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So give me a little bit about Pete Davidson. What is it about him? He is probably more confused than most about why he is dating all these beautiful women. He literally is just like waiting for the cane to come and pull him away. Somebody got to cue me or do I cue myself? Cue yourself. Okay. Okay.
Let's turn those cameras off and get started. Jan Albert, hi. Hi. Very excited about today's guest. Oh my gosh, the most excited. I want you to hear something. Yeah. Audience at home, listen to this. These are my notes. A lot of notes. On Edie Falco. Because she does a lot. She does a lot, has been through a lot. So I really like...
You know, Albert, I know probably what you want to focus on. Oh, my. Well. The Sopranos. Anytime there's any Italian-American imagery on television, you immediately liken it to the Bianchini's of Bensonhurst. Yes. The gabagool of it all. Of course. We've been getting into it this morning already because we were reading about how she meditates and we're debating it because I can't for the life of me meditate. Me either. Mark meditates everything.
religiously every day. And I can't meditate. My brain is noisy. You can meditate. No, my therapist has tried to teach me to meditate for 10 years. 10 years. And she looked at me and goes, let's just try breathing.
You know, like we're into the, let's go back to breathing. Although we did, I did make you and Mark meditate once and you sat there holding hands and giggling for five minutes. I can never get into it. Like, I don't understand how you do this, Albert. Like you do it every day. Yeah, every day. For how long? For 20 minutes. 20 minutes? Who's got 20 minutes?
minutes. You wake up early. You do it in the morning. It's the first thing that happens. 20 minutes. I'd have to wake up at 415. You build it into your life. It becomes a habit. Where are you sitting when you do this? On the couch. Are you naked? No. Are you in a yoga position? Yeah. But wait a second. You don't like
Like for me, working out is my meditation. Like if I work out, it clears my head. I feel good. It's different. Why? Because that's for your body. That's an endorphin rush. That's not. It's for my head. Don't you think running is a form of meditation? Absolutely. But Albert says no. We were just talking about it. No, no, no. I don't say. Because Albert doesn't like to run. I don't say it's not a form of meditation. It's not what is typically known as meditation, which is just you sitting with your thoughts and.
for a period of time every day. I am with my thoughts when I'm running. I'm actually like really zoning in on my thoughts. On my thoughts, yeah. I want to ask Edie all about this because... We should just bring her in. Okay, so let me just give you a little bit of the stuff. Two Golden Globes. Wow. Four Emmys. Wow. Five Screen Actors Guild Awards. I'm going to set the scene for our listeners. I'm looking at her right now because she's on my computer screen and I believe she's sitting...
inside of what looks like a Home Depot, but it's not. She's got wrenches. I see hammers. I see tape. I think it's a virtual background. Do you think it's a virtual background? Maybe. Let's bring her on. Edie Falco, ladies and gentlemen. Hello. Hello, Edie. Tell our audience, our listeners, where you are right now. I'm in the West Village of New York City in my office right
AKA studio type thing where I actually do a lot of crafting. I mean, I hate that word for some reason, but ever since I was little, I've liked to sew things and make them into other things. And I've been doing it my whole life. And actually it was my therapist who suggested, why don't you give yourself an actual space to do that? And that's what this room became. See, you're father along in your therapy. My therapist is still like, Kelly, breathe in for two and out for two. That's great though.
I mean, that's fantastic. And by the way, I have to say, I do not meditate every day. I know I would feel better if I did. And there are periods when I do and my life is better. But we're all struggling, the good and evil struggle that we all have. What about somebody like Albert who meditates daily?
20 minutes a day, every day. It's amazing. But I got to tell you, he doesn't seem that, like, to me... But can you imagine if he wasn't meditating what he'd see? That's true. Okay. All right, that's good. That's actually a good point. Because when I look at him, I'm like, he seems a little fucked up. But...
A little. A little. I mean, I... Thank God for meditation. All right. Keep meditating, Albert. Keep meditating. So, you know, I was talking about you before you got here and I really hate this phrase, an overnight sensation, because people think the Sopranos came and they discovered you walking out of a Walmart somewhere and made you a star. Right, right. But did you go to college to study acting?
