Taylor Momsen: The Grinch, Gossip Girl, & Grief

0:02What is up, Daddy Gang? It is your founding father, Alex Cooper with Call Her Daddy. Taylor Momsen, welcome to Call Our Daddy. Hello, thank you for having me. I am so excited to finally sit down with you. I feel like you've been someone that I've wanted to have on and it's been a long time coming, so it feels right that you're here. Thank you. How are you doing? I'm doing excellent. Are you in LA just for promo and everything? Promo and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And it's a busy, it's a busy week. Okay, wait, I read somewhere that you are a night owl and you kind of go to bed late. were you up late last night I tried to go to bed well I flew and I actually flew in from Seattle yesterday okay um I feel like I haven't slept in at least three weeks so I'm kind of running on fumes I'm hitting that point um so I tried to go to bed earlier which was like midnight which was very early for me okay is this just like all musicians though because every single musician I've interviewed one wants a late star and two it's like they don't they literally like start their nights at like 1am?

1:08I think my brain doesn't wake up until like 7. Okay. So 7pm. 7pm. So like anything before seven o 'clock, I can show up, I can do it. But it's my brain just isn't at its highest functioning quality until like seven. But do you think that's because you're playing shows and writing music and you're most creative at night? I think definitely a part of it is the routine of used to being up late because of touring and things. So you get on that schedule and then it's just hard to switch a schedule. But I've always found, even when I was younger and I didn't have that, if I try to go to bed early, I can't, even if I fall asleep, I'm more tired the next day than if I just stay up and then sleep less.

1:47It's a weird thing, but I definitely find creative, like my creative brain starts to work at night. Okay, well, I'm happy that you're awake and you're here. Yes. This is fabulous. Made it. Okay, you are the lead singer of the Pretty Reckless band. Can we talk though about that you have a Christmas EP that just came out. And I feel like just from the vibes, I'm like, this is a departure from what your band is usually doing. Did you have to convince everyone to do this? And like, was it primarily your idea? It was my idea. Well, let me rephrase that. It was actually, it was the fans idea. So this is something that it's Taylor Momsen's Pretty Reckless Christmas.

2:26And I'm doing the song from The Grinch, Where Are You Christmas? And that was something that when I first formed the pretty reckless when i was 14 every year people put the connection together that i was cindy luhu and the grinch and every year i got more and more exponential and more and more people you know put that together and it was always kind of a funny thing that you know you smile at and you go ha that's cute and every year they'd go do a rock version of where are you christmas and for i don't know 15 years i went no way like in zero worlds is this something I would ever do. Fast forward to it's COVID.

3:05We've gone through a lot of loss. It's a very hard time in the Pretty Reckless world and in my life. And there's nothing to do because we're in lockdown. And so the only thing to do is to rehearse with the band because we're all cool to be together. And so we just spent a lot of time in the rehearsal studio. The holidays were coming up. We're starting to see these comments again of do a rock version of Where Are You Christmas. and we kind of all turned i kind of turned everyone and went should we just try this like should we just see what happens here and so we put together an arrangement which was actually kind of tricky because uh it's it's not really a full song it's a it's a minute long and so to make it a three and a half minute song whatever we worked that out we go into the rehearsal space and we jam through it once and i kid you not alex by the end of the song these four depressed miserable people had giant grins on our faces.

3:56And we all kind of looked at each other and went, was that just great? Like, I think that there was something magic that just happened here. Are we doing this now? We're doing this. So that's where it started. And then I decided in order to being me and being very thorough with everything in order to have it, I needed it to have context and I needed it to equate to me now and, you know, all the things that there's, there's actually some substance to what I'm doing. So I wrote an entire original Christmas record around it. Of course you did. Of course I did. But the fact that it came also from like the fans relentlessly being like, come on, like bring our girl Cindy Lou who back like, come on.

4:34And I which I want to get into today, because I know there's a lot to discuss in terms of like your early career. And I feel like I've had a lot of conversations with actresses who then go into different roles in their career, of just like making a pivot as a woman is so difficult. And so sometimes you have to abandon who you were known for and really, really almost like kind of turn your back on that to be taken seriously in another department. And so the fact that you are now sitting here and like even like being able to like smile and say Cindy Lou who with a smile and an interview, like I'm sure if I interviewed you maybe 10 years ago, you would be like, I don't even want to talk about that.

