PLEASE DO NOT POST ON OTHER SITES WITHOUT PERMISSION.

Sharon : It’s Christmas time. So you have a tree. You’ve got the decorations up.

Lucy     : I have a tree, I have a menorah. I have, um… I got it all going on.

Sharon : And uh, so uh, you guys have been singing and dancing all over the country. How was uh… What kind of… Who started this and what kind of fun does that do?

Lucy     : It was all her idea (Renee: Yeah, like, Lucy—). And I wish she would think up something else ‘cause it’s exhausting, frankly.

Renee   : Um… I’m just boogyin’ down. Yeah, lets… you know, you’re the one that brought all this on. It’s good.

Lucy     : Actually, I think it was your idea, Sharon. And I went, ‘oh okay’ and then we sat and organize it and it all happened and then… that was for the first Roxy show, and then it kind of snowballed on to New York, Chicago, now we’re back to the Roxy.

Sharon  : The addiction set in.

Lucy     : I don’t know, that’s the funny thing though. I was just talking to Ren about it, that um, I’m discovering something about myself in the last year where I hate to repeat myself. I hate to repeat the experience, you know. So, um, the Roxy was really scary (Renee: Fantastic! Your first one.) and it was its own thing. I guess the next one in New York built on… was it in New York the next one?

Sharon  : Yes, it was.

Lucy     : New York built on that, then we went to Chicago and tried a completely different feel.

Renee  : Which was great. Love that too.

Lucy     : Yeah that whole R&B feel and I was reviewing it the other day and looking at songs that really worked, which were very much in the vain of those musicians. You could tell that the songs that they innately understood really rocked out. That was very interesting to me. It’s like, so when you go to a certain town, and you want musicians that have the character of that town, you must choose music that suits them – and you.

Renee   : That is really interesting.

Lucy      : Because… some sort of magical coessence or some alchemy…

Renee   : well their culture’s right there and they can enhance what they know.

Lucy     : Yeah! And then you go on this magical carpet ride through their culture, you know, which was just unbelievable. Such a priceless experience and I would love to see them again, actually. But um, this next show, since I don’t have them and I don’t wanna go backwards… I have to do something completely different and I want it really pare it down like you said and just… get back to just… like friends and family because a good number of these fans now are... you know, they’re… they’ve become like a… a different kind of family.

Renee   : Yeah! That’s great.

Lucy      : like a weird family. And I want to do something that’s really… private, almost? I know that sounds weird, but –

Renee   : Not at all.

Lucy     : Yeah. It won’t… [it] will not be slick. That’s the only thing I could say. Right now, it will not be slick, but it will be very personal and um…

Renee   : I’ve a question going back to what you said. If you’re doing it at the Roxy, what culture of LA would you want to pull into it? Or is it… they’re so diverse you could do whatever you want?

Lucy      : I think I’m going right back to… it’s like, my living room. I don’t know about LA, it’s just like this is my…

Renee   : Oh what you’re seeing here? Like we were singing right now? Around the fire?

Lucy      : Right. This is… My backing singers are going to be Tony award winning Marissa Jaret Winokur (Renee: Oh, that’s so great!), her husband Big Judah whom my son’s named after (Renee: Wow, you’ll have such fun!), and Daisy my daughter. (Renee: Oh you’ll have a blast!) So this is not professional, but it’s gonna be really personal.

Renee   : Aw, it’s great. Wow. It’s wonderful. Love that.

Sharon  : It’s kind of like what they had – used to have in Hollywood in George Gershwin’s house. Everyone would come over…

Lucy      : This is like, ‘come over to George Gershwin’s house’, and you know what? This house actually used to belong to a famous um, lyricist from the 50s. Actually, hang on.  No, earlier than that. Like, uh, yeah… 30s, 40s, and 50s.

Renee   : Didn’t you… at some party someone was at the piano and you were singing along to Christmas carols or something?

Lucy      : Oh I can’t remember. Oh, maybe.

Renee   : Do you remember? Like that’s how I’d see you, you know? That sort of idea… OK, you know.

Lucy      : Yeah, that exact– that kind feeling. (Renee: Spontaneous) I wanted it to be like Bing Crosby Christmas Special, but it’ll be a little bit crazy because of who we all are.

Sharon  : Cause it’s you.

Lucy      : Yeah. It’ll be…

Sharon  : David Bowie will walk in. You’ll do the Little Drummer Boy.

Lucy      : Well, I can’t promise David.

Renee   : That’s lovely. What I love about your shows is that your personality and your emotion comes out in your songs and you take us all on a journey. People connect with you anyway and your music, you know?

Lucy      : Well, this time –

Renee   : So this is gonna be even wilder

Lucy      : Yeah but I have no idea yet what I’m singing. But I’m meeting with my musical director next week (Renee: That’s great. That suits you Lucy.) and, I just uh, I don’t know… Come on in to the living room, you know?

Sharon  : That’s an interesting point. You say her personality comes out in her music. What’s coming out in your dancing? Is that you? Whips and ticklers?

Renee   : Of course! Well I definitely have a whip at home. We all know that. Well there’s definitely the wild Renee that, you know, that sort of balances my—

Lucy      : Vixen!

