Latest / Age Like a Badass Mother / Ep. 33: Suzanne Savoy - How to Defy the Odds in Health and Career - ENCORE
Transcript
- 0:00Hi friends.
- 0:01Lauren here.
- 0:02Wishing you a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah.
- 0:05All the good wishes for a Happy New Year.
- 0:09This week we're going to have an encore presentation of Suzanne Savoy.
- 0:13I call her Susie. She's my good friend.
- 0:15She's a working actor.
- 0:15She's been in House of cards.
- 0:18Better call Saul, The Blacklist.
- 0:20I know you've seen her.
- 0:22This is hilarious.
- 0:23We tell the story about the time we got so high I had to take her to the emergency room.
- 0:29She's who is really funny and stay till the end.
- 0:33She talks about something very serious.
- 0:35She actually beat her stage for rectal cancer diagnosis 12 years ago.
- 0:41So talk about a badass.
- 0:43I hope that you will enjoy this episode and we will be back in February.
- 0:48Take care and enjoy the show.
- 0:51I'm Lauren and I'm Lisa, and we're flipping the script about growing older.
- 0:55Our guests have been influencers since before that was even a thing.
- 1:00Welcome to the anti Anti-Aging podcast.
- 1:03Welcome to age like a badass mother.
- 1:06Today's guest is doing something that very few people can say they have done fully support themselves as a working actor.
- 1:13You have likely seen Suzanne Savoy in one of your favorite shows or movies, including The Upside.
- 1:19House of cards, Law and Order, The Blacklist, NCIS, Better Call Saul, 30 Rock The Knick, or most recently in Steven Soderbergh's Full Circle, starring alongside Dennis Quaid, Timothy Olyphant and Clair Danes.
- 1:35Susie, as I call her, moved to Houston in her late 20s and was inspired by a chance encounter with Helen Hayes to embark on a career in acting.
- 1:45She co-founded Mercury Studio in Houston, which provided On-camera training to actors from 1986 to 2005.
- 1:53That's where I first met her.
- 1:54Susie moved to New York in 2005 with her daughter, Bonnie, and has resided there ever since.
- 2:00Her solo show, Jake Christine, presents the works of medieval French author Christine de Pasar and has toured universities and other venues since 2017.
- 2:11Susie translated all of the medieval French text to English.
- 2:1511 years ago, Susie was diagnosed with late stage rectal cancer.
- 2:20The doctors decided without telling her, which she learned from another doctor, that there was no point in trying to save her.
- 2:26So she fired all of them and got a new team and beat the cancer.
- 2:30She has had more health issues but manages them like a true badass.
- 2:35People occasionally ask Susie if she's sad about not being a star.
- 2:38She says, quote, I am a big star, damn it.
- 2:41I put my kid through college on an actor's income.
- 2:43That's huge.
- 2:44And I paid off her effing tuition in my own head.
- 2:47I'm a huge star. End quote.
- 2:50She is a bright and shining star and one of my very best friends for over 35 years.
- 2:55Please welcome actor, writer, costume designer, cancer beta, fabulous mom and friend, Suzanne Savoy.
- 3:03Welcome. Hey, hey.
- 3:05How are you?
- 3:07It's so good to see. So nice to meet you.
- 3:09Nice to meet you, too. Good to see.
- 3:12And I know you are in for class.
- 3:15Since you were teenage, you know, since I was a teenager or in my studio.
- 3:20She was my acting student.
- 3:21I was going to say you were taking acting classes.
- 3:23Is that what set you on your path to stand up comedy?
- 3:26Well I yeah I guess I'd never had the nerve.
- 3:30At that time I was doing some improv and things like that.
- 3:33But I don't know why I took acting classes because I'm clearly not an actor, I'm a comic. Susie was very generous though.
- 3:40She is with me.
- 3:41She's a good student.
- 3:42She is an amazing actor.
- 3:44She really is.
- 3:45And of course, she did comedy best.
- 3:47And I'm not surprised to hear that she was going to be doing something out there in the public eye, because she's quick on her feet and she's, you know, congenial and she's pretty and, you know, she has a great sense of humor.
- 4:01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 4:02So I it just always seemed clear that she was going to be doing so.
- 4:05And she's just a dynamo.
- 4:06So I always knew she was going to be doing something really cool.
- 4:09So here she is. And she's so it's so cool.
- 4:14That's a quite impressive list of shows, and several of which are some of my favorites, including House of Cards and Better Call Saul.
- 4:22And I went back and watch the clips with you in them.
- 4:25That's like, oh my gosh, I remember those scenes.
- 4:27I remember that those episodes.
- 4:30Yeah, well, they were they were big shows.
- 4:33They actually.
- 4:34House of cards was a troubled show for me because, you know, we were working with one of the future stars of the MeToo movement.
- 4:42And really, there was like a little power thing going on.
- 4:46And it, you know, I don't want to get into that and, you know, all that negativity.
- 4:50But it became a very positive thing for me because I realized that I didn't want to be treated that way anymore.
- 4:58There were a lot of really great people.
- 4:59The directors were just wonderful.
- 5:01And Robin Wright, oh my God, she's a goddess.
- 5:04I think that's why I love the show so much.
- 5:06Great, because there are so many women. Yeah.
- 5:09In that demographic, demographic, your demographic and powerful roles.
- 5:13Yeah. And Michael Kelly was just he's just a wonderful human being and a fabulous actor.
- 5:18So there was a lot going on. It was great.
- 5:20But here I was in a hit show, you know, in a good role.
- 5:24I was playing national chairwoman and it was, you know, it's a fun role to play.
- 5:27But there were just certain things about it that I felt like I didn't want to be treated that way by, you know, certain people.
- 5:34And I just felt like I wanted more control over the roles that I did and how things were on the set.
- 5:42So that was why I went off.
- 5:44And I decided for a while that I wasn't going to be an actor anymore.
- 5:48I just couldn't stand it.
- 5:49But instead of giving away my ball to the boys on the reset in the recess yard, I decided instead to create my own content, and I landed on something that turned out to be just a fabulous project for me in so many ways, and I'm still doing it.
- 6:09That was back in 2016.
- 6:11I think I started doing that as a Christine and I'm still doing it, and it's led to all kinds of wonderful possibilities.
- 6:18And now when I'm on set, nobody treats me bad anymore.
- 6:21Now they treat me with a lot of respect.
- 6:23I get, you know, the queen bee treatment.
- 6:25And I think it's because I sort of stood up and took things into my own hands and created my own content, my own projects.
- 6:34And I think people really respect that.
- 6:37Tell us about Christine or Christine deposition, because have you got a fascinating character that well, just give us the short version.
