Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome back to Work in Progress. Today's guest is actor, musician, writer, producer, and director Zoe Lester Jones. Zoe has appeared in countless TV shows and movies, some of which she wrote and produced herself. Many of us fell in love with Zoe on Life and Pieces, and in she released the film The Craft Legacy. You may also know her from television series like Whitney and New Girl. Zoe has written and produced her own films including Lola Versus, Consumed and Breaking Upwards and one of my personal favorites, band Aid, and her newest comedy, How It Ends is out Right Now. It is the story of a young woman who's trying to reconcile her relationships in the face of the literal end of the world, with guidance from her younger self, who happens to be imaginary. Zoe has incredible, unique insights into nearly every aspect of screen production. I am so excited to pick her brain about movies, television, representation, diversity in the future of the industry. Let's get started. I feel like you are my closest friend that I don't know that well, does that make sense? That's absolutely right, like the amount of time you have been messaging each other, and like, I mean, I'll speak for both of us, so hopefully it's not just me. But I'm like, we're clearly really kind of obsessed with each other and were like the other person does. But we've never really gotten to hang out. We've never had a solo hangout. Like the one time we were like, we're actually I feel like in each other's presence to like celebrate the love that we that is unexplored between us. Was that like the fair Oscar party yep, and we were like, we're doing it, this is our year. And then the pandemic happened, and so I'll just see you on the phone forever. Yeah, forever, forever. I will. I will like everything from Afar forever. It's so weird, crazy time, Yeah, insanity, But now I get to like at least have a real conversation and look at you through a screen rather than just like d M you, Like, you're brilliant. Keep doing everything you're doing, all these books really amazing. I'm so excited for you. I Mean, what a weird time to be afraid and and like witness suffering and find the silver linings that you're grateful for. You know, it all felt very confusing for sure. Yeah, it still does. Yeah, well, and I imagine that that that confusion is what led to the film, which I want to talk about. But before we get into right now, I still I do want to I want to dig around a little because I grew up in Brooklyn and and you have described yourself with this term that I just at the moment I read it, I was like, I need to know everything about this because this is not what I would have expected, which I kind of love when when I asked someone what they were like as a kid, and it's so different from the person sitting across from me in these conversations, you've described yourself as a teen rude girl. What does that mean? Well, I was very polite, but a rude girl. Like was like a girl who liked SCA music, who likes SCA music. I'll still I'll still hold the title. Um so I had really good manners and that. But I but I was deeply into the world of scal music they called. Yeah, I was definitely angsty. Um, but I was always also like I don't know, very responsible like I was. I was always obsessed with like people pleasing, even from a young age. So I wasn't like a tantrum thrower or like I was not a rebellious team even though I think by the looks of me, one would have assumed that because like I shaved my head when I was young, Like I was twelve, and I shaved my head, and I wore like really wild you know, thrift store like polyester like leisure suits and ship um. So I think I like I always presented as a person who was like, yeah, more rebellious than actually my nature. See in my head, I'm picturing you looking like one of my Italian uncles. But then the Scott throws me in, like so yes, I did look like I looked like your Italian uncles. But I had like those weird like I got shave. It had like weird like whispy skater bangs, or like died a different gultor It's funny like when I did it, I just didn't have the foresight to know that it would bring me so much attention that I think was quite negative for me, Like it brought a lot of bullying. I just thought it was cool, Like I had um my friends were always older, and I was really into just like exploring different aesthetic sensibilities. So I think I like jumped in with a little naivetey. Also because I then was consistently mis gendered because I looked. I mean, I hadn't really gone through puberty, and there I didn't understand the term for that, you know, at that age, I was just I just understood the pain that I was in all the time of like, you know, being called a boy, and and at that at an age when I really wanted to be I don't know, like entering my my sexuality and understanding my body as a girl because that is how I identify. And yeah, it was it was definitely a very angsty time, but I wasn't rude. I have two questions about the head shaving because I went through a phase where I really wanted to do that and my parents were not having it. So I'm curious if you told them or if you just did it, and and what was the what was the deciding factor? I mean, to take a pair of clippers to your head as a young girl is a pretty major moment. Yeah. Well, um, my mom took me to the hairdresser because my mom is really cool and was always very supportive, and I think, well, I think in retrospect I understand my head shaving in a little bit of a different way, but that my mom. I haven't really talked about this publicly, but my mom had a boyfriend who I think was sort of grooming me um and left at a fortunate time time before like sort of physical abuse was happening. But I think there was a lot of confusing emotional stuff happening where I, at around eleven, was being I think I understood myself to be sexualized by someone older. I had talked to my mom about dyeing my hair, and I had long hair, and she had said something interesting to me like that I shouldn't dye my hair because people would think I was older than I am. And I think she specifically said men, and I remembered being like, what, like I didn't understand her warning or what she was grappling with or you know, those warnings that I think in any situation, a mother is sort of like concerned at that age, because it is that specific seminal moment when I think we start to understand ourselves as like prey and uh. So, I think there was probably a sense of relief in some ways when I was like, I want to shave it all off for her, and she actually took me to She had this amazing Japanese hairstylist who worked out of his house and he did the whole thing, you know, in in such a like beautiful sort of like meticulous Japanese aesthetic with scissors, so he didn't even use and it took hours and he just like just so beautifully. It was like it was like meticulously cut it all off for me. And I did love it, but I think there was something about it that was an interesting like dichotomy of I think I thought I was going to be invisible and instead it made me hyper visible. You know. That's really interesting. And you don't know the ways that you'll be visible until you experience it. Yeah, I think about it. It's kind of the same lens of any public notoriety. You know. It can be quite traumatic, and people will say, well, you signed up for it, and you can't sign up for something you don't know. Yeah, you know, And I I find that really interesting that in a way to give yourself both freedom and some protection, you were inadvertently also made a target. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And it was such a confusing moment because I think, yeah, I had just started this new school and so it's also you're already at an age like in seventh grade when everyone's just like so cruel, but I had put this like total other target on my back. Um, And yeah, I think it's interesting. I mean, in the last year, obviously we've all had so much more time to like self reflect and too in many ways being conversation with our inner children, which is you know what this new movie is about. But yeah, that time in my life has come up a lot for me in the last year because I think it was that invisibility. Visibility then diagram is still one that I struggle with a lot. And there's there is something so interesting about the strange ways in which as women were often put in these spaces that aren't of our own choosing, so figuring out how to have a semblance of control or to stake your identity. Yeah, there is so much tied to hair. Yeah, and it's really interesting. I've been talking about it the gals that I did my first show with, and I have talked a lot about our experiences at one with older men telling us what we couldn't couldn't do with our hair at work. I felt so strange and and I think, um, I'll never forget. I read something for however, everybody you know feels about her. It's like I'm always scared to say her name. I don't know why people go so crazy. But I read something really poignant that Gwyneth Paltrow said father died, and I remember reading this article about how close they were. And she talked about how she had long, long hair for forever, and that the grieving process when her dad died was so brutal for her, and she realized she cut her hair off. She was like, I had hair on my body, you know, had been touching my father when I was holding him when he was like and how it was this really emotional experience for her. And I think about my own version and adulthood of of what you're explaining you went through at twelve, being on the receiving end of um, you know, violation and attention in a workplace that I could not get away from. And I just I kept cutting my hair. I cut it over and over and over and over. I mean to the point, I mean about about where years is now. I just wanted the like, the thing that would get grabbed, the attention for my femininity. I couldn't get rid of enough of it. Yeah, that's so interesting. Isn't it wild for our whole lives that this is such a a strangely weaponized gendered thing. Oh yeah, And I think how we like embody femininity and whose rules you know, those are? I think is so confusing. What else do you think really impacted you as a kid? I think about what you're talking about, grappling with finding identity, having the boldness to experiment with your identity a lot. And then obviously you speak about going, you know, to study acting. When when did you know that you wanted to tell stories? Was that was that an evolution for you or were you always artistic? And then it led to the us. I think I was always really interested in storytelling. My mom is a video artist, and so I was raised like in a household in which there was already a lot of storytelling. And her work has always dealt with identity politics, and I think, you know how the personal and the political intersect and stuff. So I was very fortunate to be raised in a household where those themes were being explored and I knew that that could also be a career. Even though I witnessed my mom and my dad, who is a conceptual photographer, I witnessed how much heartache also came with being an artist, and so I think I was really afraid of becoming an artist because I felt that it was like cellularly a part, like a necessity for me in terms of my expression. But I also did not want to struggle in the ways that I saw my parents struggle, both financially and emotionally. I was also very shy, which was also confusing for people because a shy person generally doesn't like shave their head and wear a wild clothes. But I was really shy, and I was afraid of My mom put me in acting classes to help me combat my shyness. And then like it wasn't n till later in high school that I actually like really started auditioning for place because I was so nervous to do so. And then like on a whim, I auditioned for Tish and y Use acting school. I had done some plays, but like the idea that I would put all of my eggs into that basket wasn't really necessarily a part of my plan. I really loved writing, and I thought that I wanted to study that more intensely and just go to like a liberal arts college that wasn't so specialized. But then I got a scholarship to Tish and my mom was like, you have to go. And it was that like total reversal, because I was like, but shouldn't I be like a lawyer or something. I shouldn't I like, go do something that is steady and stable and that can give me a life that I didn't have growing up. And it was it was really more my mom being like, no, you should go take advantage of this opportunity and see what what comes of it. So I am forever grateful for that. But it was in college that I started to explore more of my voice as a storyteller in the realm of performance as well, Like I was starting to write my own um it actually started with like sketch comedy. Really, I was, yeah, I was in acting school and there was a sketch comedy class, and funnily, I just loved I realized that I loved writing my own material, and then I loved writing comedy and it was short formed, so I didn't like think of it as storytelling, but you know, it was sort of that like entry point. And I went to David Mammett's acting school, the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School, and David Mammon would like just drop in for classes for like a guest class sometimes, and everyone just stop what they were doing because he was like a god there. And we then all scramble, like within ten minutes to put up whatever we have been working on for him. And he was notoriously cruel, you know, in a way that is like sort of that like acting school thing of like you got to earn your keep or whatever, but like you know, like I don't either, um, and someone was, you know, so nervous, and people would put put scenes up and he'd be like sit down, you know, like work hard or whatever. And and I ended up putting up a scene that I had written and he let me get through the whole thing, which was also rare for him. And then afterwards he said, who wrote that? And I said I did, and he said you should write a screenplay, and it was so like not you know, I was so taken it back that he would even have the grace or more generosity to say that to me. In public, and then interestingly, my sketch comedy teacher really punished me afterwards. I think for that he would he ended up failing me or trying to fail me that year, even though I was like the artistic director of our sketch comedy like group and I had perfect attendance and I you know, wrote all these things, and he was what I found out later he would sort of choose a girl every year, that he would do this too, that he would um basically write a really abusive end of year review and then try to fail. Yeah, it was an interesting It was interesting because I was finding my voice and also coming up against a man and an authority figure and a founding company member there who I really wanted to take my voice away and to show me that he said things in that review that were like I'm gonna you'll never work in this industry and like really damaging things to a young person, and I ended up taking it. I also, I've never told this story about the way, but I ended up taking it to um the Dean because I was on a merit scholarship, so I my grades and I and I had all a's, so it was like for this person to come in and also threaten that for me, based on nothing logical, I went and, um, you know, made him change my grade. But it was a really interesting and traumatic experience in which I saw a glimpse of what might be to come, you know, as a woman storyteller. And I've never experienced anything as abusive since, thank thank God. But I think that only drove me to prove him wrong and to say no, I will write a screenplay and I won't let you diminish what I'm trying to explore here. And then, sadly, the next year female student came to me and said, it's happening to me. Did the school ever do anything about it? God? That makes me so angry, especially when everyone knows when it's such a clear m O. I'm consistently shocked by that. I worked for someone once who upon first meeting, I just thought, I'm so excited, I'm so lucky. This is gonna be great. And I was actually pulled aside as the project got underway by someone on the crew, an older woman. I won't say what department in case for whatever ever makes it back to the person