| |  | | | | September 19, 2017 | Letter No. 104 | | | | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | |  | | | | | | | | | Dear Lennys,
We are now firmly in fall, with all the excitement and anticipation and nervousness that season entails. Isn't it weird — I've been out of school for longer than I care to remember, but fall still always feels like a chance for renewal, for a new start, an opportunity to maybe change course one final time before the year ends. This week, so many stories are about rethinking a person or place or getting a chance for a restart.
—Dr. Brené Brown has us revisit the persistent problem of bullshit and provides us with a road map for dealing with it once and for all.
—Rebecca Van Bergen reminds us of what is possible when you bring your skills — like an understanding of talking to women about trauma and the need for entrepreneurial outlets in communities — to unexpected spaces.
—Tova Mirvis recounts what happens when you rethink the traditions of your community and attempt to move toward something true.
—Bridget Everett and Danielle McDonald, from the movie Patti Cake$, tell us about the bravery involved when you revel in reaching outside your comfort zone.
—Jess Rotter asks us to rethink the reputation of First Lady Dolley Madison and salute her as the diplomatic, historic partier she was.
Happy fall, Lennys. Be like our contributors this week and look for something real.
Kaitlyn Greenidge, Lenny contributing writer | | | | | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | |  | | | | | | | | How to Speak Truth to Bullshit | | | | By By Brené Brown, Ph.D., LMSW | | |
Bullshit
In 2005, Harry Frankfurt, professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University, published On Bullshit. It's a very small book about the nature of BS, how it's different from lying, and why we're all compelled to bullshit on occasion. I was captivated by three insights that Frankfurt shares in his work and how these insights mirror what I found in my recent study on belonging. My research makes it clear that true belonging doesn't require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are. Because the yearning for belonging is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging but often barriers to it. Our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of authenticity. Bullshit presents a unique problem because most of us struggle to maintain our authenticity and integrity when engaging in debates and discussions driven by emotion rather than shared understanding of facts.
The first of Frankfurt's insights is the difference between lying and bullshitting: Lying is a defiance of the truth, and bullshitting is a wholesale dismissal of the truth. "By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are," Frankfurt writes. This changes the nature of debate — and calls into question the opportunity for productive discourse. As Alberto Brandolini's Bullshit Asymmetry Principle states, "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."
Second, it's advantageous to recognize how we often rely on bullshitting when we feel compelled to talk about things we don't understand. Frankfurt explains how the widespread conviction that many of us share about needing to comment or weigh in on every single issue around the globe leads to increased levels of BS. It is crazy to me that so many of us feel we need to have fact-based opinions on everything from what's happening in Sudan and Vietnam to the effects of climate change in the Netherlands and immigration policy in California.
We don't even bother being curious anymore because somewhere, someone on "our side" has a position. In a "fitting in" culture — at home, at work, or in our larger community — curiosity is seen as weakness and asking questions equates to antagonism rather than being valued as learning. On the other hand, curiosity is foundational and seen as brave in true belonging cultures.
Last, Frankfurt argues that the contemporary spread of bullshit also has a deeper source: our being skeptical and denying that we can ever know the truth of how things really are. He argues that when we give up on believing that there are actual truths that can be known and shared with observable knowledge, we give up on the notion of objective inquiry. It's like we just collectively shrug our shoulders and say, "Whatever. It's too hard to get to the truth, so if I say it's true, that's good enough."
Frankfurt's astute observation of where that leads us feels prophetic in 2017. He argues that once we decide that it makes no sense to try to be true to the facts, we simply resort to being true to ourselves. This, to me, is the birthplace of one of the great bullshit problems of our time: the "You're either with us or against us" argument.
If you're not with me, then you're my enemy
One of the biggest drivers of bullshit today is the proliferation of the belief that "You're either with us or you're against us." It's an emotional line that we hear everyone, from politicians to movie heroes and villains, invoke on a regular basis. Well-intentioned or not, 95 percent of the time, it's an emotional and passionate rendering of bullshit.
Benito Mussolini relied heavily on the line "O con noi o contro di noi" ("You're either with us or against us"). In the weeks following 9/11, both George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton told the world's citizens that they were either with us in the fight against terrorism or against us. Bush took it even further by saying, "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." It's dramatic and effective, which is why you see it in our stories, too. In Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Darth Vader says to Obi-Wan Kenobi, "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy."
