- I mean, I don't remember that.
- That's pretty good.
- I totally learned that cheer.
- Yeah. - Teach it to you one day, can you? - I know the words to it, but one, two.
“Tell me who are you, the bears three, four.”
Tell me who's gonna score the bears five, six. Tell me who's got the kicks, the bears seven, eight. Tell me who's really great, the bears nine, ten. Tell me who's gonna win, the bears. - Say it again, the bears two girls win, the bears.
- Woo! (laughing) - Very good. (laughing) (upbeat music)
- Hey. - Hi Craig. - How are you? - I'm good, I'm happy to be back in action with you. - I know, we can do it.
It's, I'm doing well, I feel rejuvenated.
- Yeah. - Anything exciting happening in your life since I've seen you last? - No, no, just the usual stuff we're trying to get school done for the year, but.
- Are they still both playing instruments? They're still following their music stuff? - They are, Austin still takes piano lessons. Aaron is counting the days until he can stop playing the trumpet.
(laughing) And it's a shame because he's such a good musician 'cause you know, he started on the viola. And when he practiced that at home, it was lovely to hear, but he did not like it.
- Oh. - So we told him he had to finish it 'cause he started it. - Yeah. - And when he's in eighth grade, gonna be going high school.
“And I think this is good end of the line.”
- Well, we always tell them,
I mean, both for both of us and everybody know the thing we always we had kept up was our instrument. Because music, I mean, you know, and our next guest is a living example of, you know, when you hold on to music in your life,
when you don't let that muscle atrophy, you know, even if you've done a ton of things, you can always go back to it. - You can come back to it, yes. - But our guest today is a dear dear friend of mine,
Rita Wilson, and I love her. - And I can say, you know, there's some people we have on here who are friends of you, of yours. And I either an acquaintance of mine, but I feel like Rita's my friend too,
because, and I'm gonna wait till she comes out to tell the story, but I am so happy she's here, and she just brightens the whole thing. - She is a, she's a ray of sunshine, but let's do a proper introduction.
- Her introduction, Rita Wilson is a multi-talented singer-songwriter, actress, and producer. She has released six studio albums, one of which we have right here called the Sound of a Woman, and it's her most recent,
which is a collection of songs that explores the arc of a woman's life. So without any further ado, Rita Wilson, she's in there being producer. I saw you the only one you do.
You the only one who has ever been looking at the screen. - I was wondering, it's like, why don't you both say or say, 'cause you were sitting in the chair. - She was not sitting in the chair. - She was not sitting in the chair.
- She was not sitting in the chair. - She was not sitting in the chair. - She was not sitting in the chair. - I was not sitting in the chair. - She was not sitting in the chair.
- She was sitting in the chair. - Hi, honey. - Hi, everyone. - You were at our house. - I love it.
It's so nice to be here because I've only seen it on TV. - It's right. - I'm very happy to be here. - They're looking fabulous. What do you, what do you want?
- You know it takes a village. - It takes a village. You said you had an alternative outfit. - It has a little wardrobe malfunction, but this is something that I feel very comfortable in.
- You look great. - I think it's all about comfort. - It's not comfortable. Don't put me in it. You know, really?
- I can't see myself. - I can't see myself. - They're like the beat mix. - And it's speaking of comfort. - comfort.
So you probably don't remember this.
“But I remember the first time I met you.”
Miche was having one of her dinner parties at a hotel somewhere in DC. - Do you remember when Tom were there? - I think I know which one it is. - And there were, it was small
'cause there were tables of just six people. You know, it was really small. And I was the only civilian there. It was just celebrities galore. And you came, he was like, you should come to dinner.
- Like, and you didn't know.
- He was just sort of like-- - I was in town. - She was like, come on, bye for dinner. I thought I was going by their house. So I was on my way over there.
She's like, no, no, no, we're at the such and such hotel and I go over there and I walk in and I'm like, oh, I felt underdressed. And everybody in there is just like, so nice and nice looking and--
- So clean and fresh. - Clean and fresh. - And you said, right in, I thought like an outlier. But you were sitting at another table but you were sort of back to back side to side with me.
- Right. - And you made sure that I felt included in the whole evening. And you would lean over to hate it. And you'd talk about it in somebody would say,
you hear that, and then you were so sweet to me.
I will never forget that.
- Oh, thank you. - Thank you. - Thank you. I feel like that's important though. - I would like to tell.
- I do 'cause I can't, I think, you know, this is partly, you know, what we'll be talking about,
“I think today, but I think it's so important”
that there's so many people that feel like they're just invisible, you know, sometimes. And even if you don't feel invisible, you can be made to feel invisible. - If you're in the wrong situation or crowds.
- Right. - It's hard for me to feel invisible. - Oh yeah. (laughing) - It's hard.
