Julia Gets Wise with Julie Andrews

This episode is a heartfelt conversation between Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Dame Julie Andrews, reflecting on their careers, life lessons, and shared love of the arts.

1. The therapeutic nature of art and creativity as a response to life’s challenges.
2. The importance of friendships and relationships in personal and professional growth.
3. How personal challenges and adversities can lead to new opportunities and self-discovery.
4. The role of nature and the outdoors in maintaining mental health and inspiration.
5. Reflections on aging gracefully, embracing the later stages of life with positivity and purpose.

1. Introduction and Background

Julia Louis-Dreyfus introduces Julie Andrews, discussing her early life, career, and the personal significance of Andrews' work. Full Name: Julia Louis-Dreyfus: "It was as if the hills themselves were alive, that's how much your music meant to me."

2. Career Reflections

Julie Andrews reflects on her diverse career, from stage to screen to writing, emphasizing the unexpected turns and the role of adaptability. Full Name: Julie Andrews: "Every challenge was an opportunity to learn something profound about myself and the craft."

3. Dealing with Changes

The conversation shifts to dealing with physical changes and challenges, particularly Julie's voice loss, and how it reshaped her career. Full Name: Julie Andrews: "Losing my singing voice was devastating, but it led me to find a new voice in writing."

4. The Power of Friendship

They discuss the sustaining power of friendships, especially in the entertainment industry, and how these relationships have influenced their lives. Full Name: Julie Andrews: "The friends who know you best can help you to laugh and love more freely."

5. Conclusions and Final Thoughts

The episode wraps up with both reflecting on what they've learned about life, art, and the importance of passing on wisdom. Full Name: Julia Louis-Dreyfus: "This conversation has shown me how interconnected our experiences are, regardless of the paths we take."

1. Explore Creativity: Engage in creative activities as a way to cope with life’s challenges.
2. Cultivate Friendships: Invest time in maintaining and deepening relationships, which can be a source of strength and joy.
3. Embrace Change: View changes and challenges as opportunities for growth and new beginnings.
4. Stay Connected with Nature: Regularly spend time in nature to improve mental health and gain new perspectives.
5. Reflect on Life’s Lessons: Take time to reflect on your experiences and the wisdom you've gained, sharing it with others.

On the Season 2 finale of Wiser Than Me, Julia sits at the feet of 88-year-old Academy Award-winning icon Julie Andrews. Acclaimed for her enduring roles in “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music,” Julie brings a depth of wisdom from a lifetime in the spotlight. The pair discuss the restorative feeling of being in nature, their favorite curse words, and Julie’s 60-year friendship with Carol Burnett. Plus, Julia and her 90-year-old mom, Judy, talk about a life-changing health scare in Judy’s past and how it helped her find her creative voice.

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Keep up with Julie Andrews @julieandrews on Instagram.

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Maker’s Mark is a proud sponsor of Wiser Than Me. Celebrate the wise women in your life by creating a custom, personalized label from artist Gayle Kabaker today at www.makersmark.com/personalize.

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For exclusive discount codes and more information about our sponsors, visit https://lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/.

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Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julie Andrews

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Julia Louis-Dreyfus
So in my conversation with einegarten, I talked about my grandma Didi's insanely delicious peanut butter cookies. They're very sentimental to me because it's my grandma. I still have Grandma Dee Dee's handwritten recipe on an old index card. In fact, we printed that exact card in Dee Dee's own handwriting onto a soft cotton tea towel. This is not your average tea towel.

You can bake the cookies from the recipe printed on the towel and then clean up with the same tea towel when you're done. It's a tea towel double. It's part of our wiser than me merch collection. To check it out, head to wiserthemeshop.com lemonader I am a hiker. I'm somebody who likes to get out on a trail, in the hills, in the mountains, or along the beach, just out in nature.

It's an activity that brings me an enormous amount of solace, of joy, peace of mind. Hiking can really change my mindset. In fact, as I'm saying this, I realize I've really got to get out there right now and move, which I'm going to do right after we record. There is something about walking and looking at the natural world and feeling and smelling the world around me. Smells are important to me, too.

My memories are really full of smells. For real. Where I live in California, we have seasons. Believe it or not, they're subtle. But we do have seasons that change.

And the smells in the air from the trees and all the shrub, the chaparral, it changes from season to season for month to month. And I love that. The pittosporum, the cyanothus, the jasmine that blooms at night. I mean, one night you can't smell it at all, and then the next night, it's almost dizzyingly sweet. The orange blossoms, which just are California to me.

The eucalyptus and the boxwood. Ugh. Well, I can't smell boxwood without thinking of my dad. My dear dad, these smells, you know, they wax and wane for month to month, from year to year. But they're also wonderful.

And I find that if I'm having a hard time or if I'm anxious or if I'm trying to figure something out to get out of my head and to free up my brain, I really need to move in the outdoors. This, to a certain extent, has always been true for me. But as I've gotten older, it's only become more and more true. My favorite thing to do is to go on a hiking trip. We did that last year with family and friends, we went to the Dolomites in Italy and we hiked thousands of vertical feet and many, many miles a day.

And it was super hard and it was as good as it gets. And another benefit of being out walking or hiking in the natural world, beyond the self searching and meditative stuff, is that it is a great opportunity for conversation. Conversation can flow in a way that it just might not otherwise. I think maybe that's because you're both looking forward and you're not looking at each other, that it sort of allows a kind of openness and maybe a deeper form of honesty. The ritual of walking and breathing at a pace together is just conducive to a more intimate conversation.

And in fact, it wasn't a hike with my college roommate and dearest friend Paula that we first discussed the idea for this very podcast and how to do it, and what it might be like, and how it would be devised, and who it would be fun to talk to, and where do we get the microphones from, and what button is record? You know, all of this. And now look, here we are. We're finishing up our second season of being inspired and roused by all these mind blowing old ladies. I mean, seriously, who'd have thunk it?

Something happens moving through the natural world, something deep rooted. They say that mountains are nature's cathedral, and I do think that's true. You know, maybe the hills really are alive with the sound of music, or with something otherworldly, something sacred and what divine. Mary Oliver has so many great poems about moving through nature, and this is one called why I wake early.

Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of even the miserable and crotchety best preacher that ever was. Dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe. To keep us from ever darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light. Good morning, good morning.

Good morning. Watch now how I start the day in happiness, in kindness. Boy, that Mary Oliver, I'll tell you. Yeah, the hills really are alive. How fitting, then, that for the last episode of this season, we get to talk to Julie Andrews.

Hi, I'm Julia Louis Dreyfus, and this is wiser than me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me.

I was just four years old when the Sound of Music premiered in 1968, and for those of you listening who were not alive in the sixties, we didn't have Netflix or Disney plus or Max or whatever. We didn't even have dvd's or vhs, which meant that if you wanted to watch a movie, you actually had to go to see it in the theaters. Well, lucky for me, the Sound of music was basically always playing when I was growing up, which meant I got to go to the theater and see it as much as I wanted to, which was a lot. I simply couldn't get enough. I've seen it more than I've seen any other movie.

I mean, I've seen it dozens of times. I saw it last week, for God's sakes. Most people have to think really hard for a minute to come up with their favorite movie, but not me. Sound of music, that's it. And it's been since I can remember.

Why do I love it so much? Well, for starters, it was the soundtrack of my childhood. So, yeah, it is a little hard for me to believe today's conversation is even happening, because today we get to talk to the woman behind that incredible voice and performance. I mean, are we lucky or what, actually? Are we lucky or what is the motto our guest lives by?

According to her daughter? She'll even say it under the worst of circumstances, like in the middle of a thunderstorm when the power goes out. But a whole lot more than luck has shaped this glorious woman's incomparable career. She's been working professionally since she was just ten years old, performing in a vaudeville act with her family, singing, singing all over England, even performing at age 13 for King George VI and the future Queen Elizabeth. She originated the leading roles in the Broadway productions of My Fair lady and Camelot, the latter of which put her in front of the eyes of Walt Disney himself, who cast her in the iconic role of Mary Poppins.

And off she went to do all these other incredible films, Sob Victor, Victoria, the americanization of Emily. And of course, there's the Sound of Music. And lucky for us, she's still working today. She's a prolific author who's written dozens of children's books with her daughter Emma and continues to star in some of the most beloved family films in history, like Princess Diaries and Shrek. You'll even hear her voice as lady whistledown in Bridgerton on Netflix.

So I am a little overcome that today I'll be talking to the Academy Award winning, Emmy winning, Grammy winning, Bafta winning song herself, a true English Rose, the star of my favorite movie, a woman who is so much wiser than me, Dame Julie Andrews. Hi, Julie. Hello, my dear. How are you? I'm so good.

I'm so good. I'm very happy to meet you, my dear. Oh, I'm so happy to meet you, too. I've never had as good an introduction as that. Thank you so much, Julia.

Julie Andrews
A fellow name. A name that's is actually my name, too. I was born and imprisoned Julia. And it was changed to Julie when my mother remarried Ted Andrews. And Julia Andrews didn't roll off the tongue as well as Julie.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Yes. So they changed it. And I didn't know much about it at the time, but. Do people call you Julia ever? No, only maybe great aunts and people like that.

Julie Andrews
Mostly. No. I'm Julia and have been for a long, long time. Well, it suits you. Are you at home?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
I am at home. And where is that? I'm in Santa Barbara, California. Oh, no. Yes.

Julie Andrews
Then you know my chum Carol very well. Yes, you know my chum Carol very well. We've become friends, as a matter of fact. She's adorable and it's such a great friend. Oh, well, we'll talk about that.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
So, Julie, are you comfortable if I ask your real age? Yeah, I don't mind at all. I am, I believe, 88. And how old do you feel? Well, I probably feel like in my fifties.

Julie Andrews
Honest to God, as long as the brain holds out, I'm doing okay, you know, and I don't feel bad at all. No. Well, what do you think is the best part of being your age, Julie? I don't know. There are times when it's a nuisance and I want to do well, I want to do more and I want to exercise more and all of those things, but with the accompanying sort of aches and pains.

I bitch a lot about it, but I actually. The best part is, to a certain extent, people leave me alone. And that I rather like, because otherwise. But, I mean, I'm being slightly facetious. No, that's fine.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
You can just let it all hang out. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. But wait a minute.

When you say they leave you alone, what does that actually, in fact mean? Because of your age, what does that mean? No, it's because I don't do as much, I don't go out as much, and I love being home. And so life is quieter these days. But I kind of enjoy that pulling back a little bit now.

Julie Andrews
And of course, I got a million thoughts and ideas and hope that I can keep going for a great deal longer. But who knows? And I'm just pleased that I've arrived here. Oh, I'm so pleased you've arrived here, too. You know, when we were putting together a wish list to have these conversations with various people, you were absolutely at the top of that wish list.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
So I want just take a breath and say thank you again for being here today, because I admired you my entire life. Well, I'm thrilled to have been asked, Julia. And it's a lovely medium to be on and to see your face and you're seeing mine. And yet here we are, privately in our homes. Yes, exactly.

Julie Andrews
Yeah. Are we lucky or.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
That's exactly right. Now, listen, I was so pleased, Julie, to discover that you love cursing. You're a curser, am I right? Oh, yeah, yeah. Your very body quite free.

Julie Andrews
Yeah. And I honestly, I myself, I mean, I feel to a certain extent that I've kind of built half of my career on that. And I even cursed once in front of Elmo on Sesame street back in the day.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Do you have a favorite curse word? No, not really. I mean, on an average, every day there's a couple of them shits that pop in, but more.

Julie Andrews
Oh, God. What? Favorite curse word? Yeah. My mother had a beautiful curse word because she was.

She was much bawdier and alive than I was, or am, but because of the times and because she was raised, as they say in Cockney, she was brung up proper. She would say, oh, pee. Po. Bum draws, meaning knickers, so pee, obviously, po meaning the commode and bum being your backside and drawers being your knickers. So it resonated.

