Hey everyone, it's Sophia and welcome back to this week's work in progress. Today's guest is an actor, a producer, a mental health activist, and even a superhero when she's on set. You know her best as Kara dan Verse, a k A supergirl on the CW. It's Melissa Benoist. Melissa was always attracted to acting and performing and has described herself as a theater kid at heart. She's been acting in movies and television since two thousand eight, and have her Broadway musical debut in two thousand Eighteens Beautiful. Melissa's husband, Chris Wood, is a founder of the I Don't Mind mental health awareness campaign, cause which Melissa has vociferously supported. Melissa has also spoken out about her own experience as a survivor of domestic abuse and has established herself as a voice and encouraging force for domestic abuse victims everywhere. More recently, Melissa has added novelist to her ever growing list of accomplishments. She co wrote her book The Powers Haven's Secret with her sister Jessica Benoist and best selling author Marika Tamaki. I'll be asking Melissa about the book about being a superhero and about her experience with mental health as both an individual and an advocate. I am incredibly impressed by Melissa's courage, her poise, and the way that she looks at the world, and I think you will be too. Without further ado, welcome Melissa Benoist. I'm so excited to to jump in with you today. You know, before we started the show and we were sitting here on zoom, you know, you and I were sharing that it feels like everyone we've ever met tells us we're supposed to be friends. So I'm I'm so excited to finally So many people have told me that, Yeah, I'm so jazzed to finally hang and and honestly to talk about work and career and balance and mental health and all the things. But before we jump into where we are today, I really like to go back with people. You know, it's easy to google a person or do research and find out what they're up to, uh, and you know the things that they've been in. But I'm always really curious if the people who come on the show for whatever it is they're known for, I would look back at their childhoods and say, oh, I was the same or a, Oh, I was very different, you know. Was it was Melissa at eight or nine or ten? Similar to the Melissa the world knows now. Similar? Yes, and even I'd say, I don't even know how to describe it. I would say, even more vivacious. I think I was less, you know, for the world knocked me down a couple of times. And you know, you get chewed up every now and then in your adult life. But I think before that stuff happened. When I think about my childhood, I just remember feeling fearless to be myself, and I that's a feeling a miss I when I look back on eight, nine, ten year old Melissa, I just remember being really weird and knowing people thought that I was weird, and not caring in the slightest and just loving what I loved and really in an an ashamed way, and being I was really hyper and had a ton of energy um and just always had fun, just was always wanting to run around and have fun and act crazy. When you think about liking what you liked without you know, any shame or fear of judgment, what what stake sad to you? What? What were you really into? It was always theater from a very young age, definitely um doing theater, and I did children's theater and dinner theater and like kids kids shows, Like I played a puzzle piece once and literally had to wear like a massive six ft foam. I was like, it's sandwiched in between these two pieces of foam, and I was a singing puzzle piece and it was so. It was the theater, it was the books that I read. I was a huge Harry Potter nerd to the point where I would wear like Harry Potter shirts to school before the movies came out, and I had a headwig stuffed animal I was. Also, I was really innocent. I believed in Santa Claus until I was twelve, which is arguably way too old, but I think it was my imagination and I loved playing in my imagination and really kind of diving into that and playing with barbies and dolls with my little sister until I was older. I really wasn't ashamed and didn't fear judgment and those kind of things. It's interesting for me now when I think about myself at that age, so much of what you're saying rings really true for me. I can feel part of my insights going yep, yes, me too, just raising my hand over and over you, and it's it's wild now looking at the young people in my life and the kids in my life, and I want them to be able to be kids for as long as possible. So I love that. I love hearing that you held onto your your child things for perhaps a little longer, because once they're gone, they're just gone. I think that that's very cool. I know that you were born in Texas, you know you were mostly raised in Colorado. So do you do you consider yourself a Texan or you know, a Colorado human. I feel like a Colorado and girl through and through. And I loved growing up there. Have you been? Yeah, it's the best. It's magic, It's absolute magic. I love it there. Yeah, it's It's a beautiful place and a it was a really great place to grow up for me. I think it's really changed in the last twenty years, and I don't get back up as often as i'd like, but growing up there there, I don't I don't want to say it's like real, okay, dope, it was just a perfect place to harbor that innocence, Um and Pete. The people are really kind and everyone's really outdoorsy, and that was also a massive part of my life that I've carried into adulthood. And exploring national parks and um, just like immersing yourself in nature was a massive part of my upbringing. So that's why I think I feel like a Colorado girl. Yeah, there's kind of a parallel energy, interestingly enough, that I find between Colorado in California. I'm from Los Angeles. People are always so shocked by that here, and it's interesting because being from here, there was much more of the kind of experience that you're referring to, you know, always being outside, always being in national parks, road tripping to the desert, going up to the Redwoods, being in the ocean, going to the Sierras. I had a very natural barefoot outdoors you know, childhood and and so many of the people I think who moved to Los Angeles move here for industry, for jobs. You know, they come here and they just work, work, work, work, work. But when you're from here, it's it's the nature. It's the you know, small farm towns in California. You know that that I feel as much connected to, if not more so, than you know, sunset Boulevard completely and I've and I've discovered that too. I'll be honest. When I first moved to l A, it was not my favorite place, and it wasn't until I discover what you're talking about, and it was sort of like, well, duh, how did I not know that I could drive five hours and go see Yosemite and see the most unreal, stunning view I've ever seen in my life. And the Redwoods, which is I don't think there's a place like that on Earth. It's um actually want to move up there. That's so much. I love it, truly. I mean even thinking about them, I kind of lose my words. It's so jaw dropping. Nothing prepares you for that. No, it feels prehistoric. There's I felt whenever I was there, this like primordial energy that was, like you're saying, like just untouchable with any kind of language, and yeah, you're speechless, just ancient being something. It's almost the way I felt, too, but not the same. Have you been to Pompeii in Italy? No, I haven't. That it's the same kind of energy where you're like, this is is something way bigger than me? And um and the Redwoods I feel like are even more impressive because they're natural in those trees are just thousands of years old. It's so cool. Anytime I I really want to get it, I just have to get out in nature. It's like an immediate readjustment. Yep, with your shoes off. And I love that you said a barefoot because I I feel that too. There's something really special and grounding yourself to the earth and dirt and absolutely what what prompted you guys to move to Colorado to get out into that kind of nature. My dad, my dad was in medical school and Houston. My mom is from Colorado, and then my dad is from Texas, and they met in college in Texas, and my dad got a job out of practice in uh, in Denver, where all my aunts and cousins and grandparents were anyway, so I think that's where they wanted to land. Aside from you know, my family being in Texas, I think they wanted to be in Denver. No matter what. Was it awesome to grow up around so much family, Oh my gosh, it was. I think about it now and and seeing um because I have a one year old and uh, we're not around a lot of family here in California, which is a bummer because my mom babysat. She has three sisters and they all had like three to four children, and my mom babysat all of them. So on any weekend, every weekend, it was like massive cousin sleepover and we'd have backyard Olympics and played town and the basement. The basement was a mess. I feel for my mom having to clean up after us, but it was just the ideal, like in that sense, Yeah, I'm gonna make little