Latest / Project You 2.2 / Carrie & Carly Jibson - From My Classroom to Broadway: When You Finally Get Your Shot (Part 1)

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Carrie & Carly Jibson - From My Classroom to Broadway: When You Finally Get Your Shot (Part 1) · Project You 2.2

• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Project U Two Po, the podcast about growth, reinvention, and the moments that shape the direction of our lives.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Kiri Helmer.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: For over three decades, I was a teacher.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thousands of students walked through my classroom doors.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Some were quiet observers, some were brilliant thinkers, and some you just knew they were going to light up the world in their own unforgettable way.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: And today's guest is one of those students.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Before Broadway stages, before television roles, before audiences across the country knew her name, she sat in a desk in my classroom, room 612 in Michigan.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: She was bold, funny, and completely herself.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And as teachers, we noticed things like that.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Today's guest proved something that I believe for years.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the most unforgettable adults were the most unforgettable students.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it is so much fun to watch former students grow up to do incredible things.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Carly Gibson is an actress, singer, and writer who originated the role of Tracy, I can't say this any other way, Tracy Turnblad in the first national tour of hairspray.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Later stepping into the role on Broadway, she also originated the role of Pepper in the Broadway musical Crybaby and has appeared in television shows like The Guess Book, one of my favorites, won Mississippi, and recently started a band called Tell Your Dad I Said Hi.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Today's conversation isn't just about Broadway and music.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's about courage, it's about risk, it's about the moments when someone decides to trust their own voice.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Carly Gibson, welcome to Project U 2.2.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for having me.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: And also kudos to doing your research.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: I cannot tell you how many times I've done an interview and people are rattling things off, and I'm like, none of those things are true.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I don't know what Wikipedia.com version of my life you looked up, but that was not the T.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, thank you so much for having me.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: I am as well.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Before we dive into stories, I want to start with something that I love doing in my classroom and now I do in my podcast, and it's the hot seat.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna ask you five questions.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't overthink these.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: Just don't overthink.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: You sound like my therapist.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Good good luck with your projects.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Don't overthink this.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an overthinker for sure.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you could give your teenage self one piece of advice, what would it be?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, aside from investing Google, because 100, that would be my first thing.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: I'd be like, girl, open stocks.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, I I have to say this is like a two-parter for me in a way, because it there's a there's a little bit of like a retrospective, like wishing I could do it differently in some aspects.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't change anything about it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: But I wish that I I could have told her to enjoy everything and stop trying to grow up so fast, you know, just to be a little be let myself be more of a kid.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_03: You've got your whole life to be grown up and make hard choices and bad financial decisions and date the wrong boys.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so just slow down a little bit and enjoy it and also um go hug your mom.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of my favorites.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: I would go hug my mom.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: And also tell her, like, hey, I'm sorry I'm being such an asshole.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I know you're doing this for the first time too, and you don't have all the answers.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just like struggling to be in my own body right now because being a teenager is a nightmare, and um, and every day is touch and go, but that um that I love you and and I see your hard work, and I'm sorry if if I take that out on you because I don't have the capacity and and the and the self-awareness to to be able to differentiate that and that this isn't all your fault.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sorry.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: I wish I could say that.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I would tell her.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Be nicer to your mom, be nicer to your mom.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I would tell her.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: I need my boys to all listen to this podcast.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's funny.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: I teach private voice now um on the side sometimes, and it's really interesting um seeing my littles um anywhere from the ages of like 12 to 22 and being able to kind of give them those little nuggets of things I wish I had just learned so much sooner.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like stop the self-criticism.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's don't romanticize self-motivation with with with with that criticism and that judgment voice.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's just all that's going to do is build this negative internal view of yourself and sort of, you know, manifest into something really toxic internally.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I, you know, I try to I try to instill that as much as possible.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: Just because it's it's something I wish I had to like adapted a lot sooner.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: That degaff energy, I'm like, we need more degaff, like live the fantasy, the world's on fire.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: Let's find some joy.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: It can't be that deep.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're not always curing cancer, like it just can't always be that deep.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: We all need some Carly humor in our days.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Carly, what's one fear that you had early in your career that you have conquered?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, a fear that I had early.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um that I would disappoint people.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: I was just always everything, I was so motivated by making sure that everyone who went out on a limb for me and sacrificed for me and put in a good word for me or did a favor or something that I would let them down.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I took that with me, that pressure, that that that sort of shouldered um burden with me everywhere I went.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I let it drive such an anxiety and a fear to um fail.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I think like realizing that failure, as it were, is such an important part of your evolution for you to have some sort of a juxtaposition between the good and the bad in your life.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: But I think that I've worked really hard to live my life for myself and not in the objective opinion of other people.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a big fan of Brene Brown.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like everybody, every elder millennial went through this whole thing where we were like, and and Gen Xers too, where Brene Brown was just like, yes, let's talk about it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about the shame and all of that.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like part of me deconstructing a lot of that was realizing how much external pressure I was putting on myself to succeed, to either prove people right or wrong, or to make them feel like their efforts weren't in vain.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: And it's exhausting, it's tiring and ultimately super empty because you don't get that gratification.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when people operate from a place of I'll show them, nobody comes back in some sort of makeup and is like, wow, you really proved me wrong.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: I gotta say, like you don't get that.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: And it's so you find yourself working and working, and even if you do achieve it, you get there and it's so empty because those people, A of all, not thinking about you, right?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: All those people you're like, like no one's really thinking about you.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and you just you never achieve that, and you realize that that has to come from an internal satisfaction.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like you, you know, you have to do that for yourself.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: So um, and a long-winded answer, that I feel like I've overcome that.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, that yeah, you that was such wise words, and it's interesting to hear that perspective from you because you always have radiated so much confidence, and you just are who you are, and that's who you bring.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said before we started, I think that's why I mean, everyone loves you and you are this legend back home.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's interesting because I know we all have those negative voices.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: I know we all have some sort of this people pleasing, and and so to overcome that and to work through that, it's fascinating to be.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, don't it's it's it's it's 100 like it's never eradicated 100%.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like I've I've learned to realize that nine times out of 10 the call is coming from inside the house, right?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: So, like when I'm projecting, like, oh, everyone's mad at me, or that person and I'm fixated on that, or like, you know, I just said this to my therapist.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: I've been, by the way, I've been with the same therapist since I was 19 years old.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_03: I met her when I was on Broadway and Hairspray, and I was suffering massive anxiety attacks and really falling apart and struggling to kind of keep it together and the pressure of everything.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and we're still together to this day.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like, my greatest fear is that she's gonna call me and be like, girl, you know, I have to retire someday, and I'd be like, You can't leave me.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but um, but yeah, so um uh oh God, here comes the perimenopause.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: What the hell is that?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Always a work in progress, though.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: I was like the brain fog, the brain fog of it all.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my God.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um you're too young for that.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's what I told my doctor, and she was like, You're pretty like in the and I was like, You watch your mouth when you're talking to me.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was like, I think I'm too young to be in perimenopause.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, No, I don't think so.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Not to add salt to the wound, but I asked my oldest, who's 24, because he used to bring my kids to all the Allegro shows and all of the performances, and I said, Hayden, you might remember Carly.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I started going and he was like, It's not ringing a bell.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then I did the math and I was like, wait, he was born in 2001.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yeah, you don't remember.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: You're a zygo.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: You have no memory at best.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right, yeah, right.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, no, it's it's 100% a work in progress.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's something that I have to be really cognizant of on a daily basis and realize that that's more of a reflection of me than anything else.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's my internal talk, sort of being like, do you think everyone's mad at you?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: Or like, are you having a hard time with you today?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, oh, don't pull it that thread.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Carly, how about something, the funniest moment, or just something weird that happened to you on set or on stage?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my Lanta.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's so many, right?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: Because live theater is its own thing.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, like on set uh experiences have been crazy, just working with some of the greats and some of the crazies and um and all of the things.