Julianna Margulies: That's Life in an ER
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We're happening. Hello. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm so excited to talk to you. I feel like we have so much in common that we've never ever unpacked. We haven't unpacked any of it, Rob. So I'm thrilled. Go for it. Ask whatever you want. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Literally With Me. Well, listen, if you were living and breathing,

At the end of the 90s and into the 2000s, you were watching ER and loving it and eating it up. And if you were living and breathing in the last few years, you've been watching The Good Wife and loving and breathing and eating that up. And we have the titan of both today, Julianna Margulies, one of my favorite actors and actress.

One of the most accomplished women in television and in other areas, too, as you'll find out. She's an author, has her new book out right now, Sunshine, Girl, and Unexpected Life. Good title. Jealous. Very jealous of that title. Should have thought of it for mine. I didn't. Anyway, stay tuned. We're going to get down to it with Julianna Margulies. I like to start out slow. It's early for me. I've barely had my coffee.

It's early for you. It's 1030 in the morning. What time do you get up? Well, see, you have to understand I like you have been when I work. It's always like your call is 445 pickup. Right. And so for us actors, normal for us actors. So then when I'm not on doing a TV show or on camera, I'm like I sleep like an 18 year old or like a.

I mean, you know, it's like the way like teenagers sleep or they're like, you just come in and they're still in their bed. That's like the way I like to roll. You are a lucky, lucky, lucky human being. That has never been my luxury in life. I wish. I mean, I do get up earlier now, though, because I'm meditating in the morning. So I've been waking up in time to medicate. Medicaid. Yes. Medicaid. I wake up in time to medicate. I'm like Elvis. I wake up and I pound pills. Okay.

No, but which is – I got to tell you, that's no good because you wake up and you meditate and then what does that do? It puts you back to sleep. It's a fucking disaster. Well, sure. Yeah, you should do the heads – during the pandemic, my husband and my son and I were doing the headspace. It's like a cartoon at night and just to sort of help all of us sleep better and it really worked. It was great. Now, I've done headspace on my –

Phone is that same guy with a wonderful almost Geico voice. He's a little bit of a Geico lizard. Yeah, he talks like that. And just breathe. I love him. Andrew is his name. Andrew. No. So, yes, it is Andrew, but it's for kids. So it's it's like an eight part series on Netflix that they did over the pandemic, which was remarkable because.

I mean, I listen to them. I do it on my earbuds all the time and do it myself. But to do it as a family together and all close your eyes together and sort of watch these beautiful, they're gorgeous drawings. It's worth checking out. That's so cool. Well, I started that. Yeah.

You know, people have been telling me to meditate for 30 years. Like, that's the one thing you're missing. And I've never been able to do it. And I started with that, loved it. And then got into TM, Transcendental Meditation. Oh, yeah. I have a bunch of friends that are into that. How's that going? I love it. And I'll tell you why, the difference. Because there's none of the, now be aware of your core and slowly...

Think about your feet. Take it down to your feet, then back up to your... Think of the noise, the rain, the leaves. There's none of that. It's literally, you have your mantra, they give you... And by the way, that's the most disappointing anticlimactic moment maybe ever.

Or they give you the mantra. You're like, oh, this is going to be great. My mantra is going to be, you're an amazing actor or something. You know, you think it would be something great. That's the antithesis of meditation, Ralph. Well, that's probably why I was disappointed. I think so. Because I don't know what I'm doing. But like they give you the mantra and it's gibberish, first of all.

And it's meant to mean nothing. And at least I thought there'd be like an unveiling of a scroll or like a, like Indiana Jones. You were looking for a production, I feel like. You needed a production to get you interested. There was not enough production value. Yeah. That's for sure. But anyway, all you got to do is think of the mantra and then you're good. That's it. That's all I got to do. And TM works. That's good. You know, I grew up with...

with a very hippie sort of, a hippie mother who meditated all the time. And I, you know, I was on ashrams when I was six years old while she was like off doing her things and I had to sort of find my own entertainment. So for me, I've always been a little bit resistant to meditation because what I saw as a child was all those people who meditate seem to have their head in the clouds and didn't seem to realize I needed to be picked up from school on time.

Did we have the same mother? Probably. So I was very resistant to, I mean, I was a yogi and I did all that stuff, but that was about exercise to me and breathing. It wasn't about sort of finding your inner mantra. So for a very long time, I resisted it. And then when I met my husband, he,

He had just the day after the day I met him, he had just come back from an 11 day silent retreat. No. Yeah. Up in Lenox, Massachusetts, by the way, which I've never done. He said what was so fascinating to him was that it started out with 20 people and only nine survived the full 11 days. And he said what was incredible was it was mostly women who left. Right.

And I said, that's because, honey, we got to talk. We have so much to say. Yeah, yeah. And then I watched how, because he is not in our world at all. He's in a very different line of work. And I watched every night he would just quietly sit in the living room when no one was in there, lights out, feet on the ground, sitting in a chair for 10 minutes. And then he'd come to bed and he just looked like he had been on a vacation. Oh, wow.

So I, I realized that I needed to rethink my meta, my ideas of, of meditation, that I actually could be a functioning human being and meditate and, and still be there to pick up my kid on time. It was, it was also like the time that our parents were around. It was like, everybody was like discovering fondue. Yeah. It was the seventies, right? I mean, my parents met, my parents met in the sixties. My eldest sister, who's six years older than me, was born in 1960. So my parents, um,

met it. Yeah. It was hippie time and, you know, about yourself. It was much more about yourself. Whereas nowadays I think parenting especially is more about the kids, which I'm, I'm trying to find a happy balance with, but yeah,

But back then it was like the kids just came along for the ride. You didn't ask them if they wanted to come. Your childhood was kind of fascinating. Tell me, pronounce actually, the interpretive dance that your mother taught. There's a name for it that's very interesting. Yes, there is. It's called Eurythmy. Kind of like the Eurythmics, like Annie Lennox's The Eurythmics. Actually, she apparently sent her children to Steiner schools and took...

And and I think the story goes, I could be wrong. You may have to fact check me. But the Eurythmics come from the word Eurythmy, which is a form of movement. It's through speech and music. And my mother, who had been a ballerina before.

