Zachary Quinto

this episode of dinners on me was recorded on June 12 2023 hi it's Jesse today on the show the star of Star Trek and the boys in the band my dear friend Zachary Quinto we'll talk about how his mom's passing changed his perspective on life our early days hitting up the Silver Lake gay bars and his special relationship with the original Spock Leonard Nimoy he was just a great cheerleader and a great support and the thing that I would never have anticipated from my experiences was just how close we would be there was something very paternal about the relationship that I shared with Leonard this is dinners on me and I'm your host Jesse Tyler Ferguson thank you I met Zach Quinto about oh gosh 20 years ago after a solo cabaret show I was performing at Joe's Pub in New York City the show was called adios pantalones if anyone is curious he had come to the show with a mutual friend of ours who I think was trying to set us up even though the internet is insistent on connecting us romantically we've actually never dated we did however become very close friends and our connection only deepened after I moved to Los Angeles Zack had relocated to the West Coast a few years before me and took it upon himself to show me around all the cool parts of LA's East Side even though Zach and I are in constant communication with each other I haven't seen him in person for nearly a year and so I was so excited to catch up with him in the city that initially brought us together New York [Music] back to join me at American Bar in the West Village American Bar has only been open for a few years but it has the energy and feel of a New York institution it has these Chic yellow walls a beautiful Terrazzo bar and these old school brass rails around the cocktail lounge it's always packed I was so glad to see them survive the pandemic and I thought why not invite Zach to a place I enjoy so much that's also in my neighborhood okay let's get to the conversation I'm so happy to see you I like that the summer monster do you like it yeah I do thank you I had a beard for uh this last job and then I came home from and I kept the beard for um like a month afterwards and then the other day I just got the impulse to get rid of it and then as I was shaving it I did that thing could I make this work yeah and then you're like oh that looks ridiculous so then you lose that and I had a mustache I was like that actually looks fine so I've kept it thank you I dig it thanks Hi how are you Hi how are we doing today we're doing good thank you thank you so much okay here we are thank you very much have we been here before we have have we been here together I was just reminded yeah we have a couple great items for you here today uh so I would say we're really known for our salads we can make most of our salads vegan um our chopped salad and our peanut chicken salad are two most popular and then yeah we also we just added our avocado toast to the menu you can add smoked salmon or Lobster that and it comes with a Jammy poach egg on the side Jammy egg that sounds what does that sound Jammy egg what the hell is a Jammy egg it's like a soft boiled egg does this sound appealing to you I want to come up with a different name jammies like a great word Jammy egg is a cookbook author myself yeah that's right Fair yeah do you want to just get those things and share them or do you want to see if I was to order anything on the menu yeah yeah Greek chop while you're doing do you want me to get any water started sure sure it's fine for me I'm also gonna have an iced tea and I'll have a lemonade please thank you it's an Arnold Palmer speaking of kissing you really brought it right to the heart of the matter having you Jesse why dating didn't mean to bring it out this early yeah you were gonna you're gonna save that for you yeah yeah hour two and before we depart what's going on with your love life what are you gonna get is the Greek chop an option can I get it I'm gonna get that with no tomato please that's cute all right what are you gonna go I'm gonna get crispy artichokes and the chopped salad okay are you okay with the super soda the queso fresco everything that comes on that uh-huh awesome I am thank you thank you very much you know our early days in La together you know we did live close to one another on the east side of L.A and I knew you know you were you were out to your friends you were gay you were enjoying your life as a gay man you were going to Akbar together quite a lot one of uh best bars in Los Angeles on the east side we were there quite a bit we sure were um and I do remember also like when oh backpack there was a guy at Akbar who was wearing a backpack and Justin is Zach and I both thought that um he was really handsome yeah he's wearing a backpack in the barn Jack and I thought he's both really handsome and Zach ended up having her knowing him knowing him yes I totally forgot about backpack yeah backpack but I mean those moments were so special like just having that sort of safety net in La having someone who was a part of the queer Community although you hadn't come out publicly at that point yet but like you know something I felt safe with and like showing me to all these places having a wingman you know to be a single man in Los Angeles and yeah go to these places and I also remember one night leaving that bar and across the street above the Tang's donut was a huge billboard for Heroes oh yeah but then right after you joined Heroes so I was also watching because I I moved to LA I was part of a sitcom that did not succeed I've kept my anonymity pretty much intact there was a few people who maybe knew who I was but you were you were thrust onto this wildly popular show yeah mid-season in the first year as a as a character that had been talked about a lot in the series you were the villain that finally made an appearance um it looks like a little um platter yeah fried things okay so good I got to watch