February 21, 2023 • 33 mins
Jenny Slate (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Obvious Child) and Brooke talk about their mutual love for Marcel the Shell, what it was like for Jenny to continue working with her ex-husband after their divorce, and how she’s learned to overcome crippling stage fright. Plus, Jenny gets candid about her uncomfortable time as a cast member on 'SNL'.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
What do you do in life doesn't go according to plan?
That moment you lose the job, or a loved one,
or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
with a guest to talk about the times they were
knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
(00:27):
Some stories are funny, others are cut wrenching, but all
are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
answers one question. Now what I remember like waking up
(00:50):
one morning and there was like a gentleman who had
slept over, and um, there there was a rat in
my kitchen. And I was like, this is an better
than the opposite, belater than the rat being in your
bed and him actually true? Yeah, I mean come on, yeah,
it would be It would actually be way worth to
(01:11):
find a rat in your bed and then like a
guy in your kitchen. That would be danger. But anyway,
a gentleman though he was a gentleman. You just said
he was a gentleman, so perfect, nice person, not going
to be my boyfriend. Hello, and welcome back to another
season of Now What. My team and I took a
few weeks off to recharge, and while it was very
(01:32):
nice to get some rest, I really missed sharing these
interviews with all of you each week. Fortunately, I think
my guest today was very much worth the weight. Jenny Slate.
She's a writer and actor and a comedian. You might
also know her as the co creator and voice of
the newly Oscar nominated sensation Marcelf Shell with Shoes on.
(01:55):
Jenny is a breath of fresh air. She's authentic, she's open,
and as you're here in just a minute, she is
more than willing to talk about her many now What
moments and all that she's learned from them. I am
so thrilled to bring you all a piece of her
story and hope that you'll come to adore her as
I do. So. Here is Jenny Slate. M. Jenny Slate, Hi,
(02:29):
thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I
was so happy when I knew that you said you
said yes to doing it. I was shocked. I was
shocked and excited that you would like me to be
here speaking to you. Are you kidding? I'm such a
huge fan. Um. And first of all, before congratulations on
(02:50):
an Oscar nomination. Where were you when you heard when
you got the news? Um? Thank you? And I was
in bed. I was asleep finally after a night of
many wake ups with my little babe, and so I
had just gotten to sleep, and I saw all these
messages flickering on my phone, but they were all text messages,
(03:13):
and I just sort of thought, I think if it
were good news, somebody would have called. I just think
it's a lot of apologies, Like I think it's my
It was my sisters, and I was like, it's them,
being like, this is actually just the start of your career,
don't worry your was something like that. I remember when
it first came out. I was so immediately in love
(03:36):
with Marcel. I just my daughters and I. It was
as if we couldn't we just couldn't get enough, couldn't
get enough of it. And um, it's funny because I
don't know if you've met Ariana Grande, but she would
practically only do an imitation of Marcel. She did everything.
(03:56):
Everything she answered you, she would talk in herself voice.
Because it was around the time I was working with
her brother on something and I would have dinner with
the mom and the kids, and it was so cute
and so funny, and she did quite quite a good invitation.
Let me get this straight. You're saying that Ariana Grande
that she knows about Marcel to Shell, she knows about
(04:20):
it and would do an invitation of it. So it
was really kind of kind of sweet love that where
the character of Marcell come from. Well, you know, what's
weird is like to answer that question, Like, first of all,
it like it just was a not even a private joke,
just a random joke. Just imagine if there was something
that you were doing with your friend and and suddenly
(04:42):
like it caught on in a way that we didn't
We didn't even have an example for that at the time,
the way that things can catch on now and kind
of a viral way. And um, but at the time,
I was doing a funny voice over a weekend while
Dean and I were with some friends. Dean Fleischer Camp
the director of the film, co writer, co creator and
also my ex husband. We were a couple. Then we
(05:04):
were at a wedding and I had been on SNL
for a year. But like you know, you get paid
sag scale. You're not like making big bucks or anything.
And I had not saved any money because thirty rock
is in the same building as like anthropology, and at
the time I was like, whoa, Like, I have my
(05:27):
literally my first paycheck other than being you know, a
waitress or a nanny or I made a cassade commercial,
like a couple of years before then. I had bit
parts on TV shows, but I had never had a
consistent income. I was not responsible with it. Also had
no savings. So we were sharing a hotel room with
four other friends and I felt really squished and I
(05:49):
started talking in like this tiny voice, and Dean was like,
you know, I forgot to make the video for our
friends comedy show. Can I interview you in that voice?
And then maybe I'll make something like I'll animate something
or something. He didn't even really know, and so he
and he interviewed me in that voice, and it kind
of came out that maybe I was small and it
(06:11):
was a character kind of talking about their social life.
Like one of the first things Marcella Ever says is
that like he didn't clean up and that his house
is messy because he invited some friends from upstate to
come eat salad just did not make its way into
the feature film. Um, but then hearing all that audio,
he was like, Okay, I think I could probably put
(06:31):
together the physicality of this. And he had a lot
of different like crafts stuff, and he went to the
toy store in our neighborhood in Brooklyn and bought kind
of like a Polly Pocket rip off and helped my
balls on stuff and finally he made Marcel, and um,
I came back from having lunch with a friend and
there was like this little guy on the corner of
(06:53):
the table and Marcel's really tall. He's an inch tall.
So if you if you are a super fan and
you bought one of the with the sneaker season it,
so even with yeah, he's really interesting it well actually,
and his shoes are like they're like his body, like
they're his feet. Yeah, no shoes to ever come off.
(07:14):
Learn anyway, so he made the body and I came
in and he was like, I think he's here, and
I was like, oh, he's definitely that guy. And then
Dean interviewed me and it was sort of like, well,
now that you know what you look like, can you
say more about yourself? And I you know, just improvised.
We had also just been to France to visit where
(07:36):
my one of my grandmother's was before she um went
into hiding during the Holocaust and during World War Two,
and her brother's name was Marcel and it must have
been top of mind. And I just said, like, my
name is Marcelle, and I'm partially a shell and you
can see on my body, and I just describe the
rest of myself. Oh, and it just went on. And
(07:57):
he's so he's so earnest and honest, and since it's here,
and I was so excited when the movie was coming out.
I couldn't believe it was different. Having to then write
a full length feature of about it's sort of different
and the same. I mean, it's actually the story was
like way too big and long, Like I think our
(08:18):
biggest challenge was cutting it down. There are there are
lots of parts of Marcelle's life that, um, we just
couldn't fit into the film, and we really had to
decide like what to show about him, and what was
interesting to us was like for someone who's so willing
to share himself and for someone who clearly thrives off
of being in conversation with another why is he alone?