movies. And we made a movie about not doing drugs and then and it was Simba and Mufasa talking about not doing drugs. We're like, we're doing Dare meets the Lion King. And you know what, it worked worked. I love it. So that was probably your your first taste of performing, right, putting on these these plays with your troop of cousins. Yeah, I think it was. How did you then get into your next phases of it? Did you start doing theater in school? I mean, I know you were, you know, highlighting the moment as a puzzle, but where where did where did the beginning spark get lit? I mean my mom was great and that she really we had a lot of extracurricular activities, and I think she just wanted us to try everything and see what we loved. And I was in dance at a really young age, like three years old and loved that. And then somehow we found this children's theater company through a patient of my dad's, and I think my mom just kind of instinct. We knew that we would love it when my sister sitting with me, and so we joined this place and I ended up taking dance lessons there because they had dance as well. But then they did these children's theater shows that were affiliated with a dinner, like a major regional dinner theater in Colorado called the Country Dinner Playhouse, and it was a barn I said, had a buffet. I look back at pictures of it now and if it's so, I mean, I'm so nostalgic about it, but it's it was such a weird place to have a theater, Like the stage was on hydraulics and would go up and down, like explaining it doesn't make any sense to people that weren't there, but it was this playground and the next stage. I think that really, I think solidified my love for this and and my drive to make a career out of it was was that for a into this theater, I felt so cool that I worked where adults worked at night, even though we were doing the shows in the morning. Um, and then I did segue into actually doing shows at this dinner theater. I did Like the Sound of Music maybe four times and have played almost all the on Trapped Children. I think there's only one of the Daughters that I didn't play, and it was this Really I almost like it emotional when I talked about it, because it was the last time I really remember doing acting and performing just for the love of it and nothing else, and being so liberated in that way. That's a feeling I think I'm always going to be chasing me too. Yeah, it's the thing no one tells you about when the thing you love to do most becomes your job. No one tells you there will be a loss in that. You know that there is a there is a death in the success. Yeah. I wasn't really prepared for that. No, neither was I. And I don't even know if I fully even grieved that. Well, I don't know. I haven't. I certainly haven't, because you're not allowed to because if you do, you're called ungrateful. And and there is a natural sense, you know, you referred earlier to that idea of being without shame as a child, there is a natural sense of how dare I sort of shame around being sad about making it? It's it's it's a deeply conflicting um reality. And I I think in the last few years I've been really working on increasing my capacity to hold space for the both hand and deeply consciously in the last two years it's been sort of my north star goal in terms of of um mentality at least, and and that is a complex beast to hold. It's a lot to unpack when you think about that. When you talk about this theater and I don't know it just it feels so sweet to me going from dance class at three to performing as a kid too. Then you know, being a kid but working with grown ups, and you're like, look at me, I'm doing this thing, you know, And I know that you went to the Academy of Theater Arts and and I'm I'm hearing about this sort of expansion and the joy and the work. But I hear you also when you say there was a moment where it couldn't just be for fun anymore. It got serious. There were expectations attached, there was criticism and self criticism. I would imagine that came with that. Now, looking back, can you see when that started? Did you know at the time or is it something that you've really processed more as an adult. I think it's in something that I've processed and currently processing still after the fact, and I do think I know the moment it happened. And surprisingly it wasn't ever working at this theater, and I was employed there at at certain points when I was doing the shows with the adults, but it never felt like a job. I think the moment where it started feeling that was I had done like a few small things on TV. But then I got a job on Glee in the fourth season, and I think that was when it started to shift, and it wasn't just you know, working the longer hours. I was so naive and so excited that I was actually making a living doing this, But yeah, they're there. I think the disillusionment for me has been a really slow process. I think that was the impetus, but it's been a more gradual descent into oh my gosh, I'm I'm burned out, And you know what, I think it also is interesting because that I had the upbringing and training that I did really in the theater world and in the specific theater they worked in, because it was work hard, you do your best, You show up no matter what you say, the lines that are on the page, what's written right there for you, that's what you do. And um, you don't complain, and you go on stage when you're sick, when you have a fever of ado or your That's a primitive TV right And I loved it back then because I loved the notion of the show must go on and I was such a theater nerd. But as an adult and when it's on a television set, it just hit different. Um, and when there was maybe it's the money involved or I don't know what, it is, just the industry on a bigger scale than what I was used to as a kid. Yeah. So yeah, I'm still like unpacking that and I'm I think I'm in a similar place as you too, in the last two years of really examining what it all means to me and allowing the space two acknowledge the parts that I miss and the parts of my job that I am frustrated by, while still like having the blanket of gratitude underneath and over and around. Sometimes it feels like an impossible task. Yeah, well, it's hard to hold opposite feelings simultaneously, you know. And it's incredible to make work that you love and that you care about. And it's complicated to being a group of people that you really enjoy being around and also understand that you're not allowed to be human and then everyone will be really nice until there's a problem. Yeah, and then is the niceness real or is it partially real? Or is it's It's a lot. It's confusing, and I think, you know, it's exacerbated and deeply magnified in our industry, certainly because people are the commodities. But I do think it is something that we're coming to a reckoning with in so many corporate environments, you know, where people are really struggling to figure out what is this place? Is it work? Is it community? Is it both? Is it neither? It's you know, there's there's a lot of questions I think being asked about where we find ourselves and and how these systems work, and and it is confusing in ours, you know, for me in particular, there's this idea out in the world that actors are these coddled people, these like coddled, fragile people, and I'm like, I got yanked out of the hospital, literally out of a hospital bed with meningitis and forced to come to work like I was so sick. I thought I was going to die, and my employers didn't care and they brought me to work. Yeah, I've been in similar situations. I worked for a month knowing I had E coli that I got from catering, and everyone was aware. And but listen, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you don't show up to work, that's it. And that's something that, um, I'm not afraid to say, makes me really angry. And I'm glad I and I hope that things um and conversations are are had about and about work environments and the way that a film set runs. But it's interesting, I actually really resonated with you saying the people are commodities, and I do think and that is something that was a part of my disillusionment to only doing this for the love of it, because I don't like that feeling. I don't like feeling like a commodity, and um, I don't know anyone who does. Really, it's a really strange comfortable thing, especially when you get into being a performer for the right reasons, you know, um, and that relationship. I struggle so much with the dichotomy and the relationship between art as a commodity and the business of it with just pure art that you're trying to express. And I don't think. I don't know if they work well together. I don't. Sometimes I guess there's lightning in a bottle, but I don't know how well those two things mashed. Yeah, it's tricky because sometimes you go there. It is. The thing that came to mind right when you said lightning in a bottle was the Silver Linings playbook. Oh, totally, watching that movie whatever year that came out. I just thought, that's it. That's the thing that's the magic right there. And I do love