- I did, which seemed sort of perverse at the time. I went to SUNY Purchase where a lot of people that are now working have come from. It was a very inexpensive state school, which is why I was able to go. But the idea of like becoming an actress was so, it didn't seem like that's something that smart people do. I thought I'll always do plays and stuff like my mom did when I was a kid, like community theater and local stuff. And then I'll have a real job during the day.
But it was a teacher in high school who said, well, you're in all the school plays. Why don't you go to school to be an actress? I was like, what? What does that mean? Right. Do they have schools for that? Yeah. But anyway, that's what I ended up doing. You talked about your mom. She was an actor. Your dad was a musician. Yeah. Yeah.
But did your dad have like a desire to be in the theater as well? No. My father briefly was in the pit of a Kafka play when he was a kid. He lived in Brooklyn and the play was at the Provincetown Playhouse and he was in the pit playing drums. I see. And so what part of Brooklyn are you from so that Albert can play Brooklyn geography with you? Greenpoint. My family's on Mainsley Street.
Ainsley Street. Yeah, it's a great area. Very fancy now. Yeah, fancy. I know, it's crazy to think. It was not back then. So you graduate college, you go into the big city, you get an agent, or did you have an agent like at a showcase? Yeah, I did. Okay, so you get your agent, you go to the big city, and you immediately start working? Well, right out of college, when you go to the school, SUNY Purchase, and also Juilliard, and I think North Carolina School of the Arts,
what they called league schools. And at the end of your four years, you get to put on a show in an audience full of agents, producers who want to see the new talent coming out of the schools. Although I was very shy and one of the stars of my class, I was not, but I did very well at those auditions. And I got from that audition, I got an agent and a job in a movie. So the day after I left college,
I had to be on the set of this movie and my new agent and all that. So I thought, I don't know what's everybody talking about. This is so easy.
So I finished the movie and then I didn't work for years and years after that. How did you live? How did you support yourself? Waitressing and tips and a lot of alcohol. And most of my money was spent on cigarettes at the time. Oh my gosh. It's so true. It's like, I remember I too got like my first official audition. It was for a soap opera. By the way, did you ever work on a soap opera? I did. I did. Which ones did you work on? I worked on Loving.
Oh my gosh, we were in the same building. No way. I worked on all my children. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Saved my life back in the day. It saved me. You know, people think that actors get paid a ton of money. And I always say like, if you want to take a pay cut in any career path, become an actor. But I remember like those days, like deciding, should I buy cigarettes? Yeah.
Or should I buy the bagel? Oh, totally. They were the staples of those very early years in New York for me. So then you drift around. You're working as an actress sometimes, mostly a waitress. Do you ever say, I'm going to quit? I'm going to go back home to Long Island with your parents, right? Was there a moment where you're like, I am not cut out for this?
Well, um, there was actually a bit of a nervous breakdown. I guess that's what we call it now. And I forget at what point during all of this, when I was trying to do too many things and I realized it wasn't working and I was in a relationship that was falling apart and I was drinking a great deal. And I started having these like pretty ferocious, uh, anxiety attacks and I couldn't function. And I had to quit the job. I was stacking shelves at a hardware store at the time and I just moved home. Um,
Because I couldn't function. And I stayed at home for a little bit until I got back on my feet and then I came back. But it never occurred to me to do anything else because I knew this thing made me happy. I knew that I loved this one thing. I knew that the happiness I knew during the times when I was in a production at that point was unrivaled.
Of all of your characters, of course, Carmela Soprano, Nurse Jackie. Well, who was your favorite? Do you have a favorite character?
Gosh, I don't know that I do. The ones that I've gotten to play for a long time, they really do get under your skin and they feel like a schizophrenic sort of self, you know? And for that reason, Carmela is still in there, as is Nurse Jackie a bit. But I did a play for a very long time called Sideman. But I did it for four years, this play, in various incarnations, Broadway. And we went to London with it, but we started out in little theaters.