you you know a friend uh what I considered a contemporary sort of move into this other area of success and it was the first time I mean I guess I saw it a little bit with Liz Banks but like I wasn't going out to gay bars with her sure um you know it was the first time I was seeing a friend of mine sort of like in real time have a great break and and sort of also navigate what that meant for his personal lives can you speak a little bit to like what that because this is again before you came out publicly right we will get to but like what was that like for you because I in my eyes you didn't change too much of your behavior yeah I really didn't and that's a commitment I made to myself early on when I realized that my experiences in the world were changing a bit you know I made a real conscious decision and commitment to myself that I would not change my experiences of the world does that make sense yeah I wasn't going to allow exposure or fame celebrity to Define my experience or to Define who I was I think my friends and the people that were close to me and that I trusted before all that happened became even more important to me and and I've been at it for a while I think it was eight years that I was gonna like before Heroes happen and heroes was really the the project that changed my trajectory and then immediately after Heroes I Star Trek and so that year of my life it was the year I turned 30. it was so crazy you know for one thing to happen that felt like oh my god look I've achieved this thing and then six months later this other thing happened right it was like oh I can't even it felt like getting the lottery twice you know you know in those moments with Heroes when you were like meeting the cast yeah meeting the people in the hair and makeup trailer right like not necessarily like the executives or you know maybe even like the writers like were you open about who you were like in your private life were you guarded were there certain people you were telling things to or sharing things with and certain people you weren't were you um complimentalizing and like kind of keeping that out of the conversation yeah I mean I wasn't leading with it it wasn't something that I was talking about openly it wasn't something that I was actively trying to hide okay you know when you and I were coming up it was a completely different time and the idea of being gay was entirely different than it is now I mean the changes that we've experienced in the last 15 years in our culture our society and our business are momentous so it was something that I still felt like I needed to control there was a sense of needing to you know decide what the narrative would be I mean those were those were the days or fear of lack of opportunity yeah I think for fear of for fear of fear just for fear of you know we were conditioned to be afraid of um being gay that's just the truth I mean you know that that's true of my upbringing you know I was raised very Catholic and you know the church the way that things were instilled in me as a kid um led me to believe that there was something wrong with that part of me right that was the days when like Perez Hilton was still like outing people you know if someone caught a whiff that you might be gay then all of a sudden this this kind of attention got paid to you that was there was an insidiousness to it and there was a perniciousness to it and so I was definitely aware of that I mean I was out to everybody in my life right by that time my friends and my family um when you were operating on a day-to-day like if you wanted to go out to a gay bar you would think you were not worrying about that no I wasn't there were people that would see you and like maybe talk and like that was not totally I didn't seem to make you nervous at all no it was more of a public narrative than anything else right it was my life as an actor in my career was something that I was very measured about and I was very for those first years of success you know it it took me five years after Heroes you know until I came out publicly coming to that self-realization yourself is incredibly important and it needs to be on your own timeline yeah it's I mean coming out as an incredibly personal journey and it is an evolution and it feels like especially when you're in the public eye and making the Declaration of identifying as a member of the lgbtq plus Community there are other considerations and I think you can't be an effective contributor to the broader cause unless you've arrived there in an authentic way and nobody can Define what that is except yourself I was aware of it and um and yeah and then eventually like when I started getting closer with castmates and people in in the world of the show I started to you know acknowledge that to them and I can remember being at Comic-Con for a panel for Heroes and this was a this was a defining moment it was one of those big panels that Comic-Con in my college with like thousands and thousands of people and this moderator was a well-known filmmaker and he was doing the interview and then he at the end he said something I don't think he said but he definitely said something like wow he made some reference not to me it was like it was he was interviewing and it was a gay reference and I was absolutely Furious I was so angry I couldn't believe that it had happened that he had said it and uh and it was so casual like Cavalier when we got off the stage and I was I was so mad that was for me a moment because I hadn't come out yet you know I hadn't been out publicly and I hadn't even been out to everybody and in my show and I just remember fuming and and talking to our showrunner and our producers we were all hanging out afterwards and just like the level of support that I got from everybody was so uh overwhelming and the sense of understanding and there was a lot that was unsaid and unspoken from my position you know I obviously they didn't need to know