Normally, we use "with me or against me" during times of significant emotional stress. Our intentions may not be to manipulate but to force the point that we're in a situation where neutrality is dangerous. I actually agree with this point. One of my live-by quotes is from Elie Wiesel. "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim." The problem is that the emotional plea is often not based in facts and preys on our fears of not belonging or being seen as wrong or part of the problem. We need to question how the sides are defined. Are these really the only two options? Is this the accurate framing for this debate, or is this bullshit?
In philosophy, "You're either with us or against us" is considered a false dichotomy or a false dilemma. It's a move to force people to take sides. If other alternatives exist (and they almost always do), then that statement is factually wrong. It's turning an emotion-driven approach into weaponized belonging. And it always benefits the person throwing down the gauntlet and brandishing those forced, false choices.
The ability to think past either-or situations is the foundation of critical thinking and, in today's culture, requires courage. For most of us, even if the "with us or against us" mandate sounds a little like oversimplified BS, it still feels easier and safer to pick a side. The argument is set up in a way that there's only one real option. If we stay quiet, we're automatically demonized as "the other."
The only true option is to refuse to accept the terms of the argument by challenging the framing of the debate. Why? Because the argument is set up to silence dissent and draw lines in the sand that squelch debate, discussion, and questions — the very processes that we know lead to effective problem-solving. But make no mistake: Challenging the framing of emotional, either-or debates is opting for what I call "the wilderness." Getting curious and asking questions happens outside the safety of our echo chambers and ideological bunkers. You will often feel alone, vulnerable, and surrounded by uncertainty.
The wilderness does demand bravery, but it's worth it. Our silence comes at too high an individual and collective cost. Individually, we pay with our integrity. Collectively, we pay with divisiveness, and even worse, we bypass effective problem-solving. Answers that have the force of emotion behind them but are not based in fact don't provide strategic and effective solutions to nuanced problems. We normally don't set up false dilemmas because we're intentionally bullshitting; we often rely on this device when we're working from a place of fear, acute emotion, and lack of knowledge. Unfortunately, fear, acute emotion, and lack of knowledge also provide the perfect set-up for uncivil behavior. This is why the bullshit-incivility cycle can become endless.
Civility
It's easier to stay civil when we're combating lying than it is when we're speaking truth to bullshit. When we're bullshitting, we aren't interested in the truth as a shared starting point. This makes arguing slippery, and it makes us more susceptible to mirroring the BS behavior, which is: The truth doesn't matter, what I think matters.
Sometimes calling out BS is unnecessary because there's an expectation of embellishment, like an overly polite compliment or, in the case of my Texan family, a tall tale of walking uphill to school both ways, in the snow, pulling a donkey. But when the stakes are high and we need to speak truth to bullshit, I've seen two practices that increase effectiveness.
First, approach bullshitting with generosity when possible. Don't assume that people know better and they're just being malicious or mean-spirited. In highly charged discussions, we can feel shame about not having an informed opinion, and these feelings of "not enough" can lead us to bullshitting our way through a conversation. We can also believe we're responding from real data and have no idea that there's nothing to back up what we're saying. Additionally, we can get so caught up in our own pain and fear that truth and fact play second fiddle to emotional pleas for understanding or agreement. Generosity, empathy, and curiosity (e.g., "Where did you read this or hear this?") can go a long way in our efforts to question what we're hearing and introduce fact.
The second practice is civility. I found a definition of civility from the Institute for Civility in Government that very closely reflects how the research participants talked about civility. The organization's cofounders, Cassandra Dahnke and Tomas Spath, write:
Civility is claiming and caring for one's identity, needs, and beliefs without degrading someone else's in the process. . . . [Civility] is about disagreeing without disrespect, seeking common ground as a starting point for dialogue about differences, listening past one's preconceptions, and teaching others to do the same. Civility is the hard work of staying present even with those with whom we have deep-rooted and fierce disagreements. It is political in the sense that it is a necessary prerequisite for civic action. But it is political, too, in the sense that it is about negotiating interpersonal power such that everyone's voice is heard, and nobody's is ignored.
