Future Projects and Personal Wellness

Can I just ask Shut up Evan? I'm curious. Could you shut up Evan? One thing I was thinking about shut up Evan. So there are some rumors out there. Evan shut up. Is it okay if I just ask ut S uph Okay, but kind of shut up Evan . I didn't even say anything . Shut up, heaven. Um This is a long time coming. Yeah. Well, in addition to being IRL friends , we also are nearly roommates. We can I say we live in the same building any building. We have watched white lotus finales together . I have babysat your cats. I mean, like we are legitimate friends. Because you know, sometimes with people you're like, We're industry friends. Like we bump into each other. No, like, if I need a cup of sugar, I'm gonna go knock on your door. We've had like tea in the morning. We run into each other in the elevator. It's so nice when we run into each other like on the street or whatever. Yes. Even in zero degrees, I was like my only gripe with where our neighborhood is the traffic. Otherwise it's fabulous. Do you think you'll stay there? I would like to. But I ask because it's like so often when I bump into you, you're either on your way out or you have just come from myriad travel and not only do you have industry, you have multiple movies that you are promoting right now. I was like, Girl, what are you talking about? But that's true. Well, you have one that came out relatively recently, but it's still in the Ethernet, then you have a horror movie, which is your return to the genre that I love you for so much. Anyway, which we'll get to, but needless to say, the girl travels quite a bit . So is that something that you get used to? Like does Brooklyn still feel like home for you or kind of like anywhere you go is its own home ? No, I mean Brooklyn No , not at all. Brooklyn is totally home for me. I was literally just on the phone this morning with someone and said, I can't tell you how happy I am to be home. And home is really like home is Brooklyn, but H isome also literally my actual apartment . I'm really connected to my things . I love my furniture. I love my dishware . I like the soap I have, you know what I mean? I love my bed. I just invested in a new mattress and I got the feather bed topper from the Ritz Carlton. That's good . Because sleeping is really important . The quality of sleep is important and my home is my sanctuary. So really what it is is like that exact space with all my things that are familiar to me, my cats, that's home. I have figured out how to travel well enough. I just got back from London yesterday and I don't feel jet lagged, which is cool. I went to the gym yesterday. Wow. The way I solve it is like getting on the time zone as quickly as possible. Eat when I'm supposed to eat there, exercise if I can't, tucker myself so that I can go to sleep at an appropriate time, you know? And I've always been curious about this with you because you're traveling so much, you have a husband , a beautiful husband, who I know and love as well . But how is that aspect of it? Like because obviously traveling getting to, see all these amazing places is great. And sometimes he gets to come with you . But it's something I think about is sort of the way you're forced to be away from the people you love. And obviously you find these casts and they become a family of sorts, best case scenario, but it's not the same as a husband. I am so lucky that Armando's schedule has allowed him to travel most places with me for long stretches of time . We started long distance, so we're no stranger to that aspect, which was nice. It wasn't like a massive jarring thing where we suddenly had to decide how do we make long distance work in our relationship because that's how we started. A lot of couples, like friends of mine, have different rules . But what I have heard is the like standard is like not longer than four weeks. Four to six weeks if that's life if someone's shooting in Bulgaria or whatever and it's difficult to get to. But a lot of couples don't go longer than three or four weeks without trying to see each other. But the difficult thing about that is it just becomes expensive. If you're both traveling all over the place , it's really, really expensive . So what I try to do is whenever I have a companion ticket , I take him with me and like not my manager or whatever. They're really, really compassionate about it. You need my man. I was like, God, they were like, don't you need someone to and I was like, What I need is for someone to cuddle me at night, obviously because this shit is stressful. Yeah . So I try to take him wherever I can have him because yeah, what is exciting about all these things that we are so privileged to do is like I'm experiencing so much life and so much of the world and it really is not it doesn't hit as hard when I don't get to share it with him. When you thought about this career for yourself like way back when what did success look like to you? Because even now you're talking about like getting to travel to all these places. I imagine that that might not have been something you thought of way back when of like, oh, a byproduct of all of this is going to be working with brands like Mumu and traveling to these amazing places. When you're a young actor, I think it's just sort of about getting work, getting to do your craft , but there's this whole other part of it that opens up when you find success as you have. Yeah, this is actually so funny. I think it's because we're friends and I feel comfortable, but it's like actually making me emotional think about it because way back when, which was not that long ago in college and then, my whole entire dream , my only goal was to go beyond Broadway. By any means necessary. My life was going be to a career on Broadway in New York . I didn't think about traveling. I didn't think about being on TV . I never , ever imagined that there was a pathway to working with or even being in the same room as like the folks from Mumu or whatever, like being involved in fashion in the way that I have been or celebrity culture in the way that I have been was not even a twinkle in my eye. I was like, if I go get a course role on Broadway and I live in New York, that's my dream. So all of this, all of the things that have happened upon me . So many people are like, What is it like? I'm like, bro, I'm not even really like I just became used to it because you become adaptable. That's I'm adaptable for a living . But to like pause and this happens all the time, me and Mondo are like, bro, are like, look at your life . It's insane to me that I have turned a corner and seen my own face in the window of a sunglass hut or whatever in the Mew campaign for sunglasses It is crazy crazy. It is so crazy to me. It is such a gift . I feel so happy that like Other creative realms, fashion, whatever those people have recognized what I do and appreciated what I do as an actor so much so that they want to involve me in their art . But it's not something I imagined for myself just because Broadway actors don't do that . They don't do that, honey. No, they are scraping by on significantly less than a living wage. They spend eight