Sex, Lies, and Spray TansShe is known for her work on Broadway, in movies, and on TV, including the classic sitcoms, "Taxi" and "Evening Shade" . . . but when she got cast on Season 23 of DWTS, she did a happy dance!
The great Marilu Henner tells Cheryl who she thought she was going to be partnered with, thoughts on Derek Hough's teaching style, who she rehearsed with when Derek wasn't available, some of the challenges she faced on the show, and who she would love to be partnered with if she ever does the show again!
This is Sex Lies and Spray Tands with Me Cheryl Burke and iHeartRadio Podcast. Welcome back to Sex, Size and Spray TNDS. Let's get right into it and let me introduce you to our next guest. Today's guest comes from Chicago, where she practically grew up in a dance studio, and her passion for performing has taken her from Broadway to Hollywood. She's now starring in Hallmark's Aurora Tea Garden Mysteries, A Lesson and Murder, which just started airing, so make sure to check that out. Fun fact, our next guest actually helped coach me when I auditioned for the role of Roxy Heart for the Broadway musical Chicago. She also has a highly superior autobiographical memory, which is a rare condition identified in only one hundred people worldwide. This trait drives her to advocate for more funding for brain research. So basically, if you give her a random date in the past, she can recall it with amazing clarity, which I find fascinating. You've also seen our next guest on Soelebrity Prentice and Dancing with Derek huff On Dancing with the Stars. I'm thrilled to welcome Mary Lou Henner to the podcast. It's been too long, Mary.
Lou, Oh, I know, I know, way too long. She'm so happy and I love the show. I listened to you, Oh your honesty, I love I listened to your your interview with Kate Flanner, who's a friend. So her she's great.
I love her. She's so full of energy and funny as hell. Okay, first of all, I want to talk about we have history, me and you.
Yes we do. And I always refer back that didn't work out because it should have for you.
No, it shouldn't have. I can't sing, well, it's not.
Look at all the people have done it since you were supposed to do it, and they can't sing either.
And you were so kind to me, and I was so shy and I was so embarrassed, but you really held my hand through it all, regardless if I got it or not as irrelevant, So thank you.
Great. Now you are adorable, And you know, I mean a lot of people have to be honest, you know a lot of people. The first time I said, well can you sing? You couldn't even sing Happy birthday?
Thank you?
Thanks? You had said, well, face the wall and sing Happy Birthday facing the wall, and I said, don't worries, listen, you have a voice, you're just afraid to use it. You had the right pitch, you kept.
The two No way, I did not have the right pitch.
I've butt you with Bob Garrett, who's a brilliant, you know, singer coach, and he he said, oh no, she can really sing. But I think I wasn't at your audition, so maybe you clammed up.
I don't know, but I don't know what the hell.
Well we've done the show since who first of all, cannot dance at all the way you dance, but also can't even sing as well as you can sing.
You can have to try again, I'm kidding. Maybe no, But I have to say, ever since that audition and that whole time, I sing like crazy in the shower, and I used to never sing in the shower. I'm just saying, and I think I sound great, just I don't know.
Sure, No, And to live with a little training, you know, I mean, like with somebody who's really Bob is a great coach, but they're teachers, somebody who's changed my life. I have a show. You have to come and see my show.
Yes I do is a riot.
I sing all these songs. And Michael Orland, who did American Idol for sixteen years, he's been my musical director, and it's just been so great. I've done it all over the country. I'm going to do it here. I do a Taxi tribute and do a montage of that. I do a thing about my boys because they're so fabulous and they're both doing so well.
I heard journey, and I.
Also do a little tribute and a montage about dancing with the stars, and I tell the whole story. And then my brother, who's a brilliant parody lyricist, he wrote all these great he wrote, he wrote, do you know the candor and ebbsong pain? M hmm, okay, Well, anyway he did Max for call, I mean Cheata Rivera saying it for years.
Oh yes, Why don't they I'm sure you do quait sing it again.
