 So, I would like to welcome all of you here. You know, this is part of the programming for the Elizabeth Sackler Center for Feminist Art. I am Elizabeth Sackler. And instead of having this afternoon in the forum, we're having it here because obviously there are many, many people. Here is my son, Michael. Michael, this is Kathleen Turner. And Kathleen wants us to be informal. We are all here. And part of what this is about is an opportunity really for dialogue with all of you. And before we begin, I just would like to say that we're going to ask everybody, the two beautiful women who just arrived to come down forward so that you can dialogue here. We're going to be celebrating, the center is going to be celebrating our third anniversary in March, which feels like it's right around the corner. And we've had such a fantastic two and a half years. It's been more than two and a half, obviously. And it's been delightful. And I am so thrilled that Kathleen Turner is here today. Part of our mission at the center is to raise awareness of feminism's contributions to the art and to culture. And part of what I think you might have an opportunity perhaps to dialogue about today with Kathleen Turner is that aspect of Kathleen's life. She wrote in her book, Sending Yourself Roses, is Kathleen's book, Send Yourself Roses. We'll have a book signing and sales outside when we're finished here. In it, Kathleen wrote, and I have to get to that part and put on my glasses. She wrote, actor and activist come from the same route. I consider myself both. Finally on, I was influenced by a saying of Margaret Mead that we should never doubt that we should never doubt that a small group of committed individuals can make a difference. And indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. It always breaks down to someone doing something, taking action. And I was very excited when I read that. I think both of us, I'm not an actor, but I am an activist. You are an actor and an activist. I have a long, very beautiful biography, and I feel like it's just almost redundant because I think everybody here knows, and I'd like to welcome Kathleen Turner. They've given me this microphone, I think, more for their own records than my need, because obviously, I don't actually need one. Just a little explanation. This is a full knee replacement that I just had to have done. So I'm not actually faking it. Oh, and the tape is a skin biopsy that I had a very enthusiastic doctor who grabbed me for. Okay, that's over. A little history about myself. What I'd love to do very much today and how I have the most fun, which is of course of paramount importance, is to talk to an answer. What I get from you all is we'll find the topics and the stories and hopefully the jokes and things that will come from what your interest is in being here. Okay? So we'll try and you'll have to be brave also and all that good stuff. So overview background, I'm 55. I grew up mostly overseas at least until I was 18. My father was with the Foreign Service Department, a Foreign Service Officer. So I grew up mostly outside of the United States except for Washington, D.C. So until I was 18, my last four years, high school, was spent in London, at the American School in London. So then I suddenly found myself, when my father died suddenly, in Springfield, Missouri, where my mother's parents lived and started college, started university at the Southwest Missouri State University. You have a dog. Okay, anyway, where I learned a great deal, I mean, because quite honestly, I think had this not happened, I would have become a kind of fake British actress rather than an American actress. And so although the circumstances were sad, it was very valuable to me to come back and end up in the West of our country and work my way through college to New York, where I have always lived, I have never enjoyed living on the other side of the country. It just, in some ways, I always sort of say that movies happened to me rather than my actively pursuing them. I always thought of myself as a stage actress, and I still do. But what I hadn't realized in the early days was that it would take me years to grow into a great many of the great roles that are available on stage that, of course, in the meantime, I thought I'd fill them up in film. Yeah, right. I had a ball. I still have a ball. Well, actually, I enjoy everything I do, otherwise I don't think I'd do it. Ah, let's see. I am active. I'm on the board of Advocates for Planned Parenthood in the United States of America. I am on the board of People for the American Way. I work with City Meals on Wheels here in New York City. I work with Child Help USA, primarily a lot of the activism that I am focused on is women and children's health and rights. So those are my strongest. I figure cancer can do without me. It's got enough people there. So I try and work really with organizations that I think offer practical and immediate help in many ways. Okay, let's see. Honestly, the best way for me to do it is not to talk at you, but to talk with you. Okay. Does anybody want to start off with a question or comment or something that will get my juices going? Oh, no. Actually, oh, yes. Okay. I'll repeat that so everybody can hear me. Did you become active in the organizations before you became quote, unquote famous or was it afterwards so that you could use your fame to help? Well, it's certainly a real, one of the best aspects of fame that you can focus attention and interest on anyone, cause or organization. But no, I started working with Planned Parenthood when I was in college because they were the people I went to when I needed reproductive help. You know, when I started deciding to get sexually active, I thought, let's do something about that. And that just so I just continued with them throughout. And when I moved from Missouri to Baltimore for a year, and I worked in the clinic there, and then when I moved from there to New York, I continued. And then they elevated me up, you know, as I go famous, they elevated me up to board status. But I've always been involved with them, my guys, let's get lively. Yes. Well, I teach at NYU also. I teach acting to juniors and seniors. Basically when I do master classes, but I'll teach a full semester when I have that, when I know I'm going to be in New York, you know, for that amount of time, and I can make that commitment. To read, honestly, God, I mean, read, there is so much that is the acquisition of words, the acquisition of the ability to be able to name things, to conceive of things. I'm not even speaking of any one kind of book or any one kind of material. I think that the exercise of using and discovering and tasting and applying words is illuminating. There are the same fights now that we had in our time, very, very