Zoe Lister-Jones is my favorite kind of actor to interview in that she can go deep on her work — both from a process perspective as well as unpacking the meaning of its theme — while also dignifying conversations about Survivor or The Real Housewives. She conversates about all of the above with the same degree of balanced sincerity and levity. She’s not cagey, she’s willing to name names, and she relishes the opportunity to offer perspective both as a creator and a fan.
I first discovered Lister-Jones’s acting, writing and directing work through her 2017 feature film Band Aid, co-starring former Shut Up Evan caller-in Adam Pally and former Shut Up Evan guest Retta. The film zeroes in on a relationship on the rocks with particular attention to the ways in which men and women experience and process emotions differently. I was rapt with Lister-Jones decision to use an all-female crew on the film. Hollywood loves to pay lip service to its own progressiveness, but what I saw in Lister-Jones was a willingness to actually do the work of creating opportunities.
She also, importantly, came with Barbra Streisand stories at the ready. Come on now! Below, an in depth conversation with Lister-Jones about her latest project, Slip, as well as some discussions on the above, as well as a lot of candid and frank talk about cum. How very Charlotte York-ian!
I just watched an interview that you did on The Talk, and you mentioned that you think that you could win Survivor. I am a well-documented Survivor superfan myself, so I'm curious to know what qualities you possess that would have you winning the game of Survivor?
Well, I'm a late adopter of Survivor. I waited a casual 44 seasons, which I think occurred over 22 years, so I don't feel well-versed enough to really, truly speak in the language of Survivor that one like yourself might expect of a real Survivor head. But in watching the most recent season, I look at someone like Carolyn — who I have tagged in my Instagram and I'm waiting for a follow back — and this is no knock on Carolyn, but if she can do it, I think that I can, too [laughs], because Carolyn has a difficult time with some of the physical challenges; she gets caught in nets, caught throwing foam. You're just always hearing Master [Jeff] Probst being like, “Carolyn's still caught! Carolyn’s not getting through it! Carolyn will never make it to the end!” So when I see that, it feels like Carolyn’s the dark horse because I think she could win it. The dark horse is always my favorite character in any narrative, and I think I would be a dark horse only because of these qualities of mine: raised in Brooklyn in the 80s, razor-sharp survival instincts, major fight-or-flight — which is not helpful in most situations, except for Survivor.
You've painted a picture in which I am absolutely seeing it! I'm glad you found Survivor and I will tell you that I, too, was not always a Survivor person; the pandemic brought it out of me and I mainlined the 40 seasons that were available at the time. And it’s funny: I used to be really into Real Housewives and it was a big part of my identity. I kind of dropped that entirely for Survivor because I was like, “This is really where it's at!”
And have you now returned to Housewives?
I have! It's so interesting that you bring that up, because I was just texting with a friend about it earlier; I'm watching it, but in a very different way than I once was. I'm a much more passive viewer now. Are you a Housewives person?
As opposed to Survivor, I was an early adopter of Housewives; New York Season One, three Bethenny spinoffs — still very much in it. But I feel like when you have those kinds of relationships, it's like seeing an ex; I understand what drew us to one another at a different stage and I can still see you and appreciate you, but I'm not trying to have you ram me.
That is a perfect segue for us to get into your most recent show, Slip, which you wrote, directed and starred in. Slip centers around your character Mae Cannon, an associate museum curator bored with the life she leads, who travels through parallel universes trying to find her way back to her partner and herself. I find that there’s a connection between this show and your recent film, Beau Is Afraid: When people ask what these works are about, I find that I could tell you the plot of both, but the plot is not really the focal point to me; it's really the overall vibe, the experience of watching the show, and where you want to go with it — if you allow it to take you there. I'm sure you have been asked this question quite a bit while doing press for these projects, so I'm wondering how you maneuver talking about both of them?
With Slip, I generally talk about the multiverse element because I think that's a digestible way in for people and obviously a big part of the zeitgeist right now, but I definitely also stress that the portal to the multiverse is orgasm; I want to be really clear that sex and sexuality are the propulsive force of the narrative because that is what I wanted to write, and Mae’s journey is so much a journey of sexual awakening and embodiment. But it is essentially a story that asks the question of “what do we do with our eternal dissatisfaction?” and “how do we wrestle with constantly wanting more from the lives that we have?” and if that's just a human desire, or if it's a desire that we should be questioning or repressing or avoiding. So I think I sort of put Mae on this journey to try to answer that question for myself — which I still don't know the answer to! [Laughs]
Maybe that comes in Season 2?