And then discovered anthroposophy, which is a philosophy that Rudolf Steiner created. She then was trained in eurythmy and taught at Steiner schools all through my childhood. Tell me about Steiner schools. Is it like Montessori where there's no grading and it's a lot of macrame? Yeah.

So some of it can be like that. It is different. It's very much focused on young children and and what they are ready for intellectually. So a lot of it I do agree with in terms of the early childhood education. I think I did not send my son to a Steiner school because I just didn't.

I feel like a lot of their methods are antiquated. For an example, we were never allowed to watch television or any electronic devices. Although there's great arguments for this because if you go to Silicon Valley, all those guys, all those rich, rich, rich guys who made all their money on tech send all their kids to Rudolf Steiner schools because they know how addictive it is.

all of these things can be and how it does cut you off from human interaction. And so that I do understand, but I think there's a fine balance with it. And I think in terms of higher education, and when you're prepping to go to college, you need computers and you need I mean, there, if I always say to people in the Steiner community who asked me why I haven't sent my child to a Steiner school, I say, you know, if Rudolf Steiner was alive today, he was he was a

He was a scientist, an architect, a writer, an anthropologist. He would have said, what are you doing? Get with the times. The computer age is fascinating. And I feel I just feel like the people who have sort of carried on his mantra haven't really dug deep enough to realize that actually science.

the convenience of the technological world is at our fingertips. And if it's used wisely and taught wisely, it can benefit every student. So, so I have a, I have a love hate relationship with Steiner schools. Although I personally do feel like I got an incredible education, but I was very self-motivated as a student. Whereas my sister who would prefer, you know, to,

smoke pot and and hang out with her punk friends she sounds like a genius that's that's i love that you know instead of her getting kicked out of school they were like well rachel's special you know she has all these and yes she is she was a musician and she was incredibly smart and funny and whatever but she was getting d's and they were okay with that you know they didn't kick her in the ass

So in the high school I went to did do grades because for them, I went to a high school in New Hampshire, which was only a high school. It's a boarding school. I didn't board there. My mother was a teacher, so I was a day student. But they really want students to come. So it was important for them that we all got into a good college. So they actually did.

have grades and it was a much stricter, harder academic schedule. I'm telling you, you and I are the, we've had the same lives. I'm telling you. Really? Exact same thing with my kids. Tell me. They went to a bust your ass grade academic boot camp prep school. They were day students. And because it was my sort of coming out of, you know, the Montessori, you know,

kumbaya stuff, which I guess is great for somebody, but in a lot of people, it's nothing against it. But like, I wanted them to go to a good school and if they smoked pot, that was an issue and they got bad grades, that was an issue and, you know, all that, all that stuff. And, and, and how'd they turn out?

Stanford, Duke, lawyer. There you go. And the other one just sold his first show to Netflix at 25. Oh, my God. You're a proud papa. I'm a very proud papa. I'm happy to give their credits like that. It doesn't make me a bad person, does it? Not at all. I mean, everyone wants to be proud of their children. But there is that great line in A Death of a Salesman. Oh, my favorite play.

I mean, truly one of the best plays ever written, written in three days. No. By the great Arthur Miller. Yeah, he wrote it in three days. No way. At the age of 23. How did I not know this? Oh, my God. Yeah. But there's that incredible line when Willie Loman is talking to his friend who he's always borrowing money from.

He's talking to his son, waiting for the friend to come out of the office. And the son is just bantering back and forth. And then he says, listen, I have to go to D.C. And then the father comes out and Willie says, I'm really sorry. I got to borrow more money. And he goes, you know, he goes, how about my kid? Huh? Off to go and argue in the Supreme Court. And Willie says, what? He told me he was going to D.C. He didn't tell me he was arguing in the Supreme Court. And his friend says he doesn't need to. He's doing it. He doesn't need to tell you.

He's doing it. He's doing it. I always remember that line and think, wow, if that that is not a sign to braggarts to shut the fuck up. It really is a remarkable line. And at 23 that Arthur Miller knew to write that just blows my mind. But yeah, he doesn't need to. He's doing it. The most devastating moment I've ever had in a theater was watching Brian Dennehy. And I'd never seen it live. Never seen it.

To my unending shame, saw it very late in, yeah, I saw it fairly recently, later in my life. And there's that moment where they're all at the party on the road and he's realized that Willie Loman's having sex with the woman. The woman with the stockings, yeah. Yeah, and the woman gets up to go to the bathroom. No, Willie gets up to go to the bathroom and the group turns to his son and says...

So who exactly is that guy? So is that your father? He goes, no, he's just some guy. Yeah. Devastating. Great play. If you guys out there listening haven't read that one or seen it, check it out. All right. So we got to talk about ER. Everybody I know has come through the ER world. My brother, Chad Lowe. Yeah. Who directed me in a movie once. What was it? Beautiful Ohio. Wait. Wait.

Oh, my God. That's right. Beautiful Ohio. Yeah, I love Chad. I love him so much. He did such a great job. I mean, I just love being on. I mean, it was an independent, tiny, tiny, little nothing movie, really. But listen, it was William Hurt and Rita Wilson and me. And oh, God, I'm going to forget all the people in it. Michelle Trachtenberg. Michelle Trachtenberg. Oh, my God. Right. Right.

And anyway, tons of great people. And we and we shot it in Brooklyn on zero budget. And Chad directed it. He's been directing my show Lone Star and some other stuff. He's I just talked to him. He's the best. He sends his love. But please send my love. So that's his. He's found his jam, right? His jam is. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I could tell when he was directing that. I was like this. You were meant for this. He loves it. And he's really, really good. You know, I mean, I think all.

all smart actors who have experience and want to direct end up being at minimum functional directors and usually really good ones just because they understand story and acting so much. Yeah. Yeah. I always, I always loved it when actors on my shows decided to direct. Like when Anthony Edwards, I remember that was the first time one of the actors on the show on ER got a directing slot. And I,

I was like, oh, my God, you are so awesome as a director. I loved it when he directed. And same with Josh Charles on Good Wife. He directed and I loved it because they know how to they understand acting, you know? Yeah, it's.

