I arranged my notepad, pens, and drink on my desk. It was 3:02 pm, and I felt like I was going to faint. Fainting was an option, but I would still need to get this interview done. I’d written out my twenty questions (and yes, I always have 20), brushed my hair (shocker), and tossed on a sweatshirt. I was ready.
Only I am never really ready. Every single time I do an interview, I have to ask myself what makes me lucky enough to do these. I get scared. I am nervous.
I feel faint.
I’ll Be Seeing You stars Tyler Hynes, Stacey Farber, and Christine Ebersole were sitting down to talk to me for ten minutes. It’s kind of weird how fast ten minutes can go – sometimes it seems very long, and sometimes it seems too short. For this one, it felt too short.
As I was leaving what was probably one of the stupidest voice memos that I have ever left, I saw the computer screen start to turn on. The Zoom was opening, and all of a sudden, I heard, “Erin, how are you doing?”
The voice was unmistakable. I would know Tyler Hynes’ voice anywhere. It’s like a mixture of both joy and remembrance, but also this genuine appreciation for life that he projects.
Tyler Hynes, Stacey Farber, and Christine Ebersole all have their heart sunglasses in their hands. They are laughing and smiling, and I don’t even know what had me laughing – maybe it was the fact that when he asks how I am, I said alive. His response, “I’m alive too.”
Sarcasm is my language, and I am embarrassed for myself.
You know those moments where you can’t believe you said something, but you know you said it? Welcome to that moment for me.
I stare at my questions, and I get nervous. I hate interviews. I know that I am blessed and privileged to talk to all of them. I know where I want to start, but I don’t start there. I start by asking Tyler why he made his movie and why he wanted to put this into production. Yes, he’s answered it, but I love a sound byte and the sarcastic banter with him.
I ask, “Tyler, sir, why did you feel like this was the movie to put into production, like your first one? Then Christine and Stacey, what pulled you to be a part of this project?”
He responds, “They were held at ransom against their will.”
Christine Ebersole sits between Tyler and Stacey. There is this presence about her that just draws you in. Stacey looked at Tyler and said, “No, that question is for us.”
He apologizes. It was for all of them, but I will take any answer I can get. He does answer, “Christine, you’re looking at her. This is the reason why I put this into production, all of this magic to my left. Christine and I, we met on the Chiefs movie, and I just watched her mop the floor with me in terms of her talent. I thought I would absolutely love to see that for a full hour and a half, and just be the lucky guy who gets to witness that in person, so off we went creating the Christine project.”
And I can see that. I am just staring at my computer as they start talking amongst each other. I remember the first thing I ever saw Christine in. Tootsie. I remember watching it with my Mom, and I just knew that my Mom was looking down at me and saying, “You’re doing okay, kiddo.”
Stacey chimes in and says, “And to hear her sing, I think that was probably part of your mission as well.”
Tyler looks at Christine and says, “Luckily, you bless us with too much of your voice. We’re so lucky, whether we’re on camera or off. Yes. You were not supposed to sing in this movie, and all of a sudden, you did. What a beautiful thing that was.”
Wait, she wasn’t supposed to sing? That seems like a travesty. She’s got the most beautiful voice. It was one of my favorite parts of the movie. I ask to clarify.
Tyler says, “We didn’t have it written. Then day one, scene one, Christine’s just like, “I’m going to do this,” and we all just sat there in awe and just drank it up.”
We talk for a bit about her singing, and I comment on how she has a beautiful voice. I do not – that’s like nails on a chalkboard, and Tyler comments that his voice could clear a room. It takes seconds before I do the one thing that I didn’t want to do – stick my foot in my mouth.
If you watch enough Hallmark movies, you know that each one comes with a lesson. I could have just asked for the lesson – but instead I comment how at points I am laughing and the next second I am cussing at the screen. We’re 5 minutes into this interview, I am waiting to eat my words, and I have only asked one question from my list.
But I am laughing and having fun. As I say, I was cussing at the screen, Stacey asks, “Over what?”
I swear to you that my mind went totally blank at this point. I think I can get past it, but they all ask me again, and I admit it had to do with Tyler’s character. He was so indecisive, didn’t seem to see what was right in front of him, and all I wanted was for him to see that it was okay to make a choice.
Tyler says, “That was me going method. Speak specifically. You always roast me really well. What did I do? Where did I falter?”
He didn’t falter. It was the character that I was screaming at. Mark reminds me of an ex, one that could never make a choice, was always aloof, and thought that he didn’t need to stay in one place, because, well, he (the ex) was an idiot. I wanted Mark to open his eyes and see the world around him, versus just not seeing what was right there, what choices he needed to make, and also to cut himself some slack.
Tyler didn’t falter. I just wanted more from the characters of Mark and Amy. It wasn’t their fault.
It was me and eighteen months of regret.
Stacey’s character of Amy was the same way, though – she refused to live. She was existing through her life, and quite honestly, I related. She was a workaholic, always chasing something or someone.
It was like staring in a mirror, being called out for working too much.
And hey, looking back on the moments that made me frustrated, I can see that it was Mark and Amy’s indecisions in life that pushed them to where they needed to be. I just got so frustrated because it dragged out, and I thought that at least halfway through, they would have seen that things were changing.
But the two characters didn’t see anything. They were stubborn.
