Jane Kaczmarek on Malcolm in the Middle, The Boroughs, and Finding Her Next Act

[SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to hear your favorite artist on WFPK from wherever you are. [SPEAKER_00]: Listen on your smart speaker, live stream from our website at WFPK.org from Louisville Public Media. [SPEAKER_01]: and welcome to another edition of Kyle Meredith with. [SPEAKER_01]: It's the interview series presented by WFPK at WFPK.org.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a great way to keep up with your favorite artists. [SPEAKER_01]: You can grab us on Spotify and Apple Podcast NPR WFPK.org. [SPEAKER_01]: consequence YouTube for the video versions or anywhere you get your podcast from you can subscribe to Kyle Meredith with please do give the series a rating and leave a review wherever you're listening from we've had some great guests that's been here recently just talked with Joel Courtney [SPEAKER_01]: actor Joel Courtney and director Andy Delaney about the movie Forty Dates and Forty Nights Jerry Beckley of the band America was here Suki waterhouse to discuss her latest album love land Del the funky homo sapin and and Dan the automator as Del Tron 30 30 John Gallagher Jr You know him from the news room.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's also got some music [SPEAKER_01]: That he's out doing right now. [SPEAKER_01]: We hung out with Bella Thorne, Chloe Cherry, Isabelle Paxod, to discuss the movie, Find Your Friends on Shutter, Tony Hale, and Old Parker dropped in to tell us all about office romance on Netflix. [SPEAKER_01]: Tatti Adamaz, Lani, Jake Johnson, Mary Bartlett, you can see them in maximum pleasure guaranteed on Apple TV.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Tom Cavanagh, who co-stars in your killing me on Acorn TV, just an example of what you get when you subscribe to the Kyle Meredith with podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: adds me Kyle Meredith today talking with the great Jane Kesmerick. [SPEAKER_01]: She is probably best known as a lowest the mom in Malcolm in the middle and it's new a new reboot season.

[SPEAKER_01]: Life's still unfair. [SPEAKER_01]: She's also currently starting in the burrows on Netflix. [SPEAKER_01]: She goes her career is incredible. [SPEAKER_01]: Goes all the way back to her early theater days and 80s movies like The Heavenly Kid. [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be talking all about returning to Louis in Malcolm in the middle.

[SPEAKER_01]: fair reuniting with Bryan Cranston and why Eric Percellovon decided not to come back as do we and and that might be the most quietly heroic thing of all she's also going to dig into the burrows playing Alfa Malina's wife for the fifth time getting to die to thunder road and why this latest chapter has her thinking about love and theater.

[SPEAKER_01]: and artichokes, and it's a metaphor, and it gets me blushing, as is Led Zeppelin, for what that's worth. [SPEAKER_01]: That's in the interview, and the very real power of knowing when to say, I'm good. [SPEAKER_01]: So let's get into it. [SPEAKER_01]: We're talking all about Malcolm in the middle, life's still unfair, and the burrows its Kyle Meredith with Jane Kezmerick.

[SPEAKER_02]: How are you, Kyle? [SPEAKER_01]: Don't alright over here. [SPEAKER_02]: Where are you? [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, Louisville, Kentucky. [SPEAKER_02]: New York, England. [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, Watson, Lexington. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, yes, that's right. [SPEAKER_02]: I should have said. [SPEAKER_02]: That's all I know Kentucky is, Kainland.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, we get Churchill Downs, which, um, if you block the minute, I guess. [SPEAKER_01]: So we have to go ahead. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, horses and bourbon and baseball bats and... [SPEAKER_02]: I had a friend who was a, um, what was it called? [SPEAKER_02]: which meant, I mean, it was only thoroughbreds are considered blood stock and they can't be, they have to reproduce the natural way.

[SPEAKER_02]: can't like disseminate the way you can't other horses or something. [SPEAKER_02]: So, uh, and he would take people's horses, the people would call and say I want you to sell these horses, and he would have him cave down to Caneland and groom him and put in the their lineage in the books, and he was fascinating.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was fascinated because I'd never seen that that was a part of work life I have never imagined. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean there's so much of an industry of course around here. [SPEAKER_01]: I'll hear about this all the time like, no, that's a career. [SPEAKER_01]: Like this very specific little thing like that's someone's job, you know, and stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, and he would have clients who say I want to merit to, you know, and he would decide what he wanted to see and then they would bring him out. [SPEAKER_02]: And he'd have them walk the horseback a couple times and take some notes and say, thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, what can you possibly tell?

[SPEAKER_02]: Just have them run, see how fast they go. [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to run them until they're. [SPEAKER_02]: And I, you know, when you become an expert at anything, you know what you're looking for? [SPEAKER_02]: You know what? [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought of, I remember the Bolshaud ballet or they probably still do.

