"Halle Berry"

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Speaker 1 Guys, I have an idea to open the show today. Why don't we count down from 10? Each of us take a number.
I'll start. Ready? 10.
That's the greatest idea I've ever heard. Nine, eight, seven, six, five.

Speaker 1 What are we doing? Four.

Speaker 2 The worst opening ever. He got a nomination, remember?

Speaker 1 Three, two.

Speaker 1 I knew I was going to end on one. Yes.

Speaker 1 This is smartless.

Speaker 1 Oh my God. Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 2 Will, Will, Will, Will, look what's going on. I mean, you've got the headphones are over the head, but it's not hiding the great haircut you got.

Speaker 1 Look at that. You know who gave me this haircut? Guess who?

Speaker 1 Eli.

Speaker 2 The master. Eli gave me this.

Speaker 1 The master of the scissors. Two people.
I let two people cut my hair. Now, let me ask you something.
What is Eli? Hang on. Let me finish Sean about we're talking about my hair.
Sean cuts. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 Are Are you adding

Speaker 1 Sean? Get over here for one second.

Speaker 1 Sean, can I talk to you? So Eli, who, by the way, Eli's got his new, my buddy, who's our buddy, who's got, he's got that new brush that he makes that is so gorgeous.

Speaker 2 Oh, well, let's plug it.

Speaker 1 What's it called?

Speaker 1 Vou deja. Deja vu.
I think that's what it's called. Yeah, I think, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's his.

Speaker 2 Vous deja.

Speaker 1 There's a label brush. By the way, I gave those.
No, wait a second. It's not even an endorsement.

Speaker 1 I'm just, I gave them to everybody in my family, all the ladies of my life, my sisters, my mom, and everybody loves it. First of all, how is one

Speaker 2 supposed to Google that and send Eli some money for one of these things? How do you spell vou dejas?

Speaker 1 You spell it with a V, I guess.

Speaker 1 God, I'm such a bad friend.

Speaker 2 I could be a better friend.

Speaker 1 Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this.

Speaker 1 When you take your headphones off with that brand new gorgeous haircut, will you restyle your hair or will you just walk out the door

Speaker 1 with the indentation still over your head? I'm going to.

Speaker 1 He's going to decide after he looks in the mirror.

Speaker 1 It's pretty messy. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know.
I'll just kind of leave it.

Speaker 2 Bless his heart. He's googling how to spell vou deja.
I don't know. He's wasting the listener's time.
Listen, just take a compliment and stop slinging brushes, okay?

Speaker 2 You look great, and I think you should continue your relationship with Eli.

Speaker 1 With Eli, and then the other one is Kevin Woon. You know, Kevin, my buddy.
No.

Speaker 2 Never met him, never. In New York.

Speaker 1 No, I don't know. He's tremendous.

Speaker 2 You don't talk about him a lot. Kevin, he never talks about you.

Speaker 1 That's not true, Kevin. Well, do we? Why don't I mention? I guess I got to mention the guy who cuts my hair, Skevo.

Speaker 2 Hey, Skevo, I've been doing this podcast for a little over a year with Sean P. Hayes.

Speaker 2 I've never seen him without a hat on, so he's not feeling super confident.

Speaker 1 That's a ringing endorsement. I know, you know why? Because it takes so long to do my fucking hair.

Speaker 2 Okay, you need a better haircut.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Voujade. Voujade.
Voujade. Voujade.

Speaker 2 And how do you spell voujade?

Speaker 1 V-u-j-a-d-e. Okay, nobody.
All right. By the way, they're really good.
They're really good brushes.

Speaker 2 Is there a smartless discount for the business?

Speaker 1 Yeah, of course. What are we doing? Yeah, just mention smartless and and give me ten dollars off anything.
That's not true, that's not true. By the way, that's not true.
It's true.

Speaker 1 There is no, I know, we I'm kidding. Sean, now you're you're the guy who cuts your hair, the person who cuts your hair.
Skevo. Excuse Skevo.
And he has he has the power of sight.

Speaker 1 Or does he just feel his way through it?

Speaker 1 What's the deal?

Speaker 1 I gotta see him again. And he does it, and he does it over Zoom.
Sean is so

Speaker 2 charitable this Sean. He wills it.
He's such a nice man.

Speaker 1 Doesn't mean you know Skevo, right, Jay? Yeah.

Speaker 2 No, no. What? Don't tell me.

Speaker 1 Yes, you do.

Speaker 1 Wait, Skevo's cut your hair. Wait, what word are you saying? You keep saying Skevo.
Like, you can't. I would remember Skevo.
What are you saying, Skevo? That's his S-K-E-V-O. Skevo.

Speaker 2 Is that first or last name?

Speaker 1 Skevo. It's Greek.
It's his first name. Okay.
It's Greek. And he's cut your hair, Jay.

Speaker 2 No, he hasn't.

Speaker 1 Yes, he has.

Speaker 2 I don't think so.

Speaker 1 Yes, years ago he did.

Speaker 2 Oh, years ago.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, I believe it, like a couple years ago.
God.

Speaker 1 Sean, I like the idea that Sean went to the guy because he said, yeah, I cut Jason Bateman's hair. Well, no, because he, you know, he cuts.
Is he a celebrity haircutter?

Speaker 1 He works out from a salon, a Chris McMillan salon. Oh, he works with Chris McMillan.

Speaker 2 I love that Chris McMillan.

Speaker 2 Well, listen, I'd like to...

Speaker 2 find out what kind of guest you've got up your sleeve, Willie. Pretty great.

Speaker 2 I hope that your guest is a little bit more interesting than us, Nimrods.

Speaker 1 Our guest is very interesting and has led a big life and has been an important

Speaker 1 actor and artist for many, many years.

Speaker 1 Our Mr. Guest is from Cleveland, Ohio, originally.

Speaker 1 Her mother is from one of my favorite cities, Liverpool, England, where, because, as you guys know, I'm a big Liverpool supporter.

Speaker 1 She started her career as

Speaker 1 a model and then quickly got into into the acting game to much acclaim. She's got

Speaker 1 a primetime Emmy. She's got Golden Globes.
She's got an Academy Award for Best Actor, Best Actress. I don't want to get it, I feel like if I give off too many credits, I'm going to give it away.

Speaker 1 She's incredibly talented, and now she's transferring all her talents to the directing game. Her new film is Bruised that's coming out on Netflix.

Speaker 1 Guys, it's Hallie Berry. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 Halle Berry.

Speaker 2 Hallie Berry.

Speaker 1 Hi.

Speaker 1 How crazy is this? So cool.

Speaker 1 Hi.

Speaker 2 Your mother's from England and you're from Ohio. How does that happen?

Speaker 1 I didn't know your mom was from England.

Speaker 3 Exactly. How the fuck did that happen to me?

Speaker 2 My mom's from England, too. Not a lot of people understand that.

Speaker 1 Really? Yes. Where?

Speaker 2 Where are any of them?

