What do you do in life doesn't go according to plan? That moment you lose the 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 cut 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 remember like waking up one morning and there was like a gentleman who had slept over, and um, there there was a rat in my kitchen. And I was like, this is an better than the opposite, belater than the rat being in your bed and him actually true? Yeah, I mean come on, yeah, it would be It would actually be way worth to find a rat in your bed and then like a guy in your kitchen. That would be danger. But anyway, a gentleman though he was a gentleman. You just said he was a gentleman, so perfect, nice person, not going to be my boyfriend. Hello, and welcome back to another season of Now What. My team and I took a few weeks off to recharge, and while it was very nice to get some rest, I really missed sharing these interviews with all of you each week. Fortunately, I think my guest today was very much worth the weight. Jenny Slate. She's a writer and actor and a comedian. You might also know her as the co creator and voice of the newly Oscar nominated sensation Marcelf Shell with Shoes on. Jenny is a breath of fresh air. She's authentic, she's open, and as you're here in just a minute, she is more than willing to talk about her many now What moments and all that she's learned from them. I am so thrilled to bring you all a piece of her story and hope that you'll come to adore her as I do. So. Here is Jenny Slate. M. Jenny Slate, Hi, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I was so happy when I knew that you said you said yes to doing it. I was shocked. I was shocked and excited that you would like me to be here speaking to you. Are you kidding? I'm such a huge fan. Um. And first of all, before congratulations on an Oscar nomination. Where were you when you heard when you got the news? Um? Thank you? And I was in bed. I was asleep finally after a night of many wake ups with my little babe, and so I had just gotten to sleep, and I saw all these messages flickering on my phone, but they were all text messages, and I just sort of thought, I think if it were good news, somebody would have called. I just think it's a lot of apologies, Like I think it's my It was my sisters, and I was like, it's them, being like, this is actually just the start of your career, don't worry your was something like that. I remember when it first came out. I was so immediately in love with Marcel. I just my daughters and I. It was as if we couldn't we just couldn't get enough, couldn't get enough of it. And um, it's funny because I don't know if you've met Ariana Grande, but she would practically only do an imitation of Marcel. She did everything. Everything she answered you, she would talk in herself voice. Because it was around the time I was working with her brother on something and I would have dinner with the mom and the kids, and it was so cute and so funny, and she did quite quite a good invitation. Let me get this straight. You're saying that Ariana Grande that she knows about Marcel to Shell, she knows about it and would do an invitation of it. So it was really kind of kind of sweet love that where the character of Marcell come from. Well, you know, what's weird is like to answer that question, Like, first of all, it like it just was a not even a private joke, just a random joke. Just imagine if there was something that you were doing with your friend and and suddenly like it caught on in a way that we didn't We didn't even have an example for that at the time, the way that things can catch on now and kind of a viral way. And um, but at the time, I was doing a funny voice over a weekend while Dean and I were with some friends. Dean Fleischer Camp the director of the film, co writer, co creator and also my ex husband. We were a couple. Then we were at a wedding and I had been on SNL for a year. But like you know, you get paid sag scale. You're not like making big bucks or anything. And I had not saved any money because thirty rock is in the same building as like anthropology, and at the time I was like, whoa, Like, I have my literally my first paycheck other than being you know, a waitress or a nanny or I made a cassade commercial, like a couple of years before then. I had bit parts on TV shows, but I had never had a consistent income. I was not responsible with it. Also had no savings. So we were sharing a hotel room with four other friends and I felt really squished and I started talking in like this tiny voice, and Dean was like, you know, I forgot to make the video for our friends comedy show. Can I interview you in that voice? And then maybe I'll make something like I'll animate something or something. He didn't even really know, and so he and he interviewed me in that voice, and it kind of came out that maybe I was small and it was a character kind of talking about their social life. Like one of the first things Marcella Ever says is that like he didn't clean up and that his house is messy because he invited some friends from upstate to come eat salad just did not make its way into the feature film. Um, but then hearing all that audio, he was like, Okay, I think I could probably put together the physicality of this. And he had a lot of different like crafts stuff, and he went to the toy store in our neighborhood in Brooklyn and bought kind of like a Polly Pocket rip off and helped my balls on stuff and finally he made Marcel, and um, I came back from having lunch with a friend and there was like this little guy on the corner of the table and Marcel's really tall. He's an inch tall. So if you if you are a super fan and you bought one of the with the sneaker season it, so even with yeah, he's really interesting it well actually, and his shoes are like they're like his body, like they're his feet. Yeah, no shoes to ever come off. Learn anyway, so he made the body and I came in and he was like, I think he's here, and I was like, oh, he's definitely that guy. And then Dean interviewed me and it was sort of like, well, now that you know what you look like, can you say more about yourself? And I you know, just improvised. We had also just been to France to visit where my one of my grandmother's was before she um went into hiding during the Holocaust and during World War Two, and her brother's name was Marcel and it must have been top of mind. And I just said, like, my name is Marcelle, and I'm partially a shell and you can see on my body, and I just describe the rest of myself. Oh, and it just went on. And he's so he's so earnest and honest, and since it's here, and I was so excited when the movie was coming out. I couldn't believe it was different. Having to then write a full length feature of about it's sort of different and the same. I mean, it's actually the story was like way too big and long, Like I think our biggest challenge was cutting it down. There are there are lots of parts of Marcelle's life that, um, we just couldn't fit into the film, and we really had to decide like what to show about him, and what was interesting to us was like for someone who's so willing to share himself and for someone who clearly thrives off of being in conversation with another why is he alone? Like why is he alone? And that was one of the things that we decided to try to explore, and it became more meaningful to us, especially as we separated as a couple and both found ourselves, Like, you know, we were in something that was sort of like you know, coil together