Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, where stories about the power of focus and resilience are revealed by the people who live those stories and now the host of the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, jack Hopkins.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Hello and welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast. I'm your host, jack Hopkins. Hello and welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast. I'm your host, jack Hopkins. Today's guest is actress Jolie Fisher, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Connie Stevens. Jolie has a younger sister, tricia Lee Fisher, also an actress who's been in many films, and you probably are at least a little bit familiar with her half-sister, harry Fisher, who starred, of course, as Princess Leia in Star Wars.

Speaker 2: 0:55

Jolie's first film role was Avril in the comedy Pretty Smart in 1987, which starred her sister Tricia. Jolie was named Miss Golden Globe at the 1992 Golden Globe Awards. Her breakthrough came in 1994, starring as Paige Clark in the ABC sitcom Ellen. That same year, she earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and she played the role of Paige Clark for four seasons until the series ended in 1998. She followed Ellen with the role of Dr Brenda Bradford in the film Inspector Gadget in 1999. From 2006 until 2010, jolie had a recurring role as Lynette's boss, nina, on Desperate Housewives. In 2021, jolie starred as Irene Cody in what was probably one of her darker roles in the Lifetime film Girl in the Basement, which was inspired by the real-life story of Josef Fritzl who, as the title implies, kept one of his daughters in the basement, doing some pretty horrible things to her. Over the years, the National Members of the Trade Union SAG-AFTRA, which is the Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, elected Jolie as Secretary Treasurer on September 2, 2021.

Speaker 2: 2:19

Jolie is multi-talented, to say the least. She's not only an award-winning actress, but she's also a recording artist and, in fact, her career in music helped land her on Broadway, which she talks about. That some in this episode. Jolie serves and this is the stuff that really gets me going and I think that just really makes her stand out and I'll talk more about that in the episode but just her nature to give back and to contribute to others.

Speaker 2: 2:57

She serves on the advisory board of Voters of Tomorrow, an advocacy organization that promotes political engagement among Generation Z, the Gen Z folks and that's at votersoftomorroworg.

Speaker 2: 3:14

In 2008, she became an artist ambassador for Save the Children and she traveled to Mozambique to visit with children who are part of the child sponsorship programs, and that's at SaveTheChildrenorg Very worthy organization.

Speaker 2: 3:36

So as you watch and or listen to this episode with the smart, beautiful, witty and just good human being, jolie Fisher, you will see right away the passion that she has for other people, and you know that's just something rare in this world today. And so when I see somebody especially in you know the Hollywood scene that could so easily be caught up in everything else there is to be caught up in but is posting about and is volunteering and working with and helping out with organizations that help other people or, in the case of Voters of Tomorrow, it's aimed at helping our country, it's aimed at helping save democracy that just always catches my attention and I want that's somebody I want to talk to and find out more about them. So let's get right into this and we'll just roll right into a conversation that Jolie and I are having about who she is and why she's such a giving person.

Speaker 3: 5:08

Enjoy, I find it really hard to move through life, not wanting to bring people into the light, you know. That's why this time period, this maybe decade, it seems so foreign to me, because we are in such a state of tearing each other down, you know, and, and it's I, you know, and I'm talking about, um, not just in politics and whatever, but it just seems like as a, as a, as humanity, we don't want to see people I do, but that people don't want to see other people. Victorious right. Such a strange feeling to me, um yeah, good question.

Speaker 2: 5:51

Is that something that I've always wondered about this? When you look at the the rest of america and I I say that saying looking from LA and the Hollywood life when you look at the rest of America, is Hollywood dealing with the same dysfunctions at the same time as the rest of society, or is there lag time between?

Speaker 3: 6:24

You know, I said that I wrote a book. You know, I was inspired and a fire lit in me to write with the loss of my sister, carrie, and I realized that I had a lot to say. And I, and I say it in a clever way, and I say it, and I'm a truth teller, you know, and, and I say this one line which is sort of a joke we all have the same problems, just in different square footage. It's a joke, but it's true. How I feel, you know, it's not just about square footage, it's about, you know, not just about socioeconomic, it's about, like, where you are on the planet, like what's around you there. For the grace of God, go we, that we were, that we landed in this exact spot at this exact time, um, good, bad and ugly, right, um, but I think, where Hollywood is a microcosm of you know, people like to say Holly, we're an elitist and you know the this and and um, and I think we're, just as you know, as frightened and and as um as anything as anybody else, right?

Speaker 3: 7:31

so sure that we got platformed, um, and we got a microphone and you know I have a big mouth and I'm gonna sing. So sometimes when you see something go by and you go, oh, that lady made me laugh once, what is she talking about? So then I am able to have your ear and I am able to say, like we're not OK, like you know, and in in this roof, here alone, with all the tchotchkes that appear behind me, I, you know, I have family members with mental health challenges. I have, you know, people in my home that have, you know, addiction issues. I have people in, you know, that are struggling with. You know what kind of bank accounts we all have and what kind of.

Speaker 3: 8:30

You know how we don't have any struggle being born into this business or, you know, with a famous last name. It's like I'm, you know, a woman of a certain age in a business that doesn't allow that, and you know it's. The struggle is it's different at different in different decades, um, but I really feel like as an artist and like bringing this back around to what you just said, is that you know, as, as a hollywood which I don't live in hollywood either, um, that we want to tell stories and have ourselves reflected on the screen. So when I watch something, I want to feel like I'm watching myself. Even if I'm watching a story, a political thriller about a man, I want to see myself, I want to see. So I always feel like in the stuff that I put out or that I'm developing, that I want other people to watch that and go. She gets me.

Speaker 2: 9:24

Yes, you know. Yes, I've always wondered about that, because, putting myself in that position and let's say, you know, you've done 10 movies and you've played all of these wonderful roles, these great characters, I always wondered if, at some point in time, actorses think back and go. You know, I, I put everybody on screen except me.

Speaker 3: 9:51

nobody really found out who I am I think sorry, I just I've got dogs too I think that you so I had an acting teacher a long time ago she actually recently passed away.