And I played a character named Terry, Terry Glimmer. And we were all unknown. None of us had money. I think the whole experience is probably mixed into my feelings about the character. But in terms of my time in this business, that still looms larger than all of them. So you're working, you're doing theater, which I suspect you really love the most because most of the actors I've spoken to, even Mark, my husband,
given the opportunity, he'd rather work in theater than anywhere else on earth. And to me, like, I have anxiety for people I don't know in plays. I'm like, oh,
My God, Billy Crudup is doing a one-man show and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make it through the whole thing. I get it. I get it. You don't have that. You don't suffer from any of that. No, because for fear of sounding actory, it's not me up there. I've learned the lines. I know who I'm talking to. And I just, you know, I'm doing something else during that time. And this other person sort of is using my...
body and I thoroughly enjoy it. And you can feel the audience's energy and they're feeding you and all that stuff you hear is entirely true for me. There isn't quite like that experience.
But at certain levels in the city, it's a business. Like you're doing eight shows a week. And that's like, I think about Nathan Lane, who is always doing a play. I'm so amazed just at his stamina and he clearly loves it. But I mean, when I do a play and I'm doing eight shows a week, I don't need to do a play for a long time after it. It just wipes you out completely.
I think I could do a play for like one night, like a one night only show. That's a lot of rehearsals. And then at the end I die because I don't breathe for the whole 90 minutes. I don't take a single breath. That's going to cost you. Yes, absolutely. Right, exactly. It'll be a showstopper. Oh, totally. Totally. She died doing what she loved.
So I want to talk about The Sopranos and reading the pilot script. Your agent sends you the script. Like, give me the whole, like, give me the spiel. I was, you know, I was busted, broke. And I was doing Oz at the time, the other HBO show. And I was finally, actually not, I didn't have to waitress. And I was on a show regularly.
I was pretty thrilled about all that. And they said, first of all, I'd heard about the show already because me and all my little actor friends, we have a little circuit of people who keep in touch. And this is even before texting, but they said, oh, I'm going out on the show called Sopranos and I'm half paying attention. It's obviously a show about singers or something. And that's why I haven't been called. And I never thought about it. And then I get this, I get this message. Oh, they want you to go in. Nobody got the script. We just got a few pages with our lines on it. Um,
And I read it and I was like, yes, I know exactly who this woman is. I know exactly who's going to be cast, but I will happily go and do it because I, you know, auditioning was always an opportunity to kind of perform or try something out or whatever. Who did you think would be cast? Marissa Tomei or Annabelle Ashiura, you know, girls who were all the time playing these sort of Italian American and beautifully, by the way. But I just thought the way this business goes is that's who they're going to cast.
And there's no more powerful place to be when you go into an audition than knowing you're not going to get it and not really caring. Right. You know, the next day I got the call, you got that thing. I was like, what?
even know what it is. I did. I, the whole thing happened so quickly. And you got the hell out of Oz. I got it. I, you know, in my mind I could do both, but I didn't realize that was not possible. So I think they killed me in Oz. Oh no, I went far away. I went to London or something. Oh, you went to London? Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I think that it was. We should, we should look that. Yeah. Albert's going to look it up and tell you what happened to your character.
So you shoot the pilot, you meet all the other actors. Is there like the table read? There's a chemistry read. Yeah. The table read, which we had before every single episode, which I just loved because there were so many of these actors I didn't work with. You know, she's in the kitchen for the most part. And these guys are off doing all their adventures a lot of times. So I would get to see these guys only at these table reads. But the first one was, we were all like giggly and nervous, like every table read. And it was great fun. And with, uh,
The money I made, I paid off my student loan, which I thought was going to be the rest of my life. I was basically just paying the interest and I didn't know that that could ever happen. But in one fell swoop, it's such a crazy business. I was able to pay off my student loan.
think about that. People need to know that. Like it wasn't until the Sopranos, like I am so irritated that students have to incur such debt. Yeah. It looms over you while you sleep, you know, as a person in a little apartment in New York trying to make it, it's just a constant like nagging on your shoulder. So yes, I wrote a check and I was done. Yeah, I was done. That was just the pilot. And it was just thrilling. Yeah.
