Everybody.
Uh boy, today is a guest that I deeply respect and admire.
This person.
We've known each other for a lot of years. She's taken on just such unforgettable characters in films like Freaky Friday, Halloween, everything Everywhere, all at once and Wow. Her performance on the recent TV hit The Bear was spectacular. And if you don't know who I'm talking about, you may live under a rock. Jamie Lee Curtis is coming to the show.
Folks, lean in. I'm glad you're here.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for getting here before the actual host. I mean, let me ask you something. Do you exhibit this level of professionalism on a movie set? Are you one of those and this is an absolute serious question. Are you one of those people that comes to work on time.
And knows their lines? And uh, you know is are you?
Well? You're giving actors a really bad name. Cavin Macon, Hello, friend, Hello, see you. I will tell you this, and I'm only telling you this because I read it when it actually happened. So I was in a movie called Knives Out movie, a great movie. I was, by the way, a replacement part and meaning that there was somebody else that was supposed to do it, and then they somehow dropped out,
which often happens in movies. And then yes, and then I stepped in and had this wonderful experience with Ryan Johnson. But at the end of the movie, you know, the movie was great and people loved it. It was one of those wonderful things where people just fell in love with this movie. And somebody asked, Ryan, who is your MVP of the cast, and you know, it's a big cast, great, great people, and he said Jamie And they said why. He said, well, she was always on set even when
she wasn't supposed to be in a scene. And he said, she literally sat at the kitchen table in this house from six am until we wrapped every day. And he said, so I ended up putting her in scenes she wasn't originally supposed to be in, and that was what he said. So, yes, I am that person who is at work before everybody else, and I like to stay until everybody is finished.
I can't tell you how much I admire that.
I'm I'm usually kind of the same way, and I think part of it is that I just like to be there.
Man. I mean, I just that takes.
About but that's I love it. I love this job. And the truth is I am a freelance actor, which means I'm an unemployed actor for ninety Like the amount of time I actually get to do the thing that I am known for that I love doing. That is my art, that is my work is very very small. So when I have an opportunity to be on a set, I want to be on the set. I want to watch the whole thing. I want to know everybody. I
want to know what everybody is doing. And that to me is as much a part of it as it is to just do the part where I'm on the behind the you know, in front of the lens and whatever the scene is. So it's really it's it's it's actually crucial to me.
And you talk about the amount of time that we spend not acting, which is, you know a lot of we spend a lot of time doing other stuff.
But some people I know, I was going to tell music who some people I know play music with goats with their wife, which if that doesn't annoy anybody else watching this, you know, it's like by the way, the Island, It's like the David Beckham documentary when he dances to Islands in the Stream with his wife in that bullshit. But I mean, can you imagine, Kevin? I said to Christopher, I said, Chris, what would you do if I played Islands in the Stream and then started to dance and
asked you to dance with me? You and your wife get a freaking room, Kevin Bacon, you have.
No idea I would.
I would give anything to see you and Chris in the kitchen.
First of all, Chris Hope for the uninformed, here direct in a movie that Kevin.
Is so great in is least well known movie, and it really.
It needs to not be anymore. It needs to be.
People need to see this movie because if anybody wants it's a scripted movie.
It's true. It's it's different. It's different than the other unbelievably brilliant movies he's made.
But I would always I always tell people this is a an out and out comedy. I have very I'm a small piece of it because I'm really just the straight man. But if you want to know what Hollywood really is, this is the movie to really understand Hollywood.
He just it's called by the way, it's called the big picture, and it's about movie making and a young filmmaker who Kevin plays. So yes, if you can imagine Kevin Christopher Christopher Virtue. When I said island's in the stream, he said, what's that?
Then you go really really.
Like, I have to start to sing it. You don't want to hear me sing. It's awful. Anyway, you and your wife can get a room and stay in it for a long long time.
Please we listen. We want we like to get well.
We're you know, being not we're out of work for a long time with this strike, and you know it's like you're looking for something to do, to just be creative, to.
