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Beek on being HUMOROUS · Beek on being

• 0:00
  Melissa Shere Beek: Hi. I hope you are well. This podcast is a place for people to share personal and professional perspectives, talk openly, and ask questions. From serious to silly to sublime, it's all about communication and connection. Always coming from a place of kindness and curiosity, we talk about shared humanity, discuss ideas, and highlight people creating a better world.
• 0:23
  We've got to keep learning, keep growing, keep being. I'm Melissa Beek, and this is Beek on being. Today's episode is Beek on being humorous. If you don't know who Jill Kargman is, I don't know where you've been living. She's a writer, a New York Times bestselling author, an actress, a mother, a satire queen extraordinaire.
• 0:42
  Her Instagram stories feed my sick humor. Her television show, Odd Mom Out, had me peeing in my pants. And her new movie, Influenced, which I was fortunate enough to see at the world premiere in Miami, blows it all out of the water. What's so fabulous about you and your humor is how you can skewer absurdity with wit. No malice.
• 1:02
  It's filled with love and heart. And what I've come to know, though, in just emailing with you and talking with you that night is that you are one of the most generous, kind, rounded, authentic people. And I'm so thrilled and so honored and so happy to have you on today.
• 1:18
  Jill Kargman: Oh, Melissa, that's the nicest introduction ever, and you are so kind to have me. Thank you so much. I'm honored.
• 1:25
  Melissa Shere Beek: No. I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled. So before we get into it, for my listeners who may be living under a rock, can you tell them a little bit about yourself?
• 1:35
  Jill Kargman: You're not living under a rock. There's just a lot of stuff out there. I don't even know, like, who these top people are who have 12,000,000 followers. I've never heard of them. It's I I'm definitely the one living under a rock.
• 1:46
  I'm a writer in New York City. I feel like living in New York is sort of a a core tenet of my personality, personality, and and I've never left. I don't know how to drive. I walk everywhere, but I do love visiting Miami, and the movie did its world premiere there. But I've written books.
• 2:03
  I've written 12 books, and then I had a TV show, Odd Mom Out, that's on Peacock now. And my new movie, Influenced, is coming to theaters in May and will be streaming in the fall.
• 2:14
  Melissa Shere Beek: I know. I'm so excited for that. I'm so excited for everybody to see it. So humor is the one thing I need to survive. Can you tell me what you why humor is so important?
• 2:26
  Jill Kargman: I just think it's above anything, like, we're all gonna die. I'm a really morbid person, and I I've been told there's are studies that back this up, but that morbid people are the happiest. I feel like if you are really aware of time taking away, I mean, I have tattoos of a a watch and an hourglass. I just I feel like you have to be so grateful for time, and that's really the ultimate luxury. And when you think that way, you just have a better sense of humor because you don't sweat the small stuff and let everything irritate you.
• 3:00
  Of course, we all have times where that does happen. Right. But I feel like humor, for Jewish people, has always been a coping mechanism, and it's such a big part of my family's history and our cultural Judaism. So, yeah, we've always used humor, and I'm so touched that you said it's with joy and not malice because, of course, I can be mean too and snicker at things, but generally, the satire of the Upper East Side certainly or the the elite, the wealthy, the 1% that I skewer, I don't think it's mean spirited. It's sort of a holding up a fun house mirror to conspicuous consumption, but it's done with affection and and hopefully not malice as you said.
• 3:44
  So thank you for appreciating that.
• 3:46
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, it's totally. It's done with love. It's so heartwarming. I mean, and it comes full circle. So you can see that it's it's not an intentional slight and there's no nastiness to it.
• 3:57
  It's really done with a lot of love and a lot of humor.
• 4:00
  Jill Kargman: Thank you. That's what I'm going for.
• 4:02
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yay. So what gets you hysterical laughing?
• 4:06
  Jill Kargman: I would say mostly my kids. I mean, I have a lot of cultural influences like South Park, Woody Allen movies, things that make me laugh out loud. But my kids really are so much funnier than I am, they make me double over. So our family dinners are my favorite, I guess, like better
• 4:23
  Melissa Shere Beek: than
• 4:23
  Jill Kargman: the It's just so much fun. And I just they're imitations. They're very good mimics. But I love Saturday Night Live. I love the late night shows.
