Queer Voices
Queer Voices
September 2nd QUEER VOICES - Becoming RUTH BADER GINSBURG with actress Michelle Azar
THIS IS A PODCAST EXCLUSIVE - The full session of the interview with Michelle Azar that Brett Cullum conducted for the play "All Things Equal: The Life and Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg" running at the HOBBY CENTER.
What if you could step into the shoes of judicial icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg for just an hour and a half? In this episode, we sit down with the extraordinarily talented Michelle Azar, who does exactly that in her one-woman show "All Things Equal: The Life and Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg" at Houston's Hobby Center. The show runs September 5th and 6th in Zilka Hall, the intimate space in the complex. It is written by Tony Award Winner Rupert Holmes ("The Mystery of Edwin Drood," several books, and a popular 70s hit!).
Michelle opens up about her journey to landing the role and the meticulous research process she undertook to bring Ginsburg to life. She provides fascinating insights into Ginsburg's teaching spirit, strategic brilliance, and the key moments that shaped her illustrious career and personal life.
Michelle also talks about her role opposite Viola Davis in "How to Get Away with Murder." Brett Cullum reveals that he went to college with Amy Coney Barrett and discusses with Michelle the stark contrast that appointment created. It's a packed episode about a controversial court of opinion.
Tickets to the show can be bought at:
https://my.thehobbycenter.org/overview/6817?_gl=1*2ao0z0*_gcl_au*MTIxMDcxMTU5Mi4xNzE5NDIxMzI5
Not only can you see the show, but you can do a photo with Michelle in her Ginsburg get-up. It's an amazing chance to celebrate this judicial icon.
Queer Voices airs in Houston Texas on 90.1FM KPFT and is heard as a podcast here. Queer Voices hopes to entertain as well as illuminate LGBTQ issues in Houston and beyond. Check out our socials at:
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Michelle Azar is coming to the Hobby Center's Zilka Hall to play judicial icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In All Things Equal, the Life and Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The show will run on September 5th and 6th for a one weekend only stint. This is Brett Cullum, and today Michelle Azar joins me to talk about bringing this legend to life. Thank you so much and welcome to Queer Voices.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. This is just a thrill, thank you.
Speaker 1:It's our thrill actually. But first up, I wanted to find out how did you end up in this one-woman show? I mean?
Speaker 2:It's a fine question.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I will say I think when we grace the stage there in Houston, it will be two years officially. So yeah, right there at the end of the pandemic, when nobody thought they were going to work again and certainly not in collaboration with other people have a hunch, and I didn't see it. She had seen the notice go out for Ruth Bader Ginsburg's solo show and I said, of course, who am I to say no? And I love doing solo work.
Speaker 2:I actually had written my own solo show from Baghdad to Brooklyn and I've been touring with it, and so that didn't fear me, instill any fear in me, but I got obsessed with studying Ruth, and so I think there were four auditions, you know, many, many, many rounds, and with each one I got more and more excited. I read every single book I could and, and I, I booked it. I, I had a Zoom callback and Rupert Holmes was there and Scott Stander and Lely the part, our director, and we did a lot of things moving back and forth, but not being in the room was interesting, you know. But that is how it started, that my manager, alison Keola, just had a hunch. She's like I see something.
Speaker 1:Wow, you won't believe how many people I talk to that are cast over zoom these days, or at least after the pandemic. I'm like, wow, when did zoom become like?
Speaker 2:right and we really can experience like chemistry, and, and, and, and you, you, it's remarkable, I mean even us. Right now, I feel like I know you.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, tell me about. You mentioned you researched her. Yeah, how did you go about doing that?
Speaker 2:I'm sitting here with my favorite book of it, the Conversations with RBG Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, love, liberty and Law. Jeffrey Rosen, my husband was so cute, he bought me every single book on Amazon, but then I watched the documentary a whole bunch of times. I usually like to work things inside out, let's say as an actor, but with somebody that's so much in the zeitgeist you want to do diligence to the outside. So I I, I'm a yoga teacher, I'm a dancer at heart, and so I was really interested in what is this physical part of her? And you know, when her neck starts moving to the left, when she started chemotherapy, and I, I, like, I love that kind of work as well. So I think for me, the, the, the moment of beginning to integrate the outside, the external bodily functions, and then the accent, and then putting on the glasses. So I did a lot of that outside work. Because, also, who am I to say that I could speak of what Ruth is talking about? I mean, I think that was the extra sauce. You know, like it's one thing to learn lines, but it's another thing to imagine that you're an expert at something and that you have the confidence the way Ruth did. And she says I was very nervous One of my favorite quotes.