5:13Yeah, there's definitely an element of that. So there's growth. Oh, there's tons of growth. And I think also, you know, I'd be remiss to not mention the loss that we went through. And it was a hard time for me. And I think coming out of that grief and getting to the other side of it, it forced me to kind of reflect on my life in a lot of ways. And Grinch, like I went back to the very beginning, and Grinch to me was always great. Like I don't have any bad memories with Grinch. Everything about it was awesome. Like it was super fun. I was super young. but there were so many it was such an incredible project to be a part of that was so upper echelon at such a young age to see you know actors of that caliber and of jim carrey and molly shannon etc etc ron howard and then it was also my first experience in a recording studio and so you know when i was when the movie came out and stuff and i was in school like you're teased relentlessly for it you're grinch girl i've moved around a lot like all of that kind of stuff was hard for me as a kid.

6:12But when I got older and looking back on it, I go, no, all of those things that happen, all of those experiences of making this film was wonderful. And so why am I shunning this? And like, I am Cindy Lou Who. Like, I am that girl. Like, I'm still that girl. I think we're a similar age. Are you 31, 32? Okay, I'm 31. And I want to go back to the beginning because I know you started your career so young. But even when we're going to talk about the Grinch I was thinking about that where I read that you had been bullied for this role and I'm sitting there and I'm like what like what do you what what like that is the most like iconic incredible this movie has lived forever I watch it every single year like you were adorable and perfect and all the things but then it's like oh no but you're also just like a normal kid then going to school and kids are fucking assholes whether it was jealousy or they actually just thought you were a quote unquote freak they're like you're the Grinch girl and you're like oh yeah so at that age it doesn't matter that this is like this incredible movie it matters what your peers are saying and if they're saying you're not cool for that then you digest that to be like I'm not cool for this oh yeah and I didn't grow up in a Hollywood household or anything like I was born in St.

7:25Louis okay wait take me back you get into the industry from what I understand around like two years old. How do your parents even explain to you like why they got you in so young? I was just talking about this the other day and I think I need to have another conversation with my parents because I don't even fully know the story. I know they put me into modeling. I was signed by Ford Modeling Agency when I was two and I was very chatty and I don't know a bunkular and And they went, my modeling agency said, does she have an acting agent? And my parents went, no. And they went, okay, well, she should.

8:02So go over to this agency. They sent me on my first audition and I booked it that day. It was for Shake and Bake and I was three. So that, it was a national commercial. And so that was kind of the kicking off point where I think they went, oh, we can do something with this for real. And so that was, that was the start of it. So you start as a model. Started as a kid model. And do you have any like core memories or no? You were just so young. Not really. Like I only remember the photos because I've seen them, you know. Okay. So then you get the Grinch at six. That's also blurry. It's five, six.

8:36Five, six. Somewhere in there. Okay. Five, six. You star as Cindy Lou, who talked to me about like the audition. Do you remember the audition at all? I remember pieces of the audition because it was a really long process. That's why the timeline is a little blurry. so I think I started auditioning for it when I was five and it came out when I was seven so I had birthdays in between there obviously but the audition process was long I remember going in is lots of rounds of it and I remember the screen testing the most because that's where it was down to me and two other girls and we got to try on wigs and that's where they were starting to kind of put together what Cindy's going to look like and so I went from a neon pink wig to a green wig to a yellow wig to this kind of outfit to this kind of outfit.

9:23And that process was really, really fun for me as a kid because you get to play dress up and it's awesome. And so it's pieces of it. It's hard starting so young. It's always hard to remember what you remember and what you remember because people have told you the stories and you've turned them into memories. Also, I can watch my entire life. So it's how much do you remember? How much are you watching it and remembering from that you know yeah because it's like similar very different but similar just for a kid in your childhood you get told things by your parents and then you're like oh cool yeah and you see a picture and then you can kind of also like fakely come up with what you think you remember from that exactly but we're so fucking young and like five years old because i was thinking you're saying it was so fun to do these try on these wigs but do you remember any part of you in any capacity being like intimidated by being a part of something so big or you didn't even understand i didn't understand that and i i never remember being nervous or anything like that it was uh it was fun it was like that's what i'm saying like grinch is like is so positive for me like that my memories of that are so awesome okay you had to go to who school sorry just indulge because like we're getting no no talking about fun it was amazing do you remember like the wildest things that you got to be a part of during that time?

