Allison Williams On: Perfectionism, Defensiveness, and the Horror Movies We All Make in Our Minds

Summary

Podcast Summary: Allison Williams On: Perfectionism, Defensiveness, and the Horror Movies We All Make in Our Minds

Podcast Information:

• Title: 10% Happier with Dan Harris
• Host/Author: Dan Harris
• Description: Self-help for smart people. World-class insights and practices from experts in modern science and ancient wisdom.
• Episode: Allison Williams On: Perfectionism, Defensiveness, and the Horror Movies We All Make in Our Minds
• Release Date: July 4, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of 10% Happier with Dan Harris, host Dan Harris welcomes actress and podcast host Allison Williams. Known for her roles in HBO's Girls, Get Out, and the horror film series Megan, Allison delves into a candid conversation about personal growth, perfectionism, defensiveness, and the internal horror movies our minds create.

Balancing Growth and Self-Acceptance

Allison opens the discussion by exploring the dichotomy between striving for personal growth and accepting oneself as is. She states:

"[05:17] Allison Williams: ...the only goal is to grow right or to accept where you are..."

Dan suggests that accepting oneself can paradoxically facilitate growth:

"[05:42] Dan Harris: ...one allows counterintuitively for the other that you can grow kind of paradoxically after you're cool with where you are..."

Allison agrees but emphasizes that certain areas require active effort to foster growth:

"[06:03] Allison Williams: ...there are areas where you're particularly sticky and need growth where you have to drive the growth with a little bit of effort..."

Perfectionism and Self-Improvement

The conversation shifts to Allison's struggle with perfectionism. She reflects on her constant self-assessment and desire to improve:

"[06:49] Allison Williams: ...the conclusion regularly is like it's not good there's a lot of room for improvement here..."

Dan shares his own challenges with accepting criticism without taking it personally:

"[09:50] Dan Harris: ...not letting the shame get in the way of seeing it clearly understanding it accepting it..."

Allison discusses strategies to mitigate defensiveness, such as openly acknowledging the urge to defend oneself:

"[10:15] Allison Williams: ...i'm feeling like defending myself right now but just saying it out loud often negates that whole exercise..."

Navigating Criticism and Self-Perception

Allison delves deeper into how she perceives feedback, especially when it pertains to her roles as a partner and mother:

"[06:52] Allison Williams: ...one of the things people would say is that i'm a little scatterbrained in a way that i didn't used to..."

The discussion highlights the internal conflict between maintaining a public persona and personal self-improvement:

"[17:15] Dan Harris: What is it that the kids say you're giving having your shit together as your vibe and so therefore when you forget something the natural conclusion must be well she really doesn't give a..."

Friendship Dynamics and Community Building

Allison shares her insights on the "friendship recession among men," contrasting it with how women typically bond:

"[34:01] Allison Williams: ...the idea that women bond perpendicularly and men bond in parallel..."

Dan adds that societal expectations of masculinity have hindered men's ability to form deep, emotionally intimate friendships:

"[35:29] Dan Harris: ...it was the theme of early in the conversation of why we get defensive in the first place yes because we have some doubt about our character..."

Allison emphasizes the importance of modeling healthy friendships for her son, Arlo, highlighting how her husband exemplifies emotional openness:

"[38:54] Allison Williams: ...the way that your dad is modeling honest sharing and vulnerability is something that is really nice and i feel like he's super super lucky..."

Parenting with Anxiety and Intrusive Thoughts

A significant portion of the episode focuses on Allison's experience with anxiety in parenthood. She describes the challenge of separating her anxious thoughts from her child's joyful experiences:

"[56:18] Allison Williams: ...watching my son run down like crocs down the driveway with the biggest grin on his face is a crystallization of what it feels like to live in my mind..."

Dan relates by sharing his own struggles with intrusive thoughts and how they affect his interactions:

"[60:15] Dan Harris: ...the mind does not only among parents but all of us to play these movies out as a method..."

Allison recounts a terrifying incident where her anxiety almost led to a tragic mistake with their dog, underscoring the constant battle between protective instincts and unwarranted fears:

"[64:09] Allison Williams: ...she got rushed to an emergency vet it wasn't a nerve agent luckily otherwise she would have died immediately..."

Aging Authentically and Letting Go of Perfection

Allison discusses the concept of "aging authentically," which involves accepting certain aspects of aging while taking proactive steps to address those that matter:

"[48:46] Allison Williams: ...it's about not pretending to not care about the things that do matter is sort of where the authenticity comes in..."

She reflects on her journey from striving for perfection in her appearance to embracing imperfections, finding liberation in self-acceptance:

"[52:22] Allison Williams: ...what a relief to almost accept the version of me that steps out onto a carpet or onto a talk show rather than the one of me that i think should be worthy..."

The Making of Megan Two Point Zero

Towards the end of the episode, Allison shares her excitement about her latest project, Megan Two Point Zero. She describes the challenges and rewards of working on a horror movie with technical complexities, such as animatronic dolls:

"[65:12] Allison Williams: ...the experience of watching a movie that is engineered to try to be a four quadrant movie is kind of exhausting..."

Allison expresses pride in the film's ability to cater to a broad audience without compromising its specific sensibilities:

"[68:30] Dan Harris: ...if it fits your definition of that then i can be happy now..."

Conclusion

The episode wraps up with Allison expressing relief and satisfaction in overcoming her fears of participating in a long-form podcast, highlighting her personal growth:

"[69:43] Allison Williams: ...podcasts were really scary to me for a long time... but here we are..."

Dan thanks Allison for her vulnerability and insightful conversation, emphasizing the importance of such discussions for personal development and mental well-being.

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Notable Quotes:

• Allison Williams [05:17]: "the only goal is to grow right or to accept where you are."
• Dan Harris [05:42]: "one allows counterintuitively for the other that you can grow kind of paradoxically after you're cool with where you are."
• Allison Williams [10:15]: "i'm feeling like defending myself right now but just saying it out loud often negates that whole exercise."
• Allison Williams [34:01]: "the idea that women bond perpendicularly and men bond in parallel."
• Allison Williams [56:18]: "watching my son run down like crocs down the driveway with the biggest grin on his face is a crystallization of what it feels like to live in my mind."

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This episode offers a profound exploration of internal struggles with perfectionism, the importance of self-acceptance, the complexities of modern friendships, and the challenges of parenting with anxiety. Allison Williams provides a deeply personal perspective, enriched by her experiences in both her personal life and the entertainment industry.

Transcript

[Allison Williams]

Foreign.