Speaker 1 Shrewsbury. Oh, Shrewsbury.
Shrewsbury. Doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 We're not here to interview you, Jason. We're here to talk to you.

Speaker 1 It's so nice to see you.

Speaker 1 Did you, wait, speaking of, since we're on that subject, did she have dumb question, did she have an accent and did you grow up with that accent inside the house?

Speaker 3 She didn't have an accent, really, and I didn't grow up with it. It was a liverpuddling accent.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 no, I didn't grow up with that accent.

Speaker 2 No, isn't that the one? Is that the one where they talk about they have different words for stairs? And

Speaker 2 or is that Cockney?

Speaker 1 Is that

Speaker 3 Cockney? Yeah, well, they say bravo and talk like that.

Speaker 1 If you're from Liverpool, you're a proper scouser, is what you say.

Speaker 1 But how different would we think of you, Allie, if you had a Liverpoolian accident? That would be

Speaker 1 a whole new thing for you.

Speaker 2 I bet you can do it.

Speaker 1 Hallie, thank you for joining us. Oh, my gosh.
Now, look, we've only met a couple times through our mutual friend Jeff,

Speaker 1 whom we both adore. Yes.

Speaker 3 Thank God we have Jeff.

Speaker 1 Thank God for Jeff, right? I only have...

Speaker 3 any of my money because I had Jeff.

Speaker 1 I know. Same with me.

Speaker 3 I'd be broke if I didn't have Jeff.

Speaker 2 Jeff Wollman. Do we have any contact information you want to give our listeners?

Speaker 1 I I need to say Jeff Woolman, but he is one. By the way, Jason, you should know, and I think you know this, Jeff is maybe the number one fan of Smartless since day one.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 He is a huge, huge fan, and his son, Yale, and Les. They're all the whole Woolman family who are amazing people.

Speaker 2 Well, thank you to them.

Speaker 3 And I just want to say, I'm happy to talk to you, Nimrods. I mean, I heard you.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Well,

Speaker 2 you have a right to rescind that by the time we're done.

Speaker 3 No, this podcast is badass. And I know about it because of Jeff also.
We talk about it.

Speaker 2 This is going to be the worst interview you've you've ever had. I guarantee it.

Speaker 1 I have to tell you the stupid bit that I used to do.

Speaker 1 There's this burger joint in Pasadena, and they sell burgers and pies. And on the list on the wall, you can order raspberry pie, strawberry pie, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 And there's a berry called a Lally Berry. And so I would say, hey, me and my friend would do this bit for like a half an hour.
Hey, what was the name of that girl who has played Dorothy Dandrich?

Speaker 1 She was so, oh, Lally Berry. And we'd do it for a half an hour.

Speaker 1 You guys would do half an hour, huh? Yeah,

Speaker 1 we'd go through all of your credits and say, who was that girl? Oh, that's right. It was Olali Berry.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you clearly got it.

Speaker 2 It's good, clean, fun, Sean.

Speaker 1 So, Hallie, walk us through. You're a kid from Cleveland, and then you win the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Speaker 1 And one of the things I love about when you won for Monstrous Ball, which was so amazing and you were incredible, was that you had had just done not long before that, Dorothy Dandrich for HBO, which was a story about the first African-American woman nominated for an Academy Award.

Speaker 1 And then you become the first African-American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Speaker 1 How surreal was that? Yeah.

Speaker 3 That was really surreal. You know, I felt like in some way, like not to get all, ooh,

Speaker 3 there was a mission there that I was carrying out. You know, there was something that I was finishing, you know, there was business that I had to sort of finish for her.

Speaker 3 I always felt a kindred spirit to her in some way. And probably being a little girl, watching her as a kid, seeing myself reflected, I always saw myself in her in that strange way.

Speaker 3 So to then be the person to bring that full circle, you know, I knew that it was bigger than me and it had something to do with something that I was carrying out, a mission that I was on.

Speaker 3 You know, I believe in destiny and that

Speaker 3 we have free will, but some things are just destined to be. I really believe that.
And I think that was one of those things.

Speaker 2 You, before that, were doing such a great job, whether it was intentional or not, in sort of straddling sort of commercial and artistic stuff, like, you know, kind of fancy things as well as stuff that sells popcorn.

Speaker 2 And then you win that Academy Award. Did it kind of

Speaker 2 complicate your decision process now that it was like, oh, well, now she's, now everything's got to be fancy now. And all the scripts that came in, I bet they were all director driven and things.

Speaker 3 Like, how did you, what was the, the, the, the talking like with your team about well what should we keep the same balance should we forget popcorn like how what what was that like well here's a funny thing jason no scripts came in really come on come on really no really i really was disillusioned i thought oh this the the highest award of our industry is now going to garner me better opportunity right greater chances to work with all those directors, but literally nothing changed.

Speaker 3 Like the script truck didn't back up to my front door.

Speaker 1 Why is that?

Speaker 3 Because the truth is, you know, there was still no way for people of color. Like, there weren't scripts written for us in that way.
Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 That was on the level of what my talent had risen to. You know, they just weren't out there.
We weren't thought of in that way.

Speaker 3 And it was a hard, you know, coming to terms with the reality of what awards mean and awards don't mean. You know, so that didn't change my life one bit.
I still had to work.

Speaker 3 I still had what I had to go through to even direct my first movie.

Speaker 3 If I tell you, like your head would blow off. So I feel like, you know, that award means different things for different people.

Speaker 3 If you ask Nicole Kidman, she might have a different reality on what that award meant for her. But it didn't mean that for me.

Speaker 3 But, but it didn't, I didn't get offered all these wonderful scripts with these great directors, but yet I had the expectation to only do award-winning performances.

Speaker 1 How frustrating.

Speaker 3 Frustrating because how do we even know what creates an award-winning role? Like if we all could create a fucking Oscar winning award, wouldn't we all do it?

Speaker 1 Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 But you, you definitely grease the rails, though, probably for more women of color to be considered for that type of recognition, those types of roles.

Speaker 2 And even the movement that I think followed that, I could be totally wrong here.

Speaker 2 I'm not a student of movie history, but you know, the notion that, well, even though this part is written for someone who might be white or actually

Speaker 2 not even race specific,

Speaker 2 people started thinking of, well, well, why can't we make this character of color? Why can't we just change the whole sex of this character? Is that true?

Speaker 1 It happens all the time. Is that true, Hallie?

Speaker 3 Yes, that's absolutely true. So, when people, you know, say to me, well, there's never, you know, another black woman standing beside you winning, I say, no.

Speaker 3 And that while that's heartbreaking, what I do know that moment changed is just what you said, Jason. You know, if you look at our evolution from 20 years ago into now, black women are everywhere.

Speaker 3 They're in all kinds of roles. And like you said, they're taking roles for men and changing them into women.
And we're, you know, becoming more inclusive.

Speaker 3 And we have gotten far in 20 years since that Academy Award. And I do think that moment inspired so many people to think differently and to believe that

Speaker 3 anything was possible. And if you worked hard, you know, you could achieve a goal that you had.
So in that way, I feel very much like it mattered.

