Nancy Cartwright: Bart Simpson, Fellini, and Finding the Artist Inside [From the Archive]

[00:00:01] This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Presenting the Archive. Classic episodes that remain timeless. The raw, unfiltered conversations from the early days in which people shared their failures and showed us exactly how they rebuilt everything from the ground up.

[00:00:36] So I've got Nancy Cartwright with me, the most unknown famous person in the world. Would you say that's accurate, Nancy? Pretty good, yeah. Like if you were walking down the street, does anyone ever say, oh, Nancy Cartwright? The only time they do that is if I've gone to like a small town, like a university town, Ohio University or whatever, and they know that I'm gonna be there, then I will get recognized a few times because my face is, you know, posted all over the place.

[00:01:03] But, you know, here we are in the middle of Manhattan. Nobody knows me from Adam, you know? We're gonna dive into the topic I want to talk about most in a second. I'll leave the reveal for another minute. But you have to, I'm sorry to ask this, you have to actually sort of demonstrate why you're the most famous person in the world that's unrecognizable. James, what are you talking about, man? I have no idea why I am here. Ha ha! Where are we? What is Manhattan?

[00:01:31] Very good. So, you're the voice of Bart Simpson and many other voices. If you're ever having like a problem at the airport, you just start doing Bart Simpson and they let you through. You know, I have tried that before. I have done that. I was on a flight once to the UK. This is way back. This is in 2000. This is before 911. Actually, the flight attendant, she recognized me because of my seating and my arrangement. And she's like, are you the Nancy Cartwright? And I said, guilty as charged, ma'am.

[00:02:01] And it was kind of quiet. I mean, they were getting set up. It's loud on an airplane. I was sitting in the aisle. She was just like beyond herself. She was so excited. And she said, you know, perhaps maybe at some point in time, would you ever be willing to, because both co-pilots are huge fans of The Simpsons. Would you be willing to come up into the cockpit and maybe say a few things on the PA to the passengers? And I was like, to me, I thought that was amazing. That sounded like so much fun. That's the coolest role in the world. Oh my gosh, that was so cool. But I didn't want to act too excited.

[00:02:31] And I said, yeah, we could probably arrange something like that. So brilliant, brilliant. So towards the end of the flight, I'll come back. You rest and, you know, enjoy your flight. Can I get you something to drink? You know, that kind of a thing. So towards the end of the flight, they came back and got me and brought me up into the cockpit. And I'm getting the tour of the whole place and all the buttons and knobs and bobbles and everything up there. And it was evening. So it was like gorgeous flying into Heathrow.

[00:02:57] And just so they put me on. They put me on and say, ladies and gentlemen, this is Bart Simpson. Your captain is speaking. I just want to let you know that actually both of your co-pilots have been drinking too much. So I'm going to, we're going to actually going to be landing in Tokyo in about five minutes. Did anyone actually take it seriously? Well, I couldn't hear them outside.

[00:03:23] They kept me up in the cockpit until the whole plane had disembarked. So I was pretty safe. But they were enjoying the show. I thought it was kind of fun. That's fun. So we're going to kind of get to the arc of your career, which, of course, it's an incredible career. But what's really incredible is that while people think of you, I think the average person who knows you probably thinks, OK, this is the voice of Bart Simpson. You've really embarked on so many different creative endeavors.

[00:03:49] And your most recent one is a beautiful, beautiful movie that you wrote along with your writing partner in search of Fellini, which is about your personal search for Fellini or roughly. I'm not going to say it's about. I want to actually be respectful to Fellini's quote that all autobiography is art or all art is autobiography.

[00:04:09] So but but it somewhat reflects your own quest in your 20s for Fellini, a trip you took to Italy right in the middle of your own career before you were doing The Simpsons. But after you had already started on the beginnings of a successful career as both an actress and a voiceover star. You know, there was a quote in the movie. Thank you for that, by the way. I just I appreciate it so much. You know, you've done so much homework on it.

[00:04:33] And I've done so many interviews and it's refreshing to have somebody that's really, you know, knowledgeable in what we're dealing with here. It's a it's it's a I'm just I'm really touched. I am. Well, you know, it's interesting because Fellini himself is such an inspiration and you take so many elements of not his biography, but his views as an artist and put it in the movie. And that in turn reflects your own artistic career.

[00:05:01] And and I want to I want to get to that. But first off, there's this one Fellini quote, which reminds me of this movie. And I wonder if you've thought about it, which is I'll try to remember it correctly. But the pearl is the autobiography of the oyster. And I feel that way about this movie. Oh, wow. Wow. That's lovely. There's one quote in the movie that really stuck out for me. Maybe it's like two thirds of the way through, which is sometimes you have to travel far, far away to get to what's closest to you. Yes. Yes.

[00:05:31] So maybe start with that quote. Like, what does that mean to you and how it reflected in the movie? And I think that a Fellini quote also or. You know what? Ironically, it's not. Because it feels like a Fellini quote. Wow. It's awesome. No, that was when I landed. Because to give you just one little thing is that this film is probably about 75% to 80% true. Because at the beginning of the film, it says, based on a true adventure.

[00:05:59] And then the word mostly pops in there. So it's mostly true. But there's the homage to Fellini. I mean, obviously, there's what Teron Lexton did to contribute to this film is extraordinary. His understanding of the body of work that Fellini did is much more than mine. And Peter's, to be honest with you, it's like he added that whole element to it.

[00:06:22] But that quote came when I decided to make this trip and go to find Fellini. I was in my 20s. And I was in an acting class. This is like what you had said a couple years before I was cast as Bart. And it was 1985. And I was studying Fellini's La Strada in my acting class and putting up every scene. And just got to a point where. What do you mean putting up every scene? Yeah, it was an acting class. And it was a scene study class.

[00:06:50] So you take a movie and there might be one scene that you want to then take that scene and put it on the stage. You know, you and a partner or several partners will perform this and get a critique from the teacher in terms of training as an actor. So I took lots of scenes from La Strada because I just, there was something about that movie. My teacher told me, take a look at this film and tell me what you think.

[00:07:15] And when I saw Julietta's performance in it, Julietta Messina, I just, this little innocent clown who was, you know, bought by this beast of a man who literally was the strong man in a traveling circus. And she was this little innocent clown that all she did was she entertained, put white face on, super cute. The audience loved her.

[00:07:36] And throughout the film, you see her demise is that he just was a beast to her and just beat her down eventually to her death. And at the end, I mean, Fellini's films are so tragic anyway. They're so symbolic and a little weird and a little strange. And I saw other films and they didn't, they didn't quite have the same impact on me than that La Strada did. So that's why La Strada, you follow?

[00:08:04] Well, let me ask you about that because Fellini, one of his inspirations for La Strada was this story of a friend of his told him where, you know, there was a, you know, it was difficult to travel on the roads at that time from Rome to the north. And he saw this like cart, this tarpaulin covered cart being pulled by kind of a strong man or a stronger person.

[00:08:28] But then in the back was a smaller woman pushing and it kind of signified the hard life that this woman had. And that somehow inspired him to put it into this circus context. And that was the woman. Yeah, so it's incredible. And he cast his wife for the role. That's right. And how perfect was that? How perfect was that? And the two of them, because he was large, he was like 6'4", I think. And she was teeny. She was like, I think 5'2". Still pretty petite compared to him or 5'3".

[00:08:56] But she was coming from, even when she met Fellini, from an acting career. Yeah. Just like you, you know, before you went on this search, this quest, you were already in movies. That's right. You were already doing voiceovers. You were Gloria and Richie Rich. You were in The Twilight Zone. You had already done all these things. You had at least two significant mentors in your life. Don't forget Mr. Belvedere. I didn't know Mr. Belvedere. Oh, yeah. Come on. Wait, can we go to Cheers for a second? Because Cheers was a remarkable story. You auditioned.

