Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'veheart Radio podcast.
Did you guys watch American Pie? Yeah? Are you even American? If you haven't watched American Pie? Have you watched the remakes?
No?
I have either. I feel like you really can't remake that one.
There's a remakes.
I didn't even know they had. I think so hopefully. I'm pretty sure consult Google. I just would they remake a classic? I'm pretty sure old we were when we watched.
He's not old enough because, like, I think about that now, when did it.
Come out in nineteen ninety nine it came out? Oh yeah, we were old up, were in high school?
Yeah, I know, But I think about that now and I'm like, I don't know, I'm uncomfortable thinking about my kids watching it a little bit.
It was so inappropriate, But that's why it was awesome. I know, it like made a history in that way. It pushed the envelope. The funny thing was as I googled it, do you know the number one image that comes up when I google it?
No?
Is that rhyme with ripple? No? What the ripple one? Nothing? Okay, that's that's the Varsity Blues nipple and when she sprayed them and I'm like, does it rhyme with ripple? And You're like, nipple rhyme with it? That's it, okay? And I just you say it and I don't. I just think that's funny. No the pie remember, Oh yes, that that was strange in my brain. Well that's like the main thing strange, Like is it strange? Like do the whole thing? Like boys don't don't know you have teenage.
But we have a little for our special guest of the week. We have Tara Reid coming on. She's got a new movie out called Doctor Quarantine, and we're gonna chat all things American pie, what's new and what's the back in the day, what she wants us to know. So let's take a break and get her on. Hi girl, Hi, I'm good. How are you.
I'm good good.
I'm Jana Catherine Kristen. So you got the girls today? Girl, Hi, So we are very excited to chat with you. You were definitely our era of movies and actress because we were all I believe the same ish age.
Yeah.
So yes, I'm like, I don't know you were just you were Tara Reid, and like you were you're the hot one I wanted to be with you. I was like in a back brace and going like, how do I be like Tara Reid? You were like, well, you were pretty and sexy and confident, and I just wanted to do that and I was not those things.
Just so we're clear, No, that's really the street of you. Guys.
You started at six years old, So looking back, is that do you think you were too young to start or did you like growing up being I don't.
It was the kind of thing that I didn't plan on starting that young. I actually planned on acting at all.
Uh.
I was actually I lived in New Jersey and one day I was in the food court with my brother and my mom and she was getting his pizza, and this talent agent for children just happen to be sitting next to us, and she was visiting her daughter in New Jersey, but she lived in New York City, and she saw me and my brother kind of goofing around, and she went up to my mom. She goes, your daughter is perfect for this movie. It's this new Stephen King movie that's coming out, and they can't find the girl.
My mom's like, well, she doesn't even.
Know how to act like, you know, I'm just like, tey, do you want to ask?
And I said, I don't know what I'm doing, you know what I mean.
So they gave us the lines and we went in the next day and I auditioned for it and I got it. So I kind of just never got forced into doing it. It kind of just kind of fell in my lap. From there, we just kept getting commercials and different stuff and TV shows, and then all of a sudden got into movies and so now I'm sitting here with you guys, Well.
I'm always curious because my daughter, she was in a movie that I did last year, and so that kind of gave her the acting bug. And she's nine, and so we had this thing over the weekend where she had an audition for a really big show that's about to be you know, remade. And it was one of the things where I never want to force. I'm like, do you want to read this one? Do you want
to pass? Do not want to? Because I never want to be the mom that's like, all right, you need to do you know, all these auditions or whatever, and so she said no, But I'm like, but so funny, like it was so hard to be like, Okay, we need to collide the audition, but I really did go You're one hundred percent positive you don't want to be
Laura the bonnet from your Amazon car, you know. But I think it's you know, that's sweet that your mom wasn't like, you know, forcing you into things, which is good.
I think that makes a big difference of you know, kind of child actors if their mom is like the stage mom and forcing them to do stuff and then they don't get the part and they start to cry and they kind of message with their you know, they're being insecure and stuff like that. So I think you actually did really.
The right thing.
So did it just like come naturally to you, Like you just went in and did lines and it was like, oh wait, I can actually do this, I can actually act and I'm good at this or did you have to kind of work at it still to get there?
No, it was it kind of just came naturally to me, because I mean, I think kids are actually better actors than adults are because they don't have they don't put up all these like.
Borders or walls.
You know, it does come naturally to them because they kind of just play make believe in their head. And all kids, as we know, are great at make believe, so I think they could do it. So when you tell kids a crow or acted this, or be mad or be said, they're the best. You know, they're very dramatic kids. So it kind of came Natsha. I didn't learn any bad habits.
Yet growing up without social media, Like through your stardom and your fame. I feel like though you didn't have social media being bullying and aggressive, you had the media.