• 4:34
  I love comedians and specials and all that stuff. So I'm definitely enmeshed in it. I don't really go to comedy clubs anymore, but I'm I'm fans from afar through Netflix of so many people like Amy Schumer, and I love Rachel Feinstein who was in Odd Mom Out who's so funny. There are a lot of really strong female comedic voices, and I just feel lucky to live in New York because a lot of them are here. But, yeah, I I just feel like I consume a lot.
• 5:00
  My New Year's resolution, though, was to watch more TV because I definitely feel like I'm I miss everyone's talking about a show, and I don't I've never seen it. I sort of live under a rock, but there's enough content out there you can kind of find your niche.
• 5:13
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Do you have, a go to show that you like, that you enjoy, that definitely gets your funny bone all the time?
• 5:20
  Jill Kargman: South Park without fail. I mean, there's there's, you know, there's favorite episodes for sure, and it's been, like
• 5:26
  Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
• 5:27
  Jill Kargman: Three decades of that show, but I feel like they just go there on every level. My son and I watched Big Mouth. It's funny. It's making it sound like I just watch animated shit, which I don't. I actually no.
• 5:39
  That's it. But, yeah, I love all the late night stuff in SNL. Okay.
• 5:46
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, that's fabulous. And nobody you going back to your kids, nobody can skewer you better than your kids can. They get that mockery and that, like, they get that funny bone on you better than anybody else. Was your house growing up a funny house?
• 6:01
  Jill Kargman: Yes. My dad was he's he passed away a year and a half ago, but he, like I
• 6:07
  Melissa Shere Beek: am sorry. Stand up.
• 6:08
  Jill Kargman: Thank you. He did stand up comedy all through Columbia Business School. He was hysterical. And even though he didn't pursue it as a profession, I think it really helped him in business because I think humor is a great way to disarm people. He had incredible business relationships, and it's really all about human connection in life.
• 6:27
  And humor is a great way to sort of cut through the bullshit and be readable. And, you know, when people see things the same way as you, humor wise, you're you're totally bonded.
• 6:37
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, yeah. I know where my people are if they get my humor or they don't get my humor.
• 6:41
  Jill Kargman: Totally.
• 6:42
  Melissa Shere Beek: That's it. So Influenced, your first movie. This is very exciting. What can you tell me the transition from writing to television to movies? Was it hard?
• 6:53
  Was it great? Do you just don't care The Preference?
• 6:58
  Jill Kargman: I well, I liked TV because it was, like, you know, down and dirty for ten weeks of shooting, and then you have this whole season. With this, I felt like it's a shorter shoot, but there's more there's more of, like, that chunk with it's our movie's eighty eight minutes, so it's you can, like, hang out and have a glass of wine and watch it and laugh and just be it's very light, which is kind of what I've been missing, especially Mhmm. Since October 7, I feel like there's been a I've watched a lot of heavy things, and this felt like sort of some Jewish joy, and it's silly. And that's kinda what I needed at the time. But as for TV versus film, I think you have a lot more freedom with film.
• 7:39
  TV is such that and by the way, I was very lucky. I had very few checks and balances with Odd Mom Out. I felt like they gave me a lot of rope, but that that was pretty rare. Typically, you get a whole studio giving you notes and the network and you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Whereas with a film, I feel like you just go and do it.
• 7:58
  I mean, I got to really write what I want to write and, you know, you can you can curse, you can say all kinds of, like, potty mouth sexual shit. You can't do that on TV at least the way I was doing it. Right. Odd mom out. And and I say that, like, with total appreciation that I got to do way more than anyone else would.