- That is true. That is true. But I wouldn't say in your case you were invisible. But sometimes it's just that extra sort of, somebody noticing that, you know,
hey, you're here. - You know, yeah, it was really sweet. - It was really sweet. - Exactly. - But I wanna know, how did you two meet the first time?
- Oh, it was at the first inauguration.
- Uh-huh. - And I'll never forget this
because it was so impactful to me. But I think it was at one of the events at the Lincoln Memorial and Tom was speaking and afterwards there was like a little get together in the tent for anybody who had performed
or spoke that time. And you and the president got up on stage and you said, I really want you all to pray for us and keep us in your prayers as we go into this. And that really impacted me because I thought,
exactly right, we do need to do that. Like, and I'm Greek Orthodox as you know, but in our church we always pray for our leaders and hope that they are doing the right things and, you know, they're for the right reasons.
And so, and you definitely did that. - Well, it feels like I've known you my whole life and we've had some just amazing conversations.
“And in those conversations, I know how important”
your family is, how important your work has been, but one of your major passions is music as we talked about. - Yeah. - And this is your sixth album we sound of a woman congratulating.
- The bold ones. - The bold ones. - Congratulations and we're gonna, you know, we're gonna do something a little bit different today because we've got a couple of songs cut up. - Yes, yes, great.
- Okay. - Whenever you or one of us thinks it's the right time, we can do a little bit of a listen and talk about it. But I wanted to start by having you tell our listeners what the album is about, why you wrote it, why now.
- I love that. - Okay, so it's called sound of a woman, why? Well, it was really to explore what that experiences like from different faces and experiences of a woman's life and my co-writer Amy Wajanai,
we had the first song was sound of a woman, the title track
because we're like, what is the sound of a woman? - So through this process of songwriting, I started to really feel like, I wasn't alone, like it wasn't just my story. So many women are going through these same things
and experiencing those the same thing. So like, even though it's very specific some ways to what I'm gonna be writing about, personally, it's this experience of it all is, I think, universal.
- So Rita, you're thinking, all right, I want, I have something to say, what made you wanna say it through songwriting as opposed to screenplay writing or poetry or something else? - Right, okay, good question.
- Oh, ding, ding, cry, it's a good question point. - I'm getting good at this job. (laughing) - Very good. - You do it enough time. - You're good at it. - You've got it.
“- Well, I think you can ask any person alive.”
Like, what did you love to do when you were a kid? And that, well, they'll have an answer for you.
So mine was music, and I loved music,
and I would get up and sing at the drop of a hat, I would sing "Ode to Billy Joe." Like, just think of a 10-year-old going,
like, it was a third, a dude, another sleep dust.
I don't know, I won't sing all of it, because who knows, or might be legal. So I can't sing it, you know, I can't think of it, you know, it's not singin'. (laughing)
- Cut, we can't afford it. (laughing) So, but that song was fascinating to me, because it really told the story of like, I came from this very boisterous family,
and then I had this song that people were like going, "Oh, so somebody just jumped off a bridge and died." And it's just something off the bridge. - Don't you remember when we were playing that game, what song, "Ode to your mind"?
- Yeah. - This is a Tom Hanks, that's favorite, where we sat around table, and we talked about the song that blew our mind. - Yeah. - We played it and talked about it.
- Right, and yours was, "Ode to Billy Joel." - "Ode to Billy Joel." - Yeah, and that was a song that I just thought, "Okay, why is everybody in this song just going past the piece after this big, huge bomb has dropped on the dinner table,
you know?" - And you were hearing the lyrics. - I'm hearing a lot of times.
“They're just like, "I think these are the words”
and they're mimicking it." But you're taking in the content of these songs. - That's my mom was really good at that. Tell us more about your mom. - And she was a force in her own right.
- Oh my gosh, she was extraordinary, and really an amazing person. You know, she was my best friend, and she was somebody that I knew I felt so much love. So, both my parents gave me that foundation of like,
whatever you wanna do, you always have a place to come back to.
They never stopped me, and you know, she was born in America, but raised in a little tiny village on the border of Greece and Bulgaria. And they went there for a vacation, the whole family, when she was four years old, and her dad died.
And the family died in vacation. - During the vacation, yeah. And they were young, and so my grandmother was your mother. - My mom was four, so I think her mom must have been 32, something like that.
So, eventually when things started getting rough, my mom had to escape with her mom to go rough, you mean. - And the occupation, yes, exactly.
“And so she stayed, was she when she was 19, 19 traveling?”
- Yes, yes, exactly. But yes, so, both my parents were incredibly courageous, but my mom was probably an artist in some way. And I think she loved music, but one of the songs on the album is called Your Mother, and it's too full,
because one of them is, what are the questions you wish you had asked your mom, if your mom is no longer with us, and do our kids really know us?
- I know so many amazing women who do incredibly
wonderful things in their lives, like over the age of 50. And that is, in some ways, the beginning, I heard it a term the other day, which I loved, which somebody called somebody over 50 of Queen Ager, instead of a teenager love.