what we do. I love telling stories. I love it m hm. And you know, I don't know that I would love it if I was standing doing monologues on a corner. That would be weird. Um. But I think that part of the reason I've tried to figure out other avenues for this feeling. That's even how this podcast came to be. It was a desire to dig in in a way that could be free, spontaneous. There could be no rules and no time boundaries. We could speak for fifty eight minutes or three hours and fifteen minutes. It doesn't We can just be because everything is so regimented, so scheduled, So show up no matter what. You know. I've missed weddings and funerals and and things and I and I love my job, and it's hard. It's all the things, you know, It's the adage. It's the best of times and the worst of times, and and everything else that goes along with it. And I don't know. I do think it's I am becoming okay with being willing to sit in the confusion of it and the love of it and to be honest about not just the shiny parts, yes, but I think like uncovering that and shining the lights on the not so shiny parts, like finding that flashlight and digging in and really illuminating what doesn't feel good about it is so important too. And I'm in the process now. I just finished this show that took a six year chunk out of my life. Now you know you've been there, and that's a crazy failing to walk away. And while whatever that six years entailed for me personally, it never felt definitive of who I was or my abilities as a performer, but it defined a massive mass of hunk of my life and and almost like a my coming of age and illuminating the parts that I didn't like and acknowledging that is now I feel so empowering to know how to take the next steps forward or at least into it, what the next steps should feel like, and what works for me and what doesn't. And that's really unfamiliar territory for me, because I'm I'm someone who thrives when I've given direction and I like that. I'm I like guidance a lot of times. And I my theater background just doing what's on the page, and I'm there to work and I'm used to being a workhorse, and for six years I was, you know, I was the number one on a call sheet for a very rigorous show. And I think, I um, now, I'm I'm just getting used to the idea that I don't have to exist that pure burnout all the time and unpacking like what that did to my body and my my stress and my heart and my mind. And being able to see family and friends which I just didn't for years. So hard, it's so hard, but it's so good to see that that doesn't that's not what I need or want or deserve. And I do have hope that you know, there's there. You like what you're doing. You're creating what you know works for you and and fills that void of what you want to express. Yeah, I think just to find other avenues. You know, when you talk about six years, what that defined for you. I worked on my first show in Wilmington's for nine seasons, and what a gift to be employed through the writer's strike and through you know, things that were so hard for people in our industry. But also again in the both hands. It was difficult because then everyone looks at you as something rather than as who you are, and no one wants to hear that it was really hard to not see your friends or family for nearly a decade, and that working seventeen hours a day can destroy your body, you know. I uh, I've also I've definitely found I've had to get a little honest with myself about I got so used to working to burn out that I don't know how to do anything else. So I I have had to kind of have this reckoning with myself, which is, oh, I push myself to burnout even when I'm not quote unquote on set that way, it's I am. I am an insatiable worker. Yeah, and now I'm trying to figure out what do I do on the days when I don't have to work sixteen hours a day? Why am I still doing this? But I'm so used to that level of productivity that I think subconsciously, I don't realize that it is unsustainable if I want to live as long as I want to live and do the things I want to do. And and I'm I'm I'm really trying to look back at that programming. And so when you say what it felt like, you know, to begin, you know, the quote unquote big break joining Glee, especially because you joined in season four. It was a massive, you know, juggernaut award winning show. And I imagine as a young person in this industry, all you wanted to do was be good on that set. How old were you when when that happened? Twenty two. Yeah, that's all I wanted was to not rock the boat. It was so established. They were really they had their routine and their rhythm. I wanted just to be be the good the good girl, and the good sport even when things were unfair. And I've actually had sort of a reckoning in the last year or so, and maybe it's just time and distance from it, but also there have since been a lot of tragedies related to that show. And I remember that time in my life as being so unhappy, so unhappy, and I wonder now knowing what I know now and and being more comfortable with who I am. I I do think a lot of my unhappiness was insecurity, because, like you said, I was joining the show that was so established and this juggernaut and already in the zeite guy Ston had won awards. I was so insecure and naive and being disillusioned in that sense and seeing things that I had not seen before, and seeing behavior I hadn't seen before, and um from people that you know, we're professionals that I looked up to. And then I also I wish I could go back, knowing what I know now and just ask everyone how they were doing, because I know I wasn't the only unhappy one and I and I I don't know if it was as bad a place as my memories tell me it was. And I think that's a part of that's the one of the hardest parts of being that young. And I know I was not even nearly as young as how old were you when you started one? Yeah, but I think that's the difficult part of starting on TV show, specifically when in your twenties and throughout your twenties, because everyone's twenties are hard. And then you add this equation of being introduced and sometimes thrown into this business and experiencing fame for the first time and seeing how that affects people and what it does, and well and everyone everyone has this idea that it's going to be great. No one's honest that it's actually a bit traumatizing. No one wants to say that, which I find really weird because I feel like we're setting people up for failure and it is such a complex bag. I agree with you, you know, the my girlfriends from Montreal and I have talked about that a lot. We we all were on a FaceTime and myself and Joy and Hillary and Joy just started crying and said, I'm just so mad. I feel like we got robbed of each other because we were little girls who, you know, worked for a very a dark, manipulative person who didn't want us to be friends, and we didn't have the tools at twenty one. What year old thinks they're being manipulated by their fort four year old married boss. You know, we didn't know. And likewise, I wish I could go back with the tools I have now and and kind of weed whack through what he was planting and do it differently we all do. You know, I'm so grateful that we've we've returned and rediscovered each other and and and just as you say, there were really bad times, but there were also days that were just great. And I'm sure you had that too. Sometimes sometimes you look around and you go, this is the best day, and you wonder, why can't every day be like this day? And you never know what's coming, And I I can say this, uh, you know, not not to speak for you, but you've been open about this and and I've shared some of my own experiences with this. So I hope that the analogy doesn't sound trite. But those kinds of environments are a bit like being in abusive relationships. Never know what you're going to get, so you're in high ah, you're in high fight or flight risk anxiety all of the time, and it can have such hard effects on a body and on a and on a mind. And and I also think the early aughts were really like a breeding ground for that kind of destructive treatment of young women. You know, we're looking at it and now you know, acknowledging what the media did and people did, and the Internet did, and blogs and commenters and you know, the first wave of what were then you know, the current Instagram comments. What that did to Britney Spears, but it did that to everyone. Yeah, you know, in varying degrees, and it's it's a wild thing to look at. And I really remember because Glee didn't come on too long after our show did. I don't think it's all a bit of a blur to me, but I remember thinking, wow, I really feel for those kids that that that looks really intense. And I think about it for you, because you are You're still a kid when you're twenty one or twenty two. Everyone acts like you're a grown up, but looking back, I realized I was still just a little girl. I look at myself on the first season of that show, and I'm not surprised I got cast to play a teenager. I look like a little girl, you know, And and I think about that