[SPEAKER_02]: They would take little girls at like five or six years old and just have them stand in [SPEAKER_02]: see what their turnout was, well, how agile their backs were, and could pretty much tell which of these little girls had, the likelihood of becoming a really good ballerina. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, as you said, even your expert, but just at the same time, it's like, humans are weird, man.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's it. [SPEAKER_02]: But thank God, everybody finds something that they really want to do. [SPEAKER_02]: That's right. [SPEAKER_01]: That's right. [SPEAKER_01]: And what a great segue into your career. [SPEAKER_01]: Look at that. [SPEAKER_02]: I've been like, yeah, I've got a good run.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's such an interesting time right now, like I was just looking over the notes and it's like [SPEAKER_01]: It's like you're in this moment of return, returning to Malcolm in the middle and playing Lois after 20 years, returning to acting with Alfa Malina and the Burroughs, returning to Wisconsin.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like you're doing new things, obviously, but it does feel like there's this, [SPEAKER_02]: Full circle might not be the right words, but maybe I know I don't believe in astrology or anything But it would be kind of fascinating to see what a chart would have said was going to happen this year because it really was Unexpected and and wonderful There's a there's a Tiazalli had poem from court four court tits that I The end of it that says and the end of all our wandering will be to arrive at the place we started [SPEAKER_02]: and know it for the very first time, and so much for was that, you know, to play, we did the pilot of Malcolm in 1999, you know, Clinton was still president and John Kennedy was still alive.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I had an 18-month-old baby, then I was pregnant for a season on Malcolm, then I was pregnant. [SPEAKER_02]: Third season on Malcolm, so I had three babies in five years, this huge successful career, a television show. [SPEAKER_02]: Then, you know, life came to pass. [SPEAKER_02]: The show ended.

[SPEAKER_02]: We got divorced, raised my kids worked, but really, became part of a, I live in Pasadena, which is just the most incredible community. [SPEAKER_02]: And I became, I'm in the board of the conservatory of music. [SPEAKER_02]: I love classical music. [SPEAKER_02]: I work at the public schools.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm in the board of Pasadena Playhouse. [SPEAKER_02]: And Fred and I, Alfred Molina and I would do plays together. [SPEAKER_02]: This is our first fifth time working together. [SPEAKER_02]: He's on the board with me at the Pasadena Playhouse. [SPEAKER_02]: And, [SPEAKER_02]: The kids went to college and, you know, hello, this is Brian Cranston, would you like to come back and do more Malcolm's was, you know, you heard rumors about this for a lot of people were always.

[SPEAKER_01]: The more like it's 15 years, like, is that what I've heard, like, he was working on, or somebody was working on for like 15 years trying to make a happen. [SPEAKER_02]: E, Brian, and I like to say it's because he got sick and tired of killing all those people on his other shows. [SPEAKER_02]: You just want to come back and be doofy hell again, and it's kind of true, you know, working in the theater in London and and Brian's career church trajectory has been status, not a cat.

[SPEAKER_02]: What's the word? [SPEAKER_02]: I don't mean catastrophic. [SPEAKER_02]: phenomenal let's just go with that you know he just he missed kind of the day he's of also being together at CBS Radford and and having his body shaved and having yak hair glued to his body and everybody and it's it was it was the last thing I really expected it was just a total delight to know we were all getting back together again [SPEAKER_01]: It was so much fun watching you all and just because you hadn't played her for 20 years, but she's still lived on the screen.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's still kept living through people finding the show and all of that stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: When you come back to that, I guess you've got to carry some of that with you, [SPEAKER_01]: I would love to know that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, as yeah, I have never, I never did anything on that show that I wouldn't have done in real life, given those circumstances, you know, they were such a hard time making ends meet, they were so hard scrabble, you know, she had these children, she had such clever punishments, I remember what's, I don't know what they did wrong, but their punishment was they all had to put their heads under the couch and [SPEAKER_02]: They had the camera under the couch and what was under the couch was old pizza and socks and dust and horrible.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like the last face you want to put your hand as under the couch. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was really proud of a lot while I didn't come up with that. [SPEAKER_02]: The writer's kid. [SPEAKER_02]: But I say that the only thing I never would have done was there was an episode where Reese was writing a, Reese was teaching me to write a bicycle.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Lewis was horrified that she didn't know how to write a bicycle and warrantries don't tell anyone. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how to do this. [SPEAKER_02]: And in order to drive the, the warning home, I took his head. [SPEAKER_02]: We were in an alley and there was [SPEAKER_02]: broken glass in the alley and you know the camera shot is up through the broken glass to Reese's horrified face and me saying if you tell anyone and I thought well that that was beyond the path.

[SPEAKER_02]: I never would have put my child's broken glass. [SPEAKER_02]: I said I would have put it in dog poop. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well yeah, it's broken glass. [SPEAKER_01]: And that is exactly why Lewis remains one of the great TV moms. [SPEAKER_01]: She's loving and terrifying, usually writes, apparently, willing to stop just short of broken glass.

[SPEAKER_01]: Before we continue a Jane, that whole idea of marriage and family and what people are really capable of when things get uncomfortable, it lines up with this new A24 film that I've been looking forward to called the invites. [SPEAKER_01]: Have you seen the trailer on this? [SPEAKER_01]: It's Seth Rogan and Olivia Wilde, and they play a couple who's marriages on thin ice.

