Born To Love with Ellie Kemper and Scott EckertEllie and Scott are joined by actress and comedian, Michaela Watkins. Michaela shares her love of the iconic TV show, Sex and the City. She shares how her relationship with each character has changed, and she isn’t afraid to talk about some of the show’s problems. Plus, she gives Ellie and Scott her STRONG takes on melons! Scott shares his family’s newfound love of puzzles.
No, no, no, no no no.
To Love.
Hey everyone, I'm Ellie Kemper and I'm Scott Eckert. This is our podcast Born to Love, where we have guests on to talk about something anything in the world that they love.
Hi, Scott, Hi Ellie, how are you.
I'm good? How are you?
I'm well. I'm excited for our guest Mikaela Watkins today. She's going to talk about something that I know you're a fan of. I'm less of Sex and the City.
Yeah, first and foremost, let's clarify sex and the City. A lot of people have always thought that it's sex in the city.
I mean, I'm a fan of sex in the city.
Bringing that Jock Jan energy. Do you love the da?
Actually? You know what I learned this week that I was born to love something that is the opposite of Jock jam energy. And I'm probably about to blow your mind, Ellie, because I would have blown my own mind if I told myself that I love this thing. A couple nights ago, my wife busts out of the closet and just on her own for no good reason at all, she started to construct a thousand piece puzzle. Oh my gosh, she just took over the coffee table in our little TV room, and while the rest of us watching TV like normal Americans, enjoying ourselves, she just starts puzzling. She's got this thousand piece puzzle assembled from all these posters from national parks, national parks, Ellie, A lot of them have trees, so it's a tricky it's a tricky puzzle. And I reflexively was like, why are you doing that? A puzzle that maybe like a vacation activity, something old people do once they're retired. And it took about twenty minutes before I found myself completely sucked in.
Are you kidding?
I'm not kidding at all, Scott.
I wish one part of you were kidding. I loathe a puzzle. I'm not good at them. They made me feel stupid. The eight piece puzzles my three year old used to do. Now he's up till twelve or sixteen. A thousand piece puzzle is something I would never get sucked into. What about it drew you in?
Well, it's hard for me to explain it, Ellie, because I shared your attitude. I shared your attitude until I found myself doing it. And the thing is that a thousand pieces. When it's that many pieces, it's different from the twelve piece puzzle to twenty piece puzzle, because like, a smart person should be able to solve one of those smaller puzzles. And I consider myself a smart enough guy, but they often make me feel like a oh really, whereas this thousand a thousand pieces, it's a herculean feet for anyone.
What I don't understand about a puzzle that large is there has to be strategy involved, right, Like if there are so many trees.
In trees in Yosemite, trees.
Of Yosemite, trees of Yellowstone, trees in.
Grand Teton, Teton Teton, how do you say that it's Grand Teton. But now that you say, I mean, I'm pretty sure it's Grand Teton. I don't think it's Giton.
There are so many parks with trees mm hmm. And so to sit here and think, oh, well, one tree. Yeah, there are different kinds of trees, but essentially they're all green and brown. So I don't know how you're going to distinguish one from the other, and you can't. You're sitting here and you find yourself unable to explain to me what sucks you in.
Well, I mean, I can try, I can take a stab at it. It's that there's so many pieces. It's not about the cleverest person. It's just about sticking with it. And then when you find two pieces that go together, maybe because there's a letter on them, right, you say, oh wait, this isn't a treat. This has got the why this, this is why is a particular yellow? Oh I see that particularly, Oh my gosh, why this is for yell? Oh my gosh. And then they fit together and I'm doing this. My wife is doing this. Slowly but surely. My kids start helping out little on the edges. They're not as engrossed as we are, but they make they make some contributions, right, And the next thing you know, you don't just have the corners. You've got you've got the border, and you've got some patches in the middle. And slowly but surely it's accruing. The picture is coming together. You're seeing it.
Yeah.
She started this one night because a madness seized her. And then the next morning we woke up early no and the next hour, almost against our will, we found ourselves puzzling. We were puzzlers. We completed this, Ellie, it's done. Producers may need to cut out a pause here because I'm about to just blow your mind just one second.
Okay, I have a feeling I know exactly what he's doing. I think he's bringing in the puzzle. He's gone into a closet. He framed. The puzzle's done. The puzzle's done, The puzzle is completed. Why are you able to hold it up?
My wife was so excited by our achievement finishing this puzzle that she immediately went onto Amazon and bought this special puzzle sticky paper that allows you to stick together a completed puzzle.
