I gave people all the stuff they really needed, social security checks, utility bills, TV guide. Hey everyone, welcome to TV Gaddens Counselor. I am, as always, Ken Reed, your TV Gaddens Counselor. And this week, I have another great guest to talk about television grown up and whatever the hell else we feel like talking about because it's my damn show for you to listen to. My guest this week is Maggie Langric and Maggie is formerly an actor. You may have seen her in probably her in the Henderson's is probably the most high profile, but she's a 20-year-old jump street, a million other shows. And she foresuck the way of acting. And I think is all the better for it. She's a very good writer. She has an excellent, excellent sub stack that you should subscribe to called The Underwire. I put links in the show description here. She also just has a great story and also has a podcast called The Selfish Gift that is very, very good. She's super smart and I was very, very lucky to get some time to speak with her. And I think you will love hearing me talk to her. And I guarantee you will subscribe to her sub stack and start listening to her podcast if you don't already. If you're a fan of magazines, you're checking this show out for the first time. Welcome. You have excellent taste. Normally on the show, someone will pick an old issue of TV guide magazine. They'll kind of go through and pick what they would watch that week in history. And then we kind of discuss their choices. But sometimes we don't need the TV guide and we just chit chat about life and growing up and work and all that kind of stuff. And that's exactly what we do this week. And it's a lot of fun. So please sit back for Lex and enjoy this week's episode of TV guidance counselor with my guest Maggie Langer. ♪ TV is my friend and it has been ♪ ♪ Always there for me in time with me ♪ Maggie, how are you? Hello, I'm doing really well. Thanks, Ken. I'm so excited to talk to you. I always enjoy hearing people's sort of journeys, especially people who started in the entertainment industry or the let's say the on camera entertainment industry and then escaped or sort of evolved from it. In a lot of ways it's always interesting to hear, especially, you know, some of the people I know who started as a younger person in it or as a kid or a teenager, that's an even more interesting escape story that is always fascinating. And you started in Canada too and then ended up in LA and you're still there, which is always interesting to me. Yeah, well, I'm back in LA for the past seven years I've been back in LA, but this was a little bit of a homecoming for me too because I actually moved to Los Angeles first when I was 19 years old and then I left about five years later. So I was away for a long, long time in between. But yeah, LA in the late 80s, early 90s is pretty different than LA in this millennium. Yeah, I mean, LA now is very different from LA five years as well. Right, exactly. Because did you grow up in Vancouver or that's where you're living in between? I'm from Vancouver originally and I went back there. Yeah, after I left LA for the first time I was in London for nine years and then I went back to Vancouver for, I don't know, 14 years or something like that before coming back to Los Angeles. So those are my three hometowns, London, Vancouver, Los Angeles. And I think that if I just go to like New York and maybe Shanghai, then I'll have all of the world's most expensive cities. Yeah, well, very similar to me. I consider LA Boston and London mine as well. I went to school in London and then was out in LA for months and months every year, pre-COVID and pitch and shows and stuff. So yeah, again, three very expensive cities. I think LA was cheaper than Boston sometimes too, which was insane because I'm like, but we're stuck here in Boston. We don't, there's like the weather's nice in LA. That's what you're paying. You pay for like, it's awful here. But speaking of weather, that's bad. Vancouver, which has kind of since become sort of Hollywood North, but was not when you were growing up, but it just kind of started to, because I think one of your earliest gigs was, you were in the pilot's 21 Jump Street. They're the character back I see some later, but that was shot in Vancouver, right? Yeah, absolutely. So the Hollywood North thing was really cool. I was actually living in Vancouver when that was dawning it. I think it was, in a way, it was sort of like, it's probably too overstating it to call it a golden age, but it was a really exciting time where we, I felt like the city was sort of getting its big break or small break at the same time I was. So what happened was Stephen Jay Kannell came to town and brought some shows with him. And so when regular American TV series Money was established in town, a whole entire industry sprung up around it. So I was part of a group of young actors who were, you know, just feeling really like we were the hot shit. And it was so much fun. It was just great. But like, literally everybody was on every show. Everybody did Danger Bay. Everybody did 21 Jump Street. Everybody, you know, was usually cast in two or three different roles over the course of the season of the series. You'd be brought back in a completely different role a couple of seasons later. And you know, the viewing public has no idea because who's really keeping track of like who that sort of random day player is. But yeah, I was in the pilot of 21 Jump Street. And fun fact, did you know? You probably know this because you sounds like you know a lot about all the TV lore. But there was a different actor cast in Johnny Depp's role initially in the pilot. I didn't know that actually. Was it someone of note? No. Oh, and that increasingly became the case as he was replaced. No, I do know that it was like Peter Delaouis. They were like, this is the guy. And Johnny Depp was covered afterthought. So what happened was the, and I don't even remember the character's name, but the guy playing that, you know, that young dark haired cop. So I went in and I shot the pilot and you know, it was fine. And I sort of vaguely remember that actor. And he didn't really strike me as terribly charismatic or anything like that. But whatever, I was just there to collect my paycheck and do a few days and it was fun. And then several months later, I got a call from my agent saying they are reshooting the pilot for 21 Jump Street because the lead actor has been replaced. There's this new up and coming kid called Johnny Depp. Nobody had heard of Johnny Depp yet. I think he had done like one thing, but obviously the producers were really enamored of him. So, so they brought me back and they reshot every scene that that character was in. And it was so apparent right from kind of like day one of meeting him. Like this person is going to be a superstar. Yeah, I've heard that. I just recently talked to a bunch of people who are in growing pains and they had Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt on the show. And they were like, yeah, for them we kind of were like, Oh yeah, these guys are probably movie stars, but they're very nice. And I don't know why we feel like that, but you just know that they have the thing. Yeah, I actually, so I did a series, a TV sitcom for a little while also in the late, was it that early '90s? Camp Wilder? In the early '90s. Camp Wilder. Yeah, it's '92 and '93 I think. Thank you. Correct, correct. And one of the, one of, I think the only, we only, we only ran for like less than a full season. But there was, you know, several people went on to have notable careers after that, including obviously Hillary Swank, Gerry O'Connell too. But the only sort of guest star who then wound up being a big famous actor is Jared Leto. Yes. Jared Leto was, so it worked as Jared Leto when he was just absolutely brand new. And I have to say I did not necessarily think that that young man had like a golden future in front of him because I was rather aghast at the fact that he wandered off set one day. And I was like, that is shockingly unprofessional behavior. This guy will never make it in Hollywood. I'm going to tell him. Yeah. I was wrong. You know, I'm not always right. I'm usually right. I was not right in this. I mean, you know, you're, you're, it's a year before he's on my so-called life. And as a big fan of my so-called life, even then like watching that show, I was, I would not have pegged him as the breakout movie star of that show. Yeah. Yeah. He was a perfectly nice guy, but I was just also, I, I, because I started acting really, really young, I had already by the time I was in my early 20s. In fact, like right away with my first job, I think, developed a very strong sort of respect for authority work ethic on set. Like you have to, right? You know, when you know that there's an entire production riding on everybody being in exactly where they're supposed to be at every moment of the day, you don't fuck around, you know, like you, you, you report to where you, you know, you make sure the AD always knows where you are and you don't wander off ever even to go to the rest of the day. Yeah, time is money. And yeah, so I think that just, you know, by the, by the time I was 22 years old, I, I, I just had like a lot of, yeah, a lot of pride in my obedience as a cast member. Yeah. I mean, that, that makes sense. That's why you continue working, you know, at the time. Exactly. In part of it, yeah. To