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 am a hiker. I'm somebody who likes to get out on a trail, in the hills, in the mountains, or along the beach, just out in nature. It's an activity that brings me an enormous amount of solace, of joy, peace of mind. Hiking can really change my mindset. In fact, as I'm saying this, I realize I've really got to get out there right now and move, which I'm going to do right after we record. There is something about walking and looking at the natural world and feeling and smelling the world around me. Smells are important to me, too. My memories are really full of smells. For real. Where I live in California, we have seasons. Believe it or not, they're subtle, but we do have seasons that change. And the smells in the air, from the trees and all the shrubbery, the chaparral, it changes from season to season, from month to month, and I love that. The pittosporum, the ceanothus, the jasmine that blooms at night. I mean, one night you can't smell it at all, and then the next night, it's almost dizzyingly sweet. The orange blossoms, which just are California to me, the eucalyptus and the boxwood. Oh, well, I can't smell boxwood without thinking of my dad. My dear dad. These smells, you know, they wax and wane from month to month, from year to year, but they're also wonderful. And I find that if I'm having a hard time or if I'm anxious or if I'm trying to figure something out to get out of my head and to free up my brain, I really need to move in the outdoors. This, to a certain extent, has always been true for me. But as I've gotten older, it's only become more and more true. My favorite thing to do is to go on a hiking trip. We did that last year with family and friends. We went to the Dolomites in Italy and we hiked thousands of vertical feet and many, many miles a day. And it was super hard and it was as good as it gets. And another benefit of being out walking or hiking in the natural world, beyond the self searching and meditative stuff, is that it is a great opportunity for conversation. Convers can flow in a way that it just might not otherwise. I think maybe that's because you're both looking forward and you're not looking at each other, that it sort of allows a kind of openness and maybe a deeper form of honesty. The ritual of walking and breathing at a pace together is just conducive to a more intimate conversation. And in fact, it wasn't a hike with my college roommate and dearest friend Paula, that we first discussed the idea for this very podcast and how to do it and what it might be like and how it would be devised and who it would be fun to talk to and where do we get the microphones from and what button is record? You know, all of this. And now look, here we are, we're finishing up our second season of being inspired and roused by all these mind blowing old ladies. I mean, seriously, who'd have thunk it? Something happens moving through the natural world, something deep rooted. They say that mountains are nature's cathedral, and I do think that's true. You know, maybe the hills really are alive with the sound of music or with something otherworldly, something sacred and what divine. Mary Oliver has so many great poems about moving through nature. And this is one called why I Wake Early. Hello sun in my face, hello you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding glories and into the windows of even the miserable and crotchety Best preacher that ever was. Dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe. To keep us from ever darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Watch now how I start the day in happiness, in kindness. Boy, that Mary Oliver, I'll tell you. Yeah, the hills really are alive. How fitting then, that for the last episode of this season, we get to talk to Julie Andrews. 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. I was just four years old when the Sound of Music premiered in 1965. And for those of you listening who were not Alive in the 60s, we didn't have Netflix or Disney plus or Max or whatever. We didn't even have DVDs or VHS, which meant that if you wanted to watch a movie, you actually had to go to see it in the theaters. Well, lucky for me, the Sound of Music was basically always playing when I was growing up, which meant I got to go to the theater and see it as much I wanted to, which was a lot. I simply couldn't get enough. I've seen it more than I've seen any other movie. I mean, I've seen it dozens of times. I saw it last week, for God's sakes. Most people have to think really hard for a minute to come up with their favorite movie, but not me. Sound of Music. That's it. And it's been since I can remember. Why do I love it so much? Well, for starters, it was the soundtrack of my childhood. So, yeah, it is a little hard for me to believe today's conversation is even happening because. Because today we get to talk to the woman behind that incredible voice and performance. I mean, are we lucky or what? Actually, are we lucky or what is the motto our guest lives by, according to her daughter. She'll even say it under the worst of circumstances, like in the middle of a thunderstorm when the power goes out. But a whole lot more than luck has shaped this glorious woman's incomparable career. She's been working professionally since she was just 10 years old, performing in a vaudeville act with her family, singing all over England, even performing at age 13 for King George VI and the future Queen Elizabeth. She originated the leading roles in the Broadway productions of My Fair lady and Camelot, the latter of which put her in front of the eyes of Walt Disney himself, who cast her in the iconic role of Mary Poppins. And off she went to do all these other incredible films. SOB Victor, Victoria, the Americanization of Emily, and of course, there's the Sound of Music. And lucky for us, she's still working today. She's a prolific author who's written dozens of children's books with her daughter Emma, and continues to star in some of the most beloved family films in history, like Princess Diaries and Shrek. You'll even hear her voice as Lady Whistledown in Bridgerton on Netflix. So I am a little overcome that today I'll be talking to the Academy Award winning Emmy winning, Grammy winning, BAFTA winning songstress herself, a true English rose, the star of my favorite movie, a woman who is so much wiser than me, Dame Julie Andrews. Hi, Julie.