The puzzles completed. It's National Parks. There's a thousand pieces, but to me it looks like one because it is. You assemble all of the thousand pieces together as one as one. Yeah, Scott, that's incredible.
We put our names on it.
Now.
Here's what I wanted to tell you. As much as much as I was resisting the siren, it wasn't a siren call to me. As much as I was resisting your puzzle, I was thinking, no, I would never I would never end. Slowly, but surely, the more you talked about it over the past eight minutes or so, I too found myself getting drawn in and there's no puzzle near me. But what do you if you had one? Guess what do you think. I'm a little tempted to pull out tonight.
Keep it clean, not something out of the underwear drawer. A puzzle. I'm gonna guess a.
Puzzle, and we do have. I'm not sure we have a thousand piece puzzle because my kids are young and my husband and I aren't puzzlers. But I know that we have like a five hundred around here somewhere.
Maybe a five hundred satisfying. But like I said, I do think the fact that it's so daunting is a part of it. I never once felt stupid.
I love it that the five hundred was instantly dismissed.
It wasn't, I said, it's right on the quits, right on the border. Because I think that the immensity of it is important, because otherwise it's like seventy five pieces, It's like I should be able to do this, but a thousand piece it's like impossible. I may as well just know what. Oh hey, I see that. I see that, and the next thing I know, I'm imagining puzzle pieces in my mind while I sleep. That's Scott.
I mean, your love is clear, it's coming through. Congratulations to you and Vanessa and your kids who did help. It's an accomplishment, but that's not the point. I guess. I think the love was the journey, right.
It was the journey. But on the other hand, it was the destination a little bit. Because we love this framed puzzle of ours national parks. Check it out.
What is it doing in a closet? I mean put it out on the front door.
Well, the frames on the way. It's in the closet temporarily because I don't want my kids to mess it up. At one point after we finished it, one of the pieces got knocked off and we couldn't find it, and my wife was livid. Yeah, she was yelling and ranting and raved. And then we found it, so we stuck it in the classets. So it's to not rep it.
Repeat that I understand, all right, Scott, love a puzzle, Love you love.
Mikayla Watkins Mikhaila Watkins, fantastic, hilarious actress, hilarious comedian. She's in the movie Paint with Owen Wilson about Bob Ross. I believe that it's streaming on AMC Plus. Also, you hurt my feelings with Julia Louis Dreyfuss. She was the star of Casual on Hulu. Very funny, very talented. Mikaela Watkins. We can't wait to talk to her about Sex and the City.
All Right, everyone, we are here with the lovely, talented, hilarious, beautiful, smart, very passionate woman about what she loves. Mikaela Watkins.
Hi, Mikayla, Hi, Ellie. I'm so touched that you're having me.
Mikhayla. You are a woman of many loves, but one of those top loves I believe I've been told because you told us is Sex and the City.
That's right. I love all of those words. Yeah, but I love it as a series, and I think it always surprises people when I tell them that that is a huge leve of them. I was.
I won't lie, I was surprised. Let's get our SATC status. I like the show. I've never not liked the show. I'm always game. Scott, what's your SATC status?
Aware of it? A fan of the idea of it? I don't. I think I may have only seen two or three episodes in their entirety. But I'm very aware of the conversation. I'm surprised you're not a little hotter, Ellie, because I remember when the new reboot came out, you had just like you watched it like the day it came out and loved it. That was my recollection. So you're pretending not to be a fan, but I think you may be a true fan.
I'm playing it cool. No, no, no, no, You're not wrong about any of those things. Scott, and I'll talk you through my journey, but I can't.
I don't qualify as a love I think maybe that's a good way to start. I'll tell you what my journey of Sex and the City is because I am of the age where people were having sex and the city parties. I completely missed that window and I did not watch it live. In fact, I would think I was still semi self loathy of my feminine side, Like I hung out with all dudes and I was in the gay Yeah I can hang And so Sex and the City was a little cloying and a little shrill. This is all like o key misogyny. I guess I just didn't have any interest and I was in my twenties. I was living in New York City and felt like, well, I'm kind of living in you know, Sex and the City. I don't need to watch it. And then, after a series of weird relationships, my first official one night stay and maybe i'd been like totally defrauded by a boyfriend, like had stories, you know what I mean.
Financially defrauded.
Oh yeah, horribow pathological liar and karma never found this guy. That's no, he's doing fine. He was very charming and I imagine that's always worked for him. Yeah.
Yeah.
So I was moving to La, a city that I never truly wanted to live in because you know, as far as cities go, La doesn't have it right. And I moved into the department and I'm a night owl. Ellie, I have a feeling you're an early birdie.
