Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig

Summary

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Episode Summary Featuring Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig

Release Date: June 2, 2025

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of Design Matters with Debbie Millman, hosts Debbie Millman interviews Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig, beloved for their iconic roles in the groundbreaking television series The L Word. The conversation delves deep into their enduring friendship, navigating the complexities of show business, their creative endeavors, and the evolution of their characters both on-screen and off-screen.

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1. The Genesis of a Lasting Friendship

Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig share how their friendship began over two decades ago during an audition for The L Word. Meeting under competitive circumstances, their bond quickly transcended professional rivalry.

• Leisha Hailey [05:25]: "We started a band, we started acting together, and our friendship just flourished from there."
• Kate Moennig [05:21]: "Thank you so much for having us today, Debbie."

Their mutual support became a cornerstone of their careers, providing strength through the highs and lows of the entertainment industry.

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2. Navigating Early Careers in Acting and Music

Both actresses discuss their initial forays into acting and music, highlighting the challenges and triumphs that shaped their paths.

• Leisha Haley [19:13]: "I dreamt about acting in high school and knew I wanted to move somewhere I could make that happen."
• Kate Moennig [19:58]: "Growing up watching strong female characters, I always wanted to play someone active and impactful."

Leisha’s passion led her to form the band The Murmurs, while Kate pursued acting, eventually landing roles that would define her career.

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3. Impact of The L Word on Representation

The L Word revolutionized television by providing complex, multifaceted gay female characters, which both Leisha and Kate portrayed with depth and authenticity.

• Debbie Millman [50:43]: "The L Word launched to critical acclaim, offering raw and unbridled representation that was unprecedented."
• Kate Moennig [45:55]: "Playing Shane helped me solidify my own identity and provided a safe environment to explore my sexuality."

Their characters, Alice Piazzini and Shane McCutcheon, became cultural icons, resonating with audiences and fostering greater visibility for the LGBTQ+ community.

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4. Overcoming Challenges and Maintaining Resilience

The duo opens up about the obstacles they faced, including typecasting and public scrutiny, and how they persevered through personal and professional setbacks.

• Leisha Haley [32:33]: "I rely on myself and focus on what I can control, creating my own opportunities."
• Kate Moennig [33:24]: "Having blind faith that things happen for a reason has sustained me through difficult times."

Their resilience is a testament to their dedication and the strength of their friendship, allowing them to navigate the unpredictable landscape of show business.

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5. Rebooting The L Word: Generation Q

In 2019, The L Word was revived as The L Word: Generation Q, with both Leisha and Kate reprising their roles and taking on executive producer responsibilities. They discuss their aspirations for the reboot and the realities that followed.

• Leisha Haley [54:06]: "We had high hopes to correct and expand on the original representation."
• Kate Moennig [55:16]: "While we aimed to have more say, the reboot didn't fully meet our expectations."

Despite their efforts, the reboot faced criticism for inconsistent representation and missed opportunities to deepen character narratives, leading to their disappointment.

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6. Launching the 'Pants' Podcast

Amidst the challenges with the reboot, Leisha and Kate launched their own podcast, Pants, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The podcast serves as a platform to explore various topics, blending their personal insights with professional experiences.

• Leisha Haley [59:42]: "The name 'Pants' comes from a nickname Mia gave us, symbolizing our inseparable friendship."
• Kate Moennig [60:19]: "The word makes me laugh every time I hear it; it was the perfect, simple answer."

The podcast has become a cherished space for them to reconnect and engage with their audience on a more intimate level.

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7. Co-Writing so Gay for Your Friendship

Expanding their collaborative efforts, Leisha and Kate co-authored a dual memoir titled so Gay for Your Friendship. The book offers an honest portrayal of their decades-long friendship, intertwining personal anecdotes with reflections on their careers and identities.

• Leisha Haley [63:49]: "We mapped out thematic chapters and wrote separately to provide unique perspectives on shared experiences."
• Kate Moennig [66:05]: "Writing the memoir made us more vulnerable, but it's a beautiful portrait of who we are."

The memoir emphasizes the importance of communication and consistency in maintaining a strong, enduring friendship.

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8. Future Endeavors and Upcoming Tour

Looking ahead, Leisha and Kate are preparing for a book tour to celebrate so Gay for Your Friendship. They express excitement about sharing their story and connecting with fans in person.

• Leisha Haley [69:52]: "We're excited to share the book with everyone and finally celebrate together."
• Kate Moennig [70:29]: "June 2025 feels monumental now; we're ready to stand up and use our voices."

Their tour promises to be a significant milestone, celebrating their journey and the legacy of The L Word.

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Conclusion

Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig's conversation on Design Matters offers a profound look into their personal and professional lives. Their shared experiences highlight the power of friendship, resilience, and the ongoing quest for authentic representation in media. As they continue to evolve their creative projects, their story remains an inspiring testament to enduring bonds and creative spirit.

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Notable Quotes:

• Leisha Haley [08:09]: "There's a certain fearlessness to it that I just love."
• Kate Moennig [27:24]: "I was playing Anna Karenina, but I knew I wasn't right for the part."
• Leisha Haley [55:27]: "We had really high hopes, but the network missed something essential."
• Kate Moennig [68:02]: "Consistency in friendship is invaluable."

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Additional Resources:

• Podcast: The Pants Podcast
• Book: so Gay for Your Friendship
• Book Tour: Scheduled for June 2025

For more insights and detailed discussions, listeners are encouraged to tune into the full episode of Design Matters with Debbie Millman.

Transcript

[Debbie Millman]

Hi TED Podcast listeners.

[Elise Hu]

It's Elise Hu here from TED Talks Daily.

[Unknown]

Thanks for making our podcast part of your routine.

[Debbie Millman]

We really appreciate it and we want to make your favorite TED podcasts even better. We put together a quick survey and.

[Elise Hu]

We'D love to hear from you.

[Debbie Millman]

It only takes a few minutes, but.

[Elise Hu]

It helps us shape our shows and get to know you, our listeners, way better. Head to the episode description to find the link. Thank you again for listening and for taking the time to help our shows. It was just, it was like watching like a moving yearbook of high school and all of your awkward moments on television. And we both, we maybe we got through two episodes and we're like, turn it off. Turn it off. I can't do it anymore. Stop. Stop. From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.

[Leisha Haley]

On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some.

[Elise Hu]

Of the most creative people in the world about what they how they got.

[Leisha Haley]

To be, who they are and what.

[Elise Hu]

They'Re thinking about and working on. On this episode, Catherine Minig and Leisha Haley of the L Word talk about their long friendship and how they've persevered.

[Leisha Haley]

In the business of show business. I mean, that's the crux of how you survive in this business. Or not. I mean, we still battle IT.

[Elise Hu]

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[Kate Menig]

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[Debbie Millman]

Huh?

[Kate Menig]

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[Kate Menig]

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[Debbie Millman]

Shane and Alice Alice and Shane if you watched the L Word back in the day, you know which characters I'm talking about. Shane McCutcheon and Alice Piazzeki. Best friends, edgy haircuts, both funny and even funnier when together they became legendary lesbian icons and their chemistry was on display again in the recent reboot, the L Word. Generation Q In real life, Kate Minig Shane and Leisha Haley are real life best friends. They met at an audition for the same role on the L word more than 20 years ago and their friendship has flourished through their careers in music, television and films. During the pandemic, they started a podcast which survived the pandemic and is still going strong. Now they've co written a book so gay for your friendship, found family and the show that started it all. Kate Menig and Leisha Haley, welcome to Design Matters.

[Elise Hu]

Oh goodness. Thank you so much for having us today, Debbie.

