Now What? with Brooke ShieldsWriter, director, and actress Jennifer Esposito stops by to talk about her critically acclaimed new film, Fresh Kills, and shares how making her dream project helped her heal from years of abuse from industry heavyweights. Brooke and Jennifer discuss the importance of self-advocacy, Jennifer’s life-long struggle with celiac disease, and the power of art to breed greater empathy and understanding.
What do you do when life doesn't go according to plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one, or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down with a guest to talk about the times they were knocked off course and what they did to move forward. Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice answers one question. Now, what I read somewhere that you and Melissa McCarthy used to like to make short movies when you were doing Samantha Who. Yes, It's amazing.
Some of them most ridiculous. I mean listen around the block from her and Ben. I used to show up at her house with like, look, I just made Zephyelis and she'd be like, what is your problem? Go home. She'd be like, I'm trying to, like, you know, eat healthy. And I'd walk in with like, you know, donuts and they'd be like, listen, we have this idea. Let's go film this and we'd wind up somehow making a ridiculous short roller skating downtown LA like insane, ridiculous in anything they said, I was like, Yep, I'll do it. Yep, I have no I have no fear in making a jackass out of myself. And it was the most fun and I loved it. I loved it. We had a black.
My guest today left me feeling truly inspired. Jennifer Esposito. She's an actress, a filmmaker, a cookbook author, an advocate with a Celiac community, and much much more. We've known each other for decades, actually, and I asked her to join the show after we bumped into each other recently and I learned more about her incredible new film, Fresh Kills. It took her ten years to make it, and she did it practically all on her own. I was blown away by her story and think that if she hasn't been on your radar lately, she should be. Here is the incredible Jennifer Esposito. Jennifer Esposito, thank you so much for waking up and spending time with me.
Oh my god, I love it.
I have to say we've known each other forever.
I know my goodness, well.
Always crossing paths, but never sadly, never have gotten the chance to work together, which is still in our future, which makes me very excited.
Are you kidding? Absolutely? And we've only just begun for We've only just think exactly.
But the first thing I want to talk to you about is your incredible, incredible new film, Thank You, and the movie Fresh Kills takes place on Staten Island in the eighties.
Yes, eighties and nineties, Yes.
Eighties and nineties. You grew up in Staten Island and Brooklyn. How similar is the film to the world you grew up in?
Oh my god. It's on the money. It's on the money, And it was one of the things that I was determined. When people were like, filming in Atlanta, you get a taxper I was like, listen, you don't understand, because that island is it's all beast. It's a very specific energy that I was after, and it was a very specific world.
Talk a little bit about the premise of the film and the story.
So it's it's it takes place in a mafia family. And as we know, we've seen this genre nauseum and they're still making these movies and it's de Niro and it's Scruseas, and it's all these guys we love, and it's this genre that we're fascinated by, but we've really never seen a correct, full portrayal of these females. I wanted to tell this story from when I was a kid, to be honest, I grew up around seeing mafia families around me, and it was the young females that I was obsessed with. The violence I saw from them was pretty pretty extreme, and I didn't understand where that kind of rage came from. And as I left where I lived and went into this business and into the world, and I realized that rage I understood, and it wasn't because of being in a mafia. It was because of being pushed into a box. And so that's what the film is on the surface about. But to me, what it's really about is finding a voice in a world that tells you not to have one.
I mean, it's so amazing because it's a it's so much more of a universal predicament, and yet, like you said, it's predominantly we've only seen sort of the the the glorification of it in a.
Way exactly through the men exactly.
And what's been painted as the women has been from the male perspective, which is tight knit, close family, children, And it's amazing that you've been able to show the other side of that.
Thank you. It's it's yeah, it's been. It's been a journey. It took many years of pitching it around and people saying no. And then I finally was like, so tired of hearing myself complain about the roles I was seeing and I'm not able to get there and why can't I can do so much more? And it was like, can you, Jennifer than do it?
You wrote it, you directed it, you produced it, you financed it, which is huge and insane.
I will be buried with it. No. Yeah, well maybe yes, yes.