hours of their day working on their bodies, on their gifts, on their whatever. They do eight shows a week, they have no life outside of it, and they just do it because they love they love, to perform . And that was my whole gig . And it's not really changed. It's translated to a global thing. I get to do what I do all over the world, which is absolutely insane. Do you think the Broadway dream is in the pipeline for you? Gar . I will admit I'm spoiled now. I'm pretty spoiled because they work a million times harder than I've ever worked and make significantly less . They don't have time off, you know what I mean ? So whenever that dream is realized, it's going to be for a project I'm extremely passionate about that I'm willing to take myself out of my current career for a year at least. That means no movies, no shows, no whatever. And I have found a new great love for TV and film So I'm going to have to it's going to have to be a time in my life in which I'm okay to put that on pause it must be different now. But when I was growing up and learning about musical theater and going to school for it and live plays, whatever . It was really about like, do these roles, not like, what does it mean for you, Mahala, this body to do that role? And now I understand like the importance and my commitment to representation , what does it mean for someone who looks like me to do xy Z That importance, I don't think has reached the Broadway community yet in a way that it has TV film . And just purely, there's less opportunities, there's less roles, there's less shows . So I want to come back to it when whatever it is that I'm doing is like an amazing opportunity for like the wider storytelling of what it means for me to do anything. It makes me think about the fact that when I was younger, this term color blind casting would always be used, especially like a child of musical theater when we would do like, you know, shows at like the regional theaters in my neighborhood. And within that context it was the idea of like, well, it's that same phrase of like we don't see color. And what you're talking about is the idea of like, well , no, you have to if we put someone of a different race in a role that was written to be one race , it changes the context of the show . And it might be really enriching to lean into that and say, okay , we've changed the ingredients for this recipe. So how does it taste different as a result? Totally. Don't get me wrong, there's so many productions, producers, actors, directors, writers who are making really relevant work that honors this thing that you're talking about however, I think and this goes for TV and film too, but like so much more in live theater . There's just it feels like there's just a lot less development of new artists, of young artists , of new work in like a really meaningful way . So I look forward to the day when I have the time means, the energy, and the passion about a project that I can be a part of something like that. You know how actors are always asked to do the letter box four of their films? As a child of musical theater, I'm wondering, do you have your musical theater quote unquote letter boxed four? No, but I'm going to figure it out right now because I feel like this is important . It's so funny because you and I have never connected on the fact that we're both like musical theater girlies. That's really crazy because yeah, when I answer this then you have to answer it Okay, well I think I have to say the first one is once on this island . Pause for Tima. Yeah, Tim . Yeah, that one really crushed me. Not getting that really crushed me when they did the revival. I was like, oh , I'm crushed . So that one. Also, that was like my first exposure to musical theater. Whilst I was still in the womb. Wow. And my mom said I was tap dancing inside of her belly. I feel like waiting for life to begin is not giving its due in the canon of great I want songs. It's louder for the people in the back and I wonder why . Yeah , yeah. I wonder why. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.. Here I am Why is that? It's not because it's a very difficult song to sing, I'll tell you that . Once of this island , The Drousy Chaperone. Classic The twenty fifth Annual Putin County Spelling Bee? Yes And into the woods Wow Okay she's giving us range Of course. I would love to see you in twenty fifth Annual Putin County Spelling Bee. You can see a little piece of it online The Jimmy Awards. Wow. twelve. You've put in the work . It's like the fact that you can YouTube view at the Jimmy Awards. That is a credential that is important. Thank you very much. You know, and it's one thing to say you love musical theater. It's one thing to say you've done the musical the ater to have been on stage at the Jimmy Awards, that is of a different echelon. Listen, it was my life's goal and I was serious about it. I still am. Yeah, no totally am. Okay, putting down my four Sunday in the Park with George is probably my favorite. Gypsy. Oh, yeah, great. I also will stand by the fact that like, I'm really into like musical theater structure . And I think the musical of Gypsy, there is no musical that is better structure. Like where you end that show from an audience perspective, you have been, you've lived a thousand lives with pros . You'd be a really good Louis . Didn't get that one either. Okay, well, you know what? There's always another revival on Broadway . It was not the right time. Exactly not the right time. I had to do industry, anyway, so yeah. Had to do that Heavy HBO shape. I had to know I had to. I had to Spring Awakening. Oh my god, oh my god. Formative? Oh my god, yeah, oh my god, did you watch the documentary? I do, so good. I wept the whole time. So good. I wish there was more documentaries of the making these musicals like this. I feel like it was so enriching to learn about the behind the scenes and this thing that meant so much to so many people kind of being celebrated because when I was NYU I was the kid at three thirty AM waking up, going and getting in line and waiting for those rush tickets. And fandom is important. It's community building. I'm going to ask you about fandom because I think you are both someone that inspires fandom and is a fan and so you exist in like most these two worlds . But it means something to be a part of fandom. And loving spring awakening is so like intrinsic to my DNA and I have so many fond memories of like what it was like to like chase that show and to be in that seat repeatedly and to be on the Facebook fan forum. I can't believe you saw that. Yeah. I'm so jealous . I just actually not to make this about me, but I recently had I hand wrote Jonathan Groffin note and gave it to him at the stage door wow. And he wrote me a letter back sent to my freshman year NYU dorm at U Hall on fourteenth Street. And I have I just recently framed the letter that he gave me because like these connections that you make with Broadway act ors when you are a child of musical theater, it's like there's what could be more mysterious and you're getting this face to face interaction in my case a handwritten letter. Okay so that's three