why I was so upset by it right or they they knew why I was so upset about I need to say it you know and that was a moment for me that sort of really softened the boundaries around my relationship with my castmates and my co-workers my colleagues there's unspoken understands yeah of course I mean they saw that it had affected me so personally and even though I hadn't explicitly come out to them or that it didn't take much to figure it out and it was things like that right that I think over time made me more comfortable and more confident in my authentic self and over you know the next few years I was able to find my way to making up more more of a public acknowledgment of my identity right which eventually happened when you were doing angels in America it didn't happen when I was doing angels in America actually interestingly I thought it would I thought it did no I did angels in America in 2010 um I didn't come up publicly until a year later 2011 actually so when I was doing angels in America obviously I thought well this is this is going to be the moment and just to possibly yeah like angels in America is like this iconic it's it is the the crown jewel of queer theater yeah written by the Tony Kushner the brilliant Tony Kushner won the Pulitzer Prize won Tony Awards and this you were involved in the first New York Revival of this yeah this piece and there was a lot of eyes on it a lot of excitement around it yeah it was originally done in medical production 94 and we did the first New York Revival of the Signature Theater in 2010. so I was being interviewed for a a profile in the New York Times and I had this interview with this journalist and he asked me this question right at the end he said you know there's a lot of speculation online about who you're dating and if you're you know if you're dating or who you're dating and I just wonder what that's like you know do you and I and I just remember like sitting there with him and being like Oh my God isn't going to happen it was happening I can't do that and I just I remember saying like oh I really copped out and I said something like well I'm much more interested in what people have to say about my work than about who I'm dating in Hollywood journalists okay sure honey um we got it okay um but I just wasn't in that moment I just wasn't ready yeah I wasn't ready to do it but going back to what I'm saying you have to be ready yeah of course I mean there's no don't feel bad about that no no I don't feel bad about it uh uh you know I did feel but you were flagging it as an opportunity and a missed opportunity in that moment and and I and I did feel like there was part of me that felt like oh my God you know here I'm doing this play about the AIDS epidemic and you know so much about honoring the um the people who died and you know like my forebearers and did I did I squander that opportunity there was there was that question that I had for myself and another thing that happened that same summer while I was doing angels with America was the summer that the it gets better campaign was kind of at its peak right so people were all these you know people from the lgbtq community and and allies were making these videos to say it gets better and all these young people were killing themselves that's right if you remember that but like they were a number of suicides of young people who were bullied and you know who who just felt like there was no other way no other and they were killing themselves and so that was really the Genesis of the it gets better campaign and I remember making and it gets better video that summer while I was doing angels in America but I hadn't come out publicly so so for me the video was you know I stand with as an ally you know I didn't acknowledge my own identity as a gay man but I said like I support all these these people and you know any young people like you know it does get better and whatever I joined I think I said something like I joined the chorus of voices who are rising up again whatever and uh and put that video out you know and so I was doing this play and I was living my life and you know going out and dating people and having experience no but um others and uh and and yeah the backpack no backpack had been sailed that ship and sale man but yes you know uh and having these experiences and not living an authentic life you know so and the play was incredible I mean had an amazing time doing that play and living in New York and so that was really that that for that time and then a year later I was doing uh by this time now I was dating was I dating Jonathan by now I think I was yeah because we were yeah we met oh here we go yes here it comes Sal's coming in from a distance my special salad do you want those I think I might be okay with them yeah no I have a good taste you can take them we're gonna be just a small tablet thank you it is a very intimate table right at the climax of the stories for a quick break but don't go away when we come back we'll hear more about Zach's decision to come out the way he did okay be right back [Music] and we're back with more dinners on me we were just talking about the period in his life when he decided to come out at the time he was dating Jonathan Groff who you might know from Spring Awakening on Broadway or mind Hunter on Netflix so I was dating Jonathan and I had done Star Trek so I had sort of reached a level of exposure and I felt like my identity the integration of my identity and my public life you know was starting to close in like the lines were starting to you know they're about to intersect I felt that way I had produced my first film and uh and starred in the movie It's called Margin Call and uh thank you and uh and a pretty wonderful Instagram oscar-nominated film and I uh is he cute I'm sorry that I didn't diverted anybody's attention to anybody other than this conversation um so I was doing I was doing press for Margin Call and right around that