Renee   : Yeah. I love… I love sexy clothes. I love all that stuff. I love to dance. I’ve always loved to dance. So, it’s great. I mean, I’m not used to whipping so much, you know, in front of –

Lucy      : In public!

Renee   : Yeah, you know. Actually I don’t really… it’s just f(un?)… yeah. Do I whip? I mean, I’m… Oh, whatever.

Lucy      : Do you whip? Let it whip.

Renee   : Do I really whip?

Sharon  : Go ahead. Say it out, Renee

Renee   : Only for, like, you know, (Lucy: Let it whip.) if I’m trying to be (Lucy: Whip it good.) silly. It’s exactly what you see on stage. If I’m being silly, than yeah, you know. The leather will be whipping, you know. But it’s just a person ***I can’t make what she’s saying. Sorry.***

Lucy      : You should ask some of the Xena stuntmen about Renee and meeting out punishments. She knows how to do it just fine.

Renee   : My gosh. Well you know, I do like dancing. But I haven’t seen the, uh, yeah you know, the last one was different. It’s not really what I was expecting. I thought that ‘Let It Whip’ would be similar to what we did at the Convention. I don’t know why, but it just felt different. There was just a sense of soul and groove going on and the dance felt different, yeah.

Sharon  : Yeah I told you after, that your dancing was entirely different than the first two shows. It just felt that way watching it.

Renee   : Which was fun. It’s fun being up there. But the, uh, I love that Ray Charles number. Oh my gosh! Still listen to that song and just go –

Lucy      : ‘Baby What’d I Say’?

Renee   : Yeah.

Lucy      : Really?

Renee   : Yeah, every time I hear it I just get transported back there.

*** Lucy imitates the song’s intro

Renee   : Just want to shake it. It’s funny. It was fun.

Sharon  : So it’s been, uh, a year at least since you guys were together.

Renee   : It’s been a year and a half. I was pregnant. It’s been over a year and a half.

Sharon  : Oh my gosh. I didn’t realize it’d been that long. Well this is one of the reasons why you guys have been all over the world, all over the country, doing all kinds of projects. So that we’ve covered a bit of it, uh, recently one of you played Wonder Woman and the other Indiana Jones. Who played which?

Renee   : Well, I didn’t play Wonder Woman.

Lucy      : I certainly don’t remember being Harrison Ford.

Sharon  : So you did–

Lucy      : You’ve done Harrison Ford a couple of times.

Renee   : This was a little different, yeah. I wasn’t playing the male version of Harrison Ford. This was sort of the, uh, the lady who goes on an expedition similar to Raiders of The Lost Ark. A whole different character.

Sharon  : This is a movie called Genesis Code?

Renee   : Genesis Code. Yeah. So I played a woman who basically is trying to prove that there is existence out there that is greater than our own physical being. That’s what she’s doing. She’s trying to show her ex-husband that, um, that he should have faith. He should have faith in God. Spirituality. You know?

Sharon  : Is this um… So you filmed this in Bulgaria. How did you wind up getting the part and, uh… is that the crux of the movie or I know there’s a… you have a husband, is there another male lead?

Renee   : Um, the other… well the male lead is really Tim Dekay and he plays my ex-husband, which was so much fun to do. There’s so many elements, you know, that are sort of personal, that you just wanted to use, you know? You know what I mean? In acting you bring out real feelings, you know, and… or you make comparisons to your own life. And so, it was just so much fun to transcend the formula that the Sci-Fi Channel has and make it something that’s more like a personal drama, or comedy between us. So I really enjoyed doing that. And um, and it just sort of came about. So I was talking to the Sci-Fi Channel and said I was interested in doing some things and was giving them ideas that I had, ‘cause I like to sort of get involved in the whole process. And they basically said, ‘we’ve already done this’ or, ‘we already have something in production,’ and then it came up and it was just the right fit. And I was willing to go to Bulgaria for a month with the kids. That was the big thing for me. ‘Cause I’ve always been hesitant about taking my kids on location, you know?

Lucy      : But?

Renee   : Uh, it was pretty good. You know, we were in Bulgaria. Iris being very sick so she was in the hospital for three days (Lucy: Oh no…). In a hospital where they don’t speak English (Lucy gasps). So it was kind of trying. I would spend the night at the hospital and going to work all day. But you know it’s funny how your adrenaline—

Lucy      : Was your mother there?

Renee   : Thankfully my mom was there.

Lucy      : Oh my god, you must’ve had a heart attack.

Renee   : It was pretty… It was challenging.

Lucy      : It was stressful. Yeah.

Renee   : It was stressful. But you know, your adrenaline as a mother is… keeps you going, and I so loved that, the project that… I wasn’t tired at all, you know, you just keep pushing through.

Lucy      : Did you come home and collapse?

Renee   : No. But it’s funny, the third day I had all my dialogue and there was about 8 pages and just my talking. It was just like monologues of information. And I don’t know how they’ll put it together but I was worried I wouldn’t remember the lines after three days of not really sleeping much.

Lucy      : Ooohh!