- 6:44And then also, you know, that you that you translated this text is crazy.
- 6:50It is crazy. So just talk about that.
- 6:53And I and I just want to say I've seen the show and it is phenomenal.
- 6:57And I saw it in Austin when you performed it.
- 7:01I don't think that place is there anymore, but it was a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theater.
- 7:05That's right.
- 7:05And that was unbelievable.
- 7:07And somebody's property.
- 7:09And there had been a joust outside the theater that day.
- 7:12So as I was doing the show, this, you know, show that supposedly takes place in the 15th century, and there's horses outside, like just a few yards away from where we were sitting, champing at the bit and stomping because there was a storm coming and you could see the storm.
- 7:29And I wish I'd been to see that I'm a project person, and so just the thought of wearing that headdress and building the gown, because I'd been a costumer and in a former light, so.
- 7:41Oh, and that costume was incredible.
- 7:43And the set, it's really heavy, but it's really fun to wear.
- 7:47She made a living as an author.
- 7:48She's one of the first women to do that right.
- 7:50She was Frances first professional female author, starting in the late 1300s and into the 1400s.
- 7:58She started she started out, I mean, yes.
- 8:00Was she privileged? Yes.
- 8:02She her father was an advisor to the king of France.
- 8:05They had brought him over from Italy.
- 8:07And so she had access as a very small girl to the Royal Library, probably, and to her father's library. So.
- 8:15And her father encouraged her to read and to study.
- 8:18Her mother did not.
- 8:19Her mother thought she should just, I don't know, become a nun or something, but her father encouraged her and her father, actually, she was put into an arranged marriage.
- 8:29Her father found a husband for her when she was 15, and the husband was about ten years older than she was. She.
- 8:35He chose this husband so well.
- 8:38She loved him with all her heart, all her body.
- 8:42She wrote amazing poems about him.
- 8:44And then when she was quite young, in her 20s, early 20s, he died.
- 8:51And all of his estate was taken by the crown because women did not inherit their husbands property back then.
- 8:59So she was left debts and her father was dead by then.
- 9:02So she was left destitute, having to care for her children and her mother with no income.
- 9:07And she didn't want to just marry some dude for money because she knew what real love was.
- 9:11And she just thought, no, I'm never going to get married again.
- 9:13I've had the best. Why?
- 9:15Why would I do that again?
- 9:16And she didn't want to do any of the other things that women were left to do to make money.
- 9:23So she started writing little short poems or cute poems to sell to courtiers, to give to their sweeties or whatever is kind of hallmark cards.
- 9:31And they loved them. They were great.
- 9:33So they asked her to write longer and longer poems, and she did longer.
- 9:36And then she got into this debate, a literary debate with the the big hoity toity clergyman who ran the University of Paris and who ran a lot of the government, and she went up against them about a book that she felt that was very popular.
- 9:53It was a novel called The Romance of the Rose, and she felt that it was a rape manual, and it should not be used as a literature book for young men to read and learn, learn morals from, because their teachers were saying, oh, this is good moral work! Haha.
- 10:08But it wasn't.
- 10:09It was a it was a satirical work in many ways.
- 10:11And and it ends in basically a rape.
- 10:14And so she got into this literary, epistolary debate with all these powerful men.
- 10:20And this is you would think that would be a very dangerous thing to do.
- 10:24She could get imprisoned, she could get killed, she could get banished, whatever.
- 10:28But what does she do?
- 10:29She's like the original feminist and the original badass she is.
- 10:32Yeah.
- 10:32I was just thinking that she is what you would call a proto feminist.
- 10:36Because in our current term of feminist, you know, she she did believe in the patriarchy.
- 10:42She did believe in the monarchy, but she did believe that women should have rights and that she should be they should be represented well.
- 10:48But anyway, so what did she do with these letters that she's gotten from all these clergymen?
- 10:52She saved copies of her letters that she sent to them, and she saved their letters.
- 10:57She bound them in a beautiful book with leather bindings and gold fittings and clasps.
- 11:03And she and she dedicated it to the Queen of France and presented it to her.
- 11:08So now she had a royal mentor, so nobody was going to mess with her.
- 11:13She was a total badass. Total.
- 11:16She was a badass.
- 11:17Yeah. I'm so glad you brought that to life.
- 11:20Well, okay, so we jumped right into that.
- 11:22We didn't we didn't really talk about.
- 11:24I wanted to talk about, you know, your younger years.
- 11:27And I just admired you so much as a as a mother.
- 11:30We really became friends.
- 11:32We did.
- 11:32We bonded as moms, as moms, because we had kids around the same time.
- 11:37And I really look to you a lot because I just, you know, I look to other people as examples.
- 11:43We all do that. Right.
- 11:44But I just remember your daughter Bonnie is about a year older than my daughter Jane.
- 11:48And then Ali came right after that. Yeah.
- 11:51So, you know, we raised those those girls together.
- 11:54I had my youngest later, but we raised the girls together a lot.
- 11:57And I learned a lot of important things.
- 11:59I remember that Bonnie was kind of really upset about something.
- 12:03We were walking through the Galleria in Houston.
- 12:05I don't know if you remember this, but Bonnie was like, oh, you know, she was crying and she was.
- 12:09And there were several of us adults.
- 12:11And, you know, she she sat down and she was really holding up the show.
- 12:14And I was thinking, oh, she's going to get in trouble now.
- 12:16But instead you sat down next to her and you go, you seem really upset.
- 12:20What's the matter?
- 12:21And I was like, whoa, Holy cow, that's how you do it.
- 12:24That is how you do it.
- 12:25And I just remember, like, you showed her so much respect and really grace today.
- 12:32She's a badass, too.
- 12:33Yes. Right. Well, I learned really early on, I a lot of people thought I was raising her wrong.
- 12:39And, I mean, did I spank her?
- 12:41I spanked her, like, three times, and I, they were big spankings.
- 12:45I always did a light one, a light one, and then like a twist and twist my hand and go.
- 12:51The third one was the one smart.
- 12:52It left a little red mark, but still after that last one I thought, I'm not teaching or anything with corporal punishment.
- 12:59She's just learning that mommy's mean and you know mommy get mad, which I'm so what?
- 13:05You know, that doesn't teach her anything.
- 13:07So my mother, a lot of folks thought they're like you.
- 13:11You need to punish her.
- 13:12You need to put her in a closet or whatever.
- 13:14And they put me in a closet.
- 13:15So they put her, all right?
- 13:18Yeah. Okay. That was the 30, mom.
- 13:20So I learned that when I listened to them and stopped listening to her, that's when I made my biggest mistakes.