much. In fact, now it may be some of them are more difficult, but more accessible, there's more we can do. For example, we were on the front very much, maybe not, I wasn't on the front line, okay, I was on the second line, of women's rights, of fighting for women's equality and parity. Well, it's slipping again, guys. You lovely young women. It's slipping again, and you all are in danger, and so you're reproductive rights. This battle is very, very far from having been won. There is the same kind of activism needed now as there was then in terms of our economy, in terms of what we can do ourselves. And please don't think I just set myself as any up as any kind of expert or anything. But the need, the social need to be aware and help out in terms of people with so much less. I always tell people in my classes and stuff, schedule yourself as an hour a week, say, every Thursday at three o'clock, you will give an hour to city meals, or you will give an hour to another organization that needs you, write it in your schedule like you would a class, or a weekly appointment at the gym, or something, give yourself, set aside at least one hour a week, where that's simply what you have promised to do that day. Don't make it an extraordinary event that you're going to suddenly have this burst of, God, I'm going to do something good today. And that's it. You know, get yourself into the habit of giving. I don't even want to say giving. I just want to say being involved with something. And a habit will lead on. And this, you know, through this sort of thing, you meet people from different walks of life. You mean students in particular are very often have a very limited range of exposure. You know, you mostly interact with other students, and perhaps your parents still, whatever, your teachers, but not much of the greater world. I mean, sometimes when I go below 14th Street, when I'm going down to NYU, it's like a home of the New York, you know, or if I go up to Columbia. But in between it's like adult world. And then there are these student worlds, you know. So I think advise them to find an activity that takes them outside of their, the student little world for a bit. When did you become sure that you were going to be an actress, and was there a person who inspired that in you, or was it always there? Secondly, everybody asking questions, please ask them to the mic so it goes into the recordings. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense that she's just speaking. Ah. You're right. Which means we have to wait for the mic. I was 12, actually. And it makes no sense whatsoever. I was living at that time in Caracas, Venezuela. My father was posted to the embassy there. No one in my family has ever been involved in the arts in any way. They are all scholars, they are all, we have four doctors in my family, my siblings and myself. You know, and my mother, I must confess, takes great delight when we're all together and saying, and this is Dr. Turner and Dr. Turner and Dr. Turner and Dr. Turner. All right. Mine is honorable, okay? They gave it to me. But I did ask my siblings if it was okay. You know, if I accepted it and they said, yes, they thought I'd earned it. So we're cool. But anyway, no one had ever been involved in the arts. I had no exposure. And living in Caracas, Venezuela was not exactly the center of the arts. You know, in 1960, something, 68, I guess. So I don't know why exactly I decided that that was my life's work, was to be an actor. But shortly after that, as I turned 13, we moved to London. And I started the America School in London. But the first thing I did, the first night I was in London, was go to see a play, you know. And we didn't have any money or anything like that. So I was sitting in the English theater. There are four tiers of, and the fourth one, all the way up, is called the Gods because you're so close to him up there. So, but that was very cheap, you know. So I was up in the Gods looking down at the stage. And for the first time it hit me that I could actually earn a living as an actor. Because we all knew whatever we did, we'd have to earn our own living. There was no question about that. But I think I was helped also by the fact that in England, it is considered a profession. It is an honorable profession to be an actor. In this country, it is still considered like, oh, it just happened to you. Or somebody happened to see you sitting somewhere. Or, I mean, as if there weren't the years of training and intention and scholarship that really that good acting takes. So the respect for acting as a profession, I think made it more possible for me to believe that I could be, that I could earn a living with it. Needless to say, this absolutely horrified my family. My father grew up in China. And his grandfather, my great, no, his, yeah, his grandfather, my great, great grandfather was a missionary, Methodist missionary to China. So my father was brought up in Shanghai by two maiden aunts and this missionary grandfather. And so the thought to him that any child of his would even dream of going into such a dubious field, you know, I mean, I think he literally said to me, oh, why don't you just go walk the streets, you know? So I was fighting a lot of disapproval there. But then, as I say, when I, just before I turned 18, he died very suddenly. So the support was taken away and so was the barrier, you know? I mean, as much as it sounds awful to say it, it released me, you know, in some ways that I wouldn't have, I would have had to fight longer and harder against him to be allowed to continue on the path I chosen. I just always knew. I swear to God, I always knew that this was something that I had to do. And I'm one of those extraordinarily lucky people who has the talent to match the desire. You know, very often it's one or two other. I think the saddest thing is not to have the desire, not to wake up in the morning and say, oh, I must do this. Oh, I really want to do this. I have to confess, I see a lot of people, many times young people, who go to the right schools, who maybe live in the right neighborhood or join the right firm or whatever, and keep waiting for these things to give meaning to them, their lives. It does not work this way. You know, you have to decide what your life means, what your work means to you, and through that, find the avenues to do it. But it's not going to come from somebody else, you know, saying, you will feel great, you know, about yourself if you follow this path. So I'm lucky. I'm just extraordinarily lucky that I have always been given this conviction that this is what I have to do. Can't explain it. We've got to get a mic over there. We've got one on this side, don't we? Well, let's start here, we'll get over to you. You mean in terms of our women's rights