[Dan Harris]

This is the ten percent happier podcast i'm dan harris hey gang today i'm talking to my old friend allison williams who's the star of a new hit horror movie and we're talking about the horror movies we all make in our own minds we also talk about perfectionism defensiveness child rearing people pleasing handling criticism and much more you may know alison from her star turn on the hit hbo show girls or from her starring role in the movie get out or from megan the horror movie or its sequel megan two point zero which just came out allison is very busy in movies and television but she also has a podcast of her own it's a new one it's called landlines it just started we'll talk about that before the end of this interview i think you're going to enjoy this one allison and i have known each other for quite a long time we're personal friends i met her when she was just out of college before we dive in though i just want to say two things first last month in june we did this little thing where we we tried producing guided meditations tailored to every monday wednesday episode of this podcast today is a friday episode so there's no guided meditation to come with today's episode but the experiment in june worked so well that we're going to do it again this month in july with companion meditations coming from the great meditation teacher don mauricio this past wednesday we kicked things off with a bespoke meditation to go along with brother fab hu's episode and we will continue offering meditations next week and all throughout the month that will pair with each monday and wednesday episode if you want to get the meditations you got to sign up at danharris dot com you can get access to all past and future meditations so head on over there and sign up also and this is the second and final thing i want to say before we get to alison we've got a merch sale running from july seventh through fourteenth you can head on over to shop dot dan harris com if you've had your eye on our dump it here journal or the ten percent happier crew neck or that inner peace trucker hat good deals are coming your way check it out at shop danharris dot com we'll get started with alison williams right after this imagine you're a business owner who has to rely on a dozen different software programs to run your company none of which are connected and each one is more expensive and more complicated than the last it can be pretty stressful now imagine odoo odoo has all the programs you will ever need and they're all connected on one simple easy to use platform giving you peace of mind that your business is is always being taken care of from every angle odoo has user friendly open source applications for everything we're talking crm accounting inventory manufacturing marketing hr and everything in between basically if your business needs it odoo's got it odoo sounds pretty amazing right so stop wasting your time and money on those expensive disconnected programs and let odoo 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happier at checkout that's twenty percent off your first order with code happier at liquidiv dot com allison williams welcome to the show i'm so excited.

[Allison Williams]

I was just saying to these guys before you came on that i had talked a big game about basically relinquishing control and letting you drive the conversation but we both know that i love control so much i don't know who i was describing as i was saying that to you but it was aspirational listen the only goal is to grow right or to accept where you are i don't fucking know i can't keep track anymore it's either be cool with where you are or just strive to.

[Dan Harris]

Be better every day okay well you know that's an interesting point are we thinking about growth are we thinking about accepting ourselves where we are and my understanding is actually one allows counterintuitively for the other that you can grow kind of paradoxically after you're cool with where you are does that make sense one.

[Allison Williams]

Hundred percent i found that to be so true but i also think that sometimes there are areas where you're particularly sticky and need growth where you have to drive the growth with a little bit of effort where it's like starting an engine and then it kind of can run on its own but you sometimes need the jumper cables like an assessment from the people in your life about whether or not you have an anger problem you know just just out of nowhere spitballing here you're referring to it someone i know had a three hundred sixty evaluation and that led him on a spiritual journey towards becoming a little bit happier and here we are.

[Dan Harris]

If you had a three hundred sixty review what do you think would be said about you that you would have.

[Allison Williams]

To work on so many things one of the weird things about my wiring is that i think i'm conducting that sort of all the time i think that's an app that's running in my system and the conclusion regularly is like it's not good there's a lot of room for improvement here and some of those things feel very within the realm of something i can work on like especially the things that go to the top of the list are behaviors as a partner and as a mom like those cut the line if there's other stuff which is why there's still things on that list that have been on that list for a long time like being able to efficiently and quickly sort through a pile on my desk of mail and just randomness a lot of things would improve if i were able to get better at that get more efficient at that my stress level would go down my ability to feel centered have my workspace back like so many things would get better if i was able to tackle that but because other things cut the line like being able to get through a transition with arlo smoothly without it impacting me and letting him you know whatever it is whatever growth opportunity i have as a mom is more important it requires more energy and space than a small organizational thing for myself and so yeah i would say i'm constantly finding new places where i need to first understand and then grow the understanding i guess is to your point the exercise of kind of accepting what is but it's less accepting and more just seeing in my case kind of gaining access to insight into i don't know how would you answer.

[Dan Harris]

That i have a lot to say about that but let me just follow up quickly is your concern that if you move beyond seeing clearly that it will lapse into like resignation or complacency.

[Allison Williams]

Yes but i also i'm old enough now that i've done this before and i love what happens like when you find a bug in your system and you can understand it and work it out and improve it it's intoxicating the more esoteric almost the more satisfying something really small especially it's so much easier to talk about relationally but if if you're in a relationship and you find yourselves getting into the same like record grooves over and over again when you find the secret to getting out of that and avoiding that cycle it feels like it's been a long time but it feels like being drugged or something you know it's a really good feeling and you can do that for yourself as well when you realize that there's a pattern of thought or behavior that you're able to change it's it's really exciting and it's never as hard as you think it's going to be as i was saying i think the hardest part is the information gathering frankly it's just being able to see is the.

[Dan Harris]

Hardest part for me i would say it's sometimes the information comes to me in ways that i have not gathering it i'm bombarded with the feedback of like you're being a prick in x or y ways and so it's not so much about the information gathering it's about not letting the shame get in the way of seeing it clearly understanding it accepting it and then from that place of some measure of equanimity taking.

[Allison Williams]

Affirmative action yeah that's definitely true the shame and the feeling the urge to first mount a defense on behalf of your character is so strong as a shorthand i've started saying things like i'm feeling like defending myself right now but just saying it out loud often negates that whole exercise because you realize that the person you're talking to has chosen to spend their life with you so presumably they think you're a decent person so you don't have to be like for starters i'm a good person you know that's always it's a staple on reality television for a reason it's such an urge to set the table with here are my values here are the things i would and wouldn't do i would never hurt your feelings on purpose or whatever but even being a mom you're constantly saying stuff to your kid like even when you hurt someone by accident it's really nice to offer an apology even if it's not an admission that you did it on purpose it's a kind gesture to acknowledge what someone else's experience is and then you're like i need to take my own advice if i'm going to be farming that out to my kid as a life philosophy i really need to model it.

[Dan Harris]

As well i experience this too that somebody's giving me feedback maybe that somebody's initials are bianca harris and i hear it as a fundamental attack on my character when in fact all she's trying to do is ask why i was a dick at dinner last night or whatever and i go through the roof i've gotten a little bit better at this in the last year two or three but there was one concept that really helped me with this that i don't know if you're familiar with it comes from a friend of mine who's a professor at nyu at new york university and her name is dolly chug and her concept is instead of thinking of yourself as a good person and therefore if somebody attacks you like you have to defend yourself or thinking of yourself as a bad person who just feels like a wretch all the time if you think of yourself as good.

