This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Leah Walsh: Hi, and welcome to The Compass, the podcast documenting the struggles of life as an artist.

[0:05] Leah Walsh: I'm Leah Walsh.

[0:06] Leah Walsh: My guest today is Carrie Preston.

[0:09] Leah Walsh: Carrie is a wonderful actor as well as a director, writer, and producer.

[0:12] Leah Walsh: She's a fellow graduate of both the University of Evansville and the Juilliard School.

[0:17] Leah Walsh: And she's someone whose drive I've admired for a very long time.

[0:21] Leah Walsh: She's had a successful acting career, but really what we talk about in this conversation are all the ways that she's created her own work, her own art outside of her mainstream work.

[0:32] Leah Walsh: She has a production company.

[0:33] Leah Walsh: Um she's directing short films all the time.

[0:36] Leah Walsh: She's writing scripts, and it's really inspiring to me the way she really makes her creative life extremely full.

[0:42] Leah Walsh: She also does a lot of work with the New Harmony Project, which is a new play development conference, which I've worked with in the past and I really admire.

[0:50] Leah Walsh: So I hope you enjoy the conversation.

[0:52] Leah Walsh: Happy New Year to everyone.

[0:54] Leah Walsh: 2017 was an extremely difficult year in so many ways.

[0:59] Leah Walsh: There was also a lot of growth.

[1:01] Leah Walsh: Um, and I'm looking forward to a new one.

[1:05] Leah Walsh: So I'm wishing you all the best, and I hope you enjoy the 103rd episode of The Compass.

[1:20] Leah Walsh: The first question that I always start with is what do you do to keep from going to the dark side as an artist?

[1:28] Carrie Preston: I to keep from going to the dark side, I I just stay I just stay incredibly busy, you know, creatively. And um I'm like a little hummingbird, you know. I don't I don't I don't light for too long on something. And I guess that would include dark thoughts. Um so uh I I try to remain active. Um creatively, but also just, you know, socially, you know, intellectually um physically um but I also you know have a I would say a very cursory kind of knowledge or understanding of Buddhism and I find that that's a a very helpful thing to have as an artist, you know, that idea that you know we are all uh in the same place and that suffering is sort of part of the human condition.

[2:33] Carrie Preston: Uh-huh. You know, and I count sadness, I guess among that, you know, suffering and that, you know, if you try to fight it, it only makes it worse. You know, so there's that thing about just sort of accepting it. And yeah.

[2:49] Leah Walsh: When did that kind of come into your life?

[2:51] Carrie Preston: Um, I mean, I guess, you know, my parents were very non-traditional in their I grew up in the South, but they were definitely not traditionally religious in a in any way. So we didn't go to any churches or anything, but they were very much into like alternative kind of spiritual stuff. So I guess it was kind of in my life as something that I could have gravitated to, you know, um, anyway. And then I would say once I got to New York and I was up here and there was a lot of chaos, I started like looking for, you know, uh kind of a sp a spiritual anchor in some way.

[3:33] Carrie Preston: And I knew I wasn't gonna be in the traditional church, and I tried, you know, other things like science of mind and you know, not s not Scientology. That's totally different thing. Totally different thing. Never never tried that. But, you know, science of mind was this thing that they had at Avery Fisher Hall. They had they would have these Sunday services at Avery Fisher Hall, which is right at like at center. Right. And so I started going to those and it was very, you know, sort of um kind of more the self-helping yeah, I guess more yeah, more new agey kind of vibe, which was cool, but it still wasn't really doing it for me, you know.

[4:17] Carrie Preston: And then I started reading books by Pama Chown. Yeah. You know, and everybody, you know, just kept saying, You gotta check her out and stuff. Yeah. So once I've had so many people say that. Yeah, so once I started reading her books, yeah, I was like, oh, okay, because she makes it so accessible to Westerners. And then I w you know, I've I've been to like a weekend where she spoke, you know, at the Omega Institute and found that to be really wonderful and you know, I do my best to meditate.

[4:47] Carrie Preston: I'm not good at sitting still as I started off telling you. Yeah. So that that's a definitely a challenge for me. But when I can sit still, you know, when I allow myself to sit still, I find that it is it keeps me from you know, going to the dark side.

[5:05] Leah Walsh: Yeah. Well, I mean, those are things that could be helpful to anyone in any walk of life, but it really is particular to artists. I feel like there's so much self-scrutiny that's involved or can be if you kind of let yourself go down an unhealthy road in pursuing this as a career.

[5:25] Carrie Preston: I feel like it's particularly helpful.

