Inflection Point with Lauren Schiller; #20; Challenging Assumptions: With Sarah Silverman and Catherine Hardwicke

the pope slogans inflection point interviews with women changing the status quo and learned taylor did you ever hear the one about the woman who was hired as a writer of famous tv show spent the whole day with them and we had lunch and then they said so are you a tight this earnestness silliness mr wright you're like why are we still challenging these traditional assumptions are you are a real partner challenging of them spend with their government and catherine hardwicke that's our inflection point three d thrift

the piece welcome back to inflection point i'm lauren shuler our guest sarah silverman has won two emmys started her own tv series and earned a grammy nomination for the comedy album from her standup special we are miracles she read the new york times bestseller the bed wetter stories of courage redemption and pee and has shocked many an audience in her stand up shows whether our readers humor now she stars in the new dramatic film i smile back in which she plays laney a tragically troubled housewife seeking her own kind of redemption in this clip cleese therapist is asking about her daddy issues so really right what's more interesting free the daddy issues or the drugs will i like to start with the daddy issues because it's a very organic segue into the drugs

alliance for a way down the clothesline as the whole story has taken a minute that the floor semi sub so droves go to town and come away haven't spoken again reading call me when you call him he carries it didn't know where he lived off we spoke with ursula was she was in town for the mill valley film festival where she was a featured guest sarah silverman so great to be here with you today great to be here so i heard that the woman that wrote the book i smile back in a couple minute hand picked you know for this role can you tell me how that came about she did see was listening to howard stern well driving on the west side highway and i was on at the time talking about a book that i wrote called the bed wetter which his advances personal essays kind of turned into a

memoir and i was talking about my experience with depression and she just connected in and felt like i was right for the us and i decided to write the screenplay version two was there something that you related to be in this character and how did you had as you deal with the dark as character you know i mean i think most comedians wrestle with a darker side and it wasn't totally unfamiliar to me very elements of that that i could draw from my own life in some ways and they were are things about it that i had come to understand through working in therapy and being interested in human nature and ourselves and addiction isn't something i had experienced that i am unless law and order counts yeah

you know that to chung happens and when you get but as a comedian i'm surrounded by addiction you know through sometimes like years and certainly in a very you know an audience the audience the it's a bar kind of world so i'm at a lot of things i could dry and an end and resources good resources why was empathetic with a character from the beginning because the only times get a long time was in the bathroom yeah what i have personally express agreed and well you've never been afraid to talk about body parts in any of your comedy charity it comes up pretty consistently new theme that you you do a nude scene in this movie this the fall from paul sarah silverman and what i was talking about this with somebody and they sit walk was early her

thousand dollar budget a lot of cgi eighty eight it was oh you know i've never been naked anything until i turned forty in that i've been naked in a few things and that worked out well for me because i have i've grown emotionally and i you know i'm not perfect and i nitpicky things about myself but i'm mostly know that it this is my human challenge its sides just fine and it's it's good to show your body there's nothing wrong with that and diets i felt like the moment was really real and something that is totally relatable not that everything i do has to be something that's relatable but i mean i have stood in front of the mirror and lifted my boobs and mike is

not that they used to be very happy now there here i am you know it's scary that if you know italy's journey to reconcile it the process of aging and mortality than that you know life especially for a woman is like a very very slow moving horror film in it oh it was a very personal moment and i really felt incredibly athletic and an end and you have an amazing body fyi china works exactly what the ford or something online have you ever considered doing anything other than comedy eagle owl you know yeah i eat there lots of sciences me like all of us and you know i've always mind mining mining site just got stuck on a word you know when you just see like burger king over

different level is minds kind of vote not just have to live kind of a darker topics for things i like to talk about in comedy and and i think that comedians you know i'm kind of share a a a darker side i think that's why comedians a lot of times full two drummers and do it they know a good job you know what i'm did you ever consider doing anything and recites families monologue from howard davidowitz i'm from new hampshire diggs has a new hampshire and you know and good bye clock's ticking and coffee and much and i would cry oh and dunne yeah i you know i never had that i never had a game plan for a mate career or anything i i