(08:42):
Like why is he alone? And that was one of
the things that we decided to try to explore, and
it became more meaningful to us, especially as we separated
as a couple and both found ourselves, Like, you know,
we were in something that was sort of like you know,
coil together something, and now we were in our own,
our to own things like alone by ourselves. I'm curious
(09:06):
what it's like to collaborate with someone that you are
separated from, but you know who was your ex. You
seem to have done it very well. How is how
does that work? I mean, yeah, there's lots of different
definitions of like doing that well. I think. I think,
first of all, like we knew that our marriage was
not going to keep going, and we were like we
(09:28):
both still want to make this movie. We was never
a question. And I don't think either one of us
is like a jerk, I guess I don't know how
else to put it, Like neither one of us is
like now the spotlight is mine, or like you know
these couples where they split up and one of them
steals the intellectual property or something. It just that was
never going to be us and and I think also
(09:49):
like I can only speak for myself, but I never
was like I never want to see you again. I
mostly was like, WHOA, why did I think I would
be the like right for this when like I don't
think I have the right things to offer to this person,
but I do think that I have the right things
to offer them in a creative partnership, So so that's good.
(10:11):
But I'll also say, like we have good boundaries. It's
not like like if I'm to get a text from Dean,
you know, we text back and forth. We have like
a funny, fun relationship. But like I wouldn't say we're
best friends. I would say like we're super good creative
partners and that we just developed into knowing how much
(10:33):
space to give each other. And I don't really feel
like there was a lot of conscious like let's sit
down and let's be like really really evolved about this.
I actually think we just were so careful, like walking
on like the thinnest ice or something, just like really
making sure like your footstep itself. Let's say it's not
(10:54):
too warm to melt the surface. You know. Marcella is
obviously the product of an extremely creative person. So I'm
really curious to know what you were like as a kid.
Did you have an imaginary friends? I had a lot
(11:14):
of imaginary personas. Like I think I've always been an actor,
um and always wanted to be one too, But like
I didn't have an imaginary friends, but I UM was
deep into imaginary play, deep into playing characters, you know,
like just full four hour afternoons of pretending to be
(11:37):
a princess who was like rejected from her castle and
had to like win it back from her like evil
you know, stepmother or something like just sort of a
version of whatever whatever fairytale I might have heard. And
I really like to deeply get into that. UM. My
sisters and I had a game that we would play
called Dana and Susan and it was about um two
(12:01):
women named Dana and Susan who lived in the the
Ritz Carlton in New York and we we lived in
Massachusetts and we had never been to New York, but
we lived in the Ritz Carlton and we both had
husbands and we would like just talk about our husbands,
which now I think is like a crazy game. And
(12:21):
if I if I caught my daughter doing it, I'd
be like, where did you learn this? But I we
just like we were ladies. I think we were like
kind of emulating my mom's first cousins and the women
that we would see, like at Russia Shanna and all
the Jewish holidays. I love that. One thing about you
that I really find fascinating, and you've spoken about this
as well, is that you have really severe stage fright. Yeah.
(12:45):
Can you talk a little bit about what that feels
like and how you ward it off and has it
ever happened at the most inopportune moment um, I still
get it. I sort of have tried everything to get
rid of it, including like getting hypnotized and pushed myself
to sort of hit marks of achievement for for a
stand up comedian like I I made. I made an
(13:06):
hour long stand up special for Netflix. In fact, I'm
about to make another one, and UM, it haunts me. Um.
What it feels like to me is I have absolutely
no assurances that I'm going to be able to do
my job. I can't when I have stage fright connect
to the part of me that drums up and really
(13:26):
inhabits this power. I can't find it at all. And
I start to think it's not there. It's not there,
and everybody's gonna see me fail and they're going to be, um,
really disturbed by me because they're gonna like, I'm gonna
force them to watch me fail and they're going to
(13:46):
really hate me for that. And um, I think it's
actually gotten to the point where I'm like, I don't
really know that I that this is like I need
to keep doing this. I I'm not sure that I'm
gonna ever get past it. And it's a range thing
to say, but like the more I get into my
my parenting and my motherhood and like connecting to a
(14:07):
kind of love that I only thought was for other
people or something like I had never really experienced it
like this, the less I actually kind of need to
earn it, Which is interesting because I want to get
to you becoming a mom in a minute. But I'm
also interested in how you decided that you wanted to
make this your career, make comedy your career, and I'm
(14:28):
curious as to when you knew you wanted to be
that and what was that going to look like for
you in your dreams. I always wanted to be an actor.
I wanted to be an actress, I didn't want to
be a stand up comedian at all, and in fact,
I didn't grow up watching any I. I just wanted
to be like Judy Garland that you know. I wanted
to be like I don't know, like since Cheri's like
(14:51):
I like I wanted to be like she had her
legs ensured. Yeah, really, Like I just was like, don't know,
I want like a petticoat and like I want being
stuff where I'm like in a corset that like my
sisters are lacing up and they're like we're going to
the drugs. Like I just thought, I know, all the
anything I saw was from the library. It was all
those like Technicolor like Briga Dune and Meet Me in St.
(15:12):
Louis and like things like that. And it never occurred
to me that there were different kinds of actors. It
it's that there was genre. And then I got I
became aware of like Lily Tomlin and majorly of like
Madeline Cohn and Carol Burnett, and I was just like, wait,
what is that? What's that about? And when I got
(15:33):
to college, I started doing improv and it was just
so easy. It was just so fun. And when I
graduated from college, my best friend Gabe Lehmann and I
became a comedy duo, just just a way for people
to see us and think of us for acting parts.
And then when I was doing a comedy show, um,
the director Gillian Robespierre saw me, and she was planning
(15:54):
to make a short film about comedian who well actually
about just about a woman who like gets an gets
pregnant by mistake and has an abortion and was that
obvious child or no, that became obvious child. I love.
That's one of my favorite movies of yours. I'm so glad.