[5:27] Carrie Preston: Yeah, it is, and well, I mean, it's sort of part of our job requirement, actually, is to scrutinize ourselves. I mean, because we have to understand what all the millions of tools are that we have in our bodies, which is what we use to build our characters. So it makes sense that we would get caught in that. It makes sense that lines get crossed when you're playing a role and you kind of get a little confused as to who's thinking the thoughts, you know, and you see why people turn to substance, you see why people, you know, turn to other people, you see why people destroy, you know, marriages like you know, you see all it can make it makes complete sense when you think about what it is that we choose to do with our lives.

[6:15] Carrie Preston: You know, we're walking around with nerve endings in front of us, yeah, leading us through the world.

[6:25] Carrie Preston: Yeah. They're not inside us, they're right out on the completely exposed. They're right out on the outside.

[6:32] Leah Walsh: Yeah. Well, at from the outside, you're someone who's had a lot of success within the business of being an actor, within the structure of being an actor. But I'm particularly interested in um the things you've been doing that are uh self-motivated, kind of outside of the the major TV stuff you've done and things like your production company and New Harmony Project and stuff like that.

[6:57] Leah Walsh: Yeah, the things that have really been able to keep you busy between between roles where someone else is giving you the paycheck.

[7:06] Carrie Preston: Exactly. Yeah, I know it it um I guess it was around 2000 and four. So I had been out of grad school and in the profession for you know a good decade and you know I was doing my thing and making my living and very grateful for that but I realized there was a something that was atrophied in me, you know, because I had kind of given my power to other people.

[7:36] Carrie Preston: Yeah. You know, to tell me that it was okay for me to do what it is that I want to do with my life. You know, and sometimes they would pay me and sometimes they wouldn't but still I was going to them and saying can I do this thing? Right. You know and this is what you should do. This is what you are. Right. This is what you are or you know I would like to play this part. No, you can't play that part, you know, or yeah you can play this part but only for a month.

[8:07] Carrie Preston: You know or whatever it is, you know, so I just thought okay I I just have more that I want to say in the world and in with my life and um I and I I want to just see if I can figure out how to get the tools to do that. You know so I just started taking I took a I got a uh grant through the Fox Foundation which was at that time giving grants to actors to do continuing education in some way.

[8:38] Carrie Preston: Um it had to kind of had to have it had to do with your um your acting. So I was like, okay, but I wanna like study filmmaking. So I I kind of tricked it into a thing where I took a filmmaking class, but then I went and took an on-camera acting class at the same time so that I could say, you see what I'm learning behind the camera's gonna help me with with what's in front of the camera and that's true. It's very true.

[9:08] Leah Walsh: Where did you take the class?

[9:10] Carrie Preston: So it was through the New York Film Academy, but they have these campuses all over the world really. And I went to the um campus at Universal Studios in in LA.

[9:20] Carrie Preston: Um because at the time I was kind of you know trying to dig up work out there. So I'm I've always been kind of doing the bicoastal thing. Um and plus I just thought it would be cool to you got to go shoot on the back lot at Universal as a student. You know, which is pretty cool. Like you're on the you know Western set, you know, you're on these like iconic sets and you're a student, you know, and you've got a camera in your hand on the first day.

[9:45] Carrie Preston: So I did this like really intense five week course and this was pre-digital.

[9:51] Carrie Preston: Okay. So we're shooting on like super eight, super sixteen. We're shooting on film and then we're cutting on film.

[9:58] Carrie Preston: Nice. So they're teaching us how to cut old school, you know, and this was not that long ago. It's just right uh in the digital revolution right so it was like right as it was happening.

[10:09] Carrie Preston: So it was cool to learn how to edit by hand with tape and you know you'd make the splice and you cut it and you put it through the the machine and it was it was really cool um so when when you got into when we got into digital nonlinear editing it was nice to have that tool you know it's that sort of idea of if you know how to do Shakespeare then you can do right a commercial.

[10:35] Carrie Preston: You know so it was like okay if you know how to like cut in a linear way then that's gonna help you so much, you know when you're directing or whatever but um so anyway I I did that and then and then my uh friend of mine from Juilliard James Vasquez he was in my class at Juilliard and he was like hey I wrote this script and you know nobody's gonna give me money to do it but maybe we could figure out how to do it together since you've been studying filmmaking.

[11:03] Carrie Preston: So we literally got one of those little mini DV digital cameras and we taught ourselves everything his now husband uh then uh partner Mark Holmes and so you know the three of us just did everything I directed it James wrote it he was in it we got our friends to be in it Mark shot it with me Mark and James cut it we all you know we just like got in there and learned how to do it and um and we ended up piecing together this feature film and we sold it and you know and it went to tons of festivals and then we just reinvested in the next thing and that's amazing that you sold the first one that you did.