[Leisha Haley]

We are so excited to be here.

[Debbie Millman]

I am beyond thrilled. I'm beaming. Leisha, I want to start with you. In junior high school, you won best years.

[Leisha Haley]

You went right for the throat. You know me well, my best ears, aren't they?

[Debbie Millman]

Everyone's right. In in junior high school, you won best Design in an All American Soapbox derby competition. And you won not because you were the fastest, but because you cared about the paint job. What made you so focused on how the soapbox actually looked?

[Leisha Haley]

I am so excited you asked me this question. I've been waiting for someone to ask me this question. So I was in soapbox derby for four years. I raced in both the junior division and senior division, which have very different cars and different layouts. And you race them different. You sit in them very differently. I built them every summer with my dad and had this obsession with what it looked like. And when I looked around, I was the only girl racing. And all the boys sort of slapped their local sponsors on the side very haphazardly and, you know, but their cars were fast. And I just really thought I needed to make an impact on the racetrack and on the hill, really, because you just roll down the hill. I found like a local car painting place and designed it with my father and we went and got the fiberglass professionally painted to my design. I was obsessed with Ms. Pac Man. And then later the car was shaped like to me it looked like a high top sneaker. So I decided to paint it as a Nike high top and ended up getting a letter all the way to the president of Nike because I thought I could be sponsored by a major corporation. I guess at 12 years old. Yeah, I don't know. I just. I was aesthetically drawn to the way the car looked. I just thought that was very important.

[Debbie Millman]

My favorite part of the story is actually that you wrote to the president of Nike and he responded, I believe. Yes. And they let you use the Nike logo on your soapbox.

[Leisha Haley]

Yes. So I made a little model, like a, you know, about a 10 inch model of the design I was thinking about. And I guess it made it all the way to him. And he put it in his office and wrote me a very sweet letter back and sent me a bunch of Nike swag. I got no money from them, but that was fine because, like, it was the biggest moment of my life at the time because they said I could paint it like the sneaker.

[Elise Hu]

This is so on brand for you.

[Leisha Haley]

I know.

[Debbie Millman]

There's a certain fearlessness to it that I just love. Kate, you've been immortalized in fan tattoos. I've seen some really interesting ones online.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, they're creative, aren't they?

[Debbie Millman]

Oh, my God, they're good Halloween costumes. You've inspired characters in fan fiction. You've been name dropped in songs. And you even had a bar in Berlin named for you.

[Elise Hu]

No.

[Leisha Haley]

Wow. Okay.

[Debbie Millman]

There's a bar in Berlin called Chains.

[Elise Hu]

Oh.

[Debbie Millman]

Do you happen to remember the sort of moment you realized that the L word had transcended television?

[Elise Hu]

That's a hard one to answer because so much was happening in my life when that show was taking hold of pop culture. I suppose. One thing I noticed, a friend of mine used to work at Showtime and she was in charge of all of the behind the scenes content that networks used to do for promotions of new seasons. She was really creative. She would always find creative ways of doing interviews. And I guess the network had asked her to compile some sort of mini documentary about how the show has impacted the community. And so she had gone around and done a bunch of on the street interviews with people. And then they made that into like a five minute thing on maybe a DVD thing or something. And she showed it to me. And one of the questions was, who are, what characters are you, Are you gravitating towards? And you had your bets and your Tinas and they named all of them. And then I thought, oh, okay, well maybe you know, Shane like hit a little pocket of people. But it turned out that like Shane had her own category and that's where like she refocused to like haircuts and ties and studded belts or whatever odd thing I wore back then. And I think it was from that moment I thought, oh, maybe she is making a bit of a difference.

[Debbie Millman]

I'm having a moment where I'm forgetting she's very Shane today. I believe that was the phrase or one of the phrases. I think that was, she's Shane today.

[Leisha Haley]

You're looking very Shane today.

[Elise Hu]

That's what it was. You're looking very shame today. Yes. That was, I think from an underwear ad.

[Debbie Millman]

I don't think that there could be a bigger compliment.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, it was just. And to think that little like storyline turned into some sort of iconic phrase. I know. And you're still saying it in 2020. Absolutely.

[Debbie Millman]

20 years later. More than 20 years later. So I wanna go back in time a little bit. Lisha, you wrote in your new book that on the outside the Haleys, your family who hailed from Bellevue, Nebraska, looked like your typical 70s Midwest family. Your dad Robert was a navigator at the neighboring Air Force base. Your mom Jane was a nurse. And you state that both you and your older sister Kedra looked like poster children for the 4H club. How were you not a typical 70s Midwestern family?

[Leisha Haley]

Well, my parents were massive liberals. My dad was an A or is an atheist. They were the house that everybody stopped over to Feel better. It was an open door policy. My mom, because she was a nurse at one point in her career, was a school nurse. Had a sort of an outreach to students that were maybe looking for guidance or maybe they were troubled. My dad was a guitar playing chess player. He was very quiet and sweet. And what ended up happening, that I didn't really realize at the time. But they were sort of a home to most of the gay people in Bellevue because it was a small town. So my mother's best friend Maureen, who's basically my aunt, and my parents best friends Jay and Tim. Jay was the local drama teacher who I ended up doing a lot of musicals with. Those two are like my uncles. They're still my family. And I grew up watching them have these relationships inside my home and very comfortably. Maureen would have rotating girlfriends and they would, you know, always be around. I'd go stay at their house. They'd take me to like baseball games or soccer games. And it was just a loving, warm environment and safe really. I look at it like my parents had this safety for our community. And I didn't know it at the time because it just was normal. And so when I. When I was growing up later and I started to understand, I watched these people hide in the community and that's when the mixed messaging started to happen for me personally and I was confused.

[Debbie Millman]

There was a part in the book that really broke my heart about how Aunt Maureen had an extra bedroom in her house.

[Leisha Haley]

Yes.

[Debbie Millman]

So people would think that there was.

[Leisha Haley]

That they were roommates.

[Debbie Millman]

Separation.

[Leisha Haley]

Yes. Some separation.

[Debbie Millman]

Reminds me of if these Walls Could Talk, the first episode, which is also just incredibly heartbreaking. You mentioned musicals. I believe that one of your first lead roles was in a high school production of Oliver and you played Oliver.

[Leisha Haley]

I did. It was, I think to this day probably the best part I've ever played. I really locked into that role. Yeah. They were looking for a kid that was young enough to play Oliver. And I had already been in a high school musical playing Gretel. So this was also. This was Jay, the man I was just speaking about. And I ended up getting that part. So I was able to be around all these high school kids.

[Debbie Millman]

And was it Oliver the play or Oliver the Musical?

[Leisha Haley]

The musical, definitely.

[Debbie Millman]

So you got to do the songs.

[Leisha Haley]

Oh, this is. Yeah, this was my breakout. This was where it all started.

[Debbie Millman]

Aside from Cinderella, Oliver on television was the first musical I'd ever seen. So it's very dear to me.

[Leisha Haley]

Yes, it's a good musical.

[Debbie Millman]

You describe yourself in the book as A tomboy who felt you could do anything. How long did that feeling last?

[Leisha Haley]

Until I was about 13. Just when my body started changing and peer pressure started to kick in, and I lost that sight of me, or I didn't think I could have it anymore, and I had to sort of mold into what all the other girls were doing. Also a very confusing time in my life. I'm sure a lot of people can identify with this moment, but, yeah, it was. I felt like I couldn't play anymore or be creative or really be myself. I had to conform.

[Debbie Millman]

When did you stop feeling like you had to conform?