[00:09:25] Oh, my God, James. Let me tell the story. How do you know all this? You auditioned, and then you were just supposed to walk off the set. But you have this urge to kind of, I think you have this urge to infuse an extra bit of art into everything you do. You not only walk off the stage, you just walked home. I did. I did. Because the last line in the script, in the audition, Carla, who's Rhea Perlman, turns to me and says, I like your choker, referring to a necklace around my, which I didn't have on.

[00:09:52] And I look at her, and as written, I say, I'm not wearing a choker. She goes, oh, you will be. And I turn, I say, well, goodbye. And I turn, and you're right. I just walked out of the casting office, and I just went home. Was that a riff in the sense that you just decided right then you were going to just keep on walking? Well, this is something that Milton actually, I got to credit him for doing that. Milton Kinsella's a great acting teacher. Yeah. Some of my favorite actors studied under him, Gene Hackman, Alec Baldwin, Michelle Pfeiffer. Yeah, Doris Roberts. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[00:10:21] Incredible teacher that you had mentored yourself to who encouraged you to see La Strada. You know, he says, think out of the box. Surprise yourself. Do something. Because you surprise yourself, you surprise everybody else. And so I just thought it was very spur of the moment. It was, I had not decided to do that. And I just said to myself, you know, I'm out of here. I see the F-bomb right there. I don't know if we can see this. By the way, you like to say it's podcast. We're the wild west. Okay, I said, fuck it, man. I'm out of here. And so I just walked out the door. And I kept going.

[00:10:50] And I mean, that creates an effect because they're thinking I'm going to come back in. And obviously, by the time they realize I'm gone, I'm already way, I'm in my car. And I drove, I actually went right home. Literally, the phone was ringing. And it was my agent. Nancy, you totally walked out. They love you. They want you. You got the job. Because, and you just said two things there that are very interesting to me. And it applies to everything else. When you surprise yourself, you're going to surprise everyone else. So I think that's, that's kind of, that's so interesting.

[00:11:19] Like that's, you could apply that to almost every area of life or success. But the other thing is. Your instincts are correct. Yeah. Yeah. You created an effect. And that's, they have to talk about you after that. And so the casting director has, everybody has to talk about you a little bit more than they talk about everyone else. Yeah. And that, we don't know if that's what got you the role. You know, as opposed to your pure acting skill.

[00:11:43] But I'm sure that just the psychological fact that they had to put more time into talking about you, you know, help them make their decision. It's so true. I mean, it's not something that if it's calculated and it looks like it's staged, it doesn't create that effect. To me, it really, it has to be something that is so sincere and it has to be, really, it has to be honest. It can't be something that you, that's calculated.

[00:12:07] Like, for example, another thing, that's true and it's not true because there are capers that I've done. I have actually done some. Capers. Yeah, little capers that I find, they're so fun and sometimes it doesn't, it, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work. I was off, this was a movie of the week, a CBS movie of the week called Marion Rose White. And this was at the beginning when they first started doing tragedies of the week, television, that was what it was all about, something that was real. And it was a reenactment of that.

[00:12:37] And I was cast as a lead character. Valerie Perrine played my mother. Catherine Ross played this nurse. It took place in Sonoma, California in a psych. There was a young woman, Marion, who there wasn't anything wrong with her. And I was, I'm really, I'm really pulling off track here. Anyway. No, that's okay. I'll bring it back. Trust me to always bring it back. Oh my God, this is so off track. But it was, it was a real story of this woman and I never met Marion, although she was still alive. But they didn't want me to meet her.

[00:13:03] But I had been gone working with Jonathan Winters in Gambier, Ohio at Kent University in Ohio. And Jonathan Winters had worked at WING Radio in Dayton, Ohio, where I grew up. And he had worked at the same radio station 30 years before I worked there. So I had this relationship. Jonathan didn't know about me, but I knew about him. Of course, he's such a great comic actor and comedian. Yes.

[00:13:28] And this was the time in his career when he was on Mork and Mindy was kind of happening around that time. Mork's son. That's right. His baby. It was amazing. So I was off doing this thing with Jonathan Winters and they were trying to cast this lead role in Marion Rose White. And Mayor Winningham was up for it and Helen Hunt was up for it. And I was gone, so I wasn't there. But when I came back, they still hadn't found this part. So I got to go in for it. And Jonathan had given me this visor and it looked like a lobster.

[00:13:58] It was made out of that polyfoam stuff. It was the most ridiculous. Nobody would ever wear this in public. But I heard that Marion, the character Marion, had a wild imagination. She also was blind as a bat. And that was her main problem is they thought she was mentally, they thought she was retarded. And her mother gave her up as a ward to the state. They believed in eugenics and they gave her a hysterectomy and put her on all kinds of drugs. There wasn't anything wrong with her.

[00:14:27] She was an angel. She loved children and she just couldn't see. And they gave her mother, something happened to her and she couldn't, well, she couldn't take care of her, refused to really commit to her own daughter and gave her over as a ward to the state and pretty much ruined her. So this is the part that they were looking for. And I had never done anything of that magnitude. The responsibility that it took to do that part was enormous. I had no idea what I was entering into.

[00:14:55] But I sat in the lobby waiting for the audition and I'm the only one there. They'd already seen hundreds and hundreds of girls. And so I'm sitting there and I have on this lobster hat and these glasses and I'm trying to read the script. And I've got it pulled up to my eyes, one inch away from my eyes, seeing, can I read this or is this ridiculous? And I'd done this at home, but I was just sort of kind of going through the motions again before I went in. And at the last second, I kind of, I flinched.

[00:15:24] I decided not to do it. And I took the glasses off and I put the hat and I sat them aside and then they called me. And I went in and I met Gerald Abrams, who is J.J. Abrams' dad. Oh, you're kidding. J.J. was nine at the time, okay? I was in my early 20s. And you started dating. Well, I started being J.J.'s babysitter. I mean, it worked out so great. No, no, I didn't. I met J.J., actually. His dad threw a wrap party. But I went in there and read for it.

[00:15:53] And the next day I found out that I got the part. But they told me, and this is the point of this long story here, they told me that what really got me the part was sitting in the lobby. And with the lobster hat on and those glasses, they saw that I was already auditioning. So that's the cue to actors that are listening to this, that you are on the second you get in your car and you're driving over there. Again, it's not just actors. I think it's anything in life.

[00:16:22] You have to learn to be as authentic as possible. And I think in your movie, it's really this girl's quest to finding her authentic artistic self. Just like it was for you in the 80s when you were on your search for Fellini. But it reminds me, actually, you say this is off tangent, but it reminds me of Lucy in the beginning of this movie. Lucy's the main character. And Lucy is off for a job. Yep. And she wears this, these offbeat glasses.

[00:16:52] That's right. And was that, were you thinking of that when you were writing that scene? Well, to answer that, Peter Chenis and I, in writing this, it took us, it was about 20 years from the time. It was done as a one, I know this is kind of chopped up. It's okay. It's a bit chopped up, but it was. That life is chopped up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think. It's okay. And this movie is about your life, so. Yeah, yeah. So we're going to be bouncing back and forth, but we did 20, like, no, a dozen versions of it. So we were just talking about it on the way over here today.

[00:17:21] And I had seen, last night, I had seen Dear Evan Hansen, first time, and I had seen it. And I said to Peter, didn't see it. I went by myself, and here I am watching it, and I'm realizing, OMG, this, oh my fucking God, Evan Hansen, the theme of that film is very much like one of the versions that we did of In Search of Fellini. It was so much of it because one of the versions was Lucy was going off, and she creates a lie.

[00:17:50] And she doesn't see it as a lie. She's trying to fix something. And it's a diversion. And by the end of the film, she has created such an aesthetic. It's different than Evan Hansen that it's not a, how do I say this? You see the journey that she has taken, and she has sent these postcards home to her mother. And she has changed not only her mother's life, but the whole town has gotten involved with it.

