Photo of David Duchovny with the podcast name, Fail Better, written in a serif font

What Madonna Taught Rosie O’Donnell About Fame

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Rosie O’Donnell’s famous friends tell her she’s no good at being a celebrity. And if she’s honest, she’s never really felt like one. Despite her iconic roles and mass appeal, Rosie says she always identified more with the viewers at home rather than the stars she was interviewing on her long-running talk show. We got together in person to discuss all this, plus the devastating loss she suffered as a child, and what we both think about meeting fans at conventions. Rosie might feel iffy about fame, but that doesn’t mean the “it” factor that propelled her there isn’t still a driving force in her creative and personal life. And she’s continued to inspire others, too — just ask Eminem.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Rosie O’Donnell, David Duchovny

David Duchovny  00:00

What I realized when I was researching Rosie O’Donnell, our guest this week. You know, you think you know somebody because they’re in the public eye, you think you know their work. I do, I think I knew Rosie, but then I read her books celebrity detox, really well written really, really well thought out. Really interesting book about fame and about leaving fame behind, which I wouldn’t have expected. Also to learn for activism, I’ve been regularly blown away by the depth and the breadth of the lives of the people that I thought I knew that I was interviewing. I thought I knew what their work was. I thought I knew where most of their work was. I thought I knew where their heart lies, lay lies, and Rosie’s maybe the most glaring exception for that, in that I had no idea all the work that she’s done, not just as an actor. I’d forgotten, I’d forgotten that, but the impact of her talk show, the walking away from a contract after just six years, because talk shows can go on forever, and the amount of money she walked away from, the books that she’s written, the children she’s adopted such a full life.

 

David Duchovny  01:22

I’m David Duchovny, and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Rosie O’Donnell wrote her friends. Is a comedian, actress, author and former daytime TV host. She began her career doing stand up comedy, then appeared in movies we know and love like a league of their own and Sleepless in Seattle and the Flintstones movie, she had her own talk show, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, for six seasons, and she also made quite an impression as a co host of The View early on. Rosie is known to be a generous philanthropist and a big advocate for adoption rights, especially for the LGBTQ community. Rosie and I got to meet and talk in person, which I was very happy about, not just to begin with, but also just the way the conversation goes face to face, eye to eye, a real life conversation and a real life studio, just for you, dear listeners, here’s that conversation with Roe.

 

David Duchovny  02:24

So I have a quote here from a wise woman who says, I’m a comedian. My talent is linked to laughter. My core desire is to connect with people in the raw, realness of their lives. My work is about story, revelation and comfort.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  02:40

Was that me?

 

David Duchovny  02:41

That’s you.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  02:42

Wow. God, sometimes I amaze myself, if I would have went, Wow, that’s a beautiful quote.

 

David Duchovny  02:47

Who’s in that, isn’t it?

 

Rosie O’Donnell  02:48

Yeah. Well, people are always asking you as a comic, what is it that you’re trying to do? You know, I never looked at stand up as an art form. I wanted to go into, I understand. I wanted to do Bette midler’s backup singer. I wanted to be on Broadway. I wanted to sing and dance like Barbara and Bette. And that was my goal. So I sort of fell into the stand up comedy, and my mom used to listen to toddy fields.

 

David Duchovny  03:15

I remember toady fields.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  03:16

Wasn’t she something else?

 

David Duchovny  03:18

Well, what I wanted to do, because I have you here in the flesh, because it’s the best thing I can do on radio, which is I call podcast radio me too, because I’m that old, same with me. I want to just look at each other without speaking for a minute. Okay, good. So we’re going to subject the listeners to a minute of silence, knowing that we are just looking at one another.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  03:42

Deal.

 

David Duchovny  03:56

And now, if I only had the balls to do that for 45 minutes, we would have, we would have a hit.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  04:03

We sure would be groundbreaking in podcasts, at least. Now, what were you thinking during that? I was thinking of when I first saw you, when I first met you, when I met you with Taya, and we did, when we did League and all that stuff. And then I remember this funny thing when she was on millionaire like, 20 years ago, and she called you and said, Honey, remember we were in that city, and you were like, you’re shit out of luck, babe.

 

David Duchovny  04:27

She said I was shit out.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  04:28

Yeah, so I remembered that.

 

David Duchovny  04:29

I called her as a lifeline.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  04:31

Yes.

 

David Duchovny  04:31

Yeah, I think she said, you’re fucked.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  04:34

That’s right.

 

David Duchovny  04:35

Which was not, still not a word you can use on network television.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  04:38

No, but we all laughed at home. It was great. It was really fun, right?

 

David Duchovny  04:41

Yeah, I was just thinking of, you know, I’ve been watching and reading about you for the last few days, you know, getting ready to come in here. And I was just, I was just trying to feel the person, you know, because I watch, I’ve been watching your work. I’ve been. Reading your books, celebrity detox, I think is a fantastic book. I don’t know if you got a chance to talk about that much.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  05:06

I didn’t really, because it was right after 911 that it came out, or maybe that was the first book, but, but I didn’t really get to do nothing. Was 2006 2006 Yeah, that was the one I talked about Barbara and and leaving the show, and how odd it felt to kind of have to detox from celebrity which took me years. David, it didn’t take me, you know, a couple months. It took me years to go from that kind of mass adulation back to a normal human existence.

 

David Duchovny  05:34

Yeah, do you want to speak some about that? Because what I was struck by in your book, in that book, celebrity detox, was that it wasn’t just the detox from fame. It was also a conscious choice to spend the time that you’d be working as a parent to spend it so it wasn’t it’s not just it’s about parenting as well as celebrity as much as it is about celebrity detox, which I found fascinating.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  06:00

Well, I think that the celebrity got in the way of the parenting so.

 

David Duchovny  06:04

How so?

 

Rosie O’Donnell  06:05

Well, you know, when you’re a little kid and you go to the mall with your mother, and you’re three or four, and you’re adorable, and blonde, people stop and go, Oh my God, that’s the cutest kid in the world. When your parent is famous, you’re ignored. You are kind of invisible. And sometimes when they were little, they’d say, Me too, me too. When the people wanted a picture, or, you know, my name park, or my name park, you know, heartbreaking. It is. It was heartbreaking. And and now they tease me, we go somewhere and like, nobody recognizes me, and they’re like, Mom, you went to the mall and nobody knew it was you, you know, but it did get in the way. And also, you know, I was very formed. My entire career trajectory was based on the fact that I needed to be done when I was 40, in case I died like my mother did.