something, and now we were in our own, our to own things like alone by ourselves. I'm curious what it's like to collaborate with someone that you are separated from, but you know who was your ex. You seem to have done it very well. How is how does that work? I mean, yeah, there's lots of different definitions of like doing that well. I think. I think, first of all, like we knew that our marriage was not going to keep going, and we were like we both still want to make this movie. We was never a question. And I don't think either one of us is like a jerk, I guess I don't know how else to put it, Like neither one of us is like now the spotlight is mine, or like you know these couples where they split up and one of them steals the intellectual property or something. It just that was never going to be us and and I think also like I can only speak for myself, but I never was like I never want to see you again. I mostly was like, WHOA, why did I think I would be the like right for this when like I don't think I have the right things to offer to this person, but I do think that I have the right things to offer them in a creative partnership, So so that's good. But I'll also say, like we have good boundaries. It's not like like if I'm to get a text from Dean, you know, we text back and forth. We have like a funny, fun relationship. But like I wouldn't say we're best friends. I would say like we're super good creative partners and that we just developed into knowing how much space to give each other. And I don't really feel like there was a lot of conscious like let's sit down and let's be like really really evolved about this. I actually think we just were so careful, like walking on like the thinnest ice or something, just like really making sure like your footstep itself. Let's say it's not too warm to melt the surface. You know. Marcella is obviously the product of an extremely creative person. So I'm really curious to know what you were like as a kid. Did you have an imaginary friends? I had a lot of imaginary personas. Like I think I've always been an actor, um and always wanted to be one too, But like I didn't have an imaginary friends, but I UM was deep into imaginary play, deep into playing characters, you know, like just full four hour afternoons of pretending to be a princess who was like rejected from her castle and had to like win it back from her like evil you know, stepmother or something like just sort of a version of whatever whatever fairytale I might have heard. And I really like to deeply get into that. UM. My sisters and I had a game that we would play called Dana and Susan and it was about um two women named Dana and Susan who lived in the the Ritz Carlton in New York and we we lived in Massachusetts and we had never been to New York, but we lived in the Ritz Carlton and we both had husbands and we would like just talk about our husbands, which now I think is like a crazy game. And if I if I caught my daughter doing it, I'd be like, where did you learn this? But I we just like we were ladies. I think we were like kind of emulating my mom's first cousins and the women that we would see, like at Russia Shanna and all the Jewish holidays. I love that. One thing about you that I really find fascinating, and you've spoken about this as well, is that you have really severe stage fright. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about what that feels like and how you ward it off and has it ever happened at the most inopportune moment um, I still get it. I sort of have tried everything to get rid of it, including like getting hypnotized and pushed myself to sort of hit marks of achievement for for a stand up comedian like I I made. I made an hour long stand up special for Netflix. In fact, I'm about to make another one, and UM, it haunts me. Um. What it feels like to me is I have absolutely no assurances that I'm going to be able to do my job. I can't when I have stage fright connect to the part of me that drums up and really inhabits this power. I can't find it at all. And I start to think it's not there. It's not there, and everybody's gonna see me fail and they're going to be, um, really disturbed by me because they're gonna like, I'm gonna force them to watch me fail and they're going to really hate me for that. And um, I think it's actually gotten to the point where I'm like, I don't really know that I that this is like I need to keep doing this. I I'm not sure that I'm gonna ever get past it. And it's a range thing to say, but like the more I get into my my parenting and my motherhood and like connecting to a kind of love that I only thought was for other people or something like I had never really experienced it like this, the less I actually kind of need to earn it, Which is interesting because I want to get to you becoming a mom in a minute. But I'm also interested in how you decided that you wanted to make this your career, make comedy your career, and I'm curious as to when you knew you wanted to be that and what was that going to look like for you in your dreams. I always wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be an actress, I didn't want to be a stand up comedian at all, and in fact, I didn't grow up watching any I. I just wanted to be like Judy Garland that you know. I wanted to be like I don't know, like since Cheri's like I like I wanted to be like she had her legs ensured. Yeah, really, Like I just was like, don't know, I want like a petticoat and like I want being stuff where I'm like in a corset that like my sisters are lacing up and they're like we're going to the drugs. Like I just thought, I know, all the anything I saw was from the library. It was all those like Technicolor like Briga Dune and Meet Me in St. Louis and like things like that. And it never occurred to me that there were different kinds of actors. It it's that there was genre. And then I got I became aware of like Lily Tomlin and majorly of like Madeline Cohn and Carol Burnett, and I was just like, wait, what is that? What's that about? And when I got to college, I started doing improv and it was just so easy. It was just so fun. And when I graduated from college, my best friend Gabe Lehmann and I became a comedy duo, just just a way for people to see us and think of us for acting parts. And then when I was doing a comedy show, um, the director Gillian Robespierre saw me, and she was planning to make a short film about comedian who well actually about just about a woman who like gets an gets pregnant by mistake and has an abortion and was that obvious child or no, that became obvious child. I love. That's one of my favorite movies of yours. I'm so glad. I'm glad you've seen it, and I think it's I think it's a really great thing for people to watch now because it's romantic and it's it's lovely, and it also like shows a safe and legal abortion with a woman who makes that choice, um, without like having to just like assess her entire life and decide whether or not she's good or bad. It's just like something people need to see. And I think the gillion saw me as a leading lady. And before that, I was like, I don't think every anyone ever will like I'll just be always like playing the funny friend. Okay, So then at what point does SNL come in because a lot has been made of your experience on that show. So I made the short film of Obvious Child. Um. And then I at the same time was like trying to write a one person and a one woman show, which I always kind of thought, I like thought that was sort of like