And by the way, both those guys are great. They're also just great dudes. Yeah. I didn't get to – Eric LaSalle, who has now become quite the prolific director, he started directing once I'd already left the show. And one of these days I'm going to get him to direct me because I think he's really super talented. Yeah. I was going to ask you about Eric, but that was after your time there. Yeah. Yeah.

Not my desire at all. Do you have any desire to direct? I don't mean to sound like a snob, but not television. It's not that. But I did a – remember when Showtime was doing all those really like big deal short films and they were always nominated for Oscars like in the early aughts? I did one of those and then I did – and then I directed a movie, a little movie last year, a remake of The Bad Seed.

Oh, wow. And that was really, really fun. So you do want to direct. I love it. I tell you what, I love it. If I could sort of do that and do nothing but that, I would. But I don't really...

feel like I need to want to do an episode of television because all the big choices have already sort of been made, right? It's like the cast is already there. The wardrobe is already there. The sets are already there. It's a machine. It's a machine. It's not that it's not directing. It's just a different style of directing. Yeah, it's always so interesting. They kept saying, don't you want to direct a good wife? And all of our executive producers, Robert King, you know, Juliana, you can. And I was like, guys, I'm barely, I'm in every scene. Like I'm,

I barely make it to the bathroom in time. How am I going to do that? And I have a kid and I have a husband. Like for me, it was just too much. I didn't have – and television, I feel unless you're directing the pilot. Yes. Where you get to set the tone and that's what made ER. Rod Holcomb, the way he directed the pilot of that show using the Steadicam as the seventh character –

And Charles McDougall, how he directed The Good Wife. Those guys, they create a template and then people follow that template. A lot of people talk about

The West Wing walk and talk. But what they realize is that is just Rod Holcomb. I mean, Rod Holcomb. That was ER. A lot of people get credit that shouldn't when it comes to certain things. And the West Wing walk and talk is Rod Holcomb. It's not anybody else. Did he direct some West Wings? He never directed a West Wing. Oh, that's interesting. And we were on the same lot together, weren't we, when West Wing started?

What year did West Wing start? 1999. 99. So we, right. So we had already been there for four years or five years. Yeah. We used your set when President Bartlett got shot and everybody got shot and we were all whatever. That was, we were like all so excited to be in the West Wing set with that mosaic floor in the operating room. There's some weird floor. Yeah. So they actually modeled that entire set off of Cook County General in Chicago. Wow.

Where I had gone to follow nurses around before I started the show, I always ended up in the hallway with my

head between my legs breathing into a paper bag because it was just what you can never get on television is the smell. The smell in those trauma rooms just suffocated me to the point where I would have to vomit. I couldn't bear it. I do not have the stomach for it. But those Cook County hospital rooms, which have been around forever,

Kind of 70s feel, you know, the floors and the tiles and the color and the trauma rooms. So that was all pretty authentic stuff. Yeah. And we'll be right back after this.

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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. There's so many apocryphal stories about ER and like the notion that the network was like, well, we're not sure because all the patients come in. They're like, what happens to them afterwards? Right. Like when you it seems that it's such a cultural thing, ER, but you forget that

There'd never been a show where you didn't go to the ER and then to the bed and then the doctor would come in and then you would see nothing. It was just them getting into the hospital and that was it. Yeah, George Clooney always used to say the best thing about our show is you see a guy come in on a gurney with an arrow literally through his head and he just wipes through and you never hear about him again.

That's life in an ER. They come in, they leave, and you never see them in between. And that, yeah, it was a really fast-paced process.

What a show. It was a real luxury to be part of that show. And it took a Steven Spielberg to stand up to the network note where they go, I'm sorry, we saw a guy with an arrow come through the frame where they said, what happens to him? I think we need to know more about him. Yeah, I'm always a little confused on who...

So who is fully responsible for getting the show on the air? I do know that NBC did not want to pick it up as a pilot. And it was Warner Brothers, Les Moonves, actually, who was the head of Warner Brothers Television at the time.

And he's the one who said, Warner Brothers is going to pay for all the next test audiences. And we we promise you this show's a hit. And NBC kept saying no. And they said, give us your your Johnny Cart or Jay Leno audience. I think it was Jay Leno was on. Give us them. Give us your audience. And and sure enough, the audiences ended up loving it and and they put it on the air. But it was a fight. It was a fight to get it on the air.

That's amazing to me. You'd think, again, with the auspices of Spielberg, but I bet you it was the stuff we've just been sort of laughing, but it's serious. It was groundbreaking in the storytelling and they were just...

Probably petrified and they probably tested it and a couple of people went, what happened to the guy with the arrow in his head? And they were like, yep, knew it. I told you so. This is where I find everything so incredibly interesting in terms of timing because – so Steven Spielberg was moving offices and one of his –

A guy who worked at Amblin at the time was emptying all the shelves and found this Michael Crichton script that he had written in 1972 called ER as a film, as a two hour film. And like they were throwing things away and he started looking at it. It's like, well, it's Michael Crichton. And then he said, well, this isn't a good movie, but it would be an amazing TV show. That's how ER came about.

And to think that that script could have just been thrown away, you know, but it just so happened that that person found it from, you know, from 20 years before. And then Michael Crichton looked at it again and said, wait, you know what? You're right. Let me let me rework a few things. Let's make it into a two hour pilot instead. I mean, the confluence of events leading up to one of the biggest shows in the history of television is.

I can't not marvel at that, you know. And then what it did to all of our careers is just one of those things where it's it's mind boggling to me that it all actually happened. And yeah, that's I'd forgotten. How did I forget about Michael Crichton? Michael Crichton. Michael Crichton wrote the pilot. Yeah. The tallest, smartest man who ever lived. Six foot seven.

I loved him so much. I really loved him. He was a gentle giant, just the kindest man. When you saw Michael Crichton with your own eyes, you were just like,

You could not believe how tall he was. No, I know. And I always felt embarrassed to stare, you know, even if I was talking to him because you're looking so high up. And he always sort of was like a giraffe that, you know, he would sort of come bend down a little bit for you. But he was just the sweetest. And his wife is lovely. We stay in touch. Anyway, it was a great group of people. Were you there for the live ER episode? Oh, yeah. I think that was our...