and protections? Oh, I guess I'm sorry the mic wasn't on. Yeah, go ahead, see you again. I was just wondering why you think we're going a little bit backwards now. What you see happening in our culture and society right now? Well, because, for example, I have a 22-year-old daughter. She turned 22, two weeks ago. Wow, I really have to learn to let her go. Anyway, really do. Not really joking, I promised, I promised. But I mean, I have this impulse whenever I see you to say, wait, have you done this? And did you call so-and-so and, ah, I'm learning, though. I'm learning to let go, I swear to God. She and many of the young women I've met of her age and circle, seem to feel that there's no threat to their reproductive rights, for example. And yet, in the first passage of the Congress's health care reform, there is a specific clause against the use of these monies toward a medical abortion. Now, we're talking about women who probably, you know, I have never, I do not believe that any woman chooses abortion as a matter of birth control. I just don't. Yes, there may have been carelessness or lack of forethought. And we certainly have the after pill or whatever. That is fairly accessible. But even so, and in catastrophic birth instances, it is a medical necessity. And to say to a member of our society, you need this medical procedure. You can have everything but that. It is a kind of exclusionary thinking that I think opens the door to great many dangers for us. Now, I would love to see a comprehensive health care reform bill passed, and I will happily pay more taxes. I honestly would. I mean, instead of thinking that some of my fellow citizens will be without any care that they need, you bet I would. And the fact that our country pays less than almost any other country in the world, any civilized country, we should say, perhaps, or industrialized, I think that we have a very narrow understanding of our role as citizens within a greater society, which leads me to another topic which really burns my ass. Why don't they teach civics in school again? I mean, it was like half of the arts programs. It's been tossed out, right? As an unnecessary, you know, you've got to hire another teacher, you've got to schedule another class. The truth is we have people growing up who have absolutely no idea what their responsibilities or their rights are in this country. And I think that is completely wrong. How can you participate as a citizen unless you have an idea of what you can do? Okay, that's a real bug of mine. You know, go home, go to your local school board, say, excuse me, I want civics taught again. Yes. Oh, wait a minute, that's ended up there. Wait, we missed him. Okay, remember him in the, all right, fine. No, no. Yes, you're on. Classes at a local community. You just have to speak into it. I have to speak like this. Okay, I take classes at a local community college. And what I see is that many of the young people are so used to the advantages that we fought for that they don't realize that they have to continue to fight for it. As an example, and it's not women's rights, about a year ago, I attended a conference in which there was a member of the clergy who was speaking about his experiences marching with Dr. King. And there were African-American students in the audience that really got antsy and said, why do I have to listen to this garbage? This doesn't pertain to us. And it certainly did because he didn't march with Dr. King or Dr. King didn't march. They wouldn't have what they have today. And it's the same with women's rights as well. Well, it's the same with many, many issues, but I think we're probably every generation of us has said this, that you guys don't realize the work that we did to get you here. It's true. Now, I'm not saying it's false. I was saying that it is, that's part of our job, is to say, wait, don't you understand what was accomplished? I think that in the fullness, I would trust, in the fullness of time and a little context, especially as they gather more experience in their own lives, they will see how the changes have happened, even within their own working lifespan or even within 10 years span. And they were probably back gonna say, well, now you can do what we, it's a little too simplistic to my mind to say that the young people don't appreciate it. No, they, I think that they have their own battles in many ways, their own struggles and their own barriers. They're very different from some of the ones we faced. In some ways, I think ours was simpler because the input now and the global confrontation, the global interaction that people, my daughters, the young 20s have to deal with now the impact across the world, our issues were really a little smaller in a lot of ways. It is a shame that the boys or the people that age haven't, don't seem to show true respect. They're wrong, they're just wrong. But they'll probably learn it as they go along a ways and find out what, how difficult it is for them and what they have to overcome. And they'll say to their kids, if you know, no, what it was in my time, I say to my daughter, you know, first of all, I threaten that she will have absolutely no inheritance whatsoever unless she becomes very active in several organizations. But, because I really do believe in putting yourself where your mouth is, you know. But I do say to her, you know, be careful, be very careful. You're not aware of when the Supreme Court, before Sotomayor, when it was a serious 5-4 bias with the possibility with Bush still in office of another appointment, you know, the damage that that could have done. I asked President Obama, he wasn't president then he was a candidate, you know, what would he do to protect women's rights even when he was elected? And he was very, very straightforward. He said, well, I obviously, I can nominate for the Supreme Court, but I cannot ensure that any one judge is elected. But the first line of defense for the presidency is the first circuit court that those judges are appointed by the president. And that is where he would have the greatest impact and influence. That plus the fact that you must understand or underestimate the influence of the White House and the atmosphere in the White House on the country. I mean, look at the change from when Bush was in office even within a year toward women and women's issues. And the issues that are paramount now in on the social conscious level that were quite, quite ignored or certainly, certainly less important, shall we say, under the previous presidency. Oh heavens, now I've wandered astray. How am I? I just started going on. Ah, let's move on. Good afternoon. To echo what you were speaking of before activism, I'm really proud to say that the number of years ago, one of the things I did was put aside a career