This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Steven Ferezy: Take one.

[0:01] Dana Craig: Knock knock.

[0:04] Steven Ferezy: We're Steven and Dana.

[0:05] Dana Craig: We can't believe you cannot have a lot of fun.

[0:10] Steven Ferezy: We're so glad you're listening to it.

[0:12] Dana Craig: We would never listen to.

[0:13] Steven Ferezy: But I don't even want to listen to it to edit it.

[0:15] Dana Craig: I don't even want to wake up anymore.

[0:18] Steven Ferezy: Stephen and Dana.

[0:20] Dana Craig: In the room.

[0:34] Steven Ferezy: Wow.

[0:35] Dana Craig: Hi, Steven.

[0:36] Steven Ferezy: Hi, Dana.

[0:37] Dana Craig: It's been a minute.

[0:38] Steven Ferezy: It's been so many minutes.

[0:41] Dana Craig: I haven't seen you in I've seen some people in my life IRL, but I've not seen you.

[0:46] Steven Ferezy: In six months.

[0:48] Dana Craig: In so many Murns.

[0:49] Steven Ferezy: And when you see that.

[0:50] Dana Craig: No wonder you look so rested.

[0:52] Steven Ferezy: I know.

[0:52] Dana Craig: I look gloriously radiant.

[0:55] Steven Ferezy: Um but our podcast has missed you.

[0:59] Dana Craig: As you were unavailable last time.

[1:03] Steven Ferezy: Oh, that's right.

[1:04] Dana Craig: Julian Havard.

[1:05] Steven Ferezy: Uh yeah, I enjoyed listening to that episode so much.

[1:09] Dana Craig: Just having nothing to do with it.

[1:11] Steven Ferezy: You edited.

[1:12] Dana Craig: You swung out.

[1:13] Steven Ferezy: I swung out.

[1:14] Dana Craig: I was like, I need a time out, Louise.

[1:17] Steven Ferezy: And our friend Natalie Joy Johnson s uh swung in.

[1:22] Dana Craig: Which I mean, honestly, she should actually be the host, but you know.

[1:28] Steven Ferezy: She'll be the host once.

[1:30] Dana Craig: Um, I had to do that in s uh the early days of this podcast.

[1:34] Steven Ferezy: I could not join you and you had to do an episode all by yourself.

[1:38] Dana Craig: You didn't even have a guest.

[1:40] Steven Ferezy: No.

[1:40] Dana Craig: I remember I had like my microphone.

[1:42] Steven Ferezy: I'm like, ooh, am I?

[1:44] Dana Craig: I don't know.

[1:45] Steven Ferezy: Like You monologued.

[1:47] Dana Craig: Uh Mark Marin.

[1:48] Steven Ferezy: Like, I was just talking for, I don't know, 45 minutes.

[1:52] Dana Craig: And it was like 8 a.m.

[1:54] Steven Ferezy: I was lit.

[1:54] Dana Craig: I had my iced coffee.

[1:57] Steven Ferezy: Turn me on.

[1:59] Dana Craig: Anyway.

[2:00] Steven Ferezy: Speaking of lit.

[2:02] Dana Craig: We okay, so we're trying to do in these times of quarantine where we cannot be in person.

[2:09] Steven Ferezy: Um see uh like people at our world who might not be in New York anyway, right?

[2:16] Dana Craig: Right.

[2:17] Steven Ferezy: So we've dabbled in the LA.

[2:19] Dana Craig: Let's get the most out of the technology.

[2:22] Steven Ferezy: Let's not Skype with the gal next door.

[2:24] Dana Craig: No, we'll see her later.

[2:26] Steven Ferezy: Let's get some miles.

[2:28] Dana Craig: Let's get some mile points so we can upgrade.

[2:30] Steven Ferezy: Our guest today um is the lovely Jamie Babbit who is joining us from Los Angeles, California.

[2:43] Jamie Babbit: But more specifically, like, you're more out in the boonies.

[2:48] Jamie Babbit: I am doing this podcast from Topanga Canyon, California, which is about uh forty minutes outside of Los Angeles.

[2:59] Jamie Babbit: It is a beautiful state park. Uh it is a home that overlooks many thousands of acres of kindling, which could at any moment light on fire.

[3:11] Dana Craig: Mmm.

[3:13] Jamie Babbit: We laugh because or else we'll cry.

[3:15] Steven Ferezy: I don't know.

[3:16] Jamie Babbit: Very true. I was uh born and raised in a thousand oaks, so very familiar with um I associate Topanga Canyon with the Topanga Mall.

[3:26] Jamie Babbit: Cause back in the nineties, the oaks wouldn't cut it. You had to go to Topanga for the uh the quality shopping.

[3:35] Dana Craig: Love it.

[3:36] Jamie Babbit: Love it. Yes. Topanga Canyon has been a beautiful getaway during COVID because there's very few people here. We can walk around, we can see a bobcat, we can uh have raccoons wake us up every night.

[3:54] Jamie Babbit: Um, but yeah, it's been great, and it's really beautiful. I'm just hoping it's we're right in fire season right now, so uh every day we're we have our bags packed and we're ready to run.

[4:06] Dana Craig: But it's still idyllic.

[4:08] Jamie Babbit: It's very idyllic. And you have dogs and an outdoor uh hot tub.

[4:14] Jamie Babbit: Oh yeah. Hot tub overlooking the mountains. We have three giant dogs. Uh we have um it's been beautiful. It's been really nice.

[4:24] Jamie Babbit: But I actually am on my way to New York uh in a couple weeks to direct um a Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez uh series for Hulu.

[4:37] Dana Craig: Uh Murder Mystery.

[4:39] Steven Ferezy: Come on now.

[4:40] Jamie Babbit: Is it called Murder Mystery?

[4:43] Jamie Babbit: It is called Only Murders in the Building, and it is a rear window-esque uh story about these three characters, Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez, who live in a building on the Upper West Side, and they start a podcast and they investigate murders.

[5:04] Dana Craig: Well, if you need any tips, tips and tricks.

[5:08] Steven Ferezy: Are you so is this a series and you are directing the first the pilot or are you directing the whole series?

[5:16] Jamie Babbit: This is a series, and I'm going to direct four out of the six episodes.

[5:23] Dana Craig: So dope.

[5:23] Jamie Babbit: So yeah, so it'll be really fun. So I'll direct the pilot and then three more, and then I will just be in New York, uh, making sure everything goes smoothly, which I'm sure directing in COVID with some older actors and a young actress with lupus.

[5:41] Jamie Babbit: It's gonna be a big adventure and really fun and very important that I keep very safe.

[5:50] Dana Craig: Yeah, I'm I mean, I'm gonna be so curious after this process, like all the hurdles you had to jump through, but gearing up.

[6:00] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, I mean, both of those, both of those national treasures live in LA, right?

[6:05] Dana Craig: So there's flying involved.

[6:08] Jamie Babbit: I think Selena also lives out there.

[6:10] Jamie Babbit: So y'all are coming to New York, and then what's in place that you need to keep in mind filming during COVID.

[6:22] Jamie Babbit: You know, I am gonna learn so much. I think the biggest challenge is gonna be group scenes where I have extras in a room. So for example, there's a scene in the script where Selena, Steve Martin, and Martin Short all go into a diner and it's packed, and they sit in a corner booth and they have a big six-page conversation.

[6:44] Jamie Babbit: I don't know how I put those three national treasures in a restaurant which is inside um with 40 extras without masks on, even with masks on. So I think it's gonna be visual effects. I'm assuming I'll shoot the extras first, maybe with masks, and then take out their masks and visual effects, and then put the actors without any um extras without masks.

[7:12] Jamie Babbit: So I don't know, it's it's gonna be a new adventure in visual effects. It's gonna be really challenging, yeah.

[7:18] Jamie Babbit: But I think the there was also another scene I was reading last night where they're having a group uh like building meeting in the lobby of their building and because the murder has happened and everyone's freaked out, and so it's everyone from the building. So that's like hundreds of people.

[7:36] Jamie Babbit: I don't know how to put the actors with other actors. So we have to get tested three times a week. Um I have to be in a little bubble, and I'm gonna live in Westchester, which is crazy because I've never been to Westchester, I've never wanted to go to Westchester.

[7:52] Dana Craig: Sure.

[7:53] Jamie Babbit: Um, but I just feel like even going into an elevator in my building in New York, I can't do that because I can't risk uh harming these three national treasures. So I'm gonna be really careful.

[8:07] Dana Craig: I mean, to be a director, you need to love puzzles.

[8:11] Jamie Babbit: Yeah.

[8:11] Dana Craig: Sounds like um, we didn't mention at the top, I mean, I'm sure you've already read the description in this podcast episode, but Jamie Babbit, my god, your resume.

[8:24] Jamie Babbit: Do you mind if I just read from your IMDB?

[8:27] Dana Craig: Listen, okay, so she's directed movies, television.

[8:34] Jamie Babbit: I don't even know where to begin.

[8:35] Dana Craig: I mean, let's start from the most recent, you and we'll swing back around.

[8:39] Jamie Babbit: The League of Their Own reboot.

[8:42] Dana Craig: Remake?

[8:43] Jamie Babbit: Not reboot. It's a remake.

[8:44] Jamie Babbit: Well, it it doesn't really have anything to do.

[8:48] Jamie Babbit: Reenvisioning, yeah, because it's about the uh African American team players and the queer team players.

[8:55] Dana Craig: Thank you.

[8:56] Jamie Babbit: So no one that was ever brought up in the original film. Uh but very much existed in the real world. So we're finally gonna tell their stories. So I think it's a re envisioning because it's totally different character. Same story, but let's put some more stuff in there.

