This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Rory O'Malley: You're listening to episode number 77 of Living the Dream with Rory O'Malley.

[0:06] Rory O'Malley: Audition, side job, swimming upstream. Believe it or not, you're living the dream.

[0:12] Rory O'Malley: Hello, dreamers. Rory O'Malley here, your host for Living the Dream. Thank you so much for listening, for downloading. You know what to do if you like the podcast. Tell your friends. Tell them about it. Tell everyone you know to come join us while we're living the dream here on the podcast.

[0:30] Rory O'Malley: My guest today is Donna Lynne Champlin. And I think so highly of her. I have for a very long time as we get into she and I both went to Carnegie Mellon University. She graduated a few years before I did, and she came back and did a master class with my group of students there. And she was just so positive and encouraging. And so it had been so fun for me to follow her career, even when I was still at school, and she was doing so many cool and fun things on Broadway and is now starring in a TV show called CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND, which I'm sure you're familiar with. I'm a very big fan of it. She's an amazing actress, performer, and TV star, but she's also a mom. And as I told you last week, I've just become a dad this month, and I'm so excited, but now I'm just gonna use this podcast as a way to talk to actor parents, at least for a little while.

And I got some tips on being a parent and also being an actor who's a parent, which you know can be tricky. So I had a great conversation with Donna Lynne. She is just the best. I hope you enjoy every single minute of this conversation as much as I did.

[1:51] Rory O'Malley: Hi, Donna Lynne.

[1:53] Donna Lynne Champlin: Hi, Rory.

[1:54] Rory O'Malley: How are you?

[1:55] Donna Lynne Champlin: I'm so good. I'm so excited that you're on the podcast.

[1:58] Rory O'Malley: Me too. I've wanted to have you on for a very long time. You know, I'm a CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND fan. I love the show so much. And I got to have Rachel on the show. I had my old friend David Hall on the show. I've wanted to go through the cast like one by one. I love you guys so much, but it's a perfect time for me to have you on because you're a mom and I just became a dad, and I want to know how to do it. Please tell me.

[2:27] Donna Lynne Champlin: Well, you know, one of the best sort of pieces of advice that in retrospect I found out to be true, because you know, when you're in it, it's like being dropped in a pool in the dark, and you're just sort of like, what do I do? One of the best pieces of advice was, it sounds so basic, but my mom kept marveling at how much information is out there now. Like even when I was pregnant, and you know, I mean, there's an opinion on everything, and there's science to back everything up. And you know, you find one article that says, you know, breastfeeding is everything, and then you find another article that says formula is everything. And it's an overwhelming ocean of information. And my mom just kind of looked at me one day and just went, I don't know how you kids do it.

You know too much. She said, back in my day, we just really kind of relied on our instincts and our sort of circle of friends and our family. And she said, yeah, there are differences of opinion, but it's not like overwhelming, and you can talk to a person about it. And I always remember when she said that because I'm a very type A research everything kind of personality. And I was starting to sort of drown in all the information, and it was all conflicting, and it just made me nuts. And so one of the best things my husband and I did was for the first like two to three weeks, we just kind of holed up in our apartment with the baby and figured it out.

[4:23] Donna Lynne Champlin: And we went, we took cues from the baby to kind of tell you what to do. You don't believe that that's possible, but they're like, no, no, it's time to change me. It's time to feed me. And each kid is different. So I kind of the best piece of advice from one parent to another is no advice. Because, you know, each kid is different. What my kid did at how old is your baby?

[4:53] Rory O'Malley: A month?

[4:54] Donna Lynne Champlin: Six weeks?

[4:54] Rory O'Malley: Four weeks, yeah. Five weeks on Sunday, yeah.

[4:56] Donna Lynne Champlin: What my kid did at five weeks might not at all be what your kid does. So, you know, I can't really tell you anything except you're doing great. You're not going to take again. And to really not listen to anyone but the baby.

[5:16] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[5:17] Donna Lynne Champlin: And I mean, that came down to I had a moment, I forget how old Charlie was. Charlie's my son. He's seven now. I kept him alive. God, he's seven. I can't believe that. Dude, some days when you just keep your child alive, it is a huge achievement.

[5:34] Rory O'Malley: Right, right.

[5:35] Donna Lynne Champlin: So we were, I forget he was a baby though. He wasn't a year old. We took him to the doctor, or something wrong with him. He had a fever, obviously had an infection somewhere. And you know, they couldn't figure out what it was, and they were sticking him with needles and blood tests and all this stuff. And I don't know what possessed me, but we went and then they gave him, you know, a shot or medicine or something, and then we were supposed to go back for two more days. And I realized that all the testing was actually making him sick. It was the stress of the doctor visits. And I actually made a crazy call where I was like, that's it. We're not taking him back, we're giving him a day, we're letting him sleep. And I was like, if this goes down south and this goes bad, it's on me, you know. But it was this crazy like paternal, maternal instinct that I was sure that he was getting worse because we were taking him to the doctor.

[6:39] Rory O'Malley: Right, right.

[6:41] Donna Lynne Champlin: And I ended up being correct. And it was a very terrifying call to make. But every instinct in my body, as a parent, as one of the two people on the planet who knew that kid the best, it was telling me keep him home, let him sleep, let him rest. And that from that moment on, I became, I think every parent has that. You'll have that, your husband will have that. Where you have to make a call, and your instincts are screaming at you to go against whatever is happening. And you will be correct. And it is a very scary moment, but it is also a very, I think, pivotal moment because once that happens to you, you know, like you know. It's a different gut, too. It's like a different voice. Besides, oh, should I go left or should I go right? It is a clarion call, full body vibrate that as a parent, you will make a call that's weird and you will be right. And from that moment on, everything is different.

[7:53] Rory O'Malley: Wow.

[7:54] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah. I mean, it really it's funny because you know, I'm thinking of this as like an actor. We like to have our script, we like to know how the story ends, we like to have direction, we like to kind of work together, but really our biggest job is listening to our team partners and being engaged with them. And the baby is giving you those cues constantly to work with you. And it's not with language, it's not always in full sentences, even when they're older, but they are trying to tell you, and you're the only human being alive who really knows their language before they have words.

[8:32] Donna Lynne Champlin: Well, the great thing about being a parent and an actor, first of all, my husband and I used to joke that we never used our musical theater degrees more than as a parent. We don't know how people who don't do musical theater do the parenting thing because we did nothing but sing the same song over and over and over and make up dances and be basically silly. Also though, as an actor, you know what I found is our natural capacity for empathy on the one hand is fantastic because you can jump into, you know as well as you can the mind and the heart of that baby because that's our job is to sort of jump into other people's perspectives, but on the other hand, it is very difficult because you feel the emotions of that baby and it can be overwhelming.

So my husband and I actually would tag each other out. We have a really clean system where you didn't question the other parent. You just like went up to the soldier, you know, just like Taffy and we're like, okay, you're taking it, you're on a five. You're on five right now. You go like copy that and you walk away. Because I felt, you know, on the one it was like a double-edged sword of being an actor and sort of having that innate tool of empathy and compassion for the other person or the character or whatever. On the one hand, you understand things viscerally, but on the other hand, you can get sucked into that emotion, and it's hard to separate between the baby's distress and your own.

[10:09] Rory O'Malley: Right, right.

[10:10] Donna Lynne Champlin: The drama of it all.

[10:13] Rory O'Malley: The emotion, yeah. Has anyone told you about the Dunstan baby language though? Has anyone told you about that yet?

[10:18] Rory O'Malley: I have heard of that, but no, tell tell me about it.

[10:21] Donna Lynne Champlin: Just go, I mean, this is terrible. Officially go buy their book and pay money to them and give them their copyright. Got it. Go to YouTube. There's a ton of videos up there. And babies actually do have a language, and it's fascinating. And I was super pissed that I found out about this after my son started speaking. There are different cries, they're sort of universal sounds. And it really does. In recollection, I was like, oh my God. Yes, that's the hungry cry. God damn it.

[11:02] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[11:03] Donna Lynne Champlin: And there's also the happiest baby on the block. Do you know that?

[11:06] Rory O'Malley: Yes.

[11:07] Donna Lynne Champlin: You know why I found helpful? Because I tried to read the books and all that stuff and I didn't really get it. And then again, I went to YouTube and I saw parents, like sort of practical videos of other parents doing like the sort of thing and all that stuff.

[11:21] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[11:21] Donna Lynne Champlin: That's the way to do it. No, it's one thing to read information in a book, but when you really apply it and you're up on your feet with the baby, or you know, watching other parents do it. We were so lucky because when we were in the hospital, the nurses came to our aid and showed us the best swaddle and how to bathe him. And the nurses are the best.

[11:46] Rory O'Malley: Wow.

[11:47] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, it was pretty crazy because we had like two days of, because it was adoption of being in the hospital and making sure he was okay. But in the meantime, since he was, it was just basically getting a full set of lessons from these wonderful nurses. And it really helped us a lot.

[12:09] Rory O'Malley: Oh, that's awesome.

[12:10] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was awesome. Well, I feel like I've known you since I was in college because we went to the same school, Carnegie Mellon University.

