← Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes)
Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes)
Alfre Woodard
00:46:17
Emmy-winning actor Alfre Woodard joins her longtime friend Ted Danson to talk about the nurse she got her nickname from, the relationship between film and activism, how playing Winnie Mandela led to their real-life relationship, why she feels most at home in the South, and her experience in the cast of Netflix’s “The Boroughs.” Like watching your podcasts? Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes.
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- [00:02]
A
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B
Welcome back to where everybody knows your name Today. I'm so excited to introduce you to my friend, Alfre Woodard. From St. Elsewhere to passion fish to 12 years of slave, Alfre has earned her reputation as one of the all time greats, literally. The New York Times called her one of the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century. We worked together on the film Mumford and the TV adaptation of Gulliver's Travels. Alfrey also currently stars in the sci fi series the Burrows on Netflix. I adore her and cannot wait for you to meet her. Here's Alfre Woodard. My favorite people signing autographs thing was, you know, see, anyway, no, I'll tell him. You know Mary's son, Charlie.
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A
Yes. God, I love Charlie.
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B
He's delicious.
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A
See, I remember him. Three years old, mostly.
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B
We were at the top of the Empire State Building for some reason, showing the kids around, and these school girls happened to have seen Cheers or something, whatever. They came up to me and they lined up and they all wanted. And I was furiously lining and Charlie slipped in line and I didn't even look up. And I just signed it and handed it back. And it was the story of proof that I am out to lunch and pay no attention to my children or anything like that. You know, Charlie, because you worked with Mary twice.
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A
Yes, yes, I did. And you know what? Lily was the only toddler. She was a child. She might have been two. She wasn't even sort of cognizant of Easter. Cross Creek.
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B
This was Cross Creek.
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A
Yes. And there had been a flood and we had to get in a boat to row over to their house, her and Malcolm's house, for Easter. An Easter egg hunt. Because Lily, who was like one and a half, but all of the adults, that's how we do family. It was like, well, it's Easter. We have to do that. And, you know, you could drive down the street, but at a certain point, you had to get in a little, you know, country boat and row over. And of course, there's all these adults. There was, God, I'm forgetting Joe Tompkins and everybody, like, they're like, here's an egg, Lily. I think there's one here and all, but. Yeah, so I see. Talk about not seeing people for a while. I would see Charlie and Lily maybe once every 10 years or 20 years. But they are that close in my heart and my memory.
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B
Yeah. Did you have kids then or. No?
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A
No, mine was. Mavis was, I think, six months old when we went down to shoot this
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B
wild thing called Ms. Firecracker.
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A
No, the gun in Betty Lou's handbag. And so Mavis learned to walk. And they still call her. Cause she's a very pretty child. And Michael O' Neal called her Ms. Puddy. And so they will still. She's 34, and they'll still say, how's Ms. Puddy doing? Like the cast and crew from that. But by the time we got to. No, we were practicing for a family when we did Miss Firecracker. And so we got Finley, a black lab, to bring back to Santa Monica to practice coming home and being responsible for something.
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B
Oh.
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A
Cause back then, I mean, we lived, you know, in Santa Monica. A lot of our friends lived in Beechwood Canyon or Los Felicia somewhere. So if you were out and hanging out, it's like, oh, I'm not driving all the way back there. And we also, before that, lived in Manhattan Beach. So you just crashed wherever you were at your friend's house. We said, okay, we want to start a family, but we have to learn how to go home and feed it, let it out. So.
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B
Well, you're married to a incredible father. I mean, he's.
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A
He is.
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B
According to Mary, he's pretty spectacular.
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A
Yes. Mary. Oh, my God. I don't know when I've seen Mary. I know she's told you about the two of us. You know, it was back during the apartheid era, and we sent out a call around the industry. Then you had. What do you call it, Mimeographs or. What are those things?
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B
Yeah, mimeographs.