[Allison Williams]

Ish i like good ish i like that idea it's a good principle it's sort of like the good enough mother or parent to modernize it yeah i love that idea and i also think for me what happens is the moment a comment like that comes into my world a system starts running that is so preoccupied with the fact that i've hurt someone that it's almost that becomes the loudest thing and my whole system is oriented towards making him not hurt anymore which is not helpful in any way and again back to the things we teach our kids like to wish someone to be feeling another emotion is like one hundred one something not to do and so it's sort of like two things happen at the same time neither of which are helpful and as is always true the pause anytime you can give yourself in those moments where you try to regroup and just remember what matters and what's true and is always so helpful if i can stop myself something i'm i've been trying to get better at lately but i'm not perfect at is like even just saying it out loud like i'm really distracted by the fact that you're sad about what i did and that's really hard for me to accept because what is coming up for me is the desperate need for you to know that i didn't do it on purpose and also that i don't want it to change the way you see me because the way you see me matters more than anything else in the world and those two things are the loudest in my system right now which is making it impossible for me to address the fact that i hurt your feelings which is what this is all about but just talking through it is already really helpful and it's particularly rough when the behavior that's being pointed out is something that you yourself don't understand at all and then begins the process that i was describing of like yeah what is that why do i do that you're going to ask me for an example and one is not coming to mind right.

[Dan Harris]

Now or you're unwilling to give it.

[Allison Williams]

No i'm not it's that i can't it happens so frequently in so many little ways that there isn't one big.

[Dan Harris]

Example but you didn't answer the question of what you think people would say on your three hundred sixty review that's.

[Allison Williams]

One of the things they would say is that i'm a little scatterbrained in a way that i didn't used to.

[Dan Harris]

Be do you think that's mom brain.

[Allison Williams]

I do and mom brain is now getting a ton of research which is great often in the field of like women's brains and bodies there there's an all too often repeated thing of like there hasn't been enough research done on this and it's always like yeah obviously we don't get a lot of the research money but i mean the article about postpartum or pregnancy changing certain parts of women's brains and all the research that's being done and bianca actually is the person who introduced me to the idea of like adhd being diagnosed in postpartum age groups more and more frequently because it's been there have been so many complicating factors it just gone undiagnosed for so long i don't know what it is but in the last couple of years which yes has coincided with having a kid i just don't have access to the same clarity of thought and ability to stay on one channel or channel hop if that's what i'm trying to do like that versatility just feels gone and if something comes into my mind and i don't write it down it is likely gone forever and that is really hard because i haven't adjusted to that speaking of accepting things that are i have not adjusted to that expectation of my own capacity yet i still expect myself to function the way i did when we first met when i was twenty two and so far from having a child and just all i had to think about was my own everything and it's hard to run the experiment now my life is so different here you know once you have a kid you just have this thing all the time that matters so much more than everything else you're doing so it's hard to know if it's just that or if it's literally brain changes that i'm noticing but yes that is really hard and it's hard because i think i also give off a vibe kind of loudly that that wouldn't necessarily be the case yes yes and honestly that dissonance is something i'm adjusting to and something the people in my life are adjusting to that it used to be that you could mention something once and it was locked away and ready to be pulled out when i needed it and i would remember it and execute on it within the day and in box zero and all of those things and that is just not true and it hasn't been for a while and so either that's the new me and the new operating system and i have to make adjustments accordingly or i have to get back to the old way and i haven't found my path back yet so that would be i think the biggest finding that that system is working differently now yes because.

[Dan Harris]

You what is it that the kids say you're giving having your shit together as your vibe and so therefore when you forget something the natural conclusion must be well she really doesn't give a.

[Allison Williams]

Shit about this because exactly and that is a a core fear of mine sending anyone the idea that i don't care about them i care maximally about everyone in my life and everything that's happening around me i'm just like an invested curious person and i think about my friends constantly i reach out to them so rarely compared with the amount that i think about them as i fall asleep as i go about my day one of my resolutions every year in addition to drinking water is always to try to when i have the thought about my friends do the thing where i just reach for the thing that's in my hands at all times and send them the thought but then maybe it's tied to just this pacing and volume of life overall it just doesn't happen it stays in its nascent thought stage and never blossoms into the other stages but if something's languishing in my inbox or a text is just not being responded to for days and days at a time it's because i care too much to do it quickly yes it's much more to do with that than genuinely not caring about it or in some cases it's because i take a long time to process something and so if someone asks me for a favor and the answer is no it will take me days to figure out how to say no again because hurting their feelings or disappointing someone is like my least favorite thing i mean who likes that i don't know well.

[Dan Harris]

I mean i do think there's some gender dynamics at play here because this is generalization but i'm probably way more comfortable pissing people off than you are.

[Allison Williams]

Well but it depends on what it's about i if there's something i believe like staunchly and stating that belief is going to piss some people off it doesn't bother me at all disappointment is way worse to me i don't care about i don't know there's some things that just are hard to say no to because i know it's going to make someone feel like they're not a priority or like they don't matter and evoking that feeling in someone else it's just rough i mean that's hard for me yeah maybe that doesn't bother you as much i do find that disappointment is harder to contend with than anger it's like with your parents you know the idea of making them angry is such a momentary thing but disappointment feels more like an indictment on your character or something that's rough here we go.

[Dan Harris]

Again with indictments of character did i say that already no but i mean that it was the theme of early in the conversation of why we get defensive in the first place yes because we have some doubt about our character.

[Allison Williams]

Terminally yes of course always the thing that's so fascinating about being stuck with yourself as much as there is a self you can address that in detail for the rest of your life i'll leave you to that question but it's so weirdly hard to get to know and accept the things that make you who you are back to kind of what we were talking about at the beginning of the conversation it is strange how little emphasis there is in early education on understanding the way you operate it's like the fear is if we talk about it too much you'll ruin the experiment like a badly applied schrodinger's cat it's very strange i often am observing things about the way arlo behaves and i'm tempted to point them out to him and then i'm like well i don't want to make him too self aware but i don't know why not because it's really nice to know everything i learned about the way i live is so helpful and it makes me hurt people less by accident and it makes me a better member of society and in school when you're doing the bulk of your learning and growing for all those years none of it is about like here's the assignment let's figure out how you with your wiring is going to be best capable of achieving this and that feels really important oh you're in a group doing a group project and you're functioning in this way in that dynamic let's understand that because life is kind of a group project and so the sooner you can understand why maybe you're approaching it in this way the better your future life is going to be those things are kind of crucial and we're not really encouraged until someone dumps us for some character reason to do any of that inward looking the first time a teacher really encouraged me to do that explicitly was in college in my psych class marvin chun my psych professor who's an incredible professor i tried to delay i think two exams in a row because of plays that i was in tech week it coincided with the tech week of a play opening and the first time he said yes this is a giant lecture and i and my narcissism was like he'll care so i emailed him to ask if i could delay the exam he said yes the second time when i wrote him and i wish i still had this email but i don't they just like explode your email address or they used to when you had like a college supplied email he said something like the answer is no and it's because whether or not you perform well on this psych exam is so clearly irrelevant to the rest of your life you've chosen now what matters to you the most which is your career as an actor and that i believe is what's going to continue to matter to you the most so just do that and if you get a c on this exam i don't think it really matters to you very much and i was kind of like first of all being told no never easy so that was hard that was the first stage of it the second stage of it was like i am going to get a c on this exam and i don't get c's on exams and that's really scary and then the third stage was like what a lesson in allowing the choices you're making reflexively without thinking about it to inform in reverse what can be gleaned about your priorities from having made those choices i will never forget that so marvin if you're listening which you're not because you're busy dealing with other students like me thank you for that lesson because i think about it constantly that was.