[12:24] Rory O'Malley: We did, we sure did, and I will never forget when you came in to give a master class when I wasn't at school. You'd only been out of school for a few years and you were on tour with By Jeeves, I believe it was in Pittsburgh.

[12:40] Donna Lynne Champlin: Right.

[12:40] Rory O'Malley: We were at the public, yeah.

[12:41] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah. You were at the public theater in Pittsburgh doing a show, and you came in to give a master class, and you were so good. You were so good, not just because you were giving us the best things to work on, but you gave us so much confidence and to have somebody from the outside who was making it happen come in and give us an actual boost of confidence. I'll never forget it. You were like, you guys are all really good. Keep going.

[13:13] Rory O'Malley: Yay.

[13:14] Donna Lynne Champlin: It was so helpful because it was kind of like I think at like the two-year mark where you know, you're like, how do you think?

[13:20] Rory O'Malley: Oh, that's the artist at CMU. Every sophomore year because they, I mean, I don't know how they do it now, but when we were there, the whole program is the first two years, they break you down like on purpose. They strip you of your regionalisms, they strip you of your mannerisms, they get you down to a neutral place so that they can spend the next two years, you know, sort of building you up or re-sorting not recreating you, but sort of letting you start again from a cleaner place.

[13:52] Donna Lynne Champlin: I think that's, you know, but boy, by the end of sophomore year, you don't know which end is up.

[13:56] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[13:57] Donna Lynne Champlin: It’s hard to, you come to that school being, you know, the best person in your high school or knowing how to do your thing, and then you have two years of people just telling you why that was wrong.

[14:13] Rory O'Malley: Thank you.

[14:14] Donna Lynne Champlin: But it's good, it's great, it gives you that foundation of technique that we're still utilizing today.

[14:21] Rory O'Malley: Oh, and I mean what, honestly with the business, because it can be really hard, and people just say a lot of crazy stuff to your face, or not even to your face, to your agent.

[14:32] Donna Lynne Champlin: I mean, I still kind of feel like, you know, I will never be as sensitive or take anything as personally as I did the first two years at college, and it broke me of that. Like I kind of have a business where I kind of look at it and go, yeah, okay, that's constructive criticism, or yeah, no, I don't agree with that, but that's cool. Like, you know, like I have a healthy distance from that kind of stuff.

[14:58] Rory O'Malley: And I think that's all part of their plan, quite honestly.

[15:01] Donna Lynne Champlin: I think they try to toughen you up a little bit.

[15:04] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, they definitely give you a thick skin. And I think that, you know, a lot of times we were, you know, kind of complaining, like, oh man, the schedule here is hard, or you know, this is a really difficult thing that we have to go through with this class or that. And then you get out into the real world and you're like, oh, I wish I had that class right now. You know, like the world is much harder.

[15:26] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah.

[15:27] Rory O'Malley: The realities of the business are much harder than anything any school can give you. So it's so important to kind of have that space to be challenged, but in a safe environment.

[15:39] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, no, I loved my four years at Carnegie, but I do sort of, I mean, when I do teach, I found like I understand what they did, and I think it did work for all of us in a way, but I personally, I'm so glad that you mentioned the positivity because I really firmly believe that, you know, you just, you get more out of a student when they're in a place of safety and confidence. You know, that person you only have three hours with a bunch of students, you know, I don't want to spend an hour and a half of it drilling them down into the floor because then I can't, then nobody can, everyone's paralyzed and nobody can do anything.

[16:25] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[16:25] Donna Lynne Champlin: And so I kind of, you know, especially when I go to colleges and stuff and teach, I always like, I even like when I advertise it or whatever, it's always like it's gonna be a positive experience. It's gonna, you're gonna leave feeling better than when you walked in. And you know, I, it's not like I don't tell you the truth. I do to a fault, maybe, but there's always two sides to the truth. You know, you can choose to either drill down on somebody or lift them up. And I, you know, I just personally think people's work is better when they're lifted up.

[17:01] Rory O'Malley: Well, I certainly remember that.

[17:03] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah.

[17:05] Rory O'Malley: And it meant so much coming from you. We just were so excited to have you there because you had a lot of success.

[17:15] Donna Lynne Champlin: I don't want to say early on, because I don't really know exactly when your success started, but you were working and I kind of followed you from that point on.

[17:25] Rory O'Malley: Um, and I think that was before HOLLYWOOD ARMS, is that right?

[17:29] Donna Lynne Champlin: By Jeeves, yeah, By Jeeves was one year before HOLLYWOOD ARMS. It went James Joyce's The Dead, then By Jeeves, and then Hollywood.

[17:38] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[17:39] Donna Lynne Champlin: Right. So you had been in James Joyce's The Dead, which was a really critically acclaimed show. Was that your first show on Broadway or no?

[17:49] Donna Lynne Champlin: It was my Broadway debut, and I was, yeah, you know who I have to thank for it 100%?

[17:54] Rory O'Malley: Who?

[17:55] Donna Lynne Champlin: My buddy from school, Emily Skinner.

[17:58] Rory O'Malley: Really?

[17:59] Donna Lynne Champlin: She got me that job.

[18:00] Rory O'Malley: Because she was in it.

[18:01] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, here's what happened. She was doing the show at Playwrights Horizons off Broadway, right? Huge hit. In this company, it was Richard Nelson who had directed it, and then in this company was Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley, fresh off of Sideshow, by the way.

[18:19] Rory O'Malley: Oh my god.

[18:20] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, Blair Brown, Chris Watkins, Sally Ann Howes, Marnie Nixon, Daisy Egan.

[18:25] Rory O'Malley: Wow.

[18:26] Donna Lynne Champlin: The cast was bonker balls. So of course it was gonna transfer. Now I'm doing the world's shittiest off Broadway show as well.

[18:37] Rory O'Malley: So I can't like go see this.

[18:40] Donna Lynne Champlin: I can't go see The Dead. We're on the same schedule. And they were gonna transfer to Broadway. So here's the thing. Off Broadway, you don't need understudies, but Broadway you do. And so typically Broadway you can afford them.

[18:55] Rory O'Malley: Sometimes, yeah, sometimes unless you're at the Helen Hayes and then God's Yes.

[19:00] Donna Lynne Champlin: But Emily kept saying, you know, you gotta, you gotta understudy me and Alice. And so my agent kept trying to get me in, and they kept saying, well, she doesn't have a, it was that, you know, catch 22 where how do you get a Broadway credit if you haven't been on Broadway already, because they won't see you unless you have a Broadway credit, but like in chat. And um, my agents pushed like three times, and so I called Emily and I said, Listen, honey, it's just not gonna work out. First of all, even though I look Irish, yeah, and you two look like you just stepped off a boat from Sweden.

[19:33] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[19:33] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[19:33] Donna Lynne Champlin: You know, because I don't look like you two, and you have understudies coming out of your ass because you just did Sideshow.

[19:41] Donna Lynne Champlin: So that was who was covering that was like Lauren Kennedy, that was like, you know, really heavy hitter understudies they had. Right. So Emily was like, hold please. And she went to Richard Nelson, like on a break at rehearsal, and said, Listen, you're gonna see my friend for the understudy of the track for me and Alice. And she said, the only thing is when you hire her, and you will, you let me call her. You let me tell her.

[20:10] Rory O'Malley: Oh my god.

[20:11] Donna Lynne Champlin: Right. So Richard Nelson was like, copy that. And this was before, like, I mean, I really, I want to say I didn't have email, I didn't have a cell phone at that point. And um, so after our shows, they were doing The Dead off Broadway at the public, and then I was doing my piece of crapastic stuff.

[20:32] Rory O'Malley: Which I want to do a whole other podcast episode on.

[20:37] Donna Lynne Champlin: So bad. Um, we all got on the phone, Alice and Emily, but I had to go like pick up the sides. I think I lived in Queens at the time.

[20:47] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[20:47] Donna Lynne Champlin: Like, I from my theater, I had to go and pick up the sides, and then Emily and Alice got on the phone and walked through everything with me because I couldn't see the show. I had no idea what I was looking at. And I like the next day, and it was all crazy rushed, and I was like, What do I sing? And she was like, sing an Irish song, and I was like, Well, are we talking like Lucky Charms, Doris Day, Irish? Are we talking like, you know, I'm gonna punch you in the face, I'm Irish? She was like, Myers, it's great.

[21:16] Rory O'Malley: So I go in the next day, they're having lunch. Of course, the only time they could fit me in was when they're eating. So I do the sides and like nothing, no reaction at all. I was like, oh, balls. Then I sang my song, got nervous, mixed up all the lyrics, pushed through though, and no reaction. I was like, damn it. So I called Emily and I was like, honey, listen, thank you so much. That was amazing. You got me in the room. It is so obviously not gonna work out for me. They could not, they were all eating, like they didn't even look up. Like I was like, you know, but it was fine, and I really appreciate it. Three hours later, I'm at my theater for rehearsal, and I get called to the box office, and there's a post-it note which I still have framed that says, from dinner, you got the job.

[22:06] Rory O'Malley: Oh my god, are you serious?