• 8:21
  With that budget and that and my history and, you know, not having that much experience, they gave me tremendous freedom. So I appreciate that that was kind of the wild wild west, but that's not typically how TV works. Whereas film, you can you can
• 8:37
  Melissa Shere Beek: So did you have the best time on set? Was it filled with laughter or were there, like, stressful moments too or were you just, like, Yes. On the inside of your
• 8:47
  Jill Kargman: Really? A lot of laughter. I would say that was 90% of it was a lot of laughter. But shooting in New York City is not easy. You just have to have permitting.
• 8:57
  There's noise. There's ambulances, and so there is a lot of stress. We had someone, like, basically stage a trip and fall. You know, there's all kinds of, like, wires everywhere and people most New Yorkers understand, like, you it's a it's a hot site. You have to be careful, but some people just start nagging like, I can't get to my thing.
• 9:17
  It's blocking. This truck is blocking, you know, or people complain.
• 9:20
  Melissa Shere Beek: The nasty neighbors.
• 9:22
  Jill Kargman: Yeah. That's that's a big part of it. But that's kind of the price you pay shooting in New York City, which is mostly a total joy.
• 9:31
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh my god. So how did you come up with Danielle?
• 9:34
  Jill Kargman: So Danielle was a character that I was, like, just posting online during COVID.
• 9:40
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah.
• 9:40
  Jill Kargman: It's it's sort of was like a shtick that had to do with some of the moms that I had known of friends' kids who complain a lot and stuff like that. And in the very beginning of before COVID even happened, we had gone as a family to Amsterdam and we were in the Anne Frank house. My girls had read the book. And then when we when COVID hit, we we had no way of knowing that three months later, we would be in lockdown. A lot of people were bitching and moaning and I understand it was a tough time for a lot of people and it was scary.
• 10:14
  Melissa Shere Beek: But Yeah.
• 10:14
  Jill Kargman: A lot of people were really, really complaining, and we had just been in Anne Frank's house. So I heard my daughter her friend's mom was on the iPad. They were FaceTiming, and she's like, this is a nightmare. We can't go out. It's a nightmare.
• 10:28
  And I heard my daughter say, it's not a nightmare. We were just in Anne Frank's the annex where she was hiding. Howdy, Jack. You're in a mansion in the Hamptons, and you have a seat on this, and you have the Internet and Netflix. So I was very proud of my kid that she had that perspective, and it really goes to show that travel is part of your education.
• 10:47
  But as, like, a joke, I started imitating. I made a video for my friend, and I sent it to her imitating the mom being like, this is a nightmare. And she said, you have to post that. So I posted it and I got like crazy feedback of people wanting more. So I just kept posting every day.
• 11:07
  I would do a little tidbit on my stories, kvetching about something, and one of them went totally viral and had, like, you know, half a million views, which is viral for me, saying, you know, making fun about, like, the gray hair and not being able to get your manicure. And there was Speakeasy pop up salons in the back of a supermarket where you have, like, go through Aisle 6 and move the plastic fettuccine, and there's just, like, Romanians giving me I care so much. So I was talking about this, and it it totally exploded on my stories. And then I was a Vogue editor asked if she can do a story on me, and it it, you know, at that point, people had reached out about wanting to develop it more as a character.
• 11:54
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh my god. It's hysterical. Do you have ideas for a next movie with new characters or a dream cast or another? Because your cameos and your cast are amazing.
• 12:03
  Jill Kargman: Thank you. I was really lucky to get cameos from New Yorkers and actors. I just wanted to lend veracity to a world that's very cartoonish and hyperbolized because it is Yeah. Fun of influencers. As for a sequel, I gotta say, I don't I don't think it's would it be in the works?
• 12:22
  But when I went to Aspen with my family over spring break, I sure got a lot of material because that is such a scene. It's like Danielle with snow and all these women with the Cloud9 hats and the dumb cowboy hats and boots, like, basically naked otherwise at the Apres ski. It was just so it was, like, ripe for comedy. It was shooting fish in a barrel, but I have other things planned, so I don't think so.
• 12:46
  Melissa Shere Beek: Okay. I was gonna say, if you come back down to Miami, I could be an assistant writer on the next one for all the South Florida women because that's whole bag of that's a whole bag of information.
