← Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes)
Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes)
Mary Steenburgen, Pt. 1
01:00:36
Today Ted Danson is joined by his favorite person in the world—and surprise, it’s not Woody! In the first of this two-part series, Ted asks Mary Steenburgen about her early years: growing up in Arkansas, what her parents were like, witnessing desegregation, her hippie days, how she got the acting bug, and her big break with Jack Nicholson. Like watching your podcasts? Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes.
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- [00:00]
Ted Danson
You don't want to compromise on your vacation.
- [00:03]
Woody Harrelson
In fact, you deserve more on vacation.
- [00:06]
Ted Danson
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- [00:10]
Woody Harrelson
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- [00:50]
Ted Danson
I'll describe your side in the bathroom later on in the show.
- [00:53]
Mary Steenburgen
Oh, my God.
- [01:04]
Ted Danson
Welcome back to where everybody knows your name.
- [01:07]
Woody Harrelson
Today I'm going to be talking with.
- [01:09]
Ted Danson
My wife, Mary Steenburge, and it is incredibly hard to come up with something that reflects how much I love her in a, you know, intro to podcast. But, oh, boy, do I ever. This is going to make her squirm. She's an amazing actor, composer, she's my best friend, an extraordinary grandmother. The list goes on and on. I should just let her, you know, speak for herself.
- [01:38]
Woody Harrelson
But. All right, sorry. See, I'm tongue tied. Honestly, I didn't know how much we'd have to discuss seeing that we know each other so well, but, boy, it was a lot, actually. So much that we divvied up this conversation into two parts. Today's episode focuses on her upbringing and early years in Arkansas, up until she started getting cast in films. The next episode is on everything after that, especially me.
- [02:06]
Ted Danson
This is hard. Anyway, here you are, Mary Steenberg. Hello, Mary.
- [02:18]
Mary Steenburgen
So weird.
- [02:19]
Ted Danson
Oh, you have no idea how weird this is gonna get.
- [02:22]
Mary Steenburgen
Oh.
- [02:22]
Ted Danson
Cause I'm.
- [02:23]
Mary Steenburgen
That's intriguing.
- [02:24]
Ted Danson
I'm excited and nervous and all of that stuff.
- [02:27]
Mary Steenburgen
Well, I've never been interviewed by my husband before.
- [02:34]
Ted Danson
This will be a first. Can I just start off? Here's my little thing to myself today. One of my favorite moments that you and I have had was on a dance floor early on in our relationship, and I started to get intrigued about how well I was dancing. And you very sweetly came up in the middle of the dance and whispered in my ear, pay attention to your fucking partner. So this is my goal for myself today. Pay attention to my fucking partner.
- [03:08]
Mary Steenburgen
One would hope.
- [03:09]
Ted Danson
One would hope. Hi.
- [03:11]
Mary Steenburgen
Hi.
- [03:13]
Ted Danson
All right. I'm going to just start this off by saying, I want to go back. I want to go back. I want to go back to the very kind of beginning of who. Sorry, boy, I'm just so nervous talking to you. This is so fucking strange.
- [03:29]
Mary Steenburgen
I've been so nervous. This is so weird.
- [03:31]
Ted Danson
Well, it's not my fault.
- [03:32]
Mary Steenburgen
You literally live with me for 30 years. We are almost never apart during COVID We never left each other's side, and yet you don't know what to ask me. And I don't know if you've done any research into me whatsoever, other than just counting on life.
- [03:56]
Woody Harrelson
Research?
- [03:57]
Mary Steenburgen
Yeah, like you research. I watch you research all your guests. Did you come up with anything that you don't know about me? That's what I want to ask.
- [04:06]
Ted Danson
Nope. But I'm going to find out stuff I don't know about you, Bar. Here's two things. First off, let me get the Dax Shepard story. We saw him out of the way. We saw him the other night because we were at an event that was celebrating Kristen Bell, and I told him that we were about to do the podcast together, and he said, oh, wow. Yeah. Everyone I know who has a podcast and interviewed their wives, the first time they did it, it just turned into an out and out fight.
- [04:42]
Mary Steenburgen
I know.
- [04:43]
Ted Danson
So that kind of made me nervous right off the bat. Yeah, I'll settle down, by the way, I promise you. But here's what I would like to talk about. I want to talk about your roots. I want to talk about North Little Rock. I want to talk about who made you, you know, and your kind of moral compass came from those years. And she's grinning at me like, what a fool.
- [05:15]
Mary Steenburgen
Come on. I'll play along. Go on.
- [05:18]
Ted Danson
All right. I was listening to you talk to somebody, a politician, on the phone, and they were.
- [05:26]
Woody Harrelson
There was an implication in the air.
- [05:28]
Ted Danson
That your liberal bias or whatever came from going to Hollywood. And you replied, actually, that's not true. Everything I am, my moral center, and all of that came from North Little Rock, came from my father, the Trainman, my mother, who worked as a secretary, and my aunt, who was a teacher, and my church that I went to, you know, not just once a week. And the times you were living in as far as civil rights and everything. So that's where you came from and who you are. And I'd love to just talk about that for a minute. I know that some of the stories, but it intrigues me about you, where and how you became Mary Steenbridge. And that's a good place to begin. You can stop smiling now.