[SPEAKER_01]: They invite their upstairs neighbors, played by Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton over for dinner. [SPEAKER_01]: And from there, the night starts going places I absolutely did not expect, and there's a lot of mystery in the trailer. [SPEAKER_01]: We don't know where it's going, but you can tell that it's going every wish it way, but maybe the obvious, which is exactly what I want from that kind of movie right there.

[SPEAKER_01]: it looks to be sharp and funny and uncomfortable and sexy and it seems to be asking whether people are truly happy or just very good at staying comfortable. [SPEAKER_01]: It's directed by Olivia Wild, shot in chronological order on 35 millimeter film. [SPEAKER_01]: And with this cast, the whole thing feels like, well, like a dinner party, you'd want to be invited to, even if you might regret it, by dessert.

[SPEAKER_01]: The invite opens in limited release June 26 with Expansion to follow, check out the trailer online, and we'll be right back with more Jankez Merrick. [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back, it's Kyle Merrick with Jankez Merrick. [SPEAKER_02]: Those writers, and those scripts were finished so far before we were filming them.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's tradition that you get salmon pages and golden rot pages and new pages. [SPEAKER_02]: We rarely got new pages. [SPEAKER_02]: He started. [SPEAKER_02]: advanced, Linwood Boomer knew exactly what he wanted. [SPEAKER_02]: The writers knew exactly how to serve his vision and were required because they were so capable.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they were pretty nailed down when we got him. [SPEAKER_02]: We didn't change words, we didn't change, and it was, sometimes I think, oh come on, I think it sounds better, and I would be told, no, this is the rhythm on it, and it has to be [SPEAKER_02]: if you set it up like this. [SPEAKER_02]: And, wow, I mean, the craft of this is really admirable.

[SPEAKER_02]: And there were other times where I would say, why am I so big here? [SPEAKER_02]: Why am I so big here? [SPEAKER_02]: And he said, because we're cutting to a commercial, and this is when we come back, and we have to pick up after the commercial on the same level you were before the commercial.

[SPEAKER_01]: Incredible, just, and you did it with, like you got to do it without a laugh track. [SPEAKER_01]: which was always appreciated, I think, on my part, you know, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: I know, well, the guys would also say that it allowed you to really layer laughter, because if there was a laugh track, you'd have to kind of wait till that subsided until you set up the next joke or something, so that these things could really be layered.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it was really, the writing, I mean, that kind of military precision, [SPEAKER_02]: really worked. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I went to do the Simpsons. [SPEAKER_02]: I would did a character named Judge Harm. [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember getting there and there are no other actors there.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's you. [SPEAKER_02]: They show you your character. [SPEAKER_02]: And, and I said, well, how do you want me to say it? [SPEAKER_02]: They're like, well, anyway you want. [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, you're kidding. [SPEAKER_02]: I could do it anyway. [SPEAKER_01]: But wait, there's, there's freedom in a blank page, but there's a lot of challenges in a blank page.

[SPEAKER_02]: No kidding. [SPEAKER_02]: I was, I mean, I can be big. [SPEAKER_02]: I can be little. [SPEAKER_02]: I, and then just realize that they what they want you to do and the way they fill record those things. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, do it three times in a row, do it five times in a row different ways, and then they will see how, but again, it's it's their medium, which is what milk, you know, Malcolm, the writers, they just knew an advance exactly how they wanted it.

[SPEAKER_02]: On the Simpsons, they would play it against this and this and oh, okay, we need to hear. [SPEAKER_02]: But boy. [SPEAKER_02]: to great shows that have been on for a long, long time. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I did a play on Broadway by Neil Simon, who was a similar master of writing comedy.

[SPEAKER_02]: As much as you'd think those plays are corny, old-fashioned, whatever. [SPEAKER_02]: Bam! [SPEAKER_02]: craft on those on his writing. [SPEAKER_02]: I was so amazed there was there was a moment and this was lost in yonkers and there was a moment when one of the kids says something and I would count.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would, you know, it was a good 13 seconds you had to hold for a laugh. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a lot, [SPEAKER_02]: had, once wasn't there and his understudy went in, who was nowhere near the level of this kid, and he's not even going to get a Twitter. [SPEAKER_02]: He got an 11 second laugh.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I realized, wow, it's not so much the actor. [SPEAKER_01]: It's the writing. [SPEAKER_02]: It's the writing. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: How that was set up. [SPEAKER_01]: And not exactly that, although I'm wondering how it falls into it, because, you know, it's like thinking about the Simpsons and having to do that and find the voice, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like thinking about all of this and then seeing you in the burrows, which it feels like most of the job was just pantomime yelling the entire time on your [SPEAKER_01]: Like, like, is that similar? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what was that job? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, but I had a day when we were at the nurse, I was buying flowers or something.

[SPEAKER_02]: And my son was a little kid. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was getting frustrated with the person at the, the nursery because they weren't asked, and they weren't telling me the information that I wanted, you know, something like that. [SPEAKER_02]: And my son said to the, [SPEAKER_02]: To the clerk, the person said, you better do what she wants.