[Laughs] Yes! And I think Beau Is Afraid is similar thematically; it's a similar process of individuation. In Slip, Mae is individuating from her partner. I went through my own separation from my long term-partner during the pandemic and I think, in some ways, it’s an exploration of that and what it means to sort of come into your own and what home looks like, because so often, we like to return to old ideas of internal safety, and the scary part is to be reinventing what internal safety actually looks and feels like as we're growing in this world.
And I believe there's another parallel between these two projects: In Slip, as you said, Mae is transported through the multiverse via orgasm, and in Beau Is Afraid, your character Mona (Beau’s mother) tells Beau that he has a congenital heart defect that also took the lives of his father and grandfather at the moment they had an orgasm. So at the root of these projects is this idea of orgasm, which is fascinating because Beau is a project that you are a part of as an actor and Slip is a project that you are a part of as an actor as well as the writer, director, and creator. What is it with you and orgasms?
[Laughs] Oh, where do we begin? Well, I think that — not to lean too much into a binary — as a woman, for most of my life I've had a complicated relationship to sexual intimacy for any number of factors. A lot of my friends have expressed similar roadblocks when it comes to sexual pleasure and embodiment. I hashtag struggled to cum for a long time in my life with other people and it was a journey for me to understand what that was, what traumas in my past that was rooted in, and then how to move forward. I had a sexual awakening late in life, in my late 30s. In talking to a lot of women, that does seem like an age where that does happen and we don't really talk about it because it's kind of embarrassing and it's late! [Laughs] So I wanted to look at a woman at that age as a protagonist who was for the first time actually allowing herself the agency over her own sexual pleasure and to unapologetically be lust-driven because historically, obviously, those things have been “unseemly” for women to embody. I also was interested in what portraying sexuality from a woman's perspective on-screen could look like and how some of the more damaging tropes of media representation in the past can be subverted because I had so much control and because I was using my own body as the subject. What does it look like to make a show that is intended to turn people on? A show that is intended to be erotica, but also intended to be funny and stupid and sad and sort of crawling around in the muck of the despair of life. [Laughs] What do all of those things look like in conversation so that the sexual act is not just a sort of voyeuristic fantasy and instead, really woven into the fabric of the character’s arc?
There's been a lot of discourse about sex in cinema recently. There's this whole Gen Z distaste for sex scenes that's been a viral moment for the past couple of months in fits and starts, which has sparked a conversation about Hollywood censorship. As the creator of the project and someone who, as you say, finds that orgasm is a central topic of conversation both in your life and now in your work, where do you come down on this conversation?
“Cum down.” LOL! Look, it's complicated. I have been in various forms of non-monogamous relationships in my life that tap into the same, very human insecurities that arise for the partner of someone who's on a set and doing sex scenes. The fact is, the sex scenes themselves are the least sexy thing you could ever be a part of. There are disgusting socks and tape over the nether bits and there's so much choreography. I know some director [recently] came out being like, “I don't believe in intimacy coordinators,” but I do. I think that people feeling safe in a very vulnerable environment, especially given the history of women feeling exploited in those situations, is so important. And what was cool about my intimacy coordinator was she was like, “I am as involved or not involved as you tell me to be.” It's not like there's a police force on set being like, “No nipple!” I got to say, “Here's what I want,” and I would have to explain everything in detail; “I want this character to kiss my neck, put his mouth on my nipple, lick it, then go down to my belly button, lick that, then unbutton my pants, then pull my pants down, and then go down on me.” These are the conversations that I'm having with the intimacy coordinator. I say the exact shots I want, and then the intimacy coordinator goes to that actor and their team and they say, “Here are the body parts that are going to be shown. Here's the exact choreography,” and then that actor comes in prepared. If you have the framework and choreography of the sex scene really mapped out, then people are gonna feel more comfortable to lean into it and not feel as afraid. Sex, when done well, is such a beautiful part of art and especially in this country, we have such a puritanical view of it that has actually created so much sexual objectification and sexual violence towards women because of the taboo. I wanted to destigmatize it by putting it really front and center and having the viewer stay in the sex scene a little longer than you might usually; you're going to stay on my face as I cum for longer than you usually would because I wanted it to be like real sex, not the porn version of sex that is just slightly shifted for movie versions.
