On the nineteenth episode of All Heart with Paul Cardall, Paul is joined by the multi-talented Tony nominated actress, singer, and women’s advocate Laura Bell Bundy. Paul and Laura discuss her career beginning with trading New York University for a role on a Soap Opera, which began a successful career and Tony Nomination for her leading role as Elle in Legally Blonde. Laura opens up about having a child as a working mother, her congenital heart disease and the complexity of women’s roles in today’s culture. Laura and Paul discuss sexism, the mental load of motherhood, unrealistic beauty standards, the obsession with social media, ownership over women's bodies, doing it all, and women's relationship to men.
On the nineteenth episode of All Heart with Paul Cardall, Paul is joined by the multi-talented Tony nominated actress, singer, and women’s advocate Laura Bell Bundy. The american actress has performed in a number of Broadway roles, including the original Amber Von Tussle in the musical version of Hairspray, the original Elle Woods in the musical version of Legally Blonde, and Dr. Jordan Denby on television's Anger Management. She signed to Mercury Records Nashville and released her first country music single, "Giddy On Up", on February 20, 2010. The album's second single, "Drop on By", was released to country radio on August 9, 2010. Paul and Laura discuss her career beginning with trading New York University for a role on a Soap Opera, which began a successful career and Tony Nomination for her leading role as Elle in Legally Blonde. Laura opens up about having a child as a working mother, her congenital heart disease and the complexity of women’s roles in today’s culture. Laura and Paul discuss sexism, the mental load of motherhood, unrealistic beauty standards, the obsession with social media, ownership over women's bodies, doing it all, and women's relationship to men.
All Heart with Paul Cardall is proudly a part of the American Songwriter Podcast Network. For more information on Paul Cardall, please visit https://paulcardall.com/ or find him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
- [Narrator] Hey everybody, welcome to the American songwriter podcast network. This is all "All heart" with Paul Cardall. "Forbes magazine" calls him one of the most listened to recording artists of our time. With more than 3 billion streams and 11 number one albums on top billboard charts. With his podcast, Paul wants to shed light on unique celebrities and influencers who use their gifts to make the world a better place. Like you, his guests are "All heart".
- Hi everybody, I'm Paul Cardall and I am excited to welcome you to "All heart". Our guest today has a 30 year career in the entertainment industry. She's been in movies, she's been on TV. She was in "Anger management". She played a Shelby on "Heart of Dixie", countless shows. She is a top five billboard recording artists with her music. And her original show that she was in, she was the Ell Wood of "Legally blonde", the first cast. For that, she was nominated for a Tony. She has got a lot of understudies of people that you are familiar with. Natalie Portman, Britney Spears have sought her out for help. So we're thrilled to welcome to the program Laura Bell Bundy.
- Hi, how are you? Oh my God. I'm so sorry.
- You're fine you're fine. You're here, you arrived. You got accepted to New York University, but you turned it down because a soap opera called you. They had a role for you to play on "Guiding light". I mean that's like winning the lottery I think, right? Who cares about NYU?
- I laugh 'cause it seems sort of ridiculous now when you hear it back coming back at you. So I went to New York to go start my first year of college and I got a recurring role on this show. Well, when I was recurring, I could still go to school, but then they offered me a series regular. And I had also was going to run cross country and track at NYU. And the type of scholarship I was getting was requiring me to be a full-time student. So I had to make a choice. So I deferred and I'm like, "I'm gonna come back next year." So I ended up going back actually not the next year, but a few years later I went back and did literally a semester or something. And then I was like, "I don't know why I'm doing this. "I'm a working actor now." But, my father had always said I wasn't going to school for acting, I was going school for something I could fall back on.
- Right, the patriarch was telling you
- Yes, be serious. Don't follow your dreams, do psychology.
- But it's "Guiding light" for crying out loud. That's leading me somewhere. I think that's fantastic. I loved that.
- Here's the thing I will say and as looking back, I got more training from doing that show. The education I got from doing that show, I mean, it was like 30 pages of lines a day. My character was kidnapped, was in an earthquake, sexually assaulted, parents divorced. I was arrested for all these different experiences. Because in a soap opera, all these crazy things happen to you so as an actor, you get to go through these different experiences. The training ground is incredible.
- Did you wanna do Broadway? Did you wanna do TV? Or you kind of just wanted to do it all? Was there a specific?
- So, I actually had done theater and some film as a young kid before I graduated high school. And then I think that "Guiding light" decision was really a crossroads for me because I think as a child actor, I'd always said, "Hey, I'll grow up one day and be a doctor." And then I was like, "Wait, I'm actually choosing acting now." At the time that I did "Guiding light", I also had a band and it was with a friend of mine from Kentucky. And we were singing country music in New York City. So we were definitely in the wrong place for it, but we would have these gigs at the Bitterend or CBGBs. And we weren't old enough to even get into the places that we were doing gigs at.
- What kind of music was it?
- It was country.
- Country music?
- It was country music and we were in New York city doing it. So I had simultaneously doing that while that and that's kind of how it's always been for me. I like artistic expression. I enjoy artistic expression. It's a hobby for me. And it's my play as well as my work. And I'm very blessed that that's the case for me. So it's almost like acting was my day job and music was my fun and play. And then those have gone flip flopped, and flip-flopped, and flip-flop, and flip-flopped through my entire career where one will be bringing in the money and the other one will be the hobby and back and forth. But I think for me, I'm trying to examine because I've been asked a lot, "Do you choose acting over music? "Or is it theater over film?" And I'm like, "what is that thing that is stirring in me "that I love the element of life."
- Of an audience.
- Yeah, and that is amazing. And I also love songwriting and producing and now I've gotten into directing and writing. Some of it is about a moment of inspiration. I don't believe and we're now we're circling right back to spirituality here.
- Because it always does because at the heart of life. Heart of life, when it comes down to it, we're born to die. And so in the back of us, there's this guidance that we're looking for because we can't all call it a muse, call it whatever. We need something to guide us, to help manage all the stuff we're overly ambitious to do because we just wanna do a lot.