I want to say our third or fourth season. I was there for six seasons. Yeah. Tommy Shlomi directed that. And, um, and I was the only cast member who was against it. I'll take the heat for that. George and Anthony thought it would be fantastic. And everyone was excited about it. And we were doing two, we had to do two live feeds. So we had to do New York and then LA. So we, we actually shot, we actually did it twice. And, and,

I just, you know, I came from theater and I didn't like that they were tearing down that fourth wall because what I loved about ER was that people sort of disappeared into these characters' lives. And I was so afraid that with it being live and us looking directly into the camera and talking that people would somehow feel distanced somehow.

In a weird way. But anyway, I never saw them because I was doing them. I was going to say, now with time has gone by, were you on the right side of history or not? I don't know. I don't know. I remember reading one review saying something like,

oh God. And, and Julianna Margulies spilled her coffee, but it was live. So she couldn't clean it up and do it again. And I thought, God, you're idiots. That was the care. I, my character spilled her coffee and,

You know, like I didn't I didn't like being opened up to that kind of ridiculous criticism because it it didn't help our story. And I was like, no, that was a conscious choice that Hathaway spills her coffee there because she's nervous about the cameras being. So I don't know. I don't know if it worked. You'd have to ask someone else. I think that ultimately people felt it was very successful and it brought back. You know, George did it later with him.

Oh, God. And Brian Dennehy was in that. What was it? I remember it was Failsafe. George directed Failsafe Live. Or, yeah, I think he directed it. I feel like those things are always you want to like them. You should like them.

You see them and you don't like them. That's sort of how I come down in the live, those live shows. I don't know why. It's just the way they're shot. It's, it's just, they feel flat. Well, they feel like general hospital. Yes, it is. It's very flat and it's very bright and it's very video. It's a video. I think, I think my understanding of, of like coming from where George was coming from wanting to do live TV, was it,

You know, we all owe our careers, you, me and everyone else who's had an illustrious television career to where TV came from. And I always feel like George's way of repaying that was to pay homage to these to the greats, to the to the great television shows that were shot live, because that is a real combination between

theater and television, you know, and and there is so many television actors or and film actors nowadays never have to do theater.

right to get to to to become an actor they can go straight whereas that never you always had to do theater and especially to a live television audience that's theater and you don't get to have a second take you have to power through the the whatever the mistake you made or the line you don't remember and and and rely on your technique and your talent rather than a second take so

So I always think it was his way of paying homage to the people who came before. And so that way I do respect it and understand it. But I'm not sure I like to watch it. I think you're right. I'm not sure. Yeah.

Even the musicals that NBC are doing, that's like you want to watch, you want to love those live musicals. And some of them, I remember I actually liked The Sound of Music. I thought it was great. But The Sound of Music is so great, it's hard to ruin that. I dated the executive producer of The Sound of Music. I dated his son once. Sorry, it was his great-grandfather who executive produced it. And I dated him. And I said, did your grandfather ever make another movie? He goes, never had to.

It was the sound of music. Doesn't have to. He's doing it. Yeah, it's fine. When you decided to leave ER, here's what I heard. Between me leaving West Wing and you leaving ER, we're in a very exclusive club, you and I. What year did you leave West Wing? Fourth year. Was yours a year-to-year contract or a six-year contract? No, I had signed a full deal and asked to be let out of it.

And you and you were just didn't resign. Correct. Correct. I resigned once. I had signed up. See, ER screwed it up for everyone. So we all had to sign five year contracts. And then in our third year, they asked us to sign a sixth year. And I signed that.

And then in our sixth year, they asked us to sign another two years. And I said, I mean, I write about this in the book because it is something that seems to have defined me in the business. And I never really wanted to talk about it. And I finally realized that in order for me to –

help other people to not just not just explain my part of it, but I gave a commencement speech at my alma mater in 2010 at Sarah Lawrence College. And I was thinking of how I could help these students go out into the world. You know, what what could I say to them?

that their parents haven't already said or that they didn't already know or, you know, and I thought my experience, I can talk about my experience. So that was in 2010 was the first time I left ER in 2000. So 10 years later was really the first time I publicly spoke about it because everyone, there was terrible backlash

And I don't know if you got the same response, but there was a lot of backlash to my leaving. Who does she think she is? You know, that's $27 million. I think it's important to understand that this was not an easy decision. This wasn't flippant. This wasn't me laughing $27 million in the face and going, ha, ha, ha, I can make that any day of the week. This was a harrowing, difficult decision for me.

And I had already, because I knew my six years contract was going to be out, I had already signed on for a year of work right after ER. So without knowing about the $27 million yet, I had already signed on to do a play at Lincoln Center with Jason Robards and then to go and play Morgaine Le Fay in The Mists of Avalon, one of my favorite books of all time. I was going to get to play the lead and live in Prague and ride horses and

I was a horseback rider as a kid. So to be offered something like that was just a dream come true. And then the $27 million showed up. So I'd already said yes to John Robin Bates to do his play. I'd already said yes to Uli Adele to do his miniseries for TNT. And I thought I was doing great. I was, you know, wow. I was 32 years old at the time. I had paid off my mortgage.

And I got to go back to New York where I'm from and do theater and then go off to Europe and ride horses and swing swords with a great director. I had seen Last Exit to Brooklyn, which Uli had directed, and I was just slayed by that film. And I thought, this is what you get to do when you've done six years on such an incredible show. You know, I wasn't married, didn't have kids, free girl. And I was looking forward to it. And then that money got thrown at me.

I everyone I talked to, I asked everyone for their advice. I'm a big believer in talking things out and asking people what they think, because I think it's very hard to sort of to to to see yourself in your from your own perspective. You need to see yourself from everyone's perspective. So everyone that I respected, I asked and everyone said, don't be an idiot. Take the money. It's just two years of your life. So everybody so everybody you asked said that.

Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Even God, even. And what was interesting about everyone's argument to me was you'll never have to work again. Women never make that kind of money in this business and you'll never have to worry about about money. Right. You'll you'll be set for life basically is what everyone was saying.

