Stop Chasing The Shiny Things with Jamie Lee Curtis

- Yeah, yeah.

“- Biting and I have suited up and shown up for”

lots of different work. I did commercials when I'm, I want an Oscar and I sold yogurt that is your shit for six years. - This episode is brought to you by Shit. - Hey, you?

- Craig Robinson. - Michelle Obama, are you doing?

- Good, always good to be with you.

- Oh, it's so nice to be here. - It's been raining a bit. - You know, it has been and you speaking of rain. - So you know we had the kids here. They're all gone.

- Yeah. - Kelly's gone. I'm now by myself again, and I was enjoying sitting outside of my Airbnb, because-- - You sit outside it? - No, it's been raining, so you've been trapped alone.

- I've been inside, but I haven't had zero to do because my Airbnb has a pool table. - Oh, yeah. - So I've been working on my game. - Have you really been working on it?

- Is it a good solid pool table? - Yeah, oh no, it's a real pool table. And I realized that I haven't played pool in forever. So I'm terrible, but it gives me something to do when I'm-- - Yeah, you also said that this is a famous place

that you're staying. - Yes, it's a course in Wells home. - Former home. - Yes, yes, a lot of historical stuff inside. - Do you know if it's been passed down?

Like, do they, does Airbnb give you a bit of a history? Did you know that, because how did you know that I didn't know, and so I walked into the place? So when the folks at Airbnb give me a couple to choose from, and typically I choose the one

“that's closest to the office, and that's what I did.”

I didn't really do much research, and then I walk in, and there's memorabilia everywhere. - That's cool. - It's really cool. - That's cool for a turn or classic movie guy.

- Yeah, it's pretty cool. - Like you're in heaven, you're in heaven. - I am in heaven. - Well, speaking of the classics. All right, well, our guest today is a classic beauty,

personality, all the above. It's gonna be a great episode, y'all, but Craig is gonna do the formal introduction. - Yeah, I'm gonna do the formal introduction for Jamie Lee Curtis, who is an actress known for her roles

in many iconic films, including the Halloween franchise, a fish called Wanda, freaky Friday, nives out, and most recently the last show girl and freaky or Friday, in 2023 she won the Oscar for best supporting actress for her role

in everything, everywhere, all at once. And we got to say hello, and I am so looking for it to spending time with Jamie Lee Curtis. - Jamie! - Yes, you go to her first.

- Hi. - Welcome, so happy you're here. - Hi, baby. He wasn't here before. - Welcome to IMO.

- I like it. Hi, that was a nice introduction.

It's always weird for me.

- I'm sure it is. - It's weird.

“- Yeah, yeah, you said the Halloween franchise.”

I was like, what? - Franchise. - It was a 17 day shoot in Pasadena and Hollywood for $300,000 in 1978. It wasn't a franchise.

- It was a gig that was so great 'cause my name was on every page. - You were, you know what I mean? I mean, that was the new thing about it. - That was the thing about it for me at that time.

- Yeah, yeah. - My teen, I was like, are you kidding? - Yeah. - So it's funny that it's, you listen, I'm sure you both have that.

Where you hear as we're older now. - You hear things when you go really? - That's me, that is my whole family. - That's my whole family. - And you want people to, it's like, okay, okay,

that's enough. - That's enough. - Well, yeah, it just doesn't mean the ones I don't relate to it. - That's right, that's right. - I honestly don't relate to it.

- Yeah, yeah. - To give it. I only relate to sort of the immediate moment here with you. I was at Children's Hospital of Sanjula's before I came here.

- Yeah. - That became an immediate moment to me. I do not look back. - But it speaks to your, it speaks to your character too, like you see.

- Yeah, I was gonna say that. - You're not taking yourself like a, you know.

- That's clear, the second you meet someone meets you.

I mean, that was like, oh, she's real. You know, I mean, she's a real person or real woman.

I understand that the industry, that the whole concept is not real, that it's that magical. Well, you're talking about worse and worse. I mean, that idea of a, a Turner classic movie nerd,

like that, that lore of what that is and Hollywood and the Speakeasy, yeah, yes, I know some of those houses in Hancock Park that had the Speakeasy built into behind the wall. But I live the life of a human being. So I'm a chopwood carry water kind of gal.

- Yeah.

- I've never understood that the idea of not being real

of having some fake thing, it would make me, - Well, a lot of people would say you were the,

“you know, you were the daughter of Hollywood, right?”

- Of some levels. - That image. - But that's what people would say. What do you think, keep you grounded instantly? - Okay. - My mother was from Stockton, California,

and it was Jeanette Helen Morrison. She lived in a garage with her parents. And she became, you know, it's too long of a story, but she was discovered by Norma Sheer, Silent Film Star, who, there was a, long story.

