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- [00:01]
Dylan Mulvaney
Hi, is this an okay time? It's your girl, Dylan Mulvaney, and I am inviting you to my weekly cocktail party and my brand new podcast, the Dylan Hour, brought to you by Lemonada Media. Life is stressful and there is so much darkness in the world. I think we could all use a little bit of trans joy. So join me every week as I interview some of my favorite A list, celebrity friends and gurus, and of course, the dolls. While we sip and split, spill the scalding hot tea. So put your worries aside and join me at the Dylan Hour. You can listen on Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:34]
Beth
Love ya.
- [00:36]
Sarah
The first 100 days of a new presidential administration have the potential to be the most impactful.
- [00:41]
Beth
Campaign promises and concepts of plans begin to take shape and become reality.
- [00:45]
Sarah
I'm Sarah.
- [00:46]
Beth
And I'm Beth.
- [00:46]
Sarah
Together we host Pantsu Politics, a podcast where we take a different approach to the news.
- [00:50]
Beth
Join us for this different approach where we ask questions, resist hot takes, and have fun no matter what the world serves up.
- [00:56]
Sarah
We'll get you through the first 100 days and beyond of the new Trump administration. Stay informed without all the anxiety.
- [01:02]
Beth
Join us for new episodes every Tuesday and Friday, wherever you get your podcast. Lemonada.
- [01:12]
David Duchovny
Hey. Fail Betterers. That's what you're called now. Can you believe we're about to mark the one year anniversary of Fail Better? Fail Betterers. We launched this show on May 5, 2024, and since then I've gotten to speak with so many incredible guests, reflect on my own shortcoming, and explore the ways in which failure shapes us all. Has it been a success or a failure? Well, you know, it's been both, which is what we've been learning on this thing. One of the things that I have learned talking to people about failure and success has been that there seems to be very little difference between the two. And it's much in the way you react to what just happened, you know, and it all comes down to kind of just a resilience and the. The ability to say, okay, what's next? It's been a fun ride because I've gotten to meet new people and talk to people that I admire or whose journeys I'm interested in, and also to catch up with old friends and, and kind of conceive of them from afar, from an objective distance, you know, and that's been a real gift for me personally. Getting to know people I thought I knew even better, and getting to meet some people I really respect and admire that I'd never met. Before. And the best part of this, and we're not going anywhere. We've got tons more in depth conversations coming up and more big plans to share with you. Here's a hint. You might be seeing more of me and our guests very soon. But before we move ahead, I wanted to play you one of my favorite episodes from the past year, my interview with Rosie O'Donnell. We went out on a limb together and got even closer throughout the course of our chat. And it truly embodied what I was trying to do when I started this show, to forge a connection with someone over failure or loss rather than celebration and plugging shit, if you know what I mean. So here's that episode again. And we'll be back next week with more Fail better Fail Betterers. What I realized when I was researching Rosie O'Donnell, our guest this week, you know, you think you know somebody because they're in the public eye. You know their work. I do. I think I knew Rosie, but then I read her books, Celebrity Detox. Really well written, really, really well thought out. Really interesting book about fame and about leaving fame behind, which I wouldn't have expected. Also to learn of her activism. I've been regularly blown away by the, the depth and the, the breadth of the lives of the people that I thought I knew, that I was interviewing. I thought I knew what their work was, knew where most of their work was. I thought I knew where their heart lies lay. Lies. And Rosie's maybe the most glaring exception for that in that I had no idea all the work that she's done, not just as an actor, I'd forgotten that. But the impact of her talk show, the walking away from a contract after just six years because talk shows can go on forever. And the amount of money she walked away from the books that she's written, the children she's adopted, such a full life. I'm David Duchovny and this is Fail Better. A show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Rosie O'Donnell row to her friends as a comedian, actress, author and former daytime TV host. She began her career doing stand up comedy, then appeared in movies we know and love like A League of Their Own and Sleepless in Seattle and the Flintstones movie. She had her own talk show, the Rosie O'Donnell show for six seasons and she also made quite an impression as a co host of the View early on. Rosie is known to be a generous philanthropist and a big advocate for adoption rights, especially for the LGBTQ community. Rosie and I got to meet and talk in person, which I was very happy about not just to begin with, but also just the way the conversation goes. Face to face, eye to eye. A real life conversation in a real life studio. Just for you, dear listeners, here's that conversation with Ro. So I have a quote here from a wise woman who says, I'm a comedienne. My talent is linked to laughter. My core desire is to connect with people in the raw realness of their lives. My work is about story, revelation, and comfort.
- [05:57]
Beth
Was that me?
- [05:58]
David Duchovny
That's you.
- [05:59]
Beth
Wow. God, sometimes I amaze myself.
- [06:01]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [06:02]
Beth
If I would have went, wow, that's a beautiful quote. Who said that?
- [06:05]
David Duchovny
Isn't it?
- [06:05]
Beth
Yeah. Well, people are always asking you, as a comic, what is it that you're trying to do? You know, I never looked at stand up as an art form. I wanted to go into.
- [06:15]
David Duchovny
I understand.
- [06:16]
Beth
I wanted to do Bette Midler's backup singer. I wanted to be in Broadway. I wanted to sing and dance like Barbara and Bette. And that was my goal. So I sort of fell into the standup comedy.
- [06:28]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [06:29]
Beth
And my mom used to listen to Tony Fields.
- [06:32]
David Duchovny
I remember Tony Fields.
- [06:34]
Beth
Wasn't she something else?
- [06:35]
David Duchovny
Well, what I wanted to do, because I have you here in the flesh.
- [06:38]
Beth
Yeah.
- [06:40]
David Duchovny
Because it's the best thing I can do on radio, which is. I call podcast radio.
- [06:45]
Beth
Me too.
- [06:45]
David Duchovny
Cause I'm that old.
- [06:46]
Beth
Same with me.
- [06:47]
David Duchovny
I want to just look at each other without speaking for a minute.
- [06:51]
Beth
Okay, good.
- [06:52]
David Duchovny
So we're going to subject the listeners to a minute of silence, knowing that we are just looking at one another.
- [06:59]
Beth
Deal.
- [07:13]
David Duchovny
Now, if I only had the balls to do that for 45 minutes, we would have a hit.
- [07:20]
Beth
We sure would be groundbreaking in podcasts, at least. Now, what were you thinking during that? I was thinking of when I first saw you, when I first met you, when I met you with Taya and when we did League and all that stuff. And then I remember this funny thing when she was on millionaire, like 20 years ago and she called you and said, honey, remember we were in that city and you were like, you're shit out of luck, babe.
- [07:44]
David Duchovny
She said I was out of luck.
- [07:45]
Beth
Yeah. I remembered that.
- [07:46]
David Duchovny
I called her as a lifeline.
- [07:48]
Beth
Yes, yes.
- [07:49]
David Duchovny
Yeah, I think she said, you're right.
- [07:51]
Beth
That's right.
- [07:52]
David Duchovny
Which was not. Still not a word you can use on network television.
- [07:55]
Beth
No. But we all laughed at home.
- [07:56]
David Duchovny
It was great.
- [07:57]
Beth
It was really funny.
- [07:58]
David Duchovny
Yeah. I was just thinking of, you know, I've been watching and reading about you for the last few days, you know, getting ready to come in Here. And I was just. I was just trying to feel the person, you know, because I've been watching your work. I've been reading your books. Celebrity Detox, I think, is a fantastic book.
- [08:20]
Beth
Thank you very much.