[9:13] Jamie Babbit: Um Aquafina is Nora from Queens, the first wives club TV show, hello, Russian doll that we love, we stan. Um The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, uh Silicon Valley, which I don't know, you were also an EP on that, an executive producer.

[9:32] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, so I worked on Silicon Valley for a couple years, and I directed uh, I don't know, a lot of episodes, and um that was super fun with all those weirdo, queerdo uh comedians and Jamie Babbit.

[9:49] Dana Craig: To have been a fly on that wall.

[9:52] Jamie Babbit: Well, wait, I'm not done.

[9:53] Dana Craig: Okay, so Santa Clarita Diet, uh The Orville, Brooklyn 99, Hello, Girls, Girl Boss, it's always funny in it's always sunny in Philadelphia.

[9:53] Jamie Babbit: Divorce.

[9:53] Dana Craig: It's always funny in Ciladelphia.

[10:09] Jamie Babbit: Um Supergirl looking drop dead diva Rosolian Isles. Come on, like literally any TV show that's ever been made. United States of Terra, Smash, Bunheads, Pretty Little Liars.

[10:27] Dana Craig: Okay, Cougar Town, I'm sorry, that is one of my favorite shows of all time. I think that was wildly underrated.

[10:35] Jamie Babbit: Um, let's see, like in the motherhood, you know, Cheryl Hines and Megan Malale. I mean, truly in the vision board of this podcast, there's really just like a uh we didn't know it at the time, but there's like a Jamie Babbit quadrant of um of texture, of of nicheness.

[10:55] Dana Craig: No, but obviously you um you've you can see who you have worked with a lot.

[11:02] Jamie Babbit: There's kind of a through line of your peeps, right?

[11:06] Jamie Babbit: And you started, you guys, this is going back to 1999, but you came up with the idea and directed, but I'm a cheerleader.

[11:16] Dana Craig: Which is LGBTQ canon.

[11:21] Jamie Babbit: It is a cult movie that I watched, fun fact, at this little resort that we happened to have gone to very separately, but Quisasana.

[11:34] Dana Craig: I watched But I'm a Cheerleader in my cabin for the first time, little lesbian.

[11:39] Jamie Babbit: Little did I know that I would meet Jamie Babbit, another Quisasana alum.

[11:47] Dana Craig: Who directed that film?

[11:49] Jamie Babbit: I can't.

[11:51] Dana Craig: I can't.

[11:51] Jamie Babbit: Ooh, ooh, ooh.

[11:55] Jamie Babbit: I have so many thoughts, so many things to say. But like you are like like a a lesbian director, producer, writer, um baller, I guess, is the term, right?

[12:12] Jamie Babbit: Did you have did you just come out guns ablazing like I wanna produce direct queer stories?

[12:21] Jamie Babbit: Yes, I did. I didn't really know what that meant. Like I didn't understand the film business or TV business, or I didn't really know what that was.

[12:29] Jamie Babbit: But I was like a theater kid in Ohio, and I knew I wanted to get the hell out of Ohio.

[12:39] Jamie Babbit: And my first stop was Quisasana, this dirty dancing esque resort. Uh that I think I was the youngest person to ever be allowed to work there.

[12:50] Jamie Babbit: I was 16. Um, but I went in the summer of my junior year, sophomore year of high school, I'm not sure. Um, to get the hell out of Ohio.

[13:04] Jamie Babbit: That was my first stop. And I realized I was a little queerdo at Quisasana.

[13:09] Jamie Babbit: So I We all do so blessed that many years later, Dana, you were there discovering your queerdoness, watching But I'm a Cheerleader at my um secretion of queerdoness.

[13:25] Jamie Babbit: Uh but yeah, so I went and when I was 16, I went to Quisasana and then which was in Maine, and then I came back to Ohio and I was like, oh, I met all these girls that went to Barnard College at Quisasana, and they were all lesbians, and that seems like a really good place for me to go and find my lesbianism, and I get to live in New York City.

[13:47] Jamie Babbit: So when I was 18, I went to Barnard and I uh was surrounded by really fierce, intelligent women, and the first thing I did was go to the Columbia Career Services and say, Hey, I wanna do an internship uh w in some entertainment field.

[14:04] Jamie Babbit: I don't really know anything about it. Um, and they said, Okay, there's an internship for I think it was Days of Our Lives or Bold and the Beautiful, or one of those terrible soap operas.

[14:15] Dana Craig: Yeah.

[14:16] Jamie Babbit: Um, or you could be an intern for the producer of Dead Poet Society. And I was like, Oh, I want to work with that producer.

[14:26] Jamie Babbit: And so I worked with him for three years, like twice a week, uh, in college, and learned everything about the film business.

[14:36] Jamie Babbit: And one of the first things I learned was I did not want to be in an office my whole life, and that I wanted to be a director, it seemed like the best job.

[14:45] Jamie Babbit: And so my senior year of college, I applied for, and this is the great thing about Columbia, they have a great career services setup.

[14:55] Jamie Babbit: So I got an internship with Martin Scorsese, my senior year.

[15:00] Jamie Babbit: Um, so I worked one day a week in the world.

[15:02] Jamie Babbit: I'll have to Google him.

[15:03] Jamie Babbit: Hold on.

[15:04] Jamie Babbit: Yeah.

[15:05] Jamie Babbit: Can you spell Scorsese?

[15:08] Jamie Babbit: Can you spell Martin?

[15:09] Jamie Babbit: Uh very quickly.

[15:11] Jamie Babbit: Marty.

[15:11] Jamie Babbit: Yes.

[15:12] Jamie Babbit: Marty.

[15:12] Jamie Babbit: Marty's.

[15:13] Jamie Babbit: Insane.

[15:14] Jamie Babbit: Is he adorable?

[15:15] Jamie Babbit: He's like a tiny little man, very short, uh, very sweet, only child.

[15:21] Jamie Babbit: Um, and so I learned in my internship a couple of very bizarre things which have been kind of the focal point of my understanding of life as a director, which I learned very young.

[15:33] Jamie Babbit: Number one, he had me hang out with his parents because he never spent any time with them, and he felt so guilty that I would go over there, they would make pasta for me, and make me stay and chat with me forever because they were they miss their son because he always works and he has no time for them.

[15:52] Dana Craig: You were a surrogate Scorsese.

[15:54] Jamie Babbit: You were the bridge.

[15:56] Jamie Babbit: So I remember going over there, and his mom had knit booties for Steven Spielberg's baby, and I had to go pick them up.

[16:03] Jamie Babbit: But really I could tell he just sent me there because he felt so guilty he never spent time with them.

[16:08] Jamie Babbit: And they lived in Little Italy, exactly what you would think.

[16:11] Jamie Babbit: Like his mom was like making pasta sauce.

[16:14] Jamie Babbit: Um so sweet.

[16:15] Jamie Babbit: So that was I realized okay, directors have no time with for their families.

[16:20] Jamie Babbit: And then he also had me.

[16:22] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, I love it.

[16:24] Jamie Babbit: He also um was very organized with his like shot plans and everything.

[16:30] Jamie Babbit: So I would go through, he had these books from like Raging Bull that had his little football maps of like where he was gonna put the camera, and it was just like I realized he seems like he's just this brilliant I mean, and he is this brilliant artist, but really he just does a lot of preparation, and so that was really helpful to see like the kind of process behind the man.

[16:56] Jamie Babbit: And he had a big film collection, um, loves movies, so I was like, fuck, I gotta watch a lot of movies.

[17:04] Jamie Babbit: And he uh also would have me send presents to his girlfriend, um, who was Ileana Douglas at the time.

[17:14] Dana Craig: She was Dan.

[17:16] Jamie Babbit: I love it.

[17:17] Jamie Babbit: Love.

[17:17] Jamie Babbit: And so I would send her books to the hotel she was living in.

[17:21] Jamie Babbit: So I instantly knew what his like weird reading list was of like trying to get a girl.

[17:28] Dana Craig: Yeah.

[17:29] Jamie Babbit: Uh, and I remember I sent Zorba the Greek.

[17:32] Jamie Babbit: I don't know if you guys have read that, but that was one of the books I sent to her, uh, which I had actually read.

[17:38] Jamie Babbit: So I was like, Wow, I'm like I'm I'm on the pulse.

[17:41] Dana Craig: Come on.

[17:42] Jamie Babbit: What a gift.

[17:44] Jamie Babbit: And you're so smart to like absorb all of that stuff.

[17:48] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, well, it was also I had to get the food for his trailer, which was peanut butter and jelly, which I thought was so weird that he ate like a sixth grader.

[17:57] Jamie Babbit: But it's funny 'cause uh anyone can attest that works with me.

[18:01] Jamie Babbit: The one thing I asked my assistant to do is put peanut butter and jelly in my trailer 'cause you can eat it while you're directing and you just don't have time to like sit down.

[18:09] Dana Craig: It's the best.

[18:10] Jamie Babbit: Yeah.

[18:11] Jamie Babbit: Food and or snack.

[18:12] Dana Craig: Yes.

[18:14] Jamie Babbit: I also had to get him boxes of natural laxatives.

[18:20] Dana Craig: You gotta keep regular.

[18:22] Jamie Babbit: Which I think it's because you eat so much peanut butter and jelly and there's just no time for vegetables or salad, so it's just you know, shit ha shit doesn't happen, I guess is what we're saying.

[18:34] Dana Craig: Yeah, I'm so into that conversation.

[18:38] Jamie Babbit: They were from a health food store, I remember that.

[18:40] Jamie Babbit: But it was like I had to get bottles and bottles and bottles, so yeah.

[18:45] Dana Craig: Good.

[18:45] Jamie Babbit: Well at least he's taking care of himself.

[18:47] Dana Craig: Exactly.