[11:46] Carrie Preston: Yeah I mean it wasn't for much you know but we didn't make it for much you know so you know that's the kind of trick with indie filmmaking is that you certainly can't roll the dice thinking you're gonna make a lot of money.

[11:59] Carrie Preston: You know, they're just those ones that sell for the millions at Sundance are very few, you know. So we kind of learned that no budget filmmaking style and I actually really prefer it, you know, because you just have more control and it's crazy. It's like putting on a community theater play in a way, you know. It's just there's cameras there and you know it's a little more expensive. But um, but you know, so we did that, and then we just we kind of got off on that. You know. We got out we we liked, but that feeling of like, hey, we had a story to tell, and we wanted to, you know, do it, so we figured it out. And this was like right at the beginning when everyone else was doing that too. And now, of course, you can shoot a movie on your iPhone, and there's problems with that too, because of course now we have too much content, you know, and it's hard to even find anything.

It's like Horton Here's a Who, you know, you can't get the word out, you know, you cannot get the word out. It's really, really hard. Even a major major television show is having a hard time getting audiences because we're all just screaming for the same people. Um, but at that time when we started doing it, you know, there was still an eager audience that was being kind of underfed. And so that, you know, really excited that really fed us, you know, to be able to feed them.

[13:21] Leah Walsh: So and you guys have continued. Are you just actively making anything right now?

[13:24] Carrie Preston: Yes, we're actively making something right now. Um, yeah, we're constantly doing stuff. Um, James has been doing a lot, a lot of theater. He directs a lot of theater now.

[13:35] Leah Walsh: Is he here in New York or is it in the United States?

[13:39] Carrie Preston: He's in San Diego, yeah. Yeah, so they live in San Diego, and that's kind of our base, our hub there. Um, and then uh I've been sort of doing the New York end of things, so uh the last thing I did was uh kind of a dock um uh live concert stand up sketch show that I recorded of of Kate Rigg, who's a brilliant uh comedian, and um she also has a band and she does these live shows, so I filmed our live show over like three different performances, and then I took her, she has character comedy too, and then I took her characters out on location and I shot them, and then I cut it cut it all together into this weird like concert indie movie. It's called Happy Lucky Golden Tofu Panda Dragon Good Time Fun Fun Trip.

[14:33] Leah Walsh: So where can one see that?

[14:35] Carrie Preston: Well, well we haven't we haven't we it did all these festivals and then we haven't you know we got exhausted with the whole self-distribution thing. So I think we're probably just gonna throw it up on Amazon or something, you know, because you can like self you can self you know promote now and you can self-distribute and it's just a lot of work, but you can do it, you know. So we're probably heading towards that. But um, yeah, and then I'm I'm actually just trying to legit get into television, like legit television, like as a director and producer and writer. So I've got uh a couple of different projects that I'm trying to get going. One of them I wrote, so it's you know being sent around as a you know, just a script. And then one of them Lynn Rosen wrote, who wrote this a web series that I direct called Darwin.

[15:31] Leah Walsh: Yes.

[15:32] Carrie Preston: And um we had Carl Kensler on. That's from that, but I don't remember what episode number.

[15:36] Leah Walsh: That's right. I remember that he did that.

[15:38] Carrie Preston: Yeah, so um she was one of the writers on Darwin, and so she wrote this pilot that um is really fun and is great, but a lot of people in Hollywood don't really like to read. So and this is a high kind of a high concept script. So um, so I'm shooting uh a proof of concept for it. So basically I'm shooting the first eight pages. That's just an easier way to pitch it. Yeah, because then it's like here. This is the first seven or eight minutes of this thing, this half hour show. This is the world, this is what it's gonna feel like, you know, on on in its lower budget form. But this is this is the idea. And you know, do you want to hear more? Do you want to read the script? Do you want to see, you know, so it'll be like a little selling tool.

[16:29] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[16:29] Carrie Preston: Plus it was just fun, you know, for us to just see if it even works, you know, and and it it's a good way to kind of test that out, you know, to see what comes up off the page and you know how this is this concept even viable. I mean, I think it will be. Um, but it's you know, a great way to kind of do it without with lower way lower stakes.

[16:29] Leah Walsh: Yes.

[16:29] Carrie Preston: You know.

[16:53] Leah Walsh: Yes. Have you gotten into directing um theater as well, or is it obviously been drawn to film stuff?

[16:59] Carrie Preston: Yeah, I've done theater in the past and I and I have a couple of projects that really when one in particular that really really has been speaking to me for a couple of years now, then I've directed some workshops and readings of it, and now um we're at the in the process of trying to get a theater somewhere in America interested in letting us do it. Not not the easiest thing to do, but um certainly not in New York City, but it's a really cool script. It's written by Susan Ferrara.

