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myBurbank Talks
myBurbank Talks
Women of Burbank: Lesley Powers and Mackenzie Kyle, Creators of “This is a Lot”
myBurbank reporter, Ashley Erikson, meets with Burbank moms, Lesley Powers and Mackenzie Kyle, the creators of the comedy YouTube series, “This is a Lot,” that showcases the hilarious “joys” of motherhood.
Lesley and Mackenzie grew up in the same small town and share how their paths crossed again in Burbank as they both grew in the entertainment industry. They share how the idea for the web series came about and what it was like filming with Mackenzie’s husband and children in the show, as well as some incredibly talented celebrity guests. As all three women are boy moms, they share advice on the world of raising boys and discuss some of the episodes and how the topics of playground politics, in laws, a pandemic puppy, meeting with the principal, and baby groups are relatable today.
Watch “This is a Lot” on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thisisalotshow786
“This is a Lot” on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisisalotshow/
"Besties" film info: https://www.lesleypowers.com/copy-of-hey-hun-film
This episode was sponsored by Compass Realtors Mike McDonald and Mary Anne Been.
From deep in the Burbank Media District. It's time for another edition of my Burbank Talks. This podcast is presented by the staff of my Burbank. Now let's see what's on today's agenda as we join our program.
Speaker 2:Hi, welcome back to another episode of Women of Burbank. I'm reporter Ashley Erickson and I have Mackenzie Kyle and Leslie Powers here with me today. Mackenzie Kyle is a proud Burbank resident, an actor, writer and producer. She's the creator of the web series this Is a Lot, which she has also turned into a pilot. Leslie Powers is a writer, director and producer living in Burbank with her husband and son. She is currently directing the web series this Is a Lot and has two feature films in the pipeline as well. Welcome to the show, guys. I'm really excited because this is my first episode where I haven't met anybody. So this is new for all of us and I'm really excited to meet you guys. But first just tell me a little bit about how you got started in the entertainment industry and what's brought you here. Well, thank you for having us.
Speaker 3:We're excited to be here. I will go first and then Leslie can go. I started acting when I was five years old. My grandmother ran a community theater in the town next to where we were from in Indiana, which is also where Leslie is from.
Speaker 2:I should say that's how you both met, right? Yes, we grew up together.
Speaker 3:That is so crazy OK, and started acting and then went to college for acting. I went to the theater school at DePaul University in Chicago and then lived in Chicago for five years after graduating doing theater, and then moved to LA and never saw myself as a writer. But then, after I had my first kid, I didn't know how I fit into the acting world anymore, because it's not an industry that is set up well for moms and moms who don't have full-time nannies which I am that and then started writing my own stuff and then Leslie and I started collaborating, so that's how we got here.
Speaker 2:And so when did you guys meet in your hometown? How long has this friendship been going on?
Speaker 4:So we were 12.
Speaker 2:Yeah, middle school.
Speaker 3:Yeah, middle school-ish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ok, and did you have the same kind of experience like you wanted to be in the entertainment industry? Yeah, I think so. I think both followed that kind of career path.
Speaker 4:Yeah, this is my turn to answer this question?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Segway. Yeah, I didn't start acting as early as Mackenzie, but I didn't do it until my senior year of high school.
Speaker 4:I was like scared out of my mind to do anything like that. But I started getting involved in the plays and the musicals in school. And then I went to college for TV and film production in Indiana and that's where I discovered that I liked all of it the writing, the directing, the behind the camera, in front of the camera as well, but not as much. And then I moved to LA right after college and after seven years of actually being a host like what you're doing right now, I was like I need something different. So I moved to Nashville and that's where I kind of got like a second film school, started making short films, directing more, met my husband and convinced him to come back here in 2017. So since then it's been, you know, lots of gig jobs to come up to hopefully make these features I'm speaking of. And then Mackenzie and I started collaborating on the show.
Speaker 2:So is it random that you both ended up in Burbank, or did you plan this? Like, like, we're going to do our lives together and this is it.
