Uzo Aduba

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Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows.

Now I'm doing the harmony.

Welcome back to where everybody knows your name.

I am so thrilled for you to meet my new friend, Uzzo Aduba.

She's a three-time Emmy-winning actor whose work spans the stage, TV, and big screen.

You, of course, know her from Orange is the New Black, in which she played one of the best TV characters of all time, Suzanne Crazy Eyes Warren.

The world has seen this show, but if you haven't, really, you must.

It's just an amazing performance.

More recently, she authored a new memoir that's in bookstores right now.

It's called The Road is Good, How a Mother's Strength Became a Daughter's Daughter's Purpose.

The book tells the story of her late mother who immigrated from Nigeria to the U.S.

It is powerful, tender, and smart, just like Uzo.

Can't wait for you to meet her.

Ladies and gentlemen, Uzo Aduba.

Okay, let's just get some of the people we know.

Mary, first off, my wife, Mary Steenberg, and sends her respect, love.

She's met you.

Yes.

And I don't think you guys work together.

We have not, but she is an icon, a legend, a gift.

What a pair, the two of you, together.

Well, we are very lucky.

All we do is laugh.

That's the gold star for marriage.

Yeah.

I mean, she is just wonderful and just, I mean, truly just a brilliant, brilliant actor and has an incredible range, sidebar.

Just, I love her.

Did we also say Chranzler?

Yeah.

Eric Cranzler, who I called on way into work.

Oh my God, did he sing your praises?

I love him.

Yeah.

I loved you.

I love him.

Actually, I talk about him in this as well.

He was

the first call I made after my mom was diagnosed

with pancreatic cancer because I was supposed to go

to Canada to work on a show called Mrs.

America.

And I remember, you know,

I don't know, he and I had had such a connection right away upon meeting him.

And I had just like such a deep trust and safety around him.

And, but even with that, you know,

you don't know how some a conversation of this type is going to sort of go when you're talking about like,

hey, something really pretty, god-awful god-awful has happened.

And if we can't figure out a way to work with that, with this job, like, you know, you just don't know because it's like, it's still, we have a working relationship supremely.

And when I tell you

the

love that I was bum rushed with in that moment.

in terror, that moment of, I really don't know what's about to happen with my life.

And I really

on levels of that.

And the amount of love and him just saying,

we will figure it out.

And if, if we can't do it, we can't, you know, and just

and meant it.

Yeah.

Do you know, really meant it?

I love that man for the rest of my life.

Did we say that he is your manager?

We didn't.

He's also Mary's manager.

And he is, I totally understand what you're talking about when it comes to Eric because he is literally a family friend that goes way, way, way back.

And he loves you guys.

Yeah.

His love of family, his love of his parents, his father,

you know, he is he is nothing but love and support.

And

he's a class act.

I say it on him all the time.

I'm like, if you ever leave me, I'm going with you.

I don't know if you knew this, and I think it's okay to say, but when you made that phone call

to Eric he was walking with Mary and me in Vineyard Haven in

Martha's Vineyard he was visiting us and he just told me this morning that that's where that phone call happened

and not in front of us he walked off and I didn't even know it at the time he didn't say anything to us but this morning he told me as I was driving in that that literally

I you are telling me that I did not know that at all.

I didn't either because he didn't tell us anything.

He didn't share any of that with us then.

He told me now.

He's amazing because we were, I mean, now I'm getting like a little choked up.

So forgive me.

Okay.

We're going into choked up land soon.

Everybody needs to be.

Not an Eric Cranslin.

Everybody needs an Eric Ranslin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They really do.

Yeah.

Hey, I know we're bouncing around, but this is, you know, I really want to talk about your mom, your book, your life, and how you got here.

But I have been watching non-stop Orange is a New Black.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

And your performance is just astounding.

And you said several things about how the character does not

modify herself in any way for other people's,

you know, what they think you should be.

She was just herself, didn't know how to be anything else but herself.

Yeah.

Which is such a liberating thing for an actor to play.

And for me, it was like almost an instruction.

I went, Ted, do you do, do you do that?

You know, do you maybe you're too because sometimes I can be a very nice actor, I'll give you what I know you expect to be given.

And there's something to have that irreverence to the material, or in your character's case, irreverence to life and other people's expectations.

It must have been so much fun to play.

So much fun.

There was just such a freedom.

And also, by the way, like

not only fun, but like a great lesson for life.

Yeah.

Like how good it feels to live in that space of just embracing the whole of yourself.

And that knowing because she had the such wide margins to play play of play space,

there was nothing, it frees you up as an actor from overthinking the scene number one or like the doing of the thing in the moment.

You don't have to do or make anything happen actually, because her objective is to just exist in here and whatever happens happens and actually works.

If she just decides to be

the whole time, even if a line is written and she, that freedom that it's like, you get such a permission to just live without any consideration of how

bad it might look or come across or messy it might be.

I loved it.

So liberating and a lesson to be brought.

You can't literally bring it into every character you play, but there does need to be that irreverence

to the material.

You shouldn't go to church around the material and have should-tos and not to's.

That's right.

You should be able to bring that freedom with you with, you know, whatever I do in this moment

will be right.

Will be appropriate.

That's right.

Yeah.

That's right.

And I think what was great about being on that show,

having that permission was granted to all of us, frankly, because it was such a new idea.

And Genji Cohane, who wrote Orange is the New Black,

was really looking for fresh new ideas and so had brought a lot of us in who had never worked in the TV space, you know, frankly.

So, for quite a few of us, it was our first big job, you know, it certainly was for me.

And so, that there's like that ignorance is bliss sort of element to it.

She allowed for us to sort of find our way and find our voices there.

And

to your point, you know, that liberation

is very satisfying as an actor and definitely

i do not bring it to that same extent extreme um with other characters like you said it's not true for that might not be true to that different characters but it did allow me to not be so self-aware in yeah

you know as I proceed forward with other characters that sometimes maybe maybe you can't do it the way Suzanne Crazy Eyes Warren does it, but maybe there's a degree cooler from that.

Shirley Chisholm certainly had a version of,

you know, no one was telling her, oh, no, this, this is not done.

That's right.

No, you don't run for president.

That's right.

You're a woman.

You're black.

No, this, no, sorry.

That's right.

So that had to have in a way that kind of.

That's right.

She's, she was live.

She was living her life.

The real life Shirley Chisholm was living her life with a freedom, with an abandon,

with a liberation of,

yes, we've never seen this happen before, but that doesn't mean that it's wrong.

Yeah.

You know, that doesn't mean that it's not, can't be done and it cannot be so.