I am an early birdie. How did you notice that? I just had a feeling this might surprise you. Turns out our friend Scott is an early birdie.
I'm well, i'd shifted. I used to be a night owl and then I got old, and now I find myself waking up at five in the morning and like it's the saddest thing in the world. Yeah, I go to sleep at nine maybe nine thirty. Wow, I know, but that's not your journey. You're a night owl in Los Angeles.
It's the worst place to be a night owl because Los Angeles is an early birdie town. Everything shuts down at ten. So I'm up all night and my brain is going because I'm young and single, anxiety ridden, and I have no money. You just don't know how life is gonna unfold. And I decided, well, I should probably paint my entire apartment.
Well, that makes sense if you can't be out and you're up.
All night, and what is the only other place that's up with me? Home depot. Oh so I go to home depot and I buy the worst choice of paint. I buy yellow for my living room, lavender for the kitchenette.
The first time that someone paints the home that they live in, yeah, in my experience, everyone is like, I'm going to do whimsical colors in each room, and then the second they're like, oh, no, white's fine. Yeah that's what happened to me. We painted our whole house all these different colors and then instantaneously regretted it because beige is just going to do the trick.
There's a reason that houses are beige and white.
Right.
Anyway, I go to Homeeop. I come home and I'm like, I've started something my little body might not be able to finish, but I'm feeling energized. And I turn on the TV and e was doing a twenty four hour Sex and the City marathons. So it got me good because I was in a state of weakness, alone, desperate, painting fully inhaling paint fumes and.
Was there a way open?
Mikayla, who knows you know what I mean? We thought we were going to live forever.
Right, we were yacht we were yeah, yeah.
With painting. We were young. And every time the thing comes on, I find that I am so happy. And then every single damn thing that was happening in that show I was relating to. And it's not a show about dating at all. No, it's a show about friendship. Yeah, And I think it's also a show about the four parts of the feminine. And I think the mark of a healthy woman is that you integrate all those four parts.
Yes, the way you just described the show is so brilliant to me because that's exactly right. It is four parts.
What are the four parts? What's a Miranda? Carrieus, Charlotte and a Samantha. I know one of them is like a sexye. Right. Kim Catrau's character like the lustful one.
Right, she's the most sex positive. Yes, she knows what she wants, she knows she wants to get it. She's not apologetic.
She's a bus and she is absolute in charge of her sexuality.
What are the other parts? What are the other three of them?
So then there's Miranda, who is the feminist. She's a lawyer and she's angry that she has to sublimate some of her self in order to get late or have a relationship.
Yeah, Mikaela, how would you describe Charlotte?
Charlotte, she's like a Martha Stewart, she couldn't wait to grow up in play house, but is also an art curator, so she's got this deeper side.
And Carrie, I would say, is what the every gal? The working woman? Yeah, seems to live honestly, but doesn't.
Carrie, I would say, is like the one that everybody likes to think they are. Yeah. Yeah, there's so many seasons of this show. There's two movies and then there's a new one coming out. I can't. So there's a lot that I've consumed and it's all just in the cloud in my brain.
When you mentioned there's a new one coming out, I got a little burst of butterflies in my tummy, because not nervous butterflies, excited butterflies. I'm nervous.
Everybody's like, you even loved the new one, and I say, I say, yes, yeah, here's why I love the new one. It is so flawed and we are all so flawed. Yeah, let's get back to Miranda after being married to kind of a dou fist because she did in a waste attle. Let's be honest.
What is his name again?
Oh my god?
Brady?
No, Brady is the baby Steve? Steve, Steve and I do an impression.
I gotta hear it?
Now, what Steve sound like?
This is it? Why did you got it?
Do yet?
Brady's just gonna go walking by himself and down the street? Me scare it is?
Does he act talk like that in real life? Or is that a choice?
I have no idea.
Did Steve come from Middle Earth?
It is the most abrasive and mean thing the writers could have done to Miranda's you know, but it really they really played the long game with her, because the truth is, let's just assume Steve is like the greatest little lesbian we've all known, because you know, it was like flying wash. But then, yeah, she falls in love with a woman.
Okay, but does that woman identify as a woman.
No, you're right, cha is non binary.
Twists, fast and furious. I love it. This is the best way you do experience sex in the City.
But let's be honest, Sex and the City is very problematic in a lot of ways. Yes, in body shame, they have made jokes at trans people's expense, they have been like excruciatingly heteronormative and for white women lead the show. So they come back with just like that, and they took all the notes, and they did it really clunkly, well intentioned and clunkily, much like many of the white women.
