- [Kelly] We're so classy.
I love your outfit.
- Thank you. I dressed myself 'cause
my publicist is outta town.
- [Kelly] Oh!
(audience laughs)
I love that. I love that.
You did a great job.
- Thank you.
- [Kelly] Yeah. Maybe keep doing it.
It's nice to see you. How are your boys?
- They're okay
- [Kelly] Yeah?
- You know. We we're living the coming
back to normal life, dream.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- [Mayim] Everyone's afraid to go out
and we don't know what to do.
- [Kelly] I know!
And do you feel like, I know I feel
like it's just like over like people are just like, yeah.
And I'm like, okay, well what?
- [Mayim] Yeah. It's well and we..
- very confused...
- and yeah and I think especially with kid,
I have kids who really like to follow rules.
So if you give them a rule, they're gonna take it
all the, like they'll wear a mask
forever if you tell them to.
- [Kelly] That's me and my kids,
we're all three the same way.
- [Mayim] So now it's like, okay, you're fine.
And they're like, mm, but are we?
(audience laughs)
- I love it. I love it.
So, so how, how have you been since hosting?
You've been hosting now Jeopardy for
is it over six months now?
- It, yeah. It's um...
- [Kelly] So, what have you learned about the game?
- [Mayim] You know, I I've learned that I still
have a lot to learn.
- Oh my God, everyone watching jeopardy.
It's so hard.
- Well but, but also just like the, the behind the scenes
it, to me is so fascinating.
Like the people in my ear
and meeting all the writers and the researchers
and just like getting to see behind the scenes.
If you think you feel dumb watching the contestants
wait till you see the writers and research.
Like they're, they're amazing.
They're unbelievable.
And they're in my ear telling me
all the things I'm doing wrong. All day.
- [Kelly] I have never been able to do that.
- Very difficult.
- I am so ADHD. I like literally, if
if they tried to do that on this show,
I'd be like, what?
- [Mayim] Well I do that a lot.
- Like I, yeah. I would be like, say again, like what?
And then I'd forget that no one can...
Yep. You feel crazy.
Sometimes I have conversations with Lisa,
the teleprompter goddess here and the audience has no idea
that she can hear me on my mic so...
- Right?
- It looks like I'm talking to myself.
- Sometimes I do talk to myself, so yeah
- [Kelly] And I don't care, I'll look crazy for her.
I love her.
So wait, you recently called the first round single Jeopardy
instead of just Jeopardy.
So how did people react to that?
- [Mayim] So the, on my, I, I have basically, you know
clue boards that I review.
- Yeah.
- And the first one does say single Jeopardy
and the second one says double Jeopardy.
- So I didn't make something up that doesn't exist.
And people though lost their minds.
So we usually call it the Jeopardy round.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And yes, one time we were going
I think to commercial.
And I think the thing that
that I'd like people to remember is like, I don't go rogue.
It's never like, what is Mayim Bialik think she...
Like there's 86 people watching what I'm doing.
Listen, like if they wanted me to redo it
I would've been happy to redo it, but no one said anything.
I just kept talking.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- But I won't do it again.
'Cause it caused like a whole like Jeopardy viral situation.
- [Kelly] Oh my God. Just so you know
I think my team gets nervous because I go rogue.
(both laugh)
- I, no with Jeopardy, I'm very party line.
Like, like they're in my ear.
I read the, I do the things, but obviously
that one slipped by.
- [Kelly] Isn't it funny what people freak out about?
- [Mayim] People care a lot about Jeopardy
and that's very important.
- [Kelly] I know it is important
but you almost wanna just like start sending them
like real things that are happening that are important.
And you're like, you know? Like don't even respond,
just respond with like, I don't know, like there's a lot
of homeless people here we should probably look out for
or I don't know, like there's like, there's like real issues
and I'm always like, why did you focus on that?
I don't understand but whatever.
That was the look at her new movie: As They Made Us.
So congratulations. You wrote and directed this.
So is this the first time you've ever done this?
- Yes I...
- [Kelly] Were you nervous or excited?
- I was extremely nervous.
So I wrote, I've never written a screenplay.
I've written other things
but not a dialogue, screenplay kind of thing.
I wrote it and...
- [Kelly] I feel like you're so intelligent,
you can do anything.
- No, it well, I mean, I appreciate that.
- [Kelly] It's true.
- No, but like with so many things in life
it's more about like the time, the balancing,
the all the other things you have to do, like
you know, this was, I assume they
whoever they is would like hire a writer after I drafted it.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- No they're like, no, this is the script
and I think we're gonna turn into a movie.
- [Kelly] That's amazing.
- Really bananas and I figured,
okay, well let's find a director.
And then I became the director and you know, I
I have this, this cast, you know,
Dustin Hoffman and Candace Bergen are in it
and Diana Agron and Simon Helberg.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- [Kelly] It's an amazing cast.
- [Mayim] Yeah. That's uh, that was me.
It was really, it was a very surreal...
- Were you nervous directing them
- Two time Academy award winner?
Why should I be nervous?
To direct Dustin Hoffman.