And then I still wasn't comfortable. I was not comfortable. I had planned my whole year and I was really looking forward to moving home. L.A. was great for me for a while, but I'm a girl who needs four seasons. I grew up in Europe and New York and New Hampshire. Like I need to feel like I'm moving forward with a spring, summer life.

Fall and winter, you know, my wheels turn that way. And my parents were in the Berkshires and I, although divorced, but close by to each other. I wanted to come home. So I called my dad and I said, what would you do? And he said, when is enough enough, honey? Did you ever dream that you would have made the amount of money you've already made, that you'd have money in the bank?

that you'd have your mortgage paid off at the age of 32. Did you ever dream that? And by the way, at that point, I was also paying his mortgage and my mother's mortgage. So I did have a pretty big nut, but I'm very good with money and I'm not a huge spender. And he said to me, I know a lot of unhappy rich people. What you have to ask yourself is if you say yes to two years, two more years,

And you're waiting to get rich. And in that waiting period, you get hit by a bus and you die. And you're looking at your body lying on that pavement as your soul is heading somewhere else. And you look down. What are you going to say to yourself? Were you being your truest self? Were you living your truest life, your happiest life? Or were you waiting, biding time to get rich? There's no time like the present.

You don't want that body saying, I wanted Ulu Grossbard, but I got Anthony Edwards. And then you're out. No, but you know, it was a profound moment for me, topped off with the fact that then after he said that, I went to the Bodhi Booktree store and bought the first book that called out to me. I knew nothing about it. It was called Awakening the Buddha Within. And this is a true story. I couldn't make it up.

I brought it home. I shut my bedroom door, sat on my chair, closed my eyes, opened the book and put my finger down on the page I opened up. And it said, I realized my mission in life was to learn more, not earn more. Come on. You have to be kidding. That's amazing. No, that was exactly what it said. And I, I, it was, it was one of the, I'm not a religious person, but it was one of those. I remember looking up being like,

OK, is that what divine intervention feels like? It's like that was divine. That's that's the moment where the where the assistant doesn't throw away the the ER script. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

So between that and what my dad said, I thought, you know what? Go with your heart and go be happy and feel fulfilled and the rest will follow. And it did. It's a very hard decision to make. I mean, when I... Why did you leave? I'm sorry. I'm not up on any pop culture. Oh, please. Don't worry. Were you not having a good time on that show? You know, it was... And the same, I did the same. I wrote about it in my book too because people always ask me and for me, it's like...

asking a couple why they divorced. It's like a very complicated, two sides to every story, hard to put into just the first conversation type of thing. It really took chapters in a book to do it. And even then doesn't do it justice. But the long and short of it was I was not enjoying the experience of making the show. I was loving the show. And, um, and then, um,

You know, the show was shifting. I was having less and less and less to do. And I felt like these are the best years of my life. And I've got young kids at home that I'm... And also, our schedule was notoriously awful. I mean, on Fridays, we would start on a Friday and we would end at 6 o'clock Saturday morning every Friday. Oh, yeah. Well, that was my every Friday on The Good Wife. Yeah. I was like...

We called them fratter days. Fratter days. Yeah, that's just the nature of one-hour dramas because they don't need you to come in on Saturday. They don't need a turnaround. So they – yeah, I mean that was my life for – well, I guess if you added it all up, 12, 13 years. Yeah.

And, you know, people go, people say it's like ER and West, they're very similar. It's like that's the part of a lifetime for you is the part of a lifetime for me. It still is the thing. If people say, I've never seen anything of yours, what should I watch? I'd be like, watch the West Wing. I mean, I knew it was great, but, you know, there's more stuff in life. It's like you said, there's more stuff in life. By the way, John Robin Bates, who you left ER to go work with. Yeah. This is a great story. So Aaron Sorkin might be one of the best. Look, he's one of the best writers who ever lived. Yeah.

But he was writing The West Wing and Sports Night. You can ask me. Listen, I've heard a lot of sports night stories. Yes. And they're all true. So the network was like, you have to, Aaron, you have to let somebody else take the reins and write so you can get some rest so you can get we can get back on schedule. And he goes, he wouldn't do it, wouldn't do it, wouldn't do it. And he finally goes, OK, here's a pre-approved list of people who can write.

A West Wing episode. It was literally Academy Award winning movie directors. Of course. And and then and and John Robin Bates was on the list. So Robbie Bates comes in and they were like, we can you know, we're going to do whatever. And he wrote this. Robbie Bates is like, I have this idea of.

Going back to Sam Seaborn, that's my characters. He has to leave during the campaign and it's a big deal because he's got to go back to Ohio because his mother has Alzheimer's. And we're going to examine that. And by the time the script was done, it was they went back to C.J. Craig, Allison Janney's mother's house.

Yeah.

So you left because you felt underused. Yeah. And look, so much of it is like to tell the real story that would unnecessarily hurt people or make people look bad in a way that I'm not really interested in doing. But yes. And it's like, I'll put it to you this way. I work with Calista Flockhart on Brothers and Sisters. She had a notoriously, notoriously complicated relationship with her tenure as Ally McBeal.

I told her three West Wing stories about me. She goes, I will never complain about being Ally McBeal ever again.