Renee   : And I really, I was so lucky because I finally kept thinking… there’s a part of me that kept looking to my own spirituality; you know… it was about spirituality anyway. Going, ‘just let it go.’ You know? ‘Let it happen.’ And I did, and suddenly the words would come, you know? But each time I’m like, ‘f*ck!’ you know. Excuse me.

Lucy      : Grace. You got grace.

Renee   : I was like… you know, and the actors were all talking and it was really distracting. I’m like, yeah, let the grace of God just happen. Lalalala… happen. And um, that was a huge lesson for me as an actor (Lucy: Yeah.), that you know it, you know? You don’t have to work so hard.

Sharon  : It’s in you. Don’t worry about it, yeah.

Renee   : It’s in you, yeah.

Sharon  : I think you mentioned that a bit when you did the play on stage. Either one of the characters, or maybe you were talking to me before.

Renee   : Well you forget, though.

Lucy      : Yeah, you keep reminding yourself, eh?

Renee   : There’s some divine intervention in here somewhere, you know. I found it to be really true.

Lucy      : That’s cool. That’s really cool.

Renee   : It’s fun.

Sharon  : And how did you wind up being Wonder Woman? This was a—

Lucy      : Ah, I can’t remember. I don’t know, somebody rang up—

Renee   : When is Wonder Woman?

Lucy      : No, I did, um—

Renee   : Oh, the Justice League?

Lucy      : I did, yeah, the voice of Wonder Woman for the Justice League.

Renee   : That’s cool.

Lucy      : Well you know, somebody rings your agents and said, ‘are you available’ and I wanted to… I’d never felt that I had done that form of performance very well before. Had a taste of it on um—

Renee   : The Herc & Xena one?

Sharon  : the animated Herc & Xena?

Lucy      : The animated Herc & Xena and on Simpsons…

Renee   : Oh yeah…

Lucy      : But I was so new to it all I didn’t understand that type of performance so I did it a couple more times with Justice League and for Dragonlance.

Renee   : Cool!

Lucy     :  And um, and it was great! I really enjoyed the experience, but it’s very short. You got to remember, that you go in there for an hour and a half (Renee: Wow.), two hours maybe, you’re done. And then it takes another year and a half before they animate it. And probably a few more months before they put it out there. And um, you’ve kind of forgotten all about it in the mean time.

Renee   : Yeah.

Lucy      : Well, you could ask me a week later and I would’ve forgotten about it.

Renee   : Well, so do, uh… I remember on the animated one on Herc & Xena that you only had about maybe one chance to get it. Was it similar to that? You know, when you think of you’re doing a movie in an hour and a half; you’re really doing it one time through, right?

Lucy      : Um, you… Yeah, you get a few times.

Renee   : Okay.

Lucy      : A few times. And beca—and you just have to trust the director to say, ‘yes that’s what you want,’ because they have the image in their… you know, how the shot, the outworks going to come out. (Renee: yeah. It’s imagined.) And you can’t see… you have nothing in front of you to draw on for information.

Renee   : God! It’s so hard!

Sharon  : And no other actors.

Lucy      : And no other actors.

Renee   : That’s really tough.

Lucy      : Yeah. Very often with these things… Oh wait a minute. Um, so… what were you going from ‘no actors’?

Renee   : Yeah. There were no actors around?

Lucy      : No other actors.

Renee   : No other… No— there were no actors?

Sharon  : Get that… Get your line.

Lucy      : Yeah. Because there’s nothing else for you to draw on.

Renee   : Well—

Lucy      : You go ‘AND NO OTHER ACTORS.’ And no other actors, that’s right. Oh sh*t, I don’t remember where we’re going.

Renee   : But maybe… wait I have a question. Hold on, that made me think of something, though. Because you’ve done so much music lately, right? You’re listening, you’re actually working in a different realm completely, did that help you doing the animation then? Because—

Lucy      : No, because I did it all the animation way before I started singing.

Renee   : Oh you did? Oh, right. That’s wild.

Lucy      : Even before Duets.

Renee   : And there were no actors there.

Lucy      : And no actors! Yeah, you’re just… you’re totally alone in a booth going, ‘uh, did I say that right?’

Sharon  : I’m wondering what a director does on an animated feature. You deliver a line, I mean, they know the—I mean, do you see the whole script? Well…

Lucy      : You have the script but you don’t know what the other characters look like apart from some comic strip. Maybe you get a page of a comic strip. And, um, you don’t know what they voice sounds like. You— 

***Phone interruption***

Sharon to soundguy: are we picking that up? We are picking that up?

Lucy to Warner (?): Hey Warner there’s a couple of doors between us and the kitchen. They’re just swing doors.

Sharon  : Is there a door on that side too?

Lucy      : Yup. Shut every door you can possibly find.

Sharon  : Warner, there’s another one on this side too. If you go around there.

Lucy      : In fact, this is a big sliding door in the cavity.

Sharon  : Oh. This right here? The mirror?

Lucy      : No, shut the one there behind you, yeah. and then… *Lucy gets up* shouldn’t expect you to find your way around. Is that door shut? Let’s pull this, shall we?

Sharon  : Lock down!

Lucy      : Lock down, yeah!

Sharon  : This is the panic room. And the next nuclear exploded. Are they sitting on the same spot? 