[22:08] Donna Lynne Champlin: And that was how I got my Broadway debut because my buddy and I from CMU, we went and had coffee, we were talking about our shows, and she went, Oh hey, you know what? You can be perfect for blah blah blah. And I was like, Yeah, when pigs fly. And that's when it happens. And so it's so funny, like you sometimes that's it, that's exactly how it's supposed to happen. And that's, you know, just talking to your friends and telling them what's going on and having somebody go to bat for you.

[22:39] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, it really makes all the difference.

[22:42] Donna Lynne Champlin: And the big thing that I learned from that too is, you know, I think we when we're younger, and because we watch TV and it's dramatic, you know, there's this fallacy that we have to be in competition with each other. And it's actually so unhelpful, and it's really actually super important for all of us to sort of support each other and lift each other up, you know, because the gig is yours if the gig is yours. No one can take a gig from you if it's yours, and vice versa. And from that moment on, I really do try with, you know, within reason to help anyone who asks me for help. Will you pass this on? Will you take a look at this script? Will you, you know, will you, you know, s uh forward this email for me to so and so? Like I'm like, yes, absolutely, because I'd say 50% of my career is that, yeah.

[23:41] Rory O'Malley: Yeah. You know what's so crazy is that my Broadway debut was going on as an understudy in Spelling Bee for Josh Gad, my Carnegie Mellon college roommate.

[23:52] Donna Lynne Champlin: Really?

[23:53] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, yeah.

[23:54] Donna Lynne Champlin: Josh, you covered Josh?

[23:57] Rory O'Malley: I did. I covered the William Barfay and Leaf Coney Bear roles.

[24:04] Donna Lynne Champlin: Right, because that's the part that I would like obviously cast you in.

[24:07] Rory O'Malley: Oh, that's so funny.

[24:08] Donna Lynne Champlin: What a stretch.

[24:09] Rory O'Malley: You probably were brilliant.

[24:11] Donna Lynne Champlin: It was definitely a stretch, and that was my Broadway debut is going on as Barfay, and I was very nervous, and luckily I had Josh to kind of like give me tips and to watch his performance.

[24:25] Rory O'Malley: Um, but I don't, you know, if it hadn't been for him in that situation and him being so excited for me to have it, yeah. I don't know if I could have like, you know, bit my teeth into the part as well as I did, and yeah.

[24:40] Donna Lynne Champlin: Well, here thank god, I mean, you know, the understudy again, you know, the All About Eve, you know, joke is of course the don't ever let the understudy go on because I will, I'll never, you know, go on again. Actually, really dumb because the understudy is there to save your ass. The understudy's job is to save your ass.

[25:01] Rory O'Malley: Yes, you know, yeah.

[25:03] Donna Lynne Champlin: Oh, that's wonderful. I'm so glad that he, you know, was so awesome.

[25:09] Rory O'Malley: Well, he also kind of owes me because, well, I was his, I just for being his friend, which is a task of its own. But, um, but because when I went, I was living in Los Angeles, we both were actually, and I went to New York and saw Spelling Bee in previews, and I was like, dude, there is a part that's gonna open on Broadway, and it's played by this guy named Dan Fogler, and he is so good, he's gonna win a Tony, and you're the only human being who can replace him in this part.

[25:39] Donna Lynne Champlin: True, and he did.

[25:41] Rory O'Malley: So I was like, Well, you owe me now.

[25:44] Donna Lynne Champlin: And he got in the show, and then I got in the show like six months into his run as the understudy for those parts.

[25:51] Rory O'Malley: Amazing.

[25:53] Donna Lynne Champlin: I know. Well, I mean, because, you know, continuing on the theme of the kindness of friends and strangers. When I went on in The Dead, because they had transferred from off Broadway to Broadway with the same cast, the only new people were the covers, they had no rehearsal period.

[26:13] Rory O'Malley: Wow.

[26:13] Donna Lynne Champlin: They just text, they just closed to the public, tech'd at the Belasco for a week, and opened.

[26:20] Rory O'Malley: Wow, that's actually rare.

[26:23] Donna Lynne Champlin: Right. It's rare, and no offense, all that all cheap. But that's what happened. So all the covers, and it was a very weird show where like the music wasn't written down, you know, the books, the rewrites in the book, you know, did not get kept up during the football for whatever reason. So the understudies never got a score, never got a scroll a correct script, and then Emily went out second preview. I had no costume, I'd never set foot on the stage.

[26:55] Rory O'Malley: What?

[26:56] Donna Lynne Champlin: I lived in Queens. Richard Nelson calls me. Once in the audition room, and then once like at a meet and greet, and that was it. He calls me and he says, Listen, it's noon. The matinee is at three.

[27:12] Rory O'Malley: No.

[27:15] Donna Lynne Champlin: It's gonna take you an hour just to get in here. And I understand you've never had a rehearsal, you don't even have a costume, no one has ever, like you've just been sitting in the dark in a tech.

[27:28] Rory O'Malley: Oh my god.

[27:29] Donna Lynne Champlin: And he said, You are well within your rights, and no one will get mad at you if you said I just can't do it. And I was like, fuck that. I was like, of course I can do it. I then puked in the garbage can, jumped on the train, and that show.

[27:44] Donna Lynne Champlin: Did you ever see it?

[27:46] Rory O'Malley: No, no, I didn't see it.

[27:47] Donna Lynne Champlin: I remember seeing it on the Tonies.

[27:49] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[27:49] Donna Lynne Champlin: It was very Chacovian in the way that like it was a party, and you know, people there was, you know, you had your backs to the audience, and it was very sort of voyeuristically directed.

[28:01] Donna Lynne Champlin: And that company of superstars walked me through that whole show to the point where it would be like, Mary Jane, you know, it's time for you to sing that song that you love to sing.

[28:14] Rory O'Malley: Oh, you don't know it.

[28:15] Donna Lynne Champlin: I'll sing it with you.

[28:17] Rory O'Malley: Oh my god.

[28:18] Donna Lynne Champlin: It's time for you to pour the lemonade.

[28:20] Rory O'Malley: Mary Jane, could you collect these dishes?

[28:22] Donna Lynne Champlin: Like they just made up shit all night long to clue me into what my blocking was.

[28:29] Rory O'Malley: Oh my god.

[28:31] Donna Lynne Champlin: Without a rehearsal period.

[28:33] Rory O'Malley: That's like that is insane.

[28:35] Donna Lynne Champlin: It's one thing for you to watch an entire rehearsal period and be like, every day you kind of see what the character is doing, but to only have tech where you never really see it go all the way through from beginning to end.

[28:49] Donna Lynne Champlin: Well, you know, I have just worked ironically with Marilyn Cooper.

[28:52] Rory O'Malley: Did you ever work with Koopy?

[28:54] Donna Lynne Champlin: No.

[28:55] Rory O'Malley: All right, she was this amazing vaudevillian actress.

[28:57] Donna Lynne Champlin: She was the original Rosalita in West Side Story.

[29:01] Rory O'Malley: Oh.

[29:02] Donna Lynne Champlin: And she was, I can't remember if she was the cover to Russellita or she was Russellita and the cover to Anita.

[29:08] Rory O'Malley: Uh-huh.

[29:09] Donna Lynne Champlin: But first preview, she had to go on.

[29:13] Rory O'Malley: And I remember she had told me, she said, if you ever cover, you need to know all of your shit from day one.

[29:20] Donna Lynne Champlin: I don't care if there's no rehearsal. I don't care if whatever.

[29:23] Rory O'Malley: And I really think that was like a specific gift for me because I had never covered before until James Joyce is the Dead.

[29:32] Donna Lynne Champlin: And I remembered what she said, and I committed everything that I could to memory, the best to my ability.

[29:39] Donna Lynne Champlin: And because I did that, I was, you know, I was able to sort of walk through that performance with everyone's help, obviously.

[29:47] Rory O'Malley: I could not have done it if that cast hadn't been so generous.

[29:50] Donna Lynne Champlin: But it really is about supporting each other. I know it sounds cliché and crunchy, but I swear to Christ it's true.

[29:56] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, no, it's totally true, but it does take a lot of experience to really believe that because you feel like it's a rat race, and you know, you've got to figure out a way to get ahead, and other people are just taking your opportunities, and that's to your detriment.

[30:13] Donna Lynne Champlin: But you have to realize that other people's success is not your failure.

[30:17] Rory O'Malley: Right, right.

[30:18] Donna Lynne Champlin: I remember Cabernet once said to me, I think we were, I don't know if we were just chatting at rehearsal or whatever, but we were talking about this kind of thing, and she just looked at me and shrugged her shoulders.

[30:28] Donna Lynne Champlin: She was talking about when she had just moved to New York and she lived in this building, and she was kind of the first person to ever like do a Don't Tell Mama show.

[30:37] Rory O'Malley: Like I was like, you're a pioneer.

[30:39] Donna Lynne Champlin: You did like your own showcase. She did a showcase for her building.

[30:42] Rory O'Malley: It was on her own.

[30:42] Donna Lynne Champlin: Wow.

[30:43] Rory O'Malley: And invited agents and managers.

[30:44] Donna Lynne Champlin: Like she was totally ahead of her time in so many ways.