- [06:23]
Mary Steenburgen
Okay. Yeah. I was born in a little town called Newport, Arkansas, and we moved when I was maybe 18 months old to north Little Rock, to a little house that my sister and I still own and that family lives in. And My dad was a freight train conductor. During his. During his working life, he suffered many heart attacks. It was kind of crazy. How many heart attacks?
- [07:06]
Ted Danson
How old were you?
- [07:07]
Mary Steenburgen
The first one was 8 years old. And one of my memories that was a very kind of, you know, Titanic memory in my life was a doctor saying to me, after talking to my mother in front of me and then looking at me and saying, you need to be a good girl. You behave. Because, you know, if you don't, that could mean something very serious for your dad. So basically, the little girl heard, don't do anything wrong or your dad's gonna die. And my. There. In my life, psychologically, there's my first life, which is zero to eight, you know, eight years old. And then there's everything after that, because in that moment, my understanding of the world as I knew it changed and my understanding of what I needed to do to keep my father alive, which was try to be perfect, even though I'm so. As, you know, Ted, so far from being perfect. Oof. Yeah.
- [08:22]
Ted Danson
Oh, sorry. Sorry. That was.
- [08:24]
Mary Steenburgen
Editorializing escapes you. I know. Yeah. So that was kind of what I swam in for my.
- [08:36]
Ted Danson
But describe your dad.
- [08:37]
Mary Steenburgen
Now, my dad was this.
- [08:39]
Ted Danson
Who I never got to meet.
- [08:40]
Mary Steenburgen
You never got to meet him. It's. I loved him so much. He was a fantastic man. Very quiet, very soft spoken, amazing sense of humor. He didn't laugh out loud. If he got really tickled, he silently shook and tears rolled down his cheeks. And it was such a delicious occurrence and so contagious that I spent a lot of time trying to make that happen, you know, to just make him laugh. And he was a really good person, a real man's man. And it was very hard in those days when you had a. You had a heart disease in those days. They treated it in such sad ways. Like, they told him, you know, you can't hunt, you can't fish, you can't. You know, you can't. I think they even said, you can't make love to your wife. You can't. There was all this, like, crazy shutdown of a human being to protect you. Meanwhile, you knowingly had bacon and eggs every single morning. And, you know, and my dad was the kind of person that, you know, none of us had. Nobody in our family had been to college, so these young people that were his doctors, he would call, he would say, yes, sir. You know, yes, ma'am. His doctor, actually, for a large part of it, eventually was a woman who was really cool. But, yeah, it was. That was the way it was in our house. There was a lot of fear of that. Kept getting more and more frightening because he had more and more heart events. And so each time that happened, I think I tried to figure out what I'd done to cause that. And the only reason I say this is that I think it's one of these things that I never hear people talk about. People really worry when somebody gets divorced if the child will feel like the child caused that. But people need to remember to tell children that they can't stop someone from being ill, it wasn't their fault, and to be mindful of their psychological life. During that time, no one knew. I felt like if I contorted myself enough, I could say, you know, ironically, my father died when I was 35 years old, and he pretty much died from lung cancer from his chewing tobacco that had been his choice. And that he used to go out in the backyard because he didn't want us to see him do it. But he was pretty addicted to his chewing tobacco. And most people don't realize you can actually get lung cancer from it, not just mouth and throat. So, boy, I've started this out on a very cheerful note.
- [12:11]
Ted Danson
No, no, but that was me. But also just that image of your daddy, because your daddy was a trainman. And I'd love you to talk about that because there's this one image you describe when you were very young of seeing your daddy on a train.
- [12:27]
Mary Steenburgen
Yeah, we. We had one car, so. And when my dad trained, at least in those days, would get a call in the middle of the night that tell him, okay, now it's time for you to come to work. And that call could come at 2am or 3am and then he would pack this thing called his grip, which was a little suitcase, and he would disappear for like, two days. He'd go to Poplar Bluff, Missouri. That was where he worked for Missouri Pacific Railroad, which eventually became Union Pacific. And he. We would have to drive him to work. I'd have to be bundled up and put in the back of our old Chevy because my mom couldn't dare leave me alone in the house. And so I just remember when morning, we took him to work, and it must have been just as dawn was breaking. And to. He. He knew that I was awake, and so he climbed up on top of a boxcar and I. He waved at me from the top of this boxcar. And I saw my dad silhouetted against the dawn sky. And that has since become a song. I know we're going to talk about that later. Teen and Lucy.
- [13:45]
Ted Danson
Yeah, yeah, I love that image. I love that image. All right, so. And your mom, talk about your mom Nell, who I did get to meet. Yeah, I just got goosebumps as soon as I said her name.
- [13:57]
Mary Steenburgen
Yeah, she was amazing. She was, she was basically a kid. Her dad died when she was 6 and her mom had had mental health issues. And so when she was six years old, her memory, one of her first memories is that some people she didn't know put her in this sort of horse drawn wagon and drove her to Grubbs, Arkansas or within, within a mile of Grubs, Arkansas. There was a little one room school and they let her out. She had the clothes on her back and her doll and they said, walk a mile down that road and there's a schoolhouse and your sister, your older half sister is there, she's going to look after you now. And then they drove off and so this six year old walked down the road to her new life. And so my aunt, my aunt Lillian, who was her half sister became also this really towering figure in my life because she was an educator. She taught in this one room schoolhouse and she taught me to read before I even went to school and she helped raise my mom, so. But my mom was very, she had a lot of reasons that she could have been bitter and sad in life and instead she was this very beautiful, smiling, non judgmental. Non judgmental. A lot of what people call liberal in my life just came from my mother's love of each human she met, regardless of how they presented themselves or what they believed. She just, she, she was, she was a lot to live up for in some ways because she, I never saw her do a mean thing ever in my life. She was just, she didn't, she was also quite childlike and had a unbelievable sense of humor. So both of my parents did. I think that's why I sought you out in life because it was important to find someone that loved to laugh and that made me laugh, you know. But yeah, they were just really good people and we didn't have much money and some years we had no money.
