Sarah Paulson
Appearances
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yeah, my mom will probably trot her out. Try to bring her to the next play.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
What are you doing? We all do. My mom also, my mom's going to get so upset about this, but like Cate Blanchett came to the play the same night that my mother came, same afternoon that my mother came. And Margo Martindale came also. And all these people that I love and I have long relationships with and I've worked with Cate three times. I've worked with Margo more than once.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And I, of course, was really happy to see them. And I was, I'm not saying I wasn't happy to see my mom, but it was like maybe the range was a little like, oh my God, Cate. Oh my God, Margo. And it was like, hey mom. Hey mom.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And I don't think she loved it. And I think her retribution is to just give me like a little less than I would hope for. Because I think I'm giving her... It's just got to keep me a little... Yeah. And she was like, I mean, I know we're supposed to go out. I don't know why I'm making my mom sound like this grand dame of Fifth Avenue or something. She's really like the grand dame of Woodstock.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
She's like a tambourine playing. You know, hey mom, I mean, I'm really sorry. I'm just disparaging you for my own comedy interests.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
But it's reality. It's my reality. I'm allowed to talk about my reality, right? Trish Hawkins, my mom, they belong to me.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I'll put that email on Instagram faster than you can say Trish Hawkins. We're going to put it in the chat.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Oh, you have this too. Yeah, yeah, of course. Oh God, so we're best friends. When's your birthday? Hate to be, not to be too Amanda Anka about it, but when's your birthday?
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
All right, so it's coming up. What sign is that, Taurus? I just want to know what your sign is. Taurus, I'm a Taurus. And what's your rising? Do we know what your rising is?
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I'm a Sagittarius with a Virgo rising and an Aquarius moon. So, you know, do with that what you will.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I do kind of think it's a thing. But anyway, the fear of flying. is very real for me. There's a lot of weeping that happens if there's a tiny pocket of... Really?
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Right into the crying. The grabbing the stranger next to me. I know you guys haven't been on a commercial airplane in a very long time, but if you do... That's not true.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
The private planes are even scarier to me. I don't enjoy it. Okay, more room for us.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
We've got some bumps coming up. If they come on and they give you a lay of the land, which is why I like to talk to them because I say the same thing. How are we looking? They often pull up the iPad with the root and they show me where the pockets of potential weather. They show me how we're going to fly.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I'm asking how we're doing. And they often pull out the iPad as a way of saying, here's what we're doing. I ask them how the plane looks, who did the checkout, like who went around and checked out the plane. I want to know how long they've been flying. I want to know.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Today's day one. Well, I want you to know that it's literally every single pilot joke that is made to me every time I ask. I'm like, oh, today's my first day. I'm like, not funny at all.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yeah, and sometimes there are, you know, the young co-pilot has fewer years and fewer hours flying. How about this?
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I guess I think I feel really uncomfortable in general in a car where someone's driving. I have to chat senselessly.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I have that trypophobia thing where I can't, I don't actually know how it's pronounced. Like Jason doesn't know about appropriate appropriate, but it's, It's trypophobia, trypophobia, I don't know. It's a fear of tryptophan. Is it fear of tryptophan? It's probably, no, it's not fear of tryptophan. It's fear of holes. It's fear of like... Holes. So like if... Like a group of holes.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
So like if you, like a group, a grouping, a whole grouping. I've heard this before. Like a natural sponge makes me like actually, I have to, or a coral reef, not interesting.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
No, because they're not close enough together. It's about when they're packed tight.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
It makes my skin crawl and I have to run away. And Ryan Murphy decided that this was so funny that he decided to make a season of American Horror Story about a character that I played who had this disorder. So then I was constantly all day long having to look at these things and run from them constantly. Clowns as well and things. That sounds like bullying.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
It just kept it at a steady place. It kept it on high. But the bee thing, you know, I've never been, not to bring up my mother again, but my mom.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
One day, my mother determined that the bees should be something I should get comfortable with because, you know, obviously they do a lot for our planet. They're wonderful. They're great. I had never been stung when I was... Yeah, exactly. Dirty hippie. And so I had not been stung at that point. And I still, at the ripe old age of 49, have not been stung by a bee. Because I will drop a baby.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I'm not kidding. I will... I will drop a baby, a tiny baby, and flee if a bee... I'm not kidding.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
See, I think I might be making it into something that is... Or I'm actually deathly allergic, and it's my...
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I could add to it, but there was actually a line that I took out of it because I thought it was too pompous.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
It would have been anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new. Give them more to see. This is a musical about George Seurat, the painter. Mandy Patinkin played, Bernadette Peters did. And it's basically her singing to him. It's from a song called Move On.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I was born in Tampa, Florida. We moved to Maine when I was in the, how old were you in the second grade?