Make something other people paint, you know, paint. My husband is playing golf right now.
You to play golf.
You just you to make love all day every day with those watching and without it's just you. People make love in every room in your house and you want to and you singing while you make love like it's best fascinated by you people.
Okay, enough about our love life. I want to know how it feels. Because you mentioned being out of you know, spending so much of our time not working. You're I would say, arguably busier than you've been in your entire career at this point in your life, and we are at the same point in our lives and you know, chronologically,
and I wonder how that feels. I mean, there's a lot of people that are pumping the brakes now, you know, there's a lot of people that aren't looking down the road, that are saying, you know, maybe I'll just kind of do something else or try something else.
But you are on fire and it's so cool to watch as a as a fan. Thank you.
I'm yeah. And you know, the thing, as we were talking about the fact that that we don't work very often, you know, actors are incredibly patient. You have to be really patient and understand that you just need to suit up and show up and do the work whatever it is, whatever the job is, to the best of your ability, to sort of create a sense of community with the people you're doing it with. As I like to say,
leave the place better for you being there. Leave. Then months and months and months go by, sometimes years go by, and then these pieces of work come out and either they're heralded and people love them, or they're horribly received and people ship on them and say that it's the worst thing they've ever seen, and then you feel bad, and then you go on to the next thing, and you just keep doing that, and the patience is that
it is way out of my hints. I have opened myself to my life in every aspect of it, philanthropically, emotionally, spiritually, maritally, maternally, artistically, and I have been very lucky because I've had good fortune and things have panned out, and then all of a sudden, you take that little bit of success and then you try to ill done it. And at this point, I now get to be a producer. I get to have a company. I get to buy material and see it developed into things. I get to act in things.
I get to work with people who I would dream of working with my entire early life and understood that that was probably never going to happen. So I'm trying to just stay in the grace of the moment and have no expectations. And certainly this last year was not in my plan. It was not something I thought of. And it's funny because yesterday I have a publicist who has been my friend and publicist since I was twenty one. Wow,
I'm sixty five and she's still a publicist. Her name is Heidi Schaeffer, and Heidi and my agent called me last summer. Well, no, wait, hold on, this is twenty three. The Oscars were in March, so that's twenty three. So in the summer of twenty two, I was in Idaho, where Chris and I live, where we don't make love in the bar like you two. We don't have goats, so you know, it's also there's nothing similar about us,
although we like each other and we do fish. And the phone rang and she's, you know, was Heidi and my agent and I like, the agent's assistant said, I have Heidi Schaeffer and Rick Krutzman for you. And I was just like, what, why are you bothering me? What? What do you want? What do you want? And they said, well, we want to talk to you about the campaign. I said, what campaign? What are you talking about? They said, well, you know, a twenty four smooth I was like, oh, stop,
shut up. So I'm telling you it was the last thing I ever thought that would happen. And the fact that this year has happened, and then the work I get to do because of it has just opened me up in a way. To answer your lovely question. Open wide, open heart, chakra, open spirit, open, and you know, open to receive the art that I get to do now.
I love that. I love that, I mean.
But what's interesting also is that it's you're talking about being open in your life and not and not burdening yourself with some kind of expectations. But it's also being open in your work, which is something that comes from a lifetime spent doing it. And it's so clear in the work. I mean, the Bear, as I've told you, I've reached out to you after I saw it, and it was it was just truly spectacular, reals so much
kind of kind of work. And you've always been so great, and it's so great when you see somebody that you've always loved as a performer and then you know, they just fucking surprise you. You know what I mean, They just they just you know, come out and you know, they just hit you with it with a right hook and you go, WHOA.
I mean, because yes, but.
Your daughter and I share something as you.
Know, I know you do.