Yeah.
Absolutely, And so I feel like, do you kind of think back like, Yay, you didn't have social media being jerks and bullying and stuff, but you but I feel like you definitely got the a lot of bullying from paparazzis, proparazzi and just the magazines and all of that.
Oh, I definitely agree with that. I'm glad social media did not exist back then. I think it's really hard. But kids have to go through social media. And also there's addicted to their phone where we were addicted to our phones. You know, we actually went out and called people up on the phone and said, hey, do you want to come over and play? You know, like the
old ways. You just don't see that anymore. I think kids are missing that too, you know, I definitely do believe, Like later on in my life when the TMZ started coming out and the Perez Hilton's and like the bullying that was pretty awful. Now it's just like people get bad, you know, if you find out one person said something bad about you, like I heard your feelings, Like why did you they say that?
Why did they think about me like that? Like that's not nice.
But when it's like millions of people, you're like, this is so messed up. And when they don't get stories right, and they just bully for everything, for you're wearing, for how you look, or you know, your weight, or your clothes or just anything you do, or the guys you date or just anything.
It's just like.
They find something mean or wrong about it all the time. You know, not so much anymore. It's really came down as I got older, But when I was on my younger days, it was just pretty brutal.
Well, I feel like they kind of targeted you as this party girl. But it's like you were going out to the clubs just like everyone else was going out to the clubs, you know, and they just then do you feel like they just put that label on you, and that was just okay, that's who Tera Reid is, even though that's not who Tara Reid was.
Yeah, I mean I think you now is it right on the head. I mean that was the age that everyone was going on anyway. So I wasn't doing anything wrong that everyone else was doing. I was having fun, But I never got it confused with my acting, like I never was late to a set or do no you know lines, or I've never done anything wrong, like but I never been arrested. I never got it, you know, in trouble. I've never got a speeding ticket in my life. So I think I was really targeted, like I was
this wild child and and you know, completely crazy. And I did go out, I did dance on tables. I did have fun, but like who didn't at that age?
It mean me, like they so typecast me. It was really hard to get rolls again, you know, and it wasn't fair because you see, you know, guys doing all this stuff and it's fine, and now you see all these girls that were doing all stuff and like they're blowing off and you're just like, what side do you feel that you know that they still the target me in a certain way, and it's still hard to to get that titlement over with.
What do you think they what do you wish they would have taken, you know, or got from from you instead of what they gave? You know, everybody what?
You know?
What the what? The what they showed the media as opposed to like, you know who Tara is and was back then, where it's like, I feel like in a way they robbed you of things that you shouldn't have been robbed of because of their narrative.
I really agree with what you said, and I'm glad that you see that, because I don't think that that many all the people like that see how you see it so fairly. You know, for me, it was just it was tough because once I kind of got that label on me, then to get parts I was kind of getting denied them. And I'm like, for what, just because I went out, you know, that didn't take anything away from me from acting or the opportunities I wanted
to get or continue to get. And I think that really slowed me down in a lot, like a lot of ways, and I felt like I was getting punished for a crime that I didn't do. So that was, you know, a problem, you know. But then I think then I started not to go out anymore, not to do this and not to do that, and you know, just try to be really careful. And so I think that really helped a lot, you know, but there's still there's still a lot of judgment there.
You know.
I'm just I'm just kind of used to it and now like creating my own projects and creating my own narrative and not waiting for me to get a job or for these people to say yes or no to me.
You know.
Like so I'm creating like my own scripts and producing my own stuff. So I'm giving myself the parts that I've been kind of not being allowed to play. So now people are like noticing and they're like, oh wait, wow, she can't act, or well she's doing this.
Oh what, she's smarter than I thought.
You know, Like like I think a lot of people decided it was just like kind of dumb blonde you know, that didn't you know, the party girl that didn't don't know anything or care, and that was like, you know, you look at girls like even like Jennifer Lawrence, She's always drinking and they find fun and funny. You know, she drinks some shows and stuff like that, like you know, falling down like all the time, and they don't care. It's like, why do you guys care so much when
I did something like that? You know, I think I had like I think it was just really hardly like really hard judgment on me.
And yeah it was hard. You know, it did hurt my feelings.
You know, people forget your cuman like you know, you cut me, I bleed, so, I mean, you know, and that way it was you just had to stay strong and just keep believing in yourself. And it wasn't always the easiest thing to do, but you know, you just get on and you keep doing it and eventually when you want something, it will come.
It will come back to you.
What what did you do to get to that place with your I would I'm gonna call it mental health because I feel like when you go through all that, it's the anxiety, the depression of all those things that could potentially and I'm not I don't want to label that you, but that is what just how I would feel like the projection of all that would be and what I've gone through personally on the smaller scale, but what have where? How do you did you go? Did
you have a great therapist? Did you go to a treatment center?