Speaker 3:It's more random than that when I first moved to LA. So we knew each other growing up, knew each other in high school, but had a big fight in high school because she made out with my ex-boyfriend Now ex-boyfriend OK, I get it, but we had been together for a really long time. Yeah, girl code. Yes, girl code Girl code OK.
Speaker 3:Ashley, ashley's on my side, so that's great. So then we went. I went to college in Chicago, she went to college in Indiana completely separate paths. I knew she moved out to LA, but LA was not on my radar at all. Then, when I moved out here, she and I reconnected and then she and I actually lived together because we were both sort of in between things, and after a year or so of that, that's when she moved to Nashville. So then she came back here, was living in Valley Village and how did you really end up in Burbank? Because of where West's job is.
Speaker 4:My husband works in Burbank. He's a video editor.
Speaker 3:We're around about yeah.
Speaker 4:So yeah, so the plan was always to get closer to that. And then it happened that we moved three blocks from her. Oh my goodness, yeah, our lives were really lucky.
Speaker 2:Very intertwined. I mean you could like put a little string and little you know line across, and who knows what you could do.
Speaker 1:Do you have a?
Speaker 2:little walkie-talkies that was like my dream. It's just like walkie-talkies, I know, or like a cup with a string.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, that would be great.
Speaker 2:A little bucket you can like pass wine back and forth over people's roofs to each other's houses, or just you know walk over because you're adults, Wine things are good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just go over whenever you want, I guess now right, and we share a babysitter and all that. So, and your kids are best friends. Yes, I have a almost three-year-old and her son is close to four and they're best friends, although my son hits her son a lot, it's awful, so he doesn't treat him very nicely. That's the age.
Speaker 2:I love each other Three-year-olds yeah.
Speaker 3:So you have two boys. I have two boys a seven-year-old and an almost three-year-old.
Speaker 2:Ok, so you guys are both in the trenches. Yes, very much yeah.
Speaker 3:The seven-year-old not so much. It feels like the seven-year-old we're. We are.
Speaker 2:You're on the, you're like you're on the peak You're like yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, so you're almost well. Yeah, you're almost there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but the three-year-old is really brutal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ok, and so when you moved to LA, but when did you both come to Burbank?
Speaker 3:I have lived in Burbank for eight years, OK, and we it's. When I was pregnant with our first kid, we were living in North Hollywood and I didn't want to see as much human feces on the road, so we moved to Burbank and we live in a great little house and we're never leaving. I mean I love it. There's a park on our street. I love the school. My son goes to McKinley Go Panthers and it's a 10-minute walk from our house and it's free because it's the public school.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And yeah, it doesn't get better than that.
Speaker 3:Right, the only way we would leave Burbank is if we were for some reason leaving California. But I don't see that happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing. So we're all, we're all boy moms here. So we are, we are outweighed in our homes, we yeah what? What advice would you give to some moms out there with boys, maybe really young ones, that are not quite in those trenches yet? What are, what are your advice? For me, it is don't buy nice things.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't remodel your home, great advice. I do not have attachment to any objects at all. I had like one special, like pot of plant that my dad had before he even married my mom, like it's, you know, like centuries old. I feel like at this point, right, and I was like when my parents moved they gave me this, this beautiful plant, and I'm not a plant person I was like I'm going to kill it and 10 years I'm like keeping it alive, fantastic. And then they're playing nerf war outside and there it goes. It was gone. Did you save the plant? The plant is fine, okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah, put a new pot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know, at that point you just have to like let it go and they're just things, and so that's that was my just let it go, things are just things.
Speaker 3:My favorite parenting advice which isn't specific to being a boy mom, but my favorite parenting advice is most bad habits can be broken in one shitty week. Ooh, that's good. Can you elaborate on that? I sure can. So if you're sitting there, say, with your newborn, and you're like I'm letting the newborn fall asleep on me, I should put him in the crib. The book said to put him in the crib. Aren't I supposed to put him in the crib? Just hold the baby, it's fine. If you then decide in a week.