- Well, you said it right there. It's a guidance thing. So when you're on stage, or you're writing a song, or you're in the studio and you have an idea, that moment of inspiration which broken down is in spirit, you have a direct connection to your source. That idea is not yours. You are the carrier of that idea. And for me, that is what I experience when I get an idea or a moment of inspiration. I call it a God shot. And I got that term from my sister. She's like, "God shot." And I'm like, "Oh, but that's what I feel when I create "is that when I create, I'm just an offshoot "or the offspring of the Creator." And so I think that's what keeps me going. So when I'm in a rehearsal room and an idea hits or a connection is made or the audience is there, and I get a laugh I never got before because I tried a different choice, the choices that I'm making are being guided by a higher source. And whether that be, while I'm writing a song or directing or something like that, that's what I'm addicted to. And if I'm doing acting for a while, I'm in a job where I'm not feeling a lot of inspiration then I'm like, "It's time to write some music." Because I get an energy, a sustaining energy. It fills my tank to have this source of inspiration. And when I don't have it, I definitely feel it missing. I feel like my tank is not as full. I don't feel like I have the same kind of energy, but when you're doing something live, there's two elements to doing something live. Obviously a moment of inspiration can hit you on stage. Something goes wrong and you've got to figure out what to do, that's a moment of inspiration too. But there's this other element about the live performance that is so amazing. I call it an exchange of love. So you have the artist, or the actors, or the players, they create the music, they play the music, or they do the performance out of love, right? Their love, their creativity, their offshoot.
- We wanna share what we've created.
- They're presenting and this is a form of love that they are giving to the audience. Then the audience directly responds to the love by giving love back. And then the actor feels that love and gives more love back. Then the audience feels that love and gives more love back. And it's this crazy exchange of love and that's why everybody feels high at the end. Then they're on their feet.
- Well, that's what's amazing about the whole process is it is a dance between the two. It is this amazing thing. My world, I performed a lot, but I haven't been able to where you know what the audience may do where you can actually predict what they're about to do. And that's why it's a two-step dance. And it's fascinating to me. How do you separate though obviously because in the entertainment business, you have people that come up to you afterwards and they feel like they know you? And how do you separate the adulation of fans constantly telling you how wonderful your versus the fact that they don't really maybe know Laura? How do you come home? Because artists, when we come home after being told how great we are.
- Or your spouse is like, "Pick up the trash "and do that laundry."
- Yeah, because you can be as famous as you want and get all the attention and all the adulation, but coming home, how do you want to deal with, or is it something you just recognized a long time ago?
- Well, so I will say this, the audience does get a piece of you. If you are truly connected to your material when you're onstage and your source when you're onstage and you're not just honing, going through the routine, disconnected to work when's dinner. When you're really truly connected to it, the audience does understand you and get a piece of your heart. And so they do understand on some level your soul 'cause you've just revealed it, but you've revealed it through an art form. They don't know the day to day you, but they do know the nature of how you interpret emotion and a little bit of your soul. And so for me, I do appreciate being able to share that with an audience. And if it's touched someone, then I feel okay. And if I added a little joy to the world or empathy or understanding through my work that I am doing the work that I'm supposed to do so there is that one element. But my father was really always from a very young age encouraging a thoughtfulness about life. I was five years old when my father asked me what I thought the meaning of life was. And that conversation happened every single year until the day he died. And he would always encourage modesty. And he would say things to me like, "You know when you know your true friends "when you've done something wrong and they still come "and visit you in prison." You know what I mean? He would say things like-
- Set you up for prison.
- But he would say things like I didn't want stuff to go to my head or for me to have an unrealistic view of myself. And so I think he was all about keeping me grounded and encouraging me to have a real connection and real experiences. So I'm able to differentiate what it means to have a true connection and understanding with another human being. And you know what, that is all about when someone really knows you, they know you completely with all of your faults. And when someone is truly your friend, they don't blow smoke up your ass. They actually encourage your growth as a human being which means to tell you the truth, which means to call you out. And if you want true friendship, you have people like that in your life that tell you the truth.
- Your husband has COVID.
- He doesn't now. He came out of the woods, but last Friday he tested negative and that had been about 10 days. And then we just kinda let it, but he did. So I had had it in March, but we don't know if our son ever had it because in March, the tests weren't widely available. And so the doctor said, "Hey, just assume your whole family has it." So we didn't really quarantine because by the time I found out I'd had it, I had had symptoms for like nine or 10 days. It was like, they got to have it at this point, but I was also breastfeeding which meant I was giving antibodies to my son. And so when my husband got it this time, we got our son Huck tested and me tested a number of times while we had and he never got it.
- Oh wow, was it the nose test? Yeah.
- Poke a hole in the brain, the painful?
- The .
- Yeah, you feel so violated after. It's like I need to file a police report.
- I know, I know . So it was just so crazy because it meant my husband couldn't help me with him because he was quarantined. And so I have a toddler, they're insane.
- Not only do you have a toddler, but you yourself are crazy busy. I mean, you're plugged into a million different things. You're a top five billboard recording artists, you've got understudy people that are legends. If I drop some of those names like Natalie Portman and Britney Spears. And then you're recording music. You're doing a lot of advocacy work and a toddler. I mean, what's it like having for the first time in your life a child?
- Well, I used to make a joke when people were like, "How do you do all these things?" And I'm like, "I don't have kids." I never realized how right I was about that because there's so much more on my mind. There's so much less space in my brain. There's so many more things to think about and to plan ahead because you're completely responsible for another human being in all of their needs so clearly you just have a little bit less time. And so there's so much about it that's that has to do for me with time management that I never really had to do before. Some of that is really good for me. And then there's this other element of feeling this massive amount of love and understanding for other women that I never understood or a child, but having this understanding of childbirth and this appreciation of how incredible it is that we can create another being. I created a man. Do you know what I mean? I literally made a man.
- Was it by choice?
- At one point, there was a man and a woman in here. Do you what I mean?
- But it's unpredictable. We don't have the science yet to go, "Well, I thought about a man, but I've done the research "and I think we want a girl."
- So in our case, we did IVF because I had trouble getting pregnant because I was one of those women who was like, "I'm gonna focus on my career. "I'm gonna focus on my career." And then you're like, "Wait." And I'm actually writing songs about this, about the dilemma of women. I'll give you a quote from a song that I have coming out at the end of January, "Too young for the bar. "So I went to the bank, "got a loan for college where all I did was drank. "Working so hard to repay Sallie Mae, "gonna have to freeze my eggs if I want kids someday." And the deal is, that's what happens. So as women yeah, we're out there. We have these great opportunities now we never had before but there's this pressure to do it all. There's a pressure to get a seat at the table. And so now more women go to college than men when women couldn't even get in before. So they're college graduates, they've got these loans, they're trying to get a seat at the table and they realize if they're gonna pay those loans back and they're gonna get a seat at the table, they gotta stay in the game. And if they stay in the game, they're gonna reach a point where the clock is ticking and they'll have to freeze their eggs if they want a family. It's this whole thing. So anyway, that happened to me. And so we did IVF. We have the choice to choose the sex of our child, but we did not. We didn't wanna do that. We said to them, "Just put the best embryo and let's see."