Oh, I'm sorry you had that experience. But look, here's the other thing. It's all good. And the other thing is, like, nobody wants to know that the Beatles hated each other. Nobody wants to know that. They just want to hear, hey, Jude, and love it. Right. And it's the same with the West Wing. It's like, it's all good. It's fucking good. It's all good. Nobody cares. I don't care anymore. It's all good. Yeah. I mean, I think you get also to a certain... I mean, I didn't leave ER because I didn't love the character and didn't love the people. I left ER also... I mean...

a big part of it was I also felt like my storyline kind of ended when George left. Our characters were so intertwined and they gave me the most beautiful ending. Yeah, they did. And we shot that in total secret, by the way. The cast didn't even know. The hair, makeup. I did my own makeup. I stole my wardrobe out of my trailer and they flew us up

Um, to Seattle. And we shot that just, um, with our, our cameraman doing the lighting and the camera and John Wells directing. And we, we shot that and the poor people who own the house that we use their backyard had to sign a, uh, their life away. Yeah. But, um, and then it got put into a vault at NBC and no one, no one knew Anthony Edwards. No, none of the cast knew until it aired that we had done it. Oh, that's so great though. Talk about, um,

delivering for the fans. I know. And that's what I felt like I felt. And both of us, both George and I were like, that's, you know, they never gave us a wedding on that show. And that was our way of saying, here, we technically got married. You can all rest. But, you know, I didn't leave that show with any...

bad feelings. They always wrote so beautifully for me, for my character. But someone was explaining it from a fan's point of view, which you and I don't think of. I mean, now I kind of do, but fans get really, like they're heartbroken when their favorite character leaves a show. Yeah, yeah. And that's a testament to the show and the acting, right? Because when people are so invested in your character, it's

you know, and that I started feeling bad, you know, for people who were heartbroken that Hathaway left. But, but I'll tell you what, what it did do. There I was doing an, I mean, I didn't leave to become some big movie star. I left to do a

play at Lincoln Center for $235 a week. You know, I didn't have any grand illusion that I was some Sandra Bullock. You know, that wasn't, and that was why I was, I think why the press mostly was so cruel. They're like, who does she think she is kind of thing because, and this, and my dad really helped me through this too. My dad was a really smart, wise guy.

When there was a whole bunch of backlash happening and those women on The View were just, I happened to be at the gym one day and that was on. And they just went at me with their knives sharpened.

even Barbara Walters holding up the cover of New York Newsday. Who does she think she is? She's no spring chicken. I'll never forget those words. That was nice. And I was just – I was devastated mostly because I was embarrassed, A, that anyone was talking about me. If you notice, never in the – like I'm just not that person. I'm not a tabloid kind of girl. Like I never dance naked on tables or –

you know, slept with the chauffeur. Like it just doesn't, that's not my style. So that we know of. Yeah, no, I keep it under wraps. But, and the idea of talking about money, because I grew up, you didn't talk about money. That was gauche. You never asked someone how much they make. Like you, so the fact that they were talking not only about the money and about my decision, but then they were saying, who does she think she is? I was devastated. So I called my father crying.

And I said, oh, my God, Dad, they're making fun of me. And he said, honey, it actually has nothing to do with you. Your decision makes them think what would they do if they had been in your shoes and all of them would have taken the money. And you said, I'm fine without it. Thank you. And it makes them angry. Has nothing to do with you.

100%. Your dad is a smart dude. Yeah, really smart guy. And I was like, oh, my God. Now, of course, you know, I had to build a thicker skin and get over it, and I did eventually. But that's the truth. And it's what I do. It's what we all do, right? When we're in any situation, you look at someone's choice and you go, oh.

Would I have made that choice? Now, I'm not someone, I think everyone is in charge of themselves. And I would never judge someone for a choice unless they murdered someone. That's not my business. I don't know what their life is like. I don't know who they are or how they conduct themselves. And this is on a much bigger scale. But when you see philanthropic people just giving their money away,

Are you saying yay for you or are you saying don't be an idiot and throw all your money away? You know, where where where do you where are you in that equation? So it's always about where are you in the equation, which is where criticism comes in. I took the criticism for being an egomaniac that that, you know, I wanted to be the star and I was jealous of Martin Sheen. And you just got to suck it up and let that all go. And let's take a quick break.

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The other part of it is, is like when you're working on a show and you're like, you're in the boiler room of the ship. Like when you're doing what we do, you know where every rivet is, you know, wherever, how the propellers are going. And that thing was starting to come apart. And listen, Aaron Sorkin left three months after I did.

Oh, he did. For the same reasons. Right. You know, so it's like and here's one thing I don't want to be on the West Wing with somebody other than Aaron Sorkin writing it, because then it just and it became it became E.R. in the White House, which is fine. But that's not what it was. Right. I also think, you know, it's really look, I did one hundred and fifty six episodes of The Good Wife.

Which is a great show. Was a phenomenal show. But I used to sit with the Kings and they would say to me, look, the next episode you're about to get, it's a filler. And I go, it's a what? They're like, we're exhausted. We have this whole arc, but we have to save it for, you know, whenever the ratings blitzes. Sweeps. Sweeps. Thank you. Yeah, sweeps. They're like, so these are going to be a couple filler episodes. And I'd look at them. I'd be like.

Yeah, but it's my face up there. Like I'm saying, wait, what? And and I finally grew to understand when you cannot make 22 home runs every time. And that's why I think what's happening with television is so exciting. And and just having finished, I just did the next season of The Morning Show. They do 10 episodes a year.

Which for me wasn't even – by the time we got to Christmas break, we already had 15 in the can and still had to go nine more. I know. Oh, yeah. So you can't make 22 great things. It's why I was always rallying for the writers on our show because they would get nominated for Emmys up against people who had only written six episodes of a show. Don't get me started on this subject. Don't even get me started on this subject. This is my – because regular folks don't understand. Right.

Go back to the West Wing. When the West Wing is up against the Sopranos. Of course. The Sopranos are doing maybe 12 episodes a year. We're doing 22. Yeah. And when their writer gets tired, which he did. They were.

They decided to go to Italy and drink espresso for a year to get inspiration. The network there says, yeah, why don't you go do that? You know what they say to Aaron Sorkin? Where's your 22 a year? Right. And that's it's impossible, honestly. I mean, the joke about The Sopranos, I did the last season of The Sopranos, just six episodes of it. But I used to joke with them because I did it.

probably in 2006 I think I did it and I would say it took you people 10 years to make 6 seasons of your show 10 years who gets that kind of luxury you know of course you're going to win all the awards you have the time but that's the thing about network TV is you know writers write the pilot it might take them 2 years to write a pilot then it gets picked up and they've got to crank these out every week

It's it's not fair to them. And I mean, Robert and Michelle got three weeks off a year. You know, we would go on hiatus at the end of maybe middle of May and back to work July right after July 4th. They had three weeks in June. That's it.