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A
What came after mimeographs? Fax machines. So you send. You send faxes around saying, anybody interested in working on South Africa and trying to. Trying to assist with the dismantlement of apartheid and our disengagement, you know, as a government, with them, you know, to come. Anyway, There's a whole long story, but basically, people came out. We went to. It was Bob Guillaume and Donna Brown Guillaume's house. We thought maybe 20 people would show up. There are a couple hundred people, like 300 people, like, sitting all out on the deck and everywhere. And so we decided we were going to go to D.C. and, you know, we were all amped up and knew a lot people were Politically involved, and they knew a lot about the things they were doing. But they were receptionists, editors, everybody that had any sort of sensibility about that. And we planned this whole thing of going there. And when it came down to it, they. The day that we actually could go to D.C. it was just me and Mary on the plane going to have a showdown with the Senate about why the liberation movement, the black people, the majority population, they were the ones who were akin to us in our democracy. Not because before that it was like, oh, if they're Caucasian, they must. We must be on their side. But I remember her cornering Pete Wilson. Pete Wilson, he was so excited. That was our senator then. He was a governor or something once. He's the reason our schools went down the toilet. That's a whole nother conversation, but. Cause we used to have the number one school district in the country all across California. But he heard that there was a movie star there, Mary Steenburger. I'm going to. Oh, my God, Mary Steenburger is here. And he was just strutting up to her and she said, let me tell you what is in his face. He was just shocked. And he just listened because he just couldn't believe Mary Steenbergen, the beautiful, mannered Mary Steenbergen was giving him what for about not paying attention to the fact that people were being. Their lives are being ended and brutalized.
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B
But I think that moment ended with the door being slammed in your face by Pete.
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A
Well, Pete didn't even. I was standing next to her. Pete didn't even look at me. It was like. And there's the little brown one. I don't even have to turn towards her.
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B
Wow.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And here we are now. They're revisiting.
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A
And I remember dancing at you guys wedding.
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B
I know.
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A
Yeah.
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B
We also got to play. We were vastly different sizes. But you played the queen of Rob Ding Nag. Yes. And Gulliver's Travels. And you were big and I was small. This is the land of the giants.
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A
Yes. Yes.
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B
Right. So I don't think we actually got to look at each other in the eye. You were probably looking at some dot or some tennis ball for your eyeline.
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A
But I just. I'm so happy to visit with you. I just love you, Ted. And I, you know, it ignites in my heart every time I see you on screen. So it's good to just sit with you.
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B
That's so sweet. Back at you.
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A
Thanks.
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B
And you're infallible as an actor. You really are. Every time I see you, the Same confidence. You walked in and I'm going, I'm terrified. As I'm first day of school. I'm starting to read through. No, you're so good. You know how when you watch a film, whether you're looking at it at the director or an actor, within seconds, even if you don't know the actor, you will go, oh, I'm in good hands. That confidence that you go, you can relax and I'll go wherever you want to take me, Alfre, because I am relaxed the second you come on screen. That I know I'm in good hands. And you have that. You really do. Yeah. Oh, you're also so elegant. You really are such an elegant person, too. I have so many questions.
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A
I describe myself that way, but you are elegant. You're lovely.
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B
Let's take a vote. Everybody in the room. Elegant, elegant.
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A
No pressure.
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B
So I have two stories that Mary said you gotta ask her. Okay, so just back. You grew up in Oklahoma.
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A
Tulsa.
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B
Late 50s, early 60s.
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A
Early 50s.
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B
Early 50s. I didn't want to say early 50s because that's me. My growing up. I was born in 47. You were born in 44.
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A
52. All right.
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B
See how well I know you?
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A
Well, ages aren't important, but let's go on.
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B
Okay, so. And your daddy was a designer. And that's really the first question I had because Mary said you have to have Alfred tell the story about how her dad became an interior designer.
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A
Oh, that's.
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B
Is this ringing a bell?
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A
Absolutely. But it's this.
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B
Because I don't know.
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A
It's too long for here.
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B
No, it's not. No, it's not. Oh, well, you don't have to tell it if you don't want.
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A
Okay, I'll tell you this story, but it's a little. It's long for here.
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B
Okay, we have time. No. Oh, you don't want to. You'll tell me sometime. Okay, very good.
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A
Then I'll know that when you're back east, you'll actually come home.
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B
Tell me the story. I'm not going to have Mary tell it to me. I'm going to wait for you. All right, That's a story to come. The other story was how you got nicknamed Bootsy.
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A
Oh, that's. Yes. Normally, I wouldn't want you to say that aloud because. Fox, I'm going to tell you this. If anybody. Anybody listening? If y' all come calling me Bootsy in public, you're gonna see the inelegant alfrey.
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B
Why did Mary load me up with these stories?
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A
This is not fair. Because she thought we were just gonna be together yakking and there wouldn't be your gazillions of listeners there.
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B
I have two stories, okay, But Bootsy,
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A
I want, I do wanna talk about that.