- That's amazing.
- And so that's what we did. So we didn't know what was going to be. They let us know the day that it's gonna be a boy. I didn't have to wait the 14, 15 weeks to find out. I knew the whole time. But also, I think that we think differently of our children when we know what sex they are and why are we doing that anyway?
- I have two girls. So if I had a son, I only have to worry about one penis. I got two girls. But I'm curious though because you've always used your gifts and talents to advocate amazing things. Sexism is a huge problem. I have so many personal stories I could share. Like they say on a Christmas story, my mother's not had a hot meal in 20 years or something like that. Once you have a child, how has that changed for you in your advocacy for sexism?
- Well, I got to tell ya, there are just things that happen naturally when you're the mom that become your responsibility. Obviously you're the one carrying the child so there's this responsibility you have and the connection you have for a good nine and a half months that your husband doesn't have to have or your partner doesn't have to have, which means I couldn't drink. I couldn't need sushi. I couldn't do all these things I wanted to do while I watched my husband do them. And he was trying to be respectful, but really at the end of the day, he had a buddy over and he wanted to have a bourbon. I'm not gonna be a jerk about it, but I'm also just gonna be . And so that's when it starts coming in that resentment there. And then, having the baby, as much as I remember my husband feeling really guilty and his feelings of guilt made him defensive when we first had Huck because he felt like he couldn't do certain things like I'm nursing. And so it does make more sense for me to wake up and just give Huck a boob and then we're done. And it's not like there's milk to find or I've gotta pump and give him a thing. And so it was just some things just were easier if I did them. But what happens is the amount of responsibilities that I then get and the lack of sleep that I then get.
- There's no such thing,
- And then the bitchy I get is a lot bigger. So we had to kind of iron out some things. And one of those things was the mental load. I was thinking about all of these things like when was the last time I pumped? And I better pump now. And then I've got to clean the bottles, clean all the stuff. Have they been cleaned yet. I gotta shut the curtains so the dogs don't bark before I put the baby down. There were all of these different added elements and I became responsible for packing him for everywhere we went. And at one point I was just like, "Okay I'm gonna need some help on some of that stuff." My husband is pretty tidy and I am not. I've become more tidy as a respect for him and his space.
- You know where things are though?
- I do, I know exactly where they are. I know what pile.
- Yeah, it's like you come and clean. I'm like, "I had something right here."
- Yeah, it was there in that pile. Which pile? You know, the third, seventh pile.
- The last place I left it, but you cleaned .
- So I'm always the cook anyway and I love cooking.
- What does your husband do?
- Well, I said he's pretty tidy. I will say, he worked pretty intense. It wasn't even nine to five. It was like nine to 7:30 PM. But what happens is naturally when a woman is pregnant and in postpartum, they can't work. There are things like some work I was able to do, but I had to really literally take myself out of the game, except for recording. I had a recording session planned on the day my water broke, the day I was in labor because it happened 12 days early. So I was recording right up until the end and writing music right up until the end. But in terms of being an actor, I just kind of had to take myself out of the game unless they were hiring a pregnant lady. So a lot of responsibilities have fallen to me and it does make me see that these are important conversations that couples need to have. And those conversations to get ahead of it as opposed to you're so far behind it, that resentment has grown. Everybody's angry about something or feeling guilty about another thing. If you can get ahead of it and just say or pause right in the middle of it and say, "I'm starting to really kind of feel some things now "that aren't good and I need to iron out "what I can do and can't do." But here's the cool part about your grandma being in the kitchen. Guess where everyone hangs out?
- They all hang around the table.
- The kitchen.
- It's true, it's true. That was her way of saying I love you. Let me make you a sandwich. Because grandma sandwiches, nobody can touch a grandma. There's no price grandma's sandwich even if it's miracle weapon, which is the worst thing ever invented. But I think one thing that's always interesting to me is I'm a firm believer that we need more women to run the show because in reality, I think women have been running the show without the attention or the accolades or awards or whatever, but the more women we have running the show, it seems to me like there's gonna be a lot more peace.
- Well, women tend to be the peacemakers connected to the heart of the family. Now, that isn't always the case in every family, but there is nurturing is a part of our nature, right? So when you have someone making policy decisions or making company decisions, and their thought is about if they're thinking about nurturing and they're looking at things in a very human way with the heart, leading with the heart, I think we make better decisions for people. Also, you know the majority of consumer decisions that are made are made by women? Women do the buying for most families. So they're more in touch with what a family needs typically. So why aren't there more female CEOs for these products? And then when you think about the family nucleus tends to be the woman. There are definitely things that just innately I'm more in touch with what my child needs. And I'm definitely more in touch with what a woman means. And if women are more than 50% of the population and decisions are being made, and legislation is being made about women and about children, you do need to have women in places of power in order to accurately make policy about what their true needs are, which is why I did a video, a song I had called "Get a girl you go", which secures all of these different women who were running for office in 2020. And it is about women breaking the glass ceiling. I think there's a record now, there's more women in the house. It went from up from 25% to 30 something percent just in this election. So that that's great. I think that's really good.
- One thing though I mean, I can see in the United States, we're making a lot of progress. All of this protesting and everything to me, I consider it like growing pains. This is the greatest country on the planet because we have such diversity. If it was just red roses, it's not very interesting, but when you have such a diversity of flowers in America and yet we can create these opportunities for people that never had those opportunities before. But then when it comes to dealing with a bully, in your mind, how does a strong political female, how can they combat and deal with a very male chauvinistic man?
- Well, you can't negotiate with crazy.
- That's true, but how do we? 'Cause we're propelling the leaders. And with Kamala and with her winning Vice President, that's so historic.