[Leisha Haley]

Debbie's going deep today. When I moved out of Nebraska and I moved to New York City, that's where I really started to find myself and all the things I loved about myself because I'd lost them. And I was embraced by, like, the drag queen community. And I found music, and I started a band, and I went to acting school. And it was just. I was able to be an artist and a freak and play around with my image and my sexuality, and it was just so freeing to move there. It was the perfect place to move in 1989.

[Debbie Millman]

Kate, you write that you always looked at your childhood as an inconvenience. I want to know so much about that.

[Elise Hu]

I just. I just wanted to be independent. I've always had an independent streak, and I just wanted to make my own rules and control my destiny. And I had an issue with authority, and I just. Being a kid didn't fit with me. I wanted to grow up fast.

[Debbie Millman]

How did your parents respond to the speed in which you wanted to be independent?

[Elise Hu]

Well, I don't think they had much of a choice. I grew up in Philly, like, right in the heart of the city. And so you kind of go off and do your own thing. It's not that I need my parents to drive me to a friend's house. I just would take the bus or I'd walk. And so it just. I kind of went by the beat of my own drum just naturally, because I could get around to wherever I wanted to go on my own.

[Debbie Millman]

And they were all cool with that. That was still of the time where it was okay to be by yourself outside.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I did get mugged a few times. I won't. L. Of course. Yeah. It's. Yeah. Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

Oh, Kate. I'm a native New Yorker. I've lived in New York my entire life, six decades plus, and I've never been mugged.

[Elise Hu]

Really?

[Debbie Millman]

Oh, you've been burgled. Burgled once.

[Elise Hu]

Burgled once. Oh, yeah. I've been mugged with a friend of mine. We got mugged twice on separate occasions.

[Debbie Millman]

In Manhattan?

[Elise Hu]

No, in Philly when I was a kid.

[Leisha Haley]

Wow.

[Elise Hu]

Grow up in a city in the 80s or 90s, what are you going to do? Like, it happens, and then you brush it off and you just keep walking down the street. So my parents, I suppose they were okay with it. I think they liked that I was independent. I think my father kind of got a kick out of it.

[Debbie Millman]

Your father was a legendary violin maker. Isaac Stern and Itzcock Perlman were loyal customers. As you were growing up, did you understand the artistic significance of what he did for a living?

[Elise Hu]

No, it was just what my dad did. Friends would say, what does your dad do? And I'd say, he's a violin maker. And they wouldn't really understand what that meant. And I don't think I understood the significance. It was just what my family did. I grew up around it. And I don't think when you were a kid and you're around something, you appreciate it until it's gone. And now that it's gone, I can certainly look back and think, that's certainly a unique profession. And also the technique involved is just mind blowing. And people spend years and years and years traveling all over the world to perfect it, and it was just another day in the life for me.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah, it's a real, real craft, and there are so few people that are masters at it.

[Elise Hu]

It's a dying art form is what it is. Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

I understand you took ballet and had a leotard with a Superman logo on the front.

[Elise Hu]

Sure did. If your mother's a dancer, she wants to put you in dance class.

[Debbie Millman]

How'd you get the Superman logo on it?

[Elise Hu]

Just being a huge Superman fan as a kid, that was. I think Superman was my first big, big hero. And so anything I had, it had to have the Superman logo. And I believe that was probably a compromise. So ballet class for a Superman leotard? I don't know where it came about. I don't know how she found it, but I had it. And I wore it proudly for the minimal classes. I could survive in ballet school.

[Debbie Millman]

Would you also have considered yourself a tomboy at that point?

[Elise Hu]

Oh, I was a tomboy from jump.

[Debbie Millman]

You both were drawn to the performing arts when you were kids. When did you each think you wanted to pursue acting professionally more seriously?

[Leisha Haley]

I dreamt about it in high school and knew that not only did I want it leave Nebraska, but I wanted to move somewhere where I could make that happen. And I just started to look. I knew I wouldn't get into university. My grades weren't good enough. So I started looking at specific acting schools. And that's when I found the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and basically set my life on a course that was going to get me there no matter what I paid.

[Elise Hu]

The kind of dawned on me at a young age. I. I just watched movies my entire childhood, and my dad would show me things. Like, I think I said in the book, the first film I saw when I was five was Alien.

[Debbie Millman]

Yes.

[Elise Hu]

Because that just seemed to make sense in his brain. And he was like, it's a great film. It's a piece of art we should watch. Always fascinated me. And I thought, that looks like fun to do. And I believe at one point my father's like, oh, that's what your aunt does. I said, oh, okay. I didn't think of it. And then, like, Leisha, I also didn't have the grades to get into a university, and I didn't want to go to one because my school was a college prep school, and I. And I was flailing there. So when it was time to figure out where to go after high school, my mom's like, why don't you try a conservatory and do something you want to do? You've done your time with what was required. And that's how Leisha and I wound up at the same school, but at different. Like maybe five years apart.

[Debbie Millman]

You mentioned your aunt. I'm wondering if you can share this story about thinking that someone you were watching in a movie looked like your aunt.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, freshman year, I was in guidance class, and Ms. Gallagher wheels in the TV cart to watch something. And you're like, yes, this is a good day. And she said, all right, we're gonna watch this movie. She says the name, it doesn't ring a bell. And she puts it on, turns off the lights. And I'm sitting there and I'm watch this film, and I'm looking at the woman who's playing the wife of the lead actor, who was played by Robert Duvall. And the whole time I'm like, she looks familiar. It's like, why do I know that face? And then at certain angles, I'd think to myself, she kind of looks like my dad, but I don't know why that is. And I just sat there sort of flummox for like, the hour, just not getting it. And then later that night at the dinner table, my. My dad said, how. How was Your day. And I said, it was great. We watched this movie, but this woman looks so familiar to me. And I. It just. I just sort of took me out of it, and I just. I don't. But I feel like I've seen the movie before. I don't know. Something familiar about it. And he said, what was it called? And I remember trying to think of the name because the name wasn't sticking to me. And it finally landed, and I said, it's a movie called the Great Santini. And that's when my dad just looked at me and he goes, that's your Aunt Blythe. He just was like, what is your problem?

[Debbie Millman]

But there's so many angles to that story that I love. I love the fact that you didn't know that it was her. But I also love the fact that apparently, or clearly, she wasn't walking around all highfalutin, despite the fact that she was one of the great, great actresses of her generation and that you didn't know. I think that's such a wonderful sort of appraisal of her in a lot of ways.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah. To me, she was just my Auntie Bee, who, you know, held my head when I was little from getting car sick and go on car rides and would bring me backstage on her plays and just be always so warp. She was just my aunt. I never looked at her as an actor. She was my dad's sister, who he adored, by the way.

[Debbie Millman]

She seems like she should be. I saw her once in a restaurant from afar, and I caught her glance. And I don't know if it was the lighting. I have no idea because I've never seen her since. But she had the most spectacular blue eyes I had ever seen. And this was from across a restaurant?

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, they're straight. Her blue eyes are absolutely striking. Yes, yes.

[Debbie Millman]

Oh, good. I'm glad that memory is an accurate one. So you both attended the Academy of Dramatic Arts, as you mentioned, in different years. And Lisha, you described your transformation at school as one right out of a movie montage. You cut your hair off, you put on oversized Levi's. You were feeling yourself. You also discovered, as you mentioned, the drag scene in New York City and found the original cubbyhole, the cubby hole. How did these discoveries begin to reshape your sense of self?

[Leisha Haley]

You know, I talk to my friend Heather a lot about this moment because she. I met her, my first bandmate, first bandmate, best friend for a million years. And she talks about the day I came in with my short haircut and how everybody in school was like. Because I literally cut it into a short pixie and I had very long hair. When I got to school, was it.