- 13:28If I listened to her and really figured out what was going on because she had a lot of she had a lot of physical ailments that nobody could ever really figure out what was going on.
- 13:37And it was probably an autoimmune disorder that she's still trying to get sorted out now as an adult.
- 13:43But, you know, why punish a kid because she doesn't feel good.
- 13:46That's just wrong.
- 13:47So yeah, she's a friend of your time because parenting awareness around that style of parenting has sort of evolved over the last, at least since I had our son 20 years ago.
- 14:01Yeah. Yeah.
- 14:01So you were definitely ahead of your time?
- 14:03Well, I think we were all I had people who, you know, influenced me, who I looked up to.
- 14:10Yeah.
- 14:11Yeah, we all do that for each other, but you, I I've told you before, but I want you to know, you really did do that for me.
- 14:16So, Jane, Allie and far. Thank you. But.
- 14:19And then I can I tell this our famous story of you tell the story with what?
- 14:25This.
- 14:26Okay.
- 14:27Before we we started this podcast, Susie was drinking out of a wine glass.
- 14:31It looked like wine.
- 14:32And Lisa is like, how are you drinking wine? I was like, I was thinking to myself, there's no way this woman is drinking wine.
- 14:37She doesn't drink. She doesn't.
- 14:38She's the straight isn't having pills and drinking wine.
- 14:41I was like, is this how we're starting the podcast?
- 14:44Yeah, my insulin and drinking wine.
- 14:49Right. Exactly.
- 14:50I knew that was something like tea and, you know, whatever it meant, or her medicine.
- 14:55But one night, our girls were little, and she took that story.
- 15:00Oh, my God, she is. Is it okay?
- 15:04You said she came over for dinner.
- 15:06We got the famous Kim Sun Vietnamese food from Houston.
- 15:10The best Vietnamese at the time.
- 15:12Andy and I had, like, a little joint out in the garage, and Andy said, you guys go out to the garage and smoke, and I'll take care of the kids and you won't have to worry about them tonight.
- 15:22Now I was like, oh my God, he's my hero, my husband.
- 15:25So you and I go out to the garage, we take a puff, we go back in.
- 15:29I you have to preface this with, I'm not a smoker.
- 15:33That's what I said.
- 15:34You don't drink, you don't smoke.
- 15:34You don't do anything.
- 15:37Nothing but some things.
- 15:39But not that well, like, what do you do?
- 15:42Well, obviously.
- 15:47That's a pretty good.
- 15:48That's good.
- 15:48You're not a virgin.
- 15:48Okay. Good. Good. Okay.
- 15:51And so anyway, we're high, we come in and all of a sudden a few minutes later, you go, you know what?
- 15:58I don't I don't feel good.
- 15:59Like I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack.
- 16:02And I feel like we need to go to the emergency room.
- 16:04No, I'm also I'm not a doctor first.
- 16:06A friend of mine who is a doctor.
- 16:08I told him all my symptoms.
- 16:08I didn't tell him I was high.
- 16:10And he says, well, I think, I think you should go to the emergency room.
- 16:12It sounds like either, you know, just just to be safe, go to the emergency.
- 16:17Yeah. Pot. Hot pot. High panic attack.
- 16:19Oh my God.
- 16:20And you know, she had a little kid, so she's like, I can't go home with Bonnie.
- 16:24What if I have a heart attack while I'm home with Bonnie?
- 16:26So I take her to the emergency room, and even I'm high, and I'm not thinking this is because she's high.
- 16:29Because I'm high.
- 16:31So we're sit in the emergency room in Houston.
- 16:34A long, long time.
- 16:36Lot like ours.
- 16:37Probably because they were looking at it's going, these chicks are just stoned.
- 16:41And it's.
- 16:41But we thought it was the sex. No, it was a long time.
- 16:44It was a long time.
- 16:45And finally you like, burp, you fart.
- 16:48And then you look at me and you go, oh, I feel better now.
- 16:50Let's go home.
- 16:50I was like, I'm going to kill you.
- 16:53And it was just at that moment that the nurse came out to call my name.
- 16:56She goes, Mr. Bob.
- 16:57And we're like, right?
- 16:58Yeah.
- 17:02Yeah, that's a great story.
- 17:04So, you know, she looks like she's all distinguished.
- 17:07But, you know, I had a bad effect on her so very well.
- 17:11You play distinguished.
- 17:12That's I think that most of your, your roles, every time I see you on TV, you play some really like, hoity toity.
- 17:19Oh, yeah.
- 17:19Women. Well, I grew up women like that, so.
- 17:23Oh, man.
- 17:23Do you find that the roles are limited or plentiful?
- 17:27Because I, I guess, you know, seeing you on House of cards and and Better Call Saul, you're playing an age appropriate role, and I'm, you know, we're always reading about hearing about how difficult it is for women in show business as, as we age.
- 17:42And I lost my train of thought.
- 17:43I know, I know age range.
- 17:45What age range do you play?
- 17:47And I guess, do you feel like the roles are plentiful?
- 17:52We'll be back after a quick break.
- 17:56Hi, friend. Lauren here.
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- 18:31I generally these days I'm playing roles in my late 50s to 60s, but you know, into, you know, 60s.
- 18:38But here's the thing.
- 18:38I just lost my manager.
- 18:41I still have my agents, but I just lost my manager because she keeps sending me, or she kept sending me auditions for women in their 80s, 90s in retirement homes.
- 18:51Wrinkly.
- 18:52You know, okay.
- 18:53My gosh.
- 18:54Anger and and I mean, if I work really hard, I can play that.
- 19:00But, you know, I have to put on the wig and I have to wrinkle up my face, and I have to, you know, do a fake voice and, and hunch over and whatever.
- 19:08I have to do all those things because they want the they don't want a, well, presenting woman in her 70s or 80s.
- 19:15They want some little old wizened woman.
- 19:18And so I wasn't I don't get those roles.
- 19:21I auditioned for them, but I wouldn't.
- 19:23It just seemed like a big waste of time.
- 19:25And I have just, been diagnosed with type 1.5 diabetes, not 1 or 2, but 1.5 is the designer diabetes.
- 19:35And I felt like I needed to keep the stress level down.
- 19:38So I called or I emailed my manager and I said, you know, I'm trying to cut back on certain kinds of auditions.
- 19:44Do you think we could cut back on the these little old ladies?
- 19:48Here's a picture of what I look like right now.
- 19:50And I just, you know, in case you'd forgotten.
- 19:52Well, I got an email back almost immediately saying it's clear that your agents understand you better than we do.
- 20:01So by it's goodbye.
