477 - Bryce Dallas Howard On Being An Artist, Mother & Entrepreneur

0:00Bryce, thank you so much for coming on MarieTV. Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. It's very surreal. I feel like I've memorized every single thing on this set and, you know, and everyone that you work with are basically celebrities in my eyes. So this is, this is amazing. This is incredible. Well, I love that we're connected through B-School, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But first, I just wanted to let you know, the more that I get to learn about you, the more I fall in love with you. And that's why I was so excited to have you on the show today, because you have so many incredible stories that are so relevant for all of us as creatives.

0:35So let's take it back. Let's travel back in time. Okay. Most people know you for your knockout performances like in Jurassic World and The Help and so many other things that you've done. But what most people probably don't know is that you grew up with a learning disability. Yes, a few, actually. Yes. Can you tell us about? Yes, yeah. It was looking back on it. Obviously, it was like no fun sort of as it was happening. But looking back on it, I realized that it really, it was a wonderful gift in a lot of ways because in getting diagnosed with learning disabilities, in the going through school in a way that I actually loved school, I love my teachers, I love my friends, but it was very, very, very challenging for me and it was always a struggle to keep up.

1:23And the only way that I was able to keep up was getting very clear about what my strengths were. And so in hindsight, it was fantastic because people aren't strong at everything. Like they shouldn't be because we all need our specialized things that only we can do. Like what, you know, that special gift that only you have. And I think just going through all of that, I realized, okay, I'm very good at one thing. I'm pretty good at four or five things. and that's how I'm going to live my life. And it's been really wonderful. What exactly were your learning disabilities? Totally. So, um, so basically the way it all evolved was, um, when I was really happy kid, was always a happy kid and, and sweet and stuff.

2:14And so teachers liked me and everything. And so it always pained them so much to have to like bring my parents in and say, we don't know if she can go on to first grade, you know, stuff like that. Because I was working hard and they just, you know, they all wanted me to win. And it's the first kind of red flag was actually when I was in kindergarten going into first grade and just not being able to understand the concept of reading, not really understanding words or writing. And it was still early, but everyone could see that I was going to have significant reading difficulties. As I got older, it became clear that there were some other things as well.

2:56I mean, these are like technical terms. I have a processing deficiency, which is amazing because I got to take my SATs untimed. So that worked out for me. Um, but it is, is I need to take my time with certain things and that's just a reality. Um, and I, I, I think, I mean, I understand that it's considered a disability, but I don't feel that being thorough is a negative thing and I'm just thorough, you know? Um, and then there was also a visual processing deficiency, um, um, which is that basically I never know where I am at any time. And I can't really, we're going to get lost very easily. But as it applies to school, just conceptually, like I, if I look at a map of the United States of America, I know where California is.

3:49I know where Florida is. And I don't think I know where anything else is. I have a general sense of things, but it's just very difficult for me to, to understand. And I don't know if it's the geometry of it or what it is, but it's just, it's tricky for me. Yeah. So when I was, this all kind of came to a head when I was in seventh grade. And the pressure had been mounting in terms of my school went through ninth grade getting into a high school. And a lot of the kids at my school were really ambitious and they wanted to go to like Exeter and, you know, just like these very challenging academic high school programs.

4:33And my teachers were concerned. And so I went through a battery of tests and this is where I learned about the learning disabilities. But there were also things that came out of it where I realized what my strengths were and significant strengths. And so what it basically was was that my, again, I was in seventh grade. My math was at like a fourth grader's level. My spelling was at a second grader's level. I think it still is, frankly. Thank goodness for a spell check. Amen. Yes, for sure. And then, of course, you know, some challenges with time and understanding spatial things as well. But what came out of the test was that I am actually in the top 1 % of the world for common sense.

5:21It's called something a little bit fancier, but that's basically what it is. And then we also learned that as I grew older and things became more about the big picture rather than the little details, that my mind would work very well with that. So the therapists were always kind of consoling my parents and being like, just hang in with her. By the time she's an adult, this is all going to be okay. It's like she's not going to have to be putting together, I don't know, like grammatical structures and identifying the prepositions and identifying, you know, what the adverbs were. Like it's – that would be very hard for me still.

