-Our next guest is a talented actress you know from films like
"Girls Trip" and "Support the Girls,"
as well as the show "Black Monday."
She stars in "Nine Perfect Strangers,"
which streams new episodes every Wednesday on Hulu.
Let's take a look.
-I came here to know you.
To -- To -- To see what he saw, to see the what and the why.
The why...
-Finish that.
-Well, it's just that you -- you were the catalyst for it all.
You -- You opened his mind to the idea
that there were beautiful girls out there to be had.
-Please welcome back to the show Regina Hall.
♪♪
-Hello.
-Hi. -Hi.
-Oh, I can touch you.
Thank you so much.
♪♪
-How are you? -I'm so good.
-This is so nice for us.
This is some unfinished business.
You and John Krasinski were our guests March 12, 2020,
the cancelled show where the world turned upside down.
And it's so lovely to finally have you back.
-I thought you canceled because of John.
I said, "Oh, he doesn't want to see John."
-Yeah.
That would have been a hard thing to do
because I really didn't want to see him
but I really wanted to see you.
So that day was -- You know,
COVID actually kind of did me a favor.
It got me out of an awkward situation.
-Exactly.
-We've talked about your many years in New York.
Went to NYU. -Yes.
-You taught at College of New Rochelle.
-Yes. -You lived in an apartment
where a crime had recently been committed?
-Yes, my roommate and I went to move in,
and there was yellow tape. -Right.
-You know how when people are murdered,
so I'm assuming there was a body.
-Right.
They didn't have the tape outline though of the body?
-They had the tape -- No, there was tape outline.
-No, but of, like, a body, though?
You know the thing where a body --
-Well, I don't know. -Gotcha.
-I mean, when it's on the floor, it's --
I think that's what it is.
-Yeah, I think you're probably right.
Did you get a deal on the place?
-We left. We went to another place up the street.
We couldn't stay there. Okay, we stayed like two weeks.
-Okay. -Yeah.
And then -- We did get our money back, our full deposit.
-Oh, that's good. -Yeah.
-Because you've heard horror stories.
I mean, though I guess the real horror story
is the person who lived there before.
What about --
In New York, do you like coming back to New York though?
Do you have fond memories of it other than that?
-I love New York. I loved New York.
I went to bartending school in New York.
-Yes, at Colombia, yes? -At Colombia.
-And yet did you then use those skills?
-I don't remember anything.
I was drunk every time I left.
-Really? -Yes.
-So bartending school, they let you drink the drinks?
-You're supposed to spit it out, I think.
But I don't -- I just -- That felt gross.
And so I swall-- Well, that doesn't sound good.
[ Laughter ]
-Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
-So I drank it.
And I don't remember anything
except that someone made good drinks in that class.
-Do you think to this day you remember anything from it?
Like, could you make a drink?
-No. -Okay.
-The only thing I can make is peach Schnapps and orange juice.
Peach Schnapps. And I did that before I was --
-Yeah. You know, it's really never that impressive
when the recipe is the title.
[ Laughter ]
"How do you make peach Schnapps and orange juice?"
"Well, you need two things."
-I can make -- Well, a Bailey's on the rocks.
[ Laughter ]
-You're moving in the wrong direction.
I can do glass.
If you need a glass, I can do it right down.
-I know. It's so true.
No, I can't make anything.
-This is a really cool show with a lot of people that
you got to shoot in Australia. -Yes.
-And we had one of your co-stars here, Michael Shannon.
-I love Michael. -We were talking to him.
He is a wonderful, wonderful gentleman.
-He gave me the finger all the time.
-He gave you the finger all the time?
-It made me smile. -Lovingly?
-Yes. -Yeah.
-But he did it slowly, so it wasn't like a finger.
It would just go up. He'd say, "Regina?"
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
I feel like this is how he gets you.
But I kind of picture Michael Shannon doing everything slowly.
-[ Laughs ] -You know?
If you told me like the thing he's doing really fast kicks,
I'd be surprised. -Trigger finger.
No. But I loved him.
Michael was like such -- He's like -- I love --
We had the same eating times, I think.
-Okay, like you just not --
Like they didn't assign you eating times?
-No. So when we were in quarantine for two weeks
at the hotel, this was Michael's room and this was mine.
So we were right next door to each other.
And literally the door would open --
He's the only person I saw during quarantine.
-Really? -The door would open
at the same time, and then one day I was like --
But it was awkward, you know? Do you close it?
-Right, especially when you're talking about quarantine.
-Yes, and there was a guard on the floor.
-Had you met him before? Was this the first time?
-I met him at the --
I met him once we landed at the airport, masked.
-And you had a good group.
Melissa McCarthy was here talking about it.
-Melissa McCarthy. She's great. -Bobby Cannavale.
-But Bobby I had worked with.
-Okay. -Yes.
Melissa I met at a TIFF party,
and I told her we look like twins.
-Really? Did she buy it?
-Yes. -Yeah.
-No, but yes. -What did you guys --
Did you ever have any fun, like, off-set stuff?
Because again, you were probably limited by your ability
to go out and explore Australia.
-We were, but we did, yeah.
We played cards.
I was really --
No. I wasn't good, but when I came close to winning,
I got so excited.
-Competitive? You're competitive?