put a perspective, you know, as I've learned sort of over the years of like the, the evolution of, of Canada, of that sort of Hollywood North thing, like prior to that, most stuff was kind of in Toronto, which is East Coast. And then there's French speaking Canada, Montreal, which has its own gigantic industry. Yeah. And so like Vancouver, I think you had like the Beachcomers was that one of the shows that was out there and like Mr. Dressup. Mr. Dressup, what, what an icon. I love that show. Yeah, Beachcomers, Beachcomers ran for something like 35 years or something crazy. Maybe it was even longer than that, but Beachcomers was a CBC show. And so yes, it was a sort of a bellwether, you know, TV series in Western Canada that like no other. But it, you know, significantly was not a US production. And so it really was the arrival of Stephen Cannell who kind of changed that. It's like, you guys got crews up here. And then exchange rates, I think was it a movie that was American cousin in your first role or like one of the early ones? Yeah, yeah, it was my very first. So my American cousin, I was, I have to tell this story short, like I could, I could tell this story so long. So let me see what is the absolute short version. I was just a nobody, little kid living in the suburb of Vancouver or a neighborhood of Vancouver and, and our neighbor across the street was a budding indie filmmaker. So she cast me in her, that movie, which was her first movie, and it was, you know, loosely, playing her kind of, right? Yeah, I told the story of sort of like, mostly true to life, a story of a summer in her own life. So she cast me to play the leading role, which was basically a character based on herself. And that film won a whole bunch of Genie Awards and, and sparked a new career for me at the age of 13, 13. It was kind of a great, there was sort of this weird little blip of like 50s set coming of age, 80s, teen movies that it made it to kind of, it's a little, it's not as, it's not like a lot of them, which are like porkies. It's like, clearly like a female perspective and is like a little more perspective, but, you know, stands out a little more character driven, a little sweeter, a little more poignant. Yeah, it was, I was, you know, I loved that film and obviously making that movie changed my life. I did go through a phase in my probably, I don't know, teens or, my late teens or, you know, I suppose in my 20s where I became a little disenchanted with it. I was like, whatever, why do people keep wanting to ask me questions about that movie? And I've done other stuff since and, you know, that's so old hat and whatever. And then boy, as the years pass, the fondness grows stronger. And, and I was up in Vancouver, I was actually working as the arts and life editor at the Vancouver Sun newspaper when we celebrated the 30 year anniversary of my American cousin. So I guess at that time, I was 43 years old. And there was a screening downtown, lots of people showed up, I had my daughter with me. And I could really see how the appeal of the film really stood the test of time. People in Canada still remember that movie fondly. And, and I, I loved watching it. I think that I had a perspective on it at 43, I saw layers of poignancy, sweetness, also kind of disturbing undercurrents that I had just gone way over my head when I was a teenager acting. Thankfully, I mean, if you were a teenager, like, let me tell you what the undercurrents of disturbingness in this, I'd be like, well, I was a fairly worldly teen. By the sequel. I could have done that. I could have done that, but yeah. So then, like the big, the probably biggest thing like American listeners are going to be from his Harry the Henderson's, which a movie that not forgotten now, but was like a massive family hit. And that, you know, spawned a TV series, William Deere wrote and directed it, who I love from all the stuff he did with Michael Nesmith, like he directed everything Michael Nesmith did. And I'm a huge Michael Nesmith fan. But that was shot. I think he's Canadian as well. Was that shot in Vancouver? No. So Harry and the Henderson's, the on location component was shot in and around Seattle. Okay. We had a bunch of on location, the story is set in Seattle. So there was some on location work in Seattle. And the entire rest of it, most of it was filmed on the Universal Backlot, Universal Studios here in Hollywood, in Burbank. So that was exciting because, you know, I got to work on, I think, I think we were in stage 12, which is the largest sound stage on the Universal Backlot. It was really, really, really cool. Like they built the whole house backyard. Everything was all inside the sound stage. So that was very exciting. But, you know, you say it was a big hit. I have to say, at the time, I thought it really under, I think probably the other cast member first felt the same way. I thought it really underperformed our expectations. I mean, we were told, you know, this is going to be bigger than ET. You know, it's Steven Spielberg's Ambulance, you know, productions and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all that. And it sort of, it really didn't get, I mean, I thought I was going to have a Barbie in my likeness. Sure. Yeah. There were toy lines. No, there really were not. It kind of fizzled. It was fun that they made a TV series out of it. And it's cool that it's still around, you know, because, of course, there's the internet now and every and streaming services, everybody can watch everything. But honestly, I sort of thought that it would make me and everyone else in a household name. That didn't happen. It's sort of sank disappointingly fast. That was my, that was my feeling. I had bigger expectations. You perspective know that you say that that makes sense from the perspective of actually being in it and that era. So it was 87. So I mean, you're expecting to have like a Goonies level hit or, you know, I think there was a lull of sort of family films at that time until like, honey, I shrunk the kids, which I think was 91. Like, so maybe it just was people were like, we had those movies and we don't want them back. I don't know. Again, looking back on the films that I made in my teens and TV shows, I have such a different perspective. Like, I recently rewatched Harry in the Henderson's and I really don't want to be mean to any of the people, you know, the the brilliant folks behind who poured their creativity and an effort into making it. But in hindsight, looking at it now, I watched it and I was like, you know what? I don't feel that any character in this movie is very memorable or likable. Like, everybody was sort of either a bit drab or kind of a jerk. Like there were there was there was no character in there that made me go, except for Harry, you know, the Sasquatch himself and he didn't have any lines. Yeah. And in fact, he kind of draw now that you say that because he's so empathetic, he almost makes the human characters look worse than they would have been, you know, against the human character. Exactly. So I think that it was just a bit of a fumble. I think it was a good idea that maybe, you know, would have performed better if it was executed differently. Yeah, it's possible. It's you very well might be right. It was more Howard the Duck than ET if we're talking to him. Although I love Howard the Duck, but that's me and I'm not your average movie goer. So was that the movie that brought you down to LA? Sort of. I mean, I came down to shoot it and then I went back home to Canada to live and work. No, I came down at the age of 19 just because it was pilot season and, you know, we were, like I said, I was friends with a whole bunch of actors living in Vancouver and there was almost like this sort of like ant trail going up and down the west coast. People sort of staying in each other's apartments or crashing with somebody's big sister in Laurel Canyon or, you know, but there was a real sort of like pilgrimage, like a Camino trail going up and down the west. People were like, you know, sharing, you know, carpooling, like, oh yeah, we're all going to drive down for pilot season. So and so's got six seats in his car. Let's all go down together and we're all going to stay in my cousin's house, you know. So there was a, there was that real sort of pilot season track that I really had to do a rite of passage. And then I just stayed. So I came down and that's when I got the part on Camp Wilder. I found a place to live. I got an agent and actually I was living in an apartment less than a mile away from where I live now. It's always weird how that works out, right? It was super cool. I feel like the apartment building that I lived in back then, I feel like it was an old building maybe from the 19 teens or 1920s. And I think that it must have been, I don't know, romantically I imagined that it was a building that had been created, especially for young starlets from the Midwest, you know, we're like moving to the big avocado to make it. How would you use this? Like, I'm going to build a starlet hotel. Well, and here's why, because the apartments in that building were all tiny. I was in a studio apartment. So not even a bedroom separate from the living room was just, but it was a large studio apartment with a separate kitchen and one of those folding down ironing boards that comes out of the wall. But on the way to the bathroom, the sort of tiled bathroom, there's a sort of like a walk-in