- [16:55]
Ted Danson
Please tell the story of you standing next to your mom at the sink doing dishes together.
- [17:01]
Mary Steenburgen
Yeah, I loved to read. I was obsessed with books and I read. I didn't know I was reading like an actress, but I did read as an actress. Like I entered books and they became my safe world. Nobody died or if they did, it didn't know. It was, it was those letters on the page and it didn't wound like the things I was so scared of, you know. And so books were my beautiful world. And so I had read a book about a girl who was. I'd read a book called Sarah Crewe and she, you know, it's kind of similar to the Secret Garden. I think that book, I'd have to reread it as been, you know, a very long time. But at any rate, I was, I was kind of living in the book and I was helping my mother with the dishes and I guess I was making a lot of weird faces, which was pretty common for me, but. And she looked over and she said, mary, what are you doing? And I said, I'm pretending we're poor. And she looked at me for a long time and she goes, mary, we are poor. I just remember the, like, confusion on her face that her daughter hadn't yet cottoned on that.
- [18:38]
Woody Harrelson
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- [19:49]
Ted Danson
You in the country.
- [19:50]
Woody Harrelson
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- [20:11]
Ted Danson
Up cashmere sweater that is warm and.
- [20:15]
Woody Harrelson
Cozy, beautiful to look at, and cost.
- [20:18]
Ted Danson
Like about 50 to 80% less than similar products.
- [20:23]
Woody Harrelson
I cannot wait to tell you about it. Okay, so Quince offers affordable, high quality essentials for any wardrobe. That's the copy.
- [20:33]
Ted Danson
But once again, I can't tell you how excited I am with my Mongolian cashmere sweater. Zip up.
- [20:39]
Woody Harrelson
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- [22:48]
Mary Steenburgen
You know, in some ways I didn't. I only knew we were poor when I went to junior high school. Like all in high school, my mom made all my clothes and stuff and I didn't real I wasn't really a. I didn't compare myself to anybody. But then somehow in junior high school, in seventh grade, it was like these girls had dresses that came from stores. They're their mom to make. And even though I think my clothes were probably more beautiful looking back than any of those that were made with so much love, but suddenly I wanted that villager dress with the matching belts and all that crap. And yeah, minus the label.
- [23:35]
Ted Danson
She gave you that. Literally.
- [23:36]
Mary Steenburgen
Oh my God, she was amazing. I still don't understand, you know, because when my dad couldn't work, my mom had to go to work. My mom first worked in the school administration and then she, then she worked at Commercial National Bank. And her best friend at work was Vanita Clark, who's General Wesley Clark's mother. And the two of them used to sit and brag about their kids. And I would always say to mother, what, what could you possibly say about me? Like, I, I, you know, I, I was just kind, I wasn't like a brilliant student. He, you know, obviously went to West Point and all this other stuff. And then of course they tried to figure out me dating Wes. And I was by then such a little hippie and Wes was, you know, an army guy. And, you know, I was like, mom, that's never ever going to happen. And I only dated musicians, you know. And it's funny because at one point in our lives we served on a presidential commission together and the Commission for the Selection of White House Fellows. And Wes and I only then got to know each other and, you know, I just adored him.
- [24:58]
Ted Danson
Yeah.
- [24:59]
Mary Steenburgen
And do.
- [25:00]
Ted Danson
Yeah, go back though, just for a second, because I want to add church. Your church.
- [25:05]
Mary Steenburgen
Yeah.
- [25:06]
Ted Danson
Unlike many churches I've heard about, was a huge part of your life.
- [25:10]
Mary Steenburgen
I know. I still love it. The denomination was, is called Disciples of Christ, which sounds super intense. And what it really was was about caring for people. It was just about doing good in the world and all people could be included in that love. And, you know, it didn't put up barriers between people. It didn't interpret the Bible to be full of punishment. It didn't. It didn't. It genuinely felt like Jesus was.
- [26:15]
Ted Danson
A.
- [26:15]
Mary Steenburgen
Teacher of tolerance and love. And that was my church. Yeah. And people, people exemplified that in their lives.
- [26:25]
Ted Danson
And it wasn't just a once a week thing for you, right? It wasn't just.
- [26:29]
Mary Steenburgen
No, we went a lot. Yeah, we went, we went a lot. We were there a lot. And I sang in the choir and at one kind of misguided point, they let me play the organ, which was probably not, that was probably desperate on their part, but because I really didn't know how to play the organ. I still don't. But I loved being in the choir. And my best friend Ann Rogers and I were terrible gigglers. And like really the church was our playground, that church. We knew every inch of it. And we were, we were, we even got called out from our parents pulpit.
- [27:17]
Ted Danson
Right?