time I had found out I have told this story so many times I don't know if it's even worth telling again but I guess it really is because it was like a it was one of those moments where we were talking about being ready there was like a moment in my life where there it went from like contemplation of this decision to come out publicly to Absolute like I had no choice in the matter and it was that I I read a story about a young kid who killed himself his name was Jamie rodemeyer and I and I was reading the story about him and his life and in the story it had mentioned that a few months before he took his own life he made it it gets better video I mean I get really even talking about it now it's so I couldn't believe it you know it was like that fact was included in the story about him like directly for me right because I just felt like here I was living this life of of opportunity and privilege and I was keeping this part of myself separate and private and it was the first time I think that I realized the power of my voice in the broader conversation socially and I felt like I had no choice in the matter anymore at that time and I was doing press for Margin Call and so there was a lot of attention being paid to me at this time again and I was doing another profile for New York Magazine and I remember being I was a cafe Clooney another place we've eaten together yes and I was sitting with a journalist and I remember I made the decision the day before I went to do this profile that I was going to come out and I didn't tell anyone I didn't tell my publicist I didn't tell my friends I didn't ask anybody to guide me or advise me I didn't tell Jonathan I didn't tell anyone I just made the decision that I was gonna with much more vindictive you were more vindictive vindictive is the wrong word you're more um but there was much more Vindication this time around than there was before when you thought I might come out in this New York Times piece I still don't think Vindication is the right way to either okay what are you thinking uh conviction conviction I think is what you're looking for right there was no question in the matter for me to the point where you know again at that time I think even still today like coming out publicly a lot of people would consult their team and talk to their publicist to make sure everybody's on board with it and for me it was absolutely no question in my mind that that was going to be what I did and so I went to this interview at Cafe Clooney and I was sitting with this journalist and he brought up angels in America and was talking to me about you know what it was like to do that play and I just simply referred to myself as a gay man I said the words well you know as a gay man having that experience for me was dot dot and I could feel him he was like taking notes and I felt him like as I said that like he stopped the writing his pen like hovered and and I felt him sort of like did that just happen like did what I think happened just happen like and and then he just you know kept going and so a few minutes later I was like did he get it like was that enough like whatever so then I referred to myself again as a gay man in the same you know again and uh and that did the trick I think it was like about a week that you know lead time like we did the interview and the article was coming out like a week or so later and so I'd finished the interview and then I went home and then I told everybody right I told my team and I called my publicist I just want you to know what I've done everybody was incredibly supportive and that began the conversation in a public way and so when the article came out obviously the headline was that and I drafted a statement I think I had a website at the time it was like when people still had websites but I drafted a statement and I frequento.net put it on my my website yeah my blog or whatever and uh that was it you know it certainly got picked up all over the place but this is also the era of tr9 coming out on the cover of People magazine and you know Patrick Harris and I I find that sort of range of ways you can come out publicly kind of fascinating and how you sit in that range I think is very fascinating and all and also very true to who you are um it felt very authentic did you have like kind of an awareness of that as you were well obviously you had to plan to talk about this but yeah for me I did it on my own terms in my own time without the advice or counsel of anyone but myself and I think it informed the work that I've been able to do subsequently on behalf of some of these young people especially right who have struggled and have suffered as a result of not being accepted and in a lot of cases not accepting themselves you know one of the first things I did after I came out publicly was contact the Trevor Project in Los Angeles because that was an organization that I had supported for years quietly and Anonymous that they do is uh it's a yeah the Trevor Project is an anti-suicide hotline essentially and they do incredible work I mean it's really to me one of the most phenomenal organizations to benefit the lgbtq plus community and young people in particular in the community and I had supported them for years anonymously donating money and whatever but I could never obviously publicly support them and so I immediately reached out to them and went into their offices in Los Angeles and got a tour and met the people that ran the organization and met volunteers and by the end of that visit I had committed to go through the lifeline training to become a Lifeline operator on the phone so for the next year year and a half I would go and do shifts at the Trevor Project and man the phones and talk to young people who are contemplating taking their lives and that's been an incredible impact absolutely incredible so like the level of work that I was able to do to make an actionable difference in the lives of people was so