Speaker 2:She said I was very nervous to go in front of the Supreme Court, but what I realized was that I had a captive audience and she loved the idea that she was a teacher. And when I realized that I could do it, I don't even remember what your question was. I'm pontificating on so many other things, but I love teaching. I've taught kids for a long time and I had just actually been a teacher for a sophomore year, high school, when this actually did arrive. For me, it's the task of the translation. How do I make alive this thing that I'm trying to impart? And she had a pivot. She pivoted and she listened and she read the room and she said okay, the men aren't getting it. The men of the courts are not quite understanding what we're talking about. What about if we flip it on its head? And this Maritz versus the Internal Revenue Service that's the case. That really was a liminal moment. That Marty, her. Thank God for that man, thank God for her husband, who said I'm not going to be daunted by this woman with a great brain. I'm going to, like, say yes and right. If you're in an improv situation, you say yes, and and then the world opens up. He said, let's do this. And that's what that movie on the basis of sex, the fictionalized movie of her life, which was written by her own nephew, which I never realized, and so she was able to be really a part of that.
Speaker 2:She and Nina Totenberg did a great interview that I read or watched, and that's the other thing, by the way, about this role is that people are like how do you keep doing it? It's like so many words, 90 minutes for two years, because you can never learn enough. You could never get tired of it, even just not before this. I was like, okay, we're going to talk from this lens versus that lens and what can I remind myself? What interview. And then you plug in her name and new interviews come up. You know I will never know enough. I will never be done learning about her, and I think all that feeds into my performance.
Speaker 2:You know the text itself has changed a little bit over the two years. Certainly, rupert's always listening and learning and geez, I don't know about you, but we're in always a new, precarious situation. So the text has changed a bit. But what also changes is okay. This is the market I'm in tonight. This is what's just gone on in the news today. This is the driver that brought me to the the theater tonight and I can, sort of you know, lift that line or move quickly through that spot spot, you know, depending now you mentioned rupert with rut Holmes, the writer of this, if you like.
Speaker 2:Pina Coladas. That's a big flame to fame for Rupert, really, yes, he wrote that song.
Speaker 1:My mind is blown.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. Which, by the way, as an aside, I think that's also why this play is very exciting that people can see it a bunch of times and not get bored, or that you do feel like there's something. It's not just me on stage, because there's a musicality to it. The way that he writes is the way as Lely Lepard has directed it. There's a. It's very you can't see my hands, but there's, there's a movement to it, and that also suits me as a musical theater. You know, kid growing up, sorry, so go on. So Rupert Holmes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what else do we know him for besides the Pina Colada song? I mean, that's enough for me.
Speaker 2:He's won many Tony Awards for the Mystery of Edwin Drood, yes, for Yafseguni Gracie, for he's got this. Oh, it's right by my bed. He's written two books right now, hysterical books well, he's on his second one and the upcoming Pirates of Penzance revival on Broadway. I mean, this man like Ruth, I just realized, never tires. I bet he sleeps four hours a night. He's married to this incredible woman who also, you know, broke glass ceilings as a female lawyer. So yeah, we know him because he is a musician, writer, composer and all around, an incredible, incredible, generous man.
Speaker 1:Well, actually that makes sense when you mentioned his spouse.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:All of a sudden it kind of clicks. This is kind of a love letter precisely her profession? Obviously, yeah. So I mean, ruth is, I think, the only supreme court justice to have her own action figure. What do you think makes this woman so special? I mean, she's surrounded by history and supreme court justices and all these other people, but but there's something about Ruth Bader Ginsburg that just clicks with the, like you said, the zeitgeist, the pop culture. She became like a popular figure.
Speaker 2:Correct. I think she saw the benefit to acknowledging that that life is a changing organism and I was just thinking this morning so much about, like, what happens when we deny the fact that change is real. What did they say? That you can't have truth without Ruth, but only violence ensues. I remember somebody saying aren't you offended that you've been now dubbed the notorious RBG? She's like I don't understand what the offense would be is that there's a shift and people are saying, okay, now this woman is in her 80s and we're going to shift and she allowed for that adaptation. So when we don't allow for adaptation, violence ensues. I mean, really it's that simple.