- Well, I think the difficulty is we are still a patriarchal society and we still have a belief system, whether it be subconscious or conscious that we believe that men's position should be in power and there should be strength attached to it. And so I've done a lot of digging and history about women's power and women's voices, and earliest known law code 2,400 BC stated, it was Mesopotamia. If a woman speaks out of turn, her teeth will be smashed by a brick. Literally earliest known law codes.
- Need some braces.
- She ain't got no teeth. And they didn't have-
- Empress crowns.
- Yeah, they did not have those crowns you could insert. I mean, then she just couldn't eat. But the thing is, if a woman spoke, violence would be had against her. I mean, you look back at middle ages and this practice was carried on into the early colonies in the laws of coverture. So the laws of coverture were English laws that were passed down when the English moved to the colonies and began to colonize. And those were essentially stating that a woman is the property of her father until she's the property of her husband. Therefore, she doesn't have any say about any business. She can't accept money for jobs done. She's got to give that to him. She cannot own property. She doesn't even have custody of her own children. If he were to pass away, divorce was illegal. He was legally allowed to reprimand her including genital beatings. It was called a rule of thumb, which so it wasn't thicker than the thumb, which kind of sucks because the larger a whip is, wider it is, the less it hurts than the thinner. I don't know what that. Anyway, 'cause I've been whipped a ton, just so you know. I'm just kidding.
- I gotta tell you something crazy. So my great, great, great, great 18. I'm gonna say 1848. My great grandfather, John Taylor. When he was 48, he was an apostle in the Mormon church and he visited a family and he really liked the 19 year old girl. So she ended up becoming his seventh wife and my grandma.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! This is good!
- But yeah, no, seriously, I would not exist without a polygamous world. And that's so far from that culture now. There hasn't been polygamy within. Well, there's still-
- Well, with the Mormon Church.
- Yeah, like the Church of Jesus Christ Latterday Saints, but there's still all these break offs and stuff like that. But I wouldn't be here, that dynamic. And it messes with my head to think that my grandma was a teenager when this old guy that everybody loves comes to town and then makes a proposal.
- I can't even. I can't believe that I'm talking to an actual offspring. And I watched "Big love". And I actually, I know quite a bit about the Mormon faith. When I was 15, I had a Mormon boyfriend and many of my best friends from New York who have since come out of the closet were raised Mormon. And so I understand quite a bit about the church and I love Mormon people. Here's the thing, I can tell a Mormon something and I know that shit is going to the grave. They are not gonna tell my secrets 'cause they're gonna have a crazy hell dream. So I love Mormon people. So anyway, I'm putting that out there, but it is true whether it be in certain religions, certain laws and rules that have been passed down and passed out and passed down. And if you realize what's really going on is it's about money.
- You always follow the money. Always follow the money.
- What was happening was no, she's got to give her property to him. If she's earning money, it's got to go to him. The assets must go to him. And if we can guarantee she's a virgin and not sleeping around, then we know those children are also our assets. And we can pass down our property to our male assets. So there's a controlling of her body going on. So this is how we've gotten to today where it actually ironically, you said 1848. 1848 was the year that there was an act that allowed women to own property and have custody of her children and to earn. There was a big law passed that Elizabeth Cady Stanton who also proposed a woman's right to vote brought to the house.
- It's the first gathering of women's rights, July 19th, 20th in Seneca falls, New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a mother of four from upstate New York and a Quaker abolitionist. A Quaker abolitionists so that was that.
- Quakers so I would say, Quakers were really a part of the abolitionists movement and the women's movement came at the tails of the abolitionists movement. So here you have these abolitionists who were very much religious, very realizing, hey, one person is not better than another person in the eyes of God. This is wrong. We have to spread the good word. So when they did that, they also realized, well hell, women are like slaves too, let's fight for them. And so then the women's movement of that time in 1848 and through the early 1900s came on the tails of the abolitionist movement. Unfortunately when women got the right to vote, there were Black suffragists at the time and who were really a part of this fight including Frederick Douglas. He was fighting for women's right to vote. But what happened was because of all of the extensive racism, especially in the South, they excluded Black women from getting the right to vote. So we have a sordid history. So here's the thing, so you asked this question I still haven't answered. I'm giving a little bit of history.
- How do we deal with Putin and men like him?
- We have to examine the history and ask ourselves why is it acceptable for a man to talk over, to be a bully, to try to control a woman? And that's because it's been pervasive throughout our history and our subconscious thinking and our collective thinking, but we have to overturn those thoughts. We, as mothers, we as women need to be responsible when we are teaching our children how to respect women and how to speak to women. Like you said, women have the power. We birthed the human race. We raised the human race. We can do a better job at setting a standard for how to treat women than we've done so far. And so that's how I'm gonna say how this whole thing is gonna be adjusted is how we communicate, how we tell history, not leaving women out of it, that kind of thing. But when you're coming up a bully, it's in the wrong way of thinking, unfortunately, you're gonna have to get loud. I had a therapist tell me once, "What does an animal do in the wild "when they're being attacked?" They war.
- They do.
- They don't sit down and roll over. So the problem is here is that we do have to organize. We do have to protest. And for those women that are literally up in a debate against someone like that, it's gotta be about the facts. It's gotta be about the facts. Here's this fact, here's this fact, here's this fact, I'm not gonna add anything extra to this. I'm gonna tell you. And to be like Kamala and say, "I'm speaking, your turn is done. "It is time for me to tell you." And we have to believe, that woman in that moment needs to believe that her worth and her value is just as equal as his worth and value. No human is better than another. And she's got a right to speak and to speak the truth. But I got to tell you lately, I kind of been a vigilante about spreading misinformation online.
- Because it is everywhere. You don't trust any source. I mean, we live in a day now where you cannot trust anything. You have to make your own decision based on your own research. And you have to get a dozen sources to even come up with a possibility.
- You need a doctorate before your foot posts on Facebook. You need to have cited those. And I've definitely done it. I've definitely posted stuff and memes and shit that was totally wrong. But now I'm definitely feeling that I've gotta be really accountable and responsible about what it is that I'm posting and making sure that this information is true because what happens is that people share it, and then share it, and share it, and share it and they're sharing lies. Anyway, that's kind of a little bit of some of this, but you said something interesting about the flowers that make up who we are and the protesting. And I think it comes back to an issue of equality and it comes back to really not for people on the inside to feel that they are better than anybody else or that they're more worthy of the paycheck, or they're more worthy of a good education, or they're more worthy of healthcare, or whatever these issues, or life. They're more worthy of life. We're all special because we're all unique, but we're not more special or more better than any other human being. And I think if a group of people feels as if they have been oppressed and collectively viewed as if they are beneath another group of people, that they deserve to rise up against that type of thinking. And this is how our country has been built. It's the constitution and how many damn amendments are in it. It's amended to work for our society. It's amended to include everyone. And, the way those amendments have been made is that, that group of people who feels as if they have been oppressed, they get their voices out in protest and they expect to be heard. When they are not heard, when they are ignored, they gotta be louder. Do you know what I mean?
