How do you survive fame?

26:56Well, well, here we are. I want to congratulate you for being on time. Excuse me, sir? I think there's been a mistake. I know it's detention, but I don't think I belong in here. It is now 7.06. You have exactly 8 hours and 54 minutes to think about why you're here. Molly's written about these movies in an essay for The New Yorker. She describes their enduring power and remarks on the ways that they don't entirely hold up. You should read the article. It's smarter than anything I'd say here. But for our purposes today, all that matters is that these three movies made Molly into a teen idol, launched her into a kind of fame that was, is pretty rare and confusing.

27:44This is a scene from 16 Candles, a teen comedy about a girl named Sam whose family forgets her birthday. Molly plays Sam. The movie opens with her character looking at herself in the mirror, hoping that she's aged. I just thought the turning of 16 would be so major that I'd wake up with an improved mental state that would show on my face. All it shows, they don't have any sort of a tan left. I better get downstairs. My family's probably pissed off I haven't let them wish me happy birthday yet. Did you understand that 16 Candles was going to be a big deal? No. No? No, I did not. I mean, I thought that it was going to be fun, which it was.

28:26It was really fun to do. Why was that fun? It was over the summer. It was my first movie with John Hughes, and we had, like, hit it off. And he was somebody who I felt, like, really saw something in me, and we had a connection. and I knew that it was just going to be a fun movie. I didn't expect for it to necessarily be a hit or anything. How old were you when you were shooting it? I was 15. And when did you understand that it was a hit? Like what was the moment where you understood that either it was different or your life might be different? Well, actually, 16 Candles was not, it wasn't really a big hit when it came out.

29:05I didn't know that. It was actually like a little bit disappointing at the box office, But I had done Sixteen Candles, and then I did Breakfast Club. John Hughes, he asked me and Anthony Michael Hall just at the end of Sixteen Candles to do Breakfast Club, which was funny because he was originally going to do the Breakfast Club. And then he wrote Sixteen Candles over a weekend with my picture over his computer or his typewriter or whatever, his workstation. And then he sent that to the studio and they said, oh, we like that one better. We want to do that one first. And so he said, oh, I want to meet the girl that's in this picture.

29:46How did he have your, because you were on these lists? Like, how did he have your... Yeah, well, he had left one agency and went to another. I think he went from CAA to ICM or something, which is where I was at the time. And they gave him a bunch of pictures of their clients and I was one of them. It's such a strange way, or maybe it's not. I don't know how anyone normally writes a movie, but it's such a strange feeling to be like, this adult person has kind of had a dream inspired by you, and now you're going to walk into that dream. Yeah, it is. It is. But I was so young and didn't really have all of that much experience, although I did have more experience than John Hughes had at that point.

30:24I mean, he had an advertising background, and then when he wrote, like, a lot of comedy stuff and wrote for, like, the National Lampoon and all of that. But, like, Sixteen Candles was his first experience as a director, and I think The Breakfast Club was his second. So I had done more movies than he had at that point in time. But, you know, I was still, whatever, 15 years old. I didn't have that much experience. So yeah, it is extraordinary. So then 16 Candles comes out. It's not earth shattering. Breakfast Club is the thing that is. Yes. Yeah. Breakfast Club was a huge hit. Like really big. Which is also just funny because it's like the thing that had taken you off the path of the life of a normal American teenager was largely being filmed acting as a normal American teenager.

31:19Yeah. Yeah. It's really funny because Hollywood really loves to put people in boxes where they think, okay, that's all you can do. Like, if you do something well and you succeed at that thing, then that's all you can do. And I succeeded very well at projecting this, what Pauline Kael, a famous film critic, called charismatic normality. What did you make of that? Well, I didn't like it at the time because I was like, I don't want to be normal. That sounds boring. But charismatic is also. Yeah, but charismatic is good. So it's kind of seemed a little bit like a backhanded compliment, but I get what she was saying now.