and begin working in public schools as an aide for special ed kids. And I look forward to waking up every morning. You alluded to that. I also look forward every day to interacting with the kids. I also go out of my way to encourage the younger women in the class to feel empowered, which is nice, but that's not why I'm here. I have to admit. Well, I'm glad you're all those things. Well, exactly, all those things. But the reason I'm here is serendipity. Throughout much of the early 80s, I was dating a wonderful young woman. And every time there was a wedding or a bar mitzvah, she was related to you, a cousin. I would always sit at your table. And you were never there. But I did want to thank you for one thing. Oh my God, I only have a couple of cousins. Well, I don't want to say names. Huh? I don't say names, but the Elkins. Oh, they're in New Jersey? I'm sorry? Are they in New Jersey? One is, one was Brooklyn. They're all over the place. That's neither here nor there. I want to thank you for all. Our fathers didn't like each other at all. I want to thank for all the wonderful desserts that I ate in your name. I think I had an entree or two. I do recall the desserts. It was serendipity we were walking in. I saw you. I had to say thank you. Oh, that's fun. And all the early 80s. I would say there have been some very embarrassing times. Not necessarily for me, although Luke, when once I was in between airplanes, you know, in St. Louis. Staying, I'm in the club, right? Waiting for the other flight to get ready. And this woman came up to me and she said, I work with your first cousin in the bank. And I said, I'm sorry. I really don't have any. I have a couple of cousins in New Jersey, but I don't think I've talked to them for 30, 40 years. Anyway, anyway, this woman said, no, no, no. Her name is Debbie, Debbie Turner. And she works in the bank with me in St. Louis. I said, I'm sorry. I don't have any relatives in Missouri other than my mother or my grandmother. And I don't have anybody in my family named Debbie. And she went, oh, that's great. She said she is such a bitch. So wait till I get back and tell, she has been telling everybody she's your cousin. I thought, oh my God, the poor woman, she's gonna get killed. No, my fault. I don't actually have a cousin named Debbie. Yo. Have you enjoyed playing your role in California Cation recently? And is it a big stretch for you compared to the other roles? I mean, body heat was very good too. Yeah. I'm cool. I tell you, that has been, that was quite a little, oh, here, honestly, I am shocked by what I've done. And while I was, I'm the kind of actor that when I'm doing it, I don't think about, you know, what somebody else thinks, which protects me from all kinds of things. But everybody in the studio used to come and gather at the table readings because I'm actually so innocent. We would get across a line and I would say, what does that mean? What does it mean? Rusty trombone. And I had the whole cast and crew on the floor laughing to see what Turner didn't know that week. Of course, I did make a point of learning it. And in fact, at times, I learned up the medical, the medical term for some of these things and suggested we could say per and em as opposed to taint, say. But they did nothing that was as amusing. Any case. No, she was quite, I had a ball. I had absolute ball, you know, what the hell? I haven't done that kind of thing. I mean, honestly, if you really want to get me, dangle something I haven't done in front of me before. It was like when I did the friends thing and they came to me, I was doing a show and I was doing a play of Tallulah based on Tallulah Bankett in San Francisco. And the writers came up and they said, listen, we want you to play, you know, Chandler's father. And I said, well, you know, he's a man playing a woman. I said, so, let me get this way. So you want a woman to play a man to play a woman? And they said, yeah, basically, I haven't done that. So, you know, I mean, I'm very attracted by things and I mean, obviously I'm not gonna do something I find. There were a couple times in the shooting of the series when I just said to them, look, I can't do that. I can't say it and they would say fine, you know, no worries. But on the whole, I think I kind of had a ball being so awful and I watched the first show, the first episode with my daughter and a bunch of her friends. And at one point my daughter turned to me and she said, never do that again. Let's get over it, get 22, come on. What's been your favorite role as an actress and what's been your most challenging role as an actress and why? I think that would be both of one, actually, because I think challenging is something I love very much. I believe that you'll have to take, you have to push yourself to the point of possible failure of possibly falling flat on your face because if you don't, then you're playing it safe and then you don't know how good or how extraordinary you might have been. And that might have been, I don't wanna live with, you know, what might have been or what I might have done or what that is unacceptable to me. That would make it Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Now that's a role that I was, we were speaking, Elizabeth and I earlier, I literally read that play when I was 20 in college and said, when I'm 50, I'm doing that role. How bizarre. Why, as a 20 year old, I thought I must do it. It's probably something for deep analytical study. However, although we couldn't talk about that a lot of you but so when I was 49, I thought I better get on the stick, and I found Albie's producer and took her out to dinner and said, you know, it's really, this hasn't been done on Broadway since 1975. Colleen Dewhurst was the last actress to play Martha and before her, Uda Hagen. So it's only been twice in the history of the play in New York and she said, oh, I don't think Edward is interested in a revival. He's, you know, he's doing new work. He's not, he doesn't really want to be known only for. And I said, no, it needs to be done. It really does. And finally, talked her into grabbing Edward for a lunch. So the three of us had lunch and at the end of the lunch, he said, so what do you want? And I said, I want a chance to read it for you. That's all. Just let me put together a reading and you listen. And he agreed. So I found, I got Bill Irwin and a couple of other actors who did not end up in the play. Anyway, but they were nice young people. But anyway, not right, but not nice young people. It was a reading, you know. And we put together in the director, Anthony Page's loft. We put together a reading and at the end of the first act, we took a break, you know, five minute break. And Edward came over and he said, I have not heard anything like this since Uta Hagan. And