But you also start in it. Yeah, and it took you ten years to make this film. Yeah, And it's always amazing to me how nobody really understands how much goes into it. Can you tell me a little bit about how it happened and what that experience was like for you?
Oh my god, where's the wine? I need a lot of wine for this story.
You know.
I woke up this morning and dealing with yet another hurdle for the film, and we just won three awards back to back, and it's still a struggle. This business is not kind to or equal to women. We know that. And then when you're a female that has been in the business for so long and people think they know you, it's difficult to get anything made. And then you put that on top of it, and it's like no one really wanted to read it, no one really cared to help. I didn't even I didn't even have an agent at the time, Like, no one wanted to represent me. It was like, she's done just as well.
Then you don't have to give any percentage. Then, exactly did you always want to make films?
You know? I when I was a kid, I was plopped in front of a TV like probably most of us were, and I used to watch West Side Story and like, you know, all of the Grease over and over and over and over, and I said, that's what I want to do. And when I got out of high school, I really wanted to go study film at NYU and couldn't afford it. But I didn't see any role models. You know, we didn't see any role models of Oh, females are making films. It just It didn't even dawn on me, but I knew that is what I wanted to do, and as I got into acting, I realized that wasn't the that I was talking about. I don't think I ever felt completely fulfilled as an actor. So now that I understand and I feel like I found where where I feel satiated, that's all I want to do.
Now, what is something that you brought to the set as a director that you're particularly proud of.
I have to say hearing Odessa Asion is one of the brilliant I'm not the star of the film. It's really about these two sisters. It's Odessa as On and a Zion, she says, and Emily Bater those are the two, and then Annabella Shiora and Dominic Lemberjosi fantastic actors. But Odessa said to me one day, she said, this is the most respect I've ever felt on a set, And you know, as an actress, that was huge because I got it. And you know, people have talked about the performances a lot in this movie, Like the reviews we've received are incredible and across the board. It has been about the acting. And it's not like I had a magic wand I just had deep respect for what they were doing. Their opinion was important, what they had to say, how they felt was important to me. I worked with them prior, I was able to see when they were struggling. It was just a different a different thing. I can't say I think I ever had that as an actress, and I've had some great directors, but it was a different thing.
Well, what I mean, what is so fascinating about that is so I've only had two female directors that I've worked with in vastly different projects. And what was so interesting was by the time I got to work with female directors, I watched myself later when I realized saying to them, what do you want me to do? The men always had an answer for me, always that and answer, and I did it. I could morph into whatever they wanted. I did the job, we moved on and that was it, and everybody was happy. And it didn't really I never questioned it. By the time I got to work with female directors, it was always put right back to me, well, what do you think.
Well, especially with your history of just being placed and all that you've done in your life and your career to finally have a voice in that is so wonderful. It's so wonderful. But I have to say, I don't think we just got here. We just got here, like this is new that we're actually allowed to even exist and we're still not but to even have a place on set to say Hi, I have an opinion, you know what do you? What do you think about this? Or like anyone take you seriously? Because I've had the same thing where I asked the question and it was like, why is she asking a question that's not supposed Do you show up and you say your lines? And like I remember, it was like does she have a last name? Does my character have a home? And it was like who hired her? She's so annoying? Why is she asking these questions? So I think we just arrived here? I really do.
In your book, you write about being bullied as a kid. There was a quote you were bullied by mafia girls. Did writing Fresh Kills change your opinion of them?
Absolutely? And I don't think I had a particular view, but I think the anger and the rage that I saw was much more understandable to me. Like I said, I felt myself of being put into a category or a box, and I felt like I understood more of what that must feel like to, you know, be stuck in a slot that you didn't you know, you didn't ask for.
Do you think they were jealous of you? Why do you think they had such rage also towards you?
I think it was just rage. Rage is rage, And I think anyone that you know maybe had that freedom, or you know, teenage girls. I mean, there's there's there's so much to begin with, and then you put on all the other circumstances that they had. It was just a violent neighborhood and the girls especially were extremely aggressive, and you know, maybe knowing that they were never getting out of this community. You know, I was you know that there's a difference.