who I'm talking about. His name I also won't say, and she just she said, I gotta warn you. He breaks women, boy, And and she started regaling me with these tales of women who'd worked for him before, and literally pulled up photos because you know, everything's on the phone, and and like googled them by year and you watched these women, I mean, physically wasting away, becoming so antorectic and so. And I was like, this feels like a lot. And you've worked on this person for so long, and she said yep, and like runs a great crew, good boss, but when you are the woman, you're the one he'll break. And I was like, man, what is this? And and it really it makes me genuinely curious about the way we all interact because in what you and I do in storytelling, we can make things more binary than they are in reality. So when a villain is a villain, the villain is bad, usually very black and white. But in real life, people can have largely positive experiences with someone who will be a total bastard to one person in an environment, but great to the other people in the room. Yeah. There there's so much complexity with how we show up, how we lead, who is abusive, who is helpful, who and sometimes they're all the same person. And I'm I'm confounded by your story because everyone knew well enough to know, Oh there's a girl this guy picks out every year to destroy, but nobody's done anything about it. No, I know, um, And it was interesting because I had heard whispers of it, you know. But he was so respected and revered, and when I got into his class, I started to notice things that he would do. He would call all the women sweetie, honey baby. And there was a girl who, um was Mormon, and she asked in a comedy class what a wet willie was. She didn't know, and he came over and he gave her one. And then when I was directing these two young women in a in a sketch, they had like devised this funny handshake, and he said he came in and said, in on me directing them, and he said, what if you twisted her titty at the end. And these things kept happening, and I think instead of taking it to anybody, you know, as a nineteen year old or whatever, I just did that thing that I've learned to do that we still learned to do, which is you just like kind of shut down and guard yourself against that person. But I think that when I lose all respect for a person in that way, I think it's palpable. I think that dynamic then does put a spotlight on the one that they choose of Oh you know, I want to then take this person down or abuse them or I don't know what her, But I do think like what you're talking about in terms of the complexity of abusive dynamics isn't talked about enough, Like because I've been on sets where a guy has grabbed my ass, and as an outspoken feminist, I don't have the words to show up for myself in that moment. I just sort of get really quiet, and then that person will stay on that set and I'll have a relationship with them, I mean, not a you know what I mean like in terms of like there will be forgiveness, I will move on from it. Well I never spoke of it to that person again. And that person is a kind person, I mean, and has a big heart, and that person contains multitudes right like where it isn't this just like really strict like abuser, abused, evil victim, Like it's a person that then you can grow to or before you know have genuine affection for And I remember saying something about that person and someone said, well, he's from a different time, and I said, I promise you in that time, women didn't like having their asses grapped either. But the excuses that even I make, because I think, I think we want to make excuses in order to, I guess, lessen the blow of the self victimization that would come from saying, oh, no, that actually did happen and that's not okay. But even you know, with my mom's boyfriend, like I obviously I've been dealing with that a lot in therapy for my adult life, and and I really loved him, you know. And I think that is what is so confusing about a lot of those dynamics is that oftentimes people love their abusers, most of them, you know, in terms of yeah, the dynamics that I think, especially as women, we have so that the self worth that gets wrapped up in those dynamics is so confusing and calm and calm implicated. And the reality again that it isn't what we see on TV. Most often, it's not some random person on the street who you know throws you in the back of a van. Typically statistically it's it's a person that you know, It's a person with whom you have a version of an intimate relationship, not necessarily romantically intimate, but someone who you're close to, and and that I think can be so complex. But I do think to your point about you know, all the therapy that at least you and I have been lucky to have. Um, I think about what you can process through and then what you can create out of these things. And and you know, when I think about your career and the you know, the stories you tell that I have loved, I mean fun band Aid was so good. It was just so good. And and you know, you and Darryl have worked on incredible projects together and separately, you know, as as creatives and partners and BIOSes. And and now this new movie, I feel like making a film about the last day on Earth, you know, to represent the apocalypse of the pandemic, but also making the film about your on screen character having a dialogue with her inner child. At the moment I saw the preview, I was like, she's been going to therapy too, Like, is that where some of this stuff comes from? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't think that I know how to fully process the deepest existential questions that I'm navigating without doing it through my work, Like I I think like writing for me is like such a lifeline in terms of all of those deep personal queries, and therapy actually has been like I've struggled with therapy because I think I can sometimes like be too good a talk or you know, I'm sure you have that too. You're like, I've got a self diagnosis that's going to shut this whole thing down, and you're gonna give me an a plus yea. I will get on this, watch me, I'll do the homework, tell me what the questions are. Is there a form I can fill out love graph and I'm going to outperform everybody else and it's gonna be awesome. And if I do a really good job with this and I tell you everything that you think you want to know, I won't actually have to talk about my feelings. I'll just talk about my observations of my feeling that I'm familiar, very familiar. So for you and then you don't get and then you and then you don't actually you know, figure the ship out or get into the muck. Because I think for people like you and I. The muck is not a comfortable place, like it's, well, will sort the muck and show that we can do it perfectly, you know. But like, but the whole thing of the muck is that, like, there is no answer and there is no way to do it perfectly, and it's all about uncertainty and imperfection. So I think this movie in particular was really me trying to sort through the muck because I was being told by my therapist that I needed to be having conversations with my inner child, and I did not know how to do that, and so I started to write that down in a screenplay where I was actually having a conversation with like a metaphysical embodiment of my younger self. Okay, so you have this moment in college I realized I really skipped ahead for the folks listening at home because I'm just pretending that we're having like a lunch date. Um. But you have this experience in college Mammitt tells you to write a screenplay, which is so insane and amazing. What when was the first moment that you did that? Because you know, going on to get movies like these that were referencing made there there's a leap there. What's in what's in the leap? And and when in that period did you go abroad to study at Rada, Like when when did all these things happened? I need a timeline, I need work. You're getting an A plus on the research. So I just know that I went to Rada my senior year of college, UM, and I studied obviously acting there. But when I came back from Rada, my boyfriend broke up with me promptly, and he was