I don't say it, I just remember it vividly. And I would laugh always. That's hilarious. And what's particularly funny is that it seems so benign to me. Yeah, it does to me.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Right. Yeah. But, I mean, I'm not. I don't go into it much. I don't think I curse as much as everybody else thinks I do.

Julie Andrews
And maybe because it's Mary Poppins uttering whatever I utter. And I go at it whenever I need to, but I think that's a surprise. Really? Yes, I think so. Because you played so many so called good girl characters.

What's your go to word, Julie? Oh, well. Come on, Julie. It's fuck. Yeah, well, I do have some of this.

Mostly, I guess. Mostly it's shit, isn't it? With me? You're not that bad. You're not like me.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
No, no, it's true. I'm very bad. And, you know, I did a show called veep, and there was a lot. It was very scary show. But, you know, of course, the Brits use certain words that Americans are taken aback by.

You know, the ones I've talked about? I know they do. Yeah. Yeah. So I won't, I think I won't utter those words today, but, you know, the ones I'm talking about for female anatomy, and I, it really became a part of my vocabulary after a couple of years in their presence, I have to say.

Julie Andrews
Well, that's very useful. Sometimes I really do think. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is, too.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
But, you know, it's funny that you say that. I think that maybe you just utter a shit and people are probably, maybe it takes their breath away because, of course, all the characters you play were very sort of pollyanna types to a certain extent. Good girls. Exactly. In what ways do you think that good girl image has served you or has gotten in your way, if you were going to say?

Julie Andrews
That's a good question. I think to the extent that I began to be typecast for my image, and it's so far from the truth, I mean, I'm a much, I know I'm a much more broad, as they used to say, than mary Poppins or whatever, but it, it's now of no consequence because I've done enough. That's different. Yes, indeed. And I think, I think enough people know that.

Know me that it's, I'm not that prim and proper. Of course I'm not, of course. Although my voice sometimes gets in the way or gives me away. One of the two. Yeah, exactly.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
And, I mean, are you a rebel? Are you a nonconformist, you, Julie Andrews? Oh, I hope so. I do. Yeah, I am, I think.

Julie Andrews
But not to the extent. I mean, as Eliza Doolittle used to say, oh, a good girl. I am. And I kind of know when to be a rebel and when not to be. I like to be a family when working.

I'm sure you do, too, Julia. It's so lovely to have great collaborators and great people around you and all of that. And when you find them, you must cling to them, don't you think? I think so, yes, I do. Keep them in your orbit.

Yes. For real. Yeah. Because it's very, very good. And as you have pointed out on one or two podcasts, I think now that laughter is.

Yeah, obviously phenomenal, but it's such a joy and it's frees you up so much. And if you can be really healthily, anything from bawdy to laughing your head off or weeping with laughter, that's where I land, I think. Yeah, that's the best possible place to be, isn't it? I mean, all sorts of endorphins, I think, are released. I mean, it's actually a physical reality that laughing is a release.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
It's a release and it's good physically for the body. It is good. And I think weeping too, is. But sometimes when the two get combined, I get helpless. I mean, I laugh so hard and I weep so much at the idiocy of what I'm hearing, really.

Julie Andrews
But of course, I was married for 43 years to Blake, Blake Edwards. And if you don't laugh with that man, then you better get out of the room. You know, he made me laugh so hard sometimes. Oh, I'm sure. And I think that it's partially what held our marriage together.

The great laughter. We'll get more wisdom from Julie Andrews after this super quick break. Stay tuned.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Do you think that I want to talk about sort of the idea of not showing off and the idea of humility and being humble. Do you think that there's an expectation of humility that can impact a woman's sort of ability to assert themselves or negotiate for themselves, is that. I'm not sure about that part of it. I think that my mum, who was very much bawdier and more alive than I seem to be, but she used to say, there's always somebody around that can do it better than you, and so do good things and be grateful, because there are so many people that have talent but don't get the breaks and that don't. And that's, I think, where I land mostly.

Julie Andrews
And it's all a learning experience. I'm still learning. You know, I was interested that you said that you hid your Oscar for Mary Poppins in the attic for a while, and I was wondering, did you feel you didn't deserve it? Probably, yes, I think that's true. I didn't want to show off.

I was very new to this lovely craft that we're all in and in terms of movies and things. And also, I did have a hunch maybe that perhaps it was given in lieu of not getting the role of Eliza in the movie of my fair lady. And I had been passed up for that, and I understood it perfectly well. But of course, it made me sad that I couldn't have a good crack at it on film, though I'd never done a movie before when I made Mary Poppins. So thank goodness Walt saw something that was appropriate for Mary.

And I didn't mind not doing my fair lady, but I wish I'd had a chance of some kind to put it down on record. I did do excerpts on television and on different shows, but it would have been fun and interesting to see what became of Eliza Dolittle when. If I had been in, you know, mind you, I was in the show for about three and a half years. Yeah. So you felt like, to a certain extent, you owned it.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
It was you. You felt the character you were playing. You gave your heart and soul to it. Well, it took me a long time to get there, but I had a long time to get there. And, yeah, it was something like that.

Julie Andrews
But I really felt that, in a way, that the academy was generous enough to honor me for Poppins, because, in a way, it was saying you should have got the other one or something like that. There was so much talk about it at the time, so I kind of hid the Oscar away. Didn't want to show off, didn't want to parade it in my office or anything like that. But I hope it's out of the attic. Is it?

Oh, yeah, it is. Yes. I mean, I was absolutely thrilled, and my mother was terribly thrilled.

I think I was very grateful, too. It was a beautiful beginning, and I couldn't have been more welcomed. So your acceptance speech, by the way, is divine. Oh, you know how to spoil a girl. Yeah.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Right. Yeah. And Americans do. I didn't mean to say you Americans, but. Yeah, that's right.

Julie Andrews
But I felt that they really do. Yeah. Yeah. So, by the way, your memoir is so beautiful. Oh, thanks.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Really beautiful. You've done your homework. My, yes. Well, we take this seriously. I mean, you take the time to talk to us.

We want to take the time to come at you with, you know, thoughtful stuff based on what you've done. But in your memoir, you said something that struck me that I thought was interesting. You describe your childhood self as being bossy. Oh, that's easy. Tell me, what ways were you bossy?