***PHONE INTERRUPTION ENDS*** 

Sharon  : So what does a director in an animated feature actually do? Give you lined… you know, descriptions and…

Lucy      : Sometimes the director will give you a line reading. Like, ‘no I want you say it more like this,’ and you just do it because they know, uh, who’s coming up behind you… you know, they’re holding the performances of all the other actors in their head. Even if they haven’t been done yet. They have to be the continuity behind every character, I think.

Renee   : Now, some of them actually… don’t they do the voices and they end up keeping the voices in the movies? I’ve heard that happen before.

Lucy      : Yeah, I think Wonder Woman’s actually gonna be that man who’s directing.

Renee   : Yeah right.

Lucy      : He gonna go, ‘yeah that voice doesn’t work’

Renee   : ‘I can do that,’ you’re right.

Lucy      : Yeah

Renee   : That’s funny.

Sharon  : And Dragonlance, um, you’ve talked a bit about uh, they wanted a specific voice. Did you change your voice for them? Or did you use your real voice? New Zealand accent?

Lucy      : Well you know what happened? You know, with Dragonlance, she’s supposed to be, like, Native American or something. So, I don’t know how to do a Native American accent and somebody was trying to show me but it just sounded weird coming out of me. I can’t even do it. I’ve never heard it before so I’ve no reference for it and it would just be disrespectful and, you know, I don’t do that. So eventually I realized what they’re asking was, ‘can you just do the Xena voice? That’s what we want.’

Renee   : Really?

Lucy      : Yeah. The Xena accent – ‘if you can’t actually be uh, Goldmoon, Native American, then uh, can you be Xena?” And they were too shy to ask, they were sort of guiding, ‘try a bit more staccato,’ ‘like this?’ I don’t know. ‘Be more flowing.’ You just want me to do Xena, don’t you? ‘Yeah, yeah. Would you just do Xena?’

Renee   : That’s so funny. And they couldn’t ask that? Well, did they want a sense of timelessness? Is that what they’re going for?

Lucy      : No, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Sharon  : They just liked her Xena voice.

Lucy      : They were just like, ‘yeah that’s what we’re paying for’.

Sharon  : Goldmoon’s a strong character, I gather. She’s a… I’ve not read those pieces.

Lucy      : I know. You know, to be honest with you I didn’t know anything about it. I was just… wanted to do a favor for my friend George who I knew during the Xena and Hercules days.

Sharon  : George Straiton (sp?)?

Lucy      : George Straiton (sp?)? And um, I was like, ‘yeah, totally George, I’ll come and help you out.’ That’s all I thought it was. And now I hear that it’s just some worldwide movement term about 20 years ago it was like… Tens of thousands of people were into this, but...

Renee   : I had a friend who was into it, yeah.

Sharon  : Started out kind of a Dungeons and Dragons things. Became books, became you know, online. It just… it’s huge. It’s absolutely huge.

Lucy      : Right. Yeah. It’s an incredible world.

Renee   : That’s gonna be fun to see.

Sharon  : Um, voices… Ghost Town. Uh… you were hired to play a man.

Renee   : Yeah. Um… hired to play a man, but... they just– well actually not to play a man. I was hired– they wanted to hire me to play something else, and then the role wasn’t right. So they offered me a man’s part and said they will switch it to a woman. So I said, ‘sure.’ And then, yeah… and it was alright, you know. The experience was um, just sort of getting my feet wet again. Especially with being a mom as well, and on location and the whole thing. That was the first step into going somewhere, and um…

Lucy      : where’d you go?

Renee   : To North Carolina. I was one month away.

Lucy      : Oh that’s right. Yeah.

Renee   : I just don’t want to leave my kids, you know? I just—that kills me. So anyway, but I tried it out. Miles came out for a while, and Iris was there the whole time. And… it was really easy. It’s easy to be on the set, you know? ‘Cause it’s just like old hat and sort of look around and you go, ‘oh yeah,’ and they were um, pretty… pretty independent as well. It was low budget, so you just, you know, you could just sit back and go, ‘oh yeah I know what you’re doing. I know what you’re experiencing.’ Talking about all the ins and outs or tying to pull it together.

Lucy      : So she’s like, ‘you’re telling me. Ladida-da-da”

Renee   : I know! Kind of compared the notes.

Sharon  : Four years of Diamonds and Guns.

Renee   : I know! But they were further ahead, you know. Because I was still working on some sort of post-production and um… ‘further ahead’ that they have the money for post-production where I think I was still raising money for post-production. And um… But it was alright, you know. It was two directors directing which was a little weird for me. I don’t like that.

Lucy      : Yeah.

Renee   : It’s so frustrating.

Sharon  : Do they ever have a conflict?

Renee   : Oh yeah. Well, of course they do. I mean they have two visions and they’re trying to complement each other. One’s more technical, one’s more artistic, and it just um… sometimes there’s a lack of communication, you know? But you know…

Sharon  : Did you ever—well, this is a western, were you ever a cowgirl as a kid? Coming from Texas?