- [27:17]
Mary Steenburgen
Yeah, well, that was actually my mother and I got called out for giggling. We got tickled. And it just embarrassed my father so much that he wouldn't let us sit next to each other anymore. It had to. He had to be in the. But yeah, I by the way, have a serious giggling problem.
- [27:37]
Ted Danson
Like I. Yeah, you have ruined many a tape I have while acting.
- [27:41]
Mary Steenburgen
I know and it makes me. It makes me. Saying it makes me think that people will think I'm not a very committed actor.
- [27:49]
Ted Danson
We'll get. We'll. We'll fix that later on. Do one more story. But it's really about your church and it's really, really about your mom. About.
- [28:01]
Mary Steenburgen
Oh yeah, yeah, please do I love this somebody. This is when my. I heard about this from my sister, that Nancy, my beloved sister, that someone came to the church who was trans. And my mom at this point had to walk on a walker. And so the person had never been there before. And the person came into the church and sat down. And I only say the person was trans because I think that maybe somehow this person and I don't remember or care the details of it, but this person looked different than maybe what some of the people would have been used to before. So the person was sitting there alone and my mom got up with her walker and herself down the aisle and went up the center aisle and said. Asked if she could sit next to this person and made them just said you're so welcome here. I'm so glad you're here. And just was there for that person. And that wouldn't have occurred to my mother not to do so that was.
- [29:45]
Ted Danson
Or even that she was making a gesture of any kind.
- [29:47]
Mary Steenburgen
No, she never would have like told anyone she did that or anything like that. I only know that story from my sister. But that, but that, you know, that she exemplified just love and tolerance in every right and just kindness every day of her life.
- [30:12]
Ted Danson
I got to witness that. I got to know your mom. And she was.
- [30:16]
Mary Steenburgen
And she had a filthy sense of humor, by the way.
- [30:19]
Ted Danson
Oh, filthy. It was during nine year old boy.
- [30:21]
Woody Harrelson
Filthy.
- [30:22]
Mary Steenburgen
I know.
- [30:23]
Ted Danson
Which is a die.
- [30:24]
Mary Steenburgen
Definitely. I inherited. Yeah.
- [30:27]
Ted Danson
Yes, you did. Yeah. I saw you almost. My interpretation. Get emotional for a split second when you started to say something about Nancy, your sister. So let's talk about her just for a second. Not the part where you tortured her in your youth, your preteen years. Not that part. But what she does for a living and how, you know, the impact.
- [30:51]
Mary Steenburgen
She taught in the public school system for years. She taught first and second grade. And the thing that's particularly beautiful about it and about the fact that everybody that she taught can't say enough about how she shaped their lives. But what's really magical about it is that my sister struggled as a student when she was little and hated school. And they used to come and get me. I remember particularly when I was in fifth grade, and that would have been when she was starting school, and I would need to take her home, you know, to walk home with her and look after her because she didn't want to stay in school. And so she's an especially magical teacher to kids who struggle. In fact, she teaches kids who are dyslexic how to read. And she's masterful at it and changes lives, is just a real hero to people. And I love her so much. She's five and a half years younger than me. And I've had to learn in life not to act like a mother to her, because when I was a girl, because our parents weren't always at home, you know, when. When I would look after her. So I think I was an annoying big sister in many ways. But we have an amazing relationship. Yeah, she's fun, too.
- [32:38]
Ted Danson
Okay, one more thing of this period, then we'll leap ahead. But you also born in 53 and in 57, I think North Little Rock went through Little Rock.
- [32:52]
Mary Steenburgen
Little Rock, the central High School.
- [32:55]
Ted Danson
Will you talk about that and what kind of impression that made on you?
- [32:59]
Mary Steenburgen
I just remember as a little kid being so excited to start school. And then school to me became these images of people screaming and yelling at kids. And I don't think at first I realized why they were doing that, because I had not been taught any sort of prejudice about what someone's skin color was. You know, that hadn't ever been. It wasn't something I knew existed until then. And then. And then I began to realize why they were screaming and yelling at these kids, you know, and it was a. It was scary to even think of going to school. But when I. I did realize that I would be just fine if I went to school because of the color of my skin, it started something in me quite young to be aware of such things. And I think being raised in different parts of the south at that time, certainly in Little Rock, where the desegregation was such a massive, public scary thing, you either became more committed in your bigotry or you became more committed against.
- [34:41]
Ted Danson
That concept at a very, very young age.
- [34:45]
Mary Steenburgen
At a very young age. I mean, I can't say I was an activist from the time I was a child, but by the time I was in junior high and then. Well, junior high was the huge thing for me because seventh grade was the year that we had black students at our school for the first time and there were four black students who were all handpicked by their community to represent them all. And you think about. I think so much about them one in particular, and about her parents. Her mom is still alive. So seventh grade was when I had my first friend that was black. And she, her name was Karen Muldrow. And she sat next to me in a number of classes and I used to stare at her. And she was very beautiful. She was so pretty. I had lunch with her daughter recently and Karen, by the way, has passed and. Which I wish. I hope she can hear me talking about her, but she does know how I felt about her. But the bravery of a child, you know, to be one of four people to go to this school and to know that you're going to get called names there. And she did. And that you're representing an awful lot of people. And she was. And the courage of her parents. And I remember her hands. She had. I told her daughter, I said, did your. Do you think your mom had manicures? And she goes, no. And I said, because she. I had never seen such beautiful, perfect hands and nails. You know, I look, I don't even think I knew the word manicure. And. But, but there was something so perfect about her. Her nails and her hands and her hair was always perfect. And she was, she was very contained, smartly, you know, she kind of kept things close, you know, but somehow she and I became friends and she taught me a lot and she was a seminal teacher in my life by just being herself and being so freaking brave.