- [08:21]
David Duchovny
I don't know if you got a chance to talk about that much.
- [08:23]
Beth
I didn't really, because it was right after 9, 11 that it came out, or maybe that was the first book, but I didn't really get to do it.
- [08:30]
David Duchovny
I think it was 2006.
- [08:31]
Beth
2006, yeah. That was the one. I talked about Barbara and leaving the show and how odd it felt to kind of have to detox from celebrity, which took me years, David. It didn't take me, you know, a couple months. It took me years to go from that kind of mass adulation back to a normal human existence.
- [08:51]
David Duchovny
Yeah. Do you want to speak some about that? Because what I was struck by in your book, in that book, Celebrity Detox, was that it wasn't just the detox from fame. It was also a conscious choice to spend the time that you'd be working as a parent to spend. So it wasn't. It's not just. It's about parenting as well as celebrity as much as it is about Celebrity Detox, which I found fascinating.
- [09:17]
Beth
Well, I think that the celebrity got in the way of the parenting. So I had.
- [09:22]
David Duchovny
How so?
- [09:22]
Beth
Well, you know, when you're a little kid and you go to the mall with your mother, and you're three or four, and you're adorable and blonde, people stop and go, oh, my God, that's the cutest kid in the world. When your parent is famous, you're ignored. You are kind of invisible. And sometimes when they were little, they'd say, me too, me too. When the people wanted a picture or, you know, my name Parker. My name, Parker.
- [09:46]
David Duchovny
You know, it's heartbreaking.
- [09:47]
Beth
It is. It was heartbreaking. And now they tease me. We go somewhere and, like, nobody recognizes me, and they're like, mom, you went to the mall and nobody knew it was you. You know, but it did get in the way. And also, you know, I was very formed. My entire career trajectory was based on the fact that I needed to be done when I was 40, in case I died like my mother did.
- [10:10]
David Duchovny
That was your thinking going in.
- [10:12]
Beth
I left when I was 40 on my show. I'm 62 now.
- [10:15]
David Duchovny
But you'd always thought you might leave when you were 40 or die. That's what you thought.
- [10:19]
Beth
Well, I thought I was gonna die because my mother did. And that's a common thought. Of motherless daughters. And Hope Edelman wrote a wonderful book about it. And anyone who's had mother loss and not delve into the emotional part, I recommend you get the book and the workbook. But I knew that my mother missed so much dying before her kids were, you know, grown. I mean, she had five children under the age of 12, and she died in three months from aggressive breast cancer in 1973. And, you know, that Nora Ephron always used to say to me, is that gonna remain the defining fact of your life? Kind of angry, you know, And I was like, it is, yeah. It's the time when the world went, you know, from color to black and white. And then I got my son, and it came color again.
- [11:05]
David Duchovny
You know, at the time you're 10, you say, yeah. It's funny, when I was going through a divorce, I remember talking to a therapist, and he said, you know, there is no way to do this that can protect the kids completely. Because the job of a child. Cause children don't have jobs. But the job of a child is to keep the family together.
- [11:27]
Beth
Right.
- [11:29]
David Duchovny
I wonder if that resonated at all to you. Was the job of the child, Rosie, to keep your mother alive? Was it to keep the family intact? And that. That was. And obviously, at 10, you don't have those thoughts. But I'm wondering in your time processing that loss as a failure, as something else, than just the brute fact that it is.
- [11:48]
Beth
You know, it was really interesting. Cause many mothers on our street got breast cancer. And my best friend's mother got it three years after my mother did. And there was talk at the time, and they've done studies. The water table on Long island, on the new suburban homes, they killed all of the potato fields with ddt, which Agent Orange. And then the women who were post who were menstruating, had a hormonal response to it, and it triggered the breast cancer. That's one of the theories about why the breast cancer incidence is so high on Long Island. But my best friend Jackie, still my best friend, her mother got breast cancer and lived. So that was when I was in seventh grade. And I remember thinking, why didn't my mother live? And I asked her, and Bernie said, there's no way I was dying before I saw my grandkids. And that devastated me because I thought, why didn't my mother feel that way? Why didn't she want to live for us?
- [12:42]
David Duchovny
So it's that magical thinking of a child that my mother would have lived if she really had wanted to in some way.
- [12:49]
Beth
Yeah. Or if I was better, if I had, you know, like, I would play all the sports when I was in school and I'd look around and try to see her. Sometimes I think I saw her in the audience, but then I would turn and look and she wouldn't be there, you know, so it was definitely the heartbreak of still.
- [13:08]
David Duchovny
Yeah, I can feel it.
- [13:09]
Beth
And when my children arrived, that was the time I missed her the most. And just last week at my son's wedding, my son got married and he's the first one to do that in our family. And it was the most emotional thing. I wasn't prepared. But part of it was the longing for my mother to have seen my son reach this threshold and cross over into his adult life.
- [13:35]
David Duchovny
Is that, do you think? I don't know how to put it. Is that for your mom or is that to show your mom that Rosie grew up and could make a family?
- [13:47]
Beth
And I did it. I did it, Mom. And wouldn't it be nice if you were here to see that? I never felt it really about my career. I never thought like, oh, I wish my mom was here to see this show. No, no. But I always felt it about the little things, like, you know, when it's cookie day for the fundraiser at the school and all the mothers would come in and, you know, I was constantly sucking up to all my friends, mothers. When my friends went through the normal push away in your teens of their parents, I would be on the mother's side all the time and be a real kiss ass to the moms. And, you know, in fact, there was.
- [14:23]
David Duchovny
Like an Eddie Haskell kind of like, wow.
- [14:26]
Beth
And it was funny because one of my friends, Jeannie, her mom found her birth control at 16 in her pocketbook and they said it was mine, which is the joke still amongst the friends. And Jeannie's mother believed it. You know, I was like, well, that's wishful thinking, I guess.
- [14:42]
David Duchovny
Yeah, yeah. But if not the job, if not the fame for your mom, do you think, I mean, just in the classic sense that the fame was directed towards that hole, that absence?
- [14:57]
Beth
Yes, totally. Although before she died, you know, she's the one who got me into Barbra Streisand. She was obsessed.
- [15:03]
David Duchovny
Which is why I was surprised when you said you weren't that involved in, like, her seeing your fame or her seeing you working with Barbara Walters or all these people that she would have admired in show business, these women.
- [15:15]
Beth
Well, there was one time when Ted Kennedy and his mom came up to the show, like in the second week at 30 Rock, they were down doing the Today Show. And my assistant said, ted Kennedy and his mom are on the way up to see you. And I thought, at that moment, I got choked up and started to cry. Cause I thought if my mother knew that the Kennedys, which in our family.
- [15:37]
David Duchovny
It'S an Irish thing.
- [15:38]
Beth
Come on. Right. The Kennedys were in my office to talk to me, that would have, I think, blown her little brain apart.
- [15:47]
David Duchovny
But I want to just go back for a moment to the first standup when you first went and did it.
- [15:54]
Beth
Yes.
- [15:54]
David Duchovny
And then the second time.
- [15:55]
Beth
Yes.
- [15:56]
David Duchovny
And then maybe the third time. But it was a fascinating process to me. If you could just tell people out there what it was, because your innocence is amazing to me.
- [16:05]
Beth
Yeah. I was 16, though. Remember that?
- [16:07]
David Duchovny
Oh, I didn't know you were 16.