[18:50] Jamie Babbit: I know, guys.

[18:51] Jamie Babbit: It was an interesting portal into life as a director.

[18:53] Jamie Babbit: Like it was like you're gonna eat like shit, you're never going to shit.

[18:57] Jamie Babbit: You're going to go through multiple marriages even though you're a very nice person.

[19:02] Jamie Babbit: Um, 'cause his wife was his ex wife.

[19:05] Jamie Babbit: And I found that out the first day.

[19:07] Jamie Babbit: Like they were like, Oh, they were married at the beginning of the movie, but now they're not married, but they're still working together.

[19:12] Jamie Babbit: And I ended up marrying a producer a couple of years later, who produced But I'm a Cheerleader, who I had two kids with.

[19:22] Jamie Babbit: Um, and we still work together sometimes, and she's wonderful.

[19:25] Jamie Babbit: She's a great producer, but just like Scorsese, we are not married anymore.

[19:32] Dana Craig: That sounds like the best scenario though, that you can be professionally collaborative and also like mommy collaborative.

[19:40] Jamie Babbit: Exactly.

[19:40] Jamie Babbit: Come on.

[19:41] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, no, she's so talented.

[19:43] Jamie Babbit: So um so yeah, I learned a lot from that internship.

[19:47] Jamie Babbit: And then basically after working with Scorsese, I was like, the one way to make it as a director is to make indie films, and then the studio system or TV or whoever has to accept you.

[20:00] Jamie Babbit: Like you're undeniable if you make a movie.

[20:03] Jamie Babbit: And I was like, the only way it seems like you can make a successful movie is if you go inside and make it as personal as possible.

[20:13] Jamie Babbit: And that was definitely a Scorsese lesson, like and so I was like, Well, what do I know about?

[20:13] Jamie Babbit: I was like, Well, I know about being a little gay, and I know about being a little femme, and I know about rehab, because my mom ran a rehab when I was growing up, so I basically grew up in a rehab, so I was like, ooh, maybe I'll put all those things together and make a little queer femme movie about a girl who's in rehab, but I'll make a gay rehab instead of drug rehab, because my mom's rehab was a um teen drug rehab.

[20:20] Jamie Babbit: So I was like, I guess I need to find money and I need to learn more about directing.

[20:58] Jamie Babbit: So I took some summer classes at NYU and I made some short films that were terrible, and they will be released actually for the first time.

[21:08] Jamie Babbit: They're doing a 20-year uh release of But I'm a Cheerleader um this December in time for Christmas.

[21:16] Jamie Babbit: Um and they put a bunch of extras on it, and one of the extras they put on was my first short film that I made, which is so bad.

[21:24] Jamie Babbit: But I was like, you know what?

[21:25] Jamie Babbit: I think it would be really fun to put as a DVD extra or content extra.

[21:29] Jamie Babbit: Um, because I think it's good for people to see you can make terrible films and then continue and you'll get better.

[21:36] Dana Craig: Well, that's I mean, it's also the expectation.

[21:39] Dana Craig: You're supposed to.

[21:40] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, exactly.

[21:41] Jamie Babbit: You don't come out a star right out the gate.

[21:47] Jamie Babbit: You gotta have those rough drafts.

[21:49] Jamie Babbit: I'm like anything plus time equals comedy, right?

[21:52] Jamie Babbit: Oh, yeah.

[21:53] Jamie Babbit: And my first short film was I cast my brother, and it was a short film starring my best friend who uh is walking in the streets of New York on West Fourth Street, and some guy is harassing her, and she pulls her tampon out and she throws it at him and it hits him in the face, and she's victorious.

[22:12] Jamie Babbit: And it's called Discharge.

[22:14] Jamie Babbit: It's a comedy.

[22:18] Jamie Babbit: So my brother got a bunch of tampons dipped in ketchup thrown at his face over and over again, which made me very happy.

[22:25] Jamie Babbit: I was so happy directing that.

[22:28] Jamie Babbit: So that was the beginning of it all.

[22:30] Jamie Babbit: No, he was just my brother, and I knew he would he kind of look like Anthony Kiedis at the time, and I you know, I could see that guy harassing a woman on the streets, and I also knew I could abuse him and film it and he would accept it, so yeah.

[22:44] Dana Craig: Man, I mean, just thinking about what it takes to be a director.

[22:50] Dana Craig: I mean, it's creative, it's organization, it's money.

[22:54] Dana Craig: Like so many hurdles are in your way.

[22:57] Dana Craig: I assume when you're first starting out, like it can seem like one of those unattainable goals, un those unattainable jobs or careers, which um it's a lot of hard work, I imagine.

[23:09] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, I think it was helpful to work for a director really early just to see, oh, this is just a regular person, like how did he do it?

[23:18] Jamie Babbit: That made it feel more doable.

[23:21] Jamie Babbit: And I think also for me, I at the time it was the nineties, and so I was really into like riot girl music and punk rock and all those riot girl musicians like Kathleen Hanna and uh the girls from Sleater-Kinney, they were terrible musicians, but they just played anyway, and they were like, Fuck you, I'm terrible, I don't give a fuck.

[23:44] Jamie Babbit: I'm a woman, deal with it.

[23:47] Jamie Babbit: It's amazing.

[23:48] Jamie Babbit: I just what's inside me.

[23:51] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, so I was like, okay, well, why can't I do that for film?

[23:55] Jamie Babbit: Like, I don't need permission from these guys.

[23:58] Jamie Babbit: I'll just do it and fuck them.

[24:01] Jamie Babbit: Like, I'll just do it.

[24:03] Jamie Babbit: And I think that was really helpful that that was like the ethos of the time.

[24:07] Jamie Babbit: And I I was really anti-studio movies at that time because I felt like the only way to feel that I could get through was to just care about those weird indie movies.

[24:22] Jamie Babbit: Where it was a lot of women and people of color and like different types were getting into Sundance, they weren't getting into the studio system, but I was like, fuck the studio system, I'm gonna make whatever the fuck I want.

[24:35] Dana Craig: And you did, and my god, it's so cool.

[24:38] Jamie Babbit: It's such a mash.

[24:40] Jamie Babbit: But I'm a Cheerleader.

[24:41] Jamie Babbit: If you haven't seen it, um it's probably because you're not gay.

[24:45] Dana Craig: I don't know what the reason is.

[24:47] Jamie Babbit: But like Melanie Lynskey is that one of her first films.

[24:53] Jamie Babbit: It was I maybe one of her first American films.

[24:56] Jamie Babbit: She had been in Heavenly Creatures, which I saw, which Peter Jackson directed, which was about like murderous lesbians, and it was Kate Winslet, who's so hot, and her relationship with Melanie Lynskey.

[25:07] Jamie Babbit: And I saw that movie and I was like, oh God, I love both those actors.

[25:10] Jamie Babbit: I want them for Cheerleader.

[25:12] Jamie Babbit: And I think Kate Winslet was like already a star right away.

[25:16] Jamie Babbit: And um I called Melanie's agent, and she was like, Oh, she lives in New Zealand, she doesn't have a place to stay in LA.

[25:23] Jamie Babbit: And I was like, All right, well, let me ask the investment banker I got to give the money for the movie if she can stay at his house.

[25:31] Jamie Babbit: And so we were like doing all kinds of crazy stuff, and then the investment banker was like, Well, I thought Natasha was gonna stay at my house.

[25:40] Jamie Babbit: So and I said, Well, Melanie lives in New Zealand, can we use your frequent flyer miles to fly her to LA?

[25:46] Jamie Babbit: He was like, Yeah, sure, that's fine.

[25:48] Jamie Babbit: So it was just like beg borrow and steal for that movie.

[25:51] Jamie Babbit: Um we ended we started with a $500,000 budget, which was uh the guy who um invested in it.

[25:58] Jamie Babbit: I met him at Sundance, and he was the vice president of Prudential Insurance.

[26:04] Jamie Babbit: And he wanted to get into the movie business.

[26:08] Jamie Babbit: And I had a short, I had made a short film with money that I had raised from working uh in the film business on the crew.

[26:17] Jamie Babbit: I had just like saved a bunch of money, and um made a short film starring Clea DuVall, who was a coffee barista that was really cute, a cute little butch, and she wanted to be an actor and I wanted to be a director, so we made this short film called Sleeping Beauties and it went to Sundance and when I was at Sundance uh I met this Prudential Insurance guy and he came to see the short film and he was like, Oh it's really good and I said yeah and it's at Sundance so next year let's be at Sundance with another Clea DuVall project and but we'll have a feature and wouldn't that be so cool and he was like yeah and if you make a short you get in like you get your movies in right and I was like oh of course but of course that's like not really true.

[27:03] Jamie Babbit: Uh but I was like yeah once they support you you're definitely gonna get in so let's just go next year with our movie that you're gonna finance and he was like okay um how much do you need and I said five hundred because I thought that seemed like something an investment banker could give and then once I started like putting the movie together I was like oh shit this is like no money and am I really asking Natasha Lyonne to like change in my car and it just seemed like we didn't have enough money and so I said hey I'm so sorry but we actually need to double the budget to a million dollars but we were already kind of halfway through preparing for the film and he said okay well I'll give you a million dollars for the movie but that's a lot more risk for me.

[27:51] Jamie Babbit: So if I give you a million dollars to make the movie then you can't have any of the profit participation.

[27:57] Jamie Babbit: And I was like that's fine.

[27:59] Jamie Babbit: I just want a career like I don't care.

[28:01] Jamie Babbit: Um, so to this day I have never received one penny from But I'm a Cheerleader.

[28:07] Dana Craig: Not one penny.

[28:08] Jamie Babbit: I just got full body chills.

[28:11] Dana Craig: Um bag, borrow, and steal.