- [37:44]
Woody Harrelson
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- [39:05]
Ted Danson
In Mexico, the first thing the crew.
- [39:07]
Woody Harrelson
Taught me how to say was, yo soy un gran pinchi vector. Which means I'm basically the lowest of.
- [39:13]
Ted Danson
The lowest of actors.
- [39:15]
Woody Harrelson
Anyway. If I had had Rosetta Stone at my disposal, I would have.
- [39:20]
Ted Danson
That wouldn't have happened to me.
- [39:22]
Woody Harrelson
Don't put off learning that language. There's no better time than right now to get started where everybody knows your name. Listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off, visit rosettastone.com TedandWoody that's 50% off. Unlimited access to 25 language courses for.
- [39:42]
Ted Danson
The rest of your Life.
- [39:44]
Woody Harrelson
Redeem your 50% off@RosettaStone.com Ted and Woody today.
- [39:55]
Ted Danson
Okay, that's. That's. I know I've left a lot out of that period of your life, your upbringing and everything. But that to me is a glimpse of, you know, why and who you have become. I think those were amazing building blocks to you, Mary. But let's skip forward a little bit. Will pass over the. Your hippie days where you were, I think you were dating the lead guitarist in the band, lived out in a house in the middle of nowhere where people would sometimes take pot shots with a rifle at the house you are living in because you were hippies.
- [40:35]
Mary Steenburgen
Right.
- [40:36]
Ted Danson
So bold move. Bold move. You told me that you used to work the. What do you call it when you have water and color and lights?
- [40:47]
Mary Steenburgen
I did the light shows. I did the light shows with my friend Alan and it was. It was like a pan of water with colored oils that we would drop into it and this projector that did it onto the screen behind the band. So it was. It made you feel all psychedelic without, like actually going there.
- [41:16]
Ted Danson
And that's why later in life you're very much into, what do you call.
- [41:19]
Mary Steenburgen
It, colored oils and stuff. Oh, well, you don't need to, like, we don't have to get into the whole woo woo thing.
- [41:26]
Ted Danson
I'll describe your side in the bathroom later on in the show.
- [41:29]
Mary Steenburgen
Oh, my God. I thought about it this morning. Well, I have an orange and blue if you missed out. Me. Yeah.
- [41:38]
Ted Danson
Okay, let's skip forward. You go many things in high school, but then you go to Hendricks College for a year.
- [41:46]
Mary Steenburgen
Yeah.
- [41:47]
Ted Danson
And by then you're starting to act in theater plays.
- [41:52]
Mary Steenburgen
Yes, yes. I was in. I was in. I somehow auditioned and got to be the lead in the play there as a freshman. It was the ninth Row spent in jail. And I played Lydia Emerson.
- [42:12]
Ted Danson
Right. And did, you know at that point, oh, this is what I want to do?
- [42:18]
Mary Steenburgen
I did. But actors weren't real to me. They were. They were, you know, thing. They were people I saw on tv. There was absolutely no crossover. It wasn't like, oh, I'd seen a film shot in our area, although I think there might have been a few. But. But there. But there just wasn't. It wasn't a real career path for me.
- [42:46]
Ted Danson
Right.
- [42:46]
Mary Steenburgen
And yet this thing about reading and this obsession with fantasy life. Yeah. These imaginary worlds which I still, you know, inhabit. Yes, sadly for you. But no, but anyway, they. They were so important to me, I guess, into my psyche that I kept walking toward it, even though in my brain I was. I was going to be a teacher. I was going to maybe learn how to teach theater or something like that. And I. And I did come from such family of teachers that I. That was the reasonable thing.
- [43:34]
Ted Danson
And then some very impactful teacher told.
- [43:37]
Mary Steenburgen
You, hey, yeah, this teacher there, Kenneth Gillum, who directed the play, said to. He handed me a list, which I still have, and it listed about 12 places in the United States that you could go to study to be an actor. One of them was where you went, Carnegie Mellon, although you're much older than me, of five years, so we wouldn't have met.
- [44:05]
Ted Danson
We can cut that out. I have final cut.
- [44:07]
Mary Steenburgen
Wow. Okay.
- [44:08]
Ted Danson
Yeah.
- [44:09]
Mary Steenburgen
So, yeah, so.
- [44:13]
Ted Danson
And it was called Neighborhood Playhouse.
- [44:15]
Mary Steenburgen
He checked only one of those things. Like, he didn't check Juilliard because he knew my family couldn't afford it. And he checked the Neighborhood Playhouse. And the reason he checked it mainly was that a very great man, Sandy Meisner, taught there. And so that's the only school I applied to. And I didn't have to audition. I had to fly. For the second time in my life, I got on a plane and I flew to Dallas, Texas, and I met with a man named Peter Wolf. I remember his name, Peter Wolf. And I just talked to him about why I wanted to be an actor, which I think it was pouring out of me that I actually did want to do this, you know, and it was a little bit like saying, I want to go to the moon. For me, having not been a person who traveled or knew anything about New York, but I applied, and then I went to the post office at school every day, and nothing arrived. But one day my mother called an. It had gone to our house, and she hadn't opened it. And I said, well, is it skinny or fat? And she goes, it's pretty fat. And I was like, open it. And it said I'd been accepted to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater and so scared.