- Oh, I love it too. - I love it too. - I'm like Queen Ager, I like it too. - Well, let's copy right there. - Yeah, exactly. I'm a Queen Ager, I'm serious, Dan, somebody's gonna do that.
- Does that make me a King Ager? - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. - That idea that I've met so many women, they're doing incredible things and there's somewhat different than what they were doing
in the earlier parts of their lives, and everybody has a gift. And if you have something you wanna do, do it, you know. If you do something consistently enough, you do not get worse at it.
- Never. - You can only get better at it. - That's right. - You can't get worse at it. And that really supported this endeavor of songwriting
'cause I thought I would go down in Nashville all the time, and just right, right, right, right. And I thought, well, I know from what our color or tone is, I'm not gonna get worse at it.
“- That's right, you're just gonna keep doing it, you know?”
(upbeat music) - This back to school season, spend less on your kids with Amazon. I remember with my two youngest, one year, what they wanted for the upcoming school year change
Four times on the way to the store.
They were so focused on which backpacks or lunchboxes they wanted,
“then they changed their minds, minutes later.”
Do you remember what it was like to go school shop in with mom and dad? - Oh, when we were kids, oh, for sure. I mean, that was like excitement, you know? It was like getting the new box of crayons,
you know, whether you could get the 16 variety or the 64, I mean, there was nothing that spelled, that spelled progress in learning the new box of crayons. - When you, when you increased your number, - I mean, it was like, we are living large now.
Fresh spiral notebook, I was ready to fill it up. - I know exactly what you mean.
We had what we needed, but there was always
that one thing mom would let us pick out that just made the whole year feel right. And for me, it was always the three ring binder. - Just the empty three ring binder? - Yeah, because you could get the binder
with the action figure on the front. You could get Spider-Man. - I just never went for the action figure. - Oh, man. - I like straight color.
- Batman, Spider-Man, what was the item for you? - It was the spiral notebook with the paper already in it, you know, and I like the colors, 'cause I like the color coat for the subject, you know, you get reading, you get math, you know,
I was highly organized, lessen to the characters, more into the focus on being organized. - Yeah, I remember that. School shopping can be so fun, though, the nostalgia of it all.
We want the best for them, but we're also allowed to want back to school shopping to be a little bit easier and more affordable. It's good to save money. So, you know, you can spend it on your kids later.
With Amazon, you don't have to worry about losing that shopping list anymore. They have so many options, all in one place. No more driving to three different stores, giving your kids all the time in the world
to rethink the erasers you just bought them.
“So, remember, with Amazon's low back-to-school prices,”
just spend less on your kids, because every dollar you don't spend on them is a dollar you haven't spent on them, you know, yeah. - They're gonna get you some way. (upbeat music)
- Well, let's take a minute, because we've got your mother cute up. Can we hear that while we're talking about our mothers, because the lyrics on this song are amazing. Let's take a listen. - Thank you.
(dramatic music) ♪ There's a lot of excuses to be ♪ (dramatic music) ♪ If you listen, you will learn ♪ ♪ Every time the season's turn ♪
♪ That you'll never hide ♪
- Not there. (laughing) - Don't make me kind, don't make me kind. (laughing) - This is my favorite part.
(dramatic music) ♪ Oh, when she goes time will show ♪ - Oh. ♪ Everything you know ♪ (laughing)
♪ We talk you ♪ ♪ Oh, when she's gone ♪ ♪ Like the words of your soul ♪ ♪ That others brought you ♪ ♪ Oh, she'll always be a mother ♪
- Oh, man. (laughing) - Wonderful. - Wow. - Thank you.
- You got good at songwriting. - Thank you. - You didn't get much. (laughing) - Thank you.
- And just from a technical standpoint,
“so did you come up with the lyrics and then say,”
I got to figure out a melody to this or did you have the melody and then say, I got to write something to this beautiful song. How does that work? - Every song is different.
Amy watched my co-writer and I, we knew, you know, sort of what the arc was gonna be. And sometimes, like in this song, we wanted to just, you know, say to our children,
we weren't always just your mother.
Our kids come into the world and they're like, "Oh, you're my mom." - Yeah. - And before they just meet you as mom, they didn't know you were fast.
- No. - They didn't know you could run. - Exactly. - And our mothers were really zipped up. - Oh, my God.
- They did not talk about stuff that generation, you know. - And I also feel that I, I'm on the cusp of sort of this, you know, my mom's generation, which was very traditional and, you know,
patriarchal because mom stayed home, dad went to work. And then there's my little interim generation, the cusp. And then right ahead of me was Gloria Steinem
And, you know, Bella Abzug and all the feminists
that were sort of paving the way for women's rights.
I always felt like I was straddling this balance
of like who am I and my mom's values and my, these ladies' values, you know?