[Dan Harris]

Probably more valuable than anything you learned in the class that email exchange yeah.

[Allison Williams]

There were a lot of things i learned in that class that stuck with me but to your point the most personal one obviously was that one about my values and my time but what's tricky about that is that it conflicts with what i was saying earlier about the amount of time i spend thinking about my friends and the amount of time i spend reaching out to them and so there are contradictions to it where those are the areas where i see the potential for growth whereas there are some situations where i'm like oh yeah i am just not doing that and maybe i don't care about it and that and that gives me insight into a value system maybe that i wouldn't have discovered otherwise it's interesting i.

[Dan Harris]

Mean i don't experience you as a aloof friend but the that's a relief.

[Allison Williams]

You should but i love you guys so much and i wish i could see you like default every week just on a like weekly basis would make my life so much happier and we could we could do it that's what's.

[Dan Harris]

So enraging you don't know this but your husband and i are engaged in a text chain okay so we are going to see each other sooner rather than later but anyway it's interesting you say that this is a source of ongoing sort of guilt or cognitive dissonance for you because your new podcast really is which is called landlines is built around the notion of friends slash community as a sort of mental health survival.

[Allison Williams]

Tactic well so this is part of the story of my friendship so i am doing this podcast with two friends i've had since childhood and one of them i've known since i was born because our moms grew up together and the other one we met when she joined our school in kindergarten we have been friends since then and that has had many vicissitudes obviously through life and we have lost touch through chunks of it never completely but just that kind of emotional intimacy where the friendships just have not the bonds have not been as strong and your twenties by large are like a huge challenge to any long term friendships because everyone is shifting and growing so much and going through a lot and trying on different lives basically and so if these friendships can survive that stage it's a pretty good sign and when i got pregnant i formed a chat with these girls who i've known forever about all of the questions i had about the things that i was needing like it started out with just i was making a registry and a list of all of the shit you need when you're having a kid which is like was so overwhelming to me it was sort of how i was processing my third trimester because i shot megan in my second trimester and i didn't really like focus on the stuff until the third trimester which also is the end and it's just a very overwhelming time i formed this chat and i would just like shoot questions into it like what is the difference between a duna and a yo yo and why do they and a nuna and like why do they all have the same names and they're just like i'm i feel like i'm speaking gibberish at this point and it was amazing cause it was like having a language model that was tailored to people who've known me since infancy and who know my wiring and who also have their own perspectives that i can kind of predict so i would ask a question like should i google this rash on my breast and i'd send a picture of my boob to the chat to all the hackers out there you might find mastitis pics if you back my photos and they could be like don't google it yes it's mastitis start your antibiotics and then i'd have the one friend who's like wary of antibiotics and wants to like build your immune system by avoiding them and it's like don't take antibiotics use these holistic things i'm like we know i'm not wired that way but fine love to you and respect and it's just so nice to have that community and we kept thinking about the fact that there are a lot of people out there who don't have what we had and how lucky we felt to have it and one of my friends is a therapist and another one is an early childhood educator and constantly their education and their wisdom and expertise in those two fields ended up being like of particular relevance in our chat and so i was just like what if we could invite other people into this dynamic and feel like they're just a fly on the wall and so that's where the idea of it came from but the need for community for a q and a basically with my friends came from my pregnancy and now it's just active because we're all still needing each other's help and wisdom and i'm the only one now that only has one kid so they've all started over again subsequently and are remembering what it's like to have a newborn and someone was like did any of your kids have an eight month sleep regression and then like like a whole text stream like fills in and the other one was like has anyone bought all of these travel accessories that keep getting served to me on instagram about to a red eye with the two kids and i i want to know like do i need the thing that you inflate that goes under their feet do i need should i sit in the bulkhead you know it's like all this stuff that you could google you could chat ask chatgpt you could but somehow like getting those answers from your friends is just the best and i feel particularly lucky because i really feel like i lost touch with them in a big way through my twenties being able to like still turn to that resource when i needed them on my own time and they were just there and ready felt like such a gift because i hadn't been the kind of friend that in my mind like deserved that kind of loyalty at that point i hadn't betrayed them i had just lost them a little bit and being able to have that unconditional friendship was like an incredibly moving realization and felt like such a gift to me in a moment where i really really needed that kind of stability and so yeah i would say that i hadn't been actively participating in those friendships for a couple years then and one of the many gifts of having our son was having that revived and having that back in my life.

[Dan Harris]

Coming up allison williams talks about the friendship recession among men aging authentically and caring less about it and more imagine you're a business owner who has to rely on a dozen different software programs to run your company none of which are connected and each one is more expensive and more complicated than the last it can be pretty stressful now imagine odoo odoo has all the programs you will ever need and they're all connected on one simple easy to use platform giving you peace of mind that your business is always being taken care of from every angle odoo has user friendly open source applications for everything we're talking crm accounting inventory manufacturing marketing hr and everything in between basically if your business needs it odoo's got it odoo sounds pretty amazing right so stop wasting your time and money on those expensive disconnected programs and let odoo harmonize your business with simple efficient software that can handle everything for a fraction of the price doesn't get much better than that so what are you waiting for discover how odoo can take your business to the next level by visiting odoo dot com that's o dash o o dot com o d o o dot com o odoo modern management made simple this show is sponsored by liquid iv you know what i'm going to do tomorrow morning i'm going to go work out with a couple of friends and you know what i'm going to do after i work out i'm going to tear open one of those liquid iv packets dump it into some water and chug it no matter how hot your summer gets liquid iv can help you keep hydrated for the adventures ahead the summer heat means it's the perfect time to try liquid iv's new arctic raspberry flavor plus liquid iv has sugar free solutions powered by live hydra science for smart hydration visit liquidiv dot com and use code happier at checkout for twenty percent off your first order i have used liquid iv on many an occasion it tastes great it's easy to use just tear it open and pour it into whatever water vessel you prefer and and it really helps to bring you back to life after you've just knocked your own sweat socks off in workout you don't have to do it after workout you can do it before you go hiking you can do it for rehydration if you're gardening if you're sitting outside with your friends lots of use cases just one stick and sixteen ounces of water hydrates better than water alone as i said it's powered by live hydro science which is an optimized ratio of eleven electrolytes essential vitamins and clinically tested nutrients that turn ordinary water into extraordinary hydration three times the electrolytes a bleeding sports drink eight essential vitamins and nutrients always non gmo vegan gluten free dairy free and soy free squeeze the most out of your summer with liquid iv tear pour live more go to liquidiv dot com and get twenty off your first order with code happier at at checkout that's twenty percent off your first order with code happier at liquidiv dot com have you followed all of the discourse around the friendship recession among men okay i have.