embarrassing, and like here I'm like just like really like I don't know, like like like theater dorc or something, and um. At the time, I you know, god forbid, i'd be dorky um. And but I was like, you know, I want to maybe see if I could. I didn't even think about being on SNL. I just thought maybe someone from like Comedy Central will see me. Maybe I'll just get better commercials. Like I just wanted to be able to work more. And I was like, I'm not going to be in an offer Broadway play of like the Seagull or whatever, Like no one's gonna put me in some check off. I've got to figure out how to just get on stage and do what I think I'm good at, which, by the way, is the only way that I've ever had any success is to isolate the incredibly specific thing that I am good at that only I could describe and just do it for like seven people and and like hope that some people see it, and sometimes they didn't, sometimes they did. But so I performed a one woman play that took place at my few gearle if I had died right then, as as like a twenty six year old eccentric millionaire, and so I eulogized myself and like all these different characters. And John Mulaney, the comedian who was a friend of mine, was already working on SNL and he happened to be at like the I think, the very first show, and so he told the casting person and she was at the second show, and so by the second show, I had an audition and then I got my like callback for SNL and then I got on that show, and um, and my career kind of like began, or so I thought, But then it kind of like just sort of took a nose dive almost immediately because I said, I swear on my first show by mistake, which is like a personal nightmare for me because I hate getting in trouble. Get the funk out of here. Yeah, um, and like, wait, that's what happened. Well, I don't think I got fired for saying fuck, And I think people might think that if they're still thinking about it. I mean it's been literally a decade and who cares. But no, I think generally, like I got really squirrelly after that happened. It was sort of like you don't realize that you're like living on the edge until suddenly you like almost fall off it and then you're like, wow, I'm on live DV. You know, I'm just like, oh my god, and like I am a fragile person actually, like I have incredible resilience, but like it's a bit like a sorority fraternity in there. I am not meant to be in there. And I don't mean that to be like derogative at all. I just mean, like the rules of the interior culture of that place are really specific. Um, the power structure is really specific. I definitely tried to like bow down to it. But I I think if you're a creative person and deep in your whatever you want to call it, your spirit, you don't believe in what you are saying is your master or your authority, you're not going to do your best work. And I think if you're like me, even even though I am I self admittedly totally fragile. You're gonna be like I revolt. Do you think your comedy fit in? Do you think that that was a brand of comedy that No, not at all. But I also think the way that I make my comedy is by getting a ton of encouragement, not by being like starved out and like being like wide eyed and being like do you love me, daddy? To like someone who's not even your dad, Like I don't even understand the relationship with Lauren. I I really wanted him to like me. I I'm not someone who benefits from tough love or from deprivation. And I I understand there's a point at which like performers pushed through and then they're given the go ahead and the writers write for them. And the weirdest thing is that, like all of those people are nice people, but as a collective, I think there was something for me that felt really bad and it really hurt my confidence. And you know, I was like deeply humiliated to get fired, but like a billion trillion percent, it is the best thing that ever had been to me, ever, ever, ever, ever, So I named the show now What because I'm interested in those moments that sort of devastate us and throw us off course, you know, and how you get through them, and for you to say that this was the best thing that could have ever happened. Undoubtedly didn't feel like that at the time, But how did that experience shape the way you decided to go forward in the trajectory of your own career. I think I've had twin experiences in this, in my professional creat you know, creative life, and in my romantic life. You're a fool if you think that you are going to evaporate your injury. If something is big enough to hobble me creatively or to break my very alive heart, then that means it was big. And I think the way that I've gotten through it both times is by being like, you just have to do the movement that you can do that will not exacerbate your emotional injury. But you cannot stay still, you cannot fossilize in the posture of the moment where you were taken down. That is absolutely not the way to live, not for me at least, And so like after SNL I I started auditioning again, I made myself to stand up even though my stage right was like exponentially worse and sometimes I really failed, but like, yeah, there is no like symmetrical justice that came in that was like, oh, you found out you got fired on deadline Hollywood because no one even called you, because I think you were solo worth well, now like someone like a fancy producer is gonna ride in and give you your own show, like nobody cared. The only person that cares or knows that I'm this deeply in jured is me. And so after SNL, I just was like, just find a way, just like, keep performing again, keep being social, don't treat yourself like you're an outcast. Nobody wants you to be that, nobody has it out for you. But also I was like, remember that you never have to feel this badly ever again. Everything else that I will ever kind of encounter is like it is a job in a life, you know, even if it seems like really important or cool to me, like it is a job. And I just I was like, I will never forgive the expression, but like I will never eat it like this again. There is absolutely no way if I feel bad, I'm leaving and then that you know, I also learned after my divorce going into other relationships and being so freaked out and being in relationships. I should I should have just like been by myself, Like truly I should have. I should have done the eat, pray love thing or whatever. I just should have gone somewhere like slurped a bunch of spaghetti and just like stared into a canal. That would have been much better for me. But I chose things I wasn't ready for. And it's in my in my book. I wrote a book called Little Weirds and there's a piece in there called Creed, and it's about like I don't need to be in relational experiences like where I feel like I'm I'm crouching in a small environment when I'm like I'm bigger, Like I'd rather be my own size emotionally and be by myself than be like getting like little meager morsels from someone who doesn't understand me. And I was like, you never have to feel like this again. It might be that you are like single alone forever, but like no, but you know you've God, You've said so many things just in this last I mean throughout the whole chat, but that focus just as a performer, because you get knocked down so many more times than you you get held up right, and everybody also wants to have these more and to make them be this this this huge, huge thing, and they feel that way at the time, but they're part of such a bigger, bigger story. And for you to be able to just