham and Brian Stevenson and is a legend. I wanted to have her on for obviously all of these reasons, but also because I remember the feeling when I saw her first TED talk, which was like fifteen years ago. She does funny voices, guys, but I mean she does

so much more than that. She inhabits the bodies and the worlds of the people that she plays, so that the voices emerge out of the life experiences and hopes and fears of the characters, which is how our voices work, as I always like to talk about. And I mean the other thing is that the people who live in her and by the way it come out, all the time, and it is bonkers and amazing. The people who live in her are wrestling with their identities and with the

promise or the fake promise of the American dream. And something that we talk about in this interview, which is the very real urge to speak when it becomes stronger than the fear of being seen and being heard. And I loved this conversation and how much wisdom she is full of as well as forces and uh, we went a little long. You'll see why this is Sarah. I've looked back over some of the videos where I'm like, oh my god, did you really, you know, put yourself

into a public forum looking like that? And what it teaches me is I'm too focused on how I look. But that's the work. The work, the opportunity is like a messy, it's a pandemic. I'm in the hospital, I'm out of the hospital. I don't know how to talk about that. I'm going to say all of that instead of hiding it. And what it has done is opened up a lot of space for me to feel a

little bit more connected. Although we can talk about zoom and I'm not a social scientist a neurologist, but I'm convinced that there's a sort of a you know, like there must be a cognitive dissonance that's happening for all of us collectively because we can FaceTime, we can zoom, we can WhatsApp or whatever, but you're not here. And so I'm sort of tricked into feeling like I could reach out and hug somemorrow right now, but you know,

I'm like, hey, there's nothing there. And I had this boyfriend who didn't like to face time, and I was like, what's down and hey, and he was like, it's not real, Sarah. He was like this Vermont snowboarder, like you know, he wanted to like hug trees and like rip them out of the ground. I don't know, but he really made this point that it's it is real, but it isn't. And there was something very beautiful about that. And I'm experiencing it now. It is connected, but I want to

be clear with myself. I'm not getting human you know,

unmitigated eye contact and hug. I mean, and what you're dipping into is also something that we're that we've had to deal with for our entire lives as technology has progressed like this and our physical bodies are all the bodies of people from thousands of years ago, exactly, and like there is something in our brain that is making that connection, that is saying, especially in times like this where we need connection, that is saying, this is good enough.

This is a ghost hug, right, it's I will, I will envision a hug, I will see you, and those two things together will do something that's better than nothing. But on the other hand, no, it's not the same as a real hug. Not the same. Sarah, Hi, Hi, how are you, my love? I'm okay, I'm okay. I mean all everything you're talking about, it's so true. I think, um, you were talking about the concept of lowering expectations and

I act right and reframing it as broadening. And I actually wonder also if it's the expectations themselves that we should be taking a closer look at, you know, I mean a lot of this, a lot of what we were talking about was the expectations we've set up for ourselves of what it would look like if we had everything put together. Yes, the myth, the myth of you know, we've all talked about it, the superwoman who has to juggle everything and um, even as we try to get

into less you know, gender normative conversations about family. And I'm not a mom, but I remember my mom who it's interesting in this time of COVID, I'm thinking about doctors differently. Both my mom and dad were doctors. Guess who was responsible for maintaining you know, all the household stuff and the kids. And my mom still she went and delivered babies and was still expected to keep it all together. And I think we haven't strayed very far

from that. We've just sort of ignored our limitation, like our normal, healthy human limitations, and so we multitask and we buy a million systems and things to keep ourselves, you know, impossibly efficient and together. And I don't think it's healthy for anybody. I was so excited to have you on this podcast about voices, because hello, hello, we're all here. By the way, we're all here, well good,

oh good high. I can't wait to maybe here a little. Um. They're all welcome, and this is my first podcast with like ten people. But you know what I was thinking is, you know, like it's such a surface level thing to say that you do voices, because you know, yes you do, and they're brilliant. And also you bring fully inhabited other

people onto the stage with you. I mean, for anyone who's loosen your shows, starting with Bridge and Tunnel, which ended up on Broadway, it's it's just you, but it's also truly not thinking that you could do quote unquote do funny voices and end up on Broadway. Like you know what I mean. It was so wild to me that the thing I had always done. I mean this

Lorraine Levin, oh idea, I brought my glasses. She even though you can't shaming, which seems show hilly, but I I if I can't, if I don't have my glasses, I can't see any way, Sheeris started doing the voices, like she says, because her family, you know, she came from the multicultural family, the black, the white. They intermarried and all. It's very normal now. But anyway, um, I think that it kept her feeling um playful as your child. You know that she could do that, and she would

do it with her friends. I would I would do I would do that with my friends. I know, I know. It's so interesting. It makes me think of you said, I believe it was your first Ted talk. This is a direct Sarah John's quote. You said, we're all born into certain circumstances, with particular physical traits, unique developmental experiences, geographical and historical contexts. But then what to what extent do we self construct? To what extent do we self invent?