[30:48] Rory O'Malley: And I think I can't remember the story exactly, but I think it was like she made the showcase, and then somebody else in her building got like the big break out of it.

[30:58] Donna Lynne Champlin: Like she did all the legwork, and then somebody in the building.

[31:01] Rory O'Malley: I can't remember. I think it has happened.

[31:03] Donna Lynne Champlin: And she just, and I looked at her and I said, Oh my god, that's horrible.

[31:06] Donna Lynne Champlin: And she could just looked at me and shrugged her shoulders and she went, it was her turn.

[31:11] Rory O'Malley: And I thought, oh my god, that's a fantastic way to sort of look at life.

[31:16] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah.

[31:17] Rory O'Malley: Is when somebody else sort of gets something and you're still waiting, you just look and you go, it's their turn now.

[31:23] Donna Lynne Champlin: And it'll be my turn at some point.

[31:26] Rory O'Malley: But it kind of takes the whole competitiveness out of it. It makes it all seem rather fair.

[31:31] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah. It's just, it was just her turn.

[31:34] Rory O'Malley: And she just kind of shrugged her shoulders about it.

[31:36] Donna Lynne Champlin: And I thought, wow, that is a great way to look at it.

[31:38] Rory O'Malley: Well, speaking of your turn, I feel like HOLLYWOOD ARMS, a show that I also did not get to see, but really, really wanted to. Like that was such an exciting thing.

[31:49] Donna Lynne Champlin: Well, maybe just because I love Carol Burnett, but I also knew who you were, and I was so excited for you.

[31:54] Rory O'Malley: Oh, thank you. And you had such wonderful reviews and it was so exciting. What was that experience like?

[32:00] Donna Lynne Champlin: Well, working with her. It was banana pants because it all, as many things in the theater, it was many years in the making without you even realizing it. This is also a lesson on, you know, don't be a dick. Like always be the best and most professional you can be because you just don't know how the wheels are turning.

[32:21] Donna Lynne Champlin: So long story short, I was working with Hal Prince on a musical called Three, which was three one acts. And I happened to, with an amazing cast like Chris Fitzgerald and John Shear, and it was like a crazy awesome cast. And Hal directed the fine the third one act, and I just happened to have the leading part in it. So his eyeballs were on me a little bit more than the others.

[32:47] Donna Lynne Champlin: One day in rehearsal, he randomly comes up to me and says, So uh hi baby. I hear the baby.

[32:55] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, yeah.

[32:56] Donna Lynne Champlin: Uh-huh. My mom and husband are with them. So if he starts crying, don't think I'm neglecting him.

[33:02] Rory O'Malley: Please, I'd be like, let somebody else handle it.

[33:05] Donna Lynne Champlin: You would know. You would know. Um, the listeners might be like, wow, Rory's just letting that baby cry in the background. I love my baby so much, not my turn.

[33:13] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, so one day he randomly comes up to me in rehearsal and says, So uh, I'm working on this play with Carol Burnett. You know who Carol Burnett is? I was like, oh yeah. He says, and um, I don't know, I think you'd be perfect for it. You know, we're gonna do like, um probably we're gonna do it in like Chicago or something. I don't know. I mean, is that something you'd be interested in? I was like, wait, what happened? What are you saying to me? What's going on right now?

[33:36] Donna Lynne Champlin: He was like, Yeah, you wanna do you think, you know, you can play Carol Burnett and play that she wrote or I'm gonna direct, I don't know. Is that interest you? I literally was like, I literally don't know what bizarro Twilight Zone world I'm in right now, but yes, please.

[33:52] Rory O'Malley: Oh my god.

[33:53] Donna Lynne Champlin: And it's from Hal Prince.

[33:55] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[33:55] Donna Lynne Champlin: So then though, fast forward like eight months later, like he never says another word about it.

[34:02] Rory O'Malley: Uh-huh.

[34:03] Donna Lynne Champlin: And we had at that point, like we'd done the show Three at Philly, and then there'd been a long like hiatus, and then we were at the almonds and one day he comes out of the blue, says to me, Oh, by the way, uh, Carol's here tonight. She's gonna see the show and she's gonna come back and meet you. I was like, I was like, wait, what? Because I kind of thought, because you know how like people say things to you in the business, and like in the moment they believe it, and then it just never happens. And it, you know, it had been like eight months later. So I was like, you know what? That was a great moment. At one moment in time, Hal Prince thought that I should play Carol Burnett, and it was great.

[34:39] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[34:40] Donna Lynne Champlin: And he goes, Yeah, so Carol's coming tonight, she's gonna come and she's gonna meet you. So we did the show. Of course, the worst show we ever had, because that's how it always goes. And she comes back and I was monosyllabic, like I couldn't form sentences.

[34:55] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[34:56] Donna Lynne Champlin: And she, of course, was as gracious as she always is, and that was it. And then months and months and months go by. And I'm, you know, my focus is now shifted to By Jeeves. We're sort of picking up that ball.

[35:07] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[35:09] Donna Lynne Champlin: In Pittsburgh, heading to Toronto, hopefully heading into New York. And um, so while we're doing By Jeeves, I think in New York, and you know, Carrie Hamilton, Carrie's daughter, or uh, Carol's daughter, Carol and Carrie wrote it together. They adapted her memoir one more time into this play called HOLLYWOOD ARMS.

[35:31] Donna Lynne Champlin: And it was about Carol's formative years. First act, um, she's played by a 10-year-old, and then the second act, she was played by me, who was supposed to be 18, but I think I was in my mid-20s at the time. And um, so while I'm doing By Jeeves on Broadway, I am putting myself on tape for Carrie because while Carol had sort of signed off on me, Carrie had been ill with cancer, and she hasn't been able to sign off on anybody because she couldn't, she was in the hospital.

[36:01] Donna Lynne Champlin: So I put myself on tape, and then it was sent to Carrie, and then they narrowed us down to two different families. It was bananas. My family, which looked nothing like Carol was me, Michelle Pock, Linda Lavin, and Frank Wood. The other family, which we saw because we all we got called in, was crazy to put all of ourselves on tape, was a family that looked just like Carol. They had this girl, I nearly shat myself. I don't know who she is, but she looked like Carol Burnett, and I thought, well, really, it's over.

[36:40] Rory O'Malley: That family was that girl, and then I think Judy Kune, I want to say the Michelle Pock role, and I forget who, but like I remember looking at that family, going, Well, you know, I looked at Michelle and I was like, Well, we're clearly the black, the black sheep, black Irish rejects. I was like, no way they're gonna cast us things.

[37:00] Donna Lynne Champlin: So that's such a weird way to cast to be like, here's team one and team two, and let's see which one we like put all together.

[37:08] Rory O'Malley: Is it because you guys worked so well together and looked as a family unit?

[37:13] Donna Lynne Champlin: I think it's too. I mean, I think, you know, they got to the point where they were like, We like all these actors.

[37:19] Rory O'Malley: Wow.

[37:20] Donna Lynne Champlin: You know, we could either, you know, do I don't know if it came down to which group do we like better, yeah, or I do know Carol very specifically did not want anyone looking like her or her family on stage because the character's name was not Carol, right? The character's name was Helen Melton, right? And I think it was very important to her to have that distance because she wanted people to take in the story of a girl, not necessarily the story of Carol Burnett, right? And you know, I think that worked in our favor that we didn't look like her or her family because I think she very specifically wanted that separation, yeah.

[38:02] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, yeah, and then Carrie approved, and then we went to Chicago and we did it, and then Carrie passed away, and there was plans to go to Broadway, and we of course all assumed that it would not happen because Carrie had passed away, and yeah, I'm sure you know, Carol was obviously distraught, and um we went forward with the plans to move into New York because A, that was the plan, and B, Carol actually was like, I can't sit at home doing nothing, just thinking about my dog, yeah.

[38:38] Rory O'Malley: So she was like, This actually would be great, we could work on it, you know, it's a celebration of her, and uh, yeah, it was it was amazing.

[38:47] Donna Lynne Champlin: The whole thing was just I every day I pinched myself. I just couldn't, you know, and I had like such great material, and I had worked with Hal before, and so we had a relationship and it wasn't like all brand new. Like I, you know, I had worked with him before, and I felt like I had sort of proven myself as a commodity with him, so he trusted me.

[39:09] Donna Lynne Champlin: And yeah, I do remember one moment though where I went up to Carol, I brought, I said to Carol and Hal, I was like, Can I just talk to you for a second? And they're like, sure. And I said, Listen, I'm very concerned because I feel the pressure of the person playing Carol Burnett, and I know it's Helen Melton, but listen, it's Carol Burnett, like we all know.

[39:29] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[39:31] Donna Lynne Champlin: And I said, I'm very concerned because I feel like the expectation is for me to walk down a staircase, right? You know, curtain with a curtain rod.

[39:39] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[39:39] Donna Lynne Champlin: I said, and there's no business here. Like I have this one sort of like six-page monologue where I kind of get to bust out. But really, the character of Helen Melton and who Carol is a very sort of blank slate kind of person. She's a very um ground zero kind of personality, and she observes. You would think that, like, you know, when you go out to dinner, Carol would be like doing the Tarzan yell. She's exactly the opposite. She's very quiet and she's constantly observing, which is why she's such a master comedian because she's always paying attention.