- [Kelly] Totally fine.
- No, it was very, it was very intimidating.
And also there's not a lot of women.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- [Mayim] You know, first time director
and a female and all those things.
There was, I was very, very intimidated
but actually not pictured there.
Julian Gantt, who is on Call Me Cat.
I actually cast him in the movie as well.
And we've worked together for, you know
two years now and having him on the cast,
he plays the caregiver for Dustin's character
and it was just nice to have a buddy there.
- [Kelly] Absolutely!
- Like just someone that like knew me
and knew my sense of humor and Simon
obviously I worked with on Big Bang Theory for nine years.
So it was also, it was very comforting, you know
to have people that know me, know my quirks
and my sense of humor and my sense of weirdness.
And we filmed in the, the humidist
humidist summer in New Jersey.
And mostly what I'm thrilled about when I watch, you know
the cut of the movie is that we don't look
like we were sweating, which we were completely covered
in sweat and our hair and makeup department did amazing
'cause no one looks miserable and sweaty.
- Wow. Wait, so what, it's a very,
I imagine it was comforting to have people
you know, too, because it's
a very intense subject, the movie.
Tell everybody what it's about.
- Yeah. So my father of blessed memory
died almost seven years ago.
And in traditional Judaism,
there's a very specific year of grief.
And after that year of grief, something shifted, which
you know, mystically, however you wanna look at it.
And I started seeing these images like from childhood
and I was like, I think I should write them down.
And that's literally how it started.
So I grew up in a home with mental illness, goes back
many generations on both sides.
And I wrote this movie based on my childhood
based on a lot of people's childhoods.
There's always like sibling tension
when there's a parental heaviness.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And in many families, there's the sibling who stays
and there's the one that doesn't.
- That escapes, almost.
- Correct. And so I wrote a story
about a family kind of figuring
out complexity with one sibling who's very engaged
and the other who has been estranged.
And you know, when people are like,
oh is it your life?
I've decided that I'm not gonna go through scene by scene
and be like, this happened to me, this didn't, you know
there are things in the movie that never happened.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- There are things that I've fabricate
like that's the point of, and the awkwardness of memory and
and being a writer, but many people
are raised with mental illness.
Many people are raised in alcoholism with drug abuse.
So like, to me, these are the stories that I was trying to
and yeah, it sounds heavy.
It's also funny. Like my parents were hilarious.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- You know, they, there was trouble in my home.
There was chaos.
It felt unpredictable a lot,
- [Kelly] It's like dark humor.
- Right. They were incredibly loving, hilarious, artistic.
Like I grew up in this amazing home
that was also really challenging.
And I wanted to show in particular
what happens to siblings in that situation.
- [Kelly] I love... was it, I like 'cause I've written....
It's amazing. I love that you're talking about it too.
Cause I think it's something that's not talked about enough.
- No, no one talked about it.
- [Kelly] It's not mainstream enough.
And I feel like it is an actual mainstream theme
that happens in a lot of homes who people don't talk about.
But for me, like whenever I write about something
especially personally like from my like childhood and I
and some of it's, you know, mine that can be scary releasing
to the world, but also very
liberating because it's therapeutic.
Is that the same for you?
- Yeah, I mean, I think for me, I,
I had to gain such distance
from it because I had to make things up, you know
there were things.... So it, it felt
like I had to be more technical about it
and less emotional if that makes sense.
- [Kelly] That's kinda cool.
- And there are things in the movie, you know,
that are very very gripping and powerful.
But for me as a director, like I went straight
into more of a technical mode, you know
like I didn't cry while directing.
And a lot of people on our crew were
very emotional with a lot of the scenes but...
- [Kelly] Cause you're still focused
on doing your job.
- And I had to be, I think you have to like
create that distance...
- Compartmentalization?
- ...to function. I mean, like we all do, right?
- But so you you've taught a bit of high school,
is that correct? I didn't know that.
- So yeah, for five years after I got my doctorate
before I was made a regular on the big bang theory
- [Kelly] You got your doctorate, who are you?
I'm just like what? Jesus.
- No, but for five years
- You're so impressive. I know you've
come here like so many times
and every time I just, I just
wanna be you every time you're here.
I'm like, you're so impressive.
- [Mayim] Just lot of layers to this onion.
- [Kelly] I know it!
It's such a freaking awesome onion!
- But I did. I taught for five years,
I designed a neuroscience curriculum
for junior high and high school home schoolers.
I taught in the LA homeschooling community.
- [Kelly] Wow.
- I also taught high school biology, which is exactly
what it sounds like.
I taught sex ed to a group of teenagers.
- [Kelly] Yeah. Somebody's gotta teach 'em.
- Someone has to teach.
- I learned on a school bus.
- It was Amy Farrah Fowler from the Big Bang Theory
is who taught them.
(both laugh)
- Yes.
- I learned on a school bus.
So I think the way you did was probably better.
- [Mayim] I learned when I taught them
you know, it was like just a short number of years ago.
Like we're all learning together.
I have two kids. I dunno how it happens
- Wading through the trauma together.
Oh god, I know it.