10:44Well, the entire Who school was, I think it was like seven months long of all the people and all the acrobats training to learn to act and create this world that Ron saw in his head of this whimsical, over-the-top Whoville. So they had, so walking into that, it was a big, you know, like, what are they called? Like hangers, the big sets on Universal Lot. And it was just empty, but they had giant, you know, life-size balls that acrobats are walking on and people doing backflips and so you walked into this world and you're just going what is this kid playground and i i did all my own stunts so i had to learn how to i did stunt training okay but you didn't have to do the prosthetics right i didn't have to do the prosthetics they rick baker molded my face and after he casted me and stuff i think everyone just kind of collectively decided that that's too much to put a kid through um to have to go into prosthetics every day so they wrote it into the script that i haven't haven't grown into my nose yet no honestly adorable i also was thinking about that because i think i saw an article somewhere where it was like jim carrey would sit in like eight and a half hours of prosthetics prosthetics and it killed him like truly from what i remember it was brutal insane He went, I think he, he, feel free, Jim, feel free to tell me if I'm wrong.

12:06But if I remember correctly, I think he went through actual torture training, like with a real Navy SEAL guy to learn how to deal with it because he's, he's so covered. I mean, the suit and the contacts, I remember there was a time when, because we had all that fake snow coming down and snow got underneath his contact and it, you know, killed him. Like, so painful. No, no, no. I genuinely can't imagine. But then obviously, like he brought it to life in such a beautiful way. Do you remember just like what it was like having him as your co-star? Because he's obviously so fucking talented. It's like crazy.

12:41insane to see that level of of talent yeah at such a young age i think really had a big impact on me um just to see someone who takes their craft that seriously and i get asked a lot if he scared me you know because everyone i think a lot of kids were scared of the grinch he's never scary to me to me he was always jim and he was always in makeup um he was very protective of me he was very kind super funny super animated like absolutely awesome but the funny thing is i never knew what Jim Carrey looked like because I never saw him because he was there way early doing the prosthetics. Oh my God.

13:17So you're like Jim Carrey is the Grinch. So I didn't know who Jim was until the premiere and someone had to point him out to me and go, that's Jim. And I went, oh, Jim, that's such a mindfuck. You're like, wait a second. I know the voice, but you're, oh, wow. Okay. So we're talking about this like beautiful moment in your life. and then like you referenced earlier, then you go back to school. So you're like experiencing the most incredible, like kids would dream of this and you're on these sets and you're doing all that. And then you go back to school and are you living in St. Louis? Living in St.

13:52Louis. My dad works there and I was going to Catholic school. Oh, well, me too, girl. That's a whole thing. Oh, how'd that go? Oh, wonderful. Don't you know? Weren't the nuns awesome? They were so loving and understanding. So loving and understanding. I loved when I got really tall and my skirt got too short and I got punished for it. That was super fun. Stop. They're like literally measuring to the knee. Did you have to do it? Did you do the kneel? Yes. Where they make you kneel and measure from your hip down? Taylor, I like black it out because I was like, no, please don't make me. And I agree with you.

14:24Some girls got away if they were shorter with like the skirts could be a little shorter. But if you were tall. And I just outgrew it. It's not my fault. I went through a growth spurt, but nope, you're in trouble. Okay, so you're going through all this. Talk to me though about being a kid and like, did you have friends were you able to make friends i i always i've always had like a couple close friends in every stage of my life um one or two but making i was i've gone through so many phases of myself like i think the the weirdest thing that people probably don't know about me is that i'm actually really shy and no one guesses that and so i have this external version of myself that is the performer and the professional and all of that.

15:11But that's where like songwriting became really important to me because that's where I felt like I could be me. And I started writing when I was really little. So like around Grinch, like five. But I think that makes sense because now being more involved in the industry, like I think a lot of actors, not everyone like goes through these weird moments where it's like, I'm reading the lines that someone else wrote. I'm doing what the director is telling me to do and so like there there's not a lot of autonomy that you've got going on in these situations so like to have something as an outlet that like you can genuinely have for yourself I think a lot of actors try to find that for themselves because we as consumers think that these actors are like they somehow maybe wrote the lines or they did these things and then a lot of actors like no I'm like just doing what everyone's telling me to do Yeah.