 

David Duchovny  06:53

That was your thinking going in.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  06:54

I left when I was 40 on my show. I’m 62 now.

 

David Duchovny  06:58

But you’d always thought you might leave when you were 40 or die. That’s what.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  07:02

Well, I thought I was going to die because my mother did, and that’s a common thought of motherless daughters and hope. Edelman wrote a wonderful book about it. And anyone who’s had mother loss and not delve into the emotional part, I recommend you get the book and the workbook. But I knew that my mother missed so much dying before her kids were, you know, grown. I mean, she had five children under the age of 12, and she died in three months from aggressive breast cancer in 1973 and you know that Nora Ephron always used to say to me, is that going to remain the defining fact of your life? Kind of angry, you know? And I was like, it is, yeah, it’s the time when the world went, you know, from color to black and white. And then I got my son in a cane color again, you know.

 

David Duchovny  07:48

At the time you’re 10, you say?

 

Rosie O’Donnell  07:50

Yeah.

 

David Duchovny  07:51

It’s funny. When I was going through a divorce, I remember talking to a therapist, and he said, you know, there is no way to do this that can protect the kids completely because the job of a child, because children don’t have jobs, but the job of a child is to keep the family together, right? I wonder if that resonated at all to you. Was the job of the child, Rosie, to keep your mother alive? Was it to keep the family intact? And that that was and obviously, at 10, you don’t have those thoughts, but I’m wondering in your time processing that loss as a failure, as something else than disapproved, fact that it is.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  08:31

You know, it was really interesting, because many mothers on our street got breast cancer, and my best friend’s mother got it three years after my mother did. And there was talk at the time, and they’ve done studies that the water table on Long Island, on the new suburban homes, they killed all of the potato fields with DDT, which are Agent Orange, and then the women who were post, who are menstruating, had a hormonal response to it, and it triggered the breast cancer. That’s one of the theories about why the breast cancer incidence is so high on Long Island, but my best friend Jackie still my best friend, her mother got breast cancer and lived. So that was when I was in seventh grade, and I remember thinking, Why didn’t my mother live? And I asked her, and Bernie said, there’s no way I was dying before I saw my grandkids. And that devastated me, sure, because I thought, Why didn’t my mother feel that way? Why didn’t she want to live for us?

 

David Duchovny  09:24

So it says it’s that magical thinking of the child that my mother would have lived if she really had wanted to in some way.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  09:32

Yeah, or if I was better if I had, you know, like I would play all the sports when I was in school, and I’d look around and try to see her. Sometimes I think I saw her in the audience, but then I would turn and look, and she wouldn’t be there, you know. So it was definitely the heartbreak of.

 

David Duchovny  09:50

Still.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  09:51

Yeah.

 

David Duchovny  09:51

I can feel it.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  09:52

And when my children arrived, that was the time I missed her the most. And just last week, at my son’s wedding. My son got married, and he’s the first one to do that in our family, and it was the most emotional thing. I wasn’t prepared, but part of it was the longing for my mother to have seen my son reach this threshold and and cross over into his adult life.

 

David Duchovny  10:18

Is that, do you think I don’t know how to put it. It’s, is that for your mom, or is that to show your mom that Rosie grew up and could make a family?

 

Rosie O’Donnell  10:31

I did it, mom. And wouldn’t it be nice if you were here to see that? I never felt it really about my career. I never thought like, oh, I wish my mom was here to see the show, no, but I always felt that about the little things. Like, you know, when it’s cookie day for the fundraiser at the school, and all the mothers would come in, and, you know, I was constantly sucking up to all my friends mothers, when my friends went through the normal push away in your teens of their parents, I would be on the mother’s side all the time and be a real kiss ass to the moms. And, you know, in fact, they were like an Eddie Haskell kind of like. And it was funny because one of my friends, Jeannie, her mom, found her birth control at 16 in her pocketbook, and they said it was mine, which is the joke still amongst the friends and Genie’s mother believed it. You know, I was like, well, that’s wishful thinking, I guess, yeah.

 

David Duchovny  11:26

But if not the job, if not the fame for your Mom, do you think I mean, just in the classic sense that the fame was, was directed towards that whole absence.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  11:40

Totally, although, before she died, you know, she’s the one who got me into Barbra Streisand. She was obsessed.

 

David Duchovny  11:46

Is why I was surprised when you said you weren’t that involved in like her seeing your fame, or her seeing you, you know, working with Barbara Walters, or, you know, all these people that she would have admired in show business, these women.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  11:58

Well, there was one time when Ted Kennedy and his mom came up to the show like in the second week, at 30 rock they were down doing the Today Show, and my assistant said, Ted Kennedy and his mom are on the way up to see you. And I thought at that moment, I got choked up and started to cry, because I thought if my mother knew that the Kennedys, which in our family, it’s an Irish thing. Come on, right? The Kennedys were in my office to talk to me like that would have, I think, blown her little brain apart.

 

David Duchovny  12:30

Yeah, but I want to just go back for a moment to the first stand up, when you first went and did it Yes, and then the second time Yes, and then maybe the third time. But it was a fascinating process to me. If you could just tell people out there what it was, because your innocence is amazing to me.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  12:48

Yeah, I was 16, though, remember.

 

David Duchovny  12:49

I didn’t know you’re 16.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  12:50

Yeah, I was in my high school play, and I was a sophomore, and I got to write the skit that made fun of the teachers the senior follies, so, you know, I would steal from SNL, like a very flat teacher, skinny, I’d say Miss Baron. More on that story as it developed, like I totally took everything from SNL. And this guy was in the audience, Richie Minervini. He’s about 15 years older than the kid in my grade who was in the play. And he said, I own a comedy club. I think you’d be a great stand up comic. And I said, No way. I’m going to be on Broadway. And he said, Well, come to the club and see what you can do. So I went on the show, and that day I watched Merv Griffin, and I saw Jerry Seinfeld. And I he wasn’t famous at that time. It was, you know, a lot of comics from New York would get on the train to Philly to do Merv Griffin whenever he had in a space. And Jerry was one of those guys. And so I watched it. And when I got to the club, because I had no material, really, I would do his act, but not only his act. I took his cadence and his delivery, Jerry, Jerry. So I would almost talk like that. I’m thinking, Hey, I’ve heard that in you.

