On December 19, 2012 Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand are heading out on the open road in the comedy The Guilt Trip. I had the pleasure to attend the press conference for The Guilt Trip with Barbra and Seth in attendance, as well as director Anne Fletcher and screenwriter Dan Fogelman. The questions posed to all four made for a stimulating and often times hilarious afternoon. Even if everyone wanted a piece of Barbra–but you can’t blame them, it is a rare occasion to have the opportunity to ask Barbra Streisand a question. Here are some of my favorite moments…with commentary thrown in for good measure here and there.
–And it begins…
Question for Barbra Streisand:
First of all, hello gorgeous. [yes, he said that, and she just stared at him blankly] Since you last directed a movie, there have been so many changes to the way movies have been shot. We have digital now, 3D and we’re even starting to have 48 frames. What are your thoughts on these technologies as you might use them as a director and how they might change things from the performance side for actors?
Barbra Streisand:
Um, mmm. Well, I would have to, you know, when and if I do direct another film, I would have to go suss out the, you know, the red camera, the Alexa, the — all this new things. But I know I love film.[…]So does Anne.[…]So I don’t know what I’m gonna find out about that, you know.
Seth Rogen:
You’ll suss. [The word suss was and became a very popular term used during the press conference. I have reason to believe it may be Barbra Streisand’s favorite word–I am still waiting on confirmation from her “people” on the matter but according to the Urban Dictionary it means: to discover or realize information, usually with a level of intuition playing a role.]
Barbra Streisand:
I’ll suss it out, yeah.
[And then things took a strange diversion, one I am still unsure of how or why it happened…]
Dan Fogelman:
Barbra sees — Barbra sees — Seth said Barbra sees every movie.
Seth Rogen:
Yeah
Dan Fogelman:
I mean it’s shocking.
Anne Fletcher:
Huge.
Dan Fogelman:
— her kind of film — I mean there’s no movie that escapes her on a weekend. It — there — she sees them all.
Barbra Streisand:
By the way, A Star is Born was done live.
Anne Fletcher:
With an audience.
Barbra Streisand:
No. Oh yeah with sometimes with an audience. But we — I sang live. I sang live in Funny Girl at the end of the Funny Girl because that’s what they’re talking about in Les Mis — [She is referring to the 2012 film Les Miserables]
Seth Rogen:
Yeah [Perhaps this is Rogen’s favorite word?]
Barbra Streisand:
Because, you know, I said to [SOUNDS LIKE] Willie, how do you have emotion? How do you know where the emotion is gonna hit you? When I was doing “My Man” at the end. And you can’t lip — I’m a terrible lip syncher anyway because I have to be in the moment and I can’t lip synch to something I recorded three months before, you know. So I thought it was great that Tom Hooper used that — let the actors be live. [Tom Hooper is the director to blame for Les Miserables]
Question for Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand:
So you must know that a lot of gay people are gonna see this movie. Because we know Seth has such a huge… [and cue the laughter from everyone in the room, including Mr. Rogen]
Seth Rogen:
I’m a gay icon. People like Barbra, too? I didn’t know that.
Press:
She could be a gay icon.
Barbra Streisand:
I would love that. [cue the laughter again, because, in case you are unaware, Barbra Streisand is a gay icon. They are one demographic she has nailed down, just like Liza Minnelli, Pink, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga.]
Question for Barbra Streisand:
Barbra, I’m wondering how do you feel about a believable gay icon and your own son, do you think he considers you an icon?
Barbra Streisand:
He doesn’t see me as an icon. He sees me as his mother who, you know, touches her hair too much and — no. I love being an icon to anybody. Equal rights, you know? [It was surprising that she did not say more about her presence in the gay community, and their adoration for her. Perhaps a humble stance, or she just didn’t care to talk anymore about it–either way, she knows, and we know she knows.]
Question for Barbra Streisand:
You have such an amazing career and I was wondering if you could tell me what gives you satisfaction or the greatest satisfaction as an artist?