Speaker 3: 10:06

Her name was Sandra Seacat and a lot of the greats studied with her or they coached her through incredible Academy Award winning roles and things like that. So she taught a method it wasn't the method, but her methods were. In order to get to know a character and to find, you had to really truly find yourself. So you worked on dream analysis and you did all these different things and you have your little tool chest Right. Then you're able to do that with a character, so you're able to look at a character even if it's nothing like you and you and you're able to pull things that are the same familiar feeling and then infuse the character with all parts of you so well you know, you know, um, I find I'm just trying to think of a part, like one of my favorite roles that I've ever done is sally bowles in cabaret on broadway and I asked for a dream.

Speaker 3: 11:02

I went to sleep and asked for a dream and I found that the dream that I was given was so much like something that Jolie would dream, but it actually really applied to this character who was, you know, out of control and searching for her identity and in 1929 in Berlin and whatever, which is so not me, but I found the things that how we were alike and then I think I was really authentically her on stage. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 11:30

It does. You know it does, and it's funny that you say that because one that I really one role you played, irene Cody, I was really curious about how dark you had to go within to be that wife of this guy.

Speaker 3: 11:51

Well, it's so funny. I actually had lunch with my friend who directed that yesterday and we were talking about that because we were looking to do this other project together, this other project together, and it was. It's very, very hard to find something redeeming about those characters that you say, oh my God, I've got to play this, but that's also the reason to play it. You know, and and Judd and I had many, many discussions before making that movie about you know the that it was inspired. It's not. It's not the true story that it was inspired. It's not.

Speaker 3: 12:26

It's not the true story, but it was inspired by a true story, which is horrible, yes, and I was like, how did this mother not know all these years? How do you know? I'm a mother, I have five kids, so I know and I haven't given birth to all of them, but they're my kids and I know all of them intricately. And how would I not know the truth about one of my children? I feel like I have that, that sense of it being their mom and being just a sort of a mother goddess energy. I feel like I would know, I would know, I would know that you know, um, so I had to try to find the places in the story where you know where she was a redeemable woman Like I. Ha, I had to find that and I think that I succeeded in that it's. It's still one of the. It's still such a terrible story. I mean it's. I thought the film came out great, but I it's hard one of it's still such a terrible story, I mean it's.

Speaker 2: 13:28

I thought the film came out great, but I it's hard to watch. Yeah, and I'm guessing, just because the the story of joseph fritzl is, if told like it happened is such a horrible story, I'm guessing had to tone the movie down quite a bit to to be able to to get it to go on the airwaves, didn't you?

Speaker 3: 13:46

we didn't say the name of the movie girl in the basement but I but yeah, it was um, the the story was even more um, just horrific and and like unfathomable that a father would, would be like that to to their child and and you know, sexually and all of the mind, all of it and um, there were more children in real life than we portrayed in the movie and because it was lifetime, they you know there are certain rules that are in cable television, but also I thought that elizabeth really did a great job in how it was shot and just the tone that she took with it. And Stephanie was amazing, just really great, really great performances for a really really tough story.

Speaker 2: 14:42

Yeah, and Elizabeth, by the way, I I love her instagram feed because she's got the brightest eyes. You scroll through and her eyes just jump out and if, if you are not feeling where you think you should be for that day, you see a couple pictures of her eyes and you're like I'm better I, I'm going to call her that.

Speaker 2: 15:01

That's the next thing I'm going to say yeah. So how long does it? Well, let me ask you this Are you someone who, when you're shooting, do you stay in character? Are you a Jim Carrey that doesn't ever step out of character, or Nah?

Speaker 3: 15:20

Yeah, yeah, my, you know, it may be, it may be the reality that I've um, that I have um, I'm able to tap into um sort of grief and maybe just plain darkness easily, that I find that if I were to stay there, it would be hard for me to ever come back. Yeah, and I don't mean that like you know to be, you know right, whatever um I am able to, I do want to stay in moments, but but no, when I leave the set, I'm, I, I, I leave her there and I'm and I'm with jolie so kind of got.

Speaker 2: 16:02

I guess, to use a metaphor, you kind of throw the switch on. You've got a on-off switch and you know when it's time and pop in.

Speaker 3: 16:11

I do, I do. I'm just sort of thinking about it now because I did have this another onstage experience, because I heard Denzel Washington say yesterday, because he's back on Broadway and he said to any actor learn how to act on stage. And that's like my, my heart, like I, my foundation, and all of that. I love to be on stage but also it takes a lot of energy and it's a lot and you know it's. You don't get paid a tremendous amount but it is purely for the artistry of it. And I did, right before the pandemic, I did Key Largo and I did right before the pandemic. I did Key Largo with Andy Garcia at the, you know, in the, in the lead role and, yes, danny Pino and Tony Plana just amazing cast. And it was at the Geffen Theater here in LA and I got to play the Claire Trevor part which was won her an Oscar in Key Largo and she was a drunk and it's just a little gem of a role and just like literally sort of carried the second act across the finish line.

Speaker 3: 17:18

In my humble opinion, yeah, yeah, and I did sort of have to stay in that, not that I had to stay drunk, because you're really drunk, but so I sort of had to stay in that zone during that time period because I had to like get the movements down and I had to. You know, like there's a thing where you'd like you don't want to do too much and you do, so I, so I couldn't go. Like you know, do cartwheels after it. You know, I like hung in there, um, it makes you a shitty mother, and those times, because they don't kind of know who they're gonna get, and I'm honest with you, you know it's like um, uh, but yeah, I mean, I guess it's a mixture.

Speaker 2: 18:05

It depends on what the part is like doing comedy, that's really like a wheelhouse too, you know, it's like that's just fun, that's just playtime, you know I was gonna say that it you, you used the word that I was going to ask you if that's what it was like playtime they're just loose and no boundaries and like nothing's a mistake.

Speaker 3: 18:28

It's the same muscle, right, like my mom used to say, like when singing is like, you know, that's a muscle like the body is, you know. So when you say it's like riding a bike, it truly is Like you get back in it and you're like, oh God, I forgot what this is like. It's so fun, but it's the same muscle to make people cry as it is to make people laugh, right.

