Sunday Pick: In celebration of Pride Month | from Design Matters

0:03Leisha Hailey: Happy Sunday, Elise Hu here. Today we're bringing you a Sunday pick where we share an episode of another podcast from TED, handpicked by us, for you. June is Pride Month in many states and countries around the world, in honor of the infamous Stonewall Riots in New York City that so many attribute to the start of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, which includes conversations host Debbie Millman has had with accomplished LGBTQ plus guests. Carol Liefer, Paul Tazewell, Sonia Passi, Leisha Haley, and Kate Menig. They talk about the journeys that led them to fulfilling professional lives and the influences that shaped who they are today.

0:44Leisha Hailey: You can find episodes of Design Matters wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about all of Ted's podcasts at podcasts.ted.com.

0:57Kate Moennig: In that moment, it crystallized for me that this was my life's work.

1:02Sonya Passi: All of those things, I think, were additive to create what I do now.

1:11Leisha Hailey: From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman. On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. On this episode, in celebration of Gay Pride Month, we're going to hear excerpts from some of the interviews Debbie has done over the past year.

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4:07Paul Tazewell: I started this podcast 20 years ago. 20 years ago, George W. Bush was president and had endorsed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The majority of states had constitutional amendments or laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Don't ask, don't tell was official military policy. Culturally, though, things were starting to shift. 20 years ago, Will & Grace was a popular TV show and Brokeback Mountain was an Academy Award-winning film. 20 years ago, the L word was becoming a huge success on Showtime. Now, 20 years later, to be gay in America has been normalized to an extent that a lot of people feel they don't have to dramatically come out to their friends and family anymore.

5:00Paul Tazewell: They're just gay. No big deal. Yet we're now in a political moment wherein LGBTQ plus rights are under attack, particularly trans rights. which makes Pride Month, June, especially important this year to demonstrate that we're here, we're not going anywhere, we're not going back and we're going to live our lives the way we want to. So to celebrate Pride Month, I want to play a few excerpts from interviews I've done in the past year. I'm always interested in how all my guests have come to terms with their identities and especially my LGBTQ plus guests But that's not really what we talked about in these interviews.

5:43Paul Tazewell: These were conversations with very accomplished people who happened to be gay about how they became who they are professionally. What were the influences shaping the choices that led them into lives doing exactly what they wanted to be doing? First up, Sonia Passi. She's a veteran activist who has spent much of her life fighting gender-based violence. She's the founder and CEO of the national organization Free From. You mentioned you were raised in Manchester, England. I believe you were also born there. And aside from your fascination with paper products, what kind of little girl were you?

6:24Kate Moennig: I was always very confident. the stories I've heard from when I was young are that I used to stare intensely for long periods of time at all of my dad's friends and these older men would get very nervous by my stare and my dad would always tell them she's she's trying to figure out if she can trust you wow so I definitely had a capacity at a young age to make grown men feel very nervous. I did not think you were going there with that statement. Very good. But I was full of life as a kid. I was full of, my mom used to describe me as the bubbles of champagne.

7:15Paul Tazewell: Where do you think that early confidence came from? Usually that comes from good parenting, but I'm not sure in your case if that's accurate.

7:23Kate Moennig: I think part of it is who I am. And I think part of it is that I have the very good fortune of having gotten the best of both of my parents. My mom really is a force to be reckoned with, a manifester of all of her dreams. My father is too. And so I got that. I witnessed it and I modeled it. And certainly in In my younger years, I was very much raised with the idea that I could do and be anything that I wanted to be. And that's a great blessing as a little girl.

8:04Paul Tazewell: I read that from a very early age, you wanted to be a police officer, but in a complete about face. By the time you were 16, you created an anti-violence amnesty international community group in your high school. What inspired your interest in social justice and human rights at such a young age?

8:27Kate Moennig: You know, when I was a teenager, Tony Blair was the prime minister of England. And his wife, Cherie Blair, was a very famous and successful human rights lawyer. I think it was the first time it was sort of like the equivalent of Hillary Clinton here in the U.S. But it was the first time that a prime minister's wife was a powerhouse in her own right. And it was a very public and prominent display of a woman with power and leadership. And so it was a model, I think, for a lot of young women in the U.K. at the time. And so, you know, 12 years old, I'm like learning about what a human rights lawyer is and therefore what human rights are.