[28:14] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, technically.

[28:15] Jamie Babbit: But I did get a career, so that was a good one.

[28:18] Jamie Babbit: That's what I wanted.

[28:18] Dana Craig: Yeah, that's what I wanted.

[28:21] Dana Craig: I just I feel like um I'll give you $20.

[28:25] Dana Craig: Whatever I I rented it on Amazon again to uh really?

[28:31] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, I'll buy the DVD, and then every time I watch it, I'll send you $3.99.

[28:37] Jamie Babbit: I know.

[28:38] Jamie Babbit: I actually went to Amoeba Records and I saw a bunch of copies of the DVD, and I was like, oh, I don't have a copy of this.

[28:44] Jamie Babbit: And so I bought a bunch, and I remember I was so embarrassed because I had to hand them my credit card, which had my name on it.

[28:52] Jamie Babbit: This is the life of an indie filmmaker.

[28:55] Dana Craig: There is something about you that is so like optimistic and fucking fearless, just and networky, and I I don't know.

[29:05] Dana Craig: There's something so inspiring about how you did that and continue to do that and advocate for yourself and ask those questions, right?

[29:17] Jamie Babbit: Like, because those things may not come easy to someone else, but if you're in this business, you have to do those things and ask for more money and you know, meet the people.

[29:30] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, I feel like I got really lucky because my mom uh was very entrepreneurial in her thinking, and so she never worked for someone.

[29:42] Jamie Babbit: She always just started a job that she made for herself and made herself like the head of it.

[29:49] Jamie Babbit: So I just was raised to think like that, and she was very much a problem solver.

[29:53] Jamie Babbit: So like she wanted to have a re she wanted to be the head of a rehab, so she just raised money and started a rehab and made herself the president of it.

[30:02] Jamie Babbit: So um in my head, it's like my girl, and you're just like Anna Schlemski running around.

[30:12] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, so my mom and she was very uh also like charismatic and um uh she was a psychiatrist, so she was um very nimble about thinking what do people want out of this exchange and knowing how to give it to them and also really calm under pressure, I think 'cause she's dealt with a lot of people who had like killed someone and would in therapy be like, I killed someone, it's terrible, and my mom would be like, How do you feel?

[30:41] Jamie Babbit: So I just I used to always think, Oh, I am so glad I didn't go into mental health because I just it was very intense my mom's job, and there was never a vacation, and you know, it was the holidays were always the worst.

[30:55] Jamie Babbit: Like everyone calls their psychiatrist at the holidays because they're having a really hard time, and my mom used to bring all of her patients to our houses for all the holidays because she really didn't have great boundaries.

[31:07] Jamie Babbit: So uh Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter at my table were all her like teen rehab kids.

[31:16] Jamie Babbit: Um so in high school I used to see like really fucked up druggies, like I knew in a couple weeks they were gonna be in rehab, and I knew they were gonna be at my Christmas dinner.

[31:28] Dana Craig: Wow.

[31:30] Dana Craig: What an interesting upbringing.

[31:32] Jamie Babbit: I mean, there's another movie.

[31:35] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, someday.

[31:36] Jamie Babbit: Um so anyway, I wanted to put all of that into but I'm a cheerleader and um so I made that movie and then when I went to Sundance with it, I was like, Oh, I really need an agent because I think that's how people get paid jobs 'cause I obviously wasn't paid when I made Cheerleader.

[31:56] Jamie Babbit: And no one wanted to be my agent.

[31:59] Jamie Babbit: This is like how sexist and horrible the industry is.

[32:02] Jamie Babbit: And I the only agent I could get was the agent that represented Clea and Natasha, the two lead actors of the movie.

[32:11] Jamie Babbit: And he was like, Oh, my clients love you.

[32:13] Jamie Babbit: They said they had such a great time on the movie and I was like, Cool, well you represent me and he was like, Well, I don't have any director clients, but sure, like my agency can recomm can can um advocate for you.

[32:26] Jamie Babbit: And so they were my agents for like the first five years and I think I was their only director client, which is so funny.

[32:33] Dana Craig: That's right where you wanna be.

[32:35] Jamie Babbit: I know.

[32:36] Jamie Babbit: And but people were like, Wait, who represents you?

[32:39] Jamie Babbit: I'm like innovative artists.

[32:40] Jamie Babbit: They didn't have any directors.

[32:42] Jamie Babbit: Um and the first interview I said when I uh after Sundance, I was like, Look, I just want to make money as a director.

[32:49] Jamie Babbit: I don't wanna like wait tables or babysitter all the things I had been doing up to that point.

[32:55] Jamie Babbit: Um, and so he was like, Okay, well, there's this new T V show, um and the creator is brand new, he's never done TV, but that's great because he doesn't care that you haven't done TV and his name's Ryan Murphy, so you'll go in and meet with him.

[33:12] Jamie Babbit: And so I met with Ryan and he's like, I've never done TV.

[33:15] Jamie Babbit: I'm like, I've never done TV.

[33:17] Jamie Babbit: Damon just pulled down.

[33:19] Jamie Babbit: I'm turning off this interview.

[33:21] Jamie Babbit: This is just it's lies.

[33:23] Jamie Babbit: All of its lies.

[33:25] Jamie Babbit: So we had a really nice interview, like we just really bonded, and he was like, at the time, dating Bill Condon.

[33:35] Jamie Babbit: Um I know Bill Condon.

[33:37] Jamie Babbit: Who's such a cutie?

[33:38] Jamie Babbit: He's like, he directed Beauty and the Beast.

[33:41] Jamie Babbit: And he directed um, what was that Brendan Fraser kind of monster movie?

[33:51] Jamie Babbit: Brandon Fraser.

[33:53] Jamie Babbit: He did Dream Girls.

[33:55] Jamie Babbit: He did um.

[33:59] Jamie Babbit: I know the Brendan Fraser that you're I can see the poster of it.

[34:03] Dana Craig: Yeah.

[34:04] Jamie Babbit: Oh it was like a monster movie.

[34:06] Jamie Babbit: It was like Bill one of Bill Condon's first movies.

[34:08] Jamie Babbit: He wrote and directed it.

[34:09] Jamie Babbit: It was really great.

[34:11] Jamie Babbit: Anyway, he was a lot older than Ryan, which was really cute.

[34:14] Jamie Babbit: And um he kind of looks like a math teacher, such a cutie.

[34:18] Jamie Babbit: And they had basically just broken up, and I was a little queirdo, he was a little queerdo.

[34:26] Jamie Babbit: Um, and we made this show popular, and we learned about television.

[34:31] Jamie Babbit: And it was a little bit like a precursor to Glee, just as far as the characters, and like Jane Lynch was in it, and a lot of uh Leslie Grossman, who then went on to American Horror Story, a lot of kind of his first little posse of actors.

[34:46] Dana Craig: No Sarah Paulson said Coven.

[34:49] Jamie Babbit: Yeah.

[34:50] Jamie Babbit: Um so he and he said, Oh, uh, will you direct uh an episode?

[34:57] Jamie Babbit: And I said, sure.

[34:58] Jamie Babbit: And I think the network at the time said, You can't hire this person.

[35:02] Jamie Babbit: She's has no experience.

[35:04] Jamie Babbit: And the thing I love about Ryan is that he was had never done TV either, but said, Go fuck yourself.

[35:11] Jamie Babbit: I like her, and we're hiring her.

[35:14] Jamie Babbit: And he was doing that before he had any power.

[35:18] Jamie Babbit: And so they were like, okay, she can direct an episode.

[35:21] Jamie Babbit: And so after that episode, Ryan was like, I love you, you're amazing.

[35:26] Jamie Babbit: Will you be the producer and the director for the whole series?

[35:30] Jamie Babbit: I was like, okay.

[35:33] Jamie Babbit: So I had all these like fifty something directors who had been around the block who were like, She's our boss.

[35:40] Jamie Babbit: Uh I wasn't 30.

[35:42] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, so that was pretty funny.

[35:44] Jamie Babbit: Um, but I felt perfectly entitled to be their boss.

[35:48] Jamie Babbit: I was like, of course.

[35:49] Jamie Babbit: I totally get the the vision.

[35:51] Jamie Babbit: I get Ryan's writing, I get what this show is.

[35:55] Jamie Babbit: And I was closest in age to the actors because I was in my twenties.

[35:59] Jamie Babbit: To to think back on being able to understand Ryan Murphy's tone.

[36:04] Jamie Babbit: Now we know what that tone is because it's so many years later, and he has that you know that through line back in the day that was.

[36:13] Jamie Babbit: But back in the day.

[36:15] Jamie Babbit: It's new.

[36:16] Dana Craig: So I'm I'm so curious how you establish the same mindset, and I guess how does that even happen?

[36:27] Jamie Babbit: How do you establish that tone?

[36:30] Jamie Babbit: I mean, I just understood him.

[36:32] Jamie Babbit: Like we both had a l we were just little queerdos who had the same aesthetic.

[36:37] Jamie Babbit: And like theater theater kids.

[36:40] Jamie Babbit: Theater kids.

[36:42] Jamie Babbit: He's from the Midwest, he's from Indiana, I'm from Ohio.

[36:45] Jamie Babbit: I think like if you're little theater kids, there's some kind of like weirdness that you just kind of get.

[36:51] Dana Craig: Yeah, and also being from the Midwest, being like, get me the fuck out of that.

[36:55] Jamie Babbit: Um Ryan was funny too 'cause he was he t he told me when he was growing up he always wanted to be the Pope.

[37:05] Jamie Babbit: 'Cause he was Cat he was raised Catholic and he was like, Oh, well, it's like really theatrical and the leader of the Catholics is the Pope and I get to wear that really cool outfit.

[37:15] Dana Craig: Sure.