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: I would have to say, okay, are you ready for real talk?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: Because I told you I'm an open book and I will literally tell all the crazy stories.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_03: So I'll tell you about the time.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: I will wrap this up in the quickest way, but I'll tell you about the time I met my absolute hero since I was six years old and had the simultaneous worst day of my entire life.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like embarrassed myself the more like more than anything.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't just mean like, did you say something embarrassing?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: Did you like just hold?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: So um I was filming the guest book at the time and I was really, really sick.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'd gotten on a Z Pack, right?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like you do.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: And they didn't put me on a 10 day, or if I did, they put me on a three-day, which was like all of the drugs of a 10 day, but like compounded in a three-day.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: And at the same time, I was booked to speak on a panel at RuPaul's Drag Con.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: So it was like a Broadway panel or whatever, and it was me and like Cheryl Lee Ralph and Frankie Grande, I think, and and Nikki Snelson.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: We were doing this like talkback thing.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I was very excited about it and had been looking forward to it.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: But by the time we came up to do that on a Saturday, that I was like on day three of those antibiotics and I was ill.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I had the cold sweats, like I couldn't get my makeup to stick to my face.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: I was shaking, it was just awful.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: My hair, because like the minute she touches a little bit of humidity, I become like the white Diana Ross.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's just no good.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so it just was one of those things.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: And my husband's like, I think you look beautiful.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, oh, they're patronizing me.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like it was just not a good day for me.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so I go to the event and I'm just so ill.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: And we're standing out on the the uh comic, the the floor of the drag con.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's like the cement building because it's in um uh like this big arena, and I am just so unwell.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: And my friend, who was show running the show at the time, was like, Do you want to meet RuPaul?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, I started sobbing because first of all, I did not feel good.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: I was so sick.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Yes, like, are you are you absolutely joking me?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like, that's my hero.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: I can't wait.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: And they were like, Okay, so they push us through to like the meet and greet line, and then they have like a separate section for like industry people, so they push you to the front.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: And we go in and I'm already, and they were like right beforehand, his handler says to me, Don't let Rue know that you're sick.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: He's a huge dermaphobe.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Oh God, okay.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm just like trying to pull it together, but I'm just like clammy.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: I look wet.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like I look like I just took a shower and like didn't dry off.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm standing there, and as soon as I walk in, the handler like screws up my intro to Rue and says, Oh, this is Carly Gibson, the Tony Award winner of hairspray.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Oh no, no, no, I no, no, no, but it was like too late.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then Rue's face was kind of like, huh?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: And but also Rue knows Marissa, like they're friends.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: So eight, now I just look like a lady who lied to give me here and I look unwell.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm so the whole thing, he was like, Oh, okay.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: And like in the picture, and I still have this picture to this day.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm standing there like this, and like he can tell that I'm sick, so he won't touch me.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: So his hands are like hovering.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: It looks AI, the photo looks AI.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, that's not even the worst part.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: I start sobbing because I was like, oh my God, I've loved you seven and my mom and my mom's dead, and now I'm crying.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: So now it looks like I lied for my credentials to get back there.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'm wet, and now I'm sobbing.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: And this is supposed to be like in the industry line of people just being like, Oh, I love your work.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: I love your work.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: I look nuts.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_03: So I blew it.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: We leave, right?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: They hand me my photo.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like shaking, I'm standing on the floor.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_03: Now, circle back to I have about 20 minutes for up to speak on this panel.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: Circle back and remember, I told you I was on all those antibiotics.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm standing there, I already don't feel good.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: And like I start coughing because I'm sick, bolty.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: I start coughing, I fully shit my pants.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: Because anybody who has taken an antibiotic knows that, like, when you take it's like an everything must-go sale.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's a full liquidation, like it everything in your body goes.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: I fully just poop my pants.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: And it is, and I'm standing on this convention floor and I was like, oh my God, oh my god, oh my god.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I look at my manager and I was like, I have to go.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: And so I run into the bathroom, and the only thing I remember is like they had this bathroom for all of us to go in.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a talent bathroom and it's huge.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: And there's drag queens in there and it's all the great ones.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's like Alyssa Edward, like they're all in there.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I blow past them.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: I go into the stall, I put for a full evaluation, and I'm like, I have not, I don't know what to do.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: I have to speak on this panel in like 10 minutes.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: And they come and they're like, Miss Gipson, we're gonna, we're gonna take you to the room in about 10 minutes.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_03: I am washing my clothes in the toilet water, clean toilet water, but like washing them in the toilet water, just trying to like do the best thing that I can.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm ringing, I'm shaking.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like shaking.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like wringing my clothes out.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: And then I have to put these wet, thank God they were dark black like leggings, but like I'm putting these back on.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: They're wet, everything is gross.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_03: I just, this is the worst I've ever.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Thank God I had perfume in my back.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: I just doused myself with perfume and then went and sat and just like quietly like sat on the end by myself and just tried to like nod along while everyone, I just smelled like a dumpster fire, I'm sure of it.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: And when we got home that night, I like I ditched my underwear in the toilet because and the and I like flushed it the whole thing because everyone was like, why didn't you go out and use the dryer?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, A of all, I was in a full Winnie the Pooh situation, like all tops, no bottoms, right?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I couldn't just like walk out into the bathroom and be like, excuse me, ladies, do you mind if I dry my panties for a second?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like it was dire straits.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: So, anyways, I got home with my picture in tow, and um, and my husband came home from work and he was like, So how did it go?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure it was fabulous.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_03: You always beat yourself up, you always like worry that it's not gonna go well.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure Nana was like, I didn't come home with my underwear, I ship my pants.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: It was the worst day of my life.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: And he was like, Okay.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: And we have that picture framed in our house of going through Paul.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: I will never forget that day.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: It was the most humbling thing ever.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: But also, do not take antibiotics like three days before a very special event.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: So that might be like one of the craziest things that happened.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would say that's a that's a crazy.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I really love the Winnie the Pooh visualization.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was perfect.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oh gosh.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how was I just gonna walk out there and just be just to the wind?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, humbling, humbling to say the least.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Storytelling.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Carly, if someone asked you to describe your life right now in one word, what would it be?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's fun.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: Oh it's really fun.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm finally at this place.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: I hit 40 and I just hit this stride where like I think letting go of the unimportant stuff and just being it, I call it preservation mode.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, once you have 40, like you don't make anything anymore.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not making collagen anymore, I'm not making any of my bone stuff anymore.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, science, biology class, that one was tough.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: What's in there?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: What's in the bones?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: Calcium.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not making any of that anymore.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm in preservation mode.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: So it's just fun, right?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like if it's gonna be downhill, make it a slide.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I'm saying?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like just have a good time with it.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: So it's really fun.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: I have an incredible tribe of humans that I have spent the last 25 years cultivating, and they're the most inspiring, hilarious, brilliant, supportive, badass group of humans, and we just have so much fun.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Carly, we need to write a book with Carlyisms.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you're I just we have to revisit this quote.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: I just this quote is awesome.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: If if it's gonna be downhill, make it a slide.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's great.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: How about a mindset shift or a habit that changed the trajectory of your life?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um man.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, uh, just managing expectations.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: That one's been a big one for me.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you we all we even positive or negative, we all set up the way we want something to go.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I've often found myself struggling when things don't go that way or if things pivot and just not being able to like move with it because that's not right, because that's not what I planned, you know what I mean, because that's not fair.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think that I think learning to manage my expectations and and go with the flow has been one of the most like liberating things, aside from a lot of the stuff we already touched on.