Julie Andrews
Well, I had three brothers, and I was the eldest child, so of course they thought me bossy. And because my parents were in showbiz and traveled a lot and were away a lot, I usually ended up being the head honcho in the family when they were away because I was the eldest. And so I think Bossy was give. I was given that name by then, probably more than anybody else. But, yeah, I can be a bit bossy, but only, you know, we get a reputation for that.

And yet it's only in search of something being as good as it possibly can. Yes. And it's not being bossy. Yes. Yeah.

I'm sure you feel that way. I do. I think I'm probably very bossy. In fact, I'm sure of it. I'm sure that my husband would say.

You don't look very bossy. I can be very tough. How long have you been married? I've been married for, wait, 36 years. 37, actually, coming up.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Yeah. So good. Quite a while. Quite an achievement, too. Yes, it is.

Yeah, it is. I'm proud. Although I also am like, oh, my God, that's so long. It's like, yeah, but in a way. You go through so many phases in a marriage.

Boy, I'll say. Yeah. You know, there's physical love and adoration and admiration, and then there comes the kind of understanding love and then the tolerant love and the understanding of your mate more. And it just. There's so many phases that one goes through, I feel, and I don't know how Blake and I managed it, but we did.

Julie Andrews
And I also admired him very much. And as I say, he made me laugh. And anybody that does that is great. In my book is a keeper. But, Julie, you had a pretty chaotic upbringing with your family, battling poverty and alcoholism.

Well, you have to remember, Julia, I didn't know anything else. It's the. What was. What was handed to me, and it became. I became so incredibly fortunate.

I thank God for the gift of singing and a singing voice. I had a phenomenal teacher who was with me until she passed away, and I had such unbelievable help that I think age is about passing on teaching what you know in a gentle way, or said. I don't think it's exactly setting an example, but I'd love to and hope to do one of those podcasts that are a class, a masterclass. And I'm talking about that because I thought in terms of performing and particularly with lyrics and using them well and so on, there's a number of wonderful ways to do that, and I'd love to pass that on to young singers who are very talented, but don't have that extra bullet in their gun, if you know what I'm saying. What is that extra bullet, Julie?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Is it about absorbing the lyrics and acting them? Well, every song is. I mean, I can't sing a song that doesn't have good lyrics, and that sounds very stupid. But, for instance, remember, there's this. I don't mean to put it down.

Julie Andrews
It's a pretty melody. But remember feelings. Oh, whoa, whoa, feelings. Well, I couldn't do that song. I wasn't good at doing the oh, woe woes and things like that.

I had to find a way to delve into the song and find out what it meant. And I once couldn't sing a song. It was a blues song called Come rain or Come shine, which I'm sure you know and which I had. It's Harold Arlin, and you know I'm gonna love you like nobody's loved come rain, come shine. And my tutor one day said.

I said, it's not my kind of song. I don't sing sort of bluesy or that kind of deep song. And she said, make it about the theater. Now think of the lyrics. And, oh, my God, it changed my life.

Isn't that wonderful of her? And so. Wow. I said, oh, and so you know, I'm going to be true if you let me, you know, come rain or come shut in or the way out of the money. But I'm with you always come rain or, I mean, it couldn't be more appropriate to being in this wonderful business.

And I know you'll get exactly what I mean. That kind of thing is what you mean. And if you can find your way into a song, if it's something else, but you make it a song about how you feel about your husband when he's standing at the dresser after his shower or something like that, it brings into it. If you make that, if you take it on and adopt that attitude, it's very, very helpful. Well, it's an acting exercise is really what you're describing.

Of course, it's all about the, I'm big on lyrics, directed a few things, which I've loved doing. And to see young people and talented people suddenly grasp that, if you just emphasize that word or think about it, let's go and do that again and so on, it can be enormously helpful. And was to me over the years, you know, it's all learning and you never stop. Well, I'm jumping around here because, because since we're talking about lyrics recently, just a couple days ago, I watched Sound of music for the 3000th time, happily so. And I was so struck because, first of all, my favorite things, the lyrics for that tune are great, aren't they?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Yes. And what I was so struck by was the lyrics are like a basis for a gratitude practice, almost like cognitive behavioral therapy. I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad. Mm hmm. And, but also picking your favorite things or remembering them, as you say, identifying that.

Yes. Mind you, when I did that, and I don't mean to cop out, but that was my second movie, and so I didn't know as much about it as I do now. And I wish that I'd known some of the things I know now. But except, Julie, in that performance that you gave, I hear what you're saying, that perhaps you weren't thinking of it quite like that then, but your instinct when you performed that song and how you absorbed it conveyed that regardless. It really did.

Julie Andrews
Our music director, Sol Chaplin, a very lovely guy who worked hand in glove with Robert Wise, our director, he said, why don't we try reciting the first two lines? You know, raindrops on roses. Oh, and whiskers on. Then the orchestra comes in, and I was so grateful to him because it was exactly what I thought should be done. But he said, go with it.

And the orchestrator went with it. And it sort of brought the song from dialogue into music in a lovely way. Yes, it was seamless. Absolutely seamless. And the same, by the way, is true, not to harp too much on this, but in the sound of music, the themes of nature, actually, the themes of nature throughout the entire film are.

That's very much where Oscar Hammerstein was. I mean, all his songs have birds and nature brought into them. To be truthful. No, it's not very. It's churlish of me, but one of the lyrics that I couldn't wrap my head around, the only one in the entire film was like a lark who is learning to pray.

And that was a little. And so I rushed through it as quickly as I can and got onto the next line or the next stanza because I don't know how to say that. But let me ask you a question. Is that because it didn't make sense to you? Yes.

Yeah. Because I thought it was a bit sort of, you know, artsy fartsy and. But Oscar loved to write like that and set the pattern for that and trained Sondheim and all those brilliant composers. And Sondheim ran with that, but just came up with such astringent lyrics that were. He is, I think, my, almost one of my favorite lyricists.

He is my favorite lyricist. Forget about it. He is. He's absolutely incredible. I think that is so amazing that that one phrase in the one.