Speaker 2: 18:51

Sure.

Speaker 3: 18:54

Not to say I never want to be lazy about it, I always want to be working. You know, I always want to be trying to find new things to to, to bring to life. But, um, but yeah, I mean I did the show. I mean Ellen and I were like Lucy and Ethel at times in the, in that in those years and Brad Garrett delicious chemistry with Brad Garrett for many years that that was sort of effortless like we we he's a big giant guy and we sort of stood toe-to-toe in terms of our comedy, in terms of how filthy we are, like it was most fun we ever had. You know, yeah, um, and I, somebody recently sent me off of you know the internet a compilation video which I had never seen.

Speaker 3: 19:48

I think it was some like a French, canadian person made it, so there was like some French music behind it and it was just the love story of Eddie and Joy Stark and it made me well up because it was like's my friend brad garrett. But in this thing I was watching these two people that like fought all the time and they were silly and whatever, but they, there was love there, right, um, when you find that that's cool yeah, you know, that's I.

Speaker 2: 20:20

I I don't have always thought about hollywood in this way. When you look at the number of affairs that go on, to me, part of that is almost inevitable. And I say that because, pretending or not, you're using the same wiring right, wiring right. So if you are in a scene with somebody you're both deeply in love or it's a hot, passionate scene, what you are lighting up? Everything in the brain that would be getting lit up if it was it doesn't know the difference, right.

Speaker 2: 20:58

It doesn't know the difference right because you're being truthful it's you know, yeah, so it would be for me. When I look at that, I say, you know that would be. That would be a tough one sometimes, and especially if it's somebody that you are naturally attracted to anyway.

Speaker 3: 21:16

I think that it's, that there's something. Somebody told me this a long time ago. Now I watch it all the time. So if you're watching it, two people that like have like the hots for each other or you know they have that chemistry, but nothing's ever gone down that's more interesting to watch than two people that are actually doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah right yeah, I can always tell.

Speaker 2: 21:39

I can always tell, I'm like oh they're right, yeah, you know if it's actually yeah, and I don't know if that's because there's that there's still that tension of you want tension right right, yeah, so let's let's jump around here a little bit. Let's go to the votes of tomorrow. Let's talk about that. Seems like a pretty recent and timely discussion. You are on the advisory board, and am I right that this focuses on Gen Z?

Speaker 3: 22:16

Yes, so I feel like we've been like at it on the you know the old platform for some time now.

Speaker 3: 22:25

Right, and Santiago Meyer is was like 19 years old and he was in our I mean, I guess we can say it now in our political war room that we had had, which was activists, artists and and politicians and doctors and all of it sort of came down.

Speaker 3: 22:46

It's interesting that it sort of like lined up with with me running for office in in SAG-AFTRA was at the same time around when the pandemic started and when, you know, politics was very spicy and we all were in this war room together and, um, it became really important to all of us and I think we still communicate via this chat, um, you know, on different platforms and um, and santiago, just, he was like a shining star to me, like he, he's an immigrant and he is very smart, very articulate and coalesced young people and and I you know I thought Gen Z was going to save us they still may I don't know what happened this go around Because they got so many millions of more young voters engaged and registered, and whether they showed up or not, I guess, remains to be seen, but he always has something positive to do and say and became embedded in the actual campaign for Joe and then transferred over to VP.

Speaker 3: 24:10

But they're great, they're great and they're young and he was living out here in LA and none of us ever saw each other because it was the middle of us in the pandy.

Speaker 2: 24:20

Right.

Speaker 3: 24:21

But since then have spent a lot of time together. We do fundraisers, I'm on the advisory board and I always wait to hear from him to to know, like you know, what's the real skinny on certain things like not that my station that I'm in isn't real, because it very much is real and we can talk about that a little bit. But if I ever ran for national politics in any way which I don't know I might someday then I would santiago by my side nice, really.

Speaker 2: 24:57

Yeah, nice, yeah. What, what? As far as being on the advisory board and looking at it from different angles, what's the biggest hurdle in getting Gen Z as politically engaged as we?

Speaker 3: 25:12

need them to be been my boys for 28 years, but so they're in their 30s and so they're millennials. Then I have two gen z's. I have a 23 year old and an almost 19 year old who, both of them brilliant my two biological children. They are couldn't do anything with their lives that they want super smart, loyal, kind, loyal, kind goodness. They are Gen Z. And then my youngest is called Alpha Generation. She's 16. She is my one adopted child. She is in that age where she's never known from leading with the top of her head. So everybody in that generation is the screen generation. So I find they don't look you in the eye. I love her as dearly as I love my other children right right, but I need it.

Speaker 3: 26:13

I have three, you know. Then my husband's a boomer, I'm gen x, like we're all. We all have this, you know, this span here. Yeah, they're the same sign, but I do find that Gen Z showed up. I do, I do think they they did, but I but the reason why I'm getting at this is that some of the younger ones because my youngest daughter wasn't able to vote, so, and my, my middle daughter, true, was her first time voting and she worked on the campaign and she was heartbroken because she worked with grassroots and she worked with Santiago, with voters of tomorrow and and Eric Swalwell, and she was very involved, and so she, like, had a full meltdown because she thought that that they were gonna bring us to the end and was, you know, really broke down about it and found that it was the boys In around her age and specifically in places that are, you know, blue from the outside. You know blue from the outside.

Speaker 2: 27:22

Right.

Speaker 3: 27:22

But she found that you know the, where, where I live, specifically the, the Jewish kids that said their vote for Trump was a vote for Israel, and so there, what there's, this big, you know, and there's like the bros, like the like that are emboldened and emblazoned by 45, 47 in a way that we didn't guess they would be.

Speaker 2: 28:12

I support who. I support, meaning my support for Israel in terms of the Jewish people as a whole. When I express that support, it's not like I sit back and go okay, how's this going to play out? If it's something that's real for me, then I express it, and sometimes that goes over no-transcript. I got a bad feeling from that early on. I'm like we can't. We can't do this and win. You know.