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B
Oh great.
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A
It's just the fact of it. We get nicknames at birth in our family and mine was Bootsy. At birth you get a nickname, you know, it might be a week or two later, but my mother, I was an 11 month pregnancy and it was truly, you know, counted. It wasn't like somebody forgot something. And my mother was small. She was like she might have been. She said she was five, two, I don't know, but she was tiny. But she would end up having these, you know, weighing going up to 180 pounds. That little with these pregnancies. But normally she wore size four pants. And she said, okay, this scene, I take too long for stories. This part is not part of the story. But it's good. She, she might nurse a glass of wine for two days. That's all the alcohol she did. But my father had a bottle of Wild Turkey next to the bed in his easy chair. And she was so big she couldn't pick up anything if he was gone. So when he would go out, he'd set her up in the chair and then she would be fine until he came home. Well, she was sitting there, she said I was miserable. And I just said, father God, just take me, I can't take this anymore. So she started drinking this Wild Turkey and she passed out eventually. And it was only a matter of a couple of hours. He came back, she was on the floor with the water broken and he rushed to the airport and I flew out. Within an hour I was here. Anyway, the Morton's Hospital was the name of it back then. And it was a colored hospital as everything was. It was colored of white back in that day day. And they weren't particularly nice. They had a couple of black nurses, but it was mainly white nurses and staff and all. But they were mean to the black women. They were just. Are they, if not mean overlooking a lot of times. But my mom had some, you know, they needed to really keep track of her with this pregnancy and all. But I came out normal and like normal size like seven and a half pounds. Back then people didn't have 10 pound babies. But she was in pain a lot after the birth and she said people just would moan and call out and nobody would come for them. She said there was a woman that came to her and would sit with her at night. And just chip up ice and feed it to her. And she would rub my mother's feet. Look, I'm getting misty about it. She would rub my mother's feet and feed her ice chips. This nurse, and the nurse's name was Boots. And so when she. I got my birth name from my godmother, which is Alfred, so we knew it was gonna be that. But as soon as my mom got home, she said the baby's nickname is Bootsy.
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B
Oh, I love that.
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A
Because of Boots. Yeah, so, but still, don't y' all be calling me Bootsy like you know me, like Bootsy Collars. Because you get called your nickname when you go to school. You get your government name. I had a government name, the official one, which I might as well say that it's Alfre Lewanda. Jean Woodard was my name. Jean was spelled wrong because they let my 6 year old sister name me that. She wanted to put a name in and they said, Jean is J E a N. She goes, no, no, I want it to two E's. So it's just weird, my naming. But anyway, I was called Bootsy all my life to the point that even at school, at school, like in high school, when I went away, I think the first thing I did was probably was Alan Rudolph's picture that Bob Altman produced called Remember My Name. And so they saw Alfie Woodard. And then the TV thing is when I did Freedom Row with Ali and Kristofferson. So by that time, my high school friends and middle school and all they said, oh yeah. I said, I heard Bootsy Woodard is in Hollywood and she's doing pretty good, except she changed her name to Alfre. Alfrey. That's not a good name. But Alfrey kicked in. My godmother would always say to me, you know your God given name, right? Your real name? I said, yes, yes, I know. She said, everybody calls you Bootsy, but just so you remember your name, because that's your God given name. Because she had prayed for a name, she knew she was gonna be my godmother. And so Alfrey was my name. I get to be you again. Government. You registered. So on my door at the dorm was Alfre Woodard. And I just went, might as well call me Alfre because only my friend Sugar Bear called me Alfrey. But she thought of it high school or I mean, oh, when I went to college. College, yeah, when I went to college at bu. So. And when people said it, she had said it was my God. God name. When people said it Things changed in me because it was my God given name and I felt like myself in a very grounded way that, you know, I was an odd child. I was popular because I was one of those weird ones that didn't hide away and let themselves be ostracized. I was odd and in your face and participating all the time. So. But I also feel like, you know how you're born, where you come out, but then you find out where you really live when you have a choice. So. But it started with being called Alfrey. And I understand why, and I'll tell you off mic why, but that's when my feet was strongly flat on the ground.
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B
What was the first thing you did after bu? Was it theater?