[SPEAKER_02]: She's a really good getting mad at you kind of person And I thought, George. [SPEAKER_02]: I thought, no, I'm not. [SPEAKER_02]: I thought over the compliment because it's Oh, I got the friggin part of low it's the talent. [SPEAKER_02]: You got the talent right there But the burrows. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you know, I was so happy this character was named Lily and I Never good cast is lilies.

[SPEAKER_02]: I could cast is [SPEAKER_02]: Barb, mellowess, you know, Lily and I remember wearing a pink linen blouse for the zoom meeting. [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to look. [SPEAKER_02]: Did me or sure what's in the name everything right and you know, it was just a meeting with them But I it was working with Fred again who I I said this is our fifth time working together and It was just such a nice lovely She was a beloved wife and I get to have a stroke and die listening to Thunder Road I've never saw him in the world and I get to come back [SPEAKER_02]: that I said, you know what, you know, that's it, penit.

[SPEAKER_02]: I, I, I bend to the mountain top. [SPEAKER_02]: I get to be loved by Fred Molina again, and with thunder road. [SPEAKER_02]: It was just, that was a wonderful, wonderful experience. [SPEAKER_01]: What a great show. [SPEAKER_01]: I, um, I had a gentleman alone on, uh, a few weeks ago, and it was when it before I came out, she's musician too, and we were talking about all that, but we were talking [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, you know, I knew we were doing this interview about your album, and I was just going to touch on the burrow.

[SPEAKER_01]: So my plan was when I got the screeners, I was going to watch like, you know, two, three, four of them. [SPEAKER_01]: And just to have to dip our toe in the water because it was the far enough at a time. [SPEAKER_01]: I said, I'm sorry. [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't stop. [SPEAKER_01]: I watched all 10.

[SPEAKER_01]: What an incredible story that was. [SPEAKER_02]: People said, I mean, I, that was. [SPEAKER_02]: incredibly, it was wonderful. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the comments of people and the ratings on that show, you know, was great to disprove that this idea of, you know, it has to be a certain age group, it has to be a certain, you know, there was wonderful, you know, I did a play years ago with Olympia DeCoccus, who is this age of my mother?

[SPEAKER_02]: And my mother is, she's just passed on, but she is so Catholic and so docile and so she's an English teacher and didn't like Malcolm in the middle because she didn't think children should spit on television, spit pizza on television. [SPEAKER_02]: That was my mother. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think she was always horrified that people thought I base low as her.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, they'd always say, your show is good. [SPEAKER_02]: Your facial expressions are good. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, please stop. [SPEAKER_02]: And when I was working with Olympia de Crocus years before, Olympia was out of her mind. [SPEAKER_02]: It was a play. [SPEAKER_02]: Olympia was, you know, swinging from the rafters.

[SPEAKER_02]: She was a kid. [SPEAKER_02]: There was once her husband was going out. [SPEAKER_02]: Louis George was, and she came up behind him. [SPEAKER_02]: He was wearing sweatpants, and she pulled his pants down. [SPEAKER_02]: And we all laugh, you know, and I thought, oh my God, my mother and Olympia de Caucus are the same age, and this epiphany hit me that you don't have to be it because you're a certain age doesn't mean you have to act that.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're the same age, and my mother has made choices of whom she is, and Olympia has made choices of who she is. [SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, it sounds maybe now you need to say, but it was a real eye opener that as your life goes on, you can create yourself as a 70 year old woman, the way you want to, and this has been, I mean, marrying my high school sweetheart.

[SPEAKER_02]: I got to tell ya. [SPEAKER_01]: That has happened to. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: So hot. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, my mother's dead. [SPEAKER_02]: So I can say things like that. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we went to see Led Zeppelin when we were in high school and we love this on cashmere, you know, the sexiest song.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, we're now seven years old, cashmere comes on. [SPEAKER_01]: It's all eight minutes of it or so. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, and you realize that stuff doesn't debate because you get, you can choose to have it received, but it doesn't happen. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this has just been a great gift to me after being divorced for a long, long time.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is to just have a hot husband who remembers, it's been wonderful. [SPEAKER_02]: My kids are grown. [SPEAKER_02]: His [SPEAKER_01]: we're having a great time and we'll be right back right after this welcome back it's Kyle man is with Jane Kesmere [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure there's a conversation in there about how Hollywood flipped and everything because you know, what Teenagers took over saving the world in the 80s and maybe a little bit in the 70s before that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, even then we still had great movies like, you know, I'm not the first one to say like cocoon and batteries not included in these great films, but there is something to say about all of that because [SPEAKER_01]: because you get a great show like this, the burrows, and that becomes the line, because we got so far away from that, you know?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, how do those kids think they got here? [SPEAKER_02]: Do they think they invented it? [SPEAKER_01]: That's, you know, since you open the door a little bit, I'm going to go ahead and say this line, it's one of my favorite lines that I've already lost who said it, but said, um, [SPEAKER_01]: every generation thinks they invented the blowjob.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I just think that it says so much about so much anyway. [SPEAKER_02]: You know what? [SPEAKER_02]: I have thought about, I've thought about the flip side of it, the thing that happens to ladies. [SPEAKER_02]: That didn't have to start somewhere. [SPEAKER_02]: Who ever thought? [SPEAKER_02]: I think she might like this.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what caveman? [SPEAKER_01]: Listen, when you're in the moment, things that you'd bring goes in a way, it just does the thing. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And yet, these people are all dead, so I can say this. [SPEAKER_02]: My mother's friend, Marcy Griddaki, they went to Catholic grade school.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were big old Catholic people. [SPEAKER_02]: Marcy Griddaki had five kids. [SPEAKER_02]: My mom had four kids. [SPEAKER_02]: When the Monica Lewinsky thing was going on, [SPEAKER_02]: What do they mean when they talk about oral sex? [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, oh my God. [SPEAKER_02]: Wow, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: You have five children. [SPEAKER_02]: And then I remembered my mother said that Marcy and her husband, whatever his name was, don't really talk to each other anymore. [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, I know why. [SPEAKER_02]: He's so pissed. [SPEAKER_02]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. [SPEAKER_01]: We've come a long way, baby.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then I sister told me this story and then my sister said to my mother, well, mom, do you know what it means? [SPEAKER_02]: And she said, of course I know. [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, I couldn't live, she said that. [SPEAKER_02]: Because she would always refer to it as, when my aunt Ruthy was getting divorced.