closet with a built-in vanity. And it was just an unnecessarily fancy detail for a tiny little studio apartment in a building where there's dog shit in the hallway. It's so LA. We need the walk-in though. There's no bathroom, but there's a walk-in closet. There's a walk-in closet and a place for you to sit and do your makeup with proper lighting, you know. Guys, there's no electricity, but there's a pool. Right, exactly. Yeah. So, but I imagine, you know, obviously, Vancouver's, you know, a city and they're making movies and things there, but I equate it with, you know, coming from a place like Boston, which it still probably feels a million miles away from LA. And I think kind of nothing prepared you for what it's actually like there, where you're like, oh, wow, there's like a beach and it's nice weather and everyone's in good mood. Like, this is weird. Yeah, well, are you talking about LA being in the place that where everyone's in a good because that's certainly not the case in Vancouver? Well, yeah, no, not here either. The first, when I first went to LA, I juggled this, but I really had this thought coming from the Northeast, I went, these people have no defenses. We could just conquer them because everyone was kind of like, yeah, but what you don't realize is that it's all bullshit designed to. Yeah, everybody is your best friend and they totally believe in you and they love your project until lunches over. And then it's like, who are you? You know, and so yeah, that was a little surprising, this sort of like rampant hypocrisy and apathy that was hypocrisy and apathy is one thing, but for it to be masked with such overt, unnecessary sort of expressions of enthusiasm is like, you know, you can just be iffy about me. You don't have to pretend to be my biggest fan and then just never call me again. It seems weird. Why are you doing that? It is just the culture here. Right. It's like, to put in perspective for people, it's like if everyone you worked at an office job wasn't just like, oh, I used to work with them. They were like, you're my soulmate. And then they get a job at some other office and they're like, who I forget your name. Exactly. So I could see getting, you know, get wanting to get away from it. But you strike me as because you publish books now. And you strike me as someone who's like more insightful and probably like a reader, like a young, were you always a reader and kind of? You are correct. Yes. Yes. I am insightful and highly learned. Yes. No, I was a big reader. When I was a child, I always, you know, I was one of those kids that never was without a book in my backpack because I just constantly, you know, any second that I had. But it was really, yeah, it was, well, hang on, I'm about to launch it into an answer that you didn't ask me about. That's fine. It might be a better answer. Yeah. Yeah. I was a thoughtful kid and I read a lot. There you go. That's my answer. Yeah. Well, you kind of like, because a lot of people that I know who started sort of on the stage in front of the camera that end up moving to being a writer or producer, that sort of stuff later sort of start out as that as a kid, get like a little bit intoxicated by the lights and then go, actually, you know, I kind of actually really just like this part. And they sort of remember later and sort of rediscover their love for that. Was that sort of the case? Well, not exactly. What happened was that my career tanked. And actually, I think that I am glad that the entertainment industry spat me out when it did. So I had a pretty solid, but sort of sporadically, it wasn't a booming career, but it was my career kind of limped along with occasional spikes of, you know, flurries of activity from the age of 13 when I made my first film to 24 when I, that was the last thing I ever acted in. So I only had an 11-year career. And in that time, I think I was in 17 or 19 different productions or something like that. And I wanted to go on, but I found it really hard to get hired. And I think that I don't think that I was conventionally attractive enough. And I also had, I was getting a strong sort of not explicitly stated, but pretty clear signals about body image. And I was a young feminist and kind of a critic of pop culture. And I didn't like what I knew Hollywood stood for. And I also was kind of a little concerned about my own mental health and confidence and all that. And I could really see how it could be super corrosive as a young woman, just that in fact, I had a little project that I was working on for a while when I was acting. And then I never did anything with it. But what I would do was I would clip really offensive lines of dialogue or stage direction, screen directions out of the scripts that I read, include not just the ones I was in, but the ones that I auditioned for. There were lots and lots and thousands of those. And I kept an envelope of these lines of dialogue that with things like, she had the kind of body men would kill for or whatever. Like, she tilted back her full pouted whatever it was just like all this. And I just thought, this is so gross, so reductive, so dehumanizing. And I thought I would make some kind of like big critical piece of art about it at some point. But then I threw those things away at some point when I was moving. And recently, I wish I still had them. I think I'm just about ready to do that art project now. You could probably recreate them from memory or probably just get scripts now and they'd still be in there. But to put it in perspective too, like, I instantly, when I'm thinking of like Vancouver, Seattle, you know, the mid 90s, which is about this time of like, we're talking riot girl time, like there's a whole sort of punk rock uprising of, you know, we don't have to put up with this shit anymore kind of, you know, even even you're getting like girls magazines like Sassy, which are amazing. I got a subscription to it. And you've compared it to something like 17 or teen, you know, they have more of an edge. They're like, hey, these girls are people, you know, it's not just like a fashion magazine. So you're kind of, you know, you're right there with that kind of stuff being in the air. Absolutely. Yeah, grunge was big. Feminism was big. We were kind of, you know, well into sort of that, I don't know if I never remember if it's third wave feminism. Like it's third wave. Yeah, third wave feminism. But that was a really big, and I also at that stage in life, I was, I don't know, I wasn't really super out about it, but I was, I was understanding that I'm queer. And so that whole kind of just like embracing a full spectrum of gender, we didn't talk about it that way back then, you know, certainly people didn't really talk about transgender identities in that way. And I don't consider myself trans, but I was really aware of not fitting into a stereotypical limited box of femininity, especially the way Hollywood, of course, obviously prescribed it and described it. Yeah, I mean, ages 13 to 23, 22 are difficult anyway. I mean, that's a huge, you know, discovering yourself and figuring out where you sort of where you want your place to be in the world. So add the scrutiny to that. That's, that's nuts. Oh, yeah, it's horrible. So like you sit there watching dailies or rushes, which are for this isn't so much in TV, but in film, dailies and rushes, the two words that mean the same thing. It just means at the end of the day, the filmmakers will watch what was shot that day or the day before. And so everyone's sitting around, you know, just like with the crew kind of watching it on a small screen. And so looking at rushes and you'd hear the director of photography, the DP, and the director or other kind of like key above the line creatives, producers and stuff talking about even very matter of fact ways. It's like, oh, can we do something with the bags under her eyes tomorrow? Because they're really, you know, so they'd say things like that. And then also, when I was auditioning for parts, and like I said earlier, I was getting these signals that maybe I just was didn't fit the sort of beauty standards, I would get feedback. And this happened again and again, my manager would say, they loved you, you went all the way through to like, you know, second call back, third call back, you know, you're you're you're down to like they're they're one of one of two or one of three choices. And then I would and then you didn't get the part and here's the feedback, here's the reason what they always gave. They went in a more of a model direction. So can you do something about that? Right, I heard that again. And again, you know, I'm a small busted person. I have like a normal person's face. And so I heard that again and again, I was just like, this is going to just destroy my already thin self esteem if I let it. And then the other reason that acting is corrosive and dangerous for young people is because it's incredibly seductive and hard to hard not to get addicted to that big paycheck. When you are used to like, I mean, when I did camp Wilder, and I'm sure it has changed a lot since then, but I'll tell you exactly what I made on that show. I think that I was making I think I was making $5,000 a week or it's maybe it was $7,000 a week. Yeah, it was $7,000 a week. And that was I think the lowest paid I was the lowest paid cast member other than Tina Majorino who was a child at the time. Yeah, series regular money. And that, you