stepping into that for you at such a young age and as a person that you are having also been open about the fact that you've struggled with anxiety high me too. Um. You know, you've you've talked about really coming to terms with the fact that anxiety and depression and those things began for you in your early teen years. So I wonder is that something you're conscious of now or did you have an awareness of it then so that you could begin to build a tool kit to deal with it. I definitely had an awareness of it then and it and it came from my parents divorce, and I was very keenly aware of that. I took it really hard and it was not it was really messy there. My family is kind of crumbling. And I was thirteen, which you know, I guess I I was. I was a little more unscathed than my younger sister, who was eight years old, and that is such a formative time. But thirteen. Still. I mean, I was in the thick of puberty and I was like full blown pen fifteen. I don't know if you watched that show, but that was I was like, Oh, I feel so seen by this, me too. It sometimes it makes me cry too. I'm like, oh, my god, that's how I felt when I got my first bob. But I was so just in the most awkward time of my awkward years. And they're divorce was not like I said. It wasn't clean and it was not pretty, and I knew my mom was also very aware and my I was lucky to be in a family that my grandparents, even my grandma, worked in psychiatry, and everyone was just you can tell us how you feel, and it's okay to not be okay. I wouldn't go so far as to say like that. They would advocate like just telling everyone, which which I wish more of us did um when we weren't feeling okay. And and that's something that I'm really passionate about trying to get people to be more open about. But I did have this safety net that my mom got me into therapy the second it happened, and I know that's a pretty common thing to do, and everyone recommends it when a family is in the middle of a divorce. But I really took to it, and I knew I was I think my therapist at the time she gave me the toolkit to understand when I was depressed, understand when I was having anxiety or when I was having a panic attack, even if I didn't know how to handle it, which I'm thirty three and sometimes I still don't know how to deal with it. But just the awareness. Yeah, I do feel very lucky that I got the awareness so early. That's incredible. Do you feel like that helped you understand again, not necessarily that you knew how to deal with it, but understand the intensity of that first experience, that first regular working gig on a show as big as Glee. Were you able to in that, in that space, say I know what's happening in my body right now? Yes, and no, Oddly enough, I I didn't know how to separate. And I feel the same way as you when I look back on that time too, it feels like a blur. I didn't I don't know if I knew yet how to separate the work of it all and and what it was doing to me personally, and I don't even know how to describe. I understand that though, because look, as you're saying, it's common, Um, you know, perhaps more now than it was then twenty years ago. But if we understand that a divorce is hard on a kid, yeah, we don't understand that getting on a hit TV show can be incredibly volatile for a person's understanding of their place in the world, expectations. It's it's a good thing. So you're not allowed to say I'm struggling, right, And I yes, I think that's the kernel of it for sure. For me, I didn't want to admit that I was. I mean, I was living my dream. That's what I'd always wanted. No one tells you your dreams can be complicated. Yeah, do you think too that from the outside looking in the intense success of that show and also what appeared to be the intensity of doucing it then the singing and the recordings and the dance rehearsals and the choreography. I mean you you went through five rounds of auditions to even get on the show, Is that right? Yeah? I mean what was that process like for you? Um? I mean it was exciting, and I think a part of me, and this is something I still struggle with two is a part of me always believes that I'm not it's not gonna be me. So I think I was comforted in that feeling like, Wow, this is crazy. This they want to see me again. That's amazing, But I'm not going to get it. And it wasn't until my last audition that was actually on the stages that they shot the show on on the like on the auditorium stage, in the choir room they had me singing for Ryan Murphy in the choir room. That was the moment where I was like, Oh, maybe this is happening. And that's something of of like a flaw of mine that I really want to work on. Is I think that ties the fact that I didn't believe I was going to get it and then I did and I was like, oh my gosh, working in a week, Um, I'm on set in two days. That's crazy. Is this idea that I sometimes allow life to happen to me and then process it after it's happened. And it's gotten me into some really sticky situations, especially in this business we work in. And I'm working on that still me too. You know, I think there's a natural tendency towards that for folks. I guess because you know, there's that adage it's not real until you sign. You know, it's not real till your first day on set. There's a lot of don't get excited, don't let it in, don't feel anything, don't don't you know, put all your eggs in one basket. So you get very used to holding your own joy at arms length. You know, it's such a weird thing. But you know, you were talking about your family and uh, your your your baby, and I think about that and we'll obviously we'll get into those things. But in this moment, I'm realizing I didn't know being in the best relationship I've ever been in, you know, with my fiance, having done all the work too, to be in this place, in this moment in time, to see a person this way, to be seen by a person this way, I didn't even realize that there was still a part of me that, deep down, deep, deep way down, was still like sort of doing this like holding onto like his collar, but like a heisman, you know, just like I'm gonna really I'm gonna hold on tight to you because you're my person, but I'm gonna hold you out here just because I'm still scared of my own joy. And it was like, it was really weird. We got engaged, and I think it took me like two or three days to say, I have to tell you. I just realized I've been doing this really weird thing. He was like, he was like, oh, I don't take that personally. I know you're just an anxious person. It's like, this is why you're my person. But it's I laughed about it because I thought, oh my, my entire life and career has taught me to do this. Yeah. Yeah, it's such a weird thing. And and look, god, it's also weird when someone sort of being very vulnerable with you and you're like you too, And the tendency used to be like, oh, I'm so relieved, but it's like I don't want anybody else to feel, you know, anxious and scared of their own joy. But I will say I'm I'm so I don't know. I just feel very comforted having this conversation with you. Because again, you look at people whose work you admire, whose activism you admire, whose stands on things in the way they speak about things publicly, as you've spoken about so many of these things you know publicly and chosen to use your platform. I've always been like, she seems cool. I like her, and then I felt the same way. And then but I think about also, I don't just admire your persona, I admire your work. You know, you've gotten to play so many incredible roles in great films. I mean, Whiplash, good God, I have many questions about it. But like in films and television and and I I don't know. I think it's easy when we look at, you know, someone's resume on IMDb or whatever too, to think, Wow, they're nailing it, and to forget that they might have a deep well of feelings about their life and so many feelings. I have all the feelings. Also, when have have you ever felt like you were nailing it? Because I haven't. No, never, No. You know what's so funny. I I remember, uh, one of my closest friends who also happens to be on my team. She's an agent on my team. And you know, we grew up, I mean we'd like grew up to since we were twenty something babies and we were talking about she she was saying when she really got her first understanding of the intensity of the of the One Tree Hill fan base, and she was like, I don't I love you, but this doesn't make sense to me, Like I don't deal with this with the people who I work with from like the Friends cast. What is this? And I said, you know, I think I don't know either, because I think when something is so seminal to people, you know, I think about it. And I made all these comparisons to what Sex in the City was for us when we were in college, and you know, the things, and and we got, you know, down this whole rabbitle and I was like, but I mean, it is crazy because I'm not famous, like Jennifer Anniston is famous. And she was like, right, but you're famous, and I was like, well, no, like Jennifer Lawrence is famous, Julia Roberts is famous. And I went on this