phenomenal and it felt so gratifying and then just being able to be a visible Ally and to be somebody in the community who was able to say like look you know it's possible to be true to who you are and to still succeed and to still have opportunities and to not be defined by it no for sure and you have had really wonderful success after coming out and I'm so proud of you and how long have you been doing Star Trek when you came out we had done the first movie which was incredibly successful I came out in 2011 we made the first movie The First movie came out in 2009 the second movie came out in 2013 so it was sort of between the two films yeah do you think you would have been able to come to a meeting place with your sexuality during um for Star Trek something so um well that was the other thing that I loved about I didn't do it on anyone else's Turf right I Didn't Do It on Paramount's now I'm right I wasn't being trotted around by a huge Studio I was doing it in conjunction with press for a movie that only happened because I wanted it to happen right I didn't have to think about it right again it was like a matter of the right time in the right place and the right project and and you know I didn't have to worry about like oh is the studio gonna be pissed at me because I came out in conjunction with putting out this you know 150 million dollars was there a discussion with them no no I didn't have a discussion about with anybody or did they have any thoughts about it I mean the only person that I had an explicit conversation with about from the Star Trek world was JJ I was having lunch with JJ in anticipation of starting the second movie so this was just you know about maybe six months after I'd come out and I remember vividly we were having lunch at Sony and just sort of catching up and talking about the movie and at the end of the lunch he said uh he said oh yeah I just I heard you I heard you came out and I said oh yeah yeah that yeah I did you know and he was like that's incredible man I'm so proud of you amazing I'm so happy for you yeah I mean you know just nothing but support and love and you know just like again like the people that I've been fortunate enough to work with are people who recognized that I was stepping into a fuller version of myself and a more authentic and integrated version of who I am and I was met with nothing but encouragement and love it's so hard to eat this salad while we're here take a bite take a bite one little bite you just take a bite I won't even talk over you foreign [Music] first of all did you know I auditioned for Star Trek for the first Simon Peg's role no I had no idea it did not go well it was and I remember you never told me that yeah it was a really bad audition first of all I've been mistaken for Simon Peg several times to the point where one time I just I just gave in I was like sure what do you want me to sign right and I signed his name okay I won't tell him I was like do we do we think that maybe it's strange that I've just dropped my accent with you ma'am anyway but I I do remember you know when all that was happening for you and it was so exciting and I remember you saying though like you weren't a fan of the franchise right I wasn't either I was very unaware of it I mean I even star like just Supernatural yeah it's not my genre right it just wasn't my genre yeah me neither what was it like for you to not only take on a role and at that point share a role with someone who is still yeah alive but to enter a universe in which the fandom knows so much more about this character than you do yeah yeah I was much more of a Star Wars kid than I was a Star Trek kid I never really got it right so for me I knew what a great opportunity it was creatively and professionally both because it's an iconic role obviously it's so popular and so beloved for a reason and and for me it was really all about the opportunity to work with JJ I thought well obviously this feels like a dream progression in my career and and I had by happenstance the the show that I had become so known for and so kind of sought after for was a side kind of show so the progression was incredibly logical and so it happened really organically I had found out that they were making the movie somebody that I know in my life like mess sent me a message and said hey I hear they're making a new Star Trek movie you should play Spock and it had never occurred to me of course before that moment and I thought oh wow like that does make kind of real sense you know and because I was doing so much press for Heroes journalists were asking me questions about like what else do you want to do what else do you have in store what's your dream role and so I was giving an interview for some publication I just said oh I hear they're making a new Star Trek movie I'd love to play Spock and this started the conversation and it infused like that idea into the press and to the point where April Webster who was casting the movie had read an article in which I had talked about it and uh when they started casting the movie I was the first person they saw I was the only person they saw I remember that when they when I went to audition for it they told me like yeah your friend Zachary is playing this parties brilliant I mean the way they rolled out the compliments for you well that's very the only person we saw is perfect you're going to be wonderful you should definitely do this with him and I ended up giving the worst Edition but no that you were yeah it was it was just a fate of complete it was really weird I remember going in in April of 2007 and the night before my audition I met Leonard Nimoy we were doing an event for uh I think like a two accidentally yeah well I mean like we were we were being presented with an award at like the TV Land Awards or something like that you know as a cast for Heroes and uh it was like the future classic award and it was presented to us by Leonard Nimoy and I