[40:15] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[40:16] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, and I said, I'm very I'm I'm nervous because I feel like I'm gonna get my ass handed to me, and they're gonna say, This kid, you know, this lady playing Carol Burnett is not funny enough to play Carol Burnett. And I said, I don't really have any funny stuff. And I remember Hal and Carol both said to me, This is the truth. This story that we're telling is the actual truth. You have to trust that the audience is gonna recognize what truth is.

[40:43] Wow.

[40:43] Donna Lynne Champlin: And you can't, you know, give them a cake, you can't just serve them a bowl of icing. You gotta give them cake. And I just looked at them and I was like, okay, you know, but I so I because I was basically asking for a punch up, is what I was asking.

[40:58] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[40:59] Donna Lynne Champlin: And they, you know, I think they punched up a little bit for me just to calm my nerves.

[41:03] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[41:04] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, but that was my main concern was I was feeling all this pressure that I was gonna have to be wacky, Carol Burnett. And Carol was like, but that's not who I am. She's like, and that's not who I was, and we're gonna tell the truth, and that's why I want to tell this story. That's one of the We're not doing a musicalized version of the Carol Burnett show. We're doing this story.

[41:21] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, and she was adamant about it, and she was right. I mean, obviously, of course, she's a genius, but it was a really crazy, crazy ride.

[41:32] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, yeah. Well, we were cheering you on back in Pittsburgh.

[41:36] Rory O'Malley: I remember very specifically being just so excited for you, even though we were unable to go see it. But man, it was just a really, really cool thing to have you had just come to our school, been so positive and see you go on and do something so exciting.

[41:51] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, I but again, I did not audition for that, like technically. Yeah, that came from, you know, a job that I got because of somebody that I knew who got me in the room.

[42:02] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[42:03] Donna Lynne Champlin: And then I met Hal, and then the blah. Like it's the wheels are constantly turning. And so you, you know, the people who take the risk of behaving badly or unprofessionally or whatever. Just I just don't understand it because, you know, it may not, you may not have consequences to that in the job you're in right now, but it's incredibly short-sighted because every job that you're in right now leads to the next five jobs.

[42:09] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[42:09] Donna Lynne Champlin: You know.

[42:32] Rory O'Malley: It's so true.

[42:33] Donna Lynne Champlin: It's so so true. I I am always mystified when people leave a bad taste in in the pe the in other people's mouths from their behavior because they look look down on a reading or whatever it is because it's not the greatest thing ever or whatever, because those people might be doing the greatest thing ever next year. And they want to put people in a room who make them proud to be, you know, working, proud to be a part of something. And I I never understand bad attitudes.

[43:10] Rory O'Malley: I mean, here's I mean, it's a fine balance, especially as you get older. I'm sure you're finding this. Where, you know, you you do have boundaries, you know, the the the it shifts a bit.

[43:21] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah.

[43:22] Rory O'Malley: Where, but you still have to figure out a way to be professional and respectful. Uh if you're in a situation where, you know, you feel very strongly about something, you know, you have every right to express yourself, but you really, you know, you have to always remember, you know, to be to be respectful and in the way that you do it and draw that boundary and and you know, try to be cool.

[43:48] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah.

[43:49] Rory O'Malley: Um, well, let's talk about the the uh time that we worked together, which was so exciting for me. I loved that show. Uh you were so good in that show.

[44:01] Donna Lynne Champlin: We did Pride and Prejudice.

[44:03] Rory O'Malley: You were amazing.

[44:05] Donna Lynne Champlin: I love that show so much.

[44:06] Rory O'Malley: I know. I hope that it's I I mean it's still out there, right?

[44:10] Donna Lynne Champlin: Like Yeah, I've aged out, I'm pretty sure.

[44:13] Rory O'Malley: I I do not think that's possible.

[44:17] Donna Lynne Champlin: I just love the I loved your performance so much. We did Pride and Prejudice, the musical, and you were Jane Austen.

[44:23] Rory O'Malley: Yeah. And it was a really great take on it because it it really brought so much more to the story to have you telling the story and to have a lot of things.

[44:32] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, basically it was the gist of it was Pride and Prejudice, but what people not a lot of people don't know is that it was based Pride and Prejudice was based on a manuscript that she wrote called First Impressions, which she submitted to be published and was rejected.

[44:47] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[44:47] Donna Lynne Champlin: And she put it in a drawer and then she grew up and matured a little bit. And I think she published like Sense and Sensibility. She got a couple successes under her belt. She took first impressions out, and then she rewrote it. And so our the musical that we did, which I think is now called Austin's Pride or something. They keep changing the name. I don't know.

[45:05] Rory O'Malley: Okay.

[45:07] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um it is uh it's the process, it's it's the writer's process of Jane Austen from turning this manuscript of first impressions into Pride and Prejudice, which is what we all know and love today. And it's a musical and it's um very clever, and it just I I you know I think especially that Rory and I did this production um uh what shit, where was it? It was in Rochester.

[45:32] Rory O'Malley: Eastman, right?

[45:34] Donna Lynne Champlin: Of course. Oh god, yeah. In your hometown, right?

[45:36] Rory O'Malley: In my hometown.

[45:37] Donna Lynne Champlin: We did it at at the Eastman, and it was like Colin Donald and Laura Osness.

[45:40] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, it was like this phenomenal cast.

[45:43] Donna Lynne Champlin: And uh I mean, I've done subsequent versions of it since, and I honestly don't think it's ever been as amazing as that that first night at at Eastman. And I don't know if it was just because it was like, you know, Eastman and it's a huge theater and it was, you know, what orchestra. Beautiful.

[46:05] Rory O'Malley: Um, but you were so good. God, you were so good in it, Rory.

[46:09] Donna Lynne Champlin: You were so amazing.

[46:10] Rory O'Malley: Oh, you're so sweet. I I I had the best time. For me, that was like uh like getting to work with you and to work with that with that cast on on something that was new and it was the food and it was like the autumn and it was just a beautiful time of year.

[46:25] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah. Like three weeks, right? I think what we rehearse it for two weeks and then we did it.

[46:30] Rory O'Malley: Oh, it was yeah, like be it was crazy fast, and it was a huge, huge score, and um it was a lot of production value for a staged concert and costumes and just was it was gorgeous.

[46:41] Donna Lynne Champlin: It was really it was like Encores, yeah.

[46:45] Rory O'Malley: But I think even like maybe a little a step like just um yeah, production value-wise, maybe just a step up of Encore, at least what Encores used to be. I don't know what it is.

[46:54] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[46:56] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, no, it was it was so great, and I I was so excited to get to watch you work and see your process and to see you really just like take uh uh uh uh the stage. I mean, you it was it wasn't a one woman show, there's huge cast, but you really had so much of the stage to yourself throughout the show because you were telling the story.

[47:19] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, I mean, the trick was to find that line between a storyteller and sort of not narrator, because you know, a narrat a narrator is uh can be a trap, you know, where that's true, yeah.

[47:31] Rory O'Malley: You sort of fill in plot holes and you sort of re-explain what people are already watching, and that was sort of my main concern.

[47:38] Donna Lynne Champlin: I don't know if you know this, but I saw the writing on the wall pretty early when we entered rehearsal.

[47:45] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[47:46] Donna Lynne Champlin: And I actually, about the third day of rehearsal, I went up to I think we had the assistant director at the time. Um, and I said, Listen, this is what I'm seeing. I'm seeing two separate worlds. You've got the huge, enormous world of pride and prejudice, which has all the people in it, and that's gonna take all the rehearsal time. And then you've got me in a separate little orbit over here. And I said, This is what we should do if you're cool with it. You focus on Pride and Prejudice, you focus on that, you put all your energy on that. I am gonna make a bunch of choices over here, and I am gonna take care of myself, and I'm maybe gonna do some weird shit. I want you to take notes and come up to me after and say, I like that, I don't like that, I like that, I don't like that. And I said, I will take the responsibility of me and this track off your plate because we don't have enough time for you to concentrate on both.

[48:42] Rory O'Malley: Wow.

[48:43] Donna Lynne Champlin: And he was like, Yes, that would be awesome because you know, the Pride and Prejudice world had like 35 people in it, it was enormous.

[48:51] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, it was enormous, and we we had choreography.

[48:54] Donna Lynne Champlin: You had choreography and huge numbers, and yeah, you know, there was just me. And so I said, Listen, I'm gonna take care of myself and I'm gonna make a bunch of choices. I'm gonna try a whole bunch of different things. I'm gonna touch people, I'm gonna say lines with other people, I'm gonna change the script a little bit, and you're gonna tell me what you like and what you don't, and that's how we're gonna figure out what this is. And that's how that part ended up getting up from the table. You know, originally they just wanted me to sit at that table for two and a half hours. And I was like, and I actually said, if that's what you want, that's fine, but you don't need me. Like you don't need this character.

