Our first guest is an Academy and Emmy Award winning actress.
Her new movie is called Bad Education.
It's so good.
Please welcome my friend, Allison Janney.
Hi, Ellen.
Hi, my friend.
Andy's here.
Andy.
Hi, Allison.
Hi, sweetheart.
You look great behind glass.
You should be in a museum.
Thank you.
I miss you in the neighborhood.
We're neighbors in LA and I have not
been seeing you around at all.
No.
You know, there's very good reason for that,
because I am not in LA.
I am in Dayton, Ohio, which is where I kind of grew up.
And I came to visit my mom for like my usual three day
visit, because the beds are so damn uncomfortable
and that's about all I can handle.
And then this pandemic broke loose and I thought,
you know what?
I need to stay here and take care of her and my dad,
because they're of a certain age,
and I need to be the one to go to the store and stuff.
So I've been here for--
I don't even know.
I mean, the days--
March 14th, I think I've been here?
Oh, there they are, mom and dad.
They look so great.
And this is--
Wow, so you've been there since March 14th?
Yeah.
Yeah, this is the longest time I've spent with my parents
since 10th grade.
I mean, honestly I've never been with them this much.
And how's it going?
It's pretty interesting.
It's rough to find things that we enjoy.
We all have dinner together.
And we have taken to eating on tray tables in front of the TV.
And the only show we can agree on
is Jeopardy and then The Great British Baking Show.
Those are the only two shows we can watch that we can agree on.
And my dad, as it turns out, could
have been a Jeopardy champion.
I on the other hand, not so much.
Neither Macy either, my mother.
No.
Occasionally I get a pop, you know, question right,
and I'm always hoping that my name will come up once.
Because I've heard it has once or twice, but it hasn't so far
we've been playing.
And they wouldn't care either.
Here's my question.
So you went for three days, supposedly.
That's when you were going for, three days.
I imagine you didn't pack a lot, and you've
been there for two months.
So what kind of--
are you wearing the same thing every day?
Pretty much.
This is-- my friend Kelly sent me a care package and sent me
this blouse, which is the first piece of color I've worn since
March 14th, because all I brought were--
cause when I pack I like to do a little theme.
I do a black and white and gray theme.
So all I've been wearing are black and white and gray
sweatpants and t-shirts and sometimes some cardigans
of my mom's.
And then I have to admit, this is kind of funny,
but so Kelly sent me this, and then I'm
wearing my mother's pajama pants from probably 1980-something.
But they match the shirt, so I thought.
But they are pajama pants.
Wow.
It's a whole ensemble.
I think it's lovely.
And you blend into the curtains behind you,
too, with those pants.
I was worried I'd clash a little bit.
It's a little orange, the room here, and I'm in pink.
But, you know, sometimes those colors, they're
very end to put those color blocking, they call it,
I guess.
I don't know.
It is called color blocking, and I like it.
I like it.
I don't know who that is.
That lady is in our living room and I don't know who she is.
Like, why-- I don't know.
I asked my mom and dad.
That's so weird.
I-- like, who is she?
And they're like, I have no idea.
I was like, well, why is she in our living room?
Why should she be here?
Why isn't there a portrait of you guys, or me,
or any one of us?
But anyway, don't know who that lady is.
Now I'll tell you who it is.
That's my aunt.
I recognize her and I'm like, why
do you have my aunt in your--
that's my aunt.
I'll sell her to you for a very good price.
I will.
All right.
I heard you're going through stuff while you're home.
I mean, like your mother collects--
is she a collector or a hoarder?
Which is it?
She's a collector.
We will now not say the word hoard in this house.
She is a collector, and she collects a lot of things.
And I have been--
Like what?
What does she collect?
OK, the two things that I've noticed
the most that she collects are tea towels and greeting cards.
She could open up her own greeting card shop.
It's unbelievable.
I keep thinking that I've done, I've finished sorting them,
and then I find more.
And now I've started--
and don't tell her, but my dad and I
have started giving them to the Goodwill,
giving them to people.
Because they're too-- it's unbelievable
how many of the cards and the tea towels.
Do you need any tea towels, Andy?
Ellen?
You guys?
I'll send you some tea towels.
Yeah, we'll take some.
Yeah, never too many tea towels.
I mean, I see the room that you're in
and it's not like stacked with all kinds of things.