know, with inflation, double that for now. Exactly. So everybody was making good money. And it's really, really hard to go from making over $1,000 a day to making anything in the normal workforce. And so I have a ton of friends who stayed in the business for, you know, limping along in their up and down careers throughout their adult lives and never really earned enough to buy a home, never really, never really achieved any level of income security. And so yeah, I'm actually, I count myself really lucky that I got out of it because it was early enough that I had the opportunity to recalibrate my expectations and discover my own ability to, to kind of support myself in ways that just didn't feel so magical and mercurial. Right. And not up to you. Like not, like, you're kind of power, like, you can do a great job, but ultimately, like you're kind of powerless for your own success or fate in, in that world. It's, I mean, this is the weird thing about being an actor, because I think it's different from all other act for our art forms in that, you know, people, you know, rightly refer to actors as artists because there is artistry in acting. But unlike, I mean, I challenge you to name one other art form in which you are so much at the mercy, because you're not really the artist, you're kind of living clay. You know, it is the director and the producers who are, are the ones who are deciding to make the art, determining what the art is about, and then controlling its expression. You really are a very vital and dynamic blob of paint on the palette. You're really good produce. And the chef is like, look, these are both amazing tomatoes. But I just prefer this one. There's a reason why they call this meat puppet. Yes. Yes. Exactly. And it's, you know, it's the other thing I've seen to a lot of people is, even if they did buy a house when they made that money, you know, you see now, like, they have top of the line, everything circa 1991, and then it stops, you know, and it's like, like, you kind of did it right. And it's, you know, and it's not their fault. You know, like, one of the things that I've really come to realize, especially since doing the show, I'm befriending a lot of actors is how blue collar that industry is. And unlike being a plumber, though, it's so high profile that everyone assumes that, you know, you're one of the 10 people who's super rich, where they're like, you know, which would be like, I saw that toy that you put in. You're doing all right. It's like, I did it was only one last year. And it's like, you know, Yeah, exactly. I was very, very, very frugal and prudent as a youngster, though, I made my money, and then I sucked it away. I would always look at this and say, this, I don't think of this $20,000 in my bank account as $20,000 of spending money. I think of it as 10 months of living expenses. Yeah, that's rare. You're very smart to have done that. Very smart to have done that. So you kind of go, I'm partly, I'm out of here, partly, they're kind of done with me, you know, it's not working out. Yeah, well, what had really happened was I got pregnant, and then I moved to London. And at that time, I was like, you know what, I, so my three things were happening. I got pregnant. My US work visa was expiring, and I hadn't really worked enough to be confident that I would be able to renew it. And, and then I hadn't, I hadn't worked. I just, you know, I was kind of like, out of this. And then my baby daddy lived in England. So I moved to London with my, you know, swelling belly. And that was the end of my acting career, and the beginning of the rest of my life. You know, we're a weird time to live in London. So I lived there in the early 2000s, but this is like late 90s. You're living there. Yeah. Yeah, which was also cool. So just like in Vancouver, Vancouver hitting its stride, just in the time that I was there, London in the 90s was cool, Britannia. It was the, I, you know, I was very into the visual arts at that time. And so there was a big visual arts movement with Charles Satchi. And I know we're not talking about visual arts here, but yeah, yeah, exactly. Damien Hirsch and the Chapman brothers and Tracy Emmon and Sarah Lucas, and all of these really fascinating, contemporary conceptual artists. I went to Goldsmiths in South London. Oh, no, I'm impressed. I'm so impressed. Goldsmiths has a great painting program. I know because I almost, I was this close to doing the Fine Art program at Chelsea. Oh, okay. And I was going to go into painting. Yeah. What did you study at Goldsmiths? I went for television radio. It was like a film. It was kind of an afterthought program, for sure. Okay. But it was interesting. And seeing the sort of art, you know, so many of my friends are like, you know, have doctorates and art studies and all this stuff from there. Oh my, yeah. Look at the bookstores, but I love Goldsmiths. You know, and it was, it was funny because New Cross, this is off topic, but I've talked about this in the show before, was pretty run down, like in kind of scary for people. But I used to hang out in punk rock clubs and, you know, at Boston and the place we called the combat zone was literally what this place was called on maps. So I was like, what's the problem? And they were like, you walked out of the store. It's fine, right? Which is really interesting. And then right when I left, it was when they like really started investing money there. And there was like a bunch of bands that came out of New Cross and like became kind of like a hip place to live, which was kind of strange. And I was more just like, many, many, many pockets of London just got majorly gentrified in the time between when I was there and now. It's so like, when I go back, I'm like, this is totally different, like, and it's so much more crowded. Like, I wouldn't think it could be more crowded, but it is more expensive. But I mean, for me too, like that was, I was always drawn to that stuff from music and the movies and things. And like, I'm, you know, like, I saw the young ones at a young age and saw the band the damned on it. And I was like, this is everything I like in the world. So like, being there was so cool. And there was this like 40 year history of comedy there that I had only seen pieces of that I was like, this alternative universe that all of a sudden I get to experience all at once, you know, like decades of this great stuff that was going on. So that was cool. Yeah, you know, I feel like Canada is probably like that in a lot of ways. Like there's like pieces of Canadian pop culture I've gotten, but they're missing like SCTV is one of my favorite shows of all time. And like, yeah, and Dr. mentioned, I mean, Schitt's Creek. Come on. Exactly. Yeah, Schitt's Creek is one of the best things one of the best things that Canada has ever made. Again, SCTV adjacent. I feel like everything totally totally totally. But it was funny when you said Hollywood such bullshit, I immediately I had Dave Thomas on and Dave said the same exact thing. And he had started advertising and made his way down to New York doing it. And he's like, it's just made up bullshit. I was just bullshitting. It's all bullshit. That's life. That's kind of makes sense. It tracks. Yeah. So you had no interest in surfacting when you were in England. You were just like, I briefly tried to get an agent there and the agent wanted to put me on the stage. And I was just never was a theater actor. And so partly because I was addicted to that, those big paychecks and partly because I was afraid of doing anything live and partly because I think it just it the air had kind of gone out of my sales for it a little bit. I just I just stopped pursuing it. And that's when so I stayed home and had my baby and was just a mom at home for a little while. And then when my daughter was just a couple of years old, that's when I thought, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to school. I'm gonna do a fine arts degree. And that's when I almost went to Chelsea as a painter. Yeah. And but then didn't. So how do you go from painting to publishing? Yeah, a good question. So again, searching around for the short version of the story here. When my daughter was three years old, I became a single mom. And I had to that's why I didn't go to college. It's a way I didn't take up the place that I was offered at Chelsea. I had to go to work. And I didn't really have any marketable skills. You know, I had been an actor since I was 13. And that made me feel incredibly vulnerable and superfluous in our workforce. And it was a friend of mine who was a magazine editor, a substantive editor, a sub editor, a copy editor who said to me, oh Maggie, you're good with words. I'll teach you everything you need to know. You should be an editor. You know, it's really easy. I'll teach you everything. You know, so I she did. She taught me everything about how to be how to make how to be like an editor of words. And I found that I was naturally good at it. And I think that a big, big part of being a good editor, it just, you know, it comes from being an avid reader. I had been such an avid reader as a child, read really, really a lot all the way through my life. And so when you sort of and maybe it runs in my family too, I think I have kind of literary writing kind of oriented family or in publishing. And so it just sort of came naturally to me. I was good at it and I really enjoyed it. And then I learned that it was