You're like a warm like cookie. Like a home cozy warm place.
Thank you. I was worried I look like a horny little school boy.
Well, it's never a bad thing, by the way.
Right. I know. I love a little cheek kiss once.
Thank you so much. These clothes will get ripped off of me as you know and I'll never see them again.
Same with my dress, babe.
Exactly. It's so funny. People are like, 'Oh, I bet you have such an amazing closet.' I'm like, 'No, sweatpants.'
Yeah. Holy sweatpants with lots of uh... Wait, did you know that I purposely wore this dress to match your dog?
No, but it sounded really good. And I'm realizing we match. We have the same outfit on.
Well, and it's good because the lint roller will be needed, but sometimes like I wore an all black outfit the other day.
I mean, duh. I was just covered in Douglas hair.
You know, he didn't mean it.
He doesn't mean it. He's just shedding and he's, you know, he's a senior dog now. He even has a new spot that like if I touch it, he's like, 'Oh, he gets mad about it.' He's never done that in 16 years.
He's really kissing all my body makeup off. I love it.
If it gets too much, tell me.
Just tell me when it goes from funny to like not funny.
Um, okay. So, I have so much to discuss with you. I've been watching with a lot of admiration and I just see you doing something that I think I would fantasize about the opportunity if I was a musician or musically capable in any sense of the word. I'm not. But you're doing I see you in big venues like with your daughters watching and having that dreamy fantasy moment.
Yeah. Where all the messiness in between like falls away because they're just watching their mom maybe like be such an incredible impressive force.
Did they happen to tell you anything about that moment or is what you see all you need?
Um, all they do after the show is show me how much confetti they collected off the ground and try to jam it in all of their pockets and the purse they brought and it's so so priorities.
Yeah. My seven-year-old Banks is able to be like, 'That was such a good show, Mommy.' Or, 'They were really loud for you, mommy.' Like, I know.
And Maymay's like has two modes and it's either like up here or down here.
Oh god, I think I might be like her.
Yeah, it's cool. She actually really knows her limits and she'll be like, 'I need to go to bed. I when I get too tired, I feel really sad.' And I'm like, 'Whoa, girl. How do you know?' Like my other Banks will just be like party animal to the max.
And that's all of my 13-year-old really knows her limits, too. She puts out gives energetic present, and then she'll just go, 'I'm done. I'm out. I got to.' And she really does. She does like a self-care routine and then puts herself to bed. And I'm like, I don't do self-care. I don't get to bed on time. I just should live Olive's life.
Well, I'm 38 and I'm trying to figure out how to I'm getting...
38 and you've done all of this. Oh my god. Do you ever just take a moment and trip out on that? Seriously, that's...
I trip out because people have known me for such a long time and it's funny to people like, 'Wow, you still look good.' And I'm like, 'Wait, I'm not even 40 yet.'
You just known me forever.
We have grown up with you. We've aged ourselves alongside of you. It hearkens back to our own memories of where we were at at certain markers of your stages, a Lizzie McGuire stage. And when we're talking to people, it's like as much about them, if not more than it is about us. Like people are watching their own time pass, their own timeline.
Yes. Yeah. Totally. I really I know that you and I must share a very similar feeling about that just being, you know, a public person in people's lives for so young.
Yeah. For our whole entire life.
I mean, I don't know life without it really.
So, I'm And I think that can very much screw a person up. And I think it can also very much humble a person into just being grateful that you do have these shared experience with people, it's very surreal. It's very cool.
Yeah. Um, I think that I'm really lucky that I feel like most of my interactions with people are like so positive and if anything that is said strikes me in a way that like hurts or doesn't like land well always like it's never coming from a bad place from them and it's only coming from like my own insecurities of like is it the 'you look so much better in person' that's happened quite a bit or like for a while I think it took me like a good 10 years to make peace with like Lizzie McGuire, you know? It's weird to like play a character that people fall so in love with that doesn't grow up. She stays that age and then I grew up.
You know what I mean? And so now I'm like obsessed with her and I like get to join the fandom and be excited like everybody else even though I like was her. But for a while it was a hard thing to be like changing and evolving and but everywhere I went like I was this to people.
I have never heard someone put it that way and I had the same thing with like sweet Gertie and ET because I too until I was like 16 years old was thought of as a little child which also anything I did that was wild was exacerbated by 'but you're such a sweet little girl' and I'm like not anymore. I know that's hard, but I'm not there anymore. Yeah. And I kind of had to navigate out of that. But did you make any conscious decision at any point to like prove to yourself or anyone else that you are no longer Lizzie McGuire at a moment where you wanted some departure?
I think that was why I became I wanted to be a pop star. You know, the second I finished filming Lizzie, I was like, cool. I don't want to be called that anymore. And I'm going to be I'm going to make music and I'm going to get a record deal and I'm going to be a pop star.
I mean, you literally did. And I find that this is the first time in my life that I'm actually trying to go back to my teenage self and find merit in her because then I feel like we want to I wanted to grow up so much and become such an adult.
Isn't that weird though? You were already in such a grown-up world like working. I mean I feel like I grew up really fast.
Yes. You're around grown-ups. You live like a grown-up. Pay the rent like a grown-up. You're surrounded in nothing but grown-ups at work.
And yet, you still look not the part, right? You still look like, oh, it's taboo. You're so young, but you don't feel that way. And you haven't worked that way. You feel more mature than your years.
I think um just because you were just holding my new record. I think...
It's so hot, by the way. It's so hot. It's really nailing an Ann Margaret level of sexiness, too, where she never gave too much, but boy, could you not stop staring at every little inch.