Speaker 1 Do you think with your new film and now that you're directing and you're sort of creating opportunity for yourself in the same way, hopefully you're going to create a new lane for women of color to start directing themselves more and directing more films?

Speaker 1 Do you kind of feel a burden sometimes? Or not a burden, but like you've got to take on that role of the person who's breaking the mold a little bit?

Speaker 1 You know, I don't really feel like I have to take it on.

Speaker 3 I want to take it on because I'm capable of taking it on. You know, and so therefore I should take it on because it's what inspires me.
It's what drives me. Right.

Speaker 3 So, you know, I think that as women, we live in new times. We live in, you know, a time where, you know, it's hard to really,

Speaker 3 we can fight now and actually not just fight, you know, for naught. We can really make inroads today.
It's not easy.

Speaker 3 You know, making my film was really, really hard and raising money to do it and all the hoops I had to jump through. But guess what? I did it.
20 years ago, I don't know if I even could have done it.

Speaker 3 No matter how hard I tried and how much I wanted it, I don't know if I would have been given the opportunity, you know, if people would have allowed me to do it. Right.

Speaker 1 Have you had the fortunate experience of meeting younger uh girls of color that that come up to you and say oh my gosh you know you did it for me you made me think it was possible and because of these stories that you're saying this 20 years it took me to get this film out there now now you've paved the way for them to hopefully make it an ounce easier Yeah, and I feel that in spades.

Speaker 3 I get that a lot. And that's always really gratifying and satisfying.
And it reminds me that, you know, I'm doing my part.

Speaker 3 I think throughout history, we all just carry the ball as far as we can in hopes that the younger generation picks it up and that they go even farther.

Speaker 3 It's kind of like, you know, what we wish for our children. We always want our children to be better, smarter, you know, go farther than we could.
It's the same idea.

Speaker 2 How have you found that, you know, I know something that Will struggles with,

Speaker 2 his looks sometimes get in the way of people taking him seriously, you know, because he's distractingly handsome and the shoulders, the back, everything like that.

Speaker 1 It's tough.

Speaker 1 Do you feel like by the way, expand on that if you'd like to, Hallie? I have all the time in the world for you.

Speaker 3 Will, you are gorgeous.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 3 I don't really know how gorgeous you were until I saw you on the street.

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 1 Don't cut her off. Hallie is complimenting me.
Are you out of your mind?

Speaker 2 But honestly,

Speaker 2 all the advantages I'm sure that being

Speaker 2 one of the world's great beauties can bring you, I'll bet it sometimes hurts as well when

Speaker 2 you're looking to be taken seriously. And

Speaker 2 we've traditionally grown up like

Speaker 2 the academics or the smart people.

Speaker 2 They're supposed to have glasses on and they're supposed to be, you know, really learned and all that.

Speaker 2 But all of the knowledge that you have from the years of set experience, the ease and the comfort, the skill that you have to lead on a set, I'm sure, is

Speaker 2 incredible. Do you ever get the sense that, you know,

Speaker 2 if I if I had a little pocket protector with pens in it, people would listen a little bit closer?

Speaker 3 Well, first of all, Will, you and I don't have glasses.

Speaker 1 I don't know what that means. No, we don't.
We don't. We don't.
Sean and Jason do. Oh, you do have some glasses.
No, no, no, no, no. I don't wear glasses.
I don't wear glasses.

Speaker 1 I'm young because I'm young. Go ahead, Hallie.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you know, that's true. This is always a tricky question for me to answer because people say, oh, it's so hard for you to be considered beautiful.
Like, poor you.

Speaker 3 But at the end of the day, you know, something that is really frustrating for me, people always come up to me and they say, you're so beautiful.

Speaker 3 But you know, the truth is, I long for someone to come up and say, you're talented.

Speaker 3 Or you're a good mother. or I saw you fought for that, you know, Senate Bill 606 to stop paparazzi from harassing kids.
And that was amazing.

Speaker 3 You know, I wish, but I always just get you're beautiful. And I have felt reduced by that my whole life.
And I have tried to fight through that and prove.

Speaker 3 And I got to tell you, I'm tired at 55, I'm tired of trying to prove and fight through and, you know, put my intellect on display all the time and the pressure to do that. I just want to be.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Trying to counter it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, trying to counter that. And yeah, you know, has it been a great thing in my life for people to say you're beautiful? I don't know what woman wouldn't want to feel beautiful, you know? So

Speaker 3 it's almost, it's hard for me to even talk about it.

Speaker 1 It's a form of bias. Yeah.

Speaker 3 It is full of bias. If people think that if they're rich and have a lot of money, they're going to be happy.

Speaker 3 But ask anybody who's rich, that doesn't make you happy. The same thing.

Speaker 3 If people think you're beautiful, it doesn't mean you're happy or that you have any, you get opportunities before the next person, or that any part of your life has been made easier because you're considered beautiful.

Speaker 3 It's just not true.

Speaker 1 Hallie, I get it because I'm both beautiful and rich. And so that's even a double.
So

Speaker 1 I get it. But let me just,

Speaker 1 JK, JK, JK. But I want you to hear this.
I hope you can hear when I say this. You're so talented.
Yes. And you're so good at what you do.
And you've been doing it at such a high level for so long.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Incredibly admirable.

Speaker 2 You can't trick anybody with that amount of logic.

Speaker 1 Go ahead. Go ahead.
Keep saying it. Keep saying it.
Come on. Come on.
Come on, Jay.

Speaker 2 It's true.

Speaker 1 We know that because we know your talent. We know you're all those things because we are in the same industry together.
But I know what you mean about just people coming up off the street or whatever.

Speaker 1 And they're being very kind. But yeah, they need to.

Speaker 3 Or don't say anything.

Speaker 3 I'd rather people not say anything than just keep objectifying me and talking about the superficial part of what I am when I've been busting my butt all these years trying to be more than that I continue to be reduced to that I'd rather them just say nothing

Speaker 1 but one of the other admirable qualities that you have I that I love about you is that that the handful of times I've met you and just what I hear from other people that we know in common

Speaker 1 is what a down-to-earth grounded person you are and I think that that's a real testament to who you who you are inside because it's not something you're born you're always the same you are you are you know legitimately you in a great way, and

Speaker 1 you're not affected by it because it would be, it's not hard. As we know, we all know a lot of people in this town.
It's not hard to be affected by all the bells and whistles and stuff.

Speaker 1 Sean is a shell. He's a husk of a person.

Speaker 1 You know, look at him. Yeah, I am dying to come out of it.
We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 And now, back to the show. Wait, I have something to ask you that it's so funny.
I'm here in New York, and I just had some theater.

Speaker 1 Are you in your other home? Yeah, my other home to watch TV. Will says you just have a second home to watch TV.

Speaker 1 Sean bought a new house, and we FaceTimed, and he's in there, and I could see Scotty, his husband in the background watching TV. I said, he's like, we're in our new apartment.

Speaker 1 And I said, just another place to watch TV.