I got stuck on it. You got stuck on it and you blew past it. And that's good. And it's about the natural world, that tune. It's about the value of being in nature.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
You know what the japanese often call forest bathing again, sort of a practice. Do they really? I've never heard that. Yes. Isn't it marvelous?

Julie Andrews
No, that's wonderful. Yeah, I get it. This whole notion of being out in the wilderness, it's a forest bath. And that we all must do it. That tune absolutely speaks to that.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
And I know that your life in the natural world, you have a huge bond with Switzerland. I do. And also my garden. And what I put in my garden. And the.

Julie Andrews
I can't wait for spring this year because with all this rain, it's going to look beautiful. My daffodils will come out and my bluebells will come out. And I try to, not in an obsessive way, but I like to kind of plan a succession of things that I can look forward to. Blossoming and so on. Love all that, Julie, we have that in common, because I do the same.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
I have. My daffodils are coming up now. My blue bell. Oh, yes, yes. And I have daffodils and narcissus.

And then when they peter out, my bluebells will come up and it's a. Blue world, isn't it? And when. Yes. Lovely.

Julie Andrews
I'm so pleased, Julia. That's so special. I'm glad we have that in common. Tell me about your life in Switzerland. How much time do you spend there and what do you do when you're there?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
I'm dying to know. Well, Blake and I have had a chalet there, oh, for 60 years, maybe. Now, just after we first met, we took a vacation with our kids. Not just after, but, you know, when we were really a team and beginning to be a family, and we fell in love with this beautiful place called Staad in Switzerland. And the beauty of it is stunning.

Julie Andrews
I mean, stunning. And you talk about wildflowers blooming and things like that. My dad was a great lover, also of nature. And so my real dad, that is, or the man I thought was my real dad, but he taught me so much about tree. He could see the outline of a tree in winter and know what it was, and I could not do that.

And I've been trying ever since, and can't. He'd say, oh, that's a lime tree, or that's a such and such tree, but it didn't have a blossom on it, you know. So you said the man that you thought was your real dad, so, your real dad. Oh, no. My mum, when I was about 14, said to me, we'd gone to some kind of event and a man sat and talked to me for quite a while.

And obviously it had been planned. And on the way home, she said, did you like him? And I said, yes. Okay. It struck me as odd that he spent as much time on me at this odd party.

And she said, well, he was your dad. In fact, Julie and I could feel this freight train coming at me, but in fact, it all worked out pretty well because there was nothing I could do about it. And he always sent me a loving Christmas card, but didn't interfere at my request because I didn't know whether the man I thought was my dad knew after he passed away. It transpires that he did, and it didn't make any difference. And I wish we, he and I, could have talked about it more, but I loved him so much for that.

He was a darling and he was a. He absolutely was a country man. And the man I thought was my real dad, and I had vacations with him and all of that, because, in truth, he was my dad. He raised me. He raised me, you know, the man that I thought was my dad.

Yes. I mean, whenever I could see him, I did. And what would that conversation have been like had you been able to talk to him, do you think? Well, I don't know. I just know that I think it would have made an even more understand, on my part, even more love for him once I found out my love knew no bounds, because he was so generous and had no compunction in taking me on and was so proud of me and never, ever let me feel that I wasn't his daughter.

And since I didn't know he was my dad, and he did raise me so truthfully, that's where I arrived eventually. But the man that raised me, he was a lovely nature man. And he, too, would drive me to certain places in the country where the bluebells were rampant and oddly enough, like a lark who's learning to pray. He took me up a hill near where he used to live in Surrey, the county of Surrey in England, and he said, one night he collected me from the theater, walked me down to spend a weekend with him, and he said, I want you to hear something. And he got me out of the car at the crest of the hill and said, and he took me to a five barred gate, a big country gate, and said, now listen.

And nightingales all over the south Downs were singing. And you can imagine how magical that was. And that's the kind of nature man he was. He taught me, I think, my love of books, my love of writing, you know, 76, this man that I thought was my dad went back to college and got a degree in German at 76. I mean, he was an amazing man.

He said, well, I got to do something. I got to use my brain. And he was loved and loved poetry. He got a degree in German, you said, speaking German, speaking German. So he took on a new language at 76.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
That's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. Yeah, that's right. It's time for a quick break. But don't worry, there's more with Julie Andrews in just a bit.

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Julie Andrews
I heard her. I heard her. And I love her so much. Isn't she divine? Yes, she is.

And honest and real and unbelievably talented. I mean, I admire her so much. I do, too. And she makes me better. And, which is odd.

She brings out the worst in me, the most bawdy in me. I do not know why, but she does. And we laugh a lot. Well, what is it about her that you connected with when you first met? We're very similar in some ways.

She had a grandma that raised her parents that were alcoholics, as I did. And one way or another, we in our own countries, you know, I'm from England, she's from here. We bonded tremendously. Straight away, it was as if two ladies discovered that they lived on the same block and they hadn't ever been introduced. But once they were, it was we bonded straight away.

And every ten years, as you probably know, we managed to get a special made together. And each special became, first of all, it was like, who are you dating? And, you know, are you going to get married? And so on. Then it was about parent teacher conferences and having to pick up the kids from school.

And then eventually, by the time of the third or whatever outing that we had together on film or tape, it was like, do you take metamucil? And stuff like that? And we don't see each other as much as I wish we did because she's on one end of the country, and now I'm out here on the east coast. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where we are.

We just pick up where we left off. It's so easy. Yes, it's a true friendship. And the very first one we did together, which was Julie and Carol at Carnegie hall, I'll never forget that she was the one that gave me the strength and the courage. And we, before we taped, which was twice, we taped one big rehearsal and then the big night.

And I remember we made an entrance, she on one side of the stage and I was on the other side, and we looked at each other across the stage as we were about to make that first entrance, and we were doing thumbs up and blowing kisses. But it was because I could see her across from me and I felt her strength and I also knew she knew mine. And so you had each other's backs. Yeah, we were there and we weren't going to pull rank and we weren't going to be foolish, I hope. Well, foolish in the right way, of course, but.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Yeah. And you must have met then doing theater in New York because she was probably doing what, mattress or whatever. Well, yes, it probably was. I met her during Camelot when I was there. And yes, she was.