[00:18:20] I don't want to go too much there because— Yeah, sure. You'll just see the movie. It was astounding, though. I said, Peter, you have to see this. It was so much like one of—it was like version number two and version number 12. It was incredible. But my point is we picked a lot of different parts from different versions that we did, and we didn't limit ourselves to that. There was so much of an evolution in creating this product that you will see when you go to the theaters.

[00:18:45] It was such an evolution that I can't really say that it was just—you know, it wasn't one script. It was a lot of contribution. Well, it didn't strike me until you said it just now. And without going too much into the details of every scene, even though she seemed authentically original to herself, she was—and she was also helpless in some ways, kind of like the character you mentioned in the movie.

[00:19:13] The actual role you played in that earlier movie, it's almost like you translate into this character a little bit. But you said she had to tell a lie. She was not quite living in her authentic self, so that's why she had to travel. Yeah. She had to get out of the rut of her normal routine somehow in order to find her artistic self. Yeah. And I think she learns about art all along the way. I love that. And for you, let's look at your career.

[00:19:42] You knew where your talents were. Like, you were already a successful voiceover artist. You were an actress. You had mentored under Daws Butler, who had done Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear and all these other, you know, great, you know, amazing animated characters. And then, you know, you started taking, you know, acting classes with a great teacher. So you understood the role of mentorship and how that propels success.

[00:20:07] What led you from going from just performing, you know, La Strada on a stage to actually saying, oh, I'm going to go in the mid-80s to Italy and find Fellini? Yeah, that's great. This kind of goes back to where I originally pulled us way off what I thought was off track. It wasn't. Yeah, it wasn't. It's beautiful. No, I'll tell you what it was. It's like when I moved to Los Angeles and you'll see, when you see the film, you'll sort of

[00:20:34] see that that was my kind of like what Lucy does is taking off to find, she's like in search of something. And I'm sort of like in search of my dream, except that I knew what's different from me and Lucy Cunningham in the film is that I certainly did not lead a sheltered life. I'm one of six kids and I was an actress and I mostly competed in contest speech, like doing not debate. I didn't want to be a politician or a lawyer or anything.

[00:21:00] I mean, I did individual events, which was like after dinner speaking, which is stand up. I did a little bit of that and just prose and poetry reading, but focused really on storytelling and humorous interpretation of literature. James Thurber was a, I was a huge fan, am still a huge fan of James Thurber, 13 Clocks and Many Moons, these children's stories. And nobody taught me, including Dawes Butler, how to do voices. I had no idea that I could do this.

[00:21:28] I, I liked to make people laugh as a kid. Not so much like a class clown would be. I wasn't so much of a troublemaker. Although there were times when I remember like with my, it was it just geography teacher, Mr. Dworkin, I would, I would do like dripping. How do you do that? It's just, you know, you pluck your cheek, you kind of hit the top of your head. The class was totally giggling because they knew that it was me. It drove him nuts. Well, did he think like something was leaking?

[00:21:57] Yeah, I thought he just couldn't figure out where it was coming from. So even with, so, so there's a little bit of Bart Simpson in you from even as a child. Oh yes, guilty so bad. Yeah, I've done some stupid stuff. I wrote, God, I don't want to say his name, but yeah, I wrote Jim Holly and fucks Patty Reese because I really, I had such a crush on this guy and that was his girlfriend and I was so jealous and I wrote it in magic marker in the bathroom. And you know, I just did it. I didn't think I was destroying property.

[00:22:27] It never occurred to me that I was really, I thought, so, you know, it'll wash off. It was a permanent marker. Okay. And by the end of the day, I'm called down to the principal's office and busted. It was the vice principal. And he sat me down. He says, I understand you're quite an artist. You know what I said? It didn't occur to me. I was getting, I was like, oh, thank you. I took it as a compliment. Oh my God, Nancy, wake up. He says, no, I saw that artwork that you did in the bathroom.

[00:22:56] And all of a sudden, like, oh, the penny dropped. I'm like, oh man, I'm so in trouble. And your mom's on her way over here today, Nancy. You're going to be staying home tomorrow. That's really, that's not how, that's not how we behave here. You know, that's not okay. And yeah, I was pretty humiliated. Well, I'll tell you, it was not humiliated because of what I had done. I was more humiliated because my mom now knows I know the F word. That's what did it. So there is a little bit of part.

[00:23:24] And obviously it had impact that you remember like all these years later. Oh my God. Yeah, it was humiliating. It hasn't stopped you from saying the F word. Clearly. No, but you're right about Bart Simpson and the journey. But you know, also like, so you just made this kind of water plopping sound, you know, that you were obviously able to do as a kid. You were already doing voiceover work and you were successful at it. What made you then realize, oh, I'm going to, I, you were humble enough to also say, okay, I need further mentorship. Yeah.

[00:23:52] And that's when you reached out to maybe the most successful voiceover artist at that time. You know, somebody had come into, to WING radio where Jonathan Winters had worked there years ago. And here I am just kind of filling in for people that go on vacation. I learned everything from reception to accounting to the traffic department where you get to schedule the commercials in. And when I'm listening to these commercials and I'm doing this, I got to see the name of the advertising agency.

[00:24:19] There are all these actors names in there like Joni Gerber and who else's name? Frank Welker. And I saw these guys' names and I recognize them from cartoons. And here I am. I've been competing in speech and getting big trophies like first place and humorous interpretation. And I'm going, wow. And I would get comments from the judges. You have a unique voice. You should do cartoons for a living. Well, this is Kettering, Ohio. I mean, it's not exactly the animation capital of the world, right? So I'm like, how do I do that?

[00:24:49] So some woman came in promoting music and she was from Warner Brothers. And that to me meant Mel Blanc. And my boss, he was wonderful. My boss, Jim Bennett, he knew that. So he introduced me to this woman from Warner Brothers. And she was like, yeah, you should put a little something together for me and I can pass it along. I didn't know what a demo tape was and it should be about two minutes long. And I put a tape together on my own, 13, 14 minutes long, sent it to her.

[00:25:18] And she was awesome. She wrote me back and she sent me Dawes Butler's name. He was one of many names and phone numbers, addresses or whatever. So I called him and that started our relationship. He called me back. And boom, I was off. And when you were in LA, then you spent hours. You were putting in your 10,000 hours studying under him when you already had so much talent and skill as a voiceover artist. What were some of the things you learned that took you that final stretch to be? Professional. Yeah.

[00:25:48] Well, you were already professional, but maybe you didn't view yourself that way. I don't know. No, I had never been paid. I had never been paid to do it before. I wasn't making a living doing that. I mean, it was working at this radio station, but I did a little thing in the afternoon as a promo for the station. Just was a little bit in the afternoon that I lived for that five minutes with the weather guy and the traffic guy, you know, and doing a little character, which was similar to Bart. You know, it was a girl, lily pad.

[00:26:14] But it took Dawes, I worked with Dawes, and it took a couple years before he felt like I was ready to really put another tape together. Wow, a couple of years. Yeah. Like if you had been told that at the beginning of those years, would you have said, I'm not waiting a couple of years? No, because this was a guy that was like such a pioneer. Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quick Drama Girl, Elroy Jetson, Baba Louie, Coswell Cog, Peter Potamus. I didn't know Elroy Jetson. Oh my gosh, the Raisin Bran Sun.

[00:26:43] Just like Cap'n Crunch. Amazing Dixie. Baba Louie. He just did Peter Potamus. I mean, he did so many of these characters that I grew up on and maybe you too. But it's like, wow, this guy and I would go to his house on Sundays, catch the 86 bus from Westwood and go into Beverly Hills, walk a couple blocks for an hour lesson. I was there four hours.

[00:27:06] And he and his wife, who's now 100 years old, Mertis is 100 years old now, still around. Bless her heart. She's like amazing. And they would take me out to dinner and drive me back to UCLA to my dorm. And I just, no, I didn't know. I didn't know this industry. I was living kind of like under a dome at UCLA and completely protected on a play field and started doing theater.