• 12:56
  Jill Kargman: Definitely got some material when I was there too. I've been to Miami twice this year already and definitely had fun checking out, like, the boobs and the the look. I mean, everyone's naked.
• 13:10
  Melissa Shere Beek: Very colorful, tropical. It's like tits and teeth and yeah.
• 13:15
  Jill Kargman: Influencers everywhere and tits and teeth. When
• 13:19
  Melissa Shere Beek: you went to school, did you know that you were going to make a career out of humor?
• 13:25
  Jill Kargman: No. Actually, I well, I went to Yale, and I was always acting, and I was never not in a play. I loved being in plays, but I sort of felt, like, sad when I was graduating because I thought, oh, well, I'll never act again because who wants to be an actress? So I really was focused on writing at the time. In the mid nineties, magazines were a big deal.
• 13:44
  So I had a job in magazines, and I'd worked at Harper's Bazaar and then Interview. And I started writing for Vogue actually right when I graduated. And I had a pretty good freelance career, but I never thought I would be acting again, and it really it took a whole it it was not a linear route for me. I was writing for magazines, and then I started writing books. I wrote my first book when my daughter, Sadie right when I was pregnant with Sadie and then when she was born, I brought her on a 10 city book tour, which was crazy.
• 14:19
  And I did that for many years, which was great because when you I had three kids in four years, and I felt like, you know, they're always kind of all over you, and they're so cute, but I needed something for myself. And so for Yeah. Couple hours a day, I would barricade in my bedroom and and write these books. So I had something I needed that time alone, and then they grew up and went to school, and I felt like, wait, I miss people. And by the time Odd Mom Out happened, I was 39 when we shot the pilot, I realized I need this.
• 14:50
  I need I loved the group setting. I loved the writer's room. We had a 150 people on set, and I made these great relationships, which I did again with this movie, Influenced, and it was just like a family. It was so great. And so I don't think I'll ever go back to writing books.
• 15:06
  I still do freelance magazine articles, but I now I don't like being alone that much. A magazine article Right. Can bang out in a day or two, whereas a book, you really are super isolated, and I don't think that's anything I wanna do anymore.
• 15:20
  Melissa Shere Beek: No. You love the feedback interacting with people.
• 15:23
  Jill Kargman: I do, and I really felt like the show I mean, some of my books, Momzillas was in 14 languages, and I got really nice emails and messages from people all over the world, which made me feel cozy, but I feel like TV just reaches more people and it feels more interactive and I get to perform a little and be a ham, which I didn't really realize by I missed I missed doing that. I really did.
• 15:50
  Melissa Shere Beek: Do you still write just, like, when you're taking notes about the things that you've seen in Aspen or Miami or you just are you scribbling them down? Do you have, like, a writing ritual, or are you just getting it when you hear it and writing it down?
• 16:02
  Jill Kargman: No. I I this sounds so not writerly, but I've never had, like, the notebook and the journal with the leather cord. I have a a note in my iPhone that's called funny shit, and I just write funny shit in it.
• 16:17
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, I love it. Do people do people know that you're writing shit and they avoid you, or they are they in on the joke?
• 16:24
  Jill Kargman: They're in on the joke, and also, I mean, I feel like people don't most people don't know me, so I can kinda, like, listen around and just I'm a good I I never went to grad school or anything, but I feel like I have a PhD in people watching, and I'm just an observer and listener. And some people nowadays are just so loud and in your face about their wealth or their influencing and recording a selfie in the middle of a restaurant, you know, a vlog. And it's just they want to be seen. I don't think anyone seems to be hiding so fast. But I I definitely don't feel like people avoid me.
• 17:02
  If anything, they're like, oh my god. Do I have tea for you? Come to Greenwich. Come come to South Florida. You know?
• 17:08
  I feel
• 17:08
  Melissa Shere Beek: like Florida. There's Yeah.
• 17:10
  Jill Kargman: Yeah. There are a lot of people who who get the world, and they want to kind of report in on it, and I love it.
• 17:17
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh my god. That's so funny. Was there ever a time that you felt like you had impostor syndrome?