Julie Andrews
And I first of all did one of her shows, which was the Gary Moore show that she was on. That's right. And then she did once upon a mattress. I happily was able to see that because her day off was, I guess, my day off. Yeah.

And so my manager at the time said, you two have to meet, you adore each other, which is quite often the kiss of death, as you can imagine. Most of the time they don't know what they're talking about. But in this case, it was a great good fortune, magical. And nobody else got a word in edgeways. And so you've stayed connected all these years.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
It's quite remarkable. All these years. I wonder, is there any advice you might have to give to people who are listening to this, to younger people about cultivating and maintaining friendships, which I think personally are one of the big keys to longevity and wellness? Well, why would anybody pull rank when your friends are so loyal and talented and smart and how lovely that you can all bond and either work together or appreciate each other in some way? I don't know.

Julie Andrews
I just think it's great. And all of, I just about love everybody that I have worked with, and I actually can't remember anybody that ticked me off in such a way that I wasn't happy. And that is such a good fortune, I think. Oh, yeah, it certainly is. Bravo to both of you.

Thank you. It's fabulous. Okay, so let's switch gears for a second. I wanted to talk to you about your voice. You started having trouble with it in 1997.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
I think you had nodules on your vocal cords, Julie. Is that right? How should I explain it? No, it wasn't. That was what was so painful to comprehend eventually.

Julie Andrews
It wasn't that at all. How can I explain it well enough when you. If you hop on one knee long enough, and it sounds stupid, when you hop on one leg long enough, that leg will buckle and you will get a kind of striation in the limb that is just a bit its muscle. And, oh, there's another word I'm looking. For, like a stress fracture or a.

Tear or like tissue that becomes a little bit more hardened because you've been using it so much. But it did lead. Think of this. It did lead to my saying, I got to do, I mean, a year of waiting and depression and all those kind of things, but it led to my finding a new life, which is the one with my daughter and writing. I thought, I have to do something and be good for something or good at begin to be good at something.

And that's what came out of it. And I've gotten over it. I think I would have stopped singing pretty quickly anyway, because I was getting that much older and I would have been 65 or something when I finally began writing with my emma. And it's been such a joy, this part of my life, this latter part of my life, that I have gotten over it. It was a bad period, but.

And I, you can imagine, I adore music, and I love classical music and all of those things, but can you. Talk a little bit about the experience? I mean, you had surgery, and did you know after it that something had changed for you? That something had. Had shifted for you?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It wouldn't recover. It wouldn't recover. Poor Dylan.

I eventually found an absolutely superb vocal, not coach, but doctor, and he cleared anything up that he could, which is why I'm able to speak and I'm not hoarse, and I can't sing now, though. That's the thing. And I miss it very, very, very much. And so let's talk about sort of the process of making the adjustment to this, Julie, because I think, you know, a lot of people, well, frankly, people have lost in their lives of varying degrees, right? Oh, they do.

And far worse than mine. Well, but yours was a radical loss, I would say. And, you know, I had. I had a breast cancer diagnosis. I don't seven years ago now, and I had to go through that.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Thank you. But I'm fine. But it was. Again, it's a loss. Huge.

Huge. Yeah. Huge learning curve, I would think. Yeah. Yeah.

It's your body that you know so fundamentally and that you rely on so completely. Yes, I understand that very, very well. I do. You understand it. And it's really.

There's a shift that happens emotionally and intellectually. But, you know, what I learned is that I was still Julie. I couldn't do that craft. And you've discovered, look at the strengths you've had since then and what the opportunities and so on. That wasn't all.

Julie Andrews
That was Julia. Right. So what advice? What would you say to those who are trying to, you know, get back. Up, get past something?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
What do you think?

Julie Andrews
I'm not very good at answering that question because I don't have it fully in my head, but I think it's to do with. Find what you love, keep doing something, because women of my age can. Can keep being useful. That's really. Can keep giving pleasure.

And I wish that I could find a voice again, but I found it in my daughter Emma. When I bemoaned my fate one day and was getting a bit teary, she said, mom, you've just found a different way to use your. Exactly. And that the penny dropped in my brain. I became a lot more content, and now my whole focus is on communicating, teaching, writing, and helping the arts as much as I can and combining them in some way, which is lovely.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Oh, yes, it's lovely. So you met your second husband, Blake Edwards, in the parking lot of your therapist's office. Is that right? No. But meeting him was on Sunset Boulevard.

Julie Andrews
And I don't. You probably know that there's that huge medium across sunset, and you can go across that. And I had to park in the middle of the medium because it had cars going both ways and cars zooming down Sunset Boulevard. So I pulled up and waited for the traffic to clear, and Rolls Royce on the other side pulled up, and I looked over and smiled at the very handsome man. Not in any way thinking anything, but just smiled because it happened again.

And then it happened again. And finally, the window of the rolls. Another day was wound down, and Blake said, hello, I'm Blake Edwards. You're Julie. And I said, yes.

What an honor and thrilled to meet you. He said, are you coming? Are you going to where I just came from? And that was analysis, my analyst. And so.

And we got to talking, and then not too many weeks later, I received a call and asked if he could come by. He asked if he could come by and run by an idea that he had. And that was the first movie we ever made together that was finally made, and it was a flop. Was that darling Lily? That was darling Lily.

A huge flop. And how we ever stayed together after that, I don't know, but we did. And then, of course, eventually married several years later. That's so lovely. What about him directing you?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
What was that like since you were, you know, first boyfriend and girlfriend and then a married couple? I know. What about him? Did you like it? Did you like him as a director when he directed you?

Julie Andrews
Oh, I liked him very much, and I felt very, very safe because he was a good director and didn't waste time playing director. He knew his shots. He knew what he wanted and was very knowledgeable about film and all of those things. I couldn't feel more safe. Oh, that's nice.

And he had, you know, six ideas a week and would want to get all of them done. And I would think, oh, yeah, you know, we'll see about that. And then they mostly all came to pass. And when I started writing, he was my biggest. He encouraged the most of anybody and said, darling is what I thought of an idea and thought he might like it.