Speaker 1 So true. But we were all sitting here talking about that.

Speaker 1 This is a little bit of a depressing question and topic, but we're all kind of sitting around talking about how actors got through the pandemic and being here in New York and that the feeling is who are you as an artist when you're not doing the thing you're supposed to do?

Speaker 1 So, right?

Speaker 1 So we have, we just, I just, right before this podcast, we just had this long discussion about figuring out like who you are and your purpose when you're not acting and you're an actor, who are you?

Speaker 1 Right. And so what are some of those things that fill you up? You just named a few of them, but what got you through or gets you through those waves of not working?

Speaker 3 Oh, well, since I became a mother, it's my motherhood. I mean, you know, that's the hardest job any of us will do is be a parent, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So

Speaker 3 I became so.

Speaker 3 involved with my children in a whole new way when the pandemic hit because why? We all had time to. They were home.

Speaker 1 I was home. We were all home.

Speaker 3 I became a homeschool teacher. You know, they,

Speaker 3 we had to find things to do within the house. Our creativity went to a higher level.
We became closer as a family. My two, you know, my daughter is 13, my son is seven.

Speaker 3 They actually found ways to start getting along because they had to actually talk to each other.

Speaker 3 You know, they were each other's friends. So it was that I like to paint.
I'm an artist. So I had more time to draw and paint and create and write.

Speaker 1 It's almost like it forces yourself to. create in new ways, right? Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 And Sean, you really worked on your ability to powder and swaddle Scotty too, right?

Speaker 1 And I think we all found good. Jason, you met your kids during the pandemic.
That was nice, right? Yeah, I've got two. You got two.

Speaker 1 You found the second one.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, there's a nine-year-old in the bedroom next to her.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 There's two of them. They're so great.

Speaker 1 The door was always locked. That's so weird.
I do like that idea, though, that you find that, and this is a theme that we have heard from a lot of people. We've all talked about it too.

Speaker 1 And Hallie, you just touched on it, that in these moments, you got to try to find, look for the positive and look for the daylight, look for the things that work.

Speaker 1 Focus on the things that, and of course, again, it goes without saying, of course, it was a very, it's been a very dark time and a lot of people have suffered a lot and there's been a lot of loss of life.

Speaker 1 And so we don't mean to minimize that at all. But

Speaker 1 in those other moments, looking for the stuff that does work and focusing on the positive stuff. Yes.
And I don't know, but that works for me too. For my family.
Wait, I didn't know you did that.

Speaker 1 thing about the paparazzi in the Congress. What is that? When was that? And what, what, talk to me about that because that's such an important thing.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that was in 2013. I don't know.
You might not know this, but I had such, my daughter really had such a hard time in the early part of her life. We were stalked and harassed by the paparazzi.

Speaker 3 She was so scared she wouldn't leave the house. She didn't want to leave the backyard.
She didn't want to go to school.

Speaker 3 She would always say she was afraid of the men out there and she would get the shivers and she would cry. And, you know, it was really, really hard.

Speaker 3 And I went through this child custody case to try to move to France because I realized that the laws in France were different than the laws in America.

Speaker 3 And the paparazzi, not that they couldn't take pictures and

Speaker 3 realize their amendment rights, but they didn't have the right to stalk and lay in wait and chase and terrorize and come so close to you and shout obscenities and all kinds of things that they were allowed to do here in the States.

Speaker 3 So I tried to move to France for a better life,

Speaker 3 got denied that. So when I lost that case, I thought, I got to then change the law.
But I thought, how am I going to do that? Like George Clooney had tried, Brad Pitt had tried.

Speaker 3 People had tried to deal with this paparazzi situation, but to no avail.

Speaker 3 but it's funny how when when you absolutely have to do something for a greater purpose than yourself this was for my daughter i saw her unraveling i was afraid of how this would affect her you know moving forward psychologically like she was a guinea pig i felt and i thought i gotta i have to fix this so i went up to sacramento i met all these lobbyists raised money paid a lot of them because that's what you have to do, I realize.

Speaker 3 And I got in there and Adele came to my rescue. She reached out to me.
A lot of my peers, everybody said they hated it.

Speaker 3 But when it came down to actually putting their money where their mouth was and going to Sacramento and testifying, nobody wanted to go.

Speaker 3 All these moms and people that said, I hate this, I hate this, crickets. Nobody wanted to show up other than Adele.

Speaker 1 Name names. Name names.

Speaker 3 Well, I'll tell you the ones that did show up and then assume all the other ones didn't.

Speaker 1 That's hilarious. Totally.
So

Speaker 3 Adele showed up. She wrote $100,000.
She called me up out of the blue. I hear what you're doing, Hallie.
I want to give. She gave me $100,000 just for the cause.

Speaker 3 And my dear friend, Jennifer Gardner, she showed up and she went to testify with me.

Speaker 3 And so the three of us fought this fight and got the law changed.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I do remember seeing that.

Speaker 1 What a powerful image to have you guys together finding that. I remember it, but I didn't remember what the result of that was.

Speaker 3 what did it change from and what is it now yeah what it what what it was what I just said they could lay in wait they could chase they could become very close to us they could shout obscenities whatever we couldn't take away their First Amendment right obviously but what we argued for was If you're gonna steal these photographs, at least do it in a way that the kids don't know it, they don't feel harassed, and they're not terrorized.

Speaker 3 So they had to be 100 feet away. They couldn't sit outside our house.

Speaker 3 And every time we pulled out of the driveway, they couldn't like start a convoy and follow us for our entire day they couldn't do that anymore they couldn't after they got a photo they had to leave now right away people thought well nobody's gonna adhere to this so what happened to me right after the you know we passed the bill the judgment was done it happened to me the very next day and it's the way the paparazzi they were testing me are you really does this law really have legs or is this bullshit and right away that very next day i had the police there i was

Speaker 3 within my rights. That guy got sent to jail.
Like, so they started to realize this really does have legs.

Speaker 3 But the big reason i think it had legs was people like jess cagle people that were editors of these magazines that traditionally paid a lot of money for these children that put this high price tag on these kids head they because of this movement realized you know what it's our responsibility to take the price tag off these kids head so they stopped buying these photographs at these astronomical amounts of money and so it sort of worked in tandem once the bill was passed the editors you know felt their humanity in some way and and a shift happened.

Speaker 1 That's so cool. That's cool.
Sean, you used to wait outside the paparazzi's house. Yeah.
And they'd come out and you'd go, guys, I'm here. And they're like, oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Please.

Speaker 2 You know, is it just the fact that

Speaker 2 COVID has happened and all the celebrities are wearing masks now that the paparazzi has sort of gone away? Because I haven't seen them waiting around the usual spots or following the usual people.

Speaker 2 I certainly don't get bothered whatsoever.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 the normal spots, I don't see them anymore.

Speaker 2 Does it have to do, is it a combination of those things? Or what's your understanding of the current paparazzi health?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think it's a combination, but I think it stopped long ago. That culture kind of died like in 2014, 15, after the bill passed and the editors got on board.
It sort of passed.