Yeah, she has taken over the mantle beautifully of Scream Queen. She's a very talented young woman and she will tell you what I've known all along, which is horror movies demand deep, deep expressions of sadness, fear, tension. But you know all of the sort of angsty performer tools and the demands them of. You had a nano second at four thirty in the morning, in the pouring rain, covered in mud and blood, and then they roll the camera and demand in that second with no other impetus. There
is no you know, the Bear is a play. The Bear is written like a play, it's acted like a play. We didn't rehearse it. Basically, we ran it so we would know where we would stand. And then they just said rolling and handing old cameras allowed it to be totally inflow. So of course the boats are going to rise because the writing is so extraordinary. But remember horror movies, often the writing isn't so extraordinary, and you don't have the play, you don't have all of it. You have
your skill to carry you in those moments. And your daughter can really attest to this, and you see, it's an un it's an unappreciated genre of performing. And I've been doing it for a long, long long time, and I am ripped my guts out on those movies and nobody pays that attention. They just don't care because the movies themselves have whatever the the feeling is and so not. Not that you are supposed to pay attention to the skill, but that work I've been doing since I was nineteen
years old. Well that was my first movie, Halloween.
Yeah, that Halloween. Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean people, you know, I've done my share of horror, and people will say why do you like it?
And why would you keep coming back to it, as though you know, why wouldn't you only do something else, you know, action or family dramas or whatever. And I always say, because it's because the stakes are so high in horror, Like it's always life and death. And it's like when you when you get to play like to me, when you get to play that that that's always the
challenging stuff. Not to mention, I mean when when you know you were so sweet to reach out to associate, you know, after Smile came out and when she was in the middle of it, it was we got a chance to actually discuss, uh, which is something not something that we had done too much up until that point, Like what it was like to act in a horror move and they said, the hardest thing about it, honey, is that every day you're going in and you got
to do a new version of being scared. And that is a that's like a that's a tough thing to do in a in a in a you know, hour and forty minute movie. It's it's it's a lot, it's a lot of challenges. I'm speaking of her. I don't want to do the podcast about her. Look you know, look, she doesn't need I want to do this.
I adore her.
As you know, you've been very vocal about this kind of nebo baby.
Concept. Yeah.
Well, and and uh, you know, I'm just wondering, you know how, because you can relate to it clearly.
I'm just wondering how you how you feel about it.
I mean, what what what's your what's your I mean, what's your what's your take on on that?
That concept?
It's been the same since day one. The reason why it just kind of came up a lot was because the word it was right when I was in the cycle of a lot of promotion, and the word sort of entered the zeitgeist, and all of a sudden, it was everywhere and you know, I've I've been my parents' daughter since I was born, and.
It works out that way.
I know it's crazy. And when I was in high school, you know it. Your parents procede you into any room you walk into. I don't care if high school, college, a movie set, a business office. Your parents precede you. It's like a procession. And you know, I'm not unaware of it. Of course I understand it. And by the way, I've probably also judged people marshly in the same way that probably people judge me. So you know, I'm no
angel here. But here's what I will say at four thirty in the morning, covered in mud and blood, when they're running out of time because they're going to lose the sun is going to come up, and you have to deliver the monologue with one hundred and fifty crew members standing around, and you have to run into a room and hit that little piece of red tape on the floor and spill your guts in a monologue of sadness and upset. I don't give a shit who your parents are. Either you can do it or you can't.