Like where?
What did you do to kind of not let that run your world and feel that?
I think it did kind of run my road for a while, you know. And I think how I dealt with it is just I kind of became, you know, more insecure a little bit, you know, and didn't have as much confidence anymore, you know. And but I had some really good friends around me and good family, so I was able to talk it through with my friends and be able to speak about it. And I also write a lot, so I kind of keep in journal and write and that and that that really helps a
lot too. So I think just getting through it and you know, taking it day by day and you know, getting opportunities again and just you know, doing the best you can and you know, eventually, like what comes around goes around.
There's kind of a truth to that.
Is Doctor Quarantine a show or a movie that you put together? Did you were you have your did you have your hands in that of putting that one together?
Oh?
Yeah, completely so me and my partner Wait Across did it. And it was during COVID and then well, the story is really about it's about mental health, and it's about what the aftermath of what COVID did to so many people, Like people were alone, you know, and people got depressed and sad, and you know, it really affected so many people in so many different ways. And it was a global experience. It wasn't just here in America. It was like all around the world that people were going through this.
And my character has mental health in this movie. And I think the really important part of this, if Doctor Quarantine, is that the aftermath of what people don't realize, like how many people like don't go out even to this day, don't go out as much anymore. Everyone kind of stays home, does their jobs home. I mean, the socialism of it and the loneliness of it, it really comes through. And there's a paranoia of just touching things, even doors and this.
And now when you hear someone coughe, you think it's something different. You know, it never used to.
Be like that.
So there's just you know, a lot of stuff in this movie that's really important to me, and I think it has a real message to so many people that it's important to talk about.
And mental health is such a big.
Issue right now, you know, And I think it's really great that people are finally able to talk about it because so much stuff has been bottled inside of people and it was like uncool to talk about if you were sad or it didn't feel good. You know, the press would overtake it and be like, oh, she's in deep depression or she's in this as to that, and
like that's not true, you know what I mean. So when people were making your narrative on on stuff that you weren't even doing, or maybe what you could be going through but you weren't, it wasn't cool to talk about it. And now I think that the doorway is
open that you could talk about all these things. And you'll see that in the movie the Struggle and the stuff she goes through, and you know, she starts hallucinating and she starts seeing things that aren't there, and there's just so much there's so much depth into this character. And it's a really proud project. I'm so proud about.
And you know, my director and there's White Cross and she's also my partner, and she's a wonderful director and she really got things out of me, like really dark, dark things and I think I took I take a lot of my energy that I have and I tapped in there, you know. So it's like I went to places.
That I didn't even really know I could go, and there'd be.
Some scenes I was doing and I was just take shaking afterwards, like just shaking, like it could stop shaking, and like those scenes are just incredible, you know. I mean, I got my first award. I got my first Best Actress award.
I don't see.
Yeah, so that's fun, it's cool, and it's cool that and I got another Best Actress words yeah, yeah, yeah, so it.
Was my first.
I got three awards actually on this one, and that felt really good because the first movie that like I really produced and it was really evolved in and then it got noticed. So to me, that was like one of the greatest gifts of my career, of my life. That that feeling when I was on the stage and thinking, people,
I can't tell you what that's like. I mean, I know it's not an Academy award, but it had that feeling of you know, like wow, you know, like it's like that speech that you know every girl does in the mirror, like I want to think you know, like it seem true and it was just like it was really awesome.
I love that. Does that feel like with doctor Quarantine and all these words? Because you've always been a dynamite actress, like you just always have been so they can party girl, label you whatever. You've always shown up and played every role to its fullest and everything that I've witnessed, does this role feel like it's most redemptive? And where do you go from here?
Like?
Are you going to do more of these projects? Do you want to create more of these? Is this is this the tear read like arrival for you in your brain?
Yeah? I think it is.
I think it's the kind of the second chance and now seeing me as a woman, not this little girl.
They'll be seeing a lot more of that.
And I'm producing a bunch of more films with my partner, And it's been such a different experience being on the other side of the camera as well as producings. Before you used to just show up for work to my lines, you know, go home, memorize my linds again, go to work, you know, the same kind of thing.
This time, there's so much more thought that.
Goes into Okay, it's like we've got to find a financing, we have to figure out the marketing. You know, the cast, you have problems on the set, you know, there's so many to play. Both sides was so interesting. I learned so much more about movie making and the process of it, and it's it's a whole different world. And I really really respect both sides.
A lot of times. When you know, especially in these kind of roles, they're they're darker, they're you're drawing from past experiences and is there something from your past that has been kind of that hard moment that you draw from a lot within your work.