really like not a great boyfriend leading up to that breakup. But I think I again didn't know what to do with that heartache. I had never I had never been and he was my first relationship. I was sort of a late bloomer in that way. And so I started to write a one woman show that was about heartbreak and I played like eleven different characters or something that we're all dealing with different forms of heartbreak, and that again, like it is like a testament to the mentors and the people that just give you those like moments along the way of encouragement. There's this this actor named Chavon Fallon, and she taught up solo performance class at n Y U and I did some like wild insane thing in her class, and she took me aside and said, you should do write a woman show. And I sort of like buried it for a year or so, and then once the breakup happened, it was like, oh, yeah, that's what I have to do. And so it was again like my first real experience as a storyteller in a longer format was also purely like a means of Catharsis. And then that's what got me my first agent and manager and the New York Times I came even though it was just like a long run, and they gave me a little right up and so it was like a really cool also like yes, keep going, you know, it was a cool way to note that this was something that I could explore further. And then from there I was acting. I was doing all the law and orders as like a guest star. I was just you know, like cutting my my teeth. In New York, I was doing stage work, and Darryl and I entered into an open relationship. Um we started dating, and about two years into our relationship, we entered into an open relationship and we wrote a screenplay about it, which actually started I had written all back up. I had written a screenplay on my own about Dollywood, UM that was never made. That was my first screenplay, and I was like, yes, but it was too big a story, like you know, for a first screen plan for any aspiring screenwriters out there, it is I think smart to make to look at it produced serially too of like what could I actually make or get made as a person who doesn't have any connection really, And so then Darryl wrote this story of our open relationship, and then I was like, I can't write that, Like I'm too I'm living it, you know, like this seems sociopathic, um, because it was already so hard what we were doing. But to like try to then like narrate it in real time um, in the format of a screenplay was like a little too much for me. But a year later, he he, we were still in in it. But we were like a year into the open relationship and he gave me the screenplay to read and I was like, oh hell now, I was like, let me in there. I gotta I gotta fix some things. And so then we we wrote that together and we made it for fifteen thousand dollars. We we like got family and friends to give, you know, whatever they could and and made it with literally like two crew members off of Craig's list who were working for free, and we wore every hat and we acted in it. And that got into south By Southwest and then got bought by I f C and then got a lot of attention and got us, you know, our feet in the door as filmmakers. And so from there we then went on to make a couple of other films together and then but Darrel was always directing, so we were writing, co writing, co producing. I was acting and Darrel was directing. And again it took like this amazing producer named Alex Maddigan we had coffee one day and she said, um, you should direct, sort of like apapell of Nothing, And I was like, huh, and I do think it is just like these moments like where um. It just took like literally that one sentence for me to step outside of what I had just understood was the norm of like no, he's the director, you know um, and to go like, oh yeah, I could do that. I think because especially as a woman like I didn't feel that I knew enough or I felt that I wanted to be perfect, and I hadn't gone to film school and need more experience. I need more experienced Yet even though I had, you know, been like really in the Belly of the Beast on like three features already and was in the editing room and was so much a part of the filmmaking team. So yeah, and that's why I think when I really was like, let me go go make my own film, which was what band aid, was so good. Thank you. I really just loved it. How do you think because you're you're talking about your evolution as an artist, as an individual, and you also have been really open in terms of talking about the ways in which in your own individual spaces and on your projects you can push the industry to be better. You know, you really want to make sure that you have crews that are centering of female experience. You also talk so much about and walk the walk of including diverse groups of people um proper representation when casting. I mean, what is something that you think having done it, Because so many people will say, well I just couldn't find someone, It's like, well but you could, so so what do you think the industry might need to consider or or what efforts do you think might need to be made so that more casts and crews can look and feel like the ones you put together on your projects. Um, well, you know, I mean I also have a room to grow and improve when it comes to I think equity. Uh we all do, but um, but unbanded, I decided to hire a crew made up of entirely women because, like you said, I had, I had or witness to to just how insanely inequitable it was behind the camera and how little you know, because this was pre me too, and like it was sort of before a lot of conversations were being had around this, and it was just like something that we were taught to accept. Um that that there were women, you know in hair and makeup, there were women's script supervisors, there were women in wardrobe, but camera department, Jenny, that was not something to even I think, like look look at you know. I was like, um, and like you said, just that idea of like we couldn't find the person or women or people of color don't have enough experience or you know, or LGBTQ, you know, people just anyone who's outside of the sort of pool that has been tapped for so long. And so I guess. I yeah, I just wanted. I knew that if I didn't draw that sort of hard line in the sand, I would all victim to the same excuses. Um. And even with my women, UM, department heads, like, there was pushback, And it's not pushback from a malicious place. It's pushed back from people wanting to do the best possible job for you and believing that the white dude they've worked with for the last ten years is going to do that because they have a shorthand and UM, that person has a lot of experience, and that person is going to help us make the days. And so the fear of of working with someone new, I think is one of the biggest barriers, UM for department heads and people in positions where they're making those hiring decisions. UM. And I think on Banded it was like a really cool I guess experiment in that way to go like, yeah, but someone who doesn't have experience on a resume also might be that much hungrier to perform, to show up, to make the day a and it might take like a little more mentorship. But there's also beauty in that, and so I think that was a really good lesson for us all on that film, and I think because that film was small and independent, I was able to make that kind of decision. And then going on to work in the studio system, it becomes much more complicated because when you want to hire a crew that is made up entirely of women, there are a lot of legal implications to that in the studio system that they don't want to funk with because there becomes questions around discrimination, which is like you know, L O L. But you're like, look, we got one whole movie this year, one and we're suddenly and we're the problem. Okay, yeah, exactly. But I think there are now a lot more databases and infrastructure, some more infrastructure around diversity and inclusion when it comes to cruise, especially UM. But it takes work, and I talked to a lot of people and trying to share like there's this like cool UM group called sporus COO that sort of highlights bipod crew members and there are a number of