Speaker 3 And you know what, Jason, what you said, it doesn't happen to you. It primarily happens to women.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. Exactly.

Speaker 3 Primarily happens to women and children, which was also egregious.

Speaker 1 I noticed a big difference with my ex-wife, Amy, would have. There were a lot of pictures with the kids, and she'd go to the grocery store or whatever.

Speaker 1 And my kids had that same thing, which is they hated those guys, would come up and get in their face. And then it, because of what you did, and I remember when you did that, I wanted to go with you.

Speaker 1 I was really busy that weekend.

Speaker 1 But I will say the other thing, the real thing, Jason, kind of to what you're saying, what's shifted is a lot of this stuff has become, because everybody's got a phone on them, a lot of stuff has become more, I'm going to use the term user-generated.

Speaker 1 So now I noticed, like, this summer when I was on the East Coast, you go to Starbucks, and even though you're wearing a mask or whatever, all of a sudden it shows up.

Speaker 1 They have these curated sites on like Instagram where they go, they put a picture of you.

Speaker 1 Like, you just see some guy who notices it, that it's you with your kids, and they don't even fall under the paparazzi laws because they're just a regular person.

Speaker 1 So they just take a photo with their phone and then they load it up. And then that site has a couple hundred thousand.
And they're not even a professional paparazzi for, you know, whatever that means.

Speaker 1 They're just some person, and it's very intrusive. The sneaky photos are the worst.

Speaker 3 Well, and what also has happened, too, you know, people put their own photos up on their own Instagram now. So,

Speaker 3 you know, we're putting out better photos of our life and what we're doing than the paparazzi could ever get. So I think the whole culture is changing.

Speaker 3 That's no longer interesting, as interesting as it used to be because people are putting their whole, like they wake up in the morning and they're doing their own selfies.

Speaker 1 Well, it was the gotcha thing, too, right? It was the gotcha. They wanted to have the gotcha element to it.

Speaker 3 Which is why it was so harassing.

Speaker 3 They would say things to me when my kids were around just to get a reaction out of me to get that gotcha photo without realizing what you're saying is potentially emotionally damaging my kid.

Speaker 3 You're saying things that you shouldn't be saying to a child's mother while she's in her arms. You know,

Speaker 3 they had very little respect for the children, which was the hard part.

Speaker 1 Are you feeling that it's different now? Are you feeling

Speaker 3 nobody follows me anywhere, and I love it.

Speaker 1 Wait, so Hallie, so you got- You got my life back.

Speaker 1 So you got your life back, and your life is also included, like really reconnecting, like a lot of us, we were saying, with our kids and with our life. But what do you do?

Speaker 1 Like, what are you watching when you go home and you're just chilling at home? What does Hallie Berry watch on Netflix? I need to know so badly.

Speaker 3 No, you don't.

Speaker 1 This is probably bad. Netflix is going to hate you.

Speaker 3 I was going to say that. Because my daughter is obsessed with the squid game.
It's like, I only watch things. I mean, I am a fan of Ozark, I got to tell you.

Speaker 3 But what I'm watching right now, I'm only watching since the pandemic.

Speaker 3 I used to watch what I wanted to watch before the pandemic, but when we all got stuck in the house at all times, it became about what the kids wanted because they desperately needed activity.

Speaker 3 They needed something more than I needed, right? So our the culture of our house became what the kids wanted. So I was watching a lot of like really, you know, kids stuff, like for my seven-year-old.

Speaker 3 He loves like raw fam fishing because he's into fishing. So we watch a lot of that.

Speaker 3 My daughter, the squid game, I've watched the whole thing twice now. I've seen stranger things about the whole season.
Wow. Six seasons like two times now.

Speaker 3 You know, it all revolves around

Speaker 2 them. Are they old enough yet to understand what you do, what you have done, what you aspire to do, the difference between acting and directing, why mommy's working?

Speaker 2 Even after principal photography is done, you're doing editing. You're like, it's going on and on and on.
Like, do they give it up to you? Do they recognize that what you do is

Speaker 2 tough, complicated work?

Speaker 1 No, they could care less.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 3 And they don't give it up to me for nothing.

Speaker 3 When I try to get them to give it up, they're just, you're just regular old crackers. Like, you're nobody, mom.
Like, they're like, you know, we want to beat Billie Eilish.

Speaker 3 Like, she's who we're doing.

Speaker 1 She's who we care about. You got to do some kid movies.

Speaker 1 I'm telling you, it's the only way to stay relevant with your kids is to like do like a bunch of animated and kid movies and then I know then they adore you I'm begging for one of those but nobody nobody has offered that to me what about this film that you directed is this something for them or no is it is it adult no this is a hardcore tough story right it is it's really hardcore but i got to tell you my daughter just saw two parts of it

Speaker 3 i i i said to her you know because it's on netflix i said to her would you please come to my last watchdown of my film you may never see it on the big screen so i'd really love you to see what i did and And I said, it's, you know, it's not totally appropriate for you.

Speaker 3 You're 13, but you're my kid. So I really want you to see what I work so hard on and why I miss so much time

Speaker 3 from being with you, right?

Speaker 3 So we go to do the watchdown and the color is all wrong. I don't know what happened.
Some blue-green LUT got put over the whole thing.

Speaker 2 The Ozark button pushed.

Speaker 3 So we get, like, so far, we get to the love scene that I have with a man.

Speaker 3 And that's when I realize, oh, God, the colors are wrong but she watches the love scene and she's looking at me and she's like oh whoa mom really wow

Speaker 3 it goes like that and i'm like well

Speaker 3 sometimes it does go like that so then My editor who's sitting next to me, not really realizing my 13-year-old daughter is there, says, go to the second love scene. And

Speaker 3 I want to see what color that is. I want to see what that looks like.
Well, that's another love scene. My daughter didn't know this.
And it's a love scene with a woman.

Speaker 1 So she she goes to that second love scene.

Speaker 3 And then my daughter's like, whoa,

Speaker 3 mom, we need to have some conversations. You didn't tell me.
And I said, Nala, this is a movie. Like none of this is true.
Like none of this is real.

Speaker 3 And so it started, you know, us to have a conversation really for the first time about what I do and about playing characters and what's real and what's not real.

Speaker 3 And she was asking me, how do you do that? And how do you get in that mindset? And how does it make you feel?

Speaker 3 And because she only saw two two love scenes, and I think you guys would all attest, those are some of the hardest scenes we do as actors. They're the most awkward.

Speaker 3 It's not always fun. It's, you know, it's.

Speaker 3 So it started for the first time a real conversation with my daughter about sexuality, about my work in the business, and

Speaker 3 how hard I had to fight to do the film. But it was ironic that those.

Speaker 3 And then after that, my editor goes, this is all wrong. We're going to come back.
We're not going to sit through this. So we left.
So that's all my daughter saw.

Speaker 1 With just love scenes.

Speaker 1 Two love scenes. Sean, you know, you know, Jason grew up in Showbiz, so he and his wife, when they get together, they call it love scenes.