Myself and myself, Scott, you did not watch just like that. Watching it was such an experience and roller coaster, and you put it perfectly to try to correct improve upon what has already been laid down. What decades ago, two decades ago, three decades ago is a monumental task.
If I'm going to claim to love something, I can't sit here and say that everything about it is great. I have to be honest and tell you it is a flawed show. But when I was in a relationship, I looked to that show and every single time there would be some line of wisdom somewhere in that show that was so the thing I needed to hear. Yes, and when you're on the road in a hotel room and like some pod on town, living out of your suitcase for a month, you hear that theme song of Sex and the City, I just feel like everything's going to be okay.
I got goosebumps as you said that.
I got goosebumps.
Because I know and you say sex in the City and people might get a certain notion in their heads, like it's corny or outdated. Yes, and first rule of improv, it's other things too, because it does have the silliness, and it does have the arguably cancelable moments.
Definitely canceled, definitely, But it's just so much fun. Oh, it's pageantry, it's some of it. It's so frivolous and stupid exactly, and it will never be our lives. And that's okay too, an escapism because it's not my thing either. But you know what do I want to do? Watch a whole hour of like women having cramps? No, that's it.
It's way more fun to watch women be awesome and hook up and then talk to their friends. I'm completely convinced, as I was never a sex in the City skeptic, but now I got to check it out.
Do you want to hear something funny I do. I was talking to a guy at work one time and he I told him about my abiding love for sex and City and he was shocked and he's like a guy, He's like a man, mister, mister man. Yeah, and he's like, really, goes, I was against that show and I said why and he goes because in college, like all these women were watching it and then they were like acting like these women. I go, what do you mean acting like them? And he's like just thinking they could just go and have sex. And I just looked at him and I was like, ah, okay, So when guys do that, what is that called? Yeah? What's this double standard? And I don't need to do that for myself. That's not comfortable for me. And in that way that probably makes me a Charlotte.
Yeah, who are you, Ellie?
I think I'm a Carrey. Interesting of the four, I would say I'm a.
Carrey and Michaylae you said I.
Would say I when I came into the show, I was a Carrie. Then my Miranda came out fiercely, and when I fell in love by Charlotte came out strong.
And I'm a mister big right.
Yes, got you're as You're a total mister big Well.
I love it. I can't wait to check it out. Thank you so much, Michaela, for sharing your love and your wisdom. Would you have a couple of minutes to stick around for a game that we like to play the end called love It or Loathe It?
Well, I love games. If you looked at my list of things, I love games is one of them.
Okay, everyone, it's time for our favorite game and only game. Mikaela. This is called love it or Loathe It. It's very straightforward. We're going to throw some items at you and you simply have to tell us if you love the thing or load the thing that you can't be lukewarm about the thing. There is no in between.
Okay, there's no in between. Okay, got it all right?
MICHAELA love it or loath it? Wordle love love. I thought you might because it's a game.
Yeah, I've played every variation of it too.
Do you know I've never played wordle? Oh jeetz ellie, I've never I know.
I was going to ask what the minimum number you've ever gotten is? How many guesses? The fewest guesses?
One? I got it in one?
You got it in one?
Did you cheat? No?
Oh? Wow?
No one at dis What word was it?
Moist?
That was your first word? I love it. Mikhayla Walkee comes on talking about how she loves sex in the city and her first word in wordle is moist. Well on brand, it's not all the.
Right letters in it. Come on it does?
That's exactly?
Love it? Or loads it? Flying on airplanes?
Hate loads?
Loa?
Why Mikaela why, I'm just a bad fly. I've gotten better, but thanks to alcoholic Yeah, barbituous.
Exactly, that always helps. And rom coms, Oh, I'm sorry, that's as That's been a lifelong low.
Started around thirteen for some reason, when I became aware of like what was happening?
Did you sit down and think about what's happening. It's psychotic.
Yeah, I was like, this is not right, no, and it's crazy.
What I don't understand is how everyone shuts their shades now. I'm like, yeah, first of all, for peace of mind, I want to be able to look at okay, I.
Want to make sure that little thing is spinning in the engine too.
Yes, I'm sorry you low that. I I gotta be honest. I love it.
I love it, you love it? Oh you were so you were relating so hard.
I thought, I know I was.
I have.
I have way too much faith in authority and like physics, and so I feel like, Okay, the odds of something happening are low, and also someone else is in charge, so I'm safe. It's false comfort.
I'm sure I'm going to break a piece of that off and wear it because I think we're very compatible, you and I like if we were to run a country, we would cover a lot of things.
MICHAELA. I think we complement each other. Meeting complements with an E, like we fill out what would the other mind?