other groups that are doing that to help create an easier sort of platform and access point for you know. And an answer to the response of but I couldn't find any you know, because it's like, well it's actually quite easy if you just you know, take the time to shift out of the people that have been a part of your circle for so long. But um, but we have such a long way to go, you know, and so I and I think, like you said, there's a lot of talking the talk and much less walking the walk. But I think definitely since band Aid was made, there's been a lot more walking the walk at least. And I think these things take a lot of time, sat way, Yeah, I mean big, big shifts do move at a slower pace, and certainly in advocacy and an activist spaces, I've had to learn to breathe and look at the year rather than the week. Yeah. Yeah, but god it's hard. And I guess I wonder, you know, to your point, since you launched that endeavor on band Aid, I imagine it happened so much more quickly, you know, in in putting together the casting crew for the Craft, Well casting was really exciting on the Craft. How did this project come to be? By the way, because as like as one of the o G biggest fans ever of the Craft, when you announced you were doing this, you know, and there are the d ms to prove it. I just like lost my mom and I think it's just screaming and sending you emojis? How how did you do this? It was brought to me, but I still I had to pitch on it. It wasn't like an offer. My agents said, do you want to pitch on a revamp of the Craft? And I was like absolutely, and so I then yeah, I came up with a with a take on how I would want to reimagine it um and I had, you know, I went in front of Jason Blum and Doug Wick and Sony and gave my pitch and I got the gig. So that was really cool, and then it was really a fast moving train from from that point on. I think all told it was like a two year process. So it was like I wrote it for a year, was in development for a year, which was a really intense development process, and then shot it like a year later. And then and and not say there weren't one thousand roadblocks along the way, as they're all always are, but I think, yeah, I'm a person who's like if I'm if I'm doing something, I'm gonna I'm not gonna let it. I'm not gonna let it die. So that was. I think it was important to me in rewatching the Craft, the original Craft, which I hadn't done like maybe since my you know, teenage years. Yeah, it's such an important film, but also it was very easy to see all the ways in which I wanted to shift some things about it. And one of those things was I mean, I think that film it was really interesting in terms of RepA representation. It was you know that there was a black team which who was dealing with racism, you know, uh, And I think that was really important, you know, at that time in terms of representation. But but yeah, I think for me, like I was really interested in trans representation, um when it came to a story about young women stepping into their power um, and I think just around like feminism in general and how trans women can be all too often excluded from these conversations in these spaces that I really wanted that to be a part of the story. And that was a really interesting part of the casting process because you know, I was looking for someone really specific, which was like a trans Latina teenager. And so we worked with Glad who was incredibly helpful, and they basically put out a big casting notice to tons of non actors, and I think we got like two hundred submissions of young trans Latino women. Yeah, and I found Zoe Luna who got the part through that process and she was just such an incredible addition to the cast and just to the just the entire experience. But I think in terms of the crew on that film, I brought a lot of the women with me from Bandit. I brought my DP Hillary Spirait, I bought brought my editor Libby Keune, and I brought my producer in Italianers, and I brought my production designer, Hillary Gurler. And I think that was just that which is like it's not a lot of women, but when people walk on set and the department heads are women, it is like it tends to like throw people, you know, they're just like, wait, what's happening. Um. So it is an interesting experience when I feel like I'm failing, you know, because I'm not doing more or having more women on a crew that it's already feels quite like, I don't know, revolutionary to people outside of of me, it is, and it creates a very seismic and palpable shift, even for you know, for our pilot that we did in February of this year. It's me, you know, as the number one and as an executive producer and my show owner, my all my aps, you know, our DP, yes, our script supervisor, multiple department heads, all women. And what was really fun was to watch all the men on set talk about how they had more fun working on our show than they had that's for you guys to oh, totally more fun too. Yeah. On and aid Adam Pally, who starts in it with me, was oftentimes the only man on set, and the way that he talked about it was just like that was the best experience of my life, you know. Um, and I think it is. It's so not about like excluding anyone. It's actually about like the beauty of ally ship in that way is when someone can realize how much their life can be improved, when when these huge paradigms shift, that it's not a scary thing, that it's actually a really like enlivening thing for everyone. Yeah. When you think about those kinds of paradigm shifting, and I mean even you know the story you were telling a moment ago with the original craft and with your film legacy in bringing in the character of lordis in wanting to highlight this experience free you know, young trans kids. How did you ensure that the character was an accurate reflection of those kids in their experiences? Did you Did you have Zoe give a lot of feedback and information to you for the character, did you guys tweak that together? Yeah, Zoe was obviously a huge asset, and while quite young, she turned eighteen between me casting her and us shooting, so you know, she's a baby, but she was already you know, a transactivist and educator, and so she's just she's so well spoken, and so yeah, just um edifying and enlightening in a way that is that that is always like really open. So I'm just so grateful to her. But also I worked with a trans man named Scott Schofeld who I was put in touch with through Glad, and he before Zoe came on board, worked with me on the script, you know, because the nuances of language are so much a part of inclusivity and education around trans inclusivity in particular, and so yeah, there were just there were so many moments where it was like like I had written it's always character's name is Lordas, and I had written lourdas to be handing Lily, who's played by Kelly's Many, a pair of shorts, because Lily gets her period in class and leads through her pants and all the girls follow her into the bathroom, and Lord's was the one to hand her a pair of shorts to say, like, I wore these in gym. They're a little sweaty, but I thought you could use them. And Scott was like, just that just the act of handing shorts is loaded, right, because like, and there are all of these these things that I, as assists a woman would not know about. And just when it comes to talk about hair, you know, like just the importance of hair and the importance of language, Like just in so many I mean I can't remember all of the ways, but in so many moments in the script where it is like, just just the tiniest tweak will make this more comfortable for a trans person to say or to hear, or any of those things. And Scott then came to Toronto where we shot, and on the same day that we had our sexual harassment seminar, we had a seminar on trans inclusivity for the entire crew, which I was like, this should be happening on every set, whether or not there is a trans person in the cast or crew. Like, it was so edifying for so many people, and like especially like when you're not in l A or New York, but even in l A or New York, there's just like a lot of like older white dudes, um who might not be having these conversations. Like no shade to older white dudes, but