[17:32] Leah Walsh: Okay.

[17:32] Carrie Preston: And it's called Buzz, and it's about Marianne Buzz Goodbody, who in uh the early 1970s was only one of three female directors in the UK. She was with the RSC. And um she had been chugging away there, you know, for a long time and doing these like really cool experimental things, but you know, what couldn't get the big break, you know, and they basically just kind of tossed her a shed, and like you you could go direct over there if you want, some scene study, and so she went over to this shed and she turned it into a theater and she did Hamlet and she cast uh then Unknown. Basically, he was a spear carrier for the company, Ben Kingsley as Hamlet, and um so anyway, uh that place then became the other place, which was a huge their huge alternative space at the RSC.

So, anyway, this is a story about her, and um, and it's also a story about Hamlet. So it's like this interesting, you know, combo of a theatrical piece about a woman's journey as a professional in a man's world, and then a man, you know, Hamlet sort of searching for his place in the world, and you know, how those things intertwine and really the glass ceiling, what happens when you repeatedly hit the glass ceiling?

[19:10] Leah Walsh: Yeah, and that's what happened to Buzz.

[19:13] Carrie Preston: So it's it's a really cool story.

[19:15] Leah Walsh: Yeah, um, can you talk a little bit about any sexism that you've faced as an actor or now that you're trying to be a director? Have you found that it's difficult?

[19:25] Carrie Preston: I know there's just there's just not a lot of yeah directors being hired, yeah, but I think that times are changing. Obviously, we're in a big moment right now. And it's it's great to see that women are coming together and supporting each other and trying to make this moment actionable instead of just reactionable, you know. People are really trying to put things to the test and you know, putting putting networks and agencies and um studios um to the test and saying, listen, you know, you gotta promise us that by 2020 we're gonna have 5050. You know, like we we have a goal here. Yeah, you know, and let's let's go for it. Let's uh let's have parody, you know, let's have uh and I don't know if we're gonna be able to reach it in two years, but it's good to kind of have this goal, you know, and and to see leaders that are really um leaders, female leaders in the industry who are really vocal about that.

And um, you know, I'm doing my best to try to change that, you know. Uh but it is it is a man's world, but I I don't know. I I just keep on doing my thing and it in it can be infuriating, but I feel you know, fortunate that I I didn't have I haven't experienced some of the really horrible things that some of the people have experienced that that have been speaking out.

[20:56] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[20:57] Carrie Preston: But you know, we all as women experience sexism daily, you know. It's really exciting to me. Like the Kilroy's list and yeah, people putting down lines in the sand about parody. It does I have a lot of hope for it, but then in the back of my mind, I think I'm also scared that it's just gonna fade away.

[21:17] Leah Walsh: Yeah, it'll be because people's attention spans are so short.

[21:20] Carrie Preston: Yeah, people are like, oh, you're still talking about that? You're still talking about that. Oh, you guys shut up. You've just shut up.

[21:25] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[21:26] Carrie Preston: It is exciting to think that this might be a moment of not gradual change, but yeah, fast change. What is that Tina and Tina Facebook uh Bossy Pants? Did you read that? It's been a long time since I had I feel like in the first page or something, she says, I feel like the definition is it bitch? The definite the definition of bitch in Hollywood is when a woman still keeps talking even after you stop wanting to fuck her.

[21:57] Leah Walsh: So people get mad when women keep talking.

[22:00] Carrie Preston: That's true. They just don't want us to keep talking, you know. They're just like, you already said that. Now shut up, you know. But I think we're at a point where we're actually gonna not stop, you know, and we're just gonna keep on talking. And we we've got strength and numbers, I think right now, which is good too. And um, yeah, it's it's it's a tough hurdle, but I don't know. I'm I'm a fighter.

[22:30] Leah Walsh: Can we talk a little bit about the New Harmony Project?

[22:33] Carrie Preston: Yes, please. Because um, so the New Harmony Project is a new play development conference in Indiana where Carrie and I actually met years ago.

[22:40] Leah Walsh: Yes.

[22:41] Carrie Preston: Um it's closely associated with Evansville, where we both went to school. But you've been on the board now for a number of years.

[22:47] Carrie Preston: Yeah, yeah. I I guess my my first time I went there, I was still a student. Um I was in grad school school, I was at Juilliard, but I went back, you know, to do a summer there, and then um and then I joined the board, I don't know, like fourteen years ago now or 15 years ago. And you you do like these you do a three year you do two three year terms, then you have to rotate off. And then you can do you can come back on for six years if you want. So I did that. I you did six years and then I rotated off, and then I did six years and then I'm currently rotated off right now.