Speaker 1 Like when they, when they made their kids, baby, you want to have a love scene? Let's go upstairs and have a love scene.

Speaker 1 I did this film at the Sundance, it was in the Sundance Film Festival years and years and years ago called Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss. And it was this gay flick.

Speaker 1 And I had to be in bed and have this love scene with a straight guy who was playing gay, but he was a straight guy in real life. Super, super great guy.

Speaker 1 And I kept, because I'm such a caretaker, I kept saying to him, I'm not attracted to you. I'm not attracted to you at all.
I think you're ugly. Like, don't worry about a thing.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to put my hands on your pants, but I really don't care. I'm not into it.
Were you attracted to him? No, I mean, he's his personality. He's a great, great human being, but not my type.

Speaker 2 I get so, so square

Speaker 2 when I've directed a few sex scenes that

Speaker 2 I'll put a pillow between the two actors when they're having to go at it

Speaker 2 so that there's no connection, that that there's this this pillow barricade that i would like it if a director uh pushed that on me when i'm having a sex scene with somebody because then you can't then you can kind of like

Speaker 1 it's all completely fake then there's actually no contact whatsoever yeah but at some point you got to have yeah the camera has to film no pillow yeah

Speaker 2 but it all depends depends if there's a if there's a blanket over you all these things are are somewhat arbitrary and a director can decide yes or no like they can make it a lot more comfortable and be a little bit more creative with the way in which they make it look sensual.

Speaker 1 We could put a hood over you if you want, Jason, if you just don't look at the person either. You have no sensory pillowcase.

Speaker 1 Who was that actor who said, Who was that actor who said, in a love scene, is like a famous story? He said, I apologize if I get hard and I apologize if I don't. Yeah.
Yeah, I've heard that too.

Speaker 1 I don't remember who said that. You know what's so weird? Like, like two weeks ago, I was doing this.

Speaker 1 I was working on this thing with our friend, with our new friend Tyka, Waititi, and I was shooting this scene. And right at the end, Elizabeth Moss and I are there.

Speaker 1 We're celebrating, and I play her boyfriend, and we turn this thing, and Tyka just goes, you guys are celebrating, you're really happy, and maybe you kiss.

Speaker 1 And we're rolling, and Lizzie turns to me, and she goes, should we kiss? And I go, I guess. And then he goes, and action.
And we just kissed, like it happened, like boom, boom.

Speaker 1 There was no, and it was very weird, like very stilted, just like, should we kiss? Yeah, sure, okay.

Speaker 2 And then, and you never talk about, should we open our mouths? Should it just be like a passion?

Speaker 3 Or should we touch our tongues? Like, that's a good one.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 that's what I mean.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's never discussed. And if somebody goes for it and the other, the gate's closed, that's embarrassing.

Speaker 2 And then, and then, so, on the second, so on the second take, you keep your mouth closed, but their gates open, and it's like, oh, God. And then it's, it's, yeah, it's really awkward.

Speaker 2 Isn't that what you guys call it?

Speaker 1 With the pillows and the

Speaker 1 gate. I mean, you have removed any kind of humanity from this.
Sounds really sexy.

Speaker 2 And we will be right back.

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Speaker 1 So, so, Hallie, so what was the moment where you were like, okay, I'm gonna direct and I'm gonna direct this movie? What was that?

Speaker 3 Oh, God, you know, it wasn't really what I set out to do. When I decided to do this film, I was just gonna be the actor.
I mean, training to play an MMA fighter was largely enough, you know,

Speaker 3 that was hard enough for me to do, I figured. So, to direct and then be my debut, I'd never directed before, like that just seemed like not the move.

Speaker 3 So I actually, when I got the producers to, because it was originally written for like a 21-year-old white Irish Catholic girl and like Blake Lively was attached to it at once.

Speaker 1 You were busy? No.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Blake Lively was attached initially? Like that was, and then wow.

Speaker 3 Yeah, when I got the script, she was attached. We had the same agent.
I had just moved to William Morris from CAA, and it was the first script they gave me. And I was like, thanks, guys.

Speaker 3 I love this, but it belongs to somebody else. Yeah, right on.
That's like great agenting, right?

Speaker 3 And they said, yeah, but we think based on our conversations with you, this is something you would really love. So.
Let's just wait and see. Blake hasn't done it this far.
She may not do it. She may.

Speaker 3 If she does, cool. But we just want to know, is this the kind of thing you're looking to do? And I said, yeah, it is.
And I'm just going to wait.

Speaker 3 And I'm going to hope that she, on her own volition, she passes on this, which she did six months later but in that six months I was reimagining the whole script the world I was writing it down like how the character would be different being a middle-aged black woman versus a very young 21 year old white woman right and how important it would be to have a how telling a story of a woman having a last chance versus another chance how more much more impactful and meaningful that would be so I kept doing my work and six months later when she passed, I went to the producer, Basil Iwanik, and I said, hey, I got an idea.

Speaker 3 It should be me. And here's the story.
Here's the world. Here's the story.
And here's why it's better. And he said, great.
Yes, that sounds like a good thing. Now go find a director.

Speaker 3 And I was like, me find the director? He said, yeah, go find the director. So I set out on this journey to find a director.
I met with 12, 13 people. And I met with.

Speaker 3 established directors, first-time directors. But what I realized is that because this story wasn't on the page yet, it was only in my head, the reimagining of it, that nobody got it like I got it.

Speaker 3 Nobody saw it like I saw it.

Speaker 3 And I had to come to, I had a come to Jesus moment where I realized if this is going to come to fruition the way I see it, I'm going to work harder than I've ever worked physically on anything in my whole career.

Speaker 3 I have to make sure it's in the right hands and that this world will be realized in the way that it should be realized. You know, it's a new world to see for a movie like this.

Speaker 3 It's a female point of view. It had to be very specific.

Speaker 1 What's it called?

Speaker 3 It's called Bruised.

Speaker 1 Oh, Bruised. Right, that's right.

Speaker 2 And did you do the writing on it, Hallie? The change to it?

Speaker 3 I did. I worked with the original writer, Michelle Rosenfar, but we worked very closely together.
And I totally reimagined the world and the characters.

Speaker 3 And like the little boy in the movie used to talk. And in my draft, now he's mute.
Like, there's so many things that we changed about it that made it very unique to this world.

Speaker 1 Well, talk to me about the MMA thing. What? So you had to train for that? Like, what was that like? Oh, my God.
Do you guys follow MMA at all? Do you follow me?

Speaker 1 No, I mean, these guys know that I boxed. I use Fight Camp, and so they're going to both roll their eyes.
So, I think this will get cut too. I just, this is not going to get cut.

Speaker 1 This is going to lead. We're going to leave.

Speaker 2 I just received my new Fight Camp yesterday. The big box came.

Speaker 2 Now, do I have to blow that thing up?

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no. The bag will come later.
That's just the bass and the trackers and stuff. So, anyway, so that's hard enough

Speaker 1 as a couple of middle-aged white guys who are boxing in their basements in Beverly Hills. Tell us about actually doing MMA, which is real.

