Mckenna Grace: You Oughta Know
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Hey everybody, welcome to Literally. Today is an historic, notice I said an historic, that's how you say it. My mother, the English teacher, would be proud. Today is an historic day on Literally because we have our youngest guest and one of the nicest guests and one of the most talented guests. I had the pleasure of casting this young woman now, was a little girl,

then in a movie that I, um, directed and started called the bad seed, which I think you can find on Hulu or somewhere. Um, it was a remake of the famous bad seed movie. Um, McKenna grace is her name. Um, she is the star of, uh, ghostbusters. The big hit came out last year. Um, young Tanya Harding and I Tanya also appears on handmaid's tale. She's kind of everywhere. Um,

new music career. And it's super fun to talk to a young woman, 17 years old, who's making it happen. Let's bring on McKenna Grace.

Hi, how are you? I'm good. How are you? When I worked with you, how old were you when we did Bad Seed together? Were you like 12? I must have been 11 or 12. Oh my God. You're turning what now? I'm turning 17 in June. It's so funny. It's like you've become five different people since I've known you.

For sure. Yeah, it's so strange. First of all, congratulations on your music. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations to you. You just had a show come out that you made with your son? Yeah, it's called Unstable. It's on Netflix right now. It was super fun to do. We just did basking in the response because, you know, you never know and people seem to really like it. That's so amazing. Congratulations. I've been seeing it all over.

Thank you. Thank you. McKenna and I did Bad Seed together. I directed her and played her dad. And you had your ukulele and you were just learning then. Is that right? Was that the very beginning of your music? It might have been. And then I started learning in like 2017, 2018, I think. Yeah. You had that little ukulele. I remember it. Yeah, it must have been around then.

Do you remember what the first song was that you learned to play? I'm sure it was Grace VanderWaal, that girl who won America's Got Talent. I'm sure it was one of those. That's amazing. So you wrote a song for the Ghostbusters movie.

I did. That was so cool. It's in the end credits. Am I right? It was so special because I didn't write it for the film. I just wrote it and I sent it to our director, Jason, asking him like for his opinion or if he'd want to direct a music video for me or something. And he was like, can I put it in the end credits?

out of nowhere. So I was like, yes. And so it was so weird and surreal getting to see it because we did like a surprise screening for like 3,000 people at Comic-Con and then getting to hear my song play over the end credits and nobody knew it was my song. It was so cool. Did you grow up with Ghostbusters in your sort of sphere of knowledge of films? Oh yeah. I was a massive Ghostbusters fan. I think...

Maybe the Halloween right before or after we worked together, I was a Ghostbuster for Halloween. And I used to carry around a little Slimer with me whenever I was younger. I was a really big fan. I still am. It's so weird. The Ghostbusters mobile, by the way, might be my favorite. But even better than the old school Batmobiles. I'm really down with the Ghostbuster mobile. I think it's super sick. Yes, the Ecto-1. The Ecto-1.

It's the coolest car. I mean, come on. It's so sick. It's so iconic. Do you remember the first day that rolled up on set and you're like, holy crap, I'm really doing a Ghostbusters movie. The Ecto-1 is here. No, every time I'm on set, I'm always freaking out. I'll never get used to seeing myself in a flight suit and getting to like... Because in our film, we have a little gunner seat that swings out of the Ecto-1 and I get to sit in it and it's the coolest thing ever. You also have a show coming out where you are on the...

Playing somebody who grew up on the moon, right? Mm-hmm. Okay, tell me a little bit about that because I'm kind of obsessed with that area. Tell me a little bit about that show. It's crazy. We did a film back in 2021, I think, called Crater. And it's kind of like...