[SPEAKER_02]: I said, what happened? [SPEAKER_02]: What happened on a permanent Ruthy? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: Mom, she's your sister. [SPEAKER_02]: She must have to bail if she wants to tell me she will. [SPEAKER_02]: Because she must have said something. [SPEAKER_02]: And then there said, well, all I know is, [SPEAKER_02]: They haven't engaged in the marital embrace for quite some time.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, great, is that? [SPEAKER_01]: The marital embrace. [SPEAKER_02]: So for everybody out there, you want to get it? [SPEAKER_02]: Isn't that hysterical? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how we get out of this part of the conversation now. [SPEAKER_01]: I shouldn't be the one blushing over here.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a... [SPEAKER_02]: You know what, figuring out who invent or who first discovered men and women, men and men, women, women, pleasureing each other in different ways than the mayor's own face is right up there with a guy who figured out how to eat an artichoke. [SPEAKER_02]: You want to think about, oh, in the world, and finally discover it, you go like this, and you take the tiniest little bit.

[SPEAKER_02]: off the lead then you cut the sucker out and you put it that was probably generations before they figured out how to eat an argument joke metaphorically and literally yes that can be the euphemism that's it right there all that to say is the burrows is really good show [SPEAKER_01]: Seriously, it is, but it, it, it, it, to, to be, to be serious.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, but it, it is really great seeing this moment and everything, seeing this moment of, of, of, of, of, of the shows and, and, and, and this, birth, rebirth and research and so I mean, whatever, whatever you call this and just kind of, it just feels like you've got an interesting control of what's going on and I know we never have control of this industry.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I mean, I kind of think of it as like, I mean, actors, actors in spite of myself. [SPEAKER_02]: because I was, you know, I went to Yale, I got an agent, even when I was at school. [SPEAKER_02]: I got the first audition the first day I was in Los Angeles. [SPEAKER_02]: I had a wonderful, it was such a different time.

[SPEAKER_02]: There were three channels, you know, and I had an agent who knew the casting directors at all the channels. [SPEAKER_02]: I just had this wonderful ride, a wonderful, wonderful career in television and theater, and then it kind of stops. [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember that thing shocked. [SPEAKER_02]: What do you mean?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because nobody gets that part of the manual. [SPEAKER_02]: Nope. [SPEAKER_02]: And that there is something... [SPEAKER_02]: it goes like this. [SPEAKER_02]: It goes like this. [SPEAKER_02]: That's something only years and years. [SPEAKER_02]: But as time went on and I found as I said raising my kids brought me great pleasure, being home, Pasadena.

[SPEAKER_02]: I just Pasadena is like a little liberal arts college. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the women are really smart. [SPEAKER_02]: You go to book groups and they really read the books. [SPEAKER_02]: They drink too, but they really read the books. [SPEAKER_02]: the conservator, I work with the public school, I mean, I am so filled with enthusiasm and just sparked by living in this town and really put the career on the back burner because of the [SPEAKER_02]: You know, Malcolm's being done again.

[SPEAKER_02]: The burrows comes along. [SPEAKER_02]: My Princeton Shining Armor shows up again. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, what a year. [SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't by any, it was just by the grace of... And that funny, how that, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: So, so what do you want from this? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you're like, I want this train to keep riding the way it's going.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would love to, there's a handful of things I'm, you know, I want to do death of salesman. [SPEAKER_02]: I want to do a view from the bridge, a couple of classic plays that I really want to do, and Fred wants to do. [SPEAKER_02]: So hopefully Fred will be able to keep this going. [SPEAKER_02]: I would love to do, I was starting to gene smart the other day about something completely unrelated to this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that woman, I mean, talking about the greatest comebacks, you know, oh my god. [SPEAKER_02]: And her wonderful husband had played my love interest in several times in the 80s, you know. [SPEAKER_02]: So we've all known each other and come up and that show is so good.