- Yeah and see, that's what makes America so fascinating because we've allowed through the First Amendment the right to speak your mind and all these things. And that's why we're making progress. when people start to go, oh, we're about to have civil war. Hell is coming down on us. We're all sinners. Point is, we just got started and we're learning to get along in the sand pile.
- You know what's interesting is that we don't get anywhere when we think in terms of us versus them. If you wanna talk spiritually, what almost almost every famous prophet from any religion would say that unity and love, the accepting, that we're all of God, right?
- Right.
- Anyway. whether it be Christianity, or whether it be Buddhism or Hinduism, there's an idea of the collective oneness that that is of God, that I'm a piece of God, you're a piece of God, or source or whatever you wanna call it. And then when we turn on our brother, we're actually turning a bit on God, right? Because turning on the source, turning on that which we have claimed to be faithful of and in that judgment. But the reality is, at least the way that I feel is that you have an opportunity to create hell on earth for yourself or heaven on earth. And your thoughts, your lack of forgiveness, your judgments, that is only creating internal turmoil and hell for you.
- Yeah, happiness is a choice.
- Yeah absolutely, and these books of different faiths are good guidelines. I think you also when you do take up, and I believe now, at least my philosophy is to question everything. I was raised Catholic.
- In Kentucky?
- In Kentucky.
- That's like a Catholic in the Bible belt.
- Yeah, it is funny although Louisville, Kentucky is raging with Catholics everywhere. But anyway I mean, I think I was raised in a very dogmatic, stand up, sit down, say this prayer. When I was in high school, we took ethics class, we took Bible class. Every semester we had to pick a religion course. Ethics philosophy was my favorite but I also loved this Bible interpretation class. It was fascinating. So our teacher Mr. Piyaski, who most students were afraid of, he was brilliant.
- You spoke loud, you were good.
- He was brilliant. And this one course, he would take different phrases and quotes from the Bible. And he would say, "This is what you think this means." And then he said, "But this has been translated "from four languages over thousands of years. "So it's important for you to know what these words mean "in different languages. "And also what these words meant 2000 years ago." I'm like, "Okay." So he would go back. You'd do the current English version. And he would go, "In Latin, this means this. "At the time of translation, this meant this." Goes to Greek, "In Greek, this meant this. "At the time of translation, this meant this. "In Hebrew, there are no vowels "So it could mean this or it could mean is. "And at this time." At the end of that class I was like, "this shit don't mean shit to me. "I gotta do so much work."
- It didn't add up which is interesting because the Catholic church has barely released the Vaticanus Codex. And the Vaticanus Codex is the earliest document, it's 200 AD. And so you can read that online and it does vary and it is different. And there's so many different meanings to the word love. There's three or four different types of love. And so when you read it in the King James, you think it means one thing, but it actually means several so that's why we have all these churches.
- I'm gonna tell you what Mr. Piyaski told a bunch of 17 year old girls in his class that during the time of the writing of the Bible, virgin meant unmarried, not never had sex. What do you think these girls did when they left that class? No, I'm just kidding. I actually think that class opened my eyes to just realizing I had to do that research. I had to understand this and that we are better served with a figurative interpretation of these books than we are a literal interpretation when we don't do the research and understand the translation in four different languages. But again, you have to interpret it as that's their truth. What's your truth? And you know there's a little bit of that war going on.
- Yeah I mean, I just see everyone's truth as different. And that's a whole another conversation. I have two last questions for you. The first one is in your 30 year career. And it's crazy to think you've had a 30 year career, but in your 30 year career, what was the most meaningful role, the role that you could do over and over again and be content? Is there one?
- Well, I will say I did "Legally blonde" almost 600 shows. I was pretty close to feeling like that it was an eternity and enjoying every one. I think the only thing was hard for me was to sustain that vocally or to sustain that physically. But I don't think as an actor, you've ever arrived. There's always something to learn. And because there are things about life you're learning, like I would notice I would learn things about life and go, "Oh now I understand this material totally differently. "Or I understand this character better, "or I'm more connected to this "because I just went through a breakup." Whatever that is, you grow as the character grows. And I actually like doing something over and over and over and over again and making it better and better. So there was that, but there was also, I did a production in LA of "Sweet Charity" and playing the character of Charity. And she was a really interesting character. And I think she sort of encapsulates the experience of being a woman. And there's so much vulnerability to her, and hope to her and childlike quality to her that I really felt like I could just keep digging in and digging in and digging in and getting closer and closer and more raw and more raw and less actor affected as I went on. It was the first time that I remember doing a performance. Some of that was because I had things going on in my personal life. I was dealing with my father passed away, my grandmother passed away as well kind of stuff, but it was like I was onstage and totally connected. I had just slipped inside this character without actually an awareness of the audience much and without much concern for what they thought about me. And it was almost like a full on meditation. I don't know. So that character for me might be the one. But I love when you create a character, when you're really doing the work, you create a backstory for that character, you create a family for that character, and you create a base human emotion for that character and you create a first memory for that character. You're coloring it. All the audience has no idea that there is this whole life that you've created for your character. So I don't think if you're doing it right, there's a single character that you couldn't play.
- I think you're right, you're right because I couldn't think of, you look at your discography of songs of albums. In my world, I can't part with one because they're all my babies. They're all my babies, every one of them. Which one's your favorite? It depends on the mood.
- Totally!
- It depends on how I feel right now because I'm an artist and artists are a little bit in our narcissist. We might like this right now, we might not like you right now, but maybe check on us tomorrow, we'll be fine. But we won't be. So anyways, the last question I'd love to ask my guess is 200 years from now after you've changed the world. And Russia has a female Putina, but you're gone and most people that you knew in this life are gone. What is it that you hope the work that you do or even just the person that you are because I've got the sense for this whole thing that the work is you, you are the work, it's everything. You are very well-rounded and all that stuff, but what do you hope people maybe remember about you or what you were able to leave behind?