9:14Kate Moennig: And the through line between wanting to be a police officer, I think it was a police officer and then it became a teacher and then it became a pediatrician. And then it became a human rights lawyer was I have known my entire life that my life is in service of others. And so it was just sort of finding what that looked like for me.

9:35Paul Tazewell: And you went to the University of Cambridge for your undergrad degree and then went on to get a master's of philosophy. What made you decide to go back to school to pursue a law degree at UC Berkeley at that time? Was it that realization that, yes, I want to be a lawyer? What happened in that timeframe between the master's of philosophy and then wanting to go on for the law degree?

10:00Kate Moennig: So at 16, when I started this Amnesty International group, the very first pamphlet that they sent me in the mail was around their campaign that year, which was global violence against women. And I remember reading one in three women globally will experience gender based violence. And I was so utterly shocked, not by the statistic, but why this was the first time that I was reading it. And the first time I was reading it was on page two of a pamphlet that I sent away for in the mail. because it was very clear to me that this was a global crisis and should be breaking news every single day front page of every newspaper and in that moment without having any consciousness as to my own experience but in that moment it crystallized for me that this was my life's work at that age I started hosting domestic violence awareness weeks at my high school that were intended both to educate people about the issue, but also to raise money for local shelters.

11:11Kate Moennig: I then went on to do similar work at Cambridge. And by that point, I knew this was my life's work. I had absolutely no idea what contribution I had to make to it. But because it had been introduced to me as a human rights issue, not as a domestic issue, not as a personal issue, but a human rights issue, I felt clear that understanding law and how you create laws and change laws and policy was going to be critical to my future. And so I actually chose to go to law school and I had the good fortune to go to law school and be able to afford to go to law school, knowing that I didn't want to be a lawyer, but there was a certain piece of education that I needed in order to enact the kind of change that I wanted to.

12:02Paul Tazewell: During your studies, you were also a JD fellow, which meant you were one in 12 women law students selected nationally based on leadership potential. You also worked as an intern for the U.S. House of Representatives and were a volunteer for Obama for America before he became president. So at that point, were you considering a career in politics?

12:27Kate Moennig: I actually was. I had previously interned for a parliamentary member in the UK. At that age, I felt very strongly that politics was a way to create change. And certainly that was a different time politically than it is now. And there was a lot more hope and potential and I was younger. And then I spent time in DC interning for the House of Representatives, for a member of Congress and volunteering nights and weekends for the Obama campaign in Virginia. And what I learned in that time was that the real innovation, the real systems change doesn't actually happen in D.C. It happens outside of D.C.

13:12And then I went to California to go to UC Berkeley

13:17Kate Moennig: and I saw some of the most groundbreaking organizing and community work and systems change work happening there. And I understood better that there's a lot more that I could do with the skill set and the vantage point and perspective that I have outside of DC than in DC.

13:37Paul Tazewell: Sonia Passi. Paul Tazewell is having an exceptionally award-winning year. He's won both a Tony Award for Best Costume Design for the Broadway musical Death Becomes Her, this is his second, by the way, and an Academy Award for the costume design for the film Wicked. Clearly, he's at the top of his profession. How did he get started? Now, I understand the very first play you designed and created the costumes for was The Wiz way back when you were in high school. And I believe you also had a part in the production. Who did you play?

14:17Sonya Passi: I played the title character. I played the Wiz. Oh, wow. Not Dorothy. But I played the Wiz. I wanted to be a performer. Once I was stung or bitten by the bug of theater, I really wanted to be a performer, and costume design was a side gig. I happened to be in a program where they put a lot of money into a public school to integrate. And so whenever Wicked became available, the head of that program decided that we should do that. And I think that was very smart of him because it was a largely black school.

15:00Paul Tazewell: Now, I believe that your mother helped make the white suit and the cape with the green lining and that your dad helped spray paint Glinda's gold cape for that production.

15:13Sonya Passi: All that true. All that true. I have memories of asking my dad to spray an ombre of rainbow colors on the Glenda Cape on gold lame. He did his very best. He was a research chemist for Firestone. Yes. That was not his profession. He wasn't creative in that way. But the fact that he took that on was really beautiful.

15:38Paul Tazewell: You grew up in Akron, Ohio. You're one of four boys. That's right. What order do you follow?

15:44Sonya Passi: I'm number three.

15:45Paul Tazewell: Ah.