met him as we were walking off stage you know after the award and this one had been cast no the audition was the next day oh okay I met him the night before my audition oh wow I didn't tell him that I was auditioning I didn't you know we just had a quick can you imagine it was insane and then the next day I went in and read for April Webster she put me on tape and then the day after that I remember leaving the country because I was go going on a press junket for Heroes in Europe and so I left for that the next day and I was gone in Europe for like five or six weeks and then I came back to New York I planned my 30th birthday party in Los Angeles and I flew back to my were you there at that party that might have been yeah you might have been I flew back to Los Angeles on June 1st I had my birthday party on June 2nd on June 4th I went in and had my follow-up audition with JJ where I just met JJ I didn't even audition I just sat and talked with him for 35 minutes and before I even got home I got the call that I got the job and so it was two days after my 30th birthday so that that progression was like so insane do you remember what went through your head and your body when you learned you were gonna play Spock yeah I mean I just I mean it was like that seems like I mean that's a huge deal it was it was definitely you know again I I was already in this space where like my life had changed so dramatically in the previous year I had all really achieved everything I thought in my imagination you know like when I was in school and when I was auditioning and waiting tables and all the years that I spent kind of dreaming about what it would mean to succeed in this business the heroes was it right like I never even thought beyond that because to be a series regular on such a popular television series and you know to have all these people sort of know me for my work like that was what the dream was sure so then on top of that to get this opportunity to work with someone like JJ Abrams and to play a role like this in this iconic franchise and to be in this huge tentpole movie it was just insane it was really crazy let's I want to talk about that and I do want to talk about that but after a quick break when we come back I'll talk to Zach about his special bond with the original Spock Leonard Nimoy and how his mom's death changed the way he looked at his own life [Music] and we're back with more dinners on me I I want to talk about that having the responsibility of playing that role and being someone who like you said didn't know a ton about it there's very few people in this industry who get to share the history of a character with someone well that became it for me like that that was the gift that I never could have foreseen which was Leonard Nimoy for those of you don't know who originated the role of Spock was involved in the movie and was involved in it from the beginning and actually had contractual consultation on who would be cast as as Spock and so I knew going into it that he supported me he saw my audition you know we actually met in an elevator at Comic-Con when they were announcing so I got the job in June but we I wasn't allowed to say anything about it for two months you know like while they were casting the rest of the movie but they didn't cast the rest of the movie because we didn't start shooting until November so but I wasn't allowed to say anything about it until they made the announcement of Comic-Con that was where they official announced that I would be playing the role and so that's why I met Leonard they did this whole thing in Holly H you know 5000 people and and they brought Leonard out and then they introduced me and so it was like that's where it all happened and I met Leonard in a crowded elevator that must have been you know in this huge freight elevator in the in the bowels of the convention center in San Diego and I remember the elevator goes up and uh and the publicist or the people from the movie like all right let's do this everybody ready and Leonard just looked at me and he said you have no idea what you're in for oh wow and then he like walked out of the elevator and I was like oh okay and then we did this thing and you know and it made the announcement and he was great he was just such an amazing man he was so incredible his spirit and his um his presence were just so really really wonderful do you remember how old he was when you he would have been it was definitely like 74 maybe in 2007 third act uh third act for sure I mean he and he embraced his third act with so much he was just such an incredible man and curious mind and creative spirit all the way up to the end but no he was a renaissance man in the truest sense and and boy as I feel like you are as well well I mean don't put your banjo skills down you know that was the beginning of as they say a beautiful friendship and so for me it was like I didn't really care that I didn't know a lot about the franchise because I had him him as his boss and his Blessing in his in his and his guidance and his his accessibility like he just he just was like look I'm not going to tell you how to do this you know how to do this you know the fundamentals of the character I might not know the ins and outs of the Canon or the you know whatever but I know the essential duality of this character I know the emotional and psychological and intellectual complexity of the character and he was just a great just a great cheerleader and a great support and you know the thing that I would never have anticipated from my experiences was just how close we would be and how much he would feel and I lost my father when I was seven and obviously like the physical resemblance notwithstanding there was something very paternal about the relationship that I shared with Leonard and I think we both felt it and we spent many many many times like you know we the last decade of his life anytime we were in the same city we were