Chapter 1: How did Lake Bell transition from acting to directing?
I had already written In a World, but I was, quote, shopping for directors at the time when my agent was like, look, you want to direct, so why don't you direct it? I remember being at Sundance and it was the first year that there were like six women in competition, six filmmakers that were women. and six that were men.
And the fact that you had written it and directed it and starred in it, and it just felt to me like you were opening this conversation for women about voice in a different way. Lake Bell, welcome to Reclaiming. Thank you. I'm so excited we got to make this happen. Yes. I'm going to have some tea.
Chapter 2: What challenges did Lake face at Sundance as a female filmmaker?
Me too. Ready? I know. Ready? Go. I'm so glad we're not chugging it because I was nervous in that moment if we were chugging and now I realize we were just sipping. We're sipping. We're sipping kind of gals today. Exactly. So I was thinking about, I think where we met,
Chapter 3: How does Lake Bell view the concept of voice in storytelling?
I think was it the Deconstructing Karen documentary premiere that you hosted? Yes. Right? Or co-hosted? Yeah. Okay, you're right. I think we were doing the social media thing, but oh, human to human. And I was so impressed by you. Really impressed by you, I think, because I really work at trying to unpack some of my
thoughts and actions and bias and race and so desperately want to be someone who's doing and behaving and thinking in the right way, like the thinking leading to the action, if that makes sense. And so I really appreciated how you were talking about I think your activism there, and I remember the feeling, the feeling of like, oh, that's how I want to be. That's where I want my thinking to be.
It's funny, I find more and more community that way, where I can find resonance in how... we're moving through the gross hypocrisies and pains of what social and cultural structures are. So I find that if I even relate to someone and meet them for the first time, sometimes it just comes out naturally.
But immediately I can tell like, okay, you are my people because you are conscientious, you're thoughtful, you want to do better. Because you recognize that it is so bad. Right. All of it. And I think that's a good way of putting it because we can always do better. Right? Yeah. We can always do better.
I should say that Deconstructing Karen was a documentary about race, right, by Regina Jackson and Syra Rowe. Syra Rowe. Right, and it was about their – is it a nonprofit? Race to Dinner? Race to Dinner, yeah. So basically they would host these dinner parties where they would invite white women. As two women of color.
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Chapter 4: What impact has parenting a child with epilepsy had on Lake?
And to have meaningful and very honest and sometimes, well, deeply uncomfortable conversations about race. And so I think this was just an interesting exercise in a kind of clunky and uncomfortable but really effective way to hold a mirror up to women who were kind of... feeling that they wanted to learn more about race and how to be participatory in society as a positive force and an ally.
And then, of course, getting jostled into the reality of like, you're racist. And that's not an accusation, it's just a fact. So I sort of appreciated what they were doing. I thought it was like all these kinds of conversations, all this discomfort, which I think white women traditionally are very uncomfortable.
It feels like an affront, the idea of discomfort, whilst I am a white woman who also am guilty of all kinds of shit. And I think having that kind of accountability and...
you know without self-righteousness of like i'm doing it the right way and other people aren't you know it's like all of that that's all white supremacy is all that shit is just folded into these systems and structures and so i think i was like very um open and flowing with what they had to say and what they were doing certainly with that documentary i thought it was really interesting
Yeah, yeah. I had a very hard time having to look at some of my reactions to things. Oh, great. I mean, I know that's the point, but I'm like, oh, I think I might have put them in a box away faster than I should have. Which is so great to even talk about, right? So, like, there was, I think there's one, the idea of, you know, the culture of love and light.
Like, all people are people are people are people are people. And, you know, that just negates the fact that there are structural systems that, you know, it's like love and light. Some people don't have the privilege of love and light, you know. Right, right.
But anyway, so it's been really interesting from that point onwards because there were like cohorts and things and all kinds of community forums and things like that that I joined with other like-minded white women who wanted to, quote, do better. And where I kind of came out on the other side of that is like, wow, this will forever be –
be infused in my writing and in how I move through the world. And thank God, because, and especially how I parent, you know, because you run into so much stuff as a parent, which it only echoes the fact that Structurally, there's so much more to do, you know, that we're so far from. We're just in the same place we've been, you know? Yeah.
I mean, we find ourselves in a really sticky and tumultuous time. Let's say fucked up. Let's say fucked up. I think, you know, what's interesting is, like, I have two young kids, you know, 11 and 8, and it always...
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Chapter 5: How does conscious uncoupling work for co-parenting?