Really do. And so when you guys all got together and you hear this reading and you see these actors, did you all say to yourselves, even silently, I think maybe we have a hit here. This looks like a hit. You know, if anybody knew that they weren't saying it at that time, I can only speak for myself. I don't recognize a hit when I see one. I have been wrong so many times. And even at that point,
I had been wrong. Times when I was sure something would do well that fell apart or things got attention that I thought were completely uninteresting. So that part of me was defunct. I, you know, then I think I did the pilot and they let us see it. Maybe I had a little, I think I had a VHS of it and I showed it to my parents and my parents were like, I think this is, might be like really good. And I was thrilled, but I, again, I, it's like sad.
Static. I couldn't tell. I never know. I never know what people like to see. You know, so every Sunday, we would drive to South Jersey to have Sunday dinner with my parents. But once The Sopranos came out, our Sunday dinners, it started getting earlier and earlier because my parents didn't have HBO. And so we needed to get home early.
So we could watch The Sopranos because I was like, can we do dinner at 3.50? And they're like, dinner at 3? That's lunch. And I would say, we have a TV program that if you would get HBO, we would be able to stay here and have dinner like normal people. And it's so funny now that my kids, who are now all young adults, discovered The Sopranos for the first time. And they...
are like, mom, dad, have you ever seen a show called The Sopranos? And I'm like, guys, try to keep up. Oh my God. That's funny. I love that. I love that. But, uh,
I was not aware of it. I also maybe I protected myself a little bit from news from the outside because it can throw you, you know, then you feel like I better be able to keep doing this because people like it. You know what I mean? Did you ever grow weary of people assuming that you were married to James Gandolfini in real life?
I found it so charming, to be honest with you, because what it meant is that people believed it. People believed us. Like even to this day, when people are genuinely like fans of the show that want to talk about it, it's still very moving. I mean, how many actors in their life get to say they've had that experience where they've made people believe the lives of imaginary people and they have feelings for them and
So I, I never felt anything but grateful when people are polite about it. You know, there are other, um, but when Jim passed away, the number of condolence emails that I got that you got, I got that, I, that I must say, I had a moment of, of alarm, like, wow, this is so skewed. And after a while I started sending them to Deborah, to his wife, like these are meant for you. Um,
My own Edie's feelings about gym passing existed as well, but it was not Carmela and Tony. Right. You're not the actual spouse going through the actual, right. So in the middle of all of this, did you have breast cancer? Yeah, I had breast cancer. In the middle of The Sopranos? Yeah. And I went to get a mammogram and I found out that day they did a biopsy and the doctor told me that day.
And I had to be at work at one in the afternoon, I remember. Yeah, it was crazy. And I, you know, everybody does this differently. I am a very private person by nature. So anyway, I didn't want anyone to know. I didn't want anyone to know. I told the producer of Sopranos, Eileen Landris. And what she did is she scheduled my work days around the chemo. So it wouldn't be like the next day. It would give me a little recovery time.
And the hair I had been using up to that point was my own hair. So, of course, I lost my hair and they made wigs for me and nobody could tell. Nobody knew the difference. Nobody knew. So none of your co-stars didn't know. No, it was very important to me that they didn't. I don't do well with too much. Like, how are you doing? How are you feeling today? Oh, yes. It doesn't work for me. It makes me, I just need to do my work. Let me deal with my feelings. Yeah. You know, my therapist has lots to say about that, but this is who I am.
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No, but I sort of understand that I had two separate girlfriends that actually passed away from cancer and I had no idea that they were ill. And our friend group didn't know they were ill. And so you're left there saying, we are bad friends. We didn't ask the right questions. But when somebody carries on, like I really understand that need for privacy and not wanting to have that
How are you? What can I do for you? When you want to just keep on keeping on and get on with it, I really understand that mindset. But how did, so a reporter though leaked it. Yes.