How do we self identify? And how mutable mutable is that self identity? You know, obviously I came up through doing dialect coaching with act or so it's in a literal way. You know, when we put on a new accent, what does it reveal to us about how that character has gone through their life and how they hold their body, and you know, how does it inform us? But it's

not just for actors. I mean that's really you know, the heart of this work is what we're both talking about in different ways, is how our life experiences are reflected in our voice and what that says about how we how we are perceived by others and how we perceive ourselves. And also the part I want to talk to you about is like this mutability issue, this idea that like certain things we don't have control over and then what do we do with the things we do? Yeah,

thank you for that. I really as I was listening to I was like, did I say that? But I do remember writing that. I remember writing it because it felt so true for me. It felt so kind of essential as a question, who the hell am I? I mean that really it was like who am I? Anyway? Like like you said, how much does the outside gave days of others? You know, inform who I am? Decide who I am, decide whether I live or die? You know,

if you're a black or brown man or woman. Uh, in an encounter with police, like how you're perceived, your voice can be the difference between your survival or not. Um, so I will. I never want to be one of those people who says, oh, you get to decide completely everything about your fate. Absolutely not Yes, And we do have right like we do. I mean the performance that you help an act or find hopefully is as authentic and beautiful as whatever they can muster using the tools

you're giving them. And then like all of us are kind of performing a life right And what you're talking about is such an important distinction or like lack of distinction, which is on the one hand, performing what are we putting on? Because it's interesting because we're becoming this person because we're acting as if and what is a coping mechanism? Yes, and knowing the difference, I think there's like, you know, I'm paid as an as an actor to go on stage or be in a film and be someone other

than I am. Then it's like, wait a minute. If I'm having a low self worth moment at a party and I turned to the guy next to me and decide, I'm just going to be a sexy Naomi Campbell version of myself or whoever, um, which I used to do by the way I would when I was really nervous at a party. If I felt like it, I would just sort of slip into this and you would not believe. First of all, I thought I was sexier, right, So then these blokes were line up around me. I had

not changed one iota. My appearance didn't change. Nothing about me changed. But something about this voice, of this alter ego made me feel safer because I was fearful myself, and I realized, you can't do that. Number one, It doesn't work out well for the relationship. But Elizabeth Holps comes to mind. That's there's one cautionary tale. I could tell you a few um It definitely makes the one night stand. It's a lot of work to keep that up. You gotta like maintain you know, Um, it's not easy

to maintend that. But I will say that's sort of one end of the spectrum. But somewhere on that continuum, you know, if I'm not careful, I'll pretend my way through my day, through my life, uh, even in my most intimate relationships and even with myself. And so I think it is interesting whether it's voices. I mean, there's

like all my voices of like all my people. That's not just a voice, Like I'm Bella, I'm a person, you know, and like I yeah, like I exist in a context, like a radical feminist context, Abbie, And like you know, when I think about Bella, she's not just a vocal fry like a concave chested you know, self deprecating but still wanting to be you know, powerful young feminist because of her voice, Like she's it's not just a voice, it's it's all of who she believes she is.

And then how that gets questioned every moment of every day. And are we present enough to listen? Like? Am I present enough to hear? Wait a minute, that was an inauthentic thing I said. Just then, I don't really mean that. I just told that person love you by do I love them like at all? Or is it you know what I mean? Like just checking in and being like,

what am I putting out into the world? And how is there this kind of feedback loop between me and the world and what I think I need to be and how I think I need to sound or look or you know, be in my life on the socials or whatever. And then what I'm telling myself isn't adequate about me. Maybe because of that, I think there's a loop that can get started that's this is who I have to be. And then oh, look, I'm not actually really measuring up. And so I'm interested in how how