I'm glad you've seen it, and I think it's I
think it's a really great thing for people to watch
(16:15):
now because it's romantic and it's it's lovely, and it
also like shows a safe and legal abortion with a
woman who makes that choice, um, without like having to
just like assess her entire life and decide whether or
not she's good or bad. It's just like something people
need to see. And I think the gillion saw me
(16:36):
as a leading lady. And before that, I was like,
I don't think every anyone ever will like I'll just
be always like playing the funny friend. Okay, So then
at what point does SNL come in because a lot
has been made of your experience on that show. So
I made the short film of Obvious Child. Um. And
then I at the same time was like trying to
(16:58):
write a one person and a one woman show, which
I always kind of thought, I like thought that was
sort of like embarrassing, and like here I'm like just
like really like I don't know, like like like theater
dorc or something, and um. At the time, I you know,
god forbid, i'd be dorky um. And but I was like,
you know, I want to maybe see if I could.
(17:20):
I didn't even think about being on SNL. I just
thought maybe someone from like Comedy Central will see me.
Maybe I'll just get better commercials. Like I just wanted
to be able to work more. And I was like,
I'm not going to be in an offer Broadway play
of like the Seagull or whatever, Like no one's gonna
put me in some check off. I've got to figure
out how to just get on stage and do what
(17:41):
I think I'm good at, which, by the way, is
the only way that I've ever had any success is
to isolate the incredibly specific thing that I am good
at that only I could describe and just do it
for like seven people and and like hope that some
people see it, and sometimes they didn't, sometimes they did.
But so I performed a one woman play that took
place at my few gearle if I had died right then,
(18:02):
as as like a twenty six year old eccentric millionaire,
and so I eulogized myself and like all these different characters.
And John Mulaney, the comedian who was a friend of mine,
was already working on SNL and he happened to be
at like the I think, the very first show, and
so he told the casting person and she was at
the second show, and so by the second show, I
(18:23):
had an audition and then I got my like callback
for SNL and then I got on that show, and um,
and my career kind of like began, or so I thought,
But then it kind of like just sort of took
a nose dive almost immediately because I said, I swear
on my first show by mistake, which is like a
personal nightmare for me because I hate getting in trouble.
Get the funk out of here. Yeah, um, and like, wait,
(18:49):
that's what happened. Well, I don't think I got fired
for saying fuck, And I think people might think that
if they're still thinking about it. I mean it's been
literally a decade and who cares. But no, I think generally,
like I got really squirrelly after that happened. It was
sort of like you don't realize that you're like living
on the edge until suddenly you like almost fall off
it and then you're like, wow, I'm on live DV.
(19:12):
You know, I'm just like, oh my god, and like
I am a fragile person actually, like I have incredible resilience,
but like it's a bit like a sorority fraternity in there.
I am not meant to be in there. And I
don't mean that to be like derogative at all. I
just mean, like the rules of the interior culture of
(19:34):
that place are really specific. Um, the power structure is
really specific. I definitely tried to like bow down to it.
But I I think if you're a creative person and
deep in your whatever you want to call it, your spirit,
you don't believe in what you are saying is your
master or your authority, you're not going to do your
best work. And I think if you're like me, even
(19:56):
even though I am I self admittedly totally fragile. You're
gonna be like I revolt. Do you think your comedy
fit in? Do you think that that was a brand
of comedy that No, not at all. But I also
think the way that I make my comedy is by
getting a ton of encouragement, not by being like starved
out and like being like wide eyed and being like
(20:18):
do you love me, daddy? To like someone who's not
even your dad, Like I don't even understand the relationship
with Lauren. I I really wanted him to like me.
I I'm not someone who benefits from tough love or
from deprivation. And I I understand there's a point at
which like performers pushed through and then they're given the
go ahead and the writers write for them. And the
(20:39):
weirdest thing is that, like all of those people are
nice people, but as a collective, I think there was
something for me that felt really bad and it really
hurt my confidence. And you know, I was like deeply
humiliated to get fired, but like a billion trillion percent,
it is the best thing that ever had been to me, ever, ever, ever, ever,
(21:10):
So I named the show now What because I'm interested
in those moments that sort of devastate us and throw
us off course, you know, and how you get through them,
and for you to say that this was the best
thing that could have ever happened. Undoubtedly didn't feel like
that at the time, But how did that experience shape
the way you decided to go forward in the trajectory
(21:32):
of your own career. I think I've had twin experiences
in this, in my professional creat you know, creative life,
and in my romantic life. You're a fool if you
think that you are going to evaporate your injury. If
something is big enough to hobble me creatively or to
(21:53):
break my very alive heart, then that means it was big.
And I think the way that I've gotten through it
both times is by being like, you just have to
do the movement that you can do that will not
exacerbate your emotional injury. But you cannot stay still, you
(22:14):
cannot fossilize in the posture of the moment where you
were taken down. That is absolutely not the way to live,
not for me at least, And so like after SNL
I I started auditioning again, I made myself to stand
up even though my stage right was like exponentially worse
(22:34):
and sometimes I really failed, but like, yeah, there is
no like symmetrical justice that came in that was like, oh,
you found out you got fired on deadline Hollywood because
no one even called you, because I think you were
solo worth well, now like someone like a fancy producer
is gonna ride in and give you your own show,
(22:54):
like nobody cared. The only person that cares or knows
that I'm this deeply in jured is me. And so
after SNL, I just was like, just find a way,
just like, keep performing again, keep being social, don't treat
yourself like you're an outcast. Nobody wants you to be that,
nobody has it out for you. But also I was like,
(23:15):
remember that you never have to feel this badly ever again.
Everything else that I will ever kind of encounter is
like it is a job in a life, you know,
even if it seems like really important or cool to me,
like it is a job. And I just I was like,
I will never forgive the expression, but like I will
never eat it like this again. There is absolutely no
(23:35):
way if I feel bad, I'm leaving and then that
you know, I also learned after my divorce going into
other relationships and being so freaked out and being in relationships.
I should I should have just like been by myself,
Like truly I should have. I should have done the eat,
pray love thing or whatever. I just should have gone
somewhere like slurped a bunch of spaghetti and just like
(23:58):
stared into a canal. That would have been much better
for me. But I chose things I wasn't ready for.
And it's in my in my book. I wrote a
book called Little Weirds and there's a piece in there
called Creed, and it's about like I don't need to
be in relational experiences like where I feel like I'm
(24:20):
I'm crouching in a small environment when I'm like I'm bigger,
Like I'd rather be my own size emotionally and be
by myself than be like getting like little meager morsels
from someone who doesn't understand me. And I was like,
you never have to feel like this again. It might
be that you are like single alone forever, but like no,
(24:41):
but you know you've God, You've said so many things
just in this last I mean throughout the whole chat,
but that focus just as a performer, because you get
knocked down so many more times than you you get
held up right, and everybody also wants to have these
more and to make them be this this this huge,
(25:03):
huge thing, and they feel that way at the time,
but they're part of such a bigger, bigger story. And
for you to be able to just knowingly and still
with an open heart, refuse to not try again and
be Judy Garland looking over the rainbow, you know what
I mean? And in a way, what a beautiful, what
(25:24):
a beautiful now what moment? And I think it's really important.