- 20:04And what? What?
- 20:07And she said.
- 20:08She also said casting directors want us to allow a 20 year range for our auditions.
- 20:16Well, I don't know that men have to do that.
- 20:18And I mean, for the most part, you want that because it gives you an opportunity to audition for more things.
- 20:23But in my case, I feel like I need to.
- 20:26I it's gotten to where I'm doing, you know, 3 or 4 auditions a day, and I put a lot of effort into them so that takes up your whole life.
- 20:36You don't have time for other things.
- 20:38And it's it's very wearing.
- 20:40So I thought, I know which kinds of roles I get.
- 20:42And they are the kind of Loren was saying they tend to be Type-A personality, strong woman, badass, Upper West Side woman with a lot of jewelry and dogs and stuff.
- 20:55And so, you know, sometimes I get normal people too.
- 20:57But, you know, I just know how I'm generally cast.
- 21:01And so I lost my manager, and, and and I realized she was right.
- 21:06She was actually right.
- 21:08Because she wants to she wants to cast the way she likes to cast.
- 21:12And it works for her and for her people.
- 21:14And I'm wanting something a little different.
- 21:17I'm thinking outside the box a little bit, and that is a waste of her time.
- 21:21So it was a good thing.
- 21:23And then a week later I was a little bit late, longer ago than that, a longer after that.
- 21:30But I got like the best audition of my life, the love interest in a remake of a movie that I'm not allowed to tell you what it is, but at some point you'll find out of a very funny movie and I am up for the role of the love interest.
- 21:44Well, this casting director who is casting it knows my work really well.
- 21:48She's cast me in several projects that were really good, and she tends to give a very short list of actors to the director, and she sent me out to the director with, you know, had me audition.
- 22:00And so fingers crossed, watch this space, see what happens.
- 22:05Yeah, yeah.
- 22:06So I'll like you tell us a little bit about the last series you did with Dennis Quaid.
- 22:11Oh, that was so fun.
- 22:13Steven Soderbergh is, my God, everybody who works with him just.
- 22:18It's unlike working with any other director he is.
- 22:21You've worked with him a few times?
- 22:23Yeah, about three times.
- 22:24And he doesn't pull rank on anybody.
- 22:28He loves to have you bring ideas to him.
- 22:30A lot of directors are like, no, just sit there and like in House of cards, if you do it, I sit there and, you know, sit up straight and don't, don't do anything.
- 22:37But he was although I will say Robin Wright was a wonderful director when she directed.
- 22:41She was great.
- 22:42I loved working with her.
- 22:42But no Soderbergh.
- 22:45He usually works with the same crew people or as many of the same crew people as he can, because they are like a unit.
- 22:53He barely has to say anything and he doesn't say much.
- 22:56They just know what to do.
- 22:58And he, he'll use a dolly for a lot of his shots.
- 23:01He's definitely he's not shooting sort of the big blockbuster style.
- 23:06He's usually shooting that indie style that he loves so much.
- 23:09So you're getting a lot of those, what they call European cinema shots, where they're 11 minutes long and it's on a dolly that's or handheld and following the actors around to do that without laying down tracks so that you know exactly where you're going to go and the actors hit their marks, doesn't do any of that.
- 23:28One of the biggest compliments I ever got was when we were working on Full Circle.
- 23:32I heard him saying something to I think it was the assistant director was saying, well, do we need to put down some tape marks so she'll know where to hit her marks?
- 23:39And he goes, and I heard him say, no, she's really good at knowing where she's supposed to be, which I think is what he looks for in his actors.
- 23:46One of the things he looks for, he just wants everybody to be able to feel it.
- 23:50And what a compliment.
- 23:51Oh, and working with those actors, with Dennis Quaid and Claire Danes and Timothy Olyphant, we were a family unit in this show.
- 23:59So, you know, they were in almost every shot that I did.
- 24:03One or more of them were, you know, most of the shots I did and my grandson was played.
- 24:08Ethan. Oh, no. Now, I can't remember Ethan's last name. Sorry.
- 24:10Ethan Graves sure.
- 24:12He's not listening to age like a badass mother.
- 24:15I never know, maybe he's.
- 24:16But I do want to hear how you prepared for your character.
- 24:20How you channeled my mother.
- 24:25Well, I do let me hear about that.
- 24:27You know, you try and get as many clues from the script as you can, and the script was written by Ed Solomon, who wrote Men in Black, and he wrote All the Men in Black said he wrote all the bill, and Ted's excellent.
- 24:37Everything's so he's I think he's the highest paid screenwriter in America, something like that.
- 24:43He's really up there, but sweet, lovely man again, very much like Steven Soderbergh.
- 24:51And so I'm thinking Ed Solomon.
- 24:54Solomon, I'm playing a mother and she's really difficult.
- 24:58She's like a real handful.
- 25:00But, he's writing about a Jewish mother.
- 25:04Okay?
- 25:05He writes about what he knows.
- 25:06Oh, I know some Jewish mothers.
- 25:10Who are a handful.
- 25:12Not all are.
- 25:13But Lauren's mother is a is a big personality.
- 25:17And that is so sweet.
- 25:19Yeah, I've.
- 25:21You know, I've only met Lawrence and Joan.
- 25:24I haven't met.
- 25:24She is nothing like you've met.
- 25:27I know I that's what I've heard from you.
- 25:28So she's nice about.
- 25:30How are you?
- 25:31What you took from Lauren's mom and brought to your character the Jewish mother?
- 25:35Well, the main thing was, it's all about me.
- 25:40Everything is about me.
- 25:42And. And with a lot of emotion.
- 25:45Yes. Like that. You know, that is correct.
- 25:47That scene running into the bathroom was screaming and crying when you know something terrible is happening and she just makes the whole thing about her.
- 25:55It was I didn't even have to think about it.
- 25:57I'm just like, what would what would Lauren's mom do?
- 26:00You know, the grandson got kidnaped, and Claire Danes and Timothy Olyphant are the parents.
- 26:05Well, what if what was just like a spoiler alert?
- 26:08What if people haven't seen that?
- 26:10That's, like, right at the beginning of the show. Okay.
- 26:13All right. Okay.
- 26:15And so yeah.
- 26:16And then she runs in the bathroom and she's like I'm fine. Yes.
- 26:20Well and then and just make sure there was a second Jewish mom that I patterned it after as well, my friend Ellen Baer, her mom has passed.
- 26:28So I think it's okay for me to talk about her.
- 26:30Her mom, Sylvia, was a real handful and never said anything nice to her daughter.
- 26:38And in this script, the mother said some really awful things to her daughter.