“- Well, I think we're growing as women to understand”
that it's not a zero-sum game. We can, you know, I know, as I grow, I'm learning to appreciate all that my mother was in that tradition and the strength, I mean, like you said, we don't know who they are as the song says.
So, you know, and sometimes we don't take the time to listen as the lyrics say. - That's right. - Listen, because that generation of mother was never gonna tell you outright,
but she was telling us about herself in little ways. - Yes. - If we would listen exactly, you know? - Exactly. - Well, you know, the album follows your arc
as a woman and to sort of create some context to that. I want you to take us on your arc starting with, "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God." - Because you will loot it to the fact that you are a Hollywood California girl,
that you know, even though you are the child of immigrants. - Yes. - You grew up right down the street. What was Rita like? What was Little Rita late?
- Oh my God, Little Rita, Little Rita. Little Rita, well, I went to Hollywood High School right down the street. - With which we pass every day, every day, to the studio.
- I know, it's crazy. - It is, it really is. - Same thing built in and everything. - Yeah, everything looks the same pretty much. Although now there's fences around the school,
you can't just walk up onto the lawn and go into the classrooms. I was a cheerleader. I was happy. I was part of a church singing group.
I had great friends.
I started modeling like the first day of high school,
a photographer who had had permission from the school to be there asked if he could take my picture. I said yes, that turned into, I didn't realize it at the time, but he was shooting a layout for Harper's Bazaar Magazine.
So they asked me to be in Harper's Bazaar Magazine. So I, that thought me started. You know, as a teenager, your mom agrees that you can go off in model in Europe. - Yeah, and she came with me because, you know,
I was 15, but back in those days, I had an agency in LA and in the summertime, they wanted their models to go over to Milan and get a portfolio together and get some experience working.
And that's what I did.
“I'll never forget, because you remember the things”
that you wear. I was wearing like a little red and white checked Gangnam suit that my mom made me. - Yeah. - Like little pockets here.
And I looked like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Literally, it was so-- - Hey, y'all. - So sweet, and you know, in some ways, you're going into the lion's den,
because all the Italian playboys would just hover at a culture like around the lobby to the hotel, like who's coming down today? - And it's like Rita's freshman. - I don't--
- You don't feel that. - You don't have my mom with me, so they're like, "Oh, not her, okay, fine." But I do feel like my parents gave me that foundation of just a foundation.
Like, you can do this, and we will be there. And if you ever get tired of doing it, you don't have to do it. So, I did have a sense of adventure in that way to be able to try different things,
and not feel confined in anything. - And at this point, were you thinking, I'm gonna have a career in acting, because I read, I read, and oh, man,
“I can't remember the periodical where you said,”
"Well, if I wasn't, if I didn't get into show business or acting, I was either gonna be an athlete or detective." - Oh, yeah. - Oh, yeah. - And I have many questions.
- Okay, good.
- But I'm only gonna ask you a couple, first of all,
what sport would you have been an athlete, and what kind of a detective? - Oh, yeah. - I like both of those. - Okay, I would have been in track.
- Okay. - Or skiing, I didn't play tennis as a young teenager, but I love skiing, and I love track. I love being outside. I just, oh, that, I love that.
And then detective, I like to get to the bottom of stuff. And so, just hoping in there, like I need to solve this crime. (laughing) - Well, you liked that one.
- I just wanted to know your friends. - Oh, my God. Probably, I don't know, I just like, I would wanna get to the bottom of life.
Why did they say that?
Well, why didn't they do that? What did that mean? How does that work? And I remember someone told me,
“a really valuable thing when I was a teenager.”
He was an older guy, and we were having a conversation. I can't remember what the circumstances were with probably a work situation. And he said, he was talking about something, and I didn't know what it was, and I said,
I'm sorry, can you explain what that is? I don't know what that is, and he said to me, that is so great that you asked when you didn't know something, because most people are too afraid to ask.
- You just look stupid. - Oh, my God. - Oh, my God. So I just want to get to the bottom of it, and it's a form of formal, like I need to know.
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- Well, I would say, talk to people who've been in your shoes.
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So at what point in your development
did the acting hit? I mean, because it's like you grow up on the South Side of Chicago. I'm going to make more of the Euclid. I'm going to make the back and the back and the back and the back. It's been so crazy and then I'm going to be on the Brady's.
Exactly.
“It's like trust me, I remember, I mean, I told you this.”
I am a Brady bunch, aficionante. I mean, I can name that episode in two words, you know. Exactly. And yours, which was Jan tries out for cheerleading. And yours, Martian Martian, you have Martia tried out.
And you were Pat Conway. Conway? Exactly. Oh, my God. You were the good cheerleader.
My God. So Greg had to choose between his girlfriend and his sister. And his girlfriend was a big, right? Oh, you see. He was nasty.
She was sad. She was sad. She was no. Oh.
She was the Greg's solution to the problem.