And so her...

her very existence was laced with that same freedom that you saw in the fictional character of Suzanne.

And

I guess she had a grounded freedom that, whereas Crazy Eyes has a more in-the-air sort of abandonment.

But that was amazing to play and to be part of.

And, you know, my mom loved, I knew of Shirley Chisholm, but I knew it more from my mom's perspective because she was part of that, you know, second wave feminist movement with Gloria Steinems and

so forth.

And

it was really great to find her for myself

and for her to develop into my own hero, independent of anyone else's idea.

Because what a remarkable and brave thing to have done in that time.

It's still remarkable now.

Truly brave, life and deathy brave.

That's right.

That's right.

That's right.

We were talking, we're steps away from the Civil Rights Act having been voted into

legislation.

We're

minutes after the Montgomery bus boycott, Emma Till, where she and she's deciding where she belongs and at the table and who she is and how and what is possible for all Americans.

It was a real privilege to get to play her.

That's great.

Let me back up just a hair because the other thing I noticed watching you as I devoured Orange is the New Black is your,

which will take us back to more origin origin stories.

Um,

you are such an athlete

and a dancer and a skater and all of those, uh, and a track star.

All of that you see in your in crazy eyes.

You really do.

She moves with such abandonment

and joy, you know, in her body.

Yeah.

And you really had that.

And that has to be because you, you are an athlete.

Definitely.

I grew up in a sports house.

You know, I'm in the arts, but I really, everybody in my, I mean, we had the arts too.

Like, we were exposed to it.

Really, my parents had experience with sports.

And I love sports.

What do you mean?

What does that mean?

Your parents had experience?

My mother had been a tennis player in Nigeria.

My family immigrated to the United States from Nigeria.

My mother had been a tennis player and a netball and track runner in

Nigeria, but primarily tennis.

And then my father had been in track and field and soccer.

And so they knew that world.

They knew that experience of what it is to be a kid.

They knew less about the arts.

They wanted their kids to know it just because they hadn't experienced it themselves and they loved watching it.

But they really knew sports.

And that's where a lot of my siblings,

you know, explored and excelled as well.

And so I grew up figure skating.

Don't ask me how I got into that as

a Nigerian kid in Boston.

You know, I got a flyer one day in my backpack for learn to skate, you know, just a teacher handing those out.

And I cannot tell you for whatever reason.

My mom got it out of my backpack in kindergarten, first grade and decided to sign us all up for it.

And, you know, it's hysterical because she is not a fan of the cold, like even a little bit, you know, like at all.

And like, here she is, like my Nigerian mom, like in these ice rinks, like I'm loving figure skating.

My brother Junior is falling in love with hockey.

My dad is like freezing in the rink.

They don't know why or how they got here, but we loved it.

I absolutely loved it.

Fell in love minute one.

And I did it for 10 years.

And

triple doubles.

You really were

a figure skate.

Yeah, I could for reals figure skate.

And,

you know, and doing competitions and all these things.

And

yeah, so that was like my background from that.

And then I left figure skating.

Why was that?

Did you kind of hit a ceiling or did you?

It became too expensive.

Figure skating is such an expensive sport from the ice time to the costumes to the skates themselves to the coaching, all of it's very pricey.

And I'm one of five kids, you know, from a pretty humble background.

And my older two siblings were already in college.

My parents are managing that.

That's a heavy lift for a lot of people already.

And my parents were like.

you know, my coaches were like, we think she might be able to go further, you know, but we'd have to add more time and more hours in mo coaching.

And I think all my parents heard were like,

like dollars going up and they were like we cannot stay in this sport and so i transitioned into track and field from there

in high school in high school now i was in high school and i started events 100 200 meters four by one and the long jump

So I was doing that.

And my younger sister, Chi Chi, and I were teammates.

And

yeah, I loved that as well.

I fell in love with with that.

And we're competitive.

Yeah, was very competitive in my high school years and then was fortunate enough to get a Division I scholarship to Boston University, go terriers,

and

compete there.

And that's what got me my ticket to college.

You know, a lot of times you're talking to people, go, well, you're an athlete.

And you go, yeah, I played a little high school basketball or something.

And we all like to think there's some athletic part of us.

You genuinely were an athlete.

Yeah, yeah, I did.

I, yeah, I did.

And it was great.

You know,

I loved the competition.

It taught me a lot of both of those sports because they're individual sports.

Outside of the four by one, really,

they taught me a lot

about my self-talk.

You know, self-motivating, getting my mind, you know, in the game and how to really focus, concentrate.

We call it in sports, self-talk, you know, good sport, good, healthy self-talk.

You know, it got me in a good, healthy self-talk and an ability to sort of let everything around you fall away.

One of my coaches who I think teachers come in different packages and in different points in your life.

And my college coach,

I had two of them, Bruce and Leslie LeHan Hain.

They were a married couple.

Bruce is one of my greatest teachers in healthy self-talk and figuring out how to just cancel out the noise.

Because there was a time when I was running and I was getting real frustrated that I kept losing this one particular

100 meters and this one particular competitor.

And he was like, and I was getting focused on them for the wrong reasons.

Like I was just like, I can't seem to like,

you know, speed up and like

get past a certain point at this one place in my race.

And he said, you know what, Uzzo?

He's like, it's because you're always looking around.

And it was like, what do you mean?

And he was like, you know how much time you lose in a race looking left and right at what's going on around you?

One-tenth of a second.

Wow.

He said, one-tenth of a second doesn't sound like a lot if you're running a mile or a marathon.

But But in the hundred meters where one one hundredth of a second counts,

a tenth of a second is the difference between first and last.

And he was like, focus on your race.

You're not running against anybody over here.

You're running against you and the line.

It's about you and the line.

And just concentrate on the line.

And it got my head.

I loved him for it because it's like, especially especially going into our industry,

how easy you can be distracted by the one-tenths that are constantly surrounding you, that you could just be ending up in last place because you're chipping away at your own time.

Right.

Or you could be concentrating on you and the line, you know, and focus on that.

Keep your focus forward.

None of this matters.

None of it.

So far, I really, I wish I could grab my pen and start taking notes.

Ted,

y'all don't do that.

No.

You know,

focus on the line.

Yeah.

On the line.

That's all you, I mean, that's where you're trying to get to.

What does the rest?

What does all of this along the way matter?

It doesn't.

Yeah.

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I sometimes wonder whether, and can we go back another step?

Yeah.

Because in the book, you talk about your

grandfather, great-grandfather.

Grandfather.

Grandfather.

Yeah.