[Debbie Millman]

An alternative haircut or just a pixie cut?

[Leisha Haley]

Yes. I found a Gap ad. She had just a short. It wasn't edgy. It was just like more like a pixie, like, get rid of it kind of thing.

[Elise Hu]

I remember that ad.

[Leisha Haley]

You do?

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Leisha Haley]

She had short brown hair.

[Elise Hu]

I was going to say she had short brown, dark hair.

[Debbie Millman]

Oh, like Jenny. Jenny in season one.

[Leisha Haley]

Very much like.

[Elise Hu]

Hers was more spiky, I think.

[Leisha Haley]

No, no, no. It was more like Jenny. Yes. This was. This was the moment I locked into who I thought I wanted to be. And it was a very private feeling, although I was doing everything on the outside with the hair and the big jeans and the combat boots and trying to be edgy and sort of wink to my community. Like, I'm here. I'm with you. Like, I'm one of you on the inside. I didn't tell anybody about this. I'd say goodbye to my friends at school and I'd grab my backpack and go walk down to the cubby hole and sneak in with my sister's ID and sit at the bar and just take it all in and have an Amstel light or whatever I was Rolling Rock or whatever I was drinking at the time and sit there for hours and just observe. I guess it was just my own moment. It's kind of like what Kate talks about in coming out, how she took her time and it was a personal journey. I guess I would call that my personal journey, because once I came out, it felt very. A part of everybody. Like I was. I belonged to the community. I was involved in it. And it's like I was off to the races. But this moment, this year, probably that I had where I just go by myself and didn't tell anybody, was just a sort of private discovery.

[Debbie Millman]

Kate, you had a very different experience at school. You wrote that your childhood was a bit of an inconvenience. I got the sense that. So was school.

[Elise Hu]

A little bit. A little bit?

[Debbie Millman]

In what way? Give us some details.

[Elise Hu]

For the first time, when I. When I got to the academy, I was so. I was. Once I got the initial, I just moved to New York and I got all of that excitement out of my system and the proper school year started. I was really excited to finally be enrolled in a program that I was curious about. So I loved that. And I loved being a theater nerd. I loved reading the plays, and I I loved sitting in Samuel French, just finding random plays by playwrights I had never heard of, and just reading their work. I. I loved all of that. But my. The school itself sometimes drove me nuts because I didn't understand the casting choices.

[Debbie Millman]

In what way?

[Elise Hu]

Well, I was cast as Anna Karenina, and I read the book to prep it. I actually read the entire book, which is a big mother of a book. And it was a great book. And I thought, I'm not right for this part, but I can't exactly go to the dean of students and say that. And I understand it's there to, like, stretch your muscle and do your thing, but even then, I was playing casting director. I was like, I would never be cast as this.

[Debbie Millman]

I don't know. When you wrote about that, I was thinking, well, maybe. Maybe the casting director was trying to break out of some sort of existing trope about who or how Anna Karenida should be played.

[Elise Hu]

Possibly. But no, because it was a very. It was a very, like. It was a very by the book, classical approach to the work and to the. There was nothing out of the box about that production.

[Debbie Millman]

What did you each envision as actors for your future? What were you aspiring to be or hoping to achieve?

[Leisha Haley]

I honestly never had a goal in mind, minus Broadway. Like, that just seemed like the big win for me to get on stage. But once I was in school, I lost that a little bit because there's sort of a commercial push, you know, like, oh, when you leave, we're gonna. You gotta go get your headshots and you gotta go find an agent. This was just like a foreign language to me. I really was interested in learning how to act and to sort of get rid of all the things I had learned growing up. And I really liked the craft part of it, like, the. Which is similar to what I like today. I hate the. I hate trying to get the job, but I love having it and I love going to work and playing.

[Elise Hu]

I thought I just. Because film was so important to me growing up, I thought, I want to play roles. I grew up watching. I thought, like, Sigourney Weaver was one of my, you know, people that I just, you know, idolized. And I just. And so I. When I thought about it as a kid, I thought, oh, I would love to play someone like Ripley. I'd love to play someone like Cool Hand Luke. Like, why can't there be a female version of that? I was always drawn to the strong female characters and also to the male characters, like someone like Lucas Jackson from Cool Hand Luke. Because I would watch the female roles, and I'd be like, oh, you're just in the kitchen. I don't want. I wouldn't want to do that. I want to be active.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah, you want to be in a film that passes the Bechdel test.

[Elise Hu]

Right, Right.

[Debbie Millman]

You have said that you learned more from a summer apprenticeship at the Williamstown Theater Festival than anywhere else. What does one do during a theater apprenticeship?

[Elise Hu]

Everything and anything. That's what's great about it. They just. It's. You just enter the lion's den of the theater, and you just. They're like, okay, you're an apprentice. You're available at any time to do absolutely anything. And you would work in different departments. So to think about what, you know, how does a play take shape? Like, what are all the departments, whether it's lighting or costumes or set design, box office. I mean, all of the little departments. Being an apprentice would be basically assisting each and every one of those departments at any given time for what they.

[Debbie Millman]

That job led to you being considered for the lead in the film Boys Don't Cry, and that's huge. I mean, to go from an apprenticeship to a potential starring role, the foundation of a film. What was that experience like for you?

[Elise Hu]

It was certainly a jump, but, yeah, it was. The experience was really quick, and I was very naive, and I didn't understand how anything worked, any sort of politics or process. So I was. I feel like I was just going along for the ride. I was very flattered that my friend Matt even said my name to the people running that film. And I was just all about, yes, sure, I'll be there. What time? Yes, absolutely, I'm interested. And I just. I kind of faked it. Like, I just. Because that's all I knew how to do because I hadn't had any experience.

[Debbie Millman]

As I was reading your book and envisioning the various ways in which you navigated to your success, I couldn't help but wonder what sustains you through the process? And you both became very successful at a fairly young age, but you also had numerous obstacles and rejections and so forth. How do you have the resilience to manage through those obstacles and those rejections? How do you hold on to hope?

[Leisha Haley]

I mean, that's the crux of the. How you survive in this business or not. I mean, we still battle it today. I mean, we obviously have each other to call and say, commiserate. Oh, this happened. And, I mean, I just lost a role two weeks ago, and I had to talk to Kate about It. It was for a gay role. I got very close. I was in the mix, as they say, and I lost it to a straight, Trump loving, married woman with. I was like, how? I'm not. I wasn't even gay enough to play gay. Like, there are just times you're like, you don't understand why things happen.

[Elise Hu]

It's hard, though. It's like, that's the million dollar question. How do you sustain hope in something that's so inconsistent and sometimes it rolls off your back easier and then there's other times where there's something that you think you're just so close to touching and then it gets out of your grasp and it's soul crushing. Leisha had that recently. I had it earlier this year. And it's. The way I see it is that I have to have some level of blind faith, even if there's no basis to have that I need it. Cause it's what sustained me up until now, which is everything not only happens for a reason, but it's happened before, it'll happen again. And I just can't predict when that is. So I just have to sort of relax into it and trust that I actually. It's gonna take care of me in some way or another.

[Leisha Haley]

I'm opposite. I'm opposite. I. Well, no, I rely not on. I rely on myself and go into what can I control and what do I love to do? What can I create on my own? How can I have ownership in something and not rely on someone else telling me whether I can do something or not? Those are the times I've been the happiest in my life. Because you're not waiting. It's a thing that can really depress you if you just wait around for someone else to say, you're good enough for this, or we like you for these reasons, we don't like you. You know, it's. It's like I go into my creativity basically, and that's where I can just get through the day in a much happier and fulfilling way. I mean, it's. It's very much like why Kate and I have been doing so many things together over the last five years is because we did need ownership finally over things we love to do. And we just. We basically created a lot of businesses together because of that.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah, that was one of the main reasons I started the podcast when I did 20 years ago. I was just so sick of being rejected or not being good enough and felt like my creative spirit was just being extinguished day by day. And it was a bit of a Hail Mary to my creativity at the time.