- 26:44And I thought at first I thought I was, where is this coming from and where can I get this from?
- 26:49And then I thought about Ellen's mom and I thought, oh, well, okay, I'll just just do that.
- 26:55So you just, you take it from life and you make a sort of a mish mash from a lot of different people, and then you work with them.
- 27:01So interesting to me.
- 27:02I'm an excellent coach. Maybe that name is Jessica Cummings.
- 27:07She comes from the Bob Krakauer school. So.
- 27:11Well, you know, you never answered Lisa's question, but I.
- 27:13I know it's her to this.
- 27:15Are you, are you getting more roles?
- 27:17Oh, as a really important question.
- 27:19I mean, and it's important to me because so many of my friends who are my age, who are actors, are are discouraged and they're not getting the work that they want.
- 27:32But I'm getting more than I ever got.
- 27:35And I think the reason is partly because I number one, I don't give up.
- 27:41Number two, I continue to study.
- 27:43I continue to work with coaches.
- 27:45I continue to learn new things.
- 27:47I just started taking ballroom dancing, you know, to learn because I had to do it.
- 27:51I had to do a waltz or, you know, a dance in a movie.
- 27:54And I did it badly.
- 27:55And I thought, I'm never going to put myself or anybody else in this position again.
- 27:58I want to be able to dance.
- 28:00So I did that.
- 28:01My next project is I want to take stand up with my friend Jessica.
- 28:05You know, you just keep you keep pushing and getting better.
- 28:09You have to keep reinventing yourself and just.
- 28:11And I'm not afraid to play age.
- 28:11I'm not afraid.
- 28:13You know, right now I have a gray wig, even though my hair is blond and bleached and, you know, colored.
- 28:21Well, everything you just said is what we're really hoping to get across in this podcast.
- 28:27It's like you're staying true to yourself.
- 28:28You're open to learning new skills and new things.
- 28:31You're allowing yourself to evolve.
- 28:33And I imagine that's not true for a lot of women in your demographic.
- 28:38In this business.
- 28:40I imagine that there's a lot of fear and fighting and trying to please to get the role.
- 28:45And so, you know, that I think that I would hope that that helps you in some way.
- 28:50Yeah. And I mean, and it sounds like it does.
- 28:52Yeah.
- 28:52And you can't really blame the women all that much.
- 28:56Because it's a perception of casting people.
- 29:00And I've always done my best to change their perceptions.
- 29:05When I lived in Houston, I remember right after I had my baby, when Bonnie was still, you know, still nursing a little baby.
- 29:11I took my agent out. Jenny.
- 29:13Bobby, who I love, took her out to lunch, and I said, Jenny, I'm a mom now.
- 29:18I need to be home with the baby.
- 29:20But I still have to work.
- 29:21So I need to work less and earn more.
- 29:24What can we do?
- 29:25And she said, well, Susie, I don't know, because, you know, in Texas, especially in Houston, the men can get over scale, but women don't.
- 29:34And I went bang.
- 29:36I said, well, what would happen if the next time somebody casts me, you say, well, Susie is more than scale, more than union scale.
- 29:45And then if you know what'll happen, are they going to take out a gun and shoot you?
- 29:48You know, if they say no, you can just go, oh, well.
- 29:50Oh, I was just kidding.
- 29:51You know, it's less than scale or whatever, but I should just be good for you.
- 29:55Just try it.
- 29:57The very next job I got, she asked for double scale.
- 30:00The producer didn't bat an eyelash.
- 30:03I did the job and Jenny, from that day on, all her women started working at double triple scale because somebody just had to stand up and say, just try it.
- 30:16But but that's what it takes.
- 30:17You got to think.
- 30:17You got to think in those terms.
- 30:19That was you.
- 30:19But you stood up and you said it.
- 30:21I mean, you you did that, I did.
- 30:24Yeah, I imagine that can be a scary thing to do.
- 30:27When you said, you know, you can't blame other women for having to wanting to change, to fit into whatever they're looking for because it's got to be very scary.
- 30:35I mean, it's scary enough, you know, culturally, for us as we age.
- 30:39And again, which is why we have this podcast and we're trying to sort of help change that general perception.
- 30:45But yeah, but when you've got, you're being, you know, judged all the time and critiqued and everything, it's got to be just a gazillion times harder.
- 30:51It is hard.
- 30:52But here's something that I learned from an acting class at HB Studios about, I don't know, ten, 15 years ago I took classes at HP Studios.
- 31:00I did awesome back in the 80s on Pendleton, who I think has been there since then, is a wonderful teacher there.
- 31:07He's just he's just a real New York fixture.
- 31:10And I was taking a class with him, and I decided to do a scene from The Graduate with this really gifted young actor.
- 31:19And I did the scene, a scene where I think she gets, yeah, she's seducing him and she, you know, takes her clothes off.
- 31:27In this particular one.
- 31:29I just got went down to my bra and panties or something like that.
- 31:33And I just was so nervous about I thought, oh, I have to look, really, I have to look really pretty so that this young, you know, thinking in terms of the character, oh, she needs to look really young and pretty so that this young man will he'll find her attractive and she can seduce him.
- 31:51And the scene fell flat. It was terrible.
- 31:54Yeah.
- 31:55Then Austin said, I thought you said, you know, try being more true to yourself.
- 31:59Do this, do that, do that.
- 32:00So I went home and I got my mother's pillbox hat, and I got a girdle, and I got a suit with shoulder pads in it and a pocket book.
- 32:10A pocket book in the pocket book anymore.
- 32:14And I have my mother's pocket box.
- 32:17Yeah.
- 32:18And I did this scene like that, like.
- 32:21And I had a slip on, you know, and so it suddenly became very kinky.
- 32:26I was like, oh, so cute.
- 32:30That's fantastic.
- 32:31Elaine's mom now going to screw some young looking woman.
- 32:35He's going to screw mom.
- 32:37So sometimes embracing who you are and what you really look like is makes the whole thing so much juicier and so much better.
- 32:47But it's very hard to give in to that because, as you say, we feel that we're being judged.
- 32:53We have people telling us, oh, you should lose weight, should get a, you should get a tummy tuck, you should get, you know, boob lift, you should get Botox.
- 33:01The whole reason Steven Soderbergh cast me is because I have had no face work done.
- 33:05He doesn't want actors that that look Botox done.
- 33:08So yeah.
- 33:09But it's still you're beautiful and what what I think what horrifies me when I see so many of these actresses on TV now who were once beautiful, but they look strange because of they've had to succumb to the pressure.
- 33:24I noticed I haven't seen it yet, but that there's that series about Truman Capote and the Swans or something.
