EPISODE 26: MICHAELA WATKINS
MICHAELA WATKINS
On the excitement of feeling decimated, finding gratitude for the shittiness, and going deeper when you think you’re gonna die.
Today I sat down with actor, writer and producer, Michaela Watkins. We talk a lot about her becoming who she is, and we talk about how some of the early disappointments and hardships in her career have shaped her and how she’s learned from them. Like all of us, Michaela has had to do some consciousness expanding to reap the rewards of and even come to appreciate those harder experiences.
You likely recognize Michaela as the star of the series Casual on Hulu. But also, she’s been on a billion things - Transparent, Wet Hot American Summer, Enlightened, Trophy Wife, The New Adventures Of Old Christine, Catastrophe, The Kroll Show, Key And Peele, Another Period, Drunk History, to name a few… Also movies! Brittany Runs A Marathon, Enough Said, Afternoon Delight, In a World and much much more! Upcoming, you can see Michaela in the film Judy Small and on TV in the comedy, THE UNICORN, coming to CBS this fall.
Michaela Watkins on IMDB
QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE
3:56 ~ "So much of my success right now... is completely and totally and utterly hinged and connected, in a way that it's not just lucky that I had the opportunity to have so many terrible jobs and things like that, but how necessary and what a requirement it was in order to have any modicum of success."
7:52 ~ "I learned that when things are hard, it's not the end of the world, it's actually good. I know that when I feel the worst about myself, my best idea is coming. That when I'm hitting rock bottom, when I'm feeling absolutely decimated, like I am a dried up stump, who has executed every last good idea I've ever had. And that my best ideas are behind me and my best sketches and improvs and moments are all behind me and now everything I do will just be derivative and crappy. When I feel that way? I'm like, 'Oh this is good.'"
22:52 ~ "I think if you've ever legitimately feared for your safety and your health, it's traumatizing. And I don't think it ever really ever goes away completely, because you can imagine that feeling and you can see yourself back there."
37:45 ~ "Are you going to be the person who defines yourself by being you know rejected...? Or are you going to define yourself by... the potential of the next thing you're going to make?"
39:49 ~ "You have enough consciousness to say, 'I don't want to suffer like this anymore,' to then figure out how to not suffer like that anymore." - KF
40:34 ~ "We take for granted that, if something feels really shitty, and then you feel really shitty again, that that just must be how that thing, when that thing happens, makes you feel - when something like this happens, you feel shitty. But that's not necessarily true. Sometimes that thing that happens makes you feel shitty once, and then, the next time that thing happens, you might be like, 'I'm not going to feel shitty like that again.' And that's a big fucking deal... That represents a lot of evolution."
57:57 ~ "There's no such thing as a bad feeling." - KF
1:08:25 ~ "I have no sadness or regrets. I only have gratitude for all the shittiness that came before... because I wouldn't have gotten to the next thing if I hadn't done that thing before it."
1:16:07 ~ "You get this one chance to be [you]... this is it. You're [you] right now."
1:17:21 ~ "If you define your 'most you' as how other people see you, that's not going to work.”