whole thing, and she was like, why are you all like this? Every entertainer I work with doesn't think they are really an entertainer. They think everyone else like and she was like, yeah, We Robs is like the biggest movies for of all time, maybe not the person to compare yourself to. I was like, I think she's an icon, and you know to me that that's a person who's nailing it. But like, I don't know, did Julia Roberts watch Nine Perfect Strangers and go why didn't Why didn't I get Nicole Kitman's part, Like, I don't know, she might have, Like we don't. We don't actually know. And so that's that's the thing that I always think is so interesting, is that all of us go no, no, no, Well I was. I was, like, all my time was taken up by this thing, so I didn't get to do these other things. So I'm I'm nailing it. Ye, what is that? I don't know? And I wish I wish we could stop, and I wish I could stop. Okay, well I will if I may love a soft stop sign in your way. Of of the rules you have played, be it in films or or on television, is there one that comes to mind right now as being either the most fun or the most inspiration all for you to have taken on? Uh, it's always the answer because of the experience as a whole. It was whiplashed and because and not because of anything that happened after the film was released, which obviously it was as as successful as it was. But the process of working on that and the full I think that's the only job that I've had in my professional career where I felt that feeling that I was chasing as a kid, or that I had as a kid. What was that? Why was it such a special set to work on? It was Damien's first movie, and I think he was so everyone was just so hungry to tell the story so well, and the script was so great and even like my audition process was he we did like improv scenes in there, like he would just like he'd be like, Okay, well, why don't you play her now Nicole is seeing Andrew on the bus and it's six months after and we just went and did it for five minutes, I'd say, and that I'd not I had not had that experience even in an audition room. Um, that was that creative and like playful. And then on set there was just an energy about it. I don't know, it was really exploratory, and yeah, I think it really resonated with the character. He told me, Damien said we were cursed, which also I loved, which you really get to do a lot of and Damien said to me, I want you to just like really embrace all of your insecurities for this. She's really insecure, this girl. And I was like, easy, I can show those things on the outside. And I I just love his attention to detail. He I have a chicken pox scar and someone a month do you right here? Yeah? Oh my god, I just thought of that it on Yes, yes, yes, totally, so I would pick them up. Yeah. Um, when I have this chicken pox car in like three weeks before, I'm not even kidding. Someone was like, someone told me that I should maybe fill it with fillers. They were like, well, maybe you should get rid of that scar. And I was like what never once had I ever thought of that? And then Damian, while we were rehearsing, was like, I love this chicken pox scar. I just love these things that make people real. Yeah, and I that was that, honestly, I think is the theme of that entire job for me. It was just about being present and real and I loved, I loved I just loved the whole experience. That's so cool and I think, gosh, it's so interesting that sometimes it's that small moment for us as performers. That does something for us. I I did an episode of this great Netflix show called Easy, and Joe Swomberg is the writer and director. But his whole thing is he's like, I don't do scripts. I do outlines, and I have an idea or a piece of dialogue that has to be hit in a scene, and then you guys find the rest of it. That's amazing and coming from, as you know, you know, a very scripted CW show, to go on set and be like, there's no script and he's like, no, you just basically you're supposed to communicate this, but also you can do it in your own words. And I'm just going like sweating this deep feeling of like panic but also glee and being like these it's like butterflies, and also I might vomit and I don't know what's happening, and I'm so excited and so scared. And it was the most fun and free and enjoyable thing, and it made me fall in love with acting again. It was the feeling I had been chasing forever, that feeling that you get the best of the days on your series where you're like, oh my god, that was it. It was like that for a week and it was so fun and wild and cool. And so it's interesting when you talk about this, I get that same sense and it, I don't know, it really informs the way I want to move forward in word to you know. And and again that's not too it's not too like shift on being on a hit c W show. We both did it, and they were there were incredible things about them and I and I do feel like there's so many people who know you as Supergirl, and I remember just thinking like, good for her because it was the first female ed superhero series period since Wonder Woman went off the air, Like back in the day, did you know that when you were cast? Was that a thing they were talking about or was that more of like a like a fun fact when they were beginning to promo the show when it was coming out. Now, all of these things were very much spoken about when I was auditioning when I got the role, But like we were talking about, I was not letting myself feel it. It's not that I wasn't acknowledging these these things. It was that I was not internalizing it or intellectually allowing myself to to under to feel the weight of that. That's a big impact to embody, Oh my gosh, massive and a responsibility. And I will say very candidly, I had no idea what I was signing up for. How no idea? I mean, first of all, it was a role that I never imagine myself playing, and and then when it happened, I had another really rigorous audition process. I tested like three times, and they were really scared to take the chance on me. And also, I have to coveyat this it at the time, I was in my abusive relationship that I've spoken about, so I was really not allowed to celebrate and I actually got in trouble for getting the role. So that was a massive part of it, for sure. But I also think I was really scared of that responsibility, and so part of me was like, Okay, I'm just gonna do what I do and and be me and hopefully hopefully I embody this like this character's what people expect her to be and what she stands for. I hope, I hope that translates and me just trying to be myself and bringing that. But I didn't anticipate the weight of that, and I didn't really feel it that I had like grasped it until maybe the fourth season. Wow. Yeah, and it still scares me. It's a huge thing and I and listen, it's not like these massive Marvel shows, but it does mean a lot to a lot of people. And the character has been around since the fifties. And yeah, I would say, though, don't I don't know. As your new friend, I would like for you to not squash your success in this realm because I, like I have a tendency to do that too. Well, it's not this, but I don't know if all of the Marvel universe that we see coming to television so beautifully by the way, like how good is Loky, it's insane. But I don't know that Marvel would have felt comfortable with that gamble. If the CW hadn't created a world of superhero shows, would they have spent as much money? Would they have put all their eggs in that basket if it hadn't been proven the audiences had a voracious hunger for this kind of content. You helped prove that. I think you deserve to you deserve those flowers. Well, thank you? Yeah, I do. It does feel good and I do have pride in what we all did up in Vancouver, especially when we would have these crossovers where all of the shows we would all come together, and just the logistics of that. Those were the most the days you're talking about where you just look around and be like, this is a good day. Those days were always great. Um. It was just energetic and I liked everyone genuinely from all the other shows. It was fun. It was like the most wild feeling too. Every everyone when you look around in a scene is wearing a superhero suit. And then we'd walk in a line like smoldering towards camera. That's not cool, it's cool. That's really cool. Who do you think it was that let it finally click in for you? In season four? Truthfully, I've not ever really had a boss like Greg Borlante, and he's wonderful and I've had a lot of conversations with him where he's really um encouraged me to feel ownership, and I didn't realize that I wasn't feeling that even when I was walking around on set and you know, my face was on the chairs everyone are sitting on, like I wouldn't. I wasn't allowing myself to feel ownership. And I think a part of that is because I've been on jobs where I had seen then I hate the concept of the number one, and I still do, and I I went into that job knowing, Okay, well, it's funny, because that was a weight I felt immediately, and I that was something that I was very