[00:27:32] And that kind of segued me into doing more stage where I ended up doing a play. I was 22 playing a 12-year-old doing a very controversial play that got me a lot of attention. And from that, I got an agent. And that's how I started balancing like on camera fairly quickly. I think I doing on camera stuff with, yeah, start and doing Richie Rich was the first thing.

[00:28:02] That was in the spring of 81. And that's when I got an agent and did a pilot and Twilight and all that stuff started rolling out. I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, what am I doing? What am I doing? I thought I was just going to be voiceovers. And now I'm juggling at that age going, oh, I'm doing two careers because it really was two careers. But the on-camera stuff wasn't part of the plan. I didn't plan on doing that. It kind of happened. But there was a book I read.

[00:28:30] Linda Obst wrote this book called Hello, He Lied. And it was about writing and producing. And it was an awesome book. It was written a number of years ago. But she says— Oh, the title. It was a great title. But ride the horse in the direction that it's going. And I thought that was amazing. So, okay. Ta-run, ta-run, ta-run. I'm going in this direction, you know? That's incredible. You could do those sounds like all day and I would just take a listen.

[00:28:57] But, you know, don't—anything, it's a carpe diem kind of viewpoint. You've got to seize the moment when it's happening to you. But it's also like it's a certain kind of commitment to the moment. You know, just like what you did with the Cheers audition walking off. You have to really commit to it. And if it feels fake or scripted, it doesn't work. You have to commit to even the voices. You have to really say, I'm going to do this and not waver, not have my voice waver at all.

[00:29:27] Yeah, I think when you make a decision, when you make a strong decision like that, you back it 100%. You don't waver. You know, we all have like these—you know, it's so easy to fall into little voices that, you know, negativity that can come into your world, your universe. Like for an artist, it would be you're too young, you're too old, you're too fat, you're not tall enough. Oh, my phone's going to like this. Yeah, it's like, oh, or, you know, Kachi's so much better than me.

[00:29:54] And even sitting in the audition room waiting to go in, you're sitting in there with all these other artists, and these are the people that are competing for the same part. It's a very strange method. It's the one that Hollywood chooses to do, that audition process. It's so difficult. So if you—the way to win, if you will, the way to be causative as an artist is to not think of it as a competition,

[00:30:22] but make your decision for what you're going to do at that audition and fulfill the decisions that you've made, and then you cannot lose. So what do you mean? So, for instance, in the movie you described where you took off the glasses and had— You didn't quite—you made a decision earlier, but you didn't quite commit to it going into the audition. Yeah, because I didn't think that I was—that wasn't part of my audition. The audition was actually the character and the reading of the part.

[00:30:49] It was the decision that I made in terms of the emotional investment and how am I going to play this scene. And so I kind of broke the scene down and where is she going and how do I need to start? And, you know, is there an arc in the scene? Things like technical things that an actor would do. But I never considered that—I brought the hat along maybe to show them the hat. But I didn't make the decision. It's like wearing the hat, okay, I'm not going to walk in. Maybe I'll bring it.

[00:31:17] And at the last second, I'm going, no, I'm just going to go in and do that. But still, it was enough of a commitment that they saw you in the waiting area. I guess so. I guess so. So how do people practice this idea of surprise—or how do people learn to do that, to surprise yourself so you can surprise everyone? That's a great question. Like clearly you kept practicing that. You consciously thought this is a pathway to success in addition to all the skills you were developing at the same time. You know, it seems like there was mentorship was a key part of your success.

[00:31:47] There was innate talent. And then there's this element of both surprise and commitment and immersion. You know, I think that I don't know that you can really actually define more than what you just said about it. It's just like I believe as an artist, you have to do the work and then throw it away. And then you have to just go in and be there in present time and just trust.

[00:32:12] Trust that what I have done is—that's going to serve me, serve me best. I mean, even when I went in for The Simpsons, I went in for Lisa. And the audition pieces of Bart and Lisa were sitting right next to each other. And here's my part. Okay, here's the monologue. I never—I wasn't sent it ahead of time. I'm looking at it and reading it. It's cute. It's fine. There's a picture of her. Wow, that's an interesting-looking animated character that I'd never seen before.

[00:32:40] Most animated up to that point in time was the Jetsons, the Flintstones. They were very real-looking, even though cavemen, the Flintstones, but they looked like people. You know, you see the Simpsons and they got weird hair and they kind of did, but pudgy and yellow. It's like odd. But Bart was right next to it. And I picked—her said eight-year-old middle child, his a 10-year-old school-hating underachiever and proud of it. I'm like, oh, bam, bam, that's it.

[00:33:04] That was my trusting my instincts because I believe that's true, really true for all of us. And if you can just believe that, that you are correct, your instincts are correct. Again, this is at a point already after your search for Fellini, which will— I want to make the connection actually between In Search of Fellini, the movie, and The Simpsons. But maybe you only build those instincts and that faith in those instincts after much experience. I don't know.

[00:33:33] I think that's planet Earth. And that's like, you know, gee whiz, I think that we all have baggage with us. And we're trying to like—we're all trying to survive. You know, it has to do with survival. And as an artist, there's a—for me anyway, and I think actually for all artists, there's a little bit more to it because there's a responsibility level that goes with being an artist.

[00:33:57] Because the world, in terms of culture, the culture looks—people, individuals look towards the artists because it's through art. It's an aesthetic wavelength. I don't know how else to describe it, but there's an aesthetic band that when you go to the movies or when you see something phenomenal on stage, you see dancers or you hear a piece of music that makes you cry. And you don't know why.

[00:34:23] It's because that wavelength, it just laser sharp goes into your very beingness, the soul of who you are. And it just—it can change you. It can lift you up. It can like pull you out of the—this is my viewpoint, I swear. It like pulls you out of this physical universe into an area where it's just beautiful. And that's what makes you cry. Take a quick break.

[00:34:52] If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It would mean so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at alcatra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks.

[00:35:13] We've been using Storyblocks for years because, as you know, I'm always making podcasts, videos, newsletters, and we hate wasting time hunting for good footage, music, or images. Storyblocks is our go-to. I mean, it really is like a creator's dream. Everything is 100% human-made by real filmmakers and artists, professionally shot, curated, pre-licensed so we can use it for anything without worry. And believe me, that is a worry for podcasters.

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[00:36:31] So when you were studying La Strada, obviously, like, it's interesting what you say about wavelength, because obviously there's always, everybody kind of, the universal consensus is that Fellini is one of the most brilliant filmmakers of all time. Yeah. But a lot of people will just sit there and watch his movie in today's fast-paced world and say, uh, I don't get it. Yeah. Because he had this absurdist, surreal kind of viewpoint as well. But some people will look at it and say, oh, my gosh, I connect so much to what he's saying.

[00:37:01] Obviously, that happened to you with La Strada. Yeah. And— In the middle of all these cartoons. Yeah, you were already again. And doing cartoons, right? Yeah. So you're right, and that's exactly what it was. There was something about that film that just went right into me, and I said, I need to do something with this, and I don't know what. But—so I started to put up every scene and cast different Zompano's, different Fools. Richard Basart plays the Fool. And played every part. Milton says, what are you doing?

[00:37:30] You know, I said, you're doing another scene. What do you want to do, Nancy? I said, I don't know. I think—I don't know. And then I'm still looking at it. And then one day I realized, I said, you know what I want to do? I want to get the rights to do La Strada as a stage production. So that was my impetus for going to Italy.

[00:37:46] And I didn't—they served me quite—this is the one thing that I got out of ICM that—because I was a cartoonist, I wasn't really—Holly Hunter was represented by ICM, and she was well on her way. We were kind of the same—about the same age. So it's like, wow, she's getting a lot of attention. They know that I do dripping faucets, and, you know, I can do motorboats and cement mixers. I can do all these sound effects. But how do I fit into their world?