• 17:25
  Jill Kargman: No. Because I'm lucky enough to be from New York, so I definitely have one foot in and one foot out. I'm here geographically, but the values my parents raised me with are very much know the value of a dollar and give to charity and don't brag and don't be flashy. And, you know, we never had, like, huge logos or anything over the top. Just it just yeah.
• 17:50
  My parents are pretty down to earth and chill. And I feel like also growing up in the seventies, New York was bankrupt. There was graffiti everywhere. And even in the eighties when things were a little more like Wall Street, Gordon Gekko, the girls in my class who were really, really wealthy, like those those movies, they had lemmassines dropped them off three blocks away from school because they were embarrassed. That sort of cards close to your chest embarrassment of riches is gone.
• 18:23
  I feel like now people are really flashy and showing their private jets and posing outside of an airplane, and it's it's just not for me. I think it's really trashy. But I don't know. I would never have impostor syndrome because I'm not at that level nor do I want to be. Someone actually I did this Goldman Sachs conference last year for these I was a speaker, but it was, like, I think the three hundred hundred biggest female investors.
• 18:52
  And I was on Mint on JetBlue, which is great. And, like, a bunch of them lived in New York. This was out in Laguna Beach, and a bunch of them said, like, do you wanna ride back on our jet? And I said, no. Thanks.
• 19:04
  I'm on JetBlue Mint, and they just couldn't believe that I would turn down a ride on a private jet. But I was like, then I have to talk to you for seven hours. I'd rather be alone with 200 strangers than sing for my supper and then have to gift anyway. Like, no thanks. I'm perfectly happy on JetBlue.
• 19:21
  Thank you very much.
• 19:22
  Melissa Shere Beek: Pass. Oh my god. Well, it sounds like your family is amazing. I mean, they taught you to be grounded and really appreciate gratitude for all the things that we are fortunate enough to have. And and I've it sounds like your children are that way too.
• 19:36
  Jill Kargman: Oh, yeah. I don't I never talked with wide eyes about the so and so's get to do this or that. I mean, my kid's very young, unfortunately, like picked up on some of it because just because we live here. And they'd say, don't we have a country house? Why don't we go to the Hamptons?
• 19:51
  And I said, oh, because mommy doesn't drive, and I don't like traffic, and the Hamptons aren't for me. But we'll go visit friends and whatever. But it's just not it's not for me. But I I mean, there's a lot of that. It's Ivy, my middle one.
• 20:05
  This was one of the genesis lines of Odd Mom Out when I was pitching it to Andy Cohen. She was probably two years old at nursery school and said, mommy, why are you the only mom at school without red bottoms on your shoes? And I didn't know whether to be, like, horrified or kind of impressed by her powers of observation, but
• 20:23
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, it's just a little of both.
• 20:25
  Jill Kargman: Yes. A little of both. But, yeah, I, you know, I didn't have red bottoms on my shoes. We wanted to do other things.
• 20:33
  Melissa Shere Beek: You're still fabulous. It doesn't matter. Do you have people that you are really super inspired by?
• 20:41
  Jill Kargman: Well, I feel like artistically Woody Allen has always been a huge inspiration. His voice, his humor, his writing, his books, and his movies were always really inspiring. And I feel like Nora Ephron's books were really
• 20:56
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, yeah.
• 20:56
  Jill Kargman: Movies, books, everything. Cynthia Cynthia I forget her name now. There was there was a couple female writers who I really loved back in the day. In the eighties, I read a lot of magazines and just got really into women who have a sharp tongue.
• 21:16
  Melissa Shere Beek: I love that. I love brilliant women. If you could have an afternoon with any Humorist living or not, who would it be?
• 21:24
  Jill Kargman: Any Humorist? I don't know. I I would just pick my kids. I really don't like meeting my heroes. I feel sometimes I've been let down by actors.
• 21:33
  I went to the Vanity Fair Oscar party a couple years ago, and I just decided to bust up to anyone because they didn't have entourages and they're pretty just next to you. And a lot of people I found were kind of boring. It's just I'd rather not meet my heroes and spend time with my family.