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Seven. So I moved there in second grade. But we moved to New York first. It was New York when I was five.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And then Maine and then I went back to Florida and then back to New York where I moved a lot of places. Oh, Lord. My mom was a young mom.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
She had me at 21 and my sister at 23. So, you know, we can kind of forgive the Trish Hawkins situation because she doesn't know what to do.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
They were married. They were married very briefly. Divorced by the time I was two and my sister was 10 months old.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yeah, he was like, God, this colicky baby always wanted to sing these Annie songs.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Telling me about the story. Telling me about the story. Telling me about the story. Telling me about the story.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
My mom went to a psychic when she was... When I guess I was young. And she said something like, you know, your daughter's going to live a really... non-traditional life.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
She told me that, but after I was older and fell in love with a woman and then she was like, well, I have the psychic tell me that this was going to happen. Because to her, that was sort of living a non-traditional life.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Jen, it's just, these are just the facts. This is not, you know, it's not a, I mean, nobody looks better than Jennifer Aniston. That's a fact. That's a fact. That is a fact. So, you know.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Brothers and sisters? I have another sister. My dad remarried. I have a half-sister named Rachel. We don't know what she does. Okay, but why... She actually teaches acting classes that she... I mean, I'm literally... Is this true?
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I mean, everybody's involved. Everybody... Come on, everyone gets it. So I moved to LA. There we go. And then my sister... So here's the truth. And everybody has this in a family, I think, to some degree. I mean, I don't know what your stories are. And frankly, I don't care, but I... Don't get me started.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
But I'm just saying, I... I wanted to be an actress from the time I feel like when I was in utero. Like, it feels like I came out of the womb wanting to do this.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
My siblings, I think, had more, I think, less of a clear idea about what that particular passion was and are probably better at a lot of things, whereas I have one thing that I can do, you know, whereas my sister's great at math and all this other shit that I can't do.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
But, I mean, I don't think it's that strange, is it? Or maybe it is. Like, are all of your siblings, like,
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
But did they all know what they wanted to be, whatever it was they wanted to do?
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yeah, you know, I went to this dinner party that a friend of mine hosted where it was really kind of for Buck Henry, who was there. Wow. Yeah, it was a wild night. And I was at this dinner. It was a long, long table. And there was one empty seat. And Holland Taylor comes sort of, you know, bustling in and her hair, just like throwing her hair back and just, oh God, sorry I'm late.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Which, you know, late people, when they're really that late, it does end up making it sort of all about them when they arrive, you know? So she was really doing a like, kind of grand, oh, I'm so sorry I'm late. And I looked up and I thought, that is really a very beautiful person. And I found her to be intimidating. She's really smart and has a kind of formidable presence.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And she's incredibly talented. And I just, I was young at the time, guys. I was 35, 36. Wow, wow. And she sat down next to me, and I thought, oh, God. And then, you know, we just chatted a little while and then really never saw each other again except for on the back lot where I was doing Studio 60 at Warner Brothers, and she was shooting Two and a Half Men.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And she rolled her window down and said, hey, Blondie, do you need a ride? Oh, boy. That's what she said to me. I didn't know that. Right. And I was like, oh, no. I'm okay, I can walk to stage 19 myself. And we never saw each other again. And then we ended up doing a little PSA for Martha Plimpton's abortion. This is not going well, guys.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
She has an organization called A Is For, which is an abortion reproductive rights organization. And she asked us to do this PSA. So Holland and I happened to arrive on the same day. Holland was getting ready to come to New York to do her production of Anne, which she wrote that was going to be done at Lincoln Center about Governor Ann Richards.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yeah, exactly. Hard-knock life. Yeah, and we saw each other there, and then we followed each other on Twitter, and I literally DM'd her when I was shooting in New Orleans. Yeah. I slid into Holland Taylor's DMs. Wow. Wow, look at that. And then I sent a picture of her to a friend of mine, and I was like, can I date... a 70-year-old woman.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And my friend was like, absolutely not. And I'm just kidding. She was like, yes, you can. She was like, fuck no. Are you insane? And I was like, I think I'm going to do it. I think I'm going to fucking do it. Why not? And so I did it. And you guys have now been together for how long? Almost 10 years. Over nine years. That's so awesome. That's amazing. That's so cool.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Holland and I, we spend plenty of time together, but we don't live in the same house.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I mean, we've been together for a long time now. And I think part of it has to do with we're together when we want to be and we're not when we don't.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
No, because my favorite thing to do, we fall asleep holding hands, Holland and I. We sleep holding hands. We're very, I don't, I like to sleep near her. I don't want to be around her the rest of the time.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
You know what I mean? It's the daylight hours where I'm like, you can go. But no, I mean, I think we both, you know, Holland before me had not been in a ton of long-term relationships, whereas Holland is my sort of third partner. you know, more than five year relationship. So I tend to do that and have more experience doing that. Holland has it.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And so her life and to get to be her age and sort of not having really cohabitated with someone for a long time, I think it was a lot to sort of all of a sudden have me and all my me-ness in her space.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I was going to make the same joke, and I just want you to know that that was the joke I was going to make. And I appreciate you, Will, and I appreciate that I'm not the only one with the mind. Of course not. The size of a tiny pea.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Wait. No, we're just getting started, Sarah. I'm here all day, right? I've got a ration of food here. We bought a double booking.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I got nothing on Ryan. Ryan's an open book, man. Everything I got on Ryan, you know about Ryan, you know?