[23:22] Leah Walsh: Okay.

[23:23] Carrie Preston: But you know, they asked me on the on the yearly if I'll come back and I I will eventually, but you know, it's a lot of it takes a lot of time, you know, it's a time commitment.

[23:32] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[23:33] Carrie Preston: And um, you know, I needed a little time to focus on other stuff, but I'm totally there for them at all times and I'm very happy with what's happening right now.

[23:43] Carrie Preston: Artistically, we've got a big change and so it's kind of exciting to see that it just we keep growing, you know, this 30 plus year now organization, it keeps on kicking in a time when nonprofit organizations like that that have such an intangible product, you know, can still be viable and supported and funded and writers can come there and have a safe environment to develop works that send a positive message out into the world.

[24:23] Carrie Preston: You know, there's not very many places, I don't know of any other place that's that specific of a mission.

[24:29] Leah Walsh: How do you think that that definition has changed over the time you've been involved of what or I'm not exactly sure of the wording and the mission statement?

[24:37] Carrie Preston: Yeah, it has changed. Um it has changed because the times have changed, you know. Um I think the original mission statement is still in our website. It's very poetic and long and gorgeous and not meant for the digital age, you know. It was written 32 years ago, I guess. Um, and by Walt Wanger and and um and Jeff Sparks and John David Lutz and all the you know founding members of the organization. And um, you know, a lot of people I think originally interpreted it as uh sort of a religious like a wholesome thing, yeah, kind of thing. Uh or Christian, maybe, although those words were never used. It was just sort of like when you start talking about positive, somehow people go to oh well that must mean you know, Christian, not that that's a bad thing at all.

But I think it kind of limited people's understanding of what that is, and um, you know, what a script that is life-affirming means, you know. Um a lot of times I think people thought, oh, well, I guess that means we can't have any sadness or conflict or anything. Well, of course, you can't create a piece of theater or movie or anything without conflict. Like that's what that's how great pieces of literature are created. Conflict, you know.

[26:12] Carrie Preston: So um I sort of look at it as like neo-classical, you know. I kind of look at it like, you know, Arthur Miller would have been a great New Harmony playwright, you know. Thornton Wilder, you know, and he wrote some weird plays in there, you know. Um, so uh, but you know, I it's we went we won't we always had really interesting debates as to is this a New Harmony script or isn't it? You know, what is it, you know, what does it mean? And I think they were there great healthy discussions about what that means. And we've had some pieces that have been devastating, you know, to watch, but ultimately redemptive, you know, there was hope in the midst of despair, which was you know, one of the uh lines in the original um mission statement that that we were looking for pieces that you know had hope in the midst of despair, and that that always spoke to me, you know, as a real goal in art, you know, to offer us as humans some kind of hope, you know.

[27:23] Leah Walsh: Yeah, because there's enough despair in the world.

[27:28] Carrie Preston: Yeah, I think it's really beautiful what New Harmony does in supporting new plays and writers and not being um product driven, like they're not yeah, you don't need to finish the play in the two weeks that they're there, right? It's really just an incubator, right? And like a welcome, a welcome place here we'll take care of you. We'll try to make this atmosphere that'll help your creativity.

[27:53] Carrie Preston: Yeah, I always say, you know, we don't invest in plays, we invest in people in New Harmony, because the play may or may not ever go on. And we've had plays that have been developed there that have gone to Broadway that have been turned into movies that have gone, you know, to quote unquote success, you know. And then we've had some that just haven't, but the but the people have. You know, the people keep on and the people, you know, continue to create stuff and and we were a part of the nurturing of their creative fiber, you know, and the fabric of their creative life. And um I just think it's important and necessary, you know, for writers to have that. You know, you go, okay, Apple, they don't just like come out with an iPhone.

You know, they have to develop it. They have to put money into it. They have to nurture it. They have to work it out. They have to figure it out. They have to have a place where they can you know so if you think about a writer in the same way, they need that, you know. People think, oh well writers are just gonna go sit in their living room and come up with something by themselves. Well maybe a novel, maybe, but when you're talking about the performing arts, you gotta have the other people.

[29:12] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[29:14] Carrie Preston: You've got to have those other voices, you know.

[29:17] Leah Walsh: Yeah, for sure.

[29:18] Leah Walsh: Um can I ask what your family thinks of you choosing to be an artist for your career?

[29:23] Carrie Preston: Well my mother's an artist.

[29:25] Leah Walsh: Oh yeah?