I think they were going for like a little bit of like a stand by me type of like group feel where it's a group of kids that go on a road trip but on the moon to a crater that's really significant to one of them and their father. So it's just a group of kids and they go on a road trip across the moon to this crater which was super crazy to film. I've never shot anything that takes place like

I don't know, in outer space on the moon. And so we got to like, we were in wires and spacesuits every single day. But it was so bad because we were shooting in Baton Rouge in the summer and we had like these five layer spacesuits every day. And it was so hot. Oh, no way. Let me guess. You're in some like converted warehouse with like

Bad air conditioning, right? The air conditioning was great, actually. They kept it super cold so everybody else on set was freezing, but we were sweating because of the spacesuits, but they kept it really cold. Oh, so then the other people have... I did a movie that took place in a hockey rink in the summer. It was night...

like 100 degrees outside 90 humidity and then you know 40 degrees inside so everybody was sick every week because you'd be in in the cold to the hot to the cold so that's the stuff that people don't realize about what we what what it really means to be an actor and be shooting stuff right it's like oh it's not too glamorous shooting in baton rouge with that kind of heat

Now, we have stuff in common. I started acting when I was eight. You started even younger, I think, right? Five, I think. Five. Because people come up to me all the time and say, you know, my son or my daughter wants to be an actor. And what do you recommend? What do you think? You know, and then they talk about what does it take and then longevity and all those kind of questions. I'm curious, somebody like you, the business is

from what it was when I was coming up. How did it occur to you you wanted to be an actor? Let's start with that. My me-mom, my great-grandma, she gave me a massive collection of Shirley Temple DVDs, and I got really obsessed with those whenever I was younger, and I guess I decided I wanted to be like her, but my mom was like, no way, I'm not going to, like, I don't know, that's weird. How am I going to put you in acting classes or make you an actor? You're like...

so young and so um I was really obsessed with Shirley Temple and I think I just begged my mom for like a year maybe before she let me go into acting classes and then um they were like oh she actually enjoys this my mom was like yeah I told you that but they're like yeah a lot of people say that though but I don't know I just I really I really liked it whenever I was younger I think I thought it was really fun and exciting and luckily I've always had parents that

support what I do and it's not something that they were like you should do this it's something that I made a decision on which now is weird to think because I was so young how did I like make a decision but it's like my favorite thing and um it's

It's been nice as I've gotten older to be able to really, I love, I love acting. I love what I do so much. And so it's like, it's so cool to be able to like appreciate it now. Yeah. I sound like I'm hearing my own story told back to me. I was the same. I told my parents I wanted to do it. They're like, what, what does it even mean? And I started, you know, in local theater and whatever. And sometimes there are people like us that just know, right.

We just knew, you know, and again, when I worked with you, you were super, super young still. And, but like, it was obvious that's not only are you really great at it, but that's your focus. There's no, there's no version of you being a dilettante. We're like, yeah, kind of like this. And it kind of maybe do it. And I don't know, who knows? Maybe I'll, it's like, it's like, this is what we're doing. And,

a little bit of like, we're both too young to have total knowledge of anything, really. And we don't know that any of the pitfalls, any of the odds, any of the, any of it other than just the unicorns and roses and we're going to go for it. Right. Yeah, for sure. I mean,

It's such a weird industry, but I really love just getting to make like, it's just so fun getting to create and like, I'm such a big film buff now. Like I love watching movies. I'm in London right now and I think I've watched like 60 films since I've been here. I've been here for about a month or two.

60? Jesus. Maybe more. I don't know. That's what I do is I go to work and then I come home and watch like a movie or two before I go to bed. That's a film.

Film literacy is a lost art and a good one. Are you working your way through, for example, the AFI Top 100? That's a great one for people listening out there. The American Film Institute every year adds to the greatest movies of all time. And everybody has opinions about it, but if I could recommend anybody starting anywhere to...

work their way through movies they should, in quotes, see, AFI Top 100 is a good one. What is your list and how are you choosing? I haven't seen that. I didn't even know. Yeah, it's a good one. I'm obsessed with this little app where you can log your movies called Letterboxd. And so I just have a massive watch list on there. And I guess it just kind of depends on what I'm in the mood for or while I'm at work, I'll ask for recommendations or see what people are talking about. Yeah.