Speaker 2:So I think what people create this action figure in her is because she was consistent. She was transparent. She said I'm sorry when I made a mistake, and we use that in the play. We really talk about it I'm sorry that some of you are angry that I didn't step down. She shows that there was a dignity. There's so many beautiful stories about, let's say, a law clerk who said to her hey, you know, this is actually happening in my personal life. I don't have child care and I can't afford it. And she said wait a second, let's figure that out. So there was nothing too big. There's a beautiful phrase in Hebrew it's not out there, it's all, it's right here. And I think people felt that she was accessible and cared about each and every one of them because she did, she did. She would remember. She was like how's your mom?
Speaker 2:wow and those are the people that we want to be around. Those are the people we trust, versus these mouthpieces side in the world right now. I care about you, but we know that they're only doing that in order to get elected or to have power. And it was that she was not there from an ego place. She really wasn't.
Speaker 2:I know I'm very protective over her, but I've spoken to her daughter, I've spoken to her rabbi, I've spoken to these people who were close enough to her and certainly she didn't have a crystal ball. Absolutely, she really believed this and didn't believe that, but not from an egoic place. I really believe that and I think that that's what was translated. You know, I was raised under immigrant parents, just like she was, and there was like you could be anything, go for it, but there was a limit, that glass ceiling was there and we couldn't, we weren't allowed, in a sense, to break through. And that translation she said if we don't learn from each other as we're evolving, as people are branching out and standing up for their sexual orientation and standing up for who they thought they had to be in a small sense, we're going to lose. We're going to lose.
Speaker 1:Well, what do you think surprised you the most about? Her when you were researching her, Because I always like to find out the little. What's your favorite fandom?
Speaker 2:I think some things that surprised me is that as a young mom I mean when I was a young mom I could barely get out of bed. I mean, you had to get out of bed but I could barely function other than just like change a diaper and toss food in my baby's face, other than just like change a diaper and toss food in my baby's face. She was getting her Harvard degree taking care of Jane, who was four, as well as Marty, who had testicular cancer. So that blew my mind, that fortitude. I'm not exactly sure where she found that from. I think of myself as pretty resilient, but I need like 12 hours of sleep.
Speaker 1:Something that I don't think she ever got.
Speaker 2:Notoriously, notoriously for two hours of sleep here and there. I think the other thing that blew my mind is that and I don't know how to phrase this well, but somehow she was strong enough in herself and, knowing that she was there for the greater good, that again from a parenting point of view, I don't know that I could have said sorry, marty, you've got to take the kids to, you know, band practice. Or sorry, I'm not making dinner. Like that wasn't even on the table for her, and I think that's an incredible gift too. I don't know how she found that that I'm still sourcing through, and it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing that blew my mind was how she did I get so reactive. I still get so emotional. Even when I think that I can approach somebody, I'm like well, I played her now a year and a half emotional. Even when I think that I can approach somebody, I'm like well, I played her now a year and a half and I went up to this storefront in Seattle where it was just terrible words about Israel and only good words about Palestinians, and I walked in and I said what is this bifurcating? It was a gay bookstore and I thought, you know, maybe we could have a real discussion. And they shut me down and I got upset and the whole discussion lasted about five minutes, you know, as opposed to what Ruth could do. She just knew how to stay neutral and she just knew how to source through Nobody.
Speaker 1:Nobody gets anywhere if we got into reaction mode I think you should have just gone back to where you're staying, dressed up as her. Thank you, you know what I'm gonna go back.
Speaker 2:I look enough like her when I have the glasses on and I get confused.
Speaker 1:And you're right, You're right Well and let's not that anybody can see you on my interview. But, michelle, when I see your headshots or I see photos of you or you're just in front of me now you look really nothing like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But in the production shots and the things that I've seen from the play, I'm amazed. How do you do that physical transformation into her? What is that? Is it? Do you wear anything to help?