This conversation made me think of when you came forward in December 2021 and accused actor Chris Noth of sexually harassing you on the set of Law and Order: Criminal Intent in 2005. I wanted to ask you about it because when I was doing some research on you, it popped up in your Wikipedia bio under the “Personal Life” section. I know enough about this industry to believe that was very brave of you to come forward, and I imagine that you said what you said because it's a truth that you wanted to get out of you and have people understand a facet of your experience in the industry, but perhaps you didn’t necessarily want it permanently attached to your name. I know it's just a Wikipedia bio, but the larger idea I’m trying to get at is that when people come forward, they don't necessarily want it to be something that they speak of beyond the moment that they chose to speak about it — even me asking you about it now could be perceived as a violation. But it’s just such a bummer that that's on your Wikipedia bio.
That is a bummer. I didn't know that. It's even strange for me to hear you say, “You accused Chris Noth of sexual harassment” because I didn't use those words when I first posted about it on Instagram. And Just Like That had just come out and I watched the first episode and saw Big die, and something happened within me. I tried to process it; I was talking to my friend and I was like, “Oh, yeah, good riddance” or something and they were like, “Whoa,” and I said, “Well, he's a known predator,” and my friend was like, “That's a crazy word to throw around,” and I was like, “Yeah, you're right. That is crazy.” I didn't even know where it came from. And then cut to about a week later, these three unnamed women came out in the Hollywood Reporter saying that he had raped them in three different accounts. And when I read that, I was like, “Oh, my God,” and when those women came out, a number of my friends wrote to me and said, “Remember when you told us?” I [hadn't] even been putting any of it together, and that's the nature of when you see these things like “why didn't you talk about it earlier?” I wanted to write the post to be like, “This is the human experience of these microaggressions.” I wouldn't even call that sexual harassment because we are so trained to be like, “Oh, that’s just working with an actor!” He smelled me and told me I smelled good and he was drunk on set. And to me, I was like, “And them’s the breaks; that's what it is.” And then I worked as a promoter at his club and he was inappropriate with a fellow promoter and she told me that, but again, she was like, “And them's the breaks.” As women, so often we're just like, “These are the things we have to put up with and bury and move on” because A) there is no recourse, B) that person has so much more power than me in this world, and C) we think it's our responsibility to just move forward, because as you can see with the Wikipedia bio, if you don't, it becomes a part of your entire identity — for better or for worse. And, I think without understanding the impact that it would have, I wrote an Instagram post on the day my friends texted me. I'm not shy to write posts that are giving voice to social justice issues that I'm passionate about, so it didn't feel different to me; none of those posts go particularly viral, you know? And so I just wrote in defense of these unnamed women; I wanted to add a name because I think when women are unnamed, it's very hard for there to be really serious allegations that can go somewhere. And so I named myself because I was like, “I have been through nothing that these women have gone through, but I did experience predatory behavior in professional environments.” That was just me saying I believe them and speaking to that experience of what we do with those microaggressions in life and how deeply we bury them.
I think many people read your post and understood both the text and subtext acutely.
And the Me Too movement has become a punchline in so many ways, but I think the beauty of #MeToo was that it did allow for so many women to look at every shade on the spectrum of predation and say, “Oh, I've been at different levels of this, but I'm allowed to say ‘me too.’ I'm allowed to not just go, ‘Well that's just life.’” It's a very freeing thing to give yourself permission to say, “That wasn't okay,” and I think that's what I was doing more than anything. And then of course, I was every news story: like, “Law and Order Actress Accuses Chris Noth…” and I was like, “I do have maybe a couple more things on my resume?” [Laughs] But it was very overwhelming and paparazzi came to my house and my door was broken into, and I did not anticipate any of that. And then a lot of people who had worked for Chris, who had seen him do really terrible things, were just all over my DMs and then I was sort of like the hotline for people who didn't know who to tell these stories to.
Which is its own trauma dump happening to you when you're simply sharing something that's your own trauma. You can understand why they're doing it, but I imagine that's also its own burden to take on that you were not necessarily intending to assume by sharing your truth.
Even saying “sharing my truth” — it was so not me intentionally being like, “I have something to say.” It was just me being like, “This is fucked. These poor women; they're so afraid to be named — and for good reason.” Their fear was exactly this, because when I named myself in such a small capacity, the ire that came at me was so overwhelming (in addition to the support). But there was so much attention and then the gaslighting of, “You’re just doing this to get that attention,” which is unfortunately the classic.