Barbra Streisand:
I prefer things that are private so I love recording and I love making films as a filmmaker because it uses every bit of what you have experienced or know, you know, whether it’s graphics, composition, decorating, psychology, storytelling, what it is. It’s very — it’s a wonderful thing, right Anne? She knows.
Question for Barbra Streisand:
What does it mean for you to be part of a project like this?
Barbra Streisand:
Well, I was dealing with, you know, very talented people. I had loved Anne’s movie, The Proposal. And Dan, I looked you up, too. And you did that wonderful — what was that musical called that I loved, too?
Dan Fogelman:
Barbra Streisand:
Tangled. Yeah, I loved that. I loved that and then I saw his name on it. But he’s a very gifted writer so, you know, and Seth is terrific at what he does. So, you know. I Did it.[…] And yet, you know, we’re both Jewish. I could be his mother. [this comment was made during a previous question but it makes sense here as well, so I made an “edit” and included it, because I can.]
Question for Seth and Barbra:
Seth and Barbra — this movie has a great balance of comedy and drama in it. It has some real heartfelt moments, too. All of you guys have great comic timing. I’m wondering for each of you two what was the hardest for you, the dramatic moments or the comedy?
Barbra Streisand:
Eating steak. For a person who doesn’t like steak, that is the hardest thing. [cue the laughter again (there is a pattern here)…and we all know Barbra Streisand does not like steak now–you have officially learned something new today, you’re welcome.]
Press:
I mean, you know, which one was the hardest, funny or serious?
Barbra Streisand:
Oh, no. They’re both the same.
Seth Rogen:
Yeah.
Barbra Streisand:
If anything is based on what reaches an audience is the truth is honesty. So if you’re saying something truthful that’s a funny line, it’s gonna be funny. If it’s a serious line, it’s gonna be serious. But I don’t think there’s a distinction between how you play in drama or comedy; do you know what I mean? If it based in the truth.
Anne Fletcher:
Especially when you have two actors who have great ability to do both. Not everybody has the ability to be really funny and understand comedy and how to portray it and be real with it which both of them do in tenfold as well as the ability to be a straight actor. They’re both incredible. Thank you.
Question for Barbra and Seth:
Barbra, how crazy can you drive your own son and Seth, how crazy does your own mother drive you?
Seth Rogen:
Oh, it’s the same answer. Very. I think yeah my mom drives me crazy sometimes. I have a good relationship. I see my parents a lot. But, yeah it’s a lot like in the movie. For no reason I’ll get annoyed and I’ll just find myself reverting back to like a mentality of like a 14 year old kid who just doesn’t wanna be around his parents. Yeah, it’s one of the things I related to most in the script honestly was that dynamic where just your mother’s trying and the more she tries, the more it bugs you. And the more it bugs you the more she tries. And you like see her trying to say the thing that won’t annoy you and she can’t and yeah, all that is very, at times, very real to my relationship with my mother.
[For some reason Barbra was not given the opportunity to answer–but we know from above she touches her son’s hair too much, so let’s go with, “yes, she drives him nuts.”]
Comment poised to Barbra Streisand:
Press:
I have to mention you get sent so many scripts. So after this —
Barbra Streisand:
I don’t.
Press:
You don’t. Well, they just don’t make it to you.
Barbra Streisand:
You see everybody thinks like you. She’s got so many scripts, why would I send her. She’ll never get a chance to read it. And meanwhile, I go, “Where are the scripts?” [If you are a screenwriter and reading this, this would be your cue to find out who Barbra Streisand’s agent is and get your script to her, stat.]
Question for Barbra Streisand:
Well, so how do you– you suss them out, you read it with your son. What ultimately was it that reading with your son that connected and you said, “Yes, this is something that I have to do,” instead of would you still have done it if he had said no?
Barbra Streisand:
It’s, you know, mothers develop guilt trips. I mean when I was working a lot, you know, and I’d feel guilty as a parent that I couldn’t pick up my son every day from school, bake him cookies and that kinda thing. So I know that feeling. I know that feeling a lot. And so you try to compensate and, you know, everything they do is great and they sense that guilt, children, you know? And they’re going through their own rebellious times or whatever. Having a famous parent is an odd thing, you know. And so I thought it was interesting to investigate this, you know, trying to be my son’s friend, trying to be his friend versus a mother.