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A
I came here and. Okay, so, you know, you're studying all this classical theater and all in conservatory at bu and. And then the last semester, you know, you think you're going to the open gate theater and do Brecht all your life. And like the last semester they bring Marty in from New York to say, okay, this is what you gotta do. You get you some headshots, get yourself a black turtleneck and, you know, find yourself a waiting job. And, you know, a lot of my classmates did and some did well, but. But I immediately I wanted to be in film. That was what I realized that I was suited for and what I wanted to. What I thought I could bring to the world. Because we thought we could change the world when we were young, because we desperately needed to. You remember, we were hiding under the desk with our hands behind our head to prevent dying in a nuclear blast. That's what they told us to do. And they shot everybody in the head that believed the things that we were being taught. Like everybody had equal rights. Everybody was equal under the law. Everybody was, if you will, a child of the universe. And everybody that said it, Malcolm Medga, Bobby Martin. And they just assumed Jack Kennedy felt that way too, because he was young and it was a new time. So when we were choosing professions, it was like, even if you wanted to break bread, I mean, bake bread, it was like, okay, well, how can I use this to save the world? Because, you know, we spent all that time trying in the streets trying to save. Trying to save our friends who were having to go off to a war. That was, okay, we won't get into that. But we watched all of our young people around us being fed into a war machine and not coming back, or if they came back, really damaged. And so I was being shown film by brother Patrick o' Brien At Bishop Kelly High, and he was a film buff. So they would shut down the school once a month, take all 750 kids to the nearest cinema, and he would show us whatever film he was excited about. And so that's when I started to watch film and understand that, you know, first you're like, this is not a movie, this is a lesson. It's got words on it. We gotta read subtitles and all. But I'm sitting there in the dark, identifying with a person. A French man, middle aged man, and I'm 14 watching Sundays in Sabelle. And I could go on, but it was just that I realized how powerful the moving image was. And for me, it was like, that's what we do. We commandeer the moving image and we can. That was. You know, there are those of us who thought that's how we'd save the world, but it was all about.
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B
Did you make that connection with those words? Or is that kind of in hindsight realizing that in that moment.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because people did it.
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B
There was nothing casual going on around you in your life. It was all very much life and death.
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A
Yeah, it was. We were all. Not all, but I guess the people I kept coming with, we were. You were activists. I'm a daughter of Greenwood. You were activists and, you know, you had fun. You dicked around and, uh, oh, I dicked around. But, you know, welcome. You know, there was a lot of joy. Because when you're struggling, when you're in the struggle, it is invigorating because you're standing with the truth. So it makes you joyful. So people think, oh, if somebody's too dour and serious about themselves, they're not focused on the fact that they're standing with the truth.
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B
Most likely they're not gonna be that effective. Cause I do believe if you're coming from fear and anger and trying to make change, it doesn't work. Mary had the same, different, obviously, you know, from a white perspective. She was a little girl watching kids go to school, and Little Rock High School and Central, they were throwing rocks at them and yelling words at them and. And she didn't want. It was the first integration of these. I don't know how many kids it was, but it was a handful of black kids who were integrated into that school. And. And she looked at it on the news and went, oh, I don't want to go to school. I don't want to go to school. But she was, you know, you always think, oh, the South. No, the south actually had to deal with their racism and had to choose earlier on. So she said, there's nothing casual. You realize that at an early age, you either thought that that was wrong or you went along with it. And you. You couldn't be on the fence.
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A
That's. Mary was my first, if you want to say, quote unquote, Hollywood friend. It was like we recognized each other because not only did we drink the same water, she was Little Rock, I'm an hour and a half, maybe two hours away in Tulsa. But we knew the same people and we had the same experience, and we also had the. You also, like, again, we laugh louder and harder about stuff, and inappropriately is the key to doing it. But also in the South. I'm still more comfortable in the south, believe it or not, than I am in most parts of the country, because everything was dealt with. We're all DNA related to each other. And so with family, you learn to live together. When you're together, you can't say that person's not human. It's like, oh, yes, they are. Because, you know, my kid fell and broke their head open. They scooped them up and helped me get them to the hospital, or they put, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And so people realize it's their opinion that, you know, that we are not created equal and meant to be treated that way. So. So that's again. And that takes us all the way up to us in that final thing. People had things to do, like, maybe they had to be on their show or maybe they had whatever they had to do. But we did, too. But we got on that plane and we went to D.C. together. And we got there and we got to the plane and we just said, are we the only ones that just started cackling? And it's like, yes, daughters. Yes, you are, because you are daughters of the enlightenment that will save the nation.
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B
Yeah. And you both came from. You're both well loved.