And he said, do it. Just keep the pages piling up. And you have said that he had a depressive personality, right? Yes, he did. And how did you navigate that as a couple and as his wife?

By learning more and more about how to deal with it and with the help of good therapy and things like that. And I did know when he would, obviously, because he was a depressive, at times it would have a peak and then it would disappear. He loved working, he loved writing. So when he was doing that, he was usually pretty great. I see.

But it was other times, and he was. He was very sad at times. And knowing his background, I'm not surprised. Have you struggled with depression, Julie?

Yes, but not like. Not like that. I mean, occasionally. No. I mean, I was depressed when I did have my surgery.

Very depressed. But then, happily, time and learning and beginning to do something else came along, and that was very good for me. Oh, I bet. So not only are you a grandmother, you are a great grandmother, right? Yes, I am.

Yeah. Okay, so you're the first great grandmother we've had on this show, so I'm very excited about that. How would you characterize the difference between being a grandmother and then a great grandmother? Is there. How do you distinguish those relationships, being a great grandmother?

Is a tiny bit more removed than being a grandma because it's so the generations kind of. Well, children get raised differently at times and so on. But in terms of the blessing that they all are and how sweet they all are, especially the babies, I don't care whether it's a grandchild or a great grandchild. It could be a great great if I get so lucky. But I have five kids of my own, and then I have, like, ten grandchildren, and then they have, like, three or four.

I don't know if there are any more hanging around or waiting in the wings, as we say. But they're. Oh, God, they're so adorable when they're little, too. And, Julie, what do they call you? Granny jewels.

Oh, that's j o o l s. I love it. Mostly I'm known as Granny jewels. Granny Jules is lovely. People call me Jules.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Do they call you Jules? Yes. Yeah. How do you spell your Jules? J u l e s.

Yep, I've been that. And now I'm double o l. Yes. Just. I don't know why, but it seemed easier.

Yeah, it does. Okay, Jules, double o l s. At the end of these conversations, I always ask a couple of quick questions. Well, for sure, this has been such. A delight to talk to you.

It's just been like a dream. Okay, so here's the first question. Is there something you'd go back and tell yourself when you were 21? Oh, well, it's something that I get asked a lot in terms of what advice do you have for younger people? And I think what I try to convey to everybody is finally learning the pleasure of singing and giving, giving it back to others.

Julie Andrews
I used to do it by ropes. I was in my parents vaudeville act. And then I went out on my own for years. But it was all because I had to and we needed the money. And I would come on stage and kind of clasp my hands and sing my big aria and so on.

But when I learned that I could give people pleasure and really mean that I did that, realized that they come to the theater paying good money to see something and that they go away, hopefully feeling happier and more enlightened. Let's say it's something I learned when I was about 24, I think something like that. And I would say, if you're passionate, do your homework to all the young people trying, because if you don't, you won't have as many chances. You won't be as good. And so it's all about doing your homework and then giving and giving the pleasure of it.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
And do you, is there something that you would like me to know about aging from where you sit right now? Well, yes, I tell me. Mostly I say aging sucks, but it doesn't really. And since there's no alternative, why bitch so much about it and try to find out what I can still do and what I love to do and what gives me pleasure and so on. I see, yeah.

And what are you looking forward to? What's something you're looking forward to? Directing other things. Passing on more books if I can, because I do love doing them. I'm still learning about writing, but as long as people like what's coming out, I will continue and I hope to get more and more confident and better, you know, but I mean, I would love to direct more.

So before we say goodbye, I want to tell you that last year I took a trip with actually my very friend Paula, who produces this podcast with me. My friend from college. Yeah. And we went hiking in the Dolomites. Oh, yes.

And so. And the wildflowers were bananas. Exquisite. I can imagine. And of course, what did we see when we got to high altitudes?

Julie Andrews
Edelweiss. That's right. And so I wanted to show you the picture of the Edelweiss. And we took, how lovely. Isn't that lovely?

Yes. And every time I have to say it was such. Every time we would see one, I would scream, Edelweiss. Edelweiss. It's one of my favorite songs, by the way, from the sound of music.

That and my favorite things. But Edelweiss is about anyone's hometown and beloved. I used to finish my variety act with that and with a full orchestra. It is almost enough to render me very tearful at times because it's very pretty. It's very pretty.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
It's very. It's a tender song. Well, I have no trouble bringing back happy memories or warm feelings. And to hear the orchestration, I love singing with an orchestra. It's like the one thing I'd love to end with this.

Julie Andrews
When you love what you do and when you sing with a symphony orchestra, I tell you, it's like my singing teacher used to say, singing with a symphony orchestra is like being lifted up in the most comfortable armchair you could sit in and being carried over the orchestra. And of course, it stimulates you to sing better, to try harder. And I loved making albums and things like that very much. What joy. Isn't that a lovely analogy of how all of that turns you on to be better than you'd ever thought you maybe better than you ever thought you could be?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Yeah, it's absolutely gorgeous. And it's a great metaphor, too, for a connection, because there you are with other musicians who are lifting you up. You no doubt are lifting them up as well. And so I don't know about that, but, no, I guarantee if they tap. Their stands at the end of the recording or whatever, it's a great accolade.

But the point being that connection is everything. Don't you think, Julie? Yes, I do. Well, I want to thank you for speaking with us today. This was a treasure.

Julie Andrews
It was a lovely interview, Julie. It was nice talking about all the things, all my favorite things, as they say. Yeah, it really was. And I wish you nothing but happiness and health and laughter. Thank you.

That's what's going to do it, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I think so. I hope we meet again soon, Julia. I do, too, Julia.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
I hope our paths cross. I just. I give you my love. If somebody that loves Carol as much as I do and you do, we're all going to meet again. When we're going to meet again, I'm going to text her after we finish, and I'm going to tell her, I just spoke with you, and so.

Julie Andrews
Well, give her my love. Give my chum my love. I will, indeed.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Okay. Well, she's just as delightful as I dreamed she'd be. God, what a perfect way to end season two. My mom is gonna freak out when I tell her about this. Okay, I gotta get her on a Zoom call.