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think that kind of like coincides with this, but but yeah, definitely that.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's been the biggest, hardest thing for me.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, my my husband and I always say we says Carly does not go with the flow.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's just not it.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: I struggle with that.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, but we we said we were all gonna meet at four.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's 4 15.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: He's like, that's okay.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes people are late.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, but and I think it comes from just an understanding of, you know, coming from a strict theater background too.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like if you were early, you were on time.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: If you were on time, you were late.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: And if you were late, you were dead.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: So it's just that very like, but you can't do that.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: You can't do that because those are the rules.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: And growing up and realizing that the rules don't, again, like nothing really happens.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody, nobody carabines in from the ceiling and is like, that's it, under arrest.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: You didn't do the thing, you didn't get all the dishes done today.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like, breaking those rules a little bit, I think, has been helpful too.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: Man, I set rules for myself, arbitrary ones.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: And all the time, like what did my therapist say to me?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: She was like, Outside of like the IRS and and maybe going to prison, like you're a grown-up now, you're not in trouble anymore.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you're not in trouble.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'm always like, am I in trouble?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: I you're not in trouble.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: Just pay your taxes and don't break the law.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think it just is and when I coach different people right now, it's so much fun to look back because I'm a worrier and I overthink things and I look at the future and you worry about that, or you replay things from the past.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one of my key messages with people now, and same, like you kind of settle when you get to your 40s, your 50s, is you must be present to win.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so not worrying about both bookends, but right now, today, and finding the joy and being present with who you're with and connecting with your life today.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: And thinking of the future as a Christmas present that you shouldn't open till Christmas.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like, stop worrying about what's in there.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like, that's not your business right now.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: And and also looking back to be like, you know, where you are now was once a goal.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: Don't get there and move the post.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: Stop and be at this goal for a second.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I'm saying?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like, we I talk about that all the time with wanting to achieve things and being an overachiever and somebody who is who has lofty goals is uh is it is tough sometimes because you do that and and and it can turn into something that's never enough.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's never good enough.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_03: And you and I don't want to live a life like that, you know?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I have no desire to leave this planet anytime soon.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: But I always say that if it if it ended sooner than I hope, like I'm already super stoked with what I've done outside of just like career accomplishments.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'm really proud of this life that I've because it was because it was it was brave and I did it on my terms and I didn't take shit from anybody and um I didn't sell out when I had the opportunity many times, which means that I've grassrooted my career and earned it every step of the way.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's been a lot of times where I could have taken things that would have just gone a little faster and I just didn't want it like that.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, or I would have had to align myself with somebody that I was like, God, I can't with that person.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I was just like, I would rather not.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: I'd rather do it the hard way than so that's the kind of stuff that that I'm super proud of.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_03: And everything in the future, it's all just a bonus from here on out.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like everything I get from here on out is not deserved to me, it's just a bonus.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm like, that's cool.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's fun, you know?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Look, yeah.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Who's the most famous person that you have ever met and what was it like?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I mean, it's hard to because it's like, how do you quantify that?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: I've met sitting presidents.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so that was pretty wild.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, uh, it was Daddy Bush and Barbara Bush during W's uh first uh or second, this the re-election when they had the RNC in uh New York.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, and they were lovely.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, politically I do not align, but they were so lovely.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, I mean, oh man, that I've met.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the ones that have really like taken me out probably um were like um, you know, when you do a show like Hairspray, I mean, I've worked with a lot of people of note too, but like when you do a show like hairspray and it's it's such a phenomenon, people come to see the show, um, and and it blows your mind because they come to see you and then they want to come take a picture with you.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: You not you, but like you as your character.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's really wild.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: And the people that came through at that time, you know, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Whoopi Goldberg, Bet Midler, um uh uh Robin Williams, um, like all of those kind of greats were pretty, were pretty mind-blowing.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I tend to get straw struck by random people because I like my I another time embarrassed myself.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I didn't, I don't, I grew up, my mom owned a um convenience store and next door to our house called Holiday Foods, and then it also had a video store in it, but we didn't get like the good videos, we got all like the B ones.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: So I grew up watching all these like B-rated movies, and there was this show called or this movie called Stake Out Two, and I was doing rehearsals in New 42 for another show, and I ran into uh Richard Dreyfus in the elevator, and I was like, oh my god, I love doing Steak Out Two.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: And we got out of the elevator, and they were like, Jaws, Mr.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: Holland's opus.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you couldn't have said any of those steak out two, and I was like, that's the one I saw, man, with Rosie Otano.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: That movie was really funny.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I personally get starstruck by uh random people.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, for me, it's I mean, I I cried when I saw Nicole Kidman in person at the Tony Awards because she is like a real life alien.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like she is so tall and so gorgeous that it snatches your breath away.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: There are people like that that just have something around them as an aura that you're just like, I can't breathe, you know.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then RuPaul.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I am a huge, huge RuPaul fan.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: Ever since I was little, I've been a huge fan when I saw her walk the uh uh the runway uh for um uh what awards show was it?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: No, I can't remember, but um maybe it was the MTV Music Awards or something.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: But I remember asking my mom if if I was gonna grow up and look like that when I was she was like, Well, you're gonna be a different kind of woman, but um you're not gonna be that kind of woman.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: But but twist, I did kind of grow up to be a drag queen.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh I love how amazing just to listen to your stories and the people that you have been in the same room with, and that's amazing.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's really a new world.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's yeah.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's even weirder when so one Mississippi is a great example of I was a huge fan of the show season one because of the subject matter.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: I was a big Tit Nataro fan, and then the show really centers around her losing her mom to cancer, her her dealing with her own cancer diagnosis, her sort of like push to stardom in the wake of like all this grief, and it was a beautiful um uh dissection of humor and grief at the same time, which is which is an apex that I operate from.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was such a huge fan of it.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: And then when I booked the second season, going into the show was like stepping into the TV box because I was like, oh my God, I'm in the kitchen.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like it was weird, you know what I mean?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: It was just because I'll always be a fan.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm always be a fan first.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: I love this art form.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: I love storytelling.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, it's not about, it's not about hubris, it's not about money, it's not about fame.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: If I tell people all the time, if I could just work all the time, even if it never airs, even if you they throw it away after, I love the work.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_03: I love storytelling because there's ultimately it's about this relatability.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's about it's about telling stories and and bringing light to narratives that change people and make them feel less alone and make them feel seen.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that I find the most, you know, just cathartic and and that's what I love.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I love to be a part of.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Is there ever a moment in your career?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there are many, but maybe one that you can share where you just wanted to pinch yourself because you couldn't believe it was real.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, all of them.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: I say every time, honestly, and I know that I don't mean to be so blanket about it, but like I say there's never a day when I show up, I play dress up for a living.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know how lucky I am to be able to do that?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like, uh, what a what a blessing and a gift that I am given, even within beating the odds within my own community.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, it's such a competitive industry already.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: But like every day that I am on set, that I am lucky enough to be able to make art for a living is the best day of my life.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: Every day.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just so, so lucky to get to do what I do.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, like a true pinch me moment.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I know.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: So uh, because it just happened recently when uh Holiday in the Vineyards came out, they we got the deal with Netflix, which was in correlation with Warner Brothers, and they did a premiere of the movie on the Warner Brothers lot.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: And it's the iconic Warner Brothers lot where like friends and Seinfeld and all of these things were filmed, and all the great movies on the back lot and like Jaws and Jurassic Park, like all these things, and the main movie theater there.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: And and to be able to walk into that movie premiere on the red carpet on the Warner Brothers lot was iconic and just something that I know is once in a lifetime.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I even said it when we were, we I had like 10 friends come over, we like popped champagne, I ordered a car service, we all went together, and I said, I said, you know, of the 99% of the career is is the rejection, is the scrambling, is the wondering if it'll ever come again, is the learning the lines, the paying for headshots, the it's all it's the all the disappointments, all the everything.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: This is the one percent of it, and it's that rare, and I don't want to forget it.