-Hello, Elizabeth. How are you?
-I am so happy to be here. How you guys doing?
-Well, I'm very excited to talk about the show,
but I also am very excited about this.
You are joining us right after your first
dentist appointment in -- in months.
-That's right.
-And we are just dying to know how it went.
-I have a temporary crown.
I had three cracks in a back tooth
that have sort of been aching for like six months.
[ Laughs ]
And I finally thought, "I better go get it handled."
I can actually smile, mostly.
Like, you can see it's a little off still.
And I had a really hard time putting my lipstick on,
but I think I did all right.
I don't know. I can't tell.
-I bet if we hadn't brought it up, no one would've noticed.
-Thank you. So thank you for that then.
-I meant every word of it.
This is -- I want to ask about "Press Your Luck."
This is a game show from the '80s.
And, first of all, it looks like a lot of fun to host.
Second, is it weird looking at old episodes
where you are not just with an audience of people,
but an audience of people having a very good time
and projecting their joy?
-Yeah. I -- I actually --
I read a tweet, recently, from a "Press Your Luck" fan
that said, "Elizabeth is always yelling."
Thank you for that judgment, one.
Two, it's because the audience loves this show.
They are raucous. I mean, you know, they're --
They're so happy when someone wins a car, as am I.
And they're so happy to see the Whammy, as am I.
And so it's really, really loud.
And the idea of making the show --
In the future, I mean --
I know that we can get contestants in there,
but, you know, I will definitely miss
the live, in-studio audience, as I imagine you do, as well,
getting through your jokes every night.
-I do. I feel like a lot of my jokes
are getting Whammies --
based on not having an audience here.
Was this a show you watched growing up?
Because I have a lot of memories of "Press Your Luck."
-Oh. It was the after-school, like, special
that me and my sibs needed to watch every day.
We -- I loved --
When they first presented it to me, I was like, "Wait.
They're going to bring back this show
that was my favorite thing in the world?"
And then, also, the Whammies.
We -- We kept a lot of the old animation style.
So it's got this really kitschy Whammy to it
that just brings back so many memories.
It was one of those things where we just piled onto the couch.
We ate Lucky Charms, which we were not allowed.
That was, like, our Saturday morning cereal,
but we'd sneak it.
And we would pick out all of the marshmallows
out of the Lucky Charms and watch "Press Your Luck."
That is like -- Those are, like, gold memories in my brain.
-It seems like it must be a joy to do this job now,
but, of course, you did not set out to be a game-show host.
It's sort of a nice byproduct of being an actor.
Was that something you always thought you were going to do,
is pursue acting?
-Oh, no, I didn't decide to be an actor --
Really, I didn't decide to be an actor
until I was halfway through college.
And I thought I would be Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters.
I wanted to be -- I wanted to basic--
Or be you. I wanted to do that job.
And then I got to play to great effect on "30 Rock,"
and in many other roles now --
I have played a newscaster.
I thought I would do, like, broadcast news.
-You are very good as a comedy newscaster.
I -- Maybe that means that you wouldn't
have been perfect for the real thing,
but you are as good at comedy --
You are the Diane Sawyer of comedy newscasters.
-Thank you. Yeah, they --
I was very happy when Tina Fey sent me
to North Korea to do the news there.
-And you actually went.
A lot of people thought that was green screen,
but you did actually -- -People don't realize.
I was in -- Yeah. I actually went there.
-You -- You've also have
made quite a career as a producer.
You have a production company called "Brownstone" that --
among other things, the "Pitch Perfect" franchise --
has tried really hard to give voice
to, you know, especially women
and people who have less of a voice in this industry,
you know, still do.
But I was wondering how much you've seen it change
in the last ten years that you've been doing it?
-I actually think in the last --
I've been doing it, yeah, a little more than a decade now.
And I think, actually,
we've made a lot of incredible progress.
I think that the amount of television and content
that's being created is really incredible
in this moment in time anyway.
But making especially feature films
that feature large casts of women
is still very, very rare.
And so to have made
"Pitch Perfect" and "Charlie's Angels" --
I mean, if that's my legacy of creating things
and telling women's stories, female-fronted stories --
We also have "Shrill," starring Aidy Bryant.
And I just think I will be very happy
if that's my legacy in Hollywood.
-It's a pretty good legacy, and it's really well-deserved.
Before you go, I want to ask,
because we both are parents of two boys.
Yours are a little older.
How is --
How is school going as we now are in the fall?
-Well, I am still having trouble getting them to wear pants.
-Yep.
-And -- [ Laughs ]
And my son wore a ninja costume
last week for school.
Just -- I just walked in, and he was in a full ninja.
And the best part about it, Seth,
was I sat there for a minute to be like,
"Is this okay that he's in a ninja costume?"
And then they went around the room,
and another kid was wearing a ninja costume.
Like, full, like, Cobra Kai with the red and everything.
And my son was like, "What?!"
Like, looked at me, like, "That's MY thing!"
And it turns out he wasn't the only one.
[ Laughs ]
-As they get older, they'll realize ninjas
shouldn't really present themselves on Zoom like that.
You know? You have to be a little bit more secretive.
-Little more secretive. Yeah.
He was in the full black ninja costume.
The fact that this other kid was also wearing a ninja costume
just broke me.
-Yeah. I walked in the other day,
and my son was, like, sitting on his side,
like, on his elbow wearing a straw hat.
And he looked like a Carly Simon record album.
So we're all -- Everybody's getting good looks at their kids
that we wouldn't get on a normal school day.
-We're really delving into some, like, psyche, you know?
It's -- It's like what they wished school was actually like.
You know? -Absolutely. Hey.
All the best to your family. Congrats on the show.
It's always lovely to talk to you, Elizabeth.
-Thank you. "Press Your Luck" on Thursday, everybody!