knowingly and still with an open heart, refuse to not try again and be Judy Garland looking over the rainbow, you know what I mean? And in a way, what a beautiful, what a beautiful now what moment? And I think it's really important. And during COVID you've had you've had such what a what a year? I mean, your heart was open enough to get married again and then have a child. How did you know you wanted to be a parent And what has that? How has that changed you when you actually realized you or the mother of this little human being? It has unconditional love for you. By the way, the thing that you talk about wanting, oh my gosh, I know it was. I mean I already like I have like some new stand up about how like I just so desperately want my daughter to like me that I like she throws food on the floor and I'm like, I love how that's so cool, Like I just I'm like, I'm just like puss up um because I think she's so cool. Um. I I mean when I met my husband, it was after that, as you might what you call I guess and now what moment. And so a friend introduced us and um, we wrote a couple of emails to each other. Um, but then we just fell out of touch. And then I was writing my book and I was like a lot of pieces were taken from ideas that I had had in the few emails I had written to him. And I I wrote to him and I was like, you know, it seems like because we had sort of tried to have a romantic start and it just didn't take off. And um, I was like, maybe you're not like into me, or we're not right for each other that way. But I've got to say, I really like you, and it's really weird to me that you're not my friend, because there's something about when I interact with you that it just is like pure goodness and I I really get into like speaking and thinking things that are incredibly exciting and important to me. And he was sort of like, oh yeah, no, no, no, we should definitely be friends. Um. It's weird that we're not. And then of course we like immediately fell in love. But I did not know if I wanted to have children, and and then I met my husband, and he really wanted to have children. And he is a completely unique person. I've never met anyone like him, man or woman. And I just was like absolutely certain that not only would he be a good father, but that like if I were to have a baby, that he would be there for me, because I was like, I am not exploding my vagina and like putting my mind through like chemical hormone like roller coaster at best with someone is not going to understand that I'm doing all of that while they're not, and that's hard for them because they're also not taught it, you know. I mean, I think that's a whole other kind of podcast, but it is very true because a lot of what what what you do experience they don't know and there and then it also takes us telling them, please be open to this, but this is exactly what's happening. And so that's a I mean, that's part of the communication of of of a relationship where children become a part of it. Um, So, okay, you find out you're having a little girl. Well, we got engaged and then um, and then I got pregnant kind of just like a few months after that. But actually, well, actually what happened was we got engaged and we planned our wedding for June, and we were like, well probably like We're like, well, this thing will probably be over by then, right like in March. We're like, I don't know, like should we cancel it? And then I was also planning on starting like fertility treatments because I went to a fertility doctor. I was I was about to turn thirty eight at the time, and I had never had an unplanned pregnancy, so I've never been pregnant. I was like, maybe I can't be like it kind of seems like I should have actually at this point. So I and I was told that it would can't believe it. Yeah, um and uh. The doctor was kind of like, you're really gonna need to You're gonna need to do fertility. You don't have a lot of like follicles left, it's not going to happen. And I was. I was so blown away by that and I was gonna start that process. When the lockdown happened and no quote unquote elective procedures could be done, and I was like, I was suddenly so scared, like something I wasn't ever sure that I wanted. I wanted it so badly, and I felt, yeah, like very very sad. And then my husband and I did this, like we drove from l A to Massachusetts in about three days just to try to like make it to Massachusetts and locked down there, and um, on the night that we got there, I guess I must have gotten pregnant, Like I just can't believe. Like two weeks later, I woke up at dawn and I was like, I think I'm pregnant. And it was just this weird feeling, and I took four pregnancy tests and they all said yes. And then when my husband woke up, I waited for him to like go to the bathroom, and I was like, I'll just wait till he gets out. But then I like burst in, holding the four pregnancy tests the way that people hold like cards in poker when they have like a good I don't play poker, but when it's like, you know, a flush or like whatever. And I came in, I was like look and I just showed him and I just remember his face, it was like he was so happy. Oh, I'm I'm so happy for your as what kind of little girls. She She's very social, she's brave, she's incredibly um like warm. She loves um, things that are saw off. She likes like especially it's like hilarious that animals have tails, and like every time she sees any animals tail, she wants to point it out. And I actually also feel that way about animals tails. Um. She's she's really affectionate. Um. She loves like salty things like pickles and olives. Um, she's really mischievous. A lot of my friends say she looks like a shattic, but she acts like a slate. Well, she's lucky to have you as parents, you as a mama. I I love what you're putting out into the world, and I just thank you for taking the time to be on this on this podcast. You're a delight and I'm excited to see whatever is next for you, and I wish she the best and thank you. I also just want to say, like I have been a fan of yours for my entire life, and I just kind of like that's possible because I'm fifty seven. That always sounds bad when people say that to me, like when they're like, I watched marcelf I was a baby, and I'm like, oh, you go fund yourself. But but no, but no, not at all. In fact, I I appreciate it. But I just mean to say, like, it is very meaningful to me that you would turn your eye on me. And you are someone that I see in in our culture as a person of extraordinary talent and beauty and your and such intelligence but also like real realness. I could have stayed in this conversation for hours. And I thrive on encouragement. I don't thrive because I have some like weird well of confidence. I I thrive relationally and much like a plant needs water and sun. And you were really that sunshine for me. So thank you so much. That was the delightful Jenny Slate. If you want to hear more from her, check out her book. It's called Little Weirds. And if you're like me and you love Marcel the Shell, do yourself a favor and watch Jenny's OSCAR nominated film, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. It's on Prime Apple TV and in theaters. That is it for today. Thank you for listening now. What with brook Shields is a production of I Heart Radio. Our lead producer and wonderful show runner is Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by Darby Masters and Abou Zafar. Our executive producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Bahed Fraser.