Why don't they mention the pain? Why don't they speak of the terrible eight? Well, we only use the first stanza, and then the rest is about dancing with stars. And what I did. I took videos and pictures of all my injuries while I was the bruises, the swellings, the tapings, and I do a montage of pictures, and then I also show all the people on Dancing with the Stars who have crashed and fallen and literally literally no I sing. There's one stanza that I sing that's uh my pal Cristi Ali. She was moving like foss c and then she got dropped by Maxim Smirkowski. Now, okay, his disc Why don't they mention the risk? It's so funny.
I talk scairicle.
Yeah, I talk about to sing about spray tonds in it and everything else. So you have to come and see it.
I have to see it, are you? Is it coming to California?
But I'm going to be doing it probably at live stream it. I can't They won't live stream if you have video, like I can't show taxi videos.
Of course, yeah, I can't have the rights videos.
Yeah, if I live stream it.
Well, let's talk Dancing with the Stars. Okay, So we'll talk about it and if you'd like to sing about it, feel free. What was so? First of all, you were such a fan, I remember because you worked with me before you did Dancing with the Stars. Right, did they ask you before you said yes, or how did that work? Because it was a while in.
The show too, I say that my mother, who was a dance teacher. I grew up in a dancing school. It was like tap la jazz. We had a dancing school in our backyard with two hundred students between the ages of two and eighty in klohuns who came over for stretch classes from the Catholic school next door. And as soon as you were fourteen, you had to teach little kids. And so we all grew up dancing and singing and performing and plays and community theater and all this other stuff. So she would she My mother died way before the show in on the air, but it was a show she would have loved. So in her honor, I would have loved to have done the show. And I almost did it in two thousand and seven, but then they picked someone else. And then and then in twenty sixteen, August the ninth, twenty sixteen, it was a Tuesday, they called me and said are you ready to dance? And I always say that, I said yes, and I put up the phone and hit the floor and did the plates one hundred.
Oh, you have so much energy. I just and it's contagious, by the way. So I was just watching all of your dances. And there is a website daily shout out to dailymotion dot com. But for some seasons they actually have filmed the package, like the whole thing and not just the dance. And I love seeing that because I'd like to be reminded of, you know, your chemistry with your partner. But I didn't realize that you didn't know Derek was your partner, because like normally, did they ask you in the initial meeting who you'd want to dance with?
Oh, not at all. No, I mean I know, I was quite shocked, as you could tell. It was your comeback season, and so I was shocked. I really thought I was going to get Artam who would have been great, or Valve who would have been great, and actually or Max, but you know, we had sort of That year was a little oddball, and I'll tell you why. It was the first time that all the dancers weren't in the same studio, so we were all over. They had didn't have the old place and they didn't have the new place.
Oh interesting, but it was really like the Island of Lost toys. So we never mingled as much mingled.
We didn't mingle. Derek is two different places, and so I don't feel like I really had the chance to bond with people who were the person I knew the best from the whole group. You know. It was just so strange because then you just showed up on Monday and go to you know, Monday and Tuesday sometimes.
And the camaraderie just wasn't there because there was nothing. I mean, you guys were still hi, nice to meet you. Week three already three, you know, three weeks in and that was when I danced with Ryan Lockey when we had those protesters, right, so oh that was odd.
Well, you know, so that got a lot of attention and that was kind of you know, and he seemed like a nice guy.
I mean, oh, yes, I tend to.
Be like I like to give everybody a chance.
And yeah, when people are, you.
Know, everybody struggling, everybody's got a story. Everyone has a story. And I think when you have a memory like mine, people go, oh, are you a big grudge folder? And I was like, no at all, you're not, because you understand kind of the ebb and flow and the you know, positive negative, is it a blessing? Or a curse. I always say it's a blessing for me. It's just a curse from my husband, which is probably why I'm on my third and final.
Ah, were you able to retain the information with choreography as well or no?