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A
Yes.
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B
By your parents. And your decency was a big word, whether it was said or not. I'm assuming that those kind of parents
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A
that tell you it doesn't matter if you're eating. If anybody in your vicinity is hungry, then you need to put your fork down and go make sure everybody has something to eat tonight.
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B
I'm bouncing around. But you played Winnie Mandela. Were you around her? Did you get to spend any time with her? What was that experience like, I may ask?
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A
You know, when we did Mandela, we shot it in Zimbabwe. There was huge expatriate. Not even expatriate people that had Fled for their lives or they were had. They were underground. But you had to get out of South Africa if you were part of the liberation movement there. So we, Danny and I were
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B
already
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A
active in the anti apartheid movement. And that was you and Danny Glover
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B
and Mary and a few handful other
- [26:56]
A
people started ansa Artists for a New South Artist for Free South Africa. Then that became Artists for a New South Africa. And so it was a way for us to. You know, sometimes you have the good fortune of letting your sensibilities, your spiritual, political, social. Opinions or. Or the things that you live to activate. They'll cross with your artistic. The artistic lanes. And you get to do that. So we did do Mandela for HBO back in the day. And then everybody was still on the island and Winnie and them were banned. They couldn't leave and none of us could go in.
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B
She made that. I'm sorry, I misunderstood. He was still in prison.
- [27:52]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah. But you want to know, this is how I got to be friends with Madiba. Is that again because humans are humans. Being on the island was on Robben island took away a lot of their life that didn't get lived out in open. But there was also a kind of inculcated them against the daily assault of apartheid that Winnie and other people suffered because they were dragged out, interrogated in the middle of the night, all of that. And they didn't want the political prisoners to infect the rest of the criminal population. So they kept them together. And so what became. It became what was called Mandela University. If you got sent to Robben island, it's like, can you get into the cell block areas that had Madiba and Cathrata? And I'm blinking now on all the names Mbeke. But they would put. They would bring in all of Mediba's law books. They actually, because they're like, well, we don't care. Give them whatever they're asking for. And the jailers who were farm boys, Africana farm boys, who. That society that had so much. So much wealth, they didn't think of them as deserving of a lot of humanity. So they were put there with Madiba in them. So for the first time, those guys who were told it, you know, like the blacks were monsters, and they were literally monsters and devils. You know, they were being given respect by Madiba when another white man hadn't given them that in their society. And they actually learned things from Madiba. So they would. People would do things and make what you would normally make for a person that when you're in Their presence. You understood that you were in the presence of thoughtfulness and intelligence and compassion. So all of that to say within a couple of months of when it aired on hbo, Madiba and them had a bhr. What do we call those things? Cassette. Yeah, they had a cassette of Mandela on Robben island. And it was never shown until South Africa was free. It was never shown to the greater population. So that's when he saw me and Danny. And that's. We also did a lot of work helping the underground. And so they knew that the work that we were doing. But that just goes back to. Yeah, so I played Winnie when I finally met. Met both of them is when they came once he was released and they came. Did across the World tour, came over to the Coliseum and there was a big celebration from the deepa there. And we got to introduce him. She practically squeezed my head off my whole body. I mean. Yeah, but. And so I went through all the different years with that them of, you know, the complications that the abuse she suffered at the hands of the police that, you know, made her life complicated because, you know, she reacted the way a person who is abused, oppressed and abused reacts. And it made things difficulty but difficult. But we all remained friends in even as they were separated. And I was particularly close with him.
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B
How amazing. I mean, that your craft, your art allowed that meeting. And then later in life, also working with Obama, he put you in charge of an educational. And I'm blanking on the name of
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A
it, but it was called Turnaround Arts. And that came out of the President's Committee on Arts and Humanities, which he was the first president that actually had artists on that committee. I think it started with Gerald Ford, but it was always whoever had given the most to their campaigns and things. And they met once a year, but they had about 45 artists in every discipline and arts curators and arts advocates on that committee. So incredible things came out like the Turnaround Arts, which was using arts to really turn around failing schools in the country. But there was another thing they did. I don't know what it was named, but I remember the first time I went to Harare. I turned on the TV in Zimbabwe and it was Yellow Rose. I'd never heard of it or seen it. That was what was on Yellow Rose of Texas with Sybil shepherd was on In Harare. And all of these things that people. Because you didn't have contact with Americans, you thought that's how Americans lived. Because that was the kind of fantasy stuff we were putting out here. And they Did a program, the president's committee, where they took independent filmmakers like Peter Bratt. I won't start naming everybody. And they took those. They said, we have. We realized that, like, 80% of the world population is younger than I am. So we have a chance. The State Department under Obama did this also. We have a chance to redefine ourselves as Americans so people really know who we are and not just our armament and, you know, Dallas, everybody driving around these huge cars with big lands. And so that was another thing that that same committee did, was to. To send. Oh, my brother. Wow, I'm blanking on my brother's name who did Freedom Riders. He's an incredible. He's an incredible documentarian. He went to China with. With Freedom Riders. And in that audience, somebody helped me. Stanley Nelson. Oh, my God, the brilliant Stanley Nelson.