- 33:30And, I think the actresses, that I saw in at least in the trailer, I didn't recognize them.
- 33:35So good for you for not succumbing to that.
- 33:38Well, I haven't yet.
- 33:38We'll see what happens. I might well, I might speak. Can I know it's so hard.
- 33:46I fight against it all the time.
- 33:47I'm like, damn it, I need to get some Botox. But.
- 33:49Okay.
- 33:50So, I guess there's a way, though, to do it where it doesn't do that to you, though, because there are certainly plenty of women in Hollywood who we see, and they are aging beautifully.
- 34:02Years ago, somebody else retired a when just they said, when you look in the mirror, what do you see?
- 34:07And she says, really good work. So but now she says she regrets having had a facelift.
- 34:15So anyway, doesn't change facelift.
- 34:18Yeah. Excuse me.
- 34:21You know, I never say never but she said a few.
- 34:26Okay.
- 34:26So getting back to it like that, you know, you just stand up for yourself.
- 34:31So much.
- 34:32And I think that's such an important and important part of aging well.
- 34:35And it's saved your life.
- 34:38Can you talk about when you were diagnosed with late stage cancer and how you saved your own life?
- 34:45Yeah, about 13 years ago, 12, 13 years ago, I was having a lot of rectal bleeding.
- 34:50I was having trouble going to the bathroom.
- 34:52You know, I was talking to my friends about like, dear, you're in trouble and something.
- 34:55Oh, yeah. Yeah, we have trouble. Whatever. So.
- 34:57And I went, excuse me, I had a colonoscopy, I had an endoscopy.
- 35:02I went to a surgeon who did a biopsy, all these things, and nobody found anything.
- 35:07But I knew I had cancer because after a year of this hopping around to these doctors and this one in particular, who everybody said, oh, well, he's very highly regarded.
- 35:18So we have to take his word for it.
- 35:21Totally missed it.
- 35:22There's a big old size, a big fat snail, you know, escargot wrapped around, you know, my bum hole and blocking everything.
- 35:32And it, you know, it had gone on for a year.
- 35:35And I finally, finally went into this.
- 35:40One doctor said, okay, I think it's these hemorrhoids, you know, you're just an older lady.
- 35:44It's it's these things have just take a take a laxative, you'll be fine.
- 35:48And they all said the same thing.
- 35:50Well, he's so dismissive, oh, so dismissive, and he's so I said, well, if it's if it's hemorrhoids, then whatever they are, they're causing a lot of trouble.
- 35:58Let's get rid of them.
- 35:59So hemorrhoid surgery is pretty extreme and it's very painful.
- 36:03And it's a hard healing process.
- 36:06From what I hear.
- 36:07But we scheduled it.
- 36:09I've heard the same thing.
- 36:10Fortunately, he went on a golfing trip down to Florida or someplace, and he had a woman doctor filling in for him.
- 36:17So I called up, I said, I got to come in, it's getting worse.
- 36:20I can feel it pressing against my spine.
- 36:22There's something there.
- 36:24I have cancer or something.
- 36:26Please.
- 36:26And meanwhile, nobody's taken any images.
- 36:29So I go in and she's like, well, after a whole year, after all, this is a year, a year.
- 36:34All they did was colonoscopies and, you know, like sticking things up there.
- 36:37So I so finally I'm sitting there and she's still shaking her head to go, I know, but we have to believe this doctor is so, well, well-regarded.
- 36:44So I thought, all right, I'm an actress.
- 36:45I hate to do this, but I have to do it.
- 36:47So I just started screaming and crying.
- 36:49I did, I pulled, you know, Lauren's mom, and I said, I can't go on like this.
- 36:55Why are you not taking images?
- 36:58So she went, all right, all right, all right.
- 36:59Well take images.
- 37:00Well, of course, as soon as they did, all the doctors come running like cockroaches running out of the walls to check me out.
- 37:08And then the male doctors couldn't wait to stick their fingers up my butt, because it was just up far enough that only the man with really long fingers could touch it.
- 37:17And I'm hearing that this is like the big locker room talk is who could touch the tumor.
- 37:23And Suzy's butt is what they're, you know, at the cancer board meetings.
- 37:27So I get this feeling when I go and talk to the oncologist that they're not going to really they're not going to really treat me because they were going to just give me some chemo and no radiation and not not much.
- 37:39And then that was it.
- 37:41And I thought that that doesn't sound right.
- 37:43This is stage four rectal cancer.
- 37:45The survival rate is and it was a very rare it was a skin cancer in the rectum, which is really weird.
- 37:52So I went back to this radiation oncologist that I had seen who I really respected, young guy.
- 37:58He gave me some Intel that he had heard that that what I thought was true, that this is what the scuttlebutt was and that they weren't going to really.
- 38:06So I, I went about finding a doctor who would was sort of outside the system.
- 38:13I mean, he still had privileges at a, at a hospital.
- 38:15So I had an oncologist who would treat me aggressively and I got radiation, which unfortunately caused other problems later on, but it saved my life.
- 38:24And quite quickly, you know, as soon as they started treating me, the darn thing started going down.
- 38:30And I mean, there's story after story within this story of just people not paying attention, reading, reading charts wrong.
- 38:40At one point they were going to close me up, give me a Barbie.
- 38:42But and you know, and in a colostomy bag for the rest of my life because they were reading last year's colonoscopy and there's like, oh, it's it sounds like a lot of potential malpractice.
- 38:55Oh, oh, you going on there?
- 38:57No, because they all know I asked about that and they were all like, oh, we can't speak out against our fellow doctors.
- 39:03I'm like, well, what about your fellow patient?
- 39:06What about the person who's paying you to get her?
- 39:08Well, but no, they're all like in, you know, they're in this little club together.
- 39:12So I mean, I'm not saying all doctors are like that.
- 39:14There's.
- 39:15I have found some amazing doctors.
- 39:17My the surgeon who.
- 39:19Faith Mencken, who took care of my a lump in my breast.
- 39:22She was. She's amazing.
- 39:24So. Well, I think what you said.
- 39:25I mean, you really listened.
- 39:27You know, like, there's something about knowing, right?
- 39:31That something's not right, no matter what.
- 39:33All these people who are supposed to know everything about this are telling you, you just you knew it.
- 39:38Yeah.
- 39:39When you look in a doctor's eyes and they glaze over like they don't even see you, and they see a number and like a toe tag on your toe, you, you know that they they don't see you as a living person.
- 39:50You're just.
- 39:51And of course, surgeons are not known to be the warmest, buzziest people in the world, so.
- 39:56But yeah, no, I really, really got a bad feeling from that. So.