31:59And I was like, I projected this very like normal teenager, but I was so not normal as a teenager. And my experience had never been like a normal teenager. So I was acting this thing that was actually kind of like foreign to me. And then suddenly I went from being sort of known as the shy girl who acted at school to being like the most famous teenager in America. Do you remember when it became clear to you that that was the case? I remember like certain things like when all of the girls who had kind of like dumped me at school wanted to get together and go out and like talk about what it was like making these movies and the people that I acted with.

32:52And it's just like this feeling that you get. Obviously, I'm like recognized a lot more. What did the feeling feel like? It felt a little bit overwhelming and sometimes really embarrassing. It's like being taken by a wave that's just like, okay, I know how to swim, but I can't swim in this, like, tidal wave that's taking me away. I don't know how to navigate that, so I'm just going to, like, try to get a gulp of air when I can and just sort of, like, let this wave carry me where it's going to take me. When you were talking earlier about how it feels good to be on stage when you can't see the crowd, but you can also be a person who's shy when you can see a bunch of faces.

33:32You're talking about, I think, wanting to be open in places where you feel safe being open. And I would imagine the experience of, like, being that young and suddenly being that famous, it means you're always going to be on stage in a way. Yeah. And you're not going to have control over it. And you're never going to feel, I don't know, like, the comfort that comes with knowing that your life has a backstage to it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was always really jealous of people that had stage names like Bono or Sting or like people that had changed their names because I felt like that way it would be really clear.

34:09Like when I'm Bono, I'm doing that. There would always be people that would know the real me and then know this other version of me. But Molly Ringwald is my name and that's it. And I'm always that person. But there's obviously like a Molly who's a performer and Molly who is performing as Molly too. Like when I'm doing interviews, now it's a little different because I know you. But, you know, when I'm doing interviews, not to say that I'm lying, but I'm obviously like I am a version of myself. Yeah. that I put out there, and I don't talk about the most private parts of myself, unless I decide that I want to for whatever reason.

34:57I feel like there has to be a part of me that's just for me. Right. And you don't really get to do that when you have fame that's at a certain level that's burning that bright. It's like everybody wants everything of you all the time. And every interaction that you have with somebody, whether it's a good day or a bad day, you have to be on all the time. But I don't know anybody that can be on all the time. I certainly couldn't. And I felt like it was really hard because any time you, like, make a mistake or just having, like, a bad day, it suddenly shapes this narrative about you. Was that happening, like, where you would say the wrong thing to the wrong person in the wrong way or whatever, and all of a sudden it's a story?

35:46Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I could feel it sort of happening. Like, I was also really worried about it, too. I was like, there's no way that this can stay at this level. There has to be a backlash. You knew that? Oh, yeah. Why did you know that? I don't know. I just instinctively knew. I just knew. I mean, you also, like, see it, too. You see people who are built up and then torn down. Like, I was smart enough to know that everything is cyclical and that there was no way that I could stay at that level. I don't even think that I really wanted to. So there might have been a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy there as well.

36:28But I remember exactly, like, when my backlash started, People Magazine had organized for me to do this story with Lillian Gish. She was a really famous, like, 20s film star. Okay. I guess they were saying I was like the Lillian Gish of my time. I see. So they wanted to do this, like, old Hollywood, young Hollywood. And I was really excited about it. Like, I knew who she was. I had watched silent movies. But I was in New York, and I didn't have a very good sense of direction. And I got lost, and I couldn't find a taxi, and it was in winter, and I didn't have a cell phone, like, tried to call. And then finally, my publicist said, it's too late.

37:10Just forget it. Just like go home and send her flowers, which I did. And I felt terrible about it. And while this was happening, I thought, oh, my God, here is the beginning of my backlash. Yeah. And it was. I mean, it was a better story for them because it was like, oh, young Hollywood is so awful and doesn't care. They're brats. The Brat Pack. It was like poor Lillian Gish was there and she had baked me cookies and she was this old woman that was there feeling so sad and rejected by this brat. It was just like I could have written the story myself. And that kind of like started this whole thing.