[37:16] Jamie Babbit: And lots of cute boys.

[37:18] Jamie Babbit: Um, and I do.

[37:19] Jamie Babbit: He's kind of become the Pope in a weird way, in a better way, in my opinion.

[37:23] Dana Craig: Yep.

[37:24] Jamie Babbit: Um of a lot of gay content.

[37:26] Jamie Babbit: So, um, yeah, so and he was at the time the CW was like, Can we have more storylines with the straight characters?

[37:33] Jamie Babbit: And like, of course, all he wanted to do was make it as gay as possible.

[37:37] Jamie Babbit: And that's all I wanted to do too.

[37:39] Jamie Babbit: So, um So yeah.

[37:42] Jamie Babbit: We just we we had a great time.

[37:44] Jamie Babbit: And then that was two years on that show, and then what was great is that I had done But I'm a Cheerleader, and then I did like ten episodes or something of Popular.

[37:54] Jamie Babbit: So all of a sudden I had a resume as a TV director, which was unheard of to be like twenty nine and have done that much, and so then I was able to get a lot of other TV work.

[38:05] Jamie Babbit: And I basically just kind of went in between weird indie movies and uh directing TV for money.

[38:14] Jamie Babbit: So that was sort of the balance that I did.

[38:16] Jamie Babbit: So I ended up directing like four other indie movies that were all made for under a million dollars.

[38:21] Jamie Babbit: Um and I would never make any money on those, but then I would make money directing like Brazilian Isles or Gilmore Girls or whatever.

[38:29] Jamie Babbit: Um and then I would pull all the actors and the crew and uh the people that I met on the TV stuff and make them work on my indie stuff for free.

[38:41] Dana Craig: Listen, you're no dum dumb.

[38:44] Jamie Babbit: Um so Amy Sherman Paladino.

[38:49] Dana Craig: Is she tribe?

[38:50] Jamie Babbit: I mean, honest uh like obviously you've worked with her on multiple shows.

[38:55] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, I I directed 18 episodes of Gilmore Girls.

[39:00] Jamie Babbit: So that was legendary.

[39:02] Jamie Babbit: Six years.

[39:05] Jamie Babbit: Yeah.

[39:05] Jamie Babbit: So I did six years on Gilmore Girls.

[39:08] Jamie Babbit: I did three episodes a year.

[39:10] Jamie Babbit: Um, and then I worked on Bunheads, and then I did Mazel, and she is tribe.

[39:16] Jamie Babbit: She's so brilliant.

[39:17] Jamie Babbit: And I remember she was like the second person I met after Ryan Murphy.

[39:23] Jamie Babbit: And this is dumb.

[39:25] Jamie Babbit: So crazy.

[39:25] Jamie Babbit: I know.

[39:26] Jamie Babbit: And she was also like very young and she had won an Emmy as a writer on Roseanne.

[39:33] Jamie Babbit: They had hired her to be the I think she was hired when she was like 20 to write for Sarah Gilbert's character.

[39:39] Dana Craig: Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

[39:41] Jamie Babbit: And she won an Emmy for it.

[39:43] Jamie Babbit: And so Gilmore Girls was her first show by herself.

[39:48] Jamie Babbit: And she was such a brilliant writer, and the show was a huge hit, but it was on this crappy network.

[39:54] Jamie Babbit: And she was just like Ryan, like people would say, You can't do that, and she'd be like, Go fuck yourself.

[40:00] Jamie Babbit: I'm gonna do it.

[40:01] Jamie Babbit: Like she was so balls out, like did not give up.

[40:05] Dana Craig: That's the takeaway.

[40:06] Dana Craig: The takeaway of this episode is you don't need anyone's permission to do what you want to do, crappy or not, do it.

[40:12] Jamie Babbit: Yeah.

[40:13] Jamie Babbit: Fuck your permission slip.

[40:14] Jamie Babbit: She yeah, she had no permission slip.

[40:16] Jamie Babbit: She was fired from her own show the last season.

[40:19] Jamie Babbit: She was like, I want this, I want that, I want this, and they were like, Oh, hell no.

[40:23] Jamie Babbit: And she was like, Fine, fuck you.

[40:25] Jamie Babbit: And they were like, Okay, bye.

[40:27] Jamie Babbit: So she didn't even work on the last episode or the last season, which is why she ended up doing the movie version of it on Netflix, because she was like, I never got to do the last episodes that I wanted to do to wrap up the series, because they fired me off my own show.

[40:43] Jamie Babbit: So, I mean, she was always willing to get fired to fight for what she wanted, and she just was made that way.

[40:50] Jamie Babbit: Um, but she was so brilliant, and she never got any emmy noms for writing, and she was always like, Why is that, Jamie?

[40:56] Jamie Babbit: And I was like, you know what, Amy, it's fucking sexism.

[40:59] Jamie Babbit: Like, we're on a shitty network, and you're a woman writing brilliantly for women, and it's just the people in the academy, they're all like seven year old men.

[41:08] Jamie Babbit: They've never heard of Gilmore.

[41:10] Jamie Babbit: They didn't they didn't watch the screener.

[41:12] Dana Craig: Yeah.

[41:12] Dana Craig: My dad has a question.

[41:15] Dana Craig: He is the world's biggest Gilmore Girls fan.

[41:18] Jamie Babbit: Oh no, I know that sounds like a joke, but it's it's actually not.

[41:22] Dana Craig: Um, so Wayne Craig has a question, which is because they speak so quickly and the dialogue is so snappy and musical, was that an issue during directing, or was it nightmare directing?

[41:36] Jamie Babbit: No, it was a nightmare.

[41:37] Jamie Babbit: It was so hard.

[41:38] Jamie Babbit: So it was also from the very beginning, Amy said, so I came in in the first season, they had 22 directors, and not a single director was asked back for second season.

[41:50] Jamie Babbit: So I went to interview and I said to the producer, this guy Gavin Pallone, who also produced Curb Your Enthusiasm, I said, Hey, um, can you tell me why n not one director from last season has been brought back?

[42:04] Jamie Babbit: And he said, I'm gonna tell you it's very simple, but most people don't believe me when I say this.

[42:11] Jamie Babbit: You have to get two takes from top to bottom of the scene, the master.

[42:17] Jamie Babbit: It has to be a moving master, which means move the camera with the steady cam for six pages, and it has to be word perfect, and you have to do two takes of it where it's word perfect and it's really fast.

[42:32] Jamie Babbit: And Amy's big like um inspiration for her writing is Dorothy Parker.

[42:40] Dana Craig: Okay.

[42:41] Jamie Babbit: And she loves that musicality, she loves that pitter pat, she loves that theatricality.

[42:47] Jamie Babbit: She would be running the Algonquin circle if she could.

[42:51] Jamie Babbit: Um, and that is her vision for the show.

[42:56] Jamie Babbit: So, word perfect, two takes.

[42:59] Jamie Babbit: And she doesn't care if you do a hundred takes.

[43:02] Jamie Babbit: She will protect you.

[43:03] Jamie Babbit: You need two of them to be word perfect, and that means an and a the a but.

[43:09] Jamie Babbit: Um, so the actors were furious, and the fact that they would have to do a scene 30 times, and if one actor forgot an and, we would have to do it again.

[43:26] Jamie Babbit: And many times I would shoot one scene for hours and hours and get like 40 takes, and I'd have all the producers and all the money people and network people behind me.

[43:36] Jamie Babbit: Like, you can't, you you have to move on.

[43:38] Jamie Babbit: And I'm like, if I move on, I will never be hired again.

[43:42] Jamie Babbit: So I will not move on.

[43:44] Jamie Babbit: I will literally be here until the sun rises, until I get this word perfect.

[43:49] Jamie Babbit: And I guess I'm just going to be able to do that.

[43:50] Dana Craig: I was gonna say how nice to like know that going in, knowing like that's the expectation.

[43:55] Jamie Babbit: It was awesome.

[43:56] Jamie Babbit: Now you know what you need to achieve.

[43:58] Jamie Babbit: Now you know what your job is.

[43:59] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, and it was so fun.

[44:01] Jamie Babbit: And it was so clear, and I love Amy because I remember one time I was like on take 37, and the steady cam guy was like dripping in sweat, and he had literally been like taken off the set once because he had like a heart attack.

[44:14] Jamie Babbit: Like the steady cam is so heavy.

[44:16] Jamie Babbit: And so I was on like take 36.

[44:19] Jamie Babbit: It was a meal penalty, it was so expensive.

[44:22] Jamie Babbit: We were going into lunch, and the AD came over and he said, Amy's on the phone for you.

[44:27] Jamie Babbit: And I was like, Okay.

[44:28] Jamie Babbit: And I usually that's the showrunner saying, Hey, you're going way over budget.

[44:33] Jamie Babbit: This is a nightmare, you can't do that.

[44:35] Jamie Babbit: And she went, Do you have a bunch of producers behind you right now?

[44:38] Jamie Babbit: I said, Yeah, I do.

[44:39] Jamie Babbit: And she said, I don't care what they do, you make sure that uh you get what I want.

[44:44] Jamie Babbit: And I was like, Of course.

[44:47] Jamie Babbit: So she just always protected me.

[44:50] Jamie Babbit: That's also terrifying.

[44:52] Terrifying.

[44:53] But I always knew I had she had my back, so I didn't care.

[44:57] And the actors were so mad, curious, rebelling, so mean sometimes because they were so frustrated.

[45:06] But I just was like very nice.

[45:09] It really was where my mom's like skills as a therapist came in, where I would just be like, I understand it's really hard.

[45:14] Okay, but let's we're gonna do it again.

[45:17] And they'd be like, Fuck you!

[45:21] Like, listen.

[45:22] I know me too.