never kind of well i wasn't looking for them so it came to me and i was i knew i was lucky to have a new experience but i had this in me i mean at nat turner god forbid i say something positive about myself but i feel i've had i've had in me as you know it and the ability to have that dramatic you know experienced that to pretend this new reality like it was real for me and that's what a dead by fellow really really mean my my mouth was hanging open at the ant which reveal here it was really incredible we're talking with sarah silverman you're listening to inflection point interviews of women changing the status quo later in the show we'll talk with catherine hardwicke who directed the new film miss you already i learned show they're pulling back right after this

welcome back to inflection point interviews of women changing the status quo i'm lauren shuler my guest is the comedienne and actress sarah silverman will you let your stereo i think that saturday night live writing is that right yeah i wish i had died been doing standup since i was seventeen and i finished high school and moved to new york and i passed out flyers for a comedy club for two years and they let me have stage time and am and by the time as nineteen hours doing standup professionally meaning i get ten dollars from each spot it and so i don't i was at nyu and i went for a year and my dad made a deal with me that if i dropped out of college he would pay for my rent for the next three years as if it were my sophomore junior senior year and i would continue doing standup and there was a good deal i i did take classes feist all classes from nyu after that because we both realized

what i wanted to do didn't take a degree and that they don't know if you're in there cause there's a big giant lecture classes at the whole philosophy course you guys and passing papers and down i i enjoyed it and i got a lot out of it and dom and by the time i would've graduated i was hired as a writer on saturday night live so you're getting a deal and you know we didn't have well i was going i have a time where that conversation to plead for colleges really really really expensive than i knew want to be a comedian an actor and i was a drum major at nyu which is amazing program and wonderful if you're very rich or have a full scholarship and that's great you know but it's it's a lot of money for something that you don't need a degree to get hired for and so we just decided that it wasn't i mean i think that's a big reality right now in america i know for all sorts of locations that unless you needed diploma offer

something college it's sadly isn't worth that i am i love learning i love it i loved taking classes at nyu and i was able to get a lot out of just stealing them to be a friend that i met at nyu that were just their parents made the move to college and i mean it's so much money going back ten and twenty thousand dollars a year now it's like a hundred thousand dollars or daughters that he did yes and you ended up getting wedding what many would consider a dream job writing and fired herr yeah so what was your experience that i mean were you one of the few women in that writer's room that looked like there were there was one other woman a woman named marilyn suzanne miller who had been there since the beginning on and there have been women there before me that war had gone off to create shows and stuff but it it was mostly man it

was a long time ago and there were computers but there were not computers there we rode on legal pads in and gave it to a room of thai tests amber i was hired at the same time as three boys from harvard and lauren put us together and said you guys can hang out together and one of the early days the first days before we officially started and i spent the whole day with them and we had lunch and then they said oh so you were typecast her necessarily go somewhere like you got that but i guess it was an innocent mistake because they were living in the world we were living in at that time but what year was the nineteen ninety three how up so did you get assigned to a new group of writers are to do did you you just put us together not to write together it just hang out as we read the twenty two year old you know they had just graduated college and they were and you know that that would ever harvard lampoon probably in that it's a little bit of a free

ticket in comedy it's really was at the time and come here will you use i had talked about you mentioned your ten dollar a gig great when you're doing stand up and you've talked about the disparity in wages what is common between what you're getting paid him of the guys i was getting ten dollars as well is there a chance to live see you know if you don't get a lot in the city for doing satz i think the comedy cellar space pays the past a paper they're great at the comedy cellar at one thing that i love about them is they're becoming closer in the business of making money but they really care more they care most about the comic and what i love is they have a three drink maximum and people complain in the you know it starts to do stand up for a bunch of sloppy drunk see you know and it's so great you know if they want to drink more testy who runs the club will be like the

seasoned a bar you can go to abbas to the show you know yeah and so it's nice when nate they care about the comedian i think answers is going to seek to drink minimum places are two aluminium i'm so it's so lovely to have won three drink maxima club is just it means so much to us comedians what do you seen teams since nineteen ninety three you relative to women in comedy and everything i mean when i started it you know it and i saw what all alive when i was seventeen that you know we were encouraged to you know the continent that you would say oh you know if you're really good comic then you write material that that that a woman or a man could do you know and now was the thing i bought into that because the big examples paula poundstone and she was just so brilliant and i was i can write like raw material could