I, after my heart started again, I said, oh, and there are two more acts to go. Where do I get it? I don't know, man. I mean, talking back there, would I be like that? Jesus. However, there was something and he is something about Martha that I am most, most satisfied that I achieved her, you know. I mean, she for some reason has been a real goal for me at that point, you know, for 30 years. So much to do with the woman's being caged, really, truly. I think it is because in 1962, imagine this woman, the daughter of the university president and the wife of many years of who is still an associate professor. In 1962, a woman, there were no women presidents of the universities. There were very, very, very few women with tenure of any kind. There was no career for women in academia as it were in those days. There were very few careers in many areas. So they lived, she lived through her father and her husband. Her father looked down upon her, did not care for her, and her husband had none of the ambition that was essential. And here's the woman of intelligence, of power, of energy with absolutely nothing to do. I mean, she, what? She goes to a committee of the wives, of the teachers of the history department to put together a tea. Whoopee. So the anger inherent in this character and the restlessness and the, has always just grabbed me and has never let me go. I mean, I don't know why, but I do, although it has lessened that little over the years, I hope I have an empress, have this reservoir of anger in me that is just when something is wrong or I'm one with you, or it's just the frustration, not being able to do something about something just drives me up a wall. And Martha just encapsulated all of some of my best and my worst aspects of my personality, I think found release in Martha. Now, what we found in the production and I think gave to people who had not had it before was extraordinary humor that's inherent there. It's not a play about two people, two drunks screaming at each other all night. And if any of you got to see it, there are huge laughs throughout the entire show. And ultimately it's about two people who love each other, who cannot live without each other. So whatever, you know, all the pain and all the anger and all the humor and, oh God, the energy, it just seems to me, and maybe I'm basing this too much on myself that we try so hard to make our mark on the world. Not necessarily toward anything, just to make a difference, yes. I mean, you may choose to make a difference by giving up a career and going into public school accent in my mind. You may choose to make a difference simply by being terrific at your job and how that job serves the community. I'm not even saying that every job must serve. What I am saying is that you need to know that you can do something really well and that you do and that you don't cop out and you don't chicken out. And Martha, to me, is that person that's trapped and kicking against the walls. I don't mind you, but I think a lot of us are that way. Do you know? And I'm just lucky, because a lot of the walls I kick go down. Is that a good answer? Okay. Hi, Kathleen. My question was about your new book. I was wondering what it was about and how that all came about for you. My book is an autobiography and it basically is, it kinda, I suppose like anyone does, it sort of skims over my thoughts and experiences. Little history, cause you gotta have a little history to figure out where I'm coming from. But it's not my fault. It's this woman's fault right here. Her name is Gloria Felt and we grew to be great friends because she was the president of Planned Parenthood, Ergo. We had a close association which grew into a very good strong friendship. And she came to me one day and she said you have a lot of stories and you should put them in a book. And I said, oh no, no, no, no, no. I mean, that's just so arrogant. God, a book about me. I mean, why should I have a book about stuff? No. Anyway, she wore me down and she took me to, and she got me drunk. Magalitas, very good ones. Anyway, so I thought, okay, we'll go for it. What we did basically was, she had all the work. I swear to God, I just talk. So we have 40 some, what is it, 60? 40 some hours of me on tape. And we would talk about issues that would come up, things that were happening that day. Oh, you know, about this film or that play or something, you know, we would get together and just as she would record all of this endlessly. And then, so see, it was her job to make some sense out of this, to give it some structure. So we did agree upon the structure of kind of going job by job. And so to take the jobs and relate that to some of the things I learned in that time, both because of that job and around the time of that job. And that would lead to a kind of overall philosophy, I suppose would be a good term. So she had, I mean, really honestly, God, she had to do much more work. I just had to go back and say, yes, no, yes. Oh, you don't want that story. And wait, wait, what happened to this one? But on the whole, all this structure and everything was done by Gloria, who made sense of it. So yes, every word is mine, but it would not be coherent in any form without Ms. Felt. So you know, all true. Elizabeth. In your book, which I love by the way, and I really encourage everybody to buy it, we'll have a book signing afterwards. I really enjoyed reading it. Kathleen, I thank you because it is hard. You will laugh. There are so many books in the world that one thinks, why does one need another book? But I can assure you, your book is needed, and I thank you for it. In it, you do mention about how you did not want to be tight cast as an ingenue after body heat. And as I was thinking to myself, even a really, really sexy ingenue, which you were, at what point when body heat really hit the cinema and it made the waves that it did, did you know before it came out that you didn't want to be tight cast? Did you realize that you could potentially be, did you know that you had the potential for that kind of, you know, of front? And what did you want to do? Well, I think then, first of all, I don't believe that I had any real understanding of the impact of body heat. I don't, again, as I say, I have a blissful sort of blindness when I'm working, that I don't think about how the work is going to be received or what it's gonna, of the effect it's gonna have when I'm doing it. I mean, I may finish a day of shooting or finish a performance and go, oh crap, what are they gonna think of that? But that never occurs to me when I'm acting. So I'm blissfully unaware, I'm protected in that way. But I had no idea that body heat would have this sort of historical impact that it seems to have had. First of all, because I didn't believe it myself. I never