Up next in 10
Heather Graham Talks Austin Powers, Boogie Nights & More | Fan Expo Dallas Q&A Panel
0 views
Jun 17, 2025
Join us for an exclusive Q&A panel with Heather Graham at Fan Expo Dallas! Best known for her unforgettable roles in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Boogie Nights, Twin Peaks, and The Hangover, Heather shares behind-the-scenes stories, career insights, and answers fan questions live on stage. Whether you're a long-time fan or discovering her work for the first time, this panel is packed with fun moments and candid reflections. 📍 Recorded live at Fan Expo Dallas 2025 🎥 Full panel – no edits, just raw fan interaction 📢 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more celebrity Q&A panels and convention coverage!
View Video Transcript
0:00
hi thanks for coming
0:07
how was your flight how did you get in today yes I flew from New York and it's so nice and warm here summery that's
0:14
cold there yeah I know you definitely have a summer dress on i love it i know but it's cold in the convention center
0:21
it is warm in here when I got into my hotel room I thought it was also kind of
0:26
hot and then all of a sudden the AC kicked on and I was like "It is freezing." And I'm from Ohio and I
0:32
turned that up just a little bit to warm myself up i'm like "You honestly just
0:38
watching you in movies exude so much positivity like your energy is so
0:45
fabulous i was so excited to meet you in person to to feel that energy in real life."
0:51
When did you come into finding yourself and this confidence that you exude not
0:57
only on screen but in real life well I think getting to do something you love is definitely makes me feel happy and um
1:05
I work really hard at it to be honest because I struggle with definitely lots of things as just like anyone else and
1:11
just um surrounding myself with good friends i do yoga i meditate and um just
1:17
having the right person to call when you're in a bad mood to kind of lift you up out of it oh that's that's the best
1:23
who do you call when you Who's your number one like who's your go-to call well I have a friend called Nina and
1:28
then I have this really oh that's cute um no but I have these girlfriends we call ourselves the committee and we
1:34
always we give each other advice but we all love each other we just want to like lift each other up and make each other
1:40
really see how great because I think sometimes it's easy to you know get in a dark mood and kind of see things kind of
1:45
negatively so you need people around you to kind of help you see what's really true like how good things really are
1:51
yeah that's fabulous that's what I was saying when we got here that I'm just happy to be alive i'm just grateful to
1:57
be here right now i was if I'm on the ground I wouldn't even know the difference so I have to appreciate this
2:03
moment right now i don't know what's going to happen in 5 minutes from now i know what's happening that's true and this is like a deep conversation but
2:09
yeah being grateful is so important yeah was like you started off as a teenager
2:15
when you got the bug the bug that hit you the performance bug was that always something inside you that you knew you
2:22
kind of wanted or was it something that you were inspired by somebody you watched or something you saw that you
2:28
were like I this is what I want to do i think it was a mixture of when I was a kid I like to pretend to make make up
2:35
games and pretend to be vampires or pretend to be different things and um
2:40
and then in school I I acted in plays and I feel like that's the way I got attention or that I could um I think I
2:46
was actually quite shy so being in plays was a way to be more um confident um and
2:53
then I think to be honest as a teenager I was kind of an awkward nerdy kid and I was like I'm going to show them I'm
2:59
going to be an actress and so luckily I yeah it's been it's been a really good
3:05
way to just um be independent as well and uh get to meet really interesting people who is the most interesting
3:12
person you've ever met that you were kind of starruck by well that's kind of a hard question i mean I was really
3:18
excited to meet Steve Martin when I worked with him because I had watched Saturday Night Live as a kid and
3:23
watching like King Tut and you know but there's so many cool people that I I've luckily gotten to meet though sometimes
3:30
people are a little bit not exactly what you thought they were going to be but other people are just really amazing
3:36
yeah it's like you have from license to drive to chosen family last year you've
3:44
really evolved as an actor how do you think that you've done that through time
3:50
what do you think that you have really learned and grabbed a hold of and changed well I think that just having
3:56
experience is is a great thing and just getting to do something for so many years definitely learn a lot and it's
4:03
been really fun to learn about behind the scenes stuff too like the cinematography and the editing and just
4:08
what every crew member is doing and um you know studying with different acting coaches and that's that's been really
4:14
fun too are you an early bird do you get to set really early or are you kind of