- So I used to say that people were able to experience joy and I still feel that way, but now so much of my work has to do with liberating women and liberating people. So I guess there's something very similar to liberation, the feeling of freedom and joy. And I guess the thing is I hope people feel more free as a result of my work or they feel liberated. And I hope that I contributed to raising our consciousness.
- I love that, I love that. Laura, thank you so much for being on "All heart."
- Oh my God, it was a total pleasure. I love talking about these things. I mean really, it's a great way to start the day.
- Is there anything you're working on that we should let everybody know about besides these amazing songs that you've just released?
- Well, it's all leading up to an album.
- Oh, good and that is with the artwork that forms?
- Yeah, it's called "Women of tomorrow" and every song delves into a different issue that women are facing today. And then I have a podcast that goes along with it where there's only so much you can cover in a three minute 32nd song. My song writing partner and I are delving into the topics of those by exploring the history which is why I know a lot of historical information right now. We dive into the history of the topic. And then we bring on an expert in the field today to talk about how we can move forward or make change or whatever. I love the podcast. It's a really great opportunity for me to do a lot of research. And then the album, they're companion pieces to each other, but that's what I've been working on this year. Well actually, I wrote half of the album when I was pregnant and I wrote the other half of the album in postpartum and my kid is 18 months now. So it's been a long process. And it goes along with like you said, I'm out there trying to get people to understand issues that are women's issues. And wait a second, you're doing this because of a heart. Didn't you have heart thing?
- I was born with only half a heart. Yeah, so actually I wasn't even supposed to be here on Earth. A surgeon figured out what to do. And then at 13, 14, I almost died. And then I had a heart transplant. So in my chest is the heart of a young man who was from Mexico. His family was sent back to Mexico. He took his life. So I have a very interesting story. In fact, there's an author that just finished writing a book called "The broken miracle". It's a duology, two parts. It's my story, but it's a fictional book. It's the brokenmiracle.com. And I just did an album which is kind of my memoir album. It's got Tyler Glenn from Neon Trees. He was the lead in "Kinky Boots". Tyler's the one that came out in "Rolling Stone" magazine as a gay Mormon. So he's on the album and I've got all these amazing artists on the album. So it's a pretty cool story.
- That is fascinating.
- You were born with congenital heart disease?
- Yes.
- You got a hole in your heart. Was it a septal defect or was it a?
- Ventricle, ventricle.
- You had a VSD.
- Yeah.
- That's a big deal.
- It was at the time. In 1981 when I was born, there wasn't a lot of information. I had a murmur. My heart was so loud. I mean, up until I had it fixed, I could be laying down at night and it was really quiet and I could hear my own heart. It was so loud.
- Wow!
- What'd you say?
- So how soon before they did anything to help you close it up?
- A long time. So like I told you, I was born in Euclid, Ohio which is very close to Cleveland clinic. So we went to Cleveland clinic to have everything looked at. Then my family moved back to Kentucky and I got connected with a doctor there called Jackie Noonan who just passed away a few months ago, but she ran the congenital heart department at University of Kentucky. And she was incredible. She believed that the procedures that were developed at the time would be more invasive than me living with it. She also believed that it would close over time. So I think it was every six months for a while that I would go get my EKG and ultrasound. Then it was every year. And they were really monitoring me through puberty. I ran track and cross country. So I was getting monitored about that. I had a couple moments where I did pass out, but what happened is it was always really tricky when you have congenital heart disease because it's not like you have clogged arteries or that your lifestyle has led to this issue. It's a dysfunction inside the heart. So when you go to a regular heart doctor who doesn't have any idea of a congenital heart disease, you'll get all kinds of crazy information. So when I was 18, I moved to New York and I went to get my heart checked. And they were like, "You need open heart surgery now."
- Yeah, they put you on the ultrasound on you for four hours going what?
- What's going on?
- It's a totally different sprinkler system. You can't just call the Home Depot to come over and fix it.
- Yes, every time I go, even in Nashville, I had my heart checked and they they called me and like, "We've got a problem. "You're gonna need to have open heart surgery." So it was right before my 2010 album with "Giddy On Up" came out. And I was like, "Oh, I can't have heart surgery. "I have an album coming out." And the man is like, "No, this is your life."
- This is my my life.
- "This is your life." And I'm like, "Listen, if I've waited my whole life "to get this procedure, "then you can at least wait until my album comes out." And he was like, "What in the world?" It's like someone saying to you, "You're dying." And I'm like, "Nope, got an album coming out."
- But it is mind over matter. It is mind over matter.
- I believe that completely. So this is what I did. I was like, "I don't believe you." And I didn't tell my parents about that because I was like, "This is gonna freak them out." So I reached out to Jackie Noonan, my doctor who's retired and I'm like, "Okay, I'm being told this. "You've been watching me my whole life." So she's like. "Meet me on Friday at University of Kentucky." So she comes out of retirement to look at my heart and compare it to the last ultrasounds and things that I'd had. I mean, I was pushing 30 at that point and I was still going to the rooms with the fishes.
- Yeah, yeah, children's hospital.
- So she said, "Listen, it looks very similar "to the last I've had. "And what I am seeing is a slight enlargement "because of how hard you're working to pump blood." Because it was almost pumping double the blood. This stuff was going back through
- You're dancing all over the stage. You're singing, you're doing all this stuff. This is a miracle folks. I mean, literally the fact that you had that and that you actually have a child.
- So this is it. So there were a couple of different experts at U.K. They brought in some adult doctors because she was obviously in retirement and it was explained to me that there was some enlargement going on. And if that were to continue, it would lead to congestive heart failure, but that I had maybe two to three years to get it taken care of before it would do any long-term damage. And then I had some people say, "Hey, you can live with this." And my question was, can I have a child with this? Because I had heard all of these stories of women who had undiagnosed congenital heart disease having heart attacks during childbirth. And I also knew that you have 200% more blood flow and for my particular condition, that was really probably gonna be a problem for my heart.
- Yeah, yeah, because VSD is much more problematic than the ASD. And that's the ventricular system of the body versus the arterial, the pushing the blood out. It's the receiving, there's a hole so when you're receiving, you could have a stroke, you could have a heart attack. I mean, and you were never really on blood thinners?