You need a reason to need this character. And the only reason is the character has to be active. And the only way the character can be active is if they're writing in real time. And the only way we can show that she's writing in real time is by putting her in the middle of all these people, pushing and pulling them, turning them around, pushing them together. You know, I said she has to be writing it. So I am going to kind of fuck people's shit up a little bit, but in a good way. And I, if you let me do it, I think we're gonna discover some stuff.

[50:01] Rory O'Malley: So that was actually one of the first times in my adult career where I kind of did that, where I kind of saw the situation, saw the problem, took responsibility, went to the director, got clearance, right, and then just did a whole bunch of crazy stuff.

[50:21] Donna Lynne Champlin: Which is that that's exactly what you were talking about, is that you can take the reins or you can have an opinion about what needs to happen in a rehearsal room. You just have to go up and get permission or have the exact discussion. Loop everybody in, make sure everybody's cool with it. And but that was a huge lesson to me too, is you know, at my life and at the point in my career was I was just starting to feel solid on my dramaturgical sense. You know what I mean? I would I was starting to be able to look at plays structurally. Um, you know, my my eyeballs were were not just actor eyeballs anymore. I was my brain was starting to think in different terms. And that can be helpful as an actor because you can identify problems and you can head them off.

[51:09] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[51:10] Donna Lynne Champlin: Absolutely. I think that a lot of times we think, well, that's not my job. Or it's somebody else who has to figure this out because I don't know. Well, no, it is. It's your job because you're the one who's gonna be on stage. And no one in the audience is gonna be thinking, oh, the director didn't do this, or the stage manager must not have told him or her this. No, it's it's up to you. It's it's your ass on the line in front of thousands of people.

[51:37] Rory O'Malley: Oh, now here's what's what's your thought on this? Because I've recently heard because of you know, all the equity contracts and stuff and the lab and the whatever, and you don't get points and blah blah blah. Um a lot of people, a lot of actors now in workshops will not do something like that because they think it's not their job. And if they're not gonna get points or credit, why should they save the ass of the show or save the ass of the writer when the writer is just gonna take credit for that idea?

[52:09] Donna Lynne Champlin: Right.

[52:10] Rory O'Malley: Um, and I can see the sense in that. I mean, that's sure. I mean, I I certainly I've certainly done my part in new musicals where either I've been replaced or aged out, and I see my work being credited to someone else. Like something that I, you know, but it is that sort of I don't I don't really know how I feel about it because you know, you get hired to do a job, and part of the job I think is to do your best and help make it better. But on the other hand, if you're not gonna get paid or even any sort of credit for that work, is it really your job? What do you think?

[52:14] Donna Lynne Champlin: I mean, I I completely think that work should be compensated. So, you know, like it the solution should just be that contract. Yes, that there should be participation when you are in a lab situation, or it should be that we're all working on this together and creating it together, and there should be royalties participation. However, like I I think that that battle is not in the rehearsal room, it's in the equity building. You know, that that uh you can't go into a room and say yourself off.

[53:30] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[53:31] Donna Lynne Champlin: I mean, uh I don't know how I don't know how to work that way. I don't think that you can worry about that because again, the the room that you go into and you say, I'm not giving you my all because our contract isn't good enough, then it's probably not gonna get you into the room where the contract is good enough. Um I I just uh I completely understand that. And I've definitely worked put poured my heart and soul into projects that uh I don't see money from or that, you know, didn't give me any participation. However, then I was able to understand when I walked into a first reading of the Book of Mormon and stuck with it for three years and did get participation and did know what I was I knew what I was doing because I was able to play.

I was able to give the writers what they needed, and luckily, uh they the contract was appropriate, you know, so that it and I'm a huge, huge believer that the that we need to renegotiate that. I mean it's insane. The Mormon guys famously took care of their actors, which is like I mean, they you know I I remember sort of being on the outside looking in, going, Oh man, those South Park guys really did it right, you know.

[55:00] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, I remember I was talking to Heidi Blickenstaff, who was, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but she was telling me that she was in all of the workshops she was doing and there was a track for her that was pretty decent, and then they made the decision to go to Broadway, and they, for purely dramaturgical reasons, because if anybody knows Heidi Blickenstaff, you know she's like a brilliant power genius.

[55:27] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, they decided to cut her track basically down to nothing. And what they did was they said to her, we are gonna give you a choice. You can go, you can please join us on Broadway. We love you, and have two minutes of stage time. Or and collect your royalties from the workshops that you did, or you can collect your royalties, have your time free to do a project that will be more beneficial and appropriate to your talent. Well, throw a guy in a dress for two minutes and everything will be fine. And I remember she said to me, I felt so incredibly respected by that because A, I was still compensated. I didn't have to be this happens to actors all the time. You know, you do a workshop, you've got a huge track.

It just happened to Emily Skinner in Chicago. They did share. She plays Cher's mom. She had a whole bunch of shit to do. Right. Between Chicago and Broadway, they had to do rewrites for whatever reason. They had to chop up her part down to like basically nothing. But she's still committed to this show. So, you know, she's now in this show where originally she had a lot to do and now she doesn't. And sometimes I'm not speaking for Emily, but like, you know, as far as Heidi goes, sometimes as an actor you feel kind of trapped because you agree to do a show on these terms, and then all of a sudden, by the time you get to Broadway, those terms are not at all what you know agreed to. And what they did was they didn't trap her in a track that was, you know, kind of unworthy of her time.

[56:41] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[57:08] Donna Lynne Champlin: Well, what also, you know, it was crazy because uh, and I think the guys would say this when they first did the reading, when we first read it out loud, uh, it was all of us Mormon boys in Salt Lake, and it was Heidi and the families of the two main boys, and then they went to Africa and there were n and none of us were there. So they were writing what they would write for like a movie, not for a stage show, so that you know, everyone was like, you can't just hire actors to be in the first two scenes. If you hire actors, they have to be used throughout the entire show. Uh right. So that's kind of what happened with Heidi's part and with different, there were there was also a daughter. Um, so really there were no white women in the show by the by the time we got to Broadway, but there always had been a couple of parts there.

It's just uh it really just became they realized like we've got to cut this one number that was before they went to Africa. It was called Family Home Evening, where it was just about uh Mormons, you know, having family nights and playing games. It was really, it was a great number. It was really funny, but they wanted to just get keep the show's momentum going and get them to Africa. So it's true, like Heidi was totally utilized because she's amazing, but they really didn't have enough for her. And that's why that is why it's so important to have participation because Heidi gave three years. And when you give so much of your time and effort to something and you're getting paid a, you know, a couple hundred bucks a week.

[58:41] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, you you are, even when it's something that doesn't end up in the show, you are giving them the ability to figure it out.

[58:50] Donna Lynne Champlin: Exactly. They may not use your idea, but whatever your idea is may have springboard them to another idea, like the whole point is so that they don't have to figure out that it doesn't work on opening night on Broadway. Right. So that they're they that that time is supposed to be so that they can utilize your talents to figure out the best way to tell the story. And so I I mean, it's one of the reasons that there are still original company members in the Book of Mormon and why a lot of us stayed for for years after opening night, because we felt very much that it was our show, that we had put so much of our time and effort and that it had been respected. And I I think that uh for the the small amount of money of of giving a cast that works on developing a show compared to what everybody else is is taking from it, uh I I think the benefits would so would be enormous for for every production because you have people who feel invested in a completely different way.

[59:55] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, I totally agree. And you know what? As an audience member, I saw you guys in previews. First of all, dude, you were like fucking phenomenal. You were so good.

[1:00:02] Donna Lynne Champlin: Oh but I mean, it was you can feel as an audience member that cohesion. And I remember saying to Andy, my husband in intermission, I remember saying to him, you know what? This is the first time that I feel like I've seen a show on Broadway where the the you can tell, you can just tell that there weren't too many cooks, you know, that the people making the decisions were all the people that were actually part of the process.

[1:00:34] Rory O'Malley: Because you know you can go to a show and all of a sudden, you know, you can be like, Whoa, wait, whoa, what it why did that happen? And then you find out, you know, they didn't cut that scene because it cost them $80,000 to make like the bed or whatever.

[1:00:49] Donna Lynne Champlin: And that's not an art, that's not a cohesive artistic decision. That's somebody who spent a lot of money and wants to see their money on stage and they don't care what they do to the show.

[1:01:00] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[1:01:01] Donna Lynne Champlin: And I was like, you know, this is the first time where you can tell that like the guys who had the money but also had the artistic vision, but also all these actors have been with it for a while. Like I was like, this is this is might be the first time I've ever seen a fully cohesive, seamless show.

[1:01:20] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[1:01:20] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, no, I I I mean, we certainly felt like we were ready at the first preview to tell the story. It wasn't no, we didn't was we still made changes throughout previews, but we were ready to go. We were we knew the story we were telling. And uh I I think that the guys definitely knew what they wanted to do the first day that we started rehearsals for the readings, and it was just about how to get from point A to point B. Um, and you know, they had the they had a vision and they're just very lean storytellers.

[1:01:54] Rory O'Malley: Oh, I learned so much about not being precious about everything you write and about just storytelling from getting to to work with them.