Yeah, she just wanted to be the cheerleader. And she thought if I can work my boyfriend, Greg, voting for me. So she wasn't interested in Greg now until now that he was going to be on the Judging Committee. That's right.
That's right. And was outrageous. So that's some funny story. Mind you, she remembers this on one hour of TV a day. Yeah.
That's all we can watch. Because it was like the Brady bunch. Exactly. But we only got the Wizard of Oz once a year too. - We're remember everything.
- Exactly. - Not exactly. - Not exactly. - Not exactly. - Not exactly.
- Not exactly. - Not exactly. - But it was all I didn't expect to audition for it. But a girlfriend of mine was auditioning for it. And she, it was the further role of a cheerleader.
And she didn't know how to cheer. So she asked me if I could teach her how to do a cheer. So I said, sure. And then she said, "Just come with me on the audition." And I said, "Okay, you know, it was great.
Go to Paramount Studios." She was driving through the gate. And in your 15... - I did. - Yeah, 15.
And she, we're in the waiting room and she goes into audition and she comes out. And she wasn't really an actor either, but I think her mom was in the business or something. And we're still friends, by the way. And so the casting person came out and said, "Are you here to audition?" I was like, "No."
And she, "Would you like to?" And I'm like, "Okay." So I go in. I don't get that part, but they needed a girl who actually could be a good cheerleader. And you were so good, Rita.
Because I wasn't a leader. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - And I was like, "The Bears." - The Bears. (laughing)
“- The fact that you could still remember that.”
Now it's so good. - Now you can't give me any crap about remembering plays in a game. - I don't care. (laughing) I mean, that's pretty good.
- You can totally learn that cheer. - Yeah. - To teach it to you one day, 'cause she could do it. - I know the words to it, but one, two, tell me who are you. The Bears, three, four.
Tell me who's gonna score. The Bears, five, six. Tell me who's got the kick. The Bears, seven, seven, eight. Tell me who's really great.
The Bears, nine, ten. Tell me who's gonna win. The Bears, seven, again. The Bears, who's gonna win? The Bears, whoo!
(laughing) - Very well done. - Very well done. (laughing) - No, it was not.
- This was a pre-question to my dad. - No, no, no, no.
- I never talked to you about worse.
- No. - So this is a very different kind of conversation. - It's so funny. - So would that like your big break? - Oh, totally.
“That's how I got my screen actor skilled card.”
And once you had a screen actor's guild card, then you could audition for commercials and other TV. It wasn't really until my 20s that I thought, there was a, it was doing a play and the director of the play was like,
you seem to like being on stage. Like, have you ever thought of getting any formal training on like, was that? (laughing) - I mean, I've taken an acting class,
but it was like, for film, I didn't know about formal training. And so he told me about these drama schools. There was Lambda in London, Rada in London and Julie Art in New York.
So I was like, fantastic. So I applied to all of them. I got rejected from Julie Art, rejected from Rada, and wait listed at Lambda. And then I just kept calling them all the time, like,
"Hi, have there been any people who have dropped out yet?" I sure would love to come, you know.
I ended up getting in and going there
'cause that's when I realized like, "Maybe this is my real job, you know?" - Wow, and how long was that program? - That was a one year overseas program. - So while you're acting now,
“and you got this at the time job going on, right?”
At what point do you start thinking? But it sure would be nice to do music. - I didn't think that.
I tried, there were always movies
or things that were coming up that had singers in them. And I was like, "Great, I'm gonna go and do that." There was a little club out in the valley, called the Palamino, and it had like an open mic night. So my girlfriends that I would go out there,
and we'd try to, you know, get up on stage and sing. But I also had a part-time job as a ticket taker at the Universal Amphitheatre Universal Studios. And I would take the tickets, and then you were allowed to watch the shows.
So this is like 74, 75, 76 somewhere around there. And I would watch the shows, and everybody came through, you know, my heroes, Joni Mitchell, Carol King, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Elton John, comedian, Steve Martin.
“You name Jackson Brown, they were all performing,”
and I would sit on the stairs, watching them. And having an actual ache like a longing, a yearning, like it's something that someone that you love
that you'll like, they'll never look at me.
They'll never see me. It was that kind of pain, like, how do you do it? How do you get to be a musician and sing? And get on stage, how do you find a band? I didn't know, but I knew who everybody was.
I knew all the songwriters on the album covers, all the studios, all the musicians who played on which albums, who sang harmonies, I knew it all. And so when it happened through Carly Diaguardi, this amazing woman who was a songwriter,
she said, great, all right, you're first songs with you, and she did shout out to Carly Diaguardi. - What I'm hearing is that you were a hustler, you were courageous, you were already kind of a producer, right?
You were producing your life, you were producing your situation, you were doing it all. But I know in you, and I know a lot of women and women in various businesses feel overlooked,
underappreciated, and I'm just, you know, I just want you to talk a bit about that, because when we talk about the arc of your growth as a woman, you know, so many women go through that period in a life when they doubt what they can do,
even in the face of them, demonstrating all that they can be. - Just like our mothers, exactly. - You know, and here we are a whole generation of way, having had more opportunities than our mothers, but still carrying some of that,
do I have really have anything to say? - Exactly. - Can you exactly, more about that?