can we self reinvent? You know, how can we invent ourselves or step more fully into who we actually are in a way that makes our voice more authentic, more powerful, and ultimately more loving. Right, because when you hate yourself, you go off and do things like make a giant tiger, you know, uh whatever, Like I couldn't watch the whole thing. But no, I couldn't even started. I'm too much of like an EmPATH, Like I got through it. I got

through it, but I got through some of it. But it just it reminded me like, oh, when you're alienated from yourself, you don't have access to your authentic voice or your wants, your needs, And then how can you be in a community like that? So I think in some ways, you know, being in this pandemic is, um it's an odd opportunity to really listen more closely to ourselves and like ask who am I and how do I feel? And what do I want and what do I need? So I've really been thinking about voice in

that context. But of course, you know, everybody else comes along too. That's Linda. Linda never comes out. You know why because my nails are not done, and um, Lindsay is like an old wool you know, New York City, Like the thing with the nails. She was like that man, you know, the manicure and um, now it's like, oh my god, my nail's a naked Like she would be the person to be like, oh my god, don't look at my hands. Where did you? Where did you find Linda Long Island? I was so my mom. I mentioned

my mom's a doctor. She had a private practice all Long Long Islands with a Z a z at the end. One no, just Long Islands, but you got to hit the sibilant at the end. So Long Islands, you know what I mean. Um, you could be from Staten Islands. But there has like a little zizzizza at the end of it, not plural, just a little little the D and the T, the D and the T can handle. And then it's also a New Jersey thing like tonight with like this little the end and um, what are

we doing Tonight's yeah, I don't know. Anyway, Lindsa Lindsa, so there's even a little z in the Lindsa. Oh my gou is Lindsa. You know. Um she represented the sort of second third generation, you know, European immigrant wave that then everybody went into you know, my brother is a cop, my my sister sners, my husband's and electrician like that, you know, sort of like this solid working class um into middle class um white Long Island and

that's part of my family. Oh my guard. So anyway, um, and then if you like went to nicest schools or whatever, it started to come out of you. And then you went to n y U and you completely got rid of it because it's embarrassing. You know. There was a lot of associations of class with accent. But that's where Linda came from. Was she was a nurse, so she was a she was a tech in my mom's office. There was this amazing New York Times article about you from a while ago that sort of followed you as

you approached people on the street. I guess part of what I'm interested in is like, what is it to approach strangers, like what is that muscle in a way that isn't disrespectful and that isn't treating them like a subject of like a specimen. Well, and I think I occupy in interesting space, right because I'm a woman of mixed heritage black from a distance as we say, um, and on the kind of racial hierarchy and the gender hierarchy.

I you know, it's very different for me to approach of sis white male, you know, straight dude and kind of larnery talks and like spend time with them and like whatever. Um, yeah, we'll leave Andrew out of this for now. But going up to people on the street, I think that, like I said, I feel a certain

responsibility to remember that, especially as a traditionally marginalized person. Myself, my voice was usually you know, belittled, mocked, and so I always feel like I remember, you know, listening to a woman on the bus who hit like you know, you can hear the Russian Ukraine, you can hear her voice when she's talking. What is accent and the How does it feels to um imagine what is her life?

Not only oh this is essential, I'm going to make funny voice to make fun some lady who maybe have been through hell, maybe have survived unbelievable things, Maybe is genius in her home country, but here she comes, she doesn't have what she's needing. How do you make sure your your honor this person. You'll give to them what they deserve like human beings. So that's my I always really try to imagine the internal life of the person. And then I'm not gonna get spot on every time.

But I have been observing a lot of people for a long time. I lived in New York. I lived in Queen's most diverse borrow in the world, and uh, I had access to a lot of different people because of my family and I went to the U N School, So I started to get a set of like this is a person I can approach. This is a person I should leave alone. I was having a moment and it's none of my business to sneak up on them.

I always when you see a photographer, and I hate to say it, but like, you know, a nice white hipster getting in the face of like some brown person in Williamsburg when I left New York. That's what was going on, Like I'm going to take pictures and be gritty, and it's like, no, dude, that's actually your white privilege, you know, and your lack of understanding that that person doesn't belong to you, even if your intentions are good. Um. So I think there's that right, like ownership of narratives.