- [16:08]
Beth
Yeah. I was in my high school play, and I was a sophomore, and I got to write the skit that made fun of the teachers, the Senior Follies. So, you know, I would steal from SNL. Like, a very flat teacher, skinny. I'd say, Ms. Barron, more on that story as it develops. Like, I totally took everything from snl. And this guy was in the audience, Richie Minavini. He's about 15 years older than the kid in my grade who was in the play. And he said, I own a comedy club. I think you'd be a great standup comic. And I said, no way. I'm gonna be on Broadway. And he said, well, come to the club and see what you can do. So I went on the show, and that day I watched Merv Griffin and I saw Jerry Seinfeld. And he wasn't famous at that time. It was. You know, a lot of comics from New York would get on the train to Philly to do Merv Griffin whenever he had a space. And Jerry was one of those guys. And so I watched it, and when I got to the club, because I had no material, really, I would do his act. But not only his act. I took his cadence and his delivery.
- [17:07]
David Duchovny
Jerry.
- [17:07]
Beth
Jerry. So I would almost talk like that. I'm thinking, hey, I've heard that in.
- [17:12]
David Duchovny
You that slips in sometimes.
- [17:13]
Beth
Yes, it does. It's what I consider the standard comedian voice, which I thought, in order to be a comic, you gotta talk like that.
- [17:21]
David Duchovny
Right, right.
- [17:22]
Beth
You know, and it took me a long time to try to make my standup, which is mostly storytelling and conversation. Much more conversational than it was presentational. You know, when somebody presents you with a gift, it's wrapped and it's Everything's perfect, and they hand it to you and it's all done. But when you're just having a conversation, it's not finished yet.
- [17:42]
David Duchovny
Well, you've said. And what I really appreciate you saying is, you know, you're. I think you're at heart, an improv person, right? And it seemed to me that you were that person at heart from the beginning, you know, even at that young age, to go in. And what I was struck by in this thing that I read was that you did the first night you did.
- [18:03]
Beth
Was all my friends.
- [18:04]
David Duchovny
All your friends were in the audience. So you just do the high school material, which means.
- [18:07]
Beth
And I killed, right?
- [18:08]
David Duchovny
You killed. Because they'll know all the inside jokes.
- [18:11]
Beth
And it was like, you know, 40 kids from. And then they're very loud, right? Their parents. And so I'd say, marilyn's dating Michael, and so. And so doesn't know. And they'd be like, oh, my God, right? So he goes, come back the next night. And the next night is when I did All Strangers. All Strangers. And I bombed a horrible death. So the first night, it was like, this is the easiest thing I've ever done. And the second night is, I will never be able to do this, and I don't want to do it again.
- [18:34]
David Duchovny
Are you saying that Seinfeld material bombed, or was it just.
- [18:38]
Beth
No. When I walked off stage all the. Now, mind you, I'm 16. These men are in their 30s. They surround me in the back, little green room and say, rosie, where'd you get that joke? I said, jerry Seinfeld, he was on Murphy, right?
- [18:50]
David Duchovny
We have no guilt about it.
- [18:51]
Beth
I have no idea that you. And they say, you have to write your own jokes. I'm like, barbra Streisand does not write her own songs. She sings other people's songs. I'm not a writer. I'm a comedian. And they said, no, you gotta do your own. So Richie was very nice, the owner of that club. He said to me, why don't you come down and be the emcee, and you can learn how to incorporate your own life into your material. And I did that for a couple years. And then Ed McMahon's daughter happened to be in the club in 1984.
- [19:22]
David Duchovny
Star Search.
- [19:23]
Beth
I was 22. And she said, you know, my dad's Ed McMahon, and I'm gonna put you on Star Search. And it had been on for one year, and I was obsessed with it, you know, with Sam Harris and Somewhere over the Rainbow, right? And so I was on Year Two as a result of Richie giving me that emcee spot and this woman, Claudia McMahon, getting me on the Star Search.
- [19:49]
David Duchovny
Do you remember the process of trying to write your own material? Or what would you say your angle was at that point? And were you still thinking of, oh, I'm gonna write these jokes that are gonna line up, or I'm gonna go out there and kind of have a funny attitude and see where it leads me?
- [20:02]
Beth
Well, I had stories more than anything. You know, like, there was a story. Cause I was sort of them oldest female in the family. And then I had a little brother that, you know, was like five when my mother died. And so he used to take my maxi pads that floated in the bathtub and put his army men on them and then throw the tampons in like they were bombs and make a whole scene in the bathtub. So that was the first joke that I quote, unquote, wrote that whole bit about that. And then I learned how to make a bit. I never was good at writing jokes. Jokes like when I worked with Garry Marshall, and he would always say, go over there, do a chuff a chuffer, and come back, chuff a chuffa. To Gary meant make shit up.
- [20:45]
David Duchovny
Right.
- [20:45]
Beth
Right. So that anytime you worked with him or with Penny, you know, they were two peas in a pod. They would say, you know, you got anything for this?
- [20:54]
David Duchovny
I like that. Your Penny and your Gary, they're distinct.
- [20:57]
Beth
They're different. They're a little different.
- [20:58]
David Duchovny
And I've spoken to them both, and they're spot on.
- [21:01]
Beth
They are.
- [21:02]
David Duchovny
So I appreciate that very much.
- [21:03]
Beth
Thank you. Very few people notice that.
- [21:05]
David Duchovny
No, but what's going through your head at this point? So you've done standup, you were on Star Search. You've done a couple movies.
- [21:15]
Beth
I became a VJ first. A VJ on VH1.
- [21:18]
David Duchovny
I remember. I remember VH1. I don't remember you. VJing.
- [21:21]
Beth
Yeah. I had to do six hours a day just introducing videos. Four segments an hour, two segments each. So you had to make it up. You had to go, ah, Rosie O'Donnell on today. VH Wanagogo is on tonight at 8 to 12, so don't forget to miss that. And coming up next, Whitney Houston. Another debut with another. And that really helped my career because that's how Penny saw me to ask me to come audition for League of their own from VH1.
- [21:48]
David Duchovny
Okay.
- [21:48]
Beth
And then Gary saw me in League of Their Own and was like, let's work with her. And my whole career, they both helped me. So foreign.
- [22:08]
David Duchovny
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- [26:10]
Beth
I agree. They think that she's one of us, you know, she's just like us. That's how we would react if Streisand came on the show. Or that's how I would react if I got to be all of a sudden in a movie like that.
- [26:22]
David Duchovny
And it was never. My sense was it was never faked.
- [26:25]
Beth
No, no, no.
- [26:27]
David Duchovny
It was really who you were.
- [26:28]
Beth
Yes. And I couldn't believe it. Not only the ones that, you know, like Streisand or David Bowie, but Carol Brady, you know.
- [26:38]
David Duchovny
Sure.
- [26:38]
Beth
Florence Henderson sat next to me and I couldn't catch my breath. Like, I'm like, this is the woman I wanted to marry my father and to make our whole life better again. This was the woman I wanted to be the mom, you know, and she.
- [26:50]
David Duchovny
I wanted her for mom too.
- [26:51]
Beth
And she's sitting right there.
- [26:53]
David Duchovny
Yeah. I met her on an air.
- [26:54]
Beth
Very, very friendly, wasn't she?
- [26:56]
David Duchovny
I think. Yeah. And I think I might have said something like, you know, I think I would fantasize that she was my mom so that she would kiss me goodnight.
- [27:04]
Beth
Aw.
- [27:05]
David Duchovny
It was very innocent.
- [27:07]
Beth
I had that with Eight is enough with Betty Buckley. I had a crush on her, but I didn't know it.