What do you do in life doesn't go according to plan? That moment you lose the 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 cut 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 remember like waking up one morning and there was like a gentleman who had slept over, and um, there there was a rat in my kitchen. And I was like, this is an better than the opposite, belater than the rat being in your bed and him actually true? Yeah, I mean come on, yeah, it would be It would actually be way worth to find a rat in your bed and then like a guy in your kitchen. That would be danger. But anyway, a gentleman though he was a gentleman. You just said he was a gentleman, so perfect, nice person, not going to be my boyfriend. Hello, and welcome back to another season of Now What. My team and I took a few weeks off to recharge, and while it was very nice to get some rest, I really missed sharing these interviews with all of you each week. Fortunately, I think my guest today was very much worth the weight. Jenny Slate. She's a writer and actor and a comedian. You might also know her as the co creator and voice of the newly Oscar nominated sensation Marcelf Shell with Shoes on. Jenny is a breath of fresh air. She's authentic, she's open, and as you're here in just a minute, she is more than willing to talk about her many now What moments and all that she's learned from them. I am so thrilled to bring you all a piece of her story and hope that you'll come to adore her as I do. So. Here is Jenny Slate. M. Jenny Slate, Hi, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I was so happy when I knew that you said you said yes to doing it. I was shocked. I was shocked and excited that you would like me to be here speaking to you. Are you kidding? I'm such a huge fan. Um. And first of all, before congratulations on an Oscar nomination. Where were you when you heard when you got the news? Um? Thank you? And I was in bed. I was asleep finally after a night of many wake ups with my little babe, and so I had just gotten to sleep, and I saw all these messages flickering on my phone, but they were all text messages, and I just sort of thought, I think if it were good news, somebody would have called. I just think it's a lot of apologies, Like I think it's my It was my sisters, and I was like, it's them, being like, this is actually just the start of your career, don't worry your was something like that. I remember when it first came out. I was so immediately in love with Marcel. I just my daughters and I. It was as if we couldn't we just couldn't get enough, couldn't get enough of it. And um, it's funny because I don't know if you've met Ariana Grande, but she would practically only do an imitation of Marcel. She did everything. Everything she answered you, she would talk in herself voice. Because it was around the time I was working with her brother on something and I would have dinner with the mom and the kids, and it was so cute and so funny, and she did quite quite a good invitation. Let me get this straight. You're saying that Ariana Grande that she knows about Marcel to Shell, she knows about it and would do an invitation of it. So it was really kind of kind of sweet love that where the character of Marcell come from. Well, you know, what's weird is like to answer that question, Like, first of all, it like it just was a not even a private joke, just a random joke. Just imagine if there was something that you were doing with your friend and and suddenly like it caught on in a way that we didn't We didn't even have an example for that at the time, the way that things can catch on now and kind of a viral way. And um, but at the time, I was doing a funny voice over a weekend while Dean and I were with some friends. Dean Fleischer Camp the director of the film, co writer, co creator and also my ex husband. We were a couple. Then we were at a wedding and I had been on SNL for a year. But like you know, you get paid sag scale. You're not like making big bucks or anything. And I had not saved any money because thirty rock is in the same building as like anthropology, and at the time I was like, whoa, Like, I have my literally my first paycheck other than being you know, a waitress or a nanny or I made a cassade commercial, like a couple of years before then. I had bit parts on TV shows, but I had never had a consistent income. I was not responsible with it. Also had no savings. So we were sharing a hotel room with four other friends and I felt really squished and I started talking in like this tiny voice, and Dean was like, you know, I forgot to make the video for our friends comedy show. Can I interview you in that voice? And then maybe I'll make something like I'll animate something or something. He didn't even really know, and so he and he interviewed me in that voice, and it kind of came out that maybe I was small and it was a character kind of talking about their social life. Like one of the first things Marcella Ever says is that like he didn't clean up and that his house is messy because he invited some friends from upstate to come eat salad just did not make its way into the feature film. Um, but then hearing all that audio, he was like, Okay, I think I could probably put together the physicality of this. And he had a lot of different like crafts stuff, and he went to the toy store in our neighborhood in Brooklyn and bought kind of like a Polly Pocket rip off and helped my balls on stuff and finally he made Marcel, and um, I came back from having lunch with a friend and there was like this little guy on the corner of the table and Marcel's really tall. He's an inch tall. So if you if you are a super fan and you bought one of the with the sneaker season it, so even with yeah, he's really interesting it well actually, and his shoes are like they're like his body, like they're his feet. Yeah, no shoes to ever come off. Learn anyway, so he made the body and I came in and he was like, I think he's here, and I was like, oh, he's definitely that guy. And then Dean interviewed me and it was sort of like, well, now that you know what you look like, can you say more about yourself? And I you know, just improvised. We had also just been to France to visit where my one of my grandmother's was before she um went into hiding during the Holocaust and during World War Two, and her brother's name was Marcel and it must have been top of mind. And I just said, like, my name is Marcelle, and I'm partially a shell and you can see on my body, and I just describe the rest of myself. Oh, and it just went on. And he's so he's so earnest and honest, and since it's here, and I was so excited when the movie was coming out. I couldn't believe it was different. Having to then write a full length feature of about it's sort of different and the same. I mean, it's actually the story was like way too big and long, Like I think our biggest challenge was cutting it down. There are there are lots of parts of Marcelle's life that, um, we just couldn't fit into the film, and we really had to decide like what to show about him, and what was interesting to us was like for someone who's so willing to share himself and for someone who clearly thrives off of being in conversation with another why is he alone? Like why is he alone? And that was one of the things that we decided to try to explore, and it became more meaningful to us, especially as we separated as a couple and both found ourselves, Like, you know, we were in something that was sort of like you know, coil together