-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy
and Golden Globe award-winning actress
you know from her work on "ER" and "The Good Wife."
Her memoir, "Sunshine Girl: An Unexpected Life," is out now.
Please welcome back to the show
and the studio, Julianna Margulies.
♪♪
-Yay! -Yay!
Yeah, I know. -We can do that, right?
We're gonna get there now. -We can.
We're vaxxed. -We're vaxxed.
-But I have to sit over here, I guess.
-Yeah, you got to be in the middle of the couch.
-Hey.
-Welcome. -Wow.
-What a delight to have you here.
-It's -- I'm not your first in-studio guest.
-You're not our first in-studio guest.
But I know you, obviously,
have been doing a lot of press for this book.
Have you been in-studio anywhere else?
-I went in-studio -- I was in L.A. shooting
"The Morning Show" and "The Kelly Clarkson Show,"
That was one of the first in-person one.
It was strange, because they did have people
in the seats, but they were on screens.
-Yeah. They do like -- -That was odd.
-So you could actually see faces, but they were not --
-No. -Not on bodies.
-No, but most everything is from my house.
-All right. -Which is kind of great, too...
-Yeah? -...in that I'm not going to,
you know, all the bookstores. And, you know, I'm trying
to support all the independent bookstores,
so I would be doing a tour... -Of course.
-...that would take me to strange motel rooms
and bad diners, so... -I hope that those
virtual book tours are still effective.
I would like to think that people, you know,
would log on to those Zooms and still get to engage with you.
-They're huge. You're getting more people
because anyone can log on, so it's not just in that area.
So it's actually -- We actually just for --
The theater company I'm on the board for
do this miscast every year.
And we've had more people being able to attend last night
and the year before because of virtual --
because everyone can buy a ticket.
-Did you -- Do you do Q&A's when you do your virtual bookstore?
-Yeah. -How are --
What percentage of the questions are fully loony-bird?
-Most of them are not about the book.
[ Laughter ]
Many of them are, "Are you ever gonna do an 'ER' reunion?"
-A lot of "ER" reunion questions, sure.
-Yeah, that kind of thing. You know, "If someone fainted
on an airplane, would you know what to do?"
[ Laughter ]
-So, like, medical questions.
People, a lot of medical questions.
-Well, yeah, 'cause it's this strange "ER" resurgence.
I think, in quarantine, parents must have said to their kids,
"There's nothing else to watch." -Yep.
-"I grew up watching 'ER.' Let's re--," you know.
-Well, there's so many of those shows.
-Yeah. -Because it's sometimes daunting
when you look at a show like "ER"
that has so many seasons... -Yeah.
-...to start it again. -Right. I think --
-Unless there's a pandemic, when you've run out of everything.
And you're just like, "What?" -Right. It's kind of --
Well, so, we were in lockdown Upstate,
and my son at the time was 12.
And "The Office" became his... -Yeah.
-...religion. I mean, we had to do
online questionnaires, "Who's most like Pam?"
"Who's most like Jim?" -Yep.
-And I found out that most 12-, 13-, and 14-year-old boys --
we watched all nine seasons of "The Office."
-Now, has he engaged with "ER"?
-My son? No. -No interest?
-I tried. -You did try, though.
-I said, "You know, I used to be on a show
that was pretty popular, and you might --
you're old enough now to see it,"
and he was like, "I'm good." [ Laughter ]
And I -- But he's been like that since he was 3.
I did, for him -- -Yeah.
-I did an episode of "Sesame Street,"
where I play a doctor fixing Big Bird's wing.
There I am. -Very well-cast.
Here's a photo of you and Big Bird.
There you go. -And we set up the living room,
and he came out in his diaper with his bottle.
He had just turned 3. And I said, "Look, Kieran -- Mama!"
And he went, "Nope."
Stood up and walked out of the room.
[ Laughter ]
-I recently got to engage with some of the Muppets, as well,
and it was right before my kid's birthday.
So at the end, I took a video with me,
Elmo, and Cookie Monster, and my 5-year-old loved it,
but then he said, "Next time,
you don't have to be in the video."
[ Laughter ]
'Cause you realize it just takes them out of it.
-Yeah, it takes them out of it. -Yeah.
-And I actually think it's really healthy.
I mean, he came a couple of times to the set
when I was doing "The Good Wife."
And he was more interested in sitting behind the camera and...
-Yeah. -...putting the headphones on
and watching from the director's chair.
He doesn't -- I'm his mom.
-Yeah. -That's how he wants to see me.
And I think that's fine. -Right.
-But he won't be reading the book.
-Yeah. Well, I do think there's that funny thing
of when you know what your mom does for a living,
and you know what she's capable of,
and you can't watch a show where you're like,
"She's not a nurse." -Right.
And he said that. He was like, "It's just gonna
make me embarrassed, Mom, because I know that's not you."
-Yeah. -And I was like, "Okay.
I get it." -That's -- yeah.
-You know, maybe when I'm dead and gone,
he'll get in his rocker and go, "Oh, that was my mother."
-You mentioned "The Morning Show,"
and I know you can't speak much to the plot or who you play.
But I would imagine, you know, this is a set where there
are a lot of people who have worked on long-running TV shows.
I would assume they're all bringing what they've learned,
and it's a pretty nice environment.
-It was a little slice of heaven for me.
I mean, I felt like I was on a vacation.
Because to go from lockdown, you know,
with your immediate family for eight months,
where you're cooking, cleaning, shopping, ironing,
doing all of that stuff, to suddenly being on the set
with these incredible actors.