Speaker 3: 29:01

I mean, why don't we fight dirty like they do?

Speaker 2: 29:04

That's the thing. Thank you, jolie, thank you. I grew up in a rural Republican stronghold, rural North Missouri, and I was a Republican for 50 years, right, right. So the most difficult thing for me as a democrat now is every fiber of my being metaphorically, of course says let's fucking duke this out. Okay, you want to fight, let's, let's fight, let's, let's fight. But that doesn't happen. That doesn't happen in, or, if it does, what what's so often called a fight. Wait a minute, are we breaking the rules? Are we, you know? And I'm like, hey, once the fight begins, yeah, the the rules are gone. I'm not suggesting breaking laws. I'm saying, if the person you are battling has adopted different rules than you have and you refuse to adjust and adapt and also use those rules most of the time, you're going to get your ass kicked. You can't fight somebody who's playing by different rules and not not adjust your rules.

Speaker 3: 30:34

So I don't know how I have a friend who it doesn't matter who it is, another actress friend of mine who, um son, just started very prestigious ivy league college. The roommate is and they're you know there's no. If they're rounding people up, they're gonna know who we are right away. Right, I'm saying it's like right, we're not fooling anybody.

Speaker 3: 30:56

We're not good, you know you bet so everybody knows where I stand and where this other actress stands. And and she said and then I met the roommate, and so she felt like her son was, wow, how bright and how evolved and how forward thinking is her child. Oh my God, I did such good on him that this roommate and he, who differ so widely on politics, were able to connect and just like agree to disagree. So she thought right. So then, and she thought, well, you know what Kudos to them that they're, you know, able to live in the same room and feel the way so differently about the world that they do Because they're smart kids.

Speaker 3: 31:44

So she went to dinner then with the parents and the two kids and she saw where the child, basically where the child came from, yeah, and so she said she was watching, and you know, as we do, we observers in this world, and she was like watching the dynamic with the mother, like going, like, like you know that thing that moms sometimes do, and then the and the oh well, you know them, you know kind of like making excuses for it, and then, and then the father, and this is like in a what we would look at as a kind of a normal nucleus of a family, right, the mother and father are still married and they have this adult son and, and how the father sort of like took a back seat and like watched it go, you know, didn't come, didn't struck, didn't go over the top, neither one of them did any sort of a, even not to say that you need to be correcting your children. But, like we, it was clear how he was taught is just to. And then she went in on him and she said okay, so, so this is how you feel. And she said immovable facts were all over the place. Like you can't argue with that. You can't argue with that, you can't. You don't want to see my opinion, you don't want to, um, you don't want to actually take the facts and and like say, oh hey, I didn't know that happened or I didn't know he felt that way or she did that or you know, they just don't want to hear it. No, don't hear it.

Speaker 2: 33:16

It's a cult. It is very much a cult. A friend of mine stopped by a couple of weeks ago, just showed up. We hadn't spoken in five years and and it was because of politics and it was about the time I left the republican party and he's a 33 year air force guy. He's getting ready to we went in the same week actually and he's getting ready to retire and we had split, hadn't't talked, hadn't communicated, and he just kind of showed up at my door so I let him in and I didn't know where he stood. But I knew where he stood because the last I had talked to him he was big on Trump, right.

Speaker 2: 33:59

So he comes in, we don't say a word about politics. He talks for about an hour, or we talk for about an hour and he leaves. And as he's leaving it's almost like he couldn't help himself. And on the way out the door he was talking about the election and he said you know, can you believe? Can you believe that the whole last year they're calling Trump a Nazi? I mean, he was out of his mind over that. That was such an ill-fitting. And I said, brother, I was one of them. Okay, you act like a Nazi. That seems like a fitting title. But to your point, he's so locked into that he can do no wrong that they literally have perceptual filters that won't even allow them to see.

Speaker 3: 35:08

You know my mom. I always thought that my mom was, you know. I mean she was liberal all my life. You know, I don't think we ever talked about what party she was in, but I always felt like she was you.

Speaker 3: 35:23

She was a little like 60s, 70s sex queen, goddess, you know like so you know we're all over the world and you know she's bohemian and whatever. However that was looked at then and and um, and more recently, like in the past couple of decades, because my mom's 86 now Connie Stevens we're talking about and she, you know, had a career as an actress and a singer and a, you know, big personality and did a lot of good for a lot of people but made most of her money which is all gone now, by the way, in the skincare business, ironically, because you know that somebody came and brought her some products and she was like, well, I don't use these products, I'm gonna do my own products. And, being the renaissance woman that she was and kind of ahead of her time, she was the first um with joan rivers, remember the first?

Speaker 3: 36:19

yeah signed those deals with.

Speaker 3: 36:21

Now everybody sells something on home shopping sure she was like among the first of those so amazing products. Amazing success afforded her a beautiful lifestyle, and then she said I don't want to die the cream lady and went, you know, sort of like we still have. We actually rebranded the business, my sister and I now, so so do go to fisherstevensbeautycom for some great creams. But she then made a movie at 70 years old that she had written and directed the movie and did a bunch of things that were her passion and all of that, and so I think that she considered herself the 1% or the 2%. She had made lots of money, she had a lot of real estate Read about it in my book she kind of squandered it away and sort of left us sort of trying to figure out how to sell things to survive and it was pretty heavy duty. But she is also Italian and she never let us forget it. Yes, I was like we're italian and I'm like what does that mean besides thoughts? But she's also catholic and and super catholic and I think that, as if you're raised like that, where you're, you have nothing and you suddenly have a lot of money and a lot of means and you're, you have a catholic upbringing and italian she. As she got closer to her own mortality, she became more so like that and considered herself a republican suddenly, and I was like I don't understand what. Which part of that you're like? You want to keep your money, or is it that you're closer to god? And and um, and you know the values which we all know. That's not the values of the republican party anymore. It's fake christian values. Um, but but my daughters in 2020, came over to Nana's house all of them and made a PowerPoint that was 40 minutes long about the difference between Joe Biden and Trump, and my mom voted Democrat. How cool For her granddaughters. How cool this time around. I said you want me to bring you your ballot? And she said yeah. And I said who are you going to vote for? And she said it's none of your business. And I was like hold on a second, hold on a second.