Renee   : Not really. I was a city girl. I have to confess, you know. I really was a city girl. Um… Yeah. But the tomboy element of Gabrielle is still sort of in me and so that sort of played into Little Jack. And then like the vicious, like, there’s a—she was just mean-spirited, you know, in some ways, and I just sort of explored… well okay, I came up with ideas that was just—they were mean, you know. Like, I hold the woman—I said, ‘why don’t I hold the woman while you beat her?’ But I have nothing to do. Isn’t that horrible? It’s horrible.

Sharon  : She came up with that. *talks to Lucy* Your friend.

Lucy      : She’s pretty dark at times. Well you’re not personally dark. But remember you used to read all that psycho-killer stuff?

Renee   : Because of Hope, though. I did it ‘cause uh, it was Hope. When I was playing Hope?

Lucy      : Oh it’s Hope’s fault.

Renee   : No. Yeah, it was Hope’s fault. But I remember before that—

Lucy      : You did not—Didn’t you do it at school?

Renee   : Yeah. No, not at school. It was another thing I was doing. Oh when I play—usually ‘cause of roles. I always like to investigate the roles. And there was something, um, I can’t… there was one where I was taken by a serial killer when I did FBI: The Untold Stories, you know? And I was working with this great actor and I just, again I like to know… you know, I like to find more to do. And the thing with Little Jack is she was so, um, there’s just… there’s nothing for her to do in this scene, so I sat there and was like, okay, you know, ‘what? You’re gonna sit there?’ you know what I mean? I mean, I’m thinking to myself (Lucy: Good for you!) am I just gonna sit here? And they knew they wanted me on camera like they’re starting to get that they should use me more, they’re trying to find ways to put me in stuff... and so they kind of sat me down next to the woman so I thought, well, hell, heck, you know… why don’t I hold her down, you know? You know what I mean?

Lucy      : That’s fair enough. (Renee: You have to be active.) You can’t… you’ll pull on having an egg on your face. No actor wants to be in the back of somebody else’s shot going, ‘na-na-na-na-na,’ and got nothing to do.

Renee   : Yeah. Making faces.

Lucy      : And ‘cause that’s not real, either. If you’re there you’ve got an attitude, you’ve got something to say about the scene.

Renee   : Yeah, exactly. So that was my contribution in that scene. (Lucy   : That made sense.) So it just—I don’t know. She didn’t come out as dark as I thought, you know, she might at times. It uh, she wasn’t fleshed out, really.

Sharon  : Would you like to play—would either one of you like to play a serial killer, like, you know, like that Dexter character?

Renee   : I don’t think I would. I don’t know. Would you like to?

Lucy      : No, I’ve turned down roles that are just—in shows that I, I just find too, yeah, mean-spirited because I don’t want to put that out in the world. Which is not to say I wouldn’t play a serial, you know, one of something. But I don’t want to be in a series that’s about hideousness.

Sharon  : Criminal Minds is uh, I’ve seen two episodes in a row now. That’s a really tough show. It’s well done, that’s no doubt about it but, I’m… I’m not gonna watch it again.

Renee   : Really? Oh wow.

Lucy      : Yeah.

Sharon  : It’s just so…

Lucy      : Well I watch—Yeah I watch a lot of crime shows. But not scripted drama, because it gives me too much pain.

Renee   : They keep calling me in for that too. Criminal Minds? It’s funny ‘cause they don’t really know me at all, so they call me in to read, and I’ve come to the idea that, ‘you know what? Maybe I need to learn something here,’ and I go in and I, and I—the parts have been so heavy and even though there—I haven’t gotten it because of… whatever reason in the end, you know. Age or… it was like age stuff. One is to young, one is too old and blabla. But um, but just to really connect with these horrible, horrible victims was… Oh my Gosh! You know?

Sharon  : Well that’s what I mean. CourtTV is actually pretty divorced from the actual crime.

Lucy      : Yeah. When you watch… yeah, or on A&E, or DTMS, or Bio—

Renee   : ‘Cause you like the investigate part. You like the analysis?

Lucy      : No. Yeah, I wanna see bad guys brought to justice.

Renee   : Yeah.

Lucy      : That’s what it is. I wanna see…

Renee   : That’s cool.

Lucy      : Yeah.

Renee   : Wow.

Sharon  : That’s why you watch it. I wondered why you were… what you’re getting at.

Lucy      : I don’t know. Yeah, right. Something satisfying about that. Particularly when it’s like some doctor kills his wife then cover that up or something. You want to see the rich guy go down for being a slime ball. And often, they do it for like, well, regular people for a few… maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Sometimes they do it for, like, thirty thousand dollars to go and murder some poor human being who never did them any harm and you just go, ‘I want you to go down for this. I wanna—‘

Renee   : Wow. And do they? I mean they, they actually—

Lucy      : Yeah. Well the ones that I’m watching are, you know, wrapped up cases so it’s about forensics or the cops being the heroes, you know…

Sharon  : Are you into the Drew—is it Patterson, Peterson? The latest one that’s on there with—

Renee   : Oh yeah. That’s the king. Well Scott Peterson was king, but I’m a little horrified that, you know, Laci Peterson, Stacy Peterson. They actually had a daughter called Lacy Peterson, you just know the Peterson family and, uh, up in Marion County or wherever they—I don’t know, they’re from San Diego aren’t they? Laci Peterson’s parents are reliving their misery though this other family. It’s just a horrible um, not Peterson family, sorry, but Laci’s birthmother. Um, it’s just ghastly.