6:00But she can write a story. You know, she can tell a story. Like this is like don't worry about all of that. And again, spell check. Um, so anyway, what, uh, what, what worked out for me with this top 1 % of having common sense, my best friend at the time, who's still one of my closest friends, this incredible woman named Alice Lovett. And she, um, is a genius. She's like an off the charts genius, truly. And, um, and she, I basically did everything that she did. So like whatever she was interested in, I was interested in. And I admired her so much and I admired her intellect and her wit and her very weird interests in cinema.

6:44And like she got me into the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And so I mean, I just wouldn't really do anything that she would do. And she found this summer camp at Vassar, which was Summer Institute for the Gifted, where you could take college level courses. And she was really at that stage in seventh grade. And because she was going, I was like, I want to go. And my parents just kept saying, are you sure you want to go to school in the summer at a college? Like they were really worried. And I was like, no, no, no, I want to go with Alice. It's going to be so fun. And so I remember looking at the application because they were kind of like, if you want to do this, you need to do this by yourself because you probably won't want to do this.

7:24And you'll probably wise up and quit before you actually apply. And so I was sort of left on my own to figure out how to apply. And I remember looking at the application and it actually said, it asked for transcripts. It asked for all of this. But it said that if you are in the top one percentile in any area in a standardized test that's acknowledged by the school, you will gain admittance. You'll get to go in. And I busted out those scores from all my tests for learning disabilities. And I was like, top 1 % common sense. And I got in and I ended up going several years. And it was wonderful. And I actually did start to piece together that having common sense is sort of maybe the most important thing to have in life.

8:17And so I just kept kind of after going to a, you know, a summer program for the gifted. It completely, suddenly I was like, oh, I'm, I'm one of those gifted challenged people. Like that's, that's what I am. And, um, and it just, I reconceptualized kind of everything and, and, and, and I started to believe in myself again. Cause when I went to school, I wasn't the kid who was in special ed. I was the kid who was amongst these really impressive peers who were all taking college courses in their free time. And you probably felt inadequate. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I thought that I would feel inadequate.

8:57Well, not even. No, I think I was a little deluded. I think I felt inadequate at school. Yes. Yes, definitely I felt inadequate at school. But when I saw that I could get admitted from that one thing, I was like, I belong there. And I just started feeling really confident. And in ninth grade, I was put in English as a second language class, as my English class. And I don't speak a second language. And then by senior year, I won the English award in my high school. And so it was, there was definitely, there was definitely a kind of a significant journey that happened in a very short period of time during my youth.

9:45Well, it goes to show the power of recognizing a strength. Yes. Something that you can do, even if there are other areas that there are challenges. And that's why I was really interested to hear you tell that story, because I think so many of us can be in an environment where perhaps we're not good at everything. And we can start to have that self-talk that we're deficient, we're not good enough, we don't belong. And yet all it takes is that one discovery of something you are good at. And I will say, with common sense, it's really funny. My mom, who loves the show, and mom, I love you. She'll always like, A, she always wants to see more funnies.

10:17She wants to see me dancing more. But she's like, you know, everything you say is really common sense, right? And I'm like, yeah. You're kind of right. It is. So I do think it's good. Now, let's fast forward a little bit. Tell me about the trip that you took when you were 16 with your grandma and the very important lesson she taught you playing the nickel slots. Yes, yes, yes. So my grandparents, they grew up in Oklahoma during the Great Depression. And my grandfather's family, they were farmers. And my grandmother, her father was the town butcher. And his name was Butch. And that was his given name.

10:56Amazing. So that was his destiny. So they grew up in an environment where they really learned about the importance of frugality and the importance of hard work and perseverance, and that definitely impacted them significantly. And so just in their life overall, they were just these very Midwestern, zen, honorable individuals. And I admired both of them so much. And my grandfather's still with us, and I still admire him and look up to him. And, uh, and I would, any opportunity that I could get to spend time with them was, was something that I would just jump at. Um, so, so my grandmother and I in particular, we were very, very, very close.