And during COVID you've had you've had such what a
what a year? I mean, your heart was open enough
to get married again and then have a child. How
did you know you wanted to be a parent And
(25:45):
what has that? How has that changed you when you
actually realized you or the mother of this little human being?
It has unconditional love for you. By the way, the
thing that you talk about wanting, oh my gosh, I
know it was. I mean I already like I have
like some new stand up about how like I just
(26:07):
so desperately want my daughter to like me that I
like she throws food on the floor and I'm like,
I love how that's so cool, Like I just I'm like,
I'm just like puss up um because I think she's
so cool. Um. I I mean when I met my husband,
it was after that, as you might what you call
I guess and now what moment. And so a friend
introduced us and um, we wrote a couple of emails
(26:29):
to each other. Um, but then we just fell out
of touch. And then I was writing my book and
I was like a lot of pieces were taken from
ideas that I had had in the few emails I
had written to him. And I I wrote to him
and I was like, you know, it seems like because
we had sort of tried to have a romantic start
(26:51):
and it just didn't take off. And um, I was like,
maybe you're not like into me, or we're not right
for each other that way. But I've got to say,
I really like you, and it's really weird to me
that you're not my friend, because there's something about when
I interact with you that it just is like pure
goodness and I I really get into like speaking and
(27:13):
thinking things that are incredibly exciting and important to me.
And he was sort of like, oh yeah, no, no, no,
we should definitely be friends. Um. It's weird that we're not.
And then of course we like immediately fell in love.
But I did not know if I wanted to have children,
and and then I met my husband, and he really
wanted to have children. And he is a completely unique person.
(27:34):
I've never met anyone like him, man or woman. And
I just was like absolutely certain that not only would
he be a good father, but that like if I
were to have a baby, that he would be there
for me, because I was like, I am not exploding
my vagina and like putting my mind through like chemical
(27:55):
hormone like roller coaster at best with someone is not
going to understand that I'm doing all of that while
they're not, and that's hard for them because they're also
not taught it, you know. I mean, I think that's
a whole other kind of podcast, but it is very
true because a lot of what what what you do
experience they don't know and there and then it also
(28:18):
takes us telling them, please be open to this, but
this is exactly what's happening. And so that's a I mean,
that's part of the communication of of of a relationship
where children become a part of it. Um, So, okay,
you find out you're having a little girl. Well, we
got engaged and then um, and then I got pregnant
(28:39):
kind of just like a few months after that. But actually, well,
actually what happened was we got engaged and we planned
our wedding for June, and we were like, well probably
like We're like, well, this thing will probably be over
by then, right like in March. We're like, I don't know,
like should we cancel it? And then I was also
(29:00):
planning on starting like fertility treatments because I went to
a fertility doctor. I was I was about to turn
thirty eight at the time, and I had never had
an unplanned pregnancy, so I've never been pregnant. I was like,
maybe I can't be like it kind of seems like
I should have actually at this point. So I and
I was told that it would can't believe it. Yeah,
um and uh. The doctor was kind of like, you're
(29:21):
really gonna need to You're gonna need to do fertility.
You don't have a lot of like follicles left, it's
not going to happen. And I was. I was so
blown away by that and I was gonna start that process.
When the lockdown happened and no quote unquote elective procedures
could be done, and I was like, I was suddenly
so scared, like something I wasn't ever sure that I wanted.
(29:43):
I wanted it so badly, and I felt, yeah, like
very very sad. And then my husband and I did this,
like we drove from l A to Massachusetts in about
three days just to try to like make it to
Massachusetts and locked down there, and um, on the night
that we got there, I guess I must have gotten pregnant,
(30:05):
Like I just can't believe. Like two weeks later, I
woke up at dawn and I was like, I think
I'm pregnant. And it was just this weird feeling, and
I took four pregnancy tests and they all said yes.
And then when my husband woke up, I waited for
him to like go to the bathroom, and I was like,
I'll just wait till he gets out. But then I
like burst in, holding the four pregnancy tests the way
(30:28):
that people hold like cards in poker when they have
like a good I don't play poker, but when it's like,
you know, a flush or like whatever. And I came in,
I was like look and I just showed him and
I just remember his face, it was like he was
so happy. Oh, I'm I'm so happy for your as
what kind of little girls. She She's very social, she's brave,
(30:52):
she's incredibly um like warm. She loves um, things that
are saw off. She likes like especially it's like hilarious
that animals have tails, and like every time she sees
any animals tail, she wants to point it out. And
I actually also feel that way about animals tails. Um.
(31:13):
She's she's really affectionate. Um. She loves like salty things
like pickles and olives. Um, she's really mischievous. A lot
of my friends say she looks like a shattic, but
she acts like a slate. Well, she's lucky to have
you as parents, you as a mama. I I love
what you're putting out into the world, and I just
(31:35):
thank you for taking the time to be on this
on this podcast. You're a delight and I'm excited to
see whatever is next for you, and I wish she
the best and thank you. I also just want to say,
like I have been a fan of yours for my
entire life, and I just kind of like that's possible
(31:56):
because I'm fifty seven. That always sounds bad when people
say that to me, like when they're like, I watched
marcelf I was a baby, and I'm like, oh, you
go fund yourself. But but no, but no, not at all.
In fact, I I appreciate it. But I just mean
to say, like, it is very meaningful to me that
you would turn your eye on me. And you are
someone that I see in in our culture as a
(32:20):
person of extraordinary talent and beauty and your and such
intelligence but also like real realness. I could have stayed
in this conversation for hours. And I thrive on encouragement.
I don't thrive because I have some like weird well
of confidence. I I thrive relationally and much like a
(32:41):
plant needs water and sun. And you were really that
sunshine for me. So thank you so much. That was
the delightful Jenny Slate. If you want to hear more
from her, check out her book. It's called Little Weirds.
And if you're like me and you love Marcel the Shell,
(33:02):
do yourself a favor and watch Jenny's OSCAR nominated film,
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. It's on Prime Apple
TV and in theaters. That is it for today. Thank
you for listening now. What with brook Shields is a
production of I Heart Radio. Our lead producer and wonderful
show runner is Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by
(33:25):
Darby Masters and Abou Zafar. Our executive producer is Christina Everett.