 

David Duchovny  13:55

Yeah, it slips in sometimes.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  13:56

Yes, it does. It’s what I consider the standard comedian voice, which I thought, in order to be a comic, you got to talk like that, right, right? You know? And it took me a long time to try to make my stand up, which is mostly storytelling and conversation much more conversational than it was presentational. You know, when somebody presents you with a gift, it’s wrapped and it’s everything’s perfect, and they hand it to you, and it’s all done, but when you’re just having a conversation, it’s not finished yet.

 

David Duchovny  14:25

Well, you’ve said, and what I really appreciate you saying is, you know, you’re, I think you’re at heart, an improv person, right? And it seemed to me that you were that person at heart from the beginning, you know, even at that young age to go in. And what I was struck by in this thing that I read was that you did, the first night you did was all my friends, all your friends were in the audience. So you just do the high school material, which, and I kill, right? You kill, because they all know all the inside jokes.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  14:54

And it was like, you know, 40 kids from high school, and then.

 

David Duchovny  14:57

They’re loud.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  14:58

Right, their parents. And so I’d say, Mary. Islands, dating Michael and so and so does it now. And they’d be like, Oh my God. So he goes, come back the next night. And the next night is when I did.

 

David Duchovny  15:07

All strangers.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  15:08

All strangers, and I bombed the horrible deaths. So the first night it was like, this is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. And the second night is, I will never be able to do this, and I don’t want to do it again.

 

David Duchovny  15:17

Are you saying that Seinfeld material bombed? Or was it just.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  15:20

No it when I walked off stage all the now I’m not mind you. I’m 16. These men are in their 30s. They surround me in the back little green room and say, Rosie, where’d you get that joke? I said Jerry Seinfeld. He was on my screen.

 

David Duchovny  15:33

No, guilt about.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  15:34

No idea that you and they say you have to write your own jokes. I’m like Barbra Streisand does not write her own songs. She sings other people’s songs. I’m not a writer, I’m a comedian. And they said, No, you got to do your own so Richie was very nice the owner of that club. He said to me, why don’t you come down and be the emcee and you can learn how to incorporate your own life into your material. And I did that for a couple years. And then Ed McMahon’s daughter happened to be in the club in 1984 search. I was 22 Yeah? And she said, you know, my dad’s Ed McMahon, and I’m going to put you on Star Search. And it had been on for one year, and I was obsessed with it, you know, yeah, with Sam Harris and somewhere over the rainbow, right? And so I was on year two of that as a result of Richie giving me that MC spot, and this woman, Claudia McMahon, getting me on, the Star Search.

 

David Duchovny  16:31

Do you remember the process of trying to write your own material? Or what was your what would you say your angle was at that point? And were you still thinking of, oh, I’m going to write these jokes that are going to line up, or I’m going to go out there and kind of have a funny attitude and see where it leads me.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  16:45

Well, I had stories more than anything, you know. Like there was a story like, because I was sort of the oldest female in the family, and then I had a little brother that, you know, was like five when my mother died and and so he used to take my maxi pads that floated in the bathtub and put his army men on them, and then throw the tampons in like they were bombs, and make a whole scene in the bathtub. So that was the first joke that I quote, unquote, wrote that whole bit about that. And then I learned how to make a bit I never was good at writing jokes, jokes like when I worked with Gary Marshall, and he would always say, Rosa, go over there, do a chuff for chuffa and come back. Chuff a chuff at a Gary mint, make shit up, right, right? So that anytime you worked with him or with Penny, you know, they were two peas in a pod, they would say, you know, you got anything for this.

 

David Duchovny  17:37

Even I like that, your penny and your Gary, they’re distinct.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  17:40

They’re different are a little.

 

David Duchovny  17:41

I’ve spoken to them both, and they’re spot on. So I appreciate that.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  17:46

Thank you very few people noticed that.

 

David Duchovny  17:49

But what’s going through your head at this point? And you’re so you’ve you’ve done stand up, you were on Star Search, you you’ve done a couple movies.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  17:58

I became a VJ first on VH one.

 

David Duchovny  18:01

I remember. VH one, I don’t remember your, VJ.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  18:04

Yeah, I had to do six hours a day, just introducing videos, four segments an hour, two segments each. So you had to make it up. You had to go ah and Rosie O’Donnell on today. VH one, a GO, GO is on Tonight at eight to 12. So don’t forget to miss that. And coming up next, Whitney Houston, another debut CD with another and that really helped my career, because that’s how Penny saw me, to ask me to come audition for League of Their Own from VH one, okay, and then Gary saw me in league of their own, and was like, let’s work with her and My whole career. They both helped me so much.

 

David Duchovny  19:07

Even when you were doing, you know, big movies, you still have that fan sense to you, and I think that that joined you with the fans out there.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  19:16

I agree they think that she’s one of us, you know, she’s just like us. That’s how we would react if Streisand came on the show, or that’s how I would react if I got to be all of a sudden in a movie like that.

 

David Duchovny  19:28

And it was never my sense. Was it was never faked?

 

Rosie O’Donnell  19:31

No.

 

David Duchovny  19:32

It was really who you were.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  19:34

Yes, and I couldn’t believe it. I like not only the ones that you know, like Streisand or David Bowie, but Carol Brady, you know? Sure, Florence Henderson sat next to me and I couldn’t catch my breath, like, I’m like, this is the woman I wanted to marry my father and to make our whole life better again. This was the woman I wanted to be, the mom, you know?

 

David Duchovny  19:56

And she wanted her for mom too.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  19:57

Yeah, and she’s sitting right there.

 

David Duchovny  19:59

I met her on an airplane.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  20:00

Very  friendly, wasn’t she?

 

David Duchovny  20:02

I think, yeah, and I think I might have said something like, you know, like, I think I would fantasize that she was my mom, so that she would kiss me goodnight. Oh, it was very innocent.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  20:12

Yeah, I had that with Eight is Enough with Betty Buckley. I had a crush on her, but I didn’t know it. Yeah. I was like, I totally want Betty Buckley to marry my dad. And I’m like, maybe I wanted to marry me. Took a while to get there.