Speaker 3:I definitely need to get this baby in the crib. I need to get this baby off of my body. It will take one shitty week to make that adjustment. Yeah, that's for taking a binky away, or I would say, potty training. Mostly is that like, if you're willing to do it consistently.
Speaker 2:You're committed to it for the week. Yeah, for sure yeah that's my best parenting advice. Yeah, so don't be so hard on yourself, yeah.
Speaker 3:One shitty week. That's all it's going to take, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm going to do it, because I just did it. I didn't fail many a times. Do not do it until they want to do it. Yeah, because you will end up, like me, in a ball on the floor of your child's room, thinking that you have failed at life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a horrible thing, mm-hmm.
Speaker 4:So. But one day he just was ready, and it was a little older than I would have liked him to be, but that. And then honestly, like you don't need the like wipe warmer thing on your registry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's stupid. What is that? You know what? My first one absolutely needed it. Really, I bought all these things for the second one and he didn't need any of the things I needed for the first. Yeah, the wipe warmer was, he was bougie, I don't know. Wow, yeah, that's a good second kid for you, though.
Speaker 3:Second kids don't need anything Learning to thrive on it.
Speaker 2:I mean none of the little swings, nothing. He didn't care, he was just crawling on the ground from the second he came out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, literally, our second is about to turn third and we're going to wrap up a bunch of my older son's old books.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he doesn't know, yeah, he's going to rip them, he's going to rip them. Yeah, they're special, yeah, put them away, you know. So three that's like a pandemic baby.
Speaker 3:Total pandemic baby yeah.
Speaker 3:Yes, he was born August 20th, 20, excuse me, august 10th 2020. The week before I had him, he the rule was at the hospital that if you test positive for COVID, they test everybody who's there to have a baby. If you test positive for COVID, they take your baby away from you for 10 days. Oh my gosh. And luckily, by the time I went into labor, my gynecologist told me and my OB told me that as like a just so you know, this is where we are right now, yeah, and then a week later it changed and then I had the baby think up because I was like having, I mean, that's some handmade, stale shit.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no I remember you.
Speaker 2:That was hard and that means that there are women that went through this. Yeah, and that is awful, yeah.
Speaker 3:Talk about some trauma.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's like mother's worst nightmare is to be separated from your newborn right. Yes, yeah, I'm so happy that that didn't happen to you, thank you. We all survived that we did. Speaking of survival, how are you guys balancing being a mom and this work life?
Speaker 4:It's a lot right Like your show. This is a lot. This is a lot. I think I balance it best with honestly having mom friends. I think I would lose my mind Having I don't know having plans. I think if you don't have like somewhere to go and something to do. That's why COVID was so hard. Yeah, I had like a newborn. And so I just played blocks for like a year on the floor and like lost my mind. Yeah, a tiny bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause you live for those. Like strolls to the park with your baby. There was no parks.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he was like a year old, pretty bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think I think having like a community, like we both are involved with Burbank Adult School and I think that has been life saving just to like talk to other people who know what you're going through and as far as the work stuff, I think, having a sitter when you can, yeah, but also like we both get up really early, we've kind of just learned to like if it's important to us, we'll make it happen.
Speaker 2:Do you guys work from home? Yeah, so you guys can, like you know, throw the kids all together in one room and work together, and you would.
Speaker 3:we have tried that so many times and we finally stopped trying it because it doesn't work. Yeah, what can work is like if she has a call she has to take, all the kids can be at my house, I can be in one room, she can be in the other room yeah, so someone can get something done. But we can't both get something done or be creative.
Speaker 4:I feel like that's your mind is constantly where are they doing?
Speaker 2:What are they doing? Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 3:What plants are they breaking?
Speaker 2:Yes, what pot, what pot? Well, I never live that down. Yes, so we'll have a special break and hear a word from our sponsor and we'll come back and talk about you guys's YouTube show.