something, and now we were in our own, our to own things like alone by ourselves. I'm curious what it's like to collaborate with someone that you are separated from, but you know who was your ex. You seem to have done it very well. How is how does that work? I mean, yeah, there's lots of different definitions of like doing that well. I think. I think, first of all, like we knew that our marriage was not going to keep going, and we were like we both still want to make this movie. We was never a question. And I don't think either one of us is like a jerk, I guess I don't know how else to put it, Like neither one of us is like now the spotlight is mine, or like you know these couples where they split up and one of them steals the intellectual property or something. It just that was never going to be us and and I think also like I can only speak for myself, but I never was like I never want to see you again. I mostly was like, WHOA, why did I think I would be the like right for this when like I don't think I have the right things to offer to this person, but I do think that I have the right things to offer them in a creative partnership, So so that's good. But I'll also say, like we have good boundaries. It's not like like if I'm to get a text from Dean, you know, we text back and forth. We have like a funny, fun relationship. But like I wouldn't say we're best friends. I would say like we're super good creative partners and that we just developed into knowing how much space to give each other. And I don't really feel like there was a lot of conscious like let's sit down and let's be like really really evolved about this. I actually think we just were so careful, like walking on like the thinnest ice or something, just like really making sure like your footstep itself. Let's say it's not too warm to melt the surface. You know. Marcella is obviously the product of an extremely creative person. So I'm really curious to know what you were like as a kid. Did you have an imaginary friends? I had a lot of imaginary personas. Like I think I've always been an actor, um and always wanted to be one too, But like I didn't have an imaginary friends, but I UM was deep into imaginary play, deep into playing characters, you know, like just full four hour afternoons of pretending to be a princess who was like rejected from her castle and had to like win it back from her like evil you know, stepmother or something like just sort of a version of whatever whatever fairytale I might have heard. And I really like to deeply get into that. UM. My sisters and I had a game that we would play called Dana and Susan and it was about um two women named Dana and Susan who lived in the the Ritz Carlton in New York and we we lived in Massachusetts and we had never been to New York, but we lived in the Ritz Carlton and we both had husbands and we would like just talk about our husbands, which now I think is like a crazy game. And if I if I caught my daughter doing it, I'd be like, where did you learn this? But I we just like we were ladies. I think we were like kind of emulating my mom's first cousins and the women that we would see, like at Russia Shanna and all the Jewish holidays. I love that. One thing about you that I really find fascinating, and you've spoken about this as well, is that you have really severe stage fright. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about what that feels like and how you ward it off and has it ever happened at the most inopportune moment um, I still get it. I sort of have tried everything to get rid of it, including like getting hypnotized and pushed myself to sort of hit marks of achievement for for a stand up comedian like I I made. I made an hour long stand up special for Netflix. In fact, I'm about to make another one, and UM, it haunts me. Um. What it feels like to me is I have absolutely no assurances that I'm going to be able to do my job. I can't when I have stage fright connect to the part of me that drums up and really inhabits this power. I can't find it at all. And I start to think it's not there. It's not there, and everybody's gonna see me fail and they're going to be, um, really disturbed by me because they're gonna like, I'm gonna force them to watch me fail and they're going to really hate me for that. And um, I think it's actually gotten to the point where I'm like, I don't really know that I that this is like I need to keep doing this. I I'm not sure that I'm gonna ever get past it. And it's a range thing to say, but like the more I get into my my parenting and my motherhood and like connecting to a kind of love that I only thought was for other people or something like I had never really experienced it like this, the less I actually kind of need to earn it, Which is interesting because I want to get to you becoming a mom in a minute. But I'm also interested in how you decided that you wanted to make this your career, make comedy your career, and I'm curious as to when you knew you wanted to be that and what was that going to look like for you in your dreams. I always wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be an actress, I didn't want to be a stand up comedian at all, and in fact, I didn't grow up watching any I. I just wanted to be like Judy Garland that you know. I wanted to be like I don't know, like since Cheri's like I like I wanted to be like she had her legs ensured. Yeah, really, Like I just was like, don't know, I want like a petticoat and like I want being stuff where I'm like in a corset that like my sisters are lacing up and they're like we're going to the drugs. Like I just thought, I know, all the anything I saw was from the library. It was all those like Technicolor like Briga Dune and Meet Me in St. Louis and like things like that. And it never occurred to me that there were different kinds of actors. It it's that there was genre. And then I got I became aware of like Lily Tomlin and majorly of like Madeline Cohn and Carol Burnett, and I was just like, wait, what is that? What's that about? And when I got to college, I started doing improv and it was just so easy. It was just so fun. And when I graduated from college, my best friend Gabe Lehmann and I became a comedy duo, just just a way for people to see us and think of us for acting parts. And then when I was doing a comedy show, um, the director Gillian Robespierre saw me, and she was planning to make a short film about comedian who well actually about just about a woman who like gets an gets pregnant by mistake and has an abortion and was that obvious child or no, that became obvious child. I love. That's one of my favorite movies of yours. I'm so glad. I'm glad you've seen it, and I think it's I think it's a really great thing for people to watch now because it's romantic and it's it's lovely, and it also like shows a safe and legal abortion with a woman who makes that choice, um, without like having to just like assess her entire life and decide whether or not she's good or bad. It's just like something people need to see. And I think the gillion saw me as a leading lady. And before that, I was like, I don't think every anyone ever will like I'll just be always like playing the funny friend. Okay, So then at what point does SNL come in because a lot has been made of your experience on that show. So I made the short film of Obvious Child. Um. And then I at the same time was like trying to write a one person and a one woman show, which I always kind of thought, I like thought that was sort of like