 

David Duchovny  20:25

But you’re not just a fan. You’re super talented. So that’s, it’s a strange kind of, you know, because you becoming a star makes it a little harder.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  20:34

Well, it was kind of, you know, I got that the league of their own role, and then to be cast in a movie opposite the most famous woman in the world as the best friend, right, me and Madonna. That was like a life altering casting session for me, because it changed my whole world. Like that kind of fame is once a generation, you know, that kind of Elvis, The Beatles, Madonna, and to be that close to it for so long and be able to get an opinion of what it does to the human being through being that close to, you know, Madonna, we’d be.

 

David Duchovny  21:07

You mean, that was like your lesson in fame. This was your fame school. It was and yet you still wanted it.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  21:12

Well, I thought of that. I wanted it, but I thought, look at how much it takes away from her. We were in a elevator, and people would say to her face, I like you better with blonde hair, because league she had dyed her hair brown. And she’d be like, Yeah, fuck you, you know. And at her first, I was like, but then I realized how many people felt that they had the right to say whatever they wanted to her, that she had lost her humanity in the eyes of the public from being too famous. And it was like a cautionary tale, in a way, not that I ever thought I would achieve that level of fame, but that any level of fame could be as toxic and demanding.

 

David Duchovny  21:50

Arguably, you did achieve that kind, a different kind of fame, because a pop singer is somewhat removed and idealized, and you’re you’re way closer, as in talk shows. You’re in people’s homes. You’re everybody’s friend.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  22:04

Yes.

 

David Duchovny  22:04

Which is it can be even creepier kind of fame.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  22:08

I’d be in the mall with my kids, and they’re little in strollers, and somebody will come up and go, Hey, Ro, which if people call me, Ro, I know. Then I go, yeah. And they’re like, whatever happened with your son? And I’m like, I’m sorry. I don’t remember. Oh no, I just watch you, but I couldn’t tell, yeah, but the familiarity with which they came up to me. And one time I was at Le Cirque, I think it was with Rita Wilson for her birthday, and it was a table of who’s who you know, including Bruce Springsteen. And it was like the craziest and I happened to be sitting next to Morton short, which is the best gig anyone could ever have in Hollywood, because he makes fun of everyone at the table under his breath, so only you hear it. But I was sitting there and people kept coming over to me and tapping me on the shoulder, leaning down and saying, Rosie, is that Bruce Springsteen? And I’m like, yes, then he can hear you. So go. It’s like, I’m the easy pass, right? People think, oh, that’s Rosie. We’ll get in that way, you know. And also, because there’s so much intersectionality about my kind of appeal, because people if they had a dead mom, if they had adopted kids, if they have an autistic kid, if they have like, there’s so many ways that people come to to me, you know, and it’s often without a boundary. Yeah, I never felt like a star, and I still to this day, don’t. And some of my friends who are celebrities say to me, you’re the worst celebrity. I’m like, why they go first of all, you make eye contact with everyone. If somebody says hello to you, you say hello. I’m like, Yeah, I know. Like, I I don’t think of myself as equal to them, you know.

 

David Duchovny  23:44

Did you have pride about the other aspects of your talent once the talk show started? Were there other parts of your life that you still felt like creatively you wanted to serve?

 

Rosie O’Donnell  23:56

Well, that’s another reason why. Not Not only that, you know, my mom had died young, but I was talking to people about the art that they were getting to create with other artists, and I wasn’t getting to do that.

 

David Duchovny  24:06

Well, in a way. I mean, it’s disposable, like talk show, stuff is disposable, because what do I have here? I want to quote you again.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  24:16

Let’s see if I’m impressed with myself.

 

David Duchovny  24:17

I think it will be maybe what it means to be an artist is knowing you are doomed to find that you can’t capture it correct. Because sometimes the feelings are so huge, so beyond your medium, they go beyond your medium. And that really rung true for me, yes, and I’m wondering if, once you had it going, you know, once you’re doing the talk show for a while, you know, okay, I’ve done this, yeah. And also, it’s not really going to last.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  24:49

Correct, and I knew that too.

 

David Duchovny  24:51

Not not just the show, but the shows themselves, like people aren’t going to go back and watch these, and they’re

 

Rosie O’Donnell  24:56

cyclical, and they they’re, it’s live, you know, I made sure to do it in New York, so we. Could be live. So the executives couldn’t say, Oh, I didn’t like that Dom DeLuise cooking segment. Could you do it again? You know? And I was like, No, I can’t, because what happens live is is electric, and it’s like theater. And so as soon as I was done with the show, sometimes I’d go home and, like, people would say, who was on today? I wouldn’t even remember, right? And you do three guests a day, you know, for 40 weeks a year. It’s that’s a lot of work. A lot of people that you talk to, yeah, and I did it for I made a four year contract when I started it, because I knew my child would be entering kindergarten, then my oldest boy, and then at the height of the success, I signed on for two more years. So I ended up doing it six years. But they didn’t believe me, the staff nor warner brothers, when I said, No, I’m going to be done. And they kept like, throwing money and throwing money and and I really thought, if you have X amount a million dollars, and you think you need X amount more, you’ve missed the whole point of your life, right? Like, sometimes I would say to Madonna, take off the shoes. You don’t have to run anymore. You know, the race is over. You want it, but it’s not about that, correct? It’s not about that at all.

 

David Duchovny  26:05

And I’m saying, like, the it that you’re going after, you know? And I understand you’re, you’re making room for to be a mom and to raise these kids, and to be a stay at home mom, in a way. But the the it is still calling.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  26:18

Yes, sure.

 

David Duchovny  26:19

It’s calling to you right now.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  26:20

Yes, and when I see beautiful work, when I see something like season three of the bear, which I know some people didn’t like, but when I see something like that, that inspires me so much, or someone’s performance, I know I have to keep going towards that. When I was a young actress, I would see Geraldine Page and Colleen Dewhurst, and I would think, when I’m older, those are the roles I’m going to get to play. And so not to do any plastic surgery, not to do any of the things that that Hollywood usually forces you with, you know, the pressure from, you know, outside. I mean, when I started my show Jim peratori, the guys from Warner Brothers, they’d look at me and they’d hear them and see them going, what are we going to do about our chin? Can we do something about her chin? And the pressure of that, even on the comedian.

 

David Duchovny  27:07

But now, so the it is calling to you now through roles for women your age, perhaps coming down the pike, you paint.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  27:15

Yes.