37:51And then you get branded for like being difficult, you know. You're still famous. It's just that instead of getting this warm embrace from everyone, people like start thinking that you're a brat. and you're not a nice person. It's just so funny. I mean, it's not funny. And I know that the experience of it wasn't funny, but as a scandal, it's so, it's like this person wasn't. Tame. Yes. It's very tame. It's like this person wasn't punctual. This person disrespected their elders. It feels like it's from like another different older culture. It feels like a scandal from the 50s or something. I know.

38:25I know. It's so ridiculous. But then that's like enough because it's just perception. And by the way, can I just also say like, oh, boohoo, poor me. I mean, I think in terms of like problems that you could have in the world, I've led a very privileged life. I have to acknowledge that. I don't hear a person asking for sympathy. I mean, at least the question I'm trying to ask you, I think the question you're answering, it's not how hard is it to be you. It's just like, how did you learn to navigate a life that the one person who they could put you in touch with who had a similar life, you were late for cookies and blow up your spot in People magazine.

39:08You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like everyone's going to have an opinion about you. If everyone has an opinion about you, you can't control it. But you have to kind of learn that. And you were somebody who was trying to behave in like a hyper conscientious way so you wouldn't fumble something. And then you get lost in New York City one day and the world decides you're a terrible person. And if being careful hadn't made you safe, what was the lesson you took? Like, what did you learn from that? What did you adjust? I don't know. I feel like I just kind of kept, like, trucking along and, like, doing my best.

39:48And I felt very hypervigilant. Yeah. Very careful. But, like, to a point of where it was just exhausting. Like, I felt exhausted. Felt tired all the time because to be that vigilant when you're supposed to be like a young person just kind of like fucking up and making mistakes. Yeah. I didn't really have the chance to do that because I was expected to be a role model because I was like the perfect teenager. I was like a good girl. It was just this image that I had that, you know, I mean, aside from standing up Lillian Gish and not eating Lillian Gish's cookies that she baked for me. I felt like there were like a lot of expectations for me to like be a certain way.

40:37Where would you, like when you were like 15, 16, 17, when you weren't getting in trouble with People Magazine, where was the place you could go where you felt like you could be like a person?

40:50Like in the privacy of my own home. That was the only place I think that I felt safe. Anywhere else. Like, if I was out somewhere, somebody could take a picture or, like, overhear a conversation. I was followed in my car a couple times. By just strangers? Yeah. Strangers or people, like, wanting pictures or photographs or, yeah, it was kind of scary. You were living in New York at this time. Well, I was going back and forth between New York and L.A. And what would it look like to just, like, try to have a life? Like, camera phones don't exist, but paparazzi does. Like, did you pick your nose? I feel like I really was not able to have any kind of, like, a normal life in Los Angeles or in America at that point.

41:44I couldn't do it, which is, I think, why I ended up moving to France. As a way to get away from it? Yeah, I didn't realize it at the time, but I think that that choice to move away had a lot to do with fame. That's crazy, though. I mean, it's crazy to correctly look at your life. Most of the people who have to leave a country as big as America have done something really terrible. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, I didn't realize it at the time. I just fell in love with France and fell in love with that feeling that I had there. And what was the feeling? That I could breathe. Right. Everything felt new and it felt very colorful.

42:29I mean, it was colorful. It was summer in France. There was like flower stalls everywhere and the sky was like impossibly blue. And I felt better than I had felt in a really long time. And did you understand how much of that was being able to like still be like yourself, but not Molly Ringwald all the time? I think it was pretty clear to me that it had a lot to do with feeling free. I was a free woman in Paris. I felt unfettered and alive. And I mean, French people have access to films. Why can you turn American fame off in France? Well, you can't now, but at the time, the movies that I had done, they weren't huge hits there.