Like it's there is if there's an advantage because of a sort of a drast off of someone's fame, then okay, great, I've not ever run from it or hit or hit from it. I'm proud of my parents. I loved my parents. But the truth of the matter is the work you do as an actor, you can only do it if you can do it, and if you can't do it, it's really clear, and then you don't get to do it again. And that's just it. So I am I am, you know,
grateful for it. Whatever I think it's, it's you know, I've been doing this, as I said, since I was nineteen and I am now sixty five, and therefore whatever the math is, I've been doing it a long time. So yeah, it's the news thing what I wanted to tell you because it based it's literally it's germane to what we were talking about, which is, how do you find yourself here at sixty five in this moment, like in this moment, like whatever is going on in the world,
which is awful in this moment? Work wise how to? And there is a book and I talk about it all the time, and either the author of the book hates me or I've helped her sell a lot of books. Her name is Mauritia Pessel, and she wrote a book called Special Topics in Calamity Physics. It's a novel. It's an history novel about a father and a daughter. By the way, Kevin Bacon and I don't think they've made
it into a movie. And it's a terrific book. But in the middle of the book she talks about, you know, the way we think our lives are supposed to progress. It's basically, for your parents, how much money did they have, Where did you go to school, what was your first job, what was your starting salary? And those are what to term in your life. And here's what she says that
really changed my life when I read it. She says, quote, life hinges on a couple seconds you never see coming, and what you do in those seconds determines everything from then on and you won't know what you're going to do until you're there. That, Kevin making is my life because, as you know, I saw Chris's picture in the magazine
said I'm going to marry him. Married him four months later after reaching out to his agent and him not calling me and running into him at a restaurant and he randomly sort of waved and called me and we got married four months later, thirty nine years ago. All but all of my work, all of it, and there are those hinge moments, those pivots where and we could say it about every thing in our lives is sliding doors. You know what, Life hinges on things you don't see coming.
So you have to just stay open. It goes back to the point of being open, because if you're closed and you're calculated and you think you can control life, you cannot. And so the beauty for me at my age is I'm sober and I've been doing this a long time, and that quote came into my head a long time ago, and because of it, I am now open to whatever shows up. And by the way, awful things have shown up.
In case those couple of seconds hit you. Is is a theory that it continues that multiple This happens multiple times. If you're if you're if you're open and ready for it.
And that's to me, the beautyful beauty of being an artist who is her own art tool. So as an artist, I am just always at the ready. My senses are always firing.
Now you mentioned your company, are you also directing? I have you directed before? I'm forget.
I have I directed TV shows that I have been in, because when you're in the TV show and then you go can I direct one? You know it's it's something I would like to do. I'm much more interested actually in producing things, and I'm now just starting to become a producer at sixty five. So, for instance, my little company has a company with Jason Blum, who does Blumhouse, and we bought the Patricia Cornwell books called which are with the main character Case Scarpetta. There are a bunch
of wonderful books with her as the center character. And Nicole Kidman is going to do it. We're doing it for Amazon. She's going to play Case Scarpetta. I'm going to play her sister. That's something I'm producing.
Through my own company, Fantastic.
There's a movie that I'm going to produce which I can't talk about, even though I found out yesterday really good news. I can't talk about it, but I will be able to talk about it. That's a big movie about big ideas that it's going to be something that I.
Get to produce Fantastic.
At the same time, the most important thing, and I promise you it's not my segue because before we get to Sarah, I want to talk to you for a second about my hand in yours because it's different from a charitable standpoint than Sarah's organization Free Mom Hugs, which I very much want to lean into.
But that's what we're here for. Tell us about my hand in yours, all right.
So, in the same way, right before COVID, right before COVID, I didn't want to just give money to charity. I wanted to feel a stronger connection to it. And I collect little all objects from a sculptor named Anne Ricketts. These are little little bronze feet, and I send them to friends of mine and I say, be where your feet are. And I called her and I said, I would like to commission you to create a sculpture of
two hands holding whenever I sign off a letter. Kevin, if God forbid one of your goats passed away and I heard about it, I would have written you a letter and said, dear Kevin and Kia stop making love in the barn. You freaked out your bat and I'm so sorry that it happened. Chris and I send you
our best. And I would have written to you my hand in Yours Jamie, it's just a phrase I've used for a long time to say I may not be with you in this moment, but I want you to feel what it would feel like to have my hand holding yours. And so I went to Anne Ricketts and I said, will you make a small sculpture of two