thought of myself as a very sexy woman. I was a tomboy. You know, I had, I always beat up my brothers and most of the other kids, you know. I mean, I can't remember my mother once saying to me, oh, why don't you let them win once? I said, why? Why? But because they were a boy, doesn't make any sense to me at all. Anyway, but it did occur to me when I saw the impact of body heat, the first time I saw it with an audience, that I was in deep shit, that this could potentially really trap me. And sure enough, in the months that followed, all I got were body heat one, body heat two, body heat three, body heat four, script after script after script of essentially the same character with the same sort of woman drives man mad and therefore he does anything for her crap. And so in any case, so no, it was apparent to me right away that that was a real trap, that that was really dangerous. And so I refused to do any of them. And then I wanted, I've always the lesson that I learned then and have continued since any time I do one kind of character or one kind of show, I will follow it with a contrasting or even opposite. For example, after body heat came the man with two brains. Yes, a femme fatale, but an outrageous comedy. And I always thought I was making fun of the femme fatale. You know, I mean, a woman named Dolores Benedict, a painful trader, come on, you know, how much obvious can that be? And that was followed by romancing the stone, naive, adventurous. And that was followed by crimes of passion. Ken Russell's film, you know, a desperately awful, dark film about a woman who so loathed herself, you know, that she would put herself in the position of being a $50 whore on Hollywood Boulevard by night. Each choice is truly determined by the choice made before. So that I do not, first of all, I don't wanna repeat myself. It's not interesting. What am I gonna explore? I already did that. I've been there, I've done that. It's not interesting to do it again. I want to look for something I haven't done before and explore that. Even if it means, see, you drive the studios, absolutely fucking nuts, because, you know, once you have a success in one area, they want you to continue in that line because it gives them a certain amount of guarantee that you'll sell enough tickets, you know? Whereas if you say no, actually now I intend to do a very broad comedy, they'll say, well, what are you talking about? No one knows you as funny. You'll say, yes, but they will. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We know you can do this. So we wanna keep you doing this. No, absolutely not. That is a direct and path of decision making in my career, is to say, just did that have to do something else? It's funny, the result in some ways, it's kind of finally catching up now that the whole sort of body of work is becoming more clear in a way over the years. But I cannot tell you how many conversations I've had over the years where I'll say, yeah, well, that was like in Prince Zezana, oh, God, that was a good film. Yeah, I really, oh, that's right, you did Prince Zezana. Say, yeah, well, Accidental Tourist. I loved that film, Accidental Tourist, but nobody ever put together all the work that I've done. It's as though I'm just one thing to every person because of the one film that they love. So, yeah, well, the price of that is that the whole body of my work often gets overlooked. Okay, it'll catch up one day. How many people with disabilities have you worked with? How many of you have trained, roles have they played? I did a film called House of Cards. Don't know if you've seen that. It was a friend of mine named Michael Lesak who wrote it and directed it. And in fact, it took us almost seven years to get the financing together, to get it done. Ended up doing it with Tommy Lee Jones. And it was about a child with autism and we worked in a school with down syndrome children and autistic children. And I learned, whoa, I learned so much. We were doing this shot one day while I'm walking down the school corridor just passing from point A to point B. And one of the young men with down syndrome was standing at the locker. And as I passed by, thank God the camera was wide, he turned and he went, you're hot! And I looked back and I went, thank you! It was such an extraordinary thing. Took a lot of patience. You know, it's not as though you can say, all right, I'd like you to do it again exactly the same way. Can't work that way, can't think that way. And no need to, you know. What you get is always gonna be pretty special. That was my one experience of really being concentrated in terms, when you speak of disabilities, do you mean more physical? I have not done a film about that other than, as I say, this film, House of Cards, which does, that is a central issue of it in many ways. So that's my one real experience with people of disability. Yeah. Based on your speech before, I assume you won't be doing any more Michael Douglas movies? Well, no, that's not, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We didn't war the roses. That wasn't my real question, but... We didn't war the roses. That wasn't taxing, that wasn't exactly the same. True, no, it's true. Actually, what I was gonna ask was, now that you've done the role of Martha, is there a next great role that you're looking into? Well, luckily, one of the good things, believe it or not, about getting older as an actress, is so many of the roles on stage are for older women, for women my age now. And yeah, I'm looking forward to a couple of really interesting ones. I'm talking to one of my favorite producers in London about doing Sweeper of Youth with Tennessee Williams. The Contessa in that is just, oh, what a character, you know, you're nodding, you know this woman, yeah. There's a new play that has been written by Larry Gelbhart, who unfortunately just passed away about, essentially, it comes down to a marriage of many, many, many years. And, oh, they're in their 50s or early 60s. Do they choose to stay together because they're afraid that they might then spend the rest of their life alone if they were to separate or go, you know, dissolve the marriage, which is very, very pertinent. I got a divorce after 22 years, just three years ago. And it crossed my mind. Wait a minute, you know, does this mean that I may be spending the rest of my life alone or will I find companionship again? Haven't yet, you know, the position is open. But he was a thought, you know, that crossed my mind. So I find this, that character very interesting. We'll see if we can put that production together in the next year or so. Theater takes a long lead time, you know, to get things done. Yeah, yeah, I'm actually at a really great time for women's roles on stage. And stage is my heart. So I'm kind of glad