four Or I think I'll go oh god. Ooh, so we oh oh oh, okay, I'd have to go Lloyd Weber. Yeah. Um, oh Phantom of the opera. Woo That's a good one. Baby , like I love Meison Phantom of the Opera. That's a really good one. Can I say justice for cats? I hear you. But we're getting the Jellico Ball . Okay , so we were talking about sort of the velocity of your career in two thousand , before industry premiered, excuse me, two thousand two thousand. Inboard . In twenty twenty girl. Yes. Before Industry premiered , you had one feature film to your name and one guest appearance on a television show. Yeah. Those who were your professional acting credits on screen. Yeah . Then the show comes along and what a show and not just a show but this role . And I got to tell you we've spoken about it privately but it needs to be on the record what you are doing with this with this role , every season, but because I'm locked in right now with four, I really can like , you know, lock into four . It is astounding. Thank you. The gravitas that you bring to this role , the way you fully flesh out Harper so that she feels so real , the way I fucking root for this woman , it's a necessary performance that if you are a fan of great performances, not only does this go on the list, but it's one you need to seek out. Okay, so with that out of the way, talk to me about landing this role and building Harper because the I imagine an exciting prospect is you get to like be immersed in her for a few months, balls to the wall, then step out, live a bit more life, take on some other roles, come back to her, rinse and repeat. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean, it was very much that. This everything about this job , the show, the role , my experience over seven and counting years over four seasons. And counting and counting has been like a once in a lifetime, once in one person's lifetime experience . When I got the show, I had just found out I didn't get another thing that I tested for , that the director was like, You're gonna get this. It's yours. Here's the rate. Here's the la w we've done the contract. Everything. We'd done like a deal in anticipation of me getting this role and I didn't get it. I was like planning how this money was going to change my life, my family's life. I was, you know, this was like, oh my, career is going to start and I was crushed. And it was like one of those times in which I'd been said no to enough times that I was like, What's wrong with me? I also was bald at the time. I was just wearing a shaved head and a little bit androgynous. So I thought, Oh my god, like do I have to grow my hair out? Do I have to be more like them presenting? Do I was looking at all these other girls getting these roles that I wasn't getting? And I was thinking, do I have to be more like them ? And so I was going through a bit of a post grad crisis . And like maybe a week later, industry came along, the audition in my inbox as like any other audition. I was like, oh okay, I gotta throw this on . I was like kind of depressed at the time and I was meant to like go party with my friends when we were like pre gaming before the club. And I forgot about this audition. And I was like, oh my god, oh my god , can you guys film this with me before we go out? So I was like a little buzzed while I did the initial audition and thank God, I don't know what they saw because I watched those tapes back not that long ago and I was like ye what was I doing? But they asked me to do a callback. Do you know what I love about you? There's a world in which you're like, I have this aud ition. I can't go out tonight. And you're like, I have this audition. Let's get this tape done before we go out. No, honey, I had to go. I had to go, I wanted to go out. We had plenty of time. It wasn't that. The sides weren't that long , you know ? Clearly I was going through it. I wouldn't do that today , but would I might I might take yourself too seriously. You know what I mean? Take the work seriously but not yourself. Yeah . So yeah, I did a call back, a couple more scenes added and I had a meeting with Mickey and Conrad where they were just explaining here's what happens in the rest of the season for context . And then I did after that, they were satisfied with those tapes. I did a not tipsy redo. I met with Lina Dunham. We did our callback in person and then they sent me to Wales to do a chemistry read and it was my first time out of the country. I had to get a passport and everything to go. And it was so funny. I remembered while I was literally on the train from London to Wales . I was like, wow, it's so crazy. When I was like in high school, I was on, I don't remember what they're called, but on YouTube, there was these like music channels or it was like alt music from like around the world and so many of them, so many of my favorite artists were from London and I was like, One day I'm gonna get out of this town of San Jose and go to London and like be with the real artists . And I was like, wow, I've really done the thing. I was in Wales , but you know what? The thing could be defined in many ways. Absolutely. I did the chemistry read. I was the only one there for Harper most people was a hand thereful of us. It was only one of us, and then a couple other roles there was two people, but I was the only one there for Harper . And like three or four days later I found that I got the role. Bizarrely enough, it was a couple days before my birthday and I was also doing a workshop of Hell's Kitchen with Miss Alicia Keys . And I was like, maybe this is gonna be my and then I got the show and I was like, oh , next time. They didn't invite me back anyway. It wasn't for me, but some really great things were all happening to me like at one time around my birthday and whatever. And then they were like, okay, you're going to go shoot for six months in Wales. You're gonna leave this show and good luck. And I imposter syndrome my way through it and faked it till I made it . And it really like when it ended and I came back to the states it was like, did that even happen? It was such a fever dream . And I was like waiting until it came out to prove to myself that it had actually happened. And when I came back, we locked down for COVID like two weeks later. I was gonna ask you about that. So you filmed the entire first season before it ever airs. Yeah , which is kind of like the norm now, but what's so funny is like when I was younger and when television used to be twenty two, twenty four episodes , you would be able to have an audience reaction to the first half, if not, you know, even less, even third of your show . And what were people reacting to, what they liked, what they didn't like? And maybe that could not necessarily dictate where the show would go, but give you a sense of like is the audience connecting with this? Do they like this? And with the way that this show is make you made this entire first season in silo and then you have no way of knowing like is it any good beyond your own experience of it and whether or not you think you did good work? Yeah. Was that weird? Yeah completely. Also like it was the first time I'd