Laurie Metcalf

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0:48Apply today and earn a welcome offer of$1 ,500 cash back after you spend$50 ,000 in qualifying purchases on your new card within the first six months of card membership. Terms apply. Learn more at go.amex.com. For like a whole generation, like 90s kids, Toy Story, Andy's mom, Scream 2, Nancy Loomis. I mean, these are kind of generational, important roles for a generation, truly. I know, I know. There's no plan to it, but I'm telling you, I got everything right at its peak. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins.

1:28Hey guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Today on the show, a star of stage, screen, film. She's amazing. She's the one and only Laurie Metcalf. Thanks guys as always for checking out the podcast. Remember to hit that subscribe button if you haven't already on YouTube, on Spotify, whatever podcast platform you're using, you know what to do. Before we get to Laurie, who is killing it as always on Broadway in Death of a Salesman, I want to remind you guys, check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash happy, say I confused early access to all these episodes, discount codes to our live events, autograph merch, all sorts of cool stuff.

2:05Supporting us over there, as I always say, does support us over here, helps us make more stuff. So patreon.com slash happy, say I confused. We have some cool live events coming up. We announced just the other day, June 16th, me and Matt Smith, the band's getting back together. Always a fun time with Matt. We'll talk Doctor Who. We'll talk Star Wars. You know, he's in the next Star Wars movie. And of course, we'll talk House of the Dragon. He is always a blast. Live in New York City, June 16th. Come on out. Get your tickets now. The link is in the show notes. We have at least one more June event that is huge that is about to be announced.

2:38I'll keep you posted on that on the Patreon and here, I promise. As for today's episode, main event, it's Laurie Metcalf. First time guest on the pod. What an honor. I mean, an absolute honor. She is so many things to so many people. Maybe you know her and love her from Roseanne. Many people do 300 plus episodes as aunt Jackie, an iconic role in an iconic show. Maybe you know her from toy story. Maybe you know her from scream to from JFK. Who knows? But if you're in New York, if you're in Chicago, if you love theater, you know, Laurie Metcalf as one of the all time greats. She's won two Tonys.

3:16She's been nominated for more. She is nominated again this year for her role in Death of a Salesman, opposite Nathan Lane, who is also nominated, opposite Christopher Abbott, who is also nominated. This production is fantastic. I've seen it. Nine Tony nominations in all. Maybe you've seen Death of a Salesman before. You haven't seen one like this. Production is very unique. And the performances, as you would imagine, are stellar. And Laurie doesn't love doing a lot of this, but she was lovely on this. I'm so thrilled she agreed to do the podcast. Um, great stories, her background at Steppenwolf.

3:50She's one of the founding members of Steppenwolf theater, which I'm sure you guys know was kind of one of the iconic theater companies out of Chicago with John Malkovich and Gary Sinise and so many great actors. Um, so yeah, she, she's the real deal as an actor. She's an actor's actor, no less than Meryl Streep recently called her out as one of the all-time greats for her performance in Death of a Salesman. So, so thrilled to share this with you, uh, without any further ado, enjoy me and Lori Laurie Metcalf. Well, this is a distinct honor. Laurie Metcalf is somehow on my little old podcast. Laurie, thank you so much for taking the time today.

4:24I appreciate you. My pleasure. Thanks. So one of the joys of being a New Yorker is I feel like you're always working. You are you're you're really like have I mean, you've always been working. But particularly the last few years, my sense is like whether it's opportunity, restlessness or whatever. It's like there is always a great Laurie Metcalfe performance to be seen on the stage. Give me a sense of where you're where you're at in terms of opportunity and theater right now. This year, especially, I had projects that actually even overlapped. So that's a rarity because usually, you know, you tend to go with long periods in between projects where you're like, you know, what's the next job going to be?

5:10I don't want this downtime. I need to be memorizing lines. I just don't know what they are yet. So but this time, yeah, for a very a lot of people made it work, work, which was wonderful between agents and producers and Netflix and tons of people. But I was able to go from Big Mistakes by Dan Levy to Little Bear Ridge Road on Broadway, straight into Death of a Salesman on Broadway. And now I'm heading back to season two of Big Mistakes, which I can't wait for. Congrats, just got the renewal. Yes. You know, the lucky part of all that is being able to jump around between theater and TV and maybe even film once in a while.