And

I'm setting this up by saying that a lot of people

don't have the whatever for their brain.

They weren't exposed or allowed or whatever the environment was to recognize or put themselves in a position for somebody like your coach to tell you that.

And it feels to me like you go back to your grandfather, who

insisted that

all the daughters got the same exact

education and opportunities as his sons, as the boys, which just wasn't, I don't, I'm assuming, wasn't that necessary naturally

in that world.

In that world, in that time, you know, we're talking about

boomers, early boomers, some of them, you know, kids born, if we're talking at the top of the line of the children in the 19 late 30s to like through the 40s, 50s.

You know, we're talking about a generation where a lot of women were expected to be globally were expected to be homemakers, maybe a teacher, maybe a nurse.

And that's somebody.

Or marry somebody else.

Or marry well.

Yeah.

And if you did have, that was, and those are fine and great careers, but that was about all that one was expected or

looking to reach for.

To reach further than that was sort of like, what are you

doing

and in that culture and my culture it was

it was expensive to go to school you pay to go to school it's not like free education here right so

everybody really collected their dollars and would invest in the sun this is your mother's my mother's generation yeah you invested in the sun

And my grandfather had more daughters than he had sons.

And

God bless, because I don't know what in his mind made him so progressive.

He had married my grandmother, who was a pretty,

as anybody will tell you, a pretty tough lady, spoke her mind.

She went to

primary school and secondary school as well, which was also

incredibly proud of.

Yes, very proud of.

And he was happy to have a woman that strong.

He wasn't afraid of it.

And he had all these daughters, and

he

didn't see why

he shouldn't send a daughter to school.

And he said, if they have the ability and the will, then they can go.

And they did have the ability and they had the will.

And, you know, his neighbors would mock my grandfather.

My grandfather wore the same outfit every day.

My mom said when she was a kid, because he saved all his money to send them to school and got no clothes for himself.

He always wore khaki and khaki, as they said, khaki, his khaki shirt and his khaki pants, would go home, wash it at night, hang it to dry, put it on the next day so that he could afford to send his kids to school.

Rode a bicycle, never owned a car.

His neighbors would say to him, ah, Joffrey, look at you.

You don't even have car.

You know, what are you doing?

He said, I'm saving to send these kids to school.

And then, you know, many years later, they've all now graduated not only from high school, but from universities of master's degrees, you know,

in MBAs, all these different degrees, you know,

professionals, medical, all of it.

And

one day at his house, my mom was so proud.

There were five cars at that point.

Still, some of his kids were in school.

This is in Nigeria.

In Nigeria, five cars parked out front because some of his kids had come home to visit, to visit him.

And so the neighbors were like,

what are all these cars?

And he said, these,

pointing to his children, are my cars.

Wow.

I mean, it makes so

you can draw a straight line from Shirley Chisholm being so happy that you played her all the way back down to your mother and your grandfather.

I mean, it makes sense that you were able to absorb your

high school or college coaches.

You know, just

pay attention to the line.

Don't worry about competing with other people.

Just do your business.

And that's what my grandfather was doing, right?

He was focused on the line.

And, you know, for my own life now,

and I have a daughter now.

She's nine and a half months old.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much.

You know, I want to impart that on her as well.

And it's important for me to do right by her as right has been done by me.

You know, I'm often reminded by the Maya Angelou quote of your passage has been paid for.

Yeah.

You know,

the good work was already done by those who came before us to put us in a position to receive and then take the baton and you know, run our own race some more down the down the track and I want to

I know that so much was sacrificed

done and given for me to be sitting right here in this moment right here with you that I feel a responsibility

in a positive way to do the same for my own and her

her next

her chance when it's her time to run

so i thank my grandfather and to your point like i know without question i am not here were it not for him well

it makes me so crazy when i hear the self-made man bit

first off it lacks any gratitude and awareness that you know we're only here by the grace of god and by the grace of all our ancestors who that's right worked for this moment that you have.

That's right.

But yeah, gratitude.

Absolute gratitude.

You know, like my mom did so much, you know, like I'm here.

Yes.

And

to your point of the self-made, it's like we were talking about

Eric Cranzler earlier.

It's like that team.

I love that word team.

Me too.

You know, I love that word.

I love that word.

You know, I love being on a team.

I love working with my team.

I love teamwork.

I love it.

You know, teamwork makes the dream work.

And it's like, yeah,

so

much.

When I really stop thinking, start thinking about like all the people who poured into my cup.

My cup wasn't here when I started.

It was here.

And it's because of each person pouring the teachers who poured into me, the coaches who poured into me, my family who poured into me, my professors who poured into me, my mentors who poured into me, my team who poured into me that made it so that this was full and cold and refreshing and filling and satisfying to drink.

I'm so grateful for that, you know, like

it,

I did not get here alone.

Full stop.

No, you know.

Take me from sports to the fine arts.

Sports to the fine arts.

I had done,

I was in my drama club in high school.

And with each year, I just found myself falling more and more in love with rehearsal.

And track was starting to get really competitive.

And then my school was doing a production of Pippin.

Remember Steven Schwartz?

I do.

And I was playing the lead, leading player, which the great Ben Vereen

had, we love, we love, had played.

I was so excited.

And I'd be...

And rehearsal for

the Pippin and the rehearsal for, excuse me, practice for track were conflicting.

And I knew I needed to run because that was like how I was going to be able to afford college.

But what I

didn't know was how hungry I was for this thing called storytelling art making and that I loved it.

And there was, I was prepared to give up my scholarship, excuse me, prepared to quit track in order to go full throttle into rehearsal.

And then my coach, thankfully, you know, understood that that wasn't a good choice and, you know, figured out a way to make it work.

And so then came the time to go to college.

And my drama teacher in high school, Ms.

Meelize, shout out Ms.

Mealize,

she

was also my creative writing teacher.

And she pulled me aside one day and she asked me after class, she said, said, have you given any thought to

where you're going to go to school and where you're going to apply?

And I was like, oh yeah, you know, I was thinking about doing IR and I was thinking about applying to this school, this school, this school, these places, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

And like, I like law.

So I like politics.

I think I want to be a lobbyist.

I didn't know anything about what a lobbyist was other than they were lawyers.

And they did like, they were in DC.

Like that was all i knew be a lobbyist you know

and she's like

interesting okay i was like and she's like have you ever given any thought to going to school for the arts and i can see myself still standing in front of her desk

and i had no idea what she was talking about

and i was like

so confused.

And she said, because you really seem to have a real interest in it.

And I think you could do something with that.