[Allison Williams]

A lot to say on this topic the answer is yes the thing i always think about i have no idea who put this idea into my head it could have been you honestly the idea that women bond perpendicularly and men bond in parallel is that an idea.

[Dan Harris]

You'Re it wasn't me i don't know okay meaning like men bond like both looking out a car window while they're talking because we don't want to yeah.

[Allison Williams]

Or at a tv screen at a bar or on a golf course next to each other in a golf cart and women like to sit down across from each other at a table and be like so i want to see your eyes and one of the things i love and admire about my husband is that he loves spending time with his guy friends in perpendicular settings like the two of you will go out to dinner and talk and you know spend time together but i think for a lot of men that kind of emotional intimacy isn't modeled or experienced enough at a young age and it feels like you're i mean not to gender it all so much or stereotype at all so much but i feel like a lot of men would say that that feels like they're at dinner with their wife having to sit across from them and talk to them about feelings and what you're going through but i'm just devastated that they don't know what that feels like because it's one of the great gifts of the world i feel like alexander and his friends have saved each other's lives like i'm not even being dramatic multiple times by their ability to just invest in that perpendicular kind of talking honesty sharing vulnerability humility but it's not the norm and it's really too bad yeah what do you see in it when you think about.

[Dan Harris]

It it's seen from the data that women quite naturally maintain relationships in ways that men today and perhaps always are struggling with and that it's contributing to pretty serious declines in men's mental health and i think we inherited a story about what strength is frankly from your industry hollywood which depicts you know lone rangers and marlboro men and you know people bootstrapping it on the prairie and that actually is contrary to how we evolved men are out there biohacking their faces off and living in paleo lifestyle but ignoring the most important lesson of evolution which is community yeah what's interesting.

[Allison Williams]

Is that going back to my college days and all the anthropology and stuff i'm actually thinking about how unimportant real emotional intimacy would have been for men in the same way that it would have been for women the idea of raising kids and community with other women and men competing to reproduce that kind of wouldn't have been as important i would think i mean this is you should actually interview a real anthropologist to talk about all of this or an evolutionary biologist but i would think that it is actually a new skill in terms of the timeline of male brain development and hormones in the timeline of human existence i would say it probably isn't a relatively new skill that friendship is a luxury of it's why i have anxiety you know like i don't have the need for all the hormones that i would have needed evolutionarily my life is super comfortable and i'm rarely dealing with any kind of real fight or flight requirements and so my system just misfires occasionally and shows me other shit that i don't need but that's a digression we can talk about that later but i think that the definition of what it means to be a man has changed dramatically the role that they serve in our world has changed dramatically and that this is you know whatever this is the stuff of adolescence and everything else that we're talking about as a culture right now and finding that place and that purpose is vitally important because i think it's hopefully going to come with the importance of friendship and realizing that that shouldn't be gendered and that it's not a competition it is and it isn't you know like a competition also i feel unqualified to talk about all of this i'm not a man and i'm not an anthropologist i guess what i'm saying is that i do actually understand why evolutionarily it would be harder for men because it wasn't as important for survival but i think now it is required for survival.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah i mean i don't know how much perpendicular dinner dates were important for survival in evolutionary times but the ability to work together to take down a mastodon or whatever was vital so whatever you call it men like all members of homo sapiens need positive relationships we may not have been socialized to stare into each other's eyes and disclose but turns out we need it we're kind of fucked without it and it borne.

[Allison Williams]

Out in the data yeah i feel so lucky for arlo that he has as a model in alexander someone who has incredibly healthy friendships that are deeply important to him and by the way that aren't just with men that he has really close female friends from his whole life that are super important and maintaining those relationships and arlo can see modeled in his dad an example of what it looks like to have and share and process feelings with friends is so nice and i feel like it's he's super super lucky and so am i i know that it's not not a given it's really important that what he is seeing is not that old model of masculinity he's kind of got like not to brag but in his dad and in my husband he's got like this full package of a guy who presents like a kind of totally hollywood accurate portrayal of what masculinity looks like and functions like and also someone who has like a pretty incredible relationship to his own inner emotional life and is totally comfortable sharing that with his son and showing him what it all.

[Dan Harris]

Looks like it's funny because just say your husband alexander has been on the show before alexander draymond he was the star of a great show on netflix called the last kingdom and anyway i'll drop a link to that in the show notes for anybody who wants to listen to it i was worried the first time you well when i learned who he was and that you guys were coming over to the house it was like we saw you right after like covid was ending and you were in your third trimester and you guys were now together and so we hadn't seen each other in a couple years so we were meeting him for the first time but i had seen the show years before so i was very familiar with who he was and i was like i'm not going to like this guy he's good you know and then he turns up and he's like emo as hell yeah and literally my clearest memory for that evening was my randomly saying to him yeah i like your sweatshirt and then the next time we saw you guys he showed up with that sweatshirt in a bag and gave it to me and i still wear it that's yeah what kind of.

[Allison Williams]

Guy he is you know from his point of view too that's an intimidating hangout i don't know i mean i think it was just immediately clear that you guys had a thing and he doesn't feel comfortable opening up like that with everybody so it just meant that he felt safe i guess what i'm trying to say i think what was beautiful is that i watch him do this and show arlo this it requires bravery because there is a certain amount of risk involved to taking the first step towards vulnerability in a new friendship and i think there's a great scene in mean girls i think about all the time where they're looking in the mirror and pointing out things they hate about themselves and it's sort of like the way that women bond sometimes it's just by like talking shit about themselves together and being like can i trust you are you gonna join me in this exercise and for men i feel like the equivalent is sort of tossing out an emotional kind of statement and seeing how it goes showing a feeling or discussing one and if it comes back to you then a rally has begun then you're like okay now we're in this thing and it's okay but it takes someone to be brave at first and just take that first thing and i don't remember which of you it was but it was really so nice to see because yeah i care about you guys a lot and i thought you would get along really well and then it was really nice to see and your friendship has taken on a whole life that i'm not even part of which i have feelings about but it's fine because bianca and i have the same thing so i'm so hopeful that the generation of boys that we're raising are not going to have the same struggles making and maintaining friendships i hope i hope i hope yeah.