Do you have any prejudices about like black and white or quote unquote old movies or, well, no, wait a minute. You love Shirley Temple. What am I talking about? Clearly you're down to clown. You're like,

Like Shirley Temple. Something I forgot that I thought was special to me whenever we were shooting it was we had Shirley Temple in our film. Me and my babysitter were watching Shirley Temple on the couch, and I loved that. I was so excited. Yeah, when you told me that you liked Shirley Temple, I wrote it into the script. It was so cool.

yeah, I don't know how much you, I basically wrote that. I uncredited wrote it. So anytime I would, I would hear something like McKenna loves Shirley Temple. I was like, get out of here. Oh, that is going to be great. I'm going to have this precocious, seemingly wonderful, but,

but really evil kid obsessed with Shirley temple and the board sort of tick tock watching babysitter. Just be like, ew, gross. It just made me laugh so much. That was so cool. I was like so excited whenever that was put in there. And then you did the sequel to bad seed. You co-wrote with your dad, right? I did. I did. Um,

Well, originally the script we wrote was too dark. Too dark? Yes. Give me an example of like an incident in it that they thought was too dark.

There was a lot, there was a lot that was too dark. I think we had like this, I mean, there were so many sequences that were different and taken out and like changed, but like my favorite that I hated that we had to change was we had like a whole American Psycho-esque sequence with a raincoat and like a bat, like a whole homage to it.

Amazing. We went really dark with it, but it was really cool. That makes me love because you are like the most like sunny and light, innocent, like happy-go-lucky like person that I know. And the notion like, you know what? I'm doing American Psycho. It's too good.

It would have been fun. I mean, come on. It would have been so cool. So when I was watching you in Handmaid's Tale, I go, how does McKenna even know those themes? I felt like I was your parent. I was like...

Has my little McKenna talking those things and saying those things and playing those things. That's the thing that's crazy about growing up on camera, right? Is you have to access and deal with stuff that is maybe beyond your pay grade emotionally, chronologically. I mean, for sure. It's definitely...

I love getting to do dark and dramatic things. I think it's so fun. But I mean, it is definitely weird being not even 17. And I think I've been married or engaged like three times now. Three or four, I'd have to think. But it's like a running joke for me. Look at it this way. When the time comes, you'll have had plenty of practice. Yeah. Yeah.

You'll know what you like and you know what you don't like. And what you don't like are actors. Avoid them. Avoid them at all costs.

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All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers, passport. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. What are you finding it's like to navigate through the modern day sort of show business? And you're kind of

kind of already have all of the things you need to because you're a content creator. You know, my son John Owen is a new actor too. And like when I was a young actor, literally all we had to do was audition and study and

watching movies, and that's what it was. Now it's like you have to have a social media presence. You have to create your own content. You can't just wait for the phone to ring. It's so different coming up today than it was in my era. It's very different. I hate

I hate it. I hate the social media aspect of the film industry. Like, personally, I love... I think that making little videos and behind-the-scenes things while I'm on set, I find it really fun, and I think that it's fun to be able to post that after shooting, but I hate that it's, like, necessary because it's fun, but then it's like, I don't know, it drives me nuts. But, I mean, it's...

Very difficult. It's so weird. It's so weird. I don't understand any of it. I'm not a social media person. Well, also you come into this like I did.

For the, the, what I consider the right reasons. We like the process. That's what we do it. The rest of it is like, we don't, may not even like it. Like the promoting the red carpets, the, this, I mean, some people love it. Some people, I, for me, it's like, I never considered any of that when I, when I got into, I just loved to act. I loved movies. I loved, and now there's so much more.

Attached to it. How's your red carpet? You got a red carpet face? You got a blue steel you throw down? McKenna, over here. Look, McKenna, McKenna, over here. McKenna, McKenna. Oh, there you go. Oh, that's a good one. No, it's so strange. I always feel so out of place at events. I like that. But no, you just gave me a really good red carpet face. See if you can make your own version of mine. I have three looks. I stole from, obviously,

from, uh, uh, Ben Stiller, I blue steel, right? I was about to say, this is making me think of Zoolander. Yeah. You gotta get, you gotta have your blue steel look, right? That's a go-to. Um, then, then I, um, I like man of the people is really a good one. Okay.