And a still blank, you know, and then you realize these are the little gaps with being first generation, the things that just are so foreign, so foreign, you know, conservatories and performing arts schools that they're just not, they don't have the access to that.

information.

It's not that they're against it.

They just are not exposed to it.

And I, and because of their lack of exposure, I too had no idea what that was.

You know, I'd never even heard of a conservatory before.

And

I was just, and I must have had such a perplexed look on my face because she then stopped and she looked at me and she said,

you know, you can go to school for this, right?

And I didn't.

But as soon as she said it, like a bulb went off in my head.

And I was like, that's what I'm supposed to do with my life.

Wow.

And somebody witnessed you and gave you that.

Then gave me that.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

That's why I have such a deep, deep love for teachers.

I,

to your point earlier, I know I didn't do it alone.

I can at some pretty critical moments in my life chart

when someone else

came in and helped to gently guide me in the direction that was my purpose.

And that was one, because I would have

happily chugged along doing something else, having no idea that there was even something else to do.

Where did you go?

What conservatory?

Oh, Boston.

Boston University College of the Arts.

Fine arts.

Center of Fine Arts.

Yeah.

Pretty cool.

Pretty cool.

And you got to act.

Oh, yeah.

Was it, was it like I went to Carnegie Mellon and I was a transfer student from Stanford.

Let me back up.

More about me.

But my athletic,

you know, background was one thing only, basketball.

Basketball.

And I was, I, I lived, died, passionate, loved

everything about basketball.

Was I really good?

No.

I went to an all-boys school, Kent School for Boys in Connecticut,

300 kids.

Any high school would have kicked our ass.

But we won our league championship.

And it meant everything to me.

And

the only person who could crack through my lack of academic chops was Jim Wood,

who was our basketball coach.

And if I got into trouble, no one could reach me.

They'd just tell Jim, talk to Ted.

And ooh, Lord, it was, you know.

His respect for me or lack of it meant everything to me.

I just loved the man.

Yeah.

And I love basketball.

But what I got from that,

my lesson, life lesson, was ensemble.

I love team.

This is not about you, Ted.

That's right.

This is about the team winning or not.

That's right.

So it's team.

That's right.

And I love in my, I recognized it when I fell in love with, I went to Stanford to play basketball.

Walked out on the court.

Wow, that's major.

No, no, no, no.

The idea was major.

But the reality was, I stepped up to the court.

My friend and I, Dwayne, who we had played basketball together at Kent, went to Stanford together and we said, let's try out for freshman basketball.

He was an athlete.

And

I stepped up to the court.

I mean, not even on the floor.

And I looked around and was like, oh, Lord.

This is when Lou Alsender was a freshman at UCLA.

Basketball.

and basketball players were just a different level.

Yeah.

And I just slowly turned around and walked out.

I found acting about a year later at Stanford, but what I recognized was ensemble, team.

I love team.

I love working with the same group of people over and over again.

Yes.

You know,

building that vocabulary, that shorthand with each other.

You know, do you play still or do you watch?

I did until about 45.

Okay.

I retired when Magic Johnson retired.

I still appreciate and love,

but my live and die, you know, if the Lakers lost, I'd be depressed until the next game.

If they won, you know, or if they were playing and they started to lose, I'd leave the room because it was obviously me who was jinxing them.

And I'd only come back once they're.

Anyway, sports and acting.

Because acting when done well, I think is a contact sport.

Absolutely.

Basically, you and I are pushing each other around

to take the other person someplace they hadn't thought of.

That's right.

That's right.

And

it's in contact sport.

It's entirely athletic.

It requires the same mentality.

You know, like you got to have a strong mind and both, I think, to really, and you have to, and you have to think quick.

Both of them are fast-paced.

You know, they're not slowing down for anybody.

You know, they're, you have to,

their gut is the one that's talking a lot of the time, that sends the command to the mind.

I think personally, there's a lot of overlap.

There's a lot that sport and art can borrow from each other.

And both

when

happening at their

at their height,

at their clearest, at their purest, wow, both are so thrilling to watch, like

on the outside, to watch them.

You're like, how are they?

doing that and the focus is so intense looking at any professional athlete play you sit there and go, oh, they're so much older than I am.

And you realize, no, I'm actually 50 years older than them.

But their focus, their intensity makes them ageless.

Yes, right.

And when acting is done

well in the moment, it's because you are literally in.

that moment.

You're not demonstrating a good idea you had last night.

You're not, you are someplace you are no longer in control of and your focus and your intensity of truly being in this moment

is ferocious.

Yes.

Yes.

And it's as thrilling as, I don't know, downhill skiing.

You know, you're leaning out over your skis and falling down the mountain.

That's exactly right.

And you've done the work.

And then on the day, you got to just let it go and live in that space of freedom.

Which for me is 50-50.

It really is.

It's like, you know.

Yeah, but you know, like you, you, you, you, you, you've trained, you've been to all the practices, you've done the weight program the conditioning lifting you've been in the rehearsal you know your lines you know all the stuff and then the magic which none of us can create or prepare

it happens only when you and the other person are now in the pressure of the moment in the moment yep and then it comes alive and that's when the dance happens.

That's when the cooking happens.

That's when the food really

smells good.

Oh my gosh, I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

Okay.

You're in a fine arts department.

Yes.

And what happens?

I'm studying.

I'm there for opera.

Okay.

Because I sing.

I'm there for voice performance, which is where I went in.

And in the morning,

I'm doing, you know, movement

and we're rolling around and I'm loving it.

And I am so relaxed and in my nature.

And that's the part from like like the theater program that we're required to do.

And then, you know, we leave that and we go to

our Shakespeare class and I'm loving that and I'm vibing and I'm having a great time.

And then in the afternoon, I'm in music history.

And we're learning about Rachmanoff.

And,

you know,

I'm learning about Mozart.

And I start thinking to myself, like, I think I like the rolling around on the floor part more than Lewis.

Like,

like, I think I like that part.

And

I knew truly on the third day of school, I knew.

I was like,

I think

I'm going to be in this program, but I was like, I think I'm going to be an actor when I leave here.

I don't know that I'm going to be an opera singer.

And when I really look

back on it now and I'm like, well, how did, because I love music and I love to sing.

I still do.

And then I really had to think about, well, how is it that I wound up there?

And I said, you know,

what it is that I love about singing is I've always loved the lyrics.

That's why those lyrics stick in my head.

They stick.

I know the lyrics to the theme song from Cheers Since I'm a kid because I love those words.

I just love them.

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.

You know, like, I just love the story wrapped in songs.

They are brilliant.