16:01And that from a young age of like you're starting so young of reading these lines, being these characters, everyone knows you as these characters. You're like, wait, wait, wait, who is Taylor as a human being outside of that? Well, I think I always had a really strong sense of self. I always knew that. And, you know, that's why Grinch is weird. But once you get into Grinch is specific. And then once you get into teenage years with Gossip Girl and things, that's where I think my identity crisis started to come into play. where because that was a whole different world grinch is a film that came out that it clearly lives in an imagination in an imagination world um you know i don't walk out of my house and have a cindy luhu wig on so it's so there was a there was a clear line there for me i think where this is playing dress up and this is taylor and when it got into gossip girl and suddenly that was a celebrity show and a tabloid show and New York and paparazzi and suddenly you're being photographed as a character by paparazzi and put into the tabloids as Taylor and it's going I'm going that's not what I was wearing that's not me that's a character and I'm getting hate from things I did on the show that I have nothing to do with and so I think and I was young I was 14 So I think that that that started to bother me.

17:26And that's where I started to realize, like, I'm not good at being someone else's tool. Like, I need to be my own person. Taylor, you saying 14, 14, 13, 13, 14. That's like right when people are going into high school. And even if you're not an actress, we're all fucked in the head. Oh, yeah. Because we're like, who am I? And some people are going through puberty faster than others. and some people have, you know, are figuring out their sexual identity and some people feel and you're just like, what? Who am I? I am a disaster. So to also be doing it on the world stage and playing a character that can somewhat seem like you, but it's not you.

18:02It's just it's a lot. It was a mindfuck.

18:21so you're living inst louis you get more jobs and then you get gossip girl at 13 years old well they were missing a move so i lived inst louis till i was 10 and then my dad switched jobs and we moved to maryland so now i'm in middle school in maryland and i have just started my first band um like an actual garage band with kids from my school i finally found my little click which was kind of the first time in my life I felt that. And it was exciting to me. And I was still the weird art kid who wore combat boots and leather jackets to school. And this was Potomac, Maryland. So this is very preppy.

18:57And all the girls had bows in their hair and Uggs and matching juicy couture sweatsuits. And so I was very always just off in schools. So I found my you know found my crowd found the art crowd started my first band and was doing really well like I was I was well adjusted to this to the school and this group of friends and that's when Gossip Girl came around and that's when my I said they go you're gonna move to New York you're gonna audition for this and you would have to move to New York for it no no no I don't want to do this anymore. I love where I'm at. And 12 at the time. And my agent, my manager, they all flew to my house to convince me to audition for this going, this is going to be a great opportunity.

19:45And you'll get to move to New York and it's fashion based. You love fashion and you love New York and blah, blah, blah. So long story short, ended up going to New York to audition for it. Where are your parents at this point? Oh, they're there. They're encouraging the I mean, they're encouraging this choice. And I don't think it was with any kind of malice or anything like that. I think they're just looking at going, this is a huge opportunity. And just because you're having a good time in school right now, it doesn't mean you pass up on something that's this massive. Did you at all, because I know I've talked to child actors that like there is like an obvious the financial pressure of just like you're a working child.

20:27And I know it's like an awkward topic. So like share what you're comfortable. But like was that a factor at all in this decision? It wasn't spoken about to me, you know, and I'm still not even a teenager yet. So the I never realized I was making money. Let's put it that way. Yeah. So that kind of it. This was always this is fun and you like this. And there was an element of, you know, you do well, you get praise. You don't do well, you don't. And so it's a lot to unpack, I think, probably as an adult looking back on it. And I think a lot of my life now I spend not really thinking about it and going because I'm one that very much does not live with regret or wishing I could change things or whatever.

21:20That's just not my vibe because I think it's kind of pointless. this so so i'm very like i'm always looking forward and i reflect on things in order to write about them and process them that kind of stuff but the it is what it is at this point you know what i mean again i think like it's there is a um natural like empathy that i think like the world now just has for child actors because i think of just like the honest truth that just has come out for a lot of these people that like went through this and like when you did get into Gossip Girl did you then understand that you were making money or like at what point do you think you were like wait you guys I this is also like mine it was Gossip Girl and it was well I left I moved out really young um so it was around that time that I started to realize like suddenly I was becoming in charge of my own finances and and that kind of stuff and so that's when i kind of put everything together but uh it was it was gossip girl that made gossip girl's a weird one because like in one way it was you know it was awesome um and in the other way i really didn't want to be there so it was this it was this it was me starting to come into my own as a person and having this tug is where music is the thing because I was starting to do that.