This reminds me that when I’m interviewing actors with proximity to a Hollywood sexual harassment case, I often wonder if I should ask them about it. I think, “Am I wrong to not ask? Am I missing the potential good that could come out of it?” But then I start to ask myself, “Is that really the way that I, as a journalist, want to be functioning, where I'm inserting a question that's not natural to my line of questioning?” I think it can act in service of a larger narrative, but it’s a difficult balance to strike. I bring it up only because it's fascinating how much we live in a culture where if someone has experienced something, or even if they're tangential to it, or are in a production with someone who's been accused of something, there is that tendency for people to put a microphone in the face of anyone with any proximity to the project and say, “Well, what do you think? What was your experience?”
What do we do with those kinds of transgressions that have culturally and socio-politically been imprinted as “just the way it goes”? How do we shift that conversation on an individual cellular level? Because fear is never a great motivating factor to affect any change and these conversations are actually so helpful. When I wrote that Instagram post, I wanted to create just a little more nuance in the conversation to say, “We've all been here and let's have empathy and talk about how we start to get out of here.” Ultimately, I think the death of Mr. Big was symbolic; Chris Noth was utilizing a character he was playing — which was the epitome of so many straight women's fantasy — in order to manipulate and prey on women. I felt like the death of Mr. Big was maybe the crossroads where we can dispel that archetype and start looking for a new one or building a new one or modeling a new one where it's not the withholding, completely inconsistent, emotionally unavailable brute that Mr. Big represented.
Switching gears back to Slip: Slip is on Roku, and I feel like it faces a similar challenge to Amazon Freevee’s Jury Duty’s in having to establish both itself and its network. Did you feel that dual pressure?
You know, I did, Evan. [Laughs] I'm not just promoting a show, I'm launching Roku. [Laughs] I’m launching an entire streaming platform. Not actually, but I do think that with being the first original-content TV series on the platform, there is a barrier to entry; while 70 million people do have Roku TVs in their home, I’ve told many people, “I have this new show!” and they ask, “What's it on?” and I'm like, “Roku!” and then it's just crickets. Then I have to go, [robotically] “Okay, well, you can download the app on a Samsung or you can just watch it for free at rokuchannel.com on your laptop or tablet.” [Laughs] But it it’s one of the [reasons] I'm so grateful for people like you, because I do think that you are one of the great gatekeepers of the culture; I wouldn't have known about Jury Duty if not for your amazing memes and now I am obsessed with it and it's brought so much joy to my life! It's just a matter of getting over the hump [of a new platform]. And the beauty of people like you, who can shine a spotlight on things that you love, is that then you can be on a lesser-known streamer and break through some of the noise. And with Jury Duty, I haven't seen something that good and consistently funny in so long. My assumption is that working at a place like Freevee, which is in its nascent stage, allowed those creators to have a lot more room. When I was working with Roku, I wrote all seven episodes of Slip during quarantine and they gave me a green light to series without one script note, and that’s why some of this content that’s a little bit harder to find might be of a higher quality; there's so much more trust being given to artists and there's so many more risks being taken, rather than in these big machines where there are way more fingers in the pot.
Natasha Lyonne was recently interviewed by Variety and she said, “There is a huge disconnect between the amount of opportunities that the men in that field get and the respect of, ‘Wow, they created their own show! Surely they did that work, and surely we should reward them with a slew of opportunities and a pile of money!’ And when you see some of the coolest women that we all love, there's just not the same reciprocal business.’” What are your thoughts on the matter?
My response is: Yes. Period. There are disparities abounding. [Laughs] My directorial debut was a film called Band Aid that I also wrote and starred in and I made it with a crew that was comprised entirely of women, partially because of how much of a disparity I was witnessing on sets and the opportunities being afforded to so many men that were already a part of the machine — but then also, men who were newbies; at Sundance with some, like, tiny indie film and immediately being entrusted with these huge franchises. When I was making my first film as a director, I wanted to set myself up for success and I had witnessed a lot of double standards being enacted upon female directors that I wasn't seeing with their male counterparts. I also just wanted, as a social experiment, to see what would it look like if there was not one man to interject their energy on this set, and because most of the women on these sets were always the only woman on a set — it's a very scary feeling to be the [only] one and to still try to have a voice. I think that Natasha was really brave in saying that. I think there's so much more work to be done, but I am hopeful. There are small steps that are being made; there aren't strides, but there are small steps. I made Band Aid in 2017, and I think since then, the opportunities for women behind the camera have grown exponentially.