- [45:58]
Ted Danson
You approached your father?
- [45:59]
Mary Steenburgen
Yeah, my dad. We had told him none of this, you know, because, of course, we were trying to protect him from dying of another heart event. So we sat down, and I said to my mom, it's probably better if you don't make it real obvious that you already know all this. So if I'm telling both parents at the same time. And I just remember that my mother. My mother assumed a pose. That was her pose of being unknowing. And she crossed her ankles to the right and put her open palms on each other on the left, and. And it was the sweetest. Like, I've never heard these words you're about to say before. And I told them what I'd done, that I'd applied to this school to go to New York to study. I wasn't going to finish college. Like their dream, that the first kid was going to go to college. I was going to go instead, do this insane thing. And there was just this incredibly long silence. And my dad said, well, I don't understand any of that, but we'll do everything we can to help you. And what he did. Oh, my God. The school, the Neighborhood Playhouse, sent the required. It was literally called the Required Reading List. And it was 101 books about theater, like biographies of Sarah Bernhardt and, you know, all kinds of wonky books about theater. And so my dad and I spent a summer writing to book. You know, to bookstores, because you didn't have the Internet then, like, trying to locate all these crazy books and me cramming them into my brain. And I was about 10 books short, if you can believe it, of reading all that. And when I went up to New York, and I remember on the first day waiting and waiting and waiting for the test. And then we finally went in the library, and there was this sweet, kind of dotty woman in there who was the librarian. And she said, were any of you able to read any of the books on the list? And I thought, well, I can't tell them. I've just spent the last, like, three or four months reading a hundred books on theater. Nobody had read those books except me, but it said Required Reading List. But anyway, by the time my dad and I had done that, you know, together, it was like this mountain we climbed together. He was so proud of me already, and I hadn't even gone there. And so I went There. And I worked at Doubleday Bookstore on 53rd and 5th, which in my case was a disaster because you got a 33 and a third discount on all books. And I couldn't survive on just books, which is all I was spending my money on. So I had to stop being that. And my friend Moma Yash helped get me a job as a waitress. And we, we both lied to Bubbles, the bartender that night and said, oh yes, I've waited tables before. And Moma said, she's fabulous. And of course I'd never waited tables in my life. And it was this crazy restaurant where every time you put in an order, you had to go down a flight of stairs, turn in the order, come back up, and then go back down to pick up your food. So you're up and downstairs all night. And of course the first night I wore nice shoes like an idiot and didn't have my like orthopedic shoes yet that I would seven years later only wear as a waitress, you know. But anyway, wow.
- [50:18]
Ted Danson
She said the next morning it was clear that you'd never done this.
- [50:22]
Mary Steenburgen
Oh, that night, at the end of the night, Bubbles said, she goes, you got the job, but don't ever lie to me again.
- [50:31]
Ted Danson
Okay, so wait, so you're going to. Having studied the same method from a different teacher, not from Sandy. I know that it's an incredibly intense two years, three years, two years of.
- [50:46]
Mary Steenburgen
Your life if you're lucky.
- [50:47]
Ted Danson
Right. And you did not arrive with a pocket full of money or your parents were not able to subsidize this. So off you are working tables. But so you would go to school at what time?
- [50:58]
Mary Steenburgen
Nine.
- [50:59]
Ted Danson
Nine.
- [51:00]
Mary Steenburgen
And you'd be through at around five usually.
- [51:02]
Ted Danson
Right. And that doesn't include rehearsing with your scene partners or whatever. And then you would go to work from when to when?
- [51:09]
Mary Steenburgen
Usually by 6:30 I'd be at the restaurant. And some shifts were to 2:00am and some shifts were to 4:00am okay, I'm.
- [51:20]
Ted Danson
Speeding this up just a little bit. I know that after you got out of school you co founded or started something called Cracked Tokens. Right. Which was an improv comedy.
- [51:32]
Mary Steenburgen
Improv group with my friend Pamela Moler, who now brilliantly runs the Neighborhood Playhouse. Right, yeah, we did a comedy. There was five of us in a comedy improv group. And the only important person we knew in New York was someone at the Bureau of Alcoholism. And so they had, they sent us to make people laugh that were in all those sort of halfway houses or, you know, it was like rehab. It was we were the rehab comedy group and we, like all my shows were in, you know, Bedford Stuyvesant and, you know, way down. I don't even know where all we went. We, we just went wherever people were hurting, actually, and tried to make them laugh. And it was terrifying. And I remember around this time seeing Lily Tomlin's amazing original show in New York and being so inspired by her. And I remember doing one comedy show and there was like some little part of me that was trying to be like Lily. And I, I remember the cognition in the moment. You can't, you can't be like Lily. You'll never make anyone laugh like Lily. You have to. Only if you ever do make someone laugh, it'll be because you're being your deepest self, you know, So I just remember that little moment.
- [53:20]
Ted Danson
So, all right, so we went fast over that time. But you are full time waitressing at the same time you do after school. You're still doing crack tokens. It's the seventh year you've been in New York and somebody recognizes sees you work at one.