[29:25] Carrie Preston: Yeah she's a visual artist. Um she uh when we were growing up she did a lot of watercolors, um she's a sculptor. And then uh later uh when we we got older she got into uh what is essentially art therapy. Um she calls it expressive art and um she started working with um you know different people from different walks of life who needed kind of supplemental help whether they were had had you know been abused as uh a child or they were just in therapy and they wanted to have something to supplement that or you know, they had substance abuse or something like that, and she started using art in a therapeutic way. So she did that for a while. She would go to hospitals and she would work with people in hospitals and she would have private clients and stuff. So we you know, my brother and sister and I, we grew up in a you know, a very artistically supported household, and um art was very much revered and appreciated in our house.

[30:33] Carrie Preston: And um my brother is an actor as well, John Preston. He does and you guys, you guys have done some stuff.

[30:39] Leah Walsh: We've done a lot of stuff together, and you know, we grew up doing plays together, and you know, we've done he's been in some of our movies, Daisy Daisy Three Pictures, my production company.

[30:49] Carrie Preston: Is he here in New York?

[30:50] Carrie Preston: He lives in New York and he um and he works all over the country, you know, so he's he's in and out of town. He's a gypsy like like all of us.

[30:59] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[31:00] Carrie Preston: And uh and my sister, um, she ended up studying art therapy, I mean, um art history, and then then she studied library science. And um, she works at FIT, a fashion institute of technology. She's the head of acquisitions in their library.

[31:16] Leah Walsh: Oh nice.

[31:16] Carrie Preston: Yeah, but before that she worked at the Metropolitan Museum Museum of Art in one of their libraries. So you know, we've got a lot of art.

[31:22] Leah Walsh: Very artistic.

[31:23] Carrie Preston: Yeah. So luckily my my parents, my dad was a geotechnical engineer, so he was very, very left-brained, but never questioned our choices. He could appreciate it.

[31:35] Carrie Preston: He did, and he just, you know, wanted us to pursue what we were passionate about. Thankfully, he didn't say, Oh, you need to go and you know, go to law school or something. Like he he was very, very supportive, and of course my mom too. So, you know, they have these now three children who live in New York City and you know, we're all involved in the arts.

[32:01] Leah Walsh: That's wonderful.

[32:02] Leah Walsh: Yeah. Um, we don't have to talk about this if you don't want to, but I was wondering, since your husband's also an actor, kind of how you guys have found a way to deal with being apart a lot or just dealing with each other's artistic lives.

[32:17] Carrie Preston: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, Michael and I have been together for 23 years, and we, you know, we met when we were both just poor little theater church mice, you know, trying to eke out a living, and so we we had these we had this, you know, rule where it was like, okay, we have to see each other every two months.

[32:44] Leah Walsh: Yes.

[32:45] Carrie Preston: You know, and it was like our rule. That rule was like the two-month rule, you know. And we really stuck in. Oh, it was really rough.

[32:53] Leah Walsh: Yeah, it was really hard to make that work.

[32:55] Carrie Preston: Yes. But you know, so we were like the two month rule, and then you know, we started to get to a little a place where we were, you know, getting a little more work and stuff, and then it was like, okay, six weeks. We got the six-week rule. Knocked it down to six weeks, knocked it down to a month. Now we're at the two week.

[33:12] Leah Walsh: Nice.

[33:13] Carrie Preston: Yeah, we're at the two week thing.

[33:14] Leah Walsh: That's fantastic.

[33:15] Carrie Preston: So he we don't always get to do that. We all you know, just logistically it's challenging and scheduled schedules and we're where's Waldo, you know, in the world kind of thing. But we definitely try to stick with the two-week rule, which helps.

[33:31] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[33:31] Carrie Preston: We're not big, we're kind of old-fashioned. We're not big on the FaceTime or the Skype, but we just kind of do the phone thing and the texting and you know, we kind of do this the just listening to each other's voice. I probably because we've been together so long, that's how it all started, you know, the before the cell phones, you know, it was like the phone. That was our deal.

[33:50] Leah Walsh: Yeah, yeah.

[33:53] Carrie Preston: To talk for a couple days.

[33:55] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[33:57] Carrie Preston: Yeah.

[33:57] Carrie Preston: So that helps. Um, you know, we talk, you know, before you go to bed, you know, you have to it's it's all about just keeping that communication going when you're apart.

[34:07] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[34:08] Carrie Preston: You know, having like dedicated phone dates, you know, making sure, okay, we're gonna get together this time, we're gonna I don't know. We we just um that thing about if you're if you're if you're cool with with yourself and what you're doing in your own life and you're not dependent on the other person, then it's so much better for you, I think for us anyway.