be either one but so you were it was considered happy or not not cool or not not here not a real comic and he talked about the female experience and i think that is the opposite of how it is now and that the women not only are taking over comedy and having ever since tina fey became head writer etcetera life i think was a really big thing and you know her and amy amy poehler and and chelsea handler and all these really powerful women who are unafraid to be powerful and also unafraid to be vulnerable you know and i think that's what's important to know is is to realize like i can talk about a female experience you might not be my audience you know and to me the best comedy is in its second guessing your audience that's why so many like annette were television shows can be crappy because there's they're trying to second guess what a fourteen year old boy wants

to see instead of putting what would you want your comedy is out there and trusting that you know what would do you wanna be known for in your career path i don't know i don't know i'm trying and therapy and set to live a life i'm not daunted by the thoughts of legacy or mortality or immortality or how i'm perceived to work having how i feel about myself be dependent on how people may perceive me as that that's so the prison i think it's a practice to try not to i'm not perfect at it obviously but so i'm aiming for in two thousand at the great schlep encouraging act campaigning for barack obama to get the bodies and so forth and florida are you getting involved in this next election you think my guess is i well i haven't copperhead don't have the big idea yeah they don't know what the angle is in two

dozen twelve i did one that wasn't for obama knows more about voter suppression which is a horrifying thing that is has become a guerrilla epidemic and is just a toaster and fully legal racism and disgusting and rampant and it's just that's a hole i could go and an ominous thought myself in season the city is alien to wrap this up but i am just waiting for it to present itself i love bernie sanders i also really like hillary i like joe biden you know i just love that bernie is just wholly not for sale and i think that's important and it's important to support one last question about it and what's the best advice that acting you've ever received they only got an a

i've done a lot of great advice that you know garry shandling gave me a lot of great advice about acting and the moments between the lines and it's not being afraid of even in comedy and not being afraid of the quiet moments you know when i was a connecticut acting class and then acting teachers that acting is reacting and four up until about a year and hobbies like what is that rhee acting acting again and then i was driving an eleven year ago at overreacting yes i agree that's great buster sutherland thank you so much for sticking with the tank is someone tells fun that was comedian and actress sarah silverman her new movie is i smile back in theaters this fall this is inflection point interviews with women changing the status quo coming up after the break we'll talk with twilight director catherine hardwicke

her new movie is miss you already featuring drew barrymore and toni collette others

i'm r and shiller and you're listening to inflection point working female directors are a rare breed in hollywood and is even more rare to find one who's been in the business for over thirty years and still working after establishing himself as a production designer catherine hardwicke made her directorial debut in two dozen three with the movie thirteen and it into blockbuster status directing twilight she has six more film credits to her name including her latest film miss you already with toni collette and drew barrymore and this wasn't even her first career and a little apology had a time we were having a bad day catherine hardwicke things for joining me so your career as a director including your most recent film is he already two themes seem to run for your work female friendship and coming of age why have you gravitated toward those areas

i think you know we all seventy five times we can relate to the name of that family becoming a danger point out that when you know that he met with a family friend they that i know about making me that going through very creative kids very troubled time and i wondered if i had any hand in helping your content that you've heard created the idea that a very effective than low island the inflation that world and then of course we know that a teenage years i met the lovely of the region and capable and i think they are changing our brains are changing and changing the age of kind of like a very high level of drama people fly so friendship you know that it's so much about thirteen and that they need to connect them with either a grove of cool girl the popular throughout the

developing john bartlett and it kind of like the wild girl which affirmation of any kind have the while growing played by toni collette nellie and that kind of wild danger of girl they bring you know anti trading in and an unpredictability well i don't think i haven't gone to the people like magnum and then i'm fine here but then i think that you know i don't think it is and it really oh i saw your directorial debut i saw thirteen when i i had a nine month old little girl at the time and i have to tell you we're really stuck with me and i spent the last thirteen years wondering why would you have been when cedar and thirty and so well well diane and also she's there is hard to watch a dance that they completely compelling said congratulations on that being the first one of the gates would you say it was your greatest influence