embarrassing, and like here I'm like just like really like I don't know, like like like theater dorc or something, and um. At the time, I you know, god forbid, i'd be dorky um. And but I was like, you know, I want to maybe see if I could. I didn't even think about being on SNL. I just thought maybe someone from like Comedy Central will see me. Maybe I'll just get better commercials. Like I just wanted to be able to work more. And I was like, I'm not going to be in an offer Broadway play of like the Seagull or whatever, Like no one's gonna put me in some check off. I've got to figure out how to just get on stage and do what I think I'm good at, which, by the way, is the only way that I've ever had any success is to isolate the incredibly specific thing that I am good at that only I could describe and just do it for like seven people and and like hope that some people see it, and sometimes they didn't, sometimes they did. But so I performed a one woman play that took place at my few gearle if I had died right then, as as like a twenty six year old eccentric millionaire, and so I eulogized myself and like all these different characters. And John Mulaney, the comedian who was a friend of mine, was already working on SNL and he happened to be at like the I think, the very first show, and so he told the casting person and she was at the second show, and so by the second show, I had an audition and then I got my like callback for SNL and then I got on that show, and um, and my career kind of like began, or so I thought, But then it kind of like just sort of took a nose dive almost immediately because I said, I swear on my first show by mistake, which is like a personal nightmare for me because I hate getting in trouble. Get the funk out of here. Yeah, um, and like, wait, that's what happened. Well, I don't think I got fired for saying fuck, And I think people might think that if they're still thinking about it. I mean it's been literally a decade and who cares. But no, I think generally, like I got really squirrelly after that happened. It was sort of like you don't realize that you're like living on the edge until suddenly you like almost fall off it and then you're like, wow, I'm on live DV. You know, I'm just like, oh my god, and like I am a fragile person actually, like I have incredible resilience, but like it's a bit like a sorority fraternity in there. I am not meant to be in there. And I don't mean that to be like derogative at all. I just mean, like the rules of the interior culture of that place are really specific. Um, the power structure is really specific. I definitely tried to like bow down to it. But I I think if you're a creative person and deep in your whatever you want to call it, your spirit, you don't believe in what you are saying is your master or your authority, you're not going to do your best work. And I think if you're like me, even even though I am I self admittedly totally fragile. You're gonna be like I revolt. Do you think your comedy fit in? Do you think that that was a brand of comedy that No, not at all. But I also think the way that I make my comedy is by getting a ton of encouragement, not by being like starved out and like being like wide eyed and being like do you love me, daddy? To like someone who's not even your dad, Like I don't even understand the relationship with Lauren. I I really wanted him to like me. I I'm not someone who benefits from tough love or from deprivation. And I I understand there's a point at which like performers pushed through and then they're given the go ahead and the writers write for them. And the weirdest thing is that, like all of those people are nice people, but as a collective, I think there was something for me that felt really bad and it really hurt my confidence. And you know, I was like deeply humiliated to get fired, but like a billion trillion percent, it is the best thing that ever had been to me, ever, ever, ever, ever, So I named the show now What because I'm interested in those moments that sort of devastate us and throw us off course, you know, and how you get through them, and for you to say that this was the best thing that could have ever happened. Undoubtedly didn't feel like that at the time, But how did that experience shape the way you decided to go forward in the trajectory of your own career. I think I've had twin experiences in this, in my professional creat you know, creative life, and in my romantic life. You're a fool if you think that you are going to evaporate your injury. If something is big enough to hobble me creatively or to break my very alive heart, then that means it was big. And I think the way that I've gotten through it both times is by being like, you just have to do the movement that you can do that will not exacerbate your emotional injury. But you cannot stay still, you cannot fossilize in the posture of the moment where you were taken down. That is absolutely not the way to live, not for me at least, And so like after SNL I I started auditioning again, I made myself to stand up even though my stage right was like exponentially worse and sometimes I really failed, but like, yeah, there is no like symmetrical justice that came in that was like, oh, you found out you got fired on deadline Hollywood because no one even called you, because I think you were solo worth well, now like someone like a fancy producer is gonna ride in and give you your own show, like nobody cared. The only person that cares or knows that I'm this deeply in jured is me. And so after SNL, I just was like, just find a way, just like, keep performing again, keep being social, don't treat yourself like you're an outcast. Nobody wants you to be that, nobody has it out for you. But also I was like, remember that you never have to feel this badly ever again. Everything else that I will ever kind of encounter is like it is a job in a life, you know, even if it seems like really important or cool to me, like it is a job. And I just I was like, I will never forgive the expression, but like I will never eat it like this again. There is absolutely no way if I feel bad, I'm leaving and then that you know, I also learned after my divorce going into other relationships and being so freaked out and being in relationships. I should I should have just like been by myself, Like truly I should have. I should have done the eat, pray love thing or whatever. I just should have gone somewhere like slurped a bunch of spaghetti and just like stared into a canal. That would have been much better for me. But I chose things I wasn't ready for. And it's in my in my book. I wrote a book called Little Weirds and there's a piece in there called Creed, and it's about like I don't need to be in relational experiences like where I feel like I'm I'm crouching in a small environment when I'm like I'm bigger, Like I'd rather be my own size emotionally and be by myself than be like getting like little meager morsels from someone who doesn't understand me. And I was like, you never have to feel like this again. It might be that you are like single alone forever, but like no, but you know you've God, You've said so many things just in this last I mean throughout the whole chat, but that focus just as a performer, because you get knocked down so many more times than you you get held up right, and everybody also wants to have these more and to make them be this this this huge, huge thing, and they feel that way at the time, but they're part of such a bigger, bigger story. And for you to be able to