[45:23] Me too.

[45:24] Okay, let's get back to one, back to one.

[45:27] Listen, if you want to be an iconic TV show, do what I say.

[45:32] Yeah, meanwhile, it was like CW, we never got any awards, we went way over budget.

[45:37] Like it was crazy.

[45:38] But Amy was like, she didn't care that the culture hadn't caught up to her yet.

[45:43] She wanted to be excellent in her little world, and that was so cool to me.

[45:49] And I was on her train.

[45:51] So I was like, You're brilliant.

[45:53] The world doesn't know it yet, but I don't give a fuck.

[45:56] You're like doing something really special, and I appreciate you, and I will be a thousand percent.

[46:02] Well, you were on the cusp of the golden age of television.

[46:05] Yeah.

[46:06] You were just kind of meeting the people who were going to be the names of Golden Age of Television.

[46:12] Yeah, and we were all treated like shit.

[46:14] Like we were I got even but I'm a cheerleader, like I got an F in Entertainment Weekly.

[46:19] I like got the magazine, I was so excited to see my review, and it was an F.

[46:23] I've literally never seen an F in Entertainment Weekly.

[46:27] Um fabulous.

[46:30] Exactly.

[46:32] And then Ryan, like Popular got horrible reviews too, and they were so mean to us, and they were like, Can you make it less gay?

[46:38] I mean, literally they would say that.

[46:41] And Amy, they were like, You're going way over budget, this is ridiculous.

[46:45] We never got any awards.

[46:47] Like, so I just felt like we were in this weird little queirdo tribe, and we were like, we're just gonna, you know, do our little thing and fuck everybody.

[46:56] So and then the culture caught up.

[46:59] So good for us.

[47:02] Good for you.

[47:03] Yeah.

[47:04] I mean, thank you.

[47:05] I've enjoyed your work, unbeknownst to me.

[47:08] I have a weird question about your taste.

[47:11] Um, I want to know, you know, pre deciding that you wanted to direct, like what were your movies, what were your TV shows, and then once you kind of shifted into director mode, how did that uh inform the evolvement of your taste and your preference and your style.

[47:34] Well, early on I wasn't allowed to watch TV, so I feel like it was this forbidden fruit that I then was really excited to make TV because it was this very foreign thing.

[47:45] Um, but my mom was very anti-television and she I wasn't allowed to watch it in her presence.

[47:52] So my mom got home from work at six o'clock, so I never watched like anything in prime time.

[47:58] So I would go after school, I was like a latchkey kid, and so I would open my door and go and immediately watch TV, and it was all reruns.

[48:07] So I watched like Get Smart and uh Hollywood Squares and whatever was on like right after school.

[48:14] Totally.

[48:15] Card Sharks.

[48:16] Literally.

[48:17] It was like the big valley, like all the weirdest, yeah, the weirdest shit from like not my era, but it was reruns.

[48:25] Yeah.

[48:25] And I never got to watch anything, like I've never seen an episode of Friends.

[48:30] Um I'm gonna go ahead and say that's okay.

[48:34] Yeah, it just made me a weirdo.

[48:37] Yeah, it made me a weirdo.

[48:38] Right.

[48:38] So and then when I got to New York and I was in college, I was just really into like riot girl music, so it was that just like make art and fuck it if you're terrible.

[48:50] It's just important that you make stuff.

[48:52] Um and um yeah, so that was kind of my and then also my parents were civil rights activists, so that's how they met, and they were really involved in like um Black Lives Matter back in the day, and so I was wildly liberal growing up, and my mom's circle was wildly liberal.

[49:18] So I always wanted to do something political.

[49:21] Like I would go to uh anti like protesting uh anti-abortion people um in high school with my mom, and we just did a lot of like political shit growing up, and it was just a fabric of our family, and my parents moved to an all-black neighborhood, which was funny because at the time they were trying to reverse white flight, so they were like, We're gonna move to an all-black neighborhood and we're gonna help it stay integrated.

[49:50] Meanwhile, that's like now not something that anyone cares about because now it's gentrification, but at the time it was um white flight was a really big issue in a lot of the black Midwestern cities, um, like Cleveland where I grew up.

[50:07] So I always had a deeply political thing like running through my veins, and also just being an upstart, so and my mom hated Reagan and hated Bush and like would constantly be like screaming, like in her mind, Reagan was as terrible as Trump, um, because she worked in mental health.

[50:28] So before Reagan, uh, my mom ran a psychiatric hospital, and then when Reagan defunded mental health, they literally said homeless people who have no money who are paranoid schizophrenics or um bipolar or whatever, that we the government shouldn't pay for it.

[50:48] And so my mom, the ward of my mom's mental health facility, which was for poor people, they literally just emptied it out and put them on the streets.

[50:57] So my mom was very aware of how fucked up it was, which we all live with now.

[51:02] Like you walk down the street and you see paranoid schizophrenics, and you're like, why are they living on the street?

[51:08] And in my mom's day, the government used to pay to take care of them.

[51:13] So anyway, I just grew up with those like fire starters, and so I always knew I wanted to do really deeply political stuff.

[51:22] But I also was like, I'm a lesbian and I don't want to be poor my whole life, and so I want to make money.

[51:28] So TV was a way to do that, and um, and then I tried to push it as far as I could in the TV world and surround myself with like the weirdos in the TV world who are like trying to push the envelope forward.

[51:42] Like they have something to say.

[51:44] It's not just a paycheck, right?

[51:47] And like it's yeah.

[51:48] I mean, I did work on some really sexist shows with some really awful like male creators.

[51:54] I remember I had I worked on Malcolm in the Middle and the script, there was a line where a character said, Women are the cows of people because they uh breastfeed.

[52:06] It was so awful, and I was like, as a feminist, I'm so appalled by this line.

[52:11] I cannot believe I have to direct someone to say this.

[52:15] So there were definitely moments where I was like, I fucking hate TV, but then I would make my like weird movie and feel so much better.

[52:24] So I always was like going back and forth.

[52:27] Is that your bread and butter?

[52:28] If you could just make independent films of course forever.

[52:34] Yeah.

[52:34] Is that yeah.

[52:35] I mean, I would love to make independent films with big budgets.

[52:39] Like that would be the best thing.

[52:41] Um, but I've never been able to get a lot of money for the content that I want to make.

[52:48] Which is fine.

[52:49] Do you have stuff just ready to go, just like in the frying pan?

[52:54] I always have weird stuff I would love to do, yeah, sure.

[52:57] Um, but uh how that's gonna come about, I don't know.

[53:03] But I will say the nice thing about TV is that it's kind of gotten better and better and better and better, so that I've been less tempted by the indie world because I feel like I've gotten to do some really cool weird stuff.

[53:15] Like the League of Their Own, I would totally have done that on my own.

[53:19] Um because I'm obsessed with queer culture back in the day.

[53:25] Like the Butch Femme thing, the how closeted they were, the lavender marriages, like gay men married lesbians and how they had a pact that they could both do their thing.

[53:37] And I come from a long line of lesbians in my family.

[53:42] So my grandmother's sister, my great grandmother's sister.

[53:46] Wow.

[53:47] Uh my cousins, my aunt.

[53:50] There's so many lesbians in my Midwestern Kansas family.

[53:54] It's insane.

[53:55] And none of them got married, they all were out to their families.

[53:59] So I've always just been obsessed with like the women before me, and they were all femmes, which is also really weird.

[54:06] Isn't that crazy?

[54:07] Oh.

[54:07] Yeah.

[54:08] Yes.

[54:09] So I don't even want to know the odds.

[54:13] Like, are all of our gay relatives, like I remember I think about that for like if someone's like a hardcore top or a hardcore bottom, like going back in their lineage, is it th is that genetic?

[54:23] Like consistent.

[54:24] I know.

[54:25] It's so weird.

[54:26] But um but yeah, so I the League of Their Own was so fun because I got to hang out with this 90 year old woman 94 year old woman who was telling me about gay bars in Santa Monica in the forties.

[54:40] How cool is that and how they dealt with the police raids, they were all connected to the mob, they would get a tip off because there was a crooked cop that was involved with the mob that owned the gay bars that would say, Okay, the police are coming to raid it, and then all the women from the baseball professional baseball league, they were like all lesbians and they were all at the gay bars, and they would go to the bathroom and they always had windows in the bathroom so that they could jump out the windows, get onto the roof, yes.

[55:12] It was so cool.

[55:13] So like being able to film stories like that, I was so excited.

[55:18] I am so excited for you, and I'm so excited for that.

[55:21] I can't wait.

[55:22] So many people are dying for that to come out.

[55:26] We're so excited.

[55:27] Yeah.

[55:28] So and I got instead of like an indie movie where it was always like a hundred thousand dollars to make this weird, queer thing, which of course I'm so into, um, I got like thirteen million dollars to make the league pilot.

[55:42] So it was like 40 minutes, 50 minutes uh episode, and I got so much money so I could actually do everything I thought of in my head, I could actually put on screen, which was so fun.

[55:54] Wow.

[55:55] What a gift.

[55:56] I mean, who's in that?

[55:58] There's so many people.

[55:59] So Darcy Cardin.

[56:02] We love a good player.

[56:05] Dale Dickey!

[56:07] Uh Abby Jacobson, Roberta, uh c Roberta from Vita.

[56:14] So like cute little lesbian on Vita, and she was also in that Broadway lesbian show.

[56:14] The musical.

[56:14] That Broadway lesbian show, the musical.

[56:25] You know what I'm saying?

[56:26] Wait, which one?

[56:27] Fun home, fun home, fun home.

[56:30] Um, oh, Kate Berlant, I live.

[56:33] Come on, so funny.

[56:36] Um yeah.

[56:39] So it was a lot of fun, fun ladies.