[Dan Harris]

I agree a friend of mine uses the term emotional imbecility which i think is spot on for i see myself in that i think it's true of.

[Allison Williams]

Many men i think you're selling yourself.

[Dan Harris]

Short dan well like the version of me that we met i have actually a pretty clear visual of bianca and i'm meeting you at a restaurant like right on the east on the west side highway yes when you were twenty two yes that guy needed some help.

[Allison Williams]

Who didn't in that room like i also remember yeah it just who doesn't at all times i guess is what i would say but i i didn't meet you then and think oh this guy needs some help all i was thinking about was like i want this guy to think i'm smart so badly i want everyone in this room to think i'm smart it's all that matters to me that's all that mattered to me for so long was just making sure everyone thought i was smart enough i didn't have a and then what it was just that was it that was the only mission for a long time.

[Dan Harris]

I'M curious what's your source of insecurity now like is it being on instagram and seeing other allegedly perfect moms and then comparing that to seventy five missteps that you made over the last.

[Allison Williams]

Week or that can get it sometimes honestly sometimes i'll actually honest my biggest insecurity is when people say to trust your gut i don't often feel like my gut's being loud and that can make me feel insecure anytime someone says trust your gut you got this mama i'm always like go fuck yourself that always enrages me and i think it must be be because it hits a nerve for example the decision about whether or not to have another kid is something i think about every day and i keep waiting for my gut to have something to tell me about this and it is still on the fence i think i'm like okay well beyond that in a world where i have finite amount of eggs like can something other than my gut make this decision and maybe someone other than me can we hire a consultant to make this choice it feels like my gut is supposed to make this choice and it hasn't told me what its verdict is yet and i don't have infinite time that is something i might feel insecure about is just that some people seem to have guts that talk to them very loudly and that mine doesn't always do that so yeah i would say that the part of me that wants everyone to like me and improve of me has chilled out significantly which is such a relief but it's still there it'll always be there i think in some way like if i found out that i hurt someone's feelings or actually offended people that would really still bother me but i don't think that's the insecurity you're talking about i don't know i think as i've gotten older and i've come to terms more with who i am it's been less scary for other people to see that so insecurity wise like if someone sees a part of my body that i don't like that would have been my answer truthfully back in the day or like having a pimple a literal imperfection on your face would have been like yikes obsessive so scary and now not as much not zero but very very little now that's huge progress it's huge progress also like i feel indebted slightly to gen z for this because it is so cool that they are i'll use pimples as an example because we're on the subject but like pimple stickers and stuff like that are like colorful and star shaped whereas in our generation like you never wanted anyone to know you had a pimple anywhere and there's a whole like covering them up and making them not exist is like a whole thing whereas they adorn them it's literally like yeah it's a pimple is this gonna say something about who i am it's my an oil gland on my face that's acting weird like this is not a bigger story it's just a thing on my face and it's so nice because i it's just so counter to the way the very presentational way that we were kind of brought up aiming for perfection that kind of embracing of the whole human experience is so obvious and so nice in the public sphere so i feel a little indebted to that and also just to getting older but that doesn't mean i'm not still vain and putting botox in my face and stuff like that because i am but i just mean that like for example yesterday i did a full day of press and i didn't really fully scrutinize the way i looked in the mirror throughout the day which is shockingly different from the way i would have handled that ten years ago or whatever just so different i got backstage at a talk show and was looking in that last minute there's like a mirror right before you walk on stage on almost all talk shows familiar with it there's like that last minute mirror there's usually some mints that are unwieldy and impossible to keep in your mouth on a talk show so i don't know why they're there and then there's like a box of tissues and a bottle of water usually and last night yesterday i got to this talk show and i looked in that mirror and realized that you could see through my shirt you could see my bra and it hadn't occurred to me to look or care and then i just was like i may have delayed my entrance onto the show in a former life to be like i can't really defend it i need to be wearing a bra where you can't tell that i'm wearing a bra it's not part of the outfit it's not on purpose it's not on purpose i guess being the biggest thing i would have just been like this is a nightmare but i was like you can see this right and then i was like okay and then i just you know went on and that might make no sense it's a deeply unrelatable story obviously it's relatable to.

[Dan Harris]

Me is it tell me well because i spent thirty years of my life on camera as a news anchor and so i yeah obsessed about this in ways that are incredibly embarrassing to talk about worrying about the retreat of my hairline or whatever or like anybody shooting from the back of my head and whether like as my son likes to remind me my bald spot is visible like that type of thing was just took up so much bandwidth is incredibly painful and to get older and to care less or to be not so attached to it is a massive relief.

[Allison Williams]