15:45Sonya Passi: Yes. Yeah. So my two older brothers were about a year apart, and then there's a three-year break, and I was born. And then my younger brother is four years younger than me.

15:56Paul Tazewell: You mentioned your dad was a research chemist for Firestone Tire and Rubber. And your mom, Barbara, was a French and English teacher. That's right. But also a painter, a puppet maker, a performer, and a seamstress.

16:08Sonya Passi: That's right, all of those. And her mother was a painter. and her dad was a professor at Akron University.

16:16Paul Tazewell: My mom was also a seamstress and a painter. And when I was living on Long Island through junior high school and high school, she would put ads in the penny saver to advertise her business. She worked in the basement in a little room that she carved out for herself. and what really entranced me about it was she did something that I guess now in doing my research for today's show quite a lot of costume designers do which is you know you draw the person in the outfit and then you cut out little samples of the fabric and then attach that to the drawing and she did that and there were drawings all over her little space that she had with her Bernina sewing machine, which I remember.

17:03Paul Tazewell: Oh, my God. And she taught me how to draw as well from doing that, because I wanted to draw the models that she did of hers. So I loved seeing everything that you did. It took me way back in a very sort of wistful, bittersweet way.

17:18Sonya Passi: Oh, that's wonderful. So many different parts of what you just said ring true for me. Paper dolls and dressing of paper dolls and color forms. I don't know if you remember color forms. Oh, of course. And paper dolls.

17:30Paul Tazewell: Oh, my God, the Betsy McCall paper dials in McCall's magazine. I still have mine, Paul.

17:36Sonya Passi: So, I mean, you know, all of those things, I think, were additive to create what I do now. It just happened that I diverted into performance for a little bit, and then I, you know, came back.

17:49Paul Tazewell: Now, your mother taught you how to sew, is that correct?

17:51Sonya Passi: That's right. I was probably in the fourth grade, maybe, and I was making dashikis, the first thing. So it was a very simple T-shaped garment, and it was fashionable at the time. So, you know, it all made sense.

18:04Paul Tazewell: I was in seventh grade when she first taught me how to sew, and I started making my own clothes. Probably the most memorable was a pair of red corduroy, bright red corduroy overalls. Form-fitting. Nice. That I applicade a butterfly on the front panel of the overalls. And I really wish that I had a picture of him to show you because it was probably my best moment as a seamstress in training. You and your brothers studied quite a lot of music. You studied the Suzuki violin. You also studied piano and sang in the church choir. It really seems like your childhood was you were really surrounded by culture and arts.

18:51Sonya Passi: That is very true. I mean, you know, we were in Akron, albeit, and even so, like my grandmother would teach piano. She played the piano and she also taught piano. She went to Oberlin to study music. So that element of culture, you know, of the arts was always a part of her life. I mean, it then bled into our time at church and, you know, being an acolyte and singing in the choir there. But my oldest brother, Joe, he pretty much led our experience with Suzuki violin. I mean, and he was excellent for his age. Then each of us needed to follow suit.

19:33Paul Tazewell: I read that when you were nine years old, you saw a production of Oklahoma, and that was when you decided that you wanted to become an actor and a dancer. What was it about that show in particular? Did you see it as a play or did you see the movie?

19:46Sonya Passi: No, it was a high school production. So it was at the same high school that I ended up going to. I was in grade school. I might have been in the fifth grade or sixth grade. I was familiar with live performance, but there was something about seeing that story as a musical being presented with the kind of excitement that was coming off the stage. And it was infectious, and I really wanted to, you know, I decided at that moment that I wanted to be a part of that energy. I mean, there was something that was really magical that was coming from the stage. And I held to that until I was able to actually do it.

20:19Sonya Passi: I think my first plays were probably in junior high, you know, and those were just very simply presented plays. But then it was the production of West Side Story, which was produced by the it was a summer musical program again at my high school. But it was pulling many students from all over the greater Akron area to do a production of West Side Story. And in that production, I played Officer Krupke. And that was probably my first full on performance. And that was great. It was a lot of fun and life changing. because, again, it was creating a community of artists coming together for this single goal of creating art and what's turned into creating something beautiful for me.

21:17Sonya Passi: So that's been a consistent part of my professional experience, yeah.

21:22Paul Tazewell: And is it true for a very brief period of time you thought you wanted to be a psychologist?