also a way for me to make money, more money than I would have made down at the local falafel shop, which was also something I was considering doing for money. I was also at that time making clothes and selling them in the Portobello market, which was a real, yeah, feast or famine endeavor was my first business in a total total failure. But when I learned that I could make 130 pounds a day as a copy editor and that she would help me get work as a freelancer, I was like, yeah, that's totally what I need to do. So that was the birth of my editing career. I mean, it makes it like when you had the anecdote about cutting the words out of those scripts, like it's kind of all of the same piece, you know, like it's... You're right. I hadn't really thought of that. But yeah, you're right. They'll definitely, you know, examining language was always part of my job as an actor for sure, trying to understand what was being said in the words that were printed on the page. And then earlier, I think before we started recording you, you were curious how I would draw a parallel between, you know, acting as a kid and then becoming into the publishing world, especially the sort of stuff that you do, which is nonfiction and sort of instructive kind of stuff. And the the parallel I would draw is so many of the people that I know who are actors or even directors or screenwriters, when they want to unwind, when they want to enjoy something, they never watch or read fiction because it's work. They always end up watching like cooking shows or reading nonfiction stuff and nonfiction stuff that's not even like a story that could be fictionalized because they'll find them as being like, "How would you adapt this into them?" They can't totally unplug unless it's something that's completely different. Yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting. Well, I love watching fiction screen-based entertainment. However, I've always been a massive reader of nonfiction. I really am interested. And I actually think, so I'm not going to debunk your theory. I see where you're going with that and you're not wrong. However, I think for me, it almost kind of goes the other way around. I have an innate natural curiosity, a deep, deep fascination, almost obsession, a thirst to understand what it means to be human and how we can live well. What does it take to be happy in your human life, in your body, in this world that we're in? Thinking about my own psychology, my own spirituality, thinking about sociological dynamics, why are people the way they are, that has always been fascinating to me? And so now I'm a publisher of prescriptive nonfiction books that help heal and inspire, trying to help us shed some ignorance and move into a more enlightened place. And when I trace that strand back to my acting, I can see that being deeply fascinated about the human condition writ large, but also what makes an individual human tick? Absolutely, I drew upon that fascination in my acting career. Yeah, because it's kind of, here's what worked for me, maybe it'll work for you kind of thing. And here's what's going on beneath the surface. I'm very curious about peeling back the layers. Like, you know, we're having this conversation, we appear to be talking about this topic, whatever, but underneath it all, you know, there's all of this. Yeah, there's like, there's all of these, like, you know, sort of like emotions that we're suppressing. And there are sort of this coded language that we're using. And there are ways that we use our facial expressions and our bodies and our choice of words to indicate friendship and affinity or to subtly kind of like put each other down or intimidate one another. And as an actor and as an editor, I am constantly aware of all of those sort of undercurrents of communication. And that I think is consistent. Do you think some of that is also part of, you know, you've lived in three countries, they're all English speaking, but they're all very different culturally, right? So in some regard, you're sort of stranger in a strange lie and, you know, separated by a common language kind of thing that I know I found when I lived in the UK where I was like, Oh, this, it's it's just a little bit uncanny and so you know, cues aren't the same. And it's uncanny is a good word for it because it appears to be the same, but it's different, right? You know, even like weird stuff like the lights, which is our upside down wire, the lights, which is upside down, you know, down is on and up is off. And that was just like, Wow, why did we choose to do ground floors? The first but you're right. And when I was in the UK, I remember, you know, and again, just noticing what people mean when they say what they say, going into a news agent and having like a really casual conversation with the person working there, and they will make some kind of joke or, or, you know, call you love or sort of make some sort of self deprecating comment. And I understand that even though that type of joke is new to me, and I have to work to understand what they mean by it and why they're saying it, I definitely understand that they're saying it as an effort, an effort to make me feel comfortable and to show, to display friendship. You know, so it's almost like you're getting into like, wild kingdom, like, you know, sort of like young, young woman, and her news agent, and you know, the older women signals, you know, sort of, it puts you at a place inadvertently to really have to focus on context clues. Yes. Without thinking you would need to. And, and to be a translator. Yes. Right. So you're constantly translating is like, Oh, this is what you mean by this, you know, but without people giving you the benefit of they don't speak the language. So I'll approach it differently. So it's, it's weird. It does make you approach communication a little bit differently, and like slightly more academically, even if you don't know you're doing that, like you kind of have to. I think you're right. I think you're right. And what you said about being a stranger in a strange land, like, I actually, I think that I love that you sort of made that observation, because honestly, can I feel that way all the same? Maybe that doesn't make me too special, maybe lots of people feel that way. But I, you know, even like as a child, I was a child of both of my parents had come from elsewhere. My father was English. My mother was Lithuanian. So I was a first generation Canadian, but, you know, European extraction. So I was part of the white majority and what that meant was that, you know, that I was, you know, I spoke with a Canadian accent. I was assumed to be Canadian, but I really didn't, I really was a first generation Canadian with immigrant parents, you know. So, but even aside from that, my parents are kind of like pretty offbeat people. And I was like an oddly, like an exceptionally philosophical child, you know. So I was a very, very kind of deep thinking, deep feeling child. And so I really did walk around with this sense of like, I'm not from this. Yeah, I absolutely the same. Yeah, same exact thing. It's kind of like, you know, but for me, it was, it was also, you know, part of it was one of the things that comes up on the show a lot is, you know, when people would first watch like special comedians, like they'd watch sitcom. And a lot of people would end up watching their parents watch it for the reactions and then try to reverse engineer, like they're laughing. Why is that funny? And that kind of stuff. And that really fascinates me because we're sort of like learning how to be human or like sort of, how do I get that reaction out of somebody from this thing? And it's that kind of thing. But even like, you know, my parents are very blue collar, they're very Boston. And I was a weird kid and I stayed up and I read, I was reading books all the time and I'm spending all those times the library and they kind of didn't get anything that I liked. You know, so it was even that you're kind of like, they're kind of like, well, he's not on fire, but a bit of a misfit in the thing. Yeah, you know, so then you're like, I don't really understand what this is. So you're working for these magazines? What were some of the magazines, like just, and books, just all kinds of stuff? No, I was mostly working on magazines and also newspapers. My very first day as a freelance sub editor, I worked at the, the, the, was it the Express, the Express newspaper, and it was the Sun, the Sunday Express, I had my friend who was getting me work, her, her partner was the city editor at the X, at the Sunday Express. And so he gave me a shift. And I was so proud of myself, my very first day on the job, there was a newspaper article about internet banking because it was a very new idea and nobody had heard of it before. And it was like, what? You can just do all this banking from, so, you know, I had to write a headline for it. And I was like, oh, it's got to fit in this space. It's got to be the exact number of letters to fit in this space. And here's a picture of a man looking at his bank account details on a screen. And we're just introducing this concept to the reader. Here's my headline. Ready? Hi, money. I'm home. Boom. Oh my God. I knew the fucking bag. I was just, oh my God. I was like, swish right there. So anyway, so yeah. So I worked on some newspapers and also just a bunch of magazines. It was like, it was, I was really just a floater, a