How did they make you fly? Why was it painful?

It was painful because it was, it was still the '60s, and they hadn't really upgraded how you can do this.

There was no special effects.

So it was wires.

You know, I had wire- I had this harness with wires coming out of the ha- out of the habit, and they would, like, f- I was on a 50-foot crane some of the times, and they would fly me into the side of a building.

[laughs]

And [laughs] you know, I'm like, like, like Spider-Man.

I'm, like, trying to, like, go, "Oh, boy, here comes the building." And it, it was not something I should be doing, you know? [laughs]

Wow

...

but you gain from having the opportunity to play really interesting and, and complicated characters, to be in them, to be standing in those shoes.

You learn from them.

We'll be right back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

[audience cheering] [upbeat music]

[claps]

And then I have, like, y- like, I have, like, young people, like, they're, like, in their 20s and seven...

They're in their, you know, teen- late teens, and they say, "Oh, I love The Flying Nun." I think, "When?"

How did they make you fly? And why was it painful?

It was painful because it was, it was still the '60s, and they hadn't really upgraded how you can do this.

There was no special effects.

So it was wires.

You know, I had wire- I had this harness with wires coming out of the har- out of the habit.

But my point is, tell me how much you knew before you read the script and your reaction upon discovering this beautiful twist.

Well, there's a long story to this.

This project was brought to me in galleys before the book had been published.

And it was brought to me by a new company, Night Owl, Peter Craig and Brian Unglis.

I believe Brian had found it somehow.

He's amazing at that.

And luckily, they brought it to me because Peter Craig, the other... or whatever you call it, creator of Night Owl is my son.

Lincoln, is it true that you begged Steven Spielberg to let you screen test with Daniel Day-Lewis? Like he didn't really see you as Mary Todd Lincoln? No.

So he was a, he was an actor, a stuntman and then an actor, right? A cowboy actor, right? Uh, uh, he'd been in, he played Tarzan a couple times, right?

Yes, yes.

Burt was exactly Jocko.

He frightened me.

Uh, he put me down, and all I did was want, I wanted to please him.

I wanted to be right for him.

I wanted to be good enough.

You're her

[laughs]

[laughs]A really deep and important connection with the giant Pacific octopus, Marcellus, and he comes out and seems to listen to her, and that is the only place that she lets herself out.

And into that mix comes a young man who also is troubled.

You don't see it at first, but in his own way, as Marcellus says, that both of these people have a hole in their heart, and they can't see that perhaps they could help each other.

Um, and, um, for story reasons, he begins to work at the aquarium because she hurts her foot, and, but she can't leave because she's very protective of the whole environment.

And slowly, slowly, I think it...

Cameron, the Cameron, Lewis Pullman is the c- is the actor, who's absolutely divine.

Mm.

Okay.

[laughs] I mean, you know, try being The Flying Nun and then have them take you seriously at all, and then say, "Okay, here she is in a show, folks.

Yay." You know, there's- Right.

No, and you know a thing or two.

I did, I did- But no one- ...

I just viscerally did, and I, and I just did because they were all numbnuts.

Yeah.

How did you relate to the character, especially with the octopus?"

Mm.

And I, you always feel, I always feel that I leave a little chip of my soul behind.

But every character that I've ever played that was, um, complicated and, and, um, really had a, um, a life that I had to understand and get in those shoes, every one of those characters that I've had lucky, I've had the, uh, opportunity, been lucky enough to play, I, I come away changed.

I, I'm...

It's like h- what Dash did to me.

I, I'm different from those characters because I lived in those shoes.

And-Said those words and lived in that space.

Yes

Well, that's, yeah, do, do you? Do, does this Marcellus stay with you as, after you, after you've left the, after you've left the film?

Um, a version of him does.

Um, we had to talk about him, uh, y- yesterday.

Um, and I have to say, last night I, I thought about him a lot.

So he was in my...

He, I'm not so sure it was a dream.

He was, I don't know if it was...

... was that something that Olivia was encouraging from the off, that you wouldn't, you would improvise, you would play with scenes?

You stand your ground.

And then, and then once we were at the tail end of the picture and Robin was always trying something different to make me laugh.

It was so unfunny, I can't begin to tell you.

And then-Pierce, wonderful Pierce Brosnan, we were sitting at the k- the table at the restaurant, and he made a fart noise on his arm, and I was gone.

Great, great.

Anyway, so I, I wanted to go, and I was, uh, I was still not in, at home.

I was at DC, where I'd had to do some events and things, and I just went online and, and, and found this lady who, who breeds these little puppies.

So, um, two months later, 'cause he was a little newborn baby then, two months later I drove out to Bakersfield and got this little, um, s- he was eight weeks old.

Hmm.

Um, it-- then I examined Tova later, but it had to do with this relationship between an older woman who is very isolated and alone, um, and loneliness, loss, and her really profound connection that grows, um, with a creature.

In this case, an, a giant Pacific octopus.

And that in the book, um, one of the magical things about the book, um, among other things, is that it's Marcellus, the octopus, is the narrator.

Do you feel that about this character?

Well, I do know this.

It's, it has always been hard for me to find roles that I wanted to do, always, even in supposedly the prime of my, uh, motion picture career.

Uh, it's hard to find really complicated stories about complicated women that aren't a sort of romance or something or other.

Is that you? Have you already agreed to play Tova, who's a cleaning lady who works in this aquarium in the middle of the night, has a very odd relationship with an actual octopus who plays a key role in your character and Lewis Pullman's character, Cameron? What is with the Post-it notes?

Well, I'm...

I was given this book in galleys from a new company, Night Owl, long before it was even published, really, and read about two chapters and said, yes, yes, yes, I want to be a part of this.

It was this unique story, obviously an old woman, a young man, and an octopus.

That's the three-character story.

And so I wanted to do it.

It is about home and love and healing.

Like, this is about literally a creature... that you have this relationship with.

[clapping]

When I got home last night, there was a message on the machine.

On the machine, Rose.

Oh, sh- On the machine.

He's a dog.

Oh.

[fake crying] He went home to Pittsburgh.

We'll be right back.