• 21:50
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. What's what's the best family fun time you have?
• 21:56
  Jill Kargman: We love, like, piling in the car and going to Brooklyn and going out, like, a fun brunch or a gallery or just anything. We love smorgasbord and going we love food. That's like a big thing. Yes. Or going to a Broadway show or a museum.
• 22:11
  We just really Harry and my husband Harry and I really used New York as a third parent. We really I mean, we were here on the weekends too. So I felt like we were always in all the boroughs and going I mean, maybe not Staten Island, but, like, definitely using the city a lot and filching all of the joy and inspiration from it. Whereas a lot of my friends do leave every weekend. So, I mean, they think of Brooklyn as sort of they're like a tourist there, whereas we really use the whole city.
• 22:40
  So I would say exploring New York, and we love travel.
• 22:45
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. I think what you said is right. If you're fortunate enough to travel, I think that's been the best life experience that my children and my family have had, and you said it perfectly. Like, your children's perspective from learning with travel. It
• 23:00
  Jill Kargman: Completely. It takes them out of the little petri dish of school and gives you perspective on the whole world and how big it is, how lucky we are. And despite Yeah. Whatever problems we have in our country, we're still lucky to be American. And we we were in Zimbabwe and Zambia and went to some of these villages, and my kids knew about poverty, but you you just don't get it until you're seeing how people are living, and I just don't that they'll ever forget it.
• 23:28
  Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. No. That's important. I think it's important. I think the ripple effect of that is important as well because the way they see the world and how they interact with others and then what they teach their children going forward.
• 23:39
  So
• 23:39
  Jill Kargman: That's right. And in our own backyard. I mean, we volunteer in New York at a food pantry, There's poverty here too. It's not the same, but it's Right. Still, there's there's food insecurity here.
• 23:51
  So we try to really instill that in them. The first time was a drag. I had to wake them up at seven on a Saturday. They were whining and bitching. And then we got there, and they saw the line of people who were waiting for food.
• 24:03
  Little kids their age who didn't have a proper coat, you know, and that's when they woke up and got it. And now they love to go.
• 24:10
  Melissa Shere Beek: I'm so glad that you do that with your family and you teach them to give back. That's amazing. It's Yeah.
• 24:16
  Jill Kargman: It's a
• 24:17
  Melissa Shere Beek: big part of do it. Yeah. It's critical. What haven't you done yet that you want to?
• 24:23
  Jill Kargman: It's so funny you asked that. My husband was just asking me that about a bucket list. I really feel like I mean, watch me now get, like, hit by a car tomorrow. I feel there's nothing I want to do. I my bucket list is just, like, to enjoy everybody and have fun with the rest of my life.
• 24:41
  I mean, it's weird in your fifties, you are starting to think about mortality more in bucket lists. I mean, he never would have said that ten years ago. But I feel like I've traveled a lot, and I don't I'd love to return to places, but I'm I I don't feel like deprived of something. He's a bit more adventurous than I am and has these sort of Antarctic dreams, which I do not. So I don't know.
• 25:05
  We'll figure out what those big trips are, but I'm just very happy in my little pod. I by the way, I'm not big on leaving your comfort zone at this age. I I like my comfort zone, and everyone shames it, but I'm
• 25:18
  Melissa Shere Beek: sorry. I
• 25:19
  Jill Kargman: I'm happy to be healthy. I
• 25:23
  Melissa Shere Beek: get it. I get it. Is there any time you've laughed completely inappropriately?
• 25:29
  Jill Kargman: A million times. I have a disease where I laugh extremely inappropriately. Off the top of my head, I would say, this is terrible. But I was at a funeral where the the guy, the pastor had, like, just a really weird voice like the princess bride. The guy the card the cardinal in princess bride who was like, Matt Welch.
• 25:51
  He had a voice that was really cartoonish.
• 25:54
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, shit.
• 25:55
  Jill Kargman: And I thought I was going to collapse. My friend and I also have friend I have the same five best friends that were bridesmaids at my wedding. We're really, really close, and we laugh really hard. And because it's rooted in childhood, well, two are from college and the other three are from childhood and age 14, we are immature together. It's just like this bad habit.
