-How are you? -I'm well.
-I am so happy to see you, always.
And, you know, we already talked about
our Michael Cohen stuff tonight. -Whew.
-So we got that out of the way.
But, you know, people don't realize there's a cost.
There's a cost for everyone.
And I think that everybody who was on television
this morning had to pay that cost --
you particularly.
You were on "Kelly" this morning.
-Yeah.
-And this happened while you were getting interviewed.
-She thought for years and years and years
and found herself kind of on autopilot, and --
-Special report. Michael Cohen testifies.
-Thank you. [ Laughter ]
Thank you very much. -How dare they!
-I'm ready to zip it at any moment.
-They should let you now go on Congress
and say what you were gonna say. Yeah.
-Oh, God. I get agita just, like, thinking of that.
-But this is a wonderful show, in its second season now.
Three moms who commit a crime
and then the repercussions of that.
Do you enjoy -- Do moms come up to you now
and say that that looks like an interesting way
to go about things? [ Laughter ]
-Moms, women, yes.
People find the show very empowering.
It's sisters, best friends having each other's back
no matter what happens.
So people are like, "I just --
I love how they're taking things into their own hands."
And I'm like, "Well, I mean,
they're doing really stupid stuff."
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-So, like, you know, within reason.
-Do you think having done it for a couple years --
How do you think you'd be at crime?
-I think -- I think I would be a little bit
smarter than my character. -Oh, that's nice.
That's good, yeah.
-But then -- But maybe not --
You know, when I had to make a quick decision,
I might make mistakes.
But I think I would cover my tracks a little bit better.
-All right, that's good. -Yeah.
-And you have two incredible co-stars,
both of whom have been here -- Retta and Mae Whitman.
And they talk a lot. I hope it's true.
They say that you were very close, the three of you.
-You hope it's true. -Well, I would hate
if you said now like, "No, the minute they say 'cut,'
we go our separate ways."
-No, we've been texting each other all day long.
They are two of my best friends and amazing actresses.
I couldn't be luckier.
Yeah, we text each other till like 2:00 in the morning.
Retta will finally be like, "I have to go to bed. Stop."
And we're all sending selfies of ourselves laying in bed.
-Your mom was not a criminal,
but you had a very interesting mom.
[ Laughter ]
Your mom was a hypnotherapist.
-Yeah, she was not a criminal. [ Laughter ]
-But I can imagine, as a kid, like,
having a mom as a hypnotherapist,
was that a cool -- did you --
could you appreciate that that was cooler than most moms?
-It was. It was sort of a neighborhood trick.
She would practice on us when she was learning,
and so we would have the neighborhood kids come over,
and we would be like --
you know, go through the process of putting them in hypnosis,
and then we would be like,
"You're gonna forget the number 5,"
and they'd be like, "Okay, wake up.
Now count your fingers."
"One, two, three, four, six, seven -- no way!"
Like, "No way!" [ Laughter ]
"No way. Wait, one, two."
And we'd be like, "Ha ha! We did it!"
-I mean, that would be the coolest thing in the world.
-It was cool. I'm sure we were all faking it,
but, you know... [ Laughter ]
It seemed cool. -Last time you were here,
we talked about "Mad Men" and the end of that show.
You -- I still can't believe this story.
Your agent did not want you
to take the part of Joel -- uh, Joan.
-Yes. Or Joel.
-Or Joel. [ Laughter ]
Said, "I think both of these are bad for you."
Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah. I mean, at the time, AMC didn't have any programing.
-Sure. -And it was a period piece,
and they just didn't think I was gonna make them any money.
And they just -- they weren't --
I decided, I said, "I love it. I really --
I just feel really, really strongly about it."
And they were like, "That's so great.
No one wants to work with you here."
-Wow! So you fully got let go by your agency?
-Yeah, I did. -Wow. That's amazing.
-Yeah. -But also kind of great, right?
'Cause then you didn't have to give them commission on it.
-That's true. [ Laughter ]
-But this is -- this, to me, is such a cool story.
You guys had to -- There was a long delay
between when you shot the pilot and when you started the show.
And so you knew you had a job, which is a thing --
not a lot of actors live in that moment
where they're about to start a job.
And so you then took on another job
that was not an acting job at all.
-We had this about a year where we were being held,
and Matt Weiner, the creator of the show,
was still working on "The Sopranos,"
and so we couldn't work on anything else
'cause we were in this holding pattern,
and I had always wanted to be a florist.
-Uh-huh. -So I went to a local florist
that I really admired, and I said,
"Would you ever take on an intern
that I could learn from your designers?"
And they kind of looked at me like I was crazy.
And they were like, "Well, I mean, we could use
some extra help at Mother's Day."
And I was like, "Okay. Well, I'll just do that."
So they hired me for a short amount of time,
and I did a couple holidays in the meantime.
-Did you ever have friends who came in
and saw you as a florist and were like, "Oh, no."
-Yeah, yeah! [ Laughter ]
No, quite -- quite often, they would be coming in
to buy flowers for their wives,
and I remember my friend Craig Bierko came in,
and he went -- "Oh -- hey."
[ Laughter ] Like, "Oh."
And I was like, "No, it's -- it's okay.
I think I have a job.
I just have always wanted to do this."
And now he's like, "That was so badass when you did that."
[ Laughter ]
Like a badass florist. -Yeah.
But it's true, because I think, like,
as an actor like, you never -- you'll like --
You get a chance to, like, pretend to be a florist,
but to actually get to be a florist
is probably a lot cooler.
-I thought I was pretty good at it, too.
I was taking orders, getting -- you know, sending things out.
I was kind of like -- I was --
-And I would imagine high-pressure because --
Well, I do, because, I mean, if a guy is calling
to get flowers for his wife,
you don't want to blow that for him.
I feel like he's already in trouble, probably.
-People come in for, like, either really sad reasons,
bad reasons, or really happy reasons.
-Right. -There's not an in between.
-No one's like, "It's Tuesday. I'm gonna go get flowers."
-Yeah. You're sort of like, "Ooh-ooh. What'd you do?"
Like, "How big should this be?"
Like, "How many do we want to get here?"
-And then, I want to ask about this because I'm assuming that,
you know, you've done a lot of things,
but "Mad Men" must be a show
people ask you about all the time.
And does it get tiring hearing about it or not?
-No, it's fantastic. You know, it's funny.
People are very sweet about it,
and they'll come up and be like, "You must hate this,
but your show, like, changed my life."
And like, "Your character was so inspiring."
I'm like, "Yeah, I hate that."
You know? Like, that's terrible.
It's so nice to hear.
And the way people watch TV now,
people are sometimes just discovering it now.
-Of course.
-And people are still binge-watching it
or rewatching it.
So I still get to have it in my life all the time,
which is really great. -That's really great.
Well, I'm certainly happy to have it in mine.
I'm so happy to have you here. Thanks for being back.
-Thank you. Thanks for having me.
-Always great to see you.