[Leisha Haley]

Yeah. So you understand.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, yeah. After getting beaten down, down enough and realizing what you don't want to do, I think Leisha and I were just like, let's take some ownership of something for once instead of being told what to do. And it led into the podcast, it's led into other things, and it certainly led into this book. And there's like a level of autonomy that feels very satisfying and peaceful.

[Leisha Haley]

Like, peaceful. Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

Like we're just around the people that we want to be around. And that's so incredibly important to create and to conjure up ideas and.

[Leisha Haley]

Right. And it helps those moments, like casting moments where we're still in the same, you know, muckety muck, that we're like, yeah.

[Elise Hu]

Because we'll still get calls like, hey, we're going to send you some sides. Did you put yourself on tape?

[Leisha Haley]

And you're like, but it makes the hits hurt less. You know, it makes the hits hurt less.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Leisha Haley]

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[Debbie Millman]

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[Leisha Haley]

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[Debbie Millman]

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[Leisha Haley]

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[Elise Hu]

Wait, did I say job title yet?

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[Debbie Millman]

Leisha, I want to talk a little bit about your music as well.

[Leisha Haley]

Sure.

[Debbie Millman]

Rather than pursuing acting full time after school, you actually started a band with Heather Grody, who you mentioned earlier, the band the Murmurs. And after a bidding war, you signed with mca. I love this. Mostly because they'd signed Madonna a decade before.

[Leisha Haley]

Yes.

[Debbie Millman]

Going back and forth between music and acting has been one of the through lines in your career. What made you decide to pursue music before acting at that time?

[Leisha Haley]

Again, I think I just, I'm a girl who follows her heart and I don't know if it's necessarily landed me in the best places or I guess career, I don't know, improving places. I love being in a band. I love writing music. I used to love touring. I don't know if I love it so much anymore, but there was, I.

[Debbie Millman]

Was gonna say you're going on a pretty big book tour.

[Leisha Haley]

I know. I keep telling Kate, I'm like, get ready. No, I just love again, I love the freedom. And I've never really been a career. Like I kind of just go with what I'm feeling in the moment. And music was one of those things that took me on a completely different course.

[Debbie Millman]

After several world tours, four acclaimed albums, you found yourself at a barbecue being told about a television pilot titled Earthlings. Kate, while Leisha was touring with her band, you were modeling, you were building your acting career. You were cast in the WB show Young Americans. You were in several notable episodes in the Law and Order franchise. And then you were sent the same script for Earthlings. So you were both sent the same script for the same part on the same show.

[Leisha Haley]

Yes, that's right. And actually we weren't sent the script just the sides.

[Elise Hu]

I was sent the script.

[Leisha Haley]

Oh, I wasn't, I wasn't that important.

[Elise Hu]

I got the script.

[Debbie Millman]

You actually came face to face. You. You were face to face during the audition process as you were competing for the same role.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

What was your first impression of Each other.

[Elise Hu]

I said, that's the yogurt girl, right?

[Debbie Millman]

Alice was in a commercial.

[Leisha Haley]

Yeah, Or Leisha.

[Elise Hu]

Really? There she is, the queen of probiotics. That's her. And I was like, oh, that's what she looks like in person. Because she. The commercial was on all the time. Leash. It was just. I mean, every show, it's like, you couldn't. It was. You couldn't get away from it. It was always there. So you must have done pretty well financially for a minute. So that was my.

[Debbie Millman]

She also had a prop, right?

[Elise Hu]

And she had a prop. And I thought, oh, so that's the only other person testing. Because I'd told. There's only one other girl gonna be testing for this part.

[Debbie Millman]

Tell us the prop, Leisha.

[Leisha Haley]

Well, I, you know, watched Happy Days growing up, and the Fonz was the thing that I thought had that swagger that maybe I could bring to the. To. To a female. And. And I was like, I'm gonna have a comb, just like the Fonz had. And I thought, oh, she's a hairdresser. I. You know, and I used it in. In the two auditions before this moment where we were both testing, which is the last phase of getting a part. And so I had had this thing with me the whole time, but when Kate sat down next to me and I saw this incredibly beautiful woman with these big red lips and rocker hair, all in black, and I was like, well, it's never gonna happen. But my prop, it was a good idea. And maybe if I don't get it, I could tell her she can have it.

[Debbie Millman]

Kate, you won the role of Shane McCutcheon.

[Elise Hu]

I did, but I didn't think so. I didn't think I got it. I actually thought I lost it. I really didn't believe that I had a chance. I thought I simplified it too much when I saw the prop that she had in her back pocket.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah. That psyched you out.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, a little bit.

[Debbie Millman]

But Leisha Eileen Chaikin, the creator of the L Word, which, thankfully, the name from Earthlings was changed to the L Word, created the role of Alice Piazzicki for you because she wanted you in the show so badly.

[Leisha Haley]

That's what we heard. Later she told us that story, which kind of blew both of our minds, but. But I thought it must have been in the script. And again, I didn't have the script. So I guess once they gave Kate the role, they were still interested in me in some sort of capacity. And I don't know if they rewrote one or wrote one. I don't know how this part came about, but I, all of a sudden, a week, something later, was getting faxed these new sides for this new character, Alice, and that actually, when I read them, I was like, oh, this. This is it. Like, I got. I. This feels right. Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

The two roles couldn't be more different. Kate Shane was initially described as a womanizing, serial monogamist.

[Elise Hu]

That's right. Yes, she was.

[Debbie Millman]

I don't even know what that means.

[Elise Hu]

Thank you. Neither do I. You're the only other person who's agreed with me so far outwardly about that.

[Debbie Millman]

No, Roxanne didn't either. I'm like, what's a womanizing serial monogamy?

[Elise Hu]

It's confounding, isn't it? It's confounding, right?

[Debbie Millman]

It's sort of absolutely bewildering.

[Elise Hu]

Yes.

[Debbie Millman]

So how did you know how to first inhabit that character?

[Elise Hu]

Well, after I overanalyzed just that one little description to death, I just thought, I don't even know how on earth I would play that. So I'll just play the scene. I think my biggest concern was that she would be really corny. Because you see. Yeah. Because you see that the way she was described. And maybe it was the. Cause I had gotten the script. So maybe it's what I had read in the script. Or maybe it was in the. In the dummy sides we were given. Because the sides we were given were never a part of the. Of the actual show. There was something about her because she's this, you know, womanizing, very confident Lothario. And I thought that could kind of veer on cheesy. And I think maybe my brain was going towards 80s movies stereotypes of, like, the smarmy cool guy. And I thought, okay, well, I'm gonna. I need to steer away from that. Cause I don't know how to do it, and I'll gross myself out if I try. So I'll just underplay everything and make them come to me and have them lean in as opposed to me leaning forward. And that's how I approached it, and I guess it worked.

[Debbie Millman]

And you made the girls cry.

[Elise Hu]

I guess I made some girls cry, apparently off camera. But, yeah, I made the girls cry.

[Debbie Millman]

Leisha, you were the only out cast member when first aired, and I found that somewhat ironic given that you were playing somebody bisexual. But I believe you were initially outed when you were in the murmurs by a journalist. Am I getting that right?

[Leisha Haley]

Yeah. Ricky Rackman on. Oh, God, what channel was he at? It was something in la.

[Elise Hu]

Radio show.