22:49I was always writing songs. I was always doing these things behind the scenes. But now to be so universally famous for something that isn't me was really challenging for me. And so I felt like I immediately became very defensive. I was defensive in interviews. I was very also young, so arrogant and kind of an asshole and all those things. But figuring it out in front of everyone. and being judged very harshly for it while trying to push back against that, going, I don't want this. I want this over here, and I don't know how to get to this place. It's almost like you couldn't stop it once the train started moving.

23:27And as we know how big Gossip Girl got it. And no one expected that. Okay, take me to your agents decide, okay, you got to do this. You eventually say yes. You go to New York. You read for the part. I read for the part. What was your first impression of Jenny Humphrey? Well, I mean, I kind of related to the character. I never really auditioned for things that I didn't understand. And feeling like an outcast in a, you know, in a world that you don't fit in was kind of, that's who I was. It wasn't, I wasn't from Brooklyn and all that stuff. But it was, as a general concept of a character, I identified with her.

24:05I feel like now I was about to say this, I'm like, oh, this was kind of a theme lightly in The Grinch for you too. but like you're 14 on set and everyone else is like bare minimum mid-20s like you are beyond the youngest person really on this set how did that dynamic impact you well i grew up real fast let's put it that way um but no i mean everyone was cool it was i still had connor um who played eric he's still one of my best friends love that guy well that's nice because you also had like a lot of scenes with him a lot of scenes with him and he kind of when i first moved to new york he took me under his wing, I actually ended up going to his high school.

24:42And so he introduced me to his friend group and, you know, that kind of whole world, which was only about a year. I ended up graduating early because freshmen and trying to go to us. It had to be a performing arts high school because that's the only way that I could leave and work and they would give you your work to leave. And I was really adamant about not wanting to be homeschooled because I wanted to make friends. But the reality is the work schedule was too much and I wasn't going there anyway. So I ended up leaving that homeschooling and then graduating at 16. So you're 16. 15. 15. You're living in New York City.

25:17You're no longer going to high school. What are you doing when you're not filming? I was working in the studio. I was writing and working in the studio and then getting into trouble. You know, but typical trouble. Typical as like you would do in New York City as a young girl. That's just like, I have all of this and no one's going to tell me. And all my friends were older and I never once got ID'd. So it was that's also par with celebrity. You know, suddenly all those kinds of all those kinds of doors are just open to you and it's fine. Did you go out with the cast at all or no? You had a separate.

25:53I didn't go out with them too much, but I would hang out at their apartments and stuff like Chase and Ed lived together at the time. And when I had Chase on and he told me about the rooftop parties, I was like, OK, so you frequented. Oh, yeah. We lived like two blocks from each other. so you were having time of your life oh yeah so i would spend a lot of time at their apartment and it was very boys club which was very fitting to me i've always fit in with boys clubs and so that was i remember he came on what was it he was like oh i remember one time we had the party and like lindsey lohan showed up and we're like act cool act cool this is cool this is cool this is cool okay so you were there oh yeah so this is that's like the although still you're young but that's kind of the fun side of like okay you're getting to become an adult you're doing it in a pretty fast-paced way but when i did interview chase and pen and this is kind of what you had lightly alluded to and lightly talked about um earlier in this interview is the sudden and intense fame yes and the explosion of the show that no one could have anticipated just talk to me about it like from like when it first starts like how does it impact you off the bat well i mean the first the first impact is the paparazzi and that's something that i hadn't dealt with before and in New York there's no escaping it um at least at that time now I still live in New York and now I know now there's like kind of rules to it but you know where to go you know where to go you know where not to go and you know you know if you're in Soho be prepared to be photographed it's fair game yes um but they were coming to my house they were going to my sister's school they were they were everywhere and that kind of that feeling of kind of being watched and stalked is just it's intimidating is I guess that it's it's unnerving and there's also like no one that has the right answer of what to do other than like just deal with it just deal with it and all of your castmates were going through it but again you were at such a young age that I can only imagine you're like trying to grow up and handle it but also like did your parents move to the city mom my mom and me and my sister did okay my dad was still working in Maryland okay Okay.