Well, I have to say that one of the hardest things of dancing about Dancing with the Stars, because Derek wasn't the kind of partner like I know Sasha is, like I know Mark is, and Candice and I Cameron Bray and I are such good friends and we've done this whole series together on Homer, and she kept talking about how great it was that she would come in the first day Marque had everything mapped out and then she just had to learn it and drill it so over and over again. But Derek constantly changed things. So I'd do a step and he'd say, what's that, and I go, that's the step from Tuesday, the first day we worked on it. All of that was in my head. You know. It's like it's like the only time I thought maybe my memory is a little bit of a curse. Is the because if you change things constantly, they've gone in there the first way. So I have to take the time to extract them.
Oh that's so different. So we all have our different styles, every single pro on that show, and like Mark, I can't I leave. So right after the live show, I will choreograph that night, regardless of how tired I am, because the worst thing for me in my anxieties to come in not prepared, like I mean, obviously things will change, but to have my celebrity just watch me while I choreograph is such a waste of time because we don't have a lot of time with you guys, you know. But that but that is part of Derek's brilliant I mean, you can't deny that Derek is brilliant, right, But I think when it comes to maybe people who don't do this for a living, there's this other approach that might work.
The routine he taught me, he was changing it on our way to to the.
Stage, camera blocking yas.
Eight counts, you know, and that was just you know, that's not the usual way that I learned how.
To dance, of course, and by the way, for a lot of people, I can't do that either, because first of all, psychologically it's not good, I think. But he does see the camera like he goes beyond. I feel like every pro dancer and any entertainer really is pretty OCD when it comes to like we're trying to aim for perfection though there's no such thing, but like we are, like we think that we could just do this different move and it'll just be like this huge, uh, you know change. But it's not necessarily good for my partner. When I've done that, it's not good for my partner's psyche. And at the end of the day, it is about you, guys, and we do have to make you shine. So how is your guys' relationship?
It was fine, I mean it was you know. He I think he was at a crossroads in his life, making decisions about ABC, NBC, blah blah blah, back and forth. He had come back, he's this and that, so I think there was a lot going on. Plus he was doing hairspray at the time, so you know, there was there was stuff going on in his life. I was just spending everything because then I when he went into rehearsals for hairspray, we had to start at seven am am because he had to go to hairsprait, like nine p thirty ten.
That's so interesting, how you adapted to his schedule because normally it's the other way around.
That's the parent in me, the mother of that's nice of you. Yeah, And so I was icing my I was icing my feet and warming up my calves, you know, at like five o'clock in the morning.
So, oh my god, it's my seven Yeah. It takes a toll on everyone's mental health, for sure.
I blew up my verses. You know, the little thing in your feet, it's like a little thing in your like around your ankle bone.
Okay, blew them out.
I missed one day of rehearsal our Charleston week because I blew them up because it was like do it?
Do it?
You know on cement a lot of times too.
Can you take my listeners through the seven days? Basically? How many hours did you rehearse? Why was it so physically demanding?
Well, first of all, you think you're going to get a day off and you don't, which is fine, a g I'm like a worker.
Did they tell you that?
They said, oh, if you want to take a day off, you can, but most people don't. But as somebody who dance recitals and danced on Broadway, and yeah, you're used to that I was used to that, and plus it gets in you. You take it to sleep with you, you live with it. It's in your brain all the time. You're constantly going over things. Although after a while I realized, well, I don't really have to think about this as I'm falling asleep, because it's going to change tomorrow anyway. Because you start and you get your your the kind of song you know, you hear your music, and then you start working on the routine, and you go to wardrobe and you talk about the makeup and the hair and what fabrics and they give you this little card with the fabric on it and the beating possibly and the little drawing that they think you should do, you know, that kind of thing.
What was your rehearsals like? Like, was it only four hours because Derek was doing horspray or four hours?
No? No, no, no, because when he went into rehearsal for hairspray, he and I would work from seven to nine and then from seven to nine in the evening or six until eight. But I'd worked with Alan during the day.
Alan Burston. Did that help you?
Yeah, Oh he's great, he said.
But they never filmed that, did they?
No?
Interesting. That was okay with production they gave permission for you to work with Elean or was this villain them to me? You know, oh interesting, Okay, that's good. And there are such different answers. How did you adjust?
