what were you seeking refuge from? Like, what was difficult about teenage-dom for you?

I mean, I wrote a lot about it in my memoir, but...

The teen years are often not easy, but, you know, I got pregnant when I was 15 and had an abortion and, you know, felt – I always felt very othered at school.

I didn't feel like I really fit in.

And, you know, elementary school was sort of the first – my first time on stage.

And I – you know – I had ADD, ADHD, which is, you know, at the time, because I'm 47, it was sort of, like, not really understood in girls and often misdiagnosed.

And so school was, like, a difficult place for me.

Like, in all my earnest sincerity, it is a real gift to be able to have that with her.

Yes

...

the brands call, and you're like, "I mean, I guess I could get behind that." And, and this time the brands called, and I was like, "Are you kidding? It's in my kitchen right now." I...

It's the only brand of parchment paper I buy.

I use it for everything.

A couple of years ago, I switched over to using If You Care parchment paper in my cooking instead of, like, I used to use foil.

[laughs]

But I just, like, loved doing it, and my mom had, my mom had cake skills, and, um, had taken like a Wilton cake decorating class when she was a younger, you know, like a young mom or...

Yeah

... that you love, Beth.

They're incredible.

And we've been filming this show since, uh, March, and throughout the summer, you know, we, it's a law procedural, so there's a through line of, of a story about AGI and AI, but we're dealing with all of these tech lawsuits every week.

And we would get these cases and then, like, two weeks later, it would be, like, Elon Musk's lawsuit about nudification in, you know, Minnesota.

Oh, yep.

And, um, these early preventative scans are such a miracle, because I think a lot of people, I've talked to some people who are like, "I never could do it.

I'm too scared." I'm like, "No, you're scared of finding out that you have an inoperable brain tumor, stage four cancer."

A hundred percent.

Yeah.

In fact, James passed away the day before I got the preventative medicine scan, the prenuvo scan.

Some of those full body.

Yes.

That basically told you you had this tumor.

That found the tumor.

My girls and my

Like, when did you know? What was it? Give me a second by second replay of that moment in your life, because it's my favorite thing ever.

It was crazy.

And also what was a little bit nuts was this year with everything that happened at the Oscars, people were putting that photo up again as like a meme.

But then people were misunderstood and thought that I was there again.

And I was getting all these texts from people.

I'm like, no, guys, I'm watching it at home like everyone else.

Yeah.

a toy

To the Nikki, to my Molly, Busy, I love you.

I mean, the irony was not lost on either one of us that she was winning this award for the story of a woman dying of cancer who's, who was with her best friend, and here I was, like, with this possible cancer diagnosis of my own.

I was watching at home with Birdie.

I just cried.

I love her so much.

[laughs]

She's also making a style statement at New York Fashion Week.

I'm wearing a custom parchment paper dress made, um, from If You Care parchment paper because honestly, I use this in my own home to cook on, and we thought, "Wouldn't it be fun if we make a dress out of it?" The best part is that, like, when I'm done with it, you know, it's biodegradable.

[laughs]

So Bir- but Birdie, like, shows me these things.

Okay, so, like- ... fast videos of, like, "Guys, I haven't cleaned my car in two and a half years, so this is what I decided to do." Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

And then they show you, and it's, like, disgusting, disgusting, disgusting.

And this one video that Birdie showed me, it was, like, a three part cleaning car TikTok, and the woman had, like, two kids that were in car seats.

Like, it was disgusting.

It was so gross.

... is his avatar? [laughs]

posts.

Bertie and I just had this conversation about it.

She turns 18 this year, and she was talking about making her account public.

And I was like, well, that's a conversation that we can have in a little bit.

But also, yeah, you're going to be 18.

If that's what you want to do, you can do it.

She's very savvy, though, and aware of all of...

that's also the thing is that like there's you don't know your blind spots until they hit you in the face so there may be something 20 years from now where they're like why didn't you tell me and you're like i didn't realize this thing

What was that transformation? What did knowing what you were struggling with do to change the way that you looked at yourself and the world?

Well, I mean, first of all, I was able to get treatment and figure out the best methods for myself.

So, you know, I use a medication called Calvary that's a non-stimulant once a day medication.

But also there are different like coping mechanisms and also just being able to have the language behind it.

I think a lot of times, I mean, we know because of medical bias, right, that women are sort of less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD because it presents differently than what we've heard ADHD, the symptoms to be.

You know, hyperactivity, running around in circles, and that was never my experience.

I wasn't, while I have a lot of energy and have certainly lived up to my name, I was sort of like internalizing so much of my disorganization and not being able to keep things straight.

But I want to know how this diagnosis has changed the way you approach the craft of acting.

like we need to figure out how do we stay with the like there's a lot of love there's a lot of beauty you're making the funny we're trying to you know like get to people and remind them of their fucking beauty and that they get to make art so like I feel like we all get to help each other balance too

right I think that like one of the I don't know one of like my major driving creative beliefs Is is just that we must hold both always, you know, that like it's OK.

It literally is OK for me to care about skin care.

I do care about I care deeply about skin care for so long.

My whole life, my whole life I've cared about skin care and like that.

It is OK for me to both love.

you know, protest and show up for things and like stay informed.

It really would.

You went to school together? Yeah.

Yeah.

So Linda went to Loyola Marymount University as well.

But she was actually, she hadn't yet graduated, but she was like taking a year off to work professionally because she had started working so frequently.

But she was still roommates.

with a bunch of people from the theater department and was around all the time.

Everybody knew who she was.

You know, like there is something fantastical about Joanna and her voice, as you say, like it's almost sounds cartoony in a really beautiful, incredible, unique way.