There is a difference to that. Do you what what do you remember most about, Like what was your childhood like beyond those girls? Just in the way you grew up?
It was interesting, It was interesting, it was I do remember, Yeah, it was interesting. It was I remember. You know, there's there's a there's a there's a speech at the end, well, a scene at the end towards the end of the movie that rose the lead girl says, and I was speaking to a big producer, a female that saw it just recently and wanted to speak to me, and we talked in depth about it, and she said, you know, that last piece, I felt that piece was so personal. It's like it totally was. The whole thing is personal, but that last piece. And she says, is it normal that every day of my life I'm afraid and that I don't even feel it anymore? And she says, and I know I'm supposed to be grateful. I'm supposed to be grateful for every last piece of everything, but I'm not. I what if I want something else? And I thought that is absolutely straight from the heart and it you know I did. I grew up. I grew up afraid. I grew up afraid in my house. I grew up afraid outside my house, and I grew up wanting to run. They were, of course fun and good times, but I definitely had an overwhelming feeling of the ground underneath me, never being completely still.
You know, It's also something that really strikes me about you is the fact that you actually lived for so many years with chronic pain from Celiac disease and it was undiagnosed. When did that start?
How old were you it's oh my god, earliest memories and growing up Italian Catholic, all that we're supposed to be pain. We're supposed to have pain. It was supposed to you know, life isn't easy, and this is what we deal with. And I just thought, from seeing what I saw growing up that my anxiety from the age of twelve was normal. I thought, you know, my first panic attack and my mother giving me half of a valium at fifteen was normal. I thought it was normal. I thought the stomach pain was normal. I thought, you know, the anxiety. The anxiety got so bad, and not a lot of people know this. I had such severe panic disorder by the time I was twenty, I think twenty twenty. I moved out at eighteen, put myself through acting school, and then by twenty two I had to move back in with my parents because my panic attacks got so bad. I became a gloraphobic and I had to relearn how to really get out in the world.
And that's when I started to do a deep dive because it was really bad. I started to do a deep dive about nutrition, and that's when I started to understand, like, huh, me drinking half a gallon of orange juice in the morning and having bagels and pasta.
Maybe this isn't right for me. But I didn't find out until I was on the set with Melissa McCarthy on Samantha Who, and I had a tooth fall out of my mouth, like literally pop out of my mouth, and my skin was peeling off, my hair was falling out in clumbs. And she knew because we were very close during that time. And I remember looking at Melissa and going, I don't know what to do anymore. And she was like, you're not well, and I said, I know. And I went to a doctor, female doctor, and I just sat there and sobbed, and she heard me and she said, Okay, I'm going to get to the bottom of this. And she tested me and she called me a week later and she said when she got the results, she said, I've never seen a case this bad before. I don't know how you're alive. That started the journey to I have a real problem with injustice. It's a very hard world to live in. And to think of all the years that I was meant to believe that it was something about me that was wrong with my brain, or all these medications and all the gas lighting, medically going to every doctor, them telling me I was either hypochondriac, I was a girl, I was a dramatic, I was crazy. I had MS. They tell me everything, They had me on every medication, and I thought, I have to do something. Once I can get myself to a place where I can see straight, I have to do something. And that's how the books and the bakery came about.
It's so interesting how the first knee jerk reaction is this is your fault and you're a crazy actress and you're a hysterical female exactly, and you'd brought this on and it's psychosomatic. Was there anything else that helped you missed this doctor? Did she follow through and help you along the way.