And when it comes time to really say, you know, you abuse me, you disrespect me, you talk back to me, you don’t honor what I say, you won’t take my advice, that kinda thing. In terms of this movie, it hit on all those things that I thought I could explore. And it was a true story. It’s Dan and his mother and she was a fan of mine and it’s something right about it, you know. And Dan wrote this lovely script and it just felt like it was meant to be — meant for me to come back to work as a star, you know, starring role rather than six days on a movie which I really liked — just six days on a movie.
But it was time to challenge myself again, you know. Of course, we made — I made it very difficult for them to hire me because I kept, you know, wanting an out some way so I made it really hard, you know. I really don’t wanna go — I would never do this normally, right? I really don’t really wanna schlep to Paramount. It’s two hours each way. So, you know, would you like rent a warehouse and build the sets in the Valley, no more than 45 minutes from my house? And they said yes. Then, you know, on these Focker movies I had to get up early and I’m not an early bird. And Seth says, right, he says it’s very hard to be funny at 7:30 in the morning.
[…]
I said so you can’t pick me up ’til 8:30 ’cause that’s like a normal time to get up for me ’cause I love the night. My husband and I stay up ’til two, three in the morning. So we don’t function that well at eight — at six in the morning. And they said okay.
[What have we learned here? Barbra Streisand is a night owl, and you should never try and contact her before 8:30am, or invite her to any breakfast functions. Brunch would be more appropriate, and she may actually show up. Also, she has the power to make filmmakers do what she wants them to do to have her in their movie–star power has its perks.]
Anne Fletcher:
So everything that Barbra was asking, nothing was unrealistic and crazy so it was just gonna be, yeah, unless she wanted to fly in on a helicopter. Sorry, Seth.
Seth Rogen:
I was open to Shirley Maclaine. [There’s that laughter again, filling the room. If you’ve never heard Seth Rogen’s natural laugh it is remarkably loud, and boisterous, and it goes on for a while.]
Question for Barbra Streisand:
You look so beautiful in the film and here today, what is your secret?
Barbra Streisand:
God, what is my secret?
Seth Rogen:
Sitting next to me helps. Oh Barbra.
Barbra Streisand:
He is so funny. That was funny, Seth, very funny.
Anne Fletcher:
Hold on, I need to know the answer because her skin is flawless.
Barbra Streisand:
Oh Jesus, it is not.
Anne Fletcher:
It is. I was too afraid to ask her what she did with it.
Barbra Streisand:
No, if you knew all my self-doubt. My God. I don’t know. Maybe I’m slightly childish or something like that. I don’t know. I kind of like the child part of me. Maybe it reflects in my face or something. I don’t know. [Or maybe she eats small children for their essence? Kidding, I had to throw some sarcasm in, it’d been a while]
Question for Barbra Streisand:
You can sing and you act, serious, comedy and compose, write, direct and everything you’ve so done well. So what can’t you do well?
Barbra Streisand:
I can’t cook. I can’t cook at all. I mean I would not know how to make coffee or sort of boil an egg. Maybe I could figure that one out. I took cooking classes. I know how — by the way, I know how to make chocolate soufflé.
Seth Rogen:
That’s pretty good.
Barbra Streisand:
Just ask me if I want to make chocolate soufflé. I’d rather have somebody else make the chocolate soufflé and I eat it because I found when I took cooking classes, I just — when I tried to cook, put it that way, it was very appetizing to eat. And I didn’t wanna eat it, you know. The joy was gone. The hands are — I was always filthy with the stuff and how do they keep their hands clean and then cooking up, I mean cleaning up. No, I don’t like that much. [There is that part of you that screams, “I love a Diva,” when listening to Barbra Streisand speak.]
That does it for my personal favorite moments from The Guilt Trip press conference. If you would like to listen to it in its entirety you can below. Enjoy!