Speaker 3 Well, it was hard for a middle-aged black woman.

Speaker 1 Trust me.

Speaker 3 It was, I worked harder than I've ever worked on anything. I probably trained on it three years ago.
I started.

Speaker 3 Before I started shooting, I started the training knowing that this was potentially coming if I could raise the money, but I was, you know, getting prepared in case I was able to do that.

Speaker 3 So, and it was learning like jiu-jitsu and taekwondo, Muay Thai, wrestling, kickboxing, you know, all these disciplines that I, I, I knew a little bit of capoeta from Catwoman, but you hurt anything, break anything?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 2 did you get hit in the face accidentally more often than you accidentally hit somebody in the face?

Speaker 1 Which is a higher number?

Speaker 3 I got hit more.

Speaker 2 Really? Oh,

Speaker 2 when you get hit in the nose, it really hurts.

Speaker 3 It really does.

Speaker 3 It really does.

Speaker 1 What did you break?

Speaker 3 I broke, well, I broke two toes in

Speaker 3 training. I dislocated a finger.
No.

Speaker 3 And I,

Speaker 3 day two of shooting, you know, we did the fight first because we were, Valentina Shevchenko, she plays my opponent. She's the USC flyweight champion of the world right now.
And she was my opponent.

Speaker 3 So we trained within an inch of our life for like two months, heavy, like five, six hours a day before we actually started to shoot.

Speaker 3 And I shot my fight first because we were ready and what was in our minds, our choreo and everything. Day two of a five-day fight, I broke two ribs.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 And I know. And I knew they were broken, but I also knew that if I told anybody, they would shut me down.

Speaker 1 Right. Of course.
So it's hard to breathe. And

Speaker 1 you're like a professional athlete. You're like, no, I got to stay on the field, coach.

Speaker 3 That's kind of how I felt. And these fighters that talk to me about when they get injured in the cage, in the ring, like there is no stopping unless the referee or somebody stops it.

Speaker 3 But their mindset is to just keep going. You've trained so hard to get to this moment.
Like you just aren't going to bail out. And that's very much how I felt.

Speaker 3 At the end of that second day, i went to um my my one of my producers and i said you know i i know i broke two ribs but i i i don't know what to do i i can't stop and they and you know my he said to me well you don't want to puncture a lung though i mean this is kind of dangerous and i said

Speaker 3 I know, but I've come too far. I've worked too hard.
Like, this might all go away and never come back. And

Speaker 2 so how did you work around that? How did you get the other three days shot?

Speaker 1 Took a lot of Advil. Yeah.
Wow. Wow.

Speaker 3 And And just prayed that I wouldn't severely injure myself.

Speaker 1 Sean, you threw your shoulder. Do you dislocate your shoulder?

Speaker 1 One time, Sean told me they went to Gelson's, they switched and they put the vanilla wafers on the top shop and he ended up and he had to reach to get those, you know, vanilla wafers, nila, and he, and they moved it.

Speaker 1 And Scotty said, don't do it. And he knew if I tell Scotty that I, that I dislocated my shoulder, he'll say,

Speaker 1 he'll say, just get the Graham crackers instead. And he was like, but I don't want to get those Nila wafers.

Speaker 1 And I said, I'm out. For those reasons, I'm out.
I can't.

Speaker 1 I got to say, that's super admirable.

Speaker 1 Hallie, did you, did you find, like, so you, it's all this like incredible physical training, but did you get that kind of, did you, did you start to get like a, the byproduct of it, the happy byproduct being that you got a lot of like

Speaker 1 mental calmness from it? Did you find it at all sort of meditative once you started training a lot and getting into that zone? Did you, in any way?

Speaker 3 I think so. You know, so much of the fight game is all mental preparation.
I think people focus on, you know,

Speaker 3 the chokes and the knockouts and all of that stuff. But really, it's a mental game.

Speaker 3 And my mental game did get strengthened and so strong that I think that's the only reason I made it through this film because there was one catastrophe after another when you're trying to make, I mean, getting any movie made today, you know, it's not easy, but an independent, low-budget film and the way in which we were making it and we were losing money left and right, that mental uh fortitude that came from those three years of training and what i learned definitely i'll have that i'll have that with me for the rest of my life and i'll keep training what about the directing part was it did you would you would you jump to it again or did you did you find yourself longing for the the the the simplicity of hanging out in your trailer and waiting for them to get it all sorted out and then come get you and time to talk?

Speaker 3 I don't think so. You know what it made me feel, Jason, is I really don't want to be only the dancing bear anymore.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, you know too much.
You've had all that set experience. It's just like, why waste it?

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I now know through this experience that I can do it, you know, that I can do it.
And I probably won't do it. I won't star in and, you know, direct again like I did this.

Speaker 3 Like that was just too hard. And I don't want to do that again.
But directing and telling you that.

Speaker 1 You say that now. You say that now.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 3 You're going to see. No, it's too.
I think either one one of both of those jobs are largely enough, you know. That, and I really would want to focus solely on either one of those jobs.

Speaker 2 Like, that's the kind of artist until you're directing a film and you've got some actress that you've hired that is just not as cooperative as you want.

Speaker 2 You've been like, Oh, if I was playing this part, I would agree with everything I'm saying.

Speaker 1 I know, and it would be much more efficient. Yeah, hey, dancing bear, would you ever, I mean, dancing bear, Sean, would you ever

Speaker 1 that's that's all I want?

Speaker 3 I don't mean anybody's a dancing bear.

Speaker 1 I am, I do.

Speaker 3 But we are kind of dancing bears.

Speaker 1 We are. We are.

Speaker 1 I'm married to a bear and I am a dancer. So listen.

Speaker 3 And I'm about to go be a dancing bear in two months. Really?

Speaker 1 Or what? Where are you going?

Speaker 2 You going to joining the circus?

Speaker 1 I am.

Speaker 3 I'm going back to the circus. I'm going to be a dancing bear again.
And there's value in being the dancing bear.

Speaker 3 So what I meant when I said that, because I don't want to offend anybody, it's just once you

Speaker 3 step into a new power and you realize that you can actually be a part of telling the story and as a woman through your lens with your gaze like that feels really enriching and empowering because for so long as women our stories have been told through the gaze of men right and and i can't honestly tell you that i feel it's always been accurate because it's from a different lens and we've had to fight to have our stories told through our lens when you know men are at the helm and men are directing and as a woman it was so nice to just not have to fight for my point of view but because i was in control of it and I got to just do it.

Speaker 3 That felt really empowering.

Speaker 1 Do you, I love that.

Speaker 1 Did you still, after your MMA experience, take some of that now that you're done? And do you still go back and train and stuff like that? Did you carry any of that with you?

Speaker 1 Or you're like, you know what? That was, I'm done with that. I can just go to the gym like a normal person and work out.

Speaker 3 No, I'm, you know, I'm addicted. You, you start rolling.
Yeah, they call it rolling. Jiu-Jitsu, you start rolling.
It's just something you, you, you, you don't want to give up.