Man of the People is super, super good. I highly recommend it. That's like where you just go wild and you go to the fans and you take pictures and you're just a man of the people. Tom Cruise does a very good Man of the People. And then what's the third one? Oh, Iconic. Of course, Iconic. Iconic? Iconic. And Iconic is...

You know, it's sort of the, it's like, you know, when they take the pictures of the presidents for their portraits and they're kind of looking off wistfully into the distance. You know, you're trying way less hard than Blue Steel. Blue Steel is like right down the lens, you know, 110 smolder, you know, temperature. And Iconic is much cooler and sort of just...

Maybe a little pensive, maybe a little thoughtful. And yeah, so my friend Chris Pratt, my favorite thing ever, I was telling him this on Parks and Recreation and we were laughing about this bit. So years go by and the phone rings. He goes, hey man, it's Pratt. I'm on my way to the Jurassic Park premiere. What was it? What were the three? Iconic, Man of the People? What was the other one?

That's so funny. This is my favorite thing. We all just got a crash course and red carpet looks. Yeah. And then you got to do the red carpet sweep. If you're with your parents or your other castmates, or if it's not just you, you do the red carpet sweep. And of course, the red carpet sweep is you pick one side of the photographer's

And then you just very slowly work your way down. Because otherwise you have pictures where everybody's looking in different directions. It looks dumb. I'm trying to think of what other. Red carpet sweep. Oh, and this is my favorite. Apparently, the Olsen twins created a thing where they say the word prune. And it makes your lips go into the perfect shape.

to have your picture taken. It's when you think of like, say cheese, what does that mean? It's meant to make you fake smile. When you say cheese, your mouth goes into a smile thing. That's why people say that. Say cheese.

Cheese. Cheese. Oh my God. Cheese. Right. So, but the new version of that is prune. Prune. Oh my God. That's hilarious. Isn't that great? I love that. But just the notion of standing next to them on the red carpet and just cheering under their breath. I'm going, that's so funny. I'm going to, that's great. I'm just going to start laughing saying prune on red carpet. Yeah. You're welcome for this little lesson. So welcome. Um,

but that is the stuff that just makes me laugh about, about, okay, let me ask you this. Okay. You're 17. So do you still have a guardian on set or did you emancipate yourself or whatever they call that now where you get your own, you don't have to have a guardian and you take a test or whatever. I,

I'm graduated now. I've been graduated for maybe, so technically I'm like legally 18 or whatever. I work adult hours. So you can work the long, so what this is, you guys, is under 18, you can only work certain hours on a movie set and it's a really big deal, a really super big deal. And once you are 18 or graduated, you're,

then you can work the full 12 hours or even longer. But anytime you have kids on set, they're super focused on the amount of hours. So now you can just grind it out for a 14-hour day. I've done my first overnights. I've done some super long days working like Saturdays and whatnot. It's so different because growing up, like as a child, you know, it's so specific. It's like nine and a half. Then once you turn like

16, then it's 10 and a half. And then once you hit this age, then it's XYZ and then 18 is just like free. And so I graduated

And so, and also on set, you have to get three hours of school or occasionally five if you're banking. Like it's so wild and I'm so happy I don't have to do that anymore. Do you remember those days? Do you remember? I mean, I remember getting yanked off of some of the set of the bad seed because I kept on because I would like go one minute over the hours I was supposed to work. Yeah, we had a, we had like a fascist, um,

on set person for Bad Seed. That woman and I did not see eye to eye. We tangled a lot. I remember that. I remember it. By the way, McKenna, you have no idea how insane that whole thing was. But I get it. Listen, I was that kid too. I remember you'd do a scene and you'd be feeling good and you'd have your co-stars and you'd want to talk to them or just decompress and then they'd be like, nope, back to school. And you're like, but, but, but. And then

you'd be in school and you'd hear through the walls, like all your fellow actors, like having fun and you're in there like doing driver's ed. Yeah. And it's the worst of every, like, I don't know. I would always finish my school and then I just have to go to school and like sit and just like do nothing. And like, just like, I don't know, go like two weeks ahead of school because I finished all my work. Like it was just, it was so insane. I always hated it because I,