[00:38:15] And I was making my own way because I loved my agent. I really loved my agent. And anyway, but the head of the agency, Jeff Berg, he had—they represented Fellini. So I got Fellini's address. So I started writing letters to Fellini, and I got no response. One letter after another, you know, all these letters that I wrote. And one day, bam, I couldn't believe it. I got a letter back. Now, they were not encouraging. They said, don't come. He's going to be here, but don't come. He's editing.

[00:38:42] He's going to be working because I said I'm going to be there around Christmastime. And it's like, no, no, no. But James, are you kidding me? He's going to be there. I'm like, I'm out of here. I am definitely going. So that's that thing. That's that passion. That's that art that's—I don't know how to describe it more than that. But it's like, trust your instincts. I said, I'm out of here. I'm going. And trust your instincts about this one. It's not like you were— That I can meet this great director who did this film that, like, really—it affected me in a way spiritually, if you will.

[00:39:12] It just moved me. I go, how did he do that? Maybe if he meets me, he'll give me the rights to La Strada, and I can do it on stage, and I can share this passion with other people. So that was the idea behind it. So I go off, but I was going to go with a friend, and she got a callback. It's so typical. She got a callback, and it's great. So I had to—I ended up going by myself. I wasn't going to let that stop me.

[00:39:37] So I take off, and I—but ahead of time, I'm looking at going, he's going to be there at Christmas, but I got to take in the culture of Italy. I want to see. I want to eat, drink. I want to fall in love. I want to see what Italy is like, you know. So again, this immersion, it's not like you're just making an appointment with a lady and then coming back. It's this commitment to doing something a little surprising because he doesn't know you're showing up. No. Probably your agents think you're crazy. Probably Milton and Kasellas thought you were crazy for all I know. I don't know.

[00:40:06] But my friends were a little bit like, God, oh, my God, because I could do that. A lot of people were married and—I didn't have—I was single. I didn't have any obligations, so I could do it. And I was making a living with voiceovers also. A lot of people in my class were working but not—you know, they had other jobs that they had. They were waiting tables. They were driving taxis, whatever they were doing. But I was making a living doing it. But it was working out fine.

[00:40:34] And Christmas, about Thanksgiving, the industry pretty much shuts down. Till the middle of January, it really is—there's not a lot happening. So I just said, well, whatever. I mean, this is part of my life. I'm going to experience some life here. What better training ground than going out and investing my time in meeting people and kind of finding out who other people are? And holy mackerel, here I am with like kind of like in my mid-20s, single. I don't speak the language.

[00:41:04] That was challenging. My luggage went to Frankfurt, Germany. True story. And you'll find that out in the movie. But so many of the events. So you said—was it this guy, that line? Okay, it goes back to— You have to travel far, far away. Sometimes you have to travel far, far away in order to find out what is closest to you. So here I am, no luggage, and I'm stuck in Milan. And I was only going to be in Milan for like a day and then take a train and go to Verona because I had mapped it out.

[00:41:33] I want to go to Milan, Verona, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Rome. And I'll make it to Rome within like, you know, almost two weeks, like 12 days or something like that. So here I am, and I'm stuck and waiting for the airport to call me, and I don't know where my luggage is. So I'm kind of waiting around, and I go to this park, and there's this guy on the park bench. Like maybe he was dressed in like a Sergeant Pepper uniform, sounded like Mickey Mouse, only had four teeth.

[00:42:02] And he's sitting at one end, and I'm at the other, and he's feeding the birds. And, you know, when you travel to Europe, it's like they almost give you a passport when you go to a foreign country to not be yourself. You start doing things. And, man, I took full advantage as an artist to do that. And I started chatting with this guy. James, you won't believe what I pulled in. I can't believe who he was. His name was Cosmo, and he had been an actor.

[00:42:30] He said, you won't recognize me because I got these clothes on. But I was, oh, he asked what I was doing, and I said, I'm going to find Fellini. Oh, Fellini. Oh, Fellini. This is Fellini. I work with Fellini. You won't recognize me because I have my clothes on. I was in Satiricon. I was in Satiricon. I was an actor. I did this film, Shashanushanesh Tchula. It's such a long title that by the time you get to the end, you forget what you said at the beginning.

[00:42:59] I had worked at the actor's studio, but William Holden took all of my parts. I could not get any work. I had to come home again. And this is the guy that I'm talking to. So I had somebody. She just randomly found a guy. Randomly ran into this guy. And he had been in Satiricon. That's ridiculous. That is. That's like crazy. And I didn't know. So there is a scene kind of like that in the movie. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't know that was autobiographical.

[00:43:26] And you actually played the wife of that character who had also been in. But he said that line to me, and I wrote it down. It came from this homeless, toothless, Mickey Mouse-like guy that spoke five, seven languages, something like that. And he sat there and showed me. And this was an artist that had been broken down bit by bit, couldn't get work anywhere. And now he's in his 70s.

[00:43:55] And I was just like so touched by that. And I mean, that's going to stick in my personal portfolio in my mind, if you will. But got this photo of him and me. And then I, you know, shook his hand. I ate some of the bread myself and moved on. And then ended up going and went to Verona. And there was an incident there that's in the film. I don't want to give it all the way. Falling in love happened in Venice.

[00:44:22] A scene in that scene in Venice where I took Cosmo from Milan, turned her into a woman. I, you know, we, I had this, I wanted to, I wanted to be in the film. But originally I was going to be Claire. I wanted to be Claire. And I thought, oh my God. Maria Vallow was great. Oh my God. Oh my God. But here's what happened is I realized, well, in, in, this is in pre-production.

[00:44:50] And nobody is going to tell me, nobody's going to tell me no. They're just riding along with me until I finally wake up one day. And I said, you know what? I had a thought last night. This is talking to Teron and to Peter. And I said, I'm not playing Claire. Claire, what's, what's going? I said, no, this is not, this is going to, this is not going to help. This won't help the movie. This, this will destroy the movie. I can't do it because people are going to be stuck. Like how we started this interview.

[00:45:16] People know it's Nancy Cartwright and the positioning of, you know, 29 years of doing The Simpsons. They're going to just watch me and their attention will be on. She doesn't sound like Bart or she sounds a little bit like Bart. Because I don't think I sound like this. I don't think I sound like this all the time. You know, this is, I'm 10. Bart Simpson, who the hell are you? And, you know, I'm a grandmother. Okay. I am a grandmother. And I play the voice of Bart Simpson. But it's, it'll still be distracting. You know what I mean?

[00:45:47] So that was it. That was the end of that. Maria Bello, bam. Only other consideration. She was the, that was the choice. It's like this actress has the responsibility, certainly has the chops to do it. And her last name is Bello. I mean, come on. She's perfect for the part. Yeah, no, she was great. And so was Mary Lynn Rice Cub. Lovely. Yeah. She's so fun. I think in general, she's a very comedic actor and funny. Mary Lynn? I've loved her since the Larry Sanders show.

[00:46:16] She was so, I like her dry sense of humor. You mean? She's so amazing. She, yes, she brought the levity to this film. This otherwise. It's a very serious role too. Yeah. Like it's not necessarily a comic role. No. Although she brings her comic element to it. No, but very dry. You know what she used to do? When we shot, we were two weeks in Cleveland. She would, before we went to Italy, we were in Cleveland together. I didn't know that she was doing this. She didn't tell anybody. We kept a really standard schedule. And they, they could actually go home at night at a decent hour and, and be prepared for the next day.

[00:46:45] Mary Lynn would go out and go to the comedy store in Cleveland. And do standup. That's how devoted, how committed she is to her art. She's amazing. And such a delight to be with. Just charming. I want to get back to you. You were in Italy. Yeah. Lucy, the main character, also has incidents in Verona and Venice. And what happened to you in the, in, when you were on this quest? Now I hope, I just hope that people are listening to your podcast here after they've seen the film.

[00:47:14] Cause this is, these will be a little, well. Okay. Well, it's, it's, it's kind of inside. We're not getting into the details because I think the great thing about the movie is the education of an artist. How you find your authentic self and connecting to that wavelength. And you're not saying the specifics of what happens in these cities. In the film. Yeah. Well, I will tell you, it's like there were so many things that happened in real life that we just, Peter and I, I kept a diary. I would never let anybody read my diary though. Just know that. So James, don't even ask. Nobody's reading the diary. I can't.