21:29Sonya Passi: You dug very deep. Well, I mean, yes. Yeah. You know, I, you know, it's when, when, you know, you go through this process of, you know, as, as a kid, as we be a doctor or a lawyer or a fireman, or I actually had a child psychologist, you know, growing up. It was a group kind of group therapy situation. And I had loved that time. It was, you know, for me, it was kind of playtime. And, you know, so I think that it made me very self-aware in a good way. But I then also realized that as a profession, you know, I could choose to be a psychologist or a psychiatrist. It served me, that interest, as I investigate characters and that, you know, wanting to understand personalities, people, why we make certain decisions, you know, and how that informs what we choose to dress ourselves in.

22:30Sonya Passi: You know, I think that it is all part of how I have made sense of what I do. You started college at Pride Institute in Brooklyn, majoring in fashion design, and intended to continue taking dance and acting classes.

22:49Paul Tazewell: And I understand that it was your parents that insisted that you study fashion so you would have something to fall back on if auditioning didn't work out. And it's the first time I've ever heard of parents insisting that a backup safety job would be a job in fashion. Well, I mean, they must have had a lot of faith in your talent.

23:13Sonya Passi: I think that that was okayed by my mom. I think my dad, who was a very pragmatic man, wanted to make sure that his children took care of themselves and could take care of a family and making choices according to that. So really, theater and the arts for my father wasn't a solution. I mean, that wasn't an option, really. You know, and I think that my mother probably talked him into this as an idea because indeed you could get a degree in fashion design. It allowed for me, I mean, my intention was to get to New York, come hell or high water. I mean, I realized that, you know, when I think that my class took two trips to New York while I was in high school.

23:59Sonya Passi: And I knew that I wanted to be in New York. You know, I wanted to mature, you know, as an artist in New York. And that was where I could actually start to do theater. So it put me in the right place to start to take lessons, voice lessons and audition and eventually join a cast, you know, on Broadway. That was my hope. But indeed, it was, you know, at least having some degree that I could excel in. Why not have it be fashion? Because it was something that I really enjoyed. And I think that my mother knew that I would excel in a profession that I really enjoyed.

24:36Paul Tazewell: You transferred to North Carolina School of the Arts after one year at Pratt. Why did you make that move?

24:44Sonya Passi: Well, coming from Akron, Ohio, that was a huge culture shift to enter into New York and Brooklyn in 1981-82. Right. It was before Brooklyn was really Brooklyn. Yeah. I mean, that neighborhood, I live in the same neighborhood that I was going to school in now. And it was a completely different situation, you know. But that aside, I was living in a roach-infested apartment because that was the housing for Pratt Institute students. Huge high-rise full of students that were under the age of 21. So that was a little traumatizing. And then I just wanted to get back to really what my passion and love is.

25:28Sonya Passi: There was this program that offered costume design or major in costume design as well as a major in dance, as well as a major in acting, music of all sorts. And it was close to family. It's close to Greensboro where a lot of my family lives. So there are a lot of pluses for shifting. what I didn't know is that I would not be able to double major, which is what my hope was, that I would double major in costume design and in dance or acting, you know, one of those. That second year there, I needed to make a decision about what am I going to do and what are my next steps with my life, really. And I made the decision to really set down performance and really embracing what seemed to be working at that moment, which was costume design.

26:21Sonya Passi: One of the things that led into that decision was also being aware that the roles that I had the potential to be offered at that time were not necessarily roles that I saw myself in, meaning I was not necessarily going to be cast as a leading man in a musical, or those would be few and far between, because I'm a black man, you know, and those roles were not offered up very easily. So I thought that given all of the, you know, everything that was being communicated to me, that my longevity as a costume designer would be much greater.

27:02Paul Tazewell: Paul Tazwell.

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28:45Paul Tazewell: Kara Leifer is a groundbreaking stand-up comedian, comedy writer, and producer. She's written for Saturday Night Live, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Modern Family, and many other popular television shows. She also won an Emmy this year. Her success in comedy at a time when there were very few women in the business had a lot to do with her family. You grew up on Long Island in a household of academics. Your mom was a psychologist. Your dad was an optometrist. But I believe it was your uncle Bernie who was a writer for Let's Make a Deal who was your first link to show business. And what impact did he have on your understanding of a potential career in entertainment?