And I think it's subversive for a black woman to write for a wealthy white frat dude. That's why I enjoy doing it. Yes, indeed, um, and you use do you use voice memos and actually record them or? I mean voice memos are basically how I get by. So when I heard that I would need to have some voice memo work to join you here today, I was like, oh home, it's home of so many and I try out new Oh you'll be the I have started to

work on it a little bit. Is very new and not at all where I would like it to be. But I started to think about in Nigeria or what would it be if I wanted to just work on that and work on that a little bit during this pandemic. So it's starting to be fun. I'm starting to have a good time with it. But yeah, you know, I like voice memos. Give me that pure opportunity to feel into something and then try it out and let it be hairy and ugly and have words um and not

be where I'd like it to be yet. Or I could just share that with your entire audience on the theme of letting perfection go exactly and also honestly letting us into the process, because that's you know, it's not like you're a magician and if you give away the there is no trick anymore. It's still magical at the end. Don't worry. Well, that's funny that you say that, But that was a huge fear of mine. I would never I mean until so my grant, my my mom, my

mom's mom was Irish American and German American. But I went to Ireland. I spent a lot of time there, I spoke to loads of different people. There's so many different accents, and I thought, I've got to have a perfect It can't be like you can't think, oh, you know, did you start off in kind of County Cork and then migrate down to Dublin. But she can't tell what I was so obsessive, what schools would she have gone to?

And what was the slang of the time, And it was just it's it's spilled over out of the respect for the character and into perfectionism, which is a subtle form of self abuse really and abuse of the art. So I I am mindful of that now that I don't have to present a perfect I can't. There's no such thing as perfection. I will never be perfect. I will have X. That was such a fear. Was like what I do is so important to me and I believe in it so much that I wanted to be perfect.

But then it's spilled over into kind of you know, what do they say the three peace, perfectionism, procrastination, and paralysis. That's what started to happen to me as a creative person until I got some help around it. That's really real, that's really real. That's real I'm starting a new project right now, and I could stand to be reminded that those three peas are not not a path that is going to serve me, but you. But you're forgiven for you know, I mean, we're all human and we're raised

in a culture. I mean, especially in Cancel culture. Right. It's like if I I mean, I don't want look, there is a great extent to which there is a reason for me one thing to I want to be excellent. I want to bring the truth and the love of this person, for example, at d who is based very loosely, loosely on the Palestinian women that I met, who is Jordanie and wanting to again what is her story? Not to judge, not to decide before that, if I get caught in my own head, then it is not about

her anyway. It is about me. And what do you think of Sarah John's not what do you think of Hella? What do you think of this you know person? So I think like in a way, whatever you're working on, if you remind yourself that you are it's I don't want to say servant, but that's why I do. I think of myself as a public servant. Or I work in service of whatever it is that I think is important enough that I need to put it out into the world. And then I'm not allowed to say, oh,

but I'm not perfected up. I have to just suck it up and be a worker, and you know, do what the project asks you to do. So I'm excited for whatever you're working on. Let it dictate. You don't have to do anything except show up and be you. Yeah, that's that's beautiful and really hard to do. Um, thank you, Sarah. We'll be back in a moment, and we're back with Sarah Jones. Okay, So when your characters are on stage aware of the audience, Yeah, something happens to them. It's

not just them in their natural state. It's them finding themselves in a public arena, and it feels like it's a metaphor for all of us. How do you think about that side of it? You know, it's really um. It depends on the stage, it depends on the context. And I find that they each have their own reaction and their own internal conflict, which can frustrate me by the way I want them to articulate and project. If I'm you know, at an outdoor venue in India with

five thousand people. That's not the best time for you know, I don't know Rashid to suddenly start, yeah, you know, saying we in India and Yo, this is crazy right now. I don't want him to. I want him to sound better than that. But he's gonna say and experience what he's experiencing. Um I remembering. You know, there's a character Pauline Ling. Pauline is not her actual name, but that's the name that she wanted me to eat use for her.