ever been sent screeners so that I could watch the show before I started to do press around it . And they were still figuring out what the show was. I mean, we didn't figure it out in the first season, but they were doing a bunch of editing and I got a really raw version. It hadn't been colored , the sound wasn't done. And I was like, I am terrible in this show . I sucked so badly. I was like, Oh my God, my career's not even begun and it's over. Like this is, so bad. And then I saw the version that was like colored with the sound and everything and it was great. But I didn't have the experience to understand , to be able to look beyond those pieces of the edit that were not there. It's amazing the difference all of the elements of an edit make on 's like level of goodness or its success . And also when it aired, we were doing a classic HBO one a week and then something was going on with HBO Max and they were like, We want to try dropping the rest of the season . So they dropped five through eight all in like a day so that the rest of the world could binge and it was like in the height of COVID. So they were just trying some shit out. There's a small percentage of people who remember that those are like our day one fans who remember that weird drop thing who watched it all in one night and by a small by a small percentage of people, I really mean my husband . My husband was the one he was like, I remember the day they dropped it and then I finished the season at like three in the morning blah, blah,, whatever. But yeah, it was all really bizarre. And I was doing all my press alone in an apartment where people were like, The success of the show is, could do you feel the vibes? I was like, No . So this show has truly been a slow burn. What's unique about industry is both the audience is growing and then in my estimation the quality of the show continues to increase . I want to say that the quality of the show has always been good so this increase is not like all of a sudd en industry's good. It's more like industry's always been good and I think it just keeps eclipsing its own sense of goodness in this remarkable way. Also just the way the world of the show kind of expands is also just remarkable . But from the inside , what does it felt like watching this show kind of continue to like break various levels of containment in a at a slower pace than I think other shows have. And how does that feel? This feels like a like lightning struck situation in so many ways this whole show because COVID happened which slowed us down a lot and affected whether or not we were going to be picked up. And at what point in the show's release into the world were we going to get picked up ? But we have had, which I think is a pretty long time between seasons for TV , almost a year and a half between every season except for between season three and four. So a lot of life has like happened in the midst, and our writers Mickey Conrad are in my humble opinion geni,us , and they write for their actors. They write for the world now, today, right this minute . So what our show has been able to do is grow and evolve with the times . They as writers as well, Mickey and Conrad have challenged themselves. This started as a show about what happens inside of a bank and they said, Well, what happens when we take these characters who we know and love now and whatever season two and we take them outside of the bank? And I think that that also makes it a little less niche, which is why how I think we've attracted a larger audience as well . And the show has really has been really popular like inside baseball. Like the industry itself, the entertainment industry, the film and television industries have been a fan of this show for a long time. So then by season three, we're attracting the likes of Kid Harrington and in four, Max Menela and there's been so many people along the way , Jay Duplace in season two those people also bring their audiences . So that's part of how I think the show has expanded over time . But I think the quality not decreasing has everything to do with HBO . HBO is the king of TV. They just do it right. They do it well and integrity of the product is like the most important thing to them and also McKinne Conrad. They refuse to do anything that they think is bad . And they are extremely harsh critics of themselves and to push themselves as writers , every episode as if it's their last is, I think, the thing that continues to make it so exciting. So what we've really seen this season with Harper is, is it fair to say in the past season she's been more of a subordinate within the workforce ? And in this season, she's really taking center stage and saying , I have information , I can bring a team on board. I can kind of be an adversary. I can take, you know, it's just she's owning her power in a sense. And we see that thinking about the premier episode , when we watch her strap on, well strap on, that strap on But I really think in that moment that really is a metaphor for Harper's journey throughout the entirety of season four. How did you sort of view Harper as she existed at the outset of season four, but as we make our journey, excuse me , as we make our way through the journey on . What did you make of Harper's journey in season four from the beginning to where we ended? And by the way, we ended on that plane Stewart comes over . Thank goodness , we got the announcement that we have a season five. Yeah, it would have been terror to see that and then just be like, well, is that a series finale? Is that a season ale? Now we know, but yeah, talk to me about your experience of Harper through season four. I was so excited. I was like, finally bitch that she gets I get to play her from a place of power . She's always been desperately clinging, clawing , reaching , and now she's holding firm because I mean, I think she says that her reputation on the street now is that she's a bulldog and she's creative and she's got a clientele now. She's working at a fund . She eventually gets to break away and create her own fund where the choices are all hers . And I was so excited to like do what does it look like when Harper's still like she's still doing risky business . She's still you know making these plays that have no guarant ee and she's really sort of kind of playing catch up as she goes along, but it's not like a desperate it's not a desperate approach. It's a quiet, it's a still bearing confidence and a trust in her own ability and her own luck in this thing that I was really , really excited to play . And also it opens up a whole other can of beans. Like her relationships now, I think, are a little bit different. The way she moves, some people are like, Oh, it's really slimy, it's really really this, but she moves in a way that is not unlike male counterparts. Yeah . She's just doing the work that all of that those dudes are already doing. She's doing it in a sexy woman body. And human beings are slimy. Yeah, totally. Speaking of relationships, I'd love to touch down on Harper's relationship with Yasmin. It's obviously I was going say to it's been contentious from the outside, but that's not even