- [27:10]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [27:11]
Beth
I was like, I totally want Betty Buckley to marry my dad. And then I'm like, maybe I want her to marry me. Took a while to get there.
- [27:19]
David Duchovny
But you're not just a fan. You're super talented. So that's. It's a strange kind of, you know, because you becoming a. Or it makes it a little harder.
- [27:28]
Beth
Well, it was kind of, you know, I got the League of Their Own role and then to be cast in a movie opposite the most famous woman in the world as the best friend. Right. Me and Madonna, that was like a life altering casting session for me because it changed my whole world. Like, that kind of fame is once a generation, you know, that kind of Elvis, the Beatles, Madonna. And to be that close to it for so long and be able to get an opinion of what it does to the human being through being that close to, you know, Madonna, we'd be.
- [28:01]
David Duchovny
You mean that was like your lesson in fame?
- [28:03]
Beth
Yes.
- [28:03]
David Duchovny
This was your fame school.
- [28:04]
Beth
It was.
- [28:05]
David Duchovny
And yet you still wanted it?
- [28:06]
Beth
Well, I thought that I wanted it, but I thought, look at how much it takes away from her. We were in a elevator and people would say to her face, I like you better with blonde hair. Cause league she had dyed her hair brown. And she'd be like, yeah, fuck you. You know? And at first I was like. But then I realized how many people felt that they had the right to say whatever they wanted to her, that she had lost her humanity in the eyes of the public from being too famous. And it was like a cautionary tale in a way. Not that I ever thought I would achieve that level of fame, but that any level of fame could be as toxic and demanding.
- [28:44]
David Duchovny
Well, arguably you did achieve that kind. A different kind of fame, because a pop singer is somewhat removed and idealized and you're. You're way closer as in talk shows. You're in people's homes. You're everybody's friend.
- [28:58]
Beth
Yes.
- [28:58]
David Duchovny
Which is. It can be even creepier kind of fame, actually.
- [29:02]
Beth
Well, I'd be in the mall with my kids and they're little in strollers, and somebody will come up and go, hey, Ro. Which if people call me Ro, I know they. I go, yeah. And they're like, whatever happened with your son? And I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't remember. Oh, no, I just watch you. But I couldn't tell by the familiarity with which they came up to me. And one time I was at Le Cirque, I think it was with Rita Wilson for her birthday. And it was a table of who's who, you know, including Bruce Springsteen. And it was like the craziest. And I happened to be sitting next to Martin short, which is the best gig anyone could ever have in Hollywood, because he makes fun of everyone at the table under his breath, so only you hear it. But I was sitting there and people kept coming over to me and tapping me on the shoulder, leaning down and saying, rosie, is that Bruce Springsteen? And I'm like, yes. And he can hear you. So go. It's like, I'm the easy pass, right? People think, oh, that's Rosie. We'll get in that way. You know? And also, because there's so much intersectionality about my kind of appeal. Cause people, if they had a dead mom, if they had adopted kids, if they have an autistic kid, if they have. Like, there's so many ways that people come to me, you know, and it's often without a boundary.
- [30:18]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [30:19]
Beth
I never felt like a star, and I still, to this day don't. And some of my friends who are celebrities say to me, you're the worst celebrity. I'm like, why? They go, first of all, you make eye contact with everyone. If somebody says hello to you, you say, hello. I'm like, yeah, I know. Like, I don't think of myself as equal to them, you know?
- [30:38]
David Duchovny
Did you have pride about the other aspects of your talent once the talk show started, Were there other parts of your life that you still felt like creatively you wanted to serve?
- [30:49]
Beth
Well, that's another reason why. Not only that, you know, my mom had died young, but I was talking to people about the art that they were getting to create with other artists, and I wasn't getting to do that.
- [31:00]
David Duchovny
Well, in a way, I mean, it's disposable. Like, talk show stuff is disposable.
- [31:05]
Beth
Yes.
- [31:06]
David Duchovny
Because what do I have here? I want to quote you again.
- [31:09]
Beth
Let's see if I'm impressed with myself.
- [31:11]
David Duchovny
I think you will be. Maybe what it means to be an artist is knowing you are doomed to find that you can't capture it.
- [31:21]
Beth
Correct.
- [31:22]
David Duchovny
Because sometimes the feelings are so huge, so beyond your medium, they go beyond your medium. And that really rung true for me.
- [31:32]
Beth
Yes.
- [31:33]
David Duchovny
And I'm wondering if once you had it going, you know, once you're doing the talk show for a while, you know, okay, I've done this, and also, it's not really going to last.
- [31:43]
Beth
Correct. And I knew that, too.
- [31:45]
David Duchovny
Not just the show, but the shows themselves. Like, people aren't gonna go back and watch these things.
- [31:49]
Beth
And they're cyclical, and it's live. You know, I made sure to do it in New York, so we. So the executives couldn't say, oh, I didn't like that Dom DeLuise cooking segment. Could you do it again? You know, And I was like, no, I can't. Because what happens live is electric, and it's like theater. And so as soon as I was done with the show, sometimes I'D go home and like people would say, who was on today? I wouldn't even remember.
- [32:12]
David Duchovny
Right.
- [32:13]
Beth
And you do three guests a day, you know, for 40 weeks a year. That's a lot of work. A lot of people that you talk to. And I did it for, I made a four year contract when I started it. Cause I knew my child would be entering kindergarten, my oldest boy. And then at the height of the success, I signed on for two more years. So I ended up doing it six years. But they didn't believe me, the staff, nor Warner Brothers, when I said, no, I'm gonna be done. And they kept like throwing money and throwing money. And I really thought, if you have X amount a million dollars and you think you need X amount more, you've missed the whole point of your life. Right. Like sometimes I would say to Madonna, take off the shoes, you don't have to run anymore. You know, the race is over, you won it.
- [32:57]
David Duchovny
But it's not about that.
- [32:58]
Beth
Correct. It's not about that at all.
- [33:00]
David Duchovny
And I'm saying like the it that you're going after, you know, And I understand you're making room to be a mom and to raise these kids and to be a stay at home mom in a way. But the it is still calling to you. Yes, totally. I'm sure it's calling to you right now. Yes.
- [33:15]
Beth
And when I see beautiful work, when I see something like season three of the Bear, which I know some people didn't like, but when I see something like that that inspires or someone's performance, I know I have to keep going towards that. When I was a young actress, I would see Geraldine Page and Colleen Dewhurst. And I would think when I'm older, those are the roles I'm gonna get to play. And so not to do any plastic surgery, not to do any of the things that Hollywood usually forces you with, you know, the pressure from, you know, outside. I mean, when I started my show, Jim Peritori, the guys from Warner Brothers, they'd look at me and I'd hear them and see them going, what are we gonna do about her chin? Can we do something about her chin? And the pressure of that, even on the comedian.
- [34:01]
David Duchovny
But now. So the it is calling to you now through roles for women your age, perhaps coming down the pike, you paint.
- [34:09]
Beth
Yes.
- [34:10]
David Duchovny
Is it there?
- [34:11]
Beth
Yes, it is, yes.
- [34:13]
David Duchovny
What is it like there?
- [34:14]
Beth
It's when I get a few hours in a row that I can turn off everything and I just blast Joni Mitchell and Eminem on every other CD.
- [34:23]
David Duchovny
That'S an interesting pairing.
- [34:24]
Beth
I know, right?
- [34:24]
David Duchovny
Are they alternating?
- [34:25]
Beth
They are. So it's five CD player I have, and everyone's like, you're not on Spotify. I'm not. And I put five CDs in. And when the five CDs are over, I'm done painting for the day.