6:00So because I do have a worry about getting too burnt out on one or the other, which I don't want to have happen because I like working in all three. Clearly, I prefer theater, but that can happen. And so I'm trying to keep other things in the mix. I would imagine, look, you know, most actors aren't the type to kind of take a step back and kind of reflect on the resume and the awards and all this stuff. Like, that's my job. That's what we do around here. But like, if you'll indulge me, like, you know, take take a step back for me, because like for someone growing up who didn't come from this background at all to have the place that you have film and TV and especially theater, it it is kind of mind blowing, isn't it?

6:47I mean, do you take hopefully a moment or two sometimes to kind of realize what you've achieved and where you're at? Well, when you do put it that way, you're right. I mean, I didn't know. I grew up in Southern Illinois, and certainly there, I didn't even do community theater there. I did a couple of plays in high school, and then I went to college at Illinois State University as a German major with an anthropology minor and weirdly met up with these freaks who wanted to form Steppenwolf Theater, which is in its 50th season now. so um i got waylaid big time and now i can't imagine doing anything else but i was always still so practical that i thought well i better have a plan b because i'm never going to be able to make a living doing you know right acting acting in any medium so um but i don't know what i thought i was going to do with a theater major either so i was i was mistaken in both in both senses but um yeah you know when you put it that way when I do stand back I mean I've had the luck good fortune being in the right place at the right time to work on projects in in in every area there were at the top of their peak you know like Roseanne or like Lady Bird or like Toy Story series or like different plays, you know, it's, I, and of course there's never been a plan.

8:30There can't be a plan really, you know. Um, and so it's all, I don't know, it's been a factor of, um, being aware that, uh, each opportunity is something that you need to give 110 % to. and joining on some projects just because, well, I don't even know how attached I am to this particular script, but I want to work with these people. All kinds of different factors play into all different decisions. It's interesting to me also that I spent so many years in TV and it kind of precluded me from doing anything else for a long time so i i have no idea what my path would have looked like minus the tv part for all those years you know who knows maybe i would have come to new york decades earlier because i didn't really come until i was kind of 60 and start and the irony yeah yeah and i've heard you say this like the the irony is kind of like even despite like that Steppenwolf background and all you did kind of like by then you would come it was like oh this tv actor is doing theater when in fact of course you were always that it's kind of a very it's a it's a it's an irony to that I might have uh imposed that on myself you know I don't think anybody was ever like judging me that way but certainly um audiences when I got to New York only did know me from TV.

10:08And so I think that that's definitely how I was viewed. And it took a long time, I think, to join the New York theater community. Well, you're embedded now, it's safe to say, with a couple of Tonys. So, okay, to further embarrass you and hopefully make you blush, you probably heard this. Meryl Streep, no less than Meryl Streep, recently came to see you in Death of a Salesman. And I believe this is an actual quote, I don't know how the fuck she did that of your performance. Can you believe that? I mean, it doesn't get any better than that, I would imagine. It does not get any better than that. I am intimidated by people, but she is at the top of the list because I am in awe of the way she can mix instinct with technique.

11:02I think those I think every actor has some actors have more of one more of the other she has a perfect blend and That that to me is one of the things that just make her incredible and then of course the bold choices that she'll go after and it is a tribute to actors who have that facility to switch back and forth or make those choices or make that commitment or just go all in, all in on a scene or something, that they invariably make it look easy. And it is so not easy. Just being on the other side of the lens or on the other side of the stage apron and knowing how those, how all the decisions that go into a single performance, hours and hours of thought and, and, and, and detail work about, well, if I set the glass down on this line, maybe I could get more mileage out of it.

12:08If I do something, it, you just break it down and break it down. There's no end to it right so i can so appreciate any actors work that i look at because i've seen how the what are they called the uh sausage is made and um i know how incredibly uh time consuming it is and yet that's it's all in the details yeah you know 10 000 decisions and then hopefully the audience doesn't see any of them and it's just that's right goes right by yeah it looks like well how else would she have done it right that's the only way you know she just yeah granted she learned the lines yeah that takes some skill i guess but how what you know but then you know flip a switch and of course it comes out that way yeah so of course she's talking as i said before about this great performance uh in death of a salesman i was privileged enough to see this uh This has been honored with nine Tony nominations.

13:07It's you, it's Nathan Lane, wonderful Christopher Abbott, reteaming with Joe Mantello, directing, who you've worked with many, many times. Look, this is one of those plays. This is one of those plays that we all grew up with. Perhaps we've seen different productions. But actually, I read that you actually kind of had purposely avoided watching productions. Was it in the back of your head that this role might come around? Was that the intent of kind of avoiding productions over the years? Yeah, I did that also with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf thinking, well, one day, maybe I'll have the opportunity to play one of these parts.