you know my hand i can do a political main character for the three eighth is and there are no other world can identify my mom or teacher union have that many i mean the thing that they made many have innately got to be creative like nevada for the good microbes that would be a big mountain of like character spent the arabic name for the carrot sticks at night the best thing and the headlights make something out of it like they can also go out there to weird thing that i think it it really in it the image of the creative and make up the story and doing things the whole world so it was really great fun susie i wonder if he knew then that that would lead you to this career how the us can do in a know it all and thinking well that

went on that the correct information and six building a whole will unite together the hall that is an effective play in the late poet and put me on the path to fill in a key point in the three men killed when you know the fact that you're there i said oh yes i would live long time i will take him in a way in the film paul if you click on the right career and my parents thought that they were only like they're going oh you're doing you went on your first fourteen or fifteen years in film was is the production designer what does that entail that connection than when ella baker ripley people thought it could be an architect and you should protect meaning and a perfect

remember it's only that the product idea to have the work it had all kinds of pre visualization in on it that an architect of the inflation at that you're creating a new building that you know we can and then add a production manager actually help building character that you know women know in the house that would think of the defining action an england player is killed the paper said that requiring that they had to kind of like we think the vine that i love that fifteen characters can help in building your story though of a great condition and then i went to work for all these wonderful characters i didn't have like a variety of the you know one of their department working with him on very calmly and

that helped me a lot and i can enter their school maj lisa gillett anchor because she is one of a few women directors that you worked with at that time on laurel canyon working with terror have any impact on your intent to become a director or how you wanted to be as a director well you know i had actually went after architecture school and then i felt that had had it not usually grab or in la you're basically every bit the character being financially know the directv make their candidate is by the company did everything it now wikipedia and so i already had a winning record and i go oh i'm a mammal been anything but i needed he made many unknown people that well you could make many of the production renders that lead me in a kind

of other side track so i already knew in between every job longer one that we said between every job i would be writing my own screenplay and making sure they aren't thinking that i think i've been there i think i think you know and don't literally right after working at lipa important great speaker and they're making like and that are very cool very supportive of her pain one in my view pretty well right away i had been maybe thinking about it and didn't get that year with a logging in and picking out that we're seeing every day is for you as you were as you say that's your insane you think the complete thought and

i'm sure i'm going to be there for him and so it really landmark on her and kind of observing here that they you know quietly into a man that he kept anything concrete very thoughtful thorough and one thing i found them and then i had then new content unlimited and very quiet and awful and a very high energy and on kenyan in completely different flow you know when played into thinking the only work when he invented the savannah where he admitted to have to combine their own well thank you prof the interim leaders and so it is working for your aids know but what happened on a home edward director net that framework of management skill

needed thank you you know think the kavanagh today that ignited game i in fifteen galvanize them in a plan i'm not only going to tell you and now in britain not panic when everything going on right now in the reigning i'm not really an actor then a meltdown a bit like audrey kind of again it is very confident that they can do you stay focused well no and things you know i mean i believe that they're afraid of pick a fight with the unending until i've been an enabler and when the director fired and nine the key people and sam at

warily conway agrees that it ever get only known i try liam on it i feel like ok and now i can survive in five day comment read through it i made in the montana town of hit golf fan yeah this is a new system we're talking with film director catherine hardwicke her new movie miss you already features drew barrymore and toni collette will continue our conversation right after this it's a

you're listening to inflection point i learned solar my guest is film director catherine hardwicke her new movie miss you already features drew barrymore and toni collette and there's a video going around from the website funny or die bitch yeah i make a cameo and i'm and it's called the real reason women don't direct more action movies which features three of three young businessman ask ridiculous questions of talented directors female directors including yale let's just hear that excited happy to hear your thoughts and your take on space cops or back into space were back in a super bowl and we really think that this can be a summer blockbuster for us yeah definitely we have one question on the needs of the scale of what we're really looking for is for the phone to go oh like that specifically really make a go boom and some differences there and chase sequence of that i think we all love the chase is

right there in the chase sequence about one car chase near the car the cars going and we need to move the bill think you can handle that i've directed an action adventure movie before so that shouldn't be a problem twilight made forty nine guys think we're counting the center of the city with the recession and we were curious as to what your approach would be scenes that need a little hot you'd been in meetings there were actually like this will become quite rare in