The practice of speaking truth to bullshit while being civil feels like a paradox, but both are profoundly important parts of true belonging. Carl Jung wrote, "Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life." We are complex beings. We wake up every day and fight against being labeled and diminished with stereotypes and characterizations that don't reflect our fullness. Yet when we don't risk standing on our own and speaking truth to bullshit, when the options laid before us force us into the very categories we resist, we perpetuate our own disconnection and loneliness. When we are willing to risk venturing into the wilderness, we feel the deepest connection to our true self and to what matters the most.
There will be times when standing alone feels too hard, too scary, and we'll doubt our ability to make our way through the uncertainty. Someone, somewhere, will say, "Don't take on this issue. You don't have what it takes to survive the wilderness." This is when you reach deep into your wild heart and remind yourself, "I am the wilderness."
Excerpted from Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, by Brené Brown. Copyright © 2017 by Brené Brown. Excerpted by permission of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past sixteen years studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy and is the author of three No. 1 New York Times best sellers. | | | | | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | |  | | | | | | | | | | | | How I Built a Global Business With Zero Background in Finance | | | | By Molly Elizalde | | | | | | |
This article is part of a Lenny series on Extraordinary Women produced in partnership with Cole Haan. Read previous parts of the series here.
Rebecca van Bergen still gets sweaty palms when she thinks about budgeting — even a decade into her role as founder and executive director of Nest, a global nonprofit that helps artisan workers build profitable businesses. This makes her massive, precocious success seem like it's remotely attainable: Rebecca didn't let her initial lack of business knowledge keep her from going after a phenomenal idea.
Rebecca founded Nest eleven years ago, when she was just 24. She had received her master's degree in social work when she decided to enter a business competition with the idea for Nest. "This was before artisan was a buzzword," she tells me. "Ethical fashion didn't exist." But when she won that competition, she hit the ground running, translating what she'd studied in school — how to talk to women in trauma — into a business with sights on the fashion industry.
Through word of mouth and her entrepreneurial spirit (she wasn't afraid to ask for help, she notes), Rebecca found her way into a world she knew little about. The path wasn't always straight, but her commitment to building relationships helped her create her own definition for what it means to start a nonprofit. Now, Nest has helped develop more than 350 artisan businesses in 50 countries where homeworkers and craftspeople with skills that include Indian handloom weaving, Kenyan Maasai beading, and Mexican pottery-making can partner with luxury-fashion and home-goods brands. Through Nest, these women learn how to pivot on the skills they already have to find greater economic opportunities.
I talked to Rebecca about the unconventional ways she went about launching her nonprofit, the powerful impact commerce can have in women's lives, and more.
Molly Elizalde: How did Nest grow out of what you were studying in graduate school?
Rebecca van Bergen: I actually didn't have the idea for Nest during graduate school. I got my master's degree in social work, and most of my coursework was around working with women abroad. I thought I would practice social work in a more traditional way.
Right when I was graduating, Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for microfinance, and it started being called the solution to poverty. I had just spent two years studying social work, which is more about working directly with an individual woman. Through that lens, it seemed like microfinance could be really challenging for poor women if it wasn't coupled with more comprehensive business-development training.
I was really starting to think about what a more holistic model could look like for women internationally, and how craft could be an overarching sector with which to work. I went to Washington University in St. Louis, and they had a business-plan competition specifically for social enterprise that was done between the social-work school and the business school. On a whim, I had the idea for Nest and two weeks later applied for that funding and won. I won $24,000, which, eleven years ago in St. Louis, Missouri, was enough to start a business. So I did.
ME: I would love to hear about the beginning of Nest. What was it like to launch a nonprofit without a background in business?
RvB: Going back to the early days, I was only 24. I had no connections in the fashion industry whatsoever. I didn't know how to write a business plan or what financial statements were. I had studied how to talk to a woman in trauma — it's just a totally different skill set. So I called my entrepreneurial father, and he was like, "Great, send me your business plan and your financials, and I'll critique it and send it back to you." And I didn't even know how to start to do that.
So instead, I did what came more naturally to me, which was to call everybody I knew and talk to them about the idea and get their feedback. Through that process, I inspired lots of my friends to help. One of my friends from high school was an attorney, and he convinced his firm to take us pro bono as a client and filed all of our 501c(3) paperwork. His girlfriend worked for Daily Candy, and so they featured us in every single one of their issues in the first year of our operations.
The first time they featured us, overnight we had thousands and thousands of orders. Martha Stewart called to feature us, and I was on CNN. But again, that was just through word of mouth, not because I had a marketing plan or had put together a pitch jacket and brought it to Daily Candy.