She took me as far as she could. She was a general practitioner. I was with a male and I say male because he is a man. He was a gaster andonologist and this was his field. And when she called him with me on the phone, she point blank said, how did you never test her for this? He was treating me for parasites that he never found. I was in the hospital with c dipicile colitis from medication he gave me. I mean I was in quarantine like I was. He almost killed me, and she pointed the question. He said, I didn't think about it, to be honest, and I hate that I always have to go down this journey. I have to be honest. Someone asked me recently, it's like, do you have a mentor that mentor you in this movie? And it was like, no, I wish I did in any and in any area of my life. I wish I did, but there was nothing out there at the time when I was diagnosed and this severely that was going to help. There was one person, but there was one very big doctor that was known in this field. And it took a it was like six months waiting list, and I knew somebody who knew somebody and got me in right away. And he looked at me and he said, you seriously have one of the worst cases I've seen. And I've been studying this for a long time. He said, I want to I want to study you. I want to make you a subject. Can you do all these tests? And I said fine. At the time, I was so depleted in vitamins. I had no vitamin D left in my system. So even the sun. Even when I was in the sun, I'd break out and complete hives. Anything that was taking in that I didn't have was thinking it was attacking me. So my body was attacking everything. The panic attacks, they had me on four kalanapin a day, four of them, and I still couldn't stop shaking. I was so bad that this doctor just told me to eat gluten free and I was like, doctor, like, I'm jumping out of my skin. And at one appointment with him, he worked, he was at Columbia Hospital, and I said, I'm jumping out of my skin. I've read enough now to know that I have a lot of deficiencies. Can you please please keep me here because I'm good. I'm gonna throw myself out the window. I don't know what to do. I was vibrating, and he said, okay, go downstairs and go to the left when you see emergency, don't go to the right. And I do it. And I wound up in the psych board and I sat there and I said what am I doing here? And I said, well, you said you were going to jump out the window. And I was like, oh wait a minute, that was a figure of speech. I'm a New York Italian person. I'm being I'm just speaking. I can't feel like this anymore. This is not my mind. And I was still still even though they see how ill I am, they still, as a female looked at me and said, it's your mind. And I cannot tell you the six hours I spent pleading for my sanity that I thought, if I ever get out of here, I have to do something. So I can't say that there was much that helped me. I will say this. Why I did what I did for the Siliac community is because that is the only community that helped me. That's what led me on a journey. It was the silly Ac community on chat groups that were the only help because they were the ones going through it.
Oh I hear is I hear the same little girl in Staten Island and Brooklyn with fear and responsibility. It's the same thing, and here it is repeating itself as technically I guess an adults. It just it breaks my It breaks my heart. I recently had a seizure and leading up to it, when you say vibrating, I was depleted, but it was I couldn't keep food down. I wasn't eating. I wasn't sleeping. I was really nervous, and I said to my girlfriend, I'm vibrating. I said, I am not in my I can't live in this body like this, and it led to a seizure. But you know, I had to pass out and seize before anybody was able to say, Okay, this is you know, and this was a month period, not a lifetime like you've endured.
It's a lot to be not heard. Yeah, it's a lot to be not heard for so many years physically. Again, I saw so much suffering with health and stuff growing up that I was always like the champion of like, I guess this is the way it is, and you know, no one wants to hear about it, so but I did try. But after that, I remember looking out I had the same apartment that I bought a long time ago, and I remember looking out the window, the same thing I've always looked at, and the world looked different and I thought, wow, I can't call nine one one if I'm in trouble because they don't know what to do with me. And that's when I started to do the research. I did find an amazing doctor at one point named doctor frad Alone who's one of my he's like my brother now because he literally saved my life. He started helping me with intravenous vitamin drips and but at the time, it was it was it was months before I found him, and I just started jotting down anything I was doing that was helping me. And that's how the book came about, because I just wanted to get the information out there. And it was a hell of a time. I have to say, but I will say this, and I don't take anything away from mental issues and medication, but I will say, if nobody is talking to you about your gut health, then they're doing you a disservice because I no longer have any paniced attacks. I don't have them, and I'm on nothing.
And you know, also the message is self advocacy, I mean, and that's some that's the hardest thing for especially women to do, because we're not taught to you know, we're taught to behave and don't make noise and don't rock the boat. But we have to self advocate and that goes across the board. And I'm sure, I mean, what else kills me about this is that for the rest of us who wanted to be watching more of you during that time. I'm sure you know you're the work that you wanted to do was sacrificed because you you weren't able to do it. I mean, you were a fan favorite on Blue pe Udz.
Yeah, that was depressing that guy.
You talk about just a lack of willingness, and in your book you talk about a lack of understanding and a lack of willingness from the people that are show running. You know, are the are the bosses. But to accommodate you, it.