You just do you know? I mean, I've worked with Bob Vosse, I've worked with Jerome Obblins, I've worked with incredible people, and you know, I'm Broadway and stuff like that. Annie Ranking personal friend of mine and choreographer. You just make adjustments because you're a professional, and you say, oh that this is now this person and this person's going to work with me here and practice like this.
So do you think your dancing experience helped or hurt?
Because it's very different from ballet in terms of like having you know your feet in first position or fifth position or whatever. It helped in some way. Derek kept saying that my limbs are so long that if I make a mistake, it's very obvious. And I was constantly working on the posture and things like that. But it's funny. My two best dances and my two favorite dances were the Viennese waltz and the samba. It was so easy for me. Interesting brus I said, it's the mommy bounce when you have kids bouncing. It's the mommy bounce. You're always bouncing when you have babies. And I had two kids. Y my boys are a year and a half apart, So for three years I was doing the mommy bounce.
That's so funny. Yeah, I guess if you can relate to the dance to some sort of personal experience, I actually find that people who come on with dance experience isn't necessarily oh it's an easy season. It's actually harder to untrain the brain than to train it. I think you have to untrain.
Yeah, well that's why I said. The thing about the memory is that I was all set to do what we first did, and then all sometimes change completely and we had a different dance the next day.
What other challenges did you face other than physical injuries?
Well, you know, having done my own makeup and hair for so many years on, Yeah, stuff like that. I'd have ideas and I have a very well everybody does. Everyone has a quirky face, and because I know my quirks, sometimes I'd be sitting there going like, oh, this isn't going to look right. I just know it's not. I'm so sorry. Can we change it? And so I'm you know, the thing is you you don't want to be a diva. You want to it's a moving train and it's moving fast and you just want to hang on for dear life. But sometimes I'd think like, oh, this isn't working, this color is bad for me, or this shape or something. What started to happen because some of the wardrobe and the timely they went, we should just you know, you have a similar body to some of the people who have been in the troop. Why don't we just pull stock and start from there rather than start from the beginning. So the lab I mean from like the fifth one on I was wearing mostly stock.
Oh really I thought they were. I thought they just said that so you can try it on to see what cut looks good on. You know. A lot of times it was they recycled, so you saved them a lot of time.
Well I don't know. They weren't pretty fast, so I don't know how much time. But I did a lot of stock things a lot.
Yeah, was Derek involved at all with like the he was, Yes.
He'd have ideas, but he was as I said, he was he was busy with.
How are the judges to you?
Lenn was my favorite, even though he was only was there at times, and uh yeah, they kept talking about you know, they thought I was stiff, and I think I was stiff because I was trying to remember the steps of course, you know, like I think they were good. I was sorry that we didn't get more interaction with them, but I guess that's not allowed, and I was, you know, it was, it was. Yeah, it was an interesting experience that way because I'm so used to and so used to things being more collaborative, you know, is my career. I'm very collaborative with the people that I work with, whether it's hair and makeup and wardrobe and judgeons and direct poroography, hiographers and stuff like that. Yeah, so you know, that was a little bit different.
So that wasn't allowed or that wasn't.
Well, it wasn't encouraged. I don't think.
Got it, got it? Yeah? And because of this time restraint, right, like you only have what is I mean, it's not really a week. You don't have a week, You have like three four days. Then you have to shoot this thing called wides, which means you have to have at least your routine somewhat to music. Right, and that's like three days before the live show.
Right exactly? Yeah, like right away.
What do you believe this psychology is behind Dancing with the Stars.
I think people love show business. They love glitter, they love glam. They everybody's been on a stage at some point in their lives, you know, whether it's been a dancing school or a PTA show or community togeter. And I think people, you know, they live vicariously. I mean before I was on the show, I felt that way, and I'm still watching it going like, oh, I wish I could have that costume or you know whatever.
Would you do the show again?
Oh?
Yeah, on a second, who would you want to dance with?
Uh? Valor Max?
Really?
Yeah?
Why?