Speaker 2:How about I'll do that, like KG? Well, you'll have to come to the show and see. You know, part of that is, I think, that we make a tacit agreement as the audience it's going to make me tear up that we so are are so hungry to hear where we personally fit in. If you don't have you know, if you're not have you know, if you're not, if you're not a white man with three kids, I'm sorry, it just kills me. Anyway, we're so hungry to tap into that. So certainly the glasses help, and my hair back, and I do a little futzing with it for sure, and then we just kind of relax and we all say, oh you, you know, certainly I, I do contribute my, my education and my direction and and the work that I've spent. I've spent countless, countless hours on this sorry, I didn't mean that, I thought I put that up Countless hours on making Ruth come to life.
Speaker 1:One of the things that amazes me is she was a big music fan. She was a big music fan. She loves music, yes, yeah. So I was going to ask you, if we were going to make a Ruth Bader Ginsburg playlist, what would be on it?
Speaker 2:Oh, the first would be Puccini. Yes, for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure she. And when I really went into like, okay, I love opera too. In fact, I sort of started with Placido Domingo on the stage in Chicago. I was in the children's chorus of the Lyric Opera for many, many years and I sang a solo with Placido. I mean, I had the tiny little line in La Boheme. It was just incredible.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, oh sure I get that, but I'm like, oh no, no, no, because she was so neutral and able to be so calm and stable, the opera, that laser being focused, that's where she could allow herself to emote. In fact, I mean, just as an aside, I could not stop crying that whole first month playing her and I finally realized I was just shedding some of what she couldn't. In a sense, you know I'm a very emotional person and that was a very hard transition for me. But so I think on her playlist would be like Bohemian Rhapsody as well, because something, just, you know, operatic as well as rock, I think. I think there would be perhaps a mashup of of all the like songs of hope Hatikvah, which means hope in Hebrew, which you know, all the beautiful Star Spangled Banner, I mean anybody coming to it from a place of real passion. I think would be on her playlist. Oh, it's such a great question. Danse Macabre.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh. Well, let's talk a little bit about you as well. We've done this deep dive into ruth so far, but what have been some of your favorite acting parts, besides just being this woman for?
Speaker 2:the last two years. Thank you for acting, asking. I loved I got to play a DA with Viola Davis and how to get away with murder. And I, I loved going toe to toe with her. You know like, oh, trust me, terrified heart pounding, pounding, pounding, pounding. And then I think, why is like? I, like all of us, I've got varying levels of confidence and you know what Tara Brach calls it the trance of unworthiness. You know, I love that, I love that dichotomy. Standing next to somebody that, like Ruth or Viola Davis, that just is no nonsense. You get to level up, right, you get to level up and shore up when am I most confident, where am I most secure, and finding that is delicious fun. And then, on the flip side, I playing shoot, I'm forgetting her name in Lost in Yonkers, the woman who, oh my gosh, oh, I have the script right here, but this role of she's a woman with great disability.
Speaker 2:You know, probably nowadays we would call her dyslexic, we would call her on the spectrum, all the things, and again finding her center a woman who has not overcome or or ignored or changed a disability, but saying I am that and I still have a voice. I think those are the characters that I really love to play.
Speaker 1:Well, you're natural for this one. I mean, this is just a leap up from Viola.
Speaker 2:Davis, you know, like, as my kids are now growing up and they're out of the house and I'm like, hang on. So what would it mean to pivot and become a stronger woman in my own you know I was in a fairly, very liberal home, but also rather patriarchal, you know, and so this is really delightful to kind of say hey, hey, this isn't working for me and make some shifts in my own, yeah, persona. I think that we get the roles that we need to play to enhance our own potentiality in real life.
Speaker 1:So you know it's interesting In a wild connection to Ruth, I went to school with her successor, Amy Coney Barrett. We went to college together.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and where? Rhodes College in Memphis, tennessee. But it's odd to think of how starkly these two women contrast and where the court is today versus when she was there. So what do you think that the lasting legacy of Ruth's time in the court is today, versus when she was there? So what do you think that the lasting legacy of Ruth's time in the court is going to be?
Speaker 2:I mean because we always think about that. Can you call Amy and ask her to come to see the play so we could talk to her?
Speaker 1:I can try.
Speaker 2:Oh, could you please text her right now? I really I would. I'm sorry I can't even get to the question because I really want to talk to Amy. I don't understand it, how, okay. So let's see, I think the legacy is is not in Amy.
Speaker 1:I think the legacy is oh no, yeah, I'm not suggesting that at all.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:It's a stark contrast. I feel it's a stark contrast.