The show is mixed by Bahed Fraser.
What do you do in life doesn't go according to plan?
That moment you lose the job, or a loved one,
or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
with a guest to talk about the times they were
knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
(00:27):
Some stories are funny, others are cut wrenching, but all
are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
answers one question. Now what I remember like waking up
(00:50):
one morning and there was like a gentleman who had
slept over, and um, there there was a rat in
my kitchen. And I was like, this is an better
than the opposite, belater than the rat being in your
bed and him actually true? Yeah, I mean come on, yeah,
it would be It would actually be way worth to
(01:11):
find a rat in your bed and then like a
guy in your kitchen. That would be danger. But anyway,
a gentleman though he was a gentleman. You just said
he was a gentleman, so perfect, nice person, not going
to be my boyfriend. Hello, and welcome back to another
season of Now What. My team and I took a
few weeks off to recharge, and while it was very
(01:32):
nice to get some rest, I really missed sharing these
interviews with all of you each week. Fortunately, I think
my guest today was very much worth the weight. Jenny Slate.
She's a writer and actor and a comedian. You might
also know her as the co creator and voice of
the newly Oscar nominated sensation Marcelf Shell with Shoes on.
(01:55):
Jenny is a breath of fresh air. She's authentic, she's open,
and as you're here in just a minute, she is
more than willing to talk about her many now What
moments and all that she's learned from them. I am
so thrilled to bring you all a piece of her
story and hope that you'll come to adore her as
I do. So. Here is Jenny Slate. M. Jenny Slate, Hi,
(02:29):
thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I
was so happy when I knew that you said you
said yes to doing it. I was shocked. I was
shocked and excited that you would like me to be
here speaking to you. Are you kidding? I'm such a
huge fan. Um. And first of all, before congratulations on
(02:50):
an Oscar nomination. Where were you when you heard when
you got the news? Um? Thank you? And I was
in bed. I was asleep finally after a night of
many wake ups with my little babe, and so I
had just gotten to sleep, and I saw all these
messages flickering on my phone, but they were all text messages,
(03:13):
and I just sort of thought, I think if it
were good news, somebody would have called. I just think
it's a lot of apologies, Like I think it's my
It was my sisters, and I was like, it's them,
being like, this is actually just the start of your career,
don't worry your was something like that. I remember when
it first came out. I was so immediately in love
(03:36):
with Marcel. I just my daughters and I. It was
as if we couldn't we just couldn't get enough, couldn't
get enough of it. And um, it's funny because I
don't know if you've met Ariana Grande, but she would
practically only do an imitation of Marcel. She did everything.
(03:56):
Everything she answered you, she would talk in herself voice.
Because it was around the time I was working with
her brother on something and I would have dinner with
the mom and the kids, and it was so cute
and so funny, and she did quite quite a good invitation.
Let me get this straight. You're saying that Ariana Grande
that she knows about Marcel to Shell, she knows about
(04:20):
it and would do an invitation of it. So it
was really kind of kind of sweet love that where
the character of Marcell come from. Well, you know, what's
weird is like to answer that question, Like, first of all,
it like it just was a not even a private joke,
just a random joke. Just imagine if there was something
that you were doing with your friend and and suddenly
(04:42):
like it caught on in a way that we didn't
We didn't even have an example for that at the time,
the way that things can catch on now and kind
of a viral way. And um, but at the time,
I was doing a funny voice over a weekend while
Dean and I were with some friends. Dean Fleischer Camp
the director of the film, co writer, co creator and
also my ex husband. We were a couple. Then we
(05:04):
were at a wedding and I had been on SNL
for a year. But like you know, you get paid
sag scale. You're not like making big bucks or anything.
And I had not saved any money because thirty rock
is in the same building as like anthropology, and at
the time I was like, whoa, Like, I have my
(05:27):
literally my first paycheck other than being you know, a
waitress or a nanny or I made a cassade commercial,
like a couple of years before then. I had bit
parts on TV shows, but I had never had a
consistent income. I was not responsible with it. Also had
no savings. So we were sharing a hotel room with
four other friends and I felt really squished and I
(05:49):
started talking in like this tiny voice, and Dean was like,
you know, I forgot to make the video for our
friends comedy show. Can I interview you in that voice?
And then maybe I'll make something like I'll animate something
or something. He didn't even really know, and so he
and he interviewed me in that voice, and it kind
of came out that maybe I was small and it
(06:11):
was a character kind of talking about their social life.
Like one of the first things Marcella Ever says is
that like he didn't clean up and that his house
is messy because he invited some friends from upstate to
come eat salad just did not make its way into
the feature film. Um, but then hearing all that audio,
he was like, Okay, I think I could probably put
(06:31):
together the physicality of this. And he had a lot
of different like crafts stuff, and he went to the
toy store in our neighborhood in Brooklyn and bought kind
of like a Polly Pocket rip off and helped my
balls on stuff and finally he made Marcel, and um,
I came back from having lunch with a friend and
there was like this little guy on the corner of
(06:53):
the table and Marcel's really tall. He's an inch tall.
So if you if you are a super fan and
you bought one of the with the sneaker season it,
so even with yeah, he's really interesting it well actually,
and his shoes are like they're like his body, like
they're his feet. Yeah, no shoes to ever come off.
(07:14):
Learn anyway, so he made the body and I came
in and he was like, I think he's here, and
I was like, oh, he's definitely that guy. And then
Dean interviewed me and it was sort of like, well,
now that you know what you look like, can you
say more about yourself? And I you know, just improvised.
We had also just been to France to visit where
(07:36):
my one of my grandmother's was before she um went
into hiding during the Holocaust and during World War Two,
and her brother's name was Marcel and it must have
been top of mind. And I just said, like, my
name is Marcelle, and I'm partially a shell and you
can see on my body, and I just describe the
rest of myself. Oh, and it just went on. And
(07:57):
he's so he's so earnest and honest, and since it's here,
and I was so excited when the movie was coming out.
I couldn't believe it was different. Having to then write
a full length feature of about it's sort of different
and the same. I mean, it's actually the story was
like way too big and long, Like I think our
(08:18):
biggest challenge was cutting it down. There are there are
lots of parts of Marcelle's life that, um, we just
couldn't fit into the film, and we really had to
decide like what to show about him, and what was
interesting to us was like for someone who's so willing
to share himself and for someone who clearly thrives off
of being in conversation with another why is he alone?