New York Post. I can't believe I can't think of her name, but yeah, she apparently the story goes, she contacted my agents or something and said, we know that Edie has cancer. We're going to print something about it. Did that piss you off? Were you pissed? I was so upset. It really made it 50 times harder for me to have people on the street stopping me. Oh my God. And that wanting to, my mother had cancer. I lost my sister to cancer. Some people thrive on that kind of energy and like feeling connected and
I needed to do this my own way. I needed to go through this and recover from it and then come out and talk about it. That's, which is not to say it's the right way. It is definitely my way. And so it made it much, much harder. And then years later at a Vanity Fair dinner,
I saw a name tag and it was the reporter who had outed that the woman. Yes. I can't, it's so funny. Her name is gone from my head. Well, she's dead to us. Yeah. I went up to her and I said, I'm, I'm Edie Falco. I know who you are. And I said, I have to let you know that you made my life so much more difficult by printing that story about my, my cancer. And she said, well, if it wasn't us, it would have been someone else. And I said, well, then let someone else do it. I mean, it's a woman to woman relationship.
you know, I hope you never get cancer and know what this was like, but I needed to be left alone. Anyway, then she said in some other interview, it's her agents that told us about it or some kind of thing. Wait, so her whole response was not like, you know what?
In hindsight, you're absolutely right. You are entitled to your medical autonomy and privacy. Her, if it wasn't me, it would have been somebody else. That's right. That's right. Absolutely right. I mean, I- Sounds like she's doing the right job then. I said you should know there are ramifications to the actions you take. And I am one of them. And you made my life really, really difficult in terms of my cancer.
You know, I'm in a business where this kind of thing happens and you learn to roll with it. But that was as hard as it got for me. I don't have like big gossip items about, you know, dating and all kinds of scandal and stuff. But that was huge. No, that is that is huge. And it's definitely a violation for sure. Totally. But one of so many in this business, you know. That's true. That's true.
So then take me into the world of Nurse Jackie, who I think is probably, in my opinion, the most complex character I've ever seen played out on television. And I think so relatable to so many families across America. Addiction in this country is such a...
I don't want to say like it's typical. It's tip. I don't know any family not touched by addiction. Absolutely. Take me into the world of playing that role. Yeah. As you said, it's not, it's not like there isn't a person in the world who, who, who could not relate to her. Uh,
she's ultimately a good person with, you know, according to the 12-step programs, with a disease, the disease of addiction, which really will have its way with you unless you are very strongly armed against it. And, you know, a lot of us who've been around the 12-step programs, you learn those tools, you learn to use them, and you start to realize also it is a formidable foe.
And if you don't make it the center of your life, getting sober and staying sober and staying sober, you're going to lose that. Anything you put before your sobriety, you will lose is one of the things they say in AA.
And she, you know, was about working, about working hard, about taking care of people who didn't have much. And her sobriety was, I guess, something she always thought, you know, I'm fine. I'm dealing with it, which so many people, I think, also believe. But you, I mean, you're very open about this. You've been sober for, what, 29 years? 30. It'll be 31. 30. Next month will be 31. Yeah. Wow. And so...
I know a lot of people are like, it's very taboo to talk about, like talk about their sobriety. So I'm like, I ask you these questions gingerly and you can tell me to fuck off and we'll move on. So when you play a character like Nurse Jackie, like, are you afraid there's going to be a trigger in this for me?
Well, when I signed on to Nurse Jackie, this whole drinking, drugging thing was not a part of the story. That kind of came on over time and we decided that this was something that was going to be. But I already at that point, it had such a distance from my own using that it didn't feel scary.
For a long time after having cancer, I would get a role. This one has breast cancer. And I was like, no, I can't. I just know, again, intrinsically, I'll get a feeling if it's something, a place I want to go to explore or if it feels too dangerous. It didn't feel too dangerous with Nurse Jackie, mostly. There were some scenes where I had to get really messed up and all it made me feel was grateful.
That I am not in the throes of that anymore. Gratitude is a really big thing, I think, when you talk to people who have gone into a 12-step program or rehab. And I always find it so interesting that sometimes there's like
a rock bottom moment. Right. Or was it a series of events for you? No, I was very lucky. It was actually just a few blocks from where I am now in the West Village. I lived over here and had a particularly debaucherous evening and woke up the next morning in my clothes in my apartment, which was teeny. It was one with the door wide open and my clothes on. And I it was like, oh, instead of I have to stop, it was, oh, I'm done.