There was a photograph of my mother at a motel where my grandfather was the manager of a ski motel and a ski resort in a ski resort, at a ski place,

and Norma Sheer was married to a skier.

And they stayed at this motel and saw the picture when she was checking out and said, "Who's that?" And he said, "That's my daughter." She said, "May I have the picture?" Took it to Hollywood, they called for her.

She became, she became an actress, changed her name to Janet Lee, and starred in a movie with Van Johnson right away in '90, whatever year was 1948. I believe, and that began her career. But she was from a really rough childhood

in Stockton, California. She raised me. I feel like I'm watching Turner Classic right now, because my sister doesn't know that you did this on Turner Classic to introduce the whole story of your mom.

And I've got goosebumps right now listening to you.

“- You have to remember, that was my mother,”

my mother was Jeanette Helen Morrison's daughter, California. My father was Bernie Schwartz from New York City. Now, Bernie Schwartz became Tony Curtis. He adopted the fake life. - Got it. - Now, he did it with spirit.

He did it with some style. He bought mansions and art collections and had a kind of grandiosity about him. - He was charming if he walked in a room, he would be a little bit like, "Hello."

(laughing) And he would walk to tell, "Hello, I'm Tony." And you know, people would just be like, "Ah, and he lived a little bit like a prince." So he lived this fake reality.

Of course, died a drug addict. My mother lived a very real life and stayed real her whole life. Her book that she wrote was called, "There really was a Hollywood,"

“which tells you everything that for her,”

that idea of there was something magical that she then entered. I grew up in Los Angeles, California, on a dirt road with a donkey and a stable, that was in ours.

Next door, you know what I mean? - I am. - I am. A Southern California kid. Like, you're talking about kid. Like, I grew up not in a fancy life.

- Right, right. - And so my mother is the, were you aware of who your mother was? - You know what, you become aware of it? - I'm, I guarantee you,

I don't know about your family life, Craig. I didn't do my homework. - Oh, that's okay, that's okay. - I was in Chicago yesterday. So I did not do homework, but I don't want to tell you.

- I hear you, yeah. - I'm sure that your daughters have had to deal with the fact that people know who your parents are before you walk in a room or as you walk in the room.

That's the first thing that is said.

I understood that to some degree as I became, yeah, you know, I don't think is a kid, I knew anything, but I think is a teen. - That's about right, yeah. - You, you understand there's something.

But remember, there was no internet. - There was television, my parents were movie stars, not television stars, were someone into your house. - And they didn't, their movies didn't show on television.

and then the movies went away, and then the movies left town, or whatever their movie was, and then they went on to the next one. So their fame, their presence just became attached to me, but not because I had any clues to really what that meant, what they did.

“- I'm interested, 'cause I think, you know,”

I am fascinated with parenthood and, you know, how people get things right and what it, you know, and I'm just, you know, what did your mom do right? In terms of your day-to-day, the message is that jeez, she sent to you that help keep you grounded.

- I think it was just the way she lived, and just the way she interacted with people.

I think she never lost that sense that she was,

that it was a miracle that she became gently, and that impoverished childhood. She had a lot of sadness in her family life, her father took his life when she was first married with Tony Curtis, her father took his life.

She had a lot of sadness. I think there was obviously alcoholism in the family. So she had secrets. I think, I think, though, just that that was her, she was the nicest person, she would talk to every person,

and I think that just really, it wasn't a specific thing. I mean, we grew up, as I said, and a very normalized life we had, you know,

early, early bedtime, and chores, and bikes,

and you know, playtime, and neighborhoods, and you know, a lot of fantasy play, but that's just what kids do. So I think it was just the normalized life that she didn't, you know,

but I certainly didn't come up with this. Someone, waste harder than me, came up with it, that being a parent, that if you're successful,

“it's the only thing you're successful at,”

that ends in separation. Like everything else, the whole success is based on the key date, and holding it, and clutching it. The goal of a parent is to actually separate

into separate, ideologies, separate, physical life,

and hopefully there's nice interactions, but people are allowed to have their own minds, because having your own mind is dangerous. Or to some, it's perceived as dangerous. Well, it's dangerous because you're challenging

just through the idea of having your own ideas is going to challenge the status quo. And that, to me, is the great gift of my evolution. Is that my mother's gift? - I don't know, no, I don't know if my mother

would love the mind I have. - Do you know what I mean? - I mean, I had challenged some of the, like I guarantee you, right now. I can tell you right now if my mother had been alive

during everything, everywhere, all at once, she would not have liked.

“I mean, I think I don't think she would have liked the movie,”

and I'm not speaking ill of my new mother. - I think that would have challenged every norm because in her years, as an actress, meant a façade, very much about what you look like, and how women were perceived in their bodies.

And I think my mother would have, it would have been very challenging. (upbeat music) - Hey, Mish, you ever noticed how even tiny choices can feel really personal? What we buy at the grocery store, the little preferences,

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- No, but I am also not following the saltine crackers.