[1:02:02] Donna Lynne Champlin: Well, also that cast though, I gotta say, as an actor, it was so thrilling to see the most talented, most appropriate actor for each role. You know, there was no star stunt casting. There was no like, you know, every single actor up there, I could not think of another actor that would have been better.

[1:02:28] Rory O'Malley: And it was so just as an actor, it was just so wonderful to just see the respect of the casting process where the guys clearly knew that, you know, if there was a star of the show, it was them.

[1:02:41] Donna Lynne Champlin: Right.

[1:02:41] Rory O'Malley: And so it felt like the pressure was off to, you know, hire somebody who maybe was like super TV movie famous, but wasn't quite right. And it was just so refreshing to see a cast of, you know, complete and total heavy hitters.

[1:02:58] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, but but who people who were not household names and there was nobody who was nobody was on stage because they were gonna sell tickets.

[1:03:05] Rory O'Malley: That was the benefit of having Matt and Trey be the stars of the show.

[1:03:09] Donna Lynne Champlin: They didn't have to show up every night, but they was so excited about audience.

[1:03:13] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, because I thought, oh, I hope this really shows other producers that you don't have to bend a show out of shape and hire, you know, like it works.

[1:03:23] Donna Lynne Champlin: The wheel, the wheel works.

[1:03:26] Rory O'Malley: Well, this the this brings me to where you are now because now you are a TV star.

[1:03:32] Donna Lynne Champlin: So you're yeah, you are a TV star.

[1:03:36] Rory O'Malley: It's so crazy.

[1:03:37] Donna Lynne Champlin: You're you're in a TV show that is really just paid homage and is bringing our medium to households across the world with such love and fun. You it's a musical comedy called CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND, as as I've already stated, I'm very big fan of it. I I want to know uh uh I want to know what it's like for you to be doing musical comedy for camera and not on a stage and what the differences are and uh what surprises you about it.

[1:04:12] Donna Lynne Champlin: It's extremely different. And I'll tell you the biggest adjustment that I had to make without even realize I mean, it was a surprise to me is I as a live theater actor, I never really and one who does comedy, I never realized uh you know, I don't want to call it a crutch, but it was a tool is is the audience. And you know, as you know, uh you know, you if you're doing a comedy, you can tell within the first 10 or 15 minutes what kind of comedy audience they are. Are they a physical comedy audience? Are they are they listening? Are they listening? Are they, you know, and so you I you know, you fine-tune every performance with information from the audience. The audience is telling you where what they're finding funny and what their sensibility is and so you fine-tune your performance to you know to sort of fine tune the um the experience that they're having right show to show moment to moment yeah and it's very it's sort of like you know a bit of a psychic net that you sort of uh cast and you just you always have a bit of your brain calibrating the audience reaction and I don't know why it didn't occur to me but when I started to work on on Crazy X I obviously you no one can laugh on a take if you laugh if anybody laughs they fuck up the take and it's unusable so you know everyone tries really really hard not to make a sound during a take and I was at sea because I would do these things and I would expect a laugh like my literally my gut would say okay hold for laugh for one two you know yeah and I I didn't have that at all and I actually went through like a bit of a a bit of an identity crisis for the first like four to six episodes of season one because I I had I had not realized until I didn't have it anymore that the audience was basically telling me what to do and that a lot of my humor was not in my brain coming from me.

[1:06:30] Rory O'Malley: It was bouncing off of the springboard of the audience, and so without that springboard, I didn't know I was incredibly insecure.

[1:06:38] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah, and um, you know, I would think, Oh Jesus, I hope that was funny. I thought it was funny. I don't know if it's funny. What's funny? What's funny?

[1:06:46] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, yeah.

[1:06:48] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, and then so that was very difficult. Um, and then with the musical numbers, oh my god, I still they still they it still feels weird because you know, we pre-record, and it's funny because when we first started, I said, No, no, no, no, I'll sing it live. You know, like I didn't understand that when you do it, right? I didn't get it, and I they were like, No, okay, so we want you to pre-record face your fears, which was my first number, and I was like, Why? And they were like, Because we have to record it and then we have to score it, and then we have to this, and then we have to, you know, judge, you know, zhuz it, and then we may have to cut stuff and we may have to whatever. And I was like, I don't, I don't, I don't understand. I was like, I'll just sing it like when we do it, like a musical, like I'll just sing it. And they were like, No, you you can't, yeah.

[1:07:41] Donna Lynne Champlin: I said, I most certainly can, and they're like, No, no, no, we're not saying you can't, yeah, sure, you can, but we can't, the machine can't, the machine, yeah, the machine can't do it, and I was like, Oh, so then you record it and you record it sometimes out of context without knowing what the scene is around it. You kind of just have to make a lot of choices about the song and hope that the whatever rewrites of the scene before it and after it makes sense, yeah.

[1:08:12] Rory O'Malley: And then there's the lip syncing, which Jesus Christ, I just, you know, do you have the in-ear? Do you have like an in-ear with the music playing in your ear?

[1:08:22] Donna Lynne Champlin: No, usually we'll do playback. We sometimes will do if there's dialogue, they'll do the dialogue live, like if there's you know dialogue in between verses or whatever, and you'll have like an ear wig.

[1:08:33] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, but most of the time we'll just do playback.

[1:08:37] Rory O'Malley: Um, which is basically the difference is if you have an earwig, it's like having an earphone that you can't see, and then playback is when they play it really loud, like you're in a dance club.

[1:08:47] Donna Lynne Champlin: Right.

[1:08:48] Rory O'Malley: Um, and I just find because as a singer, again, something that works for me live very well is I am I'm an organic singer, right? Like I'll I'll definitely, you know, sing it the way it's written-ish. Um, but I may, depending on how I'm feeling or how the audience is show to show, might a little longer. Or I might do a bit of a drop or you know, like I I'm I will sing the song organically as to how I feel in that moment.

[1:09:21] Donna Lynne Champlin: Now the problem with playback, the problem with recording your song ahead of time is the way you're feeling in the booth that day may not be how you're feeling when you're actually sort of there in the set in the clothes, in the thing with the lights and the people and the whatever, but you're locked in. And also, you know, they'll I have a strict never auto-tune me policy. Oh, I just personally I hate it. I find it, I think it's cheating. And so I kind of drew a boundary very early on in season one. And I said, if you need me to come back and re-record something because it's pitchy, I'll do it, but never, absolutely never auto-tune me ever. And they're all copy that. Um, and you know, sometimes, you know, you'll be in the booth for an hour or so, and they may cut this version of that verse with the other version of the other verse.

And, you know, as an actor, yeah, you know, the way you did it the third time may be more angry than the way you did it the fifth time. And if they decide to cut verse B from number five and put it with verse A with number, by the time you get the mix, I mean, again, our music team is, you know, exemplary, you know, yes. It's just, you know, those little actor ticks where Yeah, you had a story you were telling. Right. And they're, you know, it's only for you. It's like not anything anybody would pick up, but it's it throws me, you know, and I'm just so as a live performer, I'm just used to going like from tip to tail. And so it's very strange to have so many opinions, right involved in the final product, which you don't have the control over that you do when you're on a stage live. It's completely up to you. Like we were saying before, you know, it's not anybody else's ass, it's yours.

[1:11:18] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah. On TV, it's so many other people who have control of your performance. But not beyond you. Here's the good part of that, though. The flip side of that is, you know, if you have an off night in the theater and you crack a note, that's it. Right. Whereas, you know, if you're in the booth and it takes you a couple times to get a note right, people in TV land think you nail it every time because they don't know. Yeah. So I mean it's definitely pros and cons all the way down the line, but I swear to God, it just couldn't be more different. And it's so funny because when we um the series regulars, just this past hiatus this past spring, we just did like a really quickie two-week live tour. Right, yeah. And it was so thrilling. It was so thrilling to do those songs live.

[1:12:11] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, I bet.

[1:12:12] Donna Lynne Champlin: It just, you know.

[1:12:14] Rory O'Malley: Well, I'm sure it was thrilling to you. What was it for some of the other cast members?

[1:12:18] Donna Lynne Champlin: No, some of the cast members had the opposite feeling where they were terrified and they were like, oh, Jesus, I have one shot and they better not, you know, screw it up. Whereas I was like, oh yeah, read. I'm alive. Read them.

[1:12:31] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[1:12:32] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, but I mean, all those decisions that get made obviously, at least in our case, are made by exceptionally talented people. And you know, it's all to make me look good. And I'll tell you, sometimes I will see, I will watch the show and I will look at that and go, oh, I was not that funny when they did it. They cut that, they changed my timing just a little bit in post and make it funnier. So, you know, a lot of times I really firmly believe that they just they're wizards in post.

[1:13:05] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[1:13:06] Donna Lynne Champlin: And they will, I mean, they will flip an image, they'll put you on the other side of a person. They'll take, they'll take your dialogue from another take and put it in your mouth. Like it's wow, it's amazing what technology they can do in post. I mean, they they color it, they clean it up, they make you look, you know, way better than you really do. I mean, it's astonishing. Um, the magic that they wield all to make you look better. And so if only they could bring that to a Matinee to help us get through. Although bless it, those matinee people, they can't see.

[1:13:44] Rory O'Malley: They can't see that.