And she had to be on stage in front of people, and she was very aware of it, and it's it was always a meta thing because there's the there's the stage in the Broadway House, and then there's who she's really talking to, which is a small cafe audience in her mind. And she taught she is, uh, there's people, don't she does not want people to misunderstand to be a immigrants from China, but also uh to come through

Hong Kong. This is a very difficult uh time in her life that she had to explain that to strange people and uh, this is so difficult, like maybe, um, you don't want to say it can be shameful, uh to talk about yourself in front of people, But that's what she had to do for her daughter. The story in the play was that her daughter is coming out UM and at the time didn't have the right to get married to her partner who was Chinese born and needed the immigration status that she couldn't get at that

time because of homophobia. I couldn't get married. And so for Mrs Ling to have to come out as like a p flag parent, you know, and just just to speak that feeling of and I will just be honest, I know that she always felt like these idiots. Sorry, I just need to say in her mind. I could feel her saying, I speak two languages. They don't know how hard it is for me to have to speak right now in front of them, knowing my English is imperfect, and that they might be so ignorant they don't even

realize I am actually the badass here. And I remember that feeling for her. I remember my I would just get a little a little mix of anger, UM would come in. But and I remember that feeling of if your mission is vital enough to you, you will tolerate the discomfort of standing in front of a crowd and saying what you need to say. Speak even if your voice shakes, Speak even if you feel like your audience isn't the most friendly. I remember that. That's what comes

up for me with the characters. Each of them has their own experience of reluctance or but there's a motivation that's stronger than their fear of being perceived as less intelligent because they're an immigrant and they speak halting, you know, English as a second language. That's the thing, that's the thing, and that's the thing for everybody, I mean for everybody who's listening, and for all of us. You know, obviously there is fear that comes from public speaking because we're

being seen. And yet if our need is bigger than our fear, and so how do we invest in what that need is? If we if you know, if we have to public speak for our job, for our livelihood, for or whatever, how do we find the way to make it something we want to do or we need to do so hard that we overcome the fear side of it. You know, what helps me remembering back to childhood, who I was as a child before all of the kind of messaging about um you know, image, image management,

how you have to sound. I mean I had so many messages had relatives or sound like that, and I was like, oh, I'm supposed to sound like that too. I had to be from the West Indies and I have to be like this a week cool. And then I got to Washington, d c uh. My parents moved around because they were students, medical students and all of that when I was really little, and so I remember arriving at the black school and all of everything I

thought was cool was terrible. You know. I was like they were like, they were like, he's not like a white girl. You know I could. I don't know. I had just so many different ways of talking to all my different relatives, and um, I had to learn how to you know, I had to learn something else Sarah Jones. You know, I had to learn how to say my name told just a different way, and I had to learn how to fake. You know. People would be like, yeah, I was in church. I'd be like, yeah, yeah, me too.

You know. It was like I wanted to see mechanism. This is the coping mechanism. I don't know. I may have an a d h D diagnosis. I haven't find it found out yet. I think it might be part of so I don't know if I want you to medicate it. I you know, I haven't ever done the meds, which is so I mean, I think my characters are my meds. Which is not to say that I don't need additional man's but this reminds me. I have a quote I want to read of yours. You said, Um, I have to get sleep. I have to sleep for

twenty people. I feel responsible for these people, so I have to treat them well and exercise well. I meditate and go to therapy twice a week if I can, because it's a lot. And this is the part I want to highlight. To feel I'm feeling people's experiences every time I do the show, and surely more than just every time you do the show. I remember when the stages started getting bigger, like Broadway is. You know, it's still six hundred people a night and you do it

every night, and it's a very specific discipline. I was like a monk, you know. It really was um like this uh you know, committed relationship that I had with these characters. It was like, all right, I you know, what is it? I don't know, do you solemnly whatever I swear, remember my wedding vows? Yeah, do you solemnly swear? Do you do you? Sarah? Take these characters to be your you know, do you do you characters? Take Sarah to be your emissary, to be your vessel um until

you know ticket sales, do us part or whatever? And it just ran and ran, and I remember the feeling of if I don't remember to tap into the resource of the characters. They are pure love, They're messy, they're imperfect. I have a white supremacist who won't admit he's a white Suparcy's um. I'm a European American rights advocate and that should not make anyone laugh or or or a raising eyebrow anymore than all of the rest of you women and whatever the other you know, black or I

don't know if you can stay black anymore. Whatever you're supposed to say about them. They can have their uh advocate groups and we can and I don't see, you know, Sarah Jones can make fun of me all the time and call me all kind of names, But I know that I want to be able to be proud to be European, so I have to carry that dude around with me, and I take very seriously his drudge report reading, you know, Fox News believing version of America because it's the only one he has. He is doing his best

with what he has. He is, you know, behaving as I would if I were born into his body, into you know, the bassinet in his house. And then remember

that there's beauty. He has beauty. Like I've been I have been moved to tears by the moment of his courage in admitting how much of a failure he he feels himself to be because his son is not making more money than he did in every general I mean, like I've you know, I've done interviews where somebody interviews him or he's interviewing somebody, and the improv that comes out is like, oh, this is the pain of the white American male, you know in Middle America that I