Speaker 3: 38:53

So then my sister came over and we went through and we told her that she's very big into the military right. My mom's like veterans, veterans, veterans, veterans. She. She said she fought herself in four wars, meaning she went with bob hope and entertained, yeah, but she, um, you know. I said, mom, do you want to hear what the generals have to say about him and that sort of perked up her you know. And she said she said I feel like I don't know. I, you know she's in in, you know, assisted living and she doesn't. She's bedridden and she watches a lot of news and sometimes it's Fox. And she said I don't know that I feel like I am enough in the middle that I know enough about everything that's going on that I'm going to sit this one out. And I said I respect that for you because I don't want you to vote for somebody you don't want to vote for. But I also I want you to know that your time here is limited, but you have eight grandchildren, so yeah, yeah it's wild.

Speaker 3: 39:58

It's wild how you can switch it up. I think it is yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:04

You know I it really surprised me when I left the Republican Party. Of course, on the on the Republican side, you had the how can you leave this party and go to that party? But on the Democratic Party side it was like, wow, that's so cool, how did you do that? And you know I've probably written all kinds of explanations about how. But I think that the truth is it's just my personality, how. But I think that the truth is it's just my personality.

Speaker 2: 40:44

Look when, when I see that something has has become bs and it it it's violating every value that I thought it it used to somewhat, uh, align with. It's just not a big deal for me. I'm'm done with it and I don't care what anybody thinks about it. So there wasn't any real deep philosophical thing other than just realizing, hey, this is not the party of my grandparents, this is not the party of my parents. And it's funny that you talked about your mom saying she fought in four wars. Just yesterday, when I was kind of looking at some stuff for today, I watched a clip of Bob Hope USO tour with your mother and I will tell you as a- the one in the little red dress.

Speaker 2: 41:33

Yes, yes yes, I'll tell you. In the 70s, as a 13, 14-year-old boy, there were three hot women for me. They were Raquel Welch, connie Stevens and.

Speaker 3: 41:49

Ann-Margaret those were the three.

Speaker 2: 41:52

That's a good triumvirate, that's a good pick and fortunately all three of them in the 70s were on the TV screen quite often.

Speaker 3: 42:04

And all still around. Yeah, you picked three that had longevity. I love that.

Speaker 2: 42:09

Yeah, so you said your mother's 86. Health, good for an 86-year-old.

Speaker 3: 42:17

You know, we had some scares. I talk about 2016 as my year of living dangerously. It started off with my mom having a stroke the night of the Golden Globes in January, and so I was, like, you know, white knuckling from my house in the valley way out into the Cedar Sinai, which is, you know, and and all and is is tonight. Gonna she gonna, you know, survive? And she did, and she um ended up living with me for a little bit of time and then we got her. We sold, you know, big houses and got her a beautiful little house and she was doing okay and, uh, you know, just, things start to fail a little bit here and there she's still still hanging in there. You know, of course, the election of 45 and then my sister, carrie, and her mother, debbie Reynolds, dying that same year. So it was like it was a. It was, it was treacherous, the world was off its axis, but my mom is now being cared for around the clock.

Speaker 3: 43:22

She's not super far away from me. I go see her all the time. She likes us, she knows who I am, she makes a joke, she tells an old story now and again, and we all sort of gather around her for Thanksgiving we all had dinner over there, like 30 of us, and I cook a mean turkey. I'll tell you that. But yeah, it's hard because it's not. You know, it's almost when some nobody prepares you for your parents now aging and dying. It's, it's something that we don't. Um, you know, I, I, I've, I've this will be the second time I'm saying it if I were to run for office, and you should I do have.

Speaker 3: 44:05

Um, you know, the mental health is really like my jam and is important to me because I've had to navigate the, you know not only um, uh, doctors and providers and facilities, and um, case managers and insurance and all the things for mental health, and it's something that if you don't have any means, you don't have access to, and that is plain and simple. There should be a place where you can go and talk, and I'm trying to develop an app where you can, and there are some where you can talk to a where you can, and there are some where you can talk to a psychotherapist. But you know something that if one of my daughters didn't have access to that and the pandemic did a number on on her, I mean it really really did and and it did a number on all.

Speaker 3: 44:52

I was trying to decide, like who had it worse? Well, the worst people died, but then the old people that you couldn't touch or hug or you had to bubble wrap them. And then there, old people that you couldn't touch or hug or you had to bubble wrap them. And then there were people that were like trying to reinvent themselves in a career or were going through a divorce, or then suddenly you had the millennials, were okay, because they they're weird anyway, and then school-aged children, and then people that were having babies, like what you're actually like, yeah, you know, um, but um, mental health always has been my jam and I I'm in on the board of a couple of organizations, including the fisher foundation, which is mine, and um, the thalians, which is geriatrics to pediatrics, mental health, veterans, everybody, elder care and and the care of our, of our seniors, and the fact that here's a good segue.

Speaker 3: 45:49

Right around the same time, I wasn't involved in union politics, and I mean from afar. I was. My mom was the secretary treasurer of SAG in the early 2000s and I was on the national board and I was having babies and nursing and I was like SAG in the early 2000s and I was on the national board and I was having babies and nursing and I was like I can't do this, mom, it's all you. I called her one day and she was in her white convertible Corvette driving around. I could hear the wind blowing.

Speaker 3: 46:10

And I was like where are you going? And she goes I'm going to SAG. And I said, eventually we all are mom. Said, eventually we all are mom. So I took up the mantle and was elected in the same job at SAG-AFTRA. Now merged union and it was when I got angry was the collapse of the health plan and when they merged the two unions together they didn't properly ever merge the health and pension plans.