13:39And if I do, it's going to mess me up if I see somebody else do it before me. And if I participate as an audience member, I will have a wash of what the show could be or should be. I will have an impression of it that I'll never be able to shake. And I don't want to have that. I just want to have the words on the script sitting in front of me at a rehearsal table. I'm going to start from there. so that's why I purposely have never seen it I think it worked to my benefit I I hope I mean uh it helped me certainly um certainly come at it uh by thinking well I've heard this this character described in different ways or with different adjectives and I can I can I can throw all those out.

14:40And let's see, what would it happen if, you know, what would it be like if she's an equal partner in the marriage? And what would it be like if she's super opinionated? And what would it be like if she had kind of an off sense of humor? I don't know. You can start from anywhere, you know. And so I was lucky enough not to be able to prejudge anything about the role. And then And the luckiest part, besides working with Joe, which, you know, I'll just raise my hand for anything he's got going on down the line. Because we work in a similar way, I guess, and we like to make each other laugh. That's kind of what reminds me of the old Steppenwolf days.

15:24Of just like, made you laugh, you know, in the rehearsal room. But anyway, no, I got incredibly lucky with the little micro ensemble within the bigger ensemble of salesmen, which is the Lohman family. And when I was thinking about it, you know, yeah, I've been a wife in real life. I've been a mother in real life. But that doesn't clue me in on how to go up there and act like a wife or mother. And then it struck me like I look like a wife and mother to these three other actors because they're treating me that way. They're doing the heavy lifting. I can do my role however I see fit. But all three of those guys are so genuinely free up on stage.

16:18They're very affectionate. they're very um geez uh uh funny and present and so they're the I when I see what one of them is you know as I'm sitting on stage like going through the attention must be paid scene and one of them reaches out for me with their hand you know and so I take his hand and and I it's they're the ones that are selling it, you know, that we have this intimate relationship. And so I just find that incredibly lucky that I wound up as one of the four legs of that Loman table. And we all are genuinely offstage as close to each other as we seem on stage. And, And, you know, that's just something that you can't really fake in the rehearsal room or cast on purpose.

17:28You know, it's the lightning in the bottle thing. I don't know. It just happened. But I do. I spend 90 percent of my stage time with the three of them. And I have to give them credit for shaping my performance into what it is. I'm sure they'd say the exact same if I were talking to them about you. We'll be right back with more Happy Sad Confused.

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21:26It's usually a bad sign at a movie press when you're talking about costumes or set design, but I do want to shout out that the setting of this, the way that they've chosen to create this environment is really striking and really sets a mood. There's this car that is like a shadow of the future and the past just hanging over this story right from the beginning. I mean, And how does that environment inform your take on your character, would you say? I only got to experience once, which was a first day of tech, when we came in as a group, all the actors to see the set up on stage. We'd been in a rehearsal room with it marked out in masking tape.

22:10So nobody knew. The pillars are marked out in a little half square. And so we'd stand there, you know, inside the masking tape, not knowing that, oh, wait a minute, I have to go down to the basement of the theater and crawl up a ladder and flip a trap door with my foot that comes down. And so I can stand on it and then wait inside that pillar for my entrance, you know, so all the working on the set was a big learning curve. I must say. But so, but anyway, I, I, I, I'll never get to experience what it's like to walk into that space and see the set and, and think, wait, is this death of a salesman I'm going to sit down and watch in this cavernous looking theater?

23:06So that was the big swing that Joe took was into deciding, look, are we going to go into the winter garden or are we going to postpone this thing some more? Because I think everybody would have chosen, honestly, a smaller theater. Right. But that's what we had. This is a 1600 seats. This is a big one. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we, it's the biggest one I've ever worked in. Yeah. And then the set for as no moving parts, really, except the car coming on and off. It does do some cool things. People can kind of disappear in and out of the car, disappear coming out of pillars. um but and then the lighting is very theatrical I know although I can't experience it from out front on stage is blinding what can I say and um um so so yeah that was a big swing on that set and I've heard interesting things on people's takes on what it represents.

24:28One of them was that oh well clearly this was the piece of property that the Lowmans had built their house on in the 40s, no 30s, and that went to ruin that got raised and they put a parking garage there and then that got deserted and now these are the ghosts that haunt the place i like that interpretation that's a good one yeah i like it yeah yeah it was cool um but and it is supposed it can represent you know what it's supposed to be inside his mind um but yeah i'll just never i'll never get to experience a of a production of Death of a Salesman full stop because I'm too inside of it now. You've now officially ruined it for yourself.