Speaker 3:Okay, great.
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Speaker 2:All right, we're back. So the main project I wanted to talk to you guys about is your YouTube show. This is a lot, which is a show about the joys of motherhood. You have eight episodes out right now on YouTube that range from about a minute to six minutes, and they cover topics like playground politics, the in-laws my favorite episode babysitters getting called into the principal's office and so much more. So first tell me how this show came about. Where did these ideas come from? That's a dog, yeah that's a dog.
Speaker 5:We heard the dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the dog is back from his walk. We hear you, dodger. Hold on, hi everybody.
Speaker 3:I love this show came from high puppy. Should I just keep talking through the dog? Yeah, you're fine.
Speaker 2:He's just kind of one of my guests on the show at this point.
Speaker 3:He's a lot to see. You're very beautiful. He's a very beautiful dog listeners. So I had started writing a book when my first kid was born. I had a really traumatic birth experience, as I'm sure a lot of women do, and as a means of catharsis I started writing it out on my iPhone in the notes section when he was like five days old, Sitting on my chest like at 3 am trying to process all of the anxiety and everything I was going through.
Speaker 3:And then kept writing and kept writing, and kept writing and kept writing and then decided that I wanted to turn it into a book. That wasn't where it had started and it wrote like a proper length book, like a proper book, and had no idea what I wanted to do with it. Since my background is in acting, I wondered if I wanted to turn it into a one woman show, but I didn't have the desire to do that. And then I just kind of thought, well, I'm just going to let it sort of sit for a while and think about it. And then Leslie wasn't back from Nashville at that point, but then kind of Leslie had come back into my life. We were discussing different things, we could maybe do different projects. She was working on a movie, I was working on some acting stuff, but then I thought I had a really funny idea for a sketch is all I can. Thinking of it as was a sketch. And I called her and I'm like tell me if this is a good idea or a bad idea. And I told her the idea for the first episode, which is the Backyard Baby boot bootie camp.
Speaker 3:And that episode came about because I'm also a spin instructor and I thought there's this amazing spin instructor where you satiate. And I thought, well, wouldn't it be hilarious? And that guy also haven't said to gymnastics classes, to children. And I thought wouldn't that be hilarious if he spoke to the children the way he teaches people in the spin class? Because he's very vulgar. Yes, he's like shut the fuck up, you fucking bitches. Like that's kind of his vibe. But he's so sweet with these kids. And so I was like wouldn't that be funny to Leslie? And she's like, yeah, I think it's funny. And I'm like, can you like do it?
Speaker 2:How do we do it?
Speaker 3:And I was like, yeah, if you write it we could do it, direct it. I'm like, can you do that? Like do you have a camera? And so it really started from just like wanting to entertain ourselves. This was a year into COVID, so really still not tons and tons going on socially, creatively anything. Lee, and yeah, I wrote it out and she did all the other things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you guys are like the perfect pair.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Like between everything that needs to be done, you guys can do it, yes. And I was like what's the best idea you got? When she called and had this idea, were you like, yeah, I'm totally in.
Speaker 4:This is like the best idea. Well, I was still playing blocks on the floor with my kids. You're like I will take anything. I was like what are we doing?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a fantastic idea. I was like, let's cast it, let's do that yeah.
Speaker 4:I thought it was hysterical and obviously we were both going through motherhood, so we were like in it and I was very interested in doing something that I was experiencing in real time. So that totally appealed to me. And then I was like, yeah, I got a camera, we'll just figure it out. And we somehow were like, ok, she got props, and then we cast our friends and they had babies and it just kind of all came together.
Speaker 2:Did you film everything kind of all at once, like here's a few episodes and we're just going to film it all. And did these ideas? Were these based on real life experiences? Like where did you come up with this?