together I would go to their house many times you know out to meals they would come to my house I mean we were just always any chance we got we really took great pleasure in getting to know Leonard and I and I never would have imagined what a friend he would become and when did he pass he died in 2015 February 27 2015 I think it was 83. I died yeah what an incredible life and what a life well lived is the other thing I'm so glad that the world brought you together and you had that time with him I mean I try and look at that friendship through like what the what his lens might have been like you know he's someone who had had such great success in this community and in this industry and then to be at that point in his life and develop this relationship with someone who's going to inherit the blueprint that he literally laid down like what a gift for him to like have those you know some of his last years I think it's really beautiful for him to be a part of it yeah he was in he was in the first two movies that we did yeah yeah it's really remarkable it was special um I know you also lost your mom not too long ago I did yeah and I'm so sorry for your loss you know that was a tough transition it was a long road with my mom she was sick for a long time she had dementia and um you know I say she didn't die of covet but she died because of covet she got covered she had been in an assisted living facility you know toward the end of her life and we found this incredible place that took incredible care of her but unfortunately you know just one of the byproducts of the pandemic was that a lot of those places where a large population of vulnerable vulnerable people were together you know if the virus got into the population then it spread and yeah a lot of times you know people in those situations can't always communicate how they're feeling and so it was a bad recipe you know and and it found its way into her assisted living community and uh and she got it and she actually survived it she was in the hospital for three weeks alone I mean just horrifying but she never really recovered and so shortly after um she got out of the hospital it just became clear that she wasn't gonna bounce back and as difficult as it was I will say it was the single most profound experience of my entire life and I got to be with her because she was not well we decided to enroll her in a hospice program and it was a program that would come to her so she didn't have to leave where she was familiar and where she was already living they would come to her and once we enrolled her in this hospice program that lifted the visitation restrictions that were associated with the pandemic so I was able to go and I paid one visit to her in the end of January I remember it was during the inauguration of Joe Biden and so we watched that together and you know she was pretty non-verbal by that time she was maybe about 15 percent you know verbal I would say she didn't have a lot of words but she knew who I was and I spent four days with her then and uh and then went back to LA my plan then was to kind of go and visit her again in March but in mid-February they called and they said you know there's something going on and we don't know what it is but we don't like it and so I just got on the next flight and went to be with her and then I ended up being with her for the last seven days of her life literally just her and me and it was pretty intense I'm sure it was pretty crazy and um an incredibly you know the greatest honor of my life was was it being able to hold space for my mom as she was leaving her body and it was really special and also to go through your entire almost your entire existence obviously at age seven you lost your father but like to be a part of a family where you only have one parent I can only imagine because I mean we're all getting at that age where like our parents are ailing and I I see this happening with many of my friends you know all of a sudden it's they're at that place like okay now one of my parents has gone now both of my parents are gone like that is it that there is an emotional transition that happens when you lose your parent I imagine I'm obviously still have mine with me but I'm I'm curious to what it feels like or if there is a if there's something that happens to you internally when you finally say goodbye to your your parents right and you know losing Leonard again like a few years before that yeah it's it's uh got to be quite impactful it is I mean um I am no stranger to death and I think you know losing a parent at such a young age being confronted with existential things like death at the age of seven right mortality and you know these Concepts and these ideas that you you're never supposed to deal with at that age right um as traumatic as it was it's also been an Incredible Gift in my life and my relationship to death and my relationship to the tenuousness of our existence is something that I feel has informed me as a person to a degree for which I'm incredibly grateful and I'm not afraid of it I'm not put off by it I'm I'm curious about it not death itself well yeah death itself but um you know the existential the spiritual implications of what is next and what else is out there and I think it's informed a lot of my sense of seeking um and and for that I'm I'm so grateful you know I'm I want to go deeper I want to look in the places where people don't always want to shine the light you know and find myself just contemplating like where am I in my life right I just turned 46 last week um happy birthday thank you Jesse I wasn't fishing um but you know I'm very much in the mid point and uh and I have no parents I have no children I have no partner at the moment great dogs I have wonderful dogs the best dogs on the planet but you know I think there's been a part of me that sort of wrestled with like well wait a minute you know like should I be somewhere else in my life if I filter it