• 26:19
  And so when we start laughing, we cannot stop. Like, it's a problem. Have this with my brother too. But, yeah, I I definitely laugh when I'm not supposed to. It's an issue.
• 26:29
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, a 100%. And I was gonna ask you, is it different maybe with the childhood friends and your brother than it is with the college friends? But, like, sometimes it's just a look or a nuance or something that you all know, and then you just completely lose your shit. You don't even need to say anything. It's, like, understood.
• 26:46
  Jill Kargman: Yeah. I I had a harder time as a child. It's funny because I turned into someone who got good grades and was, like, very type a. But as a little kid, I was sent out of the classroom all the time for bad behavior because I was a class clown. All my report cards would say, like, she's she's so gifted if she would only apply herself, but instead, she tries to make her classmates laugh.
• 27:11
  And I was sent in the hallway all the time. And it's and then I would do a pig face in the hallway. We had these skinny those skinny windows in the door and I would smear my face down the the window and try to keep making them laugh even though I was sent out. And kind of decided, you know, in middle school, okay, I wanna do well. I'm gonna change my habits.
• 27:35
  But I feel like all of lower school, my teachers hated me.
• 27:39
  Melissa Shere Beek: Did they look at you now or try to contact you now and say, I'm sorry. You were right.
• 27:44
  Jill Kargman: No. But I really feel like there were a couple who got me and and kept me going, and they were the ones that inspired me to maybe try a little harder, and they they did it with love. But I was an asshole. I mean, I was disruptive. So No.
• 28:00
  You had a goal. You knew what you wanted. Well, I just I think I just wanted to be silly. I don't know. I've always been Nothing wrong
• 28:08
  Melissa Shere Beek: with that.
• 28:09
  Jill Kargman: Silly. Yeah.
• 28:10
  Melissa Shere Beek: I like silly. My kids mock my silliness, but it's okay. I'm like, that's it. I get it. I all my people are out there.
• 28:18
  Jill Kargman: That's right.
• 28:18
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh god. God. So I have one more thing I wanna do before I let you go, but I just really wanna thank you again. Everybody needs to go see influence. It opens in select theaters on May 8.
• 28:28
  Right?
• 28:29
  Jill Kargman: Yes. And I'm Okay. Good. Around doing different appearances in Boston, LA, Chicago, Philadelphia, whatever. But if you just follow my Instagram, I'm gonna keep posting links when I'm in theaters to do a q and a.
• 28:44
  I'm going around to different places. But
• 28:46
  Melissa Shere Beek: I love that.
• 28:48
  Jill Kargman: Yeah. So
• 28:48
  Melissa Shere Beek: influencemovie.com. Right? If they wanna get tickets
• 28:52
  Jill Kargman: too? Yes.
• 28:53
  Melissa Shere Beek: Okay. Okay. Perfect. Oh my god. I I have one more thing I wanna do before I let you go.
• 28:58
  It's it's called quickie questions. Are you game?
• 29:01
  Jill Kargman: Yes. Totally game. Love a rapid fire.
• 29:04
  Melissa Shere Beek: Okay. What's your funniest childhood memory?
• 29:07
  Jill Kargman: My dad hated coconut and mango. It's not really childhood. I was just, like, a young adult, but we were in a rest oh, and my parents also hated when waiters say the price, and I have. And so this it was like a triple whammy. This waiter came out and goes, tonight I have a special dessert called Jamaican me crazy.
• 29:29
  It's a half a coconut hollowed out with mangoed ice cream and then shaved coconut on top. And my dad goes, Jamaican me sick. And we started we almost, like, fainted. We were laughing so hard. Oh my god.
• 29:41
  My family hates coconut. We don't like, it's just like a weird inside joke, but that's one of them.
• 29:46
  Melissa Shere Beek: That's it. That's it. Okay. What do you do for fun?