Speaker 3:So a lot of the they are all from, have a kernel of real life experience in them. And no, I would say we had just a year and a half to make eight episodes. Is that right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and we would film them at different times. Yeah, we would take like two weeks to write it, or would take like a week to edit the first one, and then we would jump on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, was there any elements of improv or was everything scripted?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want people to do that. It depends on the actor's comfort level if they, if they want to, and I love if somebody has an idea of a line that's funnier than what I wrote. And I also trust Leslie's sensibility, so she's the one behind the camera and she can kind of say like, all right, say this or do this, so yeah, and was it?
Speaker 2:how was it producing it? Was it pretty, fairly simple? I mean, I know it goes. It takes a lot to produce something and even if it's a few minutes, it could take weeks right To put something together. Yes, I mean.
Speaker 3:I am. I am taken back to when you say that the diurex commercial I filmed in Chicago, when I was just out of college was a 30 second spa and we were there for 10 hours and I was like really, guys, 30 seconds of a diurex commercial, get your shit together.
Speaker 5:It's a terrible commercial, by the way, but anyway, yeah, we are.
Speaker 3:We pride ourselves on being really efficient, and I don't know if this is advice about parenting, but it is life advice. Don't wait for it to be perfect or even super, super good. Yeah, because you got to make some shitty ones before you can make an even sort of good one. Yeah, and if you're not willing to go through that process, it's yeah, you're never going to get perfect.
Speaker 2:It's going to hold you back. Oh, absolutely. Yeah 100%, and is that your real husband and your kids in there? So?
Speaker 3:my husband is a professional actor a more successful actor than I am.
Speaker 2:He's very good, yeah, amazing.
Speaker 3:He's very successful. He's the chair of theater at a performing arts high school in Duarte. But yeah, those are my real kids.
Speaker 2:And have you guys always done comedy, or was this, this new for you guys?
Speaker 4:I feel like I live in the dramedy space. Okay, that's what I prefer. I don't know what you would say. Great answer, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm drawn to comedy, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So this was fairly easy for you to kind of.
Speaker 3:I also just think. You know, tragedy plus time equals comedy, so a lot of motherhood experiences are somewhat tragic.
Speaker 4:And if you're not laughing, then we're crying. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you're laughing because you see yourself in these moments. There was. There's so many of the episodes where I'm like, yeah, I felt that way. I didn't want to give my puppy to the vet, but I 100% had a quarantine puppy and very much thought this was a terrible idea.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I also wanted to turn up the dial on those sort of anxious yes yeah. Naughty thoughts we have of like I want to get rid of this dog or I want to tell the school principal to fuck off. Can I say fuck off, sorry.
Speaker 2:You know we're going to do it today. Okay, Great, we'll put disclaimers.
Speaker 3:All right, disclaimers, listen. So I just want to like turn up the volume on that and see. You know we both love the show. Curb your Enthusiasm so much and our original inspiration was a Curb your Enthusiasm for Moms. The pilot has gone a little bit away from that, but the original thought was what if you just say all the mom things you actually want to say and yeah, I think a lot of our friends were going through similar things.
Speaker 4:A lot of our friends have boys, a lot of them have small children, so I think we were hearing a lot of real talk from moms and we were like why does nobody say this stuff? We're saying it to each other, yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's put it yeah, that's amazing. So my favorite episode is the in-laws. That's episode seven. Right, you have a couple of celebrity guests that play your parents or your in-laws right Coming into town, the snooty in-laws coming into town. What was it like filming with Jane and John in that episode. I'm a big fan of John. It's huge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so she's referring to Jane Kazmarek of Malcolm and the Middle Fame and John Michael Higgins, who's in a lot of the Christopher Guest movies and very successful actor, hilarious in the Pitch Perfect movies. As the announcer he goes by Michael. Oh, okay, so I'll call him Michael instead of John. I have known Jane for a long time so she's amazing and batty and quirky and really brilliant. I wasn't nervous at all to work with her. I was very nervous to work with Michael.
Speaker 2:Did you know them before this?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my husband gets us all of our star actors.