11:44And when I was 16 years old, it's the age that you have to be in order to legally walk the floors in Vegas. You can't gamble yet, but you can actually be there. And, and my grandmother was so excited because she just loved Vegas. She would, she would, her cap would be$20. So she would not spend more than$20 there during the entire trip. And she would, um, use it all, uh, just in the nickel slot. So she would just, yeah, she would just get a big couple of nickels and she would play with it. And, um, and, and I think it's sort of symbolized, I think the whole notion of gambling overall symbolized sort of the industry that they had been in because they were, they were actors.

12:25And, um, and it's just a really kind of crazy, unwieldy, uncertain industry. Um, and, uh, and so basically what happened was I, I went with them and my grandmother was playing the slot machine and she was losing and yet she was still playing. And, um, she just, out of nowhere, she, I think she had the hunch that I wanted to be an actor. And she said to me, do you know how many auditions the average working actor needs to go on typically before booking a job? And this is the average for people who are paying their SAG dues. So they're making their living as actors. And I guessed one in 10. And she said to me, No, it's 64.

13:16One in 64 auditions. And it was just this clarifying moment for me to have an understanding of what the odds statistically were. It didn't, I feel like in creative businesses, there's so much romance. It's like this person did this one thing and then they skyrocketed to just never ending success or, you know, it's, it's, um, they did it within a year. They did it within three months. It's just these unicorn stories. Yes. Unicorn stories. And, and knowing the statistics is so grounding. And, um, so when I, when I later, I started auditioning, um, and incidentally my grandmother had retired for, um, from acting during the child rearing years with my, with my dad and my uncle and, and as the grandkids were being born.

14:11And she actually went back into acting, um, in her sixties. Love that. I know. And, um, and she, uh, this is how determined she was. She actually, she was counting the number of, of auditions she was going on and she got up to a hundred without booking a job. And then she's like, okay, I'm going to start the count over at one. And then, and then we'll see if I make it to 64. And then by 64, she did actually book a job. And then she had this tremendous hot streak for the last 10 years of her life. So when I started auditioning after kind of, you know, having an understanding of these odds and being very inspired by her stick-to-it-ness, I just started counting.

14:54So one audition, two auditions. and I promised myself I wasn't going to get upset if I didn't book something before 64 auditions because that would be diluted thinking because the reality is that's the average. And that's the average for a working actor. For a working actor. And you were just starting out. A successful actor. Yes, and I actually said to myself also, I was like, you know, and I think I'll do the same as my grandma. I'll get up to 100 and then start over again. And then, you know, if I go 200 auditions without anything, I might look around for some feedback and see what I could maybe do differently.

15:27and it was I believe the 48th audition for me was I got that job and my agent then who is still my agent today so we've worked together for 16 years she later asked me because it was a way over a year and she said how did you not quit she was like I don't want to offend you with this question But she said, I was really getting worried. And most actors quit long before you did. And I told her that story with my grandmother. And she went, whoa, yeah, that's true. I wish more artists knew that. I wish more creative people understood that because then they wouldn't be so hard on themselves. Yes. And when you're hard on yourself, unreasonably so, you just are going to, things are going to start kind of falling apart.

16:21You know, just something in your heart just, it can feel so sinking if you feel like you're the only one who's being rejected this much. Yes. You know, when you first told me that story, I actually passed it along to my stepson who's, you know, 22 and getting out there and going on auditions and doing all of it. And I just love that so much. And I think it's so applicable across many creative industries. People will often say, you know, Marie, you know, how long did it take when you were starting MarieTV? I'm like, well, first of all, like I was doing email broadcasts like way back in like the year 2000.

16:54And MarieTV has only been around, you know, for a couple of years. But for the first couple, it's like there wasn't that many. And there's still not that many views, but it's just it takes time. And it takes consistency. Yes. But when you're creating something from nothing, it does have to be about the work. which, you know, let's just lift over to something I was going to ask you later, but we can go here now. The power of day jobs. One of the questions we get so often is folks can feel like they're giving up on their dreams or their creative aspirations or their kind of stature as an artist if they have a day job.