- [34:36]
David Duchovny
But also, I think in terms of. For the same reason that talk show stuff is disposable. I'm always looking for things that'll last. I don't like talking about today, but let's talk about Trump. That's today.
- [34:48]
Beth
Mm.
- [34:50]
David Duchovny
You figured out what these fucking Democrats have finally figured out. And what Mary Trump has been calling for for the last six years is like, mock him.
- [34:59]
Beth
Correct.
- [35:00]
David Duchovny
That's the only. That's the only way to beat him down. Like, he. He mocks you.
- [35:04]
Beth
Right. Gotta mock him right back.
- [35:06]
David Duchovny
When they go low, we don't go high.
- [35:08]
Beth
No. You know, not with him.
- [35:09]
David Duchovny
No.
- [35:10]
Beth
Or you'll never survive.
- [35:11]
David Duchovny
Right.
- [35:11]
Beth
But you grew up in New York, right?
- [35:12]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [35:13]
Beth
If you grew up in New York like I did, and you're around our age, you saw every one of his failed attempts to become a celebrity. We watched his Trump liquor, his stakes. We watched his planes get repossessed off the runways of LaGuardia. He was a laughing joke in New York, and everyone knew it. And New Yorkers are tough and smart and savvy, and they don't buy his bullshit in any capacity. So when I said what I said, which was easily found on any Google search. Facts about him.
- [35:43]
David Duchovny
Yes. Right. They were facts.
- [35:44]
Beth
And I told the facts about him, and then he went absolutely crazy. Like, he's going now with Kamala. Like, he's having, like, a narcissistic collapse at this point, and we're watching it happen, and it's very, very dangerous, you know, and what happens to a person who is that ill when they no longer have an escape route or a chance to escape? The whole reason he's running is to prevent going to jail, which is going to happen if the universe aligns. And, you know, but I will say that since she came in, which I was one of the ones calling for Biden to step down, and, you know, people were, how dare you? But I knew it was our only chance. And I knew that if they went around Kamala and tried to put a man in there, a white man, that they would lose so many votes and they would have no moral high ground to stand on of. We believe what we believe as Democrats, and we walk the walk.
- [36:37]
David Duchovny
Yeah. I mean, I think the search for the perfect candidate is a fool's errand.
- [36:41]
Beth
I agree.
- [36:42]
David Duchovny
Because a candidate is really a symbolic presence. A president is really a symbolic presence. A president is how we feel about ourselves as a country.
- [36:51]
Beth
Yes.
- [36:51]
David Duchovny
And think about that for the Trump administration, but also think about it for Obama. And think about it when and if I hope Harris gets elected. It's like we can look at ourselves and say, this is what we're aspiring to. It's not necessarily what we are.
- [37:04]
Beth
Correct. We're not there yet.
- [37:05]
David Duchovny
It's not necessarily what she is.
- [37:07]
Beth
Correct.
- [37:07]
David Duchovny
It's what she stands for and what.
- [37:10]
Beth
We believe in and espouse as our. As our core. Right. And the core of Donald Trump is corrupt. It's not only corrupt, it's really pathological. Like, he's very sick.
- [37:22]
David Duchovny
It was one of the starting points for this podcast was I was so embarrassed slash ashamed that I was. That I watched my country fall for this con man. But also he would just talk about when. And everybody, all of a sudden, everybody was about winning all of a sudden. And I'm like, I love losers. I love losing. I love what I learn when I fail, when I lose. What kind of a country is it that can't lose? What kind of a country elects a man who can't even accept that he lost an election? Obviously. So there's something in this country that can't stand losing. And it goes back to, like, when we were kids, you know, like, we can't lose the Vietnam War. We have to stay in there till we win. America doesn't. We don't lose. It's this bullshit.
- [38:13]
Beth
Yeah.
- [38:13]
David Duchovny
It's all a lie, this exceptionalism.
- [38:15]
Beth
Yes.
- [38:15]
David Duchovny
And I thought, okay, this podcast is gonna be about holding up failure as a possible, obviously, as a learning tool, but also as a paragon of some kind, because that's what makes us all human. Rosie.
- [38:29]
Beth
I agree. I so agree.
- [38:31]
David Duchovny
You know, that from a young age, from 10, and, you know, you watched the biggest failure that could happen, you lost your mother.
- [38:39]
Beth
Correct. Which seemed unimaginable at the time, you know, and my little brother was, like, four, almost five. And he said, who's gonna take care of us now? And I said, daddy. And he said, who's that now? He was in shock. We had just been told. But imagine a little kid, like, your whole world is your mother. And when that disappears at a young age, it causes this shadow inside your soul that you're always longing and looking for something and someone that could. Could replace her or make you feel what it was that you were longing for.
- [39:13]
David Duchovny
Well, this is what you say, Rosie. You say I'm funny. Very funny. I agree.
- [39:19]
Beth
Thank you.
- [39:21]
David Duchovny
But that humor comes from fear. Not fear of Trump, not fear of failure. My fear is of loss, my knowledge of death.
- [39:31]
Beth
It's so true. And it haunts me now. You know, I adopted a at 50 years old, which, you know, my kids were getting out of the house, and I was very, very thrown by not having a child.
- [39:44]
David Duchovny
You weren't looking forward to.
- [39:46]
Beth
No.
- [39:47]
David Duchovny
Chasing it somewhere else.
- [39:49]
Beth
No.
- [39:50]
David Duchovny
You wanted more, Mom.
- [39:51]
Beth
I did. Cause that's a hole that'll never be filled, Right?
- [39:54]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [39:54]
Beth
So I got a call that there was a baby, and they were looking for a two mom home or a home where there would not be a dad. And, you know, I said, well, tell her that it's me, and see what she says. And one thing happened, you know, and I had just had a heart attack, David.
- [40:11]
David Duchovny
Oh, I didn't know you had a heart attack.
- [40:12]
Beth
I had a massive heart attack, lad. The widowmaker. I had the widowmaker. And it happened on a Monday. I was at a hospital visiting a friend, and there was a woman getting out with chemo, and her hair was out. A very large woman. She was sort of stuck in the door jamb of her car where the steering wheel is. And I helped her out. And then a few hours later, my arms were killing me. And then, sure enough, I had a heart attack. But I didn't go to the hospital until Wednesday night.
- [40:40]
David Duchovny
Right.
- [40:41]
Beth
So the doctor said, you had about five more minutes before it was all over for you, you know? And I get in there, and he's putting the things on. He's like, what happened? I said, I helped this woman on. He's like, could you stop talking? And then the crash car comes in, and then they're wheeling me and shaving me, and they said, you're gonna. We're gonna go in and put a stent in. And this nurse, I was crying, and I said, I have four kids. You cannot let me die. And she said, I promise you I'll be here when you wake up. And she stayed until I woke up and was there holding my hand when I woke up. Wow. It's those kind of people and those stories and those moments that make you believe in being human, you know? And there's part of Celebrity Dom that makes you forget what it's like to be human.