[00:47:43] I think you're sort of, did you just sort of kind of passive aggressively say everybody should read the diary? No, no, I'm not. Are you going to have to publish the diary now? No, no, no, no. It's not going to be published. In fact, I got to maybe probably get Burnett somehow. But, but I went through it and highly. I think you're feeling an urge to publish this diary. No, no, no, no. I'm not going to do it. No, but I will tell you this is like, we decided to go to Italy and retrace my steps for, for locations, kind of location scouting. But we didn't have a budget yet. And I really wasn't authorized by my business manager to go off and do that.

[00:48:12] And I said, okay, let's just say I'm going on vacation and I'm taking two bodyguards with me and I'm paying for their trip. That's that. I'm not doing anything. I'm not doing research for the film. I'm just going on vacation. I'm going to Italy. Bye. So that's what we did. And we went back and went to all these locations. And because I had, I kept relationships with, well, one particular guy that you'll find out in the movie. So that's all I'm going to say. A little, little thing there.

[00:48:36] But when I went to go through, I was looking through all my photographs and notes and letters to Fellini that I kept, I kept it all in like a scrapbook. And I'm going through and I came across a business card. And the business card was to a guy named Bippy Patatucci. And he was the proprietor of this little shop that you'll see in the film. And it's the scene that I'm in. And it's his name. And I thought, he would, I remember I was like in my 20s.

[00:49:06] And I remember he was probably in his 50s. So now he's probably in his 80s, if my estimation of his age was correct. So he's probably still alive. I wonder if he's still there. So I go on the internet and pull it up. And I couldn't believe it. His store, it said it was still there. So I called the number. And it went, da, da, da. The number you dialed is no longer. So, okay, okay, fine. I'll have to wait till I go on the trip in a couple of days to find out if he's there. But I flipped over the card.

[00:49:35] And on the back was a name, Kevin Coates. I went, and a phone number. And I went, holy shit, this is the artist. And when you see the film, the symbolism that you know how with the fool, he gives her the stone. And he talks about everyone has a purpose. So when this happened, after an incident for me really happened in Venice, I duck away.

[00:50:01] I was pretty much accosted by an Italian guy. And I got away from him, did some real damage to his body. Boom, right knee. Running like a bat out of hell, thinking I'm in, I don't know, a Fellini movie, but certainly Hitchcock movie, something. And I duck away into this little antiquarian. And I'm sweating. And it's winter. It's cold. I'm so upset. And I don't want anybody to know it. I'm so afraid. And I'm just hiding. I'm just hiding. And I duck in there. And I'm just looking around.

[00:50:30] And I find this little piece of, it's a sculpture. And it was a little naked bronze woman coming out of a piece of lapis stone. Beautiful. And I'm looking at this. I'm going, and again, here's that aesthetic wave band. And I'm looking at this piece. I almost got raped, man. And I'm looking at, man, that's so Bart. That's weird. Okay. Bart, after 29 years. I know. I'm still saying it. I almost got raped, man.

[00:50:57] Just to be clear, your memoir written in 2000, Autobiography of a 10-Year-Old Boy. So you do recognize the overlap between your life and Bart's. Yeah. Okay, so. Can't get away from it. So I'm looking at this piece. And it totally, like, it totally pulled me out of this. And it really helped me tremendously. And I meet this proprietor, Bippy. And he chats with me. And, you know, I really love it. And he says, do you want to talk to the artist, the sculptor? And I said, yeah. So he gets him on the phone.

[00:51:26] And he was in London. So I talked to this guy for maybe a minute. And I tell him, you know, I think it's beautiful. And I hope we can work out an arrangement that I can buy this. I really want to buy. Thank you so much, Miss Cartwright. It's such a pleasure meeting you. And maybe perhaps someday we'll meet. And I said, Kevin, you're, it's so beautiful. Thank you so much. It was a really simple conversation. Nothing more than that. Hang up the phone. We work out a deal. You know, I didn't really think I gave him almost every penny that I had to buy it. I don't have enough.

[00:51:52] This is moments after being, going through a frightening, you know, life-threatening experience. Yeah, within 10 minutes, like 10 minutes later. And I just, Wiping, he gets me water. I never, I didn't share with him what had happened. I just, you know, I couldn't share that. And so I buy this piece. So now, flash forward to like 2015 and we're about ready to take off. And I've got this business card with his name on there.

[00:52:22] And I'm thinking, what happened to Kevin Coates? Where is he today? So I go on the internet. God love the internet. I mean, it's got so many great things. What would we do without it? Oh my God. So I go on there and I put his name in. You won't believe what this guy does. He is amazing. That's one of the first things that he had ever done was my piece that I bought from him. And I saw that there was a book. There were little videos. This guy is like a Renaissance man. And I mean it literally.

[00:52:50] He has long white hair. His wife too. She's lovely. He plays the harpsichord. She plays a harpsichord, mandolin. They play these, you know, Renaissance musicians. And he deals with, he's an alchemist, mostly dealing with wax and with gold. And he creates his own. They're mostly can hold in your hand, but brooches. And he's been commissioned by dukes and duchesses. And his works have been in museums. And I'm like, oh my God.

[00:53:19] And I saw there was a book. And thank God for Amazon Prime because like I order this book. It's like a coffee tea. It's a big. It's a massive. It's like one inch thick of this guy's work. And I get it again like the day before we're leaving. And I'm like, holy shit. Are you kidding me? So it's incredible what happened. So I write the, there was no, how do I get in touch with Kevin Coates? Should I go on or do you want to ask another? I mean, this is like. No, no, no. I'm fascinated.

[00:53:49] Because you know why I'm fascinated by this? There's almost like this improv-like aspect where the yes and. It's like, you know, the store owner says, do you want to talk to him? And you said, yes. I would probably be like, oh, no, you don't have to. Like, I'd feel shy. But you were just like, yes. And place the moment. Carpe diem. It's like, you're right. You're absolutely right. So. And that's related to the whole like, oh, let's just jump on a plane. And even though everyone has said no, including Fellini, I'm going to find him.

[00:54:16] And somehow he's going to give me the rights to his, one of his greatest movies. And I'm going to do a stage production of it. Like it's, it's this kind of, you know, the beginnings of every improv starts like that. That's so beautiful. I love that. I think, you know, if people were more a little bit like that, they would just be trusting the moment, you know? So you got the book from Amazon Prime. Got the book, was blown away by it. There was no, I didn't know how to get in touch with him, but I just go to the back of the book and there was a website for the publisher of the book.

[00:54:45] So I wrote to the publisher. It just very briefly wrote, I'm on a quest. I had done this trip way back in 19 and just briefly described what I did. I said, I really would love to get, can you get in touch with Kevin Coates? Is there any way you could forward his, you know, my email to him? And I'll leave it up to him, you know, out of respect. She said, absolutely. She ended up writing me back within a day. I heard back from the publisher, very kind and sent me an email address.

[00:55:13] And it turned out that it was Kevin's wife who manages him. And her name's Nell. And so I wrote her a letter and told her about this phone call and buying his artwork. And I just mentioned it and I said, you know, we're doing this film and we're going to be shooting it in Italy. And I would love to, you know, someday I would love to meet Kevin and you. I think you're amazing. And T.S., by the way, I don't know if you've heard of this little show, you know, it's called The Simpsons and I'm also the voice of Art Simpson.

[00:55:42] But most fondly, Nancy Cartwright and then My Data. So I sent that off and it's really interesting what happened because it didn't create the effect I thought it was going to create. I thought for sure that they would, that I would get a response back. It took a long time. And she, you know, Kevin is, he's quite a bit older than me. I think he's probably in his, I think he's in his 80s.