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like I did the thing that somebody gave me this advice for my wedding day, and I take this with me all the time.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: They were like, take several moments to stand and and make pictures in your brain.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: What does it feel like?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: What does it smell like?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: What does it look like?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: What do you notice?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: Create like a five cents memory to create a formative memory so that you're really present and never forgetting it.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I did that so many times, and I remember that night so well.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: But that was that was one of the coolest.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_03: I just I knew how rare that was, and it was it was awesome.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: That is such great advice, I think, for anyone, even me as a mom, you're so busy in those the big holidays where you want to put those around, but you're so, and all of a sudden it's over and you miss the magic of it.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: So great advice to just yes, to be present.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: As a mom, have you have you seen this yet?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_03: I love this.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: I I obviously don't have children, but they talk about every time something happens to think about this being the memory you'll return to when you're 80.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like you're like, this is where I'll go.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: When I'm an old lady and I'm sitting alone and we're gonna, this is this is the day I'm gonna go to.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: And like think about creating those days so that you have so many to choose from.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't I haven't, yeah, framed it that way, but I have seen like diff different moms on different TikToks and software.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually made a podcast about it where you don't know it's gonna be your last one.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: You're the last time they call you mommy, or the last time they hold your hand, and so or you pick them up or those moments because you don't know when it will be your last Carly.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: You were discovered at 16 years old.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: You were performing at a premiere and uh it was Crash Nation at the Playhouse, and someone recognized your talent there.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: So take us back to that summer.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: What did that feel like when someone's like, there's something special here on that stage?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know at the time when I did the show that that was kind of all happening.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: The the person who came and saw the show was a man named Brad Adams, who later became my agent.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: And um, he was there because Bill Castellino, who was the artistic director of Cherry County at the time, had written this um brand new show called Crash Nation, and they were trying to, it was an original work, and they were trying to move it to New York.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: So they were bringing people in to see the show, to get investors to move the show to to the city.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so I didn't know really at the time what that would all be.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't, that was the summer between uh summer of 2001, and it wasn't until the winter of 2002.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have much of my childhood because my mom is gone and the storage unit that we had everything from our childhood burned to the ground.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: So, like there's only so many things that I actually have of my childhood.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: But recently we went through what we thought was just a bunch of like bills and whatever, and I found this piece of paper.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: It was the phone call that she got that she received while I was at school that she took notes of the very first phone call we got.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: Look at this.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: Look how cool this is.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_03: Now, this has got to be oh my god, how old is this?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: This 2001.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: So this is 25 years old.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I just found it and it's like it's just scribblings.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's like she we didn't know what it was.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: We'd never even heard of hairspray, it hadn't hit New York yet.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's just like hairspray rehearsal start April 2nd, auditions for Tracy Tumblat.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: Special Brett Adams, she writes down an address, send headshot resume now.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: What's a headshot?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh, I love it.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: And to have that in your mom's handwriting.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: What a game.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_03: Isn't that the coolest thing ever?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: I just I gotta get it like behind.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: We just found it.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: So essentially, she got that phone call.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: And what was really crazy about it is like I was at school and um I think I was in Lawton's class uh during like my sixth hour independent study.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: And she came, and at the time I was like, oh God, who died now?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: Because my senior year was like a bloodbath man, my grandpa, my uncle, my cousin, like it was just like nonstop.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh, and what's so funny is she was like, Broadway called, and we didn't read because we didn't really know what that meant.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: Like, was it just like an LLC that like sat in New York?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_03: And it was we had no idea how any of it worked.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it was the craziest, it was it was the day that changed everything because because that was it.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like it was the candle was lit and there wasn't there was no going back.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: And that's part of why um things kind of went down the way that they did.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like to this day, I I don't have a high school diploma.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like I technically never graduated.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_03: I walked in the ceremony, and that was a whole thing too, um, because I just had so many absences.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: I struggled so much academically in school, not because I wasn't smart.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_03: I think I had a lot of undiagnosed learning disabilities that I was really struggling with.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'm severely dyslexic, which wasn't something I figured out until I was much older.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that it deterred me from learning because it was just such a struggle.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I don't really like to do things I'm not good at.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_03: So when it didn't come naturally to me, I was like, this sucks.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_03: Who needs it?
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_03: I want to sing and dance for a living anyway.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm very lucky, like I tell kids this all the time.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very lucky that my career turned out the way that it did because it could have gone that without a high school education, like this could have gone way laughed, right?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very aware of that.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_03: I would have probably just tried to marry well, which I'm not gonna lie, sounds nice too.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: But that was my grandma's advice.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_03: She was like, marry somebody who loves you a little more than you love them.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, Grandma, are you okay?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: And she wasn't.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: She was very mean and unhappy.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: But but yeah, it just it was it was kind of the thing that set off this like I knew it thing in me where I was like, I'm going.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: I just that's all I needed.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh my whole life I knew I was bound for that city.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: My whole life I knew that I was gonna do something and go somewhere.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: I just didn't know how or what.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I, you know, we didn't really have the resources or the means or really it isn't it wasn't like it is today where you could just Google everything and have all this access to information.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: We just didn't know.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: It was so so uncharted.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_03: And um that was it, that was it for me.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: And then I wasn't again going back to being an absolute nightmare because you just couldn't tell me anything.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: I was so headstrong that that's what I was gonna do.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_03: I was gonna go.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so it ended up happening.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_03: The long short of it was I got the phone call and then nothing happened because showbiz moves very slow and the show was still in progress.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, they didn't even open the Broadway show until 2002, uh, that that August of and so I was just kind of cooling my heels, just wanting to go.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, let me just go, let me just go.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_03: And my mom was like, please just finish school, please just finish school.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_03: But it was already such a struggle.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: My credits were, we also found some of my credit cards in or credit cards.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, credit cards, my report cards.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was like, my credit score was bad in high school.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it was.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: But we found them and and we were reading them and like the commentary.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is why when you were bringing you were talking about teachers asking questions and whatever, I was like, the commentary on my report cards is um is hilarious.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and very telling, I think, of probably the personal um struggle of a lot of my teachers to see potential, but just also see the rebelliousness and and and just trying to like push me across the finish line.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I had a lot of champions like that, you know?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so, but I just say, oh, I just was ready to go.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_03: I was itching.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: And so, so I did.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I um I ended up, I knew I wasn't gonna have enough credits to graduate, but I didn't get a diploma on at the ceremony.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I just didn't open my booklet.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: Mine like stayed closed in all my photos, and then I threw a graduation party and just told everyone that like I was graduating early and I took that money and I moved to New York City.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, what a good juicy tea.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have to say, as you're a high school teacher, I never knew that.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: When I look some stuff up about you for this podcast, of course, that's what they like like to fixate on is high school dropout.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, no, this is wrong.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: She graduated.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: I never knew that.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: To this day, I don't have a high school diploma.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: I never received it.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was like, they should give me an honorary one, though, as much as as much as many times as they've run my name through that school system.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, just give me one.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, Carly, you went, you were 17, you went to New York.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to tell you this when I was 17, I was drum major of our band in high school.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to go for one week to Indiana for drum major camp.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I was filled with anxiety in the shower.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: I would cry at night because that was hard for me.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then here's you.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Off to New York.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was that terrifying.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Was it exciting?