In our early days, just building those relationships with people and being open to asking for help took us a really long way. It's undervalued as an asset that people bring to the table, especially women.
ME: Could you give some examples of any obstacles you faced that made you rethink what it means to start a business?
RvB: One of the biggest things I've learned about starting a business is that there's a fine line between being visionary and being practical. It's true that to be an entrepreneur you have to have an idea for social change, but I think that is overemphasized. You can't just be a visionary as a social entrepreneur, you have to actually create a to-do list and get it done. So it's really how you translate the vision for the mountains into the immediate steps. How do you look up and down at the same time so that you're walking forward while maintaining that perspective?
One piece of advice I give to people that are interested in starting something is to wake up every day and make a to-do list of what you need to accomplish to get to that vision — as granular as possible, so they're accomplishable tasks.
ME: How did you use the tools that you learned in your graduate program in what you're doing now?
RvB: There's a huge invisibility problem for a lot of women around the world. You see lots of conversations around factory compliance, which is great, but around 40 percent of current garment manufacturing isn't in a factory, it's subcontracted to women in their homes.
In December, we're launching a compliance program to bring visibility and development to home-based workers around the world. Artisan business development takes a lot of trust building. These are women in their homes; they often don't have formal educations. They're working for a business, and that business leader needs to trust us to get involved and help support them. These women need to be co-authors of the strategy with us. So there's a huge amount of trust building that is definitely a social-work asset.
ME: How has building a business with a nontraditional background been a plus?
RvB: In the beginning, I would really stress that I didn't have an MBA and that I had an MSW instead. I've really come to realize that learning through doing is so much more valuable. Had I taken a class on budgeting or finance or accounting, I maybe would have learned some things. But learning when it's your payroll and your staff and your programmatic work that's impacted is very real. I still get sweaty palms thinking about finances.
Now I work with big brands and big companies, some of them in luxury fashion. I knew nothing about fashion when I started, and I still know very little about who the cool players are. That's just not my world. But I have a lot more appreciation about fashion as art and fashion as a form of cultural expression than I had before going into it. It's so powerful to get a company like Target or West Elm to change the way they're doing business — those decisions and the value of commerce impact hundreds of thousands of women.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Molly Elizalde is Lenny's assistant editor. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | |  | | | | | | | | Out of the Mikvah, Into the World | | | | By Tova Mirvis | | |
The ritual bath was housed in the back of my parents' Orthodox synagogue, with a separate entrance to ensure privacy. Inside, there was a bathroom with a shower and tub, and in an adjacent room, the small pool — a mikvah — with enough space for one person to stand with her arms outstretched. Above was a large round opening in the wall through which the attendant could watch and ensure that every part of the woman was fully under the water.
"Are you excited? Are you nervous?" my mother asked me as we walked in, a few nights before my wedding.
"Both," I admitted.
As a bride, I was required to immerse myself in order to be sexually permissible to my husband. As a wife, I would be required to do this every month.
In preparation, I'd soaked in a tub, cut my nails, scrubbed my calluses. I forced a comb through my thick hair. The comb ripped out so many strands, but I wanted to follow the laws precisely.
In the months prior, I'd been studying the religious laws that would now apply to me, sitting around the dining-room table of a rabbi's wife.
"This is beautiful," she told me and the dozen other engaged young women, about the rules of Jewish family purity. When we had our periods and for the seven days following, we were in a state of impurity: We couldn't touch our husbands — no sex, not a hug, not a handshake. Once our periods had ceased, we were to check ourselves for any remaining smudges or stains. When we believed ourselves to be clean, we were to leave the cloths inside ourselves for 30 minutes, just to be sure, and then start counting seven clean days. Only at the end of these could we immerse in the mikvah and once again be permissible.
In high school, equally strict rules of modesty had touched down on my body: safety pins were kept in the office to fasten shut a low-cut blouse or a skirt with an offending slit. Mothers were called if a new skirt needed to be procured; a spare skirt was kept in the office for those times when a mother wasn't reachable. Our knees, elbows, and hair were discussed in black-scripted rabbinic texts, featured prominently in the school rules, in notes sent home reporting infractions. We were always subject to inspection, our bodies divided and measured. The rules were written across my body, mapped onto my skin, my hair, my thighs. Now that I was getting married, they were poised to enter my body as well.