Yep. You know, you don't you you can't refresh yourself. You can't you can't get any kind of rest if you're always cranking these things out. And listen, I mean, Mariska Hargitay is a good friend of mine. And I I say to her, I'm like, I mean, in the beginning, she used to do they used to 26 of those a year. Her story is amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

Just a little factoid. My wife gave Mariska one of her first job jobs as a waitress at the Santa Pietra's Pizza Parlor. Oh, my God. That's how long that my wife has known Mariska when they were kitties. I can't imagine. Was she any good as a waitress? Probably not. Yeah. I love her so much. She just she's the best. But like, look, she's been doing 19 seasons.

No, my friend. She's about to start her 22nd, I think. I'm... Yeah, or possibly her 23rd. But she has it down now. Like, she works her ass off. And she's directing now, which is really commendable. But she only works three days a week, I think. Right. And thank God. I mean, the woman has three children. I saw her just a few days ago, and I was like, I don't know. I have one kid...

And I barely made it through seven years of that show. And she was like, well, you know, I have help. And I was like, no, it's no, that's hard. Well, it's like we talked about doing the theater. To me, it's like when you get past like a hundred shows in the theater, you get into this vibe where it's hard to have a new experience. And so you have to have an even, even deeper technique and an even different level of concentration. And I've,

We're going into our third season on Lone Star, and I feel like we're just starting. It means I don't feel burnt. I don't feel anything. And how many of those do you shoot a year start in? It's network, so it's 18. But listen, in the old days, it would have been 24. Right. We're thrilled at 18. We're like, yippee!

It's nothing. And you shoot that in L.A.? Yeah. But you did Good Wife in New York, correct? We did. I mean, they wanted to do it in L.A. because Robert and Michelle lived in L.A., our writers. And I said, I love this pilot so much. But my baby was 13 months old at the time. I was basically a newlywed. And my husband was working in the city. And I said, I can't. I can't do it.

And we shot the pilot in Vancouver. And the deal in my contract was if it got picked up, they would all move to New York. And funnily enough, Michelle and Robert, whose daughter now is, I think she graduated from college, but their daughter fell so in love with New York that they ended up buying an apartment here and they moved to New York. I mean, I think they still keep their place there, but they're New Yorkers now. So, yeah, we shot in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Right.

And I used to live down in Soho, so it would take me 12 minutes to get to work. But the problem is...

All the exterior stuff, like the courthouses in our first year of shooting that show, because we didn't know if we'd have a second season, we had to rent out courthouses. So we went in on a Friday night at 5 p.m. Oh, no. Out in Jamaica, Queens. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. Because we had to wait until the court was closed. And then we would shoot all night. And I would stumble into my house around 7 in the morning praying my baby was asleep. Oh, no.

Because if he was awake and I'd been away from him for the entire day and night, how could I not? I mean, I just was. And there's a chapter in my book about it because I wanted to write about the underbelly because it all seems so glamorous. And it is. Listen, we are lucky little shits, right? Yeah, for sure. We are so lucky. But I wanted, especially when you're the lead, when you're number one on a call sheet, and I'm so passionate about my work and I so want it to be.

truthful. I don't want to phone anything in, you know, so I really took that part very seriously. And I just sort of wanted to show all the shit that goes wrong behind the scenes that might look glossed over when you're watching the final product. But in the end, and the whole reason that this book came out was because my very last scene with Christine Baranski, she slaps my face, say hug, hug everyone. Goodbye. Go home.

And I woke up with 102 fever and the chicken pox at three in the morning. And that's how my book started because I was bedridden for three weeks and never in my life have I ever

I just don't get sick. You know, I was a workhorse. I'm a workhorse. I show up on time. I know my lines. You know, if you're number one on a call sheet, it is up to you to show everyone else if you can do it, they can do it. You be polite. You learn your lines. Because if you don't know your lines, you're wasting the crew's time. They have families they want to get home to. You know, we all have a life outside of this work.

be professional. And so I, I just was spinning plates for seven years, literally because I had a baby and a husband. And then of course, my last and final day, I break out in the chicken pox, which was quite, um, I never had them as a child. It's brutal for an adult to get chicken pox. It's really, really dangerous and tough. Oh my God. It was so uncomfortable. You can't,

Well, the first week is uncomfortable. Then you just look like a crazy person. So I couldn't do anything but lie there and think. And after spending seven years constantly running through a revolving door with a to-do list, it was cathartic and ended up being an incredible gift. You know, just like that. If that's not your body saying, slow down, stop.

And that's how the book started, because I just started writing once I felt better and could actually see. I just started writing chapters, realizing that I'd been examining my character's life so intensely for seven years. I realized I hadn't really examined my own character.

And I needed to understand why that character gripped me so, so strongly and, and why sometimes she made me so sad that I couldn't find my way through the sadness.

And so I started to unravel it all and realize like, oh my God, I knew this when I was a baby. I just had nowhere to place it. The book is Sunshine Girl, An Unexpected Life. Right. So Sunshine Girl is the name my mother used to call me. That was her nickname for me. And the subtitle, An Unexpected Life, is I never in a million years thought I'd end up here. And when I say here, I'm not talking about...

fame or fortune, I'm talking about meeting my husband, having a child, feeling like I belong, truly belong, because I had such an incredibly chaotic, insecure, unstable childhood that even though I only had love in my life from both my parents, truly,

I was abandoned often, you know, to fend for myself. And yeah, and I talk about that too, like, and is that such a bad thing? I don't know. You know, like when I realized my kid couldn't tie his own shoes at seven because I always felt guilty for working so hard and tying them for him. I thought, oh, no one tied my shoes at seven.

Right. So you know how to tie your own shoes. Get out of his way. Let him struggle. Yeah. Right. So it's this yin yang that we're always searching for. And that's really what the book is about. Well, listen, the other thing, because, again, it's so insane. It feels like we had the same childhood. The I just know for me, the abandonment part of it. That's why I have the imagination I have because I didn't have anything else. Right. So, you know, man, I turned that thing.

machine on and it goes. But it goes because it's the three hours left alone in the back seat wondering where the hell mom went. Right. And children are so resilient, you know. It does worry me. Oftentimes, you know, we resisted. My kid didn't. He just turned 13 and for his 13th birthday, he got a phone. He never had a phone before because I would say to him, use your imagination, you know, create your own world because you're going to need it.