hands holding that you can hold in your hand. It has a beautiful weight to it, and I said, I would like to make them, and I'm going to sell them on Instagram and I'm going to give all the money to Children's Hospital ofs Angeles. And then, very quickly, as you know in this world, when I hired a man named Oliver Marler to help me set up a website to sell them, because he you know, Instagram is fun, but a website is better. He said to me, how many did you order? And I said, ah, I ordered
one hundred. Can you imagine? He said, you'll sell those in a day? I said, oh, off, Oliver, really, he said, Jamie, I do this, this is what I do. You're going to give all the money to Children's Hospital. You'll sell them in a day. And we did. And he said you're going to need more. And so what happened is there's a company called My Hand in Yours and it offers comfort items and celebration items to people in times
of great happiness and great sorrow. And we donate one hundred percent of all proceeds to Children's Hospital Los Angeles. And that now is I have a business. I run a cottage industry in the house next door, which is our business office. And so besides the movie stuff that I get to do, this is a This was two years that we launched August fourth of twenty twenty, right when COVID was claiming the lives of so many people,
and it just blossomed. So I one hundred percent believed that the only purpose of fame is to shine the fame light that comes on us, flip it and Missy Elliott that flip it and reverse it and shine it on something other than you, because God knows we get enough tension. So My Hand in Yours is my version of that. But when you asked me if I was going to direct things, here's the reason I'm going to tell you. I was in Idaho, where we have a barn, but we don't make love in it the way and
cure it. And I read a story about a woman in Oklahoma who put up a Facebook post that said, if you're getting married and you're a same sex couple and your biological parents don't support that union, I will show up for you as a stand in mom. And I remember I read the story and then I did what people do. I cold called her and dm'd her into Facebook, and it took her a minute to figure out that I wasn't a fake person. Sure, and I wrote to the woman whose name is Sarah Cunningham and
basically said, this is fantastic what you're doing. And we became friends, and ultimately she had written a book. I ultimately bought the rights to the book to produce a movie that I was going to direct, and we were I was. I had an airplane ticket and crew gifts prepped to go and we were supposed to shoot in April of twenty twenty. Oh wow, okay, and COVID killed
our movie. But since then, Sarah Cunningham has just expanded her reach through a company, and not a company, an organization that she founded an runs called Free Mom Hugs.
Well, that's a perfect I'm a really good you are you are? I can? I can?
I can go make a sandwich Sarah Cunningham please join us here on the podcast.
And when you meet Sarah, you're gonna go, oh my god, you guys are twins. And we are away. I'm growing my hair for a month. I noticed many times most of my life my hair looks exactly like Sarah Cunningham's.
I think, I think we're all on the same. We also got the same I.
Usually have very short I love it.
I noticed it, and it's just stunning. It's so attractive. Of course, you look good at a potatoes.
Come on, Sarah, thank you so much. How are you doing.
I'm doing so well. You know, I've been in in the background here listening and I'm just crying. And you see my love for Jamie because she's always pointing to something good. I've known her for a short amount of time, but my goodness, how she has just changed my life the trajectory and like she shared about how life comes at you and unexpectedly will change the direction of everything. So I wouldn't be here today without without Jamie.
Well, speaking of which, tell us your story and I'm curious, you know, I want to hear how how how you started this and and what's.
It's an amazing story.
Kevin, are you did you grow up in Oklahoma?
Yes, born and raised. There was a time I would beg my mother not to let me be buried in Oklahoma. But now I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. And my husband and I met young and we have two children together, and our youngest son, Parker, is gay, and he's the reason why we're here today. I raised very conservatively evangelical, you know the story. And when Parker tried to have those conversations with me, I didn't take the news very well. I behaved badly.
I show him was when he started talking to you about this.
I remember in grade school him trying to have the conversation at the kitchen sink. But I just thought it was a phase. I just I didn't allow the conversation or the vocabulary to have it. And because I thought it was just a phase, or I thought maybe something bad had to happen to him to make him gay. But it wasn't until he met someone at the age of twenty one and he said, Mom, I met someone and I need you to be okay about it, and
I wasn't. It was a journey from the church to the pride parade without losing my faith or my son. But I met this beautiful, spirit filled community and I fell in love. But I was hearing their stories about how they had been alienated from their church homes, from their families, from many parts of society. I was learning about laws that affect families like mine, and I was
accountable to those things. So in two thousand and fourteen, I went and had my first real intentional interaction with the gay community at the Oklahoma City Pride Festival.