43:15Now they're known because they've, of course, played on television. They're sort of like considered cult movies now, like iconic films, which is always kind of like surprising now when I'm in France and I'm recognized. Because it's the place where you're used to having famed camouflage. Exactly, exactly. But when I moved to France, like, there are whole bits of the 90s that I feel like I kind of missed because I was living in a country where everything was not available, like, where you didn't have, like, every single television channel that exists. Were they, like, not watching Seinfeld? No. Something French instead?

43:51Yeah. Interesting. Something French. But, yeah, the movies that I did weren't that well-known. And then I also dyed my hair, like, dark brown. Oh, that would, yes. To kind of like blend in because the red does kind of set you apart a little. So what was it like to be able to take off like the robe of fame? Did you miss it at all? No. Not at all? I didn't. I mean, I will say like the only thing that I think I missed would be automatically being able to get a good table in a restaurant. I knew that's what you were going to say. I absolutely knew that's what you were going to say. Restaurants. Yeah, that's it.

44:35I feel like it was, there was something really nice about feeling like if somebody responded to me, they were responding to me. Like the real me. Or as much as they knew the real me. You weren't constantly in conversation with your own reputation or wondering what someone was reacting to or what they wanted or how you might disappoint them. Yes. Yeah. Which you probably hadn't had as an adult. Like just the normal levels of self-consciousness that a normal person has. Yeah. It felt like I suddenly was somewhere like without a weapon. I didn't have this fancy sword or whatever. It was just me. And my muscles got strong because of it.

45:21Were there things you had to learn how to do? Well, yeah, speak French. I mean like, I mean more like, I don't know. I imagine that if you're very famous in America in the 1980s, you probably don't know how funny you are. Because people are going to laugh at your jokes a little bit more or something. Yeah. You don't know what your level of charm is separate from people's excitedness to just see a person they've seen in a film. Yeah, definitely. And then also you throw in the extra thing about being American, too. And so you're dealing with the French. They sort of don't like you. Yes. Yes. And were you acting in France?

46:00I was still acting, but I think I definitely put my career on the back burner. Like, it wasn't as important to me. And I also felt kind of, like, burned in Hollywood. I felt like I wasn't really valued at that point. But also, I will say, because I've thought a lot about it, too. I'm like, did I kind of tank my career because I moved to France or were there other elements at play as well? And I had done one of Miramax's first movies that Harvey Weinstein produced. And I had to sue Harvey Weinstein. Back then? I did, yeah. Not for any sexual impropriety. I was very lucky in that regard. He just didn't pay me what he was contractually obligated to pay me.

46:52He just didn't. He just like, the film was not a success, but I had like a percentage of the gross. And he just didn't pay. And he just didn't pay. And my lawyer called and said, Harvey Weinstein's not paying you for this. And I think that we need to go after it. And I said, go ahead. And she did. And I got paid. But it was just coming into an era where everything interesting that was done pretty much was done by Harvey Weinstein. So I think that might have had something to do with it. I don't know. It was just kind of like this period of time where I wasn't obscure, but it was just like I felt like everyone was kind of like waiting for a comeback.

47:37Did you want a comeback? I wanted to do movies that were interesting to me. Yeah. It's hard because the fame is a double-edged sword because the fame makes life kind of difficult to navigate on the one hand. But then if you have a certain level of fame, then it enables you to do the projects that you want to do. Like, all movies get made, basically, you know, somebody has to raise the money, and the only way that they can raise the money is if they go after this list. And they'll say, okay, for this part, if you get, you know, Nicole Kidman, Gwyneth Paltrow, whatever the list is. Yeah. And for a while, I was on that list.

48:24And then I kind of, like, got booted off that list. And there's only so many parts to go around. Yeah. And then the older that you get, the less parts there are. So for a big chunk of that time, I kind of like took myself out of the running for a lot of interesting things. Or it just wasn't considered. I don't know. Did you regret that? Because it also sounds like it was what you needed. I... No, I think it was what I needed. I mean, to come back to your point about how I am sane, which my kids would debate you on that. But I think as actors go, I think I am pretty sane. And I think I am pretty centered.