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- I think we're probably the first,

the beginning of the first generation of women who is pushing against the norm, the standard, the way women were raised to and conditioned to think about themselves, think about themselves and connection

with the rest of the world. Their place is women and the family because it was all orchestrated by men. - Yes, exactly. - So as soon as women started to understand

that they could have their own mind, they could challenge job equality, their people who don't like that. - Billy Jean, yes, King. - That's right, that's right.

- And just the way she challenged.

- And it's a scary proposition

to some of the men that are used to being in complete power of course. - Yeah, it's like don't have your own mind, have mine. - Well, that's so what happens is we become our own people because I'm not Tony Curtis.

- That's right. - I don't walk around home. - Yeah, so fun. - I'm crazy. - How are you?

- You know, but I'm flirty, like he was. No, I'm wicked flirt. - Yes. - So you, you, you know, I have a lot of pieces of stuff.

- Yes, you make your own life. - Through the trial and error and experience of others and a lot of error.

“So I don't think, I think, getting sober,”

gave me a lot of that. I've been married, gave me a lot of it being a parent, gave me a lot of it. Obviously, big time, having, hate this word, it's just awful.

The word I don't like is accomplishment. It's like, it's hard for me. So I am having a lot of external accomplishments at a very late age. - Yeah.

- Yeah. And when you asked what was the sort of causation, what were the factors? I've been waiting patiently to do my thing. - Yeah.

- Yeah. - Biting and I have, I have suited up and shown up for lots of different work. I did commercials. When no, I mean, I want an Oscar and I sold yogurt

that is your shit for six years. And it's a good laugh line. - Yeah, use it a lot.

“But you have to remember, I did commercials.”

I was 26, 27, maybe 28. I had done a fish called Wanda, one day my phone rang and they said, hey, hurts rent a car. Somebody called me and said, hey, they're looking for a female business executive to run through airports.

You've been asked to do it. What? Why did they understand that I can sell something?

I wasn't Jamie, I wasn't, I hadn't established my Jamie Dumm. Do you know what I mean? - I got used with a young mom, a young actor, married person, and I've been in a couple of movies.

- No, you can imagine when I was offered to do commercials for a probiotic yogurt that helps regulate your digestive system with bifida, regularly. - You were meant for what?

“- Dude, I remember every word I had ever said”

in any movie, ever, anywhere, every word. - Wow. - Really? - Everything, but my point is, I guarantee you someone was like, really?

- Yeah, you're going to do yogurt commercials that helps you poop, and then it became parodied. - Yeah. - Yes, I remember it. - And then, Kristen Wake did the parodied.

That's when you kind of go, oh, okay, that's interesting. Now, we're talking, 'cause now you're in the mess. You know what I mean? - Yeah, yeah. - And someone parodied you become a part of the culture.

- Yeah, yeah. - You're now part of a cultural thing.

- So all of a sudden, that has never been a problem for me.

But that wasn't your plan. - I had never had a plan. - Yeah, let me show Obama. - Did you have a, well, maybe you did. - I did a parody.

- I did a parodied, a total effingity. - So, I mean, you were just like, G with a capital, big ass G man. - So, yeah, I'm sure you had a plan. I didn't have a plan, I can spell plan.

- Well, since you didn't have a plan, when you were younger, I read you wanted to be a cop. - Well, by the way, Craig. - Yeah. - I got into college because my mother

was the most famous person that had ever gone to the college. - I'd like to let her out. My application that had an eight, 40 combined SAT score

“and I believe a C- was probably graded on a curve”

to give me a C- GPA. I don't know what it was. Somebody who's a Brainiac will tell me what a C-G-B-A is, it is not good. Somehow, the University of Pacific and Stockton, California,

thought, "I'm your girl." - Yeah, right. - We want her, I have to know. - They can see past the application. - I had no business.

- It can see past the application. - Craig, I had no business in higher education. I should have gone to a trade school. I'm not joking. - I really, I am not an intellectual

and I don't pretend to be one. And I had no business in college. I, you know, majored in criminology and minor in being a little sister at a frat. I mean, I'm serious.

- So, what did you think? - All right, then I'll go in the family business.

- But I would never think that Craig.

“- Well, that's, I'm telling you right now.”

- What do you, yeah? - It was not the girl. You have to remember, my mother, was the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. - I've, I've, yeah.

- Tony Curtis? - I know. - Holy moly me, they were beautiful. - Yeah, but I was cute. - Do you?

- I mean, I'm just telling you Michelle. - Yeah. - So, the idea that I would go into the movie business where this is your life. I had no discernible talent.

I don't do accents. I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm not that girl. - Right.

- Never went to drama school.