true. I feel like the great thing about their relationships are the ebbs and flows of it . But certainly, you know, we delved into new territory recently. There's a great tweet going around just saying something akin to the fact that like everyone on industry is bisexual and this season especially but we get this great moment at the end of seven with you and her going out together . She just says she needs a night out. She wants a lore night out. Yeah. We all know what a lore night out is. Perhaps you had a lore night out when you were first doing your bringing your self. My lord night out was right after my audition for industry. I'm sure it was. And I want to hear about your friendship with Marisa. I mean, obviously, you guys have this relationship on screen between Harper and Yasmin, but I think part of what informs that relationship is how close the two of you are offscreen. I think if Marisa and I didn't deeply, deeply love and respect each other. Harper and Yasmin just couldn't be who they are purely on the page. And Mickey and Conrad say this all the time. They say like, you know, we write for the actors that we have. We're inspired by their relationships. This is true about me and Ken Long who plays Eric Tao. I mean, talk about chemistry. We love each other. This is the thing. Like we have such a deep love and respect and a long relationship with one another that everything we are as real friends is underneath Harper and Eric. It's underneath Harper and Yasmin. 'Cause on the page, every time I read a scene between Harper and Yazin, I'm like why are they still friends? How could they possibly they've been through so much? It makes no sense, but the truth is they love each other like sisters because Maurice and I love each other like sisters and Mickey Conrades see that and they say, OK , because it's television and these are the characters we have, like what could they possibly do to each other and still come back from because the love is so deep and the history is so long? I say all the time in my team sometimes are like girl, but I'm like, Give me a chemistry read, please . Like it is so important to me that whatever it is that I'm doing with someone and I need to have chemistry with them that it's there because it makes a world of difference. If Maurice and I didn't like each other, the characters, the show would just not be what it is . And I'm passionate about making good art . I'm passionate about creating relations hips that are deeply meaningful and confusing and challenging to the story and to the audience and to us as a people. Like this is why we like the show because it's challenging . So ye yeahah,, I love Marisa. I was in her wedding. It was super duper fun. It looked fucking fun . The sodas were great. Amazing. I mean, you talk about this this sisterhood between them and the show, but you know, we did get they were they were making out in that club. Yeah. At the end of seven . So can you talk about what happened there? And obviously we've seen I would say we've seen a lot of kissing this. We've seen a lot of everyone's fucking lot of things. You've seen everything, I think, actually at this point. A lot of things . Yeah. Things I didn't even know you could see on television and lo and behold, they're like no and I'm not complaining. But yeah, can you talk about that kiss in the club? You said something interesting which you were like, oh, I feel like you like love a fandom but are also a fan , like, yes, I'm also a fan. I'm a fan. I love to love things and be involved . You know what I mean? So when I read that, I was like, Whoa , yes . I was like, finally fans online had been shipping this relationship or sort of like a fictional version that they had made up kind of fanfic as very popular these days. People had imagined this for a long time. Yeah, yeah. And we gave it to them. Not because it was fan service. Mickey Konrad was really good about that. They're on Twitter, they read everything as well, but they're not doing any of that to like satisfy the audiences. That kiss was not meant to be homoerotic. It just happened to be , that was an extension into the physical world of their deep love for one another . Like in musical theater, they say, What happens to these characters? Why do they sing? We sing because words spoken word no longer suffices , right? And in that moment they need ed to be held , and they had a tender, platonic kiss . They were also definitely on drugs. Let's not forget that part . They had to have been very high. Yeah . You kiss your girl when you're high . Who has not kissed their girlie when they were high ? Come on . And they wanted to feel young. That's what I was doing when I was young girl than I am now. Yes . So please by all means, fans and also me, continue to ship the fanatical version of this relationship. Like we love that. It's fun, it's exciting. You know, it brings the audience members together. It gives you a sense of community . But really it's a lot deeper than like they were kind of horny . On the note of being a fan , I think that that's something that it's easy to look at fandom today and talk about the toxicity of fandom . But on the flip side, I think that there's so much goodness in fandom and part of fandom as it exists today often is being online and being online is especially you identified in a recent profile as chronically online and that's something I definitely feel about myself as well. I think we are chronically we are amongst the chronically online, which I think a lot of people are for better or wor forse, but it's easy to sort of zero in on the four worse aspect of it, sure. Yeah. But can you talk about the good aspects of being chronically online as it relates to fandom and community? What are they? Are there any are there any ? I think it's that feeling a sense of community. This is kind of like a wider conversation as well as like is the internet a good thing or a bad thing. Like good things and bad things can happen on a platform that connects people . And in a world where so much stuff occurs on the internet, our show happens online . You can't have every single person who loves industry watch every episode at the same time. So the beauty of that is being able to be like, there are other people in the world with other perspectives all over who are enjoying this and I want to engage in a conversation about it. What was that app thing where you could like log in there was you could like speak and they had big conferences conferences about stuff. I think it was in COVID, do you remember? Oh, oh, oh House party . House party Yes. Okay , I did the coolest house party ever when this thing, when industry came out in twenty twenty , and it was a house party of all these young black people in finance who were watching industry in real time. And they invited me and I got to talk to them and it was super duper cool . And that wouldn't exist if like fans of things didn't get on the internet and find one another . And so many people reached out to me and they were like, It's so cool that you joined us. This show is so important to me in terms of representation, la . So this is the thing, the beautiful , the opportunity to find community on the internet. The inevitable thing is I think people have some thoughts that might not be nice, but they feel empowered to share them also on the internet . And that is kind of just like a product of being alive . How do you balance that? Because I too am someone that people have said negative things about on the internet. And one thing I see sometimes people say is they're like, well he went and searched his name and I'm like, I guarantee you, I'm not searching my name. The algorithms bring you the negative shit that people say about you, even when you try to avoid it . No, I will shamelessly admit, I absolutely have Googled my own name. I absolutely have searched in Twitter my own name. How'd that go for you? This is why I have done it more than once overwhelmingly . Usually and I feel like I'm really lucky , usually I see nice things about the show that I'm passionate about. And let me be really clear, I only ever really do this when the show comes out. And I have actually like seen people say some stuff about my work that was not necessarily complimentary that I also agreed with. And that to me is educ ational. I'm like, Ah, okay, see, I had the same feeling about this scene or this thing. Somebody else noticed it? Okay , cool. How then can I use that to inform the choices I make going forward? I choose to see it as an opportunity to just better my work instead of taking that as like a bad thing . I'm still of the mind that like art should be criticized within an inch of its life . Or else how are we going to know to make it better or change it or evolve with the times? I'm glad you said that because we always have this news cycle comes up every once in a while and I don't know. Sometimes I think an actor or something will say it and then other actors will be asked about it and it kind of snowballs from there. But it will basically be people within the creative community pushing back at the idea of the importance of criticism . And I think why that conversation gets like kind of murky is that the idea of what a critic is today is it's more hard to define than ever. There existed a little bit more standard bearers at one point around you're a critic. You work for this publication . You went to school for did people go to school for criticism? Journalism . Anyway, but like I'm a BFA. You had criticism in a few days to make it seem as though you were someone who your perspective was valuable. Your opinion matters in the space. But these days someone will go on Twitter and spout off, you know, one of those lengthy tweets. And sometimes from a random account, sometimes I'll read it and I'll be like, wow, I had never thought about that. That is a really interesting perspective . User XIV two thousand six, like sixty nine, sixty nine sixty nine. It's me. That's you. I found you. That's your burner. But so it's interesting because I am of the mindset of like, yeah, I really appreciate the institutional standard bearers, like critics and everything. And yet I do think there is value in random people logging on and spouting off their opinion . But then by calling it all of it criticism under the same umbrella , it invites in so many bad faith critics. I don't ingest it the same as I would like a someone who has a BFA in criticism, do you know what I mean? Yeah . You have to use your own discernment. You have to have a level of confidence in yourself to like not let that knock you so hard. It doesn't really always work for me . But maybe also I have a habit of just taking the stuff that is useful and leaving the stuff that isn't good bad or otherwise, you know , but yeah , I agree. It's hard to tell the difference. I also think what we value now , the greater we, what we value now in a in a criticism or in a critic is different than it may have been some time ago I think we are slowly descending into madness and an obsession with celebrity that I have never known before. So I think regardless of where they went to school or what BFA they have in criticism, people are like, I'm listening to you because you're famous and I like you. Yeah, talk to me about that because one of these interesting things we've seen come up, especially recently people, whether it be at film festivals, on carpets, in profiles, what have you being asked about their opinions about a myriad of issues that extend beyond just their work. So some of it can be like about the industry, right? Asking them like, what are your thoughts on AI or these pending mergers or whatnot? And then other instances asking them about, you know, what's going on in Gaza the Trump administration, what have you . And sometimes we've seen really inarticulate responses and then those people being criticized for not being well spoken enough on these subjects. And one of my immediate reactions sometimes is wondering why we place so much importance in celebrity and their thoughts. With that, there are some celebrities. Like I know you love Mark Ruffalo. That are great examples of like have really smart , thoughtful, considered opinions and have a megaphone and use it really effectively. One of my larger worries is this expectation that everyone can be a M ark Ruffalo when I think Mark Ruffalo's are more rarefied air and should be taking up more oxygen. Yeah, yeah, Mark Ruffalo is an actor, a career actor who happens to also invest himself deeply in politics and social justice and feels called to let that be a huge part of his life and let that be public facing. I agree. I think I'm one of those people as well that like it's just in my nature to like care about social justice. Politics a little bit loud it gets crunchy for me because I'm Genzy. That's not true. I'm actually a millennial. I'm just a cussper. But wait, are you really? I'm ninety six , the last the last living millennials. Wow. But anyway, yeah, I mean that's that's this is like this is like what you're saying. It makes me feel like we as a people are obsessed with celebrities. So like if you're a celebrity, you don't have the same rules , you don't have the same rules. The same the same humanities are not expected of you. So if you're , you know, you you could say could say it well, you could say it poorly. People are going to have something to say about it because you're a celebrity and like we can say whatever we want about you because you're like not human. We wouldn't say it to your face probably, but it doesn't really matter because you're not a real person. You're a celebrity. I feel like there was a time when actors were not necessarily celebrities . And now the way that film and television has integrated with fashion and celebrity culture has now created this thing that like actors also kind of have to be celebrities if they want to have XYZ happen in their careers . This is the thing I struggle with as well , being like vulnerable and authentic . But when you're a celebrity , you're a personality and that's not even all the way real. It's this desire to as fans. And I use I almost use air quotes when I say it because sometimes I don't even think that's the word for the way people a certain subset of people treat celebrity. I don't