So we talked about this on the podcast a little bit and what we came to was the idea of aging authentically so it's not like i'm embracing every single thing that my body is doing as it gets older it's not true at all there are some things that i'm going to fight with all my might that bother me about my aging face and body and all of those things and there's some things that don't matter and i think not pretending to not care about the things that do matter is sort of where the authenticity comes in where it's just like no those things do matter and if there's something i can do to address them i'm going to do it and not feel like shameful about it just really be like yeah because they bother me and then also letting go of the things that don't matter and not trying anymore to hit this target of perfect is such a relief and also perfectionism in general because i played marnie on girls and was constantly asked about whether or not i was a perfectionist for many many years was like an area of real sensitivity because i deeply didn't want to be a perfectionist because to me drawing a distance between myself and marnie was so correlated with whether or not people would respect me as an actor i wanted to create space wherever i could but i am wired to try to be perfect and to be type a and all of those things are still true it's just that i'm really not perfect or achieving at an a plus level at all times and my comfort with that has increased so much in recent years and especially after becoming a mom like it's just been such a relief to that part of my system and what a relief to on a day full of press when there's a million things going on my value system just staying what it is on every other day is so nice yesterday i'm taking these photos on the street in my outfit with my hair and makeup team and my stylist and i see a front end loader carrying a bundle of wood with a chain and i like completely just like walked away from everyone and pulled out my phone and started filming this and narrating it for arlo who is like obsessed with trucks and three and a half and that to me it brought me so much joy and it brought me back into my body from doing this like very weird thing of just posing for photos on a new york city sidewalk back into the part of me that i'm way more connected to right now which is the part of me that sees like a front end loader and it's like i need to document this for my son he's going to love this thing and that is really nice that i can take that with me everywhere i go that feels so much better and so much healthier and much much less stressful to just be almost accepting of whatever version of me steps on a carpet or steps out onto a talk show rather than the one of me that i think should be worthy of stepping out onto a carpet and onto a talk show.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah yeah having kids it's a titanic pain in the ass in many many ways but it also is a gigantic dose at bolus of perspective and it can be if you're doing it right a great reminder about what really matters and a relief to let go or at least turn the volume down on the shit that doesn't matter as much coming up allison talks about catastrophizing in parenthood something i relate to deeply how to avoid passing your anxieties onto your children the making of her latest movie megan two point zero and much more imagine you're a business owner who has to rely on a dozen different software programs to run your company none of which are connected and each one is more expensive and more complicated than the last it can be pretty stressful now imagine odoo odoo has all the programs you will ever need and they're all connected on one simple easy to use platform giving you peace of mind that your business is always being taken care of from every angle odoo has user friendly open source applications for everything we're talking crm accounting inventory manufacturing marketing hr and everything in between basically if your business needs it odoo's got it odoo sounds pretty amazing right so stop wasting your time and money on those expensive disconnected programs and let odoo harmonize your business with simple efficient software that can handle everything for a fraction of the price doesn't get much better than that so what are you waiting for discover how odoo can take your business to the next level by visiting odoo dot com that's o d o o dot com o d o o dot com odoo modern management made simple this show is sponsored by liquid iv you know what i'm going to do tomorrow morning i'm going to go work out with a couple of friends and you know what i'm going to do after i work out i'm going to tear open one of those liquid iv packets dump it into some water and chug it no matter how hot your summer gets liquid iv can help you keep hydrated for the adventures ahead the summer heat means it's the perfect time to try liquid iv's new arctic raspberry flavor plus liquid iv has sugar free solutions powered by live hydra science for smart hydration visit liquidivity and use code happier at checkout for twenty off your first order i have used liquid iv on many an occasion it tastes great it's easy to use just tear it open and pour it into whatever water vessel you prefer and it really helps to bring you back to life after you've just knocked your own sweat socks off in workout you don't have to do it after workout you can do it before you go hiking you can do it for rehydration if you're gardening if you're sitting outside with your friends lots of use cases just one stick and sixteen ounces of water hydrates better than water alone as i said it's powered by live hydra science which is an optimized ratio of electrolytes essential vitamins and clinically tested nutrients that turn ordinary water into extraordinary hydration three times the electrolytes of the leading sports drink eight essential vitamins and nutrients always non gmo vegan gluten free dairy free and soy free squeeze the most out of your summer with liquid iv tear pour live more go to liquid i dot com and get twenty percent off your first order with code happier at checkout that's twenty percent off your first order with code happier at liquid i dot com there's one aspect of parenting that you were texting me about that i really resonate with and i didn't see coming which was how catastrophic thoughts can knife in in the middle of what can be sweet moments and just fucking ruin them can you just talk about that a hundred.

[Allison Williams]

Percent so i am i mean it might be obvious if you've been listening to us talk for this long but i am a i'm an anxious person i am a i have intrusive thoughts and i am a catastrophizer and that combination of traits have i guess kept me alive to this point but have been a perfect storm on multiple occasions in parenting and i guess the most like kind of normal example of that is i said to dan you know we have a really steep driveway and watching my son who's three and a half run in like crocs down the driveway with the biggest grin on his face is a crystallization of what it feels like to live in my mind because there are two things happening simultaneously my eyes are observing that he is so happy joy on a child's face this is like a happy guy my whole nervous system is like he's about to fall he's about to fall he's about to fall every second because he's still moving the eyes are seeing the joy and the system is preparing for the fall and what a tragedy and he doesn't always fall he does sometimes and so far you know sorry i have to knock on wood it's a thing so far now my dog's barking because she thinks someone was at the door this is something i we gotta.

[Dan Harris]

Leave this in no it's perfect i.

[Allison Williams]

Love it oh my god she's so.

[Dan Harris]

Sure she's celebrities they're just like us.

[Allison Williams]

She'S bless miss moxie she's just been dutifully protecting me against people who knock for ten years the first dog your son met that's true proudly that's right but anyway that is such a a lesson to just appreciate just can i not just be in that moment with him when he's experiencing the joy of running down a hill i wish i could quiet the part of me that's bracing for impact and just enjoy the joy that he's experiencing because he is cautious and thoughtful and evaluates where his body is in space pretty well sometimes but not all the time he's feeling it out and he's not as anxious as i am and i'm so proud of that fact and i don't want to give it to him and i don't want to burden him with this way of living that has held me back in so many ways i think and i've had to work to overcome and he's just happy and enjoying himself and every time i can't stop the careful from coming out of my mouth which does happen i feel bad because he didn't have that idea in his head until i put it there and sometimes i have to obviously if like he's about to really hurt himself my job is to prevent that scenario from happening but not when you know my system doesn't do a great job of separating the real big threats to his safety from the not real big threats to his safety and alexander my alexander not your son although he would have pointed this out too because he's very observant and not shy about pointing things out to grownups that are areas for improvement which is one of the things i love about your son very gently early in my job as a mom alexander pointed out how often i said careful to our son and his delivery could not have been more gentle and my reaction to it could not have been more violent i mean it could have been more violent i'm being dramatic but i had a as we were saying at the beginning of this conversation it was really hard for me to take that in because of how true it was and i have always remembered it because it's like a reflex at that time i couldn't at all control it coming out of my mouth and i wasn't even always aware of it but it has since been so revealing to notice how often i want to say it and to try to quiet the impulse of saying it do you.

[Dan Harris]

Have the same thing well i completely relate to so much of what you're talking about i do understand why you don't want to unnaturally imbue your son with too much of your anxiety and specifically on this thing where you're in a moment with the kid and you start having these intrusive movies that are coming to your mind of okay i'm playing in the waves of my son but now i can't stop the movies of a riptide and my son all i see is his arm or whatever under the water like that's just or chopping something in the kitchen all you had to say is chopping yes somehow there's a movie with the knife and the sun and you know it just it's just happening all the time and i think where i've come to it is less like bemoaning of dan why are you ruining all these great moments and more like interest in that's interesting the mind does this and there must be some evolutionary purpose i mean aside from the fact that both you and i have kind of innate probably very much inherited anxiety there's also i think a thing the mind does not only among parents but all of us to play these movies out as a method.