Brilliant.

They're brilliant.

Brilliant.

Taking a break from all your worries sure could help a lot.

You know what I mean?

Like those lyrics have always stuck to me.

So then when I got into music and singing, I realized, oh, words really move me.

Even when I was studying opera, if it was in Italian and I was listening to a song, an Aria, I don't necessarily understand the lyrics.

Somehow I could feel them, whether it's I'm listening to Maria Carlos sing Vici d'arte from Tosca, the opera Tosca.

I don't know what she's saying,

but then

per que.

Signor, when I'm hearing it, I look it up and then I see the translation.

My heart could feel those words somehow.

And I'm like, oh, she's begging.

Yes, I could feel that.

It's the words and the way that they're saying them.

So

then I started to fall in love with the theater because, and acting, because that's what I love.

I love reading the words on a page.

I like, love saying them.

I like the way words make me feel.

They are music when written purposefully and well.

They're like musical notes.

Yeah.

they do play you they play you and i and i don't know how you feel you know like over your career you've had such a wide range like

no it's the anchor to how to get in to the for me the thing yeah almost more than emotional preparation

which is all of that good stuff as well but for me it's like

Once again, if they're consciously written,

if say them over and over and over and over and over again, not how I say them, but start really letting the words play me, it takes you places that you couldn't imagine, I think, on your own.

Exactly right.

Exactly right.

I love words.

And it's like, it's why I've always loved books.

Like I start realizing, I'm like, oh, there's connection here.

I was like, I've always loved to read.

I've loved always my whole life to read.

I love story.

I love imagination.

If it was a long time, like it used to be an escape to go somewhere else and like

just disappear, you know, into someplace else, somewhere else, someone else's story.

And I feel like

acting is a continuation of that, but in real life, like it's like taking it out of here and bringing it here.

Athletic.

It's athletic for sure.

It gets right into your body, which is very exciting.

That's why I hate arthritis.

It's getting in my way.

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Okay, so you're not auditioning yet.

You're not out in the real world.

You graduate

and you go to New York.

Yes.

And

you start getting parts in theater, right?

I was doing theater in New York.

loving that

and

happy doing theater, but also,

if I'm being honest, never letting myself dream of doing anything else because

I

just didn't see the pathway or the

invitation into the space.

So I said, this is where I should stay.

Like this.

Sorry, that's such a,

I didn't get an invitation to that space either.

And I spent, you know, time in New York and

did some theater and all of that, but there wasn't a real invitation.

There was no, yeah, it's like, I was like, I don't see me here anywhere in the TV space.

I was like, okay, like, this is maybe not going to go.

And I'll just stay on this, you know, this island here with everybody who seems more open

to me being here.

But then I met a manager who was working with who said,

who was from Los Angeles.

And she came to see

a show I was doing at the time.

And

she wanted to work together.

And she said that she thought I should give

film and television a try.

Much like that teacher in high school, she said, you know, I think you could do something there.

And I honestly think I only believed her because she was from Hollywood.

I'd never been to Los Angeles at that point in my life, save for one track meet.

And

she was from Hollywood and she must know what she's talking about.

So that allowed me to dream out loud.

I had it back here, but wouldn't give it permission to be let out.

But suddenly now she had a knowledge, I felt, of something that I would give myself the permission to consider it

so she said we're not auditioning for any

plays and we're not taking any offers and I was like I'm not getting offers for plays lady but okay you know so she's like we're just doing film and television

so I started auditioning for film and television and I was getting no after no after no after no and it's not that I hadn't had no in auditions or things for theater I had

but because this was now the dream that I really wanted,

it cut deeper to hear no because I was, I actually allowed myself to consider that it was possible.

And I was being told the exact exact word that I had imagined before she came into my life, I would be told.

So I was like, she's wrong.

She doesn't know.

I was watching all my money disappear.

I was going broke before my eyes.

And it wasn't like I was making a great living, you know, doing theater.

Like I wasn't living a fancy living, but I was my living.

And it was comfortable and one that I was happy and proud with.

But I was watching it was one that took me a long time to build up as well, I might add.

And I was watching it sort of disappear before my eyes.

And

I auditioned for this show called Orange is the New Black in August of 2012.

I didn't hear anything about it.

Was going to an audition in September

for a show called Blue Bloods.

Yeah.

My friend Tom.

Yes.

For Blue Bloods.

And I got

the, I was sent the wrong directions.

I went to a different building

and I wound up getting sent the new right directions.

I'm 20 minutes late.

I was devastated because you know, we're not supposed to be late for auditions.

I'm sweating like crazy.

I remember I was wearing this like tan dress and it was like a huge like sweat mark in front front of me.

It's terrible.

I'm standing there at this huge like industrial fan in the lobby.

I'm standing in front of the fan trying to like cool down before I go in,

just like crazy.

They bring me in.

I do my audition.

I remember leaving and I was like, that was a really good audition, but you're not going to get the job because you were 20 minutes late.

And this is the universe trying to tell you that this is not for you.

You keep trying to make this for you and it is not for you.

And I cried.

Wait, wait.

Sorry.

Yeah.

That was in your head?

Yeah.

That was you saying, okay.

That was not.

I'm reading the whispers here.

This is my self-talk.

This was my self-talk going where I was like, this is not.

You're trying to make something happen.

You know, like that's not going to happen.

Quote from like mean girls.

Stop trying to make fetch happen.

Like it's not going to happen.

You know, like I was trying and I remember I was on the train, just tears.

I had three transfers to get back to my house.

Tears, tears, tears, tears.

I pulled out this Merriam Williamson prayer, surrender prayer that my friend Salise had given me, read it for the first time sincerely on the train.

And I was just

not

at peace, but I had resolved myself that I was going to quit, which I'd never done in this business before.

I had questioned, I had doubted, I'd been angry, I'd been devastated, I had begged and bargained,

all of those things, but I had never quit before in my heart.

But I was like, we're quitting.

It's a Friday.

And I was like, a Monday, you're going to call your manager, call your agent, and say, I'm out.

I prayed.

I was like, if you can find the way for me to go and become a lawyer, go to school and become a lawyer.

I will go.

I got home.

I ordered some wine.

I ordered some sushi.

I called my sister.

I told her to come over.

I have something to tell her.

I was going to tell her I'm out.

5.45.

I love this story.

5.45.

My phone was on the table, the coffee table right in front of me.

5.45, my phone rings and it's my agent.

And I was like,

they're probably calling to be like, why were you so late?

You know, and I was like, it doesn't matter.

I'm going to be, I'm quitting anyway.