- [53:40]
Mary Steenburgen
Not just somebody. Jean Guest, who was Chris Guest's mom, was casting director. And she and this woman Mary Buck, who worked with her saw me in. We were by then at the Manhattan Theater Club, and they saw me there and they called me in to meet with me and then sent me to a big casting director. And I had this big important meeting with the casting director and I. It went well. And then it was clearly at the end of the meeting and I stood up to leave. And I remember this is when the story gets a little woo woo, Ted.
- [54:36]
Ted Danson
So we have more woo woo questions to come, so you brace yourself.
- [54:40]
Mary Steenburgen
Okay, um, so I stood up to leave. And as I'm about to leave, I just had a feeling that this was something and that I better turn around and ask her, are you casting anything in particular? And she said, yes, I'm casting two movies. One is called Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty, and one is called Going south with Jack Nicholson. But I just, I can't get you in on those. I'm so sorry. Were full up and I have very specific things that I'm supposed to, you know, criteria for who we're going to see and just don't think that's it. But I really liked meeting you and I listened to all this and I just said, well, I'd really, really like to see that script for Going South. And she just looked at me like, what don't you understand about what I just said? And so I kind of stumbled out the door realizing, oh my God, I just, I just blew that in a big way, you know. So instead of leaving, I sat down for a second because somebody else had gone in there. And I thought if I just.
- [55:57]
Ted Danson
If.
- [55:58]
Mary Steenburgen
I just slip in after this person comes out and apologize to her, maybe this, maybe I can make it okay. So I'm looking down and I'm formulating my apology and there's three models across from me, by the way, who are drop dead gorgeous and all have a copy of Going South. I can see that, you know, So I got what the whole criteria thing was. But anyway, I said, I just sat there trying to think of what I was going to say to her. And I see these two feet and I hear this voice that sounds insanely like Jack Nicholson saying, are you waiting to see me? And I thought, whoa. He, I thought I would think he would be in la, but that really sounds like him, you know. And I said no. And he goes, you're not. I said no. And he goes, why not? And I finally look up and it is in fact Jack Nicholson. And I said, I don't have a script. And he walks over to the table, gets a script, hands it to me and he said, be here at whatever time. I don't remember now, but I think I probably like 2:00 or so in the afternoon. And you've got 10 minutes tomorrow. So I stayed up all night. I lived in a fifth floor walk up with my friend Peter Barkey. I won't even describe how bad this apartment was, but I got dressed in what I thought was an appropriate thing for that character. And then I took a cab instead of public transportation and I went over there and it was in the Gulf and Western building, which is in now.
- [57:53]
Ted Danson
A different place.
- [57:54]
Mary Steenburgen
It's a different place now. We won't say, but it's not our favorite ex president. But anyway, I went up to this place and I went inside and I didn't have to wait. I went straight in and he asked me if I was nervous and I said yes. And he goes, well, let's talk for a minute. And then we started talking. We started talking about basketball because both of us, I was like a big Knicks person, he's obviously a Lakers person, and talked about, I don't know, Arkansas a little bit. And then finally I settled down, we started reading and reading and reading. And at one point the casting director kind of knocked and opened the door and I don't know what she thought was going on in there, but he Goes, you know what? Cancel the next few appointments. We're going to keep reading. And we read every scene in the movie twice. And then he said, so where have you been? I said, well, I've been here, you know, for about six years. And he was so beautiful and kind to me. As I was leaving, he said, can I give you a kiss? He kissed each of my cheeks and then said, so I have to be honest with you. I want to direct this. And you know what that means, don't you? And I said, yeah, I do. And I no clue. I no clue what that meant. But people told me that meant I can't use a girl who's never done anything whose last name is Steenbergen. Like, that's not going to fly. So anyway, I had to have that explained to me. But I remember just quietly screaming all the way down those floors in that big, tall building and thinking, well, that was that. And that was amazing. And, you know. And then a few days later, I got the message that I was going to fly to Hollywood for a screen test. And I tested with six other actresses, some of whom are friends of mine now, all of whom were big stars. And on the last day I was there, I'd borrowed $1,000 from some friends. In our consultation, saw my friend Kevin McConnell, who kindly. They. He and his wife Kathy lent me money so I could stay out there. More than the one night's hotel bill they were paying for at this Chateau Marmont, which was awesome.
- [60:45]
Ted Danson
Very rock and roll.
- [60:46]
Mary Steenburgen
Very rock and roll. But. But I. I'd run out of that money because LA is exposed, expensive. And so I went in, on my way to the airport to go back to la.
- [60:58]
Ted Danson
Are you doing your screen test?
- [60:59]
Mary Steenburgen
I did my screen test and then I went back. Basically, the word on the street in LA was there's no chance that you're gonna get this part, you know, because he needs a big star. So I was heading back to la. I mean, to New York, for my waitressing shift at the Magic Pan, where I served crepes in a little dirndl, trying to make me look like a French girl. But that's all different story. So I went in to get the money in cash that they owed me for the one night's hotel bill so I could get from the airport into the city. And Jack was sitting there smoking a huge cigar, and he goes, sit down, kid. Don't worry about that because you're on the payroll now. And that was it.
- [61:47]
Ted Danson
Wow.