am not going to privilege right over the pain of people of color and you know, working class people in immigrants who have suffered long and hard under racism and all the rest of it. But it gets a place. But he gets a place. He gets a place, and that is work for me. I don't love having to

engage that conversation. And yet I mean, I think that he that all of the characters fortify me if I let them, and I have to do the work to make sure I'm available to receive the gift of like communing with other people within my own body and my

own voice. Well, and this feels like it taps into your you know, we were talking about the characters urged to speak as greater than their fear, but also yours, yes, greater, but not without a mess sometimes, and I think the willingness to play in the spaces where it is not neat and tidy. I haven't figured it out. I am not cancel culture proof. Um, you know, yeah, tell me about that. What responses have you gotten that have really

challenged you? You know what's interesting? I remember performing for I mean, I did you know Ted Talks. I think it's important to say that the bigger the platform, the bigger the sense of responsibility and whoever that audience is. I noticed self I would do some self policing around who I brought out and when, and you know that I had to really look at like making a choice I went. I remember getting to perform at the White House. It was such a it was so otherworldly to like

have these black people in the White House. This was like two thousand nine the first time I went, I got to perform there. Bring us back anything you want to tell us about that. We just want to live there for a sec I know, right, Can we just go back to I guess that was the last performance I did there or twenty something like that. That feeling of a democratized White House, I didn't know how to bring. I have a lady. I had somebody name miss Lady.

She lived on the street, and she have you know what happened in this country when you are female and you black, and you Paul and you don't have no access to the same education opportunity or job opportunity or whatever like some other people got. Some people don't want to hear you speak and talk. They don't want to hear you. They think you sound ignorant or whatever. But I want to tell them I don't need fancy words

to be uh important person. But Saide don't didn't want to bring me up in the White House because she wants to be dignified with the Obama I am dignified. I may don't have no place where I could lay my head at night. But that don't mean I'm not no dignified person, you understand. So I noticed my own fear. UH would sometimes mirror or not mirror. I guess what I'll say is I remember performing a whole slew of characters,

different races, for ethnicities, different genders. This was at a medical I was like at a medical school or something. I did a show about health and ethnic and racial health disparities back when people were saying they didn't exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I came across that in your research and was like, well, hello, coronavirus. Oh, coronavirus. So anyway, back then, I was doing this piece and I still do it from time to time because medicine

is racist. I grew up in medicine and my father being assumed to be in orderly because he's a black man, even though he was the doctor and the head of the department. So UM, this moment of UH performing in front of a mixed race audience where there had been some conflict and they had sort of invited me, I felt like a you know, like a diplomat or something

coming to try to be like okay, everybody. But this one white woman stood up and said and her voice was shaking, and I had created a safe space and I'm very proud of myself for that. I said, I let everybody know. Look, this is racist, messy, tricky stuff. And she said, well, all of them were good people except for the one who looked like me. And I was like, wow, I couldn't even unpack. And I said, well, wait a minute, which one looked like you? Because I

I've looked like this the whole time. I'm still I never changed color. And she I felt her experiencing the reality that she had. Her mind told her I was white. Her mind told her I was white when I was doing the character that offended her, and she said the white one And I said, well, I did a few white characters. And she didn't identify Lorraine, who's Jewish, as white like It was such a telling moment, right who

this woman latched onto as the mirror of herself. And all the white nurse said was I don't see color. And you know, why do I have to be culturally competent? Why don't they learn to speak English, which is something that a lot of people say and believe, including in the medical field. So it was fascinating to watch this woman suffer. She was in so much pain, confronted with racism and confronted with you know, white supremacy and her you know, possible complicity in it. So I mentioned that

because that was painful. I like to have a good time. I like to get a standing oh where everybody's laughing and rolling in the aisles and having a wonderful experience with me and goes home feeling warm and fuzzy about me. And I don't think that woman felt super warm and fuzzy in that moment, but it was teachable moment for everybody in that room. Well, and also, what's your I mean, this is a bigger question, but what is your goal? Yeah?

I mean I just told you what I like. You know, I like to feel delicious and for millions of people to watch my TED talks and tell me how much they love me. What I don't shy away from, and what I know is more important, is that people have an experience that holds a mirror up to them. In which case, boy, did you fulfill your goal? I did, and I didn't go home. You know, that wasn't a day when I got to feel like I you know, created a rollicking good time. For everyone in the audience.