29:32Carol Leifer: My Uncle Bernie, may his memory be a blessing. Well, to my little neck of the woods in Long Island, someone having a job in the entertainment business was a faraway dream. I didn't know anybody who made their living in show business. But my Uncle Bernie, he had been an actor and had had some small roles in New York City. and then he moved to California and he got a job writing for Let's Make a Deal. And people were always like, well, what did he write? Well, you know, he wrote Monty Hall's Patter. He also interviewed the line of people outside. He would kind of suss them out who'd be a good contestant.

30:22Carol Leifer: But basically, it was a good job. It was a great job that he had for as many years as Let's Make. It's still on with Wayne Brady, but it was job, not only job security, but it also sounded as a kid very exotic to me. I mean, my grandmother had a photo of his credit, you know, written by Bernie Gould, you know, in an 8 by 10 frame. Everybody was so proud of my Uncle Bernie. So I always felt like, well, you know, my Uncle Bernie is in show business, so maybe I could be in show business. and we went out to California right on vacation with my parents right when I wanted to start being comedian I was interested in it and he took us to the improv and we saw a show there and it just became more of a reality than a dream knowing that here I had this uncle living in California and doing it for a long time and making a very nice living at it.

31:25Carol Leifer: My uncle Bernie also was the one who, when I decided I wanted to be in show business or be a comedian and, uh, I needed a day job. He set me up with, uh, uh, someone to meet in the city, a producer. And I was like, oh great. So I made the appointment with the producer. It was raining that day on Long Island. I was late on the Long Island railroad. I don't know that I brought an umbrella or not. I, And, you know, I read that you were soaked, actually.

31:58Paul Tazewell: Yes, yes.

31:59Carol Leifer: I didn't bring an umbrella. Yeah, I think you remember all the details of this nightmare. And I think I wound up a half an hour late for this meeting. I was drenched, maybe didn't bring a raincoat, and then proceeded to talk all about myself and what I had done at SUNY Binghamton Harper College. and I look back now and it's like I broke every rule of what you do when you want a job uh get it getting there late you know it was no secret it's probably going to rain the next day I could have looked at the forecast plan for that brought an umbrella and also while I was there it's when you it's a job interview you know you're there to find out what they need what they're looking for It's not a time to rattle off your resume and what you think you should be doing.

32:56Carol Leifer: So I thanked Uncle Bernie for the contact, but I did not. I don't think I handled it quite well.

33:05Paul Tazewell: You described your parents, Anna and Seymour, as the original comedy enthusiasts and regularly, along with them, listen to comedy albums at home. I also understand your father actually collected jokes. So why did he do that?

33:25Carol Leifer: Well, my dad was king of the joke tellers. As we call them in our community, the tribe of Jewish people, the tummler. He was always ready with it. He liked being funny. And more than that, as a kid, I saw him tell jokes as a bridge to people. if he didn't know somebody particularly well meeting somebody he you know pretty soon he'd be telling a joke I worked for him at his optometry office I also like to add my father was an optometrist and of course his name was Seymour perfect talk about predetermination but what he would do with jokes is when patients were nervous or had some anxiety for an eye exam.

34:13Carol Leifer: He would tell a joke and it was literally like, give me a subject. I got a joke on it. My dad really, his dream was to be a comedian or a comedy writer so that I got to fulfill his dream was so exciting for him. I always felt sorry that for his generation, people would always ask him, say, Seymour, you're so funny. How come you never pursued it? and he would always say, you know, I had to make a living. And I think for that generation of my parents' generation, really show business was a very far-off dream and seemed irresponsible in a way at the time, like you weren't serious about providing for your family.

34:58Carol Leifer: And I look back now, and I think my dad could have had a bit of maybe jealousy at my career, but he was there for me a thousand percent. And when I did my first Letterman, Debbie, you know, he wanted to tape it on a VCR. A VCR at that time was like$1 ,000. Oh, I remember. Yep, yep. And he ran out to Crazy Eddie's or wherever it was. And, you know, he got a VCR to be able to tape me. So I always loved that he had a love of humor. There were comedy albums playing in my house all the time. and what I also love about when I grew up when we grew up was there was a community to listening to entertainment what my parents listened to everybody in the house listened to and thank god for me they had great comedy tastes now you know it's everybody with their own earphones and listening to their own thing back then it was nice to hear laughter together in the house so Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner's album Vaughn Meter's album I mean I'm going way back but these were the comedy giants of the time Bill Cosby and Bob Newhart and besides Wayne Newton on The Ed Sullivan Show were the great comics Rodney Dangerfield whose young comedian special I eventually was pleased to be on and Jackie Mason and Jackie Vernon I mean, I know I'm pulling out a lot of names that people may not be familiar with, but to my generation, those were the kings of comedy.