freelancer. And a lot of them were, you know, magazines that are not around anymore. But that, that's what I was going to bring up to is like two degree, you're at the right place, right time, because publishing magazines and newspapers were starting to wane here at that time. But the UK, it, it hung on in a bigger and longer, I mean, it still kind of is much more so than here. You know, where there was tons of newspapers, so many magazines for such a small country. There's like 10 times the number of magazines we have here. So, so you, it was unique. It was the right place to be able to do that. Like you couldn't have done that in New York. And well, and the internet was only just kind of getting started back then. So I was, none of them had been plowed under by digital media. So it was actually a place you could make. Yeah, it was actual business. You could actually work with them for free. Right. Right. Yeah. And so then when I left London, I went back to Vancouver. I had my daughter was eight years old by then. And I went to work at the Vancouver Sun newspaper. And at the Vancouver Sun, I started out, you know, it was just a freelancer and a desker. I just, you know, kind of picked up casual shifts as a copy desker. So editing, editing stories for the newspaper, writing headlines, cutting copy and proofreading. That was all my work. And I did that for several years. And then after a short while being there, the, the entertainment editor, the, the arts and life editor position came open and I applied for it and got it. So then here I was the, the, the arts and life editor at the local paper where I had been an actor. And there was, there was, but I didn't really want my coworkers to know that I was, you know, Margaret Langrich that they had, you know, some of them were, you know, here I was like in the arts and life department, there were arts reporters reporting to me who had interviewed me as a teenager, but had not put it together that I was the same person. No, because I had, I had a married surname at that time. So nobody, I was Maggie Sam. You're under cover. Yeah. And I wasn't keen to blow my cover because you know what, I had a like terrible imposter syndrome. I hadn't been to journalism school. And I didn't, you know, anyway, I had an unconventional path. And I just felt shy at that stage. I was kind of like shy and ashamed of a little bit of shamed of my, my weird life. And so, um, so I was sort of private about it. And then one day it was when 21 Jump Street, the movie was getting made. And, um, one of the arts reporters was digging through Lexus Nexus, which is like online. Yeah, it was like Google that you had to pay for that only certain people. Yeah, but it's, it's a database of all of the published work that, you know, and so, and digging through the newspapers archives anyway, online. And he found an article, an interview with me. And he printed it out and he put it on the desks of every reporter in the department. There were about like six arts reporters that reported to me. And I was like, I think I was like 39 at the time. They were all in their 50s. So I was intimidated and younger. Anyway, he, he said, oh, you know, funny what you find when you're digging through the archives, I picked up this story. And I read the lead. And I blanched because the first sentence in the story was parents look away. Teenage actress Margaret Langerik is a high school dropout and she's not even sorry. And I was like, oh my God, I am, I am the boss of this department. And my one, one of my direct reports has just outed me as like a person who. Yeah. So talk about imposter syndrome on steroids. It was like, I have just been outed, not only like, well, by then he knew that I was Margaret Langer, obviously, but, but, but you know, and there was a byline. Mark Andrews was the name of the reporter, not who printed all of those things, but he was the reporter who had interviewed me. And Mark was still in the department. He was like, I was his boss. I mean, glass half fall. You're like, wow, I made it here with this far, but it's, it's so weird to be able to like, look up your teenage years, like, for other people to look at, like, that's not a normal thing most people experience, you know? Well, I'm just very well, I mean, it is now, right? Because there's the internet. But, you know, and so everybody who's a teenager now will have like a permanent living record of everything they've ever, you know, every, every time they scratch their nose. That wasn't true for most people in my generation. And so yeah, it was strange to have these, you know, photographs and direct quotes. And it's just me being like an ignorant little dick, you know, like kind of like being arrogant. Of course, you're like 15, interview any 15 year olds who's doing okay, you're going to get that. Yeah, yeah. And so anyway, wow. But, but all of that was, you know, as much as it was like humbling, embarrassing, awful at the time, I actually think that it was good for me because it helped me to reintegrate some disowned parts of my past. Like, I had sort of personally fragmented my own identity and sort of like, that was me then. Nothing to do with me now, you know, I don't know who that role is, but yeah, that's right. I don't walk in her skin anymore, you know. And, and, and you know, when the worst came, worst came to happen and my co-workers outed me and shamed me publicly in the newsroom, then it was like, well, it, there's not really, they don't really have any, there's no more dirt to do. I mean, there's plenty more, but you know, we're not going to, but there was no order to dig up. And I was like, Oh, I guess at this point now I can just take that piece of me back and sort of like, own it. It's not hanging over here anymore. It's like that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So it was actually a healing moment. Well, good for that. I'm sure it was their intention. They were trying to be helpful. Yeah, that's right. But it's, it's, yeah, I, I was in a band as a teenager and there was like interviews with us in the radio when we're like 14, 15. And it's so, you know, and I have a terrible Boston accent. No 14 year old should ever be interviewed because they just don't know how to be. No, and it's weird to hear yourself, but you went like, since everyone sort of is now, it kind of means nobody is like, it's sort of just flooding the zone where now none of that stands out. And that was another thing that I wanted to talk to you about where, you know, as when you're publishing stuff now, we're making really doing anything that's sort of creative or from an individual person. In some regards, it's the best it's ever been in that there's no gatekeepers. But it also means there's no gatekeepers. And it's really hard to stand out, even if you have something really good, because everything's sort of a niche. We are in a giant, giant tsunami, a glut of content. There is way too much content in the world for anyone to ever kind of consume. There's just way too much of it. So yes, very hard to stand out, very hard to gather an audience around you and your work. Back in my day, there were only sort of five channels on the TV and everybody was watching one of those. That's it. But these days, the competition for attention is so, so crazy, so crazy vast and so fragmented. But I do think that ultimately it's better now. It just means that it just means that you need to be doing if you need to be doing work of quality and you need to be at least partially rewarded by the experience of making it. You have to want to be there. It can't just be a job because you're not going to live the most part. I mean, I guess it never worked for me to sort of just try to be really populist and kind of... I guess there are plenty of people who take a very formulaic approach to building a personal brand and they are successful at it. I think if you're cursed with maximal authenticity, the way I am, then that just doesn't work. Because I've never been able to sort of like manufacturer or persona and have that work. For me, it just backfires. But the good news is, by doubling down on your authenticity, you really can bring something unique and of value into the world. But you just can't be too hung up on, "Will anyone buy it?" I hate that advice because that just feels like, "Of course, I'm going to be worried about whether some people buy it. I'm not here to show." You need somebody too, but it's like, "When I think about standup I always tell people, I'm like, 'You could be in a cover band. You get booked all the time. You play weddings. Everyone sings along. They don't remember the name of your band or anything about it, but you're working all the time.' Or you could write your own songs that 80% of the crowd is like, "I hate this. What is this?" But the other 20% is like, "This is the greatest thing I've ever heard in my life and I'm going to follow everything this band does." So it's like, that's kind of, every so often you get someone who kind of manages to do both, but that's incredibly rare. I think that back in the days, back in the old days, whether we're talking about the music industry or TV or books, there used to be these gatekeepers that would look for the individuals with unique talent and then create a kind of a media product around that person. And sometimes they guessed wisely and they picked wisely and that person really did wind up becoming a phenom and sometimes they