-I think so. -Okay.
-But not really, because I'm not good enough --
You know, to be competitive, you've got to be really good.
-That's true. Otherwise you're just delusional.
-I was delusional.
-What kind of cards would you play?
-Some game that Molly taught us.
I wish I could think of the name of it,
but it was like some weird game.
-It's definitely coming across that you're not --
Did you go to card school
when you were going to bartending school?
-I am really good at -- I know. [ Laughs ]
I'm really good at spades.
-Oh, yeah. That's a great game.
-Yeah. Can you play? -Yeah, okay.
-I think with a little bit of a primer, I could play spades.
I play hea-- I was a hearts fan. -I'm competitive in spades.
-Really? -Yes.
-When did you first start playing?
Hearts was our, like, family game.
-Oh, that's a good one. -Yeah.
When did you start playing spades?
-Oh, I don't even remember when I didn't play.
-Really? It's your whole life.
-It's my whole like, since I was a little girl.
-This is a show about people, "Nine Perfect Strangers."
Or nine -- What is it? It is "Nine Perfect Strangers," yeah.
-I've had every name. My friends have written,
"I'm loving 'Seven Perfect Strangers.'"
"I'm loving 'Nine People.'"
I mean, I've heard -- It's been called everything on my --
-"Nine People" is the worst name for a show.
"Nine People" is like, "we forgot to give it a name."
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
"I'm loving 'Nine People.'"
-In real life, because Michael was talking about
how he couldn't see himself, like, doing a yoga retreat.
Like, that's not for him.
Have you ever thought of yourself as somebody
who could fit in a wellness retreat?
-I've gone to wellness retreats. -You have?
-Yeah. -How was it?
-Well, I've gone to several.
But actually, my makeup artist, who is here, Rhiann,
we went to one together, which was great.
Very strict. We did classes all day.
You had to -- We juiced three days a week.
You had no cellphones on campus.
Morning lymph node exercises to make them drain.
-What is a lymph node exercise?
-Jumping to get your lymph nodes to drain.
We drank a certain number of ounces of wheatgrass.
-Can I jump in? Because I'm a little bit of a skeptic
when it comes to stuff. -Okay.
If they said, "we're going to do lymph node exercises,"
and then I said, "Oh, great, what is it?"
And they said jumping, I would be like, "Okay, guys."
[ Laughter ] -No, you know,
jumping on a trampoline is actually really good
for your lymph nodes. -Yeah, that's fine,
but then it's just jumping on a trampoline.
Like, when they call it a lymph node exercise
and it's something that's already --
-You do a walk and then there are certain --
I don't know -- movements that are supposed to be great
for the lymph nodes. -Okay. Now, how long was it?
A week? What's the longest wellness retreat you've done?
-That one was a week.
You do seven days, the whole seven days.
You drink four ounces of wheatgrass
and you have to do a wheatgrass enema every day.
-Really? -Every day.
-How is that?
-What's interesting is not --
-Every part of it is going to be interesting to me.
-Not everyone can hold their wheatgrass.
-Really? -Yes.
In that way. -Okay.
-And the longer you can hold your wheatgrass,
the more apparently it has a chance
to help heal your intestines. -Oh, interesting.
-So you want to hold it up there as long as possible.
-Interesting. -And I --
I don't even want to brag, but I must.
I was told that, um...
Well, I could hold mine for a long time.
-Congratulations. -Yeah. So...
-That's not really probably a skill you'll need anywhere else.
[ Laughter ] -Okay, okay.
I thought it was helping me for the future.
-When it's over, the week-long wellness retreat,
do you kind of feel like, "Look at me"?
-You do. -Really?
-I glowed. -You glowed?
And how many days -- Not that I'm accusing you of any kind of
hard living, but how many days out of the wellness retreat
do you all of a sudden feel like yourself before you went in?
-Say it again.
-Like, I live well for a week and then, like, is it three days
of pizza before I'm, like, back to what I was before I went in?
-I don't know because you go out --
and I will say, you try to keep the --
-Yes. You're incentivized.
-Yes, and so you keep -- Yeah, there's usually a glow.
-Did you have a moment where you left where you were like,
"I think I'm still holding my wheatgrass"?
Or did you make sure -- [ Laughter ]
-No. But it's -- You know, I have to tell you,
it's an interesting -- it's an interesting gift
that I feel like I have.
-Well, I -- You know, look, I'm just happy we're giving it out
to the world, and now they all know.
-And now they all know. -It's so nice to see you.
Thank you for making a return trip.
It has been far too long. -It was.
-It speaks to exactly how difficult
this last year and a half plus has been that it took this long
to have you back, but it's really worth the wait.
-And one announcement? -Yeah?
-I, too, am having a baby.
-Are you really? -No. No. No.
[ Laughter ] I'm not.
I just got so excited for John and Olivia that I was --
because I couldn't think of a dad.
I was going to name you, but then it's scandalous.
I was going to name John, and then it's scandalous.
I guess I could have named -- -Yeah, Shoemaker.
-Yeah, Shoemaker. -There you go. Oh, my God.
-Are you married? -Yeah.
-Well, then that's kind of scandalous.
-She won't mind. [ Laughter ]
New episodes of "Nine Perfect Strangers"
stream Wednesdays on Hulu.