49:13And I think the only way, really, that I was able to do that and to have that kind of longevity was to go away and do what I did. And to sort of opt out of that, like, hamster wheel that I was in.

49:33After the break, we ask Molly the question that got us here. The mechanics of her sanity. How do you survive fame? Let's have for some ads.

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50:46Sierra, let's get moving.

50:59Wait, what's the actual question again? How do you survive fame? How do you survive being a public person, if you prefer that? I really believe that it is something that is genetic. Really? In you. Like, I think it's in your DNA. And I think you're the kind of person who can withstand that sort of public scrutiny and be okay with it. and even maybe want it. But you have to ask yourself if that's something that you really want and know that that's what you want. Because once you get it, it's always there. Like, you might not be able to sort of keep a certain level of fame. Like, hotness comes and goes.

51:44But once you become famous, you're always famous. From that perspective, it's like that makes you almost like someone who got like a face tattoo when they were 12. Yeah. Yeah. Like I remember being in California after I came back from France and I was with my husband and it was Matilda, my now 20 year old daughter, learning to ride a bike for the first time, which feels like a private moment. And obviously it's something that you can't do inside. So we were outside and then paparazzi pictures came out and it felt so gross because I, well, for one thing, I was also like, I had no idea. So that was like a creepy feeling.

52:26It was kind of like how it must feel if there's like a private investigator. I mean, we were just teaching our kid how to ride a bike, but it was just this really creepy feeling that there's somebody there and you didn't see them, didn't know that they were there. And yeah, that's just kind of the stuff that you deal with. And this is like at a level of fame that's not even like it was, I think, when I made those movies. Right. When I've had friends who have had film or television success, what I've noticed is this feeling of you're in public, like you're at dinner or something like that, and there's a feeling that I will arrive too late, which is that the attention of the room has begun to bend towards them, and maybe in a way that needs to be navigated, like someone's about to come up and say something or whatever.

53:14And my radar to that is so dull. And I've felt very badly for them that their radar for that always has to be on. Like if someone takes their cell phone out, are they taking a picture of them or are they texting somebody? If somebody's like wandering near the table, you know what I mean? Oh yeah. No, I have a very finely tuned radar to that. Like I can tell by the way that somebody like pulls out their cell phone, like the way that it's like angled. There are certain words that I can pick out. Obviously, my name, Ringwald, Molly. I can hear that. I can hear the word breakfast. Like I can hear like 16.

53:51I can hear pink. Yeah, I definitely feel like I'm somebody who is okay with a certain level of fame. I just want to have some autonomy over my life and over the choices that I make, Which is one of the reasons why I didn't let my kids act professionally when they were kids. They wanted to. Oh, yeah. I mean, this was like the argument, the nonstop argument that I've had with my daughter Matilda since she was eight. She wanted to start acting when she was eight, and we wouldn't let her. We made the choice to not have her be a professional actress. And she said, why? And I said, because I grew up in this business, and I think, like, if you're talented, that talent's not going to go away.

54:41I just think that you should learn how to do it and be really prepared so when you start acting, you'll know what you're doing, and hopefully you will have grown up a bit. And it was a real bone of contention between us. I mean, she was furious. She's still mad at me. And she's done her first movie now, like a big movie. Like, she has a supporting role in this movie with Anne Hathaway that's coming out on Amazon. So I feel like I gave good advice. I feel like I made the right choice, but she's still mad at me. And I don't know. Like, I was super driven like she was. You know, I wanted to do what I did.

55:20But, like, the difference is that I did it. And my dad was, like, a jazz musician in a small town. My mom didn't know anything about the business. They were artistic people, but they didn't know about the business. But I do, and I have been through that. And I also feel like, you know, it's hard to make a transition from being a younger actor to being an adult actor. So anyway, when I would say all this to Matilda, she would say, well, you did it. Well, you did it, and you're fine. You're smart. You're all of this stuff. Like, so why are you different? And why can't I do it if you did it? That's such a hard question.