[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, the time you put into a show, um, I mean, I'm doing Malcolm, my husband was doing the west wing. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you ever were there in Sorkon? [SPEAKER_02]: Come on. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't forget to write, you know, he didn't come on for seven years. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he loves, he loves it.

[SPEAKER_02]: He loves acting. [SPEAKER_02]: He continues to work on wonderful projects all over the world. [SPEAKER_02]: I like to be in Wisconsin looking at the ducks and the pond behind the earth. [SPEAKER_01]: And nothing wrong with that at all, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, that's like to be home.

[SPEAKER_02]: I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, [SPEAKER_02]: I like to be home. [SPEAKER_02]: I like to read. [SPEAKER_02]: I like to, I'm like, I've always thought I was kind of from a born and the wrong era. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm still looking for the perfect fountain pen. [SPEAKER_02]: Forget about understanding, I don't have any idea what end this stuff is.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't want to. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm talking to you, someone helped me find God bless Rachel. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure she's listening to this. [SPEAKER_02]: Like Rachel, I can't get the Zoom thing to work. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you know, other people who are good at that stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a really content, and you know, who has been a great example to me was a do-ie, really. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because I mean, that kid was inimitable, that he was, um, [SPEAKER_02]: He, when the show ended, you know, he didn't even want to do this. [SPEAKER_02]: He was just really, I mean, neither the prank.

[SPEAKER_02]: He became like a racer driver, but do we, didn't, that kind of attention and publicity? [SPEAKER_02]: And he wasn't comfortable with that. [SPEAKER_02]: And it took him a long time to find his footing again, I think, and, uh, and he has now. [SPEAKER_02]: He was always a great student. [SPEAKER_02]: You have those classrooms on TV shows where every kid has his own teacher, one kid and it follows the curriculum of the school system that they had come from.

[SPEAKER_02]: He was always a wonderful teacher and he was a smart kid and his mother was always there. [SPEAKER_02]: And after all our wandering to arrive at the place, he started and realized he's in school. [SPEAKER_02]: graduate school at Harvard studying Victorian literature and Dickens, he loves Charles Dickens.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm very happy to see it's Charles Dickens' birthday and text, do we, do we, and we write back about our favorite passages from Dickens? [SPEAKER_02]: And when this came along, he was great, you guys have fun and they said, well, you didn't have any, [SPEAKER_02]: He said, I'm good, I'm good.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then they offer him what usually speaks volumes in America or anywhere in the world, money. [SPEAKER_02]: Nope, thank you, more money. [SPEAKER_02]: Nope, I thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: Then they said, we can film everything you do on Zoom. [SPEAKER_02]: You don't even have to show up. [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Incredible. [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, you know what, in this day and age, [SPEAKER_02]: of cynicism, greed, discontent. [SPEAKER_02]: This kid is like my hero. [SPEAKER_02]: Who got him about a Theresa becoming a saint? [SPEAKER_02]: This sketch should be canonized as like an example of, I know who I am, I like who I am, I like what I'm studying, I like what I'm doing.

[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm good. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: I just, this is just remarkable in this day, Nage. [SPEAKER_01]: When you put it that way, I mean, we'd all heard just, you know, the news and everything, like, oh, cool, you know, but you're right. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's like, you had to think of what the world, the influence or thing, all, all that, all that social media stuff, all those people want is to be in your face, [SPEAKER_02]: on television on a device making money.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the goal, right? [SPEAKER_02]: If you have so many followers, you might get a sponsor to whatever that stuff is, right? [SPEAKER_02]: That's this whole, that whole McGillah is about exactly what do we said? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, thanks, I'm good. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a remarkably young man in my book.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I agree. [SPEAKER_01]: And even in a different way, remarkable young people, because I wanted to bring her, because I got to talk with Keely. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh! [SPEAKER_01]: And she's a star. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, Kid, you know what's thrilling to have her on the set was talking about theater.

[SPEAKER_02]: Young actors. [SPEAKER_02]: So few young actors know anything about the place. [SPEAKER_02]: She knew the great-class American classics who parents have a theater in Indian Wells. [SPEAKER_02]: And it was like talking to an old soul. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and telling her, look at the monologue in this because this is really an interesting thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was working with some kids, high school kids, on monologues. [SPEAKER_02]: They don't read the play in my day back when we were, you know, you would read a play and then think, oh, oh, that's a good character for me. [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a good speech. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to memorize the speech.

[SPEAKER_02]: You knew the context. [SPEAKER_02]: You knew the other characters. [SPEAKER_02]: Young people note they find, you know, the best American monologues. [SPEAKER_02]: They memorize it on their phone. [SPEAKER_02]: They don't, I don't know what's happening to the curiosity. [SPEAKER_02]: All we were actually a blame it on card catalogs.

[SPEAKER_02]: Remember card catalogs and libraries? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm waiting to see how you can blame them. [SPEAKER_02]: That's because you're looking for Helen Keller, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And along the way, you go, oh, oh, that looks good. [SPEAKER_02]: Right down that book.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, what you would find on the way to Helen Keller was I think with things now at a finger tip, [SPEAKER_02]: the curiosity of what else? [SPEAKER_01]: No, it's true. [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of, you don't even go into the what else? [SPEAKER_01]: And a lack of boredom just to add onto you. [SPEAKER_01]: Like so much of my creativity came because there was nothing to do because, you know, because because you weren't that just scrolling.