I do think there's a there's a generational thing and and also just uh just an access thing of like where would you be having these conversations, you know, And so it was amazing to have Scott just talk about like his experience being mis gendered, and the way that he spoke about it was not around like that anyone's doing anything wrong and that you know, just that discussion around intention versus impact, Like you're not meaning to hurt me, but I just want you to know how much it hurts me, because it's so hard for assists person to understand that pain. And so I think just in those ways, yeah, I was. I'm just so grateful to those voices and to those educators in that process and beyond that's really beautiful and it's so interesting because you know, thinking about representing a more current and full teen experience in that movie brings me right back to Oh, and then the pandemic project was in our child work like you were other kids, and then you worked on the kid inside yourself. Yeah. Do you know when the moment happened when you were when you were supposed to be talking your inner child and you started, you know, journaling or typing or whatever you were doing, and then you went, oh, I have to make a movie out of this. Was there a moment that it clicked. I think it was like pretty early on in Quarantine, because I think, like so many of us, we were facing so many just the onslaught of overwhelming emotions that I think, even if you consider yourself to be an emotionally evolved person, none of us had the tools. And I think I was also going through a lot of other stuff in my personal life that went right up against lockdown, so that once lockdown hit, it was like all the things that I was already overwhelmed by, then you know, we're put into even sharper focus and I was really forced to sit with them. And so I think it was around that time and Kyleie Spainey, who is the star of the craft, and the craft legacy was also a story of my childhood because my mom different boyfriend. But my mom started dating guy when I was in high school and moved me into his home with his three sons, And so that was my way of, I think, processing a very traumatic moment in my teenage years as I was coming into my womanhood and my sexuality. And so the work was starting there, as you said, and Kaylee and I were doing that work together because she was playing a version of my teenage self. So that then when we were very good friends after the filming of that movie, we were still talking a lot about just adolescence and my adolescence, her adolescence, what our inner children needed to hear, in conjunction with my therapist pushing me to have these conversations, and in conjunction with me reading this book that my mom had given me years ago, called The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller, which is a really it's a good read, highly recommend So, yeah, it was sort of like the intersection of all of those things where I knew that I had to start sorting through the swamp of that. So would you say that your character in the film is perhaps most like you or does she still feel bit of friend. No, she's very much like me. I would say, she's very close to me. And it's a really personal film in that way. And I think, you know, we didn't want to center the film in the pandemic or in Quarantine, but we wanted to create a landscape emotionally that was paralleling it. So and you know, we have this like incredible cast. And while this stuff stuff does all sound heavy, it is a comedy um because I think that is also a way that I process things. So I mean, it's a comedy that that also goes to quite deep places. But but I think when when I was calling up my friends to be in the film, there was a lot of fear around like can we show up and be funny at this really harrowing moment where every morning you kind of didn't know if you were able to do your job when we're when our job is to perform and kind of like leave your baggage at the door. And I think that was a big part of these conversations that we were having with our friends and casts, like wherever you are on any given day, because we are shooting a movie that takes place on the last day on Earth. You can just bring that and be that and use this as a tool to process that. And so I think, yeah, it really for me at least, and I think probably for some some of our cast as well. I know for Kaylie, it was truly such a lifeline at a moment where we didn't have a creative outlet like we This was the first time that all of us had been on camera. So yeah, it was a really interesting experiment in that way. And and what is it like filming in the midst of a pandemic? I mean, you you know, you use the empty streets of l A. You've got most everybody pretty distanced. How how do you work around the the strain the requirements put in place by the last year and a half. Um well, I mean, you know, there's a very clear set of COVID safety protocols and PPE that we were following, but I think we took it to an extra level of caution because it was so early that you know, we devised a narrative that could be shot entirely outdoors and six ft apart. So you'll see in the film, like when we're in single shots, it looks like we're sitting quite close together, but if there's a number of shots that will pull it in a wide and you'll see how far apart we actually are, and that we were cheating most of the time, which was wild. And you know, I'm my characters on a journey saying goodbye to people she loves, and I never touched a single person. I never luved them. I never, you know, like I'm like with Olivia wild and I'm like, She's like plays my best friend. I leave her and I'm like bye bye, and I just Simpson so um. But in that way, I you know, I love it for that reason, as it is really a time capsule of this moment and of the empty streets in l A. Like it was such a surreal time um to not see cars. I mean, Kaylee and I are walking just through the streets, and of course we would stop for some cars, but it was really wild, And I think watching it back now is quite emotional because even though we're still in it, the light that we now can sort of see at the end of the tunnel was so not a part of any of our realities. So I think to be creating in that sort of vacuum was Yeah, just so emotional. Well, and I think to your point, there's so much emotion and that's why comedy works is such a great vehicle, you know for panic. Yeah, and I'm sure there's folks at home who are going, Okay, I have to see this movie. I want to process the last year, and I would love to do it with a laugh instead of a good cry. So how how can people find how it ends? Where can they watch it? Okay, thank you for the platform to say this. They can watch it on iTunes or Amazon Prime or basically on demand everywhere. It's also in select theaters across the country. But yeah, there's a number of options. So I do hope that your your listeners check it out. Yeah, I have a hunch they will love it as much as everyone who's seen it does. I wonder you're one of those people who I look at and I'm like, God, I wish I had an eighth the self discipline, Like no, but we all have those things, right, And I you know, I'm like reading random you know, social science reports about stats, which, like, granted, fascinating, but I'm like, I wish I'd made a movie in quarantine like, what did I do this year? And I really under do you feel that? Do you feel ownership of the depth of your creativity or are you like most of us, you know, with like your brain on a hamster wheel thinking about what you have to do next. Well, first of all, you did so much in quarantine. So I look at you and I'm like, how is she doing all of this? We all feel that about our friend. I know, I know, yes, but you know, just for there do teach me. Yes, But I mean, you know, just your work as an activist outside of your work as an artist is just so inspiring to me. And I just want to say that I'm just so in awe of of your discipline in that in that realm, and the amount that you give and show up and the amount of ship you take for it. I just so deeply I'm inspired by you. But yes, I think I'm always on the hamster wheel. To answer your question, it's really hard to