27:58Was there ever a time that you can like recall a memory of like when you were like, no, no, no, this is like really getting too much? I think the reality is I handled it really well. I think I'm pretty thick skinned. At the end of the day, I've lived a very strange life and I've learned to kind of let things roll off my back. but there was it was less the paparazzi in person that went this is too much and more what would come out afterwards from the photos and that that would turn and that really started once I started the band like the negative press where there was this kind of hatred of what I was doing from the world and people being like here's okay here's an example I'm on stage I'm 16 I'm playing a show I'm wearing a little dress I have underwear on but a photographer goes and shoots up my skirt he kneels down shoots up my dress and my tampon string had slipped out and so my tampon string was sticking out of my underwear Perez Hilton puts that on the home page of Perez Hilton you can see like the side of my pussy and everything like it's like a very it's still on the internet have fun looking it up but it's a I'm underage and the the violation and it's and his headline I don't remember what it said but the headline was very negative of like slut like look what like look how trashy Taylor is kind of thing and that kind of concept like it's so invasive and I laugh about it now and I laughed about it probably a week later because there's nothing you can do about it but that's the kind of press that we're talking about where people were very or I was in a taxi cab and paparazzi jumped in the cab with me and it's blinding lights and I go like this to cover my face and my assistant and friend at the time covers my face and it's on the homepage of whatever tabloid site going Taylor Mopson fucked up leaving club because my eyes are kind of rolling back from the they pick the one shot that looks bad and try to spin some kind of negative story around it so I was getting a lot of negative press looking back I probably should have hired a publicist but I didn't know better so a publicist or a therapist or a bodyguard or jesus fucking christ there's no right answer though dude i okay you saying though that you're like i would probably laugh about it a week later did you ever have breakdowns over this kind of invasion of privacy and absolute like exploitation um probably internally i never showed them and again that's that's where songwriting came into play like that's where the first album everything turns around here like i don't because i don't it's not all negative it's it's more that i i learned to take the hard things in my life from any aspect of it you know big or small and turn it into music and that's how i've coped with life like music is my therapy and it was finding the right finding the right partners musically for me was everything and so when i did it changed my life and i suddenly then had a support system in my band and in cato or producer who supported me for me and what i wanted to do and my vision and and they had no ulterior motive or like there was nothing from the outside it was just pure support of like you do what you want to do and that was huge i can't imagine like what you're saying of like that young girl in maryland loving more than anything making music and being like I'm really good at this and I'm like finding I'm finding my voice and all of that then kind of getting thrust into this spotlight like you said through a career that you actually weren't really that passionate about or excited about no and I was coming to that's the thing like when I was little I liked it like I didn't but I didn't know better that was just I started at two so it was something I just always did so there was no choice in the matter it wasn't forced upon me I wasn't like you know going I throwing tantrums going I don't want to do this and my parents are going you have to it wasn't that but I wasn't making my own decisions I didn't I wasn't seeing past it and when I hit 12 13 14 with gossip girl and this whole other world is thrown on you that you didn't ask for like fame fame is this thing that you got to kick over your shoulder and it's something you deal with that comes with it but when you're not prepared for it which i don't think anyone ever is no but when it's something that i'm just going to work and doing what i've always done and now suddenly there's this whole other aspect to it that you have to learn to navigate again and the difference between like being a woman and a man in this industry is like astronomically different because it really is the photo that you just described being on the front page of someone's website that is like so that like is should literally be illegal of how they're violating your body especially not even especially child porn right i don't know how that's still like you're underage yeah underage or not yeah complete violation um i was looking up and i just started to see like a lot of the tabloids also that they were referring to sometimes as this wild child or this party girl and you're giving a little bit this behind the scenes of like no that's literally just like a picture that you're in my fucking cab violating you're in my cab first of all i was never really a wild child i had i was working all the time like i would go to set on gossip girl because i started making the first record while i was still on the show because i formed the band at 14 so i would go to work at four in the morning on gossip girl work till six at whatever time we wrapped go straight to the studio and work in the studio from whatever that time was till 2 a.m come back sleep for maybe an hour and then do it all again so i was working all the time so this whole like wild child persona it was just the makeup and my fashion choices which were a bit outrageous but very me like i was just being authentic and so i think um some of that was curated and also i was my it's my image my image was a little out there and i was very i mean now i call it pretentious I look back on it and I go, it's like cringy how pretentious some of the things I would say was and how I'd speak and carry myself.