And I'd hate it if I got pulled out of a scene or if I had to rush or anything because I don't know. It's the worst. Yeah. Now, did you also go to actual school when you weren't working? I've never been to school. So it's homeschool. But you work so much, though, that it would be incredibly difficult. I toggled back and forth between, you know, homeschooling.

public schools and working. And it's hard because you get ahead, you get way ahead of the class. And then you're, and then of course you have schools and teachers that don't look kindly on it. They really don't want kids in the kitchen be working. They should be. So you do, it just, I love talking to you about this because this is the stuff that only child actors know, right? It's so specific to, it's so funny that I'm talking about myself as a child actor right now.

Jesus. I always forget. I always forget. Right? That's so crazy. Well, you know, my, you always have reminded me of Jodi Foster and Jodi, you know, started when she was six. She was the original Coppertone baby. The famous photo of the dog pulling down the baby bathing suit. That's Jodi. That's her? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And Jodi,

You know, people always worry about child activists. We can turn out okay. It can happen. Yeah. You've got a good family around you. How are your folks? How are they doing? They're great. My dad's actually in London, so my dad actually just came out this week to visit me. Amazing.

It's so nice. And we've been writing a ton. We love writing scripts together. So that's really nice because neither of my parents come from any, no one in my family comes from any sort of film background. Like both of my parents, my mom comes everywhere with me now, but they were both in like medical business. My dad still is. So it's fun to be able to, my dad's such a movie buff. So I feel like that's where I get it.

What are your... Okay, so back to your movie list. What are...

currently your top three movies of all time? - Of all time? - Now here's the thing, it can change. - It always changes. - Exactly, it's a high stress question, I realize this. - Right now, okay. I'm so obsessed with Letterboxd. My top four films on Letterboxd are Black Swan, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Step Brothers,

And this independent film called Flower. Okay, I don't know Flower, but I do know that all of those movies are great movies. How great is Mr. and Mrs. Smith? So good. It's so good. So good.

Honestly, if I could do any kind of a movie, it would be that. I feel like it'd be so fun. It's like a modern Bond. They're so... They're so good, the film. They're so funny and sexy and cool and badass. Super great. Now, have you gotten into...

There will be blood. No, I, that's on my watch. Daniel Day-Lewis. McKenna, McKenna, McKenna tonight. There will be blood. I can watch it with my dad tonight. You, you have to watch it. I mean, Daniel Day-Lewis, I mean, listen, what a shocker. Daniel Day-Lewis. He's good. Who knew it? That to me is one of those movies where when I watched it,

I really, really liked it. But more than liking it, I respected it. And then as the years have gone on, it's more important to me with each passing year. And now it's like, I think it might be one of the best movies ever made. But interestingly, when it came out, I was like, yeah, no, that's great. I like, oh, for sure. No, it's great.

And it takes sometimes years. That one is going to blow your mind. It's long, but it's so... Paul Dano, forget it. Oh, I love him so much. I forget that he's in that. I've been wanting to see it. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. So that one is my recommendation. Tell me this. What is the thing that I should be mentioning just in terms of that you want the people out there to know about? I mean...

I'm really just working on music right now. And then I have so a lot that I'm working on and acting, but it's so like stinky because I can't talk about any of it. That's one of the things that drives me insane. But that's it. By the way, that's a new thing too, is the secrecy thing. Really? The notion that people can go and shoot an entire movie in abject secrecy.