cognizant of, not any of the broader scheme issues around the show, but what I've keenly felt was I really want to be a team player and I don't want to be the number one that people don't like. That is difficult, and I think it wasn't until season four when I had a specific conversation with Greg where he was like, you know, you own a part of like you have ownership and stake in this, and this is yours. So I feel that and take pride in that, and you have to tell people what you want and I I'm still working on that. And also I do think it was seeing the effect on young women and young girls and families. I'm really shy when it comes to being myself in public, so I'm not great at social media and sharing, like the personal parts of things doesn't come naturally to me. And being myself and seeing um the way young women and girls would respond to reactor to certain stories. I would hear those added up, and I think eventually somehow cracked into my my fixed goal, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is pretty cool what it's doing and what it's done. And I think also in five years time, I'll be able to speak a little more to it, because I do think I'm still processing this massive chunk of my wife. But it's crazy, and I imagine, especially in this moment as you are closing that chapter after six years of your life, you know, it's I remember when we wrapped One Tree Hill and we were all really ready, you know, we thought season eight was going to be it. We were like, we're done, and then they wanted us to come back for this, you know, final thirteen, and yeah, okay, great, we can do like a we can do a couple more together and then I'll be done by Thanksgiving and then be free for pilot season. Okay for the first time in a decade, my god, you know. And that was terrifying, and I mean we were ready to finish. And for the last two weeks, I walked around on set sobbing all day every day. Every person I looked at I'd burst into tears. I'd like look at Matt, my steady cam operator, and just start weeping, and he'd start crying and we'd be hugging, like under the stead camera. I did an entire scene in one of our finale episodes as improv because I couldn't stop crying and the cameras were rolling and I just started talking and then realized, oh this is they like, what's happening? So I'm going to speak as my character now, like and it's in the episode I was. I was an inconsolable wreck, even though I was so ready for something new, and it's again the both and it's so complicated. I really, I really feel for you in this strange moment. How long has it been since you wrapped? Uh? We wrapped in um August the beginning of August. Wow, it's fresh, it's really fresh. And I had a similar Gosh, the last two weeks of shooting our last episode were like, I don't I don't think I felt those levels of stress before anything, Like it was so stressful, an emotional and confusing, and there were moments that just felt so incredible and right, and then moments where I was like, oh, this is why I have to be done. It was like six years wrapped into two weeks. Like this condensed version of it. It just like kind of inexplicable what it felt like and what you've been like six years is not nine but it's it's a long time. It's a long time, and it's a long it's just long hours with people and the people that you don't expect to make really tight relationships with, not just the cast. And I'm going to miss a lot of them, yeah, so much. I'm sure you missed some of them. Still, Oh yeah, I mean I will say, you know, you know, being being in a cast can really be like being in a family where you fight like cats and dogs and you love each other really fiercely and all the things. But yeah, the friendships that people people the internet, you know, the fans don't know about. I'm so close to my camera departments, you know, my wardrobe department. I mean my girlfriend Jane, one of my very best friends from North Carolina, one of the most important people who impacted my life in the realist way. My my camera department from Chicago, And that was a job I needed to be done with. I talked to those guys all the time. My focus puller Dawn came over and helped me plant my hobby orchard. My my two camera operators Seth and Will I talked to all the time. You know, we have like this little text thread of just me and the boys, and it's like those are my humans, you know, they're like my big brothers. And it it's such a gift. All of those memories got my sound operator on one tree home, Mike rail I babysat his daughter from the time that she was an infant and like she's a teenager. What does that mean? You know? So I just cherish all of all of that stuff, the scene and the unseen. That goes into what has your process looked like, you know, getting home wrapping your show? Did you guys have a big party? Have you come home and gone through photos? Do you need space from it for a few months before you can look back? You know, where where do you find yourself? I mean now also, and I'm sure you dealt with this too, because you were in Wilmington's. We had to move. Yeah, I mean it was a move and and an international one because we were in Canada, which you know, as as close as it is as similar as Canadians are too Americans. It is it's a big thing. It's a big move. So my husband and I had to pack up this apartment that we've been living in for years and sells like I feel like I haven't stopped for three months. And we had, of course, like on the horizon before I finished, I was like, oh my god, I can't wait to just be to just be Melissa, to be a mom, to not have to work these hours or have a call time. But I haven't really stopped. So where I'm finding myself now is I just unpacked everything and like melded these two households, and now we've got family visiting because also, mind you, it's the pandemic, So I have family who haven't met my son yet and it's been two years since I've seen them. So now we've got this like revolving door of guests staying in our house, which is wonderful and so nourishing, but we're exhausted, um in the best way. So I think where I'm finding myself now is really only just starting to feel like my head is coming above water and finding some clarity as to what I want to do with my life almost like paving this new launching pad, so to speak, and kind of creating that with my husband as a partner. And I've so been struggling and only just feel like I'm this is a skill I'm like learning is presence and doing that with my son and having moments hours during the day where I'm not near my phone, just like watching him become the little human that he is. And I didn't realize how hard that was going to be, because, like you said, you just are so used to being productive so often and for so many hours during the day that it's been a challenge for me to learn how to just sit and exist with what's around me in that moment. It's crazy how much easier said than done that is. Especially with the moving. It hit me when I was living in Wilmington's that it's a very strange. It's kind of like a tension wire because it's a temporary permanence. Yes, you're there, never a comfortable but you never know when it's going to end, and you know it's not where you really live. It never feels like home. It's very very strange and tricky. HM and so God, the constant moving at the beginning and the end of every season, and the unpacking and the way you forgot and to get home and actually have to condense and edit, and it's a big it's actually a really big job. When you think about putting your roots down and taking a moment to be in your life and your marriage and your baby and all of this, do you feel like you'll create a container for that or do you feel like there's already so many questions coming from people saying, well, what are you gonna do next? And will you ever revisit Karadan version? Would you even want to? And like, are you getting all those questions now? Yes, of course, And I'm getting the I definitely feel the pressure to already jump into something new, and for the first time in my life and my professional life of court, like I feel for the first time like I don't have to do anything. Part of that is just the insane luck, and I have so much gratitude that I the show allows me to be financially secure enough that I don't have to look for work right away, which I understand how lucky I am for that, But I also just don't feel that insatiable like I gotta be working. I gotta be working for the first time ever, and that's really foreign. But I do think, um, yeah, I'm getting all those questions and right now I'm doing this and I'm saying, just whole to beat because truth be told, I've been depressed in the last month and a half, really since I got home, and I'm still you know, figuring out what or why if there is a why, and feeling all of the things and talking about it when I can or want to. And so that's why I think I'm really just protecting. It's a lot of self preservation right now. And that's also hard for a thing for me to do, to say no, So it's a skill i'm learning. Yeah, it's really tough, and it fascinates