I'm just going to tell them on Monday.

It's fine.

I can tell them now.

I tell them,

they pick up the phone and she's like, hi.

I said, hi.

She said, I have Joan, my manager.

She's like, at the time, she's like, I have Joan on the phone.

I said, okay.

Never had that before.

And they're like, we have some news for you.

And I was was like, uh-huh.

And they're like, do you remember that audition you went on for Orange is the New Black?

I said, yeah.

They're like, remember the part you auditioned for?

I said, yeah, I auditioned for the track star, the girl playing the track star.

And they're like, yep.

Well, you didn't get it.

And I was like, I am leaving this business at the exact right time because agents are now calling clients to tell them when they don't get jobs.

I was like, this is exactly the right time to be getting out.

And they said, well, you didn't get it,

but they'd like to offer you another role.

And I said, are you joking?

She said, no, I'm not joking.

Tears.

I told her, I was like, I was just leaving this business.

I quit.

You don't understand.

I just quit.

She's like, well, you're not quitting today.

You know,

and she said, it's for two,

possibly three episodes.

And it starts work next month.

And in fact, I was so excited.

I believe my first day of work was October 9th, if I'm not mistaken, 2012.

And

I and then and then, by the way, sorry, you guys, and then

I found out that I got the job on Blue Blood.

You're not leaving.

I got that job too.

You're not going anywhere.

I got that job too.

And so

I was so excited.

I was so stoked to the point, in fact, still to this day, my alarm on my phone, which I set the night before my first day on Orange, which is

Bill Withers Lovely Day,

is still my alarm now to this day because it was a love is going to be a lovely, and I woke up like bouncing out of the bed, like just so stoked.

Did you, those three episodes, do you think you went,

I got this.

I understand this part, even though, how soon did you know that it's going to be more than three episodes?

I didn't know.

I found out after I shot the third, because I remember finishing the first two,

and I was just

like a kid in a candy store, just so happy to be there.

I was just so grateful and so thankful for this opportunity.

And I remember I was being walked back to my dressing room.

by one of the producers and she said, okay, so we'll see you on the next one.

And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna get to do that third episode.

That's great.

Like, I'm gonna get to do that third episode.

I did not know that the conversation had already started about doing the season.

I had, I had no idea.

So, I finished that third episode, or I was in the middle, I think, of that third episode when I got the call and they said, They'd like to have you back for more.

And I was like, what?

Like, and I mean, even you asked me that question, it's making me think right now,

What did I think beyond that?

I think I just, I don't know what I thought beyond that.

I think I just thought, oh, I'm going to do a fourth episode.

At some point, I did know I was going to go till the end of the season.

And quite honestly, when we wrapped, that was enough for me.

Like, I was like, wow.

That was awesome.

Like, I just got to do that.

And, you know, I guess we'll go figure out whatever, you know, play to go do next, you know, like that was all I thought.

Had you experienced any feedback or did you finish the season, shooting the season before it was aired so that you weren't experiencing people's reaction to Crazy Eyes?

No, we finished because it's Netflix.

It all drops at once.

So we finished all of it.

I finished.

I went on my first vacation, adult vacation that I took myself on.

Went to go visit my cousin in Belgium and my best friend in Amsterdam.

He was working there at the time.

Came back to do a show at the Public Theater in New York.

And

from there, I went to the Sundance Theater Institute, where they put you up in cabins up in the mountains.

And

we didn't have great service up there.

Like service did not work when you're down on like at the, in the rehearsal spaces.

You had to wait till you got connected to the Wi-Fi up in the cabins.

And while I was up there working on new plays with new, you know, writers and everything, the show dropped.

And it was so wild because I had a Twitter, but like, I didn't really

do much with it.

You know, I just had it for the show that I had been in previous, the year before.

And

it would be wild because, you know, I would go down, be in rehearsal.

I remember the first day.

So my phone does not work.

Like when I say it does not work, you don't get calls, nothing.

You have to like wait till you're up in the cabin.

Go down.

And then like, as you're, because everybody would walk up the mountain, just enjoy the view.

I'd be walking up the mountain as I'm getting closer to where the Wi-Fi, you know, like all of a sudden my phone would be like,

you know, because I still had notifications on.

And it was like, 500 people followed you today on, you you know, Twitter.

And I'd be like, I must have had a real sassy tweet last night.

You know what I mean?

I must have really liked, you know, whatever.

I had no idea it was because of the show.

People were watching it.

And then even when we were there, people were like, I started watching your show last night.

And I was like, oh, really?

Because you have to remember, these are early days, Netflix.

Like in my mind, I had been walking around telling people that I was on a web series.

Like that's what I was doing.

I do not know really what Netflix was, you know, because it was so early.

But yeah.

And it's that feeling.

I mean, you, you,

that first time, you know, when you're in something, it's like, it's wild.

It's a wild.

For Cheers for me, which was the first time,

it didn't really hit until the, after the third season.

I mean, you'd get people going, oh, sorry, I showed, like, it, like, I like it.

But as soon as it was syndicated, which was the then equivalent of Netflix dropping everything, yes all of a sudden you know you could watch cheers every night so the the literally the energy you'd walk out on the street and you'd go what the fuck yeah

and even without people staring at you you could just feel all this energy yeah coming your way and it was it was lovely and

shocking a little bit.

And cheers is a massive success too.

Like that, and you're leading that show that is a huge titan, you know, a massive, not only just not quite yet.

No, not third season.

We, it was fourth season that Bill Cosby and the Cosby show dragged the entire night into the top 10.

He was such a juggernaut that show that everything that followed the NBC lineup that night, he was, I think, eight o'clock, just went into the top 10 as a result.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Was it, did you expect it?

I don't think,

I don't, I think we were so supported by Lesson Glenn Charles, who created with Jimmy Burroughs.

They were, they did, because we were dead last.

The first season, there was one

episode that was like, as Jimmy likes to say, 75th out of 70.

It was, you know, we were truly dead last.

And it took us a while to catch on.

But they always said, You're doing great work, you all.

It's great, it's wonderful.

We're very excited.

So, we were kind of sheltered from the fact that it was possible that we could have gotten canceled if NBC had had another show to put in our place.

Yeah.

How did you do with fame?

How did you do with recognition?

Um,

if I'm being, huh?

Yeah, if I'm being honest, you are.

Uh,

I was uncomfortable with it.

I wasn't,

and still am, I was very uncomfortable with

it's a weird thing to compute because it's like, firstly,

our show came out and it was a weekend

that it came, like it went into existence.

So it was all of a sudden people watched 12 hours of you over the weekend.