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: A little of both.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: How do you do that?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there was a there was a huge level of naivety that I think played a huge part and was helpful because when you don't, you know, we're also talking about my frontal lobe is not finished being developed.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you don't have that ability to like to see danger or sense it because you just have this like, what could go wrong attitude about it?
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that that's just the the place I was operating from.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_03: I I was so excited.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_03: The other part was it was something that always made felt like I was being drawn to New York, but also like I've never felt a sense of belonging in that town.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_03: I felt welcomed and well, no, that's not the right word either.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I always felt othered.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_03: I did.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_03: I I I felt differently than other people, my especially in my in my nuclear family.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: I grew up around a lot of like staunch Republicans who just did not see the world the way that I did.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_03: And that summer that I did that show when I met about a lot of like imports from New York who came in to do the show who were just living this life.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, this finally, oh my God, like-minded people.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_03: And and they get it.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I finally felt like I had found something, a place that I belong.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_03: That was what really drew me.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: I just, that's where I had to go.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: I just, I just was, and and it's funny because I still very much love Miss Geegan.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: I come back a lot.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a small town girl at heart.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: I love, you know, nothing more.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'll I will belly up to the bar and and and drink a PBR and like and chit-chat all day long.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like I love it.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I but the mindset of it just I never aligned with in certain ways.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: And um, Shores was hard for me a little bit in that way, just because I came from nothing, you know.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: My mom slept in the living room because we had a two-bedroom, one bathroom house, and her room was in the living room, um, so that my brother and I could have separate rooms.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: And she worked three jobs and she picked blueberries over the summer so that I could go to theater camp.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, she we just we didn't, we didn't have all of that.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't realize how financially like not well off we were until it went to shores.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_03: And in because like when I went to Bunker and Lakeside and all of that, a lot of us kind of all lived the same way.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_03: We all sort of, you know, had either single moms who, you know, single mom who we're doing, um, or you know, uh come from broken homes or blue-collar families or all that.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: So, like for me, that we were all kind of like that.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_03: And it wasn't until I went to shores that it was the first time I think I really felt othered.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then and then super um isolated because as I rose in the programs, it was that it was a question of is she deserved of it?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and then there were like several instances because um where they tried to boot me from the school at one point.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_03: There were there was outrage from the parents, and they found out that I was living on the other side of the tracks.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_03: So my so much so that like so my freshman year, my mom, we couldn't get me into school of choice.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't accepted.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so they denied my application.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so my mom rented our home on Sherman and McCracken, where the cutoff is, right there.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_03: And she rented an apartment at Maple Grove.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_03: And we rented a uh a two-bedroom apartment, just she and I, so I could get in the school system.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then sophomore year, we had to go back to our house.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: Sophomore year, they would not grandfather me in.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: So she signed away temporary custody to my aunt who lived in the community, so that I could continue to go to that school.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_03: So when it became, and I busted my ass.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: I busted my ass in that program.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_03: I gave everything I had to it because I was serious.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_03: I was serious about it then.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_03: I was doing shows in Grand Haven and at Cherry County and at the school, and I was a part of every single choir and everything.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like I soaked it all in, but there was outrage about so then what happened is I was supposed to spend three of the five nights at my aunt's, and I was only allowed to be at my own house for like two of the nights, whatever.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody was monitoring how many nights I was sleeping in my own house, went to the school board, they tried to boot me, it was a whole thing, and I was like, look, and it just came down to some argument of favoritism and whether I was getting things over their children and you know, no tea, no shade, but like your kids grew up to like do other things.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like this was always gonna be what I did.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_03: This was my I was mastering in this educationally from a young age, you know.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it was really hard again to constantly feel like I had to prove and fight only because of this um class system that I just never felt like I belonged to.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so there was a real like you about it when when I finally did to not everyone, but to certain people, which is why like I live for watching people um come into this incredible school system who may have otherwise never been given an opportunity to do so.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_03: I very much root for that.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I also very much love how much it ruffles feathers.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is so powerful, all that you live through.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned this earlier, like some of those failures make us stronger, and some of those fights, as hard and as unfair as they were, made you who you are, and you fought for that much more.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's a it's a it's a unique thing to have to double down at the age of 15 and 16 and learn that lesson at that age.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I had to.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_03: I, you know, I I I didn't want it to define me, and I certainly wasn't gonna let other people define me.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_03: And it did give me, and I think that again, like as much as I want to be like, you tried to break me, and all you did was make me stronger to go do the thing.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's what that, yeah, 100%.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: Because that is what pushed me out the door to be like, well, the bet, hold my beer, hold my P VR, right.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know, so you were in New York for five months, yeah.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you landed the role of Tracy.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: I did, right?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: I had like 10 auditions over those five months, yep.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went on tour.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of a breakthrough is very rare.
• 43:10
  unknown: Yeah.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: I yeah, I mean, it was there was there was like 50 of us in the beginning, and over five months they dwindled it down to four.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then we all got placed.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_03: And it was, it was really crazy.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, even getting that phone call, like you get a little desensitized to it as you're getting closer and closer and closer.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_03: The dream, you know, it's a little frog in the pot.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_03: It starts to seem a little more real and a little more obtainable and a little more, you know, it's not like a one phone call overnight.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: But even the phone call that I got, I I remember when uh the agent called to tell me they were like, well, come down to the office, let's celebrate so you can sign your contract.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: My mom and I took a taxi, which was a big deal because we never took taxis because we didn't have the money.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_03: And taking a taxi even down to the agency from where I was living up in Harlem was a big deal because it signified that like things were about to change for us.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I became probably the wealthiest part.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Person generationally, my family had ever seen in that one moment at the age of 17.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know what I mean?
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like it was, it was just so wild.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: I I remember coming down Central Park West and like looking out at the park of New York City, just just thinking of, I don't know, just knowing things were gonna be different.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_03: I guess that's you know, I didn't have this like great anything other than I was like, I think my life is gonna be different from here on out.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Was standing on that Broadway stage so different from all of the other stages you had stood on before that?
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: A thousand percent.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's palpable.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: The history, the everything of it, it's you know, it's just there's only a certain amount of people who've ever stood there, who've ever done that, who've ever like who've ever creaked those boards and like and and and filled that room with their voice.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_03: And to be a part of that is I mean, it's um humbling.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's just it's really cool.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's really cool.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: And to know too that like even of that show, there's only like five of us who've ever played that role in the history of that show.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know, I didn't realize that.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you played Tracy for about two years?