just knowingly and still with an open heart, refuse to not try again and be Judy Garland looking over the rainbow, you know what I mean? And in a way, what a beautiful, what a beautiful now what moment? And I think it's really important. And during COVID you've had you've had such what a what a year? I mean, your heart was open enough to get married again and then have a child. How did you know you wanted to be a parent And what has that? How has that changed you when you actually realized you or the mother of this little human being? It has unconditional love for you. By the way, the thing that you talk about wanting, oh my gosh, I know it was. I mean I already like I have like some new stand up about how like I just so desperately want my daughter to like me that I like she throws food on the floor and I'm like, I love how that's so cool, Like I just I'm like, I'm just like puss up um because I think she's so cool. Um. I I mean when I met my husband, it was after that, as you might what you call I guess and now what moment. And so a friend introduced us and um, we wrote a couple of emails to each other. Um, but then we just fell out of touch. And then I was writing my book and I was like a lot of pieces were taken from ideas that I had had in the few emails I had written to him. And I I wrote to him and I was like, you know, it seems like because we had sort of tried to have a romantic start and it just didn't take off. And um, I was like, maybe you're not like into me, or we're not right for each other that way. But I've got to say, I really like you, and it's really weird to me that you're not my friend, because there's something about when I interact with you that it just is like pure goodness and I I really get into like speaking and thinking things that are incredibly exciting and important to me. And he was sort of like, oh yeah, no, no, no, we should definitely be friends. Um. It's weird that we're not. And then of course we like immediately fell in love. But I did not know if I wanted to have children, and and then I met my husband, and he really wanted to have children. And he is a completely unique person. I've never met anyone like him, man or woman. And I just was like absolutely certain that not only would he be a good father, but that like if I were to have a baby, that he would be there for me, because I was like, I am not exploding my vagina and like putting my mind through like chemical hormone like roller coaster at best with someone is not going to understand that I'm doing all of that while they're not, and that's hard for them because they're also not taught it, you know. I mean, I think that's a whole other kind of podcast, but it is very true because a lot of what what what you do experience they don't know and there and then it also takes us telling them, please be open to this, but this is exactly what's happening. And so that's a I mean, that's part of the communication of of of a relationship where children become a part of it. Um, So, okay, you find out you're having a little girl. Well, we got engaged and then um, and then I got pregnant kind of just like a few months after that. But actually, well, actually what happened was we got engaged and we planned our wedding for June, and we were like, well probably like We're like, well, this thing will probably be over by then, right like in March. We're like, I don't know, like should we cancel it? And then I was also planning on starting like fertility treatments because I went to a fertility doctor. I was I was about to turn thirty eight at the time, and I had never had an unplanned pregnancy, so I've never been pregnant. I was like, maybe I can't be like it kind of seems like I should have actually at this point. So I and I was told that it would can't believe it. Yeah, um and uh. The doctor was kind of like, you're really gonna need to You're gonna need to do fertility. You don't have a lot of like follicles left, it's not going to happen. And I was. I was so blown away by that and I was gonna start that process. When the lockdown happened and no quote unquote elective procedures could be done, and I was like, I was suddenly so scared, like something I wasn't ever sure that I wanted. I wanted it so badly, and I felt, yeah, like very very sad. And then my husband and I did this, like we drove from l A to Massachusetts in about three days just to try to like make it to Massachusetts and locked down there, and um, on the night that we got there, I guess I must have gotten pregnant, Like I just can't believe. Like two weeks later, I woke up at dawn and I was like, I think I'm pregnant. And it was just this weird feeling, and I took four pregnancy tests and they all said yes. And then when my husband woke up, I waited for him to like go to the bathroom, and I was like, I'll just wait till he gets out. But then I like burst in, holding the four pregnancy tests the way that people hold like cards in poker when they have like a good I don't play poker, but when it's like, you know, a flush or like whatever. And I came in, I was like look and I just showed him and I just remember his face, it was like he was so happy. Oh, I'm I'm so happy for your as what kind of little girls. She She's very social, she's brave, she's incredibly um like warm. She loves um, things that are saw off. She likes like especially it's like hilarious that animals have tails, and like every time she sees any animals tail, she wants to point it out. And I actually also feel that way about animals tails. Um. She's she's really affectionate. Um. She loves like salty things like pickles and olives. Um, she's really mischievous. A lot of my friends say she looks like a shattic, but she acts like a slate. Well, she's lucky to have you as parents, you as a mama. I I love what you're putting out into the world, and I just thank you for taking the time to be on this on this podcast. You're a delight and I'm excited to see whatever is next for you, and I wish she the best and thank you. I also just want to say, like I have been a fan of yours for my entire life, and I just kind of like that's possible because I'm fifty seven. That always sounds bad when people say that to me, like when they're like, I watched marcelf I was a baby, and I'm like, oh, you go fund yourself. But but no, but no, not at all. In fact, I I appreciate it. But I just mean to say, like, it is very meaningful to me that you would turn your eye on me. And you are someone that I see in in our culture as a person of extraordinary talent and beauty and your and such intelligence but also like real realness. I could have stayed in this conversation for hours. And I thrive on encouragement. I don't thrive because I have some like weird well of confidence. I I thrive relationally and much like a plant needs water and sun. And you were really that sunshine for me. So thank you so much. That was the delightful Jenny Slate. If you want to hear more from her, check out her book. It's called Little Weirds. And if you're like me and you love Marcel the Shell, do yourself a favor and watch Jenny's OSCAR nominated film, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. It's on Prime Apple TV and in theaters. That is it for today. Thank you for listening now. What with brook Shields is a production of I Heart Radio. Our lead producer and wonderful show runner is Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by Darby Masters and Abou Zafar. Our executive producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Bahed Fraser.