Definitely. I like their height, where they work with their partners. They're very sexy, They're really fun. I just I you know, I was on Canvases. I met them when I did Candas was on the View, and I came on the View for her fortieth birthday and they did a little opening number with her, so we all hung up backstage and then that was.
The right before I got the fun. Yeah, what was Derek's teaching style like.
Changeable, because but he always smelled good. He was surprised at my vocalebulary because there were a lot of words I used it. He said, I have no idea what that meant, but now I'm going to make them a dance about that because I use the word physiognomy.
What the hell is that?
It's like the physical you know, the physical look of something. It's like somebody's face changes, their physical physiognomy changes their physical being kind of changes. So I used that word, and he was surprised, and so he started to like keep a mental list of the words that I would use that he felt were not.
So he was learning from you. That's good, Yeah, it's good.
He was gonna he said he was going to one day create a dance called physiognomy.
I bet you he will, Like, I'm sure he will. Definitely the word. Yeah, how much do the package? Is that the air prior to going live influence you think the voting at home?
I think things get funneled in a certain direction, corralled in a certain direction. So I think people are influenced. But I think it's a show. You know, it's a It's definitely a television show so that people who are watching you want, you know, I mean having done Celebrity Apprentice twice before I did Dancing with the Stars, those packages and even the shows themselves because it's all edited anyway, they're not live. They you think this team's going to win, and then the other team wins, or this person's going to have a disaster, and then that person turns out to be the hero. So I was used to.
What's the right emotional rollercoaster?
Yeah, well not just the emotional role. Actually, a Celebrity Apprentice is a was a blast to do it, really, my energy. You don't sleep. You get less sleep playing back Game than you do Dancing with the Stars, if you can believe it, because your mind is constantly working and it's up to you.
But isn't it hard, though, Mary Lou when you put seven days a week, blood, sweat and tears into something and then just to be like, oh, which is a TV show? You put a lot of hard work into Dancing with the Stars.
You know, Well, they pay you better than they did on Celebrity Apprentice.
Oh really, Oh yeah that's good.
Yeah, but you did get a day off.
I mean at first on Celebrity Apprentice.
Oh yeah, only on Celebrity Apprentice. But you know it's like, you know what is acting in all of this anyway. I mean it's still you know, you kind of know what you're getting into because you watch the show.
And isn't it discouraging? Though? Did you find it discouraging? Like with all like how much you just put into something then you're leaving your fate up to basically the judges, I believe influence people at home a little bit for sure as far as votes go.
Yeah, but I think you'd have to be you know, anyone who's been in this business a while how things go anyway. It's not like I don't know. I didn't feel I didn't feel discouraged because I didn't win.
No, no, no, Like was it difficult just to get your bearings a little bit? Like did you just feel did it exceed your expectations or did you think it was exceeded? It was?
It was a whole other game.
Board as to what you thought it was going to be, totally.
I thought I was going to have more of an experience. Like Cannice kept describing.
Her experience, what was it like?
Oh? She and you know it changed her life. I mean, she just loved the She loved the emotional and physical journey that she took and the fact that Mark worked with her every day to make it better, better, better. And because I'd done so many shows on Broadway or wherever, like you know, were you're putting on assumes and makeup and hair and dancing. Uh, that wasn't you know, it was more maybe I was more experienced in that genre, and so I wasn't like this wide eyed kid going into it going like, oh, teaching me to dance or do this. You know, you hope for somebody that you're really in sync with that you can have whatever kind of journey. But there were so many more, you know. It was like, yeah, it was just interesting. It was very interesting.
Did you feel taken care of on the show. Yeah, but I'm you know.
I'm a middle child from Chicago and misindependent and yeah, you know, my family always called me miss self sufficient, So I know I was more like, uh, you know, figuring out how can I take care of myself without coming in some way where I'm complaining about oh this. You know what I'll tell you what I did do is I let I let the experience speak for itself. Like they put a costume on me and everyone would go, yeah, that's not working, you know what I mean. So then they bring out something else, that something one of the dancer has had worn, and it was like, that's working, you know what I mean. So yeah, it was like trial and error. But when you first get into something, even though you know that something could be better, sometimes takes a while for other people to see it and to trust you.