56:01Yeah. What do you say? I say that I think that I'm an outlier. I would say like the majority of kids that act are not okay. Do you remember even being like in your teenage years and seeing people with different relationships to their fame or their success where you thought like I can see them making a mistake that I'm consciously trying not to make? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've been doing this long enough to where I could see people just completely burning out and becoming really self-destructive, whether it's like drugs or alcohol or, yeah, making bad choices, just putting themselves out there too much.

56:45I've also been doing this long enough and worked with enough young people that have had to sort of navigate fame that comes to them like all of a sudden. Yeah. And it's interesting, like, kind of observing them from a little bit of a distance and sort of seeing, oh, okay, I can see the people who are going to be okay and the people that aren't going to be okay. You can see it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Totally. And you can see the people that are just, like, all of a sudden get so big-headed and they feel like it's going to last forever. And, yeah, you just see it and you know the way the business works.

57:20Yeah. But you really think that the thing that made you okay might not have been something you learned or did, but it might have just been a way that you were. Yeah. I think that it is a little bit my DNA, but it's also my personality is somebody who is able to kind of step outside and like observe myself a little bit. I feel like I have a certain amount of self-reflection that not everybody has. I agree. I mean, one of the things I remember noticing you doing, I was like, oh, you can learn from this, is you mentioned offhandedly once, you just said, like, I don't read reviews. I don't read my reviews.

58:03And when you first said it, I thought, oh, Molly doesn't find her reviews interesting. And then later, I was like, no, probably Molly's figured out that reading reviews does things to her that she doesn't enjoy. Yeah. Exactly. That's what it is. I make a deal with myself where, I mean, it's not something that I really have to do now with the internet, but I stopped reading reviews so long ago that I made this deal where I would save them. Like, all the reviews would be saved. And so one day, if I wanted to read them, I could read them. Do you have them in a shoebox? I knew that my parents, I think, collected everything.

58:49But like my mom, she's not organized enough to actually ever do a scrapbook or anything. So they're like in boxes that are probably like falling apart and probably part of like a rat's nest in like a garage somewhere. I don't know. It was just this idea. It was kind of like tricking the brain in a way to keep myself from having to read them. There was this idea that I could read them someday. it kind of made it okay. Because reading a review, it's like the dopamine of the good review. It's just exactly like getting that thumbs up. Oh, yeah. But then the bad review is exactly like being trolled.

59:30I mean, it's just, there's just, for me, there's just really no upside to it. Yeah, and also like the good reviews are very addictive and the bad reviews are very sticky and like the compliment never lasts as long as the insult and the compliment kind of just makes you want another compliment. Yeah, exactly. It's like it never feels good as that first high. After that, then you're just chasing it. And then you're just a person who's just chasing that approval. And yeah, I just don't want to be that person. That doesn't mean that I don't care what people think, but I care much more about the opinions of people that I really respect.

1:00:11Like, my friend Meredith always says, protect the head, protect the head. Like, there's certain things that I know are just self-protective. And not reading my reviews is one of them. Not spending too much time doom scrolling is another. Like, I just have these rules like, okay, I fell into this pothole numerous times. And then eventually you walk around the pothole that's in the street. And then eventually you learn to take another street. And I feel like I've been doing this for long enough to where I've learned to take the other street. But some people don't learn that. Some people never learn that.

1:00:47Yeah. One of the ways people react to pressure like that is to just, like, really act out. But it sounds like the way you reacted to it was to just try to complete the assignment. Yes. Exactly. Why do you think that was?

