Transcript
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (0:01)
Hey, listeners, it's me, Julia. We're back for season three of Wiser Than Me. And we have so much more wisdom to share from the legendary older women who have joined me this season. I can't tell you the number of times when I'm having these conversations. I find myself scrambling for like a piece of paper or a napkin or whatever I can find on my desk to quickly jot down some nugget that my guest is sharing in our conversation. I mean, you've probably had the same experience, right? Well, guess what? Problem solved. We have created brand new Wiser Than Me notebooks with fun sayings on the COVID like get wise or wise up so you can keep all your newfound wisdom in one place. We just added these groovy hardcover notebooks to our merch shop. To buy yours, head over to wiser than me shop.com today. Lemonade I'm sure I've mentioned here on Wiser Than Me that I have a dog named George whom I love with all my heart. He is perfect. Well, he's got inflammatory bowel disease and he is allergic to everything and he barks way too much when somebody comes to the door. He barks so much, actually, that it makes my apple watch give me a decibel alert thing. But still, he is perfect. And coming for me, that's saying something. Because you know what? I don't have an ideal history with dogs at all. First, our childhood dog, Pippi, a miniature dachshund, Pippi was run over by a Volkswagen Bug. And I know that's kind of funny now, but believe me, at the time, it was a complete horror show. And then there's Jack. So Jack was a rescue cavalier King Charles spaniel that my first husband brought home unannounced one day when I was eight months pregnant, juggling a four year old working a thousand hours a day on Seinfeld and let's say, unprepared for the rigors of dog ownership. Yeah, I mean, my first husband was a nice man, but he brought Jack home with no crate, no food, no dog dishes, and no plan. And the first thing that Jack did was escape from the house and run as fast as he could east, like perhaps towards Mecca or Jerusalem. I have no idea. But Lord almighty, did he take off. He was so fast that my husband got on his bike and I got in a car and frantically chased after him until we finally caught him in the middle of traffic on Sunset Boulevard. Okay, so at this point, you can imagine I wasn't exactly thrilled with this first husband of mine, who I should mention is Brad hall, to whom I am surprisingly still married. So the next day, Brad thought it would be a very good idea to drive Jack the dog an hour and a half up a super curvy road to a little beach house where we were staying. And poor little Jack got very car sick. And then when he arrived, he proceeded to have projectile diarrhea all over the place. And I screamed so loud that Brad, in a panic, picked the poor dog up underneath his belly and tried to run him outside. And as he ran, the diarrhea sprayed like machine gun fire across all the walls of the beach cottage. And I really actually mean all the walls. And if I recall correctly, they also had sisal carpeting. So I'm just Put that in your mind, okay? Diarrhea, sisal carpeting, yeah. It will not come as a surprise that Brad left within the hour to take the dog back to the shelter, where he waited until little Jack was happily readopted by a family that was much more prepared to care for this poor creature, who I fear that we had probably traumatized completely and thoroughly. So many years later, I was convinced to get another dog, a black labradoodle we adopted from Australia, since you couldn't get labradoodles in California yet. And Brad did his research and figured out how to bring the dog over, which was very good, and it was all very organized. And also, I should say, in my dad's family, there's this tradition of naming female dogs after flowers. And since our son Henry was a giant fan of the Powerpuff Girls, the perfect intersection, There was Buttercup, and that's what we named her. And this is a dog that transformed me. I mean, I was. I still am very much a cat person, but now I'm a dog person, too. Buttercup was utterly sublime. And for the next 15 years of her tender little doggy life, I learned through her what it is to be truly devoted to a dog. I mean, of course, there are lots of reasons to love them. The unconditional love, the companionship, the connection. Plus, guess what? There's a science behind it. This is going to sound bullshitty, folks, but it's true. When people spend time with dogs, and especially when we look into a dog's eyes or cuddle with a dog or whatever, our oxytocin levels rise. We looked it up, and in humans, it plays a really important role in social bonding and in love and reproduction and childbirth and caring for children after you give birth to them. And here's the completely outrageous Part of all of this, when we make eye contact with our dogs, their oxytocin levels go up too. Isn't that amazing? So this all leads me to my mother in law, who is 96 years old. Talk about wiser than me. My God, she is one of the dearest, most selfless people I've ever known. She is the most selfless person I've ever known. Actually, she suffers now from serious frontal lobe dementia. But her personality, by the grace of God, or whoever is in charge of the universe, is utterly unchanged. And if you met her, your oxytocin levels would skyrocket because she's just that kind of a person. So we often take our dog George over to her little cottage to visit, and she has no functional memory at all. So every time she meets our George, for her, it's like meeting a new dog. And each time we have to remind her that our dog George is named after her husband whose name was George. And she laughs and she throws her head back. She thinks that is just so hilarious. And then she looks George straight in the eye and she ruffles his fur and she says in her inimitable way, she go, all the only dogs. And then George. And here's the amazing thing. He only does this with her, okay? He curls up right at her feet, and sometimes even on her feet. And he doesn't move until we have to go. He just becomes kindness. And how can it be that this little domesticated wolf creature can know exactly what he needs to do to bring a tiny bit of joy to his dearest granny? And isn't it so wonderful that there are sometimes unexpected places that love and warmth and joy can be found even when times seem a little dark? You know, as for all of us these days, they often do. So when George lies down at Granny's feet, it just. It really makes me weep. And as Shakespeare said, this is such a great line. Shakespeare says, how much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping? So that's what I'm thinking about today. Sorry, I'm choked up. Animals, family, friends, warmth and joy. Let's focus on that. And that makes talking today with the endlessly joyful Isabella Rossellini just about perfect. Hi, I'm Julia Louis Dreyfus, and this is Wiser Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me. If legendary filmmaker Roberto Rossellini and iconic Oscar winning actress Ingrid Bergman had a child together, you might guess the kid would turn out to be either a brilliant director A phenomenal actor or strikingly beautiful? Well, you'd be spot on, because our guests today's all three of those things and more. The strikingly beautiful part. Her 14 year contract with Lancome made her the highest paid model of her time. The phenomenal actress part. She starred in classic cult films like David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, in Marcel the Shell and her latest conclave, in which she is just sensational. She also steers her own projects, like directing the incredible green porno series that became a viral hit. I love it. Diving into the love lives of the animal kingdom, only Isabella could make snail sex both educational and utterly charming. She's truly one of a kind, constantly experimenting and pushing boundaries and always with a fearless authenticity that, even though she's been doing it for decades, is exciting and surprising and even shocking. And I just love this. In her 50s, as modeling work and acting roles disappeared, she went back to school to get her master's degree in animal behavior and conservation. At her graduation, she addressed her fellow students to say, I am here to tell you that if you ever encounter a dip in your life, pay no attention to the voice inside of you that judges you, that is negative, that fosters further anxiety. Just follow your curiosities. That's great for our show. And when Isabella Rossellini follows her curiosity, she goes big. Today, she owns and operates Mama Farm in Long island with her two children. They have goats, ducks, turkeys, over 150 chickens, and a small flock of rare breeds of sheep named after iconic female artists like Garbo, Callow and O'Keefe, who does that. The woman is living life entirely on her own terms, but the real legacy she's building is through her work in sustainability, community, and art. I am so happy to speak today with a twin sister, mother, grandmother, creative force, and chicken lover who is absolutely wiser than me, the marvelous Isabella Rossellini. Welcome, Isabella.