picked poorly and their investment flopped and the album tanked and the TV show got canceled after one season and that actor never went anywhere. And so it's always been about having genuine talent. The difference is that you can choose yourself now and if you are serious about it, you can dedicate your own time and resources and there are just fewer barriers to kind of like creating a fairly polished media product out of your own material. And so as long as you're prepared to do both things, number one, truly have the courage to use what is real inside of you and then number two, professionalize it, take it seriously. And this is very different than trying to reverse engineer yourself into some sort of hit. Because that's the wrong way, that's starting with the product first and then trying to make yourself mold yourself to fit it. And I just think that rarely, rarely works. But what you can do is really courageously say, well, this is who I am, this is what I have to share and whether I'm shy about my authentic self or not, this is all I've got. Now, how do I honor that and just professionalize it and take it as seriously as I possibly can? And I think that that is, there's no guaranteed path to success, but that's probably the closest, the closest that comes to it. Yeah, I'm always like, you could either, like at the end of the day, if you just make good quality stuff, you'll always have that, because you could try to reverse engineer and go, I think people want this and make garbage and garbage and it fails. And then you fail, you know, or you can make good stuff and maybe people don't find it, but you still make good stuff. And that's kind of an accomplishment in and of itself. Yeah, yeah. But I think professionalizing your work is a really important part of it. You know, so you can, you can, you want to make good stuff, but then you do want to give it its very best life. It's a very, very best chance at a life. And that means, you know, if like I have a sub stack that I'm where I'm sharing my personal essays now. And that was sort of a big scary deal. And I have a podcast, a podcast called The Selfish Gift, which I really, really love. And I'm not perfect with the professionalizing there because I don't publish every single week without fail. But I make sure that my production values are good. I take care to attach, you know, an original good image to my stories. I take care to, you know, I recorded a good intro with, you know, you care about it. The music, we're like, we're gonna, we're gonna make this a really, you know, the best product that we can and then, and then take ourselves seriously. And I think that you have to do that. I'm shocked when people don't, because I'm like, you know, when we were growing up, like to have the tools that we have available to us now with a pretty low financial entry point of like this equipment, I mean, I used to work at a radio station. It was like two million dollar studios. And I have better gear in here for pennies of that. So use it like you can. And when people down, it's always weird to me. I'm like, you just threw a laptop middle of the room, like that was like, did you care enough about this? Well, that's where having some sort of job in some sort of creative industry is going to be helpful to you. Because whether you have like worked in a radio station or been a child actor or worked on a newspaper as an editor or anything else, like, you know, just get a production assistant job, get a whatever it is. Understand how the pros do it and then apply that knowledge to your own weird little piece of art. And that I think is a really, you know, that's the best you can do. That's a pretty, that's a pretty killer combo. Yeah, I mean, that was even like at art school. That was kind of the message there too, like, you know, do a good job. Is there anything you watch now or do so you do go back and watch some of your old stuff, like you were saying you watch hearing them to read your daughter. Was that weird? Were you like avoiding that or to just kind of did come up? Well, so Harry, some of those shows were just not available because there was this sort of like weird phase where, you know, they, they, they dropped out of their initial broadcast window and the internet hadn't really come around yet. So like camp Wilder, it's hard to see. But like Tony, we're jumping straight. Yeah, I don't, yeah, exactly. I don't even know if camp Wilders are out there anywhere. But, um, uh, you know, I'm going to be totally honest with you. I think that I went through a long, long phase, um, where I was really wrestling with my own, you know, sort of kind of identity shame. Like I, I was just, I was just shy and embarrassed about who I was. I didn't really feel at peace with my own life path. I didn't really feel at peace with the, my personality or body or what, you know, my choices, like all my stuff. Like I just wasn't really too super comfortable in my own skin for a very, very long time. And so it was sometimes kind of, uh, honestly sort of triggering to watch, especially because I had had a dreadful adolescence, like a very emotionally awful adolescent. It takes you right back there when you see it. Yeah. Yeah. So when I look at 15 year old me, you know, being Sarah Henderson, I don't see anything glamorous. I see a person in a lot of pain. And I see, I remember, you know, where I was living, who I was hanging out with, what I thought of myself. And so it's just really uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable for me to see that for a very, very long time. Um, on top of the fact that, like, damn it, I never got made into a barbell. Yeah. That's the big one though. That's the big one. I wanted an accessory in a car. Yeah. But mostly it was just like a lot of cringe, a lot of cringe. And so, and I don't feel that way anymore. And so now I am very curious about kind of like welcoming back under my wing, all of the former versions of myself that have been walking around on planet earth, like shooting their mouth off and saying silly stuff, you know, like there's your book. There's your art project. Like, can we discover? You know, it's a, that's a, a fascinating, unique position to be able to be and to be able to do that even. Yeah. Exactly. Well, and I do think that that's where the democratization of all of our creative industries is, it just offers that to all of us. You know, we have the freedom to, to, to make art out of our lives, no matter what sort of medium we're interested in. I will say though that I trust the timing of all of it because I would not have been emotionally, psychologically ready to make much of myself, you know, or like earlier, I just needed to go through a lot of bad stuff and some, some good stuff too. But I, I needed to have these life experiences and grow and become a bit of a wiser, more, more, more contented, peaceful person before I could use that material. Because it's highly volatile and it can blow up in your face. Yeah, you need the skill level to deal with that stuff where else, yeah, it's, you know, if you're mixing, mixing those chemicals together, you gotta make sure you know what you're doing at that point. Yeah, we know what Mentos and Coca-Cola do like that. That's how Mikey died. The Pop Rocks and Coke, my god, you know, you wouldn't have the skill level for that kind of thing. That's right, just don't do that stuff, it seems. So what, do you, how do you unwind now? Like, do you read still to unwiners that work or do you watch stuff? Like, what's your sort of veg out stuff? Yeah, I do read a lot, but no, not as much as I used to. And I read now for, like, utility. I read because I need to understand something. So when I was going through divorce, you know, I was reading up about, like, out of survive, you know, recovery, narcissism is to abuse, you know, all this sort of like, I was going through, you know, so I would, I still avidly read when I need to, but I really don't read for fun. And I've never been a big reader of fiction, not since my childhood. But, yeah, no, I love, I think that television, thanks to the streaming services, I mean, I know that they're baddies in terms of the business and what they're kind of wall marting everybody into really terrible. That venture capital gross thing that gets a bunch of good stuff all at once and that is not sustainable. Yeah, exactly. But there's some really amazing content being produced right now, some really amazing shows. I just finished watching feud Capote in the Swans, which was just like, oh my God, just, you know, so it's, it's kind of a golden era, I think, for character-driven entertainment. So, you know, Jodie Foster's True Detective series, or the, the, this season. Yeah, Capote in the Swans, which I was just watching, I mean, I, I was a big huge Downton Abbey fan. I love the kind of like heavyweight sort of character dramas. One of the best things that, I mean, this is, this is now several years old, but one of the best things I've ever seen on television was the series, I think, was an HBO series shirt roll, which was just heavy, but every frame, a Rembrandt man, it was fucking gorgeous, like the cinematography. How can you have such ugly subject matter? And frankly, even, you know, bleak kind of quote-unquote ugly landscapes, and yet such beauty in the frame. So beautiful, and the acting just, anyway. So, yes, I, I now love, now, now I love watching TV for fun. And I have to say, I