4:19
coming in right on time i'm a late riser if I will not be getting up early unless someone is forcing me to so uh but no if
4:26
I have a job I'm excited to be there and I get there on time for sure you said a late riser are you a night owl or are
4:32
you uh I like sleeping you just last time being like 11 hours a day
4:38
i'm I'm pretty happy that's great just to be totally honest
4:43
yeah oh we were talking about our wardrobe earlier oh just out there and
4:49
your wardrobe in chosen family is so cute i was like some of it was mine and
4:56
some of it people were lending to us and one of it was the the the production designer was letting me wear her clothes
5:02
i was wondering because I was like is this her attire or is this something that was set for you because they were
5:09
all such adorable pieces yeah it was a mixture cuz actually that movie was pretty low budget so a bunch of people
5:14
just donated stuff and then the I I brought some of my own clothes and then this very groovy woman that was doing
5:21
our production design just like gave me all of her clothes to wear oh my that's amazing you guys are the same size it's
5:28
fabulous i couldn't do that with my friends it was pretty cool like cuz we we I think she just took me into her
5:33
closet one day and was just like "What what do you want to wear?" You know and she had so much stuff did you have you
5:39
ever taken any outfits from any of the sets that you've been on that you were like I love i try to always take all the outfits when I can i mean I couldn't
5:45
take her clothes because she was like you know donating them to us so I didn't take that but if you know different
5:50
designers donate stuff or sometimes I put it in my contract to take the clothes oo that's a good idea yeah it's
5:57
like that's awesome do you have anything that is up do you like that you have
6:02
like a room with all your memorabilia or your collectibles well it's funny because I recently moved and I found the
6:07
roller skates like I had this pair of roller skates from Boogie Nights and um which the main I really only have one
6:14
pair well there were two pairs i think two you like a tan i don't think there was a tan no there was only a tan actually but um but yeah so I was
6:21
thinking should I just give this to the Goodwill and I I was saying this to like my boyfriend at the time i'm like I don't know what to do with these roller
6:27
skates and he's like oh my god I'll buy them i'm like what and I this is before I really knew that people will buy these
6:33
loopy props so then I my manager got me to donate it to the Academy Museum and
6:38
they they're putting it in in the museum which is amazing yeah that's so cool yeah it's really
6:45
So I'm glad I didn't just give them away to you learned roller skate for that
6:52
film right i did yeah I had never done it and then they got me a coach and I practiced on in this parking lot and I
6:59
just remember that I had this this stand in like cuz when you're an actor you have another actor that helps with the
7:04
camera department and the lighting and they just threw her in this pair of roller skates and she had no training and no teacher and she was like falling
7:11
over a lot because it's kind of you there's all these wires everywhere but luckily I didn't fall over while I was
7:18
shooting the movie oh you did great yeah i was like even in that that noon scene
7:23
sometimes you have to be as an actor extremely vulnerable and almost it's
7:30
really it's amazing and kind of probably freeing I would think to be able to kind
7:35
of just express these this other side of yourself yeah i mean it's it's fun to
7:42
kind of you know something that you'd never do in real life but get to do it as an actor and it is kind of fun to
7:47
play like these darker more wild out there characters for sure is there another skill that you've ever had to
7:54
learn for a movie well I was in Swingers and I learned how to swing dance that was really fun and John Fabro taught me
8:01
how to swing dance and um yeah I still can do it to this day that's awesome do
8:06
you ever like go out and dance i do but it's hard to find a guy that knows how to do it you know because it's quite a
8:13
you really have to practice and um but yeah I still do it there's some groups out there that do this like freestyle
8:20
improv swing dancing and they get together and they just find random partners and they're all like they all
8:27
just know different moves and they just start dancing together it's absolutely back well there used to be a place in LA
8:32
called the Derby but it closed but it was very retro and everyone that went there there was a whole swing dancing
8:38
group and people would swing dance and but now it's sadly closed but still people you know it's different little
8:43
communities still do it yeah we were talking about chosen family just a little bit and having a close-knit of
8:50
friends which is really kind of what that movie is about is friendship and family
8:56
and you not only are you the lead in it but you also directed it right
9:01
what was that transition like from acting to directing was it a challenge for you it is a little bit intimidating
9:08
luckily I have this friend and he produced the movie and he was very encouraging actually I based one of the
9:13
characters is based on him the Thomas Lennon character it's cool because I actually introduced Tom to one of my
9:19
booking agents for the conventions and now Tom's been doing a bunch of conventions and he's really one of the funniest people I've ever met but um so
9:26
I had a lot of encouragement from my friend um but it's was interesting because I understand the acting part you
9:32
know well and I understand actors but learning about you know editing and learning about how you're going to shoot
9:37
things and just the production design and reading a budget it was it's just it's very interesting just to learn all
9:43
the different things about film making yeah do you think you'll continue doing that as a new Yeah I I I I would love to
9:49
yeah I'm working on a few different things right now yeah awesome so exciting i'm like I'm sure that you've
9:56
learned a lot over the years what is some of the best advice that you were given that you've just kind of held on
10:02
to throughout your career well I had an acting coach and he said you have to have the skin of a rhinoceros but the
10:10
heart of a baby because you know people can say things and you can get your feelings hurt but at the same point you
10:16
know you want to be strong but at the other side you know you want to be vulnerable in scenes where you know
10:21
you're really the character is really being vulnerable so it's kind of like having those two sides
10:26
uh let's talk a little bit about Felicity Shagwell Austin Powers I'm sure
10:33
is quoted to you probably the most what line do people come up to you and quote
10:39
more often than not going to these conventions and stuff people like shy well by name shy very well by reputation
10:45
and I did go like I went to this um hockey game and and and they put the
10:51
people different actors will put them on the jumbotron and so they did put that scene on the jumbotron so I guess that's
10:57
my memorable most memorable moment of that is that your favorite quote i mean
11:03
it is a great line like when you read the script we're like that's going to be so fun to say that what about from any movie what is
11:10
your number one favorite line that you've ever done i mean that's kind of hard to come i know you have Rolodex a
11:17
film i mean that is a great line i mean it was fun in Boogie Nights to do that scene where I was like kicking the guy
11:22
with my skates like I remember that yeah that's an int
11:30
yeah she at first seems very calm and silent and then that that moment is just
11:36
she flips a switch and then you're just holding her back it is a great scene that was fun it took and honestly when
11:42
she's in the limo and he says Brandy that moment the look on your face is
11:48
priceless because you can see that her heart drops right and you know that
11:54
that's her real name she had a life before this and you you definitely do such a great job portraying that through
12:01
the screen thank you thank you so much um if you were cryogenically
12:08
frozen and you woke up in the future what technology would you love to awaken
12:14
to well that makes me think of Connecticut
12:19
Yankee and King Arthur's Court and just how Let's see if I woke up in the future um well I think it'd be cool if we could
12:25
all fly and if we all had little tiny portable like heli things where we could just like float around and like our own
12:31
little drones and just go wherever we wanted without having to drive on freeways that'd be great i would take
12:36
like a little platform just to float around on i think they're like that i've
12:41
seen um a hover kind of bike that looks like it is the bike from Star Wars it is
12:49
pretty sweet and the guy is like floating around on it so hopefully one day we will see that in some future yeah
12:54
or at least be in a movie where I always thought when I watch movies like Superman just seeing someone fly i just
12:59
always thought that would be really cool yeah it'd be scary what if you fell i'd
13:04
be worried you'd have to have superpowers or like Peter Pan like I really love Peter Pan as a kid so I used
13:10
to want to be Peter Pan and I had a picture of Peter Pan on my wall and I was I was obsessed with Peter Pan there
13:16
is a scene in Peter Pan that I never realized until I was older when the
13:21
mermaids are kind of trying to drown Wendy and I didn't think about it when I
13:29
was younger oh they're just having fun i'm like wait these girls are kind of evil there's a little bit of like
13:35
maniacal kind of sense behind them i was like but I was like Peter Pan's a great
13:41
film did you ever watch a book of Robin Williams i did but it was a long time ago but I saw the play version of Peter
13:47
Pan when I was like seven years old or eight years old and Sandy Duncan was in it and she was flying on these wires and
13:53
that might have been an inspirational moment where I wanted to become an actress just cuz I thought ah she's
13:58
flying over the thing and I was obsessed with Peter Pan and I I loved her in it
14:04
um if you were Felicity Shagwell as a professor at a college what would you
14:10
teach what would be her her subject shaggy
14:17
i guess spy skills and shaggy yeah cuz she's a smart woman i mean she can
14:23
manipulate rocket science yeah
14:29
but I like psychology so if I was going to teach a class I probably would like something to do with psychology do you
14:34
have like a favorite like is Freud or somebody like I mean I like this new
14:39
form of um therapy called internal family systems this is kind of this idea that inside all of us we have this
14:45
family and there's this self which is like the loving parent and it's it's really cool form of therapy yeah I love
14:52
it do you take do you go to therapy i do yeah I've been going I go to EMDR i
14:59
don't know i find it all just I think as an actress like you read a script and you go why is this character doing this and then you try to understand like what
15:05
happened in their childhood that made them want to do this or why are they saying this or why are they acting like this so I do a lot of analyzing of
15:12
people's behavior so that kind of you know is psychology really oh that's amazing cuz that gives us a little bit
15:18
of insight too on how you build a character because everybody has such a different way of going about it and
15:24
finding who that character is i think that's an awesome way of looking at it
15:29
like very different perspective yeah i have this one acting coach and we come up with memories like okay what happened
15:36
to you in your childhood and then why are you like this and so we come up with all these different memories which is
15:41
really cool yeah that's great because then you have your own little backstory that you can really feed off of yeah and
15:48
where that character is at emotionally in that that Yeah like I just did this movie that's I think it's going to come
15:53
out next year but it's called They Will Kill You and it's like a horror action
15:59
comedy and um but there's a lot of fighting scenes and I just made up this backstory that I was bullied as a kid at
16:06
school and that that was where a lot of my kind of rage was coming from
16:11
i feel you've done a lot of comedy in some horror films are those your favorite genres to be a part of is that
16:18
where you feel comfortable i like kind of dark I guess my favorite genre would be dark comedy but I actually like
16:24
everything like I you know I I like drama i like um you know I like horror
16:29
even those ones that really scares me i I love comedy and I just like anything anything good i like things that are
16:35
unique like I like things that are new and fresh and creative do you ever turn
16:40
down roles that come to you that you go no that's that's just not doesn't fit me
16:46
i'm not really into doing a character like that do you ever turn down roles or turn down something and then go I should
16:52
have done that what's a role that you turned down that you were like "Oh I'm too embarrassed to
16:58
say." That's okay you don't have to You don't have to tell us you can keep your secrets
17:04
um if you were stuck in one of the movies that you've done which movie
17:10
would you jump into that world this is a very thoughtprovoking
17:16
question um well I mean chosen family is probably
17:22
the closest to my real life just in terms of like having a lot of great friends so I guess without being able to
17:28
think about this for a while and come up with a more thoughtful answer I would say that there is a great quote in
17:35
chosen family that says "You can turn your day around at any moment." And I
17:41
tell my boyfriend this Yeah is that sometimes you can be in a bad mood but I can choose I can choose to let go of
17:49
that emotion and choose to be happy right now or I can choose to wallow in
17:55
this self-pity or sadness and it I'm like it really is your own choice like
18:00
you are in control of your own feelings yeah i mean I think it's a fine line because obviously sometimes you're sad and you can't totally talk yourself out
18:07
of it but I think you can choose not to dwell in it for sure and you can choose to be like "Okay I'm sad feel your feelings like okay now I'm going to just
18:13
go for a walk in nature or call a friend that you know what I mean?" I think you can choose to distract yourself and and
18:20
find things to feel happy about when you're sad or upset by
18:25
anything angry is there a place that you go besides yoga is there a place in your
18:31
house maybe that you go that's your favorite room to relax or get away from it all or is there a place you're like I
18:37
love going to this park and that's where I go to kind of collect myself well I mean this might be too much information
18:42
but I do go to like a 12step group called Alanon and it's basically for people who have like a friend or a
18:48
family member who struggles with addiction so it's basically about like codependency and I find that to be
18:55
really helpful and it's really great to have like spiritual connection and share your feelings in a room full of people
19:00
that are supportive what's a lesson that you've learned in your yoga and meditation
19:06
teachings that you pass along to others um well I think all we really
19:13
have is the present moment and I just think for me like I can get stressed out and I can get tense and I can start
19:19
worrying and and and I feel like if you really relax then you know just be grateful to be in this moment like I get
19:25
to talk to you guys here it's pretty cool and it's fun i've gotten to be in these movies and get to talk to you so
19:30
just to try to if you really just relax and be in the moment and just try to be grateful basically yeah what's your
19:36
favorite part about coming to a convention like this well it's cool that movies that you've been in that people
19:42
remember them or that it was meaningful or that someone's like "Oh I watched this movie with my dad and you know it's
19:48
sweet." You know do you still get nervous anytime when you're on set or
19:54
nervous all the time i feel like nerves make you almost like
19:59
if you're not nervous to do something it's probably not worth it now I get nervous all the time but I I read these
20:04
you know interviews with like Meil Street or like Stephen Spielberg and I feel like a lot of people with creative
20:10
people and I'm sure just everyone anytime you're doing something new or something that you care about it's get
20:15
nervous you know because you care about it i think that that's the the key factor there that if you didn't care you
20:22
wouldn't be nervous you wouldn't be scared or worried you just be like "All right we're going to go do this it's fine i'm going to go sit up with Heather
20:28
Graham it's all right." scared i think Madonna Madonna had a cool quote like you know if you're if
20:33
I'm scared to do something that means I shouldn't do it you know like if I feel like if I'm scared then that's a good
20:38
that's a good thing like maybe this is a thing i mean obviously like don't just jump off a cliff and kill yourself but
20:44
but like if if you care about something enough that you're scared then that's good to do it you because then you're
20:50
growing you're kind of stepping outside of the box and growing as a person i think that's a a great thing to do for
20:57
everybody are you scared of anything do you have any fears at all i do you know
21:03
it's funny because I I've been in some different horror movies recently and I am scared of horror movies and it's so
21:09
funny because everyone at these conventions they love you know but but yeah like um I just well I did a rem I
21:15
don't know if you got anybody here who saw there was like a movie in the 80s called The Entity it was with Barbara Hershey and I just did a a remake or not
21:23
really remake but it's a movie about this woman's true story and it's terrifying it's so scary like when I
21:29
read the script I was like oh my god I I just it's like I had it took me a while to like not be scared after reading that
21:35
script do you ever go to haunted houses or anything occasionally i mean not a
21:40
lot but um but I do feel like sometimes if you walk into a certain buildings you can feel like oh there's kind of like a
21:46
weird energy here you know yeah like I'm sure you definitely feel energy you do a lot of yoga meditation are you into I
21:53
mean I'm sure you guys have gone into like like a like certain kind of old buildings or just like you know if you
21:58
go into like a graveyard you can be like okay the energy here is different than just going into like a Starbucks or something like heavy sometimes yeah i
22:05
walked into a room at Zack Ban's Haunted Museum in Las Vegas and the one room was
22:12
so heavy that I was like this room I didn't like being in there it was like it just felt like concrete on me and I
22:19
was like this is a weird energy i could leave the room now cuz I saw what was in there well the house I was living in
22:26
before I moved um some of my friends thought there was a ghost in the wine celler like there was a small room that
22:32
like was exposed like a wine celler it was a very small room but everyone that went in there said like "Wow I think
22:38
there's like something in there." creepy being a female in the industry
22:46
was that intimidating for you especially because you did start off as a young person as a teenager was that
22:52
intimidating and did you have a good support system behind you um yeah i mean I think it's intimidating
22:59
because nobody in my family was in the business and um you know as a woman just there's probably less roles you know um
23:07
but but yeah I'm very grateful and and I just think as a as an audience member I I yeah I would like to see more movies
23:14
you know directed by women and written by women starring women and it's cool like more people are starting to hear
23:20
about them now for sure i mean the song has changed so much and I'm so glad that
23:26
we are all so accepting and open to these new ideas because if you're just
23:32
stuck in the same thing all the time it gets boring well it's new different stories that haven't been told so that's
23:38
pretty cool yeah new perspectives on things too um here's a just a quick rapid fire
23:45
questions before I get to some um fan submitted questions for you who would be
23:51
on your Mount Rushmore oh my gosh um okay okay well if
23:58
I had more time to think maybe I would think of some other ideas but I would just put my best friends up there because that would make me feel happy
24:05
just seeing their faces because I love them and I want to just see their faces huge yeah do you guys I'm guessing you
24:11
guys have a little word chat well I have some friends that I've known since I was in high school and I kind of base the
24:17
chosen family characters on them and then I have some more recent friends and maybe I just put them all up there all
24:22
together and then that would make me really happy if you haven't seen Chosen Family it's on Hulu i I was like watch
24:29
it it's an hour and a half it's great from the beginning to the end the
24:35
movement of the story is so fantastic sometimes you watch a movie you're like
24:41
"The beginning is slow where are we going to get to it?" You're getting to it throughout the whole in from the
24:46
first time you speak to the end it wraps up so nicely there is one thing that I
24:53
was like come on this is going to happen um so like but there it does wrap up
24:59
really well and I thought it was just such a touching and funny and it was so
25:04
relatable to so many people you and what I won't tell you a lot about the movie
25:10
if you haven't seen it but you are recording vlogs and doing videos and
25:16
nowadays social media is such a big part of what everybody does it's not even
25:22
just actors it is if you own a bakery you have to be on social media and
25:28
that's all we get to really see of everybody is this this kind of what we
25:33
want to put out there for you what are is something that you have that's like
25:40
in your social media that's a little secret that you look at what is something that would pop up in your
25:46
social media feed well um okay my dorky kind of love of psychology i follow this
25:53
guy called Jimmy on relationships and he does these funny little relationships videos where he pretends to be the guy
25:59
and the girl and they have fights with each other and I also like pictures of like babies dancing and things like that
26:05
or like animals being you know cute i would watch that too stuff that kind of is uplifting and I like watching kids
26:13
dance i don't know it's kind of fun they're pretty talented yeah i wish I
26:18
could makes you happy what What do you suck at what are you
26:24
terrible at well okay you're so great at so many things we all see you as being a I was
26:30
dating a guy and he was very good at snowboarding and so he was like "You need to learn how to ski." And I'm
26:36
pretty bad at that i mean I I can go down a beginner hill but I'm not not very good
26:44
um last question before I move into these fan submitted questions what song would you perform at a karaoke
26:53
well I mean I love that song I will survive you know but uh I don't know
27:00
um I'll just I'll just say that for now it's a good one uh Chloe from Round Rock wants to know
27:07
"Your role in Boogie Nights was so iconic what did you find most challenging or rewarding about stepping
27:13
into that world well I mean first of all it's pretty fun when your character's name is Roller
27:19
Girl and you don't even have like a name like that's kind of fun you know you feel kind of cool like you're wearing
27:24
roller I got to wear roller skates never take them off and uh it's just it is fun to play kind of like really out there
27:30
characters that are not just like a normal person it's fun to just uh think about this crazy what if I was in this
27:37
crazy world but then of course there were so many good people in that so many good actors and Paul Thomas Anderson is
27:43
a great director and also it was a moment in my career where you know I was trying to get jobs and I was auditioning
27:48
but when I got that it I hit a moment where I could just get offered jobs and make more money which was awesome yeah
27:54
it is cool to be known as like not a nate but roller girl like you're not Brandy you're not you're just roller
28:01
girl yeah like it's pretty awesome lucas from Dallas asks "You played Felicity Shagwell and Austin Powers what
28:08
was it like working on such a wild over-the-top comedy?" Well it's funny because when I
28:15
worked on that I wasn't as knowledgeable about comedy and now I really love comedy so much and I feel so grateful to
28:22
be in it but at the time I was like I want to be in dramas about the Holocaust you know it's like I want to be in
28:27
Sophie's Choice you know but but it's it's really fun and I I now I just I
28:32
love watching comedy probably the most because it just sometimes you're like the world is can be depressing like do I want to watch like a depressing movie so
28:39
it's nice to to be in something that makes people laugh and it's joyful and makes people happy
28:46
uh Lucas or I'm sorry um Samantha from Austin is there a particular role that you play that pushed you out of your
28:53
comfort zone the most um well I guess everything is kind of
28:59
hard in different ways but yeah learning to like starting to direct that's definitely pushing out of the comfort
29:04
zone and um I don't know i feel like comedy can be hard too even though it's
29:10
sort of you know comedy is hard like working with people that are like so talented it can be like kind of
29:15
intimidating like here's these comedic geniuses and now be in scene with them and be serious were you ever like
29:22
laughing your butt off when Mike Myers is doing something silly i mean I feel like we did a lot of rehearsals so
29:28
everything he was doing I had already seen him do so that was a relief but but he would make everyone laugh all the time by the time you've done it on set
29:36
you've seen it so the weekend and he would you know but then he would always throw new things in there so catch you
29:42
off guard try to not laugh for sure that's fantastic that makes every day fun to go to work
29:49
tyler um from Brian asks "How do you go about choosing the projects you want to
29:55
be a part of?" Basically I think it's a script you just read the script and if
30:00
you like the script and you know there's like sometimes are there cool people or is it a big studio movie and that could
30:07
be good or you know is it just a role you've never played or just a lot of it is the writing of the script
30:14
yeah the story is not is not there but you know to be honest sometimes it's kind of hard to tell because sometimes
30:20
you'll read something and you'll think it's really good and then maybe it won't turn out good or sometimes you'll read things you'll be like eh this doesn't
30:26
seem like it might be that good and then it will be really good so it's a little bit of a gamble it's like in Vegas u Madison from
30:34
Dallas asks "What's one behind the scenes story from filming The Hangover that still makes you laugh when you
30:40
think about it?" Well I mean being around those guys
30:46
they're so funny and uh trying to think i mean being in the blackjack table with
30:51
them is really fun and it was cool because that was at a time where a lot of those guys weren't so famous so but
30:57
um but they're just so quick and they just come up with really funny imprompts and it's just great it's very alive just
31:03
you know whatever they would say like just wondering what they were going to say all a bunch of creative minds in one
31:08
room yeah noah from Austin asks "You appeared on Twin Peaks a show that's
31:14
full of mystery and stranges how did that experience compare to your work on more traditional sets?" Well yeah David
31:22
Lynch is such an aur and he'll just do like the weirdest stuff that doesn't even make sense but then it all is
31:28
somehow good you know so it's kind of cool i remember I met him and I think I went to his house and I first worked on
31:35
this commercial that he was doing but he had this like plate with meat on it and he had ants crawling on it and he was
31:41
like doing a film of ants crawling on meat and I just thought you know that's not every day that you go to someone's
31:47
house and they're filming ants crawling on me you know that's fantastic grace from Cedar
31:54
Hill says "If you could go back to give yourself one piece of advice when you were younger before entering Hollywood
32:01
what would it be?" Well I wish that um I wish that I would
32:07
have just been nicer to myself i think as a younger person I I had more negative thoughts you know and now I
32:13
wish I just would have been more supportive and loving to myself and I also think you know maybe as a younger
32:18
person it would have been cool to like start creating my own content because you see different people like Lisa Ray or Frankie Shaw or you know different
32:26
people like um Phoebe Waller Bridge you know and you're like "Wow these people just wrote their own stuff." Like I wish
32:32
I had maybe gone to film school and started doing that like when I was really young what would your content what would your channel be about uh I I
32:41
guess it would just be like uh interesting female stories yeah because I would like to have my own production
32:47
company just with something like that yeah I want you to continue doing stuff like that too i really enjoyed it ethan
32:55
from the Colony said "You've also stepped into writing producing and directing what was the most surprising
33:00
thing you learned being behind the camera?" Well it makes you really realize how brave actors are because
33:07
while you're watching them you're like "Wow this this is quite scary to do that." Um but it's so much preparation
33:13
that goes into it and then the editing and just how every part of the process and just music and everything makes such
33:20
a big difference so it's really great to learn what all the other people are doing it's it's very cool do you have a
33:26
lot of power as the director or are you still kind of you've got big bosses above you do have some power but at the
33:33
end of the day you don't have all the I mean I think if you're like Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsesei or I don't know Jay Campion or somebody like that
33:39
but if you're kind of a newer director the person with the money probably has more power always it's always the person
33:46
with the checkbook i wish it was me i'll take their checkbook alyssa from
33:52
Victoria says "Is there a type of movie or TV show you haven't done yet that you'd love to try?"
33:59
Well I would like to play um if you look at like I love Breaking Bad i'd like to play like a female anti-hero just kind
34:07
of like kind of like you like them and care about them but they're really screwed up and you you know like
34:12
something like such a great role like that like in a TV show or a movie yeah you've done um voiceovers too correct
34:19
what is your favorite thing between theater movies television and voiceovers which one would you I like movies and
34:26
television the most most how was it doing voiceover work was it extremely different and you could just show up and
34:32
you just be like all sloppy and just uh But you still have to put a lot of you still put kind of the same amount of
34:37
work into it because you want to understand your character and where you're coming from and you think about your voice a lot more too yeah and
34:44
you've done modeling too right i haven't done a lot of modeling i did some kind of like ads as like an actress like oh
34:51
you know selling a hair product or something but no I never really did that much modeling i actually never did any
34:56
but I'll do it now so get on it brandy from Flower Mound of all the
35:05
characters you've played which one would you love to revisit in a sequel or a spin-off if you
35:11
could well I wonder what happened to Roller Girl i don't know or I don't know all any of these i
35:18
mean yeah like Felicity Shack well I wish they would do a sequel for sure
35:23
when did you realize that you created such an impact on others when was that
35:29
moment for you um well when some people dress as you for Halloween that's kind of a cool
35:35
feeling because you're like "Oh wow these people remember this movie and they dressed as costume." It's kind of cool yeah but you're such an influence
35:41
on others it's a surreal feeling i mean I I don't know if I totally
35:47
totally digest like you know I just know that I'm grateful that I get to keep working and stuff what are you most
35:53
grateful for i'm grateful I'm kind of grateful I don't have a 9 toive job to be honest
36:01
and um you know I'm grateful for my friends my health i mean honestly I had a friend die like last year of
36:09
canc yeah that's all we can ask for right is like being here well yeah i
36:15
mean there's so many things you can think I wish I had this I wish I had that but you're like I'm glad I have my health you know for sure yeah do you
36:22
like being very serious question what does acting mean to you
36:28
i think it's telling stories and um you know making it real so when people are watching it that they can go into that
36:35
world and lose themselves in a story you're a big foodie
36:42
what meal would you eat if you could only choose one meal for the rest of your life what would be your go-to
36:49
i don't know does anyone have suggestions on where to go in Dallas like where where's a good I I obsess
36:54
with food like I love So I think I would want to eat one meal every day for the rest of my life i do make this oatmeal
37:00
in the morning that it sounds boring but I got this recipe and you toast it in butter and it's it's and you put peanut
37:06
butter and cacao nibs and berries so I've been eating that every day for the past like 2 or 3 years that's a fancy
37:12
oatmeal it's a fancy No but then all my friends when I they come over I make it for them and then they they say "We want the recipe this is amazing." How long
37:19
does that take it takes like five minutes okay all right i was like it sounds like a little bit more work yeah
37:24
yeah yeah five or 10 minutes are are you a healthy eater or do you just kind of I'm a healthy eater i mean occasionally
37:31
I let myself have like a few little kind of wild moments of just eating a lot but
37:36
I try to be healthy be really um kind of strict with yourself or you were like
37:42
worried about your appearance since you are in films and stuff i mean there's probably more pressure on you than the
37:49
rest of us have to look a certain way do you ever feel like that yeah i mean um
37:55
uh yeah for sure it's like it's a tough thing I would say for us as women too to be scrutinized
38:02
and looked at all the time i love sugar i'm a sugar addict so good
38:09
um have you ever taken anything from a set i have stolen underwear
38:17
whose underwear you were underwear no they give you underwear and they're like "I'm separated as hell." You know and you're like I don't want anybody else to
38:23
have these these are mine now they probably don't want them back anyway after like ignoring them but I have Yeah sure now I did have some pre like some
38:31
fan submitted presubmitted questions there's one gentleman okay standing by
38:37
the microphone okay i feel like he might have a question and if you're okay with
38:43
it because we did do presubmitted questions that we would let him ask if that's all
38:49
right with you hi what's your name rob what's up Rob um
38:54
my wife and I are just going through Scrubs right now we're actually just a couple of episodes into season 4 where
39:02
your character was introduced i was wondering what standout memories you'd have from being on the Scrub set
39:08
well actually someone told me they might reboot it so I was calling my agent saying "Oh I want to be in it." Um but
39:15
no I remember of course I thought Zach was amazing i think that was around the time he did Garden State so I had a
39:21
little crush on him and um yeah I love Donald and um Sarah Chalk and Judy and
39:29
um it was just fun to they're all just so funny and and Bill Lawrence is really
39:34
smart obviously gone on to do all these other great shows um but it was really
39:40
fun i just I like being around funny people and they were all really funny thanks Rob
39:47
my last question dirk Diggler would say "Everyone is blessed with one special
39:53
thing what's your special
39:59
thing?" That's hard um I guess you know I have this cool
40:04
quote on my refrigerator i think it was by Martha Graham and it just says "We all have a unique spark you know it's
40:10
just our own unique um essence and soul." So I guess we all just have a special unique spark love Martha Graham
40:18
yeah it's like I love Martha Gra it's amazing well thank you so much for sitting with us this
40:25
morning give it up Heather Graham
40:32
[Applause]