Speaker 1 up so do you watch those fights love to see you beat jason up

Speaker 1 i would i bet she could beat my ass anything to watch you beat up baby

Speaker 1 yeah i'm like a veal it's it's just easy pickings yeah um

Speaker 2 so you are you watching those fights every week oh my god yeah

Speaker 3 i'm texting data and i'm like i love it you know i've become really really tight with valentina and so many of the women of the sport and it's it's it's my passion that's great yeah i love it when does it come out Um, in theaters on November 17th, but on Netflix, uh, Thanksgiving Day weekend, November.

Speaker 1 I'm so excited. I can't wait to see it.
Oh, that's so cool.

Speaker 2 I'm so excited for it. And you're, and so you're not chomping at the bit to get back in the director's chair, but you are not opposed to it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Jason wants to send you a script.

Speaker 3 You want to send me? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm chomping. Like, I do want to do it.
I know I won't start in it, but I, but I also know because of this experience, it has to be something that I love.

Speaker 3 You know, I want to find another story that I can reimagine, that I can shape, because I really realize I have to see it. I have to feel it.
We spend so much time.

Speaker 3 I spent three years of my life doing that.

Speaker 3 So I know that it has to be something that moves me, that makes me feel inspired, that there's a story, there's a reason to tell the story that matters to me. You know, so I have to find that thing.

Speaker 3 I don't think I could ever be a director for hire. I have to, I have to find that thing that ignites me like that.

Speaker 1 Right, right. Again, that makes sense.
I've got an idea that I'm going to send you, Hallie. It's about a guy who's too handsome to be on a podcast, but he's stuck there.

Speaker 1 I'm busy. I told you I'm busy.

Speaker 1 You're so busy.

Speaker 1 So if you don't want to do that and you, I mean, you kind of, I guess you can, you're just doing so many different things. Where do you see yourself like five years from now?

Speaker 1 Do you, do you think like that? Like, I want to do this or I want to get this done. Do you plan stuff out and advance like that?

Speaker 3 Not really. And you know why? I feel like sometimes we can set those kind of goals and we can fall short.
You know, we can limit ourselves with like, I never thought I would be directing.

Speaker 3 That was never a real goal that one day I'm going to direct. I

Speaker 3 realize that sometimes, you know, you get called to do things and you get called to realize your purpose. And like that thing we talked about in the beginning, your destiny.
So I feel like

Speaker 3 I don't like to have big, big plans because I think it could be limiting.

Speaker 1 I feel that way about lunch.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I try not to think too hard about what I'm going to eat for lunch. I just kind of like go where my stomach is.

Speaker 1 You try not to think about what you're going to eat, but it's impossible not to think about eating for lunch. Like that's a context.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 That's the right context. Oh, my God.
I know.

Speaker 1 Well, Hallie, we've taken up way too much of your time.

Speaker 1 You're so gracious, and thank you so much.

Speaker 1 Just always been such a fan. You've always been a very,

Speaker 1 you know, nice person to just say hi to. But I'm just such a fan of your.
I've never been able to actually say that. So, oh my gosh, thank you.

Speaker 1 And every single time I've seen you, which isn't a lot over the years, you've always been so kind and welcoming. I just want to hang out with you for hours.
You're like, I'm good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, more, more Hallie. Yeah, we just did.

Speaker 3 Thank you, guys. I appreciate you so much.

Speaker 1 I love what you're doing. Very nice of you.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thanks for joining us. Thanks for joining us.
And so much success with the film. And we'll talk to you again.

Speaker 1 Thanks for coming. Thank you.
Thanks, Hallie. Bye, you guys.

Speaker 1 Bye. Bye.

Speaker 1 Well, that was a wonderful, wonderful get.

Speaker 1 Like I said, I've met her many times, and I always like. Last time I saw her, it was at a fundraiser event, and I went over to her and just sat down next to her.
We had the greatest conversation.

Speaker 1 She's just so open.

Speaker 1 She is so open.

Speaker 1 By the way, the way you said that, because your addiction is so terrible, I thought you said fundraiser, which is a great idea.

Speaker 1 Like, you just have a fundraiser where you're just going to raise some fun. Right.

Speaker 2 And then you just walk up on people and sit down next to them. They have no idea who you are.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Did she call you Steve, Scott? Anything? Yeah, she was close with the NAS. No, she's she's a, yeah, you're right.
She's such a nice, uh, genuine person and

Speaker 1 very sort of sweet and generous with her time and to people that she meets. And she's very outgoing.
Yeah, she's awesome. And then who can forget her winning that Oscar?

Speaker 1 That was just so huge that she won and deserved for that role. I remember seeing that movie.
I was just like blown away. I remembered her telling a story a long time ago.

Speaker 1 I forgot to say this to her, on some talk show or something where she was lying in bed reading the script and she was just like crying. She's like, I have to do that.

Speaker 1 I remember her telling the story about reading the script of Monster's Ball. It was really cool.

Speaker 2 Well, I hope the reason I was

Speaker 2 badgering her about directing more was I just, I want more Hallie Berry. Like, I was so excited that there was such a high frequency of her, you know, work,

Speaker 2 you know, in and around that Oscar. And

Speaker 2 I get the sense she's being a little bit more deliberate about the things that she's picking, which is admirable for sure.

Speaker 2 But that's why I was thinking, well, maybe if she's not finding parts that she likes as an actor, that she would give us more Halley Berry, maybe through directing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, creating those opportunities for herself. I mean, you're right, because she's done like all those huge, like X-Men movies.

Speaker 1 She made a million of those, and she made a bunch of big, you know, tons of big movies, but then to go and do stuff that's a little more kind of curated or a little, you know,

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Anyway, wonderful. She's incredible.
I know. She's the best.
She's so good and

Speaker 1 so lucky to have had her on the show.

Speaker 2 And a great name. You know, let's not.

Speaker 1 Let's not bury the lead here.

Speaker 2 It's just one of the great

Speaker 2 Hollywood names.

Speaker 1 Hallie Berry. How would you say her last name if she because she has an English mother?

Speaker 1 Right. So how would you say?

Speaker 1 Here's the thing about Sean. It's like, it's like you can, not only can you see it coming, it's like the high beams.
The high beams, yeah, you can smell it. The high beams, you got a smoke signal.

Speaker 1 You can see it coming from the side.

Speaker 1 her last name with a British accent. Holly by

Speaker 1 no, that's Irish, man.

Speaker 1 Irish works, though.

Speaker 2 And cue the music.

Speaker 1 I know you're in your apartment because otherwise, I'd say take yourself out of the backyard and just

Speaker 1 keep the shit out of myself. Yeah, and just drown yourself with your own hand.
Hold your own head under the water.

Speaker 2 See you next week, listener.

Speaker 1 Bye.

Speaker 1 Oh, oh, oh, wait. Oh, that's the end of the end of the show.
No, I'm just going to go old school. Bye.
Bye.

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