How you know your own body, your own exactly. I'm the same way, Like I know I need contour on my eye lids, for example, and when they don't want to put it, you know, I'm like, but at the end of the day, it's my face. If I don't feel good, if I don't think I look good, and I go out there, you'll see it.
Right, You'll see it. Yeah, that's funny you said that, because I'm the opposite of you. I have such deep.
Set eyes that you don't need contour.
I just looked like I've got two black holes in my eyes. So they would the first time like dark, dark, dark, and then they'd see me and be like, oh, you know, and then pretty.
Soon because on TV it's so different than in person. Right. Yeah, during when I saw a few of your dances earlier this morning, I saw there was tension between you and Derek a little bit.
It was so, you know, like what is the next step and which version are we doing today? I had much more to do with the way he teaches someone how to dance and someone like me who's used to a different method and really wants to get it in my body with the repetition and the muscle memory, because then I can add all my stuff.
Were you did you ever think like maybe I'm just never going to get in my muscle memory because it's not the turnaround so quick? Like, did you surrender to the process eventually?
Every day? Every time was different, Every single dance was different.
You know.
He liked the Taxi music and I love that.
Oh my god, I just saw that and he hated that music that he was it was hard for him to be inspired by it.
Yeah, he complained about it and he didn't like it.
So, looking back on your time, what was the thing that you learned most about yourself during that time on dancing?
I can continue, I can continue to trust myself because about certain things because in the long run, it's very obvious that with all the experience and the memory that I have, there are certain things that work and certain things that don't. You can get an A or I can get a B, you know what I mean. And because I'm like a little Catholic schoolgirl, a student, I always want to aim for that A.
Did the judges give you some constructive criticism for you to take back with you or yeah?
I think I would have liked more than you know, some more specific stuff.
Like Len, what Len would do? Basically, yeah, like what.
Len would do? I mean he was Yeah, you know, my first eight was from him because I got seven cents of it, and then the next the following year.
You know, it's a real eight. What do you think of the judging panel now?
I think it's you know, it's the it's Dancing with the stars. It's the way it is. It's not you know, you're not going to change it. So yeah, you know, you just buy into it. Although I think maybe Harry it's gotten a little more relaxed about the lifts.
What's the secret to your success? To your energy? And advice for anyone who you know wants to continue on but feel like they can't.
Oh, dairy products.
No, I've heard you say that.
I gave up dairy August fifteenth, nineteen seventy nine. It changed my life.
It's poison, isn't it.
Wait. It made my digestion better, my skin, my breathing. I used to get sick all the time. It's life changing.
So No, that's that's it. That's all you do.
That's all you do. Well, that kick starts a whole bunch of other things because you start to feel good. These are the three things I always say. Number one, learn to love the food that loves you. You know, you know what doesn't love you. And after but like you know what, I'm tired of waking up and feeling like shit. I'm tired of feeling like this or that or whatever. I know what doesn't love me. So learn to love the food that loves you. Dairy didn't love me, Gluten didn't love me, Sugar doesn't love me, meat doesn't love me. I eat the way I eat, and I'm very happy eating like that. Number two, Motion is the lotion. Motion is the lotion.
I love that.
It keeps everything moving. My mother died of complications from rheumatoid arthritis. Shoes fifty eight year Oh my gosh, teaching dancing in December, went to bed with the flu in January. It was a brutal Chicago winter. She went into the hospital. She had her leg amputated in April, and she died in May. She was hooked up to twelve different machines, and I had this epiphany, saying, oh, my god, every time I hook her up to something, her body's trying to make sense of it. So maybe if I really study the human body, I'll learn how you know my food, my energy, my thinking, everything. It was like, the human body wants to heal. That's the most important thing you can always think. So I started to see my life through the filter of health rather than just oh, I have to lose weight for a job, because I could my weight. And I spoke in front of Congress in twenty eighteen and I said, it's all connected. What's good for your body is good for your brain. Black on your teeth, on your heart, black on your brain. Make sure oral health, dental health is huge. And only now is everybody else saying this, because they laughed at me when I said it.