Speaker 3: 46:39

And so we, we knew that by a decade you know, which is 2020, when they had just negotiated a contract that didn't put enough money in the health plan, all of our seniors lost their healthcare and they were like, well, they have Medicare, it's fine. It's like no, it's not. My mother is 70 years in this business, putting money into her pension and into her health plan so that she could be taken care of for life. I'm sorry. So I think that that, again, is a microcosm of what happens in this country is, if you, you know, where are the people? Not everybody can afford to be in this fancy assisted living like we're spending every dollar of her pension and social security and you know, and all of that to for her to just be alive and have a roof over her head, right? So what happens if you're in a country, in a town or in a another state where they don't have that? Yeah, like what? What do we? What do people do?

Speaker 2: 47:39

and and I'm glad you brought this up because I think one well, I know it is one illusion, if you will, that so many people have is that they think of somebody who you know was famous or or famous, and they can't imagine them having any financial problems later. Oh, they're famous, they used to have this show or they did this movie. And so I think there's this myth, this urban myth, woven through everybody's mind that, oh, are you kidding? They've, probably they can hire a staff of you know 12 to take care of you. Right, and I worked it's interesting In 1998, I was the head nurse for an assisted living center in Rancho Bernardo, california, that was owned by the Marriott, for an assisted living center in Rancho Bernardo, california, that was owned by the Marriott, and I met some of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life, because a lot of them not all, but many of them had ties to Hollywood.

Speaker 2: 48:55

Right, the director of Ben-Hur, his wife was the all kinds of different people, right? So, yeah, uh, and they, they still were pretty sharp. So all day long I couldn't wait to go to work because it was just like a living history. I'd sit with these people and of course, they ate that up because, you know, nobody really listens to them, sure, right? So yeah to um. I think people get an image of the connie stevens that was all over television, all over the you know the movie screen singing. And then when, when they hear, oh gosh, they're worried about their health care and it's like they don't get it and it's like, look, there were several icons of our business, Ed Asner, God rest his soul.

Speaker 3: 49:51

He was my union mentor and a friend. He led a lawsuit and won. It was his lawsuit until he passed and there were multiple plaintiffs, obviously, but it was icons of this business that you would never guess that they didn't make their health care. But you know, the requirements changed and all of that we are trying to fix it. I'm working with, you know, with Fran Drescher, our president, and myself, and and committee after committee after committee. I'm telling you it is a full-time, non-paying, often soul-crushing job.

Speaker 2: 50:26

I'll bet, I'll bet.

Speaker 3: 50:27

But you know, I feel like I have 171,000 children. You know like everybody has an issue and you know, and I once said, slip into my DMs and suddenly people are taking advantage of it Flooded, yeah Right. But it's wild. It's a wild very short blip of time that we're here. It is.

Speaker 3: 50:53

And what do we do with that? One wild wonderful life, or whatever that saying is Indeed. One wild wonderful life or whatever that saying is, that you know, it's just the stuff that's been dredged up by and it won't. It's not just Donald Trump, it's not just him. It feels like when I was going to say, if I was running I keep saying I'm going to run for something, but it's like, as somebody said to me oh well, all well, all the skeletons in your closet. I'm like you can't have more skeletons than the guy who's the president you can't can't have more scale.

Speaker 3: 51:26

I don't have that many skeletons, right. Um uh, I am a woman, though, so my skeletons might be, yeah right, you know, yeah, yeah, that's.

Speaker 2: 51:37

I mean. You bring up a great point. If there's anything that he's done that might have a silver lining, it's that there are some legitimately good people who maybe have got a skeleton or two in their closet, but that now that the climate has shifted enough that maybe those good people who 10 years ago would never have thought about running for office because, oh my God, this affair I had back in the 80s, you know- no-transcript before election and they brought me out a cake.

Speaker 3: 52:47

It was just a few folks around and, and, uh, only one of my daughters was present, but they all were present in my heart and in you know my head and I said you know, we, I made this promise in 2016. I feel like I, when I, when I blow out the candles and make a wish, I'm wishing that we keep this promise this time, and then we didn't again. So what does it do again? Bringing it back around to gen z is like, what does it do for them? Does it take the wind out of their sails to feel like, well, we, we were there. Like, does our voice matter? Um, you know, um? Or does it re-energize them, like this california seat that just got won by 180 something votes, um, you know that every boy, every vote counts.

Speaker 3: 53:34

We saw that happen we did, um, I don't know, I think. I think, um, I saw somebody post something that said it's okay to disappear for a while and re-energize and come back yeah, yeah, I've seen similar and and I feel like maybe we all kind of need to do that a little bit yeah, I know people that are not watching the news at all. I sort of am trying to stay away from being glued to it, but I do want to stay current on these crazy cabinet picks.

Speaker 2: 54:07

Sure, I've been watching a lot of old laugh-in episodes and play some of the news that I used to watch.

Speaker 3: 54:15

Yeah, Goldie Hawn Till Death is on one of those platforms, and brad and I are delicious together.

Speaker 2: 54:21

you should watch yeah, yeah, yeah actually um and um.

Speaker 3: 54:26

You know, the supreme court scares the shit out of me. Oh, it's terrifying yeah, but I also. But we have to believe in the souls of the people that we hope are going to be the adults in the room there, like it's your planet too. They have kids and grandkids. So are there going to be those couple of folks in the House and the Senate and the court that are going to go? Hey, wait a second, this doesn't feel right. Yeah, I don't know. I guess we'll see.

Speaker 2: 55:03

You know, when you and I are about the same age, I'm 58, you're what? 57? So yeah, we're close. So I want to come go back a little bit. What was it like, because you would have been what 9, 10 when Star Wars came out? What was it like Because you would have been what 9, 10 when Star Wars came out? Oh my gosh, what was it like for a 9, 10-year-old to have your sister on the big screen?

Speaker 3: 55:30

Well, I didn't spend a lot of time with her as a real little girl, although I just recently was going through a bunch of my mom's stuff and we've had to do this many times, you know, george Carlin, uh, run about having more stuff and getting bigger place. Well, that's kind of how I feel like my life has been. But we finally put my mom in this place and she's comfortable and she has her favorite things around her, but we again had to get rid of a bunch of her things, you know, and I ended up going well, I can't, I can't get rid of that bunch of her things, you know, and I ended up going well, I can't, I can't get rid of that. I have to keep that.