even necessarily know if fan is the word, but it's this idea that like we want them to be completely dimensional , but we also require them to be flattened. Totally. Right. And so it's like this, we want these seemingly these things that are in conflict with one another . I've seen several instances of a celebrity being asked about an issue, whether it be political or social justice and say, I don't have a good answer. I'm not well read on that. And then getting their ass handed to them. And I'm like, what would it be more sufficient if they lied and gave you whatever answer you think you want, but it had nothing behind it? Would that be more satisfying? I'm of the mindset of like, I'd rather the honesty of like, I don't know. And maybe I should read up on that. You're so damned if you don't that it makes it hard to have meaningful conversations. Yeah. Figure out who actually cares about what? Now having been like in this world long enough, like I know that I can say this and it gets taken so far out of context and confused and lala and I'm like, I would rather not say anything at all. It's not like damned if I do or damned if I don't but it's like the danger of this being taken so far out of context to not only my career but like my friends and family or whatever you know it's so wow, that's really interesting. I just lost my train of thought. I'm really curious, I'm kind of woosaw. I'm really curious if that was because whatever I was about to say I shouldn't say for this very reason or if I just forgot . Well, it's gone now. No, it is interesting. It's one of those things I think a lot about with regard to the fact of what do we want out of our celebrities in twenty twenty six? And I don't think there's an answer and I don't think it's monolithic per se , but I think there is a strange desire, an expectation that I think a lot of people have around visibility, transparency, access and there's something about it that a lot of people treat it as very implicit that it's like, oh yeah, like we just have the right to know everything about these people and we have the right to ask them about anything and have them expound upon anything. And in my mind, I'm like, I don't necessarily need to know every celebrity's take on XYZ things, bringing the Mark Ruffalo of it all back into it. When there are people like him who, as you said, have dedicated part of their life's work to this , then I find it really valuable. Yeah. That's why I like things, for instance, like the ice outpin kind of invites the conversation from a reporter's side of things to be like, this is clearly something that's important to you . So as such, maybe I can ask you about it and maybe you'll have something to say about it. There's also something to be said about like you don't know what anyone's family is like, you don't know their background. You don't know their citizenship status. Like some people actually literally can't talk about some things . And that's the unfortunate thing about everyone feeling like have an entitlement to like judge someone . You just don't know, you know. Yeah. It's this is the tricky thing with being well not just an actor, but it's like you want an environment in which you feel as comfortable as possible to just speak , but the fear of that is if you just speak I'll just speak and not just you, but like anyone, but it's like it's that difficult thing of like, would you rather be in an environment where you feel so comfortable you can just speak? Or is it better to be somewhere that you're less comfortable so that you have the guardrail of not feeling like anything's gonna come out. I mean, when I don't feel comfortable, I just don't want to talk to the person. I'm like, When is this over? You're so annoying or boring or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I always would like to feel safe. I think everyone wants to feel safe. Anything anybody knows about me is completely out of context. Like if you don't know me personally, it's all out of context . People are going to say whatever and I would rather feel free to like continue to be myself , express myself because I know it comes from like an honest, heartfelt place , then feel so bound by , I think just like I don't have the personality to be unknowable. It feels contradictory to who I am as a person in terms of like my like I like to be authentic and be able to talk to, you know, however, whoever, wherever. The second I start to think about the perception of me , everything gets messed up and I get uncomfort able and it just feels like my soul is being ripped apart . It's tough because like by the nature of what you do , so much of people's perceptions of you are thrust at you. It's so on like toward you , that even if you go through life in this attempt of like not trying to make it's like what RuPaul says. It's like what everybody else says about me is not my business which is a great way to move through life but, I think in your particular line of work easier said than done. If your public persona was not like half the reason you get a paycheck . Yeah, completely . Has being a famous person, is it something you get used to ? No, I literally just cringed so hard when you said that . Well, because I don't think of myself that way. Like I don't I hardly think of myself that way. I actually have this theory like as famous people? We as people signal to the world how we want them to treat us . If I like went everywhere with an entourage , always tried to be incognito and like made a big to do about being seen or captured, I think that signals to the outside world, the press, whoever, they're like, ooh, that's someone that I should be trying to catch. Yes. I take the train all the time, everywhere. I go places by myself . I'm like, whatever about that. Also, to be fair, I'm not really famous enough. Like there are people that I'm friends with who need a bodyguard because people will come up to them and like touch them. That'll be fair enough, but you are the star of a hit television show on HBO . Thank you. But I think I signal to people how I want them to treat me . You know , I don't make a big to do I don't try to push the world away because when you push people away, they're inevitably gonna be nosy and they want to know more. Yeah . So because I'm not doing that , I think people are like, Oh, well, that's all there is to whatever. There's a choice that one has to make that in the fame ecosystem how much of yourself you're willing to submit. Yeah. I was in Toronto for TIF and we were staying in a hotel right across the street from the carpet and I was like, Should we just walk? We were like waiting for the car to make a U turn in the middle of the street to like pull us up the carpet to I was like. And, can we just walk? It's right across the street. And everyone was like, You can't walk onto the carpet. And I was like, yeah, I fucking can. It's right there. Like, what? And they're like, well, everyone else is arriving in a car. I'm like, so what? Really like honestly , if that's the thing that the world is gonna decide devalues me because I can't step onto my own carpet, give me a fucking break. Do you know