Speaker 2:I don't have any answers because I'm so befuddled because she is a woman, right, I can't understand it, I don't know. Just thinking of abortion, let's say, say a reproductive rights, I can't imagine. I understand it from the male point of view. Let's keep everybody beholden to us. Let's not allow really people to, you know, self-actualize and make decisions for themselves. Fine, from a female point of view.
Speaker 1:I just I come up short each time female point of view, I just I come up short each time. It's wild to think about what we're wrestling with now versus all of the things that Ruth kind of made us go forward with. But there is always in politics that swing. That's right. There's always that back and forth.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:So I think that that's definitely there.
Speaker 2:The pendulum swinging. That's correct and we bring that up in the play. I, just from my young, naive self, I want to say okay, how far is this pendulum going to go? When do we get somewhere in this middle again?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, what do you hope that this show says to audiences now, because this is where we are.
Speaker 2:That's correct.
Speaker 2:We're not in Ruth's Court anymore that's correct, thank you, you're right, and I think that is why I want people to come. That is why we need to see it. Lely, our director, said day one of rehearsal. She said what if our goal is to make every single person who leaves the theater says I'm not a celebrity, or I'm, maybe they are. I'm not a social influencer, I haven't gone to Harvard or maybe I have, but I can make a difference. I can make one person because of, because of seeing this, let's say this play, and seeing what a person has had to go through, I can make one stand to make life better for someone else. You know that's what Ruth wanted to do. She wanted to make life better for someone else.
Speaker 2:Now, I understand, I say that. And you can drink the Kool-Aid and stand there like Amy Comey Barrett, and probably she thinks that she is doing that. So I understand that. I think that's what she has to think, right? I mean, I don't think anybody is all bad or all good, so I think she has to imagine that's what she's doing. So I understand, even as I say, that there's a nuance to it.
Speaker 2:But I want people to come so that they can say you know what I want to go back to graduate school, or I want to study more about blank, so that I can investigate my own, my own limitations within something. I want every child to know that they too can make a difference. I want every adult to know that by cutting off somebody that doesn't think or look like you, you're cutting off a part of your own experience, you're cutting off a part of what could be great. And and I and I want everybody to know that there is so much more than I'm for her or I'm for him, or I'm for that or I'm not for that that is where we lose. We cannot go forward. You know, like we just broach that quick, like in an improv class, the first thing you learn is yes. And as soon as you say hey, is that a book? And I say no, that's, that's a towel. Well, that's the end of that scene no, absolutely no.
Speaker 1:What year was ruth appointed by clinton?
Speaker 2:I'm trying to remember 93 and, in fact, august 10th. This we just celebrated her. That would have been the date that you know.
Speaker 1:She started 93 and she was 60 years old I know, yes, and it's funny because amy and I were in school at that time and I remember when clinton won this big shift that we had kind of happening. It was crazy to all of us because we had. We were these kids that grew up under reagan.
Speaker 2:So what was she like then? Or is that a different podcast?
Speaker 1:that may be a different podcast, but I can't tell you it was not anything that I saw coming okay, well, you know, I even somebody sent me president ford.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, way back when was asked by a little girl when is there gonna be a female president? His response so telling. He said you know what I imagine is it would be a woman to be a female president. And his response was so telling he said you know what I imagine is it would be a woman who's a vice president and the president would either pass or be incapacitated and she would take over and that would break all ceilings and I was like whoa yeah, no, that's scary, yeah, and it's.
Speaker 2:You know, we don't have to be there's. No, we're being handed something. We are working for things, and by we, yes, I mean women, but women as the conduit for breaking all barriers, breaking all color barriers, religious barriers, sexual identity, all of it.
Speaker 1:I think it's a, it's a placeholder well, thank you so much I I could go on forever, clearly so obviously, and I don't want to take a whole afternoon to meet you in houston hopefully hold on one second, but we will see you, all things equal.
Speaker 1:The life and trials of ruth bader ginsburg, hobby center. September 5th and 6th one week in stint Zilka Hall, which is great because Zilka Hall is one of the smaller, more intimate theaters at the Hobby Center. So we'll be up close and personal and get to see your brilliant portrayal of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and be right there. I'll probably be able to wave from somewhere. So thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thanks for having me.