That just never, that never happened. Yeah. And it's amazing. It's amazing. You think it'd be harder today because of eyes and ears. Everybody has a cell phone. It's, you think it would be impossible, but people do it. You're doing it. No, let me just say,

People know what we're shooting. It's just so funny because the secrecy thing I feel like is so dumb because it's like, people know what we're shooting, they know where we're shooting. People are taking pictures of the set and then it's like, why can't I talk about it? It's so exciting. I feel like that's how it always is with films that are like, you gotta stay hush hush, everybody knows.

I know. I know it is. It's so silly. Are you ever going to perform your music live? Do you have any aspirations to do that? I did. When? Oh, that's right. On what was it? It was a show, right? A morning show. What was it? I did the morning show. That's right. But then I also had my first concert in L.A. In L.A. I had my first concert. Come on.

Where? What venue? I did it at the Moroccan Lounge. It was so cool. It was so cool. Now, are you playing guitar while you sing? I did that for one song. I've been playing ukulele for like four or five years now, but I've always had a guitar in the house, but I've only really been learning guitar since I'd say December because I just got my first guitar. So yeah,

I didn't feel like I was ready to fully play on stage because it was, when did I have my show? I think it was in February or March. So I hadn't been playing too long, but I played, I played a cover of You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette. Amazing. Out of the blue the other day, Alanis texted me literally two days ago, two days ago.

And she's like, I got your number from, you know, a friend. My son is in the outsider's school play.

could you do a video for the actors in their little outsider school place? That's so cool. That's so funny. Isn't that funny? I love Alanis Morissette. She's amazing. I love her. And it was so cool because I was trying to decide. I don't know. It was my first show and I've never done plays or anything like that growing up. I just kind of went straight into TV and film.

and commercials, so I never have been

I have stage fright. I don't know, I hate speaking at an award show or something like that. I get so nervous. Singing in front of people is so scary. I ran off stage whenever my concert was over, I said goodbye and then I ran off stage and threw up. I was so scared. Amazing. I wanted to do a song. I love that song. It's my go-to karaoke. I was like, if I'm playing anything, it has to be this.

It's smart to go with what you know. Who are you listening to? Who are your favorite artists at the moment? Ooh, that's so hard. I love music. I like, I listen to so much. Um, what am I listening to right now? I really like, um,

I really like Lana Del Rey, if you know her. She has such a magnificent voice. What about Kacey Musgraves? I haven't really listened to her, but I've heard a lot about her. I think she has a few albums, but that first album is unbelievable.

So you have There Will Be Blood and the first Kacey Musgraves album. Okay. And to work on Prune. You have homework. I'm so excited. You're in rainy, dreary London, sitting around on a top secret project. Now you have stuff that you can do now, can work on. I'm excited. I'm excited.

Are you a Joni Mitchell fan by chance? I've never heard. No. Joni Mitchell is the, this is by the way, isn't this the greatest? This is like, I know people listening to like, how sweet is McKenna Grace? Does not know Joni Mitchell. 17. She's 17 people. It just seems like she's a full grown adult. So writing this all down in a little note.

Okay. So Joni Mitchell is the original, the original female singer songwriter. You'll know all there'd be a couple of songs that you'll know for sure. But, but she's, she is the, she's the Bob Dylan. She's the Bob Dylan of, of a lot of people say she's better than Bob Dylan.

She's the best singer, songwriter who ever lived, probably. And Canadian. Are you Canadian? No, I'm very southern. You just work in Canada all the time. I'm just in Canada all the time. You're just in Canada all the time. It's like me. I feel like I should have dual citizenship at this point. I know. That's what I always say. I love Canada.

Okay, so Joni Mitchell. Okay, I'm going to give you a couple songs to listen to. Oh, all you got to do is just listen to California and then you're either in or out. California. Okay. Okay. Right after this. Okay.