Speaker 3:He had done a play with Jane a few years ago and John Michael Higgins' son goes to my husband's school and he just asked this is another piece of advice, unsolicited advice the answer is always no until you ask. Closed mouth never gets fed, that's right, and most people are flattered, even if they aren't going to do it. They're happy you thought of them and they were a delight to work with and we have a very rag tag sort of operation, because it's literally. Leslie is not only the director, she's a camera operator and the editor and the sound and the light.
Speaker 3:I mean she does.
Speaker 2:Are you?
Speaker 4:holding everything at once in there. That episode we brought my husband in to do sound because we were both so we wanted to make sure it was like a safe environment for them to film in. And yeah, but normally, yes, we love everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's rag tag is a good way. So when you were did you think of them like when you were casting. You were like I really want these two together 100%.
Speaker 3:Who would not want those two actors playing the in-laws If?
Speaker 2:anybody is listening. Like, go to that episode first. I was dying Very funny. The wine at the end? Yeah, bring the good wine, really?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that was in-prov on James. The good wine, the stemless wine glass yeah, that was hilarious.
Speaker 3:Very funny actors, yeah, I mean. And it just goes to show they are both such pros and have been doing this for decades and it really helps. And you know, we had a question about the script. Leslie was like, ah, maybe we should cut this line. Great, so you got really really, really good results. Yeah, very good. Michael was really quick to be like oh well, here's what I think in sort of giving us his input.
Speaker 2:And I'm like no cool yeah.
Speaker 3:Whatever he said just do it. So I'm very glad that you liked that episode.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much it was so funny, it was so funny. And then you have another one with a guest spotlight the principal's office with Dot Marie Jones. So she's on Glee and Bros and I especially love that episode because it's about dinosaurs. Yeah, I see, I'll put my back pack, my tattoos, my G, my shirt. So the first words that I taught my kids were dinosaur names, I didn't care about a car and that it was like you know.
Speaker 2:Kylosaurus, Kylosaurus yes, I absolutely love that episode. So what was it like working on that episode?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, that's very much so. That's my oldest son. He is very precocious, he knows all the. He's really smart. In kindergarten, literally when they were doing dinosaurs, she would be like Paxton. How do I pronounce this word?
Speaker 3:The teacher would like show him the book You'd be like and Kylosaurus yeah, so that's where that one came from. Working with Dot, she had done a play with my husband and we just asked her. She said yes, she was hilarious. However, she and my husband I always say this about the two of them, like I actually got to now she's isn't a straight woman. She is married to another woman. My husband and her have no attraction to each other, but I got to watch them fall in love with each other when they were in this play. There's really something like very similar in their personalities and they were really hard to work with.
Speaker 4:They did not stop. I know they were driving us like crazy. They just beat off each other.
Speaker 2:Well, that moment when you leave the room in the episode and it's just the two of them and it's very awkward and he's messing with everything on the desk. I was dying. That was just improv-ing. That was really good. Yeah, yeah, such such great work.
Speaker 3:They really were keeping Leslie on her toes that day.
Speaker 4:I know I was like I love you Dot. Can you guys please stop yeah.
Speaker 3:Can you say any of the lines that are on the page, or just don't but like that you record.
Speaker 4:Stop talking to each other.
Speaker 2:Aw yeah, they were so cute together.
Speaker 4:That's so amazing.
Speaker 2:So what is? What's your favorite episode? I told you mine. So what did you enjoy working on the most? Oh, yuko.
Speaker 4:I think the vet one is my favorite. I, jeff is who plays. The vet is a-.
Speaker 3:Jeff.
Speaker 4:Calfer yeah, he's a Jeff Calfer. Let's give him a shout out. He's a really good friend of theirs and of Judds and I just thought their chemistry, mackenzie and Jeff's. I was like you were made to play this vet character.
Speaker 2:I almost thought he was a real vet. I know Because it was really believable.
Speaker 3:Very good, very talented.