I, I'm just a living creature who's developed over these, low, many years. And my point is it was, the last thing I thought I would do is being show business. And it was an accident and it's boring and it's a long story.

But it's not boring. - It's not boring. - But let me ask you this because there are a lot of young people listening out there in the world. - God bless you.

Who believe the same thing about themselves? Like there is nothing obviously that I have. And I want to ask, what was it that you tapped into in the midst of all that, that kept you going? Because right now there are a lot of kids are like,

I don't see my future, there's nothing. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not this enough. I'm not really talented enough. So they quit or they don't push.

- What was your driver or what was the thing in your head that said, I'm gonna figure this out. - I'm going to not tell you the story of how I became an actor, which was boring and literally was an accident. And you've told the story.

- Right. I became an actor because somebody I knew randomly said they were looking for Nancy Drew. - Yeah, Universal. - It was homemade crazy.

So I was like, okay, I was lucky.

- Yes, Michelle Obama. I had no clue. I didn't have a clue.

I just followed the next thing.

“I didn't, but I have a very strong work ethic.”

- Yeah. - And I'm curious enough to ask questions. I want to know things I don't know, I can say, I don't know and how do you do that. I have no training and yet.

- Did you ever have any training? - No. - So what were you learning as you went about your acting, ability, like what light bulbs were clicking for you as you would along or will you just fall asleep?

- Just what comes up. - It's like read this and go do that. - Yeah, I'm an emotional person. - And I would like to say I'm a empathetic person. If there's anything in me is that I have an understanding

that life is hard for people. - And a deep level of empathy, which why I tear up in it is that it's so absent these days because our leadership isn't showing it, you know? - I know.

“It's really nice to see it in action because it's out there.”

- It's out there everywhere. - Yeah. - And there are people, there are beautiful people. - There are just, I mean, I had a colonoscopy recently. - Please tell us more, Janey.

- I'd be right back. I'd be like, what, I swear to God, this is what goes down to the backroom with Heidi J. He literally just went like this. (laughing)

- We have the table of all had colonoscis. - Yes, I had a colonoscopy. - And recently, the twilight thing is pretty good.

- So I just, so you know, first of all,

I write notes to my doctor with that I somehow can twist around and write them in eyebrow pencil on my butt. - You don't. - I do. And I write arrows pointing and I say this side up.

- I write, thank you doctor, I want name him. Thank you doctor M for going to medical school. I, you get that all on my butt. - But then I also bring a $100 bill. And I say, listen, if the anesthesiologist wants

to die of the propapole, up just a little bit. And the hundies gone when they wake up, just pull it out on my butt. - Because yes, sorry.

“- But that's how I brought up my colonoscopy.”

But I do. - Once again, we digress, but for those of us who have had it, it's like that cellar.

- I do braw diagrams and arrows never thought

and they remind them never thought it would go. - I still go to Walter Reed to the military's doctors. I think that might be a good one for my next cold mask. - Well, it's true. - It's true.

- It's true. - The general sinew picture. I took pictures last time. - Please do that. I'm not gonna show to anybody.

The reason I brought my colonoscopy was that the nurse who greeted me at 6am to put it in the IV and to get me prepped before the team comes in. I'm talking to her. - Young, beautiful, Hispanic, young girl.

And I said, you know, as we do, you have kids? She said, yeah, I have three. And I said, you have three kids. I said, where are they right now? She said, they're at my sisters.

I said, she said, I dropped them there before I come to work. With 6am. She's like, three little kids every day. She said five days a week. She says, I said, what time did you get them up?

She said, four 15. Every day at four 15, she wakes up her three kids. And she's put their school clothes in the backpack in each of their backpacks. And she takes them to her sisters in their pajamas.

And then they go back nicely, but her sisters. And then her sister takes them to school. Every day, five days a week. You see, I didn't have that. I don't work that hard.

And I don't have that life. That wasn't my life with my children. But I'm aware that that's really the life going on around to me. I was just a children's hospital Los Angeles.

You want to spend a day and understand how hard people were everyone should go to a children's hospital. Volunteer to children's hospital and see how dedicated those teams are to the so for me, not to belabor the point. I think it's just simply, I'm aware that life is hard.

Life is pain, kindness.

“And anyone who says differently is selling something.”

And it's really-- well, and it's something to be mindful of.

You don't get something for nothing in this world. And anybody tells you, I don't care if he's the president or not. You don't get something for nothing. You know, there's a cost to life. Of course, you know, there's a cost to making sure

everybody has health insurance. And there's a cost to all of us to make sure that that nurse could possibly have some more reasonable affordable child care while she's serving other people. There's a cost to all of us to have a clean environment.

You don't get to do it without paying taxes or shorting your taxes. That's the fundamental idea of being human. Oh, well, of any religion, or any religion.

That is the cornerstone of it.