You don't have to feel that way, I chided myself whenever I felt a slow burn of resistance. Contrary to how it might appear, this was not an invasion of the most private sphere of my body. This was not an issue of a woman being deemed impure. Shape it and twist it, change it and smooth it — some sort of machine inside my head, skilled at reprocessing and reconfiguring any torn bits into a smooth whole in whose billowing folds I could still seek comfort. Quibble, if necessary, with some of the details, parse the interpretations, summon various rabbinic figures for support — anything to prevent my body from whispering a small silent no.
I called the mikvah attendant so she could check me for any dangling cuticles or stray hairs that would constitute a separation between my body and the waters.
"I'm ready," I told her.
I descended the steps. Here was the portal to adult life.
I went to the mikvah every month of my marriage.
"This is beautiful," I still told myself, but when I got to the mikvah, all I wanted to do was get in and out as quickly as possible.
It didn't matter how I felt about the rules, just as long as I followed them. I wanted to remain Orthodox, at all costs. Sometimes, in synagogue, I noticed that I stood with my arms folded across my chest, my fingers tightly digging into my arms as though I needed to hold myself intact. But even so, I was Orthodox, even though I sometimes doubted. It seemed less a statement of what I believed than a truth of who I was — its language, its rhythms, its customs, all part of me. Its weaknesses, its battlegrounds, its shortcomings, part of me as well.
Once I completed the required preparations, the mikvah attendant examined my nails for any remnants of polish. She checked that my toenails had been clipped and scrubbed. Everywhere you went, you were supposed to be covered, yet as an Orthodox woman, you were always subject to inspection.
"Can you comb your hair a little better?" she asked me one time.
I was surprised — she'd never before said much to me, only picked a few hairs off my back or motioned to a hangnail I needed to snip.
I went back into the bathroom, held the comb to my hair, and looked in the mirror, feeling as though I'd been tasked with subduing the most resistant parts of myself.
Do you believe in it? I asked myself, a question I tried to avoid.
I looked at my hair. I wasn't going to comb it again.
"I can't," I told the attendant when I emerged from the room again.
She raised her eyebrows in confusion.
"I can't," I said again. Nothing in my life had felt as certain as that one sentence.
With a small, perturbed shake of her head, she quickly inspected the rest of my body. Maybe she saw the resoluteness in my eyes. Maybe she was calculating that the sin would be on my ledger, not hers. Maybe I would be inspected more thoroughly in the future, the mikvah equivalent of a no-fly list.
With resigned approval, she watched as I went under the water, my fists loosely clenched, my eyes lightly closed. I felt pinned in place like the bugs in the collection I'd had to amass for my sixth-grade science class. I'd caught spiders and beetles and moths in a glass jar and placed a cotton ball soaked with nail-polish remover inside. I'd watched, horrified and fascinated, as they flittered and scurried then slowed, their legs no longer moving, their wings no longer flapping. When they were dead, I carefully emptied them onto a Styrofoam board and stuck a pin through each hard body.
"Kosher," she pronounced. "Kosher."
I couldn't go back. At the thought of it, my chest tightened, as though my ribs were curling, each into a small silent no.
But I couldn't not go either — the wheels of my marriage would have ground to a halt. Without the mikvah, there could be no sex. And without shared observance, I couldn't imagine how we would exist together. My husband and I had signed a marriage contract, but another contract existed between us, equally binding and unchangeable, in which we agreed that we would always be Orthodox.
As a compromise, I started going to a non-Orthodox mikvah, whose mission was to reinvent this ritual. Instead of inspecting me, the mikvah guide dimmed the lights and asked me how she could help make my experience more meaningful.
But I felt closed to the experience. I wasn't here in search of a meaningful ritual — I was here because I had to be, here to submit my body to rules, even if I didn't necessarily believe in them.
A few years later, a friend from our synagogue called me. "Do you want to do something a little crazy?" she asked.
To my surprise, she wanted me to go with her to a nearby lake and be the equivalent of the mikvah attendant as she immersed. Like me, she could no longer bring herself to go to the Orthodox mikvah where she usually went.
It was nighttime when we went to the lake, and I could barely see my friend as she walked out into the water, wriggled out of her bathing suit, and went under. She had complied with the rules but also found a way around them. When I got home that night, I wondered how much longer I could continue to do that as well. I lay awake, thinking about street performers I'd seen a few months before who'd folded themselves, arms over legs over necks, into smaller and smaller glass boxes: seemingly impossible feats, but I knew all too well the feeling of having to contort yourself to fit inside.