- Well, not until I got to the place where I started to have some procedures. I ate right, I exercised and Jackie had always encouraged that. She was like, "Whatever you do, do not smoke cigarettes." There was also quite a bit of a warning about birth control too because my cousin who had this defect, a very similar defect 'cause this also my grandmother, my father's mother had it undiagnosed and it led to her death. So my cousin Dawn, she was on birth control and smoked cigarettes and at 20 years old, she had a stroke. And there's something with the birth control, I don't know, but-
- It's about blood flow. It's something with the menstrual cycle. It's tied in with your heart.
- Yeah, it's terrifying and it's crazy. Anyway, so that was always a thing too. But eventually, at one point I'm living in LA and I'm realizing, okay my time is running out in terms of needing to get this procedure done. And is there a way to get the least invasive procedure possible? I mean, am I really gonna have to cut my chest open full shebang?
- It would be be like a total centerfold with the staples to prove it.
- Yes, I have different feelings about boobs now that I've nursed with them, the uses of your boobs, but also just the things going on inside your heart. So I got connected with a doctor out of Cedars who did a cardiac cath procedure to really take a look, and had a heart MRI, and really dug in and was like, "Let's figure this out." Then he said, "I know a couple surgeons. "I've told them of your case "and we think there's a way to do this. "They do the surgery "on babies using the cardio catheters "where you could put a device in. "And so I've got two surgeons kind of vying "for your surgery right now." So I was like, "Oh, okay." And so I ended up going to this doctor, Dr. Evans Zahn at Cedar Sinai who basically is one of the head folks at the congenital heart department at Cedars. And he gave me more information about what was going on with my condition than I'd ever gotten in my life. Clearly, he talks to kids. He had a little toy heart that you could take apart. He was telling me about it. I don't know how this is because-
- Oh, I do totally.
- It's like being an adult and going back to kindergarten.
- But they explain it in a way for adults to understand it. Just for everyone that's listening, this procedure the heart catheterization is they go through your groin in your femoral artery. They literally thread a tube like this all the way up that artery, into your heart where they take pictures. I mean, you've been in movies, you've been on Broadway, you've been on TV, you might as well be on screen for the surgeons to look on the inside of what's going on 'cause it's crazy stuff.
- I'll tell ya, when I first had the cardio calf just to look around, my anesthesia started to wear off and I started to come to, but I couldn't move my body. It was like those dreams where you're totally paralyzed and you can't move, but you can hear everything, that's what it was like. And so I'm hearing things like, because I think the anesthesia was wearing off or something that this was happening. They were like, "Heart is racing, blah, blah, blah, blah. "We need a beta blocker. "We need a beta blocker. "I need a beta blocker!" And they're like screaming. I got enough movement in my face to be able to say, "I can hear you." And then suddenly, I was knocked out again.
- Some Michael Jackson juice right there.
- Yeah definitely, fentanyl. I was rocking some fentanyl. I love me some fentanyl. I get it, Michael.
- I schedule it once a year just so I can dope up legally.
- Are you sure that I can't get a colonoscopy? Are you sure? I just had one a month ago.
- There's people that actually do this. They'd go to the hospitals and fake it because they liked the drugs.
- Oh man.
- That's not me.
- Anyway, that isn't me though. I'd rather avoid a hospital.
- That's so amazing though because just the ventricular septal defect, it's scary. So many people that aren't aware of it, they could be doing Broadway and just collapse.
- It's missed 'cause they're now kind of giving some regulations about checking a baby's heart prior.
- It needs to be a lot that you check the heart in the pregnancy, that's something the Saving Tiny Hearts Society in Chicago is funding. They've been trying to pull that off to make sure everybody gets seen. And if you're pregnant, make sure your doctor is checking the baby's heart. We don't wanna freak you out, but just make sure checking the heart.
- When I was pregnant, they knew obviously 'cause it ran in the family that we had a heart checkup for him and for me and him at the same time. And it was totally fascinating, totally fascinating. Well yeah, so what happened is after the beta blocker cath procedure, I wanna say about five, six months later, Dr. Zahn did a procedure where he was going to put a device in my heart to close the hole. And then the theory would be that the tissues would begin forming around that device. A little titanium cage with like a stringy feel. It looked like a yo-yo.
- It's a mesh.
- Yes, a mesh.
- It's a special mesh. It's the only type of material that could be in the human body where your body doesn't necessarily attack it as a virus.
- Yeah, and it doesn't set off security things.
- Walking through TSA, "What do you got? "What do you got?" "I got a bad heart." "Yeah right, I know you're a musician."
- And that was actually my first question. Am I gonna set off security alarms with this thing? How much longer am I gonna have to wait through TSA? I want you guys to know that I have pre-check and I really hate waiting in line. So I got this thing and what happened is the surgery, I'll tell you something else that happened. So I'm on the operating table, the anesthesia is kicking in. This doctor knows to really knock me out. But before I fell asleep, this nurse goes, "Oh, I know her, 'Giddy on up'." She had a Southern accent. I'm like, "We're in California." She's like, '"Giddy on up'." And they're like, "What, that's her song? "Oh my God, I love it." She goes over to the computer. She goes over to the computer. She puts the song on. And by the way, I have literally done a will in case I don't make it out of the surgery. And as I'm going, "Well, this may be the last thing I ever hear." And it's my fucking song and then I'm falling asleep. But I gotta say, I'm like, "Well, she's not gonna let me die "'cause she likes this song."
- It's kind of finished, that's what's interesting. Every time I go into a surgery 'cause I've been in the operating table a lot. When they're listening to certain type of music, I'm like, "Come on." I had to go in 'cause they said they had a heart for me. It was Christmas. And I go in it's Frank Sinatra singing songs. And I feel like I'm in the lobby in heaven. There's Frank, Dean Martin, Sammy, he's got a real eye now. So I'm sitting in there. I'm like, "I can't listen to Frank Sinatra." Anyways, we ended up not having a transplant that night 'cause the heart good. It had an aneurysm on it. But then the next time I came in, I knew I was good 'cause this was the actual surgery. It was Hank Williams.
- Okay, there you go.
- I was like, "This is Hank, I'm good. "We can do this." And then it was Johnny Cash. And I think I drifted off to Merle Haggard. So I felt like, who knows? That's the stuff you observe.