[34:36] Leah Walsh: For your relationship.

[34:37] Carrie Preston: Yeah, for our relationship that we both have our lives and and we we both have our approach to our careers, which is completely different. And yet we just like each other, you know, and we like just like to be together, spend time together. So when we're apart, it makes the being together all the better. You know, we appreciate it, you know, we don't take it for granted.

[35:04] Leah Walsh: Right. Is there a lesson you've learned in the last couple of years that you're really proud of that you want to tell me about?

[35:13] Carrie Preston: A lesson? Yeah, it could be something big or something small, but some or it's something you've figured out and changed the way you do something or let's see.

[35:23] Carrie Preston: I feel like, yeah. I feel like, um, I continue to try to learn the lesson of, you know, how to hold on, uh, loosely. You know that song "Hold on loosely but don't let go"? You know, um, that's a good one. It's a tough one to get because I tend to want to hold on to something. You know, I'm pretty tenacious. My friends call me tenacious pee because I will get a hold of a thing and I won't want to let go, you know, and so that includes also, you know, being attached to like an idea of something, how something should be. So I was doing this job and I had this, I was really attached to like the result of what it was gonna be, like the situation was gonna be and what the result was gonna be, and I was very clear, you know, with people at the beginning about this is what I want from this.

You know, I was very clear with everybody involved. And then it didn't turn out that way. Uh-huh, and I still didn't let go. And I got, you know, I just sort of gripped tighter and made myself a little miserable and made maybe some other people a little miserable too. And then I realized, oh, you know, I needed to go through that so that I could then let go of a result and actually enjoy the process more. So I couldn't have gone, I if I hadn't done that, um, if I hadn't gripped so hard to that, it's gotta be this way, then I don't think I would have learned that lesson because, you know, you just, if you white knuckle a thing, it's finally just gonna break, you know.

[37:26] Carrie Preston: Well, we all have a sense of like justice, the way things should be. Yes, and of, oh, I did everything right. I did everything kind of this way, exactly. And I told them and I said that this was what I wanted, and they still didn't give it to me. And, um, you know, and it can be unfair, but it's not gonna help you either. No, it's not gonna help hold on to it. It's not gonna help the situation get any, it's just this, this is the way it's gonna be. Um, and it's that thing, and I guess you could apply that even to like the actual, like say apply that to a scene that you're doing, an acting scene, okay? I'm gonna play this scene this way, and I'm gonna, you know, this is my objective, and this is what I'm gonna get this person to do, and this is what, you know what I'm saying?

You're, you're, this, that, that's not gonna yield anything that's gonna be very interesting to watch. You know, and the other person might be doing something. They're gonna be doing, of course, and if you're not paying attention to that, if you're not receiving, then there's, you know, there's not gonna be any give and take there, and it's gonna break, you know, it's just not gonna work.

[38:39] Carrie Preston: So when I got the bigger picture of that, I'm like, oh, okay, it's all the same, you know. What we do and how we approach it, it's kind of the same. How's that for esoteric? Non-specific specific.

[38:53] Leah Walsh: No, I like it.

[38:54] Carrie Preston: Okay. That's a hard one for everyone. Um, do you have any artistic mentors that have been really important to you in your career?

[39:02] Carrie Preston: Um, I find that I can find a mentor in pretty much every working situation. You know, I like to look, I like to get into a situation and go, who am I gonna get something new from? You know, like I was just, um, I was just working on, uh, I'm on this TV show now called "Claws." And, uh, you know, when you're doing a TV show, you get a different director pretty much every episode. I mean, sometimes you get, you know, one director that'll do like two or something or three, but you, you know, you'll get new ones and stuff, so you're constantly having to relearn, you're having to learn somebody's new language, and you can kind of tell them pretty quickly if you're gonna jive with someone or not, you know, and, um, and some of them are way more technical, you know, they're just about the camera and they don't know how to talk to actors, and some of them are all about the actors, and some of them are, you know, right there in the middle.

[40:08] Carrie Preston: And, um, so I worked with this director, um, her name is Vic Mahoney, Victoria Mahoney. And, um, she came on and she directed episode four of "Claws." And she was a powerhouse. I mean, she was so cool and together and smart and articulate, and she would fire everybody up, not just the actors, but you know, the gaffers, the prop people. She would go into the makeup trailer with all of these collages that she put together, and I'm looking for something like this, and she would just jazz everybody up, you know, and she's just coming in doing one episode of a show that's new, so it hasn't, nobody's even seen it, you know. And she's only seen the pilot, you know, because that's the only thing that had been even cut together, you know.