• 29:50
  Jill Kargman: We love to travel, go to exhibits, go to rock shows. I would say rock concerts are my number one. This summer, we're going to Guns N' Roses, Metallica, and Queens of the Stone Age. We have a lot of tickets. That's pretty much like our big fun push in the summer.
• 30:10
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, I love that. Okay. What don't people know about you?
• 30:15
  Jill Kargman: I think that I'm an introvert because I feel like I'm pretty friendly, but and I do love people, but I I have a very short social battery. So when I go to a cocktail party or something, I'm, like, wiped out after. And my husband and just wanna get in bed and play New York Times games. Like, I'm really not super social.
• 30:34
  Melissa Shere Beek: I get it. That's it. I'm a homebody. I gotta do all my puzzles at home. Yeah.
• 30:38
  What's the best, like, fuck you moment when someone doubted you?
• 30:43
  Jill Kargman: That's good question. I can't think of one off the top of my head.
• 30:50
  Melissa Shere Beek: Okay.
• 30:51
  Jill Kargman: Yeah. I love a fuck you moment, though. There's some other peoples that I think about, like the guy in Harvard Business School who in the sixties who wanted to challenge the postal service with a privatized delivery service, and the teacher said gave him an f and said this will never happen, and then twenty years later, he FedExed it to him. That's my favorite fuck you story ever.
• 31:16
  Melissa Shere Beek: That’s brilliant. Okay And what's your - I think you probably answered this. I was gonna say what's your go to family fun time? My
• 31:23
  Jill Kargman: kids love rock concerts too, so I would say that too. But I guess, like, going out to dinner and ordering a shitload of food to share and stuff. I used to not be into family style because I want what I want and I'm finicky, but my kids have gotten me into it because they're way more adventurous and they like to try different things. And they've pushed my my palate comfort zone. That's one thing I've stretched a little bit.
• 31:47
  Melissa Shere Beek: What's your favorite food?
• 31:50
  Jill Kargman: Well, I love cheese. So I love, like, any dishes. I love French onion soup or pizza, anything that has cheese. I'm like a cheese addict. I that's most women's chocolate is cheese for me.
• 32:02
  Melissa Shere Beek: I love it. Aw. Thank you. I I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you did this, and I'm so appreciative that you were on. I I just it was an absolute pleasure and an absolute honor to have you on the podcast.
• 32:16
  Jill Kargman: It's my honor and pleasure, and I'm so grateful to you for seeing the movie in Miami because you were the first audience, and it just means so much that you came. And thank you for for having me on your show because I'm really itching to get this out there and have people see it, so I appreciate
• 32:32
  Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, yeah. No. And and I just don't yeah. No. I think people don't realize that your wit is so fabulous, but the undercurrent of love just hits fully as well besides the humor, the undercurrent of just being so heartwarming and genuine.
• 32:51
  And, really, it was such a great pleasure to have you today, and I am so thrilled. Everybody needs to go see this, and I cannot wait for the next thing that you're doing. And please keep up the snarky fabulous Instagrams because you keep me peeing in my pants.
• 33:06
  Jill Kargman: Oh, great. Okay. Thank you. I'm I never know who likes it or gets it. I just, like, you know,
• 33:11
  Melissa Shere Beek: Love! Yeah.
• 33:13
  Jill Kargman: It's like so I have, like, Tourette's. Anyway, but thank you, Melissa. You're so nice, and I hope you are.
• 33:22
  Melissa Shere Beek: Such a great thank you again. It was really so so fabulous and and just have a beautiful time. Enjoy your family and good luck. I know the movie's gonna be a huge success.
• 33:31
  Jill Kargman: Thank you so much. Enjoy.
• 33:33
  Melissa Shere Beek: Alright. Take care and have a beautiful day.
• 33:36
  Jill Kargman: You too, and thank you, Steven.
• 33:38
  Melissa Shere Beek: Follow Beek on being on Instagram for the latest. To share ideas, thoughts, suggestions, or nominate a guest, DM us. Want exclusive content, behind the scenes stories, and listener links? Subscribe. Beek on being was recorded at Penthouse Studios and is a proud member of the Penthouse Podcast Network.