[Allison Williams]

For protection yes but here's what's incredible is that my husband doesn't have this he's not watching those movies and he is cautious and smart and is not like completely unaware of risks but he doesn't have those movies playing and it's an incredible balance because i have now spent enough time around his nervous system when i'm alone because he's shooting right now so i'm solo well with a lot of help and support but i'm the only parent here with arlo and and i can kind of try to channel the way he would evaluate things in his absence and when i'm gone i know that alexander also is a little bit extra cautious to compensate for the fact that i'm not there and so we're able to kind of balance each other out in that way which is really nice but those movies don't play for everybody and that is it's no wonder that you and i both at one point in our lives found it a huge relief to use substances to quiet that shit down like i mean it is exhausting they're not and they're always wrong thank god the movies that my brain puts together are like an ai misfiring making like weird content based on iterative like horror concepts it's wild and it's also it sometimes is helpful and that's a huge problem one friend who's in therapy for being a hypochondriac right when the pandemic hit and her therapist was like let's drop this we'll pick this back up cause you're all your tools are helpful and they're gonna keep you alive so forget everything i've said use them all and then we'll pick this back up when we've gotten a vaccine for this but the problem is that sometimes it works and that makes it a really hard thing to try to evict completely from my personality and the first day we woke up after i got out of the hospital when we had arlo after the c section recovery it was a little extra long we got through that first night the next morning we went outside to have a coffee we had arlo in a little bassinet and we're sitting out there feeling the warm sun it was november and it was just this really nice morning and i look over at moxie who was in the bushes and i was like i hope she's not eating out of a bait box we had a rodent situation i don't like to think about it because i love animals and i hate the idea of having bait boxes around the house but it was like compromising the structural integrity of the house so we had to have one and it was like a concept that is the most dramatic thing she could have been doing is eating poison in the bushes and i'm like six days postpartum and things were wild hormonally and alexander was like she's not it's fine and called her over and she wouldn't come and i was like will you just humor me and go see what she's up to and she sure enough that bitch was eating poison and what happened next was fast and terrifying she got rushed to an emergency vet it wasn't a nerve agent luckily otherwise she would have died immediately oh my god it was all reversible vitamin k et cetera but it was a moment where i was right like the weird story i came up with in that moment was the true story and every time that happens it really sets me back because cause then i'm like you know what sometimes those instincts are super helpful and what do you do with the fact that all day they're wrong and also how exhausting it's exhausting dan to have these minds i.

[Dan Harris]

Hear you yeah last question speaking of horror movies yeah i haven't spoken to you since you finished megan two is.

[Allison Williams]

That true yeah i guess that is.

[Dan Harris]

True and i was talking to you throughout the process script writing you were talking not only about starring in it but also producing it because you have a role behind the scenes our last conversations you were really really involved in the pre production and the writing and so i'm just curious how did it come out in your view it's so.

[Allison Williams]

Awesome it's really really fun these movies are really hard to make for a bunch of reasons but a lot of them are really technical like when the star of your movie technically is a mostly animatronic doll it's just complicated and i'm only the star by default because i'm those tables will turn eventually and i'll take number two on the call sheet megan will edge me out as number one but they are really complicated to make and so rewarding and i am super super proud with the movie we've ended up with it is really fun and i keep thinking about like how fun the ride is like i wish i could wipe my memory of my deep knowledge and familiarity with this movie and just watch it for the first time or maybe the more fun viewing is even the second time because it is exhilarating when it starts and when it begins you are you have no idea where it's going to spit you out and that is like one of the real joys of movies of watching movies and also what's really fun about this movie is that people who loved the first one will love this movie and we're bringing other genres into the umbrella like action it's like a thrilling action movie with this terrifying creepy doll at the center of it and it's just fun to be able to say like if you own t two or aliens or robocop you'll love this movie and also you your preteen daughter and her friends are gonna love this movie and it's also fun that we're releasing it during pride cause it feels like we're paying homage to a huge group of people who supported the movie the first time around and there are a lot of groups of people who i think will really enjoy this movie and that is really exciting to have made something that i think isn't for everybody and thus can be enjoyed by everybody like the experience of watching a movie that is engineered to try to be a four quadrant movie is kind of exhausting where you're like oh boy this is the section i'm supposed to relate to and here's the section my husband is supposed to relate to and you're kind of like the lack of specificity means none of us are happy and gerard who's the brains behind it has such a specific sensibility and sense of humor and is so precise and that it ends up being actually so enjoyable to a much more broad swath of people than it would be if it were being engineered to a very specific group of people and i just can't wait for people to see it yeah and it was like a kind of titanic effort it's much bigger than the first one in kind of every way and yeah everyone will see i can't wait to be able to talk about it with more specificity i hope that wasn't broad to the point of.

[Dan Harris]

Being boring but no no well first of all congratulations second i'm super excited.

[Allison Williams]

To watch it so good well that's i think you'll love it i think you'll find it it's really funny i think it's funnier than the first one and it's a really fun ride alexander has this category of movies that i've been trying to define for our entire relationship called fun movies and you'd think that would have like a simple definition but i've been trying and failing to define it since we met the other day i very nervously was like do you think megan is a fun movie and he was like yes i was like i can retire i made a fun movie i still don't totally know what it is but if it fits your definition of that then i can.

[Dan Harris]

Be happy now nice thank you for.

[Allison Williams]

Doing this oh my god we're at the end this is it yeah i felt like there was so much there's ugh okay thank you a simple thank you for doing this oh let's immediate anxiety attack well i don't want it to be over it's been so nice to catch up with you i know i know thank you so much for having me i was so scared to do this show for so many years and this was so fun and not.

[Dan Harris]

At all scary i know it does feel good i finally got you on.

[Allison Williams]

This fucking show podcasts were really scary to me for a long time because they're long form and for someone wired the way i was before as we've discussed that every time you open your mouth is an opportunity to fuck up and when you're just evaluating yourself on that binary then yeah podcast is really high stakes and really scary and so i had to just grow up a little bit before i was ready but here we are you did great thank you thanks for having me.

[Dan Harris]

Big thanks to allison williams don't forget this month we're offering a guided meditations that come with every monday and wednesday episode the teacher of the month for july is don mauricio head on over to danharris dot com to become a paid subscriber and you'll get access to all past and future companion meditations also if you head on over to shop dot danharris dot com comma you can stock up on your favorite ten percent happier goods during our summer merch sale which starts monday july seventh and runs through the fourth before i let you go i just want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show our producers are tara anderson caroline keenan and eleanor vasily our recording and engineering is handled by the great people over at pod people lauren smith is our managing producer marissa schneiderman is our senior producer dj cashmere is our executive producer and nick thorburn of the band islands wrote our theme foreign.

[Allison Williams]

This episode is brought to you by progressive insurance you chose to hit play on this podcast today smart choice make another smart choice with auto quote explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once try it at progressive dot com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates not available in all states or situations prices vary based on how you buy.