- [41:24]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [41:36]
Sarah
Hey, Julia, Louis Dreyfus here. If you listen to me on my Wiser Than Me podcast, you probably already know that I'm an Investor and an evangelist for the mill food recycler. There are a lot of reasons to love mill, but for me, it's all about the impact. Keeping food out of the garbage is one of the most powerful things we can do to help the planet. Every single day. Day, we're talking banana peels, carrot tops, old takeout. When that stuff heads to the landfill, it becomes a huge driver of climate change. If you already compost, great. But of course, there's the smell, the flies, the running to the curb every day with a little leaking compost bag made of cornstarch. That's where mill comes in. It makes keeping food out of the trash as easy as dropping it in. It can handle nearly anything from a turkey carcass to like 20 avocado pits. It works automatically while you sleep. You can keep filling it for weeks and it never ever smells. Mill makes dry, nutrient rich grounds that you can use in your garden, add to your compost, feed to your chickens, or mill can get them back to a small farm for you. But you kind of have to live with mill to really get it. And that's why they offer a risk free trial. Go to mill.com wiser for an exclusive offer. Hi, I'm Emily Deschanel.
- [42:51]
Beth
And I'm Carla Gallo. And we're here to bring you Bonehead, the official Bones Rewatch podcast. That's right. We're watching all the episodes of Bones, starting with episode one and we are the right people to do it.
- [43:03]
Sarah
I play Dr. Temperance Bredon and I.
- [43:05]
Beth
Met Carla 16 years ago.
- [43:07]
Sarah
On set.
- [43:07]
Beth
I played Daisy Wick.
- [43:09]
Sarah
Tune in every Wednesday to hear all.
- [43:10]
Beth
Our behind the scenes stories, conversations with.
- [43:12]
Sarah
Cast and crew, and our favorite moments.
- [43:14]
Beth
Boneheads from Lemonada Media is out wherever you get your podcasts.
- [43:22]
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Hi, I'm Megan and I've got a new podcast I think you're going to love. It's called Confessions of a Female Founder. A show where I chat with female entrepreneurs and friends about the sleepless nights, the lessons learned, and the laser focus that got them to where they are today. And through it all, I'm building a business of my own and getting all sorts of practical advice along the way that I'm so excited to share with you. Confessions of a Female Founder is out now. Listen, wherever you get your podcast.
- [44:13]
David Duchovny
What I wanted to ask you too, like as a gay parent or as a gay couple parent? As a gay. Would you say gay family? I don't know. Did you. Do you. Did you feel pressure for it to work out? Like role modeled or you know, you're pretty much on the vanguard of getting married.
- [44:37]
Beth
Yeah. We did that as an act of social disobedience as well as love at the time.
- [44:41]
David Duchovny
But it was very, very.
- [44:43]
Beth
Yes. Right. When Gavin Newsom said that he was doing it, we flew there and did it.
- [44:46]
David Duchovny
And then the next day, didn't they say, you can't do it anymore?
- [44:49]
Beth
Yes, the next day we were annulled.
- [44:51]
David Duchovny
You were annulled.
- [44:52]
Beth
Right. So it was kind of anticlimactic. But.
- [44:55]
David Duchovny
But did you feel pressure, you know.
- [44:58]
Beth
Oh. To have my family work out? My God, yes.
- [45:01]
David Duchovny
Because it's strange to me because one is going after this heteronormative. Here's a word I learned. Heteronormative sense of relationship, which is, is you get married and you go until you die.
- [45:12]
Beth
Yep.
- [45:14]
David Duchovny
And there's this gay version of it.
- [45:17]
Beth
Right.
- [45:18]
David Duchovny
But it's based on some heteronormative version.
- [45:21]
Beth
Totally.
- [45:22]
David Duchovny
And then you've got. And this is the way the family's supposed to look with two adults and children. And children.
- [45:28]
Beth
Right.
- [45:28]
David Duchovny
And that's also based on a traditional sense, I guess. I'm asking did you have a vision of a different kind of family that would succeed, or did you feel extra pressure? Because I'm Rosie O'Donnell, I'm gay Rosie.
- [45:40]
Beth
O'Donnell and I got married and the face of a society that wasn't quite ready. And so when we were breaking up and getting divorced, I felt tremendous guilt and tremendous responsibility.
- [45:53]
David Duchovny
In fact, I see beyond the personal aspect of it.
- [45:56]
Beth
Oh, no, just the public, that what was I doing that I had fought for gay rights for so long and now. But, you know, my therapist said to me, well, to have equal rights means you have the right to also get divorced.
- [46:06]
David Duchovny
Yeah, sure.
- [46:07]
Beth
Like, it's not like the gays have to get married and stay forever because we can tolerate it if that's the way you do it. But what I was, you know, trying to do was really just have a family, a house full of kids. I never thought about the relationship as much as I did about the motherhood, really. And that was a problem in my marriage.
- [46:28]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [46:28]
Beth
Because I always put them first. And, you know, even if we were in a conversation, my wife and I, and one of the kids said, mom, I would turn right away and go to the kid. I would, I wouldn't even say, wait till we're done, you know, and I would watch other parents do that. And when we were in couples therapy, you know, there was a lot of talk about me not prioritizing the relationship and the truth is, it was true.
- [46:54]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [46:55]
Beth
I didn't prioritize it. I prioritized my being the children's mother.
- [47:01]
David Duchovny
I remember feeling. I put it in actors terms that I went from. From number two on the call sheet to number four.
- [47:08]
Beth
Right.
- [47:09]
David Duchovny
You know, like when we had. All of a sudden the kids were 1 and 2.
- [47:13]
Beth
Yes.
- [47:13]
David Duchovny
And Tay was 3, and then I was 4.
- [47:15]
Beth
Right.
- [47:16]
David Duchovny
You know, so it was like. Yeah, they're not. They don't write for me like they used to. You know.
- [47:20]
Beth
Correct.
- [47:21]
David Duchovny
They don't write me the big scenes.
- [47:22]
Beth
No. I totally get it. And it did feel like. It felt like. I felt like that's the way it should be, that children should be cherished and adored. But if I had it to do all over again, and I'm lucky. Cause I sort of do with Clay, is I wouldn't be as creating as little challenges for them in their life. Like, I thought all the things that upset me when I was a kid. We didn't have nice clothes because we had to do our own laundry. And everything got dirty and the pinks and the whites, and nobody was. There was no mother presence. We all looked kind of like our hair wasn't always combed, and we looked like feral children in some way. You know, And I wanted all of that gone. I remember telling, like, the housekeeper who did the food shopping sometimes I'd say, don't ever get the store brand, no matter what it is.
- [48:17]
David Duchovny
No generic.
- [48:18]
Beth
No. Get all the brand names of everything. Because I hated that. I hated that we had to have Non Ritz. Hi Hos.
- [48:25]
David Duchovny
You had petroleum jelly.
- [48:27]
Beth
Exactly. There you go.
- [48:32]
David Duchovny
It's easy for us to laugh.
- [48:34]
Beth
It is.
- [48:35]
David Duchovny
But here's my question about that is, you know, I read this that you said, and it's something that I've thought about a lot as a parent, too, is like, my kids are 22 and 25 now. And, you know, life is hard. There are struggles, especially at that age. You know, you're just figuring out who you are, what you want to do, what you want to be. There's going to be bumps. I hate those bumps for them.
- [48:56]
Beth
Me, too.
- [48:57]
David Duchovny
But the bumps are the best thing that can happen.
- [49:00]
Beth
They need them or they have no ability to know they can survive. What do you do then? How do you give the children a sense of fiduciary responsibility? How do you. When I really had none. And to this day, I don't have any, David.
- [49:15]
David Duchovny
I don't have it either.
- [49:16]
Beth
My brother does. All my money. I don't even look at it.
- [49:18]
David Duchovny
I don't look at it. I make it. I put it over there. I'm happy that it's over there. I'm happy that come a rainy day, people in my family can be taken care of. I'm really proud of that, I have to say. Probably too proud of it.