“- Yes, the best way to describe it is, you know,”
the song, Michelangelo, that hopefully will play a little bit of too, is a lot about this process, because there was this quote that I had on my bulletin board for many years, and it was one from the sculptor, Michelangelo,
and somebody had asked him and thank God somebody wrote this down, but somebody had asked him,
"How in the world do you make these incredible sculptures
out of these massive chunks of marble that are just there?" And he said, "I see the angel in the marble, and I carve until I set him free." And that to me was a perfect metaphor for having a vision,
for who this person is inside of you, and being able to chip away at the marble of your humanity, of your womaness, so that we can become ourselves. And I, that took me a long time to get there.
It really did. - Well, before we talk more about that, why don't we play some of Michelangelo? - Okay, great. ♪ And she's a friend of the river ♪
♪ There she is ♪ ♪ She was fighting for a angel to be found ♪ ♪ And everyone around her sees it now ♪ ♪ Oh, did I have all an so clear ♪
♪ She worked for years ♪
♪ Oh, there she is ♪ Hmm. (audience laughs) - Thank you, thank you.
“- We've talked about it, I've talked about it on the show.”
It's, you know, it always amazes me how long we,
as women, take to fully accept and know ourselves. How are you supposed to know all of this? - You're not. - That's why you know that pressure that you're supposed to know all of it.
Like, I really do feel like that shaping that we come into, the shaping of ourselves, you know, that's the gift. Like, I don't know when it happened, but I knew it was happening because it happened
in sometimes small ways where you just thought, I'm gonna say no to that, or I, that doesn't work for me anymore. Or this isn't an area, I wanna go down anymore. And it's that idea that I could actually have a boundary
about something, you know, like everybody talks about boundaries,
but if you've never had them and then you start having them,
people get a little, they don't like it.
“There's an expression that I love, which is,”
when people please or stop pleasing people, people aren't pleased. (audience laughs) Right? Rita, how did, as you were building your career
and becoming the woman that you are, how did you, early in your career, how did you start thinking about family? I mean, were you someone who knew you always wanted to get married and have kids
where you kind of devoted to your career? And, you know, or did you think about it at all? I thought about it, but I was engaged before I got engaged to my husband. Yeah, that's right.
And if I had married that person, I would have been divorced within a year. I thought that was what you were supposed to do at a certain age.
And I actually thought, because I had never really fallen in love
with anyone, that I was just, I would be okay, and my mom, when I told my mom that,
“I'm like, I don't know, though, should I marry him?”
I'm not really in love with him. This was her generation. Don't worry, you grow to love him. (laughs) And I was like, mom, that's not my generation.
Like, you know, but her generation was like, is he a good man? Will he provide? Will he, there wasn't any of this, I have to be madly in love, and I have to, you know,
and it was just like, they thought of things differently. And my parents were married for 59 years. So whatever they figured out, they figured out. But it was, I still wanted to hold out for that falling in love thing.
So when I finally met Tom and fell in love with him, that was like, oh, wow, well, this is very, very different. That what I had before. And I, that would have, marriage would not have sustained that relationship.
Were you thinking about, well, what if I never have kids, I should have kids that did the biological clock thing, or were you thinking, look, let me find love. And if I do, I'll see where it goes, but if I don't, yeah, I was more like that.
It was more like that. I did know that I wanted children, but I didn't, I didn't want to have children with the wrong people, or person. (laughs)
And so, that definitely, you know, falling in love with someone really, really helps. (laughs) And Tom had two children. It's a good thing.
I only saw that he could be a good dad. So I was like, okay, good, that's helpful. A little example here. I really wanted to maintain being able to work and being able to keep my foot in the creative door
except for being in the dishwasher, but not the dishwasher or washing machine. (laughs) - I don't want to be in the whisper. - Yeah.
(laughs) And then, you know, having children when you become a mom, that I just could not get over how amazing it was. I loved everything about being pregnant. I loved everything about giving birth.
I loved everything about nursing a child. I loved everything about having a baby and raising children. And even in the really difficult times,
'cause every kid is different,
I still knew what we have a foundation here. And this foundation, which I was trying to give to our kids was, you know, different than the foundation. My parents gave me,
but I wanted to give that to my children to say,
like, there's always a place that you can land.
And we're always gonna be here. We may not be here in the way you want us to be here. That might be challenging, but we're gonna be here for you, but there might be some, you know, things around that.
- I know that I carried that around for a while
“that there was this sort of bedrock stability, right?”