[56:43] Fun, queer ladies.

[56:46] So you think about I think I've said this before on this podcast, even.

[56:50] You think about the the kinds of sets that if you could just spend a day on and like watch it happen, um, what would those sets be?

[56:59] And certainly a league of their own.

[57:01] Um does for me, you know.

[57:06] It ticks every box of I want to see how the sausage gets made.

[57:13] Well, if you want to talk to an extra on a league of their own, my girlfriend, Hillary Levitt, was an extra, so she was there.

[57:22] Hillary Levitt and I watched A League of Their Own Equisana as well.

[57:28] Um Wow.

[57:30] I can't wait to see that!

[57:32] Ah!

[57:33] Oh, that's so funny.

[57:35] That's amazing.

[57:36] It'll be like Where's Waldo?

[57:39] Um What was I gonna say?

[57:41] Oh, Russian doll.

[57:43] Yeah.

[57:45] Another Natasha Leon Vehicle.

[57:48] Um you directed a handful of episodes.

[57:53] And that's a set I do know a lot about.

[57:55] I heard nothing but um incredible things from Elizabeth Ashley.

[58:00] Um about that set.

[58:02] She loved going to work every day, and she doesn't love going to work every day.

[58:09] True.

[58:11] True story.

[58:12] She loved that set.

[58:13] She loved every person that touched it.

[58:15] She loved all those women.

[58:18] That it was a female center.

[58:21] There was no man to answer to.

[58:24] And I mean, I think the Russian doll was her whole career.

[58:28] Yeah, Russian doll was a real tribute to Natasha's charisma.

[58:32] She's such a charismatic human, so smart, so giving, so such an original.

[58:38] Like she's just an original human being.

[58:41] And when I worked with her on But a Mature Leader, I was so struck by what uh intellectual force she is and um what a funny another queer doe.

[58:55] You know, she's she lives uh her life romantically with a man, but she is a true queer doe, true queer doe.

[59:03] And she I was so excited to work with her twenty years after Cheerleader, and I said to her, You came into my story and my imagination with But a Mature Leader.

[59:14] You played me, and we could not be more different.

[59:18] We're very, very different.

[59:19] She's very Butch, even though she's lives a straight life.

[59:23] Um, and she played this super famine but a mature leader, and then twenty years later, she wrote a show where she uh the it was her mind and her world, and she let me direct her mind, which was so cool.

[59:40] It was such a wonderful dance of like creative exchange.

[59:45] Um, and that was just such a uh amazing thing to crawl into her brain and direct her imagination.

[59:55] Jamie Babbit: Um, and she's so brilliant in that part, and it's so her, and the story of Russian Doll is very much her kind of descent into addiction, and the sort of light motif of her dying over and over and over again in the series is really her waking up and doing drugs and crack, and I mean, she's talked about this before.

[1:00:20] Jamie Babbit: Um, and why do you want to kill yourself every day that you wake up as an addict, you do the same thing over and over again, you're just trying to kill yourself, and how you escape addiction through connection and getting honest with yourself, and I had seen that as her friend, her journey like to escape addiction, and then to see it play out in this really creative science fiction world.

[1:00:49] Jamie Babbit: It was just very Natasha, and I was I felt so blessed to be a part of her creative process, and um I directed the first episode I directed was when she's in the elevator and she meets the other guy who is going to be the person who she can escape this terrible cycle with because she finds connection.

[1:01:11] Jamie Babbit: So I also felt it was such a cool story point that I got to come into her story, which was basically the moment that her character realizes there's someone else who's going through the same thing as her, and how can they help each other escape this terrible cycle?

[1:01:27] Jamie Babbit: And uh, so and then I directed three episodes um of their kind of friendship evolving.

[1:01:34] Jamie Babbit: So it was really fun, and it was freezing cold.

[1:01:37] Jamie Babbit: We were in New York City, yes, and we were mostly in the East Village in the middle of the night, and I remember one time we were walking through Tompkins Square Park getting ready to shoot, and some junkie guy walked up to Natasha and was like, Oh, I love you, man, and she was like, Oh, thanks, and we continued walking by, and Natasha said, I don't know if he knows me from Orange is the New Black, or if I lived with him in a cardboard box like ten years ago.

[1:02:05] Jamie Babbit: I don't know, because it could be either.

[1:02:09] Dana Craig: Fascinating.

[1:02:11] Jamie Babbit: So I I just it was it was such a cool project to work on, and it was so many of her friends, like Brendan Sexton, she's been friends with since she was 20.

[1:02:19] Jamie Babbit: He was the lead in um uh indie movies of the 90s with her.

[1:02:25] Jamie Babbit: Um so it was like a lot of friends coming back around.

[1:02:28] Jamie Babbit: Um, so it really felt like a labor of love.

[1:02:30] Jamie Babbit: And Elizabeth Ashley, too.

[1:02:31] Jamie Babbit: I met the act I met the inspiration for the Elizabeth Ashley character, which was Natasha's real life family friend, who was very kind to her.

[1:02:42] Jamie Babbit: Um, and it was crazy because I was like, Oh my god, Elizabeth Ashley is this woman.

[1:02:48] Dana Craig: Do you know did they ever meet?

[1:02:52] Jamie Babbit: They did.

[1:02:53] Dana Craig: They did okay, yeah, yeah.

[1:02:55] Jamie Babbit: Yeah.

[1:02:56] Dana Craig: I have one question before I think Steven will do our final two.

[1:03:01] Dana Craig: Yeah.

[1:03:02] Dana Craig: If you're good with that.

[1:03:03] Dana Craig: My question is as a this is TV directing, so what is it like coming in to direct?

[1:03:11] Dana Craig: Because like having not before I knew the business, how it's structured and how people do their jobs, I assumed there was one director for the entire series, every episode.

[1:03:23] Dana Craig: This is the person.

[1:03:24] Dana Craig: So you're coming in.

[1:03:28] Dana Craig: That's that's happened before.

[1:03:30] Dana Craig: But it's like coming in new.

[1:03:33] Dana Craig: Are are there have there been issues where it's like, well, this director did this, the person before you did this, or is it just kind of understood that like, no, this is my set today.

[1:03:44] Dana Craig: Or what's that like?

[1:03:46] Jamie Babbit: It's so weird to me.

[1:03:47] Jamie Babbit: It's definitely kind of weird and awkward sometimes.

[1:03:50] Jamie Babbit: Um, but you just get used to it because you've done it so many times, so you just deal with the weird attitude that some people can have.

[1:03:58] Jamie Babbit: Um, but it's I always say it's sort of like being invited to Christmas dinner because it is really important, and you're the guest of honor at Christmas dinner, but you don't know any of the family secrets of the family that you're the guest of honor at their weird Christmas dinner.

[1:04:15] Dana Craig: Yes.

[1:04:16] Jamie Babbit: So it's like just your job to psychologically figure out what the family secrets are that no one's telling you, like the DP's an asshole, so sorry.

[1:04:27] Jamie Babbit: Or um, you know, that actor can't memorize a single line, sorry, or um the script is gonna be given to you five minutes before you start shooting.

[1:04:39] Jamie Babbit: Sorry.

[1:04:40] Jamie Babbit: Uh so they don't tell you any of that stuff.

[1:04:42] Jamie Babbit: So you find out once you get into their weird little worlds, and you also are in charge, so it's very bizarre because you also have to figure out what the power dynamics are, and um so it's a lot of mental work.

[1:04:59] Jamie Babbit: That's the mental like politics side of it, which is very heavy.

[1:05:03] Jamie Babbit: And then the creative part of it is you actually have to deliver creatively, where you have to shoot the show the way that they shoot the show, but then you also have to bring a little bit of your own and expand in a way that they're gonna love the way they shoot the show.

[1:05:20] Jamie Babbit: Cause you don't want to just be a clone of the way they always do it, because then they're not gonna respect you, but you have to fit in, but then you also want to like push it a little bit to bring bring something new, bring something that they're like, wow, that's so cool.

[1:05:35] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, we're gonna make that part of the show now.

[1:05:37] Jamie Babbit: So I also took a poetry class at Columbia, and the poetry teacher would make us, okay, we're gonna read Emily Dickinson poems, and then next week your homework is you have to write a poem in the style of Emily Dickinson, and you actually It's like a spec spec poem.

[1:05:56] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, literally.

[1:05:57] Jamie Babbit: And so William Carlos Williams and Emily Dickinson, and it's kind of I felt I sometimes I feel like directing TV is like that, like watch the show, what's the style of it, and now kind of imitate that style, but then make it your own and make it its own piece of art, also.

[1:06:15] Dana Craig: Brilliant.

[1:06:16] Jamie Babbit: So, yeah, it's obviously more fun to like direct the pilot or direct a movie because then there's nothing before you, so you can do whatever the fuck you want.

[1:06:24] Jamie Babbit: Um there we go with that again.

[1:06:26] Dana Craig: And then other people have to copy you, which is great.

[1:06:29] Dana Craig: Yeah, I mean, I guess that's another question I have earlier.

[1:06:31] Dana Craig: You said, you know, if you could make indie films with big budgets the rest of your life, you're good.

[1:06:37] Dana Craig: And you've also mentioned uh in your past you were very anti studio system for a while.

[1:06:42] Dana Craig: Like, has that changed?

[1:06:44] Dana Craig: Would you would you love to do a major motion picture?

[1:06:47] Dana Craig: Or is that like not something on the table that you care to f uh care to sample?

[1:06:55] Jamie Babbit: I would a hundred percent do a major motion picture.

[1:06:58] Jamie Babbit: I recently was up for Captain Marvel 2 and I thought, wow, if Ryan Kugler made such a cool movie like Black Panther, I could do something really cool like that with these like lady superheroes.