[Leisha Haley]

It was a radio show and Heather and I were on it. And it was a quick moment. We just didn't expect it. And he's like, you like guys or girls? And we're like. And he's like, you like girls, right? You guys have both like girls you like. It was like very sexist and strange and we were. I don't even remember how he reacted, but I know that the record company lost their minds and freaked out because all of a sudden it was back then, which would have been mid-90s, you know, maybe 90 or early. Maybe like 94, 93. It was unheard of. It was like ruining for people. And I gotta tell you, it did it automatically right away. Got. We got boxed in. And all of a sudden we were like the gay band. The gay band, the two. You know, and it's. It just where we were opening for big bands like Bush or, you know, we were very like alternative radio at the time that started to change. You could feel like the guys that would. That used to be into us were all of a sudden turning on us. I don't know. It was pretty wild.

[Debbie Millman]

Kate, you said that you only realized you were queer while filming the L Word. What did it feel like to discover that the character you were portraying was also helping you become yourself?

[Elise Hu]

Well, I wouldn't say I necessarily discovered it when I was doing the show. I think it solidified it more importantly. And it felt like a wild twist of fate.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

And it felt incredibly safe because I had a support system and I wasn't just trying to figure it out on my own in New York City. Yeah. It felt it was a very fortunate environment to have that solidifying that discovery in yourself.

[Debbie Millman]

I understand you both had to take a four hour lesbian sex class on set to prepare for the show. What was that like and what kinds of things were you taught?

[Elise Hu]

Leisha remembers it better than I do. I know that it was held at our hotel in a conference room and they had a sex expert and we all sat on the other side of this very, very long table and she had brought all of her props in some very large briefcase and I think she had a dry board up and she was pointing to things. And then I think Rose, there was.

[Leisha Haley]

Sex toys, was like splayed all across the.

[Elise Hu]

Across the table that we could like, you know, it was like the Please Touch Museum. You know, you could touch things and be like, oh, okay, what's this do?

[Leisha Haley]

And things. Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

And then I believe Rose Troche had compiled a. A montage of all of the best lesbian sex scenes. Lesbian sex scenes from cinema. Cinema's history. And use that as, like, hey, I just want you guys to put this in your brain just to understand in case you don't. Because this was the show really sort of was the first of its kind. And the majority of the cast was straight. I don't remember specifics outside of that entire day. Intensive seminar.

[Leisha Haley]

Well, it was a lot of, like you said, holding props and sex toys. And how does this work? And where do you put this? And how does this attach to that? And how many fingers go in this? And what are the. What's the proper way to point your finger? And do you know, what does a girl look like when she does this? And who sits what? Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

What's the best position? Is there a good position? Like, is there a better position? Like, what's this? And then maybe Rose would chime in and say, well, for camera, maybe it's best if we do this. It was.

[Leisha Haley]

And then a lot of people would look my way and I'd be like, sure, Here's a comb.

[Debbie Millman]

Here's a comb.

[Leisha Haley]

Let me show you what you can do with a comb.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

The L word launched on January 18, 2004, to critical acclaim. Instant popularity. And Allison Glock wrote this about the show in the New York Times. Before the L Word, female gay characters barely existed on television. Interested viewers had a search and second guess, playing parlor games to suss out a character's sexuality. Cagney and Lacey Jo on facts of life. Xena and Gabrielle. Showtime's decision in January 2004 to air the L Word, which follows the lives of a group of fashionable Los Angeles gays, was akin to ending a drought with a monsoon. Women who had rarely seen themselves on the small screen were suddenly able to watch gay characters not only living complex, exciting lives, but also making love in restaurant bathrooms and in swimming pools. There was no tentative audience courtship. Instead, there was sex, raw and unbridled in that my goodness way that only cable allows.

[Elise Hu]

Wow.

[Leisha Haley]

That's perfect.

[Debbie Millman]

How's that for a time capsule?

[Leisha Haley]

I love it.

[Elise Hu]

Wow.

[Leisha Haley]

Wow.

[Elise Hu]

I remember that.

[Debbie Millman]

Oh, did I? I just couldn't wait for that show to be on every Sunday. Were you surprised by the public response to the show when it first aired?

[Leisha Haley]

Surprised is an understatement. I always thought this show was gonna be this seedy, underground, like, indie show that no one saw but a few people would know about. I even thought when I went up to shoot the show, it would feel that way, like a janky little Production. So the whole experience from front to back was just jaw dropping.

[Elise Hu]

I think I felt like this could actually be pretty good, because during that first season, we had Kelly lynch and Rosanna Arquette agreeing to come on and maybe a few other people that I'm missing at the moment. But Lolita Davidovich was another one. I thought, like, this could be really good. Like, there's something outside of the box that this show is doing that no one's seen yet. But it's so hard to predict exactly what's gonna happen. I do remember people were getting kind of nervous about the reviews coming out.

[Debbie Millman]

Well, and it was more than just the sex. It was the fashion. It was the representation, the normalization and the sexiness as much as the sex.

[Elise Hu]

Yes, yes, yes, exactly.

[Debbie Millman]

And Cate Chain, we talked about this a little bit, but Shane really became an iconic archetype. Part swagger, part sensitivity, she's now one of the most revered characters in television history. And it wasn't just gay women that loved you. Straight women talked about. Shane fell in love with her. She became referred to. I love this As a gateway lesbian.

[Elise Hu]

Yep. Like bacon.

[Leisha Haley]

Yes.

[Elise Hu]

Gay bacon. Ye.

[Leisha Haley]

Bacon is my favorite cake. You've never said that.

[Debbie Millman]

Lisha, you stated that the writers started writing you. You, Leisha.

[Leisha Haley]

Yes.

[Debbie Millman]

Into Alice, the character. And this is a question for both of you. What qualities of your real selves do you think shaped your characters on television?

[Leisha Haley]

I know I'm quite a bubbly person, very optimistic. I'm pretty experimental in life. I. You know, I can speak for myself. I, like a lot of me, went into Alice, and Alice started coming into me as well. Like I was learning from her as much as maybe she was learning from me. I think it was probably a pretty even combo deal in the end.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, we all sort of morphed into our characters at a certain point. Well, like I had said, I never wanted to approach Shane as some smarmy pickup artist. So maybe I probably put my own shyness on display and use that to my advantage instead of trying to be this otherworldly thing that I don't think I could have done because it would have read so. So incorrectly and false. And then eventually they start to bleed in together.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah. I mean, there was no question even from the pilot that Jane had soul.

[Elise Hu]

Right, Right. I say shyness. I'll take soul. It sounds better, but, yeah, I'll take it. Y. Yeah, exactly. Like, those things, I think just came for me, naturally. Just making sense of it, especially during the pilot and during first season, because you're like, what am I. Am I doing this right? Is this okay? Like, we're still trying to figure this out. And, you know, Lisha and I, our roles, they were not really developed that first season. I think towards the end there, we started to get some storylines, but for at least the first half of that season, we were sort of the Greek chorus, Comic relief.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah.

[Leisha Haley]

It's odd. It's a strange experience to play a character for that many years. I found myself missing alice in those 10 years between and thinking about what she'd be doing or how she ended up. And I wanted the show to come back. I never thought in my wildest dreams it would, but it was sort of part of why we started talking about how to get it back on the air. You miss these people you play. They become a part of you.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah. The L Word ended its run in 2009, sadly. Kate, you went on to star in the Showtime hit Ray Donovan for six years.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

Leisha, you continued performing in a new band. Uh huh.

[Elise Hu]

Her.