you've gotten here. There's terrific talent out there. I mean, I come from a generation of amazing talent, Meryl Streepin, Jessica Lange. You know, I mean, I'm a generation of women that have really have done extraordinary and continue to do terrific work. So it's, I don't like naming people. I have enjoyed working with all the actors. Well, no, two I didn't like. Nicholas Cage and Bert Reynolds. Assholes. But everybody else has been pretty great. This is a truth. Going back briefly to Californication, I was just curious how that character, you know, when you're picking a character like that and you have these ideals about feminism and that character is so out there and can be, some people could say, well, it's like a super feminist character and other people are gonna say, oh, this is like the worst thing somebody could do. So how do you, and you said you're in that little space where you have these blinders on, but you don't have the blinders on when you're picking the role. No, no, I do not blind myself when I'm picking out the roles. I do not believe it is my job as an actor to preach. As I believe in this separation of church and state, I believe in the separation of my work as an actor. And it's my job to give a message to people, to tell people how to think or what they should be thinking or what is right or wrong. That's not my job. What I will and how I do exercise my choice in terms of characters is I will not participate in anything that involves what I call kid-jab, the use of children as terror or I just can't stomach it. I can't stomach any kind of project that uses a child fear to further itself. Can't, won't touch it, won't have it. A lot of any kind of really brutal and senseless violence I will not be part of because I simply don't want to contribute to the world library of that shit. However, I doubt that you could look at almost any character I have ever chosen to play that one would end up calling a victim. Think about it. Can you? I don't think I can. So that is a bottom line for me. I don't play a woman who doesn't make, she may fail. She may try and fail. But I will never and have never played a woman who will not try to improve herself or save herself or get herself out of whatever situation she must get from. I don't do victims, period. Right on. We're summing up in the back. What happened to the other microphone? Oh, well, never mind, not my business. Hi. I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about serial mom and just working with John orders and if you were scared and... Oh, I laughed every day. I laughed every single day on serial mom until, I mean, there were days when we just cried. Just would laugh her. What amazed me in many ways, again, now this is a woman who seems perfectly reasonable. She's a good mother, she's a good community person, you know, but don't fuck with her kids, you know, otherwise. Now, I understand this is a mother in sync taken a little far, but John Waters has the ability to take these extraordinarily unattractive people in many ways. I mean, think of some of the characters that he's used in the past and make you care for them. And I thought that was an extraordinary talent. And John, even though he'll make fun either within a script or in person, he'll make fun of someone. But if he sees that they're getting hurt, he'll stop. There is not any maliciousness whatsoever in that man. And I think that comes through in the work that all of these people, however awful, some of them are and some of them are really awful, are good-hearted. What can I say? As is John, you know, we've stayed good friends over the years, which is one of the blessings of this industry is because you get so close to people when you're shooting or when you're doing a play, you spend so many hours or so many days for so long with people you become your own little sort of camp, I call it, kind of like summer camp, you know, as long as the production lasts. And if you stay friends after that, you probably have a friend for your life, do you know? But Serial Mom was just funny, although I will tell you the story. Okay, Sam Waterston, who I love, and we have stayed friends, takes things very seriously. And he said to me one day, now Kathleen, aren't you really concerned that we might be glorifying Serial Kelly? I said no, Sam, no. I'm not actually thinking that we're gonna glorify, make people want to become a serial killer. No, that's not on my mind. I think it's just a movie. Filly man, he's that serious. You've worked the gamut of different genres, and is there a particular genre that you prefer to do than another, do you prefer comedy or drama or thrill life? And also, you've done The Voice of Jessica Rabbit and Miss Liz on King of the Hill, and is there a different process in doing a voiceover for an animation as opposed to doing something live action? It's very interesting. Each, well, I mean, each discipline, say you do film or theater or something, has its own demands, its own needs. And something you love in one medium may not work whatsoever in another. It's fascinating that on camera with film, you can be so, my new, so specific. You can use a lens. Do you remember in War of the Roses, the shot where she gives him pate and he gives her a glass of wine and they raise it to their lips. And they stop to see which one will go first. Well, that shot narrowed down to just the eyes. So when you choose to blink is an entire sentence. Now, you would never see that on stage. In fact, after the 10th or 12th row, they can't see your face that well. So there you're talking about your entire body and your energy and yourself. In many ways, I gravitate more towards stage because they keep telling me on film that I'm too loud, that I'm too big. That'd be a little quieter, Kathleen, be a little quieter. Got to put it in a little, put it in, yeah. Kind of thing. So on stage, nobody can say that to me. You know, there I get to be as big and as loud as I want, which I like. I must say I lean toward comedies, definitely. I just like to laugh and I like to make other people laugh. And I think there's a great deal of truth and pathos in a laugh, you know, where and why one laughs can be a great lesson. It's also a challenge. Again, back with the challenges, but I'm a challenge junkie. When you do most of your basic dramatic sort of roles, you're talking about really gut instinctive reactions. Anger or shame or fear or pity, all these things are just communicated and felt by the audience instinctively, immediately. When you are making them laugh, you are conveying a thought. Now, how do you do that? That's a whole different process. When I hear somebody laugh, I know they got the idea, not just the feeling. And when you have a two or three or four level theater, and you hear the laugh in the