 

David Duchovny  27:16

Is it there? It is, what is it like there?

 

Rosie O’Donnell  27:20

It’s when I get a few hours in a row that I can turn off everything, and I just blast Joni Mitchell and Eminem on every other CD.

 

David Duchovny  27:29

That’s an interesting pairing.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  27:30

I know, right?

 

David Duchovny  27:30

Are they alternating?

 

Rosie O’Donnell  27:31

They are. So it’s five CD player I have, and everyone’s like, you’re not on Spotify. I’m not. And I put five CDs in, and when the five CDs are over, I’m done painting for the day.

 

David Duchovny  27:42

But the also, I think, in terms of, for the same reason that talk show stuff is disposable, I’m always looking for things that’ll last. I don’t like talking about today, but let’s talk about Trump. That’s today. You figured out what these fucking Democrats have finally figured out, and what Mary Trump has been calling for for the last six years is like, mock Him, correct? That’s the only, that’s the only way to beat him down like he he mocks you, right?

 

Rosie O’Donnell  28:11

Gotta mock him right.

 

David Duchovny  28:12

Back when they go low, we don’t go high.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  28:14

No.

 

David Duchovny  28:14

You know.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  28:14

Not with him.  No, you’ll never survive, but you grew up in New York, right? If you grew up in New York like I did. You’re around our age. You saw every one of his failed attempts to become a celebrity. We watched his trump liquor, his stakes, we watched his planes get repossessed off the runways of LaGuardia. He was a laughing joke in New York, and everyone knew it. And New Yorkers are tough and smart and savvy, and they don’t buy his bullshit in any capacity. So when I said what I said, which was easily found on any Google search, facts about Yes, right, they were facts. And I told the facts about him, and then he went absolutely crazy, like he’s going now with Kamala, like he’s having like, a narcissistic collapse at this point, like, and we’re watching it happen, and it’s very, very dangerous, you know. And what happens to a person who was that ill when they no longer have an escape route or a chance to escape, the whole reason he’s running is to prevent going to jail, which is going to happen if the universe aligns and, you know? But I will say that since she came in, which I was one of the ones calling for Biden to step down. And you know, people were like, How dare you. But I knew it was our only chance. And I knew that if they went around Kamala and tried to put a man in there, a white man, that they would lose so many votes and and they would have no moral high ground to stand on. Of we believe what we believe as Democrats, and we walk the walk.

 

David Duchovny  29:43

Yeah, I mean, I think the search for the perfect candidate is a fool’s errand.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  29:47

I agree.

 

David Duchovny  29:48

Because a candidate is really a symbolic presence. A president is really a symbolic presence. A president is how we feel about ourselves as a country.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  29:57

Yes.

 

David Duchovny  29:57

And think about that for the Trump administration. But also think about it for Obama, and think about it when an F I hope Harris gets elected, it’s like we can look at ourselves and say, This is what we’re aspiring to. It’s not necessarily what we are correct.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  30:11

We’re not there yet.

 

David Duchovny  30:11

Really what she is.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  30:13

Correct.

 

David Duchovny  30:13

It’s what she stands for.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  30:15

And what we what we believe in and espouse as our as our core right? And the core of Donald Trump is corrupt. It’s not only corrupt, it’s really pathological, like he’s very sick.

 

David Duchovny  30:28

It was one of the the starting points for this podcast was I was so embarrassed, slash ashamed, that I was that I watched my country fall for this con man, but also he would just talk about winning, and everybody all of a sudden. It was everybody was about winning all of a sudden. And I’m like, I love losers. I love losing. I love what I learn when I fail, when I lose, right? What kind of a country is it that can’t lose right? What kind of a country elects a man who can’t even accept that he lost an election? Obviously, right? So there’s something in this country that can’t stand losing, and it goes back to like, when we were kids, you know, like we, we can’t lose the Vietnam War. We have stay in there till we win. We America doesn’t lose. We don’t lose. It’s this bullshit. It’s all a lie, this exceptionalism.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  31:21

Yes.

 

David Duchovny  31:21

And I thought, okay, this podcast is going to be about holding up failure as a possible, obviously as a learning tool, but also as a paragon of some kind, because that’s what makes us all human. Rosie, I agree. I so agree. You know that from a young age, from 10, and you know, you were, you watched the biggest failure that could happen. You lost your mother.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  31:45

Correct, and which seemed unimaginable at the time. You know, my little brother was like, four, almost five, and, and he said, Who’s going to take care of us now? And I said, Daddy. And he said, Who’s that? You know, he was in shock. We had just been told, but imagine a little kid like your whole world is your mother, yeah. And when, when that disappears at a young age, it it causes this shadow inside your soul that you’re always longing and looking for something, and someone that could replace her or make you feel what it was that you were longing for.

 

David Duchovny  32:19

Well, this is what you say, Rosie, you say, I’m funny, very funny.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  32:25

I agree. Thank you.

 

David Duchovny  32:26

But that humor comes from fear, not fear of Trump, not fear of failure. My fear is of loss, my knowledge of death.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  32:37

It’s so true, and it haunts me now, you know why? I adopted a baby at 50 years old, which, you know, my kids were getting out of the house, and I was very, very thrown by not having a child.

 

David Duchovny  32:50

You weren’t looking forward to.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  32:52

No.

 

David Duchovny  32:53

Chasing it somewhere else.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  32:55

No.

 

David Duchovny  32:55

I always wanted more mom.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  32:57

I did because that’s a hole that’ll never be filled, right? Yeah. So I got a call that there was a baby, and they were looking for a two mom home, or a home where there would not be a dad. And, you know, I said, Well, tell her that it’s me and see what she says. And, and one thing happened, you know, and I had just had a heart attack, David, I had a massive heart attack. Led the Widowmaker. I had the Widowmaker, and it happened on a Monday. It was at a hospital visiting a friend, and there was a woman getting out with a chemo, and her hair was out, a very large woman, she was sort of stuck in the door jam of her car where the steering wheel is, and I helped her out. And then few hours later, my arms were killing me, and then, sure enough, I had a heart attack. But I didn’t go to the hospital until Wednesday night, right? So the doctor said you had about five more minutes before it was all over for you, you know? And I get in there, and he’s putting the things on. He’s like, what happened? I said, I helped this woman on. He’s like, Could you stop talking? And then the crash cart comes in, and then they’re wheeling me and shaving me and and they said, You’re gonna, we’re gonna go in and put a stent in. And this nurse, I was crying, and I said, I have four kids. You cannot let me die. And she said, I promise you, I’ll be here when you wake up. And she stayed until I woke up, and was there holding my hand when I woke up. Wow, it’s those kind of people and those stories and those moments that make you believe in being human, you know, and there’s part of celebrity dumb that makes you forget what it’s like to be human.