also have a little bit of a, you know, I've got my guilty pleasures. I do watch, I do watch some reality TV. Love on the spectrum is one of my favorite shows. And, and when my daughter was visiting me over the holidays, we got into watching smothered. I don't know. No, I didn't see that. Okay. Well, so my daughter and I are very, very close, very close. Single mom, single daughter, lonely child. She's 27 now. And we really, really love each other a lot. And I think, you know, we pride ourselves on, like, everybody says that we're so much closer than every other, you know, mother and daughter. Well, so we have been watching a whole bunch of movies and TV shows that happen to be around the theme of like evil. I don't know how or why, but yeah, yeah, there are all these things. And then we kind of ran out of stuff to ends conspiracy theories. And then, and then we, like cult leaders and stuff. And then we ran out of stuff to watch. And, and I was flicking around. I was like, Sydney, get in here now. I just found the very perfect thing. So it's called smothered. And it's literally a reality series about mothers and daughters who are people. Because it's mother. I see, I see, mother. And it was absolutely, so we watched the first episode and we're like, Oh my God, we're not anything like them. We are like them though, but we're better than them. But we're not as bad as them. But we're actually a bit bad about like in that way too. It's just kind of how everyone should watch all reality TV. It's a, it's a push pull of like, I'm worse. I'm better than that. I'm worse than that. I'm better. Totally. I do just have to be careful. If I watch too much reality TV, it does affect my anxiety and my mental health. Like if I like, I really loved watching selling sunset, you know, so but selling sunset, the Kardashians and especially a show like smothered, where you're just like, you know what, this is actually just a parade of narcissists. This is actually just like really, really bad relational dysfunction and really poor communication breakdown. Yeah, for entertainment, which you know, even the ethics of that aside, I think the only thing I find is so disturbing about it is that it just just regulates my nervous system. Because I feel like I've been in, I've been having arguments all right, but you have with people who just said, yeah, well, yeah, I get that when people are like, oh, if you seen hoarders or whatever, and I'm like, well, this whole show, they're just trying to get this guy to throw things away, but he's clearly got a mental illness and some other issue that they're not dealing with. But they're like, look how dirty this guy's house is. It's like, right, exactly, exactly. And I just want to be like, you know what, I want, I want to send a team of therapists in more than anything else. But that's not his good TV. So they're like, we're not going to do that. And so I have to be careful about my reality. Oh, yeah, I absorb bad vibes, quite, quite badly. Is it when you're watching stuff now that you've moved back to LA, is it strange to sort of see things that you either, because it is very different, but in a lot of ways, a lot of the stuff's exactly the same. Yeah, well, and I live in Beachwood Canyon, which is literally under the Hollywood. Yeah, oh, I used to rent in a house there before on Beachwood. Yeah, on Beachwood. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. So when I walk out my front door and I look to the right, you know, there's the fabled sign. And I actually, you know, maybe it's partly a function of my age. Maybe it's just, you know, I don't know, it's probably just a function of my age. But I, what I see now is a lot of everything feels poignant to me. So everything, like I can see the innocence of intention, you know, that people coming here with big dreams and ideas and something that they want to do or achieve or create. And just how very hard it is and how very hard the world is. And, you know, this is like the school of hard knocks for all of us, whether you are on top for a little while or never at all. You know, whether you're a single mum in South London trying to sell baby clothes in the Port of Bello market or, or, you know, you're on a, an acclaimed TV series. And, you know, people are asking you, they can interview you. It's just, we're all just terrified little animals, scrabbling around on this blue planet, trying to figure out how to be okay. And trying to have, have, like, make a decent thing out of this one little life that we are given to live, you know. And, and meanwhile, we also have to, like, cut our toenails and feed ourselves and take out the trash and call the IRS about that stupid statement that they sent and we don't understand. They didn't cover this lab. Right. There's just, it's just a million things to being human that make it really difficult. And again, getting back to my work as a publisher and also my writing as a, as a, you know, my own personal writing and the podcast, this is, this is, I think, I used to think that there was nothing that I cared about because there was just no, there was no one particular topic that was endlessly fascinated in. But it is this bigger picture. It is this bigger story. What does it mean to be a human being? How can I do it well? Why is it so fucking hard all the time? And can it be a little bit easier? And when you figure that out, let me know. So when I, when I look at Hollywood through that lens, when I look at, you know, the aspirational, you know, the people wanting to be an influencer, I don't judge any of those people because they're just, they're just ants on the log trying to figure out how to do the thing well in a way that is, you know, successful and they're meeting their expectations of their parents or society, but also trying to have a little bit of fun and keep themselves safe. Like, that's already a very tall order. Yeah, that's a lot of plates been in at once, you know, I think that's cool. Yeah, it is for all of us. So let you know, however you get it done, like more power to you. I'm just, you know, I'm a fan of humans and I, I, you know, wish it wasn't so damn hard for all of us. Yeah, I agree with you. And I appreciate that sentiment. And also I've glad the 101 diners reopened, but I don't know if they have the black and white milkshake still that was my or the red eye. I don't know. It's it's called the Clark Street diner now, which is dumb because it's not on Clark Street. No, it's not. It's just it should be the one. Yeah, I spent a lot of time on Franklin and UCB and all that kind of stuff. That Gelsons. Like literally five seconds away from where I live, like you're talking about this mind. That Gelsons Donald Sutherland. I've met there and who is also Canadian. And I've told this, I've told this on the show before where you may appreciate this. I was staying in Airbnb up in up in Detroit Canyon and I had burned my hand trying to make tea in the microwave. Wouldn't recommend. Okay. So I had a show at UCB and I was at Gelsons and I was looking for like some kind of burn ointment so that I could like get through the show, horrible pain. And I'm in that aisle and then Donald Sutherland was also in that aisle and he's also really tall, which is weird for an actor. He's very, very, very tall. I never say anything to people. Like it's horribly embarrassing, but I was so taken aback. I was like, Donald Sutherland. And he he grabbed my burned hand to shake it was like burn us to me too. And I was like, oh, so you probably thought I was emotional to meet him because I'm like tearing up. And of course you didn't want to be like, oh, because you know, you know, and then I walked out and saw Angeline's car parked in that parking lot. And I was like, how LA is this? So LA, so LA. I see Rhea Perlman and that girl. Oh, wow. Oh, that would be exciting. I like, yeah, she's a right. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's that's a pretty happening. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. It's been so good to talk to you. And I'm so glad that you had some time to do this. Oh, it was really fun. Thank you for the great conversation, Cana. I had a great time there. That's Maggie. She's great. Do not miss the underwire her sub stack. Just go there right now. As I said, link in the show description and her podcast, The Selfish Gift. Also very good. She's an excellent interviewer. And as you can, as you heard, an excellent person to talk to. If for some reason you can't find those, just email me tvgattenscouncer@gmail.com or can at icanread.com. Or you can go to the patreon, patreon.com/tvgattenscouncer as little as a dollar a month. This is a big help to the show. If you $5, if you $5, I don't know if that's a, can I make that a verb? I just made it a verb. If you $5 and up the show, you get a PDF of the TV guide we reviewed that week, when we reviewed the TV guide. And frankly, you just have access to the entire TVard archive of issues that I have scanned already. So, and if there's an issue you want and it's not there, let me know and I will try to pull it and scan it for you when I have the time to do that because it takes a little bit of time. But I'm happy to do that if I can. Anyway, I'm happy to do the show. I'm happy you're here. And I'll also be happy if you're here next week for a brand new edition of TV guidance counselor. On top of the fact that like, damn it, I never got made into a Barbie doll.