gods the same time that you hear it in the orchestra, which is physically impossible because sound doesn't travel that way, then you know what's happened is that the audience has in fact become an entity of its own. When people leave the theater, they should have felt part of something. They should have, they're sitting closer to complete strangers than they would sit in their own living room. They know nothing about the person. They're sitting next to you. Their beliefs, you know, or anything. And yet you sit there with this little arm in between you, trusting, accepting. And then what happens is you start to breathe together in and out and you'll hold your breath at the same time. Or you'll laugh at the same time. There's a wonderful, I'll tell you a trick. Gotta give all my tricks. Okay, I was doing the play Camille up at the Long Wharf Theater. Now almost everybody knows that Camille dies at the end of the play of consumption. You know, Greta Gargo. Anyway, so my challenge is to find a way to make her death moving and new, you know, not to do just a copycat sort of thing. So the last scene, Camille comes out on stage, lies on this day bed and she's just trying to breathe. So there's complete silence and she's just 20 seconds later, the audience goes. So that's the secret you die on the inhale. What I'm saying is that the extraordinary sense of that we share, particularly in theater, but it can happen in film, in film theaters as well, is that communion, that people become part of something more than just an individual sitting there. That I think is one of the great opportunities of my job. Did I answer you sufficiently? Okay. All right, one last question, please. What was it like working with John Huston towards the end of his career? Good question. Well, Pritzky's Honor was really John's last major film. I mean, he did do the Dance of Death after with Angelica and stuff in Ireland, but you know, it was a much smaller production. Pritzky's Honor was his last studio film. And he was pretty sick, you know, he had emphysema toward the end and everywhere he went, he carried, he had an oxygen tank and was on oxygen the whole time. And you could see when he was standing, you know, sitting there, he would see like where he had to go and he would see him sort of count the steps in his head before he would get up and get himself over there. Didn't change his mind in a lot of ways. You know, I don't think it affected his thinking or his creativity. Although I think it probably allowed Jack and I more freedom than he usually gives his actors because John would say to us, you know, block something, put something together, get an idea, and then call me and I'll come back and look at it. So that we got to block a lot of the film, which, somebody tells me Houston wasn't always, you know, didn't always let people do, but he was still a tremendous manipulator. He was not a great respecter of women. He came from a generation that was quite misorganistic. He would not let me play poker with him. Women don't play poker, in case you didn't know. He was just afraid I'd beat him. Anyway, but for example, it was one scene. It was rather integral, rather crucial. When she comes to the house, when Charlie's discovered, you know, that she's married and he's waiting for her in the house and his assignment being to kill her. And she comes to the room and finds him and has to really talk for her life, you know, convince him not to kill her kind of thing. Well, we were shooting in this house out in LA and it was a fairly small room which makes it extremely difficult. You know, you've got a very large camera and the three people you need to operate the camera, as well as the first AD, as well as who else, you know, within this room, along with the actors, and it gets very tight and very, anyway. And this was not a set in a studio where you could move walls and things like you usually could. This was in a house. So we blocked and we tried it and he'd say no, no, no, no, no. That's not it, that's not it. Let's put the camera over there and we'll try it this way. So then we would work another couple of hours to try and get the lights and the angle and everything right with it going this way. And then he came back and said, no, I don't like it. I don't like it, it doesn't work for me. All right, we're gonna try it with the camera over there. And he'd go, oh, Jesus, God. So like nine, 10 hours into the day and into the scene, I am literally on the floor ready to sob with frustration and he comes into me and he goes, are you ready? And I looked up and he was like, what? Are you kidding? And he goes, she's ready. I know we did. Kathleen, I would like very much to thank you for your generosity. For your, thank you for your spirit. Thank you for all of the wonderful work that you have given all of us and all of our children. And I appreciate it very much that you came here to participate with the Center for Feminist Art. We have a sign-in sheet in the back if you'd like to be on our email blasts. We have a what's happening so that you can see what's going on in the museum and also in the center. And December 5th, in conjunction with the Whitney Museum, we're having a screening of Alice Guy Blanchet's Le Vie du Christe, which was inspired by the Tissot watercolors, The Life of Christ, which are on exhibition now here in the museum. So that will be very good. On November 19th, Kiki Smith is going to be honored at the Women in the Arts Luncheon, sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum's Community Committee. And that will support educational programming as well as the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. And I'm very grateful always to the Community Committee for their work. And on December 13th, my wild card day is a screening of the award-winning documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which was produced by Abigail Disney. She's gonna have some really good karma for the Disney family after this one. It's a fabulous, fabulous movie. It's directed by Jeanne Rettiger. And we will be doing that in conjunction with UNIFEM, and we're hoping we're gonna have also a reception afterwards. And it's about the Women of Liberia's Peace Initiative and Protests, which actually overturned, and they took back their country, talk about taking back the night. They took back their country, ending the horrors of civil war in Liberia where women and children really were the primary targets and victims. So that will certainly be a wonderful screening. Gloria Felt, thank you for joining us. And we will have a book signing and an opportunity if you'd like to ask any more questions. If Kathleen gives us a few more minutes, it would be wonderful. We can do that at the book signing. So thank you so much. It was just wonderful.