It just was as easy as that. I didn't know how I was going to do it because my life was so wrapped up in alcohol and drinking buddies. And it was so much a part of my social life. I didn't know how to do it. But luckily, I had sober friends who went before me who I was like, what are you guys doing? You know, now I needed to actually find out. And it was those friends who got sober before me said, come with me. We're going to meetings and stuff. But I just knew that morning when I woke up.
holy crap, I can finally be done with this. I was just done. Did it feel like a relief? On a level, it felt like a relief. I also knew it was terrifying. Like I had to change everything about my life. So much of my social life revolved around going out drinking. And I was a very social person at the time, you know, but I just knew I was done. Did you have any friends that reached out to you and said, I've been thinking about quitting drinking or I've been thinking about, you
stopping whatever it is they're doing, right? But they come to you for advice because they're afraid that they won't be as interesting as they were. Yeah, totally. I've had a lot of people come to talk to me about wanting to get sober or they're newly sober and how to navigate the things in this business. And I totally get it. And I'm thrilled to be able to talk to people about that. I think it was...
Gary Oldman, who was famously a user back in the day, and he quit. A whole article he wrote about thinking that being like a drinker and a drug addict is sort of at the center of who I am and how I get my creativity and how that keeps people engaged.
In the mess, you know, for so long, and that he said I'm here to tell you from the other side, it's just not true. It's not true that this talent I have this passion I have are bigger than an existed before my addiction, the addiction is nothing more than a roadblock.
to the channel from which this stuff comes. You know what I mean? It was the most beautifully written and by somebody cool. He is cool. Yeah, exactly. He would take for his word. And I was so grateful for that article. It was years ago at this point, but he got it right. So you now have two teenage children.
Now, if anything will challenge a person's sobriety, it's two teenage children. Walk me through your life. You adopted them when they were babies? Yes, when they were infants. Yeah, they were new. And I just think it's so, A, amazing. B, smart. C, had to be overwhelming. You did it yourself. Yes.
And take me through your mindset about like, you were just like, one day you said, you know what? I want to have kids.
I'm going to adopt right now. Yes, it really was almost that sudden. It was right after I got a clean bill of health when I realized, I guess I'm not going to die from this. And I had just ended a very important relationship where I thought kids were going to be a part of it. Well, it crashed and burned. And I was clear from cancer. And I thought, well, no one's ever going to tell you this is the time. But if ever there was a time, this seemed like it.
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It was right after I got a clean bill of health and I had just ended a very important relationship. And I was in touch with Rosie O'Donnell a little bit back then. And she said, whenever you're ready, let me know. I've got all kinds of numbers for you. And that's what I did. She gave me the number of a lawyer and got the whole ball rolling when my son was adopted 18 years ago. And then my daughter almost 15 years ago. That sounds crazy to me because I remember like
You coming on my show, like, I thought you were going to say, like, maybe they're 12 and 13 or... They're, like, grown up. Yeah. Son is taller than me. My daughter is angrier than me. Yeah.
Well, good. Then they sound very normal. Thank God for that. Thank God I know that this is all normal. Otherwise, I would think, holy mackerel, I messed up big time. Do you see them in the entertainment industry? You know, my daughter is actually interested in makeup and always has been. And so I think she may want to be like a makeup person. No kidding. That's today. You know what I mean? It's ever-changing. You should know they've got a great summer program at NYU. Yes.
special effects makeup. Unbelievable. So you should check it out because my son went to it and he wound up going to NYU film school. Oh, how great. He loved that makeup class. It really taught him so much. I think she'd be really good at it too. And your son, is he going to, is he in college? Is he going to go to college? No, he's in high school still. And I don't know if he's going to go to college. You know, he has really hated school from a very young age. He is not motivated to
to be a good student. What can I say? It's not for everybody. I didn't go to college. Most of the people I know, especially actors, didn't go to college. And I did go to college, but I don't know how much it has to do with why I'm working now. Going to acting school was a complicated experience for me. But I don't think college is for everyone. And so I'm going to let him find his way and see what he wants to do. What does he show interest in right now? Oh, gaming. Gaming.