Was it was beyond It was beyond painful because I went and did that as the first job back up on my feet, and it was supposed to be it was. It was told to me as this is a part time thing. You're going to come in and out as his partner. The show is about his family. And because Donnie and I had such a rapport, I just kept working and working. I was getting paid as a smaller role. And every year we go this isn't okay, and they'd say, oh yeah, I was going to change it, and it never changed. But what really really upset me is when someone on that in that camp, it wasn't everybody but someone in that camp said, I don't even believe it. I want to see her records, her records of this disease. And I was like, okay, now I'm done, and yeah, kept me in a contract and didn't pay me, and yeah, it was it was ugly. It was ugly, but like I said, it wasn't the whole camp. I've since been back. They want me to come back and do something, and I really like a lot of people over there. It's you know, there's always a few they'd look at the woman like, oh, this one, you know she's and they you know she's doing that because she wants to get paid equally, which I should have been, but that's a whole other issue. But when you're asking someone for their medical records because you don't believe them, I was so done with not being believed that it was like oh right, yeah. I was like, okay, I'm good, I'm good.
Yeah, did you get closure?
To be honest, Brooks seriously, and I really do mean this. Making my film was so much more to me than just a film. This was retribution on so many fronts, on so many things. You know, when I first came out with Summer Sam, I kind of exploded out of the gate and I was I was met with a Harvey Weinstein kind of situation with a huge producer, and I spoke up and I got blacklisted right out of the gate, and I couldn't do any I didn't do anything for two years, and it was it was one hell of a thing, and I the trauma of that never went away and it circled my career, my entire life. So that movie, this movie was the gift to the twenty six year old who didn't get to do what she was supposed to maybe have done. You know, you always think, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna show you, but when you get to that point, there was none of that. For me. I was just so deeply proud of myself that everything is water under the bridge. I'm now where I feel satiated as as a creative and I did it on my own. So I'm proud and nobody can touch that.
Oh you know, I mean again, it's it's the one. It's two things at the same time, because at the one, on the one hand, you say, like God, damn it, that's it's all so unfair, and you talk about injustice and it's true. And then on the other your light never stopped shining.
Thank you.
There's a purity and a searching for the good in people, the good in situations.
Thank you.
I call the show now What because it is about pivotal moments in our lives. Good, bad, it doesn't matter. But when we really ask ourselves, oh my god, now what do I do? And I'm curious, looking back on your life, what's a now what moment for you?
The now what moment that I can think of in talking in this whole conversation. It really was. I remember the day perfectly when I sat there, and it was right around New Year's probably five years ago, and I really just felt so low, like so I was doing work. I absolutely I hated. I was sad all the time. I was so tired of hearing myself complain. I was so tired of like hearing about injustice. And I've done all the walks in the in the in the times out in the talks and all the all the stuff. And I really just sat there and thought, nothing has changed. And I thought, again, well, what are you going to do? And I said to myself, you're either quitting. You're quitting, and like, that's it. Go and live in the woods where I have a house, and go like make some cakes and eat your food and shut up, and that's it. And I said, you're doing that, or you're going to sit down and finish writing the movie. And I said, on my deathbed, what am I gonna think if I don't try this, because this is this movie has been haunting me for years. I'm talking decades. And I said, Okay, I'm going to do it. And it was that moment and I said, every single day, you are going to get up and you are going to do something that's going to push you forward to do this. Whether it be right, whether it be call someone, whether it be read something on directing and filmmaking, whether it be taking a cla, whatever it is, you need to keep moving this forward. And that's what I did, and that's what I did, and I and every day I'm still I'm still pushing this rap up the world. But it's okay because now at least the vision is out there and we've had such a great response and listen, awards are great and you know, big movie is great, but honestly, it's seeing that all the while what I knew I was capable of. I did it and it was exactly how I visioned it. And to see it connect with the audience is everything.
That was Jennifer Esposito. Stay tuned for more on her new film, Fresh Kills. That's it for us today, talk to you next week. Now. What with Burke Shields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our lead producer and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by Darby Masters and Abu Zafar. Our executive producer is Christina Everett. The show was mixed by Vahid Fraser.