Over the weekend.

And then suddenly, you know, it wasn't

built up.

Yeah.

So it was just like, yeah, on a Friday, I'm buying groceries at the grocery store and like digging for change and nobody's thinking about it to like now like everybody's holding out a quarter.

You know what I mean?

Like that kind of thing.

It's a little different.

And I'm not,

it's, it's just a, it's, it's, it's a wild thing to put in your mind that

people

know you who you don't know.

Um, I appreciated, I'm thankful, firstly, let me say, I'm very thankful

that it was always positive.

You know, I didn't, knock on wood, have a negative experience with anybody on the street or on the train or in my neighborhood or anything like that.

But I was at the time so

not really knowing what to say

when somebody did want to say something.

I clammed up and became real shy.

And

Mary's that way.

Mary has that same relationship with fame.

Okay.

Is she tricky still?

Or because I'm hoping to, I'm like, when is that going to

mellow?

You know, it doesn't

mellow.

Is it going to mellow?

It depends.

If the, if the Mary has a real hard time in parties with small talk.

Yes.

I mean, I have dents in my finger with her clamping down on my hand that has my wedding ring on it.

With walking into parties, she's so nervous.

Yes.

And it's mostly because of small talk, you know.

So if people approach her with

if they're serious, they really want to talk, then she's fine and welcomes it.

And if it's direct, if it's that kind of sneaking a photo or,

or you know

yeah are you comfortable with it yeah i love it you are i'm shallow enough

um

here but here's what i did i was

sounds funny but real um

i was blessed to learn early on

uh i was blessed to realize that all of that focus is like

it's energy.

I mean, it's genuine energy, not just a compliment.

It's this massive amount of energy coming your way.

And if you just absorb it, you're like that four-year-old toddler in the middle of a group of adults who are all going, ooh, look how wonderful.

That toddler will spin out

overstimulated by all this focus.

And I've seen other actors get overstimulated by all that focus and make poor choices to deal with that.

I somehow,

series of events, whatever, I realized, oh, I can take that energy and deflect it into something

I care about.

So for me, it came about roughly the same time that I became an ocean advocate for some,

not some strange reason, but I, you know, oceans became important in defending and

restoring and all of that.

So I could say thank you so much.

I'd love to sign your autograph.

Thanks for watching.

Cheers.

Please come in to the tent and let me introduce you to this marine biologist who has something important to say.

So I became a

spokesperson for something I cared about and I learned a great deal about as I went.

And I surrounded myself with incredibly brilliant men and women.

So it was a part of my life that

was huge for me.

And it made celebrity kind of a cool thing.

It was like, it's a double-edged sword.

It's not always great and all of that, but it was a tool that I made, I made use of people's opinion of me as much as they did.

So it's like, okay, I got it.

There, there is this celebrity thing, but I know what to do with it.

It doesn't mean anything about me, really.

Well, some days it does.

Yeah, yeah.

But

using it as a tool, that

is powerful.

I'm going to go home and meditate on that for a minute.

The road is good.

Yes.

Comes from you.

That is your name.

That's what it means.

Yes.

Correct?

That's correct.

And you wrote it around the same time that your mother became ill

or before?

Before.

I started it before.

The idea of it coming to life came before she became ill.

And the book that I had signed up to write and was going to tell was,

you know,

my mom always had these funny quotes and inspirational

lines and was this very, you know, active, funny little lady.

And

I was going to tell that story, like, oh, look at my mom.

She came from Nigeria.

American dream realized.

Blah, orange is the new black.

Crazy eyes.

the end, you know, like that was the book.

Yeah.

And the book I wrote was not the book I started.

Instead, as we were collecting, you know, funny anecdotes and things,

my mom went into the hospital and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

And my mom, after being diagnosed with cancer,

it became very very clear that the stories were going to change.

And

it became extremely clear that

she might not see this book

come to life.

And even like, you know, it's funny because they have recordings of her, you know, like early recordings where we're talking and she's telling a story.

And then the understanding of time, you can feel its size and sound and shape shift.

Because early recordings before she was diagnosed, it's like she'll be telling a story and she'll be like,

I have to go, you know, my

whatever, Ellen is on, or, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to my Zumba class or something, you know.

And then all of a sudden,

time became very different and had a very different weight.

And now she wanted to complete a story she started.

Cause I don't know, I feel like she knew

that this was an account of some kind of her life.

And I think also she wanted me to really make sure that I got the lesson and knew the story of her life.

So, yeah, that's

and that's

a strange gift that came out of this experience because I got

all of the stories from her

and her life and

my life,

you know, firmly on record

and

was able to synthesize it into this

so that

she lives on and our relationship also lives on, you know, despite the fact that she had to move to heaven, you know.

Um,

she's still here, still with us.

My daughter gets to read this one day, and she will know her grandma, you know,

and I'm thankful for that.

And she'll know her mother, too.

Um,

and

I loved

doing this book and writing it

because I really was able to chart the map

that led me here out really clearly from start to finish, you know,

and to really see what was given, what was sacrificed, what was

decided, what was fought for.

I get to know my mom, you know, she used to say, you know, remember where you're from and whose blood runs in your veins, especially your mommy's blood.

She says that your mommy's blood, your mommy's blood.

You know,

I know what blood runs in these veins and the strength that I actually have because I've seen it worn on her before.

I'm so grateful for that.

Uzo Amaka.

Yeah.

The road is good.

That's right.

It's the literal.

translation.

It's the literature.

Yes, it means the road is good.

It means a road of purpose.

And it also.

It doesn't mean life is good.

It's not a,

it's not a platitude of, hey, life's good.

No, it's

the opposite.

It's more nuanced than that.

It means the journey was hard, but it's worth it.

Meaning like, if you were going to come to my house to visit and we said three o'clock.

And you got in, you see you have a flat and then you got to wait for, you know, the tow to come and change your tire.

And then you get in the car and the traffic the whole way.

And then all of a sudden sudden out of nowhere how can it be in los angeles it's snowing but here we are and there's now rain and hail and it's bumper to bumper and at 3 45 you showed up but the sun came up right as you rang the doorbell i'm unfazed and we wound up having a great you know the day is going to be beautiful and i would say to you

how was the trip here and you would say

it was hard but it was worth it because i'm here now with you That's what it means.

I love that.

You know, it's marked with purpose is also what the name means.

And, you know, my father's father was Uzodimma, which is the male version of Uza Maka.

So there was that one piece of it, but my mother put that name on me because, you know, she had, my mother had survived polio.

Your mom.

My mom.