[1:13:45] Donna Lynne Champlin: That's true.

[1:13:45] Rory O'Malley: We all feel like we're in a god light.

[1:13:48] Donna Lynne Champlin: That's true. That's true. That's that's on our side. Age seniors. But you've you have uh gotten to do so many different things. Uh Crazy Ex Girlfriend is is such a new adventure, and it's it's not just new to you, it's new to all of us.

[1:14:05] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[1:14:05] Donna Lynne Champlin: Four seasons of a musical comedy is it's phenomenal. It's so great.

[1:14:10] Rory O'Malley: It’s such a great show.

[1:14:12] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um you're in your last season, and I I swear to you, I never ask this question because I hate when people ask me where what are you gonna do next? But the only other person that I've asked this to is Rachel, um you're the creator of and star of your show. But I'm asking it of you because uh it's you have also gone back and forth between New York and LA, and you're you your home is New York, you have to do the show here in Los Angeles. What are you gonna do next?

[1:14:44] Donna Lynne Champlin: Because this has really opened up a whole new world to you in in TV, but also like it's also gotta be giving you other opportunities on stage in New York. What do you see your next steps as being?

[1:14:56] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, well, it's funny because again, something that I've learned as I've gotten older is the less I plan, right? The better off things turn out. Right. Um, so and also, you know, now I'm I have a seven-year-old son, which just changes absolutely everything. Um, because you know, there's a freedom when you don't have kids that I I don't have anymore. My husband and I, you know, we're a unit. The three of us are a unit, and it's the most important thing for us is to be together. And um, so our plan is to not have a plan.

[1:15:36] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um the only thing that we know that we've decided on is that we will stay here in LA. We're gonna wrap this season probably around March. Um, and then we're gonna stay here till June because my son goes to school here and we want him to have the completion of a school year.

[1:15:54] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[1:15:54] Donna Lynne Champlin: Uh, and the plan is to move back to New York in July. Um, however, if something comes up, if uh a show comes up here or if a movie or whatever, we will change our plan.

[1:16:14] Rory O'Malley: Well, it's great now that you have you have options, and sometimes, you know, you're like, oh, it's great to have options, but it can also be overwhelming, especially I imagine with a seven-year-old. And obviously, I'm asking for a reason because I'm like, so how do you make those decisions?

[1:16:29] Donna Lynne Champlin: And and you know what? You you really I mean, you you don't.

[1:16:33] Donna Lynne Champlin: Because here's what we did. Well, I mean, you do actually. When we were here first season, second season, third season, you know, sometimes we wouldn't find out if we got picked up till like February or March, you know.

[1:16:45] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[1:16:46] Donna Lynne Champlin: And we first couple of years we went crazy because we could we just like, well, what are we gonna do? Well, we should make plans. Well, we should blah blah blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we kind of finally decided to take the power away from the situation of not knowing.

[1:17:02] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[1:17:02] Donna Lynne Champlin: And we just made our decision. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna put enough money away so that we can stay here, no matter if we get picked up or not, right? We will stay here until the end of his school year, whatever year that was. And I will have enough money saved away to pay the rent here and to, you know, pay for whatever we need. And we choose we choose the child.

[1:17:29] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[1:17:30] Donna Lynne Champlin: And um, it just so happened that every year they were like, oh, we got renewed. And we were like, oh great. Well, we'll just stay put then.

[1:17:37] Rory O'Malley: Wow.

[1:17:38] Donna Lynne Champlin: Um, but our plan, you know, like my fantasy right now would be to get a television show in New York, kind of do what Sutton Sutton is doing.

[1:17:47] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, yeah.

[1:17:48] Donna Lynne Champlin: Because I mean, I I really like LA and LA has done a lot for me. But I'm a new I'm a New Yorker, and so is my husband. And um, you know, at that's where my family is, and um, you know, so if we could choose, and we will, you know, we would we will go to New York and uh but the the TV schedule, just a heads up for you, the TV show is a much, much more parent-friendly gig.

[1:18:18] Rory O'Malley: Yeah, especially if you can do multicam, multicam is the ultimate parents' dream.

[1:18:22] Donna Lynne Champlin: I know, yeah.

[1:18:23] Rory O'Malley: I did I did one uh uh several years ago, and there were parents in who were like, all right, headed back to headed back home, you know, it was like basically we were all working at the office.

[1:18:34] Donna Lynne Champlin: Yeah.

[1:18:34] Rory O'Malley: With with Monday through Friday, nine to five.

[1:18:37] Donna Lynne Champlin: Because you know, with a theater schedule and a kid, it's rough because you they get home from school, you know, whatever, and then you leave for the theater, and then they're off on the weekends and they have their games and their dances, recitals and stuff, and you're at the theater. And so I my I would love I mean, I miss the theater desperately, and I would love to do something, but if if I could just have my fantasy, I would love to do a TV gig in New York until my kid is about 12 or 13 when he doesn't want you know mommy around.

[1:19:09] Rory O'Malley: Yes.

[1:19:10] Donna Lynne Champlin: Which will probably be about 1213. So I want to soak up these last four to five years where he actually wants me around.

[1:19:17] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[1:19:18] Donna Lynne Champlin: I don't want to miss that.

[1:19:19] Rory O'Malley: No.

[1:19:20] Donna Lynne Champlin: No, I know it's it's it's tough because I I share the same passion and love for theater, but it really is a different kind of life commitment uh for years of your life, especially if you if you something successful, you you have to pour yourself into it. And the eight show week schedule is no joke.

[1:19:39] Rory O'Malley: And that's why doing TV, even though the hours are long, you're like, this is like vacation compared to

[1:19:39] Donna Lynne Champlin: Well, I mean, yeah, there are days that I don't see him for like, you know, I'll get up before he gets up and I'll get home after he goes to bed. That'll be like three days in a row where I don't see him, but I always have my weekends.

[1:19:56] Rory O'Malley: Yes.

[1:19:57] Donna Lynne Champlin: You know, and the pay, you know, the pay compared to the theater is phenomenal. So there's that too. Like my kid will go to college, so that's well, I I'm I've I've gone way over my my time that I said that I was gonna talk to you, but I don't care.

[1:20:13] Rory O'Malley: I love talking to you.

[1:20:14] Donna Lynne Champlin: I love talking to you too, and I just I've wanted to have you on for so long, and it's just it's the right time because I I respect you so much as an actor, and I respect you so much as the a person who's made so many great choices in your career, but also as a a parent, and um you it's it's one of those things where you don't know that you're being uh uh a leader or showing somebody how to do something, but because you uh were always like open about being a mom and and getting to see you just walk around New York City with your Charlie, it's it's in that inspires me because you know you know it's like when you're a young actor, you think, how the hell am I ever gonna have uh a family? How am I gonna have these other things that I wanna do? And to see you do it and do it so well has been such an inspiration to me.

[1:21:07] Donna Lynne Champlin: So you know what's really funny is you know, they say babies bring abundance, which is true. I once Charlie was born, I had so many job offers, I couldn't fucking believe it. I was like, where the hell were all these before? And you know what's also amazing, and I I'm excited uh for you to experience it. It's a little terrifying. But you know, when you are a parent, um, you know, you say no a lot more. Obviously, A because you know, if you're gonna go in the hole because you're gonna pay child care, like 15 bucks an hour for a sitter and the thing's only paying you, you know, two bucks an hour. Yeah, you know, but also, you know, you pro your priorities are gonna shift where you're gonna go, ooh, do I wanna be in a rehearsal room and possibly miss his first steps?

[1:21:54] Rory O'Malley: Yeah.

[1:21:55] Donna Lynne Champlin: Or, you know, it's you sort of, you know, when it's just you, you go, ah, fuck it, I'll do it. I don't I'm not doing anything else. Yeah, you know what, I don't give a shit, I'll do it. But then like, you know, when you have a kid, all of a sudden you really start prioritizing the actual work.

[1:22:10] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[1:22:10] Donna Lynne Champlin: And it's really it's really exciting because I kind of never realized how often I just said yes to stuff until I started saying no. And there's a, you know, there's a big power in saying no, because it really does shape, you know, you are more of shaping your destiny.

[1:22:27] Rory O'Malley: Right.

[1:22:27] Donna Lynne Champlin: So I'm excited for you for that.

[1:22:29] Rory O'Malley: Thank you so much.

[1:22:31] Donna Lynne Champlin: I will uh definitely be calling you off and on forever advice.

[1:22:36] Rory O'Malley: Call me for anything. Seriously.

[1:22:37] Donna Lynne Champlin: I, you know, I'm constantly texting new parents and being like, well, this worked for us. So, you know, we'll hang out. We'll hang out before you go in July.

[1:22:46] Rory O'Malley: Oh, good.

[1:22:47] Donna Lynne Champlin: Just in case you do, because I'd love for you to meet our boy and I'd love to see you and and your family.

[1:22:53] Rory O'Malley: Oh, that would be great.

[1:22:54] Donna Lynne Champlin: Let's do that.

[1:22:55] Rory O'Malley: Sounds good.

[1:22:56] Donna Lynne Champlin: Audition, side job, swimming upstream. Believe it or not, you'll live in a dream.