celebrate accomplishments, and I try to pause to do that, But there's also like, with each accomplishment, and I'm sure you experienced this to a momentum that then feels like the stakes are so high that you need to jump on it right away or everything goes away. So there's a lot of like anxiety all the time about how to elevate the next thing and how to output more. And so I think I'm still a struggle with that a lot, because output is also, as I've said many times in this UM conversation, like it's also an incredibly important tool for me personally, but I can also really like wear myself down. So it's that difficult combination of like artistry and rest that I do not understand. Y, it's so hard to setting specific goals help you mitigate that anxiety or are you more of the kind of the kind of person who might say, oh, I'd like to make a project like that next, Do you give yourself a specific task or are you looking at sort of areas of inspiration. I tend to like like I've had an idea for a film for years, and oftentimes that that happens to me where it's like it's not the right time, but there's something that is percolating for a long time where it's like one day I know I'm going to make that, And then I think those moments arise sort of organically in a way that feels exciting because it's like, Okay, now is the moment that I'm going to make that thing. I think after band Aid there was a lot of pressure because a first feature that gets attention, then there's always like the crash of the second feature where there's just a lot of pressure like are you gonna be able to perform, especially when the second feature is a studio film and you know, there's a lot more cooks in the kitchen and stuff. And so I think in choosing my second feature, I felt a lot more of like a lot more heavy about like what goals I wanted to say, and you know, I want to make us sudio film and I want to do this, and and I think now that I've done that and then made a film that was like how it ends is like the opposite. It was like so guerrilla um and so intimately had we had a crew of four people, you know, some days it was three people. That I think now I feel a little more freedom to just follow my gut in terms of just what I want to make and try to get back to the purity of that impulse rather than like setting specific goals. I guess, is there someone or something that's currently inspiring you, Um, well, they were on your podcast, but May Martin, it just it hit me in so many places. I feel that I told me, I said, I literally feel like you opened my head and rooted around through all the boxes in my brain that I have never let's see the light of day. What is how you represented? What sort of awkward anxiety and strangeness, the strangeness of the human experience when you're not sure where you go? Yeah, there just the greatest, the greatest, And like, obviously as a you know, writer, performer, director, like all the things that May does, but also I think the way that feel good like navigates tone is something that I'm always so inspired by because my favorite pieces of art are ones that can go really deep and dark and then in a moment's notice be broad and like take like a wild swing at comedy. And I think that that me does that so well, And and I just felt so moved and so transformed at the end of each of those seasons of that show, I felt really moved and really seen. Yeah, We're like when you feel recognized by something that has nothing to do with you, I think that's really the power of really good art. And what I'm realizing is that really the point of us having this whole conversation today is to establish the three of us need to make a movie. I mean, obviously, can we do it? Please? Thousand percent? We all work on Zoom every day, anyway, we could write a movie on Zoom. Oh hell yeah, Okay, great, okay great. She looks at a specific goal that's been set, and I love it, and and a goal that also is speaking to the purity of our impulses all at the same time. I love it when you think it's really easy. I think for folks like us, creative people, you know, whether they're artists or filmmakers, writers, or or even just curious people to look forward to set goals. Do you have the capacity or or the practice of looking back and and taking pride and where you've come from. Is there a moment that stands out to you where you say, I feel so proud of that. Yeah, yeah, I mean I feel really proud of band Aid. I would say that was like a big stepping stone for me because I showed myself that I could do it. I think I was ter I was terrified. I think those moments in a person's life where you step into the fear. Especially for me, like I'm a person who is like deeply fearful and anxious and neurotic every single second of every single day. I get yeah, And so I think in those moments where I'm like, you can do it and it's going to be really scary, but you can are um yeah, I felt proud of myself for that, and I think I try to still do that as much as I can. It's I think it's funny because I don't think if you as a fearful, fearful person, because you do so many scary things. But it is an interesting it's an interesting way to move through anxiety is to go like, well I'm going to dive in. Well, what I've realized is I'm no less afraid if I don't do it. So people will say recently, I had a conversation with someone who said, well, you seem like such a confident person, and I just started laughing. I was like getting terrified every single second of every single day. But the thing is, I feel this way whether I do the thing or not, so I might as well be terrified and doing something rather than terrified. And you know, sitting here feeling like I've just set myself on fire. Absolutely, And I mean, I really struggle with meditation. I really want to get better at it, but I just like I I think about the people who do that. It's the people who meditate every day. And I learned t M the to turn twenty three, so I have like sixteen years of this great knowledge of what will make me a happier person, and I just don't do it. And I think about the people who have the discipline to meditate every day, and also those people who get up at like six fifteen and them make a shot of espresso and go first a run. And in my fantasy of the best version of myself, I am a person who does both of those things. And in reality, I do neither of those things. I don't run on this and being chased the same, I won't do it. I think of it as like a particular brand of lacious torture. Oh yeah, and I know, I know, I'm I'm I'm terrible at exercising, I'm terrible a meditation. I know both of those things would be really helpful for my anxiety, UM and depression, and uh, but I think stillness. I mean exercises the officite stillness, but that's just like pure like my muscles just have atrophied. I don't know how to do it. But but like stillness is so difficult for me, and so I do think there is something about we're we're going to get better at meditating. But but to sit with those thoughts is so terrifying that I'm sure you're similar that, like put in productivity. It seems to be like the way I know how to not be paralyzed by those thoughts. But I gotta throw some new tools into the tool kit and the discipline. I think too, when you struggle with anxiety and or anxiety depression, the thing that's the best for you is the thing that you're the best at avoiding. And when I use the universal you, I mean me, yes, Like I really I know I should do this, But what if I sat here and stressed out about not doing it instead? Yeah, that is what I'll probably do. Yeah, hopefully. I know. I have a lot of friends who are like really good meditators. I just we're gonna get there. We're going to get there from behind, like we're going to meditate. I can't wait to meditate on zoom and then write a movie and maybe, like MICHAELA. Cole could be involved, because I also I would like to throw her name into the mix of just like I watched Feel Good more recently, but like I made a stroy you changed my life, and what what she does is truly like earth shattering terms of inspiration. I was so in awe of it and triggered by it that I had to put it away for a minute. Yeah, and I actually had to do some