[1:07:11] Jamie Babbit: So that was really intriguing to me.

[1:07:13] Jamie Babbit: So I would love to have a hundred million dollars to make a weird feminist anthem with superheroes.

[1:07:19] Jamie Babbit: Why not?

[1:07:20] Dana Craig: Why not?

[1:07:21] Jamie Babbit: It's coming.

[1:07:22] Jamie Babbit: I feel it.

[1:07:23] Jamie Babbit: I feel it in my bones.

[1:07:25] Jamie Babbit: So I'm open to the adventure of my career.

[1:07:28] Jamie Babbit: I have no clue what's ahead of me, but I never say no.

[1:07:30] Jamie Babbit: I'm always like, Oh, that could be interesting.

[1:07:33] Jamie Babbit: So, I don't know.

[1:07:34] Jamie Babbit: I'm I I don't have any set rules.

[1:07:37] Jamie Babbit: I'm open to the world opening for my weirdo-ness.

[1:07:41] Dana Craig: I love that.

[1:07:42] Dana Craig: I love that.

[1:07:42] Dana Craig: I love that too.

[1:07:43] Steven Ferezy: Steven for everyone.

[1:07:47] Steven Ferezy: Oh God.

[1:07:49] Steven Ferezy: I'm exhausted.

[1:07:51] Steven Ferezy: Steven, you have a quest you have let's do our last two.

[1:07:54] Steven Ferezy: Well, we have two questions we ask all of our guests.

[1:07:57] Steven Ferezy: But enough about me.

[1:07:58] Steven Ferezy: Let's talk about you.

[1:07:59] Steven Ferezy: What do you think of me?

[1:08:09] Jamie Babbit: Well, um, my first impression of you, Steven, was funny, smart, and quick.

[1:08:16] Jamie Babbit: And it was on this podcast, 'cause that's why I met you.

[1:08:21] Jamie Babbit: Pew pew and my first impression of Dana was um, well, I heard about Dana from my girlfriend.

[1:08:29] Jamie Babbit: So my impression was through my girlfriend's stories, which was the most amazing, fabulous woman in the world with an incredible heart, and uh That's right, Hillary Hillary.

[1:08:47] Jamie Babbit: Hillary, I put the check in the mail, it'll be there.

[1:08:50] Jamie Babbit: Thank you, Hill.

[1:08:52] Jamie Babbit: Yeah, but she often would be like, Oh, you really remind me of my friend Dana, like you're on another planet.

[1:08:57] Jamie Babbit: I'm like, okay.

[1:08:58] Jamie Babbit: That must be a really cool planet.

[1:09:00] Jamie Babbit: I'll take it.

[1:09:02] Jamie Babbit: I will take it.

[1:09:03] Jamie Babbit: I'll take it.

[1:09:07] Dana Craig: I hope I all.

[1:09:17] Dana Craig: The second question.

[1:09:18] Dana Craig: Uh, there are seven very well-known dwarves in history.

[1:09:22] Dana Craig: If you were the eighth dwarf, what would your name be?

[1:09:27] Jamie Babbit: Queirdo.

[1:09:29] Jamie Babbit: Queirdo.

[1:09:30] Jamie Babbit: Queirdo dwarf.

[1:09:33] Dana Craig: I think that's perfect.

[1:09:34] Dana Craig: What was Hillary's?

[1:09:35] Dana Craig: I should have looked it up.

[1:09:37] Dana Craig: I think she wanted to change it.

[1:09:39] Dana Craig: She had two.

[1:09:40] Dana Craig: I can't remember though.

[1:09:42] Jamie Babbit: Was it like get or done dwarf?

[1:09:45] Jamie Babbit: It was like So the other really funny thing is that, you know, I live in the Snow White House.

[1:09:53] Jamie Babbit: The voice of Snow White is this woman, Adriana Casolotti, who so Snow White was the original Disney movie, the first Disney movie of all time.

[1:10:03] Jamie Babbit: And it was an animated movie, and the woman who sang all those songs, I'm wishing someday my Prince Will Come.

[1:10:11] Jamie Babbit: She was a very young Italian trained opera singer who lived in LA with Italian opera singer parents.

[1:10:18] Jamie Babbit: And when she was in Snow White in the 40s, she made her money and she built a replica of the Snow White House in Hancock Park, which is the house that I have lived in for the last seven years.

[1:10:34] Jamie Babbit: Um, and I live inside of her mind.

[1:10:37] Jamie Babbit: And there is a wishing well out front that when she was 90 years old, she would stand in the wishing well and sing to all the people walking by who always come up to my house now and say, like, oh, you know, when I was a kid, I would walk by this house, and Snow White would be standing in the wishing well.

[1:10:55] Jamie Babbit: And there's a little peephole in my bushes because every kid from the neighborhood walks and wants to peek in and see Snow White's well.

[1:11:05] Dana Craig: So I live in the Snow White House.

[1:11:07] Dana Craig: Will you send me a picture next time you're outside?

[1:11:12] Jamie Babbit: Well, listeners, um spoiler alert, this is our last episode that we will ever be recording.

[1:11:20] Dana Craig: She's kidding.

[1:11:21] Dana Craig: You're welcome for the three years of content.

[1:11:24] Jamie Babbit: Um, that's incredible.

[1:11:26] Jamie Babbit: I did not know that.

[1:11:28] Dana Craig: I didn't either.

[1:11:29] Dana Craig: I certainly knew, you know, the the history of Snow White.

[1:11:32] Dana Craig: I did not know she built a replica, and I did not know you live in it.

[1:11:37] Jamie Babbit: And I bought it from her gay best friend.

[1:11:40] Jamie Babbit: Gay best friend, who was a and I've only heard this from people in the neighborhood, so it's I don't know what's true and what's not true.

[1:11:48] Jamie Babbit: But I heard he was a hustler on Santa Monica Boulevard and 20 years younger than her, and they became best friends, and in the driveway of the home, it says Adriana Casalati Snow White in the cement, and then it says my Prince Charming, and it's his name, and I bought the house from him because he was uh she had died and he was gonna move to Palm Springs and he sold it the Prince Charming, uh he was very beautiful gay man in his seventies, uh sold it to me.

[1:12:23] Jamie Babbit: So they were they were their own queirdo little couple.

[1:12:29] Dana Craig: I actually have nothing to say to that.

[1:12:31] Dana Craig: That's the most ridiculous fact.

[1:12:33] Steven Ferezy: Lights out.

[1:12:34] Steven Ferezy: Lights out, Den.

[1:12:35] Steven Ferezy: We're done here.

[1:12:37] Steven Ferezy: Jamie.

[1:12:38] Steven Ferezy: I thought Hillary was the coolest person we would ever have on our podcast.

[1:12:43] Jamie Babbit: Yeah.

[1:12:44] Steven Ferezy: She still is, but you're a close second.

[1:12:46] Jamie Babbit: Thank you guys.

[1:12:47] Jamie Babbit: Um you're just gonna be able to do it.

[1:12:49] Jamie Babbit: Thank you so much for spending part of your um Sunday afternoon with us.

[1:12:52] Jamie Babbit: Thank you guys.

[1:12:53] Jamie Babbit: Thanks for having your own.

[1:12:54] Jamie Babbit: I guess it's Sunday morning there.

[1:12:56] Jamie Babbit: Oh, it's early there.

[1:12:57] Dana Craig: What time is it?

[1:12:58] Jamie Babbit: God.

[1:12:59] Jamie Babbit: You know, it's 10:30.

[1:13:01] Jamie Babbit: I'm ready to uh take a little stroll through the Tapanga Canyon before it burns.

[1:13:08] Dana Craig: Well, don't live.

[1:13:10] Dana Craig: I hope to see you very soon in a socially distanced manner.

[1:13:15] Jamie Babbit: I think it's gonna happen.

[1:13:16] Jamie Babbit: I'm soon relocating to New York, so um I hope to meet you both in a socially distanced manner at some point.

[1:13:22] Jamie Babbit: If you need anything, ring both of us up.

[1:13:32] Dana Craig: It's such a pleasure.

[1:13:33] Jamie Babbit: One you can dial one number and both phones ring.

[1:13:33] Dana Craig: Yep.

[1:13:34] Dana Craig: Yeah, such a treat.

[1:13:35] Jamie Babbit: Really such a treat.

[1:13:36] Dana Craig: Um, on that note.

[1:13:39] Jamie Babbit: Bye.

[1:13:40] Dana Craig: Bye.

[1:13:49] Jamie Babbit: In the Room with Steven and Dana is produced by Steven Ferrissy.

[1:13:53] Dana Craig: And Dana Craig.

[1:13:54] Jamie Babbit: Special thanks to Joel Wagoner for tinkling the ivories on our theme song.

[1:13:59] Jamie Babbit: Hit him up at Joel Wagoner.com.

[1:14:01] Jamie Babbit: We apologize, and you're welcome.

[1:14:03] Dana Craig: We'd also like to thank Jesse Wiener, W I E-N E R, for our jazzy original music sprinkled throughout each episode.

[1:14:11] Dana Craig: You can find him at jessewiener.com.

[1:14:14] Dana Craig: Last but certainly not least, we'd like to thank Kevin Thomas Garcia for taking all of our ridiculous photos.

[1:14:21] Dana Craig: You can find him online at KTG N Y C dot com.

[1:14:27] Dana Craig: We are all over the internet on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at IntheRoom Pod.

[1:14:33] Dana Craig: Follow us, like us, share us, pamus out.

[1:14:36] Dana Craig: And don't forget to subscribe to In the Room Podcast.

[1:14:39] Dana Craig: We everywhere, so subscribe.

[1:14:41] Dana Craig: And thank you so much for listening.