25:18You're the one person. Officially I have. And I've ruined Virginia Woolf too. Well, all for the greater good for us. We thank you, Laura, for that. I took one for the team, yeah. You did. You've taken a few. So have you found that Broadway audiences have changed in recent years? I mean, are they more or less unruly? Is there more rustling of candy wrappers and cell phones or what's your no what's your sense not not my sense it just depends on the actual audience i mean we've even been doing this on wednesday matinees to a lot of students we've had like that's great yeah it seats 1500 but we've had like 500 students at a time there and they're very quiet they're very respectful um no it's it's an interesting stage to be on And like I said, the largest I've ever been on, but it's super wide and so and shallow.

26:13So when I look out, it looks intimate. But because of the lighting also, I can only see a few rows back. And then the rest of it looks like a painted backdrop to me of little heads, you know, up in the balcony and in the back of the orchestra. but I will say it it gets quiet in there um and then it's interesting when there there are a few laughs in the show some you know and then they they don't the it's the configuration of the stage I think of the orchestra I think they don't really roll like you'd expect like with a slightly smaller house so there's a kind of a wave but it sort of stops at the apron i don't know how to describe it it's very um and and we're doing all of our acting basically downstage center um around the table and chairs so i feel close to them but it feels like they're behind a scrim or something it's it's it's different from what i've ever expected or worked with and I can't really pinpoint why.

27:26Maybe it has to do with the lighting, the haze, the haziness. It's working for us and Meryl and the Tony nominating committee, so don't get in your head about it, Lori.

27:40I won't overthink it, Tom. Yeah, don't overthink it. You're doing it right. If you'll indulge me. I mean, you mentioned Steppenwolf, which obviously is one of those influential theater groups ever, full stop, and you were a founding member, and to look at that group of actors that you came of age with, whether it's Malkovich and Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry, John Allen, Glenn Headley, Sinise, it's a murderer's row. Yeah. When you think back to that young group of wild young actors, was there a unifying philosophy you all subscribed to? What kept you all together, you think?

28:21We really did want to, it was a little competitive, I guess I would say. We wanted to show off for each other. You know, if I could get a laugh out of one of those guys or a tear or a pat on the back after the show, that's kind of what it was about. We were teaching each other. We were teaching ourselves and each other how to act. Nobody wanted to direct. That was the shit job. You know, nobody wanted to have that. That just meant, ugh, you had to be at all of the rehearsals, but you couldn't be on stage. And we were in a tiny little 88 seat house, but it was all about, and we had tons of energy.

29:05You know, we were 23 years old and dating each other, you know, so it was a real Peyton Place about, you know, who's, oh, you know, somebody's not speaking to somebody else. Somebody just broke up. Does that, so did that seep into performances? That's an awkward position to be in when you're like hooking up and then you're breaking up and there's somebody else. I mean, I can't even imagine. I don't remember it really affecting that part. But yeah, a lot of jealousies. Sure. Um, and, and then of course we couldn't find plays that had seven, eight, 23 year olds in them. So the hard part was always finding a script and inevitably, you know, we'd all have, there'd be like two good roles in it for us.

30:03And then other people had to play younger, older, but in doing that you know you had to think outside the box and you'd be like okay well now I'm the mom in true west how am I going to do that you know um so it makes you it makes you um sort of uh go for broke in parts that you would never play in a hundred years you'd never be cast and thankfully our audiences way back in the day forgave us for all of that because they saw some little sparks in the roles that were right for us at the time yeah they they saw that oh these people are serious about you know um doing the best theater that they can and right and they So the audiences forgave us and kept coming back until we could move into the city and branch out a little bit.

31:03You kind of alluded to this. I mean, it's theater first for you in your career, though. You've had this amazing resume in film and TV. I mean, some some know this, but some might not that you've even described it as having literally a camera phobia throughout your career. Yeah. Which is inconceivable to think of somebody that's, you know, did 300 plus episodes of Roseanne and Lady Bird and the list goes on and on. But I mean, I'm curious, like, did you have to kind of reconcile or kind of accept at a certain point? Like, this is what it is. Like, I'm a theater actor. I can do film and TV. I can handle it, obviously.

31:38It's just never going to be what I love. Like, what's kind of been your journey of kind of accepting what works and doesn't work for you in terms of the different medium? Well, I do realize after all those years of having a camera on tape day and the fact that I still have my camera phobia that clearly I am never getting rid of it at this age. You know, I can accept the fact that I'm always going to have to deal with it. There are certain projects, though, where that make it a lot easier. And one is right now for me, big mistakes, because there are the way that Dan likes to shoot it is it's a it's a rapid pace.