(08:42):
Like why is he alone? And that was one of
the things that we decided to try to explore, and
it became more meaningful to us, especially as we separated
as a couple and both found ourselves, Like, you know,
we were in something that was sort of like you know,
coil together something, and now we were in our own,
our to own things like alone by ourselves. I'm curious
(09:06):
what it's like to collaborate with someone that you are
separated from, but you know who was your ex. You
seem to have done it very well. How is how
does that work? I mean, yeah, there's lots of different
definitions of like doing that well. I think. I think,
first of all, like we knew that our marriage was
not going to keep going, and we were like we
(09:28):
both still want to make this movie. We was never
a question. And I don't think either one of us
is like a jerk, I guess I don't know how
else to put it, Like neither one of us is
like now the spotlight is mine, or like you know
these couples where they split up and one of them
steals the intellectual property or something. It just that was
never going to be us and and I think also
(09:49):
like I can only speak for myself, but I never
was like I never want to see you again. I
mostly was like, WHOA, why did I think I would
be the like right for this when like I don't
think I have the right things to offer to this person,
but I do think that I have the right things
to offer them in a creative partnership, So so that's good.
(10:11):
But I'll also say, like we have good boundaries. It's
not like like if I'm to get a text from Dean,
you know, we text back and forth. We have like
a funny, fun relationship. But like I wouldn't say we're
best friends. I would say like we're super good creative
partners and that we just developed into knowing how much
(10:33):
space to give each other. And I don't really feel
like there was a lot of conscious like let's sit
down and let's be like really really evolved about this.
I actually think we just were so careful, like walking
on like the thinnest ice or something, just like really
making sure like your footstep itself. Let's say it's not
(10:54):
too warm to melt the surface. You know. Marcella is
obviously the product of an extremely creative person. So I'm
really curious to know what you were like as a kid.
Did you have an imaginary friends? I had a lot
(11:14):
of imaginary personas. Like I think I've always been an actor,
um and always wanted to be one too, But like
I didn't have an imaginary friends, but I UM was
deep into imaginary play, deep into playing characters, you know,
like just full four hour afternoons of pretending to be
(11:37):
a princess who was like rejected from her castle and
had to like win it back from her like evil
you know, stepmother or something like just sort of a
version of whatever whatever fairytale I might have heard. And
I really like to deeply get into that. UM. My
sisters and I had a game that we would play
called Dana and Susan and it was about um two
(12:01):
women named Dana and Susan who lived in the the
Ritz Carlton in New York and we we lived in
Massachusetts and we had never been to New York, but
we lived in the Ritz Carlton and we both had
husbands and we would like just talk about our husbands,
which now I think is like a crazy game. And
(12:21):
if I if I caught my daughter doing it, I'd
be like, where did you learn this? But I we
just like we were ladies. I think we were like
kind of emulating my mom's first cousins and the women
that we would see, like at Russia Shanna and all
the Jewish holidays. I love that. One thing about you
that I really find fascinating, and you've spoken about this
as well, is that you have really severe stage fright. Yeah.
(12:45):
Can you talk a little bit about what that feels
like and how you ward it off and has it
ever happened at the most inopportune moment um, I still
get it. I sort of have tried everything to get
rid of it, including like getting hypnotized and pushed myself
to sort of hit marks of achievement for for a
stand up comedian like I I made. I made an
(13:06):
hour long stand up special for Netflix. In fact, I'm
about to make another one, and UM, it haunts me. Um.
What it feels like to me is I have absolutely
no assurances that I'm going to be able to do
my job. I can't when I have stage fright connect
to the part of me that drums up and really
(13:26):
inhabits this power. I can't find it at all. And
I start to think it's not there. It's not there,
and everybody's gonna see me fail and they're going to be, um,
really disturbed by me because they're gonna like, I'm gonna
force them to watch me fail and they're going to
(13:46):
really hate me for that. And um, I think it's
actually gotten to the point where I'm like, I don't
really know that I that this is like I need
to keep doing this. I I'm not sure that I'm
gonna ever get past it. And it's a range thing
to say, but like the more I get into my
my parenting and my motherhood and like connecting to a
(14:07):
kind of love that I only thought was for other
people or something like I had never really experienced it
like this, the less I actually kind of need to
earn it, Which is interesting because I want to get
to you becoming a mom in a minute. But I'm
also interested in how you decided that you wanted to
make this your career, make comedy your career, and I'm
(14:28):
curious as to when you knew you wanted to be
that and what was that going to look like for
you in your dreams. I always wanted to be an actor.
I wanted to be an actress, I didn't want to
be a stand up comedian at all, and in fact,
I didn't grow up watching any I. I just wanted
to be like Judy Garland that you know. I wanted
to be like I don't know, like since Cheri's like
(14:51):
I like I wanted to be like she had her
legs ensured. Yeah, really, Like I just was like, don't know,
I want like a petticoat and like I want being
stuff where I'm like in a corset that like my
sisters are lacing up and they're like we're going to
the drugs. Like I just thought, I know, all the
anything I saw was from the library. It was all
those like Technicolor like Briga Dune and Meet Me in St.
(15:12):
Louis and like things like that. And it never occurred
to me that there were different kinds of actors. It
it's that there was genre. And then I got I
became aware of like Lily Tomlin and majorly of like
Madeline Cohn and Carol Burnett, and I was just like, wait,
what is that? What's that about? And when I got
(15:33):
to college, I started doing improv and it was just
so easy. It was just so fun. And when I
graduated from college, my best friend Gabe Lehmann and I
became a comedy duo, just just a way for people
to see us and think of us for acting parts.
And then when I was doing a comedy show, um,
the director Gillian Robespierre saw me, and she was planning
(15:54):
to make a short film about comedian who well actually
about just about a woman who like gets an gets
pregnant by mistake and has an abortion and was that
obvious child or no, that became obvious child. I love.
That's one of my favorite movies of yours. I'm so glad.
I'm glad you've seen it, and I think it's I
think it's a really great thing for people to watch
(16:15):
now because it's romantic and it's it's lovely, and it
also like shows a safe and legal abortion with a
woman who makes that choice, um, without like having to
just like assess her entire life and decide whether or
not she's good or bad. It's just like something people
need to see. And I think the gillion saw me
(16:36):
as a leading lady. And before that, I was like,
I don't think every anyone ever will like I'll just
be always like playing the funny friend. Okay, So then
at what point does SNL come in because a lot
has been made of your experience on that show. So
I made the short film of Obvious Child. Um. And
then I at the same time was like trying to
(16:58):
write a one person and a one woman show, which
I always kind of thought, I like thought that was
sort of like embarrassing, and like here I'm like just
like really like I don't know, like like like theater
dorc or something, and um. At the time, I you know,
god forbid, i'd be dorky um. And but I was like,
you know, I want to maybe see if I could.