I have?
So please borrow my love of flying.
I'm going to call you ll ee's e's with.
Lines yeah, all right, love it or loath it?
Name necklaces, I would say, not my thing. I know I have to feel strongly about it. I love it, Okay, I know.
I know it's only one or the others, so I know, I.
Know, yeah, I have bought them for people. That's why I was like, well, I want other people to have them. I just wouldn't wear one myself.
It seems like something that that would be better as a gift if you went out and bought a necklace with your own name on. It seems a little narcissistic. Love it or load that Mikhayla Cantilope.
Okay, we went there.
I mean, love it or loathe it.
When I was a child, I loved it. As an adult, I what happened. Melons in general are just like they don't hold fun. I know every time you're always picking through them because by the time you buy them, they've got that like gelatinous so I know around them, I know.
Oh they're terrible. It's a loath worthy for sure. But one possible exception with pershutto. I do like pershutto and melon pershuoto.
I will give you that, and I would say that's what my grandmother used to do is there would be like a cut channel lobe on the table waiting for you. Honeydew can go goodself?
No, no, noe.
Is invariably bad.
It's never good.
So green as to be white. Yes, it's never fresh.
No.
And I don't think any of these melons hold up well.
None.
And speaking of airplanes and thinking that it's always what you get if you have to get fruit at the airport store, it's always.
That oh yeah, you eat the blueberries and then you try to get past the honeydew. And they really loaded up with that honeydew because it's big and cheap. But have you ever gotten an edible arrangement? Because that is another thing I would say, I love.
The edible arrangements. Absolutely loads worthy, financial downturns, the pandemic, and yet edible arrangements stands strong. The cockroach of corporations, thank you, the cockroach of bouquet because there's always going to be a critical mass of people who are like, it's cute to send fruit instead of flowers.
You that is it.
It is a cockroach of bouquets.
Yep, yep, perfect speaking of cockroaches, No, not really, I don't want to lead you one way or the other. Now this might be random, but I was just there.
Okay, New Jersey, Okay, I know it used to be called the garbage state when it's the garden state. But I will tell you the Palisades Parkway gorgeous.
Oh, I know, gorgeous, I know, I know.
And you stop and they have little farm stads, grocery stores like in the median of a highway.
Fantastic. That's not what they show you when Tony Soprano is going home, because that's Elizabeth, New Jersey.
That's where my mother's from. She's from Elizabeth. It is aitch pit Newark Airports. It was too short. This is probably my fear of flying. Planes were crashing one after another, and then the elongated, the landing terrifying.
I would I don't want to be on that plate.
Well, this was before my time. But my mom, you know, we're Jews, so we love a tragedy story.
Your mom would tell you those stories. Is that what you know? On repeat? I think we just under some stuff right now.
That's that's definitely why they don't crash anymore.
Mikaela. They extended the runway but yes, I understand.
Me, Mikayla, last one, love it or low that jigsaw puzzles love love, Oh my.
Gosh, I knew she would.
What's the ideal number of pieces? The ideal number of pieces for a puzzle?
Thousand piece puzzle, a thousand Oh look at that? Oh look at that. Scott is showing me a puzzle, big.
Puzzle, holding up my my framed thousand piece puzzle. Just finished it this week.
Yeah, that's ideal. I'm in a puzzle group.
She's in a puzzle group.
A puzzle group, and we get together every few months and a different person hosts, but we do it in one night.
No you don't.
Yeah, and gossip and we have a cocktail and we have high end snacks.
You get together, yeah, and complete it. So everyone's assembling. I mean, I'll do the math. Two hundred pieces.
Yeah. Wow, I get so hyper focused. But it's one of those comforting things where there's like conversation happening while your hands are busy, your mind is mindless, and it's just such a soothing thing.
I love. He couldn't agree more.
Mikayla, thank you so much for being on our show and for talking with us. Thank you, Mikayla, Thanks for taking a swing with me.
Thanks for listening to Born to Love. We'll be back next week with brand new things that we love.
We want to hear from you. Leave us a review in Apple Podcasts and tell us what you love. We might even ask one of our us in an upcoming love it or Love It.
Born to Love is hosted and created by Elli Kemper and Scott Ecker.
Our executive producer is Aaron Coffman. Our producers are Sina Ozaki and Zoe Danklab.
Born to Love is part of Will Ferrell's Big Money Flayares Network in collaboration with iHeart Podcasts. Special thanks to Hans Sonny.
Rachel Kaplan and Adriana Cossiano
Michael Fails, Alex Korl, and Baheed Frasier.