Sharon  : And on a brighter note, away from serial killers… (Lucy: So satisfying.) we walk in to Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Renee   : There you go!

Sharon  : A little more recent.

Renee   : That looked like fun.

Sharon  : I read (Lucy: That was fun.) when someone was describing that show they said, ‘I guess there’s a scripted outline but then it’s improv-ed internally,’ and I wanted to know what… what that experience was like, working with him, and what parts were—

Lucy      : You’re right, that it is loosely scripted and you have to uh, you know, you have to make sure that you end up at a certain point. From A to G by the end of the scene. And you can throw something out there and Larry will either love it and take it and include it or he will kill it dead, you know, right there. And, um…

Renee   : Meaning he just doesn’t let it go any further or you just cut and then you start all over again?

Lucy      : Um, oh, he was so good to me, and he was so, you know, they just kind of allowed me to… well I was respectful of their process; I’m not throwing complete rubbish in there, I hope. But, um, like the whole thing about, ‘so you’re a Jew,’ that was all from me. ‘So, you’re a Jew,’ ‘cause you know there are almost no Jewish people where I come from so to me they’re always like this mythical creature.

Renee   : That is so funny.

Lucy      : Yeah. I know, it was really funny.

Renee   : He seemed kind of smitten with you. You know what I mean? Didn’t he just kind of seem a little smitten? I thought that was so sweet.

Lucy      : I don’t know. He was good. Well, I didn’t know. The poor guy, that his marriage actually was breaking up. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that. He, I guess, knew. Um, because it was just the next week that it was made public. So he was right at the maelstrom at that time.

Renee   : Yikes.

Lucy      : Yeah. So, um…

Renee   : I wonder why that was on the show. Seemed so odd. They’re such a great couple, on camera.

Lucy      : Yeah.

Renee   : That was an odd element to put into their show, you know? And it’s interesting.

Lucy      : Yeah. And I saw some people, like, TVGuide was going, you know, ‘this is where Cheryl leaves Larry, this is where we leave the show,’ as if—I mean they were hurting. People were really hurting because Cheryl left him now he’s just a horrible oak emerging on his own, ‘I don’t want to know about him.’ But it’s like…

Renee   : Well, he’s got to grow.

Lucy      : Get over it. Plus, this guy is an artist. He’s not… He’s not interested in being a monkey for the network. Do you know what I mean? He—artists do what they do and you can’t stop them.

Renee   : I know. It’s true.

Sharon  : Using the situations where we can. It’s popular, it’s critically acclaimed…

Lucy      : And it’s fascinating! It’s fascinating to watch somebody, uh, put themselves—put their real life on the line.

Sharon  : So, uh, a fair amount of that dinner table, the date, that was improve-ed?

Lucy      : Yeah. I was… I had a couple of other—I had one other scene which got cut out. But you understand it, you know, when you see the episode because—I wrote in my blog, like, ‘I’d thought it was all about me, me, me!’ this whole thing, ‘cause everyday that I was there it was all about me! The scene that we were talking about, or whatever. But, (Renee: Wow. Fun.) so much was going on in this episode ‘cause Cheryl leaves Larry, she’s on the plane, and she’s having a terrible time, he won’t listen to her ‘cause he’s there with the Tivo salesman… yeah, and the black family are there, and what else? The restaurant? Was that sandwich palaver part of that drama? No, the friends are choosing between Cheryl and Larry (Renee: yeah. There’s a lot going on.). So there’s so much going on.

Renee   : And that was kind of heavy stuff, you know, for Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Lucy      : Yeah! It was like—that was an instant classic, I reckon. I’m so—I’m lucky, man, I get to—

Renee   : I was lucky I saw you because I watch it, when I can. And I, I guess I’d heard that you might be on it but then you weren’t gonna be on it. Everyone’s confused what your episode was.

Lucy      : I didn’t know—the date was confused and…

Renee   : We all watched it anyway.

Sharon  : And then Ted Danson popped up at the end.

Lucy      : Ted Danson, yeah. What a great guy. The writers told me that everybody loved it that I thought that Ted Danson was an, ‘ass-h*le!’

Renee   : That was so funny. Did you make that up?

Lucy      : Yeah.

Renee   : That’s hilarious. I thought that you might’ve made that one up.

Lucy      : Yeah. ‘ass-h*le!’

Sharon  : Yeah. I remember hearing a line and then I said, ‘that sounds like Lucy.’

Renee   : Doesn’t it really?

Sharon  : But I can’t remember which one it was.

Lucy      : Yeah. Well the way that you say it is you.

Renee   : Yeah. Exactly. I just thought (Lucy: The way that you get there is you.) that would’ve been your sort of sense of humor plugging it in, just to be funny, you know. I figured that would be funny.

Lucy      : Yeah, ‘cause who doesn’t like—

Renee   : I know! Who doesn’t like Ted Danson?!

Lucy      : Everybody likes Ted Danson.

Renee   : Exactly! Yeah. That’s so funny. Wow.

Sharon  : Although he’s doing an incredible job on Damages (Renee: Oh, really?) of being an absolute bastard.