And also, for me, I mean, it was kind of a joke
because it was like, "So, on Tuesday, you're in one scene."
And I was like, "I get a week to learn one scene?"
'Cause I'm so used to having to learn
nine pages of dialogue a day. -Sure.
-And, you know, I can't learn it until that night
when I get the dialogue I know for that day out of my head.
So it was one of those things where I was like,
"This is great."
I mean I was in heaven. It was really fun.
And all I can say is, that my character is a --
a news anchor, journalist, very successful in her world.
She has a one-hour news program once a week at night.
And that's all, apparently, I can say.
-That's, like, meaningless, what you just gave us.
-It's meaningless, I know.
[ Laughter ] I'm sorry.
They actually -- Apple sent out a whole thing of my answers.
And I realized I had spoken to a few newspapers beforehand
and said some things.
-Oh, that you weren't allowed to say anything?
-That apparently I wasn't supposed to say...
-Did the Apple police... -I'm trying to be good now.
-Here's something I found out from the book
that I cannot believe I did not know,
that you lived in New Hampshire.
I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of other people
who've lived in New Hampshire,
as someone who also lived in New Hampshire.
I did not know this about you. -There's only a few of us.
-There's not that many. -I know, yeah.
-Did you have good -- Were your experiences
in New Hampshire positive ones?
-So, yes, some of them -- most of them.
But I got there in eighth grade, and I had come straight from
living in England, where it just --
I was always trying to figure out
who I was supposed to be now. -Yeah.
-Because everything was different.
And when I got there, it was --
You know, like, I showed up in what I had been, you know,
thinking was so chic and awesome,
which were these big red kicker shoes.
They were called kicker -- And FU's jeans,
and I showed up into my classroom,
and they're all in Timberland boots and flannel shirts.
And I remember one kid saw my outfit and was like,
"Jeezum Crow."
And I didn't know what that was.
Like, was that a good thing? -Right.
-A bad thing?
Turns out it means "Jesus Christ."
-Yep. -Jeezum Crow.
So when I ran home,
we were living in my gym teacher's house.
Long story, read the book. -[ Laughs ]
-But he lived on campus, and I ran home to change,
because I was -- at lunchtime -- because I was so embarrassed,
and I came back for Latin.
And my Latin teacher, I hadn't met her yet.
Her name was Mrs. "Lombahdi".
Which really translate to Mrs. Lombardi.
-Yeah, we had a Mrs. Lombardi in my school, too.
-Did you? -Yep.
-I walked in and she said, "You're tardy."
And I had a slight British accent, so I said,
"I'm so sorry. What does that mean?"
And she thought I was being cheeky, you know,
by not knowing what "You're tardy" means.
And so it went back and forth -- "T-A-R-D-Y!"
[ Laughter ] And I was like, "I'm tardy.
I'm tardy." And finally a kid was like,
"You're late, you're tardy." "Oh, my God, thank you!"
I felt like I moved from London and moved to a different country
speaking a different language. -Yeah.
No, it turns out --
Do not mistake New England for England.
-No! No. My mom hired a handyman to help us.
It was my mom and me and my sister.
And when we finally moved in to our house,
I just wanted to hang up my, like, curtains and bookshelves
and have a room of my own. And he kept --
I wanted to help him, and he kept saying,
"Just pot it on the mok."
And I was like, "I will. What does that mean?"
"Pot it on the mok."
"Put it on the mark" is what it mean.
I would just -- I was like, "Oh, my God.
I'm never gonna win." So it was --
Yeah, that's New Hampshire.
Why don't you have a New Hampshire accent?
-I -- You know, I grew up -- I was in Michigan first.
And then, by the time I got there,
it was a little late to break. It took me a while.
I had some like -- I certainly said "wicked" a great amount.
And that I sort of slowly combed out.
But it's hard because my mom --
-"Wicked" is classic. -My mom still says it.
Because my mom was then a schoolteacher, and so, like,
she just was constantly around, like, whatever slang
that New Hampshire kids of the day used.
-But you never said, "Jeezum Crow."
-I never said, "Jeezum Crow." But I will say,
based on the outfit you described,
if I'd seen that, I would have said it.
-I mean -- I mean, cut to, you know, six months later.
I, too -- Well, I never went the Timberland boot thing,
but I had the L.L.Bean boots on...
-Yeah. -...and carpenter pants.
Like, that's as far as I would go.
I think I had a couple flannel shirts.
-Yeah, well, we do appreciate that you at least went that far.
-Yeah, I did. And then I loved it.
I actually loved my high school years there.
-It's a really -- It's a great place.
-Yeah. And we'd ski.
They shut down schools on Wednesday,
and we all went skiing because there was too much snow.
-Yeah. I mean, that -- The amount of snow days
I had growing up... -Yeah, it was great.
-I mean, I wonder with climate change if there are as many,
but I felt like -- -Haven't you heard the latest?
My son is furious. -What's up?
-There's no more snow days because of Zoom.
-Oh, yeah. -Now all kids can go on Zoom
and they don't need to miss school.
-There would need to be a citywide blackout.
-That's right. -That's the new snow day.
-Technical glitch. -Hey, thank you for being here.
Thank you for being here in studio.
It's always such a delight to see you.
-A pleasure. Thanks for having me.
-"Sunshine Girl" is available now wherever books are sold.
But please support your local and independent bookstores.
We'll be right back.