36:37Paul Tazewell: I can really relate. My dad wanted to be a football player, but became a pharmacist because he also had to make a living. And I worked in his pharmacy and did all kinds of fun things with the signage as I was learning to be a designer and whatnot. He introduced me actually to George Carlin, who I was just enthralled by and was enthralled by it for the rest of his life. I thought he was a genius. When did you begin to think you were funny? Did your parents tell you you were funny? Did you believe that you were funny? Talk to me about how you even began to consider a life in or with comedy.

37:24Carol Leifer: Yeah, my parents gave me a lot of feedback as a kid that I was funny. I always loved to perform. I mean, I used to put on shows in our basement.

37:36Paul Tazewell: Yeah. Didn't you go around the neighborhood and sell tickets?

37:40Carol Leifer: Yes, yes. And I remember one time our across the street neighbor, you know, they were probably like five cents a ticket. You know, he was like, I'll buy them all. You know, thinking that maybe I wasn't getting a lot of business around the block so then I could have free tickets to give to people. So I always got a lot of feedback early on that I was funny. Yeah, especially starting school, being in shows, being in skits at summer camp. That kind of became the thing I was known for, luckily.

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40:20Paul Tazewell: I know you just won an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award and have so many other awards in your arsenal, but I understand that your Hammy Award that you won at summer camp is your prized possession. That really is. What's a hammy award and what did you win it for?

40:42Carol Leifer: Well, the hammy award at Sunset Ranch Camp in Orford, New Hampshire, was offered to the camper who had been in the most comedy skits and shows around camp. Of course, hammy, deriving from the word ham, uh meaning someone who uh steals a spotlight and a drop of a hat so to me as a kid that was that was a big deal uh at my summer camp you know the proud recipient of you know it was a akin to winning the mark twain prize uh my summer camp so uh that was that was another piece of validation that I needed to pursue my life in comedy.

41:29Paul Tazewell: You went to college. You went to Binghamton College, a state school. I chose Albany, by the way. Oh, I almost went there. Your dad told you that you could go to any college you wanted as long as it was a state school. Same, same here. At Binghamton, you met a person who became a real defining figure and friend in your life, Paul Reiser. Yes. Comedy genius Paul Reiser of All About You fame and so much more. And I understand he was in the Hinman Little Theater, your dorms theater group. What was your first impression of him?

42:05Carol Leifer: My first impression of Paul was he's the funniest guy I've ever met. And maybe to this day, Debbie, he might still have that title. He is so naturally funny. And so when I was in him in Little Theater, I just was stupefied at how funny he was. And not only that, how we connected. He also came from a comedy family and his family played the 2000 year old man record over and over so we could practically together lip sync the whole album. So I love that we shared that same passion for comedy and knew the same comedians. It's so funny. He was just on a podcast yesterday with Jason Alexander, and I saw that he was the guest before me, and I just burst in.

43:00Carol Leifer: I was like, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I like to tell the story of how if I hadn't met Paul, maybe I wouldn't have found this exact path into comedy. Because what happened was, Paul just mentioned in my junior year, he was a year older than me, he was like, you know, during the summer, I like to go down to New York City to these comedy clubs that are springing up, open mic nights, and anybody can go on. You just get a number during the day. It tells you what time you can go on. And I do five minutes of material. He said, you know, I think you should try it. It'd be fun. And that's how I started doing comedy.

43:41Carol Leifer: I went to an open mic night and I got my number. And that's when I knew that I wanted to pursue stand-up comedy because as opposed to acting, Debbie, you know, and it's still what I love about stand-up. acting. It's like such a process with the headshots and you got to go to acting school and then you got to audition. And, you know, it's such a rigmarole of avenues that you need to take stand up comedy. You go to an open mic night and they tell you when you're on and you're on. And it's just like it was such a direct route into show business that I just loved it. And it's why I still love it. Nobody, how far technology goes, it's still the same process.

44:29Carol Leifer: You go on stage, and I forgot, is it Malcolm?

44:34Paul Tazewell: Gladwell, 10 ,000 hours.