And here I was, you know, I married to somebody who's going in a politics, and I have a career myself, and I'm not home, and, you know, so I'm thinking, is this gonna screw up my kids, and then we're in the White House, and it's like,
"Oh my God, my mother didn't do this." - Oh my God. - Right, like, how do you pave that way? - Right, and you were living a completely different life, then your mother, in the household that you graze,
how did you think about that? - It was hard, because I did feel torn, and felt a little guilty if I was working, or if I couldn't be into places at one time, you know, I also, Tom was really, you know,
when we got together, he had only done, I think, three films, and I think we met
on his third or fourth film,
and then he, his career was really taking off, and what I would have been working in that time with series television, and back then, if you were doing a network show, you would have to sign on for seven-year contract,
and I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know how to be working on a series, having a husband who was also working all over the world, not being able to then keep the family together, and at the same time, how do I keep working?
“So I think not being able to really take advantage”
of those years when I would have probably been in a television series, probably had some effect on my career professionally. - How did you keep your creative muscle flexed during that time?
- It wasn't very flexed at that time. - It wasn't. - No, I was very happy. - Yeah, it was very, very happy, and I remember feeling frustrated, yeah.
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So remember, with Amazon's low back-to-school prices, just spend less on your kids, because every dollar you don't spend on them is a dollar you haven't spend on them. Shop now at amazon.ca. Talk about the role of friendship in this journey, and friendship among women, and friendship among your partner, and, you know,
well, say, say more. What is what the blessing is about friendship? Oh, my God. Boy. Yeah. Your husband, your partner,
“cannot supply everything that you possibly need. That's why God invented girlfriend.”
Does you? And that helps you, guys. Yeah, totally does. And I think that is massive, you know, they've been, my friends have been there to celebrate, my friends have been there to get me through crises. I remember when I had cancer, and you invited me down to visit you when, you know,
you were first lady. And can I say where we went? Yeah. Oh, yes. Okay. We went to Camp David,
and it was, I can't tell you the feeling, because I was maybe four weeks out of having breast cancer surgery by lateral mastectomy and reconstruction. And Tom had to go, he had been gone to do a movie. So I was like, what am I doing? And you said, why don't you come down? And we'll just have a weekend down there. Yeah, you were like, can I come without someone's like, yeah, it's time. Yeah. But you know, it's like you just don't know, right? Yeah. Yeah. You were so, I don't know. It made
Me feel so vulnerable.
just having gone through that, you know, process. But then to be there by yourself,
“but to feel that I wasn't alone was huge. That's what a girlfriend is. Yeah.”
That sets us up perfectly for our listener question. Okay, do. It does. I'm ready. Very well done. Very well done. It's just that different know where we live. And this is from Lucy. I have a close group of girlfriends I've known for years. Our kids grew up together. And now that they're all adults, I still meet up with this group of women regularly for dinner or for our book club. Recently, though, I've started to feel a lot less
close to them. I found that our conversations feel pretty surface level. And when they do go deeper, I often get frustrated with them because our politics have really drifted in recent years. I recently started a ceramic class and I love it. I've realized I haven't actually done something for myself that's totally new to me since having kids. I've thrown myself into it. And I've also become friendly with some of the people in the studio and it's put into perspective
how toxic my friend group can be for me. Suddenly, this group of women who were truly some of my closest friends for years feel stifling to be around. My question is, do you think this is a phase that is typical with friends and should I try to put distance with them? How? Is it normal to outgrow people at this stage in life or do I owe them more? Wow, that's really great.
“I'm supposed to answer that. Well, we all talk about this, but what do you what are your thoughts?”
Well, what advice would you give? It sounds like she's growing in some ways and it sounds like she's shifting from one phase of her life to another and doing that transition can be difficult for the individual but also for the friend group because she may not be feel like she's being seen as this new person in the friendship group that is wants her to stay in a certain lane or bucket, right? And yet, if there are people in that group that you really, really love and you
really want to be with and continue that relationship, maybe it's good to do more individual one-on-one stuff together so that you can check in with them and say, "Hey, I'm kind of feeling this way and you know what's going on and can we talk about this even if it's a difficult conversation?" Because I wouldn't throw out the old friends if they, if they, you've have so much history with each other because every relationship is going to go through phases, but I'm a big believer
about pausing if you don't feel good or safe or whatever, not really disconnecting or cutting people off, but just pausing and kind of saying, "I'm going to take a little breather here for a minute." I think I agree with you Rita that, you know, things, she shouldn't feel bad that things have shifted because it isn't unusual, right? And it's okay. It may shift back again, you know? You may get into some new interests, develop some other new friends, get to know them,
circle back around in five years, run into somebody in your old group and something clicks, yeah, and it's like, "Wow, I missed this part of you." So I like when you say sometimes
“you do need to take a break. Yeah, from people, sometimes you need to take a break from your family,”
you know, without cutting ties completely. But that's why I always try to encourage
my daughters, my nieces, nephews, young people that I know is just to stay open to people. Yeah, exactly. Because I have made and I've said this time and time again, some of my the most special people in my life came into it after the age of 50. Right, wow, that's amazing. And that doesn't make the people who were there before any less special. Right. I've tried to do my best to keep blending people, you know? You're really good at that.