Hi, mommy. Hi, love. Hi. So I just spoke to Julie Andrews, if you can even believe that I'm telling you that. 00000 my God.

Judy Bowles
Julie Andrews, like, part of our DNA. Yeah, for real. Because she was such a huge part of our family and our childhood, don't you think? And in a kind of perfect way. You know, she was sort of a perfect, gifted performer.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Yeah, absolutely. She looked perfect. She spoke perfectly and she sang perfectly well. One of the stories I grew up with was Mary Poppins. And my friend Judy a used to read all the Mary Poppins books and then she would tell me about them.

Judy Bowles
So I had in my image of this Mary Poppins that was always sort of around in the trees and so forth, and she was a perfect Mary Poppins. Yeah, she really hit that one out of the park. So, you know, speaking of perfections, she, I don't know if you know this, but she had a lot of vocal trouble. And actually, it was very hard for her to talk about it for multiple reasons. But her singing voice is highly compromised, which is a great tragedy, really.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
And she has overcome this, which is beautiful. I mean, she has found her way through that with the help of her daughter and therapy. And she's become a writer, which has given her a new voice, in fact, which is wonderful. But it really did. It made me think about you, because when I was 18, you got an acoustic neuroma, which is a benign tumor, but it was in your ear, deep within your ear.

Judy Bowles
It was on a brain stem. So I had the test after test after test, and finally it was determined that I had a neuroma on my right, right. My right brain exam. And I went from, you know, playing tennis and just doing my. My life.

And all of a sudden this happened. And I remember that you drove. You drove me down to the hospital and your sisters were in the car. And when I got out of the car, daddy was going to meet me in the hospital. And when I got out of the car, I remember just a flash, for a moment, I thought to myself, I may never see my girls again.

Because in the olden days, that is to say, 20 years before acoustic neuromus could kill people, because the surgery was so intricate. And so I faced that. So I went into the surgery and then came out of the surgery, and then as I was recovering, I very slowly began to comprehend that I was deaf in my right ear. Can you talk about that transition and what that was like for you? Mummy?

You know, the thing about it is that it's so much can happen in life, which is that you are going along and you. And you're whole, and you don't even think about your hearing or your taste or your vision, because everything works. All I can say is that it equipped me to know that these wonderful things that we have, that we take for granted, that we have, which are human bodies, that in a flash, you can be taken. And then I think about Julie Andrews because it didn't take away my life force, although it did throw me into writing in a certain way. I never quite understood exactly what that process has been in me.

But. But it. I did find. I mean, I'm so happy that she found writing, and I'm so happy that I found writing as a way of going beyond loss or going into a new life. And I always loved literature, but it never occurred to me to make it.

And the making of it, I think really it thrust me into making. And in a way, I don't think I would have otherwise. I think I would have continued to. Just receive literature that is amazing. And I hadn't considered the connection between your hearing loss and then your sort of fervor for writing and how it sort of took hold for you and for our listeners.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Just in case you're interested, my mother's written two books of poetry. Mom, what are the names of the two books of poetry? The gatherer is the first and the unlocatable source is the second unlockable source. That's interesting in view of what we're talking about, because in a way, I wouldn't have known then that maybe a loss had led me toward importance of expression. And I know Julie Andrews work.

Judy Bowles
She is a wonderful writer, and she's written with her daughter, too, which is a wonderful thing. It makes me feel so good to think that I'm like I in some way like her or I found the same path. Yes. And in some ways, she's like you. And that's really nice.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
I think that that is a perfect way to end this particular season of wiser than me. This is the end of season two, mom, if you can believe it. Oh, honey. Season two. Can you believe season two?

No. Well, I have to say something. My friends who are older women have appreciated and enjoyed what you're doing on this. This so much. And it is so important to have older women listen to and maybe even for them to begin to appreciate who they are and what they've done, because sometimes telling your story, it's like you have a new appreciation of it.

Judy Bowles
So even they're telling it, I think, is a. Is a wonderful thing for, for women to do. Me, too. I think so, too. So there you go, mommy.

There you go, honey. Well, listen, you're a lot wiser than me. No, ma, you're wiser than me. Well, it works both ways. Isn't that beautiful?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Yes. It's a dublay. Yeah. I love you, mommy. I love you, honey.

Talk to you later. Okay. Bye bye.

There's more wiser than me with lemonade. Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content from each episode of the show. Subscribe now in Apple podcasts. Make sure you're following wiser than me on social media. We're on Instagram and TikTok Wiserthan me, and we're on Facebook at wiserthanmepodcast.

Wiser than me is a production of Lemonade Media created and hosted by me, Julia Louis Dreyfus. This show is produced by Chrissy Pease, Jamila Zara Williams, Alex Mcoan, and Oja Lopez. Brad hall is a consulting producer. Rachel Neal is VP of new content, and our SVP of weekly content and production is Steve Nelson. Executive producers are Paula Kaplan, Stephanie Whittles Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer, and me.

The show is mixed by Johnny Vince Evans with engineering help from Jack Sparber, and our music was written by Henry hall, who you can also find on Spotify or wherever you listen to your music. Special thanks to Will Schlegel and of course my mother, Judy Bowles. Well, we've had a great run, dear listeners, and because this is our last episode of the season, and because it takes a lot of people to make a show like this, you wouldn't believe it, really. I wanted to peel back the curtain and quickly thank all of the many wise people who helped make this podcast possible. Our rockstar marketing team includes Lizzie Breyer Bowman, Jackie Westfall, Saher Beharlu Rose, Dennis, Amber Girardi Robinson, Sarah Richardson, and Shannon Locke.

Thanks to our friends in business development, CC Dong, Brin, Val Bodartha, Mia Likciardi, Ron Russ, and Dana Wickens, with additional support from Katherine Barnes, Brian Castillo, Autumn Dornfeld, Christina Perdomo Fernandez, Rochelle Green and Noah Smith. Follow wiser than me wherever you get your podcasts, and if there's an old lady in your life, listen up.

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Judy Bowles
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Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Judy Bowles
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