(17:20):
I didn't even think about being on SNL. I just
thought maybe someone from like Comedy Central will see me.
Maybe I'll just get better commercials. Like I just wanted
to be able to work more. And I was like,
I'm not going to be in an offer Broadway play
of like the Seagull or whatever, Like no one's gonna
put me in some check off. I've got to figure
out how to just get on stage and do what
(17:41):
I think I'm good at, which, by the way, is
the only way that I've ever had any success is
to isolate the incredibly specific thing that I am good
at that only I could describe and just do it
for like seven people and and like hope that some
people see it, and sometimes they didn't, sometimes they did.
But so I performed a one woman play that took
place at my few gearle if I had died right then,
(18:02):
as as like a twenty six year old eccentric millionaire,
and so I eulogized myself and like all these different characters.
And John Mulaney, the comedian who was a friend of mine,
was already working on SNL and he happened to be
at like the I think, the very first show, and
so he told the casting person and she was at
the second show, and so by the second show, I
(18:23):
had an audition and then I got my like callback
for SNL and then I got on that show, and um,
and my career kind of like began, or so I thought,
But then it kind of like just sort of took
a nose dive almost immediately because I said, I swear
on my first show by mistake, which is like a
personal nightmare for me because I hate getting in trouble.
Get the funk out of here. Yeah, um, and like, wait,
(18:49):
that's what happened. Well, I don't think I got fired
for saying fuck, And I think people might think that
if they're still thinking about it. I mean it's been
literally a decade and who cares. But no, I think generally,
like I got really squirrelly after that happened. It was
sort of like you don't realize that you're like living
on the edge until suddenly you like almost fall off
it and then you're like, wow, I'm on live DV.
(19:12):
You know, I'm just like, oh my god, and like
I am a fragile person actually, like I have incredible resilience,
but like it's a bit like a sorority fraternity in there.
I am not meant to be in there. And I
don't mean that to be like derogative at all. I
just mean, like the rules of the interior culture of
(19:34):
that place are really specific. Um, the power structure is
really specific. I definitely tried to like bow down to it.
But I I think if you're a creative person and
deep in your whatever you want to call it, your spirit,
you don't believe in what you are saying is your
master or your authority, you're not going to do your
best work. And I think if you're like me, even
(19:56):
even though I am I self admittedly totally fragile. You're
gonna be like I revolt. Do you think your comedy
fit in? Do you think that that was a brand
of comedy that No, not at all. But I also
think the way that I make my comedy is by
getting a ton of encouragement, not by being like starved
out and like being like wide eyed and being like
(20:18):
do you love me, daddy? To like someone who's not
even your dad, Like I don't even understand the relationship
with Lauren. I I really wanted him to like me.
I I'm not someone who benefits from tough love or
from deprivation. And I I understand there's a point at
which like performers pushed through and then they're given the
go ahead and the writers write for them. And the
(20:39):
weirdest thing is that, like all of those people are
nice people, but as a collective, I think there was
something for me that felt really bad and it really
hurt my confidence. And you know, I was like deeply
humiliated to get fired, but like a billion trillion percent,
it is the best thing that ever had been to me, ever, ever, ever, ever,
(21:10):
So I named the show now What because I'm interested
in those moments that sort of devastate us and throw
us off course, you know, and how you get through them,
and for you to say that this was the best
thing that could have ever happened. Undoubtedly didn't feel like
that at the time, But how did that experience shape
the way you decided to go forward in the trajectory
(21:32):
of your own career. I think I've had twin experiences
in this, in my professional creat you know, creative life,
and in my romantic life. You're a fool if you
think that you are going to evaporate your injury. If
something is big enough to hobble me creatively or to
(21:53):
break my very alive heart, then that means it was big.
And I think the way that I've gotten through it
both times is by being like, you just have to
do the movement that you can do that will not
exacerbate your emotional injury. But you cannot stay still, you
(22:14):
cannot fossilize in the posture of the moment where you
were taken down. That is absolutely not the way to live,
not for me at least, And so like after SNL
I I started auditioning again, I made myself to stand
up even though my stage right was like exponentially worse
(22:34):
and sometimes I really failed, but like, yeah, there is
no like symmetrical justice that came in that was like, oh,
you found out you got fired on deadline Hollywood because
no one even called you, because I think you were
solo worth well, now like someone like a fancy producer
is gonna ride in and give you your own show,
(22:54):
like nobody cared. The only person that cares or knows
that I'm this deeply in jured is me. And so
after SNL, I just was like, just find a way,
just like, keep performing again, keep being social, don't treat
yourself like you're an outcast. Nobody wants you to be that,
nobody has it out for you. But also I was like,
(23:15):
remember that you never have to feel this badly ever again.
Everything else that I will ever kind of encounter is
like it is a job in a life, you know,
even if it seems like really important or cool to me,
like it is a job. And I just I was like,
I will never forgive the expression, but like I will
never eat it like this again. There is absolutely no
(23:35):
way if I feel bad, I'm leaving and then that
you know, I also learned after my divorce going into
other relationships and being so freaked out and being in relationships.
I should I should have just like been by myself,
Like truly I should have. I should have done the eat,
pray love thing or whatever. I just should have gone
somewhere like slurped a bunch of spaghetti and just like
(23:58):
stared into a canal. That would have been much better
for me. But I chose things I wasn't ready for.
And it's in my in my book. I wrote a
book called Little Weirds and there's a piece in there
called Creed, and it's about like I don't need to
be in relational experiences like where I feel like I'm
(24:20):
I'm crouching in a small environment when I'm like I'm bigger,
Like I'd rather be my own size emotionally and be
by myself than be like getting like little meager morsels
from someone who doesn't understand me. And I was like,
you never have to feel like this again. It might
be that you are like single alone forever, but like no,
(24:41):
but you know you've God, You've said so many things
just in this last I mean throughout the whole chat,
but that focus just as a performer, because you get
knocked down so many more times than you you get
held up right, and everybody also wants to have these
more and to make them be this this this huge,
(25:03):
huge thing, and they feel that way at the time,
but they're part of such a bigger, bigger story. And
for you to be able to just knowingly and still
with an open heart, refuse to not try again and
be Judy Garland looking over the rainbow, you know what
I mean? And in a way, what a beautiful, what
(25:24):
a beautiful now what moment? And I think it's really important.