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I down the road for six months and about a year and a half on Broadway.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and then you came back home after that, right?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_03: I did, I did.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_03: I was very much in need of a childhood and a little bit of a break and and a sense of um a no responsibility summer, which I had with all of my best friends who were coming back from college.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and yeah, that was that was super necessary.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: I needed a reset too.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: I think I was getting really lost in the city, and I needed a sense of coming home and grounding and and getting back to the center of things.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, something about that lake, Carrie, it's like we put my mom's ashes in that lake.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_03: Anytime I've had any time, I wrote a song about it in my album about like it's called Home.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just like it's it's the place that I always go to reset where yes, people might ask me questions, but nobody really gives a shit.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_03: They know me well enough.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like most of the people there I've known most of my life or whatever.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe if they have her, they just really don't care.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I need that.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_03: I need that sense of normalcy and that sense of just letting me be who I am without the airs, um, because that's such an important part of who I am, and I just love it.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't mean to build this up to be like I'm share and I can't ever get a break and I've lost all anonymity.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's not that, but there is something about just getting to be me with no consequences whatsoever in that town that I love and that water.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_03: I go back to that water.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_03: I go back to that water for everything.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: You went back after you came home, which is so important because you did give up those essential college years and teen years, and you were just pushed into this amazing but crazy fast-paced life.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: So then you went back to Broadway.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is this correct?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: To do um, it was it the role of Tupperwalker in Cry Baby.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you created that role from scratch, and then the show didn't go very long, but I so I want to just really make sure that's accurate, but then also just to have you talk about how that taught you resilience in that industry.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, what was so insane about that show in particular was that we I worked on that.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_03: I started rehearsal, not rehearsals, I started doing workshops on that show while I was doing hairspray in like 2003 and four.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_03: So, or 2004.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_03: So by the time that we had taken that show to Broadway, it had been four years that I had been working on that show, taking it out of town, um, doing different labs and and um and progressive works.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so to do all of that work for all of that time and develop that show just to have it only open for two months, it's it's heartbreaking.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's uh it's the unfortunate reality of what a lot of Broadway experiences are.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, it used to be that if a show ran, if a show was open for only a year, it was considered flop.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: Now if you get a year run, it's kind of like good on you.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_03: So it's uh yeah, it's a very, it's a very different, very different time.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I want to put you in front of a high school we're just gonna pretend you're gonna come to my classroom and you're standing in front of high school students.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think so many times they see Broadway stars, they see athletes go on, and they just kind of think that it that this success happens overnight.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: So in a language that you could explain to a teenager, talk about the reality of of what you did.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, it's you know, I guess the best sort of like visualization I could really give is like a glacier.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you see the tip of it because that's and that's the part that that we that we see, that we whatever.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_03: But if you look under the water of what really is underneath it, you know, you're only seeing one to three percent of of of what it really is.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_03: And underneath is really where all the work is, where all the the practice and the rehearsal and the preparation and the education, the networking, um, you know, all of the facets that sort of the rejection, the rebuilding, the rebranding, the redirecting um back to the drawing board.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, just all of it.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's that's really what it is.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_03: And that's that's the that's the scar tissue of it all, right?
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's what honestly like makes it an impenetrable um um surface, you know.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I look at it like that in a way where some people might look at scar tissue as ugly and sort of undesirable, but really what it is is is the physical manifestation of strength and rebuilding over time.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_03: It tore and it rebuild, and then it, you know, tore and it rebuilt and it all of those things until eventually it's protectant of this thing that it's you know covering.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, I it's first of all, I will say this anything that truly comes overnight would does not might be great, but it doesn't truly um stand a chance of longevity because you have nothing to support it from underneath, you have no foundation, you have nothing to rely on.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, luck cannot just exist in a vacuum, it has to have a foundation of something to rest upon.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_03: And when you get that microphone of opportunity, you're going to want to have that behind you to support it.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because it's it's easy to get past the microphone.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's what overnight success is.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_03: But do you have anything to say?
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that that's where all of that comes from.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: When when the, you know, they say uh uh I think it's David Foster that says the the microphone of opportunity will pass you but one time in life, and you'd better be ready to sing.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so getting past the mic too early, I think it would be the greater injustice.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_03: Because you really only get one shot at it.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_03: Do you really want to be unprepared?
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yikes, right?
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: I that analogy is fabulous.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love the looking at that glacier, and underneath you see the risks that you took, the courage that it took to show up, the failure, the growth that you learn from pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, and and sometimes even like you had said, starting over.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like that is so important to build you up.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, go ahead.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: Please finish.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think that's important for adults and for teens as they look at you know, chasing their dreams.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_03: The other thing that I always tell kids too is like, don't be discouraged by, you know, if you go to the front door and and and you knock and nobody answers, you can't just be like, well, might as well go home.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like, did you try the back door?
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_03: Did you look in the window, scale the roof, dig a hole?
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_03: There's more than one way into it.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_03: And and I'll tell you this people like me love people like you who give up after the first, because get out of here.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's so saturated.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_03: So, like, if you're gonna be one of those people who, at the first sign of there being an obstacle, you know, jumps out of the way, thank God.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I love people like that because I'm like, ooh, girl, yes, you're crowding up the road as it is.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_03: But if you if you're serious about it and this is something that you truly want, then you'd give it more than one attempt.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can't, you're not gonna get a life that is, first of all, full of guarantees and and second of all, um, free of obstacle.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_03: And also not to be goal-oriented in the way to be, again, like we talked about this before, the dangers of these sort of like landmark achievements being the thing that we strive for because they qualify our existence in a certain way.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think it's really important to um, you know, uh understand that the journey and the in between, the less, the less sexy parts of it, the less, you know, whatever.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's actually the most important.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_03: Part of the journey.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I um, you know, I think this is this is a lot of what I talk about, you know, when I teach, you know, um with kids too, and and just really trying to help them remember, and again, just slow down.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like you got your whole life, you know what I mean?
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what is I guess, I guess, I guess that's what's like, how do you qualify overnight success?
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what do you mean?
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_03: You want to achieve all your goals next Tuesday?
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then what are you gonna do?
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: Carly, that the stories in that analogy, all of that that you just shared, her middle son was um followed Nick Bear, who's this extraordinary athlete.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when Jackson was in high school, he did this Iron Man race.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I he I really wanted to surprise him at the finish line with this message from Nick Bear.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I reached out to Nick and nothing, nothing.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until a friend who runs Celebrity Style Guide that she said, Carrie, you have to think outside the box.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: His wife doesn't get all of the emails and the messages that he gets.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: So go through the back door.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so I sent her a message and boom, got the video.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, you're right.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: When you really think outside the box and don't give up so quickly, and if you want it bad enough to keep, find a way.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and that's exactly it.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like you have to be, you have to be inventive and ingenuitive and creative and and resilient in this industry that is unforgiving.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_03: This industry is not here for your taking.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_03: It is not, I mean, most of the world isn't, right?
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's competitive, it is unforgiving, is sort of the word that just like keeps popping into my head.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's meant to be hard.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, I saw this interview not too long ago with this med student, and they were struggling in medical school and they were like, it's just so hard, it's just so hard.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm like, it's supposed to be hard because you're gonna open my chest and work on my heart.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I want to make sure that like this is supposed to be hard.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_03: If you're gonna fly a plane, like I would like to, I it's supposed to be hard.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_03: You're supposed to be the best one at it.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_03: And if you're not, you gotta do something else.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: I want to take you, I want to take you back to Mona Shorts High School when you were a student there.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: I reached out I'm ready.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: I reached out to a few teachers.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'll let you uh you'll figure these out, I'm sure.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh God, okay.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm scared.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I scared?
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: Should I be scared?
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, you should not be scared.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: Some stories that your teachers remembered, and there were a few.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: So one teacher told me about the day that they were showing a video in class, the movie Gattaca.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you were so invested in Jude Law's character.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: She said that you were up sitting on the floor.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: We had those big red cabinets with the regular old big TV in the corner.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: And Mrs.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Adams said she can't remember what she did yesterday, but she'll never forget how upset you were with her and how mad you were because he died.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: He died at the end, and you thought she betrayed you because she knew and didn't tell you.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_03: She knew the whole time.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's absolutely right.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I and I'm still mad about that.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_03: I know what you know what's so funny.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_03: I have no idea if it was always on her curriculum to show that movie or not.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_03: But she was always bound to because we we really liked each other, or at least I can say I really liked her and I loved her as a teacher, but I just was not into biology girl.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_03: That was just not my thing.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_03: But I think she was bound to determine because she loved it so much, and this is what was so admirable of her as a teacher.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_03: She was like, I'm gonna find something about this that will intrigue you because I will get you by at some point in through the course of the semester, I will get you into biology.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so I have no idea, but and I was the hugest Jude Law fan.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_03: Since like when I my mom would yell at me because I would try to print out photos of him like on our printer and use all of our ink because it was the 1900s, and that's how it worked.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_03: And um, if if the phone rang and it got inner like interrupted, I'd have to start over again.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I talked about him or if she, I don't know if she'd always planned to show that movie or not, but that when she turned that movie on, I was like, Oh yeah, okay, okay, I'm in.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_03: And then yeah, and then he died, and she and she knew that, and she did betray me.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_03: And and and um, and I'm so upset about it.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: Another story that she remembered was when Mrs.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: Hunt walked into the classroom and there was a misunderstanding because Mrs.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: The thongs, yeah, she said that she liked your thongs and your brain did not go to your shoes.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_03: No, oh my god, that's so funny.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_03: How these are formative memories for me as well.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_03: That's so funny.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I was like, what?