The next month, when it was time for me to go to the mikvah, I instead went to the lake. With my friend standing by the edge of the water, I waded out, slipped off my bathing suit, and went under.
Alone in the water, my body made ripples that floated across the still surface. I lay on my back, took in the moon, which was low and full, and the sky lit with stars. I felt some softness and easing in my body, some relaxing of my always-compressed state. If there had been any sliver of meaning for me, it lay in the feeling of being away from the rules, away from the official eyes.
In the end, when I left both the rules of Orthodox Judaism and my marriage, I remembered this feeling. The urge to leave had started to feel like a physical rising from inside. No, every part of me knew. No, I wasn't willing to live in accordance with the rules, and no, I didn't believe, really believe, the rules contained the ultimate truth, and no, I couldn't keep trying to tuck away this feeling, and no, I could no longer follow without believing.
The next time I was in a lake, after I'd left, I swam far out into the water, where I floated on my back, staring up at the sky domed above me and the trees circling all around. In the absence of the rules, my life felt as unmappable as the water I was in. But inside my chest, there was now a widened, no-longer-knotted feeling, as though more space had been created between my ribs. I was in this lake not to purify myself but to open myself as wide as I could be.
Tova Mirvis is the author of The Book of Separation, a memoir, and three novels: Visible City, The Outside World, and The Ladies Auxiliary, and her essays have appeared in various publications, including the New York Times, Real Simple, and Poets and Writers. | | | | | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | |  | | | | | | | | The Rising Star Who's Defying Hollywood Sizeism | | | | By Bridget Everett | | | |
I met Danielle Macdonald almost three years ago at the Sundance Institute. We were working on first-time writer-director Geremy Jasper's film Patti Cake$, about a young woman in New Jersey who's on a quest to become a rapper. Initially, I turned down Geremy's invitation to help develop the role of Patti's mother, Barb — not because I wasn't grateful, but because I doubted myself as a dramatic actress. I'd spent years chasing my dream to be a singer and had finally found my confidence on the stage. I didn't want to fuck up his passion project. But he persisted, so I said, "Fuck it. At the very least, maybe I'll see Robert Redford walking around Park City in cutoffs." Next thing I know, I'm on the plane to Utah.
The first time I sat down with Geremy and Danielle to read through the script, I was stumbling over lines, messing everything up. It was exactly what I'd feared would happen: that I'd choke. I apologized profusely to both Danielle and Geremy; they simply smiled back at me and told me they weren't worried.
I was so caught up in my own insecurities that I never stopped to consider Danielle's. Danielle is Australian and had never rapped before. She was taking on a role that required her to learn a Jersey accent, how to rap, and then how to rap with an accent. She was working her ass off behind the scenes, and yet she was taking care of me. Helping me gain confidence. Helping me get out of my own way. And doing it all, quietly and confidently, by her own example.
Danielle is a quiet adventurer. She is the person you want to sit next to on your first day of school. She is the person you ride around town with in a Chevy, playing the Violent Femmes cranked up to a ten. She is the person you want to grab you by the hand and jump off the cliffs in Mazatlán. Danielle is effervescent. She is a singular talent whose heart is as warm as a strawberry moon.
Danielle may be eighteen years my junior, but she taught me to lighten up, take a chance on myself, and rise to any challenge. She's as rare as they come and a great reminder to keep your eyes open and let the angels in.
Bridget Everett: Where did you find the inspiration to take the leap and do Patti?
Danielle Macdonald: I wanted to be an actor — that's ultimately what I dreamed of doing. So this was an amazing opportunity to play a really incredible character in a story that I loved, a script that I couldn't put down. That's ultimately what made me want to do it, even though it scared the shit out of me.
BE: It's good to have things scare the shit out of you, though, right?
DM: Yeah. When I'm doing something that scares me and challenges me, I'm actually really happy. I work well under pressure, and it feels like I'm getting outside of myself and challenging myself. I like that feeling. I like the payoff.
By the end of the Sundance Institute, I was pretty much begging Geremy to let me do the film, even though I knew it was going to be a lot of work, that it may not happen. I was like, I just so badly want to be a part of this because these people are all amazing. It felt really real and authentic, and there was so much understanding and trust between all of us. [I felt] like it could really go somewhere special.