44:36Carol Leifer: Yes, yes, yes. And you go on, and you go on, and you go on, and that's how you get good. And the first time I went on at this audition night, I mean, I just killed. And I thought, oh, my God, this is so amazing. And how easy. Oh, this is incredible. and it wasn't until the second time that I went back that I completely bombed so badly that I had invited friends from Binghamton to come because the first time I killed and I literally had a tape recorder on the table so I could hear my set where my friends were sitting and playing the tape back you can hear one of my friends from college during my horrific set going oh Oh, just mortified at how badly I was doing.

45:26Paul Tazewell: Kara Leifer. Finally, even though we released this episode a few weeks ago, I want to play a brief excerpt from my interview with Kate Menig and Leisha Haley. Kate played Shane and Leisha played Alice on The L Word, and they co-wrote a book called So Gay For You, friendship, found family, and the show that started it all. You both were drawn to the performing arts when you were kids. When did you each think you wanted to pursue acting professionally more seriously? I dreamt about it in high school and knew that not only did I want to leave Nebraska,

46:13Kate Moennig: but I wanted to move somewhere where I could make that happen. And I just started to look. I knew I wouldn't get into university. My grades weren't good enough. So I started looking at specific acting schools. And that's when I found the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and basically set my life on a course that was going to get me there no matter what.

46:36Leisha Hailey: It kind of dawned on me at a young age. I just watched movies my entire childhood. And my dad would show me things. Like I think I said in the book, the first film I saw when I was five was Alien. Yes. Because that just seemed to make sense in his brain. And he was like, it's a great film. It's a piece of art. We should watch it. It always fascinated me. And I thought that looks like fun to do. And I believe at one point my father's like, that's what your aunt does. And I said, oh, okay. I didn't think of it. And then like Leisha, I also didn't have the grades to get into a university. And I didn't want to go to one because my school was a college prep school and I was flailing there.

47:18Leisha Hailey: So when it was time to figure out where to go after high school, my mom was like, why don't you try a conservatory and do something you want to do? You've done your time with what was required. And that's how Leisha and I wound up at the same school, but at different, like maybe five years apart.

47:35Paul Tazewell: You mentioned your aunt. And I'm wondering if you can share this story about thinking that someone you were watching in a movie looked like your aunt.

47:46Leisha Hailey: Yeah, freshman year. I was in guidance class and Miss Gallagher wheels in the TV cart to watch something. And you're like, yes, this is a good day. And she said, all right, we're going to watch this movie. She says the name. It doesn't ring a bell. And she puts it on, turns off the lights. And I'm sitting there and I'm watching this film. and I'm looking at the woman who's playing the wife of the lead actor who was played by Robert Duvall and the whole time I'm like she looks familiar it's like why do I know that face and then at certain angles I think to myself she kind of looks like my dad but I don't know why that is and I just sat there sort of flummoxed for like the hour just not getting it and then later that night at the dinner table my my dad said how was your day and I said it was great we watched this movie but this woman looks so familiar to me and i just i just sort of took me out of it and i just i don't know why but i feel like i've seen the movie before i don't know something familiar about it and he said what was it called and uh i remember trying to think of the name because the name wasn't sticking to me and it finally landed and i said it's a movie called the great santini and that's when my dad just looked at me and he goes that's your aunt blithe she just was like what is your problem but there's so many angles to that story that i love i love

49:03Paul Tazewell: the fact that you didn't know that it was her but i also love the fact that apparently or clearly she wasn't walking around all highfalutin despite the fact that she was one of the great great actresses of her generation and and that you would you didn't know i think that's such a it's such a wonderful sort of appraisal of her in a lot of ways.

49:27Leisha Hailey: Yeah, to me she was just my auntie Bea, who held my head when I was little from getting car sick and going on car rides and would bring me backstage on her plays and just be always so warm and loving. She was just my aunt. I never looked at her as an actor. She was my dad's sister.

49:46Paul Tazewell: Kate Minnick and Leisha Haley. You can hear my full interview with them and the full interviews of everyone you've heard in this episode on designmattersmedia.com or wherever you love your podcasts. This is the 20th year we've been podcasting Design Matters, and I'd like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I'm Debbie Millman, and I look forward to talking with you again soon. And happy Pride, y 'all.

50:19Leisha Hailey: Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest running branding program in the world. The editor-in-chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Wyland.

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