[SPEAKER_01]: And scrolling took it all the way. [SPEAKER_02]: There's a killer was saying something about this about how less we were that we were born. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: because you'd go to the library, you had to do something, and you'd go to the library, and you'd find being about, whoa, plus it was air conditioned.

[SPEAKER_01]: What's it that was important, you're cute? [SPEAKER_02]: But you know what I mean, but it was boredom without a screen, you know what I mean? [SPEAKER_02]: It was boredom like we got a figure and so you played with the kids in the neighborhood. [SPEAKER_02]: Brian was laughing about this, we used to play horses, which he said, [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we each became, you know, we were a horse.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we had ash cans in the back. [SPEAKER_02]: And that was our promatory. [SPEAKER_02]: Every horse had his, and we would just gallop around in the alley and in the backyards. [SPEAKER_02]: And then in the basement in Milwaukee, people had what were called stationary tubs. [SPEAKER_02]: They were big cement wash tubs.

[SPEAKER_02]: where your washing machine would empty into something, but we would fill them with water. [SPEAKER_02]: They were deep tubs cement. [SPEAKER_02]: And then we'd stand over them with our hands behind our backs because we were horses. [SPEAKER_02]: And we would just drink water out of this stationary tub like it was the trough, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: That was playing horses. [SPEAKER_02]: We would do that all day. [SPEAKER_01]: And I can't help but notice how much we just wondered around in this interview when full circle [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my gosh, something there. [SPEAKER_02]: Is that funny? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's because you're from Louisville.

[SPEAKER_02]: Are you in Louisville, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: We start with horses. [SPEAKER_02]: No, it was horses, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So that's great. [SPEAKER_01]: But it's true, it is true. [SPEAKER_01]: And I will start wrapping this up. [SPEAKER_01]: But like I have a son, he just graduated high school.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's done, you know, acting public schools, but you know, throughout his whole life. [SPEAKER_01]: And he's been, that's where you should be doing it. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, theater public schools, the whole run and he graduated right now and and and it's that easy thing like you've just graduated it's so easy for you just to slip back and by the way, enjoy enjoy some summer you're you're young ones by all means, but not just to get sucked in.

[SPEAKER_01]: to not being bored, you know, to just scrolling the summer away. [SPEAKER_01]: And he's jumping into a crew, or like he wants to be an actor, but we're like, man, start as a PA, be a PA because you can act every now and then. [SPEAKER_01]: You'll get a job sometimes, but you can always be a crew member.

[SPEAKER_02]: And theater, um, [SPEAKER_02]: One of the greatest experiences I had a couple of years ago was there's a children's theater here, theater 360. [SPEAKER_02]: My younger daughter was always tap dancing and doing stuff there. [SPEAKER_02]: They were doing Peter in the Starcatcher. [SPEAKER_02]: Tell your kid to read Peter in the Starcatcher.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's the play before Peter Pan. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a fabulous play. [SPEAKER_02]: The kid playing Captain Hook, a block stash, which is the big lead. [SPEAKER_02]: Was in high school and he got a call back to Juilliard for the bit, this is bit, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And it was on opening weekend.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the director of this play, who I knew, because my kid was always working there, said, what are we gonna do? [SPEAKER_02]: We're a children's theater. [SPEAKER_02]: We don't have understudies. [SPEAKER_02]: We don't have money to pay anybody. [SPEAKER_02]: And when we just lost our lead actor, would you do it?

[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, yeah! [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I will! [SPEAKER_02]: I had never sung it, you know, and I'm not a singer. [SPEAKER_02]: I memorized as much as I could. [SPEAKER_02]: This is in a church basement, working with kids. [SPEAKER_02]: It was one of the greatest theater experiences I've ever had in my life.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was so much fun. [SPEAKER_02]: working with these kids, chewing the scenery. [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, you know what, you don't have to work on broadway or on network television or Netflix, working on a poll acting, the community of being with other actors, the community is what you love about acting.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you can do that in a lot of places. [SPEAKER_02]: So, God, yes, learn to crew, learn to do that stuff and find opportunities all over. [SPEAKER_02]: And if one of them ends up being more than a day, more than a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a [SPEAKER_02]: Where is he going to college?

[SPEAKER_01]: He's not going to right now. [SPEAKER_01]: Wasn't a great, he didn't love being a student and wasn't a specialty and we talked about it. [SPEAKER_02]: And there are lots of different ways to be a student too. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And we said, you know what? [SPEAKER_01]: If your heart's not in it right now, I've been there and we're very we're up from the same class.