BE: How did you remain such an angel to work with every day? You're in every scene, you're working incredible hours, and yet you came to work with bright eyes and a bushy tail every day. I was like, When is Danielle going to turn into a bitch?
DM: Mamadou [who plays Patti's love interest, Basterd] would say the same thing. I would get in the car in the morning, and he would be like, "You're a morning person." And I'm like, "Are you kidding me? I'm a complete night owl. I can't sleep. I can't get up early." It was funny because I wasn't really sleeping a ton, but I genuinely loved what I was doing.
BE: Where did you find your confidence to rap?
DM: I don't know that I ever really did find it. I know I did it, but I never necessarily felt confident with it. It was always very intimidating to me. At the same time, you practice enough and you do it enough. Geremy was always very straight with me. If he didn't like something, he would tell me.
BE: How did you not let that cripple you? Sometimes, when I'm doing something and people are like, "You're not doing it the right way," I'm like, "Oh, then I just can't do it." But you just keep moving forward.
DM: Yeah, I'm kind of good with rejection. It sounds weird, but you get rejected a lot in acting. That's part of it. I never take it personally. I'm just like, Oh, OK. I'm not right for it. That's OK. But when it [came to playing Patti], I'm like I am doing this role, I have to be right for it. So if it isn't working, please tell me. So when Geremy told me something wasn't working, I'm like, Let's figure it out. Then when he did say it was good, I knew he was being genuine. I didn't question it.
BE: That's one of my favorite things about you, is that you're always up for a challenge. And you're always down to try and fail and take the risk. It's really cool to watch. How do you persist through sizeism in Hollywood?
DM: It's that thing of: I'm an actor and I'm used to rejection. I have friends in LA that came out, and they are beautiful, beautiful girls. It's not that they have false expectations, but I think that sometimes when you're the prettiest girl in your hometown and then you come to LA and there's a lot of pretty girls, maybe you expect it to come a bit easier than it does.
I had some amazing, supportive people, like my family and coaches. But there were also the people that were like, "Maybe you shouldn't go out there. You don't really fit in." That was when I was like "No, I'm aware I don't. But I'm prepared, because there are roles. They're few and far between, but they exist, and I want to be a part of that."
Then I started to see that it was changing. There were more roles. People would be willing to see you for a role that wasn't described as you.
BE: Isn't it so satisfying to have worked hard to blaze your own trail and now people are like, "This wasn't written for Danielle's type, but we want her because she's so fucking awesome"?
DM: The first thing was actually 2 Broke Girls. So, thank you, Michael Patrick King. I went out for that and I wasn't exactly the right type. Then I booked it, and they changed the role to fit me. That was so cool.
BE: That's because you're the shit. You're so open, not just as an actor, but as a person. A major thing I learned from you is to let go and be excited and in the moment. I just felt really safe with you and Geremy. You guys taught me to be kind and that great things will come when you're around people that support you.
DM: When I spoke to Geremy about doing the Sundance class, he told me that he had reached out to you and you were really nervous about doing it and you weren't sure that you would come. I remember being really inspired by that, because it was really scaring me as well. This role was very different for me, and it was scary taking on something new. The fact that you came out and did it, you made me feel so at ease when I was overwhelmed and in my head.
I remember just feeling very safe around you. Even when we're watching the film, I would hide in your arm. I always felt protected by you. I was in my head during this dramatic scene, and you completely took yourself out of it to make me feel better. That was just really incredible to me. I was like, "Man, this is what it's about. It's about the connection with other people."
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Bridget Everett is a New York–based actress, singer, and cabaret performer. | | | | | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | |  | | | | | | | | Hello Dolley | | | | By Jess Rotter | | |
This piece was inspired by the New-York Historical Society's new Joyce B. Cowin Women's History Gallery, which reveals women's contributions to the American experience.
Informed by a deep knowledge and love for the world of 1970s rock 'n' roll, artist Jess Rotter was inspired by her dad's vinyl covers and comic books growing up in New York. Now based in Los Angeles, Rotter's intricate hand-drawn psychedelic illustrations have appeared on everything from public murals to album covers. Her debut book I'm Bored was released in October, 2016 on Hat and Beard Press. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The email newsletter where there's no such thing as too much information.
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