me, especially when women in our industry have kids, because I've spoken to a number of friends who have said, oh, the thing I always needed to learn for myself, which was to say, now, my kid motivated me to do completely because all of a sudden, you know, when you're so used to showing up and being good and doing the thing and working even if you're sick and all, what that really is is that you show up for other people no matter what. And so when you're showing up for a baby. You're like, oh, no, we don't do this for the baby. And then suddenly I had this realization with a friend of mine's son. When he was born, he was in my arms, he was five days old, and I just thought, oh, I would never let someone overwork this baby, or not let him sleep, or like, what are we all doing? I'll sleep when I'm dead, Like I'm taking a red eye. I was like what It changed my whole life. I was like, what's happening? And it shook me because I thought, what's going to happen when I have my own kid. This isn't even my kid, this is just one of my best friend's kids. I wonder does being a mom? Is it sort of teaching you to set better boundaries for yourself as an individual? Yes, and it's not just to protect myself, but it's also because I don't want to miss a single moment with him because he's he's so wonderful and he's like my little best friend. And like I was even having panic attacks on set in this last season because once he started becoming more mobile and crawling and he was looking like he was about to start walking in the last month of the show, and I was freaking out on set, like what if I'm not there? What if I miss his first steps? And I a lot of that is baggage from my childhood because my dad was absent and it really affected me, and my mom was always there and was like this constant northern star, and I just that was something that is really driving me now, like I want him to feel that constant love and presence, and now I know that that's sometimes not possible and sometimes I can be away from him, but yeah, that's a it's a really big driving force and to protect myself for sure, and boundaries become much easier to set. That's great. Look, I think you get I think you get to do what you feel you want to be there for all these squishy little moments right now. Great, And when you're ready to be on your next thing, then he gets to watch his mom be a badass. Yeah, and that's all great. It's all really really phenomenal. And I I think it's a beautiful moment you're in, and I think it's a beautiful example you're going to set. And I think you know, and you touched on this earlier. I think it is so amazing. It's it's a thing that's really nice to witness for you, especially because you've talked about the fact that in your younger life you were in an abusive relationship, and I think that you're honesty about that, and also you're existing in this really joyous place you're in now will set layers of examples and give layers of hope to other women and other people who find themselves in the various stages of a similar journey. I hope so, I hope it does. Was it hard to share that with people? I always wonder, because it's it's everyone's like, it's everyone's timeline. Whatever you're a survivor of, whether it's domestic violence or sexual assault or harassment in the workplace, you get to decide when you feel ready to share your story. And I wonder what what prompted you to share yours. I think that I sort of always knew I was going to the second I found the strength to leave finding that strength, it was an amalgamation of a million different things. It wasn't just, of course, it was being making the decision I had to be the one to do that. It so many things I think had aligned and in that point of time in my life. That were the breeding grounds to me finding the strength. And you know, I think all the time about these sliding doors, alternate realities of what would have happened if one specific thing were not the way it was at that time in my life, Like would I have left when I did, or would I still be with him God forbid? And I don't think that I would have. I think I ultimately would have always gotten out. But I think I always knew that I wanted to talk about it because I was already on Supergirl and I knew I had a platform. And I think the real root of it is that I always felt a little hypocritical that I was playing this character who was made of steel, who is the strongest woman in the world, and I wasn't doing that in my own life, And I think that really uh when I when I left him. I feel so cheesy to say, but I do think that playing the character I was playing really helped me feel or encouraged me to to live that two take a cue from what I was doing, what I was pretending to do on a day to day basis at work. Yeah, I don't know, but I do think I always knew I was going to talk about it, and I was angry. It was really mad. So a part of it did come from wanting accountability and wanting someone that I felt like had not faced any too to feel that, because I certainly never while I was with him, and even in the first couple of years after I had left, he didn't face any accoun ability m hm. So a lot of it was fueled by anger. Yeah, I think that's a really hard thing when when you've been through something like this, the lack of accountability, which we know to permeate every virtually every one of these types of situations is so it is it's infuriating. I still carry some real anger about that in my own and it is it is really really hard, And I think figuring out how how to throw down whatever gauntlet you need to so that you can move on is so important And I really admire that you chose to do that, because I really do think it it gave a lot of strength to a lot of people who you don't even know, And that was I always an intellectually knew that concept like and that was also a huge part of the reason why I wanted to do it. In such a public way was because I knew that if women saw like I was saying, this woman who was playing the strongest woman on earth, and saw that sheet what I was actually going through while doing that, I just hoped that women in my situation, in similar situations, would be able to see that it could happen to anyone, because I never expected it would happen to me. I don't think any of us do. But when you fast forward and and you're in this wonderful relationship, you're very happily married, Chris is a wonderful husband. You your your beaming when you talk about your son. I wonder if, knowing what little I know about Chris and his organization and his advocacy about mental health and his his organization um for everyone listening is called I don't mind. Do you think that somehow, whatever it is, including this experience of yours that shaped you both, what brought you together to connect on that deeper level to do that kind of advocacy, work together to to continue to destigmatize conversations around surviving these sorts of things and mental health in general. Yeah, yeah, I definitely do. And and his experience too, he lost family member because of mental health. Um, his dad had like a psychotic break and then died of a heart attack because of it, and so he's very affected by that. And then yes, I think my experience has absolutely informed my experience and how my and my healing journey has informed how the two of us being able to work on this and be advocates for or mental health and desigmatizing, especially especially in young people, because I feel like if we get young people talking about it, it might prevent certain things from happening later on, not just big terrible things like suicide, but getting in toxic relationships and recognizing when you're being manipulated or are abused emotionally and if it's not physically, or just being in tune with and taking care of your mind is really powerful and goes a long way. Um, So yeah, I do think. And Chris and I met at the perfect time, Like you were saying, I think with your fiance, I think every experience that both of us have had up to the point of meeting each other everything happened for a reason. And I and I know don't normally say that, but we we've met each other at the perfect time in our lives. And he was so supportive and held like a huge amount of space for my healing journey, And yeah, I wonder about that. Was it strange to start dating again. Yeah, and it was tough. It was. I would get triggered really easily by the smallest thing. Any time I ever felt an inkling of like feeling like I was going to be controlled or someone was telling me what to do, immediately I was like, well, I know, I'm my own person. Stopped. And I was so guarded, And I struggled a lot with honesty because I was hiding so much for so long and had become so accustomed to lying that I was lying about the stupidest things because I was afraid of someone's reaction to the truth. So that was a lot of work I had to I had to do a lot of work with that. But I will STARTEUM therapy is saving my life and I did UM. I always mix up the letter E D M R. Is that E M have incredible amazing Like I don't think I would have made it out alive