- [61:47]
Mary Steenburgen
And he. He had to fight for me because Paramount said Yeah, that's the best screen test. But you've got to pick your second choice because she's never done anything. She has a weird last name. You know, you pick number two, all of whom are huge stars. And he fought for me. He said, then we don't do the movie. And the movie was shut down for a few days until they relented. And he. He was my mentor, and I owe every single thing to him.
- [62:21]
Ted Danson
Just to do full circle. That whole name Steenbergen thing was not just in your mind because you were called in at the very end of this process, but before the studio said yes to talk to the two studio heads, and they were running you through the mill trying to figure out how they could not use you. And the last thing they said was.
- [62:48]
Mary Steenburgen
To change my name. And I just stuck to my guns and I said, look, I know it's a weird name, Steenbergen. I know people mispronounce it, but I just thought about my dad and my mom and how. How, like, unbelievably, how much belief they'd had in me. And I thought, I'm not going to feel the same throughout this career ahead of me with somebody else's name. So I said, no, that's my name. I'm not. And so. And, oh, as I was leaving their office, their sunken office, where you had to climb up, like, three steps, you know, and it was like I knew that they were not rooting for me. And I walked up the steps and I turned around and I said, look, I know you can get somebody who's more famous than me, who has a better sounding name than me, that's more experienced, and that's probably a lot prettier, but I just want you to know you got nothing to worry about. And then I left. And when I got back to Jack, because, of course, the secretaries all loved Jack, so they told him everything that was being said in the room. And he goes. He has a nickname for me based on the film. He calls me Chair. And so he goes, chair, all those idiots need to be told us that they have nothing to worry about.
- [64:22]
Ted Danson
Wow. And off you go into the world of.
- [64:26]
Mary Steenburgen
Into the wild blue yonder, to the moon.
- [64:28]
Ted Danson
So, because there are other things I want to talk to you about.
- [64:31]
Mary Steenburgen
Are we going to talk about our marriage at all?
- [64:33]
Ted Danson
No.
- [64:34]
Woody Harrelson
Yes.
- [64:36]
Ted Danson
That's why I'm speeding through, to get to me.
- [64:38]
Mary Steenburgen
I'm sorry. I've been very long winded.
- [64:40]
Ted Danson
No, you haven't. I love these stories, and I think your upbringing and how you ended up in the movie business is perfectly. Yeah, but it makes perfect sense. That's who you are and that's who you still are.
- [64:56]
Woody Harrelson
Can we do this?
- [64:57]
Ted Danson
Disclaim it right now on air? This is a two parter because I have so much to talk to you about.
- [65:05]
Mary Steenburgen
I know we've been literally talking nonstop for 30 years.
- [65:10]
Ted Danson
But I have more.
- [65:11]
Woody Harrelson
I have more questions and I want.
- [65:13]
Ted Danson
People to know you as I know you, you magnificent thing.
- [65:17]
Mary Steenburgen
I don't know if that's wise, but okay.
- [65:19]
Ted Danson
Yeah.
- [65:20]
Woody Harrelson
All right, so we're going to come back.
- [65:21]
Ted Danson
Mary is now, you know, full blown movie star, and off she goes into the world that leads to me. But we're gonna come back to that because after the me part, there's also the music part of your life. So actually, I'm glad we're doing this as a two parter because the music part deserves its own hour. So I love you so much. I'm so grateful. And by the way, I did pay attention to my fucking partner.
- [65:49]
Mary Steenburgen
Yes.
- [65:49]
Ted Danson
No, but you were mesmerizing. And it's like, why I'm in love with you. I just. I just listened to why I'm in love with you for an hour.
- [65:58]
Mary Steenburgen
You're amazing.
- [65:59]
Ted Danson
Yeah, Back at you.
- [66:00]
Mary Steenburgen
Okay.
- [66:01]
Ted Danson
All right.
- [66:01]
Woody Harrelson
We're coming back.
- [66:02]
Mary Steenburgen
Everyone's sick.
- [66:03]
Ted Danson
No, no. Yeah. Barf bags to come. All right. Okay.
- [66:14]
Woody Harrelson
That was part one of my conversation with Mary. We're releasing part two as a special episode this Friday. We're going to get into more of her acting career, her first marriage, and we're almost at the part where I enter the story. So obviously things are about to get really good. That's it for this episode. Thanks to our friends at team coco. Once again, you can subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast app and you can give us a great rating and review on apple podcasts if you have some time or the inclination nation. Thank you. See you right back here next week. Everybody knows your name.
- [67:00]
Nick Leo
You've been listening to where everybody knows your name with Ted danson, Woody harrelson, sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leo. Executive producers are Adam sacks, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross and myself. Sarah fedorovich is our supervising producer. Our senior senior producer is Matt apodaca. 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, Antony gen, Mary Steenburgen and John Osborne. Special thanks to Willie navarret. We'll have more for you next time where everybody knows your name.
- [67:41]
Unnamed Speaker
The kind of burgers you get today tells you a lot about yourself. You're either someone who settles for sad, same old, same old burgers or you're at a Carl's Jr obsessed with a tangy OG Western bacon cheeseburger demanding a house made guacamole, loaded guac bacon, fired up for the insanely hot El Diablo or craving a classic Charbold Famous Star. Give in to your flavor cravings. Get your mouth to Carl's Jr.
- [68:09]
Mary Steenburgen
Good Burger.
- [68:13]
Unnamed Speaker
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