Speaker 3: 56:01

I have my grandfathers who played standup bass with Stan Getz and big bands when he was, you know, in Brooklyn and you know whatever, and so I have this standup bass now in the middle of my house. So, anyway, I found this photo album that was wrapped in paper and tape and twine and it was one of those ones from the 70s and if you're a kid from the 70s you'll know. It was that big photo album with the little Instamatic photos with the white frame.

Speaker 2: 56:32

Oh yeah, the little disc.

Speaker 3: 56:34

With the little. You know what I mean. So the thing I took off the tape Obviously no one had touched it, probably since it was made and packed from my mom's big old house, delphurn. So I cut the thing open and I open it up and on the first page is Eddie Fisher and Connie Stevens in love I mean staring at each other, sexy, like. Who took those photos? What is that? They were on a boat and they were looking into each other's eyes like I'd never seen them look ever my whole life, because I didn't grow up with him. Yeah, and I'm like, oh, my god, this is like their love story. Who made this photo album? My, my grandmother, my, who made it? So I turned the page and it's a baby shower and I I'm like, ooh, this is me, this is me, and I turn the page and my father is holding me. And.

Speaker 3: 57:28

I've never seen that in my life, ever.

Speaker 2: 57:31

How cool is that I?

Speaker 3: 57:32

have never seen Eddie holding baby Jolie ever. So I did have a great relationship with him and that's a whole other story. And so my sister's across the yard and I like, oh my god, you have to look at these pictures. So we're looking and she's like, well, there's not going to be any of me. And I turn one of the big pages and there's Eddie holding baby Tricia and Tricia has a different. You know, we both. It's a similar upbringing. Obviously we're very close, we're like Irish twins, but our emotions about it are different and how we've handled it is different. And you know we're different, human beings as alike, as we are. So we see now Eddie holding Tricia. And then I turn the page and it's Carrie and Todd and Jolie and Tricia.

Speaker 3: 58:16

And I was was like, oh my God, I didn't even know these photos existed, I didn't know there was a relationship there from when. Oh, my mom was like, oh yeah, carrie used to rock you and speak French and all that. And I'm like who knew? You know, interesting cut to 1976 and the movie's coming out. And somebody says to me and the movie's coming out, and somebody says to me, your sister is in that. And I'm like my sister, I mean I knew I had one, but I don't really know her. I haven't seen her since I was a baby, so I don't really have memories of her and I hadn't seen her on screen yet.

Speaker 3: 58:53

So I went to the Avco Cinema on Wilshire and Westwood Boulevard, which is now a fancy eye pick where you can order food and cocktails and lay down and watch a movie. But it was the old Avco Cinema and it was like the week it came out and I'm sitting there in the dark and here she comes on the screen in that white, diaphanous, you know, with the buns and the whole thing, and she's got a voice like we have the same voice, like everybody says oh my God you guys sound so like um, and I was just like, oh my God, maybe I'm part princess, you know, Right?

Speaker 3: 59:32

Um? So we invited her over, my mom invited her over and she came quite a bit in. We lived in Malibu in this rental house. Again, people didn't know Malibu was like dirty and salty and sandy and it wasn't rich people yet. And we it was for financial purposes that we leased out our big property and all that. And so she came over and we were like it's a big sister, oh my God. And she's in the movies.

Speaker 3: 1:00:05

And then we decided to stay in Malibu and we took a real estate agent and and my mom we went and looked at a couple other houses and we walked out onto the deck of this Malibu beach house, this little sandy shack, and my mom goes who's the asshole who has a swimming pool on the beach? And the lady said Debbie Reynolds. So we bought the house. Oh wow, and we grew up next door.

Speaker 2: 1:00:36

That is wild.

Speaker 3: 1:00:38

It's a great, great story that is wild.

Speaker 2: 1:00:40

It's a great, great story. That is wild. Well, I saw, I think, on your instagram, uh, there was a picture of debbie and I can't remember who else, but but you had written, uh, mama deb or mama debbie, so at some point you had that kind of relationship with her I mean when there would be like storms in malibu and the waves were crashing and all that, my mom was on the road.

Speaker 3: 1:01:03

We would go to eat popcorn and lay in debbie's bed. I mean I think, people don't.

Speaker 3: 1:01:09

It's a great. It's a great story to tell, but the story of it is great. These were like we weren't ed, eddie Fisher, collateral damage. We were. We had two broads that were like amazing entertainers and better mothers, but also wildly flawed. And these kids that sort of came together. That that you know. That grew in, it grew into a relationship that was important to all of us. And the loss of Carrie you know she tried to keep it together. She really really did. You know we see Todd, our half-brother, now and again and you know we are trying to repair some damage withrie's daughter, that we don't really know exactly what happened because we were all together and then suddenly we weren't, um, but you know we'll all come around it's. It's like I said, it's a, it's a blip yeah, it is.

Speaker 2: 1:02:14

I just lost my mother in october. She had a massive stroke. She died on her 80th birthday.

Speaker 3: 1:02:20

Oh, I'm so sorry for your loss.

Speaker 2: 1:02:21

Yeah, and you know you were talking about how kind of everything changes. It was about a week after and it's such a weird thing to say, but it was just a weird feeling to have in that moment. I was sitting there and I go. You know what I don't have a mother anymore, like like there's not a mother in this world anymore, that I go yeah that's my mom and that, like you said, they don't prepare you for that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:02:54

You know, your mom was always there, right? And then all of a sudden one day she's not and you're like, ooh, wow, I am on my own. Fortunately, I've still got my father, who's 82. I've spent Thanksgiving together, but yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:03:11

I mean my mom said to me very recently I miss my daddy and her dad's been gone a long, long time. So I think it's just something that doesn't ever go away and like we have to keep reshaping grief, like like, let it creep in and make it something else today. Make it, make it the reason you go on, make it the reason that you make somebody else smile, make make it the reason that you go oh't seen my dad. I'm gonna go see him yes make it the you know it's.

Speaker 3: 1:03:43

It's gonna come in waves and it comes. You know it's. That's the human condition you know, you're right.