So what was it that got you from the kitchen sink, or the church, or wherever you happen to be to take those steps to walk over to a pride parade. It just seems like a pretty pretty long long journey.
It was a journey, like I said, from the church to the Pride parade. But hearing their stories and so in twenty fifteen, I made a homemade button and with anyone who made eye contact with me, I would say, could I offer you a free mom hug or a
high five? And the first hug I gave went to a beautiful young girl who said it had been four years since she had a hug from her mother because she's a lesbian and from that experience, we started the nonprofit Free Mom Hugs and now we have actors in every state of moms, dads, friends and allies who show up at Pride festivals, checking second chance proms. We have transgender Valentine's banquets, National Pride rights, whatever we can do
to help change the social norm. And lastly, our mission is to empower the world to celebrate the lgbtq IA plus community through visibility, education and conversation, because those are the things that changed my understanding of this beautiful community and of what a gift they are to the world. And I'm just so thankful that I'm on this side of our story. This book that Jimmy was talking about so beautifully is self published, but it's our story. I'm
not a scholar or theologian. It's just how we got through it. And what I hear from you. I'm sorry, I'm rambling you.
No, no, you're not at all, not at all, No, No, I'm just wondering, to the extent that you're comfortable sharing it. Did you feel like it was a slow process? Was it a was it a an aha moment? What?
What?
How did your how did the rest of your family react to Parker has a brother or a sister.
Yes, two children. Parker's the youngest, Travis is the oldest Travis.
That's my son's name.
Yeah, and and uh uh and your husband were they supportive?
Were they confused? What was just to give me a little more detailed was long?
But thankfully, uh, my husband is affirming. He has cousins who are on the LGBTPU skew uh spectrum, and so he was always more affirming. I was more conservative than my husband, thankfully, but I made it. I made life pretty hard around here, and so it was a process. It didn't happen overnight, but there were pivotal moments of seeing other people celebrate my son when I didn't know if I should, could or would. Seeing him happy and healthy and live authentically, and him you know, saying Mom,
I've been your son for twenty one years. I need you to be my mom now will kind of make you in check. But it was seeing other people accept him when I was just trying to figure that out. But I needed it was faith based that was keeping me. That the power of fear and ignorance kept me in that place, but it was the power of love and education and seeing moms like Jamie, you know, she's a mama bear. And when she says that they watched in Pride and wonder as Ruby, you know, became her authentic self.
That it was hearing things like that who just really changed my understanding and.
Talk to me about the challenges of being I'm assuming that the community that where you lived and worshiped was a, you know, a pretty conservative community. What's it like in terms of the pushback? And I mean, I'm amazed at the courage that it takes to make that kind of decision when when the you know, the world surrounding you is kind of feeling in.
A different way devastating. It was devastating, but you know, having this time span, you know, I went through being devastated to cynical, to bitter, to angry to understanding. We didn't know how to minister to each other. Nobody knew how to have this conversation because we didn't have you know, we didn't have any out people at our church. We didn't have same sex couples getting married and celebrated. We just did not know how to minister to each other.
So that's what I believe the platform of Free Mom hugs allows a place for people to show up and do something. And it's a beautiful thing to be a part of. Because when we can pour into families like mine, you see that fruit. You say, the love is God, is love, and love is God, and the fruit of the Spirit is love, and the fruit of the spirit is lasting and empowering. And when we can pour into families, that's where the fruit comes from. And you'll know them by their fruit.
Right.
So, and you can see, Kevin, how much of a of a a gospel according to Sarah, and how how powerful she is as a communicator. So you can imagine Sarah has traveled all over the country and talks to people who were hidden behind the rigidity of their faith. And look at this woman and look at the way she communicates about love and family and and it just
radiates from her. It's it's it's extraor she's an extraordinary person who, as as she has said, was was kept in the closet of her own limits of love and expand until it was her child who opened the door and said, I want you to be my mom. And she literally had to choose her church or her child, and she chose the child and it's shaped the world.