[Debbie Millman]

Yep. In 2019, Showtime rebooted the L Word in the form of L Word Generation Q. You both reprised your roles and signed on as executive producer. But in the book, you state that in re watching parts of the original series, as you were preparing to reboot the show, you said it gave you the flu.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

Why is that?

[Elise Hu]

You're just. Well, maybe it was partially the hairstyles, the outfits. Obviously we're trying to figure out how to play these characters that I think towards the end felt more natural. But back then, the very beginning, it's like trying to start. Squeeze your foot into a shoe to see if it fits right. And it was just. It was just. It was like watching, like a moving yearbook of high school and all of your awkward moments on television. And we both, maybe we got through two episodes and we're like, turn it off, turn it off. I can't do it anymore. Stop. Stop.

[Debbie Millman]

Did you feel a responsibility in Generation Q to correct or expand some of the original tropes in the show around representation?

[Leisha Haley]

Yeah, we had a lot of very high hopes when this show got picked up. I wouldn't say we were gonna right the wrongs. I mean, it's just like we wanted to have a voice in the room this time. It felt like we could maybe do some things differently.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

Are you disappointed with the way the reboot turned out?

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Leisha Haley]

Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

I got that sense in the book, and I was really sad about it all the time.

[Elise Hu]

So were we.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah. It's interesting because I read that the X Files might be rebooted and Gillian Anderson might come back to reprise her role of Dana Scully. And I was thinking these iconic television shows that really represented a very specific moment in culture. I love when they can come back and then remake what is possible as culture evolves. And I was thinking, because it was, I think, not quite the show we would have wanted to have as both the performers and the audience speaking for both here, it would be nice to see where Alice bet, Tina and Shane ended up in another 10 years.

[Leisha Haley]

It would have been great. Oh, or you mean from now.

[Debbie Millman]

From now.

[Elise Hu]

Oh, from now. Oh, goodness.

[Leisha Haley]

So like L Word Hospice.

[Elise Hu]

L Word Hospice?

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah.

[Leisha Haley]

No, the Golden Elgood. Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

Or the L Word. Meadow Creek Assisted Living.

[Debbie Millman]

Well, you know, I mean, they're doing it with Sex and the City and just like that, it's true. But I think that the show suffers from some of the things that lward Generation Q suffered from, which was sort of force fitting in some of box checking.

[Leisha Haley]

I do think that the network missed something. And there's. When it comes to ip, people think you can lean on that and just use the words and cast it how you want or recreate it in such a way that. That the audience is smarter than that and the audience has a stake in this. Right. And we assumed when we got. We had big dreams that we were. That everyone that we all love, including ourselves, was coming back.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah. We thought even Eileen at one point said, Season 6 can be a fever dream. It never existed. Get Jenny back, Get everyone back.

[Leisha Haley]

Everybody.

[Elise Hu]

We thought it like, we, like, we even thought of Marina.

[Leisha Haley]

Sure.

[Elise Hu]

Anyone. And everyone. It's like, let's get them back if they want to in some form. So we had really, really, really high hopes. And unfortunately, the powers that be thought, oh, no. What's most important is the name, not the substance underneath it. And that's actually the wrong way to approach it. And maybe, just maybe, Gen Q would have had found a life of its own. But the moment you put that L Word title on it, there is an expectation, and that expectation, if it's not met, everyone's going to know it really quick.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah. Generation Q should have been a spinoff.

[Elise Hu]

It should have just been its own thing. It's without the L word attached. And that was a mistake.

[Debbie Millman]

Do you think it might come back again with just the four of you or more of the original cast? Or would you even want it to?

[Leisha Haley]

I say in the book, I'm always happy to slap on my suit, my Alice suit, and get going. I think this time, let Me answer it this way. We would have to have a lot more say and feel a lot safer in the situation as far as what we're getting ourselves into.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah. You can never, never say never. But I completely agree. It would have to be a very specific and very thought out situation to even entertain it.

[Leisha Haley]

But to play the characters again.

[Elise Hu]

But to play the characters again. The characters absolutely are an absolute blast to play, and they're actually a part of us at this point.

[Debbie Millman]

They're a part of all of us. They're a part of. I don't think that there's a gay woman living in this world that doesn't feel like they're family with Shane and Alice and Tina and Bette.

[Elise Hu]

And that's a beautiful compliment to hear. Yeah.

[Leisha Haley]

Yes, it is.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah. We're podcasting, so let's talk about your podcast.

[Elise Hu]

Let's go.

[Debbie Millman]

Your podcast, Pants began as a phone call between the two of you during COVID And the name Pants actually comes from the original storyline of Pants as a nickname came from. I believe it was Mia. Mia, Jenny, because of how close you were. So talk about a little bit about the metaphor of pants.

[Leisha Haley]

I mean, Mia nailed it. Back then, before we even realized that we were always together, she was like, I never see one of you without the other. That's where it came from. But it is so true. And now here we are, 20 something years later. Those two legs walking through the door.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, we had to think of a name and we were tossing out some ideas and then Leisha remembered what Mia called us and she goes, pants. And now I think it's like, honestly, like, the word makes me laugh if anytime I hear it, it just makes me laugh. And it was sort of like the answer was right in front of us the whole time.

[Debbie Millman]

Are either one of you particularly territorial about which leg you are?

[Leisha Haley]

No, we've never even been out.

[Elise Hu]

I mean, I'm right. Right. Never had that conversation. I think we're both right handed, so we'd have to.

[Leisha Haley]

I'll take either side, Kate. Whatever, whatever.

[Elise Hu]

You're ambidextrous. Okay. Yeah, I'm cool. I'm right. Dominated. So. Okay.

[Debbie Millman]

Part of the charm of the podcast is a lot of the charm that you first shared with the world on the L word. There's a very deep, soulful, witty, cheeky relationship that you are extremely generous in revealing and sharing with us. How has the show impacted how you think about your friendship?

[Elise Hu]

I see. You mean the show is in the L word?

[Debbie Millman]

No, no, the show as in Pants. We're talking about pants now.

[Leisha Haley]

Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

Sorry.

[Debbie Millman]

L Word is in our rear.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, bye, L Word. Sorry. Forgive me. Impact. Well, we became our friendship turned into a business. Business. And then other ideas started to spawn, and now we're working on a few things and a lot of our conversations are around work. And so sometimes it takes a minute to say, oh, I also want to talk to my friend. So it's. It can be a challenge at times to even just find like a sliver of the day where both of us are free just to have a friendly chit chat without going through a to do list.

[Leisha Haley]

Yes.

[Elise Hu]

Or an email that. That involves seven other people.

[Leisha Haley]

People. We also had to stop talking a lot because it was a weekly episode. We'd say, save it. Save it for the pod. That became kind of sad because I was like, but I want to tell you, I don't want to wait. And then distance happens.

[Elise Hu]

And then also it was the sort of thing where, okay, I have to save this for the next four days until we record again. But by the time you sit down to record, you lost the gumption to even talk about it and you forgot. And so then you didn't get to share that point. And so oddly, it can, if you're not careful, it actually can create a difference. And so it's a matter of being mindful to bridge that distance. And I believe it can happen. It just takes a level of always being conscious of it, not taking the friendship for granted, and not always driving in the fast lane of business. And it takes compromise.

[Leisha Haley]

And we had to talk about that a lot through the last five years. Things would come up around that.

[Elise Hu]

We had to talk a lot about it this year, I think, I feel like this year a lot of it came to the. To a head, and I think we're on the other side of it now.

[Leisha Haley]

Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

Is it because of the extension into the book?

[Elise Hu]

Well, the book was coming out and there was just like a number of things that were happening, and everything felt like it was moving at 50 miles an hour. And, and, and everything involved people outside of the two of us as long as well as the two of us.