Reconnecting it. Uzo came on. Uzo Aduba came on. So we were talking about having all reconnected at Laura Brown's and Christina O'Neill's. Oh, my God. That was fun. All the cool girls got fired. Yeah, it was. It was good. It was a good night. Yeah, I got fired. I got fired. What'd you get fired from? I got fired from I was on a show called Boston Legal. And David E. Kelly, I was on that show.
And I was series regular. And David Kelly, he fired me. And it was like – I smile because I was kind of like, all right, I'm in the mix. Yeah. I got a story, you know. And it was – oh, my God, I was so heartbroken. But I also was like – the way that David E. Kelly, the way he writes, he's like a masterful writer. And he –
You know, he had written it in a way that kind of cued me that it was coming. Oh. Yeah. And so I was like, yeah, this adds up. I remember having like episodes where I'd have one line. Okay. In the whole episode. And I was like, well, I guess I'll get my coat, you know, because it would just it could I could feel it coming. But I remember it was like.
indelible that feeling of being fired yeah you know I think it's deep and primal like yeah get out of the group it's rejection yeah like we don't like you anymore we don't want you anymore you know and so I love what Laura did with that book and I think it's I think it um you know everybody's got a story like that yeah Yeah.
But I realized that you kind of played, you were a part of, we'll just say that you wouldn't realize, you wouldn't have known that in 2013, your movie, In a World. In a World. Do the voice. In a World. Right.
Was I saw it at a time when I was like in this place where I had been, I had already decided like, okay, I'm going to try and go out and be a public person because there are no other options for me. All the things I was trying to do failed. And it was sort of that I was in that chrysalis moment and unbeknownst to me, the steps I would take in like the next six months.
would help, you know, change the course of my life. And so, because it was, you know, literally and metaphorically about voice and the fact that you had written it and directed it and starred in it. And it just, it just felt to me, it felt to me like you were opening this conversation for women about voice in a different way.
And so I don't, I'm not cool enough to know if it's a cult classic or not, but it should be. I think it is okay you know I'm gonna like everybody listening should rewatch it but I do think that um you know the movie definitely changed the course of my life it was a feminist manifesto it was like a total um you know I was like oh if I can Trojan horse yeah you know real kind of
feminist thought about the voice and how we sort of think of omniscient voice and how we think of voice of authority in this comedy, then perhaps I can move the needle in some small way. And yeah, it's interesting. That movie was my first sort of belief in myself, too. So it was I had written and directed a short film that I brought to Sundance because I always wanted to direct.
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Chapter 6: What insights does Lake share about neurodiversity?
There's other people too. There's like an interesting, I don't know what, I feel like there's an interesting movie or something that has that, I don't know what that is, but that idea of that. Oh, and then growing beyond. Right. I don't know. We'll sidebar about that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I'm obsessed that you have a women's racing movie that you want to do. Yes. So funny.
It just came from a pitch. Oh, okay. Okay, because I feel like with F1's success... You and me both, sister. Doesn't it even end with the Brad Pitt character going to the Baja 1000? Yeah. I can't believe you know about that. Yeah, so my father's in motorsport. So I grew up in the racing world. He... was a real estate developer that was an avid collector and amateur racer and lover of the sport.
And so he turned his real estate prowess to race car tracks. And he bought and restored and lovingly rebuilt the Virginia International Raceway, which is a historic track, really beautiful. And this is all elevations and S's. So it's not the American road course where you've got like the oval, which is no shade. It's just, my dad was, is very obsessed with the, the European shape of road course.
Okay. I didn't even know there was a difference. Yes. Okay. So, but you can envision it, right? Like instead of those like ovals that you see in the NASCAR, then you think about like more of the racetracks that have all those like cool S's and circle, you know, and then they straightaways and things like that. Right. Right. And elevation. So it's like, you got to go up a hill and down a hill.
You know, it's like very exciting. I'm like having that image from Grease when they go on. Even though that's just the straight. Yeah, but that's okay. You know, whatever you need to get you there. I know. But I think it's funny. I ended up writing a car column for the Hollywood Reporter for a couple years. Oh, really? Oh, my God. Do you remember what it was called? Test Drive with Blake Bell.
So check it out. And were you were you already an actor at that point? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's so funny that the story goes, but my publicist came to me and said, you know, I just just knowing you that, you know, Hollywood Reporter has been looking for an actress to to do this column. And I think they went to Nicole Kidman and she said no. Yeah. And I was like, can I do it?
And I'm like, I'm no Nicole Kidman, but boy, do I, you know, I know my car. So anyway, I ended up doing it and being a writer and being somebody who, you know, I'm not like, hey, I can fix your car for you. But I definitely enjoy the experiential nature of what it is to be in different kinds of automobiles and like, you know, kind of what it makes you feel.