Yes, it is. I'll be each other. Yes, it is. Love thy neighbor. Yes, it is.

Welcome, someone. Be open. Put your hand out. Reach back. Reach somebody up.

Pull them up. It's the nature of for me.

“And that's not, I mean, my parents were, you know, good people.”

But it wasn't. It's just the experience of being alive this long. And I mean, I don't have any other way of doing it. I, I am a worker amongst workers. It's, and that's not just a recovery phrase.

Yeah. That's been my vibe for a long time. I would have required our crew here where name tags, so that when I walk in the room, you know my name. I don't know yours.

There's an imbalance. Oh, that's a good idea. No, but, but that's an imbalance. And right away, it puts me, I mean, I'm the one sitting here at the table with y'all. But like I don't know your name, like it, like that feels imbalance to me.

And on work that I do as a, as the leader of a show, that's a requirement. So, I mean, I have some, I have a lot of opinions. I'm just opinion. It, well, it's a good thing you're on IMO because it's all about opinions. All right.

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That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. So, Jamie, you recently, you're so sad.

“I get into that very late, late, late, late, late, late, late, late, late, late at what point”

in your career did you start sort of aiming for stuff that you were, like you're talking about, I'm doing things now that are for me. Accident, same way I'm an actor, accident, I'm telling you now. I was sent everything everywhere all at once. It was the weirdest thing I'd ever read.

I didn't understand a word of it. I still don't try to watch it. I do more than I did not understand a word of it, and my agent sent it to me. I had made the Halloween movies in Charleston, Wilmington, and Savannah. So, all of those movies were made away from my family.

I have two children. I have a dog who loves me more than any human or the earth. I have a husband and family and friends, and all I do is leave town to work, and I was

sent a script, and it first thing it was shot in Los Angeles.

So it was shot in Simee Valley, Los Angeles, which is not outside the TMZ, so it's far enough away that they could get away with making it, but it was still Los Angeles. I was still going to sleep in my bed, two, it was starring Micheleo, who's getting her star today, even though I know this is months later, she is actually right now getting the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Micheleo, and three, they gave me enough money to pay cash

flow. And I said, yes, those were the three reasons. I didn't understand it. You weren't angling you. It wasn't.

This is going to be nothing. I just said, okay, but I knew her, because I have that deodorous deodorant. I know her, this is someone who's unloved, untouched. I understand the power of your job that when someone has a job like that, it all of the slits of humanity that has come your way as an unattractive, unlovable human being.

All of the slits that come with those two descriptions. And my job is to say, fuck you, no, you're going to have to do all that again. Oh, no. No, no.

“I've paid back, and so that was her life, and the key to deodorabobia, was if you see”

the movie again, she has beautifully manicured hands, because I realized that was the only time she ever was touched. My point is that was made in 38 days in Cime Valley in January of 2020. We wrapped the movie, the day COVID started. So whatever Monday, March 16th was the last day of the shoot, 2020.

And the movie didn't come out for two years, yeah, movie came out in March of 2022. And then it won nine Oscars or seven Oscars in March of 2023.

Now, if you think for one second that you had a plan driving to Cime Valley at five o'clock

and long campus, sexy, and not have trailers, because we used offices in the building

as our dressing rooms. And you're making a movie about the multiverse. And you think, oh, yeah, that's, this is my chance, the one. So what goes through your mind when that when this happened is in, you know, and you're like, what?

I remember exactly where I was sitting. I remember what I was wearing when Heidi and Rick, the assistant, called said, I have Rick and Heidi for you and I was like, oh, okay, hello, you go, hi, I was like, hi, what's up? He said, hey, listen, we wanted to talk to you.

We had a conversation today with A24, a releasing company, I was like, yeah, they said, I said about what?

“And they said, about the campaign, I was like, the campaign for what?”

And they said, well, you know, we want, we want to make sure that they're including you

in the campaign. I was like, I can't say what I said, yeah, I can, it's right, yeah, I can, I can. I see BS isn't going to fire no, well, isn't that what they do? That's what they do. Yeah, apparently, but not here.

Not here, you know, I said, fuck you, and I was like, stop it, stop it right now. There is no campaign. They said, well, we just want to make sure that, you know, they're going to do a big push for the movie. I was like, okay, whatever, look at, just back off, anyway, that became a in sync.

It's, it's, it's really a thing, yeah, and it's, it's a really mind-swimming. And I did everything I could the whole time to go, this is a name, yeah, like just not, I didn't want to read anything. I didn't want to have people whisper things in my ear, I hated it.

“And I, the, I never, in my life, you have to remember, I, the last thing in my life,”

I ever thought would ever happen, would be that I would be nominated for an Academy Award.

That just was never in the cards, that was never anywhere in the work I did.

It was just, that was what other people had happened to them not me. And I am telling you, that morning, that morning, and this, oh, I got COVID at the Golden Globe. Thanks. Thank you, Colin Farrell.