 

David Duchovny  34:58

What I wanted to ask you to like as a gay parent or as a gay couple parent, as a gay would you say gay family? I don’t know. Did you do you? Did you feel pressure for it to work out? Like role modeled, or, you know, you’re pretty much on the vanguard of getting married like.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  35:22

Yeah, we did that as an act of social disobedience as well as love at the time.

 

David Duchovny  35:26

But it very new.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  35:28

Yes, right, when Gavin Newsom said that he was doing it, we flew there and did it.

 

David Duchovny  35:31

And then the next day, didn’t they say you can’t do it anymore or.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  35:34

Yes, the next day we were annulled, you were null, right? So it was kind of anticlimactic, but, did you feel pressure, you know, oh, to have my family work out? My god, yes.

 

David Duchovny  35:46

Because it’s strange to me, because one is going after this heteronormative here’s a word I learned.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  35:52

Yes.

 

David Duchovny  35:52

Heteronormative sense of relationship, which is, you get married and you go until you die, yeah? And there’s this gay version of it.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  36:02

Right.

 

David Duchovny  36:03

But it’s based on some heteronormative version totally, and then you’ve got, and this is the way the family’s supposed to look, with two adults.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  36:11

And children and children, right?

 

David Duchovny  36:13

And that’s also based on, the traditional sense, I guess. I’m asking, Did you have a vision of a different kind of family that would succeed, or did you feel extra pressure because I’m Rosie O’Donnell, I’m gay. Rosie O’Donnell.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  36:25

And I got married publicly, and the face of, you know, a society that wasn’t quite ready and and so when we were breaking up and getting divorced, I felt tremendous guilt and tremendous responsibility. In fact, I.

 

David Duchovny  36:38

Still beyond the personal aspect.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  36:41

Oh, no, just the public that. What was I doing that I had fought for gay rights for so long and now, but, you know, my therapist said to me, Well, to be have equal rights means you have the right to also get divorced like you. It’s not like you. The gays have to get married and stay forever because we can tolerate it, if that’s the way you do it. But what, what I was, you know, trying to do was really just have a family, a house full of kids. I never thought about the relationship as much as I did about the motherhood, really. And that was a problem in my marriage, because I always put them first. And, you know, even if we were in a conversation, my wife and I, and one of the kids said, Mom, I would turn right away and go to the kid. I wouldn’t even say, wait till we’re done, you know. And I would watch other parents do that, yeah? And when we were in couples therapy, you know, there was a lot of talk about about me not prioritizing the relationship. And the truth is, it was true, yeah, I didn’t prioritize it. I prioritized my being the children’s mother.

 

David Duchovny  37:46

I remember feeling I put it in actors terms, that I went from number two on the call sheet to number four, right? You know, like, when we asked, right? All of a sudden the kids were one and two. Tay was three and then I was four, you know? So it’s like, yeah, they’re not. They don’t write for me like they used to, you know, correct? They don’t write me the big scenes.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  38:07

No, I totally get it. And it did feel like, it felt like I felt like that’s the way it should be, that children should be cherished and adored and but if I had it to do all over again, and I’m lucky, because I sort of do with clay, is I wouldn’t be as creating as little challenges for them in their life, like I thought all the things that upset me when I was a kid, we didn’t have nice clothes, because we had to do our own laundry, and everything got dirty, and the pinks and The whites, and nobody was there was no mother presence in like we all looked kind of like. Our hair wasn’t always combed, and we looked like feral children in some way, you know. And I wanted all of that gone. I remember telling like the housekeeper who did the food shopping. Sometimes I’d say, don’t ever get the store brand no matter what it is? No generic, no. Get all the brand names of everything. Because I hated that. I hated that we had to have non Ritz high hose.

 

David Duchovny  39:11

You had petroleum jelly.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  39:12

Exactly, there you go.

 

David Duchovny  39:17

It’s easy for us to laugh, it is. But here’s my question about that is, you know, I read this that you said, and it’s something that I’ve thought about a lot as a parent too. Is like my kids are 22 and 25 now, and you know, life is hard, their struggles, especially at that age. You know, you’re just figuring out who you are, what you want to do, what you want to be. There’s going to be bumps. I hate those bumps for them, me too. But the bumps are the best thing that can happen.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  39:45

They need them, or they have no ability to know they can survive. What do you do then? How do you give the children a sense of fiduciary responsibility? How do you when I really had none, and to this day I don’t have any.

 

David Duchovny  39:59

Even I don’t have it either.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  40:01

My brother does all my money. I don’t even look at it.

 

David Duchovny  40:03

I don’t look at it. I make it I put it over there. I’m happy that it’s over there. I’m happy that come a rainy day, people in my family can be taken care of. I’m really proud of that, I have to say, probably too proud of it me too that I did something that could be protective in this way. My mother grew up in poverty, and you know, we were just always it was drilled into us that, you know, for me, it was like, if you don’t get an education, you’re gonna wind up in the gutter. That’s what it was. So the gutter is still with me.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  40:35

Right, I just once it once they told me I had X amount of money. I remember thinking, I’m never going to talk to anyone about this again. I never have to deal with this again. And they, my brother used to get mad at me, and I’d say, okay, Tim, well, I’d like you to go on stage and do 15 minutes.

 

David Duchovny  40:52

And when you kind of mind, you need to have to do that.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  40:55

Correct.

 

David Duchovny  40:55

It’s a different mind.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  40:56

Correct, and I failed math. I couldn’t do a fractions.