[SPEAKER_01]: I said, if your heart's not in it, you're wasting your time in the money. [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, honey. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and the the opportunity is there by the way, like my wife has mom she works at a college she can go, you know, that's there he can go for free, but, you know, it's like, but if your heart's not in it don't waste your time and and that was it like that, but that's that's we talked about that the whole times like if you if you're just going to be an actor you work sometimes, but if you're okay with doing all the things you're always working.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you were talking a minute ago and I just had the dumb line of my head that I don't know if I made up or if I heard somewhere, but you know, it's basically yes and starts with. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes and starts with. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's so good to do it. [SPEAKER_02]: Also, no is a complete sentence. [SPEAKER_02]: That's my favorite now. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a great one. [SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to give her reason. [SPEAKER_02]: Just don't want to do it. [SPEAKER_02]: Just don't want to come to your party. [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, just there was a bunch of friends for yesterday and Altadina and the fires and everything.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this woman's daughter has been living in her house and is not paying any rent. [SPEAKER_02]: She's not paying for food. [SPEAKER_02]: She's not paying for anything. [SPEAKER_02]: This young woman and the mother is like, it's time for you to go. [SPEAKER_02]: And she said, but I just can't come up with a good reason.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, you don't have to come up with a reason. [SPEAKER_02]: You can just say, honey, it's been a year and a half. [SPEAKER_02]: And she also, this kid has parents with money. [SPEAKER_02]: It's just, it's time to go. [SPEAKER_02]: She said, I can't, I said, yeah, you can. [SPEAKER_02]: It's your house.

[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to say anything more than that. [SPEAKER_02]: Honey, it's not it. [SPEAKER_02]: But that's it, yes and is, you know, that you know where that comes from, it's from improvs. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, I know where yes, it comes from, it's like, but you know, but it starts with yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, say yes, like jump in, get in the game, man. [SPEAKER_01]: Jump in, do it, do the things, do the community theater with the kids. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the play in the church basement, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I mean, like whatever it is, like jump in, you're doing the thing that you love.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, [SPEAKER_01]: I say this all the time because other than this interview series, I run a public radio station, the music side of a public radio station. [SPEAKER_01]: We also have classical, and we have an NPR new station. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, we work in the toy departments.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is what we get to do. [SPEAKER_01]: Like the most stressful day is still us playing with toys, you know? [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, and I've been [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I asked my mother once, well, did I always want to be an actress? [SPEAKER_02]: And she said, no, when you were young, you wanted to be either a hairdresser or a nun.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, well, I kind of nailed it, because that's the wide variety of, and she said, in kindergarten, we were peach blossoms or something, and we were all supposed to leave this way. [SPEAKER_02]: And I started leaving the wrong way. [SPEAKER_02]: And I convinced all those other peach blossoms to follow me the wrong way.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think I thought, hmm, I don't have a little power, I guess. [SPEAKER_02]: When you think of this, how lucky we are that I, there's always something I wanted to do and I've been able to do it and working in music and, you know, what a, yeah, just for the luckiest lunch out there. [SPEAKER_01]: I so enjoy getting to see you continue to be the luckiest out there and all of these, seriously with Malcolm and the burrows and I hope we see so much more of both of those and yeah, well, you know, [SPEAKER_02]: whatever, otherwise I'm just going to be watching those ducks.

[SPEAKER_02]: And listening to Calshamir, the Led Zeppelin, you know. [SPEAKER_01]: You need to hear the jokes. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, this is a blast. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_01]: My thanks to Jane Malcolm in the middle of life still unfair is out now on Hulu the burrows and it's only season is out now on Netflix.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks to you for checking out the episode. [SPEAKER_01]: Please do hit that subscribe button if you're not already. [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to get new interviews just like this one sent you away every single week at Spotify, Apple podcast, NPR, WFPK dot org consequence. [SPEAKER_01]: YouTube for the video versions or anywhere you get your podcast from you can subscribe to Kyle Mayard with Please do give the series a rating leave a review where ever you're listening or watching from and after that You can head over to wfpk.org It's right to a show Monday through Friday starts 6 p.m. Eastern It's four hours of classic alternative and indie rock the best in new music and bonus interviews Lots of music and film news one of my recent shows featured some classics and favorites

[SPEAKER_01]: From Blot and Melon, the smashing pumpkin, second story man, Mama's in the pop-as in Vogue, in excess, Marshall Crenshaw, Ficed, Brandy Carlisle, Brit Taylor, Josh, Ritter, Matthew, Electrician, Gus Gus, Belilita, The Beatles, Blonshell, and my interviews with Judith Light, Nick Offerman, Mary, Holland, Rod Stewart, Cindy Loppard, Todd Rundgren, McFlywood, Kameco Glenn, McKinna Grace, Tears for Fierce, Brand of Flowers, Radiohead, Ryan Tetter, [SPEAKER_01]: Just an example of what you get when you tune in weeknight starting 6 p.m. Eastern at wfpk.org Consequence has your music and film news you can also find me on any of the social media sites.

[SPEAKER_01]: The address is always at Kyle Meredith. [SPEAKER_01]: Please do like and follow along. [SPEAKER_01]: That does it for another edition. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Kyle Meredith. [SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you next time. [SPEAKER_00]: Consequence podcast network, it's easy to hear your favorite artist on WFPK from wherever you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen on your smart speaker, live stream from our website at WFPK.org from Louisville Public Media.

Jane Kaczmarek on Malcolm in the Middle, The Boroughs, and Finding Her Next Act

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