I mean this on this movie especially, it was the hardest one, but it was the easiest one to tap into because I lost both my parents, so I could go into that really loneliness of missing them and the sadness. So there's a lot of that, and I think it really comes through in this role of like of a true loss and that's really what she has and the pain of that. So losing both parents, you know, it's hard, So I definitely tapped into that for sure.
I really think it's. Yeah, I think it's a really brilliant concept because you know, like even in our own family, like my mother in law like does not come out of hibernation still. I mean, post twenty twenty, she is like missing, she's missing our kids' lives. She's missing our lives because the fear and it's just so ingrained in us.
And I really commend you for like seeing that and also talking about it, because there is so much to be said about how much life is being missed still, and I think it's really cool that you're the one that's doing it because there's a lot of life that got taken from you and like, you know, just by way of what social what media did and how they labeled you and all the things. I mean, listen, sister, in two thousand, I don't want any of my pictures
from two thousand posted. And you were like, you know, like, I'm thankful none of us had social media too. I can't imagine. I really am just like really proud that you're just taking that on and really making this like redemptive in a lot of ways.
Thank you. I appreciate you. Guys so nice.
Are you happy when people come up to you and chat about American Pie or is it something where you're like, I don't I didn't love that memory and that wasn't actually fun or do you or was that a great experience and something that you love to have been a part of.
No, I mean I always like it.
I love when people like you and they got inspired by that movie and it's sort of like favorite movie or say joking the pussy Cast and they wound up being a band, you know, girls all just how many different stories that they related to. And it's it's cool to hear that you had an impact in so many lives that are good, you know. Not the fans are awesome. It's just a it's a haters. That's stuff. But you know, you can't really control that.
And what do you say to the haters? What would be? Is it silence? Is it like what do you? What do you do with that piece of it? For you?
I don't really say that much because it's not really worth getting in a fight with people. But I mean there's times that you know, there's only so much you could take and you have to stick up for yourself. You're like, we just stop, you know, and everyone's just bothering me about the same things, the same things, and they're just like leave me alone, Like you don't even know me at all.
Like I think it's just so.
I can never imagine me just peaking on someone so hard and hating someone that I haven't even met and hasn't even done anything wrong to me, you know, Like, I just I'm not that kind of person. I'm not built out of jealousy and out of hurting people. Because people don't realize how damaging it is, like especially these kids, how bullied they get today and social media. I mean, how much suicide there is, you know, and how much mental health is. It's really bad.
And then and then to have grown adults also going on people's I mean when you go to some of those sites like us Weekly to see some of these people's comments on I mean, just they're just so I'm like, you guys are grown adults commenting the nastiest things. Yeah, I agree about people that you have really don't.
In your life. Are you that you just have to go and bash? Yeah?
Or to just be constantly watching stories, to be talking like that is that is what you do with your day like that?
That is?
That is very sad that you want to spend your day watching someone's stories all the time. To just go to a different site to talk a boat about them, and I'm like, you take a walk, do anything.
Well, it's hard to explain to kids that that's reflective of them, it's not reflective of you. And so it's like you think about how you dealt with the media then and the repercussions of going out and having fun. Those are conversations that I have with my teenage kids now about social media. It's like, I want you to be able to have fun, but what you put on that phone is for everyone to see. I mean, you can. We have situations where people are putting stuff on their
personal phones. Kids are getting those phones and putting that stuff out like it's there's so much there's so many repercus for that, and you lived that with the media, not social media. But it's interesting to hear how it affected you so much through media and we think it's so much now social media, but it's really kind of always been there in some form.
I almost wanted you to have social media so that you could come out. I mean it's like once you were labeled that way, you had no way to really defend yourself.
Yeah that's true, that's true.
Yeah, you know, like it was just like they know, yeah, there's nothing you can do.
You have like and you also have beds, Like there's some really great fans are too, and like where are you?
Where have you been? We missed you? You're like, why can't you show the studios that? Like they don't.
It's like you the studios don't realize, you know, and you just kind of wish they could see that.
Side, which you kind of can use now social media. I mean you definitely could now use that as uh, you know, I would think to kind of help in that situation more than you could in the past. Like how did you how would you have shown them? Like no, I have people that loved me, I promise.
Yeah exactly.
And listen, Spider Club was like a jam back in the day, you know, so like those all those clubs, Joseph Spider Clubs, like I was too, Like they were great, just like Tara reads the party Girl for dancing on a bar. What would they have said about me and my backlass shirt? And you are back and you are in Doctor Quarantine, your winning awards. Tara, thank you so much for coming on the show and really excited to see what's next. But everyone watched Doctor Quarantine now.
Thanks guys, You guys are so so sweet you left with it.
Thanks, appreciate it, Take care, Bye bye