work to be able to sit with it. Yeah, And I thought, this is a revolution. And I hope she wins all of the awards. She should win all of the awards. We can also make her some like I'm sure paper Machet class and just be like, hey, this is just the thing we felt the need to make for you so you could have more things on your shelf, all of the awards that you totally, I'm sure she wants that from two white women, like please get away from here's here's our garbage trophy. Is amazing that we made you an art project. It wasn't actually a six year old child, but I know it looked that way. No, Yeah, that was it was a revolution. And I and I still think about it almost daily, Like it was what me two did two of Like wait, that's rape, you know, or like, oh, that's that's what consent means, you know. Like what she did with that was just and again in terms of tone, the way that she navigated comedy within that conversation was like oh my god, you know, and raised politics and you know all of it. Just yeah, yep. So we're the main MICHAELA Fan club. Welcome to our first meeting. Everyone at home. I hope you're hope you're ready? Yeah, um okay. So I feel like, based on what we were just saying about meditating, I might know the answer to this question, but it is my favorite thing to ask everyone who comes on the show. So I'm going to ask you anyway, what in your life feels like a work in progress right now? M hm? How much time we have? Everything? Man and everything? Uh? I would say the biggest thing. And I know it's sort of like trite and cliche and kind of corny, but self love is like, uh, it's my biggest work in progress. And I think how It Ends is very much about that, and Inner Child work is very much about that. Right. It's like, how how do we talk to the little person inside of us whose development was arrested by trauma UM and whose development very much intertwined with self love and self worth. So that is so much a work in progress. And like now I'm like, not I'm still trying to talk to my inner child, but also trying to talk to like my adult self. And I was given the task of um by my therapist, of just trying to like rewire all of the negative self talk that I'm not even aware I'm doing, like every second of the day, you know, of just like any time I walk past a mirror, or any time I you know, write something down, or any time I have an interaction, how much that is impacting And just like death by a thousand cuts, um that you know, self self cuts. And I have such a hard time doing the inverse, like because what my therapist on me to do was like every time you have to catch yourself and you have to say the opposite, and I'm like, I don't want to. That's I know, I know who has the time. I would say, that's probably the biggest work in progress for sure, and we'll I'm sure be a lifelong journey m M. Something that really and I should first of all say thank you for sharing that. And I see and feel you thank you. And the thing I come back to a lot that Really it didn't make me change that negative self talk behavior necessarily, but it put it in perspective for me. I was having a day, you know, ventang about like every which way I suck. I was at work and I was sitting in the hair chair and I used to work with this phenomenal woman named Jojo, who was kind of like the aunt we all wished we'd had, you know, and like big sister auntie vibes. And she like let me ramp for a little bit, and then she spun the chair around and she literally grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me and said, you watch your fucking mouth. You're talking about my best friend like that. Oh my god. And she got right in my face like this, and I it was such a shock because I realized I would never allow a human to speak about my best friend the way I was speaking about myself. Yeah, and that's the sort of the bridge to a sane or self dialogue for me, because just saying the opposite feels weird, like this is ridiculous. I think I'm a failure, So saying I'm a success doesn't work, or you know, whatever the story is. But if if I can say what would my best friends say? What would I say about my best friend m that begins to change. That's such a good tool and like a good life hack. Thank you for that. I'm going to now try to reframe this this task that I've been trying to achieve, because I've been just failing miserably. See there you go, I just said something negative about myself. I've been succeeding period period. You're like, I shall not say the rest of what I'm thinking. I'm just going to walk around, but I am succeeding. I am succeeding. I succeeding. Oh my god. My friend has a two year old daughter, and she filmed her daughter doing like affirmations in the morning that I guess my friend has just started to I guess teach us a practice where her daughter's every morning is like I'm beautiful, I'm smart, I'm funny, I'm crazy, I'm you know, all of these things. I'm deep, I'm wild, and just watching this video, of course, it's like in a fucking puddle. Oh my god, But what a great thing to teach little people to do, you know, because I think it is so much about the habits we form obviously at a young age, and and that's such a great habit that maybe we can still form at this age. Okay, we're young, We're still young. We are we can also we can have it. We can have an affirmation's accountability something. Yes, Oh, let's do that. I'm gonna I'm gonna text you and say, have you done your affirmations today? Okay? Great. I interviewed Mary Louise Parker a few weeks ago and she was talking about how she gave up the piano and I'm currently learning the piano, and I was like, every time I have a panelist, I'm gonna send you a picture of my keyboard. So yeah, I go, oh my god. Things are really helpful. They really are. Yeah, it's like a a gym buddy, but like for your self worth. That's the only kind of buddy I've ever needed. I love it. I'm so excited for you. The movie is incredible. Congratulations on all of the things, and also of just having literally the most perfect skin of any person that I know. Can I tell you something, Sophia, my skin has been. It so traumatic for me my whole life, really, And it's so nice when I hear that from people because I look at everyone's like we talked about, I look at everyone else's skin and be like, oh, there's skin is so beautiful. But yeah, I suffered. I suffered from cystic acne my entire life, and you did. Oh God. I think of you as having the most perfect skin. That's how I feel. You literally look like you were you were born on a cloud. You're like you're an angel, You're not a human. That's fine. I think about it every time you make a video of anything. I'm like, I don't understand how this works. I need I need. It's so it's like the clich of the internet. But I'm just like, I need your skincare routine, like I need to know, um, But no, I likewise, I mean, I was put on every medication accutane, which by the way, is terrible for terrible teenage minds and depression. But you didn't know back then. Yeah, I did everything. My skin was so devastatingly ad oh man. I mean, I thank you for sharing that with me. And I don't talk about it a lot because it still is so traumatic. I still have so much fear I'm going to get as cystic, you know, pimple um and and like I never went on accutane um, but I was on like horrible rounds of antibiotics for like for so many months at a time, which just ravaged my system. And um, yeah, I think it's such a testament to like what you see in other people and like the perfection that you project onto them when you know, we all are like struggling with various traumas and I have scars on my skin that I you know, it's all I can see when I look at myself. Um, so thank you for saying that. And I'm gonna try to again. I'm going to try to speak to myself that way. And you have them, so I think about it. I'm seriously every time I watch a video, you make like she's Arista. She got like a baby angel, but on her face it's just perfect. It's never seen the sun. So congratulations, Well, congratulations to you, and thank you. See look at the affirmation circle is alive and well it's everyone at home. Please look in the mirror and tell yourself you have beautiful skin. Yes,