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, are you allowed to talk to me like that?
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it was so funny because uh yeah, I didn't, I had no idea that that's what they were called.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that was that was also like the time of the thongs, the thong song, I think, was like the number one.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_03: So that word was very in the zeitgeist, and that was just not the connotation that um that I was familiar with it in.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_03: But that's so funny.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: When she shared that story with me, it reminded me of when we had a German exchange student and she went swimming in the lake, and the there were weeds that you could feel on the bottom as you were swimming, and she said, Oh, Carrie, I can feel the flowers touching my stomach.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Oh, those are all weeds, and she goes, Weeds?
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: I thought you smoked that.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Oh yeah, that whole uh meaning.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: All right, then there was a famous dinner that you had in New York with Mrs.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: Adams, and you spilled some sauce on the front of your white shirt, and she said she'll never forget how right in the middle of the restaurant in front of everyone, you simply just lifted your shirt up and twisted it backwards so the stain was on the back because that's just a normal wardrobe.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, you you I just did that two weeks ago.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_03: I just did that two weeks ago.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_03: We were at um, we were my husband and I we were at some restaurant in Beverly Hills, and I had this like silk t-shirt on and sure.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_03: I spilled in the front of it, and I was like, ah, and I just spun it around because my hair all covered up in the back.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_03: Listen, I've had these girls since the seventh grade, and they you don't talk about betrayal.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, oh my god, they catch everything.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I think of them like you know, you put babies in those little, like those little things with the scoopy tray in front, with the bibs with the buckets.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's what that's what my teeth's are for me.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_03: So they just catch everything, and that's been that's been my whole life.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_03: That's so funny.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_03: I still do that.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_03: See, you can take the you can take the girl at the trailer park.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: All right, we're gonna move on to the Lawton.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I talked to both Sean and Molly, and they had some Carly stories.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um they got a lot of them.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then when they cast you in musicals at Mona Shores, that they would often put you in roles that were completely unexpected.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: So they gave me some.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: They said you played Potiphar's wife and Joseph in the amazing technicolor dream coat, and they just described it as a very sultry, seductress role.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then you were in Adelaide and Guys and Dells with 16 very tall, long-legged dancers, which you are not.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: All in corsets and fishnets.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then later you were Anita in West Side Story.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: But here's what they said.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_01: That one!
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_03: That one, maybe we shouldn't have because I definitely covered myself in the darkest spray tan, dyed my hair black, and spoke in a very offensive Latin accent.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe that one we could look back at a slightly problematic, but still a good time.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: They did say that every single time you stepped on the stage, that you would have the entire audience in the palm of your hand.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I learned something.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: Mr.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: Lawton told me that you had the habit of breaking the fourth wall.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna be honest, Carly, when he when he said that to me, I was like, what does that mean?
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a so I had to look it up.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you that I vividly remember you doing this.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so for listeners who don't know what this means, the fourth wall, and Carly, correct me if I'm wrong, the fourth wall is the wall out to the audience.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so most people, actresses and actors, get on the stage and they kind of block that out and forget about the audience and they just get into their role.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember as your teacher watching you in performances, and all of a sudden, you would stop and you would just start talking to the audience and interacting.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so unexpected that you would have the whole theater laughing in hysterics, and because you were acknowledging the audience.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something that maybe technically as an actress you weren't supposed to do, but you do with so much comedic brilliance, they said that that it didn't matter.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_03: I have no idea where that I mean, because again, like I didn't have a lot of classical or technical training at the time, but it just became like fun, like a fun banter.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I got really addicted to sparring with that energy, like a tennis match.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I know specifically what show, I mean, I think Guys and Dows is probably the most prominent um example of that, but it becomes it becomes this cat and mouse relationship that's that's that's really fun to sort of play with, um, especially when it's like a large group like that.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_03: And and I just I don't know.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_03: I I remember I don't know where the instinct came from, but it was like one thing it happened.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_03: I remember trying to get through the song and people were laughing and I shushed them.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_03: That was like the first thing that I was like, shh, try to sing.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_03: And and then it just became a thing.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_03: And then it and then it was like, Oh, they, oh, you like that?
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then it just became more and more of a like, how far can I push it?
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, kind of thing.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I, yeah, I mean, a monster was born.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_03: Let's be honest.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: So he also said that his mom still talks about how seductive you were as Potifer's wife.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_03: I love that woman.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_01: But he well, yeah.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, them them putting me in in, you know, these unconventional stereotyped roles was really an important um sort of formative narrative for me as a uh not just as a performer, but as a woman.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we have so many, especially in that eating disorder era where body types had to be very specific, otherwise they were unacceptable.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and these impossible restrictions that were put on, you know, women, especially in dance.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um, if if anybody's ever gone through, you know, like um a dance background and you know just like how how hard it is to be in your own body.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I was four foot eleven and always somewhere between, you know, uh 15 and and 50 pounds overweight.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_03: And and there was, you know, they never put limitations on me because of a physicality.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_03: They let my talent speak for itself, which I think they were aware was not something I would be given in the real world, unfortunately, but that I could experiment with it um, you know, there.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_03: And it was, it was brave of even them to do at the time.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure that, you know, they had, or maybe they did or didn't have pushback.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_03: But um, but it was, it was a catalyst for me um in my own personal journey with with setting limitations because there was not a there was there was not a oh, probably not me energy that I ever went into anything for because of that, because they didn't put those limitations on me.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_03: So I always am like, well, why not me?
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_03: I can do it.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then fortunately, the world very, very slowly and not fast enough has started to catch up with that mentality where we are being more diverse and inclusive about sexuality and gender and um and size and ethnicity, and we're not categorized people in these one-dimensional boxes, which is just so boring, especially when it comes to art.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I'm really grateful for that.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_03: They were so ahead of their time um for that.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_03: I and um and I always credit uh both of them for that.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_03: For me personally, it was incredibly impactful.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I mean, it was definitely like Guys and Dows is is the is the really funny one because when we did the hotbox um girl, the kick line, and I had to do, and we were all in these corsets, you know, within within.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um being appropriate for school, but we were in these fishnets and these like little things, these corsets, and like here come all these five, eleven, like just glamous on, and everybody's trotting out on, you know, when you're when you're doing costume day when you're in tech and everybody, and I was like, oh my God.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_03: And and I'm and they didn't give me a different outfit.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_03: Like I was gonna wear the same thing that everybody else did.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember trotting over there in my little robe and I was like, uh, Molly, can I talk to you for a minute?
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was like, and she was like, What's up?
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, so um, I'm not wearing this.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_03: And she was like, why?
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, because I don't want to stand next to that.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like, look at this.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_03: And she was like, why?
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_03: She was like, You're the star, the spotlight's on you.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_03: You have all the lines.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what what are you?