- 39:59But you have your first or your second.
- 40:01Yes. That is, that's you know, and I got lucky.
- 40:04I mean, the fact that I talked to the, the right doctor who knew the right intelligence, what if I hadn't talked to him?
- 40:10You know, it's I don't like the fact that so much is is left up to look, I don't like. Yeah.
- 40:14And I think well, Lauren's story is a great example of that and something that we really preach on the podcast too, is like, you do have to advocate for yourself.
- 40:24Do not give your power away, especially, you know, in the medical field.
- 40:29But earlier when you mentioned your wig, I said, oh, yeah, I wondered, and the reason I said that isn't because it looks like you're wearing a wig, but because I had watched your YouTube channel that you created when you were going through the treatment.
- 40:40Yeah. Which I thought was incredible.
- 40:44Can you talk about that a little bit when I well, I've lost my hair twice, 12 years ago when I had rectal cancer and then three years ago I had ovarian cancer, but it was encased in my uterus.
- 40:56And it had gotten to a very bad point because the radiation from my rectal cancer had blocked off my uterus and my cervix and couldn't go in to do pap smears and so forth, couldn't really see what was going on.
- 41:08And this cancer grew very quickly.
- 41:12And so I had to have the hysterectomy and treatments.
- 41:15And it was very harsh, harsh treatments.
- 41:18Lost my hair again.
- 41:19Well, you know, different people.
- 41:21A friend of mine down in Houston, Winston Durden, who's a writer, said, well, you know, you know, you you love wigs.
- 41:29Yeah, I love wigs.
- 41:30I don't mind losing my hair because I have two big bins full of wigs that I've collected from acting and from cancer and whatever.
- 41:37I just I love them.
- 41:38So he said, you know, there's a lot of women out there who are afraid of buying wigs or who don't think that they're worth spending the money on a wig for, and they're afraid it's going to look bad and look wiggy.
- 41:50So he said, you should make little videos so that other women can can help them have the courage to buy wigs or style them or whatever.
- 41:59And I thought, well, that sounds like something to do while I'm, you know, sitting around the house getting better from another project, another project.
- 42:07And my dog was home taking care of me, from California.
- 42:10She came home for three months.
- 42:12Can I give you a side story?
- 42:13Another empowering story.
- 42:15She works for a company out in L.A.
- 42:17that is mostly men. It's a video company.
- 42:21They do.
- 42:22They do kind of socially conscious videos that they post, and she does very well there.
- 42:26But they wouldn't promoter wouldn't promoter wouldn't promoter.
- 42:29All these men who are coming in after her, you know, buddies of the owners were passing her by and she was having to fix their mistakes.
- 42:37They were getting raises, you know, the usual story.
- 42:40Well, she came and took care of me for, I think three months.
- 42:43And I was so worried that she was going to lose her job.
- 42:46Well, what happened was she was gone.
- 42:48Who was doing all the work?
- 42:50Nobody home.
- 42:52So they suddenly realized.
- 42:53And one of the guys, his wife had a baby with birth problems, birth defect problems.
- 42:59And so he suddenly discovered what it was like to have a child that needed a lot of care.
- 43:04And he suddenly went, oh, Bonnie, Bonnie's taking care of her mother.
- 43:07Oh, we should give that girl a raise.
- 43:08While she was gone.
- 43:08She got two raises and a promotion.
- 43:12Incredible, right?
- 43:13All she had to do was go away. Ladies.
- 43:15Remember that.
- 43:16Just walk away for a little while and see what happens.
- 43:22Then you sting. It's a shame.
- 43:23That's what it takes to see what, to have them see your value.
- 43:26But yeah. Hey. And then.
- 43:28Yeah, that's no pain story.
- 43:30Okay.
- 43:31Well, I mean, it is on YouTube if you go to YouTube and put in Suzanne Savoy chemo being there's I think there's about eight videos now and I talk about the different kinds of wigs because there's all different kinds of construction.
- 43:45I show a lot of my own wigs and how I wear them.
- 43:49I show head scarves and hats and different ways of tying things on your head.
- 43:54And I show a catalog that's out there, the TLC catalog that the American Cancer Society does, which is a great catalog.
- 44:02There's one video where I just sit on the couch and like leaf through the catalog.
- 44:06People love it, you know?
- 44:07So I've gotten a lot of really wonderful feedback from folks who have seen the videos or who pass them on to other friends who they feel need to look at them. And, there's a lot of there's a lot of video videos out there to help people who are dealing with hair loss from cancer.
- 44:25There's really a lot of people out there doing this.
- 44:28So I'm just another person doing it, but I'm just doing it my way.
- 44:33I don't know, I really love your channel, and I really it was very inspiring.
- 44:38And I am not on the cancer journey, and it made me want to go out and try some wigs.
- 44:42So I'm like, wow, because you they the way you describe how to wear them and the things to look for and then everything makes them look completely natural, which I think is what the fear is that you're gonna look like you're wearing a wig, right?
- 44:55Yeah. Yeah.
- 44:56So. And I wouldn't have known you were if you hadn't mentioned it.
- 45:00So it's.
- 45:01It looks great.
- 45:03Unbelievable. That is really cool.
- 45:06Well, it's cool, it's dark, but they do have sort of a shelf life on your head at some point.
- 45:13But you obviously couldn't work doing it during the period that you were getting treatment.
- 45:18Oh when I got treatment, I was, I was too yeah, I was too, yeah.
- 45:22Sick. And to exhausted.
- 45:25And I mean, there were days when I cried when I really just thought I couldn't get through it.
- 45:29But I will say that the minute but the minute that my treatments stopped, I started feeling better.
- 45:36I guess it was this particular chemo and the first time as well.
- 45:40Any time I've gotten really sick or had a really bad, like when my husband left me and I was left like crying on the floor, something really great always happens afterwards, I think, because you're so raw and you're so out there and people recognize that and they want to help or they want or they want to capitalize on this, really a person who's channeling their their inner stuff, you know, that stuff can be really great on camera, I guess.
- 46:08So I mean, you came back and worked again.
- 46:10I mean, that's that's the point I was getting to.
- 46:12I've had my best two years since my cancer was in 2021, I think, and I've had my best two years since then ever.
- 46:20And so yeah, you, you and you take really good care of yourself.
- 46:24You have had you've battled a lot of health issues and now you're doing type 1.5 diabetes.
- 46:30And so how are you taking care of yourself?
- 46:32I mean, you really you really I know put a lot of thought and work into it.
- 46:36Yeah.
- 46:37Well again listening you know, I really listened.
- 46:40I was at Memorial Sloan-Kettering for some reason.