And, you know, and we've worked it out, anyway, he gave me COVID at the Golden Globe. So I, I had been home sick with COVID, and it was the day of the nominations, and I'm telling you, I'd had like a lot of people texting like, he's so excited, I was like, shut up, go away, stop, and then I woke up that morning, and I went downstairs, now my husband, of a long time.

Yes. Really funny movies. And one of the movies he made was a movie called For Your Consideration, which is a parody of the season of shiny things. Yes.

The whole idea of this weird little movie, somebody whispering in somebody's ear that they're going to get an Oscar nomination, and then what happens, Catherine O'Hara, that's right. Weird. He can do that with her face, sweet girl. I just lost her one.

Yeah. That's good. Anyway, I know this is later, but that wasn't tape or anything that's just, you have the secret of the movie to make her face look like that.

“And so, but you know, and what happens to people the mind game that goes on, that's what”

the movie is. Yeah. My husband made that movie. So that morning of the Oscar nominations, you know, my husband said, what are you doing?

I said, well, I'm going to get up and watch the thing. He said, why? I said, you know why, honey, hey, I have to exercise you and your movie. Okay. I can't, this is my life, that was a movie. I said, I'm not a character in a movie, I'm a person.

I said, I'm aware that there's enough chatter that there is a chance that that would happen. I don't think it's going to happen, but I'm telling you, I, that's a possibility that it could happen. And here's the story, this will delight you.

I've been in actress for a long time. The only person I know, who won an Oscar, is Deborah Oppenheimer. And on the morning of the Oscar nominations, I was like, I get up really early. So I was up at four and then, you know, I made coffee or whatever. And then it, like, five, the thing starts at five, 30.

I looked at my phone and there was a text from Deb and it said, I'm sitting outside

your house.

“I have my computer with me if you don't want me to be there with you, I'm fine where”

I am. But I'm here. But I'm sitting outside your house and I opened my gate and there she was. And she was sitting in her car with a pillow and her computer. And she came in and sat with me.

And when my name came up on that screen, I didn't know she was doing this. My friend Deborah Oppenheimer was taking pictures secretly. She kind of held her phone because I could not believe it. And the real moment of disbelief was when they called my name. And then they called Stephanie Shu because, you know, she was my daughter in the movie,

but she was the other actor for me.

And it would have felt wrong to me because she has a fantastic in the movie. Anyway, that was the moment of real exuberations. But I have it on film, and that's the last thing I ever thought would happen in my life was that moment. The rest of it was not like the rest of it, the night of it, I went with my husband.

We sat. I literally this happened. We were sitting in the front row at the frickin' Oscars and there was Michelle and Keith and Steph, and then the Daniels were over there and I kneeled down, we were in the front row. And I kneeled down in front of Michelle, and I looked at her, I said, Michelle, where are

we right now? She said, what do you mean? I said, Michelle, where are we right now?

“She said, at the Oscars, I said, uh-huh, and why are we at the Oscars?”

She said, uh, because we made a movie that people liked, said, uh-huh, and, uh, where are we sitting? You were. And she said, and the front row, I said, okay, I'm just checking it out. Sure.

I'm awake. Like, oh, where? And then I went down the line, sat kneeled in front of Keith, same thing, Steph, same thing. You're where? So when I say, there we were in the front row, it was literally you had already won.

It was like, yeah, yeah, Steph, all of us were like, why don't we get here? How did we get here? Yeah. And then, of course, the miracle of all miracles is that we won. You are so the anti-superstar, I mean, I just don't understand it.

Yeah. And I think it's beautiful.

“I think that's why people love you, that's why I'm in love with you, um, now you're”

flirting with someone. You were one. I'm a flirt. I can do it too. But you've changed the notion of what it means to age in the public eye.

And I'd love for you to talk about that because I'm hoping that we are ushering in all of us because I'm 62, you are 67, we are in our 60s, which I think is the best time of life without question. And I want to talk about that journey for yourself. How you feel, it's like, you know, you're not, you know, you believe in aging, you know,

you believe in the beauty of it. Yeah. It should happen. Yeah. I mean, it's coming for all of us.

But that's not what Hollywood is all about, you know what, so it's not just Hollywood. It's also technology. It's also social media. It's also filtering. Yeah.

It's also, it's also what we used to call air brushing is now just filtering. Yeah. It's just the fakeery. It's the cosmaceutical industrial complex, which is as insidious in many ways, as the military industrial complex is about money.

Yeah. So it's just about for money, right? And it's the idea that you're going to tell someone that this is going to change you and make you better. And therefore, better means you'll be more loved, you'll be more successful.

So it's this cycle of bullshit. But it prays on our base insecurities, you know, and for many people it's what they look like.

Now, I've never been pretty, and I'm saying it out loud.