[00:56:09] And so I didn't get, and so Simpsons probably meant nothing. I don't think that it meant anything to Nell or him. And the response was kind of curt. And I thought, wow, wow, that's interesting. Okay. Okay. That's fine. We were used to that. Yeah. Yeah. It was a little bit, wow. Okay. So we went off anyway and did the trip and did, you know, location scouting and had an incredible journey and actually didn't find anybody that had been there when I did it.

[00:56:37] And that's fine because we were inspired, the three of us, Taran, Peter, and I were so inspired by, invigorated in a new, brand new time. Forget, you know, it's, I said, I use little bits and pieces, but it started to evolve into something more than what Peter and I had been creating for 20 years. And that ended up being, geez, we sat down and in a week, we wrote the script in a week

[00:57:05] because there was so much previous, all the 12 scripts and that journey added together, it culminated and adding Taran's investment of the whole Fellini-esque quality to the film as you saw. Right. And it just, it was so clear what we needed to do. So he's writing scenes, I'm writing scenes. You take Verona, I'm going to take Venice. You know, we're going to, and that's how we kind of worked together as writers.

[00:57:33] It was so, so satisfying. So, and then Taran coming in saying, you got to come over, you got to see what I found. Look at this. Look at the journey of Lucy. It parallels exactly Fellini's movies. This is amazing. I'm telling you, it was so, I just, if every artist could have something like, I think everybody has a story.

[00:57:56] If every artist could tap into that part of them, some aspect that they are maybe afraid to share, something that is so personal that it would surprise not only you, but others about who you are. That's interesting because it's, so Fellini has a quote. Fellini says, everybody has the potential to be an amazing artist. Yeah. I think people get shut down to that because they get into the, no, you have to do this,

[00:58:25] this, this, and this. That's what a life is supposed to be. Special people can do, you know, other things or, you know, people who are a little off or whatever could do other things, but you're doing this to protect yourself and your family. And they forget that artistic side of themselves. Yeah. Look at, look at, it was his name, Kevin Potts? The guy that won American Idol, he was, what did he do? He was a, like, was he a truck driver or something? And he's just like the opera. He was the opera singer.

[00:58:54] His last name was Potts. And even the gal that won, it's like people, these artists that, they're artists, but they're not getting, they can't make a living doing their art form. So they have to do other things. But it's, it's hard. It's challenging. How do you, how do you express? You have to find an outlet somehow. You have to also, it seems like, connect the dots. Just like you're, like this movie connects the dots of every area of your life.

[00:59:23] Your, your own search for mentorship is reflected in Lucy's search for mentorship. Yeah. And, you know, mentorship being a key to, to success for you and, and for Lucy's journey to, to finding her authentic self. And, you know, also the idea that she was, she's an artist in the beginning, but still needs to figure out how to bring out the authenticity to, to get rid of the need to lie, which is what, like, which is what happens to all of us. We start to put on the masks early on.

[00:59:52] And we don't go on that. You said you went initially to Europe. And when you got there, you realize it's like a passport to be somebody else. Yeah. And, and sometimes you have to be somebody else. Or in other words, you have to travel far, far away. Yeah. To find what's closest to you, to find yourself. And it's not even a physical far, far away. You kind of described it almost as like an emotional or mental one. Or metaphorically. Yeah. Sometimes you have to do that. You suddenly have to divorce yourself from what's happening in order to find what's been there the whole time.

[01:00:20] And, you know, it's interesting your attachment to Fellini as opposed to, let's say, other directors. You, you went in search of Fellini. You didn't go in search of, I don't know, Cassavetes or you didn't go down the street to search for Spielberg. Yeah. You were in search of Fellini. And I wonder if that's somewhat connected to your attraction to, to Bart and The Simpsons. And I'll explain how. So Fellini, of course, had this whole neorealistic period where it's this combination of surrealism,

[01:00:48] but, but making a statement about the current moment. And I think that's what The Simpsons is about. It's, it's, it's totally absurdist and surreal. And at the same time, they're always commenting on what's happening right now. James, you're, that's such an interesting viewpoint. It really is. And I haven't written anything yet for The Simpsons. But your attraction though, to the, obviously you're attracted to the show and then the character.

[01:01:14] And then of course The Simpsons is, is defined by, by Bart in large part. And how you portray him is, there's the writing and there's the trail, but I don't think you can separate the two. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Yeah. I mean, you, you look at, you're just talking about my life choices. You know, these decisions that I make, they seem to be, how do I say it? It all seems to be like, oh yeah, uh, I'm just going to go do this.

[01:01:42] But there's actually some kind of a form to that madness, right? Yeah. You have a beginning, not an end, but you can see in the arc of your career, there's a beginning, middle, and end. There's kind of this initial part where you have all these different mentorships, including a virtual mentorship at the very least with Fellini. And then you have this middle period where you're searching, you've already had some successes. You're searching for your authentic self.

[01:02:08] And then from there, it's only a short while after you get back from Italy that you kind of stumble into the Tracy Ullman show and it spins off into the Simpsons. And, and again, it all seems like attached to your own belief in like these surreal connections between things, you know, like just now you were describing your, your quest between looking for the sculptor and where, what he, what's happened to him since like connecting all these

[01:02:36] dots is, is almost, and finding meaning in them is a surreal way to bring it into the, into the moment. And I feel like the movie does that. The Simpsons, your, your portrayal of Bart does that. Maybe, maybe I'm stretching, but that's what I felt to me. I'm fascinated by your, by your viewpoint. You know, I was just thinking, as you said that the whole thing about the art guy to, a little bit more on that to complete that cycle is that we went off on the journey.

[01:03:02] And then when I came back, I had some photographs of the trip and sent her another letter and sent her photographs and she saw those. And when she saw those, she got a better idea of the quality of the film that we did. And she wrote me back a little bit faster, you know, and then when we shot the film and got the thing in the can and I actually got footage on it and I sent her a little bit of the trailer for it.

[01:03:31] And now it's like, I can't wait. I'm hoping to be able to go to London soon so that I can actually meet them. I just think that would just complete the cycle. But I find it so interesting that, you know, it's like doors can get shut. You know, I, you know, first writing, writing Fellini. No, no, no. Yes. You know. When did you start writing this movie? When was the first time you had the idea? I want to make a movie out of that time. Yeah, it was. In the 80s. Yeah. No, it was 19.

[01:03:59] No, it was doing, um, it was 90, uh, was doing a monologue. I put together a monologue to start working on a one woman show and I started doing that for a while. But then within a couple of years, I got cast as Bart. I got married. I had two children. I was pulled off and that wasn't so much. And then I wasn't in class anymore. I wanted to raise my kids and it was just the class went too late for me. And anyway, I just decided not to be there anymore.

[01:04:29] But by 95, now my kids were like four and five years old. And I'm like, I got to do this one woman show. So I was invited. No, it was, it was in 93. I think it was in 93. I was invited to a party and it was all artists. It was called a netless party where it was like poets, people could read poetry or do a song or do a monologue or do a dance, some art form that they'd never done before. So it was called netless. So if you do it and it flops, you know, you better, you somehow you, you, it's, it's like

[01:04:59] puts a little pressure there because you'd never done it before. I thought, okay, so I've got this monologue and I'd never done it in my class. I'm going to do it at this party. So I'd written this thing and I'm standing there and I would happen to be wearing a nun's, I was wearing a nun's habit because I had this concept. I don't want to go too far off it. Like it was like sister Bertrille from the flying nun with the wings in the head. And it was a little, it was, there was some comedy in it.

[01:05:24] And I, I said, hi, I just wanted to say, I'm going to do this monologue, but I'm looking for a writer because I'm not a writer, but I want to do a one woman show. And this is, I've started, but I could use some help. And one guy came up to me at the end, Peter Chenis, and he introduced himself. And man, he's the president of my production company, Spotted Cow Entertainment. He's, he became the editor of the book I wrote in 2000 was my life as a 10 year old boy. I did it as a one woman show.