what I mean? These boots were made for walking. Yes . And that's just what they'll do. Yes . Okay, a couple ask questions. Okay . Bodies, bodies, bodies too. Oh. I'm being one of those people that I hate, oh, where someone loves something and so just asks an actor that was involved in a thing they love if there's going to be a sequel and then puts it out there as though now the headlines becomes like Mahola talks about bodies bodies too. Can I tell you though the girl's group chat from bodies bodies bodies is still very much alive and well. And the last time we had dinner , we literally talked about how can we make another movie together ? So eight twenty four, if you're listening , we reunite the girlies in a new format. And it's bodies, bodies, bodies, bodies. Body's cubed. Body's cubed is kind of fierce. That could be fun. Body's cubed. Talk to me about they will kill you. Oh, he's coming out very, very soon. As I said earlier, it's your return to the horror genre because like bodies bodies bodies horror is . Yeah. If it's like horror comedy, but what can you tell us about this film? Because the premise sounds pretty wild. Yeah, I mean, this is also that thing, a blending of genres. It's, I would call this like whatever Kill Bill is it's like a thriller slasher thingy gory thingy . But it's cool. I mean, it's like so actiony Kiril Sokolov, who's our director is like a gamer. He loves video games and he shot the whole thing. It feels like you're sort of in a video game. It's really cool. Zassie, who is our lead slasher girly , the work that she does physically in this movie is phenomenal. She's like, she obviously had a stunt person, but she does like, I don't know, more than half of the stuff in the movie or at least attempted most of it while we were shooting. We've got a really awesome cast, Patricia Arquette is there, Tom Felton . And it's really fun and it's really funny. There's some amazing needle drops . I would say anticipate having a great time in the theater. And can you tell people what the premise of the film is and what role you play with in all of it? Yeah. So young girl gets out of prison and she goes on a search for her sister and she finds her sister in a very old hotel in New York and she pretty quickly discovers that the hotel is housing a satanic cult . So she has to and the entire building is made so that you can never leave. So she has to fight her way through this build ing to find her sister and then attempt to escape. I'm seated . So they will kill you is coming out soon. Obviously industry season four just wrapped. We got the announcement about industry season five. Yes. I read that you were developing some stuff of your own as well. Yes. Anything you want to tease about that because I am very curious. And I read that there might be a queer bent. I have written and I'm working on a handful of things. One of them is so gay you won't even know what to do with yourselves. That one I'm really excited about. It's a series . But yeah, nothing's been bought yet, so I don't know that I should necessarily it's all copywritten, but okay but there's stuff percolating. There's stuff percolating so much I mean, I want to make my own stuff. That wasn't always my goal, but now I'm like, oh my god, I have stories to tell . Let me go tell them. Let me go, you know, figure it out. You have stories to tell and you have experience making art with people that have taught you and given you the mechanics to figure out how to make these stories in your head, how to bring them to life. Yeah. And you have an audience that wants to see them . Are there any aspirations you have outside of acting or creating work in the entertainment sphere ? Yes. All of the things that are coming to me have nothing to do with work. I'm like, I want to buy a house. I want to start a family. I want to, you know what I mean? I am extremely passionate about vintage, about fashion . And I also love other old things like furniture and whatever. I would love my husband and I have this like fantasy, this dream of one day when we're like, you know, old, whatever , of having like a cafe and and shop that has like stuff from our farm that we've developed and like antique furniture and knick knacks and maybe some clothes and also we do like a matcha series and I've got relationships with farms in Kyoto and like I love Martha Stewart . So maybe some, you know, homemaking thingies . I really like candles like a Flamingo Este kind of vibe . I would love that to be a part of my future. I also really want to make a cookbook that is centered around my journey with Got Health and adjusting my lifestyle for that and how I have been able to make like comfy comfort meals out of stuff that's still like nutritious and made from whole foods and not that expensive and not too hard to make. Okay, well I got to follow up on that. I mean, can you talk to about your journey with gut health? Ooh, girl, we do not have enough time, but the short and the long of it is while filming bodies bodies bodies. I think this sort of happens to everyone around twenty five. They figure out that like everything they've ever done in their lifestyle has like been slowly killing themselves and they have to like start again, right ? And rebuild their gut microbiome , flora, whatever thing . So I got a functional nutritionist who I'm obsessed with Kendra shout out Kendra Bobo, you're amazing. She just started her own practice. If anyone wants to go, I'll hook you up for . But I just learned about what my body needed, what it was fighting and how I can support it holistically because the thing that got me in trouble during bodies was taking too many antibiotics . And antibiotics will kill everything, good and bad bacteria alike. So it was all about , for example, like you can eat two Brazil nuts, which a day, which will like help regulate the thyroid and having a vegetable snack between your breakfast and your lunch is going to help with your metabolism in a kind of way. You know, that sort of thing. And like, corn is technically a carbon and one of the hardest things to digest. Oh my god. Yeah. So does popcorn qualify as corn? I think so. Oh my god , I think it does. That one, I mean, I still I eat popcorn and I eat corn. Consciousness. Right. It's just about knowing. I also and I think this is this happens when you grow up, but I also transition to like not eating and then directly laying down and going to sleep because you get f aucking heartb and while you're sleeping , if you go to sleep right after you eat, you're digesting, so your body can't actually be in full restfulness because it's digest, you know? So the more you know. Thank you so much. I'm so glad we finally got to do this. And I just want to again say because I just I love, love, love Harper Sernah. I love her. I love watching you light up that fucking screen . I'm so sad that this season is over, but I'm so happy to know that it will always exist and that we have another season coming. And I just want to congratulate you. What a run. Thank you. What a run, but what a run sounds like it's the end of the run, but what a run and what a runway. Yeah. Thank you so much . Shut up