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_03: No one's gonna be looking at them, they're gonna be looking at you.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_03: And and I thought, oh damn, oh yeah.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_03: It just it just changed everything for me because I that that I realized in that moment that I can't wear this wasn't actually coming from me.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't uncomfortable, I was afraid.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_01: And dream to push past that.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, and I had to do that shit in front of my whole school too, for what it's worth.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_03: You know, was like, okay, here we go.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_03: But that sort of that sort of that sort of unapologetic energy is the thing I've carried through my whole life.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I've realized that if you don't seek the approval of other people, if you have already made that decision before you enter a room, then who you are is not up for debate.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's not open for discussion.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not taking suggestions.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_03: This isn't an open forum.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_03: I've I already know what this is.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_03: So whatever it is you think and feel like, oh, uh go off, Queen.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_03: Good luck.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like, sure.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_03: But like it's not my business because I've already made that decision.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I found that some people are very inspired by that, some people are very accepting of that.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_03: Some people that pisses off.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_03: Some people get very upset when you don't seek their permission to be who you are.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that's that's an interesting pushback that I experience um a lot with oftentimes uh women of older generation.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I find mostly it's just because they didn't get afforded that.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_03: And so there's a there's an envy to why did I have to play by a set of rules that you don't have to to it?
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_03: But then girl, you got to do that on work yourself in therapy.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_03: I can't do that for you.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_03: You go to me like I don't disagree, but that's that's above my pay grade.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_03: So um, but yeah, so that that really was, I will always accredit that for even to this day.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_03: I've I've always I still dressed for a body that I feel good in.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's not, I don't, I don't, I don't dress my silhouette the way that people think that I should.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um I celebrate my thick thighs, I celebrate my um my stretch marks and my um my battle wounds and my scars and um and my you know my dimples and my ripples because I worked really hard to lose a hundred pounds and and so and it's hot, so I'm not gonna hide my arms because it's hot and I'm not gonna be uncomfortable just so that you can smoke, look away then.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_03: Look away.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, like you know, and my husband is smoking hot.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_03: So like I don't care.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_03: So I and I and it all really comes back to that really truly formative moment of stepping out onto that giant, I mean, that was a giant theater, a giant stage, and a room of all of my peers in fishnets in a corset, at probably at that time like 180 pounds and four foot eleven, whatever.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_03: And they cheered, they really they all cheered.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know why.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_03: That was very nice, but they did.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I think you I think you can't, you almost can't um deny that when somebody stands in their truth that staunchly on all 10 toes.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's I think it's just undeniable.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just I'm all I'll always be grateful to them for that.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you are beautiful, that story is beautiful, and I think when you do take that stance, when you kind of try to block that out, and I love what you said, where was that story coming from?
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it does come from media, from Hollywood, and so for you to take that stance and say, This is me, love me or not, and I want to tell you that the Lawton said, and this is a quote, that Carly was probably the best comic actress to ever grace our high school stage.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and then he he gave me a couple of suggestions.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_01: He said, the story of the bathing suit in the incident in the Lawton's back porch, and he said maybe there's some video evidence.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know about this story?
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, hilarious.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_03: Well, so when I the day that I so I did hairspray right for like two years, and the the whole lore behind that is that one of the reasons I stayed as long as I did is because there was talk of me doing the movie and me needing to stay in the role for long for optic reasons and da-da-da-da-da.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_03: And so I stayed a lot longer than I than I physically should have because I had developed nodes, I was, you know, it was a lot of things.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_03: And um I the famous story is that I had gone out to LA and screen tested for the movie, and it was myself and three other actresses, one of them being the one who did it, and I was kind of um I don't want to get into legality stuff, but there there was there was some nefarious things that sort of went about.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_03: And anyways, the day that I found out that I did not receive the movie that I was very much led to believe for a long time that I was going to do, um, I went to the Lawtons.
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know where to go.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_03: I was in Miskegon and I was so sad and I was so embarrassed to to go home, to go tell my family to anything.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_03: This is, we'd all worked for this for so many years, and they were about to announce it on entertainment tonight, uh, that very evening, that Nikki Blonsky was going to be playing that role.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I was mortified and I was scared and I didn't know where to go.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I just drove to the Lawton's house and I was devastated.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_03: I was sobbing and just inconsolable.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't remember if it was Megan or Jess.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it was Jess because she was so little, but she was like trying to cheer me up.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_03: And she was like, she was like, Carly, do you want to go swimming?
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, cry, of course you don't.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Well, I don't have a bathing suit.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so she comes out with this teeny, tiny toddler bikini, which I did put on over my clothes, just to appease her, and then proceeded to, I think, do some choreography.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's a whole thing, but I've I do know that there is that there is uh filmic evidence of that.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it was just really sweet, and she was so like just in her own innocent, precious way, trying to just cheer me up and be like, well, maybe we could go swimming.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I, you know, I was like, I'm a bathing suit.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then she's like, I got you, girl.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_01: She's got that one taken care of.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_01: They both said that watching you when they went to New York, and they took a group of students, I believe, to watch your no, Chicago.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_01: They took you to Chicago to watch and said that you carried the entire show and that it was just so surreal and the proudest moment that they've ever had as teachers.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I hope, and I'm sure you know and you realize just how many people from home have since you left us, just have been cheering for you.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the last thing that they said just really stuck with me.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_01: They they talked about how funny you were, but the Lawtons, Mrs.
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Adams, and I just all agree that what we love most about Carly Gibson is your loyalty, your honesty, your fearlessness, and you just have a heart of gold.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the Lawton said that um even after Broadway and television, you always just made them feel like that they made a difference in your life.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that says so much about who you are.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they did, all of it did, you know, it's all it's all an incredibly fundamental part of who I am and why I operate in the world.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like I took, I took my my growing up experience with me like a badge of honor.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_03: I still carry it like a like a tartan to this day.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because I am proud of to come from the stock that I do.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_03: You know, um I'm I'm proud of hardworking people.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm proud of people who are philanthropic in their communities without it having to be performative.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_03: I've preserved that and protected that um my whole life and career because I think I always knew that that was um that was like the god, what the hell is the name of?
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking of that Inception movie.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know, creation.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's underneath who you are.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_03: You know that the movie Inception, though, where they have their little token piece, and that's how they know if they're in the dream or if they're in reality.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_03: Where like that's a that's what Mesquegin has always been for me.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_03: So that I don't get lost in this big old world, so that I don't forget, so that I don't forget that this isn't reality, that that is.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's what that place has always been for me is that little token, that little thing, that little thing that I rub in my hands to remember like who I am.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And what most people don't see is what came next.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Please join us for part two, where Carly shares one of the most defining and difficult seasons of her life and how it reshaped everything.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us on Project U 2.2.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I always do remember you.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's like what I remember you as being so authentic, so real, and just like I think that's what makes you Carly and that makes you a legend still here at home, is that you just put it out there and you're just you, and that's why we all love you.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's very sweet.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for saying that.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's something that like I, you know, I think I promised myself I'd never lose, you know, and it's way that I pay homage both to my background, but also my upbringing, my mom, everything that, you know, everything that we worked hard for and what we came from is the foundational building blocks of who I am and why I am the way I am.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I've never shied from that.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_03: And it's been a little bit of my secret weapon, too, in dealing with like a higher echelon of people and people who like matriculated at in these Ivy League schools and whatever.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, ah! I mean, like, I like my rough and tumble upbringing.
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, don't let the Chanel fool you, honey.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I will roughneck 40 a bitch.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_03: I will smack you and make your teeth click in the back.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I am that girl.
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_03: So, like, don't get fooled.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_00: I love listening to your vocabulary.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_00: You've stepped up in vocabulary since you were 17, and I knew you.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well bet, well better.