If you are inspired by today's episode, please join us in supporting six degrees dot org by texting the word Bacon to seven zero seven zero seven zero. Your gift empowers us to continue to produce programs that highlight the incredible work of everyday heroes, will also enabling us to provide essential resources to those that need it the most. Once again, text b a co n to seven zero seven zero seven zero or visit six degrees dot org to learn more.
You know, Jamie, I want to ask you something, and then I also want to ask you the same thing zero, which is that.
I think that.
You both you both have this, uh, this feeling of compassion for other people, and I'm always interested where you think that comes from, because it's not an obvious thing to say, well, I saw a need or I saw something, or I you know. I mean, you said, Jamie that you you're at a point in your life where you feel like, you know, famous people need to give back. But I think that there's there's something there that is inherent in you that.
Came from something.
And I'm just wondering if, if if you have either one of you have ideas about what that is is that your parents is in a moment. I've spoken to people on the podcast that have had you know, a tragedy or a or a you know, something you know powerful happened to them a voice.
Do you have any thoughts about that?
Because the thing is is that you can do quietly do good work which is fantastic, you know, or like you, Sarah, you can make your voice heard and take the risks and the same thing with you, Jamie, take the risks of being despised, take the risks of the blowback, you know, put yourself out there on the line to say, hey, I want to I want to be clear about something that I feel strongly about.
So my mother was a movie star, as we've talked Nepo baby that I am, and she was involved with a group of Hollywood wives really called Share. It's a group in California called Share. The acronym was Share Happily and reap endlessly. And what it was was that they were a group of powerful women who understood that their husbands, many of whom were performers, had a lot of power and show business. So what they would do is they put on a show every year. They still do it.
The Share organization still does it, and this group of women would put on a show. Their famous husbands would come and perform, Sammy Davis Junior, Dean Martin, and once in a while one of the members of the group was a woman and a movie star herself my mother, And they would do that every May. In my entire childhood, my mother would rehearse for their Share show every May, and I watched them rehearse, and as a child, I
would go. So I watched my mother annually come together with a group of people and raise a lot of money for, by the way, the Exceptional Children's Foundation, which is what they put their money toward, which was children with special needs. So that was sort of what I
was raised around. And then my mother. Then my mother was friends with Eunice Kennedy Schreiber, an extraordinary woman, powerful change agent, and she started the Special Olympics and she would invite celebrities like your podcast to come, but you know, to come and participate in Special Olympics. And I went with my mother one year. And after I went the first year, I called Unice Kennedy Schreiver. I was fifteen
or sixteen or somewhere, and I said to her. You know, I think we got Polaroid to donate cameras we could take pictures of the celebrities with the athletes and then they could take them home. And so for a couple of years I did that at the Special Olympics.
Wow.
And then I became an actor, and then she called me one day and said, Jamie, I think you need to be in the pictures this year, and so like right away, like early on, I saw the power of how celebrity world can affect other things other than show business. Yeah, and then it was just a course of those things happening that then, you know, working with Children's Hospital of s Angeles as their advocate, literally suiting up and showing
up and saying what do you need? I will do whatever you need, and then starting my hand in yours. So for me, the trajectory was really watching my mother do it. Okay, the value that having like spame again, but taking all the energy of fame and throwing it towards something be it animal rights, being human rights, children, whatever it is, and then and then come up with a way to monetize it and make it a truly philanthropic organization. That would be my background.
Always comes back to the moms, right, Sarah always comes back to the.
Moms, always comes back to moms.
We have to do everything.
And Sarah, you know, I mean you you've taken this organization. I mean you you did this one act of I don't even know what you know, what to call it, just you know, crossing the divide, you know, and and you know, showing compassion and grace towards your son and towards to uh, you know, to other people as well. But now you've taken it and you continue to, you know, keep this thing going.
What what are what? What is it? What happens on a.
Day to day basis with the organization? And and how can people help and get involved?