Speaker 4:And we actually turned the like employee break room at Judds school into that vet's office. So I was very proud of our work.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say what vet place did you go to? Because it looked all so real, 100%, and those are Jeff's dogs, right yeah, on the pictures.
Speaker 4:I saw those yeah he's a professional photographer, yeah, so that was hilarious I think the production design and the chemistry between the two of them and just how like outrageous the topic is, because we both had some sort of an experience nugget of that in real life.
Speaker 2:So for people that are listening, you've got this dog pandemic pup.
Speaker 3:This is not a true story. I love animals.
Speaker 2:Everything is an exaggeration. It's a two year old dog and you take it to the vet. It turns out it's healthy and you're just inquiring if maybe it's not and if euthanasia is an option.
Speaker 3:Is it on the table On?
Speaker 4:the table.
Speaker 2:It relieves something in my life Because you've got so much going on and you're just like there was so much, and you're just like you know, I don't wanna do this anymore.
Speaker 3:And then and finally in the pilot that we've now written that is the first scene in the pilot is her going to the vet. It's you know that will make you love the show or hate the show right off the bat.
Speaker 4:And that's how we'll weed you out. If that is true, Then you're not gonna like the rest of it.
Speaker 3:You're not gonna like the rest of it and it's okay. But it's funny because you know, if we made a joke about you know, oh, just leave the kid in the car seat and go to the grocery store, it'll be fine People would laugh. But if you make a joke about a dog, oh, yeah. Dogs are somehow so much more sacred.
Speaker 2:Don't mess with animal people. Don't mess with animals.
Speaker 3:I know I have had a dog, I love animals. I think I'd go with the in-laws as my favorite episode, just because the two of them I think are so funny. And I never saw myself as a writer, but then to write something and see people of that caliber performing it, so naturally too.
Speaker 2:yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:It make you look a lot better as a writer than you are. I think you're good. You know what I mean. Give yourself enough credit, thank you, but truly it's like oh, you see things in this that I didn't even see. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:So what's on the table next? So you've got eight episodes out. Are there more episodes? Tell me about this pilot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there is. There's one new episode called the miscarriage. Ooh, I did have two miscarriages in between my boys. Okay, and I was struck every time, at the every time, both through both those miscarriages, the things my husband and I would like laugh at, or Sort of. You know, you, cuz you can't just be depressed. Yeah all the time. It's terrible, mm-hmm. So it's a funny episode. I think it's funny. My dad was like that's really sad.
Speaker 3:My sister was cracking up, but that's because she's had miscarriages, mm-hmm, you know what I mean. Like, yeah, you have to be able to laugh at this stuff, or else we're gonna be, yeah, really sad. Um, that one should come out next week. Well, that's. Yeah, I listen to. That's exciting, Thank you and why don't you talk about the other things we're doing?
Speaker 4:because I feel like I do want to say we have a Awesome guest star in that episode. Brittany, young from glow is okay episode, so we loved working with her. She's a gem of a human, so, yes, so look out for that episode. We also are partnered on a film called besties that I adapted along with the playwright, and it is another friend of ours that we went to high school with as he brought me the project, and we've gone through lots of script changes, lots of Teams, and now we're here at the strike. We just signed on another great actress, along with Mackenzie, who will be starring in it, and we're hopefully signing on our third. But we're kind of in a holding pattern right now until the strike is over. So, and that's a dramedy, it's kind of like a mean girls meets, get out. So it has a little of genre horror, thriller, bend so yeah, that will be very fun, very neat. Other than that, we are parenting.
Speaker 3:Pilots.
Speaker 4:Oh, the pilot. Oh, yeah, the pilot. Oh, we were just talking about separate things. We took this web series and turned it into a 30 minute pilot. Like Mackenzie said, the that scene isn't there. I think we took nuggets from other episodes and put them in there. But they have, yeah, the in-laws. But we have also, like she said, pivoted a little away from that curb your enthusiasm tone. After several Rewrites and whatnot, it is still in the comedy space, but I don't know if you want to talk more about the tone of it.