[Leisha Haley]

And, and it's also very important. All these things are very important to us that we're building together. So you don't want to let it go and slough it off. So it was like, it was like a priority game, you know, like, I want to just go hang out with Kate and go, I don't know, to a batting cage. Not that we did that, but just something stupid with my Friend. But I also need to make sure we get these. This list done and return these emails or these things aren't going to happen. You know, it was. It was a lot to juggle.

[Debbie Millman]

Your brand new book, so Gay for your, is a continuation of your friendship in the form of a dual memoir. And I was looking this up. I don't know if I've ever read a dual memoir before. What was it like writing something together?

[Leisha Haley]

Well, we actually didn't write it together, but we mapped it together with our editor and came up with thematic chapters and then either allowed ourselves to go off and write separately or some of the chapters regarding the L word. We had to sort of split up. Like, okay, you talk about the day at work and I'll talk about what happened when we got home that night. So because we have the same shared experience, we had to find it. You didn't want it to just read as two perspectives on the same thing. We wanted to actually talk about different circumstances. So it was a lot about. That's what we did together. But the other stuff, we just sat on our respective couches and wrote.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah. And also themes as well, because there were. We were. Were. Writing this book also gave us finally an opportunity to maybe reflect or talk about things that had never been discussed. And one of them was pay parody. So. So it was a question of like, let's. Okay, who wants to talk about pay parody? Who wants to talk about this? Who wants to talk about that? And so we pretty much like split the that to do list down the middle and we each got aside and expanded on it.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah. When I told Roxanne that you each got $15,000 for the pilot, she gave gas.

[Elise Hu]

That was before taxes and commissions.

[Leisha Haley]

Yeah. Right.

[Debbie Millman]

I mean, basically you did it for free.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Leisha Haley]

Well, but not in.

[Elise Hu]

Not in our.

[Leisha Haley]

But yeah, our bank accounts. It didn't make a dent in our bank accounts. It was more money than either one of us had seen. But.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Leisha Haley]

But, you know, when you think about the financial burden that happens when you're off a show. You know, it. And I wouldn't say that it really built us up to. I think people think we're a lot different than what we are or we should. We should be living somewhere a lot differently or, you know, there's an expectation to this career. People project a lot of ideas onto you. And I think that that was part of what we wanted to crack open was like, we're actually not what you think. We're a lot more human and we've had a lot of difficult times that we've gone through together.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Leisha Haley]

And that was one of them.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, it was.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah. You've said that writing the memoir made you more vulnerable than you ever expected.

[Leisha Haley]

Yes.

[Debbie Millman]

In what way?

[Elise Hu]

There's nowhere to. There's no place to hide. I suppose with writing a memoir, we don't. You don't get to hide behind someone else's writing like you would on a TV show and say, I don't know. I just played the character. I didn't create it. It's yours. Everything, flaws and all.

[Debbie Millman]

And.

[Elise Hu]

And it's. And that is probably the most exposing I know that I've ever been. I know Leisha as well. It's cracking a shell open, but hopefully people see themselves in it or can at least relate or see that. Oh, that happened to me too.

[Debbie Millman]

Well, it's also a wonderful portrait of who you are as people.

[Elise Hu]

Thank you.

[Leisha Haley]

Thank you.

[Debbie Millman]

And it's beautifully written. What was interesting to me as a reader was that you could tell beyond looking at the titles of each chapter who was writing what, and you both wrote it in a way that becomes complementary. It's not so stylistically jarring that you feel like you're in two different worlds. This is your world. Together. You created this dual world that you both inhabit equally. And I really loved that about the book.

[Leisha Haley]

Oh, my God.

[Elise Hu]

Debbie, so much for saying thank you. It really means a lot because that was one of our concerns. Are people are gonna. First of all, are they gonna care? And secondly, is it too seesaw y in terms of perspective and tone?

[Debbie Millman]

No wonder.

[Elise Hu]

Thank you so much.

[Debbie Millman]

I love that. And I love the way that you had different perspectives that you shared and memories that were ever so slightly different or similar. I have two last questions for you, Leisha. At the end of so Gay for your, you state, through all these conversations, through this book, through these many revolutions around the sun, our friendship grows every day. So does my understanding of just how important friendship is. And so this is really a question for both of you about that statement. What would you say is the most important component to nurturing a multi decade, long term friendship?

[Elise Hu]

Great question.

[Leisha Haley]

I think one of the things that I've prioritized a lot in my life with Kate in this relationship is communication. Because I think in friendships, it can be a very uncomfortable thing to talk about an intimacy that we share that isn't sexual or romantic or. But we can hurt each other and we can disappoint each other. And what I want most of all in life is to look at Kate. You know, at 90 something years old, I mean, maybe I won't be able to do that because I'll be way older, but you know what I mean? I want to grow old with Kate, and it's gonna take a lot of work in that I will change as a person, Kate will change as a person. Our hopes and dreams might change. We share a lot right now, but we might not always share the same things down the road. And I just think it's so important to focus in on that as friends. I don't think people talk about it enough and how important that is.

[Elise Hu]

I watched my mom, being an only child, have really, like, profoundly close, intimate relationships with her friends, and so much so that they were all my aunts and uncles. And one thing that I always. I always took from her was consistency and how friendship, long form. There's level of consistency in that you're consistently showing up for the other person. That just makes sense to me. Nothing is more of a turnoff than not being able to rely on something that means so much, especially in regards to something that holds my heart in such a big way. So I think consistency, whatever that means, is invaluable.

[Debbie Millman]

My last question is about the future. Tell us about your tour. This is pretty spectacular. Well, I'm so excited.

[Elise Hu]

I guess Leisha's gonna teach me the ropes of how to go on tour.

[Leisha Haley]

Well, listen, I didn't fly airplanes all around, so this will be new. We're really excited that the tour is starting when the book comes out. So it sort of feels like a giant celebration and like a freedom to this book. Like, we're the only ones who have it right now, minus people like you who have been able to read it. But we get to finally share it with everybody. And it feels like we'll be face to face when that happens. And that's exciting. Like, it's not a week later. It's like, right when it happens, we're going to be together with people that. That care.

[Elise Hu]

And not only that, but also this was always planned since we agreed to do this book that it would be coming out in June of 2025. But June 2025 feels so much bigger now than it did in 2022 or 3, whatever it was that, you know, Leisha and I started this journey, so that holds so much weight. And. And it's like, no, we're going to stand up, we're going to use our voice, we're going to be loud. You're not going to push us down. And hopefully this book will be be a stepping stone for that.

[Leisha Haley]

Yeah. And it's so much about community and that we actually get to be together to release it.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Debbie Millman]

Well, Kate Minig and Alicia Haley, thank you, thank you, thank you for making so much work that matters, so much work that is so important. And thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.

[Leisha Haley]

Thank you very much, Debbie, so much.

[Elise Hu]

Yes, thank you again.

[Debbie Millman]

To know more about Kate and Leisha, listen to their podcast, the Pants Podcast wherever. You love your podcast and you can read more about their brand new [e-mail] this is the 20th year we've been podcasting Design Matters and I'd like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference. We can make a difference or we can do both. I'm Debbie Millman and I look to forward forward to talking with you again soon.

[Elise Hu]

Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest running branding program in the world. The editor in chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Wyland.

[Debbie Millman]

When it comes to your business, every second counts. From mega factories to mom and pop shops, Ericsson helps tens of thousands of companies around the world build powerful connections every day. Power your business with our connectivity and communication solutions. The invisible advantage driving your growth.

[Leisha Haley]

Visit us at Erickson.

[Debbie Millman]

That's E-R-I C-S-S O-N.com power trying to.

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