She had survived polio.

She had lived through

in Nigeria.

In Nigeria.

Wow.

She had survived polio, went on to become a tennis champion in Nigeria.

She survived the Biafran Civil War.

She had lost her first husband by the age of 36 with two children, came back to the United States, got her master's, married my father, and had me.

And so to say that the journey was hard, but it was worth it because you're here now.

Wow.

Do you hear from, can I ask you some

perhaps none of my business questions?

Do you still hear from your mom occasionally?

Yes.

Very cool.

I do.

Do you talk about it ever?

I heard from her.

You know, I was such a busy bee when immediately she passed

and was just on autopilot to get things done.

And the day

came for her wake.

And I remember I could not sleep the night before at all.

And because I had kept myself so busy, which I think was intentional to just not have to think, you know,

I remember all of a sudden in the middle of the night, I was so anxious all of a sudden, because even though I had been to visit her at the home where she was staying,

I don't know why suddenly now it felt like it was going to be different or something that day.

And I was in my mind just not sleeping well, so

anxious is the only word I can think of.

And

all I can say, it's like, like

air or a breath coming into my lungs and into my mind.

My mom came to me and she said,

Uzzo,

you are settled.

And she said it just like that.

And I was sleeping.

And I remember it was like,

I woke up like air, new, not, not air that I had breathed, but air breathed into my lungs is the feeling.

And she said it just like that.

And it was like a calm,

a peace

beyond my understanding

came over me.

And I don't even know exactly

what that meant,

you are settled,

But I do know I felt like my spirit felt settled in that moment.

And how I heard it was like, you can do this.

And I did.

And since then, I've seen her in hummingbirds.

That's crazy.

Because we, sorry.

Yeah.

No, go ahead.

Mary sees her mom in hummingbirds.

Yeah.

I mean, hummingbirds that come and hover, you know, three feet from your face

for a long time.

Yeah.

And then take off.

Hummingbirds.

I'll tell you a quick story.

I'll tell you one, right?

Here's one.

We had a wedding that my mom was at and was able to attend, but it was COVID.

So it was in the backyard of my sister's house.

It was absolutely beautiful.

After COVID ended, we decided to have a wedding ceremony.

for all of our family.

You know, we both come from my husband and I, big family.

So we're living here in LA at the time.

I've seen hummingbirds.

And as I was preparing for the wedding, the traditional Nigerian traditional ceremony and what we call the white wedding with the white women.

Sorry, and your mom is passed.

She's passed at this point.

And I would watch TV

on YouTube videos for traditional wedding ceremonies,

things that I wanted to borrow or incorporate in terms of dress or music, this and that.

And over here on this side of

diagonally across from the TV is the doors to go outside into the backyard.

And we have these curtains to pull closed under the pergola.

And on one of the curtains, the wood was separated.

So there was like a little string that hung down.

And I kid you, not you guys.

The entire, every Saturday, because it would be Saturdays when I would have time to do this, to sit down and look.

Every Saturday, the entire time I would set up TV, put on the YouTube to start looking at traditional, you know, weddings and Nigerian wedding ceremonies, a hummingbird would come and sit on that string and appear as though it was watching the TV with me

as I would go through these things.

And I was like, I think that's my mom.

Doesn't come anymore

just during that time.

And I would talk.

They'd leave the door open.

It would never come in or anything, but it would sit there and would just be looking at the TV.

I'd be like, Mom, do we like that dress?

Do we like that?

You know, do we like that one?

Do we want to change?

Every Saturday.

True story.

Mary has a life full of those stories because she,

I think you need to pay attention.

And it's not like you can take it to court and prove it, but that's what faith is.

And that's what mystery is, really.

Yes.

But

no, we've had many of those in our life.

And they're all,

I don't know, very magical.

Anyway.

They never leave us.

No.

No.

And

why would you think they do?

You know, what is,

now I'm babbling over my pay grade, but you know, there's some branch of physics that will describe to you that everything, thoughts, even your thoughts have weight.

That's right.

They are matter.

That's right.

You know, energy is matter.

So just because the body gives out, which makes total sense,

that energy that is you,

just what goes away?

I don't think so.

I don't think so either.

I've had the,

and I do call it a privilege.

I don't know if this is true for you.

Now having a child,

I have had the privilege of watching life leave a room and I have watched life come into it.

And you cannot convince me, to your point, this word of faith, that there is not something greater that we just don't know.

I have seen them both, that a door could never open.

And a person could suddenly be in this room and a door could never

and someone can leave it.

I don't think they leave and just, that's it.

I,

they never,

they never leave us.

They never, I know it enough at this time, at this point, I know.

And that's just one, those are just two stories that I'm telling you.

I know, like, I know, I can, I have felt her.

I didn't even know people had a feeling.

When I've needed her, I'm not saying she comes every time when I'm trying to decide which pair of jeans to wear.

I'm saying she's like, I'm busy.

Yeah.

That's not what we're doing.

Yeah.

She's coming.

She comes when I think the heart knows you need her.

Yeah.

You know, and I'm like, I didn't even know we had a feeling and I have felt her.

Here's my big hope.

There's a campfire.

We can all sit around and go and laugh at ourselves and each other.

Yeah.

You know, there's got to be a version of that.

Yes.

I have the best time talking to you.

I consider it truly a privilege.

This was a gift.

Thank you.

I can't wait for my signed copy of your book.

Yeah.

And I really can't wait for you to hang out with my wife, Mary Steenberge.

And

I honor her and you by saying you're kindred spirits.

Thank you.

Yeah.

This is a true, true, true, true joy.

Thank you for the time.

Uzzo Aduba just left the room, so I'm kind of full of what an amazing hour and a half that was.

I feel like I've made a new friend in life.

Her memoir, The Road is Good: How a Mother's Strength Became a Daughter's Purpose, is in stores everywhere.

And I really encourage you to go out and get it.

Anyway, I'm still kind of full here.

Special thanks to Team Coco, and a big hello to Woody.

I miss you, buddy, as always.

If you can give us a kind rating, Not you, Woody.

The listeners.

Give us a kind rating and a review on Apple Podcasts and be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

We'll see you next time.

Where everybody knows your name.

You've been listening to where everybody knows your name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson.

Sometimes.

The show is produced by me, Nick Leow.

Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross, and myself.

Sarah Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer.

Our senior producer is Matt Apodaka.

Engineering and Mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.

Research by Alyssa Grawl.

Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista.

Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Genn, Perry Stevenurgeon, and John Osborne.

Special thanks to Willie Navarre.

We'll have more for you next time for everybody knows your name.

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