Speaker 3:I mean, people were like we don't like her. We don't like Mackenzie as a character.
Speaker 2:That's part about it, though, I feel like. So we love to hate her.
Speaker 3:That's right. We've done everything we can to keep a lot of that and just make her a little bit more three-dimensional.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, not necessarily more likeable, I just think you're more relatable Maybe, yeah, just seeing her parent more, seeing you know in and out of why she maybe makes the choices that she makes and giving her some goals To go after, and we're very proud of it. And we have a wonderful manager who's also waiting on deck to help us get it out there.
Speaker 3:and, yeah, once the entertainment industry starts back up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I. How has the strike been affecting you guys and your family?
Speaker 4:Well, considering both my film and our pilot is on hold, we both kind of feel like, yeah, creatively, we'll keep making episodes where we're always gonna keep creating. I think you have to create, to create again. But I think it's only affected us in the sense that we we had a lot of steam and we were going this way and now it's, you know, we're just kind of holding. So my husband's an editor, though it has not affected him, he's still a lot of work to do, which is great, yeah, so we'll always survive in the meantime. Mm-hmm, yeah, they get everything they're asking for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm ready for this to be done. My husband is a team stir up 399 and so his they're not striking but they are completely affected. So he hasn't had a job since May, which has been extremely hard for us, so Picking up all the work that I can. But yeah is, and it's affected everybody. I mean everyone in Burbank is in the. You know we're in the media capital, so everyone is affected by the industry in some way. But the fact that it trickles down to so many different departments, that just blowing my mind. So how has it been affecting you guys?
Speaker 3:It's pretty much the same as what Leslie said, is it? But I Tended the really optimistic. So I just think that once everything starts up again, all of this legwork that we've done Will be in, will put us in such a good place and we're less expensive than you know. If they want a Tina Fey to create a new show, we're less expensive than Tina Fey, so maybe that will be a benefit, because you know, yeah, I just like to think about it optimistically because I'm not Actively auditioning right now. I don't feel it in that sense.
Speaker 2:Okay that's good. Sorry about your husband. Yeah, you know. So I don't want to end on the sad note. You know how can we watch your shows? Just YouTube right is where we can see your shows. We will put a link to it in the bio of the episodes or anything else you guys want to say about the show or about show. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3:This is a lot show if you look forward on YouTube and put the link. And we are also hosted on a platform called cold open. Hold with a case. Okay, oh, ld open, which curates web content in hopes of executives seeing it, so we're hosted on that as well. That has some other really great content on it.
Speaker 2:That's wonderful, awesome. Yeah, all right. Anything else you want to?
Speaker 4:add Our Instagram handles the same. This is a lot show, so if you want to follow us there, that would be great. And I want to say earlier, when I said Burbank adult school, for those of you who don't know, it's a parent education program. I think it's a wonderful community. They're like, see, they still think I go to school. Well, it's Burbank. You know, we're talking about Burbank.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everybody knows that education program at the Burbank adult school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is I mean? I know so many people.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I feel like everyone is connected to that school. Yeah, that's fantastic. It's a wonderful Program yeah whatever runs that I have no idea. Good job.
Speaker 4:I remember seeing you.
Speaker 3:Christina Thank you, I'll put on the spot.
Speaker 4:I also have just a personal website that you can read about. This is a lot besties, which is our film, and then I have a third film called hey hon. That's also featured on there. It's just my name, leslie powers doc.
Speaker 2:Awesome, we'll put all those links in the in the bio so we can follow you guys and and stay tuned for the ninth episode, right, yeah?
Speaker 3:coming out soon, you know, next week next week Fantastic.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you guys so much for being here. Thank you so much for having us. This was a pleasure. It was great to meet you guys, so nice to meet you.
Speaker 3:I feel like.
Speaker 2:I have new mom friends now. Thank you All right. Well, thank you guys for listening to another episode of women of Burbank.
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