 

David Duchovny  41:01

There’s a tough thing about performing. I don’t want to go for sympathy here, but it’s like, I think of it like Raging Bull or Shakespeare’s core Atlantis, if I’m going to be more pretentious, but it’s like, you train to go into this arena and then, okay, let’s talk about Rosie, then you got to go home and be a mom. That’s not an easy shift, no, because you just were. It’s not life and death, but it feels like life and death when you’re out on a wire, out there in front of millions of people doing a talk show. Obviously, in this great scheme of things, there’s the stakes are low, like nobody’s going to die. But your brain doesn’t know that, and you’re performing. Soul doesn’t know that. Every time you’re out there, it’s like, I’ve got to bring it right, and now I’ve got 20 minutes, and I’ve got to get home, and I’ve got to be a completely different soul with these kids.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  41:48

And, yeah, it was so easy for me to dissociate from the Rosie O’Donnell persona. It was, yeah, I would go with my kids on, you know, Broadway, and I would see the kiosks, and it would be Newsweek, I’m on the cover. And I would say to myself, literally, I hear the words in my head, oh, Rosie O’Donnell’s on the cover of Newsweek, as if it had nothing to do with me right?

 

David Duchovny  42:11

You’re telling me that, as if that’s a healthy thing. I think, well, it was healthy for me. It is healthy.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  42:16

Yeah, because I never, kind of took it in. I never took in that, that it meant I was better or, you know, there are so many comics and so many people, especially on Broadway in the chorus, who can out, Sing me out, dance me who’s so much more talented. And here I was starring in Broadway shows, right? Well, why is that? Because I could sell tickets, not because I had the most talent. So I never thought that my success made me better than anyone else, nor did I think it made me equal to the ones I was talking.

 

David Duchovny  42:45

You didn’t go back to it. You didn’t think I’ve got it.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  42:48

It’s interesting, because you don’t ever realize the effect that you have on people. You anyone who’s a celebrity or, you know, an artist in our culture, you never realize the effect you have until you allow the people to tell you. So I’m working on a new special, an hour stand up special, really, and I just started it this weekend at a little club in Santa Monica called the crow. It’s about a 200 seat club, and it’s like a performance space. And I did it, and it was the first time I had done this new hour, and it’s largely about my child, clay, and how the last 10 years have been really submerged in autism and autism topics and subjects and and after I walked off stage, people stayed. So I went to the tiny, little green room upstairs, and I’m like, okay, everyone’s gonna be gone now. And I went back down, and there’s 200 people still there, and they’re like, can we talk to you for a minute? I was like, okay, so people were telling me, You know what I have meant to them. And it used to be very hard for me to take it, but I realized how much they need to say it that I became

 

David Duchovny  44:02

What was hard for you to take.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  44:04

Oh, you know, yeah, when people say that the boy who opened for me, the man who opened for me, is a gay man, and he told a story about coming out that his mother he was a little boy of 14, and his mother gave him the article where I came out and said, so, just so you know, if you grow up to be like Rosie O’Donnell, I’d be okay. And he said, what a comedian, so, but I’m part of his coming out story, right? So people tell me really heartwarming, and their eyes fill up, or they cry and and have you ever been to a Comic Con? What do you think of that experience?

 

David Duchovny  44:44

Well, at first I had a prickly relationship to it, because I was like, you know, in all honesty, I consider myself an artist, and I do many different things, and I don’t want to be limited by, you know, X Files or whatever. The biggest,

 

Rosie O’Donnell  45:01

The biggest thing you did, yeah, biggest thing I’ve done.

 

David Duchovny  45:05

So I would push against that feeling of like, and that’s just ego, that’s just plain old ego. So at first it was like, ah, you know, I don’t really want to do this. And then I been to a few, and it’s exactly what you’re saying. It’s like, you realize that it’s not really even about your fantasy of the work, right? It’s not my fantasy of like, oh, you know, I’m a good actor, and I, you know, portrayed that it’s really about how people take you into their lives. You know, people will say, I used to watch it with my dad, who’s coming with me, and now I watch it with my son, and it becomes part of the fabric of people’s cultural lives. Yes, a show that big, or a talk show that’s every day in somebody’s home. So I began to just, and I’m never going to be a guy that fully embraces, you know, strangers. It’s just not me, but I do appreciate and honor. I guess it’s really, it’s I honor their experience, and it has nothing to do with what I did or what I do. It’s just a thing that happened, yeah, and I’m not going to get in their way. It’s like when I first started singing and I was about to perform for the first time, and I standing in like a hallway outside in this club in New York, and I’m hearing people out there. I’m hearing the chatter, you know, the excited chatter, and I realized that they they came out to have a good time.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  46:35

Yes.

 

David Duchovny  46:35

You know, they didn’t come out to laugh at me. They didn’t come out to have a bad time. They didn’t come out to hear bad songs. It’s not my business anymore. Oh, I’m just going to do my music.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  46:46

Correct.

 

David Duchovny  46:46

And if I don’t hit that note or that note or whatever, so what it’s like, I’m not going to get in their way. And that’s how I feel with the fans of shows that I’ve done, is like, I’m not going to get in your way of loving this.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  46:58

Right.

 

David Duchovny  46:59

Or thinking that you love me or something. It’s like, that’s cool. That’s fine. I get it now.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  47:03

I went to my first one recently, and I was very thrown. I was overwhelmed by the amount of love that was coming and the amount of heightened emotions with the people and and I hated that they were having to pay Yeah, to say hello to me for three minutes. And the guys who run Comic Con, because there was a huge line, because I couldn’t stop talking to them, and they start crying, I get up, and then I hug them, and then I, you know, and, and so it was depleting for me in some way the first night, you know, after doing like, eight hours of signing where I didn’t take a break because I felt so bad that people were waiting in line that, you know, I remember going home saying, I’m not going to do another one. I’m not going to do another one because I I felt too bad about it. But then I had this kind of epiphany of, all you have to do is show up and receive you do not it’s I don’t, you know. And I brought Koosh balls to give everyone a gift, and they’re like, nobody gives gifts. I’m like, I know, but I felt so bad that people paid whatever they paid to get an autograph or to get a photo with me. But I realized that I did mean something, or I do mean something in someone’s life that I never met, and that I have to respect that experience from their perspective.

 

David Duchovny  48:22

Yeah, it’s not, it’s not an ego thing for you, right? It’s like, just get out of their way, let them, let them love you in a way, or

 

Rosie O’Donnell  48:29

Yes.

 

David Duchovny  48:29

Let them tell you what, what you mean to them, and you don’t have to say, no, that’s not really me.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  48:35

Yeah, it’s yeah, you should see me when I’m on a bed, exactly. You just give them what, just show up and be there and.