My father, my stepdad's a dentist, Like it's so it's vital.
Vital, it's vital, and they don't get the respect. I mean, it's crazy, it's crazy.
It is crazy, and there's not a lot of people, first of all, just even knowing this, Like people don't talk about that like they have they don't.
And every tooth corresponds to a different organ.
It's energy too. Like if you have a toothache and you don't get it fixed, or if you don't get that tooth pulled out, I should take my own advice because I'm pretty sure need to get one out. But it does affect everything.
Everything, It colors your world. Yeah, so that's very big. So that my second So my second one is motion is the lotion, and the third one, my third theory is that the key to your life is how well you deal with plan B. Because Plan A is what you plan for, what you hope for, what you gear up for, and then what actually happens to you is plan B. So you can either be dragged kicking and screaming to plan B, or you could say, huh, what's around the corner. This might be interesting? How do I you know, kind of.
Like the evolution of just human humans, right, Like it's going to always change, like, well, regardless if you want to kick and scream, it's just it's happening, right, And so.
I think that was kind of my approach to Dancing with the Stars. It's like, Okay, well, my Plan A used to have this kind of experience. I had this one instead. But they're both they're well, they're actually Plan B was even more valuable because that's what actually happened.
What's your advice to the contestants that are competing now.
I think, you know, just enjoy the ride. It does end at some point and you look back on it with all your feelings. I also have images of being in my you know, on my couch with heat on my caves and I on my feet at four point thirty in the morning, five o'clock in the morning to look herself. But I kept thinking, you know, well this two shelled fasts.
Absolutely yeah, and so you take the ride, you know what is your you know who's like one of the best people I met in that experience was Twitch.
He was incredible. He was one of my favorite favorite people that I met because he was he was there sometimes.
He was because aliceon Hulker right was there. She was still she was competing resting.
My style idol. She was like stressed so well all the time. I thought she was really cool.
She had no twitch, had an infectious energy about him.
He was really really special. You could feel it, you know. He emanated this kind of warmth.
And love and got chills.
Yeah, sexy together and really special. Yeah.
Yeah. Tell me about present day. What are you What have you been up to?
Okay, well, I've worked a lot over the since.
Yeah, it's like crazy, so's so unheard of, by the way.
I know, I thank you God. I mean it's just been yeah. I mean, what's funny is that I spent the first three and a half months of the pandemic at my house with my husband, my son, my brother who lives with us, and he lives here with his two kids. And at the time, let's see how old were they. They were five and seven, And you know, I was cooking and cleaning and scrubbing, scrubbing grout, and we had a rule in the house that everybody had to contribute somehow. So my niece learned how to set a table, and they learned how to load a dishwasher, and you know, all that kind of stuff. And then all of a sudden, Hallmark called and they wanted us to sort of be the Canaries and the coal Mine to do the two weeks of quarantining and then the movie. So anyway, so if I said to say, I ended up. I've shot sixteen movies since the pandemic started, and I have two indies coming out soon. I've got two Hallmark movies. This is the most important thing on Hallmark. Plus they both started once started last Thursday, government starts this Thursday. It's called the last one was called A Lesson and Murder that started last week, and then the next one is Death and the Diner. And they're so clever and they're so fabulous, and they're the prequel to the Aurora ty Garden series that I've been doing for so many years on Hallmark.
And yeah, that was in my intro because it is airing now right, so people can fuels. Where can people find you on social media?
Website at the real Mary Lou both on Instagram and on Twitter, and yeah, the real m a r Ilu.
Thank you Mary Loul.
I love you.
I love you too. I really appreciate all the work that you do. Seriously, thanks on you too. And that's a wrap. As always, don't forget to Please take a moment to rate and review this episode wherever you're currently listening to it, no matter if you've done so a million times already, as it's key to the podcast success. Your feedback and support is invaluable. Make sure to drop in on Wednesday as I recap the latest episode of Dancing with the Stars, and we will see you again on Friday for headlines. Until next time, love you all, Bye,