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I share him, but I love him. He's, you know, he's been very, very good to me. Like the first person in my working life I felt who really... He saw me, you know, like he continued to say, I'm not, I don't know why I always use sports analogies when I don't watch any sports, but he continually threw me the ball just always and thought I could do things I didn't even know I could do.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And so for me, he's just an absolute hero in my life, both as a friend and a professional.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I played Nicole Wallace before Nicole Wallace was the MSNBC lady. She's my hero. Yeah, I played her in Game Change.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
It was when Julianne Moore played Sarah Palin. This was that HBO thing where Ed Harris played McCain and Julianne Moore played Sarah Palin.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
It was a very, very traumatic thing that happened. I mean, you should watch them. You should watch. Sean's right. You should watch. It's amazing.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
She was really traumatized by the whole thing, the Sarah Palin thing. It was really- Yeah, I'll bet.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yeah. So much so that she didn't vote for her own candidate. She didn't vote for John. She couldn't vote because of it.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I got a couple of things in my closet that I think you'd be like, meh, this wasn't... Probably on three-quarter inch tape, right? Yes.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yeah, I can't watch myself now. Well, I actually decided to... I think for me, the Marcia Clark thing was the first time I had done anything where I felt...
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
so much connectivity to Marcia, the person, and so much, it just was the first time there felt like a real creepy actressy kind of melding of like, almost like a visitation where you've been sort of embodied by a person you don't know, I mean, how it happened. I'm waiting for your joke, Will, about being embodied by, you don't got one? Okay. He's writing it. He's slow. Just be patient.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
All right. That's okay. It's just an opportunity missed. It's not a big deal. But it was the most connected I ever felt to anything I'd ever done professionally. And I thought, if I watch this... And also, it was in conjunction with the most celebrated I had ever been about my work.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And so I think I thought, if I watch this and everybody thinks it's great and I hate it, I'm going to sort of ruin my experience that I'm having that has never happened to me before of feeling really... Yeah, I understand that. You know what I mean? Like I just thought I'm going to go in there with my hypercritical way and tear this apart.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And that would be a shame because this is the first time I feel like anyone is giving a shit about my work or what I'm doing. And so I thought I should try to enjoy it. And then I just kept it.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Trish Hawkins. I'm surprised I haven't gotten an email from her. Like everything that's ever come out, I'm just shocked.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yes, except for when I have been EPing things, I do watch it, but I try to watch it in a kind of... Right. A way where, you know, because I'm giving notes.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I feel like the vanity component of this industry, particularly for women, but for all of us, I feel so hyper-focused on this shit, the face and the body and the hair and the weight and the thing and the wrinkles and all this shit, that I definitely feel a kind of freedom when I can hide behind these other things, whether it's Marsha's wig or Linda's, the prosthetics to play Linda.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And I can, I can hide. It's a, it's a way of hiding that I, that I think ultimately. She died. She did die. She died right before we started. No way. Yeah. Wow.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Funny or tragic theater story? I mean, I don't know if there's a more tragic story than getting notes from an actress who played a play 30 years ago. Okay, fine, that's your story. There you go. Like something going wrong. Well, two things happened recently, which is, you know, in the play, which you guys saw, we can discuss this later. Sure, sure.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
In the first act of the play, I am having an argument with the black sheep of the family played by Michael Esper. The great Mike Lesper. The great Mike Lesper, who I think he's incredible. And the great Corey Stoll. And he's the great Corey Stoll. And I leave the room in a big huff, and I'm very upset, and I've just blown up and screamed at everybody.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And I leave the stage, I slam the door, and his line is, what happened to her? And someone from the balcony went, you...