I have to admit, when Tyler said I roast him, I thought about disconnecting. Could the internet go down for me? I wouldn’t mind. I don’t roast him – at least I would hope not. So I say, “I don’t roast you. I say nice things.”
He says, “No, you do, but you’re honest, and this is what I love. What scene specifically was our boy Mark not catching on?”
It was a majority of the movie, and I didn’t see it as an insult, so I do hope that I didn’t offend. It’s a compliment – in my opinion – that a character makes you feel things or talk back to the television. Characters are supposed to make you feel and remind you why you are alive.
I am having to explain why I was cussing at the television, and so I find myself making a really bad joke and then saying, “It just was like, no matter what she looked at you like, no matter what anyone was saying to you, Mark was just like, ‘I don’t know if I want to make a decision.'”
Stacey goes, “He was a tumbleweed. He’s a tumbleweed.”
I find myself trying to change the subject and say, “Honestly, Sue and Vivien, they’re just like, ‘Okay, you two, you belong together. See what’s in front of you. Pay attention.’ They were the two smartest women in the room, basically, in the whole country at this point. Mark and Amy, it was like, “Okay, maybe if I club them, they’ll pay attention to what’s going on.” Sorry, I don’t mean to roast you. I should–“
Someone, please kill me now. Take me out of my stupidity.
He says, “No, you’re 100% right. You’re taking me back to that movie. You’re right. Mark was a thick-skulled man.”
Stacey says, “But isn’t that frustration wonderful? By the end of the film, you have the relief of like, thank God, finally.”
She’s not wrong. But I am a thick-skulled woman and wanted some sign of something earlier. Slow burns kill me. I never know if it will pay off, and I need a payoff. I head back to my questions and comment how the movie doesn’t spend a lot of time giving back story, and I wondered if that was intentional. Were they trying to tell us to put things down and just to live in the moment?
Stacey says, “That was the message we were going for: to stay in the moment. The other thing that happens with a road trip movie is because we want to showcase so much of the landscape and have that beauty in Victoria, where we were filming, even just for screen time and shots-wise, we have to show that stuff. Maybe that’s why there’s a little less backstory.”
If I am being honest, this movie, even though it stars Tyler Hynes and Stacey Farber, was truly Christine Ebersole and BJ Harrison’s movie. The two grandmother-like figures were teaching all of us about living in the moment and not allowing ourselves to – well – give up on ourselves.
If we’re lucky in life, then we get to be exposed to women’s lives. Those who believe in a life well lived – with stories to tell. They are the ones that remind us to live and to love.
I’m sitting there watching the three of them, and I am laughing, and I blank on everyone’s name. Luckily, Tyler has put up with me enough in this life to be able to interpret the things I say.
“I felt like Sue and Vivien, their matchmaking skills were above par. They were really good. The simple things like getting on that train when they could have waited the three hours, but whatevs, or knowing all the words to say to get Mark to think what they want him to, or Amy to actually listen. My question is basically, what’s your best advice for finding love or seeing what’s right in front of you?”
Stacey makes me laugh as she says, “I’m single, so I don’t think I should answer that one. I think that’s for the people who have found love over here.”
It’s kind of funny because I don’t ever really want to know anything about a celebrity’s personal life. That feels invasive. But I do want all the advice that Christine has to offer. There is a presence that surrounds her – one that you know you can learn a lot from.
Christine says, “I think that so much of it is the unexpected. It’s staying open to what you’ve even never thought of. I don’t think you ever go planning. If you go planning for it, that’s when God laughs. It doesn’t work that way. It’s just where you least expect it.”
Christine adds, “Although I’ve never done it, but it seems like it would be very artificial.”
It is.
She says, “It’s contrived in a sense. It’s not like meeting someone in the park. It’s like you’re walking your dogs or whatever it is. It’s like you swipe and it’s just–“
I say, “You’re suggesting I go to a park?”
This shouldn’t be an issue, as I live in New York, where a park is literally on every street. Then there’s Central Park.
Tyler says, “Yes. Always hanging out in public places where there is security.”
He then asks Christine where she met her man, to which she responds, “On the set of The Cavanaughs at Paramount Studios. He was doing the music for it. It was the cast part of the closing night party. We were around food and he said something that just woke me up. It’s very corny, but he said something to the effect of, ‘Let’s talk about God,'”
She tells us a little more of the story and just by the look on her face, you can tell that she’s so in love. She is talking about their meeting, and says, “I’m a little bit red thinking about it.”
I love that she gets red after forty years. That’s the kind of love that I want out of my life (you know, if I believed in love and all that). I could sit and listen to her speak all day.
Christine says, “I think it’s challenging for people today, because you can’t– at work, you don’t go to work anymore. You just sit at home and work on your computer. There’s so much isolation. You don’t stand around the water cooler and talk about the episodes of All in the Family or whatever it is. You know what I mean? There’s so much product that you can’t even keep track of. Maybe if people could stand around the water cooler and talk about I’ll Be Seeing You, I think a lot of great things would happen. That could have been our publicity campaign. We could have installed water coolers in different places around the country.”
The three of them are making more jokes and I can’t stop smiling. I may have only fired off two questions on my list, but I would have stayed there forever and listened to the three of them talk. I don’t always think about just how blessed I am – but I am realizing just how much I am. Sure, I am awkward, and I say weird things, but I am really appreciative of these moments in my life and the wisdom that I am privileged to be imparted to me.
These are the moments where I realize that I have a life well-lived. What is better than that?