Okay. Well, that's, I mean, listen. He's convinced he can support, you know, many a family with the money he can make. But I- I hate to say this. He's probably right. I mean, honestly, if I had just listened to my kids when they were like, mom, we want to start a YouTube channel. I know. I'm starting, you know, I do feel my generational age. Like maybe I really don't know what's
don't know what's going on. Maybe I should let them, you know, explore some of this stuff. It just, it's terrifying to me, as you know. You know, we've had three kids. So it's like, we have like this really great, like zoomed out perspective that the less involved we are, the better off our kids are. I get it. I've so many times I've said, like, I don't think my parents knew where my school was. They just knew it in the morning. And
And I assumed I was doing that during the day and I'd come home and, you know, and that's how you find your way and that's how you become who you ultimately are. I mean, there's probably a happy medium there, but the way we are taught to parent these days, it's so invasive. And my kid says it all the time, get out of my face. Let me do this thing.
But I'm afraid not to for fear of, you know, neglect or whatever, you know. With each kid, you figure it out better. And with our first kid, we like hovered. Like, I mean, my mother-in-law would hold a mirror over his face to see if he was breathing while he was an infant. And then by the time Joaquin came around, I, like Lola was...
14 months old, and I handed her her three-day-old brother, and I said, Mommy has to shower. Just don't drop the baby. You know what I mean? I totally get it. I totally get it. Edie, can you tell me what drew you to Buddhism? You know, I'm always reluctant to say I'm a Buddhist, though I keep saying it. I have been a student of Buddhism for 25 years with the same teacher.
And it is endlessly, it fills me still and more so each time I go. I attend the classes of this teacher and he'll talk for an hour and we'll meditate for a half hour and I leave there a different person. I just feel like a different person. The world looks different. The world feels different.
And my original interest in it was just was meditation, learn to meditate, it was on like a telephone pole. I went there and there was this teacher and I went for a long time I loved it. And then I kind of got busy and lost track of it and I think I found another poster on another thing and I went to that and it was the same teacher in a different location.
And then that happened again. I got busy, lost track. And then I was like, oh my God, clearly this guy is supposed to be my teacher. If you believe in such things, which I sometimes do, I go there as often as I'm able, depending on my, my schedule. And I, I learned from this man and other teachers there and we meditate and we learn Buddhist principles and my life feels better as a result of it. So I wasn't raised in any religion. So I was given that freedom to kind of, uh,
look around and see what was interesting. And I've landed here and I haven't left because to this day, all of it makes sense to me and makes me feel better. Jan wants to know what are some of the principles? I want to study it. Oh, it's very, very deep stuff. We are all seeing the world in a way that it doesn't really exist. Like we look at something that's red. No, that's red. But it's only red because we've decided it's red, like we together as a group. And so we say certain things are good and certain things are bad when in fact, these are all just decisions we've made. And we can in fact,
Make other decisions about every single thing in your life. You feel like you were born believing certain things, but you weren't. So you can change what you believe in. And what if you believe that things are basically good, that people are kind and worthy of your compassion? It's psychological and philosophical and scientific, you know, and they say, don't just believe these things because I'm saying them. Try it out. Meditate on a certain principle and see if it makes you feel better. Edie would be a terrible Catholic.
I know. I know I would. Albert and I are Catholics, you know, and the foundation of our religion is that we are sinners and that God let his son get crucified because we're such, we're so bad. Yeah.
When you walk into a church, it's literally Jesus suffering on the cross. But when you look at like Buddha. He's a happy dude. He seems so happy. Yeah. Happy and peaceful. I know. I know.
But, you know, you have, I assume, generations and generations of like DNA that believed in this particular religion. It's very hard to turn away from it. I'm grateful that I didn't have that. Our parents are all still with us, knock on wood. And so Albert and I could never become Buddhists, you know, not while they're still here. God forbid. God forbid. God forbid. Well, according to Buddhism, even when they're not there, they're still there. There's absolutely no escape. Absolutely.