I'm not been, I was, I was, I was, I wasn't pretty like that.

I was cute. I was cute. I can look good. I can only look good. But it's, but that was, you weren't the traditional motion that was not pretty.

My ticket. Yeah.

And that's very important for me, because that was never the thing I relied on.

I have succumbed and have talked about it many times to try and all the things. I've sucked the fact, I've cut the fact. I've tried to do the things that people do that everybody's doing and it doesn't work.

“There are many things that, how do you say it doesn't work?”

It doesn't work. First of all, because the self-esteem issue, because you ultimately, you're looking in the mirror and realizing you've used something outside of yourself to change something to make you, quote, better, but you're not better because you're still the same person before as you were before.

I think it actually makes you feel fraudulent and I think it creates self-hatred. And for me, accepting that I look the way I look is part of self-love. Now, I did that magazine as years ago, more magazine, which took off my clothes. And the reason I did that is because I was a cover girl of magazines and, again, people were comparing themselves to me the same way I would compare myself to someone else.

And I know what it feels like to look at a picture of a beautiful woman and go, oh, why isn't it? I don't remember me.

Yeah, I've got, like, really, I'm never going to look like that.

“And so I, in the one thing we haven't brought up at all is that I also write books for children.”

The books I write for children are about things. It's not just nothing, they're about issues and topics that plague children as much as they plague adults. I'd written a book about self-esteem. It was called, "I'm going to like me letting off a little self-esteem."

It was about self-love and how do you get it? A steamable act is how you get self-esteem. It's back to your question of young people. They don't feel like I don't know what to do. Do something for someone else.

Boom! There you go. The dopamine hits your, like, you're filling up with goodness. It changes the way you do.

“So, I'm promoting a book for children about self-esteem.”

And I was doing the cover of more magazine and I realized, "I was a liar." Because if I was paying attention to what I wrote, I wouldn't have done plastic surgery, I wouldn't have done my perception. So, "I," said, "You know what? I'm going to take a picture of me in my undies with no good light, no makeup, no hair."

I'm going to stand there, oh, not to all. And you're going to take my picture, and then you're going to let me get all dolled up. But you're going to have to print those two pictures side by side. And you're going to have to say, "How long it took, how much money it took, how many people were involved, and then I'll do that."

And that was something, that was in 2001. We're in 2011. But that was even then me understanding that what we're selling is fraudulent. It has only gotten crazier. And by the way, I'm not proselytizing.

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Growthherapy.com/iamo. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Well, Jamie, we have a listener question. As Jennifer Lewis said, I talk too much. Way too much.

I do. But you're in between two opinionated women, which is- We have a listener question. Jamie, I'm telling you right now.

“I am entering my senior year of college, and it feels like my generation is unsure what”

the point is in a time and world that is full of greed, unfairness, and loneliness. How do you find purpose and drive towards your interests and goals when it often feels like there are only certain routes to be successful and sustain a happy lifestyle from Madeleine in Boston? Well, I mean, that's the question, right?

Purpose. That's right. Purpose.

Ultimately, it's fine purpose.

When you say or are feeling that you can't find your path to the purpose, my experience with people over and over again is put yourself in the path of anything, self in the path of love, put yourself in the path of work, put yourself in the path of purpose. Like again, volunteer. You want to feel purpose, go to a children's hospital, and offer to volunteer to be one

of the, you know, helpers that work in hospitals. The need is great out there in the world. I think finding your purpose is putting yourself in the path of it. You may not know what it is. It may not, as I am a living example of that nothing in my life represents what I thought

or had even a fantasy, what my life would be, I had no idea. I didn't have a purpose, keep your mind open, and so for me, that's, you find your purpose by putting yourself in the path of it. I just feel like people keep thinking purpose is going to come to them, love is going

“to come to them, work is going to come to them, success is going to come to them, and it”

is not, you have to go to it for it. You have to go for it. I love that. I want, what's our question, Madeline, to also think very carefully about how she's defining purpose, right, because I think that's some of the confusion these days, because purpose

in this damage right now, this moment in time, is fame, money, you know, more, it's all, it's all stuff, it's acquiring, it's superficial. So when, when we talk about purpose, I think we are talking about, we are talking about something much more altruistic, you know, the dopamine hit that comes with engaging with other people, you know, so I want her to think beyond stuff, even, you know, go to school,

get your degree, if you can afford it, you know, have a good career, you know, be able to support yourself, but I know too many people who have all of that and more, the billionaires in the world, the millionaires, the people who are famous, the people who have it all, the people that you look at and think, well, I want their purpose, and what they're doing isn't making them happy, or whole, it's not giving themselves a steam, you know, in fact,

it's doing the opposite. So I want Madeline to think about working outside of herself. And by the way, Madeline, tough name to have after Lily Allen's album, um, um, oh, yeah, yeah, that's great to understand that more, you know what, I'm going to play the whole thing for you, it's going to blow your mind, it's so genius, talk about the G, it's a G. Anyway, um, but before we began this, you know, I've talked a lot about, like, my wife, my life,

but the truth is, I'm also a mom, I'm a mother, yes, of too. I've raised two children from birth,

being is different, and there's been difference in our, in our path with, with our children, and our children were born through adoption, and our family was built through adoption,