without it. It saved me. So that was really impactful. Just the resources that are there when you look for them are so valuable. And but dating, Yeah, to answer your question. It was really hard. And I'm so lucky that Chris is who he is and was so compassionate and held so much empathy for me and would not match my triggers. He would was always, i don't know how like uncannily, so I would always know when it wasn't me reacting, it was my history. And he just was so calm and patient and loving. And I wish that for every single woman. I am so lucky to have found that love, and anyone who's ever felt the way that I did and my abusive relationship, I just wish that of love for them, whether it's for themselves or with another person. I think it's incredibly powerful when you begin to rewrite your story and are lucky enough to meet another person, you know, a platonic friend or romantic partner who aids you in doing that, m who helps, you know, keep the bend moving across the page, yes, and helps you find the best version of yourself totally. And I and you know, someone once said to me once, and I loved this idea because I definitely feel that in times, in the hardest times of your life, that's usually when you feel the most alive because you're so hyper aware of everything. And while the relationship I was in was definitely the darkest time of my life, the hardest time I think was after, just after the act of leaving, and just after when I was finally with myself and reflecting on what had just happened and how I got there, which I'm still decompressing from. I I still don't really understand how I ended up in that place with that person, But when you start, I think I was so alive in that moment and so ready to let Chris in because he was kind of matching that with me, and he was like, yeah, I see you, I see what's happening, and I'm going through my own version of that. It also was we were just madly in love and didn't realize it, but I mean we did, we just weren't telling each other yet. But at that time of my life is I just will never forget it. It's like a visceral feeling. M h And to think about, you know, where it brought you to building a family and just what a beautiful, what a beautiful evolution mm hmm. I wondered too, coming from a family that went through divorce and then leaning into building your own family, and even the way that you you have such deep connections with the rest of your family. I mean, your your sister is student, your writing partner, and I really want to hear about that. I wonder is their work required to say or is it a decision to say, this is my story, this is my version, this is how I'm going to lean into my family. You know, we we get to we get to I mean not to be cheesy, but you know, we get to write our own story metaphorically and in the case of you and your sister literally yeah, when we approached In approaching that, I mean Jessica and my older sister who I wrote the book with, I can only remember her ever writing, and she would have filled those spiral notebooks, those them mow spiral notebooks you always got for school, just fill them with stories and like novels when she was a kid. So when we approached this, I really wanted her to have just the freedom and and I think what it's so exciting about this particular book, and it's a middle grade series about two sisters, and that's always something that fascinates me is our relationship as women and um and young girls too, and I grew up in a household full of girls. It was all girls. Sometimes even the animals where all girls, especially when my dad was gone. And it's so I love that. I love feminine energy, and I love when women come together, and that was something we really cared about expressing. But then also we grew up in a household that, like I told you, was really adamant about nature and conservancy, and we loved natural park national parks, and there was a reverence for nature. And we would go on these long drives with our grandparents through the mountains and my grandpa would be whistling to Mozart and Beethoven, and some of those moments and those memories of just looking out the car window and seeing the mountains and seeing moose and deer and are so vivid and special to me. And we care so much about protecting that and spreading awareness and getting young people to care about it. So that was really the driving force that Jessica and I wanted to convey. And we also just love magic and fantasy and those kinds of things. Have you always been a fan of the genre. Yeah, I mean I was a strange kid who read Lord of the Rings every Christmas and would like put on crazy fluffy socks and like disappear into those books. And I loved Harry Potter. I have like a much broader reading palette now, but yeah, as a kid, it was a lot of fantasy. That's so cool. So how did you guys come up with the idea? And for everyone who's listening and I'm sure dying to know what the book is about, can can you give us a little synopsis? Well, these two sisters on their thirteenth birthday discover that they have powers, um and the powers are sort of linked to the natural world. I don't want to tell you what their powers are because it's really cool and I think that's a big reveal, yes, and their powers that I think everyone would really want to have. UM. So it's really about these uh, and they start to uncover this whole world that they didn't know existed and their mother. Their mother is missing and believed to be dead. So that's the mystery they're trying to solve. And it's a really cool adventure for two young sisters. I love that. Do you guys think that you'll do more? I hope, so, I hope, So I think, um, we'll definitely do a sequel, and um, we'll see if if people like it. Did the adventure of writing this book with her make you want to write more, whether it's uh, you know, past the sequel, or even to take a stab at something solo. Oh gosh, I don't know. I don't know. I haven't thought about it. Possibly. I mean, I'm a big journal er and I love I love that, but I'm not so sure that creative writing is truly my strength. But you know, maybe I've always wanted to be a journal er. It's still on my goals list. It's it's not something I've quite mastered yet, but i'd like to. It's hard to keep up, yeah, yeah, And I will go through our laps and I'll go through months where I don't, but then some sometimes I'll just pick up a pen and there's just something so wonderful about writing on paper, and it really helps in my mind kind of declutter. I love that. I love that, especially in a moment like you said, where you find yourself, you know, after this big chunk of years of your life have wrapped up, and your baby just turned one, and it feels like a moment that deserves sort of stillness and curiosity. I feel like a blank page is a nice place to go for that that's actually really inspiring to hear, and I hadn't thought of it that way. Um. I like that you use the word curiosity because it's kind of like one of in my own way, in my own relative way. I know the moment you're in, and it's like when a tornado finally starts to settle down and you really deserve to just be still. Yeah, I excited for you. I am too. I'm excited for you to get through your last box and like this to be held by the people you love, but then also for them to leave your house, you know, both and all of those things. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a cool time. And I feel like if if we talk again, when we talk again, because I love to talking to you, you are as cool as everyone has. But when we talk again, I feel like, I I think I'll look back on this conversation that we're having and be like, Wow, you really didn't know what was going on. Your head was not screwed on yet. Um, Because I do feel like I'm in that moment, you know, when you have those where you're just like, what like you're saying that the tornado has just left the building, and I and I am just trying to eat up every moment and I'm excited for what's next. I'm really excited. That's so cool. This is actually my favorite question to ask everyone who comes on the show, and it feels like the perfect moment to do it. Given this sort of moment in time you find yourself in, what would you say, now in your life feels like a work in progress, I would say the first I'll just say the first thing that came to my mind. The act of loving myself, I'd say, is very much a work in progress right now. I think it's as simple as that. I used to think it was kind of like a ladder you'd climb and eventually get to the top. And now I've realized it's sort of like the Googenheim Museum. It's just circles. You actually do circles to get up a level. But it'll keep going forever. That's a good way of thinking of it. And I love that museum. Yeah, same like, oh I got here, Oh now there's another Okay, it's gonna keep going. Very cool. Well, congratulations on all of the things you know, personal and professional. All of the advocacy and and all of the examples that you've been so consciously and thoughtfully setting for people, I just I really admire you. Likewise, the feeling is mutual.