And if you always have a device in front of you, you're not going to know who you are. You need to find out who you are first. But I know that's met with a lot of eye rolls, but I take it very seriously because I, you know, at our house, we sit down to dinner and you walk in the door and you put your phone in the basket by the doorway.

There's a perfect little table there for that. I, you know, when my brother-in-law, who I love madly, my husband's brother, he's in private equities and he used to come up to our house upstate. And, you know, in the morning at breakfast, he had the two computers and his phone and I'd come down and I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You want to do that? Go up to your room. This kid doesn't see that at the breakfast table. I do not want him seeing that. And he was like, man, but I just want, no.

And I said, I'm sorry, but if he's monkey see monkey do, you know, we need to show our children like that interaction with human beings is really important. Obviously, yours have done just fine. Well, they were they were really lucky. They were the last generation that that did not have social media for their most formative years. Right. So it came in like high school, right, for them.

Yeah, exactly. Came in high school. Thank God. I don't know how you do. I don't know. I mean, my brother Chad has three daughters all under the age of 12. And I just don't know. I think it's harder. I mean, we're really, really strict about it. And also the school he goes to is quite strict about stuff like that. But we don't have a girl. My girlfriends have girls because girls are a lot harsher automatically.

on social media than boys are. I mean, he's a geeky boy who plays Magic the Gathering. You know, like he's not, that's what his friends talk about, that and anime. You know, that 13. But girls, I mean, my kid could give a shit what clothes he's wearing. You know, he's like, I'll say, honey, your shorts are on backwards. He goes, who cares?

And, you know, he doesn't care. He's a boy. He's a guy. He doesn't give a shit. Whereas girls are just so judgmental. And I say that loving women and girls. But I think for my girlfriends who see their their daughters not invited to the party because of an Instagram post, it's just heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. At least when you and I were kids. Right. We're basically the same age. I just turned 55. But, you know, at least, you know,

I never knew about it because there wasn't even a cell phone. No, we didn't know. Ignorance was bliss. It absolutely was bliss. And by the way, the playground was always a jungle. And now the playground is extrapolated into the entire culture. Right. Right. But you just have to teach them what value means, what it means to sit down and have a conversation, what it means. You have to take more responsibility as a parent now to show them human interaction.

You model it. It really is true. You model what it is. But the other part I realize is that no matter how hard we try, we're going to – we definitely screw up somehow. I mean we're going to screw our kids up. We are. Of course. We're just going to in some way. Of course. My mom, who was always about herself –

you know, whatever she wanted, was chastised by her. I have two older sisters, was chastised by her daughters for always putting herself first. And then she tells me that all her friends who quit everything to be stay-at-home moms are chastised by their adult children for not having a life. Yep, that's right. It's like you're damned if you do it, you're damned if you don't, you know? 100%. Yeah. I mean, it just is what it is. Yeah.

Well, this is great. Thank you. I loved our talk. Thank you. I love your podcast. I've been listening and I'm thrilled to be on it. And it's great to see you, Rob. I know you too. Hopefully we can, we got to cross paths. I can't believe you work with Chad Lowe before Rob Lowe. What the hell? I know. How funny is that? Please send him my love. You know, I'll email him. He's such a sweetheart, such a sweetheart, but send him my love, please. I will. And let's, let's cross paths on a set one of these days. I hope so. That would be fun.

How lovely is she? Great mind, great talent, clearly a great mother, great author. She kind of has the whole package. And sometimes I forget I'm doing a podcast.

And I'm like, oh my God, what did I say? Because it gets so swept up in talking to people. That was one of those times. So if I sounded anything not good, forgive me, because all I was doing was talking to the amazing Julianna Margulies. Anyway, so before we wrap up for the week, it is time. Yes, it is. I know you're ready. I know I am. It is time for 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.

Hi, this is Lori calling from Cambridge, Massachusetts. I just finished listening to your audiobook, Stories That I Only Tell My Friends, and I've actually really enjoyed it. Not so happy listening to the F-bomb, but that's just a stylistic thing. I think you're a great writer. And I'm interested in knowing what is your process or has been your process for writing both books, stories, and

plays, scripts, that kind of thing? Are you a person who gets up early every day? You write a certain amount and take some breaks? Or how do you stay motivated to do your writing? And meanwhile, keep it up.

Always enjoyed your work and you seem like a sparkly, happy person and great, great to hear about a family that is so well connected as yours has been and continues to be. Thanks so much. Bye. Oh, thank you so much. I like that. Thank you. Well, you know, it's funny that I ask questions.

My heroes, my writer friends, the same thing you did. I'm fascinated with people's process of writing, whether it's songs or books or and everyone has something that works for them. I mean, Stephen King famously has a super duper regimen and writes. I think I think he writes eight pages a day, no matter what, no matter what, which is mind blowing. I am not so disciplined, probably why I'm not as good a writer as Stephen King.

Um, but I think of it as this way. The muse inspiration is always in the drawer of your desk. And sometimes the drawer is open. So now it's open for a long time and sometimes it's closed and won't open, but you're never going to know what's going to happen unless you're at the desk. So, um, I'm under no illusion about writer's block. Uh, I'm only going to get past it if I'm

sitting with my pad and paper. It isn't going to happen taking a walk or clearing my head or doing yoga. The muse will happen when you have your instrument in your hand.

I write anywhere, anytime. I love being on planes because I'm uninterrupted. I've written a ton on planes, trains, and cars. I've written on my lunch breaks, on sets. I kind of find it really interesting to see how many different places I can write in. I do not have a dedicated writing space, although I do have a favorite area in my house. And I'm also a big fan of deadlines.

I love having a deadline. A lot of people don't. I've never missed a deadline because I've always been a pleasure to have in class. And grades weren't so good, but I was always a pleasure to have in class. So if you give me a deadline, I'm going to deliver for you. So again, thank you. And thank you for reading the books and the next books. No F-bombs. I promise. Thanks. More fun to come next week. Don't forget to tell some friends about our podcast. And don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.

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