[01:05:54] I took it on tour as a lecturer, had to get all the actors to sign off release forms, got support from Fox, all this technical stuff that had to do. I've traveled and just, just had so much fun and we've done, had so many fun and games together. I just adore this guy. And so this evolution, when we started writing Fellini in 95, we did it as a one woman show. So that's like, yeah, it's 22 years in the making of this movie from first thought to today. Yeah. And so bizarre.

[01:06:24] It's like back then the actor, the actors came to see it at the theater geo and Matt was there and some of the writers were there. And they've seen me go through this evolution of doing Bart Simpson, doing this one woman show, getting pregnant, having baby. Now my son is a father and I'm a grant. It's just, we've all, a lot of us have gotten married, gotten divorces, have children, the longevity of this family, if you will.

[01:06:51] So to have Mike Scully and Rob Lezebnik, Carolyn O'Meany, you know, Mike Reese come to see the film, you know how touching that is? It's so, it's so validating. It makes me feel, it's a great feeling having that support. What do you think contributed to the longevity of The Simpsons? No other TV show has lasted as long, I don't think. Jeff Westbrook. He saw it too. What's the longevity?

[01:07:21] What's the key to success there? Well, I think just, I mean, the 165 citizens of Springfield, I think there's somebody that you can relate to. If you can't relate to somebody in Springfield, you must be living under a rock, right? But it's not just the relatability, but the team. Like what? Oh man, it's just, no, it's the writers. The writers really put it there for us. And then that also in terms of directing it and that we do about four takes, you know,

[01:07:47] per scene when we go in to record it and four takes, but, you know, give them what's written there. And then if I'm inspired, I'll add a little Nancy improv there. I mean, to watch Dan go off and do his thing as Homer is just incredible. You know, it's, you have to, I have to bite my tongue and hold my mouth so I don't, you know, ruin his take. It's just watching a one man show when he gets to go off and do some of these longer, like almost monologues that Homer has.

[01:08:16] So, so, so clearly everybody's doing it. Not only, oh, this is my paycheck, but also it's like an act of love. Like they love doing what they do, which is the commitment. Oh my God. We get paid a lot of money to do what we love to do. That's every artist's dream to be on a show that you love. I mean, I can't imagine what it'd be like doing something that even like that it would be an integrity after a while. It can become a personal integrity issue where it would be challenging.

[01:08:45] But you keep doing it in the sense that, I mean, you keep doing the things you love. Like you made this movie. You didn't have to make this movie. You didn't have to. One of my philosophies. It's a successful action. Do what you love. Surround yourself with people that support what you're doing. Be a professional, you know, hit your wagon to a, to a mentor. You know, these are the kinds of things that it has to do with. For anybody, for anybody, not just an artist, for anybody in life. That's like a code for success. And then not to mention these other things you said before, which is like surprise yourself so you can surprise others. Yeah, carpe diem.

[01:09:14] The right. Exactly. And just to mention, you're also trying to be, get a license, a NASCAR racer. 158.2 miles an hour. That's my top speed. What's your top speed? 158.2. It was on a track. It was totally legal. My street, my street speed and my Tesla is not quite that high, but I got into triple digits. So, you know, I had a race car lesson once and I got really scared, like going above a hundred. Where were you? Where were you driving it? A track on Monticello, New York.

[01:09:44] It's the largest. Free wide? Yeah. It's actually the largest private racetrack in the, either the East Coast or the country. I forget. And I had a sitting next to me with his own wheel and it was a nice car. Oh, yeah, yeah. And sitting next to me with his own wheel was some professional. Stock car? Yeah. No, no. It was actually like a $700,000 car. Like I was getting, I was going to write an article about this. So they kind of outfitted me with the best. And. So you didn't have the Simpsons strap in or it was just a regular. Oh, James, you daredevil.

[01:10:14] No, but going over a hundred, I was scared. Yeah, I get it. It's scary. And then you're going, you have to make these turns and. Yeah. Oh, dude. Yeah. I've never done, I've never done a regular car on a racetrack. I've just done that on, on the five freeway going north. You know, it's like taking the grapevine over. It's, you know, at five in the morning, there's nobody out there. Right. Going north. They're all coming south. So you get your practice of going fast. Yeah. Okay. I've done only, only one time. She says. The police, this way the police don't have to track you.

[01:10:43] Oh, Nancy's on the road again. Yeah. Be aware. So in search of Fellini, are you, obviously you're happy with the final product. Yeah. And then get, you know, the, the review that we got with the New York times. We're over the moon. Oh, I didn't even see that review. What did it say? Oh man. Let's throw some, some quotes from that in there. Yeah. It's yeah. We'll have to, I don't, I didn't memorize it, but it was pretty. Wow. I'm just, wow. They really, I think that the, you know, the reviewer really understood it like you did.

[01:11:12] I mean, you don't, for your listeners, if you, you have back off on seeing this because you don't know who Fellini is. You've never heard of him. It doesn't matter. I should say it totally does not matter. Yeah. You don't need to know Fellini at all. I think maybe a basic understanding that there's a surreal component, but it's still very much grounded in a real story. Yeah. And you said yourself actually that with Lestrada, which inspired you the most, is probably the most grounded of his movies in terms of having a beginning, middle and end. Yeah.

[01:11:42] I tend to agree. And this certainly, in Search of Fellini, your movie certainly has a very, I don't want to say traditional, but it has a beginning, middle and end. It's a real story. It's not like it doesn't go off into surreal, although there's components, but. Yeah. It's not like Satiracan or Hammercorder. Yeah. That's a little bit more out there, you know? So I highly recommend it. I'll tell you just briefly how I felt watching it. A, the movie made me cry, which is rare. Oh, oh yeah? Yeah.

[01:12:09] And second, it is like almost, you're watching a beautiful story, of course, which is entertaining, but then there's lessons to be learned about how do you find your authentic self? How do you find the artist inside of yourself? You know, it's the pure arc of the hero is in this movie. So it's beautiful. Thank you so much. Highly recommend it. I'm so glad you came on the podcast, Nancy Cartwright. Yeah. Bart from The Simpsons. So I appreciate that. And I appreciate you.

[01:12:37] We had a discussion in the beginning where I kind of, you know, more or less said if you were comfortable saying the voice of Bart, so I'm glad you were able to, I think people connect. Oh, okay. Here's the voice of Bart. Oh yeah. Yeah. And then she goes off and does this extremely like creative, artistic, beautiful movie. So it's interesting that people should know too, that you can connect the dots all over your life and be artistic in many different endeavors. Yeah. So. Thank you so much. It's such a limited release though.

[01:13:04] So, I mean, right now it's only New York and Los Angeles, but we've got, it's coming out in Michigan and Washington and like, just check your local listings as this thing starts to unfold throughout the country. Yeah. And look, movies I think have a longer lifespan now just because they have their run and then they also have their run on iTunes. That's right. Or Netflix. Yeah. Yeah. Which would be great. Well, thanks again, Nancy, for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. You're wonderful, James.

[01:13:34] Oh, thank you. Yeah. God, you're so, you know what I love about you? You can add this if you want. I just, I'll tell you, you just, it's a real conversation. So many interviews with people in your position just have a list of questions and it's your communication. It's like you, you really listen to what I say. You acknowledge what I say and you take what I say and you're not stuck. Because we went all over the place on this and then we kind of wove back and picked it up and then went somewhere else.

[01:14:04] And it was very much like, like what the subject was. Well, it's because I do view it as a conversation. I'm learning and you're my mentor in this. Like so many things you said. You're one of the best. I'm telling you, I don't, I've done probably a thousand interviews in the last, in all these years. I'm not kidding. Well, let's just say hundreds. I've done hundreds and hundreds of them. It's a handful. I'm not kidding.

[01:14:29] Of an individual that does his homework and really knows how to have a conversation. And it's, and I really respect you for it because like Johnny Carson, the best. I really appreciate you saying that. And there's so many things from this conversation. I'm going to take it into my own.

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