And during COVID you've had you've had such what a
what a year? I mean, your heart was open enough
to get married again and then have a child. How
did you know you wanted to be a parent And
(25:45):
what has that? How has that changed you when you
actually realized you or the mother of this little human being?
It has unconditional love for you. By the way, the
thing that you talk about wanting, oh my gosh, I
know it was. I mean I already like I have
like some new stand up about how like I just
(26:07):
so desperately want my daughter to like me that I
like she throws food on the floor and I'm like,
I love how that's so cool, Like I just I'm like,
I'm just like puss up um because I think she's
so cool. Um. I I mean when I met my husband,
it was after that, as you might what you call
I guess and now what moment. And so a friend
introduced us and um, we wrote a couple of emails
(26:29):
to each other. Um, but then we just fell out
of touch. And then I was writing my book and
I was like a lot of pieces were taken from
ideas that I had had in the few emails I
had written to him. And I I wrote to him
and I was like, you know, it seems like because
we had sort of tried to have a romantic start
(26:51):
and it just didn't take off. And um, I was like,
maybe you're not like into me, or we're not right
for each other that way. But I've got to say,
I really like you, and it's really weird to me
that you're not my friend, because there's something about when
I interact with you that it just is like pure
goodness and I I really get into like speaking and
(27:13):
thinking things that are incredibly exciting and important to me.
And he was sort of like, oh yeah, no, no, no,
we should definitely be friends. Um. It's weird that we're not.
And then of course we like immediately fell in love.
But I did not know if I wanted to have children,
and and then I met my husband, and he really
wanted to have children. And he is a completely unique person.
(27:34):
I've never met anyone like him, man or woman. And
I just was like absolutely certain that not only would
he be a good father, but that like if I
were to have a baby, that he would be there
for me, because I was like, I am not exploding
my vagina and like putting my mind through like chemical
(27:55):
hormone like roller coaster at best with someone is not
going to understand that I'm doing all of that while
they're not, and that's hard for them because they're also
not taught it, you know. I mean, I think that's
a whole other kind of podcast, but it is very
true because a lot of what what what you do
experience they don't know and there and then it also
(28:18):
takes us telling them, please be open to this, but
this is exactly what's happening. And so that's a I mean,
that's part of the communication of of of a relationship
where children become a part of it. Um, So, okay,
you find out you're having a little girl. Well, we
got engaged and then um, and then I got pregnant
(28:39):
kind of just like a few months after that. But actually, well,
actually what happened was we got engaged and we planned
our wedding for June, and we were like, well probably
like We're like, well, this thing will probably be over
by then, right like in March. We're like, I don't know,
like should we cancel it? And then I was also
(29:00):
planning on starting like fertility treatments because I went to
a fertility doctor. I was I was about to turn
thirty eight at the time, and I had never had
an unplanned pregnancy, so I've never been pregnant. I was like,
maybe I can't be like it kind of seems like
I should have actually at this point. So I and
I was told that it would can't believe it. Yeah,
um and uh. The doctor was kind of like, you're
(29:21):
really gonna need to You're gonna need to do fertility.
You don't have a lot of like follicles left, it's
not going to happen. And I was. I was so
blown away by that and I was gonna start that process.
When the lockdown happened and no quote unquote elective procedures
could be done, and I was like, I was suddenly
so scared, like something I wasn't ever sure that I wanted.
(29:43):
I wanted it so badly, and I felt, yeah, like
very very sad. And then my husband and I did this,
like we drove from l A to Massachusetts in about
three days just to try to like make it to
Massachusetts and locked down there, and um, on the night
that we got there, I guess I must have gotten pregnant,
(30:05):
Like I just can't believe. Like two weeks later, I
woke up at dawn and I was like, I think
I'm pregnant. And it was just this weird feeling, and
I took four pregnancy tests and they all said yes.
And then when my husband woke up, I waited for
him to like go to the bathroom, and I was like,
I'll just wait till he gets out. But then I
like burst in, holding the four pregnancy tests the way
(30:28):
that people hold like cards in poker when they have
like a good I don't play poker, but when it's like,
you know, a flush or like whatever. And I came in,
I was like look and I just showed him and
I just remember his face, it was like he was
so happy. Oh, I'm I'm so happy for your as
what kind of little girls. She She's very social, she's brave,
(30:52):
she's incredibly um like warm. She loves um, things that
are saw off. She likes like especially it's like hilarious
that animals have tails, and like every time she sees
any animals tail, she wants to point it out. And
I actually also feel that way about animals tails. Um.
(31:13):
She's she's really affectionate. Um. She loves like salty things
like pickles and olives. Um, she's really mischievous. A lot
of my friends say she looks like a shattic, but
she acts like a slate. Well, she's lucky to have
you as parents, you as a mama. I I love
what you're putting out into the world, and I just
(31:35):
thank you for taking the time to be on this
on this podcast. You're a delight and I'm excited to
see whatever is next for you, and I wish she
the best and thank you. I also just want to say,
like I have been a fan of yours for my
entire life, and I just kind of like that's possible
(31:56):
because I'm fifty seven. That always sounds bad when people
say that to me, like when they're like, I watched
marcelf I was a baby, and I'm like, oh, you
go fund yourself. But but no, but no, not at all.
In fact, I I appreciate it. But I just mean
to say, like, it is very meaningful to me that
you would turn your eye on me. And you are
someone that I see in in our culture as a
(32:20):
person of extraordinary talent and beauty and your and such
intelligence but also like real realness. I could have stayed
in this conversation for hours. And I thrive on encouragement.
I don't thrive because I have some like weird well
of confidence. I I thrive relationally and much like a
(32:41):
plant needs water and sun. And you were really that
sunshine for me. So thank you so much. That was
the delightful Jenny Slate. If you want to hear more
from her, check out her book. It's called Little Weirds.
And if you're like me and you love Marcel the Shell,
(33:02):
do yourself a favor and watch Jenny's OSCAR nominated film,
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. It's on Prime Apple
TV and in theaters. That is it for today. Thank
you for listening now. What with brook Shields is a
production of I Heart Radio. Our lead producer and wonderful
show runner is Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by
(33:25):
Darby Masters and Abou Zafar. Our executive producer is Christina Everett.
The show is mixed by Bahed Fraser.
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