Thank you?
I tell you the main thing And it did start with my mother. We had My mother was a single mother. My father passed young five children, and so our house was open to the whole neighborhood. And so I grew up with a lot of that. But I'm just doing things that I wish someone would have done when I was trying to figure things out. Number one, those are the things that we're doing through visibility, education and conversation.
And secondly, is that at the forefront of everything that we do at Free Mom Hugs are the horror stories of conversion therapy in thirty states. My son, Jamie's daughter could be denied housing, healthcare, even thrown out of a public space because of how they identify. That's the reality of the LGBTQ plus community and it's at the forefront of everything that we do to change the social norm, to raise awareness and to celebrate this community. So we're
always looking for ways. But it may look like a National Pride ride. We just had in September our very first Free Mom Hugs conference, which Jimmie was a part of. But we had expected maybe one hundred and fifty people, but we got four hundred people, plus the mayor of Oklahoma to show up. And Oklahoma's very conservative, we've got pockets. But I think what makes us so successful is that it's love. It's all about educating and love and those are the things that will change the world around us.
And add to that, once you see it in this arena, then you see it everywhere. And when I say it, I mean the discrimination, the challenges that all minority space. But this happens to be my lane. But once you see it here you see it everywhere, so I'm accountable to what I know. Ultimately, that's it.
The other thing I wanted to say, Kevin is that And we haven't really said this to each other, Sarah, but I guarantee you without a doubt that your gorgeous openness with Parker impacted my openness with Ruby when out of the blue, Ruby informed my husband and I that they were trans that we met because I saw that act of generosity on Facebook and then stalked you, not having any idea that I would need your example in
my own life. I did not come to you because I had an inkling that that was going to be a conversation in my kitchen, and I went to you because of your open bravery and saying I made a mistake, this is wrong. Here's who I am. I'm here for you. People like that gave an example for me that I hadn't put together until this weird little zoom box thing. Because that's the truth that when that moment, when life hinged on a couple seconds, I didn't see coming that.
In those seconds, the example that I had was lead with love, ask questions, open your arms and your heart, period And that's what happened, and it's because of you.
Thank you seeing me, Thank you.
We can all go home now.
Wow.
But I'm telling you it's it's it didn't. It didn't connect the dot to me until this second where it's like, well duh, because you led by example and I was attracted to it without even knowing. I was attracted to it for the reasons that I'm now attracted to it.
Thank you amazing.
I mean, that's is exactly what we're trying to do here on the spot, is to get these these kinds of moments. And you know, I I admire you both so much for you know, your compassion and your understanding and your courage and your voice and your love. It's it's it's it's beautiful, inspiring.
And you and I saw you on the Kelly Kark Clarkson Show and you just have a need and you say, what can I do? What can I do? What should I do? And you saw a need and you had an idea and you did it and it works. So I mean, this is what it's all about. It's not a competition. It's about serving each other and helping each other. And if you don't have it, then you find someone who does so well done.
Thank you, thank you. Okay, what's the what's the website?
Free moom hugs dot org.
Dot com, My hand in yours dot com. These are two fantastic, fantastic organizations that need your help, your interest.
Check them out.
Please, I say something, Kevin, I'm sorry, sure can freemomhuds dot org. You can find your state chapter, get plugged in. If it's just showing up at Pride Festival. Soon you'll be helping with the clothing closet or trans Valentine's Bank, but you can find the resources. If you are a parent, a guardian, know someone who's going through this journey, there are resources available at our website. And of course we're a nonprofit. We all need funding, so.
Do what you can.
I say, if you can, pray for us, pray for us, if you can show up, show up, if you can give, give beautiful.
I love that. I love you both so much.
Hey, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of six Degrees with Kevin Bacon.
If you want to.
Learn more about Free mom Hugs to momhugs dot org, you can find all the links in our show notes, and if you like what you hear, make sure you subscribe to the show, tune into the rest of our episodes. You can find six Degrees with Kevin Bigan on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.