At Ashley, you'll find colorful furniture that brings your home to life. Ashley makes it easier than ever to express your personal style with an array of looks in fun trending hues to choose from, from earth tones to vibrant colors to calming blues and greens. Ashley has pieces for every room in the house in the season's most sought after shades. A more colorful life starts at Ashley. Shop in store online today. Ashley, for the love of home.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. One of the things that I know and appreciate about you is your parents are all over it. They are on the case, which, by the way, is why you're normal and not a, you know, well, you're a normal person. So I know they're all over everything. So are there...

still any movies that they won't let you see? Thank you. I definitely try to be a normal person. Um, but that's funny because my mom, yes, but my dad, he's always in trouble. Like growing up for like letting me watch movies. Like I think, yeah, dad. Yeah. But he's the movie buff. He's the movie buff between my parents. He's the reason I'm like, so into films. Yeah.

My thing with my boys and boys and girls are obviously a little bit different. And every age has a different thing to, you know, where you are developmentally. But my thing was always I would rather show them something that might be, quote unquote, inappropriate. That's great than anything that's bad. That's great. I mean, I think I saw like Alien 3.

I remember it. I think that was like my first R-rated film was Alien, and I was like six or seven. And I remember I was terrified, but I loved it. It is funny because my son, John Owen, who's now 27, my youngest, who's now the writer or actor, and he remembers...

I didn't let him see it, but he walked in to our room. We were watching movies at the house and it was the very end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I haven't seen it. The OG one with Donald Sutherland. It's amazing. And there's the very famous meme still of Donald Sutherland like pointing and going, and

It's so disturbing. And he said it traumatized him beyond belief, still thinks about it. Really? Okay, maybe. But I didn't have him watch it. He just walked in. That's not him. It's honestly, that's his fault. So you could spend the next two days performing, writing and performing music and dealing with all of the things music, or you could spend the next two days acting and doing everything that comes with that. Which would you do?

Well, that's funny because I feel like that's kind of like a week for me. I mean, tomorrow, I've had the past two days off and I've just been watching movies, but tomorrow I'm going back to work.

and I'm working on acting and then this weekend one of my music producers and like my co-writer are flying in and they're gonna stay with me because I have like a week off and we're just gonna write music. So I feel like that's, I feel like I do that but right now I would say

I'd say that for like, I'd want to perform music or play music for the next two days, just because I've been an acting world for, for a minute now, but I'm always switching between. It's good to have both. It's really nice. It's good to have, I mean, when you can creatively not have all your eggs in one basket, it's,

It's the best. It really is. And it correlates really well, in my opinion, because it's fun. I'm always writing music for the films I'm in. I'm always trying to pitch them in-credit song ideas. And I just did this independent film, and I wrote a lot of music for it. I think I have three or four songs in the film, and I'm always messing with them. And I'm like, I feel like I need to have a credit for...

What's it called? You should. Composition. Yeah, you should. Well, you should. It's a joke. My only experience with that is I did a movie years and years ago called Youngblood. It was a hockey movie. Patrick Swayze was in it. And he had this song. He would be up all night writing songs and this and that and come to this. And he wanted us to have this song. We go, I don't really get it. Do you get it? How do we tell him no? And we didn't use it.

And then he does a movie called Dirty Dancing. The song is in Dirty Dancing and goes to number one. It's a number one hit all over the world called She's Like the Wind. That's so crazy. He wanted it in Dirty Dancing. I mean, in Youngblood. It ended up in Dirty Dancing. So, I mean, you know, it could happen. What if you got a number one hit? Would you be psyched or what? It's like my dream right now to be... Because...

I think acting will always be number one for me because I don't know. It's just, it's like my dream job and I get to do it and it's so cool. But right now after playing my first show, it's like my dream to be able to like do well enough to play more shows or go on tour or something. And so that would be like the dream come true. Well, I cannot wait. You got to come up and like find a club in Santa Barbara or get, get back, get back when you get back stateside, as they say,

Look me up. I have new dogs you need to meet. Did you find a new dog? We have two Jack Russell puppies now. We've got the big dog, who's the German shirt-haired pointer, and then, of course, Teacup Egg, who's the little greatest name in the world, is the rescue. So...