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B
He.
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A
They sent him to China and in. And so, of course, you know, sometimes it's lovely how bureaucrats and autocrats don't know shite. They didn't know. You don't show Freedom Riders to, you know, 400 Chinese young people. The question, the Q and A instead of like, oh, America, that was really terrible. They said, it makes me think about individual freedom. How do you move? And. Yeah, so that's how you get over on the man. You just stay with the truth. The man is really so far away from the truth, they don't even know when you're being subversive, that when you
- [35:27]
B
inject the arts into education. No, no, no, no, no, no. Grades go up. I mean, it sounds like, oh, this is warm and fuzzy. People want to paint pictures and da, da, da, da. And it's a waste of time. It should be science and arithmetic and something will build something. Grades go up in all the reading, writing, arithmetic stuff if you give them the arts. Fact. That's a fact.
- [35:53]
A
We did. We accumulated all of this thing. We gave it to him. It's a, you know, not a pamphlet, but a whole thing about 72 pages of how it works for a year. We accumulated. Kidding. See, this has been in the back of my mind. But there was all this evidence, 30 years worth of evidence, that within the same school, if you had gave a group of kids instrumental music and the others didn't have it. Those kids that had instrumental music, their math scores went up and. Well, now we can see that when somebody is playing an instrument, we have the technology to see that there's a certain part of their brain that lights up. That would be the same part that comprehends and retains mathematical language and sensibility so, yeah, so it's not only that it humanizes us, which should be the basis and the point of education anyway, but it also, it opens up parts of the brain that allows us to do the science, that allows us to do the history, all those things that
- [37:17]
B
the people on the other side want and stress, well, guess what? Put arts in and your kids will be even better at that thing you care about. Okay,
- [37:38]
A
you so serious.
- [37:40]
B
Burroughs. Tell me about Burroughs. Cause that's. Are you traveling the world talking about Burroughs? It looks amazing. I didn't get. I haven't seen it yet, but I watched the trailer and clips and all that spooky kind of spooky.
- [37:54]
A
It is. It's scary on a lot of levels because the best thing about it is that it takes place in the retirement community. So it's one of those where, you know, we've read about, where there's like 2,000 people and they're all, you know, gray haired and they party and they're running around in golf carts and, you know, they, you know, they do everything. It's like you get to play and there's freedom because, you know, stuff you didn't know when you were playing before in your. And what they had teens, 20s, 30s. And so yeah, there is the fun of that, but there's something sinister happening at this particular one and we don't quite know what it is. And we think it's one thing that people talk about, you know, memory and the things that frighten us now or I'm going to break my back or everything. And so you think that might be happening, but it is deeper, deeper than the earth. What is actually going on there?
- [39:05]
B
Directed it again or it's directed?
- [39:09]
A
Why don't you ask me that?
- [39:10]
B
No, no, Will and Jeff.
- [39:12]
A
Okay, yeah, Will and Jeff.
- [39:14]
B
Is it Duffer?
- [39:15]
A
No, the Duffer brothers are executive producers. So it has what they recognize in our showrunners. When they, they pitched the idea, they recognized the Stranger Things nest of it all. And so they came on and that. So they have. They were our executive producers and Hillary Levitt, who runs who. Who was their producer for Stranger Things, she came on with us and yeah, it's a lot of things. It makes you, you know, there's this. Laughter. Well, that's what attracted me. Yeah.
- [39:56]
B
One of my favorite actors, Alfred Molina,
- [39:59]
A
and one of the best guys ever. He's just a lovely, lovely man. But one of the cool things was maybe like the top eight people on the call sheet were over 70. They say 65, but I know so it was so great. You should have seen our first HR meeting. You know, the lovely lady couldn't get to. Out to Albuquerque where he shot. So she. So you've got, like, a room with all of us. And they're like. Jenna had just turned 40, I think. And then some of our other brilliant young ones, they're like. And they're like, 41 and 42. Will and Jeff are 43 and 44. And then you had the kids who were in the back of the room talking smack, getting put out all the time. Oh, my goodness. It was, you know, Pullman, Clark, Peters, Geena, My Heart, Geena Davis, Dennis o'. Hare. I shouldn't have started mentioning. People go around that room.
- [41:08]
B
You did pretty good that.
- [41:10]
A
But, you know, it's just things like she was talking and talking. Somebody said, can anybody hear her? Somebody goes, no. Somebody adjusted their hearing aid. I don't know. Can I use one part of that? And then we started giggling. Finally, somebody said, you know, we can't hear you. And just then start laughing. And then she tells us all what we can't see. You can't say, ooh, you look good in those jeans today. You just like, no. And you can't call anybody honey, baby, anything. It was like, what are we gonna say to each other? And then I'm not gonna say who said, well, how will I know if my butt looks good in the jeans if nobody tell me? But, oh, my God. So it was so generational in talking about what makes us feel safe. Safe.
- [42:02]
B
And it's a good thing, but there are some losses that go along with the good thing, you know?
- [42:09]
A
Yeah. If you acting up, we will all take you down and be messing up, messing around with somebody, one of our people.
- [42:18]
B
That's good.
- [42:18]
A
But we will all take you down. But that's how. Yeah, that's how it had been. Just like we used to get put out on the street to go play. Nobody hovered over us and had orange slices for us when we were on one of those things at the park that goes around and you can't get off of it. Then you're upchucking, and the boys keep spinning it. So, yeah, we're kind of that generation. So that's what's fun about it. Because our whole group, we live on a cul de sac, and even at the Burrows, we're kind of the. The odd kids, overgrown kids. And that's why we're the ones out trying to figure out what the hell is going on. The other ones are just still having fun but the kids from the back of the room, it's like something's going on. Let's fix it now. And yeah, it's a lot of fun.
- [43:16]
B
It's great. It's coming out on the 21st on Netflix. Yes, I will give Mary your love. She wanted you to know how much she loves you. And I get two stories coming my way when we're having a glass of something.
- [43:33]
A
No, you got Bootsy. I told you.
- [43:34]
B
Bootsy. That's right, I got Boots.
- [43:35]
A
But everybody's on your honor. If you love me, don't call me Bootsy. Because
- [43:41]
B
Bootsy, that's the autobiography. Don't call me Bootsy.
- [43:47]
A
Oh, God, Ted, you just made it funny. Now they're going to be saying, what are you putting your autobiography, Bootsy out? Okay.
- [43:56]
B
Yeah.
- [43:57]
A
Anyway, I love you.
- [43:58]
B
And I love you, too. And please give Roderick my love. And your daughter's still riding? Is she riding?
- [44:04]
A
She owns a horse farm with her fiance in Italy. They compete on the international circuit. Oh, she just had a. She just had her first foal born. They buy and sell and show horses, but they've started to breed. And she just sent me a thing. I'm a grandmother. And we see the little one just trying to stand up. Yeah, it's beautiful. And my Duncan is just the king of my heart. He is. Yeah.
- [44:37]
B
Are we lucky?
- [44:39]
A
We are. We're not lucky. We're fortunate. But everybody has the same good fortune because good is afoot and it is a law and we just have to. We have to be looking for it because it's already there.
- [44:56]
B
It kind of breaks down for me. It's like, be grateful and hum a note. Hum a note in life that maybe makes a difference.
- [45:06]
A
Nice.
- [45:06]
B
You know, a kind note, a nurturing note, and then the rest is gravy. That was the fantastic Alfre Woodard. I am so sorry that we didn't have more time to talk. Many great stories to come. Catch her in the Burrows on Netflix. That's it for this week. Special thanks to Team Coco. If you enjoyed this episode, send it to a loved one rate and review on Apple Podcasts. If you have a mind once again, you can watch our full length video episodes@YouTube.com teamco see you next time. Where everybody knows your name.
- [46:00]
C
You've been listening to where everybody knows your name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson Sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leow. Our executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross and myself. Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel, with support from Eduardo Perez, research by Alyssa Grohl, talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Bautista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Gend, Mary Steenbergen and John Osborne.