Speaker 2: 1:03:49

I found myself, on thanksgiving, I found myself looking at my dad when, more than probably I ever have, like when he would would be saying something. I was like doing my very best to like make eye contact and and to just be there with him in a way that, before my mom passed, uh, you know, you just get caught up in the, the way you usually do things then, and so. So, before we go, jolie, because I have a feeling you are going to run for office at some point, I hope so, and first, if you do, I hope we can do another one of these. You can come back on if and when you decide to run, sure, just off the top of your head and and without regard to even what, what position or office, what would be a couple of things.

Speaker 3: 1:04:50

That, in terms of this, is why I, if I run, this is why I would I mean, I think the off the top of my head is that you know we need to preserve the planet.

Speaker 3: 1:05:06

You know we're going in a direction that is is shortening the life of this planet. I'm not a big like, I'm not an environmental warrior, but I'm like, hey, wait a second, we might need to take a peek at what we're doing, which is also concerning for what's going to happen in 2025 for my children, because, like I said to my mom, you know, in voting this time around, you're not really voting for yourself at 86 years old lying in a bed. You're voting for the future, future of humanity. You're voting for your own children, but also the children. You know, um, I want this place to be safe for um, for for women and girls and boys and trans people and people of color and everybody. It's like I feel like we have gone into this territory where we're not safe, so we so we may, maybe are going to start guarding ourselves a little bit more and not really going for it. You know, like I think that I I have to get out of that myself right now, like it's going to take me a hot second.

Speaker 3: 1:06:22

I know exactly what you're talking about but it's like oh, it's so don't want to be defeatist or deflated, I don't want to be that, but I kind of feel like that right now I'm going to like, like we said it's okay to retreat for a minute, you bet. Then come back recharged and re-energized and I want to make sure that I don't do that and I model that behavior for my children and I model that behavior for the people that I represent in my union and I model that behavior for my girlfriends who are struggling and they're, you know, trying to trying to, at our age, redefine who they are, because we say there are more years behind us than there are in front of us.

Speaker 2: 1:07:08

And joy and joy, like I feel like we need to bring joy back well, as I said to you in the very beginning of this episode and I don't know that I got it all on the recording but I said one of the things that really stood out to me about you you've got cool life stories that we've talked about. Of course, the accomplishments, the things that make people like me go so cool, right, but you are just a good human being because you can tell by looking at the things you are involved with. You think about other people, and if there's one thing we need more of in this world, jolie, it's people like you who think about other people. And so I think, running for office, I love it when people use the I don't know if you want to call it leverage advantage of being known right, of being well known, and where you don't have to start on that footing of having people go. Well, who's this Right? They already know who this is, and that's a big thing. That's a big thing. And so to use that to get into these offices, these positions, where you can do more of what you are so good at doing, and that's thinking about.

Speaker 2: 1:08:53

Okay, I'm going to be, you know it's weird, isn't it? At two years, I'm going to be 60 years old and I'm like, holy crap, where, where does it go? But and this is this is kind of it's funny to me my wife is 24 years younger than me, so she's 34 years old, so I know she's going to have a life after I'm gone. Right, it's not going to be okay. He kicked a bucket, so now give me a year and I'm gone too right, she'll have another life. I've got two daughters, I've got a son, and so when you said, you know, when you're that age or this age, you're not voting. So much for you, you're voting. I'm voting for my wife and her next husband. You're voting.

Speaker 2: 1:09:40

I'm voting for my wife and her next husband. But you know, really, at some point you're like yeah, I'm voting for them.

Speaker 3: 1:09:54

Well, I appreciate you saying that about me as well, that I think there are a lot of people out there who virtue signal and you know call themselves this or that, and I think that out there who virtue signal and you know call themselves this or that, and I think that you know, with me I'm like, you know, I like sparkly things, but I also walk the walk and I and and I think that mostly I'm liked there are a few people out there that think otherwise, you know, and when I come across them, I remember Ellen DeGeneres said to me, you know, when she was doing standup and she said said everybody in the whole room was laughing, but one guy was like folded arms in the front.

Speaker 3: 1:10:25

You did the whole show for him you know, right, so so I'm like wait a minute, that person doesn't like me, oh my god. Well, how? What can I do to change that? You know, sure, and you know not not everybody's cup of tea, I don't know. Whatever it's like, again, it's the. We're here for a minute and you know, do what you do, be be true to yourself. If you, if your listeners, like this, pick up my book on audio because it's me telling all the stories in my own voice and it was a really interesting thing to to like actual, the actual recording of it was weird, cause you're like reading your own words. It wasn't, it wasn't a performance, it was really just telling the stories and and so it's available growing up Fisher, on Audible and wherever you buy your books on tape, and it's a couple of years old now, but you know it's, it's worth, it's worth a read if you like the stories that we're talking about today.

Speaker 2: 1:11:29

And the audio book again, as you said, is is in your voice. Yes, and that's cool, because I I like when that happens, because you really feel so connected to you. Know, it's not a hired narrator, it's. This is joely. Yeah, so these. She wrote this, but what she wrote came from within and now it's coming out from within, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:11:54

Yeah, you said one more thing that I, before we go, that I like about you. You said I'm pretty sparkly, and here's why I like that you are pretty sparkly and the reason I like that is sometimes and everybody's got their own way of doing things but sometimes you will see people who, when they decide to start kind of giving back or doing things for the less fortunate, it's like they go through this thing of deciding well, I have to get rid of my sparkliness now I have to be like one of the people that I'm helping, right, and I'm always like no, you don't. The reason we love you so much is because you were you and that's you know. We like that about you, so there shouldn't be any guilt or shame about it. Still be you and just.

Speaker 3: 1:12:56

I got to close it out with a hashtag Share the sparkle.

Speaker 2: 1:12:59

There you go, jolieely, it has been uh wonderful. Thank you so much and run for office you help me pick which one.

Speaker 3: 1:13:10

Okay, it will bye-bye. Great thanks so much. Have a beautiful afternoon.

Speaker 2: 1:13:16

You too.