I want to get out of religion right now because I can feel my parents calling me. They somehow know that I'm talking to you about Buddhism. I want to talk about Bupkis. This is your new show on Peacock. It is. It is. It'll air, I think, in May. I'm very excited about it. I hope you like it. Who's your character? I am Pete Davidson's mother.
But it's loosely based on his life, right? It is loosely based on his life. Growing up in Staten Island, and he's a successful, you know, SNL guy, yes. Probably more than loosely based on his life. And he has a sister who's played by Una Roach, this beautiful young actress who's just delightful. And Joe Pesci plays my father, his grandfather. And it was so off the beaten track for the kind of stuff that I get cast in. I kept looking at them like, are you sure?
sure that's me that's supposed to be here. Like, you know, we get there and they're like, you know what, forget those lines. So the whole thing was like flying by the seat of your pants, which is like to some people, it's like the actor's nightmare. But I just felt so completely freed by it, like to just be silly and say things that were like funny and not based in, you know,
my years of training or whatever. It was just hilarity, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. So give me a little bit about Pete Davidson. You tell me, what is it about him? What's the thing? He is really, really lovable when you get in there. And also, I mean, I played his mother. So that was already kind of built in. It starts to happen quickly.
And I have a son, you know, a quirky son, not as old as Pete, but so I already had this kind of thing about it, but he's self-deprecating to a fault. Like he is probably more confused than most.
about why he's dating all these famous, you know, beautiful women and has great success. He literally is just like sort of tiptoeing, waiting for the cane to come and pull him away. And there's something incredibly refreshing about that. But he is funny and he is adorable. He has a giant smile. He's really, really tall, like surprisingly tall.
tall. I didn't realize that. I just found him lovely to be around. Well, I saw that movie. I saw the movie, The King of Staten Island. I don't know if you saw that. I did. I did see it. I thought it was charming. I found him very endearing in that as well. I find him to be an endearing person. Absolutely right. I mean, there's no way you can't like the guy. Like there was a scene in that movie where he was walking down the street holding the hands of those little kids. And he really is like that guy. Like he sort of loves little kids and
So not what one would think of someone in his position. Well, Edie, this has been as delightful as I knew it would be. I love talking to you and I appreciate you taking part in our little podcast. Thank you so much. And we will all tune into Bupkis on Peacock when it streams in May. I look forward to it. Bye everybody. Bye.
She's cool. She's cool, right? Yeah. Normal person. I love her so much. You know, Albert, when I got live with Regis and Kelly, she was like in year two, I think, of The Sopranos. And so she and I were like constantly on the same talk show circuit. We were on Celebrity Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Oh my God. And my big takeaway is that she was always nice and always normal. Yeah. It's amazing. You know, and then like the idea of
being a working mom and doing it alone. And then even the cancer part, like it's just amazing what she's been through. And she seems so cool and so chill. Maybe I should look into the Buddhism thing. I've been thinking about it for a long time. And I think I know the place that she goes. It's right around the block from me. That's great. Of course it is. That's great. We should all go. Let's all go. Maybe that'll be, we could do a podcast from there. You know,
Would that be weird to the Buddhists if we show up? With microphones. I mean, I could talk about her for hours, but I can't because Jan is telling me to wrap it up. Listen, everyone, we are a new show in a sea of podcasts. Don't forget to tell your friends that Let's Talk Off Camera is available every week on Amazon Music and make sure to follow us. Can't wait to talk off camera next week. Woo!
Let's Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa is a co-production of Melojo Productions and PRX Productions with help from Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is Follow Me from APM Music.
From Melojo, our team is Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos, Albert Bianchini, Jan Chalet, Devin Schneider, Michael Halpern, Jacob Small, Roz Therrien, Seth Gronquist, and Nick Ribula. From PRX Productions, our team is Cara Schillen, Genevieve Sponsler, Megan Nadolski, Edwin Ochoa, Rebecca Seidel. Additional sound design by Terrence Bernardo.
The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzalez. This show is powered by Stitcher. From PR.
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