fact that they're pretty talented comedian that i fell on my intimate evening but actually the moment when i get an order in them and they're like little in it you know and i come in like american indian if i can get given the truth if we don't get our way there is some as biased toward male directors will conclude that event and then by that time than in the whole of an operation with women in town and a hired idea he preferred therapy threatened that question david all the interviews with you know a gym and have the beauty of that thing trying to get at that question why aren't you hire more women and also there've been you know the truth so

many that i think one of the welcoming people give all credit even though they are very qualified to put that he can't yet because if you don't hire them and they don't have a credit score and inevitably more qualified and then they have a point there hidden agenda now if the girl boy clutching them and everything the show and are documented in great detail which is prejudice against women in general by women in general in the book lean in and fashioning a fear that a military analyst said that leafy hand in a uniform of the folger the policeman in and the doctor in current traditional male role your brain to think that through you didn't have to work i mean you were in india one of the pilot uniform way that your brain actually have to work a little bit harder to profit image you actually have to think now women in that one and really a

pilot mike can play it and he really the director of the heart and of the neglected and bought a nineteen fifty nine and that kind of thing aramaic little harder we're wired a different way though we have to work harder and think to overcome that and pain that kind of thinking wicked they could challenge you know build things is for you in the last few years and trying and hire they can working in private they can everything will they get pregnant than many directors may on an hour we're fine everything we can everyday to try to get something to happen because you know famine maybe you know calm won't happen that can have ten years though many presidents again see now that isn't only counted that you know i've been like they were the phone in

a tv ad that the tv pilot that the land in theory i've written my own treat than a tv series right now i am reading and get to play it on a kind of architecture they're going back in and being played literally in less than a month and ham i mean my man you know another actually can have to keep kind of a thing you have to keep telling nobody can give that they know and a handy anything ed blackmon is think it'd be true is that a tough business keeps you going well you know the person that i like making painful internment at it make a memo in that they're resigned or

you know creme play are pending funding that i'm i don't like yeah i mean i'm not like oh you're going to hurt them and i could create thank you so much for talking with me very thing that you're creating so success in my ear and then a plan and written by ana men are you can now carry more a gap and that they're rarely been really helpful and navy and beautiful song written by women in the movie and one that he and people there and i think people like the guy in a santa hat i think it's actually really important and maybe

they think about female friendship but it's also about the impact of all the issues they're going to on their family and there have been you know on their kid on their boyfriend you know it's really about why susan says you know what i think i am so happy that they are preventing that maybe are actually really cool guy that you cannot be undone they're not juvenile been a cabbage that they're not you know i have been killing people are hidden in their gas and beautiful that dimensional man with a hearty whole but they're actually the cooler and some analysts think you think he's damaged by blank there was twilight director catherine hardwicke her new movie is miss you already starring drew barrymore and toni collette in theaters this fall

we've got a little extra time on our show today we thought we'd end with an excerpt from an interview i did with parker posey we met in her hotel room while she was on tour this past summer for the woody allen film irrational man do you do you think movies have a responsibility to represent good role models and to get away from the stereotype see woody think they're all of it and that was a little it's kind of black and white even our like they should to go see it now i'm like if the story is true the artist is telling a doubt is what we're missing and that is what's really supported in this country you know so you get a lot of we have a lot of violence now because it's it seems to sell emma's world aware war and to our movies one and the thought that the masculine side so these bigger the

responsibility or a pig is called cherry think it's a these are i mean it seems odd to me that as an actor youre constantly in this position of being judged by audiences by the press by directors studios and so in a sense are constantly interviewing to get you to get the next job and how should you taking control or how can you take control of a career where you really aren't in we're not attacked he denied it the vassal of projections for it and you sacrifice of the actors think that it i mean it down it is that is you just play with it you play dead it's a can be alienating but never it's all right it's not our i've gone through periods of having an upset me i think at your you know in your thirties or twenties and thirties a lot more ambitious so i