That, to me--
I guess they're different kinds of hoarding.
But it does sound a little strange
that she's collected all these greeting cards
in every single occasion.
But at least you can walk around the house.
It's not like you can't walk through rooms.
Well, Ellen, you're only seeing a very small part of the house.
She's sitting on a stack of greeting cards.
I see, yeah.
Shall I take you into a room that's really kind of,
she would hate me if I showed you?
I do want to see it.
I am curious, yeah.
Shall we take a break and then come with a different--
No, no.
No, we're not going to take a break?
Let's just go.
We're going to do it now?
No, we're going to do it now.
OK, so here on the floor I started
going through some pictures.
But this room, the one I'm taking you to,
is the one that she's going to be very mad at me
for showing you.
But, OK.
She doesn't watch my show, obviously.
You said she didn't watch it.
Oh, boy.
Oh.
I can't see.
OK.
Oh, where did you go?
All right, there's some toilet paper
in a room that doesn't belong in there.
There is a-- do you need--
do you need this thing to warm up
food for when you have guests over there?
That's a food warmer upper heater thing.
I don't need that, no.
I don't need any of those things.
OK.
And then here we have the cards here,
greeting cards, greeting cards here that I started organizing.
Wow.
And cards here.
And invitation things here if you want.
Wow.
Allison, you've got to get out of there.
I'm going to help her.
I'm not leaving.
Allison, that pandemic has to leave.
I've got to help her.
You need to come home.
I'm helping her.
I'm not leaving until this is all finished.
I could take you upstairs to the attic.
Oh, that's not going to do any good.
Oh.
Oh, look at this lighting.
No, that's OK.
We're going to take a break.
We're going to talk about Bad Education, which
is such a great movie.
And now you're turning into like it's a black light room
or something.
You're in psychedelic lighting.
I like this lighting.
All right, we'll be back.
OK.
That's a clip from your new movie, Bad Education,
that's based on a true story.
It is so good.
Hugh Jackman, you, great cast Ray Romano.
Tell everybody what it's about.
It's based on a true story.
One of the biggest scandals in American public school history.
So it's based on these two--
Hugh plays the superintendent of the Roslyn School
District in Long Island, and I play
the assistant superintendent of business.
And together we manage to embezzle over $11 million
from the school district.
And it's fascinating watching these characters,
who are so driven and committed to the school they work for.
And they want the same things and their intentions are good,
but then they do something terribly, terribly wrong
and make really bad choices.
And I find those are the characters
I find really fulfilling and fascinating to work on,
to figure out why they do these things.
Because, you know, no one says, you know,
I think I'm going to be an embezzler, you know?
People make choices for a reason.
And then that was kind of the work that we had to do,
because there was so much public record
on both of these figures.
But we didn't get to talk to them in person.
I never got to meet Pam Gluckin or find out
why she did what she did, so I had to kind of make it up.
But God, I had fun working with Hugh.
He's such a-- what a wonderful, wonderful man.
Actor's actor kind of guy.
Yeah.
You guys nailed the Long Island accent.
Unbelievable.
Hey, you know, well, my mother, every summer her parents
lived in the Five Towns area.
So I spent a lot of time in the Five Towns.
And I thought that accent was so very, very chic.
And I would come home to Ohio, having
been with my grandparents for the summer,
and I would be like, hi, this is very, very interesting,
this course where [INAUDIBLE].
I don't know why I thought it was
like the classiest, chic-est accent.
And so it's kind of fun to let everyone know.
That's hilarious.
I don't know.
I loved it.
But if you didn't get to meet her,
how did you-- because I heard you found a painting?
Like she bought all kinds of really bad, tacky art
with the money, but you have it.
I saw a picture of it.
But how did you find that?
Well-- oh, yeah, there she is.
And that's in my house.
And I did not find it.
That is something.
This is the art director.
They found-- this is actually-- these
are copies of what Pam Gluckin, this is the kind of thing
she spent her money on.
Aside from a lot of jet skis and houses and things like that,
but artwork.
And this artist she was in love with.
And that painting was on the set and I
asked Cory Finley, our wonderful director, I said,
do you think I can have that?
Because I just think it just makes me laugh.
And so I put it in a place in my house
where I come down from my bedroom and I look at it.
It's the first thing I see before I go out,
you know, down to face my day, and it makes me laugh.
Oh my God.
It's fantastic.