 

David Duchovny  48:45

Yeah, it well, it’s an odd relationship. It really is, regardless of how you handle it. I think it can be, it can be some kind of a revelation, like you said, you know, it can be. It can be, you know, you coming to terms with who you were as well, correct, who you are, you know.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  49:05

Yeah, and it is a war too, because people, you know, I’m at a point now where, at this age, with this hair, you know, I walk around and I’m not noted. People don’t bother me. People don’t, you know, somebody will say, hey, Roma, hi, you know. But no, it is nothing. I can go unaccounted through the world, and that is such a gift to me, because they I am as I’m sure you remember when X Files was on how hard it was to do anything, and remain somewhat grounded in your life reality, yeah.

 

David Duchovny  49:35

I mean, I think that that was just, you know, it’s been so long and things become your life, it’s just like, oh, that’s, you forget how it was before, you know, that’s, it’s almost the scary kind of place to be.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  49:54

I think it was, overwhelming for me. I felt like I was in, you know, the highest surf. A place like Mavericks, I felt like I was at at the biggest surf waves in the world, and I was in there, and all I wanted to do was paddle to the shore.

 

David Duchovny  50:08

Yeah, and for me, I think, as an actor and as a writer, my greatest power was confiscated, which was my ability to observe.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  50:16

Same with me.

 

David Duchovny  50:17

Because.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  50:18

You couldn’t anymore […] everyone’s looking correct, you change the room.

 

David Duchovny  50:23

So like, before you could go into a room and, like, study behavior, nobody gives a shit to who you are, what you know. And now at a certain point, you walk in the room and everybody turns and then behavior changes a little bit. Yes, that’s death to an actor and totally death to a writer.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  50:41

Yes, because you’re creative person, that’s where you get everything that you use to mold the clay of your life, you know. And you know I was gonna say, when you were talking about whether or not the crowd was talking and and getting you, or whether your next thing will be good, I always think of that Joni Mitchell lyric, you know, they pass around your latest Golden Egg speculation. Who’s to know if the next one in the nest will glitter for themselves, right? Imagine Joni Mitchell worrying that her songs weren’t going to be good. October, 19 and 20th. She’s at the Hollywood Bowl, just so you know, if you’re a fan, I’m a huge fan of hers.

 

David Duchovny  51:18

I’m a fan you. Is she playing with Eminem? Is are they […]

 

Rosie O’Donnell  51:21

No brandy Carlisle, just as good. That would be your dream. Bill, I would he’s the one person that I would love to meet that I haven’t met. Marshall Mathers, yes, I think he has some of the most astounding lyrics on fame. He and Joni Mitchell talk about fame in a way that really comforted me.

 

David Duchovny  51:38

Which song, which Joni Mitchell songs, or which Eminem songs are you thinking of?

 

Rosie O’Donnell  51:42

Well, the one I just spoke about, this the sire of sorrow, job, sad song. Eminem does so much, so many you know, you’re trying to be a father. You can’t be a father. About his kids and about about that dichotomy between fame and parenthood. I don’t know I was so moved by him during, you know, the year, the two years after I left the show.

 

David Duchovny  52:08

Which was he not? He didn’t have a single out when you were doing the show, or.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  52:12

He just wouldn’t, you know, I think. But even though he sings, I’ve leaders lyrics about me, oh, really, bring around the rosie, the show’s over. You can just go home, but that ain’t the way it’s supposed to be, because that ain’t the way that it works for me. And then he also has another song where he says, I want to go to McDonald’s, go to Rosie O’Donnell, sit on a lap and watch the Sopranos.

 

David Duchovny  52:38

Yeah, okay, Rosie.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  52:40

Okay, David Duchovny, it’s been great having you. Thanks for coming. But no, the I think that you’re natural at this. I mean, you’re curious, you’re well prepared. You know what you want to talk about.

 

David Duchovny  52:53

I yeah, I kind of do, and I want to leave room for it too, you know, to me, that’s what it’s all about, that’s what I’m trying to do.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  53:00

Well, thanks for having me.

 

David Duchovny  53:01

Thank you.

 

Rosie O’Donnell  53:01

We’re out of here.

 

David Duchovny  53:02

Yeah.

 

David Duchovny  53:17

All right, good morning, well, here we are. This is the thoughts on the 20th episode that we recorded, and 20 was the original order. And 20 was the original thought, like, how can I get to 20? Jesus, that’s a lot. And I just wanted to celebrate that, that we got to 20, there will be more. And I don’t know, 20 is 20? What is it? I’ve spent my so much of my life kind of like, let’s say it’s an achievement to do 20 podcasts. I mean, it’s not a huge deal or anything, but it’s, it’s something, it’s something that I set out to do, and now I’ve done it, and so much of my life I’ve gone without celebrating any kind of achievement. I don’t like using that word. Makes it sound crass, in a way, but commitment, I said I was gonna do 20, I did 20, and then I then the initial thought after that is like, well, where’s the next 20? Or where’s the next project? Or that’s not good enough, or podcasts that’s not good enough. You know, you gotta do more. And it’s kind of speaking to my situating myself inside a podcast about failure, that I can take even a success like having done 20 and turn it into a goad on myself, turn it into something that makes me feel less than or I what’s next? Jesus. Am I learning? Am I learning through this podcast? I think so. I’m definitely getting different perspectives. The question is, Is it sinking in? That’s always the question with us as humans, isn’t it? We become habituated in some kind of way of being, and then, you know, we see that it’s not healthy for us to be that way. And we we try to change. We grasp onto things that will help us change. And I think a doing this podcast was a way, in a way, to try to change myself through through these discussions of failures, and I feel slightly changed. Maybe it’s going to take 20 more. Maybe it’s going to take 20,000 more. That seems more likely, but I guess that’s where I’m sitting today after 20.

 

CREDITS  56:12

There’s more Fail Better with Lemonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like more of my behind the scenes thoughts on this episode. Subscribe now and Apple podcasts. Fail Better as a production of Lemonada media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Kegan Zema, Aria Bracci, and Dani Matias, Paula Kaplan. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neil. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Karpinski and Brad Davidson, the show’s executive produced by Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Jessica Cordova, Kramer and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band. Lovely Colin Lee. Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowan and Sebastian […]. You can find us online at @LemonadaMedia and you can find me @DavidDuchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.

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