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yeah. And then the other thing that happened that was kind of cool the other day, which is I'd never experienced that. And I don't know if you ever have either, Sean, but we had an actress get sick in act one and then the understudy went on for act two. That's never happened, but I've always wondered about that.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
It was like days of our lives or something where like someone was decapitated in season four and in season 10, they came out with a different thing.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yeah, they make an announcement and everyone just clapped. And there's something very special about the theater where like people are willing to believe anything you do up there as long as you kind of commit to that world. And you like a good pilot, let them know what the fuck is going on. Not to bring it full circle for you guys, but I got to say. That is incredible.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
It's a relationship. You've got to communicate. It's the key to everything, you guys.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Oh, my God. Thank you. And I really do want you to come. Also, at the Tabasco Theater, Sean, you live on there. I think, have I told you this? Like, first of all, your poster is down in the room. Did you talk about this on the show at all? No. The elephant room? The elephant room under the Tabasco Theater. Did you talk about this? Am I boring? Everybody's already talked about this. You say it.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Because he was going to do a big trick where he was going to disappear an elephant.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Well, I'm just saying, like, there are a lot of posters that are not down there. There's two posters down there, and yours is one of them. And also, every night when I walk backstage to get to my entrance, there is a cork board on the right-hand side that the prop guys have up, and it just says Oscar Levant on it. Oh, I love that. So I sort of think about you every day when I'm there.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I really appreciate it. You wrote me a lovely text. I didn't hear from you, Jason, but... No, check your spam. No one's in there. I'm confident I will hear from you, Will, when you come backstage or when you don't.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Look, I'm in shorts. Strangely, I have to go. I mean, I just have to go now. You gotta rest your voice. I gotta rest my voice. We love you. Sarah, love you. Thank you, guys. Bye, honey. Goodbye.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
It's not clean. Are you in the bathroom? I'm upstairs. I'm upstairs. Yeah, near a bathroom.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Well, I think at the beginning of the play, there's that sign, right? That sort of drop in front of the curtain that describes all of the various ways in which... The noun and the verb. Yeah, the noun and the verb. Yeah. What is Will doing?
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Weirdly, I wanted to talk to Will. I mean, I know you both. Great. Sean and I will take a tight five. More interested in that. Take a tight five.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I think it could. And I think it's why he offers both options at the beginning of the play because all of it is applicable. But I think I did ask him directly. It is appropriate. Yeah.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
No, I mean, Jason has a lot of skills, but this one particular assessment is not one of them.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
You've got until June 23rd, buddy, but I don't want to know. I don't want to know. I don't like to know when people are coming. I don't care if it's your dry cleaner. I don't care if it's your dentist. I end up thinking too much about whether or not it's my codependent, my kind of hypervigilant way of being in the world. You're listening for their laugh.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yeah, I'm just wondering, like even any of my castmates, I don't want to know if your fourth grade teacher was there.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
It's not my favorite, although I will tell you, we've had a couple of fancy famouses come and not come backstage, and we all collectively discuss that we think it means that they didn't like it.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
But then we sort of think, well, but think about it this way. So you're so famous, you think somehow that the cast, whom you do not know, wants you to come backstage and announce yourself to bequeath them with your great... It's arrogant. It's weird, so there's no way to win. Yeah, you can't win. But we have had discussions about,
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
you know, there was like some fancy person who came who had worked with someone in the play who didn't come back. And I was like, well, no, that is a communication that they just don't like you.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Yeah, I think we would discuss that we thought Will Arnett didn't like the play. Really? That's what we would discuss, yeah. What if he didn't like the play? This is all I want.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
That has not happened, although I would kind of welcome it, actually, just simply so I could discuss it with other people about the outreach.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I will tell you, I did do a play once. My last time I was on stage, I did a play called Tally's Folly at the Roundabout. And thank you for the applause. And the actress, and I'm going to say this, and I'm not going to ask you to cut this out because I don't fucking care. This actress came to the play. What's her fucking name? Hi, Trish. Hi, Trish. Trish Hawkins came to this play.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Am I going to get sued? I don't care because I think this is outrageous. She came to the play.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
And I proceeded. My mother brought her to the play. They were in some kind of like writing group together. And my mother thought it'd be great to bring Trish Hawkins to the play. I mean, this is a whole other conversation about my mom. Hi, mom. But she came to the play, proceeded to say. She looked at me and sort of up and down. And then she went, your dress is yellow. Mine was pink.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Cut to two days later, I got an email that was six pages long of notes and a communication to me about what she had done when she had done the play. Jesus Christ. What she recommended I do. What? God. It was outrageous. Oh, my God. It was really outrageous. Trish Hawkins, I have not forgotten it, and I hope to see you never.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
I didn't. I sort of just, you know, put it back in the file of things my mother has done. That's good, though.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
Now, by the way... But, like, this is the deal. You cannot come to... You want to... If you're my dearest friend and we go have a cocktail or, you know, a little bread basket, Jason, or some air that we might eat, Jason. But, you know, post the show, some air. She knows you. We might eat some air. Air is so tasty sometimes after a show, though. It's really wild how good it can be.
SmartLess
"Sarah Paulson"
But if you are a person that I love and admire, and I say to you, tell me what you thought, really. And give me some... Right. Especially like early days previews or something. All right, thank God.