1:01:04I feel like I had a lot of practice, like, from the time that I was little. Like, wow, this is great. This feels like therapy. Thank you, PJ. I haven't done therapy in a while. This feels really good. Thank you for talking about this stuff. I feel like I started out by wanting to please my parents. I feel like everybody. But the fact that I was performing with my dad and his... What's so funny? You said, what was the name of the album, the first jazz album? I Want to Be Loved by You. Right? I know. I didn't name it. I didn't name it. It was one of the songs that I sang. But I think I had a lot of practice on, you know, sort of performing and getting, what's the word, approval.

1:01:56Getting approval from my dad or my mom and then from an audience and then from like the world. And I had to complete the assignment. But so it's like, by your description, there's this assumption most people would make about a person becoming, for a time, like the most famous teenager in America, which is probably, since fame is like a hard thing to find, that person must have really wanted it. and what you're saying is like no what you wanted was to act to not disappoint people to fulfill the assignment like to do a good job of what you're asked to do and by virtue of your skill at doing that and time and circumstance you just end up in this position where the pressure is extraordinarily high and where you're experiencing a life that a lot of people want but wasn't the thing that you particularly wanted yes this is very confusing You just synthesized it so well and so succinctly.

1:02:55Yeah, it's hard because, I mean, now I feel like we're dealing with levels of fame that feel like so beyond what I had. It's sort of crazy to hear Molly Ringwald, a woman whose face was on the cover of Time magazine, say that actually the fame she experienced, much weaker than the plutonium-grade stuff being manufactured today. But I think she's right. And generally speaking, I wish famous people talked about what it means to experience attention this openly. I get why they don't. It's risky. You don't want to be seen as bragging or, worse, complaining. But it's a shame, because one thing that has changed since the 1980s is that the problem of how to navigate public attention has become a skill that even regular people need to learn.

1:03:47Civilians have been offered the problems of fame, if not its benefits. The government doesn't issue American teenagers a publicist when they get their first Instagram account.

1:03:59So what have we learned about surviving public attention for Molly Ringwald? She believes the ability to withstand pressure is more about who you inherently are than anything else And that you won't know who you are under pressure until you find yourself there But that said, Molly's instincts have led her to make choices that are really smart Anybody could copy them? A teenager could? I think I will So here they are Doing what you love might mean you don't get to be normal or invisible Sometimes people are going to dislike you You shouldn't assume it's because of something you've done It might be because of what you represent.

1:04:34You can't actually be vigilant all the time. If attention is hurting you, you can walk away from it. Keep your views in a box and keep the box closed. Protect the head. Did I answer? Did I answer like... Oh my God. You're, it's so... Did I, did I do well? Was I perfect? You completed the assignment. Thank you, Molly. Yes. Thank you, PJ.

1:05:08Molly Ringwald. She's an actor, a writer, a mom, a sane person. You can see her in the new Ryan Murphy miniseries, Feud, Capote vs. the Swans on FX. It's out now. One last thing before we go. Our editor found a very enchanting song online with just a few hundred listens and wanted to know, how had this beautiful song gotten to her? That's after some minutes.

1:06:00My mistake. The Hulu original series. Only murders in the building. Premieres September 9th. Streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. New episodes Tuesdays. Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just$5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Prices and participation may vary.

1:06:35Welcome back to the show. Our editor at Search Engine is Shruti Pinamaneni. She's the person whose mind and editorial taste you're constantly hearing on the show, but whose voice you never hear on mic. She had a question that made her break her Search Engine vow of silence.

1:06:59Hello. Hello. Can you just tell me your name, introduce yourself? Who are you? What do you do? I am Olympia Vettelis. I'm a singer. I'm 24 years old from London. And yeah, I'm on the podcast.

1:07:19I wanted to talk to you, man, now it seems like ages ago, just a couple weeks ago when I first, the first time I heard your song, Curls.

1:07:37And it's funny because I don't use Spotify that much. I work in radio. I listen to a lot of music and podcasts, but generally not on Spotify. And there was this one evening after work, I was doing a deep clean in my apartment. And I was like, I'll just try a Spotify playlist today. Love that. And I heard your song.