through the lens of conventional expectations I'm on an untraditional path right I mean I'm I'm in a different spot than a lot of my friends and I think there have been times where I have questions whether or not I should be here or why am I here or you know is there something defective about my experience that you know I don't have these Hallmarks of a traditional life that many people measure success by but lately and this incredible thing has happened in the time since I lost my mom which is my perspective has shifted entirely to recognize what a gift my life is and how incredibly lucky I am to have the autonomy that I have to be able to do the work on myself and to dig more deeply because I don't have to worry about getting my kids up and I've never been happier to be childless in my entire life I really have to say you know as much as I know children bring joy to the lives of others and I know you have two beautiful kids and so many of my friends do and I love you know living vicariously through them and spending time with their kids and then it's exhausting nothing makes me happier than I'm like bye guys and I just get to live this life I I've just recognized the abundance of my life so fully lately and I do think losing my mom was a huge part of that right because it was like no matter what my mom was always a tether you know my mom was always a tether emotionally my mom in the later years in her life was a tether financially you know I was responsible for her I was and I always knew I would be from a very young age I saw the writing on the wall because my mom never remarried never dated again after my dad and she channeled a lot of energy into me that would generally be reserved for a spouse and that was part of the complexity of our relationship the Reliance on me emotionally which came from uh you know a an unexamined narcissistic place and I don't falter for that I don't blame her for that but my mother was a narcissistic person I mean she definitely suffered from narcissistic personality disorder I could see it clearly even though she never could but um but I don't I don't begrudge her that I don't you know she did the best she could with the skills she had and the resources she had and I'm grateful to my mom and I love my mom uh really fully now um but but that something did happen in losing her which was this sense of Freedom this sense of Liberation this sense of I was a good son I did everything that ever could have been expected of me and more and now I get to live this life for myself so I feel the way I see it now is that it's this kind of I'm doing this work to create the law life into which I am inviting the person that I'll get to share it with and and when that person shows up the work will always be happening but a lot of the work will have been done right and I get to do that now I get to go wherever I want whenever I want I can travel I can yeah okay now you're just rubbing it out sorry honey sorry honey um but yeah you know I just I feel really like okay this is exciting you can do theater or whatever you want theater I can come home whenever I want to right no I mean you know look I know there's value in all experiences and and and I do look at you know you and Justin and and you know I love the life you've built for yourself and I know your kids are a huge part of that and I of course you know I'm not saying I'll never have them but I don't know man it's it I think the part of me that thought I needed to have them or that I really wanted them um has kind of taken a bit of a secondary position for the moment and uh yeah listen Al Pacino I just read is having his oh Jesus another kid and he's in his 80s is that true yes that's right so you know what you got time kid well it is never too late it is never too late I mean it would have to be it would have to be in deep partnership with somebody of course I don't see you as the type of person who is gonna just like decide to go on this journey by the way you never know you never know but I think I'd be a good dad I think I would be and so who knows but for right now I'm really enjoying and celebrating my freedom yeah and in a way that really makes me feel empowered yeah so and not just freedom from from children but right now just freedom in general yeah we'll see did you have enough to eat I did I ate the chicken I picked up the salad it's hard to eat and talk oh I know I get it I mean I love the format of this podcast but like how do we do it you're doing it right now I did do it here we go whenever you listen to your podcast thanks for having dinner with me oh my God we're saying well you know dinner's on me so that's the the name of the podcast we're having dinner can I leave the chat no no no I got it all you do yeah um thank you for having me [Music] I'm on dinners on me actress and podcaster Busy Phillips we'll get into how her move to New York changed her life and her marriage her relationship with Tina Fey and why since the overruling of Roe v Wade it's been so important to her to be an advocate for Reproductive Rights and if you don't want to wait until next week to listen you can download that episode right now by subscribing to dinners on me plus as a subscriber you not only get access to new episodes one week early you'll also be able to listen to them completely ad-free just click try free at the top of the dinners on me show page on Apple podcast to start your free trial today dinners on me is a production of neon hum media Sony Music Entertainment and a kid named Beckett Productions it's hosted by Yours Truly it's executive produced by me and Jonathan Hirsch our showrunner is Joanna Clay Chloe choble is our associate producer Sam bear engineered this episode hansdale she composed our theme music our head of production is Sammy Allison special thanks to Alexis Martinez and Justin Makita I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson join me next week [Music] thank you