17:28And I just think it's completely the opposite. So I'm curious to hear your point of view. Totally the opposite. I mean, it's, again, from my grandparents. I mean, they were really inspiring to me and they always supplemented their income and they didn't own a credit card until they were 50. And it was, I always saw examples of folks who were artists and fulfilled artists and enthusiastic artists who were making their living predominantly doing other work. You know, my grandmother was a seamstress. She worked in education. You know, it's something, I think it's something to be proud of when you are choosing to keep a job in order to provide for yourself and to provide for your family and to create a strong financial foundation that you'll be able to stand on for the rest of your life.

18:27That is so powerful, strategically so smart and dignified. And I do, I think there's this gross misconception of, yes, this idea that you were talking about that people feel like they're giving up on their dreams. Yes. If they're doing that. Or they're not a real artist or they don't. And it's like, no, no, no. That makes you such a smart artist. And perhaps for some of us, there's a day that comes, perhaps. Yes. That your art can provide for you. But none of us ever know what's going to happen. And as you know, in your business and I know in ours and in almost every industry, there are seasons.

19:03Yes. You know, things go up and down. And I love that. I feel like that message needs to get out there. There is no shame in hard work, in dignified work, whatever you need to do to take care of yourself and your family and be able to fund your art as well. Yeah, it's only going to empower you. You know, financial stability will provide you the opportunity to be dedicated to your work. And none of us do art like 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Like it's not, that's, that's actually, that that's unrealistic. And so there's this also this other notion that it will take up time or whatever. And it's, it's just, it's, even if it takes up some of the time, financial planning is career planning.

19:47Like that's, that's what it is. You're just committed to creating a base for yourself so that you can leverage your career. And, I mean, for myself, I worked all through high school because my parents wonderfully, they took care of college, which is huge because student loans are just awful. Out of control. Yeah. But I did need to support my, you know, I needed to figure out my apartment situation and food and, like, all of that and living expenses. And then the moment I left school, you know, like, done. Yeah. And so I knew this. I knew that there was like no trust fund on the horizon or anything.

20:27And so when I was 14, I started working as a waitress. I had to get a permission slip from my parents because I was underage. And then I worked in a factory that was an allergy control product center. And I was on the assembly line putting swatches of fabric in these pamphlets. She loved that job because I always got to watch movies. And so it was like, you know, totally immersed in these wonderful films. And then all through college, I was a nanny part-time to the same family. I worked as an assistant teacher at a daycare for several years in the East Village. I was a dog walker. Uh, I worked as a dresser for, um, uh, a gay cabaret show downtown that, um, that my roommate at the time was the stage manager for.

21:20And so she, she got me that job. Um, and I, I really, I did that all throughout college. They were flexible jobs. I was really lucky. That's why I wanted to have so many. Um, and, uh, and I left school with not an enormous financial foundation, but a substantial amount of, um, kind of emergency savings. Yeah. Basically. And so I decided to keep those jobs. And I mean, I was, I was acting on Broadway and, um, and, you know, calling the parents of the kids I was watching and saying, okay, so yeah, like during intermission, okay, so yeah, tomorrow I can come at nine o 'clock. That's great. And then coordinating with the dog walking, you know, my dog walking clients and all of that.

22:11And it's, and it also, it just, it took away so much of the fear and so, so much fear happens around the pressure of supporting yourself. And when you take that out of the equation, and again, it's like difficult for me to say this even because I'm someone who comes from a certain amount of privilege. And I'm always kind of hesitant to share this because people are, you always had a safety net and all that kind of stuff. And listen, that is true. Yeah. I mean, my mom made us believe that there was no safety net, but God forbid we had that. And that's huge. Yeah. But that didn't mean that I wasn't entirely responsible for taking care of myself.

22:57And I'm just, it freed me. It absolutely freed me. I did all this crazy experimental theater. I did just all this work that folks were like, oh, you might not get hired again from doing that. And I was sort of, there was a, I felt a lightness. Because I was like, I'm not going to starve tomorrow. Yes. I'm not going to be homeless next week. Because you were working your buns off and you were doing what you had to do. If you're working harder every year but still earning the same or less, something's got to change. And that something isn't your work ethic. It's your strategy. Because if your business is like this sinking ship, there ain't no amount of hustle that's going to turn that around.