34:25But that's who I was at the time. And I think that some of that pretension came across extra because I was being defensive because I felt like I constantly had to defend who I was as a person every time someone asked me a question instead of just answering it kind of honestly, you know. Yes, I think there was like, again, you're so young. there's like a level of like internally you were trying to protect yourself and so like I get was fighting yeah I was more fighting going this is me you're getting it wrong so I felt like I really had to fight to explain who I was when now as an adult you just be who you are and relax into it Yes, but I also think I was thinking about this is like I've now interviewed a good amount of people who have been a part of a franchise that was all consuming.

35:21And the fandom level is just like you will intense and you'll never be able to describe it. Right. Like and there and it's once in sometimes generations like there's these very specific shows that just take the world by storm. And I think the fandom, we are watching these romanticized shows that are very curated and there's directors and there's writers rooms and these are really good fucking shows. But then we are blurring the lines between Jenny Humphrey is not Taylor Momsen and Taylor Momsen is not Jenny Humphrey, but people don't give a fuck. And so they want you to be Jenny Humphrey. And you're like, guys, I'm literally, I am from St.

36:03Louis. yes i'm not from brooklyn yes and so can you talk to me a little bit about like having this hard time between separating yourself from jenny humphrey and taylor and like how the fuck did you mentally do that well i quit yeah that's oh yeah we're getting there yeah yeah you're like i bitch i left i left i want i can't do this um it's it was a struggle there for for years but I what I did was I I treated it very much like a job a professional I showed up I did my job and then I went to the studio did you resent her though like the character I resented the I didn't resent I don't know how to explain this I when I left the show and I was no longer on it and I was just touring with the band and just putting out music and I quit everything else and that's all I was doing.

36:55And every question in every interview was still about Gossip Girl and Jenny Humphrey and will you ever go back to acting and blah, blah, blah. And the list of questions on and on and on. The first year, you get it. The second year, you kind of laugh at it by like, as it kept going, I was going, oh, I'm never going to outlive this character. And that's a weird thing to come to grips with. So you just kind of, I ignored it. You live your life. And I feel like from what we're talking about is like you're going to the studio, you're recording after Gossip Girl. But then, like you said, people really didn't want to hear about you as a musician because they're like, well, they didn't take it seriously, which in their defense, I wouldn't have either.

37:40okay talking about that if i was if you brought to me a a 14 year old fronted rock band with a chick who was on a soap opera i would roll my eyes at it and go yeah i don't give two fucks about whatever you're trying to show me right now so of course they did like yes not because i picked the hardest path i i didn't i i trying to gain credibility in a world that is impossible to gain credibility coming from the circumstances that i came from a rock and roll hard as hell be a woman in rock and roll hard as hell and then three teenage soap star you're like wants to be taken so it was just i had everything stacked against me right in that way but and so there's a lot of this is fake and she's a poser and this is who so and so writes her songs and blah blah blah none of which was true i write everything myself i co-produce the records like it is there is no there's no one but me in the band involved in what we do and it's it's it's incredibly personal and it's incredible and i take it incredibly seriously and i realized very quickly that the only way to overcome that kind of hate or whatever is to a shut it out and just do it going yeah you just do it you keep going you tore we tore the world relentlessly i kept writing songs we kept putting out records you and you have to do it the old school way you're like i'm not i'm not going anywhere consistency just keep hi here we go again another song i can't because you can't keep explaining yourself there's no point in explaining yourself so i got tired of that and gave up on it and then that's when things actually started to get easier is when i stopped being so defensive and just was well isn't that fucking beautiful but it sounds it sounds so straightforward but it's so fucking hard oh yeah and again because we're talking like just reminding everyone again 14 15 16 years old like most people are having like their fucking sweet 16s in alabama and being like mom can i get a padded bra and you're trying to pivot as a young woman in an industry where most of the time we are only accepted as one thing and it's like good luck okay we're getting now we're gonna get there because now i want to finish off with you said bitch i fucking quit like let's talk about it how did you when how early on did you actually know i want to get the fuck out of here it's definitely when did i actually leave it season three i never watched the show so my timeline's always messed up okay so you leave i'm gone by season four season four season four so season one's a whirlwind it's probably around season two it's whenever i started the band like when i met i met ben and kato um and it changed everything did you talk to them though about being on this show being like guys i gotta get out of here oh yeah you're like guys oh yeah jail get me out i was i knew i had to leave but at the same time I'm leaving a career that is so prosperous and it was not easy.