“and we were talking at the beginning of the podcast. And the truth is, all of this emotionality”

that I have is really rooted in being their mother, like the,

like, I don't make me cry, but the truth is, the greatest lessons, the hardest days ever in my life,

ever been being a parent, yeah, and now a grandparent, there we were talking before, and I needed to call my daughter in husband to ask if it was okay, but the idea that I would be this person at this age, excuse my friend, forget the movies, forget the things, forget the, forget the shiny things, the shinyest thing is a child, yes,

oh my God, the greatest gift is a child, and getting the privilege of raising them and learning

how to help someone through their life, and my husband and I became grandparents to our eldest daughter and her husband, and their baby boy was born in December, and it was a week after Robin Michelle and Robin Michelle, our her God parents, and they died on her birthday, and my beautiful daughter, who loved them, as we all did, managed to be able to metabolize that grief and sadness, as we all have had to do, obviously, nothing greater than their children, but as close friends,

and I know colleagues and friends and people we all admired, and then my daughter and her husband brought their son to this world a week later, and life on life's harshest terms and life on life's

“most beautiful terms, perfect terms, and the reason I brought it up is I remember where I was”

the day your husband was elected president because my daughter called me from a party that she and her friends were at, my daughter was in college, and I remember where I was sitting in a hotel talking on the phone with my daughter about the possibility that the world was going to change because of the election and because of you and your husband stepping up saying we're here to help you, and I remember where I was that day, and now that daughter has brought a little grandson

into our lives, and the joy talk about I never thought I never thought I would have children.

I never thought in my wildest dreams, I would be a grandma, a granny, a granny, I want to be a granny, but so it has just been an extraordinary connection, and when I called my daughter today to say hey, I'm about to do this, we have never talked about it, it's been a private matter, but we live in a world many people know in our circle, many people know that we're grandparents, one of these days when I called my daughter and said you know I'm about to do this thing,

“I think it's going to come up, how would you feel about me talking about it?”

Oh my god, and she said tell her I love her, my daughter and he said tell her, I love her,

to be sure mom, because she's a G, because she loves you, because you represented love in the world, and you brought love to the White House and and beyond, and so it's it's really thrilling to me,

that the first time I'm going to say to the universe that I became a granny is here,

is here with you and that it was and that she said that I could do it because it was you, because of what you've represented to her and her generation of young women and how much respect we have for you and your husband and well, that too, thank you too, you too, Craig, thank you, but that you're all right is very strong, because we know from the rain and I just I'm I

“that's anyway, that's the truth, that that's the truth for that's what she said to me,”

for Madeline and Madeline I'm so sorry. No, but this is the point being that like

so many wonderful things have happened to all of us in the world so many tangible things, but knowing that you can impact people's lives in that way, like that's purpose and that's a purpose that's sustained you through ugly stuff and name calling and lies and it fills you up fully and I want young people to understand that, right, you don't like money doesn't buy that

impact, you know, titles don't give it to you, it's how you show up in the world, that matters

and the only fact people are going to remember at the end, that's right and that's the shiny thing,

“that's to me, that's what Madeline should be working for, that's what we all should be working for sure”

and that's what you and your husband worked for and that's the gift that you guys gave us and that was the hope that you offered us and I believe that I know you've changed the world for the better and I believe that I believe that the times are going to change and I think our better minds are going to start paying attention to the corruption, the greed, the average, the hatred, the misogyny, the homophobia, the violence perpetrated by this administration in the name of America.

“I believe that will change and I believe the example that we will lead toward is the example”

you and your husband give us, so if I get to say nothing else on this, I got to say that to your face. Thank you, thank you very much for everything that you have done for all of us. Thank you too, and thank you, thank you. Hey, sometimes you just have to get rebounds, sometimes you just play D. This is, and by the way, there's your gift to Madeline, that's your answer to Madeline. That's right, sometimes you're just the, you are, you are just the teammate

Yeah, well, and you can be a good teammate. You are a good teammate. But Jamie, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this. This is beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful. Ah, thank you. Hey, everybody, Conan O'Brien here with an ad about my podcast, Conan O'Brien needs a friend. I've had so many fantastic conversations with people. I truly admire people like Michelle Obama, Bruce Springsteen, Meyer Rudolph, Tom Hanks, new episodes are out every Monday, and we have a

really good time, so subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcast.