(audience clapping)
- I am so excited to meet you.
- [Rita] I am so excited
to be here.
- I was keeping it cool
in your room and I was like "I'm so cool",
but literally, then meanwhile,
my producer and I were
quoting your movies upstairs,
(Rita and Kelly laugh)
we're very big fans.
But your husband was on and
I gotta be honest with you,
Tom might talk as much as
I do and that is a lot.
When we were interviewing, I was like
"I have met my match,
challenge accepted, universe."
- Throw it down, the gauntlet is down.
- But you're chatty too
though, so do you mind it, or?
- No.
- Are you kinda like
"woo, that's a lot?"
- Look, Tom and I,
that was one of the
things that when we met,
we just got along instantly,
because first of all,
I love a good storyteller,
so anybody who can tell a
good story, I'm down with that
and I don't know, my family
was very vocal growing up,
so we were, you know.
- Hence the Greek.
- Hence the Greek thing, exactly.
Like talking and food,
that was pretty much our whole existence
and no, I love that.
He makes me laugh all the
time, I mean, I think that's--
- He's a great storyteller.
- He's a really good storyteller.
- I was like this the whole time
and I was like "oh god,
I'm interviewing you."
I was like "ahhh, I forgot",
I was just listening.
- Well we're gonna have
you guys over for dinner
and we can tell lots more stories.
- Oh my god, it was great.
I think the thing that's
great about both of you,
meeting both of you backstage,
is you're super-duper famous,
but you're super-duper chill
and that doesn't always happen,
so congratulations on being normal.
- Thank you.
(Kelly and audience clapping)
- [Kelly] That doesn't
happen all the time.
- But I think the same thing about you,
I was asking you backstage,
"how do you do everything that you do?"
I'm completely mesmerized by it.
- You're like me though,
I just listed a thousand jobs you have,
(Kelly and Rita laugh)
I was like, what?
We have found our side,
we have found each other.
- But you know what I love,
I love doing what I do,
I feel really blessed to be able to do it
and as I continue to do it,
I've been working since I was 14 years old
in this business and I had
a job here at this studio,
when I was a teenager at
this music concert venue,
called The Universal Amphitheater,
now it's the Harry Potter ride, so.
Have you been on it?
People used to sing.
- Yes, I have been on it.
I did get very nauseous,
I'm not into simulation.
I was like, "oh my god, the
Dementors are going to kill me."
So what do y'all do to
get away from it all?
Do you do theme parks?
- Sometimes, well yeah,
we do do theme parks,
but one of the things that we like to do,
and probably people don't really
think of us as doing this,
is camping.
- [Kelly] Why would we
not think about that?
- I don't know, because we live
here and I think of people--
- [Kelly] That's a great place to camp.
- I know, well yeah,
there's tons of places
in California to camp,
but we have a little Airstream trailer
and we just hook it up
to the back of the truck
and we take it places and it's kinda cool
because sometimes we'll
come into a campground
and it's night, so
people don't really know,
people are usually asleep
by then, so we just come in,
make a hell of a lot
of noise and you know--
- Can you imagine the people though,
the next day they wake up, they go out,
they're makin' their eggs
and they're like, "what?"
They're looking over and they're like
"this just got amazing, this trip!"
- But you know, people who camp
are actually super cool though.
The people who camp understand
that you want your privacy,
just like they want their privacy
and you're out there to enjoy exactly,
nature and just hanging out.
- I think people should
enjoy nature more too,
every time my husband and I talk about,
we have a ranch in Montana,
every time we go outside,
it just is so healing, I know
it sounds so hippy-dippy,
but it really is just breathing
in the air, the trees,
it's just nice and I
think we need more of it.
'Cause we work so hard
and we're always inside.
- Exactly and it's also
the big spaces up there,
I mean, they call Montana
'Big Sky Country',
'cause it's true, it's
so beautiful up there.
- [Kelly] And snowy.
- And snowy.
(kisses cheek)
(gentle music)
- Okay.
- Sorry about that.
- Don't be sorry.
(kisses cheek)
- Oh, thank you.
Oh my gosh.
- Don't you kiss twice in your
country, like this, like--
(kisses cheek)
(kisses cheek)
- Wow, oh, that was very unexpected.
- Like in America, we
just don't even bother,
we just go straight to the main kiss.
- Wow, okay.
(kiss)
Oh wow.
- Wow.
- I love that scene!
(audience cheering)
Welcome back, I'm with Rita Wilson
and that was a look at her
new movie, "A Simple Wedding."
That was an amazing scene, I was like,
"oh that's awkward, you've got a flask."
- My character has spoken
about drinking tequila
and she found out that
her ex-husband was gay
and he now is married to
a new guy and so she is,
her son is getting
married to a Persian girl
and it's called "A Simple Wedding"
and he is the Persian
uncle who comes from Iran
to marry them.
- It's always funny, when
that happens in real life,
when men are like "no wait, I like men"
and I like when the woman
is like "oh my god",
I'm like "don't worry, there's
nothing you could have done,
you had nothing he really wanted."
This isn't about you.
I mean, he wasted your time,
but it's not about you.
- [Rita] That's about it.
- So you wrote a song for the film right,
you've had four albums,
this is your fourth album.
- Yes, this is my fourth album.
(audience clapping)
- So you love songwriting?
- I love songwriting,
- Do you find it therapeutic?
- I love performing.
- Why did you get into writing?
- Well, I got into it
because of Kara DioGuardi,
who was one of your writers on
- "Breakaway" album.
- "Breakaway" and --
- Ooh, and "Heartbeat Song."
- And "Heartbeat Song."
- She's done a few, yeah.
- Exactly, and she was
the one who said that
she would write my first two
songs with me and so she did,
she kept her word,
which I think is completely honorable
and that just opened
the door to songwriting
and I started coming
down to Nashville a lot
and writing a lot down there.
- That's the place to go man,
there's so many fantastic writers
and people always think
it's just country, it's not.
It's Rock 'n' Roll, there's RnB,
there's so many different
genres there now.
The storytelling in country music
is what I fell in love with.
- The story telling is crazy,
that was the thing that I
always went to, even as a kid,
listening to "Ode To
Billy Joe", Bobby Gentry,
I'm thinking to myself
"what just went down on that bridge
and why are they talking about
passing the black eyed peas?"
Go away, go back to the bridge.
What was happening?
To me, it was so mysterious, you know?
And sometimes songs come
from different places,
we were talking a little bit
about this backstage, but--
- Are you talking about "New Girl?"
- Yes.
- This song wrecked me,
I was literally listening to
your album and with "New Girl",
I was bawling, literally, in my office,
felt like such a tool, I
was like "no one walk in."
It's just the joke, "she cries a lot"
and literally, it's the saddest thing.
- But it's based on a true story.
- And that's the saddest part!
- Yes, but it's kind
of empowering in a way,
because it happened to my girlfriend
and she was at her son's
swim meet, or soccer match,
I can't remember and she
gets a text from her husband
and her husband says
"baby, I love you so much, don't worry,
everything's going to be okay,
and by the way, my wife is
going away for the weekend."
What?
- Now here's the best part,
you know that man was like
"NOOOOOOO!"
He was, you know he was dying.
He went "I sent, I sent it."
I mean, that's the worst possible,
I can only think of one other way
that we're all thinking
that could be worse way
to find out someones cheating on you.
That's second.
- She handled it so beautifully,
they eventually got a divorce, but--
- Good for you,
- Yeah, she's doing great,
- good for you.
(audience clapping)
- but what I thought
was so interesting was,
because she had so such
integrity about it,
I thought,
god, what would happen if
you ever ran into that woman
and would you ever wanna
like, how would you say it
and so I wanted to write
it from the point of view
of a woman who isn't angry,
but the point of view
of a woman who's like,
go with god, girl, you know,
you're better than I am.
- Good luck!
- Yeah, good luck!
- You're so kind, you're a kind writer.
Because a similar situation happened to me
and I went with anger, Rita,
(Rita laughs)
and it's all true.
- Did you write a song about it?
- I did, it's called "Never Again."
- Oooh, "Never Again"!
- Yeah yeah, it's called
"Never Again".
- Oh my god, sorry, I spaced.
- No no no, it wasn't like
one of those singles that you know.
So but it was like
literally, I went with anger.
But maybe if it happened to you,
you would have written it differently.
- You must have written
that on the way home.
(Rita laughs)
- Don't, it used to be
like, she was not happy.
Sometimes I'm on tour and
I have to sing these songs,
I'm like "god, I'm glad I'm past that!"
- Exactly, it puts you
back in that moment.
- Yeah, you were crazy!
But what is the story behind the song
you're singing today, "Throw Me A Party"?
- Okay, so, "Throw Me A Party"
I wrote with the amazing
songwriters Liz Rose and
Kristian Bush, from the band Sugarland
and a few years ago,
you kinda hear the words that
you never ever think you're gonna hear
or that you ever wanna hear,
which is "you have cancer"
and I found out that I had breast cancer
and had a bilateral mastectomy
and I'm a survivor sitting
here today, talking to you.
- That's so awesome!
(audience and Kelly clap)
- It was so interesting,
because when you're going
through something like that
and you really don't know
what it's gonna be like
and how it's gonna turn out
and you don't know if you're
gonna be sitting here.
- [Kelly] And you have kids.
- And you have kids,
I wanted to have these
very serious discussions
with my husband and I said to him
"look, if something happens
and I should go before you,
then I just want you to know that there's
a couple things that I want.
One is that I want you to be super sad
for a really long time."
(Kelly and audience laugh)
- I will haunt you if you're
dating someone next week.
- Exactly, I will haunt you
and then, the second thing
was that I wanted a party.
I wanted to have a celebration
and I wanted to have a
lot of singing and dancing
and people telling stories
and to feel like that was being celebrated
and so the song came out of that,
I had the title and wrote
it with Liz and Kristian.
- [Kelly] It's great.
- Thank you.
- I was telling you,
I've never heard a song that I
wanna listen to all the time,
and also perfect for, it's
a hard thing a funeral
and I've had to sing at funerals,
I don't know if you've
ever had to do that before,
it's the worst thing ever, don't say yes
and it's just the worst thing ever
and sometimes I feel like,
we're this culture that
we just get so depressed,
but it is a very depressing
thing, but at the same time,
celebrate the life that was lived.
- Exactly.
- And that's what I loved
about the whole lyric,
it was so perfect.
- 'Cause there's gonna be
time, there's gonna be crying
and there's gonna be sadness.
- And that's okay.
- And you never ever forget
a person, you never do.
I think about my Mom and
Dad every single day, so--
- And they're in you,
they're a part of you.
My five year old is literally
learning about death
right now, just 'cause she was seeing some
and I'm like, you're five,
this is a hard conversation,
but I keep telling her
"even if something were
to ever happen to Mommy,
I'm never really gone,
'cause you were in me
and we're a part of each other"
and so I'm always present
and it's really hard,
you find yourself talking
yourself through death,
while you're trying to tell your child.
- That's exactly right.
You're trying to kind
of wrap your head around
your own mortality and
that's the weirdest thing,
but I have to say that in some ways
and I don't know if there's survivors
or people who've had
struggles in the audience,
but in some ways, cancer was a blessing.
It really taught me to live
every moment to the fullest
and every moment as if it was your last.
We don't know what tomorrow brings,
we have to be able to live
and go out today going
"wow okay, I did it, I did
everything that I wanted to do,
I lived the life that I
wanted to live today."
- And also make sure you
live your life every day,
'cause some people don't get that chance
and that's the worst thing
when I see someone just wastin'
away their life and I'm
like, you know what,
somebody couldn't have one
and you are lucky enough
and it's a privilege,
you should really make
something of yourself.
(audience clapping)
- I agree, I agree.
- [Kelly] I love you!
- I love you!
- You're so great!