It was more like and in fact, I remember there was a meet and greet afterward and doctors, you know, white, very straight laced, very straight. Yeah, I was I was trying. I was trying to soften that a little bit, like very very straight, um, like super white, that dude, you know, that guy from like wherever we were, Michigan. I say this like a super straight white guy, Like I don't

know what the I don't know what right. This is the superest and the straightest, okay, and the guy st And these are the men who are, you know, at kind of the center of white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy in our country. They are part of what I think of as the medical industrial complex that is profit driven and creates terrible problems for doctors, including right now in COVID they're slashing doctors salaries. And I know it's like, oh

bo who doctors Listen. I watched my parents. I saw what the insurance companies, the lobbyists, all of that, what it, you know, does to our health as a society, including destroying the lives of the medical professionals we need. But um, I digress. These men, these white men, came up to me. I swear to you a couple of them had tears in their eyes, saying, I don't know how to talk about this stuff. I don't know how to talk about

it with my staff. Um, I you seem nice, but I don't you know, I have black friends or I don't have black like I felt like Oprah. I felt like a fucking therapist or something who was like the maybe the one time anybody had ever said, hey, white man, you know, maybe you're gonna wait until after the Q and A because you don't want to publicly say this. But people who after a couple of cocktails were able to come up to me and say effectively, this feels messy,

this feels problematic. I don't want to feel like I'm complicit in any of it, but you touch something that's my work, that's my job, and it's not the Rara. It's not it doesn't get me a million followers on the Graham. It's very different work well. And also it's funny because it actually ties into our are sort of like off handed conversation at the top about expectations because you're like the whole your whole job is making people question what their expectations are for you and also for

every character you bring up there, and then also for themselves. Yeah, I didn't pick the easiest job. Apparently I should have picked president of the United States because you, I mean, any day now, I'm happy to vote for you. I'm happy to for you. M Yeah. Well, and also I I wonder if it sounds sort of like it picked you,

it did choose me. And I do have a kind of cultural a d H D probably in the sense that I want to talk about immigrants and the prison industrial complex, and you know, discrimination and healthcare and our education system and capitalism and where we are as a society economically. I want to talk about all of those things at the same time. Also, you know, I don't want I don't want for my audience you to leave

out cell by date, right. And the shirt I'm wearing, which says eroticide equality is a you know, it's a reference to actually glorious it's a glorious Synum quote. And it's a reference to where we are with feminism and power and sex and how we self identify and self invent as women. And we I still know that when I walk into a room filled with the white guys who still by and large run Hollywood and decide whether I get movie roles or TV roles or you know,

a show on the air. Um, I promise you every single project I have ever done, a white man is right there deciding whether it gets funded or not, period, a white straight man. And to be clear about that that even with movements, you know, some subtle movement, I can count on my fingers and toes the women, the people of color who have you know, the kind of

power to begin to shift all of this stuff. And I think we do ourselves a disservice when we're like, oh, you know, we have a hashtag now, so it's it's changed or it's really changing in a meaningful way. No, it isn't. It isn't yet. And I think, like getting clear that there's a reason we're intersectional, right, I need to bring all of that stuff into the conversation because there is no talking about women without talking about the

environment and climate change. There is no talking about poverty without talking about trafficking and human beings and why their bodies are sold. Um, you know what I mean. So yeah, I mean when you were when you were listening the sort of themes you've always been interested in. I just was thinking the entire time, like, it's just justice. It's

just justice. It's just justice. Justice. Like so when I started taking my kid to marches, which was like, you know, sadly early in his life in the world, we are not sadly but sadly that they don't needed. But you know, obviously, um what when he was old enough to sort of slightly start to ask questions, I just no matter what

we were there for specifically. I mean, the first one where I remember he was actually conscious was the March for Our Lives and I was not going to tell him that it was about, you know, gun violence against children, and so I said, we're marching for fairness, and every

single one of them were marching for fairness. Fairness really honestly, like it helps me a lot to think of this in terms of humanity, Like when people are you and I'll say social justice, and I'll say I'm an activist, and I'll say I'm a progressive to radical, I'm a fucking human being. Yes, yes, okay, we'll be right back after this and we will find out who you brought in for us to listen to. We're about to be

back for act three. Just a note, Sarah's audio did not work for the final act, but we've got her zoom backup sound. So UM, if you don't want to listen because you are an audio purist, um bye. But otherwise, UM, I think this actually worked out okay. The technology UM supported us, saved us and and UM I loved this act so I didn't want to cut it. Here, you guys go, we're back and we're going to find out who you brought in for us? You would you would

you first just tell us? So I'm very excited about this. Sonya Renee Taylor is a woman I've actually never met in person, but she has that kind of reach kind of into your soul and I think, uh, maybe ironically is not the word, but ironically it's through the body.