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Chapter 7: How does Lake Bell describe her experience on 'The Chair Company'?
I don't race. I am... An aspiring collector. Oh, okay. When the bank account comes, I will. I did have a 1979 Z28 Camaro, which was really special. Her name was Janet. I had to sell her. I'm sorry. It's okay. R.I.P. Janet. But I'll, you know, that's okay. I've experienced, I had Janet in my life. And now I get to, when I get the next job, I will have another thing. But I like it.
I like it for my children too. Because I think that I also had a 1988 Land Cruiser, which is a beautiful shape. That shape is great. It's the boxy. That's what I wanted. I had a 79 CJ7 in high school that... was green with a white top, and I had a green peace sticker on it, and someone wrote, of shit, underneath my... Okay, and that's okay. That's LA. That's growing up in LA. I guess so.
But I loved those old lane cruisers. Yeah, and that feeling, I feel like cars, and women, I think... You see, I feel that women are a great audience for a story in and around the car space, because... I mean, me and my sisters, we grew up in the trenches of these racetracks and the pits, literally. And my brother was the one who my dad sort of invited predominantly to the racing party.
I think that's probably what I don't... I also don't... You know, it's like I'm not as interested in speed as I am in... in the kind of narrative and story and experience of cars and how they smell and feel and sound. You know, I like all the poetry around it, but I'm not as, I'm kind of like, you know, I'll get there when I get there. You know, I, yeah, I never was into this.
I wasn't a speed demon on that. But anyway, that the Baja 1000 was very, you know, I just felt like, wow, the messiness and the throttle and the volatile nature of that particular off-road race is exciting to me and very sexy and very strange and exotic. And so... I have this script that I'm very excited to make. I love the idea of this kind of a story being told through a woman's face.
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Chapter 8: What does Lake Bell mean by reclaiming her artistic identity?
I know, and that's the thing. There's like no... And also, that should be even sexier to men, right? I think... Like... We'll see. Okay. I'm feeling good. I hope the next time I see you, I'm like, I got a green light. Yeah, exactly. Coming soon. Yeah. Now, you grew up in New York, though, right? And were you exposed to Broadway as a kid and that's sort of where the bug bit you?
My mom would take me to Broadway a lot. And so, yeah, it's so funny. I think I liked the feeling, the arrival, the kind of nerves and the excitement of live theater, but... I was really pulled to filmic productions for some reason. And have you done theater? I've done a ton of theater. So I went to a drama school in England. That's like, I studied in theater first before I came out to Hollywood.
But I, because that was my mom's mandate. She said, if you want to be an actor, you have to go and study in England. Oh, okay. Oh, study in England. Oh, yeah. She was like, you got to go to drama school, conservatory. And I was like, mom, these are my hot years. I got to go to Hollywood. She's like, what? All right. That's how I talked when I was a little girl. But yeah, it was so silly.
Because I think when you're young, you're just like, oh, like, and especially at that time, it was like the currency was the only thing I have to offer is that you're visually attractive. You know, it's like that. That's sort of how we're, that's the culture. I know. And now I'm like,
whatever it was just so childish um and like green you know to think that these are your hot years I literally had that thought and I'm being very like honest about it where I thought oh you know my whole I'm gonna be burned up by the time I'm 22 you know like so anyway the point is I did it I sweated it out I went to drama school and it was fucking great and I'll never forget it.
It was like so profound. I went to graduate school in London. Oh, okay. But not for four years. And I loved it. I just loved it. And I think it's such a good experience, privileged experience, but such a good experience to move to a new country. You know, you really sort of have to, you learn different aspects of yourself. Totally. And you see your country in a really different way, too.
Totally, yeah. I remember that everyone at my college was like, They're like, oh, my God, you're from New York. They're like, is your dad part of the mob? And I was like, is he part of the what? They're like, the mob. And I was like, is that what you – so you're thinking that New York – like, everyone's walking around eating bagels and they're part of the mob.
But – and I was like, well, I don't know. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. Don't mess with me. I was the only American at my college, so I really had to wear it well, you know? Oh. Was that, like, good, bad? It was kind of good because I think – You know, you got to, you know, it's like when you're younger, you're just like, what's my identity? Oh, my God. A number of identities I tried on.
I mean, people would say to me, they said, God, did you, was it like you lost your accent when you, you know, your American accent? I said, listen to me. I was the only American. If anything, I got more American. Like, I was like, hey, guys, what's up? Like, I was just like, you know, especially like drumming up the New York a little bit.
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