felt a lot more jealousy being delayed competition being directed towards me then i go into my forties where she still year you now or i can communicate more easily now about one wanting to take high at an end they just have a great group of friends that's important but i only do this kind of thing at every now and then you know i don't have a publicist it and social media yet he was a new year's resolution i had to join in and enjoying jazz what i enjoy doing is relying on the trains but i also thinks a manatee radio and ten stories high maybe i'm in and i'm in a way that we listen now and that we can be we can be quiet home and really listen and hear stories you know of your the blacklist scott ohio blacklist and her these amazing scripts that agents are read in there i can't believe this

might gain made the script was amazing so there's a list of them and that's our producer and blinking his name right now but he started this kind of a pod casting he gets actors together to read these scripts and then the movies they never get made but you can listen to them and radio plays so that's great cause i do think stories are important and and stories this are people feeling and i'm really you now that they're juicy stuff i have i hope the epic story though that the landscape mini series comes back in style and i think it could be tony you're known for your work in in in indie films and you've done quite a bit of mainstream where they are you would you prefer that is there one or the other that we feel like a rusted homers do you wish you'd mr something else so far we're aiming towards renting questions that acta as you can get to just take what comes in where i have in my career my path

so it becomes lie announced like hair and skinny kid like poetic hsa is it like an echo you know like the story comes in a i respond to it and i have a conversation with with my life and the people around me and i bring you now on that today and they need you hope that it's a it's a good director and it's handled and in a good way i think this is going out me alive because of our primary reading better scripts and i wasn't for a while and now there's this image of me having in that i'm working on the time and stuff that hadn't been creatively satisfying in a way that i was in the nineties and you know you you suffer all sorts of insecurities when you love your work but it is unable to do it so

on until a bicycle period arena well let's talk about a busy careers or it gets it's also the control you know that's a that question of control are i know the word during can the spring and you were i cannot there that was once ready when he for she campaigns about gender inequality and is that something that has affected you personally i mean speaking of you know being in or out of control of your of your own career and you run into that you know i think self but also in the way that you'll never really see mike and mike i don't get them in is a mess as a thing i think about oh i'd been that way that you'll never see your own face like i think i really am like am such a strong woman that i i don't really see that way but i loved this conversation and the culture with gender and wit than the mask in a larger level the dialogue between the masculine and feminine which you think we're here to

evolve those aspects of ourselves out with each other ends i've met and years working in salt lake city utah and as for some time with some mormons out there and john i loved the dialogue that was going on there and that would just people just you're having this conversation about our their feminine coming into you know the culture and i like that that was great even you know the men were saying things like i'm an increasing my feminine side like oh well it's so so new age seventy sounding at issue here is i don't really hear that alarm in conversation it like actually carrying in utah site that was really cool isn't it an advice question i am aware is the best advice about acting that you've ever received i think if you if you love what you do

they will always be able to entertain yourself and to find people into staying and their feelings in the way they express themselves and then you'll never be bored and says to keep yourself entertained and i'm looking out looking n n that's where the reasons why it ended in europe they can open the door and to start walking and see this you know all the different people around an encounter situations that parental in fantastic what about ties about managing a career as an actor with yesterday's read it you had an amazing career managing a career armed so i've been very lucky to talk about how i got cast in that you know chris gas and how that came about is so

random i've never gotten anything i had to sit for maybe just party girl and something else that i remembered now i think you can manage your career and i think we're in the times itself management and branding and representing yourself then you know youtube so there is this alone you know this new scream in this new way to present yourself to make a living through bots were going to see on these changes in indian wife in a way it links with wyatt and we have no idea what the sky looked like so in a strange way it's like the amateur or two or ten events in iraq and they interact star an anti adapted their computer and hard at it i mean this is pretty wild so parker posey think you so much for talking

with me to thank you so it's been it's been that our inflection point for today are women changing the status quo didn't like to hear from an inflection point radio dial and while you're there with the previous shows whenever we're on facebook at facebook dot com slash inflection point radio and follow me on twitter at la filler inflection point is produced at the studios of kale that the radio and delivered to public radio stations nationwide through pr efforts to subscribe to podcast on itunes stitcher

or engineer and producer is her acclaimed i'm your host for insular just a human rights our mr souza i think he's been speaking with the