- 46:44I went there for when when my blood sugar went to 1257, which it's supposed to be under 100.
- 46:50And it was like, and I didn't know.
- 46:52I just knew what my mouth was really dry.
- 46:54And, you know, just a lot of real weird things were happening.
- 46:57My eyesight was going and so I had an appointment with my doctor.
- 47:01And so would you take my blood sugar?
- 47:01I think something's wrong.
- 47:04She took it, and she's like, get to the hospital right now.
- 47:06And she was at Sloan-Kettering, so she sent me there.
- 47:09Well, the folks in Sloan-Kettering, even though it's a cancer hospital primarily, they had a really good training program for how to how to count your carbs and how to do all the insulin and all of that, because there really there are a lot of fine points to it.
- 47:24You know, you're supposed to eat the vegetables first and then the carbs, because that helps the insulin work better.
- 47:32Just don't freak out if you're if you start to get a spike, don't suddenly freak out and go in the other direction too far.
- 47:39If it you suddenly plummets, don't start eating a bunch of candy.
- 47:42You have to eat a little bit, but you don't want to eat the whole candy drop, which I started doing in the beginning.
- 47:48So you're wearing a monitor all the time now then?
- 47:50Probably I am, but I'm having a lot of trouble with the company that distributes these monitors.
- 47:56Again, you call and you try to get help and they just brush you off.
- 48:01So I've, I've called out as many of the big guns as I can to, you know, I've called my doctor's office.
- 48:06They've called trying to get it sorted out.
- 48:09They're just not delivering to me.
- 48:12They're saying, oh, well, she's got the wrong date on her wrong birth date at CVS.
- 48:16No I don't well, she's got the wrong address on her.
- 48:20I'm like, no, I don't.
- 48:21So it's just somebody doesn't want to do it.
- 48:23Please share with us the diet and lifestyle changes that you've made since your health journey with cancer and type one and 1.5 diabetes, actually with, you know, Lauren's been a great inspiration over the years because, you know, she's does so much with nutrition and lifestyle.
- 48:42And so I was all right.
- 48:44Even though I don't follow her regimen to the tee, I've been eating very much in that way for a long time.
- 48:53And I'm more plant based.
- 48:55Yeah, very completely plant based and very little oil.
- 48:58I mean, every that's where I don't follow it to the tee, is it?
- 49:01Sometimes I do use a little oil, but very little.
- 49:04And I don't eat gluten because I find that I, it gives me inflammation.
- 49:08So I was already there.
- 49:10So when they were teaching me at the hospital how to count carbs and do this, that it was really not much of an adjustment at all.
- 49:17So when I went back, you know, they give you the sensor and they give you all your stuff and they send you on your way and come back for a check several months later.
- 49:24And they they check your blood sugars over the long haul.
- 49:28And they were shocked.
- 49:30They were just shocked because I was a lot of the time, I was 99% of the time within the range that they wanted me, which is apparently, you know, quite, quite a feat.
- 49:40But it wasn't really that hard to do, especially with the sensors and just with watching what I eat.
- 49:46So yeah, so I was already kind of there like, yeah.
- 49:49And you know, we learned from somebody else, Laureano Hernandez, who had cancer.
- 49:53And because she was so healthy to begin with, they were able to treat her aggressively.
- 49:59And I imagine it's the same thing with you with your cancer and and that you can recover quickly from your diabetes, you know, be on the road to health just because you were in such good health before you got there.
- 50:11That's very much the case, because when I landed in the hospital with my blood sugar, it 1257 and they said, lady, why are you not in a coma or dead?
- 50:21We don't know. We've never seen anybody walk in like that.
- 50:24And I really that my, my vital signs were all perfect.
- 50:28My my pulse, my oxygen, my heart rate, all those things were fine.
- 50:35It was just that my blood sugar was off the charts and I was horribly, horribly dehydrated.
- 50:41So my body was taking care of itself.
- 50:43I think I'm going to lose you in a second again.
- 50:45Okay, well, let's just a couple quick questions.
- 50:48What is one one piece of advice for aging?
- 50:51Well, you've given us so many already.
- 50:53My piece of advice for aging well is don't take advice.
- 50:59But so we're going right back to where we were.
- 51:02Listen to yourself, I said.
- 51:04God is great for other people.
- 51:06But, you know, they told me you can't start an acting career at the age of 30.
- 51:11You know, you passed by all the roles that you, you know, the really good you'll never play.
- 51:15Juliet know, I'm like, oh, I never did play Juliet.
- 51:18But that's okay.
- 51:20So but but it's never too late.
- 51:22And you know to do what your heart that's.
- 51:25I remember hearing on NPR and interview with Noguchi, the Japanese-American sculptor who at the time was around 80 years old.
- 51:33And the interviewer said, do you think about slowing down or retiring?
- 51:37And he said, well, I just bought a whole load of stone that would take me.
- 51:43I'd have to live longer than 100 to carve all that stone.
- 51:48But, you know, I'm just going to keep doing it and not, not consider the end.
- 51:53Well, he died about four years later and somebody had to do something with all that stone.
- 51:56But I like that idea of thinking of the arc of your life as that.
- 52:01It's, you know, it's it's not going to end. It will.
- 52:04But if you focus on it, maybe it's good to focus on it so you don't get surprised.
- 52:10But I don't I can't imagine ever retiring.
- 52:13I love my work so much.
- 52:15And as long as I can talk or move a finger or whatever, I think I'll still be out there looking for roles, looking for scraps, alone in the room.
- 52:24You're an example of someone who you're aging well because you live well, so it's about living.
- 52:30And I have, and I'm lucky, I guess, to like a lot of people live well, but you know, that maybe they had genetically they were not, you know, given some of them, some of, you know, genes that would keep them alive longer.
- 52:44So some of it's luck, some of it.
- 52:46But but it sure doesn't hurt to take care of yourself and to have a I have friends of every age and I've had people say, you know, well, it's a little weird.
- 52:56You have so many young friends, you know, don't do are you trying to prove something?
- 52:59Are you?
- 53:01And I'm like, no, they're interesting and they like me and I like them.
- 53:04And we sit and talk for hours.
- 53:06You know, I'm not trying to act young.
- 53:06I'm just.
- 53:09I'm interested in those people.
- 53:10And as well as I have older friends, too.
- 53:13I have friends who are much older than me.
- 53:14So, yeah, I take it Helen Hayes gave me good advice when I met her.
- 53:19She said, train your voice and learn your lines.
- 53:22Let me, if that's good advice.
- 53:26Oh, Susie, it's been so good talking to you.
- 53:28I love you so much. Thank you.