- [49:32]
Beth
Me, too.
- [49:33]
David Duchovny
That I did something that could be protective in this way. My mother grew up in poverty, and, you know, we were just always. It was drilled into us that, you know, for me, it was like, if you don't get an education, you're gonna wind up in the gutter. That's what it was. So the gutter is still with me.
- [49:50]
Beth
Right. I just. Once they told me I had X amount of money. I remember thinking, I'm never gonna talk to anyone about this again. I never have to deal with this again. And my brother used to get mad at me and I'd say, okay, Tim, well, I'd like you to go on stage and do 15 minutes. And when you come up, you see.
- [50:08]
David Duchovny
What kind of mind you need to have to do that.
- [50:10]
Beth
Correct.
- [50:10]
David Duchovny
It's a different mind.
- [50:11]
Beth
Correct. And I failed math. I couldn't do fractions.
- [50:15]
David Duchovny
That is a tough thing about performing. I don't wanna go for sympathy here, but it's like. I think of it like Raging Bullshit or Shakespeare's Coriolanus if I'm gonna be more pretentious. But it's like, you train to go into this arena and then, okay, let's talk about Rosie. Then you gotta go home and be a mom. That's not an easy shift.
- [50:36]
Beth
No.
- [50:37]
David Duchovny
Cause you just were. It's not life and death, but it feels like life and death when you're out on a wire out there in front of millions of people doing a talk show. Obviously, in this great scheme of things, there's. The stakes are like, nobody's gonna die. But your brain doesn't know that, and your performing soul doesn't know that. Every time you're out there, it's like, I've gotta bring it. And Now I've got 20 minutes and I've gotta get home, and I've gotta be a completely different soul with these kids.
- [51:03]
Beth
Yeah. It was so easy for me to dissociate from the Rosie O'Donnell Persona.
- [51:10]
David Duchovny
It was.
- [51:10]
Beth
Yeah. I would go with my kids on, you know, Broadway, and I would see the kiosks, and it would be Newsweek. I'm on the COVID and I would say to my sister, literally, I hear the words in my head, oh, Rosie O'Donnell's on the COVID of Newsweek as if it had nothing to do with me. Right.
- [51:26]
David Duchovny
You're telling me as if that's a healthy thing.
- [51:28]
Beth
I think you're saying, well, it was healthy for me.
- [51:30]
David Duchovny
I think it is healthy, yeah.
- [51:32]
Beth
Because I never kind of took it in. I never took in that it meant I was better or, you know, there are so many comics and so many people, especially on Broadway, in the chorus, who can out sing me out dance me, who are so much more talented. And here I was starring in Broadway shows. Right. Well, why is that? Because I could not. Because I had the most talent. So I never thought that my success made me better than anyone else, nor did I think it made me equal to the ones I was talking to.
- [52:00]
David Duchovny
You didn't go back to it. You didn't think, I've got it.
- [52:03]
Beth
It's interesting because you don't ever realize the effect that you have on people. You, anyone who's a celebrity or, you know, an artist in our culture, you never realize the effect you have until you allow the people to tell you. So I'm working on a new special, an hour standup special, really. And I just started it this weekend at a little club in Santa Monica called the Crow. It's about a 200 seat club and it's like a performance space. And I did it. And it was the first time I had done this new hour. And it's largely about my child, Clay, and how the last 10 years have been really submerged in autism and autism topics and subjects. And after I walked off stage, people stayed. So I went to the tiny little green room upstairs and I'm like, okay, everyone's gonna be gone now. And I went back down and there's 200 people still there. And they're like, can we talk to you for a minute? I was like, okay. So people were telling me what I have meant to them. And it used to be very hard for me to take it, but I realized how much they need to say that I became.
- [53:17]
David Duchovny
What's hard for you to take?
- [53:19]
Beth
Oh, you know. Yeah. When people say, the boy who opened for me, the man who opened for me is a gay man. And he told a story about coming out that his mother, he was a little boy of 14, and his mother gave him the article where I came out and said, so just so you know, if you grow up to be like Rosie O'Donnell, I'd be okay. And he said, what a comedian. But I'm part of his. So people tell me, really heartwarming, and their eyes fill up or they cry. Have you ever been to a Comic Con? What do you think of that experience?
- [53:59]
David Duchovny
Well, at first, I had a prickly relationship to it because I was like, you know, in all honesty, I consider myself an artist, and I do many different things, and I don't want to be limited by, you know, X Files or whatever. The biggest thing.
- [54:16]
Beth
The biggest thing you did.
- [54:17]
David Duchovny
Yep, the biggest thing I've done. So I would push against that feeling of, like. And that's just ego. That's just plain old ego. So at first it was like, ah, you know, I don't really want to do this. And then I been to a few, and it's exactly what you're saying. It's like you realize that it's not really even about your fantasy of the world. It's not my fantasy of, like, oh, you know, I'm a good actor, and I portrayed that. It's really about how people take you into their lives. You know, people will say, I used to watch it with my dad, who's no longer with me, and now I watch it with my son. And it becomes part of the fabric of people's cultural lives.
- [55:01]
Beth
Yes.
- [55:02]
David Duchovny
A show that big or a talk show that's every day in somebody's home. So I began to just. And I'm never gonna be a guy that fully embraces, you know, strangers. It's just not me. But I do appreciate and honor. I guess it's really. I honor their experience. And it has nothing to do with what I did or what I do. It's just a thing that happened.
- [55:28]
Beth
Yeah.
- [55:28]
David Duchovny
And I'm not gonna get in their way. It's like, when I first started singing and I was about to perform for the first time, and I was standing in, like, a hallway, hallway outside in this club in New York, and I'm hearing people out there. I'm hearing the chatter, you know, the. The excited chatter. And I realized that they. They came out to have a good time.
- [55:50]
Beth
Yes.
- [55:50]
David Duchovny
You know, they didn't come out to laugh at me. They didn't come out to have a bad time. They didn't come out to hear bad songs. I. It's not my business anymore. Oh, I'm just gonna do my music.
- [56:01]
Beth
Correct.
- [56:01]
David Duchovny
And if I don't hit that note or that note or whatever, so what it's like, I'm not gonna get in their way. And that's how I feel with the fans of shows that I've done is like, I'm not gonna get in your way of loving this or thinking that you Love me or something. It's like, that's cool. That's fine. I get it now.
- [56:18]
Beth
I went to my first one recently, and I was very thrown. I was overwhelmed by the amount of love that was coming and the amount of heightened emotions with the people. And I hated that they were having to pay to say hello to me for three minutes. And the guys who run Comic Con. Cause there was a huge line because I couldn't stop talking to them. If they start crying, I get up and then I hug them, and then I. You know. And so it was depleting for me in some way. The first night, you know, after doing, like, eight hours of signing, where I didn't take a break because I felt so bad that people were waiting in line that, you know, I remember going home saying, I'm not gonna do another one. I'm not gonna do another, because I felt too bad about it. But then I had this kind of epiphany of, all you have to do is show up and receive. You do not. You know, And I brought Koosh balls to give everyone a gift. And they're like, nobody gives gifts. I'm like, I know. But I felt so bad that people paid whatever they paid to get an autograph or to get a photo with me. But I realized that I did mean something or I do mean something in someone's life that I never met, and that I have to respect that experience from their perspective.
- [57:38]
David Duchovny
It's not an ego thing for you. It's like, just get out of their way and let them love you in a way. Or let them tell you what you mean to them and you don't have to say, no, that's not really me.