So it was like just to see somebody that was able to come in and take control of hundreds of people that she doesn't know, that's amazing to me, and make something interesting was so inspiring to watch, and then the way she worked with us as actors too.

[41:21] Carrie Preston: Um, she comes from an acting background, so she sort of has that language already in her. But the things that she would do were so special and specific and, um, surprising, you know, and so it's people like that, you know, that I just take inspiration from, and I go, oh, I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to go in and inspire people like that, you know. I mean, look, John David Lutz, our teacher from Evansville. I mean, how long has he been doing what he's been doing? Retiring this year. Yeah, and he, 60 years, maybe 60 years of teaching in that school and directing and inspiring so many students to go on and work. And how many hundreds and hundreds of us are there now? Right. You know, because of someone like him, you know.

[42:17] Carrie Preston: So people like that who can get other people to, I don't know, fire up their own sparks.

[42:26] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[42:27] Carrie Preston: That's, that's what gets me inspired. Um, well, I've kept you for a long time, so I just have two quick questions that I always ask at the end. The first one, and you mentioned a few things, um, at the beginning, but if you are having a day where you're feeling really down or uninspired, are there any concrete things that you reach for again and again, like a book or a place you go or music you listen to or anything like that?

[42:52] Carrie Preston: Yeah, well, I mean, going back to "Pemetrodron," um, when things fall apart, like my Bible. So I will go turn to that or "Places That Scare You," that's another good one. I'll turn to that. Um, I have these goddess cards. Mm-hmm. You're called goddess guidance, and I will, you know, do like a goddess reading, and my friend Trisha Ross gave those to me. And so I'll do a guide. I like tarot cards, kind of. Kind of, yes, like you can meditate, like you can do it however you want, but you know, they're like runes or something, you know, like that. So you can meditate on a question and then you pull out a card, and they're just beautifully written, these cards, and you know, they're all women, and you know, so that's something that it's kind of like, you know, uh, not horoscope or something like that, but just more interesting and just makes you think about your life in a different way.

[43:46] Carrie Preston: Um, I'll walk my dog, you know, I do something that gets me out of my, out of myself where I have to, you know, think about, let's think about somebody else right now. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Let's do that, you know, go try to help somebody else, you know, help a friend, give thanks. Every day, every day, every day before sleep, I give thanks. That's what I do before I go to bed. I give thanks. I just list the things that I'm thankful for until I fall asleep. You know, and that's like, that's a good thing as well because it's really hard when you get tripped up, when you get gripped, like I was just talking about, you forget the things that you do have that you know you can be grateful for, and it kind of helps you reset, I think.

[44:37] Leah Walsh: Yeah, yeah, that's wonderful.

[44:39] Leah Walsh: Um, and then the last question is have you seen anything recently that you want to recommend of any art form?

[44:47] Carrie Preston: Um, well, I just listened to this, speaking of podcasts. I just listened to "Homecoming."

[44:51] Leah Walsh: Oh, I haven't listened to that one.

[44:55] Carrie Preston: It's really, really great. Um, it's, uh, you know, fiction, so it's, um, actors doing a, it's a written script. So it's two seasons, I think it's six episodes each, but the actors are amazing. It's got Catherine Keener and David Schwimmer and Oscar Isaac and David Cross and like incredible, and it's just so well done, you know, and it's just so inspiring to, I listen to a lot of stuff, yeah.

[45:22] Carrie Preston: Um, because I'm always out with my dog, and you know, I listen to Tara Brach, who's a wonderful Buddhist. Um, she has a podcast that I listen to a lot, and, um, you know, I listen to NPR or I listen to books on tape. I'm always just had, has stuff going, you know, to kind of drown out the New York City.

[45:41] Carrie Preston: That too. And this was a fun, you know, thing because I hadn't really been listening to a lot of fiction podcasts, you know.

[45:50] Leah Walsh: So I recommend that.

[45:51] Carrie Preston: Okay, great.

[45:52] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[45:53] Leah Walsh: Well, Carrie, thank you so much.

[45:55] Carrie Preston: Wow.

[45:56] Carrie Preston: This was great.

[46:06] Leah Walsh: Thank you for listening to the Compass Podcast. If you find these conversations valuable to your life as an artist and would like to support the ongoing production of the Compass, please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash The Compass Podcast.

[46:20] Leah Walsh: Pledges start at as little as one dollar a month. You'll get access to bonus content, and anything you can give will be greatly appreciated. Also, if you have a moment, please rate or review in iTunes. Every little bit helps other listeners to find the podcast.

[46:43] Leah Walsh: Audio assistance from Nick Choxy, and a special thanks to Frankie J. Alvarez.

[46:48] Leah Walsh: See you next time.