You mentioned having this all-female crew on Band Aid and it's one thing to draft that idea, and it's a whole other thing to walk on the set and see it. Can you describe that feeling of when you first arrived on the set and looked out and there was a utopia devoid of men?
[Laughs] It was remarkable because it took a lot for me to make that happen. It was a very small movie, we shot it in 12 days, entirely independently — which was the only way I could do it, because in working with a studio, there are so many HR and bureaucratic roadblocks. But it was really interesting, because a lot of my female department heads were apprehensive about hiring women because even they — who had climbed their way to the top through grit and gristle in this male-dominated industry — were like, “Yeah, but I’ve been working with Brian for 12 years. He’s the best in the business.” Everyone is coming from a place of wanting to make the best work and a fear of someone who has less experience, but my whole thing was: The Catch-22 is: How do people get experience if you don’t give them experience? Yes, you need to take the “risk,” but then most of those people are going to be so hungry and so excited to be at the table that they're going to work probably 10 times harder than Brian who you've known for 12 years. But once I got to set, I don't think I could have ever anticipated the magic that then ensued. It was beautiful and nourishing that it was possible — and not only possible, but that we were thriving and it was a real testament to the impact of mentorship in terms of effecting change when it comes to inequity.
Another detail in Slip that resonated for me (because you're Jewish, I'm Jewish, and this is a Jewish Easter egg) is the Barbra Streisand mug, which is actually the first indication that Mae has entered into some sort of multiverse. Tell me about that mug!
I’m obsessed with Barbra Streisand, and I was on a show called Life in Pieces for 4 years with the actor James Brolin, who is married to Barbra Streisand, and Barbra started to come around set and Mommy (me) perished and Mommy still hasn't totally been reborn. She graciously invited the women on the cast to come to her home for brunch. I naturally ordered every variation of smoked salmon from Russ and Daughters in New York City. I had it shipped in. I said, “Give me every babka you have.” They brought it in on ice. We did a lox tasting. Full tears. It was one of the most memorable days of my life. [Barbra] gave us each a mug that was from her Netflix documentary [Barbra: The Music...The Mem'ries...The Magic!], with [the “Mem’ries” with an apostrophe in place of the “o” as a nod to the missing “a” in her name].
You know you've encountered a fake fan if they spell “Barbra” with the extra a… Well first of all, you’re not Jewish. It’s just criminal!
[Laughs] In her home, she actually has an underground prison and you do get arrested if you put the extra “a”. [Laughs] So that was our parting gift, and I cherish this mug. I drink out of it almost everyday. It’s like a good luck charm, and so the mug became a totem in Slip and something that was a nod to the legacy of the path that Barbra blazed for women like me to act and direct and write. She is a pioneer and fearless, and so there was a part of that. But it was also just like, “We must put Barbra in!” So those mugs are not the actual ones Barbra ones; we designed them. And here’s something, Evan: Years ago, I wrote a Yiddish Vaudeville musical for myself and Barbra to star in, and I did send it to her, and she did read it, and she did call me, and when the phone call came in — again, perished, reborn, perished again — and she was like, “I love it, but I don't want to act.” And then every time I saw her thereafter, she'd be like, “Who's playing my part?” So that's in a drawer somewhere.
One last question about Beau Is Afraid: You play the same character as thee Patti LuPone. When you found out that you were going to be in this film and not only co-starring with but playing a younger version of Patti LuPone, how did that feel?
I still don’t think I’ve totally processed it. [Laughs] It’s the coolest thing of all time, truly.
Well, you got that phone call from Barbra Streisand.
That was pretty cool. [Laughs] They’re neck and neck. But because Patti LuPone is such an icon to me and the world at large, to be tasked with embodying the singularities of her was harrowing. [Laughs] I obviously wanted to pay reverence to what she does as an actor, with her face and her mouth and her body. For me, she’s one of my great idols as an actor. I feel like I've learned so much from her. She's not afraid to swing big, and it always goes right into the — I don't know sports; right into the bleachers? Right into the mall?
Barbra Streisand's Mall.
[Laughs] And then getting to hang with Patti when we were shooting in Montreal — not only was she the coolest hang of all time, but we were working on our scenes together, so we were rehearsing just the two of us and I was recording her saying my lines and then going home and starting to become Patti — which is the working title of my memoir. [Laughs] It was a dream.
A dream indeed!