I think that um it's been really incredible to play these shows and feel kind of what you're explaining on a different level because, you know, not everybody grows up in an industry like we did and that. I waited 10 years to make a record. And I feel like I had so much to talk about and say, 10 chapters lived, and finally just felt like I felt comfortable enough and safe enough to share and meet people again and know that they're having like similar experiences. And it's been 18 years since I've been in the room with those people. And it's like I get to have these pillars of my old music which feels which is so nostalgic and makes people like find that kid in them again. But then also like share my new music which is like introducing all of us as adults and like similar topics that were you know like living through and...
I think one of the things you're doing also which is the for me like an ultimate family fantasy as a musician like you were playing Brooklyn last night you're just in Brooklyn playing a show you know. I love how you're balancing bigger shows with also like this kind of really cooler there's a grittiness to it and yet you're having your kids you're being a mom and a wife and there's a little bit of stomach flu going on you know it's behind the scenes.
I got a pink eye situation back behind that wall so I hear you and I raise you a pink eye and it's so funny cuz it's like okay fine there's also a little bit of a life scare going on but I'm kidding I'm kidding. By the way, like scoot over. I'm kidding.
If you don't think that I was staring at my lice comb last night in the medicine drawer going, I wonder when I'm going to need you...
When you're going to get that email from the school.
Yes, of course. That's what we're living in. This is crazy.
But I guess it's the duality of like bigger shows with your kids watching and cool like I'm really rad and I'm playing Brooklyn and I'm all the things. Then it comes to real life and you have to be all the things like taking care of the lice checks and the stomach flu and then going out there and touching your old crew that has been with you since Lizzie McGuire days and your new self and then bridging it for everyone. How and when do you take a minute for yourself and what is your self-talk?
Yeah. Yeah. The self-talk I'm still working on but I think you know stepping on stage again and I've obviously put the work in right like I have gotten to a place where I'm like oh I know how to like move my body and feel I feel myself in here again but like have a confidence that's different than my younger self. But I think I like look in the mirror and I'm like hey it's you. You're the one that can do this. You're the one that they're coming to see. You're a bad...
Go do your thing. You know what to do. Like heart facing forward and like go accept this. This is for you.
And bringing that family along.
You know, that's actually that's such a hard thing and I'm really...
People have always like can women have it all and you're like no, you cannot. You can't. What's even worse is I felt like if you said no that then people came at you of like how dare you sell anyone short by saying you can't have it all. And I'm like no I guess that wasn't what I was trying to say. What I'm trying to say...
But let's not be fake about it.
Yes, I can't do it all. Maybe you can have I don't know. There should be no limitations on to what anyone can do. But I will happily admit that...
Like it's not pretty sometimes.
No. Like, by the way, my I couldn't have any kids sleep in my room last night cuz I was like, I have to wake up. I had a show the night before. I, you know, like I after my show worked a room for an hour and a half, two hours while my baby like passed out on my nanny and I was like, you know what I mean? But like all those people I...
But it's not always like that. You know what I mean?
It is mom guilt cuz it is the We could bottle that We could weaponize that. I will. We could take everybody down with mom guilt.
Like I mean that would destroy an entire nation. It's like mom guilt is so palpable and it messes with my rationality. Sometimes I actually have to ask myself like what is reality? When did I balance?
You need someone else to tell you.
But okay, who don't you think? I don't know. Or like a even like a friend or just to be like, 'Hey, hey, hey, I know it feels like this, but like let's zoom out and see all that you do do cuz like obviously the things that we can't do are the things that like stand out the most, right?'
Cuz like our brains are like magnetized to the negative. It's like you all the nice comments, but the one comment that's mean is like sticking out to you. It's so...
It's just human nature, you know.
When are we going to when do we outgrow this? Um talking about how grown up we are now.
Maybe that I think that I've known you long enough about mental body like health and wellness is something like you and I have talked about and I feel like I don't know the answer. I feel like I'm starting to get closer than I ever have. I'm having my first bite of the apple at being able to reality check myself when mom guilt is coming in. That's becoming more of an antidote, more of like a I can rescue myself out of this. Not all the time. Yeah. I fall off the wagon all the time, but the older I'm getting, the better. Like, period. Like, age is so wonderful.
And curse anyone who puts some taboo physicality, you know, in association because you just get better and better and better. Like the voices and they're still there. They're still fighting for attention, but I feel a little bit more capable now whereas I just my 40s I was but everybody has a different trajectory. Everyone can hearken to a decade where they had to do the most work and I feel like that's usually our favorite decade too cuz it produces something incredible.
I'm so excited to get to Yeah, I really am. I feel like even at 38, like I just starting to feel like what you're saying, like the positive voices are like the becoming the stronger ones and the kinder ones and I'm not so like hung up on little details and stressed about, you know, not making the 10th thing I was supposed to do that day. And um yeah, and it feels good just like not caring as much. But I want to care less.
I want to care less so badly. It's getting better. So badly.
Like I'm in the 50 efforts and it's palpable. It happened like the second I turned 50. I was introduced to the notion a few years earlier and I was like I want that and it did.
I think cuz I knew it could happen. I waited for it and it did like something really did shift. Who do you talk to about it? Because I'm thinking I have my friends. I even talk to my daughters about it a lot just so that I stay connected with them. Who do you talk to?
I talked to my kids as well, although mine are a little bit younger than yours.
But you have Luca who's 13 and I was asking Olive about Luca and like I was like, 'Do you have anything to say? You're 13. You're at the same place.'
And we just talked. I mean, look, I remember when you had Luca so clearly. We were both pregnant around the exact same time.
Were you pregnant the last time you were here?
Oh my god. I didn't want to assume. I think with my fourth child, it was not so easy to hide that early on.
We did not have a clue until literally we did the math today. We were like, 'Was she?'
And it turns out Yes, you were. But I remember when the last time.