You've got to come see him. And you have your dog. What is your dog's name again? His name is Gizmo, but that's like, his name is Gizmo Fruitsnack. Benjamin Cheese was for you, bad boy chicken nugget fruitsnacks at DiCaprio. But we call him Gizmo. But he's a little Yorkie and he's so cute and too fat because all he does is eat people food. Of course he does. Because I think there's some bad person feeding it to him. It's my mom. And that person might be named McKenna Grace. Oh, it is. Not me. I say he needs to go on a diet.

But then I, well, it is half me, but it's. Is he having fish and chips on location? He is loving London food. He's just, he just loves food. He's such a, oh my God, Gizmo. Oh, you know. Does he go to the set every day? Every day. He always goes everywhere with us. It's the best. He comes everywhere. He flies. He, he's always on set.

It's so good to have a dog. I get to pick each morning. I pick which dog comes with me to work and they audition at the door. They each try to be cuter than the other one. And then I pick one of them and they're all like happy and they look over their shoulder at the other dog. It's like, see, I'm going with daddy. It's very funny. That's so cute. I would feel so bad for the other dogs. I just take them all with me. I know.

Yeah. Oh, no. You can't have a pack. It's too many dogs. Even for me. Too many dogs. Well, McKenna, thank you for filling us in on everything that's going on. I cannot wait to see the Top Secret Project. And I want to know what you think of the movies that I gave you and Joni Mitchell. You have to text me. Text me at Joni Mitchell. In all seriousness, your parents will know about Joni Mitchell. You got to say...

Give me your thoughts on Joni. As a young singer-songwriter, you have to at least have an opinion. You don't have to like it, but that has to be something you know well, for sure. No, I'll let you know. I'll let you know. I'm excited. Well, thank you. Great to talk to you. So fun. Thank you. It's so good to see you. You too. Give your parents a big hug for me. I will. McKenna Grace. By the way, her EP, Bittersweet 16. You guys can get that online, I'm sure.

Is she the new Joni Mitchell? That is the question. I wish I could have watched her face listen to Joni for the first time. That would be amazing. All right, just one more thing before we end today's episode. Let's check the lowdown line. Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep.

Hey, Rob. This is Julie from Westchester, New York. I'm a big fan of the show and of you and of all the characters that you've played. Here's my question. Do you ever think about what happens to your characters after the show's over? Specifically, I'm really curious. It's not you, but Kitty. Yeah.

In Brothers and Sisters, do you think she lives? And Sam in The West Wing, do you ever think he becomes president or what happens to him? So do you continue with these characters in your head or shows over them on to something new? Thanks so much. Bye. What a great question.

Thanks, Julie. That's a really good question. Well, I remember the first time I ever considered what would happen to a character I played was when I made my first movie, The Outsiders. And S.E. Hinton wrote the book, obviously. It's gone on to become a legendary book. And she, in passing, said to me one day that she felt like Soda Pop Curtis, my character, went to Vietnam and didn't come home.

and made me super sad and that was the first time i ever really considered that these characters have lives that continue on particularly in in the mind of the writer who wrote them i don't know so much about in the actor who acted them but for sure in the writer who wrote them definitely um you know um when when when and you you uh referenced my character and brothers and sisters um

As you know, Robert was in a car crash at the end and died. And the producers in the network wanted to tease the audience into watching next year and were trying to be coy about it, like maybe he didn't die and maybe it was a big kind of brouhaha. I was like, no, no, he's dead. He died. And Sam Seaborn, obviously, Martin Sheen said that Sam would run for president one day in one of the

It was actually in the episode that we redid for HBO during COVID. We had a reunion and we did that episode again. And I was always really moved by that because I would have loved to have seen my character run for president one day. Sam would have loved it. Thank you for a really good question. Appreciate it. Keep watching. Anyway, thanks, you guys. I hope you love Sweet McKenna as much as I did. And we will be back next week with more Literally.

right here. You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Nick Liao, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar, researched by Alyssa Grahl. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross and myself at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd, music by Devin Bryant. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally with Rob Lowe. This has been a Team Coco production.

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All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply.