- Time for my first guest.
She became America's mom on shows like The Middle
and Everybody Loves Raymond.
Now, she has a new book out called Your Second Act.
Let's give it up for Patricia Heaton.
What's up girl?
- Hi Kelly, how are you?
- I'm good, I'm good.
I think we're all hanging in there
with all the things happening
in everyone's lives right now, the pandemic, everything,
and everything's crazy and different,
and for nine or 10 months, like since you've been
on our show.
So where are you right now?
- Oh my gosh, well right now I'm in LA.
- Okay. - When the pandemic hit,
my husband and I were producing,
and my husband directing a movie
that we are financing in Oklahoma, City.
And so we had five days left
and the basketball player, Rudy Gobert,
who was, he had been making fun of the virus came down
with the virus and he was staying at our hotel.
He was staying in our hotel.
So they had to evacuate the hotel
and then we had to shut down the production
with five days left.
- Oh my gosh.
- Yeah. - What are the chances?
Five days left.
That's horrible. - Yes, yes.
- Oh my god, well so what have you been doing?
I hear you've been baking a lot.
- Well, yeah.
I mean, you know, we came home, two
of my sons were working on the movie
so they came home with me, and then I have another son
that was in school here in LA,
so now I have, I went form empty nest back
to having three of my four sons at home.
- That's kind of cool.
- It's kind of cool, yeah, and, you know, I had a cookbook
out a while ago and that's come in handy
and I wish you were here because, you know, we've got
some apple pie muffins here
that are really good. - Wait, no.
I saw apple pie muffin.
I have apple pie muffins.
- You have apple pie muffins? - I walked into my house today
and I saw a basket of muffins, I was like
"Is this for the show?"
- Yes, because they
go really nice with coffee. - These were sent to me.
- Oh my god, they're--
- My show knows that I love sunflowers,
- Yes. - and I see them here
so I'm trying one. - And there are big chunks
of apple in them, and they're very--
- [Kelly] I love apples.
- And they're very easy.
Wow. - Okay, I'm gonna try it.
- Okay.
It's good, right?
- Oh my gosh, I love the chink of apple.
- Right, nice big chunks of apple.
Yeah, yeah.
So I've been doing a lot of that.
- I'm not kidding.
This is not for the show, this is really good.
- Let's just east for the rest of this.
- Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh. - Yeah.
- So did you all celebrate anything like during lockdown?
We had birthdays. - Well,
you know, here's the thing.
In July, it was two years since I've had a drink
because, two years.
- Yeah. - Because, as we said,
I don't think I'm gonna have grand kids
for many, many years and when they come, I'll probably be
about 75, and so I need my brain.
Like I don't wanna be that drooling grandmother
in the corner, you know, that you have to go kiss
and then run away from.
I wanna be active, alive, you know,
so I haven't been drinking to preserve my brain, right?
- Yeah. - However, it doesn't seem
to have helped that much
because the other night, I get a text
from my youngest son
and he says "Well, happy birthday to me, I guess."
And I realized, Kelly--
- My mother did this once
in junior high-- - Kelly, not only
was it his birthday, it was his 21st birthday.
- Oh no.
- I'm at the top of the stairs, this was like
before the pandemic so he was still at school,
I yelled downstairs, "Dave, we forgot Dan's birthday."
Dave's like "Oh my god."
And it's 21st birthday, so I felt so so bad
that I started texting every celebrity friend
that I have and I gave them Dan's phone number
and I said "Please, will you text my son Dan,
"it's his 21st birthday, I forgot.
"Please just text him, wish him happy birthday.
"Tell him I'm a terrible parent."
And Dan was very impressed, first of all,
that his roommates in college were very impressed
that Ashley Tisdale was texting him.
- [Kelly] Oh my gosh, she's so nice.
- She's so nice and she was having a conversation with him.
She told me later her husband said "Who are you texting?"
And she said "A bunch of college boys."
(laughs loudly)
But the best one was Ray Romano sent me a video
or sent Dan a video and then he sent it to me
and it's really funny what he said.
I think you have it.
- Hey Dan, I know it's a little noisy.
I'd understand it's your 21st birthday according
to my calendar.
I guess your parents don't have the same calendar
that I do, but I keep track of things,
so happy 21st birthday.
- So wait, speaking of Ray though, the last time you were
on here, you were talking about
that you're gonna maybe play golf with Ray, right?
Did that ever happen?
- It's not happened.
In fact, just last week is the first time I've golfed
in months because of the pandemic, so.
- Yeah. - I know.
I think he was just at Pebble Beach
but I haven't been able to golf with him.
- I want his life.
Okay, just hanging out at Pebble Beach, I'm like.
So Patricia, besides baking, have you been working
on anything else at home?
- My Spanish, I started taking Spanish
through an app, through Duolingo.
- Me too. - Are you really?
- Yes, but unless you like immerse yourself,
so here's the thing, I can read it really well
and I can speak it, if I'm like, you know, that
but when it comes to communication, it's so fast.
I can't, I lose it.
I don't know the difference between one word
or if it's like two different words
because they say it so fast.
- Well the woman's voice on it when you have
to repeat what they say or you have
to type what they said, she's tricky
because she like mushes words together,
I'm like "Slow down, you know."
- I know and if I'm not looking at it,
that's the only thing is I'm really good
at looking at it, my memory and vocabulary is all right,
but it's, and I'm still like early on
because I just have a lot going on,
but I just mean like I can't, the communication part,
I'm like "Whoa, that is so hard."
And I love the owl shames you like he'll email you,
like he will email you and be like "We missed you," tear,
and I'm like "Oh my god, I'm getting shamed by an owl."
- Or, you know, you make a mistake
and he floats onto your screen
and goes "Hang in there."
- Yeah, "Hang in there, loser."
Like it's like "Thank you."
Okay, well you've got a new book out
and it's called Your Second Act,
so obviously the title in front is what it's probably about
but go ahead and tell us. - Yes.
Well, interestingly enough, it was inspired
by my now canceled TV show Carol's Second Act.
(laughs loudly)
- I love you.
(laughs loudly)
- I'm like what?
Wait what?
But actually, it kind of is appropriate
because now I'm having to like do that next thing
- Yeah. - but, you know, fact is
a lot of people, during this pandemic, they
either lost their job through no faults
of their own because of the pandemic,
or they've been working at something for a long time
and they've had these months to just reflect
on their lives and look, we've all seen
how sort of precious life is
and how, you know, we can't take anything for granted,
and so we know that we have to really use our time
on this planet wisely
- Yeah. - and to be doing
what we really wanna do.
So I think a lot of people have had time to reflect,
and think maybe when we all get back out there again, I
might wanna do something different.
And so this book is just really, it's
like wonderful, wonderful stories
of personal friends of mine,
and then just some people we researched
who have changed their life usually
because of some unforeseen circumstance
that came into their life, and it's really inspiring,
and it's little changes like an industrial carpet salesman
who became an actor, or it's huge changes like an NFL player
who became an opera singer.
There's lots of different stories
and there's pages in here where you can take notes
and start thinking about how their stories inspire you.
Maybe it's sparking you to start trying something new.
So I think it's a good time for this book
because I think people need some inspiration.
- So do you think that the pandemic,
you think your worldview, I feel like everybody,
like you're saying, we're all kind
of having, I don't know, a different perspective.
You think that's
happened with you? - Totally.
Right now, we're starting to think
about really making some big changes in our life
and just figuring out what we wanna do.
We loved producing this movie and we're really excited
about hopefully finishing it before the end of the year.
- Yeah. - But that's the direction,
and that's a new direction for me to go
and that's me behind the camera, you know, assist my husband
and I loved it.
I loved being behind the camera.
Oh my gosh, I just thought watching these actors
who have to really gee it up every time
and I mean, I kept thinking
"Why did I think acting was fun?"
Because I'm watching these actors
and I'm so relieved I'm not doing it right now,
but I mean, of course, I love acting
and you know, it'll be fun to do another show
but I'm really digging this producing thing a lot.
- Yeah. - So, you know,
we'll see what happens.
You have to look at it as exciting challenge as opposed to
- Yeah. - approaching these new things
with fear, you have to start like open yourself up
and allow it to come in and embrace it
and see where it takes you.
See where it takes you.
- Honestly, like in my, I don't care
if we air this or not but,
and I think my life specifically right now
like there's just a lot going on
- Yeah. - and it's one of those things
where you can get down about it
but I also have this conversation
- Yeah. - with myself
and I'm like, you know what, this is opportunity
and I know it's challenging, and I know it's not exactly
what anyone planned or whatever,
but it's one of those things I like, the messaging
of your book too, and this whole pandemic
in perspective, is literally that it's okay.
Like opportunity presents itself, you've no idea
what that will be and you have no idea
what beauty might come from the, you know, darkness
or the hard times,
- Yeah, it's right. - and I think that
that's really cool about, I love the whole vibe.
I love that you named it Second Act
and you said it's all from your canceled show,
but that makes you one
of my favorite people ever, just your humor,
but I think it's a really good message
and I think you're right.
I think it's more important now than ever
for people to have that.
So thank you so much for coming on my show again.
- Kelly, thank you for having me.
It's so good to see you.
- It's good to see you too,
and everybody you can get Patricia's new book now.
It's called Your Second Act.