- It is, it's so weird. These are the conversations that are happening. And this is the music that doctors and nurses are listening to while you're wondering if you're gonna wake up. It's just a crazy thing, but it all worked out. It took a very long time and now there's two devices in there.
- Wow, good for you, good for you. You might as well have two. It balances things out.
- It is, yeah it does.
- That's amazing. Well good, I'm so happy that you are here, that you have survived. And are you taking aspirin?
- I did for a while and I did again a little bit during the pregnancy as well, but lately I'm doing pretty well. After I had COVID I went in and checked stuff out. We were gonna maybe do an MRI because there was concern that because COVID creates an incredible amount of inflammation that there might be inflammation on the heart. And I asked my doctor cause I was feeling weird. I was getting some weird feelings in my heart. I said, "So what do you do if there's inflammation "on your heart?" She goes, "Time.' I was like, "I'm not gonna deal with them."
- Yeah I mean, did you ever fear for your life?
- No, 'cause the first thing I did was reach out to them and I was like, "Okay, I have COVID. "I'm hearing all kinds of crazy things." It was right in the beginning. Here's the thing though, no one could get a test, but because I had the preexisting condition, I was actually able to get a COVID test. So when I reached out and said, "Hey, I've got this. "Is there anything I should be concerned about?" And they said, "Based on the last check-up you had, "you're in really good shape. "You eat healthy. "I think it's gonna be okay, "but as soon as you're done with this, "please call us if anything comes up." But I was fortunate. I had a really minor case of the COVID, but I wasn't concerned for my life because the procedure was so successful that it stopped the damage from happening. And so I mean, I'm so grateful for Jackie Noonan that doctor who told me to wait for technology, and then for the technology, and the doctors and that I live in a country that has these advancements and I have health insurance. I mean, there are children all over the world who don't have access to this. Dr. Zahn, he has a foundation. He goes over to Africa every year and he just fixes one baby's heart after another baby's heart, after another baby's heart. And he does this for free out of the goodness of his heart. He just raises money for supplies.
- I love that.
- I gotta find out what it is. Can I tell you right now real quick what it is?
- Yeah.
- And people know what it is?
- Yeah, we do a lot. I did a lot in Eastern Europe in Slovenia. Even though it's a very prosperous country because there's only 2 million people in the country, they won't operate on the children because there's not enough surgeons who understand it and there's not enough children to practice it. They don't wanna work with the Croatians and they don't wanna work with the Hungarians. And so their stubbornness of the cultures is keeping these kids from surviving. So you're born with heart disease, it's the will of God so whatever.
- It's called Mending Kids.
- Mending Kids.
- Mending Kids and there's been Mending Kids Tanzania which is what Dr. Zahn goes to. But I do believe that Mending Kids is all over the world. And I'm gonna send you-
- 66 countries served, 133 surgical mission trips completed, 4,450 children mended as of 2019. We gotta get this COVID thing over so we can get these guys back out there.
- I know.
- That's amazing, that's amazing, that's so good. And he's out of LA. This is what's interesting, we go on stage and we get all this applause for everything we do. These guys are on the front lines and it's amazing the commitment to people and how much they love people. They're rescuing people one at a time, one by one. And that child, that child could be the president of United States, nobody knows right now. It blows my mind. The dedication, the nurses, I mean it's insane.
- I mean, it does make you feel like these are the things that when I see that this doctor is doing this that I do question, what am I doing to serve? Yeah well, it reminds you to re-examine your reasons for doing what you do. These people are incredible. One of my best friends was talking about this and I know both you and I have to go, we've been talking forever. We just did a benefit for the domestic violence response fund because in the pandemic, home is not the safest place for everybody.
- Isn't that crazy?
- So that's like a pandemic within a pandemic. And so, we're doing our podcast which includes excerpts from the event we did. And she's like, "We've spent $80 million "both sides of parties in our country Democratic "and Republican spending $80 million "for a person to get elected. "And these representatives "are obviously making policy decisions that do affect people "and do save lives or whatever, right? "So it is important, but you could also donate "that $35 to saving someone directly. "Make yourself feel better and just go directly "to the source." Because when it comes to domestic violence, they're working on policy and they're working on things like that. They're working on people at Futures Without Violence or The Battered Women's Justice Project. These are individual charitable organizations that fight the good fight for women that end up changing policy too. You could just put money towards the horse.
- I know, these are the major life's ironies. Every time I go to a movie and I see the trailers. I'm all, "There's $200 million down the drain."
- Okay, let's talk about fresh drinking water and how many people die from bad drinking water.
- Because there's parasites. There's parasites in spring water that is sold at a 7/11. Spring water has parasites. Don't drink spring water. Make sure it says drinking water. Oh yeah, my wife just did this whole parasite test. And we have parasites in our bodies from the spring water that they've been selling us. So you'd have to go get this test. Yeah, and then she's done this thing. She's removed every parasite from her body. She has no parasites. And there's certain bacterias. She was on Wall Street, 9/11 happened. She switched to health. So she's an amazing person. And she's the cleanest vessel.
- I need to talk to her.
- She used to educate a lot of celebrities in California, pastors and people trying to change their lifestyle, but not everybody listens. People don't actually do so it gets exhausting so now she's just dealing with me, that's a full-time job.
- No one has self-control, no one has self control.
- She does.
- She does. Hey, but thank you so much. And please let's keep in touch. I'm amazed about the VSD and I don't know why I'd forgot about that, but the fact that you have a child is such a miracle, such a miracle. And there's a young man that will know how to treat women where you're going to be yelling at him very loud.
- Yeah, I'm gonna be roaring.
- Okay, thanks Laura. I'll talk to you later.
- Thank you, bye Paul.
- [Narrator] "The broken miracle" part one written by J D Netto, narrated by Noah James. ♪ I will not forget the day I met you ♪ ♪ Walking down inside you walked my way ♪
- [Narrator] "I belonged to an exclusive club "with only one membership requirement, "be born with half a functioning heart." ♪ My heart it beats for you ♪ ♪ My heart it beats for you oh ♪
- [Narrator] My hope is that this novel instills in you the desire to live. I've been on the brink of death countless times. I thought about giving up in a few of them, but in the end, love prevailed, I'm alive. My heart is beating. Life is worth living. ♪ Somehow you helped me see ♪ ♪ To trust God much more than me ♪ ♪ It feels like breathing ♪