23:42But here's what will. Well, join me February 10th through 12th for a free online event called Dream Business Bootcamp. You're going to get a proven road-tested formula to earn a lot more money without burning out. And the best part, it is totally free, but you got to register to get access. So click below, grab your spot, because you and I both know you deserve better. There's something else that you've experienced that countless, if not millions of women experience after you had your baby Theo. Yes. You went through a really difficult time with postpartum. And there's an article on Goop that you wrote that I thought was just gorgeous.

24:20And what you shared, you said, postpartum is hard to describe the way the body and mind and spirit fracture and crumble in the wake of what most believe should be a celebratory time. And that people often choose silence because it's so hard to share how we really feel. Why was it so important for you to talk about that experience so publicly? Well, it's interesting because I wasn't prepared to talk about it. And Gwyneth Paltrow was just starting Goop. And we knew each other through mutual friends. And I had been reading everything that she's been putting up. And I have a lot of respect for her.

25:00And she reached out to me and said, and she knew that I had gone through postpartum, you know, because we're in the same group. And somewhat, it's like weird for me to say that. Like we have like, we share like two or yeah, yeah. We have mutual friends. But she had gone through that as well. And she asked if I would share it for, you know, for Goop. And I said, of course, yes, I will. And then I kind of sat down to start writing it. And I was like, oh, this is really intense. Like I, at that point, I hadn't been in therapy. I just hadn't been kind of addressing it because it was just so heartbreaking to me.

25:38It was so devastating that the thing that I was looking forward to most in my life ended up being this very complicated, just really depressing situation where I loved my child with all of my heart. And yet when I was in a room with him, I just wanted to disappear. And it's a weird, like that's such a weird concept. It's so strange. And so it was very difficult for me to write about it. And I'm really, really so glad that I did because it was able, like I was able to kind of process some of those feelings. And through just various drafts of it, I was like, oh, yeah, this is what I was feeling.

26:17This is what was troubling me. And it was kind of this, just that process of getting it down led me to insights that helped kind of get me out of it. it's so hard because it's, it's, you can even equate it to business stuff as well, because it's like you, when you achieve things that you've dreamed of your whole life, but you're going through a difficult time or you're going through a health crisis or you, you know, or, or whatever it is that's kind of under, that undermines that experience. It can, it can flatten you. It, it flattened me for sure, because I was also, I was also a pretty young mom and I had sort of a black and white view of things.

27:01And, um, and to feel like I was just completely failing at the most important thing that I had ever done, like 15 minutes after giving birth, because I felt it immediately, like instantaneously. Um, it was really, it was very, very difficult to navigate that. And it's something also that I, I don't know if this is the right thing to say, but it's like I never fully healed from it. And that's also a thing that is difficult to admit, too. I mean, I remember one of my dear friends, his wife passed away very suddenly, and she was in her early 40s. And when I went to the funeral, he was wearing the same, they were Jewish, and according to the traditions, he was wearing the same clothes that he was in when she died.

28:03And with his rabbi, they had ripped the clothes. So he was there at the funeral and ripped clothes. And the rabbi explained that the symbolism behind that is that there are things in life where you get ripped apart and your soul gets ripped apart and it cannot come together. But you can mend it. You can see it in a different way. You can move through that experience with grace. But it's still going to always be like that. And so that was the hardest part was kind of I was someone who always felt like I could kind of overcome things and move on from them. And this is just, I mean, it's something that still comes up, just the grief, the grief around it.

28:50But that's the stuff of life. That's what happens. It is. It is what happens. And that's why I was so just, I felt such a connection with you. Even though I'm not a mom in the traditional sense, I was so happy. And I always get so happy to hear women tell their stories and their most vulnerable stories because it is so important. And I think in our culture, that places such an emphasis on celebrity and social media and the glossiness of things where things, you know, can just look so perfect. And, you know, we'll have that with our show, too. And I'm like, dude, you see me on the street or like that, you know, the day you and I had lunch, like we have our hair up in buns.