Lucy      : Oh, he’s a good actor.

Sharon  : He’s fabulous. It’s a great show.

Lucy      : He’s a fine actor.

Renee   : Haven’t seen it.

Lucy      : What’s that on?

Sharon  : Uh…

Renee   : F/X, right?

Sharon  : F/X, right. Saving Grace is on TNT, Damages on F/X.

Renee   : Glenn Close…

Lucy      : Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sharon  : So great. You know. Yeah, Holly Hunter, Glenn Close. Somebody—

Lucy      : Holly Hunter’s doing that new show.

Sharon  : Saving Grace. Yeah.

Lucy      : Oh that’s really good.

Sharon  : So much good stuff going on.

Lucy      : And Laura San Giacomo, I’m so thrilled to see her in such a great show.

Renee   : Is she on the same one?

Sharon  : She is! She plays the best friend and I’m watching this first episode and I’m thinking I know that person.

Lucy      : On Saving Grace. Oh, you’d like that show. You’d be good on that.

Renee   : I have to see it. I read—I didn’t read a very good review about it, so…

Lucy      : Oh my God, (Renee: I’ll have to watch it, then.) it’s so interesting. And good—beautiful. Really filmic. (Renee: Oh, really?) Really pretty and, yeah… great acting.

Sharon  : And now we have to plummet back into schizophrenia, because you did Boogeyman 2 (Renee: Yeah.) for Rob.

Renee   : For Rob.

Sharon  : And how did that come up? How did you know that movie was being done?

Renee   : Um, I heard about it. And I, um, I was fascinated with this woman who was dealing with schizophrenia in her life, that her mother was a schizophrenic. And then she was always afraid of being schizophrenic. And it took me back to this, um, when I was a kid I played something where I was a schizophrenic, for this foundation. And all these, uh, parents really affected me because they were hurting so much with their kids going through this treatment. And that’s what affected me the most more than actually watching the patients and how they functioned. So, um, to think that this is a woman  who basically felt the same way as all those parents did connected (Sharon: toward her charges?) toward me. Yeah, because this woman had to deal with the, um, the illness. You know? So anyway, so I immediately connected with it, and I thought, ‘that would be fun,’ and it films in Los Angeles, and um… and it was a modern-day piece. ‘Cause the Ghost Town was, again, a different period. And I was really looking for things that are current, and… yeah. It was good. It was really fun to do. I was the old lady…

Sharon  : It’s a slasher movie, right?

Renee   : Well it doesn’t feel like a slasher movie at first. It felt like a normal drama, and then, I think the last day I was on, everyone started—at least, I die. People started dying, you know? And I was, like, ‘oh yeah I’m in a horror film.’ You know what I mean? You watch Tobin Bell walking across the parking lot, uh, with two syringes in his eyes, and I was like, ‘oh yeah. That’s what we’re doing.’ It’s crazy.

Sharon  : You were supposed to do something visually. I don’t remember what it was, maybe it’s just mead, but you wind up being in horror makeup, uh, for the whole day.

Renee   : Yeah, which looked fantastic. The, uh, blue veins on my skin and it was peeling away ‘cause I’m electrocuted. So I went home that night like this. Because I knew Iris was asleep, ‘cause I wanted to see what Jed would do ‘cause he hates horror films, you know. So I went and he was just mortified, yeah. I’m sitting down next to him, ‘honey, hi honey.’ And I was, um, I was begging them to let me take my head because I get decapitated. I said, ‘please let me take my head home.’ You know what I mean? That’s just so mean. Um, I wanna put it in my refrigerator, you know? Isn’t that horrible?

Sharon  : And then we open the door.

Renee   : Wouldn’t that be great? And they said no. And I said, ‘well can we at least put it in the craft service refrigerator as everyone’s coming through?’ and they said, ‘well, we have to wait till it wraps then maybe we’ll do it. I don’t think they did.’

Sharon  : Lucy, she holds down women while they’re being beaten, she (Lucy: She has a head in her— I know.) wants to put a head in the refrigerator. (Renee: But I loved horror films.) This is not the Renee we know and loved.

Lucy      : I know. I won’t go to her house ‘cause I’m afraid I’m gonna end up covering a lampshade.

Renee   : Yeah right. But you know, I was thinking about it and I loved horror films as a kid. You know? Someone’s asking me why, I said, ‘cause it was such a thrill, you know? I loved the idea that I could sit here and be on this journey and I knew it was perfectly safe, and then, um—

Lucy      : Do you get Chiller Sta—that cable station? Chiller?

Renee   : No.

Sharon  : I’ve never heard of it. It’s a horror station?       

Lucy      : It’s pretty good.

Renee   : Well I’ve kind of outgrown it. I don’t like it as much as I did as a kid, you know.

Lucy      : Me neither. But they’re a little cheesy so they’re really good, you know? Like, they’re old stuff we used to watch from we were kids. (Renee: the 70s.) So it’s okay. I quite like being a little bit scared, but not a lot...

Renee   : We just had this wild library of horror films so I would go in and I wouldn’t really even know the titles but I put them in and started watching them. And then I would start to figure out how they did it. So then it actually detached me a little more from the… the gore.