And it's the fun of watching people get to know this. Everybody in it, all the mixes,
don't always work, right? You try that and go, "Oh, that? That wasn't good. I got to take a
little salt out of that, put it over here. You know, you, you, you learn, but I get a lot of pleasure out of my friends becoming friends. Me too. I love that. Craig, how does it?
Yeah, what I thought is I'll send you.
I am, so is there going to be some wild stories? That's why you're in position. Yes, yeah. He's no fun of bullying. But I like both of you all's advice for Lucy
“and agree with every part of it. The only thing that I would add is that”
I think for me and a lot of guys, when you're, when you feel that growth and that need to sort of stretch your arms and stretch your arms and legs in different direction, I tend to and my friends tend to try and bring that group along. A good deal of my friends now have become golfers. And because of my, my life golfing was
never a part of it. I mean, it was back when I worked in corporate America, but that was so
cool. I'd never became a golfer. And they always try to include me in golfing, even though I'm not a golfer and I have to be open to vulnerability. I'm sorry, how are you going to golfer? But
“how do you get included if you're not a golfer? Like, do you just walk around with that or”
I can do either. I can go the golf cart. I can drive the golf cart. Okay. I can, I can bring my clubs and I can play a few holes or I can play the whole thing or I can just be there for comedic relief. But it's, it's, we all, it feels like we all try to keep the team a team. That's kind of cool. And yeah, and it's kind of me and everybody has their specialty or their lack of specialty and everybody gets a chance to be the one who's sort of spotlighted as the
one to get the special treatment, even though it's teasing, right? Special treatment. I don't think it would work if I said, okay, everybody, we're going to take a watercolor class together. I mean, how great would that be? If you could do it that way, that would be a blast. Well, I sort of had a version of that when I forced all my friends into the bouquet. I can't really boot camp. But I think I was in a special position where I was trapped. And in order
“to see them, I was like, you have to come here. But then this is what we're going to do.”
Yeah, I do the boot camp, but I used to even think, I never said any, I've never said anything to
you about that boot camp, but I was like, man, that's, that's rough. It was, well, that was not the version. So Rita came along to one of these sort of really hard health and fitness treatment, off of boot camp. Where we, you know, you'd walk for four hours just to get in. You were walking, you'd get in. You get in almond, you know, that's a break. Wow, you know, why? Well, Rita didn't do it. No, I was like, I was at the back of the line. And the first day,
you know, they gave everybody walkie talkies because you're in the mountains, you know, they give everybody walkie talkies and they're like, if you need anything, just let us know. And I'm like, maybe 90 minutes into the walk and I'm like, hi, hi, it's Rita. What are we done? And there were also two lines that they told you about. There was the private line where Rita could be talking just to the people or the party like where everybody's
walkie talkie is gone off. So we're all like on what mile 100. And Rita's like, um, we're on the cars. And it's like, we're on the dance. And then we got back to the ranch and she's like, "All right, I'm in my room. Can I have some tea?" And we're like, "Bitch." And it's going over, and it's the soccer. So okay, she left the hike. See, she's back at the ranch. And she's ordering drinks. That sounds like everyone guys would do. And we're sucking up. We're taking our dinner. We're eating
the third of four almonds. Yeah. And it's so true. And she's like, "Hi, Rita here." And that's her signature. Rita here. And it's like, "Fuck and Rita. I still lost weight on that." And I lost inches. Don't, oh my God. I did lose your mind. I did not. I did not. Rita was just like,
"Come on back." Wow, I've never been back to that place. I know. I haven't gone back. Again,
it was still a bonding experience. It was still, it was super fun. We laughed about it. That was
Really still do.
beautiful. Thank you. I mean, you make us all fall in love with whatever you're doing because you
“just approach it with the right spirit. Thank you. You're here. Thank you so much. And we are grateful”
that you've come to share just a little bit of it with us here at Iowa. What a joy today has been. Thank
you so much. This really has been absolutely great. You get top of her all the time. I might
“come back. Oh, better. Thank you. Well, we got one of those days. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Bye. Yeah. Thank you so much.”
I'm Emma Greed, host of Aspire with Emma Greed. The podcast where I sit down with people who
don't just drink big, they build big. If you love Michelle and Craig on IMO, just wait until
“you hear their episode on my show. Michelle told me about the moment at 26 when she lost her”
father and her best friend in the same year. It made a walk away from her corporate law career to figure out her why. That's the kind of conversation you get on Aspire. We talk about mindset and vision and doing the work that actually moves the needle. So if you're ready to raise your standards and take charge of the life you're building, Aspire is where you start. Follow and listen to Aspire with me. Emma Greed, available wherever you get your podcasts.