1:08:09And it so took my breath away that I just sat there and played it on repeat for a very long time.

1:08:28And I did the thing that I would normally do, which is look you up. And just, I was like, whatever else she's made, I will buy it right now. And I realized, like, there wasn't much out there. There was like a couple songs. And on Spotify and on SoundCloud, the listens were at that point in the hundreds. Yeah. And I was like, oh my gosh, I might be hearing a person who's like stepping out into the music world like right now. Yeah. It's quite funny like when people talk about curls like that because I'm sick of it. Do you know what I mean? Like I am so bored of that song. But people come to me and they're like, I just couldn't really believe it.

1:09:05And you're sick of it because you've been playing it for so long or singing it for so long? Well, yeah. I mean, you know, like in all kinds of creative processes, is it's such a long turnaround time, like from writing the first few lyrics in the notebook to having it mastered and then released. Like Kells was probably a year in the making in total. But it's really cool that it connects with so many people. I'm supporting Kiefer on tour at the moment. And like people are coming up to me and saying like, that song is mad. And I'm just like, what are you hearing? Because I'm just hearing my song.

1:09:37Is this the first song you've put out? Or what stage of Olympia am I hearing? So it's the third song technically, but I'm 24. And COVID kind of took away two and a half years. So I kind of say I'm like 21. But I've been in a gospel choir. I was in a gospel choir for seven years. So the idea of getting up and just belting, like, I love it. It's come second nature to me at this point. But I think the exposing part of it is the lyrics. I don't tend to write about love. I have no interest in writing about love. It's boring. I just think D 'Angelo can do it better than me. Do you know what I mean? Uh-huh.

1:10:15And so you record this song, it sounds like, about a year ago. And then how does it get on that playlist that I happen to listen to? Beats me. The thing is with editorial playlisting is like 100 ,000, 10 million, or a million, I'm not going to say this right, but a shed load of songs get submitted onto these editorial playlists every single day. So the chances of getting on a Fresh Finds, which is a global top 100 tracks of the week or whatever, it's not going to happen. Do you know what I mean? But yeah, it's just wild. Because before I was like, whatever, editorial playlists, doesn't matter.

1:10:57And now I'm just like, I need them. I need them all. I must feel like once you get it, you want to do it again. But it seems so mysterious how it happened in the first place. Yeah. What's funny, I don't know if you feel like this as well, but in the creative industry, you kind of hit one target and you don't even really pat yourself on the back. You just go, right, what's next? You know, like I've got a song coming out on Friday and I'm praying with every part of my body that it does well because then it kind of just gives you momentum to get more looks in. But I'm trying not to put too much pressure on myself, but that's like asking England not to rain.

1:11:31It's just not going to happen.

1:11:41Olympia Vittalus. That song that she was feeling so much pressure about, it's called Marty, and you're listening to it right now. It just came out.

1:11:54Stop that. You didn't ask to see, see, see. Like a kid, you can look but not touch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Grab my ass in the crowd and you left it off. Ha, ha, ha. Like a tear you couldn't look but now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Grab my ass in the crowd and you left it off.

1:12:30Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey and Jigsaw Productions. It was created by me, Shruti Panamanini, and PJ Vo. and is produced by Garrett Graham and Noah John. Fact-checking by Sean Merchant. Theme, original composition, and mixing by Armin Vazarian. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Leah Reese-Dennis. Thanks to the team at Jigsaw, Alex Gibney, Rich Pirello, and John Schmidt. And to the team at Odyssey, J.D. Crowley, Rob Mirandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchison, Matt Casey, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Schuff. Our agent is Oren Rosenbaum at UTA.

1:13:10Our social media is by the team at Public Opinion NYC. Follow and listen to Search Engine with PJ Vote now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Also, if you would like to become a paid subscriber and support the show, head over to PJVote.com. That's it for this week. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.

1:13:37Thank you.