Lucy      : Did you ever get a fright?

Renee   : Sometimes

Lucy      : Put in a video that… that, you know, that nobody meant you to see.

Renee   : Yes.

Lucy      : Something adult?

Renee   : Yes.

Lucy      : You go, ‘whoa!’ And yet somehow I— (Renee: well that’s where I got the uh… yeah. Exactly. I did that.) it’ so compelling, you have to watch it!

Renee   : well that was my joke on diamonds and guns ‘cause my character put, you know, she was channel surfing and then a porn comes up and she’s like, ‘oh…’ you know? ‘porn,’ like no big deal. So that was my own little joke about how nonchalant, you know? I thought that was funny that she’s just so nonchalant.

Sharon  : I had that happen to me. I was sorting someone’s tapes. An unnamed person. And I put in—he was… I put in a tape—I couldn’t even say what the other ones are, but I put in a tape and I’m watching this, like, Victorian 17^th century woman…

Renee   : Really?

Sharon  : And then it progresses. And a lot of things are going on and…

Lucy      : so it’s not an old-fashioned movie?

Sharon  : this was a period—no, this was a (Renee: a period porn!) period porn. Period porn!

Lucy      : When was it made?

Renee   : Probably in the 80s. 70s-80s or something?

Sharon  : Uh, I’ve been out here 20 years... uh, I’m going—I’d say, yeah. That was, uh, maybe around the 80s. Late 80s.

Lucy      : Was it badly shot and hor—trashy?

Sharon  : Um, I didn’t watch all that much and I didn’t know what category—I was just categorizing.

Lucy      : You didn’t know where to file it.

Sharon  : I didn’t know where to file it!

L & R     : That is so funny.

Sharon  : Unexpected things. Somehow you’re going to be unboxed. You have gone back to Vancouver and shot a bit more of Battlestar.

Lucy      : Yeah. I get uh, unboxed. That’s about all I can say. They’re very secretive about this stuff.

Sharon  : It was nice seeing the… seeing your old buddies? It had been a while.

Lucy      : It was really nice, actually. I um, uh… everybody is very relaxed. Unlike us in the run up to the end, because we all got more tensed.

Renee   : We were so excited too. You know what I mean?

Lucy      : We were excited, but I think people, like, the crew was very afraid. They’d had this job for a long time and, um, I don’t know. By the end I was so (Renee: Yeah, you’re right. It was…) incredibly tired that I didn’t—I was out of my mind. I’ve never admitted that before.

Renee   : Mind you that was crazy—the end was crazy. Four units going at the same time with those two episodes. (Lucy: Yeah.) So that wasn’t—

Sharon  : It’s a lot more physical show. It’s a lot more physically wearing. I mean you guys were outdoors in the least bit of clothing and the craziest weather. No other (Renee: yeah.) TV actors ever had to do anything quite like that.

Renee   : And it was Rob’s episode and we really wanted to get it right for him. You know what I mean? Don’t you think? We really wanted to come together and be the best.

Lucy      : Yeah.

Renee   : That was probably where some of the pressure came in. But overall, weren’t we just really excited? I mean, we seemed so pleased with every episode. Every one’s… every single one in the sixth season stood up, you know? I thought… I thought that we did a good job.

Lucy      : Wow. That’s your—that’s what you remember?

Renee   : Yeah.

Lucy      : Wow.

Sharon  : And for you it’s a blank. What do you remember?

Renee   : You don’t remember the sixth season? The last season?

Lucy      : No. I remember that Japanese—those two episodes being incredibly uh, painful, difficult… stressful. Cold. No, I don’t remember any of the other episodes that season.

Renee   : Really?

Lucy      : What were they? I would if you rememb—reminded me.

Renee   : Heart of Darkness…

Sharon  : Gurkhan.

Lucy      : Oh really that was the last season? I remember that quite well.

Renee   : The one where uh…

Sharon  : Many Happy Returns.

Renee   : Many Happy Returns with the uh,

Lucy      : Was this the pony thing? (Renee: No.) What was that?

Sharon  : That’s where you were—you went swimming, she had a black eye. It was—a lot of practical jokes were going on. Read the Sappho Poem (Renee: the Sappho Poem at the end.) on the hill side. Almost toss the helmet over the cliff.

Lucy      : Was Kevin Smith in that one?

Sharon  : No, he was in uh, Soul Possession which was maybe (L: Oh my God I can’t believe you remember) the third or fourth from the end.

Renee   : Remember that’s where we were—look like uh, clones. We were just—that was a really easy—that’s such an easy episode. We were in heaven, because you know, there were so many people in the cast, there was very little for us to do on that episode, and we just got to sit and pretend like we’re sleeping.

Lucy      : I was wearing Annie… Annie clothes.

Renee   : Yeah. That was an easy one…

Lucy      : Always my favorite costume.

Sharon  : Yup. Drinking chocolate milkshakes and burping.

Lucy      : *makes slurping noise*

Renee   : Kevin was in there a lot.

Sharon  : You’ve been talking about Army Wives and there seems to be some hinting going on in the recent interviews that you’ve done.

Renee   : That you’re a big lezzy? What?

Sharon  : That character’s…

Renee   : Well I’m not sup