- [57:50]
Beth
Yeah. Yeah. You should see me when I'm on a bed. Exactly. You just give them what? Just show up and be there.
- [58:00]
David Duchovny
Yeah. Well, it's an odd relationship. It really is. Regardless of how you handle it, I think it can be some kind of a revelation, like you said. It can be you coming to terms with who you were as well.
- [58:18]
Beth
Correct.
- [58:19]
David Duchovny
Who you are.
- [58:20]
Beth
Yeah. And it is a were, too. Cause people. I'm at a point now where at this age, with this hair, I walk around and I'm not noticed. People don't bother me. People don't. Somebody will say, hey, Ro. Hi. But it is nothing. I can go unaccosted through the. And that is such a gift to me because, as I'm sure you remember when X Files was on, how hard it was to do anything and remain somewhat grounded in your life reality.
- [58:50]
David Duchovny
Yeah. I mean, I think that that was just, you know, it's been so long and things become your life. It's just like, oh, that's. You forget how it was. You know, it's like that's. It's almost a scary kind of place to be.
- [59:09]
Beth
I think it was. It was overwhelming for me. I felt like I was in, you know, the highest surf place, like Mavericks. I felt like I was at the biggest surf waves in the world, and I was in there, and all I wanted to do was paddle to the shore.
- [59:23]
David Duchovny
Yeah. And for me, I think, as an actor and as a writer, my greatest power was confiscated, which was my ability to observe.
- [59:31]
Beth
Same with me.
- [59:32]
David Duchovny
Because he couldn't anymore.
- [59:34]
Beth
No, you couldn't change when everyone's looking at you. Correct. You changed the room.
- [59:38]
David Duchovny
So, like, before you could go in a room and you, like, study behavior, nobody gives a shit to who you are, what you know. And now at a certain point, you walk in the room and everybody turns and then behavior changes a little bit.
- [59:50]
Beth
Yes.
- [59:52]
David Duchovny
That's death to an actor and death to a writer.
- [59:56]
Beth
Yes.
- [59:56]
David Duchovny
Because you're a creative person.
- [59:58]
Beth
That's where you. Everything that you use to mold the clay of your life, you know? And do you know, I was gonna say, when you were talking about whether or not the crowd was talking and getting you or whether your next thing will be good, I always think of that Joni Mitchell lyric. You know, they pass around your latest Golden Egg speculation. Who's to know if the next one in the nest will glitter for them? So. Right. Imagine Joni Mitchell worrying that her songs weren't going to be October 19th and 20th. She's at the Hollywood Bowl. Just so you know, if you're a fan, I'm a huge fan of hers.
- [60:33]
David Duchovny
I'm a fan.
- [60:33]
Beth
Huge.
- [60:34]
David Duchovny
I'm a fan. Is she playing with Eminem? Are they.
- [60:36]
Beth
No, no. Brandi Carlisle. Just as good. Brandi Carlisle.
- [60:39]
David Duchovny
That would be your dream, Bill.
- [60:40]
Beth
Yeah. He's the one person that I would love to meet that I haven't met. Marshall Mathers. Yes. I think he has some of the most astounding lyrics on fame. He and Joni Mitchell talk about fame in a way that really comforted me.
- [60:53]
David Duchovny
Which song? Which Joni Mitchell songs or which Eminem songs?
- [60:57]
Beth
Well, the one I just spoke about, The Sire of Sorrow, Job's sad song. Eminem does so many. You know, you're trying to be a father. You can't be a father about his kids. And about that dichotomy between fame and parenthood, I don't know. I was so moved by him during, you know, the year. The two years after I left the show, which was.
- [61:24]
David Duchovny
Was he not. He didn't have a single out when you were doing the show or you just.
- [61:27]
Beth
He just wouldn't, you know, I think. But even though he sings, I hear his lyrics about me.
- [61:32]
David Duchovny
Oh, really?
- [61:32]
Beth
Bring around the. Rosie, the show's over. You can just go homey. But that ain't the way it's supposed to be, because that ain't the way that it works for me. And then he also has another song where he says, I want to go to McDonald's, go to Rosie O'Donnell's, sit on our lap and watch the Sopranos.
- [61:53]
David Duchovny
Yeah.
- [61:54]
Beth
Yeah.
- [61:54]
David Duchovny
Okay, Rosie.
- [61:55]
Beth
Okay. David Duchovny, it's been great having you. Thanks for coming. But no, I think that you're natural at this. I mean, you're curious. You're well prepared. You know what you want to talk about?
- [62:08]
David Duchovny
Yeah, I kind of do. And I want to leave room for it, too, you know, always, to me, that's what it's all about. That's what I'm trying to do.
- [62:15]
Beth
Well, thanks for having me.
- [62:16]
David Duchovny
Thank you.
- [62:16]
Beth
We're out of here.
- [62:17]
David Duchovny
Yeah. All right. Good morning. Well, here we are. This is the thoughts on the 20th episode that we recorded. And 20 was the original order, and 20 was the original, original thought. Like, how can I get to 20? Jesus, that's a lot. And I just wanted to celebrate that, that we got to 20. There will be more. And I don't know, 20's 20. What is it? I've spent so much of my life kind of like, let's say it's an achievement to do 20 podcasts. I mean, it's not a huge deal or anything, but it's. It's something. It's something that I set out to do, and now I've done it. And so much of my life, I've gone without celebrating any kind of achievement. I don't like using that word. Makes it sound crass in a way. But commitment. I said I was going to do 20, I did 20. And then the initial thought after that is like, well, where's the next 20? Or where's the next project? Or that's not good enough, or podcast, that's not good enough. You know, you got to do more. And it's kind of speaking to my situating myself inside a podcast about failure, that I can take even a success, like having done 20 and turn it into a goad on myself, turn it into something that makes me feel less than or, you know, what's next? What's next? What's next? Jesus, Am I learning? Am I learning through this podcast? I think so. I'm definitely getting different perspectives. The question is, is it sinking in? That's always the question with us as humans, isn't it? We become habituated in some kind of way of being and then, you know, we see that it's not healthy for us to be that way and we try to change. We grasp onto things that will help us change. And I think doing this podcast was a way and a way to try to change myself through, through these discussions of failures and and I feel slightly changed. Maybe it's going to take 20 more. Maybe it's going to take 20,000 more. That seems more likely. But I guess that's where I'm sitting today. There's more Fail Better with Lemonada Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like more of my behind the scenes thoughts on this episode. Subscribe now and Apple Podcasts. Fail Better is a production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Keegan Zema, Aria Brachi, Donnie Matias, and Paula Kaplan. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of Weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of New Content is Rachel Neal. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Krupinski and Brad Davidson. The show is executive produced by Stephanie Whittles Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band, the Lovely Computer, Colin Lee, Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowland and Sebastian Modak. You can find us online at Lemonada Media and you can find me at David Duchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen. Ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership.
- [66:38]
Beth
Foreign.
- [66:44]
David Duchovny
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- [67:58]
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Hi, I'm Megan and I've got a new podcast I think you're going to love. It's called Confessions of a Female Founder, a show where I chat with female entrepreneurs and friends about the sleepless nights, the lessons learned, and the laser focus that got them to where they are today. And through it all, I'm building a business of my own and getting all sorts of practical advice along the way that I'm so excited to share with you. You Confessions of a Female Founder is out now. Hear new episodes each week ad free on Amazon Music. You can also ask Alexa Alexa, play Confessions of a Female Founder with Megan on Amazon Music and she will.