It's she has a book, The Body is not an apology that makes an incredibly nuanced and loving argument that when we, as I think so many of us do in our culture, make our bodies, you know, kind of the site of where we fight our battle, and you know, how do I look and controlling our bodies and um, wanting to occupy a certain space in the culture, we actually cut off our soul um. Yeah, I'm going to

link to her book as well. And I also just want to say, as somebody who's who's like on the voice soapbox, that you know, voice doesn't exist except with our bodies. And whenever somebody has something that's going on with their voice that makes them feel like they're not being heard or that it's not coming out, or that they're not revealing their true selves when they want to be, it has to do with their bodies. Yes, I agree

with that. Okay, here she is. Every time you call truth with your body, you interrupt a system of violence and power that profits off of your self hate. Every time you interrogate the beliefs and biases that you have about other bodies, you interrupt a system the profits off of the way that you feel about other bodies and the systems of comparison that we live in. Our relationship with our bodies is our access to a more just and equitable world. Our relationship with other people's bodies is

how we've been the box towards justice. When I watched her ted talk, which that's from I was struck by. I mean, of course, part of the the job of being somebody who's whole, you know, being is to say that the body isn't. An apology is how do you show up on stage? You know, how do you show up with your body? And one of the answers is that I haven't seen an actor doing Shakespeare in a while,

and that's you know, like, that's what she's doing. And there's a later part in that same um talk where she switches into a poetry mode where she's actually, um, I don't know what the verb is. I was going to say reciting, and that's so wrong. Embodying embodying, yeah, doing poetry. But you can even hear it in that clip that there's there's a way that she uses her body in connection with her voice that just feels like

she's under herself. She's not beside herself, she's not next to you, she's not running after she is in it. She embodies the poem, right, she is the embodiment of the poll where she it's almost like she offers her body in service of the community. So it's sort of yeah, it's a bit of the vessel imagery or emissary. Yeah, that's right. I mean it's not the same style as a conversational style. And you know, I've I listen to some clips of her and conversation too, and it's kind

of cool to to see, you know. Obviously, she's a great reminder that all of us have different modes, you know, And I'm not saying that that one mode is one that you know, any of us should sort of steal, period or steal for the wrong mode or take the wrong lessons from. But to see somebody knowing that what they're talking about is big, and that they're taking the breath to support that big of a thought and thus teaching us that that thought is as big as it

is is a real lesson. So thank you for bringing her in. Thank you for talking to me, Sarah and all of the people they wrote with you. Um, you're a wonder. Thank you so much for letting me just meander all over the places to be here. Thank you. Thank you to Sarah Jones for joining me. You can find out more about her in the show notes or

on our website Permission to Speak pod dot com. There's also a super cool bit of bonus content this week on our Instagram feed at Permission to Speak Pod, where Sarah talks about the secret of playing cool when you meet your heroes. It's really really special and real. Um. Please also send me d M s or voice memos to at Permissions beat Pot on Instagram or the website and let me know what is going on with your voice. I would be thrilled to answer to the next mail

bag episode. Also tell me what kind of guests you'd like me to have on and also what kind of questions you would like me to ask upcoming guests. I am so truly here for you, I especially I feel like during these wild and rather unsettling times, if we can think really intentionally about how our communication allows us to be more vulnerable and more heart forward with the people in our lives, that is something we should be doing.

And even more than any of that, I would so love for you to just tell me what you need from me. If I can provide it, I will thank you as well to Sophie Lichterman and the team at I Heeart Radio, my family and cohort and all of you. We're recording this podcast at various locations around Los Angeles on land that is the historic gathering place for the Tongva indigenous tribe, and you can visit us D A C dot us to learn more about honoring Native land.

Permission to Speak is a production of I Heart Radio and Double Vision Executive produced by Katherine Burke Canton and Mark Canton. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, listen on the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.